Fluid Pudding

Happy New Year and good luck and stay warm/cool and so on! (Insert noises from buzzy horns and clackity spinny things right here!) Our New Year’s Eve was low key and perfect with something like a dozen kids and eight adults and tons of food and golf and no pressure. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

2014 has been around for about 88 hours now, and in that time I’ve spun some yarn, started a new cardigan, worked on a scarf, saw Frozen, and took Scout to the ER for her Eye o’ Yuck.

The following words and photos will provide elaboration on Paragraph Two. If none of those things were of any interest to you, go straight over here and know that although I carry a lot of baggage, nothing compares to the baggage of Isaac Newton. (He stole cherry cobs from Eduard Storer and then beat ARTHUR Storer! I would pay $4 for more information.)

This is Cormo and it’s been on my wheel since July and that is UNACCEPTABLE, because Cormo really is fun to spin.

The first two ounces were chain-plied on July 19th. I will eventually have handspun rainbow socks.

This is the cardigan I started a few days ago.

It will eventually be my second February Lady Sweater. The yarn color is Violets in the Grass, but because there are no rules, I’ve renamed it Frogs in a Blender. I’m hoping my February Frogs in a Blender Sweater will be finished sometime in February, because: FEBRUARY Lady Sweater.

By the way, if you’ve been wanting to figure out this whole knitting thing, Very Pink’s scarf tutorial is free until January 9th. Staci is a GREAT teacher and her videos are my favorite knitting videos. (2014 is The Year of Knitting a Scarf, by the way. I just made that up, but doesn’t it sound good? So much better than The Year of Unfiltered Camels…)

The thing about knitting is that if you’re anything like me, every time you finish something you’ll say to yourself, “This is my favorite thing.” The scarf I’m getting ready to finish is My Favorite Scarf.

And it’s sort of funny, because just a few weeks ago I finished My Favorite Scarf. (It’s one of the very few things I’ve made from my handspun. I’m still scared of knitting with my handspun, because I lack confidence when it comes to spinning. I’m working on it.)

Okay. I’m not normally one to gush about Disney princess movies, but: Frozen. Go see it. We met up with some friends to see it, and although I was VERY nervous that I would sleep through the whole thing, I didn’t doze once. (I was sitting on a lounge chair and eating fries, and that’s a recipe for disaster in a dark comfy room.)

Okay. Scout. Three days ago she looked like she was wincing, and it broke my heart. She was wincing even more two days ago, and at 10:30ish at night, I had a hard time waking her up, so OFF TO THE VET CLINIC WE GO! As soon as we got there, she perked right up and befriended everyone which sort of made my whole Lethargy claim seem silly, but still: No scratched cornea. Nothing stuck behind the eyelid. All vitals were normal. Diagnosis? Conjunctivitis. This morning her eye looked really cloudy, so we took her in to see her regular vet. Her cornea IS scratched, and the vet did a debridement and an atropine application and we now have antibiotic drops and the next 24-48 hours are crucial. If the injury starts to look deeper or if she starts holding her eye closed, we have to go straight to the emergency vet clinic. We’re expecting 10 inches of snow in the next 24 hours. I can’t even begin to tell you how crazy stressed I am about this.

Actually, I can. I’m so stressed that I’m about to go to the J and walk on a treadmill for the first time in nine months to try to get my head around the possibility of the extracting and spinning of blood or anesthetization and too much snow to drive and blergh. Please take a few minutes to stick your head outside this evening and blow a stream of air away from St. Louis. We are powerful. We can prevent this snow from being a factor. We are butterflies.

I’ll keep you updated. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

I received a Fitbit Force for Christmas, and that puts me in a club with all of the other Fitbit people out there who are trying to unlock Achievement: My Pants Aren’t Too Tight. (When I got my nose pierced, I suddenly noticed every single person with a nose hole. Lately I’m focusing in on just how many people have tiny tattoos on their arms. Soon, my awareness of black plastic bracelets on non-dominant wrists will increase. Always be aware of your surroundings.)

After wearing the bracelet for a little over 24 hours, I’ve learned the following things:

1. The stairs in our home are one inch shorter than the required measurement for the Fitbit to register them as stairs. As a result, I’m now exaggerating my stair trips in order for them to count. In other words, I should probably take some sort of circus class to learn how to fall down stairs appropriately because carrying a basket of towels while marching down the stairs like a clown is not going to end well.

2. I’m even pokier than I thought. The average me takes less than 2,000 steps on an average day. I’m glad the Fitbit doesn’t send little “Get off your butt, Pokey!” messages to me throughout the day, but maybe that’s exactly what I need. (I have no idea what my needs are anymore.) I’m finding that although the Fitbit is embarrassing me into wanting to walk around more, it is not influencing my food choices at all. Here’s hoping the next model is able to shoot a little serotonin directly into my veins when I’m about to tube some Ritz crackers for no good reason. (Similarly, I’ve also considered how nice it would be if the Fitbit shocked me just enough to disable my arm for an hour when I seem to be using that arm as a vehicle to get too many cookies up to my face.)

3. I’m actually sleeping much better than I thought I was sleeping. I’m one of those people who wakes up every single hour during the night. Because of that, I tend to complain a lot about not sleeping well. Last night the Fitbit registered every single time I woke up (12 times total), but STILL rated my sleep at 97%. (I was in bed for seven hours and thirty minutes. I slept for seven hours and ten minutes. 97% is a fairly strong A. I’m failing on the exercise side of Fitbit, but sleep? I AM THE CHAMPION OF SLEEP. I challenge you to sleep as well as me. (I have no secrets: Lately I’ve been sleeping with a warm lavender-scented hippo on my left shoulder. I believe she might be my Land of Nod ace in the hole. Warm lavender shoulder hippo!))

4. This morning I actually logged a food on the Fitbit app. Instant coffee! (Don’t make talk about why I’m drinking instant coffee. You already think I’m a weirdo, and I don’t feel like shooting hairspray into that fire.) In other words, I now have movement goals (which I will fail until the weather warms up a bit), sleep goals (I rule the world), and food goals (I’m starting to hate myself). Faster, better, stronger, awake-ier, panache-ier on stairs, et cetera.

Once again, I’m starting to wonder if I’m becoming a caricature of myself. The Fitbit doesn’t measure that.

I’ve taken 98 steps today, and it’s 8:12 in the morning. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

Christmas was nice and warm and strange and perfect, despite a clogged kitchen sink (the plumber will be here at 1:00) and a weird stomach thing. (I’m not sure if I’m ill or if I’ve just made too many bad choices. I keep telling myself it’s the bad choices. Weird layer dips covered in apple cranberry French toast washed down with instant coffee and spinkled with snickerdoodles. Why am I eating like such a jerk?)

The girls would probably not agree with me, but I think this was yesterday’s gift of the day:

My sister had one when I was a kid and it seemed larger and sturdier, but this one will do just fine. A lot of people in my life talk about how the day is coming when we will no longer have electricity and all hell will break loose. When that happens, we will have our labyrinth. (Clarification: When I say WE will no longer have electricity, I don’t mean just the Fluid Pudding family. To my knowledge, we are up to date on all of our payments. With that said, the thought of all hell breaking loose just because I don’t have electricity but everyone else does is sort of funny. And then it feels sort of sad and dirty because more than half of the world population does NOT have electricity, and here I stand plugging in a mixer because I can’t be bothered to stir.)

One of my goals in the coming (insert obscure reference of time here) is to improve my handwriting style. Yesterday I received a flex nib pen, and I’ve been playing with it nonstop. I’m like an adult with a new pen over here, because I’m an adult who has a new pen.

Although it felt strange to receive a gift of massage oil from my 8-year-old daughter, it was actually the most thoughtful gift of all. It’s the season of dry skin, and I sometimes have days when I can feel the weight of the lotion. On those days, I can dive into this. Figuratively.

Enjoy your week between. (Someday I hope to get a call from a person who whispers, “Hey. Make a batch of apple cranberry French toast and get to such and such street. John Roderick is telling stories, and the price of admission is breakfast food.”)

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This morning I attended an orchestra/band assembly at the elementary school.

It’s no secret that I tend to cry when kids sing, but I figured I was safe at a band concert. Just music. NO WORDS!

HYPOTHESIS: If I attend an instrumental holiday concert, I will not experience water dripping off of my chin (from my eyes, obviously. I’ve got the drooling thing under control. Mostly.).

TESTING: The first few songs were totally safe. Choral of the Bells with the fifth grade violinists and the eighth grade string orchestra. Some sort of boogie thing that was nice and short. Something Scottish. I was strong and smiley and was actually one of the (very) few parents who enjoyed the show without holding a phone or tablet out toward the performers. (How many of these people will actually watch the concert again? Any of them? How ridiculous do we all look because we can no longer just enjoy something without feeling the need to somehow archive it? I am not free of guilt when it comes to feeling the need to prove that I attended an event or ate at a restaurant. It’s all so weird, isn’t it?)

The string orchestra finished up and the audience shifted focus toward the other side of the gym where the eighth grade band had set up. After a quick introduction of the instruments, the show kicked off with a medley from The Polar Express. I looked up toward the stage and made eye contact with Meredith. She opened her eyes and gave me an “Oh No!” gulp before whispering something to her friend. (What did she whisper to her friend? I’m guessing she whispered, “My mom has no spine and will probably start beating on her legs very soon.”)

It wasn’t long before I detected a musical segue into the  When Christmas Comes to Town portion of the medley. I hate When Christmas Comes to Town. HATE it. Sadly, if I’m unable to turn it off and I hear more than 15 seconds of it, I have to start blinking like a frequent blinker and patting my hands on my legs and contemplating Whitey Herzog in order to fight off the tears. BUT: NO WORDS. This is  just an instrumental! You can’t stop the band from playing, so you may as well just enjoy and DON’T THINK ABOUT THE LYRICS! I need to get coconut milk and avocados at the store. I should probably switch to a different moisturizer during the winter months. I really need to think more about doing unto others the way I want them to do unto me. AND, now we’ve arrived at the part about “Presents for the children, wrapped in red and green. All the things I’ve heard about but never really seen.” (Why do I even KNOW the lyrics?! I can never remember who provides our health insurance, yet I retain this sort of crap.) Damnit. Damnit. It’s happening, and no one will stop the song, AND: Tears jumping out of my eye holes, and me without waterproof mascara. WHITEY HERZOG! WHITEY HERZOG! (Here’s an actual photo of me taken after the assembly by one of the iPad moms.)

ANALYSIS: It doesn’t take much to destroy me, does it? AND, apparently it doesn’t even take the voice of a child to make me squirrely. Further experimentation will need to take place in order to figure out the source of the emotion. Am I stirred by all songs featured in motion capture computer animated fantasy films based on books written for children? Does a holiday song written in the key of E-flat affect me more than one written in the key of C? Do I have seasonal affective disorder? Epiphora caused by upper lacrimal drainage system problems?

RESULT: HYPOTHESIS REJECTED. Can someone please bring me a fluffy blanket and an avocado sandwich?

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During the summer months of my college years, I worked at a place that helped companies fight paying unemployment benefits to former employees. My job as a claims representative involved things like calling the manager of Denny’s to find out why Todd Greenhorn was no longer employed. Many of the calls were easily coded as Poor Performance/No Misconduct. BUT, sometimes they were a little more hairy. “He peed on the floor in the break room and then told me to go to hell before walking off the job in the middle of his shift.” “I caught her having sex in the bathroom. She had already received a verbal warning and a written warning for having sex in the bathroom.”

Although it paid fairly well, I knew that the job wasn’t a good fit for me.

During my first week there, one of the managers called me into her office.

Manager: So, how are you liking it here so far?

Me (feeling cocky and wondering if she was going to promote me during my very first week): Things are going great!

Manager: Have you had time to read the dress code?

Me (not so sure I knew there was a dress code): I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there was a dress code.

Manager: I have a copy right here of the form you signed stating that you read the company handbook. The dress code is in that handbook, and it clearly says that you are required to wear socks or nylons every day. No bare ankles.

Me (wearing khaki pants and flats with no socks or nylons): Oh. I’m really sorry.

Manager: Be sure you’re wearing socks or nylons tomorrow.

I walked back to my desk feeling deflated and silly. Luckily, a co-worker named Joan had heard the whole thing.

Joan: I heard the whole thing.

Me: I feel pretty stupid.

Joan: Don’t. It’s bullshit. Let’s go get Chinese food.

That was how my friendship with Joan started, and from that day forward I had lunch with her every single day during the summer months. When I went back to school we corresponded with letters, and when I came home for the summer we would make a not-so-great job bearable by turning everything into a joke in the cafeteria. She introduced me to Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. She has a son my age who liked the same music as me, so we would occasionally exchange mix tapes. On the night before my wedding, she decorated the site of our rehearsal dinner with crazy fun gourds that were filled with flowers and candles.

She could take a dozen bandannas and turn them into amazing curtains. She could find a piece of junk at a garage sale and transform it into a treasure. She once spilled a huge pot of chili in her car on Chili Cook-Off Day. As I sat at my desk getting ready to sort through my calls, she walked up covered in sauce and said, “I just dumped my fucking chili.” We spent the next thirty minutes sopping up chili in her car and laughing until we could barely speak. (When I told her that I brought in white chicken chili, she asked what I named it. She later removed the index card that said “White Chicken Chili” and replaced it with one on which she had written “Mr. Magic’s Albino Chili”.)

She once called to tell me that I had to get a copy of Le Nozze di Figaro because she just heard the most beautiful song and she needed me to hear it, too.

A few years back, she called me out of the blue to talk politics.

Joan: Well, I just heard from a few friends that if Obama is elected, he’s going to make me kill myself.

Me: You’re right. How will you handle that?

Joan: I have no idea. I’ll think about it next week. Right now I need to worry about losing 80 pounds for the Halloween party I’m going to on Saturday.

Me: Are you dressing up?

Joan: I’m going as Suze Orman. How much do you want to bet that nobody understands why I’m wearing a suit and talking about money?

I last spoke to Joan on May 15th. She sent an e-mail to let me know that her mom had died, that they were having coffee when it happened, and that she was now crying every hour instead of every ten minutes. I expressed my condolences and asked if we could have sushi when we returned from our vacation. We both got busy and we never scheduled that sushi dinner, and this afternoon I picked up a message from Joan’s son. As soon as I heard his voice on the answering machine, I knew. When I returned his call, he verified the terrible news. It was her heart.

There is a new member of the Vicious Circle today. I feel fully confident that Joan is kicking back with Dorothy Parker (Her favorite short story was Big Blonde.), and it’s only a matter of time before Robert Benchley has some quirky bandanna curtains.

Joan will be missed. In fact, she already is. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

As you know, Pope Francis is TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. I’m pleased to report that I voted for him last week when I heard that Miley Cyrus was winning. (Not that Miley doesn’t deserve to win. I talked about her more this past year than I talked about, say, Henry Winkler or Joey Fatone. BUT, that doesn’t mean she’s worthy of a magazine cover beyond maybe Cosmopolitan or Why Won’t People Just Let Her Do Her (Admittedly, Sometimes Strange) Thing?) Anyway, I always feel a bit of a thrill when the person I voted for wins.

The Only Time I Didn’t Feel So Good About Voting for The Winner: When I was in the fifth grade, we had a weird family fun night event during which every classroom voted for a girl and a boy to represent them at the King and Queen ceremony. (Welcome to 1980. I still have no idea what was happening.) Anyway, I somehow ended up winning my classroom queen rep position, and when all of the fifth graders then voted for their overall queen rep, I once again won. I did NOT vote for myself for the classroom queen position, but I *did* vote for myself during the fifth grade overall queen gig. (I was really itching to wear a long dress. You know how it goes.) Anyway, even though it was a secret ballot, my teacher figured out that I voted for myself, and she announced the fact to the class more than once. 33 years have passed, and I still feel weird.

Here’s something that everyone needs to know. If I’m unable to use Oreos as a fallback option, I’m unable to participate in your bake sale or cookie drive or pot luck or whatever it is that you’re doing. There is a good chance that I will want to jump in and bake something amazing, but knowing that I can’t cover up any potential catastrophes with Oreos counts me out. This will never not be true.

Here’s something else that you need to know: I’m cranky. Like, SUPER much so. I like working from a list and right now I’m slammed with things that are spontaneous and not on the list. I know everyone is going through this and everyone is super busy. I do! I wish I handled it better, because when I’m feeling ruffled it feels like I can’t really accomplish anything correctly. (I send lots of e-mails with attachments that aren’t attached. I underbake cookies and then have to throw them away. I take weird opportunities to raise my voice about classroom parties and silly things that Really Don’t Matter and I make myself look and feel like a jerk. I schedule a trip to pick up an ornament immediately after I drop my kids off at school, and then I discover that the store doesn’t open for another hour and I’ve already been driving for thirty minutes, so damnit. All of this happened today along with some freelance, some dog drama, and a fork that is wedged in a weird place and it’s Harper’s favorite fork and I’m already regretting starting this sentence and so are you. The good thing about today? A friend I hadn’t seen in several months met me for lunch at an Indian place and we were able to catch up. Always Good: Friends and Indian Food.)

I have milk boiling on the stove for pies. We have an orchestra concert in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is a half day at school, and then we have a piano recital, and Henry will be groomed on Saturday morning right before a three hour Christmas pageant rehearsal at church.

On Sunday, I get to stand in front of the congregation and say, “I’m naked.” (Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the time I may have lost a job by muttering those exact words.)

Last year I volunteered to read the verse about not being a virgin.

It’s always good to test yourself. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>

It’s once again time for the first quarter moon, and I’m not exactly sure what that means, so I’ve decided to take it as: Time to bake cookies and spend a few minutes trying to figure out why my friends are so divided on the minimum wage issue.

This is what I know: My first job was a part-time gig at an ice cream dump when I was 16 years old. The owner hired girls only, and although the minimum wage at that time was $3.35, I made $3.05 per hour. (I know.) After arriving on time and working pretty hard for over a year (I was one of the few employees who were allowed to write on ice cream cakes and make icing roses), I joined the ranks of folks who were making $3.10 per hour. With that came a key to the ice cream dump! The world was my oyster! Every two weeks I was handed a paycheck for around $40. I would take $10 for gas money and save the rest to purchase a zoom lens for my camera. (Confession: I sometimes blew a little bit of cash at Fashion Gal. They had fun sweaters, and I felt an intense need to try and look cute. I mostly failed at this mission.) I had no bills to pay. I had no kids. Essentially, I had no worries. (The owner once called me at home and threatened to fire me because I put too many almonds on a fudge round cake. Luckily, a few days after that happened, a customer told me that she really liked my pink eye shadow. In other words, everything evened out in the end.)

I know there are lazy people in the world. I’ve been accused of being lazy by both my grandmother and my neighbor. It doesn’t feel good to be called lazy.

I know that not everyone has the luxury of being able to avoid crappy jobs. Not everyone has the luxury of boycotting Walmart. Not everyone can afford to never eat fast food. (I can feed my entire family for $8 and two minutes in a drive-thru at Taco Bell. Sometimes I don’t have more than two minutes. I’ve made casseroles that cost more than $10 to put together. I’m just typing out loud over here.)

Anyway, some of the people I love most in this world are like, “Ggggrrrr! Lazy jerks need to work harder and do better and be stronger and STOP BEING LAZY JERKS!” And, yes. The world is peppered with lazy jerks. Some of the other people I love most in this world are like, “Living wage and share your wealth and higher taxes for higher incomes!” I understand why feathers are being ruffled.

(Side note: I made the mistake of tuning in for a local radio show last week where the guest was all, “Why not raise the minimum wage to TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS PER HOUR?!?! HA HA HA HA HA!!!” and isn’t it easy to sit in a heated radio studio drinking your fancy pants coffee and wearing your Eddie Bauer shirt and going all Haves and Have Nots over the airwaves? It made my stomach turn.)

I tend to repeat myself, and I know I’ve said this MANY times, but: I really do feel like most people are doing their best. Some people need more resources. Some people need tools to manage their money and time. Not everyone is trying to work the system. (I know some people are trying to work the system. There will ALWAYS be those people. Just yesterday I tried to stack some coupons at a soap store, but I was quickly shot down. I retaliated by performing two separate transactions. I worked the system. Kind of. Not really. Anyway, a few people are going to smell very good in about three weeks because I had two coupons.) We will never be able to set up a peer review system where we can decide who is a lazy jerk and who is trying their hardest to raise kids and put food on the table. And some people are like, “OBAMA!” and some people are like, “No! BUSH!!!”

Christmas is coming. Bake cookies for someone who might like cookies. Don’t donate to the Salvation Army if you don’t like their gig, but consider donating to someone if you are able. Say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or whatever you want to say, but say it with a kind heart. Don’t say it to make a point. We’re all in this together. AND, to paraphrase the guy leading music at our church service this morning, “As soon as we start figuring things out, we die.” (We also had an AMAZING jazz combo playing during the service, so everything evened out. Like almonds and eye shadow.)

I’m going to turn off comments and let you listen to this. It’s one of my favorites.

You know me. I do this sort of thing every December. Thanks for your patience.

Also, we finished our tree this afternoon. Enjoy.

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I felt a semi-urgent need to post today, because I just discovered that yesterday’s post was my 666th on this particular platform, and it’s THE CHRISTMAS SEASON! The last thing I need to do is sit around eating Indian nachos and humming The First Noel with a big mark of the beast hanging around on my website. Am I right? (I am.)

We ventured out a few hours back (with our Ventura filter on) and chose our Christmas tree.

I would give you all of the details, but I have a problem with the organization from whom we purchased this year’s Scotch pine. They are slowly making strides in the right direction, but still. (Please know that Mitt Romney and I actually agree on this particular issue, so don’t think I’m just sitting around eating Indian nachos and being a big liberal jerk with a spooky mark of the beast hanging around on my website and The First Noel ringing in my head. I’d like to build the world a home and furnish it with love. Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves.)

This guy sawed the butt off of our tree, and he let Harper keep it. (The butt. Also, the tree.) After counting the rings, we’ve determined that Harper is the same exact age as the tree. With that said, we really don’t know what we’re doing, although Jeff was a Boy Scout. Was. WAS.

The tree is currently hanging out in the corner soaking up some water and letting her branches rest a bit. I’ll be lighting her tomorrow while the kids are at school (My mother taught me to be VERY particular about how to place lights upon (and into) a tree. It’s a job that’s best accomplished with no other humans in the house, as I tend to get pricked and then I tend to swell because I’m allergic to trees and then I tend to say The S Word.).

Speaking of my mother, she made this wreath for us a few years back, and it’s always the first thing we hang when the holiday season rolls around. And to the Earth it gave great light and so it continued both day and night. It’s happening.
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