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3

Season’s Greetings From Our House to Yours!

on Dec 14, 2010 in Uncategorized

Hail! Greeting! Mazel tov! Konichiwa! Maki leaky taco!

As you know, it’s been a busy year in the Barely Knit Together household. We finally got rid of the “rat problem,” for those of you who were praying about this scourge that we didn’t want to be specific about – THANK YOU. Like everybody else, though, we got stink bugs too; thank god I don’t have the gene that lets you smell them. Everyone was going, “What IS that stench?” when I was around, but I just sniffed and shrugged my shoulders. How was I supposed to know?

Speaking of plagues, The Good Lord should have considered sending a plague of camel crickets! Every time one of them jumps out at me from behind the couch I scream, they are just like something from an apocalyptic, futuristic, rapture alien monster movie, with those giant back legs and those fat, round bodies. When you kill those suckers it’s like stepping on a cat, or even a small dog, except for that crunching noise, but honestly, what else are you gonna do? And really, how scary are grasshoppers and frogs? Not at all, I always say.

But enough about me. We’ve been working hard on our 1907 house, and finally (after four years) removed a single upper cabinet from the kitchen we need to completely gut, re-plumb, and rebuild. Progress! On a sour note, our beautiful new fridge on which the seals work and which has (gasp!) an ice maker won’t fit up the stairs to where our working kitchen is, and since we haven’t taken the lower cabinets off, it won’t fit into the future kitchen either, which is really okay, because we have to tear out the wood floors anyway, so who wants to move it twice?

We put the fridge in the library. The room is the perfect temperature for storing red wine, and now we have a place to put it. I will let you know if the refrigerator works as soon as we get some grounded outlets in there at floor level!

We are on a health kick here, too! Working hard to get rid of the mold and mildew from the rotting wallboards in the basement, all while  praying that the radon detectors I bought two years ago and haven’t installed yet aren’t strictly “necessary.” We drink soy to counteract the cancer risk.

In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and use less fossil fuel, we didn’t turn on the heat until December, except for Thanksgiving, so my in-laws wouldn’t complain. We have lots of space heaters, anyway, we just have to be careful not to turn on more than one, or anything else while one is running, and it limits our ability to move from room to room, as we only have two grounded outlets. Pesky UL and CPSC! If I want to get electrocuted by a hairdryer or torch my home, it’s my own damn business!

What’s great is that viruses can’t survive temperatures less than sixty degrees Fahrenheit, so after I kick this lingering cough, I’m sure I won’t be sick again all winter! I think being cold makes my kids tougher, and it makes the outside seem not so much worse when the kid with sensory issues won’t wear a coat because the “arms are too round.” Haha! Silly kids.

So that’s pretty much life in our little neck of the woods. I like to think of all this as baby steps toward a fabulous life. As soon as we rebuild the porch my son dismantled, I’ll have company and I can give you the grand tour!

Just watch out for camel crickets.

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2

Not Disaster

on Nov 30, 2010 in Uncategorized

What do you call it when you melt your phone in the oven while trying to drive the water out of it that was spilled last night, and at the same time the delivery men are telling you your wonderful, new refrigerator, which is a gift from your mother, will not fit up the stairs, [...]

 
3

In the Privacy of My Own Blog

on Nov 25, 2010 in Uncategorized

I think by now no one is listening.
Ah, back to basics.
Today was Thanksgiving, and filled with thanks, and angst, and work, and the sadness of transitions.
My daughter brought her boyfriend over, and he is much older, but so young, so very young. Full of excitement about what lies ahead, and who am I to explain [...]

 
5

End of an Era

on Mar 31, 2010 in Uncategorized

This blog appears to have exhausted itself while I have been busy writing actual things in hopes of making actual money. Oh, I mean – it’s my art, it’s all about my art. I’m working on the craft, you know? And if I make some money some day, so be it.
I will maintain a light [...]

 
10

Buried

on Jan 31, 2010 in Creative Nonfiction, Writing

We traveled by car.  My grandparents left upstate New York and drove the eleven hours to my home in Virginia, where I waited, impatient and seven years old, for them to pick me up and continue the drive to Florida, to Disney World.
I spent the entire journey reading, so immersed in words already that I [...]

 
1

What’s Thicker Than Blood?

on Jan 28, 2010 in Creative Nonfiction, Writing

I hide behind beautiful words. I hide truths that are more difficult to wrangle with than even I know, and though I like to think I’m facing things, I know there will be more, more and more things, stacked like cordwood, like bodies, just waiting for me to face them, that is, to put faces [...]

 
2

Flesh

on Jan 26, 2010 in Writing

I used to own this body, like a pair of shoes, like a yo-yo, swung comfortable (falsely) in this flesh, walked with purpose with flair with con-fi-dence.  In my bones I knew myself desirable, though my eyes refused to see it, my mouth to voice it.  Thigh-high boots, short skirts, leather, zippers, spikes, flowery dresses [...]

 
6

These Are Things

on Jan 20, 2010 in Motherhood, Writing

These are the things no one tells you:
The birthing is easy. It brings you to your knees, of course, if you do it right, and I don’t mean without meds because by god – it’s still a rending. It’s a splitting open, a metamorphosis, leaving the shell of your old self behind. You crawl out [...]

 
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Anon

on Jan 20, 2010 in Creative Nonfiction, Writing

It’s strange to walk into a place and see someone whose words you know, whom you follow in a strictly world 2.0 way.
It makes you hesitant.
Then you consider all the things you put out there, all the soul-emptying smudge of language on the pristine pixels, the things you would never, ever say to someone in [...]

 
2

Fettered

on Jan 9, 2010 in Poetry, Uncategorized

It could be in
the name…orderly…
tidy beds no
decorative pillows
drapes blinds ties
that could bind.
Every day the trays
come
at the same time.
Droning television mutes
the hum of voices real
and imagined.
There is no one
to care for but myself
so I do -
make bedbrush teethwash hair
every day, even.
What else is there
to do?
Outside
the mind must hold
tenuously
grip the edge hold up the
buttress
of Important Things.
Inside
we’re
Free.

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