When I had the opportunity to listen last week to that excellent speaker on diversified instruction, I was not a participant but a spectator. I am no longer in the classroom, so I just knitted my sock and listened politely as the speaker talked about students who can't process things fast enough to keep up with the class, students who can't process things slowly enough to keep back with the class, students whose problems at home make school seem unimportant, students with limited English. I thought of my own school experiences and my own children's experiences in the classroom.

The speaker said that teaching ends up being all about IT. They get IT. They don't get IT. How do we get IT across to them? It ought to be about the students, about helping them meet their goals, not about how much of IT we can shovel into them.

Since hearing that interesting presentation, I have thought about it often. I have done several workshops and columns on the subject of how to get IT across to the students in interesting ways, and I saw no real way around that.

But it strikes me that I am also a student now and a teacher now in music. In handbell choir, I am the student who doesn't have enough background to be able to keep up. I am not hugely interested in handbells, but I am a willing and cooperative person, and I would be willing and probably able to learn to play handbells well. However, since the "teacher" (the director) has to get IT (the pieces we are supposed to play in the service) across, I have been put where I am least likely to cause trouble (the middle C bell) and then largely ignored. I have gotten to the point of being able to get the sound of middle C out at the right times, and that is probably where I will stay.

In choir, I am the student who already has IT, so you can ignore them. If there is a solo going, I can usually have it if I want it, but otherwise I am left alone. I will not improve or learn in that setting, either.

So I thought about the choir I am leading. We meet for the second time today. We have some able singers and some one-note Charlies, and then the group in the middle.

I diversify instruction, in the sense of presenting information in a number of different ways, covering things at all the levels present in the class, being responsive to student needs -- but I kept them all in a single group. We did everything together. In handbells, I work hard to keep up, and some of the choristers in my youth choir are working hard to keep up. In choir, I wait politely through instruction that I don't need, and some of the choristers  in the youth choir are doing the same.

How to get around that?

Now, since this is probably not a topic that you care about deeply, I am going to add some pictures that #1 son took at Bonnaroo. To distract you.

I put Rodney Yee's Power Yoga Total Body Workout on my Netflix list after Formerprincess raved about Yee. I was not sure, frankly, whether she was admiring his technique or his physique, but I would say that this guy does a good yoga class. There is beautiful scenery, the instructions are clear (if a little odd sometimes: "Soft eyes, drop the pubis, realize the quietness of your nervous system"), and I had a little bit of soreness this morning.

I spent much of the class being irritated that it was slow and repetitive, but that is how yoga is supposed to be, and people who get irritated by that probably need it more than most.

After work, I got back to my SWAP Part II. This SWAP was supposed to give me things to wear to work this summer, other than the zookeeper gear I commonly wore, and here it is summer and almost time for me to get back to the store.

I had made a pair of classic pleated trousers in my first SWAP, and was intending to do some more. My theory was that, even though I had some trouble with the first pair, after making a few more I would have it down pat. However, I have changed my mind. For one thing, the people on What Not to Wear were extremely scornful of classic pleated trousers last time I saw that program, and their victim was dressed very like a zookeeper, so I figured it could relate to me.

For another, that first pair I made just doesn't really fit. I had a brainwave and measured a couple of pairs of well-fitting pants across the front and down the rise, and did the same with my SWAP pants. There was an extra two inches horizontally on those pants I made, and an extra three inches vertically.

So I went to the pattern from which I have made a couple of skirts that fit well and which I like, and measured the pants pattern (it is one of those wardrobe kinds). The measurements were just right, and they are side-zip pants, so the zipper will go in just like a skirt zipper and require no extra skill. No pockets, and the waistband is 1" below the natural waist, so I will be more modern and perhaps look less like a zookeeper.

I cut them from a charcoal Tencel, and may have time to sew them up this evening.

#2 son is safely back from Bonnaroo with a tan (he is the pale-skinned one of our children) and a whole bunch of really cool rock concert pictures, plus some new favorite bands.

Okay. I have workshops to do today, so I had better skedaddle. Have a wonderful day, everyone!

After #2 daughter left yesterday, I reread The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. She is such a fine novelist. You finish her books feeling completely satisfied -- that changing anything at all would spoil it. I assume that Tey must have been like Dorothy Sayers in having written other more serious things, but "Josephine Tey" is a pseudonym and I have never bothered to look for any of her other works.

In any case, The Daughter of Time has Tey's detective in bed recuperating from an injury, and becoming interested in the case of Richard III. I assume that this controversy is familiar to you, and if not, you have only to read The Daughter of Time and you will be all set.

The thing that interested me is the larger issue that intrigued Tey: how false information gets into what we believe and what we teach and stays there.

Stephen Jay Gould used the example of a particular dinosaur that is always described as being "the size of a fox terrier." Most of us in Hamburger-a-go-go-land have never even seen a fox terrier, and yet Americans continue to use this description. Gould tracked it down to its first usage, and trailed the tradition up to the present.

My favorite example of this is the volcano experiment. This is the bit where you make a volcano out of clay or whatever and then mix vinegar and baking soda to simulate its eruption. Around here, this is one of the most popular science experiments in elementary school; in many cases, it is the only science experiment a teacher does, and my kids did it nearly every year. However, it is not an experiment -- when you measure out a couple of ingredients in order to get a predictable result, that is a recipe, not an experiment -- and it doesn't belong in an earth science lesson. There are probably scads of adults walking around who still sort of feel that volcanic eruptions are caused by a chemical reaction.

I've written before about the persistence of lessons on animal families, even though most animals do not live in families. The great majority of teachers tell their hapless students that "Now he plays" is a simple present tense sentence, when in fact, as any native speaker of English knows, that sentence hardly even makes sense without some very special context, and is certainly not what we say when we want to convey the information that playing is taking place at the present moment.

Why do we do this?

 So yesterday after I did the grocery shopping and made breakfast and caught up on #2 daughter's life, I decided to ask her if she would like to help me with a distasteful errand. We needed to take #2 son to gymnastics and go to the bank and return a video game, and in addition to that, my only pair of flat shoes had developed a hole.

"Next month I'll be back to standing eight or more hours every day, and my loafers have bitten the dust," I said apologetically, "so if you're in the mood ---"
"Shoe shopping?" she said brightly.

More than brightly. Her eyes lit up. She stood up straighter. Her ears perked up. Maybe not, but that was the impression.

I am never in the mood for shoe shopping, but #2 daughter had been wanting to go shoe shopping, so we headed out. We went to five stores. Not one after another. We dropped off the game at a book/music/movie/game place and looked at albums and magazines. There are now a whole bunch of magazines from Somerset Studio, and I also was trying to persuade #2 daughter that making jewelry looked like fun, so I was making her look at pictures from Belle Armoire's jewelry magazine.

Tiring of that, we took #2 son to the gymnastics studio and set off for shoe stores, and then in a bit we picked him up and dropped him off at home with instructions to grill something and went to more shoe stores.

Left to myself, I would have gone to T.J. Maxx and bought the least objectionable pair in anything close to my size.

With #2 daughter's support, I tried on many shoes.

I had decided to avoid loafers, because loafers are, I am told, not in style. Ballet flats are in style, and I tried a whole bunch of them. Polka dots. Shiny bronze ones with bows. Leather ones with buckles or buttons serving no discernible purpose.

I also admired wedge heels with striped denim and woven sandals and all kinds of other stuff.

I ended up with these, but in brown.

They are comfortable, well made, sturdy, and practical. I will be able to wear them with the zookeeper outfits I normally wear to work in the store. They are far and away more suitable than the pink mules with kitten heels and a frill of organza ruffling.

But it seems a bit sad to me that I went out with an open mind and the intention of buying cute shoes and actually visited five shoe stores and still bought the sort of shoe I normally wear.

Oh, well.

#2 daughter bought some new gym shoes, which she had been needing. We had lots of good conversation, and came home to watch a movie and play games and finish her dress and go over music and otherwise disport ourselves in a low-key fashion. This morning we will sing in a trio in church, and in the afternoon #2 daughter will return to her big city and I will either cook meals to put in the freezer and get my house cleaned up in preparation for the coming work week, or I will laze around reading, in preparation for the coming work week.

Which reminds me that part of the summer reading challenge is to post about the books I'm reading. The two books I completed in week 2 of the challenge were Our Lady of Pain and Gil's All Fright Diner.

Our Lady of Pain is a mystery novel set in Edwardian England, by Marion Chesney. She is a fine writer of Regency romances, but also the author of the very good Hamish Macbeth mysteries, and of the less orthodox Agatha Raisin mysteries, and probably some other series under other names which I don't know about. She is always worth reading. The Swinburne-ish title is indeed a quote from Swinburne, but that is not an indication of the story at all. It is merely a reference to a character named Dolores.

Gil's All Fright Diner is a book I had put on my Booksfree list after reading its advance notice, which compared it to Christopher Moore. There is a similarity: there are demons in the book. I haven't read huge numbers of the whole vampire/werewolf/demon oeuvre, but this one seems pretty typical. Someone is trying to unleash the powers of hell and it is up to some unlikely anti-hero or bunch of misfits to save the world. Nothing wrong with it, but there also isn't a whole lot of wit or deep philosophy. Lots of graphic demon-fighting scenes, if you like that sort of thing.

I am still reading Bryson's A Short History of Everything, but that is the kind of book I like to read parts of and then set it aside and think about them before going on, so I don't anticipate finishing it very soon. Summer requires a steady supply of extremely light reading, with occasional dips into the serious stuff. So I guess in fairness I should say about both the books for week two that they are good examples of their genres and you will like them if you like that sort of thing.

The workshops yesterday were fun.

One of the things I really like about doing science workshops is that they allow me to rant in a polite I'm not talking about you sort of way about how science is currently taught in the schools, versus actually teaching science. Since I get to present this alternate view to teachers, I think it is very likely that they then go back to their classrooms with some new thoughts and at least some of them make some changes. Many of them probably sort of agree with me before we start, and just need some ideas on how to implement the changes. Several of them yesterday mentioned how they were told for years not to bother teaching science at all. Just math and reading was the rule, with science and social studies "covered" by reading some things on those subjects.

I got home completely exhausted. I can hardly describe how tired I was. Not because of the workshops in particular, I don't think, but just the cumulative effect of the week. I cooked dinner and tidied up, with I admit a certain amount of grumbling since both #2 son and my husband had been home all day, and went to bed early.

Last night #1 son called to tell us that he had gotten to the rock festival safely and was having fun and finding new favorite bands, and #2 daughter called to say that she had gotten into our town safely but was going on a date. What good kids to let us know.

I don't know what I am going to do today. I will have to do the grocery shopping at some point. In fact, I will have to do it before breakfast because there is not a speck of food in the house but rice and flaxmeal, but beyond that I intend to be spontaneous.

There may be a little disconnect in the idea of intending to be spontaneous.

 Unfortunately, I spent ten and a half hours at the conference yesterday with no lunch.

A note, here, on the lunch question. We vendors and exhibiters were in the room where lunch was being served. Under these circumstances, it is normal to feed the vendors. Sometimes there is a charge for a lunch ticket, sometimes not, but I have never before been in a situation where they simply ignored us. Then, since I was by myself with a lot of product and a cash box, and the only nearby options were restaurants, I didn't have the option of leaving to get lunch. If we hadn't assumed there would be lunch provided I would of course have taken something with me.

Fortunately, the speakers as well as the lunch were in the room, and I had the opportunity to hear some good presentations. I may write more about that when I have more time, but I will just quickly say that the speakers mostly talked about big changes that need to take place in education, and then just as I -- and I suppose everyone else in the room -- was thinking "Well, yes, we know all this, but No Child Left Behind has tied our hands," said things about the need to take risks and have solidarity. One speaker showed that appropriate instruction raises test scores, not an astonishing conclusion, but oddly enough not a persuasive argument in many districts.

Unfortunately, the fact that there were speakers almost throughout the day meant that all interaction with our customers had to take place in whispers. I had customers coming up and hugging me and telling me all about their health and their children and asking about mine, all in whispers. Do you think it is possible after that to do much effective handselling? Nope. The customers are through whispering by then and also feel that they ought to be listening to the speaker. Maybe some will go shop online or at the store, but we did not even make back the cost  of the table.

Fortunately, I nearly completed my sock.

Unfortunately, I made an error in the trellis pattern. By the time I noticed this I had gone on for another four inches. I pulled the stitches down to the error, but couldn't fix it under the circumstances and in fact ended up making it worse, to the point of having to give up entirely on the trellis. I therefore have a nice little trellis for some inches and then a mess.

As you can see, I had put the trellis in the wrong spot anyway back when I divided for the heel, so I just continued on regardless, because they are, after all, socks, and not a work of art.

One woman caught me knitting during the keynote address and asked what the sock was for. I was rather at a loss. I just wear my socks, and don't have any particular purpose for them beyond you know, putting them on my feet.

So I guess I will finish up this badly flawed sock and then make the second with a great sense of casualness.

If the second turns out to be a thing of beauty and therefore potentially a joy forever, I can always frog this sock then and reknit it to match.

Today I have workshops on physical science for little children. I intend to have lots of fun with that. And then #2 daughter is coming down for the weekend, and my Saturday workshop is cancelled, so I will have a weekend off unexpectedly, and we will have further fun.

After several days, the rose petal beads have enough firmness to hold their shape while I made holes in them. I strung them on straight pins or knitting needles, per the instructions. I tried to fix their shapes, but they crumbed apart, so I gave that up.

They may not end up being attractive enough to wear, but I think they could be strung together to make a sort of sachet necklace for closets. We'll see.

I spent much of yesterday coming up with clever ways to convey physics to little children.

In some ways, I think, little children have an advantage over adults in learning concepts in physics. They are not so wedded to one version of reality as we are.

Then I went and set up an alluring table at the conference center for today, and then came the youth choir. It was excellent. We had 15 kids, and they were very cooperative once we actually got them herded up. They wouldn't go into the choir room or even sit in the choir loft. They were wandering around giggling, boys and girls. Eventually I asked one of the moms to help me get all the kids into the same general area. I think I needed Dexter. They stood in a group in the sanctuary, roughly where we take communion, and we did vocalises and began learning a couple of songs.

Next was the Bible study. We have to sign a covenant agreement. We agree not only to pray for one another and not to tell any secrets we hear in the group and stuff like that, but also to do a bunch of other more difficult things. We are to prayerfully care for the earth and for our bodies. We are to heed the promptings of the Holy Spirit to serve our neighbors and not to sin. One of the statements is "When I am aware of injustice to others I will not remain silent." I had to think twice about signing that paper -- it just seemed like a lot to promise, especially during such a busy time. Imagine if other classes were like that.

"Yes," I might say to the participants in my class tomorrow, "you may come and study physics, but only if you agree to care for the earth for the rest of the summer. You also have to care for your body prayerfully. Still want to learn about Bose-Einstein condensates?"

Then came handbells, where I confidently swung my middle C bell at the right times, and it often rang when I did so, and then choir, where I have a solo and a trio coming up. (Chanthaboune? We're doing "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" this Sunday and will expect you to take the soprano.)

Today I have a conference. I am to be there at 7:00 a.m. and stay until 6:30 p.m. Then I'll pack everything into my car to return to the store in the morning, before doing tomorrow's workshops. I have to pack the stuff for the workshops into my car as well, something which seems unlikely to succeed at the moment. Maybe if I think of all the items as mere collections of molecules, so what's a few more, rather than considering the number of boxes involved, they will all fit. Maybe I will sell everything at the conference today, and only have the cash box and the banner to add to my workshop materials.

I'll also need to pack up a sandwich for my lunch and put dinner in the crockpot before I leave this morning. Yesterday I left home at 3:00 to go to the conference center to set up and then went straight on to the church, not having arranged dinner, and when I got home at 8:30 last night, the menfolks had just stuck a frozen pizza in the oven. I ate a slice or two of cold pizza for my dinner, sure, and was glad there was something ready to eat, but I don't want to make a habit of that sort of thing. A person needs vegetables to keep up a schedule like this.

Puff puff.

Here's what happens to a jungly garden if you ar afraid to weed it because of the poison ivy.

Yes, my garden is still full of poison ivy.

I have suggested that one of the guys get rid of it, since they have never been troubled by the poison ivy and I have, but so far that has not happened.

Gloves, I guess.

I have sometimes started gardening with gloves on, but I always end up taking them off pretty quickly. #1 son does the same thing, and the old lady who supervises his summer gardening job tells him to put them back on. She does not mention poison ivy, but suggests that he could get a cut and it could get infected. More dramatic, that.

Today I have to leave bright and early to give a couple of workshops. I have to pack my lunch and put dinner in the crockpot, and do something about the fact that I made cookies for all the participants last night and yet did not acquire any plates or napkins for them to set said cookies on.

I'm eyeing a package of computer paper, here. Or maybe I could beg 40 napkins from the kitchen at the facility we're using. Or stop off at the gas station on the way and buy a package...

Whatever I do, I need to wake up pretty quickly here and get started.

The serious and important thing about today is that it is World Child Labor Awareness Day. The ILO is trying to distinguish between children working appropriately alongside their parents and those who are working as though they were adults, to get children out of dangerous work situations, to end the selling of children into slavery, and to make sure that all children have the opportunity to go to school. Care and Global March are among the organizations working toward these goals, and those links will tell you more about it.

"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. " It was C.S. Lewis who said that. I agree with him, of course.

Here are the finished bunny slippers. Harkening to Chanthaboune's plea, I am not putting them in the washer.

They're pretty fuzzy as they are.

Today I return to work, and to the other things I put off while on vacation. My latest encyclopedia entry was returned to me with a request for more information on race relations, a very tricky topic to research, and I have two weeks to do that. I have not so much as begun the finishing on #2 daughter's dress, and that needs to be done this week. I need to pick up the book for the Wednesday study and do the assignments which I should have been doing since last Wednesday, to prepare for the first meeting of the youth choir which I am leading, and of course you can only skip the housework for just so long.

Yesterday we got distracted by the story of Vang Pao, and spent most of the morning tracking down the details.

Here's what happened: General Vang Pao and nine others (one is in the hospital with tuberculosis and is left out of a lot of news reports) were arrested for planning the violent overthrow of the government of Laos.

This seems like a pretty simple case at first, since it is against the law for U.S. citizens to plot the violent overthrow of foreign governments, and also to possess weapons of mass destruction. The suspects were caught on tape shopping for missiles. They showed pictures of Vientiane to the sellers, asking whether the missiles in question would do a good job of reducing the city to rubble. They met with federal undercover agents at numerous watering holes and chatted freely about their plans.

But there are further complications. For one thing, General Vang Pao was recruited by the United States to fight against the communists. He was able, by the simple expedient of buying up all the opium crops grown by the Hmong people and flying them out of Laos in CIA planes, to pay much better than the Royal Lao Army my brother-in-law fought in. Also, any village that would not give up their men and boys (from 12 or so) for soldeirs would be bombed. This is a more effective recruitment tool than that available to governments. The Royal Lao Army had three guns for every hundred soldiers, but Vang Pao's guerillas were well equipped, and the general was well rewarded for his service.

For the thirty years since those days, General Vang Pao has been telling everyone, including the congress, that he intends to go back and finish the job, overthrowing the communists and allowing the 200,000 or so Hmong refugees in America to return to their homeland. He has been cheered by U.S. conservatives for this stance, and is revered by older Hmong people. He has never made any secret of his intentions. Why arrest him now?

My husband also suggests that Mr. Bush, having invaded other countries and overthrown their governments, is not in a strong position to arrest someone else for doing the same thing.

And yet, it is said that Vang Pao raised funds through drug and human trafficking, and was planning to send 9.8 million dollars worth of weaponry into Thailand this month with the intention of killing thousands. A government engaged in a "war on terror" can't really just ignore that sort of thing.

And yet, it is a lot like arresting George Washington, from the point of view of the Lao Hmong.

And a New Zealand news source claims that the CIA was helping.

In the course of studying up on this complex case, we discovered that Laos has some interesting laws. It is, for example, illegal for Lao citizens to have sexual relations with foreigners. Lao citizens who marry in other countries are supposed to register their marriages with the embassy and must have permission to marry foreigners. We didn't follow these rules. Even if they marry other Lao citizens, their marriages are not recognized in Laos. So Lao nationals who have married in the United States may find, upon visiting Laos, that the police storm their hotel rooms without warning or permission and put them in jail for unlawful relations with their spouses. There is a $5,000 fine, and their passports can be taken away.

My husband felt that this was the sort of thing that people should know, and headed out to spread the word.

I stayed home with the boys and lazed around.

Now I am refreshed and ready to face the workday. Happy Monday to you all!
 

  I did not leave the house at all yesterday, except to go see #1 son's car, on which someone had written "You are my sunshine" with ketchup and jelly. Is this a bizarre modern courtship ritual or something? He went off canoeing with some friends, leaving bits of ketchup and jelly all over the driveway where he washed his car.

We were expecting rain all day, and it finally came late in the afternoon. #1 son had a tent with him, though, and he is young and strong, so we didn't worry about it.

My husband headed out with a sheaf of internet printouts on the Vang Pao story, which is pretty exciting. It would make a good movie. Apparently this is what everyone is talking about in his set, and he is able to pull out his documents to solve disputes.

I talked with both my girls on the phone.#1 daughter is going back to school, and went to register with the other freshmen, all of whom are younger than she is. She is only 24, but it seems that is old enough to leave a gap between her and the other students. Their girlish giggliness made her feel old.  #2 daughter had an interesting encounter with a guy she used to date. Each of them was meeting someone at a restaurant, and in each case the date arrived there first. The two -- not knowing one another at all -- chose adjoining tables. This sort of thing happens in movies all the time, and it happens where I live because it is a small town, but in a city the size of #2 daughter's it counts as a stunning coincidence. #2 and the old flame did not acknowledge one another's existence at all.

I stayed in and made things.

First, I made lip balm. This is very easy. You put 3 tablespoons of beeswax and 3 tablespoons of almond oil into a Pyrex measuring cup and melt them together in your microwave. Get the beeswax in nice clean pellets like this and you will have no troubles measuring it.

You can adjust the proportions. I live in a hot climate and my husband keeps his lip balm in his pocket all day, so I go with the one-to-one ratio, but some folks like to use more oil for a less firm product.

Once the main ingredients are melted, put 20 drops of peppermint oil in. The odd plastic thing in the picture is a pipette, which is how you get 20 drops.

Stir it in.

It is possible to use something else besides peppermint oil, as long as it is nontoxic, but using actual flavored stuff tends to make people lick their lips.

I don't think that I have ever done this, but perhaps people are unaware of it when they do it. The article where I read this said that they end up with chapped lips as a result. You could also leave the scent out altogether. Beeswax smells wonderful all on its own.

Then you just pour the mixture into the tubes.

I have tried using funnels, but it doesn't work that well and you lose a good bit of the lip balm that way. You can see that there is a little bit of spilling involved in doing it this way, but it is minimal and easy to clean up. it just takes a steady hand.

The mixture is transparent and liquid at this point, but it firms up and becomes opaque when it cools.

You will notice that there is no petroleum in this, as there is in most store-bought kinds, and they cost about thirty cents apiece (assuming you buy fresh tubes every time) and take about twenty minutes to make. Larger quantities take no longer to make. If you are very frugal, you could pour the stuff into old film cannisters or something, since the tubes constitute half the cost.

If you are making lip balm or lotion bars or anything of that kind, it makes sense to go ahead and make some soap. The oils left in the measuring cup will enrich the soap. So don't wash the container, just chop up some melt and pour soap and throw it in. Melt it in your microwave and then have fun playing with the colors and scents.

Inspired by the previous day's hike, I made a scent combination of honeysuckle, pine, grass, and just a touch of rose, and colored it a lake blue. It turned out very well.

I also made some gardener's soap, which means a soap with a bit of scrubbing power. To do this, you add a couple of tablespoons of cornmeal (or ground pumice, coffee grounds, or clay) to a cup of melted soap.

I scented it with spearmint and eucalyptus, but found that the cornmeal had such a strong scent of its own that it drowned out the herbal component, so I gave it a shot of cinnamon oil. I then colored it to look like a cinnamon soap I used to buy in the college bookstore when I was a student.

You would be surprised how much tinkering with primary colors it takes to get a natural-seeming brown like this.

I finished up the pound of soap with some plain old girly pink soap, stargazer lily scent. A single note scent and a single color make soapmaking very quick, though perhaps slightly less entertaining.

These are ordinary things such as I might make on any ordinary day. For a true vacation crafting feel, I had to try something new and unreasonable.

I had four cups of dried rose petals left over from last year, and this year's crop ready for drying, so I decided to make rose petal beads.

I think my mother had some rose petal beads once. They looked, I vaguely remember, like very dark wood and smelled of roses.I read about them online and compared all the various recipes, discussed them with #1 daughter, and prepared this unappetizing mess of rose petals, water, and rose oil in the blender.

I cooked it down for several hours while doing all these other things.

If you look up rose petal bead recipes, you will find widespread disagreement on the method and ingredients, and a startling lack of specificity. While lots of recipes said to use four cups of dried organic rose petals, they then said things like "water" or "some water." Recommended cooking times varied from many hours, with intermittent coolings, to none at all.

I tried to follow the assorted incompatible instructions as well as possible, and ended up with these beads, which look, I said, like dog kibble. #2 son suggested that they actually looked like dog poo, and that I had been waiting for him to say that so that I wouldn't have to.

The stuff did not hold its shape well enough to form nice bead shapes, nor well enough to string them on a knitting needle as the instruction suggested. They are supposed to shrink down into small black beads, but this morning they are still  like uncooked meatballs in texture. I have lots of them in all different sizes, and I intend to leave them alone and see if anything changes.

I had been reading about the birth of chemistry in A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. He is repeatedly surprised that people who did significant things like discovering new elements also did mad things like try to turn urine into gold.

I don't think that it is really surprising. People were making soap, and rose petal beads, and herbal concoctions that worked as well as anything else they had access to. Urine was actually used for several practical purposes. They were all doing it in slapdash ways like my soapmaking (I was very accurate the one time I used lye, but the oldtime soapmakers weren't, back before Lavoisier invented chemistry and, in almost entirely unrelated news, got his head chopped off in the Reign of Terror) and rose petal beads. Who knew what might happen?

The process does make your house smell like roses. And it might yet work, if perhaps it takes weeks for the beads to dry. I'll let you know.

Still, with so little visible success, further unreasonable crafting was called for.

I began the bunny slippers from The Happy Hooker.

I am not impressed by this pattern. For one thing, they are made in numerous flat pieces. I don't get that. Crochet is so three dimensional. You can just sort of hold a shape in your mind and crochet around it. Why make separate pieces and sew them together?

Since it was written that way, I took the opportunity to add a layer of batting between the upper and lower soles.

I just cut out a couple of pieces of batting the shape of the finished lower sole.

The counts in the pattern also did not seem to be correct, though I know that I am not very accurate and I could have been making mistakes. Fortunately, all the pieces are pretty basic obvious shapes, so I just ignored the pattern after a bit and made the shapes.

The method of assembly was also unclear, so I just sewed the bits together in what seemed like a logical way and hoped for the best.

As of last night, they were a cozy, if rather dorky-looking pair of fairly standard slippers.

#2 sons says to stop here. The heel is too low, he says, but otherwise they are okay, and he likes the cushiness of the padded soles.

He feels that the bunny faces would ruin them.

I saw a pair of these at my local yarn shop about a year ago and was charmed by them. I do not know anyone who would wear mohair bunny slippers, but I bought the book with the pattern. While visiting the LYS this week, I saw that the mohair was on sale for practically nothing and the slippers were still sitting there, looking cute. I bought a couple of skeins of the mohair.

I put it together with several different shades of leftover Peruvian Highland Wool.

Having done all these unreasonable things, can I really stop short of adding bunny faces?

The pattern says to throw these in the washer and dryer to make them fluffy. "Don't worry that they will get smaller," it says. I, having made and felted a lot of slippers with the Highland Wool, feel completely sure that they will get smaller. This seems like a chemistry sort of thing, too, or possibly physics. Why would crocheted wool not get smaller, when knitted does? And yet, the authors of the pattern must surely have tried it themselves.

Since no one will wear them, will it matter?

It looks like rain again today, but it is the last day of my vacation, so I may go hiking anyway. Or I may stay in and make bunny ears.