Another piece of the cards

The caretaker

The caretakers set up their life so that they are constantly giving, constantly controlling people and constantly out of control.  It is always more than they can handle and they are in constant chaos.  Caretakers always know how to do your life better than you do.  They have strong opinions on everything and boy do they get a bug up their butt if you don’t do as they say. 

The Caretaker can be the shadow piece for the White Knight, The Protecting Mother, or an illness driven evolution of The Good Little Girl. 

The experience of care taking from the receiving end is profoundly dis-empowering.  Whatever help you are given is given with a large dose of contempt because you need the help in the first place.  Humble pie isn’t all that tasty; the slice you have to eat to get the help you need from a Caretaker is nauseating.  “Famine itself sickens of it”

The Caretaker of course, can’t understand why the people they rescue are so mad at them and so ungrateful for the help they give so freely.  They feel very put upon and hurt and taken advantage of.  Make no mistake about it. If you are in the midst of the care taking juggling act, you are being taken advantage of.  It’s a part of the dance.

Queen Victoria’s Chair,

I once heard that queen Victoria never ever once looked behind her in her life when she sat in a chair.  The reason is, that someone would always push one under her as she sat.  Always.  On the one hand how nice to trust so absolutely that you will be cared for.  On the other hand think of the chair and the person that placed it there.  Someone was constantly watching, anticipating and rushing in to save the royal hiny from a rude landing. 

For Victoria, that was her normal way of being.  I am sure that it never occurred to her that life could be any different.  She sat, a chair was there.  I have a few people and places in my life where I feel like whomever it was that was always rushing in with that damn chair.  It's pretty exhausting and demoralizing as well.  

I find that the rude landing has a very good result.  You don't pull that kind of stupid stuff if you know that the rude landing is sure to happen.  If Victoria ever once had the experience of sitting and landing on her behind, She like the rest of us would look first before she sat.  

Stitch Dictionary; thats S_T_ well shit.

The last thing I need at present is another project to go along with all the other projects that rotate in and out of my working mind.
So what do I come up with as something that the world needs but this:
A sock oriented stitch dictionary.  Lord knows I have been knitting socks for more than ten years now and I am actually really good at it.  There are a lot of textures and cables and lace patterns that work very well in making a pair.  If you buy a sock book you get the basics of a plain sock and then about twelve full blown patterns.  Nice, especially if you like someone to do the math, but how about those of us that want more stitch patterns than that?
I boosted the idea onto a message board and was greeted with puzzlement.  There are so many books out that give you sock patterns they say.
Oh but this is different.
Imagine a sock book set up like the handy sweater pattern book.  With all the different heels in one section and toes in another.  With 4 stitch patterns and lace and cables, with textures, fillers, big lace set up so that you can go in and pick out a stitch you like, and have the numbers so that you know how many repeats are in a round for a given stitch count and pick your top down or toe up toe or heel and set off to make your own set.
There is some interest but I am getting a general collective Hunh?  Barbara Walker, did you meet this attitude too?

Noble sacrafice, and toasted mouse.

I am expecting a visit from my brother today.  he will be taking my gifts to him and his dear sweet wife home.

I knitted them both socks.  I took them to Tuesday night knit, and Jill took the picture.  The lace pattern is Print o the wave, and I am going to have to make at least one more pair with that pattern.  Those are my feet in them.  After I put them on I nearly cried, I wanted them myself.  I must make another pair later.

Toasted Mouse.
we had/have a mouse that moved in in the fall.  Michael no longer is a mouse deterrent.  It has been living behind the sink and building a cache of dried cat food up somewhere in there.  It was smart enough to avoid the traps set for it but I guess that it has come to a grisly end.
I got a call From the Footless Man while I was out at the knitters tea.  He asked me about the smell of burning wool.  Burning wool?  Not that I knew about.  Hmmmp.
When I got home I walked in the door and got hit with a really nasty burning protean smell.  So far as I can tell the mouse fell down the furnace vent and incinerated down there.  Every time the burner lights the smell floats throughout the house.  It's going to be a cold few days around here until I figure out how to extract the remains or it burns up.  I don't know which option I like less.  I think we will be using the wood stove a lot more around here.

Some of what has been occupying my time and attention

I have been working on this project for fifteen fears.  It is a tool made up as a set of handmade cards plus commentary.  I am beginning to post them and work on them here as a next step.

Here is the first one.

 

Divine tests

Once there was a man who needed a mule. Someone down the street told him that there was one for sale nearby.  He went over to inspect the mule and the prospector that was selling him was enthusiastic.

“He’s a good Mule” the old guy said, “He never balks and does what you ask every time.”

This sounded good to the man and he bought the mule, which followed him home, just fine.

The next morning the man loaded the mule and was going to head out to the gold fields.  He gave a pull on the lead rope.  The mule didn’t move. He pulled again.  No moving.  He pulled harder and began yanking and pulling and swearing. The mule didn’t move.  The man was tired out and went to the old prospector who had sold him the mule and told him that the mule wasn’t moving and he thought he had been cheated.

The prospector shook his head and went to inspect the mule.   He looked at it for a moment, and said “Ahhhh” Then he picked up an axe handle and, Wham!!!Hit the mule a bash between the eyes.  “Now He’ll go” he said.

The new owner looked at the mule and at the old man and said,” I thought that you told me he didn’t need to be beaten to work.”

The old man said, “He doesn’t.”

“Well what do you call belting him between the eyes?”

“I call that ‘getting his attention’.”

Most of the time the things we are experiencing, could be described as “Getting our attention.”  If it is a test from God, It will be unexpected, it will be nothing you could have imagined, and a lot of times it is much less awful than it could be the first time.  The second time (If you are stupid and need a second time) look out. 

We have been experiencing technical difficulties please stand by

Yesterday is a day that needed a reboot.  The Footless Man. started it all off at 4:30 am with a blood sugar in the terrifying low range.  One 911 call, one ambulance ride, one pick up from ER this brings us up to 7AM and I decided that I am going back to bed because it is Saturday.  Mostly I am the one up early. It's my time to putter about without anyone around.  I have my tea and read the paper and do the crossword puzzle and then I am ready to face whatever is going on in the day.  Saturdays, I sleep in.
Footless Man went off to visit the food bank, and I guess by the evidence he was washing dishes.  Point is that about noon I come down the stairs to find him in the midst of yet another insulin shock.
Argh, argh, argh.
This one I was able to feed him glucose and get him up and level, He ate lunch and headed in for a nap.
I headed in to the computer. 
The internet was down.
Now generally I am pretty calm about most things computer related but, and this is a big but, I have been coping with the slow death of my monitor and borrowing the swordsman's monitor for minimal and basic use.
This suited nobody and upset the Swordsman something awful because he has an OCD component to his makeup and there was absolutely no way I could share the use of the monitor that didn't give him an anxiety attack.
I was gifted with a really excellent Monitor on Thursday. (Thank You Gretchen)  Saturday was the first time I had a chance to actually go online.  The browser simply announced that it couldn't find the server.  Or anything else, like it's backside with both hands.
Argh, Argh, Argh.
Today I called my service provider and spent an hour and a half with a technician as she talked me through the black screen depths of the innards of my computer to figure out if the problem was theirs, mine or something in between.
So far as I understand her, the computer ate it's all important numbers that allow it to connect to the net.  Meantime I followed directions, typed commands, read what the computer said back to me about the commands, reset the modem and the router, and all the numbers.
What do I find in my mail but a concerned message from someone who reads this.
My goodness I feel touched. 
So now here I am.  I aintn't dead.  I may be tempted to whack the Footless Man upside the head, scream imprecations at the computer and stomp about in a Godzilla Moment, but dead I am most certainly not.

Miles to go before I sleep.

I have never been good at keeping my things/stuff/ papers/house in any kind of order.  Especially if I am coping with mine plus anyone else's possessions.  The fact that I am married to a bonafide hoarder makes the collection problem harder to deal with as well as easier to blame on the footless man.
Well,  It is a problem and I happen to be part of it.  I have my own collection and holding habits, including yarn, knitting equipment, sewing stuff, art and painting supplies.
Today I began thrashing through the fall cleanup process of dumping clothes and getting back to what I will actually wear so that I am not quite so insane. 
This afternoon We took two cartons of miscellaneous clothes to the thrift store, and as a bonus would you believe they took the counter top?  I have a whole closet shelf that is ready to accept some things that need to be out of my way.
However my bedroom looks a lot like it blew up.  If I intend to sleep in my bed I have a long way to go.

progress not perfection

Today the Footless Man took a step that I thought was never going to happen. He loaded the cook top from the cabinets that are still cluttering up the kitchen plus the counter top and took them down to Habitat to donate.
In one afternoon I am free of six large pieces of junk that have been living in my house and that he has been clinging to for nearly ten years.
The downside of this is that Habitat didn't want it.  So we tootled off to the other store for weird household schmutter known as Resource.  They took the stove and left the counter top.  Any body want a counter top? No?  Why am I not surprised?
He says that tomorrow I get to come out to the garage and help him sort out a bunch of boxes. 
Be still my beating heart!