Sunday mornings seem to be the most bloggable for me these days. Even though Sunday is my weekend morning to get up at the crack of hell with The Cakers, she seems to be taking a momentary break from describing for me, stroke-by-stroke, every thing she knows how to draw, or spelling out the unusual Crayola names from the labels for me to pronounce, so she can argue with my pronunciation.

So I'm going for it.

My weekend review.

Spirits of '76
Last post I mentioned that last week was my 30 year high school class reunion. For two days after the party, I tried to put to font the amazing experience of this event, but finally gave up. It was too much work and boring to boot. But I'm still thinking about it. A lot. And those thoughts seems to be plugging up the system. So I need to say something about it, so I can move on.

Sorry.

I attended an urban school where most of the kids came from blue-collar or working-poor neighborhoods, myself included. Our school district did include a couple of what we called "R.B." or "Rich Bitch" neighorhoods, which were akin to the neighborhoods in Leave it to Beaver or The Wonder Years. ::I now know they weren't supposed to be rich. It's all about perspective. Back then, I thought anyone with an attached garage door was rich. As in, a garage with a door still attached.::

Anyway, we were always an unpretentious lot and I'm happy to say that after 30 years, aside from a few wrinkles and pounds and the one guy who had lost most of his teeth, none of us seemed to have changed.

Four out of my five bestest friends were there. Four of the five friends had gotten married almost immediately out of high school. Because we chose such different early adulthood tracts, our friendships all died a collectively slow and silently agreed upon deaths. Although I had run into a couple of these friends over the years, it had been at least 20 for a couple of them.

Initially I didn't recognize anybody right off the bat. But after about 10 minutes, my eyes got accustomed to the years and I spent the next 20 minutes crying and hugging and exclaiming "You look the same!" and meaning it, and hearing the same from them and thinking they meant it too.

And by the end of the night, everybody looked and felt and sounded like they ever had. ::Like on Cold Case when the perps/victims/witnesses fade back to the way they were...::

I think what had me floating for days after was the genuine affection we had for one another, for who we were and who we are and not at all for what we had or hadn't accomplished. I maybe told two people I had a master's degree and only because they asked specifically. Although I should add that people didn't hold back on their mocking astonishment at my having a five year-old daughter.

Anyway. It was all good stuff. And believe you me, this post is a world of improvement from the reminiscin' I almost presented last week, which included a personal observation on mandated busing between nearly identical neighborhoods and The ROTC Culture and the Viet Nam war and Nixon and the beauty of the perfect Afro and how we believed ::and still do:: that we invented the rolled-down-high-top-canvas-Converse look and the era of acceptable contraband and smoking cheerleaders and the beauty of the fire-retardant cheerleading sweater.

You're welcome.

WTF Wednesday
Wednesday I picked up The Cakers from daycare. I thought my husband was going to do it, so after work I had changed my clothes for a workout, washed my face and removed contact lenses. After my husband called to say he was running late, I immediately left "as is" to pick up the girl.

When I stepped into the classroom, Cakers said "Momma!" then started the usual complaint that she didn't want to leave yet, which prompted the usual discussion that starts off with lots of soshul-werky empathy and ends with lots of something akin to "Uno Shmuno. Get U-ass-a-moviN-O."

There was a girl about the same age as Cakers observing this interaction, with mouth agape. Finally, with that snotty, 5-year old churl I've grown to grab an alcohol beverage in response to, she blurted "You're not Ana's Mom!"

"I'm not?"

"No! You're her Grandma!"

Hardee Hah Hah, laughed all the pretty child care workers.

And I just joined in, all friendly and shit. And started muttering my new and seemingly oft-used personal mantra:

I am a professional.
I am a professional.
I am a professional.

FOAD Thursday
No, not that FOAD Thursday. It's Finish Off And Dance (a happy dance) Thursday!

I finished me Trudie.



I wore her to work on Thursday, over the black slinky dress which was the reason I wanted a cropped, lacey cardigan to start with ::remember back to the Cece debaucle?::

The sweater really looks great with the dress. Unfortunately, with Cabana boy now Cabanabizing out of the home, I had no one to take a picture of me in the outfit in question before I changed clothes for my second shift work assignment.

The best my self-portrait skills could pull off given the situation, was this picture in which you can at least see the context and form I was looking for, ghostliness notwithstanding:

Trudie Specs
Pattern: A bastardization of the Trudie Cardigan from Mission Falls Decade pattern book. I added a ruffle edge to body and sleeves. Shortened sleeve length from full to 3/4 and used only 3 buttons instead of 5 because of an Effin-O-Eff-Up.

Yarn: Cascade Sierra in a brownish color. It's Pima Cotton and wool.

Comments: Love the pattern, and it's a fast knit. I deepened the armholes a bit, but over widened the sleeves, so they're a little beefy around the pits, as though accomodating a localized glandular condition. I can take it in a bit, a la my new best friend, Mary Mattress Stitch.Oh yeah, the yarn stretches a bit by the end of the day.

I got lots of compliments on it at work.

Eye Candy Friday



::Blogger wouldn't upload the grass pic. Go figure.::

Saturday Sky



And for now, bye-bye.

P.S. Sorry for the multiple publishes. The post kept ending up in archives, for some reason.

Labels: Knit Done, Pho-Ho', Yore