Now Norma Knits

53,202

That's how many entries are in my steno dictionary.  I hadn't bothered to look at that number in years.  You know, you get good translation, you don't think about it.  The issue was brought to the fore because I needed to transfer the dictionary from one laptop to another for yesterday's job.  The necessity to transfer it in this case had to do with output to the attorneys' computers.  It is something that is very rarely requested in Vermont (nobody wants to pay our "exorbitant" fees for it), so every time someone comes in from Washington or New York or Chicago and requests realtime, I have to call tech support to remind me how to do it.  The newer laptop doesn't have a serial port, which is required for the output, blah blah blah.  The whole thing is a carousel ride of pains in my ass.  "If it's not one thing, it's another" is the general rule of these things.

But back to that number.  When I was trained by the NCI (at the expense of the BBC) to write captions for television, I remember they told me that, though it seems counterintuitive, the smaller dictionary is the better one.  It's all about consistent and efficient writing, using prefixes, suffixes, and root words.  And while at the BBC, I became a bigger and bigger fan of the one-stroke memorized brief form.  This requires more memorization, but each extra stroke that is necessary to write for a word increases the chances of a misstroke, so one is far better than four, in my mind.  Not to mention that writing a half or a fourth of the number of strokes, by the end of the day, leads to a lot less stress and tension. 

The two-week intensive training involved a military-style stripping down of me and my old methods, reducing me to a quivering pile of goo.  I went there with 80,000 entries in my dictionary, and they made me remove almost all of them, and leave only the "good" ones.  I believe when I arrived on British soil, I had about 9,000 entries.

On my first day at the BBC, my dear friend Andrew sat at my elbow, watching me write what I was listening to on a videotape.  Each time I would fall back into my old habits, he'd shout, "STOP! Now go back and write it RIGHT!"  I broke down and cried.  I said, "This was a mistake.  I am not good enough for this.  I will never be able to do this!  You should send me back." 

Six weeks later, to the day, I was on the air writing Wimbledon -- with the infamous "knockers/mockers" mistake, but still, I was there.  A month after that, I was doing all the news and current events programs they could throw at me.  So anyone out there who thinks, "I can't do this," you can.  You who are learning today have the advantage of learning it the right way from the beginning, not having to literally unlearn everything you had had ingrained in you for 15 years or so. 

But...back to that number again.  When the tech support person said to me, "Let's see if your transfer was successful.  Tell me the number of entries in the dictionary of the old laptop versus the new," and when I said the number, he expressed concern.  "That's nothing compared to a lot of people!  Most people have well over 100,000."

And we know what the moral of that story is, don't we?

You Don't Send Me Flowers Anymore

Hey, Magic 28 people!  Don't forget to put the (proper) code up on your sites in order for the ring to function properly.  I can't really figure out the weak links because I don't have the time right now to fiddle with it (*cough*Lucia*cough*).  I'm only picking on Lucia, because I know she can take it with good humor. But she's not alone; there are a few others.  When you try to surf through the ring, you end up doing endless loops of the same few.

Show me the love.  Bring back the magic.  Send me flowers.  Put the friggin' code up!  Or whatever.

Don't make me nag.  You wouldn't like me when I nag.

Sweets For The Sweet

Back on the subject of teeth -- this time my sweet one.  It's a powerful force, that sweet tooth o' mine. 

This weekend is the Maple Festival in this little burg, which is really just an excuse for eating a lot of junk food.  So we walked downtown on this lackluster day to find a lackluster crowd, and I enjoyed a new item in the concession lineup -- a very lovely London Broil sandwich.  I just ate the insides and threw away the bun.  Then I had to have an order of French fries.  I do believe it's a city ordinance that one must have French fries during the Maple Festival.

On the walk back home, I discovered the incredible cooking shop in its new location, and they were having a wine tasting and selling gourmet maple desserts.  Yeah, baby.  If I'm going to indulge in the calories (and the wheat and the dairy and other stuff I really shouldn't be having), it'd better be worth it.  I chose a giant slice of maple pecan pie.  I recently read that pecans are the nuts highest in antioxidants, so I used this tidbit of knowledge as further justification for the indulgence.  It was worth every calorie.  Other delectable-looking items on offer were maple cheesecake, maple cream pie, amazing-looking maple-cream-filled star-shaped cookies, and chocolate bourbon something-or-other.  The chocolate bourbon something-or-other would have been my usual first choice, but since it was the Maple Festival and all, I figured I should go the maple route.

Now it's back to transcripts.  Pffft.

Wherein Our Heroine Is Pulled, Kicking and Screaming, Back to The Old Way Of Life

Frack.  Depositions comin' out my ears.  Including today, including a real-time and daily copy job SUNDAY (yes, Sunday), including more than I want to talk about next week. 

Yesterday I picked up a penny that was heads up on the ground.  I hope that means something nice. 

Just a Quick Note...

...to thank you all for your supportive comments yesterday and to let you know that the biggest drama of the day was that I lost my keys and couldn't find them at the end of the day.  After a huge search involving the assistance of all the sound personnel and lighting techs and security guys, I found them. 

In my purse.

Underneath my lipstick. 

Heh. 

Um.  Oops.

And there was a small irony:  The only speaker who tripped me up was a senior college student, American, local (I even know her dad, it turns out), no accent.  She only read at about 6,900 words a minute.  She was a tad nervous, clearly.  The only good (and it's good enough) mistranslate was when she was going like a bat out of hell and she was quoting the guest of honor:  "When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitive tits become irrelevant."

I kid you not.   It was supposed to be, of course, "national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant." 

Cripe Almighty.   

At one point I just stopped writing.  I had to stop, take a deep breath, and regroup.  It was the only thing I could do.  It was better that than make mincemeat out of the thing.  But the speaker I was worried about?  Piece of cake.  Except when he said Shavuot and Yahrzeit.  I was quite pissed at myself that I didn't have those in my dictionary, but then why would I?  Most reporters around here wouldn't even know what those are, but because I'm Jewish, I could have possibly anticipated them.  When he said, "Between Passover and Shavuot," and I knew for a fact that I did not have Shavuot in my dictionary, I substituted, "between two Jewish holidays."  And when he said Yahrzeit, I just pretended he didn't. 

Head in the sand works for me. 

And kaddish did not translate properly, either.  Damn.   I saw that it didn't the first time he said it, and when he said it the second time, I wrote instead, "prayer for the dead."  It's all about making a readable and understandable transcript.

The reason for no speech being supplied ahead of time?  Because he winged the entire thing.  No written speech. 

The many hours of prep I put in paid off in spades, though, and I got lots of love and positive attention from many in attendance.  Many hearing people, including the sign language interpreters, were, at times, reading the translation because they could not understand the accent.  Later, a VIP asked me, "Just out of curiosity, how did you know all those Jewish words?"  Heh.  Of course, he doesn't know the half of it, because the true question is, how did I have them all in my steno dictionary.   Knowing the words is one thing -- having them translate is quite another.  Of course, knowing them is the requisite first step. 

I'm exhausted, and I have a long day ahead of me Thursday, and possibly Friday as well.  So I just wanted to pop in and tell you what an awesome bunch you are.  Oh, and there are only one or two pole burns. 

Geriatric Tooth Fairy

About that getting-old-and-falling-apart thing.  My tooth has a boo-boo.  I bit into (an especially HARD, it turns out) bite of cereal.  That Ezekiel cereal should come with a warning....not that I would have heeded it if it had, but still.  OUCH!  What is THAT?!  I knew something was bad, although I could not feel anything broken.  I hauled my sorry ass in to the dentist's chair and sure enough, now the slippery slope begins:  The beginning of big-girl dental work.  Crap.  I've been fortunate, and apparently have genetically good teeth.  I haven't had any dental work except cleanings since I was 12 years old.  I had my wisdom teeth out when I was 19, and that nearly killed me.  I had a bad reaction to the anesthetic.  I was sick, sick, sick.  It was scheduled for a week before I started my new job, straight after graduation from college, and get this:  I had to call in sick for my entire first week.  Imagine the horror.

I bought myself braces when I was 27, so I had a new baby and orthodontic work all in the same year.  My mouth did not like braces.  The pain was excruciating (despite my having a very high pain threshold) with every adjustment of the wires, but my teeth moved like a dream, so I was out of the braces in record time.  No, I don't still wear my retainer, and yes, they have moved out of the true gorgeousness that they were immediately upon the removal of the braces.  But whatever.  With age comes some measure less of self-consciousness.  When you get all wrinkled and fat and dimply and grey, your eyesight starts to go at the same time, so you are saved the agony of noticing it as much. It's a good thing, that.  It's like a protective mechanism or something.

Anyhoo, back to the boo-boo in my mouth.  It's a molar that has a filling in it that honestly qualifies as an antique. I could maybe sell it on eBay:  "Vintage, Gently-Used Mercury Tooth Filling.  Collector's Item!" 

I've had good, ethical dentists over the years.  None of this crap that I hear other people say that their dentists insist they need all their old fillings removed and replaced. (I don't mean because of the metal issue, which I think can be a health issue for some.  I mean just as a general rule, "These fillings should come out and be replaced because I need to pay my kid's college tuition" kind of thing.) 

As I say, I have not had a filling since I was 12, so I know it's at least that old. Do the math.  But I cracked the tooth all the way down, in two directions.  This is not good.  Baby will be getting her first dental crown.  Isn't that just special?

--------

Today I will be stripping down and pole-dancing in front of a crowd of 3,600 people.  (that's, like, half the population of Vermont)

What?!

Well, I might as well be.

I'm live-captioning, on the big screen, an event wherein the speaker has a small voice and a heavy accent, but for which he (they tell me) refuses to release his speech ahead of time.  You'd think it was the goddamn State of The Union Address or something.  But wait, even the President releases that ahead of time. Grumble.

I have prepared hours and hours, and I've souped up my steno dictionary to the nth degree.  That sucker has racing stripes and turbo-charged engines, and I should probably be required to have a special license to run the damn thing.  But I still get surprised at what plain-and-simple words will turn out to be NOT in my dictionary.  I'll be writing blithely along, and something will jump out of the woodwork, wearing a scary mask, and scream, SUR-PRIIIIIIIIISE!  Like, after hours and hours and hours of prep work, I suddenly found out that "genocide" was not in my dictionary.  Let's just say this WILL BE the topic of the day tomorrow. How in the HELL is it possible, that after all these years of doing this work, and having written for television and all, that "genocide" is not in my dictionary?   I think this is an excellent time for me to use my reputedly favorite word, don't you?

Golly.

   

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch

An interesting thing I learned (or, rather, was reminded of) well before 5 a.m. yesterday:  London cab drivers have notoriously large hippocampi because of all the spatial memory required to store the London maps in their heads.  Honestly, if navigating London streets doesn't drive a person straight to the loony bin, he ought to at least get a large hippocampus out of the bargain, I'd think. My beloved mini A to Zed.

I've developed a bit of a sleep problem of late.  If I don't go to bed after midnight, I wake up at an ungodly hour, feeling unrested.  Here's the problem, for you wisenheimers who are bound to say, "Well, then, don't GO to bed before midnight!"  I'm getting old and falling apart.  In the evening nowadays, I am totally exhausted, my eyes start to burn and tear up*, so I can't read, knit, watch TV, or anything, and I can't do anything else, either, due to the violent yawning.  So I figure I'm tired, I should go to bed, right?

Wrong, as it turns out.   

*I feel this has something to do with the narrow drainage angles I am blessed with.  However, whenever I say that to my optometrist, she has absolutely no reaction and looks down at her chart. When doctors exhibit this no-reaction thing, I have figured out that they think you are an idiot and they have been taught that they shouldn't TELL you you are an idiot.  Ergo, the Poker-Faced Silent Treatment/Look Down At The Chart maneuver. 

It could be that I just use the computer too much, and with the knitting on top of it, my eyes are just telling me to STOP ALREADY.

So anyway, being up before the birds yesterday, with nothing better to do, I decided to do my prep work for the graduate-level neurobiology class I'm subbing in  (not substitute-teaching, ha!  subbing in CART) today and Thursday. Just a little light reading before 5 a.m.  I wonder how big my hippo-whatever is.

Never a dull moment in my life, that's for sure.

Rachel H.'s fabulous vintage child's sock blockers continue to get a serious workout.  This is Pair 11.  It has a cuff of the last little bit of rust-colored Eco-Wool and the last little bit of my rustic handspun Coopworth (am I frugal enough for you?), with a body of dark brown Eco-Wool.  Lemme tell ya, one skein of that Eco-Wool goes a lonnnnnnng way.  I still have enough for another pair of stripey ones, I believe, from that one brown skein.

The Magic 28 ring is up and running.  We have 12 members as of this writing.

--------And on the topic of work:

Every once in a while one gets recognized and rewarded, and that makes everything worthwhile.  The other day at a special event for which I provided CART, after it was over, the client gave me a huge tight hug and said, "Thank you, thank you!"  She had never used CART before, and she was beside herself with glee. 

Her daughter was being honored that day, and she was able to fully follow along.  It was especially poignant when her daughter was relating her intern experience over the past year, and she (the daughter) got very emotional and choked up.  Her mom was reading along my transcription, and grinning ear to ear with such pride, and then welled up herself.  How sad for her if she had had to miss out on that special moment.  I must remember that moment for the event that is coming up tomorrow that is destined to be a royal disaster, and after which I will surely want to put my head in the sand toilet. 

My Wonderful Reputation

I have Anne's permission to share with you this part of a recent email conversation between us.

ANNE:  BTW - have you seen Keeping Mum?  If not, go run and rent it - the movie opens with one of your favorite words!

ME:  What, "Fucksake"?!  I'll HAVE to rent it, then. 

ANNE:  Doesn't hurt that it has Maggie Smith and "Mr. Bean"/Rowan Atkinson in it, either.  But ya - Fucksake - I was laughing so hard I had to put it on pause so I didn't miss the rest of the dialogue.

ME:  Did you explain the whole thing to D?  Did he think you had lost your marbles???

ANNE: I did - heh.  And he says "Oh...Norma." as if that explained it all!

Of course, you know, the first time we were scheduled to meet to "do Jeff" (you and I, not me and him), he was very concerned you were also an axe-murderer. Lord only knows what he woulda thought had he known what your favorite word was.

It is a great testament to the strength of true friendships, regardless of differences between the friends, that the strongest language Anne uses is "golly," yet she still associates with me.

Anne was one of the very first bloggers I met in person. We used to meet up for brunch halfway between our Vermont homes, in Jeffersonville. We'd stay until they had shut the place down for the day, and then we'd have to sit on the porch or in a nearby park to finish our endless conversation, until we were either too cold to stay any longer, or it grew dark.  This was a practice that we fondly refer to as "doing Jeff."  Sadly, we no longer do Jeff, since she's moved all the way to Utah. 

I tell you something:  Anne is one smart, funny, talented, perceptive, and sweet cookie. Do check out her incredible and cleverly-named online luxury fiber shop called Wooly Wonka Fibers.  I miss you, Anne.  I wish we could do Jeff again soon. 

P.S.  I rented the movie and saw it this weekend.  I loved it, but then how can you go wrong with a British black comedy?  Was there any doubt that it would be my cup of tea?

Gloria Goodfellow:  You can't just kill people because you disapprove of them! 

Grace Hawkins: That's what my doctors kept saying. It was the one thing we could never agree on.

Saturday Photo Album, Complete With Exclamations

  Blue!  Sky!  Blue Sky! 

  Warm! Pinch me!

Seeds!  (Cookie! It worked!  You sent me spring! Thank you!  Ahhhh!)

Socks! Crocus! Bee!

Stripey crocus!

Garlic!

SPINACH!  SPINACH!  SPINACH! (despite the deep-freeze following the April 1 planting!)  Pinch me again!  This stuff rocks!

Head! (Julie, you nut!)  Thank you!

Happy me!  Happy you!

Um, I Was In Error

Never rely on hearsay.  I, of all people, should know that by now. 

Well, the hearsay evidence was good evidence...it was just outdated evidence.  Since the time I received that evidence, MANY MORE SCARVES came in. 

I got home from work yesterday, and there was a message on my voicemail, left at shortly after 9 a.m., from Karen of the OFA. She had read my blog entry, and was stifling a laugh whilst she gave me the real final number.  Is this your final answer, Karen?!

I am so stunned by this number that I hardly have the strength to write this, but you all deserve to know what an incredibly wonderful job you did. 

Are you sitting down? 

15,097 SCARVES

We just rock the house so totally hard.  I really, really, REALLY am stunned by this and I thank you all so very, very much.  As Karen says, "Finally, some good news out of Virginia." 

*******

I was ruminating: "What if we each sent in a dollar or two with each of our scarves?  We could totally start a Knitbloggers Red Scarf Scholarship."

That was just a little thinking out loud and a totally unauthorized aside. But kind of a cool thought, no?  The young women Gale and I met in New Hampshire told us about some of the most amazing things the OFA does for them.  It helps them with rent, helps them with utility costs if they have their own apartments, helps them obtain car loans, of course helps them with tuition.  The Foundation helps them, helps them, helps them.  And the OFA is one of those organizations that spends the bulk of its resources not on hefty administrative costs, but on fulfilling its mission. It's been rated 4 stars by charitynavigator. I'm a total fan.  Honestly.

**************

In chatting with Karen, who called me again after I got home from work, I heard her loud-and-clear thank yous.  The appreciation is warm and genuine. 

It was a veritable tsunami of knitting and crocheting love.  However, in the future, we, of necessity, must turn that tsunami of love into a more manageable wave.  There is a surplus of scarves still, which actually surpasses the number of the original goal, and they are being stored until next season.  The OFA located other social work agencies around the country and identified ones that were willing to take some of the surplus scarves, so that the desire of the knitter or crocheter that the scarves go to foster children was met.  They didn't want to just send them to other random charities -- they wanted to meet the mandate of the knitters and crocheters.  However, this effort came at great cost to them.  It took many days of labor and over $5,000 in expenses to package and ship the excess scarves.  They still have 3,500 left in storage to be used this fall or in Red Scarf 2008. 

So in order to make things more manageable, Red Scarf 2008 will be undergoing some changes.  The OFA will be posting their new guidelines hopefully in May.  They are working on a new website, and as soon as it is up and operational, Karen will call me and I will let you know about it. 

In order to keep the numbers at a more manageable level, the OFA will be asking knitters or crocheters to register on their new site, and commit to a number of scarves of their choosing, but each individual will be limited to not more than 10.  This is in order to allow more people to participate, while at the same time limiting the total number of scarves received to a reasonable one.

Another element of the new website will be a button for making a tax-deductible donation (completely voluntary) so that the OFA can include gift cards in the packages.  The students -- as any parent or grandparent or aunt or uncle will know already-- highly appreciate the gift cards to various eateries, bookstores, etc. 

I'm personally thinking about a donation in the following sense:  I know that several of the scarves I made last year were in the $40-$50 range each in cost for the yarn.  I will probably only make one scarf this year -- focusing on quality, not quantity -- and I can therefore put some money toward a sure-to-be-appreciated gift card or to help defray the shipping expenses to the OFA.   

The deadline will be much, much earlier this time.  We are looking at the packages arriving in their office between September 1-October 15, 2007.  This will allow them time to unpack, organize, catalog, repackage, and send out the packages -- again, without overwhelming their staff, their amazing volunteers, their local postal workers, and their shippers, the wonderful FedEx that sponsored so much of their shipping.   

While it would seem to many of us that scarves would be a great winter holiday gift -- and I mentioned that to Karen -- she said that because many of their students are not in the dorms at that time, and FedEx will not just leave a package without someone to receive it, it becomes problematic, so the Valentine's package is really the most desirable one. 

We would like to ask everyone to concentrate on quality, not quantity, and we must reiterate some important things: 

• Unisex, unisex, unisex. (the majority of scarves received were more feminine than masculine, and that makes the task of sorting that much more difficult)  Ask yourself if your son, your brother, your husband, your less-frilly girl would enjoy receiving the scarf you are knitting or crocheting.  They will be posting links to a few free downloadable patterns (and we are asking you to bring some of these to our attention if you know of any, or if you are a designer, are you willing to design a unisex scarf pattern for the project?) and to try to stick to those patterns, or ones similar.  Relative uniformity, without being boring, is the idea.  They would like all their recipients to feel absolutely thrilled with their gift on all levels -- fabric, style, color. 
• Soft.  Very soft yarns, please. 
• No laceweight, super-chunky, or mohair yarns. (there are many people who find mohair too itchy, for example)  Preferably DK, doubled fingering-weight, worsted weight, or light bulky yarns.  It is hard for us knitters to remember sometimes that not all can appreciate scratchy wool, itchy mohair, and scratchy acrylics, but we must put ourselves in the mindset of the non-knitter.  The OFA wishes the scarves to be substantial, drapey and warm, but not heavy and rug-like, and not scratchy. 
• No stockinette scarves or other stitches that are notorious for curling.
• Save the Fun Fur for your chemo-cap knitting, please.

So I will leave you with this to chew on for now, and hope you will accept it with the great understanding that I am confident you will.  As soon as I get word that the new website is operational and that you should be going in to register your intentions, I will, of course, announce it.  I hope we can all embrace the changes, understand the need for them, and knit and crochet on, with gusto and love.

If you haven't already read Kay's post of yesterday, go have a look.  "...a miter and a dream."  I love that woman.