ineptitude, despair, and restlessness

What a cheery title for a blog post.

Before Dan came to visit me from October 27th - November 15th (which is largely the cause for my internet quiet), we (thought we) were on the verge of having my interview date. We had resubmitted the things the National Visa Center (NVC) had asked us to resubmit (namely, the Japan Police certificate and the photo), and we were sure we were just a few days away from getting my date. Then they said "we need you to resubmit the photo again". So we did. And then we waited.

Finally, two weeks later, they said "we need you to resubmit the marriage certificate".

WHAT THE FUCK.

We submitted that in June or July, and seriously guys, if we have to adhere to a checklist of things to submit, why can't you check all the things that need to be submitted on the same checklist? And why not tell us all at once if there are things that need to be done instead of waiting five months?

So Dan dutifully resubmitted the marriage certificate and got the usual banal response "please allow up to 20 days for us to process".

So once again, or still, I have no idea what the next month or three or five holds.

I'm so tired of being tossed around. There is supposedly an "expedite" flag on my file, and given that my priority date is January 5, 2012, we really expected I would have been there by now. Are they really just messing with us? Because it sure seems like that with every single thing we have to do or step to take, there is a problem. It is so exasperating.

Prior to my medical exam, the appointment for which I am not allowed to make until I have the date of my interview in Montreal, I am required to get some vaccinations. The flu shot is easy, it's available anywhere. In September I called the public health clinic and was told I could get the other vaccination, Tdap, free, any time. I went to get these done yesterday. I got the flu shot at a pharmacy, and while the pharmacist did not have the Tdap (Tetanus, diptheria and pertussis) vaccine, she said I could just go to the public health clinic four blocks away and get it for free.

So off I went to the clinic. A snarky receptionist told me that NO they don't do the Tdap and that I would have to go to a travel clinic, that I would have to "purchase" the vaccine (why not just say pay for?), that I would need to make an appointment and phone around because it's not easy to find.

WTF.

Deep breath. Back to my truck. Look up number for travel clinic on my iPhone. Phone clinic. Get voice mail. Leave a message.

Two hours later they return my call. Nice receptionist. Appointment on Friday afternoon, $40 for the doctor's fee, $45 for the vaccination. So much for free health care in Canada.

Now I am mindful that Mercury is in retrograde so maybe after it goes direct on Monday then everything will work out. Even so, there is a limit to how much I can take.

I had a thing happen this morning which is not worth retelling because it is a minor thing, but it triggered an emotional response that basically broke the dam of emotions I didn't know I had been holding in. I cried for hours, felt gutted by despair, and wondered how the heck I am going to get through the next weeks or months until I can be with my husband again. I want to start living my own life again. I want to build soil and plant flowers. I want to be working and feel useful.

I'm not sure what I experienced this morning was actually a depressive episode. My last episode was some time in May, I think, and because I have had a number of them in the past year and a half that Dan and I have been apart, I am keenly aware of what it feels like. Today I was just sad and then mad. Why is my immigration taking so long? Do the letters of the senators and governors and other government officials mean nothing? Will I be with Dan for Christmas?


Yesterday I was installing foam insulation in the basement while listening to the Caithness Craft Collective podcast. LouiseJHunt has a segment called "Random Hellos" and she included me, saying "yarnsalad, how are you, O quiet one?" and that was very sweet. I have been unusually quiet-on-the-internet these past months, it's true. I have so much unstructured time you would think I would be able to put a blog post together a bit more often but alas, it has not been so.

So to wrap up, then, while I don't wish to speak disparagingly of the people who are handling my documents at the NVC, because we have had to submit and resubmit each document at least twice, it makes me wonder what their job qualifications are and what is happening to all the misplaced documents we have submitted. That's the "ineptitude" of the title of this post. Despair was me this morning, Restlessness is me now. I'm ready to move on to the next thing. There is a nice big house and yard waiting for me in Kinston and I can't wait to get unpacked. I haven't seen most of my stuff (in boxes in the basement) for a year and a half. How much longer will it be?

How much stuff does a person need, anyway?

I am not a person who has a strong personal attachment to things. I don't know where that came from, but I have often credited it with my early pursuit of Buddhism. Not having an attachment to things comes in very handy when, say, getting ready to move house. Throughout my whole adult life I have moved house a lot. I could try to count, but I think I would lose count at about 20. The longest I have lived in one place was two and a half years, in East Sooke.

When we moved from East Sooke to Ucluelet, we did get rid of a lot of stuff but it seems like we took a lot too. We also seemed to acquire rather a lot while we were there. We had a big house to fill, after all. Dan has an amazing ability to scavenge and repair things, such as aluminum boats and theater seats.

When we knew we would be moving to North Carolina, we agreed that we would only take what would fit into the back of his truck (aka the floundertruck), a 1986 Nissan 720, and my truck, a 1999 Ford F150. We spent two weeks getting rid of as much stuff as we could, inviting friends and acquaintances to come by and pick through everything, take it all away, please. The theater seats went first, oddly enough. Sofas and tables and shelves were highly coveted.

Dan left on May 25th. I spent the next several weeks doing further culling, which included (eventually) three trips to the dump, a garage sale, and a trip to the thrift store. I drove away from Ucluelet on July 2. I spent a week on the south end of Vancouver Island and then headed for Alberta, to stay with my sister until immigration came through. We all know how that went. When it came time to leave, I did a further culling and reduced the volume of my stuff by half.

Returned to the Island on September 30th after being rejected at the border, then unloaded all the stuff from my truck into the basement of The Stately, the basement of Dan's mum & stepdad, where I was to reside for just over two months. I have now been in Cowichan Bay for a month, and just today I popped by The Stately to get some things out of storage.

I was looking for a few specific things. I found a new home for my beloved vacuum cleaner, so that's one awkward thing that I won't have to take with me. I will use up the rest of the bag of pine kitty litter. I found a couple of books and magazines that I can read here and then give away. Found a pair of old socks that I am not especially fond of and don't really plan to wear them ever again, wonder how they had made the cut of the first few cullings.

The news from yesterday, the whole 'five months' thing and the possibility of me going to North Carolina on a temporary visa to wait out my immigration has not surprisingly reframed how I am looking at my situation. If I am going to fly there and leave all my stuff (including my truck!) here in British Columbia, what will be the essentials that I take with me; what can I not live without for a few months while I am reestablishing myself in Kinston? Well, I don't know. It will depend on how much I am allowed, and how much extra luggage costs.

The most important thing of course will be the kitty. She hates traveling by plane and is terrified of being in a box/cage/kennel. I didn't want to have to do that to her, but in the bigger picture, it might be better to just get her there in 14-16 hours of travel rather than six or seven days in the truck. Yes she'll hate the trip, bit it will be over quickly.

And then what else? I have been thinking about this all day. Lately, as I have been interested in my Russian roots, I have been watching a lot of films and documentaries about Russia and Europe, many of which are set in the first half of the 20th century. There are so many tales of displacement and evacuation. If you were forced to leave your home forever, what are the important things? I realize that I am not in such a dramatic position, but really, what do you need on a daily basis and what can you live without?

The other night I asked the Skipper about photos of himself when he was younger. He had a massive stash of them and we were able to see what he looked like at all ages. That, and the beautiful photo album Dan's sister gave me for Christmas full of photos of Dan when he was younger, made me realize that there are probably very few photos in existence of me when I was younger. I know I don't have that many - I have moved too many times. The few that my mum had (she fled her crappy marriage with my dad on a day's notice, so didn't have much) may not have been saved from the mold-ridden basement suite she lived in back in the 90s. I doubt my sister would have many of me and well, I'm pretty much done communicating with my father. So probably I'll just have to draw photos of myself.

At any rate, back to the topic at hand, what would I take with me if I was boarding a plane for North Carolina? I'm not sure I would bring my entire yarn stash. Gasp! you say. Well no, I don't actually have that much yarn anymore. I would actually bring all my tools though - all my needles and hooks and notions. I don't own very much clothing anymore. I can't recall if I told you all those months ago - before I left Alberta in the fall, Dan had told me not to buy clothing because everything is cheaper in the States. So I didn't. I just had a small selection of summer clothing. With all the weight I had lost, most of my stuff didn't fit me anymore anyway. So, when I ended up coming back to Vancouver Island to spend the winter here, I had almost no winter clothing. I had one wool sweater and a couple of hoodies and some jeans. (Lots of hand knit wool socks though!) Dan's mum lent me a sweater dress and then decided I should just have it. Zola lent me a pile of sweaters (I still have one of them, and it will be returned to her). Toni had a big stack of clothes she no longer wore or no longer fit, so I have been getting a lot of mileage out of all these lent garments. Most of them will stay here in Canada though, so there will not be a lot of clothing coming with me either.

So then what? My computer, obviously. Dan has a Kindle now, so I don't really need to bring books. I will use the library anyway. Believe it or not, I will probably fill my luggage with small kitchen utensils. Again, we'll see what I'm allowed to bring.

Which leads me to something else - I don't own luggage. I have a 40 litre backpack and that's it. This raises another question then - would I be able to use Rubbermaid bins as my luggage or will I have to go and buy something? I am probably putting the cart before the horse here, because at the moment we aren't even allowed to apply for my temporary visa, so me actually boarding a plane is unimaginable. This is what happens to me when I have lots of time to myself to think, my mind gets me into trouble.

My last consideration in all this is while I'm waiting for immigration in North Carolina, what would I actually be doing? Believe me, I have no problem filling my hours. Between my computer (Twitter, blogging, podcasts & movies) and my knitting, I'm happy as a clam. I can go running (if I'm there by March, my friends-I-haven't-met-yet and I will be running an 8k race). I can be the Queen of My Kitchen! And, I suspect, we'll be doing a lot of entertaining. So that just means I'll need to make sure I also bring my running gear and my party dress.

So... dear reader, if you were in my situation, what would your essentials be, what could you not live without?

One of my most precious possessions: a one-cup pour-over coffee filter cone that I bought in Japan for 100 Yen. That thing goes everywhere with me.

Knitting considerations

This post may seem a little incongruous, given that it's just before Christmas and I have all my Christmas knitting done and wrapped. I have been thinking about a post like this for more than a week now, have even made notes! So here we go:

I listen to a lot of knitting podcasts and communicate with hundreds of knitters on the Internet. Lots of people have large yarn stashes to knit from and still seem to acquire more yarn. When the hot new pattern comes out, many people will simply go to their stash and find the right yarn for the sweater.

Knitting isn't really a cheap hobby. It can be if you choose to use acrylic yarn or yarn found at garage sales or thrift store yarns. Just over a year ago I came into a huge amount of yarn, which was mostly natural fibers but much of it was so old or had an acrylic content that I was not happy knitting with any of it, so I gave it all away. While working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino, I came to really appreciate knitting with good yarn and good fiber. So, here is my list of things to consider when knitting something:

1. How much money to spend on yarn?

While working at the yarn shop, I was given a generous discount on my purchases, which is mighty dangerous. I wasn't making a lot of money overall so I had to be mindful of how much I could actually spend. Depending on the pattern and the yarn, a sweater's worth of yarn can run anywhere from $50 for cheap yarn and averaging about $120 for anything I would want to knit. So that wasn't going to happen. They say it takes the same amount of time to knit a pair of socks as it does a sweater, and since one skein of sock yarn is much cheaper (ranging $18-30, most landing in the $22 range), that seemed a more economical way to go. Lace weight yarn makes your yarn dollar go even further, as lace is slower to knit and you get way more yardage per dollar.

Many new knitters opt for big yarns and big needles, but what they don't realize is that is the fastest way to burn through your yarn budget. If you give me a skein of bulky weight yarn, I can knit that into a hat in about three hours. (I know this for certain because it happened last Christmas). If you give me a skein of sock yarn, it will take me 40-60 hours to knit that up, which leads me to my next consideration:

2. How long will this take to knit?

I was at the Moss Street Market Christmas Fair recently and saw a number of hand knit garments. I don't think there is ever a way to make money selling hand knits, unless you think you are worth 10 cents an hour. As I looked at the garments and the prices, I thought - those handknit socks that have a $45 tag on them would take me 40 hours to knit, but a faster knitter could get them done in 30. Subtract the probable cost of the yarn and that knitter probably earns $1.25 an hour. While $45 seems expensive for a pair of socks, it's cheap compared to the labour that went into it. At another stall I saw a knitter selling hats made with bulky Lopi yarn. The yarn cost $6.00/skein (I know because Lopi is a favourite of mine), the hats probably took 5-8 hours, she was selling them for $20 per hat.

I was commissioned to knit a hat for a woman's baby while working at the yarn shop in Tofino, but when she heard the price of the hat, she decided not to pay for it after all. (I still have the hat). That made me realize that I will never make money from knitting so there is no point in even trying. The only way I would accept a commission is if it were for an art piece and I would be paid for my artistry.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have had rather a lot of time to knit in the past few years. I love knitting, so this is no real hardship for me. When I was planning my knitting before the Cookie A retreat last April, I figured I could bang out one sock per week, even working almost full time (I knit during every coffee and lunch break). That turned out to be optimistic, and instead of the planned eight socks, I got through four and a half. So now I am getting a sense of how long things take to knit and planning accordingly. How much time do I need to knit X amount of things before Christmas, for example?

Also, as mentioned in a previous post, I hadn't planned on knitting gifts. And then I ended up knitting ten gifts. Some of them were small, completed in just a few hours, some of them took a few days. I'm getting the hang of estimating how long it will take and I planned well; I finished everything yesterday. (What will I do with myself on Christmas eve if I'm not finishing last-minute projects?)

3. Knitting from Stash

As a part of my Great Migration and in an attempt to pare down my possessions to only what will fit in my truck, I have been knitting from my stash. In a #knitchat earlier this year, we had a conversation about knitting from stash as a way of coping with these rough economic times - that having a sizable stash insulates us from the brunt of less money to spend on our hobby. If I look at my stash as it is right now, I have enough yarn to get me through about six months, assuming I'll be working full time from February onward. That's pretty good. My informal goal was to not have more yarn than I could knit up in a year - partly for ease of transport but also because it felt insensible to me just have yarn laying around, yarn that I would have to keep track of, move, keep from getting dusty, organize, and think about. (Other people are way better at keeping track of their yarn, so I am not suggesting *you* are insensible, I just know my own habits). I am trying to be methodical about my knitting plans and goals, so I would rather buy yarn with a project in mind rather than just buy yarn because it's pretty. There will always be more yarn. I repeat: there will always be more yarn. I don't need to buy this bag of yarn because it's a screaming good deal - I've done that and then that bag sits and collects dust. No thanks.

4. Knitting for others: will the person actually wear and care for the thing?

This can be tricky, especially if you have never given a person your hand knits before. I lucked out with the family I married - everyone loves and appreciates my knits, which always encourages me to knit more for them. (I'm planning to do a post about some of the more creative knit projects I have done as gifts over the years, as a sort of recap). My own family needed a bit of training about my knitting - washing instructions, the mending of things, and how long it will take things to knit. My niece (my sister's daughter) asked me for yellow mittens, so I knit some and sent them off. She *loves* them, then asked for a scarf, some slippers and a pair of socks. All in good time, kiddo, but it is a tall order. I have fifteen other people to knit for too.

5. Searching for patterns versus being captivated by patterns

Okay now here I get a bit stuck. We all have our own pattern-searching methods. Ravelry makes it so easy to find just the pattern for the yarn, skill level, technique, and yardage that you want to knit from. It is the best database I have ever encountered.  For example, when Zola asked me to knit her a turban, I went to Ravelry and typed in "turban". A bunch of stuff came up. Some of the patterns were patterns that you pay for, so I rule them out. I clicked on the "free" search criteria and the list of turban patterns was significantly diminished. So if you are in a position to pay for a pattern, especially a popular one, then go for it. But I'm limited to free just now, so sometimes I just have to make something up. (I really do need to start writing down my one-off designs. I will have some time after Christmas, I think). When you find the pattern you want on Ravelry, you can either "cast on" right away or put it in your queue. Then you can organize your queue into categories (hats, neck, mitts, sweaters, etc.). If there are enough things in your queue, and you feel like you need to knit a hat, you can go to your hat folder in your queue and maybe find the yarn in your stash to knit it with. This all sounds very organized, right? These kinds of plans get derailed when the new knitting magazine comes out. It happened to me last week. I had to knit Escargot, it was haunting me. So is the Bandana Cowl, but I don't think I have the right yarn in my stash (and I can't buy yarn until I have a job) so it will have to wait.

Sigh. At the moment, given my dwindling stash, I'll be knitting mostly socks for the next few months, but that's good. I like knitting socks. In fact, through the knitting of the Christmas gifts, my hands were missing sock knitting. So, sock patterns? The only knitting book I have with me in Cowichan Bay is Sock Innovation. I do also have the Internet at my disposal, so we'll see how many socks I can knit between now and when I leave.

an enriching experience

I just had a really good experience tonight and wanted to share it with you.

I have mentioned here before how much I love Twitter and the Thursday night #knitchat that has been running every week for more than a year now. #knitchat began with Natalie from the Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber podcast, and her co-host Rachel (who recently gave birth to a son) is often an active participant.

During this year of being a part of the #knitchat community, I have made some pretty great Twitter friends, I feel like if/when I actually meet these people in person that it will be just like old times, like no time had past, as if we've been friends forever.

Natalie is a self-proclaimed tech geek (you did say that once, right?). She works in tech, so is always in the know about cutting edge technologies, especially when it comes to social media. A few days ago when I suggested that we have a "weaving in ends" party (note for non-knitters: when you are finished knitting a project, there are always tails of yarn that need to be woven into the fabric) for all our Christmas gifts. Natalie made it happen. She opened up a discussion thread in Ravelry, gave us the link with information on how to set it up, and announced to Twitter when it would be.

It was my first time with using Google Hangout, and I think you have to be logged into Google+ for it to work. I haven't been using Google+ very much (though I signed up for it a few months ago on Natalie's advice) but Google Hangout is a very powerful tool. It's like Skyping with nine of your best friends. Or up to nine - I guess there is a limit of 10 people, but tonight there were only three of us.

Natalie beckoned me on Twitter to come a bit earlier, to make sure it worked. After some fussing with my computer, I was able to hear Natalie and she could hear me! We talked about our knitting (and I confessed I had no ends to weave in because I was compelled to wrap all my Christmas gifts today, hence the ends were done already). I am very familiar with Natalie's voice because I listen to her podcast - but none of my Internet friends had heard the voice of yarnsalad until tonight. :-) 

It was great. I blog, Tweet, and post on Ravelry and Facebook, but of course what you read here is the cleaned up version. I have to be politic about what I write so as not to offend anyone or air any dirty laundry. With Google Hangout I was able to have a fairly intimate conversation with someone I have long considered my friend, but with whom I had never had a discussion with until tonight.

Maia joined us after about half an hour, and there was some interesting conversation about yarn shops (in Portland, Northern California, and Victoria), some TV shows I will have to see when Dan and I get Netflix (he doesn't know we're doing this yet, but we are). We talked about the #knitchat KAL (knit-a-long). By the way - if you want to participate and haven't voted, you should TOTALLY go vote for Nathan's Scale Mitts. They would be a quick easy knit to do, in a worsted or aran yarn. Another pattern is leading the polls right now, but it has a dumb name and even though it's pretty, I feel a special allegiance to Nathan, who has long been a participant on #knitchat and is also a dear friend I've never met.

Sam got to participate in this hangout too. She was sleeping, but I got her up, held her in front of my webcam, then put her back on the bed. She wasn't really interested.

well now I _have_ to blog today

O gosh my dear readers, I'm so sorry I haven't posted in nearly two weeks. Really? Twelve days?

I actually started a post telling you all about my visit with my sister & her daughter. It was tremendous fun and I have lots of pictures. That will have to wait.

Something happened today that made my day. I was driving home from Tofino, listening to the KnitWits podcast, when I heard Rick mention some of the listeners "there are even people with names like yarnsalad..." I was delighted! That's the third podcast now that I have been mentioned on (the other two being Caithness Craft Collective and Cloudy with a Chance of Fiber). Imagine how silly I felt when I discovered that this podcast that I had been mentioned on was released on March 11th. As in over a month ago. Sorry Rick & Carin. I love your show! I'm just working my way through it is all.

What else can I tell you to tide you over until I can make a proper post.. We have had a few days of sun here in Ucluelet. We know this doesn't mean winter is over. Winter is not over until April 30th, according to the signs on either side of The Pass, which tell you you must have tire chains or winter tires between October 1st and April 30th. Seven months of winter. And sunny days, while good for one's mood, do not necessarily mean warm. I think our high today was 10 - and it's been hovering around 7 for the last few weeks, so 10 isn't much of an improvement. O well. Soon we will have spring.

Knitting-wise, I have not actually been knitting very much since the Sock Retreat. Really. I have finished a piece for a secret project, and am working on another piece for that same secret project, which I obviously can't tell you about yet. But that is really fun and I can't wait to see it all come together. Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it. All of my Cookie A socks are on hold. I have gone back to a pair of socks I started almost a year ago and I really must get them finished. I only recenlty figured out how to manage the intarsia bit (thanks to a friend's help) so once I get that section done, I think these socks will fly off the needles and will be given to their intended recipient. Then I'll be on a sock-finishing streak, I'm sure. I hope. Just in time for flip-flop season.

drive-by friending

If you are a knitter and listen to knitting podcasts, you may have encountered the term "drive-by friending". This refers to people who hear or read someone's Ravelry name, and then add them to their friends list. The friendee recieves a message "yarnsalad has added you as a friend" and sometimes you have no idea why.

 I first heard this term while listening to Susan Dolph's podcast, Knitajourney. Louise J Hunt mentioned it in a recent episode and said that I was the first person to drive-by friend her. Really?

Last June, I went through the entire Ravelry group for the Electric Sheep podcast and friended every single person. At the time, it was something like 600 people. Total drive-by friending, and simply because (and this is what I told people when they asked) they listened to the Electric Sheep podcast and therefore must be a nice person. A few dozen people asked, a few hundred friended me back, no questions asked.

Ravelry is unlike Facebook in that there is no steady stream of status updates. If someone is in your friends, it simply means you have ready access to their notebook. This includes projects, queue, library, groups, and hooks/needles. You can see what they are knitting/crocheting, see what books or magazines they have, see what groups they are in. It's a great way to learn about the kinds of things that are out there that we may never have heard of before.

So drive-by friending on Ravelry isn't as invasive as Facebook is. When I joined Facebook the first time around, people I hadn't heard from since high school friended me, ostensibly, to stalk me. I found that creepy. I don't really spend much time on Facebook now, since I find I have all my social media needs met here, on Twitter, and through Ravelry.

This is all to say if you are reading this, are on Ravelry and haven't yet friended me, you are welcome to! My handle is yarnsalad pretty much everywhere I go.