Variety

I've reached the lice portion of the body on the Dale and decided to take a break from working at such tight gauge. I dug out some laceweight merino (Baruffa FaRe) and cast on for a table runner, utilizing the lessons I learned in Joan Schrouder's class. I won't do borders on the sides, keeping the edgings for just the ends. The center portion is a simple YO, k2tog on alternating rows, shifting the eyelets over one stitch. The edging is from the class. I had thought about putting beads on it, but decided against it, wanting something simple to work on while watching the idiot box.

I went out this morning to get in a little exercise and wandered down to the corner where the city is busy putting in street improvements. The corner of Sandy and 45th has no street controls for cars or pedestrians other than stop signs at 45th. Crossing there on foot is precarious except during the wee hours of the morning. I used to do it when I worked earlier in the day but at the hours I work now it's too hazardous. The island they will put in the center of the street will at least give pedestrians a fighting chance to getting halfway across.

It's not often one gets to observe construction without obstruction or time limitations. The fellow operating an excavator with a bucket thumb was very skilled in my eye, using the teeth of the bucket to nudge these hunks of asphalt-covered concrete out of place, lift them, then dump them into a waiting truck. Some pieces would be too large to lift or intractable, so he'd use the bucket to crack them into more manageable pieces. Other times he'd have a piece just a little off balance and he'd flip the bucket to move it further into it. No matter that this piece of machinery was thousands of pounds and the material just as heavy; he chopped, shifted, lifted, and threw over sidewalk hunks as if he was chopping up a tree by hand.

Tomorrow I'll venture out to Unraveled for an hour or two. It will be good to get some fresh air and conversation.