strange flower

My camellia starts blooming around Christmas, and is done by the end of February. It’s bright and cheery pink flowers always lift my spirit when I see them through my kitchen and dining room windows during the dark, gloomy winter days. Each flower stays pink through its life. Then in the end they drop off whole and the ground around the bush is littered with pink and brown globes.

This year it’s continued to bloom, and it’s just finishing up now. This year, most of the flowers did their usual thing. Except for this one. I don’t know if it was because of the warm days followed by cold and wet again. But, this one turned orange. I was so surprised when I saw it that I ran out in the rain and snapped a picture.

It’s gone now. It didn’t leave in the normal way, either. The petals dropped off one by one, and the base of the flower is still on the tree.

Very strange.

I’m about 1/2 way up the legs on the clown barf stripy socks. Stay tuned for knitting news.

In techie news, I have upgraded to WordPress 2.5. Can’t say I’m entirely pleased with the admin panels. I had to hack the life out of the new media uploader and the write panels to make them usable. But there are other things I do like about it. So the jury is out. I’m used to hacking WP. But the previous release (2.3) finally incorporated most of my changes. Now I’m back at square one. Ah well.

I’ve looked at it under IE 7, Firefox and Safari and it looks OK. Let me know if you find anything broken.

Yes, I know that’s bad grammar, but we seem to be stuck with it culturally. Don’t you ever wonder who the person is who recorded that little sound bite for AOL, and why they couldn’t say you have mail? But I digress.

Sometimes (usually) I’ve got mail, and sometimes I don’t.

Last Friday my mail was moved from one server to another. Although I’ve been promised that no mail would ever, ever, ever be lost… well… I don’t have a lot of confidence since the last time such a move occurred mail was lost.

So, if you sent me any email last Friday or after and have not heard back from me, please resend. I would hate to think that anyone would feel ignored.

I also pulled the plug on something that I think was causing the blog to load slowly. Hopefully it will be peppier now.

Pacific Northwest Shawl

There was a brief moment of sun during the dark Pacific Northwest winter, and it was at the right angle to reach my yard, so I ran out and snapped some pictures of the Pacific Northwest Shawl. Light in Portland in the winter is an uncommon phenomenon. And my house is on the north side of a mountain. The top of the mountain is at just the right height to block the sun for most of the cold months. Very early morning and late afternoon are about the only times I might get light. If it’s not raining. The front yard gets a little sun, where it’s not in the shadow of the house. My yard in the winter is a cold, gloomy, damp and gray place.

I’m from a part of the country where gloom is not normal. In southeastern Idaho, rain in the summer was unusual. It snowed in the winter. But it was usually bright and sunny after the snow passed. Sometimes there would be cloudy days. But in the winter, even when cloudy it’s bright because the sky is white and the snow is white and there’s a lot of light (although not much in the way of shadows, effectively killing depth perception). The first winter I lived in Portland, it was so dark and drab. I got used to seeing the world in black and white and gray. When the sun came out in the spring, I couldn’t believe what a bright thing color was! I’d never had anything to contrast it with before. I’ve never taken it for granted again.

up close and personal

But I digress.

Here’s a closeup of the Pacific Northwest Shawl.

Taking these fence shots was actually fairly interesting, as the day was breezy. The PNWS weighs almost nothing. It contains less than 2 oz. of yarn (maybe 50 grams). It’s held against the fence mostly by the wind — I’m not kidding here. There’s nothing holding it up. The top edge is resting against the ends of the lattice uprights. But that’s it.

The breezes had a fun time rippling it and playing with the edges. I had to wait for brief breeze intermissions to take pictures that might (hopefully) be in focus.

No, I’m not going to indicate the area that had to be mended because of the stitches that dropped during blocking. If you can’t see it… well, that’s sort of the point, isn’t it?

http://www.fibertrends.com/viewer/patterns/S2000.html

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Skacel Merino Lace, 100% Merino lace weight, in color 165 Emerald
• Needles: US#6, various brands over the long, long lifespan of this project
• Pattern: Pacific Northwest Shawl by Fibertrends

Remember me? I’m the one that used to have time to knit and used to have time to blog. Once upon a time, there were new things to read here more than once a week or so.

I’m taking my life back! ❗

Thank you to all who commiserated with me about my long-long-ago report card. I did get over it eventually. As I tell #1 Son (and repeated just the other day), it is possible to rise above the unfortunate events of your childhood. (No, you don’t have to be late just because your mother always occasionally is. You, as an adult, can learn to do better and be on time!)

My childhood, for the most part, was a reasonably happy one.

The Plan B class has been taken several times and passed several times and the best results handed in. Ahem. Other yearly stuff that means nothing here is now wrapped up and in the hopper, and I should be back to just the normal level of madness.

And I have been knitting.

stripy feet

Look! I’ve turned the heels on the Clown Barf (note to self: find a better name for these) stripy socks.

And I’d like to talk a little bit about colors.

Yes, I know the title says this is going to be about heels. Hang with me, gentle reader, and we’ll get there.

I don’t hate these socks. In fact, as they’re knitting up I think they look just fine. I’m not going to wax rhapsodic over their delights. But they’re OK and I think the intended recipient will like them well enough.

But here’s the thing. I just had to add this yarn to my collection because, in the skein, the colors were so gorgeous and vibrant that it just jumped out at me. Even in the ball, the colors are lovely.

But knitted up? Not so much. The colors combined in the stripes in such a way that they look… muddy. The gorgeous brightness is totally lost.

But look at the heels!

lovely colorful heels

Here. We’ll take a closer look. Pop up both of the pictures so you can really see the difference. Go head. I’ll wait right here.

On the heels, you can see why I fell in love with this yarn. With each color spanning multiple rows, the intense little hits of color really pop.

I want the rest of the socks to look like the heels. I’m resigned. I know it won’t happen. But for the other skein that I have (slightly different colorway but still bright), I’m thinking… entrelac. I do appreciate all of the suggestions for how to fix the color. I think with entrelac, even if the colors shift in the middle of a diamond, those hits of color will really show up.

But we’re talking about color and I really meant to talk about heels.

Nice heels, eh? I’m quite taken with how they look. I should be. I knit the $#@% heels 3 times.

I go through the same process every time I knit short row heels. I say to myself, Self, you are, in some ways, an experienced knitter. At times you are even an advanced knitter. You can conquer that pesky wrap-and-turn! Go for it!

I then proceed to knit standard short row heels with wraps and turns. And I get holes. And the heels gets bumpy and icky inside. And there are little hard bits. And sometimes the wraps show. And there are holes.

I’ve tried multiple ways of doing the wrap. Regular wraps. And YO wraps. And even Japanese short-rows which leave the wrap unwrapped until it’s picked up.

It doesn’t matter. I get holes and icky hard bits, etc.

Eventually I give up, because despite evidence to the contrary I can be taught, and I do Sherman heels. And they always look lovely. And I wonder why I keep putting myself through such grief.

Are there any knitting techniques that you just can’t seem to master?

I’ve never been fond of report cards. When I was a kid, I hated bringing my report card home for my parents to sign. And it wasn’t that my grades were bad or anything, usually. I just always dreaded it.

I think it stems from my very first report card. The principle of the grade school (private, Catholic, nuns, etc.), was also the first grade teacher. Before handing out our very first report cards, Sister explained to all of the children in my class what report cards were and that we were to take them home to our parents for their signature. And, she added, if her signature weren’t on our report card, that meant that she needed to meet with our parents because we were poor students and not doing well in school and something needed to be done.

Then she passed out our report cards.

And mine was not signed.

I was so afraid to show it to my parents. I held my six-year-old self together pretty well until school ended and I got to Mama’s car. Can I see your report card? Mama asked. And then I lost it. Totally. I started sobbing inconsolably because I’d flunked. I was a poor student and not doing well in school and something needed to be done.

What’s that matter? Mama asked.

I’m a [sob] b-b-b-b-ad st-st-student. You and daddy have to m-m-m-eet with S-s-s-s-ister [sniff] ‘c-c-c-ause I’m not doing w-w-w-w-ell. [sob sniff sob]

This is a very good report card! Mama said. You got all A’s and B’s. You did fine!

B-b-b-but it’s [sob sob sob] NOT SIGNED! and Sister said that meant [sniff sob] it was BAD!

Telling my younger brother and the neighbor kids to stay in the car or else — we carpooled in the days before seatbelts, so there were a gaggle of children in our station wagon — Mama marched me into Sister’s office and demanded to know why my card wasn’t signed.

I must have just missed it when I was signing the stack. Sister said. Of course Judy is doing fine! I will sign her card right now.

Even though Mama explained to me several times that she knew I had not actually flunked because my grades were OK, I’m not sure I felt much better or ever really believed, deep down, that it had all been a mistake. And there was that lower mark for Deportment. I did so like to chat with my little first grade friends — usually when Sister thought we should be learning something.

Traumatized, I tell you gentle reader, and scarred for life.

So you will understand why I was not looking forward to taking a test this week. A test that I stupidly made a goal on which I will be evaluated at work. A test that, I learned after making it a goal, was both extremely hard and not very relevant to what I’m doing.

Oh. Great.

Now, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I’m a pretty good test taker, especially if the test is multiple choice. With those tests, there are usually a couple of choices that are obviously not correct, so it’s not all that hard to pick out the right answer. But I haven’t taken tests for a long time. So I studied really, really hard (that’s part of where I’ve been instead of here). Yesterday I arrived promptly at the test-taking site, where all of my worldly possessions were locked up because this was not an open book test and I was escorted to a room with cameras where I would be monitored for the entire time. And it was hard. It was probably one of the hardest tests I’ve ever taken. The multiple choice questions said pick two or pick three. And they all looked wrong. Or they all look right. Sometimes they even all looked the same. I marked a bunch of questions for review, and then went back and changed them. Which I think may, in retrospect, not have been the smartest thing to do.

Technology is such a wonderful thing. I got my grade right away.

I missed passing by three questions out of 86. [sob sniff] And then I had to confess to my boss that I did not do well in school.

Before taking the test, I had discussed my misgivings with my boss and even located a different test that’s given in a more relevant way and covers more relevant material. And it was mutually agreed that, should I not do that well, plan B would be put in motion. So this weekend I need to take another test. But it’s a test that, while it is difficult, I already know I can pass.

So this whole sordid affair will soon be over.

And I can get back to knitting and blogging. 😀

Friday night. For many people the work-week is over and it’s time for a bit of amusement — maybe a movie or dinner with a friend or a date. Or a bit of knitting in front of the TV. Me? I take my car apart.

OK. Not the whole car. Just a bit of it.

I drive a 2005 Prius. And I love my car. Love it. It’s my favorite car ever. I love the way that I can run practically the whole car from my cozy-covered steering wheel. There’s just one thing it doesn’t have: an iPod dock (those were added in the next model year). When I bought my car, I didn’t have an iPod so I didn’t really care. Then I got an iPod, and thus began the search for some way to listen to it in the car. I finally settled on an FM transmitter. It worked pretty well, but had disadvantages. I could only use the iPod controls to change songs, etc., which is probably not all that safe when going 70 mph down the freeway. And, if the station faded, so did the iPod. After spending 20 minutes sitting in a rest area trying to find a station that would work, I decided that maybe I should look for another method.

this is how it looked before

The problem, of course, is finding an after-market solution that works with the stereo, doesn’t mess up the gps navigation, and allows the steering wheel controls to change songs, etc. For some cars, there are tons of after-market products that do this. For the Prius, there are only a few. My choice arrived this week. So when Friday night arrived, I gathered up the necessary tools and set to work.

Estimated time to install: The guide said about 30 minutes, so I figured one hour would be sufficient. I’d read through the instructions and it didn’t look that tough.

Tools needed: Long Phillips screwdriver, regular screwdriver, mirror, iPod doohickey and all its cables and parts, iPod.

Step 1: Remove glove box and set aside. Mama always warned me about directions that start out like this. But really, it turned out to be pretty easy.

Step 2: Using fabric-covered screwdriver, gently pry top of vent cover away from dashboard to unclip, then remove vent cover. Again, not so bad. I was on a roll.

the bane of my existence

Step 3: Using long Phillips screwdriver, unscrew the bolt at the top of the scary-looking white box covered with scary-looking wires. (The blue arrow is pointing at the location of the bolt.) Be careful not to mess up any of those wires, or lose the bolt, or any other bad thing. Unscrew bolt. U.n.s.c.r.e.w bolt.

Step 4: Admit that the standard-length Phillips screwdriver I had was just not long enough to get the proper amount of leverage on a bolt that must have been tightened using force approaching that to be found at the center of the earth. Remember that the Phillips who gave his name to this style of screwdriver was actually a resident of Portland and ponder that little bit of synchronicity while searching through tools, finding only standard screwdrivers that are longer than the original Phillips. Curse.

Step 5: Search for tool kit containing socket wrench, not finding it. Vaguely remember that I gave said tool kit to #1 Son, and he took it when he moved out. Curse.

Step 6: Replace vent cover, pressing firmly to engage clips. Replace glove box.

Step 7: Drive to big-box home improvement and hardware store. Purchase smallest possible socket wrench set containing several sizes of sockets and extenders, just in case (on sale! and yes I will use it for other things). Return home.

Step 8: Remove glove box and set aside. Remove vent cover and set aside. Using 10mm socket wrench with 6″ extender, remove bolt at the top of the scary-looking white box with the scary-looking wires. Put the bolt safely in a cup holder. Slide the white box gently to the side, out of the way.

the object of my desire

Step 9: Find the empty port on the back of the stereo where the adapter for the iPod doohickey will be plugged in. It’s circled in the picture. And, yes, the mirror I’m holding is on the handle of a hairbrush. It’s the only one I had that was the right length and that I could get at the right angle. Note that it’s a tight squeeze to that port.

Step 10: While holding the end of the iPod doohickey plug between two fingers, squeeze right hand through vent opening and attempt to plug the wire into the port. Stretch a little further. Squeeze a little tighter. Twist and turn that plug to get it at the right angle. Reach!

Step 11: Realize that the sharp pain in the side of my thumb is probably not something I should ignore because the edge of the stereo enclosure has apparently cut my thumb and reaching further will cut it again. Withdraw right hand. Wrap kleenex around thumb. Curse.

Step 12: While holding the end of the plug, squeeze left hand through vent opening and reach for the cursed port. Feel the plug go in the port. Rejoice!

Step 13: Remove hand. Watch plug fall out. Curse.

Step 14: Repeat step 12, but this time ram that puppy home like there’s no tomorrow.

it works!

Step 15: Carefully move the scary-looking white box back into position, but don’t bolt it down yet.

Step 16: Plug the iPod doohickey cable into the other end of the adapter now attached to the stereo, and run the cable out the side of the vent cover, over where the glove box should be.

Step 17: Connect the iPod cable to the iPod doohickey and plug in the iPod.

Step 18: Cross fingers and toes.

Step 19: Turn the car’s auxiliary power on. The iPod will appear in the device list as MD Changer. Navigate to the iPod and test the functions. Some simple programming may be required.

Step 20: Follow the instructions for the simple programming, which turned out to be actually simple. Watch the iPod and it’s playlists show up on the nav screen. I swear that this song came up totally randomly, but it was pretty fitting I think. (For anyone who wonders, that’s Harry Nilsson.)

Step 21: Play with controls to make sure everything works. Rejoice.

put that puppy to bed

Step 22: Turn off car.

Step 23: Move scary-looking white box covered with scary-looking wires back into place.

Step 24: Using 10mm socket wrench with 6″ extender (I can be taught), replace bolt, being careful not to drop it or tighten it too tightly (not too much fear of that).

Step 25: Carefully replace vent cover, pressing firmly to engage clips but being careful not to squeeze or bend cable. Put the iPod doohickey inside the glove box and then carefully replace glove box, being careful not to bend or squeeze cables, etc.

Step 26: Fasten the iPod doohickey securely inside the glove box. Coil cables and store neatly. Close glove box. (I would show you an after picture, but it looks just like the before picture.)

Step 27: Cross fingers and toes. Turn on car’s auxiliary power and make sure everything still works. Breath a sigh of relief.

Step 28: Put tools away.

Step 29: Enter house, telling surprised cats I rock!

Step 30: Add ice to martini shaker. Apply vodka and vermouth. Shake. Pour. Drink.

Total elapsed time start to finish, including trip to big-box store but excluding 2nd martini: 4 hours.

Being able to run my iPod from the steering wheel while it’s safely tucked away in the glove box: priceless.