Ah, Fall, my favorite time of year. With the cooler weather finally starting to set in, my fancy has turned to thoughts of big ol’ wooly hand knits and television has risen, a phoenix, from the ashes of endless summer reruns. The official Fall season of TV started last week, and you know what? It doesn’t suck this year!
I’m watching Community, the comedy about 13th grade (aka community college). I went to two(!) community colleges, so I find this show particularly funny.
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Then there’s Modern Family, probably the funniest show since Friends and Will & Grace, about three families. You’ve got your traditional mom/dad/3 kids family, the older step-dad/much younger mom/1 kid family, and the gay guy couple with an adopted baby. Funny, funny stuff, and the best show I’ve seen on TV since Pushing Daisies’ first year. (Damn you ABC for canceling Pushing Daisies!!!!)
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In the drama category, I’ve been very excited about the very excellent Flash Forward, the show that asks how would you live your life if you knew what you’d be doing 6 months from now.
And lastly, another drama, Eastwick. To be honest, I wonder how long they can keep this show going. Remember how Desperate Housewives was really good for about 2 seasons and then it started going downhill? Well, we’ll see how they do with this one.
Even Heroes didn’t suck (for the first time in 2 years)!
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What shows on the teevee machine will keep you company while you knit your way into cooler weather?
Who, exactly, were you trying to impress with that cologne you were wearing? Your lovely wife? Or perhaps it was your 6 small children (ranging in ages between 7 and 9 months)? Frankly, I was not impressed, nor, I’m sure, were any of the other shoppers in Target yesterday afternoon at 4 pm. I, for one, found it incredibly difficult to breathe with you standing right behind me, a mere cart’s length away. You see, strong fragrances, such as the one that rolled off of you like a dense fog, tend to inflame my asthma. Further, I’m quite confident that I was not the only asthmatic shopping at Target on a busy Saturday afternoon. Please just consider others before you dump an entire bottle of cheap-ass cologne on your head. Thanks.
xoxo
Jen
PS: I mean, seriously. Did you think you were going clubbing or something? WTF? There’s a time and a place for cologne and it sure as hell isn’t shopping at Target on a goddamn Saturday afternoon with your family. Damn.
I am cleaning out my old FlyLady Control Journal and came across this in the “Personal” section. I’m not sure where it came from (likely it was Ye Olde Internete) or who wrote it, but it’s funny.
On the first day of creation, God created the cat.
On the second day, God created man to serve the cat.
On the third day, God created all the animals of the earth to serve as potential food for the cat.
On the fourth day, God created honest toil so that man could labor for the good of the cat.
On the fifth day, God created the sparkle ball so that the cat might or might not play with it.
On the sixth day, God created veterinary science to keep the cat healthy and man broke.
On the seventh day, God tried to rest, but he had to scoop the litter box.
This time, my first stranded knitting project. I completed the 2nd mitten the other night and I am, again, left wondering what made me think this project was taking too long.
Perhaps the braids? While they did take a while to work, the entire second mitten only took about 3 days worth of knitting once I’d set my mind to it. Here’s what the inside looks like because I know some of you are into that kind of thing:
This pattern was a very entertaining knit, and I’ll definitely do it again. And what of stranded knitting? It is AWESOME! I can’t wait to do more, only right now I have to turn to Christmas knitting, so it’ll have to wait. Also, I wonder if I can knit a sweater in time for Rhinebeck…
One to go. Truth to tell, I’m a bit hesitant to cast on the second mitten–that bird was way more fiddly that I expected it to be. Although, why I should have expected it to be less fiddly, I have no idea. Perhaps it’s because I am way worse at embroidery than I thought I was?
When I realized I did not have to push through knitting the boys sweaters for the fall, I un-hibernated the Bird In Hand Mittens I started back in February. I originally put them aside because I figured by the time I finished them it’d be too warm for mittens (boy was I wrong about that!), but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what I thought was taking so long.
I knitted the entire hand in one evening and the thumb in the next. The thumb needed a do-over, and has since been frogged. Still it went a bit faster than I thought it would. I’ll finish this mitten up tonight and cast on its fraternal sibling before I go to bed. Why fraternal? Well, evidently, I’ve made a GLARING error in the second wrist chart and, to be honest, I really don’t care.
I spent much of this afternoon cleaning up the boys’ room, taking an inventory of their fall clothes, deciding which to keep or to toss, trying to figure out what I’ll need to buy when the cooler weather sets in. I7 needs long pants, of course. And a coat. E3 needs a couple of things. Not surprising, really, but the really great thing I learned on my little excursion deep, deep, deep down into the darkest depths of the kids’ closet, is that neither one of my kids needs a sweater this year. In fact, they barely have enough room in their dresser for the sweaters they have. Which means the extremely boring project I shared with you the other day can go on vacation, a very long vacation, along with the other kid sweater project I have planned. Life is too short for projects you hate, dear knitters. Too short.
*UPDATE* Evidently, I’m in some sort of time warp. The joint session will be Wednesday the 9th. Not today.
This evening, President Obama will address a joint session of congress to urge and encourage them to move forward with their overhaul of the US health care system. Discussions about health care reform keep popping up all over the internet, MY internet. All summer long. Ravelry, Facebook, the Fatosphere, iChat, email. To be honest, I’m starting to feel more than a little crazy with all of it. I know this is a knitting blog, I really do. And I have tried to keep posts about politics to a minimum, but I have just got to get this off my chest.
I make no secret of my progressive leanings and when it comes to health care reform, I believe the best solution would be a single payer health care system, similar to the NHS of the United Kingdom or that of Canada. Failing that, the health care industry should at least be made to be not-for-profit. I’ve heard a lot of arguments against health care reform in general and a single payer system in particular and, seriously, I can’t take it any more!
What’s that? You don’t want to pay for the poor lifestyle choices of other people? Guess what, you already do. That’s what insurance is. We all put our money in a big pot, and when someone gets sick, they get to use some of that money to pay their bill. Do you honestly think there are no smokers or fatties or whores on your insurance plan? Well there are, and probably a lot of them. And guess what, if any one of them gets cancer or diabetes or AIDS, they get to take some of the money (a little of which is yours) out of that pot to pay their doctor or to buy medicine.
What’s that? You don’t want to pay for health care for illegal aliens and/or poor people? Well guess what, you already do. When hospitals have to write off the money owed them by people who just do not have the money to pay them, they pass on the cost to those who can. The problem with the current system is not that they’re giving “free” health care to illegals and the poor, it’s that they’re not giving the same “free” health care to everyone.
What’s that? You don’t want to have rationed care? Guess what, we already do. If you have to decide between putting food on your family [sic] or buying your medication, that’s rationing. If you put off your wellness checkups (annual pap smears, e.g.) because you don’t have the money to pay your co-pays or co-insurance, that’s rationing. And to be honest, claims that a national system would lead to “rationing” are plainly, blatantly, false.
What’s that? You have to always have access to the best of the best specialists? Well frankly, not all situations require the best doctor you can get, but if your biggest concern is having access to the best doctor money can buy, then odds are you would be able to pay for that access in whatever health care system we end up with. Meanwhile, 45 million people in this country have no access to any physician. At all. Working people, naturalized and native citizens, have no access. None. Does that honestly seem okay? Forget fairness. Is that okay?
What’s that? You don’t want a government bureaucrat standing between you and your doctor? Well, what in the holy hell would you say the insurance company bureaucrats are doing besides standing between you and your doctor? How many stories are out there of people being dropped from their insurance plan because they get sick? Don’t believe it doesn’t happen. It does. And if it happens to anyone, it can happen to you. At least if health care was paid for by our government, care would be guaranteed from cradle to grave, whether you have a job or if you get cancer. Because health care is not a privilege for the lucky, wealthy few. It is a right.
What’s that? You don’t want socialism? We already have a lot of socialism, people. We have a socialized military, roads and highways, water and sewer, schools, libraries, police/fire. We socialize the cost of these things because it improves the lives of us all. It lifts us all up. Why is national health care your last stand?
So that’s it. I’m done. I’m not going to talk about it or think about it any more. Whatever happens, happens. It is what it is.
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Knitting Interrupted 
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