Views

As I was getting ready to post my weekly entry, I happened to look up. This is my view from my desk. Sometimes when I'm here I see my neighbors doing their things ranging from washing dishes at the sink to the eldest son practicing his guitar. Some days there's nothing showing but I hear the beating of drums or a sax playing. There's always some music and while sometimes it's a little off, there are times when it's very good. Some neighbors would complain, but I'd rather hear music than people shouting at each other. Or nothing at all. I've only had to call them once to turn it down, only because it was getting late and Dan was still playing quite loudly. But it's fun to share the love of music. I'm sure they hear me practicing my music or making my rehearsal tapes and I have my ugly notes.

I got to thinking about everyday views. What do you see when you look out a window where you live? If you didn't see it, would you miss it? If you took a picture of it, what would you think about when you looked at it somewhere else?

One time I was goofing around with my parents' Instamatic and took pictures of the neighborhood from my bedroom windows. I still have them. I think of the early mornings when I'd look out to see if it was snowing. I think of the one morning after an ice storm where there was so much ice that the power overloads were blowing up transformers and lighting up the sky. My bedroom window faced east so I could see the moon rise. There was a sunroom off of the living room and its roof was outside my bedroom, so when the rain was falling I could hear the water hitting the tar paper and running down the downspout.

Monday I'm seeing another orthopedic surgeon for a consultation on my knees. We've been having weird spring weather these days with very cold nights for the season (in the 30's Fahrenheit). It's been hard some mornings to figure whether the ache is from the cold or the previous day's activities. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say and hopefully I can convince him that a knee replacement, either partial or total, would be more beneficial now than later.

One of the things I have to bring to the appointment is a copy of the pictures they took of my knees, both the X-rays and the bone scan. Instead of films in a big envelope, I received a CD. Curious person that I am and entitled to know what's going on, I popped it into my computer and took a look. The software was easy to figure out and the pictures fascinating. I'm not a trained radiologist, but the size of the white spots on my knees from the scan looked ominous. See doc? See? See? Those aren't going to go away, even if you shave the scar tissue away. I want to do water exercise again. I want to ride a bicycle. I want to walk with my friends in fiber festivals. Gimme new knees!

This morning after breakfast I sat down with my taxes and after finishing realized I also needed to take the car in to have its registration renewed. That jaunt took me by IKEA. While the idea of finding a parking place in their lot and wandering around their showrooms seemed daunting, I figured it was an opportunity to get in some exercise combined with some fun. I was blessed with a parking spot close to the door (thank you Asphalta, goddess of parking!), snagged a yellow bag, and rode the escalator to the showroom floor.

Naturally it was a late Saturday morning so it was fairly crowded, but not hard to get around in. It was my first trip there, so there was the element of curiosity. I had heard of their scenarios (a living situation in 275 square feet). I tested chairs. I examined storage wall bins. I felt towels.

I came away with furry pads for the cats, a set of plastic dishes for taking to chorus retreats, a laundry hamper, and a wicker chair for the front porch, all but the chair and the hamper fitting in one of their huge blue reusable bags (I should have gotten two of those, come to think of it). I was there for only an hour but I could see spending a day in there. I also could see how easy it was to get lost, forever wandering the aisles past products with strange Swedish names like Torgven and Jurgen. My mind wandered to the story I had heard of the man who spent two weeks living in an IKEA while his house was uninhabitable. I could imagine him sleeping in a Malm bed with Bibbi Snurr sheets and Gosa Blasa pillows, waking to a Skarp alarm clock and padding across the Balk flooring samples.

Fibery stuff

StitchJones came to Wednesday night knit with her goody bag of yarns and roving she's been dyeing. The sight of the roving was too much to bear. I came home with this, dubbed Raspberry Cremosa:

Picture courtesy of StitchJones.com

I got home too late to play with it, but Thursday evening after a nap I took a bit and played with it on the Louet. It wanted to be spun fine. The sample was a good practice piece for fine spinning with a different wool (she didn't know which wool it was) so my yarn balance wasn't very good (underspun singles, overplied). But I did get a yarn.

And I was able to knit it up on Friday after having set the twist. This was done on size 3.75 mms. The color is off because by the time I got a pic I had to take it indoors, but you get the idea.

Makes me want to snuggle in my Bibbi Snurr.