Let Me Eat Cake

It was Nancy's birthday this week, and I presented her with the Icarus scarf. I compensated for the lacey edge by handsewing some gold beads, and it looked real nice. As mentioned before, I loved the pattern and loved the yarn but I didn't love them both together. In return, I got a giant piece of birthday cake from Two Little Red Hens bakery. I am pretty sure it was not made by chickens as you might guess from the name of the bakery, and from the weight of it, it had about 78 pounds of buttercream frosting on the top and a flower for everyone.

The Book of Un-Ravelation

The little family's gone for a short vacation, leaving me up to my own devices for a bit. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the golf clubs out of the car trunk before they left, and what with the limited knitting I can do with my crippled arm I need to find a whole new bunch of mischief with which to occupy my time.

Nancy and I were able to get out to the Brooklyn Flea before the mob of vigilante church-goers burns the place to the ground. And what a sweet little flea market it was! I bought red checked shirt from this guy . The mexican food we got from one vendor was enough of a Sunday religious experience for me.

My big plan for the week is to continue to unravel some ill conceived or unloved projects. This one, for example, is the Pubcrawler from Son of Stitch'n Bitch, meant for John:




I didn't realize the toll on my mental health the hundreds of cables would take, so it has to go.

Another horror I worked on over the winter is the Cable 8 sweater, shown here on pretty Raveler Trebuchet, because I couldn't bear to take a picture of it - is also going down:



This sweater - even with out sleeves - is way to hot for a living person. It's like I made it out of asbestos insulation and lined it in lead.

Gabba Gabba Jane

In all the weekend excitement I forgot to note the 191st anniversary of the death of Jane Austen. I bet there are plenty of people who would make note of the birth of Jane Austen, but her death went unnoticed in 1817 since she published anonymously so let us take note of it now.

As mentioned several times in this blog, I am amazed at the number of people who have not committed all of the Jane Austen books to memory and how many of them are men. Some of these people know all the titles to Bob Dylan songs too, and that's way harder to memorize than, say, all of Northanger Abbey.

This year, the Masterpiece Theater series did it's best to bring Jane Austen to the public TV watching masses, but that was really bringing coals to Newcastle, as Jane herself might say. And there was even a Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice, with dancing, and I loved that but it was kind of an obscure reference to the book.

I think we can go further. I think someone, maybe me, should redo all the Jane Austen books in the style of a Ramones song. A Ramones song is short, well crafted and about everyday life. Well, maybe not my everday life, but you get the picture - just like Jane. Accessible! Singing about Jane Austen in 2 minutes or less. Emma (is a Punk Rocker)! And surely I Wanna Be Sedated is really about Northanger Abbey?

Just a thought.

Frogs

It was a pretty great weekend, the kind that keeps you cheerful all the way up to about 10:45 a.m. on Monday morning.

In addition to watching golf and playing golf and talking about golf and reading about golf, we went to a friend's lake house for the day on Sunday. I have been working hard on the Icarus Shawl, liking the pattern a lot and loving the yarn I am using but not groovin' on how the yarn looks in the lacy pattern at the end of the shawl. As I was sitting on the porch, I looked down and saw that frog there, and it came to me, the Froggers Song: Rip It.

So I ripped out the lacey part and just did a few more rows of the main pattern. Look, I'm frogging so hard its a blur:

It was painful, but it was for the best, I think. The yarn is real pretty and sometimes simple is better. But not too simple! Here is the bathroom situation at the cabin. A real test of a relatioship, if you ask me.

Performance Golf

Well, even though Tiger Woods won't be playing in the British Open this weekend, fans will be able to watch Tiger Woods watch the British Open on TV at home, from the comfort of his own couch.

I am not sure about you, but I don't look my best when I am home watching golf on the couch. If I am not in my pajamas (still), I'll change into my pajamas to watch golf. I knit, but only something that doesn't require looking at a pattern. I will drink a beer if there is one in the house but I won't go out and get one. I always fall asleep, and often drool.

Well, maybe this isn't exactly true about Tiger Woods. But I think we are loosing an opportunity for some performance art here: Tiger can watch the Open on TV; TV can watch Tiger; I can watch TV and set up a web cam and you can watch me watch Tiger watching golf on TV. I will also demonstrate a few knitting techniques like kitchener stitch or some other technique I saw on Knitty Gritty, the TV show with people knitting that I like to watch when I am knitting...

Educational TV

Our TV was busted for the past few days, but with some careful laying on of hands I was able to revive it in time to catch W.C. Field's play a round of golf in The Dentist and I learned a lot that I can use in my game. TV can be so educational, even a broken TV that is 15 years old.

I couldn't find a link to it anywhere on the Wide World of Web so you could watch it while you are supposed to be doing productive things on your computer, but if you come over, remind me, because I have taped and added it to my growing collection of golf movies.


Happily I found this equally educational golf short featuring Buster Keaton, among others.

The First of Many

Well, let me get right to it: Lou Lou joined us this weekend on her maiden round of par 3 golf and she rocked right up to the 10th hole! Then she needed ice cream, and adults needed a beer, and it was so hot it was like playing golf on Venus, so we called it a game. Regular readers will remember that Lou Lou is six years old and fierce - a golfer who will do quite a lot to improve her lie. And since she doesn't own a cell phone or have a job and she can't be left alone in the house, I think we have finally found our fourth.


As for myself, I am still ridin' high on my game. I got 2 pars and gave myself an award for Most Improved Putter when I got to the ladies room. I just felt that zing in my swing that I haven't felt in the last few rounds.

When I got home my friend Jenny and her girls had arrived from LA for the weekend and we spent the rest of the afternoon in New York City, doing things you can do in LA: trying on sunglasses and eating - another first for me - Red Mango frozen yogurt. Do you know about this Red Mango stuff or is this another thing about which I am the last to know? I never saw one before in my life and suddenly, there are dozens of them in Chelsea. The place was filled with stylish Japanese tourists and carefree half dressed blonds and me, still sweaty from golf, wearing a baseball hat.

I'd go back right now if I was wearing my better pair of pajamas, though, it was pretty good.

Every Day is Sunday

We are in Maine for a few days, and in the coma-like depths of my relaxation, I woke up every morning thinking: today is Sunday. I looked up movie schedules for Sundays and showed up at the wrong times; I miscalculated travel arrangements and confused people with emails referring to things I did on Sunday when it might have actually been Friday.

This being a weekend full of Sundays, I played a round of golf and was joined by Emily, my brother in law and his kids. Emily played really well for someone who thinks golf is the dorkiest activity on Planet Earth. Hopefully her pain was mitigated by looking so very downtown in those Nike rockabilly golf shoes she is wearing.


I played an okay game, got one par and got the ball on the green at least half the time. It's the five putts that kill me. That, and my lack of a sense of humor about people taking or making cell phone calls during play. I mean, do you think Tiger Woods is going to call you with advice on how to play that hole on this charming par 3 course?

Here's a cell phone free photo of our little group getting ready to tee off at the last hole.


Also on one of the Sundays, I got to some serious work on the Icarus Shawl. This is a lot of knitting, aptly named since with the limited knitting I have been able to do lately, I wasn't sure my wax wings wouldn't melt long before the shawl was done. I am modifying it to be an Incarus scarf instead, doing only 3 rounds of the main pattern before embarking on the lace edging on ,which depending on how ambitious I feel, will include a beaded final row.



And of course this being Sunday, I needed to get some chores done, so I thought that watching clothes dry would be the perfect end to a perfect Sunday.

New Jersey and Knitting: Perfect Together

The folks at Halcyon Yarns, our yarn store mecca when in Maine, enjoyed John's pictures of our World Wide Sit in Public Day and featured our little group in their current newsletter.