Ford endured an hour of driving in the cramped back seat of the puny Golf car, ready to puke out his heart, when we stopped in Smithville and paused before turning around and returning home. We were driving to Houston for the annual Lights in the Heights, which is a Christmas tradition in my old neighborhood. Mom and Dad had a bell choir on the front porch. The street was closed off. We looked forward to bundling up, boozing up, and towing the kids in a red wagon through the neighborhood, saying hello to old friends.

Poor kid. It broke my heart to watch him tough it out. He is the bravest little boy, so careful not to puke anywhere but into his little yellow bowl. Remembering to say please when asking for a towel. It reduced me to tears when he asked whether the pediatrician’s office that we were taking him to this afternoon was “the one with all the toys where we went when Seti (our old Jack Russell) bit me when I was trying to keep him off the bed because mommy was nursing Chas?”

Instead, I am knitting. Clothing is a priority. It’s too hard to fit normal pants over cloth diapers, so I have to knit my own. The solution: Little Turtle Knits pants. Noro Kureyon. He seems to like them. These won me kudos from our local knitting shop, where we left only minutes before taking this picture. Not before buying another 3 skeins of yarn for: another pair of pants.

Now, back to procrastination.

Knitted Little Turtle Knits soaker, Araucania Natural wool, happy model. Knitting is therapeutic and addictive. Like running, once it becomes routine it’s hard to miss a day. Then, just as easily, it’s possible to quit without looking back. I dropped the needles in May of last year and I’ll probably do the same this year. I think it has seasonal appeal, to me.

On the walk to dinner, oak boughs bounce with Christmas lights to the sound of rush hour traffic. Lights, everywhere, confuse us all along the way, awakening us: sodium, mercury, halogen, fluorescent, neon. The dark silhouettes of two live oaks frame the facade of ArtHouse like a shadowbox, their branches alive with a congregation of grackles, cackling and cracking.