Chained to my laptop

I got bored sorting through a backlog of e-mails, so here you have a new post...

Second sock syndrome (I knit the one on the right first, then the one on the left, without making the pair for the first sock first. I NEVER do this. Ordinarily.)

And second sock syndrome overcome! I think of these as patchwork socks since they were made out of leftovers from other socks. Any randomness is actually coincidental as I pretty much planned how the stripes would go. OCD, much?

While you're killing time reading knitting blogs, take a minute to remember the people in Peru who just suffered from a massive earthquake. Two missionary women my parents know were living in the area and have not been heard of.

Home - briefly!

I'm home, very tired, but relaxed and happy. There was enough time to see friends and to organized and pack my Stuff. As I sat on the living room floor sorting clothes, memories of doing this same thing a year ago floated quietly to the surface of my mind. All the unknowns, dissolved into certainty. This year the excitement is somewhat subdued, but the gladness is still there. I love being in school. Terry's in Colombia for another couple weeks so I'm flying solo right now but thankful for Internet connections!

Knitting pics coming soon!

Last leg - almost

Greetings from Colombia! My mind is already partly in Harrisonburg and Ithaca, making grocery lists and schedules and thinking of things I need to remember to pack. But most of my attention has been on the present moment, which is much easier to do here than in Bolivia where every sight and sound dredged up memories from the past.

This is country #20 for me, and for some reason I didn't expect it to be so surprisingly different from other Latin American countries I've visited. I guess I never thought about Colombia too much. But I don't even know what to compare Bogota to, or Cali.

Impressions:
Bogota - flat and even plain between green mountains, high-rise apartment buildings and a speedy "millenium tranport" bus running down the middle of the street. Quaint tiled houses with a colonial/European flavor converted into office buildings. Strings of zeros on the bills. Light misty rain, breathless climbing the stairs, glad for wool socks.

Cali - fields and fields and fields of sugar cane, mountains on the horizon, blooming trees, and a river winding through the middle of the city shaded by enormous gnarled trees. I love it that the built the streets following the curves of the river instead of straightening the river with a canal to match straight streets.

Colombia is so much more diverse than I imagined - geographically, ethnically, culturally. It's just a fascinating place.

The MCC programs here are focused very much on peace-building; you can read this volunteer's blog for more details on that aspect of it - certainly a closer perspective than I could give after just a few days!

Tomorrow we have the day mostly off, and Monday I leave for the US!!! Time flies.

GRRRR!!!!! Arg!!! *Sob*

SOMEONE STOLE MY YARN!!!!!

A couple days ago, I went looking for some of the yarn I brought with me, multicolored green-blue-yellow bamboo yarn that I bought originally to make a tank top for Anita. I ended up using a cotton-silk blend instead because it was softer, and set aside the bamboo yarn (yes, it really is made out of bamboo!) for something else. Then Interweave Knits came out with a beautiful pattern using this very yarn and I was quite excited. I had exactly enough to make it, too.

Well, I packed it in the outside pocket of one of the suitcases we brought, since I didn't plan to work on it en route. When I got here I started right in on a sock and didn't feel up to tackling a tank top right away. But then I thought maybe I'd at least swatch the lace pattern, but couldn't find the yarn.

We searched high and low but no go. It's really gone. I'm so mad, especially because I had a pair of circular needles in there that are part of a set that is composed of plastic thingies with screws on the ends that you attach different sized short needles onto, and now my set will be missing that size of ends, plus TWO plastic thingies. The main reason I put it in checked luggage anyway was because I didn't want to risk the TSA taking my knitting needles away!!!!!

I'll get over it. It was just very annoying. I know other people lost a lot more than yarn and knitting needles in this summer's tornado season.

Hello from Bolivia!

Sorry for not posting until now, but it has been an intense 10 days and looks to continue that way for the foreseeable future. Essentially we have had one free afternoon in all that time, with evening meals often turning into interviews as well. On the free afternoon I slept for five hours!

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to come back to Bolivia after 7 years. This place is redolent of nostalgia, but also an opportunity to measure change over time. Not just the changes in the country or in MCC, but in myself. It's strange to feel the presence in my own mind of the young person I was 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7 years ago. It's also strange how sharp the memories are of grief, a particular loss that implicated a certain loss of innocence for me. Last week when we arrived and drove to the MCC office, the very first thought in my mind when I saw the front gate was "that's where I was standing when I found out Krista died." Krista Ausland was a 25-year-old woman who was killed in a bus accident in 1998, which her husband survived. This weekend we actually drove past the place where she died, although I didn't see the marker that her husband had put there. It seems like road repairs may have taken it out.

Not to be all morbid and everything.

It's fun to be back here with Terry, as a married couple, and to remember things together and compare notes on things that have changed. Right now it is winter here, and the tajibo and gallito trees are in full bloom. The weather is cool. I still feel like part of the MCC family. When we arrived and walked out of the customs area at the airport, I realized that this was the very spot where I first laid eyes on Terry! And it just gets better every year.

Not much news

Volunteering, doing a little "research," trying to stay on top of yardwork and reading for this Fall... The countdown has begun for our second trip to South America this year. We leave Sunday for Bolivia and Colombia! I'm having to re-think my usual "tropical professional" set of things I usually take since it will be surazo season and could get as cold as 43 degrees at night (with no heating in the buildings).


Meanwhile, here are some long-overdue knit pics!
See, I have been knitting! The socks are mismatched - you might not be able to tell, but I can. One has a longer toe than the other. These were a father's day gift for my dad, but he said he likes them the way they are and wouldn't say which one to adjust to match the other!

The shawl I am modeling and the one on the bed are two versions of the same pattern; the one I'm wearing is just an extension of the other, which is basically a neck scarf. Both are knit using Indiecita baby alpaca yarn, the neck scarf on size 8 and the other on size 7 needles.

The work-in-progress was my Dallas project; it's now much further along than what you see. I hope to finish it during a Lord of the Rings movie marathon this Saturday!

Not much knitting!

I'm back in Harrisonburg, Yay!
The house is in disarray since one of our former students is moving into the downstairs bedroom, so I had to clear out all our junk from there (we were using it as a catch-all sort of room) and redistribute it around the house.

My trip from Ithaca was uneventful, but exhausting. I don't think I really had a good night's sleep in about 4 or 5 days. On Monday I spent most of the day relocating my sub-letter, since my landlady wanted her out - but we found a place with one of my friends. Tuesday I was on the bus all day, and spent that night in DC with my friend Sara from Wheaton AND Cornell - that was awesome, but she had to leave early in the a.m. on a trip. So I got up pretty early too. I spent the day wandering around the Mall area, catching the tail end of the 4th of July parade, and checking out the Folk Life Festival - it was very cool. I caught a ride home with our new tenant who was at a Cubs/Nationals game (baseball) in the city.

It's good to be home although I feel like I have a ton of work to do...

It's not Nirvana, it's just life

Another gorgeous day in the Finger Lakes! The only metaphorical cloud on the horizon is that my landlady doesn't like my subletter and wants her to move out this weekend, so I'm having to pass on that uncomfortable news.

It still just feels really, really good to be here. It's like when I came back to campus last January - I feel like me again - the me I most want to be, when I'm here.

Happy Friday!

Yay, I'm in Ithaca! It's a beautiful, beautiful day and I got all my "stuff" done this morning. I have resolved to stay the weekend and just enjoy being here, relatively carefree.

Getting out of Dallas turned out to be harder than I thought - I showed up at the airport Weds. morning only to find long lines of very grumpy, tired people - many of whom had stayed the night in the airport, since a bunch of flights had been delayed or cancelled due to torrential rains the previous day. I tried to do the self-check-in, but the machine wasn't working right - so I got in line. I was in line for an hour and a half, watching the clock tick past the point after which I could no longer check in... I couldn't call Terry, because the cell phone kept cutting out... finally I used my credit card to make a pay phone call, only to find that I'd been inputting the wrong destination city! He had bought a ticket to Syracuse via New Orleans, NOT Ithaca via Atlanta!!! I was pretty mad until I made it to the check-in counter and found out that the New Orleans flight had been cancelled anyway.

Long story short, they put me on the LAST SEAT for a direct flight to Syracuse, the next day. So Terry came to get me and we had a little more time together.

The next day things went much more smoothly.

East and North

So my time in Dallas is almost up - I am short of where I wanted to be both in terms of knitting and in terms of reading, but I realize that the first week was mostly adapting to being here, and the second week was mostly gone to Wisconsin.

The conference in WI was really fun; we had a lovely hotel room and the people were all interesting. I had the opportunity to tour the college of the Menominee Nation, which was really cool and beautiful. The downside of the whole thing was driving 2200 miles (round trip), the return part overnight. By altering our route coming back, we ended up driving through seven different states (Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas). That's a lot of asphalt.

This past weekend we enjoyed a hike through the Cedar Ridge preserve, and a visit to the Dallas World Aquarium, both very enjoyable.

Wednesday I fly to Ithaca, then catch a bus Saturday to Harrisonburg.

Doing

So I have a bunch of new projects on the needles, but alas you will have to wait until I can download the photos. Right now Terry and I are at a conference in Wisconsin (community development - we'll see how much knitting I can sneak in without looking unprofessional! I think this particular crowd will be forgiving though.

I feel really good, being here. I realized that the past three weeks have felt like an odd sort of limbo - I kept wearing my Cornell t-shirt just to remind myself that, yes, I AM a student there. Not having structure yet feeling like good grief there's so much to DO, but I wasn't doing it, and there were no consequences for not doing it, really threw me for a loop. And yet, not so different from my volunteer days (vague, self-directed assignment, total lack of supervision and structure, and that continuous internal pressure to for God's sake DO SOMETHING!)

Here, to my great relief, I suddenly have a very clear script, role, and persona (think Goffman, if you're into social science) and Hallelujah, I know exactly what to do with myself.

Besides knit. :-)

Further Travel Adventures

Terry sometimes remarks that "travel" and "torture" come from the same root ("travail", perhaps?)

After seven relatively uneventful days in Cuzco (well, uneventful apart from a case of E. Coli and other relatively minor misadventures, mostly bathroom-related) our group divided, amoeba-like, into two groups. One group went off to hike the Inca Trail (4-day stairmaster with ruins) and the other group went off to explore a more roundabout, but wheeled, approach to Machu Picchu.

Everyone spent the night here at my parents' house since we had an early-morning wake-up call and were going to be picked up en masse. But then the taxi-drivers association started threatening to strike and block roads starting at 5 a.m. Thursday, the day we were scheduled to leave. There was some talk of canceling the strike on the part of the union president, but even so our tour agency decided to preemptively reschudule our departure for 4:30 a.m.! Which we did... and then the strike was cancelled anyway.

I went with the non-hiking group. We had a leisurely two days exploring the Sacred Valley, seeing such fascinating sites as this and this, and thoroughly exploring Ollantaytambo.

Then we caught a bus at 9 p.m. headed for the small high-jungle town of Santa Teresa. Only we had to change buses at around 4 a.m. in Santa Maria. Two guys from our tour agency met us on the bus. One of the students described the ride as "interesting," in the most euphemistic sense possible! Another student reported that she was praying the whole time to die quickly rather than prolonged suffering as result of the accident we were certain to have. I found out later that this was the same road I took last time (2 years ago) to Quillabamba, and it's honestly not all that bad. It was just dark out, and all you could see was the winding dirt road, about 1.5 lanes wide, rock cliff face on one side and sheer darkness on the other. The girls were carsick and v. tired; I think myself I might have slept about 20 minutes. At least that's what it felt like.

At 2 a.m. I asked the guy next to me where we were; "not there yet," he said after looking out the window. A block later I saw a sign that said "Santa Maria public bathrooms" (in Spanish). Hmmm.... I thought. A little later the guide asked the driver where we were, next thing I knew we were piling off the bus and looking for a way to get back since we'd, actually, passed it. (Our guides were a little inexperienced.) Fortunately we found someone with a car to drive us back, about 20 minutes, and caught our next bus.

Two sleepless hours later, dawn happened as we rolled into Santa Maria, a tiny little high jungle town crawling with grungy backpacker types avoiding (like we were) the expensive train to Machu Picchu by going the long way around. We had breakfast there (pancakes and eggs) and then chilled out before heading to some absolutely beautiful hot springs to relax for several hours. I fell asleep by the pool and got a little tan! Sorry I don't have pictures - I don't carry a camera, I just rely on other shutterbugs.

In the afternoon we made our way by van and train to the ramshackle jumping-off point of Aguas Calientes. It was relaxing - in fact, three of the girls fell asleep on the train despite the stunning scenery. You could even see the back side of Machu Picchu from below - I had never come this way before so was pretty impressed!

We got a hotel in Aguas Calientes, and the minute I said "this is our room," one girl fell into bed with her glasses on and was instantly asleep. It was pretty hilarious.

Further adventures forthcoming - Terry is wanting to go into town here and do some errands or something.
TTFN!

Interesting Times!

Look at my new socks! They have come with me to Peru and kept my toes warm in the mountains.

So... we have definitely been having some adventures:

Item 1: The day before leaving the US, one of our students did not have her passport. She ended up going in person to the National Passport Center in DC at 7:30 a.m. and getting in line. By 9:00 she had her passport in hand and was able to join us at the airport 90 minutes before our flight!

Item 2: Once we arrived in country, Terry and I made an optimistic change of plans - to take the night bus from Huaraz to Lima in order to catch our flight to Cuzco a few hours later that same morning. (The original plan was to take the day bus, spend a night in Lima, and head out in the morning.) But our optimism was to be sorely tested!
- 2a: Our bus, while quite comfy, got TWO flat tires during the night! I was astonished at the speed of repair, but even so my heart was in my throat during the whole night as I wondered if the delays would mean missing our flight. However, fate was smiling upon us as we reached Lima with a generous 2 1/2 hours to spare. Which we would end up needing, because...
- 2b: When we went to check in, quite early, we learned that our travel agent had made a mistake and changed our reservation at the last minute from the the 9th to the 12th!!! HOW does this happen, you ask? It´s another long story, but it took the better part of an hour to straighten it all out. I pretty much flipped my lid which doesn´t happen too often. This left us just enough time to pay the airport tax, go through security, find our gate, with 15 minutes to spare for the students to get some kind of breakfast.

I have to say, our group is really good. They have kept up quite positive attitudes and good spirits despite the laundry list of the following:
- sunburned lips that blistered and provoked fever
- a running total of about 5 unanticipated hours of uphill hiking, some with luggage
- a lost (new) digital camera with photos of graduation still on it
- sunscreen spilled all over the interior of a bag
- honey spilled all over the interior of a backpack
- a pretty steady diet of potatoes, broad beans, soup, and bread for 3 days in a rural village
- a case of amoebas
- three cases of wool allergy (sleeping under wool blankets - had to swap out for other people´s sleeping bags)
- one case of exercise-induced asthma

That´s all I can think of right now... I feel like I´m not taking very good care of my kids here!

On the other hand, we have had some quite wonderful times as well:
- incredible beauty: green mountains with snow-capped peaks, cold mountain streams, rocky outcroppings, little patchwork fields
- spending time with Quechua farmers in their homes
- eating fresh honey harvested the same day from the hive
- chewing on corn stalks (almost as sweet as sugar cane here, without the chemical fertilizers)
- experiencing a pachamanca (earth oven) celebration with dancing
- hanging out with our local guide, Jhonny, who impressed the students with his detailed knowledge of local history
- being erroneously but persistently identified as Cornell students :-)
- seeing the incredibly bright and clear stars through the thin mountain air

Now we are in Cuzco and Terry and I are a little more relaxed now we´ve shuffled off the kids to various host families. Today we went to Sacsayhuaman where there were actual condors that someone had caught and domesticated hanging out there (I´m really not sure I quite liked that, actually). Tomorrow is a free day but everybody´s going to a local soccer match - even me!

running amok

Yesterday I:
- was a bad immigrant activist and missed any and all May 1 protests / celebrations / demonstrations, etc.
- showed the apartment to a potential sub-letter. Five hours later I moved out, and she moved in!
- attended my last class of the year at CU
- turned in 3 of my 4 final papers and sundry reading responses
- drove to VA and packed for Peru
- finished a knitting project (sorry no pictures yet)
- planned the orientation for the Peru students

Terry, bless his heart, drove to NY to pick me up Monday night, then we returned together. He drove the whole way back, too, while I slept for 3 hours.

Today we:
- oriented the Peru students (everything you need to know, in 2 hours!)
- did crisis management for one student whose passport isn't here yet (we leave at 11 tomorrow)
- ran around like crazy tying up the thousand little threads of paperwork etc that need to get done (like, I had to fill out another I-9 form at EMU)

Spring is in full bore here - flowers, flowers, flowers, and leaves everywhere - dandelions galore - my yard is FULL of weeds. That will have to wait until we get back, however!

But I think we're in good shape, so far...

Nose to the Grindstone

I took a little walk and study break near sunset; this was just so pretty. Now my landlady is baking brownies upstairs and it smells sooo good!

Blooming and Scams

These blossoming trees really gave me a lift today as I was walking to the library (that's Olin there). Things are going well, just going all six cylinders. Terry took off today with a carload of stuff; my bookshelves and closet are quite bare, and my yarn stash is mostly back in VA as well. I'm trying to find a subletter, and almost got caught in a nasty scam. Two people answered my ad on c.raigslist, sounded very nice, responsible, etc. etc. Curiously, both said they were writing from the UK and both asked if they could pay by money order. I said fine, and then went online to find out what a money order actually is (I've never used one before, but a lot of people I know use them to send money home to Latin America). One thing I learned is that a common scam is to offer to send someone a money order and then ask for cash back, only their money order is bogus to begin with, so you end up sending them a bunch of money for nothing. I made a "note to self" in my mind and then went on trying to figure out which of the two Brits to sublet the apartment to. Well! Today I got e-mails from both, each one with a different story that had one thing in common: needing cash back on the money order.
My first thought was, "I can't do that, I'm leaving the country and I won't have time."
My second thought was, "Waaaaaait a minute... didn't I just read something about cash back scams?"
My third thought was, "Those mean people!"
(Mean people suck!)
I wrote back to both and said I can't deal with a cash-back situation and am planning to sublet to somebody local instead. (Hope I find somebody!)
Anyway, all day long I'd keep remembering odd little details about both e-mails, just little things that didn't register at the time, but looking back I'm realizing they were very odd. For instance, both asked a number of questions about the apartment (normal) but they were asking about things that were listed in the ad...(alarm bells!)
I wonder whether I would have been less suspicious if there had only been one?

Spring again

The snow is pretty much completely melted away, but I caught this shot of a glop of snow weighing down a blossoming tree, I think it was Tuesday.

I have about ten days left to finish all my semester's work... wow!

More snow!

Before class, and after class. It snowed straight through until about 9 pm. Looking at the tops of cars, I'm guessing at least 16 inches total. Crazy!

Snow!

From April flowers to snow showers! A few days ago I took this picture of somebody's yard as I walked by; this morning I wake up to this:

It's pretty exciting though. Although, no signs of university closing :-( I'm glad T. decided to head on out yesterday though; the I-81 corridor is supposed to be a mess right now.

Blocking Silk?

Another finished object! Alas the inadequacies of the camera phone. Anyway, I'm quite happy with my new scarf, just in time for another snowstorm in the forecast...









I know I'm not modeling it in the hipster "European" fashion, but this way you can see the fabric better. I love the wavy effect. But I'm wondering, does one block silk?

You guys gotta try this! :-)

Your results:
You are Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 80% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 65% Wash (Ship Pilot) 40% Inara Serra (Companion) 35% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 35% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 35% River (Stowaway) 30% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 5% Alliance 5% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Medicine and physical healing are your game, but wooing women isn't a strong suit.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

End of the Weekend

Sunday, Terry and I were walking back from church and I showed him this sign I walk by several times a week. It's near the path to the bridge over Beebe Lake, and it just makes me laugh - "Extreme Caution!" - Oh no! Nature! Dirt! Rocks! Sticks! (believe me, their "bark" is worse than their "bite") (ha ha!) The ridiculous thing is that the path at this point is paved, and leads directly to a bridge with very high rails on the sides. On the other side are steps up to the street. Sure, there's a place you can go off onto an unpaved path around the lake, but really people. "Extreme" Caution???


In other news, here is a Finished Object! I'm thinking of making fingerless mitts to match. Very quick, mindless knit. Don't know if I'll keep it (it matches nothing I own - at least outerwear, that is); don't know whom to give it to either. Maybe the Relief Sale in November.

On the Needles (basically only interesting to Tara!)

I just counted: I have 5 projects on the needles. Two are in Harrisonburg though (a pair of socks and a hat). This mitt here is the same fingerless mitt pattern as before, same yarn too, but only one strand instead of doubling up, and size 0 needles instead of size 1. This one seems like it's actually going to FIT. Yay!
I set my timer tonight at 50-minute intervals. Read for 50 minutes, knit for 10. I found that in 10 minutes I can knit 6 rows on this scarf. I have to wax rhapsodic about the yarn for a moment though - it is Artyarns luxury hand-painted Silk Rhapsody, and it was a birthday present from Tara! If it were food, it would be French Silk Pie. If it were music, it would be the theme from Swan Lake. If it were a smell, it would be gardenias at night. I made a teeny-tiny mistake in the pattern (a misreading, really) in the first section, did it correctly in the second section, and did it wrong again on purpose in the third section because I like how it looks. I think I'll continue to alternate. The pattern says:
Row 1: K1, *yo, skp; rep from * to last st, k1
Repeat 8 times.
Well, the first run-through I thought it made sense on the second row to slip the y.o., knit the knit stitch, and slip the yo over it. This was wrong. But it looks cool. The correct thing to do, if you follow the instructions properly, is to slip the knit stitch, knit into the yarn over, then pass slipped stitch over. The effect of doing it correctly is basically a more open open-work section because by knitting into the y.o. stitch, you pull it up a little. If you slip it instead, it makes the hole smaller.

Anyway, knitting minutia.

I should be taking a nap...

Just a note to let y'all know I'm back in NY safely; didn't sleep much on the bus, so need to catch a few Zs before class tonight.

It was a pretty wild weekend! My presentation at the conference went well, despite having to completely shift my approach at the last minute when I realized that the audience had zero background in social theory. The other people on my panel included the Human Rescources director for Cargill (poultry plant), a woman who works for Homeland Security, and two computer science guys who happen to be highly educated South Americans teaching Spanish at the university pontificating about how Spanglish is a "degeneration" of Spanish (like Spanish wasn't a "degenerate" version of Latin! Come on!) So, just a little bizarre.

Then Friday night I had the *lovely* experience of going to a meeting of the Minute Men Civil Defense League, who were trying to help a group of locals start their own grassroots movement to "save the Valley" from immigration. The local activists had been, well, active, though, and the crowd was probably 70% pro-immigrant. Terry and I agreed that the discourse from the anti-immigrant group was basically vicious racism disguised under a rhetoric of rationality and even humanitarian concerns. I'm going to write at least 2 course papers on this so it was very interesting, but at the same time what sticks with me most was afterwards I saw my good friend from Guatemala, a nurse and mother of 2 college students who gives of herself constantly for others. I asked her "how are you?" and she said, "My heart hurts."

more pointless time wastage (but fun!)

According to this web site, the celebrities I most resemble (in order from most to least) are:

1. Eliza Dushku (cool!)
   
2. Jessica Alba (right on!)
   
3. Gary Lineker (erm...ok...)
   
4. Aya Matsuura (who is that?)
   
5. Adam Corolla (huh?)
   
6. Ray Romano (ack!)
   
7. Penelope Cruz (mmmm....)
   
8. Bae Yong-Jun (hmm....)
   
9. Kate Winslet (oh yeah!)
   
10. Lisa Snowdon (ok! whoever she is!)
    

Sadly, the Ray Romano resemblance was the most convincing to me...

Academia

I realized when I came back from spring break how I feel like myself here, in a way I don't at home, not in the same way.

In the midst of this contemplation, as I trudged uphill towards class today congratulating myself for being on time despite the mad dash out the door ten minutes earlier, I felt really full from the lunch of rice and broccoli and cheese I had just eaten. As my mind turned towards food, I was hit by a flash of sudden memory - the salmon! I left it in the oven...I left the oven ON!!!

Crap!!!

My landlady is away; Terry's not here; there was nobody to call. No help for it, I had to run back to the apartment to turn the oven off. My mind filled with visions of charred fish, smoke-damaged rooms, etc. As I crossed the bridge over Beebe I heard SIRENS! Aaugh! Although at the same time I knew it was too soon for that big of a fire to have started in my apt.

Sure enough, there was a fire alarm going off in Balch.

When I got home, the salmon was done perfectly. Just a hint of char at the bottom of the pan.

Ran back to class and slipped in 30 minutes LATE panting and sweating. The professor didn't miss a beat in her lecture; I was impressed.

What a luxury - to be able to show up to a meeting 30 minutes late and not get fired!

Spring in Ithaca

...seems to mean lots of rain. Crocuses are up, but patches of snow linger in cool places. I am taking a little knitting break just now as I ran out of yarn for my current pair of socks and can't seem to find the same make/model anywhere (haven't tried the internet yet...seems like a potential rabbit hole to Wonderland...) yet. Plus, had a bit of repetetive stress in the thumb area (mostly from writing too much) and want to take it easy on the hands.

I'm enjoying the pattern a day calendar I got for Christmas from Emily S., some patterns just make me go WOW! while others are "what were they thinking?" (Mostly the novelty yarn fiascos). Man, though, I'll never make it through all the things I want to make.

Well, gotta go!

Spring Has Sprung!

The daffodils are finally starting to bloom in our front yard! I got yarn for my birthday! Bright notes in an otherwise stressed-out Spring Break.

Spring Fever

toes pale and wrinkled

tap the salt-rimed sidewalk

flinch from cold mud

Happy Birthday to Me!

My friend Catherine gave me this lovely teapot yesterday, and I gave myself this yarn that I bought last fall (50% off!). It felt like Spring today. I read a lot, went to a talk by a Big Famous Anthropologist (the best part was getting out of class for that!). Terry had to leave for VA today but my spring break starts at the end of this week (yay!)

Well, guess I'll go read some more!

Mitt

I finished the first "Broad Street" mitt; it's kind of strange because it's long, but tight. The shell that folds back seems too long, and there's extra room at the wrist. The thumb is kind of long too.

Conversely, the fingers feel quite tight - when I make a fist it feels like the circulation is being cut off somewhat.

I think I'm going to make the second one, but then try another pair knit with just one strand of the yarn and see what happens.

Know anyone with really long, thin fingers (I mean really long and thin, like Jennifer Garner for instance).

Just for Fun

This is me and Terry at an Ethiopian coffee ceremony in Harrisonburg a few weeks ago. He's looking grim because his cup was smaller than mine :-)

And here's my little Christmas cactus, which just got a new spot in the sun (I had to rearrange the furniture a little bit). The Ceramic Fairy says "Recycle!"

Phone time = knitting time

I totally would have finished reading my chapter, but Terry called from St. Louis (he's at a conference) and so while we caught up on each other's days, I did this:
Yes, another poorly lit picture of yarn on needles. What can I say. I was worried it was going to be too big, but the pinky is actually quite snug. I love how the tight-knit alpaca feels like it's going to be IMPERVIOUS to cold :-)

Well, I could finish the chapter or go to bed; I've been working on maintaining a more regular sleep schedule, which dictates that I stop working at midnight (don't feel sorry for me - I took a nice, long, 2-hour supper break! And my alarm is set for 9 a.m.!) but I hate leaving things half-done...

Tomorrow (ok, today... technically) I give a presentation at an on-campus conference, so naturally I have an enormous zit on my jaw. If I wear my hair down maybe nobody will see it... :-)

More Felting

This yarn was on sale at Knitting Etc.; there was more in plain black and white, but I thought I'd just get this and see if it felted before getting more.





When I put it in the warm water, a very strong smell of wet sheep wafted up. Not so pleasant! The label wasn't kidding when it said "virgin wool."



Notice the gloves - I literally took the skin off my knuckles last time, so was prepared this time.

Yes, it definitely felts! There were some little gaps that annoyed me but I'll give it another go sometime. Not sure what I'm going to make since I only got 2 balls (that's all there was of this color).



I used to find the idea of felting completely incomprehensible; why obliterate the distinction of each individually-produced stitch? Wouldn't that just deny recognition of the work that went into it (plus I was really into cables at the time)? It's kind of addictive though; it really is a little bit like magic, especially by hand. You can actually hear the felting happening - it sounds different all of a sudden, and then you see it start to mesh together. So cool.

Relaxing

So the "fun" class where people climb up on the table and yell at each other has stopped being quite so fun, since we seem to have the same discussion every week (postmodernism vs. marxism vs. modernism) but the bright side is that I finished the second sock (knitting slyly under the seminar table...)

At home, I decided it was a good evening just to relax with the fingerless glove/mitt from Knitty and some soothing music. The yarn is 100% alpaca I bought in Peru; it's somewhere between lace and fingering weight; I double it up and use size 1 or 2 needles, depending on the project.
I think I've got this on 1s.

post-felting!

So, before starting on the bag, I hand-felted the little swatch, shown here so you can see the contrast in texture.
Hand-felting was really fun, but I wouldn't want to do an item much bigger than this bag! I may do the slippers I have planned by hand though. It was also rough on the knuckles - next time I'm definitely going to want rubber gloves. It looks really cool, it's just the right size to go over the shoulder and tuck under the arm, just right to hold the cell phone, keys, and wallet. I think it's going to need a zipper or some kind of close though.

pre-felting

Ok, so here goes another shot at felting - this time NOT using superwash wool! It's Lamb's Pride bulky, 85% wool and 15% mohair, left over from my Valentine's Day sweater (aka Blackberry).

The pattern is from the 2007 Knitting calendar (a new pattern every day!) Knitted up really fast - I'm thinking of hand felting it since it's small.

I *heart* PennDOT (not!)

Here are some photos of the trip south. I tell you, there was a long time when I felt like I was never going to get out of PA.

Here we see I-81 somewhere south of Wilkes-Barre but north of Harrisburg. I was going about 25 mph.

For about 2 hours, I sat in absolutely non-moving traffic. I worked on this sock, read a textbook for class, and wondered how long I was going to be able to hold out before I had to make a mad dash into the little wooded area by the road for a pit stop.

This is actually a street in Ithaca on my way out. Pretty, huh?

I'm just glad to be back in pedestrian mode!

Smiles

I'm sitting in the Library and a woman I've never met just walked up to me and whispered, "I like your sweater!" It's the chunky cable with 3/4 sleeves I made from an Easy Knitting pattern (so, technically not brag-worthy at all), but that just totally made my day!

Pennsucksvania

Note to self: Never attempt interstate travel the DAY AFTER A MAJOR SNOW EVENT!

Evening, Valentine's Day
Me: "Hm... up to two feet of snow... weather hazard advisories... me in a car... Well, it's supposed to stop snowing at 10:00 p.m.; how long could it take them to plow the roads? These northern states have huge fleets of snowplows and tons of salt - they prioritize keeping the highways open, so by, oh, noon tomorrow, things should be fine, right?"

Mother Nature: "BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA!"

Every truck driver from Canada to Mexico: "Dang, I've been delayed a whole day already, I HAVE to get this load delivered soon, I'd better get on the road and make as good time as I can."

Mother Nature: "BWAAAHAHAHAHA!"

Me: "Yeah, if I leave here by 9 a.m., I should still be able to get to Harrisonburg by dark."

Mother Nature: "I'll show these little pipsqueaks who's boss. Dam my rivers? Pave my earth? Who do they think they are? He he he..."

I think the snowplows dutifully made their rounds, all night long on the 14th and into the wee hours of the morning on the 15th. Huge snowbanks were piled up high on both sides of I-81 as evidence of this activity. However...

Tune in tomorrow for the further misadventures of EEP and her faithful '93 Camry as they brave the Black Hole that is Pine Grove, PA, and elude the trusty fire marshalls aided only by HubStar On Demand. Find out how a 7-hour drive turned into a 15-hour marathon!

I tell ya, the Mason-Dixon line never looked so good.

Snow Day

Boy they weren't kidding about the heavy snow... it's not as bad as places further north and closer to the Great Lakes, but this is awesome!
I walked to class in snow that came in over my boots; buses seemed to be running and undergrads were trudging resolutely to campus like a long line of Emperor penguins.

When I got to class though, nobody was there... the professor dashed in about 10 minutes late with a stack of photocopies; we talked for a little while and then she decided to cancel class.

After getting home I decided to work on shoveling out the driveway so hopefully I can leave for Harrisonburg tomorrow...

After about 45 minutes (great workout but I wonder how my lower back is going to feel tomorrow?) the landlady's kids showed up with their dad to finish the job! I was delighted!

Rumor has it the university is going to close but it still doesn't say so on the website...

Valentine Sweater

This is the "Blackberry" from Knitty, size M (perhaps should have done L - but haven't blocked it yet. I just couldn't wait to wear it! Finished weaving in ends this morning!) I changed the cable pattern on the sleeves to a braid (12 st wide) and spaced the bobbles a little farther apart (every 6 instead of every 4 rows). I love it!

Snow Way!

(Sorry, couldn't resist the pun!) LOOK at this white stuff! Every inch on top of that little shed is fresh snowfall; at least 12". It's so cool...and yet, even though all the area schools are closed (and this is upstate NY people! They don't close for a light dusting like they do in SOME other states), Ithaca College is closed, the city has declared a state of emergency... and yet big behemoth Ivy League university thinks the show must go on. Good think I LIKE my classes...

Meanwhile, here's what I did last night during reading breaks:

Yep

Thar she snows!

Unrelated photo: another sock!

Snow Hokai?

(Hokai means "where is it" in Sesotho)
The severe weather warning issued this morning gave a time parameter starting at 3:00 this afternoon... at 2:45 I heard someone say, "it's supposed to start snowing in 15 minutes!" Well, it's still not snowing. The updated forecast puts it at about 8:00 p.m. I just need them to clear the roads by Thursday morning!

Peace, Joy, and all that good stuff

Tonight I taught Blanca to knit! We were at her house having a "study session" (read: complain about the readings, prof, and class while eating homemade pie - did I say pie? I meant carrot sticks) :-) and Claire had brought her sari silk bag that she's finishing, although I totally forgot my sock at home so I was bitter about that. I spent all semester last Fall promising Blanca I'd teach her to knit so finally we took advantage of the moment, grabbed the needles and went for it. She did great! She has a nice little swatch in stockinette stitch, probably knitting about 4.5 st. to the inch or so. We tried to talk Tim into learning too but he didn't believe Claire's claim that it would help him meet women.

Brrr!

Man, it's cold. I'm very thankful for the warm wool coat my mom made me in 1995! Also putting the handknit wool socks to good use. I'm still catching up with myself here at the beginning of the semester. I didn't think it possible but I'm enjoying my courses even more than I did last fall! Conversely, I also miss Terry more than I did last fall. I think of migrant farm workers who only see their families at Christmas time and count my blessings... I really do live a life of privilege.