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!

Rescheduling Tuesday Project Roundup

I need to sew on buttons and hem the blue floral dress, so I thought I'd just wait to show it, rather than making you use your imagination. ("The buttons are great, trust me! And it's really cute on, even though you're seeing it hanging on the closet like a sack!")

That should get done this week, but maybe not. I'm feeling a little cramped for crafty time--the garden project is ongoing and takes precedence when the weather is nice; I'm, um, working the second job again*; there are closets to clean out and organize with warm clothes; etc.

But there's no rush, I suppose. My closets are well-stocked with clothes.

*I realize I'm ashamed to tell people about this, because they always look surprised and then pitying. Although before I did it, I'd look the same way, I suppose: Second jobs are for poor people. At least I'm working for spending money and not, say, heat money. But still. I did ask for more money at the first job (pending)**, but that's tricky, too, since I can't stay late at the first job on Mondays if I want to make it to the second job, and that doesn't make me look very committed or raise-worthy, does it?

**I should probably just not discuss any of this, huh?

People For Obama:

• Crafters for Obama.
• Pumpkin carvers for Obama: Yes We Carve! (And they carve Barack O'Lanterns.)
• There are even thereminists for Obama. (He's playing a theremin here, if you don't get it.)

Shouldn't you be for Obama, too?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I've done a good job not talking about politics or the economy this week, right? I even listened to some of the debate Tuesday and didn't mention it! This is too good not to post, though: The McCain "My Friends" Video Montage.

2. And as long as I broke my silence, how about some local political outrage? "Horse's Mouth: Yep, We're Bigots!" Obviously, this is not an unbiased news source, but the final line sums up my feelings: "A church can lobby. I just don't want them exempt from paying taxes if they choose to support legislated bigotry."

3. Mr. Isbell and I finally saw Speed Racer last night, after wanting to see it in IMAX and not being able to because I was still working two jobs and it had a run of about a week. It's fantastic! I remember nobody was very excited by it but I have never seen a movie look like this. If you have a fancy big high-def TV, it will look even better. And that is probably the only time I'll ever recommend anyone getting a big TV.

It Puts Both Lawn Tractors To Shame

My brother works for John Deere. Look what he got to drive into the dealership today! (And yes, he has TWO lawn tractors. I have a feeling that they're just not going to be as cool after this, though.)

Gardening

I've learned a few things from my little 10x10 garden this year--I hate snails, you must pick yellow squashes the day you see them because the next day they are the size of Godzilla, etc. Perhaps the most important thing I learned is I probably shouldn't cram in 7 tomato plants, three squash plants, an eggplant, lettuces, and two rows of beans next time.

With that in mind, I've been working on getting a flowerbed that runs alongside of the front lawn cleared out, so I can plant tomatoes and daylilies in it and use my 10x10 patch for lettuce and squash. (Not yellow squash, though.)

Of course, I use the term "flowerbed" loosely, because it contains about an even mix of dead snails, live snails, and vining groundcover. Thank goodness for gardening gloves. But, on the upside, I can think of poems about things rotting and the earth while I'm out there, avoiding the live snails.

"Fall Song," by Mary Oliver

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Almost, Not At All, And About 60 Percent

That's the degree of completion for this pile:

A navy beret is on top, the plaid on the bottom will be a shirt, and the floral on the right just needs side seams, cuffs, and buttonholes to be a dress.

(Why all this navy? I found a navy and gray coat at the J. Crew outlet I had to visit last week. I guess that's like caving and emailing the ex-boyfriend you kind of hate but must know all about and, instead of getting mad all over again, he gives you information about a freelance job that pays really well? Something like that.)

The Trees Are Turning, There's A Chill In The Air...

Ah, nothing like the crisp fall days...

of 'Tocktober.

(It's hard to get a picture of Toby 'tocks, because he keeps turning around to see what you're doing with that camera. I'll have to try again throughout the month.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I listened to about 10 minutes of the vice presidential debate last night, and then wisely turned it off and listened to Mahler instead.

2. The Onion has an article up--Report: 60 Million People You'd Never Talk To Voting For Other Guy:
The 110-page document reveals that these strangers share a fundamental vision of our nation's future, a vision that shockingly runs completely counter to your own and is furthermore embodied by the candidate whom you could not in a million years fathom being the leader of the free world. Even more frightening, the report says, is that their votes count just as much as yours.

3. And in other items that make us feel happy instead of mad or worried, the last cria of the season at Blue Moon Ranch was born yesterday, just in time for the end of the warm weather. His name is Zeke:

I've Had Lots Of Time To Read At Work Lately, Can You Tell?

Here are some things I've been reading:

1. Has everyone seen this presentation explaining the subprime crisis in stick figures? It's been making the rounds for a while, but it's a great explanation. The Subprime Primer

2. Follow that presentation with this article that details events from the S&L scandals of the late '80s to the present day financial aramgeddon.

3. And if you want to be angry about something other than the economy or politics, read this: "Wolves protected again after excessive hunting."

Also, there's a debate tonight. Depending on what I read today, I might have used too much fury to watch it.

If I Wasn't Before, I Am Now

Remember my banking debacle of a month ago, in which I thought someone had passed a fraudulent check with my account information but it really turned out to be an 18-year-old teller's error? Since I closed my original account when I thought the problem was fraud, I had to order new checks.

I went to college with a girl who claimed to be part of the Rothschild banking dynasty (I believed her; she lived off a trust fund) and she once said that checks should look "as much like real currency as possible, so people take them seriously." Taking the advice of a Rothschild seemed smart, so for years I ordered the plainest checks.

Then, when faced with getting new checks last month, I realized that I don't use them for commerce anymore--just for bills. I didn't care whether the power company takes me seriously or not. And I was so tired of plain checks. So I got checks with pictures on them. Any guesses as to what design I got?

That's right--the Crazy Cat Lady special.

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.)