Fray

tap tap tap

2008-04-16T07:26:00.001-07:00

Is this thing on??

2007-07-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

It's a small world after all...

Douglas Jacob was born June 10, 2007 and weighed in at 7 lbs 13 oz, 20.5 inches long. So (good heavens) he's a month old today. He's an easy baby, with lots of snoozing and smiles--and don't tell me that's just gas, you party pooper. Tired parents need something to keep them going.

The birth went smoothly; I started having labor pains about 9 or 10 pm on Saturday night, the doula came by about 8 am Sunday morning, we got to the hospital about 1 pm on Saturday afternoon and he was born at 1:33. Yes, it was a quick labor. Yes, it runs in the family. No, I didn't remember that while I was in labor, or I would have warned folks about that. No, I didn't have any painkillers, there wasn't time. Just like everything else, I showed up a little late and didn't get around to it. I'd be happy to give you the birth story in obsessive detail, but after a couple weeks talking about it in person those seem to be the points that folks care about.

Answers to the current favorite questions from family/friends: he sleeps about three hours at a crack, usually. I'm breastfeeding. It's going well, now that we've made it through that first week. I'm going back to work in late August or early September. Yes, we're tired. Yes, he's adorable. Yes, I really do believe that he can smile and understand my words, despite what you all tell me. His dad and I are both in love. He brings out a surprising tendency towards funny little songs in his father.

Despite all my research, and lecturing on the topic for years, I'm finding baby care even more intense than I would have expected. Some parts are really really glorious! Some parts are just tiring. So I'm going on hiatus; there's been no knitting, no blogging, no reading of blogs since I started this. It's fair to say that I probably won't get back to that for a good six months or so (though I am carving out a little time for email, or I think perhaps I would start to get the shakes). I might post sporadic non-knitting stuff over at Caveat Lector, which is the livejournal blog. C'mon over, if you'd like to keep up with me there. Otherwise, I'll meet you back over by the circular needles sometime early next year.

Almost there

2007-06-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm 39 weeks today, and it's now growing obvious that this kid will not be too early. The pregnancy is disrupting everything--my shoes, my sleep, my sanity--but I know that after Bonzo gets born, I will look back on this as a very restful time. I've had nine months to deal with it, but I'm still just as flabbergasted by the idea of another little person in our family as I was on the day I found out. The knitting just crawls along; mostly on the nights when I say I'll knit, I end up just pulling out part of my yarn stash, petting it, and packing it all back up.

I did manage to finish the Baby Surprise Jacket, which I was so excited about I had to photoblog before I sewed it up or slapped buttons on it or even wove in the ends. I supposed that since it was by another EZ, I was really obligated to try the pattern! It was great fun, had enough challenge to keep me interested, and the different stages of the sweater are broken down into chunks that are just big enough to relax into the knitting without getting stranded. I did have a little trouble with overshooting the decreases, though, and had to rip pieces of this five or six times!

I was also really entranced by the folding-up end to this pattern, as was Mr. Trope. Surprise! It really is a jacket-like object. The other "surprise" was that this is not baby-sized at all; it's a good toddler jacket. And I swear I got gauge, for once. The kangaroo in the background is one of Mr. Trope's old baby toys, crocheted by his aunt a long long time ago. She made a crocheted bear for Bonzo too; if I go overdue and have time for such things, I'll have to show off some pictures of all the handmade treasures that Bonzo has accumulated. They are really works of art, all of them.

This was knit with Plymouth Encore Colorspun DK, in some discontinued color I got from the stitching store I got in my little Hometown years ago. Knit on size 4 needles; I made gauge and then went to splurge on some Addi Turbos for this project, but they got lost in the move (sob!) so I ended up starting on the straights I inherited from my mother and never did find them so I could switch over to circs.

There's been a lot of work today: cleaning up my real job, crib and cosleeper set-up, kid laundry, diaper washing, packing and organizing. I'm pooped. This was all prompted by my first "real" contractions, which absolutely knocked the wind out of me for about 20 minutes before stopping entirely. Bonzo could be here tomorrow! Or, it could be a week from Sunday. Who knows? We'll keep you posted if anything happens, though you all should know better by now than to interpret my lack of posting as anything exciting.

the shawl that broke my blog

2007-05-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

No, I still don't have internet at home (though I have all the parts now and all it would take is an evening to sit down and put them together). What I do have is the CD-ROM of these fabulous shawl pics that finally got unearthed. This was the Sooper Sekrit Project that I worked on so long and had to catalog so lovingly before I could send it off to its new home and blog about it. All photos are by the incomparable Bonne Marie, and copyrights, of course, are hers.

What did I learn from this Diamond Fantasy shawl? First, that lace and social knitting do not mix. Despite the Yarn Harlot's warnings, I swore a lot and pulled out a lot of stitches because I couldn't trust the pattern. Then I swore and ripped a lot because I didn't follow the pattern. I knew I was on the scant side of my yarn requirements, but felt like I was doing okay because I had only two rows to go plus a bind-off. The top of this shawl has rows of a couple hundred stitches each. I had to go buy more yarn (thank you, thank you, thank you Toni) several months after I'd bought the first batch.

I also learned that despite all my swearing, I really like lace. And despite it feeling like it took forever, I cast on for this project in October coming back from Pittsburgh and cast off barely four months later. (I know! For some of you, that is "taking forever"! Bear with me, my knitting is in a different time zone.) In comparison, it took almost four months to get the thing blocked, sent and blogged.

I also learned that I am not quite up to the task of photographing lace on my own, but thankfully Ms. Burns is there in the breach. What a generous treat at the end of all this knitting!

So what am I working on now?

* baby surprise jacket
* baby hat (teeny! Will it fit? Only if he comes out in the next week!)
* baby blanket--ETA November or December
* stashbusting blanket: for when I just can't keep my eyes open to count stitches
* Trekking socks: slowly but surely.

Since the move, I've realized I have more yarn than God. I can't even walk into a yarn store until I use some of this up. And when will I have time to knit? We'll see. The brave new world of parenthood has got my stash quivering in its Rubbermaids.

I'm 37 weeks today, which gives me the "green light" to get this kid out. I can't wait to meet young Bonzo, and can't wait to take a little time off work. I foolishly believe that I'll have more time to knit when I'm at home. All you parents can start laughing now.

Whoa--what's that?

2007-04-24T15:03:00.000-07:00

I look over to the right on my very own blog, which I've been studiously avoiding ever since I stopped posting, and what do I see? Some of my favorite links! Links I thought I didn't have time to go look up, since my RSS feeder is down! I could go back to old-fashioned surfing! Why didn't I think of this three weeks ago??

This is a death knell for my work productivity.

Listen to me, NPR!

2007-04-24T14:58:00.000-07:00

(Let's not discuss my big lack of posting. My internet is still down, I'm sneaking on at work, and I don't have time to grovel overmuch. But hey, maybe I'll be back online after Saturday!)

Did anyone else catch Dr. Ruth's interview on NPR's Morning Edition today? It was priceless. The first time I heard it I cried, and the second time it made me chuckle--particularly the bit where she addresses "NPR" as if it were a singular person, as in, "Can you hear me, NPR?" Yes, Dr. Ruth, we can hear you.

Knitting content will resume with next post, but I'll give you a rundown on what's on the needles:

EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket (for Bonzo)
MDK's Moderne afghan using Homespun leftovers
that infernal Garden Path shawl which will never be finished
a Trekking sock

After a solid two or three weeks of not knitting at all, I've started to get back in the habit. It feels really really good. Like my brain is waking up again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2007-02-14T20:06:00.000-08:00

In lieu of knitting content, another favorite pastime...

Broke

2007-01-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

Things I would do tonight, if I had the focus:

* Write a Roe post. (Meanwhile, go read Bitch Ph.D's. It's pretty good. Link is in the sidebar, one of the few links that still work so take advantage of it.)
* Write to the kid. It's been a couple weeks since I did that.
* Mop the floor.
* Watch this $%#$&^ movie for work.
* Read more Dr. Sears.
* Email much-needed friends: Adri, Bekah, Beth, Ang. Miss them.
* Mark some dates from one calendar to another.
* Write a pregnancy update.
* Clean the desk. Fix the printer. Make my workspace not such a disaster.
* Call my cousin and ascertain just what's up with him.
* Put stamps away into my book. I like my stamps.
* Screw up my courage and get rid of a bunch of gewgaws I don't need.
* Re-swatch for the abandoned shawl. Resolve to write down the size needles used next time. (Alternately, throw out my interchangeable needles so I can no longer get away with this type of malarkey.)
* Go to the drugstore and buy C's fizzy drink mix and some baby aspirin for me.
* Record some books.
* Find an icon for this breeding odyssey so I can post without shame in the preggo's forum.

However, my brain is major-league broke tonight. (I blame Blue Monday: hat tip, janeorben) I am medicating with liberal doses of chocolate and Vorkosigan, and trying not to put weight on the more tender areas of brain. On the upside, the conference is all finished and work is going great now. Good night.

delicate sensibilities

2007-01-15T19:15:00.000-08:00

Non-knitting content.

Last night, Elwood got the TV to himself and was watching some hideous-looking movie called "Monster Man" on the SciFi channel. I walked past it to find a screaming zombie creature on screen, writhing on the floor with the bottom half of its torso chopped off and a very fuzzy looking hand.

"You won't want to watch this," says Elwood, referring to the bloodified zombie torso which was continuing to scream.
"What's the matter with his hand?" I asked.

After peering at the screen for entirely too long, I figured out that the zombie torso was holding his hand up towards the camera to flick off his attacker. (Despite the obvious blood loss and wandering intestines, Zombie Man was still not dead. I guess sometimes it's good to be a monster man.) The film cut away to the attacker a couple times, then back to the zombie, who (as indicated by the censored and blurred-out hand) continued to give us all the finger while wailing incoherently. The SciFi channel has no problems with showing us monsters chopped messily in half, but shies away from an upraised middle finger. We can't be teaching the kids bad habits, you know.

In other news, this morning I heard on NPR clips of a "60 Minutes" interview with President Bush. It was a short, well-cut little report, with the president saying in his own words (and without the speechwriters) that he wasn't going to follow Congress' advice on the war, and he was disturbed by the video he saw of Hussein's execution. When the interviewer pressed him, he admitted he hadn't watched the whole tape because he hadn't wanted to see Hussein go through the trap door. I guess he has delicate sensibilities too.

(crossposted to LJ)

Rescued!

2007-01-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for their advice on the DFS, particularly to Emily, since she's knit a DFS somewhat recently, and to all the folks who know Toni and recommended that I make life easy and call her before doing anything drastic.

I did call the Fold, in fact, and got Toni herself, even on the holiday weekend. She immediately found the right color and the right dye lot, commiserated with me about being so close to the end and so sure I had enough yarn, and agreed to ship it out promptly. How wonderful is she?!? I will even get a chance to use my new swift! I was tempted to ask her to throw in one of those little blue ball-winders*, but decided that I've spent enough on clothes and shoes** in the last three weeks that I really should use my lovely nosterpinne for another month or two. I'm used to doing all the winding by hand across my knees anyway, so I won't suffer through doing a couple more hanks of yarn that way. I have a few days off to work on little projects (more dishcloths, Wayne's hat) until the Miracle arrives, and then I can wrap it up, get its picture taken, and speed it on its way. I'm hoping to have nice pictures of this one, when I can finally show it off, and one of the reasons for my rush (besides its status as a ~~Christmas~~ birthday present) is that I don't want my very talented photographer to change her mind. So, hooray!

_________
*Why didn't I get a swift and ball-winder together? Well, I have put off both for years because while either of them seemed reasonably priced by themselves, the two of them together were never as tempting as a few more hanks of luxury yarn***. I've solved this problem by getting a nostepinne, realizing how useful the swift would be alone, and proceeding stepwise.

**A few irritating facts about shoes I've recently learned:
1) I'm now wearing (or very soon will wear) a size 8 shoe/boot.
2) Size 8 boots on clearance sell out before any other shoe in the store.
3) Women with size 8 shoes who want to wear those lovely knee-high boots are never, NEVER allowed to work out, walk more than fifty steps, or use their calf muscles for anything besides looking cute.
4) My calves are closer to a size 10 in boots, although no matter how much baby weight I gain, I don't believe my feet will ever be that size.
5) Quite possibly, it's time for me to give up my lovely winter boots and pad around in sneakers and flats for the duration. I'll have to knit extra-thick socks so my ankles don't freeze!

***Not having a swift or winder also slowed down consumption of said luxury yarn, which was an economic fringe benefit. Alas, no more.

Guide me, O wise ones.

2007-01-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm making a Diamond Fantasy Shawl out of Classic Elite Miracle. I'm two rows from the end of the last chart (I'm making the "scarf" and not the "shawl" version, for those of you familiar with the pattern.) And, okay, I might have been a little optimistic on my yarn requirements. I figure I might get through one more row before I run out of string. So, here are my options:

(a) attempt to knit the final two points and bind off here, forgetting about the I-cord edging.
--This option seems least likely to work: it would leave a wonky end to the chart and an amateur looking edge.
(b) rip back to the last logical-seeming pattern pause (halfway through this chart) and attempt to run the points and the I-cord bind off with my remaining yarn.
--This option is quite attractive, but if I'm still short of yarn it will be heartbreaking.
(c) Go back to the Fold/attempt to locate another distributor and buy one more skein with which to finish as directed. Pray that the dye lots are close enough for government inspection.
--Elwood says, "That should be an easy color to match, right?" Umm. Maybe, but would the differences become more apparent after washing a couple times?
(d) Attempt to find on the knitting blogosphere someone with a partial skein of Miracle in color 3313, lot 0101. Completely forget about the fact that I was hoping to finish this project by last month.
--It would work, but it would have to be next year's Christmas present. As if I'll have time to knit presents next year.

So, knitters, what do you advise?

Accounting

2007-01-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

(stretches) Ahh, it was a lovely internet break. I got some stuff DONE over the holidays, man, let me tell you. Not always the stuff I meant to do, mind you, but stuff nonetheless.

On New Year's Eve, I always get a little panic about properly documenting the year that is closing and preparing for the year to come. I asked Elwood at one point, "But what did we get DONE?" He sensibly replied:

"You got pregnant.
I got a job.
The Democrats won back the legislative branch."

Oh. Looking at it like that, I guess it was a pretty good year.

So, on to the yarn accounting:

THIS WINTER'S GIFTS

Sockatta socks for Mom.

Madil Iceland socks for the man. (Boy, do they bloom in the wash. I'm going with a different wool next time.)

An array of Mason-Dixon washcloths, various recipients

And? And? Shadow knitting! For the fabulous and much deserving KAH!

Front view of DNA scarf.

Yeah, baby.

There is one more project left to knit, I admit. It's almost done but it turned out to be a little more ambitious than I'd originally intended. It might even get treated to a professional photography session before it wings off to its recipient. The object and I are both pretty excited about that.

I'm paring down my 'net time quite a bit; I pruned the RSS feed pretty severely, and will probably do the same for my LJ friends list over the next week or two. Blog maintenence is still on hold until further notice. I'll update those links soon, I promise.

Okay? On to the new year!

Hello, thank you, goodbye

2006-12-18T21:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I've again spent just enough time online tonight to play the Fruitcake Game--you ever play that? It's the game where you cut yourself a big slice of holiday bread (yes, I love the fruitcake, I don't know what's wrong with all the rest of you. What do you have against candied cherries?) and then look and say, "Noo, far too much." So you cut it in half and take it to wherever you're eating it. Then in ten minutes, you wander by again and say, "A little more?" and you cut your uneaten half in half. Yum yum yum. Then you go to put away the treats, and realize it's not enough to wrap back up, so or course you need to finish it. Mmm, fruitcake.

The disadvantage of Christmas knitting is never getting to show people what you're working on, and having to work on logical deadlines instead of saying, "Hmm, I want to work on the summer tank top tonight." Bah humbug. But I'm heartened to know that one of my presents is for someone close, will be amazing and unexpected, and may in fact be finished on time. I'm so excited about that one, I wish I could be working on it even more right now. But I can't (see above re: total surprise.)

So thanks, y'all, for continuing to write and giving me such good stuff to read as I eat my fruitcake. I hope I can participate more after the ~~end of the world~~ end of the year.

how do I expect anyone to read when I don't post?

2006-11-21T21:10:00.000-08:00

(Funny truth to this title: this post has been sitting and waiting here on my computer for three days. I think I'll just wrap it up so I can close the browser already, hmm?)

I believe I swore this wouldn't be a knitting-only blog. But since this is the address most of my knitting-blogger friends visit, somehow I feel obligated to report on the knitting, or apologize for the lack thereof. So, knitting people: there will not be yarn in this post. Sorry. I think.

It's been a busy month over here in the Fray, but much of it goes unscheduled and unrecorded. I've been tearing through old books at an amazing pace, preferring to read and enjoy things I've read before one more time. Old Mimi Smartypants, old children's novels, old sci-fi. I managed to finish Bujold's Shards of Honor in about twenty-four hours, and only managed to put it down for a night before I started on the next book in the series. Understandably, this curtails the knitting quite a bit.

I have gotten out a couple times in the last several weeks to knit, though forces have been conspiring to keep me from the Stitch n Bitch group and I've only managed a couple Thursdays. This means I am forced to declare* the Mercury Cafe the best KIPpin' place ever; I left my pattern there on Thursday (the one and only copy of my Diamond ~~Nightmare~~ Fantasy** pattern) and they were still holding it for me on Saturday morning. I had a celebratory cinnamon roll and thanked my lucky stars.

Also: go listen! Kris Delmhorst, one of my recent favorite chick singers, got interviewed on NPR for her latest album. It's worth a few minutes of listening.

___________
*I really like the Mercury. I like their Lamingtons pretty well. I *love* the space they've got. But the drivers in the neighborhood are about to run me over, and the pedestrians and the bikes are always jumping out in front of me. When I figure out what happened to my chauffeur, it'll be just as pleasant to travel there as it is to knit there.

**The lace, it is crazy-making, and since I started this post I un-knit quite a bit and re-knit to fix an imaginary mistake. Thus we are in stasis and will never wake up. Technically, you could call it knitted lace, but since the front and back YO's don't ever overlap, it's really still lace knitting. You're not seeing pictures because it will be a present to someone. However, I think this one will end up being a birthday present and not a Christmas present, and then I will carefully file the pattern away and resolve NOT to knit anything with holes in it for a while. Accidentally or on purpose.

Yes, Jenna, there really is snow in Mongolia.

2006-11-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I braved the cold gray weather and drove out to the Dulaan knit-in hosted by Franklin. Several important things happened:

I got to see Schecki and catch up a little. Whee!

There was big important news to be shared with the knitfriends (missed the big important news? You'll have to email me.)

I met Franklin! And hugged him! I was, of course, so nervous about this hug that I leaned in too fast and bonked him on the head, in a weird platonic replay of the first time I kissed a boy. Smooth, 'Trope, real smooth. I'm sure he'll remember you as the woman who put a bruise on his skull. He is understated in person and quite funny, and has a camera that is not to be sneezed at, and walked around a few times with plates of cookies and brownies and made each and every one of us feel like he was genuinely glad we were there.

I won some yarn! Lovely, lovely sock yarn! El says it is shawl yarn, but I disagree. I can't wait to swatch it up. (Did I just say that? The girl who has knit maybe twenty rows in forty days? Yes, I did. Because...)

I knit a mitten.

Even better, I knit a kid's mitten that is going to go to Mongolia and get worn by a kid who will then keep her hands warm and stuff them in the pockets of her coat (please, God, let her have a coat) and wipe her nose on them and eventually lose one and go get another from the good folks at FIRE. I saw a little documentary, which is how I know this is likely. The doc described a bunch of FIRE projects but spent a couple minutes just talking about Dulaan, and showed some footage of a bunch of kids milling around in a classroom with hand-knit hats and mittens and a couple sweaters. And suddenly, I knew what I was knitting for and it seemed like a darn good reason to knit. Nothing in the last several weeks has been reason enough to knit, but this other mitten just might be it.

fall sucks, but at least they give you an extra hour

2006-10-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

(Jess Klein, ladies and gentlemen. She'll be here, on the CD player, all week.)

We awoke this morning after going to bed at a reasonable hour (for the first time ALL YEAR) to hear Speaking of Faith instead of Weekend Edition. That's odd, I thought. Pledge drive strangeness? Audio misfeed? Or, wait... maybe it's EARLIER THAN I THINK!

For some reason* we got no reminders about daylight savings time ending this fall. It was a happy little surprise. So now I have time to post and eat some oatmeal with my coffee before heading off to the gym, and that just makes me thrilled.

Around here? Our basement and bedroom are mostly all in one piece. I still haven't cleaned the construction gunk out of my shower, but there are no longer workmen tromping through the house at day and night, so that's something. My parents found themselves in the same city and got to go out to dinner last week. I did get to go see Inga Muscio along with thistles and had a great time. I'm not knitting.** I'm barely spinning. And no, I'm not keeping up with LJ or any other blogs. I even started deleting some blogs off my RSS feed, thinking, "When will I ever have time or inclination to read these?" Unfortunately, the first ones to go were the folks I read in the name of "broad viewpoint": the anti-abortion activist. The former priest. The older woman. My list of knitting blogs, on the other hand, keeps growing. The struggling male writer. Perhaps I'm just crawling back into the echo chamber, or perhaps I like to read what I know.

Yes, I'm a little embarrassed to admit all that. But it's fall, and time to draw inwards a little. Or a lot.

________________
*because we're hermits now and we no longer even bother to read the news.
**I am, however, picking up a lace pattern occasionally, counting it, swearing at it, and throwing it back down every 48 hours or so. Does that count?

Cross-posted to LJ because I'm lazy.

Wheels for dummies, or Why yes, it is an impressive skill! Thank you!

2006-10-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

Our landlord has been spending a lot of time around our place, what with the destruction of the basement and hazmat exploration and all. He was in the kitchen telling us of his grand plans for the new drywall, already impressed that we had
(a) grown basil in his yard, and
(b) made pesto of said basil*, all by ourselves,
and then he spied my Babe spinning wheel.

Is that like some kind of 19th century relic?

No, dude, it's PVC. See? And see the wheelchair wheel? And the plastic drive band? (He's a mechanically minded guy, and he gets a kick out of examining these things.)

What is it? Does it work? What's it do?

It's a spinning wheel; I make yarn on it. (I luckily have finished plying the white Brown Sheep fiber, but haven't yet wound it into a skein. I pull out a length of yarn and let him hold it.)

What do you start with?

Wool, fiber, roving, top... I show him the merino silk blend from the Fold, and say, "Like that! But obviously this fiber was white." (I decide to go really basic, and it also distracts him from asking what specifically is the fiber he's holding, since I'm embarrassed to admit I still can't get straight the difference between top and roving. I have to go look it up again someday.)

Wow, you start with this fluff and you make yarn?

Yep! I pull open the pillowcase of washed meat-sheep wool, and hand him a few locks. "I'll spin this next, probably." (This is a lie. I really want to spin the merino silk next, and while the short meat-sheep fiber works great on the spindle after carding, it's far too short for me to spin it on the wheel in my current non-expert state.)

So you card it, you spin it, then you can knit with it?

Yup. (He looks a little awed.) I've gotta have a skill when the revolution comes, you know?

When's that going to be?

Well, I don't know yet. That's why I have to get started.

____________________
*We beat the frost! Yeah! We have more than six cups of pesto! Thanks, Stephanie, for reassuring me that we will not get botulism and die if we store the pesto in the fridge for a couple days. The bulk of it will get frozen, but tomorrow we're having pasta with pesto sauce. Yum.

silk purses and sow's ears

2006-10-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

Hanne Blank explains -beautifully- that we should all play to our strengths.

Perhaps you can learn silk pursery, perhaps not. There’s no reason you shouldn’t try. With talent and application maybe one day you will be able to do silk purses as beautifully and gracefully as you can do sow’s ears right now. But if you can do sow’s ears wonderfully right this very minute, then do them, by God, and if you can do them with a glad heart, so much the better for you and for them.

I haven't decided whether I'm currently making a silk purse or a sow's ear. More updates on that in good time.

(Please go read the rest of the essay, by the way; it's short, and lovely, and besides being apropos of everything, it's also entirely right for my not-quite-craft blog. I would copy the whole thing and paste it on my banner if not for copyright and length.)

Around here? Still a mess. If you haven't been reading the LJ, you may not know the carpet saga: the carpet in our bedroom got wet from underneath during the big storm last week. There's also water in the wet wall, leaking either from outside or a pipe or possibly both, and there's Mold Which Shall Not Be Named or Thought Of in the bedroom/office/storage space. Thank all, it's not our house, so we don't have to pony up on all this. But my dear spouse has been coughing and snuffling due to a combination of mold and cold, so we've been sleeping in the living room (upstairs). And the LL wants to put down tile, which (combined with the ONE basement radiator) will plunge the downstairs to meat locker temperatures. We're moving everything out of that room tonight. Anyone know a good cheap place in the far north? Rent or buy, we're flexible, but we HAVE to move. Don't worry, I'll still come down to Humboldt to knit. Must keep my five readers happy, after all.

Spinning proceeds apace, along with some black-and-white knitting projects, and my silk purse/sow's ear thingy. Also, cups and cups of pesto before the basil takes the hard freeze this week. Pics later.

radio silence

2006-10-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

*tap tap tap, tap tap tap* Is this thing on??

Disappeared

2006-09-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

I am looking for a ball of yarn.

Really? In your whole house you can't find a ball of yarn?

Well, I'm looking for a specific ball of yarn, in an only passably fine microfiber, most of which will have been knit into a doomed sleeve on a doomed sweater back when I began knitting five years ago. I found another roaming skein of the same color, picked it up and began the Rosalind project (for a present, so no pictures) with the great confidence that comes from knowing that you have most of another ball, along with eight more skeins tied up in a sweater that you could frog if need be. I was so, so proud: I was stashbusting! Now I have picked up and put down almost every type of yarn in my collection, which means:

1) I dug through the yarn island (it used to be a kitchen island until I appropriated it) and pulled the yarn off both shelves inside the island. They are now repacked.
2) I dug through the three large plastic storage bins hanging out in my closet, along with the smaller clear shoe bins which hold my tiny percentage of yarn which is actually earmarked for a project.
3) I went into the storage closet and pawed through the super old, crunchy, Red Heart acrylic that I'm saving in case there is ever a planetwide yarn shortage and I have no other choice.
4) Then I got more creative: linen closet? Christmas paper bin? Bottom of closet? Behind desk? Pantry? (Hey, I lost my scrapbook* in there for the better part of a year.) Behind my books? C's office? C's closet?** All no, absolutely no.

It's just vanished. The better part of a sweater is gone. Unless I find it, I will have to go out and by more yarn (and no, I know I'll never match the dye lot) for this "stashbuster" project.

It's time to get on the road and get out of town. Ohio, here I come! See you Monday or Tuesday.

_______________
*Yes, I have too many hobbies.*** Shaddup.

** May I just mention again how much I love this man? Not once did he make the joke, "Hey, I found some yarn right over here!" and not once did he grumble when I approached him, wild-eyed, wanting him to look through HIS banker's boxes. He is a kind man. Or possibly he understood the dangers of taunting a woman in yarn withdrawal.

*** I'm still spinning like a madwoman, with no idea what I'll use this fiber for. It just feels. so. good.

Anti-contraception

2006-09-25T19:15:00.000-07:00

(Warning: no knitting content here. I'm spinning something entirely different today.)

"Birth control or abortion: which one do you support?"
--one of my colleagues put it that way today, and I thought it was a fairly succinct way to put the current challenge in our culture. (For those of you playing along on the LJ blog, this was the Nemesis. She's actually pretty smart, when she's not fussing over her wardrobe.)

But not everyone has gotten her memo yet. Just this weekend, in the 'burbs of my fair city, we had a fairly major anti-contraception conference. The Chicago Tribune covered it on the front page of the Sunday paper. Please read the article, as it makes the main points pretty accurately. (Bonus points: find the dig against sex education!) It also points out, correctly, that a full-scale assault on contraception isn't feasible at this point, but that activists might begin by stripping government funding for contraceptive services (in progress) or expanding "conscience" clauses to allow pharmacists and doctors to refuse contraceptives to patients (also in progress). The article's only weakness is that it presents both those strategies as hypothetical, when they're actually going on as we speak.

I was really pleased to read lots of quotes from the anti-contraception activists, which seem to make a sturdy case against their own arguments. Let's recap...

* Contraception devalues children? No, but having kids that you don't want and can't feed would definitely do so.
* Contraception harms relationships between men and women and causes divorce? No, the patriarchy and consumer culture do that just fine.
* Contraception promotes sexual promiscuity? If promiscuity wasn't a problem before reliable contraceptives existed, then how did sexually transmitted diseases ever get spread? They're actually speaking here of female promiscuity, since boys will be boys, you know. And saying women should be responsible for curbing men's promiscuity is pretty ludicrous.
* Contraception leads to falling birth rates? Check. But since I'm all about responsible population growth, I fail to see that as a social ill. Again, this argument is somewhat in code; it's not that there are not enough people in the world, but some groups tend to feel that there aren't enough white people in the world.

While "a stunning 98 percent of women 15 to 44 who have had sex report using at least one method of contraception," affluent women are more likely to use birth control successfully. Not surprisingly, we have fewer kids. We're more likely to have the free time to rail against the patriarchy and blog about it. Something really must be done. (/snark)

By the way? When I ask students about birth control without artificial means, I'm hoping to elicit the responses "abstinence" and "natural family planning". However, they generally come up with "oral sex" and "gay relationships" in the same conversation. Contraception foes should be warned: even if they do get their way, middle schoolers can come up with contraception hacks without batting an eye.

photos

2006-09-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

Finally! I won't keep you waiting. Photo-heavy post.

Sock repair. I'm very proud of this.

Beginnings of the Rosalind scarf. I'm running at exactly 30 inches for a pattern repeat--whee! I won't post more pics until it goes to the home it's meant for. It's a gift.

I got a feedbag's worth of wool from a meat sheep, and set about cleaning it last weekend. It was very exciting.

Exciting enough that I had to take lots of pictures of the muck and grime.

Exciting enough that I almost fell over from exhaustion. This came out of the first batch. (The other two batches got picked over considerably harder before the first wash. It was not a clean sheep.)

At last, it was finished and the yarn had a little party on the patio while drying.

The wool, once it's finally clean and dry, spins up beautifully on a spindle (I ran out of picture space, so no pics on the spindle just yet) but it's far too short for me to use it in the spinning wheel just yet. I suppose I'll stick with my long-staple commercial fiber when using that for the moment.

What's that, you say? My spinning wheel? You haven't met Babe yet? Check her out:

The cats, of course, like the box better than the present.

Good night, all.

the midwest edition

2006-09-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've been away from the computer for quite a while, and currently I'm in Ohio with my mom, who just had some foot surgery. She's well, and I'm finally able to write.

My biggest problem with this blog has been the photos; I should be posting them, and I'm not. These are my placeholders for the "someday" photos. I have, waiting for release from my camera:

photos of the beginning and end of the Noro Aurora scarf (Katherine, I went with the feather and fan pattern, made it thinner, and got not quite 60 inches out of two skeins).

photos of the beginning of the Rosalind scarf from Magknits, but it's a gift so I don't want to show off the shadow knitting too much. (Thus, the photos are extremely boring stripes.)

photos of the ever-lengthening scarf.

Waiting for release from my mother's camera:

photos of the free wool, and hopeless-feeling photos of the free wool being washed.

self-portraits of exhausted me, taken in the bathroom mirror while waiting for the wool to soak.

more hopeful (read: cleaner) photos of wool washing.

a wool party, with mounds of wool reclining amongst flowers in lawn chairs in the patio.

Many, many photos of the charming, articulate, and hammy 21-mo-old daughter of my high school friend. So many photos that I filled up the card, and must unload before the photos to come, being:

carders and roving.

singles of clean carded wool.

And when/if the wheel ever arrives, you'll get wheel photos too. Possibly hopeless photos of wheels being put together, and then more singles.

Because really, don't you come here for the photos?

***

A word on spinning: I finally, really love it. A week ago I went with Mimazu and Alyse to visit The Fold. There were spinning lessons, both spindled and wheel, and some wheel shopping and purchase (Alyse) and carder purchasing (me) and spindle purchasing (Mimazu). But the very best part was spending time with Toni, who was friendly, talented, and the most serene person I've met in quite a while. I arrived entirely spun up (no pun intended), and she still managed to help me spin a decent thread of wool. Then we tried out the wheel, for which I had to take off my shoes, and we ended up running around the store for the next couple hours in my socks like a giddy little kid. This was extremely good for business.

Spinning, when it's working right, makes me euphoric. I can make fluffy clouds of wool! I can make string! (I haven't plyed anything yet. This isn't a problem for me, because all I want to do with it so far is sit there and look at it.) I feel like one of the Fates. I've still got a hideous time spinning wool out of a bag, but the wool I card spins smoothly for me. Perhaps I'll re-card some of the stuff I bought from the Fold until I get the hang of it.

My grandmother came over this afternoon to visit my convalescent mother, and during the lulls in conversation I entertained them with carding and spinning. She started out unimpressed by the lumpy wool, and asked if it wouldn't just be quicker to buy the sweater. (Don't you wish you had a skein of cashmere for every time someone asked you that question?) I told her I wanted to have some sort of skill when the revolution came. An hour later, we sent her home with a little roving and a tiny skein of single ply yarn. I think she was coming around to the idea.

Knitting block

2006-08-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

First: I saw a knitted tag the other night! It was a green-and-blue tree scarf with white buttons, in Hyde Park on Woodlawn just north of 55th.

Next: I sadly missed the very summer very public KIP last week due to some work madness, and I'm so thrilled that Mary et al are giving me another chance! I can't wait to come along and see the yarn and the art. This time, I will keep my schedule better.

Finally: I'm having a little knitting block lately. I just want to knit, I don't want to think! But the Sooper Sekrit project is getting a little dicey, and my attempts at scarf design are requiring several re-knits. Add to that a weakening in my self-imposed yarn diet, some first wobbly steps towards planning for knitted Christmas presents, and a great deal of uncertainty about whether I'll have enough yarn for any of the projects I have in the pipe. I'm ready to take a break and work on some socks... but I don't have any socks going at the moment! Perhaps I'll rip back the Bad Sock tonight and begin that again. It's tough to work without a pattern.

Here's the scarf quandry at the moment: the top feather and fan pattern is the same lace that the wise ladies at My Sister's Knits swatched to lure me into the yarn. (For those that ask: Noro Aurora, color 4 lot A) The bottom swatch is a corruption of the "Glasgow Lace" sweater from the most recent Interweave Knits--"corrupted" because I looked at the sweater and loved the lace, but couldn't see that sweater shape looking good on me and couldn't stomach adding any more shaping in an allover lace pattern than was already present. I have two skeins of this stuff--another shopper at the yarn store swore that she made an entire Clapotis out of just four skeins. So it ought to be skinny, and I love the lace pattern from "Glasgow", but I also love the way the color works with the waves in the feather and fan pattern. I'm looking for something more original than the exact pattern I saw in the swatch, and I'm thinking that the colors may not look as impressive with a thinner scarf (and thus a wider color repeat). Your thoughts?

Doyle doesn't seem to care for one any more than the other. He just likes the birds.
________________
I'm beginning to like this Blogger Photo feature more, after giving up and finally making extensive use of the "preview" button. I mistrust it, though, because I can't tink the code to understand where it's going to put my picture on the page. It does save a step over Photobucket, and with the speed at which my computer is moving these days, that's pretty important.

FO and test photos

2006-08-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is just a random image test with the blogger photo software. We'll have to see what it looks like when it goes up, but this may be so easy that I never use Photobucket again. This, by the way, is the shawl I worked on all through Scotland.

This is the border to a blanket I've been working on, and you might notice that the bound-off edge is kind of hideous. I was not sure how to fix it so that it's pretty, and I was REALLY invested in getting it off the needles, if only for a few days, so I ignored all the warning signs that said, "Danger! DANGER!" and now I need to rip and mend. Monica over at passionknit has some really nice ruffles goin' on for the blanket she recently finished. What do you think: would I have the patience for that?

Your last photo is a representation of the yarn haul from Loopy: amazing steals on yarn. Most of this will become part of the Sooper Sekrit Project, and the novelty yarn just jumped in to be pretty.

Verdict on blogger photo: easy to upload. Difficult to justify and format. Blinkin' impossible to tell which photo is who, though perhaps if I'd named them more thoughtfully than "SV20730" this wouldn't be such an issue. And I've almost got a cable-less upload system from the camera workin' now. Take heart, there will be more photos soon.

miles of eponge

2006-08-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

Boy, do I need some photos to liven up this blog again.

What does one do with 27 skeins of Phil Eponge? Well, one kindly thanks the yarn shop providing some of the stash. One begins mad-scientist dye experiments to turn "bermudes" into the appropriate shade of chocolate. (I have no idea what I'm doing. Anyone have advice on this?) And in between finishing the dratsab shawl, the obligatory breeding present, and the totally stalled (but beautiful) pair of dragon socks, one begins casting on for the Sooper Sekrit Project.

Mwah-ha-ha. I shall bathe the world in cheery orange acrylic!

Curse you, mailman!

2006-08-03T15:28:00.000-07:00

What do I get for rushing home from work today? Nothing. No Interweave Knits. No pics from C's cousin with the fantastic camera. Not even a decent stack of junk mail or credit card offers that I could triumphantly toss in the recycling. I got nothing. I'm not sure why I even bothered to come home between the "work-meeting-KIP" runaround that I've got going on tonight. It must have been in order to blog.

I am compelled to mention the strange nice thing that happened yesterday: I was going down the stairs into the Blue Line to finish going downtown, and a random young man in full faux-basketball attire and "I'm-up-to-no-good" attitude stops me on the third step. I turn around to say "No, sir" because I'm convinced he's going to ask me to help him buy his next beer, but he just holds out a transit card to me. What? I'm confused. "It's still good," he says, mumbly. "It's still good, you can use it." And I did; it was cashed out but it was still good for its third transfer. I have no idea why he felt compelled to share it, or why he chose me to give it to. But I got a free ride downtown, and now I think of him as quite a nice young man. Maybe his scowliness was towards the transit system, and this was his way of sticking it to the man. I wonder if I should have given it away--I'm not rich, but flush enough to buy my own train fare. I guess it's best not to overanalyze too much.

And on that note (ha!) I must leave for my meeting.

Twenty Questions

2006-08-02T19:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’ve got one. (This is how you start a new game.)

Is it a sheep?*

No.

Is it a sheep byproduct?

No.
Well, okay. Miscellaneous, then.

Is it a place where we can buy knockoff purses, old books, and scary WWII items?

Not really. That's out in the fringe of Glasgow.

Is it edible?

No, and it's not in Fort William, either.

Does it live underwater?

Well, not intentionally.

Is it currently living?

Well, you'd have to ask it that.

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

Yes.

Is it something you like a lot?

Yes.

Is it strange and otherworldlike?

Delightfully so.

I give up.

Tardis, baby. TARDIS!

________
*In C’s clan, this is how all games of twenty questions start. As in normal-people “twenty questions” games, everything falls into one of three categories: sheep, sheep byproducts, and miscellaneous.

Sample "twenty questions" answers from the trip: sheep, monkey puzzle tree, Loch Ness monster, Dolly the inflatable sheep, yarn, sheep poo, Chloe (our car's nav system), sheep, midges, Jaguar, oysters, sheep.

_____________
Also, go check this out: 800-SUICIDE has been defunded by the U.S. Guvmint, and they want to replace it with a govmint-run hotline that would (of course) allow them to access the call records. I used to work on a hotline in the 800-SUICIDE network, and I'm furious. Not only that, but they've been stiffed quite a bit of money from a past year's grant. Go sign their petitions and write the congresscritters, would you please?

A girl's got needs

2006-08-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I WANT!!

contraceptive jewelry. Yep.

I PLAY!
Mimi speaks. And it's funny-haha, not funny-strange. So they say. Want to come out?

I AM GRUDGINGLY PLEASED
Plan B might finally be getting play. Ema helps explain why.

Photos Day 2

2006-07-31T20:26:00.000-07:00

Mind your head, here come some more pictures.

One of my favorite places in Scotland was the Isle of Skye. In Skye, they have Talisker:

(the whisky, not the cat)

One must also beware of sheep.

The island is full of sheep

and sheep by-products.

We spent our second anniversary in the fantastic B&B in Skye. In Skye, they seem to believe that the happy couple needs chocolate cake to celebrate:

which they were more than happy to provide.

The folks at Talisker said that there was just something about the water there. I thought so too.

That's all for today. Ciao, baby.

She Lives!

2006-07-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

(cross posted to Caveat Lector)

Did you think I was gone forever? I'm sorry. I'm back amongst the living and have almost got the first wave of photos sorted and labeled (not photoshopped, mostly. I'm so mad at my software I just threw in the towel on any corrections. Let's pretend this was a real-film camera that I didn't develop). Soon I will get photos from the other three cameras on the trip (YIPES) and I'll get to re-sort everything one more time! Anyway, the vacation...

One of the advantages of driving ourselves around in Scotland is that we found lovely scenery like this,

and when it took our fancy we hopped out of the car for goofy group shots of us hiding in the weeds.

The inside of the churches were all some variation on this.

We did not go here,

though we did drive by the loch itself.

They sell vibrators and inflatable sheep in the ladies' rooms of Inverness. Really.

And far from home, we found lots of beer. Pints of beer. Casks of beer. Beer all over the Tesco grocery. There was even beer that reminded me of a very good friend.

Okay, that's all for tonight. Tune in next time, as our roving reporter discovers sheep.

Trip trip trip!

2006-07-14T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Scotland with a list of yarn stores in my hot little hands, but I won't be online and I won't be KIPping! In my carry-on: the bastard stepchild of a "flower petal shawl", pattern by Elann, and Theresa's dragon scale socks. See y'all when I get back...

right critters, wrong place

2006-07-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted to the Tally Ho.)

This weekend, we went down south to Soybean Town to visit Elwood's family, and they let us know that they had (ahem) a little problem with some bats. The bats were being found in the basement, apparently having wandered and flopped through the walls of the house and emerging on the bottom floor with no way to get out. The bats were not pleased by this. The family was not pleased by this. In both cases, that was an understatement.

Doors were locked and sealed. Precautions taken. We ventured into the basement cautiously, armed with sticks and light and loud noises, driven down there only by our desire for a cold drink from the fridge. Over the past few months, a score of bats have been found in that room. Some of them even made it into the main house, but none of them made it back outside.

Then, sitting on the porch Saturday night at dusk, we saw the basement bats' more fortunate relatives emerge for the hunt. They poured out of an eve in the house, maybe forty in all, and started dive-bombing the mosquitoes. I affirm that we didn't want bats in the house, don't want their guano underfoot, worry about their diseases, but suddenly I didn't want to kill them. They were eating the bugs that were eating me. I was thrilled to hear that the "bat man" will put a temporary patch on the eave after dusk, so that they'll be trapped outside the house instead of inside when they're relocated.

Last week (click fast!)* there was an article in the NYTimes.com about pigeon control. The author decried the use of poisons, traps, raptors and the like for eradicating pigeons from urban areas. Far better, he says, to have designated pigeon feeding areas and monitored dovecotes from which workers can cull eggs when necessary. I like pigeons. They make a lovely noise. Their heads are iridescent. It's fun to chase them, and they'll come over to you if you wave your arm like you're throwing a crumb. Yes, there are too many of them, and yes, we don't want to clean bird crap off the statues, so can't we control them in a sensible way? Pigeons seem to be the only wildlife that can stand up to rush hour in the Loop; they can be found crossing the street at State and Madison just like those other commuters, who make far less pleasant noises. So let's distinguish between not liking the critters and not liking their numbers, or where they live. It's time to be nice to our neighbors.
___________
*I should mention again that I always archive the articles I quote, if you're late to the party and really interested in reading them. Leave me an email.

Happy family day

2006-07-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

So much to post, so little motivation to write. Meanwhile, though, Psycho Kitty at SBFH has turned me on to this article claiming to prove that we really are all related to each other. Recently related, that is. It's cool; go read it.

Impromptu KIP

2006-06-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well, Bonne Marie is a little swamped with work, but having missed Tuesday I'm hankering for some KIPping! Anybody else want to come out and play with me?

flotsam

2006-06-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

First: Respectful of Otters is back. I'm thrilled! She does good analysis.

I'm getting more and more distressed by Ozzie Guillen's homophobic comments the other day, and by Sean Tracey's reprimand for NOT hitting the batter when Ozzie told him to. He got sent back down to the minors, and in the future he swears he'll do as he's told. The Sox are a stellar team, but their priorities are all messed up. Is it any wonder I root for the Cubs?

Tonight was the Midwestern Ladies' Auxiliary Love Review at the Hideout! Fabulous authors Jami Attenburg, Wendy McClure, Emily Flake, and Hana Schank all read for me. For me! And some other people too. I came home with some magazines and a reading list, though my book budget is still pretty thin at the moment. C told me to go on out and have a good time while he cooked dinner. I felt like Cinderella going to the ball.

Amazingly, another day has flown right by. As Ron says, we'll try it again tomorrow.

Where have I been?

2006-06-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've been a bad, bad blogger. What have I been up to?

First, I've been reading. "Anansi Boys," books on Scotland, and "Persepolis"--the latter of which I canNOT recommend highly enough. It's tough to read and write at the same time. For the last couple years, however, I've been writing down the books I read and making a few notes on them. I love this little ritual, and I love that it's not online. (I've kept it offline because I don't always want to get into book-group discussions, and because if I choose to trash a book I don't want the author coming back and finding my notes at some later date.) Writing on paper in a book feels strange and lovely lately, just like it did when I first started keeping my many journals and diaries. I also got to hear "The Bonesetter's Daughter" by Amy Tan, and just loved the bits that were about the process of writing. Jane Smiley writes today about product placement in novels, and turns down the idea. I'm nervous to think about authors being bought (or rented) by companies. I wonder if we will begin reading disclaimers on the copyright page?

I've also been tuning into the breastfeeding ad debate, outlined more eloquently than I could manage by Julie at a little pregnant and L. at homesick home. This, to me, is wrapping into one large debate which includes CDC preconception guidelines, state funding for "crisis pregnancy centers", Louisiana's abortion ban, and a huge argument between two of my coworkers over whether mom or dad should administer the three a.m. feeding. We had a good discussion in my church over "choice issues" last week, but the speaker focused pretty exclusively on abortion legislation and I feel it's so much bigger than that now. It frightens me and for the first time I don't feel comfortable writing about it online. I guess I should crack open another blank book.

Or, the best remedy for my stress: knitting. Especially finishing a project.

Now, with customized short row shaping, added in real time. This is the project where I got gauge the first time, had plenty of yarn, followed the instructions mostly, didn't have to rip back, and took notes to record my project. Verily I say unto thee: this is a gift from the knitting gods. I'll not get another like it this year.

D'oh, a sock, a stretched-out sock

2006-06-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

Well, the Green Gable is going swimmingly, and may even be finished tonight, but I've been stressed at work and working on a sock heel that is never going to end. (I know! A sock heel! A little square flap and some yarn-overs, what's to that anyway?) And as I was wrapping up work I had to move the sock to shove my work-related projects back in the bag, and decided to pick it up and hold it for some comfort. Usually, this leads to knitting two rows, scolding myself, and stuffing it back in the bag.

Green Gable has a little spell on me, and I've been trying it on every few inches to get the right length. Which works out okay--I used to thread the stitches on some yarn, and lately I've just decided to breathe deeply and slip the stitches off the needle and then back on when I'm finished. This has only wrecked me once, which is in my acceptable level of risk for a cotton tee. Well, I tried the same thing with the sock, to see if this (ginormously large) heel flap was shaping up to fit well. It was a tight fit. I tugged. Something went "pop". Maybe it was in my mind. I tugged again and heard the "pop" again.

I knit myself a sturdy sock, yes I do! The stitches didn't break. It was the needle that bent. Who says a double-pointed needle has to be straight, anyway? I'm sure there must be some benefit to it.

I set down the sock and breathed quietly, so it was another twenty minutes before I saw the stitches on one side that had unraveled. I'll deal with that later, maybe after a nice glass of wine.

Thoughtful content (and pictures) to resume shortly.

2006-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

(vaguely yarn-related content below)
******
Chicago folks: go to www.theartsalliance.org or read this:

VAUDEVILLE UNDERGROUND IS BACK THIS WEEK!

This Wednesday & Thursday marks the opening of Vaudeville Underground's Sixth Stupendous Season! Featuring the newest Logan Square Dance Company: Chicago Ballet! Ottavio Canestrelli summersaulting on stilts, Luna Blues Machine singing up a storm, crowd favorite Zetta the Clown, all that, and a whole lot more! Logan Square's very own top banana is back!

Join us, won't you.

When: June 7th & 8th Wed & Thurs 7:30pm

Where: Glade Memorial Hall
2640 W Altgeld Ave
Admission: 12 dollars for adults
6 dollars children ages 6-12

The amazing and talented performers for the June show include:

Luna Blues Machine, The Chicago Ballet, Zetta the Clown, AMEBA: Aerial & Acrobatic Dance Co., Ottavio Canestrelli, Dharmesh Bhagat, Matiss Duhon, Abu Ansari, and Two Girls and an Audience.

To reserve tickets call 773.782.9471, or for additional information visit www.theartsalliance.org

Vaudeville Underground: is a modern day variety show consisting of nine short, entertaining or intriguing acts predominantly unrelated, usually odd, beautiful, funny, or grand. Come join us! A Whitman's sampler, if you will, of all the best performance Chicago has to offer! In the community; For the community!

Vaudeville Underground has been highlighted in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, NBC Channel 5, The Daily Herald, Citylink, CTA TV, UR Chicago, and The Nude Hippo Show!

Vaudeville Underground is presented in partnership with Nazareth UCC, which is committed to building bridges in the community, and so generously shares its space with us and you.

Bake Sale After the Show!: Featuring lots of goodies and a chance to meet the artists, meet your neighbors, and discuss the work! Proceeds benefit Nazareth UCC and Fine Arts for Kids of Logan Square.

The Arts Alliance is committed to bring quality performance into Logan Square. This show is for you. We look forward to seeing you: Our neighbors and our friends.
******

We went tonight. It was fabulous and strange, and the small quirks in performances were graceful. Real people decided to put this show on, and they did it mostly very well. I kept imagining the rehearsals, and decided that the planned wackiness made the show even better.

one of these things is not like the other

2006-06-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Remember how I bought all that closeout yarn? And how I wanted to make tank tops with all of it? Well, I got a little sidetracked. After Dana's lovely example, I wanted to make a Green Gable top. And neither of my two new yarns were nearly the right gauge for it. So, being a thrifty knitter, I recycled!

This project, ostensibly a shawl but in real life a closer cousin to the table runner, was not working out for me after two years.

RIP, shawl. I worked on this project in the hospital, while trying to recover from a spinal tap. Good times? Nah. Frogging is more fun than knitting, lately.

So I made ramen noodles out of them. Yum!

One of these things is not like the other...

I got so excited that I had to wash and dry one right away, so I could begin knitting it. For once, I made gauge the first time out!

I don't feel like I've made very much progress, but actually I just finished some short rows for the bust, so I guess I'm clipping right along. (Yes, I'm measuring, and yes, I'm still getting gauge. When does this ever happen to me? Are the knitting gods planning a takedown soon?) Will post photos when the thing grows far enough down over my ribs to not be scandalous. Right now on the needles, it's a lumpy mess. But I can't wait to see it finished!

mah-widge

2006-06-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking, and questioning, the primacy of marriage for people my age lately. Newsweek admits it's wrong, finally, on the whole "women over 40 will never get married" thing. And they've revised a bunch of their statistics about marriage rules that turned out (oops!) to be wrong. These statistics may be right or wrong, but the fact that they, and we, are still obsessed with them is the real story. I also am bemused by the way the Newsweek article speaks directly towards women at the end. Perhaps they realized that women who are romantically bitter or simply bought into goals besides marriage are no fun to date. This tea-leaf reading on divorce is similarly women-focused: don't get married too early or too late, don't skip college, don't marry a second time, or you'll get divorced. Gah. I've been thinking a lot about marriage recently. Is that common, you think, for a woman my age? Should it be? I can only speak for my own experience, but--for once--I won't go generalizing.

I'm back to reading the trashy RedEye at the gym in the mornings, and it's got a little blurb about Kevin Federline. Mr. Britney Spears has been fussing in public about "if I stay home and take care of my kids, then I'm a loafer, not a good father. If I try to have a career, nobody thinks I am caring for my family. I can't win." Also, "I wish people would ask me about my career... [my family] is my pride and joy. But it would be nice for people to look at me like an artist." Somebody call NOW and get that man on the women's issues mailing list. Welcome him to our world.

I've got a lot of fascinating things going on this week, both wonderful and terrible, but none of them are good blog topics. I'm sorry, y'all. Work on the Green Gables sweater proceeds apace, and I'm considering an attempt at short-rows on the bust. (Wish me luck.) The spinning is mostly on hold for the moment, though I've discovered I can make wee bitty skeins with just a few yards of yarn and carry them around like talismans. I'll never knit anything out of them, but dude, it's art. Maybe.

when it rains, it pours

2006-05-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

It's Monday morning and everyone needs something to read. But again, I don't have nearly as much time as I would like for commentary. The fun never stopped this weekend! (No, I'm really not being sarcastic.) I took a fabulous trip out to The Fold with Mimazu. Ran into Emily and some other fabulous folks from the MDK party way back when (arghk! I can't find the right blogs! Could you point me in the correct direction?) I was successfully cute at a birthday party, attended church and a special meeting without whining, and supervised C as he made the second rhubarb pie of the season. His efforts outstripped my own. I'm trying not to panic about that.

There's also a slew of random knitting items to catalog. Remember when I said I just couldn't find a project to get motivated on? That I hadn't been knitting? HA! Those days are so over.

Since last week, this unassuming sock has grown a leg and a heel.

And I've been narrowing down my choices on what to do with the yarn haul from Loopy.

Ribbon scarf, obviously, but when?

I don't even know quite how many balls there are because they are so tangled in each other. I was hoping for a short sweater, but Dana set me back on the path to reality and said, "Maybe a shrug."

Shell? Floofy baby gear for one of the breeding friends?

Tank top? I thought about making a skirt but I don't think I have enough yarn to cover my behind.

Gym bag. No, really; I carry a teeny bag that's big enough to hold my humbug, my gym card, and a lock when I go to the gym. (I don't shower there, because, ew.) My old one is cotton and looking stretchy and strange. Hopefully if I can get the gauge down far enough this will hold its shape.

This last one, from The Fold on Saturday, I have no words for. It just walked home with me, I swear.

Knitting gods, help me.

what the girls are saying

2006-05-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get too caught up in my reading (and saving my reading) to take any time for writing. I have yarn pictures, though I don't have them in the machine yet. Here's the old style "web log" for you this week. And yes, it's a cross-post. But since they're all good links, shouldn't everyone get pointed to them? Without ado:

Julie at A Little Pregnant remarks on the Catholic schoolteacher in WI who let on that she conceived using IVF and was subsequently fired.

Jessica at "Cancer, Baby" passed away last week. Orange Tangerine was kind enough to pass on the news and provide a primer for those of us who never got to read her in real time. I now firmly believe that everyone would benefit from reading her analysis of mood oglers, either as a cautionary tale or as ammunition for the next bozo who comes along.

Sundry: Mela suggests it's time to bring out our very last option for impeaching President Bush. Funny. New York gals are calling out street harassers on a public blog. A White Bear muses on plagarism, both in print and online.

All yesterday and today I've been reading about the WaPo article "Forever Pregnant". As a public-health chick, this seems like an expedient plan, if not the ideal one. Bitch Ph.D partially exonerates the CDC, but methinks they'll watch their phrasing in the future as they prepare for more angry letters.

Finally, what the girls are not saying: Jeff points me to an article about the 14 y.o. Ohio girl who is being held in custody, without counsel, for refusing to be a material witness to a molestation case. Sometimes it's all in what you don't say.

good fences make good neighbors

2006-05-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

This morning I popped out my back door carrying the large bag of kitchen trash to find the sidewalk to my alley completely blocked off by the construction project next door. This construction project has been the bane of our existence for several months, as it has not only made a lot of noise, but torn up our garden, landed things onto our roof, pilfered our water, blocked our parking, hidden our trash cans, and left cigarette butts (ew! ew! ew!) on our lawn. Not only that, but when finished it will populate our neighborhood with yet more luxury SUVs and well-meaning yuppies carrying petitions to shut down the BBQ joint because "the smoke bothers us; doesn't it bother you?" Far from believing that the wafting scent of food or the park next door are assets, they want to regulate and sanitize--which I suppose might be how I felt if I were silly enough to drop half a million on a piece of property that doesn't even have land for a garden. All of these thoughts may, I admit, have been playing out on my face as I stood on my porch and held my bag of smelly garbage.

The man operating the backhoe in the middle of this travesty caught my eye and must have read this. He turned around with a "Yo!" to one of the hard hatted men and used a work glove to gesture my way. The guy in the hard hat immediately jogged over, clambered over the rolled-up chain link fence which was blocking the sidewalk, and held out his hand for the trash. "Don't worry, ma'am," he said. "I've got it." I was charmed. Completely charmed. I don't care that he ma'am-ed me, I don't hardly care that he may or may not have been as nice to my spouse, and for one glorious minute I forgot about the swath of my garden that had been destroyed. I just thanked him warmly and tried to ignore the juice oozing out of one edge of the trash bag.

***

I've been reading over the Harlot's "Knitting Rules" (yes! I read straight through books of knitting instruction for fun!) and have just gotten to the hat chapter, where she explains neat tricks for estimating the size of someone's head. I've been trying these out and giggling like a toddler when I discover they're true. Did you know that the circumference of a person's head is about three times the length from thumb to pinky on an outstretched hand? Go ahead, try it. Put your pinky fingers together and hold your hands around where your hat brim would sit. Imagine that third handspan on the back of your head. Tell me if it makes you a little surprised and gleeful. If it doesn't do that, tell me how long it took one of your coworkers to ask what crazy thing you are up to now. Or, if you're shy, duck down in your cube/office/kitchen so you don't get spotted. Because sometimes good fences do make good neighbors.

and today I begin swatching for my next big project

2006-05-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

Never fear, D. I was sitting at dinner tonight and I felt the knitting come back. Yesterday amid the madness I went out and bought a couple knitting books, despite being on somewhat of a yarn diet. Mimazu tempted me with the work of Mlles. Mason and Dixon, but I didn't find that one and walked home with "Knitting Nature" and the latest Yarn Harlot offering. After just twenty-four hours of paging through those, I started getting ideas again. Tank top ideas and more shawl ideas and baby blanket ideas. (Notice that I never have any dishcloth ideas; these are pretty high-investment experiments. I seem to be a risk-tolerant knitter, as evidenced by the sweater graveyard in my closet.) And possibly I will begin an even bigger project. Time will tell.

I've figured out that I post MUCH faster without putting in HTML or pictures. This one fact may be responsible for my beginning and end as a knitblogger.

not dead

2006-05-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

Just busy.

I haven't even gotten the yarn haul onto the camera yet, much less into the computer, so that will be a tick before you see it. I'm hoping to beg forgiveness with some Sunday Pie Blogging... the rhubarb is back, and we made the first pie of the season! But I'm still recovering from all my fun and drama, and my sudden desperate need to buy yarn books (yes, Dana, I got the Knitting Nature book! You temptress, you!) and the big ideas I got out of last week's KIP. Which was just like Old Home Week--it was so cool to see everyone back! Details soon.

What? and, ew.

2006-05-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Many people have asked me since C got his appendix out: "Was it a planned surgery?" I got confused about how much planning they meant. We did, after all, plan to have the surgery after he got diagnosed that morning and then spent eleven hours sitting in a hallway. No, they clarify. "Had it been getting bad for a while?" Um, no. Appendectomies aren't really like that, to my knowledge. They're emergency-only, like an evolutionary Plan B. The first time someone asked me I was sure of that; after the fifth or sixth person asked me that, I started to question what I knew. I must thank Aramis again for setting me straight!

Nothing compares to this week's comment, though. Someone who was a little late to the medical-news party heard about the bad appendix and asked, "How bad was it? Did you see it?" Um, no. And for anyone else who might be curious: we never did lay eyes on the rogue digestive organ. So we're kind of taking the surgeon's word that it's actually gone.

In a similar vein (har), I had a conversation with the inside of someone's purse today, when I called her cell phone and it answered itself. I began shouting loudly at the person I was calling, because I could hear her saying something about laser eye surgery. I caught the phrases "dicing and cauterizing" and "right next to his contact lens". Then I paused, and she paused, and she said clearly enough as if she were talking to me: "So, how are YOUR eyeballs?" I get majorly squicked out by eyes. I said her name once more, to be sure that she hadn't picked up the phone to draw me into the conversation, and when I didn't get a reply my eyeballs and I hung up. We need neither dicing nor cauterizing, thankyouverymuch.

retail therapy

2006-04-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, fiber people! Everybody read this!

It's a busy week, and the real post is coming soon. But before anything else, you should know:

Loopy Yarns is having a sale today and tomorrow. 75% off selected yarns.

There is good stuff in there, and also some pretty shocking fuzzy stuff that my cats would rather eat than sleep on as a cat bed. Shiny yarn, ribbon tape for tank tops, some tweedy wool for next winter, railroad yarns for those fancy scarves everyone wants to make one of. Go see! Open Sunday from 1 to 5, at 719 S. State.

Now I gotta go out and socialize some more. On Monday I'll take this post down and tell you what I scored... (evil laugh)

do you know me?

2006-04-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

Kind of an interesting variation, I guess, on the "howareyou?" phenomenon.

I was coming into work yesterday from a site visit at about 2 pm. My office is in a mixed-use building, retail and residential, so when I come in the back door there's no good way to know whether I'm going to work or home. There were three people loitering outside the door by the dumpster, which isn't unusual. Sometimes they're sitting on the step and drinking their breakfast, and when it's cold they might tuck between the door and the dumpster to cut the wind. They're generally pleasant to the people coming in and out of the building, and I've never been asked for money there.

As I approached, carrying my bags and brochures and jacket and stuff, one of the women asked me, "Are you tired?" I looked puzzled and mumbled something about being fine. She said, "Oh, you're so tired, baby, you just got offa work and now you're all tired out. You gotta go upstairs and fix yourself a Lean Cuisine, now, don'tya?" She was neither sympathetic or mocking, just rolled all that out with an entirely flat affect. I had no idea what to say. I just went inside.

How much do we assume about people based on how they look or where they are? I assumed that she was probably drunk, and homeless or marginally housed, based on where she was and how she was dressed. Because of that I didn't feel like I had to pay her too much mind. But she was wrong about me on all counts; how wrong might I be about her? And why do we try to assume things about people in the first place? It was odd.

Hi, howareyou? Good.

2006-04-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

I'm becoming ever more distressed with the use of "howareyou?" as a greeting. I feel the same way about "how's-it-goin'?" when approaching someone. When I pass a stranger on the street, it's no longer appropriate to say, "hello," or "good afternoon," but "how you doin'?" is getting ever more popular. For months after moving here (and is it a city thing?" I tried to spit out some kind of, "Fine, thanks, how are you?" without entirely derailing whatever business transaction or trajectory I was working on. I've managed to get the response down to, "Good. You?" which lets me respond politely without breaking stride, or "Fine, thanks," which actually means, "I have no interest in talking to you or having you try to sell me anything." It's amusing to me that the more polite one makes far less grammatical sense.

I actually had a colleague use this in a phone message yesterday. He was talking to my machine and said, "Hi, this is Principal XXX. How are you?" And then he paused for a minute, perhaps expecting me to speak back to the voicemail. He then explained that he was tossing my carefully calculated schedule to bits and replacing it with something else. Argh. I am perplexed by the schedule thing, but the Laws of Propriety would still have me declare that I am "fine, thanks".

We need a better greeting than this. Who's with me?

***
Easter and gratuitous WIP photos

Mr. Grobnik and I are quite fond of the Easter eggs.

The rhubarb is 400% taller, and no less miraculous. I bought pie crusts today--just in case the mood strikes me.

Here's the Garden Path shawl in progress; depressingly, I believe I am ~~less than 1/3 done~~ nowhere close to even thinking about finishing, though I am whaling on the chart pattern. The color here is fairly accurate; who'd of thought I'd be knitting in pink?

In real life, the eyelet detail is not nearly this clear without blocking. Then when I look through my camera viewfinder, poof! All is made clear. Ain't technology grand?

For this, I will sound the alarm

2006-04-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Adam Felber also knows the pain of American emergency rooms. Just a few days previously, he outlined US-Iranian relations for us. Forget the Daily Show; I'm getting my news from this guy from now on.

If you don't like it, leave.

2006-04-24T21:07:00.000-07:00

(cross-posted from the Tally Ho.)
As someone who moved a lot as a kid, I was generally in favor of letting states decide their own policies. It's a big, wide country, and every town we lived in had its own quirks and its own way of doing things. It just made sense to let the people who lived in each state decide what they needed, and those who didn't like the policy could move. Now, as an adult with a lot more stuff and a city that I love so much I refuse to leave, I am about to officially switch sides.

As you probably heard, earlier this month Massachusetts passed a bill requiring its citizens to obtain health care--a "universal health care" plan that was hailed as an ambitious and inventive landmark. It states that every MA resident will have health insurance; extremely low-income residents will receive health care from the state, those below 300% of the poverty level will recieve a subsidy to help pay for health care, and those above 300% of the poverty level are expected to be able to pay out of pocket for individual health insurance if they don't get it through work or family. Companies with more than ten employees will be required to offer health insurance or pay a fine of $295 per employee per year. The $295 fine was negotiated carefully with the business community, down from about $800 per year; Gov. Romney used his line item veto to negate it, but his vetoes are expected to be overridden by the state congress. Everyone seems to like this plan, from health care advocates to employers. I find it alarming, and other states are pretty alarmed at the idea as well. Romney says, "We insist that everybody who drives a car has insurance. And cars are a lot less expensive than people." This plan seems like it might be reasonable for someone who lives in suburban or rural MA. However, my friends in Boston pour most of their income to rent. As for Mr. Romney's comparison with car insurance, it's a bad analogy. People who don't feel like they can afford car insurance (especially those who live in an urban area) aren't required to own a car. No one who lives in MA seems to be exempt from this health insurance plan. And although the folks who crafted this legislation predict that insurers will lower their rates when more healthy people sign up, there's no evidence that anything of the sort will happen. In fact, if insurers know they have a captive audience in MA, why won't they raise their rates? I'm extremely concerned that this "universal health care" plan will give rise to more stripped down health insurance plans that fail to cover basic preventive care, particularly reproductive care for women. The bottom line: if you are a taxpayer in MA, you are now required to find health insurance.

More frightening (and far less likely to happen) is the recent drafting of legislation that would prohibit abortions in Ohio, and prohibit any Ohio woman from getting an abortion. The proposed abortion ban isn't really news, as 11 other states besides Ohio--Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia--are jumping on the bandwagon behind South Dakota. The unusual bit is that it would be a felony for a woman to seek to terminate a pregnancy, even if she didn't follow through, and she's just as liable if she obtains an abortion outside state lines. Anyone assisting her could also be charged with a felony. (The article doesn't go into specifics of the law, such as whether there's an exception for the woman's life or whether we would be like El Salvador and have to wait for fetal death or tubal rupture to fix an ectopic pregnancy.) Again, this is not legislation that describes a state's own action or prohibition, but directs the actions of residents. How do we determine residency in this situation? Would one of my college friends, paying taxes in Michigan, be bound by this law if she chose to get an abortion outside Ohio but lived there for much of the year? What about my mother, who retained her Ohio residency while the military was shipping our family to six different states? (And since my parents were Ohio residents, would I have been prohibited from obtaining an abortion even though I didn't physically live in Ohio until I was mostly grown?) Ohio seems to want to get one better on all the other states preparing abortion restrictions. Fortunately, this law is restrictive enough to jeapordize the rich folks who would otherwise be able to travel to IL or NY, so I'm hopeful that it has little chance of ever seeing daylight.

Aside from your views on abortion law or health insurance costs, these are shocking attempts by a state to mandate certain behavior from its citizens, both inside and outside state lines. Suddenly, my state residence seems much more important, and the phrase "if you don't like it, you can move" seems both more ominous and more probable from many of the states I've lived in and loved.

Why yes, I do live for this.

2006-04-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

How much do I love my Cubbies? I love my Cubbies SO MUCH.

Not only did they play an incredibly slow four innings while we were detained in class, not only did Pat and Ron talk us through a lovely night at Wrigley, not only are they rallying from the loss of Derek Lee.

Not only did they make six runs in one inning. To take the lead and win the game.

But they avenged our 2003 team against the Marlins. It was spectacular. I sat there with my beer and my garden path shawl and counted down the outs.

Also making me happy this week: Kris Delmhorst. I went to see her last night when I was bleak and strange, and she helped rescue my soul.

Links roundup:
Ema (bless her) puts the mifiprex debate into a little perspective.
One of my mainstream feminist organizations sent me an email today telling me to "sound the alarm" and blog about the fake abortion clinics that are wrecking women's physical and emotional health. Little do they know that the real bloggers hit that topic on Saturday. However, Twisty's characterization of PP was less than generous.
And this little site is starting to become viable. Little by little, I'm moving. Hooray!

No sympathy

2006-04-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

This is the best news on the Dan Ryan reconstruction project that I've read... well, ever. Non-Chicagoans may be living in blissful ignorance; the Dan Ryan project is knocking the southern half of Chicago's 90/94 highway out of commission for the next three years or so, removing four express lanes and leaving only two lanes of highway during construction. The ad slogan proclaims: "There is a way out! Re-route!" Re-routing has indeed kept the construction from becoming a major crisis, as travel times are still within somewhat reasonable limits for most of the alternate routes. The transportation department has spent so much time scaring us about the inconvenience of this construction project that the reality is not so bad.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that some commuters are pretty miserable using public transportation, however. The lede states, I kid you not, "Commuters Bemoan the Loss Of Quality Time in Cars." When taking public transit, the miserable commuters say, they have to deal with crowds! And weather! And (gasp) walking to and from train stops! They can't lug around 45 pounds of stuff! Occasionally people walk up and try to sell them things! Oh, the humanity!

Ann Schue chokes up when saying that she misses her car. She has been driving to a faraway mall on the weekends, instead of the mall close to her suburban house, because she misses driving so much.
Frank Pierson lives five blocks from an el stop. However, he used to drive to work and pay $18 every day to park in the city. He's unhappy about the peddlers on the train.
Jack Sloan is a regular on the train and hates that there are so many new riders using cell phones. (Okay, I can feel a little sympathy for his plight.)

Suddenly I'm starting to see this project as shock therapy for some of our suburban neighbors: we live in a city, we have to accomodate each other, and it's incredibly wasteful and selfish to drive in a town where public transit is a viable option. The travel times have gotten much worse, yes. But if you really hate to lose another fifteen minutes of your commute, you could move into the city. There are still some big houses left on the Green Line going for pretty darn cheap.

Those dark fiber arts

2006-04-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

PZ Meyers links to the blog of a child molester/murderer/cannibal. I don't love these stories, and I shouldn't have clicked because these are the stories that keep me awake for days on end. However, I figured there wasn't any harm in checking out the main page (stunningly normal) and the links (mostly odd science stories and wacky news) and then I had to jump into the comments. There are folks who sort of knew him, strangers condemning him, stupid relativists coming to his defense (!!!), and strident responses to the stupid relativists, many with less-than-intellectual religious overtones. My favorite comment:

"ANYWAY THAT'S MY RANT!! I FEEL AWFUL FOR THE LITTLE GIRL'S FAMILY, AND I AM VERY ANGRY THAT SOME PSYCHO HAD THE NERVE TO BE SO BRUTAL, BUT WHEN SATIN IS LET INTO YOUR LIFE, AND GOD IS SHUT OUT YOU CAN DO DOME PRETTY STUPID SHIT!!!"

Yes, satin will be the death of us all. We should stick with safe fabrics, like cotton and wool. (snerk)

I'm glad I got off that blog before I harmed my brain. Don't go look, just trust me. (And check out the rest of Pharyngula; he's got some smart stuff up there.

Lovely and less-than-lovely quotes.

2006-04-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

"Tax law should stop perpetuating the fairy tale that husbands and wives are equal partners." --The IRS's shotgun marriage, by Shari Motro, ass't professor at University of Richmond School of Law.

"I have no problem with the demonstration, but this is a business. Couldn't they have protested in the morning before work? Couldn't they have protested in their hearts?" --fishmarket owner in Florida, commenting on immigrant rallies.

And now to cheer you up:
"Scientists who undertake the work of theologians are as reckless as theologians who pretend to be scientists." --Raymond J Lawrence, Episcopal priest who is not surprised or alarmed by research indicating prayer does not improve medical outcomes.

No details, just pictures.

2006-04-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

Thank you all so much for your support and your kind comments; they are much appreciated. I see that even my knitting friends are still lurking! Hi, knitting friends! Want some pictures?* I got a little detached during all the hospital stuff and didn't have very much to say, for those who are wondering why I didn't call. C is on an amazingly steep recovery curve, and even felt well enough to blog. Meanwhile, I'm feeling a little knocked out by all the excitement, and I'm having trouble putting together complete sentences. So in lieu of actual stories, I'll show you what I worked on while I was hanging around in waiting rooms.

These are Knitty's Broadripple socks, in Fixation. This yarn was bought for the abandoned Sox Socks project, but I like them better in this pattern than the first one I tried. Knit while watching baseball, comforting myself while teaching at a very bad middle school, traveling to Madison, seeing my college friends, sitting in the hospital, and watching more baseball. I made them about an inch longer in the cuff than the pattern called for, and ended up using all but the last bitty bits of yarn. It's a little frustrating to work with the cotton elastic, but I just love the stretch in the socks. And yes, this is the project in my icon.

Good night, all.
________
*I understand that some of you think I'm crazy and alone out here, but this is a cross-post. If you're early to the party, sit tight; I'll invite everyone else once the blogroll is halfway decent.

radio silence

2006-04-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

This is just to let everyone know where I went! My darling spouse had a bad appendix, and we spent all day at the hospital downtown, kicking it to the curb. El is out of surgery and recovering nicely; I am going to go hang out with him some more, because hey! I can. I am feeling some twinges of guilt about dropping my job and my life for a couple days, but one of the wonderful things about my job is that I can take a sick day and nobody dies. As for the internet, y'all will probably struggle along without me. Expect some delays while I put it all back together.

a photo entry

2006-04-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

Attack of the wombs! These are five of the seven wombs I've knit for people I know. Coworkers, relatives, everybody wants one. Since it's not my pattern, I can't even sell the durn things.

Everyone says my hair looks lovely. Again, there seems to be consensus at work (both sites), at church, and at the knitting groups. It gets in my eyes, as you can tell.

This is truly a miracle. This is rhubarb. It's coming back up from the cold ground. (This was more impressive on the day it was taken, which was at about 40F. Now that it's 70F, everyone will assume that this is a normal spring occurrence. But in the bitter cold? Miraculous.)

links roundup

2006-04-09T21:58:00.000-07:00

Mostly so I can close my browser for the weekend.

Questions about Plan B, or that mysterious menstrual cycle in general? PZ Meyers explains it all for you.

Somebody better explain it to the North Mariana Islands, where they're not finding many choices about their reproductive health. Yes, women in SD are being forced to bear children, but women in the NMI are being forced to terminate. (I don't remember where I found this. If someone else finds this link, tell me where and I'll hat-tip them.)

Angry Black Bitch, generally fabulous anyway, attacks that hideous Duke rape/murder email and how the media response fits the pattern of just failing to care that much. (Can I mention how hideous it is that this story intrudes on my baseball-watching time, which--as a Cubs fan--is generally a land of happy fantasy?) The full email text is available over at Pandagon, though I'd recommend you not go read. I can't even look up the link, I am too horrified to read it a second time.

***

April fools! A bunch of girls in Ravenna, Ohio decorated the town a la Super Mario Brothers, with shiny question-mark cubes in the trees. And then some scared townspeople called the cops, alleging terrorism. Their letter-to-editor, complete with spelling mishaps, is priceless. And let's look at this from the bright side: if kids these days are supposedly more conservative and less liberal than the previous generation, at least they've still got a sense of humor. And the reaction of the freaky adults in their lives will hopefully teach them some common sense. (found via Nerve.com.

Knitted nautiloid! and the rest of this season's Knitty is up.

Oh heavens, how much do I want to make this shawl? SOOOO gorgeous. I think I even have the yarn.

Cubs win! Grand slam! Cubs win! 8-4! CUBS WIN!

Thank you, and good night.

Debbie Stoller on WUNC

2006-04-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Great interview, particularly for NPR geeks.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wunc_archives/sot/index.php?p=633

Looking for grief

2006-04-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

Gather 'round, kids, it's a sex story!

Sometime in the past week, I came across another article about the battle to ban birth control, which points out for the zillionth time that some folks (anti-contraceptionists?) preach that hormonal birth control could cause a very early abortion. The argument is that your pill could in theory not prevent ovulation but prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, causing the spontaneous abortion of a blastocyst. (This group rarely refers to the event as an early miscarriage; I suppose they believe that abortion is a scarier term.) The Salon.com article refers to the ovulation/implantation debate as "scientifically unknowable", which is not actually true; we can study the effects of these hormones in mice and other mammals, and extrapolate the evidence we find onto human females. It's not perfect, but latest research suggests that Plan B does not affect embryo implantation in mice. That's neither here nor there today.

The first time I heard the theory that hormonal bc might allow ovulation, I was twenty years old and was just beginning to feel the slow descent into panic and anxiety (which I would later realize was the result of my birth control method). I was hiding in the women's restroom on the third floor of my college's student union, wondering whether I needed to take a pregnancy test because after several months on Depo, I didn't have anything that resembled a menstrual cycle. I can't remember where I heard the information about the Pill, but I spent several minutes wondering whether my shot (which I knew very little about) might act in similar ways and whether I might have been inadvertently flushing fertilized eggs out of my system every month for some time. I thought about those new combinations of DNA that might have been created and then never seen again, and I worried and wondered what they would look like. Then I asked myself if I would be willing to raise and feed any of those new DNA patterns, and I knew quite surely that I could not do that. I thought about my partner and whether I would volunteer to have any kids with him, and I knew immediately that he wasn't up to the task. I went over the barrier methods that I knew--condoms? diaphragms?--and realize that those options were unworkable. (Shockingly, I never asked myself at the time why I was sleeping with this lug that couldn't be trusted to use a condom and had some wacky ideas about consent. I'd love to reach back in time and dope-slap this young woman, but alas! alack! she was a slow learner.) Then I debated the differences between blockading a bunch of sperm vs. my body declining to welcome a couple of sex cells that had managed to entangle. I decided that in terms of intention, there wasn't much difference. In theory, I could mourn those clumps of tissue, but I was doing everything possible to prevent them in the first place and certainly didn't want them to stick around. I never (silly girl!) considered becoming abstinent, since I didn't think that was possible at the time. And that was that; hormonal birth control was back on my safe list. This moral debate took about twenty minutes. Then I took my pregnancy test, thanked God that it was negative, and went back to my dorm room.

I'm told that some women deeply grieve the idea that they may have been creating embryos and miscarrying them immediately. Because of my own circumstances when I considered this question and laid it to rest, I have to wonder: is it possible that these women are just looking for something to mourn? That some part of their life or their sexual relationship is so badly damaged that they need to imagine its disaster somewhere else? Or do their philosophical and religious views, their concept of fate, simply take them in a different direction than me? I'd like to put the abortion rhetoric to one side and ask them.

I heart Adam Felber

2006-03-27T21:01:00.000-08:00

Today he describes how he won the war on terror. That's all, kids. You can go home now.

decadent urban recreation

2006-03-26T19:08:00.000-08:00

This weekend was packed. There were several high points, including...

... hearing blues at the Checkerboard with amazing guitar players and a fabulous rendition of "Dirty Old Woman".
... wandering by the comic store on the way to the el to pick up V for Vendetta and more Strangers in Paradise (to give C some free time to re-read V, a strategy which has so far been wildly unsuccessful as I'm ripping through it)
... eating alligator, bison, and ostrich. In the same meal.
... wandering around Ravenswood Manor and Albany Park, intending to go to an open house. We actually got distracted by some fresh lime soda and didn't get there in time.
... hours to read and knit.
... an unexpected reading of "Miss Rumphius" at church, which made me cry like a little kid. I was a little kid, last time I read it. (It's the story of the woman who plants the lupines to make the world more beautiful.)
... sunny weather and some fluffy little birds.
... 2 days, 2 gym trips, 2 naps.
... baking banana bread and muffins and lasagna (the oven has been on for several hours straight now. Watch out for our gas bill.)
... watching a woman ride her bicycle through State and Madison in high heels. Talented.
... finding a coworker who offhandedly replaced most of the difficult-to-recover items in the stolen presentation kit, and then referred me to a highly useful website or two.
... MY HOUSE IS CLEAN. Seriously, this makes me so happy, knowing that if I get up in the middle of the night I will not trip on any clothes. Conversely, I have also deleted ALL the emails from that little housecleaning fairy, who is cluttering up my inbox this week. Both these things make me feel better.

human clock

2006-03-23T10:12:00.000-08:00

The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous. They steal from their inalienable right to loafing and cheat them of many a good, idle, and beautiful afternoon. The tempo of modern industrial life forbids this kind of glorious and magnificent idling. But worse than that, it imposes upon us a different conception of time as measured by the clock and eventually turns the human being into a clock himself.

-- Lin Yu-tang, quoted by J.C. Cooper in Taoism: The Way of the Mystic

(reposted from the Happy Feminist)

All this week I've been at a high school tempo, dividing my time in blocks of four and forty-six minutes. One of my fellow teachers was nice enough to take me out to lunch at a fabulous Cuban restaurant, and though she walks fast I didn't think anything of it. Just as I was beginning to think, "I wonder when her next class is?" she picked up the pace. Five minutes later our coats were on, our cups lidded, and she had to run from the school parking lot into the building as the next bell rang eight minutes later. Today I joined her briefly in this breakneck schedule before arriving again at the government office, where all. time. stops. This afternoon, it's back to the high school and the dog bell. Sometimes I feel like this on days when I do Flylady's "fifteen minutes"--where is the travel time? What about switching gears, taking my coat off, getting water breaks? (The water breaks are scheduled in, on Flylady. It's a tough system.)

I do well on the iron clock schedule, and I get a lot of stuff done. But it saps my soul, and I find myself doing stupid things like staying up until midnight playing Place the State. Laugh if you will, but I'm down to 47/50, 8 miles off (average), in 199 seconds. And my brain feels more human, less mechanical. It's just something I need to budget time for.

when you assume

2006-03-19T19:24:00.000-08:00

Before the new week begins, I must let you know about the fantastic finish to the old work week. I had about an hour left and needed to do work on the small and little-blessed research project that I've been nursing along. I felt like going home early, so I figured I'd just get the report form set up so that I could slot in all the correct numbers on Monday afternoon. I looked at my tables and printed out my summaries, and little by little I noticed... the numbers all lined up.

It was beautiful. In short, we are trying to discover where our clients come from and whether that might be influenced by where I (and others) spend time. And lo, this month the numbers seem to suggest that where we go, they go. Impressive numbers, for a small sample. In many areas where we spend our time, clients seem to be arriving. YAY! It's such a buzz. It was absolutely beautiful, that logical beauty of difficult math and pieces which find the places they were born to fill. It was better than a jigsaw puzzle or a sudoku or a proof or even a musical chord. It was so seductive.

As it happened, I stayed late to finish the report. As I thought about how to preface it, I started remembering all the cautions that good statisticians have tried to teach me. Here's a sample:
1) It's only one month out of a (so far) six-month project. The other outcomes have been (cough) fuzzy.
2) The sample size is tiny.
3) These numbers are really glorified frequency counts, having no statistical validity.
4) NO CONTROL GROUP.
5) Some areas are being surveyed more heavily than others, and not every eligible participant is getting the survey. It's entirely possible that something about our prior contact is "priming" participants to respond.
6) The participants don't always seem to "get" the questions, meaning the survey is written poorly. For instance: the people who we probably had prior contact with report not ever getting a contact like that. Many who didn't say that they did. The only positive aspect of this possible outcome is that it negates #5, somewhat.
7) Did I mention NO CONTROL GROUP? Tiny sample size? Temporary effect?

I thought about mentioning all these caveats in my preface, then remembered that several times I have been cautioned that this is a work project and not a research project. I left the bad stuff out and hit "send".

Then I read over the numbers again, and listened to what they seemed to tell me, and drove home with another buzz.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

2006-03-14T21:21:00.000-08:00

I think I'll just double-post for a while. This blog is for my non-Ho presence, if y'all are tracking back my blogger name to the Tally Ho. I'm resurrecting the stringy bits of my other blog, and promise 10% more knitting content! Also please accept real-life posts and those political rantings that are just too shrill for other forums.

Fray

***tap tap tap***

Almost there

the shawl that broke my blog

Whoa--what's that?

Listen to me, NPR!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Broke

delicate sensibilities

Rescued!

Guide me, O wise ones.

Accounting

Hello, thank you, goodbye

how do I expect anyone to read when I don't post?

Yes, Jenna, there really is snow in Mongolia.

fall sucks, but at least they give you an extra hour

Wheels for dummies, or Why yes, it is an impressive skill! Thank you!

silk purses and sow's ears

radio silence

Disappeared

Anti-contraception

photos

the midwest edition

Knitting block

FO and test photos

miles of eponge

Curse you, mailman!

Twenty Questions

A girl's got needs

Photos Day 2

She Lives!

Trip trip trip!

right critters, wrong place

Happy family day

Impromptu KIP

flotsam

Where have I been?

D'oh, a sock, a stretched-out sock

one of these things is not like the other

mah-widge

when it rains, it pours

what the girls are saying

good fences make good neighbors

and today I begin swatching for my next big project

not dead

What? and, ew.

retail therapy

do you know me?

Hi, howareyou? Good.

For this, I will sound the alarm

If you don't like it, leave.

Why yes, I do live for this.

No sympathy

Those dark fiber arts

Lovely and less-than-lovely quotes.

No details, just pictures.

radio silence

a photo entry

links roundup

Debbie Stoller on WUNC

Looking for grief

I heart Adam Felber

decadent urban recreation

human clock

when you assume

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

tap tap tap