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cold, dry, somewhat January-ish.

These are the upper halves of a pair of socks I’m working on for my sister’s Χmas present. I am disappointed with the gaudiness of the fuchsia and yellow; seeing the hank, I thought they might blend better. My opinion may not matter, however; everyone I have shown them to thinks they look fine—not at all like clown socks.

I am not technically late with the presents. The same sister informed me on 11 December that she and the other sister had decided at Thanksgiving not to draw names for one gift as we have done for a few years now, but to do small personal gifts for everyone. We are not a close family. I have not lived within 500 miles of a family member since 1986. I talk to each of my siblings once or twice a year. They are as bad about e-mail as I am. We forget/ignore each others birthdays and all but two fall within a month of each other. I’m supposed to come up with a half dozen personal gifts in the two weeks before Χmas and mail them?

My solution was to send them Amazon or Half Price Books—recycling books is good for you—cards with a note for each to e-mail me back for the second half of the gift. I would then present them with a choice of yarns and what I could make from them. So far only the above-mentioned sister has responded and that is the yarn and item she chose. I admit she saw the yarn in cake form and I told her it was less pink than it has turned out to be.

Given the family avoidance of e-mail, I could be working on 2008’s presents into 2010.

The sock ribbing is a Tunisian Rib Barbara Walker’s first pattern book. My sister wants shorter socks and the Tunisian Rib is stiffer than the usual k2p2 rib and does give an interesting variation to the variegated yarn

Winterish, and dark outside. Finally not sweaty.

Resisting

I keep picking up Jane Sowerby’s Victorian Lace Today. I’m so tempted. I’m resisting; it is only a month and a half until the Χ–thing and there is no way I’m finishing a shawl in six weeks. I’m down to one or two conference calls a week and staff meetings are down to a minimum.

Work, though, is why I have nothing to show. Unless you are interested in SQL scripts and funds transfer pricing analyses. I do have a lovely cap plodding along in a Tunisian rib with cables in a smaller sort of gauge. Lots of knitting with very little progress. And a Manos de Uruguay Cotton Stria scarf at work for those conference calls I’m not having. Nothing significant enough for photos.

I now have a laptop for work. Which I carry home every night in case I should finally come down with a cold or the flu and be compelled to stay home. I haven’t yet, but I check my e-mail and end up wasting time at home that I could be wasting at work.

Question

If you are knitting a hat with cables and ribbing, is it better to decrease into the rib or the cable?

Cool. Dry. Finally.

Feather & Fan

This is Feather & Fan, in the alternate version with the yarn-over cable. I am somewhat happy at how it turned out. I am also happy that I have actually finished it. The last 20% took forever.

One hundred twenty thousand plus stitches, followed by a crocheted bind-off that was less painful than I expected, but still excruciatingly small. I do admire it though. And I keep looking at other things I could bind off with miniscule chains.

Above you see the blocked product. Which could have been better done, I know. There is no place in this apartment large enough to pin out a 72″ diameter shawl. I had to make a frame, staple an old sheet to it and baste the shawl to the sheet with upholstery thread—which accounts for the slight imperfections in the directions of the fans. It’s not really noticeable off the frame.

I took it to the LYS this afternoon; I had promised to bring it in some time ago, and I wanted to reward myself for having finished it (which I did, unfortunately). Yes, I enjoyed being praise for my knitting by other knitters. Best afternoon I’ve had in ages.

A Round of Apologies

I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, particularly those of you who wrote thinking I might have dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t; I just got stuck. Stuck at work. Stuck on F&F. Stuck in a rut of procrastination. I am a champion of procrastination.

I’m now on 8 straight months of procrastinating about going to the gym. Soon I should be able to roll there. I have been biking—27 miles last Saturday—but I’ve been eating more.

My Downstairs Neighbor is a Homophobic Jerk

And he’s an architect in New York?

And that’s it for tonight.

Somehow I twisted my knee while of after biking 24 miles yesterday. Going down stairs and getting up after sitting at my desk are difficult, but the ride was worth it.

Carroll Gardens… Gowanus… Sunset Park… Bay Ridge… Bath Beach… Bensonhurst… Coney Island… Brighton Beach… Sheepshead Bay… the Knapp Street sewage treatment plant… some neighborhoods whose names I don’t yet know… Midwood… Kensington… Windsor Terrace… Park Slope and home. Barely winded. In high gear. Mostly.

Got to scare a pedestrian, too. He was crossing against the light and not looking. I can be loud when I want to.

Feather & Fan is at 80%. Twenty rows and the crocheted binding to go.

Finally summery. With a nice evening breeze.

Last Sunday’s Route

Twenty-four and half miles, following on 20.5 the day before.

Feather & Fan

Less than 25% remaining. I’m sorry, it is tedious. It is nice though.

I’m on VACATION.

I cannot remember when I last felt this relaxed. Not that a sane person would call me relaxed.

I’m on vacation for only a week; and at the end of the week I turn 49. My joy is not unmitigated.

Spring. Finally. Maybe.

Five weeks after the false hope of March, it finally warmed up enough to get out on my bike and flap my love-handles in the wind. I work a loose shirt to protect the innocent. This was a marvelously perfect day for biking. Not too cool, not too warm. Steady, but not too insistent breeze. Light traffic.

Today will probably be the best day Brooklyn will have all year. Everybody was out. People on bikes—some cute guys, too— everywhere. McCarran Park, between Greenpoint and Williamsburgh, was packed, as were the sidewalk tables at the restaurant on Smith St.

Feather & Fan Update

I’m ⁷/₈ through round 165. This sounds like a lot, but that’s only 72% of the total stitches. Only twenty-five more rounds, mostly plain knitting until I get to the crocheted cast-off, which will be the end of me.

I finished a scarf, too, since we last met. I’ll take pictures eventually.

Confession

Sometimes blogging seems like Work. Some days at Work are 90% e-mail.

In Other News

• We’re having a home office installed tomorrow. We had to move everything out of the office in preparation. It seems quite large now, but the living room is cramped.
• A table, two good-quality bookcases, a mirror and a black plastic cylindrical trash-can went out to the curb to make way for the new furniture. All found homes, good ones I hope. The trash can went first—odd, since it was the cheapest thing out there. The last to go was the six-foot bookcase. I was surprised, How often do you find a six-foot, maple-veneer, mahogany-finish bookcase in excellent condition with all the shelves on the street FOR FREE?
• My elder sister turned 50 today. This is not a consolation to me. I did remember to call her. Eventually.
• I warned my younger sister that in the two years after I turn 50 I am unlikely to forget that she is relatively right behind me, so she should be nice to both my older sister and me.
• I have realized that my the vacation I had (vaguely) planned out of the country next year to avoid spending my 50^th with anyone but J will probably not happen. We have a major system conversion due at the end of April next year at work.
• Of the tens of people I saw biking today, I was one of the four oldest. I’m almost certain the other three are gay. And they looked pretty good. I’ve got some work ahead of me.

Overcast, not as warm as I’d like, but so much better than last week.

Time to Get My Butt in Gear

Call me an optimist, but the weather doesn’t seem quite as antagonistic this week. I need to get the bike into the local shop for a tune-up and a new back wheel, so I can get these love handles out flapping in the wind once more.

I was in a cab on the way home from my biweekly massage, where if I didn’t make a conscious effort to relax I would probably feel like a blob of kneaded lard, and I saw throng of poeple going into the local gym. At 7pm! Spring is definitely coming.

I’d probably be more motivated if that throng hadn’t been, on average, twelve years younger than me.

However, I absolutely refuse to go up a waist-size. Those hideous gym walls will see me yet again. Soon. Right after I get over the fact that I now have to get up at 4:30, despite what the lying clock says.

And the Point of Starting DST Three Weeks Earlier Is?

And we save energy by having the lights and heat on earlier in the colder and darker early morning hours? I can’t help thinking somehow ExxonMobil, Chevron Texaco, BP, et al. are making money off this.

Lulled into Complacency

I’m having one of those weeks where people cancel meetings I have to attend and postpone deadlines and thereby open huge swatches of my calendar. I forget what I’m supposed to be working on. Doom, clearly, approaches.

There’s a schedule out there somewhere that says I’m required for 730 hours of requirements review over the next four months. 4 months × 21 business days/month × 8 business hours/day = 672 hours. Doom approaches.