Descendants of the Ash and Elm

Only in Sweden.  Makes me so proud.

We had a houseful this weekend. Little John moved in this weekend and Eli came over yesterday to spend the night and JJ came over today. So the fun hasn’t stopped in 24 hours. We put together Lego’s as soon as Eli arrived Saturday.

And Eli insisted on sleeping with it when it was time for bed.

Uncle Joseph babysat while John and I went to the gallery to vote on art. It’s the People’s Choice and David Rivas had some art exhibited. I voted for Hot Licks. The hands in the picture belong to one of our 50,000# hammer operators. So, he was there as well and it was very exciting. An artist asked to take pictures of John as she really loved his features and before you know it her husband and John were talking and he wants John to lay some marble.

Sunday rolled around and it was sausage, biscuits and gravy and then time to ride skateboards. Uncle Joseph taught Eli some maneuvers.

And then Eli improvised and showed Uncle Joseph his moves. He almost ate it on my truck and this was AFTER Joseph had convinced him that he couldn’t go head first.

Then I got in on the action and played catch with Eli and Uncle Joseph. After several tries and starting to get frustrated he CAUGHT THE BALL. And then there was no stopping him.

Jacob, Yesenia and JJ came over for supper and it was the cutest thing watching Jacob teach Yesenia how to play catch. But she kicks ass at basketball! Little John, Joseph and Jacob were in the street playing burn out while Sean was catching up on Dexter.

I got puked on, peed on, twisted my ankle running for the ball and I had the best damn day ever.

So, mother is having heart problems again and is suppose to remain calm and lay low until she has some tests performed to see if anything can be done.

So, does she follow the doctors orders? Hell no. Last week she called to tell me she thinks Bank of America has made a terrible mistake. My name didn’t show up on her notice to renew her CD at the bank she’s just sure that idiot of a woman didn’t know what she was doing last year. I told her not to worry about it and I would take her to the bank after we see what the doctor has to say and to just stay calm. So, today I get a call from mom on my lunch hour and she wanted to let me know she has been to the bank and it’s a good thing because she found out some clerk accidentally removed my name from her CD. She got so damn worked up she had to take a nitroglycerin at the bank. The girl who made the error was nowhere to be found (which is a good thing) because my mother still has the hospital receipt form 25 years ago when she had a heart attack. They charged her $9.00 for aspirin! She doesn’t throw anything away and it’s all filed chronologically. She should really work for the FBI. I can just envision that poor gentleman that had to wait on my mother and had to listen to her carry on and threaten to take her business to Citibank! All the while she’s popping nitroglycerin pills! He assured her he fixed the error and gave her some piece of mind along with a piece of paper which she informed me where it is hidden and then the message self destructed.

Then she goes home and is talking to the neighbor about the annual yard sale they had last week and how nice it is that the Association allows them to do that because you have to have a permit to have a yard sale and all that. (Not that my mother would ever buy or sale anything at a yard sale. She thinks it is utterly tacky that people drag their junk out into their yards and expect people to pay for it. And don’t even get her started on what a rip off antiques are and how the phone company scammed us all into getting answering machines so they can charge callers for leaving messages on answering machines only to have us call back and pay again) Well, the neighbor said she’d never heard of such a thing and her sister has yard sales EVERY MONTH and disagreed with my mother. OH no she didn’t snap snap. Mother promptly goes into the house and comes out with the City of Port Hueneme Ordninances for crying out loud. Is that even normal to have an ordinance book handy? So under bylaw bladyblaw it says you have to pay $20 to have a yard sale AND you can only have two a year. Well, now wasn’t that pleasant? She is hell bent on righting every wrong and educating every ignoramus before she leaves this earth. And in her neighborhood, she really has her work cut out for her.

The woman is driving me to drink way too many Dr.Peppers. But you know that old adage “I felt sorry for myself because I had no shoes until I met a man with no feet?” Man did that ring true for me today. A coworker and I were sharing war stories, I mean stories about our mothers when he tells me he had to spend his weekend in the valley heat MEASURE HIS MOTHERS BURIAL PLOT! She was convinced her plot had gotten smaller and they were going to plant her standing up. Well, after he started measuring and she realized the plot doesn’t measure headstone to headstone she said “never mind”.

So, next time mother calls to tell me she’s having angina at two in the morning and she doesn’t want me to come over she just wants me to know so I won’t be alarmed when the inevitable happens I can find comfort in the fact that she hasn’t sent me on a scavenger hunt at the cemetery.

I mean really, some peoples mothers are just too much.

We had the best day yesterday. First, I got up and made sausage and eggs and biscuits and grave for Joseph and myself. John was being good and eating oatmeal. Then Jacob and the baby came over and I mashed up his very first banana. Oh, and he loved it. Then Little John came over to hang out with his dad in the garage.

Joseph fried chicken and he’s almost as good a cook as his mother. And I made “strawberry stuff” for dessert. It’s a recipe of my mom’s. You slice a couple baskets of strawberries and then you make home made whip cream melt a bag of marshmallow’s. And you mix the whip cream and the marshmallows and the strawberries and you pour it over a vanilla wafer crust an wait for it to set. I made two batches and it was gone as soon as the dust settled.

Then to my delight, as we were watching the Olympics, Jacob Jr. laughed out loud. We were sitting there and I was making silly faces and kissing his belly and he laughed out loud and I was shocked at first and then I just cracked up and that made him laugh some more and then Joseph started cracking up and I tell you what we just lost it. That baby had us cracking up until my sides were sore. He gets all into it too. Throws his little head back and just laughs and is just as happy as can be.

It is absolutely contagious!

Has the whole world gone mad? I recently learned this week that some Einstein at MTV has decided to do a remake of the The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Who could possible play the part of Frank N Furter better than Tim Curry? And how can you possibly improve upon a CULT CLASSIC?   Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of cult classic?  And there are rumors aflutter on the internet that Marilyn Manson will play the part of Frank N Furter.   shudders

Next week is our annual AS9100 audit so this week is pretty much my annual hell week or every body else’s that works here. Depending on how you look at it and I chose the latter because it makes me giggle. I could whine about what a pain in the ass it all is, but it’s my job. “There are rules and procedures that must be adhered to. ” I say to the men with my very best Barney Fife impersonation. I don’t rant about work much because when you love your job there isn’t a lot to rant about. So, my discovery yesterday while reviewing specifications was very exciting. I came upon a specification for a High Modulus requirement on Organic YARN! Man, wouldn’t that be cool to be the Quality Control Manager at a facility that produces fiber? Then I got to fantasizing about leaving aerospace and going into fiber. My fantasy went like this:

“Excuse me ma’am, but this organic fiber, what did you call it? Alpaca? Well it very pretty ma’am and so soft . But although it has a lovely color and you’ve done a fine job, well it appears to be malformed and the multiplicity of filaments do not appear to be drawn together and aren’t gathered into an approximately parallel arrangement. So, I’m going to have to write you up and (cinches pant waist and goes into Barney Fife mode) confiscate this inferior product so it doesn’t get mixed in with the good stuff. You can just put that ton of multi-colored yarns into the back of my pick-up truck.”

Okay, truth be told the organic fiber specification I read was for fiber impregnated with graphite and what not (that’s a technical term, btw. It’s kind of like a do hickey) to make thread to stitch up welding garments, but still can’t a girl dream on company time when she’s suppose to be preparing for an audit?

As if getting a letter from Elmo complete with poetry and newspaper articles about knitting from a book review on Knitting Lingerie (as a joke) and a very informative article on dying yarns with onions and flowers, etc., and an article on a winder made by Thomas Edison’s furniture company wasnt enough to suffice this girl for the week, but today I came to work and my boss (who arrives before me had a bag on my desk) and in it was not one but TWO skeins of 3 ply prima alpaca that are each over 1,330 yards apiece. WOW! That is a lot of alpaca. Enough to make a sweater, my boss tells me.

They are superfine natural colors. One is camel and the other is natural, which makes me think of cream or half and half. They are extremely soft and now I have to decide do I knit with it or weave with it. They came from Village Spinning which is where John and I bought the loom some time ago. What to do what to do?

Suggestions?????????????????

I received a letter from Elmo today.  Haven’t heard from him in “a minute” as he puts it.  In the letter he says,  “I think of you and the “knit wits” fondly, and regret that I seem to have abandoned you and your sweet and merry cadre of adorable misfits.  (a term I use most aptly in high praise)”  (Thank you ladies for taking the time to write to my friend)

For over a year he has disappeared in ”the abysmal quagmire of prison sorrows.”  It was so good to hear from him and know that he’s all right.  This September marks his 30Th year in prison.  I can always gage the time he’s spent in prison by the length of my self imposed motherhood.  The last time I saw Elmo, as a free man, I was pregnant with Roger who will be (obviously) 30 this year. 

Soon, I hope, he will meet him and the rest of the gang in person.  One has to hope.

So I leave you with a poem he wrote that made me feel so special. 

“When I close my eyes and see your face

We are still young.  Your eyes, your smile

so bright, like the nickname you were given;

Sunshine

And now, more than thirty years later

still, you shine.  Your eyes, your smile

forever bright.  But it is the light

of your soul, the warmth of your heart

that now shines brightest of all.” 

My boss and his wife are in Solvang for a couple days this week and he told me yesterday on the phone he got me alpaca. (Squeel) I can’t wait to feel it. We had an audit yesterday and since I had to go it alone it’s nice that he thought of me (or I’m getting good at making him feel guilty). Not many bosses do that and i think it’s a shame. In fact, after being at this company for over 21 years I get the impression that we are quite privileged from what I hear from others. Like last night for instance, I get a text message from a guy who works for me in Quality asking if he could bring his son to work since he had no sitter. I replied “no problem”. Roger was spending the night and thought that was pretty cool that we can bring our kids to work. Now, I certainly wouldn’t want them in the shop, but I think it’s a great experience for children to see their parents at work. It’s certainly not something they can teach you in school. And speaking of work

THIS JUST IN! Laura just called me and she got a job at the Yarn Garden! I am so proud of you sweetie!! The whole world is excited, did you feel it jump for joy all the way in Portland?

Roger spent the night last night (he’s working in Camarillo today) and it was so much fun to hear him and Joseph carry on (as only siblings can do) giggling and joking with each other. Yes, life is good earthquakes and all.

So, have you heard the latest?  The “Visually Impaired” are complaining about hybrid cars.  I can just hear Rush or as my mother calls him”that big-fat-fucker-full-of-feces”  now, “GORE COMMITTS GENOCIDE ON THE BLIND!” They will probably take his Nobel prize away and I still can’t figure out how the hell doing a Powerpoint Presentation gets you a Nobel anyways, but I digress.   First of all, what the fuck are blind people doing driving?  And B, if they can’t hear them who the fuck told them they even existed?  We do not need to waste time and money to make cars noisier when we could do like the Japanese and place things in the road that make noise when a car drives over it in places where pedestrians frequent.  Or hire the homeless to dress up like clowns and give them those squeeky noses.  That would work.  What exactly are the statistics on the blind being run over by hybrids versus the seeing being run over by fucking anything anyways?  At this rate, as an epileptic, I should protest cars driving at night with their headlights ON because flashes of light cause me to have seizures.  Thank dog disco is dead.  Oh and I  DO NOT recommend that any epileptics wear sunglasses at night because this one time when John and I were on our way to Las Vegas to get married in the drive thru he suggested I wear sunglasses (the kind with bushy eyebrows and a big nose) and I fell asleep and woke up as we were approaching an over pass, saw the head lights of a car on said overpass and thought we were going to be hit by an airplane.  I screamed, he swerved and married me anyway.  What a guy.   What the fuck was I talking about anyway.  Oh shit I forgot my train of thought anyway.

I spent the day yesterday with my grandson Eli (maybe that’s why my memory had left me) and for lunch he requested a bologne sandwich with mayo, with a pickle on the side and string cheese on the OTHER SIDE.  Cracked me up.  I’m going to order that next time I get Adrian at BJ’s. 

We had to go to Denny’s for dinner as Eli’s favorite meal is the Alien Pancakes and we had not one but TWO employees that I don’t know how to really explain what stage or sexual transition they were in.  Our server, he had lovely french nails and a boufont hairdoo to die for with a hip swinging sashay that would throw my back out and the guy/girl who brought us our food had a lovely french bun and cheek bones that were stirking. 

I was so confused and these days it really doesn’t take much.