MarQ1

Warning: if you haven’t seen the latest episode of Six Feet Under, and care at all about the plot, stop reading at the last picture.
I hate admitting this, but Saturday afternoon John Irving started losing me. I’ve stalled at p. 654. I got to chapter 34 and felt like I’d rather finish Backyard Leaves.

I only needed to tink two rows and finish the last repeat. Weaving in the ends was simple, if time-consuming, but joining the two halves was fascinatingly frustrating. I abandoned the instructions, loaded the cast-on stitches onto dpn’s in the same order so I picked up the same number of stitches, then bound them off together. And I got this:

My apologies to Franklin for using the bust. My graphic designer husband arranged this and took the photo for me. Geez, you should see the horrors I took. But you won’t.

I tried to get a shot of said husband, but got this:

This was a cool shot. The table’s frosted glass gives a mist effect.
The scarf is cute and I recommend it for someone who’s afraid of lace effects. It looks complicated, but it has a good rhythm, that makes sense once you get into it.

It could be wider though.
I can’t believe they killed off Nate Fisher with three episodes remaining. I thought he’d linger. Will Claire end up with a Republican? Just how guilty can Ruth feel? Is David the epitome of the gay man you hope you’re not? [Wait! I’ve been asking myself that last question for the last three seasons, the current plotline not withstanding.]

12:23am, page 332

Last night around 10:30, I picked up John Irving’s new novel, Until I Find You. I bought it while in Ptown, but have been avoiding opening it because I knew I wouldn’t want to put it down and didn’t want to get sand in it and wanted to make some progress on Backyard Leaves and actually get some sleep.

After 132 pages, I forced myself to put it down and go to bed. It was after 12:30.

Book critic I’m not, so I can’t describe it very well. Irving again manages to make the unusual and improbable a good believable read. Not to mention the detail on tattooing. The things I didn’t know.
I had my biweekly massage this evening and that loosened up the knot that remained at the base of my spine. Tomorrow should be much better.
A special thanks to Jon for sending the horrible Denver heat our way. Somewhere along the way it picked up New Orleans’ humidity. Sitting in my over-air-conditioned office, this usually wouldn’t bother me, but I forgot that I had a meeting uptown this afternoon that required a pressed shirt instead of the sloppy Gap polo shirt I threw on this morning. For lunch I walked home and ironed a shirt and ate a bowl of Cheerios. Then I got to walk back to work wearing the pressed shirt and an undershirt. Can’t have anything showing through the sweat-soaked shirt. Later I got to travel on the subway. Twice. Drip, drip, drip.
Back to Irving.

I took the bike out to Coney Island yesterday. The weather was perfect. Almost too hot, but Jon rightly says we have no right to complain give how bad it’s been elsewhere.

Borough Park is perfect for biking on a Saturday, too. The neighborhood is primarily Jewish and there are few cars on the road. Off the primary streets you can get a good speed up. The streets are tree-lined and and in fairly good condition.

Coney Island, however, is particularly unattractive. Potholes. Trash. Bad drivers. Giant eyesore housing complexes. I took the camera along, but didn’t see anything I wanted to take pictures of.

Actually, I did. Shell Rd under the F line tracks was impressive in the bright summer sun, but I was apprehensive about taking a picture of a transportation facility given the current situation. The elevated line runs right next to the transit railyard. There had to be security.

It took an hour to get out to Coney Island from Boerum Hill and about the same to return. About twenty minutes out, I felt a twinge in my lower back while starting up from a dead stop at a traffic signal. It didn’t bother me much and I kept going. Then when I got home I had to carry the bike upstairs. AARGH. I can now barely move. There are only two comfortable chairs in the apartment. Doing laundry today was an adventure of a different sort. When we went out to dinner last night, I walked to slowest I’ve ever walked.

Oddly, I probably still could have biked today, since that position isn’t painful, I just would not have been able to get the bike downstairs nor have been able to get on the bike.

In this case, flowers from the deck.

I offer you this, because J took this wonderful shot. The sky was this clear and almost this blue for most of the trip.

Friday morning, when I was up hours before everyone else. I sat on the deck, tried to knit the blasted sock, gave that up and listened to Ptown wake up. First the sound of insects (green-eyed-flybite on left shoulder), then birds, then little afoot traffic and dogwalking, and then somewhere a house or two over guy said “Boopie?” and nothing else.

Saturday morning, when I was up only an hour before everyone else, there were signs of fog earlier, even though the skies were fair. The deck was wet as were the tops and undersides of the tables and unfortunately the seat cushions. I knit some scarf and just sat and relaxed. And heard a foghorn in the distance. Other guys got up, came out to to the deck and had coffee and breakfast and still there was the foghorn. Not a cloud in sight. It was warming up and it looked like it might get hot on the beach.

J, who can always sleep in, finally got up around 9, had his breakfast. Still the foghorn. We went up Commercial to the pharmacy to get more sunblock, went back to the house and slathered it on. The sun was strong and still the foghorn. I wondered if the Coast Guard forgot about it. A fairly sweaty forty minute walk to the beach and the foghorn continued. And on the other side of the dune, on the beach and in the bay, fog.
It didn’t last long.

I did get through half of the ninth repetition on Backyard Leaves before the first ball of yarn ran out, and got some grief when discovered knitting on it at breakfast. The patterning was admired, however.

Since the end of a ball of yarn is a logical stopping point, I picked up my Lantern Moon #1 dpn’s and dutifully knit a swatch of the Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Camouflage. I measured gauge three times and began the sock at the toe. Screwed that up. Tried again. Screwed up again. The yarn more often than not was the same color as the needles, the yarn would not slide on the needles, and the stitches were so small and indistinguishable from the needles that almost every stitch was knit four inches in front of my severely myopic eyes, either without my glasses or peering over them like an old lady. Very sexy. And not particularly relaxing.

After three days I gave up and went back to the scarf.
I amvery happy with the pattern of the scarf. It is easier than it would appear at first glance. Halfway through the first repetition, the pattern became almost self-evident. This is not to say that I have not entirely avoided accidentally adding my own subtle variations to the author’s intended design. The worst of these I tinked, and only frogged two rows.

[Note: I finished the first half of the scarf this morning and began the second half this evening.]
In lieu of knitting pictures (there are none), I give you this:

This is Mike, one of our hosts, with his partner Tom’s idea of a margarita glass. You can finish one of these, but you really shouldn’t. It was a good party, though.

This is the view from the third-story deck at The Grandview Inn on the first Saturday of our vacation. It was cloudy, a bit humid and a little cool, but nice. We had a surprise thunderstorm later that evening, the last bit of dicey weather until the Sunday we left.

The beach was beautiful everyday and we had a cool breeze until Friday. By Thursday, the water was calm and relatively warm (you could still feel your toes) so we could go into the water to cool off, though I never could get in past my navel.
Only three green-eyed fly bites. Not bad, but big ugly bumps.
Note: I’m posting this in bits and manipulating the post times to get this in some semblance of order.