Weather or Not

I swear, if it doesn't stop raining soon, I'm going sprout webbed feet and start quacking.

Mindful Shmindful

There's only so much mindful knitting a human can take. I've reached my limit for the day and I have only one thing more to say to myself about that: you are so smart for putting in that lifeline! Go ahead, Rudee and pat yourself on the back.

I have 3 things to say to the designer:

1. Since when has SSK meant SKP? I am doing it your way, but every single time I see SSK, I want to slip, slip knit, and you want me to slip, knit pass. Your way looks better, but when I see this, \, and this, SSK, my brain fights my fingers. I have to stop and think about what I'm doing a dozen times in each right side row.
2. I wish you hadn't included the edges in the total stitch count. This confounds me, too.
3. Your pattern is stunning. I can't really complain without offering up my profound respect for what your brain offered up to the rest of us knitters who don't, or can't, design. Amazing!

That said, I have ripped back once to the lifeline at the end of chart B and started again. Between rows 63 and 65, stitch counts go from 184 on the needles (yes, that includes 4 edge stitches) to 168 and then explodes to 280 stitches in one row. The larger holes at the bottom of the photos is where all that action happens. To say the least, I'm charmed. My first go around, I was off by just 2 stitches and couldn't find my errors, but the mistakes were enough to throw the pattern off. After all of this work, I wasn't going to live with a hole where none should be or a solid set of stitches where a hole should be. The decision was made, after counting and recounting the recalcitrant stitches (I recounted 6 times, duh), to rip back and start row 64 all over. Though it took awhile to catch back up, I think in the long run, I saved a bit of my sanity.

A Lifeline Runs Through It

Last but not least, I'd like to pay homage to the much maligned purl stitch. I hear plenty of knitters gripe about this poor little stitch. Some will only make items in garter stitch, or prefer knitting in the round in order to avoid the purl. I say, there's nothing like a complicated right side row to make a knitter appreciate the return row done in straight purl stitches. It's a thing of beauty, relief and mindless knitting.

Alternative Transportation

The news has been depressing lately, hasn't it? Makes me sad.

My honey sent me this the other day. I think I immediately felt 16 again (not that this is a good thing), but this song cheered me up.

An Ounce of Prevention

Last week, I went to the occupational health clinic at work and got my seasonal flu vaccine. They didn't have the H1N1 vaccine yet and don't know when it'll be delivered. When they do, it'll be rationed to staff working high risk areas first. I don't think hospice falls into that category. There's a public clinic tomorrow that I'm thinking of trying to attend, but recent events like this have had long, long lines. People started lining up at one last weekend at 4 in the morning. Since I can't sleep well anyways, maybe that's an option. If I were the first to get there, I wouldn't have to worry about milling around with thousands of (possibly sick) people standing on line, lowing like good little cattle.

There is a lot of overwhelming information out there and with all of the media hype and states of emergency, it's easy to feel a little frightened. Worse yet, I'm concerned people are becoming apathetic or developing the belief that all of the noise surrounding this flu is hyperbole. Conspiracy theories abound that this is a money maker for vaccine producers, but I find that premise hard to believe. Because it's novel, this particular influenza virus is nasty and although I don't work in critical care anymore, I still hear the stories from the trenches. In conversation with my respiratory therapy friends, incidents of influenza have been seen with devastating consequences for their patients all summer long, including people in all age groups. About a month ago, my sister forwarded an email from a colleague that explained his wife's harrowing ordeal with this virus over the summer, including over a week on life support, permanent pulmonary damage and the long road to recovery. His wife is about my age.

While I await my opportunity to offer up my deltoid muscle, I'm trying to stay healthy, eat right, wash my hands 100 times a day, stop touching my mouth, eyes and nose and get as much rest as my hormonal state allows. More importantly, I'm doing my best to avoid obviously ill people, but it isn't easy because people can be ignorant and down right rude. The other day, I stood on line at TJ Maxx while a woman at the register was trying to check out. In her arms, she was carrying a pile of clothing and her acutely viral child. His face was flushed, his body limp and his cough, frightening. I wanted to clobber her for taking her kid out in the cold rain when he was too sick to even offer up a protest. I'd have been less judgmental if I'd bumped into her in the cold and flu aisle at the pharmacy, but TJ Maxx? What was it she couldn't live without that day? To be fair, she could have been the smartest person in the world, but she didn't have a lick of common sense.

Have you read The Great Influenza by, John Barry? It's incredible. If you don't want to read his tome, why not give him a listen?

Have you gotten your H1N1 vaccine yet? Will you?

Looking Out my Front Door

There's no place like home when it comes to a vacation. One doesn't have to spend hours and hours traveling and effectively knocking 2 days off your relaxing vacation. If you're not flying, you don't have to perseverate on what kind of cooties your seatmates are hacking into the shared ventilation system. When finished commuting, you don't have to worry about whether your back will tolerate sleeping on a strange or inferior bed. You don't have to obsess think about how well (more likely not well) housekeeping cleaned your room, bed, bedspread, glassware, tub, toilet and doorknobs, and you don't have to inspect the room for signs of uninvited roommates like, Cimex lectularius (bedbugs). You know how well it was or wasn't cleaned because likely, you are housekeeping and you've only yourself to blame if it's less than perfect.

Not my house

Another highlight is that you don't have to kick yourself in the butt when TSA confiscates your mascara because it wasn't in a baggie, or you forgot something important at home. You are home and nothing is missing. I like it. I'm rested. I have a new attitude and a very scenic landscape to admire. The changes in the neighborhood make it seem like I'm away.


Sara's sweater is mostly done. I just need to seam the sleeves, find the perfect button and do a little blocking in order to cross it off the list. The thick and thin sweater hasn't been touched. I've been led astray. Again. Am I easily distracted, or what?


This is the Pretty as a Peacock Shawl by Some Knitting Required. I know it's not much yet, but I have plowed my way through all of chart A and half of chart B all since Saturday night. It's grown from the 23 stitch cast on to 184 stitches on the needles and is at a point where I can at least read the pattern that's emerging. The yarn is Louet Gems Sport in a natural color (all the better to see the stitches with, my dear) on a cone. I had to special order the cones through my local yarn store, but working this way is so worth it since I have no collapsing cakes of yarn to deal with and instead of 7 skeins and 7 joins, I'll only have 3 joins to fiddle with.


My friend Sarah will dye it a deep teal color when it's off the needles. She's a wonderful color artist, but a bit nervous about taking on this project. I keep assuring her that if the color isn't fabulous, she can always over dye the shawl with black. Over dyed yarns have beautiful depth and it's something I think we may want to consider doing. Maybe I'll knit her a couple of more swatches to fiddle with.

I didn't win the lottery while I was off work, so it's back to the daily grind for me. Sadly, my housekeeper is a slacker and didn't get any laundry done this week. I hope there's at least one set of scrubs that are clean.

How to Mend a Broken Heart

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18

When my mother in law died a few years ago, we were concerned about my father in law's boredom--idle hands, devil's workshop--so we suggested he volunteer somewhere. At the time, the hospital where I worked was in dire need of people to donate their time in service to others. Mr. Larger Than Life blew his top at the suggestion that he should "work" for free. His time was valuable, blah, blah blah. You get the idea, don't you? I tried to tell him how much my own aunt and uncle loved doing just this kind of work in their spare time. He thought that was ridiculous. I never mentioned it again and when he complained of boredom, I never felt pity. He made his bed and now it was time for him to lay in the damn thing. Before my aunt passed away at the hospital she'd donated all of her time to, there was a steady stream of the people she had met that came to honor her. It boggles my mind that MLTL finds no value in what she did for most of her retired life.

I truly feel that when you donate your goods and/or services, you should do so with a generous heart and try not to measure it against what you think it, or you, are worth. Still, I'm trying to reconcile what's in my heart to what's in my brain after Friday's auction. My brain is shocked that Ruby sold for a song. After 87,000 stitches, 1,650 yards and countless hours of toil, the shawl sold for $220. After giving the fair market value of a priceless piece, the auction organizer opened the bidding at $150--after we'd discussed the higher number of $400. It never stood a chance. For the past two days, I've come to my senses and my heart knows that the money raised went to a really good cause. That's $220 that some child's family can use to purchase hospice medications or supplies that they'd otherwise have no means of providing. My brain is appalled that it should have been at a minimum, double that, but I'll get over that. Not surprisingly, I felt fairly savvy that I "won" 3 items that had a combined appraisal value of $370 for half their value. I guess that in the end, we all want a deal. Maybe we all have a little of Mr. Larger Than Life's larceny residing in our hearts.

My sentimental side was touched by Ruby's final bidder. He circled the item at the end of the auction so that he could be the winner. His wife had bid at a lower number but had given up hope that once past $190, it was beyond what she could afford. This man wanted to be his wife's hero for the night. I had no clue who he was, so imagine my surprise when I met the recipient of the shawl. She is a colleague and one of my favorite people to work with. I'm thrilled for her and because of this, my heart is on the mend. The shawl went to someone who appreciates every last stitch and in the end, I'm completely satisfied with the results.

How's that for knitting a broken heart back together?

Bittersweet

Today is the day that Ruby leaves for good. Yesterday, I went to the event venue where she'll be auctioned to someone who appreciates her (I hope). Tonight, the opening bid for the shawl begins at $400. Let's hope there's a fight!