Rotate Clockwise.

Another pair of socks done.




Although, I can only find one of them right now, as Fugsley has hid the mate. I wore them once or twice, enough to get my scent on them good, and, well, when Fugsley gets her separation anxiety, she looks for a small piece of me, a sock or hair flower, and carries it around. She doesn't chew or destroy, just carries it and lays on it. Not so much anymore, as she is settling in, but she was still doing it last week. I don't wear underwear anymore, or she'd have had them all over the house instead.

The yarn was hand dyed superwash, merino and nylon, and there is a barely discernible zigzag seed stitch pattern on the leg and top of foot. As an experiment, they turned out well enough, but the added bulk of the seed stitch make them not so comfortable in the clogs that I wear practically all the time.

I frogged the stupid, yet Handsome Shawl. I might have finished it, maybe, if only the chart in the book wasn't printed in the smallest possible type. I did scan and enlarge it, but then it was so freaking' huge and unwieldy that I gave up trying to keep my place.

I'm making a hat or two out of the yarn, instead. Nothing fancy.

I have a cold, and it is raining. Gloomy weather to be sure, but it is at least above freezing day and night.

Princess and Zander (aka Fugsley,) are cozy enough.

You're Breaking My Heart

As a young person, I was in the school band. 6th grade was only the recorder, but I loved it, and in Junior High, I played clarinet and traded first chair with Jody Neff on a regular basis. We are talking early 70s here.

We were good, for only being young teens, because our band director made us good. His name was Mr. Redman; a short. red-faced, and heavyset man who loved classical music and tried to instill that love into us. We went to contests and won first place many times, playing Beethoven's Eroica and other difficult music. At some point, I took up the oboe at his insistence. (Which was not a good move, because the band tunes to the oboe, and I never seemed to be in tune.)

Back then, you got little medals when you won at contest. Which you had to buy, actually, and seriously? I never had the money to buy more than just a few. It could have been because we were pretty damn poor, or maybe I couldn't bear to ask my parents for the few dollars. Life at home wasn't so great then. But I digress.

Anyway. Mr. Redman asked us one day to bring in 45s of our favorite music. We thought, Cool! Let's Share! and so we brought in our little black discs of Top 40 pop and rock and roll, which he played on a tinny little portable record player.

He proceeded to knock and ridicule each song, music by the Beatles, Mungo Jerry, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks. His point was that popular music didn't, nay couldn't, hold a candle to the Greats of The Past, such as Mozart, Brahms, Wagner. Now that was Music!

Jody then meekly offered up Simon and Garfunkel's Cecilia. After we all heard it, and sort of sang and bopped along to the happy tune, his first comment was about how immoral it was, sleeping with a woman that leaves you when you go and wash your face. Then he criticized the chord progressions and how it never resolved at the end, blahblahblah. He really crushed us all that day. At least, he crushed me.

That incident has stuck in my poor brain for almost forty years, and I just heard this song on the radio, and for whatever reason, I feel moved to write about it now, because later I learned about Saint Cecilia the patron saint of musicians, and how the meaning of the song suddenly became clear to me.

Mr. Redman was wrong.

Popular music can be good, deep, meaningful, and creative.

No Lubrication Needed

10% return guaranteed.

My Little Brother, (not so little, he is 42,) stopped by for a visit last night. I am still recovering. We are so related, it isn't funny.







We laughed, we drank, (I am so off the wagon,) we danced, we put makeup on the dog. We came up with band names. Tits and Indifference is the only one I remember.

I have been feeling so freaking' low, and seeing him, at this moment, was wonderful. There are things that only family and very old friends can know and share and relate to, and it did me so good to be with him and talk about certain issues.

Sweetie and I really need to just get away from Lovely LA, (forever,) and so that is my goal. I hear that Laguna Beach is nice.

And by the way, Little Brother turned me onto Pandora Radio. Nice.

Please check here for change.

Use Caution.

So why do I wonder why I ache so much? The bruise, she has gotten larger yet is softer to the touch.

Bustling Hedgerows

This is my least favorite Ed Led song, but is so sweetly rendered here.