Going Forward Into The New Year

I hope your New Year's Eve is as calm as it is for these alpacas. Don't get too drunk tonight--no one wants to start a fresh new year with a hangover.

Tuesday Project Roundup: NEW SEWING MACHINE!!!!!!!

Look what is in my house RIGHT NOW:
Compared with the 1962 Singer I've been using (goodbye, Old Paint), it is like a spaceship. I hear the Also Sprach Zaruthustra theme whenever I look at it. This is the beginning of a new Sewing Age. It makes buttonholes! It finishes the edges of your seams! There are nineteen different stitches to choose from! It comes with accessories! (Cat butt not included in all models.) And I think the Swiss Army made its ballistic nylon cover:
Best (early) birthday present EVER. Thank you Mom and Dad!

It's Monday

And if you're home on vacation, you can just do this:

Notice there's still a blog here? That's good! But it still looks the same--I figured out how to make the change but still need some more info to do it. So we're waiting on that. NEXT week it will be all new and improved.

Testing!

This is only a test.

Happy Christmas Eve

Like the rest of the blogging world, I won't be posting the rest of the week because of Christmas. But I have more plans than celebration and vacation--I'm going to attempt to move the blog to Blogspot (gasp!) to help with the organization and overall look.*

So I will leave you with three things to read for the next three days:

1. Tonight I'll be reading The Tailor Of Gloucester (this link even has the illustrations!) to everyone. Mr. Isbell can humor me, Toby can look at the pictures of the mice, and I can commiserate with the Tailor about not finishing his projects and buttonhole quality. And we can all say NO MORE TWIST.
2. If you'd rather read something to yourself or if your cat has a longer attention span than mine, I recommend the Christmas chapter in The Wind in the Willows. It's the winter chapter where Mole rediscovers his old home after living at Rat's all summer and takes Ratty there on Christmas Eve. There are also caroling field mice.
3. And if this is all too cute, here's something adult you can read: It's Nigel Slater describing Christmas in Vienna in a Guardian column last year. You will want to listen to Strauss.
   

*I am a little nervous about this, but I have reinforcements I can call in (hi Amber!) to fix things if the move goes horribly awry. So if you don't see a blog here next Monday, don't panic; it just means that I'll need another week to have someone who knows what she's doing fix things.

Tuesday Project Roundup: All I Want For Christmas Is Some Crafty Time

And after today, I will have time--I have tomorrow through January 4th OFF. I'm going to try to finish that taupe cardigan (I have to start over on the back, though, so it may not happen), sew two shirts, and knit one of these cowl-y scarf-y things:

(Found, along with a pattern, on the suitably titled CopyCat blog of craftiness.)

We Made It

Yesterday marked the Winter Solstice, so at least we can have more light as we fight "the depressive psychological effects of winter on individuals and societies," which Wikipedia defines as "coldness, tiredness, malaise, and inactivity."

I've mostly escaped malaise and Mr. Isbell and I have been pretty good about staying active, but the coldness this year has been getting to me. My fingers and toes are ALWAYS cold, and Toby and I are in front of the space heater like it's a roaring fire. (If only it were.)

But at least December is almost over, then there's just January and February. We can do it, right?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. www.postcardsfromyomomma.com is a collection of emails and IMs that adult children have received from their parents, and it's priceless. (Especially the "dads" category, no offence to any excellent fathers.) Maybe it's because I think moms are so awesome, but I get such a kick out of reading them:

Got it! Good photo! Did the studio send out the buffet for you?!! Is that a hotdog/cigarette/donut you’re eating?!! Who is the young lady in front of you?

I really must know what you have in your mouth. Dad is curious, too.

Please reply immediately. Love, Mom

2. Speaking of parents, I was visitng last Sunday and my father had taped part of a sales flyer shouting THESE ARE THE FINAL DAYS to the calendar in the kitchen. With six days left until Christmas and Snow-mageddon on the way in just hours, I couldn't agree more.

3. And, from The Onion: McCain Stares at Screen, Attempts to Write Family Christmas Letter:
Forty-five minutes later, after two aborted attempts to compose the letter from the point of view of the family cat, Oreo, and another about what 2009 held in store for the McCain clan, the Arizona senator took a break to make a cup of hot cocoa and listen to the grandfather clock ticking in the background. "Jesus," McCain mumbled. "Jesus Christ."

So awesome. Go read all of it.

Food I Cook For Myself

Oyster stew is a traditional Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve supper in my mother's family, but only she and I like it. Mr. Isbell doesn't care for it either, but since he was at band practice last night, I made some for a week-before-Christmas-eve dinner for myself. (And Toby. Toby, I discovered, is a big fan of oyster stew.)

I've started reading some M.F.K. Fisher again, to compare her with Laurie Colwin, and in Consider The Oyster I found this about oyster stew: "mildly potent, quietly sustaining, warm as love and welcomer in the winter."

And also very popular with spoiled housecats.

A Poem For Shopping

This was on the Writer's Almanac site last month. Don't worry, the deer is not being hunted...

A Deer in the Target

by Robert Fanning

I only got a ten-second shot,
grainy footage of the huge deer
caught in the crosshairs
of a ceiling security camera, a scene
of utter chaos in a strip mall store,
shown on the late local news.
The beautiful beast clearly scared
to death in this fluorescent forest,
its once graceful legs giving out
on mopped floors, think Bambi
as a fawn its first time standing.
Seeing the scattering shoppers,
you'd think a demon had barged
into this temple of commerce,
as they sacrificed their merchandise,
stranded full carts and dove for cover.
And when the aisles were emptied
of these bargain hunters, who was left
but an army of brave red-shirted
team members, mobilized by
the store manager over the intercom
to drive this wild animal out.
I wager there's nothing on this
in the How to Approach
an Unsatisfied Shopper
section in the Target employee handbook,
but there they were: the cashiers
and stockers, the Floor Supervisor,
the Assistant Floor Supervisor,
the Store Manager,
the Assistant Store Manager,
the District Associate Manager,
the District Supervisor,
the District Assistant Supervisor
and visiting members from
the Regional Corporate Office,
running after it, it running after
them, bull's eye logos on their red golf shirts,
everyone frenzied and panting: razor hooves
clattering on the mirror-white floor tiles,
nostrils heaving, its rack clearing
off-season clothes from clearance racks.
All of them, in Target,
chasing the almighty buck.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Too Busy For Projects

There's a reason I made last week a week of Things That Are Soothing: I left the house yesterday and came home thirteen hours later. It's Christmas! It's Christmas in retail! There are parties to attend! Parties to plan! Presents to wrap! Booze to stockpile against the coming Canadian cold front! You get the picture.

I have sewing projects planned for my winter vacation between Christmas and New Year's (bless you, winter vacation) and I'm knitting when I can, but there's not much to show for this week.

I don't want to complain too much, though, because as frantic as Christmas can get, we can't forget what it's all about: The night when we get presents.

It's Monday

Go to it as thoroughly as Toby washes his leg:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's my sister-in-law's birthday today--the big 3-0! This year she's gotten a dog and started grad school, too, so she's officially an adult now. Happy Birthday!

2. If you're not working or attending a questionable performance of Babes in Toyland tomorrow, you should go up to the Holiday Open House at Blue Moon Ranch. There'll be free hot chocolate and snow-covered alpacas.

Things That Are Soothing: Laurie Colwin

I only recently discovered Laurie Colwin as a food writer (I still haven't read her novels) and got Home Cooking and More Home Cooking in quick succession from the library. More Home Cooking in particular has been a delight: How can you not love a cookbook/memoir whose first chapter begins with, "There are those of us--the harried, cowardly, overextended--who find the beginning of December to be life's most trying time."

She encourages us to hang in there until New Year's Eve, when we can stay home with "a couple of similarly New Year's Eve-phobic close friends" and eat delicious soothing food, including salmon and marinated Brussels sprouts and lemon rice pudding.

The books are smart, engaging, funny (read the "Jam Anxiety" chapter) and most of all encouraging. And we all need encouragement.

Things That Are Soothing: New Upstairs Neighbors

Last week Mr. and Mrs. Stompy moved out, taking their tap shoes, anvils, and bowling balls* with them. I know we have new upstairs neighbors because I saw them moving in, but that's the only way I could tell. It's like having little mice wearing slippers above us. Or angels flying over the softest snow with fluffy feathers. I love our new neighbors.

*Not really. But they were SO LOUD. They walked loudly, dropped things loudly, Mrs. Stompy laughed loudly--it's amazing how much my blood pressure has dropped this week.

Soothing Project Roundup: Knitting

I haven't made much progress on the sweater this week, but knitting definitely gets a mention in the Week of Things That Are Soothing and Not Rushed, Worried About Money, or Full of People.

I'm still just tickled to death that sticks and string can make something warm and useful. Knitting lets you feel productive, surround yourself with something soft and pretty, and make something much greater than the sum of its parts--which are basically just the same stitches, over and over and over. Kind of like the Bach G major cello suite prelude. (Listen here.)

Also: My house got about five inches of snow and I finally have new tires this year. This is not soothing as much as reassuring, but I'll add it to the week's list anyway.

Things That Are Soothing

I think I'll focus on calm subjects this week--things that are quiet and as far away from the retail aspect of Christmas as possible.

Let's start with alpacas at sunrise:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. My father can relate to this. It applies to me, too--just change "ten o'clock" to "two o'clock."
A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.- Emily Bronte

2. I've started listening to Christmas music, at home, of my own volition. I don't know what's wrong with me.

3. Look at this sweater! There are OWLS on it. I know what I'm knitting next. (More pictures and lots of scholarly musings on craft, history, and women on the creator's blog, Needled.)

Putting It All In Perspective

The Big Picture blog--a news blog in pictures (yes, big ones)--has started a galactic Advent calendar. As the lead notes:
"Every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the amazing Hubble Space Telescope. As I take this chance to share these images of our amazing Universe with you, I wish for a Happy Holiday to all those who will celebrate, and for Peace on Earth to everyone."

The images really are beautiful. I'll take this as an Advent calendar any day--kind of puts all the squabbles about "Christmas" versus "holidays" in perspective.

(Via my new favorite blog of imaginary outfits and space news.)

Why Must You Be Like This, Chris Buttars?

From yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune:

The West Jordan Republican is sponsoring a resolution encouraging retailers to embrace Christmas in their promotions rather than the generic "holidays."

"It would encourage the use of 'Merry Christmas,' " Buttars said of the non-binding statement that is still being drafted. "I'm sick of the Christmas wars--we're a Christian nation and ought to use the word."

I know this is rhetorical at this point, but is anyone else concerned that a member of the state legislature seems so blissfully unaware of the First Amendment? We're a Christian nation? No we're not, jackass: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"

And here's another point: He's encouraging retailers to use "Christmas" in their promotions, as if a "Christmas Sale" is more righteous than a "Holiday Sale," but if he's that devout, shouldn't he be objecting to using the Birth of Our Lord to sell crass material items?

Why do you waste our time like this, Buttars? Why?!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Measure Twice, Cut Once

Even measuring once would have been enough, but I'm not used to making things with long, cuffed sleeves so their length didn't come up--until it was too late. Oh well. It was a nice enough way to spend a couple of days of vacation last week.

The knitting is going well, too. Look, more sleeves! (These are long enough.)

I haven't cut into the Japanese fabric from last week, though, because I need to save a project for Christmas vacation and because there's a possibility of a new sewing machine that either Santa or the Birthday Fairy will bring.

(Hear that, Santa or Birthday Fairy? I still think that's a great idea.)

It's Monday

Sit on it like it's the arm of a couch and make a weird face:

Toby Is Thankful For His Heater

Sorry, Parents. Here's A Poem.

Sewing all day with only Toby for company this week has made me lose my focus: I'm having a hard time typing accurately; I didn't give yesterday's Project Roundup a clever title; and I let my cell phone sit in my car and die, thus panicking my parents, who thought I had suffered the same fate.

Fortunately, I am not dead and now I have an excuse to put up a poem about parenting. The Writers Almanac had this Ellen Bass piece up in the last week or so and it really resonated with me, even though I'm still just a cat parent. (I guess worry is a universal emotion.)

After Our Daughter's Wedding

While the remnants of cake
and half-empty champagne glasses
lay on the lawn like sunbathers lingering
in the slanting light, we left the house guests
and drove to Antonelli's pond.
On a log by the bank I sat in my flowered dress and cried.
A lone fisherman drifted by, casting his ribbon of light.
"Do you feel like you've given her away?" you asked.
But no, it was that she made it
to here, that she didn't
drown in a well or die
of pneumonia or take the pills.
She wasn't crushed
under the mammoth wheels of a semi
on highway 17, wasn't found
lying in the alley
that night after rehearsal
when I got the time wrong.
It's animal. The egg
not eaten by a weasel. Turtles
crossing the beach, exposed
in the moonlight. And we
have so few to start with.
And that long gestation—
like carrying your soul out in front of you.
All those years of feeding
and watching. The vulnerable hollow
at the back of the neck. Never knowing
what could pick them off—a seagull
swooping down for a clam.
Our most basic imperative:
for them to survive.
And there's never been a moment
we could count on it.

Tuesday Project Roundup:

I haven't mentioned yet that I have this week off, which means this pile of materials will probably be at least half finished by this time next week: The floral in the middle is the stuff from Japan, obviously not stuck in customs. And see that yarn? I couldn't decide which blue to order for the pullover sweater, so I changed projects completely. Now I will have a nice neutral cardigan that matches what I'll make out of the fabric.

Toby approves of my staying home this week.

Now For 1,500,001

You've all seen this. 1.5 million people on YouTube have seen it. But I think we all need to see it again on Monday:

The Cat On A Roomba Video!


Enjoy.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. My Japanese fabric is in customs in San Fransisco. I hope it's not stuck.

2.I've been fresh out of political outrage (burned out, rather) and haven't been paying much attention to the economy or the bailouts or the First Puppy. But I read a post that changed my mind about whether we should give automakers any part of that huge aid package: I thought those greedy fat cats could wither and die but this made me realize that there are people behind the fat cats, and abandoned machine shops, and that it all ties in with my own ethos of "create something." So here: Don't let them die. (It's long, but good. There are pictures, too!)

3. Mr. Isbell announced this morning, "If Toby did work for free, it would be Tobono."

Words That Shouldn't Be

1. Spearheading
2. Drive, in any sense other than "operate a vehicle" or "move cattle"

(Why yes, I am still writing things for Microsoft. How could you tell?)

A Poem About Getting New Stuff To Wear For The Fall

This is a subject that has been on my mind the last month or two. I've been spending the second paychecks with abandon (not the point of a second job, really, but I did need shoes and jeans, and knee socks and fabric are ALMOST essential). Emily Dickinson understands, though:

#12

The morns are meeker than they were—
The nuts are getting brown—
The berry's cheek is plumper—
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf—
The field a scarlet gown—
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.

(I found that poem on this blog, which is one of my new favorites. Be sure to check out the "imaginary outfit" category, in which she imagines what she'd wear if she were a children's book author, or rode a Vespa, or was a physicist. Fun...but it makes me want to buy more things.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: I'm A Lumberjack and I'm OK

I got inspired to sew again--inspired by Paul Bunyan, that is!

I used a shirtdress pattern from the 70's
and posed like the pattern model:
While it may look like a nightshirt, a plaid flannel dress is actually like wearing a bathrobe all day. It's really comfy.

Things To Look Forward To This Week

1. A new space heater arriving for Toby. (We've been borrowing Minas Heatas from my parents.) The new one isn't tower-shaped, though, so it will need a different Lord of the Rings name. Helm's Heat, maybe?

2. The start of Christmas gift knitting. Will I finish at 11:00 on Christmas Eve, like last year? We'll see!

3. Fabric coming from Japan. I splurged just a little (mostly on shipping, obviously), had to figure out meters needed instead of yards, and convert yen to dollars--but the fabric is awesome and I can track the package online. It left Kyoto prefecture and arrived in Osaka prefecture sometime yesterday, although the whole time difference is stumping me this morning.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. "Chicken tractor" is the best word combination I've heard all week, but it's an actual item, too: A floorless, moveable chicken coop so your chickens can scratch and eat bugs in whatever part of your garden needs cultivation. There's a gallery online, which included this literal interpretation:

2. From BoingBoing: The Internet Anagram Server + "Quantum of Solace," the latest James Bond movie opening today = 18,258 possible titles, including:

• A Quantum Of Close
• Futons Equal Coma
• Scam Unequal Foot
• Aqua Focus Melt On

3. The baby alpacas are charging you! Run!

Utah Politics: We're Actually Quite Sophisticated. Really.

Newly-elected Utah House speaker Dave Clark made this mystifying analogy in yesterday's paper. About the need for ethics reform, he said:

"It was like we had a car in the barn that had been sitting there for 10 years. We fired it up and ran it around the track and parts of it weren't working as well as we thought. Until we took it for a test drive, we didn't know, so it caught us off guard, but that's why we're proposing that we put these items up for discussion."

Wow, I just can't wait until January!

That's A Lot Of Cat Pictures

This is my 700th post. I wonder if I need to add a "Since 2006" subhead to the blog header. And I really need to work on making the archives a little easier to search. Because what if you remember a cat picture you want to see again?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Bilbo Had A Vest LIke This, Too

I did finish the vest over the weekend and it turned out about 95% as wearable as I hoped. (The armholes are a little long; I was in too much of a hurry to check them.) The contrasting red faced hem (worked kind of like this, but at the end of the sweater, not the beginning) turned out really well, and overall I like it. It looks very rustic to me, like something that would be worn in the Shire where life is simple, the yarn is purple, and nobody wants to go far from home.


However, you'll notice there are no pockets yet. I tried experimenting with an inset pocket (like on a suit jacket) on a swatch and that was really alarming:
It's already become a cat toy.

But a Shire vest has to have pockets, my precious, so now I'm considering patch pockets (like the back of jeans) versus further experimentation with an inset pocket. We'll see.

Details: Free pattern here, with the lace and extra bands edited out.
Yarn is Beaverslide fisherman weight, in "Nightshade."

Also: Happy Veterans Day today to Dad and Mr. Isbell! Thank you!

It's Monday

Attack it like it's an empty garment bag.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. According to kottke.org, The NY Times edition Wednesday was only the fifth time in its history that it used 96 pt. type in a headline. In chronological order:

• MEN WALK ON MOON
  
• NIXON RESIGNS
  
• 01/01/2000
• U.S. ATTACKED
  
• OBAMA

2. I got sucked back into writing for Microsoft at work and was updating a campaign promoting Windows Vista. Client feedback: "I think it promotes Vista too much." Ah, the head-smacking world of Microsoft...

3. The weather: I don't approve of it.

3.

Getting Back To Normal: Let's Talk About Yarn Now

I hope to finish the vest soon (Mr. Isbell has more weekend commitments and I have Brideshead Revisted), which means I'm going to need another project lined up. Continuing the "wearability" theme, I've decided it's going to be a plain pullover crewneck sweater--no fancy cut, no shaping, no stitch patterns.

I know the yarn should be from the magic Montana ranch but I can't decide on the color. I had been thinking navy for wearability, but now I'm tempted by sky blue. A navy blue sweater would be pretty and wearable, but I know that a sky blue one is going to make me happier, getting dressed in the dark cold dead of winter. It just isn't as versatile. Which one should I pick? (And thank goodness this is the my only problem right now, too; not how to get Mr. Isbell a passport and get him, Toby, and myself to Canada.)

THANK YOU, AMERICA. FINALLY.

I'm very proud of you. (Except for those who voted for Proposition 8 and those who re-elected Chris Buttars. I'm not proud of you.) But most of us did a pretty good job, I think.

You Know What To Do Today!

Image from Cute Overload, of course, with the full song up on their home page today.

(All stoats aside, though, we really, really want Obama to win. Because if McCain wins, Mr. Isbell will more than likely get called up out of inactive duty and sent back to Iraq. Or Iran. Or Afghanistan. Because the Geezer Express has made no secret that they plan to win at any cost over there. Mr. Isbell has done his time, has the VA schedule to prove it, and I do not want to be left on the "homefront" of a war against an abstract noun that we cannot win.)

(Besides, I'm sure Obama likes Cute Overload.)

I Don't Know...Is It Baked Or Fried?

You may have already seen this David Sedaris piece from last month's New Yorker, but it bears repeating the day before election day:

[In the final days of the campaign] the focus shifts to the undecided voters. "Who are they?" the news anchors ask. "And how might they determine the outcome of this election?"

Then you'll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. "Well, Charlie," they say, "I've gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can't seem to make up my mind!" Some insist that there's very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they're with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

...To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy Halloween, if you like it. I haven't been very excited for it since 1989. And it leads to to the darkest part of the year, the last downward slide to cold weather and no sun.

2. Fortunately, we can be happy that both the punctuation faces and the cats are cuter in Asia. (Well, MOST cats are cuter. Nothing is as cute as Toby!)

3. It's the birthday of John Keats, who has always reminded me of Schubert. (They lived almost at the same time and for the same span, and Keats' poems have the same otherworldy effect and quick mood changes that Schubert's later works have.)

4. That sounded scholarly, huh?

Farmer Obama

Two weeks ago I read Michael Pollan's long open letter to the next president, which presented why agriculture today is unsustainable (it's based on cheap oil, which is going away) and his ideas about how it must change.(If you'd rather just read a summary of his proposed ideas, you can go here.) Some are practicable and some will probably never happen, but, as the summary points out, "It’s one thing to rail against what is wrong; another to offer realistic solutions to the problems you decry. I’m grateful to Pollan."

While reading it, I thought, "How cool would it be if Obama read this? Maybe things would change!"

Well, he has read it:
"I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity..."

Obama: He reads and retains and cares! He is awesome.

(Mr. Isbell and I are voting early tonight. I'll bet you'll never guess for whom!)

The Post That Talks About Chestnuts And Poems

So chestnuts are dropping everywhere and I have a hard time not thinking of Mark Doty's "Grosse Fugue," about Beethoven's quartet and difficult times, when I see them. (No online text but the whole collection--Atlantis--is worth getting.)

I love this because I first read it in the fall when I was a student, full of hope and promise, just discovering chestnut trees on campus, and the thought of playing the Grosse Fugue someday wasn't completely ludicrous;* and I loved it because it talked about music--which I knew all about, of course--and because it sounded so musical itself. For example:

The music
is like lying down in that light which gleams
out of chestnuts, the glow of oiled and rubbed
mahogany, of burled walnut, bird's-eye
maple polished into incandescence:
autumn's essence of brass and resin, bronze
and apples, the evanescent's brisk smoke.

And because I promised plural poems that mention chestnuts, here's Neruda's "Ode to a Chestnut Lying on the Ground." This doesn't have the same richness of association, since I discovered it this week searching for the online text of "Grosse Fugue," but it's very charming:

From bristly foliage
you fell
complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany,
as perfect
as a violin newly
born of the treetops,
that falling
offers its sealed-in gifts,
the hidden sweetness
that grew in secret
amid birds and leaves,
a model of form,
kin to wood and flour,
an oval instrument
that holds within it
intact delight, an edible rose.

Music metaphors again. Chestnuts must be very poetic.


*I regret not learning four things back when I could play: Schubert's Cello Quintet, all of the Bach partita in D minor (I did get some of it, though), this Beethoven fugue, and the first Brahams sonata. Although I remember telling my teacher I wanted to learn the Brahams, and getting a look that I interpreted out loud as, "I should wait until I'm fifty?" She nodded. So I suppose I can still learn it.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not Long Now

I'm trying to have another knitting home run with this vest: I want it to be as wearable as the green sweater, so I'm planning on doing a good job with the sewing up and the edging, and adding a faced hem and pockets (in the red yarn). Which makes me only about 2/3 finished.

(The main yarn is from the magic farm in Montana that makes its wool smell like flowers. Every time I work on it I pretend that I have a magic farm in Montana and get to take care of sheep and grow food all day.)

Themes For The Week

1. Chestnuts and poems that mention them.
2. Knitting!
3. The Omnivore's Dilemma and our food supply (possible title: Karen Can't Eat Anything Without Guilt Now).
4. The conclusion of 'Tocktober:

Friday Unrelated Information

1. According to this, Obama is leading McCain in newspaper endorsements by nearly 3-to-1.

2. Read the new online newsletter for Blue Moon Ranch Alpacas here --there's a special on yarn!

3. Mr. Isbell was trying to cheer me up via email this week, and sent me an all-caps list of things to be happy about. Here’s part of it:

• PABLO NERUDA LOVE POEMS
• HEMINGWAY
• SALINGER
• UNO
• PUZZLES
• LION CUBS
• BE-KIND-REWIND
• ORLY?
• HAPPY CHICKENS

First-World Problems

-Nordstrom Rack being sold out of designer jeans in your size

-Choosing not to eat meat because of animal cruelty concerns

-Not being able to decide what to have for dinner

-Having to wait to get a raise

-Not liking any of the music on your iPod

-Being angry about things like the time spent at stoplights

-Not being able to stop eating candy corn

A Pro-Vegetarian, Pro-Humane-Farm-Practices Post Without Any Links To PETA

In addition to the more-publicized Proposition 8, California has another prop on the ballot: Proposition 2, a humane farming law, which would outlaw devices called veal crates (sounds like what it is); gestation cages for swine (it's ok to click the link, there's no disturbing image); and keeping egg- and meat-producing chickens in a cage the size of a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. (I bet you have some paper on your desk right now. Look at it. Imagine a chicken in it.)

Can you tell how I feel about these practices? So strongly that I'm going on my 11th year of being a vegetarian. I haven't talked much here about why I don't eat meat, because my experience with family and friends (especially meat-producing extended family! Fun times!) has taught me that people are a little...resistant, both to being preached at and to drastically changing their diet.

And because nobody likes a preachy vegetarian (who still eats dairy and wears leather shoes, yes, but is at least switching to soymilk in coffee), I won't go into detail about just how much pollution large-scale meat and dairy operations produce, or how much food and water is required to raise a single pound of beef, or how antibiotics in animal feed are creating diseases resistant to known antibiotics.

I will only say that there are better ways to raise meat, and good for California for getting the measure on the ballot. If you know of anyone in the state, send them to humanecalifornia.org and tell them to vote yes. If it passes in California there's a slim chance similar laws could pass elsewhere in the future.

What can you do if you don't live in California? Well, what if you bought cage-free eggs the next time you went grocery shopping? Or free-range chicken or grass-fed beef? And if you want to be really wild, what if, one day a week...you didn't eat meat7776? Skip the grilled chicken pieces on top of your salad. Make vegetable beef stew and leave out the beef. You could even accidentally visit a vegan resatruarant. One day a week wouldn't be that hard, would it?

Hey, Obama is ahead in the polls, so our wildest dreams can apparently come true. It never hurts to ask.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Just Use Your Imagination Anyway

After rescheduling the last project roundup because I didn't want people to use their imagination about how cute this dress looks when being worn, I give you:A closet shot.

A dark and slightly blurry closet shot that doesn't show the cute detail of the fabric or the nice dark brown buttons. It was a busy week.

I think this might be the Last Dress of the Season. I have fabric for one more, but my sewing mojo is gone and I'm not sure the weather will continue to be dress weather until I can get it finished. On to flannel shirts and more knitting, I guess.

In other seasonal news, this is what it looks like before I make the bed in the morning, when it's not cold enough to run the heat in the whole apartment:

Mr. Isbell and I have dubbed the quartz space heater tower "Minas Heatas," because we're Lord of the Rings geeks like that. Toby doesn't call it anything but I think he loves it even more than me.

Finally

After removing about a cubic yard of both snails and rocks, digging out vine roots that were probably older than me, spading up dirt that hadn't been touched since the Reagan years, and generally doing a lot of work*, I have a flowerbed!

There are daylilies, grape hyacinths, regular hyacinths, and jupiters beard planted now, with zinnias, nasturtiums, and tomatoes to follow next spring.
Just don't be like my neighbor, who asked,"Are you going to plant anything in there?" Simply being able to see the dirt took three weeks, dude. And yes, there ARE plants. They'll fill in


*I can't take credit for even half the work, because it took a village to get this flower bed. My excellent mother helped so much; I think my clumsy spading technique was too painful to her to watch, so she did most of that. And Mr. Isbell pulled out vines like it was going out of style.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. In an article about the Queen Elizabeth 2 (which has been sold to Dubai to become a floating hotel, boo!) I learned that "only the actual monarchs warrant Roman numerals, not the ships named for royalty." I always wondered about that.

2. Infinitely creepy: One of the McCain eye-roll reaction shots captured from Wednesday night's debate, over and over and over.

3. While I obviously love cats (and the men who love them),dogs are great, too. (My brother and his wife recently adopted a puppy. PUPPY!) Visit UpsideDownDogs.com and you will smile.

It's Still 'Tocktober!

And it's still hard to get a shot of Toby 'tocks!

Real Men Love Cats

It didn’t take an article in the New York Times to tell me that: More Men Are Unabashedly Embracing Their

Love of Cats.

Back in the day, I asked potential boyfriends if they liked cats or gin. If they liked gin, they might work. If

they liked cats, they had a much better chance. (If they liked both,it was awesome.) It never occurred to me

that men thought liking cats was effeminate or strange, probably because I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to

those men.

Crazy Cat Ladies and Crazy Cat Men, unite!