No, not the knitting done-with-a-project kind; the popping of the chrysalis, outening and welcoming back to the air and light (and a long soaky bath and long-long shower) of Lise's healing leg!!!

Today, we hobblied on down to the county court center in Redwood City and got our marriage license; we have an appointment with a JP at 10am Friday, 24 October, wherein we shall marri-ed be. We need to bring at least one witness... (wanna come?)

Having thrown the big familial parties East coast and west coast, a quiet Domestic Partnership, and stood on stage one Pink Saturday along with 72 other couples-n-families and the SF Gay Men's Chorus to celebrate said Domestic Partnership (it'd just gone statewide in 2001), and having even giggled our way down to the Madonna Inn last February for a five-year anniversary jaunt, it's not that we were really faunching after Yet Another Anniversary. As fun as they are, at this point historically, the State Supreme Court passing law that even if the vote on Prop 8 takes away same-gender marriages, any marriages made in this time of legality cannot be annulled, as the ones during Gavin's Theatre of a few years ago in SF were. This somehow makes the thing a little more Real...

My dearling Lise was hoping this past Tueseday's fitting of a walking cast would mean a thing she could take OFF at nights; but no, it's another heel-immobilizing fiberglass number with a boot. so - first steps, first weight bearing in 10+ weeks... the dancer returns to us slowly.

The full-vaccuum cast cover is working well for showering, the tub stool fits right well into the shower. Is it TMI yet?

Short story: she's healing VERY well, and climbing the walls in a modicum of Anticipation to be getting back to work (this, mind you, while she's teaching an online course this semester and staying actively in touch with her staff in the library).

Or, as my Kindly Pa used to say:

Pas de lieu Rhône que nous!
(paddle your own...)

So, working at REI has its benefits, and employee discounts. There's also a monthly dings-and-dents or "garage" sale, or used stuff that we take in as returns, and sell as-is for (ahem) cheap. I've been eyeing this canoe that came in earlier this month... and got to shop the employee pre-sale -- aaaaaand (wait for it) bought a canoe. A canoe!!
It's an Old Town Mad River canoe, and - even though it's going to take us some time yet to afford the PDFs and paddles and figure out making a splash skirt, it's Glorrrrrrious!

-hee!

Oh, oh! Connections I hadn't made before: Last summer, on the recommendation of our splenid musician friend Shira, we included a side-jaunt to St-Guilhem-le-Désert, a little north of Montpelier there in the south of France, and spent a late-morning through afternoon exploring the town and ruins-all-up-the-hill (and noting the incredible music series that come through there...)

Just today Lise mentioned that one of the galleries of the Cloisters in New York (ya know, where those blue-background Unicorn tapestries are) is from there.

Stitches of connection in the quilted map in my brain! How cool is that.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/rmsq/ho_25.120.1-.134.htm#

alas, or all the better for memories, I don't have photos from our visit to St-Guilhem-le-Désert, but have no hesitation in being able to imagine these columns in their native hills.

Hey, check out the new Fall issue of Syne Mitchell's WeaveZine and be impressed by the myriad of excellent articles and projects - oh yeah, and there's one by me in there, too, on the basics of setting up an inkle loom.

Enjoy, enjoy.

Syne's also the one who podcasts about weaving, and last year won a national HGA grant award to keep on doing so. There are some great interviews and ideas in those archives, and I for one welcome our new overlords fiber-arts publishing maven to the pictures and (eventually) mini-videos expansion of the world of publishing using newer media forms.

Hot stuff, go check it out, and go toss about your yarn stash like we did at home last night -- ooh, this can become that, and sure Lise can get a pair o' pirate socks done for Kurt before the 19th, and this is what to use as a warp with that fancy bouclé Cherry Hill we got at the pajama-party sale laat New Year's at Full Thread Ahead in Los Altos, and hey, do we have a potential Knit 1, Weave Too article for WeaveZine cooking in our brains?
woo...

The Advanced Practice in Word workshop I put together some years ago as a 10-12 hour hands-on workshop for 6-12 folks has found a new niche this past week. Four cohorts of first and second-year grad students in a distance program with CIIS come together for several days at a hotel out in Pacifica. Librarians (this year Lise and Eahr) come out for a long weekend in the middle of it to teach a couple of workshops and give one-on-one tutorials to folks, and with Lise’s ankle surgery this summer, it was arranged that I come along to assist her with mobility issues (and drive the getaway car for the three of us).

I offered to teach a nutshell version of the AP Word class with expanded handouts, which was happily accepted. I was given to expect about 28 folks, the evening before, and accordingly made 33 copies of the handouts, and was about 3 short for the session, and emailed to everyone who expressed an interest, and also spent the rest of the day doing one-on-one followup tutorials (that o so useful hands-on part).

Wait, you cry; I squoze an 11 hour hands-on experiential workshop into a babble & interpretive dance Reduced Shakespeare sort of thing, and it worked? Well. Yes, apparently. I’m still convinced these folks have been handed the equivalent of “there are Useful Tools for you, they take less time to learn than to kludge thorugh a TOC for a 300 page paper manually, here’s your Handout!”

It was fun, and I had good feedback on the teaching style, and the next day on things people were remembering. I think the interpretive dance while talking may and might help the kinetic learners a little itty bit – ? and the handouts get to the visual learners, and the talking to the Auditory learners – but the real test will be in how well they dig in and start to mess about with the tools.

That’s the sacred part.

They also loved the joke inherent to the title Advanced Practice: I had the chance to go our to Spirit Rock for a meditation & art retreat some years ago. They had a yoga teacher in for a few sessions - what, me, in this body?! I had never done any yoga before and was a little nervous. The second session, there were a few of us there a littl early, putting our legs up the wall or just being spla out in shivasana, and the teacher bounced into the room and quipped, "ah, advanced practice!" - the shared relief in getting that learning these pieces & these tools, can be not after all too scary, is exactly the delight I intend to bring.

A house full of loved ones, a communal breakfast with hash browns, frittata, frersh fruit tart, and handsful of Itty Bitty Tea Cakes made in an early present / new pan

Love to all, it's time for breakfast!

We've been trading figs for plums with our dear neighbors Dave and Liz, up two on Anamor, who I met when I worked as an election judge in June; the owner's stepfather has come over for the first pick of his share (hee!), and Noelle who just had to come up and tap on the door to "see who was living here now" when we first moved in has stopped by today and carried off a happy little bagful of the generous tree's fruit. I've taken a bag in to work to Andy, and have promised my next picking to Lucy.

Crows like figs! Who knew? They and smaller birds get the top-of-tree, and the ants seem to go for consuming all of just one fig at a time. Fascinating little bioculture, this tree.

There are 99,999 little pears all over the pear tree: they can't ALL make it, can they? Who has recipes for early green-pear things? chutneys? what else makes sense?

I've downloaded etexts from the ag extension on the cultivation of one's backyard orchard, specifically pear trees (there are many others); very useful stuff to learn.

speaking of etexts, anyone notice there's this wee little World eBook Fair happening over at http://worldebookfair.org/Collections.htm and isn't it lovely?

One of the reasons the surgery took longer than expected is that 3 out of 4 of the anchors that were intended to re-attach the achilles tendon were no good: one went in fine, one broke, and two were useless out of the box. So they had to send for usable things.

Lise joked about imagining someone in scrubs running down to Cole Hardware; it tuens out that the surgeon's husband does reconstructive surgery on shoulders, and suggested the kind of anchor he uses, and our intrepid doc plans to use that brand (and better service) from here on in. Gah! So once they finished that part, they flipped her over to do the toe.

The current setup is a splint around the foot and up the sides and back of the leg, all wrapped up (we still don't have any googly eyes for the green ball on the end of the toe-pin); this gives a little room in case there's any swelling. We've been good about seeing to icing the back of the knee as advised, and the lovely floral loveseat we received through Freecycle is the perfect place outside of bed for lounging with the leg elevated above the heart.

All messages of good wishes are very happily received, thank you all for them!

We've both been getting broken sleep; I think I finally caught up with myself today.

The surgery waiting time went long, and then longer, and then really a long time as the receptionist went home around 5:30, and the neighbors in the waiting area blessedly turned the televee from the dark procedure mystery to light-hearted game shows, a marked improvement in the general mood of the room.

It was just after 8pm that Lise came from the immediate-post-op recovery room to the post-people-can-visit-with-you recovery/prep room, and another 45 minutes or more till she was ready to de-IV, dress, and be wheeled down to the O'Farrell Street (ER) door.
With the able assitance of her duty nurse, she stood and pivoted and tucked into the long comfy back seat of Her LadyShip the Bonneville; Small talk, water sipping, and snoozing was the order of the day while Kurt and I sang a few snatches of Alice's Restaurant on the road home. We got out the rental wheelchair (delivered yesterday) and got her up the front steps, inside and decanted into bed, with arrangements of pillows and massage bolsters to elevate the left leg above heart level.

We haven't had a chance to speak with the surgeon yet, who we imagine had another delayed surgery to jump into after Lise's, which had been scheduled for 12:30 originally -- it was that someone else's procedure earlier in the day had been much more time-consuming than had been anticipated (rather than, as we worried for a while, that Lise's achilles and toe procedures were taking longer than had been hoped. *whew* even if it is selfish to be relieved on that score.

More updates when we hear from the doc, likely tomorrow.

Well, so there's a pin with a big green ball-head in her seccond left toe; toes are peeking out of the cast, which then goes up to tall-sock level below the knee.

Ice behind the knee, to keep swelling and therefore pain to a minimum, is my next item to attend to before my evening ablutions and bed.

Much relief. Thanks to all for your kind wishes, prayers, & good thoughts. Call us on the cell phone(s) which are close(r) to hand; email good cheer and happy thoughts for her swift and complete recovery, o please!

"The spiritual," said Thomas Carlyle, "is the parent of the practical." Many years ago I wrote myself a private prayer. I've repeated it in a couple of books and tacked it on the wall of my studio. Here, under the dripping cedar-boughs of a Queen Charlotte's forest cathedral, I find my prayer again on a folded paper down in the sticky part of a much-travelled paintbox. It contains the sort of innocent zeal found in many youthful conversions, but it's still welcome:

The world's engagement of beauty is my bible,
And Art is my religion.
I come to it as a child.
I add all the grown wisdom I can gather.
Creativity is my salvation.
My easel is the altar.
My paints are the sacraments.
My brush is my soul's movement,
and to do poorly, or not to work, is a sin.

-Robert Genn
who sends out "letters from the studio" a couple times a week, that I find useful and inspirational and, proving Carlyle, practical. His musings, and folks' responses, are archived at http://www.painterskeys.com/

[edited to correct the URL - thanks, Tanith! love(111)

We've gotten the call narrowing down timing, and will be at Kaiser
in San Francisco by 10:30 am Tuesday morning. Kurt and Ruth will
drive the getaway car and provide comfort and whatnot.

The surgery is to accomplish two things:

First regarding the fusing of middle knuckle of the left second toe,
with a pin to affix things (the toe itself will still wiggle), this
pin will be removed after about six weeks;

Second is to detach the acchiles tendon, take off the bone spur that's
been growing over the last decade (or more), and re-attach the tendon
with four titanium bolts that will stay.

We'll be at the hospital for a couple hours of pre-surgery prep; the
surgery room is reserved for about 2.5 hours, which means they intend
to finish in an hour and a half or so; and she'll be several hours in
recovery before we pour her into the car and bring her home to Valota
Road.

We've set up a yahoo group LMD-footing to be a
clearinghouse for information, a calendar for setting up visits
(please come visit; we'll feed you figs!), and cheery notes for Lise.
You're welcome to come find the yahoo group, or drop me a note and I'll
send you a quick and easy link/invite.

Hurrah for Bluetooth connectivity - just in time for tomorrow's dictum for no more holding cellphones while driving (not that we particularly did, mind you), Lise and I have "bluetrek skin" bluetooth sets to hang on our ears, that synced up nicely with each our phones. I had to turn my visibility off for hers to see her phone, ha.

Cool toys...

and I absolutely love that LJer bluebombardier has turned a recent xkcd ad into an animated icon.

So of course, after visits where we spoke of Gary Snyder and pressed No Nature into Alex's hands (and by extension, we hope, Laura's as well), we find the latest work by Snyder sitting gently on the shelf.

After a long weekend in Minnesota, celebrating the wedding of nephew Dave & belle-niece Heather, home again to our lovely garden, which is 'sploding in a tallness race between the pea-vines, producing madly, and the corn across the front walk in its circle of garden-plot. There will be corn, ears are already setting, but we're not sure it notices the peas across the way. The pole beans are running up the taller tripod and beginning to set their purple, purple flowers.

I've watered and mulched and weeded; the first fig came ripe TODAY; the ants, little tree-shepherds, get to have one for themselves, too. There are first blossoms on various tomato plants; the peppers are still working on their roots and then they'll settle in and unfurl the leaves and flowers and fiery goodness of their fruit.

Lise is setting the sprouted potatoes into the bales as I type this; the red chard is doing well back there, as is the yellow pear tomato and another quad of beans; various lettuces at various stages, and pansies around the edges (with which to tempt the bees).

I think there may once have been a big oak on the side of the bouse, where the western Magnolia and carpet of jade plant are now; with no sign of any other oak to toss acorns about (well, okay yes we have squirrels, how d'you think that pear got over to the fence post across the roof there?) but the volunteer oak saplings we've had this spring sure have the look, feel, and growth sproiginess of root-spreading shoots. I trimmed them today, and expect to get an oaken wand from the larger fingerling, and a small basket from the green bark of all the bits. I'm thinking these wisteria vines sure look like good basket-making material. When's the last time I did any withy-twining? I think it was with Antiga, some of the red willow shoots along the Mississippi just down from the Lake Street Bridge, these 15 or 17 years ago now.

Okay, since the sabbatical from editing, into sweet but leave-all-troubles-behind-when-I-go position at REI and taking some time for these arts and catching up with long time friends, is Wonderful. Of course, just as I was invoking my "editing as midwifery" comparison re this flavor of editing with a new friend in Minnesota, the phone she rings, and it's a Psy.D. student looking for an editor, on tight deadline with this summer session. I gently sent her to some of the other editors on The Short List of us, and now she's just called back not having found another editor-- and I told her to send it on in, and gave a reasonable turnaround timeframe, which should actually work out well for her. Onward and sideways!

Laundry load 2 is in.

Books acquired from Books Inc. in Palo Alto (who've been around since 1851):
Gardening at the Dragon's Gate: At work in the wild and Cultivated World, by Wendy Johnson who has spent over 30 years gardening at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in Marin. Luscious language and wide awake Noticing.
The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi - second in his Old Man's War series. Fascinating characters and gripping stories out yonder in space... they are TOO more interesting than the time he put bacon on the cat Ghlaghghee and posted it to the 'net, even if that gets more hits than the rest of his delightful blog altogether.
The Mediterranean Kitchen, by Joyce Goldstein; a splendid collection, the sort of cookbook with stories About It All that folks who've grown up on Saint Irma Rombauer and gone on to read Madhur Jaffrey and Paula Wolfort will utterly appreciate. Well, and of course there are recipes that involve figs, and pears, and her bro' is a wine snob so we get stories and intelligent discussion on wine pairing.

das Rad (the wheel); English title Rocks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fp5hbwdW3E

Wowz.

So this morning's excitement was a 20-minute nosebleed; it stopped while I was on hold for the advice nurse, so I didn't sample the pleasures of the ER, thankfully, but had a clinic visit in the middle of the afternoon (and my workshift, argh).
I'm done with that heavy cold, and the pollen has mostly gone by, but the inch-and-a-half to one inch of dust on the beams over our heads at the registers? I think that has quite a bit to do with Francis ad Froi and my sneezing our fool heads off. I'm also making dumb errors, and the only thing I know for sure is that asthma, allergic reaction, and not-getting-enough-oxygen for those reasons Makes Me Stoopid. Or perhaps Stooopid, by mr_kurt's scale of these things. You can watch my IQ run from 147 down to 74 in a very short while, and the kicker is that I won't know it's happening, except fro, finding out later whatever bone-headed thing I've done. BAH.
I am so ready to be over the working from home solitude!!
I've offered to clean the beams on a volunteer basis, rather than have to get sick from the dust.

O Pooh, said Bother.

I just "broke" getsatisfaction.com trying to add the venerable Powell's Books to their listings; Twitter is over-capacity, and it's everybody else's turn(s) on scrabulous.

I'm going off-grid to spin now.

hee!

Some writing, some tunesmithing, s'more laundry today.

I got the Saturn a clean drink of oil and built it a little maintenance log database in JFile on the handy. Got l'il Alice P Bluestocking a new air filter as well, letting the car cool down a little before dropping that into place.

REI will be 5 - 9:30 this evening; have rice from yestereve and sheets of nori; not sure what to stuff the rolls with this time. no, Sage, not SPAM™ - maybe almond butter just to be gonzo, but more likely just veggies and proper ume in the rice. yum...

Plonked check into the bank and paid bills online: PG&E (gas & electric); chase this and chase that, with more to follow.

Flowers on the peas already; seed-heads on the corn, which is quite several inches taller than the peas this week.

Lovely light pale purple flowers on the sprawly hibiscus - I'm so much more familiar with their neon-red cousins these surprise me with delight.

Picked up another bag o' wisteria blossoms. Paper-making approacheth, where's that bag o' methyl cel again? Wonder if wee little local Michaels has same, or is that asking too much of the plastic-flowers panderer? they keep surprising me by having Useful tidbits amongst the junque. hmm.

Wisteria's a legume! Lise and I were so surprised last year when the pods started exploding right outside the window by the dining table. eeek--was it something we said? had we offended the squirrels? *ka-blam!* (bounce) - nope, just wisteria, seeding itself. I believe I may clip the pods it's beginning to sprout whilst they are still green, this year...

...meaning, of course, how it makes one wonder.


So - the balance swings delightfully; working pt at REI, I certainly get my people-hit, and rejoice in a couple of days off and quiet, again. *whew* !

Garden, reading, some editing, som ewriting, laundry, chores, and a sense of ease.

Anyond else out there checking out brightkite.com ?
Seems a little more robust than twitter. I have a few invites.