the day off

My precious day off, fading away. I did the laundry of pretty much every linen in the house, cleaned the kitchen, took Ella to the vet for her big senior dog consultation, and tried to recycle, with mixed results; the dumpsters were too full to recycle all my newspapers. I ran into Chris at the polling place, and since she was en route to the LYS, I decided to tag along with her. I was reasonably good, buying some sportweight superwash wool, in a camoflage colorway that was most appealing, and a second set of addis #2, so I can begin my socks on 2 circs experiment. No crazy, over-the-top purchases, nothing too extravagant.

I was struck, at the LYS, how I don't really want for yarn right now. I liked what I got, but I'm feeling the yarn diet feeling.

Little else to report here today. I did a wee bit of spinning, and am getting geared up to vacuum the house, since it is hideously dusty, from all the dog trackage in and out.

Ella's fine, more or less. We're treating her increasing incontinence with some chinese herbs recommended by the vet, who is pretty holistic. She has a lump on her side, which may or may not be a fatty tumor; I have to schedule a lumpectomy and biopsy for that, and she needs a single dose leptosporosis immunization, requiring a trip to another vet, one who orders these vaccines in single doses. I don't want to vaccinate her in cocktail doses of various vaccines combined. Adult dogs don't really suffer from things like parvo, distemper and corona virus, and I don't want to give her vaccinations she doesn't need. All in all, she came out with a pretty clean bill of health, for an 8 year old dog.

Food today...lets just say a woman who eats french bread toasted with Nutella spread on it for a midmorning snack isn't really on a diet. Sooooooo delicous.

clip n' snip

Presenting the results of my Sunday's toil with clippers, shampoo, brushes and combs:

Two clean dogs with short hair! I always kept Ella in more coat, when I lived in VA. But it's hot here, and since we are fighting fleas at every turn, I figure the shorter, the better. Cricket is approaching that adolescent age when poodles' coats turn into solid felted mats, so his coat had to go, too. As it was, the clippers overheated during his cut, due in part, to the sheer density of his curls! Acornbud, in answer to your comment, I gave Cricket several breaks during our grooming session. He takes his own breaks during baths, leaping, suds-covered off the grooming table. I clip the body, then let him play awhile, then do his face, feet and tail, then more play, then finally, the legs, which are the hardest part to do. Both dogs looked rather fat, til I took the coats down, and now they seem fairly well-proportioned.

Did I mention I'm from a family of hairdressers?

More sock knitting, but nothing beyond the leg. Trekking yardage is tremendous, I don't have to worry about running out of yarn in a pair of socks. I'll probably do these about 7" high before I start the heel.

Dinner tonight was borscht; the beet soup from Moosewood's original cookbook. Yum! But honestly, it's too hot to eat soup, and I was too greedy to let it cool for the cold soup option. Now I'm horribly sweaty.

No school tomorrow, due to the election. Needless to say, I'm thrilled, though I've crammed the day with "gotta do" errands - the kind of things I can't accomplish during the school day. Visits to the bank, vet, Costco, library, car wash, Home Depot, etc. Some laundry, too. I'm off Friday, too, so I'm hoping that a flurry of activity tomorrow will result in some very laid-back time on Friday.

steamy skies

Friday night's sunset was a spectacular one here.
During the huge rains of last week, Nuuanu got quite cool, and we put a blanket on the bed. This weekend, however, the trade winds left us, and it became hideously hot and still and humid. We spend the weekend in a stupor, and finally decided to run the ac this evening, after the denial finally wore off. I've never quite gotten any real activity off the ground this weekend, beyond a couple of dog walks. I made half-hearted stabs at cleaning, cooking (mac and cheese and broccoli) and did successfully bathe and clip both dogs, which was an enormous triumph, considering that I swept up all the hair, too. Two big bagfuls of silver and black curly poodle hair, which I offered to Acornbud to spin up, but she wisely declined, so it's off to the trash with the dog fur.

There has been knitting going on, not on Rosedale (too hot to touch Kureyon) but on the Trekking sock, done in plain stockinette, better to show off the stripes and pretty colors. I originally thought these to be watery colors, but now they remind me more of wintery colors, the bits of white looking like flurries of snow, the blues the color of shadows on snow. I've dubbed them the Winter Sky socks. This is my lunch hour knitting project, small enough to take to school, and mindless to boot.


When the going gets hot, the hot start reminiscing about snow, I guess.

plumper

Thank goddess for the weekend. That's all I can say. Work was a mixed pain and pleasure this week, as my co-teacher went out (finally!)on her maternity leave, and the long term sub came in. I like the sub, but she is very dependant on me for lesson ideas and plans and sometimes, it's just easier for me to do all the teaching and for her to do the 1:1 remedial stuff, the paperwork and such. I remember now why I took a break from having student teachers; it was all that having to share your thinking about why you were doing everything, and all the time it took to discuss/review/plan people's lessons. So much nicer to be in the classroom alone...except on those days when you really need to go to the bathroom...

A chance look in my full-length bathroom mirror revealed that I have become quite the chunk in the past few months. My shorts are tight, and a visit to Mr. Digital Scale confirmed the unhappy suspicion. I have gained about 8 lbs in um...what, maybe 6 months? Yeesh! I say 6 months, because the alternative, to say I've gained it all since I went back to teaching, is unbearable, even though I know the work scene is a a key player in the game. Being in school means I'm short on time to hike, thus dog exercise is relegated to driving them to the park to frolic. Rainy weather, general busyness on the weekends and the feeling that I'm always playing catch up keeps me off the beaches, and the teacher's lounge at this school is consistently offering up junk food, delectable baked goods and treats in every form, possibly to counter the negativity that flows through the place to begin with. I'm a big one to self medicate with food, and that, added to my new favorite food of katsu curry rice on a regular basis, has plumped me up. I'm not a vain woman, but I can't be buying new clothes here.

So it's time for a reality check. And maybe a check on what I put in my mouth around here. And how I spend my scanty spare time. Which reminds me. My gym membership even expired, in the flurry that fall has become. But something's got to change, here. Because my clothes aren't fitting so well, anymore.

I lost quite a bit of weight, 3 years ago, on the South Beach Diet, which didn't starve me, though after awhile, it bored me. The biggest change it made for me was somehow, in the blood sugar chemistry way, diminish the taste I had for sweets, particularly over-sweetened desserty things and candy. Doing without refined sugars and white flour for awhile can really change what tastes good to you. Of course that's all gone now, as I scarf up cookies, pumpkin pie, halloween candy and katsu curry noodles with a vengeance.


But I don't wanna go on SBD again, not right now. So I think I'm gonna play around with portion control (because, y'know, I do eat like a horse - only not grass) and trying to get more exercise, and see what that gets me. Of coure Thanksgiving is coming, and I'm being realistic about that, and the freakin' Christmas season 'round the corner. But something's got to give. Because my clothes aren't fitting so well anymore.

hmmmm...

Will I ever make time for the writing in my life?

Hmmm....I'm in bed, after a rather enjoyable day at work, 2 parent-teacher conferences, too much bad tv, and a dog walk. Obviously, this cursory post is just to satisfy the goal of posting; can't blow it 3 days into the month, now, can I?

because i'm tired

you get little blips from my day, instead of any real formed entry.

The drive to work, at the crack of dawn, listening to music from the Spiral Dance.("A year of passion, a year of plenty, a year of rebirth; this year may we renew the earth") Having virtually no traffic, which got me to work earlier than I've ever shown up for work before, which I actually found to be a pleasing thing. Don't expect it to happen too often.

The discovery of a new shortcut/backroad in Honolulu that will make my new (hopefully not for long) commute on the Likelike a faster one.

A rollicking frolic at the dog park, which was an absolute sea of mud, and the ensuing hosing down of both dogs afterwards.

The usual Thursday evening at Mocha Java, with the Aloha Knitters, where there was much aloha and delight. I made a trade with
Opal for the beginnings of a Jayne hat. I love it when yarn I've lost the love for finds a new home! I've been wanting to pay my own homage to Jayne's fashion sense and mother love for a long time, now!

Now, I'm far too tired to continue this rambling.

a stunning drive

I drove through torrential rains over the Pali to get to work this morning. I've never seen so many waterfalls on the Ko'olaus before. Usually we just have the one pretty steady one, in rainy weather. But today, they were everywhere, and the effect was really stunning. It made it a little scary to drive, as I kept fighting the urge to gape at the surrounding beauty. It rained most of the morning in Kailua, and at 1pm, my principal called me and told me the Pali Highway had been closed, due to water and mudslides, and that I needed to go home right then, in case other roads were closed. So I headed out, via the Likelike freeway, which was an uneventful drive, once I got through Kaneohe's bad traffic.

Tomorrow looks to be worse, as the Pali will still be closed, which means all my other routes to work will be via the H-1 freeway, thus adding an hour to my usually painless commute. Arrrrgh. P said that he'd heard that today was supposed to be the calm day between yesterday's and tomorrow's storms. Yikes.

After encountering a moment of someone else's bad driving and road rage, today, and weathering an earlier skirmish of negativity from the teacher who called my professionalism into question earlier this year, I've decided that my life could use a little charm and shielding...I'm charging sea salt, sage and lavendar to sprinkle in the classroom tomorrow to bless my workplace. I'll also do something to bless my car (and hopefully remove the smell of wet dog!) as well. Might be time to add AAA's benevolent blessing, on top of it all!

Off to do the practical work of the kitchen witch.

slammed

I'm utterly exhausted. A day of Halloween has taken it out of me. Curry ramen and a beer and some knitting on the mindless Trekking sock are my Samhain observance today.

make hay while the sun shines

Here's the newest flower in our yard. I've no idea what it is called, but I'm in love with its huge waxy blooms.

Today, I immersed myself in Pumpkin Math, at Kindergarten, and was pleased to find myself less stressed than usual considering the impending Huge Freakin' Orgy of Sugar that tomorrow promises to deliver. Maybe it's kind of a 'make hay while the sun shines' philosophy, ie, teach math while the little buggers have some attention span? Ahhhh, October, going out with a bang! We weighed, measured the circumference, estimated and counted the number of seeds, counted the lines, and in general, analyzed the dickens out of 3 pumpkins in the classroom. I am reminded, fondly, of a child (child of a Salvadorean Pentecostal Evangelical family) who came into my classroom a few years back, who announced to me that "Teacher, my mother told me to tell you that in our house, we worship God, not pumpkins!"

Alas, no pumpkin pix for you today. Wouldn't want to steal their souls by photographing them.

No knitting today, save for a few cursory stitches on my Trekking socks, living at school, for lunch hour amusement only. No illusions about Socktoberfest here on this blog, no siree!! I'm feeling a little compulsion to play with yarn, though not to knit, so I might go roll some skeins into balls in anticipation of the future blinding progress on Rosedale.

ribbed, for your pleasure

Ta-dah!
The corrugated ribbing, she's done! I have to admit, this colorway is a bit of a circus. I am a woman who normally dresses in blacks, greys, greens or browns. I like being invisible in a crowd, and I'm afraid this sweater will blow my cover. But the Kureyon is fun to knit, and it is impossible to be in a funk with such sunny colors on the needles. The ribbing, worked using 2 different balls of yarn, was not hard, once I learned to keep everything untangled. It made my wrists hurt, though, and I could only do a couple of rows at a sitting.

Today, I hiked the ledge trail at St Louis Heights' Wailae Ridge Recreation area. Very nice, high above Manoa valley, with clouds blowing in and all around. The trail is mostly shaded by casurina trees, with many twists and turns, and lovely places to sit and dream along the way. Alas, it was such a nice day that all of Honolulu was out hiking it today, so it wasn't the most peaceful hike. A kid gave Cricket a spam musubi, which he liked very much. Hey, who can blame him?

Later, I went in to school and worked off my to-do list, and was actually successful, completing everything on it except for the odious task of weeding out the kids' folders, which, really, is better done with them there to help me.

I am cheered by the encouragement from readers that I may be able to actually do this post-a-day thing. Right now, I've no idea what I'll talk about for 30 days straight, but hopefully it'll break beyond the exhaustive to-do list that some of my entries in the days of yore have sounded like.

I am off to bed. It's coming up on hell week at Kindergarten, what with Halloween and all. You know, for a pagan, I really don't like Halloween that much. I love Samhain, with its darkness, the idea of the thinned veil between the material and spiritual world, the focus on communion with the ancestral spirits, the earth's slide into winter, the understanding that Death and Life are inextricably intertwined. I think, as a teacher, who always spends Halloween throwing a party, managing children's costumes, eating way too much sugar and being a disciplinarian, all the while, wearing a costume and carving a jack-o-lantern, I'm too fried to actually celebrate Samhain properly. Fortunately, I tend to regard it as a season, rather than one day, and generally try to do it justice sometime within the 10 day span in which it occurs.

can i do it?

http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html
http://www.fussy.org/nablopomo.html

Can I post once a day for the entire month of November? I have actually participated, though not finished NaNoWriMo, and written nothing I was very proud of, though in the process, I wrote more fiction than I've ever done on my own speed before. That fic shall remain closeted and cherished, in my warchest for the time being. But blogging, well, I don't think I've ever posted daily in my journal, for 30 days straight. Still, I regard and celebrate Samhain as the Witchly New Year, and as such, I see November as the time for all good resolutions to play themselves out. So this may fly.

I had set this post up to show you my progress on the corrugated ribbing of Rosedale. But Blogger's determined to keep me from posting my photos this afternoon, so I leave the gaudy Kureyon circus for a later day. After all, there's 30 of them, coming up. And Rosedale is a big project that I hope to have wrapped up by New Year's. The mundane New Year, not the witches' New Year. Heh. That would be Tuesday, right?

Dog obedience is kicking my ass. That's all I'll say. I make some progress (better recalls in life-or-death situations) and backslide (crooked sits in the ring, earning my instructor's ranty ire), thus contributing to my pattern of bipolar dog training. ugh. Cricket remains bipolar, though an enthusiastic participant in the training effort. I keep hearing "you've got a nice working poodle, now all you have to do is keep him that way". Nothing like pressure, eh? What's a working poodle? I think it's one that's being trained to compete in performance rather than conformation venues, but I'm not sure. I don't have a conformation type dog, and since I have no interest in grooming, and since both my dogs are now de-sexed (hooray for neutering!) it's the working ring for me. Today was good-ish, in that he didn't have a tantrum in class, worked willingly for me, and simply doesn't hold a heel position w/o food or enticements. So it's not engrained. Our test is coming up in 2 weeks. In my mind, we're already repeating the class, especially as there are some STUNNING dogs in the class and we are merely mediocre at this point. He is a wreck at 8 months, full of yips and lunges at any opportunity to play with classmates. I only have to look at the now-steady off-leash-obedient Ella and trust that the process will work for the crazy Cricket, as well. I don't know...

So stay tuned. I'll try to write.

Rosedale's beginnings and saving my sanity

Enjoying a gorgeous Saturday, and dealing with my horrible, chaotic mess of school supplies and teaching materials, purging, organizing and trying to figure out what should go to school, w/o loading down the already messy classroom. I finished my Parent-Teacher conferences, and was very pleased to entertain many parental complaints about how Kindergarten is working out for their children. These conferences would have slain me, had I been a new teacher, but in my current position, that of very experienced teacher, stepping into a program I have my own doubts and questions about, I was okay. I listened to their concerns, brought up a few of my own and will make some changes in the classroom and schedule to meet the needs of these kids. But damn, last week was intense, made worse by the occasional foray into insomnia-land. I haven't been trying very hard to sleep, and so suddenly, being sleep-deprived sneaked up on me. I think I'll sleep better, next week. I feel okay about work, these days, surprisingly. There are some people I need to avoid, and I'm seriously considering divorcing the teacher's lounge for a few weeks, just to clear my head and listen to something besides the incessant nattering of one or two particular teachers, whose negativity threatens my sanity. I've also made a few friends at work, one of whom reminded me that I needed to remember that I had this whole other life going on, and of the importance of not obsessing over work. So I'll take her advice, and enjoy the other side of my days on the other side of the Pali.

There's been some knitting going on. Pink Clapotette is waiting to be finished, with just a few more rounds to go. I finished another washcloth, and am trying to decide whether to keep it or give it to Marie, who is in need of a cheering up. Perhaps I should go with the karmic goodness of continuing to give away some of my FO's, yeah?

And I cast on for Rosedale in this candy colorway. It's Kureyon #131, stashed away for awhile. This color reminds me of the sunset, but also Hawaii in general, it's so pinky-orangy-happy-happy-happy. Rosedale's corrugated ribbing is a challenge. I started doing it with my knitsters on Thursday night, and their good nature and amusing commentary helped buoy my spirits immensely. I worked some more on it today, and am actually making progress. I have to plow through 3 inches of this knitting k2p1 ribbing with 2 different balls of yarn (you knit with one ball and purl with the other) by my drop-dead date of November 3, which is when the Aloha Knitters are planning their night of cocktailing and frolic. I can't be knitting complicated stuff while consuming alcohol, so I've gotta be on the stockinette part of the sweater by then. Intarsia looks easy enough, so I think I can manage through the martinis on that, anyway. No pix of my progress, as I've done so little. I'll get a shot of it after I make some more headway on the ribbing. I'm kinda pleased with myself, knitting from stash, and actually stopped myself from ordering yarn the other day.

Flying back from DC, the other week, the airline offered me, in lieu of a bad movie, 3 back-to-back episodes of the medical drama "House". I watched it, and have become addicted. I came home, looked for it on tv, and it's not on, til the new season starts on October 31. I'm itchy and fretting to take this quirky show on, and marvel that I didn't really watch it last year. Is Hugh Laurie my new media boyfriend? I watch relatively little tv, so I don't begrudge myself the occasional obsession with a show.

shake, rattle and roll

Sunday morning, I woke up at 5am with a reprise of my brutal headache of last week. I was due on the tracking field at 7, but a hard rain was pouring, and so I got up, drank a half-liter of water and took some Excedrin and went back to bed. At 6am, I turned off my cell phone alarm, and announced my intent to ditch tracking and sleep in. "mmmffff" came from P's side of the bed, and the tracking dog in question, Ella, lodged between us in the bed, flipped over on her back and sighed. Around 7am, the radio came on, and P and I were just waking up, mumbling about how much nothing we planned to do that day. Suddenly, the house started to shake, and continued for what seemed like an excessively long time for it to be a big truck on the street below. My first thought was "BOULDER!" Nuuanu, our neighborhood, is known to be kind of geologically unstable; I live on a street which is best known as the street that the boulder rolled onto, several years ago, killing a resident in her bed. We love our quiet forested abode, but "BOULDER!" is never far from our minds, especially in hard rainstorms.

All this thinking must've taken about 5 seconds, because then P and I established that oh yeah, it's an earthquake, and uh, duh, we should go stand in a doorway. So we got up, stood in the office and bedroom doorways, while the house shook, and the windows rattled, and everything felt like it was going to break apart. Ella tucked her tail and ran cowering into the living room, and Cricket had a barking fit, running wildly around. We tried to calm him down, while sweating the possibility of a boulder, or the old part of the house (the one we just moved heaven and earth to make level, last year) cracking off and falling down the hill. Shaking stopped. "Wow. Man. An earthquake. Dude." Hey, our 15 years in California gave us cool heads in such times...

Breathing easy, I left the doorway, noted that the power was out, and then the shaking started again. This time it seemed like it was harder, and I waited for it to get worse. I found my doorway again, wondered aloud if I shouldn't be in the newer part of the house, and P muttered something unintelligible about the damn rock walls around us. It felt as if the shaking was coming from under our feet. It stopped, and we sighed. Cricket calmed down, and we tried to find a radio station for information. No dice. After some milling around, I called my dad on my cell phone, back in Virginia. He reported that we'd had a 6.5 magnitude quake and some mudslides had happened.

We spent about an hour, waiting for boulders and mud to come down on us, in the pouring rain, then got bored and decided to conserve some water. So we filled up all our water bottles, and pots and pans. Then we decided that we'd better use the hot water before it cooled down. Our water heater is electric. So we took a hot bath, and made tea, and later, oatmeal with skillet toast and butter. Hooray for the gas stove!

The rest of the day, a rainy, dark, gray day, was marked by frequent trips up to the car to listen to breaking news on the radio, some house cleaning and reading and the eating of all our possibly perishable food, like sliced turkey, brie, salad greens, etc. We felt it was a shame to waste our ice supply, so we made some mango margaritas on the rocks, with some mango puree, and limes we had hanging around. Our liquor cabinet is healthy enough to sustain such a disaster, it would seem. I dusted some shelves and took the dogs for a walk. P walked downtown to see if he could buy some batteries for our flashlights. No dice, there. Fortunately, a pagan household is rarely without a healthy supply of candles, so we didn't curse the darkness, too much. I knitted on Pink Clapotette til eyestrain got to be too much. More brie, red grapes, steamed green beans and the rest of the salad.

I went to bed with Diana Gabaldon's "Voyager", and read til around 10pm. Slept well in the amazing quiet darkness, and was awakened at some unknown time by all our power coming on, including the damn streetlight that always shines in my eyes in the bedroom.

It turns out, Hawaii got through this with minimal damage. The epicenter of the quake was somewheres north of the Big Island, and overall, we did really well. We weren't as prepared, with batteries and such, as we probably should have been, but we were okay for food and the like. It was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt, though the Loma Prieta quake, in the Bay Area, in 1988, was bigger and did more damage, but I was living in Davis at the time, and we were minimally affected.

Some recent pix...
Our gardenia is blooming furiously. This bloom is a bit past its prime, but smells heavenly.

And because Cricket is featured disproportionately in this blog, I leave you with a pix of Ella, the tracking dog, the wonder dog, the perfect dog, coming down the steps to the house. Not pictured are the lava rock walls and scary steep hill. But there are 31 steps that lead down to our house, so you can get a feel for how steep the pitch of the property is.

consumption and resolution and indecision, oh my!

I had just about finished my recap of my trip back East, when, due to my careless bouncing around on the internets scaring up fun links, I lost the whole damn post. Now all you get is a bunch of images. Enjoy!

My friend Lucy's car broke down on the GW Parkway. Fortunately, we had a great view to enjoy for the 2 hours we waited for the AAA tow truck!



I've recently finished some things (Airy Scarf, a felted purse) abandoned some things (freakin' Purple Koigu socks, which neither fit, nor please me) and made major progress on Pink Clapotette.

I bought some things:

Trekking XXL inspired by the October skies.
1/2 lb of Corriedale Roving and a top whorl spindle.
Some autumnal Spirit Trail Fiberworks sock yarn, because, well, in spite of the fact that I suck at socks, this was all I could afford of their gorgeous yarns.

Now I really am stuck in stash, because stash is too big for me to store from the ever-marauding Cricket,
who does like to steal and re-purpose yarn, and because there is simply no more money for yarny stuff.

I have a plan to have a go at socks again, complete with experimentation with 2 circular needles and some fresh new patterns. I'm also dithering about whether to knit Rosedale, bpt or
Lady Eleanor next. I've got yarns in stash for all three, in the form of Kureyon, Silk Garden and Paton's Classic Merino, so all are possible. Now's your chance to weigh in and influence me!

Now I must go and listen to some Richard Buckner and see about some dinner.

be it ever so humble...

Something about flying nonstop Newark-Honolulu today has taken the starch right out of me, and left me unable to breathe through my nose. I'm dosing on Airborne and enjoying the clean sheets of my own at-home bed. More later.

a cursory update...

...is all I'm good for, right now. I'm in the Olde Country, that is, Southwestern Virginia, enjoying spectacular fall weather, the last gasp of Indian Summer, really. My time here is too short; punctuated by intense visits with my nears and dears, and interspersed with extreme downtime at my parents' rural place, knitting and watching reruns on tv with my dad, while eating my mom's home cooking and the last gasp of garden produce. Blue skies, the smell of fresh-cut grass and a hazy lull cover everything. mmmmmmmmm....aaaahhhhhh....

Today, I'm dashing out of my sis' place in Roanoke, going to Target (because I've gone over a year w/o shopping at Target!!) and an astonishing bakery and tea house. Tonight, my mom's homemade lasagne and coconut cake. Tomorrow, more knitting and hanging out with the 'rents. Saturday, a long crawl up the Shenandoah Valley, to the Virginia Fall Fiber Festival, to admire all the wooly goodness, pet the sheepies, and possibly, just possibly, to find the perfect drop spindle and fleecy raw material for such a fleecy raw beginner as myself. Now I wasn't gonna touch the handspinning realm, but all this rurality, plus the reports from acornbud on her spinning adventures has made me brave. So wee shall see.

Meanwhile, it's all good. I am actually even looking forward, a wee bit, to returning to my life in Hawaii, which will happen with a big leap on Sunday morning. More on the other side...

myths and mopes

I skipped knit night last night, ostensibly to write sub plans (I have a writing workshop training today) which were easily finished, so then tuned into my longtime addiction, "Survivor". It's the controversial "divide 'em by ethnicity" season, and I gotta say, the white folk are...um...jerks. So-called hot women cozying up to the buff boy. Everybody big, conformatively attractive, hardly noticing their invisible backpack of white privelege they're carrying around. The assumption of success. Too alpha, for want of a better word.

My personal jury's out on whether it was a good idea to divide a cast along these lines, but I do think it gets people talking, and maybe more talking about ethnicity as it relates to justice, prejudice and privelege is what needs to get done. Certainly Justice and Privelege are timely topics in our society today. So if it keeps the topic open and the lines of communication flowing, let's go with it. I think, in our current national Terror Over Terrorism, we have neglected to keep chipping away at the lines that divide us. So we leave it to a tv show to bring it up again, though admittedly, they are doing it in the most heinous fashion, and only for ratings.

Can ya tell I'm lonely for Ann and Coko, and missing our 2 years of grad school camaraderie, in which no stone of white guilt and social analysis was left unturned?

In other news, I had a long chat with Myke, my handyman who inadvertently triggered my current permit ordeal, with his fence-building and flag moving. He has moved off to the mainland, now, but has been supportive of us, in the ensuing firestorm of bureaucratic hassle. I like Myke, and wish him well, though I am well and truly finished with home improvement, after this trial by fire, that I fear may never be resolved. I am definitely finished with attempts to be aimiable with my neighbor, who filed the complaint, though I imagine she didn't consider the possible results of her complaint, either. It's interesting; when I spoke with her about being in a hassle with the city, weeks ago, she responded "I'm just a widow, no one cares for me, I have to look out for myself." She fights with the neighbors out of some bizarre fear that we could possibly be taking advantage of her. Reya referred to the urban permitting process as a weird form of power struggling, and I have to agree. I am rapidly leaving the place inside where I personalize this experience, however, and am starting to view the process as a long slog that may or may not resolve itself, but one in which I have no power. In seeing it as such, however, its power to wreck me with insomnia and weeping and gnashing of teeth diminishes, as well.

When the going gets weird, the weird break out the red wine and nail polish, I say.

I tried on the Purple Koigu sock last night and must say, am not that happy with my effort. More than 2/3 way done with sock #1, running low on ball #1, the love has fled the building. Will I be cursed to rip and re-knit? Like Prometheus, rolling that rock up the hill each day, or was he the guy who had his liver eaten daily by buzzards? Or both? Again, I am not one of the nation's great sock knitters. Maybe it's time to toss in the towel, and claim no knitting progress whatsoever for the past month? meh.

the pedicure is mightier than the sword

After a long and very trying day at the permits office, I am home, moving through the bureaucratic bad mood by scrubbing my shower, and cleaning out the fridge. I'll then proceed to revive my practice of facing my demons with a bitchin' pedicure. I do think this rip-roaring red is just the thing, don't you?

Funny...I don't have a permit. Seems the permits take up to a month to get issued. Good thing the work's already been done, eh? Sheeeee-it. There was some issue with whether one of my fences crosses lines of easement on my own property, and the city doesn't seem to have any real straight answer for me on that, it "requires further research". After the research, they'll draw up a maintenance agreement, giving the city permission to come onto my land to work on water lines, etc. Duh...of course they have my permission. But it's frustrating that they don't know themselves where the lines of easement are; that it's not readily available on public record.

I did get a fair amount of knitting done in the office, though. I am cheered by that, though I'm coming to the conclusion that people who find sock knitting to be a rewarding pursuit are obviously gifted in ways that I am not. Progress on a first sock is not necessarily a cheering thing, as one has the second sock looming ahead.

Makapuu

I took the dogs to Makapuu Flats today for a sunset stroll and swim. In the picture, it's the beach and the whole flat area from the bottom of the picture back toward Koko Head Crater. In reality, it's the whole area between Sandy's surfing beach (too rough and scary for me) and the Makapuu lighthouse area. The beach is very sheltered, a little cove, really, and usually rather deserted. A big culvert lies half-buried in the sand at the tideline. I amused myself by sending both dogs racing through and out into the lagoon. The picture makes the area look much lusher and greener than it really is, this time of year, but I like the aerial view. In reality, now the grass is tall and bleached to a very silvery color. Mesquite and agave plants dot the landscape and it's a bit hilly, with dusty gravel paths running hither and thither. Today we were completely alone out in all that space, an unusual phenomenon, to be so isolated on this busy, buzzing island.

The school district meeting in Waikiki ended up being rather enjoyable, in spite of all my whining yesterday. Amusing company, smart presenters, and sessions on data analysis, which always pleases me. For a woman who doesn't like numbers, I rather enjoy looking at testing data, particularly when it's broken down and dissected, six ways to Sunday. My last session of the day ended early for us non-test-coordinators, and I got to go home at 2:30, ensuring a traffic-free commute! Hence the inspiration to go to the other side of the city for some beach time. There were BIG waves coming over the rocks today. I was walking around on some tidepools, but the dogs were going out on the rocks and I was afraid they'd get washed off and into the current, so I took them inland and then over to the beach, instead.

I spent the evening working on the paperwork to correct our fencing violations with the city, for tomorrow's planned ordeal at the city offices. I'm told the application for a retroactive permit and subsequent paying of fines will take me all damn day, but a tiny corner of my mind keeps hoping that I'll get in and get out with a minimum of bureaucracy. There's always the knitting to keep me company, if it doesn't go well.

my cross to bear

A week zipped by, as we were held hostage by the fabulous cook guest, and the holy terror toddler. I had fun, but let me tell you, this past Friday was a Happy Day, being able to come in from work and have my house back. To once again enter my kitchen, to lay in blissful silence on the sofa, watching mindless television, to keep all bedroom doors open in the house, without fear of dogs destroying children's stuffy toys...my dogs and King David (the fiendish 3 year old) did not mix so well, though the exposure was good on both sides. Ella was predatory, slipping around, thieving toys, eating pasta right out of the child's mouth, and expressing her distress at the invader by employing her age-old trick of peeing on her bed. Cricket's roughhousing and rampaging through the house whipped the boy up into a fever pitch, causing Cricket himself to spend a few evenings enjoying the solitude of our bedroom, with a beef rib, while the child was doted on.

It's weird when your party animal friends have children. I'm sure they think it's weird when their party animal friends acquire more animals and pick up strange habits like knitting.

In King David's wake, I realize that my friend Dan and I have parted ways in the cooking department. He has become a better, more enthusiastic, inspired cook, and P and I have remained the same sort of ordinary, survival cooks we always were. We have a few staples, we can make a fair number of things from scratch, but we are not above a bit of Taco Bell and Top Ramen to get us through the week. Ah, well, I do have my standbys, and tonight I made Tandoori chicken on the grill, salad and some yummy pesto potato salad.

The Crown of Thorns plant is blooming: I've always liked its waxy looking leaves and the flowers look rather like lipstick to me. Of course since moving to Hawaii, I hardly know lipstick anymore, relying on a bit of sunburn to make me look colorful, rather than my old stash of Clinique, Cargo and Aveda cosmetics. Still, if I were a glamourous woman, working in the business world, this matte-finish pinky red flower is the color of lipstick I would wear.

Working...I've developed a complete case of dread that starts up around 5pm each Sunday evening, and every morning around 6am, regarding my job. I like the students. I am just sick of feeling like a fish out of water at this school.

Last week, we had a field trip, and kids were strongly urged to wear the school shirts (and buy them if they didn't own them already) and close-toed shoes to go to a play. I am not a kid, and in light of the 85 degree heat, chose to wear a skirt, tank top and some open toed sandals. I caught it from a co-teacher, both about the shoes and later in the day, about my lack of ownership of the school shirt. Baaaahhhhh! Not a real hassle, just a cool "no closed toe shoes?" immediately upon my arrival in the classroom, and later in the day, a t-shirt order form was given to me. As a teacher I would always urge my students to wear sneakers on field trips, too. But as a teacher, I generally wore what I pleased. I realize this may come off as hypocritical to some, but hey, I'm an adult, and generally choose to dress in a way that's practical and comfortable. I DID notice that another teacher opted to wear platform shoes, displaying a stunning pedicure, and so I felt vindicated.

At the theater, it was pointed out that if the place caught on fire, those who were wearing sneakers could make a hasty escape. I guess I'd stay to burn, along with the fashionable other teacher and the odd parent chaperones and nonconformist 3rd graders...

Now this high-schoolishness and chuffing about my job is due to quit any minute now, and I do need to qualify it with the unequivocal statement that there are people I've found at work whom I truly enjoy and respect. They are just not the people I spend most of my days with. I am not necessarily a thin-skinned person, and I assure you I defended my choice of footwear as well as that black tank top with my typical sharp wit, but the damage is done. It remains no lovefest for me in my employment life. I seek my joy in the students, now, and in plying my craft, but I fear the lack of joy here.

Luckily, there's Life After Contract Hour, and it remains enjoyable. I have been self-medicating with the beach, Lanikai, to be specific, and snorkeling, and with grilling and my patio, and the almost frantic anticipation of my visit to Virginia in 3 weeks. P is out of town again, gone off to the Pacific Northwest, and the dogs and I are holding down the fort for a few days.

Tomorrow, in lieu of my teaching day, I have a meeting in Waikiki, which is not as shiny as one might expect, given that it's all about testing and scores and protocols. I'm going to be there with people who have the power to evaluate me, so I can't even knit, even though it's a 7-hour meeting. Still, Purple Koigu is going in my bag, because I can't resist the chance to enjoy the temptation.

The day after tomorrow, I go to City Hall to pay our fencing fees and hopefully, with the Universe's blessing, put this Bad Neighbor issue to rest once and for all. I'm taking a personal day to take care of this, and so won't see actual school until Wednesday, which is a short day. So I really have little to complain about, in the greater scheme of things.

eating and drinking through September

September already. I am still wondering what happened to June, which flew by in a whirlwind. It feels like fall here, but maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. Still, the hard rain in the night, the yellow grass on Diamond Head and Punchbowl craters and the blue blue skies all shout "autumn!!" to me.

We are buried under houseguests this week, as our old housemate and friend from waaaay back, Dan, is here, with wife and 3 year old son. I'm glad to see them, but find myself wishing for peace, as well. The constant interaction, the vigilance over the toddler, the need to play host and entertain are wearing me down. To compensate for the grueling part, I must mention that Dan is an outstanding cook, and we've eaten like fat hobbits since he's arrived, feasting on grilled aku, steamed crab, and a whole host of other gourmet delights. I've supplemented with cocopuffs from Liliha bakery and my newly-perfected smoothie recipe. So no one's getting thin in our household. Not this week, anyway.

Little knitting has been done. The heel of Purple Koigu Take Two is being formed. A few more rows of the Sophie bag have been knitted. I think I'm moving slowly on that one because I am trying to decide how to embellish it. But I do need it for my trip to the Olde Country, coming up at the end of the month, so I better get a move on!

My job may change at work, it turns out. They are thinking of buying out my contract (that of staff developer and resource teacher) and converting me to a Kindergarten teacher. No problem, says I, putting my new flexible-whatever attitude into practice. I mutter the mantra "my job does not define who I am" and remember that no matter what I end up doing this year, the reality is, I'll be on the chopping block come the end of the school year anyway. So my job, my real job, is to enjoy myself and work hard, in a non-attached (in the best Buddhist sense) way.

weekend retrospective

Here's what the knitted, ripped, re-knitted, re-ripped and final version of Purple Koigu sock did this past Friday eve.

Yup. I had my customary Friday night gin martini, while knitting and watching old episodes of "The Wire" on tv. Something about knitting, drinking alcohol and watching drug-dealing tv doesn't seem right, does it? Hmmmm...anyway, k3-p3 ribbing isn't too complicated, so I'm managing to make up for all that ripping. I rarely rip things that leave me ambivalent. Oftimes, I just suck it up and knit on. But Koigu cries out to be loved, adored, savored. So frogging it over and over was part of the equation. I'm using my own pattern, more or less now. Yikes. I like ribbed socks. I like purples and blues. I like the #2 needles WAY better than #1's. My wrists and hands thank me.

After the martini came the lentil soup, from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone". Longtime readers know how I love this cookbook beyond all others. I think Deborah Madison rocks the veggie world. Clean simple flavors, everything from scratch, and generally interesting reading.


Beyond that, I am in a work-induced funk today, not due to work itself, but by the fact that I have too much to do, and houseguests coming from LA on Friday. I am not ready to entertain 2 people with toddler in my messy abode right now!!

Off to do some trail running to work off my frustrations. Cricket will appreciate it anyway!

stash monkey

I cannot get up out of bed this morning. I made the mistake of turning on NPR just as the Ellen Kushner program "Sound and Spirit" was coming on. Now normally, I enjoy this particular program as a background to my other activities. But her theme this week is music inspired by Lord of the Rings - the books, not the movies. So I, Tolkien geek that I am, must hear every second of this show. Can't take a shower. Can't get more coffee. Can't move...must visit Middle Earth one more time. Middle Earth does not invade my thoughts often, these days, though on occasions, hiking the Judd trail, I'm struck by how it could could be Lothlorien, especially in certain lights...

I visited Michelle, of my knit ladies, yesterday, out on the North Shore. The woman lives in Paradise, I tell you. I thought Nuuanu was Paradise, but I'd not calculated the great forest of banana and avocadoes and the seeming 20 steps to the pretty, tranquil beach that figure into her environs. We drank the promised pisco sour, complete with frothy eggwhite on top, and I am sad? proud? to say that I got quite buzzed on just the one, though I guess it was a rather large one. Speaking of rather large, she gave me a wee peek of her yarn stash, and I was duly impressed, and now realize that just because my own stash is creeping into another dresser, it is not a large one, after all.

I think, among other things, today calls for a stash inventory, and a cold, hard look at some of my WIPS, and whether or not they'll be finished. I'm going to frog the Cathay tank, and a couple of other things that have sat on the needles for a well over 2 years now. Then, to line up the things I do, honestly want to complete: Kiri, the Airy Scarf, the handspun pink Clapotis...the purple socks and the felted bag to be aren't worrying me as UFO's yet, they're still too new. But some of these other things have been hanging around for no good reason.

So I'm off to the frog pond, well, as soon as I can leave Middle Earth, anyway.

how soon they grow up

Baby Cricket

has now become quite a bit bigger. He's housebroken, he's been to Agility, Tracking and will be starting Obedience in a few weeks, he walks somewhat nicely on the leash. He knows the all-important command "Off!" and obeys it most of the time.

He is growing up, as you can see!



Happy Birthday to Giday Going Walkabout, our crazy Cricket.

crawling up onto dry land.

I am better. I decided to just laugh my way through my day, enjoy the students and not take these oh-so-stern-and serious teachers seriously, when it comes to correcting/nagging me. I can serve the students, do my job, enjoy my days and appreciate the instruction I like and admire and just wade on through the rest. It isn't worth it to get up in arms about someone correcting my penmanship. I'm 46 years old, for gods' sake. I've taught dozens of children to read and write, even if I do make my 5's and my M's funny. Move on, anal retentive types!

At the risk of sounding manic-depressive, I am better. I am much, much better. Mercury is headed toward directness, slowly but surely, and I have an Endangered Species Dark Chocolate (chimpanzee) bar. Yum. I have a plane ticket to Washington, DC for a week in October. I have the first season of "Weeds" on dvd. I finished hemming my new blue linen skirt, which has taken me all summer to sew. I have paid my rather large library fine to the Liliha Public Library, and I did some marginally successful training with Cricket this evening. The wool purse is growing, and the purple sock is being knitted, a row at a time on my lunch hours.

That Bits of Knits Chris pushed me over the edge and into a big yarn sale at WEBS online store, where I succumbed to a whole bunch of Noro Kureyon in a rather wild color. This woman is an enabler, and a dangerous one at that! Yikes. I have a little idea that's calling out to me in a soft voice, and I figured I might as well indulge it. Nothing like a depressive funk to provoke self-medication with candy-colored Kureyon, eh? Stay tuned.

The city inspector visited us, and inspected our fence and informed us of our fine, which should be around $60, for work without a permit. This is less than we feared it'd be, so we're slightly mollified.

weirded out

This is a pix taken by a friend of mine on Maui, up in the hill country near where he lives, in Kula. It is very beautiful up there, reminding me of CA's Napa Valley, or my own Virginia foothills to the Blueridge.

I wasn't going to whine overmuch about work anymore. But today, 2 incidents happened within an hour of each other that so boggled my mind that I had to vent a little wee bit. I've been assessing students for a teacher the past couple o' days, doing a 1:1 interview, testing them in math. I love this sort of thing, and have done a lot of it, in past jobs. I was taking detailed notes on what the kids knew and could do, on an assessment sheet, and the teacher I was working for came up, and out of the blue started correcting the capitalization of my notes. I had assumed the notes were sort of "for teacher eyes only" and so I had taken some of them in incomplete sentences, and hadn't capitalized perfectly. So she's standing over my shoulder fixing my lowercase "d" into a "D" and suggesting that I be more consise and brief in my notetaking, that the assessments were taking too long. Apparently 28 kids in 2 days is too slow. It is not the ONLY thing I do in this class these days. I am also teaching. It just floored me. I honestly couldn't think of anything sassy to say.

This is the same teacher who commented that my curled up posture at my desk (behind the bookshelf) didn't look very professional; what if a parent came by and saw me with my legs propped up against the desk? Mind you, this is at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon; our campus isn't exactly crawling with parents out looking for evidence of professionalism.

Okay...in the past week, I've been called on my handwriting, my posture at the desk, my notetaking, the speed at which I assess children and my punctuation. These are all the sorts of things these teachers hound their students about; work speed, posture, handwriting, proper use of capitals... I wonder how many more little offenses I can commit here? The bizarreness of it all is that it's all coming from peers, not anyone in a position to assess me. As far as I know, with admin, I'm in okay shape.

My reaction to this nonsense has been to laugh it off and to just say "I was taught to do it this way" or "you might want this information eventually" or the very blunt "28 kids in two days is a lot of kids for one person to assess." But it does grind me down, because I've never been hounded like this; not in my teaching life, anyway. It's all sort of adding up to that stinking cloud of negativity that's festering away, right now. I could analyze it, but don't really want to do so in this public forum.

Now, campers, this sloppy writer is going to bed.

rockin' the Klaralunds

I called Confetti and talked about the fence situation with her. Confetti is my old neighbor; she moved out a few months ago, and lives in Makiki now. She had warned me about the contentious next-door neighbor the first week I lived here, and said that there'd been a history of neighborly infighting over driveway and lane parking access, fence issues on the other side and general discord. It seemed we could only live here so long without falling into it...of course Confetti, being as pagan as I am was supportive of my idea to smudge the borders of the property (and beyond) with sage. She said that in the years that she'd lived in the little rental up the hill, that she'd gone around muttering the affirmation "I have good relations with my neighbors, I am in harmony with all my neighbors." Meanwhile, we await the visit of the city inspector, who will calculate our fines and retroactive permit fees. Myke the handyman is coming to shorten the fence and hopefully it will all be water under the bridge soon. I told Ms. Anthropic (the neighbor) about the impending repairs and she started to whine again that she'd never have reported us to the city, had she known that we'd be fined and visited and suchlike. Ho-hum...maybe so, but I'm kinda over it all. Just want it to go away.

In happier news, knit night on Thursday was jolly good fun. We had a photo shoot of the completed Klaralunds, featuring Candsmom, myself and Acornbud rocking the 3 very different colorways of Silk Garden. It is freezing cold in the cafe where we knit, so the Klaralunds are not as outlandish as you'd think for August in Honolulu.

I am now knitting diligently away on the purple socks and alternately, on this little project, in some impulse purchase Cascade. I'm hoping by finishing these little projects, that some sort of great wave of knitting enthusiasm will wash over me again, so I can rise and tackle something more ambitious. Or finish the UFO's laying around.

good fences make good neighbors or something like that

That's what my dad used to say, anyway.

Hoo-boy!

I just found out that the city of Honolulu requires you to file a permit application for any work at all done on your house or property. I found out because one of my neighbors filed a complaint about some fencing we did, on our property. Apparently, a couple of weeks ago, my contractor moved her property line flag to work in an area and replaced it incorrectly. So instead of talking to us (or the contractor guy) about the issue, she phoned the city and filed a complaint. Niiiiiicce...Now the building inspector wants to come out and meet with us about the fines that will be levied against us for not having all the right permits.

"Ignorance is no excuse" as they say. It's on the city website. Still, if I wasn't constructing an addition, why would I go looking for a permit application?

I won't subject you to all the expletives which have crossed my mind and lips over this issue. I did speak with Neighbor Lady (who was known to be contentious, beforehand) and let her know how very disappointed I was in her Neighborliness. sigh. She offered up a bunch of protests about how many problems our neighborhood has had with people not following city rules and codes. Again, thanks for your Neighborliness, neighbor.

I also won't go into the list of little home improvements requiring hammer, nails, saws and drills that we have had this good-natured, yet ignorant contractor guy do for this property since we've moved here.

I am adding this complaint to my long list of Adventures in Bureaucracy.

Is it my year for Justice? Must do the numerology...waitaminnit! Against my 'should know better' I had this work done during a Mercury Retrograde period.

Ahem.
I really don't know what to say...
Bitch-slapped by the Universe again.

grapple revisited, or No Thought Left Behind

I've probably been whining on and on too much about work. I should probably stop now. Much of the whingeing is all tied up with my feelings and thinking about how I spend my time. So a few clarifying comments, and then I swear I'll stop. Maybe.

*I think high test scores are a good thing, in and of themselves. It's when teachers,(okay, maybe this should read "administrators") in response to pressure to get high test scores, change the curriculum from an interesting, thoughtful one, with children's real learning at the heart and center, to a fast-pased, meaningless, workbook-driven one that causes me to rant. Yeah, yeah, I know that's a run on and on sentence.

*I am troubled, at my job, by the number of workbooks and paper-and-pencil-sit-down-in-your-desk-and-copy-from-the-board activities that are being done with children who cannot read the text they are being asked to write. I think there's a better, more developmentally appropriate way to teach the Hawaii's required standards. The standards are not the problem. It's the instructional delivery.

*I'm frustrated, because I know that change is hard, parental pressure is influenced by media and politics, and that everyone involved, in their heart of hearts, wants to do best for the students. It's agreeing on those, ahem, 'best practices' that is the challenge. I've been up to my eyebrows in the school reform scene for my whole career, first by accident, later by choice. To be teaching in a school that's not embroiled in it, is unsettling, in a way. Especially when they could be so much better, so much smarter about teaching and learning.

*I have neither the desire nor ability to lead a revolution here. I just don't want to lose my revolutionary edge when it comes to my teaching practices. Two years down the line, I don't want to be the one saying "Open your skills workbook to page 239 and do the next 4 pages..."

That's all. But given the state's wacky tenure and seniority system, as well as funding for this job, I don't think I'll even have it for more than this year. I know 50% of the money paying for me is due to expire after this year, and that I can easily be bumped from my position by someone with more seniority in the district, no matter how much my school desires to keep me. There's a certain freedom in that condition, I'm thinking. Not to be tied to a way of thinking, longterm. Not to be tied to fighting a way of thinking, longterm.

There are other things to write about, but I have an early morning work meeting, so I best be going. I just don't think I've been very clear, with you or myself on this matter of workplace dissatisfaction.

grapple

Lammas came and went, with a brief little ceremony in my house, acknowledging the season, the harvest and a wish. The knight of disks tarot card (Crowley's Thoth deck) sits on my altar, these days, my constant companion; reminding me that whatever the labor, I am also given the strength to complete it. I was pleased to see this card has a nice harvest-y theme going on, visually, too. It is feeling like late summer around here. Sometimes in Hawaii, I don't get the seasonal feel, but in these days of intense heat and golden light, I can feel August's essential theme, the ripening of fruit, the dying of grasses and bamboo, the moving toward completion.

I was immensely cheered by my commentors last entry. You give me the heart to drag me out of my work-induced funk. I think I am so quick to become "heavy" about my job, when really, I am too new there to be getting this way. It is very easy to see patterns, though, and sense tensions in the workplace, when one is still an outsider. I was even told I "sounded like a mainlander" the other day, when I questioned why a certain rule was still in place if no one saw the need to follow it. When I protested, the teacher explained that she hadn't meant "mainlander" to be an insult; she was just observing that I wasn't taking things at face value. Hey, that's me, question authority, sometimes to my demise...meh.

Mostly, I am having fun in my job. I am getting good feedback from the teachers I'm working with, and even though I think they are waaay too basal textbook-bound, and I really question whether some of the activities they do in class are worthy of their students' time and attention, I'm acutely conscious of the school's point of pride; that they have high test scores. I have never taught in a school which held test performance in high regard. Not surprisingly, I've never taught in a school with very high scores. My schools have been filled with hungry, immigrant, working poor children; I felt acutely the pressure to teach more than phoneme segmentation and penmanship. I struggle, and grasp and try to find the common ground. In the words of my esteemed former professor, Kmt, I grapple with this new place, this role of being observer/participant. It is not a pleasant place to be, in spite of the surface pleasure of working with eager young students. I spend too much time at home, early in the mornings and late evenings, grinding my teeth and composing brilliant arguments that will sway them into teaching workshop-fashion, and giving the poor patient kindergarteners playdough and paints instead of bloody worksheets and homework. Arrrrgh.

This work drama is all mixed up with mourning the loss of all my free time, to sew, to contemplate the 4 walls, to daydream, to piddle around the house in a relaxed fashion.

This afternoon, I went to get my haircut. I love the new stylist, Monique. I used to go to the beauty school, but when I started working this winter, I decided to see a real stylist again. Anyway, this one is as quirky as Lulu the globetrotter, and my sister the renaissance woman. Monique breeds Persian cats, and always asks about my dogs. I took Ella in to see her the other day when I stopped by to make the appointment. It turns out, she knows about half the people who go to my dog park here. She has framed pix of her cats at her station, enormous silvery grey cats with deep blue eyes. Just contemplating the hair makes me sneeze, but clearly, Monique isn't put off by hair...

I leave you with a picture of the ever-present Pali, looking up the hill from the deck.

skygazer

Here's how the past few mornings have looked, here in Nuuanu, at about 5:45am. Grey, with little blushes on the clouds, the shape of things to come. We've been getting our typical early morning rain, followed by wind and heat throughout the day.

I haven't written much because, well, there's nothing to report. I am working, and that energy of finding my niche in this new school is consuming me right now. When I think of work, I want to rant, and would rather not put into writing my frustrations with this school system, especially since my grip on employment is so tenuous right now. Mostly I am concentrating on the students, and on keeping myself, my opinions and attitudes about classroom practices, community (this small school community, that is, not the greater Hawaii community) values, and the ever-looming spectre of No Child Left Behind, firmly beneath the radar. It's not cool to come into a new job and find fault with every little thing. Even I know that. But this experience is so different from my last 'newly employed' situation, in VA, where I was stunned at the fit between my and the school's philosophy. I do not feel at home in this place, though I know I have things to learn, and things to teach. It is more of a challenge to work in this environment, to weigh what I am going to say, to measure the damage or good that a strongly voiced opinion will do. So I keep it light. The teachers are nice, welcoming. The test scores are very high. The admin wants to do good work. We will proceed.

I am constantly behind on work, housework, and life in general, right now. Today, I took the last Praxis II test, hopefully. I did 4 essays this time, heh, and hopefully did them well enough to pass the exam. I know I addressed each question, though none too articulately. It seems enough to survive just now.

I am about to turn the heel on the Koigu sock, which is the FIRST sock of the pair, not the second. A laughable moment occured, at knit night, this week, as Lilikoi made a rather pointed question about whether the sock was #1 or #2 in the pair, and then when I pretended to be aghast, made a hasty save by saying "I'm accustomed to seeing more progress from you." Heh. Knit night brings me much joy, in these days of running around like a beheaded chicken.

The 5am arising time would go much better if I didn't spend the time gained drinking coffee and gazing at the sky...but that's what keeps me going.

The Official Get Outa Bed Early Campaign

Thank you for the birthday wishes. Right now, on Day 1 of the Official Get Outta Bed at 5am Campaign, it feels less like a birthday than a first day of work, but I'll celebrate later.

I think I'm going to start responding to comments on entries, in the comments section of actual entries. I've wondered how to do it, and that approach makes the most sense.

I was plagued last night by odd, disturbing dreams, two of which I remember. Dream One was about my knitting group. We were meeting in our usual place, only it had couches put up around the cafe, supposedly for us! We met, socialized, knitted and compared notes on various yarns, books and techniques. Then everyone went home, and I found all these half-knitted lace pieces on the tables, like people had left them from knit club. So I decided to hold on to them until next thursday when we met again. I couldn't remember who was knitting what, and it bothered me. It was entirely lace shawls, though, something that scares me a little, given my half-finished Kiri shawl. Somehow I got the idea that I was supposed to work on the shawls until the group met again. But they'd left me no pattern, so I'd have to wing it...I think the message here is that I need to finish Kiri.

Dream Two was a sad one. Our dog's breeder called and said she'd made a mistake, that Cricket was the male that she'd wanted to keep for showing and breeding, and that we were to trade him to her for Ozzie instead. And I was arguing with her "But you said he was too soft for showing, you told me that his temperament wasn't right..." and she kept saying "He's beautiful. It's wrong not to show him." and I was crying and remembering all the little pix I had taken of him standing in a showy pose, to send to the AKC to transfer his registration. I think the message here is that I need to neuter Cricket soon.

And waking up, stressed over the lace and feeling sentimental about Cricket, who bounded up on the bed to meet me, with stinking teething breath and scruffy haircut, and sighed a sigh of relief, because it's Ozzie who is the show dog, and Cricket is the pet.

And now I'm up drinking coffee. And trying to get geared up to take the dogs to the park before work. And realizing that I got my agenda for our first day back in the mail yesterday, and it was just a series of "official" sessions; teacher mandates, the viewing of the bloodborne pathogens video which I've seen twice already, in less than a year, due to having the McJob and subbing. And I know it's too early in my employ to knit during boring meetings, but maybe I can draw...note to self: take pad and pen to meetings.

gah! No sooner than the employment papers are signed than the attitude starts. I'm looking forward to the mandates with fear and trepidation; thus far, the bureaucracy that runs education here is simply mad about mandates. Layer that with NCLB, and you've got plenty o' knitting and sketching fodder.

Off to the park now.

recalibration

I've been up since 5:30, trying to turn my body's clock around, in preparation for the big return to the working world. I was in bed by 9:30 last night. I'm hoping to get it to a 9pm bedtime and a 5am rise, most nights anyway. Allowances will be made for my knit club, which runs til 9 most weeks, now.

I tracked Ella this morning, a brilliant set of one very long straight track, and one shorter track with 2 turns. I'm being coached to give her no help, to let her pull me on the trail, and to give her more lead, so I just hung back and watched her. We are working at a distance of 10 feet apart, now; for a tracking certification test she has to be 20 feet away from me for most of the track. My instructor is a very dry, somewhat cranky older(83 years to be exact)lady, and praise from her for my handling is rare. She always praises the dog's work, and then turns, points her finger and starts with "...but you, you..." followed by whatever my handling transgression of the moment was: jerked too hard, gave too much slack, allowed her to be off track, forgot to pick up my flags...yada yada. Anyway, today, I didn't get that. I got actual praise for hanging back, not coaxing or indicating the track, not tugging the dog back onto the trail when she went off. I was flabbergasted.

I did not track Cricket. He isn't very sniffy, and I really want him, at this point, following my hand and watching me, not focusing on some smell on the ground. By not working him in tracking, I've more time to work Ella, and then I can work him in obedience at some other point.

I'm a little worried about the return to work and my life being filled; going to the dogs and the job. Ugh. The dogs are a true pleasure, but training eats up time, and my weekends have suddenly assumed this exaggerated sacred importance to me, as I shed a little tear for end of my unmolested mornings and afternoons. I know I don't have to train them, but it's fun, and they are big, active, interactive dogs who seem to do better with some mental activity. Thank the gods I don't have a border collie!!

I've been thinking a lot about my VA pagan friends. I'm still on their mailing list for rituals and events, and I'm missing them a lot. I'm planning a trip to the Old Country for my fall break, and will try to get together with Leah and T, at least, and maybe Ed. Yes. An income, at last, has made travel to the mainland a possibility again! I have about 10 days off work in October, and I'm using it to go back to VA. It's funny how nice it's been to NOT think about money, the past few days. Oh, I think about it, but I don't think about streeeetttttcccching what little is in my bank account for some unknown amount of time, anymore. A huge relief, and yet, I'm trying to be more cautious with what I spend on. I am going to make a concerted effort to knit from stash and not buy yarn,(okay, if Lorna's Laces goes on sale again, I'll make exceptions)use the public library instead of buying books, and continue to do my clothes shopping at thrift stores. I think, in this past year, I've strengthened the ability to walk through a store and not buy something that intially strikes my eye. It's been something I've been working at for a long time, curbing the consumption habit, and the year of unemployment has helped, that way.

And now, I am back to take a mid-morning nap. Probably not a good idea for resetting the body clock, but the cool breeze has made me sleepy.

joining the ranks of the employed

So after all my lamentations about employment, I have a job. It came before I expected it too, but after I stopped racing to the phone, hoping each ring between 8 and 3 was a call to an interview. Last week, I trucked some resumes around on the Windward side of the island. I got the call from Kailua, to come in and interview for a resource postion at a tiny little school. I did and got hired practically on the spot. The job is 50% reading resource, in grades K, 1 and 2 ---something I can do with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back. The other half is sort of a curriculum research/staff training/data collection job, that sounds fascinating. Sweeet!

So while I have a bittersweet tinge, bidding my long season of hausfrau and slacker lifestyle goodbye, it will be nice to rejoin my profession with a new direction. I've always been a classroom teacher, working mostly with children; this is decidedly working more with teachers and administrators. They say one of my responsibilities is going to district-level trainings and coming back and training the staff. And I was asked "How well do you work with administrators?" which gave me pause. Okay, I guess. I've not had problems thus far, and considered some of my administrators (The Evaluatrix, Dennis,etc.) to be friends as well as bosses.

The job starts Tuesday. That is sad. 3 more days of summer, and the August Malaise setting in before July is even finished! Funnier still, it begins on my birthday. A great big birthday present.

We bought Patrice's old couch from her. It is lovely and comfy and in a brown microfiber that is designed to look like suede. It lives in the koa room, under the windows and in direct line with the air conditioner. It is a sweet sweet place to knit, with room on the windowsill to put one's coffee cup. It has been responsible for decent progress (for a slow knitter) on the Koigu sock.

gonna beat this thing

Fighting the lingering cold...I thought I was better, but awoke yesterday with the feeling that I was drowning in snot...excuse the blunt grossness here, but that's how it was. The old cold, realizing that it had run its course, spawned a vigorous new one, to prey on my sleep-deprived and alcohol-weakened (too many pomegranate cosmos at Patrice's birthday) state. The thing with a new cold, is that you can fight it at its nascent stages. I made myself a Devil's Smoothie and downed it. I'll follow that up with another one today. I've had good results with this recipe, provided I catch the cold early. I didn't use it before, on old cold, because I was in denial. I couldn't be sick. I wasn't teaching, after all! Idiot. But I generally keep the ingredients in the cupboard, just in case.

I started the purple Koigu socks. I decided to just make a plain sock. No ribs, no lace, no nothing, in order to let the Koigu speak for itself. I'm using the #1 needles, and am pleased with the density of the fabric, even though on #1's the progress is miniscule. That was another part of why I didn't want to complicate things with a lace pattern. But I wonder if I cast on too many stitches? 72 seems like a lot...

I'm off to Lowe's to buy a dog door.

better

I was a domestic goddess today, and vacuumed the house thoroughly. It's been raining most of the day, great wind-driven waves of fine mist, cheering me immeasurably. I'm sick of this damn dry weather. Isn't that a hoot? Not four months ago, my readers were treated to my incessant tirades of whining about the continuous deluge from the heavens and the Pali. Now the "oh no it's too dry" whingeing starts. I like my weather patterns balanced. Except for snow. Bring me lots of snow. Nah. No can.

Anyway, the floor is restored to its relative clean, the rugs have been given liberal applications of Arm n' Hammer Pet Fresh, and the great swath of Rainbo's moult has been cleared from the dining room. I even vacuumed Cricket, who was standing nearby. He was not amused, nor was he frightened, either. I suppose a dog who's flown across the Pacific isn't rattled by a bit o' vacuum cleaner noise.

While I'm challenged by the process of actually getting started, housecleaning always makes me feel better. I can think more clearly, now.

Knit night last night was restorative. I ripped One Skein Wonder right out, not being convinced that I was knitting the right size. The Lorna's Laces is too precious to waste on knitting the wrong size, besides, I wanted to add lace to the back of this shruglet, and needed to find a chart, since charting my own lace pattern is way beyond my ken. Lilikoi pointed me in the direction of a lace chart on Knitty, and so I think the 2nd go-round of this project might work. Except I forgot, in all my swatching, to have anyone measure me. Ahhh, well. Acornbud suggested that I count my stitches and consider version #1 a swatch before I ripped, and in doing so, discovered that my gauge was off to begin with! So I'm feeling renewed with zeal for actually re-doing One Skein Wonder. Cheered, even, which is unusual for me, as I don't like to re-do anything.

I've kind of worked through my unemployed funk of last week. There's only so long one can wallow in self-pity and self-loathing. I'm employed, re-hired by the school district as a sub, already, so that's automatic work (and believe me, there's plenty o' subbing to do) once the school year gets under way. I am going to go around to the schools in the area and just drum up business for myself next week, remind them that I am on their sub list, approved and available. I found out that the reported job openings for teachers are pretty much concentrated waaay out in Wainae area, right now, which is not a drive I want to make on a daily basis. So I'm going to put my energy into passing the last Praxis II test, and once that's done and scores reported, around early September, my Hawaii credential will kick in, and then I should be able to find a job in the district's later wave of hiring. It's not an ideal situation, but I am through angsting over what I can't influence. I'm paying the price, repeatedly, for bad decisions and professional arrogance last year, and I'm willing to accept that and just get on with it. The Universe seems to need to teach me a lesson about overconfidence, the importance of maintaining a sustained effort and making better long-term decisions, and I think I need to stop whining and listen.

This makes me feel infinitely better, this realization. Letting go of that heartfelt belief that I was going to get a job before school started (it might STILL happen) and then fretting over what and when it would be, was a great leap in lifting my recent depression. Yes, I'm still economically challenged. Yes I'm still gonna have to stretch my pennies hard til the money flows again. But it's better. There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

In other news, I took a nice walk with Acornbud last week, on the Judd trail. She lives near me, up the hill, actually, as do a couple of my other Aloha Knitters. I went out for yumilicious Moroccan food with Patrice one night. P played hookey one day and we went to Lowes, on a big citronella-buying mission, coming up with candles, tiki torches and mosquito coils, all meant to make our deck a useful part of the house again. I took a rather hard hike on the Wiliwilinui trail with Marie, who is going to start teaching Agility again. I will help her with her beginning class, and in exchange, she will let me train Ella on the course and equipment.

All this, and finishing the wonderfully addictive "Outlander" too! Salon.com has this amusing article about a man getting hooked on Diana Gabaldon's time-travel romance series.

I'm going to re-organize my sewing room before I settle in with "Dragonfly in Amber".

like sands through the Hourglass...

Cough, sniffle, snuff...
Headache's gone, nasty cold is back with a vengeance. I can only say that I actually feel better than I sound, and am generally up and about, in my low key way.

No news much here. I finished Hourglass. She's blocking. I'm not feeling any love, though. The Sisik is a wee tad itchy next to the skin (it might feel fine, were I in some cold climate where mohair and wool sweaters are supposed to be worn) and requires a camisole or something underneath. Which is fine, since, despite my earnest decreasing, it STILL is chest baring. My thinking is that this would be a terrrific party sweater with a bit o' black or cream lace underneath. I like the shape and the bell sleeves. The rusticness of the yarn is, as one of my Knitters said, Harry Potterish. The neck is badly behaved. I couldn't bring myself to join all those damn live fiddly stitches down and so I just slip stitched the whole thing. It flops over, and I can't decide whether I like it or not. I might give it a whirl in the dryer once it's almost dry, to see if I can coax it into some more shape. A wee bit o' shrinkage wouldn't hurt Miss Hourglass.

I feel like I've been gone forever, though in truth, have been nowhere this weekend. Tracking. The mall.

I have a friend who makes me feel all weird. She's more of an acquaintance, but she is one of those women who have all these chivalry/couple-ish, joined-at-the-hip expectations of the men in her life. She always seems surprised at dinner out, if I don't sit next to my husband (it's not that I'm avoiding the man, it's that I sometimes want to talk with someone else or want to sit somewhere else) or if I don't know where he is when he's not home (he's out, dammit! he doesn't always keep tabs on me!) and last night she called me, and asked where he was in passing conversation, and I said he was taking a walk around the Ala Wai canal, and she asked if he was walking the dogs for me, and I said no, and she said "Why the hell not? You're sick!" and I felt suddenly called upon to defend his choice to walk without the dogs, even though I thought walking the dogs for me might have been a nice thing to do. I'm finding myself wanting to avoid her, in couples situations because it's awkward, it's like she's judging the degree of chivalry and devotion in our relationship. Her husband is a friend of P's, and so we do things with them occasionally. I don't think P notices it, because it happens in conversations directed at me, for the most part. I don't know that her husband is THAT much of a knight in shining armor; he's a nice enough guy. Anyway, I'm not looking for advice, I'm just wearied by it all.

I've put myself on a tight little budget, til school starts, to make my savings last. Last week, I was able to stay inside it, but just barely. This week, I'm struggling and we're only on Monday. Yeesh. See, I had to buy this sake set at Shirokiya. It was on sale, and pretty and blue, and we have some sake that Lia gave me when she emptied her gourmet cupboards into my car, en route to the mainland. I'd been cruising thrift stores for sake cups but to no avail. Funny. Sake sets were the kind of things you'd find all over the thrift stores in CA, but people tend to keep them here. I think people actually drink sake here, LOL.

Anyway the budget...I'm trying to stretch the money til the cash flows again, and it's bumming me out.

In spite of the stretchiness, or rather, what provoked all this stretchiness, was an online sale at Knit Happens, which used to be my LYS, when I lived in Northern Virginia. On sale were Rowan Calmer and Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb yarns, two of my favorite lusted-after fiber candy, and so I bought. Modestly, with already planned projects in mind, but still, it was a sobering event on the old bank account. So now, I'm on a tighter rein. And waiting for Mr. Postman to bring me my candy.

Little this week, beyond tramping my resume to actual schools, in an attempt to bypass the slow drip of the department of education's progress in giving me a real job. I hate this process, as it requires me to put on a mask, as well as nicer clothes, and work through my pathological fear of selling myself to strangers, but it usually makes me feel better in the end. Like I've actually taken steps to change my situation. The reality is, I don't think I'm going to be hired til the day before or the day after school starts, anyway. That's how most schools do business, in my experience. And even if I am hired before that, my job assignment will change the day before school starts. That's been my employment life, in education. So I'm a bit flexible, even, dare I say, devil-may-care about this employment game. But it is time to start the hustle. ugh.

ouch

I am creeping and crawling out of a 3-day headache. Last night it was at its peak, and I iced my head and neck in order to sleep (sleep brought on by Excedrin pm) and awoke this morning with a squishy bag of water on my face, which I quickly hid from Cricket, who was looking for something to amuse himself.

Today I will sit down, and bravely, in spite of my misgivings and outright fear, attach the live stitches of Miss Hourglass's neck down. I have been a little afraid to do the neck hem of this sweater, it seems like a hard process, and through the avoidance process, I have kitchener'd the armpits together, woven in all the loose ends, and whipped up the little sleeve and bottom hems. I could have finished her days ago, but have just been in other modes. It's not good to do tricky knitting with a headache.

My pagan-flavored datebook reminds me that Mercury is retrograde, and will be so through my birthday. I'm a great believer in the power of Mercury retrograde periods to make your life wacky, particularly in the areas of technology and communication. Whatever could go wrong probably will. Yikes. Of coure I find myself looking for a job during this period, and transferring the registration of the Cricket to the AKC with a time-sensitive document. I've got 3 weeks of glitches, galactic hiccups and general weirdness to navigate.

I haven't even gotten up yet. I'm laying in bed, trying in vain to awaken. I'm trying to give this headache a chance to finish itself once and for all.

identity crisis

Let's talk about the elephant in the living room. Which is the identity crisis that this little blog is having these days. Because I'm operating it as a knitblog right now, even though for years, my diary-X writing had little or naught to do with my knitting. Oh yeah, I'd talk about it. But it was also a forum for tarot musings, my day-to-day activities of the mundane sort, a log of my pagan spiritual pursuits, and a rant site. To-do lists, grocery lists, recipes and dog agility training also got in there. I want that back. I think I'm suffering the cognitive dissonance that comes with a change in writing audience. Back in the day, I wrote first, for myself, then for a small circle of online journalers (let's face it, I've never had a huge readership, not that I cared about that kind of thing) and later, for a tiny handful of people who knew me in real life. Now I feel so...EXPOSED. I know people who read this. They aren't people like Clary and DJ, whom I can tell my deeper, darker secrets. I mean they might be, but that's for another day. So bear with me readers who want to hear about something besides the damn knitting. And bear with me, knitblog readers who might have had it up to here with the dogs already. I'm just trying to pull it all totether.

That said, I feel better.

Today, Confetti and I painted faces, er, bodies, at a party at Sand Island. Very easy work, consisting mostly of painting dragons on people's arms. It's funny how motifs come in waves. At one party, everyone will want butterflies or abstract faces. At another, we'll get requests for full face designs, tigers, devils, pussycats, puppies. This was a dragon kine party. With spectacular, outstanding, lip-smacking homemade Filipino Hawaiian food. Lumpia! Adobo!! Laulau!!!These sweet birthday people fed us, and plied us with icy sodas in the heat. We were happy, me more so than Confetti, who had another gig right after that. So walking back to my car, I found that the parking lot had been taken over by some car club, who were using the space to showcase their out-of-this-world lowriders, all pimped up with glitter flake paint, and tippy pumping hydraulics, and all kinds of craziness like that. Of course I was tempted to whip out the digital camera and start shooting away, but then I thought it might be just a little too, um...invasive. And touristic. Still, it was a sight to see, and it made me recall, fondly, the days when Beamer School used to host a car show each year. Confetti and I strolled around admiring the rides, and the fascinating diversity of the lowrider culture. I do love me some weird cars. My CRV stood out like the sore thumb it was in that lot, though I must say, Confetti's minivan was also a bit of an eyecatcher.

The other elephant in the living room, on the coffee table, to be precise, is, of course, Miss Hourglass. I tried her on. It seems I can't decrease that neck area enough, so I'm gonna decrease a little more. I don't care to expose my bra straps at every turn. Maybe if I were 20, but people don't want to see my bra straps, even the fetching ones. I find the sisik yarn to be a wee bit itchy, with all the mohair. It is a fairly flattering sweater, but I'm not really feeling the love just yet. I was relieved that it does fit, more or less, and even in a flattering way. I'm gonna have a lot of sisik left over after this project's up, I think. Who can fathom the mysteries of how much yarn a project takes, and how much to buy? I'd rather have too much than too little, goddess knows.

Tracking this morning was sort of a mixed bag. I'm told by my instructors that I'm doing well, but at the end of the lesson, I was also given so much "you need to improve" kind of feedback that it makes me just want to bail on the whole project. Ella is progressing rapidly, tracking turns, now, though shakily, so, and I started Cricket, who had this whole attitude of "what the fuck is it you want me to do? I've got a better idea." as he jumped around tried to tear treats out of my apron pocket. It seems counterintuitive to ask him to sniff around for things, after 6 weeks of working to get eye contact and rapt attention from him. Still, I'm told I can track and obedience train at the same time.

So all day, I've been walking around with the funky shroud of the unfinished knitting (which I no longer want to work on) hanging over the cloud of "must improve dog handling skills" layered upon the feeling that I'm living on a shoestring here til school starts up again and I can see some cashflow. All this is mixed up with an intense longing to travel somewhere, anywhere off Oahu. Arrrrgh. I need a shot in the arm. Or a ticket to Bali.

Off to go decrease some more.