Top Ten Favorite Canadian Things

To set the record straight, I am not Canadian. I have been to Canada exactly two times: when I was ten years old, and my freshman year in college. But it seems that every time I fall in love with something…it turns out to be Canadian. So here, in no particular order, are ten of my favorite Canadian things. I’m sure I’m forgetting someone or something, but we’ll save that for the next ten.

Michael J. Fox

Is it just because Back to the Future takes place the year I graduated from high school? Does it have something to do with Family Ties being set in Columbus, Ohio? I’m not sure, but we do have a rather strange connection: his wife has seen my ex-husband naked. (Call me up, Mike, and I’ll refresh Tracy’s memory.) A couple of years ago I received the BTTF trilogy as a Christmas present, and I have been happily working my way through the commentaries and extra features ever since.

Barenaked Ladies

This was one of the first oh-I-love-this, they’re-from-where? moments for me. I used to hear a bunch of their songs on WCBE while I was working, and evenually a friend gave me the album Gordon. (”But not a real green dress, that’s cruel.”) I haven’t seen them live yet, but I hope to.

Moxy Früvous

I tracked these guys down after another WCBE track worked its way into my head. Again, haven’t seen them live but want to.

RUSH

Let me just say…Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, Columbus…..Presto! Also read Neil Peart’s book on bicycling across Africa while I was riding the bus to work because my car was dying. Looking forward to reading his books about motorcycling after the deaths of his wife and daughter. I love these guys.

Banff National Park

I had a poster of Lake Louise up on my wall during my freshman year of college. I thought it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. It was also the terminus for an amazingly ambitious cycle-camping tour that started in Boulder, Colorado. (Let me clarify that this never got past the planning stage. Take a look at a map and you’ll see why.)

The Calgary Stampede

I just love to watch this when it’s on television. Is it the frontier spirit, the friendly competition, the element of reenactment, the horses, the challenge, the speed? I don’t know, but I just weep when I see it.

my swan mug from Stratford

In the spring of 1986 I went on a van trip up to Stratford, Ontario to wallow in some Shakespeare. It was lovely and I had the hardest time picking out a suitable souvenir. When I saw this mug, it reminded me of the swans that live in the park. (I did look at handknit sweaters and fell in love with several, but couldn’t afford any.)

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

All hail the Harlot! I’m not sure when I first came across her writing. It may have been a copy of At Knit’s End, or a magazine article in which she was mentioned. If you haven’t read her writing yet, click on the Yarn Harlot blog link to the right. Just do it, you’ll be glad you did.

Bill Mason

When I bought my first canoe (Mad River Eclipse), the salesman loaned me a copy of a Bill Mason video to help me get started learning the paddling strokes. I now have his first two paddling books, his biography, and a video set from Canoecopia 2000 that includes Paddle To The Sea. I can’t say enough about this man’s wonderfulness. I hope someday to take paddling lessons from his daughter Becky.

Margaret Atwood

I have a signed copy of Cat’s Eye from when she came to Miami University for a reading. But it was my copy of The Edible Woman, which I had loaned to a friend, that I really wanted her to sign. Oh well.

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P.S. I’m back in English again, thank you very much! Thanks to a very helpful woman in New Zealand. Sometimes, the Internet works.

P.P.S. The next Canadiana list will have to include Lynn Johnston, Mike Myers, Tim Horton’s, Labatt’s, and….?

Tekstbehandling

That’s what I see when I try to open AppleWorks today. The default language seems to have been changed to Swedish (courtesy of Jack and some random keyboard slaps, I am guessing).

The language for the Finder and all things OS X is still English. The language is properly set in the System Preferences. I have restarted a number of times after changing things that seemed as if they would make a difference.

In AW and any Microsoft applications, however (like the Office Suite Preview that came on the computer), it’s all Swedish to me. And I am learning more and more Swedish as the day goes by.

Unfortunately I really need to get some work done in English. I have been using Macs for 20 years now and all that experience has made no difference at all. So if you know what I can do to fix this, or know someone who knows, point them over here!

hjälp!!!!!

NDC Syndrome, Part 2

I got to look at potential new houses over the weekend. And so I could show my friends and family what we saw, I took the digital camera with me. And did I take a single picture? No.

The first house had, on the plus side, a fireplace with inlaid green tiles. On the minus side, evil basement stairs I could not have negotiated by myself, let alone with a full laundry basket, without a concussion. Sorry, no pictures. Not even of the mystery poop that fell down when we opened the door to the attic.

The second house had twelve-inch oak baseboards, magnificent scrollwork in the doorways, a parlor closed off with a single paneled pocket door…and tiny bedrooms with hideous wallpaper, questionable light switches, and a bathroom tucked into a 4 by 9 foot room. Sorry, no pictures. Not even of the green tiles on the kitchen wall.

The third house had a million cabinets, a downstairs playroom complete with homemade bar, and incredible wood flooring under old carpets and padding. Sorry, no pictures. Not even of the built-in china cabinets.

The fourth house was woefully small and was being vacated by a couple with one kid, one new baby, and one dog. Great garage, though. Sorry, no pictures. Not even of the upstairs bedroom with twisting stairs and no door.

Never took the camera out of my coat pocket.

We did get to run around Fort Atkinson, have a wonderful lunch (Everybody’s Cafe), tour Lake Mills, and generally spend some husband & wife time together (with only Tommy as a chaperone!) before heading back to Milwaukee. Oh yeah, Mr. Beth drove me to a quilt shop in Fort so I could get info for the craft store directory. I was really impressed!

Knitwise, I took the WSS and the red and white stockinette swatch to work on. I got just a little bit done on each. I did get a picture of one of my Christmas hats in action, and I’ll upload that to the 2006 Finished Projects page.

This week’s to-do list includes working on my freelance article, paying my small business taxes, and getting ready for the Super Bowl. We wanted to make a dish from each city, but were stumped when it came to traditional Indianapolis cuisine. Judging from an article my husband sent me from the Indy Star, others are, too. Hmm, starting to sound like we should root for Indy but eat Chicago food.

Sweet charity

OK…so I made a new rule for myself in the Knit From Your Stash 2007 thing. (Hey, Wendy said I could!) I am not buying sock yarn, but I can buy yarn for charity projects. (Actually, now that I look at it, this falls under the auspices of Rule 2.b.) So with that in mind, yesterday I hit up the Herrschners Outlet Store and got enough yarn for four chemo caps. That’s a lot of knitting fun for 99 cents a ball. (The first eight skeins I picked out ran to $35. I decided to pick again. Still great yarn, and really really soft and warm, which I think is important when you are a teenager with no hair.)

I also got two more sets of circs. One is a size 15 needle (I just couldn’t bring myself to get this size in single points) to make a linen stitch scarf out of the Wonder Skein. Let’s all check out the Wonder Skein now, shall we?

The other needle is for a Secret Project. But I can divulge that it is a size 4, 16 inch circ. I got, yes another, Susan Bates Quicksilver. Any guesses as to the Secret Project? I will post in-progress pictures and swap some stash with the first correct guesser. I probably won’t start until Monday.

Below is a swatch I’m making as part of the cover image for the craft store directory. I’m taking it with me this weekend — it needs to be about 18 inches square for my purposes. (Say, how do you like the 14-inch wooden singlepoints? I would never even try to take them on a plane. And those tips are sharp.)

I just realized it’s five months until my birthday. I’ll be 40. Whoop-de-freakin-’doo.

…and a big brown Mercedes sedan

I just made a list of the knitting projects I’ve already scheduled for 2007 in my mind. (You might want to set down your drink so you don’t choke.) They include three pairs of socks, a shawl, two scarves, two sweaters (one adult, one child), a hat and scarf set, a chemo cap, and a cell phone case. (All from stash yarn except the yarn my mother will pick out for two projects.)

Then I wrote down all the quilts I’ve started and should finish this year. That makes five quilts and two quillows (which I’ve never made, but I have a pattern).

Let’s see, what else do we have? Finish potty training Colleen. Start potty training Jack. Fix up old house, sell it, and move to new house (as yet unsearched-for) two hours away. Publish craft store directory. Write articles for trade magazines. Summer trip to Ohio. Learn to spin on a drop spindle. And, at the end of the year, surgery (minor but vital) for Tommy. And any hand-crafter Christmas presents that aren’t already on the list.

I think…I will have to learn to knit a hell of a lot faster than I do now. But it doesn’t look as if I will have enough time to learn.

I’d better get started!

Chocolate of the day:

Mom, can I learn how to knit?

Managed to goof up the slip-stitch swatch last night. I had turned the work around to do a purl row, but apparently I enjoy doing the knit side of it so much that for the first half of the row, that’s what I did. It was time to frog it anyway, so I let JC do it. He had wanted (again) to learn how to knit, but got frustrated after 1/8 of an attempt, so I thought, OK, pull the yarn out and rewind the ball. That should be fun and easy.

Twenty minutes later, as his brother was almost asleep and I awaited JC’s entrance into their bedroom, I began to suspect that something had gone horribly wrong. And yes, here he came, up the stairs in tears.

“I tried to do it, I really tried to do it, and then it got hopelessly tangled. I’m so sorry, Mom….”

I reassured him, and spent a solid five minutes getting it back to normal. Poor kid.

This morning the cycle repeated itself, with Colleen after we dropped JC off at school. I gave her her set of learner’s needles (one red, one blue, with smiley faces on the knobs) and a roll of yarn I obtained from frogging a little baby cap I’d been given in the hospital. Fingerling white/pink/purple.

“Oh, Mom, can I learn how to knit? I want that!”

“OK, but you have to be very careful, because it could get tangled.” (Tangled is a horror film word to her. Relates to hair and evil combs. I knew it would be the only word she heard.)

Ten minutes later I am presented with a snarl worthy of a spincasting lesson to a five-year-old. “Here, Mom, can you untangle this?” The ball of yarn itself is still across the room. When she brings the ball, I start winding.

“Mom, you’re so silly.” (The snarl is bobbing up and down as the untangled yarn comes through.)

Then, suddenly, the yarn snaps and I have a golf-ball of soft pretty yarn in one hand, and what looks like the exploded guts of a golf ball in the other hand. (Ask me how I know about the inside of a golf ball. Just ask me. I dare you.)

“Mom,” she says, reaching for the neat little ball and leaving me with the snarl, “I just want this one.”

Smart girl.

Alone again

It was a short weekend with Mr. Beth, who had a trade show to cover in Nashville last week. Two flights later, he was home…at midnight on Saturday. And as of this morning at 8, he was gone again for the rest of the week.

The weekends are still a little difficult to adjust to. I go from having (because I need to assert) total control over the kids all week, to trying to scoot over to the passenger seat on the Parentmobile, and spend all my time shushing them so Daddy can sleep.

But the weeknights themselves are kind of tough to get used to, too. I always wondered how women I knew could be happily married to men who weren’t around for long stretches…such as long-distance truckers or Navy men or (hi Amy!) audio guys who go on world tour with rock stars. It has taken me three weeks of single-during-the-weekhood to realize I can watch what I want on TV or just turn it off. (Previously, all I did was turn it off.)

Over the last few days I watched a long, competitive tennis match (Ancic-Roddick), a couple of episodes of one of my favorite shows (Remington Steele) and one of my favorite movies (Barefoot in the Park). No interruptions, no channel surfing, no chatter. Just me and the yarn and stuff I like to watch and listen to. And yes, it’s lonely, too. If Mr. Beth were here I would rather watch what we both like to watch, so we can do something together.

But when he’s not here, I’m learning to get along. (It helps that he brings home wonderful chocolate for me.)

In other family news, the Cheetos proved to be an excellent reward for potty-training girl Colleen, who was — apparently — ready to transition to underwear. Finally! (At age four, she certainly should have been ready. But why engage them too early and fight that battle?)

I’m still knitting on the slip-stitch swatch but realize that I have some other projects I really need to get done. First, the T-shirt quilt I raffled my services for in September. Granted, I didn’t get materials until late November, but I would like to get that project taken care of.

Second, I’ve got a magazine article assignment that will be due in about a month. I need to schedule interviews, do the interviews, research the topic, compile, write, and edit the thing. And the topic is dear to my heart so it’s important to do a great job. Especially if I want this assignment to be the first of many. I already have at least one more salable idea, but don’t want to congest my brain.

Third (neglecting my Secret Projects for now), I need to work on the cover of my craft store directory project so I can have some press releases ready as soon as the content is prepared. I think it’s going to be a big hit, and the timing for publicity just snuck up on me. But I figured out a way to integrate knitting into it, so…..

Revenge of the dingleberries

Almost immediately after complaining about yarn with little fussy things in it that make it hard to knit with, I picked up two skeins of Stylecraft Amoré (colorway “Atlantis”) and tried to cast on for a hat.

Keep in mind that I meant well. Since I don’t have any fun fur on hand, I was attempting to start a chemo cap.

Well, this particular yarn is very thin, with tiny little bits of fluff woven into it every three inches or so. I can almost imagine a spinner working her wheel, and holding the fluffy bits over the single, chuckling with evil glee as they get sucked in and become part of a yarn no one could ever knit with.

Then things went from bad to worse as I decided to unroll the skein and rewind it from the other end. My memories of why I did this are hazy now. Perhaps it was because I had tried unsuccessfully to find the center end in the first place and only succeeded in pulling several loops away from the skein that didn’t lead me anywhere. Then I decided to roll it up from the outside end, only to meet with a tight snarl.

I think you can guess what happened next, so I’ll spare you the details. I can tell you that three days later, I have it down to a small ball of the inside end, a larger ball of the outside end, a huge ball of a part of the middle, a couple of two-foot-long loops, and only one major snarl.

At this point I decided that larger needles were the way to go, so I picked up Skein Two, started with the outside end this time (having partially learned my lesson) and cast on some stitches with the Quick Stix that my mother-in-law found for me last summer.

So far it’s hard to tell what’s happening, but I’m guessing that if I were using some sort of lightweight craft wire, I would be producing something that looked like a chain link fence. If you’ve ever seen chain-link fencing installed, you know it is sort of compressed until it’s stretched to the right tension on the post. Then, ta-dah!, it takes on its familiar structure. After about four rows in garter stitch, I have something that’s still unrecognizable.

As if that weren’t enough, I started a couple of other knitting experiments this week: mosaic knitting and slip-stitch pattern.

I started a mosaic knitting sample (Monday?) in white and grey yarns following the instructions in the Mosaic Knitting book by Barbara G. Walker. I lost a stitch somewhere, and held the yarn on the wrong side on my first trip across the purl side, but overall I enjoy the technique. It requires some concentration to get started, but it’s helping me learn to read simple charts. That can’t be bad.

Yesterday I picked up my World’s Scratchiest Socks and resumed knitting in the 3×3 rib section, and found that my dpn work with all those hats has paid off, even though these needles are size 3s, not 8s or 10s. I started figuring out where to put the other needles, and even started holding the yarn a bit and moving it forward and back from the left instead of the right, which made things much easier. Unfortunately this meant that my stitches were neater and tighter with better transitions between knit and purl sections. If I finish the socks I think it will be pretty easy to tell where I took my six-month break.

Last night, even though I had hauled out the Quick Stix project and the WSS, what I decided to do instead was swatch a slip-stitch pattern with some frogged yarn. I was looking through Knit Scarves! by Candi Jensen, and decided this pattern might be the one for the Wonder Skein, my pet yarn that Mr. Beth brought back from L.A. a few months ago.

Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to knit a stitch, bring the yarn forward, and NOT purl the next stitch? Had to frog the swatch once and start again carefully, but after a few rows I saw I had it going, and could tell my knit side from my purl side. I’m convinced it will be a good pattern for the Wonder Skein, but I will need larger needles and I can’t justify that right now. So I think I’ll keep going and do a whole skein of the frogged yarn (more Plymouth Encore that used to be Kelly’s Blankie) and get super good at it.

Chocolate of the day: a classic.

And guess what came in the mail yesterday?

Here’s a clue….

White flag

Ok, I give up. I guess I can’t NOT knit. And until I can go to Pier 1 or wherever they sell those glass heads, this model will have to do. (Don’t worry, Mom, it’s a junior-sized basketball.)

Dingleberries on hiatus

I am three trips around the hat away from finishing it, but I’m going to have to wait a while before launching into it. My fingertips are sore from all those k2togs with stranded fuzzy yarn. Wish they could have been p2togs with the Cozi. But I can really see the hat’s shaping now, and I’m sure I’ll find time to finish it before the end of the day. (Mom, I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow.)

Someday, I really need to learn how to knit properly. I know, everyone has their own style and all, but I learned from a kids’ book and never figured out how to hold the yarn for tension. I manage to be pretty consistent on gauge, but all the tension is controlled at my fingertips as I move the yarn into place. Not only is it slow, but there are probably much more efficient ways to move my fingers to do what I’m doing.

Unfortunately, without a babysitter for four kids, or a husband around during the week, getting out to hang out with local knitters is just impossible. I’ll just keep knitting in public until somebody’s grandmother (or granddaughter!) comes over and says, “Here, honey, try it like this.” I’m sure I’ll catch on! Just need someone to move my hands into the right places.

Temporary project: messing around with the World’s Scratchiest Socks. Since I started them, I’ve gotten some more experience with dpns (even though that technique’s not perfect either). So maybe I’ll just be battling the wool.

Next project: something with worsted weight yarn. Nothing with bobbles, fringes, or other assorted dingleberries need apply!