Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

My poem bone is decidedly rusty, but at a funeral recently I had an image – that of trying to describe the arc of someone’s life being similar to trying to describe how tremendous a shooting star was to someone who didn’t see it – and I thought I could expand it into a poem about grief. Let me know what you think:

When They Leave Us Behind

We quietly live out our everyday lives,
Assuming the world in its entirety thrives,
And it’s as if we are suddenly one day struck blind
When they leave us behind.

When they leave us behind, we freeze
In a bolt of dismay; feel the breeze
As a foul wind that sets our once-warm cheeks to stone.
We want neither company nor to be alone,
When they leave us behind.

When they leave us behind, we marvel
At the astonishing pattern their lives made in travel,
And we vainly explain – “‘Twas so bright and so far!”
But we’re describing the movement of a shooting star,
When they leave us behind.

When they leave us behind, we end
And reflect on those gone as our lives we suspend,
Then crawl into the light where the world still performs;
But that’s wrong, and will never again be our norm,
When they leave us behind.

When they leave us behind, we ache
In the missing pieces of us that they take.
Our phantom pain tingles and itches and races
Until we’re finally able to fill in the spaces,
When they leave us behind.

—-Dee Cook, 2010

Shipwreck Shawl – blocking

Originally uploaded by addlepated

I had great fun with this shawl, even though I had some “adverse events” take place during its construction. I really need to take a whole-shawl glamour shot where it’s not all full of pins.

The pattern is from Knitty, the yarn is from Perchance to Knit, and the beads are from Legendary Beads.

Springtime Bandit

Originally uploaded by addlepated

This was a side project that I started to work on while I was traveling. I couldn’t work on my Shipwreck Shawl outside of the house because of all the beads! Anyway, I tried to squeeze an extra body repeat out of the yarn and didn’t quite make it all the way through the pattern. It’s missing about 3 rows from the bottom edge.

The yarn is Studio June Star Struck, which is a merino/silk blend that has strands of silver running through it. It’s a wee bit scratchier than I hoped it would be, but it makes a very pretty shawl.

Norwegian Woods wedding shawl

Originally uploaded by addlepated

I made this shawl for my friend, who is getting married this summer. There are a lot of details in it that I’ll explain further once she has received it and had a chance to look at it, but if you’d like to look at more pictures, they’re in this Flickr set.

Aestlight shawl

Originally uploaded by addlepated

I finished my version of the Aestlight Shawl over the weekend. It was a really enjoyable knit, although the edging got a little tiresome after a while. You can see more pictures of this shawl here.

Forest Canopy Shawl

Originally uploaded by addlepated

Woohoo, I’m back on the needles again.

I did the Forest Canopy Shawl in Wollmeise Vergißmeinnicht.

Mods: I repeated the body pattern 15 or 16 times, whichever got me to 307 stitches on the needles. I did 12 rows of the border repeat, adding beads on each twisted stitch. I blocked the bejeebies out of it.

So nice to be able to see.

I had been getting a ton of fearsome headaches and tried everything to make them go away. Finally, after my daughter said she was having problems focusing up close (and getting headaches herself), I decided to make us both eye doctor appointments. Hers was easy – same prescription in both eyes, handled with off-the-rack drugstore cheaters. Me? My prescription has changed significantly in two years. Astigmatism worse, myopia better.

It had been a few years since I last had contacts, and I never tried extended wear, so I got a trial pair. Which didn’t work. So I got another trial pair, which also didn’t work. And so on. I tried every single brand of extended wear toric contacts there are, and finally when I got to the last option available, Purevision Toric, I found one that worked. I can wear them for days (technically 30) at a time. Cool. They were $70/box at the doctor, or $37/box online. Combine with a $50 rebate and I get a year supply for $100.

But one of the main reasons I’d been putting off going to the doctor is that my last pair of glasses was over $350. Welcome to presbyopia! Then tack on $100 or more for prescription sunglasses, and it’s no wonder I don’t want to go back every year. This time was different, though. Based on recommendations from Ask Metafilter and elsewhere, I took a whole bunch of measurements of my current frames and headed over to Zenni Optical to order some specs. I decided on this pair for regular and this one for sunglasses. My progressive lenses with anti-glare coating and a pair of polarized sun shade clip-ons cost $61.85. My sunglasses cost $14.90 (I paid more for non-RX sunglasses at Walgreens last week). I got both pairs less than 2 weeks after ordering.

I haven’t taken them in to get them checked for accuracy, but they feel pretty right to my eyes. The only problem I’ve had so far is a nose pad breaking, but that was my own stupid fault. One should not attempt to adjust the nose pad angle by grabbing on the nose pad and yanking. I called Zenni to see if I could order replacements and they said they would send me three pairs of pads, screws, and a tool to put them in with, all for free.

So, to sum up – between Zenni Optical and ContactLens.com, I got a year’s supply of contacts and two pairs of glasses (one progressive) for $175.

I have a dream every few months in which I’m sitting in an airplane. The plane always has an unusual seating configuration, not always identical, but it is wide across, and only a few rows, in a full sized plane. After we take off, there’s always trouble, from flight gear problems to full fledged crash. What on earth does that mean?

Last night I was in a plane that had maybe 10-15 people sitting across, but only about 10 rows. It was mostly empty. I was happy because I was in a bulkhead row, so I had a ton of leg room. I stuck my bag under the seat caddy corner to the left of me. The flight attendant then came on and said she needed to add a row, so she swung one into position right in front of me. We took off and developed engine trouble right after – had to land immediately. I wondered if I had accidentally left my cell phone on and caused the issue. Resolved to turn it off as subtly as possible so that nobody would arrest me.