tea rose scarf

A lovely, delicate rose lace scarf knit from 100% sugar cane fiber, available here.

conversations on knitting

Conversation One, between a friend of mine and her five-year-old who just recently got a Clover Wonder Knitter:

H: Can we go for a nap drive so I can knit in the car?
C: If we go for a nap drive, then yes, you can knit.
H: Can I knit on the way to Daisy Scouts?
C: Sure, Helen.
H: Can I knit at Daisy Scouts?
C: Well, you're supposed to be listening and doing things with your friends.
H: But can I knit during snack time at Daisy Scouts?
C: That might get messy.  But I like the way you're thinking.  You're thinking like a knitter.
 
Conversation Two, between Evan and myself:

Evan: You remembered to take the leftovers for lunch this morning!
Me: Yup.
Evan: What time did you have lunch?
Me: Ummm...
Evan: Come on, fess up.
Me: Well, 8:30. I wanted to have time to knit on my lunch break.
Evan: Let me get this straight. You ate the lunch you brought with you to work at 8:30 this morning... so that you could knit on your lunch break?
Me: Well, yeah, I guess.
Evan: You do know that you have a problem, right?

rainbow scarf

Available here

'i'm going to barnard, i think,' she said

Sadly, my dread of last week was well-founded. But before that sadness there was this lovely scene which, I must admit, made my heart sing the littlest bit:

Steenie left us, and I walked Marcia home. It was pleasant to walk with the snow melted, and we held hands and scuffed our shoes on the clay sidewalks, doing a lot of pointed inhaling to sniff the first scents of spring, which were largely imaginary.

"I'm going to Barnard, I think," she said as we reached the rectory. "My mother went there. I'm scared to death. I'm so stupid, and it'll break my poor father."

"You'll do fine," I said. "You've already got a head start on the New York girls in categories like blunt talk and dirty words."

"Are you really going to Harvard? I don't think anybody from De Crispin has ever gone to Harvard."

"That's always been a pitiful little dream of my mother's," I said. "It's more likely that I'll go to the University of Alabama. It's more my speed. They have forty fraternity houses and one classroom, where they teach the History of the Confederacy. They have a good record, though. They haven't been guilty of education since eighteen thirty-one."

"Well, where do you want to go? Don't you care?"

"Barnard's part of Columbia, isn't it?"

"That's right."

"I want to go to Columbia."

(Red Sky At Morning, Richard Bradford)

cream of carrot soup scarf

Knit from a wonderfully soft merino / alpaca / bamboo / nylon blend in a gorgeous, bright rosy orange with flecks of yellow.

Available here.

dread

I am reading Richard Bradford's Red Sky at Morning, a surprisingly beautiful coming-of-age novel about a boy suffering through his high school years during the Second World War.  This is one of those crumbling, brittle-paged books that I must have inherited from my parents, who apparently inherited it from one Joanne O'Neill (or so says the name inscribed on the first page).

Particularly moving, to me, is the relationship shared between the main character and his father. And this scares me, because the father has volunteered for the Navy and is off battling U-boats off the coast of France. It seems practically inevitable that he will end up not coming home, and I'm afraid this will break my heart.

firefly

Firefly. A wee nocturnal beetle. A wonderful TV series tragically cut short in its prime. And my new favorite eyeshadow: a glowing iridescent shimmery jade green. Ridiculous, the little things that can bring moments of joy

best dinner

I found myself grinning over dinner this evening, and wishing my legs were short enough so that I could swing them back and forth with glee.

What had me grinning and feeling like a grade-schooler was what I found in front of me after a long day at work: a little glass plate holding a simple egg-salad (a la Mark Bittman, with less egg and lots of mashed up celery and carrot and a dash of salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar and a dollop of  mayonnaise) sandwich made with Evan's all-the-flour-in-the-cupboard (buckwheat, all purpose, whole wheat) just-baked bread; a big glass of Nestle Quick chocolate milk (because oh how I love chocolate milk); and finally a bowl of sliced apples.

I couldn't help but grin and chuckle at this, our elementary-school-lunch-for-dinner, and it was delicious and delightful and everything a girl could ask for almost half-way through a long week.

hats, or, kid logic

When I was a wee lass I hated wearing hats, and winters especially were brutal affairs. After hours of tromping around in the snow or skating hither and yon across Mohegan Lake and back, my overly thin and fine hair would be tangled up into a veritable rat's nest under those pesky warm woolen hats.

My parents threatened and harangued and cajoled, and tears and No More Tears and unfortunate haircuts inevitably ensued.

My father even tried using numbers on me. He told me, at some point during one of our pitched hat battles, that we can lose upwards of 90% of our body heat out of our heads, and that if I only wore my hat like a good girl I wouldn't be nearly as cold.

This sounded dubious to me at best, and I came to the obvious conclusion that if this were true it should be alright to run around naked all winter long, but for a hat.

Luckily for me my parents did not, as far as I can remember, let me put this to the test.