I got my shopping done yesterday and got home as a cold rain was falling.

It is supposed to "cold rain" all weekend but that's OK; I have "Why Buildings Fall Down" and "The Song of the Dodo" and other books and my knitting and my quilting. And enough food and supplies.

(One of the best feelings in the world, I think, is getting home from grocery shopping, having all the food put away, and knowing exactly where your meals will be coming from for the next several days.)

Yesterday evening was a happy cozy time. I sat down on my sofa (across from the fireplace) so I could read and watch this:



Yes, I know, I've posted pictures of the candles lit before, but I LOVE the display so very much I had to post another. This photo was taken using the "extreme night exposure" on my camera (all the lamps in the room were off) and I had to use a stack of books on my sofa's arm as a tripod, because my hands shake too much for the long exposure to come out otherwise.

I think I'm going to leave this one up, with a few minor alterations (swap out the Grandfather Frost for an old wine bottle vase with silk roses in it, and maybe a few other flowery/heart-y things) for February.

(Imagined line for a character that is not moored to any story I've ever written*:
"That's so pretty, it almost gives me Stendhal's syndrome")

(*I often think up lines that would be an interesting or provocative part of a story. Sometimes I make up the story to go around them, but often not. I think it goes back to my classes in school where we had vocabulary words and part of the homework was to make up a plausible sentence containing that word. I still do that, sometimes, when I learn a new word or phrase...

And, seriously - isn't Stendhal syndrome a potentially useful thing to know about?)

*****

I also got out to the bookstore. Found one of the Commissario Brunetti mysteries I didn't already have. (I guess now having read a couple of them, I am going to want to read the entire series). He's kind of world-weary and his wife is downright cynical, but the books are still enjoyable.

(I think Signornina Elettra is my favorite character in them.)

I also found the new KnitScene - the spring 2007 issue. I didn't even know this was out, so that was doubly good. (you can follow that link to see photos of the patterns I refer to, if you want)

The biggest thing I have to say?

I L! O! V! E! the "Kenobi jacket." I totally want to make one.

For many reasons.

First, I love the style - the sort of loose fitting cardigan is something that works well, practically and style-wise for me. (I think I will do the 46" size, though, so it's not to ginormous on me.)

Second, it's brown. (Yes, I know any pattern can be knitted in any color but I love the color it's done in.)

Third, it looks like a fun knit - all those panels of different stitch textures will break things up and make it more interesting.

Fourth, even though it's made of panels of different stitch textures, it's so subtle - it's not like it walks up to you, kisses you full on the lips, and goes, "Get me! I'm a sampler sweater!"

And last, but most certainly not least, I love the allusion of the title.

I've mentioned before that I tend to invest some of my garments with a sort of believed sympathetic magic...like, that nothing too bad can happen to me when I'm wearing my scarf that contains the "Cinema" in the color called "George Bailey."

Well, I like the idea of this jacket because I can imagine myself wearing it, having a difficult person come into my office telling me "I need" to do something for them (when what they SHOULD be saying is "Would you please consider doing...") and my being able to fix them with piercing gaze, hold up my hands, and utter some variant of "These are not the 'droids you are looking for..." and have them walk off in confusion and leave me alone for the rest of the day.

As for the rest of the issue? Not so much, at least in terms of stuff I'd wear. There are certainly some cute things for the younger thinner set. And I do like Stefanie Japel's puffed-sleeve jacket (just not out of Touch Me...there should be some kind of generic equivalent of that stuff.)

The little crocheted top hat cracks me up. I might make one for one of my critters. I'd not wear one, NOT EVEN as part of a costume. I am simply not brave enough. Even though it makes me think, for some odd reason, of the movie "Moulin Rouge!" (which was another of my purchases yesterday; target had a copy crazy cheap [this is the 1990s version of Moulin Rouge, I'm aware there was an earlier version with Jose Ferrer or somebody having to have his legs doubled back and strapped in order to play Toulouse-Lautrec]. I've seen bits and pieces of the movie on tv {doubtless in edited verion} and I categorize it into "a big mess plotwise but so visually arresting I can't look away." I love movies that are visually "strange" in some way - either the color scheme seems more lurid than real life, or people dress oddly, or it feels like a cartoon come to life.)

Patch Man I'd consider, but in a different color. And I like the style of the little top with the dogwood on it, but for me personally, I think putting a big honking dogwood blossom right in the region of what is a fairly prominent part of my anatomy probably wouldn't look so cool. (but of course, one could make the top and leave off the dogwood. Or even rechart the thing so it's a nice tiny ladylike dogwood.)

The strawberry purse is cute and clever but it's just not my style.

At any rate, the Kenobi jacket I am TOTALLY making and it itself was worth the price of admission. The only bad thing is that there's no brown yarn (that would work) in the stash. I'm seriously thinking of asking my folks for the yarn - the very yarn the pattern calls for, which is rare for me - for my birthday, the end of that month. (Yes, I have enough Jedi mind-power to wait until then to begin it.)

(Another Star Wars comment, if I may: for people who have seen the original 3 movies, and then at least one of the more recent movies: were you disappointed that "The Force" turned out to be some kind of symbiont-thing in the bodies of the jedi? I liked the earlier-movie "Force," which seemed to be a supernatural thing, and you could almost substitute "God" for "Force*", but the "explanation" given in...was it Attack of the Clones?...was sort of disappointing to me. Too naturalistic. It sort of made the Force small for me...)

(*My mother tells me - and I do not remember this but I do not think she'd make something like this up - that a long time ago, probably about 1978 or so, after we'd seen the first Star Wars movie - that would make my brother about 4 and me about 9 - my brother asked me, very seriously, "Do you think the Force is with us?" and I responded, very earnestly and truthfully, she says, "Oh, I hope so." She says she remembers it because she was afraid that I was going to make fun of him and tell him, "Silly, that was just a movie" and she was kind of surprised at my response. So maybe as a little kid I kind of "got" the concept on a different level than where Lucas wound up taking it, and so I was disappointed when I found out his real intentions...)