Dirty Bird
Official Pesterers please note: regularly-scheduled blogging of the Week of Fibering Madly will resume after this special presentation.
SUMMER, 1957.
Blair Chotzinoff and Dorothea Harding are planning their wedding. Blair’s sister Anne Grossman - AKA “Cookie” - is to be matron of honor, so before setting a date they check with Cookie’s obstetrician. Baby due October 16th? OK, great - we can have the wedding on, say, November 1st. Done. Order the invitations.
October 16th comes and goes. No baby.
October 17th.
October 18th.
October 19th.
I don’t imagine you need to be a rocket scientist to see where this is going.
Baby hangs fire until… the morning of November 1st.
The wedding goes forward with no matron of honor; Cookie lies alone at the hospital while her family whoops it up at the St. Regis.
Yup. I made my mother miss her brother’s wedding, and to the day he died Uncle Blair never let me live it down.
Fast-forward to the summer of 1958. Nine months later, to the day.
It’s a stinking hot summer in New York, and this time it’s Blair’s turn to feel like the wallflower: his parents, along with Cookie and her husband Herb - baby and all - are in Brussels on business, leaving him to hold down the fort and wait for Dot to give birth.
The baby - taking a leaf out of my book - declines to arrive on schedule. (I gather this runs in the family at large - turns out most of my cousins were similarly late.)
August 1st goes by.
August 2nd.
August 3rd.
August 4, 1958. Blair writes to his family:*
I’m not precisely certain yet because there is still some time to go but I strongly suspect that this will turn out to be among the worst summers I have ever spent. It seems such a terrible waste to have waited all winter for the summer and then have it up and louse you up…. That damn, tardy baby is driving us all batty. It is apparently awfully uncomfortable these days and some nights Dot can’t sleep at all. Our weekends are finished just at the height and heat of the summer because we must stay here in NYC and wait, wait, wait.
August 6:
There is nothing much to report but gloom, doom, misery, boredom, glumness, frustration…. The baby is still in the incubator and I’ll be surprised if it is born at all. A great big hearty FEH on this whole blasted summer.
At last, on August 7th, they decide to induce.
August 11:
…. At 5 [that morning] the phone woke up and it was the Drrr saying I had a girl and so I went to Lenox to look and see and it was a HORROR. My daughter looks like an ice breaker or a Mako shark. She is twisted and bent and pushed out of shape and it will take her 30 years to grow into her nose…. She must have a constitution like a storage battery. Saw her again today and it’s amazing how fast she is shaping up. However her forehead still extends from her eyes to the back of her neck and if she ever puts on a hat it will spin like a compass. She is sort of cute.
August 17:
During the ensuing 50 years matters continued to improve. Robin today is a full-fledged writer/mother/mensch; she has gone way beyond “sort of cute,” and she can even wear a hat without running any major risk of it rotating on the axis of her pointy skull. Everything she does - and to date she has produced three books, multiple gardens, a series of wild dream-quilts, countless newspaper and magazine articles, and two extraordinary daughters, not necessarily in that order - is marked by passion, conviction, wit, originality, and a wicked sense of humor.
I’m trying not to go too far into sappy territory here, but let’s face it, there’s the family you’re born into and there’s the family you choose for yourself, and given that you don’t get much say in the first of those it may just be a little bit miraculous when the two overlap. Siblings were not included as standard equipment in my original configuration, so when I began to want the sister feature I pretty much had to go find my own add-ons. Point is, I knew where to look, and it wasn’t far to seek.
I probably make too much hoo-ha over this thing of her being conceived on the day I was born. I don’t know that I really believe it has any vast deep significance, but I do think of it as sort of a neat piece of connective tissue, somehow in tune with the bond between us. Either way, this day is significant, not only as a Large Round birthday for her but also as the beginning of the celebratory three-month period during which we will both be 50. It is necessary to mark the occasion in an emphatic way. Three guesses how I’m doing it; the first two don’t count.
Guess #3: socks.
Astoundingly, I’ve never made Robin a pair of socks before. It’s about durned time.
I still haven’t, even now. This isn’t one of those Big Birthday posts where I show off the finished object On The Day. Nope - not our style. What I’m doing instead is - I’m casting on today, and promising myself that the socks will be finished within the significant three months. (Actually - given the fortuitous timing I’ve decided to use them as my Sock Put entry in the 2008 Ravelympics, so in real life I gotta finish them by closing ceremonies if I don’t want to be a disgrace to Team Cellular Peptide Cake.)
OK, we’re almost at the actual knitting content. Honest. But in order to ’splain the sock I have to go back to one more little bit of the story, and that’s about Robin’s name. The middle name was not a problem - she’s Anne after her Aunt Cookie, and of course there was a special bond there too, as you may already know if you’ve read People with Dirty Hands or knitted the Cookie’s Garden sock. But when Dot’s very social-register grandmother heard about the first name, she was terribly shocked and upset. “You can’t call a child Robin! It’s a dirty bird - a DIRTY BIRD!”
So - Dirty Bird it is.
The birdiness will follow roughly the same kinda metaphor as it did in Firebird, except that this time the belly is the whole heel and I’m leaving the talon to the imagination. (I may also end up leaving the beak and eye to the imagination… we shall see. I’m not there yet.) There will be feathers, though not quite the same kind of feathers. And no &$%@^!?! basket-weave.
How I’m going to tackle the two-color part with the red breast extending beyond the heel in both directions? Hey, I’m not there yet either - so stay tuned.
Meanwhile, here’s the yarn - “Robin’s Wing,” painted a couple of days ago by Jennifer:
and “Redbreast,” so fresh from the dye-pot that it’s still in the steamer:
The latter will dry a little lighter than it looks now, of course, but I think even now you can tell…
… that they were meant for each other.
Cast-on, 8:00 AM sharp, EDT:
Let the Games begin.
Um, hey, RA, confirm for me here before I get too far along, willya? What’s your shoe size again?
Also… happy birthday.
* Pooh-lovers - you know who you are - take note. As you can see from the telegram, the Brussels address read “LaHulpe, Le Dautzenberg.” In one of his letters Blair includes a postscript “for Cookie: Hulpe! Hulpe! A Horrible Dautzenberg!”
Other important birthdays today:
Hapy LXI birthda, molesworth 1, o thou weedy wet with a face like a squished tomato. Dere nigel, hav you been taking your lozenges?
And happy VII to Luke.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Your uncle obviously has the family sense of humor.
And cousin Robin is going to love her special Dirty Bird significant birthday socks. Jennifer is a genius, but we all knew that. And so are you, but we knew that too.
I enjoyed this whole post so much! I have not cast on yet for my Ravelympics project(s) (2 WIPs, one of which is familiar to you, though I’m worried about yarn amounts…, and two little new original projects) as we are madly packing (well, I’m madly doing one more load of laundry so I CAN madly pack, thus I am on the computer during the in-the-washer phase) to leave for the wilds of Northern Minnesota later today. Good news? Hours and hours of passenger time in the car! Yay knitting time! Just have to make sure I have everything with me — not a lot of LYS up there….
August 8th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Oh, and P.S.:
Happy Birthday, Robin!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*P.P.S. As I thought about it later, I was confused. There are clean birds? They all seem rather messy to me…. Not that relatives have to make sense. Most of mine don’t, heaven knows.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:53 am
A great big Happy Birthday!! to Robin! I have no comments on the knitting portion of this update–I merely await the product with cheerful certainty that it will be good.
*laughs* Hulpe, Hulpe! Points for starting my morning with serial chuckles.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Great story (as always!) great idea for a sock (ditto)
and goodness gracious.. YOU HAVE ALL THE PAPER WORK!
the telegram, the newspaper clipping, the birth card..
i don’t think i have a birth card from either of my own children–(do new parents send out birth announcement cards anymore? or is that one of those society details that has disappeared?)
OH Happy Birthday Robin!
August 8th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Olaf says, HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKE!!! and hope you get lots and lots of treats.
“Hol! Hol! A Hollible Horralump!” (or something like that.)
Someday, I might let you listen to the CD of my Dad reading me those stories.
August 8th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Great story with all the clippings and memorabilia to go with! And I am in love with the yarn and sock concept. Can I have one?
August 8th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Wait, wait…you’re RELATED??? I used to handsell the HELL out of that book before Kalamazoo’s oldest independent bookstore finally died.
Wow. Some family.
August 9th, 2008 at 2:58 am
You ARE a genius. HB2 The Bird.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Many happy returns of the day to the tcelebrants!
How now? TSistercousin lives in Austin? You must visit her and do some tspecial tsomething presentation or demonstration in Dallas (as all travelers must pass through there) tso that we far flung fans can come to tsee you!
Tshe has a great blog, too.
August 9th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I was at my LYS today, and someone was making the EZ moccasin socks — the way the sole/heel extends beyond “normal” heel territory put me in mind of your dirty bird.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:32 am
You don’t know me—-I just drool over your design capabilities, especially regarding socks. So, I’ll ask in regards to your general tsock designing—do you/have you read or been influenced by Cat Bordhi’s sock-itecture work? Will you reference her works in figuring out how to make the red breast for “Dirty Bird”?
Very impressed and envious of your abilites!
Anne.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Not knowing anything about sock design, and having only cursorily browsed the below-mentioned book in a sleepy post-ebay-induced-high manner last night, may I wonder aloud in your general direction whether the Cat Bordhi book ‘New Pathways for Sock Knitters’ might help you work out the red breast? There were a few interesting constructions in there.
My initial mental picture is of knitting in a back-and-forth manner both the front and the back, til you get the heel sorted out.
I’ll be extremely interested to see how you figure it out. xox
August 12th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
LOL … Note to self: read the other comments *before* posting … !
August 15th, 2008 at 7:17 am
So, this is why I always had the special connection to my cousin. Like you, I was born on his parents wedding day -my poor mom got to attend the church service, but had to go to the hospital before lunch was served. Cruel me. And he was born 9 months later sharp…..
August 17th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
It has been one week since I FIRST read this entry, and I have since read it 4 times each day, kind of like you take serious medication, if only said medication worked this well. A 50th birthday is a big deal no matter how hard you try to make it into no big deal, and on mine, I was bicycling alone, feeling very creaky and cranky, but old enough not to wallow in introspection, which was handy because all of a sudden a huge thunderstorm moved in and I had to try to remember if you crouch in a ditch or near a ditch, because you definitely don’t go under a tree, right? By the time I got home I was soaked and chilled. It was a great time for a cry, which, like many of my cries, happens before I know why I’m crying. In this case, I just missed my father. A 50th birthday is a big deal, and he would have started showering me with gifts and attention 6 months ahead of time. This is a man who gave me every power tool I own, including a chainsaw when I was 9 months pregnant. I also treasure the Amoco gas station mechanic’s suit he ordered specially, with my name in red script. I am not kidding–there were all such wonderful presents. Somehow they cemented the connection between us. Furthermore, my father would not have been able to play that alas-I-have-amounted-to-nothing game that is so tempting as I age. He was a big one for the moment, and he would have found all kinds of ways to point out that the moment was a kick in the pants. He probably would have added to it by buying a lot of steak and maybe even caviar. Anyway, I had this cry alone because I was with people who were already helping me enjoy a wonderful vacation and making a big deal out of me and my birthday and I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. But the sadness stayed with me. THEN I got home and found Lisa’s blog. This sort of thing never happens in real life, only in bad Oprah books. Lisa actually arranged for me to get a birthday letter from my father, and it confirmed that I wasn’t reinventing history to suit my purposes. Indeed my father and I did have a tremendous bond–I mean, Lisa’s research clearly shows that it begun when I was four hours old.
Lisa, thank you for taking the time–and during the week of endlessly fiberating, no less! Thank you for saving all those fragile pieces of paper and remembering what few people still living possibly could. Thank you for understanding my father. Thank you for understanding me. Thank you for helping me survive my first husband. Thank you for not staying mad at me very long whenever I acted like a shithead. Thank you for introducing me to the champagne cocktail. Thank you for loving the Big Lebowski. Thank you for spoiling my daughters with handmade clothes. Thank you for making Halloween costumes for ten neighborhood kids one weekend 18 years ago, when you didn’t even know that’s why you came to Denver! Thank you for grubbing around in Cookie’s garden with me after she died. Thank you for having a mind like a steel trap. AND thank you for becoming the Tsarina of Tsocks, which proves, although I’m sure this wasn’t the plan, that turning 50 is a fine time to reinvent yourself as a new version of what you have always been. Austin is a very yarn-y place, and I have sent many knitters to your blog. “You gotta understand these sox are transcendent,” I always say, “and I’m not sure you would want to desecrate them with shoes.”
And finally, thank you for the dirty bird, the dirty bird. (Which is how my Granny would have said it, since she said everything twice, everything twice.) I can’t wait to see them and brag about them and receive little shreds of yarn from you in the mail if you are so inclined.
Now, what else will we do to celebrate the three-and-a-half months of being 100 together?
Love, love, love
Robin
August 17th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
It was my birthday, too! And Robins? Not so dirty. We have chickens and they are dee-sgusting. I am so glad your cousin wasn’t named Chicken.
August 21st, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Dear “Dirty Bird’s” mother. I must confess that in all those years I watched you grow up, I never suspected that one day you would receive such outstanding kudos, on the internet, to boot. I assume I’m going to have to take a closer look at your person the next time we x paths.
Sincerely,
Herb Grossman