Now Norma Knits

Terrier Tuesday: Juris Doctor Edition

Dear Readers,

Well, St. John's University does not allow Yorkshire Terriers to attend law school graduations. Or at least that is the excuse Alpha gave me for not having the opportunity to witness this firsthand:

The way I understand it, that is an image of my Abigail getting a hood put on her by her law school dean or somebody, whatever that means. It's an image on a fancy-schmancy big screen in a fancy-schmancy auditorium that, Alpha wants you to notice, is NOT being captioned, but don't get her started about that, she says. 

However, since there is not one word of this that seems anything other than Greek or Latin to me, suffice it to say I guess it was a big deal, and everyone is all pretty proud and excited about it. Me, I'm kind of proud and excited of my Abigail any old time, and so I don't really get the difference, but that's just the way we Yorkies are, so I'm sure you understand.  

Some of Abigail's friends and roommates, and other people I know, also got the same thing! So we have all these cute pictures to look at.

It looks like they all had a really good time without me, but I had a good time, too, with Dan and Jessica and Chloe and Gunner and the big cats and ... well, we're all pretty tuckered out from this excitement. I'm just gonna go have a nap now, okay?

Res ipsa loquitur, baby.

 

Mr. Jefferies

 

 

No Time To Blog

Abigail is home for a few days.

Hand Model Awesomeness

I got a message from Sara in Facebook the other day, with a photo attached. "Norma, I'm at ORD. Are these Ryan's hands?"

Well, yes. Yes, they are. And his elbows. (at first I thought they were somebody's legs)

Here are a few more to be on the lookout for if you're out and about:

The palm trees you can tell are hands and arms. But did you notice that the sand dunes are his elbows?

Yes, the waves are also his hands.....

Just slightly mind-blowing, eh?

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Ryan, for new readers, is my daughter's boyfriend. He's a very busy guy and we're all very proud of him.

Cuter Than Kittens

Basil seedlings: 

(in amongst other seedlings that are no less cute)

I also think this young woman is pretty cute, in photos I took of her with her new glasses during her recent trip home:

Law school has killed her perfect 20/20 vision. She now is so nearsighted that while she can still read without glasses, she needs them to be able to see the professors in class. I can imagine it is pretty disconcerting not to be able to actually see the professor who is grilling you about Constitutional law. Not to mention seeing street signs when walking in New York, even the menu boards in restaurants, and the road when driving. Yes, eyeglasses -- definitely in the Top 10 of best human advancements ever made. 

Terrier Tuesday -- Handy Man Edition

Dear Readers,

A.Alpha and David love to tell the story about the time when they were visiting the parents of her BBC boss in North Wales. One morning after breakfast, seemingly apropos of nothing, Mrs. Davies posed a query: 

"David, are you a practical man?"

"I'd like to think I'm a practical man," replied a slightly bemused David.

"Would you come here and look at this screen door that needs fixing?"

Turns out the phrase practical man in British parlance means something more like the American word handyman. Well, let us just say that under that definition, David is most definitely not a practical man. And he is the first to admit it. The man has ten thumbs, not one of them opposable. 

But dear readers, my dad (you perhaps know him as Ryan) is a verrrrrrry practical man. Or at least he knows how to use his hands. Look at this article. (Be sure to click on the link and scroll through. He's #9 in there!) 

The Faces Behind the Famous Hands | The Big Money

Posted using ShareThis

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My dad's hands are plastered all over magazines and skyscrapers and taxi cabs and buses and billboards, and throughout all the big airports. Once you know about them and begin to take notice, you realize, "Oh my goodness! I know the man behind those hands!"

They've told me I have to start earning my keep around here, so I've been working on my portfolio. You've undoubtedly seen these shots in the fancy magazines and all over billboards and skyscrapers without realizing it, too.

But I bet you've never guessed the face behind the paws.

This modeling stuff is HARD WORK.

Is it time for my treat yet?

Love, 

Mr. Jefferies

Twenty-Five

Twenty-five years ago today, it was colder than a penguin's hiney. I remember specifically, because I was doing a lot of walking outside that day. And then my water broke and half froze to my leg. 

It was an easy labor. I kept waiting for it "to hurt." I had no sense of perspective, you see, because I'm a French-Canadian-Vermonter-Farm-Girl whose middle name is spelled S-T-O-I-C, and I had had a lifetime of terrible, monumental period cramps, and so, convinced that labor must have to be more painful than periods, I thought, well, apparently I'm not ready to give birth to this baby yet, because it doesn't hurt bad enough. I did, though, really have an idea that I was in labor, and my contractions were regular and two minutes apart. And yet, when I called my doctor's practice and got the person on call to finally return my call (it was New Year's Eve, after all), I was rather ambivalent about it, because we Jarvis girls do not readily admit to pain. 

Does it hurt? Well, yeah...no, not really. No, I can take more. Yeah, never mind, sorry to bother you. No, I realize it IS New Year's Eve. No, yeah, I'm probably not really in labor. You're right. I'll just go relax. 

That doctor, I sincerely hope, is no longer a practicing ob-gyn. Or if not that, then I hope she has learned some bedside manner since that time. Or maybe even perhaps as a result of the complaint I made about her following the birth of my baby and asked for her name to be removed from the birth certificate because she did absolutely nothing except make me feel like I was ruining her New Year's Eve, she got a fucking clue and started treating people not as imbeciles. 

She said to me on the phone, "So, this is your first baby?"

"Yes."

"Mm-hm. And you think you're in labor?"

My ability to suffer fools was even less honed than it is today, and I returned her condescending tone with one even a touch more sarcastic: *huff* *huff* "Yessssssssss. I *huff* knooooooooow I'm in *huff* labor."

"Well. Everybody says that. If this is your first baby, you'll probably be in labor for three days. You can come in if you really want, but we'll just send you back home again. I'd recommend just having some champagne and maybe a warm bath, and relax."

So, because I just knew I shouldn't have called -- stupidme, ohhowembarrassing, I'm noteveninpain, shouldn'thavebotheredher -- I went back outside in the cold and dark, for another walk. I didn't make it 25 feet, and the above-mentioned drizzle was running down my leg and freezing before it hit my foot. 

Things got a little bit intense then. And as David drove the little Volkswagen Rabbit down the icy interstate at 90 miles an hour, I was screaming, "I'm hot. I'm HOT. Open the WINDOWS" (with a few expletives).  And his fingers, when we arrived at the hospital, had to be chipped away from the steering wheel with an ice pick. I was holding the baby in, so that she did not pop out while we were waiting at the red light at the hospital entrance. I almost opened the door and popped her out right there on Colchester Avenue.

Through force of will, I held her in for another 20 minutes, time enough to get inside, up to a room to meet a lovely LOVELY nurse who I informed, "I've been resisting the urge to push for as long as I can. I can't resist it any MORRRRRRE." The MORRRRRRE was more a labor-pain scream than a word.

She said, "I just told Dr. Bitchy-Witchy (not her real name) that you had arrived. She said, 'I tollllllld her not to come!'" 

I said, "Oh, yes. She did. But here I aaaaaammmmmmmmmmm." 

She said, "Oh, I would love to birth this baby. It would be my first one on my own. But I can't do that. I'll be RIGHT BACK." And she was.

She opened the door, and a brand new sweet young male Family Practice resident happened to be walking by at that exact moment. She grabbed his arm. He rushed in -- I don't even think he had time to put on gloves, but maybe he did. He put his hands, you know, UP THERE, and raised his eyebrows and looked me in the eye, stunned. 

"Why don't you try pushing that baby right out."

And I pushed, twice, and we had our little New Year's Eve miracle. It was 7:57 p.m. It was the resident's first delivery, and the nurse hastened to tell him, "Don't get any ideas. They're not all like this. I only wish they were."

Me too.

 

Happy Birthday, Abigail

 

Remember Ryan?

...my daughter's favorite man (aside from her dad, of course), who the knitbloggers helped to launch in a soap opera career?

Well, that didn't work out as well as he'd hoped. Don't get me wrong -- it worked out great -- he won! He got the role!  But his character turned out to be a bad boy who went out with, you might say, a bang. Writers nowadays, I'm tellin' ya. Anything for a cheap thrill. But he has not been idle. For the past couple of years, in addition to a couple other things, he's been doing professional hand jobs*.**.  

We're so proud. And how many people could say that about that?

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*you just know I was waiting for the opportunity to say that with a straight face

**be sure to watch the video on the Newsweek site for Ryan's interview

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For the last year and a half or so, whenever I walk around Manhattan -- like I do so often, ya know -- I see Ryan's hands everywhere -- on the sides of skyscrapers, on billboards, on taxis, on buses, in airports, in national magazines. You probably have, too, but you haven't even known it. The AT&T "hands" ad campaign for which his hands are the canvas has won critical acclaim and given him the opportunity to model for more and more photos...

Like this:

 and this:

and this:

 

There are some more examples and information about the process and the artist on Ryan's website and this piece.

Mr. Jefferies says, "I'm so proud of you, Dad!"  

(Following in Ryan's footsteps: paws modeling.)

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P.S. I'm still working on the prize distribution, etc. I'm having to do it in shifts, in between all the other pressing matters that just happen to have crept up on me in the past couple of days. So please be patient with me. 

Catching Up

Good morning. Sorry I'm late!  I noticed that even in my absence for several days, one of the three feeds in Bloglines has STILL NOT UPDATED.  So there are people out there who still don't know I've updated.  Would you all do me a favor, if you are a Bloglines subscriber?  Would you unsubscribe and then subscribe again?  I've done that with a few blogs I sub to, and it seems to have worked.  I know that many people have just shifted to other feedreaders, and that is fine -- but they, too, are not without their problems, and I for one always seem to end up back with Bloglines.  I really don't know why -- it's just what I started with, I guess.  Anywayyyyyyy.......

Thank you all for the lovely comments recently.  The comments thing is a subject for another post, I guess, so you can understand why it matters.  It might be self-explanatory, but I know how it can somehow sound whiny or demanding to beg for [or as we call it, "whore for"] comments.  We'll talk about it soon, k?  

It's almost 10 a.m., and I am just waking up, though I've been up for several hours.  I don't have any classes today, so I thought it would be an easy day to get caught up.  And then I pondered the list of things that need to get done.  Hm.  It's a bit overwhelming at the moment.  I think a cup of strong coffee is in order.  

I've been perusing a few blogs this morning to catch up on the doings of my bloggy friends.  Yes, I left a few comments, though there is more catching up and more commenting to do later.  Right now I'm going to slap on some sunblock and get out to see what the garden has done in my absence.  I got a bit of a preview of it when I took Jefferies out for a pee early this morning, and it looks a bit daunting.  

I've got billing to do, I've got software issues to figure out (the older computer which houses my billing software is making me nervous, so I've transferred it all onto my new laptop, but I can't figure out how to configure the POP email setup so it will actually send the invoices out.)  Seems like I've done everything right, but the email is not going out.  Freakin' computers.  You just gotta love 'em.  

I want to get some exercise in, and I'm got tons of reading and studying to do to get ready for the new semester.  I've got lots of new jobs booked (yay!), and of course that would happen now that I've taken on another personal challenge that promises to be a bit time-consuming.  More on that later. 

And it's hot (and humid) as Hades.  AND I've noticed that the leaves are already changing.  I'm not the only one that's perimenopausal; apparently Vermont weather is as well.  Bloody hell.  

But we got Abigail all settled in to her new living situation for law school, and she's excited about her new venture.  She's handling the whole New Thing -- living apart from her boyfriend and being back in a situation with roommates and back in the classroom and on a campus dining plan -- with aplomb, and we're very proud of her.

Mr. Jefferies had a photo shoot in his dad's fab new apartment in the Financial District, where he totally fits into the decor.  

 

SATURDAY SKY: TRIBECA BRUNCH EDITION

Here we are in beautiful New York, where we had a delicious brunch at an outdoor cafe in Tribeca (mmmmm, spinach-artichoke quiche and tomato-arugula salad for me.)  Following brunch, we did more back-to-school shopping.  Will the back-to-school shopping ever end?  Heh-heh-heh, stay tuned.  Now we are cooling off in Ryan's new apartment, resting our weary feet.  Soon we'll be off to see the law school campus.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

151. Girl With Tulip

She was home for a few days.