scifiknitter

After a busy couple of months, I have retired, and I am under treatment. The treatment is a pill taken first thing in the morning. The medicine is very expensive, to all of us in the aggregate although not to me as an individual. Thank goodness for good health insurance. I do have a genetic mutation in the cancer and am able to take targeted treatment. I’m dealing with some side effects, but they aren’t as uncomfortable as full-bore chemo. I’ve been taking care of business. New wills and powers of attorney are executed, my passwords are in a sealed envelope in the lawyer’s safe, beneficiaries are updated, and expenses have been dialed back. I finished my job as neatly and completely as possible, and left matters in good shape for my successor. All of this is liberating. As each task gets done, there is more time to simply enjoy living. I am an oldest child, and I’ve spent much of my life being a responsible person. Now I am pulling back from that role. At the moment, I have very few re...

Knitting a sweater to completion becomes more daunting as the years go by. The reason: My standards for success keep becoming more refined. There are so very many ways to screw up a sweater, all of which may result in an unflattering, poorly fitting, or uncomfortable item of clothing on which you have spent a long time, and probably a substantial amount of money. Yarn does not come cheap. I think many knitters have thought, while wandering through racks of sweaters in a clothing store, “I could knit that for twice the price!” I started this project with one strike against it: I could not make gauge in my trial swatches. The yarn I wanted to use was Reynolds Coco, a discontinued yarn purchased at a bargain price years ago from a yarn store that has been long closed. The yarn was just a wee bit finer than the yarn used to create the original sample for the pattern, so the fabric that felt and looked right had slightly more stitches and rows per 4 inches than the specified gauge. I did s...

A month ago, my life changed forever at an 8:45 AM doctor visit. I had been “doctoring” for several weeks, trying to solve persistent constipation that was accompanied by a slight difficulty in breathing. After a variety of interventions had failed to solve the problem, my doctor ordered a CT scan of my abdomen and a blood test that flags lung problems. When the blood test results came back with very high markers, I received an urgent call from my doctor’s office, telling me to go back to the hospital stat for a CT scan of my chest. This scan confirmed that I had a large pleural effusion, or build-up of liquid in the pleural cavity of my left lung. A lung specialist drained my lung in the emergency room and sent a sample off for analysis. There were cancer cells in that fluid. So what do you do when you learn on a Monday morning that you have lung cancer? You say ungraceful things. You cry. You discuss the best options for care with your doctor, and follow his recommendati...

I’ve endured the weather of this cold, icy, snowy winter with few complaints, other than joining in the general conversation. The wood stove, 2nd floor office (where I benefit from the rising of heated air), electric blanket, down coat, and bounteous collection of warm knitted clothing have kept me warm. What has been more difficult has been enduring loss, and grief. First we lost Patches, our 17 year old calico cat. She developed a severe urinary tract infection in December. We treated her, but the infection returned in January. A bunch of tests didn’t turn up an underlying condition, so she had a second round of treatment. This cat hated being doctored, but somehow we managed to administer three weeks of medication, and she seemed to rally for a few days. Right about the time we were to take her back for a checkup, she began to fail. In early February we took Patches to the vet for the last time. Almost immediately after Patches’ death, our cat Mewah’s long, slow decline...

My Christmas holiday is my favorite of the year. I take a week and a half off from work and make as few plans as possible. Knitting, spinning, reading, cooking and eating good food, spending time with family and friends, and general indolence are my priorities. This year our holiday plans were rearranged by an ice storm that brought back memories of Ice Storm ’98, the only natural disaster I’ve directly experienced. We were lucky - the storm fell short of the ’98 standard in the end. Still, it was a major weather event that will affect the rest of the winter and that will require hours and hours of clean-up work come spring. I wrote a 100 page journal in 1998, so I have a historical record to refer to as I compare and contrast my memories of the two weather events. It surprises me to find myself emotionally moved by the tale of those days, when we had a 9 year old daughter and 84 year old stepparent in our home. She’s all grown up and he is dead, but my words bring back memori...

Two projects are off the needles this fall and in use. In both cases, they were gifts to people I love, just for the heck of it. In one case, I finished the gift on a happy night, so it turned out to be a gift that coincided with an occasion. First: the Jacki scarf, designed by Nancy Marchant. This scarf is knit in the brioche stitch, and Ms. Marchant is the world’s leading authority on this stitch. I knit a mohair sweater in brioche stitch years ago, so I’m no stranger to the cushy, double-faced rib-like fabric. Brioche also creates a reversible fabric, an attribute that appeals to me. I signed up for Ms. Marchant’s class at Craftsy.com , because I got a deal and because I like the class projects. After I was a few inches into knitting the Jacki scarf, I knew it was a gift. An inch or two more, and I knew it was a gift for my sister. She loves quality clothes with good lines, and she always looks fantastic. Years ago I sewed her a kimono style jacket for Christmas, and she still has t...

Three milestones in my life this past week, in order of increasing importance: 100K When we bought our Honda Civic 3 years ago, I did a rough estimate of how many miles we were likely to put on the car each year. My prediction: we would roll over 100,000 miles right around the time we would make our final payment. Early this week, I was out and about and had a thought, “Gee, that last payment is coming up. I wonder how close I am to my prediction?” I tripped the odometer to the life-long miles driven counter and found this: Right on schedule! I’m still tickled that I happened to push the odometer button at exactly the right moment to capture this. One less debt We are - now that I’ve written the check for the final payment on the Civic - in that most joyous condition of having NO CAR PAYMENT. We also are not currently in need of a replacement car. Losing that monthly payment puts us in a better position to pay off other debts before we retire. Let’s see how long we can go...