Baa Baa Knit Stitch

Once again, as we celebrate All Hallow’s Eve, I will post my rules for Trick or Treating, all of which will be violated this evening:

1. If you’re too cool for a costume, you’re too old to trick or treat.

2. If you drive yourself, you’re too old to trick or treat.

3. If you come with your boy/girlfriend, you’re too old to trick or treat.

4. (This one was added after a hoarde of pre-teen boys clad only in shorts ran up to our house one year.  I asked what their costume was.  They replied “male strippers”.)  If you’re old enough to know what male strippers are, you’re too old to trick or treat.

5. Already this year, I’ve added a new one:  If you’re on the cell phone the entire time you’re at my door, you’re too old to trick or treat.

I leave you with our annual picture of Penny, titled “I will kill you in your sleep, 2012”:

Penny plots revenge for her annual Halloween costume

Happy Halloween, everyone!!

My father’s very last gift to us was a full set of pressure-assisted flushing toilets for our house. Every time he came to visit us, he would rail against the wimpy little 1.6 liter models that were standard builder grade, and he swore he was going to get turbo toilets that would actually flush.  He passed away before he could see them installed, but Mom insisted that his gift be completed, and now I have a set of 5.

(No, my house isn’t that big, but somehow that many bathrooms got worked into the plans. It seemed logical at the time, and frankly, it’s been quite handy over the years…)

So… I got home from work today, “did some biz”, as we refer to it when Penny takes care of it, and reached for the handle to flush.  Nada.  Nothing.  Complete silence.  This is so out of character for the turbo toilets, which sound like a 747 getting revved up for takeoff when they send their loads into the sewer system.

Took the lid off the tank.  The pressure assist is a sealed system; I mashed every button I could find to mash to no avail. Fortunately, there was an 800 number to the company.

I can now say I’m fully educated about pressure-assisted flushing thanks to the handy hints given to me while on hold for what seemed to be an overly lengthy period of time.

Finally, I got a human… a rather chipper lady who seemed eager to help me.  I read her the serial number off the mechanism…

“Oh…. (she sounded a bit concerned.  I was touched that she cared that much about my plight.)

“Do you hear water running?”

“Well, no…”

“You should hear water running.”

Went to the faucet.  Sure enough, our water was off.

“Well the toilet won’t flush without water.”

I apologized profusely for wasting her time.

“Uh… before you hang up… I need to ask you something.  Is that the only toilet like that you have?”

“Heavens no.  I have 5 of them.”

“Did you know there was a recall about 5 years ago?  They have a tendency to …well… explode.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah.  You need to call us back with those serial numbers so we can get a repair kit out to you for each of them.”

“Trust me, I’ll get on that soon.”

Now, my dad had a wickedly dry sense of humor.  He’s been gone for almost 11 years now, but I have this image of him up in Heaven, getting a good laugh out of me dodging exploding toilets. It’s just something he’d find hilarious as long as nobody got hurt. That grin would come across his face, and that twinkle would get in his eye… and he’d giggle.  I can hear him now.

Love you Dad.  And thanks for the exploding turbo toilets.

I’m going to diverge a bit from your normal, run of the mill dog talk and stitching talk.

I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine.  A friend who undoubtedly is one of the most courageous people I know.

I “met” Kelly, oh, probably about seventeen or eighteen years ago.  I’m a stitcher; and she owned a needlework store.  She’s in Rhode Island, and I’m in Georgia.  Nevertheless, we struck up a friendship over the phone when I’d call to order.  Turns out she’d gone to college at Sewanee in Tennessee, and we met a couple of times when she flew there for reunions or when she graciously took me with her to the needlework market in Nashville.

Why is Kelly courageous?  Well, sixteen months ago, she became a foster mother. She took a precious little girl into her home and nurtured her into a well-adjusted, happy toddler.  As those of you with children know, this isn’t easy.  I never had the guts to do it. As has been thoroughly documented here, I can’t even make my dog behave.

Today, the state of Rhode Island decided it would be in this precious child’s best interest to rip her out of the only home she’d ever known…. after sixteen months of bonding with the only mother she’d ever known, to ship her to strangers in North Carolina with whom she happened to share DNA. Strangers who, upon her birth, had absolutely no interest in her.

(Kelly has asked me to correct my misunderstanding of this: “I just do want to correct one thing. The great-aunt had been identified by birth-mom as the potential placement since the beginning, and great aunt had always expressed an interest, as she has custody of the 5 or 6 other half-siblings. But, my attempts to contact her through DCYF with letters and photos were denied — I was told by DCYF that she wasn’t interested in photos, only the child.”)

This beautiful child has been failed by the system that was supposed to protect her.  How on earth can traumatizing her like that possibly be in her best interest?

Dear Lord, please hold this child in the palm of Your hand and protect her. Send Your angels to guide her.  Please help the family that has her now understand what a precious gift they’ve been given. And please, in Your mercy, help Kelly and her family to heal from this.  Help Kelly to understand that her strength gave this child the best possible start she could have in life. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.

I hit the wall today.  It’s the day after corporate extensions were due, and the past two weeks have seen me doing precious little but sit behind my work computer trying to reconcile balance sheets and reassure frazzled business owners that all was well and they were indeed being taken care of.   It dawned on me that perhaps the reason I’m so weary is that I haven’t really had a break since tax season ended last year.  It ends on October 15; Mom went into the hospital on November 2, and life changed a good bit for all of us after that hospitalization. 

So I’m on the sofa, trying to chill with the dog, and the dog cops an attitude.  I try to get her harness on her… granted, it’s not her wonderful Dachshund Delights harness, because she’s (ahem) outgrown those, and we’re working with a Puppia harness that goes over her head till our replacements can get here (Hurry, April!)… and Penny decides that she’s going to take my hand off, then run off as I nurse the bite marks.

Later, she’s back on the sofa, wide awake (we’ve had some problems when we wake her up), and I try to pet her, and she growls and snaps.  

We’ve had her checked thoroughly by the vet, and there’s nothing physically wrong.  So there’s an attitude that needs adjusting, and it’s going to happen starting Saturday when the trainer comes.

I’m totally aware that we’re having this problem because we’ve caused it. But we’re going to end it and wind up with a well mannered dog. Until then, we’re operating on the “nothing in life is free” premise… you want up on the sofa?  You have to sit and ask nicely.  You want dinner? You have to sit.  You want up on the bed?  You have to sit and have one of us lift you up. 

Our vet warned us that Penny’s at the age (a little over 3) where female dogs decide they’re going to try to take over the pack.  Evidently I’m first on the hit list.  I’m tired, but I’m still top bitch. 

…by what they’re wearing.

Sage advice given to me by my father. He’d made that error, one time early in his banking career. A gentleman, clad in overalls, rather unkempt, had come in the bank and needed help. Dad ignored him, letting someone else help him instead. The president of the bank pulled Dad aside after the gentleman had left and told Dad that the unkempt man in overalls was one of their biggest depositors. He shouldn’t have brushed him aside. Dad didn’t make that mistake again, and he took that advice to heart. He passed it along to me.

It’s just good business.

Today, however, on my vacation in Highlands, NC, I could tell someone hadn’t learned that lesson.

Now, those of you who know me in real life know that I just don’t dress up much anyway. On vacation, the wardrobe gets taken down another notch to a t-shirt (generally some kind of geekish humor or NASCAR) and a pair of jeans. Today I was clad in a kewl t-shirt with a Venn diagram of ObiWan Kenobi’s speech in Star Wars (“You don’t need to see his identification… These aren’t the droids you’re looking for… He can go about his business… move along) and a pair of jeans.

I was excited to see in Highland’s weekly newspaper that a new knitting store had opened up. It was the first place on our list of places to go today. After some difficulty finding it (it opens to a back street, and the signage is, frankly, poor), we went in.

The owner sized me up in about 5 seconds. If she understood the t-shirt, I’m sure she relegated me to the same class of knitters who spend their days knitting infinite Dr. Who scarves in Red Heart. By her demeanor, it was obvious I wasn’t “her kind” of clientele.

I tried to start a conversation. “How long have you been open?” “About four months.” “I had a little trouble finding you.” “Well, we have signs, and it’s clearly marked.”

I gave up any social interaction.

As for her store… well… she’s displayed all her yarn by color, mixing wool, superwash, alpaca, acrylic, and you name it together because it’s the same color. There are tons of “art” yarns – you know, the kind that you’d mix together with another skein of something to make a scarf. There were very few books, precious few patterns. Some of the lack of inventory I can understand because the store is new… but there seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what serious knitters are going to be looking for.

Fortunately for her, some more suitable customers came in and gave her someone to talk to. I picked up a skein of Jitterbug sock yarn thinking I’d purchase it to be polite, then I quickly put it down.

I’d been judged by my appearance. Little did she know that I can go through a yarn store and purchase several sweaters worth of yarn at one time should I so choose, and should the yarn store have something that I like. I heartily support my local yarn shops because frankly, they don’t care what I’m wearing… they know me and they invite me in… even if I don’t purchase anything.

I felt no need to purchase something to be polite, as the politeness had not been extended to me.

If she’s in business next year when we visit, I won’t be back there. And I really can’t suggest that anyone else go, although they might have a different experience.