hey!

If anyone out there knows of any yarn shops/quilt shops/really cool shops to visit on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin, please e-mail me (link is to the left, remove the stuff in capital letters, that's antispam protection) to let me know.

I won't be REAL mobile this upcoming break (won't have a car) but it looks like a family trip up to the Door Peninsula may be in the making (planned so my mom can look into her geneology geaneology oh, however you spell it - her family history - but there also may be a chance at some shopping while I'm up there.

take that, telemarketers

the national Do Not Call registry is open. It's free, and hopefully this will put an end (as of Oct. 1) to all those cherry irritating guys who call up when I'm not home and leave these breathless messages about how THEY can SOLVE my DEBT problems!!! Now!!!

If I'm getting voicemail messages, I want them to be from people I actually know.

you submit an email address, but sadly that's only so they can send you a verification e-mail. I'll be all over it when there's a national Do Not Spam list out there.

Proud to be on the downslope of fashion

Well, it looks like I'll have another project to take with me on vacation - the Cascade 220 Quattro I ordered last week from KnitPicks is on its way to me and should arrive before I leave.

Yes, I have decided it is time.

Time for me to make myself a pair of Fuzzy Feet.
Yes, yes, I know this was all the rage in what, February? I just never had any feltable yarn on hand before now. And when I saw the Cascade on sale, well, it sort of clicked.

Besides, it'll be fun to try to felt something to size. My only prior felting experience was a pair of socks for CIC (so size didn't matter, they would fit someone). It was quite surprising how fast they shrank down.


I'm just hoping my mom won't prevent me from felting them while I'm there ("all that lint in my new washer!"). Although, I'm actually contemplating sink-felting so I can control the shrinkage more. I don't want to have to wind up giving these to one of my littlefoot friends.

Over the weekend, I:

1. Went to McKinney. Bought lots of stuff, including a copy of Barbara Abbey's knitting-guide book (the one published in ummmm, the 1970s?) for $8.95 in an antiques store. Looked hard at some handspun wool but couldn't think of anything I particularly would use it for, and it would have been $40 to take home all the "matching" skeins.

2. Sewed a fair amount on the dress. I am probably about half done with it. I plan to work on it more this afternoon after work.

3. Got the gusset decreases done on the Beaded Rib socks which I plan to have done before I leave next week.

4. Pulled out the Trinity Stitch Shawl and knit a few rows on it, I need to figure out a way to roughly measure the top edge (the one with the live sts) so I can decide if it's big enough yet.

I think I'm going to focus more on finishing stuff on my upcoming vacation. I won't need to take a huge amount of clothes, so I'm going to take the Trinity Stitch Shawl and the Sitcom Chic sweater (I can fit the extra balls of yarn in my clothes bag). I'm thinking I'll also take "Knitting on the Road" and a couple balls of sockyarn. It's been too long since I did a pair of complex socks. I think I'm going to use some Socka Sport that has been in my stash for a long time (while I waited for the "right" pattern to use it on) and use the Whidby pattern. I'm also going to take the balls of purple Lorna's Laces that have been wound off for a year now for the Canal du Midi socks.

I do have a pair of self-patterning socks on the needles that I will probably take to work on on the train.

Incidentally, between knitting last night, and before I came in to the office this morning, I read Neil Gaiman's Coraline. It's very suspenseful - I got to a point this morning where I kept saying "but I told myself I'd go into the office before 7:30 to get lots of work done!" but I had to keep reading anyway.

it's a very complex story, symbolically speaking. Buttons, and losing names, and things being reversed from what they should be...I think I'll need to read it a couple more times, slowly, to try to figure out all the imagery and symbolism.

it's an excellent book. I enjoyed it more than the Harry Potter books I've read (I've not read all of them). In a way, it's kind of reminiscent of the Alice stories, but it's scarier.

and no, I'm not going to spoil it by telling you whether it has a happy ending or not. Suffice it to say I liked the book.

I can't believe it. I nearly have the prairie proposal licked into shape to the point where I can pass it to other people to look at it. A few more tweaks of descriptions of Oklahoma prairie, a hunting expedition through the supply and equipment catalogs to put together my equipment page, and it's good to go.

This definitely calls for a day of retail therapy tomorrow, especially since I am getting $75 of gas money returned to me from a grant.

Last night, I pulled out the long-stalled Beaded Rib Socks. I decided that as I had been working on them since my spring break (March), it was time to finish them.

I finished the heel flap of the second sock. I'm bound and determined to get these done before I leave for my summer break.

And, it's time for The Friday Five:

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?

Teaching, research, writing, taking two weeks out to visit family and relax, more research, prepare my tenure packet.

2. What was your first summer job?

Aside from "extra" chores that made me money (mowing lawns, painting), my first "real" job (in that I wasn't paid directly by my parents) was helping my dad teach a summer enrichment course for high-school students in geohydrology. It was fun at times (like the first year I taught it), but at other times it was exasperating (like the year they couldn't get enough students and so recruited several of my brother's goofy friends, who weren't really G&T students but were warm bodies, and then had to put up with them teasing the other students and harrassing me all summer).

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?

I'd like to go to the Grand Canyon again, but only if it weren't so crowded as last time. Or Hawaii. It would be fun to go to Hawaii again.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?

Hmmm....most of my "vacations" in recent years have been trips to scientific meetings. I guess the worst one was the trip to Knoxville...it was just hot, there was nothing to do outside of the meetings, we were off in the old abandoned former World's Fair site (the one that was in one of the older episodes of The Simpsons - where Bart and his friends run away to Knoxville). I also had a waiter flirting with me but I was in such a bad mood that day I wound up insulting him, and I still feel bad about that (and he was cute, and he had the sweetest drawl...). Oh, and the plane I had to fly there on was a freaking crackerbox that I expected to fall apart in midair.

All the other ESA meetings I've been to have either been close enough to interesting natural areas or at least had decent museums or shopping near them. You really need to be able to get out and sightsee for at least a day at meetings, because you reach the fatigue point at about Day 2.5 and you can't hear another talk.

5. What was your best vacation ever?

Either the time my family and I went to Montreal when I was in high school, or my 1995 trip to the ESA meetings in Snowbird where I got to go around to a lot of the Utah-New Mexico-Colorado area National Parks. And then there was also the trip to Williamsburg coupled with a trip to Harper's Ferry and a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, also while I was in high school.

I came, I saw, I got the t-shirt

I had a good meeting this afternoon with a colleague in another department. It turns out I probably won't have to do the Big Scary Analysis with Perchloric Acid (anyone who has had much chem experience will tell you that avoiding perchloric acid is A Good Thing.)

There was a blood drive on campus. I went, but my reasons were partly selfish:
1. I am very very very needle phobic and I am slowly trying to desensitize myself so I don't freak the poor nurse out every time I go in to get a flu shot or a tetanus booster. Frankly, I think the shots are harder on the people giving them than they are on me. Giving blood involves a needle. So, it's like free desensitization therapy. (It's also a free anemia test, and the OK Blood Institute also sends out cholesterol results so it's a free, but not totally accurate, blood cholesterol test as well).

2. I got a free t-shirt that I can use to flaunt my blood-donor status to the world. (Although now I'm thinking I should have asked for an XXL or XXXL if they had them so I could use it as a big giant nightshirt. Oh well.). And it's a cool t-shirt, too.

(and yes, I'm still doing a Hypocrisy-Scan (tm) of this considering my comments about people bragging on their charity knitting this morning. The results are not back yet.)

And now, home. I'm going to carbo load with pasta this evening to make up for the blood they took out. mmmmm pasta.

There's been a lot of talk lately on the knitlist about people feeling "guilty" when they knit - because they are not cleaning house or (one person said) exercising to try to lose weight.

I don't feel guilty when I knit. Part of it is, the whole house-cleaning thing? I live alone, I only clean house when the state of my house gets to me. Or when I know people are coming over. Or when I'm all energied-up or angried-up and need to DO something physical instead of going and screaming at someone.

Actually, my house is usually in a pretty good state, because I like to use the 10 minutes waiting for dinner to cook, or the 20 minutes between programs I want to watch, to go and quick put something away, or sweep, or tidy. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had a bunch of little anklebiters kids who ran around making messes. But my rule in my house would be "you mess it up, you clean it up, or face loss of priveliges." so hopefully that wouldn't last long.

Besides, I don't want anklebiters kids, so there.

I used to feel guilty when I would knit instead of working on research. But you know what? I can't work 100% of the time. I'm not happy when I work too many hours, and I'm not productive. I'm most productive when I say "I will work x hours and then quit." and stick to it. If I work too long, I begin to do bad work.

And as for "feeling guilty for knitting and not exercising"? um, yeah. Unless you're on your tuckus for 14 hours a day with yarn in hand, a little bit of sofa-time isn't going to kill you. In fact, getting too obsessed over exercise just might. (what is it that they call it now, exercise bulemia? where people get so obsessed that they have to be going at it for multiple hours a day?).

I don't know. I wonder if some of the "guilt" these people feel is guilt that is imposed on them by picky significant others (my argument would be: you knew I was a slob when you married me. Live with it or clean it up yourself) or by parents or by society in general. I guess there are some lingering Puritanical attitudes of "if it feels good, you shouldn't be doing it"

Ironic, in that 100+ years ago, a woman would be expected to be sitting and knitting or crocheting or sewing during her "down" time - lest her idle hands and mind become the "playground of the devil".

I also don't feel guilty for buying yarn. I can budget. I know how much I have in the bank. I am well-prepared for fiscal emergencies of various sorts, with money put aside that is not to be touched unless my house/car/furnace/air conditioner/body/you name it stops working and needs costly repair. But I can live - and live very comfortably - on my salary and still put some away each month.

I know I'm in an unusual circumstance, being a single, well-educated, childless, well-employed woman who owns her own house and lives somewhere that the cost of living isn't that high.

But I wonder how many people who trumpet their guilt are doing it to get justification ("Oh, dear, you shouldn't feel GUILTY") or to draw attention to themselves. Because I think if someone had a real problem - like they were spending the grocery money on alpaca and feeding their children macaroni and cheese out of a box every night, they wouldn't expose it to the world.

Guilt? Pfui. Guilt is for when you do something that is actually morally wrong. Guilt is not a stick to beat yourself up with when you miss ONE workout, or when you let the dust accumulate for ONE MORE NIGHT while you try out a stitch pattern, or when you spend money on a few skeins of something that's going to make you happy, allow you to be creative, and maybe keep you (or someone you love) warm.

The other thing that gets me are the smug folk who nod smartly and say "nope, I don't feel guilty because I only knit for charity" with the implication that people who knit for themselves should feel guilty. Knitting for charity is great, but - again, it's not something I believe should be trumpeted to the world. (consider the widow and her mite, or the publically-praying Pharisees).

Not much knitting last night, I cleaned house.

Just after finishing scrubbing the kitchen floor, I sat down on the sofa and suddenly remembered: uh oh. I was supposed to call about jury duty between 4 and 5, now it's nearly 6.

Fortunately, the organist at the church I belong to is also on duty, so I called her. She said there were no new cases before July 3, that's the next day to call in. (I called the court clerk this morning just to verify). So, whoo-hoo, looks like I'm going to be able to finish out my teaching without jury-fu.

There was quite a storm last night; it is unusual to get rain this time of the summer here (usually there is a drought from mid-June until August or so). When I got up this morning, a turtle was taking shelter next to my trash can. Based on my description to the herp guy here, it turns out to be a three-toed box turtle (picture on the link). Cute little guy. I hope he stays. Just as long as he doesn't munch any low-hanging tomatoes. Well, ok, maybe one or two. He is pretty cute.

I'm thinking that this afternoon, or Friday, I will have the prairie proposal as finished as it's gonna be, so Saturday is going to be a Retail Therapy day for me. I think I'm going to head down to McKinney again and spend the day walking around, window shopping, going to a tea room for lunch, hitting the Target, and generally enjoying being somewhere that is Not Here.

Knit some more on Sitcom Chic last night. I think I'm going to dig out the Trinity Stitch Shawl tonight and work more on that, as I remember I'm close to starting the edging, and I think I've figured out the "knit it on as you go" method.

Cleaning my office this afternoon. I've been at it for almost 2 h now. I have an office that is perhaps 8' x 10'.

It does not look like I have made a dent in it.

I'm about ready to bail and go home - where I need to clean house this afternoon (I'm really getting grossed out by the gritty kitchen floor - spilled some dishwasher detergent days ago and didn't feel like wiping it up. But now I'm at the point where all the mess is getting to me).

Oh, and the office clean-a-thon? It's because I can't find a protocol for an extraction and analysis procedure that I need to discuss with the organic chemist. Still haven't found it. Suspect I loaned it to someone who hasn't given it back. Sigh.

Oh, my!

KING-fm, my usual internet radio companion, was having "atonal annoying 20th century music day" today so I dialed around in Real Player a bit to find if I could find something more work-inducive.

I hit on KAMU-fm from College Station/Bryan Texas (it's a campus station). But anyway, it was playing Vivaldi, the tone was good, and so I left it on.

And then a familiar voice boomed out: Karl Haas! Karl Haas! Adventures in Good Music! Waaaaaaay back when, when I was just a tiny little classical music fan, I used to listen to him on WCLV in Cleveland. Well, a quick Google search turned this brief bio up.

Apparently, he is still with us, and that makes me very happy to know. And here's a little more from the WCLV home page.

Oh, and his picture on the Radio Hall of Fame site - I'd never seen him before, but he looked just like I pictured him in my mind.

I wish I could pick up "Adventures in Good Music" more regularly. It's a good program, and Karl Haas has a wonderful, soothing voice to listen to.

One of the three research papers I've been working on this spring is ready to go out, as soon as I get the appropriate contact information for the journal where it will need to be submitted.

I'm pretty stoked about this. It's an educational-research paper so I shot it by our edu-guy and he said that it was "really good" and he "really liked it" so I'm pretty happy with it now.

Knitting happily away on the Sitcom Chic.

I like how the Topacio is working up - the finished fabric looks slightly "sueded," and the variegation is subtle enough that it doesn't jump out at you.

I'm still not nuts on knitting with cotton, though, but this is better than some cottons I've knit with. I do notice that it's harder on my hands than wool is.

I didn't mention that in a dream I had last night, I was visiting Jenny of ljc. She and Aaron had gotten married and were living in a cool loft-apartment. Jenny was decoupaging an old, frosted-glass dinette table and also knocking out part of a wall to install a wine cellar system. Guster was also mentioned in the dream (even though I've never heard anything by the band).

Later on, the perspective shifted (I seem to remember being someone, not me, who had to get their car out of an impound lot) and it wasn't as amusing and happy as the Jenny-and-Aaron part.

I guess I read blogs too much when they start showing up in my dreams. Still, it beats the dream where I dream about going through the "daily round" of class and office hours and work and wake up feeling like I've already lived through the day...

Courtesy of Bess:


You may not be a granny, but you've got the
mentality. Hard work and artistic vision lead
to your beautiful knitted results.


Are you a knitter?
brought to you by Quizilla


um, yeah. "Not a granny." But I will take the part about the beautiful knitted results.

The Lightning-Bolt sweater is done! I sewed up the seams on it last night.
It took just under 13 balls of Emu dk Superwash for the 44" size.

I think the leftover yarn will go in the knitted-toy stash, as it's a nice russet color that would work well for a variety of animals.

I also swatched the Valeria di Roma "Topacio" for the Sitcom Chic (and got gauge with a size 7 US needle), and cast on and knit the first row and a half. I am using a variegated color, it is a mix of light cream, darker cream, and taupe. It will be quite understated and nice knit up, I think.

I worked on the swatch and the casting-on while watching a program on the Discovery channel about Greek Fire. This was an ancient weapon apparently something like napalm. It was used in two different ways - as a flamethrower mounted on ships, or as incendiary bombs.

One of the challenges was finding a substance that was flammable but thick enough. At one point, the people who were working on the incendiary bomb part of the project were trying glass globes filled with a mayonnaise-like mixture.

Yes, they were shooting flaming balls of mayonnaise.

dang, I love educational television.

Delivered the bread.
The man of the couple commented "Oh, it's still warm!"

fortunately, I resisted the sudden impulse to remark "yeah, unlike that cat..."

it's really fortunate I don't have a neurological disorder like Tourette's or Asperger's syndrome that actually makes me say the things that pop into my head, or I'd be waaaaaay less popular than I am.

Well, buncha stuff:

I got the dress all cut out. I don't have the energy to start sewing on it just yet. I have to be in the right mood for that sort of thing.

I also am almost done with the Lightning Bolt sweater! I only have a few rows to go on the sleeve-tops, then I bind those off, then I sew the thing together, then I make the collar, then I block it (I've never blocked a sweater after finishing, but that's what the pattern suggests...).

today has been declared "International socknitting day" by the people on the socknitters list, but right now I'm bent on finishing the sweater, so I don't think I'll knit any on socks today.

I received my two big book orders - one from Bas Bleu and one from Powells. I've been drooling (again, now that I have my own copy) over the beautiful personal libraries in "At Home with Books" (many of those library pictures remained in my mind as the "safe place" I think of when I'm in the dentist's chair or facing turbulence on a plane). I've also been enjoying two of the books from Powell's: I found a used copy of "The Knit Stitch" (Sally Melville) and I'm reading Oliver Sacks' "Migraine".

"The Knit Stitch" is interesting. Even though I generally find all-garter-stitch uninspiring, Melville has done a really good job with design and yarn choice on these. I plan to make one of the lighter-weight "Einstein coats" one day.

She also makes an interesting comment in the book: that 80% of the people knit a sweater in the same color and yarn they see it presented in, and only 20% can "visualize" patterns in different colors. (I would debate that the number is that small...). I am in the second group; I almost never make a pattern as presented. Part of the fun for me is choosing exactly the yarn I want to use.

Sacks' book is interesting, too - it's more straight neurobiology than the other books ("Anthropologist on Mars", "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat") of his that I've read. But it really grabs me because I get migraines - not as frequently or as severely as most sufferers - but a lot of the "weird" stuff I noticed going on when I get a migraine is actually not at all weird, many people get it.

he also describes some pre-menstrual symptoms (like insomnia) that I've never heard any other woman complain of, but that I've noticed in myself. I feel more normal now.

Oh, and the cat? I finally made a "coffin" for it, and passed it on to friends who have land (where there is more than 6" of soil over the limestone rock). They took it and buried it. (I'm baking them a loaf of whole-wheat-raisin bread as a thank-you). Still, it ticks me off that I can't get the people whose JOB it is to deal with such things to deal with it.

Herr Doktor Schroedinger, please come pick up your cat. It's in my backyard, it looks like the vial of hydrocyanic acid was broken open....

okay, this is a bit of dark humor. I did find a dead cat in my backyard this morning. I think it was a stray. It was disturbing to see it spread out amongst my zinnias.

I'm trying to get Animal Control to pick it up. But they won't come if no one's home, I've got research I MUST be doing, and when I called back and left my number and told them to call me if they were in the area and I would run home to meet them, I was told they were "very busy" and they didn't know if they could work things like that.

ARRRGGHHH! Like there are so many families left where one member of the couple stays at home all day any more - let alone all the widows and widowers and pitiful single women like myself -

It's illegal to put it in with my household waste. Frankly, I don't want to pick it up because there's a chance it died of something transmissable to humans. And I sure don't want to wait until Monday to get someone to deal with it.

I may just have to gut up, put on the closest thing I have to a sterile suit, and clean it up myself, then call animal control and say "I have a dead cat in a bag. It is not my cat. I think it is a stray. It could have died of rabies or some other disease you need to check for. I will be willing to drop it off if you tell me where to take it." I will not be happy, but I will do it.

Oh, and a poem (not a good one, but a poem nonetheless) about Shroedinger's Cat.

Okay, a quick skim of the knitting blogs makes me feel better.

I'm not the only one not getting any knitting done. Either people are getting their butts figuratively kicked by work, or they are on vacation, or they have family stuff, or they are moving, or they are just in a doldrum.

I'm not in a doldrum. I just don't have any time!

Teresa at The Still Point asked about people's wishlists. The top of mine would have to be "Time to knit."

the only other thing I can think of is a magic portal that would take me to whatever knitting shop carried what I wanted, when I wanted it, so I wouldn't have to wait on the mail.

I think I'm suffering from startitis - I always buy lots of supplies when I feel blocked from being able to create, and I think my fabric jaunt yesterday was a symptom of that.

Now I'm thinking about reversible-stitch-pattern scarves again, after posting to the Knitlist about "prayer knitting" and the navy blue scarf I made while dealing with all the post Sept. 11 worries and fears.

I have some research-stuff I have to do tomorrow (my day off teaching) and I've told myself I am *only* coming in before lunch on Saturday to work on this proposal (I have the next draft nearly done, I need to get back to it right now).

Flourine! You're a real social butterfly! While
being popular has a plus side, just beware of
group think and/or desperation to *stay*
popular.


What Element (heh, heh...) Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


I demand a recount! No way am I a social butterfly!

Aside from the Cinema scarf (whilst I am sitting about waiting places), I've not done much knitting at all this week.

Last night I PLANNED to knit. But when I got done at work, I got to thinking "I really need to run to Sherman." I had a coupon from the Jo-Ann's and a plan - I had been looking at my copy of "Joan Russell's Soft Toys and Dolls" (She used to do a lot of designing of toys for Women's Day, back when they had crafts that involved more than a glue gun). I wanted a Pink Mouser and Blue Drowser (two cat pillows in the book - they are roughly cat-shaped but have no projecting limbs, so they qualify as pillows). I am also dying to make a new Basil the Basset to replace the one I loved to death as a child.

So, off I went. And I found some good stuff: some striped and matching small-floral-pattern heavyweight cotton for the cats, and a nice printed corduroy (in a funky tartan pattern) for Basil, somehow having an unrealistic fabric for the critters appealed to me.

I checked out and paid and thought happily of going home and tracing the patterns, but first I had to eat and go to the grocery.

In the grocery line it hit me. If I had been smart, I would have asked the cashier's pardon, turned around, and gone back to the pharmacy for a bottle of Excedrin Migraine, and also bought one of those little bottles of spring water, and taken it right there.

Driving with a developing migraine is not fun. It is especially not fun when the sun is shining full in the driver's side window.

I was almost in full-blown migraine mode when I got home. I bunged the things that needed to stay cold into the fridge, ran into the bathroom, downed the Excedrin, and crawled into bed.

Alas, it was too late, and I had to lie there feeling like three ice picks - dull ice picks - were rammed into my right eye socket, and being able to feel every sinus cavity in my head because of its throbbing.

oh. and if you are brewing a migraine (I kind of had been headachey all day), Chinese food is NOT what you want to eat, no matter how loudly they claim not to use MSG. ugh.

Finally, after a couple of trips to the bathroom to hurl (that's another side effect of migraines for me), I fell asleep.

by the time I woke up (feeling better), it was past my normal bedtime. I said "the heck with it, I'll catch up on sleep" and went back to bed.

This afternoon, I've decided to cut out the dress from the dragonfly patterned fabric I bought LAST month. I think I'm going to pre-shrink the critter fabric, even though it will remove the sizing. (supposedly, leaving the sizing in for pillows and such helps them resist dust and dirt).

My current carry-around project is a scarf, made of Cinema ribbon yarn (from JCA/Artful yarns; I'm using a pink and purple combo they call "Mrs. Miniver").

The yarn is nice, but I don't think tape or ribbon yarns are really for me. I'm finding it kind of a PITA to knit (it's very slippery, and the only 10 1/2 needles I have are plated nickel or casein; I'm using the casein ones). It also won't stay in a ball, which isn't great for a carry-around project.

At least I have only two balls of this yarn - one for a scarf for me, and one for a scarf for a gift.

and it looks like the spambots have found my work e-mail, despite the fact that I don't give it out (they probably harvested it from the university webpage). This morning I got an email that promised "larger b*lls and p*nis". No thank you. One set of reproductive organs is enough for me.

I don't quite have the b*lls (pun intended) to write back to the spammer/scammers, but someone does: check out The Spam Letters. (Strong language - be forewarned). The ones where he strings the Nigerian money-scammers along are pretty amusing.

Simple, sweet, and amusing: Fly Guy Use the arrow keys to make him fly up, up, into space and beyond.

Be sure to say hi to the lady hanging onto a cloud!

Yet another way to waste time, courtesy of The Hestia Chronicles:

The random title generator

some examples for me:
Vice Alderwoman of Furry Wilderness Creatures, Fillyjonk W. Buttonnose
Kahuna of Films, Fillyjonk Poutylips
(umm...ok, I'm turning the "sex-specific" thingy off...)

Minor Maharani of Cats, Fillyjonk Catherine Greely
Queen of Quantum Mechanics, Fillyjonk Q. Lichtenthal
Mighty Priestess of The Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, Fillyjonk von Adams

I don't even know what some of these mean.

Princess Junior Grade of Bad Puns, Fillyjonk V. de la Ellis II
(OK, that one might apply - at least if you ask my students.)

Finished the lion cub's legs last night. Did not get them sewn up or on, because of a marathon phone call from my parents. (One of my cousins got married; I couldn't attend the wedding because of work. They wanted to fill me in on the wedding.)

all I can say is: I'm sorry I missed the wedding but not sorry I missed the reception. My parents said it was "loud." They described how the groom and his friends dug out some hard hats and sailor caps and did the Village People's "YMCA". My mother described the dancing that "the young people" did as "thrashing around on the dance floor."

the really funny thing is, age-wise, I would have been one of "the young people" (my cousin is 6 months older than me) but I would have been the one sitting at the very back of the reception hall, moaning "make it stop...I think my ears are starting to bleed."

not that I hate the Village People, mind you; it's that I hate "loud".

if I ever marry, I'm going to elope. And then hold a big potluck barbecue for all my friends in lieu of a reception. The mere phrase "pick out a d.j." makes me come out in an itchy red rash.

D'oh!

there is a set of historical photos on Quilts and quiltmaking, even if there's not one on knitting.

A page to get lost in: American Environmental Photographs from the University of Chicago library (U of Chicago was one of the top schools in the early days of ecology).

somehow, field trips seem more romantic when all the students are dressed in jodphurs and high-laced boots.

There are some great old atmospheric black and white photographs of places like Lake Superior and prairies in Oklahoma.

And more:

Historical Panoramic Photographs (and apparently, it's possible to order reproductions if there's one you particularly fall in love with, but it doesn't say how expensive they are).

The evolution of the conservation movement (I may have linked to this before; it's more of a multimedia history of the U.S. Conservation movement, but it has neat old pictures too).

Photographs of the Northern Great Plains.

The Ohio River Valley

Heck, those are just a couple reflecting my personal interests. You can go to the Collection Finder and look yours up. (I tried typing "knitting" into the search box but didn't get anything back that specifically looked like it contained knitting. But you are welcome to try.)

If they ever make a movie about the development of the community concept in plant ecology (like they ever would), Robert H. Whittaker would have to be played by Dustin Hoffman.


it's a crummy reproduction of the picture; it's a little too dark. It's the same shot as in the ecology textbook I use, though, that's what made me do the little "separated at birth" double-take.

Y'all probably know this already, but Bonne Marie has posted a "v 2.0" pattern of her Sitcom Chic (link is to the revised pattern).

She says she rewrote it for those who want narrower wrists, better shaping, and a stitch count at various points (yay!)

this is why the Internet is so great. Where else would you get a designer listening to her public and making revisions to a pattern to accomodate their wishes?

I haven't started a stc yet, but I plan to use the revised pattern. I'm all about "stitch counts at strategic locations".

(Oh, and I am so jealous that she got to tour the Lorna's Laces facility. So jealous.)

Advertising run amok: Charmin the Bear book for kids (go read the story, if only for the headline; it make me laugh like a monkey).

can the creepy Snuggle bear be next? (Oh, wait...he's doing "grown up" ads now, full of supermodels and po-mo "irony").

(link from Bookslut)

Not too much knitting going on - summer teaching is very busy, things move fast. It feels like I'm teaching my normal number of classes instead of just one.

I do have the legs almost finished for the lion cub though. I plan to finish the last one, sew them up, and stuff them tonight.

This morning, two bad things: I found a dead rat (apparently killed by a cat) in my backyard, ugh. (And here I am being scrupulously careful of my trash, and not even doing outdoor composting because of rats! I still get them! I wonder if they were attracted by my neighbors' Matterhorn of Mostly-But-Not-Totally-Empty beer cans in their yard). And then I stepped in something. I'm guessing it has to be dog poo because I've never known cat poo to smell that bad. I had to run back in and wash the sole of my shoe.

If I ever find the person who is letting their dog run in my yard...this is the third or fourth time I've had this kind of "little surprise", but the first time for my backyard.

OK, so I'm reading through some recent articles on prairie restoration for this proposal. And I'm reading through one on different ways of assessing restoration success. Then I see a citation and think: gee, that's the same name as my last name. Then I realized: it IS my last name.

< high pitched girly squeal> They cited the paper I wrote from my Master's Thesis!!!!! < /high pitched girly squeal >

damn. I really needed that this afternoon. Now I'm all smiles.


Oh, and it's time for an HFOB update...(this is Sunday, now, but I want to keep my little bit of self-aggrandizement there at the top for a bit...)

the residents of the HFOB have not mowed their lawn for three weeks. It is particularly obvious today, as I mowed my lawn yesterday afternoon and my lawn is all nice and neat. There is a lawnmower (a machine, not a person) sitting in the middle of their yard, but no one has touched it all day.

this same lawnmower showed up for a while last week for a while and nothing happened then either.

Um, guys...you realize you actually need to turn the thing on and push it around the yard for it to mow, right?

it may be Saturday, but here is the Friday Five

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?

Hmmmm....Go to some big city, one filled with museums and good shopping and interesting stuff to do, all by myself, get a room in the best hotel in town, and just visit museums and shop and eat in good restaurants for three or four days.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?

No. If it looks hideous, I'm not going to say that. Instead, I'll say something like "well, you know, it always takes two weeks for a new haircut to 'settle' properly" or something like that.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?

oh, goodness, yes. I know something about a couple of friends that I really wish I didn't know...I can't really talk about it here because someone who knows both me and them might be reading this. Suffice it to say it involved the breakup of a marriage and the alleged reason behind it.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?

hmmm....Probably the world out of some children's book, maybe the Hundred-Acre Wood. Or the household described in the (now sadly out of print) "The House at the end of the Lane" children's book. Why? Because the world is simple. People treat one another with kindness. There are no worries about terrorism, or the risk of the food you eat to your health, or environmental destruction. No one dies. If a character gets hurt or sick, bed rest and nice food is enough to heal them. Characters who are mean or crochety are won over with kindness. Characters' personality quirks are tolerated, and maybe even loved.

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?

I'd love to be a good ballroom dancer. (I'd love to take a class but I've never found a willing partner). I'd also love to be able to play the violin, spin fiber, weave, speak Irish Gaelic, write good poetry, be good at lab science (I didn't become a geneticist partly because of my shocking skill at breaking important lab glassware), be able to focus and work on one thing for hours without a break, and rock-climb.

Working on the "Materials and Methods" section of the proposal.

Last night, I dug out the (long-stalled) beaded-rib Regia socks (these are made from a pastel variegated, not a self-patterning Regia yarn) and knit on them for a while. Tried to watch "Private Lives of Pompeii" but found the format too annoying (switching between set-pieces of "lives" in Pompeii - I couldn't tell if they were based on writing of the time or made out of whole cloth - and the "authorities" speaking about the history of the area. It was like "history for people who only like to watch reality shows." ugh.)

I tell you, if they keep larding the television schedule with "reality" programming, or shows that try to ape "reality" programming, I'm going to shoot my tv. I get enough of "reality" during the day, when I come home I want something "unreal". I don't want to hear people squabbling over the last bit of rat meat or scheming of how they are going to tempt that beautiful person into sleeping with them.

The only "reality-type" shows I like are the ones where they redecorate someone's house, and even then, there's a limit to how much I can watch.

Okay, something fun.

Rob at ThreadBear e-mailed me about Nora's Blog, where she has this chart of Hello Kitty (pdf file).

I'm back plugging away at the prairie restoration proposal. Had a good talk with the person whose land it will be done on. Exciting, but now I really need to start budgeting and planning the actual-factual equipment and worker needs, my least favorite part.

Goodbye Gregory Peck

I forgot to mention this, but a check of Peppermint Tina's blog reminded me.

I don't like many "modern" movies. I don't like cussing for the sake of cussing, I don't like sex scenes, I don't like most of the actors and actresses working today. Most of the movies I rent are older than I am.

I rented "To Kill a Mockingbird" about a year ago and it became one of my favorite movies. Mostly because the characters were so right - Gregory Peck was like I pictured Atticus Finch looking and acting.

I've seen bits and pieces of his other movies, like "Roman Holiday" (It seems that AMC chooses to run the good movies right as I'm eating breakfast and getting ready to go to work, and saving the b-grade monster flix and late-70s "problem" movies for when I'm home in the evening).

somehow, the old-movie actors - who are almost all dead, now- Peck, and Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant (yes, yes, I know but I can pretend...), and Rex Harrison...they seem much more handsome to me, and more interesting to me, than the lads who are acting now.

So, the socknitters list is going bonkers again. This time it's veganism.

One woman (who has probably unsubbed in disgust) innocently asked about yarns that would be appropriate for her daughter who is vegan. There were a few helpful messages about cotton and soy silk, but largely, the list has erupted.

I'm not vegan (not even vegetarian), but I'm kind of disgusted at the attitude people have been copping about vegans. (I can only guess that they have had dealings with "militant" vegans, perhaps - people who give in to the busybody impulse to criticise other's lives rather than explain their own choices)

My attitude is: if you choose to be vegetarian, vegan, raw-foodist, whatever, that's your choice. It's not my choice, but that's fine. I'll let you eat what you want, you let me eat what I want. All I ask is that you not make snarky comments on my food choices. And I will gladly do the same. In fact, if I know you are vegan and we go out to eat, I will happily defer to your beliefs for one meal.

I wonder if once the Arabs and Israelis have killed each other off, if our next big wars will be over people's choices of how they live: the environmentalists vs. the SUV drivers, the vegetarians vs. the meat-eaters, the shoppers vs. the simple-living folks, the separation-of-church-and-state people vs. those who want moments of silence and the Ten Commandments posted in every school and court.

sometimes people drive me nuts.

< high pitched girly squeal > Hello Kitty fabric at E-quilter! < /high pitched girly squeal >

Big storms last night - a student reports that her parents lost a storage building and a 75 year old oak tree. Nothing much here, except the power went off around 11:30 (I woke up because my fan stopped) and stayed off until 1:30. (I know how long it was off because I really couldn't sleep during that time, thinking "I can't fall asleep because then the clocks will be messed up and my alarm clock won't go off on time.") Sigh. I need to replace the little battery operated alarm clock I used as a back-up in case of power outage (and which I can't use any more because the "time set" knob broke off).

I hunted around in my yarn closet last night and found the "unacceptable" Emu DK. And this is how faulty a person's memory can be - I remembered it as a pale yellow-green, bright turquiose blue, and sky-blue combination. In fact, it is dark muted purplish blues with a very small amount of a blue-green. It's really odd because I can so totally picture the color combination that I thought it was in my mind...I can even see the Elann "color chart" in my minds' eye with the color combination on it. It's truly weird. I almost started hunting again, thinking "that yarn HAS to be in here somewhere!"

Not much knitting progress, still doing the sleeves of the Lightning-Bolt family sweater.

Courtesy of Annie Modesitt's blog, here is a great article on Maths and knitting.

Two things about the article I love:
1. I nodded in agreement and understanding to the part about the applied nature of "real world math" and people who claim they 'can't do math' because it's "hard". (I had a friend who taught at a girls' school - she said she got lots of blank stares and complaints about percentages until she brought it up as a "shopping problem" - i.e., "you see a red silk blouse that was originally $64 and now it is 40% off, how much is it?"). One of the reasons I like statistics is that they are very applied - I can usually see what I need to do and how I need to do it. I liked geometry for similar reasons.

2. The line: "Oh for pity’s sake lad, all you’re doing is turning a heel on a bleddy sock." in response to someone discussing the pipe-lagging* problem. (I have my own, less impressive instance of this: in my junior high woods-shop class, lots of my fellow students were intimidated by the jigsaw. I looked at it and thought "hmph, it's just like a sewing machine, only it cuts things apart instead of joining them together" and had no worries in working it.)

*(I'm not quite sure what pipe-lagging is)

Well, it looks like new blogger works. whoo-hoo!

Still plugging away on the sleeves of the Lightning-Bolt pullover.
The Koigu (color 401) that I ordered for the Landscape Shawl came yesterday. It is gorgeous. Like twilight/dusk with a little bit of the sunset still mixed in. It will be perfect, so much better than the bright blue-and-green (which I think will eventually become a Charlotte's Lace Shawl) DK that I had originally bought.

I have to praise Handworks Gallery. They shipped the order the day after I placed it. (And when I realized that I had ordered one less skein than I would need, they were very helpful and it's on its way to me now).

If I ever get to Little Rock for any reason, they are on my must-visit list.

You know what's alarming (besides being shunted to some new form of Blogger that looks unfamiliar)?

it's alarming to be sitting, eating breakfast at 6:30 am and watch a police car pull up to the next-door-neighbors' house, a fully uniformed officer get out, go up to the house, and start knocking on the door.

no, I don't totally know what's going on. When I went to take my cereal bowl to the kitchen, I could hear the officer say to whoever answered the door: "well, is he at home?"

I presume it's not that he was inviting the fellow to go out fishing with him this morning.

Thank God, didn't get picked for the jury, it was a sex-abuse case and I know that would have affected me badly.

like I said to a friend "I hope if I get on a jury it's something nice and simple, like a check-kiting ring."

Not feeling well today. I think the "midsummer demon" has hit me. (I get something similar to SAD, but in the summer. I think it's a combination of allergies and not tolerating humidity well). I also am queasy today, but that could be allergy related.

On top of that, I have jury duty and I'm tense and wound up about that. One of my students is apparently a witness in the case I might be on; he came in with the subpoena showing he had to testify in the case (because he, like I, will have to leave class early).

that might get me off if I mention that in the jury-empanelling part of the situation. I don't actually KNOW anything about the case but the fact that I know one of the witnesses might make the defense attorney (I think my student is testifying against the guy) unhappy.

I knit very little last night - a few rows on the sleeves - before bailing and going to bed with a book.

Incidentally, I guess I did jinx myself (*) by finishing the bag...they "need" me for jury duty tomorrow. Le sigh. So I tapped one of the student workers to come in and fill in for the rest of lab tomorrow.

I hope I either get on a trial (and get dismissed from service after it's done) or get rejected out of hand. I'm getting tired of this "house-arrest" thing of having to call in between 4 and 5 pm to find out what turn my life is going to take for the next day. Makes it deuced hard to plan.

Fun and spunky, you link, there for you are! This
is all fun and games, and you do what you
damned well please!


What kind of blogger am I?
brought to you by Quizilla


so, I'm the scary big-eyed 60s girl type of blogger?

Plugging away on the sleeves of the Lightning-Bolt Family pullover. I'm probably about half done.

When a pattern has identical sleeves (i.e., the shaping is exactly the same and not mirror image or something like that) I knit them at the same time, on a long circular needle. This helps me get it done more effectively. The SSS I suffer from is not Second Sock Syndrome, but Second Sleeve Syndrome.

The sleeves (except for the very cuff) are all stockinette, with gradual increases. I find I can knit on these and read journal articles or textbook chapters at the same time. I know I've talked about this a lot, but it's something I do and I find it helps me immensely. The knitting:

1. occupies the low-level monitor-and-worry centers of my mind that would normally be going "Hey, don't you need to do the dishes?" "Wait, did you order two boxes of checks and only one came? did someone steal the second one and is now out draining your account?" etc.

2. Keeps me from racing through the read, thinking "just two more articles then I can KNIT!" It makes it feel less of a punishment. (Yes, sometimes reading scientific journal articles feels like a punishment - some scientists CAN NOT WRITE coherently, or they jargon-up their papers to show how smart they are, or they take an interesting subject and suck the life out of it).

3. Slows my brain down so the stuff has a chance to sink in. I tend to read complex things too fast and on "autopilot" and I catch myself thinking about other things and have to go back and reread pages or paragraphs. I think the slowing down is part of the "low level monitor and worry centers" being occupied.

4. Gives me the chance to work on the more, shall we say, meditative parts of a piece without getting frustrated with how "boring" stockinette is. Television and knitting stockinette doesn't work anymore; it's not distracting/interesting enough for me.

5. I find I both knit and read for longer periods of time.

That last isn't always good. I have to find a better position to sit in so my back doesn't ache the next day.

Natural History link 'o' the day: Wayne's Word, a newsletter of ecological and botanical facts and trivia. Excellent! (sorry, had to do that)

Friday Five

1. How many times have you truly been in love?

Really, only once. (Didn't work out). Many crushes though, still am prone to them, alas.

2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most?

romantically speaking: this person made me feel like I was beautiful. We could talk about "nothing" for hours.
family members (the people I really love best): they know all my quirks and weirdnesses and they still love me.

3. What qualities should a significant other have?

For me, he needs to be kind. He needs to be someone who doesn't have that need to show off his "importance" by being rude to waiters and the like. He needs to be intelligent. He needs to appreciate my need for space. He should not be someone who ridicules my interests or enthusiasms.

4. Have you ever broken someone's heart?

No. At least, not that I know of (I was told by a friend that a particular fellow had "feelings" for me but he was too shy to speak up. I don't know if that qualifies as breaking a heart or not)

5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be?

Romantic love is way overrated. You shouldn't be made to feel like a loser if you don't have a significant other. There are many different forms of love, romantic love isn't the only one, and it probably isn't even the most necessary one.

ok, I suck.

I gave in and ordered Koigu to make the "Landscape Shawl". I've had that pattern hanging around for a while, had bought some yarn for it, but decided the yarn was too bright and too blue. So I picked a Koigu (color 401) that is more muted.

now, what to do with all the Emu DK in the "Lake" colorway (bright light blue and green)...

Heads-up: Handworks Gallery is having a 30% off all yarns and all kits with yarn today (Friday) and tomorrow.

I didn't order anything.

not after that huge bunch of books I ordered this week.

not that there weren't things I wanted - the Koigu sweater kit out of last fall's Vogue, for example.

but it WOULD be $77 instead of $110. No. I'm not going to look, and I'm not going to do any more percentage math in my head.

Kogepan goes on vacation. I love these things. There used to be a website somewhere about all the crazy adventures a stuffed toy cow had.

(If you're not familiar with Sanrio-world, Kogepan is one of {I think} the more whimsical of the Japanese cartoon characters. He is a small burnt bun who has developed a sour and cynical outlook on life because he cannot fulfill his "destiny" to be a red bean-filled delicious bread. He appeals to me for the same reason Eeyore does, and for the same reason that I always liked Puddleglum in "The Silver Chair". I think I remember reading somewhere that children have a particular fondness for "sad" characters, because they like to imagine that they would be the ones to cheer them up.)

yes, I have my own little stuffed Kogepan, he looks like the one in the pictures.

here is one of the versions of Kogepan's life story that is on the web.

heh...I almost went to the Friday Five site to look for this week's questions. Teaching a four day week rocks. Today feels like Friday.

oooh, free patterns I've not seen before:

Knit your own gnome!
Fingerless mitt from aran-weight wool (would be nice made of 1824 Wool, I bet)
The Eurosock (knit with Berroco's Europa - I have no idea what that yarn is so I don't know how appropriate it would be for socks).

my favorite one is the gnome. Any pattern that starts off with "take one ball of pretty wool..." gets me interested in it.

Fondly remembered: Playing Punch-Bug (I grew up in Ohio; we called it Punch-Bug there. Also, the hit-back bit wasn't part of the game - you would gently punch the other person and go "Punch Bug Orange!" (or whatever color) but they didn't get to hit you back. There was also a game, for older "kids" driving with a boyfriend or girlfriend; it was called "Padiddle/Padunkle. If the girl saw a car with one headlight out, she said "Padiddle" and kissed her boyfriend; if he saw a car with a rear light out, he said "Padunkle" and kissed her. As for the other games: "Cruiser Bruiser" makes me laugh, and "Camry Compliment"? What's up with that? I mean, ick, how smarmy.)

Bookage.

Well, I gave in to the "SALE!" catalog put out by Bas Bleu and bought me'self a few books. One of them was the huge tome called "Living with Books" - basically a coffee-table book on how passionate bibliophiles have their homes set up to reflect their love. I had seen this book at the public library in the town where I used to live, had checked it out like 18 times over the span of time I lived there, just so I could sit and imagine myself in all the wonderful book-rooms pictured therein.

When I saw it for sale in a book catalog, I thought of buying it. But it was $50, and even I balk at a $50 book.

Well, Bas Bleu had it on sale for $35. Not too bad. I vacillated for several days on buying it but finally gave in last night. Oh, and also bought a couple editions of the "Pocket Poets" series that were on sale (I love the size and shape and design of these books...). And a book on Lenten meditations (yes, yes, I know Lent is over but I can use it next year.). And I bought a copy of "Pretzel" (a kid's book about a dachshund) because I could also buy a stuffed "Pretzel" to go with it.

I've always liked dachshunds. I'm not a dog person, so I'd never get a real one. But this one was cute. And it reminded me of a toy I had had as a child, and almost forgotton - a little stuffed dachshund, possibly one of the Dakin "Dream Pets" line.

innocent me, her name was "Doxy". That was before I knew (or even could have conceived of) what a doxy actually was.

Finished the "Hippy Bag" out of JCA's "Dance" chunky cotton last night. This is the one I started the one day I was called in for jury duty, and it had sat in my bag for a couple of weeks.

I hope this doesn't jinx me and get me called in for more jury duty, now that my "big wooden needles, see I'm not a dangerous person knitter" project is done. (Well, I have big plastic needles and the JCA "Cinema" to make a dressy scarf out of, so I can take that. Or my big Pony Pearls and the yarn for a headscarf.)

The bag is...interesting. Not sure if it's something I'd actually carry, it's too small for my wallet. It would work for keys and maybe a money clip with a few bucks in it. It actually resembles one of the old-fashioned "reticules" in shape - but it's a chunky knit, so I guess that's where the "hippy" comes in.

I used the color called "Jig" - a mottled grey green. (One of the things I love about Artful Yarns are the creative color names they give to their yarns, and it annoys me when some officious catalog writer decides that their own description of the name suits the yarn better. I'd rather buy a yarn called, say "George Bailey" than buy a "mottled blue railroad ribbon". But maybe that's just me.)

It is 84* outside.

I am sitting in my office, wearing a sweater over a heavy t-shirt.

what is wrong with this picture?

I NEED one of these*. Your own personal "cloud", that you can crawl into for a nap or to get away. I think one of the reasons I don't get as much done in my office is that I keep the door open (office hours) and I have the psychological sense that "if I let myself really concentrate on something, someone is going to sneak up on me". It doesn't help that my back faces the door when I am at my desk, but there's really no other arrangement of furniture I can work out.

*(as seen on Right Moon?)

Tired out today - ran to the allergists the next city over yesterday afternoon. Didn't get home until nearly 8 pm (partly my fault; I went out to eat and then to the Hastings' there, which I have to say is the WORST and nastiest Hastings' I've been in (and that's saying a lot)). Found out this morning that the NSF proposal I was on didn't get funded. Poot. I'm trying not to let this get me all worried about getting tenure again.

Made it through the first 2 hr. 40 min. class period. Only 10 more of those to go!

Now I'm trying to read a paper on spatial statistics. I wonder if everyone who works in a particular field that they have to read reports, or articles, or whatever, have "scare words" that make their brain shut down. Because I know I do.

"Variogram". Shuuuuuddddder. I knew what that was, once. The phrase "partitioning the variance" makes me nervous, too. And I always said when I was in grad school that if I saw more than five Greek letters on the page, my brain shut down (in ecology, Greek letters mean tough equations ahead.)

I really really really need to read this, but I really really really don't want to.

First day of summer classes. Grey and rainy, but that's OK, I have no outside labs this week.

The Knitlist has had some discussion on "how do you store your needles?" I use three different ways, depending on the type: Double-points "live" in a large flat clear plastic pencil-box from the office supply store. The box is maybe 12" by 6" and is divided into four sections: two longish (8") lengthwise sections where I keep my sock needles, and then two short (maybe 2" by 6") widthwise sections where I keep cable needles, a tightly rolled measuring tape, an emery board, my darning needles, and other small items. I keep my small scissors and a couple of crochet hooks (for picking up dropped sts) in the long compartments as well. This is my "travelling needle house" because it's what I grab when I'm traveling. I knit mostly socks when I'm on the road (and dpns are also good for small projects like hats, mittens, toys...). I keep all the dpns in the same place.

For circulars, I bought a Circular Solution. It is a very good thing. (Yes, I know, it would be possible to make your own, but there's the time issue, and also I wanted the designer to get some money for her good idea).

For straights, the few I actually use, they stay in a large glass vase. This protects my precious Walnut Brittanies (no longer being made) and shows off the funky plastic Pony Pearls.