Now Norma Knits

Favorite Things

You know how when you see something every day, you don't notice it anymore?  That happens a lot in my house.  I've got a lot of stuff.  A lot of collections, quite a lot of space.  So it isn't until I do the seasonal cleaning and rearranging -- which, let's admit, does not happen every season or even every year -- that I remember to notice some of the things I have.  One of my favorites is this:

Is that not adorable?  It's my mother and my aunt.  My mom is the one on the right, I believe.  I'm only guessing that, because she's always been known as "the sad twin," she claims.  But in this photo both girls look pretty sad or tired or overwhelmed, which makes it all the more precious to me.  In the same way I'm drawn to winter scenes and gray clouds in paintings, the sad face in photos is often the more beautiful and compelling face.  I remember that doll from when I was a little girl.  It had a porcelain or ceramic face and legs, that, by the time I had it handed down to me, was broken, paint-chipped, and rather ugly and scary.  Or maybe I'm the one who trashed it; who knows. 

This is in a grouping of other old family photos, and where it was before, I had failed to notice it anymore.  So I moved the entire grouping to a more visible location.  When I do that, oftentimes visitors will say, "You've got a whole lot of new stuff."  Nope.  Just moved stuff around.  It's like going shopping.

I'm trying to put up a brave fight against this cold.  It's a virile one.  Fevers and chills. 

Well, Damn

Thank you for all your lovely comments yesterday.  And thank you especially for not talking to me or treating me like a victim.  Well, yes, I was a victim.  But that is the biggest thing I hate about revealing this stuff to people.  I do not want to define myself that way, I do not want that to be my social group or my label, I do not want to lead groups or try to help others be "survivors" (ugh).  It just is what it is, and I thank you lovely friends and readers for knowing that.  You are da best.

I have not had a cold all winter, but it seems as if I might have one now.  Crap.  I'm feeling a little bit under the weather.  More later.   

Sunday Ketchup* Post

*Because I don't like playing catch-up, but I like condiments.  Ha. 

As Cookie made me realize, I was a dope, and should have made Abigail and her friend Liz take the camera yesterday and do a guest post for today.  It was open sugarhouse weekend in our county, and they went to one of the really great ones.  I couldn't go, because I had to go to work after my yoga class, but they said it was wonderful.  Those lucky girls had a fab weekend -- they flew home (because flying via JetBlue was by far the cheapest mode of transportation they could find, including car rental!), they hung out, they went to Maple Sugar Open House, they had a hugely successful shopping trip and wardrobe enhancement at Abigail's favorite second-hand clothing store, they watched movies, they had a couple of great meals, they came to see Jon Stewart with an added bonus of seeing me work (ha again) and this morning they flew back.  Ahh, the life. 

Last night at the show, I saw a couple of lawyers I hadn't seen in a couple of years now.  It's a sweet thing.  In the freelance world you can literally go several months without seeing a particular lawyer, and then basically pick up where you left off -- at least that's the way it was with me.  Other reporters always told me they had a different experience -- i.e., people would forget their names or mix them up with other reporters.... but I'm apparently not forgettable.  Ha ha ha again.  But they were surprised to see me there, both said, "Ohmygod, I haven't seen you in forEVER!  Where have you been?!" and wondered why I was there.  One of them asked in his characteristic sarcastic manner, "What, do they need a TRANSCRIPT of this?!"  I explained to them that I do this pretty much full time now, and again, the misunderstanding:  "Transcribe comedians' shows?"  Then I explained further.  Again, ships somewhat passing in the night.  Whoa.  "You're going to MEDICAL SCHOOL?"  "Well, vicariously."  Abigail came over and I told them she's going to go to law school.  One queried her, "Didn't you learn ANYTHING in that expensive education of yours?!"  Both guys look at me and say, "You are always doing something interesting with your life," and I can see the almost sadness and ... not really envy, but something like it.  They're happy for me.  I ask one of them, "Is everything still the same?"  He answers, "Everything is still FUCKING THE SAME SHIT."  He meant "not in a good way."   Heh.

They give me hugs and kisses, and take their respective seats.  As they're leaving after the show, they both come by and again say things to the effect of: "This is a hell of a lot more fun than another deposition about a car accident!"

Right. 

If I were the least bit religious, I would say I'm blessed.  But that would be to say that I am not in charge of making my life interesting, which I am.  And so is everyone else.  I wonder why people don't.  A lot of it really does have to do with my childhood and young adulthood.  There was a lot of sadness and frankly a lot of horror and a near-death experience at the hands of violence.  And you know what?  That in itself is a blessing.  I wouldn't wish it on anyone else, but I am thankful for it.  It sounds weird, but it is a very freeing thing.  It makes me fear nothing and appreciate everything. 

Fuck.  Who knew I was going to get all deep and revealing today?  You'd better read this quick, before I have second thoughts and delete it...

I spent the night with Jon Stewart and this is all I have to show for it

I did NOT volunteer my time.  But I had to wear something to show I was entitled to be there -- security was TIGHT -- and this is what they gave me.  Not one that said "All Access," damnit, so I don't have any green room stories to share.  Heh.  

Anyway, it was a good show.  Too bad I did not get within 100 feet of him.  I'm squeaking this in before midnight of 3/28, so I don't miss a day in the life of the blog.  I'll have to come up with something new tomorrow, after I get some rest.  I am totally knackered.  It's been one hell of a long, hard day.

Holy Crap, Jean Kilbourne Talks Fast. Like 6 Bazillion Words A Minute

That's quite all right because I steno fast, and my newly tuned steno machine performed like a champ, so it was all good, and it's good practice for my Saturday event with Hunk Stewart.  Ms. Kilbourne gives a good talk, but I was fortunate that I had had some coffee beforehand.  After the event I had another one of those frustrating discussions with an audience member who wanted to buy the voice recognition software that I use. 

HER:  Excuse me.  Can I ask you a technology question?

ME:  Sure.

HER:  (waving her hand across my "stuff") This is all the property of the university.  (a statement; not so much a question)

ME:  No, it's all mine.  The university hires me on an as-needed basis.

HER:  Because I was wondering if you're available for transcribing interviews.  

This is where I have to gingerly step around the issue of "you couldn't possibly afford me," without sounding too obnoxious.  I tell her that I don't do that, but there are people who do, as in from the firm I used to be a part of.  Oh, no, she tells me, she wants something simultaneous.  She's tried voice recognition software that you can just plug in, but it's not good enough.  I tell her that yes, there are court reporters who no longer practice as court reporters, but transcribe things such as taped interviews.  She interrupts me to say oh, yes, she knows about COURT REPORTERS, but that's not what she MEANS.  She wants to know about the TECHNOLOGY, the VOICE RECOGNITION.  I tell her that I AM a court reporter and the VOICE RECOGNITION is ME.  "No, court reporters are not affordable -- I've tried that."  And someone listening to a taped interview is not sitting right there to be sure that it's all accurate and that everything is PICKED UP BY THE TAPE.  She is clearly not getting it at all, no matter how many times I try to explain it.  She keeps interrupting me and lecturing me that she really just wants to know where she can buy the TECHNOLOGY.  It's probably not affordable, such incredibly good voice recognition TECHNOLOGY, and that she realizes that it's ME who is MONITORING this wonderful VOICE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY that has such incredibly good VOCABULARY and understands the person so WELL.  I say no, it's probably not affordable, and I reiterate that the VOICE RECOGNITION is ME.  It's ME, understanding the words, writing them in steno, then it is transcribed instantly based on what I WRITE.  This is simply not believable to her, and she thinks I am NOT UNDERSTANDING HER.  She TELLS me, "No, you are NOT writing EVERY WORD!"  "Yes, I am."  She needs to start YELLING at me to make me understand, because I'm quite the dunce and SLOW to underSTAND her. 

Then she starts to quiz me as to what it's FOR.  I tell her it's to give access to people with hearing loss.  Why aren't you ARCHIVING her SPEECH?!  (The tone was implying, "What a WASTE!")  [I was not about to get into intellectual property and copyright issues with her.]

Bloody hell.

After several minutes of talking to her at cross purposes, my video team member Roger intervened to rescue me.  We were in a large now-empty lecture hall, and he was about to leave the room at the top of the stairs (I was down in the bottom).  He yells, "Norma, do you NEED HELP CARRYING OUT YOUR STUFF?"

Roger is a prince.

Planning Gardens

Claudia (and others), heads up!  Carol brought to my attention a most excellent free garden planner on the Gardener's Supply website.  This is a GREAT tool for knowing how much of each plant you can put in each square foot of your grow bed.  Yippee!  I am notorious for overplanting.  Sometimes it works to great advantage, but most often I wish I had done better planning.  This tool is going to be great for that.

A'right, Then. Yank It Is

Not to give up the Godiva name, I'm going to go with "Yankee Godiva."  I love the ring to it, and how it has the same sing-songy number of syllables and sort of rhymes with Lady Godiva. 

I'm using the same pebble rib stitch pattern that I started out with rather than the stitch pattern in the real Yank pattern, but I'm otherwise following the pattern as written.  Well, except for the fact that I'm knitting it in one piece 'til the armholes.  And I've ripped out the first attempt and started over with the right number of stitches, so Margene would stop mocking me. 

Two nights ago I managed to reknit the entirety of the ripped-out yarn, plus a little more, and I'm making great progress and a gorgeous squishy fabric on US 9s.  I was not able to knit a single stitch yesterday.  Cleaning help arrived at 9 a.m. and I announced to her that I would be working alongside her.  Together we moved furniture, moved paintings and pictures, washed and moved around pottery and other objets d'art, deep-cleaned, and emptied and moved the cabinet that houses the blue pottery collection to a location that is, as I thought it might be, far better suited to it.  Suddenly it is the focal point of the living room and looks like a million bucks, whereas before it was rather invisible in the dining room. 

We lightened up and rearranged colors for the spring/summer look.  It's amazing how just moving my own stuff around makes everything look fresh and new again.  It's quite economical and saves me from the urges I sometimes get to hire a dozer to knock the whole thing down and start anew.  It's also amazing that the dried-flower-and-herb mini Christmas tree was still sitting on the coffee table, no matter how tasteful and pretty it might be.  The robins arrived yesterday; it was time to lose the Christmas tree.

All of this was, of course, rather ill advised since I just had my back put back into place the day before by the chiropractor, but I felt up for it and wanted to take advantage of the help.  At mid-afternoon, I made us grilled mozzarella, pesto, and dried-tomato sandwiches and seltzer water/tart cherry juice/lime drinks that we scarfed down and then continued on with the cleaning and organizing. She really has a great eye for the placement of things, and I'm sure (since she said so repeatedly) she had much more fun doing that with me than cleaning toilets and floors.  (Though we did that, too.)

We made a very big dent in it, but there is still much to be done.  The cleaning help has really been quite slack for many months -- I think because I'm so busy and things get so chaotic around here, they think I don't notice.  But I do.  I have that French-Canadian/farm-girl blood in me, ya know.   So I think I showed her how it should be done (and I do think she noticed) -- down on my hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water, reaching into the corners and around the table legs and into cracks and crevices and baseboards that had clearly been ignored for too long.  For many years, in fact, I refused to buy the cleaning lady (it's the same one we've had for 20-something years, but she now brings an assistant -- it was her assistant who helped me yesterday) a mop.  I'm sorry, but a floor cannot get adequately clean with a mop.  But after a lot of years, and she and I were not getting any younger, I took pity on her and bought one.  I sort of regret that decision. 

Just call me task master.  

And when she left at 6 p.m., I was spent.  I had to just SIT.  There was no energy left for creating a meal or knitting a stitch.  But the place looks damn good. Well, some of it, anyway. 

 

A clean coffee table is a beautiful thing.

I Destash In Your General Direction (Monty Python Fans Should Like This Title*)

Thank you all for playing in my caption contest.  My, my, I have clever readers. I loved all your entries, and they kept me entertained for all of Sunday.  But someone had to win, right? I will send the winners something very nice from my destashing efforts, and maybe a little extra sweetness. 

First Prize goes to Miriam for this gem:

And Another First Prize (there can be no seconds here, haha) to Gayle for this one:

 

That pithy "Me, too" answer cracks me up every time I read it.  Perfectly gnome-like, methinks. 

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*However, destashing is much pleasanter than farting.

P.S.  Recently the brains at Typepad gave more helpful hints to increase readership.  One of the things they said is that we shouldn't use clever titles.  We shouldn't use titles or words that might bring people to our blogs via a search engine and find something they weren't really looking for.  People are busy, it said.  They will get pissed if you're advertising something that you're NOT, or wasting everyone's time.  You should be boring and say just what you mean. 

What fun would that be?  Can you imagine, for example, if someone Googles "farting" and lands here?  OMG, I've wasted someone's important "farting" search time.  OR what if someone is doing a serious search about gnomes.  They land here.  I'M SO SORRY.  I've wasted your time.  Or "Monty Python" or "barfing in sap bucket."  Who knew from that title or those misleading words that this would be a knitting blog?  And I've wasted someone's time and that reader will not come back. Darn. 

For fucksake.  They really don't get us, do they? Talk about sucking the joy right out of the endeavor.  Sheesh.

I'm hopeful that someday I'll serve an important function for the person who will undoubtedly Google "farting knitter."

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P.P.S.  Thank you to Laurie, my own personal anesthesiologist (well, OK, hopefully NEVER, but she's there if I ever need her) for scaring me straight.  Not that I really needed a study from the NIH to tell me what I already knew intuitively, but seriously, if I needed a punctuation mark on the "I'm done with Diet (or any other) Pepsi and Coke" comma period exclamation mark -- no question mark -- I'm DONE.  I mean it.  Don't try to offer me one.  Just don't.  I'll cut you down. 

The funniest part is that it was MY ranting and railing against the stuff that got HER to quit using it a couple years ago.  What can I say?  She's smarter and stronger than I.  But my kidneys and bones and heart and head are telling me, "Please, Norma.  Stop the insanity."

I did learn a thing or two sitting in medical school last fall:  Kidney tissue does not repair or regenerate.  The kidneys can only withstand a certain number of insults and then it's dialysis for you, bub.  So listen up:  If you don't join me, the kidney terrorists will win.  Or something like that.   Let's stop together.  K?

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Now I guess I will also be thwarting the Googlers searching for: farting Diet Pepsi.  Or farting terrorists.

Random Monday Stuff

1)  I bought some more seeds on Friday.  It's insanely early still, but I just can't help myself.  So far I have acquired the following for this year:

• From High Mowing Seeds:  Astro Arugula, Mizuna (that damnit, I thought was really mixed Asian greens -- I'm not all that fond of mizuna, and the one complaint I have about High Mowing is the packaging not being clear enough), HMS Gourmet Salad Mix, Danvers 126 Carrot
• From Seed Savers Exchange:  Green Arrow Pea, French Breakfast Radish, Rhubarb Swiss Chard, Monnopa Spinach, Detroit Dark Red Beet, Early Scarlet Globe Radish, Cilantro, Black Beauty Zucchini

...and I've got some things left over from last year that I will use, as well.  I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to start seeds indoors this year.  Each year I waffle on this topic.  I tend to start them every other year, because by the end of it I am usually so DONE WITH IT that it takes me a year off to forget how much bother it was, then I'm all in up to my elbows again the following year.  I also ordered 30 more asparagus roots.  Optimism abounds.

2) I have been knitting the brown Rambo completely by the seat of my pants, and loving every second of it. 

I have never experienced a yarn-and-needle combination that is such a perfect marriage.  (I'm using my KnitPicks Options) 

I have always fought with my yarn -- some yarns more than others -- because I am such an anally tight knitter.  No wonder my arms and hands hurt!  Not so with this yarn.  So I have decided that while I'm designing this thing on the fly, and I'm loving the process so much, it's going to be a long tunic-coat style.  Not to the knees -- at least not yet -- but to the top of the thighs.  This means I will have to go back and buy more yarn.  And then hope to hell I'm not screwing up the measurements.  The bottom is curling quite a lot, so yesterday I decided to try putting applied i-cord to the bottom.  I think my needle size was too small, and I didn't really love the look, so I ripped it back out and will try something else -- either i-cord with a bigger needle, or some other edging treatment. 

2a)  So as I was knitting and thinking about this yesterday, and my idea had morphed into a coat, I got to thinking about Yank in Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside The Lines, which I just happened to have on my bookshelf, and wondered if I were in actuality making that, since I had wanted to since I first got the book.  I pulled out the book and saw that my idea is the same, yet different.  At the moment, I still think I will make mine single-breasted, but that may change.  Meanwhile, I checked the math, and I have cast on 10 stitches more than the Yank pattern gives for my correct size, before accounting for the lovely wide button band on the Yank.  So now I'm in a quandary -- keep on, and plan on making my button bands narrower (but *whine* I LOVE those wide button bands...) and use the Yank pattern as guidance for shaping and such, or rip out and restart, and make a proper Yank peacoat.  Or just keep on in the very -- pardon the use of this artsy expression -- organic way I have been doing.  What do you think?  Maybe we'll rename this sweater Yankee Ingenuity. I'm really not of the belief that beach stone buttons belong on a peacoat.  Oh, life's difficult decisions....

3) I have been Diet Pepsi/Coke free for over two weeks now.  Well, all except a week ago Saturday I fell off the wagon and had one.  So to be honest, I guess I should say I have been Diet Pepsi/Coke free since a week ago Sunday, but we addicts like to fudge the facts like that.  I still think I'm doing pretty well, and I didn't crave any at all for the first week.  But I swear I'd sleep with any one of you right now if you gave me one. 

4) I've put a few more things for sale in my "for sale or trade" tab in Ravelry. My Rav name is normaknits.  I've still got some hoeing out of yarn and fiber to do, but guess what....I tweaked my back yesterday, so I'm a little slow right at the moment. 

5) The speech bubble ideas cracked me UP yesterday. I'll announce a winner or two or three (the one or two or three that made me laugh the most), probably tomorrow.  First, I think I might need to go pay a visit to my chiropractor. 

6)  It's always something.

Does Anyone Else Hate Photo Sessions As Much As I Do? Out-Takes and A Contest

1. What the? I promise you, I was not barfing in the sap bucket.  However, I do NOT remember doing this and have absolutely NO idea what I WAS doing. Sigh.

2.  So apparently here I am having a conversation with Hank.  Let's have some contest fun.  Fill in the speech bubbles, or make a caption: