Minneord

My Grannie died on Saturday at the age of ninety-five. She died in the way she most wished for, in a hospital with a team of doctors performing every possible form of resuscitation. I'm not really sure if she achieved any sense of peace with death at the end. Despite living the last two decades or so largely in bitterness, frustration, and poor health, she clung desperately to life, or, perhaps more accurately, to the idea of being alive.

It's hard to sort out the emotions I feel at her death. On the one hand I carry a fair amount of resentment over the way she chose to live and die, and over her obvious disapproval way that I have chosen to go about living. I sort of had to give up on her emotionally when it became clear that nothing I was ever going to do as an adult would be "right" in her eyes.

But on the other hand, I am terribly sad at the loss of the Grannie of my childhood. She was an enchanting grandmother. Everything she did was slow and deliberate. She thought long and hard about every little detail in the very limited life she led. She monitored everything, noting important events in a little book that she kept by her chair. She kept her shoes stacked up in their original shoe boxes in her closet. She read every word of the sentiments printed in greeting cards. The way she would smooth the sleek fur around her beloved dog Bobbie's eyes showed extraordinary deliberation and affection. Nothing escaped her, and in observing even her simplest actions I often found myself mesmerized.

She was a small town beauty queen who loved stock car racing and Hank Williams (Sr. and Jr.). I can still hear her astoundingly slow southern Illinois twang reading out her telephone number on her answering machine ("You have reached ... 6-1-8 ... 5-6-8 ...). In my memory that number seems to go on forever. She had me call her "Grannie" because that was the English way to do things, and her own grandmother was an immigrant from Yorkshire. Here they are together, when Grannie was a young teenager:

They were thick as thieves, and Grannie knew unequivocally that her grandmother loved her best. I knew that too as a child, though she was quiet and reserved. She was painfully shy, but warm and giggly when it was just the two of us. We shared a great affection throughout my childhood, right from the very start, although we only got to see each other twice a year at vacations.

She was unrelentingly fastidious, and terrified of appearing unkempt, or poor, or slovenly, terrified of the small town gossips. Every detail of her attire was coordinated, achieved only after much thought and careful planning. She would go back and look at a jacket in the store five or six times before she would buy it. She loved diamonds, and carried all her best jewelry with her in her purse at all times. On car rides from the airport she always had me look through her purse, pointing out her "good" rings, a new wallet, or a couple of new watches with a sheepish, conspiratorial look. She never paid with exact change. Instead, she would break a bill and take the change home to save, sometimes just to build up a buffer, but often so as to have rolls and rolls of coins to give to me when I came to visit.

She remembered anything anything anyone ever said about her. She never forgave an affront (intentional or imaginary) and brooded obsessively over the losses and injustices of her life. She would whisper bitterly to herself on car rides when she thought no one could hear.  I suspect that she never felt that she was in charge of her own life. When confronted with a moment of freedom or autonomy she invariable made the most conventional choice.

I am sad that she has died because she was so desperate to stay alive, but, oddly, not sad about losing her now. If I'm really honest, I've probably been mourning the loss of the Grannie I once knew for about twenty years. What I am most sad about is the fact that we found it so difficult to relate to each other once I became an adult.

Selvmedlidenhet?

It's odd how draining I found my confrontations with Norwegian bureaucracy last week to be. It really knocked me off course, and I feel completely demotivated to do anything at all. And the odd thing is, it actually turned out not to be so bad. When I went down to the police station to submit my documentation, the woman who processed my paperwork was kindness itself, and assured me that I wasn't too late at all.

I realize that my overreaction to the residency permit has to do with how much I have personally riding on it--every year I see stories in the media about people with children in Norway getting deported, and having to spend months and even years to regain the legal right to be with their children. Having a child makes a person feel so much more vulnerable to the whims of the state. If I were single and childless and got deported, I would be terribly upset, but would simply rebuild. If I were to be deported in the situation I'm in now, I think it would kill me.

The only measurable thing I was able to accomplish since the last time I posted was to knit a necklace. Yes, you read that right, a necklace! It's this cool (free!) pattern from Kirsten Johnstone:

This won't be the last time I'll be knitting this. In fact, I've already started on a second version with the same yarn (Classic Elite Silky Alpaca Lace). I only discovered at the last of the seven circles that I should really have been using an elastic cast off (sl1, K1, K these two together, *K1, K2tog*). So, I'll keep this one and send the second as the gift it was originally intended to be.


So now it's Monday, with my two last classes to teach for this semester, and I'm really, really hoping that I can manage to motivate myself to do the research and writing I had planned to get done before the Christmas break. There's a lot riding on that too, since it's material that--ideally speaking--needs to be done before I submit my next job application.


Motivation is such a fickle thing. I know exactly what I need to do. I know how to do it. I know that I can do it. I even know how to break it down into smaller, manageable parts. What I don't know how to do right now, is get myself to actually do it. I wish I had some kind of reward or something joyful and random that could shake me out of this funk, but I don't even know what that would be.

Mentalt mørbanka

I'm about to burst a vein here, folks. This week has so far consisted of nothing but onerous tasks and frustration.

First up, I have had to spend a whole bunch of time copy-editing chapters in the book I'm co-editing, and along the way I discovered a whole bunch of inconsistencies, both created by me and by others. Right now I feel like the book is just going to be a terrible mess, and that it will get panned in the reviews. I'm sure it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but I feel like such an editing failure.

I've also been fretting for a long time about my residency permit. When I arrived in December 2008 I was granted a 3-year permit, so I have known all along that I would have to reapply. I kept waiting all fall for some kind of word from UDI, which never came. Finally last week I got so nervous about it that I sent off an email asking what I'm supposed to do. After an incredibly draining day at work yesterday, I came home to find an email response telling me I had to apply a minimum of one month before my old permit expires. yesterday was November 22nd. My permit expires on...wait for it...December 22nd. I think that technically I've missed the deadline, though I'm still going to go ahead with the process and hope for the best.

Last night I spent what felt like hours trying to fill out the online application form. It kept crashing on me, but I eventually managed, and paid the fee online too. After I got that taken care of I tried going to the two websites that were supposed to provide a list of necessary supporting documentation. Neither of them had such a list, and I searched every conceivable link and page on those sites. By the end I was spitting mad. After I calmed down a bit, I realized that there was some information about what I needed in the email response I got from UDI, so together with that and the documentation I saved from my first application three years ago, I think I'm going to be okay.

So today was my day for clearing the decks: I ran around gathering all the documentation I'm going to need for my meeting with the police tomorrow morning. I finally finished all the copy-editing. All I really want to do now is relax and do something super therapeutic, but when I got home I was met with an official letter from the University of Oslo informing me that they have evaluated my full educational background, and nothing from my 10 years of higher education in the US counts toward an undergraduate degree in English here. Nothing. Not the composition course, not the Milton I read, nothing at all. I'm kind of shocked, but I do still (perhaps foolishly) maintain hope that the MA program in English literature will still accept me when I apply this spring. Anyway, the letter only added an additional layer to my current level of frustration over Norwegian bureaucracy.

Farger

Fair Isle knitting has always appealed to me. I tried knitting an entire sweater in the early 1990s, but an utter lack of control over the shaping turned it into something I just had to abandon. But I still totally love the look, and have been thinking about trying it for a long time. This weekend I wasn't quite up to starting in on any of my bigger works-in-progress, so I dug out my fingering weight shetland yarn and a photocopy of a pattern for a Tam o' Shanter from an ancient Vogue Knitting, and dove in. My first attempt was a disaster, but luckily this pattern is so small that I just decided to start over with a new version once I saw which way the first one was going. Here's a snapshot of my second attempt:

Unfortunately the colors are really harsh here because I had to use a flash (not much light in Norway these days...). But you get the idea. Even though I have nine different colors (and am using seven here) I can tell that I need a much wider variety in order to really start getting the subtle fair isle effect. That green stripe through the XO pattern really doesn't work. I wish I had something more muted than that color, but I really don't. I am really happy with the corrugated ribbing though. And in normal lighting the  beige and yellow background colors blend beautifully into each other. If I had about ten more colors to work with, I think I'd be in pretty good shape. The basic principles aren't hard to figure out (when the background transitions from light to dark, the motif colors are supposed to transition from dark to light, for example). So far this is a pretty easy pattern, so I think I'll be making a few more as I acquire more colors (high on my list for when I get to London in February!).

Otherwise, things have  been hectic here with school stuff for E. But now the Christmas market is over for the year, and I can start to relax a little on the home front, though I've got tons of work related stuff on my plate. So much, in fact, that I'm feeling very overwhelmed and just want to curl up on the sofa with my knitting.

Småting

There's lots going on here on the home front, and even some finished objects to report. On Thursday I had to bake cookies for E's school "Lantern Festival"; the recipe they distributed didn't appeal, so I searched the internet and came up with this Martha Stewart recipe for basic sugar cookies. They were so good that I had to make a batch for us here at home today too:

The only change I made in the recipe was  to add a little bit of fresh lemon juice, since the school recipe had called for that. They turned out delicious even without any icing or decoration. These will be gone very soon, I fear.

Since abandoning my big sweater projects, I've been doing much better with knitting. I finished up the cashmere "Lava Flow" cowl, and have been wearing it almost constantly since:

It has been an especially welcome addition since I seem to have developed my annual winter neck crick already. I used just under three skeins of Classic Elite Marley (100% cashmere), and modified the pattern (a free Ravelry download called Lava Flow Cowl) by adding a third cable repeat, and by making it long enough to double the cowl around my neck. This makes it big and bulky, like the women in Oslo seem to always wear them. The other day walking from the subway to the ferry I tried to tally how many women wore cowls or scarves of some kind compared with women who didn't. I lost track, but it was something like seven with for every one without!

Each year I attempt to knit a new winter hat that will work, and each year I fail. Here's this winter's first attempt, the "Rikke" hat (free pattern here):

I suspect that this one won't end up being exactly "it" either, but for now I think it will work. I used just under two balls of Rauma 3-tråd strikkegarn, and followed the pattern exactly.

Otherwise, I've dug out a disastrous project from this summer, and have decided to finish up the crocheted border so that I can donate the thing to E's school's Christmas bazaar. I know I'll never wear it, but it sort of has that Waldorf school aesthetic, so maybe someone will buy it in support of the school?

See, cute in a way, but totally not my thing. I can't stand pink, or fuzzy yarn, or cardigans, or things that are tight (which this definitely would be on me), but I was just so taken in the picture from Tine Solheim's book Maskeball, and the yarn I had been given was a perfect match for it, and so I just went for it...

Just a few more inches of crocheting the ruffled edge, and it will be done well in time for the Christmas market next weekend. And now, after finally getting some wearable (or donate-able) finished objects under my belt, I think I'll be able to pick up my two big knitting projects (the Still Light Tunic and the Ung Høst pullover) and maybe even get them finished by the end of the term...