The Story of Three Irish Girls… a Fairy Tale. Chapter Nine.

Read the previous chapter here.

In February, her husband came home from his job on the other side of the Bay with a proposition. “Would you be interested in moving to Washington, DC?” he asked.

The girl lay on the too-small bed facing the darkened world outside her window. She had just closed her book, and sleep was covering her eyes with its heavy veil. "Hmmm?" she murmured.

"We'll talk about it in the morning," her husband said, kissing her forehead.

"No, what is it? Are you going to DC this weekend?" she asked, unsurprised. Her husband's frequent trips were difficult to keep track of.

"I asked if you were interested in moving there," he said.

"I'm more interested in moving back home. I am also more interested in moving to Austria or Italy or Ireland or perhaps Monaco. I hear they have casinos there."

"That's fine, I can just tell them no," her husband replied.

"Tell who no about what?" the girl was fully awake now, and turned over in bed.

"I was offered a promotion today, but it would mean moving to DC. I can say no."

"What kind of a promotion is it?"

"A pretty big one -- I would be directing the DC office."

"You've only been working there for seven months!"

"I know."

"Are they serious, or is this just kicking around ideas?"

"No, we had a big meeting about it today. It's a serious offer, and we discussed what my responsibilities would be."

"What about school? I can't just leave in the middle of the year, that would be career suicide."

"I told them that, and they said we could wait until the summer to make the move to accommodate your schedule. They'll pay for all of our relocation expenses."

"But I've never been to DC."

"They'll fly you out to look around and see if you like it."

"What about finding a place to live? What about finding a new job for me?"

"They'll pay for a couple of trips so we can find a house and you can go on job interviews."

"So, this is really serious, 100% serious, no theoretical, 'This might be a good idea'? Like really really for real?"

"It's serious, but I told them that I was pretty sure you'd say no, because we just got here."

"Is this a good opportunity for you? Is it something you want to do?"

"I don't want to do anything you don't want to do, but it would mean a lot less travel for me. Nearly all of my travel is to the East Coast, so this would mean a one hour flight to New York instead of a six hour flight to New York, or a three hour drive to Philadelphia instead of an all day trip. You could also come with me on a lot of stuff, since it's so close."

"But I've never been there."

"You said that already."

"What if I don't like it?"

"So, we'll go there and see if you like it, and then we'll make our decision."

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"Is everything OK?" the flight attendant asked, passing the girl a tissue.

"I'm afraid," the girl snuffled, swabbing at her eyes. "I don't want to die."

"Everything is totally fine," the flight attendant soothed. "This is very normal."

A sudden, precipitous drop in altitude jolted the plane, sending the flight attendant pitching forward. She managed to avoid falling by grabbing the seat directly behind where the girl sat.

"I need to go sit back down, but nothing is wrong with the plane, it's just turbulence," the flight attendant assured her, struggling back to her seat by the emergency exit.

The girl sat on the darkened plane in between two sleeping passengers. The red eye from San Francisco to Baltimore was not going well, in her estimation.  The plane was quiet, and she sat clutching her knees, burdened with being the only one in on the secret that the plane was about to crash. This was too much for her. She wondered why the other passengers didn't share in her panic and carry their part of the load.

The rough turbulence lasted for hours, and she cried for most of the flight. She checked her watch every two to three minutes, hoping to see that the flight was miraculously coming to an end, but time seemed to pass even more slowly than usual.  When the wheels finally met the ground in Maryland, she tipped her head backwards to force the remaining tears back into her eyes, pulled out her purse and attempted to touch up her makeup so it would not appear as though she had spent six hours crying. She was exhausted. It felt like 3 am, but it was 6 am here on the East Coast. She hadn't slept a wink. She was hungry, her eyes were puffy, and she had a cramp in her leg. A green fuzz had sprouted on her teeth.

Her weary husband greeted her at the gate with a quiet, "You made it. Was the flight OK?"

"No," she replied, "but I don't want to talk about it right now. I'll tell you later."

Ensconced in the rental car, the girl balled up her coat to use as a pillow and dozed off.  She awoke forty minutes later to find that they were on an unfamiliar type of road. What was this? There were four lanes, two in each direction, with a large, grassy divider between them. But there were almost no cars to be seen. She sat up and looked around. Low stone walls lined portions of the road. Quaint. They crossed bridges. She glanced down hopefully. Bridges spanning... yes, they were spanning rivers! Thousands of leafless trees lined the route. She cracked the window, feeling the cold February air blow on her face.

"WHERE ARE WE?" the girl asked her husband. "WHERE ARE WE AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH THE CONCRETE AND PALM TREES?"

"We're crossing into the District right now," he said. "There's the Potomac River on the left. In a second, you'll be able to see Georgetown right over there." He pointed.



"Is this a secret 'Impress the tourists' freeway or something? Where is everyone?" the girl asked.

"No, this is a real road. But it is like 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday." Her husband smiled. "I told you you would like it here."

The road ran parallel with the river, and they passed the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson memorials, the girl now too excited and tired to take any more pictures. Their hotel directly overlooked the Pentagon, a fact which she was forced to promptly share with her mother via telephone.

A nap, some food, and another nap later, the girl was shaken awake by her husband. "Let's grab some dinner. We have to eat before the moonlight monument tour." The girl had been skeptical about this activity: a bus at night with strangers didn't have any of the elements required for her definition of fun. But she was forced to admit that the America's national monuments actually were prettier and less crowded at night. They walked quietly in the freezing night air admiring the artistry that went into each piece. She took a rubbing of a name on the Vietnam Memorial for a friend of her mother's.

Her husband was working much of the next day, but he informed her that she could spend the day seeing whatever she wanted. All she had to do was catch the Metro train that stopped in the lower level of her hotel and take it to Smithsonian station.  When she surfaced from deep underneath the city, the many Smithsonian museums flanking the park-like median beckoned to her. The US Capitol gleamed in the morning sun at one end of the mall, the Washington Monument bookending the other.

***********************

"Let's do it," the girl told her husband, sliding into the booth next to him, hungry for dinner.

"A couple of museums was all it took? I thought it would be a lot more work to convince you," he joked.

"I love it. I can't believe all of these museums are free! We can come down here anytime we want!"

After another horrific flight, a night spent alone on the floor of the Denver airport after snow canceled the second leg of her flight back home, the two returned (separately) to the mild air, the cramped apartment, and their four cats and began to make moving plans. The girl scoured newspaper listings for somewhere to live and somewhere to work. She sent out resumes and packed 63 boxes of books. She made phone calls and got estimates from the movers. She said goodbye to her new friends and her students.

In May, her husband flew her to British Columbia for her birthday. The day after they returned home, they got on a plane bound for their new home. Determined to sew up all the loose ends in one fell swoop, they were on a mission to find lodging and a job for the girl.

They located a house much too large for just the two of them in the bucolic Maryland suburbs of the District. The girl was tickled at the amount of greenery -- this area was nothing if not lush. The job interviews went well, and now came the headache of transferring her teaching certification to a new state.

One last glorious month in California was to be spent at Stanford University, where her husband was teaching. The graduate student apartment was far from luxurious, but the gorgeous campus and surrounding town made up for it. They spent the long summer days walking, eating at cafes, hiking in the nearby redwood forests, and sojourning via train to San Francisco.

And then, the longest trip of her life: California to Maryland in a car with four cats in August.

Continue reading here.

A return from the infirmary.

I have been unwell. The kind of yucky unwell that makes you have to stay in bed and not eat anything for days.


I am feeling much improved, and it's now time to return to our regularly scheduled programming. I have to conduct the Great Yarnsperiment, write another installment of my Fairy Tale, and finish up the Spring Collection!

The Story of Three Irish Girls… a fairy tale. Chapter Eight.

Read the previous chapter here.

The girl surveyed her new classroom. Number 12 faced directly into a large courtyard, where flowers bloomed prolifically.  Doors that opened directly outside, not into an enclosed hallway? Halls that had a roof but no walls, no doors? Grass that was brown in the summer and green in the winter? There was a lot to get used to.

 She later discovered that the school had no textbooks -- the entire department's texts had been destroyed in a flood from a burst pipe. There wasn't money to buy more. And there were no computers. If she wanted one, she'd have to supply her own.  

She made a mental note of the resources the school lacked: textbooks. computers, school supplies of any kind, a library that was open more than two hours a week, soap and toilet paper in the restrooms, paper for the copy machine, overhead projector screens, televisions for watching educational videos, heat, air conditioning.

The school hadn't had these items in years, and there were no plans to obtain them -- the district directed nearly all of its cash toward teacher salaries.  Teachers and students either brought their own or did without.

But there was one item supplied by the school at teacher check-in day: an earthquake kit, which was to be kept in the closet in her classroom in case they were trapped. It contained a box of granola bars, a gallon of water, a flashlight, two candy bars, and bandages, the kind you use for skinned knees. How will this save us in the event of an earthquake? I'm supposed to give a classroom of 37 students 1/3 of a granola bar and two sips of water each? What will these bandages do if we're trapped in the rubble?

When school began, the girl found her  students delightful -- friendly, helpful, cooperative, funny, and hard working. The condition of the school was apparently of little matter to the teens, as they seemed perfectly content and happy. Then began the rolling blackouts, where the electricity would be shut off with no advance warning for hours at a time.  Teachers were still expected to conduct class, albeit in semi-darkness. She settled into her new position, took on the sponsorship of the senior class and the planning of the prom, and waited.

She waited to feel like she belonged here. She missed home. She missed trees. She missed water. She missed seasons. She missed her family and friends. She did not miss the mosquitoes or the subzero temperatures.

Her husband embarked on trip after trip, some months traveling 3-4 days a week. His flights back to the East Coast took six hours, and a two day journey became four when you allowed for travel time. The girl filled her time with grading and planning for 180 honors English students, having coffee with her fellow teachers, talking on the phone to her mother and surfing the ever-expanding world of the internet.

Her home computer was hooked up to a new marvel called "DSL", and she could surf at amazing speeds. While the rest of the country limped along on AOL dial up, the couple's geographic proximity to Silicon Valley gave them an edge in the arena of technological advances. (The advances came at a price that schools couldn't afford, however.) She did a search for book stores and craft stores, wondering what could be found nearby. She was disappointed to discover that the area they had moved to was sorely lacking in these kinds of shops. If she wanted doughnuts, strip malls, movie theaters, or nail salons, they had those aplenty.

The only craft store she could locate within a short drive was Michael's, and it was small, at best. The lighting was dim, the floors dingy. What is wrong with this city? The girl thought in frustration. People don't read? People don't make things? What is there to do here, stare at palm trees and freeways?  Get your nails done? She knew her frustration stemmed from being completely uprooted and then being left alone for long periods of time in her apartment with Evil Isabel.

She did manage to locate a fabric store about 15 miles away (it took at least 35 minutes to drive there), and set out, steering her car onto the freeway lined with concrete.  The fabric store was also disappointingly small, but she found a few pieces of quilting cotton she liked. She was nearly done with a wall quilt for her new sister-in-law, and the fabric she chose would make the perfect backing.

She wandered around the fabric store, killing time. She found a small section of artificial flowers, a small section of unpainted wooden birdhouses and trinkets, and a small section of yarn and crochet books. She perused the selection. Nearly everything was about crocheted afghans, and the paltry selection of acrylic yarn in garish colors was disappointing. One booklet caught her eye:



The title convinced her that the patterns would be easy to knit. The instructions were given step by step, none of those fancy chart things that she didn't understand.  She added the booklet to her basket, selected a wool/acrylic blend in a taupe shade (the only neutral available), and paid for her purchases. Will two skeins of Wool-Ease be enough for an afghan, she wondered? It says 197 yards on each ball. That's a lot.  I bet this mushroom color will go nicely in my mother's living room.

Back at her empty apartment, she found a stitch pattern in the booklet that looked relatively easy. It was a basketweave pattern made up only of knits and purls.

Armed with her grandmother's needles, a booklet picked up in a fabric store, and free time galore, the girl set off down the path of the knitter. This booklet, this couch in this apartment in this land of sunshine and strip malls, this was the writing on the wall in invisible ink that can only be seen when you turn around.

She plugged away on her afghan squares. No, two skeins of Wool-Ease would not be enough. She had to buy more. And more. Four was also not enough, nor six. She taught herself how to make cables by following the simple directions in the booklet. She would try, rip back, try again, rip back, try again until she got it right. She slowly amassed a pile of rectangles, confident that the booklet would also show her how to sew them together into a blanket.

In February, her husband came home from his job on the other side of the Bay with a proposition. "Would you be interested in moving to Washington, DC?" he asked.

Keep reading here.

The Great Yarnsperiment

This is more of a demonstration than an experiment. But yarnsperiment is such a nifty made up word, I have no choice. It begs to be used.

What I shall be yarnsperimenting, dear friends, is how different yarns accept dye. I shall endeavor to show you what I see every day: how certain yarns produce very bright colors, and other yield more muted results. I shall also attempt to explain why this is so. This will help you to be an informed consumer. And because it's fun to conduct yarnsperiments.

Here is how it will work: I will take small samples from several different undyed yarns and line them all up.  Then, I will take a picture. Next, I will mix up some dye. An easily visible color like ivory. Or maybe bright pink. Which do you think would be better? (Editor's note: The Yarnista was just kidding about the ivory. Ivory is not a bright color.)


I shall then apply this single batch of dye to all of the skeins simultaneously. And then I will take another picture. Then, I will heat the yarn. Because I need to. Then, I will line up the yarns again. Finally, I will take another picture.

I will put all the pictures up here for you to see with my illuminating commentary. And then we can discuss.

Sound good? Is there anything in particular you'd like to know before I begin the yarnsperiment? I need adequate time to plan.

What are you doing on March 15th?

Want to come to a Yarn Party?



I'll be there. With bells on, and with yarn. :D

Who: Me, and a bunch of other awesome yarnie people from Maryland, DC, and Virginia

What: It's a Yarn Party! Kind of  like a fun and casual Stitches Event. We'll have stuff for sale. You can come chit chat with us and meet new people. Free knitting and crochet lessons!

Where: The great room at Savage Mill in Maryland. (This is an awesome space.) If you've never been there before, it's worth a trip. There are other cool shops and sights there.

When: March 15, 2009 from 12-4.

Why: Because it's fun!

You can see a list of vendors here. 

Who's in?