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« March 2009 | Main | May 2009 »
First, I have somehow managed to get a subscription to Bon Appetit. I have no idea how, but I'm not really complaining. And if someone sent it to me, thank you. As for the other stuff pictured below, there are books in one package and sports bras in the other. Guess which one I am more excited about?
No hint, the fact that I have to mail order my sports bra should be a good indication of what's important in this picture :-)
So, I have been doing some knitting, although not too much really. Between the occasional rush at work and the infuriatingly unseasonable heat, the knitting on the ground has been slim. And then I remembered that I have another nephew arriving not oh, some time in the future but rather in less than two months. And a baby blanket is required, prior to arrival. (Thank you Cindy, for not wanting anything ahead of time or I'd be in trouble.)
So, out came the yarn and after several attempts and disgusted froggings of Knitty's Op Art, I gave in and recognized that it was not meant to be a four color blanket. The Mason-Dixon Log Cabin blanket though? Totally meant to be a multi-color project. And after looking at this lovely one, I was decided - and started log cabining. Here I am halfway through the third color. Yes Sylvia, you were right - I finish the entrelac scarf and started right in on a project that involves picking up lots (and lots) of stitches. I may have lots my mind.
As you can imagine, this blankie will go over well with the fans at the Sharks games next season!
For now the blankie is small enough to fit into my work tote and will be my commute/travel and weekend knitting for at least a few weeks. By the time I can't bear to work with superwash wool on the train, I will have finished the shaping that needs attention on the right front of Martha, which is slowly chugging along.
In a clear demonstration of my lack of attention, the back of Martha inspired the Wry Punster to start her own version, which she has since finished and photographed in her inimitable style. (The one I am seriously jealous of, BTW.) In my defense, I did start and finish an entrelac scarf and a pair of socks during the same span of time. So now, it's the blankie and the sweater with no other interruptions. No, really. (At least until after Trouble arrives in Northern Virginia in May. Then all bets are off.)
As you may have guessed if you read this with any regularity, I'm a fan of sea life and the whale watching trip my cousin took me on was a bonanza. It was cold enough that we wanted to be inside for the 45 minute trip out to the shallows where the whales feed, but the tables in the cabin appeared to be all taken when we arrived. A woman sitting alone invited us to share her table and that was the start of an excellent day because it turns out that she worked on a whale watching boat as a naturalist and was out on this boat because hers hadn't started it's season yet. I ended up learning a lot about whales instead of just watching in amazement, which always makes me happy.
It was a calm day with a brisk wind and almost as soon as we reached the shallows we started seeing dolphins and whale spouts all over the place.
and then shortly after the spouts, we saw whale tails, several of them (I'm only showing one because they mostly look just like this one.)
But this little guy waved at us for a while...seemed like he was inviting us to play, especially since he swam right up to the boat as soon as we slowed to watch.
He turned out to be a calf coming to New England for the first time, having been born in the Caribbean sometime around Christmas.
He played around with the boat for quite a while and I got a bunch of cool pictures...like his head in the above picture and his tail below.
But the real prize was this picture, which we all wanted and none of us thought we'd gotten - but I did (click to make bigger - you'll be glad you did - nobody else got a picture of him with his eye open.)
That's a baby whale laying on his right side in the water and staring at the people on the boat staring at him. (And since the little guy loved to play on his back, rolling around and slapping the water with his flippers, the naturalists were able to tell that it is indeed a boy.)
This second sock has grown so fast since last Friday's tour of Capitol Hill. Of course, this was thanks to my two 6 hour train trips to and from Boston. I left DC at 0500 on Friday morning (really, that was just unfair, but it did get me to Boston in time for lunch) and for the first two hours, had an entire car to myself. So, the first sock took a seat across from me.
While the second sock sat with me and made sure I didn't lose my ticket.
At some point around Philly I had to get up and bring my socks with me. The car I was in had been peaceful until then, but in Philly a group of women boarded who didn't seem to have indoor voices. Thankfully, there were plenty of seat available in the Quiet Car (no cell phones, whispered conversations only thankyouverymuch) and I traveled in peace for the rest of the trip. I didn't get much done on the 40 minute drive to Gloucester, but the second sock did help me decide what to have for lunch.
Okay, given that it's me, the lobster roll was a given. But if you look closely you'll see that I managed to finish the foot and turn the heel on the way to Boston. (There would have been more, but I slept for a few hours thanks to that horrid start time.) I didn't knit a stitch while I was visiting my cousin, despite the fact that my cousin knits and lends her labor to a yarn shop, which we visited, in exchange for yarn. There was just too much to do and see. I'll save it for another post this week but I seriously love Gloucester - I really remembered why I love New England while I was up there.
So, after a weekend of whale watching, shopping, meeting friends and eating (fig pizza with blue cheese and spinach - YUM!) I boarded another train headed for DC. I got on the Quiet Car from the beginning this time, and while I had seatmates the entire time, I truly enjoyed one of them and the others were fine. And since the entire trip was during normal waking hours, I finished the second sock just outside of Baltimore.
The top sock is the second of the pair and while the feet are very similar in coloring, the feather and fan portion on the leg pooled and striped completely differently despite being over the same number of stitches and from the same ball of yarn. I must have started from a different spot in the skein. They still remind me of daffodils on a clear spring day and I smile when I see them.
Shanti is always posting pictures of Stormy interfering with her knitting ... today it was my turn. Only my little interference is a 10+ lb. English Bulldog that I am puppy-sitting. His name is Money (as in the commercial "everyone loves Money"), he's about 11 weeks old and definitely likes to lay on the coat I'm working on right now. Cute huh?
This isn't nearly as exciting, or informative, as Shanti's last blog, but I just had to let everyone know that Sweep and I met the Easter Bunny while we were on our hike on Sunday. Wow! He wasn't exactly like I would have imagined him to look, but here he is...........
I wish I had gotten the young rider's name, but there were several of us enjoying her sense of humor that I didn't even think of it.
As I'm sure you can imagine that piracy has been on my mind more than normal lately. Not more than ever though, because I was cruising those waters in 2002, doing a different mission, but chasing pirates when we got a distress call.
It was just us, alone and unafraid for several months, through Christmas and New Year's into 2003. We weren't particularly successful - chased a few off, but once they got onboard the fishing boats (that's all they were taking at the time,) they were out of luck. We didn't want to get anyone killed and it wasn't our mission, we were free-lancing, mariners looking out for other mariners. It always frustrated us that we couldn't do more and now we are and I'm torn. There's a part of me that's bloodthirsty about would like to hurt the people who are attacking and compromising the security of the sea. There's a lot of ways to do that, although the only one have photos of are a little bit of overkill.
The snipers onboard Bainbridge were a much more efficient way to solve the immediate problem of a captive in an enclosed space. The lead up to that is mind-boggling. First, that the ship managed to convince the pirates to let them that the lifeboat under tow, and for the ship to get it moving without accidentally sinking that itty bitty thing? Brilliant. And the SEALS - they're the best and there's just no way to dispute that. Three simultaneous shots, facing downward, at night from a moving target into a target moving even more than the base, at night with a hostage to avoid? Mind boggling. What's more, that ship's CO is a good friend of mine, one who I respect tremendously and am thrilled that he got the chance to do what we've all trained to do. And the Commanding Officer of Task Force 151, the one charged with fighting the pirates? She's Rear Admiral Michelle Howard, the first African-American female to command a warship, an Amphibious Squadron and now a major Task Force. How cool is that? (She's also probably the only person in the Navy shorter than me!)
So why my mixed feelings? We've upped the ante. You've probably seen or heard interviews of Somali pirates declaring that the French and Americans are enemies now, and that they won't show mercy. There's not a lot of American merchants running around down there, maybe two or three, but that's enough. Our job as a Navy is to maintain the sea lanes and even with the "1,000 Ship Navy" that's coming to fruition under our noses, it's not enough. And mariners, at least some of them, are more endangered than they were a week ago. That makes me nervous, especially given that I might be the one making the call in a few years.
But in the end, the desire to rain steel down on the heads of the pirates will likely win out over my concern, if only because it's already done. And seriously? We have the SEALs on our side. And a bunch of these beauties that can do just about anything we ask them to do.
