Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone
I got a bad desire
I’m on fire

Tell me now baby is he good to you
Can he do to you the things that I do
I can take you higher
I’m on fire

Sometimes it’s like someone took a knife baby
edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley
through the middle of my soul

At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
and a freight train running through the
middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
I’m on fire

~~~
I’m driving in my car, I turn on the radio
I’m pulling you close, you just say no
You say you don’t like it, but girl I know you’re a liar
‘Cause when we kiss, Fire

Late at night I’m takin’ you home
I say I wanna stay, you say you wanna be alone
You say you don’t love me, girl you can’t hide your desire
‘Cause when we kiss, Fire

You had a hold on me, right from the start
A grip so tight I couldn’t tear it apart
My nerves all jumpin’ actin’ like a fool
Well your kisses they burn but your heart stays cool

Romeo and Juliet, Samson and Delilah
Baby you can bet their love they didn’t deny
Your words say split but your words they lie
‘Cause when we kiss, Fire

Words and Musice by Bruce Springsteen.

There is no knitting content today. None. Nada. NIL. It’s like when I finished that shawl I was sapped of all my knitting super powers. I can’t even look at a sock. I’m sad. Anyway, come back, I don’t know, next month? if you want knitting. Thanks!

Last night was NOT devoid of excitement. It was about 9:45PM and I was laying in bed updating the MDSW sidebar (yes, I’m STILL updating) and watching this show about Bette Davis’s life. I love Bette Davis. Anyway, I’m watching tv and computing when G calls me in for dinner. I take my time wandering into the dining room from our bedroom and as I’m passing the kitchen he comes out, frantic, practically running me over.

“I need your help! There’s a FIRE!”

I walk into the kitchen – no smoke or anything – to see what can only be described as a nice bright ember glowing in the heating unit at the bottom of the oven. The chicken he was cooking is still in there and he proceeds to toss water on the coil. And when I say toss I mean throw a measuring cup of water in the direction of the oven missing pretty much everything that might be burning. I say why don’t we take the chicken out of the oven so we can get a better look at what’s going on? I wasn’t really scared or upset or anything because there weren’t really any flames, per se, but it was definitely on fire and it didn’t seem to be going out. We take the chicken out and the grates and watch it burn. G’s so pissed because he made corn on the cob and biscuits even and he’s hungry and I say I should get the camera to take a picture for the blog and he says do whatever you want. Yeah. No burning picture. The ember travels around the coil – so it’s moving – but it isn’t getting bigger. G throws more water into the oven. Nothing. Some sizzling and some sparks shooting out of the coil, but nothing like it’s going out. At all. It seems at any moment it’s going to get A LOT bigger and that’s what prompts us to get out the fire extinguisher.

I keep yelling, “DON’T POINT IT AT ME!” as G’s trying to figure out how to get out the pin. Not very intuitive those things. Had it been a real fire we would have been dead before we got the thing opened. He unpins it finally and takes aim and fires it at the burning coil. Nothing. Nothing, that is, unless you count a HUGE plume of toxic talc in our faces and lungs. Cough. Cough. Great.

About this time I remember that the washing machine and dryer are right next to the stove and that there are still clothes in the hamper on the floor and pants over the door that haven’t been folded or anything since the last time we did laundry so I’m scooping everything up and throwing it on the sofa in the living room and then I remember the big box of yarn that came the other day (I’ll tell you about it later) and I quickly get it all back in the box and close it up and open all the windows and then go back into the kitchen.

So the thing is still burning and now we’re trying water again which mixes with the fire extinguisher stuff so that we’re making a paste that will be impossible to get off ever and the coil is still burning. Then I take control of the fire extinguisher and hold that fucker down so that the ENTIRE house fills with toxic talc. The fire just won’t quit, moving along the track but now it’s getting to the other side of the coil and suddenly more and more sparks are shooting out and the fire blooms up then back to what it’s been and then I notice that the coil is burning bright orange further down the line where the fire is heading and it wasn’t doing that before. I close the oven because I’m thinking if this thing gets out of hand then maybe it will contain itself in there and G says no because opening it will cool it down and it’s STILL BURNING and I’m getting scared now and we’ve sort of run out of options and it doesn’t look like this thing is going to burn itself out and we both feel like the thing is going to explode at any minute. So we do it. God help me this means people, STRANGERS will see I’m a pig, but the house could burn down and we don’t have any choice. G calls 911.

“911. What’s your emergency?”
“We live at __ __ __. There’s a fire in our oven. We’ve tried everything to get it out. There’s not much smoke. (There really wasn’t any – it was just fire extinguisher crap.) It’s electric.”
“Did you try unplugging it?”
“We can’t get to the plug.”
“Did you flip the circuit breaker?”
Blank stares.
G runs over to where the circuit breaker is located, across from the stove IN THE KITCHEN, and we both start flipping switches. I look over to the oven. The fire is completely out. Nothing burning anymore. When I say instantaneous, I’m being slow about it. “It’s out,” G says to the operator. “No, no. It’s out. We’re good. Thank you.”

I’m amazed. In shock. Complete AWE that two incredibly intelligent, resourceful, quick on their feet people could be SO FUCKING STUPID!!!!!!

My house is covered with a fine mist of silt. Soot. Whatever the fuck you want to call this dust that is in everything. Oh and that little fire that probably wasn’t a fire at all – burned right through the coil in the stove. So I’ll be getting a new stove.
I just lay on the floor and started crying. Dude. I have to clean my house. I don’t have time this week to clean my house. I don’t. Next week I can clean my house. I think all the yarn is okay and it’ll be hard to tell what’s normal dust and what’s fire extinguisher dust. There is some good news in all this: the microwave still works.

I should’ve known that when I took this picture earlier in the evening it was a harbinger:

That’s pretty much what the stove looked like on fire.

I’m feeling EXTREMELY guilty about Maryland. We need a new stove. We just spent a fortune to fix our old car and now we’re not using our new (old) car because we need to keep it nice before we trade it in for our new (new) car which god knows when that will come so we’re renting a car to drive down to Maryland. It’s going to be really hard to spend money. Well, it’s going to be hard to spend money guilt-free. G says this year is a rebuilding year like the Mets. I say stop being so goofy and happy when your house almost burned to the ground you big lug. And besides, I’m a Yankee fan. I said we don’t have to go this weekend and he said of course we’re going and now that we’re renting a car it will be even MORE like a vacation. How’d I get so lucky?

Now, I have a favor to ask. I’m feeling really really really negative about my sockapaloooza socks. Somehow I feel like I’ve been cursed in this exchange and that I will NOT be getting a new pair of socks. If you are my pal and read my blog, can you please please send me out a note that says you are knitting the socks or have knit the socks or could care less about knitting my socks? I haven’t heard from you AT ALL and I’m sorry if I’m being a pain but I’m nervous and I don’t want to go to the mailbox every day just to be disappointed. Thanks sock pal. I really appreciate it.

Today, my pretties, we’re not going to talk about knitting. Yesterday was a really blah knitting day and kind of a blah day in general. (You know, it’s really hard to re-enter the atmosphere after such a fabulous knitting experience. Every project seems, well, pedestrian at this point. I’m sure it will pass soon.) Well, maybe a teeny tiny VERY important little bit about knitting….

Mr. Etherknitter, as most of you know, was in an awful skiing accident a while back and he hasn’t had as much progress as we’d all like in the bone growth department. So as all good knitters are wont to do in a time of need, we’re knitting for GROWTH! Find the details about Mr. Etherknitter here and the details for knitting to make that bone grow here and thank Maryse for the button here. I will be doing my part and knitting a bit today, with bone growth in mind. Pass it on!

Okay, back to the issue at hand. The weather. I’m not a weather person. I strive for comfort in my life, the kind of comfort the great indoors can provide. That’s not to say I don’t like to go outside, on occassion, but the conditions have to be pretty close to perfect. That doesn’t mean sun all the time either – I’m perfectly happy on a cloudy slightly cold day. Or a sunny briskly cold day. Or a warm, but not too warm, breezy sunny day. Or a snowy cold gray day. You get the picture. I just don’t really care that much about winter. If I want to go outside I go outside but most of the time I’m perfectly content to stay in my nice climate controlled home. Not so my husband. While we are perfect for each other, we’re so different in so many ways. He LIVES to be outside. He’s a Leo, born in August, and I’ve always thought that really influenced his love for the sun. (Me, on the other hand, I’m a Cappy tried and true – nothing but the dark, cold, bleak depressing winter for us!!) Anyway, G’s love of the sun and all things warm and outdoors really dictate a lot in our life. He suffers horribly from SAD – the minute the turn those clocks back in October it’s like a death knell on our house. In contrast, the minute they turn them forward it’s like spring and candy and lightness and all things good! He’s out there EVERY weekend, and I mean every weekend, playing tennis, sitting by the pool, soaking in those Vitamin D laden rays. Me? I’m in the house. Knitting.

So G works extremely hard for our family and we like to take vacations – preferably to warm climeates. We were supposed to be away this week. Right this second I was supposed to be on a sunny Bermuda beach with a virgin icy drink in one hand and a half-knit sock in the other. Instead, I’m here with you all! Why? Because G started watching the weather about three weeks ago and it was dismal. When I tell you there wasn’t sun in sight I mean it was rain, rain, rain, rain like you wouldn’t believe. He becamse OBSESSED with the weather in Bermuda. When the forecast everyday was cold and rainy, he cancelled the trip. (Luckily for us there weren’t any penalites.) Then he went about finding some place else to go.

Last week he found it – a place he’s always wanted to go – it’s exclusive, gorgeous, consistently rated one of the best resorts in the world and we’ve just passed peak season so the rates are much lower. Cap Juluca. AKA Paradise. We leave on Mother’s Day and come back on Wednesday – it’s a quick trip but with nothing to do but bask in the sun and eat at 5 star restaurants it was looking to be relaxing and rejuvenating. But…but…

Hmm. Tropical paradise, no? We ended up getting into a big argument about it. We can’t cancel this trip and even though when the weather was looking bad in Bermuda I was all like well we’ll be together and who cares and I can knit in the rain and blah blah blah and then he canceled the trip. THIS time, well, I was in a bad mood and then I was like why bother going if all it’s going to do is rain!? And he was all like what happened to the togetherness and the knitting in the rain? And I was all like well now it’s a world class resort and how can you go in the rain? Of course, we’re still more than ten days out and things can change quickly and I know that in the Caribbean it can rain for like five minutes and be sunny the rest of the day. But I can’t help but be obsessed now.

ETA: Georgie just called me – he called the hotel. (Insanity runs in the family obviously.) While not explicitly saying he was crazy, the woman he spoke to said that yes, it has been raining, but that the mini rain storms come in and out and don’t last and that 80% of the day it’s sunny. He feels better, so I guess I feel better too.

And have you seen the weather forecast for the weekend?

Rain on Saturday. Rain on Sunday. Any suggestions on what we should do about the meet-up? I know I’ve been lax about getting the names up there. I promise to have it updated by Saturday. That’s all that counts, right?

If you’re looking for me in the next week, chances are I’ll be off checking the weather.

One of the things that makes writing so amazingly incredibly difficult (and also why it makes it so so satisfying – please let me write again! PLEASE!) is that there is this HUGE gap between your imagination and what actually makes it onto the page. I can spend days and hours and days thinking over stories and having it be PERFECT in my mind and it never makes it out of my head exactly the way I want it to be. I’m not sure I know why this is – but it is. It’s probably the same for painting. Such inexactness is what makes it all so precious, maybe. I don’t know. But I know that writing is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life (so far) and that it’s like pulling teeth to get started and full of disappointment and the greatest feeling when you’ve done what you set out to do. I often cry when I finish a story, or at least I used to. Part so glad it’s over part awe that I created this.

I called G yesterday and in hushed reverent tones I said, “That shawl. My shawl. You know the one on the floor? Well it’s beyond perfect.”
“I know. It’s great.”
“No. I unpinned it. It’s amazing. EXACTLY what I wanted.”
“I saw it yesterday. You’re the best.”
“But it’s OFF THE FLOOR. You DON’T understand. IT’S PERFECT.”

I was like Maria in West Side Story, flitting about the house with that shawl – oh so pretty, so pretty and witty and gay. I tried it on while I was naked. (By the way, triangular shawls – not so good with the naked. Those points don’t cover much.) I did Talia Shire in Godfather III pulling it up over my head dramatically. I thought about greeting G at the door with nothing on but the shawl (I can’t explain why this particular piece of knitting is causing me to take off my clothes. I’m not usually like that with handknits) but then I had to pick him up at the train.

The best part about this shawl is that I had a vision in my mind and I GOT EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!! No where else in my creative life is this possible. With the writing – well I already explained that. With the photography – it depends. Sometimes I don’t know what I want with the flower pictures or the inanimate object pictures until I’ve taken one – liked it – and gone back to try to recreate it or change it slightly or jump off from there. And the kids, well, the kids is a cross your fingers on one hand, let the shutter fly on the other and hope for the best. It’s a split second kind of creativity and oftentimes I don’t remember framing the shot except it’s clearly obvious I did when I look at the results.

But knitting is different. It’s never perfect, there’s always some handknit anomaly somewhere in there, which is a GOOD thing and something my anxiety/control ridden/ocd mind wants and needs, but I can GET my vision! I can ACHIEVE what I set out to make. As soon as I finished my first DFS I had an idea about a DFS with beads. I was at Rhinebeck when I saw some black(ish) STR and thought wouldn’t it be so elegant in black with beads. I bought the yarn and left it in the drawer, oftentimes dreaming about it, and then the wedding came up. I’m glad I didn’t use the STR in the end, because I think the solid black is much more dramatic. And it’s HUGE. When I blocked it out I measured that it’s 35″ on each side of the middle line – so 70″ at the wingspan. And from the point to the top it’s about 35″ as well. (It hits way below my ass, thank you very much.) I feel such a sense of creative accomplishment. I had a vision, and that vision turned out to be true.

Thank you all so much for your comments. I will absolutely try to get pictures of me wearing it with the dress. Whatever dress works out. Wouldn’t you know it – I ordered some books from Amazon on Monday and did the regular shipping (not the free one) and the freaking books came yesterday. I ordered the dress on Sunday, paid for two day delivery – supposedly it shipped on Monday – and it’s not here yet. Today, I’m hoping. And please think good thoughts for it to fit. I would really, really like to wear the red dress and not the black one. The shawl will look SO much more dramatic against the red. 😉 (And I don’t really know the bride – I may have met her once, so I’m not feeling too bad about showing her up!)

I’ll end with this. SOMEONE better ask me about the shawl at the damn wedding. I asked G if he thought someone would ask about it. Did it look really good? Would people be impressed? (I know – Hello my name is Karen. I’m a validation whore.) He told me that I shouldn’t get my hopes up and used a couple of derogatory monikers to describe the people who most likely will be attending the wedding – excluding us of course. ONE person. I just want to tell ONE person that I made it myself.