Turkey!!!

Okay, I know that most folks make turkey for Thanksgiving. But why cook my own when I can have MIL's dry turkey and many, many pies for free? But that doesn't stop the grocery store from giving me a turkey, and since I now have two in the freezer, things are getting crowded. I really don't get all excited about the turkey anyway, but I could really use some leftovers. Turkey soup, here I come! Unfortunately I have to first reduce the giant, frozen turkey in my freezer to cooked turkey bits before I get to the Soup phase.

So now the giant, frozen turkey is in my sink, partially frozen. I had him out yesterday to thaw, but he decided to thaw a little bit, then give up and just lay around (thats how I know its a male turkey). I have the brine all prepared, and it looks good to me, but I have to yank all those turkey bits from the inside of the gobbler before dunking him. Of course, the grocery store doesn't give away small turkeys, either. This one is 18lbs. My mother apparently served a 10lb turkey to five and had a few leftovers. I have this hulking turkey-beast for three (me, Hus-bun, and Hus-bun's buddy, one of the nicer fraternity brothers, recruited for the occasion based on his ability to function decently in a private home and the fact that any home-cooking he gets is cooked by him. He could use a good meal).

In other news, my MIL wanted to know if I called the pediatrician to ask about formula. Ask what? I wondered. Well, it turns out that she thinks formula is too expensive, and she's pretty sure the doc would let us put Crabby on something cheaper, and maybe supplement with vitamins. "He's pretty healthy, he should be fine." she says. I'm pretty sure the medical advice of my baby's doctor isn't based on economics. MIL has several grandkids (thats right, I don't know how many neices and nephews I have); one, whom she raised, is only 6 years old. But her knowledge of child-rearing dates from roughly 1965. I guess I can't blame her too much.

Anyway, I don't need to be cranky, because its snowing! Right now it looks like it intended to snow for real, not that pretty, postcard snow we got the other day, the kind that falls in fat flakes but vaporizes when it hits the ground. We'll see if this keeps up. I have a sweet little sled for Crabby, and I so much want to pull him around over a field of untouched snow. Of course Crabby hates wearing a snowsuit, refuses to sit still, and besides, we live in an apartment with almost no grassy space and about a million little kids. But if I didn't have my daydreams, I'd be stuck with daytime TV.

giant man-socks

My baby brother has size 17 feet. He loves to receive hand-knit socks, so I've done my share of massive, takes-forever, why-did-I-choose-stockinette-for-this socks. But he really enjoys them, and they're great in-between projects, to clear my mind. Like after I read a really intense book, one with a bunch of detail, or where the characters really became "real", or one that introduces a whole new idea, and then I need to read a few mindless cheap romance novels to clear my mind before the next really meaty book.

I never knit anything much for the Hus-bun, and it never occured to me to wonder why. But now, four inches into his manly socks, I understand. He has the world's beefiest ankles. Seriously. as in, if I just kept going on this sock, it would easily be a sleeve for me. This is one big sock: not long, but with plenty of girth allowance. Big, big socks. (I'll post photos later, right now I have a cold and I don't want to move.)

This is why I won't knit sweaters. (Actually my whole knitting life is a series of excuses for not knitting sweaters. I have Sweater Guilt, like I feel that, as a knitter, I should have a sweater or two to my credit.) Anybody who would appreciate and wear one is either so insanely tall, or as wide around as a small island. Thats just too much commitment to one project for me. They'll have to be happy with the mutant man-socks instead.

Here we see the elusive swatch

The photo is fuzzy, because the swatch is trying to run away. Seriously. I went to get my tape measure, and when I came back, the swatch was halfway across the floor, headed for the door, trailing the yarn behind.

This is why I rarely swatch anything.

Thanksgiving

It seems to be customary for people to list what they're thankful for on Thanksgiving. While that's a swell idea, I'll pass for now. I've got a whole lot to be thankful for, especially those nifty little plastic containers they put baby food into now, but I think the whole list would just get very sappy, and I'm not the sappy type.

As usual, there were far too many pies. MIL made 4 pumkin pies, and I think 2 each of apple and cherry. There were 4 people in attendance, not counting Crabby, since he's too young for pie (much to his dismay). If there's ever an international pie shortage, MIL will be able to fix it right quick.

But that's all the complaining. Honest. Because after years and years of grumbling for various reasons, I've learned an important lesson: Thanksgiving is only as hyped-up as you make it. If you choose to view it as just another day, albeit a day with a surprising abundance of pies, you won't be disappointed by dry turkey, or too much football, or any other occurance that prevents you from living in the Norman Rockwell painting. Or rather, I won't be disappointed.

Anyway, soggy pie still beats that cabbagte soup we had one year.

For a knitting blog, there isn't much knitting yet. Sorry. I'm knitting for charity right now, and I don't like to talk about my charity knitting: just one of my quirks. Don't worry (as if anyone was); soon I'll be starting Hus-bun socks, and there will be lots to kibbitz about!

So much yarn, so little time

I'm extremely prone to take out a whole bunch of something, just to have within arm's reach. Books, for example: if a certain topic is in the back of my mind, I'll go around and gather a pile of books on that topic, put them near my chair, and flip through them idly over several weeks. Yarn too; I'm always dragging out a heap of yarn or needles or patterns or something, just so that they're nearby.

There are so any things to knit. And clearly I'm not disciplined enough to stop collecting new things before I've finished the old ones. Initially Hus-bun didn't understand my stockpile urges, but he's slowly come to accept them. And he eats spaghetti-os cold, out of the can, with a serving spoon. So we all have out little quirks.

So I took a quilting class, because I've always wanted to learn. I have this rustic image in my mind of cozy evenings spent snuggled by the fire, hand-quilting a gorgeous bedspread. Somehow in my mind, nobody spits up on the rug.

Anyway, one of the ladies hanging out at the yarn/quilt shop remarked that quiltwers seem a bit more attuned to detail than knitters. I thought that was odd: I mean, knitters can be pretty serious about perfection. Not me, of course, I'm sort of a fix-it-as-I-go sort of knitter. Which is why I'll never get to be a really great quilter: all that measuring is just too much for me. I could never live that image in my mind, like Mary from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, with her perfect little stitches.

So I'll have to live in the alternate craft world, the one where I have to put down the scarf I'm trying to knit in order to clean spit-up off the rug.

Christmas Card time

I know, most of you are thinking: "isn't it early for Christmas cards?". But 13 November is my date, the date after which I feel I can mail Christmas cards without seeming ridiculous. (to me, I mean. I'm sure other people still view this as ridiculous).

Actually, I already mailed two out, last week, but they're going overseas, so that doesn't count. And, in fact, overseas shipping, along with my almost obsessive delight in writing a personal message on each of our 50+ cards, is why I start so early.

In my younger days, we lived overseas, and we had to mail cards out in October or so to ensure that they arrived before Christmas. Seriously. The postal system was that slow, for some reason. Most kids actually didn't receive many of their Christmas gifts on Christmas, either. Almost everything was catalog-ordered (this is just before the dawn of the internet), and if your mom didn't place that order by August, you'd get the photocopy of the order sheet under the tree. The first day of school after Christmas went like this:
"What did you get?"
"I got a NES!!! But my mom didn't order in time, so we're waiting for it to come in the mail."

One time, shortly after the Gulf War, the military post office actually called the bomb squad over, and they destroyed a suspicious package, only to discover it was some kid's Christmas NES. In March.

So, see, my Christmas paranoia has basis in real-life adventures. Remember that when you get your Christmas card on Thanksgiving.

Look! A Blog!

Okay. This is very new for me, and I'm fairly techno-challenged. So until I sort things out, go here: http://knityourbitkal.blogspot.com/