Happy B-Day USA

232 years ago today, the Declaration Of Independence was ratified, and a new nation was born from the union of 13 upstart colonies.

A little experiment was started with a republican form of government. We’re still experimenting.

I don’t always agree with whoever sits in the oval office at any given time. And I don’t always agree with what Congress is doing. And I don’t always agree with the rulings of the Supreme Court. But the beauty of our system is that none of them can do irreparable damage in the long run. And while I sometime gotta wonder what my fellow voters were thinking, no irreparable harm is done there, either. Change may sometime come very slowly, but change comes and errors are corrected, and good things happen, and we vote the @#%^ out of office, and vote in new @#%^, and the wheel turns.

It’s not a perfect society. But, thank the universe, it’s mostly self-correcting. We may get off track sometimes, but eventually we remember the principles that this country was founded on. And freedom wins out. And liberty wins out. And justice wins out. And compassion. And peace.

Although we sometimes seem to have lost our collective sense of humor, we do usually have one. Americans work hard and play hard. We are a young country (relatively), and like young people we are unafraid and a little arrogant and sometimes a bit brash. We love challenges and new frontiers and big adventures.

We’re pretty friendly with our ex’s across the big pond now. But sometimes I think our nearest neighbors might look askance at some of the weeds we allow to grow in our back yard. Please give us a chance to work a little change and get a some of that cleaned up.

For all our issues, this is still, in my opinion, the greatest country on earth. I can’t imagine wanting to live anywhere else.

Happy birthday!

a little yarn pr0n

We’re a bit short on knitting content here, gentle reader, so I am distracting you with offering instead this little bit of yarn pr0n.

To the left is Rio de la Plata Multicolor Sock in SP35. The label specifies this colorway as being a combination of Cappuccino, Iguana, Sudan Brown, Sparkling Grape, Sky Blue and Red Orange. It’s 437 yds of 100% Merino superwash. I blame ~Kristie for this one. After seeing this yarn on her blog, I just had to have some. Mine came from The Loopy Ewe.

To the right is Pagewood Farm Glacier Bay Hand Dyed Sock Yarn in Mocha. It’s 450 yards of 100% Merino superwash, and I have no one to blame for this one but myself. I saw it hanging on the rack in All About Yarn when my current class started, and I knew immediately it was coming home with me. Although it’s called Mocha, there is definite hints of grapiness. Love it!

Not sure which will be on my needles next. Who knows what shiny new thing might come along…

On a different subject, you know how you have that nameless, ball-bandless hank of yarn in the bottom of your knitting basket that you don’t have enough of and you really like but you can’t remember what it was so you can’t get more of it? Fess up, now. We all have one or two hanging around. I use mine for test swatches, because otherwise there’s not enough for anything else. I wish I could get more. But no idea what it is.

A bunch of us were talking the other day about how nice it would be if there were someplace like the County Extension Agency, only for yarn.

If a strange weed that you don’t recognize pops up in your yard, or an odd bug crawls into your house and you don’t know if you should be worried or not, you can take the thing over to the Extension Agency and they can identify it and tell you what to do about it (if anything). Why isn’t there a place where I can take my unknown yarn?

I picture being able to bring in an unknown skein. A Master Yarn Identifier would look at it closely - maybe with a magnifying glass. Perhaps there would be comparisons made to a vast array of sample yarns. And after due consideration my unknown would be handed back to me and the Master Yarn Identifier would say Oh yes. That’s Koigu KPPM in colorway 5290, dyelot ABC. [ed. is dyelot too much to ask?] That yarn was produced in 2004. Don’t see much of it any more. Have a nice day.

I know I’m dreaming. But wouldn’t that be nice?

[ed. I must have been 1/2 asleep this morning. I just realized that this post had no title, which makes it rather anonymous in the archives and such. So I gave it one.]

sizzling garden

A week ago last Saturday, I taught a sock class at a LYS, came home and went to bed. And there I stayed for several days, fighting off some chesty, 102F fever, cold thing. Last week my world contracted to include only necessary tasks: Feeding the fur kids, drinking lots of liquids, teleconferences I could not avoid or delegate, and as much sleep as I could get between bouts of coughing. I left the house only once, and only because I had completely scraped the bottom of the cat-food barrel, the kids had not had breakfast, it was now dinner time and three pairs of eyes were glaring at me accusingly. There is only one place on the entire metro-area west-side where the only food that Kidd can (and will) eat is available. I crawled over there, figuratively speaking, and crawled home. The fur kids were pleased. I went back to bed.

Then one of those bizarre flash heat-waves that we in Portland just love hit. I was actually sort of glad because the heat has been fairly effectively baking the ick out.

The first picture shows my garden sizzling under 100F (that’s like 38C or so). Note that I am standing in the shade of the grape arbor. It was almost tolerable in the shade. In the sun, it was very, very hot.

water applied

A mere 24 hours later, this was the scene. We’re having a summer thunderstorm. I am standing under the grape arbor in an effort to stay fairly dry. The rain, not content with flooding the street out front, has been having fun knocking the petals off the roses.

You know what happens when you pull a hot frying pan off the stove and put it directly under a running faucet? Sizzle. Steam. Sizzle. That’s about what it feels like now. But I did feel a cool breeze through the window just a bit ago. And the air smells so after-rain good.

I think the rain came because I watered my lawn this morning. Not that there’s really any connection there, you know. But… it’s odd how often that happens. Just saying.

But that’s not what I wanted to chat with you about today, gentle reader.

A while back I was one of a group of people in a workshop. At one point, the moderator asked us all to close our eyes and try not to think of anything until time was called. So I closed my eyes and dutifully attempted to clear my mind and waited and waited and waited until finally I heard time. We all agreed that the wait had seemed lengthy.

Now close your eyes again, the moderator said. But this time I want you to prioritize 5 things that you need to do when you leave here.

I made it through about 3 or 4 things when I heard time. I couldn’t believe that we’d been given such a short period to do this task, when the previous period had been so long.

Well… it turned out that both had been exactly 10 seconds.

You can try this yourself, gentle reader. You will need someone to help you with timing. But it’s worth trying. Go ahead. I’ll wait right here.

Back? Isn’t it amazing? The point of the whole exercise was that time may seem very different to one who has nothing to do but wait for another, in contrast to how time seems to the one who is frantically trying to get something for the one who’s waiting. Time really is relative. Or, as Einstein said, Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.

This week, when my focus was narrowed by illness, time hung heavy through the long nights. At one point I remember thinking, why aren’t the days this long when I feel good enough to do something besides lie here and cough my lungs out? And the answer, of course, is because then I have a bazillion things that have to be done right now and I can barely keep the list of the top 5 prioritized in my brain, let alone actually take care of them.

For years I’ve had an internal dialog with myself about how I’ll have lots of time, just as soon as some future event happens: #1 Son learns how to drive so I don’t have to cart him around. This project ends. #1 Son moves out. I get past the holidays.

Of course, it never happens. I never get caught up. When one task ends - be it obligation or recreation - another two or three arise to take its place. And most of them are things I like to do, and so time just flies. I’m afraid I will have to either pare my life down to nothing or only do things I don’t like so it feels like they take longer. Neither choice seems palatable.

How do you deal with all of the forty-seven-million things that are demanding your attention?

Andes Mints toes

Look! I’ve been knitting!

I haven’t gotten very far with this pair yet because I just don’t seem to have half the knitting time that I think I should. This work thing seriously cuts into my knitting and social life. Seriously. It’s a pity that it seems to be so necessary, eh?

This is Stitchjones Supersock in Andes Mints. Yum! This is a smooshy soft 100% superwash merino yarn that’s a joy to knit with. The color is a bit off in this picture. What looks blue-ish is really a lovely minty green. Be sure to go look at the other great colorways - color goes to 11, oh yes it does! Go on, and look. I’ll wait right here.

Stitchjones is available locally at Twisted and All About Yarn, or you can buy directly from her Etsy shop. I’m lucky enough to knit with the lovely Stitchjones proprietress, which is really convenient but rather hard on my pocketbook, if ya know what I mean.

Jude The Obscure

Since I don’t have a lot of knitting pictures, I will distract treat you to some pictures of my garden.

The roses weren’t in bloom for Rose Festival this year because our spring has been so lousy, but they’re at the peak right now. This is Jude The Obscure. I wish that I could somehow hook up a virtual scratch-n-sniff so you could smell this rose. It’s amazing. The aroma drifts in through my open doors and windows, and my whole house smells of Jude.

Eyepaint

This is Eyepaint. My camera struggles a lot with this red, even when taking pictures on an overcast day, as this was. But it really is bright! I love looking out and seeing all of the red and white flowers dancing in the breezes. The reverse of the petals is white, so they look like they’re blinking. Thus the name, I suppose.

#1 Son called from Germany, and again last night from Barcelona. They are apparently doing very well with this tour and he’s having the time of his life.

Tangle farewell party

Last Thursday the usual suspects held a little goodbye party for Tangle Knitting Studio. It was a chance to laugh and cry and reminisce. And there may have been adult beverages involved. (Did you know, gentle reader, that there’s such a thing as blueberry vodka? And it’s not, actually, blue? Whodda thunk it.) And there was plenty of food, too. We’re not just a bunch of lushes.

I feel like I have lost something that can’t be replaced. But I know that Thursday Night Knitting will continue, in some way, in some place. I probably won’t be able to buy yarn at the same time, but the important thing is that I will still be able to see my knitbuds on a semi-regular basis. I’ll just have to plan to come with plenty of yarn. It can be done.

It’s not like I don’t have an extra project or two on the needles.

Thursday night was also the night before #1 Son took of for a whirlwind tour of Europe with his band. And it is whirlwind - 28 shows in 9 countries in 28 days. Thursday night, the plan was that #1 Son would drop his car off at my house around 9:30 PM and I would give him a ride back to his house. They had a ride to the airport arranged for Friday morning, so I would tell him goodbye when I dropped him off. But I will pick him up on his way back home next month. That was the plan. This is how the timeline actually worked out:

[10:00 PM]
#1 Son (on the phone): Hi, Mom. I have just a bit of running round still to do. I should be there really soon.

[10:30 PM]
#1 Son (on the phone): Hi, Mom. It’s taking me longer than I thought. A lot longer. I’ll be there as soon as I can. It’s probably going to be late, though.

Mom: It’s already kinda late.

#1 Son: I know. Sorry. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Lots of stuff to do. I’m leaving for Europe tomorrow!

Mom: I am aware of that.

[Midnight]
#1 Son arrives home. He still has stuff to do, mostly involving my computer and printer. The Truck has usurped the place in front of my house again, so he parked in my driveway, but way over to the side so I might be able to squeeze out past it (I park in the garage).

[12:50 AM]
#1 Son is ready to leave. We hop into my car. I back out carefully, avoiding his car, and we’re off. His phone rings constantly. In between brief, monosyllabic phone conversations, he give me driving directions. Don’t go that way. Turn left here. Take the freeway north, then east.

[1:11 AM] - we are almost to #1 Son’s house
#1 Son: $#!&

Mom: What?

#1 Son: I left my guitar and the bass in my car. We have to go back.

Mom (looking for nearest freeway exit to turn car around): $#!&

#1 Son (to caller on phone): Yeah. I know your ride is leaving my house. Go ahead and go home and I’ll just have my mom drop your bass off at your house. [ed. note - that's as far from #1 Son's house as my house - only in the opposite direction]

[1:30] - we arrive back at my house

[1:32] - we leave again. (Take the freeway again only go past my house. Head east. I’ll tell you where to get off. No! Turn left here!) - guess who said that

[2:10] - we arrive at the bass player’s house (I have to think of a good name for him, suggestions welcome). I wait in the car while #1 Son and Bass Player have a long conversation including many gestures and pointing at a sheet of paper that has something #1 Son has written on it.

[2:20] - we leave Bass Player’s house

#1 Son: Get on the freeway.

Mom: No.

#1 Son: But it’s faster! We’ll have to go through downtown if you go this way!

Mom: It’s 2:30 in the morning. I’m incredibly tired. I don’t want to drive on the freeway. It won’t take that much longer.

#1 Son (to caller on phone): It’s going to take longer than I thought. My mom won’t take the freeway so we have to drive through downtown. It’s going to take forever. I’ll be there as soon as I can. [ed. note: it added less than 10 minutes to the trip]

[2:40] - we arrive at #1 Son’s house

#1 Son: It’s really late. I’ll probably just stay up all night ’cause I can sleep on the plane tomorrow.

Mom (wishing she had a plane to sleep on tomorrow): I love you. Have a wonderful time. Be safe. Come home safe.

#1 Son: I will, Mom. I love you!

[note: he called me last night from Germany. The tour is going well. He is having the time of his life. I've almost caught up on my sleep.]