Guitar Hero 3
I've never been one to spend too much time playing video games. I'm generally not that good at them, with the exception of games that benefit from many buttons being mashed all at once (Soul Caliber, I'm looking at you). That said, we purchased a Wii in December of 2006 and since that I've found a lot more games that I'm decent at. I can stomp all over TheBoy when it comes to playing Mario Kart on the virtual console, much to his consternation.
One of the benefits of being at the LAN party last weekend (more on that soon, I came down with a massive case of exhaustion coupled with a large amount of fluid in the ears) was that I got to watch people playing things. Rock Band, for instance, breeds an awful lot of tone deaf singers, singing loudly. Guitar Hero looked complicated beyond belief, but also really really fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get any time to play myself and Sunday found me whining to TheBoy that I really wanted to play it. His solution? Let's go buy it. And we did. And after a few frustrating starts (boy, I cannot wait until they make the left-handed guitar for the Wii, so I don't have a whammy bar in my palm all the time) I managed to beat the game on easy by the end of the evening on Monday.
Since I beat this version, I've started back at the beginning in medium level. It's more challenging to add in that fourth note, plus more chords. Great fun though, I highly recommend it.
The Fist!
Today's Friday Fixation:
I'm too tired to link this to flickr, but I'm here, it's crazy, and it's awesome.
Shibui Knits Sock
Today's fixation is Shibui Knits sock yarn. TheBoy has been asking for socks since fall '04 when we first started living together. At the time, I made my father and one of my fathers-in-law worsted weight boot socks for Christmas. TheBoy? He got the yarn for his in a box. And then I only knit one.
Now, my husband, bless his heart, has big feet. Size 13 wide big. So I knew if he was going to get the socks he wanted I'd better find some yarn (and a lot of it) that I'd enjoy knitting miles of sock with. I always seem to get the urge to buy yarn around nine o'clock at night, after everything local is closed so I've started buying yarn online from Knit/Purl. It's semi-local (in Portland) and my orders arrive within 2-3 business days of placing an order. I think this was the third or fourth order I've placed with them since October or so and I've always been pleased. So while I wholly endorse the yarn shop, let's talk about the yarn.
Look at the colors! The depth of color is wonderful and their semi-solid nature is fantastic. I'm knitting this into a fairly dense fabric (9 stitches per inch on size 1 crystal palace bamboo double pointed needles) and it's still sproingy and wonderful as a fabric. The twist is wonderful, it's a very round yarn which leads me to believe that it would make wonderful tiny cables, although the socks are likely to be far more boring than that. Shibui Knits is a Portland-based company, so I'm doubly supporting my local community (although I believe the yarn is milled elsewhere).
I planned for each sock to use about a skein and a half of yarn, that's almost 300 yards each. They'll be primarily seaweed with contrasting toes, heels and a stripe at the top of the cuff. I expect them to take me a fair amount of knitting time, but it's the kind of knitting that sets my mind on auto-pilot. They'll be my "knitting with other people" project, or my "knitting and actually paying some attention to the tv" project.
Eulogizing
This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
- F. D. Roosevelt
Nanie as a baby, 1921 or 22 I believe [she was born in 1921]
Today would have been the 87th birthday of a woman I loved dearly, a woman who in just three short years made an impact on my life so deep that her passing was one of the key catalysts in a total overhaul in regards to knowing who I am.
Long before I met Nanie, I had heard stories of her from her grandson, my most beloved husband. Nanie was TheBoy's maternal grandmother and growing up with a working mom, he had spent many many afternoons and evenings with her, eating corn and hamburgers and making chocolate pudding. She had a metal hamburger patty shaper and it was his job to press the meat into the ring to form neat, even burgers for their dinner (this ring now lives in our home, as both a precious artifact and also as useful tool).
When I moved to Oregon two short weeks before my 23rd birthday, Nanie (who I would not meet until nearly a month later) sent gifts to me via my husband's mother. They were totally random, but clearly showed me that I had been welcomed to the family even though my relationship with her grandson was still relatively new and untested. The gifts were powerful symbols to that effect.
Nanie and my mother-in-law, 1973
When I met Nanie, I was nervous. My grandparents were either a. long passed or b. distant geographically and I had not spent much time with members of their generation. I was (and to an extent still am) unsure of how to talk to and act around the elderly. My nervousness with Nanie melted away easily and I quickly began to understood what it meant to really have a grandparent who was close both emotionally and geographically. I cannot recommend it enough, and I am truly sad that I will never again have that same type of relationship with anyone else.
Nanie was a total spitfire. A fall down the stairs a few years back had lowered her mobility so we were frequently called upon to carry things down from her upstairs for her. She continued to go for walks as many days as the weather allowed, cheerfully pushing her bright red walker around her neighborhood in all but the worst of weather, her scotty dog Reggie by her side. Unfortunately I never got to meet Reggie as he passed on just before I moved here, but I hear he was as much a spitfire as she was.
Nanie was occasionally grumpy and always stubborn. She was fiercely devoted to her family and her friends and was always there to help us along when we hit a rough patch. She loved to entertain, although in the final year or so of her life her ability to do so was starting to diminish. Our family will never forget the Sunday Dinner at her house where she insisted on serving me a pressed turkey loaf. The rest of the family was eating ham, a food I patently disliked and although my mother-in-law tried to convince her to cook me a chicken breast, or a real turkey breast, she was insistent that this turkey loaf was the best option. Well, I can tell you, it was not. It was soggy, and covered in gravy, a food I am patently revolted by. I scraped the jelly-like gravy off politely and forced myself to choke down enough to pretend that I was full. At the end of the dinner she tried to send the leftover turkey home with me. I begged off, insisting she should keep and eat it because I'd never eat it all before it spoiled. She was happy and none-the-wiser. Me? I got a hamburger on my way home.
Nanie in 1982. Taken at JC Penney, this was during the time she worked there.
Nanie was a Knitter. Somewhere during the last year of her life she lamented to me that she could no longer knit booties because the needles she needed for them were too small for her arthritic hands. She was also a talented seamstress. She was redheaded, although it had faded greatly as she aged. She had only worked outside of the home for a short time in her life, when she worked at JC Penney. She spent the early part of her life in Illinois, only moving west to please her husband (Papa). She never really liked the rain and always missed the Midwest although I'm sure the Rockford she remembers is now a much changed city. She and Papa got a divorce in the 1970s when it was still an uncommon thing to do, but she saved cards and letters he had written her while they were married (she and Papa remained friendly until he passed in 1999).
I remained mute at Nanie's memorial service, because any words I would have liked to say would have been strangled by my tears. However, had I been able to say what I would have liked to, it would have read very similarly to this here. I am still angry that I got to spend such a short time with her but I am so thankful that it was as long as it was. I have mourned, finally, the passing of my own grandparents in my mourning for her. I know how much she loved me, and that I was never her grandson's girlfriend/wife, I was her granddaughter. My only regret was all the questions I never thought to ask about her life, the stories she could have told me if only prompted. She apparently started to write her life story at one point, that document is being kept safely by her daughter, to be held for posterity. I am thrilled that she was able to enjoy our wedding, that she was strong and well for it, and that her end was short and pain-free.
Nanie at our wedding in 2007.
Happy birthday Nanie, your passing has left a hole in my heart that no one will ever be able to fill, and I love you.
bloggers (silent) poetry reading
Today is the Feast of St. Brigid. I'm a little indifferent to most poetry, but there are a few that hold great meaning for me. This one speaks to my roots, my training, my loves and my love. In fact, it was the poem that my older sister read for us at our wedding [my younger sister read a snippet of The Velveteen Rabbit, about being loved until you were worn out, and how that's when you become real].
Scaffolding
Seamus Heaney
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.