Silent Poetry Reading

The Ivy Crown
by William Carlos Williams

The whole process is a lie,
unless,
crowned by excess,
it break forcefully,
one way or another,
from its confinement--
or find a deeper well.
Antony and Cleopatra
were right;
they have shown
the way. I love you
or I do not live
at all.

Daffodil time
is past. This is
summer, summer!
the heart says,
and not even the full of it.
No doubts
are permitted--
Though they will come
and may
before our time
overwhelm us.
We are only mortal
but being mortal
can defy our fate.
We may
by an outside chance
even win! We do not
look to see
jonquils and violets
come again
but there are,
still,
the roses!

Romance has no part in it.
The business of love is
cruelty which
by our wills,
we transform
to live together.
It has its seasons,
for and against,
whatever the heart
fumbles in the dark
to assert
toward the end of May.
Just as the nature of briars
is to tear flesh,
I have proceeded
through them.
Keep the briars out,
they say.
You cannot live
and keep free of
briars.

Children pick flowers
Let them.
Though having them
in hand
they have no further use of them
but leave them crumpled
at the curb's edge.

At our age the imagination
across the sorry facts
lifts us
to make roses
stand before thorns.
Sure
love is cruel
and selfish
and totally obtuse--
At least, blinded by the light,
young love is.
But we are older,
I to love
and you to be loved,
we have,
no matter how,
by our wills survived
to keep
the jeweled prize
always
at our fingertips.
We will it so
and so it is
past all accident.

Winter Wonderhell

Well, gang. We are surviving the ice storm. We lost power Sunday night, got it back Wednesday morning, and still don't have internet access. I'm paying out the nose at starbucks right now just to check email and such. The neighborhood looks terrible, and snow is coming, but I have lots of yarn.

Half an F.O.

Okay, I'm better now. I have half an F.O., but my only pic of it is with the Yarn Harlot. Please bear with me, this post is kinda long.
Sunday morning started out with me waking up late. Crap. Was supposed to be up before the crack of dawn to organize the rest of the move so the boys could work while I was away. Crap. Leapt out of bed, took shower, had to use hubby's shampoo cause I forgot to dig mine out of one of the several bags and boxes that came from the bathroom at the old house. (Did I mention we're MOVING?!?!?!) Got out, got dressed, dragged short one to the car. Sped over to old house. Filled car with stuff. Waited for friends to come help. Realized I had to pick up Tara in 45 minutes and still not dressed. Ran to storage, emptied car, drove to dumpster, cleaned out front seat of car, drove to her house, changed clothes. Right, off we go!

First stop, drinks and snacks. I'm not sure where we stopped, but we decided it was questionable as Tara's animal crackers were a little on the old side. No big deal, let's keep going. Must. See. Yarn. Harlot. We sail through the first toll booths with no problem, but then the road narrows down to two lane for like half the turnpike, widens to for before the next toll collection center, then narrows back down. Takes forever.
We finally make it to Kansas around 1;30. Plenty of time. We noticed the air conditioning is putting out warmer air. I whine about possibly needing Freon or whatever that stuff is that makes AC work. Then we decided to stop and get some maps at the welcome center, and as we pull into the lot, I hear a ding and look at my dashboard to see that the car's overheated a bit. I panicked and called my car person, then she called hers. After much consultation, we decide to open the hood, let the car cool down, and then add water. This solution worked very nicely, and we were on our way again. On to Wichita.

We made it to the high school with no issues, got pretty good seats, and settled in. (Settling in evidently includes me dropping my camera and losing its batteries and somehow dropping a DPN in Tara's bag.) Then Stephanie came out on the stage!!!! She was so great. My husband is definitely a full fledged member of CHOKE. I think the best part of her speech was when she showed us how she knits.

I would have to say the best part was the book signing. During the talk I finished a sock, even the kitchnering the toe! We had to wait around a bit cause our tickets were stamped 166-167, and the place was too dark to work on my never ending Josephine top. (I promise, pictures soon, I'm finally almost done with the back.) I decided to avoid the deadly Second Sock Syndrome by casting on the second sock. I got through the first inch of the second sock by the time we made it to the table where I proudly showed Stephanie my finished sock, which she promptly put on her right hand and instantly correctly proclaimed it to be the Undulating Rib Sock from the Favorite Sock Book. Then she picked up her recently finished traveling sock (yes! this one!) and put it on her left hand. She admired the socks together, then I think she made them talk to each other in the manner of sock puppets.

She might also have done a couple of yoga poses before pulling her sock off her hand with her teeth. Then she handed my sock back to me and apologized for being so silly with my sock, to which I regrettably replied. "It's okay, I work in Special Education." That sooooooo totally came out the wrong way. After that she took my picture, and wrote down my name, probably to warn other knitters to stay as far away from me as possible.

Not much else to tell but that I got us lost in Wichita afterwards and fielded phone calls from the grumpy and disorganized men, who were all quite pissed that I was out having fun while they toiled to get all our stuff out of that house. Poor Tara had to listen to the drama all the way home. All in all though, it was a wonderful experience!!!

Wichita

Tara and I went to Wichita yesterday to see the Yarn Harlot, and it was AWESOME!!!!!!!!! And I'm FINALLY out of my knitting slump! (Well, at least I think I am....) More details to follow after I get back from work/school.

I Just Can't Win for Losing

*sigh* I am never sharing information about contests for yarn with Tara ever again. For those of you that do not know, Tara and I tend to go on little knitterly field trips together once in a while. She even tolerates the Short One if she happens to tag along. Well, since we're such good friends, I thought I'd tell her about a contest being held by one of our beloved local yarn stores, Loops. She didn't want to enter, but I insisted she do it, so at the last moment she left her comment. Wouldn't ya know, she won the freaking contest!!!!!!!! Sooooo not cool. Maybe if I am nice to her, she will share? (No Tara, I'm not going to beat you up, why ever would I do that?)

In another attempt to win yarn, Short One and I went to a free concert at Utica Square with some other knitting friends, where it was rumored that a fat little giftcard to the above mentioned yarn store was to be given away. Didn't win that either, but I throroughly enjoyed watching the Short One rock out to classic rock music. She held her hands over her ears for the first song and sat bolt upright in her seat. By the third song, she was up dancing around, but still had her fingers in her ears. By the fifth song, she finally unstopped her ears and let her hair down. I had drag her out of there at the end.

So maybe I just royally suck at contests. I freeze up, get writers block, flat out forget to enter, or even let stupidity take over and encourage my dear friends to beat the pants off of me. However, I did still have a good time with great knitting friends and gained a very tired Short One.

Now with More Mail!

On Monday the postman brought me another package!


This time the contents were of Sockapalooza 4 nature. This is soooo awesome! Not only did Julie, my sockpal, knit me a pair of absolutely perfect socks, but she also gifted me with a skein of her own handspun!!!! Okay, the socks are made out of Lorna's Laces, the pattern is from the second sensational sock book, and the handspun is Crown Mountain Farm Superwash in "Say a Little Prayer" and it was spun the day before Short One's birthday, so that makes it even more special. I did try to get a picture of the socks on my feet, but I quickly learned that six-year-olds-who-are-almost-seven do not necessarily make the best photographers. I'll try again tomorrow. Thank you so much Julie!!!!!

On another Sockapalooza 4 note, I am on the toe decreases of the poor second sock. I'm having a hard time remembering what I did on the first go around, so I'm reading the other sock and copying it the best I can. I feel horrible, like I've failed my sockpal. I hope they will forgive me for running late!
Before I had to rip and reknit the sockpal socks, I got excited over Amy Singer's Everlasting Bagstopper pattern over at Knitty. Erm, so excited I knit the whole bag in one night. Tara knows this because I cast off the body of the bag in her car on the way to Fiber Christmas in July over in Kellyville, OK. I made up a pattern for the handles and knitted them at home that night. Now if I can get up the energy to weave in the ends and all that....... But Hey! It's functional! I'm declaring it an F.O.

In Dish Rag Tag News, I'm pleased to report that Susan not only received the Sweet Sixteen box on Monday, she also knit her dishcloth and got it back in the mail to Jeannie. Way to go Susan! Let's keep it up ladies, we've got a good groove going on!!!!!

Maybe tomorrow I'll show off what I picked up at the fiber festival with Tara.

Tag! (Hey, What's in the Box???)

Hey, y'all, guess what!?!?! I got a package today! Wanna see?
Hmmm, a priority mail box with the words "Sweet Sixteen" on it. Whatever could be inside???







I'm it! I just got the box out of my mailbox about 30 minutes ago! In the package we have peaches n creme in faded denim and shades of green, a recipe for shortbread (yum!), two adorable cookie cutters, and, of course a dishcloth! There's also an instruction page in there. I can't wait to get started!

On a more somber note, I am going to be late sending my sockapalooza socks out. After I finished them I put them away in a spot I thought was safe. I took them out to give them a little soak and block before their journey when lo and behold:

Eeeeeek! A hole! On the sole just after the heel!!!!!

I had no other choice but to rip the sock to the heel and repair. I'm almost done, I'll finish it tonight, block it, and then knit my dishrag for the tag.

P.S. Sweet sixteen members, that box up there looks rather plain. Please help to spice it up a little when it gets to your house! As long as the postal people can see the priority label and the mailing label, we are golden!

Finally, an F.O.!!!

I have finally finished my sockapalooza 4 socks! I am amazed at how much of them I got done while being whisked around town on our camp bus. Here's the specs on these socks:

Pattern: Campfire Socks by Cider Moon

Yarn: Sunshine Yarns sock in "twilight"

Needles: Size 2 US

Started:June 1

Finished June 26

I really hope my sock pal loves them as much as I do. Part of me wants to keep them for myself, but I think that means they're perfect for my pal! What do ya think?