Nona has asked what we have next to us when we knit. Her picture, complete with numbers and legend, shows her with all her tools neatly arranged on little trays, drinking red wine from a juice glass and listening to NPR while also reading. I admire this sort of thing.

I do not intend to show you a picture of my knitting set-up, because it would not be attractive. I, like Nona, spent yesterday evening knitting. However, it was not organized or picturesque. Friday night is, by long custom, a night when I do not have to do anything. I had picked up boxes of chicken fajitas from the Drive-Through Dinner at the church (and I must say that I really enjoyed the girl who stood out in the rain with a red umbrella, directing drivers as though it were part of an avant-garde ballet). #1 son was at the high school choir concert, my husband was at a tournament, and #2 son requested that we have the TV on in order to avoid quiet. I would never want to avoid quiet myself, I love quiet, but I acquiesced.

I turned on something new -- a program called "What Not to Wear." In this program, if I understand it correctly from watching one episode, people's friends turn them in for being badly dressed and ill-groomed. Then a couple of New Yorkers come to these people, cast aspersions upon their clothing, give them large sums of money to spend on new clothing, and generally remodel their look. And I must say that the woman in last night's episode looked much better when they finished with her.

A while back, The Empress was lunching with some ladies and a girl walked by in something scandalous. One of the ladies said "Condaleeza Rice would never dress like that." Now, Rice may be dishonest and ruthless, but you must admit that she is well-groomed. Nonetheless, it struck us as a hilarious remark. So The Empress and I make a point, whenever possible, of using that phrase. Just yesterday, for example, she decided not to order a particular poster because of the extreme shortness of the skirt in the poster, and I was able to pipe right up with "Condaleeza Rice would never dress like that." You get so few opportunities to say this in real life... But I digress. 

In any case, there I was watching this bizarre program, and what did I have nearby me? Almost nothing. My knitting graph. The knitting itself. The newspaper my husband had left on the coffee table. That's it.

I intend to do better today. I have a lot of house and garden work to do today, and the Schwann's man is coming (I am doing some serious laying in of ice cream for next weekend's house guest, who informs me through Pokey that he does not need any Roast Beast, not even a giraffe). Once these domestic chores are completed, I will set up some nice little still life of knitting tools and tea accoutrements, books, and perhaps a dish of potpourri. I will approach the afternoon's knitting in a setting of preparedness and luxury. It might change the whole experience. I'll let you know.

Here is the knitting, though. That zebra is still there, isn't it? I have about five rows in which to change this thing into a flower. It does seem to me that some florality is beginning to show up. Perhaps it will be one of those pictures that you can see in two ways, like the one that can either be a young woman or an old one, or the glasses that can also be a couple of human profiles. If this results in people's staring fixedly at my T-shirt in an effort to see both views, I will regret having chosen this design.

My T-shirt front is back up to 105 rows, a bit past where I had to frog before. I have completed the leaves (That's the part that looks like a zebra face) and begun the blossoms (which may end up looking like the zebra's hat).

April has been an irritating month in a lot of ways. In addition to assorted health problems we have also had assorted electronic quandaries. The CD burner is now working -- but apparently at the cost of being able to hear DVDs played on the computer. We have yet to find a perfect legal music service. At work, we have new hardware which won't work properly, in much the same ways that the new CD burner wouldn't. These are all small things.

The bigger thing is that someone has been hijacking my screen name and using it to send spam and IMs linking to pornographic sites. This keeps happening in spite of frequent changes of  password and various kinds of vigilance. This morning I had a message telling me that my internet account had been suspended for violation of terms, and I had to answer security questions and change my password yet again.

I particularly dislike this because my screen name is our family name, not something anonymous.

This has been my screen name since 1997 or so, and I have used it on genealogical message boards. This is a thing where you can post questions about family history mysteries, and eventually someone who knows the answer may see it -- I actually got a response to a question just this morning. So I don't want to give up and change servers. And I suppose I could change servers and have the problem begin all over again.

We have firewalls and virus protection and all that stuff. I've reported the problem to the fraud squad at my server and spoken with them on the phone.

So I guess the point of this post is to say -- if you get a nasty message purporting to come from me, don't think that it does. And if you have any suggestions for what to do, I'd love to hear them.

There were so many interesting responses to yesterday's post -- if you didn't read them, and if you find the subject interesting, then you should check them out.

I woke up yesterday with an allergy attack that had gotten to my eyes. Actually, my eyelid. On one side. I looked as though I had had a stroke or something. Or been punched in the eye. The swelling and redness was terrible to behold. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Looking like Quasimodo, I went to the doctor. (NB, Pokey, I had an ailment and -- I went to the doctor.) It was interesting to me that they asked questions like, "And what did you want to see the NP about today?" and "Have you noticed any redness?" I suppose even in a medical context you would not want to say "Ah, I suppose you are here about the hideous disfiguring swelling on your face" just in case the patient hadn't noticed it.

In any case, they gave me a prescription for corticosteroids in massive quantities. After The Empress made a stirring speech on Modern Medical Science and Unecessary Suffering, I even went and had the prescription filled. The pharmacist offered me some light reading on nervousness, anxiety, mood swings, indigestion, increased appetite, insomnia, and other things I could anticipate, and told me to take 6 tablets right away.

I no longer feel hideously deformed. I hardly even notice itching and swelling. I did however feel drugged. I had trouble making sense when I spoke. I had to apologize to people and explain that I was taking medications. Tra la.

Now, having slept for a few hours, I feel lucid again. And yet I am sure that once I take today's five tablets, I will again feel drugged. It will be like being one of those fairy tale characters who turns into a polar bear in the day time and goes back to being human at night. My normal morning will be affected by my knowledge that I will be a loopy creature by afternoon. Well, at least I am not nervous.

Choir practice is evolving, but slowly. I am shocked and saddened to tell you that the director gave in to the basses when they said they wanted to sing a C natural instead of the C sharp written in the music.

Being drugged, I protested. "Why is it a C sharp?" the bass soloist demanded. "So it will have that exciting dissonance to resolve," said I, "It's a rumba. You have to imagine yourself slinking around with maracas." The gentlemen were not convinced, and the director caved. Oh, well. I confess that I would have a hard time imagining those guys slinking around with maracas, too. We are singing harder music than they have done in the past. I am excited about this, myself. As long as it stays fun for the original members.

"Hannah! Hannah! HANNAH! I'm not going to tell you again!"

Oh, yes you are. I've only heard that five times now, and I know you are going to say it again in about 3 minutes, tops. I shudder to think how often Hannah has heard it.

It is none of my business how customers bring up their children. My concern in this kind of situation is only to try to protect the stock, keep the kids from getting hurt in any way that could lead to a lawsuit, and hope that the other customers are not run off by it.

But it does make me think about childrearing.

I am not the strict one in my household. My husband's childrearing philosophy is remeniscent of that of Yul Brynner in The King and I (a favorite movie in our household, where everyone laughs and says it is just like Daddy). Early in our engagement, I was reading a bedtime story to a group of his nephews and nieces. Their parents did not read English, they owned no books, and it might well have been the first bedtime story they had ever experienced. My husband-to-be -- their 23 year old uncle -- came in and told them to go to bed, and they instantly got up and left.

I was astonished. This is not a level of obedience that we expect in America. In fact, I wouldn't even want it. I would have expected polite negotiation, and I always accept that from my own children. My husband -- in common with other immigrants -- despairs of his American children. When he told our 20 year old daughter that she had to finish college before she could get married, he expected her to obey him. She said she would do so, in fact, but her fiance (who had been transferred to South Carolina) was able to change her mind. I continued preparing for the wedding.

Do you suppose that American ex-pats in Asia despair of the excessive obedience of their children?

I was brought up to obey my parents, and to behave in public, and I brought my children up to do the same, by American standards. Different people have different ideas of appropriateness. When we have customers whose children are completely unfettered by convention, I respect that parenting philosophy.

But the ones who constantly tell their children to do this or that and are ignored are making an error. There ought to be some difference in what happens when you are good and what happens when you are not. Otherwise, there is really no way for the child to know what constitutes "good." "If you do that again, we'll leave," has no effect when the child knows from experience that they will not leave. It's just nagging. In the world at large, there are different results for different kinds of behavior -- not just from people, but from the law, our bodies, animals, and everything else except perhaps the weather. Shielding children from that truth by surrounding them with insincere nagging just makes the discovery more painful when it does take place.

It has always seemed to me that the so-called "terrible twos" are about this. The two-year-old has just developed enough language to get what he or she wants on a fairly reliable basis. You say "cookie" and someone gives you a cookie. You say "up" and someone picks you up. It is way more effective than crying ever was -- crying just got random results, but talking gives you enormous power. They must feel like Moses parting the Red Sea.

Almost immediately, however, they discover that it is not complete power. Sometimes you don't get a cookie. Sometimes no one feels like picking you up. Sometimes you refuse to go to bed and they put you there anyway. No wonder they get cross.

My own theory is that those who learn the limits of their power quickly and consistently don't end up being terrible at all. Those who learn that talking won't always get you what you want, but that screaming often will, or that saying "cookie" many, many times, perhaps in combination with a tantrum, will get you that cookie -- they are the terrible ones.

But I could be wrong about that. I also believed that good parents did not have trouble with their teenagers, until I had some of my own. I was wrong about that, I think. Now I subscribe to The Empress's views on teens: your job is to keep them alive till they are 18. And look forward, during those months or possibly years of difficulty, to their reemergence as wonderful young adults.

The little ones, though, would be better served by a clear and quick response. Our eldest once begged for something in a store, and my husband immediately picked her up and took her home. I thought he was over-reacting at the time. She wasn't pulling things off the shelves or screaming, just doing that "please? please?" thing you so often hear. But he was right. She never did it again, so she never got in trouble for it again, and we were able to take her everywhere without stress or unpleasantness. He didn't get angry with her, either, or nag her. He just removed her from the situation. As the kids grew up, we had the ritual of stopping before entering a place and reminding them of the rules for whatever kind of place we were in. By the time they started school, they had a great deal of confidence in many situations. This seems kinder than constant public reprimands.

The T-shirt? Oh, I frogged the two inches. I won't show you pictures again till I get back to where I was, though. Too depressing.

During my knitting time I have been concentrating intently on the intarsia. There's all the suspense: have I decided correctly which gray squares should count as black and which as white? did I start early enough to fit the entire pattern on  the T-shirt before I reach the neckline? will it ever quit looking like an animal face?

So today I thought I might glance at the pattern. Behold: I have gone 2" past the point at which I should have begun the armscye.

Has it sunk in? I now must not only pull out about a dozen rows of careful colorwork, but must also then try to figure out where exactly I am on the chart. Don't tell me I can count the rows and then count back on the chart! The time for talk of counting is past! Had I been able to count, I would not now be in this difficulty! It is now time for shouting and unreasonableness!

I have considered some possible solutions. I could pull out the back and redo it (since it does not have any colorwork) making it a couple of inches longer. I could cut the armholes where I should have decreased them. I could go ahead and do them now, and let the front be a couple of inches longer than the back. I would pretend that it was a new style. I could ease the front and back together during seaming, pretending that it was a new style.

We all know that I will have to frog two inches of my intarsia. Sigh. This is probably my comeuppance for sitting at the wondow enjoying the spring sunshine, knitting, and playing with my new CD burner, when I should have been doing housework.

Nah.

Here is the T-shirt, looking as Chanthaboune said rather like an antelope's face, or maybe by now a zebra. I am trusting that it will, at some point soon, make a dramatic switch from fauna to flora.

For those who keep track of such things, I am a weaver, not a floater, and I use two hands, one for each color. With multiple colors, I prefer to use bobbins, but for two colors, I just use the skeins.

We have succeeded in installing a CD burner into our computer. I say "we" because it was #1 daughter who said where to buy it, #2 daughter who mentioned the master-slave issue, I found the discussion on the subject that said to reverse our jumps and we'd be sorted, and #1 son knew what those words meant. He was also the one who did all the work. My involvement proves that someone with really good research skills can use those skills even in a complete absence of knowledge and comprehension, and that it is therefore worthwhile to develop those skills.

I was reminded of a nice old lady who called the store one day to say that her nephew had bought her a computer and she couldn't figure out how to use it. She felt sure that she would be able to, since she had the manual, as soon as she figured out what the words meant. Did we have a dictionary that would include words like "modem"?

This also increases the urgency of finding a good legal source for music. I have turned up emusic and Rhapsody All Access. Anyone out there have experience of these services? #1 daughter says that the law on music downloads is currently is such a state of flux that it is a mistake to make much investment in any solution. Wired magazine says that discs are on the way out, so it is a mistake to make much investment in them. I just know that my teenagers will be tempted by filesharing if they do not have an alternative. In my youth, we had the expression "sex, drugs, rock'n'roll" (we apparently did not feel the need for verbs at that time), and of the three, I would rather they were tempted by rock'n'roll. But I am still hoping for honest rock'n'roll.

And for the next random note of the day, we have tinea corporis at our house. I have a 1" spot on my calf, which the doctor figured I had probably picked up at the gym, but then #2 son turned up with a big patch of it across his chest and back, so the source is a mystery. The really interesting thing about tinea corporis is that the ointment you buy for it is marked in large letters "CURES JOCK ITCH!" (tinea cruris).

Now, I have always found it odd that people will, when they buy things, blurt out nervous explanations about why they want them. After all, if we thought there were something unseemly about flash cards or handwriting practice books, we wouldn't sell them, would we? And sudden, detailed explanations about a need for ph paper just convince us that it is destined for a meth lab. So I said nothing as I bought the jock itch ointment.

This is not the only medical issue we are dealing with. There are still #1 son's X-rays to be done (I swear it is not my fault that this has been delayed -- it is the end of the semester and not a good time to miss school) and my further adventures with lipids. Dear young people, you also have lipids, but no one will care about them until you are middle aged. Mine have improved. I had the blood work done following a weekend in Midwestern flesh pots when I saw no vegetables beyond a frill of kale garnishing a plate. It was quite good kale, but the remainder of the weekend was 100% simple carbohydrates and saturated fats, so I was expecting to fail my blood test for lack of studying, but instead the numbers were better. Does this mean I should give up brown rice and subsist on quiche and pizza? I'll ask the doctor when I go back next week, but I am not sanguine.

Well, the Jewels of Knowledge may not eat vegetables, but they are always heading out for a run or a soccer game or a stroll up eighty-eleven flights of stairs, so perhaps they will never have to fret over their lipids.

Back to the zebra-cum-flower.

The design emerges.

And here is the back.

I have seen, on the blogs, people with many ends to weave in on their intarsia designs. I don't know why they do that. The single thread visible in this picture is the working yarn snaking down the piece. I never cut it; I just pick it up when I need it.  This is how I have always done colorwork, so I don't know what the other methods are trying to accomplish, but I know that this method works just fine.

So this weekend, in addition to knitting, I weeded the garden, cleaned the house, did the laundry, baked, bought strawberry netting, and wrestled with the quilt. I am feeling back on track.

I also went to the Newcomer's Luncheon with the Methodists, where the pastor told me that she didn't think of me as a newcomer. "You just belong here," she said. Which made me feel very welcome. Asked directly, I admitted to Presbyterianism. She mentioned Predestination as the major theological difference, but then it was time to get in line for the luncheon.

An elegant older lady who is in my Sunday School class was telling how she was instrumental in starting the Prayer Shawl Ministry at the church. It struck her as a good idea, but she did not herself knit. Now, a year later, she is beginning her second prayer shawl. She frogs more than she knits, apparently. However, a shawl that takes almost a year to knit -- assuming that she prays the whole time she knits -- will be so filled with love and caring that it might have healing powers. SUPERshawl! I am joining the Prayer Shawl group, although I work during their meetings. They assure me that I can knit at home and it will still count.

As to the quilt...
Bouthdi:  how's it coming?
CHOMPHOSY:  as I do one piece, the others come off the fabric
CHOMPHOSY:  and tear themselves up
CHOMPHOSY:  while the quilt responds with evil laughter
Bouthdi:  what piece are you supposed to do?
Bouthdi:  or rather
CHOMPHOSY:  like BWAH hahahaha
Bouthdi:  what are you supposed to do with it?
CHOMPHOSY:  cut the windows out and sew fabric into the holes
CHOMPHOSY:  but the the framework is coming apart
CHOMPHOSY:  so i don't know what I will do
Bouthdi:  that sounds un-simple
Bouthdi:  sew fabric into the bits?
CHOMPHOSY:  you make holes
Bouthdi:  I caught that
CHOMPHOSY:  and put cloth behind them
CHOMPHOSY:  like glass into a window
CHOMPHOSY:  and then sew it in
Bouthdi:  sew it in?
CHOMPHOSY:  in a deeply uncomfortable position
Bouthdi:  like applique?
CHOMPHOSY:  in order not to tear any more of the framework
CHOMPHOSY:  yes
CHOMPHOSY:  like backwards applique
Bouthdi:  that's weird
CHOMPHOSY:  the whole technique is insane
Bouthdi:  oh
Bouthdi:  oh I see
Bouthdi:  that is trouble
Bouthdi:  Matt62842003<!-- (6:12:24 PM)-->: oh yeah, well I had something pop into my mind. It was extreme
Bouthdi<!-- (6:12:53 PM)-->: an extreme thought? or the jarring popping action.
Matt62842003<!-- (6:13:01 PM)-->: jpa
Matt62842003<!-- (6:13:17 PM)-->: I get rushes of extreme jpa all the time
Bouthdi:  ok
Bouthdi:  love you
Bouthdi is away at 6:46 PM

So did Bouthdi suddenly run off to rescue Matt+manynumbers from his attack of jpa? We may never know. But that encapsulates the state of the quilt.

The Water Jar is displaying his nice, tidy room. He also uses the word "acorn" to refer to a color. He must have to fight the girls off with a stick.

Actually, an old gentleman said that about one of our sons once, and my husband was appalled. Never having heard the expression before, and therefore not realizing that it referred to our boy's extreme adorableness, he began to protest that his son would never behave in such a way. Cross-cultural communication can be challenging.

Yesterday morning, I set off with my swatches for the new quilt (below), determined to find the perfect background fabric. The nice man at the quilt shop did not have the perfect fabric. However, he did have new swatches from Seattle Bay, including a shade called Eucalyptus, which is exactly what I need. He has agreed to order some for me -- well, obviously not just for me, since I will only need a couple of yards of it. But he is ordering some, and will sell me some of it when it arrives. Since I went to college on a campus equipped with eucalyptus groves, I have fond feelings for it, and it is just a shade darker than the sage green I already have, with just the right degrees of yellow and gray. I am delighted. On my monitor, at least, the color is not accurate. However, I have often read blogs where they show you something purple and say "it isn't really this color; it's purple," so I know that it means nothing.

The quilt shop also had a couple of finished examples of quilts done by the method required for the Celtic Cross quilt, and a book of step-by-step directions for such quilts. This has given me the courage to continue with #1 son's quilt while I wait for the eucalyptus-colored cotton to arrive. Each little division is called, in the book, a "window." As you can see, there are no more than, say, 200 windows, and yesterday I completed one and a half. At this rate, I will have the center medallion for this quilt finished by -- well, hard to say, since the one I finished was the little central square. Most are much larger and more complicated than that. Well, I should have the entire quilt completed for when he goes off to college.

I am slightly hampered by the fact that my framework (that is what the book calls the black-and-white bit) has not really been sitting quietly waiting for me all these weeks. Here you see it, draped over the organ bench, waiting for me. Since this picture was taken, however, it has gotten itself covered with dog hair and the white freezer paper design has begun to come off. I guess I could have predicted the problem with the freezer paper, but I had no idea that the dogs played the organ in my absence.

I made good progress on the T-shirt. However, #1 son and a friend were fiddling with the computer, and in the process have detached my devices. The computer's side panel is missing, now, and all its wires and things are open to the elements. I don't know what they have done, but I am trusting that they know. In any case, I cannot show you pictures of the emerging design today. I have reached the increases. Some of the folks in the knitalong are further than others, and there are many suggestions for variations and many people who have made mistakes we could learn from and therefore not have to repeat.

I hope you are having as wonderful a spring weekend as I am (or fall, if you are in the antipodes). It is too beautiful for ordinary words; just call to mind all the wonderful poetry that has been written about spring (e.e.cummings and Shakespeare are the ones I'm thinking of this morning, but you no doubt have your favorites) and then we can all say, "Yes, it is exactly like that."

Mayflower has shown us her messy room, as has Alice, and Chanthaboune has told us about hers, preferring to leave it to our imaginations. Actually, I have seen hers myself, and it looks a lot like Mayflower's, although most of the time when I was in it, Chanthaboune's also featured various girls draped decoratively on the floor. My house also is rather messy at the moment.Well, if I tell you that I just noticed that #1 son's cake, from April 8th, is still on the kitchen counter, you will get an idea.

In a perfect world, we would all have someone like Jeeves or Bunter to look after us. We could put all our energy into our work and crafts and arts and study and I suppose sometimes just lolling around being useless, and Jeeves or Bunter would make sure that our daily lives continued to be pleasant. Jeeves and Bunter would each also have a Jeeves or Bunter, of course, which is one of the things that makes this whole idea impossible in the real world.

However, even in the real world there are occasional experiences that approach the imaginary splendor of having Jeeves or Bunter at hand. Rice cookers, slow cookers, and bread machines, for example. You do a minimal amount of work before leaving the house and when you come home there is food waiting for you. Pizza delivery is also pretty good, and the Schwann's man. And Netflix. I totally love Netflix. Movies simply appear in the mail, you watch them when you happen to have time, and then you send them back when you feel like it. You even pick them out when you happen to be in the mood. Time means nothing in the world of Netflix, which makes it even better than the Schwann's man. We often miss the deadline for an order with him, and then must suffer without strawberry ices for weeks at a time.

So I determined to find something like Netflix, but for music. It seems likely that such a thing exists, because it would be a good idea. You could download MP3s, confident that you were not breaking laws or letting trojan horses into your virtual city walls, and pay a subscription fee that would support the artists without your having to buy the entire CD every time you wanted one song. I did not find such a thing.

However, in the course of searching, I found and was tempted by this: Booksfree. It is just like Netflix, but with books. I realize that it is a lot like a library, but not free. In fact, I think it is the original arrangement for libraries, before the free library. Booksfree actually has an amusing little chart showing how they are superior to, and a savings over, things like libraries and bookstores. Frankly, it is such a small percentage of my monthly book budget that it seems worth trying, even though I have already established that they do not have books on either knitting or science. I'll let you know if it turns out to be wonderful.

If anyone knows of a similar service for MP3s, please let me know.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I got up this morning determined to catch up on all the things I've been slacking at. It is a beautiful day, a perfect day for gardening and cleaning and suchlike, following which I will continue the T-shirt. Chanthaboune pointed out that my colorwork yesterday looked like lips, and today I think you could see an animal's muzzle in it.

I think it likely that neither Jeeves nor Bunter will appear to help me, but I have every intention of persuading #1 son to join me in putting down strawberry netting and planting tomatoes and peppers and possibly torenia and impatiens as well. And #2 son, who cleverly spent the night at a friend's house, will have to come home eventually, and then there will be some dog-washing going on. What ho!