Monday, December 1, 2008

What I Did in my Missing Week

Just when you think you are getting back on schedule, something happens. Sometimes something big, sometimes something small, but something always happens to throw you off track. This time we will call this something Mommy's big arrival. She flew in from London right before Thanksgiving, and well things have just gotten a big hectic. I'll tell you she managed to drive round in circles for over an hour on the ten minute drive from my office to my home. And that somehow she ended up in the middle of a 12 police cars. She made it to the grocery store and bought the necessities for Thanksgiving, and that was Wednesday.

Thursday involved more last minute morning shopping and cooking for our guests. My cousin and family arrived around 1:30 and stayed until around 5:30. Now here's the thing about this Thanksgiving dinner, with the exception of my cousin's wife and their baby, nobody there had been born in the US and none of had spent much time doing the Thanksgiving thing. Thursday evening floated away and it was Black Friday.

Up at 6:00 to get to the mall bright and early. We were in Macy's by 7:30. After conquering the mall we were off to Trader Joe's. Well, I didn't know the address, just the general vicinity, so I couldn't find it on the GPS. "Let me do it," my mother says and takes the GPS. She then send us on our way. I was bit perplexed about the back roads we seemed to be taking but perhaps she had chosen to avoid toll roads, I thought. After in and out and round about, we come down to a frontage road. It does not resemble the road NNR and I had taken a few weeks before. The voice from GPS says we have reached our destination. I look up. Trader's Auto Parts. Guess you can't plug in partial names.

Well by now we were exhausted. It was 12 pm! So we drove to Montclair, ostensibly to pick up buttons, but I managed to pick up a couple of hanks of Malabrigo Sock while we were there. The buttons were for Twist & Shout (still stalled at 50% seamed,) and Lazy Daisy, now at the 22". I'm really happy with the buttons. So happy perhaps tomorrow will be Button day. (Ah, motivation to write tomorrow!) Now it was getting kind of late. Shabbos coming in around 4. So we raced home, I put up a cholent and basically got Thursday nights leftovers ready for Friday night's dinner.

Motzei Shabbos (Saturday night) we caught up with some Netflix and of course I knit. Besides work on Lazy Daisy, I have another secret project I've been working on. I catalogued all my learning experiences, and though I am about to start for the third time, I have learned a lot and am happy with my progress. What is this mysterious project? Ah, material for Wednesday.

Sunday was POURING, but we were determined to get out. So we went to Teaneck, bought some groceries at Glatt Express and sat down for coffee at the Lazy Bean Cafe. Within a few minutes Mommy became fascinated with documentary on the Jonestown massacre. I knit about 4". Right about the time Representative Ryan was murdered I saw I'd screwed up about 4" earlier. In other words, the first row I had knit at the cafe. So I ripped back to my starting place. It is interesting to note that before we left the house, Mommy had stumbled upon a site for Milk, the new Sean Penn film about Harvey Milk. It was a bit odd to find the Jonestown thing on TV a bit later. Although I was too young to understand it as a child, both events impacted our lives, changing the world we lived in. They both just marked their 30 years anniversary. In fact, until I went to check my dates for this post, I never realized they happened 10 days apart!

We walked away from the coffee shop and back to the pouring rain. Fired up the GPS to look for Sushi Metsuyan and seconds later we were there. Who knew that it was around the corner?!? This seems to be the appropriate to time to give a shout out my friend at work who loaned me her GPS for my mom's visit. Thanks Rachel! The sushi was great, as usual, but now it was dark and raining even harder. We made it back to Passaic and braved Costco. By the time we got home there was no energy for writing! Besides, it was time to turn the turkey carcass into soup, so I was busy.

And here we are at Monday. We started the day taking out my amazing friend Chani for coffee. Why, you may ask, is she amazing? Besides all the wonderful things she does for me and many, many others, this woman drove me to work everyday for 3 months. No, it was not on her way to work. She is a domestic engineer, currently employed at her own domicile. And she wanted to meet my mom, so off to Starbucks we went. And don't think coffee is the only way I know how to say "Thanks", Lazy Daisy is for her. After coffee we went home to drop off the car and made our way into Manhattan. First stop B & H to get Mommy a new camera for her birthday. That was an experience worthy of its own posting, but not tonight. Afterwords, we had a quick bite and then it was of to MoMA, to see the Joan Miro and Van Gough exhibitions. Both were AMAZING. I could just stare at Starry Night for hours. I never got Van Gough when I was growing up. The photos I had seen do his work no justice. But I remember being starstruck when I first saw Starry Night at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris many years ago. Today I was just as enthralled. I even bought a souvenir book on it from the gift shop (as well as a groovy ring and psychedelic post card for T and S that Mommy will take back with her.) And then it was home, home, home. But no, the night was not over.

I had been invited to Sheva Brochas this evening but had declined since Mommy was here, opting to come in at the end for dessert. Although it was hard getting myself dressed and out of the house at 9pm, I was glad I went. Besides being able to join in the simcha for the new couple and their families, I was able to sit with my friends, some of whom I had no idea would be there. Amongst the attendees, The Cheerleader, Princess Rapture, the recipient of the Monogram Pillow, and the biggest surprise of all, Frak! And I met his lovely wife. But boy, that man talked more about yarn than I did.

And now my friends, we are all caught up. Until tomorrow...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the life update. I quote the famous Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". Words to live by. I'm glad that you were able to spend "quality" time with Mommy. Which reminds me of another favorite move..."no more wire hangers, EVER" That's so funny that your mother thought of the Jonestown masacre. I have a Jim Jones tee-shirt and I would love a vacation home in Guyana. Maybe we should have that lovely punch at the next sales meeting!

Lastly, I resemble that remark you made at the end of the blog. I feel (now that I've seen the light)that my mission in life is to spread the joy of knitting to the uninitiated. Even though I've never knitted a stitch in my life, and I've never even known anyone named Hank, I feel that everyone should know the joys of knitting. Stitch by stitch, step by step, slowly we turn, to come closer to an understanding of the One Above and how our lives are intertwined. After we die, we will be asked if we experienced all of the pleasures of this world, and knitting is certainly in the top 10. Every moment is precious and whether we are knitting or raising our children, or chewing gum (or doing all of the above at the same time),like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. If we could just turn one more person in this world on to knitting, the world would be a better place.

Thanks for listening.

Frak

Anonymous said...

Yay! It was great seeing you in person, and it was fun seeing me in the blog!
PR