kmkat and her kneedles

Two words.

ROAD TRIP!

Yes, indeedy, the day of our departure on the annual quasi-pseudo-camping vacation approaches. A couple weeks ago Our Man Lennie replaced the transmission in the $750 mini-motorhome, and last week one of Lennie's Minions painted it. (When you only pay $750 for a vehicle, you can justify putting another thou into it.)

On Sunday I started cleaning the inside, but ran out of energy right about even with the back edge of those side doors. There was stuff filling the empty space in the rest, and I didn't have the energy to move it. Yeah, sometimes I'm kinda... low energy.

Another view:

Big honker, isn't it? Especially sitting next to my minivan. If we get 12 mpg we will be thrilled.

Mea culpa for the massive carbon footprint we will leave.

Here is the cab, complete with Smokey's briefcase and trash. Note the curtains, which can be pulled all the way around the front to cover the windshield for privacy when we are parked. He put in a new oak drink holder rack in the center and showed me the new oak dashboard cover for the instrument cluster.

He is like a kid with a new toy, which, really, is exactly what he is right now. After 35 years of vacations in VW microbuses and conversion vans and a camping trailer, this will be perfect.

* * * * *

The itchy rash, while still present and ugly and itchy, seems to be slightly better. I will still see the dermatologist on Tuesday, but I am hopeful that our vacation will not be cursed with The Itch.

Sock projects,

I dug through my sock yarn stash to decide on sock projects to bring along on vacation.

(Photo taken after I had already plucked The Chosen Yarns.)

The first choice is some Mountain Colors Bearfoot, colorway Juniper, that I won in Lisa's snow melt contest last year. This yarn cried out to be knit concurrently with the Noro striped sweater for which you saw the yarn yesterday. Don't you agree that a pair of socks from this lovely stuff would be the perfect accessory for that sweater? Yes, I thought you would.

I wound it into a ball on Saturday, but decided I should swatch and throw the it into the laundry just to be sure it would stand up to my rather careless care of socks. (I don't refuse to hand wash socks.) If it proves to require more tender care than I can provide I'll save it for a lacy scarf, and instead bring along this, purchased here, which would also be great with that sweater and which I swatched and washed last year:

Both of those yarns are dark and thus suitable for daylight knitting. When the light is dim, say, in the car after dark when I am using my headlamp, these aging eyes prefer that I work with light-colored yarn.

Behold:

 

That is Opal Starken Zarkus, colorway 2006, bought somewhere in the past year. This yarn marks my efforts to purchase sock yarns that will produce socks whose colors blend in my wardrobe rather than scream COLOR! FUN! I love Opal yarn for socks; it feels like no nonsense, like it will last forever.

Just in case the Opal socks knit up so quickly that I need a second light-colored sock project, here we have Trekking XXL, colorway "Clown Barf" 156, purchased here and which color marks my inconsistent approach to the color theory mentioned above. Trekking has much the same feel to me as Opal. "This is sock yarn."

2009: That was the year that was.

January.

Well, there was this (bad).

And there was this (good) (from left, Wendy, me, Chris, and Susan).

On the knitting front:


 

February.

Good intentions.

 

Snow and cold.

Knitting:

March.

Winter melted away.

Knitting.

April.

Spring arrived in earnest.

Yarnover.

End of tax season.

Taste of St. Croix.
 

Knitting resumed after tax season.

 

May.

I scored big at Macy's sale racks, I helped Norm go away, I celebrated Mother's Day in an eco-friendly way, the bears and the ticks came out of hibernation, I picked up trash, I enjoyed the Memorial Day weekend, I bid farewell to our local librarian, and Hannibal discovered the joys of catnip.

Knitting was primarily of a stealth nature, but did include scientific swatching and the F'ing of a couple of O's that had been OTN for nearly, and over a year, respectively. (I am rather proud of that sentence -- and its punctuation -- awkward though it may be.)

 

June

June was for knitting and vacation and celebrating that brief magical time that is summer in the north woods.

 

 

Lots of knitting.

 

 

July.

July was for more vacation -- the rest of the one in Wyoming and another on the North Shore.

And summer.
 

And injuries.
 

And knitting.

 

August.

It was a very good month. I turned 60, had a contest, and laughed. We went to a concert.
 

I learned the difference between eagles and turkey vultures, and I had surgery to remove some extra/unneeded bits and pieces and repair that torn cartilage in my knee.
 

Knitknitknit.

 

September.

In September I had lots of cats on the blog, it was my turn to give the prayer at the beginning of the monthly county board meeting, the county budget process blew up, and the most gloriously gorgeous month of the year was here.

 

The knitting, she continued.

 

October.

I became a biker by proxy,

more new-to-me music found its way into my iTunes, and we celebrated 35 years together

by not-camping on Lake Superior.

The kneedles continued to fly.
 
 

November.

The van that took us on some wonderful vacations met up with an unfortunate bear on the road and was replaced by an older but bigger and more customized van.

Cold weather arrived, and once more I cooked and baked.

 

Mostly, though, I knitted.




Apparently I can crank out hats like other knitters crank out... sweaters

December.

I continued to be thankful (there is a lot to be thankful for).

With the help of Matthew and Maggie, I decorated for Christmas. This decorating thing is never a given.

I showed you my ornaments, y'all showed me yours.

 

We ate well.
 

A bit more knitting* for others.

I pretty much finished my Christmas knitting. (Shhh, the Calorimetry is a surprise.)


The medical mittens are still OTN -- stay tuned.

*For someone who doesn't like pink, I sure knit a lot of it lately...

35 and counting.

Thirty-five years ago, on a beautiful sunny October day, The Kat™ and The Bear™ were united in marriage.

omg, we were so young! (Not really, 26 and 25, but still.) 

The reception was held in the lodge at Timberlane, a resort on the same lake -- sort of -- that my parents lived on. They lived on a bay that had been separated years before from the main lake by a highway; it was connected by a culvert under the highway that would periodically get plugged by floating bogs that the beavers had chewed loose. Either the highway department or my dad would then have to blast it open with dynamite. The level of the bay would fluctuate significantly, depending on how the culvert was running. This raised havoc with the fishing... and hence my dad's temper.

My favorite part of the whole day, aside from the actually getting married part, was the food at the reception.

The bride and groom get to go through the line first :-)

To commemorate this momentous occasion (who'd'a thunk it would last this long?) we spent a few days in a quaint little log cabin in a quaint little mom'n'pop resort on the North Shore overlooking Lake Superior.

The cabins were built in the 1920s and 1930s by Horace Stickney, an ancestor (I think) of the present owners.

I was entranced to discover that the spaces between the logs were chinked with moss, just like the pioneers did it.

 
Closer inspection revealed that the *moss* was in fact bits of yellow fiberglass insulation that had turned brown over the years.

My disillusionment was tempered by finding evidence of former cabin guests.

The dogs came with us, of course.

The autumn colors were at their peak.

The four of us went for a walk along the shore, where I noticed the similarities between these two profiles.

  

This building on the resort property was obviously very, very old.

A little internet research after we got home told me that this was the original bunkhouse of the Shroeder Lumber Company. The resort is in Schroeder, a tiny village on the North Shore.

I brought along a couple knitting projects but didn't really get a lot done. Too many naps, too much playing with the dogs, too many games of Boggle with Smokey.

We ate once at the Blue Fin Grille -- good burgers, great dessert, right on the water -- and once at the Nakomis (the name is spelled wrong in the linked review), where Smokey had the walleye poor boy and it was indeed excellent. I had a grilled tuna sandwich, also excellent but not as good as his. Both were accompanied by truffle [french] fries. Now I know why people like truffles so much. Mmm, earthy yumminess.

On the way home we stopped at Playing with Yarn, a yarn store along old Highway 61. It may have been tiny, but it was packed to the ceiling(s) with great yarns. I purchased this skein of Misti Alpaca hand-dyed sock yarn.

 

Souvenir yarn. Y'all do that, too, don't you?

Eye candy Friday and a quiz.

One of these photos was taken where we spent this past week. The other was taken several years ago and thousands of miles away.

 

Which is which and where were they taken? No prizes, just a hearty congrats...

Knee update. North Shore.

First, let's get the medical details out of the way. Many people are bored by medical details; if you are one, just skip ahead to the part after the * * * * *. I find such details fascinating, even when they are not mine own.

Results of the MRI: yes, there is indeed a floater/foreign body in my knee. The nurse practitioner didn't say so, but I am assuming it is a bone chip caused by the second fall, the one directly onto my kneecap.

There is also a bit of torn cartilage. That's probably from the first fall, the face plant onto concrete in front of 100+ people.

And I have prepatellar bursitis, which the link calls "housemaid's knee." That would account for the swelling in the front of my knee and the numbness of that skin. Nurse said it might just be blood from the bruising, and if so, it will be reabsorbed by my body. If not, I may have to have an incision on the front of my knee to drain *it*, whatever *it* is.

In the meantime, I will have arthroscopic surgery to remove the floater and repair/remove the torn cartilage. The staff are working to schedule it the same day as when my ortho doc will remove the screws and bolt and plate from my ankle; that means just one 100-mile round trip and one anesthesia, yay. It will happen on Friday, August 28. Mark your calendars.

The nurse also had me get an ultrasound of that leg from the groin to the ankle to be sure I didn't have any blood clots. Results = no clots. Afterward I asked the tech what would have happened if there had been clots.

"Oh, usually they put you in the hospital and give you blood thinners."

Yikes. I hadn't realized that part could be so serious, although upon reflection I realize of course it is.

Oh, and I seem to have some infection in that knee and shin (the link above mentions that the bursa can get infected when injured). Hot packs and antibiotics are in progress.

::sigh::

All this because I couldn't keep track of my feet...

* * * * *

Now for the more interesting stuff.

The week after the fall we went camping again, this time on the North Shore (of Lake Superior). Weather was a bit damp and cool, but that really didn't bother us -- we tend to nap/read/eat/knit/snuggle dogs when camping. All that can be done in the camper if necessary.

We had dinner one night with Smokey's old boss, who is now retired and who has a cabin near Grand Marais. We ate at the Cascade Restaurant:

 

 

The views from our table by the window:

Even though the weather was not 100% cooperative while we were camping, I think I got some very nice photos, one or two perhaps worthy of entry at the fair next year.

 

Oh, and proof I was knitting:

Animals.

Friday it rained. A rainy day during a camping vacation means just one thing: time to go into town. Smokey dropped me off at the library and went to do the laundry. (I love this guy.) When the laundry was done he joined me; we checked  email and I read blogs and generally had internet fun.

Dinner was at a gourmet feast at Taco John’s. While that was tasty (anything with as many fat grams as Taco John’s food HAS to be tasty.), it was not nearly as much fun as what we found when we drove around the building to leave. Right next door was an old farmstead with horses.

 

The white horses were big, not as big as Percherons or Belgians, but definitely larger than the others. The male has apparently been bugging the females in the herd; whenever he started toward any of them they ran away. “Dammit, can’t you think of anything else, you big brute?!”

And here is Lucy, watching them.

This was definitely the high point of her day.

After dinner we drove back to the campground, but realized before we got there that this was the time of day when the wildlife comes out. The sky had cleared, so we continued up the mountain and drove through several other national forest areas. It was indeed the perfect time of day, both for the lighting conditions, and when those got too dark for really good photographs, for animals.

 

There were animal sounds emanating from the pine forest in the background. It sounded like seals barking, but we agreed that it was probably moose talk.

 

At one point we were turning around -- I can see why a person living in this area might want to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle with high ground clearance; some of these forest roads get mighty rutted and rocky -- we looked out the windshield as the van was completely crosswise in the road, and guess what we saw?

Lucy missed that one.

We even saw The Majestic Moose.

 

What, you can't see him? How about now?

 

Cursingmama, this one's for you :-)

Manic Monday, wherein manic = horrific.

Sometimes the universe likes to deliver a wee lesson re: overconfidence. Such was the case yesterday, or, as I shall forever remember it, The Day From Hell That I Should Have Seen Coming.

All weekend I had been planning my Monday, knowing that there were a number of things I needed to accomplish by the end of that day:

1. A doctor's appointment @ 9:20 am at a location roughly 20 miles west and south of me. (A routine check on a well-controlled chronic condition; no biggie.)
   
2. Deliver the doctor's prescription to a pharmacy another 25 miles farther west and south.
   
3. Refill several other prescriptions at that pharmacy.
4. Continue driving west and south on that road for another 25 or so miles, all the way to our house in south Minneapolis to pick up some stuff.
5. Continue on to Edina (a first-ring suburb on the southern edge of Minneapolis, for those of you Not Of Our Area) in order to return a new cell phone and cancel its tragically expensive contract.
6. Mail our holiday letters. Yes, I am fully aware that it was January 12. What's your point?
   
7. Return to Polk County by 4 pm to attend the monthly meeting of Friends of the Polk County Libraries.
8. Go to my book group at 6:30 pm.
9. Finish reading Reservation Blues during any downtime; it was my choice for my reading group's January book so it would be my responsibility to lead the discussion. I had read the book several years ago but needed to finish re-reading it in order that I might not make a complete hash of the discussion and an ass of myself.
   

If it were any time in the year between, say, April and October, this list would not present any great problems. It is, however, mid-winter, and that season can screw up the best-laid plans of any man or Kat™ without breaking a sweat.

Had I had the foresight -- and common sense -- to check the radar map and weather forecast before I left, none of the following would have happened.

I accomplished numbers one through three, above, no problem, and even managed to sneak in a tasty breakfast (a Western omelet with a side of whole wheat toast and lots of coffee, thanks for asking) in Lindström. My journey continued on down the highway in a southern and westerly direction toward the Twin Cities.

At some point it began snowing. Heavily. There had been a few random flakes floating down from the heavens when I left home, but I thought they were being dislodged from the trees by a gentle breeze. Duh. They were in fact the first harbingers of a short but nasty winter storm. The visibility dropped, although not dangerously so, and snow began to accumulate between the lanes and at the edge of the road. Traffic slowed a bit, but not a great deal. The speed limit on I-35 and I-35W is 70 mph, and traffic, including me, was moving at 55 to 60. The pavement appeared dry, with skiffs of snow blowing across it. It did NOT appear slippery.

So I was driving merrily along with traffic, passing no one and other cars occasionally passing me, when my car started to fishtail slightly. I missed my tiny window of opportunity to regain control, and the fishtailing accelerated -- although of course I did not -- until I found myself skidding broadside down I-35W at nearly 60 mph and realizing that my car had totally lost it and I wasn't coming out of this easily.

The front wheels caught the edge of the road, the car spun, and for several seconds all I could see outside my windows was dense flying snow. I held my breath and waited to be struck by another car. When my car came to rest, here is where I found myself:

Another view:

 

Imagine with me, if you will, the consequences if I had spun out in front of, oh,  I don't know, say, THAT SEMI! The least of which would be that you would not be able to read this blog post because I WOULD BE DEAD!

Ahem. Enough with the dramatics already. Suffice to say, the worst did not happen and I (and my car) were intact.

I pulled out my archaic-but-trusty cell phone (with just enough charge for one call because I had forgotten to recharge it) and found that I was in an Emergency Service Only location. Blessed 911 called a tow truck for me.

Behold, my savior:

 

 

(Why, yes, I did stand in the deep snow and take photos of the whole damned thing. I do it for The Blog.)

The tow truck driver had me sit in the driver's seat and keep the wheels pointing more-or-less straight ahead during the pull-out until he signaled me to turn them.

 

That is an approximately 20-minute buildup of snow on the passenger's window. It was snowing really, really hard.

My car popped out of the ditch, and, $133 later, I was safely on my way again. Driving, need I say it, very, very carefully.

As to my overly-ambitious list of Things To Do On Monday, I made it through number four by 2 pm, at which point I realized there was no way I could make it back to Polk County for numbers seven and eight. I made some phone calls to cancel my presence at Friends and the book group and managed to finish the rest of my Twin Cities errands by 3:30, at which time I decided to brave the beginning of a winter storm rush hour and to attempt to get back to my cozy home next to the frozen lake in Wisconsin.

A note for the easily apprehensive-d among you: no further sliding nor crashing were experienced. Relax and ride along.

Traffic was not too bad until I got past downtown Minneapolis and onto That [New] Bridge. Suddenly everybody was moving so slowly that my speed didn't even register on the speedometer. It continued that way until well past I-694, the loop of I-94 that transcribes the northern edges of the Twin Cities, which I reached... 45 minutes later. That distance would normally be less than a 10 minute drive.

Now, being stuck in traffic is not typically something that would bother me as long as I had my iPod with an audio book for entertainment. Which I did (Across the Nightingale Floor; once again, thanks for asking). But my Aveo has a standard transmission, which meant my still-tender left foot and ankle were dealing with the clutch for 45 minutes straight. That became painful after about 45 seconds and did not get any better during the remaining 44 minutes and 15 seconds. Even after the traffic unwound itself to move at 35 mph and I no longer needed to keep my sore foot on the clutch, waves of achy pain continued to roll over it.

I got home about 8:30, took a pain pill -- my first since mid-October -- and went to bed to sleep for 12.5 hours. Today is ever so much better.

Resolved: to always check the weather BEFORE setting off, no matter how benign it looks before I leave. Amen.

Home for the holidays.

Time for me to get dressed (warmly), jump in the car and drive 75 miles to the Twin Cities airport. #1 son is flying in on NWA #0315, ETA 1:40 pm. However, both NYC and MSP are threatened with massive winter storms. And it just started snowing here... heavily.

If anyone is looking, you can find me at the baggage claim area, knitting and listening to my iPod -- possibly for hours.

ETA: #1 just called. Although the display boards at JFK and the Northwest Airlines website both show the flight as scheduled to leave on time, the attitude and slowness of the desk crew at check-in seem to indicate that they do not believe it. He says he has never seen a check-in line move so slowly -- this from a man with 11 different countries stamped in his passport -- and that there is no way they can get everyone checked in and through security and onto the plane in time for its scheduled take-off in 55 minutes.

Like I said, if anyone is looking for me I'll be at the airport for hours... or maybe forever.

ETA #2: He just called again. Now he is on the plane, which is only about half-full. He thinks it was just that the desk crew was inept. The NWA website now says that departure is estimated for 11:45 EST rather than the originally scheduled 11:25.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the Dells I go.

Recovery from the ankle break continues apace. On Thursday (yesterday) I had a follow-up appointment with the ortho doc. He took off the soft cast, inspected the surgical incision, and pronounced it good. Yay! Smokey happened to be sitting in a position where he got a good look at it and he concurred; back in his days as a public health nurse he got to see a lot of incisions and wounds and to change their dressings and administer various kinds of therapy, so his opinion counts.

I have a new cast now, a *real* cast, the kind with fiberglass, and, most importantly, the kind that people can sign. Our first stop (after the bathroom) after the clinic appointment yesterday was at Office Max to buy a pack of multi-colored Sharpies for that very purpose.

Did you know that casts now come in a variety of colors? I didn't know that, either. We spotted, on the cast cart, red, fluorescent pink, yellow, lime green, kelly green, blue, and perhaps a few others. What did I choose? Boring off-white, but only because (wait for it)

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it glows in the dark! My inner 8-yo is apparently alive and well :-) Sorry, no photo, it's still daylight here.

Anyone who has been reading this blog for 2 years (you poor things!) may remember that I happen to have some glow-in-the-dark yarn. I do believe that that yarn, in combination with some superwash something-or-other from the stash, will make a dandy, Halloween-appropriate toe cozy.

In the meantime, though, my toes have been saved from the chilly temps by the generous and sweeter-than-springtime Cathy-Cate.

Before:                                                               After:
(please note the painted-on Betadine tan)

               

* * * * *

So, what's all this about The Dells, Kat™?

For those of you who are not familiar with the Upper Midwest, Wisconsin Dells is the convention and conference center of Wisconsin. Tourism has been a mainstay there for 150 years, according to their website, primarily because of the scenic beauty of that part of the Wisconsin River. Here's the Wikipedia photo of the Dells of the Wisconsin River:

In the last 25(?) or so years, though, it has become known more for man-made attractions, in particular, indoor waterparks. It's a bit like Las Vegas without the gambling or shows, Las Vegas as designed by small-town Midwesterners.

The city proper has a truly amazing assortment of cheesy attractions. There is a life-size replica of the White House sitting haphardardly upside-down, supposedly after some catastrophe; for a admission fee you can go inside. There is a 50-foot tall replica of the Trojan Horse; I suppose you can go up into it after paying the admission fee, although I have a hard time seeing the attraction. I also seem to remember a huge rocket ship that promised some kind of thrill and other attractions promising a various and sundry assortment of doubtful excitements.

Because of the indoor waterparks attached to hotels, The Dells has become a family weekend getaway place for many Midwesterners. It also hosts lots of conferences, with the attraction of You can bring the family! There's fun for everyone! And thus, the Wisconsin Counties Association is holding their annual conference there this year, and I and 10 other members of the county board, along with assorted family members, are going.

Here's what, among other things, we will be doing:

I'm riding down in the county Impala with two other board members -- plenty of room for my wheelchair -- and my roommate, the only other female board member attending from Polk County, offered to wheel me anywhere I needed to go. So I am going.

You may or may not remember this vital mathematical equation:
           4 hour car ride + 2.5 days of lectures/speakers/seminars = LOTS OF KNITTING TIME!

This and that.

In my two years of blogging I have discovered that if I have pictures and an idea, the post writes itself. Tonight I have almost no pictures and very little in the way of ideas. Let's just see what happens, 'kay?

* * * * *

I finished a really good book, Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern. I read about it on someone's blog, I think, and requested it from the library. It is a murder mystery of sorts, really a novel where a murder is one of the organizing principles, a mystery with more than the usual amount of really good character development and insight into those characters' souls. A little girl is murdered, and the only witness is an autistic boy. Well-written. I highly recommend it if you like mysteries that are not particularly bloody or graphic.

* * * * *

I started back to work the day after Labor Day, half-time until mid-October. The half time is because of my county board commitments -- meetings, committees, budget. It is taking me a while to get back into the regimen of being a worker bee instead of the Queen of Leisure. I love the work, I just don't love work, if you get my meaning.

* * * * *

Without photos, I can't show you my knitting. I finished a stealth project that is a birthday gift for #2's girlfriend. After the 16th I can show it to you. The scarf I talked about a couple weeks ago is a lot bigger now, and I did some creatively funky things with the laciness of it, all of which will be revealed... sometime. I finished the socks mentioned in that post which needed toes and knit the second sock of another pair mentioned there. I have not worked on the Summer Chevron; the weather has turned cool, so I have lost motivation. I still like the sweater a lot, so it will get finished sometime before next summer (she said confidently). I started a child's sweater for the current Afghans for Afghans drive (deadline October 1) using Knit Picks Wool of the Andes from stash, a bright blue that is the same color as the blue of interstate highway signs and a cherry red. My charity knitting has been sadly neglected this year, and it feels good to be doing some. It is a saddle-shoulder pullover knit all in one piece using EZ's method outlined in The Opinionated Knitter. No seams, yay!

* * * * *

#2 son has some more pictures of the St. Paul police in their full riot gear at the RNC, but he has only been able to email me this one from his Blackberry. Grrrr.

There are much better pictures in soxanne's post about participating in the September 2 march on the RNC; go check them out. A number of my friends here in Polk County marched in St. Paul, too; I didn't because I have trouble walking more than a few blocks. Those that did march have my undying admiration -- it was about 90 degrees that day with the same humidity.

* * * * *

Oh, yeah, we went camping on the North Shore for 4 days the week before Labor Day. I have lots of pictures and things to tell you about that... when I have time. This will just have to do for now.

Weekend update.

Our camping trip last weekend to the North Shore went much better than could have been expected, given the dismal weather forecast for the weekend -- rain, thunderstorms, flash flood warnings, doom/gloom, pack your bags, dude, it's the end of the world. In point of fact, it only rained one night while we were there and even then didn't start until after 10pm, so we didn't mind scattering the embers of the campfire and heading to bed to avoid getting wet.

Perhaps this, which we saw as soon as we caught sight of Lake Superior, was an omen.

It wasn't a very long rainbow, but I think it was the most vivid I have ever seen.

There had been heavy rain earlier in the week, and the many streams and rivers that flow into Lake Superior were still running full. This river was full of debris.

You can see how the guardrail was twisted away from the road and the washout that had occurred.

 

At the campsite there was tree climbing and dog napping:

 

There were nature photos galore:

The first and third are the same stump but the third is turned 90°; the second is, I think, trout lilies. They were a week or two past blooming so I only got to see the seed heads. There were hepaticas and wild strawberries and lungwort in bloom, but I got no photos of them.

There was also puking. First Maggie (once), then Matthew (many times), but the rest of us were unaffected. Whew. Perhaps they had eaten some salmonella infested tomatoes before they joined us; but they arrived on Thursday night and didn't get sick until Sunday, so who knows? They were both fine by Monday.

When it was time to break camp Maggie kept Matthew and Andrew on task.

Best of all, there was sock knitting.

The colors are not true in the photo. The background color is more of an olive tan khaki, not as dark as it looks. That ten inches or so of yarn you see lying on my right foot is how much I have left to graft the toe of the left foot. I made the legs extra long; I hate to have cold ankles in January. That little tail is enough to graft, but I want to see exactly how the right foot comes out before I finish off the left. If the second ball -- I wound the 100 gr skein of Colinette Jitterbug into two 50 gr balls -- happens to be slightly shorter, I may finish off both toes with some solid olive green Lang Jawoll that I have in stash. The pair is stalled right now because I ran out of the olive green reinforcing yarn I am using in the heel flaps.The Jitterbug is 100% merino wool, lovely and soft, but I fear it would not wear as well as a yarn with some nylon in it, so I am reinforcing the heels, the spot that I always, always, always wear out first in my purchased socks.

I just noticed that it looks like the columns of purl stitches are wonky in the left sock. They are not, it is just the angle of the photo. I hope.

* * * * *

Back in the heady days of the '60s and '70s there was a saying that dope would get you through times of no money better than money would get you through times of no dope. Be that as it may, I prefer to think that luck will get one through any kind of hard times at all. And my sweetie is Lucky with a Capital L.

On Saturday afternoon he and I took off for a little drive and ended up at Grand Portage at the gas station/convenience store outside the Indian casino there. After we each ate a Haagen Daas ice cream bar with almonds (yum!), he asked if I wanted to watch him throw some quarters down the toilet/into the slot machines in the store. I decided I would rather go back to the parking lot and knit. By the time I had made a pit stop, gotten back out to the car, and settled myself with my knitting, Smokey was back out there, too, with $95 won from a $20 start. That's my Bear.

Eye candy Friday.

This fine fellow visited my deck one day last week.

Orioles tend to be rather shy -- or scarce -- so it was amazing to me to see this guy. He was awfully obliging to pose for me so willingly.

* * * * *

We are heading out today to go camping on the North Shore (that's the north shore of Lake Superior for those of you not of the MN/WI variety). The weather forecast is cool, rainy, possibly stormy for Friday; slightly better for Saturday; a bit better for Sunday; and totally sunny and warm for Monday. Isn't that always the way? But we will be staying until Monday so we will get to enjoy a little bit of the good weather.

If all our plans had come together properly we would be back in the Little Big Horn mountains near Buffalo, Wyoming right now. It was going to be a 150% family camping trip: Andrew's friend K, whom he met when she came to Chiapas last January for the women's encueñtro and who lives in northern California, was going to meet up with us there; and Maggie, Matthew's girlfriend, was going to come along, too. It would have been 2 weeks of knitting (for me), reading (for me and Andrew and K and Maggie), leisurely walks (for all), and hanging out together (ditto). But various bits of life got in the way and suddenly it was going to be just Smokey and I. Okay, fine, we would still have a good time.

But the long term weather forecast for northern WY did not look good -- chilly, with a side of cold -- so we decided to take our vacation here at home on a lake in northern Wisconsin, a locale that many people drive hours to reach in order that they may vacation here. This weekend camping trip is our last chance to hit the woods with our entire family plus Maggie before Andrew leaves for medical school in New York. I've stocked up on snack food:

Dried fruit, crackers, cheese, granola bars, granola, trail mix, Cheetos, corn chips... and a bottle of Herding Cats wine, product of South Africa :-) Should be a fun time...

Catching up, vol. 3: The Art Institute of Chicago.

On Saturday Maggie and Matthew and Andrew and I took the train into Chicago to go to the Art Institute.

The Metra is an electric train, but Maggie and Matthew insisted it wasn't nearly as nice as the [new] light rail transit in Minneapolis. I didn't care. I love a man in uniform.

I don't know if it is evident in these photos, but it was exquisitely cold, about zero degrees F. That's minus 18 degrees Celsius for you Canadians. Brrrr.

 

We split up as soon as we checked our coats and agreed to meet again at 5 pm when the museum closed. Ready, set, go!

I remembered this painting from my last visit to the Institute in 2003.

It is a land/seascape by Cezanne and was my favorite painting on that last visit. But I remember the vivid and unearthily beautiful blue sea as occupying a larger portion of the canvas and being a greener blue. And I remember the painting as being larger than it was this time. Either Cezanne did more than one version of the painting, which is entirely possible, or my memory has magnified its qualities, also entirely possible.

I stood, transfixed, in front of it for several minutes last time. It is difficult to see it in my photograph, but the blue of the sea is a sort of heathery teal color (is that a knitterly description or what?). I fell in love with the color. Then I read the plaque next to the painting, which said that (paraphrasing from memory) the true subject of the painting is the color of the sea. I felt like had just gotten an A on an art history essay.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is a famous painting by Georges Seurat that had never particularly appealed to me, but there was bench in front of it and my feet hurt, so I contemplated it for a few minutes.

I noticed a couple things. First, although the scene should be full of movement -- children playing, dogs leaping, people strolling -- it really isn't. Everything looks perfectly static and posed. Weird.

Second, for some reason known only to the artist and his muse, he painted a red and blue sort of pointillist frame around the edge of the canvas.

 

I say again. Weird.

I loved both of these...

 

...the one on the left for the way it works with its shadow and the one on the right for... I don't know why. Maybe I think he needs socks.

Does this look like a sheep's head to you? It doesn't look like a sheep's head to me; it looks more like a cow's head. Any sheep experts out there?

 

These guys looked straight out of a Monty Python sketch. Or maybe Labyrinth.

I was fascinated by the way these textures and shapes were depicted in marble.

Sometimes life imitates art. Andrew didn't know I was sitting quietly in the corner of the sculpture gallery, knitting and resting my feet.

I found that I seem to be captivated by early  paintings by Piet Mondrian, an artist whose major works never caught my fancy. Who knew?

I like the funny tracery of the bare branches against the sky. One can see the beginnings of the artist's fascination with rectilinear geometry. I remember studying the colors in some of his early paintings at the Museum of Modern Art in NY and thinking how nice those colors would look in a sweater.

Back when I was an art history major in college I took a class in ancient Chinese art because I liked Oriental art and really enjoyed that professor. It turned out that ancient Chinese art is 100% about bronze ritual vessels, ding (tripod cauldron) and gui (bowl) and fanding (rectangular cauldron). The two best collections in the world are the Pillsbury collection in the Minneapolis Institute of Art and another collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. That means that, by necessity, the collection in the Art Institute of Chicago is second-rate.

I concur. Although my eyes lit upon these once-so-familiar shapes as though they were long-lost family members, I gradually became disenchanted with the pieces. They just weren't as perfectly made, as intricately inscribed, as balanced, as the ones we studied. Second rate.

This was the best of the bunch.

These made me cringe. Especially the fourth one. Ewwww.

   

   

I could go on for several paragraphs pointing out what is good and classical about the first one and blech about the rest, but I suspect y'all are not real fascinated by ancient Chinese ritual vessels. So I shall spare you.

Sometimes the best art wasn't the art.

 

More penguin fun.

Sign by the parking area where we left our car while we stalked the mighty penguin with eyeball and camera.

Eye candy Friday.

This is one of my favorite photos from our 2005 trip to South Africa. It was taken at a place called (I think) Boulder Beach; we pulled in there on impulse because there was a highway sign indicating that there were penguins there. Indeed, there was an impressive colony of them. What I love about this photo is that I took a shot of Matthew, who was videoing the penguins, while all the time the two nice suburban-type ladies were having coffee and chatting on their balcony and ignoring all of us.

The road home.

On the way home from the class reunion, we could see that autumn is approaching in the north woods. Rose hip jam, anyone?

Autumn also means deer season. Want to buy a deer stand?

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We saw a number of things on the way home that are listed in Roadside America. Meet St. Urho, who supposedly drove the grasshoppers from Finland. I say supposedly because the whole thing was the creation of Sulo Havumaki, a psychology professor at Bemidji State College (now Bemidji State University). My mother, a first-grade teacher, took a continuing ed course from him in the 1960s. I remember her telling my dad and I how entertaining he was and how he had created a whole legend about a fictional Finnish saint. This statue stands in Menahga. (I had to steal the photo from Roadside America; I forgot to take a picture of him myself.)

In Nevis we saw the world's largest tiger muskie. What a thrill. Or maybe not.

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In Akeley there was Paul Bunyan:

Paul is holding his hand down low so you can sit in it (if you dare; imagine being goosed by Paul).

Everybody loves Paul and Babe:

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Truly the high point of the trip for Smokey, though, was in Proctor, just north of Duluth. Back in the heyday of the Mesabi iron range, Proctor was a big rail center through which the ore trains passed on their way to Duluth harbor, where the ore was transferred to ore boats (remember The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?) that took it to the steel mills in Gary, Indiana and to Cleveland.

Smokey is a big fan of trains.

I tended to look at it more like a massive, very complicated sculpture full of intriguing abstract shapes and unusual textures.

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Smokey explained a lot of the machinery to me. This particular engine holds a number of records for tonnage hauled.

But my favorite image was this one.

I call it "Sgt. Schulz's Hat, With Handle."

Restaurant capital of the world.

While attending my class reunion we stayed with my friend Kathy. She and I were best friends in high school and have stayed in touch through the years. I moved to Minneapolis and eventually Wisconsin, while she returned to Park Rapids after college. I have always been a wage earner; she has always been an entrepreneur. I admire her greatly.

Her current venture is a small store and restaurant in Dorset, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed Restaurant Capital of the World. Population 22, six (6!) restaurants.

If you are ever in the area, check out La Pasta -- the food is wonderful. (Seriously. I'm salivating as I type this.)

Notice how it says "No substitutions" on the menu? She means it. Really, it is more than your life is worth to ask to change something. She may be my best friend, but even I know better than to ask to substitute. You will eat what is put in front of you and like it.

If you arrive during a busy time, which is pretty much anytime they are open, you may have to wait for a table. No problem, walk across the street to one of my favorite bookstores. Small, but good. All trade paperbacks; no mass market.

Pssssst. There's an espresso bar in the back.

If you still have time to kill, wander around back of the restaurant and stroll through the garden.

 

Kathy likes gargoyles, but they haven't all made it into the garden yet.

Have you ever been in the back storeroom of a restaurant? Lots of food.

This is northern Minnesota, so the General Store sells bait. Don't worry, this fridge is as far away from the kitchen as you can get.

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The town has a number of little specialty shops -- stained glass, gifts, clothing, a scoop shop, a B&B -- plus it is on the 49-mile Heartland [bike] Trail. On the first Sunday of August every year the six restaurants cooperate for the Taste of Dorset.

   

If you go to Dorset before August 3, 2008, don't try to order the spaghetti balls. They won't be ready until then.

   

The only bad thing about Dorset? No LYS; in fact, I don't think there is one for 40 or 50 miles. A business opportunity awaits for one of you knitters out there...
 

40 and counting.

On Saturday we drove north to my high school reunion.

Welcome to Stearns County. We're about halfway there.

I was prepared with car knitting. This is actually the second knitting bag. One can never have too many projects in reserve.

Park Rapids has grown some -- it was only about 2,500 when I lived there.

The reunion was held at this golf course near Menahga, the next town south on Highway 71. Menahga means "blueberry" in the Chippewa language.

Who are all these old people? (You can see the top of my head at the right in the third row, to the right and in front of the guy in the orange t-shirt.)

Same as these... plus forty years. That's me in the lower right corner.

Eye candy Friday.

Cape of Good Hope, December, 2005. My boy who is now in Chiapas spent his semester abroad at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. At the end of the semester Matthew and I flew over (22 hours in the air, one-way!) and we all played tourist for 8 days.