Dissertation Defended (Somebody Else's)

It's a great day when a dissertation gets defended. True, true, we buy the cheese and crackers first (implying that we don't expect anybody to actually fail to defend their dissertation), but it's grueling nonetheless. I like it especially when the candidate's Best Beloved attends, for an hour and a half of (for those not in the discipline) mind-numbing questions. They're always Very Impressed. I had no idea that's what you guys do! they say, and then they take the new doctorate out to dinner. Sorta makes up for all the weeks and months the beloved spent locked in a room reading tomes and typing up another. Sorta.

So that's what I was doing yesterday afternoon -- after a meeting, which was after another meeting, which I attended after I wrote up the final for the Drama class, which I did after I went and bought the cheese and crackers.

So when I came home I was NOT in the mood for the last armhole on Scapa, no no! I worked on Catherine Parr for a while; it's not a taxing pattern.

Picnic Loaves

Well, I did indeed get one of the armbands on Scapa done - one more to go, and then I block the hell out of that thing.

All that fiddling with mitered corners -- you can't get away with just hoping it will lay right.

It won't.

Still, wool is lovely for holding a shape. I'm not worried.

Last day of classes today, and while I wasn't sorry, for the most part, to see the last of the Drama class (which was odd, this semester -- some very good students in it, but it never gelled), I was VERY sorry to see the last of the Poetry Workshop, which has been a trustworthy spot of brightness iin a Semester From Hell. In honor of their exceptional wonderfulness, I'm having them over to tea on Sunday. Scones. Soda Bread. Maybe one of those impressive Picnic Loaves where you get sausage, hard-cooked eggs, and cheese, all attractively arranged in a fancy bread package. Let's see if I can find a picture of something close...

Nope, sorry, nothing out there. I found the recipe in the Bread volume of that long out of print Time-Life Good Cook series. Oooh, it's impressive. Yeah. I might do that.

So. The semester's winding down, but it's not over yet. One of my colleagues was saying that it's nothing but grading and going to receptions now. True, too true. Paper and food. That's all there is.

Toad-in-the-Hole Queen of America

St. George's Day! That means Toad-in-the-Hole, and I am the Toad-in-the-Hole Queen. I'm pretty sure that even if I were in England I'd be the Toad-in-the-Hole Queen, if Delia Smith was in France or something; I think definitely I'm the Toad-in-the-Hole Queen of America.

We don't have it that often, since it's so shockingly unhealthy (No fiber! High fat!), so we save it for special days. One of which is St. George's Day -- since he's the patron saint of England, and also because just the name Toad-in-the-Hole makes us think of the dragon in its cave.

But all that dragon stuff got added on; George was a martyr. One of those, according to the Golden Legend, who got martyred several different ways -- six, I think, including being boiled in oil and having his head chopped off -- and kept being resurrected. He was cheerful about this, of course, but I'm hoping that's not my lot, as I'm under the impression I'd lose my temper.

Knitting tonight! New West Wing!
New Law and Order! Two hours of knitting.

I'm really really really going to get the armbands to Scapa done.

No, really.

Tuesday as Monday

To most of you -- well, pretty much everybody in the world who doesn't work where I do, it was Tuesday today, wasn't it? But for us, it was Monday. Tomorrow is not Wednesday. Tomorrow is Friday.

This is all meant to catch up classes that have been lost to various days off, including a bunch of Holy Days of Obligation, which are a nice sort of treat if you're working at a Catholic University -- all of a sudden, sometimes, you don't go to work, cause it's the Feast of the Assumption.

Here's what I hate (we've moved on, now); I hate picking up stitches around the neck or the armhole or the damn front band of whatever it is I'm otherwise done knitting. I know it's usually sewing things up that knitters complain about, but I don't mind that. I like the sewing, actually. But picking up stitches, I hate. I like knitting the bands once the stitches are picked up. I just hate the picking them up.

Scapa's not done. Why is it not done? It's not done because I laboriously picked up stitches around one of the armholes, and then I nicely knit up the cunning little twisted rib stitch band the pattern called for, and then after I started casting off I discovered that the damn thing was ruffling. I had picked up the number of stitches called for in the pattern, rather than picking up the number that would actually fit the armhole. Big mistake. Could only be fixed by a) steam pressing and clapping the band, and making it look Really Strange, or b) starting over.

So I ripped it out, and now I'll start it again.

I'm always telling beginners. You'll be ripping stuff out and doing it over forever. I've been knitting for over 40 years. I'm pretty good at this.

But last night I was just plain idiotic.

Sorry, Bees.

Nice to have a day off on a Monday, to rest up from the Easter Vacation. And quite a day it was, yesterday -- the bees came in. The latest replacements, three pounds of them, arrived happy and cheerful -- unlike the batch we got last time, which had been sent to Philadelphia first by mistake, and arrived days later mostly dead -- those who were left were Really Angry. They never got over the experience, I think. And now they're dead, having frozen to death over the winter we just finished getting through. We were full of remorse, cause we should have wrapped the hive, according to our bee guy, who warned us. The winters in Pittsburgh aren't usually so fierce. Alas.

Hence the new bees. I go out every hour or so to look at them, and they're busy, busy, busy. Cleaning up the hive, dragging dead bees and trash out onto the landing. Scouting off for likely flower fields (though the defunct hive left them a lot of honey; they won't be starving any time soon). Generally looking like a happy and well-queened hive.

Which they aren't, not really, since the queen is still stuck in her little cage, where she has to stay while they get used to her, so they don't kill her.

We'll let her out in a few days.

And in the meantime, the Scapa vest is sewn up now, and I'll finish up the armholes probably tonight. After which it'll get blocked again.

And then on to Catherine Parr!

Today, by the way, is Texas Independence Day --we commemorate with chicken fried steak, which, bizarrely enough, can be made to be not only tasty but low in fat -- I got the recipe from Cooking Light sometime in the long ago. Oh, yeah. We're happy.

Holy Saturday Morning!

Holy Saturday morning, Batman! Why did we wake up at 4:30 AM? Why couldn't we get back to sleep? We don't know.

But definitely naps are happening later, if there's to be Major Singing for Hours tonight.

Am nearly done with the second half of the border to Starmore's Scapa, from Scottish Garland (working it in teal colored Fleet). The Fleet isn't luxurious to work with, naturally, and it takes a while to get things done, given that tiny gauge -- but the sculptural quality of the work is highly satisfying. The picture given with the directions shows the vest made in an off-white Fleet, and very nice it is, but I thought the teal would be lovely. So I was pretty gratified last night to discover, while idly looking through the book, taking a little time off the knitting itself, to discover, in the picture for Flora, that the model is holding a piece of knitting-in-progress, and it's Scapa! In teal! Somebody else thought it was a good idea, too, a long long time ago.

Working hard at it -- when I can -- cause the Knitting Season's nearly over. (We don't have air conditioning. No knitting in the summer.)

In the meantime, we've got a hickory swingset going up in the tiny backyard. It comes out of a kit. I'm interested to discover that this involves holes drilled wrong at the factory, and missing screws. Do we call up the manufacturers? We do not! Sam drills new holes and finds new screws down in the workroom. This is a very different method of fixing the situation than is required when the kits I use go wrong -- that involves whining and then going on eBay to find extra skeins of long discontinued and very expensive yarns. There's some reason I didn't take up woodworking instead of textiles, but I can't remember it at the moment...

At any rate, sleep or no sleep, it's Holy Saturday, and that means Lamb Cake. Sam has magically produced the mold from the depths of the storeroom, and the oven's preheating. I'm going to drag out the mixer myself, but I think I might just use Cake Mix, emblem of shame. After that, I'm going back to bed.