Got Buds

My lilac bush is budding! And my daffodils are standing tall, if not yet blooming. Also, I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Mourning Dove while I was out in the yard last weekend, and I do believe they are planning to start a family.

I love these first signs of spring. Although winter is relatively mild in my area, the dreary sameness of the landscape starts to grate on my nerves after a while and I find myself wondering if green grass and leaves on trees is a thing of the past, a story old-timers will sit around boring kids with. "When I was your age, we had real seasons. And there were four of them. Every single year. It was interesting. Not like it is today with all this sameness day after day. You young'ns don't even know what real seasons are like!" So at the first sign that life is, indeed, returning to my corner of the planet, I'm out there buying mulch and prepping the flower beds.

Saturday, while the ground was still soft from recent rains and the sun could get through the bare tree branches, I raked the front yard and put down some grass seed. My yard is patchy yet, but the grass I seeded last year made it through the winter and even stayed reasonably green. I figure if I do this twice a year for a while, I'm going to have a gorgeous yard in a decade or so. Even patchy, it looks better than the neighbors', ha!

Sunday was all about the back yard, and that's when I spotted the lilac buds. And the daffodil stalks; mine bloom a little later than the neighbor's, for some reason. And the doves. The whole time I was clearing out the flower bed, Mrs. Dove was eye-balling me from her perch on the edge of a lawn chair. The chair is stored under the raised deck, hanging from some hooks, and is the same place she made her nest last year so seeing her there again was pretty ... well, ominous, actually. There's no friction on the surface of that chair and last year the nest went tumbling in the first big storm. I'm going to keep an eye on it, and if she is really going to build there again (I did warn her) I'm going to have to jury rig something to make sure it stays in place.

My kingdom is very small, but it's all mine and I try to rule wisely.

Audible Affection

You know, I almost titled this post "I *heart* Audible" and then I remembered that saccarine makes me queasy. I am, however, really fond of Audible.com.

I love books and I love crochet. With audio books, I can have the best of both worlds. Audio books also provide distraction from mind numbing but necessary chores. When the whole iPod rage first started, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I mean, I like music but I don't feel the compulsion to be plugged in 24/7. Then I discovered that audible content wasn't just about music. It was possible to download books, too! Now, I've been a fan of audio books for a long time and I've cheered on the revolution that took what was basically an assist for the deaf and turned into an assett for the average person. What used to be a small shelf in the bookstore has become a staple of publication. All the latest and greatest bestsellers come out in audio format. Taking it another step and allowing people to purchase downloadable content is, well, comparable to the invention of the wheel. Sure, you could technically move things from one place to the other before ... but now it's really portable.

So, I like MP3 and other format players, and I like audiobooks, and it follows that I like vendors who bring them together. My favorite? Audible.com. The array of content available on their site boggles the mind. But their customer service is the real reason I stick with them.

I got this email the other day which was a promotional deal. Anyone can purchase audio content from Audible.com, but members get special offers and certain perks. I dont' want to bore you with the details; suffice it to say that I contacted Audible.com because I thought something about the email was confusing. I wasn't complaining, my intent was to point out an issue that they might want to fix in the future. For my efforts I was rewarded with the equivalent of a $25 coupon to my account.

Now that's a company that wants to keep their customers happy. Is there any question why I'm so loyal to them?

Two Things

Okay, here are some pictures. The sweater on the left isn't nearly as bulky as the picture makes it look. In fact, it has a really nice drape to it. It's a pattern from Doris Chan's book Everyday Crochet called Haru. I have no idea what that means. I made the sleeves a little longer than those pictured in the book, and didn't include the side slits at the hip. Well, I would have included them, but by the time I had worked the appropriate number of rows the sweater was already long on me. I could have taken out some rows and reworked them to include the slits, but why? I liked it just fine as it was. The yarn, Simply Shetland's Silk and Lambswool, is just as wonderful as I thought it would be. It's a light weight yarn, but still warm and cozy to wear. I'm very happy with it.


So happy, in fact, that I used some left over in this "waffle weave" scarf where the laciness of the yarn shows up much better. Probably this will go to my sister for her birthday in a few months. Probably.

I like doing scarfs. You can't beat them for perfectly portable projects, and gauge isn't important. Gauge is all about sizing, how many stitches you work per inch. This is important when you are working on clothing because you are usually trying for a particular size, and your sweater, or whatever, isn't going to be the same at, say, 5 stitches psi as it would if you are getting 10 psi or even 2 psi. Too many stitches per inch and your piece is going to run small. Too few per inch and it's going to work up a lot bigger than what you want.

So how do you know? Look at the pattern. A pattern is a set of instructions that tells you more than just what stitches to make. It will also have yarn weight and hook size recommendations, and information on gauge. The hook size is just a suggestion. Here's the thing about handmade as opposed to machine made: stitch size is harder to regulate. Two people can use the exact same yarn and hook, and yet not make their stitches exactly the same size. Back to the original question, how do you know? You make a swatch. A swatch is exactly what you think - a sample. Your pattern will say, for example, '5.5 per inch in pattern.' So you work a few rows using the pattern stitch (double crochets or shells, for instance) to maybe 4" square and then you measure how many stitches and rows you have per inch. If you come out with too many stitches per inch, try again with a larger hook. Too few per inch, try going down one or two sizes in the next swatch. When you get it right, you have your gauge; and when you have your gauge, it's easier to work a garment to the size you want.

When I started the sweater, I think I did three 4" swatches before I got it right. Is it a pain having to possibly work a few swatches before you can really get started? Yes. Which is why something like a scarf or afghan is nice sometimes; no gauge worries. If it's a few inches short or a few inches too wide, who cares? And if I don't tell my sister that the scarf is the wrong size, she'll never know. Nya!

I'm Working On It

About a year ago I picked up some paint chips to get ideas for the hallway. No, I still haven't painted, or even definitely decided on the color. It will be some shade of green, probably in the khaki or sage family. I will get to it. Eventually.

I'm still in the process of decluttering drawers and closets. I have started and each small accomplishment gives me a sense of peace that keeps me going. But, you know, there are other things that have to get done, too. Like laundry and cleaning the kitchen floor. And while I could find more time to devote to the decluttering project, it would take away from more fun stuff and there's not enough fun stuff as it is. But I'm getting to it little by little.

There are still some tree branches I didn't get to last fall because I couldn't quite reach them and decided that tree trimming is fine while my feet are planted on the ground, but doing so while up on a ladder without a spotter is stupid. It's on my list of things to do this coming year.

I need to put up a new light fixture in the powder room. There is a fixture in there now, it just doesn't have a proper shade. As long as we aren't, uh, powdering in the dark, I don't see any big hurry for this.

I'm mostly finished with the wrap I intend as a gift for my mother's sister. It's supposed to have pockets, and I've crocheted them, too; but now I need to actually sew them on the wrap itself. That part is boring so I've been putting it off. Maybe by Christmas.

And speaking of crochet projects, I finished the Haru sweater a few weeks ago. There will be a photo up here eventually, because I like having this catalog of finished projects. I just have to remember to have the sweater and my camera in the same room at the same time.

I don't do anything very fast, as you can see. I've tried being one of those "see it through from start to finish" type people and mostly I just stressed myself out so I don't do that anymore. I've learned to pace myself, to prioritize. All the really important stuff is done; I've even finished my taxes and sent them in. I'll get around to everything else a little at a time. But I'm going to do it on my schedule. All of this stuff will happen. There is a plan.

I'm working on it.

I'm considering having those words put on my tombstone someday.

Time Passages

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these

Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

excerpted from "Time Passages" by Al Stewart

My niece, the first baby in our family, will be 24 next week. I'm having a lot of difficulty adjusting to that. At 24 she is really and truly an adult, eligible to do anything except run for president or apply for Medicaid. But in my head she is still that kid who had to practice winking and who held my hand as we walked through a parking lot.

Her one brother will turn 16 in a few months, old enough to drive more than a Big Wheel, and just possibly mature enough, too. He's well and truly a teenager now, and will likely never again sit next to me on the couch under an afgan just to cuddle.

Yesterday, after much arguing with my niece via text messaging, I have had to accept the fact that my youngest nephew, the real baby in the family, is now 11. I knew, logically, using certain events as points of reference, he was at least 10 and possibly 12. Now I have to deal with the fact that he probably doesn't even remember honoring me with admission into his "secret" fort in the back of his bedroom closet.

When I was younger I couldn't understand why my parents had such trouble keeping track of my age, or dealing with the fact that I was getting older. I understand a lot better now. I like these kids a lot. I enjoy being in their company. I just want them to stop growing up so fast.

They'd better become some really outstanding adults, because I'm not going to get these days back again and I think I deserve some compensation. Maybe a trip to Disney World. They owe me.

Stuff ... and Nonsense?

In my quest to organize my real space in an effort to organize my head space, I've been clearing out drawers and closets. Slowly, to be sure. Baby steps. But little by little I'm making headway.

If asked, I would have said that I'm not a collector. Of anything. No stamps, or pincushions, or thimbles, spoons, china ... nope, not me. I have lots of books, but I'm not collecting them. Collectors worry about first editions and condition and so forth. I'm only concerned that all the pages are present and accounted for, and not stuck together. I also find myself buying lots of yarn, but that's because I intend to use it, not display it.

But for all that I don't deliberately collect anything, I do find that there are things I have an awful lot of. Containers, for instance. Cardboard, tin, ceramic, whatever, I can't seem to get rid of them. And not particularly special ones either. I mean, I'm not oohing and ahing because I have a limited edition pillbox or anything. It's just that once a box with lid comes into my environment, I can't let go of it. I'm sure I'll find the perfect use for it and if I do get rid of it, probably come to regret doing so at some point in the future. They're useful, which gives me a perfectly good excuse for saving them. If, in fact, they actually got used. Mostly they get forgotten about until I need to clean out a closet or drawer and then ...

It could be a kind of metaphor, now that I think about it. I have a need to be organized that conflicts with my inability to avoid clutter. Maybe, subconsciously, I view boxes as a compromise, being things in which I can organize and store the clutter. Except the boxes themselves have become clutter which then needs to be organized. Probably I need a box for my boxes. Oh wait, I have one. It's called a house.

Which brings me back to square one. I'm working on it.

The Archbishop in Andalusia

So, I read The Archbishop in Andalusia by Andrew Greeley, the latest in Greeley's mystery series featuring Archbishop Blackie Ryan. I would say that if you have enjoyed the Blackie series before, you will probably enjoy this one, too. If you haven't ...

Here's the thing: they aren't really typical mysteries, so they might not appeal to everyone. I enjoy them because I like Blackie's character and some of the secondary characters that inhabit his world. But the stories are very much about the characters and their relationships, and a little less about the plot, so the appeal may not be universal.

Things I liked about this book:

Blackie's character. He's just likeable, an engaging philosopher who has no problem poking a little fun at himself.

More background on Cardinal Cronin* and how he and Blackie first met. Things about Cronin that were hinted at in past books were a lot more fleshed out here, so that was fun.

Some interesting stuff on the history of Spain. I guess it could be considered infodump, but that doesn't bother me because I enjoy learning something new; and if infodump is done correctly, it can do a lot to lend atmosphere to a story. The book takes place largely in Spain, and the background on the country provides perspective on the culture of the people, so the history stuff was useful.

Things I didn't care for:

One of the central characters, and the one who's situation Blackie has been charged with fixing, is less than sympathetic. She's supposed to be this strong, admirable woman, beloved by all of Seville, but I thought she was rather wishy-washy. Confident in business situations, she's a complete hand-wringer when it comes to her personal life. Possibly the ensuing angst is a cultural thing, but I found myself thinking "do it or don't do it, but make up your mind and get it over with." That said, it's entirely a personal opinion and may well be the kind of drama other people enjoy.

Some of the secondary characters were a bit flat. While Greeley can be very good with some characters, I found Blackie's nephew and his fiance to be lacking in personality altogether. They were in the last book, too, and in fact met during the course of that book. But in this one, they were just there being such garshed darn nice young Americans that they made white bread look exciting. Also, their presence didn't seem to serve any purpose and wasn't, to my mind, adequately explained. Blackie could have been conversing with a brick wall in some of the scenes, and at least the wall would have lent texture.

Overall, the book was a pleasant read. I wouldn't rush out and recommend it everyone I meet, but I didn't throw it against the wall either.



*In case you decide to read it and start worrying, let me just say now that it does have a happy ending.

Yes We Can DID

... let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested, we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009.

There were many great moments during the inauguration of President Barack Obama yesterday. But more than anything else he said, what struck me was the way he reminded us that while our cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds are varied, we as Americans have one common responsibility. The future.

It was an historic day for a lot of reasons, and it's not my intention to diminish any of them. But the truth is that every inauguration is historic, because every time someone takes that oath of office, someone else relinquishes that power. We've done this 43 times now. Barack Obama is the 44th President to take that oath of office, which means that 43 men before him have stepped aside. Over 200 years ago when our founding fathers started this experiment in government, it may not have seemed like much. But yesterday the eyes and ears of the world were upon us as responsibility for leading the most powerful nation on the planet was transferred from one man to another.

Peacefully.

That in itself is a gift we give to the future. Let us never take it for granted.

Book Review

So I picked up a few new books the other weekend. The new JAK, Running Hot, and the new Kay Hooper, Blood Sins. I also picked up the new Andrew Greely, The Archbishop in Andalusia. What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten around to reading the last one yet. I'm hoping to get to that one over the upcoming long weekend.

As for the first two, I liked them. A lot. They are two of my favorite authors and fairly dependable. That said, I didn't love them. Why? Well ...

The new JAK is part of her Arcane Society series about a secret group of people with extrasensory abilities. JAK gave us the usual banter between the hero and heroine and in general lived up to her earlier books. My main problem with this book, and the Arcane Society series in general, is the idea of this secret society. See, it's not very secret, as far as I can tell. You've got the hero and the heroine, the guy who sends the H&H into the Dangerous Situation, the folks the hero normally works for, the heroine's previous employer, the new head of the Arcane Society and, so far, at least 3 Bad Guys each getting their own henchman, and a few peripheral characters. That's, uh, about a dozen characters who are either members of this Secret Society or member of the equally Secret Evil Rival Society. And this is just one book of a series. And this Arcane Society has been around for a few hundred years. I'm thinking, ya know, it's not such a secret anymore.

But that's just me. The banter is fun, the bad guys are appropriately twisted, and once I let go of my hang up about the secretiveness of this society I did still enjoy the book.

The new Kay Hooper is also part of a series, an offshoot of the FBI run by a guy named Bishop who has, and also employs people with, paranormal powers (notice a trend here?) in the pursuit of justice against Big Bad Guys with paranormal powers. Once again, there are an awful lot of people running around with this extra ability. And because, like JAK, Hooper writes romance, you get a new H&H with every book. So it's not just the folks within this secret (there's that word again) arm of the FBI; its all these other people who get recruited into saving the world, or their love interests who usually turn out to have their own something extra. Okay, I could deal with all of that. And in fact I really enjoyed the Bishop series initially. What's getting to me is a tendency for the characters to spontaneously sprout a new psychic ability in the nick of time. I just don't see that as playing fair with the reader; it's a violation of some kind of rule of fiction. Okay, there needs to be a big climatic scene where it appears that the hero and/or heroine just might not make it. That goes with. It's part of the suspense even when you know that good will ultimately triumph. But the new powers thing? That's like giving Batman x-ray vision just because he's in a tough spot. I don't think the author should change the rules just to accommodate the good guys. As I said recently to someone else who had read the book, Hooper should just dispense with the romance angle and write paranormal suspense using Bishop and Co. as her ongoing cast of characters. Like a Justice League kind of thing.

I'm not throwing either of these books against the wall in disgust; in fact, I think both writers are very good. Just not writing up to their potential. But that's just me. You should form your own opinion.

I'm In Love

Okay, I did finish the wrap thing except I have to find some matching thread to sew on the pockets with. Probably I could have tried harder this past weekend, but I was pretty much looking for an excuse to dive into my new yarn.

This is it. And I'm already fighting the temptation to buy more, to horde the stuff against some blah, bleary day when I need a yarn fix. This stuff is WONDERFUL. Really, all caps and italics, too. I feel like crying out "where have you been all my life?!" It's like the dark chocolate of yarn, the good 75% organic cocoa content stuff, the beans harvested by Juan Valdez's distant cousin and hand carried to a delightfully wizened, old-school confection genius in the Swiss Alps who created the world's first truffle. Get it?

It's not just that it's soft. I've handled softer. It's not just that it's pretty, although it is. It's the entire experience of the yarn. The folks at Simply Shetland have created a fiber blend that is the best of both the silk and wool worlds. I know it doesn't look like much to the naked eye; but trust me, this stuff is good. I'm spoiled for all other yarns. I'm giddy. Maybe it's the honeymoon phase, but I'm into the second skein now so I'm feeling pretty confident.

I'm savouring here.

A Good Yarn

In case you were wondering, yes I did finish the raspberry colored shrug from an earlier post. And made a few raspberry colored noises. I didn't like it. I tried to figure out how it could be fixed, but I think the problem was in the yarn. When I sewed up the seams and tried it on there was too much bulk under my arms, very uncomfortable. So I've stashed that away to possibly frog some day (to frog in yarn circles means to pull out or unravel a project). I wasn't that crazy about the yarn so I'm not in much of a hurry to get that done. Some day I may try that pattern again in a lighter weight yarn and see if it makes a difference.

In the meantime, I started and am nearly finished working on a wrap-type thing with pockets. I like the idea of the pockets. I'm working with a very yummy yarn by Rowan called Cashsoft DK that is 57% extra fine merino, 33% acrylic microfibre and 10% cashmere. Very soft and cozy which makes it perfect for a wrap. DK is short for double knit ... I know, you just had a flash back to those ugly polyester pants your Aunt Edna used to wear, didn't you? Take heart. In this instance double knit describes the thickness of the yarn and has nothing to do with the fiber content. DK is somewhere between worsted (think afghan yarn) and sport or baby weight (think, uh, baby sweaters). The Cashsoft has a nice hand, very smooth as it spools through my fingers and very little splitting. Also, no nasty kinks from over-twisting of the yarn, which plagued me while I was working on the above mentioned shrug. Yeah, I should have taken that as a sign.

The merino should keep it from stretching out of shape and cashmere is just always nice to have next to your skin. The microfiber content isn't even noticeable but ought to provide duribility. The yarn is a deep blue gray that the Rown people call Kingfisher, if that gives you any idea, and not the pictured lime green. Really, who looks good in lime green? Nobody. It's supposed to be 62" long. I'm trying to decide if that is too long. Sure, it looks good on the model, but how tall is she? I mean, if it hangs down below the hips when worn, then wouldn't the pockets be a little inconvenient? I'm at roughly 54" now so I need to drap this on someone taller than me and see what they think about the length.

My next project after this one will be this long sweater thing (well, what would you call it?). The pattern is called Haru (I have no idea what that means) by Doris Chan who does a lot of crochet designs. This one is from her book Everyday Crochet. Even better, I didn't have to buy this book. Please don't tell Doris. Our county has a terrific interlibrary loan system, and in some cases I can even get books on loan from other counties in the state, which is how I got my hands on this pattern.

I have a very nice yarn I want to try out for this. Not the stuff pictured, but some lovely fingering weight yarn (slightly finer than the DK) by Simply Shetland called Silk & Lambswool. It's 41% Shetland lambswool and 59% silk. It feels lovely in the skein. And it's actually spun in the actual Scotland so I can have fantasies about Men In Kilts while I work with it! That's my plan, anyway. What did I say that wrap was now, 54 inches? That's long enough don't you think? Heh.

Harriet Homeowner Rides Again

Guess what I did today? I replaced a flush valve! Yeah, I'm pretty psyched, too.

You're making fun of me, aren't you? Yes you are; I can hear you laughing from way over here on the other side of the Internet. Fine. But don't come crying to me when your toilet won't stop running and you need a new flush valve assembly.

We have a finished basement which is quite nice when it's not cluttered up with all the stuff we dump there in order to have the rest of the house looking nice, you know, the parts that company actually sees. I did do some cleaning up last week and it's not looking too bad now if I do say so myself. Still some stuff to dump and I've got bags and bags of books that need to go to either the library or a used book store. In the meantime, however, we haven't been able to use the downstairs toilet for months. Mind you, we don't need to all that often. The problem was that it wouldn't stop running so water was being serously wasted. It wasn't a leaky flapper; I checked that first and there was no leak there. Now, you might think of toilets as being complicated affairs, but they really aren't. It's basically just the flush apparatus and the flapper, that's it. And - I found this interesting, maybe you will as well - the basic modern flush toilet mechanism has not changed much since the first patent was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775. Ha. You thought it was Thomas Crapper, didn't you?

No, I am not a plumber, nor do I play one on tv. But I learned a lot from my dad about how to fix stuff around the house. It's amazing how much the average person can do for themselves, and cheaply! Seriously, I paid about $10 for the assembly and it didn't even require special tools to install. Ten bucks! You couldn't even get a plumber to drive past your house for that! And all the instructions where right there inside the box, easy peasy. I admit I was nervous about doing it and had put it a ways down on my to do list. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet and a couple of different DIY websites, I became more confident about my ability to handle it. And it really was pretty easy. Didn't even need a wrench. In fact, the instructions clearly state NOT to use a wrench but to do any tightening required by hand.

Now it's done and I'm feeling pretty darned proud of myself.

It's Beginning To Look ...

I put up my Christmas lights the other weekend. Just lights on the shrubs and an animated snowman figure but that took me long enough. Had a heck of a time figuring out the power cords, getting the right tab a into the proper slot b, so to speak. At one point the snowman was animating away, but not lighting up. You would think the animation would have been the hard part, but no.

In case you've never done this before, let me explain how it works. A string of lights comes with a female end and a male end. They do, well, what you'd expect. Except not with each other. It's not a moral issue, dear reader. The male does the manly job of connecting to the household current, while the female end has the all important maternal job of keeping the current running for the rest of the family and giving all the baby cords something to feel connected with.

The trick is to make sure you have all the strings running in the right directions or you end up with boys next to boys and girls next to girls. Electrical cords work much the way biology does: you need one of each in order to make a ba - uh, in order to make a complete circuit. So I had the string of lights plugged into the extension cord and the extension cord running into the outlet, with the intention of hooking the business end of the snowman (it's a snowman people, get your minds out of the gutter) up to the lights. There's a whole 'nother set of lights on shrubs to the right side of the door, but that part was fairly simple.

My problem was, there are 3 variations the average householder will encounter in North America:

1. Two prongs

(a) Both prongs of equal size,
(b) One prong wider than the other; and

2. Three prongs.*

And wouldn't you just know it, Frosty had a 1(b) connector while the lights had a 1(a) receptacle and they don't fit together, no way, no how. You can't even cheat on that one if you wanted to. To make matters more complicated, I discovered that Frosty came with a plethora (okay, 3) of plugs/receptacles and the instructions were, um, vague. *sigh*

One of the new found connectors did fit into the light string and I was quite excited for a whole 10 seconds when Frosty started tipping his hat at me. Then I realized that while he had range and motion, he wasn't exactly glowing. Finally got it all squared away and the figure anchored down which I must have done a pretty fair job of because we had some big winds the next day and it held just fine. What do you think?

In other years there have been those pretty icicle lights hanging from the gutters, but that involves much time on a ladder and even then, for me, it's a reach. And you know, the snowman took long enough.

*If you find yourself with a 3 prong connector but only a 2 prong receptacle on an extension cord, you might be tempted to cheat and jam it in there anyway. DON'T. Just don't. I won't bore you with the technical reasons for the variations, but I will say that they are practical and even safety related. Do it right.

It's a Classic

As a rule I go quite a long time between movies simply because I'd rather be reading. I honestly don't think most movies are worth giving up my free time for. I'm not anti-cinema, it's just that today's movies tend too much towards gratuitious everything - profanity, nudity, gore - and rely on a sort of potty humor popular among adolescent males. Since I'm neither a male nor an adeolescent, I just find it dumb. There are a handful of exceptions, but I generally prefer old movies. What with less sophisticated special effects and more stringent censorship (no, I'm not advocating censorship), film makers from by-gone times relied a lot more on imagination - theirs and ours, both - and in my opinion that's why so many of the oldies are still goodies. Of course, "old" is relative. I like Bogey and Bacall, Hepburn and Tracey. But I also enjoy Redford and Redgrave. In the last few weeks I've watched The Sting, The Untouchables, The Great Escape, and The Stand. I've watched them all before, but that doesn't matter.

• The Sting is wonderful because (a) it's got Robert Redford and Paul Newman, and (b) it's got some great twists in the plot that delight me everytime I watch it. Everything about it says "let's have fun" right from the start.
• The Untouchables is a great cops and robbers flick. It has Costner before he let fame go to his head, and Sean Connery's in fine form as an old-timer beat cop. Also, notably, a very young Andy Garcia and everyone's favorite bad guy, Robert de Niro. I've heard this one mistakenly described as a "gang" movie. pffbbbt. Fugetaboutit. This is not about some turf-happy punks trying to be tough. It was da mob, people.
• The Great Escape. Not a lot of people know that this movie was based on a true story. Not a happy ending, so you don't watch this one if you want happily ever after. Still, it's got that triumph-of-the-human-spirit thing going for it. And what a cast. Steve McQueen, James Garner, and James Coburn just to name a few.
• And The Stand, based on the Stephen King novel. King also wrote the teleplay, which is probably why it was so well done. Don't wait for a network re-airing, though; too much is cut out to make room for commercials and it loses something in the continuity. The original broadcast of the mini series, though, is about as true to the book as any movie could be, and the book is among my all time favorites. Talk about classic good v. evil. And Gary Sinise, too. I think what made this book so perfect, and what held true in the movie version, is that nothing was wasted. Every character, every plot turn, has a purpose. And the big showdown is about as perfect a climactic ending as you could ever ask for.

In retrospect, it's pretty clear that I was in the mood for some good guys v. bad guys stories. And even if these movies don't all come with happy endings, they do have some good guys kicking ass. Sometimes you need that.

While You've Been Waiting

So. Things have been ensuing. Not exciting, not bad, just ... things. Yardwork (leave sucker upper guys came this past week), job, doctors appointments and so on and so forth. It sounds like so little when I put it down in print, but it seemed to take up an inordinate amount of time. Or maybe it's just that it takes me longer to get every blessed thing done these days. But I digress.

Over there to your right is one of the things I finally finished a few weeks ago. The pattern is called Barbados Tee. I don't know why, except that it's loose and comfortable so I suppose you could wear it on Barbados or another tropical-type place. The shirt is crochet from (I think I told you this before) fibranatura's Exquisite Bamboo, actually a blend of 77% bamboo and 23% Merino wool. Very, very soft and cozy, and I will definitely be making something else out of this yarn one day because it's so comfortable. I followed a pattern for the shirt, but did deviate slightly. I put just a bit of slope in the shoulders and worked that slight cut out in the back of the collar, both with a mind to how the shirt would hang on me. I'm really pleased. I might have to do another one of those some day.

Next up is the shrug pictured below. Not quite, quite finished, but close. And yes, it is spread on a pillow. Because it didn't look right on a hanger, okay? If it looks the way I hope it will, once it's finished, it might be a Christmas present for my sister. This was a quick project, a relatively easy pattern done entirely in single crochet, worked only in the back loop. Which means nothing to you unless you crochet. FYI, working in the back loop only is why it has that pattern of ridges. It also makes the fabric more stretchy. The pattern is really just a large "T" shape which is then folded and sewed together in a way I can't explain but which leaves arm-holes and an open, shawl-collar front. I'm debating doing some edging work on it, to give it a more finished look.

My next project is going to be a sort of wrap/shawl thing with pockets. I've chosen a yummy yarn named "Cashsoft" which is a blend of Merino wool, microfiber and 10% cashmere. Very yummy, very soft, very cuddly. A kind of bluish color. More on that later.

I've also been reading a lot in the last few weeks, more than I'd had the time or functioning brain cells to read for a while. A few more books and I might start to feel back to normal again. Delta read for a friend who's book shows a great deal of promise and which I'm really looking forward to seeing on the bookstore shelves one day. That was fun but also a wee bit scary since the point of Delta reading (beta reading for the rest of you) is to look at the story with fresh eyes as a reader - not an editor or critiquer - and help the writer to make the book the best it can be.

Also read the new J.D. Robb which was terrific and discovered to my delight that Harley Jane Kozak, the actress, can write. Her book, Dating Dead Men, was hysterically funny and I urge you to go find it at the library and read it for yourself. I don't know if her other books (yes, she has written more than one) are as good. I'll have to get back to you on that. Oh, and I was excited to discover at the library today that Suzann Ledbetter had written another book in her series set in the Missouri Ozarks. I read the five before this starting with East of Peculiar and loved them so this was a great find. They're good, fun mysteries with an endearing cast of characters including, but not limited to, the residents of the retirement community that the central character acts as resident manager for. Go get the first one, you'll thank me.

And, finally, here's something to help you get into the holiday season a little early. This is my Mom's Christmas cactus which started life nearly 20 years ago as one of those windowsill sized plants you can pick up at the grocery store. Needless to say, it no longer fits on the windowsill. I don't think I've ever seen another one quite this big that flowered this extravagantly.

And some years she'll get second blooming from it. What can I say, it's a happy plant. Hopefully it will stay happy because it's too danged heavy at this point to be repotted.

That's it for now. Let's not wait so long to do this again, okay?

At The Tone Please Leave a Message ...

BEEP!

I know it's been a while, nearly a month in fact, but I'm busy so just hold your horses. I had planned to slip in a vacation blog, but it was needed somewhere else so, oh wah.

I finished a crochet project and will have a picture. Nearly finished with another so another possible picture there. And Mom's Christmas cactus is gifting a little early this year so there might be a picture of that as well. It's worth a picture as the thing is huge and quite a sight when it's dripping with flowers.

In the meantime, if you have something to say go ahead, don't wait for me.

"I May Not Agree With What You Say ...

... but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

I grew up thinking that was said by someone like Thomas Paine or Patrick Henry until a few years ago when I learned it was Voltaire. Or maybe Paine or Henry did say it, but not originally. More to the point, though, is that speaking out is not just a right granted us in the U.S. Constitution, it's an obligation. Many years ago someone said to me that we are either part of the solution or we are part of the problem. If you don't speak out when you believe something is wrong, then you are just as guilty as the perpetrators. A hard truth. Someone else put it better when they said that evil conquers when good men do nothing. Why am I going into this? Because next Tuesday is Election Day here in the U.S. of A. But before you read my post, please go on to read what BCB has to say about it here. Most anyone who is reading my blog is probably reading hers, too. If not, you should because she much more articulate than I am. That's because she is a Writer, whereas I am a Reader. I don't have to be articulate, I just have to recognize it when I see it. Like art.

She has pointed out all very good reasons why everyone should vote. It's a right nobody should ever willingly give up. But if her words have not convinced you, I'll give you another damn good reason. We are making history this year, and you should not forsake your chance to be a part of it.

This Presidential Election is already unprecedented. During the primaries, the Democrats gave us a choice of not just one minority candidate, but two. Two! We had, first, a woman running for the Democratic nomination. Then we had a black man running also. So right there, in the primaries alone, we were making history. Amazing stuff. Then, as if that wasn't enough, we saw a true, nail-biting race worthy of the Kentucky Derby. All the big money was on the favorite, the known quantity, a political dynasty in the making. And then what happens? The dark horse (pun not intended), the relative unknown comes up from behind and suddenly anything was possible. From week to week, from one primary to the next, nothing was for sure. If there was a primary like it before this one, it didn't happen in my memory.

Now we have a Democratic candidate, a new face, going up against the old guard GOP. And you would think that the guy with the most history, the most political savvy, would be a shoe in. You would think it would be a no-brainer, that everyone would side with the more comfortable known quantity; but no. Instead it has been another neck-and-neck battle. This election has had so many twists and turns that even now it seems like anything might be possible. Throughout first the primaries and now the Presidential Election, nothing has been certain from one week to the next. It makes it hard to be cynical about the outcome, whichever way it goes. For the first time, the American public has had some real choices and have been out there making their choices known. It's an amazing time, and you should get out there and be a part of it. Regardless of whether your horse wins or loses, you should not sit this one out because you will be passing up the chance to take part in history.

No one candidate is going to have all the right answers, regardless of who wins. And, as I have made it a point to say before, the Presidency is about more than just one issue. It's not just about your stand on abortion, stem cell research, Darwinism, religious freedom, the war in Iraq, or, even, just the economy. No one issue should ever, EVER sway your vote. You are voting for the person who will be recognized as the leader of the United States. It has been said that the Presidency is a figure-head position. Maybe, maybe not. But it is true that this person will be the face of the U.S. to the rest of the world. This is the person who we will hold up as our representative. And there is so much more to being an American than just one issue. We are an amalgam. A mix of not just cultures and religions, but of political beliefs. We are not just conservative in our outlook, we are also liberal. We lean not just to the left, but also to the right and sometimes square in the middle of the road. We are not just rich, we are also poor and middle class. We are not just Anglo, we are also every ethnicity on the face of the earth. We are religious and we are atheist. We are educated and we are blue-collar. We are urban, suburban, small town and country folk. We are farmers and mechanics and doctors and lawyers. We are rebels and we are law-abiding. We are strong and we are compassionate.

So. If you are a U.S. citizen and over the age of 18, you need to vote. Vote because you can. Vote because you should. Vote your conscience and vote your heart. Vote for the person you think will best represent us as a nation. But, mostly, vote.

The Rabbits Didn't Win

Edited to fix an obvious but possibly amusing typo which nobody could be bothered to tell me about. Oh no, I had to discover it for myself. Probably you were too busy laughing at me.

So, as you may recall from back in the spring/early summer, I had this little issue with cute little furry bunnies ravaging my garden. There's a reason that God made some animals especially cute; it's the only thing that saves them. Out of all the veggies I originally planted, the only things remaining are the crook necked squash, the tomatoes, and one lone banana pepper plant. It goes to show just how hardy nature can be, because that lone pepper plant had been completely denuded (why "de" nuded? Shouldn't it be just "nuded"?) of leaves. But it survived and has a single actual pepper on it right now. If the weather hold, I may yet get a second one. But I digress.


It wasn't just the veggies. At one point the furbags had gone through all my flowers, too. They had all been de-flowered (I'm sure that's right) and some had been et right down to the ground. But, as I said, nature is hardy and it looks like they've all come back. Because of the bunnies I only got this one corner planted. I didn't see much point in putting flowers into the long bed (slightly visible to the left of this photo) just to feed the critters, so I let the other bed go barren. But as I said, nature is one tough gal, and I actually had a few tenacious pansies hang in there for most of the summer. They're gone now - pansies don't like the heat much - but they flowered for much longer than I had anticipated. Oh, I did put in some bleeding heart on the other side of the fence which is doing nicely. I even spotted a lone flower which was a nice surprise because I wasn't expecting anything from it until next year.

Here's a close up of one side of that corner garden. Those bright orange/yellow things are lantana. That's one of my favorite things to plant because they grow like crazy but require no upkeep, not even deadheading. The pink stuff is pentas, the long green blades are from a variety of lily - I forget which - that won't bloom until next year. As you can see from the photo above, there is also some purpley stuff, as well as some coreopsis, which has some buds but not current flowers.

The lantana and a few other things are annual and so won't repeat for me next year. But that's okay because it's too crowded in there right now anyway.

Is It Just Me?

I'll admit that I'm not the most active person. I live by the motto "why walk when you can lay down and take a nap." I know that there are oodles of people out there who are way more productive than I am and are happier for it. But lately it seems to have reached maniacal heights.

These people are tiring me out just listening to them. And it's nearly impossible to not listen since, along with the hyper activity, there also seems to be a need to justify their existence by telling everyone. Hello? I am not in charge of awarding gold stars, keep it to yourself. Am I supposed to be impressed by the person who belongs to three separate running groups? I'm not. I think it's insane. Running with one group could be considered exercise; more than that and I have to wonder what it is they are trying to run from.

If they aren't obsessing about exercise, it's something else. Work two jobs, save the planet and, if there's any time left, raise a back to nature family by growing your own granola. And they want everyone else to join them in jumping on the hamster wheel Squeak, squeak, squeak. Am I the only one noticing that hamsters never actually go anywhere?

I think it's a conspiracy. There's a radical group at work here whose aim is to keep everyone so busy that they never notice that (a) they aren't accomplishing anything other than wearing themselves out, and (b) the planet is being taken over. Probably by a giant rodent species from another planet who think it's amusing to watch humans run around in circles for a change. And we won't be able to fight back because we're all too tired to think straight.

I propose a counter attack. Everyone take a day, once a week, and do nothing. If you really can't do a whole day (some people will need to build up to it slowly) try for an hour. Don't improve yourself, don't join anything, don't start something, don't be productive. Instead, sleep in. Then get up and take a nap. If that gets old, read a book, count raindrops, watch clouds go by or look at the night sky and wonder what drugs the ancients were on when they decided that a group of stars looked just like a bull, fish, goat, whatever.

Slow down. Take a deep breath and relax. Tomorrow will still come, but today won't last forever. Take some time to appreciate it while you can.

Yarn Tails

I've got a few things I'm working on. Over the long weekend I tackled the sleeveless top I had worked on in June. It was supposed to be finished, but I was never really happy with the edging aroung the armholes. And I had no excuse for ignoring it because I had spare yarn and I knew the edging would be easy enough to unravel without harming the the rest of the garment. I don't know why it took me this long to fix it, because it's only a few rows around. Anyway, it's done. The original edging had an odd flair to it that was unintentional and seemed to get more obvious as the fabric softened. I don't know what went wrong. This time I added slight decreases with each round and I'm much happier.

Nearly finished with the t-shirt. Into the home stretch, anyway. The back side is completely done and I'm into the sleeve portion of the front (working bottom to top) so this should be done in a few weeks, tops. I'm debating giving the pieces a soak in hot water to tighten the stitches. Probably I should experiment on the swatch first. Here is a picture of the work in progress. Note that I still need to work in the neckline, in addition to to finishing the sleeves.

Oh, and I've been fooling around with knitting! I learned as a child, same as I did crochet. I took to crochet more readily but I've encountered so many tempting knit patterns recently that I'm thinking I want to try it again. I picked up one of those "teach yourself" kits and tried out a few stitches one afternoon. Just knit and purl, and getting the hang of binding off to finish a piece. I need to work with more techniques but I think this might work out. The kit included two sizes of needles and a booklet with decent illustrations. We'll see, but I'm feeling inspired.