The Surly Teen Still Acknowledges I'm His Mum

After months of complaining to anyone who will listen about my son's generally annoying adolescent behaviour which is manifesting itself as what the Globe and Mail's Jan Wong calls "monotheistic Marxism" I have evidence that he doesn't hate me as much as he claims he does. (Well actually he doesn't he just calls me a latte leftist--a label I somewhat resemble but he distains. Mind you he calls his father a capitalist, which is a real insult. I find this all rather unfair on his part as his father is a Corporate Social Responsibility Specialist so that technically at least makes him an oxymoron.) This past week after attending his regular Leftist Youth Group meeting, which I understand is a lot less interested in discussing how to be"gauche" as much as they are into integrating a gender analysis into their work (a.k.a. meeting girls who will hang out with them--I think the members are all young straight men) he looked up a "protest blog", found this pic and forwarded it to me with a note that had both Xs and Os on it which I hope means that despite all his recalcitrance he really does still love me! Now if only he would accept Revolutionary Knitting Circle founder Grant Neufeld as a comarade in arms, I'll be happy.

When the going gets tough....

The tough get rough right? Well maybe not, sometimes we turn into wimps. When I had breast cancer I thought it was the end of the world then my friends and family rallied around me and I managed to pull myself out my snivelling self-pity.

Now that I am almost a survivor (I'm in my 4th year) I find myself often at loose ends and feeling quite conflicted about life the universe and everything. I'M ALIVE and it feels GOOD but at the same time I am ground down by minutiae of life. If one more person at work yells at me about something...if the IGT and the ST hate yet another lunch I got up at 6:00am to pack them...if the B & C has one more unscheduled business trip and can't find any clean shirts... Surely there is more to life than all these monotonous tasks? Shouldn't life have a higher purpose, like enlightenment, fulfillment, and liberation?

Well according to "three wise peeps" it does. My new friend Two Iguana glass--a stained glass artist in Colorado, who makes beautiful ojects d'art, told me that we are all enlightenment if we just take the time to stop, look and listen to what is around you and to pay attention to important details like the "wee wee beasties"--dragonflies, butterflies and ladybugs--who share our earth. The Wooley Mammoth, meanwhile, shows over and over again that fulfillment does not always come from a trip to the LYS or Lululemon but from just being there for your family and friends while the Neurotic Id ("You think you're suffering? Now I'm suffering!) reminds me at 9:00pm every Wednesday night (when I work late) that liberation can come from a weekly late night (veggie) sushi run as well as a lifetime of following the Buddha's 8-fold path.

Lady Godiva Had Something...

when she rode naked through the streets of Coventry to protest the onerous taxes her husband levied on the peasantry. Desperate times call for desperate measures and not just in the 10th century. This past weekend I was forced to take such action when I discovered that certain individuals who live in my house had decided to spend their leisure time actually recreating.

Untouched loads of laundry littered my basement floor. I had no clean socks and worse no clean underwear, so I threatened to wear my newly finished Lace Wings Shawl (knit from Handmaiden Sea Silk) and only that to Honest Ed's in search of new socks and underwear unless they got off their asses and did the bloody laundry.

Alas it was to no avail. They knew that given that I shroud myself in multiple layers of clothing (I've never met a button up cardi I didn't like) even in the heat of a Southern Ontario summer (remember 34C is the temperature NOT my bra size), I would never follow through on my threat.

Consequently I spent the weekend in my basement washing load after load of socks and underwear.

The Wonder of Girls?

"It must be so fab to have a girl," says my partner in yarn crime Loop de Loop-mother to three boys with a fourth on the way, "Think of all the cool things you can knit her."

She lists the possibilities, the Barefoot Knits Tankini, the Knitty Twinkle Toes and all the Nicky Epstein Barbie Knits. Then there's all the cool grrl gear from Stitch and Bitch

L de L however, has not spent much time with the Imperious Goth Tween whose favourite colours are black, camo and khaki in that order and believes that her raison d'etre in life is to wear clothes that are ripped and safety pinned together. Her straight legged jeans recently got their very first hole which made her tres pleased.

Her friends' closests are littered with all her fashionable hand knit discards, the "tutters" as she calls her closest girl friends own an impressive array of shrugs, pullovers and ponchos all in the latest colours purloined from her drawers ("Oh take it, my mum can make me another one anytime," she tells them when they admire her hand knits). Now that is not to say that the IGT does not appreciate my knitting. She loves wearing all the stuff I knit for me especially the blacks--which I only wear because they haven't invented a darker colour yet. It doesn't do any good when I point out to the IGT that she literally swims in my cardis and t-shirts, she just insists that she's "still growing". She also appreciates my knitwit by promising her friends hand knitted gifts for their "annual emotionally laden origin events" a.k.a birthdays/adoption days. I still haven't recovered from making three pairs of orange punk rock tweed mittens in three days for her playmates Kyle, Greg and Jarrod back in Kindergarten (to be honest it was the least I could do for their parents given how much the IGT terrorized, I mean bossed them around on the playground.)

Luckily for me her brother the Surly Teen (who is less surly at the promise of new Fleece Artist Socks in sea wool) wears everything I make him with no questions asked. I think L de L needs to start seeing the knit potential in her boys.

Forget About Knitting A Ferrari, I Need a New Door For My Volvo

My week is going from bad to worse and it's only Wednesday. I got so stressed out this morning trying to take care of stupid details (like making lunches, getting dressed and finding my car keys) that after dropping the ST, IGT and the B & C off at their respective summer camps and office, I managed to smash the passenger side door of my Volvo into one of those evil posts that the University of Toronto puts up to control traffic flow. (Did I mention I was on my cellphone at the time?) Bad. Bad. Bad. I feel so stupid. I know that there is this great art student Lana Porter from somewhere in in England--I think it was Bath--who has knitted a Ferrari but will someone knit me a new door for my Volvo 850?

I don't want a Ferrari , just myVolvo fixed.

Should I knit for my new boyfriend?

Unlike most of my peers, I didn't spend many of my teen years participating in popular culture. In fact my inherent angst and need for clarity during that tumultulous time turned me into a raving neo-Con. While my friends were busy trying to buy (scalped) tickets for the Boomtown Rats and going gah gah over the Police. I was musing over Margaret Thatcher's position on the Coal Miners Strike and ruminating over the state of Brian Mulroney's Gucci loafers. Fortunately or unfortunately my politics took a decided turn towards the latte left in my late-20s and there they remain to this day. This may explain my love of knitting, daily yoga practice and aborration of anything smacking of "consumer culture" (a.k.a Big Box Stores). This past Wednesday in the midst of only what can be described as the week where I truly feared for my karmic well-being (I had to unravel eight rows of my Lace Wings shawl among all the work and home crises) I finally ROCKED OUT to alternative culture with Michael Franti and Spearhead and I think I've finally found my true love. He's vegan, practices yoga, has fabulous tattoos, goes barefoot as a means of making a statement about those who have the privilege of wearing shoes and he's an ACTIVIST with a capital A who went to Iraq and Israel/Palestine to make a film about war and peace. Oh and did I mention he and Spearhead are probably some of the greatest musicians in the world? (The way that Carl Young caresses that bass...ah) This guy is so great that I actually spent three hours dancing, jumping and spinning (and NOT knitting) at his concert. Nicorette (who came with me) decided that I should just make him my new boyfriend. Unfortunately he doesn't know I exist but maybe if I knit him a "Power to the Peaceful" hat out of bamboo silk he'll notice me. The B & C however, doesn't hold out much hope that this will happen and then reminded me to pick up his dry cleaning.

A Post for Pagie Pie

I'm absolutely wrecked. I've had a couple of hellish weeks at work. My training partner Bat-Man and I broke up--it wasn't our choice--it was a "corporate decision." Everyone at work hates me because I can't seem to get any of my projects finished and I can't seem to get any of my projects finished because everyone hates me. A vicious circle.

On the home front, I've been dealing with hormones of every colour shape and size from the kind they put in milk, eggs and KFC (a good reason to go vegan) to the Ball & Chain's ("Can we have sex even if there's yarn in the bed?") to the Surly Teen's, ("It's all your fault you didn' knit me socks when I asked.") to the Imperious Goth Tween's ("I don't want to knit, I want to go to H & M, NOW!") and yes mine ("Will you all leave me alone so I can knit!") now that I am officially perimenopausal. BTW: Teen/tween angst and middle aged mummy ennui, are an explosive combination.

In the midst of all this craziness was a single spot of sanity (no, not my daily dose of Prozac.) My good friend Pagie Pie graduated from her expressive arts therapy program and curated a private showing of her knit and crochet thesis for the IGT and I which the B & C shot with the his new digital camera. Here are some highlights. For some unknown reason the MG Monster, so named for Pagie Pie's love, did not turn out. (Mercury Retrograde maybe?)

Pinky was hopeful!

Cirque de Poulet

"Whaddya mean I'm not a chicken?!"

Maniacal Sleepy Time Bears. (You don't wake up from napping with them!)

Lizardos

Flying Fish

"I'm not disemboweled, just misunderstood!"