Things and Thoughts and Whatnots

Don’t know how many of you out there fall into the age bracket where you might have seen a show at the Grand Ole Opry, or perhaps a guest appearance of the inimitable Cousin Minnie Pearl, she of the black Maryjanes, the price tag dangling from her hat, and the poofy sleeved dress. Her humor was gentle and just a bit idiosyncratic, and dealt with her “family” and the denizens of Grinder’s Switch, TN. She reminded me in all the best ways of my mother’s oldest sister, who was also a “Sarah.” Neither of them ever met a stranger.

I have upon several occasions (particularly when talking about getting things done at the VA) used the expression, “like pushing a rope.” It was originally a chain, actually, and it involved Cousin Minnie’s brother. Goes like this: “I was coming out of the Post Office at Grinder’s Switch the other day, and happened to look up the road, and here come Brother dragging this big ol’ logging chain behind of him. I said, “Brother, why on Earth are you pulling that ol’ logging chain around?” And Brother looked up at me and said, “D’you ever try pushing one?” So that’s where I only slightly plagiarized that.

I’ve spent the past week chilling out and hanging fire. Next week, I’m supposed to go for labs, a doctor’s visit, and possibly more Gazyva. You notice that groove in my fingernail. I think that’s from the Red Man Syndrome. It’s too far down the nail to be from the almost Stevens-Johnson Syndrome week before last. Its on all of them, on both hands.

Oh, what fun.

I bet I knitted and frogged this attempt at a pattern fifty times. I just could not get the increases to look right. Finally, I just gave up. I decided this yarn did not want to be that thing. I frogged it one last time and got out my crochet hook and started the nine-bladed pinwheel shawl using the disappearing loop (which knitting borrowed from crochet).

The Mussleburgh hat is all the rage these days, and it uses a “pinhole” cast on, which is very tricky. If you do the crochet version, and don’t finish the single crochets but just keep them on the hook, you can slip the loops off onto double pointed needles. As I am ambicraftous, I am familiar with the “disappearing loop” technique in crochet that’s used to start things like doilies and other such circular crochet things that are worked center out.

Guess what, it works just as fine as frog hairs for the center of a top down or center out thing knitted in the round. It’s a lot easier than the way the pattern was written, and WAY easier than the pinhole cast-on. Now that I think about it, it would work for the Savannah Squares shawl, too.

It followed me home from Market Street, and I’m going to keep it. It’s a jade plant and its SOOOO CUTE! Needs to be transplanted. Next Wal-Mart run I do, I’ll try to remember to get a small bag of potting soil. I’ve got a couple other plants need transplanting and repotting.

The orchid (#2) that was put in foster care has dropped its blooms, but the other four are still going strong. Number #2 orchid is the smallest of the bunch but it was also the first to bloom, so no surprise that it’s the first to be done blooming. The last time the white orchid bloomed, the blooms lasted all summer. Maybe this time all the others will, too.

We had a nice little thunderstorm yesterday evening and got a good little bit of rain out of it.