Saturday, we headed across town for our baseball ticket draft. Several hours and 18 baseball tickets later, we decided to walk home from Capitol Hill in order to catch the tail end of the kite festival.
Unfortunately, it was a rather damp day and the festival mostly had run its course by the time we made our way down the Mall. But it’s okay. We saw a few kites anyway.
Our internet seems to be liking us better this weekend, so I’m able to post from home tonight.
Ten days ago was the first day of spring, and I hurriedly finished up a new pair of socks to be able to wear them to celebrate.
They remind me of rainbow sherbet.
The pattern is Spring Forward.
The Yarn is Mama E’s C*Eye*ber Fiber sock yarn in the Spring Garden Colorway.
They go with my green Mary Janes and my comfy green pants.
They also go with the first tulip of the year.
It was so fun to wear new socks on the first day of a new season. I’m thinking I may celebrate every season that way from now on…
As for Sock Madness, I’m nearly to the toe decreases on the second sock and then just have to add the afterthought heel. I’m hoping to finish tomorrow night. This is how they looked on Friday morning:
I hope that will enable me to advance to Round #2.
Sorry for the blog silence. We’re having connectivity woes at home and I was sick yesterday.
As I play catch-up on some other posts, I give you three beautiful things from my week to think about:
1. UConn handily advances to the Sweet Sixteen with a trouncing of Florida. Berkeley is our next opponent, but I don’t envision as easy a win.
2. Qualcomm has bought out every billboard at Metro Center. Every time I enter or leave the station, I’m reminded of Grey Kitten. I think it’s nice of his employer to do that for me.
3. On Sunday, Rudi went off for his first long ride of the year, so after I hit the farmers’ market, I headed to Georgetown to spend the day by myself. The sky was blue and the sun was warming, so first I laid by the canal, then later moved down to the bank of the Potomac for a nap. Although by the time I rose to head home I needed a shawl, for a while I had bare toes.
The powers of collective thought are strong, so I’m hoping you’ll all do me a favor. Tomorrow morning, my friend Rebecca is having surgery. If you could keep her in your thoughts and send healing vibes and prayers toward Washington state, I’d be grateful.
Sometimes I go looking for a particular song for the Monday forays into my music and have trouble finding it online. Other times, there are videos, but they’re terrible quality. (Yes, I know you may find that hard to believe based on some of the videos I do share.)
So, today, I wanted to highlight The Kennedys’ “Life Is Large,” the title track from the husband-and-wife duo’s second album. It’s my favorite song of theirs and contains the couplet that I’ve included in the signature file in my email for nearly a decade. Unfortunately, there’s only one video for the song, shot at Falcon Ridge, from what might have been a camera phone. It was fine, but not what I was hoping for.
In the hunt, though, sometimes you find other gems. Sometimes they’re covers by other artists, but other times it’s a track by an artist that you just hadn’t seen until that moment. Which brings me to this video, a cover of The Beatles’ tune, “A Day in the Life.” I hope you’ll agree it’s a worthy substitute:
And if you’re still curious about the song I was hoping to spotlight, here’s an audio version of Pete and Maura’s album cut. John Gorka provides backing vocals and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds plays 12-string, with others: “Life Is Large.” (Firefox readers beware: it may open as a pop-up.)
I made it to work early and then got to leave on time, too. I have knit the top of a sock cuff for Sock Madness and finished the toe of my spring socks in time to wear them tomorrow.
Three beautiful things from the past week:
1. As I drive home from the Homespun Yarn Party on the beltway, I pass an old-fashioned fire truck heading home to Hyattsville. There is no cab, so the poor firefighter is out in the damp weather, his rain coat pulled up over his head to keep away the elements.
2. Elspeth, Erik, and Julia all share good news. One has secured a coveted summer position in Russia and several acceptance letters for grad school next fall. Another has a new job. And the third has seen one of those we-missed-in-the-night notes for which he is the intended target.
3. Rudi and I headed to Virginia tonight to catch an early evening showing of The Tale of Despereaux at Arlington Cinema ‘n’ Drafthouse on their $1 ticket night. The food was tasty. The movie was sweet. The theater clapped at the end of the show. And the kids watching with us were awesome. Five minutes into the movie, the narrator is still setting the scene. “Where’s Despereaux?” asks one voice. Others also chatter to the screen through the show. And our way back to the parking lot, we pass a mom and her two little girls. “He saved the princess!” “He was a nice mouse!” It was great to see a kids’ movie with its intended audience.
So, you’ll recall that earlier this week I wrote about this thing called Sock Madness. I explained that I was knitting away with focus, hoping to finish a couple things before it began.
Unfortunately, I did not.
I am up to the toe decreases for my spring socks, but I’m not done with them yet. So, in order to wear them on Friday, I’ll have to finish them tomorrow.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. But this is not a normal circumstance. This is Madness!
Sock Madness is a sock knitting competition inspired by NCAA basketball’s tournament play. On the day each round of competition begins, the organizers send everyone a pattern via email. No one has seen these patterns before, but the organizers have provided us (a few days ahead of time) our target gauge and how much yarn we’ll need and what they recommend (a solid or a patterned yarn, for instance). And while we have a window of time during which the pattern will arrive, no one is quite positive about it.
Tomorrow, for instance, the pattern is due to arrive sometime between 6 and 9 a.m. local time. Ouch! The good thing is that I have to be at work early, so I’ll be able to leave early, but still… I can’t really see myself getting up before the sun just to wait for a pattern…
Many of my fellow competitors are already planning to arise early, knit through the day, and give up all other activities until their pair of socks is complete.
Because, you see, speed is of the essence in Sock Madness. Only the first x number of competitors to finish their socks and submit photographic evidence move on to the next round. We start with 200 knitters divided into four divisions. One assumes that at least half that number will advance out of the first round, but that’s not guaranteed. If the allotment isn’t filled within two week’s time, only those with finished socks at the whistle’s blow will move on to the next round.
So it would be perfectly understandable if I’d spent the last week pulling out yarns, carefully swatching, and planning my weekend so I could knit steadily through until my new pair of socks was complete.
While I’ve given some thought to my yarn selection, I haven’t actually pulled any of the yarn out, nor have I wound any of it. I figure I’ll wait to see what the pattern actually looks like before making a final decision. I suspect this might be akin to waiting until the game starts to begin assigning matchups.
And I haven’t cleared my schedule. No, I have no major engagements, no trips planned, no soirees to attend. But, I do have a plan to see the new Julia Roberts-Clive Owen movie with Rudi (and I won’t be knitting during it unless it’s awful). I also plan to spend some quality time in my garden. I’m going to see Sarah briefly, and maybe touch base with Rebs. I also have to run errands to the library and the post office. And I’m going to finish that lingering sock…
So, perhaps my dedication to the competition isn’t cut-throat. I think it’ll be fine. But to be on the safe side, please don’t tell my fellow sock knitters that I won’t be glued to my needles all weekend. I think we’d better keep that just between us…
St. Patrick’s Day has come to an end. Although the streets of Georgetown were packed with revelers and Irish bars had queues a block long, I’m sad to say that you would have been hard pressed to know that today was a holiday in downtown D.C. Yes, there was the odd green tie or scarf, but by and large the city was still dressed in its drab greys and blacks.
I come from Connecticut, which is a Catholic state, and grew up in a town where you were either Italian or you were Irish. (Okay, that’s not entirely true; you could be Polish or Puerto Rican.) And if you weren’t any of those things, you just sort of coasted along, knowing, as my grandmother used to say that, in all likelihood, you’d end up marrying someone who was. All of southern New England boasts a similar population, as does New York (City, at least), as we were the first stops on the boat over from Europe and probably, therefore, the cheapest fare. And people just stayed.
I’ve made much of the Italian American demographic of the state, because we co-opted their food, and because their immigration waves came more recently than the Irish ones. But most Connecticut towns of a population over 15,000 had at least two Catholic churches — an Italian one and an Irish one — and we all made a big deal out of St. Patrick’s Day. Darby O’Gill and the Little People played on tv. And I never heard of pinching someone for not wearing green until I was in college and had met Westerners who thought this was appropriate behavior. I’m not going to speak for everyone in my home state, but I suspect that if you tried that to a stranger, you’d get socked in the jaw.
But it didn’t happen because you wore green. And if you didn’t, everyone just pitied you because you were forgetful and got dressed without remembering it was March 17.
I’m disappointed D.C. You could have done better — and with so little effort. Please at least buy some green socks before next March, and we’ll try again then.
In the meantime, I offer you two songs. The first is from Going My Way, a sweet film featuring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald as Catholic priests in New York City:
The second is “You’re Not Irish,” by family friend Robbie O’Connell. He’s the nephew of the Clancy Brothers, and he performs his biographical tune with two of his Clancy cousins:
When Einstein announced his theory of relativity, anyone who’d ever experienced a weekend whiz by must have thought, “Duh!”
Seriously! What happened to it? And is time going to go even faster? Will it slow down again when I get to be very old?
Our Pi Day celebration was very nice. Rudi heroically put the effort to clean (or, at least, to mask our mess) and to run errands, while I baked. I made apple and pecan pies and Michael cooked up two quiches. Sarah contributed cannoli from a bakery at Union Station of which I’d heretofore been unaware. Julia and Elspeth provided sparkling wit as we finished our prep work, and everyone was kind enough not to point out our inadequate tidying job. Beer and pita chips and hummus supplemented the pies, and we had a merry little feast. Since there were six of us, we paired off into teams for a game of Trivial Pursuit. Michael and I beat the other two teams with a run toward the end, although it was not without its hiccups. I foundered on the Don Larsen perfect game question before redeeming myself with a surprising knowledge (even to myself!) of the Super Bowl.
Sunday was the Homespun Yarn Party, and I went in search of local items to ship to a swap pal in Australia. Normally, I’d rely on more foodstuff to fill out the box, but Australia is particularly persnickety about its imports and routinely confiscates stuff from the mail. Since I’d like my partner to get everything safely, I’m sticking more with hard goods. While I was there, I may have picked up a skein of yarn for myself — a green stripey one that will make a lovely pair of socks for next St. Patrick’s Day. Or maybe for Christmas. Oh, and I did win a door prize — a tote bag from Ravelry!
The rain returned tonight and I walked home from work while chatting on the phone with my folks in the growing drizzle. I don’t mind the drips and we need the rainfall, so it was perfectly fine with me. I’m hoping it keeps the ground pliable so I can spend some time in the garden next weekend. I need to do something with all those seeds I bought up in Connecticut!
Rudi made a tasty supper and we watched the CBS comedies (my favorite tv of the week) before throwing on a dvd of early Boston Legals from the library. Ultimately we ended up with a cooking show on PBS before the news and late night comedy shows.
I’m trying to finish up a few knitting projects before Sock Madness begins Thursday morning, so I pushed through the gusset of my spring socks tonight. Tomorrow night should see me finish the foot, which will leave the toe decreases and binding off for Wednesday night knitting group. This pair is knit in a lovely skein of yarn in a colorway called Spring Garden, and the colors remind me of rainbow sherbet. I picked a pattern called Spring Forward, so I’m optimistically believing they’ll be done for Friday’s Vernal Equinox. I’m also nearly finished with the first part of a sweater I’m knitting, which is nice and soft and squooshy and a very pretty shade of marled turquoise.
I guess that’s about it for right now. Good night!
This song appears on my iTunes playlist that helps get me through cleaning and any dancing moments that require cranked up tunes and an upbeat attitude. It’s by one of my favorite Irish bands, The Corrs, who are currently on hiatus:
