Roughing It on My Birthday

Today is my birthday, which I share with Mark Twain. He is the best and funniest writer ever, and in keeping with an annual tradition of this blog, I'd like to share with you all my favorite chapters of my favorite of his books: Chapters 31, 32, & 33 of Roughing It. Just type in 213 in the Google Books page box and keep reading until you either reach page 233, or your eyes are blinded with tears of laughter.

Light My Fire

Tonight we went out and had a few drinks, then came home, lit a fire, and turned on the music. Who's better, the Doors, or José Feliciano when it comes down to Light My Fire? We vote for José. Señor Feliciano makes the song reveberate with our memories of 1969, a very strange year.

Workbasket Full of Buttons

My brother found this giant pile of The Workbasket at a book fair recently, and graciously bought the whole lot for me. Now I have the promise of countless hours of happy perusing through hideous 70s craftiness to bolster my spirits. The only thing better than free junk is uncovering a box full of buttons you forgot you even had.

Happy Blending

It's a rotten, rainy, gloomy day and here are a few of the things I've Googled in between knitting like a fiend, eating potato chips, and watching The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: Lady Jane Grey (The Nine Day Queen), Ariat Storm Stopper Jodhpur Boots, Anthropologie switchplates, & Louis Sullivan. Too lazy to warm up the scanner, so I'm posting this back cover of Romantic Range, which I had stored in my "Blog Folder". Whisky for cowgirls is thawing and revitalizing on chilly wet days, so this ad is selling the sold. The bonus is the lesson in economics, which paraphrases Dickens's prescription for a good life: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." I better quit visiting Anthropologie online.

Frosty Thoughts

The self portrait I took with my Mac was the only shot of eleven that didn't show blotchy skin, eye bags, or a myriad of other sags. Note the careful positioning of the hands, and the use of lighting to smooth away wrinkles. Usually I could care less about getting old and dumpy, but that's only because I don't go out in public much anymore! This shot shows me in my workroom thinking about my next knitting design. I really love designing my own stuff, because then there's so much less angst over mistakes. In fact, "mistakes" often lead to a serendipitous discovery of some cool new way to shape, as in the Yule Capelet I made for my Scottish yarn supplier. I "misplaced" the back panels but the wrap looks really nifty on, ruffly and Edwardian. Also featured is an arm-warmer made with yarn from same supplier in the Autumn Blackthorn colorway and the ZigglyZag hat chart, only with no "knit plain" rounds, and M1s instead of YOs. I find it really annoying to do zig-zagging stitch patterns 2-at-a-time-on-1-Magic-Loop, so who knows how long it will be before I make the other arm's ....

Hearth and Home

Last night my husband Buster and I went to the City Museum for a party sponsored by The Riverfront Times in celebration of their 2009 Best of St. Louis issue. Since I wrote a few blurbs for this, we got to go to the VIP area and taste some marvelous 17th Street Grill Barbeque without waiting in line. The City Museum qualifies as one of the coolest places on earth, and an opportunity to go there for free after dark is something to be jumped on. So we jumped, and wandered around watching people, playing pinball, enjoying the amazing exhibits, and swilling rotten wine out of paper cups. A favorite exhibit was the Urban Archaeology one, where interesting stuff dug up out of old privy holes is on display: face-shaped ceramic pipe bowls, china dolls, bottles, marbles, and of course, chamber pots. Seeing these artifacts made town life of 150+ years ago seem so human! Then we went out to dinner at the Missouri Athletic Club and had even more fun. I realized driving home through the grunge of the city's ripped back side, then on across the McKinley Bridge, that I've been feeling exiled ever since I gave up my pièd à terre on the South Side five years ago. Sometimes it takes me a while to figure things out! I lived in cities for 40 years before moving to Ex-Urbia. I'd always thought of myself as a country-loving environmentalist but I'm just not. If I only had to look at old buildings and concrete for the rest of my life I'd be much happier than if I could only see trees. To realize this has been a Major Psychological Breakthrough. There's no history in the country. Correction: there's no history I care about in the country. You can have your barn-raisings and quilting bees and crystal meth trailers. So, the goal for the next year is to come up with a long term strategy to get us out of exile. We're only 40 minutes from the Arch, and it's Pretty, but I guess I just love Ugly! (The image above is an old linen tea towel I found at The Salvation Army.)

Time to Fit in a Nap

I went to Nautilus today to try and get back into some semblance of a shape after weeks and weeks of inactivity. My fingers are super fit from knitting, but those are practically the only muscles in my body I've been using since the summer! It felt great to use other parts of the physique again — I even did 20 minutes on the tread-climber, an exercise in mind-numbing boredom unalleviated by music. Must bring the iPod next time. I'm determined to get my inner and outer strong lady back so I can not only lug the required 100 pounds of Ice Melter up and down our hill again this winter, but survive the mental stress of bad weather. After working out I felt super perky and even ate salad with sardines for lunch, but crashed shortly thereafter from the trauma of all those good intentions followed through on. Naps. I love naps, and am very skilled at taking them. So here we have the image of a crazy quilt from the Alton Museum of History and Art, to symbolize napping.