Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

 

Not Knitting Friday

 

It's all over. DM spend just 2 weeks shy of 1 year on hospice and during the last five weeks she moved from a waiting mode to an actively dying mode.

 

She remained at home during the entire time and I was her only caregiver. Which was never a problem until very near the end when she became unresponsive and I was unable to turn her without help from a very attentive hospice nurse or DH.

 

Early on, she had refused to enter her hospital bed except for night time, saying that if she went into it she wouldn't be coming out. And 5 weeks ago, she did go into it and never came out. She refused all food for these five weeks and took ever fewer chips of ice.

 

During these 5 weeks, three times she was pronounced with only hours to live. (Once when she developed a Kennedy ulcer which is usually a precursor of death within 8 to 24 hours - she lasted 3 more weeks.) It got to the point that the hospice nurse, an RN with 25 years of cardiac experience, refused to make any more predictions. She died at 6:07 am Sunday morning and on the Friday before, she was non-responsive but the hospice nurse said: I'll see you Monday. All Friday and Saturday, DM lay, unresponsive, mouth agape.

 

At 3 am on Sunday morning, I knew her breathing had changed, hurriedly dressed and waited. By 6 am, she was obviously gasping for air at six and she was dead within minutes.

 

As she lay that last week, mammalian but no longer human, I thought and expressed often to those around: if she were a dog and I brought her to the vet in this condition, I would be arrested for animal cruelty.

 

Always supporters of assisted suicide, both she and I; I told her that I would work on  getting this law passed in NJ.

 

Hospice workers firmly believe their patients must "let go" in body and mind. That is, although the body is failing a patient can hang on to life if they have any unfinished business to resolve. With DM, the decision was reached that she could not let go because she was afraid I could not cope without her (she still saw our roles as parent and child.)

 

She died on a Sunday, I got my juror summons the following Wednesday. I'll cope, but she's no longer a phone call away for a "guess what just happened" gripe. I'll miss her.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

   

Knitting Friday, alas there's little of that

 

We're in a death watch here which is playing out more like the Bataan Death March; terrible and long.

 

Sherwin Nuland died on Monday. He was an MD who wrote How We Die, which he wrote to explain that outside of a fast death (dropping dead of a heart attack, etc.) there is no death with dignity. We might place a wall between us and a loved one (hospital, nursing home, hospice home) so we only have to occasionally see the degeneration of the body but degenerate it does. And I'm watching it at ground zero thinking, as so many people do, we give an end to dying animals more humanely. But this is not the time to write the big thoughts. I'm strung taut emotionally like a brittle clothes line.

If anyone is in the hospice situation, especially as a caregiver, an Hawaii hospice program, Kokua Mau, has an excellent end-of-life website:

http://kokuamau.org/resources/last-stages-life 

which is right on re: what happens during this stage and how to deal with it.

But I won't put everyone into my cup of sorrows, so I'll end with a pattern I'm fiddling with: 

http://www.elann.com/commerce.web/product_freepatterns.aspx?featuredID=127902

It's an Elann Coin Lace and Cable shawl and you must do a simple registration to get to this free pattern.

You may remember that the hospice social worker wore a Aran style tunic a few months ago and I've been trying to reconstruct it since then. I just wandered upon the Coin and Cable pattern, never thinking I could use it but I decided to make an elaborate swatch, starting at the neck and working to below the armhole. Well, I'm now 12" below the armhole and though I'm only using cheap yarn (just OK acrylic), I'm going to finish another inch a make this swatch into a top. This pattern knits up thick and elastic. Unless you hear my screams when I try on this "swatch" of: What was I thinking!, I may have found my pattern.

More later. See you soon. Happy knitting.

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

 

It's not Knitting Friday nor was there Website Wednesday

 

I didn't realize until late into last Wednesday that it was even Wednesday. My picks had been ready to go but no matter how you may believe you are "cool as a cucumber" (just where does that idiom come from?) during stress, you ain't

 

We've been on a sort of death watch for DM since last Sunday. After 10 months on hospice, 10 very long months for her because she was able to function fairly well but unable to get her dearest wish which was to die, in a flash everything went south this past  weekend. Bam! On Sunday, she experienced a prolonged angina attack which probably caused more heart damage. On Monday, she became unresponsive and things got really messy, and on Tuesday, she rallied. On Wednesday, she took to her bed to die. 

 

"Took to her bed to die." Sounds farfetched? Take a look at this site:

 

http://kokuamau.org/resources/last-stages-life

which is from a Hawaiian hospice organization and is one of the best explanations of the end of life both for the dying and for the caregiver. Hearing her final requests to turn out the lights (she has slept for 10 months with a light on) and "You can leave me." (she has enjoyed someone sitting with her all along), I'm reminded of the stories of wild animals who go off to die alone.

 

When my father died suddenly, the poem by Dickinson, The Bustle in a House, sprang into my mind because, for some reason, in times of stress I find poetry soothing.

The Bustle in a House

The Morning after Death

Is solemnest of industries

Enacted upon Earth –

The Sweeping up the Heart

And putting Love away....

 

And now it's the Yeats poem, Slouching Toward Bethlehem, which I remember:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;.....

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

   

Knitting Friday

 

First, the diet. I'm sure you've had sleepless nights thinking about my success or failure.....Well, it's working. For me, the elimination of flour products from my diet seems to be the fix I need. Even sweets can be tolerated in moderation (and I'm talking about flour-less sweets and strict moderation) as long as I rein in those bagels and pies. Funny, I don't really miss them. A trick that works for me is a big bowl of healthy popcorn. OK, I cheat most of the time and use the microwave type and not the homemade (only popcorn, no fats) brown bag microwave type but it takes me about an hour to finish a bowl.

 

And on to knitting: Do you remember me mentioning that the hospice social worker came in a few months ago with a gorgeous Aran-style cream colored long sleeved tunic over tights?

#1 Over tights

It was so attractive and, hey, I had the yarn so I started to look for patterns to knit it. Then I discovered it would be way cheaper and faster to buy the damn thing! At left, is the compromise I finally knitted which looks nothing like where I was headed. What you have here is one of my generic top-down sweater patterns done in a straight knit with every 10th row done in the twisted stitch. (I posted about this about a month ago.) I just kept knitting until it was about knee length. Then I worked a rib as K1 back loop, P1 for the hem. (Which I should have made longer but I was soooo tired of knitting this thing.) My only tip: mark your front and back (I had 60 front, 18 armholes, 60 back, 18 armhole) once you finish your yoke and increase 2 stitches at the side front and 2 stitches at the side back every 10 rows. I did left leaning and right leaning increases so that they all leaned into the armhole area. These increase give a gradual flair as you work to the dreaded hip area. Of course, since I never knit to gauge (yes, I know it's a big mistake), I had no idea if these increases were too little or too much, but it worked. I wear this will a long sleeved tee and black Calvin Klein slacks/tights.

As you know, I'm wild about this pattern:

http://www.antiquecrochetpatterns.com/circular-shawl.html

It's a shawl, it's crochet (and it's definitely worth learning to crochet for it), it's in UK terms and it's from 1915! Remember these shawls from a few weeks back:

#2 1 skein in wool

#3 acrylic unwashed

Pictures #2 and #3 show two shawls, the gold is in wool and the white is acrylic. At the time of crocheting them, the white was the most wearable since the gold only came to my elbows. But look what a found skein of gold wool and a good washing to white acrylic will do. You can't see the dramatic difference in the white shawl (#4) but it's so much fuller, softer and even longer after a turn in the washer and dryer.

#5 2 skeins in wool

#4 acrylic washed

And the difference in the gold shawl is obvious in #5 since that extra skein lengthened the shawl to my wrists. Love, love, love them both and don't forget these shawls are folded circles so them make a great small afghan.

#6 My own scarf deign, RS

#7 WS of #6

 I posted the pattern for #6 a few weeks ago and #6 (that's not a mistake in the ribbing at the bottom) & #7 show my progress. It a very easy knit which I'm working in US 11 and I think it might make a nice sweater pattern with smaller needles.

So you don't have to scroll back for the pattern, here's a quickie version:

CO 4x stitches in a picot cast on (google for good directions) plus edging stitches (I used 5 K each side.)

R1: edge sts *K2 tog, 2xs; YO, 2x* edge sts.

R 2 & 4: edge sts *P* but on the double YOs - P the 1st YO and K the 2nd YO; edge sts

R 3: edge sts *YO, 2x; K2tog, 2xs* edge sts

Do a picot bind off. (Again, just google it.)

Very easy and reversible.

And finally, a tip: wrapping and turning for short rows. I really don't like making short rows because wrapping and turning seems so fussy to me but here's a tip I found I had written down (sorry, I can't give credit but I think it was a comment on some pattern):

Wrap & Turn on stockinette (works on garter also, but didn't try it):

1. K to your wrap and turn stitch. (directions usually say: K x number of stitches, wrap and turn

2. Pick up the stitch just below the 1st stitch (your wrap & turn stitch) on your LN. Knit it and place this stitch on your RN.

4. Pass the 1st stitch on your LN (your original wrap & turn stitch where instead of knitting it you knitted into the stitch below it) to your RN. These two stitches will look joined.

5. Turn your work and slip the "joined" stitches to your LN. Do not knit them now.

6. Work to the end of your row. (with stockinette, you should be purling). Turn

7. K back to your joined stitches and knit them together.

Here's a picture:

#6 wrap & turn, bad picture

It's not the best picture but I did about 3 wrap and turns on this small sample (the yarn was lousy) and they were the easiest I've never done. One tip because I get spooked easy: Cut a long strand of yarn and mark the joined stitches so they will be super simple to find on your return visit to them.

That's it for today. I'm making a Bowtie Pi shawl in white crochet thread of the summer. I'm using a D hook which is very, very small for me. For some reason I feel like Bette Davis in The Letter where she crocheted that beautiful shawl during her trial for murder. (She got off.) Must be the small hook. Here's the pattern link:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bowtie-pi

See you next week. Happy knitting.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

 

 

Website Wednesday

 

It's getting unusually hectic around here re: hospice care. I knew we would move into this stage but like the Phoney War in 1939, we had spent so many months where DM was sick but extremely stable that the precipitous drop in the last month, while not unexpected, was a surprise. But to return to that so well-worn out cliche: It is what it is.

 

http://www.treehugger.com/tiny-houses/how-pack-whole-lot-living-221-square-feet.html 

 

I may have linked to the above site before but not to this selection (2/6/14.) What is with my love of taking a small space and trompe-l'œiling it into a large one? I so can't help myself! But take a look at this place. I do admit that toilet has me stumped. That's one big mother. Click "Design" for more similar articles.

OK, let's get silly:

http://imgur.com/gallery/jeL9t

 

Here, you get 41 facts which you may never use. Be sure to click the tiny hyperlink after the few pictures here to get to see all of them.

And, not leave the people who live in small spaces lonely for long, take another look at them in:

http://freshome.com/2012/10/01/bes-small-apartments-designs-ideas/

 

I can't believe I haven't linked to this site before but this page was modified on 2/14/14 and it refers to my first pick which is current. Boy! Have I been watching too much Sherlock Holmes! (Shameless digression: The modern-day Sherlock on PBS really is very good.) Click on the link under each picture for views of all the rooms. I want to go live in each of them! 

 

http://greatist.com/health/make-healthier-pizza

 

DM loves pizza crust with butter so we wind up buying pizzas and saving the crust for her. Until this weekend when I bought pizza dough at Shop Rite and made it into rolls. Wow! It was so easy. I got 13 small rolls with some leftover dough. The above site deals with healthy pizzas and I'm thinking I can now make my own dough for it.  Greatest is a site to keep you healthy. I can't vouch for the exercise tips but, but under Recipes for Valentine's Day they sure have some healthy looking treats.

And while we're talking healthy, don't miss this link:

http://greatist.com/health/healthy-nutella-recipes

 

Here, you'll get healthy Nutella treats. Nutella and health? These I have to try.

 

And finally:

 

http://www.listotic.com/55-must-read-cleaning-tips-tricks/2/ 

 

Cleaning tips! I must be losing my mind!

 

That's it for today. See you next week.

 

 

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

 

Knitting Friday

 

Me bad, no pictures. Didn't take them since I was so sure with two snow storms, not one, arriving this week no way were we going to have electricity and/or cable by today. I was wrong! We sailed through these storms with about 20" of snow and all our utilities in tact.

 

This has been a busy week of knitting and waiting. I don't think DM is in the active stage of dying but her condition has deteriorated considerably.

 

 

But this week I did make a shrimp chowder which DM loves. Here's the recipe:

 

Shrimp Chowder

1/2 big onion, chopped

3 chicken bouillon cubes dissolved in 2 cups of water

3 T of flour, more or less as you wish

1/8 pound of butter (you can use more or less)

1 pound 31-40 count shrimp cooked and cut up into small pieces

1 small can of drained mushroom pieces or about 3 large mushrooms cut up finely

1 cup milk (can be more or less depending on how thick you like your chowder)

Opt: any veggies like corn

 

Directions:

1. Melt butter in large saucepan.

2. Add onion and saute on a low heat until soft.

3. Add flour with small amounts of bouillon and more butter if you wish to form a roux. The trick is NOT to have the flour lumpy.

4. Add the mushrooms and all the bouillon. You should be looking at a tan colored thick sauce with onions and mushrooms. (At this point, you can turn off the gas and leave everything until it's time to eat.)

5. Just before you serve it: Add the milk slowly, stir and bring it up to just before boiling.

6. Add the shrimp and cook until they are warm but not at the tough stage.

That's it. No salt because of the bouillon and no spices. (You can add them if you like.) It tastes delicious.

And now for some patterns:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/summer-petals-stole

 

This is a light and airy summer type shawl. It's done in light fingering with US 7 needles. 

Here's another one:

 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ingrid-stole-2 

 

It's filled with nupps and I love nupps. I think you will also if you work crochet nupps which are so, so easy.

And finally, in my quest for the perfect Aran style shawl, I found this:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/glimfeather

 

What sold me on it was the project by Yavanna1612, which is beautiful. OK, she says she did modify it by adding more cables but I think I''ll give it a try.

 

Enough for today. Next week, I have a fantastic way to make short rows. To me, this way beats all the rest. And, I have finished my lace scarf, which as you remember was born as a typical lace sampler scarf with a RS and WS, worn that way, then frogged, washed and re-born as a wider lace sampler scarf where all the lace patterns are reversible. And, I washed and dried the circular shawl which Mr. Bear modeled a few weeks ago. Boy, did that stretch. There will be pictures.

See you then. Happy knitting.

Capitalism - Feudalism without the King
Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday 

 

Hoped someone noticed there were no postings last week, even though I was primed for them. First, we lost electricity starting on Wednesday morning. Got it back 9 hours later when we discovered that we had electricity but no phone, cable or TV. And now I know, as God is my witness, that I'd take TV, cable and phone service over electricity any day.We were lucky because we got our TV, etc. back within 36 hours of calling Verizon; others waited for days.Today, we're expecting another storm so I'm typing as fast as I can.

 

My blood was boiling then running cold last week as the Farrow family vendetta against Woody Allen played out in the media as Dylan Farrow fired the latest volley with accusing Allen of molesting her as a child. (Two decades ago, Mia Farrow, during a vicious custody fight, accused Allen of molesting their 7 year old adopted daughter, Dylan.) Yes, I am in the Allen camp since I've read the documents from the case re: the validity of that accusation but what got me incensed was not the re-ignited accusations but  the stupidity of the comments re: the case which could be found all over the web. Simple comments like: I believe her; It sounds true; I was molested sprang out as people were being judge and jury based, not on facts, but feelings. The great American: Don't bother me with facts, my feelings are my guide was presented in its most ugly panoply. What was even more shocking is that these comments were from people with fans in the multiple thousands.

 

But it was VO commenting in The Huffington Post who summed up this Salem witch trial hysteria the best with:

 

"Dude, any first-person account beats any argument": this pearl of astonishing wisdom received 98 likes on Facebook page of Daily Beast. 98 likes!
There is no thought given to the 6 months of psychiatric evaluations by three doctors in CT, no consideration at all to the inability to conclude the abuse had indeed happened. She may indeed remember things which are not true. She may be sincere. She is certainly a damaged and bitterly angry woman. But not every allegation is true, for God's sake. This is why we have a criminal justice system: first-person accounts in our confessional age are given weight without regard to other factors which detract from their credibility.
People are so passionate about this, usually (if you read the comments) incest survivors or others who have experienced the tragedy of sexual assault. I understand it's a tragedy, but it's not a tragedy if it the allegation isn't true--except for the accused. The comments have spoken volumes about those bashing Woody with no access to the relevant data.
But this is what America has become: a nation of people who cannot or will not think critically, who believe emotion substitutes for reason. And of course people who simply don't read anything longer than 1000 words. Indeed, many blogs including this one have that as the word limit.
What wonder is it, in our dumbed down , text-speak, iPhone age, that people respond with such hysterical emotion disconnected from evidence, reason, or fact. 

Of course, VO has only 1 fan listed. Go figure.

OK, here's a site for you:

http://yourather.com/

You get to choose one of two absurd choices (eat a zombie or be eaten by a zombie) and then you get to see where your choice fits in with others. Be sure to click the small arrow in the middle of the right side of the screen to scroll through more choices. Wacky fun.

This next sight is just insane and not for the workplace:

http://9fail.com/ 

Are these situations staged? I can't believe a person would willingly get kicked by a cow. Take a look.

OK, the following site touts This is Marvelous and it is:

http://www.thisismarvelous.com/

Who could not like something (many things) on this site?

The why of this pick baffles even me:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Acting-Tips-2/?ALLSTEPS

These are acting tips and they look very good, not that I will ever top my performance in a dull, little Girl Scout play where I bought down the house when, in my role as a GS sitting around the campfire eating roasted marshmallows, I decided to say my lines with a mouthful full of them.

And for my final pick:

http://infographicjournal.com/diy-disaster-survival/

Pretty innovative disaster survival stuff here. Almost with the MacGyver quality of: You have a rubber band and some chewed gum? Let's build a car! But I'm not laughing. Perhaps tomorrow if we lose electricity again I'd wish I had read how to build a toilet paper heater.

That's it for today. See you next week.