Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday, with a ready-to-bind-off Hitchhiker.

The colors aren't exactly right, but I'll take better photos after I've bound it off, given it a good soaking, and blocked it. I thought I might have it completed by now, but it turns out I ended up holding it more while I was watching election returns than actually knitting. That's okay, it provided just the comfort I needed while it was sitting on my lap.

That little ball of yarn is what I have let to bind off with. I'm fairly confident that I've got enough, but I'll figure something out if it turns out otherwise. 

In another bit of exciting news, that is a glow-in-the-dark stitch marker from The Lemonade Shop. You'll have to trust me that it does indeed glow in the dark because a photo proved impossible. I also got some rainbow and gold and silver glitter hearts and they all make me very happy. 

I did finally complete The Queen's Gambit and found the book as wonderful as the Netflix series. I also finished listening to Anxious People. This one was a little difficult for me to get into (maybe I was a bit sidetracked by election returns?) but once I did, I was rewarded with Fredrik Backman's usual combination of poignancy and humor. I think this might have been my favorite of all of his books. I'm not sure what I'll read next; it depends on what is ready for checkout in my Overdrive queue.

What are you making and reading this week?

Aftermath

I knew only a little bit about what happened after an election was "called", but this year I was curious enough to seek out some more information. It turns out that there are a whole lot of post-Election Day processes that have always been carried out, but I certainly have never seen them featured front and center in the news and knew very little about the details. Here is what happens in the aftermath.  

Warning: this may be the most dull and/or boring post I've ever written, due to too much information that maybe not a lot of people care about and no pretty pictures. Proceed at your own risk!

Once regular ballots have been counted, local election officials process provisional ballots (ballots cast when the voter’s identity or eligibility to vote was uncertain) and “canvass” the election. That just means that they prepare results and report to the state. The state then canvasses the election as well. State law governs the postelection processes, so there are 51 different ones (each state plus Washington, D.C.) There are a long range of deadlines for each local or county canvass and varying state deadlines as well, some of which are shown below.

I can't enlarge the chart above any further, but you can access it here and view it in full screen if you are interested in your state's dates. 

Media sources (like the AP) may project the winners of races long before these dates, but those are just projections. The winner of each state contest is not final until the certification has been completed. For the presidential election, states have a hard deadline of December 14th, when electors of the Electoral College must meet and vote to certify their results. Congress will certify the Electoral College votes in a joint session on Jan. 6. Then it's really official!

And then there is the General Services Administration, the governmental agency headed by Trump appointee Emily Murphy. She is tasked with officially affirming that Biden has won the election, and does this by signing a letter to release funds to the Biden transition team through a process called ascertainment. This would mark the first formal acknowledgment from the Trump administration that Biden has won the election, and it would also unlock access to national security tools to streamline background checks and additional funds to pay for training and incoming staff. Biden’s transition team cannot receive official government email addresses until Ms. Murphy signs those papers, they don’t get access to federal offices, and they can’t do the necessary work of filing papers with the Office of Government Ethics for financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest forms. I'm not placing any bets that this will happen anytime soon. 

If you'd like to read more or find out more information about your specific state, these are good places to start:

National Conference of State Legislatures

Ballotpedia

If you've gotten this far, thanks for sticking with me to the end! I promise a return to knitting and reading tomorrow.

This and That

I've got some bits and pieces, some of this and that for you this Monday morning after what felt like endless Days of Waiting. 

First, we have a date change for our Read With Us book discussion of The Women of Brewster Place. After an email discussion on Friday morning, we decided to postpone the discussion for a week until Tuesday, Nov. 17th. While things looked close and hopeful, they were still not official. We all felt exhausted and kind of unable to do any in-depth thinking to prepare for a discussion tomorrow. We'll share further details as we figure them out. 

Kym found the Oprah miniseries adaptation on Amazon Prime in case you are interested in reviewing or watching. You can watch it for free with ads or rent it for $3.99. I watched the version with ads and didn't mind them at all. It is three hours long because it was originally a miniseries, but it didn't feel that long to me and it might give you something to watch besides a sore loser's legal challenges.

I'm quite excited about another book that is available today, The Hitchhiker Collection by Martina Behm. All of the Hitchhiker patterns are gathered together in this book, along with three new ones. Janelle was kind enough to alert me to this breaking news, and I was so excited to see it that initially, I didn't pay attention to the availability date of November 9. My copy has now been ordered and it remains to be seen whether it will be saved for Christmas or not. 

This graph only goes through Friday, but was a fairly accurate portrayal of my week through Saturday, and maybe yours, too. 

John Fetterman is the Lieutenant Governor of PA and quite an interesting guy. My cousin is a CPA in PA, and she conducts audits of school districts and some state-related agencies. Because of this she has had dinner with Fetterman on several occasions and says that he really is a forthright speaker. You can't file a lawsuit against math and he also said "The president is no different than any other random internet troll saying crazy things that have no basis in reality." When asked about Trump's legal challenges, Fetterman said “The president can sue a ham sandwich." I appreciate your honest statements, Mr. Fetterman. 

Joe Biden has finally been named as the winner of the Presidential election. I know there won't be a magic turnaround, and it won't be all rainbows and unicorns on January 20th, 2021. And let's not forget about the important GA Senate runoff races on January 5 with control of the Senate likely at stake. But I will be much happier and feel much safer having an empathetic, politically-experienced President who will pay attention to science. Here is an Esquire essay about the kind of person Joe Biden is, and a link to the Popular Mechanics story mentioned in the essay. I think we have elected a good and decent person, who along with Kamala Harris, and much of the electorate is ready for the hard work ahead.

Several people liked the photo of a smiling alpaca that I posted last Monday. Today I'll leave you with one of a smiling sheep and goat. I hope you have a Happy Monday and a good week ahead.

Poetry on Thursday

Because we all need hope, I chose this poem on Tuesday. I hope it works today. 

A Portable Paradise

Roger Robinson 

And if I speak of Paradise,

then I'm speaking of my grandmother

who told me to carry it always

on my person, concealed, so

no one else would know but me.

That way they can't steal it, she'd say.

And if life puts you under pressure,

trace its ridges in your pocket,

smell its piney scent on your handkerchief, 

hum its anthem under your breath.

And if your stresses are sustained and daily,

get yourself to an empty room - be it hotel,

hostel or hovel - find a lamp

and empty your paradise onto a desk:

your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.

Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope

of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.

Robinson, Roger. "A Portable Paradise." A Portable Paradise, Peepal Tree Press, 

You can read more about the poet here, and listen to this poem read aloud by the wonderful Pádraig Ó Tuama here. 

I wish you mindfulness, peace, fresh hope, your own portable paradise, and some poetry as this week winds down.

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday. Kat worked the polls yesterday and I want to give her a big round of applause along with a big thank you! I've got a nearly completed Hitchhiker to share with you. 

I couldn't watch any results yesterday but woke up at 4:00 am and couldn't resist checking my phone. I can't not watch this morning but since I also saw a mouse at 4:00 am I will be taking a break from knitting, breathing, hoping, and worrying to walk down to the hardware store for some traps. Thanks for the diversion, little mouse!

I haven't read anything since last week but hopefully, things will settle down in the next couple of days and I'll be able to settle down enough to read. I have Anxious People and The Mill on the Floss ready when I'm better able to concentrate. 

What are you making and reading this week?

Fingers Crossed

 This is what I see as soon as I step out the front door in MD:

And this is my view across the street the other way:

I feel lucky to live in a pretty nice neighborhood! We'll ignore all the gigantic Trump flags that I've been quietly (and maybe just a little childishly) giving the finger to whenever I see them. May we all have an abundance of patience, remember to breathe, keep hope alive, and may Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win this election. 

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Just a reminder and a note: next Tuesday, November 10th is our Read With Us book discussion of The Women of Brewster Place. We're not yet sure about the format of the discussion, but will let you know as soon as we know. Kym found the Oprah miniseries adaptation on Amazon Prime in case you are interested in reviewing or watching. You can watch it for free with ads or rent it for $3.99. I watched the version with ads and didn't mind them at all. It is three hours long because it was originally a miniseries, but it didn't feel that long to me and it might give you something to watch besides election news.

It's Monday ...

 ... and I'm back! My ten-year-old laptop died last week, so my blog posts came to an abrupt halt. I've been taking good care of it and backing things up often, but all technology has a finite lifetime (and it's often much shorter than 10 years). A new laptop isn't in the budget right now, but luckily I've managed to set up an old one of Ryan's for basic things like paying bills and blog posts. I've been keeping up with your posts but haven't been commenting because I hate doing that on my phone. I've missed all of you, and I'm glad to be back (until the next technology glitch). Many thanks to all the kind people that emailed and texted to check on things. 

Since it's November 2nd, this seems like a good time for a Right Now post.

Watching - The Queen's Gambit on Netflix. I stumbled upon this and found it fascinating. It's about a chess prodigy, how she came to play chess, and how her life unfolds as she deals with her abilities. Ryan tried to teach me to play chess when he was in elementary school (the cheat sheet he made for me because I couldn't remember how the pieces moved is above), but I am really terrible at the game. No chess knowledge is needed to watch the series although there are many quietly intriguing scenes of chess being played.

Reading - I found The Queen's Gambit so interesting that I had to read the book it was based on by Walter Tevis. The show follows the book fairly closely and I found it to be just as good. I may be reading more by this author.

Avoiding - The news, in all forms. Even though I'm trying to stay away from it, some still penetrates my embargo (my chatty neighbors and at the grocery store). I'm just hoping to survive this week (and possibly beyond) with some of my sanity intact.

Baking - Pumpkin Chip Muffins. The combination of pumpkin and chocolate chips sounded strange to me when my MiL first suggested I try these several decades ago. But she was right as she so often was about good baking, and now they are among my favorites. 

Ordering - I finally broke down and bought a fake Christmas tree. We didn't have one at all last year, and I found I really missed the ornaments. I can do without many Christmas decorations, but I really like decorating the tree and revisiting memories through the ornaments we've collected and made through the years. I ordered it online but haven't received it yet, so I hope it looks okay. 

Enjoying - Cooler temperatures (finally)! We had our first real frost in NJ on Friday night, but I'm not sure MD has gotten any yet. We may still get a handful of cherry tomatoes from the garden.

Wearing - Hitchhikers! I have a bunch of them and wear most of them, but I tend to reach for this one most often. It goes with everything and has lovely memories (buying the yarn at The Loopy Ewe six years ago) associated with it. 

Raking - Leaves. I've done this a couple of times so far, but they haven't even started collecting them in NJ, so the pile in front of our house is growing ever higher. We're supposed to have heavy rain and wind, so maybe all the leaves will be down and the next time I rake might be the last time this season. 

Feeling - Sad that it's been a year since I've seen Ryan. I was in Fort Collins a year ago to help him buy a new (to him) car after he totaled his in an accident. It feels like it was a decade or more ago. 

Hoping - That lots of things change so we can all feel safe traveling again and Ryan can sell his house in CO and move back east. 

Smiling - At this smiling alpaca. 

What's going on in your world right now?