Sorry, It's All I Have Today:

The Beginning Of A New Beginning

Yes, it's time for another Druidic festival! This one's a "cross-quarter" day, meaning it's not a solstice or an equinox. (There's also a Christian equivalent, Candlemas, so nobody feels compromised reading this blog post.)

The festival? Imbolc, celebrating the very beginning of spring and all it entails, including lambing season, early bulbs, longer days, etc. Brigid, later a saint but first a Celtic goddess, is celebrated along with it and people used to have all sorts of fun making predictions for the coming growing season (Groundhog Day, anyone?).

So praise the lord God (or St. Brigid, or whomever), we made it through another winter. Here are some fun things to do today:

It is traditional upon Imbolc, at sunset or just after ritual [because you're all performing rituals, I know you are], to light every lamp in the house - if only for a few moments. Or, light candles in each room in honour of the Sun’s rebirth. Alternately, light a kerosene lamp with a red chimney and place this in a prominent part of the home or in a window.

If snow lies on the ground outside, walk in it for a moment, recalling the warmth of summer. With your projective hand [I assume the dominant hand? Maybe it's your most magical hand?], trace an image of the Sun on the snow.

And don't mind the stares from the neighbors.

When Is It Official?

When I get a cat? When I get five cats? When I can't use my hands anymore? Is there an official point you reach to becom a Crazy Knitting Lady?

Because it seemed perfectly normal to watch both Kill Bill movies (talk about Madame Defarge!) until one in the morning and finish the cabled fingerless gloves (the right one was begun and completed last night, a new record). It also seemed normal, when I discovered I was out of my special wool wash, to use my shampoo instead. As I told myself, "Wool is just hair, really."

On the bright side, they turned out very nicely and the yarn colors are perfect for early spring--like a Beatrix Potter illustration. When the gloves are dry, I'll put up a picture; in the meantime, enjoy Peter and Benjamin:

Multi-purpose

Oh, the mileage that you can get out of a poem...I've used parts of this one for a post about trees, a post about finishing a sweater, and now this:

it was this night I believe but possibly the next
I saw clearly the impossibility of staying

Wait and see--I bet I can get at least two more mentions out of it before it's done.

Questions

There's a long poem by Mark Strand called Dark Harbor, and one section of it starts out,
"How can I sing when I haven't the heart,
Or the hope that something of paradise
Persists in my song?"

Today, I will demonstrate how easily poems by other people can be adapted to one's own circumstances. Look!

"How can I post when I haven't an idea,
Or the hope that I'll find something to rent
In my range?"

It's Like Little Sweaters For Your Feet

I finished my first wearable pair of socks Wednesday night, and all I can say is this: My feet hadn't lived until that day.

Happy BIrthday, Virginia

If you couldn't tell from the title, it's Virginia Woolf's birthday today.

Home

From, of all books, Thunderhead (the sequel to My Friend Flicka), by Mary O'Hara:

"...if you go away from your own place and people, the place you spent your childhood in, all your life you'll be sick with homesickness and you'll never have a home. You can find a better place perhaps, a way of life you like better, but home is gone out of your heart, and you'll be hunting it all your life long."

I think this is mostly true but a little bleak. But, since this is the sequel to My Friend Flicka, here's the speech that follows the one above:

" 'And so--' she had leand to him and slipped her hand in his. 'Here--this--your hand, is home for me.' "

Aww...that's why I love the fiction of my youth. Did I mention there were horses on a ranch in it, too?

It's Cheaper Than Therapy

Well, what have we here? A sweater, completed in about three weeks, made from 12.5 of the 15 balls of birthday yarn!














Sorry about the blur, but the lighting/distance conditions in the apartment don't lend themselves to self-portrais. At least this gives you the general effect.















Here's a close-up of the nice buttons. And look at that tidy arm seam! (Seaming is something I just recently learned how to do well.)

I finished it Sunday, and this line from Jorie Graham's "Le Manteau de Pascal" popped into my head when I was sewing on the buttons:
...filled with the sensation of being suddenly completed —
as then it is, abruptly, the last stitch laid in, the knot bit off —

Really, needs expensive therapists when you have lots of knitting projects and some post-modern poems to mumble to yourself?

More Song Lyrics

I realize these may get tiresome to people who don't know the music, but "A Fine Romance" put me on a Billie Holiday kick over the weekend and the songs she sang have such delightful lyrics. Like this, "Comes Love":

Comes a rain storm
Put your rubbers on your feet
Comes a snow storm
You can get a little heat
Comes love
Nothing can be done

Comes a fire
Then you know just what to do
Blow a tire
You can buy another shoe
Comes love
Nothing can be done

Dont try hidin
cause it isnt any use
Youll just start slidin
When your heart turns on the juice

Comes a heat wave
You can hurry to the shore
Come a summons
Hide yourself behind a door
Comes love
Nothing can be done

Comes a headache
You can lose it in a day
Comes a toothache
See your dentist right away
Comes love
Nothing can be done

Comes the measles
You can quarrantine the room
Comes a mousie
You can chase it with a broom
Comes love
Nothing can be done

Thats all brother
If you've ever been in love
Thats all brother
You know what I'm speakin of

Comes a nightmare
You can always stay awake
Comes depression
You could get another break
Comes love
Nothing can be done
Nothing can be done

Three reasons why this is especially delightful:
1. Comparing falling in love to calamitous things
2. The 30's slang ("shoe"= tire)
3. The line, "Comes the mousie, you can chase it with a broom." What other love song says "mousie"?

Sometimes I'm Glad I'm Not Famous

I've been short on sleep this week, for different reasons (the sweater, Microsoft, websites, a very persistent cat) and I look now, on Friday, pretty haggard. It's times like this when I'm glad there are no pictures of me circulating today, to be compared with the me of forty years--or even a sleepy week--later.
For instance:



At least I haven't lived quite as hard a life as Bob.

Yeah, We Need Some

Remember when I used to announce, "We need some cute!"? Well, we need some cute. If I had a lamb for a pet, I would knit it a sweater just like this.

A Fine Romance

That is the title of the delightful song that first appeared in Swing Time, a delightful Astair/Rogers musical. Here are the lyrics:

A fine romance, with no kisses
A fine romance, my friend this is
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes
But you're as cold as yesterdays mashed potatoes
A fine romance, you won't nestle
A fine romance, you won't wrestle
I might as well play bridge
With my old maid aunt
I haven't got a chance
This is a fine romance

A fine romance, my good fellow
You take romance, Ill take Jello
You're calmer than the seals
In the Arctic Ocean
At least they flap their fins
To express emotion
A fine romance with no quarrels,
With no insults and all morals
I've never mussed the crease
In your blue serge pants
I never get the chance
This is a fine romance

If you can, listen to Billie Holiday sing this. It, too, is delightful, especially when she sings the line, "I've never mussed the crease in your blue serge pants--I never get the chance."

This is a fine romance! Fine, I tell you!

A Weekend on Sleeve Island

...and Second Sock Island, and Let's Learn How To Knit A Cable Scarf Island, and I Know, Why Don't I Order More Yarn For Another Sweater Also With Sleeves Island. It was a fairly productive weekend, though--if I were Captain Jack Sparrow and had to get off Sleeve Island using only sea turtles and human hair, I'd say I have one sea turtle all taken care of.

In other news, the archives are back. Oh yes, all 215 previous posts can now be accessed by clicking on the desired month in the right navigation there. Because I know you really, really, wanted to read that post about yarn, Celtic trees, and a Jorie Graham poem again. (Many thanks to the future Mr. and Mrs. Kitty for the help.)

PS-For those of you who like that sort of thing, the RSS feed is back, too.

Sleeve Island

I've been reading a lot of knitting blogs this week, and apparently that's where you go when you knit sleeves. I think the idea behind the name is that sleeves take so damn long to knit you feel like you're stuck on them--stuck on Sleeve Island. I may be marooned on Sleeve Island, since last night I unraveled about nine inches of the first sleeve, due to a too-tight wrist and a baggy elbow.

But I told myslef that if it's worth doing and giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome, it's worth doing right. So I'll start over tomorrow night, and until further notice be on Sleeve Island. Maybe there will be caabana boys!

Why I Love M.F.K. Fisher:

Consider this passage:

"As for dining in love, I can think of a lunch at the Lafayette in New York, in the front cafe with the glass pushed back and the May air flowing almost visibly over the marble tabletops, and a waiter named Pons, and a bottle of Louis Martini's Folle Blanche and moules-more-or-less-marinieres but delicious, and then a walk in new black-heeled shoes with white stitching on them beside a man I had just met and a week later was to marry, in spite of my obdurate resove never to marry again and my cynical recognition of his super-salesmanship."

And consider that in the middle of that description of food and that pithy (and bitchy!) character summary, she mentions what shoes she was wearing. Now you see why.

I'm A Pioneer!

So I had something melancholic and poetic planned out in my mind to post yesterday, including a quote from Roethke ("How much will the bones allow?"), and then Blogger was unavailable all day, finally forcing me to switch to the "new Blogger." Stupid new Blogger. (Although the verbiage about it did make the following claim: "It's like Battlestar Galactica with Lorne Greene and Battlestar Galactica with Edward James Olmos.")

So yesterday was not the time for sad literary quotes, although I'm sure their time will come again soon. In the meantime, here's something that's looking like a sweater with the birthday yarn:
Oh yes, I am knitting like a fiend. And last night I made bread. Bread with kneading and two risings and everything. (Whenever there's an involved baking project, you know there's some serious shit going down.) It got me thinking about my pioneer skills: bread making, sweater knitting, alpaca wrangling, sock knitting, sewing, biscuit making, and horse riding (well, I knew how to once). I don't know how good I'd be at setting bones or delivering babies, but I'm also developing a pioneer-like stoicism in the face of unpleasant circumstances. (At least, I think I am.)

With that said, here's another picture of yarn!
Oh, how pretty.

Cold Mountain

No, not the book by Charles Frazier (although he was referencing these in a big way, I think), but the poems by crazy Buddhist poet and mountaineer Han Shan. And since yesterday was clear and cold with new snow on the mountains, I thought of some of them:

8.

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the word's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?

11.

Spring water in the green creek is clear
Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white
Silent knowledge - the spirit is enlightened of itself
Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.

Two Months Of Projects

They're all planned out. See? I'm working on the "Bluestocking" socks (well, sock) and I did all the math for the sweater with the birthday yarn (not pictured) last night. Those are the January projects.

Then I have this lovely shiny green and yellow yarn, which will be a purse. See the nice lining fabric beneath it? The colorway is called "Rachel Carson." How can you not buy yarn to knit a purse named after one of the first environmentalists, I ask you.

Here's some more Rachel Carson:














In the picture, there are two hanks of more subdued green yarn, bound to be armwarmers/gloves. And then that takes me through February. (At least, that's how I've planned it. It will probably take me until the summer solstice to finish up, but no one can say I don't have a goal).

Birthday Montage!

Birthday kitty!


Birthday yarn (15 balls of it)!


Birthday shirt The Mama made for me!


Birthday kitty strikes again!


Birthday pie!


Birthday roses!

What a good birthday. Thank you, family. (And thank you, Axel, for posing so nicely.)

Shout Out To Me

Why? Because it's my birthday! And because I try to make this blog as educational as it is entertaining, here are a few other famous people also born today. Along with me.

J.R.R. Tolkein, the Hobbit guy
John Paul Jones, bassist for Led Zepplin
Michael Schumacher, Formula 1 fancy-pants race car driver

Everybody Comes To Ricks

(That, of course, was the name of the play on which the film Casablanca was based.) However, it might be more accurate to title this "Everybody Comes To Ogden," which is indeed what everybody did New Year's Eve. Wait, are these the streets of Morocco? Is that Rick? Who's the lady with the champage? (I always end up with the champagne. In every picture.) I hope we all had a Happy New Year, and that one of us actually said, "Here's looking at you, kid," during a toast.

Interesting Things That Happened Yesterday:

1. I was driving off to see the cat and the house for the night and I saw something cross the road in front of me. I thought, "Wow, that's a really big hunchbacked cat." But it was, in fact, a raccoon. On I Street and Third Avenue. Lock down your pets!

2. I found a yarn store in West Jordan that has a really impressive yarn selection.

3. Ditto for a fabric store in Gardner Village, of all places. (Well, almost ditto. The fabric store had a nice selection of fabric.)

4. There was a line in the old movie Sabrina that I liked, spoken by Miss Audrey: "I thought I was all grown up. But I just got a new hairdo."

What I'm Doing With My Life This Week:

Mostly, finishing small knitted projects:

A mostly-completed sock, also known as The Ninja Sock of Death.


A spy hat made of alpaca that gets black lint on your hair.




The last of the Christmas gift knititng. I like this pattern so much, I will make a purse like it come spring. (This is a cosmetic bag.)


Also, house- and cat-sitting without a laptop. (For the love, people--a little patience, please?)

And finally, making lists of what I've learned during this seemingly endless week of introspection:

1. I don't want to live alone.
2. I like brightly-painted walls.
3. I like my job and the structure it provides.
4. Baking is soothing.
5. I really enjoy living ten minutes away from a walk in the foothills.

Come back tomorrow for MORE LISTS! Really!

See The Blazing Yule Before Us

Fa la la la la...okay, you get the picture.

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, or Yule. Here's all sorts of internet knowledge about the Yule log (not to be confused, of course, with the pastry version of it, the buche de noel). I hope God blesses us (one and all!) and that we all enjoy our versions of Christmas. Or Yule. Or Hanukkah, although I think that's finidhed.

I'll be posting next week (just for you home readers, Annihilate) but probably not every day. Stay tuned.

Thumpety Thump Thump, Thumpety Thump Thump

Look at Frosty go:


(Yes, from a Hopkins sonnet to jokes about snowman poop. In the SAME WEEK.)

Silent Night, Holy Night

All is calm, all is bright:

O Holy Night

Oh night...when orange kitty replaces Mary:

Why I Should Show More Compassion to Those on Match.com:

As we recall from last week, I spent my Thursday night mocking men's profiles on Match.com. And while it was mean-spirited, in Friday's case it was justified, because WHO PUTS A PICTURE OF THEMSELVES DANCING LIKE A MUNCHKIN ON A SITE MEANT TO ATTRACT THE OPPOSITE SEX? (Scornful mockery is also justified when men announce things like, "I want a woman who isn't afraid to ditch her 'inner man'...preferably long-haired brunettes with nice knees.") See? I scorn him! You can't make this stuff up.

Anyway, I was out walking on Main Street Friday with its usual colleciton of odd and mostly unlovely people, when an unlovely person caught my eye crossing the street and looked worried. And I thought to myself, 'Good god, woman, have some compassion on people. You're scaring the passersby with your scorn.' And then I remembered this Hopkins poem:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves--goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
 Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is--
Chríst--for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces. 

And in this season of the lion lying down with the lamb and a Judeo-Christian riot of card below my twig tree, let's remember that "Christ plays in ten thousand places" and we get "to thhe Father through the features of men's faces." And let's also avoid Match.com.

Why I'm No Longer On Match.com, Reason One:

This is a REAL photo of someone with an active profile, online last night. Somehow, I ended up looking through the "Online Now!" profiles with my roommate last night and laughing my head off. I will leave you with the question my gay roommate asked: "Is he trying to dance?"

Christmas Happy Fun Cat

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas, Part Three

Isn't there a verse in Isaiah somewhere that predicts, "The lion shall lie down with the lamb"? Do you think somewhere in that same chapter there's a verse that predicts, "And the Jewish dog greeting card shall be displayed next to the postcard depicting the Pieta"? Because lo! it has come to pass:




















It's a dim picture (the roommate believes in lighting effects), so here's a close up of the postcard from a friend in Rome, with Mary mourning the body of Jesus:















And here's a close-up of the Hanukkah card from another friend, with a very nice dog:



















And they are both co-existing peacefully at the base of my crazy twig tree. If that isn't a sign of the season and God's love for us ALL, I don't know what is.

Kind Of

It's kind of dark this morning. I think it snowed in the night. It might be raining right now but I'm not going down to get the newspaper until I'm dressed and on my way to the car, because it's kind of cold. Kind of reminds me of this section from "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," by Wallace Stevens. (Well, it's kind of a stretch. But it's a good description of a snowy afternoon, which is kind of like a rainy morning.)

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas, Part Two

I Blame Wallace Stevens

I was out of sorts all day Thursday, and couldn't find a reason why: Work was fine, roommate was fine, everything was fine. I thought maybe I needed excercise, considered a walk in the winter twilight that evening, then decided against it. Then I remembered this Wallace Stevens poem, The Poems of Our Climate:

II
Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.

III
There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

I felt better. And since "the imperfect is our paradise," I decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean II with the roommate and knit a muff. Yes, I said it: a muff. Here it is, three steps away from being finished:














The reasons behind wanting to knit a muff are probably more complex than I care to explore (I'd have to blame the J. Peterman catalog, too), but the surface reasons are:
1. I tried starting a new project last night and it didn't start well (never try to knit lace and watch an action movie)
2. I had a ball of varigated blue yarn, which reminded me of a bluebell I saw at the top of Hidden Peak this summer, and some leftover grey yarn from a project last year
3. I have a Dr. Zhivago-esque grey coat from Target without any pockets.

So when I fold this in two, sew up the bottom seam, and add a strap, I will have a coordinated place to put my hands. And if that doesn't put someone in a good mood, I don't know what will. Except, maybe, some Captain Jack Sparrow! Yarrr!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Part One

Part one of an infrequent series...



This one is my favorite:

Finishing

So the floppy items that were not hats



















became genuine felted cosmetic bags Tuesday night and are now FO's (Finished Objects). (Yes, an Unfinished Object is a UFO.) Look, they have zippers! They are thick and felty! They stand on their own!















And check out the full view of the background, which is my bed. Yes, three different patterns in six feet.

Considering Kitties

Cats have been on my mind, lately. No, I won't be adopting one, since my roommate claims he's allergic. But I enjoy visiting the cats of my friends and relatives. And posting cat poems!

This one is by Christopher Smart and is an excerpt from Jubilate Agno, part of which he wrote in an asylum. But I enjoy it, crazy as he was. (And this is only part of the it--read the rest here.)

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him. For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way. For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness. For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer. For he rolls upon prank to work it in. For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself. For this he performs in ten degrees. For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean. For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there. For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended. For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood. For fifthly he washes himself. For sixthly he rolls upon wash. For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat. For eighthly he rubs himself against a post. For ninthly he looks up for his instructions. For tenthly he goes in quest of food. For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour. For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness. For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance. For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying. For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins. For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary. For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life. For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation. For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.