Summer Reading List

I’ve gotten into a few conversations lately where the topic of summer reading has come up. Do I have any suggestions? Why yes I do.

Those of you who know me know that I’m currently addicted to audiobooks as the antidote to a long commute and the desire to occupy my hands and eyes with sticks and string instead of turning pages. Not that I don’t enjoy reading — I do, really — but the discovery of audiobooks has let me fall back into the enjoyment of fiction after many dry years reading nothing but mediocre screenplays.

I enjoyed these books in their audio versions, but I know the old-fashioned way would be just as satisfying.

With that caveat, here are my suggestions for summer reading.

1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, audio version read by David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones

I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. The narrator, Jacob, joins the circus in the early 1930’s and narrates his story both as it’s happening and from a nursing-home vantage point years later. The worlds, both the circus and the nursing home, are rich with detail and deep emotion as Jacob approaches a pivotal moment in his life in the 1930s and reflects back on the same moment in present time. The story is well-plotted and sweetly romantic. Jacob grows to love many of the people and animals in the circus, but the novel itself is thoughtful enough that you feel good reading it. This is no empty-calorie bodice-ripper. Without giving anything away, I’ll tell you that the ending left me feeling uplifted, with a huge smile on my face. What could be better? An engaging story, a good read, and that warm fuzzy feeling when you’re done.

Gruen’s first novel, RIDING LESSONS, and it’s sequel FLYING CHANGES — a story that begins with a young woman with Olympic equestrian dreams — are going into my interlibrary loan queue even though they are not available as audiobooks.

2. Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Special Topics is a hyper-literate coming-of-age story with absolutely nothing to do with science. Heavily laden with footnotes and literary allusions, the novel presents itself as a memoir written by a college freshman chronicling her senior year of high school. But she’s not just any high school girl — her aloof, ostentatiously academic father brought her up amid an endless series of scholarly articles and moves from town to town. Everything changes her senior year when she and her dad spend the entire school year in the same town, at the same ritzy private school and she gets her first genuine taste of high school. Amidst some really satisfying high school drama (think first kisses, crushes, best-friend drama) a series of mysteries emerge. There are some truly cringe-worthy moments (how could she be so naive?), some fairly shocking turns and a wild ride of an ending, but ultimately I found the novel to be entirely satisfying. The novel’s form is a bit unusual — heavily footnoted — and the audiobook version was a bit cumbersome to listen to because each footnote was read aloud, but once I got used to it I alternately enjoyed/ignored the footnotes and found that they heightened the fun and suspense.

Special Topics was Pessl’s first novel (her third attempt though, according to Wikipedia!) and her follow-up will be coming out in 2010.

3. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart, read by Arte Johnson

Years ago I made the mistake of suggesting The Stone Diaries to a friend. While I loved the book, it was so, sooooo wrong for him and he’s turned up his nose at my suggestions ever since. Here’s my attempt at redemption: in case you’re not interested in a romantic, animal-filled circus ride or a jaunt through high school on the shoulder of a self-conscious but brilliant teenage girl, give Absurdistan a try. The novel follows an obscenely wealthy and obese Russian man in his early 20s. Exiled from Russia and in search of permission to reenter the US, where he spent his college years, he ends up trapped in the fictional eastern-European country Absurdistan. If you’re a fan of David Foster Wallace, if you liked The Crying of Lot 49, if post modernism is your bag, you’ll love this book. It’s not easy — I was glad I listened to it instead of reading since I found myself drifting at times — but all of the bizarre non sequiturs and patently absurd characters and situations add up to a delicious and unusual literary meal.

4. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with her husband Steven L. Hopp and daughter Camille Kingsolver

Speaking of meals . . . this one will make you hungry for vegetables. It’s rare that I’d suggest a book without actually finishing it first, but the Kingsolver family’s story of spending a year eating locally, largely from their own Appalachian farm garden, is compelling without being preachy or overly evangelical. In fact, I found the book full of encouragement for the urbanites out there to get started even in a small way: start a windowsill garden, check out a local farmer’s market, pay attention to what you purchase at the supermarket. Even better is Kingsolver’s typically lyrical prose, which, when read by the author, seems to roll past like a warm breeze. Another benefit to the audio version: sound effects from the family farm that mark the beginning and end of each disk.

Let me know what you think and pass the love along — share your own suggestions for summer reading!

Brightest after the storm

After my last rant, and what I admit has been a somewhat negative attitude over the past few weeks, I think I’m turning a corner with my knitting. In fact, I’m starting to regard the knitting as something of a lifeline, a way out of darker places.

No, I still haven’t found my sock book, but there’s no reason I can’t just go out and get another one (the library doesn’t have it!) and get back to my socks. Done. Well, not quite done yet, but close. And once again, thanks go to The Baron for insisting that it’s money well spent . . . although I’m sure that as soon as I actually buy a new copy of the book I will find my old one and therefore be able to return the new one.

On the clouds-are-clearing front, however, two packages arrived via the good old USPS on Monday and both really cheered me up.

First I got four skeins of Rowan All-Seasons cotton via a yarn swap with my knitting-blog buddy Mick. Go check out her linky and see my new balls of yarn.  Aren’t they pretty?  The arrival of this yarn was exciting on many levels. First and foremost, when I finished Peacock Feathers I was left with more than 3000 yards of violet Jaggerspun Zephyr — a beautiful color, but I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to use it again for a long while. Somehow, maybe because Mick’s first lace piece turned out so well, I just felt that she was supposed to have the leftover yarn.

Meanwhile, my cousin, the youngest of our generation, the little girl I used to play with and the preteen I taught to shave her legs, is about to have a baby. Knitting is called for, but I’ve been feeling uninspired with my stash of KnitPicks Swish in shades of baby blue, baby pink and baby yellow and all-around stuck, what with the stalled sock and all. As soon as Mick’s yarn arrived though, I began trolling through Ravelry looking for just the right thing. I made one of EZ’s February Baby Sweaters and it came out really well, but I want to try something new this time. Many of the baby sweater patterns out there are a bit boxy and simplistic. I get it, babies are sometimes a little nebulous around the edges, but still I think it’s important to put detail and attention into a baby sweater and not just seam together two garter-stitch rectangles. Wow . . . I am becoming such a knitting snob! Any gift made with love is a wonderful one that will hopefully be received as such, but I have (hello, type A much?) high standards for my own gift projects and I want this sweater to kick ass.

So . . . this afternoon I pulled out Mick’s yarn and swatched for Trellis from Knitty, which strikes me as the perfect combination of cool and detailed without being too fussy or going overboard. My gauge was a tiny bit off but I was happy with the fabric and hey, babies come in all sizes, right? I always think a little bigger is better for baby things — the roominess extends the useful life of the garment. I had to go down to size 5 needles to even get close (4.5 inches for 21 stitches instead of the suggested 4 inches) and now I’m ready to cast on.

But wait . . . what was the other package that brought sunshine and light? It was from KnitPicks, of course. I had a leftover bit of cash on a gift certificate and my work/knitting buddy Miss V. was going to do an order so we went in on it together to get the free shipping. It was pretty wonderful having a few days of anticipation before the KnitPicks box showed up, early as usual. It was also really fun to have Miss V. be as excited as I was about the delivery. I think it’s one of my favorite things about knitting — having other people to get giddy with about something as simple as a cute stuffed animal pattern or finding the perfect yarn. I barely had time to teach her how to knit before she was off and running, tracking down cool books and patterns and joining me on yarn shopping trips.

What was in the KnitPicks box you ask?  Well, I’ve been wanting to try a mystery lace KAL for a while now, and when I came across the Goddess Knits Anniversary Mystery Shawl Along it seemed perfect. I wanted to use just the right yarn — the Zephyr seemed too delicate, I didn’t really like the swatch I made with the KnitPicks Shimmer (seen here in Turquoise, I initially bought it to make a shawl for my wedding and scrapped the plan when it started to look too much like tye-dye), and I didn’t have anything else that felt right in my stash. With the start of the KAL looming (the first clue was posted last Friday — I think membership will be open until June 30) I was desperate to find the “right” yarn and I rather blindly took a stab and ordered 4 skeins of KnitPicks Shadow in Juniper. Big mistake. The color is a teal-and-red combo that Miss V. described as “grandma.” Funny though, rather than being bummed I’m a bit excited to test out the KnitPicks exchange process. More about the Goddess Knits KAL later . . . for now it’s enough that I have a cool baby project that I’m excited to get started on. I hope the summer sun is going to keep shining on my knitting!

In which I shake my fists at the universe

So I’m working away on socks. Socks have often given me trouble, so I’m being careful to follow the pattern, swatch, all that good stuff. So far, so good, right?

These are the Oriel Lace Socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, and I’m really enjoying them so far. I worked the suggested toe (which I liked way better than the short-row toe I’ve used in the past) and have gotten through three repeats of the lace pattern. Perhaps time to start the gussett and heel? Well, to know that I’d have to consult the pattern, which is in the book, which is who knows where.

I am pretty much losing my mind over this. Of course The Baron suggested I simply stop by a bookstore and get another copy (isn’t he a great, understanding guy?), but after owning the book for over a year I am just now getting to my first project from it and a re-purchase seems downright wasteful. Where could it be? I blame my new in-laws, who descended on us en-masse the first weekend of June. We spent so much time cleaning and tidying that now I cannot find a thing. Sadly my Sensational Socks book is the first severe casualty. The book is not in my knitting room, not in the living room or bedroom or bathroom or kitchen, not under any couches, not on my desk at home, not in my car . . . I was holding out hope that perhaps it was somewhere in my cubicle at work (I took the book to work and made a photocopy of the lace pattern to carry with me) but this morning when I got in I rummaged through everything and still came up empty.

I know in the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal, but I need to knit! Maybe this is the universe telling me that I need to keep more than one project at a time on my needles. Little elves who watch over lost things, please bring my book back to me!

I like green but I do not like yellow

When I was a little girl, my mother told me that I did not look pretty in the color yellow. I’m not sure why she said this, or if she realized the lasting effect it would have on me. I was “washed out” she said, as though a person could be flushed of all vitality by simply putting on a t-shirt. Also my brain connected the “low” sound at the end of the color with the similar allele at the end of the word “sallow” and clearly sallow is not a thing that a little girl wants to be. Sorry . . . this is just how my brain works. I know there are plenty of beautiful yellows out there, but I just can’t overcome my early conditioning enough to go beyond simply remarking “what a rich, lovely color” and actually knit with the stuff.

The kicker though is that I love green. I love greens that are deep and rich in their blue hues, and not so much bright or puce (what an unfortunate word!) or lemongrass. But in the yarny world, where hand-dyes are literally created from the building blocks of color (red, yellow, blue) it’s difficult to find a varigated yarn that doesn’t incorporate yellow in with the green. Yarns that are green and blue are usually overpowered by the blue, and the green pops in just as an accent. I love green, but looking over my finished projects Ravelry page recently I realized that I just have not knitted anything green save for the turtle (Sheldon) who is (duh) supposed to be green.

To remedy this lack of green in my knitting life, I cast on for a pair of socks this weekend with Knitpicks Risata in Grass. After a false start (um, yeah, read the directions carefully when trying out a new toe technique for socks!) I’m off to the races, as you can see:

Although I’ve had this yarn for a while, it wasn’t until my recent success with the mitts for Adorable that I really felt ready to tackle socks again. It’s been a little stressful at home recently so for the moment I am clinging to these socks for sanity.

Long weekend with nothing on the needles

The good news is that last night I cast off and delivered Adorable’s Nereid mitts (a fingerless glove adaptation of Cookie A.’s Pomatomus socks) and she seems to love them. The bad news, for me at least, is that I’m now facing the whole Memorial Day long weekend with no knitting project at all.

Here is the finished product, modeled by Adorable herself:

I really enjoyed making the mitts, first and foremost because I got a chance to play with the Koigu KPPPM that I picked up at String in New York. I’ve worked with self-striping and variegated yarns before, but never with a fiber that just feels so super-saturated with color, even in the muted brown and pink colorway. The yarn itself is beautiful to touch as well as to look at, and the finished knit had a spongy, rich feel that is frankly luxurious. I can already tell I’m going to be a sucker for this yarn! I worked the mitts on Clover Bamboo needles — a bit sticky, but so soft that I actually broke off the tip of one — and I’m still undecided about whether I’ll reach for the bamboo or the aluminum next time.

At first I wanted to work both mitts at the same time, but I just wasn’t happy with the feel of the fabric on the size 2 or even size 1 needles I have (see my this-is-not-a-sock-it’s-a fishing-net dilemma from my last Cookie A. sock attempt). On size zero, the fabric was just right. Confession: one of my key motivations for liking two-at-once socks is not second sock syndrome, it’s that I just can’t seem to count properly. Invariably one sock or the other ends up being longer or shorter which is sweet and, yes, confirms that the finished pair is truly homemade, but just doesn’t give me that happy feeling of successful completion that I’m looking for in a knitting project. What should have been obvious to me is that working a sock in pattern means that socks become error-proof. It’s far easier to keep track of 10 rows of ribbing for a cuff than for 150 rows in the entire length of a sock. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me — perhaps because Jaywalkers seem like “patterned” socks and I managed to mess up their length — but I suddenly feel free to try more complicated patterns on DPNs. I guess I am having a somewhat backward sock experience, but hey, that seems typical for me.

One issue I had (really the only one) was that the scallops on both mitts faced the same way instead of going in opposite directions. I guess the way to reverse this phenomenon would be to work the chart backwards. Or maybe upside down and backwards? I’ll have to look into it for the next time I knit something that is directional. I must admit that as I worked the mitts (and I added an additional chart repeat to make the mitts arm-warmers instead of simply wrist-warmers) I admired the way the tubular lace pattern looked and thought that it might make a very pretty knitted sleeve, especially given the subtlety of the varigated yarn against the subtlety of the pattern itself. I’m filing that idea away for the day in the far far far future when I attempt another adult sweater again.

My favorite thing about this project: I pulled out my trusty Knitter’s Handbook and taught myself the Tubular Bind-Off (aka Kitchner Bind-Off or Grafted Bind-Off) for K1 P1 ribbing. I’d create a tutorial but there is a fantastic one here if you are interested. It’s actually quite simple, if a bit tedious, and creates an edge that looks something like the edge that’s formed by folding a square of stockinette fabric in half. I’m curious if there is a similar bind-off for garter or stockinette fabric, but from now on I’ll be using the Tubular Bind-off for ribbing on most everything.

After writing all this I’m thinking that maybe taking a stab at a toe-up patterned sock is the way to go for this weekend. Nothing like a new project to get the heart racing! Or maybe I should return to the dreaded Monkey socks . . .

Some final photos that make me happy . . . the awesome color/pattern combo in close-up:

Adorable rocking her mitts Wonder-Woman style:

Reading, past and future

I always find it interesting to know what others are reading and I believe that finding a great book is one of the most authentic pleasures I’ve experienced in life. So I was thrilled this morning to see that Mick posted the following list of “unread” books, and I’m going to treat it like a meme . . .

I’ve bolded the ones I’ve read, underlined the ones read for school, italicized the ones I’ve started but not finished. For “future” I’ve highlighted in red the books that are on my to-do list. Of course, since it’s me I’ve also added my own two cents . . . where I’ve thought of it I’ve added ** spoiler alerts ** but since I’m known in my family for giving away the endings of things halfway through (”did she sleep with her brother yet?”) I want to make sure everyone has FAIR WARNING about the content below.

Mick’s List:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment - I read in two days for a Russian Lit class taken over the winter “one month long” term in college
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel - Long story but I’ve skimmed through much of Pi for a work-related project
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice - I almost feel like adding italics too . . . P&P is one of those books that I’ve read so many times that I now just pick up and put down whenever I’m in between things.
Jane Eyre - More than my own reading, I remember hearing from Adorable and my stepmom about their experience reading Jane Eyre and their hysterical frustration with the book’s conclusion . . . ** spoiler alert ** “Reader, I married him . . .”
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner - I found the incidents of ** spoiler alert ** sexual violence against children too overwhelming and I had to set this one aside.
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - I loved this memoir, but I wish it had been broken into two parts — I’ve always felt that the beginning, when ** spoiler alert ** the parents are ailing and finally pass away, was so incredibly strong and somehow not as firmly connected to the second, longer section of the piece.
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha - I found this book totally forgettable and in the category of “beach reading”
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera - I hesitated to even include this one as “read” since I read it in the 6th grade and didn’t really get the whole book. I picked it up because all the grown-ups around me were reading it, and I remember the love story but not much else.
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein - Gothic Lit was one of the only courses for my major that I just plain hated . . .
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King - As a kid this was one of my ALL TIME favorite books. I absolutely loved it and read everything else I could get my hands on about King Arthur.
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel - I read this over two months I spent working in London and I really connected with the isolation and foreign-ness many of the characters experienced. Beautifully written!
1984 - This is one of those books where I know what it’s about, and I think it’s more about the ideas than about the language, so since I’ve got the idea already I don’t need to read it.
Angels & Demons - Ick. I’m not a fan of Dan Brown. DaVinci Code was ok but I didn’t really get what all the fuss was about.
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Miserables
The Corrections - The best thing I’ve read in the past several years. Masterful language and a prose style that hangs together like poetry at times. A contender for “the Great American Novel.”
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Up until I read THE CORRECTIONS, I would have said this was my most favorite recent book. Epic and sprawling and just, well, beautiful. Another contender for “the Great American Novel.”
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces - Ok, so I have a problem with postmodernism. I really really love it (ie, THE CRYING OF LOT 49) or I really really don’t. I couldn’t hack it and had to set this book aside.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon - Part of my King Arthur obsession
Oryx and Crake : a novel - Just listened to this book and it was really cool.
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey - This book is the only way I survived the above-mentioned Gothic Lit class . . .
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

If you’ve read down this far, consider yourself tagged and tell the world what you’ve read!

Project Phoenix: Part one - Destruction

When I was in high school I fell in love with the idea of the chunky wool sweater. I loved the weight of a wool sweater, the slightly scratchy, slightly soft feel of the fabric, the sweet but acrid smell of a wool sweater on a damp morning. I loved wool sweaters so much that I wore one practically every day even though I lived in Southern California. I ended up in school in New England in part, I think now, so that I could have a good excuse to keep wearing those sweaters.

My very favorite was a hunter-green roll-neck sweater from J. Crew. Those that knew me way back then will, I have no doubt, remember the sweater in question:

Although I loved that sweater at the time, when I came across it a few weekends ago at the back of a closet in my parents’ house, I had a what-was-I-thinking moment. The yarn is a beautiful color and although the sweater is a bit pilled, it’s held up well for being a decade old. When I tried it on it was hopelessly boxy and made me feel really unattractive. I tossed it into the giveaway pile sadly until I remembered hearing somewhere about reclaimed yarn. Since I’d already consigned several sweaters to the pile for the people, I didn’t feel too guilty about snatching back the old roll-neck and tossing it into my knitting bag.

After a careful examination of the sweater construction, I decided to start with the neck. By the end of the evening I’d turned my rollneck into a boatneck and gathered myself an extremely kinked bundle of yarn.  The right sleeve was the next to go.  Here’s what the sweater looks like now:

Pretty amazing, right? So I’m starting to ponder and browse around on Ravelry for just the right pattern for this very special yarn, but there is still lots of work ahead of me! Unraveling is fun but it’s a pretty active process, what with all the ripping out of rows and wrapping of yarn around a chair back. I still have a sleeve and the front and back of the body to go, but I feel well-guided by the great tutorial by a fellow knit-blogger that I found (thank you, Google!) here.

If only I could find . . .

. . . my camera’s battery charger (or for that matter, the spare battery for my camera!) I would post the photos of my finished Tangled Yoke Cardigan.  Although I didn’t end up sewing any ribbon into the ball-band, I’m still pretty happy with how it turned out.

Even though I’ve already done several lace pieces, and even though I really love sweaters, I was so intimidated to try and knit one.  Lace is basically a gauge-free zone (I find it’s much more about the texture and appearance of the blocked lace than about size) and I was very nervous about sizing.  But it all seemed to work out in the end.  It’s such a pleasure to finish something, and to be able to hold and touch and see the final product.

I made a sweater!

Now as soon as I find my batteries I’ll show it off.

Trials

It’s been a rough week so far.

I arrived at work on Monday to a frantic e-mail from my friend Miss R. She’s a writer and new knitter and I got her started on her very first project . . . no, not a garter-stitch scarf, but the short-row intensive Ruffles Scarf from Scarf Style . . . which she worked in mohair. MOHAIR!!! For a lesser knitter or lesser human being this would be a recipe for disaster but somehow Miss R. just figured it out and churned out a beautiful scarf in a matter of days. Her next project: a sweater for herself, which she plowed through and finished last week.

So I was heartsick for her when I got her e-mail saying that while trying to block her sweater it had become “shrunk, fuzzy and unwearable.” She’d put it in the washing machine on “delicate” and machine washed it . . . and of course, it felted. So much careful time and trouble and cost, and now her first sweater was all but ruined. She was demoralized, and even confessed to me that she put all her knitting supplies up on eBay. I felt terrible for her, and terrible for myself, faced as I was with the prospect of losing a knitting buddy.

It was also The Baron’s birthday, and although we celebrated, the day started off at 7 am as the construction crew arrived with their power tools and got to work (our yard is having a mini-face lift). Even worse, they asked us to move our cars out of the driveway (no biggie, right) and as usual when I tried to start The Baron’s car it totally died on me. The engine turns over, catches, starts, then just dies. After this happens once or twice it won’t even start but just makes a pathetic, angry chugging sound. So he had to get out of bed, throw on some clothes and give it a try himself. No luck. Of course, after the car rested for about 20 minutes, he was able to start it up just fine on the first try. It’s me — I think his car is jealous of me and only likes it when I’m in the passenger seat. Birthdays are hard for both of us, and it was a rough start to a tough day.

Then the next day I had a horrible fight with my boss.  Long story, but we’ve worked together for years and I’ve had his back forever and finally I just had to ask “what’s in it for me . . . ?”  Then . . . crickets.  Yeah.  Work really sucks sometimes.

I’m at the button-band ribbing for my Tangled Yoke Cardigan (yay!) but I really want to do it right and I’m trying to pick up the right number of stitches and do it evenly and I keep screwing up and I just want it to be nice for my stepmom and also nice for me because It’s my first grown-up sweater and I’m a bit (just a bit!) compulsive.  Wah!

As Alexander says, some days are like that, even in Australia.

Just as I’m getting to the point where I feel really, REALLY sorry for myself, I get an e-mail about my cousins and the incredible trials they are going through.  On Sunday, Emily Le Van is going to run in the Olympic Marathon trials in Boston.  Yes.  Marathon.  Olympics.  I can’t even imagine walking 20 miles in a day, to say nothing of running even farther while being timed.  But what makes it really challenging is that Brad and Emily’s 4 year old daughter Maddie is struggling with Leukemia.  Maddie is going through a difficult treatment and she’s a very brave girl who is, so far, doing well.  Together the family is blogging about their Two Trials on their website, where they are also raising money for the Maine Children’s Cancer Program.  Since Emily and Maddie are each running a marathon of sorts, they are hoping to raise a thousand dollars per mile — a total of $52,400 (26.2 miles per marathon, times two marathons).

There’s nothing like looking at true strength and true hardship in the face of life’s petty annoyances.  Suddenly my everyday troubles (felting, remodeling, picking up stitches, car trouble) seem like the smallest of gentle waves on a sea that can easily become fatally stormy.  Theirs is an inspiring story, and if you’re reading this I strongly encourage you to go check it out.  If you like Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News is running a piece on Emily and her family as part of their Olympics coverage tonight or tomorrow.

If you can donate, please do.  If you can’t but still want to help in the fight against cancer, please consider enrolling in the American Cancer Society’s CPS-3 Study.  If nothing else, please read their story, take a deep breath and count your blessings, and then pass the story on.

Wow . . . just . . . wow

In case anyone is looking for a new project, check out these body-technology interfaces, pointed out to me by our office’s IT guy. Clearly I am known the world over as an insane knitter.