It's Monday

Play with it like it's a toy mousie you got that's the best toy mousie EVER, and that you keep playing with 48 hours later:

And then go back to bed:

Friday Unrelated Information

1b. I'm happy to report that the "Yoga for the Winter Blues" video was really helpful. I got farther into a backbend than I ever have before (which is still not very far) and realized that if I can do that, I can easily survive onerous meetings or a weather inversion.

1b. I've turned into one of those sports people. I think I get why they run marathons now.

2. Happy birthday to Jane Austen and Arthur C. Clarke today.

3. Here's another MST3K Christmas song, because it's absurd and because Christmas is next weekend:


"Hey, you keep Christmas in your way and let me keep it in mine."

The Darkness

I think the lack of sunlight is getting to me early this year. I'm seriously considering light therapy, but my inner hippie also wants to try some yoga and re-read this essay I found a couple years ago. From Jeanette Winterson, it talks about embracing the winter darkness--and she does make some good points:

It is a mistake to fight the cold and the dark. We're not freezing or starving in a cave, so we can enjoy what autumn and winter bring, instead of trying to live in a perpetual climate-controlled fluorescent world with the same day-in, day-out processed, packaged, flown-in food.

And she ends on a strong hippie note about the darkness:

Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons – all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life – take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have.

Homebodies

I was reading the Christmas chapter of The Wind in the Willows this week, where Moley finds his old home and the caroling field mice show up, and thought, "Forget Dagny or Franny; I identify most with Moley." Consider this:

He saw clearly how plain and simple...[his home] was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence...It was good to think he had this place to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

Tuesday Project Roundup: This Counts

Putting up the tree counts as a project, right? I did make a ten-minute tree skirt out of felt.

Then, of course, someone was upset that the tree got fabric and he couldn't fit underneath it to sit on said fabric, so I brought down the remnants for him:

Mood lighting!

Hooray For Winter Birthdays

Happy birthday to my sister-in-law today! Not only does she win the bread for the family, she finds time to make homemade baby food--and she's put up with her crazy in-laws for nearly a decade. I hope she has a fantastic birthday!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm putting up a Christmas tree this weekend. As we decided, this doesn't make me a hypocrite, it makes me a homeowner. But I'll still sing this song from MST3K:


2. Opportunity, the rover that's already on Mars (not Curiousity, which is on route to land next August) has confirmed the existence of "a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water" on Mars. This is big news--so of course there's more LOLSpace to go with it:

Space Jokes

For your Thursday, I give you two funny space things, as found on It's Full of Stars:

1. First, the Unimpressed Astronaut meme. It's fantastic. Go see all of them.



2. Second, as you (should) know, the Kepler observatory has found its first planet in the habitable zone of a star like the Sun. But did you know that the planet has a Twitter account? The first tweet is brilliant.

Big Day

Some big historical events happening today, courtesy of The Writer's Almanac:

1. The 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
2. Willa Cather's birthday.
3. The anniversary of the first fully clear photograph of the Earth from space, taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972, and known as "The Blue Marble."

Tuesday Project Roundup: The Cute Doesn't Stop

What's cuter than an owl sweater? Skyler wearing the sweater!
And what's cuter than that? Skyler in an owl sweater showing off how he can make goofy faces!

Squeeeeee!

Fruitcake!

Yesterday I made fruitcake, the kind where you raid the Whole Foods bulk aisle for fancy dried things and then soak the cake in booze and age it for a month. The Anne of Green Gables-reading part of me likes doing something so "old fashioned" (if not downright medieval); the drinker in me likes the booze part; and the adult reader in me thinks of Laurie Colwin:

Lately I have begun to think less of holiday and have turned my attention to the idea of winter, of trying to fill the house with good things... I want to make a gesture toward that longed-for simpler time by producing something that is made only once a years.

(from the essay "How to Face the Holidays," in More Home Cooking.)

Also: BOOZE!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I found a Salinger quote (I think from "Hapworth 16, 1924") in the blog archives that is encouraging:
"I find it magnificent how beautiful loose ends find each other in the world if one only waits with decent patience, resilience, and quite blind strength."

2. This video from the Shelter Pet Project has been making the rounds, but it's hilarious:


3. And in other old-but-new-to me news, I've discovered the Hobbit Name Generator. It's hours of fun (and there's an Elvish Name Generator, too!).

Advent Calendars In Spaaaaace!

Now that it's December, it's time once again for my favorite part of "the holidays": The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. It's at the Atlantic this year (I guess its creator went there from the Big Picture blog?) but it will give you an image from the Hubble telescope every day from now until Christmas. And we all know how I feel about space pictures.

Here is today's image, the unpoetcially-named UGC 1810:
And here's something to ponder while you look at it, from the Upanishads:
The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.

Something To Remember

Tuesday Project Roundup: Getting Things Done During Long Weekends

This weekend made me realize that maybe I haven't lost my crafty mojo; maybe I just need four-day stretches of time to make things. (Hm, how can I work that?)

I finished a tunic dress that has been cut out for a couple of weeks:
It's the same pattern as this one from June (adapted from the Built By Wendy Dresses book), with longer sleeves to make it more cold-weather appropriate.

And the owl sweater for Skyler is just waiting to dry so I can sew on all 32 little button eyes:
Hoot hoot!

Space Therapy

Let's distract ourselves from the first workday after a long weekend by thinking about space. Did you hear the Mars Curiosity rover launched successfully on Saturday? We shot something into space, will guide it along the 350 million mile trip, and will be able to use it to study another planet remotely--incredible! A thousand years ago humanity didn't even know about basic sanitation, and now we're going to study Mars.

Here's the New York Times coverage; the Bad Astronomy blog has a collection of launch videos and a NASA-produced overview of how exactly they plan to land the thing (parachutes and rockets, oh my!). Read up on it and get lots of perspective on your life here on this planet.

Giving Thanks While Seated

I'm not hosting Thanksgiving this year, but I could:
I finally have chairs to go with that table--and for the first time in my adult life, I can entertain more than a total of two for dinner!

So I'm thankful for furniture, and that I have family and friends that I want to fill the chairs, and for what's been a really good year, overall.

Meanwhile, Toby remains thankful for his space heater:


Enjoy the long weekend! I'll be back Monday.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Mid-Hoot

Owls are underway; repeat, owls are underway!

Skyler's owl sweater isn't done but there are only about two more inches (and sewing on all 32 owl eyes). Fortunately, I was able to check the fit during his visit so he should be able to wear this for another six weeks or so, at least. (Stop growing so fast, kid!)

A Visit From Skyler

Look who came over to his auntie's house on Saturday! There was lots of kitty chasing--because someone can crawl now:

There was also a moment when I had to tell Toby that the little creature wanting to touch him was not for pouncing on. (Toby had a look in his eye; I wanted to head that off.)

There was also some delicious paper to be had:


Kitties and paper and Skyler, oh my!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy birthday to Sir William Gilbert, half of Gilbert and Sullivan and the librettist responsible for "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General."

2. Science may be inching ever closer to giving us lab-grown meat. It reminds me of all sorts of science fiction.

3. Here's something to ponder from Ed Abbey, whom I always thought of as curmudgeonly. But maybe he wasn't as hard as I thought:
Has joy any survival value in the operations of evolution? I suspect that it does; I suspect that the morose and fearful are doomed to quick extinction. Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.

All I Want Is Another Vacation

The last two weeks being back from Moab have just run me over. Work isn't particularly tough right now, but I'm feeling pretty worn out by it.

Let's think back to a happier time a couple weekends ago, when my inner hippie was set free in the morning in Arches:

Doesn't she look happy?

3+1 Things Project: The Last Poem

I'm a little late posting the November/December poem in my 3+1 Things project, probably because memorizing anything for September/October didn't happen. (The Neruda didn't fit, I couldn't get behind the Frost, and there were just too many other things to think about.)

But this poem--I will memorize this poem because it's fantastic. Mary Oliver does it again. (Watch something like this video before you read it and you'll really be able to see it in your head.)


Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Knit Faster

I'm working on an owl sweater for Skyler, but I think I'd better really commit to finishing it in the next week. He's growing so fast (and just started crawling!). This will definitely not fit him for very long.
Almost to the owls!

Still Celebrating Carl Sagan Day

Apparently, I am not the only person with a little crush on him:




More "Sexy Sagan" right here.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The Armistice ending WWI was signed 93 years ago today; today we tell veterans "thank you" and then go shop pre-holiday sales. I liked this poem from W.S. Merwin, which I assume is satirical:

When the War is Over

When the war is over
We will be proud of course the air will be
Good for breathing at last
The water will have been improved the salmon
And the silence of heaven will migrate more perfectly
The dead will think the living are worth it we will know
Who we are
And we will all enlist again

2. And one more Carl Sagan-inspired post to finish the week: I found this clip looking for the one I posted on Wednesday, and it's a pretty great 29 seconds.

Well Done, Science Writers

Last night I was able to catch the second episode of the latest NOVA series, The Fabric of the Cosmos. (Have you figured out by now that if you put "cosmos" in the title of something, there's a 99.9% chance I will like it?)

I am as average a layperson as it gets when it comes to science, so I had to admire how the show's team explained concepts such as the past, present, and future all existing at once, or why time appears to only flow in one direction, in the simplest way possible.

Check it out--the last two epsiodes are on the next two Wednesdays, and you can get caught up on the first two online. (And I dare you not to think of Dr. Who while the show talks about the nature of time. Sorry, physicists.)

I Declare It Carl Sagan Day

Happy birthday to Carl Sagan today! To celebrate Carl Sagan Day, you could watch the introduction to the Cosmos series, which is still the most popular science program ever produced for television*:



Or you could read this from Ann Druyan, which is simultaneously heartbreaking and joyful:

Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again...But the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is...We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. That pure chance could be so generous and so kind; that we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, "in the vastness of space and the immensity of time"; that we could be together for twenty years; that is something which sustains me...That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.

Happy birthday, Carl. I like to picture you somewhere in that "ship of the imagination" from Cosmos.

*You've all heard that a sequel to Cosmos is in the works for 2013, right? Ann Druyan is helping to write/produce and Neil DeGrasse Tyson will host. I can't wait.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Another Active Copy

I am on a roll with my knit dress knockoffs. First there was the "mustard active dress," and now I give you the "turquoise fleece active dress":

This one is a loose interpretation of this dress (in boring gray, for $90):
As you can see, the pockets and front seams are similar, but instead of figuring out how to draft a hood I just added a cowl neck like before. My starting pattern was the same one I used for the "orange sack dress" in September, and I used an organic sweatshirt fleece that is warm and soft and pretty much feels like pajamas.

The active dress: For when you can't wear yoga pants.

"It Is Clean"

That's why T.E. Lawrence reportedly liked the desert; I could add, "It is indifferent." And this weekend, it was also cold:
Fortunately, Mom and I were prepared with winter gear.

Also fortunately, we escaped the enormous mesa-top lizards this sign showed us:
Lizards not to scale? Or do they come as big as bighorn sheep now?

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I don't know why someone didn't think of this earlier, but it is brilliant: Anthroparodie, photos from the Anthropologie catalog with new (awesome) captions.

2. And another parody: If you've read any Cormac McCarthy, you'll get a kick out of Yelping with Cormac, reviews of local places as if they were written by him. From the "review" of Taco Bell:

The man asked could God make a taco so terrible even He could not eat it. The priest considered this and said no this was not possible and to think so was a sin. The man was silent for some time. Then he said that he had eaten such a taco and that it tasted of bootblack and horsefeed. That if this taco was under God’s dominion then surely all other great evils must be as well. And then the man took the halfeaten and greaseblackened taco from his coatpocket and thrust it at the priest like a broken sword. Eat it, he said. Eat it or be damned.

To The Desert

I'm headed to the desert by Moab soon to make my inner hippie happy and get some perspective. Here's Paul Bowles' feelings about it (even though his desert was the Sahara):

Here, in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears; nothing is left but your own breathing and the sound of your heart beating...Once [someone] has been under the spell of the vast, luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in comfort or money, for the absolute has no price.

"Science: What's It Up To?"

Have you been trying to ignore the gearing up of the presidential race, too? From what I've been unable to ignore, it seems every potential candidate so far is trying to win by being anti-science--anti-vaccine, anti-evolution, anti-global warming, etc. Thank god for satire:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

"Luxurious palace of science"--I love it. Found via one of my favorite science blogs.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Warm, Yet Dull

I have three knitting projects in different stages of completion, so because I don't have any sewing finished this week, let's talk about the most complete one:

I started this last winter to use up leftover yarn. (God only knows how I ended up with so many earth tones.) It's coming along slowly; I'm sure I'd like working on it more if it were made of, say, leftover orange yarn. But it will be warm. I'm planning on using it as a layer for winter hiking--hopefully this winter, but if not, the next one.

And The Grinch's Heart Grew Three Sizes That Day

...oh wait, I'm confusing my holidays. But this is a similar transformation:

I have a long list of reasons why I hate Halloween as an adult, but do you know what melted my shriveled little heart this year?

1. Charles Schultz and Vince Guaraldi:



2. Having an actual kid around. Is this baby jaded or disappointed? No--he is delighted by that pumpkin! He is going to be a cow tonight. I can't wait.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Have you seen Animals Talking in All Caps yet? ALL CAPS MAKES THINGS FUNNY! (OK, no always, but this one makes me laugh so much. It's how I feel about IKEA, too.)

2. Recently, I noticed that Jack Daniels had changed its bottle shape and label a little. (Hey, I buy whiskey pretty frequently.) Here's a case study of the brand refresh by the agency that did it. Nice work--I especially love the new copy bits on the side panel (under "A Refined Identity).

3. And speaking of advertising, how about some Don Draper nihilism to kick off the weekend? You'll have to click through and wait through an ad (how meta!) but it's worth it to hear him say, "What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons."

Convincing Myself

As I've let my inner hippie free, I've caught myself, say, doing yoga and nodding when the teacher says this will help the solar plexus chakra--which is then followed by the thought, "Carl Sagan would not approve of this."

However, this is Carl Sagan we're talking about. This is the man who contributed an essay to Marihuana Reconsidered, who approved that theme music* to the Cosmos series, and who famously said:
Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

That last line is what makes me think Carl would be all for letting the inner hippie out.


*Sometimes I just leave that site open and let the music loop. It's great for irritating days at work.

Happy Birthday, Beryl

It's the birthday of Beryl Markham today. She was a horse trainer, pilot, and author (probably) of the memoir West With the Night, which I should read again and you should read too, if you haven't. (It impressed the hell out of Hemingway.)

She was friends with Karen Blixen, lovers with Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and was the first woman to fly solo from east to west across the Atlantic. Beryl was fierce! Let's all be more like her.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Active Active Active

In my new incarnation as Active Girl, I've discovered that active wear companies sell more than the actual active wear--they also sell comfy knit dresses that you picture someone even more active than you pulling on after yoga, or wearing walking around a ski town and drinking beer after an active day. (I am a sucker for marketing, no matter what lifestyle it's promoting.)

The issue? The dresses are all at least $80, and they are all in earth tones. So I decided to try copying this one:


I used the basic t-shirt pattern in my trusty Built By Wendy knits book, then added length and width by tracing a Lands End polo dress I wore all summer. Add a length of fabric to make a cowl and blammo: a pretty good copy of the dress, not in boring gray.

I may go back and add a kangaroo pocket to the front, since pockets are always useful and that would make it look more (wait for it)....active.

Look, A Poem

Happy birthday to English poet Denise Levertov. I don't know a lot of her work but what I do know, I like. Like this one:

O Taste and See

The world is
not with us enough
O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.


(The opening lines play on Wordsworth's poem, "The World is Too Much with Us.")

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy birthday to Ursula LeGuin. She lives in Portland and writes for herself all day. That sounds fun, doesn't it?

2. While I love Bob Dylan's "singing," lately I can't get enough of people covering his songs. I'm listening to this and this, and of course my inner hippy is all over this.

3. Ah, this is true of so many things:


(Check out the other stuff from this artist--be sure to read the painting titles, too.)

They've Probably Already Had "Argus" Suggested A Lot

Did you hear that the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico is taking public suggestions for a new name? They're upgrading the technology and expanding the center for 2012 and (thankfully) realized "EVLA" (Expanded Very Large Array) was no better than "VLA". (Although it is charmingly literal.)

Submit your name suggestion here.

(The VLA is the facility on which Carl Sagan based the setting for Project Argus in Contact. How many times do you think people have submitted that one?)

Proof

I went hiking with another person over the weekend (hi, Mom!) and got photographic evidence that I may actually be The Outdoor Type. At least a little.
Do I look like I've started using things like Dr. Bronner's and bar shampoo? Actually, that's just bed head.

I think the color in Millcreek peaked this last week, but it's supposed to be nice again this weekend. Be sure to get out and get your hippie on.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Last Week's Projects

Here are pictures of the pants and the hat from last week. Both projects turned out a little big, but look--projects! And PANTS. That I can WEAR!
For the pants, I used a Lisette for Simplicity pattern and some cheap "bottomweight" from JoAnn. These could have been fitted better (I'll probably cut a size smaller next time and maybe do some pattern adjustments to boot) but I wore them last week and didn't hate them too much. Considering my pants record, that's a success.

As for the hat, a cousin had a baby last week and what do October babies need most? Pumpkin hats.

More Sunday Night Conversations

Last night's catch-up with my best friend ranged from ADT to the human condition to Occupy Wall Street. During the human condition part, this exchange happened:

Me: "I don't know, I just don't think I'm ready to try dating on the Internet."

Him: "Oh my god. No."

And that sums up that human condition perfectly.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. It's the birthday of e.e. cummings today. Everyone write your emails in lower case and leave out punctuation to celebrate. We'll call them e.e.mails.

2. Check out this video of time lapse desert landscapes and nightscapes. Space and deserts: Everything my inner hippy wants.

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Found here.

So Close To A Dinner Party

What's better than an IKEA dining table that gives you the impression of a Saarinen tulip table? Finding that same table on ksl.com for $20, of course!

It needed some Magic Eraser-ing and I still may need to touch up the top, but I am so pleased with this score. Suddenly I understand why people shop at thrift stores.

Now to score some chairs...

The Internet Is Made Of Cats

I'm pretty sure the Internet was invented to give us all easier access to funny cat pictures (this song backs me up). How else would someone have been able to share paintings of the Old Masters with the subjects replaced by cats?






In the words of Napoleon Dynamite, "There's more where that came from."

Tuesday Project Roundup: Take My Word For It

I made a baby hat AND tackled the colored pants this week. I think I'm out of my rut! But you're going to have to take my word for it, since I still need to update the photo library on my new machine and that will take more time than I have this morning.

But I made stuff this week. Really.

The English Song

How about some Sifl & Olly on a Monday morning? After all, I'm going to be using English all week.


I love all of it, but you know that my absolute favorite part comes at :49. I'll be walking around work today humming "Now that I know your English ways I'll translate all that Satan says!"

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have the day off! I originally planned it as just a break from a really rocky September, but now I can hopefully get a new computer and have my friends help me with data recovery on Old Paint. Yay, shopping!

2. I can't say enough how nice it is to have friends so generous in sharing their skills.

3. Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement address has been making the rounds this week, and I highly recommend reading the whole thing. He was a wise man.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

[...] Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

And Now Goodbye, Steve Jobs

(Via xkcd. Check out the hovertext on the original.)

Goodbye, Old Paint

So last night my trusty little iBook (circa 2006) bit the dust. I left it open to make dinner and when I came back not only did it not spring back from sleep, it wouldn't turn on.

I knew this day was coming, but it's still going to be a headache to decide on a new one (and see if I can retrieve music and photos from Old Paint. They can do that, right?).

I have a plan for a machine until I decide on a new one, but just in case I don't post here until Monday or so, don't be alarmed.

Tuesday Project Roundup: The Definition Of Insanity?

My old roommate used to say, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again, but always expecting different results." By his definition I must be crazy, because I'm going to try to make pants again.

I've tried to make them a handful of times and they've never turned out how I want (when they turned out at all). But this fall, colored pants are everywhere; I'm a sucker for color; and it's almost as difficult to find pants that fit/are affordable as it is to make them. So I'm going to try again. It will be different this time, right?

I'll make a test pair as a muslin so I still have time to decide what color. Pink? Blue? Mustard? These pants are going to be so successful. I can just feel it.

(Images via my Pinterest; click through for credits.)

Something To Keep In Mind For The Week

In the words of Lady Brett Ashley, "It does feel good deciding not to be a bitch."

(Via)