jmeadows

Yep. Still spinning this faux cashmere. But I MIGHT finish the singles this coming up week. If I do nothing but spin. Heh. This yarn is thiiiiin.

My mom’s birthday is coming up and I told her I want to knit her something for it. What did she want? She immediately said, “I want a hat like yours.” I got to see her during the Dark Days tour in Austin and she DID seem jealous of my hat. So I said I’d make her one. (The pattern is Spring Beret. Rav link.)

Here it is finished, but unblocked.

I used handspun merino wool in a colorway called “Stardust.” Neither of these pictures are accurate, but the second is a little closer.

Here is the hat blocking on a plate and posing with Bob the Spinning Wheel. The lace stretches out a lot!

Since I have a little time before I visit her, I might knit something else for her out of the rest of Stardust. Hmmm.

Originally published at Jodi Meadows. You can comment here or there.

jetreidlitagent

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2012/05/sometimes-hes-more-than-most-powerful.html

scalzifeed

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/27/graduation-song/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=18708

Away from the Internets for most of the day because my niece Cecilia is having her high school graduation ceremony. See you all tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s “The Paper Chase,” one of my favorite graduation-themed songs, from the (now defunct) The Academy Is… (the ellipsis is part of their name).

I wrote about Fast Times at Barrington High, the album this song is on, here.

Have a good Sunday.

dlstephenson

• Sat, 12:24: Evidently my body needs more than five hours of sleep. Whodathunkit?

storm_grant

• Sat, 17:04: Snappy little turtle http://t.co/tdigsgwr

fantasy_faction

http://fantasy-faction.com/2012/blackbirds-book-club-read#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

http://fantasy-faction.com/?p=8273

bookview_blog

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/2012/05/27/the-time-machine-question/

http://bookviewcafe.com/blog/?p=23433

If you had a time travel machine, which period (time and country) in history would you visit first?

Carrying on from last week’s post about time, this is the sort of question I daydream about on long drives, or standing in long lines, or when my body is stuck in a dull situation and my mind wants escape.

The easy (and painfully trite) answer would be “Jane Austen’s England.” Except that’s not quite true. The first rule of using a time machine, at least in the stories I’ve read, is that one must not interfere with history.

So my going back armed with antibiotics and medical advice in order to first save Jane’s life, and then catch John Keats before he set sail so miserably for Italy, would of course change history. For the better, surely, I’d argue. And the inexorable scientist would probably answer back, yes, But the new history might not include you, and with a Don Martinish *paff* I’d vanish.

So that makes me think, Would I willingly trade my life for Jane Austen’s and John Keats’?

Except I’ve always loathed that sort of question. (I once took an F when a teacher forced on us that horrible “Which would you save, the drowning dog or the drowning child?” conundrum in a history class. He refused to take “Both” because he was determined to make his point that we are morally obligated to save the child and let the dog drown, but I took the F because I know if I had any fight left in me I’d try to save both.)

Back again to the time machine. The question becomes, which time and place would I want to visit knowing that I must lurk in the background and not interfere?

It’s easy enough to pick out moments of triumph since I don’t really want the spectacle of tragedy (imagination is vivid enough), but which?

Even sitting in the gallery to see Olympe de Gouges address the National Assembly in Paris wouldn’t be very exhilarating despite the atmosphere of newness and change and even greatness, because I know what happens to her. Soon, and not after a life of passion and contribution to civilization, as she deserved.

My inclinations are toward people, and not catastrophic or significant events. I think I might end up picking a quiet moment from someone’s life, maybe the coming down from a triumph, or the day of inspiration.

Like Elizabeth Tudor’s first day as queen, when she’s walking around Hampton Court just reveling in the fact that Mary won’t be sending the axe men now.

Or maybe the day Siddhartha Gautama walked out of the palace.

Or how about the premier of a beloved piece of music, to hear its first performance, then take in the stunned audience’s frenzied reaction, and the artist’s triumph?

Or the day the artist got hit with the idea, and turned gleefully to creation? Which one? Hmmm.

If anyone wants to play, jump in!

 Sherwood Smith’s e-books (some of which deal with time) at Book View Cafe

dsmoen

Several people have asked why I’m not at Wiscon. Short answer: I have better things to do with my vacation time.

With a thriving local con, I’d rather go there. Also: this year, my travel costs to Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador cost less in aggregate than Wiscon would, and I think it’s a better use of travel budget than a non-local con.

Also, I simply cannot see giving Wisconsin any of my tourism dollars while that state continues to have people like Scott Walker in power. Sure, I’ve gone to foreign countries that were more oppressive, but not ones contributing to the problems here at home. Besides, the Argan oil from the women’s cooperative in Taroudant is great stuff.

Originally published at deirdre.net. You can comment here or there.

fantasy_faction

http://fantasy-faction.com/2012/peter-and-max-by-bill-willingham#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

http://fantasy-faction.com/?p=7985

msagara

spiffikins

Looking back at our own efforts, we had lots of battles :) I've love to hear how you applied these rules to situations where your son didn't want to do something, like have his bath or get dressed/put his shoes on for school or participate in the day to day activities of helping out (setting the table, doing dishes, doing homework) - it seems we always had conflict, and the majority of it with my brother was getting him to do something that he didn't want to do, but that needed to be done.