Picking up the pace

My eldest said to me today, while we were out frantically doing errands, "Christmas just snuck up on me this year." I stopped mid-stride, and said, "Welcome to adulthood." Cracked me up.

While I had thought I was totally devoid of holiday spirit this year, I managed to do one or two things. We made and decorated cookies, and yesterday I gathered the two youngest and we made our way via public transit (oh, the excitement!) to San Francisco, where at the St. Francis hotel we viewed this year's over the top "Sugar Castle."


And tomorrow, we'll probably get our tree. It's taken a week, but we've gone from our front rooms looking like this, as they have since we moved in (except without the ladder and the plastic sheeting and the furniture all shoved together in the middle,


to different combinations of these four colors:


Now it's clear that the dining room will need repainting. But that can wait until after the holiday.

What can't wait, alas, is a new refrigerator. I thought getting the old one repaired would be a good move, but since Thursday, we've been having odd clicks and shorts in the whole house's electrical system, and unplugging the refrigerator fixed it. Then we discovered that everything in the freezer wasn't frozen. . . So, after my much-looked-forward-to solo grocery shopping trip after church tomorrow, we'll go to the appliance store and get another refrigerator, then get a tree, now that the living room is 95% done, then I'll finish writing the cards that arrived from the printer today so I can mail them on Monday, and then we'll probably go out to dinner. And collapse.

It's a good thing I got a run in this morning. It was sad, as befits the first one after a two-month hiatus, but it was a run. I was just underdressed, but that can be remedied. My still-to-be-graded papers can't, though, so I'll slog through them tonight. The term is almost over, so I'll have about a week off of work. The Kauni cardigan is hovering between the armpits and the beginning of the neckline, and I cast on another top-down raglan for my son, out of a two-ply alpaca, and managed to not mess it up too much during the opening night screening of "The Tale of Desperaux" that the young'uns and I went to last night.

Any minute now, I expect things to calm down. I don't know why I do, except that in contrast to the last few (and upcoming few) days, it can't feel more active.

All that Tryptophan

What a lovely day we had. Clean house, bouncy family (literally -- the kids spent time next door on the killer trampoline), and delicious food.

At least that's what I heard. Apparently having one's head full of snot makes tasting a wee bit more challenging. As we were preparing the final dishes, I said, "This stuffing is bland! I can't smell the apple pie! Aha! This fresh sage has no smell at all!" (Yes. I did speak in exclamations.)

I was assured that the sage did, in fact, smell strongly of sage, that the stuffing had flavor, and the apple pie did not, in fact, have much smell. There was even a more-generous-than-expected spinach salad when I discovered that unless I use floating row cover, the ubiquitous leaf miners are going to ruin any spinach, chard, or beet crop I attempt. Grrr. The turkey was celebrated, thanked, actually called "The most moist turkey I have ever eaten," and even Thing 2, who had spent slaughter day in tears and declarations that she would never ever kill anything, came back to the platter for thirds. There was enough and more than enough (he'd dressed out to about 11 pounds) for everyone to eat and then be made into the start of a gallon and a half of turkey soup in the evening. Maybe eating that would clear my nose?

I ate and ate, but only tasted the big outlines of flavor, I think. So I got "sweet," instead of "chocolate pecan pie," and "meat" instead of "brined in a number of different flavors turkey," and "buttery, bready" instead of "cornbread, butter, pine nuts, raisins" for stuffing.

No pictures, because the neighbor borrowed the camera to capture all the scary bouncing next door. Besides, I didn't take many eating pictures. Any taken of me feature me blowing my nose, more than likely. But I did knit some, and already have found errors in my Kauni sweater -- I have the attention span of a flatworm, apparently. Have already made resolutions to check my patterning every 20 stitches or so -- they're easier to fix then.

Other highlights of the day? Eric finished the shelves for Thing 2's room -- they fit perfectly and already have her library books plus her birthday books arrayed on them. He's been tasked by Thing 3 to make a set for him, and I've contributed my usual Complicating Design Aesthetic -- often expressed by a casual comment like "Can we put an arch here? What about angling the sides? Do you think beveled edges would work?" He's busily drawing plans and muttering about the woman who hates right angles.

Denise and her partner went mushroom hunting and came back with a blanket full of lovely oysters. Kevin said, with shining eyes, "Here, smell these," and I dutifully did, and said, "I only smell 'cold.'" Apparently I was missing out on something wonderful, so he scooted into the kitchen and sauteed up a batch with garlic, and told me how to do it, and then left some for me to cook and freeze for later. Hopefully for when I get my smelling powers back.

I got to take an adults-only walk with my nephew's dad, and we had a nice talk and saw pelicans and just enjoyed each others' company. We played board games with the kids and I talked to my oldest sister, down in Los Angeles.

When I took some pictures (before handing the camera over) of the children, mine and my sister's, lying on the floor playing Stratego, a jolt of deja vu hit. I've seen those pictures before, only they were in black and white and the boys had crew cuts and were wearing Levis with belts and plaid shirts, buttoned up, the girls in little dresses with crew socks and Mary Janes. Bad haircuts everywhere. Those kids were the few years-older cousins and siblings I grew up watching. I bet they didn't have a clue, when the black and white pictures were taken, that they would, really and truly, be the adults later on, adults with their shares of adventures, heartbreak, and joy. So I snapped picture after picture of the children playing, and decided to have some of them printed in black and white, so someday, when that particular game is lost to time and memory, they might get to see their pictures in a line up of old family pictures and have the photographic equivalent of looking into paired mirrors. Children, adults, families, echoing back over the years and forward into the future.