I read another article, blaming the victim, which has fueled my outrage regarding how women are treated in this world, and so the next 6 or 7 posts might be a little offensive.
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One day this week a woman got on the train carrying a cup of coffee. Instead of a paper sleeve she had a crocheted one. My first thought was, I want it! My second thought was I can make it myself. I went online to find a pattern, all the patterns I found were crocheted, but I wanted a knit one. I decided it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out how to make one myself.
And here it is, and here are the directions. I used “Caron Simply Soft Party yarn” medium size, gauge is 18 stitches, 24 rows with #8(5mm) US needles=4″x4″ (10 cm). I used size #4 US, (3.5 mm) double pointed needles to make the knitted sleeve shown.
Cast on 34 sts. Join
Rnd 1: K
Rnd 2: Purl all even rows.
Rnd 3: K 17 sts, increase one stitch, K 16 sts, increase one stitch, K1
Rnd 5: K
Rnd 7: K 18 sts, increase one stitch, K 17 sts, increase one stitch, K1
Rnd 9: K
**Rnd 11: K to last stitch, increase one stitch in space before last stitch.
Rnd 12: P
Rnd 13: K
Rnd 14: P
Repeat from ** until sleeve is as long as you want it. Bind off next row, weave yarn ends in.
After finishing it and trying it on the cup to make sure it fit, I did another test. I took the sleeve off the cup and boiled some water, then I made tea in the cup. I put the sleeve on and held the cup, yes I am holding a paper cup with boiling water in it. So not only does it protect my hand, I was also able to get it on the cup when the cup was full. I call that success.
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A line I often hear is “Prepare for the worst but expect the best”. I have my own version, “I prepare for the worst because I expect the worst”. It does no good for people, even people I trust, to say, “Don’t worry” or “Don’t be a pessimist”, this is how I am. A pessimist is what I am and worry is what I do. Here’s some examples.
This Thursday, tomorrow actually, I am going to a hockey game. Not my first professional hockey game, but my first NHL hockey game. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’M GOING TO DIE. When I ordered the tickets, my first worry was “Will I get them in time?”, the website promised me I would. Then the ticket was being shipped FedEx, I worried that FedEx would lose them, then when I got the sticker on my door I worried that I would get to the FedEx place and the envelope would be on the truck. All of those worries were groundless and I got my ticket. Interestingly, I didn’t worry about getting murdered while walking through the Bronx in the dark. I guess once I do something and don’t die, I’m invincible.
However, that is not the end of my worries. I have to go by train to Penn Station in Newark, then walk to the Prudential Center. Neither of which I have done before. Besides that, they are now forecasting a storm for tonight leading into tomorrow. So I am either going to get lost going there, get stuck on a snowed in train or die in Newark. I haven’t decided which of those things is the worst. Also, since I’m a Sabres fan and I’m going to the game in New Jesey, I worry that I’ll get pummeled by Devils fans. Paul assured me that won’t happen. I’m still worried.
The reality is, everything will most likely be fine. I’ve been thinking that the worst is going to happen and I’m not going to survive for most of my life. Usually the worst doesn’t happen, sometimes it has, but I’m still here. In fact I am now living my dream. Of course that may end at any moment. **Did I leave the stove on?**
On to the next subject, my friend is coming to visit tonight. She was planning on coming down tomorrow but because of said storm. In her text she says, “Don’t drive yourself crazy cleaning.” Because every time she says she’s coming I say: “I have to clean!” She says, “I don’t care, it doesn’t have to be spotless.” And I think, it’s far from spotless it’s a freakin’ filthy mess! See?
Maybe not. However I remember her telling me how important it would be for me to keep my apartment clean. As in, “You’ll get bugs if you don’t” and “If I come to your apartment and find it’s not clean ….”, I don’t remember what she said she would do. In fact she may have never even said that it may just be a figment of my overactive pessimistic imagination. Since she has been here before and is coming again I probably shouldn’t worry, of course there is the worry that she doesn’t really like my apartment, although why that should be important to me I have no idea. P.S. I don’t have bugs.
Now that I have laid bare my faults to you, I’m going to get off the computer and go clean. Later. Did I mention I’m really good at procrastinating?
The old man, he wants my ice cream! I was trying to fend him off with my iPhone.
My hockey jersey, now covered with cat hair. But I washed it so it is clean cat hair.
One day last week I went to work without putting my contacts in. I noticed something was wrong when I was standing on the subway platform and couldn’t read the signs. Don’t ask me how I got from my apartment to the subway without noticing nothing was in focus, apparently my brain was in a fog and my legs were on autopilot. After all the subway is always in the same place.
Going shopping after work was an adventure and I discovered advantages and disadvantages to shopping without glasses. The disadvantage was not being able to see down the aisles and having to walk down each one to find canned black beans. The advantage was being able to read the labels without putting on my reading glasses.
Today in the mail I got a notice about ‘The Free Cell Phone & Minutes Program’. I didn’t know such a program existed. If you qualify you can get a free cell phone and 250 free minutes. You may be eligible if you get food stamps, have Medicaid, are Section 8, receive energy assistance, TANF, SSI or free school lunch. I don’t participate in any of those assistance programs, maybe I should pass this on to the homeless guy in front of my building. Oh wait, he already has a cell phone.
At first I didn’t know what to think, I was rather ambivalent. Is a cell phone a necessity? It didn’t use to be, but now it seems like it is. The testimonial included, because there is always a testimonial included is from a elderly woman, disabled and living alone. Since the phone is a cell phone, she can keep it with her and call whenever and wherever she needs help. There are programs to give phones to cab drivers and battered women, so why not the poor and disabled? A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization. ~Samuel Johnson. They are not handing out smart phones with unlimited data plans, if you want one you are required to submit proof that you are receiving assistance or your income is below the levels stated and only one phone per household is allowed. I know there are ways around these qualifications, people get arrested for welfare fraud all the time.
Overall, I think its a good idea for people who need assistance to able to contact help. When I was at the hospital they had this program with pendants for people to push if they needed help. The problem was, they only were effective when the person with the pendant was at home. Just because a person is disabled doesn’t mean they are bed-ridden or house bound. Giving cell phones out is an idea whose time has come.
When I was 17 my grandmother had major surgery. She had an aneurysm in one of the arteries leading to her brain, or away from the brain, I can’t remember is veins go to the brain or arteries, but it was a major blood vessel and the surgery was a big deal. As the doctors explained it, an aneurysm is like a balloon, and what the doctors planned to do was clamp the aneurysm at the neck, then since blood is no longer feeding it, it shrivels up and is no longer a threat to burst and bleed and kill her. The surgery was not a success, when the doctors got in there it was too big, the aneurysm was sitting on the artery and the doctors couldn’t get to the neck to clamp it off. So instead they closed off the artery and ‘redirected’ the blood. So she lived, sort of, she was paralyzed on one side of her body and spent the rest of her life not able to care for her basic needs. I remember so many details of that trip to see her when I was 17, I remember one of my tops was lavender and gauzy, I remember after she got out of intensive care she was on the 6th floor, I was knitting a baby blanket for a friend. I vividly remember my grandfather crying in the waiting room and my aunt telling someone (not me specifically) that her husband (who had been sitting next to my grandfather) told her, “I hope I die before you.” She told him that was selfish, he said: “I know.” He also got his wish.
For the past week, ever since I started thinking about writing this post I have tried to remember when she died, I am ashamed to say I can’t. I remember I was sitting at home watching T.V. and a friend of my brother’s was over, we were watching some comedy when the phone rang. But I don’t remember when that happened. I didn’t go to her funeral, I made some excuse about not being able to get time off from work, the truth was I didn’t even ask for the time because I didn’t want to go. That’s the truth, maybe I should add “World’s Worst Granddaughter” to my list of titles. The real truth was, I lost her when I was 17, not when she died.
My grannie was a strong woman who bore 6 children and raised 4 of them to adulthood and buried 2. She was a woman who didn’t let an ice storm keep her from doing her laundry, she hammered nails through pieces of plywood and tied them to her feet so she could make it to the laundry room. When her husband (my grandfather) complained she wasn’t putting enough starch in the wash she proceeded to starch his undershorts (he meant his shirts needed more starch, as far as I know he never complained about the laundry again). When the nasty old rooster spurred her and knocked her glasses off, she grabbed his head and twisted it clean off his body, into the stew pot he went! My father reports that she cooked him for three days and that old bird was still too tough to eat. She hiked to the top of a mountain, part of the hike involved climbing up rock, with her grandchildren, and was not impressed by the Grand Canyon, just a big hole in the ground. That was my grannie, not this frail woman lying in a hospital bed not able to eat, or dress herself or even talk.
Last Saturday my best friend’s mother died. She was a great lady, her daughter is my best friend in the whole wide world and I called her mother Mom. She considered me her fourth daughter. She had Alzheimer’s which is a terrible disease that before it kills you steals your personality. My friend told me that after her last visit home. Now I wonder if she started to mourn her mother during that visit, and now feels guilty thinking that she gave up on her mom too soon. I have no answers for her, she loved her mom, her mom knew that, even if she forgot it in the end it certainly wasn’t my friend’s fault. My heart hurts for her.
Belleza
just a (transplanted) city girl 