kmkat and her kneedles

He's at it again.

#1 Son (called home late Saturday afternoon, giddy with excitement): Guess what I'm doing, Mom?

Me: The possibilities are endless. You took a swim in the Hudson?

#1: No, but you are close. We took the Brooklyn Bridge!*

He was not among the dozens arrested**, but his friend Claire was. He will cat-sit for her while she is in jail. Claire is such a med student -- emphasis on the student -- that she made herself a bunch of anatomy flash cards and stuffed them in her bra before the police took her so she could study if she ends up in jail for awhile.

*Apparently there were a number of protests on Friday and Saturday. He was among the group that gathered in Wall Street chanting Greed must go!*** or some such before occupying the Brooklyn-bound lanes of the Bridge.

** Unlike 2004, when he was among the 1,200 or so protesters arrested during the Republican National Convention in NYC (his group was protesting WHINSEC) and spent 40+ hours in Guantanamo on the Hudson. That time he called me on a borrowed cell phone from the middle of Broadway at 29th to say he had been arrested and was waiting to be taken away in a police bus. He was one of the last to be allowed leave the bus-garage-turned-into-a-holding-facility and saw the police spreading rugs and carpets over the oil- and grease-stained concrete floor before admitting the media to view the facility where the protesters had been housed. Because he witnessed that he became part of a class action suit against [city of New York? New York Police Department? I forget]. Somewhere I have a photo I found on the Web at the time, of the protesters lying in the middle of Broadway; #1 is lying at the front of the line.

*** In related news, I recently read The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, part of which examines (and finds true) the premise that psychopathology may be a distinct competitive advantage to a captain of industry. Based on that I fear that greed ain't goin' away anytime soon.

Percy.

Matthew and Alex got a dog. Percy is a sweet and gentle pit bull, 11 months old, from the Hennepin County Humane Society.

Matthew brought him along when he came up to the lake last weekend.

 

The earthquake report from a taciturn, low-key Scandinavian.

I emailed #1 Son in NYC to see if he felt the earthquake. His reply:

Yeah, we were on the eighth floor of the pediatrics building, and it started swaying back and forth. We all thought of terrorist attacks or some structural problem in the building before we thought of earthquakes. We were in a session where medical students present cases to a friendly attending, and the attending we were with was this very practical (though also very smart) "I'm a mom" sort of pediatrician, and then we just went on with it. But my first year friend told me they were doing CPR training and all had to evacuate the building for no reason, so yeah, Sinai did do its panic routine.

And there you have it.

Random musings.

I am a charter member of the apostrophe police, and I currently trying to find out who I need to arrest for this egregious overuse of the little curvy devils.

 
* * * * *

This year's birthday was quite restrained, but Smokey and I did go out for dinner at a very picturesque location nearby. Tthe menu turned out to be unimaginative, but the food was excellent and the setting was lovely.

* * * * *

The shawl is slowly coming off the needles, which leads me to the all important question: what to cast on next? Should it be the sweater on the left but done with vertical stripes like the swatch on the right (please turn the swatch 90˚ clockwise in your mind), using the Noro yarns below?

 

 

Alex has requested a rugby-style doggie sweater for Percy, her and Matthew's rescued pit bull terrier, and has chosen yarn from my stash:

    

I am all excited about lace knitting and am considering using some Rowan Calmer I bought on closeout at Webs for a Cece (but I would make it longer and with 3/4 sleeves):

 

(I am not fond of the color of the Calmer -- color at right side of skein is truest -- and am thinking of overdyeing it. Tea, for a browner tone? Rit, if I wanted dusky blue? Anyone have experience?)

There are a number of other project swimming in my head but I'll stop here.

* * * * *

I picked these wild blackberries three feet outside my front door.

Small but tasty.

A little catching up.

I have two finished scarves, one for me and one for the Red Scarf Project, but you are not going to see them until they are blocked and attractively staged. Instead I will catch you up on other matters.

* * * * *

The other Olde Tyme Photo, this one of The Young Couple.

* * * * *

Last week Smokey asked me what I had planned for Friday. Nothing, I replied. Good, he said, I need you to drive me to the VA in Minneapolis. He was scheduled for an epidural injection of local anesthetic and steroids into his lower back in hopes of relieving his near-constant pain, and they would not perform the procedure unless he had someone to drive him home afterwards. He was apologetic about commandeering my day (I know you have other things to do) but all I could think was, I'll have to hang around the VA all day. Knitting time!

Such are a knitter's thoughts.

The procedure went fine, no reactions or after effects, and he ended up being the one to drive us back to Wisconsin after all. It has been two days now and he says it is a miracle to be able to stand up and walk pain free. If this hadn't worked, the next step would have been surgery. The pain stems from an old injury suffered when he fell off a ladder in the mid-1980s. X-rays have shown that there are vertebrae in his back that are nowhere near being in a proper lineup. Age, weight, and rheumatoid arthritis have combined in the past few years to make that injury a source of pain that sometimes even Vicodin doesn't touch. He (and I) are hopeful that he can resume a normal active life again: there are cars to be fixed! home repairs to be done! walks to take! trips to be traveled! The effects are temporary and the procedure has to be repeated every X months, but it is sooo much better than the alternative as long as it works.

* * * * *

Last Sunday I worked at the country fair, first at the library Friends booth, then at the booth for the energy fair later this month. It was hot, and as far as I know, there is only one small office in the entire fair park that is air conditioned; I was not in that office. It was very hot. It was very humid. Think Louisiana swamp hot and humid.

I saw this sign in the fair society's office:

It made me smile in spite of my dripping brow.

* * * * *

Yesterday I helped at a pet adoption event at the local branch of Tractor Supply Company. (Click on that link today -- Sunday, August 7 -- and sign up for a chance to win a year's supply of pet food.) I was at the booth of the county's designated animal shelter (county rep on their board), and they were there as part of Tractor Supply Company's annual P.A.W. -- Pet Appreciation Week. There were two or three other shelters and rescue organizations there as well. We all had a good time visiting each other's animals and, of course, talking to the people who stopped at our display and were interested in pets.

A few extremely poor photos taken with my iPod. This is Lulu, a 1-year-old energetic Boston terrier cross female scheduled to be neutered on Wednesday (shhh, don't tell her):

Meet Wendy, an adorable 2-year-old Jack Russell terrier spayed female:

I do not care for energetic, short-haired dogs -- I want my animals to be calm and furry -- but Wendy was an awfully nice little dog. A couple came by and were as taken with her as I was. They have a special needs child, aged 10, who needs a pet and were seriously considering Wendy. She may have a home soon.

Mary, the shelter director, with Margo, a beagle cross, and Linda, a volunteer dog walker, with Margo's leash (Linda, I apologize for the less-than-flattering photo, but I was concentrating on the dogs):

Angie, this sweet three-year-old spayed female Pug, went home with her new owner, who had found her on Petfinders and had been telephoning back and forth with the shelter for two weeks to settle the adoption. Yay for Angie (and Charlie, her new brother, a basset)!

 

 

* * * * *

And now, if you will excuse me, I need to go sit on the deck and knit. It is finally getting cool enough to be outdoors by choice.

It's a two-fer day.

Late breaking news!

 

Matthew is part of the 4-man team Spoke Girl riding in a 24-hour bike race in Milwaukee*. They placed 2nd in their class last year; looks like they might win it in 2011! You can keep track of their place here.

x

* Conditions in Milwaukee at 4:58 pm:

Thank FSM for the low humidity...

Wind! Rain! Crash!

As I sat at the computer reading my email this morning I noticed that the sky was getting dark. It kept getting darker. Then the wind started to blow and the black sky started spitting rain. I closed the windows on the windward side of the house and retrieved Lucy The Wonder Dog from her chain outside. 

Soon the rain was coming down in bucket and sheets and the wind was blowing at, I estimate, about 300 mph. The oak trees were leaning and tossing and I could not see the lake 75 feet away. Pretty darned impressive. The electricity flickered very slightly a couple of times and I thought I should shut down the computer, but I didn't.

Eventually I went to check that there was no rain coming in on the leeward side -- none, the wide overhanging eaves prevent that -- and noticed that there was a breeze coming in from the 3-season porch. Where there should NOT be a breeze.

You perhaps cannot tell, but there is a window missing there.

This the second time a window has blown out in that porch. I guess combination windows that big are meant to be used with inner sash windows; they are not strong enough by themselves to withstand sustained 50 mph winds. And we thought we were being so clever and economical back in 2001, using just the storms to create a 3-season porch.

Smokey has a lot of Lionel and other model trains neatly stacked on the ping-pong table just visible in the upper left of the second photo. I moved as much as I could out of the reach of the rain, but some of the boxes definitely got damp. Hard to believe, but sometimes the boxes are worth as much to a collector as the train car that came in it. Damn.

This weekend is the county fair. I am glad I am working there tomorrow and not today. I can only imagine how the tents and booths fared in this storm. Same exact thing happened last year, also on the day before I worked. I guess in some strange way I am lucky...

On a more cheerful note, I found this Shopped photo last week, the image manipulation done by #2 Son when he was in high school. (haslp was the screen name he used then, a combination of Half Life, a video game, and Slipknot, a heavy metal group.)

Thoughts whilst knitting lace.

• When I showed you the tools that have helped me conquer this first lace project I left out a very important one: the needle.
  
  
  
  That is a 40" US#4 Signature circular needle, and it is the finest circ I have ever used. Bar none. The points (medium; you can specify middy (above) or stiletto) are perfect, the joins are smooth and strong, and the cable is as flexible as certain politicians' stance on the issues. 
   
• 
  Flexible, man, flexible!
   
• The needle was $40 plus $8 shipping, which is a lot to pay for a knitting needle. I keep reminding myself that, 1, I spend a lot of hours with this tool in my hands, and B, part of the reason it was expensive is that it was made in the US by US employees, subject to FICA and Medicare and FUTA and who knows what else, and probably union members to boot; not Chinese slave labor.
   
• I find myself reciting the pattern as I knit it -- "Yarnover, knit 2 together, knit 5, slip, slip, knit, yarnover..." This helps me keep track of where I am and ensures that I am Paying Attention.
   
• It amuses me greatly to shout in my head, Threeway! whenever I have to do a double decrease.
  
  
• Don't judge me.
  
  
• I also forgot to praise the yarn, Dream in Color Baby. Some yarns (Malabrigo, I'm looking at you) are wonderful to touch, like buttah through the fingers. This is not one of those, but it is nicely woolly. The main thing is that It Does Nothing Wrong. It doesn't split, doesn't tangle, doesn't break, has no knots, no vegetable matter. It just does what it is supposed to do and does it perfectly. In all my [actually minor] struggles with this lace, none have been with the yarn.
   
• I was knitting away on the lace today and realized that I was also watching the news and chatting with my husband (!) Quite a change from when I started and could only work on it fully caffeinated, alone, no distractions, no interruptions. I told my husband I Was Da Bomb. We will not speak of those three (3!) yarnovers I missed; that kind of thing also happened under the previously described optimum conditions.
   

* * * * *

This is  how we learned of #2 Son's engagement. Hurrah for electronic communications! That photo was taken in the parking lot of the [something] Cowboy steak house in Custer, WY.

 

My boy young man.

From City Pages:

Catching up and stuff.

I am slowly catching up on blog reading, where catching up =  reading the blogs in my Google Reader Must Read folder and hitting Mark as read on all the rest. Or maybe it is the other way around, I'm not sure. The heat and humidity here are playing havoc with my brain.

I need to walk down the stairs, out the front door, into the mini-mini-motorhome and retrieve the bag of dirty clothes so I can do the laundry. Because I am wearing my last clean pair of underwear. (Knew you wanted to know.) But I have been procrastinating on that task for 5 hours so far and there are no indications that it it going to happen soon. Heat and humidity, you know...

In the meantime I am catching up on blog reading. Because that is the most important thing to do right now. 

Not laundry.

Not grocery shopping.

Not unpacking the m-m-mh.

Not clearing the wild raspberry bushes that have taken over Lucy The Wonder Dog's poop yard.*

* * * * *

In knitting news, I now understand in a visceral way why people like knitting lace. It.Is.Addicting. As I emailed to BGFE earlier today, once I got into the flow of knitting the lace shawl it became like a good crossword puzzle or a particularly complex tax return: a challenge, but one that I knew I could work through.

I find myself scrutinizing things on Ravelry that involve lace. Scary, I know.

* * * * *

One teeny-tiny bit of news: #2 Son and BGFE are engaged (!)

We were notified by an email from #2 Son last Friday. I saw the subject line -- "I'm engaged" -- and burst out with something dignified like, Holy sh!t! Matthew's engaged! Smokey and I couldn't be happier for the two of them. They are so obviously delighted together and good with each other. They say they won't be tieing the knot for a couple of years, though, until she is through school. 

The happy family group, pre-engagement, in Hill City, SD:

.

* Lucy cannot even get into it at present. Smokey has had to take her down the stairs and out the front door to the other side of the house, and that is not easy when one has rheumatoid arthritis and incipient heat stroke.

International Yarn Bombing Day!

So I was having breakfast with #2 Son and BGFE* and they excitedly told me about the yarn they had seen on their way to the diner on their bikes. That reminded me that today was International Yarn Bombing Day. Nothing would do but that I took a detour on my way from the diner to Wisconsin to check out the reported yarn bomb.

It was awesome.

This is a pedestrian bridge over I-35W at 40th Street in Minneapolis. 

View to the south, toward the suburbs:

View to the north, toward downtown:

View overhead:

.

* Best GirlFriend Ever

So, yeah, we went to New York.

It was raining when we left Minneapolis.

But not in New York. On Friday we met up with Andrew when he got off work.

Andrew is eating pizza we brought him, left over from our own snack.
He actually looks vaguely like a doctor.

Mt. Sinai stands right across Fifth Avenue from Central Park. The green area behind the wall, Andrew told us, used to be called The Sandpit because that is essentially what it was. Earlier this year, or maybe last year, the city landscaped the area and re-sodded it and now it is a lovely place. 

Friday night, Ramblin' Jack Elliot at the Rubin Museum, a museum of Himalayan art. Yeah, now there's a connection. No photos, not allowed. Concert was a little shy of 1.5 hours; he sang six songs and talked a lot. Jack is 79 years old and has 79 years worth of stories to tell. That's why he is called Ramblin' Jack. A little online research before the concert informed us that, although he is a folk/western/country singer, he is a surgeon's son from Brooklyn who ran away from home at 15 to join the rodeo.

On Saturday we saw where Andrew lives.

No photos of the interior or his apartment. Imagine a 15'x18' kitchen/living room/dining room with two tiny bedrooms and a bath on either side. Now imagine that there are always four 20-something males living there and that none of them has a minute to spare on domesticity because they are either studying or working about 26 hours a day. Not squalor but not neatnik heaven, either.

We trucked on down to Chinatown to do a little touristy sight-seeing with one stop along the way. Andrew wanted to show us something but wouldn't tell us what it was.

I may have mentioned my favorite movie here once or twice. This shop is in the Village about a block south of Washington Square.

I got myself a t-shirt, which I cannot show you because it is in the wash. But you can see it here.

While in Chinatown we got a little hungry and found a likely spot to refresh ourselves.

Happily, they also had English menus.

LIke his parents, Andrew is an adventurous eater and likes to order something he has never had before. On this occasion he ordered an appetizer of jellyfish and pigs' knuckles. The waiter, a tiny Chinese man, looked at him sternly and waggled his hands in a "No, no!" gesture. Jellyfish no good, he said. Andrew had fried won tons instead.

Saturday night we ate dinner in an Italian restaurant with six of Andrew's friends from medical school. I suffered a tragic case of camnesia so that event must remain unrecorded.

Sunday was the gospel brunch at Sylvia's Soul Food Restaurant, which you have already seen. We all took long naps after that adventure.

Monday was spent finding breakfast, packing, getting to the airport, and flying home via Washington, DC.

We toured the Capitol and the Washington Monument. From the plane.

 

So, yeah, that was the trip. Lots of fun, good to see the kid young man, good food, yada yada.

Oh, you want to see the yarn?

Okay.

Tomorrow.

Sunday brunch.

 

Sylvia's Soul Food Restaurant, 126th and Lenox Avenue, Harlem.

For the record, I had the catfish, eggs, and grits breakfast, including a mimosa; Smokey and Andrew had barbecued ribs with sides of macaroni and cheese (both of them), garlic mashed potatoes (Andrew) and pickled beets (Smokey). Food and service were very good, no complaints.

A better photo of the painting in the background:

Andrew said Obama had a $1,000 a plate fund-raiser there earler this year. There was also a large photo on the wall above our table of Bill Clinton with Sylvia herself. Lest you think the place was not busy -- it was VERY busy -- that empty table was part of a set-up for a party of 40-50 people that was seated shortly after us.

Good times!

Guess where we are going for a long weekend?

 

Going to visit #1 Son. Lucy The Wonder Dog will stay with #2 Son and Best Girlfriend. Flying into JFK Thursday afternoon on Mesaba Airlines (yes, you read that right), coming home Monday. Staying at a brand-new fancy-schmancy hotel a block from the Apollo Theatre (Smokey got a deal). Gonna see Ramblin' Jack Elliot at the Rubin Museum of Art on Friday night, gonna go to the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday afternoon to look for the yarn that Clara Parkes talked about and showed us at Yarnover, gonna go out to dinner Saturday night with #1 Son and some of his friends from med school, and gonna kick back on Sunday. Might fit in a trip to MoMA or the Guggenheim somewhere in there. I've got a NYC transit app on my iPod and I'm ready to go. Except I haven't packed my suitcase yet.

Catch ya on the flip side!

So that was Sunday.

I delivered #1 Son to the airport in Minneapolis at noon for his 2 p.m. flight back to New York City. It was lovely to have him home, but like all empty nesters, we also find it lovely when our guests leave and life returns to normal.

A few tidbits from Sunday's outing.

I folded his laundry before he packed.

No shortage of hubris and self-congratulatory rhetoric at his med school.

.

The temperature when we left on Sunday morning.

Those mittens that I said were too warm? Perfect for a Sunday morning in January.

.

We found this sign unaccountably amusing.

What on earth were Papa and Mama McElroy thinking
when they named their son Aristotle?

.

But this has to be the absolute best adopt-a-highway sign EVAH!

Way to go, pagans!

Coupla things.

On Friday I went to the annual Christmas Tea and Living Nativity at the county nursing home, where I am on the board. I thought about bringing my camera but didn't because of privacy concerns. So I will have to paint word pictures for you.

I arrived just as the hostess was welcoming everyone, and I slipped into a chair in the back of the activities room where about 100 people were in the audience. There were residents in wheel chairs and walkers and lots of people from the community. My first clue about how cool this was going to be was the queue of residents in wheel chairs in the hall outside the activity room.

They were dressed in quasi-Biblical robes and headdresses, and a staff person was carrying a tiny baby, who looked to be about a month old.

In the front of the activity room was the narrator with his script and microphone and a woman seated at the piano behind him. There was a small group of six residents in choir robes with songbooks. A couple more people in dark robes and headdresses stood to one side, and over the top of the audience heads I could see...

a llama.

Turned out his name was Don Juan and he has participated in this play since 2002. For the first three years his owner, an employee in the activities department, put a fake hump on his back with a blanket over it, but no one figured out that Don was supposed to be a camel so she quit that part.

The narrator began the Christmas story. Staff members wheeled in Mary and Joseph in their wheel chairs and another brought in the baby, who cried loudly. Two-thirds of the three wise men walked in, the third was pushed in his wheel chair. A little boy of about 3 walked up the aisle with his little drum while a member of the small choir sang The Little Drummer Boy. Three angels in wheel chairs were recognizable as divine by the gold garlands twined about their heads and necks.

It was all totally charming, and I plan to attend again next year. They have been doing it for 24 years and this is the first year the baby has cried. That's a pretty good run, I'd say.

* * * * *

Several years ago I had a spate of gall bladder problems. Tests revealed that while mine was no poster child of gall bladder health and functionality, it was not bad enough to warrant surgery. 

A few weeks ago I started having what I thought were the same symptoms again, and I trekked back to the doctor expecting that this time I might end up gall bladder-less. Lab tests and an ultrasound showed my gall bladder (and right kidney and liver) was fine but that there was "an odd contour on the side of the pancreas." Um, huh? On Monday I have a CT scan to get a better look. Let's all think positive thoughts for me, m'kay?

* * * * *

Andrew will fly in at 6:30 tonight from New York and will be home for two whole weeks. Smokey has stocked the freezer accordingly with a ham and steaks and lobsters and an entire beef tenderloin. (Oink.) It will be good to have #1 Son here for awhile. Matthew and GF Alex will be here for Christmas, I think, although Smokey will work a day shift that day. I am kinda sorta planning to slip out of Christmas dinner cookery and take the kids to the Christmas dinner sponsored at a lovely north woods lodge sponsored by a local commercial club. I have done that a couple times in the past few years, and it is a lot more pleasant than slaving in the kitchen. I like to cook but not that much.

Ten on Tuesday, the Thanksgiving edition.

Ten Things I Like About Thanksgiving

1. Gravy*. 
2. Mashed potatoes*.
3. Dressing*.
4. Turkey*.
5. Pumpkin pie.
6. Apple pie (optional).
7. Having the family together. I don't even want to think about what it says about me that this is #7 and is preceded by 6 items of food.
8. Leftovers. Yeah, another food thing.
9. Um.
10. Um redux.

* In spite of #1 - #4, I have not roasted a turkey in years, as I am the only one who likes turkey. We had ribs 'n' kraut a couple times by request from Smokey and Andrew, a ham at least once, one year Matthew and I were the only ones home so we volunteered at community turkey dinner, and this year we are having... enchiladas. And pumpkin and apple pies, amen.

FO Friday.

Time to catch you up on my knitting. First, a couple hats:

 

(left, my last hat for the homeless)
Yarn: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes, Thyme, and some anonymous camel-colored wool worsted. Total 56 grams, 123 yards.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#6.
Pattern: Generic, worked on 96 st.

(right, for Matthew's new-ish girlfriend Alex)
Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk, color Allspice, all but about a yard of 3 skeins (~288 yards).
Needles: Knit Picks Options w/ Zephyr tips, US#8.
Pattern: 16-Cable Hat. The pattern gives two sizes, one for head circumference 16 - 19", and one for 18 - 22". Alex's head is 23", so I cast on 182 st to allow for one more 26-st cable repeat. My head is also 23", so I was able to try on the hat as I knit to check the sizing.

Alex had been describing the kind of hat she wanted to Matthew about a month ago on a day when Smokey happened to be present. He immediately piped up to say that he knew someone who would be delighted to knit her a hat. What he later told me she had described sounded to me like a chullo, so I found a few examples in Ravelry and sent her links. She looked at them but, in her own words, got sidetracked to the 16 Cable Hat. So 16 cables is what I knit (although my upsizing resulted in rather more than 16 cables).

Note: this is a very flattering hat. I may make one for myself. Never thought I would want a beret-ish or slouch-ish hat, but I like this one a lot.

This hat has a lot more stitches than a typical hat. But I loved the yarn so much that it was no hardship to knit the equivalent of two hats. Andean Silk is 55% fine alpaca / 23% merino / 22% silk, and knitting it is like petting a very soft kitteh.

Next on my knitting agenda is a pair of Dimorphous Mittens for myself. Right now I am swatching to determine what size needle I need to make my yarn for the inner mitten match the pattern gauge.

 Inner mitten:                                Outer mitten, striped:
   

The yarn for the inner mitten is Frog Tree Pediboo, a very soft but tightly plied 80% merino / 20% bamboo light fingering weight that will feel lovely on my hands. The yarn for the outer mitt is two colorways of Noro Yuzen, a discontinued 56% wool / 34% silk / 10% mohair DK weight that I will stripe like a Noro striped scarf.

The weather forecast for the immediate future is cold with a side of frigid, so I need to knit like the wind on these.

New bike!

Matthew got himself (half of) a new winter bicycle; he went halvsies on it with a good friend who works in a bike shop.

What's a winter bicycle? You may well ask.

One with big-ass tires.

Apparently, with a conventional bicycle, the largest diameter tire that will fit within the frame and the brake pads and not interfere with the chain is 2-1/2". Anything larger requires a whole different frame designed to accommodate the aforementioned big-ass tires, which can roll over sand, mud, snow, whatever.

This one is a Surly Pugsley (Is that a great name or what?)

His also has a sweet bell.

Happy Halloween!

www.google.com

That's where I found a link to this app, which I used to produce these:

                                                                                             
       Have a happy, scary, great Halloween!                                                                                                                  !