Make the Most of Your Listening

So.

Sweetie works at a paper recycling plant, and they get books. Oh, man, do they get books. And Sweetie? Brings a lot of them home. After Christmas, there were tons of children's books that were just tossed, and he must have brought home forty of them, which we gave to Autumn, Good Neighbor Nancy's little four year old. Both are delighted! Not all were just books, but some were activity sets, with paint and little things to paint. Also, models of cats, dogs, dinosaurs, etc., that showed their inner workings. Like the old models of men and women back when I was a kid. Do they still make those? I want to call them Invisible Man, but I know that is wrong. See-thru Man? Plastic Man?

Sweetie says that there are a lot of right wing propaganda that is not selling, and so is being shredded. (Maybe made into toilet paper? Heh heh.)

But there are other books, too; ones he thinks I might be interested in, and those get brought home, too.

Therefore, I have read three books in the last two weeks. I used to read All. The. Time. as a younger person, and I read a number a magazines now, but I don't read much fiction. He brought home The Lovely Bones, and I don't know if I can bear to read it. I am already sad and depressed much of the time as it is, without reading about a fourteen-year-old girl's rape and murder. I did read Ron "Tator Salad" White's book, I Had the Right to Remain Silent, But I Didn't Have the Ability. Slim and somewhat amusing. Before that, I settled in with The Medieval Heretics. What can I say? It is awful, though, to contemplate being burned alive at the stake for such things as not believing that the host and wine really do become the flesh and blood of Jesus.

Now, I have embarked upon the weighty tome of Cromwell, The Lord Protector. At least I know how this one turns out.

That's my problem with fiction, I reckon, the not knowing. I am one of those that sometimes reads the final page or paragraph of a book to see if I can commit to reading it.

Thanks to all who commented on the photo I posted of the Ice Willow! Mountain Man, it really was one of those once-in-a-lifetime scenes.

Keep from Freezing.

This morning, it was 0º with freezing fog, and everything was coated with ice crystals. Not ice, but Ice crystals.

This was the willow tree across the street.

By 10 am, all of the crystals had fluttered to the ground.

Click to embiggen.

Data Detectors

Thanks to Jean, I have discovered the joys of the BBC's Radio 4.

There is the History of the World in 100 Objects, fun game shows, a dramatization of John LeCarre's The Honourable Schoolboy, and all sorts of other great programs.

I have been listening while I knit. Three simple hats and a neckerchief, are complete, made from the hand spun yarn, Fuzzarelly Fiber ripped from the Handsome Shawl.

I gave one hat and the kerchief to Good Neighbor Nancy, to warm her in this Hateful Cold, and a hat to one of the future renters.(!) (Occupancy, first of March.)(Yay!) The last hat is for Nancy's little girl Autumn, who asked me nicely for a hat like Mommy's. Finished it this morning.

I also listened as I began plying some FF with silk. I can't remember the last time I spun and I have enjoyed doing this.

Yes, we have the Hateful Cold weather back with us for a few days. The forecasters don't know quite how much snow we will get tonight. It is coming up from the south but there is a north wind blowing at my house. They are hedging their bets, saying we will get 1 to 3 inches. I told Sweetie that I will let him start up the wood stove in the bedroom this weekend. If he tends the fire and totes the wood in from the shed. There are more moderate temperatures coming shortly.(Yay!)

The bunnies and chickens are doing well, although I haven't seen Wildy Brown or L'il Bit for over a week. I fear that they did not survive the last very cold snap. But Heizen, Haley, Smokey, Sparkle, the two Black Jacks, Chocolate Chip, and Steve are all still around, outside. I was able to capture one of the latest babies, a beautiful tan and white thing, and bring it inside to live with Nibbler. I haven't seen the other babies for awhile. It all makes me sad, the number of babies that come and go. I try to catch them and bring them in, so they can get big enough for outside, but they are wary and hard to corral. Inside, I also have one of the babies from October that a little blonde girl wanted so badly. Her grandma brought Blue Jean back to me over a month ago. She is grey and fuzzy, and is staying with the other two buns in the house.

I have made the decision to downsize my bunny herd, and maybe even give up my business. I am not sure if that last thing is just my depression talking, but I am considering it.

Sweetie and I are seriously talking about moving. The question is, to where?

Merge

Nothing to see here, keep moving.

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