Last night I went to #1 son's Open House. I attended minature sessions of all six of his classes. I was able to experience the High School milieu fully, because I came straight from work and so had no dinner, so I was hungry; I grabbed a cookie off the PTA table, so I was subsisting on junk food; and I spent 5 minutes between each pair of classes pushing my way through hordes of bodies.

I didn't go to high school myself, but these experiences let me feel that I understand what it is like.

Of the six teachers, two were able to make a coherent presentation, three were interesting, five seemed nice, and one was able to run Power Point competently. I was surprised by all this. For one thing, I really would have thought that anyone who made a living teaching could have prepared a decent 10-minute presentation. For another, it surprised me that people who deal with teenagers all day could still be nice in the evening (two of them whined, but after all, their Power Point presentations were screwing up, so there was some stress there). The Power Point problems surprised me as well, since in their place I would either have practiced till I could do it successfully, or not used it. Maybe they had orders to show off the technology.

Overall, though (and leaving aside the fact that his English teacher told me he was in the wrong class, because he is "far and away" beyond the other students -- what could I say? "Yes, but you see, he's lazy"?), #1 son seems to have an interesting group of classes. I wouldn't mind taking them myself. Especially astrophysics. Here is the cool thing the teacher of that class shared with us. Go play with it!

This morning I return to the dentist. I am up to the beginning of the raglan shaping on Brooklyn, and may get a bit further this morning in the waiting room. Then tonight there is choir practice. Never a dull moment.

A customer yesterday said that he just wasn't ready for summer to end. Since summer has settled into high-90s mugginess, with sere lawns and exhausted flowers, I am ready for fall, myself. But I knew just what he meant.

"Yes, those of us who spent the summer drinking Mai Tais and dancing..." said I.
"No, I worked," he said, "But it's a mindset. I'm not ready to give it up."

I did indeed know what he meant.

However, I am back on the autumn schedule, doing the chores and attending things and so on, and I can say that -- once you get fully immersed -- the discipline is nice, too. It feels good to have the housework done, and is even rather satisfying to do it. It is nice to have meals at the table. It is encouraging to get lots of things done before starting work, and pleasing to end the evening with a sense of having had a full and productive day.

The first rehearsal for the Master Chorale was last night. The music was good, the director is quite good, and it was fun to see old music friends.

The highlights of the evening?

First, in setting up the cookie rota, the director said the word "cookie" so quaintly that everyone was in gales of laughter by the time he finished. He is Canadian -- maybe they say "biscuit" instead of "cookie," so it is for him a cute foreign word. Or it may be the very idea of a cookie rota -- I've never before sung in a choir which included this feature. (I snagged Hallowe'en, because I have a way cute collection of cookie cutters for this holiday.)

Then he announced that we would be doing the Vivaldi "Gloria" for Christmas and mentioned several good recordings. A wag in the baritones said, "And it's prob'ly one of your ring tones, too."

And walking back to my parking place. The rehearsals are held at the university where I used to work, so it was a rather long walk. Parking is scarce. But it had cooled to a balmy 70 degrees, and the soft still air was filled with the din of singing cicadas. I quite enjoyed it.

There was no knitting yesterday Chez Fibermom. However, Knitting in Color is making the stunning Fair Isle gloves from Interweave that I mentioned a while back. Go enjoy them. I got my dad to print the chart for me (my printer is not up to that) and I intend to use it on something. Probably not gloves. Somehow, gloves don't last that long at my house. They are usually worn out or lost so soon that it seems a shame to put in so much effort.

But isn't it a philosophical position of sorts, an approach to the world, to ensure that even ephemeral things should be beautiful? To make the effort to have meals that are beautiful even though they will be eaten, or to write wonderul letters even though they will be thrown away, or to knit utilitarian things with wonderful patterns even though there will have to new ones next year -- it is an affirmation of the importance of beauty, and of the value of the moment.

Those are very inspiring gloves.

Here is a warning: this post is about the No Child Left Behind act.  If you do not care about NCLB, then skip this post and come back tomorrow. However, if you are a parent or a student or a taxpayer, you ought to know about it.

Here is the official website. If you want to click your way through a great deal of advertising and doubletalk, feel free. If you are patient enough to get any real information from it, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Here is the text of the law. It is just about what you would expect the text of a law to be. There are lots of details about funding. But I don't want you to take my word for things. You can go and see that I am telling you the truth.

I have had new insight on NCLB. The Wall Street Journal had a little editorial on the subject, right next to a discussion of why college costs keep rising. The juxtaposition of the two made clear to me something that hasn't ever made any sense to me before.

Here's the thing: according to the WSJ, the testing required by NCLB allows us to see how a school is doing, just as the profit reports of a business allow us to see how a business is doing. Then the patrons -- the students and their parents -- have the option to take their business elsewhere if the school isn't doing well. If you can take business as a metaphor for education, this will make sense to you. You will figure that the vast majority of teachers are opposed to NCLB because, as the WSJ sees it, they are opposed to accountability. They want to be able to screw up without getting caught. NCLB brings their failures to light.

This is not the case. For one, thing, the tests are not designed to do that, and will not do it just because the government wants them to. To understand this, you have to know the difference between criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests. This sounds dull, but it is in fact important.

A criterion-referenced test is like a spelling test. There are ten words, the teacher teaches them, the students study, and if all is well, then everyone gets 100%. This shows that the kids learned the words and the spelling lesson was successful.

A norm-referenced test is different. For this kind of test, you pick 100 words, 33 of which almost everyone can spell, 33 of which are hard to spell, and the remainder of which are somewhere in the middle. You give this test to groups of students to make sure that it produces a bell-shaped curve -- that about half the kids get 50% or above and half get 50% or below, with most of them clustered around 50% and just a few at the very top or bottom score. You tweak the test until you get the bell-shaped curve pretty consistently, and then you give it to people without training them first. What this will do for you is allow you to sort people who take the test into good spellers, average spellers, and bad spellers. It is very good if you want to pick out some copy editors -- you want good spellers. It is worthless for telling you anything about spelling lessons. It is kind of like a Hogwarts sorting hat, on a rather different scale.

Now, this kind of test will also tell you some things about populations. For example, if you give that norm-referenced spelling test internationally and everyone gets a bell-shaped curve except Singapore, where the average is 80%, then that may say something about spelling lessons in Singapore. It does not, however, tell you anything about how your kid's teacher did on last week's spelling lesson. That is not what it is for.

Which kind of test is being used to judge schools? Norm-referenced tests.

You may have to mull this over a little, because it makes no sense.

What's more, when you test the kids each year, you are testing a different group of children. Yep. As you will see, lots of things ride on how a school's test scores change from year to year. But we are not giving the kids a test at the beginning of the year and then giving the same test to those kids at the end of the year. If we did that, and used criterion-referenced tests, there might be some sense to it. But we are giving a norm-referenced test to this year's fourth-graders one year and then comparing that average score with the average score of the next year's fourth-graders the following year on in many cases a completely different norm-referenced test.

I hope you have not forgotten that norm-referenced tests are supposed to make a bell-shaped curve. Many people believe that the government or God makes these tests, but really they are written by and sold by testing companies. If their test quits producing a bell-shaped curve, they fix it.

And I hope you have not forgotten that the kids take a new test each year, for the grade they are in that year.

So when the 500 kids at one school in 2005 get an average 3 points higher than the 450 kids at the same school in 2004, it tells you nothing. Absolutely nothing, except that a whole lot of money was wasted in testing, preparing for the test, and sending out the "report card" to the parents. Nor is that 3-point change statistically signifiicant. Nor is it what the consequences of the law are based on. But the law does require the school to send it to you. In this way, all parents who have ever taken a decent science or statistics course can know first-hand that the school system is filled with people who never have taken any such course.

Now that we have the peculiarity of the testing situation clear in our minds, let us look at the major provisions of the law. First, states must define "a high level" of achievement, called "proficient," which is to be a measurable level of ability in math and language arts. This must be the same level for all students at all schools in the state. Don't miss this --  This means that special ed teachers are no longer allowed to teach their high school students how to recognize the icons on public restrooms or balance a checkbook or choose appropriate clothing for the weather. They must follow the same curriculum as the other teachers. They may use other materials. Have you ever looked for high school science materials suitable for students who are not able to read? I sell a lot of color books for this purpose. 

The states must have a 12-year timetable which shows how they will get all students to this point of proficiency. This does not mean that they have K-12 to get a student to a particular level of proficiency. It means that all the entering kindergartners in year 12 will meet the goals set for kindergartners, regardless of ability or background.

You can go read this for yourself if you have trouble believing it. The idea is to establish one "high" level of achievement for everyone and make sure that they meet it.

The premise here is that there should not be high-achieving schools where the affluent children who are lucky enough to live in that school district get superior educations, and there should not be unfortunate schools where the quality of education is poor. This is a nice thought. Let's leave aside the matter of the testing for the moment -- it will not help reach this target, but educational equality is a laudable goal. However, the plan is not  to give extra support to schools that need it, but to set one standard for an entire state's students.

If you are not involved in education, you may find it easier to imagine this in a business framework. You have a chain of restaurants, and all of them must make the same amount of money, regardless of location, time of year, menu, size of the town... Or go with sports. All the people in the town -- remember, you can't choose a team, you have to include everyone -- must do the long jump and reach exactly the same point. Including the old ones, and the paraplegics. Camp counselors, all the people on your bus must sing the same song equally well, regardless of age, natural talent, or level of training. This includes the deaf ones.

It is okay for someone to do a bit better than the goal, but you have to specify in advance a "high" level of achievement for everyone to aim for. So you will perhaps -- since there are "sanctions" and "bonuses" involved -- choose a fairly low level of achievement. The lowest that you can conceivably get away with calling "high." You cannot specify that everyone will reach the three foot mark on the high jump, or that each restaurant will take in $400 a night. But you obviously cannot say that everyone in your town will do a 10' standing long jump, either, not and plan to succeed. What's more, an "achievement gap" will also be penalized. So if you set a goal that is reasonable for your upstate rural restaurant location, and your Manhattan branch beats it by a mile, you will be in trouble.

Back to the schools. Their success is measured by test scores -- those same tests that were not designed for the purpose. And they must improve each year until everyone reaches that high standard of achievement the state defined. They do not have the same students, remember, but they must still improve each year. A restaurant might increase its take each year as it becomes well-known and expands, but a teacher has a new crop of students each year. Some years there are a number of students with limited English, or a couple of autistic students, and some years there may be a higher number of students with supportive families. The teacher has no control over this. He or she cannot reasonably be expected to have higher scores each year than the previous year. And yet the teacher's salary and class assignments may rely on the test scores.

What's more, there is a specific formula for improvement: ten percent per year.

So let's say that you have set the goal for your community of long-jumpers at 8 feet. This year, 80 people never got to that 8 foot mark. Well, next year, when you will start all over with a completely new group of novices, you must have only 72 who do not make it.

Does this sound ludicrous? It is. In the schools, it is just as ludicrous, but more complicated.

If your school does not make adequate progress under the law, then all the students are allowed to leave and go to other schools. If you don't improve with the ones who stay, then you can be shut down and have all the workers at your school fired, or you can be taken over by a private company. Which students, by the way, will stay at the under-performing school? Those whose families have no way to get them to a different school, or do not care. So your sample size will be smaller, and they may be less well-supported at home, but you will still be expected to meet those numbers.

What are the consequences? The government says that NCLB "is working," as evidenced by rising test scores. We already know that the test scores do not tell us much, and that the rising is not to a statistically significant level. But what does it mean that the scores are rising?

Well, let's go back to one of those simpler examples. You are the camp counselor, and your bus must reach the point at which everyone sings at the same level. The same "high" level. What will you do?

You may identify the ones who can already sing well, and ignore them for the rest of the year until the test comes around. Then you might choose a song that seems like a realistic one for the group you have left to work with, and have them practice that constantly until test time, in hopes that they will have gotten it. You might skimp on first aid training and canoeing time in order to spend more time on singing that one song. You might try to figure out ways to cheat -- maybe some choreography will persuade the testers that your group is better than it is, or perhaps doing a song in a foreign language will impress them.

Are you thinking that a camp counselor should not be judged solely by how well the campers sing on the bus? The schools feel the same way. Schools provide a safe place for children, introduce them to ideas and languages and points of view not found in their homes, help them develop skills for working with others, teach arts and sciences and history -- should they be judged entirely by kids' scores on math and reading tests?

But you are pretending you are a camp counselor. If you are a highly honorable person with great dedication to to your work, you might not do those things. You might go ahead with your goals regardless of the consequences.

But most schools are ignoring the gifted students (remember, if they improve, there will be a bigger "achievement gap"), cutting back on actual education and heaping on the test practice, fudging the achievement standards, trying out new tests every year in hopes of finding one they can get better scores on --

In short, NCLB's focus on test scores is harming education.

Things were not wonderful in public education before. It was not a level playing field. There was waste of resources and there were problems. But NCLB has made things significantly worse. It has put teachers into a surreal situation in which they cannot win, certainly not with self-respect. It has made much of school a waste of time for students. This year, my kids will spend nine full days (5% of the school year) taking standardized tests. Many will spend more time than that. In the grades where NCLB has kicked in fully, they will spend at least half their class time practicing for the tests.The tests do not benefit the kids in any way. They have consequences for the teachers and the administration, not for the students. They mean nothing to the students. But the kindergartners will study the word "rhombus" instead of learning to tie their shoes, the first graders will do bubble tests instead of reading books, and most elementary schools will do virtually no science, history, or art until after the tests are given in April.

Your tax dollars at work.

Today, August 28th, is the beginning of the HGP, the Holiday Grand Plan. The idea of this is simple. Each week, starting today, you do a set of tasks the computer tells you to do. By Christmas, you will -- without any other effort besides following these directions -- have a house which is clean, tidy, and decorated, all the holiday food, and gifts and so on. You will, in other words, be ready for Christmas, without any stress in the areas of time and money which usually provide lots of stress for those of us who prepare for holidays. You will not have to obsess over the holidays all fall, you will not have to rush around like a madwoman come December. You just look at the message the nice ladies at HGP send you, spend about an extra 20 minutes a day following orders, and relax.

There are basically three areas of preparation. You clean an area of your house thoroughly. This week it's the front porch, so I will out there with my broom and cleaners before it gets too hot. You cook and bake things for the freezer, but not till next week. This week you just make lists of the things you will want to put in the freezer. You also buy things, so that you can sort of slip the extra food for charity, and the extra baking supplies, and so on into your regular grocery shopping painlessly. This week there is no extra shopping, either. We just make lists. This spreads all the cost and effort out over a long time -- but not so long that it is all undone when you need it.

I have done this for some years now, and it works. There I am, in December, observing Advent and feeling calm and joyful, while all around me moms are going mad and complaining about the commercialization of the holiday. The HGP also has participants who observe Chanukah, Yule, or Kwanzaa, or combinations of these. If you are responsible for holiday preparations at your house, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

If you are not responsible for holiday celebrations, if you just wake up on Christmas morning and find that Santa Claus has been, then don't you worry your pretty little head about it.

There have not been many knitting pictures of late, and this one shows you nothing particularly new, so I am making it BIG in an effort to make up for that. This is the right front of Brooklyn, from Denim People. I have had a relaxing weekend thus far and made some good progress.

My husband fixed my car (he is like Angus McGyver, except that in this case he just bought the part and installed it, which is less impressive than his usual creative arrangements, and more expensive, but also more reassuring to me). I was therefore able to ferry my boys around easily. We went to the fair, to the cell phone place so #1 son could figure out a way to join the crowd, and to a birthday party for a friend of #2 son.

For the party, we drove up into the hills a bit, and went around a curve to be met by a wonderful explosion of flowers. I wanted to stop at the gardener's house and tell them how much I enjoyed that -- and I probably would not have been the first. However, we then immediately saw the party house. Young teens were standing in the road like a herd of deer. Had they been less slender, they would have better resembled a herd of cattle, though. They had that expression: "Oh, look, it's a car coming through the bit of road we're in. Ah, well, nothing to do with us."

#1 son had gone camping, and my husband was out, presumably regaling his buds with his car repairing exploits, and I had the house to myself. This is rare, so I really enjoy it. I put my feet up on the couch with the cat, a stack of books, my knitting, and a pot of tea, and didn't move till the end of the evening.

I've been tagged by Silkenshine.

Where was I ...

10 Years Ago: a homeschooling stay at home mom living in the country.

5 Years Ago: driving my kids around to a million activities -- so we moved into town.

1 Year Ago: a new xangan, but otherwise very little has changed. I'm pretty settled.

Yesterday: working, taking care of my family... did I already mention how settled I am?

5 Snacks I Enjoy: Schwan's strawberry bars, Rye-Krisp and cheddar cheese, good chocolate -- really, I am not supposed to snack.

5 Songs I Know All The Words To: Do I sound as though I'm bragging if I say I have a large repertoire? Let's see... first five I think of: "Dancing in the Street," "The Water is Wide," "O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion," "The Dragoon and the Lady," "Verdi Prati."

5 Things I Would Do With 100 Million Dollars: pay off debts, visit my eldest daughter, repair my car, give to Nelson Atkins and the Heifer Project, buy excessive numbers of books.

5 Places I Would Run Away To: Well, I can't run away. I have children. But if I could, I would run away to the Riviera, San Francisco, Sausalito, New Orleans, or possibly Sonoma county. Do I get to keep the 100 Million Dollars? If not, then I would run away to the local national park.

5 Things I Would Never Wear: stiletto heels, metallic shoes of any kind, a poodle skirt, a push-up bra, thong panties.

5 Favorite TV Shows: The Thin Blue Line, Sensible Chic, Monk, Keeping Up Appearances.. that's it. I can't think of any others. I am ignorant on this subject.

5 Bad Habits: mislaying my glasses, speaking before thinking, speaking before listening, jumping to conclusions, giving unasked for advice.

5 Biggest Joys: that is exactly the number of people in my immediate family, besides me. There's the answer.

5 Favorite Toys: I am going to take this one literally. My five favorite toys are Playmobil, Gertie balls, Erector sets, board games, and Slinkies.

5 Fictional Characters I Would Date if I were single: Lord Peter Wimsey, Roderick Allain, McGyvor (the fellow on TV, whose first name I have forgotten, but he would have to get a haircut first), Samuel Vimes, and Radcliffe Emerson.

I tag Sighkey, Chanthaboune, Brainthingy, and Ramfeezled Chuzzlewit.

#1 son will not let me read his xanga.

There is more to the story than that. He made a xanga, which his siblings and I enjoyed reading quite a bit. When we incautiously told him so, he spitefully deleted it. He then made a new one, and put on it "a stalker thing" which he assures us will tell him if we ever go look at it. We are forbidden to do so.

Now, I do not think that #1 son is arranging drug deals via xanga, or plotting the violent overthrow of our hipster mayor, so I do not intend to invade his privacy by reading his xanga. Naturally, I resent his refusal to allow me to read it, especially since he tells me that he has posted about Mr. Rogers, Sam Cooke, and connotations vs. denotations, but I will respect his unreasonable wishes.

It made me think, though, about the entire question of privacy on a xanga. I don't know his xanga name, so tracking it down would be an interesting bit of detective work. If I happened upon it by accident, would I recognize it?

Just how personal is a xanga?

I am careful about self-disclosure on mine. Specifically, #2 son has let me know that he would find it deeply embarrassing to have someone at school realize that he is #2 son. He does not EVER want to have someone come up and tell him that they read a cute story about him on the internet. And since his entire school seem to have xangas, I am careful not to mention the name of our town or state, not to post recognizable pictures of the family, and not to use any real names whatsoever (except my hairdresser).

However, if someone were trying, say for a class assignment, to figure it out, they could. I've mentioned the region in which I live, I've written about our football team, I've mentioned drives to cities, with distances and directions. There has been some demographic and historical information now and then. Hercule Poirot could determine where I live.

And I am the only person in town who manages a store like ours -- in fact, there is only one such store, and the workers include the family that owns it, a part-time worker, and me.

I've also linked to my mother, who is mildly famous and therefore does not bother keeping her blog anonymous, and to my daughter, who is anonymous in her blog but gives plenty of inadvertent clues to her identity.

Were I disseminating state secrets in the guise of a mild-mannered knitting blog, I could definitely be caught.

What about you?

Does your mother read your xanga? Mine does not, but I don't think I'd mind if she did. What about your boss? Again, mine doesn't but it would be okay.

But some bloggers have a different persona on their blogs than in daily life, or tell stories about their employers, or complain about their spouses. Can you imagine someone coming up to you and saying, "Are you [your blog name here]? If so --- " Does the thought send chills down your spine?

Not me. My life is an open book. Or, as the saying goes, "If you can't be good, be careful."

At work, I am currently doing what is known in the trade as "fluffing." That is, while we are selling stuff so fast that we cannot restock at a comparable rate, I am rearranging things to look as though we have plenty. I spread things out, I arrange them asymmetrically, I angle them on the shelf. It looks better, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, and suggests that we are fully stocked even when we aren't.

At home, I am having a little difficulty getting into my new, school year schedule. I know I am supposed to be making waffles and cleaning the baseboards, but somehow I find myself sitting here reading knitting blogs. And my daughter's college webring blogs as they all get ready to return to school. And -- it doesn't matter. I shouldn't be doing it.

Speaking of waffles, do you know the secret to consistently light, crisp waffles? Here it is: separate your eggs. Instead of just adding the eggs to the batter, separate them and add only the yolks. Beat the whites stiff, and whisk them into the batter. You will notice a huge improvement.

I knew you would want to know that.

On the knitting front (and I am at least knitting while I read all the stuff I shouldn't be spending time reading), I am still working away on both my epic (lace shawl in the Lotus stitch) and my zombie (Brooklyn from Denim People) projects.

I notice that other knitting bloggers have adventures while knitting with denim yarns. Their hands turn blue! They develop tendonitis! It is all thrills and chills! I am using Den-M-Nit, in spite of the name's parasitical connotations, and having no troubles or adventures of any kind. I haven't finished, of course, or put the pieces together, or anything, so there may yet be excitement in my future, but so far it seems like a nice yarn, easy pattern, I'll probably make another some day.

We are singing a Haydn Motet in church on Sunday. It went reasonably well in rehearsal last night. It is a bit of a departure for this choir. "We don't do much 17th century stuff," someone laughed. "We should," said I. And there was a certain amount of agreement.As for the John Rutter arrangement of "When the Saints Go Marching In," Pokey, we will sing it on October 30th. Start making plans to come down for the weekend. I'll make you Hallowe'en cookies and everything.

The Princess met a nice young man through a computer dating service. All seemed well, until she met his parents and discovered that they were staunch conservatives. Her parents were aghast.

Does political orientation really matter in a relationship?

There are several examples in my own experience. The Poster Queen and her husband cancel out each other's votes at every election, since she is a Yellow Dog Democrat and he an equally straight-party Republican, and they have been married for 34 years. They just don't ever discuss politics. The Empress and That Man are in complete political agreement. They discuss it a lot. I am in agreement with them, too, so we all discuss it a lot -- unless there are other people listening, in which case we try to be diplomatic.

My husband is a royalist who believes that most political conflicts are best handled through magic (you can read about a typical political situation in his country here). This is not relevant for U.S. politics. Here, he tends to go with generalized compassion. Clinton, he felt, could not be faulted for being unfaithful to his wife when he had so many opportunities -- any man might have done the same. Bush, he felt, was cowardly to run and hide after the Trade Center attack, but anyone might be frightened and do the same. We do talk about politics a lot at our house, but there are so few points of connection in our views that we cannot be said to agree or disagree. I think he feels that we in the U.S. are unfortunate to have mere humans in our government, with no superhuman powers or connections with the gods or anything, but since that's what we've got it's no wonder that they behave the way they do.

The Princess claims that she and her beau don't really have strong feelings about politics at all. They are able to overlook it. Indeed, she didn't even know it might be an issue until she met his parents. So how serious a problem could it be?

But some of the things that we call "politics" are not about whom you choose at the polls. Some are about moral values. For example, a fellow named Phelan was talking on NPR's "Fresh Air" the other day. The subject was cars and fuel efficiency. In discussing the despoliation of the Alaskan wilderness for oil, he said that the oil "has to come from somewhere," so that for us in the U.S. to refuse to despoil our own wilderness only meant that someone else's wilderness would be despoiled. It would simply, he said, be a matter of "outsourcing" the destruction. He said sadly that he wished people would understand that.

Now our government's energy policy has nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with increased profits for the oil companies. Exxon has surpassed Wal-Mart in sales and profits now, car companies can side-step all requirements for fuel efficiency by making their vehicles heavier, and the only change is that prices keep rising. Our government is even making a bit of hay with that -- since we are all forced to spend more on fuel and the price rises being caused by increased fuel costs, our spending has risen, and the government has identified this as "increased consumer confidence."

But Mr. Phelan is assuming that the continued use of fossil fuels at the current rate is inevitable. Conservation, use of alternative energy sources -- these things are not even on his radar.

Is this a political decision on his part, given that approaches to environmental issues often follow party lines? A moral one, supposing that one might feel responsibility to future generations? A religious one, given that stewardship of the earth is part of several of the world's major religions?

And could he be happy with a wife who did not share his views? Insofar as politics is about individuals and governments, it might be as non-threatening to family harmony as differing tastes in music. But shared values are a basic of happy relationships.

Something to ponder. The real news, of course, is that The Princess actually found her beau through a computer dating service. Consider it anecdotal evidence that this method can work.

Ah, it is the right front of Brooklyn. Astute observers will note that it looks just like the left front. And not much different from the back of Brooklyn. Can we stretch this to a metaphor and suggest that sameness is dull, and differing values can be good for a relationship? Nah,  widely divergent ribbing on a track jacket would look silly.

These, O knitters, are my antique needles with the steel cables. You may never have the opportunity to knit with any yourself, and it isn't worth seeking out such an opportunity. Modern nylon cables (and whatever has supplanted nylon, since I have not been paying attention) are much smoother.

Last night I had to help with the car.

I only helped for about 20 minutes. And it was my car. So I am obviously not to be pitied here.

Things are often more fun if you are working with someone else. I like to work on crafts with my kids, to cook with my husband, and to brainstorm with colleagues. Even housework is more fun with someone. So I do believe that my husband should have someone to work with when he is doing car repairs.

Preferably not me.

For one thing, there are communication problems. English is my native language. My husband believes that this should mean that I can easily read the car repair manuals. I have been unable to convince him that "Adjust the neutral start switch" is completely meaningless to me.

Nor do I have the kind of visual/spatial intelligence required to connect those blurry pictures of engines with anything in the real world.  He does have this kind of intelligence, as does #2 daughter. For people like this, the helplessness of people like me as we peer at the engine and try to recognize anything in the picture is not easy to understand. In fact, the neutral start switch is not in the engine, but I assure you that I was not the one who figured this out.

My husband is blessed with skill at fixing things. My position on this is that he can fix anything -- if he wants to. Therefore, anything that remains unrepaired around our house is something that he does not want to fix. From his point of view, it is difficult to go buy a part when you do not know the name of the part, and it would help a lot if I could just tell him the name of the thing. I do not disagree. I just know that there are lots of car parts, and I do not actually know the names of any of them beyond, oh, "steering wheel" or "tire."

We have a wonderful little book called the Ultimate Visual Dictionary. It tells you the names of all sorts of things that most of us cannot name, including not merely the eight-way D-pad, but also the operculum. If you know what a thing looks like, be it animal, vegetable, or mineral, you can look in this little book and find out what it is called. It does not work the other way.

The other thing about car fixing is that all the things you work with are so unappealing. Of course I enjoy working with my hands. But I like to work with things that are soft, pretty, and smell good. All car parts are ugly, dirty, and smelly. Not to people who like working with cars. There was an old movie in which Ginger Rogers played  a girl who loved to work on cars. Her enthusiasm for the beauty of the machinery was admirable. She did it with the same gusto she brought to dancing in satin gowns. Even with her as an example, I cannot fabricate enthusiasm when I am supposed to be helping fix the car. And I escape as soon as possible, even though I feel bad about running out on the process.

The car is not yet repaired. And I am sure that I seem to my husband like a spoiled and worthless creature who can't even summon up enthusiasm and skill to work on my own car. I'm not sure I can actually improve in this area.

I nearly sent this book back to Booksfree unread. It began like Daphne DuMaurier and then moved into levels of depravity that just seemed unnecessary. But as it continued, the book connected private evil to political and economic issues and I had to stay up past midnight to finish it. If you ever want to read something disturbing, this could be a good choice.

Sunday was not that restful a day. I made cookies to send to #2 daughter at her dorm, soap (Stargazer Lily, Honey, and Jasmine scents), phone calls to my daughters, a foray into finishing up the back-to-school shopping which unfortunately coincided with the demise of my starter --

Never mind. I completed the quilt top I have been working on, that is the main thing. This is the Windblown Shadows variation of the traditional Windblown Square, from The Thimbleberries Book of Quilts by Lynette Jensen. The fabrics include several from the Moda Vienna Nights collection, as well as solids from Seattle Bay and others I cannot identify, but which were collected together by this quilt shop. I used a pieced border as well as a couple of solid borders. I made it a bit smaller than the pattern specified -- small enough to serve as a throw for the couch, but large enough to put at the end of the bed as well.  #2 daughter had suggested it for sleepovers, since it is just the right colors for our living room, so it will belong to the sofa bed, though it may end up elsewhere.

It is not by any means finished. The piecing is, to my mind, the part you have to do before you can begin the quilting. And I am having some thoughts of applique on the solid green border.

My husband does not like the randomness of this quilt. He prefers the restfulness and rhythm of a simple color scheme, but I sometimes like the scrappy look. This quilt is faux scrappy and random, of course, since it is made not of scraps at all but of a collection of coordinated fabrics. Some people have to work hard to get an air of randomness, but I really enjoy the process. Choosing the colors and patterns and laying them next to one another is for me a deliciously sensual pleasure, like making good chords. The combined colors caress the eye as the combined notes caress the ear. Never mind that either, as the image begins to be somewhat disgusting if you take it too literally.

Now I must get batting and backing and baste the thing. This is a part which I really do not enjoy at all. If anyone wants to come and do it for me, I will be delighted. No? I thought not.

Once that is done, and the weather cools off sufficiently, I will do the quilting, which is my favorite part. Between now and then, I will plan the quilting, which is my second favorite part.