She Loves to Knit

One Week Later...

I am physically and emotionally drained and exhausted. Thankful for my blessings, yes, of course. But, tired to the core in many aspects. This has been one tough week. Friday we woke up to two feet of snow and downed tree limbs strewn all over the yard and the street. A travel ban was imposed on our town and in several surrounding areas. Power was out. The basement was flooding. The weekend was spent trying to deal with the immediacies of the situation. Candles, flashlights, bottled water, batteries... the well-meaning, but futile, assistance of friends with makeshift solutions to the nasty sump pump situation.

Monday, which was actually a gorgeously clear and beautiful sunny day, was finally a day of action and results. I got my hands on a crew of guys with some chain saws and they were able to take down the majority of limbs that were laying all over the yard and threatening our property from above. The resultant pile of tree debris was stacked at the end of the front yard in front of the street. $500. It formed a wall about 9 or 10 feet high! The hedge I never wanted. My next door neighbor was able to run an extension cord from his generator to my sump pump, and the water began to be pumped out. The kids and I spent hours raking up the leaves that were left on the ground. (God, my shoulders were sore that night!)

Finally, after 96 hours, the power went back on. Thank heaven. As each day has progressed, more and more people got generators, some driving distances of up to 3-4 hours away. They are noisy and dangerous (4 carbon monoxide deaths in the county already and at least one case of serious burns,) and you cannot run them in the rain or snow (?!?) but with one you CAN keep your sump pump running, your furnace and hot water heater going, your fridge and freezer on (at least in intervals) and maybe even keep a lamp on at night. A friend of mine drove over an hour down to Dunkirk, NY, after work the other night to buy 3 generators, one for himself, one for another friend, and one for me. He arrived with it just about three hours after our power went on, so it is still sitting in its box in my garage. And I owe him $800.

Fast forward: My once finished basement is now quite unfinished. A crew came in yesterday morning, and for about $1000, removed just about everything that was in there (furniture, toys, games, garbage, stored books, grad school stuff, baby bedding, broken dustbusters, an old bread machine, discarded computer equipment, you name it) plus the carpeting, padding, and ceiling tiles. Two entire dump truck loads of stuff. (The silver lining? Someday when I move or die, it will be 18 less years of stuff stored in the basement for somebody to have to sort through. It only cost about $1,000.) In order to clean and dry out the environment down there, they also had to cut up the drywall 24". That has helped to dissipate the smell, but not entirely. I spent over $300 today to rent an industrial dehumidifier and fan -- which are so heavy, I can't get them down to the basement until my husband gets home. In addition, we did get a plumber out the other day to put in a back-up water-driven sump pump. Another thousand dollars.

The first floor of the house is laden with all the stuff we pulled up from the basement to save: files, memorabilia, books, food in cans and boxes, paper goods, toys and games worth saving, computer equipment, an old mah jong set, the kids' Nintendo or whatever it is, old video tapes, etc. etc. etc. Thankfully, the fridge and freezer in the basement suffered no damage (neither did my hot water heaters or my furnace -- hallelujah!) and I cleaned them out quite thoroughly, so we can go back to using them whenever we're ready.

I heard some guys on the radio joking about what electric things were most important to them and their
families. What do you turn on first when you get your power? Younger kids immediately go for the t.v. and the Nintendo (or whatever they play with today.) For those of us with wet basements, the sump pump is the most important. For me, after that would come hot water and the fridge/freezer. Then probably my hair dryer and my computer. I could live without heat. (Well, not forever, of course.) Funny to think of your priorities.

My heart is breaking for those still without power. As of last night, we could still hear the generators running from just one block away. Sounds like the hugest bee hive in the world. One of my neighbors thinks the only reason our street got power is because we're probably on the same grid
as the local Elementary and Middle Schools. There are houses across the street from the schools that still don't have electricity, but we are on the same side as the schools (although down a few blocks.)

The Town of Amherst, where we live outside of Buffalo, has called in the National Guard to haul away some of this tree debris. I'm looking for handsome young men in fatigues and tall boots to come and take away my tree junk. There's like a 10-foot hedge in front of my house (which is now also adorned with a gross, old couch and chairs from the basement.)

I have been taking pictures to document this whole experience. Some of them are of the weather and its effects outside. Some are just of our stuff stacked up to show the all crap that was stored in the basement, or the water level, or just to show the insurance adjuster. Enjoy.

I know... no knitting...

No knitting around here for several weeks... and you would think, given the state of things around here (Buffalo, NY) lately (October FREAK snowstorm,) that there would be some knitting going on, but I just can't seem to get it started.

Since early Sept., I've been teaching second grade at a local Jewish day school and absolutely LOVING it. It is challenging, but it is fun, and it is so very rewarding. My hours are part-time, but not the amount of time I have to spend. Constantly, there are plans to write and papers to correct and details to attend to, etc. I'm also still at my two other part-time teaching jobs in the Jewish community. I've barely had a minute to deal with all the other normal aspects of living (like I have three kids, two still at home, and a dog and a husband and food to shop for and laundry to handle and a house to take care of and bills to pay....)

But, what happened the other day, and its aftermath, have been unbelievable. On Thursday, 10/12, the City of Buffalo and some of the suburbs were hit with an unpredeicted snowstorm that dumped two feet of heavy, wet snow. Because the leaves were all still on the trees, they were like huge nets, or hammocks, that held this great, wet weight of snow until they couldn't hold any longer. All though the night on Thursday, amidst snow and thunder and lightning, you could hear what sounded like gunshots. POP! (The initial sound of a tree branch splitting.) Then, a slow crack, as the branch peeled off of its tree. Then, a moment later, the thud of the branch as it landed in the snow. What we woke up to on Friday was unbelievable devastation. Tree branches everywhere. Power out to over 250,000 households. Luckily, no trees fell on our house or on us. Just a few minutes from my house, a man died while shoveling his driveway when a huge tree limb fell on him. Killed him instantly. May his soul forever be blessed.

We spent hours on Friday moving things in our, yes, finished, basement up to higher elevations. The kids' computer and my grandmother's china came upstairs. The rest we thought would be okay if we just moved it up to higher shelves. We knew our sump pump wouldn't work without electricity, and so we figured the carpeting would get waterlogged and would have to go, but we never expected what we found in the basement on Saturday. Four-to-six inches of water and more piling up. My husband and the two teenagers who still live with us full-time (the older one is in college, albeit 5 minutes from our house) helped us form a brigade. At first, we tried hauling out buckets of water. After an hour or so of that, with no appreciable result, we switched to moving things upstairs: financial records, old toys, 2 old t.v.'s, my Passover dishes and cookware, the folding chairs we take to softball games, paper goods that I store in the basement, tennis rackets, bowling balls, my old beading and jewelry-making supplies. Pounds and pounds and pounds of stuff. It is all over the first floor of my house. I realize that everything still left down there is unsalvageable. The furniture, the cupboards, the office. If it isn't ruined by standing in water, it will be ruined by the mold that will quickly form. I'm getting the kids used to the fact that their computer will have to be parked upstairs (maybe in their older sister's room) and that they won't have their "hangout." I have to get used to the fact that I have to deal with getting someone in to remove all the carpeting, and then the furniture and the drywall and completely gut the place. When and whether we re-do anything down there... I have no idea.

So, how the heck am I posting this? Well, my husband had the forethought, when he came home from work on Thursday night and saw how bad it was, to reserve a room for us at the local Hampton Inn, so I'm sitting in the lobby there using their free wireless. We haven't actually stayed overnight here yet, but they have power and a hot breakfast and free wireless (!) and hot showers and cable t.v. We came over yesterday and showered and relaxed and then actually went home to sleep -- with the kids in sleeping bags and quilts on the floor of our bedroom. We can't bring the dog here, so we will have to be back and forth -- in violation of the driving ban in the town, but, it is only a 5-minute drive. But, it is a respite. You would think that I'd pick up some knitting to help while away the hours... maybe later.

New Blog Email Address

Just a simple note to my beloved readers and commenters... my mac. subscription runs out in a few days and it is too $$ to keep just for an online email address. So the new email to reach me is [email protected]. Self-explanatory, no?

Why I Haven't Been Posting and Probably Won't Again for a While

#1) Why no posts in a while? Well, a week and a day ago was the Bat Mitzvah of my youngest daughter, from here on to be referred to as "J-Daughter," because she discovered that if you typed in her actual name on Google and searched for images, her picture from this very blog turned up. Made me a little uncomfortable, so I tried to find all references to her by her real name and replace them with "J-Daughter."

So, how did everything go? BEAUTIFULLY! Friday night's service was long and the most tear-filled thing I've ever witnessed. The Cantor of our temple left this past week for a bigger, better job with a temple outside Chicago, (anyone from North Shore Congregation Israel? you are very, very lucky people!) so the Friday night service was a tribute and farewell to him. The choirs sang, there were speeches and gifts, the Cantor broke down in tears, the Executive Director broke down in tears, the Rabbi broke down in tears. The hundreds of people in the congregation broke down in tears. It was quite something. There was a huge Oneg (coffee & desserts) afterwards, but we skipped out of it so we could get home to our Shabbat dinner with all of our out-of-towners. (I must say, it is a WONDERFUL thing to leave your house cold and empty and return to see the caterer's truck pulled into your driveway, to smell the smells of wonderful cooking, to see delicious food displayed artfully in your own kitchen and diningroom, and to have your house filled with family and friends, all drinking wine and happy to be there!)

J-Daughter was amazing on Saturday morning. She was very nervous beforehand, but her nerves don't show in being jittery or getting hyped up. Her response to stress is to get quiet and close down. Just before we stepped up to the bima I told her that she was beautiful and smart and that she knew perfectly everything she had to do, that all she had to do was "let her light shine." And she did. She is tall and very pretty, with long, blonde-streaked hair. She was wearing a golden linen dress and very tall gold high heels, and her whole image was like an angel. And her voice is heavenly! The Cantor did the presentation of the Torah for the passing from generation to generation and was magnificent. The Rabbi spoke to her after her Torah and Haftarah and speech, and complimented her on several things, not the least of which was her honesty in her speech. It just all went perfectly. Especially when, after the Silent Meditation, she played violin and her older brother accompanied her on guitar for "Shalom Rav." It was beautiful! (Especially after hearing them practice it and make a million mistakes and have big arguments with each other over "the Cantor told you to do it THIS way!") I can't wait to see the video and the pictures. It is so hard waiting for them!

The luncheon went nicely -- a few snafus from the catering end -- but, it was lovely to be surrounded by so many friends and relatives. And J-Daughter's party in the evening with her friends was a blast. The room was decorated with purple tablecloths and lime green, purple, teal, and silver ballons, complete with subs from Jonny C's New Yawk Deli, a DJ, an airbrush tattoo artist, and Dippin' Dots. The kids danced their butts off and got a million tattoos, the relatives hung around and had fun, and our dearest grown-up friends stayed and kept us company. (And drank lots of wine.)

The weekend ended with brunch at our house and then saying goodbye to everyone who had planes to catch and car trips home. I was completely exhausted at the end of it, and was looking forward to a little bit of R&R... which might have happened, except for, well, read #2) below!

#2) To my dear friends:

"Beshert" -- A Yiddish word meaning "it was meant to be."

Which is about the only way I can describe getting a phone call this past Tuesday afternoon from a woman who ran the pre-school at the JCC for years, and recently left there to take a job at the local private Jewish day school in town. She was wondering if I was still looking for a teaching job. After I completely ignored the whole job search thing for months and concentrated my entire summer on planning for last weekend, she calls me completely out of the blue and asks if I could please come over for an interview in, oh, the next hour or two? I raced over, met with her and with the headmaster, and basically was hired on the spot. Evidently, one of their teachers had unexpectedly left their employ that morning. My resume was in their files and when this woman, god bless her!, saw my name, she grabbed my resume from the pile and told the headmaster that I was the one to call!

I will be teaching secular second grade (Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.) The kids spend half a day with their secular teacher (me!) and half a day with their Hebrew and Judaic Studies teachers, so I will be working five 1/2-days a week (two mornings and three afternoons.) Of course, I will have to spend countless more hours in addition to that, but it should still allow me to continue teaching my 4th graders at temple and my two classes on Wednesday nights at the Hebrew High School.

Private Jewish school... half-time... the people so far are lovely and the building is brand-new and beautiful. It just seems perfect... Beshert. Wish me luck!

Bits & Pieces

That's all I have time for... just a few bits & pieces, a scant odd scraps of info... ready? Set? Go!

1. I started PT yesterday for the pain in my left knee that has kept me down to 2-3 classes of Tae Kwon Do a week (compared to my usual 5-6.) I got quite a thorough evaluation and a recommendation for 3 differerent leg exercises. Which I did last night and haven't yet done today, even though it is already after 9 PM and I'm supposed to do them twice a day. Oh well.

2. It has been very hot and steamy here. As if you didn't know. Wild thunderstorms, too. I'm totally amazed that we haven't lost power. They must have fixed some major thing in our neighborhood within the past year, because it used to be that anytime the wind blew at all, we lost power.

3. I am closing in on all of the Bat Mitzvah planning. Menus done. Party junk in the house. Still need to buy lots of paper goods and wine for Sat. night. Still need to do the hospitality bags for the out-of-towners. Still need to type up driving directions for them. Still need to get copies made of the service program I prepared. And about 1,000 other details!

4. I still don't know what I'm wearing to what part of the weekend. I've put back on about 3-4 of the 25 pounds I lost this year, and I don't know how comfortable I'm going to be in the suit I had planned to wear. (And I thought I was going to get down to -30 before the big day. What a joke.)

5. So, I'm still shopping. Spent hours at the Niagara Falls Outlet Mall today. Plan on hitting the Galleria Mall with the Bat Mitzvah girl herself on Saturday afternoon. She still needs a "party dress" for Sat. night.

6. I am still knitting, believe it or not! Still that pink silk shrug. I'm convinced that by the time I get it done, shrugs will be totally out of style.

Oh No...!

I am a blogging slug. I just made that up. Blogging Slug -- means someone too lazy (or busy otherwise) to post to her blog! Like me. Up to my eyeballs in preparing for the youngest daughter's Bat Mitzvah... a mere 3-1/2 weeks away! What have I been doing? Preparing the program, contracting with the caterer for the kids' party in the evening, searching for musical entertainment for the luncheon, tracking RSVPs (and the LACK of them*), ordering things like light-up bracelets and blow-up ukeleles for the evening party, ordering kippot, ordering balloon arrangements for the evening party, scheduling an airbrush tattoo artist for the evening party, ordering goodies for the luncheon centerpieces (no clues here... I know some of you who read this blog and I want it to be a surprise, haha!) Having done this twice before, I also realize that I have SO MUCH MORE to deal with! All of our family are out-of-towners, so I will have to put together hospitality bags. I also need to print up directions so our guests can find their way from temple to the reception, etc. And I want to have some kind of goodies set out for after the service, since not all of the guests are invited to the luncheon. (Don't fret -- I only mean the kiddies who are going to the night party, but not the luncheon. Still, I should have "something" set out for them. Candy bars? Fruit? I don't yet know.)

At least the landscaping of the front and side yards is all done. I just have to get my butt out there to water the gardens a little more frequently. And the painting in the house is all done. I just have to finish hanging the pictures, etc. Those were BIG jobs, and having them behind us is a relief.

Now, it comes down to making hair and manicure appts., making sure everybody has the right clothes for all of the events -- all that sort of stuff. And then re-confirming everything with the photog, the videographer, etc. And in the midst of it all? Working with the Bat Mitzvah girl to make sure she knows her Torah and Haftarah and her speech and all of that!

*This is a mystery to me. Why people can't simply fill in their name on a response card, put it into the pre-addressed and pre-stamped response envelope and stick it in a mailbox? How hard is that? Talk about slugs....

I turned the knitting switch back ON

Don't know quite what did it, but after weeks and weeks and weeks of not a single knitted stitch passing through my fingers, I actually reached over the side of the bed the other night while hubby was watching somethig not terribly interesting to me on t.v., pulled up my favorite knitting bag and began knitting on that pink silk shrug again -- yippee!  That was Sunday night and I knit a little while J-Daughter was on the TKD mat last night, and I plan on taking it with me again tonight!  I may actually finish it before Thanksgiving, ya think?

And then this crossed my path just a few minutes ago...

and the "Hey, that looks cool -- I want to make THAT" juices started to flow and I think, maybe, I'm cured!  Why now, finally?  No clue.  Not at all.  Why does this Wobbly Circles Tote excite me?  Well, for one, it's a PURSE.  (And you know me and purses, bags, totes, all of them, they call to me.)  And two, it's FELTED, which is always fun.  (Okay, it's not ALWAYS fun.  Sometimes it is a disaster.  I have a disaster made out of this very same Montera yarn stuffed way, way, way in the back of my knitting cupboard, but we don't have to speak of it anymore.  Or ever again.)  And three, I've never done intarsia.  (Well, I did like 20 years ago.  That was before I even had kids.  I don't think it counts anymore.)  Of course, I'm like half-a-year late on the KAL.  Or, I WILL be by the time I get to it.  The pattern is from the Spring 2006 Interweave Knits.  Don't I have that somewhere around here?  Hello -- bathroom towel armoire?  Basket 'o knitting mags on the bedroom floor?  Where are you, O '06 IK?

Purses...

Confession: I am a purse slut.  (Have I mentioned that on here before?)  It is so true.  Coach, Dooney & Bourke, Clever Carriage, The Sak, Carlos Falchi, Isabella Fiore... even Louis Vuitton.  My closet has 'em all... and more!  Now, add to the "name" brands a smallish collection of handmade, artistic creations... painted bags, quilted bags, velvet bags, the kind you find at art shows and in little bouiques.  I just love them!

So, I'm sharing with you my latest love... the "Havana" Large Hobo, in coral, from Hayden-Harnett. How did I find this bag?  Perusing some purse/shopping blog or another.  (There are many... PurseBlog and Bag Crazy are but 2.)  Someone somewhere was raving about the beauty of this company's offerings -- their designs, their construction, their materials.  So I took the chance, emailed a few times back and forth before making my purchasing decision, so they knew just what my needs are in a bag (basically BIG, but not GINORMOUS!)  It arrived a few days before our little jaunts to Pennsylvania and Canada, and after traveling around with it at home and away, I can confidently say, "it works!"  It is pretty, stylish, soft (like really, really SOFT), and comfortable to carry.  YAY Hayden-Harnett.  You are my new favorite purse designers!  From Brooklyn, NY.

(I can so see me ordering another one of the very, very same bag in a darker color for fall/winter... chocolate? deep green? this cool black & white tweed they had last year, I think?)

Hyundai Entourage WINS major upset victory!

So much seems to have happened in such a short time, once again, with nary a knitting stitch involved.  Zack left early, early last Sunday morning for 3-1/2 weeks at sleepaway camp.  It's his 3rd summer there, with all the same guys in his cabin, so I'm not terribly worried about him having a good
time.  But, I do miss him. 

It is the same camp where Anna had been for the previous 3 weeks, and where she was going to be
working for the rest of the summer, as one of 2 nannies for the director's kids:  a 4-mo. old and a
2-year old.  A job with the potential for lots of fun, but also a very demanding job.  Anna is GREAT with kids, but not as great dealing with stressful situations and relationships in a calm and straightforward manner, and the work was very demanding.  She just kept getting progressively more frustrated and exhausted with each day.  Without really thinking through it all, she told her employers on Tuesday that she didn't think she was going to make it through the rest of the summer.  Well, within an hour, she was in her car, all packed up and on her way back to Buffalo.

In the meantime, though, Rick and J-Daughter and I had planned a quickie get-away for the 3 of us to Toronto!  We invited her to join us, but Anna declined and stayed at home with the dog while we drove to Toronto on Thursday, saw Blue Man Group (which was AWESOME!), stayed overnight, visited the Hockey Hall of Fame (okay, I got bored after a while, I admit it) and drove home late Friday afternoon.

As for Anna, she has a line on some part-time work, at the adoption agency where she worked in during high school and all last summer, and she's registered for a class for the last summer session at UB. 

And now... The Big News:  After weeks of searching for the perfect used Honda Odyssey (it
doesn't exist) or Toyota Sienna (very, very hard to find, in the model with all the bells and whistles
that I wanted), we bought a brand-new Hyundai Entourage the other night!  With all the bells and whistles!  (Seriously, what do I need a DVD player for?  But it comes with the package that has the leather seats and the moonroof and the upgraded sound system, all of which I DID want.)  My husband
was even sweet enough to take Wednesday and drive down with me to a Toyota dealership in Bradford, PA to check out a used Sienna that looked good online.  Guess what?  It looked like crap and smelled bad.  I knew in 1/8 of a second that I didn't want that car.  At least it wasn't a total waste of time.  It was just nice to be together without work or kids for a few hours, and we had a lovely dinner in a Middle-Eastern cafe in Ellicottville on the way home.

As for the car, it just so happened that my brother-in-law, who is a total car enthusiast, had
told us the day before that the new Hyundai minivan, which they call the Entourage, had recently been released and was receiving rave reviews and excellent predictions.  Better in the most recent safety tests than any other minivan on the market, and priced way less than the Honda or the Toyota for the same "stuff."  I read everything I could find on the internet, and it all seemed to check out.  So, wave to me in my new gold minivan from Northtown Hyundai!  (And forgive me for bragging... I haven't gotten a new car in 10 years, and I totally, totally, totally expected to be buying used.  This was really a surprise.)

Heartbreak

I lost the car.  I was negotiating with the seller on Friday, and as of 5 PM, we were all of $1,000 apart.  He said he was leaving work and I should call him at home.  I checked real quickly with my husband, who said, "Go up $500 and if he doesn't take it, meet him at his price."  So, I called and left a message on his home machine.  No reponse.  Until hours later when I got a call telling me that another buyer took it for $1000 more.  God!  If I had tracked him down at work, or called again, I would have had that car!  It was my dream car.

Now, I'm like back to the drawing board.  Do I need a minivan?  I still have two kids at home and there are always two Tae Kwon Do bags (big gym bags) in the back of my car, and I need space for tons of grocery bags and Zack's guitars and J-Daughter's softball gear and all sorts of stuff that we schlep around.  True, much of the time it is just me, or just me and 1 kid, or just me and 2 kids, but there are times, at least once or twice a year, when the 4 of us, or the 5 of us, will take a trip to Pittsburgh (~4 hours) or Washington, DC (~8-9 hours) to visit the family.  What then?  If I go down to a smaller SUV-type car (think Toyota Highlander, maybe) would I then have to always rent a minivan for trips?  At $350/week?

I test drove a Highlander and a Honda Pilot and a Honda CR-V today.  I much (MUCH) preferred the Toyota to the Hondas.  Which surprises me, since one of my favorite all-time cars was the 1982 Honda Accord that Rick and I bought when we were first married.  He got 140,000 miles out of that and we loved it all the way until the end.  But, the Pilot felt uncomfortable and truck-y to me, and the CR-V felt chintzy.  (Never thought I'd say that about a Honda, but yeah.)

I'm so confused.  My head hurts.  And I'm still really, really, REALLY SAD about losing that Sienna.  It was the top of the line and it was beautiful and drove great and felt great.  Poor pathetic me.