I’m now so sucked into playing with the fancy new camera that I am not happy with any of the photographs I’m taking.  Any of them.  And yet, I want to document things I’m making and seeing.  So I’ll suck it up as best I can.

The leaf-lace shawl is blocked and ready for my Mom.

Blocking this reminded me of how much I hate my current blocking surface options.  There was a lot of cussing, and mattress moving, and cat-chasing.  I’ve held off on getting anything else for so long, but I think I need to consider a board or mats or something.  Cashmere/mink lace shouldn’t sit around for weeks unblocked.  It’s just wrong.

I made some very simple toe-up socks.  I think this is fortissima, but the ball-band was long gone.

Our new bush-form copper beech tree is settling in nicely, and just starting to turn.

I’m scrambling to get ready for Rhinebeck.  I’ve made a couple of dozen new bags, and will be working at the Spirit Trail booth again.  Stop by if you’re at the festival.

Lord a’mercy, I do let things slide.  I’ve finished a couple of pairs of socks I haven’t shown you, added a beautiful new tree to the garden to whom I have not introduced you, been to a fantastic music festival I haven’t talked about, read some huge number of books I haven’t reviewed, experienced a computer crisis too torturous to detail in full, and just generally kept to myself more than usual.

Most importantly: I escorted my Mom to her first chemo treatment last week, and things went very well.  We liked her infusion nurse, the port worked correctly, and she reacted well to the chemo meds.  We’ll be heading back there every three weeks, and I’m hoping she is lucky enough not to have too many side effects.  She has decided she doesn’t want her new shawl to be dyed, so that is washed and I’m hoping to block it tonight.  I’m still looking for good hat patterns for her, since I have another skein of the cashmere/mink.

Photo sorting  and storage combined with huge music libraries makes laptops and ipods and cameras stop functioning.  Wireless networking can run terribly afoul of anti-virus software and firewalls.  Moving iTunes is more distressing and painful than actually moving and organizing my real, physical music library has ever been.  (Those, combined, are the real reason for my absence of late.  The multitudinous shiny black contraptions have had tantrums galore, and are not quite ready to play nicely together yet.  I desperately need to updated my ipod, and I’m hoping tonight will be the night.)

I intend to get back in the studio to sew some bags for Rhinebeck, but the garden is just so fun to work on at this time of year. Moreover, my sewing machine and serger both have computers in them.  And, perhaps, despite my career and Scott’s career and the source of almost all of our money . . . I don’t think I like computers anymore.

Watermelon Park Fest was great this year, though the rains did dampen the fun on Saturday.

Scandinavian mysteries are addictive.

Blah blah blah.

Taking a break from wallowing in Wyoming photos and schlepping audio files over to the big shiny networked external hard-drive to help out a pal.  A few years ago, I met Eva at the Knitters Review retreat and I liked her instantly.  She is smart and funny and kind and she knits beautiful things–sometimes out of dog hair.  Eva wants to go to Antarctica, and you can help send her.  Please do.

This is how we’re starting. Photos, unmanipulated, as I sort.  The sorting will be no small feat–I’m going to have to buy an external hard drive if I want my laptop to continue to function.  The hard drive in this puppy is just too small.

If these are the only really good photos I get out of this trip, I’ll only cry a little bit.  You can see a bit of our side mirror in the shot.  I left that in here to assert that I am not dumb enough to approach a bison.  Bison kill people, particularly at this time of year.  These bison approached us on the road in Yellowstone, causing a huge traffic jam and allowing me to get way more detail than my lenses would otherwise allow.

This photo of from Mammoth Hot Springs.  The stink there was powerful, but so were the colors.

Those two are making me happy.  They’re making me happier on my own screen, big and shiny, but wordpress only allows so much.  If you want to see bigger versions, please go to my flickr set and look at the largest size.

Those are the only Wyoming photos I’ll give you for now.  Because . . . I can prove I’ve been knitting.  If you are Etain, go away now, please.  I want your daughter’s present to be a surprise to you, since newborns are just too easy to surprise.  I gave you that warning nice and early, mind you.

Scott’s new socks:

He liked the Harris Tweed socks I made myself a while back, so I made him a pair in some gorgeous Mountain Colors Bearfoot.  While we were in Jackson, I stopped off in Knit on Pearl to buy some wildfoot for the heels and toes.  Nothing like a boring basic to stretch the gorgeous hand-dyed artisinal yarn.

My new socks:

The mock cable wave socks (I won’t say the title as published–it’s wrong and it makes me itch) in gorgeous, soft, delicious String Theory Caper in “darkstar.”  I want to make a house out of this yarn and live in it forevermore.

Mom’s almost-done stole:

I want to dye it, but I’m afeared.  It’s cashmere/mink.  It’s soft as can be.  It’s just not the most exciting color.  I have yarn to make a hat too, so I’m poking around for good chemo cap patterns.

Etain–last warning.  Away, woman!

Etain’s new daughter is named Rowan, which makes me very happy.  Part of the reason it makes me so happy is that two of my favorite people are named Rowan, and we differentiate them when speaking by saying “Girl Ruadhan” (who taught me to knit and is wonderful) and Boy Rowan (who is in Tinsmith, and is wonderful)  So now, we can add Baby Rowan to the list, knowing full well she is also wonderful.  Right, so, Rowan’s sweater:

A baby surprise jacket, in Spirit Trail Helen (I think it’s Helen–I had it leftover from some other wonderful something) with handmade antler buttons I got at an event this summer.  I kind of want to eat this sweater.

Tags: antlers, bison, grand tetons, yellowstone

(how’s that for a lazy music allusion in a post title?)

Scott and I scampered off to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana for a couple of weeks, and I forgot to warn you in advance. We visited family and then we visited the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I fell desperately in love with Wyoming. I’m trying to come up with some way–any way–to find us real jobs there. In the meantime, I have thousands of photos to sort through, huckleberry bush options to research, wildflower seeds to foster, travel knitting to document, lonely pets to soothe, and lots of other ends to tie up. Suffice it to say that:

We both really needed a break
We had a wonderful time with Scott’s family in Utah
Altitude is very tough on me, but the views are worth it
Huckleberries are delicious, and so are thimbleberries
I love raptors even more now than I did before
Northern Harriers are beautiful dancers
Golden Eagles are huge. I mean huge. Huge.
Wolf puppies are very fluffy and everyone, human and wolf, is lucky I couldn’t reach them
Trumpeter Swans kick the crap out of Canada Geese just for fun, and they actually sound like they’re laughing while they do it
Coyotes are hilarious and cute when they hunt in tall grasses, unless you are coyote-prey
Pronghorn are really hard to photograph well unless you’re used to high-speed photography
Sour cream ice cream may actually be worthy of worship
Bison are fascinating, until you’ve seen 2,000 of them while looking for one single bull elk
Trout have a new nightmare, and that nightmare is named Lanea
Chris Rock and Scott are the same height.

I keep neglecting to review the books I’ve been reading. I have been reading, picking books over knitting needles more often than not, and a lot of what I’ve been reading has either come directly from Mike’s shelves or from recommendations he made over the years. My attempts to burn through our unread books and stop filling shelves so quickly fell apart this spring when everything got really hard. I take a lot of comfort in reading and in knowing I have good things to read once my current story dries up. Too much comfort–hence that year without book purchases. But these days, I’m letting such things slide and wallowing in books.

Time to play catch up–I’ll poke around my goodreads list and tell you what I think about what I’ve been reading. And you’ll forgive me for having little or nothing astute to say. This will take a few posts, but I hope to have caught up by the end of the month.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Wooohoooo! I love Stephenson!
Ok, I have more to say than that. More specifically, I love Stephenson when he reigns it in a bit. Anathem disappointed me a bit. Here, though, he kept things relatively tight. He looks at mythology a lot in this book, and that always makes me smile. As I’ve come to expect, Stephenson wrote a great female lead, a great male lead, some truly perplexing characters and plots. I wish I could read it again for the first time.

The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes and The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House by Neil Gaiman. I cannot count the number of times the phrase “what do you mean, you haven’t read Sandman” has come up. I know I know, I’m way behind the times. Yes, I was born and bred a geek. But I also devoted my geeky energy to things over on crazy moon language land (i.e. Celtic linguistics) for quite some time. I like these, but honestly I think Gaiman does a much better job with just plain old writing. He’s a word guy, and graphic novels are about visual images, and these didn’t allow Gaiman to shine. Pity, that.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. This is a book I have tried to press on many people. I’m a huge fan of Chabon, and I am particularly intrigued by his continued forays into genre fiction. Go man, go! This novel is set in an alternate universe, wherein the US handed over a big chunk of Alaska to serve as a temporary Jewish homeland, post WWII. And in that alternate universe, there is a mystery, and our hero Meyer Landsman sets out to solve a murder mystery and accidentally discovers a terrible conspiracy. I love it. It’s a great book, and a great audiobook, and Chabon is wonderful.

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth
I’m normally a big fan of Unsworth. This one fell flat for me. It’s a well-researched historical mystery novel, which follows a disgraced monk as he joins a traveling group of players who witness a murder. I was reading this when a lot of sad things were happening, so it may be that my brain just turned against it. But, my head doesn’t like the book that much, whatever the reason.

Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die by Michael Largo
Great googly-moogly, this is a terrible book. I wish it had been good. No. It was painfully bad. Poorly researched and written. Sloppy. So sloppy, in fact, it’s a wonder I didn’t use it as kindling. In one sentence, the author uses “virus” and “bacteria” interchangeably. As if they’re the same things. Note to author: THEY’RE NOT THE SAME DAMN THING!

Photos of green things, some of which I made.

My new camera is here.  Click.

I’m pretty sure that’s a silver-spotted skipper.

Kayo asks: “Anybody want a free kitten?  We have several.”

Tags: Kayo, kittens

My Mom is the Executive Director of SIDS Mid-Atlantic, and she is helping to plan a great fundraiser to help eradicate SIDS.  The fourth Annual Brisan’s Bash will be held at Philip Carter Winery in beautiful Hume, VA  on September 19th.  There will be fantastic live music (I should get on that . . . ), grape stomping, food, wine, adorable healthy babies (I have that bit on good authority) and lots of fun. We’d love to see you there. I’ve added the details in a page linked in the header and pasted in the PDF here.

PDF invitation

The TWO surgeries my Mom has had still haven’t gotten all of the cancerous cells, so she has to have a mastectomy.  Just thinking about it makes me think very violent thoughts,  so let’s move on.

We’re skipping Celtic Summer Camp this year for the first year in a very long time.  It’s bittersweet–I will absolutely miss spending that time with my tribe in the woods, but it’s not the most relaxing way to spend a vacation, and our minds are understandably elsewhere.  Instead, we’re heading out to Utah at the end of August to see Scott’s family and then up to Wyoming to see the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone.  I am really looking forward to the whole trip.  We haven’t been on a vacation like this since our honeymoon, and our honeymoon was practically local and very modest.

I’m using the trip out West as an excuse to buy a proper camera.  It should be here within a week or so, and I’m excited to play with it.  I’m lucky enough to have lots of friends and family members who are experienced digital photographers, so I’m sure I can get some great tips from them.  If I’m really lucky, I’ll even be able to borrow a decent lens or two.