Knitting Porn

My next door neighbor Sandy has severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, which she exacerbates by gardening and knitting. This time last year, she knit Cameron a white blessing (Christening) blanket and three NICU hats. On Saturday, I returned from the grocery store to find an urgent voice mail message from her.

"I need your body," she said simply.

I was a little confused and frankly weirded out until Sandy clarified that she was knitting a sweater for her youngest daughter Mackenzie and intended to use me as a mannequin. I was, of course, happy to oblige since Mackenzie and I have identical body types, except for a two inch and twenty pound height and weight difference.

When I pointed this out to Sandy, she was understandably sympathetic. "Just suck in your stomach and wear a padded bra," she told me.

I brought my most compassionate child--Kellen--with me for moral support.

As I tried on the half-finished sweater, Kellen busied himself flipping through Sandy's knitting design books.

All of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks.

"Why is this girl?...." he asked, stopping mid-sentence. He pointed at a picture in the middle of one of the books.

I turned to find myself staring a photograph of a woman in a handmade sweater and underpants.


Sandy, who matured to adulthood in the sixties, smiled knowingly.

I was less than amused.

"What kind of hobby is this?" I asked pointing to her knitting paraphernalia. The basket of yarn looked innocent enough. Little did I know that it was part of Satan's slippery slide.

Sandy didn't defend her possession of knitting porn. Instead she asked me if I would be willing to try on the sweater again after she finished it.

I thought for a minute before I agreed. I told Sandy that I would model the sweater but not the underpants.

I prefer paper.

The Slumber Party

On Friday night, my neighbor hosted a girls only slumber party at her home. Usually, I avoid situations where I am expected to hold my own in conversation, but there was a strong likelihood that one or more of the other party guests (four slightly inebriated women whose median age was 49) would spill the beans on something of interest, so I went.

The first half of the evening was spent eating salad and discussing how we all would rather be eating dessert. The second half of the night was spent eating dessert and praising ourselves for eating salad first. As the conversation drifted away from ourselves and onto our children, I was struck by the fact that the stories these women told about their college-aged children (bad manners, stolen property, urinating in places where they shouldn't) sounded eerily similar to the stories I tell about my five-year-olds and other people tell about their dogs.

Even after playing Truth or Dare and batting around the idea of 'TP'ing a neighbor's house just for fun, none of use could shake the feeling that there was something missing from our slumber party. A few minutes later, the front door swung open and a streaker--wearing only a pair of underpants--ran through the house.

I love my husband.

The Garden of Eden

My house sits on the property line between the city limits of Philadelphia and the Garden of Eden. The two lawns to the right of my house look like this:



The two to the left look like this:

Yes, that is a plastic leg cast hanging from a tree.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what this is.

It's been almost four years since we moved to into our house and my husband and I still haven't applied for permanent citizenship in either country. Until we can make a firm commitment on whose flag we're going to fly, we've decided to mask our indecisiveness by adopting a position of total neutrality. In other words, we strive to make both parties happy. We do so by mowing the front yard regularly, but leaving the back to grow into a jungle.



Last spring, I planted flowers on the right side of my house, but not the left. We instruct our kids to leave their bikes and scooters on the driveway during the week, but insist that they store them in the garage on the weekends.So far, we have been fairly successful at walking the line. Despite all of our efforts to be good neighbors, I am beginning to realize that at some point, we are going to have to make a choice. Like Anakin Skywalker, I have a sincere desire to choose the right, but as I have come to realize, temptation is everywhere, pulling me to the dark side. Just yesterday, at Wal-Mart, a small garden gnome by the name of Hercules kept calling my name. I ignored him this time, but I can't say that I'm going to be strong enough to do so again.

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Do you have a neighbor who doesn't take care of their yard and/or has crazy things in and around it.... or are YOU the bad seed?

Cats on a Rope

Last Sunday, we were treated to some spectacular late summer weather. My husband and I spent the afternoon on the front lawn, eating chips and salsa and watching our kids dig up my garden beds in search of earthworms. Everything was perfect, except for an annoying sound coming from the screened door.
"Meow! Meooooooooooow!"
Our two indoor cats felt left out.

Since we didn't feel right about calling the day a "family day" without the entire family being present, we decided to bring the cats outside. To prevent Millie and Biscuit from hunting birds or catching the amorous eye of the gigantic tomcat that roams the neighborhood, my husband tied a fifty-foot rope around each of their collars. Although the cats weren't exactly thrilled to be attached to gigantic leashes, their desire to eat grass and stalk grasshoppers eventually overpowered their feelings of frustration and irritation.

Over the next hour or so, my husband and kids took turns "walking" the cats around our yard and cul-de-sac. Coincidentally, as all of this was taking place, a neighbor was holding an "Open House" for their home that is on the market. We want to let potential buyers of the home know that our neighborhood is filled with friendly, normal people, so we made a special point to hold the makeshift leashes in one hand, thus freeing up the other hand to wave to all of the people as they passed.

Boxed Wine

This weekend, we attended a Labor Day party at a neighbor's house. Before we left home, my husband and I reviewed the list of rules with our kids. Due to an unfortunate oversight, we forgot to include "Do Not Consume Alcoholic Beverages" on the list of no-nos.

As the only adult party guests who were not either wearing t-shirts that said "One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor!" or acting out the behavior described on them, my husband and I were relegated to the kitchen, where we were immediately converted into wait staff. Tim was put in charge of grilling an assortment of Italian meats that he could neither name nor identity, while I was asked to carry a number of peculiar salads to the serving table. I decided to arrange the salads alphabetically, just for fun. Just as I was aligning the serving spoon for what appeared to be a beet salad with the tongs wedged amongst a mound of overcooked broccoli, I caught of a glimpse of my three preschoolers filling up their cups at the beverage table. That they were getting their tenth drink in ten minutes wasn't the problem; what they were drinking, however, was.

"Ah!" I screeched, batting the red plastic cup out of my five year-old daughter's hand. "Don't drink that!"

It was too late. Cortlen and Kellen's cups were nearly empty as well.

"How much of this did you drink?" I asked them, pointing at the boxed wine. The estimates I received varied from the volume of shot glass to the volume of a swimming pool.

"The kids are drunk," I announced to my husband. After we congratulated ourselves on being such good parents, my husband and I decided that the only appropriate thing to do was ask our neighbors where they got their inspirational t-shirts, and if they came in children's sizes as well.