Hitch up your reindeer

This 'getting ready for Christmas' thing, y'all -- I'm not sure I've got a handle on it this year. It's getting away from me.

the voice of a dove calls from far away

I do not have many superstitions about New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, despite the fact that I possess numerous irrational beliefs about any number of other things.

Peck at whatever seeds, worms

The other morning, I opened the shutters in the spare bedroom where I set up on work-at-home days and found myself face-to-face with a tufted titmouse.

Litany of Vexation

I have a project at work that I think can rightly be described as Sisyphean. I think my boss is trying to soothe me by acknowledging how Sisyphean it is, but somehow I am not really consoled. Acknowledging that something is Sisyphean doesn't change the fact that the rock keeps rolling back to the bottom of the hill.

Snoverit

AIIEEEEEEEEEE I AM FINALLY OUT OF THE HOUSE.

*bounce bounce gibber bounce*

Holy wombats, did we get a lot of snow. This was the view out my front door last Thursday afternoon (11 February):

Gibber

*gibbergibbergibbergibbergibber*

Remember how I said I was done with winter? Remind me never to say that again, because it seems that whenever I do, Winter takes it personally.

Got out today to go to the grocery store with all the other crazed people desperate for beer and Co-cola and the other, real, necessities of life, before the next 10-20 inches lands on our heads.

Roads are, quite frankly, ghastly. I suspect there are third-world nations with better roads than those in Cape Despair. I don't just mean snow removal, either, I mean the cracks and ruts and potholes that are forming under the slush and ice.

On the up side, I've gotten knitting done. I made a thing! It's blue! I might have pictures to show tomorrow if it finishes drying and I can put it somewhere other than the middle of the bed to be photographed.

*gibber*

Snowblind

I try to talk a good game about winter, about the stripped-down clarity of it, twilit skies, filigree of bare branches, whispering snow.

I try to do this because I cannot control the weather. I could grump and complain, but it's like complaining about the traffic. It would just leave me in a state of permanent pointless disgruntlement. If I sit down to think of it, I can make a list of substantive complaints long enough to keep me disgruntled for years. I do not need to let traffic and weather get to me.

But after yet another six inches of partly-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-flurries deposited over the weekend and brutal cold to go with it, so brutal that when I let the dog out early Saturday afternoon he turned around and gave me a betrayed look, because it is not fair that he should have to go out at all in 19-degree weather (Fahrenheit. That's -7 C, or thereabouts) and even Maeve, who is snow leopard yin to Fergus' pocket-panther yang, demanded into the bedroom to sleep on the bed with all the rest of us ... I am done.

Just done. All the handknits in the world cannot entice me to want another day of winter.

Of course I will get more winter, and I will go back to trying to talk a good game. But just now, I am tired of being cold, tired of barely seeing daylight, tired of chapped lips, tired of psoriasis compounded with winter skin, meaning, I itch. All. The. Time. and there is not a single blessed thing I can do to make it stop. If I lather up with the good (expensive) lotion right before bed I am usually able to sleep through the night without waking up at 3 am because I itch.

Yes I have a humidifier in the bedroom, yes I take my flaxseed oil, and yes, I am doing every other thing that nearly 20 years of having psoriasis has taught me about dealing with itch. If I could afford it, and if a certain unit in the agency hadn't pulled a stunt that resulted in my being chained to my desk indefinitely, I'd be booking a flight to someplace like Puerto Rico, where there is sunlight and sand and a warm salt sea.

For now, though, I'm just going to sit snarling in my cube and look for my rose-coloured glasses.

Self-knowledge

Some years back, there was an editorial in Handwoven magazine that amounted, as I recall, to this:

Among weavers, you find people who love texture (lace) and people who love colour. Texture and colour are equally difficult to handle well. They are equally valid as modes of craftsmanship. As a hobby weaver, the important thing is to weave what pleases you. Your only obligation is to be yourself.

This advice could be delivered equally well to knitters, or indeed anyone. (No need to thank me).

Yesterday morning, we had an inch or two of snow, and I was out early with my camera. I don't love being cold, exactly, but I love how much of the sky I can see in the winter, how beautiful the sky is in winter, how the black branches of trees stand out against the twilight and snow.





One might reasonably conclude from this sort of thing that I'm a lace person. One would be right. I'm going through my Ravelry queue and getting rid of most of the cabled projects. They won't make me happy to knit them.

Prid. Non. Ian. MMDCCLXIII A.U.C.

Be it hereby resolved that I make no new year's resolutions posts.

Happenings

Christmas happened, as we knew it would, even without me doing anything particular to make it so, as also we knew. I did accomplish an assortment of things, but I am trying to learn how to relinquish the belief that my active agency is required at all times.

Anyway! Christmas.

It happened with snow:



This is, for what it's worth, possibly the first truly white Christmas I've ever seen in Maryland. Some years, when I was small, we'd get a dusting of snow and Maman would call that a white Christmas, but I never found that satisfactory. Now that I'm older I'm not sure I found all the digging out quite satisfactory, either, but I'm trying to focus on the prettiness rather than the drawbacks.

It happened with mince pies (and port):



These were made by cutting out rounds of pie crust and making little stuffed parcels out of them. Click through to Flickr for a triptych of photos showing how I did it. I made them this way because I didn't have sufficient numbers of tartlet pans. If you have dozens of 3-inch tartlet pans, go nuts. Or just eat the mincemeat straight out of the jar. Whatever makes you happy, really.

It happened with a sweater (finished on Christmas Eve even though I'd only been half a sleeve away for months):



Pattern and yarn details are on Flickr and Ravelry, for those who are curious. And now, I get to pick something to knit just for me. I was contemplating a scarf or shawl, but coming across the parking lot this morning, suddenly legwarmers sounded like a brilliant plan.

Christmas also brought a pile of lovely books to read (tagged as 'Christmas 2009' at Library Thing); a hobbling mate (the result of an unfortunate confluence of stairs, cats, and Vikings; everyone is fine, or will be, but it was more excitement than I wanted); and dueling cabbage salads (there was a miscommunication).

Next assignment: To find a recording of Strauss' Die Fledermaus in time for New Year's Eve.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow

I am still digging out. So in lieu of my usual blether, I give you a picture of my backyard



and Julie Andrews singing 'In The Bleak Midwinter', the loveliest version of the loveliest of Christmas songs.

God Jul, my friends.

Fulcrum

I am, just now, balanced between the extremes of wanting to curl up, bearlike, and suck my paws until the sun comes back, and knowing that the holidays are heading toward me like a freight train and there is much to be done that will not happen if I don't do it myself.

The holidays will of course arrive whether I get anything done or not. And I have gotten a lot done, I really have. The shopping is mostly finished; I just need to wrap packages. The ham (wild boar!) for Yule has been ordered and should arrive tomorrow. A batch of mincemeat is maturing quietly in preparation for Christmas Eve. I had my lussekatter ready on the correct morning and the necessary stores for making julkaka are already laid in so having that ready on the correct morning shouldn't be a problem.

I do have to finish knitting something, but that should take me about an hour's determined effort, if I can find an hour to be determined in. After I finish that project, I have given myself permission to cast on something new just for me, but I haven't decided on what yet. The ideal project would be something already in the Ravelry queue, for which I have the yarn, and that I have a hope of finishing in a reasonable amount of time.

There are several candidates that meet these criteria. The real challenge will be picking one. I think I'll enjoy that part as much as actually knitting the project.

Little bits of happy

It is not often that anything on public radio makes me laugh out loud, but this morning's poem on The Writer's Almanac, Bridal Shower, by George Bilgere did just that.

Carrots: more interesting than the rest of my life

I could tell you about how work's a mess (the new administration has essentially taken away our car keys and now we have to get OBPA to drive us everywhere) or how the weather's a mess (it took me 90 minutes to drive 35 miles this morning) or how [insert thing here] is a mess (let me count the ways) but that would not be very interesting. So let's talk about carrots instead.

Inspired by Regina Schrambling's recent Epicurious blog post about the salad in winter, and hungry for something that tasted like a fresh vegetable, I broke out my box grater the other night.

Carrot Salad

4 medium carrots
4 baby green Vidalia onions (the local grocery had these; they are larger than scallions but smaller than leeks. I would substitute one or two small leeks if the baby Vidalias are not available)
1/3 c pumpkin seeds (I used seeds saved from the pumpkins I was cooking with back in October)
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 small dried chile (or perhaps a tsp of crushed red pepper)
salt
olive oil
2 Tbs grapefruit vinegar (from Trader Joe's. I bought a bottle for some reason, now forgotten. Whatever vinegar you like would work, as would lemon juice).

Grate the carrots into a bowl and set aside.

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a skillet. Slice the white and light green parts of the baby Vidalias and add to the pan, followed by the minced garlic. Saute gently until the onions are tender and just starting to carmelise. Add onions and garlic to the bowl with the carrots.

Return the skillet to the heat, add another drizzle of olive oil and toss in the chile. Stir the chile around to give it a chance to infuse the oil, then toss in the pumpkin seeds with a little salt and continue stirring until the seeds are toasted. Add the seeds to the bowl with the carrots and onions, and discard the chile.

Toss lightly with the vinegar and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Serves 4. Quite possibly better the second day.

Post-Yule Wrap-Up, Sticks and String Edition

What got done:

Have yourself a gothic little Christmas

Purged

After yesterday's splenetic purge I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

We really did have a nice weekend. I got quite a bit of good housework done Saturday, was able to be lazy Sunday, and was even able to potter about the garden a bit on Monday.

It was not a perfect job at everything, other than the lazing about on Sunday (a thing at which I am extraordinarily good). I still need to mop the bathroom floor, for example. But it was pretty good.

Garden pottering was limited to pruning the rosebushes and pulling leaves out of the pond (again) because it's still only February. While doing that I noticed that the sassafras tree in the corner of the yard was quite literally about to fall down.

Here's a chunk of the affected area, near the base of the trunk. Something chewed it from the inside out -- see the emergence holes?



It was not a very large tree, and the Viking has some experience in treeherding. We managed to get it down, by ourselves, with no damage to ourselves or our house, and before it fell on the neighbour's car (or the neighbour).

Also we managed to get it down without stomping the hellebores (just now starting to bloom), the azaleas, or the sweet box I put in last year too badly. The Viking understands something about treeherding, but he has a bad habit of putting his feet exactly in the middle of ornamental plants, even when there is no reason to do so.

Since I have something of a professional interest in treemunching insects, I have been trying to figure out what ate my tree. The Forest Service silvics manual lists two wood-boring insects that attack sassafras, the sassafras borer (Oberea ruficollis [Fabricius]) and a wood-boring weevil (Apteromechus ferratus). The damage on my tree isn't consistent with the sassafras borer, but I can't find anything else about the weevil other than it's one of the family Curculionidae (snout weevils), along with about 7,000 other species. That doesn't really tell me much.

There is also a non-native ambrosia beetle (Xyleborus glabratus), which is known to attack sassafras and redbay trees, and spread the fungus which causes Laurel Wilt Disease. However the damage isn't consistent with what I understand of Laurel Wilt damage, and my other sassafras trees are OK (I went looking for similar damage and didn't see it), so I don't think I need to call the state department of agriculture in a panic just yet.

The good news is nothing else in the yard seems to have been chomped, it doesn't seem to be the work of a quarantine pest, and starting about a foot above the section which was damaged and rotted, the tree was sound enough. The Viking is going to cut it down to size to use in his smoker.

Purgatorio

So.

Yesterday, I leave work at 3:30. I manage to dodge the accidents on the Beltway and 50, break free of another one at the intersection of 450 and 3, and am making reasonable, if not good, time.

Spring? What Spring?

Saturday morning I did something as much like a character in a bad Victorian novel as I have ever done (and please the gods, will ever do) -- I got up, drew back the curtains, looked out, and leapt away from the window with a cry of dismay:



It's one thing to have a cold snap in early April, it's quite another to wake up to snow.

We tried very hard on Sunday to pretend it was spring in spite of the weather. We really did. I don't know that we convinced anyone, but we made the effort. We had lamb and duck, Maman brought salad, Sis brought a potato kugel (we are ecumenical eaters), and I made rhubarby goodness for dessert.



Schadenfreude alert: apparently the Stooge who made my last year at Our Lady of Perpetual Aggravation Prepatory Academy so unpleasant has been dismissed. I am waiting breathlessly to learn the details.

Poets never get these things right

T.S. Eliot had it all wrong. April is not the cruelest month. March is.

Temperatures go up, temperatures go down. Outside my house, the ground is frosted with frozen sleety slush, which will, if the weather report is accurate, melt today. Inside my house, under a fluorescent light in the basement, are 6 box ('Green Velvet'), 5 mockorange ('Manteau d'Hermine'), 6 sweet box (Sarcococca confusa) and about the same number of veronica 'Heavenly Blue,' all part of a plan to border the front yard with shrubs. (The veronica is to underplant the box along the driveway side).

I didn't actually think I was going to get the planting all done this weekend, or even half done, but ordering plants for delivery in March seems to signal the gods that it's time to deliver a last shot of nasty weather as a reminder that plans only go so far.

Duly noted.

The conditions being unfavourable for yardwork, the Viking and I took to pursuits like assembling his new desk (which went together fast and with a minimum of cussing) and mocking the TV offerings (which, apart from basketball, were pretty lousy). I finished the knitting portions of the Girly Bag (almost -- it remains to be seen if I actually have enough yarn to finish the flower) and now must work out how to construct the lining. At its most basic, this isn't hard, but the handle style I picked needs loops of some kind to be sewn in, and I think I want to add a pocket to hold lipstick and cell phone.

In short, almost nothing of interest happened. So, here's a random picture of a cat: