kmkat and her kneedles

What I did on my summer vacation Sunday.

Hmmmm. Where does this trail lead?

It leads to this little shed at the edge of the lake, between our house and the neighbor's.

What's going on? Poles and a shovel?

Ice augers?

People on the ice?

It is...

(ta da!) the Annual Turning On Of The Aerator.

I already knew what was going on. Got an e-mail a few days ago asking if I would help. "Aerator party at 12 noon on Sunday." Got another, somewhat panicked, email the next day. "Aerator party rescheduled for 10 am Sunday. PACKER GAME AT NOON! CANNOT HAVE CONFLICT! PRIORITIES, PEOPLE!"

The aeration system in our lake is to prevent freeze-out. For those of you who do not live in The Great Frozen North, let me 'splain.

Actually, before we get too far, let me explain what freeze-out is, for anybody who hasn’t experienced it. It doesn’t mean the ice freezes all the way from top to bottom: it means the lake gets low in oxygen during heavy snow years. When snow cover is sufficient to limit sunlight penetration, you don’t have photosynthesis occurring. Everything dies under the ice. Weeds die and consume oxygen, and without sunlight, oxygen isn’t replenished in the system. Eventually, fish die off, too, because there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain them.

This is not a problem in deep lakes, but our lake is only 20 feet deep at its deepest point and about ten to twelve feet deep in the rest. It is deep enough for boating and swimming and floating and sunbathing and sitting-on-the-deck-admiring-the-view, but susceptible to freeze-out in years of deep snow pack, like this year.

The solution was to install an aeration system, which was done in the late 1980s after the last freeze-out. That little shed houses air pumps, and there are five or six good-sized (~6" diameter) pipes running out about a hundred feet or so on the bottom of the lake. When the pumps are turned on, air is pumped out through the pipes, bubbling up through the water and keeping the surface free of ice. The large area of open water is a danger to snowmobilers, though, so we must also put up poles and ropes to mark off the area, plus a warning sign at the public access. The aeration system was funded by the state Department of Natural Resource, and its ongoing operation and maintenance are the responsibility of the lake association.

But the poles and ropes must go up before there is open water. Where exactly to put them?

Although Mike and Marcia, who have been in charge of this whole effort for the past several years, last September mapped approximately where the pipes end, it is difficult to judge precise distances and angles and where the heck exactly are those pipes anyway? So the first step today, after turning on the pumps, was to drill some pilot holes. Any holes that had air bubbles coming up were winners; they were located over -- or very close to over -- the air outlets.

(No, we don't drill the pilot holes at the bank. I got a late start taking photos, so the holes were all drilled and the poles and rope up before I thought to get my camera. What you get is a re-creation, sort of.)

Success! See the bubbling water?

No? How about now?

Thar she blows!

The pilot holes were four inches in diameter.  After an hour or two the successful ones were a foot or two across; by 3 pm they were ten feet across. Within a day or two there will be an area of open water 50 to 100 feet in diameter. The bubblers really work.

[digression] One year it was a day or so after the aeration system was turned on before anyone was able to drill the pilot holes and put up the ropes. The air was trapped under the ice and came through wherever it could. One such place happened to be about ten feet off the shore in front of our house. I watched from my window as Lucy inspected the resulting hole. She would sniff around it suspiciously, then leap! back! when a mega-cluster of accumulated air bubbles caused the water to spout several feet into the air. It took about 30 seconds to a minute for enough air to gather and cause a spout, so she had plenty of time to sniff and investigate and wonder about the whole thing. This happened over and over. And over. Until I brought her in. [/digression]

After we had three successful holes that told us approximately where the open water would be, Mike walked off a perimeter around it. Jan and her daughter (Jan's husband John is pictured above with the ice auger) and I followed with a drill equipped with a 12-inch-long, 3/4-inch-diameter bit and with several bundles of seven-foot-tall plastic poles. Jan -- and later, daughter -- drilled holes into the snow and ice, and I stuck a pole into each one.  Marcia followed with a bucket of water scooped from the lake. She poured a dipper of water into each hole, where it would freeze and make the pole solid.

Our equipment:

What's that written on the sticks?

The last step was tying colorful warning tape along the length of the rope to make it more visible to snowmobilers.

There were some hazards, namely water and slush on top of the ice but hidden by the snow. When there is so much snow on the ice, the weight causes the ice to sag, and water seeps up through cracks in the ice. The insulating layer of snow prevents it from freezing unless the temperature drops really, really low. Which it hasn't for a couple weeks.

Walking Slogging through this:

leads to this:

 

When I got home I had to thaw my laces with a hair dryer in order to get my boots off.

It might look as though most of the work was done by the female portion of the crew, while the men stood around and watched.

This was most assuredly not true. What it demonstrates is the bias of the photographer and the timing of her photographs. Like I said, the rope was already up by the time I got my camera; that heavy job, plus others requiring impressive feats of upper body strength, were strategically allocated to the males.

We leave the poles and ropes in place until long after the ice has melted in the spring. They all float, and generally wash ashore right in front of our house. In May Matthew gathered up last year's efforts and tucked them into the shed until we needed them again.

And today, when the job was done?

 

 

Mmmm, chili and beer.

And football. If you weren't watching The Game, the final score was 31-31, Packers. Or some such; unlike the rest of the crew, I am not a football fan (I finished one preemie cap and started another).

In addition to The Game, we had other entertainment.

 

Marcia and Mike have four dogs, friendly tail-waggers and ball-chasers every one. This sweetie is Maurice, a collie-shepherd mix named for the former astronaut on Northern Exposure.

In addition to the indoor entertainment, this guy kept stopping by to whammer on the trees just outside the living room.

That's a pileated woodpecker. It's about the size of a crow. One impressive bird, yessireebob.

All in all, a very good day. Perfect weather, lots of help, and a little party afterward. Good times!

The good, the bad, and all the rest.

The good:

 

If you aren't exactly sure why all that is good, check this out:

Yeah, teenagers are good for the heavy lifting snow blowing.

The bad:

My old Palm Zire 22 suffered a cracked screen. eBay to the rescue. $79 from me to a seller with 5,000+ sales and a satisfaction rating of 99.9%. Yay!

Oops.

 

Grrrr. Matthew and I have futzed with this on and off for several days, both with and without the instructions to hand. I guess it's time to fire off an email to the vendor. Time wasted.

The rest:

Actually, the rest is pretty darned good. A package came in the mail. Addressed to Matthew. But he had warned me not to open anything that came from this place. (We are delaying Christmas until later in January when Andrew is home for 2 weeks.)

The package is about 24"x24"x4", is fairly light, and rattles slightly. Not yarn. Whatever could it be? No guesses in the comments, please, I'm keen to be surprised.

More of the rest:

When I went to bed last night I swear there were three preemie hats on this little table next to my chair. This morning, one. The other two seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

Golly gosh, whoever could be responsible?

 

Hannibal: Who, me? I've been sleeping on this comforter since October.

En Esch: Who, me? What preemie hats? Erm... quick, look over there! A badger with a gun hat!

...not a creature was stirring...

It was a quiet Christmas. Matthew and I joined my friend Colleen and her friend Alan for a Christmas dinner put on by a local community club. No charge, goodwill offering only. It was held at a lovely, northwood-sy supper club in the next little town south from us. The lady in the Santa hat was in charge. She said they served 140 people.

Ham, stuffing with gravy, steamed mixed veggies, dinner rolls, and homemade cookies and bars(s) for dessert. Just like grandma used to make 'cuz it was Grandma in the kitchen.

See the TV in the bar in the background? Tuned to Channel 45, The Official Fireplace Station Of The Holidays -- all flickering flames, all the time. What was even more amazing was that [I think] the Packers game was being televised. "No, Lenny, we will NOT change the station to The Game. We're having a fireplace on the teevee today."

I saw Mr. S, who was Andrew's history teacher in high school and who commented that he has been reading The Boy's The Young Man's dispatches from Chiapas with interest. Mr. S looked very festive indeed.

After that we came home. Matthew bullied me into letting him open one present. Pink Skullcandy earbuds.

Then he listened to his music and surfed the net, and I listened to an audio book and knitted on his sock.

Hannibal helped. Mmmm, yarn...

Light a candle for Christmas.

Or your nose. Or your new-to-you used Mac G4 (those are lit matches illuminating its upper corner).

Merry Christmas to all!

Sunday morning comin' down.

Matthew and I had waffles and bacon this morning. Some of the waffles, while tasty, were less than picture-perfect.

They make good counter top ruined walls, though.

Vicki wondered about that "current" thing that Chris mentioned in yesterday's comments. If you do not reside in the Twin Cities area you probably were wondering, too.

Eighty-nine point three The Current is Minnesota Public Radio's non-classical, non-news station. (The classical station is KSJN, 99.5; news is KSJR, 91.1; I knew you wanted to know.) It plays a wide range of contemporary music, from Frank Sinatra (rarely) to hip hop (less rarely) to alternative rock (as I type they are playing something by Eddie Vedder) to indie (lots).

Chris and I discovered that we both have The Current red travel tumbler and the stoneware mug, although her mug is [tragically] maroon instead of my way-cooler black :)

* * * * *

Startitis struck again: last night as I was reading in bed (at 1 am) I kept thinking about the dog blanket I had bought yarn for yesterday. So I got up and cast on.

The blanket is for Rolling Dog Ranch, the charity that Amy picked for me to pay it forward to. The sharp-eyed among you may be able to pick out the pattern, which is a well-known one. Steve of Rolling Dog specified that the blanket should be washable, so I'm using (arg!) black Red Heart ack doubled-stranded for the background and Caron Simply Soft (much nicer!), also double-stranded, for the stripes. A good, fast, and mindless knit on US#10-1/2 needles. Note: the only worsted-weight washable black yarn available to me at 7 pm last night at Wal*Mart was the Red Heart. Mea culpa.

Yesterday I made another preemie cap for Jeanne. Here it is, being modeled by Matthew's fist.

That makes up for the one that En messed with. Thanks to those of you who volunteered to untangle that skein for me. I wasn't quite ready to give up on it yet, but hey! if you'll promise to use it for a preemie hat and send it to Jeanne, first one to send me her snail mail addy gets it.

My little holiday gift to you.

This is Pandora, custom streaming internet radio. I shall forgive y'all for not telling me about this long ago. You were all probably too busy filing your nails and winning the lottery and listening to your own particular idiom of musical grooviness to remember that The Kat™ might like to know about Pandora.

That's okay, I can manage.

Thank FSM for a certain Wisconsin blogger, though. She doesn't forget about The Kat™. She mentions Pandora and is even so unbelievably thoughtful as to post a link to it. Alls I can say is some lovely person who shall not be named here but whose initials are Dale-Harriet shall not be forgotten in my will, such as it is. I'm sure she will cherish the semi-petrified bars of lavender soap that will come her way at some unspecified future time when I shall cease to inhabit this mortal coil. The rest of you can just go suck rocks. So there.

Oh, wait, I said this was my holiday present to you. [rewind.]

Go check out Pandora if you happen to be the [only] other person in the universe who hasn't discovered it. Tell it a musical group or song that you like, and it will create a *station* that plays music in the same style as whatever you entered. Their algorithm for selecting music seems quite good. I was joyously surprised by the music that followed my entry of the Rolling Stones -- Tom Petty, Kinks, Creedence, the Velvets, Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, all groups that are well-represented in my iTunes library although not necessarily by the songs that Pandora played. Songs that were new to me. Songs that were fun to listen to. It will even disclose why it picked a particular song. I wondered about one by a guy named Ronnie Earle, somebody I had never heard of but whose song "My Buddy Buddy" I liked when I heard it. Pandora explains, "Based on what you have told us so far, we're playing this track because it features blues rock, qualities, mild rhythmic syncopation [um, is there any other kind of sycopation in music besides rhythmic? asks The Kat™], thru composed melodic style, major key tonality and electric rhythm guitars."  Other songs that I investigated had these and various other features that caused them to be included in this station: electric rock instrumentation, blues influences, subtle use of vocal harmony, extensive vamping, and others.

So far I have the aforementioned Rolling Stone station, a U2 station (unsurprisingly, there is some overlap between those two), a Baroque chamber music station, and a classical Christmas station. Oh, the joy and peacefulness that washes over me as I listen to those last two.

Pandora is free but you must give it your e-mail address. Anybody with a Yahoo premium account knows enough to create a disposable address for the purpose; if Pandora's entire existence is aimed at acquiring a mailing list so they can sell it to entrepreneurs who want me to buy insurance or enroll in nursing school or enhance my penis or get out of debt free, Boy! are they gonna be disappointed. Hah! Spammers! I'm Yahoo is smarter than you! [raspberry]

* * * *

I had a little problem yesterday.

This lovely beast:

plus an attack of cabin fever led to this:

See that mess of pinkness there at center left? That was the skein attached to the pink and blue and green preemie hat, center. Said preemie hat and skein were left carelessly within En's territory, i.e., on the floor.

"Well, that yarn won't be botherin' ya no more, ma'm. I done killed it fer ya."

Gee, thanks, En.

A quick call to #2 son, on his way home from Minneapolis via Eau Claire, and a replacement skein of Cotton Ease, in Berry, was no longer on the shelf at Michael's but instead coming to live with me. The original skein was so badly tangled not only could I not untangle it, I could not even find the single strand emerging from the ball so I could cut away the mess. I can probably salvage some of it. If I can suppress the rage.

ECF: Christmas trees around the world.

I got this in my email* a few days ago, and the pictures were just too pretty not to pass on. If you have already seen it, skip to the last picture and move on. If not, enjoy!

Rockefeller Center, New York:

The Capitol, Washington DC:

Trafalgar Square, London:

The Romer, Frankfurt's City Hall:

Red, white, and blue [on display at an unknown location]:

Puerta del Sol, Madrid:

St. Peter's Square, Rome:

Galeries Lafayette in Paris:

A chapel in Germany's Karwendel mountains:

The largest Christmas tree in Europe -- over 230 feet tall -- in Praça de Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal:

Moscow:

Murano Island in Venice, Italy, home to the tallest glass tree in the world sculpted by master glass blower Simone Cenedese:

Prague's Old Town Square, Czech Republic:

Tokyo's nighttime neon display projected onto the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in Japan:

The world's largest Christmas tree display up in the slopes of Monte Ingino, in Italy's Umbria region, made of about 500 lights connected with 40,000 feet of wire:

Antler Lake, Wisconsin:

* While googling to be sure the images were properly labeled, I discovered that another blogger had already done this. Maybe that blogger created it, I don't know. Apparently there is nothing new under the sun on the internet. Whatever.

Randomness: painfully convoluted sentences, John Mayer, ponderous thoughts, and even a little knitting.

To make amends for my little rant yesterday -- oh, and btw, thanks for all the bah-humbuggery appreciation y'all sent me, did my little heart good to know that humor still rules the world (I wish! It could do a better job than certain White (And Other-Colored) Men are doing at present, but that is a rant for another day) -- and did you see that Wendy commented (be still my heart, a celebrity comment! wOOt! (and did you read when Norma (yay! Norma!) blogged that "wOOt" is Webster's Word of the Year, except that they spelled it wrong, all the Kool Kids know it's spelled "w00t," not "wOOt") Thanks, Wendy!) -- I'm putting up this little YouTube number:*

Highlights to watch for:

• The sweet knit hat -- intarsia? stranded? -- worn by one of the graffiti artists. Yeah, I later realized it is really a ski mask, but still, it is an objet d'knit, and we all loves us some objets d'knit, doncha know?
• The awesomely perfect circles! drawn freehand! by that same artist;
• The skyline of NYC looking like something is missing, and we all know what that is, and it saddens us.

That album -- or "alblum," as my dear MIL used to pronounce it, and so did my husband, who argued with me for an amazingly long time that "alblum" was a perfectly valid alternative to "album" and whom I only convinced otherwise when I dragged him, alblumming all the way, to the dictionary -- came to live in my iTunes a week or two ago and I have been listening to it and smearing the music and lyrics all over myself, it is so good.

[ascends soapbox] As much as I love that song, I keep disagreeing with the underlying sentiment, that his generation is waiting on the world to change. The counter-culturalists of the 1960s and 1970s didn't wait. They stormed the bastions of convention helter-skelter and willy-nilly and Nelly-bar-the-door, and nowadays many of those counter-cultural values are mainstream, although sadly not so much universally practiced as universally proclaimed: ecological awareness, recycling, organic food production, planet-friendly practices, multiculturalism, tolerance, diversity, social justice. One cannot simply wait for the world to change into something that better suits one; one must be the change one wishes to see™. [/descends from soapbox]

On the other hand, the sentiments in "Belief" seem to me to express a profound truth that the world would do well to grasp:

But, hey, I'm not all about the lyrics. Listening to his pre-song comments in this video of "I'm Gonna Find Another You" I realized that, Doh, of course I like that song, it's... blues.

* * * * *

Now, as promised, a little knitting.

My first preemie hat for Jeanne:

Go on, knit her a couple. Quick, easy, stash-busters. You know you want to. Deadline is January 15.

Yarn: Lion Brand Cotton Ease (50% cotton/50% acrylic); Lake, Lime, and Berry.
Needles: US#6
Pattern: Basic hat from Ann Budd's A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, preemie size.

I was a bit unhappy with the size and shape it turned out to be, thinking that it was too wide for its depth, but an emergency e-mail to Jeanne and I was tactfully informed that 1, babies come in all sizes and shapes (well, within limits), and b, even preemie babies grow and often continue to need little hats. Babies grow? Who knew?

The uneven stitches smoothed out nicely after a quick run through the washer and dryer with the other laundry.

Yesterday's knitting scene:

In the interests of full disclosure, I must tell you that the New York Public Library mug does not contain coffee, nor even Sleepy Rabbit tea, as it did yesterday. Nope, that is Worcestershire sauce-tinted tap water, concocted to re-create the scene more accurately. Do I have mad food stylist skillz or what?

To remove the taste of the forgoing awfulness, please fondle the virtual cuddliness of the knitting:

#2 son asked me to knit him a pair of socks. Listen! Hear that? Hell freezes over.

He has steadfastly refused any and all of my offers to for him. He's a fashionista in his own way, that boy, and his self-image brooks no mother-produced garments. Oh, except for that Dulaan-destined hat he swiped from me last winter. And that glow-in-the-dark scarf I so laboriously knitted him last year at his request and which he wore about twice. Grrrrr.

But I am A Knitting Mother -- ya know, the ones who want to wrap the world in hand knits? So I immediately agreed to make him a pair of socks.

No wool, he said, Wool is itchy.

Okay, no problem, I said, and showed him a recently-received color card of Knit Picks Shine Worsted (60% Pima cotton/40% Modal®). He picked out the terra cotta and cream shown above. One reason I was able to agree so readily was that I had discovered the extreme speediness with which worsted weight yarn knits up into socks. Wham! Bam! Socks!

He sent me a link to these socks to show how he wanted his to look.

Don't guys have silly-looking legs? Why do they pose like that, so their legs look even sillier than necessary? Why do I care?

* Diagram that (so-called) sentence!

12 days of Christmas, eh.

Remember how I said we had no particular corny Christmas tradition? Well, I was wrong. We have this. Enjoy!

I think I may add one other item to our ever-growing list of family holiday traditions:

* * * * *
It's the little things that make life so much fun. Like, that the programmers at Blogger found their lost little minds and now give us commenters a place to put our blog addresses.

Thank you, Blogger. That is a nice little Christmas present for our world.

The inevitable Christmas meme.

Many knitbloggers have done this meme. As delightful as it is to yammer on endlessly about oneself, others may find it unbearably boring. I mean, really, how much do I care when so-and-so takes down her tree?

Warning: possible humbuggery ahead. Read at your own risk.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. Holiday job during high school was wrapping gifts at small-town department store. Inordinately proud of acquired gift-wrapping skill. Unless gift excessively oddly shaped; then give thanks for gift bags.

Open Christmas Eve or Morning? One Christmas eve, rest Christmas morning; or all whenever spouse isn't working. Double/triple time for Christmas Eve/Day; extortionate tuition payments in prior years.

Real tree or artificial? Artificial. Pre-lit. Untouched by further ornamentation. Lazy.

Clear lights or coloured? Either. Lights best thing about Christmas in Great Frozen Darkness of the North.

Angel or star on the top of the tree? Star. Nothing. Pre-lit tree lights extend to top, relieving responsibility to chose.

 When do you put up the tree? Many years not at all. 2007: December 16, i.e., when offspring coerced into assisting.

When do you take down the tree? Around New Year's, unless later. One infamous year lighting continued until March, take down occurred... June? Don't remember. Tree eventually taken outside and scoured with compressed air to remove dust.

Which looks best, theme trees or homey trees? Homey. Unless theme tasteful and creative. Whatever. Just have the damned tree. With lots of lights.

Do you like eggnog? Yes. Side-by-side taste test of varieties available in local stores revealed El Cheapo Holly Nog to be preferred variety. Others too thick and greasy. No ECHN in fridge yet this year. Trying to eat wisely. Probably doomed to eventual failure, although deserving of praise for effort.

 

 

Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Spritz cookies. Sugar cookies. Only if made from mother's recipe. Almond flavoring in spritz, nutmeg in sugar cookies. Possibly other way around. (Spritz pictured above appear identical to those baked by mother in 1961, recreated on internet in shocking warp of space-time continuum. Note to self: give thanks for internet/google/warp of s-t c.)

Do you like fruitcake? No, except The Fruitcake Hater's Fruitcake. Decided to make it the same year mother died on December 1 and first child born (c-section with inadequate anesthesia) December 2. Whole season overwhelmingly stressful; however, TFHF, containing dried apricots and pecans and thoroughly soaked in brandy, inexplicably tasty. Huh. No idea. Recipe now tragically lost.

Gingerbread or sugar cookies? (See, "favorite thing to eat," above.)

Do you have a nativity scene? No. Never will. Shameless religious sentimentality unencumbered by historical accuracy. So-called Wise Men couldn't have arrived for weeks. Angels, if really exist, generally accepted to be invisible to human eye and unaccountably averse to hovering over feed troughs whilst engaged in trumpet playing.

Hardest person to buy for? Husband. Have not done so yet. May follow own suggestion to substitute generous donation to deserving charity in lieu of spousal gift exchange. Husband ignored such suggestion and purchased giftie for wife. Gift rumored to be electronic and found online for $20 rather than former price of $400. (Husband indefatigable bargain hunter.) Rumor continues that same present purchased for #2 son. Rumored clues indicate that rumored gift probably some sort of iPod thingie.

Easiest person to buy for? Sons. (Note: persons in #8 and 9 only humans deemed deserving of purchased gifts.)

When do you start shopping for Christmas? When damned well feel like it. Haven't started yet. May need to do so. Soon.

Favorite gift received as a child? Don't remember. Apparently never had one. Whole thing completely unaccountable as only child spoiled rotten with consumerist objects. WTF?

Weirdest Christmas gift you ever received? Don't remember. Apparent early onset Alzheimer's has thankfully erased memory.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not saying. Taking Fifth. (see, "early onset Alzheimer's," above)

Mail or email Christmas Cards? Mail. No cards. Christmas letter, elaborately formatted with color photos and graphics. May indulge in selected email in current year to minimize environmental impact, also to save time. Lazy.

Favorite Christmas Movie? Love Actually. Discovered last year. Plan to make annual tradition. Already in transit to local library.

Favorite Christmas song? Carol of the Bells. (MIL considered song Carol Of The Devil. Endless disbelief by kmkat.) Silver Bells. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear. Ave Maria. Little Drummer Boy. Twelve Days of Christmas and all variations thereon.

Travel or stay home at Christmas? Stay home. Traveled to Florida to visit the inlaws every frickin' Christmas during 500-year span between 1984 until 1994. Hated it. Inlaws now gone. Wish could repeat visit with same now.

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Yes. Maybe not. (see, "early onset...," above)

 What’s the corniest family tradition you do or miss doing? Don't have one. Corniness prevails year 'round.

What’s the worst thing you’ve seen related to Christmas? Giant inflatable crappe in yards. Gak.

Most annoying thing about this time of year? Too many expectations placed on female of family. Wish someone else were responsible for Christmas. Gee, can you tell?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(Apologies for going bah-humbug all over your Christmas. Please resume your normal festive preparations.)

 

Usefulness.

The boy man* talks about teaching in Zapatista Chiapas.

* He recently turned 23. I must remind myself he is most definitely not a boy any more.

Soaring Eagles socks and mittens.

The above is what I sent on Friday to Rachel at the Soaring Eagles project. There were two pairs of socks in Plymouth Encore Colorspun (click to embiggen -- they all look much better embiggened),

 

two pairs of mittens in Cleckheaton worsted weight washable wool,

 

and two pairs of mittens using one strand of the Cleckheaton held together with one strand of Lion Brand Wool-Ease.

 

There was another pair of mittens from the same dark variegated yarn as the socks but I forgot to take a picture of them. I hadn't knitted mittens since my boys -- now 18 and 23 -- were toddlers, but I now feel like I can knit mittens for anyone out of any size yarn on any size needles. In my sleep. With both hands tied behind my back. Yeah, I'm Wonder Woman of the Mittens now.

* * * * *

The view from my dining room window one day this week.

What you can't see is that the air was filled with tiny particles of ice that were blowing off the trees, so small as to be completely invisible except that they sparkled in the sun. Glorious.

What does Wonder Woman Of The Mittens wear when the outdoors looks like that? The same thing that all Smart Women Of The Frozen Tundra wear. Sorels with fancy-schmancy laces.

And what does the well-dressed cat wear?

A bib that sets off his eyes, naturally.

The bib subsequently went to Ryan's baby Harris project. En Esch was suitably heartbroken until I promised to knit him another one. Yeah, right...

 

The iPod meme.

How it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every section, type the song that’s playing
5. Next section — press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

Okay, here is the sound track for my life as determined by the iTunes God of Shuffle:

Opening credits:

• Eyes on the Prize by Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (Okay, that one's kind of a cool match.)

Waking up:

• Run On by Moby (Oh, well, they can't all be good matches.)

First day at school:

• Viva Las Vegas by ZZ Top (That one gave me a chuckle.)

Falling in love:

• That’s What They Always Say by Chris Rea (Things that make you go, Hmmmm...)

Breaking up:

• Wonder by Natalie Merchant (ditto)

Prom:

• Want To Be With You by the Moody Blues (Okay, that's a good one; I was pretty wildly in love with my prom date.)

Life’s okay:

• Tennessee Stud by Doc Watson (Huh?)

Mental breakdown:

• I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You) by The Commitments (Um, none of my mental breakdowns involved a man -- I can break down all by my own self, thankyouverymuch)

Driving:

• Riki Tiki Tavi by Donovan (Again, huh?)

Flashback:

• Seeker by The Who (Whatever)

Getting back together:

• That’ll Be the Day by Buddy Holly (That's a good one!)

Wedding:

• Nothing Seems to Matter by Bonnie Raitt (Um, no, this one is totally in left field. I guess that's what they mean by random.)

Birth of child:

• Any Colour You Like by Pink Floyd (LOL!)

Final battle:

• Silver Thunderbird by Marc Cohen (Whatever.)

Death scene:

• Carry On, Wayward Son by Kansas (Okay.)

End credits:

• San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers in Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie (WTF?)

* * * * *
Tag, you're next!

Meme stolen picked up from Carrie.

Eye candy Friday. Literally.

When I visited my friend Kathy last weekend she was still in the process of emptying their store*, open only during the summer, of perishable merchandise. She told me to take as much candy as I wanted because otherwise it would be thrown away. Mmmmmm, candy...

* * * * *
Some more eye candy from my visit with her. She and her husband live in the woods on a lake. They have a tame deer which they have named Lucy and who has come to their house daily for 2-1/2 years, although only in the winter.

Yes, Lucy comes for the treats.

Notice the Calorimetry and Noro striped scarf Kathy is wearing, above :-)

* Their store is slightly larger than this one:

Tale of woe. And luck.

We have two housemates in our Minneapolis house. They pay us minimal rent and are responsible for shoveling the snow and mowing the lawn, plus having them there means the house doesn't sit empty for extended periods. Both are people that Smokey knows from work and are  responsible and pleasant folks. It has been a good arrangement for everyone concerned.

   

However.

Apparently sometime last May or June they started putting our mail on a particular shelf on a stand in the dining room but without saying anything about it. Until last weekend, when one of them happened to mention to Smokey that, Gee, he had a lot of mail on that shelf and didn't he want to look at it? Smokey brought home several pounds of mail to go through. Approximately 99.47% of what is addressed to us at that address is junk mail, since we changed our mailing address for everything important when we moved here in 1999. Except, apparently, for a couple of minor things: property taxes and homeowner's insurance.

We discovered that, 1, a city housing inspector had issued us a citation for a sagging gutter on the garage in June, which citation has since escalated to assessments and probable forfeiture of our first-born, and 2, our insurance had lapsed as of July 11 (yikes!)

   

In our defense, both property taxes and homeowner's insurance were part of our mortgage payment until late 2006, when we refinanced and they became separately billable. The city sent the 2007 property tax bill before the housemates started their tidying practice with the mail; Smokey saw it, brought it to me in Wisconsin, and I paid the taxes. But as far as the city was concerned, the Minneapolis address was our mailing address and so the inspection citation was sent there. We had never had to pay insurance separately before and [insert big "Duh!"] we never thought of it.

Today we are in the process of rectifying the errors. To our credit we had a little help in the dunderhead department, but still... I shudder to think of what would have happened if there had been a fire / burglary / flood / tornado / earthquake during the six-month period we were uninsured.

If you can't be smart, be lucky.

7 weird things. Again. And mitten madness.

Ruth tagged me for the 7 weird things meme. I did this once before, but this time I'm going to follow her lead and give you 7 weird physical things about myself. As she so eloquently put it, Ewwwww.

1. If I were a chicken I'd be labeled "Parts missing." Specifically, wisdom teeth, eye teeth, uterus, and ovaries. All extracted. I still have my tonsils and appendix, though.

2. When I was in high school I thought it would be really cool to be able to bend my index fingers only at the last joint, so when I had mono and was confined to bed for what seemed like forever I practiced until I could do it with the index fingers of both hands. I still can, but tragically no one ever asks for a demonstration. But you get one anyway.

 

3. My hay fever, which developed in junior high, was (not surprisingly) worst the year I lived in a basement apartment. Happily I seem to have outgrown it.

4. When our older son was born I had the worst of both worlds: 18 hours of labor, including an hour of pushing, then having a c-section. Good times. What I didn't know until later was that the anesthetist gives the mom the least possible amount of anesthesia until the surgeon cuts the cord; that way there is less possibility of the baby suffering undo effects, I guess. Anyway, I was out cold until the surgeon started cutting; then I could hear my husband chatting with the nurses (he is an RN and had worked with some of them) and feel the knife. It didn't hurt -- just felt like the edge of the blade was pressed against my abdomen -- but I was completely freaked. Yo! Awake here! Somebody! Wanna be unconscious! I could feel my husband holding my hand so I kept trying to squeeze it so he would realize I was at least semiconscious. No luck. My awareness apparently lasted only a few seconds because I was not aware of the actual birth.

5. (I'm running out here so I will expand this to include my family.) My older son had an expander to widen his upper jaw when he was about 8, but he later absolutely refused to have braces to correct his overbite. Said overbite is not apparent, but he can stick his tongue out even when his jaws are closed, by sliding his tongue over the top of the bottom incisors, down behind the front ones, and out.

6. Our younger son can stick out his tongue and touch it to the tip of his nose. Whether this will make him popular with the ladies is something I do not wish to consider.

7. My husband and older son are both left-handed. Both had somewhat traumatic births (see above), which I think I read somewhere can caused left-handedness. Our younger son and I are both right-handed, although I am a bit ambidextrous.

* * * * *

As a reward for wading through the above blather, here is a gratuitous mitten shot.

I have it on good authority, however, that the kids in Bartlesville, OK have appendages on their hands that require the knitter to create an appropriate cover for them. Damn. I hate to knit thumbs.

Christmas pipes.

Ignore the glitzy, Hollywood over-the-top production and just listen. Beautiful. Found on blackbird's blog .

Home again.

I got home about 11:30 Monday night after my weekend travels to visit old friends. The dogs came with me. They are good travelers.

Here they are in the back of the Aveo. Mostly they slept, but sometimes Lucy watched over my shoulder so she could navigate. And whenever I got out of the car, when I came back she was in the driver's seat. Every single time.

Since this is purportedly a knitting blog, I shall tell you about the souvenir yarn that came home with me. My friend Connie tried to take me to a yarn shop but apparently it had gone out of business. No LYS in Grand Forks, North Dakota, folks, only Michael's and JoAnne Fabrics. Not to worry, though, I still managed to pick up some of that fuzzy string:

Light blue, pale lime green, and terra cotta -- this Cotton Ease will make dandy unisex striped preemie hats for Jeanne's annual January preemie hat extravaganza.

I was working on socks and mittens for the Soaring Eagles Project* while on my travels, and I picked up some red, green, and cream Wool-Ease to go with the variegated Plymouth Encore Colorspun I had along. No photos of that, too boring. I'll take pictures of the finished items before I mail them off.

In Park Rapids to see my old friend Kathy (she IS my oldest friend -- I've known her since we were 14, and she is one day older than I am) I hit the jackpot. Turns out there is an excellent yarn shop in town, Monika's Quilt Shop. Kathy frequents the store because she is a quilter, so she gave me a tour of the vast selection of quilt fabrics.  Then we walked into the yarn section.

Heaven! Cascade, Noro, Misty Alpaca, Malabrigo, and lots, lots more. Lovely colors, lots of knitted swatches, nicely arranged, a wide range of prices and qualities and brands -- truly everything a knitter might want. The Cascade 220 was $6.60/skein, which struck me as a very good price. It was amazing to me to find such a well-stocked yarn store with decent prices in my old home town. I kept telling Kathy I wanted to move it to my current stomping grounds.

I got some washable worsted weight wool for Soaring Eagles Project mittens in lively kid colors:

And some sock yarn, destined to be double-stranded with some slightly mottled pale beige Trekking for a pair of gift socks next year:

Yes, I'm going to double-strand Trekking. Life is too short to knit on US#0s. Or even US#1s.

* Thanks to all of you who have stepped up to the challenge! I bet we will help Rachel reach her goal in time.

* * * * *
It is winter here today.

Lucy has the right idea:

Wrap your tail 'round your nose and take a nap.