nothing to complain about

I had been planning on posting about the knitting paralysis I've been experiencing.

It's knitting paralysis for a dumb reason, though. I don't even have a good excuse, like pregnancy-related carpal tunnel syndrome.

As you can see, I'm about 3" away from finishing these pants for Baby Shamrock, who is due in a just a few weeks. I could finish these tonight if I wanted to.

But I don't. Because the knitting needles smell awful. They are made of brass (Addi Lace). They are nice needles. I like them. I spent a lot of money on them.

The smell of the brass being warmed by my hands is more than I can deal with right now. I took these pants out a few nights ago to try and finish them and could not.

I've tried cleaning the needles with rubbing alcohol. What else can I do? Thoughts? Has anyone else ever had pregnancy nose and been unable to stomach the smell of warm brass?

But this post is really quite silly now, in the wake of what happened yesterday. My stinky needles are nothing compared to this:

Or this:

Or this:

We had a very dry winter with little snow. But we've had a wet spring. Normally, this is good, it helps make up for the drought conditions and lowers the risk of forest fires.

This spring, however, instead of gentle rains, we got pummeled with several weeks of near-daily thunderstorms.

On Tuesday, forecasters warned us of the potential for flash flooding. I don't think many people paid attention. Duluth is built into the side of a hill, without much room for standing water. The elevation climbs more than 700 feet in a short distance, which is a lot for the mountain-peak-lacking Midwest.

I grew up in this city, and can only remember one time when something was flooded, and that was a few streets after a tornado nearly touched down. It was gone within a few hours. Flooding is not something we commonly worry about here. We have a lot of trees and vegetation that can absorb moisture, and dozens of rivers and streams inside the city limits for the water to flow through.

We repeatedly checked the sump pump in our basement on Tuesday, hoping it would do its job of keeping water out of our 106-year-old house with a stone foundation. We noticed water slowly seeping in, just enough to dampen the floor, but not enough to be considered a trickle. We moved anything of value off the floor, just in case.

The storms -- and I do mean full-on, wake-the-dead thunderstorms -- continued all night. As pregnant women are wont to do, I was up several times during the night, and each time, I went to the top of the basement stairs, flipped on the lights, and peered down to see if we had 6" of standing water down there. We never did.

At 6:30 am, I got a phone call from an employee asking what our plans were for the day -- he lived across the bridge from the studio, and didn't know if he would even be able to get across safely.

"Is it that bad out?" I wondered. Flipping on the news, I saw that it was, in fact, that bad.

These used to be roads:

Trains used to cross here:

This was someone's home.

The rain continued throughout the day Wednesday. A state emergency was declared and federal disaster money applied for.  All told, we got 10" of rain in 24 hours -- the equivalent of 80" of snow. Our aging storm drains and infrastructure could not withstand the river overflows, and the resulting clogs caused the water to rise at alarming rates.

Many of my friends had significant water damage to their homes -- some said that at the height of the flood, it looked as though their house was set down in the middle of a rushing river. One of those people lives only blocks from me. Somehow, my home was spared. We never had more than a bit of dampness in the basement -- it looked as though we'd just finished mopping. The studio stayed snug as a bug. We are very thankful.

Today, Lake Superior looks like this. I've never seen the lake muddy before, it's disconcerting.

The flood waters have receded. And now we have about $80 million worth of public infrastructure cleanup -- that's not to mention the damage done to private property.

So yes, my stupid knitting needle problem pales in comparison. My child will be clothed even if I don't finish the pants. I have somewhere warm and dry to live, despite the storms that swirl.

Keep Duluth in your thoughts and prayers this week, if you wouldn't mind.

oh, goodness.

It's been much too long, hasn't it?

Would you like to hear my excuses?

Ready?

No, I see that face you're making. Stop it.

I have excuses, good ones. At least give me a chance before choosing not to believe me.

1. The biggest one, and perhaps I've mentioned this before, is the fact that I am one month away from having a new baby. This is exciting, terrifying, and also relatively painful. Having a job that is lovely and wonderful but also physical in nature kicks the "discomfort," and by "discomfort," I mean "bad discomfort of the pain variety" up a couple of notches.

All that to say, I go home at the end of the day and fall asleep at 7:00 pm.  Which cuts way down on my blogging time. If it makes you feel any better, I do often lie awake from 2:00 am to 3:47 am contemplating why I haven't gotten my act together enough to finish a post or a knitting project in a long time. During this contemplation period, I slowly chew 12 Tums to prevent my chest from spontaneously combusting from the flames of heartburn.

I didn't say this was going to humorous, did I? Because it's not funny.

Don't make the face.

Stop laughing.

2. My second excuse is that there are exactly zero, and I know it's zero because I have a stopwatch function on my iPhone that I have calibrated to Greenwich Mean Time via the Atomic Clock, zero seconds in the day, in which there is any quiet.

I need quiet to write something other than what I hear people around me saying. I am an auditory learner. If I try and write something, like a card, a blog post, a check, and there is someone standing near me talking, I will automatically start writing what they're saying.

I have actually -- no lie -- written out a check to "I have a quick question for you" when someone came up to ask me a question at the exact moment I was filling out the "To" line.

The lack of quiet stems from the very nature of the studio -- one in which we listen to robot laser battles on Pandora cleverly disguised under the word Dubstep.

For the uninitiated, here you go. 

The robot laser battle non-music finally got to be too much. I put a note on the computer that says, "Turn on robot music and watch me throw a [Dairy Queen] Blizzard at your face." That's just how we roll here in Northern Minnesota. We threaten each other with delicious ice cream.

And before I start getting hate mail about my maligning the artistic brilliance and prodigious talent of Skrillex and the London nightclub Dubstep movement, let me just remind you: Yarnista is old, she's a foot taller than you, she outweighs you by about 100 lbs, it's 7,000 degrees in her workplace, she gets no peace and quiet, and she's eight months pregnant. This is not a fight you can win.

Go ahead with your ironic hipster self and listen to Skrillex until your sideburns really fill in nicely. I'll just be the cranky lady over here with my feet stuck in Lake Superior.

Oh, and also? I have three children and two giant horsedogs already, and a doorbell that rings nonstep with neighborhood children wondering if there's anyone here who would like to play dodgeball. Lest you think my home is a haven of quietude.

Which I'm sure you did, until I just let you in on the secret, right?

3. This is related to my second excuse. But it's different because it is far, far more infuriating.

The kettlebell people are still at it. No change.

But now, in addition, we have construction.

This is more of a mental picture than an actual picture. This is what I feel like my studio looks like. Actually, I'm sure it's considerably better, but this is the level of noise and hassle we hear on a daily basis.

The new(ish) owner of my building has decided to build a nightclub in the space immediately above me. I'm sure --cough-- that the nightclub --cough-- will be a huge --cough-- success.

And stuff.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a second floor location on an avenue without much foot traffic and absolutely no parking? Nothing, nothing at all.

All this construction means an endless intrusion into not only my auditory space, but my physical space. Here are just a few lovely items I've heard from construction workers recently.

Them: We will be moving all of your sinks and washing machines so we can rip out the basement stairs, move them back four feet, put in an elevator, and install a new fire door at the top of the new basement stairs.

Me: No you won't.

Them: That's what the building owner told us to do.

Me. That's nice. I have a lease, which give me the legal right to this space. I also own those sinks, and those washing machines, and personally paid for the plumbing that they run off of.

Them: Sharon, you look really chipper today. Is that a new dress? I like the color blue on you. Let's see what we can work out, shall we?

And then, over the weekend, they were granted access to the space to complete the work without my permission.

Them: We need you to move this whole photography studio you have set up here. The lights, the backdrops, the carefully placed and metered and calibrated and weighted and balanced expensive thing, so we can get a ladder in here and check out that junction box on the ceiling, And then we will do some drilling and attach some pipes to your ceiling so you have dust everywhere and can't even use your own telephone because of the deafening sound. When we're finished, we'll be sure to break some of your equipment, leave a bunch of wires hanging from the ceiling, and then run up and down the stairs immediately behind your desk 900 times.

Me: No. No you will not. Touch anything and watch Dubstep music shoot out of my eyes.

Guess how this story ends. Over the weekend, they were granted access to the space to complete the work without my permission. And then they left the front door unlocked.

This story just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

I could go on here for another 63 blog posts. But suffice it to say that I now get to spend a nice chunk of my blogging time putting out construction fires and listening to drilling, sawing, stair running, smelling cigarette smoke outside my door, watching able-bodied construction workers take over my parking lot and block off every street parking space with their obviously unneeded handicapped parking placards while the pregnant girl walks from far away. And doesn't get to blog.

Excuses: yeah, I got 'em.

But I'm not bitter.  Despite my frustration, this is all temporary.  Shamrock will be born, and I will put one foot in front of the other while trying to figure out how to take care of four children. I will eventually suffer sufficient hearing loss that Dubstep will sound like pleasant department store elevator music. And eventually -- dear God, please -- the construction will end. My building does not appear to be owned by Sarah Winchester, so I am holding out hope.

I am pleased that I managed to stay awake until 9:40 pm on a Tuesday to share my excuses with you! Go me!