What Day Is It?

That thought ran through my mind a bunch today.  I don't know why but the fact that it is Thursday just did not stick.  I had to keep reminding myself that it was Thursday and that I had a Bay Lakes Knitting Guild Zoom meeting at 6 o'clock.  We had a nice meeting.  A yarn shop owner from Grafton was on to do the second part of her program on knitting a sweater that's right for your body shape and coloring.  Not a lot of the members attended.  I don't know if they forgot or if a Zoom meeting isn't for them.  I figure Zoom knitting together is better than not knitting together at all.

I found a pattern for a mistake rib hat this morning.  I'd never heard of or seen mistake rib so I grabbed some needles and yarn and cast on.  It's pretty mindless knitting and in about six inches it'll get sewn together and turn into a hat.  I hope.

It was warm out today so I went to fill the birdfeeders this morning without having to bundle up.  It took a long time for any birds to come but finally these House Finches arrived.  The squirrels discovered that I'd put out peanuts and a pair of them had a stand off over them.  One squirrel was stamping its front feed and making a grunting sound and the other one was twitching its tail and ended up getting chased away.  It ran up and laid on top of the retaining wall and when the boss squirrel got a peanut and scampered off, it came right down, jumped up and got its own peanut.  But the boss squirrel came back as it was running and took up the chase again.  They're annoying but fun to watch.

19 November--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

When I got home that evening I spread the pieces of letters out across the counter.  There was only one undamaged one, the rest went from partly-gnawed to totally-destroyed.  A few had envelopes but most were just sheets of paper folded together.  It hadn't occurred to me until I started laying them out that they might not be in English but they were.  Pieces of them kept falling off as I moved the pages.  I finally got out the plastic wrap, rolled out a length of it, laid pages side by side, and encased them in the wrap to keep the pieces together.  Once I had them kind of stabilized I set about arranging them by date.  There were six letters, one in total shreds, and two pretty much whole. 

            Feeling a bit like a Peeping Tom I bent to read the first, earliest one.  It read like a business letter,

                        "Dear Mr. Reynolds, I would like to make a reservation to stay at Seaview for the month of February 1961."

            That was very businesslike, and the rest of the page dealt with flight information to St. Martin and a request for the ferry schedule.  It didn't seem like the kind of letter a person would keep in a secret place.  There was more on the second page. 

                        "I am looking forward to spending time on the beach at Sandy Ground and perhaps we can go fishing again.  I had never fished in the ocean before my last visit and I loved it.  I hope that we can take a picnic and eat on one of the uninhabited cays that you showed me.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                            Miss Ellen Forbes." 

            Hm, it sounded to me like Miss Ellen Forbes was hinting at something more than a morning spent fishing. 

            The next letter was addressed to Abram and was a lot less businesslike and more personal.  I wondered if Mr. Reynolds was married.

(Sorry, I ran out of ideas when it came to those letters.  If something comes to me I'll go back in and add it.)

Today's toss was a short stack of knitting books.  It we were able to meet in person I would have taken them with me to Guild and found someone that wanted them but into the Goodwill box they went.  Maybe we can meet in person next year.

I went down to see DS at Zambaldi today.  He was cleaning tanks in preparation for moving beer around so it will carbonate and be ready for kegging.  Only two of the beers gets put into bottles, the rest goes into kegs.  I got a taste of Rompin' Stompin' Hell, the beer he made with chipotle peppers.  It's good, starts out sweet and then finishes with a little tingle.  I like it.  And I don't like things too hot.

--Barbara