Jung At Heart

It's been one of the weeks where the days rush by and here we are at Friday and it's all a blur.

So here's what it looked like when the snow ended --

                   

Yeah, that's about 30" altogether on the ground, 12" from Monday's storm. Today it is warm, 45F now so there is melting. But of course, more snow is due on Sunday. You all may be having signs of spring but it is winter here for at least another 6 weeks. And that's okay.

I haven't done a lot of knitting this week because I have been resting my hands and arms. I started the lace cardigan from Vogue again, this time in eggplant colored merino from Colourmart. And I reaped the harvest of my disdain for swatches. Because I started it 3 times before I got the right size needle. I am using US 3's now and the fabric feels just right. Starting over 3 times means not much to show for my efforts -- the sweater is knit in one piece except for the sleeves, so that's a lot of stitches per row.

                  

I made the 4 row garter edging on the bottom because otherwise it curls too much for my tastes.

I think I'll knit something more delicate and on smaller needles this weekend. And try to resist the desire to start something new.

I have a long time interest in memory -- memory plays an important role in the work in psychotherapy. Almost 2 years ago I wrote about memory in relation to  painting by Magritte, La Memoire  and wrote then:   

The words "memoir" and "memory" come to us from the middle English/Anglo-French word memorie, and from the Latin memoria, derived from memor, which means "mindful." Russell Lockhart  in Words As Eggs: Psyche in Language and Clinic  traces it also to an Indo-European root smer- -- which in one form refers to grease and fat. How is memory connected to ‘fat’? Think about how difficult it is to get rid of fat.  It sticks. It adheres. It won't leave. It leaves traces. A memory is what sticks, what adheres in the mind. Memory is the fat of the mind.  Related words that share the history of memoir include remember, commemorate, memorable, memento, and memorandum. The word mourn also shares its derivations. The same root that gave rise to memory gives rise to mourn. When someone has passed away or slipped away, we mourn that memory. When we are in mourning, we are deeply engaged with the memory of that person. Our mind is full of memories. We can only mourn through memory and with memory. We mourn for what we had and can now have only in memory.

A memory is what sticks, what adheres.

A few weeks ago, I joined Facebook, just to see what all the fuss was about. I am not terribly active there but because of it, several people from my past have contacted me, including people from high school.

Now when I was 14, my family moved from Germany, where my father had been stationed, to a small town in Pennsylvania. There was a Army facility there, staffed mostly by civilians and around 50 members of the Army. It was my first time in a civilian school, the first time with kids who had known each other since kindergarten, and it was a bewildering world for me. In an Army school, making friends is relatively easy because we all know that all of us will be moving and so friends must be made and friendships cemented quickly because they will soon end to be replaced by new ones. We knew we would likely never see those friends again so there was no feeling of enduring friendships; they were relationships that allowed us the company of others in our same boat. And there was only one other Army kid in my new school. I was not a happy camper. I had no idea how to find my way, I was different at an age when difference most definitely not to be celebrated. That first year there was long and hard. 

When I graduated from high school and went off to college, Pennsylvania became a part of my past. My parents moved shortly after I began college and I have never returned there. 

So it felt strange to be contacted on Facebook by people whose names I remember from high school. The names were familiar but I couldn't remember anything specific about the people who sent me friend invitations.  Then came a note from a man whose name was familiar -- I knew he had been in my homeroom. He said he had often wondered what had happened to me, which surprised me because those years have been placed so firmly for me into my past and not revisited. I responded with pleasantries -- we shared a little about were our life journeys have taken us. 

And then today, he sent this -- 

"I owe you an apology.  Remember when we were at ***** Jr High, and you baked that beautiful little cherry pie?  I took it and placed it under your seat in Home Room, you were out someplace, and when you came back you were looking all over the place for that pie.  Finally I went to take it from under your seat and as I was lifting it to your desk-top it fell out of my hands and it splattered all over the floor.  You were so proud of that pie, and I felt terrible.  Knowing how proud of it you were, I knew there was just no sense in saying anything, and I didn't know what to say cause I knew that an, "I'm sorry" just wouldn't do - it wouldn't even be close, I really did feel bad about that, and after all these years I am apologizing for my clumsy act.  I shouldn't have done it, I know, but sometimes when you just want to have some fun, things go wrong and there's nothing you can say or do to help anything.  That incident has been on my mind often and after 46 years I want to say I apologize for that stupid act."

And I was stunned. I remember the pie. I remember being angry that it was ruined. I can't remember being proud of it, probably because I was so generally unhappy. I remember the pie I have talked about the ruining of my first pie as an excuse for why my pies always look pretty sorry with patched crusts. Not that there is much of a real connection, but you know, it's been an excuse. But I long ago forgot any details about that incident, other than that I baked the pie and it never made it home.

So the memory of that pie adhered to both of us, to me because it kind of summed up a bad time in my life and to him because he felt regret for having caused it to be ruined.

Of course I forgive him. And I am charmed and touched that he carried that memory and felt moved to apologize. And so a tear in the fabric of both of our lives got mended.

Cursing Mama had this meme today and since I am fresh out of hot knitting news, I thought I would do it too.

"The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain. 

They say the average American has only read 6 of the following:"

Key

1) Bold the books you have already read

2) Italicize the books you intend to read

3) Notes in parentheses next to note-worthy titles.

1) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

3) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

4) Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

5) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

6) The Bible

7) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (I think I read this, at least it feels like it did)

8 ) Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell

9) His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

10) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

11) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

13) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller  ( one of those books that I read multiple times)

14) Complete Works of Shakespeare (some)

15) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

16) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

17) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

18 ) Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

19) The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

20) Middlemarch by George Eliot

21) Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell

22) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

23) Bleak House by Charles Dickens

24) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy ( started it)

25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

26) Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

27) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 ) Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

29) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

30) The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

31) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

32) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

33) Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

34) Emma by Jane Austen

35) Persuasion by Jane Austen

36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis

37) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

38 ) Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres

39) Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

40) Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne

41) Animal Farm by George Orwell

42) The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (I can go low-brow)

43) One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving

45) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

46) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery

47) Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

48 ) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

49) Lord of the Flies by William Golding

50) Atonement by Ian McEwan

51) Life of Pi by Yann Martel

52) Dune by Frank Herbert

53) Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

54) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

55) A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

56) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57) A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

58 ) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

60) Love In The Time Of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

62) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

63) The Secret History by Donna Tartt

64) The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

65) Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

66) On The Road by Jack Kerouac

67) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

68 ) Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

69) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

70) Moby Dick by Herman Melville

71) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

72) Dracula by Bram Stoker 

73) The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

74) Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson

75) Ulysses by James Joyce

76) The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

77) Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

78 ) Germinal by Emile Zola

79) Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

80) Possession by AS Byatt

81) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

82) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

83) The Color Purple by Alice Walker

84) The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

85) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

86) A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

87) Charlotte's Web by EB White

88 ) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90) The Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton

91) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

92) The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93) The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

94) Watership Down by Richard Adams

95) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

96) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 ) Hamlet by William Shakespeare

99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

100) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

I read 52. I like things that make me out to be well above average!

On the other hand some of the choices seem odd to me and many that I have read and would think belong are not on the list.

I really like chicken wings and I like teriyaki wings best of all. Years ago friends of mine made them with lemon juice, soy sauce and rosemary and they were good but I could never get the same result. So I have longed looked for a good recipe. And now, thanks to some experimentation my husband and I have done in the last few weeks, I think we have found what we want. Of course, we will continue to tinker with the recipe but it's pretty good now. So we made some for a pot luck we are going to tonight.

                          

Teriyaki Chicken Wings

5 lbs chicken wings

3/4 cup soy sauce

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup vinegar

1/4 cup peanut oil

1/4 cup ketchup

grated fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, crushed or grated

1/2 tsp Thai chili garlic paste

1 Mix all ingredients.

2 Add wings and marinate at least 8 hours.

3 Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

4 Remove to a cooling rack after cooking.

If you don't want to make this many, simply adjust the amount of marinade. We used 2.5 lb bags of drumettes and this amount was right for 5 pounds.

Remember weeks ago I started knitting the two lace cardigans from the Holiday Vogue? You probably don't but I don't blame you because I sort of forgot too. But for the past few days I have been working away at the lace coat, which I am knitting from two strands of a 50/50 merino/silk laceweight yarn from Colourmart. I am knitting it on a US 5 needle. But I can't knit on it for long as my hands start to hurt. There is something in the way I use my left hand with these larger needles that is different from when I use small needles and it makes for discomfort after a while. I am also a little worried that I won't have enough yarn even though I am making a cardigan not a coat. Anyway here is a progress picture --

I have actually done one more repeat since I took that picture. I love the pattern. If I end up without enough of this blue yarn, I will recycle it into a shawl and use some gorgeous purple DK weight that I have to make it. Or maybe I will do that anyway.

Spike and Moe watch from the comfort of their chair --