One of my tasks at work is ordering books for the store, and part of that task is reading the announcements of forthcoming books. The most recent announcement was rather breathless about up-coming novels. All of them seem to be "lyrical," "evocative," "piercing," or even "lyrical and brutal by turns."

I do not find this helpful.

At one point, I was envisioning the reviewer with a thesaurus at hand, but then it seemed as though it must be a handy list of noncommital adjectives. After all, what does it mean to say that a book is "evocative"? After a bit, it seemed possible that it was in fact a dart board. The tip hits the line between "haunting" and "lyrical" and you've got a haunting, lyrical book.

I hope next month we get back to the guy who sorts books into "romp" and "thriller" and actually summarizes the story a bit.

Of course, it could be the same person or people, but under different circumstances. Our local movie reviewer used to write about things like plot and acting, but after a trip to New York City began describing movies as having "fractal luminosity." The folks at Ingram might have read all those novels under the influence of eggnog and gingerbread. Or, in an access of spontaneity, just not read them at all.

Silkenshine asks for clarification about how a sock and a mitten are alike. Now, there are plenty of different patterns for both things, some not like each other at all. For a basic sock or mitten, however, you swatch with stockinette, measure the wrist or ankle in question, and cast on enough stitches to do the job. So, if you want an 11" cuff, and you are getting 6 stitches to the inch, you would cast on 66 stiches. Depending on the weight of the yarn, your number might be anywhere from 20 to 100 stitches; it doesn't matter. The pair I am doing now starts at 40 stitches.

Then you rib (p1, k1, or any variation on that) for as long as you want the cuff. Hold it up against your arm or leg to decide how long you want it. I did four inches. Then you switch to a larger size of needle and work in stockinette till you are ready to do the fancy bit.

At this point you must decide whether you are making a sock or a mitten. If you are making a sock, you need to make a heel. If you are making a mitten, you do a thumb. You can find instructions for both of these processes in your basic knitting book -- I pull out Mary Thomas's Knitting Book if I need a reminder. For the purposes of comparing socks and mittens, we can just leave it at that.

Having done the exciting part, you continue till the sock or mitten is long enough. If you're not sure, make the hand section twice as long as the cuff and that should do. Then do matched decreases -- k2tog on one side and ssk on the other -- to make a nice round toe or mitten top. Again, any basic knitting book will give you the details on that. This picture happens to show the toe of a sock, but it could equally well be the top of a mitten.

And the picture on the left happens to be the cuff of a sock, but it could just as well be the cuff of a mitten.

So you see, aside from the exciting part in the middle, a sock and a mitten are just alike. I think that can help when you are using a pattern, because you have a mental idea of where you are going with it. And you can easily shift patterns from a sock to a mitten or vice versa. And if you've done one successfully, then you know you can do the other.

One of my favorite cartoons shows two lab-coated people standing at a blackboard covered with equations, but with "at this point, a miracle occurs" written in the middle. The caption reads, "I think this step needs a little clarification." If you feel that way about my sock and mitten explanation, let me know and I will explain further.

It is 63 degrees outside. I like this weather very much and have no complaints from a personal standpoint, unlike the people who enjoyed the 11-degree days we had a couple of weeks ago. The problem is that the plants are budding, leafing, and even blooming. When we return to our regularly-scheduled winter, they may all be blighted. I don't know what to do for them -- wait till a cold snap is predicted and cover them up? Leave them alone? Prune them all right now?

We may be in for very expensive fruit this summer, but I hope we do not end up with dead trees and perennials as well. The natives also say that we will have a banner year for fleas and ticks if we don't have any more winter than we've had so far. So either way, we can't be completely happy about this weather.

I am making mittens anyway. During my walk in the snow, I planned a Wedgwood-blue mitten with cables, for my own then-freezing hands. However, #1 son wanted a pair, so I am making his first. He wanted them with no ribbing, so they would be really loose. I didn't feel that I could do that, even though I had been reading SnB2, so I did the ribbing with the same needles as the stocking stitch. Very loose. And I'm doing the whole thing plain and dark. The thumb is on the other side.

This is Wool-Ease sport weight, on a size 6 sleeve needle. I'll switch to dpns for the top and the thumb.

If you ever want to make plain mittens with whatever yarn you have hanging around, you should know that it is just the same as making a sock. There is a thumb gusset instead of a heel to turn, but the hand and thumb both finish off just as a sock would, and you can do the whole thing with a little simple arithmetic.

"As one grows older, keeps house, and has children, a fact of life emerges to cloud the previously clear, far vistas of fine young minds: everyone is fighting off a creeping state of chaos that relentlessly threatens to overrun home, hearth, and mental health." So says James Mustich of A Common Reader (http://www.commonreader.com/cgi-bin/rbox/ido.cgi/home.html). He has a point. I know that there is a constant tension in my life between spontaneity and order.

Here I am, for example, after the guests left yesterday, happily knitting Hopkins. My book is arranged so that I can read as I knit, I have one color in each hand, and I am just relaxing and doing what I feel like at the moment. This is the joy of spontaneity. I've done this a lot over the past month.

But here is the cost of that spontaneous pleasure. My knitting basket is a welter of yarns with needles poking out every which way. Here is the leftover yarn from the DNA scarves and hats, there a ball from Siv which I thought might come in handy for the ill-fated Fair Isle which has become Hopkins, there a messy skein at the top of a paper bag full of cotton and wool. Markers, measuring tools, crochet hooks, and other impedimenta have fallen to the bottom of the basket where they are nearly impossible to find when needed.

Things are no better in my crafts cupboard, where patterns and yarn are supposed to live neatly with other craft materials.

I have been having fun making stuff with my daughter, and grabbing things needed to finish off holiday projects. And, in a fine spirit of spontaneity, I have not put things away properly. What is the result? Chaos.

And that is the trouble, really. Spontaneity may be at one end of the spectrum of pleasure and order at the other end. Fun and excitement at the spontaneous end, serenity and contemplation at the orderly end. But if you go far enough toward spontaneity, or spend enough time there, you end up off the pleasure spectrum entirely. You no longer have spontaneity; you just have chaos.

This is true of crafts supplies, but it is also true -- let's face it -- of most other areas in life, from work to food to sex.

Here is an example from the world of knitting.

This is how knitting needles are supposed to be. Pencil pockets are in a binder, clearly labelled, and the needles are sorted into the pockets, each pocket holding one size of needles, from 00 to 16. The binder then goes neatly on the shelf of my craft cupboard. Whatever size of needles I need, I can go right to it in a matter of moments. Is that what is happening now? By no means. I have been pulling out needles willy-nilly and failing to return them to their pockets, and my daughter has done the same. My sons have used them for sword fights, too. So now I start to make mittens, and have to search for needles. I find no matching sets of sleeve needles plus dpns, which are what I use for mittens. I have to ransack the house, paw through my knitting basket, nag the boys, give up and use the wrong size ...

Is this the pleasure of spontaneity? No. It is the misery of chaos.

Obviously, I will have to clean out my crafts cupboard. My knitting basket, too.

The good news is that Hopkins is looking better all the time. Either that, or I am getting used to it. What do you think?

Hopkins, with the order of the colorwork patterns and the spontaneity of the variegated yarns, may be the ideal knitting representation of the philosophical issue at hand.

#2 daughter is leaving today. She and DrDrew are going to The Emo King's for the day and then, tomorrow, heading back up to school in a caravan. I will definitely miss her.

DrDrew (who is not as it happens a doctor, but that is his xanga name) was telling us last night how he successfully gained 30 pounds by eating 2 pounds of ground beef each day over the summer. I am sure that he will share his diet tips with you if you ask him.

I gained four pounds over the holidays myself, but I think my method of eating chocolate gateau, Buche de Noel, eggnog cookies, and pate de maison is more appealing than the daily 2 lbs of beef method. Cutting weekly gym visits in half was also an essential part of the regime. As of today, however, I will return to the triglyceride-improvement health-conscious pattern. Farewell, holiday foods! It was fun!

DrDrew, who is studying medicine, assured me that all Americans have some heart damage, and that -- while he hasn't yet gotten to triglycerides in his studies -- my skepticism about some of the studies on heart health is no reason to give up healthy eating and exercise. The Empress and That Man slipped for only a couple of days, but I am using my houseful of teens as my excuse. Once I have only two, it will be easier to fight.

I have kept my fingers in trim with daily knitting, though. Does that count?

#2 daughter borrowed this book from the library. It has a newsboy hat which I may make for #1 daughter, a couple of patterns #2 daughter wants made for her, and a sweater with flames on the sleeves which I would like to make, but I have no one willing to wear it. If I am ever a grandmother, I will make the bunny hat, too. However, I will not need the patterns themselves to do any of these things, so I will not be buying the book.

If I were a beginning knitter, though, I would. It has good basic instructions, lots of helpful hints (though I confess to failing to understand the reason for freezing mohair; guess I'll have to try it), and easy patterns for jazzy little things like cell-phone covers and monster slippers.

The teens and twenty-somethings are engaged in world domination over by the fireplace (Risk: Godstorm, to be specific) and I am waiting for the laundry to be ready to shift. At work, we've been doing inventory and calculations and fourth-quarter post-mortems, and one of the things we've been discussing is the fall in toy sales. This is nothing new, and nothing specific to us -- if you follow business news, you will have noticed it yourself over the past few years.

Is it because people are turning to a spiritual rather than material focus for the holidays? Making charming hand-turned wooden dolls and trains? Joining their children in giving to charity instead of buying toys? No, indeed. It is because children are receiving electronic stuff instead of toys. I like electronic stuff, and I gave my kids some for Christmas, too -- but we are talking here even about small children. Parents think their 5 year olds are too old for toys. They want electronic gear for their infants and toddlers.

This is a problem not because there is something wrong with electronics, but because of what the kids are giving up: physical activity, social interaction, imaginative play, and any semblance of amusing themselves. The kids in my living room are having a really good time playing games right now, without any screens at hand. Sometimes they play music, sometimes physical games they make up on their own, and sometimes board games -- and, at 13 to 21, they are not by any means too old to play. Most kids do have fun playing, if they get the opportunity. But often they do not get the opportunity. They have nothing between supervised sports and video games, with TV a constant companion. I have actually seen video-equipped strollers.

The result of this is that we have kids behaving like teenagers from about age 7 on. The Wall Street Journal reports that adulthood doesn't begin now until about 26. So we have a twenty-year adolescence. Is this what we want? Either for ourselves, our kids, or our society?

Something to think about.

Our guest arrived safely from KC. I enjoyed my walk to work through light, fluffy snow. #2 daughter's gingerbread idea was inspired.

I was inspired, as I walked, to make a pair of mittens. Nothing like 11 degree weather to create this sort of inspiration. I have not made mittens in several years. My family now mostly chooses to wear gloves. I have made only one pair of gloves in my life, and found the fingers too fiddly to enjoy. Plus, we usually lose gloves, too. I have been buying the $1 stretchy kind at the grocery store, since it isn't so painful when they are lost.

However, now that I have a Stash... Well, I was walking along with bare hands in my pockets, comparing the warmth of my wool-swathed head and neck with my cold hands, and I am thinking that a nice pair of heathery blue mittens with cables would be just the ticket. I was tired of cables, having made four cabled projects almost in a row, but Mayflower's lovely cable pictures and #2 daughter's handsome sweater-in-progress have reignited my fondness for them.

Thinking about knitting and deciding what to make is almost half the fun. I have another pair or two of slippers to make, and I am thinking I'll do clogs rather than ballet slippers, with some colorwork. I have never felted colorwork before, so that will be a bit of an adventure.

Nor have I given up on the variegated sweater. Here it is, with the second pattern begun and the first one completed. It continues to look variegated. However, there is a semblance of pattern and order. I am beginning to like it better. It may turn out to be the sort of sweater that looks better from a distance.

I have given it a name. It is taking its shaping from Siv, and its patterns from the Alice Starmore Celtic Collection, using two different ones so far, and it is in Wool-Ease "Autumn' and heather gray. None of these facts is sufficient inspiration for a name -- or rather, there are too many possibilities, none more compelling than another. And yet, I am tired of typing "the variegated sweater" every time I refer to the wretched thing. So I have named it "Hopkins." This is because I rather think it was Gerard Manley Hopkins who wrote "Pied Beauty," the poem celebrating variegated stuff. I could go check my facts, but I am already thinking of the sweater as Hopkins, so I'd rather not learn that I am wrong.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany. It has been celebrated since at least the 4th century. An Italian story for this day is the legend of Old Befana. The Wise Men stopped by her house (doubtless the same group of Wise Men who travelled through Provence in yesterday's song) and asked her to join them, but she was too busy cleaning her house and said she would catch up later. She never did catch up, and is said to fly around on Twelfth Night every year, taking presents to kids while she searches for the Christ child.

This is the day for removing all holiday decorations, and particularly all greenery, from your house, in order to avoid bad luck in the New Year. We are not superstitious, but we are traditionalists, so we will have an undecorating party today. Gingerbread is the traditional special food, and #2 daughter has had an inspiration about that. We will make gingerbread cupcakes with peach frozen yogurt, topped with caramel, pecans, and almonds. Since our anticipated houseguest is a guy from Kansas City, we will also roast a large piece of beef. Since he has told us that he loves carrots, we will have those, too.

My favorite definition of superstition is that it is the practice of doing ineffective things when no effective things are available. I think I behave a bit superstitiously about weather. For example, I have never mentioned the hitherto-balmy winter we have been having, even in the context of knitting wooly thngs. And in my discussions of holiday songs, I have included no snow songs, even though there are several that I really like. If you did not know that I was not superstitious, you might have thought that I did not want to jinx the upper-60s winter we have been having here.

But today we have snow. DrDrew (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=DrDrew), who is supposed to visit us today, was intending to fly back into KC today and then drive down here. I don't know that he will make it. #2 daughter is supposed to return to her school on Monday. We will see. And I was planning to walk to work, since my car is still not repaired. Hmmm. Good thing that I have wooly things to bundle up in.

If we have another foot or so, I can just stay home and knit instead.

One last seasonal song for you: "O Morning Star, so Fair and Bright."

http://www.113.d2g.com/orange-pages/lyrics/umh247.htm

This is not a jolly song, but a majestic one, and very beautiful. It was written by Phillip Nicolai in 1599, but was possibly based on an earlier tune from Strasbourg. J.S. Bach's harmony absolutely makes this hymn, so invite a small choir in to sing it with you as you remove all stray greenery and eat gingerbread, and you will have the complete experience.

Tonight will be Twelfth Night, the last festival of Christmas. Some will have a Kings' Cake, with a fava bean in it to identify the King or Queen of the Revels -- a license for mischief. A masked ball is just the thing, with dancing and excessive kissing if possible.

Here is a recipe for your Kings' Cake, or Galette des Rois, which I have run through automatic translation for the benefit of non-French speakers. Oh, I admit it, I love the surrealistic charm of automatic translation. It is just a little early Twelfth Night mischief : http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/recettes/gateau/galette_rois_ill.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgalette%2Bdes%2Brois%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

There are perfectly good recipes in English, like this one: http://www.yummybaguette.com/recipe/Gallette_Des_Rois.php.htm

Here is my personal favorite song about the Three Kings, "Le Marche des Rois Mages": http://bmarcore.club.fr/noel/P-N139-P.html There is a grandeur to this song, even though the image it gives of the wise men's passage -- with banners and retinue and so on, travelling through Provence together -- does not seem very plausible. The tune is suited to a conga line, though, for your masked ball.

And here is an English text for it, with an MP3: http://www.members.shaw.ca/rhannah1/3kingsMP3.htm

Here is another Epiphany hymn, "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning": http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/b/r/brightes.htm

This is a sweet 19th century hymn, the kind you may remember your grandmother singing at the piano in the parlor. This will be suitable for singing or playing to settle down for naps taken to fortify yourself for the night of wild frolicsomeness to come.

But this is also the day my boys go back to school, the day after my car broke down, and the day before our next houseguest arrives, so we may be doing more work than celebration at our house.

You may be ready to take your mind off all thoughts of celebration. The Water Jar http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=TheWaterJar has an interesting discussion of free speech going on. It began two days ago, but I have been going back to read the new comments each day, so if you weigh in on the discussion, I will see what you have to say.

Or if you are in the mood for mischief, go to DrDrew's site (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=DrDrew) and join in the hijacking of his xanga. He has been out of the country, and people have taken the opportunity to take over his xanga for not-very-nefarious purposes. He will be our houseguest, and I look forward to seeing his reaction when he discovers this. If you leave an entirely random comment there, it will add to the mischief.

Oh, and I am told that Kael (not Kale, like the vegetable) Darkstar is a character in a game, so the book of poetry I mentioned may be a virtual one, not a real one. This makes an even better example, actually, but I stand corrected.

A customer told me yesterday that she had gone home to find her teenage son riding his skateboard off the roof. Having a couple of teenage sons of my own, I said, "Of course!" Mine haven't done that yet, or I haven't caught them at it, but that's just because it hasn't occurred to them yet. If they thought of it, they would do it. Another told me that a friend of hers has a son who has just published a book of poetry under the name "Kale Darkstar." Well, why not?

The revels are nearly over, though. Tomorrow night will be Twelfth Night, the next day the solemn feast of Epiphany, and then we must resign ourselves to winter.

The Star of Bethlehem is one of the powerful symbols of Epiphany. The other is the group of people known as the Magi. We know them as the Three Kings or the Three Wise Men. The Bible only tells us that some magis came from the east. There is nothing in the scripture that says there were three, that they rode camels, or even that they were men.

Later legend holds that they were Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, kings of India, Chaldea, and Persia. We see them in paintings, a white guy, an Asian guy, and a black guy, riding camels through the night. Modern Epiphany sermons tend to hold onto this legend and this visual image, because it is a good symbol of multiculturalism and unity. Another good topic to contemplate as we settle into the new year.

Here is a hymn for Epiphany which doesn't necessarily evoke those men on camels: "Who Are These Who Ride by Starlight?"

http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/who_are_these_who_ride_by_starli.htm

This song was written by Marnie Barnell in 1996, and at this website uses the tune "Dona Dona."

And here it is with another tune, written for it by New Zealand composer Jillian Bray:

http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/barrell/mb03.html

This is rather a political hymn. I don't have a problem with mixing religion and politics, or music and politics either, but consider yourself warned.

If you are keeping up with the Christmas story, you know that now we are thinking of the journey of the Magi, the sages from the east. Over time, we have turned them into three kings, or at least wise men, but the Bible doesn't give us those details. Roger Highfield, arguing from astronomical evidence, suggests that they must have been from Babylon, modern-day Iraq.

The three kings are one of the powerful symbols of this time of year, and I'll talk about them tomorrow. The other is the star of Bethlehem. There are many interesting theories about this star and what it might have been. Here, in the manner of Leonidas, is a link that discusses the question:  http://sciastro.net/portia/articles/thestar.htm

In modern Epiphany sermons, the star usually is used as a symbol of God's light, or of leading and following. "What star," asked the preacher at my church yesterday, "are you following?" This is an excellent thing to consider as we begin our new year. On what do we base our decisions? Where did we get our resolutions, if we made them? If we look down the path we are currently on, where is it leading us? A conventional topic for contemplation, certainly, but a good one as we head into 2005.

The trouble with the hymns written for Epiphany is that there are too many of them for the brief time in which they are sung. This is especially true since people rarely gather around the piano to sing Epiphany carols.With only four days left of my songfest, I will have a hard time deciding which ones to offer you. After all, many of the Christmas songs can be eliminated immediately on the grounds of familiarity. Among the Epiphany songs, however, once you mention "We Three Kings," you've about covered the popular ones.

Here is "What Star is This That Beams so Bright?"

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/w/h/whatstar.htm

The words were written, in Latin, by Charles Coffin, a Frenchman, the rector of the University of Paris. He published the Paris Breviary in 1736. He wrote more than 100 hymns. The tune is "Puer Nobis Nascitur," a 15th century German effort. It was later fiddled with by our friends Michael Praetorius (Renaissance dance music guy) and George Woodward (Victorian writer of ancient-seeming music). So you can know ahead of time that this is a pretty, dancing tune in the Renaissance style. We sang it in church yesterday in unison, which I always find boring, but you could definitely haul out the harp and drum and use it for your Twelfth Night revels.

John Chandler did the translation in 1837. However, the website I've linked you to does not include my favorite line: "Let not our slothful hearts refuse/ The guidance of your light to use." It says "May we no more that grace repel/ Or quench the light which shines so well." But most of us do more harm in slothful refusal to do what we know is right, than in powerful quenching of goodness.

Having a pair of gigantic needles out for the felted slippers, I went ahead and made myself a scarf like the one of #2 daughter's which I had been coveting. That is too complex a sentence for this hour of the morning, but here is the scarf. I used the handspun yarn I bought at the Kansas City Renaissance Faire in the fall.

I have made three pairs of the slippers, and will be making another couple of pairs in order to keep all the toes of the family warm. I am also still working, albeit intermittently, on the variegated sweater. My Christmas yarn continues to sit in my closet. This means that I still have A Stash. Sigh. It is a nice feeling, but I know I must not allow myself to get too attached to it. I have seen, in the land of knitting blogs, what happens to those who get too fond of their stashes.