driving me to crazy

When my oldest was little she used to complain that I was "Driving her to crazy." That is in fact where this foot pedal odyssey has driven me.

At noon, New York time, I called the lovely Carl at www.vac&sew.com. He talked me through opening up the foot pedal so I could attach it to the electrical wires. As he asked me to describe the innards, it was clear that I had a model that he was unused to. So Carl had the brilliant idea that I send him a digital photo of the circuit board. I did. I got one of those annoying postmaster messages that the message was too large. I tried several different ways of sending the message to Carl. In desperation, I had my husband send Carl a message...that too got a postmaster message.

I called Carl. He tried to send himself an email. His email was broken. So that was an hour wasted. I then posted the photo here on my blog, and sent Carl to look at the photo. Now he was ready to resume instruction. I got out my needle nose pliers, and wire cutters, the tools I assumed I would need.

Carl asked if I had a soldering iron and solder. Sorry Carl, I live in new York apartment where most folks send out for coffee. I do not have a soldering iron. The foot pedal did come with metal clips. Carl walked me through getting the wires into the little metal clips and hooking everything up. This actually went well.

The moment of truth had arrived. I closed up the foot pedal and attached it to the machine. It lit up...but didn't go. I didn't have a foot pedal problem, but a motor problem. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!! I will have to take my machine out to Brooklyn after all to get it fixed. I just bought a machine on line...it ought to be here by the end of the week.

And yes, I have been driven to crazy.

Comments

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog