I’ll be mostly offline this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday. I’m going to make a mini-Gansey sweater at a Beth Brown-Reinsel workshop at Heritage Spinning in Lake Orion, Michigan. I learned about this workshop many months ago, in time to schedule myself the time off, which doesn’t always happen for me when these things come up. It turns out that Beth will also be teaching at Threadbear this month, but that information came to me after it was too late to change my plans.

I usually wake up around 10-11am after going to bed at 2-3am. The workshop starts at 9am both days, and is 1.5 hours away. I need to leave home before 7:30am. You can be sure I really want to do this workshop!!!

I have studied with Beth before and she is calming and thoughtful, focused and “just right” as Goldilocks says. I love being in the same room with her. After the turmoil of the last two weeks, I am really looking forward to being where I am not in charge and just learning and listening and knitting. This is perfect.

If you do not hear from me Saturday/Sunday, I promise photos of my project when I re-surface. For the record, we had to get “light colored” worsted-weight wool. I got yellow-green. Spring. It’s the color I always favor this time of year. I will drink in the promise of that color as I learn. See you when I get back!

I’m a reluctant cook. Actually, that is a significant understatement. I love to eat but kitchens will never feel like home to me, and on occasion I get flipped out and want to refuse to cook or bake at all. Fortunately, eventually I get hungry and sanity returns. I do miss the days when I ate most of my meals in restaurants. Maybe those days created the current situation, we will never know, but times have changed for me.

My life right now requires me to mostly eat food that was prepared in my own kitchen. I have enough food allergies that prepared foods, even most of those available in the health food stores, do not work for me. It has been a big change in my life, and my attitude, to find a new routine/schedule/lifestyle where I am in the kitchen every day, sometimes for many hours. This has truly been a process of befriending my inner adult, in so many words.

On some of my days off I try to cook extra for the freezer. Brian and I both take turns on the crockpot with turkey and vegetables. I make any breads I want or need, using alternative flours including brown rice, oat, buckwheat, teff and amaranth. Brian is the king of the steamer, he makes steamed fish and greens two or three nights a week which is a huge help and much appreciated. We are settling in to this new schedule, which kicked in fully about mid-November.

Planning Ahead

This weekend I am going to a knitting workshop at Heritage Spinning and Weaving in Lake Orion. The trip takes 1.5 hours one way and the class starts at 9am. I usually wake up after that, so I need to really plan ahead tonight for tomorrow’s meals that I will pack with me. I will mix up the dry ingredients tonight for the Teff Muffins I will eat tomorrow in the car on the way to the seminar. I made a few new foods tonight, hoping for at least one thing I can pack Saturday or Sunday, or at least eat quickly when I get home after a long day out.

Diana helped coach me through the first item, stuffed bell peppers. I don’t eat green peppers but I like red and yellow ones, and I found three nice red ones this week. Brian found some frozen ground turkey at a local grocery and so I fried that up, added garlic and red pepper flakes, basil, oregano, black olives and tomato paste. It worked out better than expected. We ate until we were full and I froze two small portions for lunches.

Experimental Unleavened Bread
Then I tried something totally new. I really miss tortillas, and finally found myself willing to fuss enough to try and make something like a flat bread. A few days ago I peeled, chopped and boiled two cassava roots (called yuca at my market). Cassava is the plant from which tapioca is made and when boiled long enough to eat, it reminds me a bit of potato but maybe a little more smooth-textured. I froze the cooked cassava and then today thawed it again.

I decided to try something on the order of the Norwegian flatbread called Lefse (pronounse LEFF-suh). I mashed a cup of the cassava root and a half a cup of baked sweet potato, added a cup of brown rice flour and some salt, and mixed it together with a pastry cutter tool. If I did it again I might use more rice flour or a second type of flour to dry it out just a little.

I put the mixture in the refrigerator to cool and “set.” I think it was a half hour or so later when I took it out, cut the mixture into 8 pieces and did my best to make a pan-fried bread. I flattened it out between my hands, and though it was a bit sticky it worked OK. (Next time I will try a little more flour.) I put a tiny bit of olive oil in my small nonstick skillet and fried it in a covered skillet maybe 1-2 minutes on the first side and another minute on the second.

The bread was very rough looking (see photo) but I like the texture and flavor. It’s more like a chappati (an Indian bread made with whole wheat) than lefse, but not as refined. The last few I put some extra flour on the outside before flattening them, and it helped the stickiness but they did not brown quite as well. It is a work in process but I am pleased the first try worked this well.

I like it. Brian says it’s more like a pancake than bread and he is right, but it’s stiffer and I think it will survive overnight in the refrigerator and a trip to my workshop tomorrow. It even looks like it might work for something like a sandwich, though I am not sure about that. For someone who has no real bread, this has some promise.

I am receiving notes, privately as well as through my comments, that you folks are pulling together totebags for my CityKidz. Thank you so much for your support, it really means a lot. The kids know that everything they use comes from you and they do ask me to pass on their thanks.

Cousin Karen sent a box last week with significant high-quality goodies (yarns) in it. I think she collected from her friends as well as her own stash. Everyone got to pick one ball out of the box when I opened it, even the slowest/newest kids in the crowd. I put the rest away in our storage drawers for regular use.

My mitten-inventor knit her mittens from her first choice out of that box. She also has already knit most of an armwarmer out of some green Kool Wool and she knit an MP3 player sleeve with what looks like some handspun yarn from Kool-Aid dyed roving in greens and turquoises. She also put a good number of pretty buttons on it for decoration, and the buttons mostly came from my friend YarnFairy (may she rest in peace) about a year ago. Here is a picture of that lovely creation for your enjoyment.

OK, I am going to break down and beg. The CityKidz Knit! program at Foster Community Center really really needs canvas bags for the kids’ take-home projects. They can have advertising on them.

I just can not send kids home with plastic bags and needles, they lose the needles on the sidewalk on the way home… and then a child who doesn’t know the safety rules about knitting has this pointy thing to play with. Not good. I don’t have a single bag left in the house (not even the heavy-duty plastic lunch bags i was given which are better than cheap plastic grocery bags).

If you live in Lansing, you can leave things for me at the office of Foster Center. They are open from 8:30am to 8:30pm (if nobody is in the office after 5:30pm, they are usually watching kids across the hall in the game room). They are at 200 N. Foster Avenue on the East Side near Frandor… four blocks west of 496, one block north of Michigan Avenue (turn at Blimpies), in a lovely old brick school building.

You can also mail things to CityKidz Knit! c/o Foster Center, 200 N. Foster Ave., Lansing, MI 48912 USA.

Or not. No obligation, but I know that some people have jobs that take them to many conferences/trade shows a year and they end up with piles of these bags that they do not need. I would put the bag in the hands of a young knitter, and that’s a very honorable place for the bag to go.

Thank you for your consideration.

Tuesday was good. Very good. It was all about relationship, about people caring about one another, being interested in one another. Taking care of each other and ourselves, together. I am proud I live in a community of this caliber.

Kids Knitting

I started the day with my knitting class at the middle school. There were only two girls this week so we had a bonding experience, three of us at one small table, all knitting. It was quite lovely.

The girls had asked me last week if I would bring one of my music CDs for them to hear and this week I did that. We listened to “My Blackbirds are Bluebirds Now,” “When the Little Red Roses Get the Blues for You,” and one or two others. It is “up” music and though they normally would not listen to this type of music they liked it enough to ask for a few more songs after the first. I was pleased.

Robert’s Memorial

I ran from there to Lansing Community College where the Robert P. Busby memorial service was held. I missed the service but got there before the reception ended, and collected many hugs. I am delighted to see how many people from so many parts of my life all came together because of the love of this fine man.

I was right, Dart Auditorium did not even start to hold all those who came. First they filled the auditorium, then an overflow classroom in Dart’s building, then the entire cafeteria in the Arts and Sciences building (a huge space) and several classrooms in the A&S building. I guess they broadcast the event into all the classrooms at LCC.

Anyone Get a Tape?

I hear that Wednesday they will broadcast the event on cable access TV. I do not have cable, I don’t even have a color TV or a VCR but I can watch a video at Foster Center when the equipment is not being used by a program. I hope someone I know ends up with a copy of the program so that I can see it. There was jazz music from beginning to end, I understand, a true testament to how much Robert loved Jazz and how much his musicians loved him. I would have loved to be there.

LCC Rocks

I tell you what, I’ve always felt great about LCC. I attended four colleges in total and LCC was by far the best deal for your money… smaller classes, actual access to your professors… and in this case a real understanding of community. Robert did study art at LCC, it was his school, too.

Then for this? They nailed it without flinching. They could not possibly know how many people would be there. They were absolutely prepared. They did the best job possible and I applaud them. For the record, it is not always easy to work there. I have friends there working with integrity but without enough staff… However, from the outside, as a patron, I am very impressed.

I walked with Regina to her car as it started to snow. The Central United Methodist church chimed at 6pm as we walked down Capitol Avenue, and it seemed fitting to hear glorious bell-chiming.

Fortunately, there was a little down time and I could go home to start a good meal. Brian cooked the fish when he got home but I had all the parts of dinner ready for his final touch before he arrived.

WDBM Tribute to Robert

We went to WDBM and joined Corrina (the DJ/host of Torch and Twang… Doug was out of town though he usually is there with her). When we got there, Jen Sygit and Drew Howard were on the air, singing and telling stories. We wished we could hear but the studio is soundproofed and for some reason they do not pipe the broadcast into the waiting room. We tuned our instruments and waited our turn.

I told the story of how I met Robert in 1987, did not get to tell any of the funny stories I might have told but I think I come on as a serious person and I *was* sad, so we went directly into the musical part.

Brian wrote a new piece, The Creole Waltz, this week. It is inspired by the Creole Gallery and Robert. We performed that first. You can hear him play it on his Youtube page, if your computer does well with Youtube videos. Later I sang “If You Want the Rainbow, You Must Have the Rain.” I nearly lost it, singing my heart out for beloved Robert, but I did hit all the notes, even if I had a quiver in my voice at the end.

Dominic Suchyta (of Steppin’ in It) and Rachael Davis came in to the studio and sang and reminisced, too. We told many more stories off the air than on… I loved Rachael telling of a child in her family who went to a concert of Rachael’s at Magdalena’s Teahouse. When Robert came in, the child made a beeline to Robert with a smile on her face. She had never met him before. She felt what we all felt, and she was in touch with her instinct to know she should go over and soak up the vibes from as close as she could get.

We hung out until nearly the end of the show, it was almost midnight. Corrina did a great job. She recorded stories from folks at the reception earlier in the day and played some great selections from those on the show… from people who really truly knew and worked with Robert for many years. She played jazz and world music from the Folk Festival which he loved, and a lot of tunes by folks who had played at the Creole over the years.

Dagwoods: More Friends, More Music

Afterward, Drew and Brian and I went over to Dagwood’s (a local pub since the 1940’s, still a neighorhood place on the East Side but also favored by young creative folks and older creatives alike). Jen Sygit does an open mic there every Tuesday. Brian and I sang a few. Corrina came in after her shift at the radio station was complete. Drew and Daniel played a bit (I’m pretty sure it was Klezmer music).

We left Dagwoods when the place was nearly empty. I did not want the day to end. It’s funny, I don’t drink at all and have never felt comfortable in a bar. At Dagwoods I feel totally at home and have no inclination to leave at all. This place does things right. It doesn’t hurt to know 20% of the crowd, and be friends with Pete the bartender and Jen the host of the open mic. It’s all good.

Cold Outside, Warm Inside My Heart

It was still snowing when we went home, the cold, crunchy stuff that makes for good-skiing “powder.” To me, a non-skiier, it just means cold.

But my heart was warm. I spent a day with good people, and we did what we could to help each other through a rough spot. We did what we do best, we mostly played music (and I knit, and knit, and knit… which is like worry beads to me). I went away feeling loved and comforted. This is just right, as Goldilocks would say.

I slept like a baby. And today, Wednesday, the sun shines. It is a good omen.

Photos: Brian and I at Dagwood’s Open Mic night (photo by Jen Sygit), Drew and Daniel on stage after us.

Joel Mabus is a fine musician, a national presence who happens to be from this “neck o’the woods.” He lived in East Lansing for a long time. He isn’t a very close friend but we enjoy one another’s company when we have the luck to be together.

Joel is skilled at songwriting (both poetic/thoughtful and funny) and plays many instruments extremely well. He has a distinctive style of playing. When I am listening to someone else’s album and he has contributed an instrumental solo to their project, I can identify the guitar playing, for example, as Joel’s. He has put out many albums, some instrumental and some vocal/song with instruments. I own five of these albums, and I’m not much of a music collector.

In 1990, Joel put out an album called “Firelake.” It contains the song “Snow on the Water.” This is the most calming song I know which helps me deal with loss and grief. His way with words (and just the right melody beneath those words) created what I consider a classic. I remember at one of our music parties, a friend and I got out this CD and agreed that we would like it somehow incorporated into our own memorial services.

Joel has given me permission to post the lyrics to the song here. The memorial service for Robert Busby is today, at Dart Auditorium (Lansing Community College) at 4pm and I will miss it. Tonight Brian and I will participate in a tribute on Progressive Torch and Twang (read this blog post for details), which will make me feel better. And meanwhile all day, I will repeat the words of this wonderful, hopeful song to myself.

I hope I will be able to start a more routine existance after a day of memorial and tribute. I am eager to start healing from this shock. Yes, we’re not in charge of our process but a week of crying takes its toll.

It’s not that I saw Robert often, it’s that when I *did* see him he was such a fine, calm presence. He was perhaps the best listener I have known, and because of that he knew me better than I knew him. Of all people, he did not deserve this sort of end. It is the tragedy, the big picture, that keeps me in tears… not merely my own personal loss. And with that I will turn to the comforting words of my friend, Joel.

Snow On The Water
By Joel Mabus

You can steal my money - you can wreck my car -
You can cut the strings off this old guitar.
You can do what you will, but you won’t get the best of me
You can take back the love that you swore was mine -
You can turn out the lights but the stars still shine -
‘Cause where you put your treasure - that’s where your heart will be.

It’s snow on the water - Snow on the water,
Such beautiful snow on the water,
Gone……….Gone……….Gone.

You can touch it on your body - you can put it in the bank -
You can nail it up in the suburbs plank by plank -
You can drink it from a bottle - sail it on the deep blue sea.
You can rock it in the cradle - seek it in a friend,
Why, some people fight about it to the bitter end,
But where you put your treasure, that’s where your heart will be.

It’s snow on the water - Snow on the water,
Such beautiful snow on the water,
Gone……….Gone……….Gone.

Tonight I’m thinking ’bout my friends who have gone before -
I sure do hate to think I’ll never see them no more;
But sometimes in my dreams, I can hear them talk to me.
And when the time comes for me to go
I want my friends to consider the snow,
Because where you put your treasure, that’s where your heart will be.

It’s snow on the water - Snow on the water,
Such beautiful snow on the water,
We’re gone……….Not really gone……….Just gone.

It’s snow on the water - Snow on the water,
Such beautiful snow on the water,
Gone……….Gone……….Gone.

Thanks, Joel, for a timeless and beautiful work of art. Friends, I highly recommend you go out and buy this album, it’s a delight.

1. It takes me 22 minutes to change a tire.
2. My arms are too weak to lift a tire out of a hatch, but my legs are not. Answer? a) Climb in hatch, 2) anchor hands in tire while lifting with legs, 3) drop tire out of hatch, 4) jump down. Works just fine.
3. I am grateful to be merely 48 years old, able bodied, done with the flu, and able to take care of myself this way.
4. I feel lucky to have a life without suits, heels, nylon stockings and fancy coats. I’m washable, which is often a good thing.
5. My dad was right when he wouldn’t let me take driver’s ed until I proved I could change a tire (on his 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, a “boat”).
6. There is personal power in knowing one can take care of oneself in less-than-great conditions.

I am kicking my own tush again. I don’t know how to be different but I need a change. I have TOO. MUCH. STUFF.

I drown in it. Yes, this is a small house, but that has nothing to do with it. I once lived in a 600 sq. ft. apartment for 10 years. I moved to a 3-bedroom, 3-bathroom house for a year, then moved back to about 800 sq. ft. I filled that big house in one year. It was a real hassle to get rid of the stuff.

I am learning to do maintenance as I go, in the kitchen. I have to cook at least twice a day in the kitchen, and since I have to bake if I want any bread-like item, I use lots of measuring cups, mixing bowls, the whole thing. Our dishwasher is half-sized and about half the time I run two loads in one day. The kitchen has lots of walking/floor space but very little work space. I am learning to work within those boundaries.

But my office? My studio? Aaack! Part of my problem is that I’m no doubt some flavor of what they call ADD, and I am very visual. I forget things twenty times before I remember them. If I leave things where I can see them, I’m less likely to leave them unfinished.

Brian reminds me if I just did things right away I wouldn’t have to remember. I always seem to have something urgent that makes me put things off for later, until *they* become urgent.

I also am a woman of creative passion. I have a zillion things I want to do, a zillion things I start (and usually eventually finish), far too many volunteer obligations, a singing career, a knitting-design career, a yarn-dyeing career, a teaching career, and what seems like a part-time job cooking nearly every shred of food I consume because of food allergies. I want to do more than I do, and there is only so much time.

At least twice a year I crash under the stress of all I have planned and the time I don’t have to do it. I start saying no, I clean up the top layers or one room, then I go on. And I start saying yes again (as if having the passion to do something means I have the time) and cycle again.

Today I spent a long time going through a pile of local newspapers, trying to find notices of my art exhibits or anything about The Fabulous Heftones. Done. I have a recycle bin full of newspapers and a smaller pile of pertinent career-related articles which still need some sort of cataloguing but they are off the floor next to my desk anyway.

It’s tax time so I’m also working on organizing my desk, my computer files, and my finances/life to get that all straightened out. I had another avalanche on my desk last night even though I’ve already started on this cleanup project.

In spite of it all, I am a productive person. I write patterns, I dye yarn, I ship yarn and patterns when they have been purchased by my (wonderful, appreciated) online customers. I teach classes, I knit samples and a few gifts and a few socks for me. I make meals and clean up after them.

(For the record, Brian makes a good number of our dinner meals now, too, which I really appreciate. He can make fish well and I am inept in that department, plus he does a bit of crockpot work on days off… for someone like me who doesn’t like cooking, a partner who cooks dinner sometimes is really a gift.)

I got rid of 12 bags of clothing and kitchen stuff not that long ago. It didn’t even touch the surface.

Today I’m typing on a keyboard that got drips of tea in it last night. The spacebar works now, but the right-hand shift key is inoperable. I need to buy a new one. Today, if possible! In days past I’d keep this keyboard “just in case.” Remind me to throw it away tonight… I can not afford to have one more thing in the house that I don’t actively use which does not have other value, either monetary or sentimental.

Off to mail a couple of yarn packages, and then teach computers! It will be a good day.

Last night I was searching for recipes that contain Tapioca. I found myself on snopes.com (a site for debunking urban legends, for the most part) reading a story they have validated as true.

A ship in 1972 nearly exploded when the tapioca in its hold got wet and started cooking from a fire being fought on the floor above. It is pretty funny in hindsight. I was in need of a chuckle, maybe you are, too.

The story can be found on Snopes.

I had a day of this and that. I started with more sleeping in, a wonderful thing indeed.

Then I went to Threadbear Fiberarts to teach the second session of my Cushy Blankie class, a class for relatively new knitters to learn new skills. We spent time learning about the structure of knitted fabric, so they would be less afraid of normal “hiccups.”

They then learned how to fix several sorts of mistakes, how to hide yarn  ends several ways, how to count rows in knit (stockinette), purl (reverse stockinette) and garter fabric. We made the stitches run down on purpose and then fixed the run. We noticed that wool does not want to run unless we stretch or pull on the fabric, even if the needle is no longer holding the loops. It’s powerful stuff and I got nice thank-you’s and even a hug from my students on the way out.

Threadbear was having a major spring sale, and the place was hopping. A lot of folks from out of town carpooled and made a day of it, so each car seemed to have three or four folks unload and go into the shop. I was pleased to see them have such a successful sale.

As for me, I got two skeins of yellow Bingo on sale for bed socks for Eric (my brother). Fortunately for me, I’ll buy the yarn and Diana (his wife, my sister-in-love) will knit them. We all benefit. I also got one hank of Cascade Pastaza (wool/llama bulky singles yarn, great for winter footie/slippers) in turquoise, also on sale for me.

And I bought three skeins of Malabrigo merino singles worsted-weight yarn, two in multiple reds and one in a sort of grass green with a touch of a blue cast to it. Those three were not on sale though I say that yarn is always a great price… they go to Diana as a thank you for the work she has been doing for me. The reds are so that she can make herself a Kristi Comfort Wrap (she sure has made a lot of them for me and others). The green is for her to make lovely things for others, as she enjoys doing.

I went home, thinking I’d take a minute and go pick up my yarn-winding helper but I had not made solid plans with her so she was not home. Cool. Brian was recording so I went up to the bedroom and knit while I chatted on the phone with Diana for a bit. Then downstairs to make some of my famous Tapioca-Coconut pudding and a good cup of tea. The problem with tapioca pudding is that you finish making it and then you have to wait for it to set up in the refrigerator. This particular recipe just is not good warm, unfortunately. So right now I’m waiting impatiently for the refrigerator to do its job.

While waiting, I spilled a little bit of my tea into the corner of my keyboard. I usually plug in a full-sized split keyboard to the laptop when I’m at home. Right now I am typing on the laptop’s internal keyboard and hoping that the keyboard will come back to life when it dries out. Otherwise my tea addiction just cost me a keyboard. Sigh…

Brian is editing music files now rather than recording, so I think I’ll go do some yarn winding now. It’s a little noisy so I can’t do it when he has the microphone plugged in. I don’t love winding, but I have yarn to wind and I am selling yarn faster than ever before so I need to stay on top of it. I will need another good long day in the dye studio soon.

Off to wind yarn. And then to eat pudding. This is the life!

I got an email from Corrina of Progressive Torch & Twang, that they will be having a tribute to Robert Busby on this Tuesday’s show. We have been invited to join the show in the studio around 8:30 (show continues until 11pm). They have asked a few other local musicians, but I do not know who will be able to make it.

I am honored to be part of this. It means a lot on many levels.

Here are the details on the Tuesday night show:

Progressive Torch and Twang
WDBM 89 Impact radio (tune 88.9)
(limited broadcast area, mostly East Lansing, Michigan)
Tuesday, March 6, 2007, 8:30-11:00pm

For those out of the listening area: if you go to the radio station’s main website there is a link on their front page for “Listen Live” which may work for you. Regardless of which browser I’m using, my computer tries to load Quicktime to play a .mov file, and it doesn’t work. However, I have a 4-yr-old Pentium III and maybe your computer will work better than mine.

The Power of Rest

I slept and slept, and it was a good thing. Never underestimate the power of sleep! I could still use a few more extra-long nights but I’m grateful for what I got. Aaah.

I’ve spent the morning listening to Joel Mabus‘ Firelake CD. I never get tired of his calming voice, wise lyrics, and melodies (whether sweet and calming or dance-worthy).

I have not spoken to a soul in the almost 5 hours I’ve been up. I can’t tell you how much I need those times. In fact, right now I have the music turned off, and all I can hear is the keyboard clicking, the furnace when it’s blowing, and cars driving by our ever-busier neighborhood street. Even last night when we were recording after 11pm we had multiple cars going by, and a larger proportion of them than usual needed a new muffler. Come on, spring!

But as I’ve said before, we can choose our mood by choosing our music, and a little music can block most noise from bad mufflers. Joel is the perfect antidote today.

Photo Time

I downloaded the photos from both of our cameras, with shots from Friday night’s dance performances at New Aladdin’s restaurant. I especially like the one showing my back and the full tables, with the beautiful murals of Lebanon on the walls.

Lazy-Day Plans

I’m off to take a long hot bath, followed by a marathon Comfort-Wrap knitting session. Soft yarn is such a wonderful thing, and I intend to indulge in touching it as much as possible today. Tomorrow will be another social day (I teach at Threadbear) so I’m building up my quiet time when I can.

The photo of Maia and the photo of the back of me looking toward the restaurant, were taken by Brian. The photo of me balancing the basket on my head was taken by Arlyn/Mahtaab (yes, I really dance while balancing it… and it’s a lot harder to do without wrapping your head with fabric first, which is not cheating). Thanks to both photographers for helping me document the event!

I had a Friday with no “wiggle room” in it. It was fun but I’m falling asleep here at the keyboard a couple of hours earlier than usual.

Yarn Shop Starts the Day

I started out helping out Rae at her shop for about 4 hours. It is always fun to work there. I like working retail but it can not be my career at this point. Being the final substitute in a short list of folks who can work the cash register, is just about right. I end up helping out a few hours a month and I have a great time. It feeds that interest I have without sidetracking my teaching/designing career.

Publicity Chairperson Duties, After-School Knitting

Rae relieved me at the shop around 3pm, and I next was scheduled to teach an afterschool program for an elementary school. On the way there, I stopped at the offices of City Pulse magazine to drop off menu information about Altu’s restaurant (I do her publicity, menus, the website, and music-related business). The kids’ program took longer than usual because it was the last session I had with them.

Transformation to Eudora the Dancer

And then I ran (almost literally) home and got my costume and makeup, to become Eudora the dancer. I had a show with Maia at Aladdin’s restaurant and we had a wonderful time.

Socializing and Good Food

The first time I got to slow down was after our second dance show. I can not tell you how fast I changed into comfortable clothing… and we ordered a very nice meal and chatted a good long while. I just love talking with her. She has lived in western Africa twice during high school, so we talk Africa and about differences in living and all sorts of fascinating cultural things. At least, fascinating to us!

Not Done Yet: Recording a Bit

After dinner I packed up and came home. It was 10:30pm. Was I done? Heck, no! Brian had me record vocal tracks for a song we have wanted to record for years but have never performed. I’ve known the song since childhood and it was a lot of fun singing it. Sometimes recording is painfully difficult, but this song was good fun and it went more quickly than is typical.

Wrapping it Up

After that? Finally turn on the laptop, check email very briefly (messages going out need to wait for another day), knit three rows on my current project (a Kristi Comfort Wrap) while downloading photos from the Aladdin’s dance performance.

It’s 1:30 and my eyes won’t stay open without a lot of effort. Usually I have to make myself go to bed at 3am whether I feel like it or not!

Usually Friday is my day off. It’s a good thing this time that Saturday’s class was cancelled. I get to sleep in, if I can only do just that! Lately I wake up at 9:30 or 10am even when I go to bed at 3 or 4am. I really hope to practice my sleeping-in skills Saturday! Good night.

I am astonished by my knitters at Foster Community Center. Just Wednesday we received a box of excellent yarns from my cousin, Karen, in Texas. I had them all choose one special yarn for starters.

The girl in the middle of this photo? She took home some handpainted wool Wednesday. She came back to me Thursday with a mitten finished other than the final row at the top and the thumb. She then proceeded to finish the mitten. Twenty-four hours for one mitten, and *she did not use a pattern* at all, not even as a reference.

She has learned to be a “folk knitter” from me. She figures out an appropriate yarn for her project (or picks a yarn and then decides what kind of project it might be good for). She selects the right size needles for the yarn/project and about the right number of stitches for her needs. She uses her eyes and her good mind to figure out when to place (in this case) waste yarn for her thumb, and she figures out by logic when to start decreases for the top of the mitten.

She had not closed a tube with a “drawstring” method before, so I showed her that today, and we had some intense lessons in finishing yarn on the inside of a tube (she is a very fast learner). She would do it a little bit differently if she did it again but she had a mitten knit literally “off the cuff” in 24 hours. Dang. I am SO proud of “my kids.”

For the record, the other kids are not slouches either. The girl at left is knitting her first sock (with DK weight Encore wool/acrylic yarn, another donation) and really enjoying it. She has been with me about a year and a half if I remember right. I have never seen a child want to knit so much as this child. She sure is doing it well, now!

The little boy started knitting with me last week after we had a lot of boys all join me at once. He did come to me today saying his brother might stop knitting because he thinks boys don’t knit. I told this little one that his brother would be wrong… that he can of course say that he doesn’t want to knit or doesn’t like to knit, but that men and boys do in fact knit often.

I have a looseleaf notebook in my classroom for times like this. We got out my “men knit” book and looked at the men and photos of their work. I told him how my first knitting teacher was Mr. Johnson and how he finally became “the Principal over all the Principals” (Superintendent of Schools) and he is a man who knit. How one of the yarn shops in Lansing is owned by two men. How one of my best knitting friends is a man.

My boy was of course relieved to hear this, because he really does enjoy knitting. He finished his first wristband today, after three sessions with me. He is on the young side, in fact I think he is officially not quite old enough for the program but I chose not to send him away. He really loves knitting, he sees the magic in making something from “string” and “sticks.”

In this photo he is also showing four pompoms he made. Rae carries pompom makers and I bought some one day on a whim, thinking that some of the younger ones who struggle with fine motor skills might be able to make a pompom even if knitting was hard for them. It turns out that the kids who are working on longer projects like to make these as a little break from the monotony of the knit project. And what a fast way to finish something and take it home in your hand! Kids love that sort of project… don’t we all?

I got a call asking me to sub for a friend, dancing at New Aladdin’s restaurant in Frandor (Lansing, Michigan) tomorrow/Friday. I jumped at the chance. I had been scheduled to dance in February but I was sick, so this feels great, only one month late.

There are shows at 6:30 and 8:00pm, for approximately a half hour each show. There is no cover, but I suggest you try dinner; or at least soup, a smoothie or their wonderful rice pudding.

I’d love to see a few of you there. The food is some of my favorite in Lansing, and the people there are such fine folks.

It is going to be a very good time! Come on, down!

This photo is about two years old… the debut of my dress that I bought in Egypt. I loved that show, the children were mesmerized by the sparkles on my dress. The girl in the pink followed me around the room, she loved the dancing and the dress so much. Since that day the girl and her mother have come to several Fabulous Heftones singing concerts, and the child loves to fall asleep at night to the music from our CD “Moon June Spoon.” She’s a sweet child and I’m honored to have her as a fan.

A Fitting Honor

The event to honor Robert Busby in Old Town Wednesday night went very well. They closed off Turner street and the crowd took up a lot of space, that was a really good move. The State Journal estimated there were 250 of us. (From my years in the restaurant business, I wonder if there might have been more.) I was amazed at how many of the folks I knew, at least in some small way.

There were so many people there, from so many segments of Lansing… there were artists, musicians, theatre people, business owners, residents of Old Town, family members, local government folks, old, young, straight, gay, many ethnic backgrounds, many income levels… a zillion of Robert’s friends (most in at least one of the other categories).

This man was such a fine person that everyone felt loved by him. I am not surprised at the turnout. I am grateful that it was 42 degrees F with no snow or rain for several hours while folks gathered and made more connection with one another. It’s something Robert would very much have liked seeing.

We all took turns talking or not, crying or not, hugging or not. There was much comfort in being together in those numbers, especially when I saw so many folks who I knew.

So I’ve cried a lot, I will no doubt shed a few more tears but the sharing of grief is called mourning and it is an important part of going forward. As a knitting friend said today, when you have a loss of this type, it is like a wound to the skin. It heals over and the wound fills with scar tissue. You go forward but the truth is that it’s still a scar, you are not the way you were before. You just learn to go on with the new situation.

Turning it Around a Little

So I’ve been doing more to find comfort. I listened to the Teletubbies theme song, for starters. They just plain make me smile, you don’t have to agree but it works for me.

You see, in Teletubbyland nothing bad ever happens. The worst that goes wrong is a mess, usually spilled food, and the Noo-Noo always appears to clean up, no questions asked, no problems. I like this idea. I want a Noo-Noo!

I also listened to Annette Hanshaw again. Annette’s MySpace page right now has the song “If You Want the Rainbow, You Must Have the Rain,” in the full length version. I listened to that one a few times. It’s not like we love the rain, but it is part of the cycles of living on this earth.

I had a good dinner, am drinking some good tea, and then I will be spending a little time with Brian playing music, just after midnight. After a bit of rehearsal, he will go up to sleep and I’ll stay up longer and do some work down here in the quiet.

I love working in the quiet at night. Too bad that for some reason I keep waking up early this week! It’s a not-enough-sleep week but I used to do that every week and try to make it up on the weekends. This is not nearly as bad as those years.

Off to make music and then put pretty colors together. I won’t take these “small” pleasures for granted today.