Unfurnished Brooklyn

Moving Up

Start spreading the news...

We're leaving today...

We want to be a part of it- First Grade! First Grade!

We worked very hard

Our teachers are proud

So open up those doors to- First Grade! First Grade!

We learned our alphabet and numbers too

We learned to share with others and tie our shoes

So when summer is done...

There's no more time to play...

Our moms and dads will bring us to- First grade! First Grade!

If we can make it there, we'll make it anywhere

So here we come- First! Grade!

First Graaaaaaaade!!!!

I almost made it through without crying. Until the slide show of all the year's activities; come on- they played "The Times of Your Life." Obviously they wanted us to cry. Well played, teachers. Well played.

The Hustle

So Cheb is running around with her friends in the playground, and I'm staring off into space (having remembered to pack yarn, stitch markers, photocopied pattern, and row counter yet forgot to bring the damn knitting needles). I'm staring at a tree and wondering what kind of tree it is when Cheb's classmate suddenly appears in front of me.

"Wanna buy a flower?' She sticks a flower in my face. A group of girls had picked the blossoms off of the bushes behind the benches (what kind of bushes are those..?), and were tying them into bracelets and tiaras. This enterprising young lady was selling them off.

I ask her how much, and she answers: "Three dollars."

"I don't have any money."

"Okay... how about four dollars?"

"Um, no. I don't want to buy any flowers."

She looks pissed. She walks over to Cheb, they talk for a moment, and Cheb skips over to me. She's been skipping a lot lately.

"Mom! Do you have a dollar?"

"Why?"

"Jessica has a flower and she'll give it to you for $3 but I told her to ask for $1 and we can buy two Ring Pops with that. One for me and one for her. Where's the dollar?"

I think she gets that from her father.

Debonding

Is there any sweeter word to a girl with braces?

Two weeks, y'all. Two weeks.

It's that time again...

Let them run awkwardly
Stepping over the puddles,
And the water will flow like a river.
And it's not clear to the passers-by
On this unweatherable day,
Why I'm so happy.

I play the concertina,
In the view of the passers-by...
Unfortunately, a birthday
Is only once a year.

Suddenly a wizard flies in
In a light blue helicopter
And shows a movie for free.
He's stopping by for the birthday
And he'll probably leave
Me a present of 500 ice cream bars.

I play the concertina,
In the view of the passers-by...
Unfortunately, a birthday
Is only once a year.

OO! AH! EE! OH!!

Cheb and I watched one of her videos and the theme song is stuck in my head. Well, just the part where you scream OO! AH! EE! OH!! over and over.At least I'm not out in public doing it...

So. Thanks for all the comments- does my heart good, it do. Cheb and that little girl (who'd better watch her back) were playing today as if nothing happened. But, I do have to find another daycare as the principal of Cheb's school is being a hardass and won't allow Cheb to be picked up earlier. Sigh.

A good thing happened yesteday: with everything else going on I forgot to decline the selection for that crafty book club I joined (free books! woo!). I came home after an exhausting day and found the box leaning against my apartment door. No big whoop: the postdude always leaves packages there, as this is a pretty decent building. Aside from all the tweetle beetles, that is.

So I pick up the box, thinking I should do something shady like mark it return to sender because it is probably something I don't want, like Rock Painting for Fun and Profit. And then I notice that the invoice is ripped off the box. What the heck?? I toss it on the sofa and go about my business. Later I pick it up again and realize the box has been opened, and the invoice shoved inside. I don't think any of my neighbors did it; there are some guys renovating an apartment on my floor, and seeing how they have no problem leaving the remains of their lunch all over the front steps, it's not a stretch to think that one of them opened the package that was lying there.

But wait, Iris: you said this was a good thing, right?

Oh yes. The selection? Loop-d-loop. A book I wanted to buy but can't. Though, in a way I guess I did... but, score! There are a few things in it that you won't catch me in ever, but there's enough likable stuff in it to make it worthwhile. Like the yarnover ribbon tank. Which I just happened to cast on for today, using ribbon yarn I bought last year at Downtown Yarn. Heh.

So, yeah, even my good things are weird right now. But I'll take what I can get.

Gloomy post- avert your eyes!!

So what started out as the usual pre-menstrual woe-is-Iris case of the blues has lingered far too long. Quite simply, I feel like shit and I'm worn out.

Job hunting sucks. A dwindling bank account sucks. Add to that trying to find childcare so I can take a crappy temp job and you've got more suckitude than you can handle. Then add the events of the last 24 hours and... well. How many ways can I say it sucks?

I'll gloss over the incident in the playground yesterday with the very odd little girl and her father who could not unglue the cell phone from his head long enough to realize his daughter was getting on my nerves. Even though I was sitting right across from him, he didn't see me telling his daughter to stay out of my bag and stop taking food and (the worst of it) my knitting and just stop messing with me and being a pain. Dude: please give your child some attention so she doesn't have to get it from strangers.

And today. Long story short: a little girl wanted to play with Cheb's friend (our upstairs neighbor), and got in between the two girls. She told them to put their feet together, and pointed to Cheb and said, "You're black. We're white. You can't play with us." I didn't hear the conversation, but I could tell what was happening. Cheb started to cry and came over and told me what the little girl said.

Just Frickin' Google It

For two days now I've been struggling to remember the name of that instrumental surf music band. Here's a partial list of names I came up with:

The Avengers

The Rotators

The Mainliners

The Surfers

The Windjammers

The Kokomos

It is killing me. I know I could just look it up, but that would be too easy. And their most famous song (the name of which also escapes me) is in constant rotation in my head. You know what started this? Scooby frickin' Doo. Cheb conned me into watching some Scooby in Hawaii movie the other day and now I can't get surfer music out of my head. That, and tiki-wiki.

The Dayrunners?

The Wavers? Wait, is it the Wavers?

No? Damn.

(Okay. I gave in and looked it up. The Ventures. The song is "Walk- Don't Run." Would've taken weeks to figure that out.)

Moskvalund

Okay, I'm trying to catch up on all these finished projects that I just haven't gotten around to posting. Oh, there's a few of'em. Including a baby sweater that I delivered without taking a pic- maybe I'll get to post it with a cute little model. We'll see.

Anyhoo, here's Moskvalund:

Actually, this is Marielund (from Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton's first Noro book); I call it Moskvalund because I knitted almost all of it during my two weeks in Moscow. I screwed up the sleeves and reknit them on the flight back, and seamed it back at home. I used 8 skeins of Cash Iroha in midnight blue, and one skein of Silk Garden in color#203 left over from my Klaralund.

This is the best photo I could get. Deal with it. Also, no buttons. My meager button collection doesn't have anything I can use. But- as I can't wear it until fall- that part can wait. I almost blocked it, but I like the way the ribbing pulls in. Hugs all my curves (and damn, there are a lot of them). As my sister would say, "it gets into all the nooks and crannies."

I haven't been knitting for a few days. I've been sucked into an incredible book: The Known World. I'm halfway through it and it is the best thing I've read in some time. I've had this book for months, but never got around to reading it. I'm sure I'll rave more when I'm done.

Shh... don't speak.

No words. Just pics.

Okay- a few words. The hooded pullover from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2005. Yarn used: Cascade Sierra Quatro, color #81.