Busy, Busy, Busy
I've been keeping myself very busy, which has allowed me to shake the melancholy I was feeling. I still feel badly about the same things in the world, but I'm pretty satisfied with my own, day to day life. I was glad to hear this from our President:
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
It's nice for the President to finally act like a leader and acknowledge reality rather than trying to push some fantasy. Too bad it came after 2 weeks of a quite different message and plunging popularity polls - makes you question the sincerity.
I have a couple more pictures from the Fair to share. Here's Bill, Red and Michael on the shuttle bus - they look pretty excited about our day to come, eh?
The first place we visited was the "Wonders of Birth" barn. It was a little too real to be wonderful for me, but I did enjoy this cutie-pie:
Here's the mommy - she's a beauty, isn't she?
A display they had in the "Wonders of Technology" building was called an Art Poll on the President's Performance. You got to add one brush stroke to a painting - blue paint if you are dissatisfied with the President's performance, red paint if you are satisfied with it and white paint if you are in the middle.
I'm very happy to live in a blue state and added my bold blue stroke to one of the few remaining blank spots on the paper.
Last Wednesday night, I saw this guy in concert:
It was a solid show, as usual. A nice mix of blues, jazz, country and rock. It's so great to see that huge band backing him up. As always, Lyle was dry humor and wit was obvious in his comments between songs. The crowd was a bit restless, shouting comments at him, which I don't enjoy.
I've been knitting a bit, too. I am almost finished with Mariah. All that's left is sewing in the zipper. I ended up with a longer sweater than the pattern, somehow. So, I need a 22" zipper. I bought a white one and a cream one and decided neither was ideal. So, now I've ordered some pink zippers and when I get them in the mail, I'll figure out which works best and sew it in. It's really hard to find 22" separating zippers in colors. The sleeves also ended up slightly too long, even though I knitted them smaller than the pattern calls for. I don't mind folding up the cuffs, though. So, here's the back view:
I look pretty dorky with the hood up, so no pictures of that. I'll probably only wear it that way if I'm really cold. Here's the front, with the front basted together, ready for the zipper to be sewn in.
I didn't modify the neckline and I'm glad - I really like the square neck. Here's a better view of the best part of it - the sleeves:
The only other modification I made was to decrease the length of the cabled ribbing on the bottom. I'm so short waisted that the long ribbing would just make me look even shorter and fatter.
Friday night was Movie Night with the law school buddies. We saw a really good movie:
Such a smart, literary movie. It was a little slow at first, but I eventually really got into it and liked it. I like Bill Murray, but this is another take on the guy he plays in "Lost in Translation". I described it to a friend as that character 5 years later if he never met Scarlett Johannsen. He's just really sad and lonely and disconnected. It was just a little bit too low-key for me. The character's name is Don Johnston and he's described several times as an aging Don Juan, but you never really see why the ladies would love him. He receives an anonymous letter stating that he fathered a child 20 years ago and now this son may be trying to contact him. He visits all of his girlfriends from that time who could have possibly been the mother, not only to try to figure out who is the mother (or if it's even true that he has a son), but also I think to see what he missed all those years. I think he's visiting the lives he might have had if he had stayed with each woman. Really interesting and very well written. All of the women give impressive performances, but my favorite character in the film was Don's neighbor and perhaps only friend, Winston, played by Jeffrey Wright. Loved him! Wanted more of him in the movie.
This post is getting rather long, so I'll stop now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to post the rest of my weekend and my recent fiber purchases - yes, I bought more yarn!
"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
It's nice for the President to finally act like a leader and acknowledge reality rather than trying to push some fantasy. Too bad it came after 2 weeks of a quite different message and plunging popularity polls - makes you question the sincerity.
I have a couple more pictures from the Fair to share. Here's Bill, Red and Michael on the shuttle bus - they look pretty excited about our day to come, eh?
The first place we visited was the "Wonders of Birth" barn. It was a little too real to be wonderful for me, but I did enjoy this cutie-pie:
Here's the mommy - she's a beauty, isn't she?
A display they had in the "Wonders of Technology" building was called an Art Poll on the President's Performance. You got to add one brush stroke to a painting - blue paint if you are dissatisfied with the President's performance, red paint if you are satisfied with it and white paint if you are in the middle.
I'm very happy to live in a blue state and added my bold blue stroke to one of the few remaining blank spots on the paper.
Last Wednesday night, I saw this guy in concert:
It was a solid show, as usual. A nice mix of blues, jazz, country and rock. It's so great to see that huge band backing him up. As always, Lyle was dry humor and wit was obvious in his comments between songs. The crowd was a bit restless, shouting comments at him, which I don't enjoy.
I've been knitting a bit, too. I am almost finished with Mariah. All that's left is sewing in the zipper. I ended up with a longer sweater than the pattern, somehow. So, I need a 22" zipper. I bought a white one and a cream one and decided neither was ideal. So, now I've ordered some pink zippers and when I get them in the mail, I'll figure out which works best and sew it in. It's really hard to find 22" separating zippers in colors. The sleeves also ended up slightly too long, even though I knitted them smaller than the pattern calls for. I don't mind folding up the cuffs, though. So, here's the back view:
I look pretty dorky with the hood up, so no pictures of that. I'll probably only wear it that way if I'm really cold. Here's the front, with the front basted together, ready for the zipper to be sewn in.
I didn't modify the neckline and I'm glad - I really like the square neck. Here's a better view of the best part of it - the sleeves:
The only other modification I made was to decrease the length of the cabled ribbing on the bottom. I'm so short waisted that the long ribbing would just make me look even shorter and fatter.
Friday night was Movie Night with the law school buddies. We saw a really good movie:
Such a smart, literary movie. It was a little slow at first, but I eventually really got into it and liked it. I like Bill Murray, but this is another take on the guy he plays in "Lost in Translation". I described it to a friend as that character 5 years later if he never met Scarlett Johannsen. He's just really sad and lonely and disconnected. It was just a little bit too low-key for me. The character's name is Don Johnston and he's described several times as an aging Don Juan, but you never really see why the ladies would love him. He receives an anonymous letter stating that he fathered a child 20 years ago and now this son may be trying to contact him. He visits all of his girlfriends from that time who could have possibly been the mother, not only to try to figure out who is the mother (or if it's even true that he has a son), but also I think to see what he missed all those years. I think he's visiting the lives he might have had if he had stayed with each woman. Really interesting and very well written. All of the women give impressive performances, but my favorite character in the film was Don's neighbor and perhaps only friend, Winston, played by Jeffrey Wright. Loved him! Wanted more of him in the movie.
This post is getting rather long, so I'll stop now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to post the rest of my weekend and my recent fiber purchases - yes, I bought more yarn!
rdladd@arnan.com
