Christmas is a mere 40 days away and the knitting frenzy has begun. My knitting group sat around the lunch table today, passing around knitting books and magazines and making lists of recipients and yarns we needed to buy for their gifts. The mood was upbeat with an underlying note of hysteria.

Forty days is still forty days — for good and for bad.

“I think I should have done this two weeks ago,” said one.

“Do you think it will still count as a good present if I started it for last Christmas?” another queried.

We all agreed. If it got finished in time for this Christmas, then it didn’t matter which Christmas it was intended for.

Advice was sought — did you like this pattern, would you use this stitch, how do you do this again? Compliments were given — for color choices, for progress, for perseverance.

I join in as I work on finishing up the first half of Christmas Present #1. I have the hang of working with the alpaca yarn and this pattern now and can work and talk at the same time, except when I’m doing the decreases. Then I can’t figure out where the extra stitch came from. When did I add that? Or did I forget to knit two stitches together earlier in the row? Oh well, I shrug. This pattern has been more of a suggestion than a strict mandate from the beginning (when I realized the number of rows it requested wasn’t remotely near the number of inches they wanted).

As lunch drew to a close, we chatted about an upcoming party one of our members was throwing as we gathered our books and our projects to leave. Smiles were exchanged, knowing we were further along in the process than we’d been an hour before. And knowing, too, that this group of women would be with us as we knitted the rest of the way through the 40 days before Christmas.

I admit it. I’m frustrated. I want things to be progressing faster, without actually my having to progress faster. I want to stop turning around and finding another thing that needs to be fixed or cleaned before I can go on to the next thing on my mental list.

Like this morning. I was multi-tasking by doing handwashing and soe-washing at the same time. But when I emerged from the shower all fresh and clean and went to let the water out of the sink, it didn’t go. It just sat there. So I pretended I was on a sinking ship (because who doesn’t feel that way some days) and bailed the sink water down the tub drain. At least the two were right next to each other and it didn’t require wandering around the house, as it would have if the kitchen sink had refused to drain. But I’m not sure why I would have been washing my sweater in the kitchen sink. Particularly since I have a garbage disposal. And a few soaking dishes. Baking pans and merino sweaters just do not mix.

So tonight before I left work, I did some research. Found out how to fix it. Dug about until I found the right tools. Used them. And then I was thwarted from it being a cathartic (if gross) experience by a very sweet guy who wanted to help (particularly since he’s the one who brushes his hair over the sink).

The good news is that the sink stopper is operational once more and my handwashing can resume once more. The bad news is that there’s just so much more to do around here. And less than three weeks until our tree-trimming party. And a frustrated me just wanting it all to be done.

As I walked past the Library of Congress building today I was reminded that there are a number of DC landmarks I’ve meant to visit but haven’t:

• The Library of Congress
• The Smithsonian Natural History Museum
• The Spy Museum
• The Folger Shakespeare Library
• National Cathedral
• National Geographic Society
• National Archives
• 9:30 Club
• National Arboretum
• Anacostia Museum of African American History

I probably can’t fit them all in adequately before the end of the year, but I think I’ll make it my goal to visit them all during 2006. That seems like a manageable resolution, don’t you think?

Four years ago we spent Veterans Day in England. Known there as Remembrance Day, the holiday is observed nationwide at 11 a.m. The country goes silent. Not for thirty seconds. But for two minutes. Two whole minutes. Radio and tv goes quiet. No one whispers over the silence. No one explains what’s going on. You just stop. And think. And remember. And think good thoughts for veterans who made it home safely. And for families whose children, friends, siblings, and parents didn’t come home.

When I was young, I thought positive thoughts about my dad and my uncle and my grandfathers who had all served in the army. Veterans were things that older men were. I didn’t understand that veterans still exist, that they were contemporaneous.

Today I am an adult and I still find it hard to remember that some days. That men and women are living and dying on front lines and in iffy situations around the world every moment of every day to keep me safe. And that not only are they not older, these days many of them are younger. Younger even than my brother, who I still don’t think of as grown up. I think of my college interns from my Wesleyan days and the Coast Guard cadets from my Conn College days and cannot superimpose their living, breathing youthfulness over the names and faces of those who die on a daily basis for their country.

So that’s why Veterans Day is so necessary, is still so important. Because people die for me, even if I don’t understand why they’re dying.

Two minutes seems like a long time when you’re still and silent. But it’s not really that long. It’s not long enough to list all those veterans who died this year. It’s not even long enough to name the 92 who died in the line of duty last month. It’s not long enough to count the number of soldiers who’ve been wounded in action. It’s not long at all when you figure that someone who was killed when they were 20 lost 50+ years. What’s two minutes in fifty years? We’ve all got two minutes to spare.

So I’m taking two minutes — 120 seconds — to remember. A nation joining together to honor our soldiers all at the same moments would be powerful. But even honoring them on our own is something.

Thank you, veterans. I honor your memory today with a virtual poppy (worn by most British people at this time of year to remember veterans).

I know. I know. You’re dying to know — what were three of the beautiful things that I noticed this week? Wait no longer. Here they are:

1. Late Friday night as I was walking back to the Burrow, I caught a good whiff of fall. I wasn’t expecting it. But there it was, waiting for me, just like an old friend on the street corner. And it was there again the other day amidst the crunchy leaves littering the sidewalk on the way home from work.

2. Tonight I decided to make some applesauce with some of the apples deteriorating in the fridge. I didn’t bother to measure the cinnamon when I added it to the pot, and it was clear from the way the mixture smelled as it was simmering that I’d put in way too much. But then once it was done cooking, it tasted fine. So cinnamon can be added to applesauce far more liberally than recipes call for and it just makes it that much tastier.

3. I took yesterday as a work-at-home day in order to finish editing a book that got passed on to me. The topic was astronomy — and, in particular, the terrestrial planets (Mars, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and the Moon). Unfortunately, because I barely passed the subject in college, I was having a difficult time understanding some of the nuance the astrophysicists were trying to get at in their comments. So it felt really good when, in the last chapter, I finally understood that a planet’s magnetic field is related to its core and that its major surface disruptions (like volcanic activity and earthquakes) are related to its mantle. The two have nothing to do with one another, according to NASA. [Don’t say we aren’t instructional around here…]

The cats are enjoying having a clear desk. Posey and Della are content merely to lie on the top shelf and await admiration; Jeremiah, on the other hand, understands it less as a shelf for pretty trinkets and more as a stage. He puts on a good show, too. He pirouettes, he flips, he dances, he flirts with disaster. He pursues his tail with a zealous glee we haven’t seen since he was a kitten.

And someone really didn’t appreciate the fact that the couch is no longer a cat paradise of piles. Last night they left a hairball on the freshly cleared cushion. Luckily, cleanup was minimal and painless.

Who needs expensive toys when you can just offer cats furniture?