Gratuitous Cat Post

It's been while since there's been anyone furry on the blog.  Here's a couple recent shots:

Sudo

 Yeah, he always sits like that.  Pretty boy, likes to pose. 

Snuggly Meezers

Sorry for the low-light graininess there - it's impossible get a direct flash photo of these guys with the point and shoot and still see the blue eyes.  Blue and Sudo mostly get along. Sprout!'s still not sure she likes the upstart, but Blue is at least resigned to him. She'll put up with snuggling, but then he forgets not to strangle her and a little fuss breaks out sometimes.

Not much else exciting for this blog - some fibre announcements going up on the other.

My Wee Patio Produce Farm - Update

So, remember the photo from last month?

Not only have I not killed my plants, they seem to be doing well.  here's some mid-June progress:

at which time I spotted this wee proto-cucumber.

As of yesterday, I have harvested my first veggie!

Apparently cucumbers are prolific and early veggies.  I did not know!  By the looks of it, there's much more where that came from.

There's a bona fide veggie jungle on my patio.  At least 3 cucumbers of a similar size, 2 fully formed and many more blossoming Black Cherry tomato clusters just needing to ripen, at least two Black Krim are growing, a proto-cantelope has been spotted in the mix, and overall, the plants are now all taller than I am despite pruning!  Not showing are two upside-down planters, one with a Roma tomato beginning to fruit, and one with the transplanted pepper plant which was rescued from the clutches of the cucumber and cantelope vines (which may still be strangling the eggplant).

Now, here's a question for the more experienced gardeners - I have two more self-watering pots, purchased, about 14" diameter round ones.  Is there anything I can still plant at this point that will have enough season left to grow?  I was aiming for a potato but darned if I could find a sprouted one to start with, and the ones from the store don't sprout anymore.

Think Globally, Eat Locally....

.... and, well, my own patio is pretty local.

Over the years, we've made some attempts to be more environmentally conscious, eco-conscious, socially conscious... with varying degrees of success. It's challenging to live in an urban, time-clock-punching, online-scheduling world and make "slow food" at every meal after bicycling all over the county to pick up the groceries from local farmers. In an effort to stay a bit healthier, I drive to the gym. I have to rush to get to yoga class while leaving conference calls on hold. I feel distinctly polarized about how my life goes, most days.

Some things I've really wanted to get into haven't worked that well. CSAs, for one. Great IDEA, to have a locally-grown farm food box - but buying a "share", even shared with two other couples, turned out to be very wasteful, as we got weekly crateloads of whatever was harvested that week - which tended to be low on variety, high on quantity and required a lot of preparation to become useful food. Sometimes we had a ton of wholesome stuff we outright didn't eat, like beets by the dozen. It did lead us to discover what a kohlrabi was, and how to prepare garlic scapes, so that might not have been a total write-off.

Slightly more successfull was the Pfenning's Organic venture - they deliver weekly boxes, large or small choice, and you can order or not every week based on whether you like what's in them, and make one or two substitutions. Still though - likely to get something not appealing to everyone, and the delivery actually was a bit awkward for a household where all members are out at an office during delivery hours.

I've now found something I'm hoping will pan out a bit better - I've been introduced to the idea of a Local Food Buying Club. Bailey's Local Foods is a small business run by two Waterloo Women (supported by staff of family and friends) which operates just down the corner from me in a church. A $20 annual membership gets you access to their online ordering system, from which you can build your own grocery box every week. Incredibly flexible - order, or don't, exactly what you want and how much you want. Options include locally made baked goods, meats, minimally processed prepared foods, if not completely grown within 100 kms then at least largely produced that close. Much is organic, and when not, it's clearly labelled as to if or how it's treated or raised.

So far it's going very well. Tonight's dinner was Pumpkin Ravioli over which we spooned African Peanut Stew instead of sauce. And I've trained myself to eat tomatoes, something I've never liked that much, when they're fresh vine-ripened and layered with fresh basil, local bocconcini, some cucumbers and balsamic vinaigrette. I accidentally over-ordered asparagus, so that will be on this week's menu. The next treat coming up are the Ontario strawberries, which I suspect this operation will be completely cleaned out of every week.

To this whole venture, I'm adding even-closer-to-home food. Check out my patio:

Those are my hackabout, home-made version of "Earth Boxes".  As an aside, now that I know how to build them and HAVE built them, I will be happy to buy the equivalent, but these will do.  In the one on the left are two tomato plants (Black Krim and Black Cherry, both heirloom varieties), two basil sprigs and some lettuce seeds.  On the right, one cucumber, one cantelope, one eggplant, one Chocolate Sweet Pepper, and a smattering of pea plants sprouting at the front.

I got the tomatoes and the pepper from a seedling sale at Little City Farm in Kitchener, another local family business.  Unfortunately, the sale was so popular, I got there the minute it was announced to be opening and it was half sold out!  It was also so crowded I couldn't get to half of it. So, the cukes, melon, and eggplant came from Home Depot's nursery centre, and the peas from Ontario Seed Co. seeds.

The idea with these boxes is they are self-watering, from a reservoir below the soil bin, and with good potting mix and fertilizer, you can grow a high density of plants in relatively little space.  We shall see.  But things are starting already:

Those there are the first buds on the Black Cherry tomato. And below:

That wee flower bud is supposed to grow up to be a cantelope!  

I'm not quite certain how this whole venture will play out, but am encouraged so far by the fact that the tomatoes are 18 inches high after a couple of weeks, and the cucumber is already climbing both tomato cages in its bin, and there are flowers out at the beginning of June.  I did manage to keep a conventionally potted cherry tomato alive and producing a couple of summers ago, so here's hoping.  If these work out, I may try a few more bins next year. While it may not be possible to run an off-the-grid urban farmstead in an uptown condo, at least I can grow myself a salad, and by making other local choices, contribute to the success of some local businesses that are working to see sustainable food happen neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

A Catch-up blog

Well, it's been a while then. Amazing how planning ONE little party, and then dealing with its aftermath, can totally suck one's life away. I've dropped a whole bunch of projects, gotten behind in correspondence, exercise, looking after myself, and of course blogging.

I'm hoping this'll be a sign of getting back to normality!

So, well, as you might have caught, I'm all married up now. Just dealing with the credit card bills and follow-up tasks like catching up with our photographer, and our "registries" with a couple of artisans. The whole thing still seems a bit strange to me, weirder still that I keep getting asked "so how's married life?". Really, as someone who has personally been committed to a good relationship for a decade - it was a fun party, but life wasn't any different the day after than the day before. We wanted to do this for a family event, and that's what it was, but I feel like I'm missing something in that everyone keeps asking me these questions like there's some grand expectation that I've had a huge transformative epiphany, when really, I threw a party and I have to clean up after it. Not sure what to make of that. Sorry I seem to be disappointing everyone with my pragmatism.

In other news, honeymoon didn't happen, plotting on an alternate plan still in the vicinity of the Mediterranean, still trying to clean the condo up, and I've (with lots of help from A.) build and filled two self-watering planters to try and grow a few tomatoes and things. Will see how those go.

Still one project to catch up on for OHS spinning school, but this weekend, I'm off to my first fibre-vending event of the year which, I hope, will get me back on track with a little bit of textile income to legitimized myself as a spinner/dyer. I'll be at the Halton Waldorf School's "Mayfair" event, a fundraiser and open house day for the school, which my niece attends. No idea how productive it will really be for me business-wise, but it's a chance to demo and promote hand-arts to kids, which is always great. Maybe I'll see some people there, Sunday 12-4.

Bridal Ranting, by Proxy

Hi all. So, the lack of blogging has been due to the fact that I've stupidly added a wedding, of the express-planning variety, to my "to do" list since early February. It's going well, if by well one could mean there's no dress yet, my shawl is only 80% done, but we do have a paid contract with an officiant, so the signatures will happen and a legal marriage will result - I may just be wearing jeans and our Best Man might too, as the bridal shop lost his measurements. We'll coordinate our t-shirts.

In trying to go with "informal" and "low key", I meant to go with only one attendant each, but that expanded to two as I couldn't bring myself to flip a coin between my sister and my might-as-well-be-a-sister best friend, so I have two bridesmaids. In theory, we all have purchased dresses, and while I left it to the two of them what they want to wear, they kaiboshed my "alternative" wedding idea by actually agreeing on colour, fabric, AND style for their own dresses.

So, based on that last sentence, you have to read the following realizing that my sister draws on those around her for her material, but may be fictionalizing details for humour's sake - her dress is NOT my fault. Other than the short timeline leaving its arrival in question, that was my fault. Actually, it looks quite good on her and on her co-conspiritor-of-honour, I'm more confident of that than I am of mine looking good on me. Here you go, a transcription of Sissy's rant from her stand-up gig last week at Rebel's Rock.

---

Last time I was here, I talked about how I'd been out of comedy for a bit, recovering from the shock of getting married, (12 years) and it got me thinking about marriage, and what makes a marriage. Kind of dumb considering how hard it is to get OUT of one that all it takes is one day to get into one. You stand up and make an ass of yourself in front of friends and family in some godawful white merrangue that makes you look just like your wedding cake, some dude talks, you sign your name and bang, you're married.

Even doing like our friend Kerba did- shack up, lose track of time and let the government declare you married so they can screw you that much harder come tax time, seems pretty simplistic.

I think either of those things are the beginning of getting married, but they're really just the start of BECOMING married. Becoming married is the part that happens slowly, like, over years, long after the wedding guests have stopped even sending your Christmas cards. Marriage happens one fight over your monster-in-law's insults, one pre-colonoscopy enema, one exploded bathtub at a time. At least, those were some of the milestones in our house...

You change gradually, bit by bit from getting married to BEING married.

When you're a new bride, for example, you go through this nauseating period where you practice signing your married name on everything, even if you've just become the new Mrs. Lipschitz. You flash the ring like you're the frickin' green lantern and you keep a house that would make Martha Stewart want to throw herself off a bridge in shame instead of the other way around for a change. But over time, you change.

By the time you're ten years in, and own grown up shit like a minivan and a dishwasher, you've figured out that if you add a glass of milk, technically a peanut butter and banana sandwich covers all four food groups, and is therefore an acceptable Sunday dinner. You've gone from being mortally embarrassed that your mother in law found a pubic hair in your bathroom cup to secretly being pretty proud of yourself in a slightly perverted way when shit like that happens.

In the early days of being a new bride, I remember slipping quietly out of bed in the earliest, gray hours of morning just to brush my teeth and comb my hair so I could slip back into bed, and my new husband could see me wake up beautiful every morning.

These days its more like trying to stay awake just a few minutes longer than him at night just so I can fart and shove his head under the covers. ('If you love me breathe deeply!')

And one day it hits you, you're not just becoming married anymore, you ARE married.

I had one of those epiphany moments a couple of weeks back, the dawning that your partner knows you better than anyone else on earth...you see, he was at work, and I was waxing my legs...

Sorry, I know some of you are eating

Ok, I'll back up a little first...over the years of our marriage, we've collected some pretty strange things, and among them would be our two cats. The first one, the big one, is very low maintenance. I'm not sure she's even moved off the living room chair since my son was born. I vacuum her once a week, that's how mellow she is. But my other cat was born under my desk three jobs and seven years ago. I bottle fed him from three days old, and he's totally imprinted on me. He follows me around the house like he's on a string. It sounds sweet, but any woman who's ever tried to put mascara on with a cat butt right in her grill knows why this isn't as cute as it sounds...

So waxing my legs. Shuttup, the weather's getting nice, you'd be more grossed out if I didn't...

Had all the cold wax strips laid out neatly on the counter, sticky side up, when cat couldn't bear to be apart from me for one second longer and did that sit on the counter and purr so hard he drools thing, got up to give me the tail to scratch and....aaaahhh! Thing on my butt! Thing on my butt!

And all hell broke loose. Terrified cat with two sticky cold wax strips tearing through the house, and it's old married housekeeping in our house, not newlywed housekeeping, so the more he runs, the more stuff sticks to the mess on his butt, he's picking up dust bunnies, action figures, goldfish crackers (because for some reason there are always goldfish crackers on the floor in the dark corners of my house) and he'd getting more and more terrified the more he runs. I finally trapped him in the downstairs fridge. But the 'yep we're married' moment came when I called sweet hubby to tell him what happened. You see when you've been married long enough, you sometimes forget to explain things in the detail that you should, because you assume your partner already knows everything you know. My husband, bless him, didn't miss a single beat when I phoned him at work to tell him he had to stop at the pharmacy to buy calendula oil on the way home because I'd inadvertantly waxed the wrong pussy.

On the subject of marriage, since I saw you last, my sister has decided to finally get married to her long time spousal euphemism, and I guess I didn't wreck enough of her stuff when we were kids, because I'm still on the hook for being a bridesmaid. To make matters worse, she's set the wedding date for April 25 of THIS year. Actually, I think being a bridesmaid is something we inflict on those girlfriends who have managed to really piss us off over the years, because there's a lot of sucky things about being a bridesmaid. You have to stay sober, at least until its all legal apparently, and you get assignments, like wrangling emotionally incontinent relatives so the bride can freak out in peace. This is my assignment, and I'm the exactly wrong person for the job. My approach to the emotional incontinence of others tends to involve things like chloroform and broom closets, but because I love my sister, just this once, I'll do as I'm asked. But I still get to bitch about the dresses.

Now, everyone already knows that the whole point of the bridesmaid's dresses is to make the bride look good, but when you're built like a hobbit, or, let's be honest, when you're built like TWO hobbits standing very close together, you'd rather be stuck in a revolving door with a spear through your head than be stuck in a dress shop filled with size 8 samples and a snotty salesclerk telling you that with less than 8 weeks to go you're not going to be able to order anything in time, so you'll just have to buy off the rack. Now the other bridesmaid is the same size as me, technically, she's just a foot taller, but neither one of us is exactly 'off the rack' material. So the selection was ultimately made by asking the snotty salesclerk to bring out everything in the store that would also fit nicely over a Xerox machine and we narrowed it down from there. So black chiffon it is. People say black is slimming, but unless it's very, very dark, there's only so much camouflage you can count on, even from black. Our helpful sales clerk also whispered to me like she was sharing some of the ancient lore of skinny folks that there was this helpful exercise you could do, to help slim your butt and hips. Apparently if you sit on the floor with your legs in front of you and 'walk' on your butt, over time, this is supposed to lend itself to a firmer, trimmer derriere. Again, I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty self aware. With a butt like a park bench, how far do you think I'd have to go? Let's see, I live in Burlington, the wedding's in Waterloo in four weeks, if I leave tonight and butt-walk the entire way there, me and my slim new tush might just make it! If you have cause to head in that direction before the end of the month and you see me scootching up Highway 6, show your support, honk and wave. They guy next to me driving the world's slowest pace car will be my husband....

But I digress, it's a done deal. Black chiffon for an April morning wedding! So get your cameras ready, 'cause on April 25 I'll be the one plowing up the aisle looking like a pygmy gothapotamus in full sail. /endbigfatjewishathiestweddingbit

---

Well, the news is out....

So after 10 + years together, the erstwhile spouse and I are going legal.

Our "Wedding Window" site.

I have no idea how much time/energy I'll have to blog, as what I do have may be going into the wedding project as well as my handspinning projects. And teaching. And knitting a shawl. And O M G whatamIthinkinghowcanIpossiblyhavetimeforthis?

10 years together, 10 weeks to plan the wedding.

Some things are important....

I've been seething and stewing and writing then discarding various rants over the Prorogue. Short version: Affront to democracy. Disgusted that it still seems many Canadians including our PM don't have a grasp of 9th grade social studies as to how the Parliament and Government of Canada work. And yes, Mister PM - CANADIANS CARE.

Something a little more critical is afoot in the world, though, as of yesterday, when the devastatingly poor nation of Haiti was struck by a massive earthquake. At least Canada has the capacity to do something right and has a team on the way to precede the DART team, which I sincerely hope will not be delayed.

I'll refer the reader wondering "what can we do"? to any or all of the following resources:

The Yarn Harlot is rallying Knitters in support of MSF, which has already been very active in Haiti and sadly, is now worried about their own staff and volunteers as well as their patients in Port au Prince. Nonetheless, they've spent the night scrambling MORE teams to get there and help. I don't know if I have US/International readers, but their international site is here: MSF International and you don't have far to look for international links to donate for your country/region.

Other organizations which are on the move to this area:

OXFAM Canada and Oxfam International.

Red Cross Canada
or the Red Cross America both have aid campaigns underway.

I will repeat for you a plea that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee entered on her blog: Please donate if you can, but mark your donation for general "Disaster Relief" or "Greatest Needs" if possible, not for a specific country/region/event as much as that may be the need of the moment. Many aid organizations are bound to policies that prevent them from using funds donated to a specific campaign for other needs if the specific campaign is sufficiently addressed. This has left situations where disaster relief funds have gone un-used once order is re-established in a region, while other areas of the world are devastated but funds cannot be raised. Suffice to say, Haiti is a major campaign concern now for humanitarian aid, but lets not limit the reach of our concern or our funds for future benefit, either.

20 Years

December 6th, 1989 was a distressingly memorable day for me.

I was writing one of the first, or maybe it was even THE first, exam of my Engineering education at Guelph. Guelph was a small-ish engineering faculty, around 300 students total at that time, with less than 100 in my first year. Proportionately, however, we had a dubious claim to fame. 23% of the students in my year were women - a record proportion for any first year engineering class in the country.

Revved up on caffeine and nerves from our very first end-of-term finals, I recall that we walked out of the gymnasium where we sat our exam, to find most of our faculty and many senior and graduate students waiting to meet us - seemed oddly personal to be greeted by faculty at the end of the exam. Then we noticed the looks on the faces as they sort of rounded us up and told us the news about what had just happened at École Polytechnique in Montreal. I don't recall any particular reactions from anyone. We were all just sort of stunned, staring. I think there may have been offers to walk us back to our residences or the Engineering lounge together, wherever we needed to go, and information on how to get in touch with counselling services. I don't know if anyone ever used that.

As the next few days went by, white ribbons appeared on sleeves, vigils, memorials, and lots of quiet, personal talks and no doubt some tears happened. The news sunk in, some people realized they knew some of the women killed, or knew-someone-who-knew-someone, things like that. The Engineering student community is not huge, and there are provincial and national student engineering societies that networked among the schools. We for the most part got on with finishing our semester and exams and most were probably relieved to go home.

I remember being sad, the way I am to hear of anyone dying in horrid violence, and stressed and tired, but not particularly feeling a great deal of trauma or grief myself. But something about that day did thread through the rest of my education and my life since. Something very disturbing struck me that day - it was the first time in my life that it really sunk in that someone could really think women had no business - that I had no business - doing what we wished to do and being what we wished to be, merely because we were women. I had understood prejudice, sexism, racism, any-other-ism existed, intellectually, but that day it really hit me that there were people out there who somehow had their socialization so screwed up that they thought it right to hate and act out against other people just for being what they were.

December 6th has become a memorial, Canada-wide, not just to the 14 lost at École Polytechnique, but to all women hurt and killed in gender-motivated violence. Sadly, while the media spectacle of mass murder is rare, we don't seem to have made much progress. Just searching the days news can show examples of how behind we still are in ensuring gender equity in employment, social services, parenting, and just plain physical security of person. While I'm one of the empowered and have the ability to assure my own security in many ways, I am still very saddened by seeing examples all around me of the same continuum, of which the events of December 6th, 1989 were an extreme example.

It's sad. I remain at a loss for what to do, most of the time. I guess all I can say about it is always remember, speak up when you see not just violence but injustice and inequity, examine what you do and say, and help ensure that "Never Again" really is true.

Lest We Forget

Few Canadians need look very far to find among their family, friends and associates one who has served or does serve in our Armed Forces.

Today is for remembering those who have, literally in many cases, spent their lives in service of Canada and allies around the world, and also for thanking those who still make that commitment. Near home or far overseas, career or reserve, past or present, and year round, fellow Canadians are devoting their daily lives to the defense of Canada and global freedom.

Regardless of one's opinion on the political regime and machinations that drive our involvement in far conflicts, today is about the individual human lives committed in this service. Without them, Canadian citizens and others around the world would have very little of the comfort we enjoy today. Every one of them deserves the honour and thanks which November 11th represents.

Remembrance Day, by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams. Lyrics and Jim's story are on this page. You can hear the whole song in the video, or download on iTunes.

In Flanders Fields, and the story of John McCrae.

Laura Chau's poppies 2009 page - Knit Poppy Pattern in exchange for donation to the Poppy Campaign.

CBC News today, including the numbering of soldiers lost in service through Canada's history.

Lest We Forget.

NaBloPoMo, huh?

I really don't think I'll be formally joining the NaBloPoMo, however, since I stand a better chance at that than I do at NaNoWriMo, I figured I'd start on a good note for November.

It's been a crazy spell, hence not much blogging. I've been working, knitting, looking in on my once-again-hospitalized Mom when I can, working out, and trying to return my out-of-control clutter to something livable.

I need to start noting my small accomplishments, if only to keep from feeling overwhelmed by the "I got nothing done again" doldrums. For, really, I do a lot - all the time. But I do the sort of things that are never "finished", like work, housework, cleaning, planning, shopping. It's hard to get a sense of accomplishment from laundry, as it continues to need doing no matter how much you do.

So, for today, I have:
- put the binding on a 2.5 year long quilt project
- reassembled a shelf into a more useful configuration
- vacuumed some months of dust out of corners
- listed some Etsy stuff! More to come!
- not to mention, lots of puttering and tidying, though you can't tell from my room

Enough for now. Bedtime!

WIPs and more!

Well, so much for any idea of blogging from Haliburton. Plus, I have no Mac just now, she had a little breakdown and is in therapy at the Mac doctor. Nothing major, no bad disks or all, just can't operate on battery power, and well, that's the whole point of a laptop, right?

So I spent a bit of time today working, doing homework, spinning, and catching up on Ravelry stash and project updates mainly to make myself feel like I organized something.

Oh, and I got a little funny treat in the mail. Two days ago I ordered a bag from LUG, a shamefully trendy product which does seem to manufacture an array of decent bags. I totally discovered them before I ever heard Oprah had, too, so it's not JUST because Oprah liked them. Anyway, I ordered a bag directly from them as I couldn't find the model/colour I wanted in any store. They had an online coupon, too, which made the price even with shipping better than buying retail. They seem to be a nice small company, Toronto-based or at least partly so, but their shipping is from Texas. While I was content to pay the shipping, having gotten the online discount code, my bag arrived in less than 48 hours, with this enclosed:



Goofy, but cute. It's a little gadget beanbag, and it had a signed note attached saying "we're very sorry about the high shipping cost, it's the nature of our FedEx system and we're working on it".

Oh, and just to prove I WAS in Haliburton - I went looking for the rusty fairy metal sculpture that overlooked our classroom windows all last year. She's gone. This is there instead:

I have, for the second year, failed to get a good picture of the front door of the college, which is a work of sculpture itself. I notice more details every time I look at it, but it is red on red, unfortunately, and looks just like a big red door when photographed (by me. I'm sure someone else can do better).

For now, back to reviewing and organizing, as I have until February to complete a huge amount of work, and only until Thanksgiving to cook up a large part of it.

The Sock Summit Wrap-up. An Open Letter

Dear Stephanie and Tina, and everyone involved in SS09:

I originally began a blog post about how wonderful my weekend at Sock Summit was, but it was eaten by an a abrupt drop of WiFi and a mis-tap on my iPod Touch after 2 hours work while waiting at the airport. As I didn't have enough time to re-type it and my next layover didn't include free WiFi, I decided instead to wait until I had made it home, to a proper keyboard, and could make a bit more sense.

I also thought I'd turn the post into a thank-you letter, though an open one to share on my blog. So, of course, I'm one of I'd guess hundreds who are concluding their Sock Summit with a direct letter and a huge THANK YOU to both of you, to all of ST-2, your staff, volunteers, supporters, families, teachers, luminaries – really, anyone and everyone who contributed.

I almost did not register, not out of any doubt that Sock Summit would be amazing but due to the logistic challenges and expense of travel. However, after the server crash and fix, when it became apparent that it would sell out by the next day, I jumped in and left cash and logistics to the fates, for later.

As you will guess from the fact that I'm writing, I made it. Every high expectation I had was thoroughly exceeded. As far as I'm concerned, “Summit” was the perfect title, as Thursday morning started high and things only went up from there. You managed to pull off an event that had the quality academic and technical presentations of some of best training I've ever attended in any subject, combined with the festival atmosphere of a weekend entertainment venue. Even though many of my “first” choices of class/workshop were full by the time I got online, every single teacher and presenter I saw put to shame all but the few best of teachers I've met in my life. Even the Marketplace was brilliant, filled with great, diverse, friendly and relevant artisans and businesses. It was easy to navigate and comfortably spacious (the odd manic rush to limited-availability items notwithstanding).

After my first Thursday morning hour I had learned two brilliant new things that I will immediately put to use. I added more to that before dinner. The two of you delivering your opening night talk were endearing and hilarious and your recitation of some of the telephone conversations you had to have could have worried Bob Newhart that his schtick wouldn't measure up. Between Friday morning and Saturday morning spinning workshops, my hand spindle work advanced more than in the past two years, and I finished spinning my first small amount of true, 3-ply SOCK yarn at the Ravelry party (though I had to borrow a friend and re-name her Kate for the plying job). I think I'm going to frame my swatch from the Guiness attempt. I sat at a lunch table with Lucy Neatby and made some flip comment about her hair, to which she laughed heartily before I could second guess my mouth enough to feel abashed.

I found out how to solve most of the problems with the socks I make for the man in my life, though there was no help for the size 13 feet. Anna Zilboorg's Turkish Stitches hour was the last of my classes Sunday morning, and I couldn't write fast enough to jot down all the ideas her brilliant talk through the folklore and culture that surrounded that style of work brought to mind.

The Luminary Panel was truly the peak of the weekend, and I was not the only person near tears listening to the humour and brilliance of all the speakers, including yourselves. I have to say, as someone who came to knitting after Elizabeth Zimmerman was gone, thinking of that and listening to the Panel guests, I had a really striking realization how important this whole weekend was. You two had brought together brilliant guests who are, truly, the Wise Women of our tribe. As is inevitable for our species, some of them may not be with us much longer, as much as we would all wish differently, and this may have been the last chance for them to reach out to us who are newer to this community of art and skill. Having sat through that, I realize what a way of passing the torch (needles?) you offered to all of us, teacher or Luminary and students alike. I now cannot comprehend how much would have been missed, unknowingly, by how many hundreds of us, had this event not happened. This effort quite literally knit together generations in art and community. I am amazed, grateful, humbled and priviledged to have been able to attend.

I hope that my future works may represent, in some small way, what came of your efforts on this event.

Most sincerely, thank you.
Johanna

Saturday At The Summit

The only fail today was the continuing irkedness at the PCC charging $13/ day for wireless ( which I am NOT paying, hence only tweeting/posting from hotel). I mean, come on, Burgerville has free WiFi and the airport is $5. Lots of fun today, though!

Started with a spinning painted roving class, and got going like Taz on my new teeny Jenkins.
Lunches with Shall We Knit, Oh Susannah (my roomies from New Hamburg) and LUCY NEATBY, who is lovely and who really impressed some Portland sk8rbois with her hair.
Asked poor RachelH if her arm had fused permanently to her clipboard yet.
Resisted many MORE marketplace purchases than I made, but did score an enchanted knoll batt.
Learned lots of neat stuff about guy sock knitting, including ideas for converting lace to guy friendly charts.
Unfortunately also learned I should adjust patterns to tighter gauge and more stitches per round which will mean it takes even more knitting for size 13 feet. Seriously considered trading Adam to another knitter for a spouse with size 7s. But just for a moment.
Found my own way home on the MAX, only got lost by 1 block and I unlost myself fairly promptly.
RAVELRY!!!!! Was there in time for loverly Swag Bag, MH recognizes me now.
Finished spinning my singles AND plied a tiny ball of Real 3-ply Sock Yarn!!!! My first sock yarn and
my first 3-ply yarn.
Duelled spindles with another new Jenkins owner while we wandered the crowd.
Amy Singer herself personally placed one of her new Knitty promo buttons in my hand!
Tried an Oregon variant of poutine. Here, apparently, the fries go on top of the cheese. No idea why.
Tried organic local Pinot Noir. Very nice.
Knitters leaving Rav party commandeered half a MAX train. Like the TTC knitalong but ALL socks!
Off to catch a bit of snooze-just about 24 Hours left on the ground here.

SockSummit Friday Scores

Only one Fail today, which was just that I had both breakfast and blood stains from a capillary hit with my novopen on my pants before the day got going. Usually stained pants before the day starts leads to a bad day but the yarn mojo is strong here, so it didn't matter. The following are all WIN!

Abby Franquemont made my whole trip worth it before 9:30 am.
STR!!!!! Ravens and Rare Gems.
Participating in two Guiness world record attempts (one of them for the second time).
Walking past ST-1(Stephanie and Tina) who smiled and went for a hug that looked more like they were propping each other up for a vertical nap.
Yarn Harlot invented another word, "stampled" which is what she was afraid would happen to the knitting authors if she didn't keep the knitters sitting down so the authors could get a head start to the book signing.
Yarn Harlot gloating over CAT BORDHI knitting on STRAIGHTS.
Forget that guy from Footloose and some other movies. Six Degrees of BARBARA WALKER!
I not only saw but touched somethings knit by Barbara Walker and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, among others.
Harried volunteer running by in lobby asking "Did Cookie come this way?" of random complete strangers and we all knew exactly who she meant, of course.
Cat Bordhi hugged me!
Laughs from crowd of strangers when flopping down on bus stop bench and saying " What the heck am I going to do while I wait?"
Pattern Bingo.
Knitting while standing on the MAX.
Oh, wait, one Fail: I still don't like beer. Did, however, drink 2/3 of a half pint of Black Butte Porter at Deschutes brew pub.
On with the Win; enjoyed the food much more than the beer.
Reading Ravelry's Things I Heard at Sock Summit as I turn in for the night.

Sock Summit Opening Day

SS Fail: (well, sorta, but expected) 1am arrival woke
my already sleeping roomies.
SS Win: Time zone offset at least in right direction for early wake up. Not late for anything.
SS Win: Hotel and PCC both in free transit zone. Light rail almost door to door, no fees.
SS Win: Stunned looks on staff of multiple coffeeshops faced with stampeding woolly hoards needing coffee.
SS Win: Seamless registration.
SS Win: Learned 2 new bindoffs before lunch.
Portland CC Win: Giant 4 storey high, 600lb brass Foucault Pendulum. Not at all knitting related but mesmerizing.
Portland Meh: Denny's lunch.
SS Fail: Losing Luminary panel ticket sometime after lunch and before class. NOT REISSUEABLE.
SS Win: JoAnn of ST-2 and BMFA Cust. Service Goddess rocked my sad little world and reissued it anyway, even though I interrupted her lunch.
SS Fail: I'm a weenie and actually got jitters when teacher made me cut a hole in knitting.
SS Win: It was for the darning class. Now I can fix hole.
SS Win: Watching SPM and Rachel H. conduct 2000 knitters singing "99 skeins of yarn on the wall" while they were lined up waiting to stampede the marketplace.
SS Win: The looks on the faces of the PCC staff watching 2000 singing knitters lining up to stampede.
SS Win: Marketplace. And healthy credit limits. 3 new spindles, don't tell the Him.
SS WIN: Random "may we share your table" request had us sharing dinner table with ALL 4 RAVELRY deities!!!!! Lovely chatting with M-H quite a abit.
SS Win: Every single thing Stephanie and Tina said tonight. Someone should follow them around and record.
SS Blooper: "Buck up, Newton" .... "F**k off, McPhee". Tina was a little closer to the mike than she thought.
SS "D'aaawwwww": They both cried.
SS Win: SS teacher intros interrupted by standing ovation for Barbara Walker, 2nd only to the standing ovation for ST-1 and ST-2 themselves.
SS Win: Silent auction for MSF open for ONE HOUR raised about $5700.
SS Snoooze. See ya!

Socksummit Score Card, Travel Day

Travel Win: Early arrival at Pearson
Travel Fail: Departing flight delayed so as to guarantee missed connection.
Travel Fail: Air Canada ticketdork sends me to United counter saying I should reschedule my connection!
Travel Fail: United says not their problem,AC should put me up in hotel, go talk to them.
Travel WIN: 2nd Air Canada rep is not a ticketdork but a fully qualified agent, and much more helpful and smarter than her colleague. Gets me on standby for an earlier flight which has not yet left, helps me fill out customs papers and sends me running to gate. See first Win about arriving early.
Travel Win: 893 calories burned running around Pearson.
Travel WIN: Carry on only was an expedient idea.
Travel Fail: First time ever made to remove shoes at security, despite claiming to be late and diabetic.
Travel Win: No one took my knitting needles.
Travel Fail: Middle seat. Adjacent passenger not well acquainted with deodorant, then decided to remove shoes. Was in similar proximity to someone farting the last layover worth of beer. At least the shrieking toddler was a few rows back.
Travel Win: Landing at SFO at sunset, quick deplaning.
Travel Win: Fried artichokes at midnight when hungry, and a Swatch store to browse.
Travel Win: Connection boarding on time. Byeeeeeee!!!!!

I finished a thing!

Hint of thing finished:



More thing:

Go Read a Better Blogger Today....

I don't know the woman who writes The Seated View, but I know of her through other knit-bloggers, such as the Yarn Harlot, who is a friend of Lene's.

Her post today is a very, VERY apt description of what chronic pain of many types can be like. I'm lucky - I've not gotten that bad, and I am fighting my way out. But it can be so easy to slide into a downward spiral.

Don't forget to get outside and get some sun today and if you do have pain-free mobility - enjoy it.


Like Glass.

Returning from the sidelines....

Yeek, almost 2 months since a blog. Well, part of that is due to falling into the twibes of Twitter, so you've seen my sidebar popping up and updating a few times a day.

I did check out of life for a bit, though. Deep details not important, but ongoing sleep problems became so severe I did actually agree to pursue pharmaceutical adjustments & some lifestyle management, and got medical leave from work for part of that. I'm now sleeping something close to a normal number of hours though not always at the right times, and waking up feels like digging myself up from underground some mornings, but it's getting better.

I had some unexpected results from this break and various therapies - some good: lost weight. Some not so much: despite weight loss and more exercise, my glucose control went bugfuck. I went from having reasonable, acceptable A1C readings to slightly high at the beginning of this, and I'm afraid to get tested now when my daily tests have been regularly pinging between 2 and 22. Yeesh. This led me to looking into a bunch of stuff, including how exercise can negatively affect (that is, raise) blood glucose values. The root cause is a good one, for a non-diabetic: you're metabolizing stored fats INTO glucose which is dumping into your bloodstream. But for a diabetic? It means instead of lowering blood glucose, you're raising it, and you need more insulin to metabolize it. I've got a grip now but for a few weeks I couldn't keep up with the whacky.

This whole thing renewed my interest in what's the latest and greatest with diabetes care, and following chatter led me to discover a couple of products I'm just jonesing to try, but dammitall - typically, they're available anywhere but Canada. Abbot Laboratories/Therasense, who manufacture the meters I have used since the Freestyle Track and Handspring Visor combo, has a wireless continuous glucose monitor known as the Navigator. And a new small player has made it past the FDA with an amazing development in insulin pumps known as the OmniPod. How brilliant would those two be in combo? Slap the Navigator on one arm, Pod on the other, strap the gizmos to the bike handlebars and ride all day.

My ultimate fantasy? Package those together, integrate the software with the iPod touch, and get it all linked to GlucoseBuddy and Livestrong.com to boot. Total metabolic management wherever you get your Wifi.

Unfortunately, I'm Canadian, and despite being a relatively well insured one - we're an afterthought market and our system doesn't keep pace with cutting edge development in these fields. I might be able to get a prescription for one of the tubes-and-belt-clips pumps we have approved - we have 3 on the market here, I think - but I can't see one of those surviving more than a week of my gym/outdoor/pool workouts. I'm so far just signing up for the companies' mailing lists and waiting for news.

Happy Victoria Day!

So what's new out there?

Not much with me. Anyone who's been around heard I've taken some leave from work, as my brain decided to stop sleeping nearly totally.

Prescription is for rest, diet, exercise... and Cymbalta, which is a little bumpy so far but we're getting along better since I discovered it should be taken in the morning. Cymbalta's an anti-depressant, but one of two clinically validated by the FDA to be effective for fibromyalgia, and possibly for sleep cycle disturbances. We'll see. I have 5 more weeks to adjust, ugh. Unfortunately, I can't get back to sleep clinic until AFTER I'm supposed to be back to work, so who knows if it's actually fixing the fact that I don't get deep sleep.

In other news, it's the May holiday weekend, and the spouse got called into work (boo!) so I'm hanging around home with all the windows open (yay!) and making healthy food. I wasn't sure how healthy it was, but I've been using LiveStrong.com to help keep me on track, and it does the math for me. One of my favourite make-tons-and-eat-all-week meals has 250-350 calories per serving, depending on which dressing you use and how big you decide a "serving" is.

So just for fun, I'll share:

Johanna's Fresh Rice'n'Lentil Salad:

MUST have ingredients:
4 cups cooked whole-grain (brown, black, wild, mixed) rice
1 can chick peas
1 can lentils

CAN substitute (but you'll change the whole nature of the dish):
1 big bunch of fresh coriander, chopped (hate coriander? basil, parsley, dill... herbs of choice)
1 brick of extra-firm tofu, braised and chopped (can sub hard-boiled eggs or chicken, if not vegan/veggie)
1 not-quite-squishy avocado - soft enough to cut easily, but not so soft it's automatically guacamole.
12 tbsp Asian Sesame or Thai/Lemongrass salad dressing (again - dressing of your choice but totally changes taste).

Ingredients to add, but which you may freely improvise/substitute:
A bell pepper of your preferred colour, chopped
1 english cucumber, sliced in rounds then quartered
12 brussels sprouts, quartered and lightly steamed and cooled.

.... really, any fresh, non-starchy vegetables can go into this. There are tons of low-cal, high-fibre summer veggies.
Baby corn, asparagus, broccoli, bean sprouts, chopped spinach, snow peas, etc etc. Just throw in a total of about 4 cups of cut fresh veggies.

Throw rice, beans, veggies in a big bowl. Toss gently. Add dressing, toss to coat. Serve at BBQ or picnic, or keep in fridge and scoop out a dish at a time. Serves 8-12 depending on how much you serve.