Happy New Year!

2013 is finished.  I know this, because this is also finished:

 

 

That's my 2013 year in temperatures scarf.  It's ruffled because I knit it in wedges, one wedge per day (with the dark green ones to mark the months).  The color was determined by the high temperature for that day (one color for every five degree difference).  It's about 9 feet long.

 

It was an easy project, in terms of the knitting--it only takes about five minutes to do a wedge.  But I had to take a whole year to do it, waiting to see which each day would be.  Now that it's done, I realize I'm going to miss it--because it wasn't about having a finished scarf, but rather the process of making it (don't miss it enough to do another one--between this and the Dr. Who scarf I have enough super-long scarves).

 

 

Bob and I both had two weeks off between terms.  We had plans--we were going to do hiking, a kayaking, and work on projects, and I was going to get the house clean.  Uh . . .  best laid schemes?   Some of it wasn't our fault--it rained almost every day.  Some . . .well, me and housekeeping really don't see eye to eye.  I mean, you can clean house, or you can just sit in a messy room on a gray day and enjoy being with the cats.  (Not sure where Pookha was for this one.)

 

We did get to check out the new indoor shooting range in town--the rain didn't matter there.  I couldn't resist getting this zombie target.  Although it does show that we need to get in some more shooting practice--we managed to hit everywhere *except* the head and heart target spots.  If zombies are picky about where they're shot, we're doomed!

 

 

 

 

I have gotten some other things done.  This piece has been on the loom since about May--I wanted to learn a new technique for weaving that random shaded look.  I was inspired to finish it by the fact that I need the loom to weave some shaggy shoulder mantles for the Knights of Ni in the upcoming production of Spamalot at the School of Theatre.    If you're knitting something, and feel like knitting something else, it's no big deal to go get another set of knitting needles.  Looms aren't quite like that, so I have to finish this piece.   I really like the way it turned out--it's destined to become a tote bag some day.   I almost have the warp on for the new project.

Also for Spamalot is some knitting of faux chain mail.  Although it's done with big needles and thick nylon cord, it's rather "muscular" knitting and it takes awhile to finish a piece.  I've done two shoulder pieces and three sleeves--one sleeve to go.  This will look better after it's dyed and gilded.       

Another "muscular" project is the expansion of the garden.   This so far has been Bob's project.  We've had a sink outside of the fenced-in garden, but it's tricky to use in the peacock breeding season because one of the boys can be pretty aggressive.  Bob also wanted to have the little greenhouse inside the fenced area to make it easier to carry things back and fourth.  He had moved the fence, and we were off to get some flagstones to pave in the sink area.  One the way we visited a friend, and upon hearing about our project, pointed to a huge pile of flagstones in a corner of her yard and offered them to us.  She has a friend who's a contractor and he had pulled them up on a job and taken them to her place in case she ever wanted to pave in her patio.  After four years that hadn't happened, so they were ours for the taking.  They were of two different shapes--some squares, and some of a house shape.  Bob was just going to put them in rows (the house shapes could be interlocked) but I thought we should do something more interesting.  Of course, this meant that I had to be the one to figure out the "more interesting" pattern, and then put them in place.  Oh, well--I need the exercise.  We got another load yesterday.  It will take a couple more to finish the project--there's a limit on how much weight the truck can take at a time (or my back and legs, for that matter).

 

This morning we *finally* got some bright clear weather so decided to go hike at St. Marks.  Sheesh!!!  Bright, clear, windy, and COLD!!.  OK--so my relatives and friends in areas like Boston, Kansas, Alaska, and Belgium won't offer any sympathy, but to us thin-blooded Floridians, temps in the 30's with wind is freezing!  Here we are, actually bundled up.

 

 





We weren't the only wimps.  St. Marks is a wildlife refuge, and usually lives up to that name.  Today all the wildlife was apparently hunkered down somewhere--we saw only a few birds, no alligators, and not even any fiddler crabs (usually the ground is moving with them).    But afterwards we went for lunch at a little redneck dive for oysters, shrimp, and smoked mullet--yum!  I had to laugh--I talked a little in my last post about the "real food" movement.  Another "new" movement is called locavore--the idea of eating food produced in the area, not shipped in.  People act like it's a new idea--but little shacks like this have been serving locally-harvested food for generations.  Maybe the place just doesn't have that yuppie/hipster vibe.

 

Past my bedtime now--Happy New Year to all!

Random Friday

Ah, me.  Once again a couple of weeks slid by (I almost wrote "have slidden" but the English major in me just can't do it).

Sometimes life just seems a little mundane and there's not much to write about.  I mean, how exciting is this:  "I came home from work and fixed a quick lunch."  Just how much can you say about that?  Let's see . . .

"Work" meant being at the museum and trying to train the hawk to go into a carrying crate.  If you've ever tried to shove a reluctant cat or dog into a carry crate--just imagine it with wings.  Gets a little physical.

Quick lunch--hungry when I got home, so went to the garden and picked a handful of greens (kale, cabbage leaves, mustard, some chives).   Tossed them in a skillet with a little butter until they wilted, then cracked a couple of eggs on top and let them set.  Salt, pepper, squeezed on some lemon juice, and had a simple and tasty lunch.  No real big deal, except that this is the sort of eating that the foodies are going on about now,  books being written, shows on television and radio.  Fresh, local (the eggs were courtesy of the girls in the henhouse, and the lemon was from a tree at the museum--OK--the butter and salt were from the grocery store), unprocessed.  Just food.  Odd that in our overly-fed country, just plain food is becoming a rarity.

Oh--and the peacocks came running when they saw me in the garden so they got the stems that I pulled off the leaves and a few buggy greens.  I guess that' s not an everyday occurrence for most people either.

Now some randomness, and equally random pictures.

Our friends Gill and Jim got engaged.  In lieu of an engagement ring, he got her a motorcycle and side car.  Not as easy to wear, but a heck of a lot more fun.  (She didn't want me to get cold, hence the Eeyore hat.  Bob didn't have to wear it.

And no, we didn't just pose.  Gill took us each for a ride.

Projects--been making some simple stuff.  Dad gets cold easily, so I made him some
polar fleece sleep shirts and some fingerless mitts (four shirts, three pairs of mitts, so we can rotate).  Some people get obsessed about knitting socks--me, I like making mitts.  And I like wearing them--they keep my wrists and hands warm but leave my fingers free.  Dad wears his 24/7 (hence the three pairs). 










My other obsession is felted slippers.  In an earlier post I mentioned "knitting at stop lights" so that's where these come in.  They're fun because you knit them way outsized, then shrink them in the washing machine.  They're also warm and comfortable and look like little elf boots.  (and that's the best I could get the pictures to line up side by side)                                                                    







                                                                                  

I renewed the exhibit at the Goodwood plantation (our general plan is to change out the garments about every three months).  I'm really glad that Goodwood liked my idea of a continuing (but much simpler) exhibit after we did the major "Gowns of Goodwood" last years.  The house is beautiful, but putting in even a few garments seems to bring the rooms to life.  Just imagine these rooms without the "people" in them.

And here's a wonderful gift that I just got yesterday from my friend Natasha (she was the bride a few posts ago).  She painted a portrait for me of my favorite little barred owl at the museum.  I would have loved having any painting from her, but this one is particularly touching because it's how the owl looks when I'm scratching her head (we term it "stoner owl").   Several people can handle her, but I seem to be the only one that she loves to have scratch her.  So this picture is when she is being my owl.  (insert chorus of "awwwwww" in here)

 

 

Current reading:  Finished Varney the Vampire.  Sort of--maybe.  It just sort of ended, which makes me think that all Project Gutenberg had but it probably still goes on (it was a penny dreadful issued in weekly installments over several years--an early Victorian "Dark Shadows").  So maybe I'll track down the rest, or maybe I'll say that 748 pages of it was enough.

 

Barbara Kingsolver's "Prodigal Summer."  Unlike "Varney" this was a some excellent reading.   Kingsolver always works the environment and how everything interacts into her writing.  It's obviously her agenda, and it's always in your face, but she doesn't beat you over the head with it.  This was a novel of a small town--bug lovers, bug squashers, organic growers and sprayers, coyote lovers and shooters.  Read it in just a few days because it's one of those that's difficult to put down.

 

Now on the annual re-reading of Hogfather.  Tomorrow is when we eat meat pies and watch the movie.

 

 

*Finally*--a few cat shots.  I was doing some spinning and took a quick break--and Fiona decided that the soft fiber would make a good pillow for a nap.

 

 

The other morning when I went onto the back deck to feed the "special care" animals, Timmy the Squirrel ran into the house.  With a half-dozen cats around that's not really a good idea, so I scooped him up and offered him a peanut.  He happily settled into my hand with his snack.  I think Timmy landed on his head when he fell out of the nest and, as we say in the South, he ain't quite right.  He's generally a healthy and happy little squirrel, but he doesn't see well and he's rather uncoordinated.  He can also be totally oblivious to his surroundings--as shown by the fact that he was focused on his peanut and didn't even notice the attentions of Noko Marie.

 

 

OK--I'm about caught up--at least with the blog.  Really should start thinking about Christmas . . . .





Reading

Let about three weeks slide by there.  The usual--work, Thanksgiving, kayaking.  I'm a little scattered-minded at the moment with the holiday season (and I think there's a birthday in there somewhere too).  So to settle down with one topic--reading.

I know that some people are not readers--I probably read this somewhere--but I don't get it.  That's like saying some people don't need to breath.  I don't remember learning how to read--Mom read to us until we were reading on our own, and then Mike and I both read constantly.   The parental punishment of "go to your room" for any misdemeanors sort of failed when we would be told "OK, time's up, you can come out now" was met with "Let me finish this chapter."

In elementary school I annoyed the teacher by reading everything at my level (remember reading levels?  They were color coded) instead of just the minimum for moving up--then all the next level and so on until I was out and asking for more (and now I wonder why they were annoyed--but they were).   At the beginning of one year of high school the teacher passed out a "what did you do on your summer vacation" questionnaire, and it had five lines for "what did you read?"  I turned the page over and listed about 30 books.  The teacher questioned me afterwards--was this the truth?  I said it was close--there were probably more but that was all I could remember.

Reading takes you out of yourself--you can be actively learning, entertained, amused.  Wander a new land, or know more about the land you're standing on.  My reading is pretty eclectic--it's whatever grabs my fancy at the moment (I see that a movie is being made from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."  I've never read that, so onto the reading list it goes).

My sister-in-law Margo was wondering how I manage to read at much as I do (which to my mind, isn't enough).  After all, I am working 3 jobs, and do the spinning, weaving, sewing, kayaking, taking care of critters, etc.)   My answer was "insomnia."  Somewhat a joke--but true.  I've always had problems getting to sleep, but that's reading time.  And if I do the 3:00 a.m.  wakeup, I can lie there and fret--or turn on my little book light and read.  There's reading at breakfast (neither Bob nor I can carry on a good conversation at that hour of the morning).  There's the bathroom reading (National Geographic, Smithsonian).  Being too busy can sometimes give you reading time.  If I've finished with Appointment A, and it's going to take me 20 minutes to drive to Appointment B but I'm not due there for 45 minutes, I hit whatever coffee shop is available and curl up and take a break in between.

And that's why I started my "what I've read" list here.  Margo is organized and has her reading lists (and her movie lists) so she knows what she'd read and seen.   If I ever made such a list, I'd lose it.  So into the blog it goes.  Current reading:

As mentioned above, magazine reading includes National Geographic, Smithsonian, Spin-Off and Ply (both spinning magazines) and Wild Fibers (a social geography magazine focusing on fiber sources).

Since the last post, I've done my annual reading of "Dracula."  I also listened to several short stories by Bram Stoker while doing hand-sewing at the costume shop.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.   Meh.  Made a better movie than a book.   I like exaggerated stories and adventure, but I'd like there to be at least one toe held in the world where the laws of physics apply.  Didn't bother to finish it.

Knitting Rules--Stephanie Pearl McPhee is a Queen of Knitting and writing about it.  Her blog is hysterical.

Knitting Yarns--stories by writers about knitting.  I'll do a blog post about knitting sometimes--it's more than knitting.  Hence the dozens of books out there about the meaning of knitting.

An introduction to The Compleat Angler (a book written in 1653 about the "meditative man's recreation).  Must read the book itself sometime.

And, currently--VARNEY THE VAMPYRE.   I have started this many time over the decades and never gotten past the first few chapters.  It predates Dracula by 50 years or so, and it's really awful.  The author was once hauled into court for plagiarism (tending to make money of Charles Dicken's popularity by writing such books as "Oliver Twiss" and "David Copperful."  The case was thrown out because the judge declared that the writing was so bad that no one would ever think it was done by Dickens.   "Varney the Vampyre"  was a penny dreadful (stories released one chapter at a time--the Victorian equivalent of a soap opera) that went on for years.

It's really badly written.  Awful  All 748 pages of it.  All the characters are stereotyped (the beautiful victim, her noble brothers, the gruff old retired admiral (who has to start almost every sentence with "shiver me timbers") and the cruel vampire (who, however, did not choose to be this way and wishes he did not need to feast upon the living)

And I'm loving it.  Best treatment for insomnia ever. 

Time Travelling

We seem to have been skipping around time the last week or so.

130 YEARS AGO, IN THE FUTURE . . .

Tallahassee has it's first Steampunk Expo.  Steampunk is an aesthetic based on the Victorian style, brought into the unknown future.  Think of what a rocketship would look like if it was designed by the Victorians, and you get the idea.

To be honest, it wasn't much, and we really weren't expecting much.  That sounds cold--but it's a movement that's just getting started in Tallahassee and we wanted to support it.  But there was a group from Jacksonville that brought some pretty cool stuff (note:  lamp parts seem to be useful in creating future weapons)

I was particularly taken by this little killer (I assume robotic) prawn.

 

WORLD WAR II, Monday

A few days later we jumped from the Victorian future to the 1940's as once again we fired up the jeep and drove in the Veteran's Day Parade.  It's always gratifying to see the turnout--the crowds were estimated at over 20,000.  And, of course, I had to ham it up as Rosie the Riveter.

1500 YEARS AGO, Yesterday

What goes up, must come down.  Sunday Liz and I gave a talk to the Panhandle Archeological Society on the Nasca era pottery and textiles on display at the Museum of Fine Arts on campus.  It was a last hurrah--this exhibit's time is over, and it's someone else's turn.  It was rather surprising on how fast it went--when you're setting an exhibit up, there are a lot of decisions about how to arrange the stands, what goes on what stand, what angle everything should be, the background, the lighting.  Taking down--well, you just (carefully!) take it down.  The covers come off, the pottery gets nestled into bubble wrap on a cart to be rolled down to the storage shelve, the textiles get wrapped in tissue and back into their drawers, and that's that--takes about an hour.   I snapped one last picture before the students helping with the next exhibit got out the putty knives to peel the sign off the wall (the letters are decals).

 

 

I left before they took my name off--I had rather liked having it up there.



Nostalgia for Our First Home

You never forget your first home.
 
Of course, I have had many homes in my life--when your Dad's in the military you move around a lot, and "home" is where you happen to be living at the time. (Mom had a great talent for making a home--Dad once told her that he could pitch a tent in the middle of a desert and she would go "cluck cluck cluck" and make a nest).

But *my* first home was our apartment in Alumni Village--the married/graduate student apartment complex off the FSU campus.  We only lived there about a year, then we upgraded to a slightly (very slightly) larger apartment, and then had moved on to have our second anniversary in Texas when Bob got his commission.

But I have always loved that little apartment--*my* first home.  The Village will be torn down in a year or so.  The occupancy is down, and the buildings old (they were already seeming a bit shabby 40 years ago).  They don't have the amenities most renters require now--the laundry room is a few blocks away, there's no WiFi or pool or gym.   I'm not sure if they every had a prime, but if so, they're past it.

Now that the apartment is unoccupied, Bob got permission to go visit it.  He's been there doing inspections over the years, but it was my first time back.  Suddenly I felt 20 again, and a newlywed (well, almost a newlywed--we did a shocking thing at the time and moved in two weeks before we were married!)

Our was the one on the top floor. 

I do see a bit of an air conditioner in this picture.  We didn't have one--we couldn't afford to buy one, and if we had, we wouldn't have been able to afford the power bill to run it.  We just sweated a lot.

I felt a little trepidation about opening that door.  Sometime you should just keep your fond memories intact and not besmirch them with reality.  But guess what?  It's rather a nice little apartment.  Brighter than I remember it (somehow I remember more gray).   And there had been the "damn you" wall in the living room--the one with the big hole where a previous owner had stuck an air conditioner and  covered with a chunk of plywood, with nasty water stains all down the wall.  I'd stare at that ugliness and say "damn you damn you damn you" and finally hung a cheap Indian print bedspread over it)

But the room I kept returning to, that made my heart give a little pitty pat, was my kitchen.

Bob was 20 then, and- like all young men- ravenous.  And I liked to cook.  We were pretty broke, but beans and rice and dubious rolls of hamburger and cabbage and spaghetti  could make some pretty good meals.  You could get boxes of bacon "ends and pieces"--mostly fat, but they flavored a lot.  I had a new husband to cook for, and sometimes friends, and had my parents come up for Thanksgiving dinner in *our* home.  

And it's still a fine little kitchen.  When the Village was built 50+ years ago, it was assumed that the occupants would cook. There is a full-size fridge, and a double sink, and some counter space.  Heck--it's not much smaller than the one at Rob and Jeff's house.   And it's much bigger than some I've seen in the modern "luxury" apartments--the ones I call half-assed kitchens because they're only big enough to get half your ass into them.  A half-sized fridge and a microwave and that's about it. Not the center of a home.

I wish we could have stayed a little longer.  I would have liked to cook another dinner in there.  I could still live there for awhile, until all our stuff and cats caught up with us.  I laugh because the little cottage that I use for my studio is about the same size of this apartment.

I could sigh, and say "we were happy then."  We were--but we're also happy now, with a house and a cottage and a big barn full of too much stuff, and cats and chickens and peacocks and other assorted creatures, and the detritus of many hobbies scattered around.  It's been a long time since that little apartment.

I still like that kitchen.

The Dress has Launched!

During all the busy-ness of the Howl, another set of busy was taking place behind the scenes--Natasha (director of Education at the Museum) had to plan her wedding to fall between the Howl and the Fall Farm Days (which is tomorrow). Rob and Jeff were sort of the wedding planners, taking care of all things like flowers, seating, being sure there was enough ice, and all the details that go into a lovely wedding.  And lovely it was.  My favorite weddings are small ones, and personal.  A friend (in the case, her godfather) to officiate, friends for the music, friends for the caterers.  It takes a village to make a marriage.

And of course she looked adorable--because I did manage to get the dress finished in time.

Congratulations, Ken and Natasha--may there be many good times ahead!

Howl, Part 3

Now just some random haunted trail photos.

Inside the "Hive" (Jeff's name for it--I still think of it as the fishnet).  Made by hanging much milage of erosion cloth.  It also got draped on the actors--who blended right in.  And the walls bit.

Homage was paid to the build crew by creating and displaying their death masks.

And strange things could be seen through the windows of the cabin.

Until next year . . .