Tuesday Project Roundup: Progress During A Long Snowy Weekend

Not leaving the house a lot certainly gave me a lot of time to knock out some projects. For example, I finally have a new winter robe:
The fabric is flannel; I think the print gives the whole thing a sort of Victorian (Holmesian) dressing gown feel.

I used a pattern from the early 70s because I liked the collar and the fact that it was a little more tailored than a standard bathrobe.

And look--I'm knitting, too! This is the top of a pullover that's using yarn I already have. The yarn basket was getting way too full so I'm making myself finish this before I start anything new.

Lots of family talking time = lots of knitting time. I really enjoy being a knitter during the holidays.

On Leaving The House

I left the house twice in five days this holiday weekend. I love staying home, but there's something to be said for going to a job where there are other humans: Friday I caught myself worrying that Toby doesn't go to school (no, don't know where that came from) and Saturday I thought, "If I just don't watch the last two episodes of Doctor Who, then the Doctor and Rose can still be together!"

I think if I were ever to freelance from home I'd have to belong to a gym, or a knitting club, or a book club--just something to remind me that people use words to talk, not meows.

Is It Really Supposed To Work Like This?

I get a weekly newsletter from the yoga studio that I go to, and this Monday's offered ten "yogic tips to survive the holidays." I was expecting breathing, and peace, and love, and then I got this:

2. Be thankful you were reincarnated as yourself and not some one else. Everyone else is holding space for you this time around so you don't have to be them. Be thankful to them for being themselves so you don't have to.

I'm in no way an expert, but I don't think cosmic gloating is really the point of a spiritual practice?

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving--I have a lot to be thankful for (including being reincarnated as myself, apparently). I think I'll take the rest of the week off from posting and make fruitcake and marmalade instead.

Tuesday Project Roundup: It's The Holidays, Let's Wear Plaid

It's plaid season--wear a slightly itchy skirt!

Details: cheap wool/acrylic (with a weird chemical smell) from fabric.com and a 70's pattern that I had in my collection. The plaid is not a perfect match across the front (see how the yellow stripe is flipped?) because I always forget about grain when I cut things crosswise. Oh well; it's still festive.

Also: BLIZZARD WARNING! Fill your bird feeders, bring your animals inside, hide your wife, hide your kids...and don't go outside in a blizzard because YOU WILL DIE!! (The Long Winter taught me that.)

Laurie Colwin On Turkey

Kicking off the holiday week, here's one of my favorite food writers being insightful about Thanksgiving:

So many other people seem to dread turkey [...] In my opinion the poor turkey is merely a scapegoat for the mire of conflicted feelings flooding our psyches at holiday time. It is hard to divorce turkey from the expectations of family, the sibling rivalries, the unspoken resentments, the secret rages that occur in even the happiest families. Add to this the exhaustion of travel or the exhaustion of preparing to welcome traveling relatives, and even the tenderest, juiciest turkey may be as sawdust.

She then goes on to call just a turkey breast "turkey devoid of drama." I wonder what she'd have to say about Tofurkey!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I knew I shouldn't have put up that chicken post yesterday--not only was it a classic example of a First-World Problem, I went to PetSmart at lunch wearing my leather shoes and bought Toby a supply of cat food made of those same sad chickens. Let she who is without a captive cat cast the first stone against the chicken-eaters.

2. Speaking of being a hypocrite--I mean, speaking of complicated, multifaceted issues--there is scientific proof why cheese is so delicious: it contains trace amounts of morphine. Cheese really is dairy crack!

3. I don't have room for it now and I won't have a house by Christmas, but I found the tree I want someday. I'll pretend I live in Whoville!

Science, Can You Give Us Vat-Grown Meat Already?

I had a post all written last week about factory-farmed eggs and chickens, and I ended up not posting it. Because I don't want to be Angry Vegetarian Girl, and because it was too sad. (An anonymous animal rights group in Israel put a hidden camera in a battery farming operation so you can see chickens stuffed three to cage without enough space to stand up straight, let alone stretch out their wings--on a live feed. It is, needless to say, DEEPLY DISTURBING.)

Battery cages are what the vast majority of chickens producing eggs and meat live in--the hidden camera shows the norm for chicken farming, not some horrifying violation. I find it deeply disturbing, yes--which is why I don't eat chicken and buy "beyond cage free" eggs--but I find it really depressing, too: I may care about chicken welfare, but most of the world either likes $1 chicken sandwiches too much or really believes that food animals are too stupid to notice how they're raised.

Obviously, I disagree. (I've always liked the Jeremy Benthem quote,"The question is not, 'Can they reason?' nor, 'Can they talk?' but rather, 'Can they suffer?' ") So I was pretty happy to read an article in Time yesterday about animal intelligence. In a nice, non-Angry Vegetarian way it pointed out that yes, animals should probably be treated better because they're actually not too stupid to feel things:

If animals can reason — even if it's in a way we'd consider crude — the unavoidable question becomes, Can they feel?...And what does it say about how we treat them?

[...]No matter what any one scientist thinks of animal cognition, nearly all agree that the way we treat domesticated animals is indefensible — though in certain parts of the world, improvements are being made . The European Union's official animal-welfare policies begin with the premise that animals are sentient beings and must be treated accordingly.

Ultimately, a mainstream article like this is going to change more opinions than radical hidden cameras in chicken farms or earnest blog posts from vegetarians. But I dare you to read up on chicken farming anyway.

I Rarely Feel Lonely

I'm pretty happy being a cat lady with Toby, but I heard this song on KRCL Sunday and it made me feel a little wistful. Because who doesn't want someone to bring them booze to ease their suffering from an incurable illness?



...wait, is that just me? Um, I like the singer's voice and he's very in tune. That's what I meant to say. Yeah.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Something Fun

My last two projects have been extra fiddly and, in the case of the pants, not even that wearable. Clearly, it was time for some craft glue.

It's a coin purse! Except I think I need to adjust the size of any future purses because it seems a little big for coins but a little small for anything else. (I made my own pattern for the purse frames from this tutorial, where you can also find frames.)

The sewing and turning are finished in an episode of Saint Paul Sunday, and then there's just waiting for the glue to dry. Fun with glue, fun with contrasting colors. Maybe I need to order more purse frames?

And The Voice Said, "Master Suite," And I Listened

As you know, I've been looking at houses for many months now, telling myself that I'll let go of things like new construction, a second bathroom, a finished basement, and lately even a garage in order to live in my preferred area--close to downtown and easily walkable and bikeable.

That area features houses ranging from 1890 to about 1940--and I've seen the whole range, with different degrees of upkeep. I was looking at one from 1919 a couple weeks ago and the voice of reason in my head spoke up.

It said, "Karen, keep your life from turning into Grey Gardens in 20 years. Buy a house that won't immediately fall apart around you." And then it said, "You don't walk or bike that much anyway--and it's not like you're moving to Daybreak."

So that's why I'm checking out two houses built in 2007 tonight. They're south of 21st South (gasp) but they have things like powder rooms, and insulation, and bathrooms that are attached to your bedroom (!), and garages that are attached to your house (!!).

Did you know that most newer houses have ALL of those things BUILT IN? Can you imagine?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Guys, the Large Hadron Collider worked! They smashed together ions (instead of protons) and got "quark-gluon plasma," similar to what they think the Big Bang could have produced.

2. Did anyone watch the final new Sherlock episode on PBS? There were lots of in-jokes again, referencing "The Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans" and "The Five Orange Pips." And it ended on a CLIFFHANGER--I predict that the swimming pool is going to be the Reichenbach Falls of the second series.

3. I'm going to The Paris tonight for a champagne dinner--because how else do you celebrate a year of being single?

EDITED TO ADD #4:
I'm featured on my friend's company blog today--go read about my blog on another blog; it will be very circular.

Cat Poem!

This poem was on the Writer's Almanac earlier this week. I'm putting it up for my parents, who recently adopted two more cats, bringing their kitty total up to four.

exactly right

by Charles Bukowski

the strays keep arriving: now we have 5
cats and they are smart, spontaneous, self-
absorbed, naturally poised and awesomely
beautiful.

one of the finest things about cats is
that when you're feeling down, very down,
if you just look at the cat at rest,
at the way they sit or lie and wait,
it's a grand lesson in preserving
and
if you watch 5 cats at once that's 5
times better.

no matter the extra demands they make
no matter the heavy sacks of food
no matter the dozens of cans of tuna
from the supermarket: it's all just fuel for their
amazing dignity and their
affirmation of a vital
life
we humans can
only envy and
admire from
afar.

Tuesday (Wednesday) Project Roundup: PITA Skirt

This skirt was a royal pain in the you-know-what. It was the Burda pattern I've been making all year but the wool--a nice heavy tweed from B and J Fabrics--just fought me. Herringbone stretches in weird directions! Thick, weirdly stretchy wool needs to be stabilized around the zipper and the waistband! An invisible zipper is not the best choice for a heavy wool! Tweed frays so much you have to finish all the edges before even sewing the pieces together!

BUT--it's done (thank god; I thought it would never end), it looks fine (on the outside), and I got lots of compliments on it Monday, so it's not a failure.
However, I think this project taught me an important lesson: I really don't want to make a coat after all.

We Interrupt This Tuesday Project Roundup

Because it's Carl Sagan's birthday!

Check out carlsagan.com, read up on the SETI Institute, or just watch Cosmos again. Here's a clip from the opening:



The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths, of exquisite interrelationships, of the awesome machinery of nature.

I know you wouldn't approve of this, Carl, but I hope that somewhere, you've found out everything you still wanted to know.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Last week I saw that Netflix had episodes of DuckTales available, a Disney cartoon that I watched from 1987-1990, probably while drawing unicorns.

Curiosity got the better of me and I watched an episode and a half this weekend, but whatever magic the show had was gone--along with seven-year-old Karen. (Not all cartoons can be as smart as Animaniacs, I guess.)

I did remember every word to the DuckTales theme song, though. And then had it stuck in my head all weekend. You've been warned.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have a new upstairs neighbor, whom I met on Wednesday. He asked me about the neighborhood and I started rattling off facts like "these nighbors have a dog named Esme, this one walks to work every morning at 7:30, these people have two cats that don't go outside much, this neighbor works at the liquor store," etc. I sounded like I spent all my time watching the neighbors.

2. In case the elections made you sad, here's something happier. I found it encouraging but don't click if you're offended by swearing: What the F*** Has Obama Done So Far?

3. And finally, I just discovered the genre of redubbed music videos:


Elm! Beef! Elm! Beef!

Thursday Poem

I thought about this Mary Oliver poem the other day and wondered why I never posted it last year. I'd say that this one and the one below are her two most well-known poems, heavily used in the sort of "serenity now" inspirational sites that include pictures of waterfalls. But at least people are reading poems, right?


The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice ...
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
'Mend my life!' each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the very foundations ...
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night, and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do,
determined to save the only life you could save.

In Which I Gave A Presentation And It Was OK

In maybe the most "professional" moment of my career to date, I went to a college marketing class last night and talked to them about brands. I had a PowerPoint prepared--with animations! I had speakers notes! I brought in a 1995 J. Peterman catalog as a prop! I answered grad students' questions!

I was afraid it would be like this, but it actually went pretty well.


There are four kinds of business. Tourism. Food service. Railroads. And sales.

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Knit Things For Grownups, Too

Hey, remember this project that I started in January? I finally finished it!
The yarn is really lovely--a merino from a farm in Michigan. It's very soft and got nice and fluffy in the final wash. I used this pattern but I kept the silhouette more boxy than fitted, for easy layering. That worked well everywhere except the sleeves, which turned out way too wide. (I might have to rip those back and re-knit them on smaller needles.)

But overall, I'm not going to complain too much. Because it's DONE.

Thing #21, aka IT'S BOOZE TIME

I finally bit the bullet and stocked my home bar over the weekend, accomplishing Thing 21 on my list of 30 Things:
The scotch is for sipping, not for mixing.

Right now my "bar" is in an upper kitchen cabinet but someday I will arrange all the booze on a fancy tray or cart in my imaginary living room:

Yes, it feels good accomplishing my alcohol-related goals.