My Middle Name is Patience

Tips for Tomorrow Or Why I don't Get My Post Ideas From Typepad

  Although that might actually be a widget. Whatever, it looked stupid. Tips for tomorrow? Don't stare directly into the sun. Don't take any wooden nickels.

There. Forewarned is forearmed. You may thank my father for these pearls of wisdom.

Doesn't Hez look adorable? She likes the EXACT CENTER of the couch, thankyouverymuch.

One of the problems with starting and abandoning posts then sporadically posting them is trying to figure out what the Hades I had in mind when I was writing what looks like utter gibberish now. (It might still but there was an effort to make it reasonably cohesive.)

It may have something to do with coming to grips with my recent one-of-those birthdays. But probably not.

Brigitte aka Wrapped Around My Finger had a birthday (the 2nd) AND she's getting an orange kitty boy. And she's stalling on celebrating said birthday until this weekend. Good plan.

Bookish links! First up is Aarti'sBooklust, mostly because she's been hosting a Rosie Riveter weekly column on her blog and I contributed to it some time back -  so naturally now is when I link it. 

 - In her own words (as mine were insufficient - you'd think I read enough to turn a decent phrase occasionally) - Rosie's Riveters is a weekly posting written by Booklust readers about riveting females in literature. Many readers have strong reactions to the women in the books they read- either very positive or very negative. These are the characters we find riveting, for good reasons or bad ones, and they form the population of Rosie's Riveters. Through this weekly post, we can discuss females we love to hate, or love to love. And maybe, just maybe- we can determine why we react so strongly to them.
- she still looking for contributors, hint, hint. She writes some thoughtful reviews and is at least as annoyed with some heroines as I am. and has a way with words.

Puttermeister is trying out some interesting lists for books, check them out.

July Books:

Argh. Too hard. (Getting book cover pictures) 1)1633(L)  UF 2004 688p by David Weber and Eric Fint. I enjoyed it, they got out of Thuringia and into France and England finally meeting up with Richelieu, Oliver Cromwell and Spinoza but really, the Ring of Fire short stories should be read before as it sets up 1633. (Bitter about this! bitter! Ridiculously bitter, really but there you are.)

2) The Thirty Years War by Samuel Gardner 1916 (L) Great overview, dated language but it read aloud so evocatively. I should have been an itinerant small town preacher, I'd've loved the sound of my own voice.

Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak in 3)Killing Grounds pb M 1998, 4) Hunter's Moon pb M 1999, 6) Midnight come Again pb M 2000, 7) Singing of the Dead L M 2001, A *0 Fine and Bitter Snow L M 2002, 9) A Grave Denied pb M 2003, 13) A Taint in the Blood pb M 2004. I've stalled at A Deeper Sleep L M 2007 but Kate and Mutt continue to run across murder most foul and their love lives remain convoluted. Actually what I think I like most about this series (other than taking place in the imaginary Park in Alaska which I just find fascinating. Imagine living in a home where you had to stock up for the winter and probably wouldn't see another soul for a month or two? I can't decide if I'm envious or not) is the love between Kate and Mutt.

10) Breathing Out by Peggy Lipton (L) (B) I so wanted to hang out with Pete and Linc and Julie when I was a kid. My dad was a cop, and a cop in Oakland during the 60's and the counterculture was not exactly promoted in my house growing up. Peggy Lipton had what I think of as a typical I'm Not Really Beautiful life, which is to say, I was totally dismissive of her and her suffering until it finally reached me that she didn't have it all that easy and everyone has to fight to be free. (Hey. That might make a cool Tom Petty song).

5 The Solitude of Prime Numbersby Pablo Giordano. I had mixed feelings about this book. Mattia and Alice's parents were completely clueless for two completely different reasons. That poor Alice feels she has to throw herself over a cliff - or at the very least, when she's laying broken at the bottom, she's relieved she doesn't have to compete skiing anymore - made me want to shake her father until his teeth rattled.

Mattia I felt less sorry for but even so, being so inextricably tied to his fraternal mentally challenged twin Michaela frustrated him that while I couldn't believe he left her in the park (with instructions not to move) I couldn't quite fully despise him for it. It was a sad story but beautifully written.

11) The Sword Edged Blonde by Alex Bledsoe 2005 (SF) (L) It's billed as Sam Spade in Sci Fi and it was, kind of.

12) The Age of Reason Begins by Will and Ariel Durant (1961) (L) Overview of the Reformation era. They have such a chatty style of teaching history, no wonder their books are still some of the best to turn to for historical perspective.

August Reads:

1) Moral Relativism by Steven Lukes 2008 (L). Oh man. I started this is July and it just took me forever to read it. Party because I was questioning what I consider moral standards and how flexible I am in relation to others violating said standards, be it in person, in the past or from a different culture and partly because so many of the moral standards that seemed to be in flux were in regards to women and the treatment thereof. That gobsmacked me. There's a question of culture and morality when it comes to women? And not, say, race? religion? politics? Yeah, exactly. It turns out I'm somewhat inflexible and don't have much problem judging.

2) Ring of Fire by Eric Flint and edited by Eric Flint & a huge group of great guest writers featuring side characters in the main series. Mercedes Lackey had my favorite short story, To Dye Forfeaturing Tom Stone, Grantville's resident hippie.

3) Thirty Years War by Geoffrey Parker 1997 (L) Really, a delightful breezy overview of the military skirmishes in the 30 Years War and those most involved. Just because it took me two months to read 182 pages is completely beside the point.

 Look what Angie (Purling Oaks) sent me! Cow pies! Oh, and some Artyarns fiber, sugar scrub, scented soap and what she claims is "catnip". From her cats no less. Suuuuuure. 

Opal (aka The Akamai Knitter) (she's having a Labor Day sale btw) sent me some Indian Corn BFL fiber and some truly gorgeous orange earrings (the money shot up the page wherein I also discover that the zoom on the iPhone isn't really a zoom but a clip but considering it's a stationary camera lens......  and what she claims is packing fiber but is soooo pretty (it's really not a bright electric blue though. I took an outdoor picture because the colors are generally better and also display my poor pathetic single eggplant. That you can't see.

Hey. I know  Squish (aka Purling Dervish) sent me earrings and I think fiber and no pictures? I am remiss.

Altho -  you all know I don't actually know how to spin yet, right?  I have a spindle, I'm signed up for a class (in a lighthouse! Well, at the lighthouse grounds) but I have not yet spun anything but Fickleknitter's yarn she had (the devious enabler) at Stitches West.

Nothing else was finished (and no modeled shot of Undulating Waves yet either) but OTOH, no new projects were cast on. That statement may only be good until I get home. WANT WANT WANT

This is Melchior (until I'm told her actual name). She loves us and Hez. Hez does not love her. I hope, someday, to get a halfway decent picture of her without Hez chasing her off.

It's Good to be Queen

Well, I'm guessing it's good. So far I haven't realized my life-long goal of ruling over a vast and powerful kingdom but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

In the meantime, it's been good to be me. Matching necklace (above) and (below) from left to right, stitchmarkers, said matching earrings, delicious looking picture of a cinnamon roll - that's why I've been craving cinnamon rolls! (as if I'm not always craving cinnamon rolls.....) from Opal The Akamai Knitter at her shop Opalescent Jewels.

A bag from JessaLu , perfect!  (I've been stuffing my mom's stole into it and then stuffing it in my purse - finally it stops catching in the zipper - I have to say one fabulous thing about Misti Alpaca, that yarn is resilient.)

The latest yarn from the Mean Girl's Yarn Club.........oh wait, I can't show you yet.

Knitting update: more done on my mother's stole. More yarn purchased just in case.

The Undulating Waves Beaded Scarf is now a little more than half done. It turns out I cannot count repeats accurately. I have approximately 5 feet of beads still to knit. I wish I'd measured the beads when I first started it.

More done on Fickleknitter's Market Bag. A lot more would've been done if I could count repeats accurately. (Hmm, I'm sensing a theme).

Zippo was done on Curve of Pursuit, the SIL's gorgeous cable scarf that I will probably be unable to part with, Dizzy Blonde Basic Noir Black shawl or my Dad's cardigan.

My cousin flew into California on business this last week so after he was done with work, one night my Dad took us all out to dinner and since he admitted he'd never really been to SF, the next one we took the Oakland ferry over to the Ferry Building, ate at Mijita (scrumptious) and then wandered up and down the wharf. The seals/sea lions/sea creatures are still there but man, there are a lot of them! They've been given their own little enclave now too. We watched a hilarious performer at Pier 39 - okay he was probably more hokey than out and out hilarious but I like hokey.

We probably should've taken the cable car at Hyde up to Powell but the line was practically back to the sidewalk and I had visions of missing the last ferry boat and wandering Oakland, unable to find Jack London Square in the dark. (Which is unlikely but par for the course for things I worry about).

READING UPDATE: So far in August, I'm still reading Ring of Fire (I'm on the last short story by Eric Flint, The Wallenstein Gambit) but I've been seized with the idea that I MUST research the 30 years war so that I'll actually get the alt history bit so I'm also reading The Thirty Years War  by Geoffrey Parker and dragging around Moral Relativism by Steven Lukes because at least that fits in my purse. I am on roughly page 8 on both of those.

 

Hez sez: "I am undercover, you maroon. I know it's the last day of your [*coughing fit*]XX-ies but you'd think you could at least keep my hideout on the down low."

Little of this, little of that

San Francisco in the dawn's early light....or 9:30am. Close enough. I went into the City via BART Saturday to meet up with Bev and Jewel, finally! and get in a yarn crawl. The yarn crawl ended up being ImagiKnit - which alone was a crawl in itself. I think we were there for three hours and never noticed the time. I found some yummy J Knit  and Jewel picked up what I think was some Cascade Heritage Sock Yarn for herself and as a gift while Bev stayed strong and bought only for others. Bev's sister in law Karin came with but i can't remember what she bought! We talked shop  - it's so much fun to for a chance chat with a fellow tax preparer. After we wore out ImagiKnit, we walked a block or two over to Dolores Street Cafe (yum) for some much needed late lunch then Jewel dropped me back off at BART, because typically when I'm out having fun, my head sabotages me. Okay, possibly it was also from staying up half the night most of the week finishing off books and then working like a fiend. But for some reason, I like the first theory.

I also finally made it to the Farmer's Market at the SF Ferry Building! It's only been there for ages. The Oakland Ferry doesn't go directly to it until noonish and for some weird reason (I commuted on BART for something like 15 years) I was leery of BART. But BART worked beautifully, I barely waited for a train either way, maybe because it was 9am and 60 degrees on Saturday morning rather than noon and 102 degrees on a Sunday afternoon? the Embarcadero station is only a block away. Some of the more crowded shops inside the Ferry Building have booths outside, Acme Breads, Cowgirl Creamery. (Farmer's Market SF Ferry Building)

(My backyard garden. Darn, I forgot to take a picture of the Mystery Vegetable Tree.)

In knitting news, I'm still knitting Mom's Stole, the SIL's cable scarf, Dad's Cardigan, my beaded scarf and the Curve of Pursuit. I'm making no discernible progress on any of them.

There is nothing on TV. Well, Law & Order Criminal Intent and In Plain Sight on Sunday, The Closer on Monday, Warehouse 13 tonight, Leverage on Wednesday, Burn Notice on Thursday, Eureka and Mental - both on at 9pm on Fridays, argh........see? Practically nothing.

The NCIS repeat about Vance's past is on tonight. Don't miss it.

Look what I got for my birthday!  Early, I admit. I just couldn't wait, especially since I crunched the numbers and can't get to Sock Summit. (Airfare tripled. That eats into my stash enhancement which is probably not a bad thing but geez). From Opalescent Jewels.  The necklace itself is gorgous but the clasp! For once, I can get it on and off all by myself.

I finished The Age of Reason Begins, 1633, The Solitude of Prime Numbers and A Taint in the Blood ( Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak) and then spent a couple of listless days trying to figure out what to read next. It's not that I have nothing to read, it's that I have so much I want to read! The short stories, Ring of Fire (which should be read between 1632 and 1633, btw), the next to last (so far) Kate Shugak book, A Deeper Sleep? Mike Carey's Dead Men's Boots? Moral Relativism by Stephen Lukas?  Any suggestions?

I ended up stacking them all next to me and knitting on the Curve of Pursuit while watching a press conference on CNN. Robert Gibbs is loosening up.

Hez sez "Why would anyone eat vegetables when there are tasty loafers like these around?"

Pimping for La and Quarterly Book Reviews

Doesn't that title sound both street and stuffy? Schizo.

First! Pimping for La:

About the club: The website is The Mean Girls Yarn Club

Sign-ups begin April 3, 2009 

La being Laura Wilson-Martos: blog is Fibercrack'd

Store is Dizzy Blonde Studios  Ravelry ID is KnottyLa

Ravelry Group is Dizzy Blondies

Her cohost in Mean-Girl-ness, Bobbie Bowles, store  KnittyKnitterton's House of Awesome, Ravelry ID is KnittyKnitterton and her Ravelry Group is House of Awesome 

• First shipment goes out in June

• Shipments will go out every other month for 1 year

• The cost: $150 for the entire year, payable either in 1 lump sum, or in three $50 installments. This includes shipping.

• Membership will be limited to 50 people.

• The colorways are to be club exclusives.

• Never to be sold by us.

• And it’s all super secret until you get your installment.

• Feel free to guess to your black heart’s contents.

• There’s actually a theme within the theme.

• Each skein will come with a little something COLLECTIBLE attached to the band, and an additional little something extra.

Please continue to Save the Words

keleusmatically: in a demanding manner. 
 

You Are "alt"

Some people might find you to be strange, mysterious, and even a bit off putting. You tend to be drawn to and influenced by alternative lifestyles. You're definitely not normal. Once people get to know you, they realize you're interesting, intriguing, and very intelligent. You have a lot of knowledge stored in that big brain of yours. Most of it is useless knowledge, but some of it is very useful.

What Keyboard Key Are You?

Once they get to know me? Ridiculous. To know me is to love me. Shamelessly cadged from Purling Dervish.  Eons ago.

Books read since the dawn of time beginning of January:

1. Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States of America.  Brian Francis Slattery (2008) 299 pages - I liked this book even though it has its flaws but this paragraph alone would have sold me: "...the employees of the library made a spontaneous pact to defend it as soon as the police force stopped working, and now they just live in the building. They hauled beds into the offices and corners of the huge reading rooms, put plaid couches against the marble walls. An army of cats patrols the halls, has litters on the stairs. She imagines that some of the librarians are fulfilling a long cherished fantasy."

This struck me. It never really occurred to me how true this is: "He now understand that this expectation of progress applies only to young nations, for most of the planet lives among the ruins of dead empires: Angkor Wat, the Great Zimbabwe, Rome, the Mughal palaces."

The writing style is reminiscent of Thomas Wolfe. John Fowles, Tom Robbins.

Zeke Hezekiah one of the six. What a fabulous name! Hez concurs. There's also the New Sioux, slavery reinstituted. The Aardvaark using his real name once he's King of New York. Assassins, dot com, The Vibe, Dr San Diego and the Americoids (and Felix Purple, the bus driver).

2. Who By Fire by Diana Spechler (2008) 343 pages. Quotes:

"Musically, Arbahim sounds sort of like a Hebrew-speaking version of the Grateful Dead, but lyrically, I guess they're more like Whitney Houston, not that I would share that analysis with Todd."

"Kind of selfish, isn't it? " I didn't mean to say that, didn't want to get into it with Yosi. But I was suddenly throbbing with rage. "We apologize three times and if we haven't been forgiven we have permission to feel forgiven? What if what we did was really bad? Three apologies can't always be enough. A million apologies might not be enough for some transgressions. Now that you've apologized to three times to Janie's father, do you honestly believe that you're absolved? Honestly?"

Oh boy. Brutal but with familial love. Ripped, damaged, torn, bound. Religion, mindless sex, blame, guilt. This was a pretty darn good book. Go read Bookfool's review for a well written coherent review of this book (and more).

Hmm. Apparently I've taken up free association book reviews.

• The Magicians and Mrs Quent Beckett, Galen L SF 2008 499. A little too heavily drawn from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. The previously mostly Elizabeth Bennett character (Pride & Prejudice) morphs oddly into Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Not a half bad fantasy world though. I hope he writes more.  

• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man Perkins, John L NF 2004 250. Oh man. He had an unusual perspective on corporate culture in other countries but for someone so revolted by it, he sure didn't mind making the money or blaming others who couldn't have possibly had a clue or done a darn thing. A little too Illuminati and One World Government for me, the author was just too self serving to be believable, but.......an excellent read all the same.

  Index to Murder by Jo Dereske pb M. Helma Zukas, librarian. A lovely antidote of common sense after reading John Perkins.

  Anne Neville: Queen to Richard III  by Michael Hicks, pb B 2006 243 I admit it, I think Richard the III was framed by the Tudors. History is written by the victors after all. His Queen had a fairly eventful life all on her own. She was married to the actual heir to the throne first and I don't mean Edward, Richard's brother either.

• The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria L NF 2008 272. I had no idea I was so US centric. Fascinating. Explains a bit more about our current recession woes even before it happened.

  Fool by Christopher Moore  HB F 2009 336. Oh sheesh. I wanted to like it, a take off on King Lear? By Christopher Moore? With the witches of MacBeth thrown in (Parsley, Sage and Rosemary. Do not ask about Thyme) among other Shakespearian touches (footnotes!) But the unending relentless mindless sex stuff just wore me down. I felt like someone's disapproving maiden great aunt. It's just so........mindless. Constant. He does warn that it's a bawdy tale. Bawdy, my eye. Bawdy is fun. This was verging on cretinous. Go read A Dirty Job.

  Uncommon Reader Bennett, Alan pb F 2007 128 Excellent, excellent novella about QE2 discovering books. Highly recommended.

  House of Wits: An Intimate Portrait of the James Family by Paul Fisher,  L B 2008 669 Everything I never knew about Henry James and his family. Now I'm desperate to learn more about Alice James, his sister. Despite Henry James, patriarch, being such a free thinking man in public, he certainly had old fashioned ideals.

  Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs L NF 2007 273 pages. OMG, scary! Scary and at the same time, fascinating. Explains quite thoroughly why antibiotics fail, how bacteria has gotten the upper hand and why you should never skip a vaccine.

• A Cold Day for Murder, Fatal Thaw 1993 208,  Dead in the Water 1993 224 and Cold Blooded Business L M 1994 240 by Dana Stabenow, follow the cases that Kate Shugak, an Aleut of Alaska takes on. I can't believe I've never read this series before but I love seeing Alaska through her eyes and Kate herself is a woman I admire.

  Paths Not Taken L UF 2005 272 and Just Another Judgement Day HB UF 2009 263 by Simon R Green, the latest installments in the life of John Taylor, son of Lilith and the day to day goings on in Nightside. One of my favorite guys. How to Write Gertrude Stein  1931. I ran across this my old fashioned way of finding books, by perusing shelves in a bookstore. It occurred to me that I'd never actually read anything by Gertrude Stein and in fact, could only attribute to her the famous quote about my hometown, Oakland CA "there's no there there." The book reads something like that quote. Lover of Unreason: Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Tom Hughes Doomed Love Koren, Yehuda. Still reading..... The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson, L NF 1989 Just picked up as a light hearted antidote to the current work mode but it's not exactly what I had in mind. I absolutely loved his delightful A Walk In the Woods but The Lost Continent? while it's occasionally pretty funny, it seems a lot more mean and mean spirited than I can take right now. I'm taking odds - can Marina finish her eight sleeves before I finish my second sleeve on Mary Tudor? (The answer for those of you who don't know is, heck yeah she can. But I have hope).

It's Not Easy Being Prey

  Wow. What a difference a new computer makes! I went from a Pentium III microprocessor to a.... Quattro Duet?  Core 2? Whatever.  Faster. Better. Stronger. Able to load my work programs fully and  and still play on the side. My kind of computer. Even Typepad is faster. Much. Much. Faster.

Despite the total lack of reading updates, there's been reading! I'm more or less through the Nightside series so I have a feeling I'll be starting on Simon R Green's Daemon series soon.

Hell to Pay, Sharper Than a Serpents Tooth, Hex and the City, Something From the Nightside (the first 3 novels in one) by Simon R Green. John Taylor is my hero (one of them). I pretty much read most of the series in reverse order but it wasn't that hard to follow along. I do enjoy being The Omnipotent Reader. John Taylor searches for his mother, where is she and what is she? As he finds out and rights various wrongs, we get a ride on the wild side of a fantastical London.  My only question at this point is what happened to Cathy Barrett?

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Well no wonder this is a classic. It took me a few to get into the book, I needed the right atmosphere but the backstabbing convoluted plot holds up well after all these years. 

Baby Sharks Beaumont Blues Robert Fate. Good book. I hadn't realized it was a series.

The Music of Pythagoras:How an Ancient Brotherhood Cracked the Code of the Universe and Lit the Path from Antiquity to Outer Space by Kitty Ferguson. Oh, that Pythagorus. If he only knew what he started. I enjoyed the way Kitty Ferguson built on what was probably more Pythagorus myth than fact through the centuries. An interesting read.

The Fifth Child and the sequel, Ben in the World by Doris Lessing. The Fifth Child was quite, quite depressing. A nice middle class couple stubbornly defiantly conservative determined to have a large family despite the naysayers. There are cracks in their homelife before Ben, the fifth child appears but how Ben exposes their frailites is riveting. Ben is much more sympathetic in the sequel.

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adam. Short stories by Stephen King and others. I was reading this weekend before last and put it aside thinking, "Too depressing." Yes, because evidently my Apocalypse stories have nothing but Happy Bunnies populating them. Wrong book for the mood but I'll come back to it. I love a good dsytopian novel.

Shooting Gallery by Hailey Lind. This mystery series follows a Berkeley artist and the murders she falls into but has quite a lot of entertaining and educational info about the world of arts and artists (and is on my stomping grounds!) I'm really sorry to hear that the publisher has dropped the series. Boo. Hiss.

French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. Much more provocative than I'd realized. Written in 1969 with more snark and social commentary than meets the eye. 

TELEVISION: Tonight The Closer returns. Great. Same time as 24. At least it's not on at 10pm. Why are all my shows on at 10pm lately?  Oh! Wednesday Life on Mars is back.

It Had Better Be Friday

Because I am DONE with this week. (Well, it was Friday. I'm good with it being Saturday. Can it stay Saturday?)  I've spent the better part of the last three weeks packing up the old office and unpacking in the new office (which I love. I have a HUGE desk now, most of whose surface is pretty much covered as usual but more spaciously.) But yikes, what a PITA. Not only was I having to do actual physical labor, I had no online access the first week and It turns out I had practically no work access either because most of my programs are web based. Who knew? And then new wireless mouse and keyboard were giving me fits. I was practicing a little percussive maintenance on the mouse when I finally tried new batteries last night. Oddly enough, new batteries were helpful.

Now I'm spending the better part of my days trying to get all the non profits done by next Monday and then, hopefully catching up on my blogs. Google Reader has declared that the latest shall be first. (Okay, I can actually change that, but it's handy. I lurve Google Reader. But wow, posting is out of control this month. What happened? it got dark and everyone took to their computer?).

TV: Life moved to 9pm on Wednesdays. The show might be on the bubble but it's pretty good. They can't think too badly of it, moving it to Wednesday from a Friday-Night-Kill-This-Show slot, where Fox is putting The Sarah Conner Chronicles next week. I can't say I blame Fox, while I'm still watching the show, I mostly feel like slapping John Conner upside the head and sending him to his room. Who wants to watch some mewling whiny teenager? Save the world, moron.

I hear My Own Worst Enemy was cancelled. That's another show I wanted to like and was watching but really made no sense at all. Sons of Anarchy is my new favorite show. [Warning, that page has a loading time and a really, really annoying chugging soundtrack] And LIfe on Mars is the other, although I really wish I could see the BBC version.  I'm also being forced to watch Gray's Anatomy for Kevin McKidd who was just added as a series regular.

Knitting: There's some progress on Mary Tudor's sleeve, amazingly enough.  Have I shown a picture of the beaded scarf Joan sent me? A little progress there too. (Not that you can tell by the terrible lighting and it'll need to be blocked when I'm done, but the beads!) The cabled cardigan is seamed and the collar safety pinned on while I figure out how to attach it (I want a reversible kind of i-cord). 

A mindless knit  was required for a Knitting Retreat aka Continuing Education last Monday and since I cannibalized the original Curve of Pursuit yarn for the cable cardigan, I picked up some burgundy Cascade 220. I wanted burgundy in the first place but the LYS didn't have any. [Yes, that flaming red is dark burgundy IRL]. And I'm surreptiously knitting on the super secret cable scarf for my SIL (hopefully she likes hunter green but there is no way I'm knitting that pattern in black, you'd never see the cable work).

The stupid weather is back into the 80's - I want winter! But I'm loving Standard Time.  I drove over the Benicia Bridge right around 5:30pm and the full moon was just enormous, lighting up the Mothball Fleet and the Suisun Bay. Glorious. I'd've taken a picture except for the whole life threatening aspect of it.

Books:

The Wolfman by Nicholas Pekearo. A werewolf with a conscience. Grittier than most but an excellent read.

The Last Queen by C W Gortner. A fictionalized account of the life of Juana of Castile, aka Juana the Mad. I knew she was Catherine of Aragon's sister and therefore Henry VIII's sister in law and that she was madly in love with her husband but I hadn't realized just how long she had lived or how her children were raised. Interesting.

The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire by Andrew Wheatcroft. I'd picked the book up to find out more about Philip, Juana's husband but they were barely mentioned. The Habsburgs? were a wee crazy.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. I was practically halfway through this book before I realized it was non fiction. It did read a bit dryly but I thought that was a novel choice. It's the story of an unsolved crime involving a young child in 1860.  - Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone was loosely based on the crime. The beginning of the Age of the Detective and the last gasp of a man's home was his castle.

The Plague Tales by Ann Benson. The book tells the story from alternating viewpoints of a 14th century Jewish doctor Alejandro Canches (Hernandez)  in the court of Edward III and Janie Crowe, a doctor living  in a futuristic 2005 (the book was written in 1997), a post newfangled plague world where millions have already died from a mysterious flu - which makes the 2005 characters actions particularly perplexing, however they did move the plot along.  A not half bad read (thanks to Alejandro) but The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis along similar lines was far better.

Poison Pen by Sharon Lowe, the first in a new mystery series featuring Claudia Rose, a graphologist (as is the author). The book was a fun romp, after I got over Lindsay Alexander being bad, more or less. [It took me awhile to realize I kept thinking of the Alexander Lindsay Wildlife Museum that has evidently dropped the "Alexander"], Peculiarly enough, I keep trying to analyse my handwriting now.

The Optimist's Daugher by Eudora Welty Bridget reviewed this book (back in early Sept if you want to look up her original review), thought I might enjoy it, and she was right. It's a short story about a young widow dealing with her younger stepmother and her life during her father's final days and funeral. It's hard to describe (for me, coherently, like everthing else)  but I came away feeling that I knew so much more than the story seemed to say. Eudora Welty was a genius.

Okay all that and it's all TV, books and some knitting pix? Harumph.

Meandering Monday

 

You are a Knife

You are precise, determined, and detail oriented. You mean what you say, and you say what you mean. You enjoy taking risks and living on the edge. You are a controversial person. You opinions tend to be divisive.

What Utensil Are You?

Divisive? Precise? But generally I do say what I mean and mean what I say (unless it's really mean and then I'm more likely to mutter it under my breath. I hate hurting someone's feelings for no good reason.) Found at the incomparable KSD's site. 

 

From Lyssa's blog:

The Recipe For Carrie K

3 parts Playfulness 2 parts Sass 1 part Moxie Splash of Allure Sip slowly on the beach

What's the Recipe for Your Personality?

Speaking of the beach. That's a  parasailor (?), in case you can't tell. It looks like fun....but it also looks like the wind and the ocean take turns batting you about like a catspaw.

 

Books read in July:

1. The Halo Effect by MJ Rose (2005) Awful. AWFUL. So awful that I was compelled about halfway through the book to pick up a pen, argue with the characters across the page and throw the book away when I finished it. The ostensible protagonist of the book is a sex therapist that gets overly attached to one of her clients, an angelic high class call girl who has disappeared. In searching for her, she pretends to be her replacement to "question" the clientele.  If she hadn't lectured the reader incessantly about our closed minds and prudish ideas I might not have gotten so riled when she proceeded to confide when seeing one of the men that they were talking about something obscene. Really? How close minded and prudish. Gah. This might have made a decent porno novel but as a thriller? Yucko.
2. Bound by Sally Gunning (2008) A story of a girl who is indentured by her father to a widowed man with a daughter after surviving the voyage over from England in the 1770's. The girls grow up and troubles ensue.
3. The Cobra Event by Robert Preston (1999) I loved this book! A manufactured bio weapon loosed in the City. Good times.
4. This Rough Magic (1964)
5. and Thornyhold (1988)by Mary Stewart. I hadn't read Mary Stewart since my teens, possibly. This Rough Magic was more my liking than Thornyhold but both the books were fun reads.
6. Black Magic Woman by Justin Gustainis (2007) Best book of the month. When's the new one coming out? WHEN? January 2009. Not until then? Sheesh. Quincy Morris is my favorite go-to guy for the supernatural, after Harry Dresden, of course
7. Sovereign Ladies: Sex, Sacrifice & Power; The Six Reigning Queens of England by Maureen L Waller (2006). I knew about Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, not as much as I thought about Queen Victoria and more than I realized about Elizabeth II but I knew nothing about Mary and Anne, James II's daughters. Ungrateful Daughters also by Maureen Waller is in my TBR stack now.
8. The First Queen of England: The Myth of Bloody Mary by Linda Porter (2007). A nicely written well rounded account of Mary Tudor 's reign although I hadn't realized anyone still believed that myth.. Evidently because Linda Porter rails against it a great deal.
9.  Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (2008). The apocalypse has happened (slightly in the future) and what's left of the United States is run by an Islamic President in one part of the country and an old world Colonel in another. There are those that would bring The One Faith to all the world - the Old One, the man behind the 9/11 attacks, unbelievably old now but kept young through science. A really fascinating apocalyptic adventure with an eye  look at religious schism with both sides represented by their best and worst in an action oriented adventure. The dust jacket said that the book was a sequel that could stand alone, but I'm sorry I didn't read Prayers of the Assassin first and get the backstory on Sarah Dougan and Rakkim Epps.  Bookmark Magazine says: Critics expressed different ideas about the plot, using words such as "preposterous," "credible," and even "ordinary" to describe it. There's no doubt, however, that Ferrigno raises important questions about religious freedom while handling the subject of Islamic faith with great insight and evenhandedness. If the plot sometimes overwhelms character development, he still allows his creations to air their own opinions without moralizing. In sum: a fast-paced thriller with timely appeal. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. Oh phooey on the critics. I liked it.
10.  The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman (2007) This was fun! Matt Fuller "discovers" a time machine - accidentally of course and has to keep traveling into the future to find his way back home. Where home turns out to be is another story.

Knitting in July:

I'm almost done with TDOT. Both borders for the sleeve knit, one sleeve almost ready to attach the border to it - with the borders attached and knitting it from the top down, once I do the other sleeve, it's done. All weaving was done earlier (in an effort to not think about the sleeves.)

Socks. I have three pairs of unfinished socks on the needles. Wait. I have one to the foot, one to the cuff, and one that's not quite on the needles. In fact, it's not quite to the cake but it's next. Maybe.

 

We will not speak of the rest of the poor neglected WIPs. Alice Starmore uses way too much green. I wonder how odd Mary would look if I just abandoned all the ugly greens now? I'm only about a third of the way done with the body. You could probably barely tell. If you were BLIND. [sigh]

 

The beach! what I did Saturday instead of knitting or reading. I've got to say, when one feels grumpy there's nothing better than getting blown around on the beach and then scarfing down a fab dish of oysters for dinner. (Oysters from Washington, I'm sad to say. We were in Bodega Bay. But they sure were good oysters). There should have been more pictures but I stuck everything in the trunk and just wandered the beach. Too bad too because it looks like sand castles are out and driftwood forts are in.

 

Hez sez "Hey! That's not me! I never get to go anywhere fun." (Not that she'd like the car ride or the beach very much. It's the principle.)

Books, Socks and Cat

Books read in June May:

Silent in the Grave, Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn. (fiction) I really enjoyed the outings of Lady Julia Gray.It's hard not to love a book that begins with "To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor." Alas, the next book in the series won't be out until next year.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. (non fiction) It follows the Count of Courcy throughout his lifetime. Perfect timing to read about the 14th Century from the point of view of a French nobleman.

A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Town in 14th Century France by Ann Wroe. (non fiction) More of a close look at a town and townfolk of Rodez than the trial case she was ostensibly following but a fascinating look into the times and people. They felt like neighbors. Rodez is in southern France. (very roughly)

Labyrinth (fiction) by Kate Mosse. This takes place roughly in the same area as A Fool and His Money but here the characters were both stereotypical and capable of the most supreme acts of idiocy to keep the plot going. A plot that was better covered by The Da Vinci Code and I didn't think much of that book either.

Departures (speculative fiction/aka science fiction)by Harry Turtledove, a collection of short stories. I think my favorite one was the origin of the common cold.

Socks: Jaywalker(s)!  Why I decided to take a picture of just one foot....I have no idea. The shoes are why I was so hot to finish the socks, they needed handknit socks to wear correctly. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

• Stats: Shepherd Sock in Irving Park, not quite two skeins. (from Amanda Cathleen in the August Birthday Swap)
• Started: June 2007
• Finished: June 2008. Probably not a reflection on the pattern. Who else hasn't knit a pair yet? There must be more of us. Well, you. Now. ;)
• Fit: They fit really well but they are a bit loose in the ankle. There was limited pooling and the yarn striped quite nicely but better on one foot than the other. Between the camera and Typepad, they're frustrating my attempts to get another picture to show you so you'll have to take my word for it for now. The pattern is a lot of fun. Just enough to do to keep it entertaining but not so difficult it couldn't be a tote around project.

Cat: Hez hates me. First I stuff her into a box and leave her all day at the vet for torment and tribulations, then to add insult to injury, she has to take 2ml of antibiotics twice a day for ten days. We are on Day Two. Pray for me.

Hez sez "I will not pose nicely for you, you horrible excuse for caring companion."

Hmm. The book didn't either. Possibly it's the shakey cam I'm using. (Yes, my unsteady hands. Whatever happened to the days of point and shoot when you didn't have to freeze for 15 seconds?)

Two and A Half Memes

Not exactly two and a half, but I liked the writers swap of Two and A Half Men and CSI (The Original) last week. It's not as if either were groundbreaking or fabulous, I just enjoyed the writers having fun. Hopefully they had fun. I loved the CSI quote Grissom had "Death is easy. Comedy is hard."

Marji tagged me.  The meme?

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

Oh, the nearest book? And not the one I'm reading? Okey doke.

In 1962 he purchased a large home in California. Thereafter he spent a considerable amount of time and developed substantial connections in California. Although he maintained important connections in Nevada throughout the years involved, the SBE held that he was a California resident in 1962 and in subsequent years. 2008 Guidebook to California Taxes.

Bookfool tagged me with the Six Random Things About Me. Random is my middle name. You think I make no sense blogging? You ought to talk to me. All over the map.

1. I hate endnotes in books. Footnotes, people! Footnotes.
2. Cable reruns. I live for them. Currently: CSI.
3. There are books and knitting projects in my Earthquake Preparedness kit
4. I overuse exclamation points, ellipses and the word/letter I. You should read this before I edit it.
5. I can't wait for all the pretty flowers to die this year. Yes, yes, all very beautiful but they're trying to kill me.
6. It generally takes me three or four or five tries to get those verify your comment codes right.

Tagging (by blog names): Knitting & Television, Bron's Blog, Jenny's Corner, CJ Knits On, Educating Petunia

I finally finished Queen Isabella! She really did lead a fascinating life, although she and her husband both let their lovers ransack their kingdom and their good sense. I was wildly amused to discover that Roger Mortimer, Isabella's lover, was also the first Earl of March - the Marches being the family of Lady Julia Gray in the Silent in the... series by Deanna Raybourn that I read during Queen Isabella.

Well, not read, was read to. I had Silent in the Grave on my iPhone and while I was flat on my back with that stupid vertiginous migraine, I listened to Ellen Archer reading it.  I have to admit, I was deeply prejudiced by Harlequin being attached to the book and almost didn't listen to it at all but I couldn't understand a word Christopher HItchens was saying. There were a few confusing passages in the book where I'm convinced she contradicted herself in a matter of paragraphs, but I'm not sure if it's because being read to is so vastly different than reading a book.

I enjoyed the book enough to run out and pick up the second in the series, Silent in the Sanctuary. England in the 1880's isn't my area of historical expertise (not that I have a historical area of expertise but there are some periods I know better than others) so I couldn't tell you how historically accurate the books are, but they certainly were a fun romp. I just hope the romance doesn't get dragged out ad nauseum.

Books read in March:

The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez. Deft but not groundbreaking.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Twisty. Dennis Lehane knows how to write a thriller.

Flashforward by Robert Sawyer. Interesting take on time travel.

End of the World Blues by Jon Courtenary Grimwood. Reminded me a bit of the best of William Gibson.

The Coma by Alex Garland. A little hallucinatory, is he in the coma imagining it all?

In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman. Not the first Tess Monaghan mystery but my first introduction to her. Now to read the rest of the series.

Next by Michael Crichton.

Science Friction by Michael Shermer. Science vs all sorts of things. Michael Shermer has a knack for explaining complex theories.

Babel 17 by Samuel R Delaney. The power of language was never better expressed in a novel.

Killing Time by Caleb Carr. I wasn't too impressed. The female character was so one dimensional that it took me completely out of the story which was a bit ludicrous anyway. The dangers of the internet, gene splicing and time travel.

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman. I really enjoyed her essays on reading.

April:

• The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry. Kind of a combination James Bond/dystopian future book.
• Temptation by Jude Deveraux. One of the few romance writers I unabashedly enjoy.
• The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker. 1970 dystopian novel. I could see the '60's influences on the book, the turn the future (2000) took wasn't one that I'd run across in other dystopian books.
• Black Order by James Rollins. A Sigma Force novel. I was forced to go out and buy more in the series. A thriller along the lines of Robert Ludlum without the exclamation points.
• The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the Room by A J Jacobs. Not so humble but engaging.
• Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Gladstone
• Queen Isabella: Treachery Adultery and Murder in Medieval England by Alison Weir

Currently (re)reading: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W Tuchman. I'm reading these in chronological order! Completely by accident, I assure you. A Distant Mirror follows Enguerrand de Coucy VII, a French noble married to the daughter of Edward III (Isabella's son) also named Isabella. She was quite the pet of her father too, so it's hard to believe the historical tales that Isabella of France was the She-Wolf of legend. It's a nice change of pace to be in France this outing.

Television - is continuing to annoy me. WARNING! PROBABLY SPOILERS!! Booth's life is hanging in the balance on Bones, done in by a mere stalker? They'd better not kill him off. I hate that kind of cliffhanger. Cheap tricks. I still love Dr Sweets though.

Brothers and Sisters is back on Sunday nights but I was too annoyed at having whatshername turn out not to be the bastard child of the patriarch to watch.

House spends an entire episode entertained by strippers only to realize at the end that it's Amber whose life he's trying to save? What's with all the strippers anyway?

On NCIS, Ziva thrown by killing a serial killer that very nearly killed her. Really? She made some statement about how the Mossad were not all assassins but considering how pragmatic her character has always been about death and dying, it didn't track.

Ed Green gone on Law & Order. [sob]. I love Linus Roache and Jeremy Sisto though. I'm getting used to the new guy.

Lost. Geez, Lost leaves me lost most of the time. As long as Locke, Sayid and Sawyer are on it, I'll probably watch but I have no idea what the heck is going on anymore and really? I don't care. The plan all along was to kill off Rousseau? Huh. The real question is why won't they kill off Jack? Why? That would be pushing the envelope.

Starbuck is the Angel of Death? Tyrol's haircut. Hate it. WHO IS THE LAST CYLON? I want to know.

Knitting? What knitting?

Mostly Books But Also The Possibility of Me Walking In Front of a Bus

If it's April 1st then that means that April 15th is actually going to arrive, doesn't it?

Doesn't it? Because seriously, if it doesn't, that bus looks mighty inviting. Maybe I'll just board the bus, as opposed to stepping in front of it. Terrible thing to do to a bus driver. Way too much paperwork.

Look at all the lovely Tess Monaghan's that the lovely Knitted & Purled sent me eons ago. The end of February in fact. I'd never read Laura Lippman's mysteries before, I really enjoyed meeting Tess.

For a change of pace, no quiz. A book meme! via Teabird:

1. What book are you reading right now? Science Friction by Michael Shermer.

Wow, I drafted this awhile ago. I'm actually reading The Man Who Never Missed by Steve Perry as my carry-'round and Fraction of the Whole by Stephen Tolz.

2. What was the last book you read on a plane? Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. Finally, a period of time where I just sat down and dove into it. So much better than indulging in my normal "we're all going to die" airplane chatter.

3. What was the last book you read on a roadtrip? Most of the road trips I do the driving. But I've listened to audiobooks occasionally. The most memorable one was a trip up Hwy 1 with my ex best friend listening to a Jude Deveraux romance and the book ended at EXACTLY the moment we pulled into the motel parking lot. Hwy 1 gets really creepy at night when it cuts back inland and I swear, we saw a cemetary on the coast that evening (twilight, naturally) that has never been there since.

4. What was the most unusual place you found yourself reading? Unusual? I read anywhere, any place, any time. Once, trapped in an elevator, but IMO, that's a pretty normal way to occupy your time when you can't get out of a tiny stifling place suspended nine floors above ground.

5. What books would you take to keep you occupied on a two-week vacation to the beach? Whatever books I'd take to keep me occupied on a two week vacation in the mountains, or in Europe or on the way to work or......whatever I was reading at the time. The real question is, what knitting projects would I bring?

More books to indulge in my favorite knitting stitch obsession - Annie Maloney's books at Needlearts Book Shop. And the packaging was so darling too, brown paper package tied up in ribbon. I torn it off for the books inside in a hot second though. The cables are just amazing.

.

The progress on V - notice how there's only one buttonband?  (Well, maybe you can't notice, considering the quality of that picture, but there is only one. Now.)

Before? Cleverly, I'd knit one on each side.

In fact, not just knit it, I actually said "OMG, I don't have the buttonband on this!"

And dropped stitches to knit it in.

About fifteen rows later I noticed that I was knitting a buttonband on both sides. GAH. It took me most of the month to get that far too.

Hez sez: "Why are you knitting and reading when you're home when you've been neglecting me so horribly? by never being home? I refuse to even look at you, you neglectful thing."  She utterly refused to pose in the tulips outside too, even with cat treats as an incentive.