Sunday Activities

It's been an intense couple of days. Saturday was Not Good, and we'll just leave it at that. I've been processing it elsewhere, with people who've been through this kind of thing. Earlier today I looked at Bob and said, "Am I ever gonna get better?" And he said I was doing fine, right on schedule for where I am, and yes, I'm going to get and feel better. Today, the solution for feeling like crap was what it so often is -- pray to be relieved of fear or resentment or whatever it is, and then get on and do something. Anything. I didn't WANT to do anything, and I didn't feel like I had enthusiasm, excitement or energy for anything, but that doesn't matter. I do have one project I really wanted to be Finished, so I started with that. It's a knife sheath, a commission, for a friend who's a biker and wanted something in black leather, with fringe to match his leathers, for a folding knife.

I've never done a sheath for a folder before, and it presented construction difficulties, and I've never done fringes before either. I made a sandwich of thin, 4-ounce leather, with an insert of black-on-white watersnake skin. You have to cut a hole for that, and cut the snakeskin, and put a piece of something soft, like chamois, cut the same as the hole but a little smaller, behind the snakeskin to pad it and make it flush with the top of the sandwich, then glue it all in place and stitch around it. I've done that before and felt competent there.



But straight knives are narrow and this folder's over a half-inch deep. I made the back out of heavier 9-ounce leather, about a quarter-inch thick, with a strap on it folded over and stitched down for a belt loop. That's common and straightforward too. The tricky part here was the welting. I thought I'd be using two layers of the 9-ounce leather, plus a third of 4-ounce, cut for the fringe, and I got all that done, and then realized it still wasn't deep enough inside. I had to cut a third layer of the 9-ounce leather. And I'd already glued the other two layers to the back, and tacked on the front and cleaned up the sides on the belt grinder -- so it wasn't just a matter of tracing. I got a little stuck there, and left it for a few days.



Today, I cut that third layer of welt, glued it up, and the whole welt was, near the top on one side, narrower than optimal. I had to drill holes through all that leather, which was an inch or more deep by then, 3/32" holes, about 3/16" on centre (5 to the inch). and an 1/8" in from the edge. The holes are good on top, but that grinding I'd already done had left the bottom edge a little rounded. The stitches will hold, but they're through the rounded edge on the bottom, and that doesn't please me aesthetically. Or professionally. I couldn't adjust them because of the welt being too narrow. After I got the holes drilled, I saddle-stitched them. Took a LOT of thread. Saddle-stitching, you put a needle in each end of a length of thread and thread it through a hole. Then the needle on the back of the sheath goes through the next hole to the front, and the needle that was on the front in the first place goes through the same hole to the back, so you've got one on the front and one on the back again. Each stitch took about three inches of waxed cotton cord.



I have the COOLEST vice for holding things while I sew them. We saw someone using one like it for filework on knives last spring, and Bob came home and made one for me. I like filework, and it looks like I'll have time to learn some this winter, but it works great for a lot of other things too. Sewing that saddle-stitch needs two hands, so you need your work to be clamped. This is made out of a trailer hitch ball in a piece of pipe, so you can swivel it in all directions, then tighten the screws to hold it still. I'll take pictures another time -- it's too dark now and my flash isn't so hot.

After the sewing was done, I dressed the edges, cleaned the sheath of fingerprints with rubbing alcohol, and got the first coat of black dye on it. I don't know that I like the fringes very much, but I'm really pleased with the rest of it, now the dye's on it. It needs another coat of dye tomorrow, then buffing, a clear coat and a second buffing, and I'll take it to the guy I made it for, and hope he likes it. Pictures of the done thing tomorrow -- those light issues again.

The gluing today was all contact cement, so there was standing time every once in a while. I put the kittens in the former flying squirrel cage, where we keep the cat food now. The runty little black one (my favourite) found his way into the food right away. His sister spent a lot of time climbing the trees in there. The pictures I took of them in there didn't turn out well -- kittens WON'T hold still for pictures. But here's one of the calico on the front steps -- I really like this picture. We gotta name these guys soon -- they're six weeks old now.



And we haven't seen a hummingnbird for a couple of weeks, but the feeders are attracting the red wasps that are as big as Sea King Helicopters, and lots of yellow jackets too, right near the house. Aubrey screams whenever she sees one, which leads her to show me how loud she can scream, and that wears a little thin. Today, I took down all the feeders and cleaned them to put away for winter. I said, "These smell AWFUL," and Bob thought it was because the stuff had fermented, but it wasn't that kind of smell. When I took the last one apart for washing, I found it had become a yellow jacket trap -- there had to be two dozen drowned ones in there. Ugh.



Friday night or yesterday, I forget, I finished this pair of mittens. Here's the hat, just started, to go with them. I love this wool -- I love the colours, and it's soft and beautiful, and machine washable on delicate in cold water. Crystal Palace's Mini Mochi. I hadn't realized this particular colour (Bossa Nova) was quite so pink/purpley, or I'd have picked something else for the girl they're meant for. Well, we do the best we can. I've got the same wool in a different colourway for another little girl -- Intense Rainbow. Soon's I get this hat done, I'll start her mittens. Oh, except tomorrow I've gotta take some time to knit some of these stars, but in pale yellow. Tomorrow's my mother-in-law's birthday, and I'll mail half-a-dozen or so to her for her Christmas tree.

The bottom line is, today's finishing a lot better than it started. My final triumph was just a little bit ago. The bathtub plug's not been fitting, and you can shower, but a bath runs out before you can get wet, hardly. I'd said I'd use a crochet hook and fish out the hair I figured was stuck in there, but I forgot. Bob had wanted a bath before bed, and I finished the dying (leather, not personal) and went and stuck my finger down the drain to see if I could fish out whatever was in there. Easy-peasy. Turned out there was a little circle of clear plastic in there. It had popped off the centre of the hot water tap handle, and got stuck, so the plug couldn't turn. Pictures of the finished knife sheath and the vise tomorrow or Tuesday.

About That Knife

I said I’d be making a sheath for the knife you can see a couple of posts back. I did it. I wanted it lean and black and shiny and elegant, with nothing on it that would distract from the beautiful handle. There are technical flaws in it. It’s the first I’ve made in six months, and there are things I’ve forgotten. The places where the stitches are out of a straight line are all I see when I look at it. (Yeah, I know.) It's got a loop on the back that'll fit any belt that's not more than 2" wide. I made it for a right-hander, but if you wanted to buy it and you're left-handed, I'd make another one.

The thing I got really right is the FIT. You put a welt between the front and back, where they’re sewn together. It gives space inside for the knife. It also holds the knife. The inside of the welt, that you can’t see, is cut to match the line of the blade. You can turn this one upside-down, hold it by the tip so you’re not touching the blade, and it doesn’t slip a bit. It still slides in and out easily when you’re doing it on purpose. But it’s never gonna slip out by accident and get lost in the woods anywhere.

“Therefore are thou happy.” -- Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, telling Romeo what he had to be happy about when he was pining over Rosaline. One of my favourite quotations.

Gifts

Well, I never promised I’d do this every day. It’s been an intense week, including a headcold. It meant it was really a good thing I didn’t try to fly back to Ontario last week. It’s tiring, a day with three flights and the first taking off at 6:30 in the morning. We have to leave here at 4:30 to get me there on time, and the only way THAT’s ever gonna happen is if we stay up all night. And I’d have been at my most contagious and least socially-acceptable with the coughing and runny nose, right during the visitation. My son said, “Yeah, it’s a good thing. A lot of Papa’s old school teacher friends came, and, well … they’re OLD.” Yeah, that lowered immune system thing.

Here, in this little spot in Texas, we aim to live a spiritual life. The premise is, “God’s in charge,” and a key point is that God’s got all the sex/love/relationship stuff and all the money, so there’s no point wasting a lot of time and energy worrying about them. (Some of you will know that’s not exactly how that statement goes, but we’re G-Rated here.) For physical and spiritual reasons, we eat according to a plan. There are some things that are not on the list, and what is on the list is on the list in measured quantities. Lots of people look at the plan and think it’s going to be torture. I did, for 19 years. But it’s not. It’s kept us healthy, made us healthy. Me, beyond my wildest dreams – I haven’t had a shot of insulin since January 21^st, 2007, and I was on four a day before that. And I’m wearing size 8 jeans for the first time in my life, and they slide without a belt. Not enough for a size 6, but I never thought I’d get here.

What makes the plan bearable in the long term is that we both see it as a gift from God. The plan is; the ability not just to stick with it but to love it is; the food is. And we both have a sense that the planning and preparation and eating is devotional, or a spiritual discipline.

That picture up there is a salad I’ve been making at least twice a week for the last month. Often more. It’s a cucumber and tomato raita. You start by putting a big paper towel in a sieve over a bowl and dumping a quart of plain yoghurt (we use whole milk yoghurt) into it, and letting it drain in the fridge for anywhere from two to 24 hours. Peel, seed and dice a cucumber into pieces about the size of a dried chickpea. Toss it with a little salt, and put it in the sieve over the bowl (take the yoghurt out first) and let it sit while you do the rest of the stuff. Cut up three Roma tomatoes into bits the same size as the cucumber. Chop up the leaves from half a bunch of cilantro. Mix the tomatoes and cilantro and yoghurt up with a teaspoon or so of roasted, ground cumin seeds (coffee grinder works great for that). Squeeze handsful of the cucumbers as hard as you can in your fist over the sink, mix them in with all the other stuff. Put it in the fridge for an hour or so if you can stand to wait that long, and VIOLA! You have a stringed instrument, and a great salad. Serves 2. It tastes good, it’s good for us, and I always feel like the food is really CLEAN and there’s something more than physical nourishment going on.

We talked about it this afternoon. I said I’d be happy to make one today, but I used the last of the cucumbers and tomatoes when I made it yesterday. Bob went to the store and got 2 cucumbers, a lot of tomatoes and some more cilantro, cuz we’ve got a full quart of yoghurt. When he came back he said it was too bad we didn’t have a Cuisinart or something, to chop up the vegetables. I don’t think it’s that much trouble to do the vegetables, and I said so.

But I thought about it some more while I made the salad just now, and we talked about it for a couple of minutes. Once, when I was living elsewhere with other people, I was dicing up vegetables for soup, and The Voice in my head said, “The gifts of God for the people of God,” just like the priest does about the bread and wine at communion. I realized it was true – I was preparing gifts from God – potatoes, carrots, onions – for people of God – my family. Made the daily task holy. I have that same sense, making the raita. I said tonight, “Preparing this specific food is always spiritual for me. I wouldn’t use a machine for the vegetables if we had one.”

There’s more than that to it. The salad is in a bowl that my friend Deborah Doran made – it’s beautiful, and it was a trick getting it 1,300 miles in one piece. That picture above is a set of knives and choppers that are now hanging on the kitchen wall. (And a dragon that appeared in the sawblade after the knives were cut out of it. Dragons appear unexpectedly like that – it’s their way.) I use the big, round-bladed one with the green linen micarta handle in the top right corner to chop up the cilantro, or garlic, ginger and/or jalapenos, if that’s what I’m doing. It just rocks on the board and cuts them up perfectly. I was using the smaller rounded knife on the bottom for the cucumbers and tomatoes. And below here is a picture of some things on the cutting board. I used that wooden spatula to mix the salad.

Those things are important, because we made them. Bob made those knives. Every once in a while we drive around to the junk barns and stores around here and buy up old, round sawmill blades, or cross-cut saw blades, and once a disc off a harrow. Then he cuts out blades with a plasma cutter, anneals and hardens them, makes the handles. See the handles? Those are all made of micarta, which is layers of fabric held together with a resin. The dark green one was a purchased block of Micarta. The multicoloured ones: we made that block of micarta last spring. Layered different coloured fabrics that we soaked one at a time in Bondo, and clamped them between boards that have pinto beans glued onto them, and that’s what makes the swirls. It’s messy and fun and you have to work fast and don’t know what you’ll get.

That spatula, the wooden one, is one I made a few weeks ago. The first in a series. I like wooden cooking utensils and there aren’t any here, but there’s lots of wood, and lots of tools to make things with. Lots of time too, and an attitude that you don’t know what you like doing or are good at unless you try it. It’s hard to screw up here. The second one of these I made is much too thin, and it will inevitably break – but I’m using it til it does, and being careful with it, and next time I won’t make the same mistake. Next time, I’m making one with a slot in the middle, and I’m going to mail it to Roo in New Jersey, cuz she wants one.

All of this makes making the raita more special, and more about the wonders of the world. Something to be grateful for. You’ll have to make the intuitive leap on that one – the best I can tell you about why, is, it puts love into the task. It makes the salad taste better. It makes the food preparation an act of love and devotion and spiritual gift, rather than drudgery.

It doesn’t only apply to cooking. Attitude is everything. Vacuuming the carpets and cleaning the toilet can be drudgery. It’s not though, when I’m aware that I’m making the place and life more peaceful and pleasant, for myself or for someone else. It’s a way to bring a little serenity, maybe even joy, into the world. Doesn’t even matter if someone else notices that it’s been done: they’ll notice the effect. I used to cook stews and breads and things that cooked a long time and smelled good, on very snowy days, because it made the house a better place to walk into, as soon as someone walked in the door. One of you reading this hangs her clothes on the line instead of using the dryer – it’s an act of good stewardship of the Creation, and so a spiritual discipline too.

I’ve started a new one today. I knit, for joy, and for serenity, and because I can’t smoke cigarettes or eat potato chips or ice cream while I do it. Well, that was why I started – now it’s mostly the joy and serenity. In the last year, I’ve started using (and paying a little extra for) wooden knitting needles. You have to go out of the way to get them. Most stores that have knitting needles at all have plastic or aluminum ones. And I’m less and less able to use acrylic yarns – I don’t like the feel. I use wool, alpaca, mohair, cotton, bamboo yarns. I’ve got a project in my head that I’ll want silk for. They feel better to me. I bought those needles, but I can and will make myself needles here. Bob made me a set of four short fat ones last year for something I made. The picture below is wool that came today, to make mittens and a hat for someone I like a lot. She doesn’t know, and won’t til she gets them. The wool is special – it’ll go in the washer with cold water, but not in the dryer. It’s all very fine – 7.5 stitches in an inch. That’s a lot of knitting. But I’ll think of her while I’m doing it, and say some prayers for her and other people; and be grateful for her and the project itself. The days are still fine enough in east Texas now that I’ll do a lot of the knitting in the hammock too. And fight off the Tiger-kitten sometimes. That all makes it better. It makes it all spiritual gift.