June 2007 Archives

by Emily and David

WE ARE HOMEOWNERS!! Together! Of a beautiful place!

We almost can't believe it.

The excitement is creeping up on us in ever-increasing waves, gradually overcoming our stress and incredulity. Soon we will be cutting capers and baying at the moon! Then we will be caught up in a frenzy of moving and furniture-acquisition. But right now we are totally exhausted.

Good vibes to the world.

by Emily

Needless to say, since I am not writing in all capitals, the condo is not fixed. And although there is progress, and further debating is happening, with pros being considered and cons being weighed, I have officially reached the point of Not Wanting To Talk About It. So instead, I will show you these little honies:

My mother had started an aggressive campaign a few months ago to get herself a hand-knitted pair of socks from yours truly. This is somewhat out of character for her; generally she if far from the demanding type, but I think the socks I knitted for "a complete stranger" (e.g., a mail-exchange partner) in Sweden really pushed her over the edge. She started with innocuous comments like "I wouldn't mind a pair of socks" or "You could give those to me instead," and progressed to such subtle expressions as exclaiming, when Celeste gave me two beautiful skeins of Koigu for my birthday, "NOW maybe I'll get a pair of socks!" By that time, though, I was pleased to be able to announce to the room at large, when she went outside to stop the dog from barking, that I was already halfway done with this pair, which were intended as a Mother's Day present. And look how happy my cute mom was when she realized that she was getting her long-sought-after socks at last:

The lace pattern on these would undoubtedly show up better in a more solid color, rather than the variegated colorway, but I had never made anything in a variegated yarn before, and the benefit of knitting for your mother is that she is unlikely to hate something that was a bit of an experiment, even if it doesn't turn out brilliantly. Plus, the colors reminded me strongly of her from the first: she loves those peaches, lavenders and vivid pinks, so I knew that she could find clothes that would go well with socks made from this yarn.

For some reason it didn't occur to me until I was actually knitting with the yarn, but as I was watching the various colors speed by my fingers I realized that this was also appropriate choice for Spring and Easter-time. All in all, I could hardly have chosen a different yarn, could I?

In any case, the recipient seemed delighted. She quickly tried the socks on, then disappeared into her closet to change into an outfit that suited them. The light wasn't great at the sock-giving, but here are a pair of happy mom-feet:

A good fit! Delightful. Further, in the interim she has reported that they are "wonderful," "cozy," and "beautiful." Hooray! Knitting success.

by Emily

Today is the day that they are supposed to fix our condo. But we're not nervous or excited about a little thing like that. No, not waiting with bated breath to see whether it really happens. We're more...looking around, wondering what will happen next. Self-distracting.

In that spirit, and in the spirit of sending things to Canada (always a good spirit in which to operate), I hung out with this little guy last night:

He started out from a covered bridge in Roanoke, VA, and progressed to a strange land - a scale model of Jerusalem, in fact, populated by vast community of little woodland animals, strangely out-of-place in the desert climate:

Finally, he thought he might take a peek over Mt. Fuji, and observe the famous cherry blossoms in full bloom, before returning to the rugged coast of Chile he calls home:

Meanwhile, we're just sitting here at home, twiddling our thumbs, waiting on nothing in particular...

by Emily

There is a great line in Shakespeare's Lear where the emasculated King makes empty threats to his harpy daughters, having realized too late that perhaps divvying up the kingdom based on who is the best flatterer wasn't such a hot idea:

                        No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall--I will do such things,--
What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be
The terrors of the earth.

I think this little burst of frustration is so comical and heart-wrenching because we've all been there. Don't we all identify with being in a position of utter frustration, and wishing that we held some devastatingly effective bargaining chip, wishing desperately against the reality of our powerless position? And haven't we also - parents particularly, I would imagine - been in the powerful position in this scenario, and seen how pathetic and comical a person looks when they're spluttering vague and undefined threats at us? Kids on the playground come to mind: "you better do X, or else." "I'll get you for this!" Another of my favorite depictions of this relationship is featured in Lerner & Lowe's My Fair Lady, when Liza Doolittle lets off some steam about her poor treatment at the hands of Professor Henry Higgins, creating elaborate revenge fantasies as showcases for her utter contempt of him:

Just you wait until we're swimmin' in the sea,
And you get a cramp a little ways from me -
When you yell you're going to drown,
I'll get dressed and go to town!
Just. You. Wait.

Not the most effective negotiation strategy, perhaps, but it's definitely a satisfying mental game, imagining unleashing "the terrors of the earth" on your unbearably smug opponents. "You'll be sorry but your tears'll be too late," Liza says, picturing the prostrate Higgins begging her forgiveness.

This totally hypothetical exploration of powerlessness and pretend revenge has NO connection, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, with the fact that the seller of David and my prospective condo has still, despite a theoretical deadline of yesterday, not made the incredibly minor repairs we had requested, forcing us to delay closing until at least this Wednesday. He's told us several times that the repairs are all done, only to have us show up and find that, far from being fixed, everything is in exactly the same state as the last time we were over at the condo. (In the seller's defense, we have verified that after we refused to close last night, he actually did fix the ceiling fan. Two requests down, one to go!).

My father keeps impressing on us that we do have a powerful weapon, that of backing out of the deal or pretending to back out. And I think that David would be willing to play that game, but it makes me feel queasy to play "chicken" with a place into which I've now imagined my furniture, sewing machine and future existence. So, short of backing out, it seems there is very little we can do to force this deadbeat to actually do the repairs he is supposedly "obligated" to perform based on the contract he signed. Even if we were to take him to small claims court, we could only sue for "damages," which apparently don't include failing to do something he's promised to do. A frustrating state of affairs, needless to say.

It occurred to me that in a slightly more credulous and tightly-knit culture, we could solve this problem very satisfactorily by cursing the seller. No, not spouting obscenities at him, but something in the old style also exemplified by Shakespeare - for example, Margaret's curse in Richard III:

If heaven have any grievous plague in store
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation on thee,
The troubler of the poor world's peace!
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog!
Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
The slave of nature and the son of hell!
Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb!
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins!

Antonia's speech to her daughter's rapist in the excellent film Antonia's Line, which I can't find verbatim, is also an inspiration to aspiring curse-flingers worldwide (you know, the one where she says "If you return, my curse will savage you to death," and then all the village men beat the guy senseless and his own brother drowns him in the well). Due either to the listening judgment of the community (in the film) or the justice of Fates in the fullness of time (Shakespeare), the cursed person learns that failure to listen to the curse-giver is folly. And I think the givers themselves derive a certain satisfaction from the curse process, even if their listeners seem to be discounting everything they say. Sadly, though, in the real world of the modern US, cursing is neither sanctioned nor feared as it was of old. What a waste of a good solution.

Amusingly, when I mentioned the possible "curse solution" to David, he said that he'd already been thinking about that, but had decided that it was "too risky." You know what they say about great minds...