small hands

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.

Be safe if you're going out. Please.

I've been walking around in my study, working on some quilts, wondering how I could swing not working anymore. There is no way and I'd be bored and insane, but I could get into this time off stuff.

I didn't realize how exhausted I am.

I dropped my son off at preschool this morning, for the first time this week. It's Sharing Day and he's been a wee bit obnoxious, so off to a structured environment with naptime and rules for him.

I took my girl to her father's house, then I went to Costco for some supplies--cranberry juice, coffee, half and half, butter (go Ma Ingalls), and juice for the kids.

Bare root roses are on sale at Costco. All the David Austin ones they have I own already, but it gave me a happy feeling to see them. A promise that Spring will come.

My brother needed a ride to the airport, because he's going to spend New Years Eve in Las Vegas, so I took him. It's raining like cats and dogs in Vegas, and here. There was thunder this morning.

I am going to sleep a lot between now and January 3rd, when I have to go back to work.

I donated to Oxfam this morning. It feels good to enter my credit card number for a worthy cause, after all the amazon.com-ing I did in the past month.


Dear Friends,

Please support the relief efforts in South Asia by donating to any of the aid organizations listed below.

These international aid organizations are accepting contributions for assistance that they or their affiliates will provide to help victims of the powerful earthquake and resulting tsunamis.

Please forward this message to anyone else that can help.


International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies
PO Box 372
CH-1211 Geneva 19
Switzerland
41-22-730-4222

UNICEF
333 East 38th Street
New York, NY 10016
1-800-FOR-KIDS



Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres
PO Box 2247
New York, NY 10116-2247
1-888-392-0392

Action Against Hunger
247 West 37th Street, Suite 1201
New York, NY 10018
1-212-967-7800


American Friends Service Committee (AFSC Crisis
Fund)
1501 Cherry Street
Philadelphia, PA
1-215-241-7000


Direct Relief International
27 South La Patera Lane
Santa Barbara, CA 93117
1-805-964-4767


Mercy Corps
PO Box 2669
Portland, OR 97208
1-800-852-2100


Oxfam International/Oxfam America
1-800-77OXFAM


Save the Children
Asia Earthquake/Tidal Wave Relief Fund
54 Wilton Road
Westport, CT 06880
1-800-728-3843


World Relief
7 E. Baltimore St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
1-443-451-1900


World Vision
PO Box 70288
Tacoma, Washington 98481-0288
1-888-56-CHILD

I am not going to work this week. Yesterday, when a storm rolled through and the traffic reports were terrible, I rejoiced in my decision.

I let my boy stay home from pre-school yesterday, so the children spent the day underneath me. I am not quite sure why they were so clingy, but I suspect it was post-Christmas-Kwanzaa-sugar-high-sleep-deprived insanity.

Lots of cleaning up after Kwanzaa, which we hosted and was a great success. About 30 people in all, lots of good food, including jambalaya from the recipe I posted earlier.

We spent Christmas at my younger sister's house. Aaron was with us, which made for a wonderful day. He is still tired, recovering from bacterial meningitis and an infection which almost caused him to lose his right eye. And he is traumatized by his experiences in combat. One thing he said is that the soldiers feel very exploited by the media, cameras getting up in their faces after they have been wounded or media reports which tell of their location while they are in battle. It's a terrible thing.

Slowing down, actually being at home and looking around, gives me ideas for home improvement. The rest of the week I plan to clean, organize, and purge (donate). My yards are growing wild, but I will not be able to get out there and mow and weed because of the rain.

I was at home last night, working on this baby quilt:



and reading on Yahoo that two more Marines had been killed in Fallujah. I felt sick to my stomach and then the phone rang and it was my stepmother, calling to tell me that Aaron was home, in Oakland, safe and sound, after getting ill in Iraq and being sent home.



And I had to cry with relief and thanksgiving.

Thank you all for your prayers.

The picture above was taken this morning, when Aaron and my dad paid me a surprise visit.

And thank God he wasn't in Fallujah while Rumsfeld makes a disgusting spectacle of himself.

Merry Christmas everyone. I love you all.

Here is the aforementioned baby quilt, my first of that size.

The pattern is the Sawtooth Star. I decided to use it because there is something very cheerful about the shape. The mama of the baby said that she likes quilts with lots of white, so Sawtooth Star is good for including lots of white.

The thread on the top let me down a bit. It is polyester and it frayed and tangled a lot. The lady at the quilt store recommended cotton thread for the top, I bought it, but it was very, very difficult to work with. The cotton thread didn't flow in the way I wanted.

I quilted around the stars, inside of them, around the border, and then I added some sunflowers for accent across the top. I got the outline of the sunflowers from stencils that are used for painting walls.

I really enjoyed working on it. It was fun. I felt very shy about sending it, though. Photographing it made me see all of its flaws and I actually spent two more days redoing some of the quilting.

* * *

I marked my 10 year anniversary at my job. In many ways it's mind boggling that I've been at the same job for ten years. I also got a promotion and a raise. Nods head and smiles.

So we went to my girl's Batisado on Saturday, so she could get her first level belt in capoeira. It was held at a studio on Fourth Street in Berkeley in the outdoors. While it was quite chilly, it was a beautiful experience.

There were conga drums, tamborines, and other instruments I didn't recognize. There was singing and a ton of kids and parents from everywhere in the world--a gorgeous mosaic.

The batisado took a leisurely pace, with breaks for eating and drinking in between, but I just sat and got with the slower vibe. A nice antidote to the Christmas season madness.

Capoeira is so cool. It's really like a dance, with gymnastics and martial arts. There's no hurting, just interacting/communicating with bodies.

The young women who were at a higher level and had obviously been doing it for a while were all very athletic and centered and strong and I hope capoeira will help my girl achieve the same thing.

The little girls were so cute when it was their turn in the circle; some were right in there interacting with the sensei.

My girl was elated afterward, practically levitating. She wanted a burrito for lunch, so we stopped off and got her one.

In the afternoon, we went to see this movie.

The children hated it. They thought it was boring and I admit the pacing was off and it lost its way.

But I thought it was pretty good. It is not for small children, not mine at least, because much of it goes over their heads. And having subtitles to translate what the baby says will leave the slow and non-readers behind.

There were many more adults in the theater than children.

The production design and the artistic direction are out of this world.

Jim Carrey did not ruin it by overacting, though he had his moments. The casting was something, including Jude Law.

If one is a devotee of the series, then she will not appreciate that the movie chops up the first few books and creates a mishmash of adventures.

On Sunday we went to see D. and her family. We hung out, walked their dog, looked at a $939,000 house just finished down the street, ate pasta and enjoyed their Christmas decorations. D. wants to go to Costa Rica in April and I'm down for it.

I think it will be a quiet week at work. I had a very late night visit with FIRE, so I'm a bit sleepy.

Given to me by this awesome individual.

Cinnamon Rolls



4 1/2 - 5 C (unbleached/organic, if doable) flour
4 t active dry yeast (2 packages)
3/4 C milk
1/2 C water
1/2 C vegetable shortening (part butter -- also, I use Spectrum's non-hydrogenated shortening -- it works very well)
1/2 C sugar (or rapadura, or ecocrystals, or turbinado)
1 t salt
2 eggs, room temperature

Measure 1 3/4 C flour into yr large mixer bowl. Add yeast and blend. Measure milk, water, shortening, sugar, and salt into saucepan. Blend. Heat until warm (about 120-130 degrees F).

Pour into flour/yeast mixture. Add eggs. Beat 30 seconds with electric mixer at low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 3 more minutes at high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Stop mixer.

Gradually stir in more flour (by hand) to make a soft dough. It will be rather sticky. Knead on lightly floured board or counter until nice an' smooth, about 5-10 minutes (it's good exercise!!). Cover with bowl or pan and let rest for 20 minutes.

Shape as desired. Here's what I do: I cut the hunk of dough in half, roll out one of the halves until it's flat and rectangular and large, brush it with butter, sprinkle it with a cinnamon/sugar mixture, add raisins (sometimes), and roll it up. Then I cut off the ends and cut the rest into 1" wide slices. They usually fit nicely into 2 9" greased cake pans. Then I put them in a warm oven (I usually warm it to 200 degrees for a few minutes, then turn it off) with a pan of hot water under them and a foil tent over them and let them rise for 40 minutes, or until doubled.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. You can ice these with powdered sugar icing (I usually do) after they've cooled off, but believe me when I tell you that they're wonderful just plain and warm outta the oven. Cool them on a rack. When they're cool, you can wrap them in foil, and freeze. Just warm them in a 250 oven for about 45 minutes and oooh boy, it's like you just made 'em.

Enjoy them -- the recipe is from a cookbook called Homemade Bread, published by the Farm Journal people in 1969.

Thank goodness the weekend is here.

I had to drive through the thickest fog of my life this morning to get to court. I was dreading it because the opposing counsel is The Boogie Man for me right now, the attorney who most fills me with fear and loathing. Mostly loathing. But he was not there. He sent a reasonable person instead. And the judge gave us more time, which I didn't expect.

So the morning went well. How could it not when I had coffee and two pieces of See's candy for breakfast? (Hey, it's the Christmas season, so I ain't shamed.)

I have been working my brains out all week. It's one thing to have a hectic Christmas season (shopping, wrapping, decorating, cooking) it's another to also have to work flat out on motions and hearings.

Tonight I am going to this restaurant with my younger sister, to celebrate her birthday earlier this week.

My girl is now interested in capoeira, about which I am very glad. I am pleased with the dance and martial arts aspect of it, as well as the fact that it was created by enslaved Africans in Brazil. It is one of the classes she is going to take next semester in her Afterschool program. And my boy can take it next year, when he is in kindergarten. It will supplement his Spider Man fantasy.

We are going to a capoeira studio on Saturday, and then to see this (though I predict Jim Carrey will ham it up so much that it will ruin the movie--we'll see).

On Sunday we're going to see D. and her family for our holiday visit. She invited us to go with them on a post-Christmas trip to Disneyland, but I am not up to it.

I am working on another baby quilt for another expectant mum. It is coming together nicely. I will post pictures of the work in progress and the other completed quilt in the next couple of days.

And there are definitely cinnamon rolls on tap sometime this weekend.

Hope y'all enjoy the weekend and resist the holiday madness. Or the holiday blues. Or both.

There are 19-1/2 sticks of butter in my house and all is right with the world.

I had the most unusual conversation with my girl this morning. We were on 80 East, heading to her school and we passed a semi-truck with big metal containers on it.

She wondered what it was carrying and theorized that the containers had coffins in them.

I said that they didn't transport coffins that way because coffins are very, very expensive. She wanted to know why. I said people charge a lot of money for coffins because they can, taking advantage of grieving people by saying "Your dad died and I know he'd want to be buried in this $14,000 coffin."

So then she told me that she wants to be buried in a coffin. I was very surprised. I said, "Oh really? Okay. Well if that's what you want, let me know so I can start saving money to buy one. Because they're very expensive. Do you want to be buried next to Greatgrandma Mary?"

She asked what I wanted and I said that I wanted to be cremated and no coffin and I especially didn't want people to look at my dead body at a funeral.

She equivocated about the whole coffin thing because she doesn't want to be viewed either, so I told her she didn't have to decide today. Then she (not surprisingly) wanted to change the subject.

I think it's an appropriate conversation to have because death is real and it can happen at any time. Her classmate Ben is fighting for his life right now, enduring a punishing round of chemotherapy to cure the cancer that is/was in his brain.

I don't want to be a complete downer. In happier news, I shampooed my boy's hair last night and now his head smells like a big piece of orange candy.

He is driedel obsessed, having learned about Hanukkah last week. My girl photocopied a section of a book on the meaning of the symbols on the driedel and they played with it last night, in between dinner and homework and his drawing projects.

On a much happier note, my boy was accepted at my girl's school. So next year, it will be the carpool lane and one stop in the morning for us. I am thrilled with his acceptance and now he seems like such a big boy to me. His preschool director was elated to and gave me a big high five.

I was going to go into the office on Sunday to get some legal research done and prepare for a mediation I have this morning. But then I decided that I was actually going to take the two days which comprise the weekend off and do the research at home.

So what I did yesterday was watched some pre-game shows for football (my favorite being Chris Berman on ESPN), folded a ton of laundry, finished the baby quilt and started the next one (so exciting to finish and then go in a completely different direction color-wise), thought about going outside but then didn't want to be wet and cold (though the plants seem to like it), watched some actual football games, and folded fabric.

I was going to make cinnamon rolls from scratch (we eat them all during the week and they are a quick breakfast) and started by being all science-y and comparing the two bags of yeast I have in the refrigerator. One of them is a dud, but I didn't know which, until I let a tablespoon from each sit in a 1/2 cup of warm water with a teaspoon of sugar for five minute. One had a big head, the other just lay there. Into the garbage for the dead yeast.

Then I realized I was out of butter. I had a Little House on the Prairie moment, Michelle, just like we talked about. It was two-fold:

1. Ma Ingalls would never have been uninformed about the status of the provisions. How could I not know we didn't have any more butter? In the age of Costco and safeway.com, I was out of butter?

2. I felt so deprived, all The Long Winter and shit. There is plenty of other food in the house, but it feels wrong to be out of butter.

It didn't help watching the Barefoot Contessa, since she uses about 8 pounds of butter in everything, god bless her beautiful zaftig self.

I've been thinking about Christmas cards. I decided that the ones I had were rubbish, so I went to the Hallmark store to get some good ones. Since it's what they do, Hallmark indeed had some good ones, kinda generic artwork, not too Christian, more like happy holidays, you know? And I realized that my entire adult life, in shopping for Christmas stuff, I have consciously and unconsciously veered away from items which seem to me to glorify whiteness.

It goes like this. I am not going to buy and send out Christmas cards that have white folks and/or Santa Claus on them. Because I feel negated by that image. I think that's why they have had all these three wise men on Christmas cards all these years--some brown folks are represented.

A wonderful artist and blogger is offering Christmas cards for sale and they're cute and it would be good to support her small business, but the cards perpetuate the same phenomenon that I'm trying to avoid. So I passed. (And it's interesting to me that Cate Blanchett spoke in Vogue magazine this month about why she was leaving her native country and part of it was the intolerance to diversity. I had never heard this spoken of, as her native country has very good PR.)

And another person (whom I really dig) mentioned a calendar which has really cool and empowering artwork. But when I checked it out, my first thought was--where are the people of color? Power to some of the people?

And I'm being elliptical because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But it's on my mind.

I got Winnie's holiday card. It's proudly displayed in my living room. Thank you Winnie!

Waahh!!! It's been a 24 hour sprint since yesterday afternoon. I multi-tasked mightly all day, then raced to get my kids, take them home, and shlepp a bunch of groceries into the house.

My boy was being extraordinarily obnoxious, including throwing his juice box across the room because it was the wrong flavor juice and spitting on the floor. Of course, I had to get all up in his world about this behavior.

One reason I had to nip this atrocious behavior in the bud was because I had to write a brief at home in the evening. After he had dinner and we calmed down at the dinner table, he let me work, turning on the television in my study so that I could watch cartoons while I wrote. Um, thanks.

The brief came together and I could see what I needed to do on Thursday morning. I made revisions which I e-mailed to my secretary, hoping she could enter them before I got into the office. However, she got in later than I did, so I made the revisions myself. I had to revise a really long declaration by an engineer (a nit-picky bunch, god bless them) and revise the brief even more, before leaving for a deposition from hell in the afternoon.

I got it done with two minutes to spare and then went to the client's office to meet for the deposition. At his office I learned that the deposition had been postponed. Picture Julie Andrews dancing on the hillside in the Sound of Music. I so did not want to attend this deposition.

My client and I went to lunch, then I went shopping for a really good Christmas present for my secretary, and now I am back in the office working on the next monster brief.

And I'm drinking Honey Vanilla Chamomile tea, trying to calm the hell down.

We got the tree on Saturday. My kids had a great time picking it out at the Delancey Street lot on Broadway. The fine folks who work there give the kids toys--my boy a Darth Maul lunch bag. He wanted to know why they call Darth Maul "Angry Mom" so we had to say the name slowly.

V. was finishing up in the dining room, so he and his guys carried the tree into the house. I appreciated the help, although in the past four years I single-handedly carried the 10 foot tall Noble firs in myself.

We decorated the tree and the house and my kids are now extremely excited about the holiday season. We ate Sunday dinner by candlelight with the tree lit up and glowing in the adjacent living room.

If I met a genius, like Albert Einstein or something, I would ask him or her not about physics or math, but how he or she stores Christmas lights so that he or she doesn't have to spend hours and hours untangling them. Probably wraps them around a wheel like a garden house.

Today my boy had his kindergarten interview. He said that the teachers were nice and he had fun. I will know at the end of next week at the latest if he is admitted to my girl's school or not. I'm on pins and needles. A friend, calling to invite me out to lunch for today, asked me if I got to be in the room while my boy was interviewed. I said no, the parents were placed in a nearby room with a case of tequila. He hoped the school provided limes for us as well. He said he would take a rain check on lunch. I said that was fine, but if my boy wasn't accepted, I was going to take hostages, so he would need to visit me in prison and bring chocolate cake.

I am in the home stretch of quilting the baby quilt. I was in the weeds for a while and had to rip out some stitching, but then I got my bearings and I'm having a great time working on it. I will post a picture after I send it to the expecting mother (and she receives it).

I worked late yesterday evening because there is so much work and I didn't have to pick up my kids.

I drove up to the house and the porch light was off, but I could see water on my walkway.

My first thought was "Help me Lord, V. has destroyed my house." I envisioned him disconnecting the drain/sewer pipe in the dining room and water issuing all the way from the dining room, through the living room and entry hall, across the front porch, down the front steps and across the walkway.

I wished there was someone to hold my hand at that moment and walk with me through the front door.

I walked up the front steps and they were dry, so I felt a little better. I walked into the dark house and went straight to the dining room. There I saw that the ground was dry, the floors were not ruined, and new pipes were in place. What a huge relief.

I spent the rest of the evening quilting the baby quilt (so much smaller and easier than a king sized quilt!) and watching Alias.

This morning V. arrived with his crew while I was still in my bathrobe, eating an English muffin and watching Alias (bad A.J., get ready for work) to finish sheet rocking and replacing my wainscoting and painting.

* * *

I have entered the phase of needing/wanting to write lists for everything I need to do. There's too much work and too many demands to keep track of any other way. I'm not a filofax type of chick, but a junk mail envelope with a list of the back of it stuffed into my pocket is my new best friend.

Online Christmas shopping is the bomb. I'm sitting in my office and my secretary lugs in this heavy ass box from the fine folks at amazon.

I'm giving this to my mom:



She's going to have to share it with my girl, who is studying the Gee's Bend quilts in her art class right now and has made two quilted pillows based on the inspiration that she experienced from the quilts.

And this to my girl, J., since we ate there together and she's one of the best cooks on the planet:



The only challenge is to break the online shopping habit. I've noticed that I have TONS more books on topics that interest me, now that I can just find them and order them online. I love it, but they're not giving those books away.

It's a beautiful day and I feel terrific.

The weather is still chilly, but the air is so clear.

I had a sleepover with FIRE, which was time well spent.

I got to court on time.

I had lunch (Szechuan Chinese food--a big old spicy plate of green beans) with my friend R., one of my favorite people.

I received Season Three of Alias in the mail, loaned by the generous and lovely Lisa. I started watching it last night, while I finished (yay) piecing the baby quilt. Oh! I was yelling at the television like a completely deranged person.

A few weeks ago, I was buying fabric and the fabric cutter asked me what I was going to make with it. (I think this is a company policy, to have the cutters ask. I think it's intrusive and really, we don't need to make small talk. Not while 70s music is blaring over the sound system and making me feel insane.) I told the fabric cutter that I was making a quilt, that I was sewing and watching an "Alias marathon." She got this completely panicked look on her face, like she was going to lay her scissors down and run home. She said "There's a marathon?" I said "Oh, well, I got the first two seasons on DVD." Then she relaxed. She said "Oh. Whew. I love Alias." I had to laugh.

I was racing to court on Tuesday morning, listening to Carl Honore on the radio advocating the slow movement, challenging the lifestyle he calls "the cult of speed."

Uh huh. That's fine for him. But I have to race to court because that's my job and I have to work because I'm the breadwinner.

He did mention that eating at the table with one's family is part of the slow movement and I felt glad that my kids and I do that. I feel most rushed when I see a neatly folded pile of fabric that I want to sit down and savor, but I can't because I am in a hurry. Or when I have to make my bed and go to work instead of sleeping for a couple more hours.