If you missed my introduction post to this series, you can read it HERE. To go straight to the book club portion of this post, which will contain spoilers for this week’s book (Death Masks by Jim Butcher), scroll down to the next big header. If you’d like to skip straight to the Summer Court Socks KAL, scroll down to that section at the bottom. They are both clearly labeled so that you can easily find or avoid certain sections as needed. 

It’s been a month since I wrote the first Pandemic Parenting post, and I’m even less enthusiastic about it than I was four weeks ago. I’ve traded low-key virtual dance class for harried virtual dance recital practice. Mabel’s first dance recital was supposed to be in June, and I would have expected it to be cancelled. Instead, we’ll all be taking part in what can be best described as “highly optimistic Zoom Olympics” that is predicated on the notion that it will be possible to have 10+ groups of small children all arrive to Zoom at the correct 10 minute block and then perform a dance, all back to back. Family members can join the call and pin the video of their grandchild while they “dance,” which adds an extra layer of potential technical issues.

I put “dance” in quotations because there is a zero percent chance of Mabel-the-Merciless performing her recital dance on cue in my living room. To be fair, on stage I’d have given it a 30% chance that she’ll follow the choreography. 

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate everything that her dance teacher has done to try to give the kids a sense of normalcy, to keep them dancing despite the chaos around us. I don’t have a better solution, and the show must go on. For me though, with every passing day that I spend trying to smile and convince Mabel that this is AWESOME, I get a little more burnt out on our “new-normal.” I’m over it. Not the social distancing or the shut down, because that I am 100% behind. I’m just over pretending like any part of it is normal.

It breaks my heart to see the way that this has altered Mabel’s world view. The other day she was wanted to wear a mask while she pretended to shop with her little cart in our living room. So, I guess the good news is she’s over the fear of masks she had a few weeks ago since she’s so used to seeing them now. But it makes me despondent that she has recognized the change in the world. I tried to shield her from it, but I can’t actually shut out the outside world. Mr. Llama was talking to a friend the other day, and she said something that really resonated with me. I didn’t realize how much it did until last night when I was texting a friend of mine about the regressions our kids were experiencing and how much of a toll not being able to play with peers has taken on them. His friend said,

“One of the hardest things, one of the things I’ve been working with my therapist on, is grieving the loss of my world view that people, given the opportunity, are generally good.”

She was talking about the Covidiots who refuse to wear a mask or demand that people like hair stylists return to work, because they legitimately don’t care if they endanger others if it means giving up what they see as an indelible civil liberty. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really suffering under the burden of believing that gun-toting maga-bros were going to start being less awful just because hundreds of thousands of lives were being lost. What got me right in my feels about what his friend said was the realization that for me, the hardest thing is having to take a front row seat to Mabel shifting from being an outgoing life-of-the-Chuck-E-Cheese-Party kind of kid, to wanting to cross the street when we are out for a walk and encounter another human. That I’ve had to watch her lose her worldview that everyone is a friend she hasn’t made yet and instead sees everyone as a potential source of “the virus.” That in under three weeks she went from being freaked out by masks to having them become something she internalized as a commonplace thing to wear to the pretend grocery store. 

I know the last one is a good thing, and most people who know me are tired of hearing my speech about how little I care if you think the mask does anything. Still, it was a visual representation of that shift in her outlook and it hurt. 

The main message I have for you this week, as in all weeks in this L&L pandemic series is:

You. Are. Not. Alone. 

It’s OK to incessantly spout the necessity of social distancing while grieving what it’s taken from your children. It’s OK to feel sad about it, and if you have someone you can talk to about it, please do. I’ve caught myself bottling my shit up a lot over the last month, and I always feel so much better after I talk to someone. I’m like a human Instant Pot these days, and I need to have someone else to talk to in order to throw that pressure valve. 

More specifically than that, I want you to know that we are going to get through this. Our kids will get through this. Maybe masks will be the hot fashion accessory of Mabel’s generation. Maybe in two years she’ll have forgotten the whole thing. But I don’t think I was doing her any favors by pretending not to be sad. So I’ve started letting her see some of that, and it’s been a turning point. She has been more open talking to us about the people and things she misses, and what she’s scared of. I’ve told her about what I miss both for me and for her. And I’ve pointed out the things we’ve done that we couldn’t have otherwise like random Tuesday rainbow pedicures. 

I talked about this in the first post, but I’ve felt a lot of pressure to be this perfect pandemic parent. Color-coded schedules with strict homeschooling curriculums and lots of Kale based meals. But really? Fuck that. Have icecream for lunch and stay up late with your kid watching the Taylor Swift concert on Disney+ (again). I’m not letting her go feral, she needs structure, but she and I are a lot happier now that we’ve agreed to just be mad at the virus together. 

BOOK CLUB

contains spoilers form ‘Death Masks’ by Jim Butcher

Death Masks is hands down one of my favorite of the Dresden Files books. I love the Denarians as villains. That could be related to having been raised Catholic, but I just can’t get enough of the basic Angel vs. Demon model. The Knights of the Cross are among my favorites of the ongoing side characters, and I especially like the way that Harry and Michael play off of one another. Death Masks also brings us three amazing new side characters: Waldo Butters, Kincaid, and Ivy-the-Archive

So much happens in this book that it’s one of the more difficult ones to summarize, but the main plot point is that Harry is introduced to the Order of the Blackened Denarians. After being hired by a priest straight from the Vatican to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin (the cloth claimed to have been wrapped around the head of Jesus when he was buried), Harry finds himself neck-deep in a much larger conspiracy. Nicodemus, the chief executive monster of the Denarians is after the shroud, and after Harry. He accidentally-on-purpose lets slip that he knew Harry’s mother (this is now the second time a Demon has claimed to have known Harry’s mother personally) and tries to tempt Harry into joining their order by taking up one of the 30 silver pieces that had been paid to Judas for betraying Jesus. Harry turns him down, but it takes some willpower to do it. At the same time all of this is going on, he’s been bullied into a duel to the death with Duke Ortega of the Red Court. He knows that if he took up the coin (and let the fallen angel residing inside of it wear him to the prom) that Ortega wouldn’t stand a chance. With that kind of power he could end the war and have time left over to go hook up with Susan. 

Oh, yeah, and Susan is back. Just when Harry was starting to rebuild his life without her, she comes barreling back into town just long enough to participate in one of the most unsexy and uncomfortable sex scenes I’ve ever been subjected to. IDK. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s having these sex scenes read in a male voice (since I’m listening to the audiobooks) rather than my internal narrator. Maybe it’s that I just completely don’t understand what men find hot. But seriously, are there people out there super turned on by lines like, “I ran my hand across her flank?” Like really, her flank? And is hissing, “need! need!! need!!!” a thing that young people these days are doing to express enthusiasm for one another? 

These books would be better with the sex off camera or just not happening at all. Jim Butcher is not nearly as good at writing sex scenes as he clearly thinks he is. On top of that, this particular scene doesn’t feel especially consensual to me. Susan is not in control of herself. Harry has to tie her up and dangle her from the ceiling to keep her vampire curse from taking over and eating him. Then, he just bangs the bloodlust right out of her while having to hold her head away from his neck. For me, it read no different than if his ex were drunk and crashing on his couch and he had super aggressive sex with her. It doesn’t really matter that she was into it, she wasn’t capable of consent. Like, I’m not saying Harry is raping her, because he’s not actually in control of himself either. It’s been well established that he crumbles into a thoughtless sex machine when in contact with red court venom, and I’ll grant that that isn’t his fault. It’s just that I don’t really think either of them were capable of consent. The scene did not do anything important for the book. It just felt like some kind of gross neck-beard fantasy. The hook up becomes important in a later book, but there is no reason it needed to be on camera and questionably consensual. The plot arc that circles back to it later on could have happened just as easily if they had both been in their right minds and decided to have break-up sex.  

So, yeah. The sexual dynamic Harry has with a few people throughout the series is a problem for me. It’s a problematic fandom for me, because if you skim past the constant nipple erections and questionable erotica they are great books. This one especially. I’m going to hop off of this train now, but I’ll be honest: I’m probably going to complain about this at least once per post.

Circling back to the plot, all three of the Knights are in town to deal with the Denarians. They beg Harry not to get involved but he has it on good authority that they are asking him that based on a prophecy that got corrupted before it reached them. So he gets involved, but a bit clumsily and gets himself captured by Nicodemus. Nic offers him the coin and Harry turns it down. Just as Nic is about to kill him Shiro, the oldest living Knight of the Cross, bursts in to save the day by trading himself for Harry. Nicodemus is trying to set off a plague, but honestly, his motivations didn’t really matter much. Shiro has a heart wrenching death scene, they disrupt the plague spell, Harry fights Ortega and kinda wins, and then comes the real clincher: At Michael’s house, as the dust has just begun to settle, a car drives by while Harry the Wizard is playing with Harry the toddler (Michael’s youngest son) in the front yard. The window of the car rolls down and as I’m reading it I can see the scene unfold in slow motion. A hand reaches out of the car and flicks something small and shiny onto the yard before driving off. Harry the toddler reaches for it. Harry the Wizard just barely manages to grab it first, saving the child from picking up one of the silver Denarian coins. And in doing so, he has taken up the coin himself. 

YARN STUFF

Summer Court Socks, Clue 1

Who wants to make some socks? Spoilers: it’s me. Also probably you if you scrolled this far. I’ve got an exciting new sock pattern coming to you hot off the Llama presses! I’ll be releasing it in five parts, starting this week with the gauge swatch and cuff. Just like the Blue Beetle Handwarmers, I’ll be including the pattern instructions here at the bottom of each post. There are three charts, which will be here as downloadable PDFs. 

Inspired by the colors and imagery of the Summer Court of the Sidhe, the Summer Court Socks are the perfect knit for magical summer nights. Equally suited to taking tea in your palace’s garden on a lazy Sunday and to slipping into a set of mail boots before throwing yourself onto the frontline of an epic battle to decide the fate of human kind, these socks will never disappoint.

Knit from the cuff down, they are well suited to working two-at-a-time on long circular needles, or individually on either circulars in magic loop or with DPNs. The instructions call for a contrast color for the cuff, heel, and toe, but this is at your discretion and they would be beautiful when worked in a single colorway as well.

Recommended Yarn: 50g/200 yards of fingering weight yarn for the main color and 20g/85 yards of fingering weight yarn for the contrast color. Alternately, if not using a contrast color, 70g/285yards of your main color. I used Lattes & Llamas Twinkle Toes Sock Set in “Sunset Over Neverland” for my sample. 

Needles: US0/2.0mm and US1.5/2.5mm 36” or 40” Circular needles for working in magic loop or same size DPNs. Adjust needle size to achieve gauge as needed. 

Notions: 5 Stitch Markers, including one visibly different marker for BoR (Beginning of Row). If working your socks two-at-a-time you will need 10 stitch markers, including 2 BoR Markers.

Gauge: 27 sts and 30 rows = 4” on larger needles when working the lace chart or gauge swatch instructions. Stitch gauge is very important to achieving a well-fitting sock, however if you are off on the row gauge and on target for the stitch gauge that is not something to worry about, you can work the sock as long or short as you wish. Note that socks usually fit best when worked with some negative ease (i.e. the sock, unstretched, is slightly smaller than your foot circumference), though this is up to your personal taste. Take the time to check your gauge for this project. 

Sizing: Size 1(2, 3, 4) = 7(8.5, 10, 11.5)” circumference.

INSTRUCTIONS

Instructions given inside [brackets] are pattern repeats. The bracketed instructions should be repeated the number of times indicated immediately after the bracket. Ex: [K1P1] x4. Means you should work “K1, P1” four times, and [K1P1] to marker means to repeat “K1, P1” until you reach the next marker.

Click on the “Download” button below to get the Gauge Swatch Chart and Abbreviations.

GAUGE SWATCH

Note that yarn for the gauge swatch was included in the yardage requirements for the project. The gauge swatch is worked flat on the larger needles. 

Cast On: With MC and larger needles, cast on 27 sts using your favorite CO. We love the Twisted German CO, and a tutorial for it is available here. 

Rows 1-6: K all sts. 

Rows 7-22: K2, work gauge chart across 23 sts, K2. You may wish to place markers after the first 2, and before the last 2 sts, and between the chart repeats. 

Rows 23-30: K all sts. 

BO loosely, and block gauge swatch lightly. Resist the urge to over block, it’s easy to do with lace swatches! You have achieved gauge when the swatch measures 4” x 4”. If needed, adjust your needle size accordingly if your swatch is too big or too small. 

CUFF

Cast On: With CC and smaller needles, cast on 48(60, 72, 84) sts using your favorite CO. We love the Twisted German CO, and a tutorial for it is available here. Join to work in the round, taking care not to twist your sts. Place marker to indicate BoR. 

R1-16: K1P1 around. 

Break CC, Join MC, and change to larger needles. 

I’ll see you back here next Wednesday with clue number two of the Summer Court Socks and to discuss Blood Rites by Jim Butcher!

~Megan-Anne

“Sleep is God. Go worship.” -Waldo Butters

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