A Winter's Ghost Story

I got inspired by the weather out there today, and told this story to Lizzie. This story has a disclaimer-its written for a six year old, so how scary can it be? I'm no writer..... Usually my stories are horrible tripe, involving rainbow farting unicorns who befriend little girls and live in flower strewn meadows. They are reserved for long car rides and never written down. But last night a blizzard blew in, my friend spent the night without power.. and what can I say?

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Once upon a time on in a land far away, a little family slept on a cold winter's eve. And, as they slept, The Spirit of Winter's Past looked down upon them. He hated the cozy warmth of their fires and the glow from their windows. And so, as the little family slept snug in their beds, the Spirit of Winter's Past stole down upon them.

He stretched out his hand and wrapped them in the depths of winter's cold. He flexed his fingers and made frost rime the window frames and steal across the glass. He laughed, and a nasty sound like the cracking of ice could have been heard. But the little family was not listening, and they slept on, oblivious, their breath now making white plumes in the air.

Finally the little girl woke, shivering... the tip of her nose red. Why was it so cold? In her warm flannel nightgown she tiptoed to her parents' room and tugged at the bedclothes. Her mother's sleepy voice greeted her, and she climbed into a warm toasty bed beside her little baby brother. But soon she was cold again, and her shivering woke her father. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, to find the power out, the house cold, and the kitties curled in little balls upon the bed.

Outside the wind howled and the cold beat down upon the little house. The Spirit of Winter's Past had blanketed the house in a terrible cold. There was no sound save that of the wind in the trees, and the snow skittering across the drifts. The light was gray, the sun seemed very far away. But Mother knew what to do, and she laughed as she dressed the children in their warmest woolens, speaking of days of old. For awhile, the blizzard seemed an adventure and they lit candles to play by.

The Spirit of Winter's Past sneered to himself, and tightened his grip on the little house. Time wore on and the cold increased. The light never grew, but stayed a forbidding gray. Outside, the trees popped and cracked, as ice crept into the wood. The little house seemed all alone, on a plain of snow and ice. The family felt very small. Doubt crept into the mother's voice and the children whimpered and huddled against her, shivering. Father glanced out the windows uneasily, wishing for the chance to glimpse something, even the mailbox at the end of the drive. But there was nothing, nothing but the unceasing white of the driven snow. It seemed to move out there, whirling like packs of hungry wolves, snapping at the little beam of light his candle flame cast and the snow drifted higher 'round the door.

Mother stamped her feet, and tried to encourage the children to sing a song with her. Their voices died away miserably amid the verses. The little girl had long since stopped feeling her fingers and toes and now she could hardly feel her face. Through the gloom beside her she could see her little brother was almost asleep. Darkness was falling. Soon The Spirit of Winter's Past would have his way, and they would all fall asleep... never to wake again. They were terribly and desperately alone in a sea of snow and cold. Soon, they knew, the whole world would grow still and silent, and they would be gray statues, their tears frozen on their cheeks.

Father could see the terrible cold creeping into their bones, and a desperate panic overtook him. He shook them each in turn and pulled his family out the door, into the teeth of the storm. He bid them pile wood into a mighty pile and began to throw anything that might burn into it. Soon it stood taller than any of them. Then he fell to his knees in the snow to light it. But The Spirit of Winter's Past shrieked with laughter, and breathed an icy breath, snuffing his match out. Mother stared at Father in horror and in that silent terrible moment they shared something extraordinary happened.

The little boy looked up into the sky and then seemed to notice the white snowflakes collecting in his sister's eyelashes. He gave a gay little laugh and warmth bloomed in Mother's heart. She grabbed the hand of her daughter and gave a gentle squeeze. The little family locked hands around Father, and sheilded him with their bodies from the worst of the wind, and in doing so, from the wrath of The Spirit of Winter's Past.

A light bloomed in the darkness and the fire caught. Light and warmth blazed up, beating back the gloom. They stood, bathed in the light of the fire, drinking in it's warmth. Mother buried chestnuts in the embers, and as they ate them, it seemed as if their bodies were awakening from a long slumber. They danced and sang songs in the darkness, and gradually the wind died. The cold abated to that of a natural winter's night and gradually the skies cleared until the stars twinkled down on them from a winter's sky.

The End

This is why I never post

With one notable exception, I have spent the last couple of weeks waking with a baby at least every two hours each night. Once particularly horrific night it was eight times between midnight and 4 am. Each time she wakes, she must be rocked back to sleep. By four am each night, I exhibit the tantrums of a petulant 5 year old and the mental capacity of my dog. Babies have much shorter and faster sleep cycles than adults. Whereas an adult takes approximately 4 hours to cycle thru light and deep sleep, an infant only takes 30 minutes. I suspect that what happens is that for some reason, she is unable to stay in that light sleep as she cycles in and out. So there's not much sleep going on around here for the adults in the family. Each morning I wake absolutely PISSED off at the world and cruise at that emotional level all day long. Oddly, I notice that it really makes me depressed. The one night she only woke twice, I woke to what seemed like an incredibly beautiful day, full of promise and hope and happiness. LOL!

Last night I put a very tired little girl to bed just after we tucked her sister in at 9pm. We put in a movie, and she slept for half an hour and woke. I picked her up and rocked her back to sleep. We repeated this process two more times about 15 minutes apart each time. The final time I realized

I CANNOT KEEP DOING THIS

I am not physically capable. My mind is hanging on by a thread.

All the books in the world today say that letting a baby Cry It Out before 6 months is cruel. They simply don't have the reasoning capacity to understand what is going on. Most agree that only very limited crying it out should be allowed once the baby reaches 6 months-such as for five minutes at a time. So we are at an impasse. Katie is 6.5 months old. Letting her cry for five minutes in hopes she'll just give up and go to sleep is ludicrous. I've seen this kid cry for 3 hours solid at a time.

I've resisted just putting her down and letting her figure things out herself this long because I've felt like I'd be a horrible mother. It seems cruel to just dump a kid in her crib and walk away when she's never had to put hserself to sleep before in her life. She's really never developed much in the way of self soothing skills.

Last night I really didn't see how I had a choice. We rocked her to sleep again around 10:45 and then settled ourselves to wait for her next crying session. She woke 15 minutes later and the screaming began. She held out for an hour of crying. It wasn't quite as awful as I'd imagined. It was more of an on and off thing, punctuated by periods of extreme frustration. We sat with her the whole time. After another 15 minutes of sobbing and sniffling as she calmed down and she was finally asleep. For another two hours. By then it was 2 am, and it was time for her usual nursing session. At four, I just didn't have another hours worth of screaming tolerance in me, so I picked her up again. But I think we're getting somewhere. It's progress.

Anyway, all of this is written as an explanation of sorts. If you find me trying to insert a carrot into the steering column to start my van, or if asking a simple question elicits a tirade in which half my face falls off and flames shoot from my eyes-I'm sure you'll understand why.

Some Days I Want to be This Person

indigenous yums!

I had once heard that yucca blossoms were edible, and that in fancy schmancy resturants out in California, you paid good money to eat them in salads. I even Googled them, but didn't really find much information to satisfy my curiosity-some long gone trendy diner menus, and some Indian dude touting the cool factor of the Plains Indian diet. That was about it. What I did find told me to be sure not to eat anything but the blossom itself, as yucca contains saponins (which I understand to be a form of soap, and as such, quite bitter and narsty.) Indeed, an Indian acquaintence of mine once swore up and down the very best shampoo in the whole world came from washing with the root of yucca. But I digress.

In June, the whole area around Spearfish burst into blossom and the yucca was everywhere. So I stopped and picked a spike. If you decide to try this next year, please don't be the ass I was, bring yourself some gardening shears to sever the spike from the plant. It's very very tough when using your car keys to cut it.

One spike will provide an ample amount of blossoms for about 6 people. I found that my favorite part was the bud, or the pistil and area fo the flower where the little embryonic seeds rest -it's quite sweet. I would liken the taste to that of a snow pea. We ate our salad with a lemon, basil and garlic dressing that was really outstanding.

Isn't it purty?

Boom!

Hey did ya hear? Pyrotechnics Guild International is holding their annual meeting in Gillette WY this week. Each night had fireworks events, but the culmination is the "Grand Public Display" this Friday night at the Camplex. This is one of the largest fireworks displays in the world and will contain many handmade fireworks you'll never see done commerically. All the cool kids are goin' - even National Geographic will be on hand to film for an upcoming documentary. (I bet its about people who blow their fingers off playing with gunpowder.) I think we're gonna go, and I predict our lifetime supply of oooh and aaahs will be all used up by the end. In fact, I suspect we'll be ruined for all other fireworks displays ever. Heh.

Un-freaking believable

Two months of work

Two minutes of frogging

Aw ....fuck a duck

Title Omitted for Reasons of Public Decency

I had to leave the title of this post blank, because I'm attempting to be a bigger person than my natural instincts dictate and I'm trying to write relatively cleanly. What I'd like to do is throw a huge temper tantrum, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Lets start at the beginning.

I talked a good friend (you know who you are) into sewing some microfiber inserts for me since my sewing machine has decided to go AWOL and hide from me in my storage unit 350 miles away. I was desperate. I was worried about having enough inserts for my child to stuff in her diapers. Fear of running out of diapers will make you do irrational things. I agreed to knit SIZE ELEVEN socks for someone out of this crazy fun yarn her sister had dyed up from laceweight yarn. The colorway is called "Covered in Bees" a reference to a standup bit by everyone's favorite British cross-dressing comedian, Eddie Izzard. She would have knit them herself, alas, she is a crocheter.

I cast on, and found I was knitting at either 10 or eleven stitches per INCH. Do you have any idea how many stitches that represents? That gauge is so fine it's not even ON my sock knitting chart. I increased my needle size to a 2-and normally knit on 0's. This barely allowed me to make it to nine stitches per inch-just on the chart. Each repeat seemed to take ages... I felt like one of those hamsters on a wheel, spinning in place. This was compounded by the fact that I have an infant at home. I don't knit much. By the time June was gone, I had only finished about 2 inches of cuff. I felt guilty. The recipient is coming home from work at camp at the end of the summer. I'd never make it by this rate. She worked her butt off to sew me inserts before she left for camp-in the midst of finals. The least I could do was come through on my end of the bargain. I reapplied myself, resolving to spend at least some time each day knitting on them, and put all other projects on the backburner, even my pretty summer tank I wanted to finish before the season was done. I wasn't always successful at this goal, but by yesterday I'd gotten to this point:



I was pretty pleased. Knitting comes slowly with a new baby around. I was still very concerned about finishing before the end of the summer-I was really only 1/4 of the way through, afterall, but at least I was making progress. Rayelle (no stranger to large feet at size 10.5's) causally picked it up last night and said "GEEZE! who are you knitting the enormous sock for?!? That's not gonna fit ANYONE-certainly not Rachel!"

come again?

Ex-squeeeeeze me?!?

"Look at your gauge! What is that-six stitches to the inch?!?"

I have size 6 feet. I'd never really paid attention to just how big this thing is turning out to be. Surely Rachel, even at her most swollen and footsore, doesn't have arches that are 17 inches in circumfrence, does she? DOES SHE?!?

It looks like I was knitting at about 6.5 stitches per inch. Note to self: When swatching for a sock- please swatch in the round.

Rachel, please note the pleasing change in the amount of "bees" as we proceed through the ball of yarn in the former photo. It may be the closest you ever get to your hand knitted socks.

Un-freaking believable.