Tidying Up and Other Meandering Stuff

It's past noon and I haven't been up long. Long enough to make the bed and feed the cats and give them some catnip and laugh at them. Long enough to eat a huge bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with yogurt and blueberries and cinnamon. Long enough to check my email and Facebook and the blogs.

I lay in bed awake for quite awhile this morning thinking about all the things I might do with this day when there is absolutely nothing that must be done. We did all the errands yesterday. We mailed Maddox's afghan (at last) and also a gift afghan, which was a project among three of us, to the friend for whom it was made. I mailed the knitting needles and the leftover yarn back to the person who began the project, and I'm not naming anyone because even though I do not publicize this blog I know that sometimes my friends read it.

Last night after thinking about it and thinking about it, I bit the bullet and ripped back about 30 rows of Bella's stocking. Two weeks ago I realized I had made a mistake. It was a small one, but I knew it was there and it made a small small difference in the size of the stocking -- 4 stitches difference, so it wouldn't be exactly the same size as those for the rest of her family. I feel pretty sure no one else would have noticed, especially Bella, but I knew it was there and it bothered me. I spent two weeks thinking about how I could just go on and finish it and have all the stockings (for this year, anyhow) out in the mail in a week or so, but every time I picked up the work all I could see was the mistake and I'd put it down again. Last night while I was distracted from that by problems with the Charlotte's Web shawl and deciding I was going to have to rip that one out totally and start over (for the third time) I just sort of located the stocking out of the corner of my eye and grabbed it and slipped it off the needles all at once and started frogging (as they say). I went back to where the mistake was, got it carefully back on the needles, and worked forward for four rows. There, that feels SO much better! Even though there's a lot of catching up to do.

As for the Charlotte's Web shawl, let me just admit here and now that I do NOT have a gift for knitting lace. It was particularly discouraging to find -- after the first time I ripped out the whole thing to begin afresh -- comments on Ravelry (huge website for knitters) suggesting that this was an excellent pattern for beginning lace knitters. Excuse me???? I'm finding I have to count every frigging stitch. Well, no, every frigging stitch on the knit rows -- the alternating purl rows are a snap. A breather. But I've loved this shawl since I first saw it in 2003 and I WILL have it. Dammit.

We go carefully forward.

So last night I watched Night at the Museum and saw Ben Stiller playing himself again, or at least, playing the exact same guy he played in Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers, only he wasn't a nurse in this one. Cute enough movie, light, the sort of thing that makes good knitting background. (I had been knitting to episodes of Heroes, which is not all that mellow and may have been part of the concentration problem, I don't know.) The woman at the employment agency who sends him to the museum is his mother, Ann Meara -- does everyone already know that? I was so pleased with myself for identifying her by her voice, although when I looked at her I couldn't really see it. But after watching it all the way through (and forgetting to check the credits), I watched it again in French just to hear the language some more and of course her voice was different but this time when I looked at the actress again I could see facial expressions and so forth that were recognizable. And this time I remembered to find her in the credits.

By the way, apparently the word *cool* just cruises right across language lines untouched. "C'est vraiment cool," someone said. *Wow* doesn't translate, either.

So yesterday I got three boxes mailed, held my breath and ripped out two projects, and -- oh, and finished reading a book called "Creating Unforgettable Characters." All that tidying up!

And did a bit of French practice.

Today, so far ... not a lot. A blog post. Happy 4th to everyone!