It's curtains for me.

The living room is clear, except for the end tables that will eventually be taking up residence in the basement. We hooked up the electronics and watched Galaxy Quest a few days ago while we did this. Now we've got the library to put together (i.e. get all the textbooks out of their boxes and onto shelves, probably get more shelves, rescue Eric's other books from storage, and--according to his wish--alphabetize books within genre) and the dining room to finish off (a couple of boxes of knickknacks). And locks and the leaky faucets in the basement to replace. But otherwise: we're basically done!

Except that the windows are uncovered. That's not true, exactly; two of them, now, are hung with curtains. There are six. See, I had bought this lovely linen/cotton material at $2.77 a yard (making it about $6 a window, rather than the $40 it would have cost by buying from, say, Target) and promised to make curtains. After all, how hard could they be? And indeed they're not hard; all I have to do is cut the appropriate length and trim an inch off the selvedge (because it's slightly discolored at the edges, which is why it was $2.77 a yard) and cut that piece in half and seam up three sides (with nice mitred corners) and sew a big loop on the end. And indeed it's not hard, but I just didn't want to do it. But the windows get very big and black at night and it's not very pleasant to sit and watch a movie, or sit and read, in the living room with those windows staring. So last night I finally got motivated and finished the second pair and cut lengths for the other four pairs. I will do my best to complete at least one curtain a night until they're finished. Then I get to work on the front door, the back door, the stairway window, and the bathroom window, but only once I find the right fabric at the right price. I'm figuring that at this rate, my sewing machine is paying for itself even if I didn't use it for enjoyment with quilting.

We've also been looking for a premarital counselor. This is something we'd discussed before--because our history is, well, odd, and we've both got some concerns because of it, we wanted to talk to someone. But Eric priced it a few days ago and it's going to be about $120 an hour, several sessions at least, and insurance won't cover it. As Eric said, that's a lot of dishes to throw at each other we could simply buy instead. I suggested a workshop or a class, which I've heard of as cheaper (though less individualized), and focusing more on skills for problem-solving, communication, etc. Eric liked that idea, and so I've been looking around--but can't find anything that isn't religious. I think this is interesting, particularly considering that several states are currently proposing making covenant marriages, which would require premarital counseling, a legal option. I wrote to the Ohio Department of Mental Health and asked if they had any suggestions on nonreligious premarital education. The very nice guy who responded suggested that I try the county mental health board. He added something about, "If there is any question of who you should speak to, ask for the Client's Rights Officer. They tend to be good at problem-solving." I get the feeling that this is not a question they're prepared to answer. I did more poking around and found that Ohio State University apparently offers classes, and also a newsletter. It's mostly one-page briefs on listening, communication, being willing to face conflict, knowing your partner, and so on. Reading through it I'm feeling that the education bit isn't going to be so much a problem as the concerns-about-our-history bit. Eric has said that perhaps we don't need a counselor if we keep talking about it between ourselves. I think this makes sense, but now I'm feeling disappointed that there aren't the resources to talk to someone about this--something that might, you know, prevent a divorce, if that were an option with us--without paying someone several hundred dollars.

Also I have just discovered that my bank and my check company are having a tiff and I'm caught in the middle, so I need to call people to yell at them. One thing about this job, it's certainly making me braver about calling people.

Kicking things off right.

Eric is up in Ann Arbor today, playing D&D with a group of friends he's been playing D&D with for years. So I came home and made harira, except with Great Northern beans instead of chickpeas because we don't have any, and called my mom. Mom was packing for her first move in twenty-one years and all she wanted to talk about was the wedding. She conceded it was very reasonable of us to drop the wedding planning until the house was in order, then wanted to know: what sort of food were we serving? Who were my bridesmaids? What colors had we picked? Had I selected bridesmaid dresses yet? (Michelle wanted to know this too. Apparently it's one of the first decisions a bride has to make. Or maybe it's just the decision the wedding party wants to know about.) I asked her about flowers and she said, "Does Eric wear a suit to work?"

I said no, he wears slacks and a tie, and she said, "Oh. Because in Korean tradition the bride's parents give the groom a suit. Would he ever need to wear a suit?"

I said of course, he could definitely use a suit, and she asked me about sizes because Nordstrom is having their Anniversary Sale (the good one; the other is the Half-Yearly Sale, and it's not as good) soon and she wants to be able to get something good if she sees it. Then she said, "Have you made his mother a quilt?"

I said yes, actually, for Christmas, and she said, "What kind? Because we give the groom's parents a blanket. So I was thinking you could make a quilt." I said that the quilt was a small Christmas lap quilt, and I could certainly make her another, bigger, better one; and she said she could also just buy a mink (note: fake, I think it's actually nylon, but soft and snuggly and available only in Oriental stores for some reason) blanket for her, but maybe it would be nice if I made it, and I said that would be fine, I have almost a year, and she said that was true, and we'd think about it.

She also said that traditionally, the grooms' parents give the bride lots of clothes, but obviously she didn't expect them to do that. "But I'm doing my part," she said. I'm going to have to ask her more about Korean weddings. It hadn't occurred to me to ask her about them, because from what my cousin Unhae said, and from the videos we watched of her wedding and her sister's, I figured they were Westernized; but maybe that's not so, or maybe Mom's thinking about weddings in her own time. Either way, I would very much like to be able to include some traditional Korean aspects in the wedding.

Meat + Veggie = Dinner

I love grocery shopping. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm still (yes, after--dear God--seven years now) in the discovery stage of cooking: I can buy these, and turn it into this! I wonder what other combinations would taste good! Maybe it's because I never got over that I'm-a-big-girl-and-I-can-pay-for-it-all-by-myself thing. (Probably not, since I don't like clothes shopping anymore.) Maybe it's because I just like food. I went today, and filled my basket to the brim with bread and vegetables and blueberries for $1.77 a pint and ground beef and raspberry lemonade ($1 each, down from $1.59, and I bought the last four).

Yes, ground beef. I now shop for a meat eater. It's strange. I have a very basic understanding of how to pick beef out--bright red, sirloin is leaner than round is leaner than chuck, big chunks of fat are undesirable--but I haven't gotten feedback on it in...well, I'm not sure I ever got feedback, since Mom never sent me to the meat section to get anything, she got it herself and told me what she was looking for. But if I had it would have been eleven years ago. I've bought sausages and frozen chicken chunks for Eric before, but those are standardized and require no thought. Beef, though, is important to the boy. He still considers meat the main part of his meal, though what we've been doing is having a main vegetarian dish with a side or two that I'll have and another--a little chunk or slice of meat--for him. I'm hoping to someday change this view of things, but I suspect it's going to take a long time.

I may be able to help it along slightly. My schedule, wherein I work from 12:30 to 9 PM most nights, doesn't make it easy for me to do much cooking, and this is starting to drive me crazy. There's only so much canned soup and pasta with canned sauce I can eat. So I'm going to start cooking (or preparing) in the mornings and make food for myself like I'm used to. There are some things that he likes too--cheesy potato casserole, fried rice--but not enough to satisfy me So I've informed him that the kitchen will be producing peanut broccoli pasta and Pad Thai and artichoke-lentil pasta and roasted vegetables and couscous salad, and he says he's okay with it. He's even going to try a bite of all but the most esoteric stuff (or things he already doesn't like, such as peanut sauce). I hope to expand our list of mutually liked foods. Or I'm just going to have to become rich enough to hire a cook.

A mess, but coming along.

The house is mostly done. We've got some more boxes to unpack, and some furniture of Eric's to get rid of, and a place to find for storing blankets, but the kitchen and dining room and bathroom and bedroom and computer room and sewing room and library are functional. And that's all anyone really needs. The TV isn't hooked up, and at this rate may not be for weeks, especially if I never finish sewing the curtains. But priorities, people.

Also the pipes leading to the washer leak. But we're on it.

The Fourth of July was memorable for the bad and overly loud band (the Nutones) and the family that was lighting sparklers and trying to burn the grass with them. Oh, and nice fireworks and kettle corn. The Toledo celebration isn't bad at all.

We've made ridiculously rich chocolate ice cream, the sort of thing that couldn't be used in Death by Chocolate because adding more to it would actually make it distasteful.

And then there's the car. A description pulled from my e-mail to M:

Last Monday I backed out in a hurry because I thought I was going to be late for work and failed to see the black Jeep Rover that's always parked right across from our driveway, and crunched into it. I pulled over and dashed a very quick note on a
scrap of paper. Walking to the Jeep I noticed there wasn't much damage, a little paint scraping. Walking back to my car I noticed a huge dent in my rear bumper guard and a broken taillight cover. (The light itself still works...I think.) I turned out to be exactly on time for work. That night I came home, talked to Eric about it, and
when we went out to go to his mom's there was a note sticking out of the mailbox where there hadn't been one before: "I live at 153 Cornell. You hit my Jeep Rover. Call me to discuss," with name and phone number. I was annoyed because why hadn't she called me, and why hadn't she knocked. It was too late to call then, but I called about four times on July 4 and got a busy signal each time, then called July 5 and left a message, then called July 6 at a different time and left a mesage. No reply, and I decided I'd given it a good-faith shot and stopped calling.

Today, I heard the phone ring while I was at work, and when I checked it for some reason I decided to check voicemail, even though there was no little icon. Four messages, two of them from Jeep Rover Owner. So I called and said I hadn't received her earlier message, which I'm not sure she believed, and said if she got an estimate I'd give her or them a check. She seemed a little taken aback, but I'm not sure why; it's not like I'd give her a blank check or she'd have me take her car in. Anyway, it was extremely minor damage, probably just requiring sanding and repainting, so I'm not expecting it to be too much...but we'll see. And then there's my car, which at least needs its taillight cover repaired. Plus new tires and a flush and fill and maybe new spark plugs, but that was from before. Grrr. However, the lesson is that a Jeep Rover really is build tough. (Though I think that's the Ford slogan.)

So there you have it. Things are a mess but coming along.

Preview of what I would write if I weren't too busy and cranky and hot.

Annoying day. Reasons: (1) People who use their answering machines to screen callers, then pick up the phone at the tail end of the message, forcing me to repeat myself and change all my notation for the call. (1a) People who throw my printout away because I wasn't there the very instant it printed but instead arrived two minutes later. (2) Fiance is doing all the painting and I think the color I picked for the sewing room is too yellow and not enough orange. (3) Tornado sirens forcing me to hang up in the middle of a call to huddle in the downstairs hallway for an hour.

Jennifer Homeowner has flashbacks

Ah, paint. Eric and I painted the living room and entryway today. We meant to do it completely, but that was before we realized that (a) we didn't have enough tape and (b) we didn't have enough paint. They're both mostly windows and archways so I had thought the one gallon would be enough, but no. And since we're painting over a dull dark green, we need at least one more coat. The rooms look much lighter, though, and I had no mishaps such as the ones I had the last time I painted.

We also taped off another room upstairs (aside from the living room, we've got two bedrooms and the bath to paint--we painted the basement a few days ago, because the previous owners had inexplicably painted most of it black, and with the white down there it's marvelously brighter) and discovered that the previous homeowners may have been fix-it types, they weren't very good fix-it types. There was a small desk built into a narrow corner in the room destined to be my sewing room, and the supports for it were actually glued to the walls. Eric got some satisfaction out of smashing them with a hammer until they broke off and then spackling up the holes (plaster would probably have been better, but we didn't have any and we did have the spackle handy).

Also, last night while Eric was playing World of Warcraft I did my part of our bargain that gets Eric to mow the lawn, and started taking care of the garden. Behind the garage is a square of earth, about as big as the garage, with a raised bed in the middle and a pear and an Asian pear around. My eventual plan is to clear this area of grass entirely and have herbs, vegetables, and fruit bushes, but this year I'm starting small. So I planted a raspberry bush near the Asian pear, and two pepper and two tomato plants, and some peas, and mint and basil and dill around the chives plant that Edith gave me and that Eric mowed down because I hadn't put enough dirt around it to make it clear it wasn't a particularly big clump of grass. I also cleared most of the raised bed. The previous owners had placed black plastic over one half of this, and in the other they'd planted strawberries...and then, over the plastic, they apparently planted lettuce, because there were four clumps of it, growing out of shallow roots in the little bit of dirt on top of the plastic. And in the non-plastic area, the strawberry plants were dwarfed by spiky yellow-flowered weeds. I got Michelle to whack some of them for me by pointing out that when they were cleared, she could see the strawberries hidden in the greenery, and she could eat any she found. In the meantime, I spread the 240 lb of topsoil and 40 lb of garden soil I'd bought (at about 2.5 cents a pound, for the topsoil at least) and planted. I'm not sure what to do to kill off the rest of the grass for next year--I've only covered about a quarter of what I eventually want to have as planting ground. I figure I'll have a gravel U-shaped path around the raised bed, but for the rest, do I cover it with dirt this year and wait for the grass beneath it to die, or do it early spring next year, or cover it with plastic now, or what?

Anyway, I have plants planted, as well as cantaloupe seeds started inside the house. We've got the first coat of paint on the front room and entry. The U-Haul is reserved for next Saturday. We bought an ice cream maker. We're well on our way to moving in.

Still life with fish and cherries

We have achieved house! It currently has no utilities, since the owner cancelled them for Friday (when we were originally closing) and we hadn't signed up for them yet, but I'll be fixing that in a few minutes. Then I'll be going over to clean what I can without water or electricity. The owner left a ridiculous amount of stuff, including an exercise bike in the basement (I wish he'd asked, as that would be heavy as heck to carry upstairs, but fortunately it works and I could actually use something like that), a couple of nice glass pitchers, an array of clean mugs in the top shelf of the dishwasher, a carefully packed box of funny glass, a stuffed toy, and an opened cup of blueberry yogurt. We're glad we went to look (and unload book boxes from my trunk, after 8 months of driving them around) last night. Pictures will be forthcoming, but probably not until the real/virtual housewarming. Rest assured it is a wonderful house, even if it is making both of us slightly uneasy for different reasons.

I dreamed about cleaning a fish tank last night. I dream this often, and it's usually in different places, but I've always forgotten that it was there and there are always more live fish than you'd expect from me forgetting it and therefore not feeding them. I don't know what this means. I did own an aquarium from age eight to twenty inclusive, but I haven't had one now for years. Though, actually, another of the things the owner left was a hundred-gallon aquarium, also in the basement, so maybe that triggered it.

In other news: I appear to be allergic to cherries. Two nights ago I ate some cherries and started sneezing and sore-throating. My tongue also itched a little, but I was figuring I was starting a cold so didn't pay attention. The next day, I felt better. Then I ate a few cherries I'd brought as a snack and my nose started running and my throat started hurting and my tongue started itching. It turns out cherries are closely related to hazelnuts, which I already know I'm allergic to (but more closely to almonds, which I'm not). Cherries. A chocolate allergy would almost be better. At least then I'd be avoiding something not particularly good for me. But cherries are luscious and wonderful and seasonal. Plus they're also related to peaches. If I become allergic to peaches, I will be one unhappy vegetarian.

Jewelry stores: the horror.

There are further difficulties with closing. Specifically, the title company has not given me a final number. Without this I haven't been able to get to the bank to get a cashier's check, and we're closing at 4 on Monday--I can't make that time either, but Eric can and I'll just be late; they'll have to put up with it since I'll theoretically be the one with the money--and I work that morning so I have no time to get to the bank that day either. I think it'll work out that I can call the bank and pick it up on my way to closing, but I'm not pleased with Louisville Title right now.

However, we resolved the other stuff, including the electrical work we'd requested--it turns out that our inspector may not have known what he was talking about, which is a little disturbing. We didn't get the quote for a whole-house rewire as we'd requested, but the essential stuff is safe now so we're not going to worry about it yet.

Now, jewelry stores. I've been meaning to write this down for a week and kept forgetting whenever I had time to sit down and do it. I haven't been in a jewelry store since--no, that's not true. I went to a jewelry store in 2002 to pick out a watch for my graduation present, but Mom was with me and was ruthless about getting salespeople out of our way. Before that was several years earlier, also with Mom, but Mom was looking for a nice present for Dad and the salesman kept pressuring her to buy a particular piece she was looking at. I didn't like that. I was also pressuring Mom, because I liked the piece and I thought she should get it, but that was different: I was the daughter, and I had a right. They should have been leaving her alone. (She did end up getting it, though I think it took longer because she was trying to make up her own mind while ignoring both me and the salesman.)

Anyway, last week Eric and I stopped at Kay Jewelers to look at wedding rings because we'd been discussing wedding planning and figured hey, why not. So we stepped into the store, finding the right case almost immediately, and a saleswoman swooped.

"Finding anything you like?" she said. "Looking for anything in particular? Let me know if you want to examine something." Then, before we could do more than thank her, "Let me show you some of these new tungsten rings. See the hammered finish on these? I think that's lovely. You might consider our Superior Fit (or whatever) rings. See how they're concave on the inside? That's so the edges don't become sharp." The insides were convex. She said to Eric, "Are you a diamond man, or do you want something a little more simple? We have yellow or white gold here, and some two-tone rings here. We have thinner versions for the ladies," she said to me. "What's your ring look like?"

I lifted my hand and showed her my sapphire, and her face contorted itself from normal salesperson cheerful into a rigid polite. "That's very nice," she said, and quickly talked about other things. It was clear that she was horrified that my ring was not a diamond, and probable that she felt none of the rings she was showing me would be a suitable match, as I had probably gotten my ring from a Cracker Jack box. Or perhaps she figured Eric had been too cheap to get me a diamond and therefore we wouldn't be such a good sale. She sailed on with her pitch nonetheless, talking nonstop until we said, "Thanks for showing us the rings," and walked out.

It took me a while to recover. I never had such a jewelry experience before--or any other sales experience, except maybe shopping for my car. I had no idea walking into a jewelry store was such an ordeal. I wonder if all jewelry stores are like this, and if they've tried noninvasive salespeople or just assumed raptors are the best way to get people to part with large sums of money for tiny rocks and metal. Eric and I had already decided that we would never be able to buy gemstone jewelry anywhere other than at the gem show (where we got my ring last year--have I mentioned how much I love this ring? I still hold it up in different lights to see how it sparkles and changes hue) and now I'm not sure I'll be able to buy jewelry anywhere else, except maybe on eBay.

Grrrr.

"Jenny, I just talked to Jennifer," said Mike (where Mike==homeowner's insurance agent, Jennifer==mortgage loan agent, and Jenny==me). "She said that your loan won't go through because the borrower cancelled it."

After a few seconds of strangled inarticulacy on my part he said, "I guess this is news to you?"

I wrote Jennifer a strident e-mail and she called me a couple of hours later to say that she'd made a mistake: that she was handling an account for someone with the same last name as me, so when Mike referenced me, she assumed he was talking about this other account, and that our account was listed under Eric's last name. This has pissed me off throughout, since we're co-borrowers but even the people I've talked to first have put it under his name. But oh well.

Today I re-faxed the purchase contract to Jennifer because the one I sent her last time didn't have both sellers' names on it. She sent me the appraisal, which came in at $4000 over what we're paying, but they still use the lowest value for PMI determination so we can't get up to that 20% like we were hoping to. Note: the appraisal listed the sellers under just one name, the husband's. Presumably this will happen with our house, too. Considering that I'm putting up all the money to get it--well, I and my parents--I think this is completely unfair.

I also talked to the lawyer about getting title work--another reason we can't afford to put the down payment up to 20% is that we don't know how much the lawyer's fee will be--and I will be going to visit Mike at his office to sign a document and give him a check for a full year's insurance. I don't remember having to do this last time I bought homeowner's insurance. In fact, I remember a very nice guy doing everything over the phone and arranging for my insurance to be withdrawn monthly from my account. Maybe I should have asked for him again.

And then, it's hot. Really hot. Yesterday it was 93 and humid, and we stayed at Brenda's because they have air conditioners (albeit window ones) there. We're considering renting a U-Haul this weekend and moving into the new house earlier than planned, since it has central air. But we're still not sure closing will actually occur this Friday, so we'll have to hold off on that. Also on calling utilities and changing addresses. Grrrr.

The site.

I went to Wildwood Preserve yesterday morning and, after stopping at the wrong place (the converted limo garage rather than the converted manor house), found the administrative offices and explained that I wanted to rent the pavilion and gazebo for a wedding the Sunday of next Memorial Day, and I knew I was two days early but I had some questions.

"Actually, it's open," the lady said, clicking through her computer program. "It's the month of the day you want to reserve, not the day itself. Let's check, because it fills up fast. Let's see...Memorial Day weekend...yep, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are already booked."

"Well, damn," I said.

She grinned sympathetically at me, then frowned at her computer. "Wait. That's the wrong year. Hang on...it's open." So I booked it. And she sold me a $30 membership that saved me $80 in rental fees, so it was an even better deal than I'd thought.

So we're set: our wedding date is May 27, 2007. This somehow makes it all that much more real. Now I have to start sending e-mails to family and friends in distant places; and if we should lose our minds so much as to want personalized napkins or glasses or candies with our names and date on them, we can now commence the madness.

Busywork

You know what makes me really happy? That when Dad sends out family e-mails he includes Eric on them now.

Today I was supposed to call for home insurance, fax the purchase contract for the house to the mortgage company, and visit Wildwood (since I called three times and they neither picked up the phone nor replied to my message) to discuss renting space for the wedding. I called Liberty Mutual but they had me leave a message and they haven't called back, and I had intended to include their information on the fax cover for the purchase contract (I just found out the other day that I can use the apartment office's fax free of charge. Why didn't they tell me this before?) and leave directly from there for Wildwood and then to work, preferably with a slight detour to Panera Bread so that I actually have something to eat while I'm there. I guess I'll have to skip Liberty Mutual. I tried looking at their website to see if there was another number to call (the one I called was for the Dayton/Cincinnati office) but all they have is an online form. Unfortunately I do not have an online life--or at least, not an exclusively online one. So, off I go.

Worklife and homelife are going fine.

There are a lot of "this person isn't answering the phone" messages. Most of them I don't mind, but there's this one, a male voice, that starts out quite pleasant but then, with "--to take your call" suddenly gets all snotty and smug. I can't stand it. I call it Phil.

I had a guy tell me, "I think it's un-American that you can call and ask me how often I have sex and what my blood pressure is." (I do not, for the record, ask people how often they have sex. I don't want to know how often they have sex. I do ask about their blood pressure, because that's my job.) He went on in this vein a little, and I mentioned that I could always stop calling him, he could opt out of the program, and he told me he couldn't afford it and repeated that it was un-American. I said, "At least it's capitalist," and determinedly went on to my next question.

Speaking of blood pressure, I had mine checked recently and it was quite low, so the job evidently isn't getting to me yet. Not that I think it necessarily will; some people I talk to are reluctant and others are chatty but most are pleasant and reasonably cooperative, and I've already experienced some disgruntled ones and don't expect it to get much worse. Plus I like this long break between leaving work Monday at 4:30 and returning Tuesday at 3:30. Then I have to work until midnight, of course, but them's the breaks. It's not a bad job. And I finally get paid this week, so hooray.

The house has been inspected and we're making our demands today; they're pretty reasonable and the sellers are closing on their new house this week so we'll almost certainly get them. I'm going to buy cleaning supplies and get paint swatches this week, and start packing things in boxes. Moving does not thrill me this time around; but having moved, and living in a place where I will finally (barring disaster) be staying more than eighteen months, for the first time since 1999, does.

Korea

As promised, I have pictures from Korea. Lots and lots. Mom got her Mother's Day/birthday box, which contained a CD of them, early and sounded approving. I have yet to see hers and James's, of course.

This was dinner the first full day we stayed, or at least part of it--we also had sushi, meaning raw ray and flounder (?) that had been caught perhaps an hour before on the ocean directly outside the restaurant.


You can't see the rice, but rest assured it was there. I ate marinated vegetables and the egg/vegetable cakes, which were good, and watched the others plough through the basket of sushi until it was gone. We drank Coke with the meal.

My cousin Eunhae, who was our translator and tour guide for part of the trip because she speaks English, took us to downtown Pohang, where we were staying. We parked on a street full of hardware stores


and we saw a multitude of cell phone shops (incidentally, James bought one, but it doesn't work in the US) and stores like this:


We took our road trip the next day to go to the folk village and (as it turned out) see more family (instead of going to Seoul). This was one morning out of two I didn't eat rice; instead, we had sweet rolls in the car. We ate constantly. We stopped at midmorning for a snack; the others had soup, and I got this:


Other than my not actually being hungry, this was fine, since I like rice and seaweed. But I asked Mom what the stuff in the lower left was, and she said without looking, "It's kimchee. Leave it alone if you don't want to eat it." I looked at it a little closer and then announced, "It has suckers. I don't think it's kimchee." I did leave it alone.

The Korean folk village, Yongin, was, as I mentioned, cold and dreary. But still very interesting. There were a lot of old-fashioned houses


and features of real old Korean life, such as the candymaker. They made the candy and would carry it around, banging their (expensive) metal scissors like the music on an ice-cream truck, and the children would run into their houses for anything they could trade for the candy--spare metal, spare anything.


This was my grandfather's favorite candy. Eunhae bought a packet and shared it with the family. I have to admit I didn't really like it, but I was glad to finally taste some.

Another thing at Yongin was the swings. While we were there and my aunt and grandmother were swinging on them, we saw this guy:


He was running back and forth with a bunch of children in front of a camera. Later we found a plush version of him in the E-Mart, Korea's version of Fred Meyer, so he must be Korea's version of Barney.

The next day we went to see a Buddhist temple. There were lanterns all over to celebrate Buddha's birthday coming up.


We weren't allowed to take pictures of the actual Buddha statue, but it was beautiful, and beautifully kept considering how ancient it is. There were indeed Buddhist monks in red and yellow robes bowing to the Buddha and watching the rest of us to make sure we were respectful. There were a lot of us to watch.


It must be a popular field trip spot. Most places we went had lots of schoolchildren there, come to think of it.

That temple was on a mountain; after we had gone, and bought roasted chestnuts to snack on, we trekked down on the mountain and to a different temple. This one was more pastoral


and also bigger and with more to see. Again, no pictures of the Buddhas were allowed, but apparently Bodhisattvas are okay. These guys guarded the entrance:


After that, we went to a museum of history and looked all the Shilla artifacts and the old gold and strange instruments. (There was one exhibit marked 'mushroom-shaped instrument' and we figured the archeologists had no idea what they were for either.) Outside were more hordes of schoolkids. Here they actually mobbed James, asking for his picture, all wanting to talk to him in English:


Then we went to Chomsongdae, the oldest existing astronomy observatory in Asia.


Then we went to the dums--which are just mounds of dirt in a nice park; we weren't allowed to take pictures of the excavated one, either. Then, after a nice dinner of rice, vegetables, and (I think) fish, we went home and collapsed.

Then there was the family reunion. The pictures of the people are probably only interesting if you're part of my family, and the yunori game was only throwings sticks; what I remember most visually is the fish market. Ah, the fish. Here is a tiny fraction of what I saw:







I also have pictures of seaweed and socks and toilet paper and chipmunks for sale, but I'm afraid Blogger is going to choke on this post as it is. However, proceeding:

These are the hands that cup the first Korean sunrise of every new year. Well, one of them. The other is on land surrounded by torches and posing tourists.





Here's Minyoung, my first cousin once removed, the one to whom I taught tic-tac-toe.
As I mentioned, my family was snacking on seaweed as we walked along the beach and took pictures and picked up geh (crabs).



I miss her a little. I miss all of them a little. I'm going to have to go back.

Credit

This job may work out okay. I spent my first day really doing the job today, and I did all right. Not great, but I think I'm getting the hang of it, and--importantly--the day went by in a flash. Now as long as I don't fall asleep at work tomorrow--my shift lasts until midnight and I've been getting sleepy around 10:30 since I got back from Korea--things should be okay.

We talked to the house sellers on Thursday. I found, to my surprise, that I enjoyed face-to-face negotiation so much more than the proxy-by-agent kind. Of course we didn't do much actual negotiation; their asking price was $137K, we named $131K in the paperwork, they read it and looked at each other and said "$133K" and we said okay. They're talking to their lawyer, but they want to close the deal--the only issue would be if someone else made a better offer, I think. So my fingers are still crossed.

In the meantime, Eric and I both got application packets from Wells-Fargo, where we got our phone preapproval. With mine came my credit score: 772. I'm exceedingly pleased with myself over this.

I also went to Target today to get Mother's Day and birthday cards for my mom, because I should have gotten them yesterday and mailed them today but forgot about even the existence of such things as cards. It's so nice to spend money and know that it will be replenished.

So things are going well. And now, off to see if I've pushed my luck saying that, as I'm going to be printing photos off my computer and we all know how little that relies on luck.

Good things

The new job is going to be...something. Interesting, boring, fun, dull, I'm not sure. The first week is training. My trainer is getting on my nerves with her dull jokes and strange facial expressions--I asked for an example of something and she complied, then squinched her face in a Joker-like smirk at me--but I think I'm learning how to do the job. This makes me uneasy as I'm not sure the job ought to be this easily learned. And then my schedule is going to be four nights--until midnight Tuesday and Wednesday, until nine Thursday and Friday--and they have not-very-good medical benefits. But they're benefits. And it's a job. We're working on buying a house, now that we can afford it--we called Monday to see if we could possibly get preapproval without my having worked more than, you know, eight hours, and they preapproved us over the phone. It was awesome. Behold the power of good credit.

Monday after I'd eaten my lunch I went to Meijer to buy a bottled water. I wandered around the aisles some since I had time and guess what I found? Apple Cinnamon Pop-Tarts! I haven't been in a Meijer in a long time, so I don't know when they came back, but they're here! Of course working nights I'll have time for real breakfasts in the mornings, but there's still Monday that I'll be getting up at seven. Apple Cinnamon Pop-Tarts! Things are looking up.

My Korean vacation. Or, the week my butt was constantly numb.

I got the job. I'd heard nothing from the company, and no voicemail or e-mail arrived while I was gone, but yesterday after Eric picked me up (after making me wait an extra half-hour at the airport so he could go home and change his clothes, mind) I got the mail and there was a letter, which I opened in dread; but it began "I am pleased to offer" so that was all right. I start Monday. I'm deeply, deeply thankful.

So, my Korean vacation. It was busy, it was fun, it was exhausting, I met oodles of relatives, I ate oodles of rice, I got food poisoning, I brought lots of stuff back. The first difference between our culture and theirs I noticed right away when my aunt brought us to her place the first night: they have no carpets, just heated laminate floors, and no couches. We ate breakfast (rice, vegetables, bean curd soup, and meat, just like every other meal I had while I was there) cross-legged on the floor around a fold-up wooden table. I brought back a smaller verson--a tray really--because I was so enamoured of these tables. However, sitting on the uncarpeted floor gave me some unusual aches and pains. I noticed my grandmother's ankles had thick calluses on them, presumably from a lifetime of doing this.

We went to a Korean folk village in the cold ("You'll need only a light coat or no coat," Mom had told me, but she had also told me to pack light, and she showed up with a gigantic suitcase and carryon) to see how Koreans used to live and to Gyongju, the ancient capital, to see how they died. Koreans bury their dead on hillsides--or at least they did. As we drove around the country we kept seeing little, perfect mounds, some marked with stones or lights and some plain, on the slopes by the freeways. They're dums--tombs, but there's no chamber inside unless you're a king. The king's dum, cut open for everyone to see, is in Gyongju.

The family reunion was last Saturday, and to prepare for it my uncle and my cousin and James and I went to the Pohang market for fish and meat and fruit. The fish portion of the market was unbelievable. If you could catch it in the Pacific, you could find it in that market. There were long silver fish and short dark fish and gigantic fish the size of men; there were tiny squid and huge wriggling octupi; there were flounder and rays and sharks; there were clams and oysters and sea urchins; there were sea cucumbers and strange pulpy things I couldn't identify. I saw a woman haggling about some fish while we were making our own purchases and noticed her bag was wriggling. In a moment she noticed it too and hit it until it stopped.

The last day, Tuesday, we went back to the market to see what else was there. The fish were still there, not as many as on Saturday but still plentiful; there were dozens of types of seaweed, flat and roasted or still salty from the ocean; there were doughnuts and roasted chestnuts and rice cakes to eat. The best way to convey the feel of the market would be through smell. There was also everything else at the market: clothing, blankets, children's toys, tables and trays, knockoff designer purses, knockoff clothing (James got a pair of Adipas pants), candy, spices, yarn, housewares, kitchen supplies, crockery, silk flowers, real flowers, fruit, socks, shoes, lingerie, T-shirts. I bought a couple of T-shirts with nonsense English on them. The salespeople there are more pushy than they are in the US. I also saw at least two legless men maneuvering the market on little wheeled platforms, shoes on their hands to help them get around.

At the reunion I met my English-speaking uncle and his two children and my dead uncle's wife and another lady whose connection to me I either don't remember or never learned. I had already met one aunt and her granddaughter/ward and another aunt and her three children, plus the children of the aunt I was staying with. I have yet another aunt, who has apparently disappeared as far as anyone can tell. I've never met her and, possibly, never will. But I had a good time talking (or at least eating with, as they only knew a few words of English and I a few words of Korean) with my family and watching my mom with them. At the end of the night it was decided that nineteen people in that place with one bathroom was probably inadvisable, so I and James and my uncle and three of our cousins went out to karaoke (we sang English, they mostly sang Korean) and to a hotel. The hotel was just like my aunt's house in that it had a heated smooth floor, a bed with thick puffy blankets and no sheets, and a bath with no shower curtain. The hotel provided shower slippers, shampoo, toothbrushes, and toothpaste, but no soap--though there was a place for it so it might have been an oversight.

The next day we all went to the beach, where there are two sculptures of hands, one sticking out from the surf and another standing a short way up the shore. The first sunrise of the new year appears cupped between these hands, apparently. Most of the family nibbled on seaweed--I'm not sure whether we bought it from a sidewalk vendor or just picked it up--which I passed on after the first piece. I'm afraid I'm really not as adventurous with food as I'd like to be, as the stuff I ate and liked there was mostly what I've eaten and liked before. After walking on the beach and taking pictures--I let two of my cousins use my camera and they had apparently never had such fun on a beach before--we went to a restaurant. Previously my aunt and uncle had taken us to this beach, but it had been raining torrentially so we just went off to eat at a sushi place where the fish were caught in the ocean right in front of the restaurant--low overhead, I figure. This time the family had cooked fish and I made myself eat part of an egg they ordered for me instead. My English-speaking uncle noticed I wasn't finishing it and bought ice cream for me. After lunch we toured my other uncle's steel-making company and eventually most of my relatives left.

Either the egg or the ice cream was most likely what gave me food poisoning the next day. It was unpleasant, especially as we were going out to do souvenir shopping and stopped at a place with a lot of interesting pottery and jewelry. Apparently Korean amethyst is the best in the world--at least that's what the sign said. When we got home my stomach was still hurting so my aunt gave me a homemade quince drink she said would help. The alcohol in it might have been what did it; but I felt better the next day, when we went to the market. Then we came home. I was ready to. I had a good time and I'm glad I went; but I'm thoroughly enjoying my carpet, my couch, my non-rice meals, my car, and my own determination of my schedule. And my new job.

Anxiety

Today I picked Shel up from school and we played a German game. It's a hexagonal board with room for six players. Each player gets five lettered dice of his or her chosen color. The players take turns throwing dice and the first person to get 'a' through 'e' ('e' is on two sides of the dice) collected on the board wins. It is a mind-numbingly boring game. But I was trying to entertain her (and forget about my annoyance about having to buy a ticket from Atlanta to Detroit for Monday because Eric's family is going down to visit his dying uncle and I'm going with because I sort of want to and Eric wants me to and his family will be unhappy with me if I don't) so I agreed to play. When she mentioned that she once played all six colors I leaped on that suggestion and we each took three colors, gave them names and personalities, and acted each character out on his or her turn. The game got a lot more fun after that; we played three or four rounds. Shel liked my hyperactive (Olive) and pathologically shy (Amethyst) personalities best. After I said I had to leave she wrote down a list of personalities she wanted to try next time.

Tonight I'm packing for the Atlanta trip, packing for the Korea trip, and quilting halmoni's quilt. I wish I had bought the high-loft batting instead of the extra-loft batting, as high-loft is actually loftier than extra-, and the quilting is actually pretty neat and I wish it showed up better. Alas. It looks nice on the back. I'm going to finish it up tonight and make binding and attach it, and in the van to Atlanta I'm going to attach the other side, finishing it, by hand. And then I'll lay it out somewhere where we're staying (I don't know where that is, whether with the family or at a hotel) and take pictures before I place it in my Korea luggage. I'm dreading the flying time, especially with the added trip from Atlanta, especially as I can't get it added to my itinerary so I have to disembark in Detroit, wait for my luggage to unload, and check in for Korea. I'm afraid they'll lose my luggage and won't be willing to send it to Korea. Maybe I'll rudely carry both pieces on and make the flight attendants gate-check it for me.

Tomorrow I'm also supposed to attend a meeting about a temp position with the city government. I don't want to go, but I did not get a job offer from the other place today, so I suppose I'd better. I hope they call tomorrow, or at the latest Friday. I would be so happy to know I had a job to come back to.

I also need to check with a company I ordered something from two weeks ago to see whether they actually sent it. It should have been here by now. Also M's present to me should have been here by now, based on when she sent it, so maybe the postman is just cutting me off, I don't know. I can't wait to move into a real place with a real mailbox--though apparently mailslots are more common around here than mailboxes.

On Sunday Eric and I decided to go to an open house for a nearby house Shel collected a flier from while out riding her bike. We went mostly for the walk and to indulge idle curiosity, but we love the house. We want the house. We can't get the house until I get a job or we get someone to cosign, and of course we can't do much about it, other than maybe schedule an inspector, until I get back from Korea. However, with the housing market where it is (awful, for sellers), that may not be a problem and might even help in bargaining down the price. If we do get the house, we may have to render Shel a realtor's fee. Certainly she did as much for us in bringing home that flier as my Toledo ex-realtor, now known as The Worst Realtor Ever, ever did.

And we have to do something about the wedding, like pick a day and a venue. We're probably going to end up at Wildwood Metropark. But I want to see what else is around, and we don't seem to be able to do that much--maybe now that the weather is warmer, we will. And then comes the trouble of menus and invitations and flowers and relatives who can't afford to come but won't accept my money for plane tickets (I imagine, anyway) and the impending fight about the rehearsal dinner. Eloping is sounding better and better. Or a boat wedding. Or something.

Anyhow, I have to eat something (I have to empty my fridge, I didn't think about that) and verify that I packed everything I need (like my passport and my itinerary, and at least three books) and quilt my heart out and read some more of Emma. I shall return in two weeks, laden with pictures and souvenirs and memories, and, I hope, a job and less anxiety.

A singular interview.

The interview went, I think, well. The interviewer brought me into his office, described the company, and asked me exactly two questions: "Do you have any questions?" and "Do you have any more questions?"

My understanding is that they're expanding enormously and my resume is pretty good as far as they're concerned. I'm to think over all that he told me (and he told me a lot--I asked good questions, but he evidently likes talking about his company) and if I'm interested, e-mail him Monday, fill out the official application packet he gave me, and if the background check goes smoothly I could be working the next Monday. I won't, of course, since I'll be on my way to Korea (already!), but he sounded very amenable to a later starting date.

I may have a job here. I'm not positively sure, but I may. I like the sound of the job and the company a lot more after the interview ("interview"), and he mentioned a couple of spots I could move into after a couple of months he thought I would be suited for--project management or internal research and analysis. I will write to him on Monday and we'll see.

Last ramblings of a twenty-five-year-old

"You have a sharp tongue," my future mother-in-law said to me last night, after she had gone off to sulk, apparently because I had criticized a TV show she was watching while she was asleep. I did not return the comment but God knows I could have. When we move to the West Coast Eric's going to complain just as much about my mother, I would guess; in the meantime I get to do it about his.

My last day to be twenty-five. I thought briefly of making something of it, but no, there's nothing to make. I disposed of twenty-five reasonably well--all except the not having a job part--and I'm not yet afraid of turning thirty. I'm hoping I won't. Today I job-hunt and maybe even (gasp) write a little, now that I've spent the last few days inexplicably reading all the fantasy books I have that I hadn't yet read. (Today I reverted to type and started Jane Eyre for the fifth or sixth time.) Stuffing my thoughts with good writing makes me want to create my own. Motivation would be a nice birthday present. I think I wanted that last year, or the year before, or maybe both. That's probably not a good sign, but maybe this year I'll improve.

Tomorrow will be about the same as today, with more quilt-making in it, and then in the evening I'll go over to the aforementioned future mother-in-law's and have, I'm told, dinner and dessert (I was asked whether I prefer cake and ice cream or an ice-cream cake) and then come back to my apartment to snuggle with my fiance and maybe watch some of our unwatched movie backlog. What is it with me and unperused media?

Yesterday I got a guilt-inducing card from Bev ("Look! I sent your card and gift on time!" she wrote, probably not actually intending to make me feel bad about not yet sending a present for her son, whose birthday is exactly a month before mine, but that was the effect) and a gift certificate to Toys R Us or Babies R Us. "I'm not trying to hint at Babies R Us," she wrote, "but I figured you probably need a new toy." It's a lovely thought, but she doesn't know of the vow I made never to step foot in a Toys R Us again after my experience at Christmas, so it will indeed be Babies R Us. Someday, someone I know will have a baby again (it ought to be soon; I have a bunch of fabric I need to use up, preferably as baby quilts) or if I don't find anything interesting for Gabe in Korea--the plan now is to get him something from there and pretend I meant to all along; it's not like he's going to notice my lateness, this year at least--I'll use it for him.

The quilt for halmoni is going quickly, but not well. I should have chosen a slightly less simple design; I would have complained more about the work, but I would have liked it better. However, I have less than two weeks to finish and it's not bad; just not what I had hoped. She'll still like it, if she'll like it at all--I'm uncertain whether she's the type of person who will, not knowing her. I also still have to get to a liquor store to buy Johnny Walker Red, as requested by Dad to give to my aunt who'll be hosting us...I think our entire stay. I wonder if she'd like the furry scarf I'm making (because garter stitch is sometimes soothing). I wonder what I'd do if I didn't make things.

(I also wonder what I'd do if Eric started picking up after himself. That's going to be a bone of contention forever. Sigh.)

All right: job hunting, and maybe writing, and in the evening perhaps going to the park to scout for a wedding site; and doing anything, if I think of anything, that I want to do one last time before I'm no longer twenty-five.

Hats

I keep losing hats.

First there was the beige hat I knit out of that expensive yarn so that it wouldn't be itchy. I don't know where I lost it, but it's gone. Then was the green fleece hat, a trifle thin but beloved because it actually fit my big head. I don't have many hats, you see, and now all I have left are the too-tight Russian hat (it's big and furry and black), the kitty hat I won't actually wear out in public, and The First Hat I Made, which is important for sentimental reasons but is too short to be warm.

Admittedly, it is now the season (she says, with a warning look at the window) for hats to become unimportant, but I decided a while ago that I wanted a hat. Or two. So my first major spinning project became white Blue-Faced Leicester wool that I intended to spin and then dye into three colors (actually, two, because I decided to leave one white) in order to make the Hayden Hat. I dyed the wool yesterday:



This is Kool-Aid dyeing, along with Easter Egg dye dyeing the only way I know to do it. I got a birthday check yesterday as well, though, so I'm thinking I'm going to find some real dyes and see how much trouble I can get into. Anyway, a word of warning: the Kool-Aid Magic Twist that says it turns from green powder to blue liquid is lying. It came out a pretty color, but the color is almost entirely green. The blue lemonade color was a light, thick blue, so I tried adding a tiny bit of red after this picture and that mellowed it out some.

At the same time I decided to try dyeing some brown Corriedale I recently purchased. I had also decided, in my hat longings, that what I really wanted was a brown hat made from bulky yarn, so that it would be warm and also quick to knit. And when trying to decide what type of wool to get I read somewhere on the Internet that Corriedale is perfect for beginners. I had done pretty well with the Blue-Faced Leicester, but I figured I'd give it a try. I struggled to spin the thick single I was going for to get the bulky yarn and when I spun a thinner one just to see it wasn't a lot better. I'm slowly mastering it (my mastering technique seems to be to fight with it for a while, then put it down for a few days and when I come back I'm better at it) but the BFL is, in my opinion, superior for a beginner and just in general. The moral here is not to believe everything you read on the Internet. Shocking, I know, but there it is.

So, I thought I'd try dyeing the brown with red, just to see what would happen. Beware the blurriness of the picture, but here's what happened, with the original on the side for comparison:



It's a sort of cherry-chocolate color. Could be interesting. Maybe I'll make some mittens out of it.

I also decided, at the same time, to try overdyeing some salmon-ish silk that Jen gave me a while ago. I'd like to do something with the yarn but salmon just isn't my color. So I dunked a snippet in the blue and a snippet in the red:



The original is on the left. The blue-dyed one became a sort of silvery color and the red-dyed one became cherry red. I could potentially do something with either one, but I think I'm going to wait for real dyes and see if I can do better.

So that was my dyeing experiment for the day. I also finished and plied the first skein of bulky brown:



It was a fight, but I think it's going to be worth it. Also with that birthday check I'm going to be buying myself a nicer spindle--and a stitch pattern book or two to try to design a wedding stole for me--and my strange hobbies continue.

Parked

I'm drinking some sugarless chai from Trader Joe's. The idea is that with unsweetened chai, you can sweeten it to your own taste, and this seems like a great idea except that the chai itself tastes sort of...muggy. Maybe I just put too much in. Since it says three teaspoons and comes with a tablespoon-looking measure, that's quite possible.

I have an interview for next Friday. It made me so happy that someone at least thinks I'm worth talking to. This would not be the ideal job, but it wouldn't be bad and it would be a short commute. I was contemplating reapplying to the place that was interested in me last fall before it understood I was serious about needing to work from home most of the time, but it would be a two-hour drive and I'm stuck in Toledo, like it or not. I mean, I'm doing it willingly; but I'm still a little surprised about not being able to move where I want to.

Eric and I have been house-, dog-, and fish-sitting for his mom while the rest of the household is away for most of a week, and yesterday everything--being constantly in the house where it's dog-hair-covered and small and cluttered and there's no room for me; taking care of the dogs, who have been trouble and a half; having not much to do in the evenings when he's raiding online and I'm away from my quilting and my own computer; being called on to fall into a fairly traditional women's role by Brenda and Edith and at the same time being told that I should be either making Eric do more or (jokingly) leaving him; feeling unable to buy things or, more importantly, contribute to our financial planning yet because I still don't have a job; feeling more distant from my parents than I used to; being frustrated with some of Eric's habits and my own responses to them--got to me and I spent some time blubbering into Eric's shoulder. (My God, that's a long sentence.) We talked about things and then took the dogs for a walk in the local park, and I feel better. I don't say the interview doesn't make it easier to feel better. But it's nice to be able to talk about my frustrations with my best friend, even when the frustrations are closely linked to him.

On the other hand, Bev has subscribed me to Martha Stewart Weddings. We were talking about wedding planning and she confessed, "I signed you up for a wedding magazine," and I said, jokingly, "Oh, something like Martha Stewart Weddings?" without realizing that there actually was such a magazine, and she said, "Well, yeah. I was looking through them and most of them were just ads for dresses and stuff, but the Martha Stewart one had actual ideas and favors to make and things like that. Though I feel kind of bad that you suggested it as a joke now." Hurting her feelings aside, I'm ridiculously pleased with this. I was never interested in wedding magazines for the very reason that I thought they were all dress ads, but a more crafty one might be fun, and more importantly I love that she thought to do it for me. I've really needed someone to be excited about this for me, because Eric and I are both feeling that most people are thinking we're being too precipitate, and she's being exactly what I needed as usual. I can't wait until we're done in Toledo (i.e., when Eric's schooling is finished) and we move out to Portland. That's still the plan. It's what makes me more or less content to give up job possibilities in order to stay in the Toledo commuting area--that and a guy who, when the dogs have crissed and crossed ahead of us, always raises the dog leash over my head rather than waiting for me to raise mine over his.

Why teachers who tell their students' mothers they don't want their students to become geeks should be slapped.

"So it's just a tautology."

"Define tautology."

"Maybe I will, or maybe I won't."

Procrastination: putting off what you have to do for what you want to do.

Today I was supposed to write a writing sample to respond to an ad in last Sunday's paper. (I'm privately feeling that the person who put out the ad isn't actually interested in hiring writers, he/she wants to steal stories, but that perhaps is just my way of keeping myself from being disappointed when I never hear anything from this person.) Instead I worked on a quilt design. Which is okay, because I'm supposed to do that too; I wanted to make a lap quilt for my halmoni (Korean grandma) when I meet her next month. Assuming I do. I will unless a very good job offer comes in and my nascent employers do not like the idea of my leaving for a week and a half in the first month or so of my employment. A job offer from Home Depot will not prevent me from going. Dad said as much. Mom, on the other hand, said to Dad, "Is Jenny waiting to get a job because of the Korea trip? Because if she is we won't go." Dad tells me this is only worry out of love and that she asked him and not me because she doesn't want me mad at her, and so I am not telling her that I'm not still jobless because of the trip, I'm still jobless because nobody, not even Borders or B&N, will hire me.

(Bev called yesterday and said that she took four months to find her current job and the economy was better then, and also that Gabe is having surgery today--I assume it went well--and that she's doing fabulously at said job, which makes me happy. Besides, if she pleases her employers they won't mind as much letting her come out and help me with the wedding when I'm about to go insane because of it.)

Anyway, this quilt design is sort of starry and sort of 3-D-y, and I'm dying to convert it to more of a 3-D design but this quilt is for my halmoni, whom I've never met and whose taste I'm completely in the dark about, and I tend to think that stars are safer. I'm supposed to make a wedding Penrose tile quilt for Eric and me; I still plan to sometime in the next year or so; and I think it's highly unlikely that nongeeky people would appreciate it as much as he and I will. I don't suppose geek quilting is a very big niche, any more than geek knitting; but I could enjoy pursuing this sort of thing. Or just quilting in general. I don't think I ever put up a picture of the quilt for Marie:



She took the picture, because I ended up finishing the quilt approximately three minutes before I gave it to her. This is the most harmonious and well-done quilt I've designed yet. (It also taught me that stippled quilting is not as bad as I thought, and also that nobody but another quilter is going to notice how amateurly I did it.) Once I finish that writing sample I want to write up the pattern and see what quilt magazines' submission guidelines are. I hope I actually do this.

A better alarm clock

It's so nice to wake up to hope. A temp agency recruiter called me this morning while I was dreaming something vague about stealthy dogs. Fortunately I wake up fast when necessary, so I was able to talk to her fairly coherently (as I flatter myself). She was looking for a temp-to-hire person, though I might be good for the position, and wanted my Word-formatted resume. The position is 75 minutes away, which makes me wonder if it isn't a very similar position I applied to in the fall but declined when I found exactly how long the commute was and that I wouldn't be able to work at home. But circumstances are different now. And it's something I want to do and have work experience in, for a decent salary, and it's important at this point just to have a job, even with an inconvenient commute. I may not get the job, of course; but I'd be pleased if I did. Waking up today was good.

We call it maudlinicating.

We went to the Maumee Bay beach yesterday, to scout it out as a possible wedding site. The idea of a wedding on the beach appealed to me until we walked down to the water and found a number of small silver fish washed up on the shore. Then we looked for a suitable place up on the grass. The lodge there wasn't bad either, but we'd both like to have an outdoor wedding if it will be feasible.

The whole wedding thing is sort of worrying me. Half of the projected guest list is here and half is in Washington, and my relatives are all saying I should do it out there, and I'd like to except that logistically it doesn't make sense. I'm supposed to have things like flowers and bridesmaids and I don't know much about either of them. Eric isn't sure who he wants in the wedding since it's his second. When we met his cousins in Atlanta they remembered me as that girl in the tuxedo, so they said "It's nice to see you again," when I was saying, "It's nice to meet you." My dad says my mom thinks I haven't been truthful with her about my relationship with Eric but she hasn't brought it up. I want to have a low-key, inexpensive wedding but I don't feel justified in asking thirty people to fly out for a small party. I'm probably going to have to fight to get enough vegetarian options on the menu if we cater. I still have no job to pay for any of these things.

Admittedly, these problems are not huge. They're just vaguely worrying. The only thing being engaged has really changed is having to actually deal with these issues instead of waiting for them. We already knew we weren't going to leave each other. We're thinking of buying--with his mom's help, because it would be an investment and it makes sense this way--the house next door, which is solid but in sad condition, and fixing it up and living in it until we move to the West Coast. His dad says moving to the West Coast (rather than staying in Toledo) would be a good move if Eric is serious about sticking with teaching high school. I've expressed concern a couple of times about our planning to move if I can't provide a financial reason to go and we've got things to tie us to Toledo, but he's firm about going: he knows I don't especially want to be here, and we're going to go. He's going to try to like it. (And Edith is going to try to convince Brenda to move out there as well.) We might stay or we might not; we're going to figure it out as we go along. Same with wedding planning, and how we'd fix up that kitchen, and getting me a job, and working on writing together, and fitting together our different financial and organization styles. That's what being engaged is like.

Bored awake.

Eric bought the complete Calvin and Hobbes collection recently, using bookstore gift certificates he didn't know he had until we went through his pile of Christmas 2004 presents in the corner of his room and found stuff from even earlier beneath it. I know what I'm getting into with him, in the area of organization at least. The end panel of one of the comics is Calvin waking up, saying, "I bored myself awake." I've been sick, and I've been doing the exact same thing--I wanted to be asleep but kept waking up, not because of the cold symptoms but because my dreams were so boring: all about trying to move when I didn't have anything to move with, only abstract concepts. It's the most despicable thing a cold has ever done to me.

Fortunately, I'm getting better; I actually had normal dreams last night, though I don't remember what they were--I was woken up by the "Unknown ID" ring of my cell phone. I didn't answer it because my voice has been nonexistent in the mornings, but now that I've checked the voicemail and returned the call I have a phone interview for tomorrow. It's the most I've gotten since I moved here, so I'm pleased, and crossing my fingers. I'm not sure whether it's a phone interview because they're weeding out prospects for the real interview or because they have no other candidates and are desperate and just want to see if I can talk like a normal human being before hiring me. I prefer the latter but I'll take either. I should be calling temp agencies today, but instead I'm looking through the classifieds and USAJobs and waiting for my fiance to get home so he can drive me back to my apartment, where he can pick up his Windows 2000 disks and I can reread the job description. I could drive myself, but I'm still headachy and yucky and he may have given me the cold (though we're blaming Michelle), so I think I can get him to do it.

Post on being engaged to follow. Right now I think I'm going to go make some soup. Or tea. The one nice thing about colds is the lack of appetite, at least until the cold starts to lift and the stomach realizes exactly what it's been feeding on the past several days.

I'm stuck now.

Atlanta ho

Well, Eric and I were supposed to go up to Ann Arbor this weekend to celebrate 7 years of knowing each other and 14 months of dating. Instead, we're driving down to Atlanta to visit a suddenly sick relative of Eric's. I did say I wanted to get out of town. Twelve hours each way was a little more than I bargained for, but I shouldn't complain--after all, I'm not the one who's sick. And we've never been on a road trip together. It'll be a test of togetherness, and of how many CDs we both like.

Or

Come to think of it, it could be the pills. Or not enough sunlight. Or not enough iron. I have a blood donation appointment scheduled for 3:45 March 1 that I desperately hope I won't be able to make.

And

I need to pull out my Korean textbook. We're going to Korea in the end of April and Mom and Dad have said we're not going to Seoul, because everyone but me has been there we want to spend our limited time with family in the countryside, but my brother called yesterday (when did he start calling me?) to say that Dad had told him a lot of people there spoke a little English and he was going to try to learn a little Korean so that we (when did he start liking me?) could maybe go out by ourselves an afternoon or two.

And I really need a job. Eric said yesterday that I was spending too much time playing computer games. Eric, who is signed up for a five-hour computer game raid on Saturday. Also I don't cook anymore and I have not vacuumed for a month.

And there is a dpn (double-pointed needle) lying to the left of my keyboard because I was knitting the heel of a sock (which only requires 2 of the 5 dpns) last night while Eric tried to figure out what's wrong with my computer. It's still shutting down, not so randomly as it was. We've ordered a new motherboard and a new CPU fan (because I need one anyway) to see if that will fix the problem. If it doesn't, I will be getting a library card. We went to the library the other day. It was lovely. We wanted to see if it would be possible to hold a wedding there, and we concluded it might but they probably wouldn't let us have food in there for the reception, so it wouldn't be worth it.

Barnes & Noble is the only bookstore chain around here that uses real paper applications instead of online personality tests. Maybe I have a chance. I'll run the application out today if I have the energy or tomorrow while I return the case fan we bought from Best Buy to see if that was the problem (I don't know; we never tried it).

And my cable connection is extremely flaky, which is why I'm saving this post and posting it later. Then I'll call the cable company, today if I have the energy, or tomorrow if I don't because Eric can't tolerate being over at my apartment if there isn't a working Internet connection. He doesn't have to be using it; it just has to be available.

I'm sick of this apartment and tired of being unemployed and worried that not having a job will ruin some of our plans. And still waiting to see why Toledo is supposed to be a nice place to live. I gave up a nice house and income for the chance to be happy here. I still can be, but I don't have enough reason yet. I don't know if I would feel like this if I weren't still relying on my own self to support me, but I'm feeling blah and discouraged and listless. It's a pain in the ass. I decided to focus on one thing a day to do. Today's is job applications. Tomorrow's is vacuuming. We'll see how it goes. Dad said yesterday that at least I made the choice to be where I am, which was supposed to be a comfort. I guess it is, a little. I still don't regret giving up my nice house and income; I just want something to replace them and I don't yet. So yuck. If someone--anyone--calls up and offers me a job, even as a typist or an Eddie Bauer salesperson (they have paper applications too), I'll feel better, I know. So I'm doing my one thing today and maybe it'll happen.

Iris

I bought an iris this morning. Kroger had a little stand: "Spring Blooms--5 for $10." I don't understand the "X for Y" pricing system. Doesn't "$2" look more enticing than "5 for $10" or "10 for $20"? Anyway, I looked, pleased that spring was showing up one way or another, and a slender little iris caught my eye. I'm not much of a flower person, but I've always liked irises, for some reason. So for $10/5*1 I bought it. Even if it starts to die immediately I'll get several days' pleasure out of it.

Yesterday the binding for Marie's quilt kicked my butt. It's the very last thing I have to do, and theoretically what you do is sew one side of the binding to the top-batting-bottom quilt sandwich, then fold it over and attach it on the other side. But when I sewed the binding, by the end of the seam the sandwich was askew, with the bottom fabric an inch shorter than the top. I tried it again, pulling the bottom taut. I tried flipping it over. I tried using my walking foot. No matter what I did, the two sides wouldn't stay even. I brought it over last night for Edith's advice and her advice was adhesive glue, or desperate measures such as completely hand-stitching it. Hand-stitching the back half is bad enough, so I was going to try the glue, but then I thought perhaps pinning it to within an inch of its life might work as well. I've tried it on half a side and it seems to be okay--a little slippage, but not enough that I can't deal with it. So we'll see if that continues on the next side. If it doesn't, it's time for desperate measures such as folding the binding differently and sewing both sides at once.

Still no job, but I'm applying for several low-level things this week from the classifieds--the ones where you call rather than send in a resume--and we'll see what happens. I wish I could have used this time off more productively, but I don't think I did too badly, really; and I'll be more motivated to do more once I have more to do. Until then, job applying and binding applying and watering an iris.

In the style of Bridget Jones after 4 alcoholic units.

Down. No job, no house, no inspiration, no one to call. Whiny and annoying and annoyed at self. Read 'Scheduled outage' as 'scheduled outrage.' Bought ice cream and Hint of Lime chips. Will try not to consume them all. Depending on how the evening goes.

Motivation

We found a house. This is a bad thing--but purely because I don't yet have a job and therefore we can't possibly qualify for a mortgage. Thus, I am sitting here applying to what I suspect is a telemarketing-esque job in order to get something, anything, that will bring in a regular paycheck.

We went to the U of M Life Sciences Orchestra concert tonight, which was very nice--I'm not excited about classical music taped but live it's a very different thing. Afterwards we went to the after-party, where all of Eric's friends insisted he come back and play next semester and I ate sesame seed-covered pizza and pondered why I don't like crowds. I also applied for a bookstore job and a Best Buy job, and both used the exact same electronic questionnaire, one of the questions on which was, "Going somewhere with a big crowd is fun. Strongly Agree/Agree/Disagree/Strongly Disagree." Blechh. Stupid questionnaires. Interviews are much better. You have a much better idea of what they're looking for. How do I know what whatever consulting company came up with the survey told them to look for in the personality profiles they receive? I'll figure it out, though. I have a house to get.

My mountain.

This is Mt. Rainier as we saw it December 27, 2005, on a gray day in a gray truck. It was so very still up at Paradise, with the snow muffling everything--except when we went inside and heard on the radio that some lady was pulling her kids on a sled behind her car.

I'm applying to bookstores. And real jobs too, of course. Eric and I are holding a weekly writing session on Saturdays, which should help both of us. I call Asia today and work on my sock made from the yarn Edith gave me. I should be finishing other things--Eric's DNA scarf and the Jayne hat and Mariah and Marie's quilt--but I love these socks.

I don't seem to have much to say lately, only that I'm trying to do things. Which is enough, I suppose, at least for me. And for you, there's my mountain.

In with the new.

Seattle was wet and warm and wonderful. Eric and my parents have met, and Eric didn't run screaming for the nearest airport and my parents didn't take me aside and whisper, "Are you sure you love this guy?" so all is well on that front. Christmas Eve was the family get-together, full of cookies and ribs (my step-uncle had three helpings, one at dinner, one at dessert, and one at game time) and talking and games and watching Gabe's antics. Andy got me a sudoku book. Eric and I had formerly scorned the sudoku craze, but then I opened the book and we worked on progressively harder puzzles the entire rest of the trip. Christmas day I got a red cashmere sweater from Mom, identical except in color to the two cashmere sweaters she's gotten me the previous two Christmases, and a movie and some books and an art print from my brother, which surprised me, and World of Warcraft from Eric. We'll see how that goes. Mom and Dad and James got Eric presents from the list I had sent, which I appreciated and which I think he did too.

The next day we drove to Portland, to watch Gabe some more, and the next day went to Mt. Rainier. Eric felt at home once we got up to the snow line. And we went to Jamba Juice twice over the trip--we were tabulating points for living in Toledo versus the Pacific Northwest over the entire visit, and Jamba Juice was a point for the Pacific Northwest. Possibly two. I was a little homesick the last couple of days, but I'm over it now. I still want to go back, but it's nice here, too. We had another Christmas last night, with Eric's family. They handle present opening differently from my family, but it worked out and I got nice stuff (notably knitting gadgets and Tupperware). Eric's sister got a new wool coat I coveted, but I had also gotten a new wool coat from Mom which I knew I was getting since she had been telling me for years that my old wool coat needed replacing and this year she had stopped trying to persuade me and said, "What color do you want?" I left the old coat at her house. I hope she at least donates it to Goodwill, as it's a perfectly good coat--though my new one is admittedly much better.

So I'm warm and current on family hugs and laden with material things, and now I'm helping with a New Year's party. In the new year I will be: getting an interim job, getting a real job, getting a house or at least a permanent living space, working on writing and knitting and quilting (oh, hey, I have to write a new Annual Report, don't I? Geez, already?) and generally getting my life in order. Business as usual. Happy New Year!

It's beginning to look at lot like Christmas.

So I originally intended to make a pair of mittens for Pat. However, this was merely silliness, plus I'm running out of time here, so I decided to make a mini-mitten ornament instead. I used this pattern, with minor modifications, and my own handspun yarn. I liked it enough that I decided to make two more, one for me and one for Mom. Observe these mittens:

Same pattern, same needles, same knitter, same yarn, wildly different sizes. Clearly I need to work on the evenness of my spinning. Still, I'm entirely proud of these things.

Also, I have finally finished Cozy.



Seven balls of Knitpicks Elegance made it about my height (66 inches) when I finished knitting and about a foot longer once I got it wet and stretched it. You wouldn't think something this lacy would take so darned long, but it's finished and I'm pleased--I'm just waiting for it to dry completely so I can wrap it and put it under the tree, assuming Brenda ever puts it up. It turns out that the bare frame of a Papasan chair is great for drying such things.

So, with these things complete, I am now completely done with Christmas crafting except for (a) Marie's quilt, which I gave up on until after I get back, and (b) Gabe's second pair of mittens, which I will make on the plane. Now, to copy down cookie recipes (since Mom's expected several batches of cookies out of me on the 23rd) and finish packing and print out the flight itinerary. We leave in one day!

On being gone.

It's strange to come home to this apartment after having been gone two or three days. Wednesday I went to Toledo Jen's, for a craft night--she worked on her hand quilting, I knit--and it snowed, wet thick snow that piled up quickly. I decided to stay the night rather than brave the roads to get to Eric's as originally planned. In the morning I woke up to the kids moving upstairs, rejoicing that they had no school, and in the afternoon Jen and I went to the Sonflower Quilt Shop and a fine-art store and Kroger. Then I went to Eric's, a day late, and finished a sock for Gabe (from this pattern, only with a few changes to make it look better and fit better considering I don't have Gabe's foot to look at) and ate not-bad Chinese food and did some talking about a house and a future and things of that sort. Today I'm here, and tonight we're going back to Jen's for a dinner-and-games night (I have to make dessert...I think I want to make apple pie) and tomorrow we're doing my laundry and the last of Christmas shopping and Sunday is our one-year anniversary and we're going to lounge around and do more talking about a house and a future.

And in less than a week I go back to Washington! We go, I mean. I'm glad Eric's coming and I do want him to meet my family, but I'm afraid that mostly I'm thinking about being back in the Pacific Northwest, back in the land of topography (or anyway a land of topography) and the Cascades and coffeeshops and Mom and Dad and James and Bev. And Ben Franklin Crafts. And the neighborhood up on the Plateau where they have the huge nutcrackers and the carousel. I played "Just Another Wet Seattle Christmas" for Eric the other day. I really love this song. "Christmas is here, spread happy cheer/No sunny sky 'til next July/When will it clear, can't see Rainier/Nothing but rain, drives me insane." And the end: "All I want for Christmas is another double latte." All I want for Christmas is to feel okay doing what I'm doing. And to do better things, I guess. But going home is a great second choice.

Topsy-style.

I woke up at 8:29, a minute before the alarm would go off for me to turn the furnace off at 68 degrees. (The connection from the furnace to the thermostat is broken here. So we have to manually cycle it between 60 and 68. I keep telling Eric, at my apartment I have heat. Then he points out that World of Warcraft inexplicably will not work on my computer, even though everything else does, and as this is his main extracurricular activity--other than me--it's enough reason not to be at my apartment all the time.) I turned off the alarm, prodded the lump of beagle on the bed, and went back to sleep.

I dreamed I was back at EEP, sort of, talking to a young EEPer I was familiar with (in the dream) about the EEP Drama Society. They were having difficulty deciding whether to do a play this year, and if so what to do that wouldn't deplete the money they had. "If Mike and I want to make an investment with this money all we have to do is talk to Dr. Frost," this EEPer told me. "But to do a play we've got to talk to everyone and they have to discuss everything, and I made a list, here, of the plays we could do and estimated revenue, and..." All a mess. I wanted to offer to help, but then I remembered I was an alumnus and not eligible, plus I lived in Toledo now and probably wouldn't even come to the play. So I went to the back rooms and started taking down my things. I had a rapier on a wall from two quarters ago, and a big camera that seemed to work with a box of sand and water in place of the lens, and Mom's yobo bed from Korea, and a decorated ironing board, and a half-finished quilt on the wall. When I was finished the rooms and halls were blank and I thought bleakly of having to trek fifteen minutes across campus twice to get everything into my car.

Then I woke up, twenty minutes later, and the thermostat fortunately only showed 70 degrees so I turned off the furnace and got dressed before it got too cold. This weekend we went Christmas shopping and I got everything I need--now I just need to finish projects. That and pursue some sort of worthwhile occupation while I wait for an employer to say, "Come work for us." Or for after the holidays when I'll apply at either Borders or Books-A-Million and get this life on the road, ready or not. Also, apparently, I need to find a local community theater to volunteer at.

Look what I made!

First, this is what happens when you read Doomsday Book and buy a spinning kit:

My very own yarn. Spinning is fun. Oddly soothing. I've bought a bag of white wool roving (what yarn is before it's yarn) from a farm online and I'm going to try dyeing it with Easter egg dye--also practicing spinning lots more to try to get an even yarn. And then the next step in learning to spin: plying.

And then there's this:

TST (Trees, Santa, Trees). It's finally finished, after a year and a half and a recipient switch, just in time for Christmas. It's meant to be a lap quilt, not a bed quilt (I'm putting this picture up because the full-front one turned out blurry). The binding was torture, though I learned that you can't make a binding bigger than the seam allowance, at least not the way everyone says to do it (folding to mitre the corners). But it's finished and I'm happy.

The Christmas spirit.

It's snowing and I am once again gloating about being home. Later I'm making banana gingerbread (as I have three overripe bananas that need doing something with) and practicing Christmas songs on my guitar. And gloating. I'm getting coal in my stocking for sure.

Three weeks until we go back for Christmas! I just finished sending out the Christmas gift exchange names. We started this last year, to ease up everyone's burden of buying everyone a gift, especially as the family was getting bigger, and this year Dad had me arrange it because I wanted to get my cousin Cody on purpose because I already bought him a gift. Next year somebody else will work the system. I hope. Because sending haranguing e-mails to my relatives ("You never sent any suggestions for presents; do it now or I'll put you down for coal, Vaseline, and #2 pencils") is not a good way to remain loved.

I've actually got a decent amount of Christmas shopping/making done. I've also got leaves strewn across my floor--fabric leaves--because I wanted to test the colors of Marie's quilt, which I'm thinking of as "The Sacrifice," which is probably a silly name. It needs fabric and I should go out and et some, but it's snowy and I won't be able to use fabric until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest anyway because it needs washing and I left my detergent at Brenda's and we're staying here tonight, so I'm going to be lazy and make my gingerbread instead. And work on Cozy and finishing TST and maybe starting Pat's mittens. And, as I said, gloat.