Sorry For The Radio Silence--Again

DD left around 8 o'clock yesterday morning to go back to her real home and her real life and, to be honest, I just didn't feel like blogging yesterday so I sat here and watched a video series that Mason-Dixon Knitting's blog linked to a while back of the behind-the-scenes chaos as Chanel gets ready for  fashion show.  Eesh.  I can sew but not like those women; they're amazing.  I think Karl Lagerfeld is more than a bit odd but what genius isn't?  I felt especially sorry for the "house" model who kept getting poked with straight pins while being fitted into the muslin practice designs and I totally loved the 75-year-old horse farming woman who hand makes all of the braid for them in the last 2 weeks leading up to the show.  The shoemaker was pretty cool, and endlessly patient, too.
 
Every year I forget about these red day lilies planted down by the light pole at the corner of the lot.  This year I thought perhaps they'd gotten trampled or dug up by the public service guys when the pole fell on Easter Sunday and lit the neighbor's tree on fire, but here they are, blooming like they mean it.  I think I might look up when it's a good time to transplant them to a place where they'll show more and I'll remember them.
 


I probably jumped the gun on a couple of these but I picked my first little handful of blueberries yesterday afternoon--and promptly ate them.  I did carry them inside to show off to Durwood but then I nibbled them up one at a time.  They were good too, a little tart being slightly underripe, but good.





DD chased off a bunny that was nibbling on my carrot tops the other night so one of the few things I did yesterday that didn't involve sitting on my butt was go out and enclose both the carrots and lettuce in chicken wire.  I was very glad to have a mitt-ful of long thin bamboo stakes to use to secure the wire cages to the bales.  I renewed the slug beer cups too and used a trowel to sink them into the bales so the slugs have an easier time and when I stabbed the trowel in I noticed that the inside of the bales is looking less like straw and more like compost.  It's working!







Today is the first official day of my retirement.  I say that because today is the first day since last Thursday that I would have gone to work--and I didn't.  DD and I stopped by the dive shop on Monday to say hi and turn in my key.  It's the first time in 25 years I don't have that brass key on my fob.  Feels weird.  A friend stopped by last Thursday with this little bouquet as a retirement gift.  Thanks, KM, I love it and smile every time I see it.


I added a few more rounds on the Easter Egg anklet foot over the weekend but not so much

you'd really notice it.  What I want to do, yarn-wise, today and tomorrow is sort through my Finished Objects and decide what to enter in the County Fair.  A knitting friend and I went to the fair last year and noticed that there's very little knitting and crochet entered.  It's cheap to enter and the cash prizes are negligible but there are RIBBONS.  I want ribbons so I'm going to enter a lot of things.  Once I post this I'll get on the county website and download the particulars.  I think KW said it's all of four bucks to enter as many items as you want.  What a bargain.  I have a few things I'm sure about entering but I'll look at a bunch more, maybe take them to Friday Knitting for opinions.  I'm foolishly excited about this.

July 5--Robert Delaunay, Menage de Cochon or Menage Electrique (Carousel of Pigs or Electric Carousel)  At night the lights made colored streaks as the carousel spun around trailing music in its wake.  Tired children rode on the rearing horses one last time, their heads nodding in counterpoint to the rise and fall of their mounts.  As the the sunset faded the riders aged from children to young loves and then to the ladies who sold their favors for a few dollars.  The carousel at night was like a buffet of debauchery as the hour grew later and the skirts got shorter.  Men ringed the carousel calling out their favorites then sauntering up to lift them off the ride.  The pairs disappeared into the shadows only to reappear looking slightly disheveled and ashamed.

It looks like it might rain.  I didn't order rain for today, did you?  Time to snag some lunch and take my walk to the bank before it starts.  Maybe I'll go to the bank first...
--Barbara