I’m posting all quick-like because my wonderful Mom-in-law Karen is in town with her beau Lee, and Scott, the pets, and I are soaking up all of the goodness we can.  Kayo, Yarrow, and Speedwell are all likely to hitch-hike to Utah when Karen and Lee leave.

Very briefly–the festival went well, though it was hot as hell.

There was a turkey nest in our living history encampment.  The chicks apparently started hatching on Monday, so if there’s a family of gobblers in the Leesburg area that seems to think they’re crows, er, go ahead and blame us.

My pals Jayme, Lissa, Carol, and Jinann gave a kick-ass spinning workshop on Saturday, and the masses are crying for more.  Several new spinners have sprouted from a horse-pasture in Leesburg, and many people are calling for at least two repeat-performances next year.  Woot!  Woot, I say!

If anyone has money or time they want to donate to a really wonderful struggling cultural festival, gimme a shout.  Please.  For the love of plaid and pipes and kilts and fiddles and bridies and the Tuatha De Danann,  give us your wallets.  We can help make great art and learning happen with your money, and you can get a tax break.

Our Bardic performances went very well, and we had a full crowd on Saturday.   Sadly, Anubh and I were Etaine-less.  Sigh.  Lots of folks in each of our audiences were clearly engaged and well-read and really interested in Bardic poetry and Celtic history and mythology, all of which had me chuffed.  And again, people asked to buy CDs and books, neither of which either of us have produced.  And yet no book or recording contracts.

Le Vent du Nord is amazing live.  Freaking amazing.

I didn’t get to buy a darn thing, which was very sad.  I did get to spend a fair amount of time with my girls at Dancing Pig and Tuatha, and I did get to meet the newest Crafty Celt, and those are beautiful things.

My peeps kept me out of the sun as much as they possibly could, and occassionally chased people away from me so they get me under the green, leafy part of the sky and keep me well.  I managed to escape a long weekend of near constant sun-exposure with no real burn and only a mild sun-sensitivity reaction.

Most importantly. I received an amazing amount of help, love, encouragement, and congratulations from my wonderful friends and family, on-line and in person.  It was amazing.  My people are amazing.  I hope I manage to earn a tenth of the love you all give me, but I don’t know how I ever could.

I alluded to this poem by Paul Durcan, and I figured it would be cruel to brag on a poet’s talent without actually sharing the goods.  Particularly when I’m mentioning an Irish poet right before the Potomac Celtic Festival, which honors Ireland this year.  Paul Durcan is one of my favorite poets from Ireland.  He’s funny.  He’s lyrical.  He’s irreverent. His poems beg to be read aloud, and by someone who knows how to do it.  I should make him a cake, for this poem alone: 

Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.

When I was a boy, myself and my girl
Used bicycle up to the Phoenix Park;
Outside the gates we used lie in the grass
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.

Often I wondered what de Valera would have thought
Inside in his ivory tower
If he knew we were in his green, green grass
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.

Because the odd thing was–oh how odd it was–
We both revered Irish patriots
And we dreamed our dreams of a green, green flag
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.

But even had our names been Diarmaid and Gráinne
We doubted de Valera’s approval
For a poet’s son and a judge’s daughter
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin.

I see him now in the heat-haze of the day
Blindly stalking us down;
And, levelling an ancient rifle, he says "Stop
Making love outside Áras an Uachtaráin."

I think Durcan is not that widely known outside of Ireland because many of his poems require a certain knowledge of Irish history or culture that many folks just don’t have.  It’s easy for me to forget that, because my head is stuffed with the country.  For this poem to make the best of sense, lemme ‘splain some things. 

The easy stuff:
Phoenix (a bastardization of fionn uisce, or Clear water) Park is a huge  (over 1,700 acres) gorgeous walled garden in Dublin that houses the American Ambassador’s house, one of the oldest zoos in the world, the HQ of an Garda Síochána (the Irish police force), hurley pitches and, of course,  "Áras an Uachtaráin" , which is the official residence of the president of Ireland. 

Durcan is using one of my favorite linguistic tics Irish people have developed while speaking English–saying "used" instead of "used to."  It’s a back form–the "to" isn’t necessary in Irish, so why use it in English?  It also does a lovely thing to the rhythm of these lines.

Diarmaid and Gráinne are star-crossed lovers from Irish myth.  Gráinne is promised to Fionn mac Cumhaill, a great leader of warriors–the Fianna.  Diarmait (read Dermot) is Fionn’s friend and retainer.  He falls for Gráinne.  Chaos ensues. 

And finally, the big stuff:  Ireland has a modified parliamentary system, and the president (aka Uachtarán) is essentially the head of state, but has no legislative powers.  De Valera was president for many years and a huge influence on the foundation of the Irish state, having been the only male participant in the Easter Rising (beginning of the Irish war for Independence) to escape execution.   He was spared because he was born in the US, and thus not a subject of the British crown.  And de Valera was a devout Catholic, a lover of the Irish language, and apparently quite a prude.  He used piles and piles of Catholic imagery, much of it extolling the martyrdom of his compatriots from Easter Monday 1916, to bully Ireland into shape.  His shape. 

But, of course, Ireland wasn’t a repressive, Catholic place way back in the way back, as we know from the mythology–it’s chock full of sex.  Naughty, hot, inappropriate, promiscuous, cheating sex.  And the leaders of the revolution alluded to mythology all of the time to rouse their people to action.  They tried to use just the proud, nationalistic bits of the myth to their end, but they couldn’t keep the hot sex in the bag.  And it drove many of the Catholic Nationalists wild (and not in a sexy way). 

So there you go.  Questions?

Cramming Irish down your throats now.  Because, for some odd reason, it relaxes me.

I’ll give a lovely present to anyone who can explain the allusion in the title of this post.  It’s a hard one.  But it’s worth it, because a very good poet is involved.

The Irish word for president is Uachtarán, which comes from uachtar, the word for cream.  Because the cream rises to the top.  (I wish that were always–or possibly ever–true in politics as it is in dairy processing).  That phrase above, Áras an Uachtarán–that means “the president’s house” and is almost exclusively used to refer to the residence of the Irish president.  Whatever.  In this president’s house, there is a hell of a lot of chaos and some fretting.  And too much damn kittening.  Loud kittening at 4:00 a.m.

So, very busy preparing for the festival and for my wonderful Mother-in-law Karen to visit.  Ten days left.  Please come.   Or, you know, stop by and vacuum something in our house if you’re so inclined.  Or pet the dog: Kayo insists he is being neglected.  He may, possibly, be reacting either to my stress or to the amount of cussing Scott and I take to when we’re watching Deadwood dvds.

I’ve accidentally started onto a local author kick.  I picked up The Maltese Falcon from the to-read shelf because I couldn’t believe I’d never read it, and Scott had kindly gone and bought a copy (14 years ago).  And it reminded me that Hammett was from beautiful St. Mary’s County, Maryland.  When I finished Falcon, I picked up the Book of Fred, because it has a fish on the cover, and I like fish.  And the author is also a local.  And then I grabbed Dogs of Babel because, er, it has a dog on the cover, and I like dogs.  My reading choices are a bit less reasoned in the run up to the fest.  Another local author.  I’m wondering if the streak will continue.  I’m running through Babel pretty quickly–we’ll see if chance will make it four in a row.

Ooh–maybe I should develop some ridiculous superstition about this and make myself truly nuts.  Like, say, if I can randomly grab another local off the shelf, then it won’t rain at the festival.

No.  Too risky.  I have too much work to do.

Now figure out that little riddle and I’ll give you a prize.

Not much time for words these days, but here are some images from the annual groovywomen’s trip to the rivershore.

Friday’s arrival scene.  Gray and blustery.  That’s Virginia in the distance, and the Chesapeake bay is down the river to the left.

Some pictures of me and my spinning, courtesy of Andrea, who knows my camera better than I do:

That’s some Lorna’s Laces top.  The fiber is a joy to spin, but I don’t think I need to own the yarn.

Some socks I’d made found homes:

On Morgan, who is fetching in the fire colors, and Claudia,

Who was taken by how well these Trekking stripes matched up.  I tried to get pictures of Claudia jumping up and down after I gave her these, but no dice.  I should have called on Andrea to take charge of the camera again.

A bag Claudia crocheted for Dami, who may in fact have a small attachment to purple.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Several women brought yarns they didn’t need to own anymore, and it was great to see the crocheters gin up these net bags.  Each bag was as unique as each person.  Of course, I only managed to get the one decent picture.   There is a small chance that adult beverages affected my ability to take pictures.  But I guarantee you that several people learned how to crochet, and a few others expanded their knitting abilities, and Etaine and I had a great time spinning.

Our Sunday ritual: crabs at Evanses.  You must pronounce it “Evanzez,” or the locals will punish you.  One of us apparently mis-spoke and called it “Evans'”, because they had no blue crabs for us.  Somehow, Claudia, Dami, and I survived.  We survived on crass conversation and butter, if I remember correctly.

There should be more pictures, but I was too busy doing whatever I was doing to remember to pick up my camera.  Imagine one final shot here.  On the way out of town, Claudia and Dami stopped.  They stopped to buy me flowers, only I didn’t know the plan.  And then they chased me around the beltway to deliver a bouquet of roses.  Sniff sniff.  Thanks, girls.  It’s the only time I’ve ever enjoyed being pulled over.

We have reached that time of year again . . . that time of year when the festival looms so large that I completely fail to accomplish the simplest of tasks.   This year, what with those thugs rolling me in the alley and making me la presidente, it’s worse than usual.  This year, I’m so blotto I can barely muster an opinion.  And I’m made of opinions.   I fear for my soul, I tell you.

Normally, I can write well and clearly about my opinions.   Well, clearly things aren’t normal at the moment.  Huge festival, right there, with my name attached to it in big, scary letters.  Big truck repair bill.  Back injury (all better now, thank goodness) messing with my long weekend.   Confirmed proof that Yarrow, my beloved but evil kitten, eats wool.  Mother-in-law coming for a visit during and after big scary festival.  The weather is suddenly very hot.  Not enough vodka in this house, I say, and certainly something must be done about the fact that I have no bitter lemon into which to pour vodka.  Blasted minions.   Let’s put that at the top of the list:

1. Must replace all minions with much better, more motivated minions.    Requires finding any operating minions.
2. Must cleanse kitten’s evil soul.  Mr. Kittenpants is truly causing trouble, what with the wool eating.  We think he knows just enough about Aes and has hearing just good enough that, well, he has started saying "Muharhar" in his sleep.  Aes, what have you been teaching Yarrow with your mind-bullets?  Didn’t the hat buy some modicum of wool safety?
3. Must buy bitter lemon, and lots of it.  The cleaning will be more fun that way.
4. Must weed garden really a lot, so as to dispel neighborhood view that we’ve gone over to the dark, meth-producing side. 
5. Must make the only decent closet in the house into an actual closet, with a rod and everything.
6. Must resist urge to fill new lovely functioning closet with my own clothes until after wonderful Mother-in-Law visits, so as to be a good host.
7. Watch Deadwood DVDs, for procrastination’s sake.  (This is that easy thing I add to a list, so I feel like I’m getting something done).
8. Must knit more confounded wool socks, despite ridiculous heat wave.

In the meantime, here are some near-opinions:

Knitting Rules: The Yarn Harlot’s Bag of Knitting Tricks by Stephanie Pearl McPhee.  Love it.  Love word after giggling word of it.  And, because I read it on the metro, I love it even more because women who guffaw when no one is speaking to them while also wielding pointy metal sticks and reading generally get the whole set to ourselves.  Wheeeee–no one is sitting on my leg!  Double whopping warrior points, my friends.

The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman.   This is one of the classics of Appalachian lit.  And it’s out of print.  So I feel cruel telling you how good it is.  I waited several years for a copy to come to me.  It was worth the wait.  The novel follows our heroine, whose name I have honestly forgotten (forgive me, I have a huge heavy festival on my skull), from before the civil war, through marriage and motherhood, and on for a good while there.  Great language in the book, and the women in it are always knitting or spinning or sewing, so it gets extra points from me.  I’ll read it again when my brain is working at full speed.

Elizabethtown.   Cameron Crowe loves to kick my ass.  Seriously.  Loves it.  Why Cameron?  Why?  This film is about a young man named Drew, played by Orlando Bloom (not a fan of him, normally) whose life falls apart, and then his Dad dies, and then he gets sent to fix everything, and he’s surrounded by his father’s family whom he really doesn’t know.  It made me cry a lot, in a good way.  And it’s a love story, in which Drew falls in love with, er, Claire, played by Kirsten Dunst (who I’m not a fan of either), a gabby flight attendant.  Good music.  Deliciously manipulative subject matter for those of us with estranged families.   Solid performances from actors I’m not wild about, including Alec Baldwin who I normally really really dislike, but who is brilliant here.  And Paul Schneider, who I’ve never seen before–great job, kiddo.  Give him work, people.  Serious southern hippie charisma, there.  Matthew McConaughey has has his turn, already. 

American Massacre, by Sally Denton.  This is a pop-history book about a really terrible event in American history, which most of us never learned about in high school.  In 1857, a wagon train was ambushed in Southern Utah as it was heading towards California.  Most of the people in the caravan were murdered, a few of the children were kidnapped, all of the valuables were stolen or destroyed.  According to many historians and the author, the attack was ordered by none other than Brigham Young, leader of the Mormons.  Denton has gotten a fair amount of flack for some holes in her research and a pretty clear bias.  Nonetheless, I think this book is a great jumping-off point for those who want to learn about the settlement of Utah.  To my mind, the most interesting aspect of the issue is the relationship between the Paiutes, Mormon settlers, and the US government.  No matter what else you think about the event, it’s pretty clear that the Paiutes have gotten the short end of the stick for as long as Europeans have been settling that section of North America. 

I know I’m months behind the frappr curve, but I needed a happy, free distraction from my car troubles.  So I started this little project:

http://www.frappr.com/yarnshops

Ideally, the proverbial "we" could use it to find great yarn shops all over the place when we go on road-trips or know we need to find a shop that deals in Ms. Spiffy wheels or high-holy fleece, or whatever we’re searching for.  Feel free to add yourself or shops, no matter where in the world you are–this map is global, even though it opens up on the US and part of Canada.  If you add a shop,  please make sure to add it as a place so Frappr will display the full address.  It makes the map much more useful for those of us wanting to shop. 

And please play nice.  If you hate a shop, I’d rather you not add it than add it so you can describe your distaste for X’s evil yarn shop. 

Actually, woah, I take that back.  I really want to go to X’s evil yarn shop.  I know they’d have bone needles.  Maybe with skulls as finials.  Creepy deliciousness.

If the interface is giving you fits, you can also ask me to add places.  It may take me some time, but I’ll do it. 

I should be telling you what a wonderful time I had at the river with the girls.  But that will have to wait.

I should be telling you how great it was getting together with the other girls so the lovelies could teach a spinning class at Potomac Celtic Festival and let the students take home their own awesome free spindles.  But that will have to wait.

I should be telling you about all the spinning and knitting I’ve done over the last week, and how happy my feet are.  But that, too, will have to wait.

Instead, I am fighting the urge to drive my duplicitous truck Buttercup to the upper edge of the nearest quarry, say some heartfelt goodbyes, and push the evil money-hogging thing off into the inky, granite-sided deep.  She has been torturing me for months, and of late, has been trying to poison me with carbon monoxide.  But my quasi-bro-in-law has her, and he won’t give her back because he doesn’t want me to go to jail for truck-drowning.

She knew I was trying to save for a loom.  She is demanding a lot of repairs,  and I can’t drive her until she gets them.  And they she’s hinting about wanting a clutch within the year.

So if you see me selling pencils on a streetcorner, um, please buy me a beer.  Or steal my truck and send it off into the ocean.  Or give her a Viking burial.  Just make her stop stealing all of my money.

Around this time every year, some of my girl-friends from Celt-land and I head down to the Western Shore of the Potomac River.  Each year, we have a theme.  This year’s theme is “fish and fiber.”  We’re going to fish, and we’re going to play with fiber.  I am one excited chicky, lemmetellya. We will . . .
be making at least one felted rug
and some felted soap
and some felted pincushions
and knitting
and spinning
and weaving inkles
and sewing and embroidering
And we’ll also have Claudia, Jen, and Mikele, excellent crocheters all, teaching crochet (maybe they can fix my brain block so I can crochet an edge on something without cussing the whole time).

And, somehow, we’ll fit in some swimming or canoeing and some eating and drinking.  Somehow.

So, I have to pack every-freaking-thing necessary, which is a lot of freaking things.

In the meantime, a couple of quick reviews (posted earlier, via my patented “crazy-manipulation-of-the-space-time-continuum, or sumthin) :

Oh, Plat that Thing by Roddy Doyle.  This book is the sequel to A Star Called Henry.  The first novel is about Henry Smart, a kid from Dublin who grows up to be a thug working for some of the seedier characters behind the Irish Revolution.  In this second novel, Henry has fled Ireland for the United States, and gets here just in time to wrap himself up first in the New York underworld and then in the Chicago jazz scene.  I didn’t like this book as much as the first, probably because Doyle doesn’t know the US like he knows Ireland.  Still a fun read, but it’s not his best.

Old Men in New Cars

I netflixed this movie specifically because a knitter suggested it.  But I put it on my list long enough ago that I completely forgot it was Danish.  So I put it into the DVD player, and got very confused that these folks had such a difficult-to-place accent.  I’m not sure what it means that it took several minutes of dialogue for me to notice these blokes were speaking Danish, but let’s take the positive view and assume it means I’m good with languages.  Otherwise, it means I’m suddenly an idiot.  Anyway, I am required by Christine the Mad Dane (and mother of  Peanut, with the felted booties) to like all things Danish, so I do.  I honestly do.

Lo and behold: it’s a sequel.  I haven’t seen the first movie, but that didn’t get in the way.  This movie is similar in tone and plot to L4yer Cake, Snatch, and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels.  Basically, some gangsters get into a ridiculous situation, and uncomfortable hilarity ensues.

I’m glad I watched it even though the subtitles precluded knitting.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Iben Hjejle in the role of Mille.  I really liked her in High Fidelity but never caught her name, and now I have a huge list of films I could watch her in.