Thank you, Lynn...I take that as a compliment.

You know, about "good" - I do think there's some objective definition of "quality," but I think within "quality" works (be they music, books, films, whatever) there's a range of styles, and what one person considers "especially good" another person might not - simply because of the style.

There are certain films - Citizen Kane is an example - that while I recognize they are masterpieces of cinematic art, they leave me kind of cold.

And you know? It's the same way about quilts or knitting patterns - I can look at a quilt (Baltimore Album quilts in particular) and go, wow, that's great work, that took great skill, and still be unmoved by it - and I can look at a more "amateur" effort (like some of the southern African-American quilts that were made from scraps mostly to keep the families of the makers warm) and just feel the HUMANITY coming out of the quilt, and be very moved by it - and want to try to honor the maker by making one in a similar spirit - even though the quilt might not display the technical sophistication of a Baltimore Album.

And it's the same with knitting patterns. I think I commented once, of a very "mannerly" colorworked sweater that was in Interweave Knits that it was like a Modigliani painting to me - I recognized that it was great art and took great effort to do, but that I was oddly unmoved by it.

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Totoro now has a belly. And I finished the first "strap" of the u-necked vest. I didn't try starting the second one, because the pattern has that ominous "reverse shaping for other side" direction and I always have to either make sure I'm VERY alert - or sit down and actually write out the omitted part of the pattern (which is better because it is rare that I get to do a whole set of shaping in one go) so I don't mess things up. (I very nearly did a couple of times on the strap - but then I was kind of engaged with the Mirror Syndrome issue on House - so I do think it will be best for me to write out what I need to do).

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I did a (possibly) foolhardy thing this morning. Originally my parents were planning on coming down here for Thanksgiving. But - since we get Oklahoma Centennial Day off on the preceding Friday, and I have no Tuesday or Thursday classes, I could leave the Thursday before Thanksgiving and only miss one day's class (a day when, I suspect, classes would be thin anyway). AND my dad has a bad respiratory infection right now and it takes him a while to get over these things (he had pneumonia twice when he was younger) AND one of my parents' 19-year-old cats (not Cleo, the "tank kitty") has gotten finicky about eating - my mother says she eats best if she holds the plate for her and "coaxes" her. And you know? I'd feel terrible if something bad happened to the cat while my parents were down here. (She started the "bad eating" thing after the last time my parents went out of town and left them with a cat-sitter).

So I checked to see if Amtrak still had tickets available. For the days I would be traveling, yes - even had compartments.

So, at about 5:30 this morning (I kept thinking and thinking about it during the first part of my workout and finally it got unbearable - the thought that I might miss getting a compartment or even a seat by delaying a bit more - that I took a break and quickly ordered the tickets).

I'm not TELLING my dad that his respiratory concerns are part of the reason I'm opting to go up there, but they are.

The only complication is that I will have to find someone to water my little plants a couple times while I'm gone but that should not be too difficult - classes meet Monday and Tuesday (I don't have Tuesday classes this semester) so if someone waters them well those days, they should make it until I'm back on Saturday.