Finally got some rain today. (Which means I'm excused from having to take time in the all-too-brief window between getting home and going out to my last evening meeting of the week to mow the lawn).

Also, it's a BIT cooler, which is good for the beets I planted in the garden. (I do have to thin them soon, though, so they're not too crowded. Germination was very high on this batch).

We're also supposed to get big rain this weekend IF Ike takes the currently projected path. (The one piece of good news I suppose is that it looks like NOLA will be spared by this one).

****

Oh, and dragonknitter: piece be with you! Hahahaha. I like that.

If I could draw (and if I had a scanner), I'd have drawn a little cartoon showing the situation at one meeting I was at a little while back...one faction, angry, fists raised, their speech balloon with a picture of McCain. The other faction, also angry, their speech balloon with a picture of Obama. And me, sitting there in the middle, with my thought balloon holding pie. (Or knitting. That works too).

I find the older I get the less tolerance I have for what passes as debate. I tend to be much less likely to even voice an opinion because of the places it can lead.

I think part of the problem is that I'm often too good at seeing both sides of an argument.

****

Not really much knitting going on, what with evening meetings. I did work some on the Ribbon Lace scarf last night and I still think it's a quite brilliant pattern and works up to be very pretty.

And I think the Sea Wool is a good choice for the scarf, because the fiber-from-algae gives the yarn a certain "slidiness" and sheen that are desirable in a scarf.

The color patterning is also making more-or-less regular stripes of green and gold in the sort of greyish dandelion-head-colored background.

I'm trying to do a cycle-through of knitting where I work on a different project each night in hopes of actually finishing something at some point.

****

One thing I did last night as well was bake cupcakes. We're having a lunch in the department today and I volunteered to do cupcakes. I had to kind of hide them when I brought them this morning; I have just about one cupcake per person (stupid recipe made less than it said it would) and I've found if food is OUT, people tend to take "elevenses" and then wonder where their portion is come lunchtime. And I don't want the people who take "elevenses" to ace out some of the other folks from their cupcake.

I also used my new cupcake carrier (how handy!) It's a big plastic thing with a tray and a cover that snaps on, and then removable tiers for holding the cupcakes (so it's not a one-purpose item; you can take the tiers out and use it as a cake-protector as well).

Oh, and a question for the foodies: why do some professional bakers espouse such a hatred of cupcakes? I've read some of them say they wished they never had to make them, or that they'd be glad when the fad was over, or even that people who wanted cupcakes for an event were "stupid." Is it simply that you can't decorate cupcakes as elaborately, or is it some kind of elitism, or what?

I mean, I do know that cupcakes dry out faster than cake and you often have to use a moister recipe, but I think that problem can be worked around.

And really? Most ordinary people I know love cupcakes...the kids at Youth Group go crazy with joy when someone bothers to make them (and not just the little tiny kids either). My colleagues are like kids at a birthday party when there are cupcakes. Cupcakes seem to make people happy, which makes it seem strange to me that "serious" bakers would disdain them.