mmm... warm

when it's 15 degrees outside, there's nothing like warm pb cookies inside

I'm a little teapot...

short and stout,

here is my handle, here is my spout. When I get all steamed up then I shout
"TIP ME OVER AND POUR ME OUT!!!"

not only was this my favorite song when I was 5, but this teapot is part of a set (the part that must have been broken long before my time) that belonged to Dar. As far as I know, only the sugar dish remains. I still remember her lovely old hands (mine are looking more and more like them every day) holding that spoon steady, picking up a heaping teaspoon-full of sugar and expertly shaking the perfect amount on our buttered toast, then tapping the corners to sprinkle the excess back into the pot. Amazing how I even remember the sounds. A little dash of cinnamon, and we were eating like queens. But never with the teapot. We mostly drank oj.
I found this at the salvation army thrift shop down the street from our house (well, it was actually a questionably legal basement apartment in Pontiac, Michigan.) about 6 years ago. Preparing to move, we were dropping things off, and my husband made it very clear that we had no money and no room... we already had too much "useless crap" to pack. ("useless crap" is a term that covers everything other than his clothes, shoes, books, dvds and various other personal items that hold much more significance than, say, towels or dishes. They would fall under the "useless crap" category.) Anyway... I couldn't help but swoon over this sweet teapot; identical to the sugar dish from my childhood idol's kitchen table. But I immediately put it back down. I wasn't going to bother.
The next day I was packing, scrubbing walls, etc. and he walked in with my teapot. It was literally his last $15, and it was the least practical thing he had ever done (other than, perhaps, falling in love with me). Even still, after all of these years and what they hold, I can hear the "I love you" that it was meant to speak.
damn teapot. I love it too. What ever happened to that guy? I liked him.

Make new friends,
but keep the old.

One is silver,
the other is gold.

A circle is round,
it has no end.
That's how long,
I will be your friend.

A fire burns bright,
it warms the heart.
We've been friends,
from the very start.

You have one hand,
I have the other.
Put them together,
We have each other.

Silver is precious,
Gold is too.
I am precious,
and so are you.

You help me,
and I'll help you
and together
we will see it through.

The sky is blue
The Earth is green
I can help
to keep it clean

Across the land
Across the sea
Friends forever
We will always be

. . . but while I breathe Heaven's air, and Heaven looks down on me, And smiles at my best meanings, I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.

~Lord Alfred Tennyson
from The Foresters

stitches

I am too clumsy for pilates (and I have no idea what my "core muscles" are, or if I even have any), and I just don't have the attention span for yoga (that part of my brain is stuck on "two-year-old who had a whole box of frosted flakes for breakfast" mode). So, how to relax? Trickery. Occupy my mean Left Brain and let Righty run wild; that's the best I can do. I am one of those weirdos that finds ironing and vacuuming relaxing... anything that requires concentration but not thought.
But my favorite "relaxing hobby" is knitting. I am not great at it. Well, I am good enough to almost never make a mistake (because I don't have the patience to learn how to fix knitting mishaps) as long as I do the same stitch, and there can be no counting whatsoever. I've gotten to the point that I can do it in the dark, which was really good last Spring when I got the majority of this scarf underway. I was given the incredible, only seen in movies, would have wished for it the rest of my life opportunity to fly from Brooklyn to CA so I could sit up all night every night at my dear grandmother's hospital bedside during one of her last weeks of her amazing life. We listened to opera, laughed, cried, and she told me lots of stories I had heard a thousand times before. (the last time you hear it is the best, I promise)
My favorite was about the one time she took up knitting, to do "her part" for the soldiers during WWII. (as if taking a boat to Germany to protest against Hitler hadn't been enough). There was a USO campaign to get the ladies at home to knit up scarves to keep the service men warm, and they were handing out balls of yarn. Being the over-achiever that she was, she loaded up as many as they'd give her, and knitted her heart out... the only thing she didn't know how to do was cast off. "No problem... one of those women down there can figure out how to divide them up, right?" So, when she told her mother (who was a domestic goddess) what she had delivered to the USO ladies, they ended up laughing until they cried... some guy ended up with a scarf that was about 12 feet long.
Someday I'd love to meet the family with the story... "when grandpa was in the war he got the longest, worst knitted scarf in all the world..."
So, my project may take years to finish (look at those tiny stitches!), and I lost the ball of brown yarn (on an airplane, I think) so the design has become a little wonky. But those stitches will tell their own story, and this will forever be one of my most treasured possessions.

California dreaming...

Oh, California... I know I came from you, but the longer I am away the stranger you become. Your people seem to not even notice the tree robots that watch them from alongside your many freeways. Who started the rumor that they were cell phone transmitters? Maybe the trees suggested it through their mind altering radio waves. How else would they believe that a palm tree and a pine tree could live happily so close together?

show & tell... button of the week

I have been told that this little one is an old diaper button, probably from the 1800's.