No apologies this time.

I finished the clapotis last night. This one was knit of Louisa Harding "Impression," which is a "polyamide" (Polyester, I think) and mohair blend. It's sort of a ribbon yarn with a little strand of mohair wrapped around it.

It makes for a shawl that is drapey without being quite as heavy as a wool one is.



I like the colors. It's hard to photograph; there is a deep pink and a purple and a green in there, and they're shiny, but it's more a "natural" sort of shiny than a "glitzy" sort of shiny. Kind of like the scales on a butterfly's wing as compared to lurex or lamé.

Here's a photo of it on. It's not the bestest photo of me ever, but the camera ran out of juice after taking this one. (I claim not to be vain but you will note that I put lipstick back on before the photo, because I felt pale. And I also deleted previous photos that were less flattering than this one.)



Yeah, my house is a little cluttered right now. It happens during summer school when in the evenings I have off, I'd rather knit than clean. (A soon-to-be-started project is in those two balls of yarn on the table. It's something that amuses me - the idea of it, I mean - so I probably won't talk about it until it's done, because it's something that the effect of it is really better after it's complete).

Finishing something energizes me. I think it breaks the feeling of tedium or that "every day is like the one previous" that I sometimes get. Now I feel like I want to work on finishing AT LEAST Thermal or the Honeycomb vest before summer ends.

I started the shawl back in August as a response to a worrying situation (that turned out OK). Ironically, it was another worrying-health-situation-that-ultimately-turned-out-OK when I knit the bulk of the first Clapotis I made.

I hope this third one is the last Clapotis, at least in the sense of being started during a worrisome time.

I have a bad feeling that this is going to be one of those days when everything rubs me the wrong way. I've started - and deleted - three or four comments/posts on Ravelry after realizing it was me responding with my issues and it wasn't going to add anything to the discussion.

I think I've been working too hard, for too long. I have the same feeling I get around the first of November or the end of March in the regular term: I'm just ready to be DONE.

Using a hose MIGHT work, if we actually had some appreciable water pressure right now. (And if I had a functional spigot actually close to that side of the house). I also have a pressure washer but meh, that seems like a way too complicated solution (I would have to hook it up to a hose - a hose extension, in fact, AND run an extension cord into the house to plug it in).

I do own a roof rake - which is actually designed to break up and knock off ice dams. My father ordered it for me from a catalog, without realizing how large and heavy it was, because he thought I could get the leaves off the roof that way. It MIGHT work but I need to wait until my sore arms recover a little before I try lifting it. (I also worry - as heavy as it is - that it might damage the shingles).

I'm more sore this morning than I was yesterday morning.

Argh. Some things, as you draw near the end, seem to stretch out and take longer and longer (I remember feeling that with my dissertation).

It feels that way with the current Clapotis.



It's the new Neverending Project of Neverendingness.

I completely pooped out on it around 8:30 last night, couldn't keep going. (I think there are four repeats left to drop and ladder the stitches for). Part of the problem is the laddering - which is more frequent as you approach the end - is slow with this yarn. It has a tiny thread of mohair wrapped around the shiny slippery ribbon yarn - and the mohair grabs on and you have to kind of use your thumbnail to help it ladder, and it takes a while.

And here's where my crazy hyper-responsibility and super-conscientiousness kind of works against me: I was actually getting all set to apologize to you lot. Because I didn't finish the shawl and didn't have a nice shiny finished picture to show you. Because, you know, the people-pleasing part of me is screaming, "But you might lose readers if you never ever show anything finished!"

At any rate, if I had finished it, there would be no "action shot" of me wearing it anyway, because by the time I would have finished, my hair was all frizzy and bad (I had to take the barrette out of it; it was pulling on the hair and it's super humid here) and I wasn't wearing clothes that would match with the shawl anyway.

But it's alternatively funny and sad (I think) that I felt pushed to apologize for not finishing the shawl and having a finished-object picture to post here.

Big Alice:

What you said. It's like I know somehow, somewhere, Nelson Muntz is going "HA ha!"

I've gone through a series of schemes in my head as to how to get the broom down (well, without actually calling someone and asking for them to come and help me), and none so far seem to have a potential of working. (Worst idea yet: get back up on the ladder with either a lasso or a grappling hook on a rope. Because there would be a very good chance I'd pull the broom down onto my head).

I guess what I'm going to have to do is find someone taller than I am, and with a bigger ladder, and ask him to do it. ("Him," because I'm actually taller than nearly all the women I know).

At least I got most of my Prairie Conference poster mocked up today; I feel a little more competent for having done that.

Weekends are never long enough now.

Saturday morning we went out and did the sampling we couldn't on Friday. Saturday afternoon I read the rest of the Silvertown and Charlesworth population biology book (which is the next one my grad student needs to read) though it dang near killed me. (100 pages of dense prose about plant competition and the evolution of plant life histories).

I knit some on the simple "Antonia" socks, but wound up putting them down when I realized that they were interfering with my ability to concentrate and read the book in a timely fashion. There's a point where you find you keep having to flip back three pages to re-read, when you've still got 90-odd pages to go, that you just don't want ANYTHING to slow you down.

Sunday afternoon, I worked some on the Clapotis (you thought I had forgotten about it, no? Well, I kind of did. I tucked it away and with it being out-of-sight, I didn't really work on it. Also, I think I had put off working on it because I was afraid I was going to run out of yarn (I know I won't, now) and that often puts me off of wanting to work on something (it's a discontinued yarn, so getting more would be an effort).

But I pulled it out yesterday and worked some on it. I'm a few repeats away from it being finished. (I don't think I'm going to block it, though).

I also worked some on the pillowcases. Again, I'm getting close (but not close enough) to finished on these.

In between, I did something probably ill-advised. I have a lot of catkins and general crud accumulated on my roof from the pecan tree. And I kept thinking about the 4th of July coming up. And one thing I will NEVER get used to in this part of the world is the legality and wide availability of small fireworks. And I'm going to be out of town the evening of the 3rd (going to a baseball game with a church group) and the thought of people shooting off bottle rockets, which might still be ignited when they land on my roof, and a pile of kindling-dry pecan catkins up there, made me more and more nervous.

(And the rain they keep predicting for us? Never comes.)

So, I got out the ladder and tried to get rid of the catkins by standing on the ladder. (Just to remind you, here is a photo of my house - from several winters ago. The arrow and "A" is where the catkins are, the "B" is where I had the ladder)



Unfortunately, my ladder is short, and I was kind of having to lean around backwards and reach blindly with a rake to try to grab the leaves and stuff and pull them down.

I got only about 1/3 of the stuff (and wound up with catkins and half decomposed leaves and who knows what else in my hair and down my shirt and all over me).

Well, that was unsatisfactory. So, I went up from the back of the house - which is a lot easier to climb up on, as it has a lower flat porch-type roof for part of it. And I dragged a push-broom (the longest tool I own) up there.

And slowly climbed up the side of the roof towards the ridgepole. My vague plan was to reach over the ridgepole and push all the crud down off the roof. Of course I never adequately estimate how large the roof is until I'm actually up there.

I scraped heck out of my knee (through a pair of old khaki pants) and at one point thought I was going to lose my grip and slide back down the roof to the flat part (which would have scraped heck out of my stomach and all other frontal regions). At one point I had to stop (as I got near the ridgepole) and tell myself to get over my fear, that I had done this before and not fallen yet, and anyway, if I fell the worst would be that I'd scrape heck out of my frontal regions and wind up on the flat porch type roof.

And then I reached over the ridgepole.

I managed to push all the remaining catkins up into one big ball. But the push broom was too short - and did not exert enough force - to get them down off the roof.

I leaned a little further. I could not reach the ball.

Still further.

As far as I dared - because if I unbalanced over the ridgepole, I surmised I'd go sliding headfirst down the front of the roof - with nothing but friction (or eventually, the abelia bush in the front garden) to stop my descent.

So I reached as far as I could with the push broom.

You can guess what happened next. (No, not the worst possible thing; I'm not writing this from a hospital or anything).

I dropped the push broom. And it slid partway down the roof and stopped, trapped by the big ball of dried up catkins.

That's what I think of as the "Laurel and Hardy point." The point where something sufficiently ridiculous - but yet, not entirely unexpected - happens, and you just want to give up. Maybe even, like in the old comedy shorts, where you throw your hat down on the ground in disgust (and it probably gets stepped on).

I will say I went back around to the front, set up the ladder again, and tried to reach the push broom with the rake from the front of the house. Could I? I could not.

At that point I was getting weak and shaky, which usually happens when (a) it's terribly hot out (b) I've had to have my arms up over my head for extended periods of time (it mucks with my blood pressure, apparently, it makes it drop) and (c) I've been using muscles I don't normally use in the service of making sure I don't die (pulling myself up onto the roof, and getting back down safely).

I wound up having to get off the ladder fast and sit down for a few minutes.

And then I put the ladder away. (I knew better than to try to climb up on the roof again and try even more dangerous maneuvers when I was already shaky and not feeling so good).

So: there's a big ball of dry catkins on my roof, that would very likely flame up well if hit by sparks from fireworks. AND there's a push broom with an aluminum handle up there. (I had a brief, but probably unreasonable, vision of us getting a lightning storm and the thing attracting lightning to hit my house. Probably it's impossible by the rules of physics, but I still need to figure out some way of getting the dang broom down).

I would have said "bag it" and gone to Lowe's and bought a taller ladder, except my current car is sufficiently short that a taller ladder would not fit in it...

Robert Byrd has died.

All politics - and all of his history, bad and good - aside (a commentator on the radio this morning remarked: "There was, apparently, a time in Deep South politics where you pretty much HAD to be a Klan member to be electable*." (Or so said commentator said, see comment below) Though then again, I don't exactly think of West Virginia - where I was born - as Deep South**) he served for 51 years in the Senate.

In fillyjonk units, (because man makes himself the measure of all things), that means as I was being born in the West Virginia University Hospital in Morgantown some 41 1/2 years ago, he had already been in the Senate 10 years.

Make of that what you will.

(*In which case, I hope if I had been a politically minded gentleman in the South of that era, that I would have chosen to become a preacher or schoolteacher instead. Though I suppose things being what they were, there was a share of both preachers and teachers who belonged to that organization.)

(**If West Virginia is the "Deep South," then maybe I need to start referring to people as "Sugah" (Sugar) and start saying "Bless your heart" more. ("Bless your heart," from at least SOME southern women, is NOT a compliment). The thought of me as a stereotypical Southern Belle makes me laugh. I don't think there's enough tulle and hairspray in the world to make that work.)

Must...get....back...to...work.

I have three more soil samples to sort, then I can call today a success.

Heh.

I was having to make new circular-nested-quadrat tapes (I can't find the ones we used some years back) but I couldn't remember the proportions. Google Search to the rescue.

And to my moderate amusement one of the higher-up links in the list turned out to be the paper from the previous study using it. (I guess not many people use circular nested quadrats anymore, or, for that matter, do much in the way of on-the-ground forest research any more)

(Just a reminder to myself, for the future: the lengths are 11.3 meters for trees, 5.6 meters for saplings, and 1.8 meters for seedlings, based on the areas we want to sample.)

I got 3/4 of the way to the field site, and asked myself: does the missing student even know how to get here?

And I decided that, since I was 3/4 of the way, I'd pretend that they did. Of course they weren't there. So I'm waiting on a call from the OTHER student, when she gets her car fixed, we'll figure out what to do from there.

It's funny how just when I start feeling sad that I don't exist as part of an immediate family unit (that is: have others living with me and interacting with me on a daily basis), something crops up to remind me how frustrating unmanageable logistics can be. (I remember a family reunion, once, where, because several people could not decide what attraction to go and see, we didn't go and see anything, but instead sat around the rented lodgings, those of us who were amenable to doing whatever the majority wanted to do being treated to watching the various factions argue.)

So I'm off to sort soil samples. If I can get a bunch done today maybe I can have tomorrow afternoon off.

And thank you for all the supporting comments on my "I feel alone a lot of the time, and sometimes the people I regard as friends are better talkers than they are listeners" thing. It helps to know I'm not the only one who feels like that sometimes.

On my way out to the field site to see if errant student has shown up. (Funny how "errant" used to mean something good, like Knights Errant, and now it more often than not means someone who isn't where you expect them to be). And then I call other student back. And this has just become a big clusterfudge.

Well, the heat broke a little - apparently the "dome of high pressure" is weakening.

I feel some better, having slept a little more soundly last night (it's kind of surprising to me, even with air conditioning, that an outdoor overnight temperature of 73 as opposed to 79 would actually matter).

But now: my one research student left a message (at 6:30, before I ever got in) that she can't get her car started. I called back, didn't get her. I don't see the other one outside but I better check again. Argh. I had high hopes of getting done early and working a bit on my own research today.

No sign of the other student. The one student called back. Apparently it's the starter and as soon as an auto shop near her opens up, she's getting it replaced. She works, so she needs the truck, and she'll need it this afternoon. (I understand. It's one of those living-alone-problems and I've faced similar. But the logistics of having to try to do this drives me up a tree. I have no idea if the other student had something come up, forgot, is merely running late, or is already out at the field site wondering where we are. I don't know what to do - whether to run out to the field site and look for her, or to sit here and wait, or what.)

I think the heat is beginning to really get to me. I definitely have less patience and tolerance, and I am doing things that ordinarily bug me to realize I'm doing them.

An example: the other day, I went to the grocery store. My plan was to get some of those little "pizza shells" - you know the small pre-baked crusts that you can quickly make a pizza on if you want a pizza but don't want to deal with the leftovers from a pizza from a pizzeria.

Well, they had none of the small shells. Oh, they had the big ones - they have big everything, "family packs" of a dozen pork chops, enormous bags of vegetables, all of that. (Sometimes I feel like the local groceries are trying to discourage single people from trying to cook for themselves. The only "single servings" readily available are frozen dinners).

I stood there, looking at the empty space, and I remarked, to no one in particular, "They're out of the exact thing I came to get. They're ALWAYS out of what I need."

I hate it when I do that because it does make me look like the stereotypical Crazy Spinster who has no one to talk to, so she talks to the empty air at the grocery store.

(FWIW, I wound up getting English muffins and using them instead. It was fine, it did what I needed, but it was NOT WHAT I WANTED at that moment. And it does seem, more and more, with the grocery's new "we're going to run our trucks less to save gas and money" policy, they're out of more stuff, and at inconvenient times.)

****

Speaking of having no one to talk to, I think that's one of the problems I have right now. Most of my colleagues are gone for the summer - off doing research, or at meetings, or just not coming in because they don't have a need to. So a lot of the sort of random, low-level interaction I get in a day is absent. (Talking to students in a class context is not the same).

I had a dream last night. Most of my dreams seem to be my brain evaluating the stuff it took in during the day and deciding what to discard and what to keep (that's why some of the odd random things show up, I think). But once in a while I will have what I think of as a "wish fulfillment" dream, where it involves something that I want - maybe even something I didn't realize I wanted, on a conscious level.

In last night's dream, I was visiting someone. We were sitting in his living room, just talking. But it was so wonderful, and I remember being so happy during the dream. In part, because it was someone male, and someone that it could be said that I "like-like" (as we used to say in seventh grade) (but I can't determine, in the real world, and I am too shy to be so forward, if there is any reciprocation. And at any rate, I've never seen any clear evidence of such.). But a big part of that, even beyond all that, was the fact that I was having a conversation. Someone was paying attention to me. And it wasn't the usual kind of conversation I have these days, where something's expected of me, or where I'm uptight because I (a) have to get all the information in and (b) I have to make it "engaging" for the students. It was just a normal back-and-forth conversation.

Towards the end of the dream, the alert part of my brain started throwing in the usual "curveballs" it does - it's as if at some point part of my brain goes, "Hey, dummy, it's time to wake up. LOOK this is just a dream because something like THIS wouldn't happen in real life." But the part of my brain that was engaged in the dream actually managed to ignore them or rationalize them for a little while because I was enjoying myself. But I eventually did wake up, and there's that little split second where you realize it was all a dream. And then you feel sort of sad.

I think part of it is that some of the people I interact with on a semi-regular basis are the kind of "no word in edgewise" people - where they start talking, and you just sit and listen, and even if you TRY to interrupt, you can't quite manage.

Part of it is a lot of those people are people that I recognize have few people to listen to them - not to be stereotypical but a lot of them are women in late middle age (or later) who are either divorced or whose husbands are gone, and whose kids are adults and far away. And I guess I can kind of sympathize with the feeling of not having anyone to talk to. But I have to admit at times hearing a 15 minute discourse on bunions, or on how annoyed they are with the lawyer they are trying to work with over something, or a long monologue on their garden...and I just start to sort of feel sad, like I'm just a giant ear without a mouth or something.

And I also feel sad because I wonder if that will be me in another 30 years or so, when my natural reticence against buttonholing someone and talking at length about something has broken down. I mean, right now, there are lots of times that I'd like to just sit someone down and talk at them, get it all out, but you can't really do that in a normal conversation.

(Yes, I realize: I write long one-sided posts on the blog. But I see that as a little different; after all, you are "opting in" to read them, and if you don't like a post, you can always click away).

I don't know. I suppose part of it is that a couple of the people I regarded as close-ish friends have moved away over the past couple years and I don't have the regular contact with them any more. (I find it really hard to have a conversation over the phone. I think it's because I can't see people's expressions). So sometimes, there are days when I feel like I don't get a lot of close contact with people.

And I realize, it's a trade-off, and it's partly my own doing. I like my "alone" time and my downtime and I really don't think at this point I could tolerate living with a housemate (I've had people suggest that, actually: that I take on someone to live in my guest room, have them pay me a small rent. But I think even with someone with whom I was very compatible, it would drive me nutty).

But I also find it's hard at the age I'm at to make friends - especially those my own age - because most women close to my age have children at home, and those become such a priority. And also, some friends I had down here, we kind of drifted away when they began having kids and realized they had more in common with their other with-kids friends.

So I don't know. I do think one of the nicest luxuries for me right now would be a couple hours of time - at a tearoom or somewhere - with someone who was interesting to me and who was interested in what I had to say - and just the opportunity to talk.

I've been picking away, off and on, at doing more handsewing on the Grandmother's Flower Garden blocks.

This is one I finished a while back:



There are some darker spots because I use magazine "blow in cards" to cut the paper hexagons from, and in some cases dark printing on the card is showing through the fabric.

I also have part of another block completed. I think this is the first block I've done featuring orange:



I think of the color there as "marmalade." It's a three-bears pattern block (the little white figures are the three bears and Goldilocks). And bears makes me think of Paddington, who was fond of marmalade sandwiches.

(I wonder if Paddington Bear is still popular? I think I read all of the books that were available when I was a kid. I was remembering that Paddington was about the same "age" as I was, but this site says that he actually appeared some 11 years before I was born.

I liked Paddington more than Winnie-the-Pooh because he seemed "realer" (he was, after all, a REAL small bear, whereas Winnie was a toy come to life) and because the London setting was more interesting to me than the 100-Acre Wood.

I also liked that Paddington could be cranky at times (his "special hard stare" at people he disliked or whom he felt were behaving badly) and he sometimes got into trouble, even when he was trying to be good.)

Anyway. I find hand sewing to be restful, but the funny thing is, there's a lot of inertia to be overcome. I look at the project sitting there and think, "Meh, it takes a long time to get anywhere on that" (especially since I do so much of my sewing on a machine. I think it would be difficult, though, to do hexagonal piecing well using a machine). But then when I sit down and start working, I really enjoy it.

There are a number of reasons I do not care for Daylight Saving Time.

One of them, lately, is that during the "long-day" part of the year (and we just had the longest-daylight-day yesterday), if I want to go to bed at all "early," it's so bright out I have to pull out the black eyeshade I use when I travel.

It makes me think of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Bed in Summer":

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

But, unlike Stevenson's eager-to-play child who feels cheated by the sun still being up when he is sent to bed, as a tired adult, I feel that it's somehow not right that I should WANT to go to bed at 8:30 some night, and have it be too bright to sleep.

I feel like I shouldn't have to put up blackout curtains in my bedroom (do they still even make those?) just to be able to catch up a bit on my sleep in summer.

Summer teaching is kind of exhausting, so some nights going to bed at 8:30 does look attractive.

I read my evaluation comments (they came this morning). I was a little spooked because for the first time, the secretary adopted the policy of putting a blank sheet over the comments before putting them in the mailbox, and I was afraid that that meant I had received some very harsh ones she didn't want my colleagues seeing.

No. I received a few of the typical "The tests were too hard" and "I found this class uninteresting" comments, but in my majors classes, people said things like:

"Her door was always open, if you had a question or a problem she would help you"
"I learned a lot in this class. She had a way of making it interesting even if the topic wasn't your favorite thing."
"Thank you for this class." (That last from a student who admitted that after taking the class, they decided they really didn't want to continue on in ecology after all.)
"I was able to get an internship using the knowledge I gained in this class."
"She was always enthusiastic and clearly cared a lot about what she was teaching."

In the majors class, I received more - and more substantive - positive than negative comments. (Oh, I got negative comments, but some were ones like "the tests were too hard" and stuff, where I kind of shrug and go, "that's what you think.")

So, I might not be the most exciting or entertaining instructor ever (And I know that, and I own that fact: it's not who I am), but at least I feel like I'm giving the students something of value. And it looks like either I did unusually well this past spring, or else I had a class full of more committed students.

First off: thanks for the "non-flying squirrel" comment, Charles, it actually made me laugh on a morning I was otherwise in a bad mood.

And I am. Part of it is just that it's hot, it's humid, it won't rain, we're trapped under a "dome of high pressure" that is as insidious as anything Dr. Evil could dream up. And part of it is, I just need to stop watching the news again. Here are three stories from the morning local newscast:

1. "BREAKING NEWS! A developing story!" Some actor from a series of gross-out movies that I have never seen has gone into rehab. Breaking news? SRSLY?

2. One of the Kardashian women is upset because a woman was seen breast-feeding in a restaurant. I'm guessing because that meant people were paying attention to someone else's breasts for a change. (I have problems with people CHANGING THEIR BABIES at restaurant tables, which, yes, I've seen. But breast-feeding? Yeah, yeah, I know: some women go to the restroom to do it. But they really shouldn't have to). Again, this is breaking news?

3. If you're anxious, you are going to get heart disease! But don't worry about it, now!

Oh, and another: women who have passed menopause are supposed to give up tea and start drinking coffee lest they develop rheumatoid arthritis. Which, once again, gives me the feeling of "Take away everything I love, everything that brings me joy, in the supposed name of enhancing my health." What it means is I have about 8 years left to enjoy tea, I guess.

Then, the capper: driving in to work, I was very nearly run off the road by some IDIOT who was driving in the MIDDLE of the barely-two-lanes of road I have to go up to get to my workplace. There's something somewhat despair-generating about realizing that you might just buy the farm on your way to work. Instead of, I don't know, trying to climb K2 or chasing tornadoes or something.

I mean, I tend to be highly risk-averse - I don't think I could skydive. And beyond that, I do my [expletive deleted] hour of [expletive deleted] exercise every morning instead of sleeping in like I'd really like to do. And I avoid eating some things I'd really like to eat, and often eat things that really aren't the things I want. All in the name of health. And I do what I'm "supposed" to. I'm so reliable that if my car is not in the lot when the secretary arrives, she assumes I'm home sick. I've never bounced a check or cheated on my taxes.

And yet, I might be taken out by some jerk who can't pay attention to the road because he's both talking on his cell phone AND has the woman in the seat next to him talking to him. Something just seems very wrong about that. I know life isn't fair, but I don't like feeling like driving in to work in my teeny little town should put me in Mortal Peril.

There are lots of animal mascots for companies: Chessie, the cat, who used to be for a railroad corporation (I don't know if poor old Chessie got shuffled away in the various buyouts), the Geico gecko, the Exxon tiger.

There are a couple of oddball mascots, though, one that I've seen off and on for years, and one I just ran across the other day, that I find kind of endearing.

First off: the Mitsui OSK alligator. I've seen this mascot off and on for years - mainly on the side of shipping containers being carried on freight trains, either as I sat in the station waiting on my Amtrak, or while I sat on the Amtrak during one of the (seemingly interminable) waits while a freight passed us. I always wondered a bit about the alligator - it seemed a bit strange, and out of place, and some versions of it, the alligator looks almost worried or something. (I also love the way that website is written, though I presume it's largely an English as a Second Language fact that gives it its charm: "The anchor tattoo on the Alligator's arm is dandy, isn't it?")

Apparently I'm not the only one who finds the alligator a bit fascinating: This blogger (NB, a bit of strong-ish language) went on a quest for a MOL t-shirt. And wound up dealing with a surprisingly nice company who actually told him, "Here's a copy of the logo. We don't sell t-shirts but you can go ahead and put it on a t-shirt as long as you don't do anything offensive with it."

The blogger loved the alligator so much he even made a needlepoint pattern featuring it. 

Second, the newer-to-me mascot: The Manac Flying Moose. This is apparently a truck-trailer company (based in St. Georges, Quebec). I spotted a trailer with Manac mudflaps the other day, waiting next to me (waiting for the turn lane onto 70E) as I was going home. 

The mascot is a flying moose, which is supposed to come from an Abenaquis legend. It's funny how we just accept Pegasus as part of mythology, but how wings attached to another animal that doesn't have them can surprise. I looked over at the truck and thought "it's a flying moose." And then "wait, what? a flying moose?" and then "Wow, that's a cool idea."

It's a flying moose. Which I think could probably whup that sissy Pegasus any day. I think I know who I'd want coming to my aid if I was really in danger.

I'm linking this yet again, because I really love it and I keep "losing" the link to it. (I really should print it out). I posted a plea to help me find it again on CPAAG (I was searching under "51 life lessons" and it's really "51 life truisms").

Someone there (radarkarty) did what I wasn't willing to do: read through my archives (none of my searches turned up the site) and then tracked down the archives page for "Spirituality and Health" to find:

51 things you wish your grandmother had told you..

And, I realize, my favorite Therese of Lisieux quotation is not actually HER quotation, but something someone came up with after reading about her. Darn.

That said, there are a lot of interesting things on the site. Not all of them I necessarily agree with, but I will say "life is messy and everybody is weird" has helped me kind of shrug and accept the crazy stuff that goes on in this world on many occasions.

I also forgot to note that Raspberry Zinger makes excellent iced tea indeed. I'm going to make another batch of it this afternoon, to have in the fridge, because it seems to be exactly the sort of thing I would want after coming home from a warm day in the lab.

It's also a pretty color, which is worth something.

Thanks for all the nice comments. I think the whole idea of my definition of success is something I need to remind myself of periodically, because "the world" is too good at fooling people (including me) into thinking that what it deems important is what is really important.

***

Here's that recipe I referred to on Friday:

Pizza crust/breadsticks. (Makes 1 generous serving with leftovers, or enough for two).

3 Tablespoons warm water
3 Tablespoons milk
1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar

Mix those four ingredients and let stand 5 minutes.

Then add 1/4 cup flour (the recipe calls for bread flour; all I had was all-purpose. I think I wound up having to add more than what the recipe called for). Stir it in well. Then add

1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons finely ground yellow cornmeal

Mix those in. Then continue to add more flour - the recipe lists adding 1/2 cup more, but I had to add more like 3/4 a cup more to get the dough the right consistency (it was also very humid that day which may have affected things).

Knead the dough 5 minutes. Then pour a little olive oil over the dough ball, cover the bowl it's in, and let it stand in a warm place 1/2 hour (or more, I suppose, if you can). Punch the dough down and let it rest another 10 minutes, or, if you're impatient, shape it and then let it rest.

For breadsticks, I separated the dough into eight sections and sort of rolled each one out into a "snake" (like you did with clay in 1st grade). Then, I put each formed breadstick on a pan that had been sprinkled with a little olive oil and a little cornmeal. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

For pizza dough, you would stretch the dough out until it's 8 or 9 inches in diameter, depending on how thick you like your crust. I usually like to bake homemade crusts for a couple minutes before putting toppings on; they are less prone to get soggy. I guess you would also want to oil the pan or put cornmeal down on it to avoid the pizza sticking.

For breadsticks, you can top them with whatever you like. I brushed mine with more olive oil and sprinkled on dehydrated garlic and Italian seasoning, but they would also be good with sesame or poppy seeds, or, with a little parmesan cheese on (I think I would wait until they were nearly done to add that.) Or you could use other spices depending on what you were going to serve them with.

They were done in about 10 minutes in a 425 degree oven. I ate mine with a small dish of warmed-up marinara sauce, but of course they would also be good with soup or a salad.

For the pizza, of course the toppings are up to your imagination. The pizza might have to bake longer, like maybe 15 minutes.

***

I've been working away at different things this weekend. I had planned to go in to school on Saturday but after mowing the lawn early Saturday morning, I got a bad headache (humidity?) and wound up staying home. I had the headache all day but was periodically able to bat it back enough with ibuprofen or hot tea so I could read some on one of the books I'm making my grad student read and discuss. (I really need to finish it in the next day or so).

I started a new pair of socks to knit on while I read. I had been working on the long-stalled Mini Mochi socks but then got to the point where the yarn was splitting so much I had to keep looking at it, and it was annoying me. So I pulled out a ball of Opal and started some just-plain socks.

I once commented that I liked Cascade 220 because it was a "well-behaved" yarn - it didn't split, it rarely had knots, it didn't fuzz while you were knitting with it. Opal is the same way. It's tightly enough spun that it doesn't split and especially compared to the Mini Mochi, it's very even. All of which make it a pleasure to knit with.

The particular Opal yarn I'm using is one I bought a little while back. It's from a line inspired (designed, maybe?) by a German singer who goes by the name Antonia (Opal Antonia: theirs are all out of stock, but I think Simply Sock Yarn might still have some). I'm using color 2805, which is sort of "earthy" colors - browns and orange and a leaf green. The yarn says "Antonia aus Tyrol" on the label and has a photograph of her (in white short-shorts and a midriff baring yellow top) superimposed on what must be Tyrolean scenery. (Apparently each yarn in the line shows her in a different outfit, at least on the Simply Sock Yarn page)

I don't know exactly what kind of pop Antonia does and have never heard any of her music, but it's interesting that she wound up designing a line for Opal.

One of the things I like about doing "just simple" socks is that there are different ways you can knit them up. Of course there's the toe-up/cuff-down decision; for me, I always do cuff-down because most of the traditional toe-up heels fit me badly, and I'd rather Kitchener stitch than "bind off loosely" the 64 stitches or so at the end of a pair of toe up socks. But also, there are decisions as to ribbing, and depth of ribbing, and will you rib the entire sock or just the top, or will you do a picot edge instead, and what heel will you do...

On these, I decided to do 6 rows of stockinette BEFORE starting a short ribbing (my plan is to do 12 rows of rib but I'll see how that looks when I get it done). A short segment of stockinette at the top makes a top that curls just a little and I liked that for this yarn. (I also started at a point I can "find" again in the pattern later, for the second sock, so I can make them matching.) I think I'm only going to do a short rib, and then do the rest of the leg in plain stockinette.

I also like the yarn because the colors to me almost seem like "Heidi" colors - very springy and natural. I can see the Tyrolean alpine inspiration in it. (Though maybe, if it had been named something else, I wouldn't see that. For me, the color name of a yarn tends to be powerfully evocative).

But anyway. The nice thing about plain, not following-a-pattern socks is that periodically you have a decision to make. (It's almost like the old Choose Your Own Adventure books in a way, except you never wind up falling off a cliff or getting eaten by a minotaur.)

Lynn linked to this "Manifesto" today.

I think it's pretty wonderful. And it got me to thinking a lot, as I sorted through my little samples of soil this afternoon.

I am bad at self-promotion. I always have been. At least, I'm bad at self-promotion in the sense that it's usually taken these days. I believe (perhaps I was raised to believe) that your work should speak for itself. That is, if you're work's really good, people will notice it and pick up on it and good things will come to you. And conversely, I grew up being at least a little suspicious of anything heavily promoted. (That may have come from my parents. First, my mother, snorting over some of the first "infomercials" ever, "If it's that great, why do they have to buy a half-hour television slot to talk about it?" and my father, when I was much younger, teaching my brother and me to watch ads and figure out, in his words, "how they are trying to get your nickels." (I think he borrowed that phrase from a shady character on Sesame Street.)

And as I grew up, I noticed, in enough cases to cause me to stereotype, that the quiet, slightly nerdy sort of people - the ones who didn't talk much about themselves - were very often the people who "had your back" or who could help you out in a serious problem or who were just generally good people. And that sometimes - sometimes, it seemed more frequently than "sometimes" - the glad-handing, back-slapping jovial hale-and-hearty types, who seemed like everyone's friend out in public, were the worst backstabbers ever. And the people who talked about how great they were often were, to use a good old Texas phrase, "All hat and no cattle."

And one of the things I've come to realize is what's important - what's most important to me. What I term "success." And it's not getting my name out there, not doing cutting-edge research that gets published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution (though it would be nice, there are things I'd have to sacrifice to do cutting edge research that I'm not sure I'd be willing to sacrifice). But what's really important to me, what will make me think as I near the end of my life (God willing, many many years from now) that I was a success. And that's two things:

1. Make someone else's (or multiple someone elses') lives better for having been here. Or make the world better in some substantive way. (Even if it's a LITTLE way, like restoring a little patch of degraded land into a healthy prairie)

2. Do kindness when I can.

I think about the people I really revere - the people I look up to and would like to be like. And by and large, it is not so much for the great, fame-producing things that I remember them or look up to them. It is for the things they did to help other people out.

A concrete example: I have forgotten the names of many of my professors from college. But there is one I remember, because of something she did for me. Right after - like, 2 days after - I was asked to leave the program, Dr. Tosney saw me in the hall. Now, I was not one of her grad students - she was in a totally different field from mine. I had taken her Developmental Biology lecture as an undergrad because I just needed the credit hours in biology, and I was (at the time) taking her technical writing class. She asked me something about how I was doing and when it became apparent that the answer was "very badly," she invited me up to her office to talk.

And she spent a very long time talking to me. And it made an immense difference to me. Some years later, I wrote her a letter to let her know where I wound up and to thank her again, but I don't know if she really fully realizes how much of a difference the talk made.

And it wasn't just the advice she gave me. It was the sheer fact that someone was willing to listen.  That someone was taking time out of their very busy day (and I know she was a busy person; she had grants and research and her own graduate students to attend to and could probably ill afford the time to talk to me). To me, it reminded me that I mattered, even in a system that, in the few days previous, had made me feel like I didn't.

And so, I think of her. When a student needs help but I'm tired and harried and really would rather jolly them out my office door as fast as I can. And I, more times than not, take a deep breath and help the student. Even when I'm tired. Because it's important. Important to my idea of what success is in this life, and important because you truly do not know when a few words from you may make all the difference in the world to someone.

I don't even really know what research (outside of the general field) Dr. Tosney did. I never read any of her papers. But I do remember that she was willing to take a scared, confused, and upset 21-year-old woman up to her office and let her talk- and offer her advice and support - at what was, at that point in time, the worst time in that young woman's life.

And that has nothing to do with branding or self promotion. But it is, what I think, is the most deeply important thing in the world. It is serving another person. It is seeing that other person as a fellow human, acknowledging that they have hurts and fears.

And another thing: There was, literally, nothing I could do to pay her back for her time. I had no claims on her time; there was nothing she could gain from talking to me (and from some of the things she told me - about the program - if I had spread them around, she might have gotten in trouble). But aren't we told somewhere that the greatest service we can do is to those who can't pay us back? That, rather than inviting our rich friends to our banquets so we can impress them (and so we can get invited back to their houses), we should invite people who cannot pay us back? Because it's the right thing to do?

I commented the other day - about "Paradise Road" - and how I don't know what I'd do or how I'd fare in that situation. I think the single most difficult thing would be to have to sit with someone while they were dying. But you know? Now that I think about it - if I had been up at the hospital when my grandmother or aunt was dying, and they knew they were dying, and they asked me to be there, to stay with them to see them "off," as it were - I'd do it. I'd sit there and pray with them even if the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm were the only things I could muster up.  Even though it would scare me. Even though I would worry about the nightmares I'd have afterwards, the aftereffects of it. I'd do it. Because at that point, what that other person needs is infinitely more important than what you want.

And I think that's part of success in life. Determining the times when someone else needs something from you so much more than your desire to be elsewhere. I'm not talking about giving in to every "special snowflake" with demands - I'm talking about the human moments, the times when someone NEEDS another person's presence. When someone they love has died. When they've had a serious diagnosis. When they're at a scary crossroads in life and don't know what to do.

And when I talk about "kindness," I don't mean the kittens-and-rainbows sort of kindness. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a person is show them what is commonly known as "tough love." And I've done that. And sometimes - especially for a conflict avoider like me - it's the hardest thing in the world. But again, it's important.

And NONE of that, none of it at all, has anything to do with self-promotion and "branding."

The writer of the "Manifesto" noted that the internet is, when it's at its best, a conversation and not a commercial. And I agree with that. The stuff on the internet that's made me the happiest, and been the most meaningful to me, are the times when I read something someone has written and gone "Yes, yes, that's it. That's what I was thinking but could not put into words." Or when someone writes something and says "This is kind of weird about me" and forty-five people comment that they think or do or feel the same thing, so the original writer can't be that weird, after all. (There's something so comforting about finding out something that you thought was an oddity of yours is actually shared by lots of other people). And Ms. Johnson (the Manifesto writer) notes that we should do stuff, make stuff, put stuff up (like cat pictures) because it makes US happy...and I agree, that you can tell when someone's writing about something they have a passion for, versus when they're writing about something because they think it will get them "hits," and there's a certain sad sterility to those websites that are written purely to attract traffic.

She also says: "Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make."

I am guilty of this. I am terribly competitive by nature. I feel like a loser and a slacker when someone does something (like writing a book) that I haven't done. I've been known to joke bitterly about Alain de Botton and Wes Anderson - both people born in the same year as I - that they have "actually done something with their lives."

And really, if I'm living in a way that is in alignment with my supposed self-definition of success, I should not feel that. I should not even feel bad that I don't have a knitting pattern published in Knitty, or that I don't get 50 commenters on every post. I should just continue to put up my little quilts and my little socks and my little pictures of soil critters and continue to enjoy it. And be happy for the small band of people (though perhaps, based on the few anonymous comments I've got recently - and I can never tell if they're the same people or all different people) more than a "small band" read here.

But there's also another thing. I wrote about the importance of being kind. I do think, showing human kindness, whether it's in small things, or whether it's in a really huge thing (or sometimes, it's a thing that seems small to the person doing it, but huge to the person who is the recipient - and that may well be the case with Dr. Tosney taking the time to talk with me; she very likely forgot that student she spoke with nearly 20 years ago now, but I will not forget her taking the time to talk with me) is vitally important. Not just because it's all "seeing the other person" and that it's what keeps us from descending into brutality. But I also tend to think that kindness is important on a more mystical level. Sort of a Therese of Lisieux level - one of the things I have seen quoted as her having said is something along the lines of

"Every loving act adds to the balance of love in the universe."

And while, as a Christian, I do believe that the forces of Goodness and Love will ultimately win - ultimately have won, perhaps is a better way of saying it - still, I often feel that what we are all called to do is to do what we can to promote love...maybe somehow the loving acts will call others over onto the side of love. I don't know.

I also think that making an effort to show love to others - especially to those who might be a little unloveable - also works against our human tendency to be selfish, to believe that we are the only one who matters - to believe that we don't need anyone else. (And believing you don't need anyone - or Anyone - else can be seen as the first step to being lost).

So anyway, I really like what Ms. Johnson had to say. I think it's a real danger in our society today, that people are told that they need to be a "brand" and that they need to "sell themselves." And I think perhaps it leads to a dangerous attitude of our age; the attitude that "if someone isn't paying attention to me, I don't exist." (And I admit, that's a trap I occasionally fall into.)

I don't know why I get so tense the day before fieldwork. I suppose it's because I'm so aware that things have to work out right, that you have to be sure you have all your kit, the weather has to be just so...

But the day went really well. Everyone was on time, they piled into Ladybug and we drove off to the site - a pasture owned by one of the big ranchers around here. We got permission to go on his land because one of my students does home-health work and she's helping his mother-in-law - so he knew her.

The sampling turned out to be best done with the standard familiar method anyway. There were a few species none of us knew (it happens) but one of my students took samples and borrowed my guidebooks and as part of her work, is going to key them out this weekend.

It was actually kind of a nice day - not too hot (thank goodness for the breeze, and thank goodness for going out at 7 am) and we were done by 10:30. At one point the cattle (all steers, I think) in the field stopped their grazing and looked at us with as much curiosity as a bovine can muster, but none of them approached us. (Which is good, because, secretly, I'm a little afraid of "big" animals like horses and cows, because if they're careless, they can break your foot very easily - stuff like that).

So now one of my soil samples is soaking up water (they were very dry this time, and in order to do the critter-sort I have to let them soak for a while). I'm going to do a couple, and then go home, and have a little relaxation time.


This weekend I should post the recipe for the breadsticks I made last night. I had that late afternoon meeting (which ran long - very, very long) and I was thinking about how good breadsticks and marinara sauce (a favorite snack-light-supper of mine) would taste. But - there are two drawbacks to getting them from Little Caesar's. First, it's a drive across town, and you could probably at least mix up the ingredients in the time it would take to drive. And second, they're greasy and salty and probably not very good for you.

But I found a pizza-crust recipe in one of my cooking-for-one books and modified it, and made my own breadsticks. And they were very good. A bit denser, perhaps, than some (the rising time is shorter - only a half hour) but they were tender and had a good flavor and they were easy to make.

I also had a glass of one of my new favorite summer beverages: iced mint herbal tea. I just followed the instructions on the box-flap of the Celestial Seasonings' peppermint tea box. The mint tea makes great iced tea: it's less astringent than iced black tea (which is one of the things I dislike about iced black tea: it has a slight bitterish taste to me). It's not very strongly minty - the flavor is a lot more subtle than it is in the hot version of the tea - but it's very refreshing.

(The Celestial Seasonings' box says you can sweeten the tea if you want, but I didn't. I think to me it tastes better unsweetened than it would with sugar or honey).

I think tonight I'm going to try making either iced Raspberry Zinger or iced Lemon Zinger. I bet both of those would be good, and they'd be a pretty color, too, from the hibiscus in them.

I am formulating a new rule for my life this summer.

I am only allowed to have one meeting a day. So, if two meetings are scheduled, I will skip one. (most of the meetings aren't 100% OMB MANDATORY that I be there, and even if they're fairly important, I think my hectic summer schedule excuses me a little).

But it's just awful. I'm dragging home at whatever hour I get home (5:30 on Wednesdays) and I'm tired and have used up my words for the day (teaching two classes at an accelerated pace will do that to me) and I just don't want to go back out. And I feel like I need to make time for piano practice. And I usually have grading or prep for the next day's teaching.

There was an activity-type meeting tonight. I was half-thinking of going, but then I forgot the Beautification Council meeting (which is both more urgent and more important) at 4. And I really need some quiet time tonight. (I have field sampling at 7 am tomorrow. I don't mind that it's early but it's going to be HOT even that early. And I'm the "authority" so I will have to be the one with all the ducks in a row and at least be able to pretend that I look like I know what I'm doing. (this is a new sampling regime in a different location)).

So tonight (after the meeting lets out - probably around 5) has been declared a Work-Free Zone. Because no quilting and no knitting make Erica something something.

It's been incredibly humid here. I didn't sleep well last night. I don't know if it was entirely the humidity, or if it was that I would up watching part of "Paradise Road." (I KNOW, the Mythbusters "top 25" special was on, but I watched some of it and you know, those compilation-type shows just don't do it for me).

Paradise Road is a good movie, but it's very sad, and also the kind of movie that makes you wonder at the level of brutality some humans are capable of. In short, it's the story of a group of women - taken prisoner by the Japanese on Sumatra during WWII. In order to try to keep themselves sane and human, they form a sort of choir - I think they called it a "vocal orchestra" and performed classical instrumental pieces (like, for example, an arrangement of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony.

But at the same time, their captors...I know there are probably Conventions against such treatment of prisoners now, but one scene in particular, where a woman was caught speaking out of turn (the women were forced to bow each morning, kowtowing to the Japanese flag and the Emperor. Some few would mutter "bugger the Emperor" which - if you know anything of British slang and attitudes, was really pretty much the strongest rudest thing you could say against him.) Anyway, she got caught, and was forced to kneel out in the hot sun, surrounded by sharpened spikes, so if she fainted, she would die. And another woman, trying to carry water out to her, was turned back (somewhat gently, but still turned back) by the posted guard.

And then the women were moved to a more remote (and worse) camp, I suppose as the Allied forces advanced. One of the women - "Margaret" (her real name was Daisy but she said she hated it and always wanted to be called Margaret) - who had been the one who wrote the arrangements - was dying, and she called Adrienne over to her, asking for a prayer. And Adrienne started reciting the 23rd Psalm.

I don't know many of the Psalms off by heart, but I know that one. And darn it, but I was enough involved in the movie that I sat there, reciting it along with her, tears streaming down my face. (I find myself tearing up a bit now thinking of it).

I suppose a person could look at it not just from the frame of "how brutal people can be to one another" (the captors' treatment of the captives) but also "how kind and loving people can be in the worst of situations" - granted, some of the women (the "doctor" in particular) seemed more interested in doling out tough love and speaking straight, and there were times when people argued - but for the women who survived...I don't know. It's one of those things where you wonder, "How would I fare were I in that situation?" Would I be the one trying to write musical arrangements and form the group into a choir, so we could do something beautiful and purposeful? Or would I be the one pining for what was left behind? Or the one complaining? I don't know.

I guess I spent some time thinking about that. And at the same time, realizing how incredibly grateful I should be that I had a solid roof over my head, and a bed with actual sheets, and I didn't have to worry about things like scorpions and snakes where I was sleeping, and I even had air conditioning.

Heh. My piano teacher recommended I get a metronome (I used to own one years back, for my clarinet practice, but I must have given it away because I couldn't find it up at my parents' house). So I decided to order one from Amazon.

(I really, really wanted one of the old fashioned ones, with the pendulum arm that goes back and forth, but those were twice as expensive as the digital ones and had fewer features, so I went with a little simple Korg digital model).

You know how Amazon suggests "companion items" - things that other people bought when they bought the item you did? Among the items that other people bought along with the metronome, was a set of the Hanon exercises.

Which is exactly why she told me to get the metronome (she wants me both to watch my tempo - like the horse that trots faster when it can see its home barn, I tend to speed up as I get close to the end of a piece, and because she wants me to work on playing faster (weep!))

I got up to the divide (for the placket) on Thermal last night. It feels like a bit of a milestone has been crossed (even though I'm not near done with the top, and I'm now having to knit back and forth, and what's more, do two different rows depending on what side of the marker I'm on).

Fortunately, the waffle pattern is easily remembered, so it doesn't take too much concentration, even with having to shift rows from time to time. (and I'm within 2" of binding off for the arm holes.)

I like this kind of knitting - simple, but you can see that you're getting somewhere.

And I keep thinking about a line from an article in the new Knitscene* from a woman who recently learned to knit. She said she wanted to learn because she envisioned it as being kind of a "white noise for your hands."

I like that line, and I think that does kind of address one of the nice things about knitting - if you're kind of a fidgety person with an excess of that kind of energy - it allows you to sit without having to be still. And it does also provide some kind of occupation for part of your brain. I wonder if, in some people (like me) the "worry centers" of the brain are close to the parts of the brain that are engaged by knitting and sewing and things like that, because it seems that it allows me to de-track from worrying about stuff.

(Interestingly enough, going for long drives in areas where there's not much traffic has a similar effect. Being out more or less alone on a country highway helps my brain to shut off the constant chatter of "what ifs" and "why didn't yous" and all those things)

(*It's all 'simple' projects aimed at beginning knitters. Sometimes I like a good simple project, but if you're the sort of person who's put off by garter-stitch cowls and such, be forewarned)

Whoa, someone on my Twitter stream mentioned the Ozark Medieval Fortress in Lead Hill, AR.

That is not unmanageably far from me. (And even though it's not slated to be "done" until 2030, they're doing tours now).

Hm. Fall break trip, maybe? It sounds kind of cool. And it's not too far from either Siloam Springs or Eureka Springs, which might also have interesting stuff.

We finally got rain (and storms) last night. Not excessive; I didn't see any evidence of flooding.

It did wake me up. I was dreaming about a thunderstorm, actually - I suppose I was hearing it and it was impinging on my subconscious. But then I thought "Wait, it just got awfully quiet" and I woke up. It turns out we had a momentary power outage - not enough to un-set the clock on the combined CD player/radio/tape player that I use as an alarm clock, but it did make the white noise machine I use shut itself off - and I heard the absence of white noise, and it woke me up. Weird.

(I am way too light of a sleeper, I think).

***

I'm reading along in the first of the Georgette Heyer mysteries I bought.

They are really fun. They are pretty much the classic Golden Age set-up (or at least this one - Envious Casca - is: Large English country house. Family that is kind of strained in its relations. Rich, rather unpleasant older brother who likes to lord it over everyone and threatens to change his will every time someone insults him. Younger brother who is a bit of a fool. The only "sensible" member of the family (apparently; though she could turn out to be the murderer, I suppose) is a less-wealthy unmarried female cousin who writes for a magazine (if I remember rightly) and breeds dogs. (I do love a gentry-family novel where one of the poorer relations - and a spinster at that - is the only one with any sense).

Even better, it's set at Christmastime, where Joseph (the foolish younger brother who lives in the family manse at the sufferance of his older brother) wants to have a "real old-fashioned family Christmas" and no one much (other than Mathilda, the female cousin I referred to above) shows any enthusiasm for.

And there's a stage-besotted cousin, and the putative heir who is as unpleasant as the old man himself. And there's the idiot playwright that the stage-besotted cousin brought along. And the foolish girlfriend of the putative heir.

I've just hit the point of the murder (you can perhaps guess which of those characters it is, if you read Golden Age mysteries at all). I expect now the Inspector will step in and take over and figure things out.

In a way, the book reminds me very much of some of the Ngaio Marsh I've read.

Interestingly enough, the title refers back (though I didn't remember until doing a bit of research) to Julius Caesar:

"Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:/
See what a rent the envious Casca made: "

The death in the mystery, in fact, appears to be by stabbing. (I have my suspicious as to who may have done it, but sometimes I am surprised by these things. I just hope it wasn't Mathilda; I rather like her.)

Interesting. I was talking with my mom last night, and I guess she's softened her "no more cats, ever" stance a bit - she said she had gone out to the vet's to settle the last bit of the bill for the "end of life" care for the cat, and one of the receptionists asked her if she was planning on getting another cat (they often get word of cats that need new homes, and like to find people that they know will take good care of them).

My mom said she told her she "wasn't ready to commit yet." She tends to be fairly forthright about stuff like that, so I think if she was still thinking that she didn't want another cat, she'd have said an outright no.

(I've already told them that if they get another cat, and at some point find they will no longer be able to care for it, that I will adopt it and take care of it, so they don't need to let that concern prevent them from getting a new cat.)

Also, often the cats that come into the vet needing homes are fully-grown cats, meaning all the kitten "issues" (training, biting, etc.) will have been past already.

***

Apparently it's flooding in Oklahoma City. It's not even cloudy down here though they're saying we MIGHT get rain later today (Just like we MIGHT have gotten rain every day of the past 10 days). We really need some rain (just not 8").

I found out the other night that when the plumber "fixed" the drip on one of my outdoor spigots, he did so by "capping" the spigot - there's no handle to it any more and I can't get it to turn on. I'm undecided whether this annoys me enough to call him back and ask him to fix it so the spigot can be used. (I have another one but it's on the opposite side of the house, so if I want to water the couple of herb plants in my front garden, I have to either move the sprinkler from my tomato garden or carry jugs of water from the kitchen tap)

We really need rain.

I was pleased this morning, flipping around a bit on the television, to find that The Woodwright's Shop is still on. I remember this show from way back (that Wikipedia page says it went national in 1981, and I remember having watched it in high school).

I always liked that show. Part of it was (of course) the fact that it was a show about making stuff, about the knowledge and skill surrounding making furniture and doors and toys and other objects of wood.

I think I also liked it because it had kind of a loose, "homespun" feel about it - the Wikipedia page claims it's filmed in one take, and I think that while I didn't figure that out specifically, I could sense that the show was more free-form than some of the more tightly-done shows (like cooking shows - as much as I love them, some of them feel too much like there are lots of "elves" scurrying around behind the scenes doing the mise-en-place and pre-chopping stuff and cleaning up the messes, so you don't get quite the same sense as you would if you were trying to replicate the recipe in your own kitchen).

And I'm also happy that I learned something yet again from this morning's episode: why things were chamfered. (that's where the edge of a beam is cut off at a 45 degree angle. I always thought it was purely decorative but according to Underhill, it was done on wagons and such to reduce the weight of the wood while still keeping most of the strength).

I also liked the show, I think, because the host seemed a bit of a non-comformist - not *quite* a hippie, but he definitely dressed differently than most folks I knew, but his clothes were chosen, it seemed, for practicality in his work.

(He also has a good Arts-and-Crafts name, almost a Hobbitish name: Roy Underhill.)

He had a Welsh chairmaker on this morning (I came in a little late to the start, as I said, I had been flipping around different channels). They were looking at old tools and a replica of a 1000 year old Viking toolbox. And they were talking about how the ancient tools still worked just fine for the handwork sort of applications, and Underhill made a comment as to why:

"Wood is wood and iron is iron."

Meaning, things like that don't change their properties over time.

And you know, I think that's part of the reason why I like the traditional crafts, summed up right there. Once you learn the properties of something, once you learn how it works, you're always going to have those skills. The knit stitch I learned how to make at 10 still works just fine 30 odd years later. The handsewing I learned to do at 6 - well, I still pretty much do it the same way (the stitches may have gotten smaller and more even over the years as I grew in patience and skill).

And also, the tools are much the same. The actions are the same. When I sit down to quilt, it is something my grandmother would recognize - something my great grandmother, and very possibly my great-great grandmother would recognize as something they had done. And with knitting - well, it goes back to AT LEAST 1400 in Europe (where all of my ancestors, at least the "recent" in the sense of last-few-millennia, hail from). So even very far back ancestors would recognize the motion and the shape of the tools (if not the material they are made from - right now I'm working with plastic needles for one thing.

I like that sense of constancy, and that sense of shaking hands with the past. And the idea that in a changing world, there are at least a few things you can cling to that remain the same.

And I find that comforting. I often talk on here about how people baffle me sometimes, how I have a hard time dealing with certain human behavior. I expect people to be logical and somewhat predictable but they often are not. For example, I have a hard time talking with someone who is angry, even when (perhaps especially when) that anger is not directed at me. I know someone who periodically is prone to bouts of "free floating" anger, where he gets kind of snappish and churlish and even when I try to be as mild and calm as I can be, he may still wind up "going off" on me for something that would, were he in a better mood, not even be noticed.

So it's a relief to come home to the quilt in the frame. Or the sweater I'm knitting on. Or a batch of bread dough. Because I can kind of count on how they will behave.

(I'm also reminded of the old line from Prince Caspian, which I remember loving when I was a child:

"I'm a beast, I am, and a Badger what's more. We don't change. We hold on."

I loved Trufflehunter for his loyalty.)

One thing I've also realized is that I am, by and large, a low-tech sort of person. Oh, I use technology every day at work, and I openly admit that I love the Internet. But when it comes to "gadgets" for entertainment...I never got into video games much. I don't own a fancy cell phone. I'm a little bewildered at the popularity of texting someone (even someone in the same room, as I've seen happen among groups of teens). I used to think it was because I was a bit older - video games didn't become extremely common (at least, as an item in the home) until I was a tween or teen, and cell phones really only became widespread once I was in grad school (and I didn't have one until I was out on my own and working...)

But I don't think it's just a matter of age - people older than I am get really interested in these things. I think it's actually family influence: my parents were, by and large, pretty low-tech when my brother and I were growing up. We didn't get cable - even though it was available before - until 1986 or so, and it was only a few years ago that they got a dvd player. And while we had computers fairly early on (I fondly remember the TI-99/4A we had), they weren't a major part of our entertainment life. (I did learn to play chess on that computer. And program it to do things like have "goto" loops so it would say something like "booger" over and over and over again. Which I thought was hilarious when I was 12.)

And we also had PONG fairly early on, but I remember getting bored with that fast.

So I don't know if there's some kind of genetic component that makes someone more interested in the sort of traditional handworks thing, or if it's something learned - certainly, as I said before, my parents were big on doing their own repairs and also on "making stuff."

But shows like "Woodwright's Shop" make me happy, even if I would never have the space or the tools (or the time to learn the skills necessary) to build my own chairs and bookshelves. It's still fun to watch Roy Underhill having fun (and he must be, else he would not continue the show for some 30 years) doing it.

****

My knitting mojo is returning. First off: a pair of simple socks that I completed over break and never posted here:



These are just simple, 64-stitch socks, made using a hand-dyed yarn. (Beyond Basic Knits' "Le Jardin" - it actually looks more like "Le Vignoble" (the vineyard) to me). I like the color and would probably be a lot more excited about them if it were cool enough right now to consider wearing wool socks.

Also, this morning, I finished a long-stalled project: the first of a pair of socks knit of Mini Mochi.



Mini Mochi is a very pretty yarn but it is not fun to knit with because it is a bit loosely spun and has a slight "halo," which means you have to be careful not to split stitches.

Again, these were what I term "simple" socks - in this case, they are just ribbed. Which sometimes makes them more tedious to knit, though better to knit on "autopilot."

You also might notice that I re-did my toenail polish. This time I used a "base coat" and a "top coat" (essentially clear nail polish) in the hopes of keeping it from chipping. (The polish on my fingers is LONG gone, and as I'm going to be working with lots of soil in the coming weeks I don't think I'll be putting any more on, because any kind of heavy-duty research work wrecks a manicure pretty fast).

The color is different - I bought a new one when I bought the clear coat. It's called "Profound Pink," which makes me laugh a bit.

Because it's definitely not "profound" in the color sense, like the French poet who said something like the "profound immensity of blue" when describing the sky (or maybe the ocean, I forget), because this is definitely a paler pink.

And it's surely not "profound" in the philosophical sense. I can't imagine anything profound about painting one's toenails. (Then again, I'm a biologist, not a semiotician, and it's entirely possible that someone somewhere has written a treatise on what polished toenails mean, including what it means when you don't also do the fingernails AND when you opt to do it yourself, rather than going to one of those Happy Pretty Nail Fun places where they do it for you).

But I do rather like the color. It's pearlized, and has the effect of at some angles making it look like the nails are not polished at all, whereas at other angles, you can definitely see the shiny pink.

I picked a "prettier" template. (It's funny that I have always used blue as the color on my blog, and that I like it so much for that: I have no blue anywhere in my house, it's all yellow and green and some pink).

I hope the new background color isn't too confounding for anyone with astigmatism to read. Back in the early days of knitblogging there were a few bloggers who used a black background with white typeface in the Courier font (and a really SMALL Courier at that) and I couldn't read them because they gave me too much of a headache. If the new set up is too annoying let me know and I can tweak it a little.

Hand-quilting on both projects in the frames continues. I can actually see the end of the "Chimney Sweep" quilt (this one:)



coming along. I have a few edge blocks left to do, and the border, but the border is less tedious than I feared it would be.

I'm considering what quilt to put in the small hoop next. I think the pvc frame is best for larger quilts (Well, some of the lap-sized ones might not be big enough to fit in it easily, even). But the smaller hoop is better for smaller quilts. So I'm going to have to decide if I want to start the "Dozen Roses" quilt or the "Sea Glass" quilt in there next. Neither of them would require much marking (a tedious part of quilting, and something you need a fairly large area to lay the quilt out in to do). The "Sea Glass" quilt I'm going to quilt from the "wrong" side, using the design in the backing fabric for the quilt design. And the "Dozen Roses" quilt is going to have just diagonal lines (quilted like an X) in each square, and then something in the border. I have a lot of border stencils I can use, I'll just have to look at them. (Oh, I think I have one with bunnies and dandelions...that would be cute given the fact that there are several animal-themed prints in the quilt).

It's funny, when I get away from hand-quilting or hand-sewing for a while, I forget how peaceful it is to work on. (Well, of course, knitting is, too). The nice thing about a lot of these things - maybe not quilting so much, because you've got the frame - is that they're portable and you can take them with you on vacation, or you can take them outdoors if it's a nice day and you fancy working outdoors.

(I've read that the old "quilting by firelight" in Colonial times is largely a myth - which makes sense to me, you need good light to quilt by and a fire won't provide it - but that during the slack times in the summer, when there wasn't as much planting or harvesting to be done, farmwives would take their quilting frames out into the dooryard on sunny days and quilt outside. And while it's far too hot here in the summer to quilt outside, I can imagine a bright clear summer day in, say, Pennsylvania, where it's not too hot and there's a nice breeze - it would be pleasant to quilt outside. Even more so if your children could be playing nearby and easy to keep an eye on, or you could wave to neighbors walking by on the path.)

I also wonder - and I suppose this is really purely superstition and expectation on my part, but still - if taking Faith's quilt frame and setting it up and using it somehow imbued me with some of her good quilting mojo? Or, on a less speculative way of thinking: I feel like using the frame that was hers allows me to honor her and remember her a little. I thought I'd feel kind of sad seeing the frame set up in my bedroom and thinking about how and why I got it, but, kind of like looking at the crochet work my grandmother did makes me think about her and feel close to her, even though she's gone, having Faith's quilt frame makes me feel happy, happy that I knew her and sometimes got to quilt with her.

I'm also happy to note that I have one repeat left to do of the waffle stitch on Thermal before I start dividing to do the placket. I may work on that some this afternoon.

Awesome! (linked by someone on Ivory Tower Fiber Freaks):

A Plagiarism Carol. (PG-13).



It made me laugh out loud several times. I may have to show this to my gen bio class.

I don't fully trust GPS either.

There's the famous "Easter egg" in (I think it is) Google maps where if you try to get directions from (say) New York City to Stockholm, it tells you to start swimming.

But there are also errors that they can make; I've heard of people getting tickets for doing illegal left turns that their GPS told them to do. I guess my concern comes in that I see a lot of people allowing technology to replace common sense. (You also see this with calculator dependence, which is why I'm now glad my 6th grade math teacher would not permit calculators under any circumstances other than to check our work. I get a lot of students who come up with completely unreasonable answers (like, it's an order of magnitude too large) and they kind of shrug and go, "But that's what the calculator (or Microsoft Excel) says" Are you gonna trust your brain, or are you gonna trust a piece of silicon?)

I don't know. I tend to get kind of prickly about people not being able to do simple math, and needing calculators for it. Or not being able to estimate. You need to be able to have a "feel" for things, I think.

****

I'm waiting on a student who's going to help me grab the samples for the next round of soil critters. It's already humid out and I have to say I'm glad he's available to help - he can grab half the samples and I can grab half and it will be much faster. (And my other research student had to cancel for this afternoon, so I get the afternoon off. I'm considering going home and showering after THIS fieldwork, and then, after my hair has mostly dried, going shopping in Sherman. There are a few things I want to pick up from the Target but have been too busy to, and it is sometimes just nice to have a slightly different place to go. And I can get to the Kroger - which is apparently the ONLY place anywhere near me that carries Stonyfield Farm plain lowfat yogurt any more. The Wal-Mart here has reduced their yogurt inventory (in favor of those little pre-made refrigerated tubs of gelatin, of all things) and the other groceries in town don't seem to want to admit that plain yogurt EXISTS. I know it's a specialized thing, but...it's also used in some cooking and baking.

I know, the solution is probably to start making my own. But meh. If I'm going to get a pet I have to tend, I want something with fur.)


***

I have been doing some knitting.



This is part of a semi-secret project. (But I don't think the recipient reads here, nor does the recipient know at this point that they are the recipient).

This is the first time I ever used Berroco's "Vintage" - it's a blend and is washable. I have to say I really am pleased with the stitch definition. (It's just a plain old basketweave stitch from one of the old Harmony guides, but wow, does it look good in this yarn).

I've actually been flipping through the stitch guides again...and am sort of wanting to do my own self-engineered socks again, where I pick a stitch pattern I like and work them out myself, rather than always following someone else's pattern.

I probably need to start doing more designing, with the idea that someday I'm going to design that vest for the pretty pale blue Cascade 220 tweed I have in stash. Maybe do some socks to warm back up, then a hat, and from there maybe start considering the vest.

More on knowing "how" to do things:

Obsolete Skills. The front-page lists a few of the biggies, like dialing a rotary phone (which I did, as a child: we didn't have push button phones until, oh, I don't know, I think I was in college). There are other things (possibly not all SFW) listed on the subpages (and many of those skills are computer/early-Internet related).

But a couple bugged me.

First, reading a Vernier scale. You still have to do this from time to time if you work in the sciences, with certain pieces of equipment. It's not obsolete. It's just a little fiddly and you have to get used to it.

But the one that really bugs me is "map reading." I don't own a GPS device. I don't LIKE GPS devices. If I have to go somewhere, I consult a good map first. (I have the Oklahoma Gazetteer in my car, and I actually wore out a copy of the Illinois Gazetteer when I was doing my graduate research - finding all the tiny little cemetery prairies on county roads that were only marked with a number).

I know people who like their GPS, and it's great for them - but GPS devices can break. Or they can be wrong. Or you can be somewhere that things haven't been updated recently. With a good map, I can see the "big picture" so if there's bad construction (like when I was coming home last week) I can figure out a workaround.

I don't know; I tend to feel like relying too heavily on technology and not knowing how to do things like read a map (and yes, I know people who can't read maps) sets you up to be a little helpless. (Though that may be largely because I've seen too many "failures of technology" where things like the network went down, or a device broke, or something).

Or maybe I'm just prejudiced because I would get the "coveted" role of Navigator on family trips (mainly to keep me quiet; my dad learned that if I could LOOK at a map and see we were still 200 miles from our destination I wasn't going to be asking if we were getting close). And being able to read and understand a map is one of those little things that I'm proud of.

The observation has been made that there seems to be an increasing number of people who cannot do certain fairly basic tasks. (Though as another commenter notes, could it be that the people like that are more "obvious" to us?)

I don't know. As I said over there, I tend to be "impressed" (favorably) by guys who know their way around tools and equipment. Or who can cook. (Embarrassing admission: I've long had an odd little crush on Jacques Pepin, even though he's probably close to my father's age. Because he can cook. [And the accent doesn't hurt]).

And I have a certain level of frustration with people who take the tack of "I can't do this!" when it's something that a little training or a little experience would allow them to do - that sort of immediate clamping-down and going "This is too hard!" or "I shouldn't HAVE to do this!" Or when it's a case where trying and failing really isn't that high of stakes, like with baking bread: if it doesn't turn out, the worst you do is throw it away.

I suppose part of that is my background. I got to thinking about it: When I was growing up, my dad did most of the handy-man type stuff around the house. He did the minor repairs, he painted, he built things.

I remember how he and my mother built large, extensive shelving on either side of the open basement stairs: one side was to store canned goods, empty canning jars, and little-used kitchen appliances (like the pressure canner). It also became home to my mother's sauerkraut "factory" (three new-never-used-in-the-lab 5000 mL beakers that she filled with cabbage and salt, and covered with plastic bags filled with water, until the cabbage fermented). The other side, my mother used to store her accumulated fabric, and she also lined up her cookbooks and some craft books on the edge facing the stairs. (I remember many summers, on hot days, sitting on the stairs and reading either craft books or cookbooks: the basement tended to be some 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house, and we didn't have central air conditioning when I was a kid).

A few years after that, they did similar construction in the garage, to store tools and sporting goods (and so my dad could clear the floor and actually get his then-new Crown Victoria into the garage).

He also did the minor plumbing repairs, and did stuff like rewire lamps. He did the basic car maintenance. And he also wired a manual choke into a balky Dodge Tradesman van that he used for doing fieldwork (and before installing the choke, he used to take the console off, and - my memories of this are vague because I was young and kind of scared of it and didn't really pay attention - use a screwdriver to hold a certain valve open while he cranked the ignition when the thing didn't want to start).

And of course, my mom sewed and quilted and knitted and crocheted. But she also baked the bread and most of the baked goods we ate. And she had an enormous garden - in addition to the zucchini and corn and tomatoes that "everyone" grew, she also grew carrots and peppers and cabbages and brussels sprouts and I think, one year, turnips. And she canned a lot of the excess (even using the pressure canner I referred to, for the stuff that wasn't sufficiently acid to can safely in a hot-pack).

And she was otherwise just generally "capable" in a lot of ways. Part of it was probably that, when my brother and I were small, my dad was still teaching field camp and he'd be gone for four or six weeks in the summer - so my mom had to manage most of the stuff on her own, or with minimal help.

And I'm sure part of all that was the simple frugality my parents had: the idea that if you can do something yourself, and you have the time (sigh, back in those days, before my dad got made a department chair, he DID), you might as well do it yourself, rather than paying someone else. And part of it was probably that they came from that background, in particular, my mom: her mother had grown up on a farm, and married a man, that, while he was a wonderful man in many ways (or so I'm told, I never got to meet him), was definitely NOT handy - so she learned to repair stuff and build stuff herself. (My grandma actually climbed up on her porch roof at the age of 80 to do some kind of repair. It was after that that her grown grandsons insisted she stop, and call them, when something needed fixing).

But I do think there's something more to it than mere frugality. There's a definite sense of accomplishment, of sort of going "Ha!" at the stupid vagaries of life that lead to things like big branches landing on your roof or the wax seal in your toilet failing yet again. Being able to fix it yourself - there's something satisfying about it.

And there's the independence, too. These days, if a repair is one I think I can effect myself (though if it involves natural gas, electricity, or the more complex parts of plumbing, I call an expert), I will do it myself. In part because it's enough of a frustration (a) finding a workman with the time and (b) waiting for them to show up - a lot of them have apparently not quite figured out that in some households, there ISN'T a "housewife" who can stay home all day long, no problem, to wait for him to show up. So if I can figure out how to fix it, I do it.

I think my brother and I were also trained in it young. I remember things like getting small-scale sets of tools for Christmas, and being allowed to mess around with scrap wood and "build" stuff. And I learned to sew (and my brother learned to sew. As my mother said: men lose buttons too). And we learned to cook. (And not knowing how to cook, not being able to cook, is another entire class of helplessness. And yes, I've known a few people who never learned to cook and wound up relying on carry-out or pre-prepared meals).

And in general, there was a sense of "you can figure out how to fix it yourself. (And we were also allowed to mess around with stuff: we were allowed to build things out of old cardboard boxes, or take my dad's broken pocketwatch apart, things like that. Even though they maybe made a mess. And I remember being surprised on occasion when I learned that one or another of my friends wasn't "allowed" to do things like build a hotel for her stuffed toys out of cardboard boxes, because it was "messy.")

(I also remember: my dad, with assistance from a couple family friends, built an awesome "fort" - and it was a pretty permanent one, it was still standing after my brother and I grew up and left home - in the backyard for us).

And so, I just kind of grew up with the assumption that having a Ph.D. didn't mean you didn't know how to use tools - or that you thought that changing the oil on your car was beneath yourself. (If anything, I think doing stuff like cleaning my own darn house or doing my own yardwork is good for me; it keeps me from getting too uppity about being edu-ma-cated.)

However, as several people brought up, it's harder today to be a general fix-it-yourself-er. A lot of things have big stickers on them warning of how warranties are voided if you even so much as open a compartment to have a look. And cars have now gotten to the point where a lot of the old shade-tree mechanic stuff is not possible, or not as easy, any more. (My mom talks about the Karmann Ghia my dad had when they were first married, and how he was so fond of that car, in part, because he could do nearly all the maintenance and repair on it himself). And I think of the old "compression" faucets we had when I was growing up: they would periodically start to drip, so my dad would turn off the water to the faucet, take it to bits, put in a new washer, and stop the drip. Dealing with drips when they come is harder in the newer model faucets, and in recent years, a few times when a faucet's started to leak, my dad's found that the whole thing needs to be replaced, not just a washer.

(And I think that's also true of some appliances: in a lot of cases, it's almost cheaper to buy a new one rather than fix the old one. And I think that mentality seeps into other areas of life; I know people who will throw away a piece of clothing rather than trying to mend it if it gets torn or the cuffs wear. I remember my mother "turning" the collars on some of my dad's dress shirts when they got worn. It was tedious work, but it saved the cost of a new shirt...)

Though, then again: though there are a lot of not-handy people out there, there also is a thriving group - probably not even a minority - of people who are. A lot of my friends are people who "do" something, whether it's quilting or pottery or baking bread or whatever. I tend to make friends more readily with people who have an interest in something involved with "making" something. (And I tend to brush off people who think it's stupid that someone would take months to sew little bits of fabric together, and then more months to handstitch the top to a back, through a cotton batting. It's OK to have different interests; it's not to belittle an important interest of another person).

I also think for those of us who spend a lot of time in doing things that don't seem "permanent" (grading), it helps a lot, psychologically, to have something that does get "done" and stay "done." Whether it's fixing something that's broken, or making something new.

But I do wonder at a mentality that seems to think that fixing a wobbly chair or putting together a new bicycle somehow "below" them and something it's better to hire "help" for. It's one thing to know when you genuinely can't do something (I've injured myself a few times, lifting things I probably should have got help on, or trying to bash out a repair using the wrong tools because I didn't own the right ones), or to hire out a job because you know you won't have time to get it done.

But I worry about trends that lead to people seeming increasingly "helpless." From my experience, it seems that the people who are good at fixing one type of thing (whether it's computers or cars or lamps) also tend to be better at other types of problem-solving and "fixing." And, as I've said, there's a certain pride and satisfaction, I think, in being able to do something yourself. And it would be sad if some people never got to experience that.