Spinning My Wheels

The people I’m trying to buy the house from are jerks, and I’m really starting to hate them. I still don’t have a closing date, and it’s their fault. Stupid out-out-state trustees, going on their stupid vacations, stalling around while I hang out in stupid suspended animation! I can’t pack, because what happens if the deal falls through and I’ve got a houseful of packed boxes? Ugh. So I’m collecting a store of empty boxes, and cleaning out closets and drawers and getting ready to be able to pack. Pre-packing. And, you know, waiting. I keep getting to the point where I want to tell the sellers to cram the house up their indolent asses, but then I remember that I’ve already paid for the appraisal, the home inspection, and the “hand money,” and I decide I’m in too deep to do anything but wait it out. Bah.

In the meantime, I’m knitting and listening to the third audio book in the Outlander series, Voyager. I think it has to speak well for Gabaldon’s characters that I still care about them after more than sixty CDs, right? Thank God for the library, though, because who could afford to put the money into the CDs for the entire series? Yikes.

What am I knitting? Gifts, mostly. I think that since I last posted I’ve done my nephew’s Pitt scarf (Potter-fashion, but blue and gold), a pair of Mary Jane-style slippers for my cousin’s 24th birthday, and a pair of bootie-like (bootie, heh) slippers for The Boy. I’m using the leftover yarn from his big school scarf for those, and he requested that one slipper be purple and one gold. Whatever, weirdo. I’ve knit a tube scarf that’s like a Mobius Strip, which looked nice in the picture, but which I think I hate. I got the pattern and yarn from the Lion Brand site, and I like the yarn, but the scarf makes me look like I’m trying to squeeze my head off. Sigh. At least it was a fast knit, right?

I’m waiting for a slew of books to come in from the library, and I’m also waiting for The Children’s Book to come in from Amazon. Thanks to one of BableBabe’s posts, I ended my budget-induced (see: Buying a House) moratorium on book buying and ordered that and Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone. Drabble is AS Byatt’s sister, so I want to see what she’s like. I hope they show up soon. I ordered a copy of my friend S’s favorite Sesame Street LP, Grover Sings the Blues, at the same time, and it’s already here. (She doesn’t have a turntable and the albums’s not available on CD, so I’m going to have it put on a CD and give it to her for Christmas. It’s the little things, right?) Here’s what she said about the album in an e-mail last week, “Grover Sings the Blues featured such classics as ".... around, around, around, around. Over! Under! Through!" and "... near ...FAR! (sung from across the room)". Truly, Grover shines on this album. I have no idea why he hasn't been inducted into the Rock Hall yet. Based on that album alone, he deserves it.” How could that NOT become a Christmas gift?

Speaking of Christmas, The Boy hardly wants anything. He admits to having just about everything he could ever want, so Christmas is going to be fairly small this year. He’s getting some video game upgrades, and we’re going to do our Heifer International family thing, and he’ll get some books, Legos, and this little Fiber Optics kit—and soldering iron!—he thought was cool while browsing a catalog, and that’s about it. Although one of the games he’s getting is Beatles Rock Band, so I suppose Christmas morning won’t be without its usual pajama-ed, messy haired, cookie munching fun.

One more thing about The Boy before I go: He went to another Bar Mitzvah last weekend, and the ubiquitous t-shirt maker was there. The Boy had a shirt made the first time he went to one, so didn’t feel that he needed another air-brushed representation of his name. He ended up coming home with two shirts last Saturday. One was for my friend P, for whom The Boy has a burning love I’ve not seen him have for another female since, well . . . me. He got hers printed with the Joker’s, “Why So Serious,” question, and I think her heart grew two sizes when he gave it to her. The shirt he got for himself, though, is truly remarkable. He said he couldn’t think of what he wanted printed on it, when he noticed that another kid had got one that said “Super Jew.” So my kid, the boy who went to pre-school at the JCC with many of the kids who were at the Bar Mitzvah, who taught those same kids the words to Up on the Housetop when they were three, decided once again to let his non-Jewish flag fly. He proudly requested that the fellow print "Secular Humanist" on his shirt.

WHAT A DORK. And OH, how much I love him!