I had a great post in mind about our Valentine’s Day dinner—Braised Beef in Barolo, and nothing says love like cooking eye of round in wine worth more than the current market capitalization of Citibank—and about how I enjoyed my first knitting meet-up at Brooklyn General Store, but a family member, somewhat obsessively private about his/her health, was taken seriously ill, and I’ve been somewhat distracted. The situation has improved slightly since. In the meantime I’ve done a bit of knitting, and I’ve been known to go to work and I’ve spent a bit of time being scratched by the Little Monster.

Our friends A— & J— finally got the call to go to Korea and adopt their new eleven-month-old baby boy. I got a baby hat knit in record time (for me), but now that I’ve seen pictures of him, I think he might be able to wear it once. He’s huge. Cute, but huge. I’m glad I abandoned the sweater. It would have been much too small.

I’ve also been knitting a pair of socks for my Mom’s husband. And knitting, and knitting. Why are there relatively few good patterns for men’s socks? Because it takes lots of yarn and lots of time and conservative patterns are a bit boring. I have discovered that large pattern repeats do make the sock go faster and row counting easier.

In other news, the beard is gone. Looking 55 and distinguished is not preferable to looking 45 and a little weak-chinned. I don’t feel as old as my beard.

Went home sick from work today and actually went to bed. I took some swatching and a book and some water, but I did eventually fall asleep. One good thing about being sick is getting to sleep in the afternoon.

I’ve decided that it’s not ethical to knit for someone else when one is contagious unless the article can be sterilized. How do you sterilize a hand wash only item?

Hence the swatching instead something more substantial. I have only a toe left on the Flame socks.

I also think that if you can work from home, it is unethical to go to work, particularly to go to work in a closed, crowded subway car. Fellow sick New Yorkers, please stay home. Same to you, my coworkers with hordes of children.

I have signed up for the Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat. That’s getting out of the city.

Two days ago, while having my biweekly massage—it’s cheaper than a shrink & more fun—I was trying to clear my mind without falling asleep, but all I could think about was knitting. The bug is back.