day at LYS

A splurge today: finally bought the Denise needles, plus the extra 40" cord, at one of my LYS's. It was that or the ball winder--the winder would've been slightly more practical because I have a few hanks to wind, but now I feel like I can knit anything! and gauge be damned! I'm prepared for all eventualities. Well, except for socks on circ's--while I have sz 1, 2, and 3 doublepoints, I am liking the two circ method a lot, even more than magic loop. Building up my stash of Addi Turbo's for socks will take awhile, at $12 a pop.

Unfortunately, I didn't savor my time at the shop much, because they had a "help wanted" sign posted in the door. I fantasized for a moment about the glamour of working in my LYS and then actually asked her what she was looking for. While I am absolutely confident of my ability to learn any knit-related thing, I'm sure I'm still considered a beginner. I'm just too slow, and my lack of interest in sweaters means I have no big knit things to show her. Still, who else would apply for a minimum-wage job just to hang around yarn? Probably a zillion people these days. And I have to say, I have often known more than the help in yarn stores about different yarns, pattern companies, substituting yarn and calculating yardage. But the last thing I need is yet another job.

Heidi's Regia socks almost done--hopefully tomorrow. I'm also planning my first Kool-Aid dyeing session tomorrow if there's time between house chores (I'm hopelessly behind in balancing my checkbook, laundry, etc.). I just looked at the new Six Sock KAL socks--they seem pretty technically challenging, but I don't so much like the look of them. I don't really have anything in my measly stash that isn't committed to something else, and there are so many sockbug and Evelyn Clark socks that I really really want to knit.

hallelujah! stash package arrives!

A better day, today. Good news on several fronts, plus this in the mail.

Really glad I ordered the color cards. I've heard how saturated the colors are, so I was expecting strong tones but there are some colors that don't look remotely like the pictures online or in the catalog. Now I can order away with confidence (although waiting three weeks nearly did me in this time). I do wish they had more lace yarns in subtle colors--so many are screamer bright variegations.

I've been holding off ordering yarn for the cable shrug in Fall IWK, and the KP alpaca/merino/silk blend (Elegance?) would be so yummy in the brown. Black would be more practical, since I no longer seem to own bottoms or shoes in any other color, but somehow brown feels more luxurious. However, since I'm a tortoise, since I just signed on for 6 Sock, and since I promised MIL that SIL would get a stole for the Christmas cruise to Mexico (I don't know if I'm ready to tackle the Forest Path, so maybe I'll try a Hanging Vines?), I doubt that there will be a cable shrug this fall. Either way, it's a good excuse to splurge on the ball winder and the Denise needles.

And here's this: making presents always seems more economical, but when it comes right down to it...it just means I feel like I spend most of my knitting energy on other people's projects. I'm just too damn slow.

still waiting, knit picks!

Some finds this week at Fibers Etc.: the IWK Summer 2003 issue (with Forest Path Stole!) and the IWK Winter 2004 (with Waving Lace Socks). Also the new Sensational Knitted Socks. It was a good week for a little retail therapy: a variety of cumulative hellacious life experiences plus no Knitpicks yet (18 days and counting, but they tracked it and said it will be here by Friday).

However, in the unluck vein, just after I bought the sock book, I got a flyer from Crafter's Choice offering four crafting books for $4 plus S&H. Of the knitting books I've coveted, there was the sock book, Loop-d-Loop, Wrap Style, Knitting Over the Edge. (They also had a companion cookbook site, where I found 30-Minute Meals and Alton Brown's book.) Ah, well--better to support my LYS.

fleas = socks & debbie macomber

My dirty secret: we have an infestation. Cautionary tale: when your pup is just a wee button and you think it will be dandy to have him sleep in your bed (undercovers) think about bites, bites, and more bites. Until you have "speck fear," where every small smudge is a buggy.

And so I have been knitting socks. Not to protect from bites, but because it is the way I comfort myself when I am freaking out about having fleas. When I have washed every blessed bit of bedding THREE TIMES in the the last week, bathed the dog FOUR TIMES, applied Advantage until the ASPCA might consider it DOGGIE ABUSE, and STILL I find little cinnamon-colored streakers on Harvey's haunches, or worse yet, on me!

I think the low point came tonight when I realized I am afraid to sit down anywhere in my house, lest Harvey sit with me and. . .yup, more fleas.

Ever knit socks while standing up?

Last night I was so beside myself I did the unthinkable: I pulled Debbie Macomber's A Good Yarn off the shelf to read while I took a flea-drowning bath. Never mind that I knew it was a bad idea from the moment I plucked it from a grocery store book aisle, and had a hard time keeping my lunch down for all 200+ drivelous pages. Lord, Julia Cameron is right when she said artistic success is often about audacity, not talent. Is it possible DM is actually good and just chooses to write that way? If so, I'm sure she's laughing all the way to the bank, and since I've been having trouble getting my ass up to write all summer, I have to admire her crank-em-out productivity, even if I think it, well, reads like crank-em-out. Or just crank. What frightens me is that there must be KNITTERS who like her book. We're generally pretty smart folk, right? But I've been reading about the conservative comment-bombing on At My Knits End and I realize maybe not. It passeth understanding the ways in which we feel justified lecturing each other, even via blogworld.

Still no KnitPicks. Twelve days and counting. The frantics are starting to set in.

fall is here

This is one of those fall days I love living in the Pacific Northwest. We have a rain thing going on, there was a big Saturday breakfast.

Harvey did his weekend circus-dog begging to lick the plate (sorry about the full-frontal doggie junk on display in this pic). Entirely untaught, he just one day planted himself on his little square ass, where he can wait for 2 solid minutes, pivoting if something better than the promise of egg yolk and Tabasco catches his attention (well, anyway, it passes for entertainment at our house):

and there will be time again to work on Heidi's Regia sock:

and it looks like there will be B's tasty soto (Indonesian chicken soup) for dinner. Heaven.
Another lesson learned: Heidi bought me two pair of the Inox teflon-coated 24" circulars, US sz 1, as a birthday present (and to make her socks). While the packages are identical, one was priced a few cents lower. After several inches of stockinette, I find they are not the same. One is longer by an inch and has very pointy sharp shafts. I don't mind the differences as much as I mind their TERRIBLE joins (I have to knit tightly to make gauge, and I am so tired of tugging miniscule stitches past the joins).

I also recently bought my first pair of Addi Turbos (40" US sz 1 circs) to try the magic loop and two-at-once. It's true what everyone says, they're fantastic. But Addi defines sz 1 as 2.5 mm, while every other sz 1 needle I could find is 2.25 mm; I couldn't make gauge with the Addis on this project, so they sit while I struggle with the Inox needles.

impatience

This vanilla blog is really bothering me. I've been learning how to mess with colors, skins, badges, etc., so I can do something to it. I am torn between wanting to do it myself and wanting it done. I like many sites by Missa of MoonArts/knitblog, and she is soon to post free pics of knitting needles. I'd like to create a banner and button at least, but I must face the fact that I am graphically challenged.

I am also waiting on my KnitPicks package: 8 of 14 days. Lesson learned: when you order yarn with free shipping, you will always wish you ordered more because the moment you click "submit," you are aquiver with anticipation. And who wants to go through that twice? But I told myself that frugality was critical, and it really is appropriate nann=cautious to order all the color cards and test some yarn first. (I am so square. I must plan even my risks.)

But this week the baby silk (alpaca, silk dk?) is on sale at elann--perfect for MIL and SIL Branching Out's for Christmas.

How the hell will I get all these presents knitted in time?

unfaithful (and chintzy to boot!)

I must admit, I've been (gulp) dabbling with Typepad. My natural frugality (ergo Blogger) has been trumped by ease of use. But this morning, I finally found some clear instructions on how to use the free image posting here to upload affinity badges/buttons to place on my knitblog sidebar without stealing bandwidth. I will try it later. With blogger, flickr and gimp and my own stumbling around with html, perhaps I can actually maintain an all-FREE blog. (It's sick, but when I went to work half-time as a trainer and even-less-time as a family counselor, I began to play the "how cheap can I do this?" game, and my mother's teachings came flooding back to me.) But I declare: I have never ever file-shared mp3 files, despite being surrounded by college students who seem to think stealing is justified if you're "poor." (Just to be clear, we're the kind of college where "poor" is what you see a mile or two from our campus, but hardly within its dormitories.)

I do love the ability with blogger to mess directly with the html code, because I am dreaming of having a new moonarts photo as a banner on my knitblog (she's posting FREE images of knitting needles soon!), and I found a template awhile back that I'd like to use here--Typepad only gives you access to the html with their pro account but makes it really easy on their midrange account to change colors, use a picture for a banner, etc. I hate knowing that I'm committing myself to an $8.95 monthly subscription for the life of the blog. As B has begun to ask me when I'm considering a non-fiber purchase: how much yarn would that be? (And lest you think he's supporting my burgeoning yarn habit: he is not. It's simply an effective diversion from the momentary object of greed.)

I am also having an affair with Audible audiobooks. Another subscription service, but I am telling myself I can stop any time. And so far, I've been offered several free audio books, just enough to keep me hooked (isn't that what the crack dealers do? give you a free taste?). Last night I had a counseling client way out in the woods (why do I always get these in the fall, when it's so spooky?). I can get quite a chunk listened to in a two-hour commute. It even made the recent 13-hour drive to Utah really go quickly.

And I have finally committed to an mp3 player: the Creative Zen Nano Plus (this after trying and returning the iriver ifp 899, the Rio Carbon Pearl 6 gb, the iriver t30, the Zen Nano). It has most of the features I wanted, so I'm okay giving up Napster to Go. Because--yep--it's another subscription service, and unlike Audible, one in which you don't own anything at the end. I loved the browsing of music and listening to unlikely (for me) things, though. I have determined that it's the way of modern commerce to sell renting, not owning. How clever!

what does it say about us?

Harvey has started his autumn habit of getting up extremely early to fill his tummy then going back to back up against warm knees in bed while I am left sleepless and pondering. This 5 a.m., there was the haze of fall mist around the streetlights across our back yard. We were in E'burg with L&L for the Kittitas County Fair yesterday, and the wind blew all day long against the slanting sun. It's coming, the mourning season that I love so much.

Much of our drive over the mountains we spent debating the government's lack of response to the flood victims. B is so much more pragmatic and, truth be told, much more clear-eyed about our country than I am. When I said something about this being the richest country and shouldn't we be able to take care of our poorest, if (god forgive us) not on an everyday basis, at least in this moment of utter immediate need, he reminded me: we became the richest by a system that emphasizes amassing personal wealth. We became the richest by blowing past the "least of these."

It is unfathomable to me that there are people in the hurricane zone still waiting for any sort of relief. I cannot understand how we can mobilize a war seemingly overnight and not get people out of a city--even a flooded one--before they begin dying of starvation, thirst, lack of basic medical supplies. President Bush, should we not attend to our own third-world country first? I read three or four newspaper articles yesterday that I could not comprehend:

• The U.S.S. Bataan is 25 miles offshore with 600 beds available and the ability to make 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day. The commander says he'll respond when called but has yet to be. His quote was something like, we won't force ourselves on anybody. Would there not be a hue and cry if this man were court-martialed because he "forced himself" on those whose lives he could save? And then I thought: maybe not, for in a few months, the charity concerts will be off TV and CNN will have moved on to other things.
• Thirty percent of residents in New Orleans lived below the poverty line. Thousands simply couldn't get out because they had no means and nowhere to go. Evacuation plans didn't account for elderly and immobile. Some people even had cars but couldn't afford to buy a tank of gas.
• An anesthesiologist at one hospital where people were sheltering has set up a place to euthanize pets of people there. People who saved their pets from the flood now cannot get them out (there is no room or time to spare for pets in the rescue operations, understandable when there are thousands of people still waiting) and are asking him to euthanize them so they won't just starve to death.

I just cannot believe we couldn't have done better. Could we have invaded Iraq 3 hours later (if it's costing about 10 billion per day) and fixed the levee instead? I heard George Bush say on the morning show Friday that there haven't really been international offers of assistance, because WE HAVEN'T ASKED FOR HELP. Goddammit, if one (more) person dies because of his stupid unwavering confidence in his own righteousness, this agnostic girl hopes there is a judgment day after all.

cannot comprehend

Too much devastation today. I can’t even process or comprehend the pictures coming in from New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama--or the feeling that the poor just keep getting poorer. Where is the justice in this world? I know, godlovers say it comes in the next, which must be scant comfort to those who get none.

I was reading a blog this morning—yes, I came to it from a knitlink—that made me wonder again why there are some women whose role in life seems to be purely ornamental. As far as I could tell, this knitter’s job was to hold up her husband’s gorgeous and enormous house, to make sure she stayed thin enough, and to be-deck herself (lest you think I am all snotty, she was truly lovely in some of her fantastic knitted garments, and her enthusiasm for knitting was genuine and contagious).

Here’s my question: if you, in your cells, were fashioned to be ornamental, do you know that you are content or discontent with being ornamental? (if a tree falls in the forest. . .?) I squeeze my eyes closed hard to imagine myself being ornamental (a far stretch indeed!) and then have to remind myself that it’s impossible on the most basic level—I simply couldn’t be. I was designed far, far differently—not more, not less than, but with an altogether different network diagram. But it doesn’t keep me from being envious of those who are and who are content to be.

Here’s my own confession: I have been infected with the sickness of greed (I think I’ve directly plagiarized that from the Last of the Mohicans movie, but it resonates) the last couple of months. Yesterday morning, I woke with it in full force. It isn’t just greed for things, although that is definitely a part of it. It includes greed for time, health, experience, views, etc. Just overall dis-eased.

And then I began to see the pictures on the morning show (I’d been in training all day Monday and Tuesday and so only vaguely knew the hurricane was happening). Whole neighborhoods...well, you know. We’ve all been glued to CNN. It’s a combination of stunning shock, and then underneath, a thread: what would I be doing in those circumstances, with everything, everything stripped away? These people have jobs, homes filled with beloved and hard-acquired things, or none of the above. They have pets they love as much as I love Harvey, and some couldn’t save them. They had taps with running water and now there is terrible thirst. They have diseases that require medicine that needs to be refrigerated, carefully timed and administered. Like the old man who needed oxygen--having survived the flood, they will die anyway. They need every basic thing restored and supplied, and even though there will be (at least temporarily) an outpouring of every basic thing, it will require huge mobilizations to put them together with those things.

B was reading on his listerv last night about a man, safely out of harm’s way, who got his family out but his home and business are lost. This, a huge tragedy and heartbreak in any other circumstance, may be considered a best case scenario in the near future. All the same, it means that there is so much more heartbreak to come—so much that we will, as distant Americans do, become immune to it and forget very quickly. There are people who committed suicide rather than live their lives in the reality that is coming. And already the game of blame—some of it very rational given the crazymaking question of how in this day does it take so long?—begins.