Only 10 days left till Thanksgiving/My Birthday — whichever one you’re counting down to. This, of course, begs a couple of questions:
We had the first installment of Grandma’s November visit. She was only with us for about 24 hours this time, but she’ll be back on Thursday to stay with the Things & Jenna while we go away for our anniversary — yippee on all counts!
Finished the Turkish Stitch scarf in the mystery yarn from Jeannette. I need to block it (and the “pin stripe” one), and then I’ll post a picture. I cast on for an Old Shale scarf with the beige cotton chenille from Helga. Love it! I just SO love stitch patterns like that that look so fancy, but are really very simple.
And YES, I *am* taking my knitting with me on our trip. B/c of some physical issues, I can’t take hormones such as The Pill, so I believe an unwelcome monthly visitor will be coming along. Besides, it’s a four-hour drive each way. Gotta have something to do in the car!
Aunt Ame is in town for a few days in the middle of a longer trip, so we trooped up to Poppa & Nana’s yesterday to see her. My cousin Beth (likes to go by Akhila) and her boyfriend Aneel came, too (Ame’s her aunt, not her mom). With all of us there, we had to take the traditional “Happy Dance” picture. With The Things present, we couldn’t do the “one-finger salute” picture that my mom & her sisters usually send to whichever one isn’t present at a gathering (one guess which finger they use to salute). This picture features all the Eggers females (Aunt Ame declared “Eggers Ladies” an oxymoron!) who were around:
Back Row: Auntie, me, Aunt Ame, Nana, Beth
Front Row: Thing Two, Thing One
I hadn’t seen Aunt Ame since 1990, and I hadn’t seen Beth since Thing Two was really little. Aunt Ame had never met hubby, much less the girls, and I’d never met Aneel, though Poppa, Nana & Auntie had.
The Things had asked what Beth looked like, and I hadn’t really been able to answer that. The last time I had seen her, she had dredlocks down to her waist and a nose ring. I wasn’t sure what to expect this time, but I certainly wasn’t prepared to walk in and see her looking “mainstream funky”. The Things really liked Beth and Aneel. Aneel won their hearts when he said he’d seen a CandyLand game under the table and was really wanting someone to play a round with him, and did they know anyone who might be able to help him out.
The power went out while Nana was making dinner, but luckily it was all stovetop prep, and she has a gas stove. Beth, Aneel, hubby, and the Things played CandyLand by battery-powered light. The flash on my camera is so good that you really can’t tell in the pictures. The power came back on before dinner, but the Things planned out a big “Telling Scary Stories in the Dark” thing for after dinner. Aneel’s was really good, but I missed hubby’s terrifying story of the pirate ship that set sail w/o sufficient fresh vegetables on board, so when the pirates needed to fight a battle, they didn’t have enough energy to do so b/c they’d only been eating sweets. The Things liked the story, but I think they saw through it.
We’re so glad that Aunt Ame made it through Hurricane Katrina. She’s got her “FEMA Roof” (a.k.a. as a tarp), but still doesn’t have phone service at her house. The insurance inspector isn’t going to meet with her to check out her house until the 30th of this month. SO long after the fact. Isn’t that crazy?
The cool little surprise of the night was that it turns out that Aneel knows Julie’s husband Bakari (see this post). Apparently, they used to teach at the same high school in Salinas (Bakari teaches h.s. physics, and Aneel teaches physics and math). Talk about a small world!
The one bummer was that I think Auntie’s feelings got hurt. We were talking at the table after dinner, and I asked Nana some questions about her brother to confirm the information I’d given Suzanne to read at the SIDS/Stillbirth First Candle conference in D.C. I was glad to hear I’d gotten my info right, but Auntie’s jaw was on the table b/c she didn’t know Nana had had a brother (he was born before she was and only lived a couple of days in the hospital). I think she was hurt that I knew about him, but she didn’t.
BTW, do you see the family resemblance? I think that Aunt Ame & Nana are like Auntie & I are — though one looks more like one side of her family, and one more like the other, you can still definitely tell they’re sisters. The rest of the pictures are here.
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