sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

June 17, 2010


alight, towelling off, and music in the park
posted by soe 9:15 pm

How? How is it already Thursday? Time is speeding past. I mean, we’re nearly at the Summer Solstice. I’ve got to ratchet up my summer plans before I’m trying to hold a barbecue at Thanksgiving.

Luckily, we can always count on Thursdays to let us slow down, take a deep breath, and recollect three beautiful things from the past week (or in this post’s case, today):

1. We happen on the playing fields just at dusk. Fireflies ascend from the carpet of grass like embers from a fire. (To give credit where it’s due, that’s Rudi’s beautiful — and apt — simile.)

2. General Henry Thomas must have had quite a grueling ride last night because as I bike around Thomas Circle, a man on a cherry picker is toweling off the horse’s bronze hindquarters.

3. The lights on 17th Street conspire so that I am biking home past Farragut Square just as strains of “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” waft past me. The K Street light turns red, which cements it; I turn into the square, deploy the kickstand, and enjoy the final three songs of this week’s Golden Triangle Summer Concert Series. The band this week is the Lloyd Dobler Effect — and they are fantastically fun. They remind me a bit of early Vertical Horizon, back before they sold their soul for a major label record deal.

The D.C.-based band has a cd (which I’ll be buying) and several shows coming up in the area this summer. I hope to catch at least one.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?

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tour de france knitalong
posted by soe 3:00 am

The annual Tour de France Knitalong is rapidly approaching and I’m not sure what I should do. As usual, there are several categories, two of which are appropriate for me:

Yellow jersey = those tackling something really epic. Maybe you want to try lace for the very first time, or socks. Maybe you want to design and knit a fair isle-inspired sweater, steeks and all, before the riders finish that final lap on the Champs-Elysées.

Polka Dot jersey = completion of languishing WIPs. (The more, the merrier: go for as many summits as you can!)

I could definitely qualify for the Polka Dot jersey. There are plenty of projects that are “under construction” and some of those have been so for a long time. (I can think of two sweaters, several socks, and a purse off the top of my head…) Entering this category would be the responsible thing to do.

Or …

I could cast on something new for the Yellow Jersey. Something exciting. Something that will be forever tied to the Tour de France, in the same way that the mousie socks I knit a few years ago will forever be tied to the 2006 Winter Olympics. I have pretty green yarn that could be a new early fall sweater or lavender-hued linen for a summer cardigan that’s been sitting around forever. Or I could knit the knee socks that were part of Sock Madness.

What would you do?

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