“Fasten Your Seatbelts. It’s Going To Be A Bumpy Ride.”

Allow me to paraphrase Bette Davis’ famous quote from “All About Eve.”

It took “Dubbya” three years to reach a 50% disapproval rating.  It took our loose cannon of a current President 8 days to hit 49%. Hate to say I told you so, but . . . .

A poster I missed on my post about posters from The Women’s March was this one being held by Sir Ian McKellen.  He found it while participating in the Women’s March.  The sign is made from a picture of Patrick Stewart in his role as Enterprise Captain Jean Luc Picard doing a facepalm. Then Patrick Stewart’s response (below) appeared on Facebook with the perfect tag, “Inception.”

(McKellen also noted that “trump” is British schoolyard slang for “passing wind.”  Somebody needs a “My Indian Name Is* ” tee shirt . . . )

Then there’s this, which started out as a Dr. Seuss drawing from WWII in protest of the US’s isolationist policy.  I kinda tweaked it just a hair.

OK.  That’s enough politics for this post.

In the knitting news, I’ve spent the afternoon writing a knitting pattern for a Pussy Hat.  (I knew I got that hot pink yarn for a reason . . . .)  The pattern on the internet was for straight flat knitting folded over and seamed up each side, but I hate seaming knitted things . . .

You will find my seamless, top-down version of the PussyHat here:  And here are some pics.  It was an interesting design challenge that had me dipping into my bag of tricks . . .

The Turkish cast on, for going two directions at the same time without a seam down the middle (used for toe up socks), gives the “folded over” look.

The Magic Loop method allows for shaping of the top which produces the pointy ears while allowing you to knit in the round something that would otherwise have to be knitted flat and seamed up the side.

Because knitting in the round makes it seamless on the sides.

The ears take shape.  Once you get this far, you have enough slack that you can knit it off onto a 16-inch circular needle.

From here on in, it knits up just like a regular hat, all in one piece.

*
For a college man: My Indian Name is “Runs with Beer”
For a teenaged boy: My Indian Name is “Head in the Refrigerator”
For a teenaged girl: My Indian Name is “Talks with Her Thumbs”
For the current President: My Indian Name is “Passing Wind.”

Starlings in Winter

Common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) Image Source: Wikipedia Commons

Those alert readers may have noted a quotation from a poem by Mary Oliver at the top of the sidebar on the right.  It’s from “Starlings in Winter.” Many people are not familiar with Oliver’s work, nor the context of the quote, so I thought I’d share the full text of the poem (below).  Flocks of starlings are called a “murmuration.”

Starlings are not native to North America.  About 60-100 common starlings were released into New York City’s Central Park in 1890 by Eugene Schieffelin. He was president of the American Acclimatization Society, a misguided (and environmentally irresponsible) group of people whose aim was to introduce every bird species mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare into North America.  Starlings are an invasive species in the US and their introduction has had a very deleterious effect on native bird populations.  The current population of starlings is around 150-200 million.

The poem makes reference to a thing starlings do at sunset when they’re gathering to roost for the night.  Video © 2013 Paul Bunyard-Wild About Images.

Starlings in Winter

by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

From:

Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

Copyright ©:  Mary Oliver

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch . . .

Things are happening, and I’m not sure whether or not I’m going to blog about it yet, or ever.  However, I will say, for those who were concerned about the fine needle biopsy result, it was negative for breast cancer.

This post is just a collection of goodies gleaned from current events and whatnot that I wanted to put where I could find them again.

First this excerpt from an interview of Lois McMaster Bujold that was up on the Tor website which gives you a big clue why I like her writing.  She is speaking here of her Vorkosigan saga books:

ECM: When and how did you decide (or realize) that Jole and Aral were lovers?

LMB: “Decide” is probably too strong a word, but the possible development existed in my mind pretty much from the moment Jole walked onstage for the first time in The Vor Game, back when I was writing it in 1989. It rode along as a potential in what I called “Schrödinger’s Cat Carrier” for many years thereafter.

It’s that “Schrödinger’s Cat Carrier.”  Of course, “Schrödinger’s Cat” refers to a famous “thought experiment.”  Her random subatomic event was when she came back to the Vorkosigan-verse after a decade’s hiatus and wrote Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen.

I marched Saturday, but only in spirit.  I thought I’d share some favorite signs of the times from those who did. (Most of these came from Mark Hamill‘s Twitter feed): (No apologies for the language).

Poster designed by Mississippi artist Hayley Williams

For those who don’t “get” the sign on the left, it refers to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that states laws which made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy were unconstitutional.

This one is my favorite, for both the sign and the boy.

I was heartened and glad to see the percentage of men marching in solidarity with the women.   The thing I find most astonishing about the Women’s March — Millions of people marched in hundreds of cities all across the United States.   Millions.  There was no violence, no destruction of property, and only 4 people were arrested during the march.  In the whole United States.  Four.

Again, sans segue, when I was checking the weather forecast, I found that the Weather Channel had compiled a chart of the windiest cities in America: Cities #1 (Tx), #3 (Tx), and #5 (KS) are all out on the Great Plains of the central US, where there is a very noticeable lack of anything to deflect or divert the wind.   No surprise that two of the top three cities are in the Texas Panhandle.  In fact, City #1 is about 130 miles north of City #3, and it’s been right windy in both of those two cities of late, as in wind speeds of 25-40 mph (40-64 kph).

To change subjects again without the slightest attempt at a segue,  I had an interesting conversation in a waiting room today.  There were only three of us waiting, a Black man and a white woman, and me.  There was a TV in the waiting room tuned to CNN, and Carrie Fisher was mentioned (see above).  It was a short jump from Star Wars to Star Trek.   The white woman mentioned how the communicator devices on the original Star Trek series inspired the invention of cell phones.  I contributed that the idea of the automatic “self-opening” door also came from the original Star Trek series.  The Black man mentioned that Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) was his first love.  I told him that at one point Nichelle Nichols had decided to leave Star Trek to sing on Broadway, but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. urged her to remain on the show as she was such a positive role model at a very crucial time in American history and in the Civil Rights movement. Dr. King convinced her to stay. The Black man had never heard that particular story, and I was honored to be able to share it with him and watch him embrace it.  It was a gleaming moment in an otherwise long and rather bootless day.

In the knitting news, I ended up getting a second ChiaoGoo Red Lace size US10 (6.0 mm) 60 inch circular knitting needle as I am currently, and concurrently, knitting two “Malguri Morning” shawls.  The longer needles will accommodate the large number of stitches I will end up binding off to finish the shawls.  Each shawl uses 8 skeins of yarn and increases two stitches every two rows, so you wind up with a lot of stitches.  I could only get 6 skeins of the Northern Lights color, which is the “self-striping” (variegated) color at right, but the Electric Blue solid color matches the blue in it so I’m adding in two solid stripes of it.  The second stripe will be narrower.  That’s the thing with the variegated yarn; as the “triangle” becomes wider at the top, the stripes become narrower.

Oh, and here’s a pix of my favorite knitting accessory — the fat(cat)boy. The lap robe covering my foots is one I made out of a twin-size microfleece blanket.  We’re very leopard printy in the living room.  My furniture is all brown leather and the print adds interesting visual texture.  The red/oxblood/orange/gold of the flowers and drapes add that little pop of color among the earth tones.

Putting that pane of glass over the fireplace opening has made the room noticeably warmer.

 

How to Enjoy Your Bagpipe

The easiest way is to let the inimitable Anna Russel tell you all about it.

Not Happy Right Now

Last night, I emailed the VA to ask if there were any test results yet from my biopsy Friday.  I went to bed at 2 a.m.  After I took my meds at 9 o’clock this morning, I rolled over and went back to sleep.  When I woke up at 4 pm this afternoon.  I booted up the computer and found I had a message.

“Your biopsy report was given to *******, NP, this morning. She is
seeing scheduled patients, but I will let her know your are inquiring about
your results and will give her your message regarding the concerns you are
having. Thank you.”

Did anybody from the VA call me or try to get in contact with me, or leave me another email Wednesday?

If you do the math, 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. is 7 hours, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. is another 7 hours.

WOL Did It In The Library With A Knitting Needle

A knitting needle is not among the choice of murder weapons available in the game of Clue, but then, we did do it in the Library tonight — our knitting group routinely meets in the meeting room in a branch of our local city library.  Only tonight, there was a sign on the door of the room we usually meet in that read:

“Knitters are meeting in juvenile fiction tonight.”

Since we do not pay to use the room, we get bumped when there are paying customers.  Not sure who it was who bumped us tonight, but when that happens we meet in the library proper (in the juvenile fiction section, oddly enough).  Tonight, we had three regulars, a second-timer, a newbie, eight Brownies and four troop leaders. The Brownies (Girl Scouts in the making) were about 7 or 8 years old.  They had decided they were going to learn to knit and/or crochet. Let’s just say some of them were more motivated than others. One of our regulars is a southpaw, so it fell to the other two of us to instruct — and the other lady had sprained her right thumb rather badly and had a ginormous brace on it.  Since I’m a switch hitter and can both knit and crochet, I got the lion’s share of the teaching duty.

In other news, my sink disposal unit was acting up the other day.  In my experience the first stage of troubleshooting such problems is:  When you flip the switch, does nothing happen or does it buzz at you?  If you flip the switch and nothing happened, then you find the reset button on the bottom of the unit and press it.  If that doesn’t work, it’s broke and needs to be fixed/replaced.  If it just buzzes at you, that means it’s “bound down” and you need to take a special Allen wrench that is provided by the manufacturer and loosen a hex nut on the underside of the unit.  Typically, when a plumber installs a disposal, the Allen wrench that comes with it ends up in the plumber’s toolbox. . .

Because of all the plumbing issues I had in the apartment, I got to know the main handymen, and they got to know that I was a Toolbelt Diva.  About the second time my disposal “bound down” and one of them had to come over to loosen the nut back up, they just gave me the Allen wrench and showed me where the nut was.  The Allen wrench went into my tool box . . . where it still was the other day when the disposal here got “bound down.”  A small matter of popping out to my toolbox in the garage, getting the wrench and loosening the nut.  Took five minutes, max, and beats the heck out of paying a plumber $60 or $70 bucks to come out and do it.

When I came back from getting my biopsy Friday, my “check tires” light was lit on my car.  I couldn’t see that any of the tires was visibly low, but I just knew when I went out Saturday to check again, I’d have a flat tire.  Nope.  When I checked Saturday, I still couldn’t tell that any of the tires were low on air.  Before I went to knitting group, I went to mom’s to help her put Christmas decorations back up in the attic and to change out a light bulb for her in this one fixture she has a hard time getting the cover off of.  When I set off for her house, the “check tire” light was still lit.  Unfortunately, I do not have a tire pressure gauge (I should probably get one) and it was too late in the afternoon to make it to the oil change place (where they also check tires) before they closed. I was thinking I’d need to make a trip out Wednesday to get that seen to, but when I got into my car at my mom’s house to go to knitting group, the tire pressure light did not light up.  Don’t know why.  It’s mysterious.

Early Tuesday Thoughts.

You could call it superstition, but I’m watchful of my mindset when I’m knitting things that are to go to other people.  If I’m listening to music, I choose peaceful, restful music.  If I’m watching TV, I choose the knitting project that will fit with the subject matter of the program or choose the program that is compatible with the piece. I try to think how a piece might best meet the need it’s intended to for as well as what color(s) and design(s) might be appropriate to that person. (A braided cable for a dear friend trying to deal with moving on after the unexpected and sudden death of his partner of 30 years, a twisted cable for strengthening and anchoring for a lady doing what is traditionally a man’s job. . .)  It’s why I stringently resist knitting for hire. It puts my head in a not-good place and bad vibes get knitted into the thing.  Before you scoff at me for getting all hippy-dippy, consider this.  The idea of intention and how it affects the end product is such a pervasive one across so many human cultures, there must be something to it.  What goes around comes around.

Putting the markers at either end of the right side on the shawls I’m working on has done the trick.  I can’t put them on the needles between stitches, though because of the increases (two stitches every other row), so I have to hook them into the knitting itself.  And I have to keep moving them up, which makes them progress markers in a way.  I’ll be just knitting along and then realize the markers are about 5 or 6 rows below the row I’m working on and I have to stop and move them up. The yarn I’m using is the so-called “self striping” kind — the yarn color is variegated according to a specific color palette — and the length of yarn between color changes is fairly constant as near as I can tell, so the width of the stripe changes as the number of stitches on the needle increases, and that changes the pattern of color in subtle ways. It’s about 30 inches across now, but it has quite a way to go yet.  I’ll work on this one til the end of the ball, and then I’ll work on the other one for a while.  I bought a set of ChiaoGoo US10 (6.0 mm) needles in the 60-inch length especially for this project.

Each shawl uses 8 skeins of yarn.  The yarn comes in those stupid pull-skeins, which I always promptly wind into a ball.  Some people just love the pull skeins, but they drive me crazy.  They’re too light and tend to get dragged toward you when you pull on them, and when you get down towards the end of the skein they have a nasty habit of imploding into a big tangle, and then you have to stop and untangle the mess.  A ball in a bowl works for me.  The ball unrolls smoothly out of the bowl and helps me keep an even tension   I have these two bowls just alike that I bought at Pier 1.  They’re just the right size and I like the pretty design.  I have one on my computer desk and one on the reader’s table in the living room.

Lunch was a sandwich made on “English toasting” bread which was, oddly enough, lightly toasted.  It had morselized bits of chicken in between two slices of Muenster cheese, melted in the microwave. (Yesterday I had some Muenster cheese melted over a slice of bacon on a piece of toasted ciabatta bread!)  I had a can of Mandarin orange slices on the side, which I ate juice and all. I’m allergic to “regular” oranges, but I can eat the “Mandarin” (satsuma) orange just fine.  One of my mother’s brothers, HJ, used to grow them. I have happy childhood memories of going to the bus station to get a large cardboard box full of satsumas that uncle H had shipped up to his baby sister, and of there being satsuma seeds, veins and peels in every ash tray in the house for at least a week afterward (my dad smoked at that time, a bad habit he brought home from WWII).   Those oranges were such a treat.   (One time he came to visit with a suitcase full of purple-hulled pea pods from his garden.  Mom passed out bowls and paper sacks and we shelled peas and visited.)

Frankly, I wish the orange grove was still there, but he got too old to work it any more, and sold the land.  It was right in the middle of prime real estate by then as Pearland grew out around his property.  They bulldozed all his orange trees.  That old road paved with crushed shell is all gone now, as are all the little wood frame houses up and down it where my relatives lived.  It’s Yost Boulevard now, and there’s million-dollar homes (above) where his orange grove used to be.  Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

Hunkered Down

It was a fine needle biopsy, of just the one lymph node, and no big deal.  I am minus two tiny snibbits of tissue and got a yellow left armpit from the betadine scrub and a Band-Aid out of the deal. To be truthful, the stick from the local anesthesia injection was the worst bit and it was no worse than a flu shot.

The weather was uncooperative.  We got our snow in the morning, such as there was of it, but the roads were pretty clear and not icy to speak of and at least the drivers I encountered were driving in a safe and sane manner.  Usually, snow means Demolition Derby Day in these parts, and I suspect that the worst drivers are the ones that attend our local university — and classes don’t start for another two weeks.

Did not get my “man cowl” finished in time to wear, but I had another one I could use — and did — and was, oh, so grateful for it.  The temperature was in the teens, but the wind (10-15 mph/16-24 kph) chill factor vacillated between 6 F (-14.4 C) and 0 F (-17.7 C).  I know there are large parts of the country who would be delighted to trade us for our current weather, but I remind them, we don’t get this kind of weather often, and when we do, we simply do not have the infrastructure in place to cope with it.  The people here don’t know how to deal with it, drive in it or dress for it — assuming they even have appropriate clothing available.  Fortunately, I have lived in more northerly climes and I know how to layer.  I had my cowl  to pull up over my nose and the hood of my nice warm coat between my ears, nose and the wind-chill, unlike the other two people who joined me in the waiting room.  The older woman at least had a hat, a long wool coat and a scarf, but the twenty-something girl had on a short jean jacket and didn’t even have a hat.

I was so very fortunate to find a parking space in the back row of the closest lot to the entrance, so I only had to hike about 60 yards to get inside the building.  The footing was pretty stable — the snow had not had time to compact or freeze and I was wearing my “running shoes”/trainers so had good traction.  They had already sanded the walkway by the time I got there.  I had to hike three times as far inside the building to get to where I needed to go.  Because I didn’t take a book or knitting, I had to wait almost 45 minutes before they came and got me.  Still, it didn’t take long to do the deed, and I was out of there and driving off by noon.

I did go out of my way to go to another store than the one I’d planned to go to, but it was a bigger store and had a bigger selection of tea, increasing my chances of finding what I wanted — which I did.  And it really wasn’t all that far out of my way.

Beetil (my 2015 Toyota Corolla) has an anti-skid braking system which I hadn’t had cause to use before, so I was a bit surprised when it kicked in the first time.  Of course, I quickly realized what had happened and adjusted my driving accordingly.  Newton’s laws are called “laws” for a reason. . .  Break one and you will be punished, summarily and immediately.

I got home right at 12:30 with my two boxes of Tazo Chai.  Knowing my mom, I checked my land line —  to see I had a message from my mom who had called at 12:27 — so I called her to let her know that I was home safely and hardly the worse for wear.  I puttered for a few minutes, then did the sensible thing.  I went to bed.  I had a good long snooze on my freshly washed (and warm) bed linens.  At about 6 pm, I got up and made a sandwich with toast and little bites of chicken nestled in between melted slices of cheddar cheese.  Nums! Then I lay in the bed and read for a while (stopped at page 429 of a 1178-page whopper — actually three books in one volume), had another little nap, and finally got up at 11 p.m.

It’s 11 F (-11.6 C) at the moment, but Saturday’s high is forecast to be 40 F (4.44 C), so whatever snow (I doubt we even got an inch all told) is left will be gone by Saturday evening.

Passing this along to show what “thunderstorm” means out here in the flatlands.  This is what our infrastructure is designed to cope with.

New Beginnings

A new year.  New projects.  New challenges.  I began the second Malguri Morning shawl on the agenda in the same Loops & Threads Charisma but in the color “Northern Lights.”  I’ve got enough yarn in that color to make a third shawl (for myself) in the same pattern.  I like the blues/purple/black color combination.  Not my favorite green, though.  Those are my new US10(6.00 mm) 32-inch ChiaoGoo Red Lace needles I’m using to knit it, which I really like.  I’ve got a US10 (6.00 mm) 40-inch pair of them which are supposed to be here by tomorrow evening.  I think I will be gradually acquiring more of these needles in different sizes to replace my bamboo needles. I like the way the ChiaoGoo’s feel and the way they handle.  The cord between the needles does not kink or !sproing! like the nylon cord does, even when it’s cold.

I made a very obvious mistake on the first Malguri Morning shawl owing to not paying attention to what was supposed to happen at the end of a row, didn’t catch it for about three inches and had to fix it.  Ripping out and reknitting about 8 rows of what eventually ends up being fifteen or so stitches on one edge beats ripping out eight rows of the whole thing, but it’s tricky because of the increases that happen every other row with this pattern. But I got it fixed. I need to put some stitch markers on it at each end to mark the right side, as a visual cue to remind me what happens when.  I put some on the one I just started and that has helped a great deal.  This one is “resting” now while I work on the other one a while.   The yarn on both these shawls is what is called “self striping” and I like the color combinations.  The Loops & Threads Charisma yarn has such a soft, snuggly “hand.”

I had yarn left over from knitting DK’s Christmas cowl, one of which is a medium:4 weight Caron Simply Soft black yarn which I “double stranded” together with the Lion Brand Homespun “Shaker” which is a bulky:5 weight.  I like the color combination — ecru, tan brown, and light grey, with the strand of solid black —  and I like that the Caron yarn “fills in the chinks” in the Homespun yarn. I’m making a plain, simple “man cowl” (nothing but k1, p1 ribbing) for myself out of it.    I’m going to try to get it finished tonight, because I’m going to need it in the morning as the forecast is for 1-2 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon.  Naturally, I have to get out in it.

It seems that not only did I flunk my mammogram, I’ve flunked my ultrasound as well and they want to do a biopsy of the lymph nodes in my armpit.  (Not borrowing trouble by worrying what this may reveal.  The time to worry is when you have something to worry about.) I am assuming it will only be on the left side, but it’s at 10 o’clock tomorrow and I’m driving myself.  I called to see what was going to be involved and I don’t have to be fasting or anything as it’s going to be under local anesthesia.  Now that I have Beetil, who has an automatic transmission, driving one handed will not be a problem.  I drive a block and a half up my street to a traffic lighted intersection, turn onto a “main drag,” which takes me all the way across town.  I turn off that street at another traffic lighted intersection to the street which goes in front of the hospital.  From there, it’s just a question of maneuvering through the parking lots and a short hike to the hospital itself.  Pretty much a straight shot there and back.

I am going to have to make a stop on my way home to get a couple of boxes of Tazo Chai, as I have 80% of an open bottle of the crème brûlée flavor coffee creamer but only two bags of Tazo Chai left and no Earl Grey. I’ve got enough Irish Breakfast and English Breakfast tea to last til I buy groceries again, but I need to use up the coffee creamer as it has been opened.  The grocery store is on the main drag and won’t be a problem getting in and out of.  Once I get done at the hospital, get my tea and get back home, I’m not stirring outside until next week. Me and the fat(cat)boy are going to hunker down, wrap up and stay warm.

We’re in for a really cold spell during the next couple of days.  As I mentioned, we’re expecting snow tomorrow, as much as 1-2 inches possible.  Tonight’s low 13 F (-10.5 C) and tomorrow’s high is only going to be 23 F (-5 C), but they’re talking wind chill of 6 F (-14 C) so I need to check the pockets of my heavy coat for gloves.  If there’s not a pair already there, I know where I have another pair.  By Tuesday, though, it’ll be back up in the 70’s F (21+ C) for daytime highs and not get below freezing at night all the rest of the week.  Only thing on the calendar for next week is knitting group Tuesday night.  I’ll see how I feel.

I’ve gotten the wash out of the dryer and have hung up what needs to be hung before it wrinkles.  Now I’ve got to take my shower and wash my hair.  Then I’ll strip my bed and start a load of sheets, towels and the clothes I’m wearing.  Then when the second load of laundry is done, I’ll make my bed with clean sheets, and I’ll have my laundry all done.  It’ll take my hair hours to dry, and I can sit and knit while that’s happening.

I slept most of the day (I try to fight my body’s natural tendency toward keeping a “night owl” schedule, but it’s an uphill fight.), so the night is still young.  I’ve noticed I don’t wake up so often during sleep now that I have that new “side-sleeper” pillow — I’ve gone from waking up every couple of hours to sleeping five and six hours at a stretch before I surface to snorkel, drowse, decide if I need to get up or not, see how close it is to 9 a.m. and decide if there’s enough time to resubmerge into sleep or whether I’ll just lie there and read for a while till the alarm goes off.

Anticipating I won’t get much done tomorrow once I get home.  I may read, or watch some TV, or I may just crash out and try to sleep.  Don’t know that I’ll get much knitting done.  We’ll see.

 

Books Read in 2017

1. A Conspiracy of Kings, Whalen Turner, Megan (reread)