Etherknitter

It's not gl0bal warming, it's us

It's a blue funk, I tell you.  It's the kind of blue that settles down around one like a mantle, a membrane that makes the escape efforts futile.  Two years of busted cross-country skiing has become three.

We escaped to higher Vermont elevations earlier this month.  One, two days of snow under our feet.  A day of snowshoeing with Judy.  (Her pond had started to melt.  It was ethereally beautiful.)  Then, temperatures in the 50s and 60s.  Mud.

Getting back to the Inn on Tuesday, the Subaru valiantly maintained forward traction.  Driving the cute little hatchback is fine for Boston commuting, but not so good for clearance during mudweek.  We bottomed out three times,  looking back to see what metal might have been left behind.  The next day, we drove south to our favorite Inn for the second half of the week.  I had to get out of the car to spot over the hill for Mr. Etherknitter, since the only passable spot in one section was on the far lefthand side of the road.  In a second spot, I walked the ridges and ruts to see where the car might survive a passage.  We bottomed out again, and made it to the Inn. 

Vermonters describe their unpaved roads in one of two ways.  They are either fine.  Or closed.   Two hours after we unpacked, the road was closed.  We remained mudbound until the town regraded the road 30 hours later.  The crosscountry trails were bisected by streams, mud, rocks, and glaciers.  There was no skiing.

Sunset, over fields I have never seen green before.  The white has evaporated. 

I do try to bounce higher up after a smackdown.  There was lots of knitting time. 

Snowshoes work where skis can't pass.  The forest reveals her undergarments.  Ferns stay green,  and deer prowl.  They find an unaccustomed winter buffet.

I finished a pair of Very Cabley Mittens for Mr. E.  The snows came hours after we arrived home.  He remembered a past FO photoshoot, posing while juggling.

The snowballs lasted two or three mitten impacts.  They disintegrated when he missed.  Challenging, that.  The mittens took a backseat to my laughter, and the nonplussed expression on his face.

Very Cabley Mittens, by Kelly Porpiglia

Lamb's Pride, color M26 (Medieval red), 2 skeins with lots left

Needles:  #6 Plymouth dpns

Mods:  I added an extra repeat to the pattern (60 stitches instead of 48).  I increased the waste yarn stitches by 3 for a bigger thumb opening. 

I like this thumb construction.  I think the gusset looks more anatomic, but picking up stitches after the waste yarn stitches are made live left fewer gaps to close at the end. 

A is for Alpenglow

The trip was booked August, 2001 for January, 2002.  Then September 11th made all travel look fearful and improbable.  But my buddy Ron was determined to celebrate a milestone birthday skiing in Switzerland with a posse of wine-loving ski friends.  Planning continued.  Trains were booked, restaurants notified, skis were waxed.

In December, SwissAir declared bankruptcy.  A trip that starts with two strikes is, in my superstitious book, going to end in doom.  Mr. Etherknitter almost had to push me onto the plane.

You know those movies where a terrified passenger on the plane is screaming, "We're all going to die!!  The plane is going down!  We're DOOMED!  We're going to DIE!"  You could probably read that from my face, in spite of my silence.

What DID happen was that we had the time of our skiing lives.  Ron had set up a fabulous itinerary - several days in St. Moritz, followed by three days in Davos, Switzerland. 

The second evening in St. Moritz, he took us on a funicular ride to the top of a mountain.  As the funicular pulled us up the mountain, cables and inner workings clearly visible, one had the feeling of riding a giant TinkerToy track.  I calculated the acceleration of gravity under freefall conditions down the mile and a half track, and then decided I really needed to stop thinking things like that.  So I did.

The restaurant was excellent.  The views were stunning.  As the sun set, I ran out with my dinky Polaroid first generation digital camera.  This shot is the result. 

It took two days for my fingers to thaw from the windchill up on Muottas Muralg.  It was so worth it.

Sammy, 1950-2008

Ten years ago, my friend's wife Shirley died.  Foolish decisions lead to meaningless deaths.  She was driving, reached over to rummage in her handbag for a stick of gum.  Hit the rumble-strip.  She over-corrected, flipped the Saab, and died at the scene with massive head injuries. 

At her funeral, the doors opened for the pallbearers to load the coffin into the hearse.  A previously bright cold winter's day had been transformed into screaming snow squalls.  I have since associated death with the winter elements gone wild.

Yesterday's snowstorm was Sammy.  He was a good friend to many of us in the wine community in Boston.   His social events were catalysts, binding so many of his friends together.  He provided wonderful opportunities to meet, and to maintain our social bonds.  There was no equal to his generosity.

Sammy started a wine import business back in the late 70s/early 80s.  When he sold it to a local distributor in the early 90's, he retired, and entertained us all.  His specialty was white Burgundy, in quantity.  Labor Day parties featured twenty-five vintages of Latour Corton-Charlemagne (fabulous, expensive wine) so that his friends could see how the vintages were aging.  Food accompanied all of Sam's extravaganzas.  Foie gras, cheese, pate', lobster, he shared and lived large with us.  His bulldog collection (figurines, posters, prints) was legend.  He collected Tiffany silver.  His wine cellar was stunning. 

I know you can see where this is going.  Sammy developed Type II diabetes several years ago.  He lost weight, gained some back, and compensated for his lifestyle with more insulin injections.  When one rolls the dice, there's no guarantee that one wins.  Sammy didn't.  He died suddenly, unexpectedly, at his desk, this past Saturday.  We don't know how, or why.  He was 57.

We are shaken and horrified.  We are grieving.  It just can't be true, but it is.

Two pictures from Sammy's Labor Day picnic, 2007 -

Motif, Part I

Today is my third blogiversary.  Does that sound like a self-important child announcing her birthday to an indifferent world?   Thank you so much for playing along with me, and for helping make this blog and fiber thing so much fun.

This is a motif from a fourteenth century Persian tile.   It possesses a cross-cultural feng shui.  I see calmness, centeredness in its symmetry.  The interlocking forms are stylized infinity symbols. A star is created within.  The points direct the gaze outwards while the roundnesses bring one inwards.

It is from the Grammar of Ornament, by Owen Jones (1856).

To me, it looks like a spinning wheel.  We are not simply picking up and dabbling in an arcane craft that has been superseded by the machines of the Industrial Revolution.  We link traditions and skills from our human past to a large and uncertain future.  Sheep genetics are preserved, social networks materialize, conscience is honed by the community of people who knit, and who contribute money for others.

The new year brings new intentions.  I am adopting Mamacate's synonym for resolutions.  In my hands, resolutions are broken, then remain unfixed for 364 days.  I'm hoping there will be less of this:

and more of this (a January celebration from a prior year).