Crash and burn

Long, long day yesterday. It was worth the trip, but I used up just about every ounce of energy I had, and spent much of today just sleeping.

Greg and I went into Boston yesterday -- drove down to the Newburyport commuter train station and rode in. He played his new piano suite in a composers' forum concert, and got quite a number of congratulations from fellow composers and faculty members. I enjoyed the concert -- the works ranged from the conservatively romantic to the fascinatingly spiky, but there wasn't a bad one among them.

Driving through the snow and freezing rain was a strain and a challenge, and that was what wore me out so completely on the trip. On the way south we passed a car that had flipped over on its roof. The fire truck and ambulance were right behind us, so the driver didn't have to wait very long for help. The trip home was even tougher. I swear the Town of Sanford plows its streets with a steamroller. "Maybe if we just make it look flat, people will think we plowed it." Saw a couple of cars that had fallen for that ruse and gone off the road into a ditch. Of course, they probably felt they could drive down a two-lane road at 65 mph, since they had SUVs and were therefore immortal. Idiots.

Knitting Stuff

Ever have one of those moments where you finally figure out how something is done, and the frustration you've experienced melts away and you decide you're going to love doing that particular thing from that moment on? I had such a moment yesterday. I finally discovered the joys of circular knitting for myself. It's so fast! It's so seamless! Where has it been all my life?

Oh, I've used circular needles before, but only for back-and-forth work. Greg kept his mother's set of vintage Denise needles after she died, and he gave them to me about a year ago. I've come to see since then what treasures they are, and how wonderful and helpful the employees of the Denise company are when you need to replace some parts.

(If anyone ever reads this blog and comments, could you please let me know if there's a trick to joining very small pieces of knitting on a circular needle? What if you just don't have enough stitches to comfortably reach around the shortest circular you have?)

I've been reading EZ's books lately (just bought the set with an e-gift certificate that some good friends gave me, and am looking forward to The Opinionated Knitter). Now I understand why so many people regard this woman as a Goddess of Knitting. Her chatty writing style is surprisingly engaging, and her approach to knitting is that anything is simple enough to do if only someone takes the time to explain it to you properly. She has no fear. Her designs are on the dowdy side, and I doubt I'll ever knit any of them, but when you're struggling with a concept, she seems to sit down beside you to explain. "It's so simple. All you have to do is..."

Well, anyway, I Got It. I've been wanting to try some of the small felted bags in Felted Knits for some time, and the train rides and long waits yesterday provided me with enough time and lack of distraction to give it a try. Seamless knitting rocks! I've almost completed the circular section of the bag, and will bind off and start knitting the flap as soon as I have time again.

This first one is in Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted in a delectable shade of fuchsia. I have a few more I want to do in Nature Spun, and then I'm moving on to Kureyon, the yarn that makes me whimper in my sleep.

Dogstuff

I'm happy and relieved to report that Doogie made it through the day yesterday with relatively few problems. Because he's so old and incontinent, the kitchen floor is now covered with pee pads and newspapers, and when we both leave the house for any period of time, we expect to have to mop up disaster when we come home. Last time, he apparently slipped in a puddle of his own making and ended up doing the breaststroke in his own pee for who knows how long. Poor old bugger. I hauled him into the tub and gave him a good belly-shampooing.

Blogstuff

Now that I'm writing a blog, it naturally follows that I should read more of them. The knitting blogs never fail to inspire and amuse me. I've also started just looking at random blogs to see what other people are doing, and thinking, and writing about. Some are fascinating and fun. Some are just windows into people's everyday ramblings. Some definitely look as though they were posted by way of text messsages from cell phones -- and probably were, too. I can't imagine looking at a whole page of "r u ok bby? im gd 2" and deriving anything from it but a migraine. (I have a cell phone, and my SMS messages still use actual words and punctuation.) Oh, and then there are the blogs that contain enough imagination, but the writing thereof is a complete insult to the English language. The people who gave a rave review to "How To Blog" ought to be slapped. Such blatant pop-pandering sucks all the "literate" out of "literature."

e.e. cummings was an original, and he's gone now. We could use fewer imitators, thanks.