What I did on my Christmas vacation:

Attempted (unsuccessfully) to take Jayden and Kyan ice skating with Christian and Julie:

Knitted Julie a new hat (to replace this one that SHE LOST.  You may ask why, after losing said charming hat that I knitted for her in painstaking fashion, I would make her another one, and the answer would be because I'm powerless against her.  Just look at that face!  Could you say no?  Didn't think so.  Well, and she'll be freezing in Minneapolis this winter.  I had to have some sympathy.  And, how many people would wear a knitted pineapple?):

Played a fantastic game called Bananagrams (which we're buying, and will most likely be killed at by Rich, the word king) that is like individual Scrabble, and had these particularly breathtaking word combinations:

I'm particularly proud of my "skedaddle-stunner" combo.  Christian's "ingratiated" is pretty impressive, too, as is "taxidermy", especially when coupled with "rhapsody".  Smart boy, what?

I have post-Christmas letdown.  Thankfully, I have a box of See's to get me through.

And now, for something completely snowy...

It snowed all last night. Three new inches, more expected today. I understand that Seattle had the first white Christmas in many, many years, as well. My soul, she is content.

I hear chuckling from above.

It's been snowing beautifully the past two days. Now, it's raining. All of the intense weather-related emotions I felt as a child that kept me from actually enjoying anything at all unless the weather was perfectly appropriate for the season/holiday/alignment of the planets have dropped back upon me like the safe that killed Marvin Acme. I was so happy and joyful today when we were skating (sort of...more like watching while Julie and Christian propped up Jayden and shoved him around the rink) and it was snowing and now I just want to go to bed and cry. Why do I get so terribly overwrought about the weather at Christmas, you ask? Excellent question, and if anyone can tell me, I'll give them a dollar. If I haven't spent it on liquor in which to numb my sorrow.

Best. Present. Ever.

I'm passing the baton on a grant, and the renewal is due January 1st. Christy, friend and co-worker, is the lucky inheritor of said grant, and, as the submission deadline is a holiday, she called the grant administrator to ask whether they would like it on the 31st or the 2nd. The response? "Eh, we usually are pretty flexible about renewals, so two weeks later, there's no rush. Sometime in January." Huh. This is a first. It would probably be inappropriate but seemingly fitting to send him a bottle of champagne with the paperwork.

There really is no place like it.

Home at last.  We didn't leave Orlando until 6ish EST so we got home latelatelate.  I missed the chickens, so I'm glad we didn't stay longer, but it was still hard to come home.  Man, did reality smack me in the ass this morning.  We have so much skanky laundry and the house is covered in feathers and dust, the Tivo isn't working and we have bills, bills, bills.  I hate it when companies change names without notification.  We received our car insurance bill and I would have pitched it for an ad if it hadn't been so thick as the name had changed to Titan.  Ugh.  I really don't like companies named after giant, evil, god-killing monsters.  Thanks, Nationwide.  

Anyway, WDW was fantastic; we had an amazing time.  The weather varied between lovely and temperate and the inside of Satan's mouth.  The parks were only crowded on our last day, so we decided that, the next time we go, we won't end on a Saturday.  We took the Keys to the Kingdom tour, which rocked our socks, and our guide was Distastic.  It was a little ackworthy to see Jessie from Toy Story without her head, though, in the backstage costuming area.  She was very young and pimply and I don't know that I ever needed to know that.  The evenings that we spent in the Magic Kingdom were some of the best I've ever spent.  I think all of us were a little overwhelmed to see Cinderella's Fairy Godmother at our fancy dinner on Saturday night in the Castle.  That the fireworks were going on outside was merely coals to Newcastle.  

It can be hard to dissect a vacation right after taking it.  Too many images and experiences get jumbled together and any kind of sense of timeline is lost.  We spent considerably less than we expected, so I'm proud of that.  Money is tight as I've had a month-long break in regular opera paychecks and we still have Christmas.  We all got pretty sick (well, half of us) at varying times during the week and whatever it is we have has settled into my sinuses.  The wretched air from the plane made my and Shelly's sinuses feel as though the entire top layer of membrane up there could be peeled off like a dried-up pudding skin.  Pretty image, huh?  

This week, I have rehearsals, the Ju-Ju is back from Africa and visiting tomorrow, I have to finish poor Karen's sweater and send off the criminal knits.  And clean the house.  Ugh.  Reality sucks.

Pissy

Made egregious error at work.  Caused panic and upsettedness.  Heart just not in it, apparently.  Checked checking account and damn mortgage accelerator took out extra payment (per agreement of which I was totally unaware as had nothing to do with implementation of), thus eliminating the cash for Disney World.  Now will have to use credit and that just makes me angry.  Don't have any more opera checks coming until med-December.  Don't want to sell Apple stock for vacation.  May have to.  Hate car payment, hate house payment, hate credit cards.  Want to sell everything and live in cottage in forest far away from calendars and grant budgets where can raise birds and alpacas and reptiles and spin own yarn with which to knit garments to sell and earn living.  Christian will have to telecommute.

Photogenic

Christian snapped some amazing pics of Sasha preening, so I shall now force you to view them (well, you could navigate away, but you WON'T, because you love seeing pictures of our birds, don't you?).

I love the long tail feather shots with the fuzzy feather fluff on the back:

That fluff is all over our house.  I have to vacuum every other day or puffy balls of down skitter away from us as we walk through the dining room.

He leans forward and stretches out one foot behind him to zip his tail feathers:

This is my favorite shot:

His belly feathers always look slightly greasy and disheveled, and we feel as though we should bathe him more, but it doesn't seem to help.  He must run into the bathroom after we leave and slather himself in hair pomade.  No wonder why we go through it so quickly.

Breakthrough

Sasha let me scratch his back today, even while Christian was sitting there scratching him, too.  He let me preen a pinfeather and feel his fluffy back under the primary feathers.  He has the floofiest down imaginable that feels like kitten fur (without inducing the hives).  Birds are alarmingly fragile-feeling, though, when you get down to their skin and bones.  Skinny pencil necks, hard little craniums, dinky little ribs.  I like to kiss their little toes as they seem to be the sturdiest bits about them: they're all leathery and scaled, like an iguana, but you can't kiss an iguana because of salmonella, so it works out best for everyone if I just kiss the birds' feet.  Well, except for the birds.  They really don't like it.

Review!

I'm only disappointed that they didn't mention my blinding cape.

Busy, busy, busy like an average heighted bee.

Rehearsal on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 2-9 or 10 pm, after having worked from 9-2.  We open tomorrow and I think it will be fantastic.  I have a mirrored robe that glints like a liturgical disco ball and I'm wearing so much makeup that passing drag queens shake their heads and spit into their hankies so they can wipe my face.  We all look vaguely "We Three Kings," which I suppose is appropriate as the season approacheth so quickly.  Fa la la and all that.  

I love Christmas.  I love it.  Love. It.  We leave for Disney World two weeks from today, and, not only will the parks be decorated for Christmas, but we're attending Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, so it will be an orgy of festivity combining two of my favorite things.  I'm doing the thing where I try to not get too excited because I'll make myself sick from anxiety over whether or not I've planned enough.  Now there's four people other than my husband to keep entertained, but, they're pretty prepped to be made happy by our trip without my having to do a thing.  Not that I won't try to do lots of things.  Lots, and lots and lots of fun things.  Not excited.  Not at all.  I really should go to bed.  Can't sleep.  Too excited.  

Sad realizations.

Ricky Ricardo was a lousy singer.  On the positive side, Lucy's dresses were gorgeous.

Well...

it only makes sense.

All Growed Up

Shelly and I drove to Spokane this weekend to see the nephews and the folks. Now that the boys are living there, I'll have to make the trip more often as the vital vitamin N blood level drops when I go too long without being tackled or told that I'm loved by a three year old with a lisp. This time, Christian couldn't go as he had to work absurdly long hours to prepare for some big work event, so we left early on Friday afternoon after picking up Mark to take him home before he had to return to work on Monday as he's not telecommuting right now. We listened to mostly Broadway musicals (Curtains and Avenue Q, which both give me hope that the American musical isn't dead) and then some really dirty comedy once the musicals were over.

As this time we left early and returned late (as I don't work on Mondays), we saw the boys repeatedly, visited my grandma, got fitted for bras, walked around the "old" part of town and met up with a former college professor with whom I've maintained contact. Now, when I was 20 and he started teaching, he was in his early thirties, so his first group of students weren't too far from his age, and many of us maintained friendships after college as he's still one of the most hilarious people I've ever known. Mom had sent me an article a while ago on how he purchased an old home in town and was renovating it. Consequently, we got in touch and made plans to meet up and see his house. However, what I didn't remember from the article was that he bought one of the original Kirtland Cutter mansions. We met up at the Music Building on campus to see all the changes in my former program and went to see the house. I wasn't prepared. As we were driving there, we discussed the absurd Seattle real estate prices and crappy square footage and I asked him how big his house was. He asked me about mine, and I told him that it was around 1,200. He replied that his was slightly larger. As soon as I saw the house, I could communicate only in expletives and choking sounds. I think my exact words were, "motherfuckingsonofabitchholyshitohmygodareyoufuckingkiddingme?"

At around 10,000 square feet, the Mission revival style house, built in 1907, was the house I had driven by perhaps a million times when I was a high-schooler and undergrad coming home from my friend's house around the corner and cried over with lust and longing. The house was in, what could most kindly be described as, a catastrophic state. The stucco was discolored and crumbling, the addition on the north side had been veneered using garden lattice and aluminum, and the outside was defaced with wires and tubing.

Since buying the home a year and a half ago in a transaction described my him as borderline insane, my friend had to wait for the current occupants, elderly individuals in need of round the clock care, to be moved to their new home before he could move in and begin any work. That took six months. It took another two months to reskim the stucco, and, while he was encouraged to demolish the addition added in the 60s, he went in the non-recommended opposite direction and rebuilt the infrastructure, recreated windows and doors to match the main house, added a porch on top surrounded by a retaining wall to perfectly match the porch below it, and converted the entire wing, which had formerly been the dormitory for the residents and was in ghastly and deeply disturbing shape, to a master suite with a closet larger than my living room. I cried when I saw that room. I also cried when he showed us the new living room/dining room/concert hall that had recently been completed. Two sets of pocket doors were recovered and refinished and replaced to lead from the foyer to this room, box beams were recreated to match the library across the hall, travertine floors were laid and a bathroom at the rear of this hall with its two filthy toilets was torn out and rebuilt to now contain an original claw-foot bathtub found in the prison-like basement bathroom.

As he walked us through the rest of the house and laid out the plans for work and Shelly and I sobbed a little at every bit of stone (hand carved to represent medieval-style woodland creatures) and woodwork and each piece of molding and leaded glass, I recalled a line from Pride and Prejudice, when Jane asked Lizzy when she first fell in love with Mr. Darcy. She replied that she could date it from first seeing his beautiful estate at Pemberly. When I asked him if he was dating anyone (because I have no boundaries and married people always want everyone else to be married), he replied no. I don't think that will be the case for long.

With a ho ho ho and a hee hee hee.

Sasha can imitate us saying his name in a low growly voice perfectly, which he follows with his witch cackle.  Why did I spend hundreds of dollars on toys when, more than anything else, he loves a brown sock knotted in the middle and chases it after he throws it across the cage, like a dog playing fetch.  He then laughs again.  It's the thing we can do to get him to stop yelling for us, make him laugh.  He'll laugh and laugh and I really think he knows what it means, but, of course, the things he does are so funny that I'm sure previous owners have laughed when he did them, so it could be that he's just repeating a pattern.  Still, it's adorable and a welcome change from the brakbrakbrakbrakbrakbrak we've been hearing for months.  

Cyril now will yelp when Sasha is screaming, but it's kind of a small, squawky, shrieky sound that is more funny than annoying.  He also fluffs up and then shrinks down with each exhale when squawking, so he looks like a blue poofball toy that's being squeezed.  

Watching my beloved poopers makes it even harder for me to think about the birds Tina is trying to save in Panama.  Apparently, the red tape is such that it may be impossible to bring them to the researcher who can save them.  They will most likely be sold under the table as pets.  

The captured parrot trade is a huge business in Central and South America as well as Africa and Australia as netting and then selling birds is a hugely profitable endeavor as there's almost no expenditure required, just brutal nets that tangle feet and wings.  The death rate of parrots captured and then transported for sale is between 40 and 50 percent, according to CITES.  The sale of captured, wild birds is illegal in the US and the EU, but birds still enter the country through smuggling and are then sold to unscrupulous pet shops.  These wild and ill-treated birds understandably make very poor pets and often die from starvation due to neglect in new homes.  

I really think I need to get involved.  Information will be forthcoming.

I am easily assimilated.

Fine.  I joined Facebook.  Now I have THREE pages to keep updated.  Hmpf.

Three kinds of day.

Morning:  Crappy start, very tired from show closing party the night before.  Behaviorist supposed to come at 9:30, had time down as 1, came at 10:30, stayed for three hours.  Successful session for Christian, not so much for me as was sushed repeatedly like five year old in movie theater.  Cost $240, were planning on $80.

Afternoon:  Excellent time with Rich and Shelly at awesomely tacky Auburn SuperMall.  Shopped at Disney Parks outlet (overstock from Disneyland), found final four blown glass ornaments from 50th anniversary set (have two, couldn't afford rest on last trip) for half price.  Saw "Nightmare before Christmas" in 3-D.

Evening:  Utter shit.  Hit beautiful white stray cat on way home.  When got out of car to try and save cat, saw cat's mate run away.  Cat died in car on way to emergency vet.  Never had this happen before.  Really can't stop thinking about it.  Sick to my stomach and can't get imagery out of my head.

Still, heard from cousin Steph this morning, and she got in to UW for medical school, which is freaking incredible.  So proud, especially as 1) she took time off to volunteer in three countries, went back to school to do pre-reqs and worked while doing so and 2) is first person in family to go to med school.  Christmas this year will be full of celebration.  Need to think of suitable present.  Briefcase?  Wingtips?  Old fashioned doctor's bag?  Hmmm.

Please, though, say a little prayer for the kitty.  I'll do the same.

I shall hop a plane tonight to help.

Because she's WAY too damn modest to post about it herself, I'm going to share my sister's parrot rescue story. To recap Tina's story so far, she's a wildlife biologist who is taking three months off of her normal life to study songbirds in Panama with a grad school colleague. She emailed me this story yesterday:

"Saga 1 -- Parrot rescue! At this park we work at there's a little "office" and people who guard the park work there. They had 4 parrots in 2 small dirty cages, and a mess of other bad things you don't want to hear about. I expressed my concern to (her colleague) about the condition of the cages, the food, water, etc, and said it was not good, and what could I do about it? I started changing their water, and bringing them fresh fruit myself. On Wednesday, we went in and one bird was gone. I asked (another colleague) to ask them what happened, and they said one of the other parrots killed it. I was not surprised given the small cages, mixed species, no proper care and attention. But I was furious and could think of nothing else the rest of the day, as they didn't particularly seem to care. (Colleague 1) thought they have only had the birds about a month, and they were confiscated from someone, and the park people were just going to see "how they go". Well, they are not "going" well!! So I told (Colleague 1) I wanted to talk to whomever was in charge and tell them this wasn't right, or find some way to make it right. Well, the person I can talk to was not there today at the park. But back at Tupper today, he introduced me to (a researcher), who does some work with parrots. When I explained the situation, she immediately said, bring them to me and I'll take them. She'll fatten them up, clean them up, and see what can be done regarding adopting them out or releasing them. I am SO ecstatic. I cannot wait to get those birds out of that situation. I'll take them Saturday when I have a gamboa truck. Yeah!! I just feel awful about the 4th bird, why didn't I do something sooner?"

To which I replied, of course, you rock and have done everything you can. Because she's awesome.

Criminal Knits Check In!

All right, knitters of fury, post in comments and let us know how you're coming with hats, mittens and scarves for Miss Clara's little chickens. Leave your email and I'll send you her address for to mail said objects of warmth and comfort. Woot!

Technical Delays

Tech week always prevents me from posting. Four to five hour rehearsals every night for almost ten days tend to make one a wee bit listless. However, the opera has opened to two excellent reviews, and the only umbrage I take with both is the reviewers' criticisms of the set, which I love and think is freaking brilliant. Aside from the (hateful) raked platform stage, I find no fault with the scene the sets set (hee) at all. On the contrary, I think the feelings of mild claustrophobia and decrepit opulence suit the tone of the opera beautifully. And God, can Nuccia Focile sing. That woman is a heart-wrencher, she is.

Knit for the Criminals, 2007

To all the Forumites who wish to give the criminals in Miss Clara's classroom a warmer winter than they'd have otherwise, here are some patterns and sites to get you going:

This link has a ton of free hat and scarf set patterns.  This is a VERY easy mitten pattern, and this is a very easy hat AND mitten pattern.  If you are going to make either of these using one type of yarn, you can make a matching scarf by casting on six inches worth of stitches in the same yarn and working in garter stitch until you run out.  

Here's also an easy earflap hat and this is your standard stockinette hat.  All of these patterns are great stash eaters.  You don't need much time or yarn for any of these.  Good luck, and email me if you need any help!