Knit Sisters

In spite of some lovely weather and the ongoing amazement of the fall leaves,

things have been a little—how shall we put this?—suboptimal Chez Mad Dog this past week.

I have a cold, which would be bad enough even if I weren’t the world’s worst and most impatient patient. But I am.

Let me offer you this bit of perspective on precisely how bad I am: last time I had a cold, we were in the midst of watching Bleak House on PBS. Alex thoughtfully pointed out that Esther Summerson was behaving more nobly and courageously about having smallpox than I was about weathering a minor respiratory virus.

That might seem like a mean thing to say, if it weren’t so true.

Shelley doesn’t care if I’m sick and still wants to be walked:

We are also experiencing major leakage in our basement due to a corroded pipe. I think. But how would I really know? Our landlord (who we shall call Mr. Lee), a personal favorite of mine as you know, took an entire week to send someone out to look at it.

Last night, this lovely Chinese handyman showed up around 8 p.m. He immediately won my heart by declaring Shelley “so beautiful,” in spite of the fact that she was trying to jump up and kiss him.

Unfortunately, despite the immediate bond we formed over the indisputable beauty of my dog, we proceeded to have some communication issues.

Alex and I don’t speak Chinese and Mr. Yu spoke limited English. But everyone involved was giving it the old college try. Alex took Mr. Yu down to the basement to see the accumulated water damage of the past week. Yu seemed a bit puzzled.

Alex said, pointing first upstairs, “I will turn on shower,” then at Mr. Yu, “so that you,” now pointing at eyes, “can see.”

Mr. Yu nodded, still a bit puzzled. Alex ran up the stairs with Yu in pursuit. Alex turned on the water in the shower. Alex and Yu ran back down the stairs to the basement.

“Ah!” Yu said. “Too much water!” He seemed delighted with the flood. Or maybe he was just pleased that we had finally clarified the problem.

Yu worked for a while then emerged from the basement.

Mr. Yu: Okay, you call Lee.

Alex, puzzled, pointing to self: We should call Lee?

Mr. Yu: You call Lee!

Alex, puzzled, again pointing to self: I call Lee?

Mr. Yu, pointing to himself: No, no, Yu call Lee.

Who’s on first?

I’m not sure when the basement leakage will be fixed, but I do feel a bit better now that Mr. Yu has been here.

Icarus has a few more feathers:

Please say that you can see the progress. Even if you have to lie to me.

And I’ve been making my first efforts at Fair Isle knitting, with the help of the marvelous Kat from Woolcott:

Yes, it is embarrassing that I’ve been knitting since I was about six or seven and I still do almost nothing with multiple colors. But as you know, I’m sick right now. We can discuss the full shame of this multiple-color avoidance in depth at another time…

And now I must sign off so that I can swig some more DayQuil and make another pot of tea and sniffle quietly in the corner.

And yes, I would like some cheese with that whine. Thanks for asking.

I’ve realized why I like Denver so much: everyone here behaves exactly like they do in the Midwest. It feels like home. Except with a lot more spectacular landscape. (Sorry, Missouri. You’re beautiful too, but it’s hard to compete toe-to-toe with the Rockies.)

Example: I’m at Starbucks yesterday morning and this guy orders a grande half caf/half decaf vanilla latte with soy milk. The usual complicated early 21st-century American coffee order.

As an aside, I sometimes wonder if we were better off when we just had the choice between the stuff that came in the brown carafe and the stuff that came in the orange carafe. You know what I’m talking about here.

But you had choices even then. Sugar or saccharine.

Or, if you cared to, you could add half and half from those small white plastic containers with the rip-off paper tops. The tops that said, “Needs no chill,” right there bold as day. Proudly pronouncing their close and profitable relationship with homogenization and sodium citrate. And everyone was happy and life was simple.

Except that they weren’t and it wasn’t. So now we have complex coffee. Back to my story…

The man gets his complex coffee, he takes one sip, and he says to the barista, “You know, I hate to say this, but this just doesn’t taste right.”

The barista checks the order, then says, “No worries, I’ll make you another one.”

Then the guy says—and this is what makes me feel all warm inside—“I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a trouble causer.”

He doesn’t want to be a trouble causer. Isn’t that lovely?

Here’s a man who has obviously understood the basic tenets of Midwestern psychology and world view: you aren’t entitled to anything, you should be grateful for what you get even if it isn’t quite what you wanted, and if you put others to additional trouble you should acknowledge that you are a “trouble causer.”

As Garrison Keillor once said, “Life is what you make it. Make the best of it.”

You may remember that I lived in New York City for 7+ years and that I loved and still do love NYC. But I must say that no one in NYC would ever say to a barista, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a trouble causer.” (Unless he was visiting from Iowa.)

They don’t mind being trouble causers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And much though I love the city and I carry it in my heart everywhere and every day, I never really got used to that. I never ceased to be shocked by the average New Yorker’s willingness to be a trouble causer.

None of that here in Denver.

You may have noticed by now that there are very few pictures in this post. That’s because I’ve been spending almost all my time at the Denver Federal Center, home of our National Archive’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office and an array of other federal agencies, among them heavy hitters like Federal Homeland Security.

As you go into the Federal Center, which could be more accurately called an armed camp a “compound,” there is a large sign that says, “Visitors Welcome!”

And this is so true. The feds welcome you with open arms by eyeing you suspiciously, photocopying your government issued I.D., searching under the hood and in the trunk of your car for contraband, and running a mirror underneath your vehicle to look for suspended ordnance.

I don’t know about you, but that kind of special treatment certainly makes me feel like an honored guest!

So I have extrapolated from the behaviors of the Federal Welcome Wagon that it might not be the best idea to take photographs of the federal buildings. Photography of that sort could easily be classed as “suspicious behavior.”

When push comes to shove, I just don’t think they’re gonna buy my story about a so-called “knitting blog” and the need for exciting visuals. And I gotta tell you, I don’t want to cross these federal agents.

Because you know and I know where they are going to search next. And I do not mean my backpack.

Besides, I think that one guy on the morning shift already suspects that I am one of the key authors of the notorious terrorist plot: “Operation Addi Turbo.” (See here if you missed the details.)

Icarus, for his part, is refusing to be photographed until he is, “given a pair of loaded dice and put on a plane back to Vegas.” Unbelievable. I had to sneak up on him while he was sleeping in his bag:

The flash woke him up, but the howling and bitching was muffled by the heavy gauge plastic.

I’m actually quite ready to go back home, even though I’ve had a wonderful time on the road and my research has been extremely productive. For one thing, I’m sick of eating this paltry combination

for lunch because I’m trapped at the archive where there’s no food source within miles and I have no kitchen in which to produce a real bag lunch.

I never thought I’d say it, but I can’t wait to start doing my own cooking again.

I can hear your collective gasp echoing off the Rockies.

It’s also just a tad bit lonely at the hotel in the evening:

Note absence of men, dogs, and all other carbon-based life forms. I’d even welcome a charmless cat at this stage.

Besides, when you are on the road, you constantly have to demand service of various kinds. You have to bug people for directions, you have to order complex coffees, you have to request special itemized receipts, you have to impose yourself and your semi-suspicious vehicle upon federal agents who don’t want you around, and so on and so forth.

By the strict Midwestern definition, you have to be a trouble causer. In spite of all the places I’ve lived and everywhere I’ve wandered, at the end of the day, I’m still a Midwesterner.

And there’s nothing I hate more than being a trouble causer.

Next week, from Boston…

Words cannot express how much I wish I could claim that I came up with that pun, but alas, I cannot be so deceitful. Here in lovely Denver, Colorado,

there is a wonderful radio station at 101.5 on your FM dial (I do not know its call letters, but I’d put my money on KMRT) that goes by “Martini on the Rockies.”

Normally, I don’t have a lot of truck with commercial radio, but Martini on the Rockies is something else altogether. It’s as if you had a really, really cool friend who called you up and said, “Hey, baby, why don’t you come over and we’ll spin some discs?” But it’s on the radio. Available in your car!

Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger.

Anyone at all singing Mac the Knife.

Elvis Costello singing Let’s Misbehave.

And then, just to keep you on your toes, a little Chris Isaak or Sarah McLachlan.

At least eighteen times an hour, the DJs work “Martini on the Rockies” into their patter. But to me, the joke never gets old. Every time, I think, “How unbearably clever. I wish I’d thought of that.”

Martini on the Rockies pretty much captures my whole sense about Denver. It’s cool and mellow and sophisticated and witty and beautiful. Here’s the view from my room:

I am considering taking up residence here. I shall change my name to Eloïse and order every meal from room service.

There are abundant fountains,

prairie dogs that are disturbingly tame,

city parks that look like this,

and creeks with exploratory children:

It’s nothing short of idyllic. I really have no complaints. If it weren’t for significant sentimental attachments back East, I might see if they’d hire me on at the hotel or the archive and simply stay.

This research is good, and Icarus is coming along (though he misses his life in Vegas):

Beware! If you fly too near the sun, you’ll end up in the suburbs of Denver.

As they say on 101.5 FM, a martini is not a drink. It’s an attitude. What a cool (although almost totally empty and meaningless) thing to say!

Martini on the Rockies. Dry. With three olives.

Cheers!

I’ve been here in Vegas for a week now and the pyramid is starting to feel like home.

If you lived here, you’d be a dead pharaoh home by now!

The Luxor really is special. It really is. You might not know it, but at night they turn on these huge klieg lights at the top of the pyramid to create a massive shaft of light that rises up into the night sky, a column of white light that is a beacon to all those who have lost their way, who stumble in the darkness without a slot machine or a cocktail to call their own.

My friend Jen e-mailed me to call my attention to the fact that the Luxor light attracts a “solid column of very large, buzzing, flapping bugs, stretching towards the sky.”

I checked last night after dark and you know, she’s right! Oh, what a magical sight!

Next to a solid column of roiling and swarming mega-insects, these other casinos, with their phoney-baloney Statues of Liberty,

Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to bet their entire life savings at the blackjack table and take in a topless show!

their fake castles,

That is so not a real castle, dude.

and their cheesy knock-off Eiffel Towers,

Ceci n’est pas une Tour Eiffel.

just don’t measure up. Hey, when those places can show me the bugs, then we’ll talk. Until then, I’m hanging out with Cleopatra.

Cleo and I have been doing a little knitting:

This is actually the Fetal Icarus. The previous one was embryonic, but I didn’t realize that at the time.

I’ve discovered that if you take your knitting down to the poker tables, all the guys seriously underestimate you and you can really clean up. Something to keep in mind for your next trip to Vegas!

Of course, there’s more to Vegas than just gambling. There’s also the

Thunder from Down Under Show Atomic Testing Museum, conveniently located near where I am working and highly educational regarding chiselled pecs and abs an important chapter of this great nation’s history. (Hi Alex!)

I was able to pick up a couple of nice picture postcards from the Atomic Testing Museum shop, which features all sorts of strange and wonderful products having to do with nuclear weapons and the Nevada Test Site:

Irradiating the bejeezus out of Utah since 1951!

Look close. There’s a different mushroom cloud in every letter. Someone, at least, has stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.

Well, I gotta tell you, today I got nothing.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  Plus I’m feeling just a little cranked out over this whole “back to school” idea.  My free days are growing short and I’m beginning to feel a little frantic, running around madly trying to cram in as much relaxation and fun as possible into these last precious days of summer.  That can make a girl tense and prone to snap at her loved ones.

So, in lieu of true blog content, I offer these photos of the day.

                                                                                         Harvey, with his brand-new backpack laden with brand-new school supplies.  He’s ready.

                                     Hugo, who says, “I don’t really want you to go back to school.  I like it when you’re home all day.”  I do too, Mr. Puppy, I do too.

                                   My progress on the Nicola cardigan.  I’m coming along on that first sleeve.  I think I’ll make these 3/4 length.  Also, I decided to finish all the edges on this thing with applied I-cord.  I know that I will want to stick a pin in my eye regret this decision 5 minutes after I start the I-cord and discover that I’ve only knitted 1/4 inch of it and then do a quick mental calculation of how long it will take me to go around the whole durned edge at that rate.  Good times ahead.

                                      Brown wool and chocolate angora combed together.  I want to spin this up real, real bad.  But first I must finish spinning this:

                                            Lime green superwash wool that I’m spinning to a sockweight 2-ply.  I have a plan for this which involves planting little tufts of the combed waste fiber into the 2-ply as I ply it.  Won’t that be fun?  (Picture the tufted yarn as the sock cuffs with some plain 2-ply for the feet.)

And finally,

                                               Rob.  With an egg. 

‘Cause nothing’s sexier than a man holding a hard-boiled egg.

First, let me say thanks to Alex for his thought-provoking post yesterday.  I’m going to have to read it again just to make sure I have a good grasp of all the salient points!

Yesterday I started washing the lamb’s wool I got from John.  When I wash my wool, I do it in my kitchen sink; I used to wash fleece in my washing machine, but then we got a front-loading washer, and it doesn’t work so well for washing fleece, although it’s a gem in all other ways.  But I digress.  I put the wool in lingerie bags and wash it in the hottest water that will come out of the tap.  (Pretty hot.)  I add some plain old laundry detergent to the water.  (Purex Free and Clear in my case.)

First wash:

 

I soak this for about 20-30 minutes. Then I pull it out of that water, gently squeeze as much dirty water as I can from the bags of wool, run another sink full of very hot water, add detergent, add wool, and soak for another 20-30 minutes.  Second wash:

 

Repeat the above procedure, sans detergent.  (We’re rinsing now.)  First rinse:

Repeat squeezing, running water, soaking, etc. for a second rinse.  (I didn’t take a picture of that one since it looks much the same.)  Then I put the bags into my washing machine for just the spin cycle (very important) and spin all the excess water out.  Finally, I hang them up to dry, outside if at all possible.

And I get this:

                                   (That’s Rob’s finger poking into the shot.)

I love wool.

I worked on my Blue Bamboo swatches yesterday as well, but first I had to (you guessed it) rip out the old ones.  I rethought and redesigned the leaf motif for the back of the sweater, so it grows organically out of the bamboo stitch and is no longer applied as a separate piece.  This was quite a feat of charting, let me tell you.

I also fiddled a bit with the leaf edging. 

As you can see, the edging is still on the needles.  I’m still thinking about how to finish this edging.  I woke up this morning with a cool idea in my head:  wouldn’t it be great to face the edging with a lighter-weight, slinky yarn like rayon?  Kind of like a lining in a jacket.  A visit to the stash seems in order.