22

Daniel's 22nd birthday is today. And he just graduated from college, and he's getting ready to head out to Washington D.C. and the Capital Fellows Program in September. We're pretty excited for him, and proud of all he's accomplished. If you're in town this weekend, there's an open house at our house from 2-5 on Saturday.

Following tradition of the last few years, Daniel grilled for his own birthday; today it was chicken in an apricot/honey marinade and salmon in a citrus and chili marinade; grilled asparagus and grilled corn on the cob. I did potato salad and a blackberry pie for dessert. It was all very nice.

The argyles are finished and were presented. By this time it was not a surprise, other than the fact that I finally finished them! We also bought him a pair of  Chaco sandals, which he requested and I drove to three different Portland shoe stores looking for on Saturday. It was an adventure. I aspire to be hip enough to shop for shoes in Portland on a regular basis.

Other exciting events of today: a raccoon was hanging around early this morning when Steve left for work, sniffing around Smudge's food bowl, which was empty at that point. He returned in broad daylight today when Daniel was on the back deck, and when I came along and growled at him to move along, he did not display what I thought would be the proper respect for humans... he bared his teeth at me and did not retreat. I ended up turning the hose on him and he climbed a birch tree, and there he stayed for the rest of the day, grooming his paws and taking over what I think was a jay's nest to nap in. He is the uppermost of the two dark blobs in this photo. Stay tuned. I'm hoping he moves along without the confrontations becoming a daily event. The bared teeth were a little creepy.

I really need to get cleaning for the party Saturday. 16 years of Latin books and files are still spread out over the living room floor. They are gradually getting sorted and somehow I'll find room to store them. I still feel like I need to have a big retrospective post about my years of teaching, but it's all still too exhausting to think about. I'll settle for clean enough, and process later. In my mother's Latin for Americans test booklet, which I've had for over a decade, I found a mimeo copy of a letter she wrote to friends in 1968, when I was 9 months old and we were living in the Netherlands. It was a beautiful treasure that I don't remember ever reading or knowing about before... maybe I'll scan or type it in to share here in the future.

Randomday - the spinning edition

I've not been doing much more than the Tour de Fleece.  The Tour de Fleece was made for stressed-out teachers like me on their summer break!  At the end of the day today, I figure I've spun almost 1.5 pounds of the 2.5 pounds of superwash wool that was my goal.  Here was July 5's spinning, the bowl balanced on my toes so you can see how it matches the dahlias.  I think my Dutch heritage has given me an abiding love of the color orange.

Now, I have been learning about the Tour de France while I'm participating in the Tour de Fleece.  The Tour de France is fascinating.  We all know about the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey that the overall leader wears.  But there is also the green jersey for the contestant with the most points, usually for sprinting over level ground.  And the polka-dot jersey for the best mountain climber, and the white jersey for the best rookie.  And it is a much more violent sport than I had realized.  The main pack of riders is called the Peloton, and they are racing literally wheel to wheel at 70 mph going around hairpin turns; there have been some gruesome crashes.  Sometimes the riders get right back on their bikes and race off again, and then the medic car will catch up with them and the medics will lean out of the car window and evaluate him as he pedals.  The 2nd place yesterday finished with a dislocated shoulder or something; there are riders still riding with fractured bones.  Yikes!  NBC carries some weekend coverage, but I've mainly been watching online, either live if I can tune in early enough on one of the Eurosport channels, or the 5-minute daily highlights version here.  I love the awards ceremony at the end of each stage.  Winner flanked by 2 beautiful girls in yellow, who garb him in the yellow jersey, present him with yellow roses and a stuffed lion, then kiss-kiss-kiss, kiss-kiss-kiss, shake hands with the VIPs (must seem like a let-down after the beautiful girls and the kiss-kiss-kiss).  Tomorrow is the Jura mountain range, and I'll be very interested to see it after reading Caesar's Gallic Wars.

And here is the spinning I accomplished yesterday.  Yesterday was not so great for wheel spinning because we had Daniel's graduation party, along with 4 other young people from our church, at Hazel Dell park.  It was open house style, and after making the sandwiches and picking up the cake I didn't have to do anything in particular, so I brought the Kuchulu along and spun on that Dicentra Designs "salt marsh" BFL/silk blend.  It's almost a 2-year spinning project now.  People kept asking me what I would make with such a fine yarn.  It's actually more like thread.  I have a pattern for another shawl-I-won't-wear in mind, but let's just wait to see what actually happens between now and whenever I finish spinning the roving.

After the picnic yesterday, Daniel brought his buddies home with him for an all-night geek-fest.  It involved lots of Minecraft and a few other games, the consumption of all the leftover cake and sandwiches, and two runs to McDonald's.  Steve, Tertia and I went to a piano recital, then brought one more buddy home for Daniel, then pretty much collapsed and were oblivious to the gaming and McDonald's runs.

Still upright but punchy at about 8:30 a.m. ...

but not upright for long.
Tertia and Quarta finished one round of swim lessons Friday and will start a second on Monday: Quarta will be moving up to level 4; Tertia is staying in level 2 and very happy just to be there.  She is the tallest, or almost tallest, kid in her class for once in her life.  She jumped off the diving board without needing someone to catch her!

Might as well do the weekly stash report: no change in quilting fabric but I've been adding quite a bit of yarn:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 50 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 22 yards

Yarn used this week: 0 yards, making progress on Lady MacBeth
Yarn used year to date: 3406 yards
Yarn added this week: 1030 - Tour de fleece, 10 skeins, plus one ball of T-shirt yarn made
Yarn added year to date: 2338 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 1068 yards

The Last Noel: Q&A

I was a party hostess instead of a blogger for the last few days, so here are some of the frequently asked questions about our Last Noel party Friday night.

Q. So how long have you guys been doing the Last Noel, your fabulously popular end-of-the-holiday-season open house?
A. It started when we were newlyweds in 1992, but it was before Christmas then.  It shifted to after New Year's when we had small children and were always travelling over Christmas.  There were several years when it didn't happen at all, but it's become an annual tradition since we moved out here.

Q. How did it get to be such a cool event?
A. Honestly, we have no idea.  We do not see ourselves as the kind of people who throw the coolest party of the season.  Hungry teenage boys, sloppy joes, and word of mouth might have something to do with it.

Q. What's the menu?
A. Sloppy joes, pasta salad, veggies and dip, potato chips, coffee, tea, hot cider, punch, and assorted Christmas cookies.

Q. How much food do you buy for it every year?
A. 15 pounds ground beef, 96 buns, 2 pounds of pasta and lots of assorted vegetables, 2-3 Costco sized bags of chips, 3 gallons apple cider, 3 gallons cranberry juice, 3 2-liter bottles of lemon-lime soda, 3 2-liter bottles of flavored seltzer water.  (This is more for my own future reference than yours).

Q. How many sloppy joes does the average teenage boy eat? 
A. It appears to be 3.  Two if they are holding back, or ate before they came.

Q. Is it really true that no one is allowed to have a Christmas party after the Last Noel, until next Christmas season?
A. No, that's just something I told my 7th grade class, and they're literal enough to believe me.  I wonder how they think I'd enforce that?  But I don't think anyone would want to have a Christmas party after the first full week of January.

Q. Do you have to clean the house furiously beforehand?
A. No.  This is actually a key part of it.  We clean, but not obsessively, and the piles of papers stay pretty much in place.  The tree doesn't come down until after the last guests leave, although they may be invited to help undecorate if they wish.

Q. How many people show up for this thing?
A. It varies from year to year.  We had about 75 people this time; not as many as some years, but most of them stayed longer.

Q. Music?
A. We have about 15 hours worth of Christmas music queued up.  Steve is in charge of that.  He tends to favor Baltimore Consort and the choir of King's College Cambridge.  I like to add a little Vince Guaraldi and Mannheim Steamroller into the mix.  We both like all the Celtic Christmas albums.

Q. Was this year's Last Noel successful?
A. I'd say so.  None of the kids had nosebleeds or needed an ice pack this year.  The noise level was intense, but the crowd managed itself pretty well.  Serious conversations took place in the dining room, the boys headed upstairs to hang out with Primigenitus, younger kids in the family room, and various groupings of lively conversationalists in the kitchen and living rooms.  Muffball remained in deep hiding in the basement and poked her nose out at about 10:30 when she was sure everyone had gone.  We took the tree down and vacuumed most of the little cedar seeds and debris up before going to bed.

Q. Have you ever in your life been more tired than the Saturday after the Last Noel?
A. No, I don't think so.  I may recover in time for school tomorrow, but I am definitely not as young as I used to be.

Q. When are you going to share the recipe for those fabulous filled raisin cookies pictured above?
A. Tomorrow.  They're worth waiting for.

Musca domestica; or, where's Domitian when you need him?

It started with a couple or maybe three houseflies in August. Somehow they had found their way in, and were relentlessly circling around in midair in the living room. It seemed they never lighted, but they must have. By late September there were several, and some had started circling in the family room, occasionally dive-bombing us as we watched TV. I discovered that the kids' toy bug-catcher net was useful, and started performing catch-and-release (outside) operations. My sister, visiting at the time, commented that I was perhaps too tender-hearted... "Albert Schweitzer" she called me. She was right. Sterner measures were called for.

Ordinarily, our cats take care of the common housefly, which usually is fat and slow flying. But these flies are of a different breed, smallish and high-flying and fast. We eventually discovered that when they rest, they rest on the ceiling. Catch-and-release morphed into catch-and-squish, then dump-and-flush. I became adept at the precise swooping motion needed to catch the flies when they were resting on the ceiling. The net became blood-spattered. I discovered in December that our angelfish and the new electric yellow cichlid like to gobble down flies when they are dumped into the aquarium. The white angelfish has now aquired the name "Glutton" because he eats the most. The black angelfish is now "Botox" because his oversized lips make it difficult for him to catch the flies without pushing them away. The yellow dude is "Lightning" because he is fast and unpredictable. I thought we had them whittled down over Christmas; but yesterday a new brood must have hatched. We came back from church to find a veritable menage-a-vingt-trois circling in the living room.

In other news, our house will be open to friends and neighbors this Friday. The Last Noel began when we were too slow to plan our Christmas or New Year's open house, and just decided to go with the Epiphany theme and call it good. It's actually a good time for a party: the first full work-week of the new year. We have found that it's an expected event every year now. Hope you can come and partake of sloppy Joes, Christmas music and goodies with us.