Sunday, April 18, 2004

Hey!

Where have I been? Well, sadly, nowhere. Somebody took our laptop to work on Friday and then brought it home sans a crucial cord. Can I just say that I'm dying to show you all kinds of photos? Hopefully our software issues will be resolved by the end of the week, so I can do that.

I haven't done any work on finishing my Must Have, but thanks so much to everyone who left helpful comments to my blocking questions. You know, if someone (else) were really enterprising, she would start a little business: dorks like me could send her all the pieces, and she could block and seam. I'd send my knits to finishing school! Two weeks later, voilà! A lovely sweater. I'm just saying...

Since all I want to do is start new projects, I decided that I must first finish my feather and fan scarf. I'm into the second ball of wool, and it is a pretty quick knit. I love how the scarf is coming out, and I love the Lorna's Laces sport yarn. [Here's where I would show you a photo.]

I've knit a couple of inches of the back of Grace. [Again, photo!] I'm debating whether to continue. Or rather, I'm considering ditching the mohair and knitting Grace in another yarn, because I do love its shape. FYI, I wouldn't recommend the Schachenmayr Nomotto Hair. (See, there's a clue. When I chose it, I was a leetle unnerved that it was called Hair.) It's too hairy! In fact, I think there may be a slight typo on the label. I think where it says "35% mohair," it should actually say "35% mo' hair." I think I'd feel like a Muppet wearing this stuff. Or like I had a hairy chest. And a hairy back. Or I'd feel like a giant cat toy.

I was in the park this morning, sitting on a rock by the fish pond, eating my breakfast: dan-bing out of a plastic bag. (A dan-bing is a fried egg rolled up in a thin rice tortilla/crepe.) An elderly gentleman was walking by, and he stopped to talk to me. He said that people eat too much. He asked if I was from England and then told me that Canadians speak very clearly and are easy to understand. He told me he was "an old man." And he told me that I "cut a good figure." I laughed and thanked him, and then it was time for me to come to work. And I thought about the concept of mellowing with age -- not the man, but me. The same incident ten years ago probably would've spurred me to write an angry paper about objectification and the male gaze for a women's studies class. Today, it made me smile. His choice of phrase was particularly charming, don't you think? It's the kind of thing that would be in a 1940s English phrasebook, in a section called How to Compliment a Dame. And it worked.

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