Life is such a study in contrasts, is it not?

There isn’t much knitting news from me, because there hasn’t been much knitting. I’ve managed to add about 10 rows to Sock Scarf Two over the last four days. That’s it. 10 rows.

In vaguely related news, I noticed that the new Knitty is out, and one of the patterns included is for a sock hat. I just may have to knit one of those to go with Sock Scarf Two. 😆

And why have I not been knitting, you may ask? Therein lies a techie tale…

On Friday I upgraded some of the software on #1 Son’s computer, and I had a heck of a time reading anything on his monitor. After briefly wondering if my poor, old eyes were finally going completely blind, I realized that his monitor was finally giving up the ghost.

I bought that monitor about 12 years ago, or maybe more, from a store that will remain nameless to protect the idiots. It’s a 17″ NEC, and at that time it was quite bleeding edge and very expensive. As I recall the average street price was about $750 — a large sum for a CRT monitor. I wasn’t looking for that particular monitor, as it was well out of my price range. But I needed a monitor, and I needed one rather quickly. Nameless Store had quite a good selection, and I looked at a lot of monitors that were more in my range. But they were all smaller and didn’t have as many features. Knowing that the NEC was out of reach, even though it had no price tag on it, I still asked the sales guy about it.

Oh, that one. he said. Someone brought that back. It’s the only one we have. We don’t have a box for it, although we will of course honor the full warranty. I’ve got the software and the manual right here. Don’t know what the price is. Would $300 be acceptable?

Trying very hard to keep a straight face, I allowed that $300 sounded reasonable, gave the guy my money, wrapped the thing up in a blanket and loaded it in my car. It’s been serving me faithfully ever since, and was passed down to #1 Son about 6 years ago when I bought a new computer that came with a monitor. (Note that this was several computers ago. The ones we’re using now I built.)

So I’ve definitely gotten more than my money’s worth from #1 Son’s monitor, and from mine for that matter. But I could see that the time had come to bid the old NEC a fond farewell and buy a new monitor.

For me, that is. I may be altruistic in some things, but not technology. I get the stuff that rocks. #1 Son gets the hand-me-downs (which are always more than serviceable, so don’t assume he’s getting ripped off).

Saturday, after lunch with M, I went to the local Compusa in search of a monitor. I found a lovely Viewsonic 19″ LCD with 8ms video response time. And there was a Radeon X850 video card on sale that I dithered about, but in the end went for. And there was this 7.2 MP Casio Z750 camera the size of a deck of cards that also takes MPEG4 movies…

Yeah, it was not a cheap trip. Christmas came just a little early to the PI household. But I showed restraint. Even though I thought hard about it, I did not replace my dead CD burner. I can live with one DVD burner if I have to.

Saturday evening was spent with hardware. Click here for the blow-by-blow:

As far back as I can remember, my mother baked peppernuts at Christmas.

My mother came from a long line of Irish-American women who married Irish-American men. And, true to form, my father was also of Irish-American descent. My grandma (mamma’s mom) thought outside the envelope and fell in love with a German who had come from the “old country.” (I also married a man of German extract, but, unfortunately, not as happily as Grandma did.) Grandpa really loved the spicy little Christmas cookies that his family had made. And that is how a German Christmas cookie came to be a tradition in an Irish-American household.

I’ve seen many recipes for peppernuts, aka pfefferneuse, over the years, but none like the ones Grandma and Mama used to bake. Most recipes call for the cookies to be rolled in powdered sugar prior to baking or frosted afterwards. Mama would have none of that. No time she said when I asked. And, indeed, even sans sugar and frosting, these cookies are not quick to make.

Mama usually started in September. And she baked thousands of cookies. Thousands. All through the Christmas season there were little bowls of peppernuts scattered around the house. The cookie jar was always full of them. And, best of all (in my opinion) the fridge was full of chilling dough. I can still hear Mama to her resident cookie-dough-monster (me): “Leave my peppernut dough alone!” The cookies are so small that a dozen are barely a handful, and so crunchy and spicy that they will keep for a long time (if hidden from those who would otherwise eat them).

The dough for Peppernuts is very stiff. Grandma always mixed hers by hand (I think she kneaded it ), but Mama used a mixer. She burned several mixer out before I finally bought her a heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer one year for Christmas. The next year, Mama told me, “I love the mixer you gave me. Even peppernut dough hasn’t been able to kill it.”

Mama always included peppernuts in the Christmas boxes sent to far-flung relations. I can vividly remember the first Christmas that I was not able to come home for the holidays. Instead of using styrofoam peanuts as packing around the contents in my “Christmas box,” Mama used baggies full of peppernuts. She knew how to make home come to me when I was absent from it.

M has requested the peppernut recipe, and I have obliged. Follow the link to the recipe. Hopefully M will share! (Are you reading this, M?) If not, I may have to make a batch myself.

This (sucky) cell phone shot shows how far I am with Sock Scarf Two. I just turned the heels last night, and haven’t had much knitting time today. One thing about US#10-1/2 needles, it goes fast.

I’ve taken a different approach with this one than with Sock Scarf One. You will recall that One was knit from toe to toe — one “sock” being knit toe up and the other “sock” knit top down. In the middle where the two “socks” meet, I knit a round of purls, and then offset the ribbing so that it looks like they’re seamed together a little crookedly.

Sock Scarf Two is being knit just like socks, two at a time on double circs. When the socks are 1/2 as long as I’d like the total length of the scarf to be, I’ll graft them together.

One very nice thing about knitting long, multicolored tubes: the yarn ends don’t need to be woven in. Nobody will be able to see them.

In other news, the recent Homeland Security decision to allow airline passengers to carry small scissors has been criticized by some airline pilots, flight attendants and the families of 911 victims. It has been greeted with wild enthusiasm by knitters everywhere.

Nival is the word today from A.Word.A.Day It means of, growing in, or relating to, snow.

Snow.

That substance that we have none of, here in Stumptown. That white, sometimes fluffy stuff that the PDX news media was all over yesterday like hornets on your best BBQ’d steak.

I admit I took some perverse pleasure in hearing the news teasers go from “Stormwatch 2005” to “Snow: How much, how soon?” to “The storm will miss us but another one is coming!” to “OK, not this time.” I did think a little too much time was devoted to reporters standing out in the rain in the usual places (Troutdale, the Sylvan overpass, etc.), saying “it’s raining.” But, then, I usually think that too much time is devoted to reporters standing out in the usual places saying, “It’s snowing/sleeting/icing/hailing.”

I wasn’t too worried myself. My favorite weather predictor is NOAA’s NWS Northwest River Forecast Center 10 Day Temperature & Precipitation Info. Don’t let the name “River Forecast Center” put you off. The link goes to a set of maps of the entire Northwest region that forecast minimum and maximum temperatures and precipitation for the next 10 days. The current day’s precipitation is further broken down in 6-hour steps. And at the bottom is a map comparing the prediction from the previous day with the actual observations. They are almost always more accurate than local news, and often beat The Weather Channel.

The forecast is currently showing that PDX will not drop below freezing until next Tuesday, and there is no precipitation expected at that time — i.e. clear and cold overnight, but above freezing later in the day. So I’m still not worried.

Weather Channel. is predicting high 47, low 40, rain for next Tuesday.
The Weather Underground and Hamweather (makers of the software that runs the weather in the left-hand sidebar) both predict high 45, low 35, partly cloudy with a slight chance of rain.
the NWRFC shows high between 40 and 50, low between 20 and 32, no rain.
It will be interesting to see who’s closer this far out to what actually happens.

I’m not worried. I’ll just keep knitting away on Sock Scarf Two. Even at the rate I finish projects, it should be finished in plenty of time!