After texting back and forth with her dad, who has it much worse than I do as he is her traveling companion and in the thick of the agony (see fig. 1), I tried to do something with myself.
FIGURE 1
I talked to my sister-in-law, who is very calming, but then I watched the last 50 minutes of The Summit, a documentary about a disaster on K2 that got me all ramped up again. I checked facebook: dismal. I texted with my cousin, she of the wedding hankie, and we had a laugh. I tried to nap, but I felt hungry. I went to the store and bought provisions, and then I ate some of them. I watered my plants. I picked up a book I need to finish reading so that I can make some headway on an article I need to write, and then I put it down again. I read a few blog posts (other people's). I started another book--one I'm reading for pleasure (again about the K2 disaster)--and then realized I've already read it.
Basically, time stood still. It was as if I were on an airplane, in that peculiar stupor born of boredom and terror, as Orson Welles supposedly described it.
Then I thought, I will stitch something! And, indeed, things started looking up. I set up my space. Here it is:
To my left, Small Kitty, the largest cat I have ever known. The photo does not do her justice. When my daughter was 2-1/2 she started calling Small Kitty "Mama Kitty" because my daughter figured that a cat this size must be the mama of the other cats. I wish I could say that she's a grande dame, but she's not. If she were a human and living in the 19th century, we'd call her a hysteric. In fact, we'd probably lock her up because she communicates her emotions primarily through bodily fluids. Still, she likes to sit next to me when I stitch, and I kind of like having her there. Behind her, the ever-fastidious Dog Milo.
Small Kitty, who was the runt of her litter
To my right, my tea:
The photo looks boring, but there is so much to tell! If you've lived in L.A. at any point in the last 10 or 15 years, you'll recognize the cup and have eaten at Doughboys. My brother gave me these cups from the old location because I used to love to eat breakfast there with him and my sister-in-law when they lived in SoCal. I only drink tea out of the Doughboys cups. Coffee just doesn't taste right in them. About the tea: I usually buy PG Tips because once Cooks Illustrated rated it highly for inexpensive tea. It doesn't taste like the paper, they said. Finally: I make my tea the way my friend Shannon taught me when we were roommates during our freshman year of college: with sugar and milk. I call this concoction Sweet Georgia Brown because it is not to be confused with the tea I make when I have a cold--tea with honey and lemon--which I call the Freight Train and is better when you add whisky. That's called the Express.
Ahead of me, something to watch:
We got rid of our TV a couple of years ago, so now we just stream shows on the laptop. Usually I watch BBC crime dramas when I cross stitch. Sometimes I'll watch a period piece. Today I started to watch a documentary about a couple of people who hiked the John Muir Trail, but I'm not that into it. I think I will find another film about mountaineering disasters or else watch a couple of episodes of "Long Way Round," in which Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman ride their motorcycles around the world--highly entertaining.
On my lap, my work:
I'm using an extreme close-up because the piece I'm stitching is a gift for someone--one of my privates--and I don't want to reveal it yet.
So that's me! I've got my station all set up, and I've written about it, and now it's only 20 minutes 'til the plane lands. Fingers crossed my daughter and her dad make it to Orlando tonight. My boyfriend is also in flight, heading all the way to Europe. I can't help but imagine the distance between us all like threads, extending, extending, extending. May they never snap.
