Sunday October 8
So early last week I announced to the Emperor that I needed to go to Another Small City east of us and bring a colleague some materials on Saturday. The Imperial Headache arrived on schedule, so I went alone to do my chore. I had a good hard shop in Cool College Town and then came back to a much-improved Emperor. We still need to get east and do some furniture shopping, but we might be able to do that this weekend. I'm not telling him until it's time to pack a bag.
Two weekends ago Sis and I descended on Our Father to check on his living conditions. Dad has been falling more lately, and one of his neighbors called me in horror of the way his house looks. Because of Neighbor's recommendation, we decided to drop in unannounced, thinking that Dad might take us more seriously if a) both of us were there and b) we'd each come from over a thousand miles away on a weekday to do it. Let me preface this by saying that my dad can edge into the madness that is known as Hoarding. I expect his house to have stuff in it, and when I used to live much closer I used to spend my visits cleaning house for him, even though he was still able to take pretty good care of himself. I thought I knew what he was capable of.
When we drove up, we could hear the theme from the movie "Deliverance" wafting on the breeze from the street. Okay, that's a metaphor, but still ... oh my gosh.
Well, Neighbor was right -- things were pretty bad. I almost didn't recognize the house, and the mess was ... well, let's just say it was epic. Sis and I played "good cop/bad cop" and I talked to Dad while she read the riot act to our cousin, who's living with Dad and supposed to be taking care of him and the house. Complicating matters is the presence of a menacing three year old kid -- my second cousin's son, who is a large (as in tall and strong, not fat) child, severely autistic and extremely destructive. Without getting into the gory details, the upshot is that I'll be returning in early November and while there, we'll be laying out concrete plans to get the house in order. As I told my cousin and my dad, they're both "getting up there" in age and require some help. However, no home health care person will set foot in that house the way it is.
Cousin can't take care of both the child and my dad -- that's clear. Sadly, she's going to have to choose. That both of the child's parents are around but just not taking care of him is what's really pissing us off. They have dumped the kid on Cousin and Dad and are living it up in a swanky hotel, chalking it up to a fiction about a crazy uncle and having to hide the kid for his safety. The child's father -- who has a huge trust fund -- may be landing in jail any time now for leaving the scene of an accident, so we're half-expecting my second cousin to move in with her mom and my dad. I'm just going to have to be a hardnose now, because all of these people are taking advantage of my dad's good nature. Dad says that he's fine, he is comfortable in his surroundings, and I really wonder if he's not thoroughly entertained by the drama, pathos, and suspense of the proceedings. However, I don't think it's healthy for him to live in a house with a sticky black shag rug and that you can smell from the street, and tripping over the stack of toys that are scattered everywhere. It's bad for Dad, and bad for the kid as well.
I heard a thousand excuses for the condition of the house, but they all boil down to "we can't do anything until Child leaves, because he undoes everything we do."
Cousin told me that they expect the kid to be gone "in two or three weeks." When Sis talked to her later, it became "four weeks." When I left, I was promised that when I returned in November, the child will have moved back with his parents and cleared the way for us to get started on cleaning up the house. I fully expect the kid to still be there, my second cousin moved in with them, and the madness to be fully in progress. I fully expect to have to turn into a harpy and I really hate it.
This second cousin is a person I have never, never cared for, even when she was a kid. That she ended up in prison a few times has not surprised me. That she married a man who is in and out of prison does not surprise me. And now I've got to get in her face, tell her to start adulting, and protect my dad from her offspring and this really pisses me off.
Neighbor is poised to call Child Protective Services and have the kid removed to foster care, but I asked her to wait until we have my dad taken care of before doing so. We are both pretty much convinced that if an official of any sort were to get even to the porch of that house as it is, they would have it condemned, put my dad in senior care, and take the kid away. Other neighbors have come to Neighbor with concerns for my dad -- they can hear Cousin screaming at the child and thought she was screaming at Dad. I'm heartened that they care about him, and profoundly embarrassed that he's come to their notice this way. We all did agree, though, that if the child remains with Cousin and we're not able to fix the house, Neighbor will pull the trigger and make the call.
So there it is.
Actual Knitting has taken place this week here at Orchard Ranch. I've been working on those bed socks for the Emperor, but for some reason found using #7 DPNs hard on my hands -- I'd only do a few rounds and then put the project down. Since we're talking about two tube socks that log 23.5 inches each (yep, I measured), this meant that I was headed into another knitter's black hole. Looking at Ravelry tells me that I began this project in December of last year (yep, that's a black hole) so I began to think about how to put on the gas and get this stupidly simple thing off the needles. It occurred to me that this would be a perfect opportunity to learn how to use the Magic Loop technique -- that's using a long circular needle to knit a small-diameter tube. I tried Magic Loop once before, years ago, in those heady days when I'd first learned how to knit and was trying everything, but it didn't appeal to me then. I actually like using small DPNs to knit socks -- there's something delicate about it that I enjoy. I'm using worsted weight yarn to knit these tube socks (thus the #7 needles) so that delicate aspect has been tossed out of the window -- why not give the Magic Loop another try? I looked at a couple of You Tube videos on the technique, dug through my needle stash, and gave it a whirl. I finished the first sock in just a few days, and I'm becoming quite an old hand at the loop business. The second sock is already in progress, with the ribbing at the top finished and a couple of inches of plain stockinette on the long circular needle. It will probably take me a couple of weeks yet to finish, but they'll be done in time for winter.
I tried the first sock on the Emperor and it fits him perfectly. They are exactly as he described them to me last year when he said he wanted a pair.
Because I was using a single ball of Opal, I divided the yarn into two balls using a yardage counter. I then measured out about ten yards at the end of the ball and tied a knot that would tell me when it was time to start decreasing (I used a "star toe" decrease: put in four markers, and do a k2tog right before each marker, every other row a plain row, until there are 12 stitches left, draw them all together and fasten off). Well, I needed eleven yards to finish! I stole a little bit from the other ball, not worrying about the yarn color changes because I did not intend to make a perfectly matching pair. By accident -- without planning at all -- when I started the second sock, it became quickly evident that I was going to have a pair of perfectly matching socks. Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn't. I just hope there's enough yarn to finish this second sock, although I've got plenty of other worsted weight yarns on hand to do the job albeit with a different color -- whoopie doodles.
Sunday October 15 ...
Still knitting, still trying to get the house in order, but I'm starting to make a little bit -- a little bit -- of progress. We didn't get East to do furniture shopping, but I did scoop up the Emperor and take him to Town Down the Road to do a little antique looking. I want a secretary desk to put our bills, stamps, envelopes, etc. in so I can close the lid and enclose the mess. We decided to look around locally and see if we could find one that would serve for a reasonable price before taking the plunge and getting one at a big box in the city. I found one, a nice one, but about half the size I had hoped for and for about four times as much as I wanted to spend. Before I was finished looking, The Imperial Headache arrived and that was the end of the hunt. I took things into my own hands and after delivering him to the house, I went over to Big Box and bought one piece of furniture to solve one area, some big storage jars to solve another issue, and a boat load of curtain rings so I could hang the curtains I bought in Cool College Town last week. I'm not sure what I'll accomplish today, but I'm going to get something done. There's plenty to choose from around here.
I've pretty much decided that I'm going East next week to get that desk, and if the Emperor gets a headache then he can stay home in bed and I'll go by myself. He's going to be visiting with his new doctor soon, and I plan to be a pest and get this guy to figure out what's causing the headaches and come up with something to alleviate them so we can get on with getting on.
Just... grr.
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