Into the sunset we ride...

Brought to you by the Seat-Of-The-Pants Vacation Planning Service.

Spiff, the Pony Puke Poncho, and I are going on vacation. Because Twinkletoes is now safely in Boston with her father for the whole summer, and I am safely in Montréal having heart palpitations, crying jags, and bad takeout on the balcony while Spiff kills things with fireballs coming out of their heads. So, I thought we all might want to take a break from our various demons for a little while. After, that is, I overnight express the one thing Twinkletoes can't sleep without, which is, of course, the one thing we forgot to pack: the Bunny Blanket.

On the bright side, I am having a nice glass of Provençal Rosé because I'm dying of the heat here, and this stuff goes well with bad takeout. I've lit candles on the little iron bistro table on the balcony. I've set my place for one with the good stainless steel. I'm living in my own Private Idaho...oh, wait, that's just a song. Anyway....

I'm progressing on Pony Puke. If my daughter learns to read in the next year or so, I should probably change the name of this thing. But I think it's a bad sign that I only think it's pretty if I squint while looking at it.

Pretty? Scary?
Pretty Scary? I can't tell.

I do think that lace can only help the situation, because if you're going to do Girlygirl, you may as well go all out with the stitch pattern. So I've lifted this pattern from a perfectly good capelet in Spun Magazine, which shall go unlinked and half-nameless as I am (a) too teary-eyed today and (b) a wee bit embarrassed that something called a Vintage Capelet has morphed so far, so long, ridden so deeply into the Six-Year-Old's Sunset that we can no longer recognize it for its formerly cool self. I am sorry, dear designer, we have changed the rules. I do know, however, that if anyone wishes to repeat the lace wings design, it can be found in The Complete Book of Knitting by Barbara Abbey.

I think it's less pukey than it could have been, given the look in the skein as compared to knit up. But I'm not sure. I'm having a hard time being realistic or clear-sighted right now.

And that could also be the reason why the Seat-Of-The-Pants Vacation Planning Service has bought a tent, oh, YESTERDAY, for a camping trip at a campground whose reservation system has been down for four days so we might show up to discover that there is no place for us. I did, however, make sure that the cooler is full of some really nice bottles of wine, and yes, I remembered the corkscrew. The campground is near Toronto. Guess...just GUESS...what the Vacation Planning Service has planned as a sidetrip on our way into the sunset....

Lettuce Knits, anyone? I'm a-goin' on a Toronto Yarn Crawl. Then I plan to show Spiff what further damage fake rainbows can do to perfectly natural substances. Cotton is not the only victim of this Light and Pony Show, nosirree. We're going to Niagara Falls, baby.

Back Friday. The Pony promises to take pictures while we're away. The Spiff promises to not die of Resurrection Button Withdrawal. Me, I promise to try not to drive Spiff nuts, call Twinkletoes, and not cry. Much.

It was either this or Jamaica. Our Planning Service is closely related, however, to our What?-We-Have-How-Much-In-There? Banking Service. Off into the sunset we ride. See you all next weekend...

And Cari...call your mother. Trust me.

June 27, 2005 12:18 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (12)  | Print

Oh, Girl.

We interrupt our weekly Frankentank update to bring you a finished object. Everyone else can finish these in two hours except me. But I did finally finish one...and it will go out in the mail to the Dulaan project today. Finally, I do what I said I would do, which is contribute at least one knitted item to this incredible project (the number of contributions is staggering, and I'm proud to help out, though I wish I could have done more).

I give you The Fattest Hat I Have Ever Knit,
also known as the Zud hat.
You can find the pattern at Ryan's site.

Some fun little details about this project include the fact that I used the Magic Loop technique for the first time, courtesy of a set of 6.5mm Addis I found lying around in my toolbox. 6.5mm Addis???Anyway, this technique is so cool, I may never use a set of double points again. I would, however, love to know how in hell a 6.5mm set of Addis got into my toolbox. I don't ever recall buying or even needing such an animal. But apparently, at one time in my life, I was planning on knitting Fat and Fast.

That's probably why I had this yarn in my stash, too...it is Creative Yarns Klickitat Tweed, and I have had it in my stash for over twelve years. It is 45% Perendale, 45% mohair, and 10% nylon. You can't really see it from the photo, but the nylon is a tiny strand of pink. The mohair is the periwinkle part, and the Perendale is that tweedy grey-brown. The combination is really beautiful, but this yarn is some kinda FAT. And I was on my way to knitting a sweater out of it a long, long time ago in a land far, far away (um, Boston, actually), until I realised that Periwinkle Polar Bear was not the look I was going for. An "Oh, Girl..." moment: smallness in personage plus bulky fuzziness in yarn = small fuzzy bulky personage. Sexy, no? The rest of this stash, I'll use for a Twinkletoes special.

Speaking of the girl, the other thing on my needles right now is a measure of just how sad, guilty, and willing to please a knitting mother can feel when her kid is about to go away for eight weeks. Yep, it's summer visitation time, and the knitting is...uh...well... Okay, alright, I'm knitting a poncho. I admit it. And not only am I knitting a poncho, but I'm knitting it in this:

Wake me when it's over. My Pretty Pony is about to throw up
on Maman's needles. It was this or a really dead-looking yellow.
I'm just glad it's not my poncho.

Twinkletoes asked for a yellow summer poncho, but all we could find in a summer-weight yarn was baby-puke yellow, Holy-Shit-Put-On-Your-Shades yellow, or that dead yellow that looks like it should be a dishcloth. I really don't want my daughter to be wearing something that looks like a dishcloth. In fact, I'm looking forward to the day when she decides that black leather is really cool. But until then, I am stuck with My Pretty Pony Puke.

I have to resurrect this experience somehow, so I'm going to do something in a lacy stitch just to, you know, hammer home the girly girl stuff while pretending that this is not variegated, I am not knitting a pastel rainbow, I am not knitting cotton (this is Katia Arc-en-Ciel and Jet, both cotton tapes) and I do not want to cut off my hands. (Knitting cotton is not at all my idea of a good time. Love hurts.) Learning a new technique, i.e., lace, would be a good way to make me feel better. I hope.

Once she is safely off to Visitation Land, I will resume the Frankentank, because, you know, summer in Montréal is nearly over once it starts. I'd like to wear my tank before the snow flies and the bellies go into hiding. Ladies, Start Your Pilates....

June 21, 2005 4:31 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (10)  | Print

Allow me to be precise.

Or, How Many Horses' Asses Is That?

You know, precision is a wonderful thing. I'm an obsessive typo-spotter, born with a red pen in my hand. And in knitting, I have fallen newly in love with precision. I even do swatches now. They're small swatches by most people's standards, but they work. I've noticed that the level of success of a given project is directly related to this kind of precision. (Duh. You would think that years of watching Norm on New Yankee Workshop say "Measure twice, cut once" would have an effect on my ability to get a clue in the knitting department. A bit slow on the uptake, that girl....)

So in my efforts to have a little precision in my medical life, I found out that the two best neurosurgeons in Montréal disagree with each other on, well, pretty much everything, right down to the size of my aneurysm. I pointed out this little discrepancy in measurement, and Herr Doctor Second Opinion Guy replied, "Bah, 3, 5, doesn't matter, it's not 10 mm." Well, then, buddy, it's a good thing you're the one who says we shouldn't do the surgery, because I wouldn't want that level of precision to be your MO for opening my head..."Let's see, we'll just cut from here to about, uh, here...that's what? one cubit or so?" A little unsettling, non? I nearly asked him, "You don't swatch, do you?"

I'm sure many of you have heard the story of how the precise measurement between railroad ties matches the exact width of two Roman chariot horses' asses. Which, apparently, are less variable than human beings' asses. So if we divide that railroad measurement by 2, one horse's ass is 28.25 inches wide. And I am 2.124 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses tall. Not exactly suitable for tying to the train tracks. (Note to Stephanie: I would say "arse," but I'm only Irish by descent, Canadian by residence, and I'm still not clear on whether or not you pronounce the "r"....)

Speaking of precision, I've made a little progress on the Frankentank. It measures exactly 0.283 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses. I'm in the middle of the increases heading towards the rack coverage area. No pictures today because I'm feeling bloated and I don't feel like showing you how many horses's asses wide my belly actually looks right now. Instead, I will show you this fabulous present to me from me:

This kit's only drawback is the colour of the dyed roving:
the exact teal L.L. Bean loves and I hate. My apologies
to mallards everywhere. You're lovely, but I don't want to wear you.

You, you, you, and especially you: stop that maniacal laughter. You, too. I haven't spun anything yet.

Spiff is alternately amused and confused by this desire to make one's own yarn. He wonders if this is a cost benefit thing, or just a freaky fiber person thing. He did, however, pull out the roving and start to fiddle with it, and I practically had to yank it out of his hands because he wanted to start pulling it apart to spin it. No way, buddy, that's MY roving, you can try it out when I'm done. And yes, I did stick my face into the roving as soon as I pulled it out of the package. I'm all about the precision, you see. Just for your reference, the hand-dyed roving cannot stay under the chin without causing a massive itching fit, but the undyed roving can.

So, can anyone tell me how much yarn your average beginning spinner, spinning wicked badly (or spinning the horrifically double-apostrophed Thick 'N' Thin, depending on your perspective), can get out of 8.425 (rounded to the nearest thousandth) horses' asses worth of roving? Spiff and I want to know.

Knitting and measuring like the general public (i.e., in metric, Mom)
will resume in the next post. Meanwhile, I leave you with a shot
of my neighbor's garden, because I don't have one.
And because, despite my medical difficulties, I've grown fond of the skull.

June 14, 2005 1:34 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (14)  | Print

Meme and Me.

Not necessarily in that order.

I've been a wee bit absent this past week, thanks to The Great Sequin-Sewing Debacle a little sewing project for a couple of dance performances Twinkletoes was in, and a couple of grandparental visits to see Twinkletoes and ignore her parents watch said performances with us.

She is an octopus. By the way, sequin strings don't stretch.
Lycra, however, does. You do the physics.
After a first failed attempt, I reverted to wave theory.

Then there was the week-long fight with medical secretaries. Ordinarily, I don't like to fight with secretaries. I have been a secretary myself, in three different professional milieu. It ain't easy. They are not all gum-smacking big-haired tanning-salon addicts who put most of their intellectual energy into choosing a sufficiently garish shade of lipstick to match the five necklaces stuck in their cleavage. (I don't even wear lipstick. See? I'm living proof.) And I admire the people who can successfully handle being at a doctor's beck and call without killing said doctor. (My demons employers were a lawyer, a journalism director, and an advertising executive. Miraculously, I did nothing that would land me in jail. However, I will NEVER be anyone's secretary again.)

But this week, it seemed as if each and every person I spoke with decided, on principle, to be an incommunicative con, absolutely refusing to help me or to speak with me on complex medical matters in the SECOND language Canadians are required to speak in public life (that would be ENGLISH) which is a rather necessary skill to have in a freaking HOSPITAL in freaking CANADA because this is a BILINGUAL country, people.

Four hospitals later, I have an appointment to discuss the merits of sawing a hole into my skull, with the actual chainsaw-wielding maniac neurosurgeon who would do the job if he feels it is necessary to do so. Before the next century, I hope. This one even speaks English willingly, and by all accounts neither owns nor advocates the use of a chainsaw, unless one is an unruly maple tree, which I am not. I have the hyper-clear angiogram to prove it. I am merely an unruly human. And I have killed no one. Yet.

I did, however, shout. This shocks the hell out of Spiff, who has been waiting for the day that I would actually shout at someone when they deserve it. Well, the Québec medical system finally pushed me over the edge. There is a reason they post signs above medical receptionist desks that read, "Swearing, shouting, threats or violence will not be tolerated." Too many people must have been driven to near-insanity by secretaries who say one week that they will call another doctor's office and then say the next week that they do not have the telephone number for said doctor's office and why am I asking?

So. I am now a Shouter. (This is not the same, you will note, as being a Screamer. Heh. None of your business.)

Enough about Me. Now, about Meme...

Some people grow plants on top of their cabinets.
I grow vegetarian cookbooks.
(French men don't eat tofu.)

I was tagged to do a book meme about three decades weeks ago (or so) by my buddy Kate (read her answers here), who does not have to glow to be a cutiepie. (Don't argue, Kate. If I ever posted pictures of my pregnant self, honey, I'd be banned from the internet for scaring the crap out of people. Like Divine without the makeup. I'm serious.) So, here we go with the meme:

1. How many books are in your house?

Enough to need large bookshelves in every single room except the bathroom and the laundry room. And this is only because I got rid of half of my books before I moved to Canada, in order to keep my back from completely falling apart (I moved my books myself. I don't trust movers with dishes, computers, or books.) I believe I moved about 1,100 books. Since then, I've acquired probably ten knitting books and a few fiction and poetry books. And if we count Spiff's books (he has about 40, though he thinks he has less and he calls me a tree-killer), that's about 1,160 books. Or, a thousand million gazillion. Because, you know, I'm underguesstimating to protect the murderer among us.

2.What was the last book you bought?

I bought two. Osborne Publishing's The Complete Reference: UNIX and Conscience Phonologique by Marilyn Jager Adams et al. The first is to curb my tree-killing tendencies and learn how to take over the world operate our Linux server. The second is to pass on the joy of tree-killing reading books to my kid, who is learning to read and needs a little extra help. I'm not sure I can further interest her in that fabulous smell of old books in used book stores, but I'm sure going to try. Sorry, Spiff.

3. What are the last books you've read?

In my case, I'm not counting cookbooks or computer books because that will double the post. I have most recently read Stephanie's book. Of course. And I loved it.

Before that, I read Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, because I felt obligated the whole world, me excluded, has read it I thought I'd finally give it a shot. It totally underwhelmed me. Predictable and pedantic. Which disappointed me, because I grew up with the guy, and was hoping for better. But he's wildly famous and I am not, so don't listen to me.

If we are talking about the last book I read and truly enjoyed, that would be Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. String theory rocks, tangible or not. By the way, a lot of people have asked me why I love logic, math, and science, when I am neither a logician, nor a mathematician, nor a scientist, and therefore don't have to deal with any of this. Well, because I'm a nutcase curious. I like it because it's all a big challenge, and I am the kind of person who likes to stare at stars and not just wonder about them, but learn about them, too. I like to ask questions about what's beyond the edge of our knowledge. I may not get any answers, but the questions are worth exploring, I think. And I'm fascinated by the writings of people who have the training to really go after the answers.

4. Name five books that you reread often or that mean a lot to you.

Tolkien would be way too obvious, so I'll list as the first book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. It's written for kids, but it's one I still return to. I gave that book to Spiff when we were dating, it was that important to me. And he informed me that I am Charles Wallace. Scary, but true.

Beauty by Robin McKinley. A re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, for young adults (and old adults). It's very well done, very compelling, and best of all, it ain't Disney.

Illusions by Richard Bach, which taught me to open any book that is important to me and I will find an answer to a question I'm asking. It actually works, if you have the right book in hand, and an open mind. My favourite quote in the whole book: "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." And if there is a French book that does the same thing for me, opening and finding answers/inspiration, it would be Citadelle by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. (Sorry, that was two serving as one...this is BILINGUAL Canada, people. No, I'm not bitter. Much.)

Hard Labor by Cesare Pavese. A poet I return to over and over again to kickstart my own work. And a hard choice to make, because nearly half of my book collection is poetry. Pavese is more known for his novels, but I have to thank a bunch of my mentors for directing me to his poetry. Really gorgeous, on subjects that are anything but gorgeous.

Cosmos by Carl Sagan. I know much of it is outdated, but I have a soft spot for this guy, his writing was fantastic, and one of my most favourite childhood memories is watching him on film. If there was one person who conveyed to me how exciting and beautiful the world of science can be, and how we play a part, however, small, in the universe, it was Carl Sagan. I think I first read this book when I was thirteen. And I can still hear his voice saying, "Billions and billions of stars...." And here we go again with the double-book listing: Hubert Reeves is the French Carl Sagan to me. His Patience dans l'azur blows my mind.

From the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn:
What it's like to feel very, very small and awestruck.
(Why, yes, I did, in fact, think of knitting that stripe pattern....)

5. Who will you pass this on to?

If she'll humour me, I'd like to pass this on to Rachel, of The Village Knittiot. Her reviews of books she's read are so eloquent that I can't help but want to read her answers to this meme.

Next post, knitting content. I promise. I have a waiting room to haunt and a final exam to take. Where there is waiting and studying, there will be knitting....

A wee little editor's note, to clarify a couple of things: I merely sewed the sequins, and had to modify the costume to further fit extremely small octopus. Tailoring, I do. Major huge sewing projects, I don't do.

Also, please understand that I like and respect Dan Brown very much. He does, indeed, remain an extremely nice man. It's just the book I wasn't wowed by, and I'm in the minority on that one.

June 6, 2005 4:32 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (12)  | Print