A Plug for Jessica

I helped out at a friend's wedding by making bouttonieres for the groomsmen and a corsage for the mother of the bride.  You may recall the wedding where I did the bouquets a few years ago in this blog (key word "weddings").  The groom at this wedding was the brother of the bride at that wedding and when he got engaged, he told me he was counting on me doing the flowers.  This was right before my surgery, so I told him he'd better find someone else.  As it turned out, though, I was able to a little bit with the corsages (photos below).

But what was really adorable at this wedding were the program place cards at each place on the dinner tables.  Unfortunately, my cell phone photo cannot do it justice.  I found out they were done by Jessica Marcotte, an absolutely fabulous designer for parties and such who works out of the bay area.  You can find her blog here.  Check it out!

Father of the Bride

Mother of the Bride

Groomsman

I'm Back!

 

I've been gone a while, Friends.  Mostly I've been rather incapacitated and in too much pain to tend to my blog.  My right hip had been displaced since childbirth, unbeknownst to me, and after a fall and an injury back in 2008, it became obvious what was happening.

I had total hip replacement in March and I am still recovering, but as you can see by my photo taken at a wedding last week, I am free of pain and suffering!  I haven't felt this good, well, ever!

I've been busy with crochet projects on and off when I could manage, and I've posted a few of them here.  I'll try to be more diligent in future about keeping this blog updated.

Bastille Day Story

I know it's been a while.

Someday I'll have to catch up with y'all and let you know where I've been and what I've been doing.

Someday.

Meanwhile, stop me if I've told this before.


Whenever Bastille Day rolls around, I always remember my trip to Paris when I was 17.

I was traveling with a church youth group to England in 1970. It was quite a momentous trip in many, many respects. I had never flown before. We had gotten a charter on the first 747 plane to cross the Atlantic -- the return flight to Paris. In Paris, we had a 24-hour layover before we went on to Heathrow. It was so exciting!

I was 17. Besides one other girl on the trip, who was 15 or 16 at the time, no one spoke French. And our claims to "speaking French" were quite nebulous, especially since this was Paris where we learned that the French spoken is analagous to the American English spoken in the Bronx. We couldn't understand a word!

But we were so determined to use our French in possibly the only 24-hour period of our lives when we'd have the opportunity, that we just kept trying.

Because of the time zone difference, we arrived at our hotel in Paris at about dinnertime on our biological clocks, but it was after midnight there.

My friend the Freshman in French and I, the Junior, roomed together. We were wide awake as Paris was shutting down. We occupied ourselves by laundering our delicates in the "funny little sink in the bathroom" and then writing letters on the little balcony. So romantic! We were in our pj's and bathrobes. It was 2:00 a.m. local time and most of the hotel staff was leaving the hotel, their shifts having concluded.

Two young men saw us sitting on the balcony and called up to us to come down and join them! OMG! What do we say?

We closed the French doors and consulted each other. How do you say "Go away?" Ummmm. Don't know.

"Um" (me), "let's tell them to 'Come back tomorrow!'"

(Her): "Great idea!"

We opened the French doors and peered out, saying, "Come --"

-- and before I could say "back tomorrow," in my faulty French, they entered the hotel and came up to our room and started banging on the door!

OMG. Turn off the lights! Shut the door! Be quiet! Don't answer! They'll go away.

Then went back downstairs and outside and counted the windows (we peeked through the curtain with the lights still out).

They came back up and started banging on the door again!

OMG!

Then we got another great idea! We should use Morse code and knock S-O-S on the wall between our room and the one next door, summoning two strapping young men from our high school to rescue us.

I took a shoe and started knocking. The French guys went down stairs and started counting windows again. They came back up.

I stepped out on the balcony and the guys next door stepped out on theirs.

"Jo Anne, this is your own stupid fault. You should never have talked to those guys in the first place! And by the way, that wasn't S-O-S you were tapping, you idiot."

They went back inside.


So much for chivalry.

Well, eventually the French guys went away, but not after waking the entire hotel. (We learned later that one of the high school guys went down and went out drinking with them.)

Next morning while my girlfriend and I were having our petit dejeuner of croissants and cafe au lait, the Methodist minister who was the leader of the youth group came over to our table. Without even asking us what had happened, he said, "You girls are forbidden to speak French for the rest of the trip."

"But, Rev!"

"No buts. No French. Period."

Well, then it was time for our tour of Paris. We soon learned that our tour was taking place on Bastille Day and that on Bastille Day, all Parisians leave the city and go picnicking in the country. The place closes down! We saw the Louvre from the outside. From the tour bus, we saw the Arche de Triomphe and the outside of the Tour d'Eiffel because they were -- well, outside. Other than that, we were spoken rudely to by anyone we met except in one little cafe where we stopped for ice cream. (The BEST coffee ice cream I ever tasted in my life.) There I surreptitiously spoke a little French with the waiter until I saw one of the adults giving me the evil eye.

Finally, it was time to go to the airport. The minister was having a hard time understanding the tour guide and apparently the gates had been changed for our departure. The tour guide was trying to direct the minister where he should go and he couldn't find all the English words. He answered a question of the minister's in French and the minister turned to my girlfriend and me and said, "What did he say?"

You know those times when you remember later what you should have done or said and then kick yourself?

This wasn't one of those times. We'd been carrying this grudge for over 12 Whole Hours!

My girlfriend and I looked at each other, then turned back to look at the minister, shrugged our shoulders and said in unison, "I don't know, Rev. I can't speak a word of French."

Happy Bastille Day, Everyone!

My Own Igloo

I gave myself my moniker years ago when trying to set up a Yahoo! account. I tried to make it PenguinLover but that was taken. I really don't like adding numbers to a screen name that is already taken, so I tried MyIgloo.

That was taken too. By then I was getting a little annoyed, so I said, "Well, all right" (and yes, I really do talk to my computer screen), "how about MyOwnIgloo?"

Thus, a globally challenged persona was born (scroll down to the bottom of my blog to see my trademark).

May 2009 is a signature month for myownigloo because in May 2009, a law firm partner who likes to bake on the side made me My Own Igloo!

Ain't it grand?

Warm You Up Winter Swap Blog Question #3 (West Coast Version

What would you do to stay warm and cozy while it’s snowing?

Yes, I remember snow.  And ice.  I'm an Illinois child, remember?

People who don't live in California often think that I live in a sunny clime.  But San Francisco is not often sunny, and it's not at all the balmy paradise that folks imagine.

One of the pastimes here in the summer, especially in July, is watching the tourists shiver their way around town in their wholly inapproriate attire:  shorts and sandals.  They don't often think to bring winter gear, but July is actually our coldest month.

I caught pneumonia in San Francisco when I first visited here in July of 1966.  I had spent the day before in Sacramento where it was 106 degrees in the shade, got the worst sunburn of my life (3rd degree in places), and then came to San Francisco where my all-weather raincoat was insufficient to keep me warm, especially considering the temperature of my skin.

Still, I haven't seen much snow here except on the mountaintops or on a trip to Tahoe or Reno.

What I used to do to keep warm was to bake.  I still do that here, even this past weekend.  I'll bake or roast something and then prop the oven door open and let the air get warmed up by the leftover heat.  Sometimes I even stand in front of it, warming my hands and behind, until it's all cooled down.

Also in the running:

• Wearing a very fluffy warm bathrobe;
• Taking hot, hot baths;
• Wearing woolen socks or houseslippers with a cuppa tea;
• Wrapping myself in an electric blanket with a cuppa cocoa;
• Snuggling with a) a cat; b) two cats; c) a reluctant husband (who is cold-blooded anyway so he isn't much good to me in these circumstances).

Bonus:  a picture of my Christmas cactus right before Christmas.  I raised it from an accidental cutting that got knocked off of a hostess gift I took to a Christmas party in 2007.  The cutting was just three sections long.  Look at how big it got!  You can just see its first bud forming.

A Bootie Story

At the baby shower (Baby Booties of Past):

Three months later (Baby Booties of Present):

And for this baby, Baby Booties (and more) of Future:

Virtual Silence

If I don't blog for a bit, it's for good reason.  Now that I'm officially terminated from my job, my occupation has become The Hunt.

On top of that, I've come down with a ghastly bug.  I've had to postpone all my interviews this week save one and take to my bed.

But one good thing about this is having discovered photos on the old laptop that I thought I'd lost.  The slippers above are called Slam Dunk Slippers.  I made them for a ginger-haired boy in Washington who has outgrown them by now and has probably passed them along to his baby brother.

I'll be back with good  news in a jiffy!

Take care!

A Wall of Importances

As my days at the office wind down, I am getting blindsided by something I hadn't predicted.  It seems stupid that I wouldn't have realized it, stupid is the name of the game when you're reeling from a heavy loss.

Every day another coworker says good-bye. Every. Single. Day.
I've built walls of protection around myself, only to find I've walled in something forgotten. Then I have to build another wall within the first, and another, and another, until I find myself looking through the windows (never one to completely close myself off, I put windows in my walls) at important things that I am not dealing with right now.

Things like flu shots and washing the windows and getting the last little bit of filing done.

It's at times like these that my tendency to organize every facet of my life comes in handy. I'm making lists.

Someday, after I've landed on my feet, I'll pick up the lists and start ticking things off.

But right now, adding "talk to the recruiter" and "set an appointment for an interview" and "get a haircut" to my usual daily routine is about the most change I can tolerate.

Top of the daily routine list is "when you've finished crying, remember to smile."

When I took pictures of my coworker wearing the hat I'd made her, one of them showed the address of the building where we work so I left it out of the blog. Now that it's no secret anymore, I include it as a memento of our years here.

The Summer of Yarn Love Swap Final Reveal

I figure as long as I am on borrowed time at my job that I should catch up on blog posts.

The final reveal for the Summer of Yarn Love Swap at Ravelry was kind of like the end of the world:  except that it ended with a whimper and a bang.  My spoiler Pamela (of Pamela on the Farm fame) and I had gotten to know each other quite well in emails and I was pretty certain I knew who she was, so the reveal wasn't all that surprising.  It seemed more like a mint on my pillow after full day of heavenly languor on the sun deck over Caribbean waters.  (This is the "whimper" part.)

In the last box she sent, Pamela included a letter that linked each item with her and her family and tied us together with our common threads -- and there are so many of those, it is uncanny.  I don't think she even realizes how linked we have become.

I don't think everything that she sent is visible in the photo above.  She sent playing cards and a car air freshener to represent both Ohio and the inevitable "life in the car" that moms like her lead.

There was lots of sock yarn for my baby projects (she knew I wanted to try making the Berroco design Celestine crochet dodecahedron).  (In fact, I have already started one this week):

What Pamela didn't know (at least on a conscious level) was that right before this package arrived, I had decided to try my hand at crocheted socks.  So not all of this yarn will become dodecahedra.

That book in the foreground?  Another one of the Amazing Pamela's Mind Meld products.  One of the questions on the questionnaire for the swap was, "Do you collect anything?"  At the time I said no, but when I saw this comb-bound recipe book from the Ohio State Fair, I realized that -- albeit not on purpose -- I actually do collect something.  Behold!  My grassroots comb-bound recipe book collection:

Clockwise from the far left:

• Best of the Fair previously seen;
• a Greek cookbook from a Greek festival I attended in Oakland when DH and I were first married;
• my grandmother's church's cookbook (Grace Lutheran in Northern Illinois); and
• last but not least, my childhood church (State Street Methodist in East St. Louis, Illinois) cookbook circa 1961. I distinctly recall my mother and the ladies in her church Methodist Women's circle collecting the recipes inside. They even wrote to then First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and received "her favorite" recipe for tomato aspic. That recipe, along with a cover letter from her personal secretary proudly grace the first pages of the cookbook.

See that little bag resting on top of the Best of the Fair cookbook in the earlier photo?  I really suspect that Pamela made what was in that bag and that it's a recipe that's in that cookbook, but she neglected to mention it in her letter, so we'll forever be in mystery.  (Unless she decides to comment on this blog post, that is.)  Anyway, it was a yummy treat that sent my blood sugar soaring and would have caused great damage had not my Dear Husband been nearby because after I'd tasted it and it became obvious that it was Not Long for this World, he thoughtfully disappeared the rest of it.  (He liked it a lot, too!)

Now, I would have been perfectly content with all of this, but then I saw the homemade item!  (This is the "bang" part.)

This bag is perfect in so, so, so many ways.  First off, it's entrelac.  I mean, I can't even knit and purl anymore, so just the thought of attempting colorwork this complicated boggles the mind.  Second, it's a bit of Ohio culture.  It's called a buckeye bag.  I wish I could go to Ohio and pick buckeyes and carry them in it!  But I'll have to settle for carrying crochet projects when I go to very special events.  Thirdly, although the photograph doesn't do them justice, the colors are just beautiful.  And fourthly, she felted it!  This is another craft skill I haven't done yet.  I am in absolute awe of Pamela's skills.

I have Pamelaonthefarm to thank for making the summer of 2008 delightfully memorable!

Tagged!

(Truth be told, I sort of self-tagged over at Kim Guzman's blog.)

What was I doing ten years ago?

Hmmm. I was living in the San Fernando Valley, learning to survive without my daughter at home by pouring my heart into all those activities that I'd put on hold since I'd become a mom.

I'd started playing piano again and had teamed up with an operatic soprano. We met Thursday nights for rehearsals at my house. I was working at a law firm (that I absolutely hated) only because it was within walking distance of my apartment so that I could get home in time to practice before my neighbors got home from work.

I was having a long-distance dating relationship with this man in San Francisco who would come down for my concerts or have me up to San Francisco for touristy stuff or meet me halfway in Morro Bay. Life was good. (I married him. Life is still good.)

Five things on my non-work to do list today:

1. Work on my Tunisian crochet homework.
   
2. Read in the book that was due back to the library last weekend (but which they won't let me renew so I have to pay a fine to finish).
   
3. Go to the post office to mail a letter to Canada and buy some pretty stamps.
   
4. Lunch and the farmer's market with a friend.
   
5. Browse the Internet and upload photos to my Ravelry page, plus add to this blog.

Snacks I enjoy (in no particular order):

• Haagen Daazs Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream
• Wasabe peas
• Chips and Salsa
• Chocolate anything
• Cookies
• Fresh Cherries
• Nuts
• Prunes (really!)

Things I would do if I was a billionaire:

• Crochet to my heart's content.
• Practice piano and other instruments more.
• Hire a personal trainer to keep me fit from all that sitting.
• Give most of my money to charity or set up a foundation to do it for me. Then set up annuities or funds to make sure DH and DD and I are taken care of for the rest of our lives.
• Live in a nicer place nearer to the center of my interests.
• Have houses or townhomes in a few cities around the world.
• Pay someone else to do my laundry (and throw away my underwear when it gets dingy).
• Have the kitchen of my dreams.
• Have a music room with a concert harp, a baby grand, a harpsichord and whatever other instruments I wanted in it with enough room to have small recitals in there.
• Have a library with plenty of room for all my books and reference materials plus sitting room and audio visual accoutrements.
• Build on my little lot in Southernmost Illinois that my parents left to me and spend time there in some of the most beautiful land in the country at least every spring or fall. (The photo at the beginning of this entry was taken in parkland near my little lot. I took it the day I scattered some of her ashes there.)

Places I have lived:

• Southern Illinois (three different suburbs of the St. Louis Metropolitan Area)
• Urbana, Illinois
• Los Angeles, California (and 'burbs)
• San Francisco, California

Jobs I have had:

• Snow cone truck driver
• File clerk/Girl Friday/emergency room receptionist/switchboard operator at hospital
• Bookkeeper
• Keypunch operator (now known as data entry clerk)
• Court reporter's transcriber
• Legal secretary

People I want to know more about:

• All the designers on Ravelry
• All the crocheters and knitters I meet online and in real life
• Musicians
• Librarians
• Veterinarians
• Firemen
• Most everyone I meet who catches my fancy

The End.

Good-Bye Amanda

I always admired your spirit and determination. I wish we could have had more time on this earth together. I will think of you every time I laugh with my daughter or sing your songs. You ain't singin' no sad songs anymore.