Archive for March, 2006
March 26, 2006 at 8:48 am · Filed under family
My mom has stage 1 breast cancer. Way stage 1, so I’m really confident that she’s going to be fine, and she feels the same way. My dad, on the other hand, is pretty freaked out. We went through this last year with Pete’s mom, and thank goodness that turned out out as well as it did. I’m calmer this time, I think.
Here’s how it played out: my mom was at a DAR meeting (yes, she’s in the DAR, which means I’m eligible, too – wahooey!) and the guest speaker was a doctor. His topic was women’s health, and he talked about mammograms, and how often to get them, and my mom thought, “Huh. I think it’s been a while.” In my opinion, that was one of her spirit guides tapping her on the shoulder. She went in, had an abnormal reading, and went back for a second one. Then a needle biopsy. The cancer is very tiny — microscopic — and not growing, so a lumpectomy ought to take care of it. I seriously doubt they’ll recommend chemo, and we’ll see if they talk about radiation. Of course I’ll be there when she’s having surgery.
She described the needle biopsy as no big deal, and she thought it was amusing how the nurse was patting her shoulder and trying to prepare her for it. “After the mental illness when I was young, being straightjacketed and having shock treatments at 23, a needle prick isn’t going to do me in.”
If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger, right? I’m glad I wasn’t born yet when she was having the ’50s-era psychiatric help, but I’m also glad that she hasn’t kept it a secret from me. In case I haven’t said so lately, I think she’s a remarkable woman.
March 18, 2006 at 4:15 pm · Filed under blather
This is fascinating. I just spent a fairly big chunk of time checking out the name of every relative I could come up with.
March 17, 2006 at 5:48 pm · Filed under knit/crochet
Absolutely! (Oh, and by the way, my name is official. I went to court first thing this morning, then the Social Security office, then the DMV and the credit union. Wahoo!)
First, a project that has been on hold for months.
It’s Sitcom Chic from knitty.com. Fun pattern, with one of my favorite yarns — the discontinued Cotton-Ease by Lion Brand. Most of the Cotton-Ease I’ve knitted with has been a dream, but the red had knots and split like crazy. I stuck it out, but I kept putting the sweater aside for other projects. It feels good to be finished.
Here’s the detail of the front. It’s not blocked (how do you block cotton blends, anyway?). I picked out the chunky wood button when I was shopping at Sow’s Ear a few weeks ago. I was actually after a set of size 1 DPNs, which is another story. Currently on those needles is a Jaywalker sock, and I’ve discovered that knitting on size 1 needles goes a heck of a lot slower than it does on size 2s. I’m hanging in there, but don’t expect to see a finished pair of socks any time soon. Good thing I didn’t attempt this during the Knitting Olympics, or I’d have never won my gold medal.
My other recent FO is this hooded capelet from Teva Durham’s Loop-d-Loop book. Moon and Peter’s reaction when I first tried it on: “No.”
Apparently I’m not enough of a wood nymph to pull this off, so I thought I’d better at least go outdoors for the picture.
Much of the knitting for this piece took place at the IRS office. Did I mention that we received a letter from them last week? Just days before the fender bender? Our friends at the IRS think that we owe an additional $23,000 from our 2004 taxes, a notion which made me laugh heartily. It’s a mistake. (Duh.) I didn’t even bother calling; I just showed up Tuesday morning and took my place in line. Naturally, the computers were down because of a power outage in the building the night before. The good news is that I had plenty of time to knit before my turn at the one service window. The helpful rep took my information and asked me to fax last year’s W-2s. Which I totally planned on doing, except the IRS fax machines were down, too. (I went back the next day and begged the 12 people in line for a chance to just hand the paper to someone on the other side.)
Anyway, back to the knits. I’m looking toward the future here, and I want to make a Cotton-Ease Tubey in the worst way. Thing is, I need 3-4 skeins of black, or rather, “Licorice.” I might have to come up with something else in the meantime.
March 16, 2006 at 9:15 pm · Filed under family
Yeah, so tomorrow morning I’m going to court to make my new name all official and everything. I kind of forgot to write about what it was like to tell my parents about this, but a few weeks ago I decided I absolutely had to talk to my mom immediately. I called her while I was on the way to visit my friend Theresa, who lives almost an hour away. Big news on a cell phone (while driving, sorry about that!).
I started out by chatting about some other stuff, and then said, “Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about, but I’m a little nervous about it. I’m worried about what you’ll think.” She told me to just go ahead, and I told her, “I know this is a little weird, but I’m going to change my name.”
She was relieved, actually, because she was ready for me to tell her I had cancer or something. I think there’s a lesson here: if you have scary news to break to someone, make it seem like it’s going to be something way worse than it really is.
We went on to talk about lots of other stuff, because her acceptance just opened me right up. It was awesome.
A week ago, we went to a birthday party for my dad, and my parents made sure to tell their friends about my new name. I told them that they have parental privilege, which means they can call me whatever the heck they want to call me. But it was kind of fun explaining it to the older folks. They seemed to think that I was honoring my dad with the Irishness of it all.
Anyway, court tomorrow. If I have time, I’m going to hit the social security office and the DMV, too. Big fun!
March 16, 2006 at 5:26 pm · Filed under blather
Saturday morning, when Pete was driving me to a women’s retreat day, an out-of-towner spotted a Wendy’s out of the corner of his eye and all his Pavlovian reflexes kicked in. He wheeled toward the beckoning drive-thru entrance and apparently ignored the fact that our Prius was momentarily blocking it.
As we careened to the right, my first thought was: Someone in that vehicle had a heart attack. Or a seizure. Or is drunk.
But the guy wasn’t drunk, just hungry. We followed the guy into Wendy’s and called the cops. He admitted fault (rightly so, I might add) and was issued a citation. (Which sounds like a reward. Like: A citation for excellence!) Then the hijinks began. The insurance company doesn’t work directly with the Toyota dealer, but we weren’t willing to go elsewhere because of the whole hybrid thing. That meant a few extra days of waiting, since a claims agent would need to come out for an assessment. Remember, we’re a one-car family.
Metal was scraping the pavement as we drove, so we wanted a rental car ASAP. So we parked the car at the Toyota place and put our keys in the after-hours box for the body shop. Then we waited for a pickup from the rental place. Somehow it took another hour before we were able to drive away in the shiny Jetta we rented. That’s how I happened to be three hours late for the retreat. Lunch was good.
The Jetta has many bells and whistles that our own car lacks. It’s always beeping and buzzing because of something or other. Peter immediately found all the hidden cubbies and figured out how to program the radio. He and Moon like the extra leg room, but we’re all a little irritated by how complex the locks seem to be. I miss our little green machine.
We’re getting a check from our insurance company, but we still have to pay the $500 deductible. Then I guess the two insurance companies have to duke it out. (At least the guy was insured.) Apparently, there’s this shared-fault thing going on in Wisconsin, so our insurance guy thinks it’s unlikely that our erratically-driving Wendy’s fan will be responsible for 100% of the damages.
“But what about the police report?” you may ask. According to our agent, “Sometimes they take that into consideration.” To that, I say: WTF?
Ironically, the guy drove off without even getting anything to eat.
