Happy and Safe New Year to everyone!
I wish you all quiet. Peace and quiet and clarity.
January first is good for that.

UFOs to finish before starting the Morehouse sweater? Minimal!

The toe on the second of a pair of hiking socks.
The back and two sleeves of a stripey sweater I started in November.

Both are fairly quick knits.

Other projects in mind?

A dress set (lace over dress and a tight little rib knit under dress) in some Berroco discontinued yarns (if I can find them or deecent subsititutions)

A vest for Pablo

A pair of socks for Dre

Cute Valentine project for you know who

Big, pink, floofy sweater for Ness out of woolspun.

Christmas is done, but the knitting goes on!

Was fetishing the yarn from one of my Christmas presents.
Lace weight merino wool from Morehouse Farms in Milan (real upstate) New York.

Morehouse Farm

I believe that these folks were some of the first to have produced domestic cashmere. I've always wanted to visit them. Have always wanted to knit something from their yarn. It's a real luxury item for me, though.

Anyhow, I have enough heather gray wool to make a cardigan. It's going to be fairly intense, fine-gauge knit. Hopefully PBS will have a decent line up of good old movies on Sunday nights. Minimal seaming, though, as it's worked on circular needles. This sweater is going to be feather light. Wonder what buttons to use? Probably mother of pearl, as they're the only ones I can think of that won't overpower or be too heavy.

Gosh, I'm starting to salivate thinking of this.

Lileks again on that weird mix of self righteousness and self hatred that seems to pervade the thought of most on the left today. I love it when his bleats turn to screeds.

Bleat

More on the same from Victor Davis Hanson:

VDH

Generally my thought on this is - maybe instead of buying another graduate degree, one might consider getting a bit ot therapy. Most of these tantrums seem to be 'low self esteem' combined with resentment against 'mommy and daddy.' Oversimplification, perhaps, but, hey, I'm reduced to drooling moron in the eyes of many when I say something like "George Bush isn't so bad."

As well you all might know, I don't have a political affiliation. My thought is to look over candidates and eventually vote on who I think will get the job done. That said, my heart usually leans to the left on a number of issues. It's too bad, however, that what is considered the 'left' politically here is rapidly disintegrating into incoherent insanity.

Here is a 'top ten' of quotes from the democratic underground:

RW News

My favorite two are the last couple where the poster talks about those on the left being in the upper percentiles intellectually and that they have to take their rhetoric down to the level of the troglodytes who vote Republican.

Why would I ever want to associate with people who express themselves as such? They are as bad, or worse than the 'fundy religious rights' that my 'Cambridge Liberal' friends rail against so.

If I were to believe everything that everyone said about me regarding relationships, I'd probably end up dropping myself in front of the red line. You know that statement 'the only constant in all your failed relationships is you?' It's true to a certain extent - I'm not a bad person who cannot relate to others but I do attract to myself or find myself being attracted to certain types and it always seems to end up the same way.

I can deal tolerably well at work as I have no choice. On the home front however, I don't see why I have to. I guess what I'm getting at is, the relationship with the guy has reached its stretched to breaking point.

Well, where am I now? 1/2 way through the most intense of the holiday mayhem, I guess. One could argue that Christmas is the worst of it. I don't usually breathe easily until January first. I wonder, though it is December 30, if I can make it to the first of the year. I feel this way every year. I'm burned out.

Sorry...can't keep up with everything right now.
Cookies need to be baked, gifts need to be made.
Party on Sunday, then away for two weekends afterwards.
Tired out just thinking about it.

The snow didn't help much, either. Heavy, wet, lots of it.

All I really would like to do is sleep.

For this, I'll be posting sporadically at best.

Sort of like seeing "Columbo" reruns and not being able to concentrate on the story because I'm too busy thinking of the Morning Zoo's old feature "Falk in Athol."

Some of my favorite Christmas Tunes were the ones that the Ronettes did. They are ruined for me now. I hear "Sleigh Ride" or "Frosty the Snowman" and think of Phil Spector and his impending murder trial.

Put the Christmas decorations up at the office today. Ella was left aside for some Looney Tunes Christmas album that gives me a headache after one song.

Got to get home before the storm...

All together now!

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged my comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup,
And looking up I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke,
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

How many people have this verse of "Day In the Life" run through their heads during the morning commute? I know of at least two people...

Is it out of line for me to see //s between the Acadian forced movements to the south of our country from Canada and the Mormon diaspora that took place years later? As a correspondant pointed out, a diaspora is a diaspora. What I find interesting is that the former group has been romanticized, much like the Native Americans, both in song and literature. The latter group is still vilified today.

I got to thinking about this after hearing on NPR yesterday a piece on tourism to a town in Illinois where the Mormons were driven from in the mid 19th century.

Return to Navoo

Having grown up nearby where Joseph Smith started the faith, I've been around the culture for quite a while and quite comfortable with the people. It was after having moved out of Western New York State and into New England that I first encountered (along with a lot of other prejudices and shows of racism) real hostility towards the LDS members. I've heard people refer to them as 'freaks' or 'wife beaters' or (get this) even 'heretics.' Is it the polygamy thing? Is it the extra set of commandments? The Angel Moroni visiting Smith? There were plenty of other such religions born during the same time as LDS, so I don't quite understand this. There is a lot of things that seem strange to me regarding this faith. But then again, I see a lot of strangeness in the political correctness of Unitarianism, of the smells and bells of Anglicanism, of the whole mysticism surrounding my faith. At any rate, just a bit of food for thought. And just another bit of what I see as a chink in the 'tolerance' of what is called 'liberalism' here.

Oh heck, one more link:

Evangeline

Was going through my head during the day yesterday after having heard the NPR story.

Had the most amazing dream the other night. I dream in color, so it's most always a trip. This was particularly weird in its banality, I guess.

I dreamt that the Super 88 Market up and relocated to San Francisco. This really burned me up, as we've such a small Chinatown and it seems as though relocating a Chinese chain market (sort of a fixture here) to San Francisco would be kind of like sending coals to Newcastle. Really bad business decision. It took me a bit to get over this after waking up.

Last night, so cold I was crying 1/2 way home.
This morning, after making it into the office in one piece, I found that I could not feel my toes.

Carol Adams's "Sexual Politics of Meat"

Get a load of this doozy.

When I heard the 'tune' by those crazy guys on the left coast 'Consolidated,' (who da thunk it that hip hop could be made to sound like a Sociology 101 textbook), I actually thought that they were kidding. Turns out that there is someone out there peddling this schtick. On the academic circuit, no less. Wow, I'm in the wrong line of work.

On a more serious note, being an animal lover, former vegetarian and female in this male dominated society, I don't know whether to laugh what passes for 'intellectualism' here, to pity the author, or to really be burned up about this. I wonder if this is where PETA is getting ideas from for their latest ad campaigns:

"An Immaculate Conception"

Lapsed Catholic that I am, I find this image/campaign to be incredibly offensive. Of course, since it's Christian imagery, it's fair game.

Would anyone care to explain to me the modern origins of this fetishizing of animals? Does it have to do with cartoons we watched as kids? Does it have to do with our society in the last 50 years keeping people in a prolonged state of childhood? This stuff does not seem like the product of any sort of mature thinking. Rather more like adolescent, emotional rantings.

Finished the knitting portion of my nice wine-colored fake guernsey. Just need to block the pieces and sew them together. I'm looking forward to learning the technique of three needle bind off. That's what is used for making the shoulders up.

Next project: a sweater worked in the round from this fun, large-gauged yarn I picked up from Lion Brand. It's called "wool spun" and for some reason they're discontinuing it. I think it's beautiful stuff.

After that: Lots of hats, scarves, mittens. Maybe a shawl. We'll see.

First day of snow. Oh my. I love the snow, but I hate hate hate! navigating the streets of Somerville. Gridlock everywhere. Fishtailing trucks all over the place. Question for you: which is scarier...a fishtailing Range Rover or a fishtailing Explorer? Happily, I made it to work in one piece and not too late.

With cold weather comes the inevitable need to protect one's body from the elements. First day of stockings. Sigh, hate 'em. I feel like a nylon sausage. To make up for this awful equivalent to whalebone, I have my 'ease into winter' outfit: brown velvet dress, comfy suede clogs, slightly ragged but still nice tiger striped scarf. I look pretty good in spite of my trials of getting in.

Also broke down and colored (yes, colored) instead of hennaed the hair. Garnier fruite...Garnier fructe...frugiverous Garnier. Number 92. Apricot. Amazing how something so unnatural can make me look more natural than the 'natural' equivalent. Got to hand it to the French. Blood for oil? Bien sur que oui! Antiamerican? Whenever possible. Anti Semite? Well, deduct what you can from a place that calls Passover 'Jewish Easter." Good with cosmetic products? Yeah. What's a girl to do. Snort

Found another like mind who is far more eloquent and in depth than I can be on Iraq, for example. Fairly local, too!

Check out this site:

Downeast Blog

Lots of good insight here.

Back again. Quite a weekend. Five hours worth of driving from Connecticut to Maine. Was just a little bit stressful. Took a couple days to relax, take stock of stuff.

In all it wasn't a bad trip. I really need to get down to Haddam more often. It's beautiful there.

Something happened that really bothered me. I think I noted it last year. Don't know. It's something that really sort of steeps the environment up in Maine. The notion of academia as the family business. Anyhow, while at the table during Thanksgiving dinner, they had the 'who has a PhD' roll call. At the end of all this, it was pointed out to a fair bit of laughter that the only two people at the table who didn't have graduate degrees were me and the three year old. It was then mentioned that I had to go and remedy this.
I didn't get it out properly, but what I wanted to say was, as it took me more than five years and about $15k more than I'd expected to get the bachelor's sorted out, I was not anxious to go back and get myself in debt by at least three times that amount. It's also extremely difficult to take time out of work to go to school when you have other loans and high rent to pay.

My thinking of the costs vs the payoffs may seem a bit vulgar perhaps, but, hey, pragmatism perhaps hasn't always been a characteristic of the upper classes. I guess I'll just keep that along with the table manners and the love of jello. If I get mocked for it, so be it.