Too Little Too Late

Random With Trees

We had a really windy day here.
Majorly windy.
Pine trees must have the weakest root systems of all the trees around here. Other trees lost limbs only, although in all fairness these were right by the river, so subject to extra wind.
I have been knitting. This is an Odessa hat by Grumperina in a pink Blue Sky Alpaca sans beads. I gave my previous Odessa to one of Boy-child's girl friends (she noticed that others at school had hats made by me and she wanted to join the club).
I like this pattern a lot and the yarn is delicious.
I also made another black hat for Boy's backup and I've started a baby hat for someone at work who is preggers with a boy. I'm hoping my pink phase is over now.

This is a Tea Leaves Cardigan in blue Cascade 220. I've made it past the armholes to the body now, but it's an awful lot of stockinette. It may be a while before I've finished.
Dexter and the fourth season of the Tudors should help, though.

We recently saw the movie M which was really good, and I also saw Surveillance by Jennifer Lynch. It would normally be too violent for me but it was just too brilliant to notice. Brilliant.

This is a tree in South Dakota that I saw recently.
I think it is unlikely to be uprooted.
This is for Girl-child.

She and I recently went to see The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins at the Children's Theater. They had trees in the lobby.

Isn't she adorable?

Art Car

I stumbled upon The Art Car in South Minneapolis yesterday:












What's not to love?

18 And He Knows What He Wants

Boy-child turned 18 this week. It's kind of a mind-bender for me.

Anyway, he wanted steak paella for dinner, so that's what he got:
Not a combination I would have chosen, but how can you say no to the Birthday Boy? It turned out pretty well.

He thinks he knows what he wants.
I guess we all did when we were 18, Alice Cooper notwithstanding.

Happy Birthday!

I Cut, You Choose

Autumn is an incredible time of year, I think. I love it. The only bad thing is raking. We lost the yard to fallen leaves a couple of weeks ago. I mean, you don't have to mow when the grass is out of sight, but I'd much rather mow than rake. It's funny, too, how even the nicest neighbor, even the one who shovels a foot or two into your sidewalk space after a substantial snowfall, will not go over the property line in the fall when it's time to rake. It's kind of like when you tell two kids they have to split the last piece of cake and you hand one the knife and tell him, "You cut" and point to the second kid and tell him, "You choose" Never, ever, ever is there a more precise cut. Works every time. Anyway, this is the property line after the nice neighbor raked, before we did:
I'm happy to say we've caught up a bit. The tree in the front yard (above shot is from the front yard, btw) hasn't lost it's leaves yet, so there will be more, but we achieved acceptable levels over the weekend. Our neighbors will not be cursing us when the wind blows this week.

The sun continues to shine; October has been everything that September wasn't.


Still enjoying clouds when they're available.


This is from our hippy neighbors' house. They have a lovely, unconventional yard. I swear you could get high just breathing deeply when you walk by sometimes, the smell of pot is that strong.


It's a colorful yard, and sings the praises of summer well into October:

Vote

Thanks to The Kat for posting the video.

Boy-child turns 18 this week. He's already registered.

Stillwater

My good friend Susan and I made our annual trek to Stillwater the other day, as I believe I already mentioned. Normally we go for lunch and leafing.
This year we seem to have forgotten about the leafing, however. It may have been because the leaves weren't peaking that weekend, but I think it maybe had more to do with the bikers in town. They were very noisy. So we hung out in the "antiques" shops instead.
There are so many fun things to look at, some more antique-y than others.

I love the old green and pink glass.

Some of the things I recognize from when I was little.

Does that make me an antique?


I liked the idea of Lincoln holding up A Child's Garden of Verses.

Lunch was good - probably the last time we'll be able to eat outside for a while.


There was also a fantastic yarn shop. I resisted. I'm actually fairly stunned that I didn't buy anything. Not sure if I feel more pride or dismay.

Haunted Hotel

So I spent Saturday in Stillwater, Minnesota with my good friend Susan and I was going to post a bunch of photos. I had the best of intentions. Before I knew it, however, I found myself out of town, in a place overrun by rats with feathers:
Who knew in the Wild West there would be pigeons? How awful! There's no escaping them. Apparently there's no escaping the Republicans either:

I was momentarily all excited about the possibility of this town being able to support a five and dime in the 21st century, but alas, only the sign remains:


This building reminds me of Guthrie, Oklahoma:
The hotel really is awesome. It was built in 1928. Many believe there is a room on the eighth floor that is haunted. I am on the ninth floor:

Anyone who doesn't already know because I told them want to guess where I am?

Soon I'll post photos from Stillwater.

Some Linguistic Observations

I was recently in a waiting room where there were quite a few East Africans. I'm always amazed by the fact that no words stand out when I hear Somalis speak. In many languages, even Arabic, there will be a word here or there that recognizable. And so this guy was talking, talking, talking absolutely unintelligible when all of a sudden I hear, "Public swimming pool."

How odd is that? Was he switching languages partway through the conversation or is there no Somali word for public swimming pool? If that's the case is there a word for pool? Swimming? Public?

This is one of the many benefits of knitting. If I'd been reading I probably wouldn't have noticed.

On another day, a day of glorious sunshine, I was drinking coffee and knitting on a bench outside a public library in suburban Hennepin County. There was a group of young men chatting nearby. I couldn't believe my ears - the same conversation I've heard at that bus stop on University and Vandalia a number of times. I always called that bus stop my "Mofo" bus stop because the young men have such a limited vocabulary: Mother F%&*!, N@#%! B#$%* and a few conjunctions. It's universal. What a pity.

In the meantime, Boy-child is learning Finnish. The other day he said they were working on colors, so I asked him what the word for purple is in Finnish. "Violeta," he told me. "Oh!" I replied, "so they didn't have a word and had to borrow it" ... he told me that Finnish color words are limited and yadda yadda. I paused, and said, "Do you think that's true or do you think it's because your teacher is a man?"

I think he took offense. I was serious. What do you think?

How the Days Fly By

Leading a Life of Leisure is no easy task. What is it I do all day besides watch Ellen, you may ask?

Well, the sun came out recently. Blinded us all, it did.
Once the blindness was overcome it was time to Make Hay. This year's hay making activity has been to swab the deck. Some parts needed a second swabbing; this photo was taken after a single round:
It looks a bit better now:
Of course, now the sky has clouded up again, and the leaves are falling, so I don't know if sealing it is going to happen soon.

Another thing I did was clean out some desk drawers. I found this mis-shapen swatch of knitting. Couldn't figure out what it was, what possessed me, what was wrong that it was so incredibly awful and full of holes and uneven. Then it came to me; it's my first swatch from my beginning knitting class. Shelly told us to save the swatch, and save it I did. (note that this photo was taken before scrubbing down the picnic table)
I guess I've come a long way, eh? This is the Citron shawl which is my most recent FO. It was boring as &*%! to make:
Some of the knitting time was spent in Mapps coffee shop on the West Bank. Good chai. It's a great place to stop for a treat after dropping Boy off at work and before visiting my mother.
And this is a random hamburger that someone ordered at Merlin's Rest last time I went to Drunken Knit Night. All I can say is, "Holy cow!"
I also recently watched The Scar with Boy-child; great movie. And Mammoth, as suggested by A Black Pepper (yes the apartment was awesome but the movie, while good, was quite alienating). I'm also reading a fluffy Knit-lit novel: the beach street knitting society and yarn club.