Journal to a Muse

Knitting Olympic Update
Renewed hope, but major deductions anticipated by (Inner) judges.
Team member WAY farther back in the pack than anticipated.



The Inner Judge could hardly believe her eyes at the errors made in Sock 2, Pair 1.
1. A wonky place in the bottom of the heel. A mystifying intersection of a yo, and K2tog created what would seem to be a fork in the road, where it should have been a straight away.
2. A dropped stitch in the vicinity of the gusset. How did that little bugger get away from her?
3. Is a better recovery than expected. The plain brown yarn which we hope will remain inside DH's shoe, is a remarkably close match to the brown of the Cherry tree Hill Farm yarn. The gauge is slightly smaller, but extra rounds can easily be added so that both socks are the same size.

Yesterday, when the CTH yarn gave out, Intrepid knitter kept herself busy by casting on Sock 1, Pair 2. This is also a Cherry Tree Hill Yarn, but since IK's feet are somewhat smaller than DH, she hopes there will be enough yarn. She is going to use K2P2 ribbing at the very top, and then switch to a garter rib. She is optimistic that this, combined with fewer stitches cast on, will speed up the knitting somewhat.





Just in case it didn't, she stocked up on supplies for Team Chocolate.










Warning: Political Content
This knitter, self-professed champion of free speech and challenger of censorship since her "old librarian days" has been concerned and confused by the flaps and counter flaps about the political cartoons drawn in Denmark (the country of at least some of her foremothers). She had rather thought that political cartoons were intended to point out problems, hypocracy, stupidity and were thus predictably offensive to somebody most of the time. It had never occured to her that there were places where not only was it taboo to point out problems, but that in some of those places they would be glad to, um, kill the messenger. (Actually, when you put it like that it sounds too familiar.)

Well, if you want to see the second wave of political cartoons which illuminate even more of the free speech, victimized perpetrators and perpetrating victims, you can go here. The Economist Magazine (which I thought was a reliable source for the European View) has an article about the issues. Pick it up on the newsstand, or subscribe here. But at least one commentator thinks that The Economist has been hoodwinked by Bush administration stringers. And another, definitely a rabble rousing left-of-center gadfly bunch, points out the self-serving twists in the administrations remarks.
If only SOME people get to say what they think is true, where is there hope for Democracy? for progress? for Truth?

On a much lighter note, I stayed up til the wee hours finishing C. Ahern's first book, PS, I Love You. How this woman (who was merely 21 years old at the time) can write so tenderly of love, loss, grief and starting over is amazing to me. Who knew that traveling with a young widow and her wild friends and eccentric family could have so much charm.
Ms. Ahern. may not stay on reading lists as long as Dickens or Dostoyevsky, but she comes much closer than either of them to describing what it is like for a young woman to adjust to loss in the 21st century.
I enjoyed her following novel about Rosie just as much (even though I read it first), and am completely confident in my anticipation of reading her latest hardcover: If You Could See Me Now.
Skip these if you only read Joan Didion or Sontag... but race to the store or library if you like Maeve Binchy, Debbie Macomber and any other contemporary British/Irish story tellers. Oh, and if you know any other authors in that vein, let me know, OK?