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.

not much of a joiner

I'm not so much a joiner of online knitting activity. I tend to cultivate my own agenda, usually about a year later than everyone else (see Clapotis, and my current lust for the Lady Eleanor stole, which is so very 2005) and pretty influenced by my pocketbook and my skill level. Or lack thereof.

Still, I am amused and intrigued by Project Spectrum which has been all over the internets for some months now. And July is Purple Month, and I'm all enamoured of purple. I've got some purple-y, midnight-y, bluish Koigu that is stomping its foot and shouting at me to stop hoarding it. I tend to hoard Koigu, being not much of a sock knitter, either, but being very much a Koigu buyer. I daresay, it's my favorite yarn, though to my credit, I only have 4 skeins of it on my person now, that's 2 pairs of socks! Being not much of a sock knitter, I don't let myself scarf up too much fingering weight anything. I figure it's like candy, a bit here, a bit there, you don't notice it, and suddenly, you've gained 10 lbs, or your stash is overflowing with stuff you don't even want to knit up!

I digress. July. Socks. Koigu. Purple. Look, it's a hat already! And the yardbird's lunch.

I'm feeling more chipper. It still hurts to breathe a little. I slept badly, but my Day of the Vapors seemed to help move me along the road to health. Koigu cures all.

the vapors

Sicker. Rather, I'm sick of this half-sick business and am committing to a full fledged invalid state. The drinking of tea. The taking of various herbal tinctures in little half-glasses of warm water. Picking up and putting down of Hourglass, interspersed with naps. I'm afraid of not making my silly June 30 deadline, unless there's a more serious effort launched here.

Marie and I shipped Lia's dogs last night. It took HOURS at the airport, filling out paperwork, only to have the cargo people somehow lose it on the computer. Take two. She called this morning though, to say she'd received the beasts, in good health. I do have to say, driving around with her dogs in my car last night, I have a new appreciation for how well-behaved my own dogs are in the car. Even Cricket, who started out with me as a jumping, barking fool in the wayback of the CRV has learned to get in, lay down and shut up so the mistress can drive him to his generally pleasant destination. This was more due to my shouting at him than any whispering that might have gone on. "NOOOOOO!" "DON'T!" and "OFF!" and sometimes even just "AAAAAGGGGGHHHH!" were words in heavy rotation his first few car trips with me. Now I'd take him anywhere. Sometimes he lays so still and quiet that I can't see him, and I wonder if he's managed to jump out a window, so I call him to make sure he's still there. Sure enough, the head pops up.

Again, no photographed knitting content, but a shot of yesterday's gourmet lunch of a tuna melt. More melt than tuna, from the pic, but the tuna was there. Note my pink countertop. The kitchen to this house is done in pinkish and grey, if you can imagine such an unappealing combo. Oh it's fine for clothing, but I think the previous owner was on a diet and wanted to prepare her food in an atmosphere that wasn't conducive to ravenous eating. I don't think it's bad enough to re-do, given my general laziness, and appreciation of the rest of the house's paint job. Still, you see that the kitchen colors have not affected my appetite one bit.

Here's an example of how the two canine members of the household amuse themselves when the mistress has the vapors and can't take them driving around town:I think this is the part where they yell curses in each others' faces til one gets tired. Ella is demonstrating how big her teeth are, and Cricket is showing how very tall he is. Note Hourglass in the background, on the couch. So close, now.

sickly

For the first time since I moved here (a little less than 10 months ago) I am getting sick. Swollen throat, icky post-nasal drip, cough. Ugh. Needless to say, the ac stays on, even though I suspect it irritates the throat while it cools the fevered brow. Our house is air-conditioned in a split system, wall units in the office, koa room and one little very hot corner bedroom supposedly cool the entire house. They do not, but the office unit is really the only one we use with any regularity, as it is adjacent to our bedroom. For the most part, it is breezy and nice enough that ac is not needed, but recently, it's been heavy and still. There's actually a breeze blowing now, but it's humid and warm. I'm hoping for rain. I may try to experiment with Reya's technique for getting a good rain in, by putting a wineglass of water on the windowsill as an invitation.

I help Marie ship Lia's dogs out to the East Coast today. This will involve hours and hours at the airport, and wrestling not-necessarily-crate-trained dogs into their shipping crates. I feel a tear coming on, just thinking about it. Maybe it's a tear of self pity, though, as it cuts into my knitting time with Hourglass, too. Too hot at the airport to touch that fuzzy Sisik.

Yesterday Leisha called me out of the blue, for delicious conversational rambling. Leisha was my co-worker of last year, a funny, dry Singaporean woman, who described her style of classroom management as "draconian" (this word spoken in a beautiful English/Indian accent accompanied by a wry smirk) and shared my love of after-school cocktails and Bailey's Crossroads' plethora of ethnic restaurants. She had a baby after I left, a surprise pregnancy, but she's adjusting well to motherhood, and is even taking a year off to enjoy the little sprout. I am trying to lure her out here for a visit, as she is no stranger to Hawaii, and even is familiar with Nuuanu and Queen Emma's Palace.

On to self-medication and working up my courage to go to Salvation Army, to donate my beat-up chairs that Goodwill doesn't want...

sound the snail alarm

In lieu of any knitting content, I present to you the portrait of one of the denizens of Chez Nuuanu Estate:
Yep, that's one big snail. Imported African snails, snuck in to eradicate or decorate something or other, back in less informed times, they've been fruitful, multiplied and stomped out all the other native snails around here. They are very large, as my foot will demonstrate.
Note the attractive pedicure, Elizabeth Arden's "Red Pearl" on the toes. It is attractive no more, as in reality, this shot was a couple of days ago. Still, this morning, I heard Ella barking furiously at something in the yard, and went out to check what she was all riled up about. 3 snails hanging out together in a shady spot, which I presume, was a place she wanted to put herself, but didn't quite have the nerve to go. Sigh. This is a full grown dog, quite large, at 40 lbs, sounding the alarm over snails.

Work on Hourglass continues, in a rather uninspired way. We have turned on the ac, so I can knit w/o too much complaining. I'm up to the raglan decreases, and am regretting the June 30 deadline for her, as I'd like nothing more than to switch and work on something else (kitchenering the remaining Jaywalker sock? a dishrag? Mirkwood Kiri?) but I'm gonna stay the course, as our illustrious (ahem!) head of state (according to NPR, though of course, in my world, Aragorn is still King, and now Jimmy Smits is President) would say. I'm having the usual fears of "she won't fit me" and "my gauge is fucked up" and last night, the much-admired Denise needle cable connector popped apart; I must've twisted it the wrong way as I was scooting stitches down the cable and the bloody sweater slid off the needles. The ensuing scene, involving waste yarn, a tapestry needle, much cursing and gnashing of teeth as I repaired the badly behaved needle with appropriately sized (larger) cables, and saved the day, was NOT pretty. I now understand about why most knitting should come accompanied by a medium sized alcoholic beverage, as per the Yarn Harlot's advice.

Of course now I'm treating the Denises with kid gloves. I shouldn't fear them. What's that my dog trainer says about "assuming the position of leadership and confidence?" Even Cesar would advise me to take those needles firmly, yet lovingly in hand and knit on.

handsome

This is for DJ, if she stops by here; a shot taken yesterday, of my rapidly growing puppy. Handsome, no? Cricket was described as "exceptionally compliant" this morning in puppy class. Hmmmm...they haven't seen him at home.

cutiecumber

Hot. Too hot to think. Let alone do anything constructive. Not that I would, if it were cool, but you know...an excuse. I think I've just been finding ways to spend time in hot places; walking with Marie at Makapuu Flats, instead of the much cooler local walks we could be taking, sitting in Patrice's jacuzzi yesterday, hanging out on the sunny side of my house, training Cricket in a sunny yard this morning...let's exercise some common sense, here!

Today, I picked up Hourglass (why oh why isn't she finished?!) and was struck by how damn hot that Sisik felt to touch. Was there a time when I felt cold enough to wear wool in Hawaii? Various Aloha Knitters may recall I was sporting Lia's gift of the Goodwill cashmere sweater last week, in Mocha Java, but that's water under the bridge. Cooler water, I might add.

In honor of all this heat, or perhaps to fight all this heat, I am saddling up my horse and riding down to the Safeway to buy some salad fixin's for lunch. Along the salad fixin' theme, comes my new favorite word, taught, I think, by Acornbud, "cutiecumber". A great summer favorite of this household. Hawaii has fabuolous cutiecumbers, it turns out. Japanese cutiecumbers, that are crunchy and delicate and tender. I crave cutiecumber sandwich. Thin-sliced ham, cutiecumbers, butter and brown bread. Salt and pepper. Off to buy now.

this and that

I walk this trail almost every day. It is an 8 minute drive from my house to the trailhead. I could walk to the trailhead, I guess, but it'd be an unpleasant, highway trafficked trudge, with dogs. So I drive it. I never thought I'd be a person who drove my dogs somewhere to exercise them, but here I am. Running the 3/4 mile trail, up and down, through Cook's Island Pine, bamboo, jungly plants, crossing the stream and scrambling over roots and rocks. If I'm feeling ambitious, I do it twice. Probably I should just get in the habit of doing it twice, but once around takes the edge off the dogs, and gives me a little high.

No knitting to speak of was done today. I worked on the little room off our kitchen, cleaning it, scrubbing and rearranging the ill-fitting furniture in it. I moved Rainbo's cage into that room, and a comfy deck chair from the bedroom, to make it useable. Rainbo doesn't need to be in the koa room; he hurls seed hulls all over the floor and it's a little too hot in there, anyway. This new place puts him more in the center of the house, where the action's at, and is a bit cooler, as well as a reasonable distance from the front door, where we can carry his cage out for some air.

Later, after my Judd trail run, I went out to Hiroshi with Patrice. I've always joked with friends about wanting a bar where the bartender knew my name, and what I drank. I think we've found it at Hiroshi, where the barkeep is spectacular and personable. He expects us coming, and remembers not only what we drink, but what bar food we're partial to, as well. It was nice to hang with Patrice for awhile. We were discussing my bad movie habits, and then we got onto Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer...Patrice is a great devotee of Animal Planet, and also of Cesar. I've just recently started watching him, I'm fascinated by the problemsolving that must be done in dog training, and while I don't always agree with Cesar, he is a blast to watch. While I don't have huge dog problems, my own two are not without their quirks; Cricket is developing quite a bark, at every little thing, and Ella trots out the passive defiance now and then. I'm doing my own whispering, more often than not.