It’s a year today since Pat left us. I think about her often.
I once asked her favorite color.
“Sunshine yellow for walls in the kitchen, deep emerald green for old glass, purple for clothes, red and orange in fall leaves, auburn hair, Carolina blue skies, ash rose for my bedroom walls….but I once bought a book (no, twice I’ve done this!) ’cause it had the purrfect color of green on the cover…{g> Green. Ireland has over 40 shades of it, and someday I’m going to go count them all.”
A while back I got permission to put out a remembrance of her in the memorial tea garden at Tamsine’s Rest in the Crossing, in Dragonrealms, the game she worked in as GM Mroce. I put it out today.
>look on stand
On the bamboo stand you see an unfinished quilt square, a black silk fan painted with cherry blossoms and lotus flowers, a pot of green tea and a pot of jasmine tea.
>look square
The square depicts an elaborate circular labyrinth, its twists and turns a rich autumn red against a deep green background the color of old glass. At the edge of the labyrinth, the stitching is unfinished. A single auburn thread no thicker than a hair lies curled at the labyrinth’s center. In the corner of the square are the initials “M.D.”
I miss you, Pat. That’s all. I just miss you.
I regularly make cookie dough from scratch. I use Ghirardelli chocolate chips (they’re not that much more expensive) and part whole wheat flour, and add in various other good-for-you additions. They’re delicious, trust me. I refrigerate the dough and it keeps for quite a while. This way, I can make just a few cookies at a time. Usually I wind up making a batch of six – no more, no less, that’s what Em wants – right after Em gets home from school. It’s a tasty little snack and a nice way to unwind.
Over the last couple of months, Em’s been doing something unusual. She lines up her cookies in a row on a table and then, when she picks one up, she uses her other hand to touch the spot where it was with the front of her hand and then the back of her hand, eight times. Front back front back front back front back. Eight times, every time, every cookie. She’s already got a few neurological things going on, I figured this was just a little OCD tic, fairly harmless and not any weirder than things other kids do.
Today she was halfway through her cookies and she did her little front back thing, and paused after the eighth… then did another eight. She did it for the next one too without the pause. So now she’s doing 16 for every cookie.
It’s not hurting anything so I don’t see any reason to stop her, but I have a gut feeling that puberty’s just beginning to barely think of rearing its head and I’m just hoping this doesn’t mean it will be accompanied some new neurological issue for us to enjoy.
Fred the Glass Guy came out today. When he removed the door panel, he discovered that it wasn’t just the glass that was broken. The gray thing in the lower circle in the picture is the regulator. It’s the thing that makes the window go up and down. It’s dangling by a wire well below its proper place. Fred the Glass Guy couldn’t replace the window because there was nothing to stop it from sliding right down into the door.
We have an appointment tomorrow with an auto body shop for an appraisal. I had Fred the Glass Guy go ahead and button the door back up, but took some pics so that hopefully the appraiser won’t have to go to too much trouble. It’s looking now like we’ll meet our insurance deductible. Here’s hoping we can get this fixed soon – in this cold weather, the car is really undriveable. Thank goodness it hasn’t rained since this happened.
On the up side, with the exception of the person who actually smashed the window, everybody involved has been very friendly and helpful.
I’ll try to get out a D&D post later. A lot happened, so it’ll be a doozy.
My husband’s car was broken into yesterday between the hours of 9am and 4:30pm (probably closer to 4:30) at the Tyvola Light Rail station in Charlotte. It was one of four or five to get hit, all parked close to one another. My husband’s car was parked directly beneath a video camera monitoring the lot.
Fortunately there was nothing much inside, which would have been easy to see had the thief actually looked in the window before smashing it. The fm transmitter faceplate was taken off of the stereo, but it’s not particularly valuable. A police report has been filed. The police officer with whom my husband spoke was not optimistic about catching the person who did it.
You can see some glass still lodged in the windowframe, and some bits scattered on the door. At the time this picture was taken, it had already been cleaned up some so he could drive it home. We have spoken with our insurance company, and through them have found someone who will come out and replace the glass here at our home, tomorrow morning.
My husband rides light rail daily. It’s easy, convenient, green, and cheap – although less so when one factors in the cost of a new window and inconvenience of getting quotes and waiting for repair. While I have heard from him that window smashes have been a problem at some stations, I didn’t think that his 12 year old car that has seen better days would be a target, especially with no valuables visible inside. I guess desperate people do desperate things. My husband is usually the pessimist of our pair, but this time he came up with the optimism: “At least they didn’t cut the convertible top!”
Good point. We’ll stick with that as our high note.
Em got one final Christmas gift today from another cousin.
That’s right. A ukulele. A completely awesome ukulele, for there is no other kind.
It’s for a kid, so it’s not exactly concert quality and I’m having a little trouble getting it to stay in tune, but without too much work I think I can get it working just fine.
I have always wanted to be able to play the ukulele, so I’m going to have to try very hard to avoid stealing this from her. Now we can form a band. Hubby on drums, me on piano, and Em on ukulele. I’ve got a barn, let’s put on a show!
Em’s space fish seems to have inspired her to space silliness.
Helmet on…
Helmet off.
Fishwatch 2009: Still alive. Was carefully fed exactly two small pellets upon owner’s arrival home from school. Prognosis: good.
Turned the first heel on my daughter’s Valentine’s Day socks. It’s an eye of partridge stitch on the back, reinforced with wool/nylon thread. Hopefully these won’t wear through as fast. They’re going to be murder to darn. She seems fine with store bought holiday-themed socks, so I’m going to ply her with those so she won’t want to wear these every day. I hope.
These socks are going on the back burner now as I plow ahead on the Jayne hat line. I want to get back ahead of the curve. A very nice woman just ordered enough hats for everybody in her Browncoat family, including toddlers. They’re for Christmas photos for this coming year. I may have to insist on being on her Christmas card list, because that sounds awesome.
I should really put up a Jayne hat gallery at some point. There are some stellar pics that really should be shared. Today’s favorite: halfway down on this page. Heh.
Fishwatch 2009: Day 2 – fish still alive.
