It's been 10 years since Charlie Rufus came to live with me.  I can't imagine how I'd have made it without him, especially the last 6 months.

Charlie boy, I love you.

Yarn Stash

Ms. Packratty will be the first person to admit that she already owns more yarn than she is likely ever to be able to knit (Stash Exceeding life eXpectancy or SEX), but in the spirit of "I have a problem but there are other people who are worse" she offers this as evidence:

http://mochimochiland.com/2011/01/worlds-biggest-yarn-stash-update-and-interview/

We have some lovely yarns that I had hoped to knit for Dearest Niece and Nephew, but that isn't likely to happen now so we will just have to find deserving children to knit for.  The shawl made for Favorite Aunt was well-received and I might have to tackle one for The Other Aunt just in the interest of fairness.  However, at the moment, we are knitting another pair of socks for Mommy Dear, which are on hiatus, while we finish Reunion Socks for the Pater.  Too late for the reunion, but he couldn't have worn them anyway with his post-surgery boot.

Ms. Packratty is having to learn an iPad, which compares very poorly in price, functionality, weight, etc. with the Amazon Kindle, which is an Android tablet underneath.  She already had a poor opinion of the iPhone, especially after the Android phone joined the electronic menagerie ar Chez Packrat.
 

More bullying

So tired of it.

Bullying isn't just a thing that strangers do ...

It's even uglier when it happens inside a family:

Ask Amy: My sister just isn't one of the girls

By Amy Dickinson

Tribune Content Agency

Posted:   05/08/2014 12:11:00 AM PDT11 Comments

DEAR AMY: Every fall, my sister, cousins and a cousin's sister-in-law have a weekend shopping excursion in our home city.

We stay in a hotel, treat ourselves, shop for our children and go out for lunches and dinners. It is a great time to reconnect.

We do not invite my sister "Wendy." She is offended to the point of tears when she finds we have not invited her. My two sisters and I are close in age, but Wendy hasn't been as close to this set of cousins as my other sister and I have been through the years.
We are all married stay-at-home moms. Wendy is a divorced, working mom with one young child.
We do not include her for several reasons. We know she doesn't have much money for such an outing. She also does not have many of the same interests as we do. Her life is different from ours. We're not interested in what she has to talk about. She complains too much about her aches and pains, and claims to have some kind of neurological disease that some of us feel is more psychosomatic than real.
She also complains about her ex-husband who left her for another woman, but everyone knows it takes "two to tango" and she is not without fault.
We're all very active churchgoers, while she only sporadically attends services.
Plain and simple, she does not really fit in with us anymore.
She takes it personally, and last year she even came over to my home unannounced crying about it, which upset my children and caused my husband to threaten to call the police if she did not leave.
Now she barely speaks to me and has told our relatives that I am a horrible person (even though I've helped her).
How can we get her to understand that she should perhaps find another set of friends whose lives and interests align more closely with hers?

Sad Sister

DEAR SAD: First, let's establish that I agree with your sister: You are a horrible person.

Obviously, you can do whatever you want and associate with -- or exclude -- whomever you want, but you don't get to do this and also blame the person you are excluding for not "fitting in."

The only way your sister would ever fit in would be for you to make room for her. You are unwilling to do that, and that is your choice. But her being upset is completely justified, and you'll just have to live with that.
Perhaps this is something you could ponder from your church pew; despite your regular attendance, you don't seem to have learned much.

Lent

Into Day 6 of what amounts to basically the Paleo Diet - despite my notorious sweet tooth, I'm not jonesing for sugar, I've been eating apples and pineapples and the odd banana, which comes across as INCREDIBLY sweet when one's cane sugar intake is one spoon in the first morning cup of tea.  I'm NOT liking unsweetened ice tea AT ALL and seriously wondering how I can get through the summer without that particularly Southern liquid crack.  Lots of water, I guess - but I'll worry about that when it gets hot.

I have experienced a dramatic cessation of my chronic grumpy tummy starting on the third day without grains.  I have taken exactly 1 stomach pill in three days now.

I have been using dairy - cream in my tea, also yoghurt - I had a bunch bought when I started this and after discussing with a friend, since dairy doesn't bother me at all it seems, the verdict was that it's OK.  Vanilla yoghurt over frozen blueberries is particularly wonderfully yummy.

And on the upside, I have to brownbag it, as the grain and sugar free options are slim around here, so perhaps that will save a bit of cash.  Liking my own cooking is a bit of an advantage with this vs. the usual being my downfall.

Day 62, Book 30; plus knitting

To Sail A Darkling Sea by John Ringo.

I have gotten past the point where the shawl repeatedly kicked me in the fanny to the point of ripping out the - you guessed it - 13th repeat at least three times.

Shawl will be taking a back seat to a cardigan for the March madness.  I have some Bergere de France worsted in black or an inky navy blue and I'm making a cardigan that's roughly based on a free Lion Brand pattern that I'm altering a bit - I only want one button and I'll be using a loop, not a buttonhole for it and I'm making the ribbing at the bottom about three inches deep instead of the skimpy inch the pattern called for.  That said, I got the left and right fronts cast on together on one circular and the ribbing and the first three rows of stockingette done.

Day 57, Book 29

Timetraveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer. 

Day 55, Book 28

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan - The Scarlet Letter meets The Handmaid's Tale meets the late 21st century. Well worth reading.

Day 50, books 25, 26 & 27

Red 1-2-3 by John Katzenbach
The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunan

Our snow days really cut into reading because we worked from very early until - for me -8 pm.  I also have to start devoting time to a certification course. Ugh.

Day 36, Books 21, 22, 23 & 24

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
The World's Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne
A Thread of Grace by  Mary Doris Russell
Swan by Frances Mayes

At this rate I am more on track for 250  books this year, but reading time has been shorter than usual lately.

Day 29, Books 19 &20

The Whole Enchilada by Diane Mott Davidson and an anthology titled Dangerous Women, which was a mixed bag but included a short story in the Outlander universe by DIana Gabaldon.

Day 25, Book 18

Dead Ever After, by Charlaine Harris. The end of the Sookie Stackhouse series.

Day 24, Book 17

Timetraveler's Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer. Fascinating.

Good news on homefront - obnoxious neighbor found guilty of disturbing the peace - judge gave as much punishment as allowed and warned him hard.

Day 23, Book 16

"Mad about the Boy" by Helen Fielding.
Plus, drunken aggressive neighbor found guilty at bench trial. Terms of probation? Among others, leave me (and others) alone!!!!

Day 18, Books 13, 14 and 15

Critical Mass, by Sara Paretsky
A Pledge of Silence, by Flora Solomon - this book didn't know what it wanted to be - historical fiction, romance, whatever. The story of the Amrrican nurses interned by the Japanese in the Phillipines deserves better focus.
Honor and Betrayal, by Patrick Robinson - SEALS betrayed by command.

Day 17, Book 12

Deceived by Randy Wayne White. Set in the Sanibel Island area of Florida.

Day 15, books 10 and 11

A Fool and His Honey and Poppy Done to Death both by Charlaine Harris, both nice fluffy murder mysteries.

On to chewier reading know that I'm off the knitting binge.

Pretty in Pink

There was no reading last night to speak of, just a rush to finish the blanket and surprises for Chloe's new baby's impending arrival

Had to bring this to work for the beauty shot  - it's not small and I knew this conference table would be the perfect place to lay it out.  Sadly, I did not get it blocked perfectly, it's got some ruffling, but it's a baby blanket, not a lace shawl, and baby will not mind.

The extras for Chloe's tesoro are:

wee tiny booties with mother of pearl buttons.  Too cute.

And:

A roll brim hat with corkscrew curl tops.

I'll be taking this to the post office at lunch and getting it on the way. 

Day 12, Book 9

Dead Over Heels by Charlaine Harris from back when she wrote fluffy murder mysteries and not vampire stories.  She nails small-town South perfectly and Sunday evenings - except for Downton Abbey - are fluffy reading time.  I'm gaining on goal.

Day 12, Book 8

The Litter of the Law, by Rita Mae Brown.  Yup, pretty light reading, but I've been a fan of hers for a long time and even her fluffiest fiction has good characters and plots.  The element where the animals are all communicating unheard by the people is an amusing bit for anyone who has ever been servant to a dog or cat or horse and wondered what they were thinking about us ...

Book 7, Day 10

The Broker, by John Grisham. Kindle, borrowed from library.  Decent read.

Book 6, day 10

Vicious Circle by Wilbur Smith.  He used to write a rich, textured plot and engaging characters, but this was  full of cardboard characters and wooden dialogue. Sad - I think he phoned this one in and his editors didn't do him any favors. Pass on it.

book 5, day 9

Kindle freebie, Brightside by Mark Tullius.  Worth what I paid for it because the author took an interesting premise (telepaths rounded up and confined together from the rest of society) and did little to nothing with what could have been fascinating.

Book 4, day 9

The Shadow Tracer, Meg Gardiner;  garden variety thriller, OK read, nothing special.

Onward.

Blanket finished, Book 3 completed

Just finished washing and blocking the baby blanket I made for my Italian cugina Chloe who is expecting a baby any minute now. I had yarn left over so I made a little bonus. Booties and a wee tiny hat.  Pictures to follow.

Irony moment? The yarn I used, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Baby is ... made in Italy. So this will be a well-traveled blanket!  Even without the fact that the blanket traveled with me through Alabama to Mississippi and over to South Carolina as a work in progress.  Pictures to come.

Also finished my 3rd book of the new year, Paris, by Edward Rutherfurd, which was a nice fat novel and started my fifth book. Eight days, three books.  I need to read faster.

OK, it's COLD!

I'm sure it's not all that cold compared to people accustomed to weather in the more northerly reaches of the continent, BUT 25 degrees with a brisk wind is pretty darned cold by Atlanta standards.
And the low tomorrow is supposed to be 5 degrees.
Ouch.

Still working my way through the 4 inches of "Paris" by Edward Rutherfurd, which will be book 3 for the year. 

January 2014 and annual goals

One of Ms. Packratty's goals for 2014 is to record all her reading 

for the year to see how close to a book a day she actually comes.

So here's the opening day tally: 

January 1
Going Away Shoes - Jill McCorkle
Rage Against The Dying – Becky Masterman

More about sewing lessons and Rome2014 later 

Memories of David - Hurricane David

As I have been watching the weather reports with Labor Day weekend approaching, and having just returned from visiting family in Beaufort, it struck me that 33 years had passed since the Labor Day weekend when Hurricane David came calling.  I was a young reporter at the Beaufort Gazette that year, my first year as a reporter after putting in apprenticeship time as a copy clerk at the St. Petersburg Times and the weather and obituary writer at The Charlotte Observer.  After a summer of quiet weather, the first wild breezes that heralded the oncoming storm brought me back down from a visit to friends in Charleston.

Zipping down Highway 17 I had my first real inklings that the storm really was coming – in the four or five miles of road near the Combahee River bridge, I spotted a small alligator and a number of other animals – turtles, snakes and a deer - crossing from the east side of the river toward the landward side.  Not a skeptic when it came to the wisdom of animals, I pushed on into Beaufort, stopping to gas up my bright blue Karmann Ghia and stock up on apple juice and granola bars at the A & P. 

I stopped at my little rental on Mossy Oaks, glanced at the live oaks that overhung it and said a word of prayer that they wouldn’t come down in the storm.  I rolled up my living room carpet and put the couch up on blocks and stacked the rug on top of that, cranked all the windows shut and made sure my cat Minerva had food, water and clean litter.  Dumping my grocery purchases in the car, along with a sleeping bag and a change of clothes, I drove out to the Gazette offices on Salem Road.  I was almost immediately dispatched out to St. Helena, Fripp and Land’s End to check on evacuation progress, making a fast stop to make sure everything at my parent’s house on Fripp was closed up and that the fulltime resident neighbors were packing up and heading out.

Driving across St.. Helena, I was reminded of a history account I had just recently found in the Beaufort County Library talking about the Sea Islands hurricane of 1893 which had happened at almost the same time of year and had resulted in several thousand deaths from the massive storm surge in coastal Georgia and South Carolina.  The book had recounted that skeletons were found decades later flung up in trees from the wind and the storm tides.  I knew Hurricane David might be just as bad and that even though we had satellite weather forecasting and modern communications, none of those could stem the forces of wind and water.

As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped harder and harder and the rain, at first sporadic, started ranging from heavy to torrential.  At times, in the Gazette office, we could not see cars parked in the side lot less than 10 feet from the door.  The US Weather Service kept reporting the storm’s progress as it hit the coast and seemingly came to a halt for hours.  The electricity flickered off and on inside the brightly-lit offices at the Gazette as reports came in from the county disaster preparedness office and the Beaufort and Port Royal police departments.  Around 9 or 10 p.m. after hearing reports of ball lightning and St. Elmo’s fire on the power lines near the old bridge to Parris Island, I drove to the bridge and hanging on to the jacket of a Port Royal policeman named Officer Angell, pushed against the wind to the Port Royal side of the span.  Unfortunately, the electrical light show was almost over and my efforts to capture it on film were in vain. That was the old metal trestle bridge, later replaced after Hurricane Hugo damage.

I went back to the Gazette through steaming rains and winds pushing my little car around and ran in, soaked to the skin despite my yellow raincoat and dried off as the reports continued to come in that the Hurricane was barely moving.  Around midnight, I fell asleep in my sleeping bag on the floor of the publisher’s office to awaken to clear skies – shortly after I’d been sent to sack out, David had started moving inland and I’d been left to sleep to take on the “mopping up” coverage first thing in the morning.

Getting back in my car, I headed out as far as Highway 21 would take me and checked with the police at Fripp.  The damage to the beaches was bad, and the last mile of road – the unpaved part, was still knee deep in brackish water, so I put on sneakers and slogged down to talk to one of the people who had ignored the evacuation orders.  Making my way back to town, I stopped at Hunting Island, where possibly the worst damage had been sustained – the old beach road was completely washed out in places and park rangers were assessing the damage and trying to see how and when they could reopen the park.  At one point where the old road had washed out, it was at least 10-12 feet from the sand to where the road ended at the washout.  The amount of debris on the beaches was incredible as well.

St. Helena and Frogmore had fared better, although the power was still off and people were driving back from the mainland – and the electricity was still off on Lady’s Island and most of downtown.  The new marina was a wreck – floating slips damaged beyond repair and a general mess, but none of the great trees on Bay Street had fallen and the oldest buildings had beaten back the storm with little or no damage.

 I took my film to the office and wrote my morning after piece and then, finally, headed home – as I drove down Ribaut Road, the power came back on and I turned in at my rental, drove around a few small fallen branches and opened the door to get soundly berated by my cat.  Then I took a long shower, made a cup of coffee and collapsed.  There was no amount of caffeine that could have kept me awake one more minute.

I was so grateful that the storm had not been a recap of that horrible 1893 storm I had read about.  And I was grateful, as a young and inexperienced reporter, to have had a storm like David during my first year.  I left Beaufort in 1980 for Greenwood and then onward, ending my reporting days 12 years later as I faced the shrinking pool of reporting jobs and my growing fascination with computers and made a career change.  I come to Beaufort still, regularly, and I never drive over the bridge at Whale Branch without remembering that Labor Day weekend and the storm clouds whipping in and the smell of wind and rain across the marshes.

A lot has changed in Beaufort in the intervening years – Fordham’s is no longer a hardware store where you could find almost anything;  the Gazette has moved from Salem Road.  City Hall, which had moved into the old Post Office Building, now has an even more imposing home on Boundary Street, Koth’s where you could track down attorneys for comments during courtroom breaks and get a Coca-Cola is gone.  So is the A&P and the little house I rented was torn down the next year and replaced with an apartment building.  But the city itself remains so much intact that as I drove away a few weeks ago, I found it hard to believe that a third of a century had gone by.

Well, now that all the drama is over, Ms. Packratty wants to talk about her garden.

The garden outside her doorstep where she planted 3 tomato plants in an Earthbox is like something out of the Little Shop of Horrors.  The plants are sprawling with abandon across all the other pots, although the oregano and thyme seem to enjoy the shade.  And the first fruits (and tomatoes are fruit) have started to ripen.  Tasty.  The basil in the pot and at the garden plot is growing vigorously and Ms. Packratty needs to remember to let some of it go to seed as it is the Italian blistered leaf variety Napoletano.  The cucumbers had to be uprooted, they had burned, but the zucchini continue to produce the lovely little round tondo squashes. The leeks I planted in October I plan to uproot this weekend and chop and freeze, along with the second year crop of parsley.  I will replace that regular parsley with Italian flat leaf when I replant.

Not sure what I will plant where the leeks and cucumbers came out – maybe another round of cucumbers and possibly start some arugula for the fall.

We are hoping for a quiet weekend, but you know how that goes – hope may spring eternal, but Murphy is always around to throw a surprise or two one’s way.  The girls will return from camp soon and then it will be time for .... back to school shopping.  Aiieeeeee

Seattle on the Chattahoochee?

Ms. Packratty is not one to complain about rain, but things are getting just a tad soggy here.  We've had torrential rains the last three or four nights (cue rumble of thunder outside window).

Unfortunately, the rains didn't arrive in time to cut off that string of 100+ degree days and the first $200+ electric bill arrived.  Happily, it appears that the weather - and the electric bills may be more moderate for a couple more weeks.  One can hope.

The cyberstalking/lying drama has been resolved.  Posting will resume.

Goodbye Olympics

Ms. Packratty has pretty much given up on the Olympics since they opened competition up to professionals, but the latest, where some jock-sniffing law student working as an intern for USOC wrote a very snarky letter to the Ravelry website complaining about their Ravelympics - a knitters observance of the Olympics in which knitters were challenged to start and complete projects within the duration of the Olympics, tackle new techniques or dig out ancient Works In Progress and finish them.  Mr. Brett Hirsch found it necessary to comment that a "sweater triathalon" somehow denigrated the efforts of our noble athletes.

Clearly, Mr. Hirsch needs a humor transplant and, frankly, I suspect that some of this attitude stems from the perception of knitting as women's stuff and relatively valueless.  Although he appears to be from New York, apparently he's never priced a handknit at Ralph Lauren or Barneys.  And after this boner, I rather suspect that not only will he never own a pair of hand-knit socks, he's probably going to be the laughingstock of his final year in law school

Now, Ms. Packratty was not going to participate in the Ravelympics - her nod to the Olympics was going to be to pledge to swim every day during the games and NOT spend the time in front of the tube because between the adverts and the endless commentary and color, Ms. Packratty has just flat out found the last 4 or 5 Olympic Games utterly boooooring.  However, this reminded her of what complete tools the USOC was during the Atlanta games when they nearly forced a 30 year old institution on Marietta Boulevard - the Olympic Diner - out of business.  Not to mention the high handed and abusive way some of the visiting Olympic committee members behaved.  So Ms. Packratty will not be watching any of the Olympics and she will be looking up the names of major sponsors and putting them on her "buy from these people LAST" list.
Too bad there aren't enough of us to really make stupidity painful.

I did agree that there were patterns on Ravelry that were for sale that did infringe on the Olympic trademark - although a pattern that was free that just shows how to knit 5 interlocking rings - well, face it, no one knitter making cotton dishclothes is taking money out of the USOC coffers with it.  It's not like it's competing with a commercial product.  But the tone of the letter was appalling and the pettiness of it, as well.

If USOC had a brain at this point, they would offer to license the term Ravelympix for a peppercorn charge and turn it into a public relations plus on how ordinary people can be challenged by the Olympics to be more and better and motivated by the Games.  But I bet they won't have the brains, humor or the imagination to do anything but continue on their heavy-handed way.

Cool and Rainy

So far (knock on wood) this summer hasn't had much in the way of teeth.  Of course, technically speaking it doesn't arrive for another 11 days, but anyone who has ever enjoyed a summer in the Deep South knows that the calendar has little to do with the heat.  There have been a few days in the 80s but ever since Beryl gave us that little sideways smack, we've been getting rain even when the weather people have been predicting sunny and dry.  Ms. Packratty does not mind and she really enjoyed standing outside Marleen's house this evening smelling the damp gardenias and listening to a cacaphony of frogs breeeking and braaacking in the foliage.  Ms. Packratty is remembering a summer 12 or 15 years ago when it rained so consistently every weekend that the Lenox Mall 4th of July Fireworks were postponed week after week until they were finally cancelled when summer was clearly gone.

Whoops

Whoops, time has gotten away from Ms. Packrat.

Work in the temporary quarters has turned out to be immeasurably more pleasant than she expected.  There are windows and we can actually see the light of day more often than when we are scurrying in and out of the building.  It's near I-85 and there is some traffic noise on one side of the building, but it is also not on the fringes of the city's red light district and it is near Buford Highway, which is Atlanta's ethnic food paradise.

Ms. Packrat's commute is slightly longer, but it is also somewhat faster because it is almost all highway and runs counter to the normal commute pattern at that time of day - and although she's driving about 30 extra miles a week, she is also skipping $1 a day in GA 400 tolls.  That toll has given her a certain amount of dyspepsia ever since it was ended (because revenue had paid off all the road costs) and then brought back a week later to fund more porkbarrel projects for the Georgia Department of Transportation (aka) We Build Roads, Roads and More Roads and You Don't Need No Steenking Mass Transit - she finds not seeing feeding the toll booth rather soothing despite the couple of extra miles.

Sadly, this move takes her a long way away from Il Bacio but the aforementioned proximity to Buford Highway is something of a consolation.  The range of ethnic spans the globe and ranges from Rather Americanized to Utterly Authentic.  Some of the Packratty coworkers are showing a bit of culinary courage, but there is one who has eaten nothing but Chik-fil-a, Mickey D's, etc. since the move, despite the fact that it takes a lot more effort to find chain food here than good food.  Sad.  Oh well, more for me.  Ms. Packratty finds herself particularly fond of the roast pork bahn mi sandwiches at Lee's Bakery and the proximity to the beloved Havana's new digs.

The other new thing in Ms. Packratty's life is a Kindle.  She finds herself quite surprised that a> she purchased one and b> that she really really really likes it.  It started with an email from Amazon Local offering a $20 voucher on a refurbished $79 Kindle, which sells for $69 and has the same guarantee as a new Kindle.  That dropped the price down to $49 with free shipping, so Ms. Packratty took the plunge.  Between free books offered on Amazon (of varying quality and age, to be sure) and the fact that Ms. Packratty can "borrow" Kindle books from the Atlanta Fulton County Library, she is delighted with the little gizmo, although she is still sure that it will never replace the paper and ink book for bedtime reading.  It is a game changer for the possibility of living overseas, though - because it means that American books, magazines and newspapers are available on the device.  Living someplace without bookstores or libraries with English language books was never a reasonable possibility for Ms. Packratty before.

The garden is going OK, although we have had a tomato wilt scare.  Ms. Packratty had to pull up a couple of plants, and trim some others, but it looks as though there is some hope for the tomato crop.  Maybe.

We made a trip to the Roswell Farmer's Market and bought some gorgeous strawberries and blueberries with the idea of making a berry fool.  Otherwise, Saturday kind of slithered away, leaving quite a bit to be dome before Monday, but Ms. Packratty is rested and that's a good thing.  And the allergy attack that hit her last week has subsided.  She suspects the residual sleepiness is just the aftermath of that attack. Next week is on call, so Ms. Packratty will not be a sound sleeper lest she manage to sleep through the phone ringing.

The sad news just keeps on coming

Ms. Packrat just found out that the second gentleman she was affianced to has died.  Although she had not seen him in close to 30 years, she's found herself quite sad to hear that this particular man is dead and that after the end of their engagement, that he never got his feet under himself again.  One of the things that caused Ms.Packrat to end their engagement was a major issue with money management.  She has been told that the money issues later turned into alcohol issues and then into drug issues, all three problems feeding each other and making bad situations far worse. His daughter from his first marriage, whom I remember as a delightful redheaded sprite,  gave me the news.  He was a talented photographer and a very interesting, humorous man - I'm so sorry to hear that his demons won.
It was good to talk to his daughter though - brought back memories of that time in my late 20s when I was a reporter and all things seemed possible.  She has turned out well, although she said her baby brother struggles with the same demons their father did.
Time passes, events and memories recede and then you find yourself smacking into news like this.