The Night After a Day's Walk

That's the title of the first chapter of book two: The Fall, Les Miserables.

I'm not sure if after a day's walk, the night is a relief or a perpetuation of the struggles of man. After the toil and struggle of a hard worked, cruel life there is the cover of darkness in death. For Jean Valjean, maybe, it is a relief. To be cloaked in the folds of night; to be nameless and sheltered.

Have you ever knitted with black yarn? If you should step into any random knit shop you will notice an absence of dark to black colors. Maybe knitters prefer bold, bright hues to wrap their necks in? Well, it's really damn hard to knit with dark colors. I'm working on a scarf knit with Malabrigo, with one of their variegated yarns, and there are patches of black colors that pool sometimes and it's easy to see how hard it would be to knit with if one were to have to pay attention to their stitches. Luckily, my scarf is knit in a striped texture - garter stitch and seed stitch. Pretty simple. Now that I've uploaded this picture here, the darks don't look so dark. Dang flash! I swear, they're darker than they look!

What the Hail?

Spending the weekend indoors, reading Les Miserables, knitting (and at times unknitting). My mind is stewing in its own thoughts - nights spent sleepless, heady dreams boiling to a dry throat sweat, awake, gasping, 2 3 4 a.m.

Hugo says, "The scaffold, indeed, when it is prepared and set up, has the effect of a hallucination. We may be indifferent to the death penalty, and may not declare ourselves, yes or no, so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when we see one, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to decide and take part, for or against. Some admire it, like Le Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine is the concretion of the law; it is called Avenger; it is not neutral and does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it quakes with the most mysterious of tremblings. All social questions set up their points of interrogation about this axe. The scaffold is vision. The scaffold is not a mere frame, the scaffold is not a machine, the scaffold is not an inert piece of mechanism made of wood, or iron, and of ropes. It seems a sort of being which had some sombre origin of which we can have no idea; one would say that this frame sees, that this machine understands, that this mechanism comprehends; that this wood, this iron and these ropes, have a will. In the fearful reverie into which its presence casts the soul, the awful apparition of the scaffold confounds itself with its horrid work. The scaffold becomes the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats flesh, and it drinks blood. The scaffold is a sort of monster created by the judge and the workman, a spectre which seems to live with a kind of unspeakable life, drawn from all the death which it has wrought."

The horror that is a decision, made in the instant, that can neither be retracted nor ignored. Opposite is the flexibility of knitting. All one must do is unravel, rewind, begin again.

I finished my hat. Jared Flood's Turn a Square. It started out as a birthday present for my brother-in-law, but then I decided the blue with blue-sky stripes was a tad bit on the feminine side.

Oh, and, we encountered a vicious hail storm on the way out to Clackamas Town Center this afternoon. Hail? In May?

Knitting and I'll never be your grandmother

My family loves to laugh when I tell them I've been knitting. They sort of snort and then inevitably ask, "Are you seventy?" The nice ones don't say anything at all, just change the subject to "so, how's Jefferson doing?"

Frankly, I'm not surprised by this reaction. For gods sake, these people CHOOSE to live in Georgia. What can you expect from the nation's most uneducated, underenthused state?

I digress.

I've been amazed at what is out there in the knitting world and all the really cool, innovative things people are doing with the fiber-arts. Afghans made out of various scenes in Super Mario World, shawls made to look like stained glass, knitted biology experiments, toys, socks, and of course, couture-worthy sweaters that are truly one-of-a-kind.

I'm in the rudimentary stages of getting acquainted with knitting. I've been knitting for two years and have created about as many projects as can fit on one hand. My ignorance of knitting techniques (which I'm actively remedying) coupled with a very worrisome inability to focus on one task combine to give me a very low efficiency rating. I'm working on it!

Presently, I'm knitting a scarf for my Auntie-in-law Simone. We will be visiting Simone and her husband Charlie in Victoria, BC this summer. I thought it would be a nice thank-you -for-putting-us-up gift. I'm ultra-excited about the trip actually. We'll be taking Amtrak to Seattle (a 3.5 hour voyage) spending two nights in a B&B there and then catching a ferry to Victoria. Three hours on the Puget Sound in July sounds just about heavenly! Then two days in Victoria.

Now, the question is, is there something I can knit and take with me?

In-laws

Who is this crazy lady?

Thank you for being a friend!

I used to watch the Golden Girls. And yes, I enjoyed it. I also used to watch Little House on the Prairie. As a child, I longed for the sort of struggles that Laura Ingalls experienced; I longed to wash clothes by hand with only a brush and a metal washboard. I longed to butcher a hog and live off it for three months using every possible part that was edible. When Manly came along, I thought, when I'm sixteen I'm going to marry a thirty year old man, too. That's a real man.

Daytime television just isn't the same anymore. I was home sick a couple of months ago and all it was was court case after court case after court case. It was like, after eight hours of Judge Judy, Judge Mike Reynolds or Judge Janet, you get rewarded with back to back episodes of Law & Order. What is the world of Television trying to say? That people who watch daytime television have a closer connection to the Judicial branch than people who work during the day?  My god, some smart entrepreneur is going to take something from these shows, represent the American spirit and set up shop from home. Offer low cost court time and enforce rulings by Strong Arm Jimmy down the block. Never mind they didn't pass the Bar. The metal bar will pass many times.