December 23, 2011
Hot port
Hot port, porter cheese, natter and the small male’s cough accompaniment.
Today the xmas cards still come from Ireland.
Yesterday was a day with sad news but happy company.
I have only just realized tomorrow is xmas eve.
The small male does not agree that he needs a food dehydrator or a ukelele for his xmas present.
December 21, 2011
I knitted my way to Wednesday without even noticing that Tuesday had passed.
The vest/pullover is finally finished. It very cute in a made from mishaps kind of way. It has a bit of a transgendered Amish vibe to it. But I have yet to put it on the man for whom it is intended. I am thrilled with it. It is also unique due to the mess-ups through out its creation.
Must post a picture of it for full display..
December 18, 2011
Low, low dense clouds. Overcast. The kind of overcast that hints at snow, yet it is seven degrees. Quelle tease.
*
Last night in a fun, spontaneous outing to watch some kids play beginner jazz music, (charmant- charmante -charmants), two women admired my knitting and biceps. Can there be any better accolade? If we knit will we get those biceps? one asked. I had to confess precisely what kind of knitting they’d get if they knitted the way I do. “eccentric” is the adjective my capable knitting friend uses. “disastrous” would be my own. I resisted adding “er what biceps?”
Some hot ports & good Connemara company later, I discovered a misjudgement on the size of the ribbing on the two additional, eccentric front panels of the vest. A significant disparity! Oh dear it’s actually beyond eccentric at this point. V hard to edit knitting, rather your mistakes are recorded like permanent bruises. The joy will come after for the interpreters of those bruises. When I look at the errors once it is finished, I will remember the sound track of what or who I was listening to as I knitted that section.
December 18, 2011
Starting a dialogue on mortality, adoption and mental illness
Here’s a review I wrote published in today’s Vancouver Sun of Joan Didion’s Blue Nights.
Where The Year of Magical Thinking was immediate, certain and assured, Blue Nights unrolls and wonders. It situates itself within the longer-term ache and gape of grief and the questioning that creeps in alongside that. Didion ponders the accumulation that is living with profound grief. She asks a lot of questions.
Starting a dialogue on mortality, adoption and mental illness.
December 17, 2011
What a week for glorious creature sightings… the snowy owl is apparently visiting too.
“Birdwatchers are flocking to Boundary Bay in Metro Vancouver to catch a glimpse of snowy owls, which migrate south only once every four or five years.
…Two feet tall, 60 centimeters, the biggest of the North American owls.”
They are popping in from the arctic. V impressed with their size. We could probably share jumpers since they’re about the same size as my upper body.
December 16, 2011
If you fancy taking up the needles, there are some very nifty knitting patterns on the V&A website from the 1940’s.
The body warmer and the “long socks” are intriguing. But I particularly love the stylish waistcoast indicated at the above link.
*
I am reading George Stanley’s long poem Vancouver: a poem. I commenced reading it on an eliptical machine the other day. Unfortunately I had my elbow leaning on the incline button which had hit level 14 just when I read the line: “stuck stuck stuck what kind of feeling down in …”
From now on I will only read George when walking on the pavement, rather than above the pavement. This is certainly a poem to walk with, to be walked with, to be walked by. I will not read George’s poem when I put a jet pack on. I am committed to this.
December 15, 2011
My wrists aren’t doing what God intended them to do (or what I want them to do)
The weather is not doing what I forecasted it would do two weeks ago
It’s a limp Wednesday indeed.
My brain aches every time I attempt the continental knitting, but when you are knitting a jumper for a good man it knits beautifully.
*