Friday evening things

 * Facetimed with my mom tonight. The impetigo now looks much more like the "classic" (slightly crusty) presentation, but the swelling she had is down a lot. She said her appetite was coming back (but also has some sores inside her mouth, which means only certain foods are comfortable to eat.) She seems a lot less tired and seems to be on the mend.

She's still on "house arrest" for yet another day because of the contagiousness but also I think she's selfconscious about her skin. Hopefully the sores clear up fairly fast (though she also said "If I go out I can just mask up and that will cover almost all of it")

And I am INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL that the nurse practitioner she saw at the minute clinic was able to figure out fast what she had (apparently they did not do a culture). And that it looks like the antibiotic cream and the keflex are working. 

My mom commented "You don't HEAR about impetigo any more, I remember when I was a teen some of my nieces and nephews had it" but that was in the infancy of antibiotics, when I think they used gentian violet to try to treat it, so I bet it's less talked-about now (kind of like how the doctor was very casual when he diagnosed me with scarlet fever) because antibiotics still (most often) wipe it out. 

* I have decided the next sweater I start will be the Moon Moth sweater (you can see the pattern here)

I have the yarn already - bought it last year. (I actually spotted it again in my stash, which reminded me). I realized that I wanted to be sure I had the right needles, so I dug through my supply of circulars, and womp womp, I did not have a US 3 in 24 inches (I don't normally knit sweaters at what's kind of a dk gauge, though that's just the ribbing). I contemplated either doing it on 4s (which I do have) and just letting the ribbing be looser, vs. going and purchasing the needle.

Well, I also thought "I need out of town for a little bit" because it's been a stressful week between Meeting People I Didn't Know (the folks coming to digitize some of the herbarium, and until our new botanist is fully on board, I am the herbarium contact person), and having a blood draw on Wednesday (for just routine annual testing; I don't think anything is wrong, I seem to be perfectly healthy), and especially worrying about my mom. (And well also the state of the world, but I think that's always worrisome now)

So I decided: well, you could go to JoAnn's. Though even though they seem to have pulled out of bankruptcy they don't always have everything in stock. And then I thought: you could go to the yarn shop, you might pay a couple bucks more, but it's a bit closer and it's nicer and you can support a business you feel like you have a strong interest in staying open.

So I went there, with the thought that if they didn't have what I needed, I could always default to JoAnn's.

Nope. I asked the lady when I walked in for a size 3 24 inch and a size 3 16 inch, and she pulled one of each right out of a drawer. That was easy.

I also had to look at the yarn while I was there. And bought this

I just think it's neat.It reminds me of the maps in my old social-studies books when I was a kid: that intense blue of the ocean, the light green as the generalized "land" color. I plan to make socks of it, using either a slipped-stitch pattern of some kind (you have to be slightly careful with those as they draw the fabric in and can result in tight socks) or a knit-purl pattern of some kind (Maybe purl ridges? That might work).

I did try to start the Recreational Tilling socks last night using some really old Regia (possibly it was one of the Kaffe Fasset inspired colorways) that I had, but the skein I picked up tangled somehow and I spent the evening trying to make it into a ball. I didn't quite finish doing that, maybe that's for the Zoom knitting tomorrow. 

But anyway: I have what I need to start the Moon Moth sweater now. Might consider swatching after I get done here.

* I also did go to JoAnn's. Bought a book of granny-square projects because there was a "one giant granny square" afghan in there and I want to make one using some of the colorshifting cake yarn I have. And there are some cute hats and other things, and sometimes granny squares are just fun. 

I also looked at the Halloween stuff. I didn't buy anything but later after getting home I got tempted into mail ordering this

It's the skeleton of a garden gnome.

Yes, it's incredibly dumb but it made me laugh. I admit if I didn't worry about it being stolen I'd put it out in my garden in October; as it is I'll probably have it set up in the entryway with the little duck and iridescent unicorn skeletons I have.

I WILL put out the other thing I ordered, and just hope it doesn't get stolen: a skeleton arm stake you push down into your soil, so it looks like a skeleton is sticking its arm up out of the grave and it's giving a thumbs up. 

I also find that extremely funny (especially given this year). So I ordered one and I'll probably stick it next to my little garden flag stake - I've had that up for four years and never had a flag stolen off it so maybe that place is OK. 

It's been cooler these past couple days and I don't know if my improved mood yesterday evening and today is partly due to that, partly due to gratitude over my mom's issue not being serious (and it seems, on the way to being fully solved), or maybe I'm starting to pull more out of the funk that settled over me in 2020. I don't know. I hope it's the last because it really sucks (to use a word I try not to use on here) to feel like nothing is that interesting and that you're just kind of slogging through life because there's really only the choice of "slog" or "die" and "die" isn't a good choice. 

It's also possible that I've mostly opted out of the news (other than a few minutes of local news to see the weather and how the construction on the various highways is going) in favor of either cartoons or things like Bizarre Foods, doing that as a self-preservation measure. (I know enough - too much - of what's going on from social media and my occasional perusing of either the 'Grauniad' or NPR online. 

I do think television news started to implode when it realized that it could make ITSELF the news by inflating every story and ratcheting up the "doom" narrative. (Oh, don't get me wrong: there are a lot of bad things in the world and we may be at kind of a tipping point, but beyond my one vote and my encouraging others to vote the way I do, there's not much else I can do; it seems, for example, the courts are largely abrogating their roles in some things and there's a lot of corruption. The world may be going to Hell but hopefully I don't have to go with it....)

* I'm also working on a harder piano piece. I've long loved "Jupiter" from Holst's "Planets" suite, and lately, its use in a favorite episode of Bluey of mine ("Sleepytime," and yes, it makes me bawl most every time*, but I still love it) motivated me to track down a solo-piano arrangement of the pieces.

"Jupiter" is hard and I may never be able to play the very introduction (cascading sixteenth notes in both hands, with a different pattern for each) fast enough to sound "right." But I am beginning to master some of the other bits, especially the part that was later transformed into the hymn-tune Thaxted and it pleases me. 

(*It's complicated why. I know some parents have Big Feelings about the episode because they see their kids growing up and realize they'll never again experience the little-kid things. But for me, it's the whole realization that I AM a grown-up - the bit where Bingo gives up her "lovey" Floppy (though as it turns out for just a bit) gets me - there are a lot of things about being a grown up that are hard and unpleasant and some of the consolations you had as a kid don't work any more**. But also the scene where Bingo is looking at her mother (in the form of the sun) and you hear Chilli's voice saying "I'll always be there for you, even if you can't see me, because I love you" REALLY gets me because - well, maybe everyone who's lost a parent that they loved and had a good relationship feels that and wishes maybe that they could feel that love more clearly. And last night - well, they re-ran it last night and it really got me, to the point where I was sobbing, because it was only a couple hours after my mom's call to let me know that she was, ultimately, going to be okay - yes, I worry too much. But I also know all to well there will be a day when I "can't see her' any more and I'll have to trust in the memory of her love and that somehow it lasts beyond this life..."

(** there's another episode where Chilli tells Bluey - who is sad because a friend she made briefly while camping has had to go back home to Quebec - that "The world is a magical place" and I really wish I still felt that more; some days it's hard to find the magic or even very much pleasantness. And yes, yes, I know: a truly mature person doesn't need someone else to reassure them or to show them the magic or whatever, they can find the niceness and the magic on their own but the thing is I can't, always, and that makes it hard...)