We went yesterday to pick #2 son up from his Summer Institute in architecture. There was a nice ceremony, and exhibits of all the various projects the kids had worked on.

I am not sure that I would have identified this as a "primitive hut," but I liked it. A primitive greenhouse, perhaps.

#2 son's group did a good job on it, in any case. They learned a good bit about what architecture is and what architects do.

I also liked this display of sutures from the physiology group. I was surprised to learn that mattress stitch is a popular one for sutures. I suppose that this gives surgeons a leg up on their knitting.

I also liked their comparative physiology thing with human and dolphin bones.

The "how to be insanely rich" group had all decided to invest 10-15% of their income from age 25 in a diversified portfolio, and their numbers convinced me.

We are glad to have #2 son back. It is pleasant also to have Dr. Drew here, though I must report that our game of WordThief deteriorated into random throwing of chips and cards. I do not think that Dr. Drew was the one who was throwing them; in fact, he might have been the only one who was not. Still, it has never happened before.

A couple of random pictures of the campus here.

It was a beautiful day for walking around.

Following the ceremony, we checked #2 son out of his dorm and came on home.

I spent the afternoon reading and knitting, and have finished the third skein of yarn for Brooklyn. I have begun the decreases for the raglan. It seems abnormal to knit a raglan in pieces, but I have this picture from the book to convince me that it will work. The pattern just says to "decrease" with no suggestions for a method. I am keeping a k1 selvedge and using paired decreases -- sskpso on the right and k2tog on the left.

We've definitely crossed over that line at work -- in case you had any lingering doubts. We are in BTS (back to school) with a vengeance.

Yesterday, a customer came up to check out with all black stuff -- border, letters, probably a dozen black items. I asked her if she was going for a Goth look for her classroom. It struck me as a reasonable question, which says something about the level of fatigue I had reached or possibly about my blog-reading habits, and it gave her a good laugh. (Um, no -- she was a ballet teacher. Her backgrounds were pink.)

We've gotten the announcements for the new fall knitting books -- along with a hint that knitters like to start their holiday projects "months in advance," so we had better get the books into the stores.

The Yarn Harlot has a new book coming out. Nicky Epstein, author of Knitting on the Edge, is following it up with Knitting Over the Edge. Stewart, Tabori, and Chang are bringing out a new holiday knitting book with gifts, decoration, and clothing. Alterknits combines knitting with quotes from Albert Einstein, always an appealing choice.

There are a couple of new crochet books that look interesting. One is for converting knit patterns to crochet -- something that does not appeal to me at all, but would be helpful for crocheters who cannot knit. There is also a book on felted crochet. I can't believe I hadn't thought about that before. Crochet gives you a firmer fabric in the first place, and you also have more immediate direct control over the shape of your object. And yet, often we do not choose crochet for a project because the look or texture of the fabric is not quite what we're after. Felting could solve that -- I am definitely going to experiment with it.

I also saw a sample pattern from Compassionate Knitting, a book which promises to help knitters "connect with the basic goodness of the world." This sort of thing leaves me cold, frankly, though it is obviously a new fad in the knitting world, to judge from the number of books promising us enlightenment with our knitting. But the sample pattern, a toddler outfit with shooting stars, is very cute. I'll keep it in case I ever have grandchildren to make it for.

None of these books is on my personal booklust list. I am wishing for Poetry in Stitches, a hard-to-find book of Norwegian sweaters.

A little review may be called for here. I have been looking at knitting books in search of a perfect triangular shawl. I did not find one. I did buy Denim People, The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, and Celtic Knits, none of which contains a shawl pattern, perfect or otherwise. I cannot defend this. Particularly in a month which requires so much in the way of tuition, school clothes, and stuff, three knitting books was way over the top. So I definitely will not be buying Poetry in Stitches. Family, you can club together and get it for me for Christmas.

I realize that I have not told you anything about the Handy Book. I think that is because it is strictly a utilitarian book. My grandmother had a leaflet which gave the stitch counts for every possible permutation of raglan sweaters in all kinds of sizes and weights of yarn.  You could make a chunky cardigan for a toddler or a laceweight pullover vest for a a grandfather or anything in between. This book purports to do the same thing for several styles of sweaters. I won't know whether it delivers until I make a few sweaters from it. I can tell you this: if you buy knitting books for the gorgeous pictures of moody people in stunning garments, you won't like this book.

A cool wave! I went out to pull weeds, and enjoyed it so much I could hardly bring myself to go to work. We are fairly busy at work. Not so busy that we don't spend any time talking about how it seems as though it should be busier than it is, but still pretty busy. Busy enough that I am tired at the end of the day, and that I start the days thinking about how tired I will be, so that I skip going to the gym and just sit down and pull weeds instead.

Part of it is emotional fatigue, of course, from conversations like this:

"You don't have the plan book I want. Someone was supposed to get it for me, and they never called me back."
"I'm sorry. What kind is it? Ward? Whaley? Doolittle?"
"I'll know it when I see it. I buy it here every year."
"Well, then, I'll just check the computer to see what you bought last year. Your name?.... I'm sorry. We show no record of your ever having shopped here."
"I shop here all the time. My name should be there."
"Do you have your old one? Perhaps you could look and see what kind it is and let us get it for you."
"I don't have time for that. Someone was supposed to have done this for me and they never called me back."

Those who are not in service jobs may be thinking that the discussion would have been improved by the addition of a few statements like "You use the same plan book every year and you don't know what kind it is?" or "You liar," but this is not the case. At this time of year, teachers are feeling a great deal of stress. Our job is to help them leave the store happier than they were when they came in. And really, if you even think things like that while talking to someone in a stressed state, it makes them feel worse. They can tell you aren't as filled with compassion as they need you to be.

One of the teachers phrased it very well. "When I am having to deal with a lot of big things," she said, "I find myself obssessing over small things." In her case, the Christmas Punkydoodles. Bless her, she knew that our not having several different Christmas Punkydoodles in late July was not a serious problem, but she was also able to express her feeling that it was. And I was able to help her out. Without her getting miffed or my having to strive not to think she was being silly.

Not everyone can do that. Many of our customers, at this time of year, swear and stamp their feet.

The global shortage of Mavalus Tape was however slightly ameliorated. We received one case. I was calling the list of people who had asked for it, in the order of request, and offering them two rolls. They wanted more, so I was having to explain that we were rationing it. The Poster Queen was in favor of calling them all up and then selling it first come first served, but The Empress and I wanted to be sure that everyone would have at least a little bit. I did end up feeling hard-hearted as I refused their pleas for an extra roll for their partner and so on, but it had to be done.

Today the word will be out that there is some in town, and that we are doling it out, and people will be in trying to get it even though their names are not on the list. TGIF.

A book question for you: has anyone out there read Jon Stewart's America? And, if so, is it worth buying in hardcover? Here's the thing. It came out last September, so it should be ready to come out in paper, right? But instead, it is coming out in a calendar version. So I'm thinking that it won't be out in paper till next year, or perhaps it will be too dated by then and it will never come out in paper, and there I'll be having to buy it in hardcover when it's already dated.

And yet, I am pretty adamant about waiting for the paperback version of books. I am still waiting for The Da Vinci Code to hit paper. My son-in-law is just the opposite, and will not buy books in paperback. Chacun a son gout.

My son-in-law is back on his submarine. I had a long talk with #1 daughter on the phone last night, which gave me the opportunity to do some frogging with relatively little suffering. No, I did not frog Brooklyn. I frogged the Lotus shawl. I discovered a pair of dropped stitches. And while picking up stitches from a few rows back is no big deal in stockinette, it is impossible in a complex lace. So I frogged the Lotus clear back to the foundation row, and will begin again. As for Brooklyn, well, I had done enough frogging, and you had convinced me that it would be in the category of "If you can see the knitting flaw, you are too close." So I finished the second skein. With, I am pleased to report, no tangling. If you are considering substituting yarns for Rowan Denim, you might consider either Den-M-Nit (which may actually be the generic version) as in Brooklyn, at the bottom of the picture, or Plymouth Stone Cotton, as in Picot at the top.Both seem to be working up very nicely.

Now, if you are like me and do not eat saveloys, but still want to have a chance to discuss them in order to try out the exciting new word "saveloy," then you will like this website. That's all about saveloys. It is not time for eating saveloys, but for breakfast, which will be buttermilk pancakes with nectarines and cinnamon, and orange juice. I must go and make it.

Here's Brooklyn. This is of course the purl side. Stockinette is so dull when it comes to progress pictures that you have to add some variety somehow.

The good news on Brooklyn is that putting the skein on a spindle instead of winding it is working quite well, as you can see from the picture on the right. You may not have a recipe holder of this type -- though you could easily make one. But I think that there are also wooden paper towel holders, and perhaps even office spindles if you were careful, that would work equally well to keep your skein from tangling.

Or you could just wind it into a ball the way you're supposed to.

That was the good news. The bad news is that there seems to be quite a bit of color variation from one ball to the next. Can you see it? #1 son can. So I am thinking about whether to go ahead and frog the second ball (which will be more complicated thanks to the spindle business) or let it go. I did not check the dye lot numbers of either ball before starting it, so I will not know which ball is the one that is different. I may need to frog the whole thing. Or, if it is not that Elann slipped in one ball from a different dye lot, but that there just is a lot of color variation in this yarn, then I will have to do that alternate-rows thing every time when switching from one ball to another. I shall give it some thought.

We are expecting Dr. Drew this weekend (I will not say one word about politics) and we will also have #2 son home. We are trying to come up with back-to-school shopping lists, haircut appointments before school starts, fees and tuition, accurate schedules, and transportation for everyone. Getting #2 daughter back to school in the neighboring state may be the hardest part. She can't go back on the weekend, when we could drive her -- though she might be able to stay with one of my aunts till the dorm opens. She doesn't like the idea of taking the bus, though that is what I always did when I was a student. She would like to take "her" car, except that it is the same vehicle #1 son is talking about when he says he is going to drive "his" car to school this year. And either way it doesn't have a spare tire.

Both boys share this anti-bus sentiment. What's wrong with the bus? I can just imagine the hilarity that would have ensued if I had told my parents I wasn't going to take the bus and wanted them to drive me to school -- at any age.

However, my mother is currently having a discussion over at her blog about the idea of whether making things easy for people is bad for them or not (well, it's more complicated than that, but you can go over there and get the details if you want. And if you do, you will notice that I am mentioned, and yes, I do think that such a person would be a sadistic jerk, even if he managed to convince himself that his intentions were good. I think sadists are good at self-deception, as are jerks. I am not defending this position over at Ozarque's place because they can get mean over there, so I try to restrain myself. My readers are nice, however, and so I can say any old thing I please over here. But I digress). I think that my mother would have felt that driving me back to college every fall would have been not just outlandish, but also bad for me. It would have been coddling or something. Ditto for driving us kids to school when we had legs to walk with, and a perfectly good bus.

Who knows how we might have turned out had we been spoiled like that.

It has been suggested to me that I may sometimes brag about my children, Surely not. However, it is not bragging, but merely a statement of fact that #2 son's picture was in the paper yesterday. I can show it to you, because his hair entirely covers his face, so you could not possibly recognize him. We miss him so much. We get to bring him home on Saturday, when we will also be able to see the "primitive hut" they are building.

So we are missing #2 son, and #2 daughter and I are working an awful lot, and even #1 son had to bestir himself a little yesterday and mow the lawn. At work, we are having to deal with the consequences of the worldwide shortage of Mavalus Tape and the beginnings of Back-to-School hysteria.

None of this is very bad. Still, as the Poster Queen and I wrestled with chart tablets and pocket charts at the end of the day yesterday, we were in just the mood to enjoy The Empress's stirring reading of the promotional material for this weird item:

Time Out Tot. Now, I have never seen this item in person, as it were. It consists of a DVD explaining what's wrong with whining, biting, and temper tantrums, and a grotesque puppet squirrel that has a secret pocket which you can fill with "treats or coins." The premise is that, instead of parenting your children, you can sit them down in front of the TV and abdicate responsibility to a puppet. This is not something that The Empress and the Poster Queen and I can get behind philisophically, so I doubt that I ever will see one of these.

But the letter extolling its virtues was priceless. It started with dire warnings about "the preschool expulsion rate," quoted apparently from Yale scholars. Am I the only one who gets a mental image of pint-sized delinquents loitering in the parking lot with cigarettes and chains?

If you are not impressed by Yale, though, you will doubtless be impressed by the next reference -- reality TV shows. These are, we all know, an excellent mirror of real life, and an authority on childrearing.

Then we hear about the idea of watching the DVD lessons, for both children and parents -- but wait, that's not the best part! The best part is the puppet. This squirrel is supposed to be your child's companion during time-out. Then it can leave treats and coins for the kids when they do "right." The word "right" is in quotation marks, as though there were some controversy over whether biting your playmates is actually wrong or not. Time-Out Tot (the weird squirrel's weird name) is, the letter tells us, "just like the Tooth Fairy", and "just like the Easter Bunny." "Everyone wants to be good for Time-Out Tot," they crow, "just like Santa!"

I can see this now. "Quit biting Madison, or Time-Out Tot won't bring you any treats!" "Don't have a tantrum -- Time-Out Tot is watching you!" And then the squirrel goes with the child into the Naughty Corner, to watch him.

This creeps me out quite a bit. What's more, it's not going to work. I can tell you that for free. Bringing up your kids is not something you can delegate to a puppet on a DVD, even one that offers bribes.

It was excellent comic relief, however.

As was Dr. Drew's distinction between Liberals and Patriots. "Football teams?" #2 daughter enquired. Dr. Drew said no, that he was talking about the two sides on the question of U.S. behavior in Iraq. It was at this point that #2 daughter came in, phone in hand, to tell me about the two sides. So I don't know any more about the conversation, but I did get a good laugh.

I hope you have a good laugh today, too.

We had the opportunity to meet fellow xangan Sighkey, who was in our hemisphere and dropped by. What fun!

We tried to provide exotic American experiences for her -- we made her enchiladas, offered to take her to a kareoke bar or pool hall, drove her around the town in search of something really foreign looking -- but at the end of the evening she just had to tell us that American stuff is not exotic.

Well, we tried. I think we all enjoyed ourselves anyway.

We now know the New Zealand terms "wagging" and "saveloy" (I'm guessing how to spell that), so we can be a bit exotic ourselves.

#1 son shut down his xanga. This may have been because his sisters and I found it and read it. But I had gotten fond of looking at his silly pictures during my morning tour of blogs, so I am putting one of his silly pictures here. So I can come and look at it.

Is it really so bad to have your female relations come look at your xanga? Even if you do have many comments from flirtatious girls?

Brooklyn again. This is one ball of Den-M-Nit. The bottom edge is flaring, as cotton is wont to do, and I intend to tame it with a clever trick from The Big Book of Knitting.

The other clever trick in this picture is the use of a recipe holder to hold the second ball of yarn. A friend gave it to me -- it is a piece of heavy wire twisted into a stand, and a skein of this yarn fits neatly over it. I hate rewinding yarn. So I am trying this method to see whether it allows me to knit this skein without rewinding. I'll let you know.

Has the Zombie Knitting entirely overtaken the Epic Knitting? Not really. I have one repeat of the lace completed. One repeat -- 16 rows -- of laceweight yarn on #1 needles is just over 1". And, since it is lace, it looks like nothing until it is soundly blocked. It still gets its picture in the blog, for fairness's sake. But here's the thing: Brooklyn has an advocate. #1 son brings it to me if I should ever be without it. "Here's my track jacket," he says. Or, if I am working on the Lotus shawl, "How's my track jacket coming?"

Brooklyn may be completed in record time.

Over at Ozarque's, they are debating whether George Bush and the Religious Right are intentionally messing up the world in order to bring on the End Times. Blogcritics has a similar discussion, if you are in the mood for edgy politics this morning. Chez Fibermom, we have free-range eggs, homemade whole wheat bread, homemade blackberry jam, plenty of musical instruments and art supplies, and a gym membership. I think all this keeps us from being inclined toward extremism.

Yesterday, we took #2 son out for breakfast again, to a favored college breakfast place. It was much better than last week's choice. Then we sang our duet in church. No one fell in love, but they did cry, which is always good. Camp T said it brought back to her the days when she used to sing with her mother, which was enough of a blessing to let it be our Good Deed of the Day. There was knitting and canning, and along toward sunset, #2 daughter and I took a walk around the neighborhood.

Healthy living and wholesome pleasures can, I am convinced, keep us calm and cheerful. Faith allows us to contemplate the end times, if we are so minded, with equanimity and the assurance that Mr. Bush cannot create any messes that God isn't strong enough to deal with. Nor can we. We are, as the Brief Statement of Faith reminds us, called to live holy and joyful lives as we wait for God's new heaven and earth. Nothing in there about bombing people or despoiling the environment.

I thought of mentioning love, but let's face it, love doesn't have uniformly positive effects on humans.

The Farmers' Market yielded melon, squash, honey, eggs, nectarines, blackberries, and a hug from #2 son, who was on the square with his fellow Institute-attendees, giving away marigolds. We were too late for a marigold, but the hug was worth a good deal more.

Later, we had a fine thunderstorm which lessened the temperature significantly. I like thunderstorms, myself, though they certainly do slow the traffic at the store. The Poster Queen and I were able to take care of some little chores and enjoy the sound of the rain. We each even took a moment to go out and stand under the awning breathing in all those extra ions. Aah.

This morning we get to take #2 son to breakfast (though his roomie's parents did not give permission for him to join us), and then #2 daughter and I sing a duet in church. The time is going to be a little tricky, I fear, since we have to be at the church early to practice with the organist.

Later in the day there will have to be some housework, and there will probably also be some knitting.

Here are Picot and Brooklyn. Both are from Denim People, and designed for Rowan Denim, but Picot is being knitted in Plymouth Stone Cotton and Brooklyn in Den-M-Nit. Both are on #3 needles. Neither is staining or hurting our hands, as some knitters have complained that Rowan Denim does. So far, both yarns seem to be a good alternative for the Denim.

I'm still reading Lolita, for book club, but I needed some light relief. Lolita is of course the classic novel of a loathsome and self-loathing pederast. An important book, a well-written book, but not an enjoyable summer read. Our alternative was a roman a clef about a family of incestuous hermaphrodites, so I am not complaining. But a nice little romance novel to read on our newly-painted porch before it gets too sweltering -- just the thing.

Here is Brooklyn -- or at least its ribbing. I have two more rows to go before beginning the body. I love the feel of this yarn. It is perfect Zombie Knitting -- I can take it with me to the porch and work on it while I read the implausible adventures of a couple of consenting adults. Well, I am assume they will be consenting by the end of the book. At least they are both adults.

And the truth is that I have to go to work today, and must do the grocery shopping before that, so I will have little time on the porch today. Since it is supposed to hit 103 degrees today, it would be too hot anyway. Never mind, there will be other, cooler days.

A customer was in yesterday complaining about being bullied into working full time when she doesn't want to. And the manager of the gas station near us is working 100 hours a week, because he can't find workers to cover the shifts. #2 daughter's employer is feeling a little desperate about her going back to school, because it is so hard to find workers.

This is because we have 2% unemployment, which is actually more than the official definition of full employment. A government official explained to me once that the government assumes that 3% of adults will choose not to work. They have small children, or are in school, or choose to be full-time homemakers, or are in ill health -- for whatever reason, that many adults normally do not want a full-time job.

We have 2% unemployment in our region.That means that 1% of our people are working even though they do not want to. Someone has called them up and begged them to come work, and they have given in, against their wishes.

Now, we also have a median household income of $31,000 in the town where I live. Our region's income figures are skewed a little by the fact that four of the ten richest Americans live here, but overall, the available jobs are not high-paying ones. It isn't expensive to live here, and we don't have a great deal of visible poverty. I just don't want to give a false impression of universal prosperity. Still, anyone who wants work can have a job of some kind. Lazy people, drug addicts, folks who live in neighboring states, very old people -- we have them all working here.

The result of this, from the employer's point of view, is that we have to poach. We have essentially no unemployed people to choose from, so we have to find good workers who already have jobs, and steal them away from their current employers.

Thank goodness the Poster Queen is willing to work for the store as well as at her full-time teaching job.

Now I must set aside fantasies of porchy activities. I shall winkle #2 daughter out of bed and make her come to the farmers market with me before we both go to work. The peaches and melons are calling our names.