These are the rose pictures that I really meant to post this morning, but couldn’t because I stupidly didn’t upload the actual pictures. I tell you, my mind just keeps getting leakier and leakier. Maybe I need a vacation? At any rate, click the pics for the close-ups.

This is the Apothecary’s rose, R. R. gallica officinalis. This is the oldest gallica rose still in cultivation. It was brought to France from Damascus during the Crusades in the 13th century. Used extensively for medicinal purposes it became a symbol of pharmacology. As “The Red Rose Of Lancaster,” it figured prominently in the War Of The Roses during the 15th century. (The House of York used a white rose, R. alba as its symbol.) There are roses that are showier, yes, but I appreciate its history, its medicinal value and, since I don’t spray, its hardiness. (My garden can be a good example of surviving under extreme odds.)

This is the David Austin rose Jude The Obscure. It’s the most beautiful pale yellow changing to apricot in the center. It’s one of the most fragrant roses I know of, with a scent that is sort of fruity, vanilla-ish, rosy. Before this flower even opened, I could smell it from my back door — a good 15 feet away. One blossom can perfume an entire room.

Like many David Austin roses, Jude is hardy and disease resistant.

And besides, there just aren’t that many roses named with my name!

This is one of my very favorite roses ever — Eyepaint — one of the McGredy “hand-painted” roses. It seems to be getting hard to find, since I had to go to Canada to get it, and I think that’s a shame. It deserves to be more widely grown. A floribunda, it covers itself with smallish flowers for a long blooming period.

This picture is a little washed out, at least on my monitor. The petals are actually a very bright fire-engine red with a white center. The reverse of the petals is white, so when the bush is loaded and a breeze blows the blossoms appear to be winking on and off. It always looks so cheerful when I see it out in my garden. I think of it as a “lift your spirits” rose.

The roses I planted this spring are blooming, finally. I took some great pictures of flowers this weekend, but since I forgot to upload them to the site server this morning, I won’t be able to post them until later.

On the knitting front, I’ve started on new socks for E, and managed to complete about 2″. I’ve shaped the armholes for the sweater and I have about 6″ left to knit on the two fronts and the back. I decided to use a sort of tweedy pattern for my bright Cascade socks, and I’ve cast on and knit most of the toes in bright pink.

Of course I totally forgot to bring the socks for E today. They are pouting on their shelf and I am knitless during lunch.

I’ve written before about Queen Kahuna’s Crazy Toes & Heels book. I like some of her techniques, but others I’m less wild about. I love the way she increases at the beginning of her toes, for example, but I’m less wild about her cast-on because it leaves purl bumps on the outside. I’m a fan of the figure-eight cast on, which is pretty much invisible with no “cute little purl bumps” at all and no grafting.

It just seemed to me that there should be a way to combine the figure-8 cast-on with the Queen Kahuna quick-increase method. I’m working on it. I cast on E’s socks using a combined method followed by the Queen Kahuna “fan toe.” I’m fairly well pleased with the result. But I think I can do better. If I come up with a method I really like, I’ll post the results if there is interest.

On a totally separate note, fireworks started in my neighborhood at about 6:00 last night, and went non-stop until about 1:30 this morning. Completely non-stop. My street looks like a war zone. I saw things that were in no way even close to being legal. And I saw a lot of people doing really stupid and unsafe things. Luckily nobody was hurt and no buildings were burned down. I’m a fan of fireworks, too — but enough is enough. Next year, how about a little common sense?

I was a very good girl and knit on the mermaid socks while waiting for my oil to be changed. I got about an inch more done. It was enough to see that, while the pattern was nice, the gauge was just not right.

Mermaid socks have been banished to the frog pond.

I’ve started over on E’s socks. There’s a nice lace pattern that I’ve been wanted to try and E seems like a lace person to me. I swatched some of it this morning and I think it will work.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Maybe there’s just something about this yarn that I wasn’t meant to knit.

I had promised myself, and the mermaid socks, that I would definitely take them to work yesterday so I could knit a few rounds at lunch. So, as you can imagine, I kicked myself when I got a few blocks from home and realized they were still sitting on the shelf where I’d left them the day before (and the day before that).

Ordinarily this would be no big deal. I’d just turn around and buzz back home and have those socks in a jiffy. Except, you see, my entire neighborhood is under construction. Well, OK, not the entire neighborhood. But there is only one arterial out of my neighborhood, and it’s under major construction. To get out I have to go through two flaggers and wait interminably while various large pieces of heavy equipment bang and crash around me. Even a trip to the grocery store is rather more “excitement” than I care for.

So the decision to go back and get the socks was not made lightly. But I’d promised myself (and the socks). So go back I did.

Thus absolutely guarantying that I would have no time yesterday to take a lunch.

The socks remained in my drawer untouched, and whined every time I opened it. But I loaded them up at the end of the day for the trip back home, and I did managed to work a few rounds last night before I fell asleep. (No progress was made after my eyes closed, although I have been known to knit, badly, while dozing.)

And now, horrors of horrors, I am afraid that the gauge is going to be wrong and the socks are going to be too big. I had hoped that the mermaid pattern would pull in enough to make for a snug fit, but I’m just not far enough along to really tell if it will work out that way. E’s feet are even smaller than mine, and I’m using mine for comparison. And if they’re too big on me…

Is this a lesson in why you shouldn’t try out completely new patterns when making presents for someone? ahhhhh…

I have to get my oil changed after work today, and knitting is more interesting that anything else in a waiting room. Hopefully I’ll get far enough up the instep to really see the fit. But I may be knitting along on socks that I’m going to end up frogging out.

What would you do?

There’s a special report on the TV right now that Sandra Day O’Connor has retired from the Supreme Court effective as soon as her replacement is named.

This could be a very interesting fight coming up.

Bush will be speaking some time after 8:00 AM PDT.