Good King Wollmeise

I knew he was up to something when this gift was the first to appear under the tree.

And when this sign appeared on our door on Christmas eve, I knew he was up to something... elaborate.

Christmas morning, this is what I found...

At the door...

 And down the hall...

And in the kitchen...

Kevin (a.k.a. Love of my Life) was "perplexed" by all of this, but shrugged and got down to the business of Christmas morning.  And a lovely Christmas morning it was...

...until almost everything was opened, and then he "heard something" in the basement and went to "investigate".

After dramatic commotion downstairs and an apparently valiant struggle on the part of the "intruder", Kevin came upstairs with this:

I didn't really understand why there were hooks on his back, until the Mexican Hat Dance started to play (loudly) in the living room.

Dudes, it was a SHAUN THE SHEEP PINATA.

He MADE me a PINATA.

There was about 20 minutes of hysterical laughter on my part, and then the destruction of Kevin's carefully crafted paper mache Shaun the Sheep began in earnest (in fairness, I had a hunch at what kind of gifts might have been wrapped into a sheep pinata and the destruction didn't take very long at all.  There's video.  I'm not sharing it here. Suffice to say I was not at my most ladylike.)

I was right about the contents.

And it wasn't just any yarn.

Wollmeise.  Gorgeous, unattainable, precious, oft-compared-to-crack Wollmeise. There is a veritable cult around this stuff. It's made in Germany, and new stock usually sells out of the online shop within 3-4 minutes of being added.  You cannot get it.  And when I first said these things to Kevin sometime last summer... well, let's just say that Kevin loves a challenge.

Not only did he craft an elaborate 2-day build up to the unveiling of a paper-mache sheep that took him a couple of sleepless nights to build.  He joined Ravelry (to all of you who helped a myterious forum-member who called himself "Centrino", thank you thank you thank you).  He emailed Claudia. He stalked the forums and EBay. He stayed up to catch the site update.  He emailed de-stashers.  And over the past 2-3 months, he got his hands on 15 skeins.

I am so loved. (Plus, I have Wollmeise.)

Wee Postcard from the Cardboard Jungle

We're in.  All of our worldly possessions are here, under one roof, with us. All that's left to do now is unpack, set up, clean, plug in, dust, fold, sort, assemble, attach felt feet to, arrange, and make sense of it all.  We are exhausted, and excited, and sore in places we didn't know we had.  But we're in.

I will, I'm sure, have more profound things to say about all of this at some point. But for now, I can only think in lists, the events of the past two weeks having apparently temporarily fused my cerebral wiring this way.

Please understand: I am grateful to be where I am.  I love where I am, and who I am with, and pretty much my entire life right now.  My tongue is planted firmly in cheek.  With that caveat, I give you the lists that are currently top of mind:


Sentences I never want to hear again:

1.  Hey Jenn, which box is the ___________ in?

2.  OW!!!!  (Induced by stubbed toes, falling assorted debris, incorrect-and-therefore-over-heated-lightbulb burn, skinned knuckles and deceptively-light looking boxes that turn out not to be)

3. Where the #$&@! is the damn tape gun?

4. That will be $X. (where X = approximate GDP of small nation + 12%)

5.  "Yes, ma'am, please be there waiting: that delivery and/or installation will be promptly at Y o'clock." (where Y = an apparently "reasonable" window of time ranging anywhere from 4 hours - 3 days)

Sentences I never want to utter again:

1.  Hey Kev, where's the box with the ________ in it?

2.  OW!!!! (Induced by stubbed toes, falling assorted debris, head-cracking on shelves whose existence had not yet been fully appreciated, skinned knuckles, and deceptively-light looking boxes that turn out not to be)

3. Where the *assorted unlady-like descriptors* did I put the *more assorted unladylike adjectives* tape gun? It was RIGHT HERE.

4. $X?  Yes, certainly, let me me get my chequebook.

5.  "Yes hi, we were expecting a delivery/installation at Y o'clock?"

Places I'd rather be:

1. Absolutely nowhere.  

Preparing for Launch

It's Saturday morning.  Not just any Saturday morning, but the Saturday before moving day.  I am sitting amid piles of boxes, files of bills, and lists of lists of Things To Do Before Moving Day.  The love of my life is at Home Depot in an early morning bid to accomplish items 67 through 82 of Supplies That Need to Be Bought For the House list, and I'm here alone, drinking coffee, and thinking about the neighborhood I am preparing to leave.

Osborne Village is a neighborhood with a personality that has changed with the times, yet managed to retain a modicum of its hippy-dippy roots.  I wasn't raised here - the two-block main drag of the Village was exclusively lined with record stores and head shops when I was a kid - but I did grow up here, in ways that have become apparent to me as I prepare to leave it once again.

I used to come here in early high school with "the girls"  - usually when someone's heart had been broken - to eat cheesecake at Baked Expectations and watch the firefighters across the street play volleyball on their parking lot.

In the summer before we went away to university (music for me, political science for her), my best friend and I used to dress up in our subversive best and come here to hang out as conspicuously as possible in the coffee shops, talking for hours aboud politics and philosophy and our grand plans to change the world through art and activism.

It wasn't until after college that I officially moved into the Village for the first time.  At 21, I lived in a tiny apartment that once housed the serving staff in a converted mansion.  I bought a piano with a co-sign from my Dad, I walked to work during the week and to the Village shops on weekends, looking at books and clothing I couldn't afford on my princely $19,000 first salary.

When I got married at 24, we moved deeper into the Village.  We were there when one of the heritage building that had been a cornerstone of the Village shopping district burned down, to be eventually replaced by a bank and a tanning salon.  I watched the community garden across the street be ripped out to make way for high-priced condos that wouldn't be built until years later.  The independent bookstore became a chain coffee shop, the second-last head shop became a high-end boutique, the independent record store became a crappy sandwich joint, and the gentle dope-smokers that once were a fixture on the corner were slowly replaced by increasingly violent drunks. After 8 years in the neighborhood, we bought a house in the French Quarter.

Three years later, my marriage ended.  Thinking back on it now, I never even momentarily considered anywhere else.  Despite the changes, the Village was a safe haven, a retreat, my home.  I came back.

The tiny apartment I am about to leave was a godsend during the two-and-a-half most transformative years of my life.  Here, I recovered from the circumstances around the end of my marriage and grew into a love I never dared to dream existed.  With that essential support, I fought the brutal, but ultimately final, battle against my anorexia.  The band that has become such an important part of my life filled this place with music, and LoML and I spent two wonderful Christmas mornings here, Christmases that were easily the most magical and beautiful ones I have ever had. 

On Friday morning, the movers will arrive, and they will carry my piano and my books and my yarn and my things to our new house, a substantial drive away from this neighborhood that has become the launching pad for new chapters of my life.  This last chapter has been a doozy, but I can't wait to turn the page, because I have a feeling that this next one is going to be the longest and most wonderful one yet.

Back that truck up, boys.  It's time to go.