elainegrey

Monday, the crescent moon and Venus were brilliant in the predawn sky, casting shadows. It was a warm morning, following Sunday's unseasonable humidity. This morning i was out a bit later, when the sky had grown light but the moon was in the same place and Venus higher. There's some high clouds, and the weather was a good bit crisper.

Only oak leaves linger on native trees. The autumn olive is finally deigning to change to yellow. Pine needles make a fresh carpet everywhere, and i look forward to raking them up for mulch over a between row path in the garden that i dug out last week. All the previous mulch had decayed into a rich dark soil.

Snow is predicted this weekend! We wouldn't have known but the stoner* bagger made conversation about the coming snow while incompetently tossing our groceries into bags. I didn't sufficiently look out for the bread as he was doing that. I don't think i realized just how jumbled the bags were. I usually bag for us and i know i can do so well because i know what is in the cart and Christine makes sure like is with like in the cart.

We went out for subs after the groceries and found the shop extremely well staffed by another crown of youths. We were asked by one how our weekend was going. There was a long pause before we made positive sounds, and the youth commented on the long pause before cluing in that the day was Monday. Another youth had not paid attention to the request to go light on the oil and vinegar and my sandwich was soaked and dripping.

KIDS THESE DAYS.

*cough*


I am out of yarn again for my crocheted circle sweater. It just needs a bit more and i'm left wrestling over how to complete it. Find more handspun alpaca like i bought at the farmer's market fiber day on Saturday? It won't be 20% off.

* Christine's label for the youths.

The phone battery died in the night. I woke on my own, a good bit later than i intended and presumably with enough sleep. I had dreamed dense detailed dreams before waking: driving the same urban off ramp over and over into a museum and university district, radiation therapy for some cancer at the base of my spine (and everyone's attitude was this was about the same as getting dental fillings: dream cancer was not cause for grave concern), music that embedded a subtle message about how to produce music independently of corporate interests, moving digital files around repositories, crowded rides over hills, hat shops, modern buildings of steel, glass, and concrete. I'm sure my brain worked out something.

--==∞==--

As the kettle came to a boil, i watched the birds instead of doing any kitchen tasks. The new feeder seems to be successful at holding smaller seed than sunflower seed. I'm monitoring how much spills past its tray. The tray is a new feature that seems to have gotten the towhee's attention on an occasion. The goldfinches and chickadees have been delighted by the feeder: it's three conic sections of wire mesh, tiered together. The top two are an hour glass shape, and there's a baffle at the bottom of the middle tier to guide seed to the sides, but allow some to spill down into the third tier which repeats the top of the hourglass form, and then ends in a tray. At the narrow neck in the hourglass shape there's a circumscribing wire perch.

The chickadees and goldfinches make use of all the features, clinging to the mesh, perching, sanding in the tray. Housefinches, however, seem to still find the structure a challenge compared to the previous tube with the stations at set intervals. I watched one arrive and then backflutter -- hovering in the air as if aghast at the change. He landed on the porch rail as if to get a sense of the structure. He then slowly landed on the tray and craned his head back to look up at the shape. It seems the overhang of the feeder perplexed him. He considered, and i marveled that i don't think i've ever had to watch figure something out. I'm not sure if that makes him slower than the other birds that just land and feed, or if he was a more reflective bird, cautious so that he will live another day. Eventually he fluttered up to the middle tier, clasped the wire and began pulling seeds through.

Christine notes that it is more generous to assume he was a cautious bird. (As if we weren't generous enough with the expense of the bird feed.)

--==∞==--

Sleeping in has not put forward my morning plans. I need to recalibrate my intentions.

Yesterday evening i puttered with genealogy and confirmed a switch between our authorization service and an institution's. Usually, these encounter some headache or another, so i was prepared for a long evening of poking at changes. In late June we'd had the headache of an institution that had first kept our servers blocked at their firewall, then had a round robin system for their LDAP servers and the certificate needed to successfully connect to the servers only worked for some of the LDAP servers, causing intermittent failures. Furthermore, they wouldn't give us testing credentials that would work completely.

Last night, it just worked. Testing credentials went through. Success. No hiccups. Hurrah!

Christine laughed as she looked at the two of us on the deck. She had my iPad and her iPad as she tried to get my iPad set up to test our app. I had my work laptop, my own laptop, and the genealogy book by my great aunt. We do use the tech.

As it cooled off we retired inside to watch the Gettysburg section of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and i knitted (knooked). I'm doing a square as a washcloth, practicing a tighter knit, and practicing the right angle turn. I'd made up a right angle turn in my last project and liked the result, a raglan yoke for the top, but didn't think the turn was the best ever. So when i saw the Templeton Square i thought i'd give it a go. One thing, the column clarifies for me why this raglan technique is used in crochet and not knitting (traditionally): the number of needles to keep a growing diameter is probably a challenge. Crochet doesn't need the stitch holder and knooking trails a cord, similar, i suppose, to the "newfangled" circulars. I'm not making the lace, just the square, and i started with a crochet circle in the center. It worked from a construction point of view, but it is a more dense bunch of knots in the center of the more fluid knit.

I just ordered a bunch of rivoli crystals and earring mounts from Fire Mountain for the Meeting fund raiser. $45, a tiny bit of time, and a $100 profit, at least. $255 profit, if they sell well and at full price.

After work i came in off the deck. Midafternoon i dropped the blinds, but i think the sun that filtered through reddened my cheeks a bit. I spent hours knitting (with the knook, not needles) and watching things. First the mildly entertaining series Alphas, then Christine's delight, Star Wars III.

I'm doing an openwork pattern: lots of yarn overs and knit-togethers. It's intriguing to watch the shape of the openwork pattern take form, especially given that i'm not really following instructions anywhere at all. ( Note taking so if i ever want to try this again, i have a cue how to replicate - or not - this effort )

My parents have a three hour layover at SFO ....

and, zippity skippity, i got to see them.

Now i am on the deck with a good bit of the day gone and pondering what to do.

Huzzah! The Quarterly Install -- the deployment of new releases of many of the Whale's products -- went off with no phone call to me last night. Huzzah, huzzah.

My old blogs and my website at my domain name have been offline for a week as the (mac mini) server they were running on was shipped to our home. Christine set up the machine on our network last night, and so i am slowly porting content to an Amazon bucket. Hacking the old html and getting them up onto Amazon feels like spring cleaning. I'll be ready for "positioning myself" once i figure out what i'm trying to do.

I just mentioned jojoland rhythm yesterday but didn't explain why the yarn is so special. It's a four ply yarn where the colors shift: the yarn might start as a three strands of blue green with a strand of wheat, then shift to a strand of wheat, two of russet, and one of blue green, then a russet, a blue green, and two purple blues ... These shifts go over many many yards, so there might be four or five shifts in a hundred yard ball -- but there are dozens of color combinations in the color pattern! Each ball doesn't necessarily have all the colors. We picked this colorway for the red: i don't think any of the balls i got have the red in them.

I had fun with crochet this weekend, making a mug cosy for Christine so that her cup of tea isn't quite ice cold when i hand it to her hours after i started drinking the pot. Acrylic doesn't seem to retain heat: i assume wool is better. However, for experimenting and household decor items i have a stash of Lion Brand Vanna's Choice to work down.

Interweave press, a craft press, is having a sale, and i bought a downloadable video to watch. I was surprised how, even thought i was poking at other internet things as the video ran (there was some repetition in the instruction), i feel i learned a great deal. I did take extensive notes with screen grabs of different patterns. I was so delighted on Saturday, that i bought more of the on sale videos (all $6-8) on Sunday for future learning.

One other thing about the extensive crochet day was that on Sunday morning i was able to substantially break the Yam-resistance on a number of Meeting responsibilities and get through a stack of to dos. I am left with a stack of things i feel some guilt about: things i did not get to during my tenure on some committees, things incomplete.

I don't recall ever, since leaving school, having a sense of done-ness. There is always something. This is where the "conditions of enoughness" practice is supposed to help. As i write this, i am "grooming my backlog," in the jargon of agile management: looking at the lists of to-dos and deciding on the priorities, noting conflicts.

--==∞ And then the work day crashes in and i rush about ∞==--

Going out to the Devo concert tonight.

--==∞ And the work continues to crash in and i rush about and then i Go Out ∞==--

My ears are still ringing, and the late night didn't do me favors. Still they put on a great and powerful show. The second act -- it's really had to think of them as the opening act, although i guess they were -- did not seem to have quite so much energy. Specifics? Unfortunately the sonic distortion was so much that i have a hard time saying anything intelligible about the new music. I shall have to get the new album. I'm now motivated to get the new album, interested in their newer work and beyond just having a nostalgic interest, so i think that's a good sign.

§ Christine had a migraine last night; i didn't sleep well either.

§ My lost beads order remains lost; the Fire Mountain folks are doing the best they can to make it right.

§ Some months ago, i broke a glorious and heavy turquoise necklace my grandmother gave me. I can restring it essentially as is. I could make two necklaces out of it and intersperse with other beads. I was thinking read horn beads from the Philippines (lighter!) but that's not "traditional." I could find a vintage Navajo necklace that's inexpensive and restring with hollow silver beads.

I'm mixed in the feeling of re-purposing for my enjoyment and honoring the original crafts person.

§ My 32 GB Micro SD card arrived yesterday. That much data storage on such a tiny bit of plastic. It's astounding.

§I'm planning my freeform crocheted -- what? -- I look at some lovely long tunic vests, but i'm not sure that's the right cut. I wasn't starting with tons of yarn. I could make a heavy scarf with the planned yarn. So i bought some colors in some on sale worsted.... I fear this will be a loud expensive mess of a garment. Sigh.

§ Laundry tomorrow. And meeting. And groceries. And some Meeting work i haven't done yet.

§ I'm pretty sure i've been in a depressed state the past week or so. I need to exercise to help fight the blues and i need to not read about Creepers. One of the interesting things about reading critiques of rape culture is the analysis of how women are made the responsible parties for the success of communication. This is "interesting" in comparing it to the training and advice on how one should "manage up." A lot of the advice to midlevel managers about managing one's boss pretty much assumes the boss is limited in their communication style: the managed person should adopt communication styles to what the boss needs (details, no details, numbers, etc). The managed person should always provide a solution to a problem. The managed should do this that and the other to get whats needed by the managed to do their job.

Reading about creeps makes me think management culture is a corollary to rape culture: it's all about exploitation.

Clearly i manage my staff in all the wrong ways, she said, rolling her eyes.

§ I did do a little crochet today, practicing interweaving bulky yarn in a freeform worsted structure. Proof of principle succeeded.

§ I Really like nachos made with undressed cole slaw under the cheese.

I am apparently so impatient to go pick berries at the local U-Pick that we headed out Saturday morning a week before the farm opened. I'm not quite sure why i am so impatient, but i'm delighted that i noted the date before we drove too far.

We were heading out "late" because my father called at 7:30 and we had a delightful hour long chat. He was home alone, recovering from the eye surgery on Friday that corrected the mistakes made during the Tuesday eye surgery.

Dear baby boomers, the eye surgeons are getting plenty of practice on my dad, so i don't feel guilty feeling relief at the thought that they will be well practiced on you all by the time my eyes need surgery.

On the other hand, my dad thinks his cataracts have to do with years of unprotected eyes in south Florida light. If so, my life by the dim computer light should protect my eyes from needing similar surgeries.

Since i wasn't off late to pick berries, i could go spend an hour with a colleague in the farmers market. I made the mistake of getting root vegetables from a stand with unmarked prices. Two baking potatoes, two large beets, and three skinny carrots for $15? Yikes. I ended up going a little over budget because of that pricing (it was the only stand with baking potatoes), so when i was getting some yellow crookneck squash and saw the pile of greens i was in an spendthrift mood. $1 for a gigantic bundle of -- what? Bitter Melon greens? Stir fry or pout in a soup? -- i bought it.

The quinine flavor was pronounced in a raw leaf. I made a soup by blanching the leaves first in boiling salted water, rinsing in cold water, then squeezing out the leaves, before adding to the soup. The broth was diced candied ginger (because i was apparently out of ginger root, and i figured the sweetening of the bitter wouldn't hurt), miso, soy sauce, and a dash of Hunan red pepper sauce. The soup was bitter but tasty. However, the total cost of these greens in prep was not insignificant. The little tendrils that seemed so tender were actually pretty twiggy. The mature leaves were tender after cooking. Picking the leaves from the branches and blanching took some time. I can't decide if i would buy them again. Admittedly, there aren't lots of other greens in the market this time of year and $1 is pretty inexpensive compared to chard, etc.

Christine watched a Daily Show interview with the author of Unintended Consequences: Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong, Ed Conard. Jon Stewart kept the conversation going as he tried to communicate with Ed that homeowners and the middle class were the ones with real risks in the economy. After watching Christine watch an episode of PBS's Commanding Heights, documenting the global economy from WW I to the early 90's, i wanted to bang my head repeatedly into a wall. I have simplified my understanding down to simply seeing that it seems that the economy goes into the ditch, folks figure out they need to steer in some direction (say right) and then leadership decides, "Damnit, we're going to steer this economy to the right come hell or high water." Lo, back into another ditch, and the only way to get out is to steer in the opposite direction, and back to monomanical steering without paying attention to the road.

Christine is taking economics this summer session: i may go back and read amaebi's posts on economics with a clue after i get an osmotic dose of basics from Christine. [Who is live editing as i blog, which is at least reading it, right?]

I didn't feel focused, as if i could make reasonable priority calls of what needs doing, so i ended up spending the day crocheting while watching videos. I started with a Tommy and Tuppence mystery, but felt like i could "do better." I went to my @watching tag and the first three saved notes were TED talks:

* Erik Johansson: Impossible photography | Video on TED.com
** Surrealism in photography and a bit about how he did his images. I was not impressed.
* Ron Gutman: The hidden power of smiling | Video on TED.com
** A nice peptalk on why smiling is good for you, although correlation and causation seemed awfully confused. As a chronically depressed person, i have mixed feelings about this. But what the hell, maybe i should smile more.
* Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story | Video on TED.com
** THIS is fantastic: wonderful personal narrative about power and stories.

The next thing on my watching list was a documentary about the role of several Afro-Colombian women in the continuing armed conflict in Colombia. The whole series of Women, War, and Peace looks like it's a good stiff study of war zones.

At this point i turned back to Netflix and watched a documentary that had been on my list for a long time, Obscene: A Portrait of Barney Rosset and Grove Press . It was interesting to have the economics video from Friday in the back of my mind, informing my reflections on the issue of regulation and control both in the economic realm and in the moral artistic realm.

I got a good number of yarn snarls undone -- why do my center pull balls fail so? -- and made great progress on the lower part of my cardigan. I'm adding a ruffly expansion at the bottom, and planning on slowly increasing the number of full cluster stitches to simple net stitches so the flare at the hip will be more of a net than a full lace fabric. I hope it works out. I'd hate to frog this yarn.

As a side note, i'm listening to The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. The second chapter, on brain plasticity, has me wondering why it took so long for conventional wisdom to recognize that adult brains change. Carr provides a good foundation to his argument that our tool use can change our brains. As i drove back and forth to the market listening, i wondered how the car has changed our brains, and snidely wondered why Carr wasn't bent out of shape about that. The whole tone of Carr's book -- not helped by my reaction to the narrator, i'm sure -- strikes me as reactionary conservatism so far. We own a copy of Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson, which probably takes similar observations and spins them in another direction.

In health news, i feel like i have put on several pounds in the past few weeks, my Achilles tendon still feels stiff and painful when i just walk around the house, and the flare continues. Feh.

I watched a Scooby Doo video recently (Christine's nostalgia), and found myself appalled that the monsters were "real." I was glad to read that i am not the only one:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/11/25/ask-chris-81-scooby-doo-and-secular-humanism/


Obsessive resting by just watching Bones for hours. I did a little crochet, finishing a small, simple pattern that i had designed with beads in single crochet. I had tried on grid paper, and found the stitches really are more of a brick pattern than grid. I'd ripped out that work and redesigned on a graph paper i'd found designed for bead work. That mostly worked, but i found myself slightly changing the pattern as i stitched it to fit reality. As i was working on it and adapting as i went, i realized how happy i was with the ease with which i adapted: not exactly "going with the flow," but more of a detachment from "being right" with my plan. I think this is an evolution for me to not get hung up on "being right." Of course, i was fortunate in that the second plan used fewer beads than the first, and i didn't have color changes to manage. All the beads have to be on the thread before you start.

I'm going to be late again to work today, but resting and taking it easy in the morning seems wise. I can tell i'm afraid of feeling under the weather while traveling, worried about exhausting myself. I am trying to just recognize the fear and let it go. I am merely suffering from some minor head cold with very mild body aches: i'm trusting i will feel energized again when it passes and holding my older, ingrained fears of giving in to being lazy or depressed back. "Trust the body," i remind myself, "We have seen how energy just suddenly returns to the body without it being the result of a force of will." (That's not the royal we but the internal committee we.)

Exhale.

I have finally written the condolence and arrangement messages to begin the process of arranging for a Memorial Meeting for a member of meeting whom i do not know. This tangles up with the trip Christine and i made to see the grave of my stillborn nephew-who-might-have-been. And i've now written my brother.

I suppose it's better to compose these thoughts than to have a telepathic connection transmitting the jumble of emotions.

--==∞==--

The left-over gluten loaf slices thinly, like left-over dark turkey. And when we returned home, and i was starved, nibbling on the left-overs before Christine heated them up for dinner was just as satisfying as i remember.

Also, cranberry sauce and sharp provolone cheese are an addictive combination.

--==∞==--

Yesterday's yarncraft included another practice knitting swatch with the knook. This time, i just did what "made sense" -- keeping the free yarn on the same side of the fabric as i pulled it through the loops -- and it turned out like stockinette stitch. (Samples) I'm not skilled with keeping tension even yet, but it seems like it's working. Nifty! I wonder if i can take the scarf off the blankety blank loom and use my largest knook to finish it.

Off to experiment!

It's grey and drizzly outside. Yesterday Christine and i stepped out to run a few errands, in hopes of breaking our respective funks. The ginko trees along Middlefield were brilliant, fallen leaves pooled under the trees. It was like all the sun that had been shaded by the tree over the summer, lit up the ground all at once.

After we sat and had coffee, i was inspired to go buy some pony beads to attempt making a crocheted beaded rope in large scale. With the large beads and thick yarn, i was able to practice and finally understand the technique. I'm not sure what to do with the chunky beaded length i now have. It's too long to be an ornament, too short to be beaded garland. I suppose i could pull it all out and do something else with it. First, though, i want to try with seed beads!

My sister talked some sense into me yesterday. New Director had rounded up our phone call with the request, the gift, that the team should take the day off to compensate for all the work in getting things deployed over the past month. I felt that mainly the two folks who had focussed on that should take the time, and felt that i had managed my time over the days and didn't require comp.

But after the 7 am phone call was far more frustrating than i expected, and after wrestling with whether a bargain airfare was truly a bargain -- to find that it disappeared -- i was out of sorts and really did NOT want to work. So, i didn't, really.

Maybe the mental rest early on will help me get some activities managed over these four days.