Recent Fantasies

1. Deserts.
2. Disappearance.
3. Defection.
4. Disengagement.
5. Debuts.
6. Deliverance.

Grace in small things: ten

1. Two-stamp Tuesdays at Fuel Coffee.
2. Co-workers who treat me like a competent, knowledgeable professional.
3. Sleet pellets bouncing off the ground in a quiet susurration.
4. Tight-clenched prickly pine cones which, when brought into a warm office, unfurl and collapse to spill into individual seeds across a windowsill.
5. Wool yarn that allows itself to be spit-felt together, eliminating all but two loose ends to be woven in at the end of a large project.

Grace in small things: nine

1. Eating beef tacos with onions and cilantro from the neighborhood taco bus.
2. Uprooting ridiculously long ivy vines at a neglected edge of the house.
3. Finding, beneath the ivy, an ancient rotting wooden planter in which a rose bush is still stubbornly growing.
4. Learning (slowly, slowly learning) how to knit an entrelac headband.
5. Having paid sick leave available so I could give in to my sore throat, call in sick, and sleep an extra three hours this morning.
6. (Bonus grace!) Remembering how to code the break at the end of each list item so the list looks right!

Grace in Small Things: eight

1. Tealights burning inside large vases.
2. The hollow echo that the heels of my brand-new thrift store shoes made as I passed an open garage on my walk at lunchtime today.
3. A wild romp outside on the hill with Chloe the codependent German Shepherd as the sun set on this cold day.
4. The hearty scent of cooked garlic and onions and spices that was drifting out of a neighbor's house as Chloe and I walked home from our romp.
5. Stovetop stuffing.

Grace in Small Things: seven

1. Sasha Obama's playful thumbs-up to Barack Obama after he was sworn in as the President of the United States yesterday.*
2. The Q-size crochet hook that is allowing me to crochet a blanket within a week's time, using yarn I've had on hand for about 5 years.
3. The sensation of flying while looking out from the I-5 bridge over the thick fog that blanketed Seattle on Sunday.
4. Tiny grey-green crabs scattering for cover on a rocky beach when their sheltering boulder was turned over.
5. A productive trip to Value Village on Saturday which resulted in new shoes, a beautiful handbag, small decorative shelves, and ten brand-new picture frames.

*I wanted to list "President Barack Obama," but let's be honest: that's no small thing. It's the most incredible moment of grace in politics in my adult life, if not my lifetime. Let all those who do justice and love mercy say "Amen!"

If those two can do it...

Oh, this is adorable. I am shamelessly going to post it here for my own future reference.

2008 Books

I seem to have fallen dismayingly short of reading 50 books in 2008, although I have the nagging feeling that I read a book or two during the summer that I forgot to document. (This always seems to happen...ah well.) Plus, not everything that I re-read is on this list--just Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, because it took me so long to get through it again. Still, I read (and re-read) some excellent books last year.

Favorites: Neverwhere, Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series, Whipping Girl, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Un Lun Dun (which I loved utterly, and which made me want to get back into good young adult fiction--and then the excellent The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian redoubled that desire), and Empire Falls, which technically bridged the gap into 2009. The Other Boleyn Girl was on my grandma's bookshelf; I read it over a couple of days while I was staying with her before Christmas, and liked it more than I expected to, enough that I would check out Philippa Gregory's other books too.

1. Neverwhere
2. The Subtle Knife [re-read]
3. The Ladies of Grace Adieu
4. Shade's Children
5. Harpy's Flight
6. Shaman's Crossing
7. Forest Mage
8. Pride and Prejudice
9. Ship of Magic
10. Solstice Wood
11. Onion Girl
12. Mad Ship
13. Ship of Destiny
14. Renegade's Magic
15. The Dragonbone Chair
16. The Stone of Farewell
17. To Green Angel Tower
18. The Gypsy
19. Shapechangers
20. The Song of Homana
21. Shadowmarch
22. A Game of Thrones
23. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
24. Sophie's World
25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
26. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell [re-read]
27. Un Lun Dun
28. What is the What
29. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders
30. Small Wonder
31. Magic Hour
32. The Other Boleyn Girl
33. Empire Falls
34. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Grace in small and big things

Last Tuesday morning was a bummer. I had something that needed to be sent overnight to Olympia. After some minor adventures getting the thing prepared in the first place, I went up to the postal shop near work. Their sign said they open at 9, but their door was still locked at 9:10, so I gave up and drove to the post office.

Halfway through my wait in line, it occurred to me that I needed a copy of the document before I sent it. I crossed my fingers that the post office would make a copy for me, and stayed in line. When after a long wait I reached the counter, I asked hopefully. Would the post office make a copy for me? No, most certainly not.

I trekked out and retraced my drive back to the postal shop. No parking, though. I drove in an ever-wider circle around nearby blocks, finally finding an open spot several blocks away. The slush still frozen on the sidewalks made for a tedious struggle back to the postal shop.

Now open (and with a copy machine too), the shop took care of my petty mailing needs at last, an hour after I'd set out on what I supposed would be a quick errand.

Photocopy in hand, I tucked my wallet into the pocket of my jacket and headed back toward the car. About halfway back, I stuck my hand in my coat pocket to get my keys. There were the keys, but wait--where was the wallet?

I swore in a whisper for some reason and turned to retrace my steps at a run, scanning the ground for my wallet. It had just been in my hand mere moments before; it must have fallen out of my pocket when I shoved it in. Surely there hadn't been time for anyone to snatch it--

"Wait!" a woman's voice jerked my attention up. She stooped over at the intersection half a block ahead of me, where I had just been. "You dropped this!" Straightening up, she held up her coffee cup in one hand, my wallet in the other.

I thanked her with passionate relief. "I saw you through the window of the coffee shop," she said, "and I thought, 'What's that she just dropped?' So I just came running out after you."

After thanking her again, I started back for the car, wallet securely in hand. When I got there, while I was I unlocked the door a car horn beeped nearby. "Ma'am! Ma'am!" a woman passenger called from a passing vehicle, the driver slowing to a stop just behind me. "Did you get the thing you dropped back there?" she asked with great concern. I assured her that I had, and thanked her for checking.

She waved, satisfied, and her car pulled away.

I can be a little cynical about people. To have two separate folks running after me to reunite me with my dropped wallet, on a day otherwise full of frustration, was a nice bit of evidence for the way it's also possible for us to all look out for each other.

Grace in small things: six

1. The sleek cleanliness of a wooden floor in the ten minutes between the time it's cleaned and the time someone tracks in a new smattering of fir needles.

2. The single snowflake that fell on my cheek last night, which made me catch my breath and hold very still as if it might flit away like a butterfly.

3. The Mae Ploy yellow curry paste I used for the first time last night to make a perfect, delicious meal of vegetables in yellow curry coconut sauce over rice.

4. The seemingly everlasting nature of the enormous tin of cocoa I bought at Costco last year.

5. The silkiness of the cowl (my first) I finished knitting on Saturday. I am still unconvinced of the utility of a cowl / neckwarmer, but this particular garment is certainly delicious against my skin.

Brackets

This is weird: for two years in a row, now, I have both put up Christmas decorations and taken them back down again on snowy days. I've only lived here for a dozen years, but I feel like this is unusual. OR! Maybe it's like I always suspected, and Ballard's geography was cheating me out of snow all those winters.

This evening I packed away the ornaments and the lights as the snow began to fall again. This snowfall isn't expected to last like the last one--it's supposed to turn to rain by midnight or so--but we have a solid 2 inches on the ground now at 10:00. I'm just happy to see it, however short-lived it may be. I love watching the layer of white slowly sift in over the mud. The three of us took a little family walk down the block, Chloe snorfling about at the end of her leash. Then I took her alone up Chief Sealth Trail a ways, enjoying the way the snow-covered fields reflect so much light that the whole trail is visible, dusk-like.

Welcome 2009

I have a good feeling about this year. There's nothing concrete to substantiate this optimism, really (aside from the enormous relief and excitement I feel about the new President taking office on January 20th). In fact I'll be celebrating my thirtieth birthday this spring, and that's stereotypically one of those somewhat dreaded benchmarks--crossing over from the footloose and carefree twenties, right?

But everyone I know who is older than 30, without exception, has assured me that they enjoy their 30's more than their 20's. And those that are older than 40 are adamant that their 40's are better than either. And those above 50 say something similar about that decade, so...well. Apparently my friends and loved ones are all either sunny optimists, or chronic liars.

Anyway, I'm not dreading it. And I'm looking forward to 2009. I kicked it off by celebrating with some folks who were once new acquaintances, and are more and more becoming old friends. 2009 rang in with dancing and hugging, fireworks and champagne in the rain. May new old friends, and old new friends, never be forgotten; may the good cheer that began 2009 seep down through all the months ahead.

Really, I have a good feeling about this year.

Grace in small things: five

1. Being grown-up enough to initiate an amicable parting from the four noisy employees of [nameless-large-environmental-organization] who sat behind me for the 9 hours it took my Amtrak train to get from Seattle to Portland on December 20th.

2. Finding a box full of free cheese-and-cracker packets in the bistro car of my Amtrak train to stave off hunger during the 9 hours my train sat motionless, locked, and apparently abandoned at the Portland station on the night of December 20th.

3. Encountering a sympathetic Amtrak bistro car steward who gave passengers free hot cocoa on the morning of December 21st (since I had only brought enough cash to pay for meals during a 7-hour trip, not one three times that long).

4. Snickering at the snarky commentary made by the two teenaged girls across the aisle from me during our epic 21-hour train ride from Seattle to Eugene.

5. Realizing that even having an Amtrak train delayed by 14 hours and abandoned by all Amtrak staff overnight is preferable to being stuck in an airport for several days.

O Tannenbaum

Thursday I mentioned that I had a chance to put up the Christmas "tree" I created last year.



When I was growing up, one of our holiday traditions was a growing collection of ornaments for each of us kids. Every Christmas we would get an ornament or two from our parents and grandparents. Usually our name and the year got written or taped somewhere hidden on each ornament. Our ornaments were stored with all of the other Christmas decorations in a grand old wooden chest, painted green, which had been in the family for two or three generations. The chest was stored away in my parents' bedroom through the rest of the year, only brought out when it was time to decorate the Christmas tree.


This ornament always makes me think of my sister. Oddly, the smaller girl's smile reminds me of my mom's.

I can still recall the exact piney scent that wafted out when the chest was opened each December, the slightly musty smell of old tinsel and holiday candles and garlands. My mom and dad would untangle the knotted strands of Christmas lights and wind them carefully around the tree. Mom always made sure the last light on the strand got tucked into the hand of the angel that topped the tree, so that light had to be yellow or white for extra realism.


This is one of my oldest ornaments, a figurine from the Nutcracker from long before I ever saw the Nutcracker ballet.

Finally, when the lights were arranged evenly, the ornamentation could begin. Mom would open tiny boxes and unwind tissue paper to reveal the little treasures we only saw this one month per year. We oohed as each familiar ornament was presented, as delighted as if they were brand new.

The three of us had to take turns hanging our ornaments, although as the eldest I had the advantage of a slightly larger collection. A lot of thought had to go into tree placement: the sturdiest twigs should be saved for the heaviest ornaments, but who could remember whether there were more heavy ornaments to come? My sister and I had several nearly identical ornaments, and those had to be spaced far apart on the tree for visual variety. And although nobody could really see the back of the tree, some things still had to be hung there so the tree didn't look lopsided.


A middle-school favorite, this elaborate tiny clock was a gift from my Gran.

When I graduated from high school, my ornaments remained at my parents' house, and the same ritual was repeated every year when I went home for Christmas. When I finished college, though, it was deemed time that I take my ornaments for my own house. My sister took hers shortly thereafter when she got married, and my brother followed suit a few years later.


This is another of the oldest ornaments in my collection. I love these older wooden ones.

Now each winter when I take them out and hang my ornaments, alone, I am a little overwhelmed with the sense of glad nostalgia that wafts out of the box with them. These are some of the few things that I have known my entire life. Bringing them out of their tissue-paper wrappings and boxes is like greeting old friends. I can't decorate my own "tree" without hearing echoes of small squabbles with my sister and brother, seeing little ghosts reverently placing their pretties on a tree, and smelling that musty, piney old chest. It's honestly the only time that I ever miss being a kid, lost in the annual excitement of decorating for Christmas.


Christmas lights on the windowsill with an unusual Seattle snowfall in the background outside.

Open Letter Without Apology

To the woman I bumped into downtown this evening around 7:15, who gasped in audible terror at my touch:

I had been running for two blocks when my path crossed yours, my friend. You couldn't have known, but I had stood outside waiting for a bus for an hour and a half earlier in the afternoon. My toes had gone numb, my fingers were cold even inside their mittens, and my nose had nearly developed its own tiny icicle. When I left work this evening I was dreading the chance of repeating the experience to get back home, so when I saw my bus pulling away just as I turned the corner to the bus stop, I could not allow it to escape me.

I trotted awkwardly down the iced-over sidewalk after the departing bus. The right combination of traffic lights would let me catch the bus at its next stop in three blocks. The bus was still in view, so I ran across the first cross street as my pedestrian signal changed. Clumsily, I galloped on down 3rd. Most people kept to the ice-free sidewalk next to the buildings, so I veered precariously onto the icy outer walkway several times to pass other pedestrians. Wheezing in the cold air, I crossed the second cross street with time to spare. My bus was stopped at the end of the block, and I did my best to speed up.

It was at that moment, my friend, that you and your male companion ambled out onto the sidewalk. You were strolling slowly, your well-layered arms sticking out at angles, much like those of the little brother in the movie A Christmas Story. My bus was still stopped, but its line of boarders was shrinking. You and your companion spread out to meander past other folks. A small gap between you and another walker presented itself. I darted through, and I bumped your elbow as I did so.

You sucked in air like a drowning person, like somebody in a bus about to crash through a guardrail onto a freeway below, like a seer of ghosts and demons and woe. Your enormous lungs seemed capable of inhaling more air than the cold city contained in all its core. Perhaps you were terrified, dear lady, of the clear threat I presented in my slacks and wool jacket. I do stand an imposing five-foot-six, while you were but a diminutive five-foot-five, so I understand your fright at my looming height. Or maybe you saw only the paper bag in my hand, full of leftover snacks, and panicked at the thought that I might bludgeon you to death with a Wheat Thin and a cookie.

In any case, your desperate gasp lasted so long you may not have heard me cry, "Excuse me!" as I passed. But in case you missed what followed, I want you to know this: with barely a second to spare, I caught up to my bus. I boarded and sat wheezing, my lungs aching from the cold. Oh, my voluminously-lunged friend, my haste in our encounter had rewarded my joints with a blessed reprieve from another long wait in the cold.

And so you see why I am not even slightly sorry for bumping into your own elbow joint in order to do so. Your overly dramatic inhalation was wholly without result. I am free of remorse, my friend. Free of remorse--and warm.

Ta, and happy holidays,

Thel

Snow day

I went to bed last night cynical. Seattle had sat in the hole of the "snow doughnut" all day yesterday, and I tried not to believe the forecasters' insistence that snow would arrive in town overnight.

This morning I woke up before the alarm when Chloe the timid German Shepherd started pacing in agitation, perhaps because of the brief loud thunder that hadn't awakened me. As we woke up, Mr. Thel looked out the window and gasped. "Oh wow!"

I squinted suspiciously. "You're full of it." I peeked through the blinds and hey, look at that white stuff!

My supervisor called at 6:15 to notify me that our office would be closed today, so I had a lovely unexpected day off to finally put up my "tree." It was the perfect gift.

Chloe hates thunder, but loves the snow.