TRICKERTREAT!

I’ve also got one of M right side up. And a close up of my ghostly, sunken eyes.

The kids really really really wanted to wear their costumes to Sunday School. Whenever they suggest something (reasonable) we try very hard to make it happen. We like for them to have a say in (some of) the stuff we do as a class. So far there is no progress on, “Can I bring my dog?”. I’ll keep you updated. Anyway, since the kids were dressing up, M and I did to. I spent the morning saying, “I am a scary ghost. Not a cute ghost. See? OOOooooOOOOO.” Honestly.

In knitting news:

Yarn fairy! Thanks, Larissa.

An Everyday Cardigan made from this yummy stuff is my next project. As soon as the orange sweater vest is behind me, I’ll be swatching for this one. Sooner if it turns out that I don’t have enough yarn to finish the aforementioned sweater vest. Y’all cross your fingers!

Finally:

Cute boy. Great vest. I am Quite Pleased with this one.

Here is a quick knitting update:

M’s vest is finished, blocked and wonderful! There aren’t any pictures yet because it keeps raining in the mornings and then he starts working. I am going to try again tomorrow. And tonight I made it to the armholes on the back of the orange vest I am making for me. By my estimation, I just barely have enough yarn to eke thing out. This sort of situation makes me very, very nervous.

Oh, and I bought some yarn from Larissa. I’ve had the Everyday Cardigan pattern for a while so this should be the catalyst I need to make it. Well, that and my new coat is on back order until November 11 – not that that is some kind of hardship for me, our afternoons are still in the 80s.

I haven’t got much knitting done lately but I think I have a pretty good excuse: there’s been a hurricane, people. Like all natural disasters, it’s not over once the threat is gone. There is a LOT of cleaning up to do. Our freezer still only has french fries and ice cream in it. You know: the bare essentials. The purchase of Mario Golf as a Hurricane Treat has certainly not helped the situation. I love those little plumbers.

In spite of all odds (I emptied my entire knitting bag into the dirt while hopping out of the car, little balls of Jazz rolled everywhere. To top this off it was dark and I had to get out the flashlight to find everything.), I have managed to finish the front of M’s vest. When you add that to the back of the vest you get an Almost Finished Project. The shoulders were attached with a three needle bindoff – the best way to get a nice, neat seam when you’ve got any kind of ribbing. Invisible stitch doesn’t look nearly as nice if it isn’t done on stockinette.

Today’s photos courtesy of Michael D. Ivey.
Angus’ fluffy beard shows the deep V-neck to it’s best advantage.

Angus was bribed with his favorite treat in all the world to be still for these pictures (he doesn’t like wearing clothes). Betty was interested in the whole procedure. She is a little camera hog.

Anyway, I did the neckband on during the debate last night and hope that I find time to put the arm bands on this afternoon. Then it’s time for a new project. I’m either going to make myself a sweater vest out of the orange cotton-ease in my stash or the little maroon wool cardigan from a vintage pattern. I haven’t made up my mind. I do know that I am Not Ready for the Highland Thing so I am stalling a little bit.

PS I got up before the sun so that I would have time to blog today and the server isn’t responding. Aurgh.

PPS The high yesterday was only 77°. That’s how you know it’s fall. That and that my bulb order came from Spring Hill.

In between picking up limbs (Can you BELIEVE that I am going to STILL need a chainsaw to move some of these things? This is AFTER the loggers for crying out loud!), I have been working diligently on M’s vest. I am about to the place where I ripped it out the first time (ARGH).

Monkeys are the most helpful creatures.

I plan to make it to the arm holes during the Presidential Debates tonight. I also plan to eat popcorn and sour patch kids while watching, so I may not make it that far. I wouldn’t want to mess up Michael’s sweater with fingers coated in sticky, buttery deliciousness.

With the power back on, I’ve been catching up on my blog reading (a lot can happen in two weeks and I am adding a couple new sites to the What I Read Regularly List) and looking at “before and after” shots of Gulf Shores and Perdido Key. Some folks have slabs where their houses used to be and all of their stuff is floating out in the Gulf. I’d rather be picking up limbs for the rest of my life Any Day. Thanks for all of the kind thoughts y’all have been sending our way, I am thinking happy knitting thoughts back at you!

Here’s what you’ve missed! There is surprisingly little knitting.

Wednesday, September 15

Lunchtime:
Fetch Great Gran from the farm so that she can stay with us.
Prepare the bunker. This is the interior hall of our house – the little TV is in the upper left – Great Gran isn’t just staring at the wall. Bake brownies and make soup. The wind picks up.

Evening and Dark:
It gets really windy as the sun goes down, we retire to the bunker to watch Channel 5. The lights flicker a couple times before finally going off around 9:30PM (what’s the deal with hurricanes making landfall at night?). The phone still works. Can’t really hear anything in the bunker – our house is tight!
We begin the long, long night of winding the radio and listening out for tornado watches. We are still listening to Channel 5, they are broadcasting on a radio frequency as well *. Channel 15 in Pensacola has been off for a while: Ivan blew their tower down.
The leak by the fireplace has come back and there is another mysterious leak in one of the kitchen doors.

Thursday, September 16

The eye gets to us around two in the morning. Ivan followed Highway 59 up from Gulf Shores (where it made landfall) right to Bay Minette. The fun part is, I can look out the window right now and see Highway 59. But that does mean that we got a longer break than most people. Angus goes out to use the bushes. It’s pretty creepy out in the eye.
We all sleep through the second half.

It’s still very windy. We go outside to move the truck and promptly get stuck in the wet fill dirt in the front yard. Try manfully for an hour and a half to get it unstuck. Give up. Lots and lots and lots of trees are down all around the house. Lots of trees. At some point the phone line finally breaks.

Afternoon
Load Great Gran into her car to take her home. We can’t get to her house because of the massive cedar tree in the road. We have to go up someone else’s road and drive through the field. There’s a tree on her breezeway but no serious damage. No power, but she does have a phone. She has a generator so she is all set.
Hitch a ride with a neighbor back to town, he yanks our truck out of the mud with a chain. Beautiful afternoon.
Empty our fridge.
No lights, no phone.

Friday, September 17

Shelters are open in Baldwin County, M and I go to provide Emergency Communications (yes, I am a Ham) until they fix the phones. Work on those socks of M’s. Make it to the heel and realize I don’t have the instructions. Do some math. Turn the heel. Get the phone fixed up in my shelter (the last one) and pick up MREs. I love those things. They are very convenient when there is no power.
I discover the cause of the mysterious kitchen leak. That is the worst damage to the house. Hooray for that!
After checking on Great Gran, we take games and brownies to the shelter.

Saturday, September 18

No power. Check on the shelter. Things seem fine so we leave.
At Great Gran’s request, have an aborted trip to Mary Esther to check on the house. Turn back after realizing there is no gas on the way (due to no power) and the detour is Way Long. Will try again tomorrow with more gas cans.
Post Office gets power back and mail resumes.
Visit Winn Dixie with a short list for Great Gran. They don’t have power yet but their generator runs the emergency lights and the register. The experience of walking through the grocery store in the dark, noticing what people buy as “storm food” (there is no ravioli but loads of spaghetti-o’s) is Just Surreal. Employees are cleaning out the freezers (cart loads of chicken). I am a little dazed by the whole thing until I get to the ice cream freezer. All that ice cream. I would have helped them eat it when the power went out. That makes me teary.

Sunday, September 19

Make it to Mary Esther. Remember the pier?

See the tree in the lift? It’s like the Boat Fairy came.

More trees. One of the smaller cedars is on the roof. Since that’s the only one I’m worried about (is there a hole under the branches?), find a guy and give him cash to take it down. No hole. There is a bite taken out of the eaves on the other side (tree), but it didn’t get the roof part so that’s good. Take lots of pictures for Great Gran. Clean out fridge. Mary Esther has power.
MRE for lunch (bean and rice burrito) and the long trip home.
Return to find that Great Gran got her lights back.
Still no lights at our house but a neighbor has duct-taped the phone line together.

Monday, September 20, 2004

Loggers come for the good trees.
I start putting everything back together.
No lights. More MREs
M borrows a generator so that he can hook up his computer to work.
I plug in the little TV to see what is going on in the world.

Tuesday-Friday (September 21-24)

Loggers take away 6 truck-loads of trees, M works, I clean, Farm for supper, no lights. I can see the neighbors’ houses for the first time. I work a little on M’s vest and then tear the whole thing out because it has been on the needles so long there is a line. Sigh.

Saturday, September 25

Lawn is mowed (yay!).
Lights! I heart power guys! I turn on lots of lights and buy ice cream for the freezer.
I re-do the band on the front of the vest.

*Once the worst part of the storm was past Mobile, they stopped giving useful information about where the storm actually was. I am still mad at them. And they kept forgetting that they were on the radio. Telling us that you are showing us a picture of the storm doesn’t help AT ALL. Grrrrr.

At this time tomorrow there won’t be any electricity. It’s surreal to be sitting here typing and know that. That is one thing hurricanes have going for them that tornados and earthquakes don’t: you know when they’re coming.

We came back to Bay Minette* yesterday. I’ve been up since six battening the hatches at our house and out at Great Gran’s. All the potted plants are in their respective garages along with with most of the lawn furniture. All the birdbaths have been tipped over. I’ve opted for no plywood on the French doors. I figure: if you are putting plywood up to keep your doors from being ruined, once you screw things into your doors, they are pretty much ruined. I’ll take my chances with that one. But there is plenty of water and bread (truck loads of cheap white bread have been coming into town all day), library books (priorities, folks) and food for the critters (and critter treats). I made brownies. Can’t have a storm without brownies. And we’ve moved the ham radio stuff into the house. There is also lots and lots of yarn. It may be a while before I post again because of that whole electricity thing, but I’ll have plenty to show you when I do.

My Great Gran-mother left me a treat in the back yard to make me feel better about this whole thing. It has come up right in the middle of the grass! Last week there was no sign of it and all of a sudden there is this reamarkable, exotic looking lily thing. I love it when stuff like that happens.

Ya’ll be safe.

*When they show you the maps on TV, look for Alabama’s Pants Legs (a.k.a. Mobile Bay). Bay Minette is at the tip top (the crotch, if you will – really more like the left front pocket – at the tip top to the right – you get the idea) of the pants legs.

P.S. Did you know that if Ivan goes to New Orleans they’ll be flooded for six weeks? Being below sea level sucks.

I’ve been taking a little break from M’s vest.

Awwww!

The hair was the only part that made me want to scream. For little dolls with monkey legs and teeny, tiny clothing, that’s pretty good. They are all destined for careers in modeling. See? If you still don’t believe me, click here and here. They just love the camera.

I’ll get back to the vest tomorrow.