There have been a couple of enquiries about #2 daughter. "Is she a career girl now?" one email asked. A phone call asked about the ending.

We just haven't gotten to the ending yet. The story is like that children's book, Fortunately.

Fortunately, she finished school. Unfortunately, that meant she had to get out of the dorm.

Fortunately, her roommate saw the force of #2 daughter's arguments and agreed to pay her share of the rent. Unfortunately, she didn't actually send the rent. Fortunately, the landlord allowed #2 to move in on the strength of the deposit. Unfortunately, her car still hadn't arrived.

Fortunately, the car company allowed her to borrow a car till hers arrived. Unfortunately, it is her first car and she had no insurance of her own. Fortunately, she found a good insurance company. Unfortunately, they closed for the weekend. Fortunately, the car company had some suggestions. Unfortunately, they were very expensive.

Fortunately she was able to fit it into her budget. Unfortunately, the car company gave her an appointment late Saturday evening, when she needed the vehicle to move that day. Fortunately, she got a ride over there and swayed them with the force of her personality to go ahead and give her the car.

Fortunately, she was able to move most of her stuff in the car. Unfortunately, she couldn't move  her armchair. Fortunately, her beau drives a Land Rover. Unfortunately, she couldn't get hold of him. Fortunately, she was able to leave the chair where it is for a while. Unfortunately, that meant she had no furniture. Fortunately, she is prepared to think of the apartment as Zen minimalist. And fortunately, the roomie has some furniture.

Fortunately, the apartment has a working kitchen. Unfortunately, #2 daughter has no cooking utensils. Fortunately, Grandma and Grandpa have extras. Unfortunately, #2 daughter won't get them till the coming weekend.

Fortunately, some boys took her out to meals, so she had something to eat. And fortunately, she got moved out of the dorm and into her apartment.

Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment.

My boys are trying to bulk up. They're going to the gym for 90 minute lifting sessions and drinking protein shakes.

Why didn't I buy them the giant jar of protein shake powder? they want to know. It would be more economical in the long run. I didn't know if they would like it, or just try it once and not drink any more, I point out.

They look at me with consternation. It doesn't matter if they like it. They are going to drink it anyway in order to develop those bulging rippling muscles and get taller and gain weight and stuff.

Then #2 son asked why I always say "Have fun!" when they go to the gym. Why do I ask if they had a good time when they get home? That's not the point.

So I thought about this as I was sweating on the treadmill. Increasing the grade, increasing the speed. Is it fun?

And I thought about it again as I was copying out the family recipes for #2 daughter. All those delectable things I used to cook with butter and cream and quantities of cheese. No wonder my boys complain about having to eat healthier food. A switch from a steady diet of Hamburger Helper to delicious fruits and vegetables would be one thing, but Chicken Champignon and Danish Almond Crisps to vegetables and brown rice is a step down, in terms of eating pleasure.

I think that we are designed to enjoy brown rice and vegetables most of the time, and to enjoy work, too. Then we can enjoy the punctuation of luxurious foods and rest.

In our modern lives, though, we have the option of resting and eating luxurious foods all the time. We have to create artificial opportunities for physical work in the gym, and make artificial constraints to keep ourselves eating simple foods.

We also have the option of working all the time and eating nasty food substitutes. Those of us who reel home from work -- usually not physical work -- exhausted and gobble down something from the microwave or drive-through window are doing that. Often, people choose to do that in order to reach a future goal which may or may not actually provide any pleasure for them or satisfy any requirements of duty.

We can keep ourselves in a continual state of festival if we want to, or a continual state of deprivation. Neither, I think, is good for us.

The Hundred Dollar Holiday makes the point that our holidays evolved during a time when feasting and noise were rarities. Now they are the norm, so it might make more sense to let our holidays be times for quiet and simplicity. Instead, for many of us, they are just another duty, another enormous effort toward a questionable goal.

I think I am arguing here for balance. Between duty and pleasure, between future goals and present enjoyment, between work and play, between simplicity and luxury.

And I guess those protein shakes won't hurt the boys.

Just because I haven't mentioned my knitting lately doesn't mean I'm not knitting. Here is Jasmine, with the last sleeve about halfway done.

And here you will find new yarns from Knitpicks. I've only used their Wool of the Andes so far, but am awaiting a shipment with a couple of others to try out.

Yesterday was a productive day. I had breakfast and shopping with #2 son, and talked about his summer assignment (due tomorrow)and cynicism and friends and haircuts. I tried to persuade him to approve the purchase of the lovely eggplants offered by these cute little boys at the market.

He did not agree, and we ran into The Empress and That Man at that very moment and they supported him. Even when I described how deliciously it could be prepared, with garlic. You can't really buy a box of eggplant if there is just one eggplant-eater in the family.

We talked about music and vegetable recipes and computers, and then #2 son and I carried on to buy more fruits and vegetables.

I took #1 son to lunch and we talked about his senior year and future plans and music and languages. Then I went to get lace for my PSD, and encountered a friend in the yarn aisle. We talked about her latest project (a beautiful silk baby hat she had in her purse), the difficulty of finding good quality ribbons, buying locally versus online, the clothing needs of the elderly, our kids, blogs, denim yarns, the LYS, and knitting books. I also talked on the phone with both my daughters (music and the events of their lives), and discussed current events with my husband.

Having completed all this socializing and errand-running, I began in the afternoon to work on my sewing project.

It is Folkwear 223, "A Lady's Chemise." Since it was a Folkwear pattern, you will not be surprised to hear that I spent the first hour tracing, marking, and trying to figure out how the blasted thing went together.

Then I spent three hours making the tucks. I was also watching or at least listening to movies, so it was not arduous, but it did cause me to remember a conceptual artist I once met who had done an installation consisting of miles of tucked muslin called "Tedium."

We asked her how it had been received, and she said "The critics liked it" with a shrug.

This is not muslin, but a remnant of Cuddleskin I was fortunate to find during our Memorial Day fabric shopping trip. This fabric is also known as brushed-back satin. It is satin on the outside, but brushed like flannel on the inside, and lovely to wear. It is as light and cool as nylon tricot without the sleazy slippery feel.

Here is the sad part. Following all that tucking, the next step is to cut the

neckline. All those hours of tucking, and as you can see, hardly any of it remains on the chemise.

The piece at the top is the cut-away part, which is simply discarded. The piece at the bottom is the chemise itself, with the remaining tucking nearly hidden by the lace edging.

Having gone through this process on the front, I decided to use simple released pleats on the back. It gives a more billowy effect, and I am quite glad that I did the tucks in the front. When I make this pattern again, I will do the tucks on both sides.

So as not to let all that tucking go to waste, I used the cut-off piece to make a sachet. I keep dried botanicals from my garden on hand, along with essential oils, so it was no great effort to prepare some potpourri for the sachet, and it will be nice in a drawer or hanging in the closet.

Here's the edging for the chemise. I applied the lace directly to the edge, turning under the fabric with the needle as I sewed, and then did a line of stitching along the beading.

Since I've found in the past that the drawstrings of chemises aren't functional -- that is, I just knot them and leave them, rather than loosening them to remove the garment -- I adapted the neckline to use the same edging, rather than the separate beading and ribbon called for in the pattern.

This simplified the process significantly, and I feel that it worked out just as well, though it is presumably less authentic.

 

 

Here is the finished chemise with all its frills and furbelows.

I consider myself too old to wear a lot of frilly stuff in the daytime, but I think you can wear fancy nightgowns all your life.

And I suppose there is a point at which you become a little old lady and can wear lace caps.

Little old ladies do that in old novels, though I have not seen it in real life.

Lace shawls, then.

This nightgown goes well with my bedroom, doesn't it?

I would definitely recommend this pattern. It is not complicated, and not difficult once you get past the tucking. Those who can do pintucking on the sewing machine would probably find it quick, even. I prefer hand sewing to machine sewing, myself, and am better at it, so I don't attempt to speed up by using the machine, but it could be done.

When I made #1 daughter's wedding dress, we had to call in a professional seamstress for a final fitting issue. She showed me how to do the hand applique I was doing on the machine, and hers looked fine, but really not as good as the handwork.

It also goes well with my bathrobe, which is a red silk kimono. This matters, because I certainly could not answer the door in the chemise. Too diaphanous. The pattern does recommend it as a summer dress, though, and you could do it in a nice cotton for that purpose.

So this is the completed July Sew Retro project.

In truth, it isn't complete, since I have not quite finished the hem, but I wore it last night anyway, and shall finish the hem today after church, so I will squeak in before the deadline.

Otherwise, I am continuing with my program of serious summer lolling.

I may make some salsa, too.

This week at work I have been dealing with mail orders. I've never done this before, so I had some surprises.

There were perhaps two orders that were clear and legible. The others? They had the wrong numbers. They used the number for one item and the description for another. They put down the wrong price, causing me to wonder whether they had actually meant a different item. They gave color choices for items with no color choices. They scrawled the whole thing in stylish and illegible handwriting. They used outdated catalogs. They made up their own descriptions of things. They sent copies with the last column of numbers cut off the edge.

As I searched through the print catalogs and databases for what they could possibly have had in mind by "Teacher renewal kit" or determined that they meant EU87675 rather than "ev-947675," I marveled that anyone ever gets the stuff they order.

I've done some mail order recently for #2 daughter's birthday. I got some fabric for her SWAP from fashionfabricsclub.com, recommended by Lydia. I think this completes the fabrics for her SWAP, unless she finds a ginger-and-blue print she loves. In the tradition of my rotten photos of fabrics, here you can not-quite-see hers: an Italian silk suiting in a taupe and gray houndstooth check with a bit of blue and plum in the weave, a saffron-colored wool gabardine, a saffron-and-ginger peachskin abstract print, dark blue microfiber, blue peachskin, gray microfiber, and a Tanzanian print cotton in mostly ginger. Some of these we've already used, and some are still waiting to be made up. If all goes according to plan, she should have a serviceable wardrobe in good quality fabrics for just about $150. That gives an average of $10 per garment, a figure she couldn't match at consignment shops or discount stores. Obviously, the SWAP is a thrifty choice as well as a creative endeavor.

I won't tell you about the other things, as we are not having her birthday party till next weekend, when she will be coming down to visit.

The fabrics for her SWAP came from two online shoppings, our Memorial Day sale shopping trip to the local Hancock's, and a purchase from the One Book Society (the Tanzanian cotton).

Both online purchases were from fashionfabricsclub.com, and on both occasions I have been very pleased. The quality of their fabrics is excellent, their prices are amazing, and their service is quick and accurate. Both orders from them arrived in about a week from my placing the order.

They sent me swatches and a coupon, and I mostly chose fabrics from the swatches. The trouble with buying fibers online is always that the colors on the screen aren't going to match the colors in real life, and you cannot touch the fabrics or yarns. So swatches and color cards are worthwhile.

Since my local choices for fabric and yarn buying are very limited, I will no doubt continue to buy fibers online. The price difference is also noticeable. I can buy good wool fabrics online for four to nine dollars a yard, compared with fifteen to thirty at the local Hancock's (and there, also, I will have only two or three to choose from), so I can afford some misses. It is the same with yarn, though I suffer over it a bit more, since my LYS is really a local business, not a chain.

Of course, the chains also employ local people and provide sales tax revenues to the local community, so I suppose it is a question of how flat the world ought to be.

My SWAP report doesn't include any new sewing. That purple blob is still a blob, and wasn't part of the SWAP anyway. I have learned that "burgundy" is an extremely variable term, having ended up in my search for a good burgundy skirt fabric and sweater yarn with several different shades of terrific bargains. They will not all work together, and I find myself holding them up to the paisley and to the jacket fabrics and staring, trying to determine which is the correct burgundy for my SWAP. I may be over-thinking this.

Here are my SWAP fabrics. A gray and burgundy wool houndstooth check, blue microfiber, gray microfiber, burgundy wool gabardine, charcoal gray sweater knit, rayon and wool print, and a Glen plaid whose fiber content I have forgotten and which, on my monitor, is strobing so that it looks like an odd stripe.

I've done the easy things already, and must gather up some courage to make the rest of the things. It is difficult to cut beautiful fabrics without confidence in one's sewing ability. It is years since I have made a jacket or a pair of pants, and I am not sure I remember how. Maybe I should take a class.

However, I would like to report that even with only five pieces completed, I already find that I have a different experience of getting dressed in the mornings. I have lots of choices, and none are based on whether people will notice the hole in this garment more than the frayed edge of that one. It is rather fun.

I also have been wearing the seaweed-colored slides #2 daughter persuaded me to buy with a number of different color combinations, rather than automatically putting on black or brown unless I was actually wearing seaweed-colored clothing. Again, this is rather fun.

If sewing strikes you as fun, you might think about dresses for the fall. The big pattern companies are offering some really pretty new dress patterns. Clicking on these pictures will embiggen them to a useful degree.

These two are both from McCall's, and ought to be in your local fabric shop soon, or you can get them at 50% off at sewingpatterns.com right now.

I am one of those who waits for the 99 cent pattern sale. You know there will be one soon, somewhere. I don't know why pattern companies price their patterns at $16 and up to begin with, then discount them to nothing. Perhaps it is to reward those of us who can handle delayed gratification. Yeah, that's it. A big government propaganda effort aimed at solving the problem of increasing impatience in Hamburger-a-go-go-land.

The Wall Street Journal tells us that fitted silhouettes will continue to be the fashion news in the foreseeable future, and that is good for dresses. The "semi-fitted" styles of the dresses above are typical of the offerings for fall.

If you are young and lithe, consider Vogue 8280.

This is one glamorous dress.

#2 son is up at an unreasonably early hour so that he can accompany me to the grocery store and ensure that I buy plenty of food, as we have been down to chicken and vegetables halfway through the last couple of weeks. We will also get to the farmer's market and the bakery, do a bit of gardening and housework, and then I am hoping for a PSD.

The Chamber Singers audtion for a director was fun. We sang "Lamb of God" arranged by F. Melius Christiansen and "O Magnum Mysterium" by de Victoria. The director we were trying out was a very accomplished man, currently directing a church choir but wishing for an opportunity to work on early music, his real love.

There was a bad case of smug going around, though, as #1 son puts it. There were new members since I sang with the group: a couple of people who just sang and otherwise didn't draw attention to themselves, like me, but also a pair of sisters, large and flamboyant with braying laughs, and a simpering tenor who couldn't stop bragging about himself. There were jokes made about touring in a neighboring county, slightly more rural than ours, for "people who had never heard music." This would have seemed disrespectful in any case, but particularly so in a region famous for its traditional music.

There was, in fact, a general air of "aren't we wonderful and special" that grated quite a bit. I don't remember this being a feature of previous incarnations of the group, so it may be coming from those three loud people, and if so I could probably ignore it. The director pandered to it a bit, but stopped short of actually denigrating his church choir, so it may not be that he is really going to foster that attitude.

It seems to me idiotic to think that enjoying motets and madrigals makes a person superior to those who enjoy other types of music. The director did say, "Listening to the voices here, I was thinking, 'Do you ever sing Brahms?'" so he is at least not one of those who thinks that everything after 1650 is pop music.

The singing was very pleasurable. There are some good voices in the group -- though not perhaps as good as they think they are. One of the sisters announced that she sang "like an angel," something that you should allow others to say for you.

I have not yet decided whether to continue with the group. It will depend in part on the time they choose to rehearse. I think I can just go sing and ignore the personalities. Some of the singers I have known for years, and it was a pleasure to see them again.

I have been a bit remiss about posting on the books I am reading for the Summer Reading challenge. The books I have read this week are Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, another light bit of summer fluff, and Rumpole and The Penge Bungalow Murders by John Mortimer. Also light, but I think that the curmudgeonly Old Bailey hack Horace Rumpole is among the lasting characters of British fiction. If you have read any of Mortimer's stuff, you will remember the Penge Bungalow Murders, regularly tossed out by Rumpole as evidence of his courtroom abilities. His listeners regularly run off to escape hearing about it, too.

Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver used to refer to her first case (the Poisoned Caterpillars case), though in a decorous rather than a bombastic way, and Wentworth never wrote it. I had always wanted to know the details. And of course I am thankful to Mortimer for revealing at last the details of the Penge Bungalow Murders, not to mention how it was that he came to marry She Who Must Be Obeyed.

I am currently reading Amy Tan's The Opposite of Fate, and Robert Barnard's The Mistress of Alderly. Tan's book is a collection of autobiographical essays, enjoyable but of course depressing, so I am alternating with Barnard's novel. Barnard is always good, but his earlier books are so filled with biting wit that I tend to be a little disappointed in his more sober novels, of which this is one.

Perhaps I will search out another fluffy beach book for the weekend. If only to ward off any hint of cultural snobbery

I've decided to embrace summer lassitude.

Every year, I fight against it. Every year, we all gradually sink into it, tolerating a messy house and jungly garden, ceasing productive activity beyond a little desultory knitting and a few bursts of canning.

This year, I've been winning.

Oh, the house is of course a mess, and the huge quantities of groceries I bring into the house on Saturday are gone by Tuesday; the boys are doing their best to spend their days eating and making messes, as is the summer tradition.

But I have continued to maintain a fairly good housekeeping schedule and kept working on projects. I've been baking and writing and spending only my usual amount of time lolling around. Clean laundry and healthy meals continue to appear at regular intervals. The garden is getting watered and weeded. I've been happy about this.

And here it is the 27th of July. Only about three weeks till school starts again. A Floridian was in the store yesterday, and they go back to school on August 3 (like MaMaMoo), as do the Oklahomans. Clearly, though the heat will be with us for some time, summer is fleeting.

Where are the afternoons on the porch reading and sipping iced tea? Where are the summer evenings playing games? Where are the mornings spent in the garden?

I haven't been overworked (that may still be ahead), but neither have I lazed around any more than usual.

How, then, will I have the satisfaction of getting back to my regular routine after school starts -- if I never stopped it? Where will be the pleasure in productive fall days if there is no contrast with hedonistic summer ones?

So I will be adding some hedonistic lazing to my schedule straightaway. Except that tonight I do have a meeting with Chamber Singers to audition a couple of director candidates. That is directly after work, but right after that I will begin lazing in earnest.

#2 daughter has persuaded her roommate to see her point of view, and will be flatting beginning next week. I learned that word from Sighkey. I think it means renting an apartment with roommates in a young and jolly way, and it sounds more glamorous than "sharing an apartment." Sighkey says that she never flatted at all, which I take to mean that she never lived in an apartment. She makes it sound pretty raffish.

I bet that most American adults have lived in an apartment at least once, and probably with roommates. How is it, then, that we have no word for this, while the people of Kiwi-a-go-go-land, among whom it is optional, have such a cool word as "flatting"?

They probably pronounce it as we would a word spelled "fletting," too, to add to the exoticism. It would then sound more like "flitting," a word associated with butterflies and birds and rapscallions.

Anyway, this is what #2 daughter will be doing. #1 daughter will be getting her husband back from the briny deep today, if all goes well and the Navy don't change their minds. The two of them live in an apartment issued them by the Navy, but I don't suppose that can be called flatting.

Our new worker, who shall henceforth be known as JJ, is an excellent worker. She is also an admirable woman. She has had a hard life and yet has risen above it. She is very charitable, and always willing to go the extra mile for those who need her. An inspiration to us all.

As soon as you read something like that, you know that a complaint is coming.

But it isn't really a complaint. It is more something I have to adjust to. She talks a lot. A lot.

I think of myself as a talkative person. I like conversation. In groups, I have to restrain myself in order not to do more than my fair share of the talking.

But I am not accustomed to talking all the time.

I was thinking about this last night. I was reading and knitting. My husband was watching TV. My boys were playing a game. Conversations erupted now and then, and we would all talk for a bit, and then there would be some minutes of companionable silence before the next bit of talking.

This seems normal to me.

At work, since I work with the public, I have to talk to people. It is a practiced thing. There are people whose conversation I enjoy, and some for whom I just trot out my platitudes that I have learned to say many many times a day. In many cases, people need actual help and I am pleased to provide it, and in others it is just what Friedman calls "friction" -- human interaction. I can judge the need for conversation pretty well, and make sure that the interaction lasts as long as it takes for the receipt to print out. This is part of why people come to a store instead of shopping online. It's part of my job and I enjoy it.

But the rest of the time, I usually don't have to talk. I might be writing a press release, or doing things with orders at the computer, or preparing a book order, or arranging alluring vistas of science equipment, or reading a new children's book. In all these cases, I am concentrating on the task, or perhaps thinking about other things -- the things I write here, for example.

The Poster Queen and I are likely to have a conversation or two if we are both there, and The Empress and That Man and I usually pass the time of day at some point. But mostly, I can think.

When JJ is there, though, she talks all the time. She has interesting things to say. At first, I did a lot of "Huh?" surprised looking up, because I didn't realize that she was talking to me. I was working, after all.

But now I am trying to talk more.

This is like when I first moved here from California. I haven't lived in California for a couple of decades, but I grew up there. When I lived there, you could go buy cat food and the workers might say "Have a nice day" as you left, but you weren't expected to make conversation. So I would go to get my cat food here and people would talk to me and I would go "Huh?" in a startled way. Then, once I caught on that there would be conversation, it took me a while to get to where I could tell when we were finished. People speak more slowly here, with longer pauses, and the whole idea of talking in the grocery line was foreign, so it took me a while to catch on. There was a stage when I was standing there thinking "are we through yet?" trying to catch the signals that the discussion was finished.

I'm in that stage with JJ. I am capable of talking with her while I put labels on things or rearrange books, and I can even fit in some talk while doing computer work without seriously affecting my productivity. I'm just having to wrack my brain to come up with things to say, and to make an effort to remember to speak. I don't want to seem unfriendly or make her feel underappreciated.

Of course, she is also very good at talking with the customers. I can kind of palm the really chatty ones off on her.

Thank goodness I get to eat lunch alone.

Black Purl is another online knitting magazine, and new to me. It has cell phone cozies, tank tops, and plain rectangular shawls just like all the others, but the models are African-American. So if that would make a difference to you, why not check it out? I read some of the articles and did not find anything new there either, but you may not have as many knitting books as I do. In any case, when you are looking for something on a screen to read while you knit (so as not to have to keep a book open), you are bound to rejoice at any newish online knitting magazine.

This news, and the fact that I've done another couple of inches on the second sleeve for Jasmine, is all the knitting content I have for you today.

#2 daughter's transition from college to career has been easy so far -- she has been working like a dog, of course, but she is looking at four more days of classes and a couple more days of RA-ship, and then her college experience will be over. Just last week , we were saying that when she was through with school, she would already have a job, a car, an apartment, a roommate, a work wardrobe, and a guy who might become her boyfriend. We thought things were going pretty well.

If this were a novel, of course, this would not do. Her 12- and 15-hour work days and lack of a kitchen would have provided a little drama in the beginning, but now it would be time for the plot to thicken. It would be time for her to have some troubles. She would probably have to end up in a strange city, helplessly searching for a job and a place to live, desperately lonely, running out of money... You can't have a novel, or even a TV show, where someone works hard and everything goes right for her.

So, the nonfictional nature of her life notwithstanding, she now has some troubles. Her roomie decided not to move in until mid-month, and not to pay her rent, either. I think this is because she is a student, and has not lived in a grown-up place and therefore doesn't realize that you can't actually have a room without paying for it, even if you aren't there.

Her idea is that #2 daughter should sleep on someone's couch for a few weeks until she is ready to move in. And that #2 daughter should negotiate this with their prospective landlord.

Again, I am thinking that she doesn't realize what an unreasonable request this is. #2 daughter has a job, unlike the roommate, and has to be able to be dressed and rested and so on to go to work. Throwing herself on the mercy of her friends and crashing on their couches is not the ideal. She doesn't have time to negotiate with the landlord. Nor is it likely that the landlord will agree to leave the apartment vacant and unpaid for for weeks on end just to accomodate this girl.

This episode also makes me wonder about this roommate. She is a nice girl, and I had been happy that #2 daughter was going to have her for a roommate. Will she think, though, that she can go home for Christmas and not pay rent for that month? Will #2 daughter be homeless every summer when school lets out, or -- perhaps worse -- stuck with an apartment that needs a second occupant, so she will have to look for a summer sublet every year?

Maybe a studio apartment is the answer. If so, then she will have to squeeze house-hunting into her finals-week schedule, as well as work. And deal with the drama of telling her friend that she won't room with her.

Also, the car which she has paid for has not yet arrived. #2 daughter needs a car to get to work. Her town, like ours, has no public transportation. Right now she is carpooling, but that is often like crashing on someone's couch -- not an ideal arrangement, not a permanent one, and not one you can count on.

Banana nut bread is on the menu for breakfast here, but there really is no way for me to get any to #2 daughter to cheer her up.

Our duet went well -- some pulled out their handkerchiefs and some sang along, the two best responses you can get in church -- and the sermon was thought-provoking as always, but the part of yesterday's church experience that is lingering in my mind came in Sunday School.

The lesson was about body image. Leprosy, as it happened, but one of the discussion questions was "Is there anything about your body that makes you self-conscious?"

If you ask that question in a group of women, you are likely to get answers of such specificity that it boggles the mind. It seems that there is nothing women can't obsess about in this arena. But this Sunday School class is largely populated by old women. One said she couldn't run any more -- sometimes she dreamt of running, but her legs just wouldn't do that any more. Another said her skin has gotten so thin that she bleeds if she touches anything in passing, and it makes her self-conscious when it happens in public.

Puts those "I don't like my arms" whines in perspective, eh?

But one woman said that she wished her body was firmer. I was aghast. Sure, there are parts of my body I'd like to have firmer, but surely when you are 80, you can give that up and just be thankful that you have all your body parts?

Then came the next question: "Should a Christian's attitude toward her body be different from an unbeliever's?"

We were a little stunned. A Christian's attitude toward her body -- that's easy, if you accept the Bible as instructions. Proverbs 31 tells us that we should strengthen our arms and be vigorous and energetic, which I take to mean that we should stay fit and healthy. The Song of Solomon tells us to enjoy our bodies. All over the Bible you'll find that you are supposed to be pretty impressed with your body -- God is not one of those shy retiring creators who doesn't want admiration. And the injunction against covetousness makes it pretty clear that you are not supposed to be wishing you had Angelina Jolie's body instead of your own.

But what attitude should the woman who is not Christian have? Well, is that any of my business? Are we prepared to say that unbelievers are stuck with their magazine-driven self-loathing, but Christians should appreciate and care for their bodies as a gift from God? 

So I contemplated that as I enjoyed the afternoon. The Empress and That Man came by for some herbs. Toby the stupid dog barked at them, as is his wont, but then they started petting him, and he gazed lovingly into their eyes, put his head on their knees, and growled at them.

Toby is often pulled in two directions. Being a dog of very little brain, he cannot make up his mind, but just goes in both directions at once.

Then Partygirl called (and expressed surprise that I had actually answered the phone) with a suggestion for The Princess's bridal shower. Since she is already having several showers (she is a sorority girl), Partygirl proposes having a Spice Up Your Marriage shower. This is where everyone brings a recipe and a spice.

#2 daughter had asked me to copy out all the family recipes for her, so I set off to find a good book for the purpose of copying, and a recipe album for The Princess's shower, and was successful with both elements of the quest.

Thus it was that I spent the evening copying out recipes rather than knitting, and have no new progress to show to you.

I woke up at 3:50 a.m. at the sound of my name.

No one had actually called me. This happens sometimes -- I hear my name as clearly as though someone had said it in my ear, loud enough to wake me up, but it is imaginary.

I know the exact time because I turned, as I always do in these cases, to check the exact time on my husband's digital clock.

Why? Possibly in case this is a matter of psychic thought transference. I will discover that something important happened, and be able to say that I heard an announcement at exactly 3:50. Someone will have died, perhaps, and I can say that it was exactly at 3:50. This last one is no good, though. Anyone close enough to me to be saying my name at the moment of death would not be an intriguing example of psychic transference that I would want to exclaim over later.

It doesn't actually make me worry, though, because my children don't call me by my first name and my husband was there, sleeping. I don't worry over anyone else. We are actually commanded not to worry in the Bible, but for my immediate family, I haven't quite been able to follow that commandment.

However, if you were up at 3:50 a.m. my time, know my first name, and suddenly thought "I should tell her about this excellent new book" or something, please let me know. It could be a good example of psychic thought transference.

The problem about waking up at this hour is that it isn't late enough to get up, yet it is too late to go back to sleep easily. I got up and read for a couple of hours, and then drifted off to sleep again just at dawn for half an hour. So I will be a bit groggy all day.

An afternoon nap is called for, I think.

Housework and gardening are also called for. My gardens are becoming excessively jungle-like, and my house is nearly in a jungle-like condition as well. I am also shaping up to miss all this month's KAL and sewalong deadlines. Fortunately, these are sort of hypothetical imaginary deadlines and no one will care if I miss them.

The Summer Reading Challenge is the one summer -a-long that I am keeping up with, though I think I have not always remembered to post about all the books I am reading. My last two books, a novel by Jennifer Crusie and a Miss Zukas mystery, were entirely what you would have expected them to be. Well written, light, nice summer reads.

I am currently reading Ibid, by Mark Dunn, a novel of sorts consisting only of the endnotes to a lost biography. It is a little reminiscent of S.J. Perelman, when he went past funnily absurd to absurdly stupid. It relies on quirkiness for its humor, but it doesn't seem to me that things become automatically funnier as they become quirkier. There is a point at which the relationship to the reader is lost, and the reader is left merely admiring the spoofs and allusions -- or, in my case, not admiring them.

The critics thought a lot of this book, but I think you would be better off reading the Miss Zukas books, which are filled with quirky people, but only plausibly quirky ones. They also have the advantage of having plots.