Feeling Crummy

I've been working on yet another nasty cold. Two colds in as many weeks. How festive. I'm going home and plopping my head on a pillow.

I'll leave you with these two pictures.

With light green

With brown

These are for a new project I'm contemplating. More on this tomorrow, unless my head explodes.

Things You May Not Have Heard About

A couple of interesting things came across my desk today, thanks to Docuticker:

The American Sociological Association filed an amicus brief last week with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the plaintiffs in Cook v. Rumsfeld (challenging the constitutionality of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy). The signors of the brief (go here for a list and press release) argue that there is no empirical evidence to show that gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military would harm military performance or unit cohesion.

Bill Clinton signed Don't Ask, Don't Tell into law 13 years ago today. I couldn't imagine anything more damaging or inhumane than that policy and didn't vote for him again (and couldn't bring myself to feel particularly sympathetic during the Lewinsky thing).

Also on Docuticker was the Human Rights Campaign's Buying for Equality 2007. The guide rates companies based on their support for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality. What I like about this is that so often we are told who to boycott (I still haven't forgiven Shell for not pulling out of South Africa during the apartheid era), and rarely who we can support (without guilt).

Finished Towels

I've been feeling a touch of writer's block lately, so I'm going to just do a quick post. I finally pulled the Cat Track and Snail Tail towels off of the loom (much to Judy's chagrin) and got them washed and dried. The colors are not coming out in these pictures: the towels are dark purple (not black) and off white.

I'm pretty sure I wound enough warp for 4 towels, plus a little extra, but it was so long ago, who can remember. I have 3 towels, plus a little extra. Not exactly a set.

I love that the Buttonhole Stitch held up. It was a wee bit tedious to do it (who wants to do buttonhole when you could be weaving, after all), but it got a lot faster as I got better at it, and then at the end, no knots to tie, or hem sewing. Just rip the things off of the loom, cut 'em apart and throw 'em in the washing machine. Nice.

I also started Icarus. The yarn is Alpaca with a Twist Fino (alpaca and silk) and this picture doesn't begin to do justice to the color. It is a deep, rich blood red.

Happy Thanksgiving

I don't generally have nice things to say about Thanksgiving. I'm from a divorced family and the day always involved what felt like hugely complicated decisions, hurt feelings, guilt and way too many people.

So I will say this: may your crazy relatives be merely entertaining, may your turkey breast be moist (brining!), and may the drinks flow liberally. Eat some real stuffing for me; I'll be having Stovetop.

By the way, one year ago I wrote my first post (there was a post the day before, but it was really just a test).

Books!

It's been a while since I posted about anything I've read. Frankly, I've been in a bit of a slump. I've been reading, but slowly.

In the last couple of months, I have finished "Home Cooking" and "More Home Cooking" by the late, very-missed Laurie Colwin. I've probably read these books 20 times by now. They are collections of essays Colwin wrote for Gourmet Magazine (mostly), and if you love food you must have them. They are gems.

I've also been reading "Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey". I didn't know anything about Gorey, so it's a bit of a revelation. I really had no idea that he died in 2000, I honestly thought he was a Victorian era illustrator. Yes. I am a dope in most aspects of my life!

I'm also reading the new edition of Janet Szabo's "Aran Sweater Design". Yes. I am a geek. I lie in bed and read about cable crossings and gauge. Don't you?

And last night I finished "Cross Country: Fifteen Years and Ninety Thousand Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a Lot of Bad Motels, a Moving Van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, My Wife, My Mother-in-Law, Two Kids, and Enough Coffee to Kill an Elephant" by Robert Sullivan. What a great book! It's about pretty much what the title says: driving across the country with family, odd details about Lewis and Clark, the history of the U.S. interstate system and the coffee cup lid, a bad luck story about a moving van, and more obsessions than should really be crammed into a 256 page book. It's funny, smart, and incredibly interesting.

When my brother Ken and I were 9 or 10, my dad drove us from Michigan to Montana to visit his parents. In a pickup truck. One of us sat up front, one of us rolled around the back (yes, at least there was a cap). We had a two person tent (which my dad made, from a kit, himself!) which my dad and I slept in, and Ken slept in the truck (his choice). I remember fried spam, crummy campgrounds, and severe boredom. Good times! Seriously. I would totally subject small children to the experience and I would willingly sleep in a tent again to do so (I wouldn't otherwise). I remember that KOA campgrounds were the worst (they put us next to the trash dump) and National Parks were the cleanest, even if you had to pee in an outhouse. According to my dad, one night we were surrounded by the KKK (my brother is black): he described it as a bunch of headlights in the night and the park ranger apologizing in the morning. They weren't exactly menacing. I remember looking up one night and understanding why it's called The Milky Way.

We went across the country again when we were about 13, this time with my stepmother, Linda and a pop up. I don't remember what they were driving, I can't imagine it was the pickup again. Maybe they had the mini-van by then. I don't have as much nostalgia for that trip, mainly because Ken was in a bad way.

I drove to Seattle with my cat in a Drive Away. And not much money. I drove through the Badlands screaming Pearl Jam. Nope. I wasn't cool enough for Nirvana. I drove home again, with the same cat, a couple of years later when my life fell apart. I think it was on that trip that I went into Walmart for the first time.

I wouldn't trade those trips for anything. This country is huge. "Cross Country" is an approximation of the experience, but only a slight one.

Maybe You Don't Come Here For the Cats

...But today you did!

Knitting and Bad Lighting

This isn't going to be very exciting. Just pictures of knitting taken in very bad light. Photoshop can do only so much.

This picture isn't so bad: the colors are right anyway. This is a scarf I've been knitting for my mom since last winter. I took it out again this past weekend.

My head is too full of snot to be able to explain this properly, but I'll try. This is going to be a sweater for a doll. Len's niece, Emily, got another American Girl doll (her fourth!) for her birthday, and while I find these to be less offensive (but far more expensive) Barbie dolls, she likes them. It seemed like a good an excuse as any to try my hand at designing a miniature sweater.

And here is another scarf (oh how I hate them so!). Why do I keep making scarves if I hate them, you ask? Good question! I don't really have an answer. Moving on: this is a Berroco rayon ribbon yarn that I bought many years ago. It is also an example of how all the Photoshop in the world can't make bad lighting good, especially in my inexperienced hands. The colors are right, but the picture is sort of blah.

I made this stitch pattern up. I sort of feel like a genius. Only sort of though. Mostly I feel like I have a lot of snot in my head. I need a nap.

Days off

I took a few, much needed, days off of work. I got tons of knitting and some weaving done and you would think I might have taken the time to take some pictures of said knitting and weaving. But no. I took no pictures. Pure laziness, on my part. The weaving looks quite a lot like it did in a previous post, and Judy continues to sleep on the warp. I don't really understand why.

In lieu of knitting, I offer this picture of Len and I. My friend Andy took it on Friday night. I don't think he was drunk.

I wasn't drunk either.

Election

Do you know what I like the best about the election results? Pennsylvania dumped that rotten Santorum.

Rumsfeld was so sad, he resigned.

Weaving!

Well, the pictures aren't very exciting, but I really have been weaving. Overshot reminds me knitting fair isle. It isn't really difficult, but I really have to be paying attention so that the shuttle with the right yarn is going through (I have two shuttles going, one with doubled yarn, which makes up the pattern, and one with a single strand for the tabby) and that I have the right treadle depressed (pattern and tabby). And don't forget the floating selvages.

The pink yarn is the new waste I'm using. It's nice and smooth, so my needle isn't getting caught in it while doing the buttonhole stitch. Speaking of which. Is that really going to work? I'll be able to cut these apart, remove the waste yarn and have nice fringe without having to do anything more?

See the mistake? So easy to make. So don't care.

One more angle, just for fun:

Last Week

Ballot Proposals

In Michigan, some people (both from here and not-from-here) have decided to take it upon themselves to make law, rather than relying on the judgement of those we elect. Thus, they have gotten up petitions, gathered signatures, fought a court battle or two, and now we have 5 Statewide Ballot Proposals. Some of these will amend the State Constitution, some just create laws.

1. A constitutional amendment to mandate the conservation and recreation funds can ONLY be used for their intended purpose.

This is already The Law, but the Michigan Economy is so bad right now, I think the folks behind this are worried these funds will start getting sucked up for other purposes. I'm having a hard time with this one. How hard it is now to get at those funds? If it isn't allowed under any circumstances, or in only the most dire of emergencies, why bother with an amendment?

2. The "Civil Rights Initiative". This constitutional amendment would ban affirmative action in public institutions. These institutions include state and local governments, public colleges and universities, community colleges and school districts. Oh. It would ban discrimination, too.

Don't you want to take a shower after reading that? They call themselves the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative and then claim they didn't perpetuate fraud in the signature gathering process (signature gatherers were accused of misrepresenting the petition). The name alone is fraudulent. While I will vote HELL NO, I have a bad feeling this will pass.

Jennifer Gratz (that's her official bio), who is heading up this initiative, sued the University of Michigan Law School, claiming that she was denied admission because she is white. I heard a rumor that she was wait listed, and had she returned her postcard, she would have been admitted. Is that true?

3. A referendum to establish a hunting season for mourning doves.

Didn't the legislature already vote for this and Granholm vetoed it? I'm inclined to vote against this one for that reason alone. We elect people to make laws and a governor who has the right to veto that law. Live with it. Otherwise, I don't really care; neither side has made much of a case. The doves aren't endangered, nor are they pests. I don't know why you would want to shoot one, but I don't really understand why people do anything (besides knit).

4. An amendment to prohibit government from using eminent domain for private enterprise.

Do you mean to tell me that Napoleon Township can take my house and let Mall of America build a cathedral to commerce in it's place? I don't think so!

5. A legislative initiative to mandate school funding levels.

I don't have kids but I think public schools are among the most important institutions our society has and I had a really hard time making up my mind about this one. On the one hand, schools have really been shafted in this economy -- primary and secondary education are underfunded and are stuck teaching to shallow standards. Higher education is becoming so expensive that soon all but the most privileged will be able to afford it. However, I'm really uncomfortable with mandated funding levels, especially when politicians are afraid to raise taxes. Michigan Radio has been doing a series on the State elections. They talked to an administrator of a Jackson elementary school who isn't taking an official positions, but wondered what would happen to other services the school uses, such as fire, police and road repair. That is what finally helped me make up my mind. I will gladly pay more in taxes to fund schools, but I just don't think this is the way.

So there you are. My blowhard opinions on our fun ballot initiatives, worth about as much as you are paying for them.

Much Knitting

Despite not having posted about it in a month, I have, in fact, been knitting. I mean really, when aren't I knitting? Unfortunately, lighting has not been conducive to great photography, so you will have to bear with me.

This is the second of the scarves I am making for the ALS/Sue Smith Euchre Tournament. This is random wool of the same variety as the other scarf. I had a really hard time picking a stitch pattern for this one. I had a few criteria: I didn't want the ultimate owner to have to block the scarf when it is washed; it had to be an easily memorized pattern (which pretty much limits it to or two rows for me) without being soul-suckingly boring; and I didn't want it to curl. While this pattern doesn't quite measure up, I like it enough to keep going. It curls and it is boring. The latter can't be helped, that is the nature of scarves, but I wish I had done something about the curling. Since I kind of suck, I can't remember which stitch dictionary this comes from, but it's a stockinette-based mesh; the yarn overs happen on the knit side, the decreases on the purl side. To prevent the curling, I could very easily have changed this to a garter stitch-based pattern without much trouble, but I had already ripped this yarn out many many times and I really didn't want to do it again. I've decided that it is a design feature. Moving on:

Swatches! Not just swatches, washed and dried swatches. I feel faint. I never do that, my usual swatching technique is to knit a few inches, decide it's right and rip it out and start the sweater. That just wasn't going to work this time.

The two swatches on the left are the blue tweedy Rowan yarn (Magpie!) from the other day. That yarn decided to be a sweater from a 2001(ish) Interweave Knits called Tuscan Hills:

It's a simple, rolled edge pullover with the added fun of ridges: on the wrong side, you pick up stitches from several rows below and purl together with the next regular stitch (you do this at varying number of rows and it's supposed to resemble the "rolling hills of Tuscany". I've never been to Tuscany so I wouldn't know.) I was having trouble getting gauge and not really enjoying the yarn during the swatching process, when I remembered something from a discussion on the Aran Knitlist: wool can "bloom" and relax in unexpected ways. So I knitted a swatch on size 7 needles and one on size 8's. They were both stiff, curly and kind of unpleasant; once they were washed the fabric became soft and drapey, with the one done on size 7's being a little denser. I didn't get gauge with either needle (and really didn't want to go any smaller than 7), so I made some calculations and am knitting a size smaller than I would normally.

The swatch on the left is the yarn that Judy found for me. It thinks it would like to be this:

I wasn't getting gauge with this either, but washing the swatch seems to shrink the yarn just enough. This seems to be the same basic pattern as my Waving Laces socks, which is good, because for some reason the chart for this one is giving me fits.

Back to Weaving

I finally sat down for a rousing bout of weaving on Sunday evening. This included discovering that one should perhaps not use fuzzy wool as waste weft if one is intending to do something like buttonhole stitch. Better I realize this now, rather than once all the towels are off the loom and I can't get the $#%@ wool out of the *&(&$% cotton. I might not be the brightest bulb, but I'm learning.

At the end my Sunday of weaving fun, I looked down and essentially saw this:

I really saw a longer strip of this, but this shot sums up the lack of pattern I was seeing.

Monday morning I went into the weaving room and saw this:

which bears a striking resemblance to what it is supposed to look like. I need to beat on the weft much harder, but it looks like something!

Judy thinks she has a new bed.

I don't find this particularly helpful. Amusing, yes. Helpful? Not so much.

How Many of Me?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 17 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Sean at Sean's Soapbox provided the above link. Many years ago I lived in a small town in Southwest Michigan. Very soon after moving there, I developed the first in a series of major-but-not-really-life-threatening diseases*: Pleurisy. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced, including major abdominal surgery. I made an appointment at my mother's doctor's office and hobbled in. They were very confused: I was 40 years younger than the Lee Ridley they knew and it took them awhile to get it sorted out. Eventually, I would come to find it amusing, as I moved through the series of illnesses I would announce myself to office as "Lee Ridley, the younger one" (unfortunately, the office began to know me by voice). Apparently, she didn't find getting phone calls from my friends looking for me amusing at all. I never met her.

*The diseases were, pleurisy/pneumonia (once the pleurisy cleared up, the pneumonia was a breeze. Except it wouldn't go away, costing me meager wages plus about $1500 in hospital expenses), Mono, and fibroids (resulting in one minor and two major surgeries). Plus an assortment of warts, infections and other nasties. Yep. They loved me over there in Sturgis.

What's on My Loom?

We last saw this sad, unappreciated warp in August. I measured the warp in {gasp} March. I suck. But I have some bobbins wound, I have momentum. I. Will. Have. Towels.

Someday.

Abstract

I have a Flickr site now as well. Just sayin'. It's here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lee-jeannette/

What Happens When I Don't Know What to Knit Next

Seriously, I have no idea. I have yarn, lots of yarn. Yarn that I am happy to use, but for what? I have boatloads of lace weight: a 1# cone of Henry's Attic Alpaca Lace (actually, I already know what this wants to be: this shawl, but lacier); about 2,000 yards of a silk-merino blend (the name of which is escaping me); and I just found 1,900 yards of random wool (same wool as this scarf, different color) which I had bought for a particular sweater, not bothering to check something so meaningless as, you know, gauge. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm just not that smart.

Judy, bless her heart, found 17 balls of gray-mauve DK wool, plus 12 balls of different colors, in a closed-box-with-something-heavy-on-top (Judy is very talented). The original intention for this yarn was a Jo Sharp intarsia sweater (Ariel), because that one makes sense for a first intarsia project. Why yes, I am a bit stupid, thanks for pointing it out.

I also have 2,000 yards of Rowan blue tweedy aran weight something-or-other-that-Google-won't-show-me. This yarn has wanted to be a sweater for a long time, but frankly there isn't quite enough yarn for a full-on Aran sweater (for me anyway), and hasn't seemed to want to be a plain sweater. Several months ago I got about 3,000 yards of a purple aran weight. This yarn definitely wants to be an Aran sweater, but hasn't decided whether it wants to be this sweater, or whether I should design a cardigan myself.

I flipped through most of my Interweave Knits last night, while watching the Tigers get creamed . I have a couple of sweaters in mind, which I will post about sometime this week.

By the way, I am feeling much better than I was last week. It's a relief because my depressions are often last much longer. I do need to edit the post to read "Len wouldn't necessarily be a refuge". His has depression as well, but his storms rarely last more than a day or two.

Blue

I turned 39 a couple of weeks ago and since then, I've been depressed. I hate admitting it, even to myself. I don't have anything against my birthday, or being 39 particularly -- I am a big fan of birthdays (even though I can't ever remember them) and I have no desire to be younger than I am. Some birthdays, though, hit me hard.

When I turned 23 I realized that time was moving forward. That had been a spectacularly awful year (I had been very much in love with someone who was very much not in love with me). There is a line in High Fidelity, "Only people of a certain disposition are frighten of being alone for the rest of their lives at the age of 26. We were of that disposition." I was 23 and very frightened. When I turned 27 I realized I was only ever going to get older. It was an odd feeling, not bad really, just odd.

This year, though. It seems to have hit me hard that my biological clock is timing out and I'm finding myself grieving. I know women have children into their 40's, and certainly that is still a possibility for me, but it isn't what I wanted. Not for myself, and not for a child. I didn't want a child to be stuck with a tired, crabby mother, especially because Len wouldn't necessarily be much of a refuge. Len would be a wonderful father in many ways, but he can be just as crabby, tired and depressed as me (but more fun, there is that).

Part of what I regret is how little control over the direction of my life I took. I let things happen, or not happen, for better and for worse. Mostly I'm happy with where I have landed: a job I don't hate, a house in the country with someone I love very much, time to knit and weave. But I can't help but feel that there has been a price to pay.

And of course. This all so petty. My mother has a close friend who's teenaged son was killed early this week. Any stupid feelings of regret I have pale in comparison to the horror she must be going through.

10 Knitterly Things About Me

Last month, Grumperina listed "10 Knitterly Things You Didn't Know About Me" and challenged others to do the same. This is my attempt at the list, but I don't know how far I'll get.

1. It's all Martha Stewart's fault. About 10 years ago, I took a weaving class at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and took one of my projects home to tie off the ends. It was a revelation. Not the weaving so much as the "I can do something while watching TV or listening to NPR!" Since I didn't have a loom at home, I tried all kinds of crafts -- mainly cross stitch and wreaths -- and devoured craft magazines, including Martha Stewart Living. One of the issues included knitting instructions and a pretty (and very plain) scarf. I tried it and failed. For some reason, I thought it might be the fault of bad instructions. My mother, who hadn't knit in 30 years, showed me the very little that she remembered and bought me a book: Learn to Knit in Just One Day. It took more than a day, but I've never looked back. And I never cross stitched again.

2. It took something like 2 years before I could see the difference between the knit and purl stitches. I'm pretty dim.

3. Aside from that, knitting just made sense to me from the very beginning. While there was gnashing of teeth, tears, sweat and recriminations, I never wanted to give it up. Ever. Ok, there was that one second I thought I might take up crochet instead when I couldn't figure out how to do that stupid purple ripple afghan (what was I thinking?), but I persevered. And never learned to crochet.

4. I hate to teach knitting and I'm not good at it. I'll do it because I'm all about spreading the gospel, but I just don't have a lot of patience. It's not knitting specifically that I can't teach, I'm really not a teacher.

5. I've only taken one knitting class (on knitting Fair Isle the Philosopher's Wool way). I seem to learn better from books and doing. That could be part of my problem with teaching.

6. I hate knitting scarves and baby blankets. I'll make them, but only under duress or a sense of obligation. Unfortunately for me, it isn't hard to make me feel either duress or obligation.

7. I love knitting needles. All of them. Straights, circulars, and double points. Straight needles are so...knitterly, when you think "knitting" doesn't your mind just go right to straight needles? And I love the rhythm I get into with double points, how the stitches shift around, pulling out the empty needle and sticking it into the new side. I love how it looks complicated, but isn't. And circulars are just so useful.

8. You know those people who tell you they don't have a television, or if they do they never watch it, or they only watch Public Television? That is so not me. I don't know anymore if I watch TV because I knit, or if I knit because I watch TV.

9. I'm way more about texture than color. I love knitting complicated lace and cables, I can even match a color to pattern. But putting colors together? No way. And as much as I love looking at handpainted yarns, I have no idea what to do with them (I suppose it works out, since they are generally too expensive for me anyway). And let's not mention intarsia.

10. I've been thinking a lot lately about Art and Craft and I have come to the conclusion that knitting is Craft, not Art. Unfortunately, I find it really hard to articulate why I believe this, especially when someone like Kaffe Fassett exists. I may try, at some point, to expand this into a full fledged essay, but in general I think art and craft exist along a continuum and that one is not more or less than the other. On one end of the continuum, there is Katharine Cobey, who uses knitting as a medium in her art. On the other end is Eunny, who is a master craftsperson. And Kaffe? Well Kaffe exists along the entire continuum. There is a lot to be said about vision, intention, utility and beauty. But I won't go there now.

Cleaned Up

I think I've gotten the blog cleaned up sufficiently. It isn't the same as it was, and I find change uncomfortable, so I don't know how I feel about it yet. What do you think?

A Visitor

Thanks, Angell, for your comments. Gwen (this picture taken with my old crummy camera) is a mutt. I got her and her brother, Simon, from a random person (my step-mother knew someone who knew someone. That kind of random). She's been the most neurotic cat I've ever known from the very beginning. Simon let me give him a bath the night I brought them home, she wouldn't let me near her for two weeks. She wouldn't let my boyfriend touch her for more than a year and she whines a lot. She isn't allowed in our bedroom any more (unless we are in it) because she pees on everything. But, she is awfully cute and cuddly when she wants to be. Plus I have a pretty sizable financial investment in her (she was very sick a couple of years ago). Anyway, I'm so sorry you lost your's and I do hope you get another (they manage to make their way into your life when you are ready).

Under Construction

Sorry for the mess! On Friday, I decided to "upgrade" (which, right now seems a rather loose term) my blog to Blogger's new Beta version, which includes the ability to label posts. At some point you will be able to see all of the posts in which I show that I am a bit of a dumbass. Unfortunately, I didn't realize what a big change this was going to be and did it late on Friday, so left a big mess here. I'll be working on it over the course of this week.

The Aliens Landed...

...and left an egg.

Dahlia in Bloom

A Very Fast Shawl

I've been working up a post about comfort reading (it's kind of like comfort food, especially when reading about food), but instead you get pictures of my finished Swallowtail Shawl. I finished it in less than a month, something is wrong with me!
Here it is pre-blocked (on my dirty carpet). A sad, crumpled mess, and tiny.
Here it is blocked. This brought out my obsessive streak with a vengence, to good effect, I think. Both sides look pretty much the same.
I bought my new camera a big memory card. In return, it gave me this picture. I think that makes us engaged.

This Morning's Dahlia

Dahlia

Pictures of Knitting!

With some PowerShot action:

Now with actual detail!
Swallowtail Shawl, in almost actual color!

Extreme close up, evil nupps* and all!

*Purl 5 together was designed by an evil, sadistic genius. Just sayin'. Then again, I guess I'm a masochist for knitting them; my method involves a very sharp size 0 needle and the potential to poke out an eye. I knit dangerously.

Studies in Tomato

I've had a few days off of canning tomatoes, so I can offer these pictures without swearing like a sailor*.


If these pictures seem like a big step up in quality (and size) from any you've seen here previously, it is because I finally bought a decent camera. A Canon PowerShot A530, if you must know. I'm pretty much in love with it; we'll be married soon.

*To be honest, I suspect my Navy brother-in-law, does not swear as much as I do!

Flagrant Disregard for Decent Traffic Behavior

I have an hour commute to work. I don't generally mind: the drive through the country is pretty, and it gives me time to listen to music that Len hates. Unless I am very late, I stay away from the highway, it can make me jittery. Jittery makes for bad driving.

This morning I was late. I took the highway. It is possible that the jitters degraded my powers of observation, but it seemed to me a Honda Accord used a left turn lane as passing lane (in a 35 mph speed zone, in which we were going...35 mph). He passed 5 or 6 cars before zipping into the correct lane. He then had to get back into the left lane to use it for it's intended purpose. I'm quite certain this same Very Important Person believed it was quite beneath him to wait in line to turn right at the next light, and used a parking lot to avoid the inconvenience.

I'm pretty sure he was not following Mr. Karr's Rules.

Some Housekeeping

I added and deleted some links on the side bar. These do not represent everything I have in my Bloglines list, but you might be frightened if you saw them all. Some non-knitting content you might consider:

• Miss Information is often annoyed. I can't blame her;
• On days I suspect there is little good in this world, NPR's This I Believe restores a small amount of faith in humanity (two of my favorites are "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude" and "Always Go to the Funeral" about the importance of kind attention);
• If you are as much of an information nerd as I am (which is almost impossible), Docuticker and Resource Shelf are indispensable. Docuticker gathers a wide variety reports from government agencies, NGOs, think tanks and University working papers (mostly American, but also some Canadian and British). Resource Shelf gathers similar information, but also reviews search engines, wikis, and other resources of particular interest to librarians (who are incorrigible information nerds). Both of these are updated frequently and they can be difficult to keep up with, even with the RSS feed.

What Makes Sense, When So Little Does

I had considering trying to write something yesterday, but I wasn't up to the task. Part of the problem is that I'm not nearly eloquent enough to do the day justice (for a really interesting discussion of where we are 5 years later, see Juan Cole's article).

But the truth is, I'm too sad and angry to say anything coherent. So I think I will show you what I've been knitting, since that is pretty much the only thing that makes sense in my world.
I've actually made progress on Daffodil. You can't tell because it is a deflated sack of thread right now. Because I seem to enjoy telling tales of my extreme idiocy, I offer the latest (actually, not quite the latest, since I have failed to make a pom pom yet again): the stitches on this have been getting very crowded, so I decided to put it on a longer circular needle. Since the easiest-to-get-to-yarn-shop was out of the needle I wanted (to be very specific, an Addi Turbo, 2.5mm 32" needle), I decided to order one. It came a week or so later. Daffodil was already on a 32" needle, negating the need for a new one. Len said, "maybe you should have measured the needle first." I supressed the urge to slap him silly. And ordered a 40" needle.
I also made some progress on the t-shirt. I should have this done sometime this year, but I keep getting distracted. To wit:
This looks like an avoidance tactic, doesn't it? It isn't. It's also more purple than you see here. The wife of a close friend of Len's died of ALS a couple of years ago. She used to play Euchre once a month with a group of friends. These friends started a yearly fundraising tournament in her honor (this year will be the third). Since we don't play Euchre, last year I decided to knit and donate some scarves to the raffle. This is the first scarf for this year. It's in some random wool yarn, size 5 needles, and a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's first stitch collection called Reverse Herringbone Faggot (I know that is a very old word, pre-dating it's current by centuries, but I still hate it). Hopefully I can get several done before November 18.
This, on the other hand, is total distraction knitting. The yarn is my copper dyed yarn. This pattern is from the current issue of Interweave Knits. Why am I knitting it, with so many other projects going? Don't ask stupid questions.
I need 14 repeats of this pattern before beginning edging number one. This is near the end of repeat 11. I completely adore how the leaves come off the center spine.

I have failed a second time

Last night's second attempt at a pom-pom, this time with an official pom-pom maker, ended in failure. And bits of yarn flying everywhere. No. I did not take pictures. I figure I'll keep trying until I, a. make a decent pom-pom, b. run out of yarn, or c. see the baby for whom the pom-pom is intended. Whichever comes first. Hopefully c. because I'm really sick of thinking about pom-poms (although, it's more pleasant than thinking about our rotten government).

In lieu of knitting pictures, I present to you:
A door. Not a fairy door. A bedroom Len was working in last week looks out on this scene and my crummy camera took a surprisingly nice picture.

I'm Back

I'm back in the Land of High-Speed-Internet and e-mail. I'd gladly give it all up to not be work*.

I was not, I am sorry to say, on vacation. Len's parents own a few rental properties in Ann Arbor's student ghetto. Because Len's father is increasingly unable (an issue I will not go into, given the complications of their relationship), Len has been taking over management. Apartment/house changeover at the end of August (leases in Ann Arbor run September to end of August) is traditionally extremely busy; students move out as late as possible and their replacements try to move in as early as possible. Landlords have to try to get the rentals clean, painted and carpeted between move out and move in. It's a dicey operation under the best of circumstances, but this year was Len's first year mostly in charge. He was down a few people: his sister and her handy husband just had twins and their regular professional cleaner had bypass surgery a few months ago so Len assumed was not able to work (never assume, as it turns out). Add to that the emotionally and physically complicating factor of his father and a mother with brand-spanking new grandbabies. What do you have? Stressed out Len.

I took last week off to lend a hand. And let me just say. Undergraduate and graduate students are pigs. I cleaned under a stovetop which had not been touched in a year (the thing to hold the stovetop up was still taped down). I scrubbed an extremely disgusting floor with Comet. I cleaned refrigerators which had never seen a sponge. I am happy to say I did not have to clean anyone's bathroom (except one which was left in very good shape by the previous tenants). Nasty nasty business.

One of the buildings has a parking lot which is much larger than necessary, so they rent out parking spaces mostly to the neighboring fraternity house. When Len and I first start dating I was horrified by the cars in that lot: Lexus SUVs, Jeep Cherokees (actually those where so last year), BMWs. This year, though, was the worst. A Hummer 2. Seriously. What moron sends their child to school with a fucking Hummer??? Don't answer that, I don't want to know. Personally, I don't quite understand having a car that isn't the old family beater while in college, but I guess things have changed in 20 years.

By the way: Thanks Barb, for the compliments on the little hat! I will hopefully put up pictures of the boy hat soon, if I can figure out how to make a pom-pom, that is.

*Actually, I rather like my job, even on days that I am bored to tears. But when there is knitting, weaving, tomatoes, basil, and all manner of other fun things to do at home (in the Land of Very Slow Dial-Up), well, let's just say, I will (in about 30 years) make a very fine retired person.