Whew!

Have you bought a car lately? A house, perhaps? Nah, neither have I.

In fact, I don't buy cars--if we get a new car, Mr. Pug handles it because I have almost no patience for all the $&*# that goes on--the negotiations, the bargaining, the pleading, the getting up to walk out and leave, the begging, the re-figuring of the price, the dragging the manager out with all that faked drama, the loan process. Nope, I'll drive my cars right into the ground to avoid the whole thing.

Back in the Dark Ages, I was a realtor, and I while I loved helping folks find their dream house, I hated, hated, hated the bargaining part.

I'm one of those people my daughters would call "old school," who just want to see the sticker and make a decision:  Yes, I can afford it, or No, not right now. Simple as that.

So I've been dreading the day when my cellphone contract would expire because ... I knew I would have to swim into the shark-infested waters of Telecom.

That Day Has Come.

I still thought I could escape the whole thing. I sent Mr. Pug to his carrier to have him add my cellphone to his contract and to find a solution to our internet-at-home issue. (Our internet has been down since we kicked our Bellsouth landline to the curb, and I can live with using the computer at work. Mr. P. cannot, apparently, live without internet service, although to my knowledge, he hasn't touched a keyboard at home since 1982.)

I told him what I wanted.

• add my cellphone to your coverage
• get a mobile broadband card and contract so we can have internet on the laptop
• get a plan that saves us money over our current plan.

He called to say, "it's totally settled--I've solved the problem--in fact, I'm your Knight in Shining Armor." "Meet me at T-Mobile," he said, "so we can pick out your new phone."

Could I trust him? I did.

Two-and-a-half hours later, we left, frazzled and disheveled, beaten up by the Telecom Gods.


Do we have internet at home? Yes, we do have a mobile broadband card. I installed it last night and it works, although I have to give up my Bellsouth account.

Do I have a new cellphone? No.

Do we have a new cellphone contract, family plan, etc.? No.


And here's why:

The Promise:

• We here at T-Mobile want to make your life better. No more contracts.
• No ugly commitments.
• Menu-driven plan that will save you hundreds of dollars a month.
• You get a really cool phone that will make you feel like you're 20 years younger.
• Great plans for $50 a month
• Love you, man!

The Reality:

• Yeah, we have a $50 plan
• Well, it's really $59.99
• Oh, wait that's for talk only. Oh, you want to text too?
• That's $99
• Oh, wait that doesn't include internet
• That's $139
• Plus $50 for the mobile broadband card
• Plus $200 for the phone
• Oh, you want a phone for free?
• That requires a contract
• Then your plan is $169
• But your cool phone is free
• Oh, $30 more a month isn't free?
• Oh, and the free phone really isn't the cool one--is that okay?
• That one--the Super Phone-- does cost a little extra
• And, of course, there's an extra charge for using the super-cool phone--yes, an extra charge every month
• And, wait did we mention the $10 a month charge if you drive a Chrysler?
• And the $5 a month if your hair is gray?
• And the $6.50 a month if you want to call anyone outside Georgia?
• And the fact that it takes up to a week to port your old number?
• And the fact that Mr. Pug apparently can't be bothered to add all the numbers up? Maybe he needs a new cellphone with a calculator.

I could get a health insurance plan through the Senate before I could get a new cellphone plan.

Oh, crap. I'll just keep my old phone, I guess, until I have the patience to go in there--without Mr. Pug--and work it out for myself.

Nanowrimo-no-no

What is it about me and pressure? Deadlines? Requirements? Commitments?

Yeah,  I know. I suck at all of them. It's embarrassing to say, but it's true.

For instance, it's wonderful to have a blog. Absolutely freeing to know I have an open place to lay it all out, write about whatever's on my mind, without any pressure to write. Just write when I feel like it, don't when I don't.

Believe me, if someone said, Woof, You Must Write 500 Words Every Thursday, I'd be running in the other direction. Because, I guess I'm commitment-phobic.

(I'm pretty sure that Mr. Pug would agree with this. And, okay, anyone who's viewed all my projects-in-progress could have told you this as well--it's not exactly a secret after all!)

So, why, why, why did I think that this year, unlike 2007 and 2008, I would be able to handle Nanowrimo? What? You haven't heard of Nanowrimo?

Simple enough. All over the world, professional and pre-published writers (I hate the word "amateur" in this context--it makes me think of being the last child called for the team in school) commit to try to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.

Thought I'd do it in 2007--failed. Thought I'd do it in 2008--failed. As for 2009--no chance at this point.

Let's do the math. 50,000 words divided by 30 days (remember 30 days hath September, April, June and November?) is 1,667 words a day. How difficult could that be?

And they don't even have to be the right words--the idea is to produce a first draft that you'll finalize later. The idea here is to get your novel down on paper in some form or another, or at least 50,000 words of it.

So, following the math example above, my word count for 11/20  should be about 66.67% complete, or 33,333 words.  Reality: 3,088, 5.52%. Not even 10% of the partial goal. (Can you tell that I'm a data cruncher in my other life? Would you like to see the Excel graphs demonstrating my failure? Nah, I didn't think so.)

Want to hear my excuses? Again, I didn't think so.

I think I'm going to declare a new individual, personal challenge, to try to get something in written form by the spring. Then I'm going to try to get to Malice Domestic the last week of April. (This could be a stretch given that Stitches South will be here the week before--I'm going to have to save some serious moolah but at least I have a place to stay at MD--someone in my old neighborhood would put me up, I'm sure.)

But it would be put me in the DC area at Maryland Sheep and Wool time. Hmmmmm.

Okay, so work, family, holidays--those damned holidays!--pugs, work, knitting, work -- no problem!

Notice how I'm already making excuses for why I can't make the new challenge?

No Excitement Here Folks!

No excitement here. The flood waters have receded, things are high and dry at Casa Pug, and we can move on.

Not that there weren't a few exciting days, in a relative sort of a way. I mean, I was a little concerned when I saw the pugs lining up two by two to go out the door in the mornings. And it's never a good thing to see Mr. Pug hanging from the rooftop in a monsoon, trying to find out what's causing water to pour out of the fireplace. But aside from some minor inconveniences, we were among the very lucky folks of my particular part of Sunny Georgia who got through the floods relatively unscathed.

Last weekend was rather ... er ... damp. Mr. Pug and I went to Tucker, GA to see a koi show. Now, for those of you who may be map-challenged, Tucker is approximately on the other side of the galaxy from Casa Pug, but the koi show is a once-a-year sort of a thing, we wanted to check out what's new in the koi world (not much as it turns out), and who knew we'd be traveling through water up to our eyebrows?

By the way, two things: First, to clarify, Tucker is on the other side of Anything, not just CP. It's one of those places that you don't know is there if you don't need to go there. And second, we didn't even buy a new koi. It turns out that a 500-year flood is not the ideal time to introduce a new, rather pricey, fish to your pond, especially if you're the sort of fish-owners who have lost most of their fish in the last year to inexperience and algae bloom, whatever that might be.

Anyway, rain on Saturday. Rain on Sunday. On Monday when I left for work, Mr. Pug was hanging off the aforementioned gutter checking out the aforementioned leak. The ride to work that day took approximately, oh, about six hours because Atlanta drivers still think they can drive 75 MPH through standing water. That afternoon when I left the office (or tried to, anyway), the little creek on the south side of the property was flooded to the top of the banks. Gazebo halfway under water. Water up to the little bridge. Roiling water. Uh, oh.

Turns out that someone had broken into my car while it was parked in the office parking lot.  (Well, actually, it was Mr. Pug's car -- yikes! Now he REALLY thinks I'm bad luck when I drive his car!)

Now, mind you, it had been monsooning all day--who goes out to commit a crime in a monsoon? Apparently it's not unknown.  When we looked at the video of the parking lot the next day, I could see a blurry image of a black car backing in next to my car, staying there for about two and a half minutes, and then driving out, apparently with my GPS system, Little Nuvi.  

(Little Nuvi has become a part of our family in the two years we've had her. In fact, she's the least dysfunctional member of  the family. She takes us everywhere and apparently has made us very lazy mapreaders while she was at it. She's the only thing that GOT us to Tucker in the first place, for instance--without her, we're never finding our way back. Also, when the police start closing ALL of the streets in your county, and the surrounding counties, it's almost impossible to find your way home without Little Nuvi. Nuvi -- I miss you!)

By the way, from Mr. Pug's point of view, the biggest deal is that they broke the driver side lock. I thought he was overreacting until I learned that I would be paying the deductible to fix the dratted thing.

Anyway, the scariest thing for me, once I'd called the cops and been told to wait--this might take a while, we're kinda busy right now, and no, we can't do this by phone, and no, tomorrow won't do--was that I couldn't find The Sock. Wait! The jerks took my knitting? Put up the umbrella, get out into the pouring rain, rump hanging out under the umbrella, and find that sock!  

Whew! It turned out that they'd emptied three knitting bags onto the floor apparently looking for cocaine or oxycontin or hundred dollar bills or cool CDs, but hadn't taken anything except Little Nuvi. 

What? You don't have three knitting bags in your car? Each full of uncompleted projects? Whatever!

Good news: I had knitting to work on while I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... for the cops. (They never did come; at the two-hour point I went home, figuring the sirens and flashing lights up on the main drag meant there were some bigger issues to deal with.)

Bad news: Apparently my knitting isn't good enough for Atlanta crooks. That's kind of insulting. On the other hand, maybe a partially knit sock isn't that appealing and they'll come back when both socks are finished.

It's something to look forward to. In the mean, here's The Sock--Zauberball from Only Ewe and Cotton Too. Have I mentioned that I'm crazy in love with the way the colors change? If only the sock could help me find my way back to Tucker, I'd be fine.

Pug Day Afternoon

Did you ever wonder what the expression "dog day afternoon" meant? Well, yeah, there was that Al Pacino movie, which I've mostly forgotten except that it had AP in it. But the original meaning had to do with the position of the Dog Star (Sirius) and was believed by the Ancient Romans to be a day in summer when people went mad and the seas boiled.


For a pug, it's a little different. Here's Lucy lying in the sunniest, dustiest part of the back yard, the place where the dogs have scratched off every bit of grass, catching a few rays. Mad? Maybe a little.







In other Nature news, some of you have been so good as to ask about the pond. You will recall that at one point last summer we had 20-some fish. Then tragedy struck and now ... three remain. The good news is that that's a constant number since last August or September. The bad news is that only one of the Big Two (originally Mr. Big and Biggie Smalls) survived the koi-o-clasm.


If you will look a little to the left of the center of the picture, you'll see Biggie Smalls, (he's the multi-colored one), who thus far has been a little more lucky than his namesake, the original Biggie Smalls, AKA The Notorious B.I.G., who was born about the time of the Dog Day Afternoon movie and went to the big koi pond in the sky about 25 years later, victim of an unsolved drive-by shooting. Confused? Yeah, me too.


Anyway, THIS Biggie Smalls survived a long winter under an ice crust along with two unnamed fishy buddies and now the hope is that they can survive Mr. Pug's endless tinkering with the water, plants, and algae levels.


I'll let you know.

The Church of the Knit Stitch

When I was a child, back in the dark ages of the 50s and the 60s, people’s religious affiliations were very much known and defined who they were and what they did on any particular day. For instance, my two best friends in the 6th grade were Jewish and Catholic. I knew that one went to Catechism class on Saturday and mass on Sunday. The other went to temple on Saturday and Hebrew School on Tuesday. Don’t go looking for them! They’re not available. As for me, I was Episcopalian, which was mostly weird to my friends—“we’ve never heard of it, we can’t spell it, and we don’t know anyone else who’s Epis…Epish…Epip … never mind!”


When we moved to suburban Maryland when I was in the 7th grade, our local parish church was a huge part of my life—I sang in the choir, attended services, picked strawberries for the annual Strawberry Festival, went on retreats with the youth group—so many of the people I knew were from the church. That continued through high school. Again, I knew the affiliations of many, if not most, of my school acquaintances. (I have to admit: I didn’t know any Baptists. They came into my life only when I moved south.) The bottom line: we all had an affiliation that might as well have been tattooed on our chests and we all sat in a pew of some sort and if you didn’t you were odd man out.


Over the years, although I still think of myself as an Episcopalian and still attend services on a sporadic basis, my religion no longer defines me – it’s simply one part of who I am. For me, my belief system is in a constant state of flux, and reflects the influences of many different religious and secular traditions and groups, both ancient and New Age. Think ancient Anglican rites with a Buddhist twang. As for my friends, I suspect they’re from many different religious backgrounds, though I really couldn’t say. I know some folks who attend regular services of one kind or another. I know a few who have very strong convictions and more power to them. Others have no apparent affiliation; a few consider themselves “recovering” from one type of religion or another. A recent survey of 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life noted that about 16% of those surveyed reported no affiliation at all, so I think it’s just part of a trend.


But we’re an amazingly spiritual group. Almost everyone I know on a daily basis has a rich spiritual life and a surprisingly large number of those folks regularly share their thoughts and hopes and beliefs with people they imagine or know to be open to hearing about them. I’m constantly amazed by the diversity of interests among those I know and those I come in contact with, and the openminded respect most people have for the belief systems of others. For myself, I really don’t care what your beliefs are, I’m just happy you’ve found something that makes you feel better about your life. And happy not to have you force it on me, thank you very much.


More and more, though, my spiritual life revolves around the simple activities in my life that aren’t necessarily found in my local mega-church. My spiritual advisors are the folks I come into contact with on a daily basis. My spiritual experiences are more likely to involve the joy that comes from seeing a butterfly in my back yard or a cherry blossom floating to the ground, and not necessarily a psalm written in a long-dead language. Or the pleasure of watching the yarn go around the needle over and over, making one stitch, then another, then a pattern repeat, then a row. One minute you’re knitting a tube, the next minute you’ve turned the heel. Your yarn has transformed from a ball to a garment. It’s changed. Life changes. We all change.


And the prayers of my childhood have morphed as I’ve aged, too. Now I’m just as likely to send a message to the universe through the knit stitch, as I knit a helmet liner for a soldier thousands of miles away or a pair of socks for a child I’ll never know or see. Knitting safety, knitting warmth, knitting love.


What brought all this up, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. This week, our knitting group celebrated a significant birthday with a member we’ve all come to know a little and like a lot. We waited to hear about the results of some medical tests, and, as we sat and knitted, we sent our good thoughts to her, reassuring that we would be here with her, knitting, no matter what the results meant. A woman I’ve come to care deeply about is home recovering from major surgery—we’ll sit with her this week and knit good wishes and love into our conversations, transmitting hope through the osmosis of knitting. Other friends have lost their jobs, or, praise the knit stitch, kept their jobs. This one’s husband is sick, that one’s is recovering from an illness. Someone’s waking up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack, someone's embarking on a new career or starting a business, someone else is fussing over the details of an upcoming event. We're all worried about money. And we're all knitting through these experiences, together.


And last night two friends passed on some love to me. They infused me with love as much as if they’d held my hands and prayed with me. They brought me a lovely children’s book about Dog Heaven that made me weep for my lost babies and at the same time remember that they’re not lost at all. They’re still with me. As a matter of fact, I was knitting away on a pair of socks this morning that have been on the needles for at least a year and I found a black pug hair woven into one of the socks. I'm currently out of black pugs, but I’d guess there’s a little black pug hair in most of what I own, and I’ll probably never be black-pug-hair-free. Whose hair was it? Bluto’s? Lightning’s? Doesn’t matter. I didn’t pull it out—I just kept knitting. But I felt the love.

Yes, We Can

As I watched video footage on CNN of jubilated revelers singing and dancing on U Street in Washington, DC last night I had a strong, vivid memory of U Street in April 1968—ablaze with hot and angry and disappointed men and women, looting and destroying in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination days before. Then, it seemed that hope had died with Reverend King. Now, it seems that hope is alive again.

Is it? Forty years later America has elected its first African-American president.

Amazing.

A huge bloom of first-time voters, young enough that King is only a black-and-white photo in a textbook, young enough that they never saw water fountains labeled “Colored” or restaurants with signs proclaiming “White Only,” stepped up to make a change. And people my age, who do remember the inequities with embarrassment, signed on too. And even some elderly people, some of whom remember the days when women couldn’t vote and some who have had their retirement savings shaken recently, voted for change.

Amazing.

But for me, the most amazing part is that, while race is perhaps the most visible element in this historic election, the election really wasn’t about race. It was about moving on, which is what Americans do best. For over 200 years, we have celebrated and wept, we have been driven to our knees by wars and recessions and even terrorism, and each time we’ve changed for the better.

The past few months have seen an ugly campaign. But now it’s time to move on. It’s time to put aside negativity and celebrate our ability to participate—one way or another—in a truly historic event. Yes, we can.

Holiday Knitting--Bah Humbug!

Why is it that I never think about holiday knitting until mid-October, and then it's too late to start? What's the deal with that?

Once again, I'm behind the eight ball, wishing I had time to do something holiday-ish and knowing that I don't.

And the real truth is that I really hate the December holidays, which happen in my particular case, with no disrespect to other ethnic or religious preferences, to be Christmas. I'm okay with Thanksgiving and I actually really like Halloween but ... Christmas ... I really don't like it much.

Oh, I want to, but for me it's just one more occasion to be reminded that you just don't have enough money or time or money or money to meet your family's expectations. And you don't feel merry.... or at least I don't.

But I still believe and I want to like it. So, every year I start to think about how much fun Christmas was when my daughters were small and I think ... maybe this year will be different. Maybe this is the year I'll make everyone a knitted stocking. Maybe this is the year that everyone will get a festive pair of socks or a hat or some mitts. Maybe this is the year I'll feel ready when it's time to start decorating.

Then, on January 2, when Mr. Pug is putting the tree away, I realize ... nah, not this year either.

What got this really unproductive, unhappy thinking started? Well, as usual, it has to be with my incredibly dysfunctional family--my sister Debbie in particular. Does she hate the holidays? No, of course not. She loves them ... and why wouldn't she? She's good at holidays. Her house is always festively decorated, her tree is always perfect (and real!), and she never feels pressed about gifts.

So, this is her fault. Because she's making stockings. And I'm sure they're going to be lovely.

In fact, I know they are because I ordered the patterns too (see above). Aren't they cute? Wouldn't they be cute if someone could actually finish them?

Maybe next year. Along with my little tree of knitted tiny sweaters I've always wanted to make but never have.

Hmmmm....what if I made a tiny sweater each time I knit a pair of socks? Then at the end of the year, I'd have ... tiny sweaters for a tiny tree.

Good plan for next year.

Attitude of Gratitude

Sad news this past week, as we learned that a friend had lost her husband to a heart attack. Two weeks ago, my sister's friend suffered an aneurysm and passed away. My favorite all-time audiobook narrator, Frank Muller, died earlier this month as a result of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in 2001. Tim Russert, George Carlin...the deaths of these two strangers who felt like friends shock us as if we had known them personally. I actually did meet Frank Muller a couple of times, several years ago when I lived in the DC area, and had a brief ongoing correspondence about audiobooks, and I'm so sad for his wife and children and for all the people who loved to hear him bring printed books to life in our cars and as we traveled. In fact, it it is so sad to see these "normal" events affect our friends and family, and even strangers. (I saw a sign outside a local chiropractic clinic about Tim Russert--a tribute in a space normally allocated to advertising the clinic's services. Amazing.)

So I am feeling very appreciative today for Mr. Pug, my family, my canine babies, and, of course, my friends. We have been extremely lucky that we haven't had any major tragedies in many years. Both of my parents are gone, as well as my Aunt Lib who was probably one of the most important people in my formative years. Other losses, but all many years ago. Right now, we are all healthy and reasonably happy.

So let's celebrate life. Here's some of what makes it all worthwhile today:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I keep taking pictures of my hibiscus flowers--they're so darned pretty I cannot resist them. If Georgia O'Keefe had lived in the East when she was painting flowers, she'd have painted this hibiscus!

Fish--see the fishies? Well, we're not exactly in the "Finding Nemo" category yet, but some of our fish are actually living, for a change. Despairing of our ability to raise Koi, since every one we'd put in our pond had died or disappeared, we put a bunch of small goldfish in about two weeks ago. Two miracles: (1) most of them are still living and (2) two of the Koi from last year have reappeared--they have very distinctive markings and are quite a bit larger than the newbies. I have no idea where they've been, or what they've been eating, since we stopped feeding them since we thought they were dead or MIA, but they look healthy and are zipping around with their new friends.

Next, Lucy. I don't know why her eyes look so much like hunks of turquoise in this picture, but she does have very distinctive eyes and maybe this is the best representation after all. Lucy is the quietest and most seemingly mature of the two girls, but every so often she'll clean Buddy's clock just to remind him who's boss.

Finally, friends. Just in this one week, I went to the Noble Knitters meeting at Barnes & Noble and that was just as nice as usual--dinner with some of the NKs beforehand and then an hour or so of sharing and knitting. Then lunch with Debra on Friday--it was her birthday and we used that as an excuse to sit and schmooze for a little longer than we might otherwise. (Fine! It was a LOT longer--sue me!) Then, yesterday I went on a mini-yarn crawl with Nancy, Ellen, Pat, and Marian. We had a sinfully good time visiting Knitch and Needle Nook and then stopping for a sweet treat (a berry scone in my case) at Harvest Breads. By the time I got home, I was positively warm with the friendship I had experienced. Who could want anything more?

Did You KIP?

Well, sort of. I meant to, and I actually got a few stitches in while finishing lunch with a friend (hi, Joyce!), but KIP? Really? Nah.

We meant to. We had good intentions, but you know how those things are. Joyce and I were on our way to KIP with some folks at Cast On Cottage but by the time we got there, the threatened rain had come to pass and we sat in our respective cars for over 20 minutes, KIA'ing. (That would be knitting in our automobiles for those of you who aren't acronym-savvy.)

But what in the heck is the point of Knitting in Public Day anyway? For me, it's sort of pointless. There are very few days that I don't KIP. It's something that many knitters do on a daily basis. That's because knitting is part of our lives, and of course, we do it wherever we are. We don't need a special venue. We knit in the line while we wait at the bank, some of us knit while we wait in traffic, we knit when we finish a meal or wait to be called for our table at a restaurant. I knit in the car today while Mr. Pug and I went for an early breakfast at IHOP to celebrate Father's Day. We do it because we're Knitters.

And when Debra and I went to the Decatur Library on Thursday to hear an author (Jeffrey Deaver!) speak, we knit at the table after dinner, knit through the author's presentation, and then sat quietly and knit after everyone else had left the auditorium. Knitting was the perfect dessert, it helped us pass the time before Mr. Deaver spoke, it helped us concentrate while he spoke, and then it seemed natural to keep knitting while we caught up on our lives at the end of the day.

So Knitting in Public Day, while sort of interesting, always confuses me. It makes knitting something odd or strange, like being a nudist for a day. (Which seemed more interesting to me when there was less of me, and it was less wrinkled.) People do it every day, we just don't see them do it. But knitting's different. Knitting is not an odd pastime, limited to a few weirdos--it's a Part of Life, Normal, Not Strange.

More of us are knitting all the time, or maybe we're just more visible. Sometimes it amazes me that Ravelry has over 130,000 members (139,040 as of today), and in another way, I'm not surprised at all. Many of the people I know (friends, sisters) knit. The Atlanta Knitting Guild has over 325 members. No big deal. And if 130,000+ of us are registered on one social networking site, how many more are knitting in shops or at home or in public and just aren't joiners? You gotta believe there are lots!

And the benefits are huge. I've been knitting since I was 10 or 11 (and we won't discuss how many years that has been!). I've been largely a solitary knitter, originally taught by my grandmother but really mostly self-taught from books and magazines and old tattered Red Heart pamphlets. That means I've learned a lot of things I probably shouldn't have learned over the years. Being around other knitters has helped unlearn some of those things.

Yesterday I attended a mini-workshop put on by the guild. Five of us learned some "tricks of the trade" from one of our much more experienced and more polished knitters (thanks, Jean!), and it was wonderful to sit with friends, knit together, and pick up a tip or two that will make life easier. Here's one of Jean's tips that's so simple you'll wonder why you haven't been doing it all along: When you're doing a series of increases or decreases, count out coilless pins or markers in the same number as the number of decreases. Pin them to another part of your work. When you complete the increase or decrease, add the coilless pin to the increase/decrease place. When you run out of markers, you're done. Now why is that so much simpler than just pulling out one pin after another and counting or marking tics on a piece of paper and then trying to keep track of the paper? I don't know, but it is!

So what am I knitting these days? I'll just start by saying, in a moment of embarrassed honesty, Not Much! I'm in one of those periods when I just don't seem to get much done, knitting or otherwise, and certainly nothing completed. But I do have some things OTN and a few things IMME (In My Mind's Eye) and it's as good a time as any to mention them.

First, I need to say that I've been working away on a pair of socks for a month or so. I love the yarn (J Knits from The Yarn Grove) and have been playing with the whole concept of toe-up socks--trying all the cast-ons and heels and trying to figure out which one I really love. I finally found the right combination for me, I think, though I just got my copy of Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks Warm Feet and she has some good ideas there, too. Anyway, I was working away on Sock #2 when disaster struck, in the form of two dogs that I was dogsitting over Memorial Day. Actually I went to Charlotte to babysit but ended up with two dogs, too. So here's the score: Kids 0, Dogs 2.

So this picture is actually three projects, because when I put what I am now calling the Memorial Day Disaster into my knitting bag, the two destroyed projects actually became entangled with a third project which is now caught up in the whole MDD thing. So, from top to bottom, 1-2/3 socks, now in the process of being detangled and rewound. The red and black thing is a multidirectional scarf which is the Innocent Victim of the group. Finally, at the bottom is a Noro cabled bag. The main part of the bag is complete and the strap is on needles (at the very bottom). I guess that someday I'll go back there and figure it all out, but for today it looks bleak for three projects.

Then, of course, I continue to plug away at my Tess diagonal vest. I love this project but I've just reached the point where I've made all the diamonds the pattern calls for and, oddly, the darned thing doesn't fit around me. Two things--first, I knew that I was knitting the diamonds at a slightly smaller gauge than called for (using 7's instead of 8's), but I liked the fabric much better so I just kept on keeping on. Not the designer's fault. Second, my body seems to be larger than I remembered. Again, can't blame this on anyone but me (and maybe McDonald's). Luckily, it's a modular pattern and I'll just add another row (or two or three) and eventually it'll circle the globe, to coin a rather unfortunate metaphor.

Next, the new Toe-Up Sock of the Day. I seem to be suddenly rather poor, but I couldn't resist this Opal Rendez-Vous from The Yarn Grove. Love those girls! And it's really Jane's fault for bringing the darned stuff to the Noble Knitters group one Wednesday night right after the MDD. I cast on Thursday, sitting with Debra, tore it all back down yesterday after I figured out that 68 stitches was going to be too big (why are my feet normal size and the rest of me so, Not?). So back down to 64 and it's going to fit much better. And I love this yarn!!!!!! It fits with my new focus on green.











So, speaking of green ... Jelly. All of my friends are making really complex shawls. They bring them to knitting gatherings and I'm suitably impressed but can't compete in this arena at the moment. My brain in its current configuration just won't handle this. But this new pattern from Knitty, called Seascape, looked do-able. Of course, it calls for the dreaded Rowan Kid Silk Haze, which I have sworn never to use again, but ... Jelly. 'Nuff said. Jelly. From Cast On Cottage, where a valiant group of knitters sat out in the sunshine yesterday and KIPped, but without Joyce and me. Not OTN, yet.









And, finally, another Knitty pattern, Helena. And the rather sublime, er, Sublime yarn, for the not-yet-met-but-sublime-by-every-report Ruby, my new grandniece. The Sublime, which is machine wash but lay out to dry, seemed to be a reasonable choice for a new mother--sort of a PITA but not entirely. At least it can go in the machine. The Sublime is from Needle Nook.



Finally, a note of another sort. If you're going to put something really cool on your cellphone as music to be heard while the caller is on hold, don't choose "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones, just because your new granddaughter's name is Ruby. This just makes the callers a little nuts when they realize that all that is going through their small, empty minds for the next few months is "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, who could hang a name on you?" (I suppose it's marginally better than "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" but not by much.) Thanks a lot, Deirdre. And Mick!

Yes, I'm Still a Knitter

And a good thing I am. Being a job hunter isn't working out that well, and being a pet owner has definitely been a challenge this month. But knitting is one of those things that I do when things are good and when they're awful.

So what's on the needles? Well, of course, that darned Modern Quilt Wrap is still just about where we left it last...which is to say, no progress since I returned from The Mountain, a month ago. There's no point in taking another picture because, let's face it, no news is ... just no news.

And the EZ Baby Surprise is likewise stymied.

I'm almost at the end and the instructions say, "now add the buttonholes." EZ says to put buttonholes on both sides but that's because she was knitting in a time when we didn't know what gender our babies would be. I know this baby is a girl but I'm so spatially challenged that I can't figure out which side to add them to. So here it sits, waiting for me to get past that point.

As for Hanami, there is progress. I'm finally on Chart F. Once I finish that one, I need to do 2 repeats of Chart G and it's done. It might actually get finished. Whew! I've enjoyed it but now that I'm fairly sure that no one is going to actually wear it, at least in the foreseeable future, it's getting to be somewhat of a slog.

Yes, I know this photo is difficult to see--off-white shawl on beige carpeting is definitely not ideal--but can you see where the number of holes (the falling cherry blossoms) is getting greater toward the end? That part of it is actually pretty exciting.

Finally, I've committed to three items for the January-March sweater challenge for Children in Common and have only completed two, both vests. So I've cast on for a very simple sweater and am hoping to get it in the mail by the 31st--actually, I think I'll probably be finished later tonight or tomorrow. It's a side-to-side design and only one sleeve is missing. (What cannot be seen in this photo is that the color of the sweater (which we'll call Washington Redskins gold for lack of a better reference) exactly matches the gold color in the Knitpicks Harmony needle the sweater is being knit on.)

So how embarrassing is it that I can't seem to finish anything, even the smallest project, and all my friends are just pumping out huge complex lace shawls? Pat and Ellen are in a close competition on at least two knitalongs, both of them amazingly complicated, and both are almost finished. I'm putzing and not getting anything done. Oh, well.

What have I been doing? Well, the job search is still ongoing. I've had several interviews that went (I thought) well, but no job. One position I was interested in has been put on hold, temporarily or permanently--it's not clear. So that one's out. And another one--well, I keep being told that I'm not quite qualified for it. I guess I should read someone's lips on that and give it up. But I continue to press on.

What else? Well, I've been desultorily involved in working on the guild's nominating committee for next year--desultorily because I thought we had a slate of candidates--or most of one--identified. Then something happened and all of a sudden we're back at Square One. Amazing how difficult it is to find folks who want to serve an organization--selflessly--that has served them for almost 23 years.

Speaking of the guild, Janet Szabo came to teach last week. I was signed up for classes but had to cancel because of Lightning's illness. I did get to attend the guild meeting where she spoke and she was wonderful. I went right home and ordered her finishing book (The 'I Hate to Finish Sweaters' Guide to Finishing Sweaters) and her newsletter, Twists and Turns. Even before I read Janet's book on Cables and her book on how to design an Aran sweater, I've been thinking about making another Aran. (The last one I knit left with the ex-husband and that was 21 years ago!) I've got a bee in my bonnet about using Black Water Abbey yarn for it--but before I commit to that cost and project time, I need to finish a lot of other things. But I have to say that Janet was very inspiring. Although I completed three Arans, some 30 years ago, I certainly did not understand the complexity of designing an Aran, including selecting the particular cables to be included, or planning how those cables would behave when they encounter a seam or shaping feature.

I also just finished reading Donna Druchunas' book Arctic Lace, and highly recommend it, It's not really a technique book, like Janet's books, but more of a documentation of the efforts to preserve the musk ox and the old patterns of the Alaska native Americans. The musk ox is the source of quiviut, the incredibly soft, incredibly expensive, fiber made from the downy undercoat, and was at one time in danger of extinction. Likewise, many Alaskan knitters have put down the traditional patterns and their knitting due to pressures to travel long distances to work and support their families. If you're interested in reading more about this subject, go to Donna's website for more details.

Speaking of reading and books, Debra and I went to the Decatur Library this week to hear Mary Kay Andrews, aka Kathy Trocheck. I will be the first to admit that I'm not usually a huge Chick Lit fan (I like Kathy's cozy mysteries more), but MKA's Hissy Fit got to me. And Deep Dish, her newest is fun, too. It's about a Southern cook who wants to move from regional public television (in Atlanta, of course) to a fictional version of the Food Network. She was delightful and Debra and I had a nice evening, catching up over dinner and knitting through MKA's talk and reading.

Tomorrow is the Helmet Liner knitin. I need to finish the CIC sweater so I can cast on for another helmet liner. I have quite a stock of Paton's Merino in neutral colors, which is perfect for these liners. (I also have a bunch of Cascade 220 but using that would require breaking out the swift and winder and I'm pretty sure that isn't happening before tomorrow.)

And that reminds me that Janet Szabo scandalized the guild's members by letting us in on her favorite yarn for knitting cables: Lion Brand Wool. Most of us are pretty ingrained yarn snobs and the thought that the gorgeous sample she passed around had been knit in ... no, don't even say it ... yarn from Michael's ... caused an immediate hushed intake of breath. I thought I felt the earth shake, but it might only have been the collective shudder emanating from the LYSOs in the room. Once we all touched the sweater, however, we had to agree--great cable definition, beautiful sweater, soft yarn. At least she didn't send us all out to buy Red Heart!

Mindfulness - My 2008 Intention

One of the basic concepts of Buddhism is Mindfulness. It's one of those concepts that seems so simple but is, for me at least, very difficult. It relates to living in the moment and being aware of and appreciating what is happening at any given time. Obviously, I've oversimplified the idea, which is very complex and is the subject of many books, but this blog isn't the place for a tedious (for you, not me) explanation or discussion of spiritual principles.


For now, let's just say that I've been thinking for quite awhile about things I can do to improve the quality of life around Pug Manor and bring a little peace and tranquility into the chaos that seems to characterize my own life. Right now, for instance, I'm awash in fears about my job (and not having one), about money, and about how I'm going to spend the next however many years I've got. I've been doing what my father would have called "soul searching." And one of the issues that I've identified is that I'm constantly chasing things that I think will make my life better, and I seldom catch anything of lasting value.


Every year I make a huge list of New Year's Resolutions. The word "resolution" implies use of resolve, which in turn implies commitment. But every year, those resolutions, once written down, are ignored until about December 28 when I suddenly realize I haven't done squat toward them. So this year, a new idea (a resolution, if you will): NO NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS.


Instead, Mindfulness. Here's where I'm going with this whole thing:


Mindfulness about my choices and how they impact others. Everything we do has an effect on others, whether intentionally or accidentally. For instance, an unkind word can hurt someone's feelings unnecessarily. An accumulation of negative thinking can make me more negative. In a more global way, our choices can impact the sustainabilty of our planet. For me, I can work on controlling things like my temper, what I say or write, my driving speed, my consumption of our Earth's natural resources, where the products I buy come from.


Mindfulness about food and eating. I tend to eat when I'm bored or anxious, and when I do that, I seldom think about whether I'm making the right choice. (It actually feels a lot like the way I used to drink and smoke--lighting up cigarette after cigarette to keep my hands busy and my mind still.) It's a fact that when I'm speeding through a drive-thru, I'm not thinking about calories or whether I'm eating something with unhealthy additives or how many miles I'm going to have to walk to burn up that Big Mac. In 2008, I'd like to eat when hungry, stop when I've had enough, and be aware of what I'm eating and really enjoy it. It's also important to realize how that food got on my plate and at what cost. I might eat less if I actually listened to my body about what I was putting in it. (And who could be more concentrated on her eating than Lightning?)



Mindfulness about money. I have earned all my own spending money since the age of 13 and sometimes I get that "well, it's my money and I'll damn well do what I want to" attitude. I tend to be wasteful and I certainly don't save enough. I need to work on knowing, really knowing, where I'm spending money and finding ways to save more. I can use up some of what I have, get rid of what I don't need, and appreciate what remains.


Mindfulness about other people. While I'm spending all that money on whatever-the-hell-I-please, and eating fast food and such, there's a lot of poverty and hunger in the world. I can't solve it all, but I can be more aware of opportunities to assist others. I throw things away every day that someone at the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children could use. I can volunteer to help someone learn to read. I would like to be the person I think I am -- generous and caring--instead of the person I fear I am--lazy and wasteful and too "busy" to help others. And I can use some of that yarn I've been stockpiling for people who need warmth.


Finally, Mindfulness about the "now." I want to take the opportunity to enjoy my surroundings and what I'm doing. I often "quiet" my mind with mindless reading, TV, or internet blather rather than allow it to be aware of what's going on around me. I often knit while I read blogs while I listen to podcasts. No wonder I feel so ADD most of the time--my mind is full of stimulation with little peace. This year, I want to enjoy the peacefulness of my knitting, thinking about the stitches and the pattern and the yarn, how those elements transform string to a beautiful or useful object, and the person who will use it.

2008 Here I Come!

What, you ask, does that cute little picture of a squirrel storing nuts away in her hidey-hole have to do with me and this blog? Hah! Should be obvious!

As I look around my office--or, as we will refer to it here, the stockroom--what I see is 40+ years of storing nuts, er, yarn, away for the winter.

What the heck was I thinking? I'd like to be able to tell you that I was extremely prescient and knew that one day I'd be happy to have yarn to knit from because I had no money and all the time in the world to knit, but I can't lie to you. Nope, I just kept buying because I love the stuff and can't resist it. (I wish my savings account reflected this same commitment to stash-addition.) I can look at these yarns and say to myself, "ahh, I bought that at Stitches at Valley Forge, many years ago."

Well, okay... now is the time for the squirrel to take some of these nuts out of the hole and start working her way through the hoard. Last year I foolishly thought I would join the 2007 Knit From Your Stash movement. Nah--far from reducing the stash, it grew exponentially. I lost my mind, I think. For some reason, the minute I tell myself I can't have something, I MUST HAVE IT. (My weight demonstrates that this practice is not limited to yarn.) This year, with no paychecks for the foreseeable future, I better get going on the stash.

The two yellow baskets are just lace yarn. What the heck was I thinking? I never even knit a piece of lace until February 2007---how could I have accumulated all that lace yarn? Let us remember: I don't even WEAR shawls. How many could I possibly need? I'll have to start using lace shawls as wall hangings, or wadding them up to use as hot pads and dishcloths, for God's sake!

And, by the way, look at all this crap....er, uh, stuff. And this is only most of it, not all of it, just the office stuff. There are several more baskets of yarn in the bedroom. So, two things: First, it's a mess. When we moved into this house, a couple of years ago, it was beautifully organized and clean, and I was really proud of my well-organized stash. Everything was tidy and most of it was contained. Now there's stuff every whichwhere, tossed up against things, flung across the top of shelves, stuffed into drawers, crammed into baskets, falling out of boxes and project bags. That needs to change--how can I even begin to use this stuff up without being able to find it?

Second, it tells me that I've been buying carelessly. It's a sure sign that you don't value something properly when you bring it home, toss it into a basket or bucket, and never think of it again. I can feel my mother twitching in her urn, trying to get out those familiar words about starving children in Armenia. Do you think there are desperate knitters in Armenia just wishing they had my stash of fuschia acrylic and purple mohair?

NOTICE: I am going to TRY to knit down the stash. You heard me: I am going to TRY not to buy yarn and use what I have. I have 40 years of yarn, folks! I should be able to find SOMETHING to knit.

Exclusions: I'm sure if I get to SAFF and MSW, I'll buy. There's just no way around that. But I can be a lot more discriminating--I don't need to come home with stuff just to have it. And if I have to buy for a specific gift item, I probably won't have a choice. And, needless to say, patterns don't count. (At least I don't have to stoop to Wendy Johnson's obvious quibble last year--she said "sock yarn doesn't count." Luckily I have--literally--yarn for about a hundred pairs of socks, so I don't have to make up any crazy exceptions for sock yarn.)

So, I have lots of lace yarn, LOTS of sock yarn, and enough worsted and sportweight yarn for at least one major sweater and two or three vests. I have plenty of both wool and acrylic to knit for charity--CIC needs all wool but there are many charities that want acrylic hats, etc. for washability. I should be able to knit for awhile before I feel the pain.

Update -- Too Long so I'll Summarize

How can it be 3 weeks since I updated this? Well, a lot has gone on since December 6, some of it crappy and most of it great.

To summarize:

(1) Haley's birthday party in Charlotte -- Good. Finished Jitterbug mitts which were well received. (Bad: both daughters now want mitts -- in black! @@$^% and both younger granddaughters want mitts, too. That's four pairs!)





















(2) Job over -- Crappy. Very emotional days at The Big Corporation, as it folds onto itself in a Super Slo Mo implosion. As of the 21st of December, I'm finished there. Got my vacation time paid out and, of course, I forgot about 401(k) deductions being huge, so check was smaller than I anticipated. Bad. But at least I got the check. Good.


(3) Christmas over -- Good. Christmas in Charlotte with family was chaotic and crazy, but good for the most part. Lots of noise and no knitting but (a) it's over and (b) we don't have to do it again until next year. And (c) it's over. As I have gotten older (er, more mature), Christmas has morphed from a time of anticipation into a time of unmet expectations (not mine--I have few expectations about holidays, but I never seem to be able to meet other people's expectations, or think I don't.) I'm ready for it to be over. (The Grinch seems to be back.)


(4) Bumper cars -- Ugh. Mr. Pug was nice enough to let me drive his car to Charlotte for Christmas and I brought it back with a crunched rear bumper. A friend, driving to breakfast behind me, rearended me. No injuries except to the car. Mr. Pug was very nice about it but wants it fixed NOW. I can't blame him.

(5) Christmas with Mr. Pug and the babies -- Good. No knitting-related gifties but I did get a good laugh. Both Mr. Pug and Jake gave me digital photo frames. You just can't have too many of those things--in fact, I'll have one in the bedroom and one in the office. The laugh came when I opened up Mr. Pug's version. "Oh," said I, "wonderful--now I can have a 24/7 slideshow of all my yarn." Mr. P visibly blanched and I had to quickly reassure him that I was just kidding (as if). And I was--I'll use his for family and pugs. The slideshow will go on Jake's (in the office where it won't annoy Mr. P.)







(6) After Christmas shopping -- Good. What to do when you don't get knitting-related gifts? Go shopping. In my case, I went straight to Bass Pro Shops on my way home from Charlotte, where I upgraded my knitting needle storage solution.

The one on the bottom is the old case, Xtreme Worm Binder, which has one space like a giant ring binder, with ziploc pouches to hold your fishing supplies and zipper compartments to hold other fishing-type thingies. (I have no idea what those might be!) I have used it for about three years to hold my needles, squishing all my DPNs and circs into pouches, separated by size, and filling all those pockets with tapestry needles, knitting markers, etc. At this point, I can only zip it shut with the most xtreme hassle because--surprise, surprise--I have too many needles. So, the upgrade to a double sided bag (upper one) was overdue. Now I have the DPNs in the front side, each size in its separate pouch, and the circs in the back side, ditto.


(7) Friends -- Good. When I moved to Atlanta six-and-a-half years ago, I thought I was in durance vile, sentenced to leave all my friends, family, etc. As so often happens, it has turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, as I've made a whole new group of friends that I would hate to leave. (So I guess it's okay that the Savannah job didn't happen -- NOT!) I have been moved to tears by the caring and loving expressions of friendship from this group of Atlanta knitters -- I hope I can share that much love with someone else over the next years, to help them share a point in their life when things aren't going so well. Love you guys!

(8) But -- Crappy. I still miss my faraway friends and family. Deirdre and Debbie are too far away (2000 and 600 miles respectively). So is Connie. So are Linda and Cathy and Nydia. I don't get to see them very often and I hate that. I miss being around for all the family events--I will go to Virginia for my niece Caitlin's wedding in March and then again for nephew Andrew's baby, to be born in April, I think. (All those doggy toys and treats that the pugs are playing with came from Linda and Cathy--AKA "the other moms" and "the flatmates.")

(9) Job -- Ugh. Don't even ask. Nothing going there at this point, but I have to admit that I haven't done much in the past week or so. The job market has been dead but I'm hoping it will pick up after the holidays are over. Not to worry at this point.

(10) Atlanta Knitting Guild -- Good. December meeting was fun--it's one of two potlucks we have every year and also the day we present dressed bears to a group that uses them for traumatized children. This year was a light year -- only 130 bears -- but that's still 130 children that will have something to comfort them when something bad happens.






This is the one I did. Yes, I know, I'm bad -- only one. And here she is, comforting Brett. (Brett, that's just SO wrong.)



The best part of the Atlanta Knitting Guild is that I get to be the liaison with the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children. This month (again!), the members came through with so much stuff that it completely filled my car (or Mr. Pug's car, if you want to be exact). One non-member even sent 18 handknit children's sweaters. When I took them to the shelter, one of the men working there said, "oh, my! a bunch of children will have a nice Christmas present!" I am so appreciative of the generosity of people--knitters are amazing!

Overall Score: GOOD

Attitude of Gratitude

For several years, before we started to pass the food at Thanksgiving dinner and after saying grace, I terrorized my daughters, and any unfortunate guests, by making each person around the table tell what they were grateful for. The answers, as often happens when hungry folks are put on the spot and denied mashed potatoes, ranged from truly banal to gloriously provocative. Sometimes they even (amazingly!) created conversation fodder. What a treat! I have always loved hearing what was going on inside other people's minds.

This year, for the first time I can remember in about 30 years, I won't have control of that table and I won't be able to put anyone on the spot. But I still rule the roost here, and can do what I want. So, I'll terrorize you by telling you what's on my mind, just for a change.

I'm grateful for, in no particular order, and with the understanding that the list is incomplete:

- Spit. I'm knitting a Lotorp bag (Noro Revisited, I think) and when you knit with Noro, you better have an ample supply of saliva to spit-splice all the knots. My bag, about half complete, has way more of my spit than I had originally planned. On the other hand, if my body is ever discovered in a strange place, ID missing, in close proximity to the Lotorp, please feel free to use it for DNA testing.

But damn, that Noro is gorgeous!

- The November birthdays are done. As in complete, over, finished, put your wallet back into your purse. In my family, three biggies among the immediates: Jake, KC and Kerrigan. (And several more among the next-to-immediates.) Let me just say that after one weekend that included KC's birthday (NASCAR Speedpark) and Kerrigan 's (Monkey Joe's), I'm exhausted. No more birthdays until Haley and Deirdre in December. Whew!

- Measles, or more particularly, having had measles Back in the Day, or, as they were known then, The 50's. The only thing worse than being at Monkey Joe's for a birthday party is being there with a child who is unexpectedly spotty and whiny and hot and who turns out to be highly contagious. We're lucky we escaped with our lives. (There's a certain irony in having your child GET measles from the shot that was supposed to innoculate him from it, but then that's a fact that some people learn from their flu shots every years. I'm still a believer.)

- Family. As a whole, we're all pretty healthy, but there are always worries in any family. This is the year that my oldest nephew Mike had a terrible bicyling accident in the course of his duties as a police officer. He's going to be okay and for that I'm almost pathetically grateful. Jake's mom's and stepfather's health have been chancy this year and I'm glad they're doing better. We've got a wedding coming up in March (Caitlin and Bobby) and a new baby in April (Sarah and Andrew's). My two sisters are doing well. All the grands are growing up, intelligent, mouthy, beautiful--perfect in every way. My two daughters have been through tough times this year and they're both stronger for it. We are extremely lucky!

- L'Occitane en Provence Hand Cream. It's officially cold weather, although here in Georgia that's relative. But my hands know it, and they are dry, cracked, chapped. My hangnails have hangnails. And, if there was even a drop of moisture in my skin before, the aforementiond Noro has removed every trace. And don't be thinking that all that spit I'm slathering on my spliced ends is helping. The Noro has sucked all that up, along with any moisture native to my skin. And L'Occitane isn't cheap--a smallish tube, tinier than the average infant's foot but still too large to be carried onto an airplane because it qualifies as a Weapon of Mass Destruction, costs about $650 and is worth every penny. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you know what I mean.

- Military Personnel. One day this week, I flew to Savannah and back in one day (for a job interview that will probably go nowhere). And the airports were everything you have heard and seen on the news--ugly, crowded, noisy, filled with many lovely and some quite nasty folk. (It's never a good sign when you're greeted at the airport entrance with the news that the place is such a zoo that Meredith Viera is reporting on the chaos Right Now, From Right Here in The Airport, Yes, That's What I Said, Right Here!!!!!) But back to the military. On both planes, there were numerous military personnel, traveling on leave to visit with their families before returning to Iraq. The man sitting next to me on one plane was on his way to Savannah to get married on Saturday before going back to Iraq on Monday. I felt quite teary to see all these folks who are working so hard to keep my life so peaceful here at home. Thank you to all who serve our country. And, because I'm a patriot, I won't mention that we wouldn't be there at all if folks in Florida knew how to count votes.

- Grandchildren. Well, I know I mentioned some of them earlier, but I am especially grateful because I have eight of the little suckers, after all, ranging from 2 to 21. And what they are best at is putting it all in perspective. When you're feeling a little down, like the world sucks and you can't find a job and you're too fat and you just dropped a stitch, for heaven's sake, there's nothing quite like a grandchild's hug to take your mood back up a few notches. And, if your ego needs a little downsizing, the comment that will do it is this one: "Duuuuuude, what did you do to your hair color? Man! What were YOU thinking?"

Gotta love it.

- Pugs. What can you say? A life without a pug is just plain bleak, unthinkable, a wasteland of infinite proportions. Life with four pugs, on the other hand, is a little unthinkable some days too. It takes all my meager powers to be grateful for Bluto when he starts his howler monkey imitation, which he does when he cannot see me sitting ten feet from him and therefore he believes himself to have been abandoned. But that's a story for another day.

-Low Drama, High Darhma. Things are quiet around Chez Pug, and in my life. Oh, occasionally there might be a brief scuffle over ownership of a stuffed toy or a chewie, or maybe a serenade from the howler pug and the other members of his quartet, but basically life is good. No conflicts, no anxiety (well, maybe a little about the J-O-B situation, but it's still minimal). I'm trying to live mindfully these days, taking note of the effects of my actions on others, and being aware of my blessings in life. When I hear about the drama in other people's lives, I'm just really grateful to be out of that particular fray. Yesterday morning I sat out on the knitting perch (yeah, it was kind of chilly but not too bad--remember that in Georgia, everything's relative), just knitting and enjoying the yard. The leaves were falling, spectacularly in a whirlygig fashion, dropping noisily onto the ground. The bird feeder and squirrel tray had customers lined up for the seeds and suet. The pugs were on patrol and I talked on the cellphone with Mr. Pug, who's visiting his family in Salt Lake City. Drama? Not here. Life is damned good.



- Finally, the knitting community. My life is enriched every day by the knitters I know. They are amazing people, for the most part, generous and friendly and loving. And thanks to the Atlanta knitting shops for that wonderful Shop Hop these past two weeks. I missed a few shops I wanted to get to, but having a job, looking for a job, and family obligations kept me away. Sometimes you've got to prioritize, and yarn doesn't always win. (Mostly, but not always.) But I had fun and hung out with a lot of nice people and it was a great event. And I love all those knitters I knit with every day, and the ones I just read about on their blogs, and the ones who post fabulous pictures on Ravelry. I love our community's charitable work. (A special shout-out to the new knitting ministry at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Sedona. Good work, guys!) Basically, I'm grateful for all of you--you're all exceptional people.

This is just so wrong ....

I was on the phone with Eldest Daughter today and I mentioned that I would be available to take a call later in the day if she needed me, saying "After all, I have nothing to do at work anyway."

Her response: "Oh, don't go all Eeyore on me!"

Now I ask you? Have I been Eeyore?

Fine...I probably have. But I didn't need to be reminded, exactly.

Rats and Other Matters

Rat

No, I'm not going all rodent-y on you. (Not that rodents are a bad thing...but when you have four small furry things underfoot at all times, you really don't need more. And if its tail doesn't curl, it doesn't belong here.)

The Rat in question is this one:





Rat (AKA Devit) turned up our in front yard yesterday morning, just as I was leaving for work. He was limping, but very friendly, and rolled right over on his back to have his belly rubbed. His tag said his name was Devit and that he lived on the western side of the county (we're on the very eastern edge). We called his owner and she said something to the effect of "no, you can't have my dog--my dog escaped yesterday and the county shelter picked him up last night." Uh, no...he's here.


We put Rat, whose name is NOT Devit, in the back yard with the pugs and he went right to the pond and copped a drink. Now, right away this is a unique situation for us. The pugs walk up to the water, look (down) into it, and very quickly get that they will fall in if they try to drink. Rat just put his snout into the bubbler thingy and drank his fill.

When his owner showed up a short while later (and no, I never did get to work), we sat in the back yard and schmoozed for awhile. She was a lovely person who said she has two ponds, er, water features, in her yard and so, of course, Rat knew right away how to belly up to the bar. She also said that, although he has an invisible fence collar, he escapes regularly. I think this might be the farthest he's gotten. (Apparently he'd been a guest of the county animal warden but had managed to escape from them as well. How he got to our yard is a matter of luck, I guess.)

One thing I've learned living in the south: dogs roam. You see them all over the place, walking along the side of the road. Sometimes, unfortunately, you see them dead by the side of the road. I'm hoping that Rat won't end up that way, but I fear for him.

In other animal news, darned if those invisible fish didn't pop right up and show themselves off for Rat's owner. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of them since I put them in there last week, and they flaunted themselves like hussies for a stranger. Of course, that might be because we took an awful lot of pond lettuce out to give to her and that made things a little less crowded, but I saw three of them today, too.

Atlanta Knitting Guild

Our monthly guild meeting was Thursday night and, as usual, it was an incredibly fully packed night of activities. Here are some of them:

- Debra brought The Big Sock and several members knit on it. It's only here for another week or so, then it goes back to Rochester, NY and then on to ... well, who knows where. I'm going to accompany Debra and TBS to two knitting groups south of Atlanta this week.

- The Botanical Garden Scarecrow (which, for some reason, I keep calling the "Squarecrow" since it's made of knitted squares) was in attendance--at least its head was. It has to be in place at the Botanical Garden by about the third weekend of September so there's a lot of activity around getting it complete. Elizabeth and some others have been very busy already! (My teeny tiny contribution is a dark red rectangle which will be on the upper left side of the back.)

- We held a book raffle to benefit the library and about $325 was raised. That money will be used to augment the small library budget and buy new books, DVDs, etc.

- Of course, we had a terrific speaker, Jan Stephens, who spoke about how to alter a sweater pattern.

- There were two Mystery Stoles in evidence, mine and Pat's. They are so different and yet the same pattern--I love how that works. I enjoyed swanning about in mine (a little swan humor).

- Andrea has been our liaison with the Atlanta Day Shelter for Women and Children for several years. The shelter is one of our special projects and we raise money through raffles at least once a year and every month members bring donations. The shelter is a place where women can come during the day to clean up, learn basic office skills, get assistance with finding housing or work, or just have a safe place to be with their children. This month, I took over Andrea's role. I took Mr. Pug's car and filled up the back with donated toiletries, household goods, and clothing. Yesterday I drove to the shelter to turn the items in. I've missed doing service work and I'm excited about finding ways to volunteer with this incredible group of people. A good reminder of how lucky most of us are.

MS3 Happy Dance!

MS3 is complete AND blocked! Yesterday I was complaining that it looked, in the words of Claudia, like boiled a&*, and today it looks like a stole....one knit by someone who actually has a clue. I'm very pleased with it. Thank you, Melanie. I'll just bore you with a few more pix of it and then I'm done, I swear.

For instance, here's the motif on the pointy end:




And here's that wing we were all so afraid of...what were we thinking? It looks like it could swoop up into the sky and take off on the first breeze!




Finally, here's sort of what I think it might look like wrapped around me. Now all it needs is Romi's feather pin.





And, contrary to what you might think from reading the above, there IS life outside MS3:

Here's the most gorgeous flower popping up in the middle of the pond, er, uh, water feature. These guys have been appearing and then, within 24 hours, they're gone. And, by the way, does it looks to any of you like there are 7 fish in here? Nope, me either. But that's how many I've put there in the past two weeks. I'd be happy to see ONE, for heaven's sake.






Mr. Pug is making good progress on the sunroom addition. Now if he just wasn't using the knitting perch as a tool storage unit ... oh, well.










I got good photos of all the pugsters today, but here's Lightning, since she's the queen and all. (that's the top of Lulu's head you see at the bottom--she's such a ham!)