Friday Unrelated Information

1. I need to decide on an elaborate cabled sweater to make soon if I'm going to accomplish Thing 22 on the 29 Things. The latest Interweave Knits magazine had a cardigan that I know I would wear a lot, but is it cabley enough?

2. Check out this crosswalk sign hack:

3. And speaking of high fives, I took today off from work so I get a four-day weekend. That's pretty great, too.

Food-Related Things I Learned Last Night

I was searching the Gourmet.com archives for a plum cake recipe that used ingredients I had, got distracted by their Cocktails of the Decade, 1940-2000 gallery (awesome), and noticed a cocktail called the Phoebe Snow. I knew the Phoebe Snow was a train, and that Utah Phillips wrote a song about it (her?), but I didn't know the backstory: Both the cocktail and the train were named for
a character created for a railroad advertising campaign that ran from the 1880s into the middle of the 20th century. The original Phoebe Snow was a young woman whose white dress remained pristine while riding the train because it ran on anthracite rather than normal, sooty coal.

Both Wikipedia and Utah Phillips back that up. Cool.

(Here's Phoebe, courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Then I moved on the The Joy of Cooking, still looking for a plum cake recipe, and I finally decided to look up "cockaigne." Many recipes in there are called "Chocolate Cake Cockainge" or "Christmas Fruitcake Cockaigne" and while I've been reading the cookbook since I was about ten, I've never bothered to find out what it means. (In my head, I had decided it meant "with nuts;" I don't know why.)

As it turns out, in medieval times "cockaigne" was a mythical land of plenty to peasants, kind of like the Big Rock Candy Mountain was to hobos. The Joy of Cooking authors had a country house named that, so all the "Recipe Cockaignes" were really just their house specialites--no nuts involved. Apparently this was in the forward to the cookbook the entire time. Thanks, Wikipedia!

(I did finally make "Plum Cake Cockaigne," but I always forget how much sugar plums need. It's a little tart.)

Busy Wednesday

It is Wednesday, right? Somehow I ended up with a re-scheduled doctor's appointment in the middle of a day filled with meetings and projects that are demanding more creativity than I think I can muster at this point.

So let's watch this video of a cat washing a fennec fox:



There. Now I feel better.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Quilted

I wonder if all these "in progress" quilt posts will spoil the final reveal, but I'm just so pleased with any step forward that I can't not show it. The latest step forward is, of course, the quilting. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, it's a Real Quilt now. Behold the even machine stitching:


And look how it looks like a real quilt all folded up:
The only step left is to finish the raw edges with some binding. I hope to at least start that over the long weekend.

A Monday Morning Sort Of Poem

Love Poem with Toast

by Miller Williams

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Sewers and knitters, hurry and scour your stash--the Iraqi Bundles of Love project is taking donations through September 7th. The project wants to get sewing supplies into the hands of Iraqi women. It's all organized by one soldier:

Willing contributors can send to me a flat-rate box of sewing / quilting [or knitting] supplies, all bundled up. I’ll open the box, pull out the fully-contained bundle, and hand it off (with others) to our counterparts in the Iraqi Security Forces (Army and others) or the local police, for them to distribute. Some of the bundles will also be delivered by US Soldiers.

I'm just not sure something can get to an APO address in a week...maybe Priority Mail is a better idea? I only heard about this yesterday, but I hope to put something together.

2. Bonnie Tyler brings back fond memories of my old roommate. Here's a flowchart for "Total Eclipse of the Heart," in case you need it (click for big):

3. And the quilt looks fantastic! On to the finishing--pictures soon.

Major Quilt Progress

I got a call last night that the quilt is done! So after work today we are going on a field trip to pick it up. Hopefully this will be my initiation into the quilting world--I've noticed that established crafty ladies (usually older ladies) are really unwelcoming to newer crafty ladies (usually younger, like me) until you've sort of "proven" that you're not a dilettante. It took me months at the knitting store for the knitting ladies to accept me, and I noticed that the quilting ladies I've encountered during this process have a little of the same attitude.


Overall, though, the quilt ladies been more welcoming than the knitting ladies. Maybe it helps that I came in with a completed quilt top, so they don't think I'm completely clueless.

Anyway, I'm excited to see it turned into a real quilt!

What The Weather Is Like Right Now

Third sentence from Out of Africa:

In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.

So it's a good thing I got a call last night that my quilt will be ready this weekend. I need to get it finished and on the bed before the nights get truly cold.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Another One For The Pile

Remember when I took days off from my old job to sew? I was a lot less busy there, but I didn't like it half so much. And I had no fancy title.

I am taking the Friday before Labor Day off, though, ostensibly to hike Bald Mountain for the 29 Things and continue the tradition of doing something beyond our fitness level on Labor Day. However, it's one thing to get stranded on the Jordan River Parkway, like last year, and another thing entirely to get caught in a lightning storm (or even snow) on top of a peak in the Uintas.

Which is all just a long intro to the fact that I bought more fabric to add to the fall project pile, just in case we don't hike and I have four days to sew:

This is a Japanese import and it's gauze, which I've never worked with before. I saw that Kara made a darling skirt from a print from the same line and was inspired. I thought the fabric would lend itself well to a tunic and the print would look really good with navy. Because even if I don't get as many days off in this job, I can buy blazers now.


Oh, J. Crew. My on-again, off-again relationship with you just continues to cause me trouble.

Let's Talk About The State Fair

The deadline to enter anything I've sewn or knitted in the state fair is fast approaching, so I'd better decide if I'm going to enter or not. I've sewn a lot over the past year, certainly, but no project is jumping out at me as particularly fair-worthy. Last year's entries were a silk dress and a jacket--kind of big, impressive pieces--but this year my quilt certainly won't be ready in time,* and I'm still wearing the robe and pajamas, so I don't know.

As for knitting, I think the owl sweater is a candidate, but in my years of fair-going I've noticed that the judges tend to favor huge intarsia projects straight out of 1986:
And I still feel much more shy about my knitting getting judged than my sewing, although I think I do a pretty good job finishing.

Maybe I won't enter anything; maybe my state fair phase is ending, like the derby phase (haven't been to one in two years). Although if I don't go, where will I ever eat funnel cake again? Lots to consider..


*I dropped the quilt off to be machine-quilted two weeks ago, hooray! I think there's another week to go before I get it back and have to do the binding. (Not hooray.)

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Tomorrow my dad turns 62! He's the only 62-year-old I know who is going to perform impressive feats of strength on his birthday (a 100-mile bike ride.) Happy birthday and be safe on your ride--we want you to stay around for many more birthdays.

2. Ray Bradbury turns 89 tomorrow, too. Did you send a card?

3. And, in other news about old guys (ha! sorry, Dad--you thought I had resisted), here's a news report from last month: New Jersey Homeowner Calls Cops on Bob Dylan. They thought he was a homeless man in their yard and the 24-year-old officer didn't recognize him. Hijinks ensue.

Happy Belated Brithday, Mlle. Chanel

The Writer's Almanac told me that yesterday was Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel's birthday (1883). She's always fascinated me, because she essentially started out in business as a kept woman and ended up with an empire:

Her parents were poor, she was an illegitimate child, and when her mother died, she was sent to an orphanage. When she turned 18, she went to work for a tailor, and she also sang in cafés and concert halls. She was a mistress to one wealthy man and then another, and with the money they gave her, she set up her own millinery shop, which she opened in 1910. Soon her clothes became popular among the elite of Paris. She took men's styles and made them feminine—loose clothes made from jersey, short skirts, suits—and women were relieved to have comfortable clothes suddenly be stylish, and to get rid of the corsets that had been popular for many years....She said, "Fashion fades, only style remains the same."

She also single-handedly made the suntan popular, after an outing on someone's yacht, launching 130 years of a tan equalling health and leisure instead of time spent being an outdoor laborer.

Tour of Utah

Did you know that there's a pro road bike race going on right now? In Utah? The Tour of Utah prologue was last night--almost in our backyard--so we walked to the turnaround in City Creek Canyon and watched with all the hard-core cyclists (and their egos). However, the racers themselves didn't need to show any ego; they just went fast. Really fast. One guy nearly ate it coming out of the turn back down the canyon but he recovered and there was much cheering and ringing of cowbells.

If you like cycling at all (even if you ride a cruiser very slowly), you should really try to go see a stage, if only to see what you see on TV in person. There's an individual time trial Friday at my new favorite place, Miller Motorsports Park, and the final event is downtown on Sunday. And they're climbing a couple of mountains in between.

Tuesday Project Roundup: One Down, Three To Go

I've been working away at my sweater this week and have made some good progress. (It helped that I knit in the car while riding to the motorsports park last week. I guess I'm pretty comfortable with my coworkers now.) I'm almost done with the first hank of yarn, which puts me just past the shoulders:


Three more hanks of yarn and it will look like this girl's lovely sweater (more of her photos of sylish knitwear here):
I wish I could find a floral print like that dress to wear my sweater with, too.

Oh, Weekend

Now that I am resigned that summer has passed me by, let me tell you how delightful it was to wake up Saturday to chilly rain and think, "I don't even have to string two sentences together coherently if I don't want to!" So I stayed home all day and sewed and made brownies and homemade pizza, and we got the apartment cleaned and watched some Mad Men. And some Mighty Boosh, just to balance out all that highbrow drama.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's been a long week at the office--a week in which I've met race car drivers, ridden on a golf cart, corrected my boss quoting The Blues Brothers, and worked what feels like a hundred hours. My job is awesome, but sometimes tiring.

2. Check out these trompe l'oeil murals from the UK that you can put on your garage door. Now the neighbors can see scenes like this instead of just a door:

Personally, I like the giant bird:

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

What's going on at the alpaca ranch, you ask? Lots of baby alpacas! Karma the alpaca had a little daughter, Jasmine:

If I had bought Karma two years ago I'd have doubled my investment now. (Such a shame I lacked a spare $15,000 at the time.)

Be sure to plan on visiting during Fall Open Farm days, too--the last weekend in September.

Just When You Start Planning Ahead For Fall Projects

...The Writer's Almanac puts up a Mary Oliver poem about the uncertainty of tomorrow. But it's a nice poem.

Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next Days and Weeks

by Mary Oliver

What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,

not the inside of stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I'm fooled-
I'm wading along

in the sunlight-
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-
I can see the light spilling

like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,
and I plan to be there soon-
and, so far, I am

just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire.

I don't know where
such certainty comes from-
the brave flesh
or the theater of the mind-

but if I had to guess
I would say that only
what the soul is supposed to be
could send us forth

with such cheer
as even the leaf must wear
as it unfurls
its fragrant body, and shines

against the hard possibility of stoppage-
which, day after day,
before such brisk, corpuscular belief,
shudders, and gives way.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Looking Forward

The stores are all promoting back-to-school, the cold front that came through last weekend made me get out an extra blanket, and we're closer to the equinox now than we are to the Summer Solstice.

You know what this means for me: New fabric and a knitting project!

The yarn is from the Montana ranch and will be a jacket-type sweater; the fabrics will all be dresses. And to go with all these black dresses?

Hello, boots. My boyfriend does not understand why I need you, but he'll learn to love you. I just have to wait until September, because I can't buy fall footwear in a summer month. I just can't. You understand, boots.

Busy Day Today

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Going back to happier topic, Hemingway's thoughts mirror mine on an after-work cocktail:
I have drunk since I was 15 and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work all day with your head and know you must again work the next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?

2. Ray Bradbury is turning 89 on the 22nd (also my dad's birthday), and he is having a birthday party at a bookstore in Glendale, CA. This cool bookstore has promised to give Ray any cards you might want to send him, so click here for the address and go get a birthday card in the mail.

3. I've found a site about hilariously bad Craigslist postings: You Suck At Craigslist. This post has been making me laugh whenever I think about it. You have to click through and see the picture, too, but the last line is a masterpiece:
test drives at ur own risk i cant go with you too many bees.
Now I want to add "too many bees" to the ends of all my sentences.

So Much For Avoiding Sad News This Week

I was going to wait about posting about the state of food TV in America and probably just not post about the movie about dolphin hunting. But then I saw that today is the 64th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. So let's just get it all out today and go back to fluffy quotes tomorrow.

If you want to see pictures of the event and think about worldwide nuclear disarmament, check out the Big Picture blog.

Something Lighthearted For Wednesday

(I had posts lined up about the sad state of American cooking and about a sad movie about Japanese dolphin-killers, but we don't need all that sad in the middle of the week.)

So instead, let's talk about The Random P.G. Wodehouse Quote Generator. He's been on my list to get around to reading, and now I really need to bump him up to the top of the list, based on these examples:

His first emotion was one of surprise that so much human tonnage could have been assembled at one spot. A cannibal king, beholding them, would have whooped with joy and reached for his knife and fork with the feeling that for once, the catering department had not failed him.

and my particular favorite,
It was obvious that only the fact of his having no soul prevented the iron from entering into it.

Tuesday Project Roundup: A Muumuu No More

Besides being a good title for a short story, today's post is all about re-purposing and recycling. I got some nice blue and green and purple shirting fabric a year ago and tried to make a long-sleeved muumuu for fall, which just turned out to be a bad idea all around. And also too big.

All that good Italian shirting got put into the Fail Bin for a year, but I was sorting things to give to the thrift store last weekend and I just couldn't bring myself to toss it. So I pulled out the trusty top/dress pattern I've made a few times

and I thought, "If I cut off the yoke and the sleeves, I'll have enough fabric in the body of this enormous muumuu to make a top that I'll actually wear." And that's what I did.


You can see I cut the yoke all in one straight piece instead of the diamond inset, and the sleeves had to be cut crosswise, but I did have enough fabric (it was a big muumuu). And now I have a cute top.

Yet another example of how muumuus, even when rejected, are a delightful garment.

It's Monday

Sit it in like it's a big tote and be really cute.

Then tip over.

Thursday Unrelated Information

I'm taking the day off tomorrow to have the new bed delivered and I'm feeling out of ideas, so this will be the end of the blogging week for me.

1. Today is the birthday of both Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights, not Jane Eyre) and Henry Ford.

2. The Big Picture blog featured photos of the Tour de France last week. Check out photo 28 of Mark Cavendish's bike's paint job.

3. AMC has a cool new promo site for Mad Men: MadMenYourself.com. You can build a character of yourself into the show. This is me (with the coffee cup, for those of you who aren't watching yet) (and why aren't you watching yet?):

Is It Like This At Your House?

It's like this at my house, but usually I end up getting the bug for Toby before he can lay waste to everything. (All of these "Simon's Cat" videos are great.)

Tuesday Project Roundup: I Can't Believe It

Did any of us think this day would come? I have a finished quilt top and quilt back that are ready to be quilted now!

No, these are not complicated quilt patterns, and they didn't involve lots of little pieces. But they did involve enough math that I didn't feel up to it a lot of the time, and I dare you to try working on a queen-size quilt in your 500-square-foot apartment. It doesn't go very well--which is why I worked on it at my parents' house, on the weekends. (I'm sure that they can't believe this is out of their basement.)

I'm going to say this is 2/3 done, provided I can find someone to machine-quilt this for me. Then I can pick it up all quilted and do the binding. It sounds so easy, right?

Of course, I feel kind of like this when I really consider how far I have to go:

Slighty Late Halfway Report: The 29 Things

I thought it would be good to check in on my list of things to do before I turn 30...it is almost August (yikes!). I think my progress is pretty good, but it's time to start cooking shellfish and buying garbage cans before it's too late.

Thing's I've done are in green; commentary is in boldface:

1. Learn the names of the Wasatch mountain peaks--I only can point to Mt. Olympus
2. Pay off the remaining debt
3. Get a queen size mattress. It's getting delivered Friday!
4. Make a queen-sized quilt Umm, closer—check for pictures this week.
5. Hike Bald Mountain in the Uintas again
6. Finish reading The Silmarillion
7. Knit Christmas stockings (starting with Toby's, of course)
8. Visit the north end of Zion National Park
9. Be less wimpy about riding my bike on cooler days. I am riding; it’s not cool, but I think I can stay in the habit through fall.
10. Eat at Red Iguana
11. Eat at The Paris. (For our second anniversary last weekend)
12. Chill a watermelon in a stream on a picnic in the mountains
13. Knit at least one thing for charity using up yarn I have
14. Get a new desk chair, if an affordable molded Eames chair exists
15. Cook moules marnieres and frites
16. Stop biting my nails.—I only bite the nails of my little fingers now! 8 out of 10 isn’t bad!
17. Learn how to sew knit fabric
18. Drink an Old Fashioned at the bar at Bambara (When I got the new job!)
19. Learn how to apply eye makeup that doesn't look scary or amateurish—I’ve been wearing it but I think it’s so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. I’ve been given a hint about dry eyeliner and a brush, so we’ll see.
20. Go to the Oyster Bar one Monday a month after work for a half-priced appetizer—I went ONE Monday and it was just not good. I think all the full-priced dinners I can afford now can replace the Oyster Bar.
21. Replace my Rubbermaid kitchen garbage can with a broken spring top with something nicer.
22. Knit an elaborate cabled sweater
23. Build my collection of Bach CDs
24. Learn how to dance
25. Stop getting plastic bags from the grocery store—I realized I need plastic bags for cleaning the litterbox, so I don’t think I can STOP, but I have really cut back.
26. Have tea at The Grand America
27. Make cloth napkins and use them for everyday meals—I haven’t made them, but we are using cloth napkins.
28. Go out to breakfast one weekend a month—So far, so good: we missed June but we did go out twice in May.
29. Go to Moab for New Year's Eve

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's PionEER day (as people pronounce it here), which means an oh-the-humanity walk to work (roads are closed and people are CAMPING on the sidewalk, so the car and the bike are out).

2. Yesterday was Raymond Chandler's birthday, in 1888. I've been thinking of The Big Sleep lately, but I'm still trying to limit my re-reading and go through new books for the summer.

3. Check out photographer Jennifer Greenberg's "The Rockabillies," portraits of people who really embrace 50's style and decor. And cars:
Seriously, what IS that? I thought cars like this only existed in cartoons. It's fantastic.

Are You Watching Mad Men Yet?

We just got Season 2 and are trying to not watch it all too fast. I like Don Draper even less and the costumes even more in this season. 1962 was a good time for fashion--and not the best time to be a woman in an office.

I'm Sure You're All Wondering About Christopher Kitten

Christopher Kitten has not been adopted by us, much to Toby's relief, and he hasn't been hanging around in our yard half as much. I think the group effort at the neighbors to keep him fed and entertained is working--mostly.

Mr. Isbell did put out food for him one afternoon when he came crying to the door, and I'll pat him when I see him out in the yard, but it's nothing like the weekend he was abandoned by his awful owner. And that's a relief.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Inching Along

Look! It's the back of a quilt and it's all sewn together!

Granted, the back of this quilt is one big square surrounded by a border, but after seven months I think I can call this progress.

Now all I have to do is sew a border on the front of the quilt and then, you know, turn it into a quilt. Five more months to go...

The Moon!

You're probably aware that today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. It was kind of a big deal, as the 96-pt type in the NY Times shows:

You can read a transcript of the landing, with commentary by Armstrong, Aldrin, and other involved parties here. Personally, I like The Onion's take on the landing--but be warned; lots of swearing. Really, really funny swearing, but lots of it.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. As I'm sure you've heard, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch was yesterday. Check out some great images on The Big Picture blog. In #24, Neil Armstrong kind of looks like my brother.

2. Learned a new word: sciolist (SAI-uh-list), noun: "One who engages in a pretentious display of superficial knowledge." So if I said this rhymed with "nihilist," I might be a sciolist.

3. Toby is doing what I'm hoping to do this weekend (after mattress shopping and asking about professional quilting services):

Thursday Awesome

Let's Ponder Whale Brains This Wednesday Morning

From a long (and often sad) article, "Watching Whales Watching Us," in the NY Times this week (emphasis mine):

In 2006...researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine analyzed the brains of two other baleen species—humpback and finback whales—as well as those of a number of toothed whales like dolphins and killer and sperm whales. The study revealed brain structures surprisingly similar to our own. Some, in fact, contained large concentrations of spindle cells—often referred to as the cells that make us human because of their link to higher cognitive functions like self-awareness, a sense of compassion and linguistic expression—with the added kick that whales evolved these same highly specialized neurons as many as 15 million years before we humans did, a stunning instance of a phenomenon biologists refer to as parallel evolution.

“In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species,” the Mount Sinai scientists concluded in a report in the November 2006 edition of the journal The Anatomical Record, “it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales and certainly humpback whales exhibit complex social patterns that include intricate communication skills, coalition formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage.” They added that it is therefore “likely that some of these abilities” are related to the comparable complexity in the brain structures of whales and hominids.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Nautical Exclamations Abound

Ahoy! I'd been looking for a sailor-collar dress pattern since last summer--one that's not too costume-y, not too cutes-y--and when I saw this one a few months ago I said, "Avast! This be the one."

I used some really nice gray stripe seersucker, the kind they make suits out of in the South, and it turned out OK despite some real struggles with the fit (my own fault--"measure twice, cut once," anyone?). I haven't worn it yet; I'm waiting for the day when I feel jaunty and nautical and I'll wear it and shout "Belay me!" and "Hoist the rigging!"

Definitely A Problem

So the neighbor kitten that's getting left out all night was left out all day AND all night, all weekend. It discovered Toby's veranda Saturday morning:
Saturday night he sat on top of the veranda (with Toby in the veranda), looking in as we watched a movie.

This is kind of an impossible situation: Toby does not immediately try to attack the kitten, but 1.) we don't have room for two cats in the apartment and 2.) Toby can't have a cat roommate that goes in and out while he remains an inside-only cat. Also, Christopher Kitten* is scaring away all the quail and quail chicks.

Some of my neighbors were outside last night and I geared up for a lecture about responsible pet ownership, but it turned out they were the housemates of the girl who "owns" the kitten, not the girl herself. The housemates said that they'd been watching out for Christopher Kitten, too, because owner-girl doesn't let him in a lot because he's "too frisky" (!) and sometimes forgets to feed him (!!). What a despicable woman.

So...what happens now? I guess I could be justified in calling CAWS and getting Christopher Kitten fostered, since he does seem to be neglected by his owner. It also sounded like the housemates were looking for a new place to rent and wanted to take Christopher with them, but I don't know if I can count on them. Does any blog reader out there want a kitten?

*Yes, I named him. It's a problem.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy birthday, Marcel Proust, born in 1871 today.

2. Complaining about mosquito bites on my face yesterday reminded me of Little House on the Prairie, in which the entire family ends up getting malaria* one summer:
In the daytime there were only one or two mosquitoes in the house. But at night, if the wind wasn't blowing hard, mosquitoes came in thick swarms...Pa could not play the fiddle at night because so many mosquitoes bit him...And in the morning Laura's forehead was speckled with mosquito bites.

That's actually a pretty terrible chapter, with the whole family sick and Pa passed out on the floor and Jack the bulldog upset and unable to help. Just another reason to be thankful for tonic water and DEET.

3. *In the book, Laura calls it "fever 'n ague." I'll probably never hear that second word used in conversation in my life.

Deterrents To Being Outside

As I said yesterday, I feel as if summer is passing me by. That might be due to the fact that I'm not spending a lot of time on the patio in the evenings, and here's why:

1. Mosquitoes. They are the devil. They are bad this year, after all that rain. I was outside for about half an hour last night and got three bites. Currently, I have three bites just on my FACE. Mosquito fail.

2. The neighbor's kitten. This kitten is not the devil; it's the cutest roly-poly tabby who purrs furiously when you pick it up. But the neighbor girl who "owns" it leaves it out at night, starting at about 6:00, and it's either crying at their door, wanting to play with us, or crying at OUR door. Toby does not like this one bit, and neither do I: Who leaves their tiny kitten outside all night without a bed to sleep on*? At least it has food and water, but still--cat ownership FAIL.

*I am debating taking the final step towards totally becoming my mother (who always has sheltered strays) and getting that kitten a little cat house with a bed in it. I doubt the neighbor is going to let it sleep inside; we can't steal it to live with us; and I don't think we can say it's a stray and call a rescue shelter. But I can at least make sure it has somewhere to sleep that's not on a concrete patio or in the grass.

A Poem For You, If You Feel Summer Is Passing You By

I certainly feel as if I'm missing out on everything, and I'm not sure why...maybe because I don't know where June went nor what I did in it? Because I missed the moonflower blooming two nights ago? Because I haven't been to the farmer's market yet? Who knows. At least we have a poem about summer:

A Warm Summer in San Francisco

by Carolyn Miller

Although I watched and waited for it every day,
somehow I missed it, the moment when everything reached
the peak of ripeness. It wasn't at the solstice; that was only
the time of the longest light. It was sometime after that, when
the plants had absorbed all that sun, had taken it into themselves
for food and swelled to the height of fullness. It was in July,
in a dizzy blaze of heat and fog, when on some nights
it was too hot to sleep, and the restaurants set half their tables
on the sidewalks; outside the city, down the coast,
the Milky Way floated overhead, and shooting stars
fell from the sky over the ocean. One day the garden
was almost overwhelmed with fruition:
My sweet peas struggled out of the raised bed onto the mulch
of laurel leaves and bark and pods, their brilliantly colored
sunbonnets of rose and stippled pink, magenta and deep purple
pouring out a perfume that was almost oriental. Black-eyed Susans
stared from the flower borders, the orange cherry tomatoes
were sweet as candy, the corn fattened in its swaths of silk,
hummingbirds spiraled by in pairs, the bees gave up
and decided to live in the lavender. At the market,
surrounded by black plums and rosy plums and sugar prunes
and white-fleshed peaches and nectarines, perfumey melons
and mangos, purple figs in green plastic baskets,
clusters of tiny Champagne grapes and piles of red-black cherries
and apricots freckled and streaked with rose, I felt tears
come into my eyes, absurdly, because I knew
that summer had peaked and was already passing
away. I felt very close then to understanding
the mystery; it seemed to me that I almost knew
what it meant to be alive, as if my life had swelled
to some high moment of response, as if I could
reach out and touch the season, as if I were inside
its body, surrounded by sweet pulp and juice,
shimmering veins and ripened skin.

Tuesday Project Roundup: One-Yard Projects Are Inexpensive

What am I doing sewing tops when I'm "just happier in a dress?" Well, I've been wearing skirts, too, and those need something to round them out. I found a new Simplicity designer pattern that only takes 1 to 1 1/4 yards, so I've been using nice shirting fabrics without guilt.

Here's the pattern:


Here's my first version: (Here's a better picture of the fabric.)

And here's the fabric for a second version, without the neckline trim. This fabric is really nice (Liberty of London), but again, it only uses one yard. And it's not $98 like this ready-made one. And it comes together in about two hours.

Today's Post Taken Directly From The Writer's Almanac

But it's about Beethoven, so it's OK:

"It was on this day in 1812 that Ludwig van Beethoven wrote two famous love letters to an unknown woman. Beethoven wrote the letters from the Czech resort town of Teplitz, which his physician had recommended for his health, and there he became friends with the poet Goethe. And over the course of two days, he wrote three letters to a mysterious woman who has come to be known as "the Immortal Beloved."

Today's Almanac post also includes the full text of all three letters, the last one of which is so sad:

Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life — Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men — At my age I need a steady, quiet life — can that be so in our connection? Be calm — love me — today — yesterday — what tearful longings for you — you — you — my life — my all — farewell. Oh continue to love me — never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

He was already mostly deaf at this point. Poor Beethoven.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I was in a month-long cooking rut in June, where just the thought of coming up with something for dinner made me want to tear my hair out. Usually the ruts don't last more than a week--they can't; I'm the cook in the house--so fortunately M.F.K. Fisher has saved us from more takeout and frozen things: I found a new book of her collected short fiction at the library. Last night, we had souffles.

2. I have today off for the Fourth so we're going to go to Lagoon. I haven't been there since I was twelve. This will either be really fun or a huge mistake, like going miniature golfing in my early twenties and being the only one there who could drive.

3. "Someone Famous Has Died":

Wallace Stegner Apparently Liked Cars

I'm making myself read new books this summer, not just re-reading The Hobbit and Dune and other things on my shelf. I started with Crossing to Safety, in which I noticed uncomfortable similarities between the bossy wife and myself, and found this quote. [Set up: It's about two couples. One of the couples is rich and has this fancy old touring car, a Marmon.]:

Looking in under the propped hood, I could see that the engine was not twelve in line, as I had always half believed, but a V-16. It would have pulled a fire truck. At every stroke a stream of gasoline as thick as my finger must be pulsing through the carburetor. She panted at us in the whiskey-and-emphysema whisper of an Edith Wharton dowager. "Dollar-dollar-dollar-dollar-dollar," the Marmon said.

That quote is probably the funniest part of the book, which deals with polio, thwarted ambition, stomach cancer, etc., but I do recommend it. I think it's something I'll have to revisit in the future. Because re-reading is really where it's at.

Now It's Personal, Chickens

So Mr. Isbell's parents became chicken owners this spring, and the chickens are now big enough to wander their back garden freely. This is all kinds of cute:

They're really soft--even their feet--and have so much personality. They take sun baths and stick their leg out like Toby!
Obviously, I do not eat chicken. I do eat eggs, but I make sure they're at least cage free, if not Certified Humane. (I'm really looking forward to eggs from these girls!) But after seeing these chickens up close, I'm now hyper-aware of the eggs from unhappy factory farmed chickens used in things like mayonnaise and ice cream. So Mr. Isbell and I are exploring the strange new world of Vegannaise and Soy Dream.

It's a good thing his parents don't have a pet cow: I'd never buy shoes again.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Looking Slept In

I finished the pajamas that match my robe on Friday and have been sleeping in them ever since, which is why they look slept in:

These (and the robe, too) were fun projects--my machine makes putting on piping really slick and I'm happy with how everything turned out.

Piping detail and darker photo that is closer to the real color:

I feel very put together in the mornings now, which is always a good thing. I'm already planning a winter version.

I Bet He Drank St. Germain Eledflower Liquer-Based Cocktails, Too

It's the birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the dashing French pilot who wrote Night Flight and Wind, Sand, and Stars--and wrote and illustrated The Little Prince. He was shot down on a reconaissance flight over the Mediterranean in WWII.

Here's the most famous quote from The Little Prince:

Translated as, "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Transformers 2 started out pretty good for a mindless action movie, but by the second hour it became clear that when Michael Bay had to choose between paying the writers to finish the script and adding more explosions, he chose the explosions.

2. Poor Michael Jackson. In the first gossip going around at work yesterday, one of my bosses asked, "What happened? Did one of his monkeys kill him?"

3. Here's a J.D. Salinger quote to ponder, from "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" in Nine Stories:
The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid.

Summer Blockbusters

We're going to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen tonight, and while I don't have high expectations of it, just yesterday I found a priceless review by Roger Ebert that makes me think it's going to be pretty bad:

"If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."

"The music of hell"? Roger Ebert, you are a treasure. I will think of your review tonight in the theater and probably laugh in inappropriate moments.

And speaking of movies: This site is genius. Genius! Why has no one thought of this before?

Toby Says:

"Enjoy the sunshine today."