Just wanted to post quickly to let everyone know that Julie and I are now safely back in Salem. A good number of packages have been ariving from NYC as well and, so far, everything has been intact. (Knock on wood).
Just today my diploma project arrived and I just freed it from the crate it was encased in for shipping. I guess the extra money for heavy duty shipping materials was worth it. The crate looked a bit worn but the contents were well kept.
- Jeremy
Julie and I have survived the two years. Many thanks to everyone who wished us well and helped along the way.
So here is my belated update, seven posts with one blow… ready for an awful lot of photos and rambling?
1. Parisian Flan
Week before last, the day before the plague struck the library, we had a potluck to celebrate the departure of our graduating student workers. In retrospect, we really just threw a party for the flu bug, but we had all the best intentions going in. My contribution was a Parisian flan, a lovely custard pie with deceptively few ingredients that come together in 8 or 9 short hours. It set beautifully, and tasted pretty good, but other than the wonderful (if a bit temperamental) crust, it is probably not something I would make again.
2. Happy little basil plant
Three weeks ago there was a plant sale at Bush Park, and I brought home a hardy lavender plant, a tri-colored sage, and a little basil plant. The first two went right in the herb garden, but the basil made me paranoid, because although I purchased two or three basil plants last summer, I was unable to get them to do anything but wilt and die. I decided to keep my new basil indoors for the time being, living on my narrow kitchen windowsill (so I would remember to water it) and going outside on the front porch on warm, sunny days. Miracle of miracles, it grew and thrived, and is now twice the size it was when I brought it home. I am so happy with its progress that I named it Presto the Happy Basil Plant (because its growth is magical and it will one day turn into pesto), and talk to it every day as I move it in and out of doors. I think this means it is time for Jeremy to come home so I can start holding two-sided conversations again.
3. Printed bookmarks
My mom commissioned a printed bookmark to give as gifts to folks at her school, and here is the finished product. It is just a simple little linocut, about 2.5×9″, printed in black oil-based ink on Rives lightweight paper, and handpainted with watercolors for a little additional visual interest.
4. Curlicue
I finished the Curlicue coverlet while I was recovering from the scourge; even knitting was almost too exhausting, but I drew upon unforeseen reservoirs of strength and knit up the last two sections. Sorry about the folded photo; I need to come up with a good place to photograph it where I can get high up enough to capture the whole thing. Plus, it still needs blocking and ends woven in. I doubt it will block out perfectly, but I am still quite happy with the way it turned out, and also the fact that I have at least a third of the last skein leftover to make an accompanying baby hat or something.
5. Socks and more socks
I finished two pairs of socks since my last knitting post: the Spey Valley socks for my grandpa, and the pair of socks for my aunt. I’m quite pleased with both. The Trekking tweed is lovely and entirely camera-proof; I ended up abandoning the Chutes-N-Ladders pattern and doing a simple garter rib on #1 needles, and I like the effect, simple but elegant. The Spey Valley pattern is a nice one that I would certainly consider doing again, perhaps in a solid color to better show off the textured band at the top. Each sock used just shy of 1 skein of the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock, which did some funky pooling stuff, but not entirely to its detriment, I think.
With the remaining skein and two bits of LL, I dared myself to knit a pair of socks for me. Since I have such small feet, I thought I could at least squeeze a pair of ankle socks from it. I carefully divided the skein into two equal balls (no mean feat for someone lacking swift, ball winder, and scale; guess we’ll see how well I managed it soon…), and cast on for a toe-up sock. Here is what I ended up with from one half-skein ball:
A perfect little ankle sock based on the Child’s French Sock pattern in Knitting Vintage Socks. I needed the socks to be toe-up rather than cuff-down to allow the maximum cuff length for my yardage. Although I immediately considered my standard short-row non-pattern, I really preferred the way the sock looked with the side lace motifs flowing into the gusset; so, I opted for the reverse heel-flap method in Sensational Knitted Socks, adjusting for my stitch count. It was a nice change of pace, and I think came out well, though I’ll still use the short-row method as my default pattern. I decided to put the lace motifs (which are of course reversed) only on the sides, leaving the more simple texture pattern on the instep. I turned out to have just enough for a nice little ankle sock, with a bit left over to assuage my paranoia for its mate. Altogether a success… now if I can just remember what I did for the second sock…
6. Fancy clothes
In preparation for the upcoming event, I did a bit of shopping these past few weeks. The weekend before I got sick, I spent something like 8 hours trekking around Salem from Value Village to the mall, most of that time with a backpack full of library books on my back (don’t ask). I had great success, and spent more money than I probably should have, partly because I had to keep returning to the mall… really, I HAD to! 
The first image is the beautiful dress I am going to wear to Jeremy’s graduation, barring blizzard conditions. It was part of the reason I had to keep coming back to the mall, because Nordstrom’s didn’t have it in my size and had to order it in for me. The second pic is the skirt I got just in case the smaller size dress didn’t fit me after all, and which turned out to cost more than the dress. The shell with it is another reason I kept coming back to the mall: it cost $50 the day I bought the skirt, so I refused to even try it on, but when I went back to pick up my dress, it was 50% off so I had to get it. A few days later I went back and got the matching cardigan, which turned out to be 65% off by that point. It’s so nice to see clothes that fit my (pear-shaped) body type at last!
7. NYC this week
Finally, as if y’all didn’t know, I will be going to New York later this week for Jeremy’s graduation and diploma show. I can hardly wait to bring him back home and know he won’t be going anywhere in a few months. So if the blog is quiet, that is probably why.
When I went to the sink this morning to rinse my breakfast dishes, I was greeted by this welcome sight: they are Meyer lemon trees in their infancy. I counted at least six little sprouts, and couldn’t have had a better Mother’s Day surprise, as I had given up the seeds as duds (or else killed by my black thumb). I planted them the first week of March, and after eight weeks of carefully moistening the soil, I gave up the enterprise at the beginning of May. Apparently all they needed was a bit of neglect…
Telamon is an architectural term — a male figure in the form of a supporting pillar.
– Jeremy
Last day of classes today. My graduate school career is now officially over. Unofficially, there are a couple of small hurdles left between now and commencement. The Diploma Project is due on Friday and I’ve been working it off and on the past week. I’m going to paint tomorrow and that should be the end of it.
Here’s a portrait drawing from the past couple of days. I had time to put a bit more effort into it, but the mid-range quality of the paper was actually starting to limit what I could do with the piece. Interesting. The drawing I did in Dan Thompson’s class was on higher quality paper and it really made a difference. I guess I’ll have to get some nice paper for really finished drawings.
Next week is the Year-End Critiques. Should be good fun, the entire faculty is brought to bear on each of us (muted) students in turn. One last verbal flagellation before they send us off, skin thickened, into the wider and ostensibly uncaring world; a spectacle to which the entire school is invited. I was surprised how harsh the tone was last year and I expect no less this coming year. No matter—as long as one has put in the work, it is sort of a no-lose situation and I’ve put in the work.
I’ll post pictures of the painting on Friday after a last few hours of work…
- Jeremy
Do you remember the fairy tale of the Brave Little Tailor, who killed seven flies with one blow and stitched himself a belt to commemorate it? I am half-tempted to knit a belt that reads “Nine with one blow” as a reminder of the events of last week, when fully half of the staff of my library were felled within a few hours of each other by a heinous foe.
It seemed like such a normal Thursday. Everyone was at work, grazing happily at the leftovers of the previous day’s potluck in honor of our graduating student workers. The only thing out of the ordinary was one of our librarians leaving an hour or two early, feeling generally unwell and perhaps slightly nauseous. Shortly thereafter, I began to feel a bit odd myself, but chalked it up to empathy or a touch of hypochondria. I left to walk home at my usual time, and realized immediately that something was indeed amiss. I reached home half an hour later, having taking twice as long as usual to walk my half-mile route. I sat down on the bed to take off my shoes, and succumbed to a sudden urge to just rest my head a moment. Several minutes later, wracked by a sudden chill, I scrambled into my pajamas, swept my work clothes unceremoniously off the bed, and with the last of my strength, climbed under the covers.
An hour later, I rolled over and realized my mouth was filling up with saliva, an ominous sign. I raced to the bathroom sink, and—will let your imagination take over from there. Needless to say, 5 or 6 bouts of nausea later, topped with numerous rounds of additional “plumbing” issues and a raging foot cramp, and I was reduced to a shaking, whimpering, dehydrated husk, very nearly too exhausted even to make a pitcher of Kool-Aid, certainly too weak to descend into the basement for our emergency supply of Gatorade (whose caps I have trouble opening even at my most energetic). I watched old movies on AMC for hours—I vaguely recall The Man in the Iron Mask and Highlander—because the DVD player seemed so very far away from the couch.
Fortunately, the worse of the scourge was over by 2am. On Friday, I felt like I had been suckerpunched in the gut. I timidly sipped Kool-Aid, avoiding food, anxiously examining each stomach burble for returning nausea. Finally, at 8:00pm, weighing my chances of a relapse against the likelihood that my newly raging headache was blood sugar-related, I gave in and ordered a small cheese pizza, which held me over for the entire weekend to come. By Sunday I was vastly improved, if still exhausted and nursing a stomach that mimicked deep sea sounds every time I ate or drank.
I came to work Monday very curious to know whether the librarian who left early on Thursday had in fact been afflicted by the same plague. As you have likely guessed from my opening paragraph, not only had she and I both been ill, seven others among the staff, nearly all reference librarians, were also struck down; the processing and cataloging staff were remarkable unscathed. We gathered like veterans, comparing notes: everyone fell ill with the same symptoms between 5pm and midnight on Thursday, and was able—if shakily—to return to work Monday. In the end, we decided that we had all contracted not food poisoning, but a virulent strain of 24-hour stomach flu, of whose existence on campus we had heard mere rumor the previous week. It was the only instance during Jeremy’s stay in NYC in which I would have dearly loved to be cared for. However, even as I complained weakly to Jeremy over the phone that he was so far away, I was also extremely glad that he was out of harm’s way on the opposite coast: I wouldn’t wish this pestilence on anyone.
For my next, and much belated post, I’m going to stick with the Brave Little Tailor theme, and kill seven topics with one blow. Check back soon for this mighty feat. (In the meantime, I think I am going to go take a nap; writing can be strenuous!)