Archives for October 2009

No, that’s not my age or my house number. Rather, it was the temperature inside my house when I awoke this morning. Fortunately for me, I had gone to bed wearing pajamas and gym socks. Only around midnight, when I just couldn’t seem to muster enough body heat to fall asleep, did I roll reluctantly out of bed to don a sweatshirt as well. But I did not – no, I did NOT – turn on the heat. The thought never even occurred to me, even after the cat had insinuated herself under the covers to lie pressed against my side in an effort to warm herself. It was only October 28th, after all.

 You see, when we first moved to California we made a rule that has stuck with us even nine years later when our blood has thinned out and we have pathetically low somewhat reduced tolerance for the early morning chill and the raw rainy days of Bay area winters. Even now that we have become self-professed “delicate California flowers,” our rule prevails. That rule is: we don’t turn on the heat before November first.

Despite the cooling off, or perhaps because of it, the camellias are starting to bloom in the garden:

All I have to add is this: thank goodness Sunday is November first!

I have not been a tourist in Washington, DC in many years. Although I lived in and around that city for a total of seventeen years in the ’80s and ’90s, I have not had reason to return until recently, when a dear friend had one of those big birthdays that deserve to be celebrated. This has been a banner year for our friendship, in that we’ve seen each other three times, after many years when all we managed to do was exchange letters, emails, and the occasional phone call.

The first time we got together this year was after she had a brain tumor removed. Florence Nightingale that I am, I went to help out for a week. Then, this spring, I was stranded overnight in DC due to bad weather (thanks so very much, Continental Airlines!) on my way up to a tiny regional airport in NY… the perfect excuse to couch-surf in her cozy apartment and share an impromptu visit. But this time, we were able to walk everywhere, playing tourist in the cool but humid October days.  Ate some fabulous meals, chiefly at the Old Ebbitt Grill (where, among other delicacies, I had some wondrously fresh raw oysters) and Sequoia down at the Washington harbour – the latter of which was the site of the Big Birthday Dinner:

These chandeliers at Sequoia had to be twenty feet tall, managing to be both sculptural and illuminating:

The leaves were changing dramatically enough to thrill my autumn-color-starved eyes:

The White House is more barricaded than ever but just as lovely and impressive once you slip your camera between the iron fence rails for an unimpeded photo opportunity:

We also toured the National Holocaust Museum, which I found extremely difficult to see, yet unforgettably moving. While certainly not a cheerful way to spend two hours, the Holocaust remains arguably the most compelling historical event of the 20th century. An entire museum dedicated to preserving its memory is not too much to ask. Even the busloads of schoolkids touring it with us seemed to take it seriously. The United States behaved shamefully during the war, I am sorry to say; our government’s leaders knew full well what was happening to the European Jews, yet did almost nothing to help them until it was too late.

An antidote was to be found at the public garden at Dumbarton Oaks. It was a breathtaking place to spend an afternoon, tramping through the wild yet manicured grounds. We had the place practically to ourselves – and around every corner was another wonder of casually calculated “natural” beauty:

By the end of the weekend, I was ready to move back.

Where have I been? On a very long Amtrak ride from San Jose to Santa Barbara, to take part in the first-time-ever Color and Couture knitting workshop! Long train rides, like long flights, are premium knitting opportunities, and our group took full advantage of the time. Our train was incredibly comfortable – far more so than the economy section of any plane I’ve ever been on. The seats were enormous, leg room was generous, and there were wide pull-out footrests to ensure total traveling comfort. The train had an observation car with floor to ceiling windows and swivel chairs, the better to appreciate the landscape shifts outside:

We passed through the Central Valley:

Lots of farms, some with cattle grazing on the hillsides, some with vineyards marching as far as the eye could see, and some with fields planted with strawberries and other colorful crops. What a way to see the California countryside! And about an hour outside of Santa Barbara we reached the coastal tracks, where it got a bit nerve-wracking as we traversed bridges that appeared to be cantilevered over the ocean cliffs.

My good friend Sandy accompanied me for the weekend, so it was a girlfriends’ road trip as much as a knitting retreat. Sandy moved away from the Bay area about four years ago, and our town has never been the same. She works at Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno, so she has the inside track on all the new yarns and pattern books coming out each season.

Here are two of our instructors (and the coordinators) for the retreat, Susan Schlesinger (L) of  Bonita Knitting Store near San Diego and Erin McGee (R) of Bobbin’s Nest Studio in Santa Clara. They did an incredible job with their workshops on Color Theory and Updating Your Knitting Repertoire. In addition, the take-aways from this retreat were outstanding! I came home with several free skeins of luscious yarn (and that’s not even including the ones I purchased at the “boutique” set up in our conference room), at least a dozen free patterns and a couple of new books, as well as a fabulous assortment of knitting notions, needles, and more. It was a challenge to zip up my suitcase, to be honest, even after I opened up the expandable section!

If you’ve never had an opportunity to take a pattern fitting workshop with Joan McGowan-Michael of White Lies Designs, I encourage you to seek her out. Her seminar on achieving the perfect “couture” fit for any hand-knitted garment was masterful. Joan has a comprehensive design background, and is the author of Knitting Lingerie Style, one of the books I refer to often in my knitting library.

Here is Joan’s trunk show featuring just a handful of her original designs… every single one of them is gorgeous; beautifully finished and outrageously feminine.

Not everybody made it into this group photo – there were about 30 of us altogether. Lots of different knitting skill levels, but everyone benefited. A great group of women from both northern and southern California, brought together for one glorious weekend.

For me, the high point of the weekend was that I finished re-knitting and re-assembling my striped Noro V-neck sweater. It’s hard to tell from this photo, but it really does fit me much better. My mods were to add 2 x 2 ribbing to the hem, and long ribbed sleeves (wrist to mid-forearm), as well as a 2 x 2 ribbed neck band. These small touches gave the garment just a bit more of a finished look.

Among the vicissitudes of aging, I was prepared for the AARP membership invitation that recently hit my mailbox. As prepared as I could ever be, I guess, for the sample AARP magazine issue on newsprint-quality paper that practically begs you to lick a finger before turning each page. I’ve embraced my laugh lines with good grace, mostly, although the aches and pains that follow my gym workouts, somewhat less so.

What I never expected was that once I hit fifty, my light brown eyebrows would fade into a nearly invisible shade of white-blonde.

Or is that simply white? It never occurred to me that I might finish out my days with a look of perpetual astonishment on my face, but that is exactly the expression looking back at me in the mirror. For if eyes are the windows of the soul, then eyebrows are definitely the bold signposts of the emotions. Summon a mental image of the great screen actresses from the 1940s like Joan Crawford or Claudette Colbert, and which defining feature comes to mind? That’s right! Whether arched in surprise, cocked in skepticism, or furrowed in anger, for those femmes fatales their eyebrows were the most emphatic punctuation on their beautiful faces. And I’m not talking about the current high fashion trend seen on the runways for painted-on “eyebrows” that are too thin, too high, and too dark to have even a fraction of the assertive grace of their forebears’ eyebrows. 

The disappearance of my own eyebrows into a state of pallid neutrality has rendered mute an integral feature of my expressive repertoire. Now I’m beginning to appreciate why eyebrow restoration, coloring, and even false eyebrow sales are a multi-million-dollar component of the cosmetics industry. I’ve realized why my elderly parents – eyebrow-less like me – seem to regard the world’s craziness with nothing stronger than mild amusement. And why my octogenarian neighbor – the one with eyebrows so bushy, so lush, that they hang like silver awnings over the tops of his glasses – seems so fierce in comparison.

It’s all in the eyebrows, and given the choice I’ll take fierce over mild. So as soon as I pop that AARP membership form into the mail, I’ll head out in search of an eyebrow pencil that can restore the faded focal point of my emotions to their former eloquence.

Shadow quite likes her eyebrows, just as they are.

Anyone visiting New York City this fall will undoubtedly be urged to fit in a visit to the High Line, the elevated park (and former rail line) that runs from Gansevoort St. up to 20^th . It will eventually continue up to 34^th St. as funding and time allow, to be completed in 2011 if all goes according to plan. I’m here to tell you those urgings should be heeded, even if all you have is an hour to spare.

With a free morning during my visit a couple of weeks ago, I headed straight over to the West side without having any idea what to expect. I climbed the stairs at the 20^th St. access point and when I reached the High Line my first thought was, “This is it? This is what all the fuss is about?” Because there is a walkway with plantings on either side, and railings over which one can see varying street views. The old rail lines have been left in place, where they now form ground-hugging industrial sculpture that snakes around the plantings in wonderful patterns.

As I began my stroll south along the wide path, I began to focus on those plantings that had at first seemed so pedestrian; no different, really, than the weeds one would find in any abandoned lot anywhere in the city. Gradually, though, I began to appreciate the incredible variety of the plant life all around me… yet all of it seemed to be native to the area – or at least it could be if cared for and allowed to thrive. And then I became aware of a delicious fragrance that reminded me of my herb garden at home… only better. Birds, bees, and butterflies were flitting around among the flowers and grasses.

Not only was the plant life captivating, but the architectural details were equally noteworthy. Especially remarkable were the colored glass panels that represented all the colors of the river…. done by an artist who had blown up photographs of different sections of the river and isolated a single pixel of each, until he was able to assemble a collage of colors, and light, and mood – and then transpose them all to glass panes.

There were uniformed, hatted employees working throughout the park, weeding, watering, and fertilizing the plants. When I inquired about the fragrance, I was told that it was the “drop seed grass,” which smells similar to the herb cilantro. Ahhh, yes. Every once in a while, I’d pull over to the railing to see what I could see. And the views were wonderfully diverse: road, overpass.

Water, boats. Parks, skyscrapers. People, people everywhere. It was the the life of the city from a quietly fantastic, more-serene-than-usual perspective, and I could easily have spent all day taking it all in.

And I was not alone in that. Although when I first arrived I felt almost as if I had the place to myself, by the end of my visit there were many other people enjoying it with me, strolling along the path, sitting on the benches that had been placed thoughtfully about the park, leaning up against the railings to admire a particular view, taking photos. Lots of tourists speaking French, German, and other languages, but just as many New Yorkers taking a breather from the energy of the city. I can’t wait to return at a different time of year to see how the High Line’s atmosphere and views change with the seasons.   

Every curve in the walkway seemed designed to provide a different angle, to offer a new perspective on the park, and all of its geometry was softened by the thriving, fragrant plants. In its own subtle, quiet way, it was quite thrilling.

How did it get to be October already? And when did I realize I am oh-so-ready for fall? Maybe it was that final day last weekend, on my DD’s college campus, when the weather suddenly turned from sunny and in the 70’s to raw, rainy, and in the 50’s. Having brought nothing but sandals and short-sleeved tops on the trip with me, I was ill-prepared for the change. But if nothing else, I developed a new understanding for how the university sells all those unlovely navy and screaming orange sweatshirts (yes, those are the school colors) in the campus bookstore. I, too, added one to my wardrobe that day, and wore it gratefully as the temperature continued to drop. 

Even returning home to the Bay area, I was struck by the decidedly autumnal shift in the air. Mornings are dark now when I awake, and dusk comes much earlier. The official first day of fall has come and gone. Seeing my daughter so happily ensconced on her college campus reminded me of Rod Stewart’s bittersweet song, Maggie May. It was late September, and I really did feel as if I should be back at school.

Maybe it was picking the last of the figs from our tree, and realizing that fig jam and desserts are over for the season – although I did take some of these and combine them with Braeburn apples and dried Montmorency cherries to make a delicious fall crisp for dessert last night.

 Maybe it was that enormous pot of Tuscan kale and bean soup I recently made, stirring it with images of cozy winter dinners in mind.

Back at home after last week’s travels, I picked the last of the tomatoes and started harvesting the first fragile lettuce leaves from the fall planting a few weeks back. Radishes and beets are still weeks away, but the baby greens are a tender addition to salads. The large tomatoes are ripening on sheets of newspaper, and a few last pounds of the cherry tomatoes ended up on a puff pastry and parmesan tart for dinner the other night.

There’s nothing I’d love to do more right now that knit, and it has been incredibly frustrating not to be able to. I sit and watch TV in the evenings, and it feels strange (not in a good way, either) to have no knitting in hand. I suppose I could hold my last WIP in my lap and fondle it while the programs unfold before me, but it just wouldn’t be the same. I’ve been dreaming for weeks about new sweater designs I want to make, and once my bandage came off I even sketched them into my design notebook. But recuperation from my hand surgery continues slowly (and working on the computer does nothing to aid my convalescence, I admit), with my hand still swollen and somewhat weak. I can’t make a fist because the scar tissue is still tender. However, between that  “Oh, it’s September – time to learn something new” mindset and my growing acceptance of the limitations I may continue to have post-hand surgery, I’ve made what feels like a very big decision. 

I’m going to invest in a knitting machine and in the lessons to learn to use it properly. Although it will never take the place of hand-knitting, it will give me a fighting chance of creating all the new designs I’ve had in mind. And it just may save me from further surgeries. And that, I’ve gotta say, would be really nice.