Spinneret

Tis the Season

For some the holiday is not quite over.

Helen has seemingly been a little on the quiet side. Yes, there was the incidence were the new beige paint on the living room walls was looking decidedly pink. However the light has shifted with the season and we seem to be beyond that now.

Brief poetry is very attractive to me. Haiku is my kind of thing. Magnetic words for the fridge are a great source of fun. On a recent walk through of the book store near where I am working this week magnetic poetry in other languages was available. Hey, maybe I can boost my vocabulary and grasp of the language if Swedish words go on the fridge.

It was a really long week with very long days. The box sat on the kitchen table unopened. Finally I couldn't stand it any more and on my way to the 5:57 am train I ripped open the box and started to get the words onto the blank white ice box. I heard one word fall. It's still dark outside. Actually I'm going to be late for the train if I don't move it. I'll find the errant word tomorrow.

The day off. Toddling in to the kitchen to make coffee. Hmpf. Deeledee dee. Making coffee. Getting milk out. Oh, look there's the missing word. Right under the kitchen chair where Helen used to sit. She was right, the view is great. It's where I sit now too. Let's see which word it is. Hmmm. not one in my vocabulary. Best to relocate the dictionary to the kitchen for now until I can catch up some. hmmmm, s. sk. sku. no, not skö - go back. Use it in a sentence. Hon inte skugga av en chans.

He doesn't stand a ghost of a chance.

Skugga you see is the Swedish word for -

ghost.

In case you were wandering

Apple Picking

He said he wanted to go apple picking.
Okay. New to me. I’m from peach/apricot/avocado country.

Boy ain’t right Madge, just ain’t right. Boy also bakes. Humor him, there’s dumplings in it for you.

With the snow two weeks ago a lot of the crop had already hit the ground. There were however some good sweet crisp ones to be had.
Some so dark they looked like plums
(the row signage was gone so they are nameless).

Some Stayman’s that should sauce up nicely.

Enough for the kitchen counter to keep the crud away.

He quite fancied himself a real country boy.
oh dear. Oh, all right.

Happy?

Surprise Ending

What you got if you hung out to the bitter end at Rhinebeck this year was the sun coming out.

From about 5:20 to 5:37 the light was glorious. Most people missed it because A) The day was officially over, and B) Folks wisely bailed when the rain started to give attitude and smack people in the face - hard.

As mentioned, the Ulster County Handspinners Guild was demonstrating and we had a pretty good time in spite of it being raw cold. A 4 oz batt of Corriedale/Merino X in hot orange made me imagine my fingers were warm. The morning shift filled nearly a whole bobbin and it will be getting plied with some sort of neutral. That's it there on the right.

But what of the Jefferson Market roving you ask? That's it there in the middle on the needles. I couldn't wait. It was yarn by Friday night.

The yummy batt in the back? That's a Coco Heather batt from Wooly Hutch, an angora blend that is very very soft. … soft. soft. mmm, soft.

And Hooked For Life? The author and I go way back. I am forbidden to state the particulars of the stratigraphy of our friendship. Not quite geological in scope is all I will say. Of course I forced her to sign my copy, then I goaded her daughter towards more roving.

Last but not least is the skein of Merino/Cashmere with a ply of Angora. It is a brighter blue than my eyes which is all to the good. An early visitor to the Handspinners booth described a hat with an interior band of angora right where one would want all that warmth - around the ears. Make it be so.

You may recall last year I sidled up (again) to the wheels of Gilbert Gonsalves and (finally) placed myself on his waiting list - for a Wee Traveler in birdseye maple. I made a visit this year to give his wheels a pat and to spin for a minute. Ah, that's a honey of a wheel. A woman came in ahead of me and sat down to try his design out. I may have given her a brief dissertation on the various wheels I have tried and why I like each of them and why I am happy to wait for one of Gilbert's wheels. So his waiting list got a little longer. She'll be happy when she gets hers. I need to start the mayonnaise jar for mine as Gilbert is catching up on his list.

I beg your pardon - how could I forget?

And for my sister if she tunes in - (there is a family joke about plastic cows - this a very stalwart speciman)

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

There is no “E” train running under Howard St. - no BART either. It felt as though the subway was making a regular rush hour run. "hey, wait a minute, there's no subway here" … dang … I hate these things.

Windows burst out of their iron frames in the old factory across the street - sounding like popcorn. Toward the end of 9th sheet glass windows were calving off of office buildings and filling 4 of the 5 lanes with what looked like snow. Stop lights bounced … traffic stopped.

A coworker gave me a lift to Geary and I walked down to my hotel. Residents filled the sidewalks, talking, nervous - “I need a cigarette”, “”Well, my cat is all right.” Those emergency lights in the stairwells? They only last about 5 hours. By 11:00 pm they had been replaced with candles (genius). Pacific Gas & Electric cut off all gas supplies to the area. The Red Cross brought water and sandwiches to the fancy hotel across from mine and generators that ran loudly all night. The tuxedoed pianist in the bar played for hours. Glamorous except for the aftershocks.

A friend’s high rise apartment had become open-air. He left town.

The pocket doors in my hotel suite rattled in aftershocks. Sleeping dressed on top of the covers in case those doors rattled a little too persistantly seemed like a good idea, if only the door frame would stay standing and glued to the wall long enough to get over there. Just like the earthquake drills when we were kids. oh, weee.

In the morning the only place that had coffee was the Hilton down by Union Square and 8 flights up. No elevators. Cold turkey.

True to form San Francisco is a fine town, even without electricity or running water for 3 days. There was no looting. Locals wouldn’t stand for it. The people in the parts of the city (Nob Hill is on bed rock) which were relatively unaffected pitched in sending food, bedding and clothes down to the Marina district. For the lucky, except for the scare and inconvenience, it was close to being a holiday. People didn’t care to be indoors. The parks were full (San Francisco has many fine parks). It was unseasonably warm - earthquake weather. Meals were eaten outdoors. Some of those meals may have been wine, cheese and dry salami. With the ice gone by Wednesday at noon scotch is served neat - which is how I learned to like it.

This was the era before real cell phones. The land lines buzzed like bees. No dial tone. One pay phone in the theater lobby continued to work for a short time that first evening. One phone call to New York served to relay the ok to family up and down the coast.

Rehearsals continued once the theater passed inspection. Plasterers put up scaffolding and made repairs lighted by our guys on follow spots. White on white on white. Surreal.

On opening night my seat was in one of the Juliet boxes house right, hanging over the orchestra level. Who me? Nervous?

The new Embarcadero area is beautiful.

I heard of the Labor Day weekend Oakland Bridge closing this year. The crews made their repairs ahead of schedule. They’ve had some practice.

I believe in carrying a small flashlight in my bag.

Offending the Zinnias

So it's um … er … snowing. On October 15th. snowing. Like it usually does … some time after Thanksgiving, if anybody is counting. The zinnias are ferklempt, the snapdragons don't seem to mind much, but the cannas - the cannas look like debutantes at the end of the evening when the lights go back on. Poor things. They need to be put to bed.

I'm blaming the snow on the martians who landed on the mountain on Sunday.
As you can see the trees have made very few arrangements for their usual gig. Monday morning there was the smallest amount of frost, Tuesday a touch more, Wednesday was cool, brief sun, and today it is sloppy clumpy snow. Almost as if someone threw a switch and jammed the weather rheostat all the way up

There may have been a little yarn crawling on Monday. maybe. some. a little.
In support of the local economy. This roving is merino from Seaport Yarns, under the owners own label - Jefferson Yarns. This may be what I will be spinning when I demonstrate Sunday morning with the Ulster County Handspinners Guild at Rhinebeck (39 A&B if you plan on stopping by). The nice folks at Seaport gave me a few 5% discount cards for folks who want to stop at their booth during the weekend. Just sayin'. The early bird and all that.

It's still snowing

In other news: The Birds of Prey exhibit is still running at Highstead Arboretum - through November 10th (we've been extended a bit). That exhibit will move to the Environmental Science Center at Yale in January for a 6 month run.

Over the last few weekends there was also the kick-off and brief installation of the Beacon Open Studios weekend. This was a complete blast. A group of us shared an amazing space in the old Bulldog Studios - now Beacon Studios. Scroll down the BOS site for more of that.

For those of you playing along - The snow is starting to stick in the back yard.

I may ask Helen about this.