Dear Minnow,

The cat (he’s the one that usually stomps on you twice daily in his enthusiasm to say goodnight or goodmorning with a headbutt to my face), when he is in an impish mood, sometimes has a fight with the bathmat. He wrestles and bites it and pummels the stuffing out of it with his hind legs. Every now and then it feels as though you are doing something similar to my bladder. (Probably not the biting; I know you don’t have any teeth.) Kindly ease up there.

Thanks,

your mother

We’re having fitful, tempestuous, Wuthering Heights weather: pelting rain and hail, tree-thrashing gusts of wind, bursts of silvery sunshine dazzling every bead of water on the leaves and raising clouds of steam from the roofs, then another front blustering through to lash the branches and fling rain at the windows again.

I’d like to be curled in a comfortable chair with a bottomless mug of decaf Earl Grey, stirring in a spoonful of fresh cream from the top of the glass bottle of Noris Dairy milk that’s delivered weekly to our neighbors’ front porch. (Three families are now collaborating on this milk order, and it’s so good I’m not sure we can ever go back. It’s quite the little collective we’re developing: I bring the eggs for four families from the farmer who’s a parent at our school; our immediate neighbors orchestrate the milk order and grow vegetables on our sunny side of the shared driveway; the neighbors across the street go halvies with us on a CSA share of more vegetables. I never imagined city life would be like this.) I’d have a great book in my lap, ideally a world mythology compilation illustrated by Alice & Martin Provensen back in the late ’50s. (My friend and librarian Maureen has kindled in my soul a hot desire to trawl the internet for ex-library copies of children’s classics long out of print. I am determined that Minnow should know and cherish ancient tales of heroism and love and dastardly deeds and outrageous godly scandal. And the Provensen illustrations are unsurpassable. I’m not sure what it says about my promise as a mother that I’m chiefly concerned that my child should have plenty of handknit sweaters and a library worth devouring. Is it weird that I’m more interested in shopping for musty old books than for adorable outfits and nursery decorations?) And of course I’d be knitting. Since this is fantasy, I’d be making a cabled sweater in a toddler size out of undyed Saxon Merino from the Catskill Merino Sheep Farm. (I have only just read about this yarn in today’s Knitter’s Review, but it’s calling to me strongly. That the yarn comes from sheep tended by a man with a love of Proust and a sheepdog named Poem is, I’ll admit, a significant contributor to the weakness in my knees. I have thus far resisted the urge to buysomerightnow, but it has occurred to me that I could hunt this yarn down at the Union Square Greenmarket in just a few weeks’ time.) This sweater would also bear a motif of stylized red foxes around the hem, because I’m in the mood for foxes.

This is all in my daydreams, see, because I actually need to polish off about five baby sweaters before I could start anything like that. But look who finished a quilt top:

Where would you like to be?

Knitting at faculty meeting is one of the pleasures of my work week. I am blessed with extraordinary colleagues, men and women of intellect, empathy, and humor; it’s always a treat to converse with them. Perhaps it is not coincidental that a surprisingly large percentage of them are also knitters. When we gather on Wednesday afternoons we’re a group of about 30, and there are regularly four or five laps containing balls of wool and flashing needles. At least as many more more pairs of hands hold the knowledge but prefer other settings.

Anyway, about a month ago, in the midst of a discussion about effective teacher training practices or plans for a colloquium on mentorship and creativity, I noticed Jen was working on a little brioche sweater, infant size. It reminded me of having seen tantalizing bits of Nancy Marchant’s new brioche book on the internet and being quite taken with the two-color brioche examples (this jacket is a particularly natty piece of design, don’t you think?). So when Jen mentioned on Friday that she was casting on a third little brioche sweater to brush up the pattern for publication, I told her of my desire to try it in two yarns. We met up at Twisted that evening, she refreshed my memory of the Channel Islands cast-on, we guessed at some different math for my Socks That Rock Lightweight versus her Heavyweight, and with the help of Nancy’s book I started the experiment.

Now I can’t stop, because it is just so stinking PRETTY!

I’m thinking of this as the boy side — that’s Blue Moon’s “Blue Brick Wall” colorway you’re seeing on the ribs. And when you flip it over, you get the girl side (an STR “Rare Gem”):

Just below the needle you can see where I’ve done the first round of yoke increases… they’re reversible, too. The illustrations in Nancy’s book are so clear it was no problem to learn how to do them waiting for my turn in the shower this morning, and you know how I love acquiring new knitting skills.

Speaking of this morning, let’s have a moment of appreciation for my husband. I woke up thinking it would be an awfully good idea if we stopped by Grand Central Bakery on the way to choir, because rhubarb is finally in season and the Grand Central Rhubarb Handpie is one of my favorite treats on the planet. Mr. G loves the idea of my craving anything due to pregnancy (in truth, I get the rhubarb handpie jones just as strongly when not gravid), so he was in favor of the plan. And when we got to the bakery, there they were — five or six beautiful rhubarb pastries on the tray behind the glass. I drooled in their general direction as we waited in line, and then it was our turn to order. AND THE HANDPIES WERE SOLD OUT. Because the people at the next register had just bought ALL OF THEM. Words cannot express how crestfallen I was. I flailed about in distress and finally agreed to settle for a strawberry-rhubarb tart, which is half the size and really not the same thing at all (although undeniably tasty in its own right). But while I was still looking daggers at the handpie looters across the cafe, my husband already had his phone out and was calculating that we had just enough time before choir to go by the other Grand Central location in Northwest and confirming that they still had a few handpies left and would hold one for me. I told him that I really was just about capable of being a big girl about the disappointment (or would be in another few minutes), but the man would stop at nothing to satisfy my needs. So I got my rhubarb and we even made it to choir on time. It was a good morning.

We’ve been eking out the last of the frozen berries at our house. Every summer we buy flats and flats of them at the farmer’s market, some of which are gobbled up fresh on the spot. My husband enthusiastically freezes the rest, along with the wild blackberries we gather out at the Sandy River delta, to last us the winter. We’re halfway through the last gallon bag of raspberries, and they’re all the more delicious because I know they’re almost gone.

So today I’ll use this space to bring you a guest poet, my good friend Betsy.

—————————————-

the way to pick raspberries is this:

-

crouch down as if in homage to

the thorny raspy canes

and leaves like cats’ tongues spilling upwards and outwards from

their espalier of wire and post.

-

crouch down in the half-shade

of serrated leaves,

gaze up into the green gloom

and you will see them            there            and there:

the fruit hanging in the crosstangle of leaf and stem;

-

the unripe fruit melon green and hard,

the overripe fruit bruised dark and dropping

unannounced into the dust between the rows,

weighted with juice and swelling seeds.

-

the perfect imperfect fruit,

firm and pink-red,

dangling in the dappled light above your head,

is seen best from below, where you squat

almost at the roots, face upturned.

-

you rise on aching thighs and stretch your arm

again and again into the brambles

to slide each berry from its pale hull,

deliberate and repetitive,

until your bucket or basket or box

is full.

-

above you the lithe branches bend against the blue sky.

above them clouds move across the sun.

a goldfinch flies over, singing his bright

black and yellow song.

Betsy Miller