Tuesday Project Roundup: Socks For The Coming Winter And/Or End Times

If, like me, you don't like cold, you're already dreading this winter. And if you're reading the news and already are an anxious person to begin with (like me), you're both dreading the cold AND fearing for the collapse of the economy and the end of Life As We Know It.

If so, I recommend learning to knit and making some socks: You may be anxious but you'll have warm feet.
This pair was already about 60% finished--probably about this time last year--then put away. It's amazing how quickly a sock goes after a sweater! (And it's the yarn that's making the stripes; not any fanciness on my part.)

Almost As Cute As Toby

Saturday at Open Barn Day had lots of sunshine, fall colors, and baby alpacas:
There was a lot of yarn, too, but I had come without a project in mind. Fortunately, the ranch will have some yarn up on its website next week. Or maybe I'll have to visit again!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Open Barn Day is this weekend at the alpaca ranch in Kamas. Be sure to go--I missed it last year because it was snowing, so be glad the weather has been so nice.

2. Also in the mountains: J. Crew has opened an outlet store at the Kimball Junction outlet mall. I've decided J. Crew is like the boyfriend I know I'm better off without, and that I kind of hate, yet I still must know what he's doing at all times. So I'll be visiting J. Crew tomorrow, too.

3. The American Legion posters from Wednesday reminded me of one my dad has had hanging in his shop for years. I need to keep this one in mind more:

"This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change."

I found a poem yesterday--not from the Writer's Almanac, but from a decor blog--and, the way good literature does, it summed up all my feelings at the moment. (It had me at the title.)

"How to Like It," by Stephen Dobyns

These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let’s go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let’s tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let’s pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let’s dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn’t been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let’s go down to the diner and sniff
people’s legs. Let’s stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man’s mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let’s go to sleep. Let’s lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he’ll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he’ll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let’s just go back inside.
Let’s not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let’s go make a sandwich.
Let’s make the tallest sandwich anyone’s ever seen.
And that’s what they do and that’s where the man’s
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept-
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.


[And I know that this blog is not called Angrier Living Through Following Politics , but speaking of "what comes next and how to like it": Did you hear that McCain wants to postpone Friday's debate to "focus on the economy"? Would that be the same way he "focused" on the economy when oiling the political machinery for Charles Keating in 1988? He is such a con man. Read the op-ed I wanted to post yesterday for more.]

Infuriated Political Wednesday Will Return Next Week

Today was going to post a great op-ed from the New York Times about the lies the McCain campaign continues to spread, but I just can't. My blood pressure has been too high lately. There have been too many provoking incidents over the last week and I'm just out of fury.

Instead, let's take Jason's advice and think of how our grandparents got through worse things. The archives of the American Legion are online and you can take a look at their WWII posters. Here were my favorites--about Victory Gardens:
The first one is even appropriate today! There are others in the archives about saving fuel and sharing rides, too--maybe we need to print them up again.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Something I Will Actually Wear

Last weekend I finished the green sweater I've been working on for over a month (see the progress shot here) and I've already worn it twice--success! (The success is even sweeter because my latest sewing project is not working.) I really could have used another skein of yarn to make the body longer, but by the time I realized that, I didn't want to wait for another one to arrive, so I made do.

Like all cardigans, it can be worn open:

Or closed:

With the sewing project not working and this project finished, I've been wandering around with no focus in the evenings. Poor Mr. Isbell just wants me to "sit down and watch the movie," and I think Toby does too. Fortunately for them both, I found half of a sock I never finished last year. So tonight should be a calm one Chez Craft.

Things I Forgot To Mention Friday

1. Talk Like a Pirate Day, of course, but that was pointed out.

2. My brother's birthday Saturday. He got to eat beef and quote lots of Family Guy. And he has an even BIGGER lawn tractor (so big that he likes to drop "lawn" and just say "tractor"), so I think he's pretty happy.

3. Friday was the anniversary of when Keats wrote his ode, "To Autumn" in 1819. You can read it here.

And today is the equinox. I guess summer is now officially over.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I think I need to remind myself not to panic about the market crash this week. Or about anything else. (I tend to panic.)

2. Although if society does dissolve into anarchy, we can welcome our new feathered overlords: I read this week that crows "seem to be able to use causal reasoning to solve a problem"--something that even chimps aren't able to do.

3. And speaking of human traits in animals, Toby is doing his best to take over my side of the bed:

These Are Trying Times

Sometimes, I think ahead about 50 years and realize, "I'm going to be one of those grandmas that kids are going to want to interview for their history projects."

Consider: I will remember a time without cell phones and the internet. I'll remember 9/11 and the mess we made of the Iraq War. (God, I hope I can finally use the past tense on that in another 50 years.) I'll remember the Dark Times (the Bush years--now with more spying and torture!) and the historic Hilary and Obama campaigns.

And it looks like I'm going to remember the Great Financial Crash of Wall Street in '08. Nothing like some reports of global market panic with your coffee! This is bad, people. Maybe not the time to ask for a raise at work.

And I'm One Of Them

The newspaper tells me that today marks the signing of a charter in 1787 that established the Federal government. The article also gave some harrowing statistics about Americans:

• 28 percent know more than one of the five fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment: the freedoms of religion and speech; of the press; to assemble peaceably; and to petition for redress of grievances.
• 1 in 1,000 can name all five.
• 20 percent think the First Amendment guarantees the right to own a pet.
• Yet 52 percent of Americans can name at least two main characters in "The Simpsons" television show, and 22 percent can name all five (Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie).

There's a quiz you can take, too. I took it and, well, my next trip to the library should include some history to brush up on.

But at least I was never stupid enough to think Bush was doing a good job!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Running Away To Join The Fair Edition

I picked up my fair entries yesterday evening and thought I'd take a picture, since I never searched the archives to find the original project posts. I submitted the very plaid dress I made last November for a friend's wedding--first place--and the houndstooth jacket I like so much--second place. Yay, me!


When I was there last night the semis that carry the collapsible midway rides were all packed up and ready to head out in a convoy. My fascination with long-haul trucking (don't know where that came from, unless it's Kerouac) collided with my curiosity about how traveling midway ride operators must live, and I just about put the Focus in line behind them. Maybe someday I can take six months and research a book about carnies and their state fair circuit...

Weekend Events

As I mentioned, there was a demolition derby at the State Fair this weekend. The symphony also opened its season with Beethoven's 9th. I didn't attend either of these events, though. Why?

Because Mr. Isbell had a birthday party...
and I had a big bowl of punch!

Happy birthday, hon!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Did you hear that Lance Armstrong is coming out of retirement to try for a record eighth win at the Tour de France next summer? He's riding for free--he wants to raise cancer awareness--and he's letting a documentary film crew follow his training, to put to rest any doping rumors. Go Lance!

2. In other news, but of the infuriating and scary kind, did you see the Sarah Palin ABC interview? Choice quotes on the ABC site.

3. My book this week is Annie Proulx's Wyoming Stories, short stories that remind you that ranch life is not at all like My Friend Flicka, but instead "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

4. Those middle items are depressing. Here's Toby being sleepy to cheer us up:

Farm Week Continues!

Look what was in the paper this morning--an article about pack goats! It includes this sentence:
"All goats, Zimmerman says, love fire and hate water. Around campfires, they get as close as they can to the flames, and will often stand right in front of people--so they can be near two of their favorite things."

And here's the accompanying picture--I saw this guy at the fair last Friday, but my camera had died:

Fantasy Farm Week

Continuing the agrarian dream here on the blog this week, check out this picture:
You can buy this as a print here, and it was taken on Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm, "the world's first fiber CSA." As their site says, they were profiled in the Wall Street Journal this spring, and I remember reading about it and scoffing that "it's not a real farm." I don't know why I did that--although if you look at the pictures of those sheep and goats, they are preternaturally clean--but now that I've read about it more, it seems like a good way to go into fleece farming.

Hmm....

Tuesday Project Roundup: Because All Ranch Life Is Just Like "My Friend Flicka"

Something about shirtdresses make me think I could wear them on my imaginary ranch, while gathering eggs, visiting my loyal horse friend in the stables, standing at the back door looking out over the Wyoming mountains, etc. (Not, of course, while actually doing ranch work and getting dirty. Nobody ever mentioned that in My Friend Flicka.)

Anyway, here's the pattern--I added the sleeve cuffs on the left to the straight-skirted version in the middle:

Here's the fabric:

And here's a rumpled and dark modeled shot at the end of yesterday:
On the ranch I'd never be rumpled, though. I'm sure of it.

Nothing To Read Here

I am just OUT of ideas today. I considered discussing the fair and the aesthetic implications of a jacket with gold rick-rack beating a very cool houndstooth Sherlock-Holmes-goes-mod jacket; I considered complaining that I still have to make another trip to my bank to get the debacle of last week straightened out; I considered a Monday Project Roundup so I could congratulate my parents on 36 years of marriage tomorrow; I looked for a poem; I looked for a cute animal picture. Nothing.

Nothing to see here...nothing except these chickens!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. More than 130,000 donations--totaling $10 million--were made to Obama's campaign fund in the 24 hours following Sarah Palin's speech at the RNC. There may be hope for America after all.
UPDATED: Gloria Steinem weighs in on Ms. Palin. It's a great read.

2. Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road came out 51 years ago today. Some titles he considered were "Souls on the Road," "American Road Night," "Home and the Road," "Love on the Road," and "Along the Wild Road."

3. There's another cria at Blue Moon Ranch, and he had to wear a coat because it was cold! Nothing is cuter than animals in jackets. Maybe Toby needs a sweater...

A Song

Green and white cruisers and coffee in mornings;
Baby alpacas and gardens I'm growing;
Sweet little Tobys who sleep in the sheets:
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the thieves strike
with their fake checks
and they take my cash,
I simply remember my favorite things,
and then I don't feel so bad.

Except when I think that the defrauders walked out of the bank with $850 yet I have to take two days to fix things AND nobody can expedite putting that money back in my account yet. Then I feel bad.

Hmm, maybe that last verse doesn't work so well...


EDITED TO ADD: After a morning of investigating, it turns out thieves did NOT take my money. There was a teller error--an error that had me freak out, create a new account, and miss work. "Gee, we're really sorry about that. But at least there's no fraud!" As my friend Sean says, "For the love of god!"

Infuriating Headline Of The Day

From the good old paper copy of the Salt Lake Tribune: "Utahns Say Palin Is 'Like Us'." (Related story online here.)
Let's see, someone from a state popularly viewed to be inhabited by rootin' tootin' gun-totin' yokels; who believes creationism needs to be taught next to evolution and that sex education doesn't need to be taught at all; and who has a large family. Yes, she IS just like "us."

But she's not like me. And if McCain thinks I'm going to vote for him now just because he got a shady running mate who has two X chromosomes, he is sadly mistaken.

We Interrupt This Project Roundup For A Labor Day Report

I think I've started a tradition of doing physical activity that's slightly beyond my capabilities, preparedness, or both on Labor Day--last year I made Mr. Isbell hike to the tram at Snowbird and this year we went on an Epic Ride from my house to...well, not my parents house.

We were going to ride on the Jordan River Parkway down to 7200 South and make our way west. It was a long ride for us (not for some paternal people who ride 100 miles on their 61st birthday, of course) but we thought it would be easy and pleasant. And it was, until I noticed Mr. Isbell's back tire going flat around 4800 South. And realized neither of us had a patch kit.

So we call our "support team" (cough, thanks Dad, cough!) and have the "team van" come meet us at 5400 South, where Mr. Isbell's tire is repaired so we can continue our ride. However, while waiting for the repair I discover the only thing that was keeping both my front and back tire up...were the thorns I'd just pulled out of them.


The team van ended up taking us to my parents' house, where it was discovered that my front tire had three punctures and my back tire had four. (Again, thanks Dad!) So much for an Epic Ride--but it looks like I have a new tradition.

Happy Labor Day, Comrades

Listen to Utah Phillips perform some labor songs, and remember: "In the world of western attire, it is similarly tradition to wear a straw cowboy hat until Labor Day. After Labor Day, the felt hat is worn until Memorial Day."

(Quote is from here, via Wikipedia.)