Socks and Friends

All right, tell the truth now. Who would NOT be excited about this sock? All right, I get that you're not as personally invested in it as I am, but, speaking purely as a purist and without any biases at all, I have to say I love it. There, I've said it. I love it.


Now, mind you, my friends are getting tired of hearing about the sock. And it's not much of an accomplishment when you get right down to it. But my knitting these days is taking a back seat to other things like working and trying to figure out how to live in these days of ga$ prices and such. And it's so nice to have something work out just the way you hope, using your own combination of patterns and techniques from real experts, the first time. So here's sock #1. Sock #2 is about 3" today--just about where the first one was the last time I showed a photo--so there's no point in showing that.


To Debbie, and no one else will care, woo hoo! I think I'm going to have a nearly identical pair, not by strategy but by accident. Apparently two repeats of Opal Rendez-vous equal (magically) one sock for a big-footed type such as myself. Life is good. Now, I need to put the sock down and do some of the other things I should be doing.


And before my head gets too big, here's what keeps me humble:













This is a small part of Pat's Dem Fischer shawl, made of Zephyr in the Basil shade. It's worn here by new friend Anita--well, she's Whit's friend but I'm adopting her because she's so nice. For the record, Anita is small and Dem Fischer is large so you may not get the whole magnificence thing but then again, maybe you do. And, on the one hand, DF, on the other hand ... one sock. Oh, well. If you want to know what I had to do with this project, well, first, I cheerled (is that the past tense of cheerlead?), and the value of that can't be underestimated. Second, I have NOT stuffed it in my own knitting bag and run off, though I've had several opportunities. So I feel like I have a real stake in the whole thing.





Actually, I'm not above thinking about snatching the shawl, moving to another city, and wearing it, saying in a modest tone, "why, yes, it IS handknit. Why do you ask?" I probably wouldn't actually do it, but I definitely think about it.






And here's a picture of the hill in our back yard, including the fish pond (in the front). We've just stocked the pond again, this time with anonymous fish. Maybe ONE of them will live to to tell the tale. But the hill looks nice, especially given that we're still in drought conditions here and can't water. And I can't take any credit or blame for this--it's all Mr. Pug, with supervision from the dogs.





Finally, speaking of dogs, here's the dog so ridiculous looking that we've almost started to think it's normal. Buddy. Mr. P and I went to PetSmart yesterday and checked out all the dogs for adoption, and they all looked less silly and more doglike and dignified than Buddy, even the beagle mixes and the chihuahua mixes and you get the point. He's absurd. And if you could see him in action, standing on his hind legs and wiggling like a kielbasa with Parkinsons, you'd really wonder if we'd lost our minds. And the answer is probably yes.