Sunrise

Sam says this is what the sunrise looked like this morning:



Nice, huh? I didn't see it myself, as I didn't get in till after midnight last night -- plane delays. Oh, how lovely is the cell phone system we finally broke down and bought! Hi, honey, I'm in the San Diego airport; the plane's delayed! Hi, honey, I'm on the ground, but I have to go get my baggage! Hi, honey, found my car!

Whatever.

At one point I called Sam from San Diego, and he was in the Wallmart parking lot in Columbia, South Carolina. This was very impressive to us. The child, however, was not impressed. Parking lot, phone booth -- makes no difference to him, he told me. One of those 21st century children.

Whatever.

I got through the corrugated ribbing of the "Queen Anne's Lace" pullover -- pictures tomorrow. Today, we've got kids and grandkids coming, and then I need to start the blackeyed peas for tomorrow -- many of you out there know very well that if you don't eat blackeyed peas and collard greens on New Year's day your life goes all to hell in a handbasket over the course of the year on account of your running out of money.

I grew up eating them plain, but now I live with a South Carolinian -- they've inherently got more taste than East Texans, I believe, which I'm allowed to say only on account of having deep ancestral allegiances there, so don't BE agreeing with me here, all you Virginians --- and so now I cook Hoppin' John every year for New Year's, and we're so happy about that.

A good year to all. See you in 2004.

Greetings From San Diego

Well, hey, y'all. Quick note from the San Diego marina -- my weather pixie is cold, I see, but I'm not. I'm here working -- we're interviewing this year for three new professors, and I'm on the 18th century committee. I like being on the 18th century committee. We're especially interested in finding an 18th century professor who knows 18th century drama, and I'm enjoying discussing Methods of Teaching Drama with these people. (Mostly, I want to know -- do you make people get out of their chairs? Cause that's a Good Thing.)

It's harrying, though. It's harrying for us -- it's worse for them. We try to put everybody at their ease, and not intimidate them, and make sure they have water and things like that, but I don't know -- my cohort and I are just a bit wacky when we get together, and for this committee we're the only ones there, with nobody to mediate for us and calm us down --

Oh, well, we told each other yesterday -- it's probably just as well. They should know about us.

My buddy told one of our interviewees yesterday that we had only just started our interviews, and were a bit ungrounded.

Ok, good. Let's go with that.

Wonder what he'll come up with today.

Anyway, I don't have to work all day. I get to walk around the marina, and drink coffee and read Ciaran Carson, and knit. Brought the "Queen Anne's Lace" Fair Isle. Sitting around. Having a little rest.

Except when I go and torment future professors.

Catch ya later...

Falling Into Greed

We had a merry little Christmas around here. Quiet and charming. The child had given himself little fits on Christmas Eve, on account of having Fallen Into Greed, just like a whole lot of other little children -- in his case, though, he was appalled by this, so it really didn't last too long, though it made him unhappy while he was in it.. Oh, and also, whilst he was in the midst of Greed he got Angry at his mother (no prob; I would have been angry at me, too), and so he had the dreadful experience of living in two of the Seven Deadly Sins at one time, and that's no fun. It's the human condition, I told him. You're going to be dead before you stop falling into greed and anger.

But he was fine for Christmas, having been chastened and humbled by his dark night of the soul --- lucky for him it was just one night; sometimes these things go on for years -- and so he had a great day, cause he was focusing on 1) Being Grateful For What He Had and 2) Seeing If Other People Were Having A Nice Time, and so he was darling and had no cause to reproach himself, and all is well. Of course, in his case, making sure the company had a nice time involved encouraging her to watch his new Bionicles movie with him, so that he could explain ad infinitum the details of the stultifying plot, but he's only seven years old -- one gets more subtle with time. The said company not only watched the entire damn thing, but asked intelligent questions about it, so she also behaved herself well and has no cause to reproach herself for her Christmas behavior, because I'll tell you, it's a major act of charity to sit and watch the Bionicles movie with a seven year old person who's explaining EVERYTHING to you in great detail, using terms which make no sense. So she can come back any time. Perhaps next time the child will have moved on to a new obsession. One can only hope.

And then, the child's mother successfully steamed a Christmas pudding and set it on fire, and so that was entertaining. I mean, really. He OUGHT to be grateful. How many moms in America are setting the Christmas puddings on fire? Always a hoot around here. Never a dull moment.

Now we have a new tradition. I so very deeply enjoyed setting the Christmas pudding on fire that I intend to do it every year. In fact, we may have trouble keeping me down to one steamed flaming pudding a year. I might want one for my birthday.

Christmas Cooking

It's so quiet on the blogs today -- lots of people not on computers.

I wasn't, either, for a while, but now I have a little break during the major work of the day, which is, as it is every year, the Cooking of Pain-In-The-Butt foods -- you know, those things that take hours and hours to make but you have to do anyway, because somebody did them once in 1910 when they were bored and now it's a Tradition.

I went over a bit ago to visit a darling neighbor I'm fond of, and she was in the middle of this sort of activity, too, working in the kitchen with about 19 boxes and jars of various exotic foodstuffs, and she had some jelly roll pan in the oven so as to bake a cake that was going to look like a Yule Log. She's Italian, and is also supposed to be making a seven course fish dinner for tonight, though she says she's cutting it down to three courses cause nobody actually eats it all and the kids can't abide squid. I'm New Mexican, and I'm supposed to be cooking posole. This is lots easier, apparently, so I didn't complain. (Posole, by the way, is both hominy and the red chile and pork stew made with the said hominy, and one has to eat it on Christmas Eve, for reasons which are obscure to me, but since it's very nice, we keep up the tradition.)

I forgot about how to cook posole, though, because, living now as I do in the South Hills under Pittsburgh, I don't get to buy real posole in the grocery store, so I've been making the dish for some years with canned hominy. Yes, I have. Moment of silence here, whilst the New Mexicans pull themselves together.

Well, you've got to make do sometimes. And what happened is that I forgot that this year I had REAL posole, which I bought in Albuquerque, and it was DRIED, and so I was supposed to soak it overnight. Ha, ha!

It turns out that if you just simmer the stuff for several hours the kernels open up just fine. So, now it's on the stove becoming the red chile and pork version of itself, and all will be well tonight, and we'll eat it, and the world will continue to turn as it ought. I'm sure you're relieved to hear that.

And the sugar-free cheesecake is cooling in the oven, which ties the oven up for three hours and will therefore cut into my biscotti baking time. I forgive it. It's for Sam, who, being diabetic, can't have the flaming Dickensian pudding planned for tomorrow, though he will get to enjoy the conflagration.

The ginger syrup for the pudding took four days, and it's done now, too.

Also, I made red chile pecans. I've been busy, I tell you.

If I was being really well behaved I'd make krumkake, the precious Christmas cookie of my Norwegian people, but I'm just not up to it. I think we've got enough dramatic foods around here, and I'm not going to spend the rest of the day standing at the stove wielding the krumkake iron and turning the kitchen into a lake of melted butter.

I've got my limits.

Fusion. What Next?

Finished the Reynold's "Fusion" pullover last night, and am mightily happy with it:



Not as quick a project as one might think, because of having to wrassle three to five balls of mohair every row, but still, not so tedious. And the sweater's soft and light and lovely, and will be great for knocking around in. I might wear it for Christmas, whilst setting the house on fire with the Dickensian pudding.

So then I was done with that, last night, and I needed to start another project, one which will get me through the holidays and into the next semester, and though I've got "Margaret Tudor" on the needles, it's fussy, and I can't happily knit on it during meetings, on account of having to follow the chart so closely.

Also, I'd been seduced by the softness of that cashmere, so I swatched for that pullover.

Yes, well. Even on US#0 needles, I was getting 8 stitches to the inch rather than 11. And I don't own any smaller needles. And it was 10:00 PM, and Pittsburgh Knit and Bead was closed. (I may never achieve 11 stitches to the inch in this lifetime, actually; the entire project may need to be rethought.)

So I went back upstairs and dragged down the yarn for "Queen Anne's Lace." Yep. Good choice. I do love a Fair Isle, and I haven't had one in a while. But. When I bought the yarn for that project, I'd bought Jamieson's "Shetland Spindrift" from The Yarn Barn, the original yarns having been discontinued. And I hadn't put my conversion chart in the bag. And I couldn't figure out from the original color names what the proper conversions were. (Quick! What's the difference between "Crowberry" and "Loganberry"?) And the conversion chart's in my sewing room. And the sewing room's full of unwrapped presents, and not a thing can be reached at all, period.

Went back upstairs, beginning to be a bit testy, and dragged down the yarn for "Jane Seymour." But that's not started, either, because after I'd wound one ball of yarn, I still needed to wind another in order to swatch in pattern, and it was getting late by that time, and besides, that's not what I really wanted to work on, and I went to bed.

So. It's a new day. I'm going to wrap all those presents. I'm going to find my conversion chart. I'm going to swatch for "Queen Anne's Lace." Later in the week, I'm taking it on the plane, as the circular needles should be less distressing to security officials, who are supposed to be letting knitting needles go by, but might get antsy at any moment on account of the high security alert and it being the holidays and all.

That's the plan. Update later.

Winter Solstice Plans

You know how it is, when you've been ill, and you get well, you get a glorious surge of energy and joie de vivre? Well, I'm not there yet. Went to sing at Mass today, and discovered that singing is a very intense activity that takes all your energy, and then you have to sit around and rest for a while. Maybe the glorious surge of energy is coming tomorrow. Something to look forward to.

Today we're commemorating the winter solstice. We're having round, sunny foods for dinner -- pumpkin soup (Sam, who had to do the shopping by himself yesterday, was in charge of picking out the croutons, and has, I see, chosen sourdough cheese. Good work, Dr. Lieutenant!), and some sort of round bread. I think I'll make challah, only not braid it, but make it into a nice round loaf, which will look just like the sun. And then we'll eat it.

After dinner, we'll turn all the lights out and sit in the dark for a bit, whilst Mama says moderately poetic things, briefly, and then the child will get to open the presents from the Good Witches, of whom we know many, some of whom send presents to the child at this time of year.

So. Bread today, and knitting. That's my plan.

I've been thinking about this Next Project decision (see entry for yesterday: Fair Isle or cashmere), and I'm still not decided, though the cashmere is what I've dragged downstairs to look at. Here's the deal: the cashmere knits up at 11 stitches to the inch.

Yeah, that's right. 11 stitches to the inch. So, though this will definitely be a spectacular wonderful sweater such as one's heirs fight over during the division of goods, and will also be a joy to knit, one has to take into account the fact that the project is going to take a Long Time. So the joy might sort of diminish after a while.

I suppose this is a good year to do it, really -- I'm going to have lots of opportunity to knit on it while listening to prospective colleagues discuss their work -- at least 9 of them will end up visiting us this year.

I do indeed pine for a Fair Isle -- love to see those colors going by -- but I'm leaning towards the soft and precious cashmere. Maybe that's due to being Not Entirely Well. The cashmere feels so good.

Going to go lie down again now....

Tampon Angels and Steamed Pudding

Yay! Finally, Ryan has linked to the directions for making tampon angels to hang on your Christmas tree! I sent her this link months ago, on account of being So Fond of her, and carefully and sweetly didn't post it myself, on account of the feelings aforesaid, and even now am sending you over to her site to get these directions. (Note to stepchildren: Don't be silly. Of course you're not getting a set of these from me in your Christmas box. Never even occurred to me. You're safe. Really.) She's also posted the link to TamponHenge; as she points out, the two craft projects go nicely together. Would look, I might add, really cute, under the Christmas tree. And sacred and holy, in scary sorts of ways.

New day! The invalid rises from her bed and makes steel-cut oats for breakfast! The child won't eat this dish, alas, even though oats are the food of pretty much all of his people that I know of -- he's a Northern European melange, with the heftiest portion from the British Isles, and I'm pretty sure that our entire household is genetically engineered to subsist on oatmeal. But I need Hefty Sustenance, which God knows steel-cut oats provide, and Sam has to go do the grocery shopping by himself, and, since this includes the Christmas shopping, he needs Hefty Sustenance, too, so I made them, and too bad if the child doesn't make it through the day. "Cheerios," my eye.

I'm determined, this year, to conquer a Dickensian steamed pudding. I've never actually attempted steamed pudding before, so it's not like it's ever defeated me, but I have an enormous respect for it, as it seems mysterious, and it might well kick my butt. But I'm going to cook one. Yep. This year. For Christmas. Need to start today, though -- I've got a Delia recipe that looks good, involving ginger in syrup, and since we can't actually buy ginger in syrup around here, I have to make it. This is a three or four day process, which I learned from my copy of The Joy of Cooking -- long, but not difficult. Much.

Sam got some holly to stick on top of this Dickensian pudding, and then we'll need to set it on fire, as well. Now, the usual way to do this is to pour brandy over it and set it alight, but we don't have any brandy around here, and aren't planning on getting any, or any other alcohol, for that matter, so we've got to use another method. I've got some cookbooks from the 50's which show such desserts being served alit by the method of surrounding them with sugar cubes soaked in lemon extract and then set on fire, but this is tacky, because the white sugar cubes are visually jarring against the brown pudding.

So Sam and I bought demerara sugar cubes, which are brown, and will therefore not be tacky. Or at any rate, not as tacky as white ones. This is the season of moderate tackiness, anyway -- at what other time of year could you possibly get away with wearing green and red at the same time?

As to knitting -- I'm going great guns on the "Fusion" pullover, and must soon decide what to start next. I'm pining for a Fair Isle, and I've got the materials for Starmore's "Queen Anne's Lace," so I might start that. But maybe not. I'm leaving, right after Christmas, for the MLA conference in San Diego, and I need to take a project that's more or less mindless. Mind you, once you get a Fair Isle started, it's more or less mindless, but maybe I want to take something involving fewer color changes. The grey cashmere pullover I've got planned, for instance.

Oh, the choices.

Lovely Time to be Unwell

I am so impressed by the timing of this illness. Could NOT have picked a better time to get ill. Grades are in, all the paperwork due on a deadline is in. Not going in to work today -- staying home in bed (except for right this very exact minute, during which you may imagine me wanly and dramatically typing in my Blogger window), and reading. Delicious.

Nobody needs me, thank God. I'm free to be as ill as I like, and rest as much as I like. Sam made me tea. Also he brings the thermometer up and brings me medicines. He is a darling man, and the angels sing when he gets up in the morning.

I spend a great deal of my life being aware that I'm not living in the middle ages -- work hazard, I guess -- and never so much as when I'm ill. I like to lie in bed with my little fever* and think about how much more uncomfortable I'd be if it were the middle ages. No tea, for one thing. Tisanes, yes, but none of that nice caffeined business from China and India. (I never imagine myself, in these meditations, to be Of The Nobility -- nah, where's the fun in that? I like to imagine Life As a Peasant. Much more cheering.) No electric blanket. No central heating. None of this great day-time cold medicine of which I am so fond.

I had a GREAT time when I was having the child. Healthy mom, healthy child, no problems in the pregnancy -- and he didn't fit. (I mean this quite literally -- we're talking a 10 lb. 8 oz baby here.) We should both have been dead, but we weren't! Ha! Cause we weren't living in the middle ages! As they wheeled me in for the emergency C-section, I told the nurses, cheerfully, I might add, "If this were the Middle Ages I'd be dead now!" Marvelous. Snatched out of the jaws of death by sheer accident of timing.

As far as I'm concerned, this business about living in a developed country in the 21st century is something that I should never, for one moment, forget about. Absolute luck. Not my doing. Necessary to be grateful.

Going to go back to bed now, and read some more Ciaran Carson -- and maybe some Edith Stein --and convalesce. And then tomorrow, when I'm up and about, I'll buy somebody in Somalia a beehive.

*As for this fever business -- I completely forgot -- due to having the fever -- that my normal body temperature is about 96 degrees, so if the thermometer reads 99, I DO have a fever! Ha! So there! This would explain why I felt like I had a fever but the thermometer wouldn't cooperate.

Teresa at the Mall

Marcie got all annoyed at me cause I finished grading before she did and then gloated about it in her comments, but today I think she could like me again, cause I'm ill.

I was fine yesterday until the evening, and then I got ill quickly and suddenly, and became, I think but I'm not sure, a bit dramatic. The knitting needles were too heavy for my hand, so I didn't get any knitting done, which was really a pain since I'm working on the "Fusion" pullover and I enjoy it very much. Sam and the child went to get the tree, and we decorated it -- I was wan and darling, like the lady of the camellias, and then I went to bed.

The thermometer SAID I didn't have a fever, but my position is that I DID have a fever nonetheless, though maybe only a small one.

You know how you get when you have a fever? All distant? I was like that -- oh, right, and I had cold chills and aches, too! Yes. Definitely a fever.

I'm hoping that in my last extremity, as I leave this vale of tears, I get to have that sort of distance, as I think it will be useful for letting things go. I was sitting at the dinner table last night, quietly but dramatically having my little fever, and my eye happened to light on the china cabinet. And I could remember that the china therein had some deep significance for me, but I couldn't remember why -- and I felt that, should I need to leave it behind, I could willingly let it go, for the good of others, and that I myself had enjoyed the china a long time -- really a very long time, I'm, like, SO aged -- and that somebody else could have those nice plates with the stars on the border which are so excellent for winter solstice desserts....

I'm feeling better today, actually, and so I'm keeping the damn plates.

Yesterday, before I got so dramatically wan, I had to go to the mall, which, like so many Americans, I despise, and yet visit occasionally anyway. It's so easy to diss the mall, isn't it? And very hard to think up reasons it should exist. Well, except for that thing about providing Sam a place to go for his daily walks.

Luckily, before I went I remembered that last year, at this time, I'd been teaching Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle in the Medieval Women Writers course (she's not medieval, no, I know that, but it works very well to read her at the end of that course anyway), and something she says in there about Stuff had struck me --

She relates visiting some duchess or other, and sitting in a room waiting for the said duchess, and looking at all the Stuff in the room, and thinking to herself, "What is all this for?" much as I do when I go to the mall, except that Teresa uses nicer language than I do, and then saying to herself, "There must be a way in which this exists to the glory of God."

I'm enchanted by that. It's a willful move out of techiness and complaining, and into cheerfulness and compassion. Very like Teresa. Willful change of perspective.

So I tried it last year -- I had to go to the mall, I do have to make some small trip every Christmas season, and instead of going around the mall feeling all bitter and mean, I went around thinking "glory o' God" every time I saw something that annoyed me no end -- all that Stuff; all those People Buying Stuff.

Worked marvelously -- it amused me. Banks of flavored coffee? Glory o' god. Sequined tank tops? Definitely, Glory o' God. Giant display of elaborate singing snowglobes? Glory o' God. Masses of humans buying useless pieces of Stuff to put in stockings? Glory o' God.

Did it again this year -- worked just as well. I laughed the whole way through the process.

Then I came home and got ill.

Glory o' God.

Deborah, You've Been Blogged!

I've been having sweater wars with the secretary of the department, who has an angelic mother-in-law who knits Starmore Sweaters for her. (Good ones, too -- she's excellent.) All winter, we show up for work, and look at what we're wearing, and sometimes I win and sometimes she does, but today, I'm wearing the trump card -- Roineval, the Holy Grail of Starmore sweaters. In the original yarns. Read 'em and weep.

Maybe it's not the best day to trump her sweater -- whatever it is that she's wearing today, I'm winning, we're both agreed on this -- as it's also the day I'm bringing in the Big Ol' Honkin' Basket of Bath Goodies in Excellent Packaging, which is what she gets from me every Christmas on account of having so cheerfully and competently put up with me being Director of Graduate Studies (as I mentioned yesterday, a Person Of Some Small Importance).

The thing is, I'm not the mostest bestest organized person. Also, I have my little ways. And all year, I show up at least twice a day in the office saying things like "I know you gave me a copy of the list two weeks ago, but now it's in my office, so I can't find it. Can I have another copy?" And "Will you call up International Student Relations and find out what the hell they did with this student's TOEFL scores?" And "We need to figure out exactly how many TA's we have at what stage, and so could you invent a spread sheet?" And "I'm like, SO sorry, but I forgot I need to hand this big stack of criticism out to my students, so could you make 30 copies of it? I need it in two hours."

And she does all this stuff not only without complaining, but actually seeming at least to be cheerful about it. Also, she thinks I'm funny.

So I adore her.

When I first arrived in the department, back when I was a junior professor (and, I might add, in case some of them are reading this, a Really Well Behaved one), we had a secretary who was a Holy Terror. She was rude to the female professors; she refused to do any copying and also wouldn't let us use the machine ourselves (we had to sneak in, which is sorta humiliating if you're dragging a doctorate around and professing Chaucer); she hired only incompetent student help, so that she could train said help up to be clones of herself, I guess; she never had time to do anything cause she had to spend all the time she had cutting holiday shapes out of construction paper and taping them to the walls.


I think Sam used to do all his copying over at the Kinko's, just to stay away from her. I, on the other hand, groveled. I've got no pride in these matters. Also, it was cheaper.

All of which is to say that I know a good thing when I see one.

Deborah, you've been blogged! Merry Christmas!

Persons of Some Small Importance

I SO do not have time to blog this morning, but here I am anyway.

The nice thing about this week is that after it's over, there's no work for a while. But while this week is happening, it's Pretty Intense. I've got a meeting this morning, a final to give, finals then to grade, then another final tonight. And tomorrow I need to get the grades in and bake Things For the New Mexicans (family members! don't read that part! be surprised by the box of food stuffs such as are the same things you get every year!), and then on Thursday I have to wear the Fancy Stuff and go to graduation, so as to say goodbye to some beloved students, and then on Friday I have to finish up that pile of paperwork on my desk.

The meeting this morning concerns the class schedule for Fall 2004. Great, how if you're a Person Of Some Small Importance you get to be working on such things during finals week. Scheduling is such a pain. You've got, on the one hand, a list of classes that your colleagues would like to teach, or believe -- rightly, I might add -- that students should be taking; and then you've got, on the other hand, however many students there are who might actually sign up for these classes, and whatever requirements they might be trying to meet, and whatever little rumors might be going around that affect enrollment. (Such as for instance, the one about the professor who used to be a Deadhead. That could skew the enrollment numbers, I think. Though which way I'm not sure.) You've got, somehow, to balance all these things out in such a way that, though you will be unable to keep from pissing people off, you might be able to keep them from actually coming over to your office and beating you up.

And somehow, though I am indeed, as mentioned before, a Person Of Some Small Importance, I found myself scheduled for two new classes which I volunteered to invent. This despite the fact that I was actually in the meeting. But! Contemporary Drama! Somebody should teach it! Yes! And it should be ME! Also! We need one of those classes that non-English majors want to take, so as to fulfill their Liberal Arts requirement and make our numbers look better! Yes! And the professor who taught the science fiction class left! Yes, he did! But! We have somebody who could teach Horror! Indeed we do! And it's ME!

Actually, I've discovered, since suggesting this class -- which, in all fairness, I should say I've been suggesting for YEARS, we just didn't need it -- that one of the junior professors could teach it, as well.

But! She wasn't in the meeting, was she! Nope! I was!

And so that's the advantage of being a Person Of Some Small Importance. You get to schedule yourself for things you then have to invent.

Wait a minute....

Ironstone Shell

It's a bit late, but nevertheless I'm glad to have found Leslie Harpold's Advent Calendar -- excellent use of cyberspace, courtesy of Rebecca's Pocket.

So! During the pieces of time wherein I wasn't baking Christmas goods, creating Christmas goods, addressing Christmas cards, or doing the laundry, what got done this weekend?

The Ironstone "Paris Nights" shell (thank you, Pittsburgh Knit and Bead, for putting this on sale):



and more of the Reynold's "Fusion" pullover:



The child has a two hour delay this morning, so he's up constructing Lego things in the living room. But I am NOT on a two hour delay. I'm going to drive into work and then, well, work. I might not take the back roads in, though, just in case.

I'm concerned about this two hour delay business. Why the delay? Do we expect the roads to get clearer all of a sudden? Is there something we're supposed to be doing, other than blogging and playing with Legos? Are we supposed to be eating oatmeal and meditating, and getting ready to Face The Snow Drifts?

One day last year he was on a two hour delay because it was so cold. Was it warmer in two hours? It was not. And the roads were just fine. No snow, no ice. Just cold. Why did the child have to stay home an extra two hours? We don't know. We never did find out. And I must admit every time this happens I suspect that people in Maine and Minnesota are laughing at us. I once went up above the Arctic circle in January, to visit cousins who lived then up at the tip of Norway (I wanted to see the noonday dark), and was anybody staying home on a two hour delay? No way. They were all going off to work and school. Indeed, the baby took his daily naps in his pram in the snow. Wimps, that's what we are around here. Two hour delay. Pshaw.

Mass in the Snowstorm

The nice thing about being snowed in is that we didn't have to go get the Christmas tree, cause it would have been Very Foolish to attempt to drive over to the Christmas tree lot.

I suppose we could have taken the child's sled and walked, and picturesquely dragged the thing home, but it didn't occur to me till this moment. Ooops. Too bad.

What was nice about not getting the tree (though notice we'll just be having to deal with it later) was that it freed up a bit of the day -- not the morning, no, no -- Mass stops for no snowstorm, and if the choir's scheduled, the choir's scheduled. Felt very virtuous and hardy, singing up in the loft to a total of about 20 people in a very empty church, after having driven in second gear all the way there. But the snow freed up the afternoon.

Did I grade papers?

I did not. I'm going to do one of those paper grading marathons tomorrow night. Or, rather, at 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday. Before Sam retired, we used to do this together, because inevitably we both ended up in the situation of having to hand a bunch of papers back that we hadn't graded yet.

Now I do it on my own.

But this weekend was all about Christmas. Presents for colleagues and the children thereof, Christmas cards for everybody all over the world.

And knitting. The Ironstone "Paris Nights" shell is finished, and the Reynolds "Fusion" pullover is coming along, and I even started some new socks.

The rule is, grading tomorrow and grading yesterday, but never grading today.

Pink Fluffy Threats

A very special blogging message to the two junior professors who pretty much spent the ENTIRE department Christmas party last night tormenting a certain senior professor who shall remain nameless, but is in charge of this blog: Keep in mind that there's a lot of pink yarn out there. Bunches. Some of which would make a Really Nice Scarf for the one of you who goes around perpetually in tailored black suits. Other selections of which would look awfully nice under black leather jackets, doncha think?

Y'all are gonna wake up on Christmas and wish you'd gotten coal, I'm telling you.

Pink Fluffy

I had a little "Colinette" fit a couple of months ago, and did some hanging out on eBay, as it's a good place to find various "Colinette" fibers at low prices, if one is good at managing eBay, and I ended up with some things I truly love -- made a couple of simple pullovers out of ribbon, and have the makings of one of the "Absolutely Fabulous" throws, in the "English Garden" colorway -- nummy. Hand-dyed Welsh fibers. Heaven.

However, apparently I lost my mind when I wasn't looking, and I also have, down at the bottom of one of my knitting bags, where I don't have to look at it too often, a "Love It" kit in what purports to be the "Mushroom" colorway.

I could have sworn, when I looked at it on the monitor, it was mostly brown and taupe, and therefore a thing I could conceivably wear. But the sack of yarn I've got is most definitely pink. I've taken it out several times to see if maybe I was wrong, but I'm not. It's pink. And it's mohair, mostly. So this means it's pink and fluffy.

I don't wear pink and fluffy.

Ever.

At all.

In fact, I don't know ANYBODY who wears pink and fluffy. It's no use keeping this stuff around in case I happen to all of a sudden discover I've got a pink fluffy person in my life, cause it's not going to happen.

You know how it is, if you come from one of those badly behaved families, how everybody in your life forever is in some way badly behaved? And you just can't even see the people who are well behaved and unlikely to end up in jail?

I think it's like that with me and pink fluffy people. The world is full of people who wear pink fluffy sweaters, and if I ever met one, I would probably even like her, but she and I will never even SEE each other -- we'll be walking down the street, pass within a foot of each other, and not notice the existence of the other person, cause she'll be looking in a shop window saying to herself, "Oooh, look! Pink and fluffy! That'll go nicely with my feather boa!" and I'll be looking in a different shop window saying to myself, "Oooh! Black and shiny! That'll look great with that sequined scarf!" and we'll never never meet.

I could, of course, knit the pink fluffy up expressly for the purpose of tormenting somebody -- this sort of move works especially well if one describes, in serious tone, the inspiration, gained through meditation, leading to the knitting of the said object -- "I'm told," one can say, "that you NEED this color in your life right now."

Yes. Lots of possibilities here. Oh, yes. And you KNOW who you are.

But of course, I'd have to knit the damn thing, wouldn't I. And even at 11 stitches to 4 inches, that's way too much time in hell.

I'm just going to have to resell it. The thing's unusable by me.

On the other hand, some things work out just fine:



These'll get blocked and sent off this week to somebody who'll be glad he got them.

And, oh, Lord, won't he be glad they're not made out of pink fluff.

Pants at the Wall

The child came home from school yesterday with his first demerit. Three of these, and he gets detention. This is Very Serious.

So when I got in, this had to be reported to me. Serious, sad child, quietly, haltingly telling his loving mother the nature of his Terrible Sin.

He threw his pants at the wall after gym. He wanted to see how far he could throw them.

Uh-huh. I see.

Well, were you throwing them AT anybody?

No. But they're the ones with metal loops on them and they could have hurt somebody. (Supposing somebody had been in front of them.) (Which somebody wasn't.)

Well, were you having a little temper tantrum?

No, as a matter of fact, he was pretty cheerful at the time.

Ok. Well, we'll have no more of THAT, young man!

We had to sign the demerit slip, and he had to sign the demerit slip, and I think we were supposed to review the Handbook of Proper Behavior in Your Local Catholic Grade School, but we didn't -- I'm not sure there really is anything in there about not throwing your pants at the wall, anyway. But I just hope he NEVER does anything so dreadful again.

I think if maybe I'd been at his school instead of Robert E. Lee grade school when I was his age, I'd be a much better behaved woman today. Or, again, maybe not.

Knitting content: Hey! I've got some! Making progress on socks! Great! Not anywhere nearly done grading papers and finals! Sorry! Not much knitting till then! Too bad!

I do try to get some in every day, so as to remain a calm and helpful person, ready to deal with all life's daily tragedies, such as students who are having trouble locating the theses of their papers, and small children who naughtily throw their pants at the wall.

Damn! I forgot to tell him he could have put somebody's eye out! SUCH a good opportunity lost.

Ok, really, some knitting content, why not:

I'm so far behind on the Knitting Tarot I'll never catch up; Amber's much better at getting things done than I am, I think.

She has translated Card #V, "The Hierophant," into "The Yarn Shop." Ha! Delightful woman. Of course.

I've got a close but uneasy relationship with The Hierophant -- am a faithful member of several rigidly organized groups but have tendency to chain myself to fences in protest -- and Amber's provided me with an altogether more comfortable interpretation of the card. Community, organization, rules, structure -- now become not just necessary, or even marginally bearable, but absolutely darling. Yes! Think of academia as a yarn shop!

Have to work on that, I think.

But wherever you are -- Catholic School or Yarn Shop -- just don't throw your pants at the wall.

That's a Good Rule for Life.

Carl Andy Explains Gauge

My brother Carl Andy, kindly soul that he is, has been helping out with the gauge problem that many knitters have -- he was especially touched by Suzie's first hat, I take it (though she's produced a second one which is working just fine, thanks)-- and so has provided this link, which will lead you to many helpful articles on the problem of gauge, because, as Carl Andy says, "You have to eliminate the non physical degrees of freedom BEFORE you quantize!" (His exclamation mark; he's pretty het up about this.)

At any rate, the link will help with some of the problems of gauge. What this has to do with knitting was unclear to me, but happily, Carl Andy sent me further explanation:

A "gauge symmetry" means that a situation in the world can be described in more than just one way, but with the same results, but that the symmetry isn't one of the usual ones that we expect from the world. (A "usual" symmetry that the world has if that we change coordinates by, for example, adding 2 meters to all the "x" coordinates, all the laws of physics still remain the same.)

But before you quantize a gauge symmetry, you have to eliminate all but the true "degrees of freedom", which means that you can only quantize things that really could move around. You can't quantize the usual symmetries, for example.

Got it. Suzie, try that first hat again, with a thinner yarn.

Medievalist in the House

I think it's pretty self-evident that medievalists are not generally needed urgently. I don't mean needed urgently as in "Oh, damn! Who's going to teach the Piers Plowman seminar next semester? Better hire a medievalist QUICK!" sort of urgently, as usually in such cases you don't actually need the medievalist the next day or anything near it. We're all pretty aware that you don't hear people say things like, "What's that, Lassie? You say Timmy's in the well? Quick, girl! Go get the medievalist!" or "Houston, we have a problem. Go find the medievalist!" or even, "Ladies and Gentlemen, do not panic. Stay in your seats, please. Is there a medievalist in the house?"

We do have a Great Medievalist Movie Hero, as a guide to what we could be like, if given the chance -- that'd be Sean Connery, playing Indiana Jones's dad. Oh, how I love to watch the medievalist helping to save the world! Yes! It could happen! Must keep all my notes!

No.

In general, if I'm useful to society it's in a sort of obscure way. I pretty much comfort myself by telling myself I don't often do any actual HARM by being a medievalist. Well, ok, I guess I have to make an exception for the times parents call me up, distraught because their children used to be pre-med but now they want to study Chaucer. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Guess I got carried away when we were reading Troilus and Criseyde.

But. Apparently there are occasional moments when one can, as a medievalist, serve one's community.

At the Annual Marathon Pre-Concert Choir Rehearsal From Hell, which was last Thursday, and did indeed go on until midnight, and only stopped then because the choir director couldn't actually see the music anymore, we had some Rough Spots.

One of them was so rough that entire pieces of the music were missing. This was a piece wherein the refrain was in Latin, and it wasn't that bad, but the verses were in Middle English, though we were singing them in English (and boy, did THIS go up my nose; I'd been whinging about it to the poor alto sitting next to me for weeks), and the music to the verses was HARD, and all the lines were DIFFERENT, and we couldn't sing them, no matter how we tried. Just would not go in our heads. There was one line that the women were supposed to sing, and without exception, we didn't. Total silence. Tried it again. Same problem. Then the choir director yelled at the basses, whose fault it apparently was, cause they were supposed to give us our note and they didn't.

I didn't think personally that my not singing the line was the fault of the basses -- I thought it was because I didn't know what the line was, and my own rule is not to sing music I don't know. But I didn't volunteer this information.

Anyway, it was clear to all of us that we were all set to humiliate ourselves at "Lessons and Carols," but over the weekend the choir director had a brilliant idea, which was that he remembered he had a medievalist in the choir and called me up to see if I would just READ the lines, dramatically, in Middle English, and the choir would sing the refrain, which we're pretty good at.

Yep. No problem.

So, at the concert, the choir sang "Nova, nova, ave fit ex Eva," and I read the Middle English, and it sounded like we'd planned it that way forever, and everybody was Really Impressed, and now I am the Heroine of the Choir, having Saved the Day, and I figure I've got about a month of free rides off this, and can make even more jokes than usual during rehearsals. (Also, I'm hoping that now the rest of the choir will have something to say about me other than that I look like Madame Defarge cause I'm knitting. OH, how hilarious that joke is. And how seldom, as a knitter, do I hear it. Oh, please, do say it again. No, really. It will make me think SO highly of you.)

Now I'm holding myself in readiness, cause you never know when you might be needed by your community, no matter how killingly obscure your talents are. Indiana Jones might be by at any minute. Must go find my notes.

Leper Bandages

To my delight, my brother Jim has discovered the blog, and, happily, the comment function, so I expect now to hear frequently from him. He has some things to say about the Deadhead rumor, for instance, which you can peruse here. (You'll need to click on the comments to find Jim. And if, after that, you feel that you've just not had enough time with Brannens, you can go play with the interactive crystal drawing program over at Carl Andy's site.)

The weather people told us we were going to get a lot of snow, but we didn't believe them, cause they told us that the day before yesterday, and then it didn't snow, so we figured that everybody else was getting snow but we weren't, but we were wrong.

We were visiting friends last night when the phone rang and our hostess's sister told her she couldn't drive up the hill. When we looked out the window we saw why this was so -- there was at that point three to four inches of snow, all of which had accumulated whilst we were eating our nice chicken stew.

So we got out of there. Had to leave Sam's car (we'd come in two), and drive my all-wheel drive Subaru home, past city buses stuck on the roadside. Left the child, too, who had been scheduled to spend the night. So now we're here in the South Hills with eight inches of snow over the driveway, a car and a child up in the city, some Audubon society birdseed to pick up over in Mt. Lebanon, and grocery shopping to do. And Sam, poor man, is Not Well today.

So I'm the snow shovelling person today. This will make up for some of that missing the gym that was going on lately, I expect.

Maybe some knitting later, then, and in the meantime, here are the leper bandages, all 20 of them:



Two are mine; the rest are from students, both undergraduates and graduates. We'll mail them off this week, as a present from the university.

Classes are over; now it's grading papers, giving finals, going to meetings. And thinking about Christmas.

Excellent Rumor

Well, as I expected, I got no knitting done yesterday, not even, alas, in meetings (and don't expect much today either -- and then tonight I'll be at the Annual Marathon Pre-Concert Choir Rehearsal From Hell; no knitting there) -- BUT I did have a truly lovely day yesterday, BECAUSE

I have heard a rumor going around the undergraduate population, which is that I am a former Deadhead who used to follow the Grateful Dead around.

I am so immensely charmed by this rumor I can't begin to tell you. It's entirely untrue, as it happens -- never liked the Grateful Dead; would have followed Jefferson Airplane/Starship around cheerfully, but didn't even do that. I believe it would have taken more organizational ability than I possessed at the time, to have actually been a groupie. Have I ever even mentioned the Grateful Dead in class? No, I have not. They were not, until yesterday, anywhere near the front of my mental file. (Now they are, though; I'll probably start talking about them LOTS.)

Nope, entirely untrue, and I haven't been able to figure out exactly what it is that started this rumor off. But I do approve of the rumor; I think it's a fine rumor. I intend not to squelch it, though if asked directly I'll not tell lies. Colleagues have been alerted; they're to say, "Really?" when they hear the rumor, and not slap it down. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. ("She used to play backup drums! No kidding! Really! I've seen the pictures!")

So much for that: Knitting Content -- The Empress, yet another major in the Knitting Tarot, concerns the people who inspire others to knit, simply by their own knitting. Well. Sometimes that's us, and sometimes that's the people who inspire us.

I've been knitting since I was a child, and now don't even remember why I started -- did I see my grandmother knitting? My mother? Was I simply handed yarn and needles because it was time to hold them? But I do know that I'm now inspired constantly by other knitters, and not just to make things, but to learn new techniques. All my Norwegian cousins who were knitting and wearing knitted goods and handing over knitted goods to their poor freezing American relatives, the first time I went to Norway -- Empresses all, and now I knit the way they do.

We don't always know who it is we inspire ourselves -- sometimes we hear about it, though.

"I don't know," one of my colleagues said the other day. "All those graduate students sitting in class with pointy sticks. This makes me sort of nervous."

Sorry. Dangerous, having Empresses around.

Especially former Deadheads.

Things Get Worked On

Knitters! Help my fellow Pittsburgher, Suzie, figure out what happened to her hat! Go here, and click on the question, "How did it go wrong?"

I'm in one of those stretches of knitting wherein things get worked on but nothing gets done. Possibly this is because I have too many works on needles. I am willing to admit this. But I figure it's mostly because I have So Much To Do.

Of course. It's the end of the semester. I've got, today alone, 24 journals to grade which must get done today, 6 papers to grade which must get done today (they came in early so that their authors could take advantage of the "rewrite option"),* one meeting to discuss which courses in Medieval or Renaissance literature should be offered by us in the next two years, one meeting to discuss the manner in which the "How to Be a Graduate Student in English Literature" should be conducted, one meeting to discuss which of the applicants for the position in 18th century literature we'd like to interview at the MLA conference in San Diego, and one mega-meeting of chairs and graduate directors in the college. This last includes, my DayTimer tells me, lunch.

Anticipated knitting: well, not much, though maybe some tonight, if I get through the student papers.

And perhaps this sock, during meetings:



Yes, I think it's always good to have socks around to knit on. Very good for meetings. They don't take up much space, and for most of them you just go round and round. At least, these.

The deadline for the leper bandage project is over, and I received MANY yesterday, lots from students I don't know and never saw -- they just got handed over by other students who collected them. Will post pictures of them soon, before I mail them off.


Now then. While I was gone, Amber and Megan seem to have created about 94 new cards in the Knitting Tarot. So I'm way behind in discussions, and the major arcana is pulling itself together.

The High Priestess, as Amber conceives of her, represents both what a project could become, and how the project is shaped by the idiosyncrasies of the individual knitting the project.

About letting projects help create themselves.

And, therefore, NOT about getting hung up on the directions. The directions are a map, and sometimes you need to leave the trail.

*****************************
*In my "rewrite option," students can rewrite a paper, and if it turns out better than the first attempt, I'll award them the grade that's in the middle of the two -- that is, as an example, if one were to write a "C" paper and manage an excellent "A" paper on the rewrite, one would get a "B" for the project. When I was much much younger, I would simply award the grade for the rewrite, but learned quickly that this meant I would get to grade rough drafts the first time around. I don't think so. You make me read it, I grade it. I grade it, the grade counts.

Back From Dinner

Well, hey. Oddly enough, we're back and not dead -- not even slightly injured. I do NOT know how this happens -- there's that thing with the plane, which is like, you know, heavy and up in the air, and then there's all those pieces of things -- including a loaf of bread -- but we didn't lose anything, and even the child came back with us, though he's apparently reached an age which requires him to wander off and examine maps. So I have to keep a sharp eye out for maps, cause that's where he is.

Rachael, I'm glad to report, is just as delightful and interesting in person as she is in writing. Lovely.

And Thanksgiving dinner was -- well, it was THE most Thanksgiving dinner I've ever seen. It involved quantities of butter, bacon fat, and Crisco. I believe that there may have been some olive oil used at one point, but I'm not sure.

Here's what we had: Appetizers: a cheese-and-butter spread; an artichoke-and mayonnaise spread; and curried nuts (with butter). Dinner: Turkey, basted with bacon. Cornbread-and-pecan stuffing, with bacon grease. Sweet-potato casserole, with butter. Sweet-potato biscuits (with honey butter). Beans (with nuts and butter). Gravy. Cranberries -- I believe that no fat products were put into the cranberries, but I could be wrong. Dessert: Mocha-pecan pie; pumpkin meringue pie, and pumpkin pie made with Nutrasweet.

It was really quite impressive.

I'm still recovering.

And I'm eying that NordicTrack in the corner.