On Monday I wrote the following:
I took my older son and three of his friends to see Dr. Strange yesterday. I really enjoy that he (and his friends) enjoy all the nerdy/geeky things I enjoyed as a teenager: comics, sci-fi, doctor who, role playing and board games. It is incredibly satisfying to watch your child grow into a person that you want to hang out with, and that his friends are also equally enjoyable.
I was going to add more and then got distracted and forgot. Then yesterday… the election happened and I could barely stand to have thoughts let alone put them down in a blog post.
So today is Wednesday, November 9th. The first full day of trying to accept the results of this election. I’m not sure I’ve done that yet, but I am trying.
Today, I wrote the following on my Facebook page:
I have an old cast iron pan that belonged to my grandmother. It has a lot of old, baked on junk stuck to it. I decided recently that I wanted to try to get it clean and I have been working on scrubbing it down to the base layer, like the online tutorial I found told me to.
I have decided that, while cleaning the toilets was apt for the election season, this cast iron pan is an apt metaphor for what we have to do now. Our country has years and years of baked on junk: racism, sexism, xenophobia, protectionism, authoritarianism. We need to get out the steel wool and scrub that crap off because, underneath, the pan, or country, is a good and sturdy thing, and we need to scrape it down, reseason it and move forward!
Time to get out the rubber gloves and steel wool!
Of course, a friend commented that it is easier to use oven cleaner, or even the self-cleaning cycle of the oven, but burning things to the fundamentals is probably not the best strategy for our country right now. I am taking comfort in the fact that more people voted for Hillary than for the hatemonger and 70% did in my county, but that doesn’t let me off the hook of having to do the work, having to continue to speak out against racism and for social justice.
So this is my knitting/crafting blog, and here is my knitting/crafting update: I finished the i-cord bind off on the front of my son’s sweater and I even embroidered a few stitches. I need to weave in ends and buy a zipper so that sweater can be totally done. I might even start considering another sweater for me. I have a few sweater quantities of yarn. Just a few.
the sheep free knitter 