Hoboken Fourth Of July 2009

What About NIxon?

We passed the Bendix Diner on our way up to play golf on Saturday, and I mentioned to Brendan that Richard Nixon was a big, big fan of the pork roll and egg sandwiches at the Bendix Diner, where he would go after he played golf.

Truth be told, not being a New Jersey native I think it was unlikely that Nixon liked the pork roll sandwiches, but he did live in New Jersey and he did sometimes eat at the Bendix Diner. Since Brendan - like Nixon! - is not from New Jersey, he naively wondered why Nixon would spend his last larcenous years in suburban NJ.

Why indeed:

• The Sopranos wasn't on TV at that time so you had to get your pork store information first hand and where better to do that than in the Garden State?
• Nixon liked the Jersey Shore, and that is only in New Jersey.
• He had friends a few exits down on the turnpike from the Mile Square City.
• He could take a bus quick to the Port Authority in NYC for Chinese food with his friend Henry the K.

New Jersey and Nixon: perfect together!

Get Out and Stay Out

Three days of sunshine in a row! Well, okay, there were two massive thunderstorms, and Emily and narrowly escaped a flash flood on River Road, and it was really muddy everywhere I went still, but yes we were able to sample the Seven Deadly Sins this weekend: golf, knitting, drinking beer outside, talking about Richard Nixon, buying plants, ripping out knitting and ignoring laundry.

Brendan and I played golf on Saturday at a place I kept thinking was called Twin Peaks. It wasn't my best game, but it was pretty thrilling to be out playing golf at all. I had one spectacular shot out of knee high poison ivy on to the fairway, and one heart stoppingly perfect putt on the last hole. Really, all you need in golf is one good shot and if you play like me, that's pretty much all you get.

We also did our Sunday Knitting Night at a Newark Bears Game, which was combined with the outdoor beer drinking. Lynn was there, knitting a throw rug on size 50 needles - the perfect carry along project! Christy was making that ball band tea cosy, which was much cuter in person than in the magazine. I'd knit it. I found myself hitting the wall with my fifth sock from the Wendy D Socks from the Toe Up book. Don't get me wrong: the toe up technique has changed my life, and the Magic Loop is still magical. The particular lace pattern I was working on wasn't as euphonious as some of the others. It just wasn't singing to me, so rip rip rip it went.

Now where does Richard Nixon fit in?

Movies About Knitting: The King of Comedy

Okay, well it's true, maybe most people don't think of King of Comedy as a knitting movie. I know I never did until last night.

I spent a whole lot of time this morning looking to see what other movie critics have noticed just how much knitting there is in this movie. I am the first!

In the knitting scene - possibly the pivotal part of the movie! - Masha and Rupert have kidnapped Jerry, and Masha has Jerry trying on a red, v-necked stockinette sweater that she knitted for him. And in Sandra Bernhard's character's face you could see the total bliss of knitting: she loves the knitting. She loves the person that's getting the knitting. She loves that the sleeves are the right length without the benefit of measuring. She loves the stockinette stitch. It's the magical moment of knitting.

I loved how the v-neck was so perfect.

And the moral of this story? Inside every fanatic, there is a knitter. And vice-versa.

Rain: Go Away.

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house.
All that cold, cold, wet day.

I think I cannot remember when it was not raining. The little icons on the weather map show day after day after day of little rain clouds, punctuated by little zig zag thunderstorms: Monday: raining. Tuesday: raining. Wednesday and Thursday: raining. Friday, Saturday: rain rain rain; Sunday just more rain. Go ahead, sing along! It will cheer you up.

I am not quite sure what sun worshipping, nature loving things I would have done this weekend if it wasn't raining. If the sun was shining this weekend I would have been occupied with watching golf and knitting - which is what I did anyway. I knitted a great deal, in fact, but have no photos to show because it was too wet to take the knitting outside for pictures.

It can't really rain forever, right?

Knit-In Update

"When life rains on your knitting, cast on with acrylic" - a famous philosopher

Well, it looks like another sneaker soaking, hair frizzing rainy day. Once I get done with the unexpected and Herculean tasks set before me this Saturday morning, I will be joining the Hoboken knitters either at Pier A park (unlikely) or the local weak coffee/free wifi auditorium. If you're in town, stop by!

Feeling Groovy

I walked across the Queensboro Bridge today into Manhattan instead of taking the subway on my way home from work.

It was one of those walks that was uphill all the way even though it is only about a quarter mile.

There were a surprising number of pedestrians and bikers going both ways. I even saw two coworkers from my old job, one on a bike and one on foot, crossing into Queens from Manhattan.

And yes, I did sing the song.

Be There Granny Square!

Hope to see you there! And thanks to our knitty pal Brendan for the poster.

Home Despot

Forces of nature thwarted me at every turn this weekend, but I did go to the smallest and tidiest garden store ever, on the rooftop parking lot of the Home Depot by the Holland Tunnel:



It was very tidy and maybe the size of my city backyard. I thought the plants were fake at first, since there was no extra dirt anywhere. There were two other customers, a man and a woman couple. The man stopped me and said me he had been there for two hours while his wife shopped for plants. I thought hmm, he'd better not go with me to a yarn store.

Tricoteuse

As you good Victorian scholars know, Charles Dickens died 138 years ago today. He was 58 when he died of a combination of too many public appearances and parties, stepping out on the mother of his ten children, and writers block. And while I object to Dickens' place in history as the the most important of Victorian novelists for many reasons (all of which I will list for you in great detail if you send me a self addressed stamped envelope) he did create the greatest and most evil knitter of all times, Madame Defarge.

Everybody has heard of Madame Defarge, but did you know what she was knitting? She was knitting the names of her enemies into a hit list, which makes her an artist wayyyyy ahead of her time.

And while the Tale of Two Cities is kind of a hard read, even for me, here is probably the best fiction writing about knitting that I know.