With the New Year and all that, I upped and moved blog digs again. I am now writing “small change” over at this address:

smallchangeblog.com

I never did manage to get used to WordPress, even if I like many of its features. With this move, I hope to be a more frequent poster than I was this last year or so.

Happy New Year to all (my 6 or so readers and the multitudes of spam bots)!

So, it’s been, what, maybe 7 weeks or so, since I took up the needles and cast some yarn on them, and true to form (the obsessive-compulsive one, that is), I have found it hard to put those needles down, even if all the busy work has produced, well, just that, evidence of compulsive and obsessive busy work:

Four hats, of which one is perhaps wearable. There was a fifth one, and that, I am happy to announce,is being worn by a very young men who doesn’t know any different yet when it comes to making a fashion statement.

Three scarves, of which one, the least colorful, is the only decent looking piece of work, up close that is.

And now I have embarked on a bigger project, a sleeveless sweater, or shell, using the softest 100 percent baby alpaca wool. And, in between, a wool and mohair scarf for the husband….

Is it any wonder that blogging has taken a backseat to all this yarning? It’s a shame, though, because I think I am still better with words than I am with wool. But the knitting calms me more.

Which reminds me of an exchange I had today with a woman (my age probably) in the knitting store in which I am becoming a regular these days. A frequent knitter’s card would be an excellent marketing tool for these guys, but hey, with people like me, getting hooked so easily, they don’t need any gimmick to reel more people in.

Anyway, back to the women: She was twittering away with the sales people about her project and how though wool is expensive it is still cheaper than a psychiatrist, and how as soon as she sits down on the couch, she off with her needles, gone into relaxation land… When I pipe in, sharing my mindful mindless knitting and its results no one wants, she too, shared her stories of her unwanted (by family) knitted pieces….

I am thinking maybe it’s time to start a website for curating these yarn works from hands that are busy healing the mind and at the same time making a lot of therapists poorer!

On a more practical note, in one yarn store in Pittsburgh, I saw a big box labeled “chemo caps.” The box was filled with hats knitted by people and donated for people undergoing cancer treatment. I think this is a great idea. Perhaps another box could be made up for donating baby clothes for community clinics….

I would do all these things, save that I feel that the quality of my knitting is so bad right now that the recipients might read my good will as an insult.

After days of sunshine, rain again. A good excuse to sign off on the hustle and bustle I was planning to undertake to put the house, books, and plans (the unfulfilled, the yearning for, and such) in order and just kick back with a cup of hot chocolate:

As well as to spend some leisurely time building a new home for my blog. It’s amazing how much one forgets, and how fast, when it comes to the finer points of style sheet and such. in a day or two, though, with those tags still fresh and links barely placed on a blogroll, I think I will throw the doors open and invite you’all to head on over to my new home…. So watch for the new address to appear here soon!

There is a roundness about today that is pleasing. First, the “boys,” (my younger son and the husband) have turned up at the door shortly after noon. They left Boston mid-morning on Thursday, stopped in Pennsylvania and Nebraska to drop in on relatives, and here they were on Sunday, in time for the sun’s glorious light and a holiday party with old friends.So, it is with this roundness in mind that I post these three photos form today of little spheres that are both vehicles and destinations of fears and dreams, some stuck, some transformed, others, just plain derailed….

Yellow wheels caught in the grip of greenery:

Brown mushrooms at the edge of the green lawn thriving in the Californian winter light:

Red pompoms teasing some “green” holiday cheer out of an ordinary black outfit:

Our boss took us for lunch today in a lovely spot, a restaurant nestled practically into the side of one of Marin’s rolling hills. Ever since we had a staff retreat a couple of months ago, there has been a growing sense of cohesion among us. It’s like alchemy of sorts, the way a little more knowledge about each other’s jobs and personalities ferments the kind of tenderness that turns out to be the strength that binds us into a team. And no, I didn’t have anything to drink, except water and coffee, so there is no way to blame the purple prose on alcohol….

Meanwhile, back at home on my deck, the lesser goldfinches were having a greater feast themselves. I filled a brand new sock for them, to the brim, with nyjer seed. Just now, at the last count, I think I spotted close to ten or twelve of them lining up, diving down, and taking their turn on the sock, while the sparrows waited for the droppings below.

… as in the skies we flew on our way from a very cold Boston to a balmy California. I was going to knit on the plane, but to my right, a young girl had already claimed most of the space, including some of mine, with her oversized knitting needles, and to my left, the robust business man had work to do on his laptop, so I just drifted in and out of sleep between watching episodes of “Project Runway.”

At some point, I realized that my latest knitting project seems to sport the official colors of JetBlue. I wonder how that could have come about?

So, this is was the view from my window this morning — and now I am trying to recreate the post I thought I saved before the hotel decided to sever my Internet connection on the hour to which I paid. This version is not going to be as spontaneous or funny as the one that turned into food for the data dogs.

I wrote something about this snow and sleet and wind, referred to by one weather person on TV as that “Canadian sun,” and I think I was funny, but maybe not. I even made a reference to the Patriots game, as if it were my home team, as if I hdd some claim in the game’s outcome.

The I wrote up a bunch of questions, like will I be flying out of here tomorrow? Will I be going to New York, or San Francisco, or even Las Vegas again? Will I be young again? Will this cold that has gripped my sinuses move into my chest by tomorrow? Will I run out of questions…

Then, I pointed out that given this frivolous line of questions, it should be obvious that the son is on the mend from his surgery an, if not in the more capable, at least the more fun hands, of his buddies back at the dorm. and he is awaiting the changing of the guard — the arrival of his father, who will drive him back to California. Because of the surgery and the collapsed lung, he cannot fly for at least 6 weeks or so, and the train at this time of the year costs more than my 10-day sojourn at the hotel in Boston, which is a small fortune in itself….

So, now we wait: he for his father, I for JetBlue’s next flight out somewhere westward. He has his buddies, I have plenty of yarn. Last night, I taught myself how to knit the cable stitch. After all, with these tender shoot of roots I am putting down in New England, with each new day that I overstay my planned absence from home, it seems only appropriate, no?

So, as I was leaving Mass General Hospital yesterday, my second time there during the day, I noticed the thick cover of snow glowing under street lights, all this through the window facing toward a very public square. I took out my camera, set all the right buttons for capturing that night scene, positioned it against the window, facing fully outside, and that’s when I felt a tap on my shoulder. A burly guy in a dark blue suit belonged to the finger tapping me, and the voice, in that Boston drawl, admonished me: “Maam, please, no pictures here.”

Nows, this wasn’t for security reasons and such, and I must admit, he felt a bit ridiculous tapping me like that when he could see plainly that my camera was aiming outside, but it turns out that the “no photography” rule is there to protect patient rights. Of course, had I been standing the other way around, outside in the snow, snapping a photo of the main lobby, in which case the chances of snapping mugshots of patients would have gone up from 0 to 100, I suppose it would have been all right. Go figure….

So, instead of that charmingly quiet snow landscape, I snapped a bunch of others from the T line, the windows of covered walkways of malls, the doorway of the Boston Public Library, and such. If you click on the thumbnail of this photo, you’ll get a better view of Copley Square close to 5 p.m. last night.

… I don’t remember much, except that I used to love it as a child. It’s been decades since I had to slug through the stuff, and, in a way, this storm in Boston, a ringer of many sirens suddenly, is a small gift to me.

Since I have been here, I knitted these things, as I sat waiting. I even found a yarn store, should I run out of threads.

Whew … a long day it has been, but I just left a very dopey, I mean doped up, boy, whose lungs had been surgically mended and sanded so that they will stick like they are supposed to when it comes to filling them with air. A couple of more days with the tube in his side, like that proverbial thorn, and then, to figure out how to get him back to California. Train? Car? Definitely no flying, not at all for 6 weeks or more.

There is, of course, more to say about the condition that afflicted him, but it will have to wait until I catch my breath.

For those of you with children facing college choices, let this be a cautionary tale of sorts when you start budgeting for those years far away from home…. I think I’ll go eat now, if my stomach is settled enough. Almost, not quite though.