Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday with a finally finished Sunset Hitchhiker. It's not blocked, and it's also dark and raining outside, so there are no good photos. Hopefully, I'll be able to get John to take a photo or two when it cools down a bit more and I actually start wearing it. I can't wait, for both the cooler weather and to wear my favorite Hitchhiker!

I thought about what I might want to knit next, and then I remembered how much I enjoyed knitting with Wollmeisen rolls. I have a Hitchhiker on the needles that I started over a year ago with a dramatic dark purple-to-blue gradient, and I've also got an untouched roll in Vergißmeinnicht (Forget-me-not) that I'm itching to cast on. I think they will provide me with some immersive and pleasurable knitting that will carry me through a fraught-with-anxiety Election Day (and beyond). I knit a few rows during the debate sh** show last night, but I spent most of the time wondering what the he** was going on. 

Reading has provided me with much pleasure during this past week, with two four-star books. I finished Conversations with RBG and gained knowledge about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her life, the Supreme Court, her decisions, and possibly (maybe naively) even a glimmer of hope for the future. I also read The Door and was very glad that several of my goodreads friends had read it and reviewed it so enthusiastically. I doubt that I would have picked this up on my own, but it is a compelling book and one that I'm sure I'll be thinking about for a long time. I also listened to The Female Persuasion, but this two-star book is barely worth mentioning. Based on a stellar review from Kat, I've started listening to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. When she said it had unseated Apeirogon as the best book she has read this year, I had to pay attention!

What are you making and reading this week?

Randomly from the Weekend

This weekend was a bit different because we stayed in Maryland instead of going home to New Jersey. The lawn in NJ doesn't need to be mowed every week, and John wanted to do some work on the house here in MD. Probably the biggest reason for staying put is the construction on the Delaware Memorial Bridge. This has been going on for several months and will continue through October. No matter what day or what time we head north, we end up sitting still in bridge construction traffic for 45 minutes or more. It was a real treat not to be stuck in that mess!

So what did I do with my extra time this weekend? Remember Central Tavern, my favorite place to eat in Elkton? I picked up takeout for lunch on Saturday.

A delicious burger topped with a perfectly fried egg, buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese, and a drink pouch with cranberry juice, orange vodka, and peach schnapps provided me with a very tasty lunch and lots of leftovers. 

I spied a baby praying mantis on my walk home. He was only a couple inches long in real life but is obviously enlarged here. 

There is a new episode of The Great British Baking Show so after watching it I was inspired to do some baking myself.       Mmm ... pound cake. It was not a low-calorie weekend, but I did take plenty of walks when it wasn't raining.

One of the walks I took was to return Conversations with RBG to the library. My route back took me past a new elementary school. I was intrigued by their blue "support people" and the big "WE CAN!" I'm sure it's meant to send a positive message, but I also thought about my experiences with my own boys and seven years spent working in an elementary school library. I could think of quite a few examples of kids who would push the envelope if they heard "We Can". We can ... have ice cream for breakfast, stay up until 2:00 am watching scary movies, never eat vegetables, play video games as much as we like, never do homework ... The possibilities are endless!

And it wouldn't be a weekend if I didn't discover yet another mistake I made about twelve rows back on the current Hitchhiker. I had dropped a stitch and was unable to ladder it back up because of the rows of eyelets I've added. Unraveling ensued, then more knitting, and being much more careful. I'm certainly getting good knitting value out of this yarn (and it kept me from eating too much pound cake).

How about your weekend? I hope it was fun, interesting, delicious, and restful, and your week is off to a good start. 

Poetry on Thursday

The poem I'm sharing today is one that I stumbled upon and it surprised me. The author is Barbara Kingsolver, and though I've read and enjoyed many of her novels and non-fiction, I never knew she wrote poetry. She has indeed and has published two volumes of poetry that I have somehow missed, including How to Fly, published just two days ago. It may be time for another covert mission to the library so I can read more of her poetry.

Beating Time

Barbara Kingsolver

Commemorating the removal of poetry as a requirement in Arizona's schools, August 1997

The Governor interdicted: poetry is evicted
from our curricula,
for metaphor and rhyme take time
from science. Our children's self-reliance rests
upon the things we count on. The laws
of engineering. Poeteering squanders time, and time
is money. He said: let the chips fall where they may.

The Governor's voice fell down through quicksilver
microchip song hummed along and the law
was delivered to its hearing. The students
of engineering bent to their numbers in silent
classrooms, where the fans overhead
whispered "I am I am" in iambic pentameter.
Unruly and fractious numbers were discarded at the bell.
In the crumpled, cast-off equations,
small black figures shaped like tadpoles
formed a nation, unobserved, in the wastepaper basket.

Outside, a storm is about to crack the sky.
Lightning will score dry riverbeds, peeling back the mud
like a plow, bellowing, taking out bridges,
completely unexpectedly.

The children too young to have heard
of poetry's demise turn their eyes
to the windows, to see what they can count on.
They will rise and dance to the iamb of the fans,
whispering illicit rhymes,
watching the sky for a sign
while the rain beats time.

Kingsolver, Barbara. "Beating Time." Another America, Seal Press, 1998.  

You can read an intriguing piece written by Kingsolver entitled "How Poems Happen" here.

I wish you mindfulness, peace, some magic, lots of attention, and lots of poetry as this week winds down.

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday with what I hope is the penultimate post about this particular Hitchhiker. I had hoped to have it finished by now after the baby knitting, but mistakes were made, unraveled, more mistakes made, and unraveled, so progress has been slow. Three more teeth and it will be done. 

It's a bit bunched up on the needles and not stretched out to its full length, but I'm quite happy with it so far. Sometimes I just have to stop and look at all the lovely bright colors. 

I finished Lady in the Lake (a pleasant three-star read for me), am still listening to The Door (compelling, but hard to explain why), and started Conversations With RBG. The last one is a real book that I got from the Elkton library in what felt like some sort of covert mission. I had to place a hold, go to the library when it was ready, call the library staff when I arrived and they would bring the book out. UNDER NO CONDITIONS WAS I TO GET OUT OF MY CAR AND PICK UP THE BOOK UNTIL THE STAFF MEMBER WAS BACK INSIDE THE LIBRARY. That was the text I got from them in response to my phone call, in all caps so I knew they meant business!

What are you making and reading this week?

A Week Without the Internet

Sort of. Kat originally got me thinking about avoiding the internet for a week with this post, and I told you about my decision to give it a try here. No more wasting time on Instagram, news sites, various political sites, looking at yarn I don't need, etc. I began Sunday with the zeal of a convert, proudly proclaiming, "No internet for me!" But several problems quickly became evident. 

I had bills to pay and because I pay most of them online, I had to go online to do that. Then I finished Lady in the Lake. I try to write my reviews on Goodreads soon after completing a book when the details are fresh in my mind, so I was back online to do that. I also placed several holds on books at my libraries via Overdrive, but I think we would all agree that books are a necessity. 

For the rest of the week, I checked fire updates, email, wrote a blog post or two, and read blog posts. But then on Friday evening, Justin's girlfriend (who is constantly on facebook and instagram) told me that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died and this was the most important reason to turn to the internet. I needed to confirm that this very sad news was true and that the hypocritical Republicans would indeed act as expected. 

What did I learn from my week "without the internet"? Mainly that it's ubiquitous and necessary. It is evident in almost all aspects of my life, from looking for recipes to checking out books to streaming "The Crown". I cannot imagine trying to maintain my sanity during the pandemic without it and am very glad I have not had to. The internet is a tool, and like any other tool, it is up to me to use it wisely. In so many ways, it makes my life easier and more pleasurable. It's my personal responsibility to find the middle ground between being uninformed and wasting precious hours doom-scrolling. I think this week showed me that life without the internet might be possible, but it is so much richer if I use it sparingly and for good. 

Sometimes Monday ...

 ... is a day to express your most fervent hopes and dreams.

May they come true in 44 days!

I also mailed this on Friday, along with crossed fingers and much hope. I'm not too worried about it being delivered to the Board of Elections because I watched the clerk put it directly into their PO box. There were about 30 other ballots in the box and I hope they all voted for the right guy!

Poetry on Thursday

The poem I'm sharing today is one whose original title appealed to me, especially as we enter into the season of changing leaves and sequined trees.

Poem Beginning with a Line from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Maggie Smith

Just look—nothing but sincerity

as far as the eye can see—

the way the changed leaves,

flapping their yellow underbellies
in the wind, glitter. The tree
looks sequined wherever

the sun touches. Does anyone
not see it? Driving by a field
of spray-painted sheep, I think

the world is not all changed.
The air still ruffles wool
the way a mother’s hand

busies itself lovingly in the hair
of her small boy. The sun
lifts itself up, grows heavy

treading there, then lets itself
off the hook. Just look at it
leaving—the sky a tigereye

banded five kinds of gold
and bronze—and the sequin tree
shaking its spangles like a girl

on the high school drill team,
nothing but sincerity. It glitters
whether we’re looking or not.

This poem originally appeared in The Southern Review, Summer 2018
You can read more about the poet here. 

I wish you mindfulness, peace, sequin trees, the ability to notice the glitter, and some poetry as this week winds down.