More kitchen blather, plus caffeine regret

My second food-blog post details my failure at making mint-chocolate-chip ice cream. To learn from my failure, click on "Loretta Cooks!" at right. Yes, I am up late. Make that early. This is because I drank a Coke Zero before my weight workout last night--an idiot move that gave me a jolt of macho-girl endurance on the bench, but that will make me a zombie at work today. Argh...

Knitting for other people's babies

I didn't get a chance to have babies of my own. Revision: I had many chances to become a single mother and decided not to go that route. Now that I'm finally married, I'm pretty sure conceiving a child is not something I'm capable of doing. And it's not likely we'll adopt. SO....  I get as much time with my nieces as possible, and I knit for other people's impending children. Right now, I'm knitting a little sweater for my pal Liz's baby. We don't know yet if it will be a boy or a girl. Revision: I know it's going to be a boy; they prefer not to know nor guess. Anyway, since I'm not supposed to have any idea of this baby's sex, I chose a nice light-green yarn and I've been knitting off and on for a few weeks.  I was four-fifths of the way through before I figured out the pattern had some serious mistakes, and I had to rip out half my work. I Googled the book's title, and found (bingo!) the author has posted multiple pattern corrections. I printed out the new sweater pattern, began work again, and am now nearly where I was when I had to rip back. Whew! A few days ago I met another friend, Shannon, who is also expecting a baby. She's a gorgeous pregnant lady (she's beautiful when she's not pregnant, too). She handed me some yarn a friend of hers had spun and asked me to make something--anything--from it. It's pretty chunky yarn. Too thick to make baby clothes out of. I'm going to haul it into my favorite yarn shop and ask their advice. Maybe it'll make a nice baby sling, or a nursing pillow. We shall see. It's a gorgeous purple color, and I can't wait to get something started with it. Meanwhile, some other friends, Lisa and Erich, have a brilliant toddler boy, Truman, who really needs a sweater for this coming fall. I'm thinking stripes, but I need to go ask him what his favorite colors are before I start work. Maybe something in green, blue and orange, with little donkey and elephant buttons, to celebrate the success of his daddy's book.

Poetry of sorrow

Today is a crying day. I haven't had one in such a very long while. Years, really. What's frustrating is that the thing that actually got me crying is not the thing I was crying about. It was a bastard coworker who started the waterworks. He was being the world's worst listener and the planet's foremost controlling jerk. Luckily, it was a phone meeting and I held it together long enough to (a) make my points, (b) promise follow-up, and (c) not let my voice quaver. Then I hung up and cried and cried. BASTARD. I was furious. Good thing I'm working from home today. I went up, cried some more while taking a shower, and then came downstairs, made a snack and a vodka on the rocks and drank during work hours for the first time EVer. Yes, I'm that much of a dork.

But what really started me down that weepy path was a phone convo I'd had a half hour earlier with my second cousin, Deb, whose husband, Joe, is dying--right now--from ALS. He's at home, and she and their other family are around him. He's been actively dying for about a week now. It's a strange term, "actively dying." What you're doing is living, until you're not anymore. But, whatever. It could be any moment, and I feel so awful for her. And the phone conversation really connected me powerfully with how I was feeling when my mom was dying.

Anyway, I stopped after that one drink, and kept working. It's Friday. I won't have to deal with that wretched person again until Monday, by which time my bad-assedness will be back in full force.

A couple of days ago I started writing a poem about those who stand watch as their loved ones pass. Eventually, we're all on one side or the other of that little scenario, so I suppose it's a poem for everyone. When it's worth letting anyone else see, I'll post it.

Happy weekend.

On my own

My husband is away visiting a close friend who's graduating from a Ph.D. program at long last. So for the first time in a long while (and the first time since we married), I have several days on my own. I've been away for two days at a conference in San Jose. This afternoon on the way back, I stopped and bought summer clothing at the Stanford outdoor shopping center Palo Alto. Turns out on Thursdays in summertime there is live jazz starting at 5 p.m. People bring low-backed folding chairs and picnics. Since I didn't have anyone at home expecting me (except possibly a hungry cat), I picked up a sandwich (my favorite kind; baguette with a little meat, a little cheese, a swipe of butter and no condiments) and an iced tea and sat by a fountain and listened and ate an early supper. The weather was balmy. The band was skilled. Small children chased each other around and older people smiled at the good fortune to be where they were at that particular moment, and they tapped their feet in time to the music. After a while I collected my bags, finished my drive home, brought in the mail, fed the creatures and let the feathered ones out to flap their wings a little. Now I'm catching up on my reading and I'm sipping a little dessert wine. The birds have their heads tucked back under their wings. Outside the city makes its downtown noises. Here inside, the house is quiet.