It’s possible you picked up this book because you have a sneaking suspicion that you don’t have to be quite as worried about quite as much. After all, our moms sent us outside and said, “Come home when the street lights turn on.” Their moms sent them out on streetcars and buses. And their grandmas sent their sweet children out on slow, rusty steamers to the New World with only a couple of rubles and a hard salami.

Those were all responsible parents! Yet here in the nice, safe, scurvy-free twenty-first century, we worry about our kids riding their bikes to the library, or walking to school. We worry when we can’t reach them on their cells.

-”Free Range Kids” by Lenore Skenazy

When I first heard about this mom who sent her 9-year-old son out on the New York subway, I was a little shocked. So was the rest of North America, and she found herself quickly on the defensive. Her book is a fascinating and funny  and sometimes uncomfortable read about the dangers, perceived and real, we fear for our children. As a reporter she has backed up her work with facts, something I appreciate. As a parent you may not be able to embrace all of her ideas, but I do think it is a book worth reading, if only to help you make informed decisions rather than taking actions out of what may perhaps be misplaced fear. I know it made me think hard about some of our decisions. You can find out more about the book and the community growing around it, at the website free range kids.

Less than a minute later, the rain was pouring down and all was dark. Glad we saw this moment.

Yesterday Mr. Kate mentioned his slippers would fit better if the cuff was stitched together at the opening. Before I could even say I’d do them later in the evening, Bush Boy piped up that he’d fix them.

And he did. (See the white yarn, he sewed them up with that.)

Then he mentioned that his pants were ripped. “I can sew them, Mum.” I threaded the needle, and off he went.

(The smaller rip above was mended a month ago by me. He mended the big rip along the knee seam.)

Makes a mum proud. (And his dad, too.)

Last fall was very dry and cold, as was the winter. Then we had the most perfect summer, followed by a late start to fall. We were lulled into complacency. This month, the weather has hit back with a vengeance!

Over a three-day period we are expected to get as much rain as we might in an average month. The winds have been intense. Gutters are overflowing with all the branches and leaves and pine needles clogging them. Storm drains can’t handle the quantity of rain along with the high tides, and major road flooding occurs. The smaller bridges are flooded in some communities.

I refuse to complain. This is the wild, wet coast, after all, and this is typical weather for November. Our rain forest ecosystem has needed this badly. (Our reservoir system has been low for two years, and the rain so far this fall has already brought it up to normal levels.)

So this was our dark, wet, windy day yesterday.

“And the rain rain rain came down down down….”

And yet a doubt creeps in. I do not want to fight. I want, rather, to explore the world without prejudice, and to be allowed a measure of lenity in my dealings with that world. Sometimes I even long to take the coward’s way out and to live my life without benefit of any sort of agenda, relying simply on the kindness of others, whom I would reward, equally simply, with a more convivial version of myself.

-Anita Brookner “A Family Romance”

I love Anita Brookner’s writing. There is a slowness, a deliberateness, about her work that makes me feel content. It always takes me a few pages to get into a book of hers, but by the end I am again entranced by her story-telling and character development.

This particular quote is in response to feminist literature and research, and happens at the end of the book.

We can always tell when fall is truly here … the cats want to snuggle with us and each other all the time. This is their favourite spot, as the heater is right below the windowsill.

In the evenings they step on each other to get closer to our blankets on the couch.

Goobers.

Rain wets the ground

Refills the waiting rivers

The forests drink deep.

…

Wind bangs at the door

Rattles and shakes the handle

I won’t let it in.

…

Red, yellow, gold, brown

Colour exploding above

Trees in party clothes.

I have a friend in hospital who is awaiting her third surgery to repair a shunt in her brain. Two emergency repairs — the first one last week and one on the week-end — didn’t take. This has been an ongoing medical condition, but one which hasn’t given her many problems as an adult.

She has kids. She is scared, and feels guilty, and is being a typical mother who doesn’t want to allow herself to need help. She’s in a hospital too far away for her to see the kids every day.

Some days, life is serious and scary and you can’t control it.

Mothers and daughters – it’s a comedy, but also a tragedy. We fill our daughters with all the chutzpah we wish for ourselves. We want them to be free as we were not. And then we resent them for being so free. We resent them for being what we have made!

-Erica Jong “Inventing Memory”

Fly fishing on the west coast means a lot of time spent standing in cold water. When sports socks get wet, they get cold and clammy – making for a frustrated and cold fisherman. But when you have a knitting wife, there must be a solution!

Mr. Kate has never asked for socks before, as he rarely wears them in the house. So when I took this project upon myself I wasn’t sure what he would think. Once he got to try it on as the leg was being knit, he couldn’t wait for me to finish.

I used Possum Merino from New Zealand. This is a possum/merino/silk/nylon blend which is quite reasonable in price and gives good yardage, I was able to do two socks, men’s size 12, from one and a quarter skeins. The yarn is available at Fun Knits, although it is not on the website currently.

The yarn was lovely, but it took me a while to get into the groove with it. The suggested needle size made way too floppy a fabric, so I had to experiment with gauge. I settled on a 2.5mm needle. The pattern is my own, 2×2 rib for one inch, 7 inches of 3×1 rib, a short row heel and a stockinette foot.

I am very happy to be finished with them, but judging from the expression on his face, they may not be the last pair of large socks I make.