Life's A Stitch

Now I know what this feels like

I knew I recognized this feeling. It may sound bizarre, but coming home from the hospital with Chuck felt like bring a new baby home. Entering a new world, the promise of a bright future, with someone seemingly so fragile. The fear. Wanting to put a little mirror under his nose to see that he's breathing. Sleeping with one ear open.

The whole experience has had its bizarre elements:

• The ICU roommate, being visited by his daughter and wife. Daughter decided she didn't like her mom's new haircut, and proceeded to take out her scissors to finish the haircut right there in Intensive Care. 
• The doctors' comments on the two angiograms, one from three years ago compared to last week's: "They don't even look like they're from the same person."
• Chuck's pain experience - everything hurts except his chest. 
• The array of non heart smart food available in the hospital cafeteria.
• The way things work out - having had both flu shots two weeks in advance, being near a great cardiac hospital, having insurance.
• The price of prescription drugs in the US. Yikes.
• Chuck's description of Blogless Marsha and I attending to his medical needs on his first day home. He labelled us Lucy and Ethel as we tried, with peals of nervous laughter, to give him his first insulin injection at home. The harder we tried the more hilarious it got. For us anyway.
• Two pieces of meat, the same weight, one with fat attached one with fat trimmed. One is way lower in fat, but both have about the same amount of cholesterol. How did I miss that? Even more bizarre - one boneless skinless chicken breast, although low in fat, contains 37% of your daily cholesterol requirement. I have to rethink my knowledge of fats vs cholesterol.
• The respiratory therapist's recollection of a patient's description of the sound made by one of her pieces of equipment - "sounds like a duck fartin' in mud."
• Only in America - I spent $150 on groceries and came home with a free 19lb turkey and 20 free cell phone minutes.
• Knitting content - I met a woman who was wearing a brand new Dale of Norway cardigan. She paid $6.99 for it at Value Village.
• More knitting content -  despite all the time I've had to knit I'm still not quite done with the Lacy Kerchief Scarf:
  
  

Thank you all for the positive thoughts and prayers. Things are going as well as can be expected.

About those vows

The wedding ones, I'm referring to. We're on the good side of for better or worse. Figure we're right in the middle of for richer or poorer. However, we're not doing too well in the sickness or in health department. Just so long as we don't go to the next step.

It's not impinging on the marriage, but this man of mine has proven to challenge this segment of the vows on a repetitive basis. Very recently on a trip to meet Blogless Marsha and Dave, halfway between our homes in the US and Canada, Mr. B experienced crushing chest pain. Long story short and one coronary bypass later this is what we've learned:

• If you live in a country with socialized medicine do not leave without travel insurance. The commercials are correct. Don't leave home without it. It looks like ours is coming though for us. The alternative was a much larger mortgage.
• If you happen to need emergency bypass surgery, Washington state is a good place to be. I can't imagine what would have happened if C's ticking time bomb went off while we were in Honduras.
• You can have a very healthy heart and messed up arteries OR you can have completely healthy arteries and one messed up heart. Heart disease takes many forms other than the traditional presentation you always heard about. Your situation requires individual attention.
• You may have had very sophisticated tests showing clear arteries, and despite being on cholesterol beating drugs and a decent diet, those arteries can clog fairly quickly, as in three years for Chuck.
• Don't assume your internal body parts are located where the text book says they should be. The placement of C's particular artery, 2 cms into his heart, made for the experienced surgeon's remark of it being the most tedious bypass he's ever completed.
• Friends have hearts of gold. I arrived back from the hospital each night to find monumental tasks finished, a well cared for dog and dinners prepared. And for the collective thoughts and prayers, we thank you.
• It's hard to be without family in a place far away from home crisis. Thank goodness for communications technology as in cell phones, skype and hospitals with wireless access. My daughter, the nurse, was able to participate in the post operative debriefing with me and the surgeon, outside the ICU via skype.
• You can make a significant difference in someone's life - donate blood.
• Simples pleasures make a big difference in coping with crisis. A hot bath, buttered  lightly margarined toast, fresh fruit.
• Never leave your knitting behind.

Now go give your partner a hug, or in the case of a recent bypass, a kiss on the forehead (thanks, Joan B, for pointing that out).

The collective wisdom

The collective wisdom of middle aged experience:

Last week at work, we hosted two 14-year-olds for Take Your Kid To Work Day. Part of their experience included attending a staff meeting where I asked the staff to consider, given their life experience, what advice they would have given their 14-year-old self. This is some of what we came up with:

• Embrace change – nothing stays the same.
• Stay in school for as long as possible.
• Be positive.
• Start saving for retirement early – even if it seems impossibly far away.
• Try new things.
• Keep an open mind.
• Improve your vocabulary and reading skills.
• Have a good time.
• You become your friends - be careful with whom you choose to hang out.
• Balance your work life with an activity you love to do to.
• Think before you speak - quick, sharp words have the power to do serious damage.

  What would you tell your 14-year-old self?

Winners

Yes, we have winners, not just one, but two. I decided to go ahead and pick two winners, one by the original rules and one by the rules that ruled out spam. #6000 was officially Toni in Florida, who prefers sock or mid weight yarn and the random draw, limiting entries to one per day was chunky yarn knitter - my sister Jane, in New Hampshire. 

Thanks to all who entered. I wish I could send everyone yarn and if I win the big lottery - I will.

Want to see what I'm knitting now? I'm loving this one, the yarn, the pattern, everything about it. It's Interweave's Lacy Kerchief Scarf in Shibui yarn, which I received as a surprise a while back from Wendy of Catknits. Thanks again, Wendy.

Not quite sure how to handle this - Contest

So this is what I'll do: of my very nearly 6000 comments, 162 are five years worth of spam, and I didn't think it fair to count that in the total. So what I'll do, is when I get to #6000 I'll put all of the contest comments into a hat and draw it randomly. If you've entered by commenting on several posts, hoping to hit #6000, you will be entered more than once. If you haven't, feel free to comment again and increase your chances. I want to have this done for next weekend so I can mail it when I'm in the US.

It'll be over soon. It's getting close. Really close.

Realized this weekend that I've spent the past three Halloweens on a ship. Two cruise ships and a BC ferry. Not quite the same, especially for Gracee who was relegated to the ship's doggie brig:

 

It's not so bad, just two cars away was this view:

Ahhh, Beautiful BC. It was this view, on this ferry route, about 30 years ago that Chuck looked into the distance and said, I'm going to live there someday. And here we are. 

Celebrating good times - a contest!

Lots going on, much to celebrate. In weeks past I've had my tenth anniversary at work, my fifth as a blogger, and very soon someone will leave my 6,000th comment. Perfect timing for a blog contest. Tell me if you prefer lace, sock, midweight or chunky knitting, or even if you're not a knitter at all, that's OK, too. If you leave comment #6000 I'll send you an appropriate treat. Like more than one kind of yarn or have gone from a non- knitter to one of us? Feel free to enter more than once.

I received a treat the other night at our AGM at work. A little blue Canadian Birk's box holding a traditional employee anniversary gift. Last year Chuck was presented with a Birk's watch for his 10th. I like mine better, but all you get to see is the box, They've sent the silver bracelet off to the engraver's. It's a perfect gift, something that I'd never buy for myself, but appreciate and will wear a lot:

Pinecones or rosebuds?

Pattern: Hattie's Rose Garden, but I call it my Pinecone Scarf as it reminds me of the tiny pinecones in my garden. If you would like a copy of this free pattern, request it by sending an e-mail to: chris at briarrosefibers dot net.

Yarn: Valley Yarns Franklin in the Pinecone colourway. Shades of spruce, cedar and fir, very Pacific Northwesty. This skein was won in Erika's blog contest. It's a sproingy yarn intended for socks, but worked out well for a scarf.

Notes: I reduced the number of repeats by two (8 columns of rosebuds rather than 10) and used all but .9 of a gram of the Franklin sock yarn (450 yds). The length is 62" and the width 8.5".

Thoughts: this one took a year to complete, a four row pattern that became a bit tedious. You end with dropping stitches a la Clapotis, Why is it that an unintended dropped stitch runs as fast as it can, while those meant to be dropped stick like crazy?

Sad dog, happy cat

Skunked!The picture of misery:

 

Gracee Mae bit the butt of a skunk and this is what she got in return. A direct hit to the face. If anything positive can come from this experience, it's the opportunity to share our recipe for the definitive skunk smell neutralizer:

Forget the tomato juice and expensive enzyme solutions. Use this, it works every time: about 1/4 cup of baking soda, a good squirt of dish detergent, and 1/2 cup of peroxide. Mix it and work it well into the coat. Rinse well. We don’t even measure anymore, just pour on the ingredients and go to it. (NOTE: this must be mixed fresh each time, it will lose its effectiveness if stored.)

The antithesis of Grace's misery photo, is one of daughter #1's cat, Chompers, held by daughter #2:

I am not a cat person and was not a fan of Chompers after he bit me in his kitty youth. Now that he's mellowed, even we are friends.

Gone North

When we moved to Canada people asked why we wanted to live in a place so cold. We left Omaha for a more temperate climate. The warm Pacific currents give Vancouver its mild weather with an average January high temperature of 43F. Hardly anything to shovel in an typical winter and no need for summer air conditioning. And very few mosquitoes. When we moved here the lack of window screens baffled us.

We've not had the opportunity to have Christmas dinner on the deck, something friends who already lived here used for relocation bait. But we have had a Christmas rose blooming in the garden. Amazing, as our house is locasted fairly far up the mountain.

My daughters, however, both live in Alberta, where it's already snowed. And that's where I am for this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. It has confirmed for me what I already knew. I am a weather wimp.

We could have moved to Iceland, where, believe it of not, the midwinter temperature parallels New York City's. I read once that Iceland was named to keep people away and that Greenland was named to attract people to its more Arctic climate.

That's an Emerald (to be) in the snowflakes of Iceland yarn. Perhaps it should have been called Greenland yarn, which would have gone better with Emerald.

Saturday Sky

Sandy is the inventor of the Saturday Sky post. OK, Sandy, how's this one? 

I think it's pretty spectacular, but truthfully, I missed it. I was in Washington having a good time.

Full credit goes to the boy, now 19, who has gotten the hang of the manual setting on the SLR.