My grandparents, thirty-six years ago, at the hospital the morning I was born.

Me. Not the baby below. At least that’s what Ann said. It was a frustrating afternoon, spinning-wise and surprise surprise: I don’t like NOT being good at things. Ann will tell you there was stomping. I say pouting, but whatever. I’m not in such a great mood. But the company was FANTASTIC. Jen was kind of enough to let Xavier model with the birthday package.

Super cute picture, right? But I forgot the newspaper. So we took another one. I dare say X is laughing at me!

Jaywalker updates will be late tomorrow. Get them in now if you can. Thanks.

https://januaryone.com/blog/post_5/

Margene, my love, I’m sending you the bill for couples therapy.

We took the first one, but then I felt like you
couldn’t tell I was balancing the package on my head.
So we took eighty-seven million more in various locations.

He thinks he’s a photographer now.

Georgie’s home for the rest of the week. Besides photog, he’s added blogger to his resume, even though I had to give him the old “If you’re home during blogging hours, you’ve got to get with the program” lecture. He’s been on three conference calls and thrown me out of MY office twice, but hey, togetherness is bliss. Right?

I’m at the point in the work now that there’s only a couple more things to do and if I’m not careful I’ll forget about them. I also set a knitting goal for myself: one and a half jaywalkers down from FIVE COMPLETED PAIRS SINCE OCTOBER 19th. I’m challenging myself to finish off the last sock BEFORE Jan 1. I should have the ninth sock completed by the weekend – by Saturday – so then I have a week to go for the tenth. Piece of cake.

PS – Bloglines? Nice work. Thank you.

My wonderful friend Margene emailed me yesterday to tell me that she sent me a package. But could I please not open it until my birthday. In fact, she wrote, “why don’t you take a picture with the newspaper everyday so I know you haven’t opened it.” What?! Don’t you trust me? I feel like one of Mary’s dogs. Zen gift getting.

There you go, M. THIRTEEN FREAKING DAYS! And damn that box is heavy. 😉 Thank you SO MUCH for thinking of me! I just love presents to open on my birthday!

That’s the time right now – give or take a couple of minutes. I’m off to bed very soon, but I’m leaving early tomorrow morning and I won’t have time to blog.

I finished my class tonight. Overall, it was a good class. Left me with the feeling that I will teach again. I’m so tired though I’m numb and I didn’t get that nice feeling of accomplishment now that it’s over. Probably because I came home and went right back to work. It will be nice to be at my sister’s for a couple of days – besides the obvious – the kids – I can use the break. And G’s busy all week with meetings, so I’d just be home alone all weekend anyway.

I think I knit three rounds while I was waiting for my students to come in tonight. If I don’t knit tomorrow on the train it’s because my hands have fallen off my body or some other such travesty.

One of the bright spots these last weeks has been something sweet and simple and reminiscent of my old pre-knitting, pre-blog life when all I did was read: Alice Munro had a new story in the New Yorker a few weeks ago and I assigned it to my class. She is one of my all time favorites and what she does with words and story is true magic. Here’s a link to the story: “Wenlock Edge.” While I was searching for the link I found another one of hers online: “Passion.” I miss reading. I was talking to my class tonight and I need a book. Something big and juicy that will take me a little while to read and I won’t be able to put down and when I’m done I’ll be sad and want to immediately pick up something else. It has to be fiction. “Literary” fiction – yes, the snobby elitist kind. And NO HARRY POTTER. Can you help me? Leave me some suggestions in the comments. It doesn’t have to be new, or old or classic. Just good. Have to read way into the middle of the night and then again at breakfast the next morning good. Make me want to read again good. Go at it.

Tomorrow is something of a milestone in my life. I will be taking care of my dad – something I never really thought would be my responsibility. My mother’s gone off with her new life and my siblings and I are really the only family my father has. I’m so glad we’ll be able to help him tomorrow.

Whereever you are, whatever you’re doing – hug someone today. Tell them you love them. Then tell them a joke. I’ve always said I know I’ve had a good day if I’ve laughed, been kissed and hugged, and said I love you or had someone tell me they love me. See how easy it is to have a good day? Now go out and grab yours.

I guess that’s not entirely true. I knit like one round on a sock in the morning while G was in my office. That didn’t last long and I could barely get my fingers to move.

I will have time to knit tomorrow. Because all my work will be done? Because it’s finally time for some holiday cheer? Why no. Thanks for thinking it though. I have to go down to Philly for a funeral. One of my father’s oldest and closest friends died and my sisters and I are going to the funeral to support him. He’s worked very closely with the man for forty some odd years and while it feels good to support my father (he’s not an easy one to take care of) I’m sad about the circumstances. So there will be train knitting.

But that’s two days I’m out of commission. Two days. I don’t sleep anymore. When I do crawl into bed I dream about all the things I need to be doing. Not very restful.

That said, Jaywalker updates might be late. And Showcase #3 might be late. I don’t know what I’ll be able to get done at my sister’s. If the goods arrive today, the Showcase will go on as planned. If not, we might have to wait until Sunday. And the updates, well, they’ll come soon. Maybe Friday. Maybe not.

I have to publicly flog myself now. It’s all about Sockapal2za. If you remember, I made these great socks for Leslie. (I say they were great not because they were actually great, but because I had such a great time knitting them. Great pattern, great yarn, great recipient – what’s not to love?!) Anyway, I sent my socks out and Leslie was wonderfully grateful and I sat back and waited for my own pair. Which never came. Yeah. I got shafted. But not one to complain about an all around good experience, I let Alison know that I never heard from my pal or received any socks. And I volunteered to be a sock angel. I was given my sock angel’s information and I started thinking about what socks to make her. Honestly, I wasn’t in a rush. Alison didn’t give a deadline (that’s NOT an excuse) and I was doing other things.

And then I received a package. This package was addressed to me and inside was another package, completely sealed, addressed to someone else. Well, the address was kind of ripped off but it was clear the package was going to someone else. Inside this second, sealed package was a pair of socks, and some sock yarn. And a note. The note, addressed to someone other than me, basically said this was the first and last socks that the gifter would be knitting (you could gather it wasn’t a good experience) and that here they were. Sorry they were late.

These were my angel socks.

I was pissed. I never blogged about it. It was what it was and that’s how things can go in these exchanges. If it had been me, I would’ve at least unwrapped the original package and somehow personalized it for the new recipient. How hard would that have been? I have to admit, it soured me. I like to think I’m immune to these things – I mean the whole secret pal thing is akin to lending money – you can’t expect ANYTHING back. But this felt sort of like a slap in the face. I got something, but how crappy is that? I let it affect me. I let the bad feelings seep into my own feelings about knitting a pair of socks for someone else. Because I was disappointed, I ended up disappointing my angel.

When I finally got my act together, I couldn’t figure out a pattern. I cast on a bunch of times. Poured over sock patterns. Nothing felt right. And by then I was starting the whole Jaywalker kick and my knitting time had become very precious and I couldn’t bear to knit for someone else. I suck. I know.

Long story short, I’ve been dismissed as a sock angel. How awful is that? I feel really, really bad about it. Really bad. I don’t like to disappoint. EVER. And when I say I’m going to do something, I DO IT. I guess there’s a first for everything. Here’s a public apology to Alison: I’m sorry for dropping the ball. To Lisa: I’m sorry for disappointing you YET again. And a huge thank you to the Sock Angel that picked up my slack. I owe you one. Thank you.

Please don’t leave comments telling me how great I am or how I’m really a nice person or I didn’t mean it – think about it. If you were in Lisa’s shoes, you’d be sad and disappointed and maybe have some not so nice thoughts about knitters and people who don’t live up to their promises. I certainly did when I was disappointed. It is what it is. We all make mistakes. I know this doesn’t make me a bad person. Or even a good person for owning up to it. I just feel bad I flaked. Done. Besides I want to be in Sockapal3za and I don’t want any bad karma hanging over me.

Back to work. People keep counting down to this wretched holiday, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. There’s still so much to do. Bah humbug!

It’s a good thing my body just automatically remembers to breathe, otherwise I would’ve been dead two days ago. I KICKED ASS this weekend. KICKED IT REAL GOOD. I actually went to sleep last night semi-caught up on the work – that doesn’t mean I still don’t have shit loads to do, but now I’m not a week behind the way I was last week.

This also means I’ve barely been knitting. Friday I didn’t knit at all. Saturday I did some good work – cast on for the second mitten, made some good progress on a sock. (A new Jaywalker with some STR – blah blah blah. Yeah. I didn’t think you cared.) Sunday I had some time late in the evening to knit – G’s out all this week for his quarterly meetings – but I was so shell-shocked from all the work I did that day I just lay in bed paralyzed. I watched the West Wing wedding (where I really, REALLY appreciated the whole hoagie vs cheesesteak with Whiz moment.) I feel so sorry for Josh. I love Josh. It’s like the more pathetic he gets the more I like him. And why aren’t he and Donna doing it yet? What’s the deal? Then I watched Grey’s Anatomy. Gotta love the DVR – no watiting for the shows. I really like this show. It’s just soap opery enough for me and the characters are funny and stupid and it’s over the top but not too over the top. I gotta say, I’m not so into Dr. McDreamy. He’s such a pathetic wuss ass I’d rather smack him than anything else. But I love Alex. So not my type physically, but he’s got spunk and the whole vulnerability thing. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway. It was a nice diversion for my tired, tired body. Who knew sitting at a computer for ten hours straight was such physical work?

I actually have a shoot tonight. For holiday cards. I’m not kidding. That’s why the push this weekend. God help me if I had to process this new job, in like two days, with other jobs still in the queue. This will be IT until next year. NO MORE. I’m done. I think I doubled my work from last year, which is damn good considering this is really only my second season. The first one doesn’t count since everyone I took pictures of I knew. Last season was my first – the one where I was really out in the world, with strangers calling to hire me. I’m proud of myself, just damn tired.

Don’t forget! Tonight. 8PM. The cutoff for Showcase #2. (See post below.)

NOTE TO SELF: Don’t blog about work. YOU WILL JINX YOURSELF. If you say you are sort of caught up, Fate hears you and DUMPS A WHOLE NEW PILE IN YOUR LAP. STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.