It has been a week where I have posted a lot in my mind, but thoughts do not translate directly to pixels, so it hasn’t been particularly productive. However, it’s Thursday and I always post on Thursdays.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. We spent Sunday at the beach. It didn’t rain a drop, the sun periodically crept out from behind the clouds, and the waves were huge. We played in the surf (the undertow was fierce, so we opted not to swim), we saw a pod of dolphins, and we laid on our blanket (which didn’t get soaked this time!) and read. Plus, we found a parking spot that allowed us to pay for the whole day at once, rather than having to run back to the car every two hours to avoid a ticket. All in all, one of the beautiful days of the summer.

2. Rudi, John, and Nicole all wanted seconds of the vegan peach-berry crisp I made on Friday. I wasn’t blown away by it, which made it particularly nice that it was so popular.

3. Georgetown has a large and lovely fountain at their waterfront park meant for children to play in. So, I did after our movie let out tonight.

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

Three things about three things:

TV shows I’ve been watching this summer:
1. Inspector Lewis: The quality of the writing on this BBC buddy cop show isn’t always outstanding, but the chemistry between the intergenerational leads is.
2. Psych: ION airs this dramedy in a marathon Saturday nights, and it’s everything I like in a show: ultimately underneath the crime-solving, it’s about how you cobble together a family out of your friends. Plus, ’80s and ’90s pop culture references and guest stars.
3. Leverage: This is another cable show re-aired in marathon sessions on ION. While it’s best if you don’t think about how court cases are going to hold up when the evidence is obtained in questionable means by witnesses who disappear, it’s hard to dismiss the appeal of the ensemble cast.

Activities planned for this week:
1. All’s Well That Ends Well: The first Shakespeare Theatre Free for All production we’ll have seen since they left Carter Barron.
2. My final grass court volleyball match(es) of the season.
3. Paranorman

Things I did this weekend:
1. Spent the day at the beach
2. Had tea in the rain
3. Relaxed by the river with a picnic dinner that included homemade peach crisp and tomato-peach salsa

It’s late (well, not by my standards, but likely by yours) and I’m knackered. A quick post, and then to bed!

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. A sudden Sunday-morning downpour proves electrifying to the senses.

2. The temperature has taken a turn for the comfortable, making it cool enough that Rudi turns off the a/c and opens the window. It stays that way for days.

3. The ballgame ends in the wee smalls, which places Rudi and me on the Mall at 1 a.m., biking home. We see a night heron by the Washington Monument, ducks in Constitution Garden, and water in the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial (they’ve just refilled it after a long construction project). And that’s without gaping at the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the Wall, and the World War II Memorial. There are a few other people out at that hour, but mostly we are by ourselves, enjoying the scenery.

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

I last did this meme more than a year ago, which I think makes it eligible to be re-used at this time:

The Book(s) I Am Currently Reading
I started The Age of Miracles, a recently published dystopian coming-of-age novel by Karen Thompson Walker, this morning. I began A.A. Milne’s classic, Winnie-the-Pooh, over the weekend and am reading it slowly, a chapter a night before bed. And, finally, I’ve been plodding through Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia of Life a few pages a time over the course of the last few months.

The Book I Finished Last
Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt. Review to follow, hopefully tomorrow.

The Next Book I Want to Read
Rebecca Stead’s new book, Liar & Spy.

The Last Book I Bought
I feel like there should be something more recent, but it seems like The Enchantress might be the last book I purchased.

The Last Book I Was Given
Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant — a belated and much appreciated Christmas present from Sam.

Feel free to share your own answers in the comments.

Much to my delight, I find Thursday has rolled around again. Hooray!

Here are three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I am an appallingly bad volleyball server, so when I finally, after a month, get a serve over the net and in the court, my entire team erupts in cheers. They’re then so excited they spike the ball out, just so I don’t have to try to replicate the accomplishment.

2. Everyone’s schedules finally work out, so seven of us gather for Friday night picnicking at the Yards. It’s a gorgeous evening, with surprisingly few people at the park, allowing us to grab tables between the river and the pool, where we stay until they kick us out after closing.

3. Rudi and I head up to Mitchell Park, where they’re screening Star Wars on an inflatable screen. The movie is a classic, and a hundred or so neighbors have brought their blankets, chairs, dinners, children, grandparents, dogs, and, in one case, pet bunny out to share in the fun. After the film ends, we decide to take ourselves out for ice cream cones, which we eat walking down to the Circle, where we discover a group of musicians jamming. The night is cool and comfortable and we sit on the edge of the fountain and talk. You can’t ask for nicer in mid-August.

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

Madhattan Mystery, by John J. Bonk

From the jacket: “While their father honeymoons with his new wife, Lexi McGill and her younger brother, Kevin, are spending their summer in New York City with their actress aunt. Fitting into the hustle and bustle of city life is tough enough for these small-town kids, but when Lexi overhears a secret plot to hide Cleopatra’s famous jewels after they’re stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, their low-key summer turns into a high-stakes adventure.”

My take: Twelve-year-old Lexi and her nine-year-old brother, Kevin, have come to New York City to stay with Aunt Roz, an actress, and attend an urban summer camp. Shortly after arriving at Grand Central Station, Lexi overhears two men planning what sounds like a jewel heist. Although Lexi puts the conversation out of her mind for a while, when a newspaper article reports that gems purportedly belonging to Cleopatra have been stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she wonders if she really did hear the thieves.

Kim Ling Levine, an aspiring investigative journalist whose parents own the building where Aunt Roz lives in, takes the McGill kids under her wing. When camp ends early on the first day and when Lexi discovers her wallet is missing, Kim introduces them to the city where she has grown up. And when she learns that Lexi may have discovered a clue to the whereabouts of the missing jewels, she kick-starts an adventure that promises the summer will be extraordinary.

There are a couple things I really liked about this story. First, as with many New York-based books, the city stands on its own. Bonk frames the mystery of the book around the Whispering Gallery of Grand Central Station (which I’d never heard of, but which you can bet I’ll be trying the next time I’m there), but offers us additional glimpses of the train station, Central Park, Carnegie Hall, the Met, and general ambiance of a very alive location and the assortment of characters you’ll find there. Second, he gives us a modern novel that makes good use of current technology. Kevin is regularly texting on his smart phone, conversing with a friend. They do research via computer. Bonk makes use of technology well in a genre that tends to have a hard time figuring out how to do that. Finally, Lexi is a complicated character. She’s recently lost her mother and is having a tough time dealing with her father’s remarriage. But while only time can heal such wounds, a really big adventure in a really big city can do wonders for helping you along the path.

Definitely an enjoyable read for the elementary school set.

Pages: 292

Today’s Ten on Tuesday topic is:

10 Favorite TV Shows from my Childhood

This was harder than I thought it was going to be, because I kept thinking of shows I liked. Interestingly, I also thought of shows my brother really liked. Ultimately, I picked ten shows that I watched first-run and that aired before I turned ten, since that age seemed to herald a different type of tv watching for me.

1. Sesame Street: I am an old-school Sesame Street aficionado. No Elmo for me, and Mr. Hooper’s store belongs to Mr. Hooper and is run by David when Mr. Hooper’s not around. Oh, and grown ups can’t see Mr. Snuffleupagus. (Incidentally, I have photos of myself with Gordon and with Susan as a kid. I also have a picture taken with the woman who plays Maria, but we’re both adults in it. At the moment, I can’t put my hands on any of them.)
2. The Muppet Show: This was the first nighttime show I ever watched. So many songs from the 1960s and 1970s are set to animal puppets in my head. Plus, “Pigs in Space” and the animal hospital sketches.
3. Davey and Goliath: This was a religiously themed, claymation, stop-motion tv show that aired on Sunday mornings featuring a boy named Davey and his faithful and wise dog, Goliath. “Oh, Davey!”
4. Super Friends: My favorite Saturday morning cartoon show growing up. I was particularly fond of the Wonder Twins and their purple monkey, Gleek. “Form of an ice dam!” “Shape of a mountain lion!”
5. Fame: I loved it from the very beginning with Doris, Danny, and Bruno through Nia and Jesse to Carrie and Reggie. I used to record the songs off the tv onto a tape, and I can still sing a lot of them.
6. Little House on the Prairie: I loved the books and then I loved the tv show. I started watching it in the afternoon during syndication and then kept watching all the way through the made-for-tv movies when Albert died and when they blew up the buildings. I liked best the shows where they’re back in Walnut Grove and Laura and Albert are teenagers, but I also particularly like the Christmas special where they’re grown and reminiscing about their favorite holiday memories. I think Pa Ingalls was the 1980s version of Judge Hardy or Jim Anderson.
7. CHiPs: Ponch and Jon. Motorcycles. Spectacular crashes where no one ever really got hurt. Lessons learned. The beach. So much fun.
8. The Dukes of Hazzard: Uncle Jesse, cousins Luke, Bo, and Daisy, and nemesis Boss Hogg. It’s so easy to forget in the fun of watching the General Lee fly over an embankment and land safely on the other side, that really the Dukes were breaking the law, delivering moonshine. I’m unclear now as to why they were doing that in modern times, but whatever. All you really knew was that Boss Hogg was corrupt and Roscoe was corrupt and the other two deputies were inept and clearly the Dukes were always in the right because they were against all that corruption. Plus they had the cool car and got all the girls, so obviously they were the good guys.
9. and The A Team: Another fight the man show. This time our protagonists were ex-soldiers who’d been set up as war criminals and they had to find a way to clear their names, evade the authorities, and fight for the good of the American people (in a more individual sense now than when they were in uniform). A clear predecessor to one of my favorite current shows, Leverage, each person had their own role: Hannibal was the brains, Face set the con, Murdoch flew the helicopter and drove the van, and did a number of crazy things that suggested his undercover role as a mental hospital patient might not be such a challenge, and B.A. was the muscle (who was afraid of flying).
10. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: He had his very own Land of Make Believe, people! And miniature sculptures of them. And Trolley. And a stop light in his living room. And Picture Picture. And Mr. McFeeley (with whom I also have a photo) stopping by for a speedy delivery. And it seems like in real life he really was that good of a guy. I stopped watching the show for a long time, thinking I had outgrown it. But then when I graduated from college and started working, I’d watch him in the morning before going to work because he just set the right tone for the day.

If I weren’t sticking with shows I watched first-run, M*A*S*H would definitely have made the list, since I’m pretty sure I have seen every episode of every season it was ever on, but I’ve seen the entire series in syndication.

I wrote yesterday about how I had failed to finish my Color Affection shawl in time to qualify for the Ravellenic Games. What I failed to mention was that the knitting I did during the Olympic Games was not without its fruits.

Last year I began a Lace Rims shawl for Mum’s Christmas present, but I ran out of time before I ran out of yarn, which meant that she received a three-quarters-finished shawl under the tree. I brought it back home with me intending to finish it quickly. We all know how these things go, and, while I knit a row or two on it sometime over the winter, basically I let it sit in favor of new projects.

Fast forward to the first week of the Olympics. Color Affection had run into some issues and I thought I needed a 4.5mm needle to fix one of them. The only needle I had in that size was holding Lace Rims, and I thought it made the most sense to polish it off before I got to work on my own shawl.

First, there was the mishap of figuring out where I was in the pattern. Forgetting each row ends with an additional knit stitch caused a few hiccups, resulting in some ripping.

The yarn is Wolle’s Yarn Creations Color Changing Cotton 6-Ply (in, I believe, Misty Lagoon). It consists of six unplied strands of cotton that change from light to medium to dark over the course of 320 yards. Only one strand changes at a time, but when it does, it’s knotted to the next color.

I knew I was short on yarn and that I did not have quite enough to complete the pattern repeats as written. However, when I reached the end of the last full repeat I knew I could fit in before the border, one strand was still in the medium green, and I still had a bunch of yarn left.

I really wanted the border to be all one color.

So I did what any dedicated knitter would have done. I unwound the remaining yarn in the ball, measured off the yardage the pattern said I needed for the border, and looked at what I had left. There was still quite a bit of yarn left — enough, I thought, for two more rows, which would get me past the final knot and into the dark green on all six strands.

You can already see where this is going, right?

This was not my first knitting project, so I could see the potential for disaster, too, and so I decided to hedge my bet by putting in a lifeline (essentially, a long piece of yarn run through a row of stitches, particularly in lace work) before those two final rows.

Thank goodness I did, because this is how close I got to the end of the bind-off before I ran out of yarn:

So, back I ripped to the lifeline. I put it back on a (smaller) needle and began the bind-off from there (eight rows shorter than the pattern calls for).

Let me pause here to mention again that this yarn is unplied. When knitting with it, it was fine. Occasionally I’d bisect the strands instead of going through the stitch, but really not a significant amount more than when normal.

Crocheting with the yarn, however, is another ballgame entirely, particularly when I reached the part in each scallop where you had to pull the stitch through four loops at once. Not fun. Not an enjoyable process.

But eventually I did succeed:

A completed shawlette:

It does look pretty, particularly with the beads in the border. I opted for two colors, a dark green that matched the yarn at the end of the skein and a lighter, sparkly one that matched the beginning of the skein.

The shawl qualified for the Ravellenic Games knitalong in the WIPs (works in progress) wrestling category.

But, more importantly, Mum finally got her Christmas present back:

(Thanks to Mum, who took several of these photos for me and emailed them this afternoon, when I realized I didn’t have any of the shawl as a whole.)

The Olympic Games ended earlier this evening with a fun, music-filled closing ceremony. I have spent way more time in the past two weeks parked in front of the tv than I should have. I watched a lot of sports, from swimming to track & field, from volleyball to basketball, from rhythmic gymnastics to water polo. And I did a lot of knitting on my Ravellenic Games project.

The evidence:

That would be my Color Affection Shawl.

I’ll be ripping out quite a bit of it starting tomorrow.

See that bunchy edge? It’s not supposed to look like that.

The culprit would be the yarn I’m carrying up the side for the color changes. Even though I was trying really hard not to make it too tight, clearly I did.

I had deluded myself this was something I might be able to solve during the blocking process, but early this morning I realized that what was more likely to happen is that I’d catch the edge of the finished shawl on something and it would snap, leaving me with a big problem.

So, I’m sucking it up and ripping it back to at least the beginning of the three-color section. The two-color section is also tighter than I’d like it to be, but I still feel like that part might be remedied by blocking.

I’ll get my shawl yet, just not today.

It’s Thursday, which means it’s time to look back on three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I messed up and missed my flight. The customer service people at the Southwest ticket counter quickly and cheerfully came to my rescue and got me on the next flight.

2. A storm cleared out the humidity, resulting in lovely flying conditions. Little planes cross below us, towns and forests resemble the tilt-shift effect of the opening montage of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and puffy clouds offer the appearance of a sky glacier.

3. Julia and I meet for tea. It looks stormy to our north, but the weather clears without rain, offering a cool, dry evening to sit outside and chat.

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