kmkat and her kneedles

Navel gazing.

Found this oldie in my drafts folder. Updated it for 2013.

Idea lifted from Twosheep.com.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?

2012: Skydiving, scuba diving, and dumpster diving. Not. 

2013: Ditto.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?


2012 (for 2013): No yarn buying in 2013. Knit entirely from stash. I almost kept it -- bought exactly one skein in 2013.

2013 (for 2014): No yarn buying, at least until after April. That will mean I went 12 months without buying any yarn.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?


2012: No one close, but the physician's assistant that told me 1, I needed a hip replacement, and b, to avoid gluten, had a baby. I gave her three red, white, and blue baby bibs.

2013: One -- Smokey's former co-worker and our former tenant. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?

2012: Nope.

2013: The former librarian in my little town. She was the librarian for 29 years and didn't retire until she was in her 80s. Everyone loved her, including me. Also a member of the county board, but I was very far from close to him.

5. What countries did you visit?

2012: Minnesota.

2013: Ditto

6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

2012: The ability to walk distances without pain. 

2013: I did it! No hip pain any more. Still working on the lower back. Will need other hip replaced in a few years.

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

2012: July 16, the day of Smokey's first surgery.

2013: June 4, the day of my hip replacement.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


2012: Taking care of my invalid and in-pain and heavily medicated husband without either of us killing the other.

2013: Not sure I had a Big Achievement. Smaller ones: the hip, retiring, getting the county health department kitchen inspection fee cut in half for non-profits, cleaning my office. Wait. That last one was a Big Achievement. Updated: it is totally amazing how quickly a clean office can become cluttered again.

9. What was your biggest failure?

2012: Losing it with him severely a couple of times.

2013: Not getting the rabies quarantine expenses transferred from the dog license fund to the health department's budget. Not getting the library funding increased (Act 150 increased from 70% to 100%. If you are not from Wisconsin and intimately familiar with library funding, this will mean nothing. But not to worry; you can still have a full and meaningful life without that knowledge.) Yeah, it is an exciting life.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

2012: No, just the chronic hip & back pain.

2013: Nothing big, but I could have done without the January URI and the May UTI that each postponed the hip surgery.

11. Where did most of your money go?

2012: Usual stuff -- house payments, utilities, gas, groceries, parking, eating out. Very little on clothes or yarn.

2013: Ditto, except also paying Teenage Helper and Younger Son. That was money very well spent.

12. What was the best thing you bought?

2012: A replacement geothermal unit. New washer and dryer. iPad. Exciting, huh?

2013: 15-yo AWD Volvo station wagon. I really, really hate not being independent. AWD = independence from December November - March April.

13. What did you get really excited about?

2012: The new washer and dryer (not installed until June 2013), having relatively inexpensive heating and cooling again. Losing 25 pounds when I stopped eating gluten.

2013: Retirement! The new hip, using the new washer and dryer, Younger Son's new job, new iPhone from Younger son.

14. Compared with this time last year, are you:


2012: Looking forward to the hip replacement.

2013: Able to walk! Same weight (kept off that 25 pounds)!

15. What do you wish you’d done more of?


2012: Reading.

2013: Ditto, although toward the end of the year I picked up the reading pace.

16. What do you wish you’d done less of?


2012: Playing games on iPad in bed instead of reading.

2013: Ditto.

17. How did you spend Christmas?

2012: With Smokey, two sons, and one fiance, same as 2011. That is a good thing.

2013: With Smokey and two sons. Most excellent.

18. What were your favorite books of the year?

2012: We Need to Talk About Kevin. Several new-to-me mystery authors -- Elly Griffiths, Rosamunde Lupton, Julie Kramer.

2013: Red Shirts by John Scalzi. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. Gone Girl by Gilllian Flynn. Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogen. Where Did You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters.

19. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

2012: Did nothing, as Smokey was still recovering. 63 (!) 

2013: Picked up Smokey from the VA hospital after his kidney stone removal. Anyone sensing a trend here?

20. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

 2012: If I could move without pain. ETA: Geez, have I whined enough about this already?

2013: Um... can't think of anything. Maybe losing another 25 pound.

21. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

2012: Same as when I was 21 -- jeans and t-shirt in summer, jeans and sweater in winter. I have started doing the neck scarf thing, though. Flash!

2013: Ditto. I just bought myself a new flannel shirt from L.L. Bean  (my second; both have coordinating handknit socks). The excitement never stops...

22. What kept you sane?

2012: The wonders of modern psychopharmacology. 

2013: Ditto, plus I should have mentioned my sweetie. He helps, too.

23. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.


2012: How much love my husband.

2013: Ditto.

Interholiday Sunday.

Oops, I forgot to hit Publish yesterday. It's a two-fer Monday!

1. Business cards :: overrated.
2. IT :: lifesaver.
3. Liver :: pâté.
4. Rugged :: truck.
5. Destruction :: Eve of. Child of the '60s here.
6. Cast :: signed.
7. Gratification :: instant.
8. Pizza :: sausage and mushroom.
9. Cutest :: guy ever.
10. Best :: dressed.

* * * * *

That cold front rolled in last night, the kind of cold front variously known as Alberta clipper, arctic clipper, or jesushf*ckingchristitscoldoutthere clipper. Yes, that kind of cold front.

High today predicted to be -3˚F, -19˚C for those who roll that way. (That would be the entire rest of the world, I think.) When I let the dogs out last night the door wouldn't stay shut afterwards -- wind was so strong it kept blowing it open, even when I swore I had latched it. I even thought about throwing the deadbolt, but eventually I managed to get it latched firmly.

Actually, the forecast for this cold front was worse a few days ago. Now it has moderated.

Yes, that is moderated. A few days ago the weatherpeople were predicting highs below zero forever nearly a week.

Never fear, however; I am wearing a wool sweater -- handknit! -- and wool socks -- handknit! -- and will don a wool hat -- handknit! -- and wool scarf -- handknit! -- fleece-lined gloves before I venture out today.

For comparison, yesterday I was out gathering signatures on my petition to have my name on the ballot in April (20 signature of registered voters in my district, required by law in WI) I shed my parka early and wore only a cotton sweater with long-sleeved cotton t-shirt under it. Still too warm.

Enough.

* * * * *

And now...

it's time for another rousing game of...

SHOW ME YOUR WALLPAPER!

Here's mine, found on a knitting site I can't remember Madame DeFarge Knits:

 

It replaced this image, cheerfully lifted from Ryan's blog:

That's a rock on a frozen skein of yarn.

 What is decorating your screen these days? Phones and tablets allowed ;-)

Do you love me? Show me (the money)!

This is the post where I ask for money.

Lots of money.

Tons of money.

Boatloads of money.

It's bigger on the inside.

But the money is not for me. It is for my tiny library's building fund. This little village of 917 souls has one of the best -- and busiest! -- libraries on the planet, especially for a village this size, but it lacks a number of things:

• Enough space for a print collection of the size recommended for its service area (!)
• A roof that doesn't leak
• A basement that doesn't flood
• Dedicated parking space for patrons
• Meeting room(s)
• Privacy for public access computer users
• Working space for more than one staff member at a time

The fund-raising committee has already completed Phase I of the project, wherein they purchased a building -- a centrally located but vacant supermarket that had been empty for several years -- and hired an architectural firm to do preliminary plans. There were a few bumps along the way, like prehistoric underground fuel tanks that had to be removed, but the building purchase was final earlier this year.

Now, as much as I would like to, I cannot afford the cost to remodel that building into the new library all by myself.

I am asking you, my bloggy pals, to help by pledging for me here. (ETA: link fixed, 12/30/13, 4:34pm CST)

(Put in the notes that you are pledging for me, Kathryn Kienholz.)

Deadline for pledges is Saturday, January 11, 2014.

 

Besides being a fund raiser for one of my favorite causes, this looks like it will be fun to do. Way more fun than the Polar Plunge into an area lake last February :-)

Pledge now!

Here is a recent display next to the checkout counter: Blind Date with a Book.

"Money" photo credit: Johnny Vulkan via photopin cc

End-of-year links.

photo credit: photo.anger via photopin cc

112 ways to save money.

Clean your shit with Magic Eraser.

For the chicken lovers among you.

"Human anthills."

Dialect quiz reveals the three cities from which you probably came.

The incredibly rare black roses of Halfeti. A correction; what they look like now. A non-'shopped view.

Obamacare on the ground: MN vs. WI.

Kittens and puppies at the office.

Dali revisited.

Scariest tattoo EVAH!

Come, let us all hygge during the cold dark months! (via martinimade.com)

Where federal workers get their clothes.

When worlds collide... peacefully.

Elves block road construction.

 

Edited to add: That three-fer yesterday? That was a combination of me forgetting what day it was and something Typepad. I was trying to pre-schedule some posts for next week. Oh, well.

 

YouTube's greatest hits, as determined by me us.

There is a plethore of  Best of lists at this time of year. So I made one. 

I know you have seen these before. Let's just think of it as a Greatest Hits post, m'kay?

First, Smokey's favorites:

He is also inordinately fond of all the Henri le Chat Noir videos, which you can see here.

My faves:

And now, the all-time favorite of both of us:

Sometimes Twitter just cracks me up.

 

  

 

 

 

The tool chest.

Smokey got a new tool.

Now THAT is twelve inches* ;-)

 

* Yeah, I know it is really 11-3/4, but I had to make the joke.

I won Christmas!

Every single gift I got was something I wanted. Srsly.

Smokey gave me got a pristine copy of cookbook I had coveted: Eat It by Dana Crumb, wife of R. Crumb, famed illustrator and inventor of the iconic Mr. Natural and Keep On Truckin' images. Why, yes, I AM a child of That Era.

Smokey assures me that he paid nowhere near what it was priced at Amazon used books.

Back story: when we first met and for the first five years we were married, we lived in a very large house (eight bedrooms, three baths) with six other people. Jim, one of our housemates, had this cookbook, which is the source for my fabled enchilada recipe. The last time I made them I decided to see if I could find the cookbook on eBay. I did, and told Smokey that a, it was out of print, no surprise there, and 2, that copies were going for as much as $50 or more. We chuckled at how valuable it had become, and I thought no more about it. 

Now I have my very own copy! Try to imagine how happy this makes me; just try.

I remember the recipes as being very, very tasty. Smokey said the reviews confirmed that. One reviewer said she had worn out two copies of the book and was now on her third. I think I probably made a few recipes back in the day, but I don't remember any more. Will definitely try them now. A blast of fond memories and the prospect of noms -- priceless!

 

Elder Son got me a set of Knitter's Price interchangeable bamboo circs -- w00t! When I opened it, I was flabbergasted and asked how he knew I wanted them. Both sons replied that I had told them. (Yeah, the memory is the first to go.) Eventually I remembered that I had emailed them both sometime this fall and said that if anyone were interested in a gift for me, I would really like these.

I need to knit some silk. Stat. If I had some.

 

Younger Son had told me a couple months ago that he was thinking of getting me an iPhone for Christmas. He had recently switched his existing phone to a different carrier but had not taken advantage of the new carrier's deal on a new phone; thus, he was able to get me a fabulous phone for far less than MSRP and add it/me to his contract quite cheaply. We are a family that loves us a deal.

Suh-weet!

Here are some photos I took with it at Younger Son's apartment last night in dim room light, no flash.

I may never have to carry a separate camera again. 

To those many of you who already have an iPhone or some other magical telephonic device, this may seem mundane. But to me, who has carried a dumb TracFone for years and years, this is a quantum leap. Now I can do things like find a map when we are driving or look up a restaurant when we are somewhere unfamililar or tweet photos or... many, many other things I cannot imagine right now*.

An unexpected plus was when last night on a whim, after noting with surprise that I had one bar of service, I tried to call Younger Son (in Minneapolis) on my new phone from my bedroom (in our house in Wisconsin, where NO ONE has cell service). And it worked!  Since the house is by the lake, it  -- and every other cabin and house here -- is down in a hole. No one has cell service the last time I asked, about a year ago. Cellular coverage keeps improving, but I was still very impressed. We chatted for a few minutes, then the call dropped. He later emailed me that he has found the reception here to be good, not great. Texting should be fine, but voice may be somewhat iffy.

Color me one Happy Kat^TM.

 

* Just remembered a big advantage. Now I have a phone that will sync with my computer. Every Tracfone I have had has required me to re-enter my entire phone book from the previous phone. I got a new phone every year or two, and the last one? I only entered Smokey and the boys because it was such a pain to re-enter everything. Happily, I never needed any other numbers because I could look them up on my iPod**, which is always in my left pocket.  

** That iPod will be going to Elder Son as soon as I get everything synced up on the iPhone. The headphone jack on his iPod is bad so he hasn't been using it. Even though mine is a couple years old it works fine (except when I take it outside and the temp is below zero)(and even though one corner of the screen is shattered from when it fell out of my pocket onto a tile floor).

 

 

Le tuque du voyageur!

When the weather turned cold a couple weeks ago, Smokey went on a quest to find the hat I knit him last winter -- the one that somehow never got chronicled here. He found it, no problem, in a box of hats at the top of the stairs. 

And there was great rejoicing.

The hat in all its extended glory. You can just barely see the fold line slightly to the left of center.

 

Voyageur style, with the hat sagging down the back. Somehow this one
isn't quite long enough to do that effectively.

 

With folded brim.

 

Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool 4-ply, fingering weight. Several skeins. Color was originally the creatively named 450. I overdyed it with Rit Denim and achieved the look of a well-broken-in pair of blue jeans. Hat is knit with two strands held together. I knit two swatches for him to decide between: single strand on US#2 and double strand on US#6. Surprising me, he chose the second. But it meant the hat went a lot faster so I was pleased by his choice.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#6/4.0mm.
Pattern: an authentic voyageur hat pattern shared with me by Dale-Harriet.

Since this is a double-layer hat with four layers of knitted woolen fabric over the ears, it is W.A.R.M. Perfect for a Wisconsin winter.

 

Sunday random.

1. Drape :: draperies.
2. Visitors :: gallery.
3. Garage :: art.
4. Disney :: cartoon.
5. Among :: friends.
6. Trend :: -y.
7. Holiday :: dazzle.
8. Lightbulb :: moment.
9. Zing! :: Blam!
10. Efficient :: coefficient.

* * * * *

My hair is falling out. A lot. It started sometime after I went gluten-free a year ago last June. My hairbrush needed to be cleaned out every day and sometimes twice a day if I brushed my hair again. The loss is so severe now that I think it is visible -- my hair looks stringy. No bald patches, just very, very thin. Hair clips that once were too small to contain my mane are now way too big.

The technical term for my current hair is frog fur. Long frog fur, but still frog fur.

I mentioned it to my doc last time I was in; they checked my thyroid function, often a trigger for hair loss, and it turned out to be fine -- no medical reason for this extreme annoyance.

Googling the terms "hair loss gluten" leads me to believe that eating gluten can cause hair loss rather the opposite (reverse? converse? obverse? whatevs). Sheesh.

I shall report whether Rogaine For Women actually works. Keep your fingers crossed.

* * * * *

The Christmas letter is done and dusted. Some folks got it in electronic version, no postage required. Family (and many of those over age 60) got the dead tree version. This may be the earliest we have ever issued the letter.

Shopping is done, all online orders received except a certain gift certificate that is easily handled. I am quite pleased and excited about what I got for Smokey. I cannot tell you about it for obvious reasons (Hi, Smoke!) but all will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Smokey did some awesome food shopping on Friday morning after he got off work. Our fridge* now contains two (2!) kinds of pickled herring, shaved ham, havarti cheese, thin-sliced Swedish pumpernickel rye, Swedish meatball mix, Swedish meatball gravy, two kinds of olives, and watermelon pickles. The last item is not a traditional ingredient of a Scandinavian smörgåsbord, but it is one I love. A relish tray is not complete withot watermelon pickles, sayeth The Kat^TM.

He obtained the gaffelbiter** at Engebretsen's, a Scandinavian deli and gift shop in Minneapolis. He was there at 9:15, shortly after they opened at 9am, and the place was already packed. Waiting in line to get the meatball mix and herring he was #34; they were serving #2. No credit cards allowed in the food section, probably because at this time of year the electronic authorization process can be sluggish. I am awed at his dedication to getting me what I wanted.

He also got New York strip steaks at Lunds, a high-end-ish supermarket in Mpls. Elder Son will be arriving shortly, and he loves him a good steak. We shall eat well over the coming week(s)***. 

* * * * *

As I was showing Younger Son all the fabulous things on the blog during the past weeks, I saw the photo of the snow on the deck table and chairs that I posted a couple weeks ago. Pretty meager, I thought.

None has melted in the interim, but it has settled and sublimated a bit. Mostly, though, it has grown.

 

 

* Scrubbed inside and out by Kieva The Teenage Helper, yay!

** He shunned the canned variety and got ours at the deli counter. 

*** As opposed to what, Kat? You always eat well.

Links for the first day (or so) of winter.

photo credit: n.stauffer via photopin cc

 

It's the new turducken. No, not that viral one with the squid/octopus we all saw a couple weeks ago; this one is made of cat.

"The US is more on par with developing countries like Indonesia and Tanzania than with OECD nations like Australia and Canada."

Ice bubbles.

Grumpy Cat does NOT have his own star.

Passerby: Here, I'll help. Woman: Nah, I got this.

Hammer nunchuks. While searching for those on Etsy, I discovered there are a LOT of different kinds of nunchuks available. (via boingboing.net)

The ten most popular YouTube videos of 2013. Be sure to watch the Evian babies, the telekinetic coffee shop, and the NFL bad lip reading.

Never mind the product. Read the reviews.

Liz is up to the eighth day of Christmas. Stay tuned for the rest.

National Geographic photo contest 2013.

These are what the St Paul Winter Carnival needs for its ice castle.

Error messages for novelists.

 

Humbuggery not allowed. Apathy and laziness, yes. But no humbuggery.

photo credit: Neil. Moralee via photopin cc (circle & slash added)

Reading this post made me consider my own level of Christmas cheeriness accomplishment. Here's what I found:

• Last week I intended to start playing Christmas music but somehow forgot. The post prompted me to open iTunes and start the "Holiday" genre playing in a shuffled loop. Right now Imogene Heap is singing Just for Now. Before that it was Jethro Tull and Solstice Bells. Next up, Trans-Siberian Railroad. This is the thing that will help me get in the mode.
• Last weekend I blew started to blow the dust and cobwebs and cat/dog hair off the Christmas tree. Need to finish that little task.
• I verified that the tree lights still work. Will turn them on once the tree is dust/cobweb/hair-free.
• No baking. Haven't done that for a number of years. We don't need the calories (nor the gluten) and the kids young men probably don't, either.
• All but one present purchased. Today.
• No presents wrapped yet. This weekend. Maybe.
• Christmas letter text is finalized. The annual letter is a big project (see next 9 items).
• Photographs inserted to letter. 
• Letter converted to .pdf and emailed to about a third of the annual list.
• Christmas letter printed. This required a trip to WalMart Tuesday night to purchase another color ink cartridge.
• The envelopes are addressed.
• The letter is folded.
  
• And stuffed.
• Most of the envelopes are sealed. I mistakenly purchased envelopes that require licking. I quit somewhere around half-way through because I was tired of the taste.
• Christmas postage stamps purchased.
• Need to finish licking and sealing and stamping; can mail them all today.
• Might (maybe) dig around for some other decorations -- the two nutcracker men I needlepointed 20 years ago, the Christmas tree skirt, the stockings.
• Need to acquire the requisite items for Christmas Eve smörgåsbord -- cold cuts, rye bread, gherkins, shrimp, picked herring of some kind, whatever else I decide we need.
• Elder Son will arrive home this weekend. Younger Son will be here, too.
• Younger Son is hosting Christmas at his apartment.
• Yay! I am not the primary cook!

photo credit: Jamie In Bytown via photopin cc

 

photo credit (doggie humbug): sdkscorp via photopin cc

Ten on Tuesday, the holiday tradition edition.

We tend to change our tradition(s) periodically, not intentionally,
but rather as they evolve. I'll tell you about our various traditions over the years.

Ten Christmas Traditions.

1. When I was a child, we always had Christmas Eve dinner with my grandparents. Sometimes Grandma made dinner, more often it was at our house. We opened gifts on Christmas Eve -- the Scandinavian time to do it -- but Santa's gifts were not under the tree until Christmas morning. All this amounted to two Christmases, one on the evening of the 24th and another on the morning of the 25th. Yes, I was spoiled rotten as a child.
   
   
2. For the first ten years we were married we alternated which set of parents we saw at Christmas. Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas with Smokey's, vice versa the next year. This worked well -- no one could complain they were getting short-changed.
   
   
3. After Smokey's parents retired and moved to Florida at pretty much the same time Elder Son was born, we started going to Florida for the holidays. My parent had both died by then so there was no competition for who to spend Christmas with. This continued for ten years or so, until Smokey's dad died.
   
   
4. Since then we have tended to have our official Christmas at off times because Smokey tried to pick up extra shifts at the holidays -- double and triple time pay (thank you, nurse's union!) was extremely tempting. So Christmas might be on the 26th, or if it were on the morning of the 25th Smokey would be nodding off after working a double shift on Christmas Eve. 
   
   
5. Back when I used to actually decorate for Christmas, we had Swedish angel chimes (a gift from his parents on our first Christmas) on the dining room table, stockings hanging from the mantel, and electric candles in all the windows. Our house in Minneapolis is a center-entrance colonial, so the window candles were delightfully appropriate.
   
   
6. I knitted us each a Christmas stocking. Smokey's, done first, was an authentic argyle sock knit from an authentic argyle sock pattern -- intarsia! seaming! putzy as could be! It was red with green and white argyle and gold and black highlight lines, and I knit his name into the sole. My stocking followed a few years later, knit from another pattern in the same leaflet -- white with red and dark green argyle-like patterning on the sides of the leg and my name knit into the sole.
   
   
7. I knit the boys' stocking much later from a pattern in a magazine. Unlike Smokey's and mine, which were knit from fingering weight like real socks, these were worsted weight. And they each had an intarsia dancing bear on the leg. Said bear was wearing a checked vest; I made one stocking red with a green and white vest and the other green with a red and white vest. I was appalled when I discovered the socks were going to end up being about three feet long. Talk about (implied) avarice and greed! I finished them and hung them every year but was offended every damned time.
   
   
8. Smokey's Danish grandm*a used to have his parents and us at her apartment for Christmas Eve, where she would serve the traditional Danish cold smörgåsbord. After Grandmas died, Smokey's mother continued the tradition. There would be open-faced sandwiches of thin-sliced Danish pumpernickle, the special pickled herring** called gaffelbiter, sliced hard-boiled eggs, and raw onions; sliced ham and turkey and cheese and seeded rye bread for more ordinary sandwiches; shrimp salad (always made with canned baby peas and tiny canned shrimp); and probably a dozen other things I don't remember. I have done this some years. too; 2013 might be a good year to repeat it.
   
   
9. Every year we write a long, newsy Christmas letter with lots of photos. Unlike most such letters, ours includes both the good news and the bad news, plus as much humor as we can inject. The whole process tends to take several weeks, and many years the letter doesn't get mailed until 24th or later. Those who get it say they look forward to it, so we keep it going. This is probably our longest-running tradition.
   
   
10. Christmas knitting: some years I do, some years I don't. Mostly I don't, even though I love to give people hand-knit stuff. 
    
    
11. My latest tradition, begun a couple years ago and of which I am not proud, is leaving the decorated tree up all year. Hey, the tree is in an infrequently used area, and leaving it up saves a bunch of work the next year! All I have to do is blow off the dust and cobwebs, plug in the lights and we're good to go!
    
    ::hangs head in shame:: 
    
    ::looks up hopefully::
    
    But I ordered some fabric to make a tree cover, so next year I won't have to blow off the dust and cobwebs -- that counts for something, right?
    
    

* His grandma looked like the traditional grandma -- petite, a bit plump, rosy cheeks and a big smile for her grandchildren -- but she was a corker. The first time I met her she had a cigarette in one hand and a Manhattan in the other.

** When I was googling in an attempt to find this particular pickled herring, I found this, which was way too funny not to share.

Links for the Ides of December.

photo credit: chimothy27 via photopin cc

Remember summer? 

Do you know how to easily find the distance between two cities?

Toni Morrison on teenage mothers.

Miss Laura's School for Esquire Men.

What exactly happened here? Nothing.

"And they knit happily ever after."

Wouldn't this be the perfect fabric for a sock-in-progress bag?

Well, this pretty much destroyed any affection I might have for Love, Actually.

Holiday decorating with yarn.

Not every duckling imprints on a cat as its mother.

When I am very, very old, I want it to be like this.

The 2013 Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog.

Your kitten printer is running out of toner.

Many of those things true about book lovers are also true of us knitters; just substitute yarn for book, knitting for reading, and LYS for bookstore. (HT to Chris for the original link)

Aurora borealis time-lapse video.

Clara Parkes on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Links from Chris.

 

Can you stand another post about winter? Think hard; it is only December.

The township* road that leads to our house (eventually).

 

 

I attended (or heard about) two town meetings this week; both were heavily attended by people complaining about the ice pack on the roads**. Crews cannot do anything about the ice until it warms up; salt is ineffective until temps are above 0˚F (or so), and plows cannot scrape it up because everything is frozen solid. The state highways are clear because the county highway department maintains them (remember the cheese brine?***), but all the other rural roads are solid ice.

 

We remain toasty :-)

 

This and the previous photo show the state
of all local conifers: heavily covered with frozen-on snow.

 

Before the snow, this sign advertised free litter-trained kittens.
Kittens apparently all gone now; only litter remains.

 

* Technically, this is a town road. We do not have townships in Wisconsin; we have towns, which are the non-municipal rural areas and are typically six miles square.

** One constituent complained about a particular corner in his area. "You guys NEVER do a good job of clearing that corner. I have slid off the road there four times!" Er, maybe problem is not the road, sir?

*** A crew from CNN Chicago was here at the highway department this week to get a story about the cheese brine. If you are awake at 2am some night soon, you may get to see it.

Ten on Tuesday, the to-do edition.

This week Carole has us sharing our to-do lists. That is not a bad thing to suggest 2-1/2 weeks before Christmas, since some of us...

::la la la, fingers in ears, I can't hear you:: 

...tend to procrastinate.

Ten Fourteen Things On My To-Do List, More Or Less In Order Of Importance Urgency.*

1. Take my nomination papers around door-to-door around my district to get 30-40 signatures so that my name can be on the ballot for county supervisor in the election next April. Deadline is January 7, but the sooner I do this, the less likely someone else will decide to run against me. Only 20 signatures are required, but getting more is recommended in case any are disallowed. 
   
   
2. Finish editing the Christmas letter.
   
   
3. Choose photos and insert to  Christmas letter.
   
   
4. Print Christmas letters. This will involve finding a new cartridge for the color inkjet, which may be more difficult than it should be, given the state of my desk.
   
   
5. Address the envelopes for Christmas letter. This is the tedious part but is also the part I kinda enjoy because it involves no creativity or decisions. Yeah, tedium is my medium.
   
   
6. Fold and stuff and stamp Christmas letters. This part is both easier and harder than it used to be. Back when the kids were still at home, I would force enlist them to do the collating, folding, and stuffing. But I also insisted that all of us sign each letter. That last thing took a bit of organzation to get all of us to sit down together at the same time.
   
   
7. Mail Christmas letters. Happily, this is the easy part.
   
   
8. Contact Kiera The Teenage Helper to schedule her to work next weekend. I may have her scrub my kitchen top to bottem, including the inside of the cabinets and refrigerator, which hasn't been done in, er, um, years.
   
   
9. Take Elder Son's leather coat to the cobbler shop to see if it can be repaired. He hung it over the back of his chair at the campus library, then rolled the chair back and ripped the bejesus out of it. No matter how cheap the repair, it will be more than he paid for the coat; he bought it at a thrift shop in North Carolina on his spring break several years ago. He likes the coat because it is not too warm. Both our sons inherited Smokey's internal thermostat, which is always set to FLAMING INFERNO.
   
   
10. Buy new laces for my winter boots. A certain dog seems to have discovered them sometime since last winter. Last week the laces broke when I pulled on them to tighten, pre-tying, the first time I wore my boots this winter. They broke in several places. I'm pretty sure it was the dog because moths do not eat cotton shoelaces...
    
    
11. Finish cabled hat for Ali. This is no longer quite so urgent, since he emailed me to have Elder Son bring it back to Ann Arbor with after Christmas.
    
    
12. Knit a baby sweater for a friend's newborn. Newborn is two weeks old, baby shower was Sunday, but I told her we couldn't come (true). Instead, I sent her photos of several different yarn choices and let her choose which she wanted for the sweater. I also told her that I planned to knit it so Baby Abigail could wear it NEXT winter. Newborns grow so darned fast that it didn't seem practical to attempt to get it done for this winter.
    
    
13. Modify the dog sweater I made for Ser Percival The Energetic so it doesn't slide down his body. This will involve some combination of, 1, frogging the existing turtleneck and reknitting it tighter, and/or B, cutting a steek down the back, cutting away part of the existing turtleneck, picking up stitches, knitting button bands, and sewing on buttons. Given that the temps have been subzero and that Ser Percy is an extreme short-hair, maybe this should be higher on the list.
    
    
14. Figure out what to give Elder Son for Christmas. He's a bit past the age for Legos. The  gifts for the rest of the family are already purchased ::smirk::
    
    
15. Finish the two pairs of socks that have been in time out for way too long: Snickets and the ones Kym sent me last year. I love both of those, but because the patterns are not plain vanilla socks, they require a bit of attention. Both are at a point where I need to Figure It Out, which is just another way of saying, Oh, look, a squirrel! I think I'll cast on something else!

 

If this is Sunday, it is time for the Sunday Stuff.

1. Games :: Hunger. Duh.
2. Younger :: woman.
3. Propose :: marriage. To a younger woman? Sheesh, I must be feeling insecure.
4. Closer :: to heaven.
5. Cleaned :: and polished.
6. Fresh :: produce.
7. Crunch :: Cap'n.
8. Centers :: of interest.
9. Shiny! :: Firefly!
10. Horrific :: nasty.

* * * * *

A friend just posted this on Facebook:

So [husband] just told me that the useless dude we had to see 27 years ago for pre-marriage "training" (<-- parent-pleasing move) was one of those named on the recently released Mpls/St. Paul Archdiocese list of abusive priests. I thought that guy was terrible back then, just on general principle, and now I'm glad we walked out of there and did pretty much the opposite of everything he suggested.

My friend is a GREAT judge of character.

* * * * *

 
While writing Friday's post about South Africe I found this photo that Younger Son
took in the men's room at the Madrid airport. Love it!

* * * * *

Winter arrived this week... with a vengence.

Actually, the above reading on our (internet-connected!) thermostat represents a slight heat wave. Yesterday at about the same time it was -12˚F (-24˚C).

Yup, winter. I have been making good use of my warm woolly scarf-y shawlettes  and hand-knit socks and LLBean flannel-lined jeans. For some unknown reason, the power company has not seen the need to turn off the interruptible power yet this winter, plus -- unlike last year -- the heat pump seems able to maintain the desired indoor temp. All in all, the house is balmy :-)

Speaking of hand-knits, the cabled hat I blogged about a couple weeks ago is coming along swimmingly. I know, I know, I complained about it in the original post, but I managed* to get the actual pattern -- Celtic Bunny Hat. Now, the knitting is slow -- lots of cabling -- but not difficult. Good pattern! This cable chart is much more logical than the one for the Saxon Braid. I actually experience joy when knitting it rather than anxiety and dread. 

The horizontal panel has short rows to duplicate the effect of the first decreasing rounds as a hat approaches the crown. I have not seen short rows in a cable pattern before, but they work just fine here. As some long-ago cooking program host used to say, Very simple very easy! 

* We shall not discuss precisely how I got the pattern. Just know that knitters are delightful people.

* * * * *

Younger Son just did a customer service call on the land line behind me. (Computer service people are never off duty, apparently.) Lots of technical jargon. When he hung up, he said,"You understood all that, right?" Then he smirk-chuckled. And proceded to explain to me what he had just told his client, which involved terms like "kernel panic" and "LUNs" and "disc arrays". Before he started I tried to tell him that I didn't need to know -- because I knew I wouldn't understand -- and he insisted, "No, this is fun!" Um, sure. But it makes me happy to know he loves his work.

Decembrist links.

photo credit: mikecogh via photopin cc

Okay. Thanksgiving is history, time to get ready for Christmas.

What NOT to get your 10-yo son for Christmas.

Not shopping, but perhaps some Christmas knitting.

More Christmas knitting.

Find the invisible cow. (NSFW, but only because there is required audio. If you have headphones, you are good to go.)

Got plastic bags? Make rope.

The Kronos Quartet plays Purple Haze.

More music, this time with ice.

Almost any photograph can be improved by judicious cropping.

Removing DRM* increased music sales.

How to manipulate people: a seven-step primer.

Listen to the crew of the starship Enterprise sing Let It Snow.

Eminem, James Joyce, and John Lennon were artistic geniuses, but nobody tops Kanye West or Miles Davis for arrogance.

Wearable technology: the mood sweater and the anti-overeating bra. Here's an excellent commentary on that second one.

Speaking of useful clothing...

I gave Younger Son and Smokey (my two tinkerers; also bought some for myself) sugru for Christmas last year. Now with magnets! (Note: sugru was invented by a woman.)

This guy.

Links from Chris.

 

 

 

Friday thoughts.

You may remember that Elder Son did his semester abroad in South Africa back in 2005 (pre-blog) and that Younger Son and I visited him at the end. The death of of Nelson Mandela has made me reflect a bit.

To black South Africans, Mandela was George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and maybe Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one person. I know that sounds flip, but it is the only way I can express how they seemed to feel about Mandiba. It is absolutely amazing to me that he enabled that country to transition from its brutal apartheid state to one one of universal political freedom without a bloody war. Has such a monumental transition ever happened peacefully anywhere else on the planet? It is as if the US had abolished slavery without the fratricidal bother of the Civil War. Elder Son pointed out that the price paid for a peaceful transition was that, although the blacks got freedom and the vote, the whites kept the money and property; political freedom did not equal economic freedom. The latter will take somewhat longer to achieve.

* * * * *

All this reminded me that I had recorded some random thoughts upon returning home from our trip to SA. You may find them interesting. (Hover over the photos for the captions.

• If I ever take another six- (or eight- or eleven-) hour flight I will seriously consider upgrading to first class. Of the seven flights involved, four of which were of that length, only two were not packed to the gills. That makes it downright painful to sleep, no matter how tired one is or the time of night. (The cost is probably prohibitive, but I can always dream.)
  
  
• There are a lot of things in South Africa that could be improved. However, it seems harsh to criticize a country for not requiring seat belts or banning open bottles in cars or not having discovered the advantages of really good guardrails on dangerous mountain curves, when the 11-year-old government is struggling to deal with an HIV-based health crisis where something like 30% of the adult population is HIV-positive.
  
     
  
  
  
  
• Contrary to what I remember from grade school geography, the Cape of Good Hope is not the southernmost tip of Africa. That honor belongs to Cape Aguilas, 100 or so miles to the east.
  
  
  
  
• It is a l-o-n-g way from Cape Town to Johannesburg when one has to avoid the interior, where it is not safe for white tourists. I took a wrong turn once and ended up on an unpaved road heading away from the highway; Elder Son, normally as placid as I, began to panic.
  
  
  
  
• Adjusting to driving on the left side of the road was easier... 
  
  
  
  
  
• ...than learning to anticipate how quickly we would overtake humungous double-bottom semis laboring up long hills when we are going 120 kph and they are going about 5. My kids yelled at me more than once, “Mom! Watch out!”
  
  
  
  
  
• The approach of Christmas is a lot more difficult to detect there than in the U.S. This is a good thing.
  
  
• White South Africa bears a lot of similarities to Australia. I've never been to the latter, a fact of which I had to keep reminding myself.
  
  
• Road kill happens everywhere there are highways and fast-moving vehicles. The only thing that varies is the species of the victim.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The idea of having a vacation home 20 miles from the Cape of Good Hope boggles my imagination.
  
  
  
  
• It is easy and perhaps helpful to draw some parallels: Nelson Mandela seems to occupy the same place in people's minds and hearts as does George Washington in Americans’; apartheid South Africa bore many similarities to Nazi Germany, although without the explicit death camps, with the black Africans occupying the same role as the Jews; “homelands” or bantustans = reservations; townships = ghettos.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The townships are not shown on maps -- at least not on the ones provided to tourists -- thus indicating that they did not really exist.
  
  
• The history of this new nation is very, very recent and still fresh in people's minds.
  
  
• There is a transcendent wonder and optimism among many of the black Africans we talked with and listened to. Not all black Africans feel that way, of course, but it was amazing to me how many did, or at least managed to convey that impression to a middle-aged white female tourist.
  
  
• According to Elder Son, the deal Mandela made with the white government back in the early 1990's that allowed apartheid to end without a major armed revolution was that everyone would get the vote, but the whites would keep the land and the money. He deplores this; I find it amazing that the apartheid system was able to end without that armed revolution. In my mind, Mandela traded a quick and horrifically chaotic and potentially genocidal transition for a slower but peaceful one that will take generations.
  
  
• The typical black man was about 5'7” tall and weighed about 120 lbs. Obesity has not set in yet, although we did see a number of black women whom Andrew’s friend Matagiza referred to as “big mamas.”
  
  
• “Mama” is a term of polite respect, rather like “ma'm” in the US. “May I help you, Mama?” was what a [black] gas station attendant might say to me.
  
  
  
• Tipping like an American feels good. I saw one gas station attendant, after I tipped him R17, a bit less than $3, on a $30+ tank of gas, actually dance and clap his hands as we pulled out of the station, as he cried out, “Seventeen rand!” to his co-workers.
  
  
• The gas station attendants pump the gas, check the oil and water, and wash the windshield until it sparkles. Tipping seemed the right thing to do.
  
  
• My motto became Tip like you mean it.
  
  
• Outside of downtown Cape Town, the 95% of the drivers (except for drivers of combis* and commercial vehicles) are white and 100% of the pedestrians are black.

* A combi is a ten- or fifteen-passenger van, usually a VW, which is a private version of public transport. The combi won't run unless it has enough passengers to pay for the journey, usually about four. As I said, the drivers are always black, and the only whites that ride them are the occasional foreign student.

• There was nowhere along road from Cape Town to Johannesburg that there wasn't at least one black pedestrian every mile, even when we seemed to be thirty miles from the nearest settlement of any kind. These pedestrians were usually carrying something, sometimes on their (her) head, and were often dressed as though on their way to work. Walking distances unimaginable in the US is a way of life among the poor who cannot afford combi fare.
  
  
  
  
  
• All the manual labor, including washing dishes and making beds in backpacker hostels, is done by blacks. One's name, honest to god, was Baby, even though she was obviously over 40.
  
  
• Whites, even though they knew and sometimes expressed the belief that apartheid was very, very wrong, occasionally still yearned for that world.
  
  
• That was when the rand was worth something was one way they expressed that feeling.
  
  
• The white flight that Mandela wanted to avoid is now hampered by the value of the rand. In 1971 one rand was worth 71¢; in 1980, 75¢; in 1985 and 1989 up to $2.85; in 1990 38¢, and today (2005) 15¢.

• Googling to find exactly how to spell Cape Aguilas, I found this*, which expresses in a far more articulate way much of what I saw and felt.
  
  * Srsly, go read this. He writes about what I am saying here, but far more eloquently and specifically
  
  
• On a more mundane – but personally important – level, the meat in South Africa was much tastier than what we have here, probably because it is closer to free range and the animals are not subject to hormone and antibiotic therapy. The difference was subtle and hard to categorize; the meat just tasted meatier. The burgers were firmer, juicy but not greasy. The steak was excellent although a bit chewier than we are used to.
  
  
• Calamari is dandy. Who knew?
  
  
• “No Pepsi. Coke.” Fortunately, that’s my preference, too.
  
  
• I may be young at heart, but my knees and feet and ankles are definitely middle-aged.
  
  
• Spending almost two weeks with a couple of teenage boys made me appreciate how thoughtful my husband is.
  
  
• The lunch counters in the Madrid airport serve large glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Yummy. Even the orange Fanta tasted like it contained real orange juice.
  
  
  
  
• No-smoking areas are not enforced in the Madrid airport.
  
  
• Smoking is more prevalent, or at least more obvious, in Madrid and South Africa than in the American Midwest.
  
  
• Iberia Air accounts for more baggage complaints than any other airline, according to the person (a British Airways employee) at the lost baggage counter at La Guardia. She said she refuses to fly Iberia even though she could have free flights. (Our fares on Iberia were dirt-cheap. That probably explains the lack of proper baggage handling and the crowded flights mentioned above.)
  
  
• It is possible to get one's suitcase into the US without having it go through customs if the airline sends it ahead of one's flight. (This is illegal, by the way.) In this manner it is possible to get biltong (similar to beef jerky, but much tougher and made from, besides beef, kudu, eland, ostrich, and who knows what else) into the US. Customs officials apologized for having to confiscate the biltong in my other suitcase that came on the same plane as I did. Smokey loves beef jerky so I had bought him a wide selection of biltong wherever I found it. Biltong from hoofed animals is prohibited from entering the US because of BSE and hoof-and-mouth disease, both of which are present in SA. (I got to keep the biltong made from ostrich. No hooves, you know…)
  
  
• No matter how far you roam, it's good to be home.
  
  
  
  
  

 

 

Stuff.

The shirt Elder Son was wearing when he left.

Slayer is one of his favorite groups. He said the name was an acronym, standing for Some Lads Always Yearn to Experience... [Younger Son jumped in to help] ... Ravelry.

* * * * *

As I have mentioned, Younger Son has been working for us on the weekends. This weekend he finished straightening the attached garage.

 
Use your imagination to put these two photos together.

Previously, I was taking my life in my hands to attempt to walk through here. Now there  is a clear path, plus they moved that car* on jackstands about a foot and a half to the right -- not only can I put my car in the garage this winter, I can open the door to get out of it. This is the first time I have been able to put my car in the garage in at least ten years. Baby steps...

Other highlights:

Part of cleaning always involves throwing out crappe.

 

Misha and Percy always get along better outside. This was the best photo I could get
of the two of them... running at top speed.

 

YS admires the shelves he filled.

 

Heavy stuff is heavy because batteries.

 

Remember Picasso's Blue Period? This chair is from YS's Stenciling Period.
"Put your butt on Dubya."

* The car is a 1990-something Subaru SVX that Smokey bought about ten years ago to be my winter car. It has 4WD :-) plus it is zippy and sporty and fun. But it needed some work done to the rear end (I think, can't remember) and has been up on jack stands nearly its entire life with us because the repair coincided with the time when Smokey's back and RA began to get really painful. Now that I have the AWD Volvo I have little interest in the SVX.