The Ides of May – a Mother’s Day Post

The first ten days of May have come and gone, you know, the bad days when I think about Dead People a lot, and ponder the transitory nature of life. This year, I counteracted with a buttload of work, always a good strategy when feeling morose. Busy days and a couple of late nights later, one job is all but finished.

I’m being supported by my friend F. on this one, who not only has a brilliant academic mind and a keen eye for any typos that might lurk, but with whom I also share a deep love for crafts-related things, so we’re obviously collaborating on the Sewing Book :-).

The other project I’m currently spending most of my work time on is far from done, but we’re about half-way through, and I feel confident we’re doing a very good job of it. I’m co-translating this one with a friend who is in charge of the project, and enjoying every minute of it. We’ve worked together before, so I knew it was going to be good going in, and it is.

All the while, crafts needed to take a time-out. I finished the pale blue stripies for my sweet A. because I was on a deadline, in fact it’s her birthday today, and although she won’t receive her gift until end of May, probably, I still wanted it to get to her as soon as the logistics of snail mail will allow.

And then yesterday night when I was catching up with all the episodes of Marvel Agents of Shield I missed over the past way too busy weeks with my squad, I finished the latest addition to my Mission To Brighten Up The Grey Couch: The Zig-Zag Cushion.

I’m pleased with how it turned out, and I like how the cushions are not even remotely alike. The next one may be something Granny Square-y, not sure yet, or even a knitted cable pattern, just one color and lots of texture. We’ll see.

For now, I’ve started with a little summery sweater for my daughter. It was one of those spontaneous yarn purchases made with no particular design in mind. I just liked the yarn, and after playing around with it today a bit, I decided it needed a seed stitch, and that I’d make her a boxy sweater, not too long, not too short.

As many of you are probably aware, it was Mother’s Day today – usually a great day for being brought tea in bed, the kids making you your favorite breakfast, and giving you flowers, handcrafted gifts and the likes. And while I got all of that …:

… the blissful laziness came to an abrupt halt around noon, when I had to say goodbye to my favorite boy for 3 weeks. He’s off to intern on a farm, as part of the 9th grade curriculum. He applied to a sustainable goat farm, got in, and he’s greatly looking forward to working with the animals. Hopefully he’ll even get to learn how to make cheese. How cool is that?

The only downside is the fact we’re not supposed to have any contact with the children over the whole period, and I have to say that right now, 3 weeks seem like an awfully long time to me. I have gone a week without before, for class trips are usually like that also with the no phones policy. But I always have a hard time being away from him, helicopter parent (within reason, at least that’s how I see it ;-)) that I am. Oh well. Kids are supposed to become really independent when doing this, so there. Anything for healthy character development… And although it’s not going to be pretty, no doubt, in the words of the immortal Queen of Disco, Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.

Such a great song. There, I feel better already ;-).

And of course I’m not as bad off as the moms of only children, as I have my young daughter who is happy enough to have me all to herself for a while. Today, we did this:

It took me a while to remember the rules, but my daughter refreshed my memory, and then we had a lot of fun with this board game I brought back from Greece once upon another lifetime.

I mended a pair of jeans for her, brushed her hair and watched one of her all time favorite movies with her when the weather did what it does this spring – it turned bad again, so no Fro Yo bar day yet again. And now I get to pour all these mixed feelings into my little speaker’s corner of the www, so I’m guessing the day is drawing to a close on a reasonably content, if not ecstatic note.

I took this gorgeous pic on the one sunny afternoon we had the past week. We need to count our blessings, right? Hope all you moms out there had a wonderful time with your children today. Have a great week!

About a Bag Lady

When my son told me yesterday there was a homeless person sleeping on the lawn in front of our building it made me wonder what their story was, as it always does whenever I see someone in their situation. Everybody living outside of the normal societal spectrum has one, and some have even made it into our pop culture – remember ‚The Fisher King‘ starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges? It’s one of my favorite movies ever.

When I was cleaning up our balcony yesterday, getting rid of the sad shriveled stalks that were my plants last summer, I suddenly thought – what if they’re dead, or sick? So I peered over the railing to check whether the person had moved, and found that it was a woman who looked Latin American, with beautiful long black hair. She had made herself as comfortable as she could on a thermo picknick blanket, her backpack, sneakers and a paperback novel neatly arranged next to her. It felt weird looking down on her like that, as if I were intruding, so I didn’t stare once I had established she was alive.

Today, my neighbors from downstairs went out to take her a drink, which didn’t really go well. She lost it, yelled at them for their trouble, and finally they had to ask her to leave. They said she seemed pretty tweaked out on some drug. She’s gone now, and I hope she found another secluded (and safe) place to crash.

A friend pointed out to me recently that in Germany, nobody really has to sleep on the streets if they don’t want to. He said it’s always a choice people make, probably to do with some psychological disorder more often than not. Or even with a profound need to be alone, to the point of preferring a patch of front lawn to being crammed into a shelter, sharing space with a group of strangers.

I’ve said it before – I enjoy solitude a great deal myself, but unlike the bag lady, I’m privileged enough to be able to be alone in comfort rather than having to sleep on a park bench. Suddenly, being alone up here in my comfortable, central heated apartment with a bathroom, food in the fridge and WiFi seemed special and not something I should be taking for granted. In the end, we may not be that different, she with her paperback novel and me with my e-book, I thought.

It made me appreciate my life, which is always a good thing. My family have gone to the country for the long weekend, I’ve stayed back to do some work, and now I’m ready to welcome back the noise, the laughter and the mess that is my sweet kids and husband.

Did I do any crafts the past week? Well, it was a busy few days work-wise, also there were parents‘ meets, and my sweet girl J. came to stay with us for a couple days after winning the award for Best German Computer Game 2017 – a major achievement she can be soooo proud of! If you’re a gamer, you absolutely need to check out Portal Knights, it’ll be out for XBox on May 19th.

As you can see, I have been knitting over the past week: another pair of stripy socks in the coolest shade of rockabilly baby blue. These are for my girl A. whose birthday is coming up in 2 weeks.

Remember when I was so bamboozled with my many color choices for my friend S.’s socks? The blue ball of yarn was one of the ones I bought that day. These are the ones for S., all wrapped up pretty, and modeled by myself.

When I’m done with the socks, I want to finish the Zig Zag crochet cushion I started over Easter. Without realizing, I included the pansexual colors (and a few more), what do you know. I was really just using up leftover yarn, not trying to make a political statement! But I think it’s going to be so pretty, another spot of brightness on the dark Grey that is our new couch.And now I have go check what to make my people for dinner. Have a good week, everyone!