FUGUESTATEKNITS

Laughing and Scratching was a phrase my father used to say on his radio show and it has stuck with me as the vernacular for "farting around," although I know a colleague of his used to say in the context of making the most out of life. It's been a little while since I last posted and I'd like to say I've found the answer to world peace or done something terrific. The fact is, I've done my job, which is a privilege, and I have helped out at St. John's with the mailings for the Orchestra's 2009-2010 season, spent time with friends who needed my presence, spent time with family, had fun with friends, and knitted. What I did not do was exercise, and practice flute, something that will be remedied in the coming days:) As one can see, there are three of the 8.5M knitting projects upon which I am focusing my time - well, four, if you count the blue lace scarf that I keep in my purse for "down times." And yes, I have added a project, but when have …

When I was a young child, I always had my nose buried in a book - sometimes to escape the strange twists and turns that life had already thrown at me, sometimes because the story or the information was so interesting, I couldn't bear to look up and pay attention to the world around me. It was often at those times that my stepmonster (former - not the wonderful and dear Maureen of current times) would say to me that when I grew up I was going to probably be one of those mothers who had stinky diapers piling around me, with numerous children screaming for my attention while my nose was buried in some book. As one can readily see from the above, she wasn't far off. Although (thankfully) there are no stinky diapers needing to be changed and washed and no little ones are now screaming for my attention. Once when Dori was little, she had a couple of children's books that I thought were just hilarious - The Stupids Step Out about a family of incredibly stupid people (what can I s…

Quick entry before I get ready to go to a concert this evening. John and the grandangels are in the next room, waiting for their Mommy to come pick them up after a training she had to do but didn't need (long story about a supervisor losing paperwork or something). We had a nice afternoon wherein Gram attempted the baking of shortbread cookies, but the result was not quite as good as hoped for. Just as well - none of us need cookies right now, LOL! Court this morning was fairly uneventful - and court yesterday turned out not to be as eventful as anticipated, dubious motion from the PD's office notwithstanding. Yesterday I did, however, obtain this lovely book ('cause, you know, I don't have enough knitting books, right?):





















Aren't these projects just lovely? Kristi Porter is actually pictured in the red sweater - I know this because she made an appearance on Knitty Gritty once (back when the show was still happening!). On that episode, Kristi gave some great pointers o…

The weather feels like May - it's just lovely! You'd swear we were in San Diego rather than Merlin! Well, I am battling a bit of post-trip nausea probably brought on by the usual change in altitude, food and drink and then getting back to one's own "normal," but I expect that will be fine in time.
When last we met, dear 3.5 readers, I was preparing to go on a long weekend to the Big Apple to stay with my Dad so my stepmother could get to her sister's wedding and have fun without worrying about leaving him with a bunch of strangers. The weekend was really a lot of fun and my dad did very well, considering he has had very short days punctuated by sleep ever since his surgery where the hospital practically put him into a coma state. He's still in pain, but I think he's doing a lot better than he was just a couple of months ago when we last were up there. Suffice it to say, a lot of wine somehow disappeared (but no one got drunk that I could see!) and a l…

Well, last night I did a bunch of knitting on that fourth lace project - and this represents where I am so far. I'm just about ten rows from where I have to pick up all those yarn overs on the ends of the rows. It's an interesting pattern and I'm enjoying it. I'm using the Pakucho organic cotton - two balls of laceweight used together to make a fingering/sportweight fiber. Even the garter stitch looks decent with this beautiful yarn - and I'm generally not a big fan of garter stitch. Unfortunately, I stayed up WAAAY too late - until about 6:30 in the a.m. - and was sorely tempted to miss church this morning, but I made it. My hair was dirty and the rest of me clean (a wise choice, LOL) and as always I was glad to have gone. The sermon/homily was an interesting exposition on the concept of hospitality and vulnerability; Donna and Tom H sang the communion hymn and Nancy played in her usual wonderful manner!
Our Sunday was relatively quiet. K and D came by for dinner,…

I forgot to mention in my last post that last Saturday, John and I met up with daughter B and her friend J and Dan's girlfriend, Casie, to see our son, Danny in his latest endeavor. It was an excellent play. The acting was very good and truly, a good time was had by all!
The play was Five Flights (more specifics can be found a few posts back). It was about three sibs - actually two sibs, the friend of one and the wife of another who is mentioned but never puts in an appearance. They are left after their father's death with a broken down aviary - a monument to their father's grief at the death of their mother. The argument is whether to create a church to birds (long story) or to let it just decay back from whence it came. Our son, Danny, plays a hockey star who plays for "our team." His fellow hockey player, is a straight man, originally from Russia or Latvia or the Ukraine (sorry I forget - he had an Eastern European accent!) - and provides the comic relief for t…

Where the heck, you may wonder, have I been? Not blogging for 10 days! Geez louise! Sorry 'bout that - for a time life did intervene and then for a time the computer from which I usually blog decided to get colicky on me and required a little burping from the computer folks in Bawlmer. So... I had to borrow one of my kids' laptops to get pics up and then onto this (family desktop) computer. Snorrrrrrr - oh sorry, let me wake you up now...
I cannot believe it's the 4th of July weekend here in Merlin, USA. Normally Global Warming hath reared its ugly head to give us the usual weekend of hellish roasting, but today was just an amazingly beautiful day - with warm balmy breezes, shineshine and birds tweeting and dear running about in the back yard. Ahhhhh. This evening John and I sat outside on the back deck, sipping our respective glasses of wine and enjoying the scenery. I think there is just such a deck in heaven - I raised a toast in salute to those who have passed before us…