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!