Then and now

In between when I last disappeared and now, I reached the not-exactly-young-but-not-old-either age of 35. I have a few concerns about this age, but overall I’m in good shape, and with some degree of wisdom from all the things that I’ve done and seen. When I was a teenager – and here I should note that I was not particularly good at being a teenager, and didn’t really like it – I told myself that I just had to wait. I believed that when I reached 40 I would finally have grown into myself. And I think that will be true.

For my birthday I chose to take a tour of the Real Ale Brewery in Blanco, Texas. That’s me and Jeff there after the tour. The tour was 40 minutes long and given by the head brewer – good stuff! Lots of information, lots of future plans. About halfway through when we were standing in the midst of those giant tanks you can see, I thought I might pass out from the heat and steam. But I did not, and I was rewarded later for my tenacity in the tap room.

You people might not know this, but I like beer. I don’t like cheap beer. I only like really good beer, the kind found in Belgium/the Netherlands and Bavaria and microbreweries and people’s basements.  The kind where monks are involved, or people experiment with ingredients and chemistry. The fun kind. Beer is a side effect of my interest in (a) medieval monasteries and (b) supporting local community industry (microbreweries). Besides, meeting the people who make stuff I like – a lot of fun! Whether it’s beer or earrings, , there’s something irreplaceably awesome about meeting the person whose effort went into creating something they feel passionate about.

The weekend previous I went to visit my mom, and my other birthday present was to see Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. You people might also not know that I love Agatha Christie. I started reading her mysteries around the time I was the age in the picture there (7 or 8). I’ve read everything she’s written. More than once. Including non-mysteries. My favorites were Tommy and Tuppence, but I’ll take any of ‘em. It was lovely! My mom can testify that I squeaked happily through the whole play.

While at my mom’s I took pictures of things that I remembered growing up that remind me of why I do the crafts I do. The first picture of me as a kid (with my brother) features me wearing a light blue eyelet dress my mom made me for an aunt’s wedding. I thought it was the absolute coolest thing ever to wear a dress my mom had made me (I also loved that ridiculous bow in my hair). It was like magic, that she could do something so awesome. She made me a few other things, which I thought were similarly cool. So you can see why I wanted to learn to sew – to my young mind it was one of the summits of accomplishment. There was also crochet in the house. The doily above adorned my room while growing up. I recognize that doilies are not acceptable for people to love these days, but I always did like this type of lace.

The above piece as a rather deft bit of thread crochet that my mom has framed. This piece and the one below were absolutely my favorite things besides the antique upright piano. What I can’t show you, unfortunately, are the cape my grandma crocheted for a baby me that I tried to wear much more often than my mom wanted me to, the vest she made for my brother’s beloved stuffed panda, or the elaborate crocheted dresses that adorned the small dolls in her home. I tell people I’m apathetic about knitting, and that’s true, because no matter how useful knitting is, it was not the thing that sparked my imagination as a little girl. When you’re six, you don’t know crocheting is a seventies thing that no one thinks is cool anymore. You like what you like.

This last angel piece is a rather interesting one. I always thought it was filet crochet, but now that I’ve taken a good close-up look the pattern appears to be threads woven into netting. Anybody know what kind of craft this is? I’m stumped. It looks unbelievably tedious.

Anyway. I’m 35 now, but the past sneaks up! Sometimes I’m still an energetic and mischievous seven. It was a good age, of playing cars with my brother, reading anything I could put my hands on, and summers at my grandparents’ farm running around like a mad chicken. Good times.