What to wear

Oregon spring is fickle. Some days are warm and sunny with the promise of summer, then the weather turns to cold, rainy, and windy and you feel betrayed. This year has been no different than others. We had some really nice days during March where the temps got up to 70 degrees. Then some Pacific storms came in bringing in cold air from up north and socked us. The mountains got more snow and people grumbled about the rain and wind. I got sucked into Mother Nature's temptation of the warm weather and reprogrammed my thermostat, only to be rewarded with 30 degree nights that froze our collected keisters off. It's hard to roll over in bed when you're plastered with cats trying to suck the warmth out of you.

But the days are getting longer and the spring colors are making the neighborhoods bright and cheery. It's a good time for working on a colorful sweater. I mentioned in my last post I had started working on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Adult Surprise Jacket. It's coming along very well. I'm nearly done with the sleeve section. I try to get a stripe done each day but of course there are the longer stripes that sometimes take two days to complete. It will be a great spring and summer jacket.

Yesterday I went with Agent D to view "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers." For those of you who were either not in the US in the early '70's or not yet born, Daniel Ellsberg was an employee of the RAND Corporation who was active in the decisionmaking on Vietnam in the mid '60's. He and others compiled a history of US involvement in Vietnam that came to be known later as The Pentagon Papers. These documents were rated top secret and contained incriminating evidence showing how deception upon deception had been made to Congress and the American people. Ellsberg at the time (so he claims) was just doing his job but had a crisis of conscience. The story of his involvement and subsequent leak of the Pentagon Papers to the press is told in "The Most Dangerous Man In America".

I went to see the movie partly out of curiosity and a desire to fill what was a hole in my understanding of that time period. When the Pentagon Papers were released to the press, I was just a kid, ten or eleven years old, with no true understanding of the implications of his act. I had heard of Ellsberg and the papers. But the movie helped fill in holes in my understanding. My political beliefs had already been molded in some ways by the Watergate scandal. I feel more how important it is for Americans to not take everything we are told as the absolute truth. It is easy to be swept by idealism and jingoistic rhetoric. I'm still one for seeking out nonviolent methods of resolving conflicts but understand that this is a very difficult goal to achieve. It's important for those of us who live in this country to do what they can to find out as much as they can from different sources and work to preserve our fundamental right to know.

Mistaken identity

I think the McCain team is trying to win over the Monty Python fan base to their side. Why else would they pick someone named Palin who is from the mighty forests of Alaska with her best girls by her side.... Yeah, I know. Cheap joke. But I can't help it. Every time I hear "Palin" on the radio I immediately think of Michael Palin, veteran Pythoner and travelogue purveyor. So they picked someone from way up in Alaska to take the seat of second banana. I'd be curious to know how they managed to narrow down the running mate race to a governor who has yet to finish her first term. I just hope the Republican women get together and do a major makeover.

Gird your loins

The election is more than a year away and already I'm annoyed. This isn't a good sign. I'm a fiscal conservative social liberal, which means I want the government to have the programs we need to maintain a semblance of a good life for everyone but not waste money doing the job. I could swing either Democrat or Republican, so I'm one of those voters the presidential candidates need to convince of their worthiness.

So far, I'm not impressed.

The Democrat machine is spinning out Hillary Clinton as the candidate of choice. Next to her is Barack Obama, the young upstart who is winning voters with his ideas. Behind both of them is John Edwards, who ran as the vice presidential candidate with John Kerry. The media is making the Clinton/Obama competition the headline of the Democratic offering for the presidency. Today I heard about their attending the civil rights commemoration events in Selma, scheduling their speeches so that they conflict with each other, then walking together over the Edmund Pettus bridge with other officials. Obama had come at the invitation of Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) to Selma, then Clinton announced she was going, attending a ceremony that inducted her husband, Bill Clinton, into the Civil Rights Hall of Fame. This jockeying for media exposure didn't win my respect for either candidate. But then, neither candidate was really pulling my heartstrings. Obama doesn't have enough political experience to be president. Clinton has too much baggage. Edwards, who is speaking at the University of California , Berkeley, wisely stayed out of the fray.

On the Republican side, John McCain announced his jump into the fray, but I don't see him winning the nomination what with his stand on some issues that the Republicans traditionally support and remarks he has made. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani will most likely be duking it out.

I'll be watching these guys.

Coming to a porch near you

This morning I heard a thump and thought it was a cat jumping from the high perch in the other room. Then I saw one of the cats, who had been sunning herself on the back of the futon chair, down on the floor and looking furtively over her shoulder to the outside. Inspection of the front porch turned up another phone book, this time from Verizon. This makes three. Now, tell me in this age of Internet phone directories why I need three phone books? I understand there are folks who don't have computers or use their computers for looking up phone numbers, and it's good to have one phone book in case of emergency. But there is no need for three phone books from three different companies (in my case, Qwest, Verizon, and Yellow Book). The books appear to be cast upon us by squads of cheaply paid temps who go through the neighborhoods and drop off their bundles regardless of need, like advertisement slips. It seems like such a waste of paper. Though for a cheap amusement, get one wet and see it bloom like a flower as the pages crinkle.

Knitting

The second sleeve on the Sirdal is coming along. I'm working on the upper motif now and should have the sweater completed in a week or two. I'm starting work tomorrow part time, taking on the bonfires that flared up in my absence then coming home to nap. We'll see how much of a button band and collar I knit up this week.

Friday, I took my sister Pam to Woodland Woolworks. It was a going to be a challenge to my sticking to the Knit From Your Stash and I failed. I had a list and got all the items in it: buttons for the Sirdal and yarn for knitting a Fair Isle practice hat that will go in the gift basket. Then I went in the Stash Room and found enough Dale Heilo in their darkest blue (it looks like black) to knit another Dale sweater. Opportunities like this don't come often so I seized it. Good thing my tax refund was already in my account.

Pam and I had a lovely day together. She's my eldest sister and surrogate mom. She knows that an outing with me is guaranteed to be interesting and tinged with the thrill of adventure. She took knitting back up a few years ago, so I knew a trip to Woodland Woolworks would be enjoyable. Since it's located in the heart of wine country, the trip itself is beautiful, even when it's pouring down rain. The trip gave us a chance to talk over things and have a few laughs. She's going through a stressful period right now so anything that can help her laugh is always welcome.

Home

I'm back home from my surgery and doing very well. I won't know until my post op visit how much my fibroid laden uterus weighed, but my surgeon said it was the same size as a woman who has been pregnant for 20 weeks. I looked it up. It's the size of a canteloupe. Good gravy!! No wonder I was miserable. Hopefully that will help shed a few pounds and give me the energy I need to resume regular exercise.

For now it's do nothing but walk. Don't bend, twist, jerk, lift, wash, dry, turn, boogie, or do the hokey pokey. I can walk. That's it. As long as I can tolerate. The more the better. It will help my insides resume regularity. Damn, I was looking to doing the shimmy shimmy shake once I was out of the hospital, because I feel good in a James Brown kind of way.

I will be able to drive after a week, though. Which means I can get out of the house as long as I can tolerate and visit my LYS's and work on the Sirdal. I finished one sleeve and cast on the body while on Oxycodone. Thank heavens for markers because after 50 stitches I was losing count and the puppy is 313 stitches of cast on. This morning I worked a row while not on narcotics and found I was off one stitch. HAhahahahaaaa!

I learned this morning that Molly Ivins died from breast cancer. I love her acerbic wit and descriptions of the Texas "Lege". I figure she's up in a corner of the Great Beyond sharing good ol' boy stories with Ann Richards, Mickey Leland, and John Henry Faulk. She'll be missed by us liberals. If you haven't experienced her writing, start with her first book, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? Here's a Lone Star raised to you, Molly. Give 'em hell.

A return to normalcy

It's a nice quiet Sunday morning after a hectic week. Anyone who says accountants are wusses has never had to deal with a fiscal year end. Most year ends at the office have been pretty mellow but this one was fraught with computer glitches and people running about like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get all the information put together for closing the books. All in my group were involved with the process in one way or another and I put in overtime. I'm just glad it's over and we can start moving on to the next brouhaha: preparing for when I go on medical leave.

The Rogue hood is grafted! If I had a choice between grafting and cutting a steek, I'd be reaching for the scissors. I don't know what it is about grafting that my brain can't wrap itself around. I can see how the stitches weave their way in and out but when I try to do it, the graft ends up looking like the dog's breakfast. So when a fellow knit lister suggested this site, I was so so grateful! It has you do a chimney of waste yarn after you reach the last row of the place you want to graft. Instead of doing a chimney in the round on the edges, I did extended edges with waste yarn, following the pattern on the first row, then stockinetting the remainder. Having a good contrast yarn is very helpful in this process because all you do then is follow the yarn as it winds through your pattern stitches and snug it up. I didn't take out the waste yarn until I inspected the work. Sigh of relief when it came out beautifully. Now off to making the second sleeve. Joy joy joy!!!

On the political side, it's gratifying to see Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Not so much that she is a Democrat but that she's female. Other countries have had women as the leaders; the US is lagging behind. If the Speaker had been a female Republican I would have celebrated that. In the end it's how good a job she does in running the House and getting legislation through. It requires people skills, organization skills, and a mind that can switch from one subject to another at a moment's notice. Kind of like a mom, don't you think?

The Passing of a Moderate

I was in grade school when the Watergate scandal broke. Mom had the hearings going so I saw people like Haldeman and Ehrlichman and Dean speaking before the Congress panel led by Sam Ervin. When Nixon resigned and Ford took over, the country was like a child who had been told that Santa Claus was really Dad. We really hurt. Sure we knew politicians were lying sleazy crooks but we didn't want to believe it. Heck, Johnson didn't trust Nixon with a ten foot pole.

Then this affable man came in with the job of moving the country on. He seemed to be such a lightweight. Almost insubstantial. Yet in the short time he was in office he did his job. We hated what he did when he pardoned Nixon, but we moved on.

Goodbye Jerry.

Hey Cast-On Lady!

Brenda Dayne of Cast-On fame has been fighting a nasty infection and hasn't said much since the 17th. Send her good wishes, will ya? She may be getting in a lot of knitting time, but spending Christmas feeling icky doesn't sound like fun.

Blog update

I moved to the updated Blogger and lost my links in my sidebar. They'll be updated later, most likely Thursday night. Let me know if there are other things missing.