Wizard of Earthsea

I made good on my resolution to abort the novel, although I suspect I'll check it out again one day because I'm basically among the 38.1% at the bottom of this infographic.

In the meantime, I've started Ursula K. Le Guin's The Wizard of Earthsea because it was sitting on the coffee table, where it had been relocated from my son's bookcase several months ago for reasons involving Matthew McConaughey.

OK, I know I have to explain that one.

At some point this past winter, undoubtedly due to sunlight deprivation, I got it into my head that a character played by Matthew McConaughey advised reading Le Guin as an introduction to science fiction for someone who may ordinarily prefer, say, Jane Austen.

I remembered McConaughey's character in The Jane Austen Book Club giving this advice to Maria Bello's character.

Wait, you say: Matthew McConaughey wasn't in that movie! Yeah, I know: Grigg was actually played by Hugh Dancy. But for some reason, I thought at the time that Matthew McConaughey was telling me to read a Le Guin book, so of course I fetched the only Le Guin I could find in the house. And there on the coffee table I let it sit for months because I had other things I'd rather read.

I'm not loving this wizard book either, but I'm halfway through, and it's fairly short, so I'll finish it and hope to discover the magic before the end. Also, this is fantasy, not science fiction, but maybe that's what Hugh Dancy's character was recommending anyway. I can't remember. I suppose I could look it up in the book, which I own. Or I could read it again; I liked that one.

However, the wizard did get me to thinking about knitting. It made me recall the fabulous knits in the film version of The Golden Compass, probably because that was also based on a fantasy novel, and as the film was released several years ago, I wondered if any knitting patterns from the costumes had become available. So I googled, and I found my next project.

My teen daughter, who will never wear a hat even on the coldest winter days, was looking over my shoulder and let me know that she would consent to wearing this if I knit it for her:

I found the pattern at Ravelry, and I probably have equivalent yarn in my stash, so as soon as the sweater is finished, this will be a go.

Wild abandon

I sent my daughter to writer's camp this week, and perhaps through a extrasensory transference such as the type seen only in the movies (think What Women Want or even Spiderman), I have been imbued with a frenetic writing energy that requires multiple outlets.

In other words, I'm resurrecting this blog. I've already dusted away the spammers in comments, so if any real readers still exist, it's safe to come back.

It can be difficult to write about knitting when one is not actually knitting, which has been my problem for the past three years. Am I knitting again now? Not yet, but I think I've figured out the root cause.

I received this enlightenment yesterday while contemplating a novel I've been "reading." (Reading, of course, is usually incompatible with knitting except for those blessed with the ability to pay attention to audiobooks. I'm a more prolific reader than knitter.) My progress on this book has stalled after about 60 pages, and yet I've so far refused to follow Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50 and give it up. I started it for a reason -- because the author is highly regarded and someone I feel like I "should" read -- and that reason doesn't disappear just because the book hasn't engaged me.

Yet I know I could've read at least three other novels in the 6 weeks or so that I've been "reading" this one. I pick it up, read a page, and set it down to do something else, but I don't read anything else because I have this to finish first.

The same problem has stalled my knitting. I think it may be six years since I started this sweater:

It's from Solveig Hisdal's book Poetry in Stitches for those interested.

It's lovely sweater, and I'll be happy to have it completed, but it's a rather random, non-repeating pattern that requires constantly looking at the chart. This means it's difficult to do much of anything else while working on it. I can watch television if I don't want to look at the screen, but foreign films with subtitles (which make up about 80 percent of my Netflix queue) are out of the question.

My progress has been so slow on this sweater than I believe moths may have already been at some of the early rows. There's broken yarn I can't explain.

Really, I should abandon it and move on to something else, like a scarf or a sock. But I'm almost finished with the body and the sleeves will be much easier! It would be tragic to abandon it now after so much work.

Many situations in life require us to resolve to let things go to maintain our sanity, or our relationships, or to allow room for other things to breathe. And yet, it's often with the projects we persist on, when everyone else may be urging us to give up, that we're most rewarded. The trick is to recognize what's worth pursuing and what's better consigned to the remainders bin.

For now, I think I'll return the novel to the library and finish up the sweater, resolving to make sure my next knitting project is mindless and portable.

The novel, by the way, is Thomas Pynchon's V., in case anyone wants to plead its case in the comments.

Early fall dinner

Editor's disclaimer: on the slim chance that any reader still exists for this knitting blog, rest assured that I'm not converting it to yet-another-food blog. This is a one-time posting to efficiently distribute information to a few friends.

For a seasonal cook, the first days of October in northern Michigan offer tantalizing options. My CSA box this week was a bridge from summer to fall. The tomatoes are still producing (quite late for this region!), the greens are still rich from the fields and the fall carb-fest of winter squashes and root vegetables are rounding it out. I could still make something summery and light, with tomatoes and dragon beans and kale, but with the wind howling and the skies gray, fall comfort food beckoned.

First up was the chunky apple walnut cake I've been making for more than 20 years. The recipe comes from The Silver Palate Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. This is one of the first, if not the very first, cookbooks I ever purchased. I bought it when I was still in college, so that's basically how long I've been a foodie and aspiring cook. The dust jacket is in tatters, and leafing through, I found a receipt from 1988 and another from 1986 tucked in the pages. I know this cookbook has some mistakes, so it always pays to be careful and thoughtful when using one of these recipes, but the apple cake, which I make almost every fall, is perfect just as written. I rarely leave a recipe unaltered, but this is an exception (well, a tiny amount of editing).

Chunky Apple Walnut Cake

from The Silver Palate Cookbook

1.5 c. vegetable oil

2 c. sugar

3 eggs

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp. cloves

1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. mace (or nutmeg)

1 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 c. whole-wheat flour

1 1/4 c. walnuts, chopped and toasted

3 1/4 c. coarse chunks of peeled and cored apples (recipe calls for Rome Beauty, but use what you have)

3 Tbsp. Calvados or applejack

1. Preheat oven to 325F.

2. In a large bowl or your stand mixer, beat oil and sugar until thick. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

3. In another bowl, stir together the flours, soda, salt and spices. Add to oil mixture and blend.

4. Add walnuts, apples and Calvados and stir until evenly distributed.

5. Pour batter into a greased 10-inch round cake pan (I use a bundt). Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until done.

6. Let cake rest for 10 minutes, then unmold and pour glaze over warm cake.

Apple Cider Glaze

4 Tbsp. sweet butter

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

6 Tbsp. sugar

3 Tbsp. Calvados or applejack

4 Tbsp. sweet cider

2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice

2 Tbsp. heavy cream

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan and stir in both sugars.

2. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat slightly and cook for 4 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Pour while still warm over warm cake.

Note to northern Michigan readers: I bet Left Foot Charley's Cinnamon Girl hard cider would be a terrific substitute for the sweet cider, or the Calvados. I might make it again to find out. Or, better yet, just buy a bottle to drink with the cake.

While the cake was baking, I started a leek bread pudding. At the risk of being struck by lightning, I will confess to altering this original Thomas Keller recipe. I'm sure it would be even better if I had made it exactly as he specified, but I am but an ordinary home cook, not a great chef, so I must sometimes modify.

The inspiration for making this came from a loaf of homemade sourdough that would be hitting the compost in a day or two if not eaten. The recipe calls for 12 cups of bread cubes, so that would take up most, if not all, of this poor forsaken loaf. Mr. Keller would have me make a loaf of brioche instead, but I couldn't see why a multi-grain, multi-seeded sourdough couldn't substitute. I also didn't seek out his specified cheese, just getting a basic Swiss from Oryana. And I used less dairy and a slightly different herb mix, based on what was growing in my back yard.

So here's what I did.

Leek Bread Pudding

with apologies to Thomas Keller, from his wonderful ad hoc at home

2 c. 1/2-in thick slices of leeks (white and light green parts)

salt (he calls for kosher, I used sea salt)

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter

freshly ground black pepper

12 c. bread cubes (he makes a brioche; I used a sourdough)

1 Tbsp. finely chopped chives

1 tsp. fresh oregano (he called for thyme)

a little bit of fresh chopped parsley (my addition)

3 large eggs

2 c. whole milk (he called for 3 c.)

2 c. heavy cream (he called for 3 c.)

freshly grated nutmeg

1 c. shredded Swiss (his recipe used Comte or Emmentaler)

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.

2. Put the leek rounds in a large bowl of water and swish to clean, then drain. Saute over medium-high heat, seasoning with salt, for about 5 mins. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the butter and pepper. Cover the pan (he says use a parchment lid, but I just used the pan lid) and cook, stiring every 10 mins, until the leeks are very soft, about 30 mins.

3. Meanwhile, spread the bread cubes on a baking sheet and toast in the over for about 20 mins. (I put them on the rack under the cake).

4. Mix the leeks and break together, then add the herbs. (Sage would probably be nice with this, too.)

5. Lightly whisk the eggs in another bowl. Whisk in the milk, cream, salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of nutmeg.

6. Sprinkle 1/4 c. of the cheese in the bottom of a 9x13-in baking pan. Spread half the leeks and croutons in the pan and sprinkle with another 1/4 c. cheese. Scatter the remaining leeks and croutons over and top with another 1/4 c. cheese. Pour in the custard to cover and press the bread down into it. Let is soak for about 15 mins.

7. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 1.5 hours, or until the pudding feels set and the top is brown and bubbling.

The leek bread pudding went into the oven just as the cake was coming out. While that baked, I whipped up a very simple potato-leek soup. Probably every cookbook I own (no small amount) has a version of this recipe, but I used Julia Child's, which is the very first recipe in her Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Potage Parmentier

adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child

3 to 4 c. or 1 lb. peeled, diced potatoes

3 c. or 1 lb. thinly sliced leeks, white and green parts

2 qts. water

1 Tbsp. salt

1. You know the drill -- swish the leeks around in water to clean, then drain.

2. Put the potatoes and leeks in a big soup pot with the 2 qts. water and salt. Simmer for 40 to 50 mins, or until all is tender.

3. When it's cooked, do whatever you need to do to make it all smooth. Julia recommended mashing with a fork or passing through a food mill. I used a food mill, but I took the lazy method and ladled the soup into the mill while I held it over the pot, so it wasn't perfect. I suppose a stick blender might work. I'd be hesitant to use the food processor or blender for fear of rubberizing the potatoes. Next time I'm at Patisserie Amie (nice French bistro near my house), I'll ask Chef Eric what he does to make his vichyssoise (the cold version of this) like velvet.

While the soup was cooking, I stared at the tomatoes. Then I chopped up a couple and made a salsa to placate the hungry until dinner was ready. Everyone knows how to make salsa fresca, right? The variations are endless, but basically it's tomatoes chopped finely, lime juice and salt. I always add garlic and cilantro, and some chopped jalapeno when I have it. Experiment! You can't go wrong.

A nation ripe for irony

If only I had the intellect and wit of Jonathan Swift, I would write a modest proposal for my country. This past week has elicited so many topics worthy of satire and parody. I wish I could remember them all.

The one that stands out in my addled mind is the controversy surrounding President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren. Some conservative parents claimed to be distraught that their children might be subjected to socialist "brainwashing" through a message that urged them to do their homework and take responsibility for their grades and behavior. I felt like I was living in an episode of the Twilight Zone when I read that some parents had threatened to keep their children home from school in order to avoid hearing this "socialist" message -- haven't conservatives been extolling the virtues of personal responsibility for years? Now a Democratic president gives a lecture that could have easily come from the pen of a Reagan speechwriter and we're told it's "socialist"? It's as if our nation has fallen through the rabbit hole.

If he weren't busy taking on California homophobes, the author of the brilliant campaign for a ballot initiative to ban divorce in his state would be an excellent candidate to wear Swift's satirical mantle and "save" our nation's vulnerable children from presidential pep-talks. John Marcotte has so cleverly worded his petition and accompanying website, which offers a ban on divorce as the most logical means of protecting marriage, that some of the commentators at Democratic Underground -- ever vigilant on their lookout for fundamentalist outrages, as they should be -- took it as evidence that fundies have completely vanished off the deep end. Kudos, Mr. Marcotte!

Baby stuff

A visit to the mall generally serves to reinforce two points for me: first, I'm made aware that I'm not exceptionally fat, perhaps not even average fat; and second, I'm resolved to continue to order my life so that it will be at least another six months before I feel compelled to make another visit.

During yesterday's sojourn, while treating my daughter to the delights of Subway in the mall food court, I observed that the smallest patrons were taking up the most room. I'm referring to the apartment-on-wheels that is the modern baby stroller. I think some of these contraptions may be the size of a compact car. Plus, they have the amenities of a new minivan, with cup holders, snack trays, luggage racks, rear trunks, etc. I would wager that the majority of immigrants to Ellis Island a century ago arrived with less baggage than that toted by the average baby stroller at the mall.

What has persuaded parents that an outing with baby has the packing requirements of a months-long safari?

There's a funny sequence in the film "Away We Go" in which the male lead presents a stroller to a friend who is apparently under the influence of attachment parenting gone manic. She reacts with disgust, noting that she loves her child, "why would I want to push him away from me?" The film pokes fun at her devotion to her dogma, but I couldn't help thinking of that scene while maneuvering around the goliathan strollers parked in the food court aisles.

When my children were babies, I had a stroller. It was a simple umbrella design, no baskets or frills. I think I paid about $20 for it. I liked it because it was very portable and could quickly fold up to about the size of an umbrella, which made it easy to store not only in the house, but on transportation, public or private. These new huge strollers must be co-dependent with a three-car garage.

I will not be the first to say that buying more stuff doesn't make one a better parent. Our children, at whatever age, really need very few materials. I remember hearing a story many years ago from my La Leche League leader about a long bus journey she had been on in Spain; a woman on the bus was traveling with a baby, just the baby a clean cloth diaper. After she changed the diaper, she washed out the dirty in the bus lavatory and then hung it from the window to dry for the next changing. My LLL leader said that taught her what was really necessary for infant care: "the baby and a spare diaper, that's all you need."

Mysteries of the Great Lakes

After 17 years of living in Michigan, I decided it was finally time to see the state's largest city. Detroit seems so far away, and I've only been in the city proper once, when I stopped downtown to pickup my husband for the drive up to Traverse City, on my second visit after we decided to relocate from Washington, D.C. That was in 1992. In the intervening years, all I've seen of Detroit are the signs on I-75 as we bypass it on our way to North Carolina.

So with my daughter and husband (our son was away at camp), we embarked on a weekend excursion to Motown and Ann Arbor. On arrival at our hotel Thursday evening, we learned of the sad death of Michael Jackson, and that was a bit of a deja vu moment. In the summer of 1977, I was checking into an Atlanta hotel with my vacationing family when we learned of the death of Elvis; I was about the same age my daughter is now.

On Friday we toured the Detroit Science Center and the Detroit Institute of Arts, the highlight of which, for me, was finally getting to see the Diego Rivera murals. May they never meet the fate that has befallen so much of Detroit's fine architecture.

There is much to lament in Detroit, which in many places gives the appearance of a war-torn city. But a city that takes care of those Rivera murals will always be a city to cherish.

Another point of hope came from a little film we say at the IMAX theater at the science museum across the street from the Rivera murals. There really were no mysteries presented in Mysteries of the Great Lakes, which I suspect received its title because it was deemed more luring to schoolchildren than something descriptive like "Restoring the Great Lakes." The primary plotline of this film was the effort to rescue the lake sturgeon from the brink of extinction.

Apparently the sturgeon is to the Great Lakes what the buffalo is to the Great Plains, although not quite as iconic. This species has been around for 150 million years and was plentiful in our waters prior to the usual exploitative overfishing brought about by greed (their eggs are called "caviar"). Now only a few decimated populations exist and biologists are desperately trying to restore spawning grounds to support the fish version of test-tube babies -- eggs deposited in the few remaining active spawning sites, fertilized in a mobile lab and hatched in containers filled with water from the designated transplant spawn river, which the young sturgeon will hopefully accept as a new home and return each year to repopulate.

The scene that made my eyes water was near the end, when the biologists gathered along the Black River in Wisconsin to await the return of the sturgeon to the spawning grounds. They were cheered on by dozens, maybe hundreds, of local residents lining the banks, all there to protect and cheer on the sturgeon. Are we humans finally starting to get it?

More books to remember

As promised, part two of books I've read that stayed in my life:

*A Flag for Sunrise, by Robert Stone. I read this in 1985, my junior year of college, when my political awareness was primarily focused on watching the cute guys playing hackeysack by the anti-apartheid shanties on the quad and attending the occasional beans and rice dinner sponsored by the Central American Solidarity Committee. This novel made me aware that the latter was about more than a free meal. I haven't re-read it, but I do occasionally look up passages to quote.

*Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. This one speaks for itself.

*Sophie's Choice, by William Styron. I'm glad I read this before I became a mother; I don't think I could manage it now. It haunts me still.

*Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver. I wish I had read this before I became a mother. My daughter was the same age as Ruth May when I read it. I cried for the better part of three days. Equally memorable for me, although not as emotional, was Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer.

*My favorite two treatises by William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience and On Pragmatism, can be found in most compilations of his writings. I consider myself a pragmatist.

*The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe. I blame this novel for my continuing habit of mentally labeling any expensively-dressed, very thin blonde woman a "social x-ray." The book is far better than the movie (sorry Tom Hanks).

*The food books of Mort Rosenblum, in order of their deliciousness: Chocolate, Olives and A Goose in Toulouse. Where have you been lately, Mort? Enough of those state-of-journalism books that I have to buy for my husband. Write another foodie one, please!

*You are Your Child's First Teacher, by Rahima Baldwin Darcy. Inspired by the educational philosophies of Rudolf Steiner that led to the development of Waldorf schools, this was the most influential of the parenting books I read when my children were small.

*The Beast in the Garden, by David Baron. Starting with an incident in which a mountain lion killed a jogger in the foothills near Boulder, Dave does a brilliant job illustrating the difficulties that ensue as human habitat encroaches on the wild.

*The City of Joy, by Dominique Lapierre. This portrait of the poorest slums of Calcutta somehow manages to leave the reader feeling strangely uplifted and optimistic.

*Texas, by James Michener. The thing that stayed with me from this historical novel was Michener's description of the difference in settlement patterns of the Spanish and the Anglos. As he told it, the Spanish found their security in each other and built their homes close together around central plazas, while the Anglos found their security in isolation and generally preferred to settle as far as possible from each other. Daniel Boone was reported to have remarked that when he could see smoke from a neighbor's chimney, it was time to move. I've been wanting to further explore the implications of these patterns on modern land use and transportation systems.

*Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. I'll never forget his anecdote about the guys in a French barber shop being perplexed at a photo of Jodie Foster carrying a baggie of dog poop on a beach -- hilarious!

*How Stella Got Her Groove Back, by Terry McMillan. This is not Literature, but in the depths of winter, whenever I'm tempted to fantasize about running off to a tropical island where some hot young hunk could bring me fizzy drinks and rub oil on my back all day, I remember what happened to the real Stella.

*The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre. The movie is really good, too.

*Home Economics, by Wendell Berry. I want to read this again.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some important unforgettable books, but there will not be a part 3, at least not anytime soon. I should do a list of great books I haven't read yet and start working through them.

Books to remember

Perhaps, like others in their 40s, I too often confuse information overload with the onset of senility. If I can't remember where I read something, or even what I read, the logical explanation is that the volume of data I've attempted to stuff into my brain simply exceeds its storage capacity. But then, didn't I read once that humans use less than one percent of our brain power? Can't remember exactly -- information overload!

Anyway, summer is here (happy solstice!), with front porch settees and backyard hammocks luring us out for iced beverages and blissful reading. Why spend that time overloading our puny brains with yet another forgettable "beach" book? Summer reading isn't required to be "light", although some of the books I'm about to suggest can almost qualify as easy, engrossing escapism because they are fun to read, even if they may prompt thought during and/or after.

These are the books I most remember or that have influenced me the most. For some of them, I may not recall details, or even plots, but the narrative or message in some way impacted my life. The list, in no particular order, along with a helpful link to reviews:

* Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie. I read this my junior year in college as part of a project in my public policy ethics class. It awakened me to many issues of political and social justice and also prompted me to learn more about Gandhi.
* The Gandhi Reader. This remains an excellent and accessible compilation of Gandhi's most important writings, as well as reminisces from those who knew him. It would take many blog posts to list all the ways that Gandhi's writings and life have influenced me, but one little standout from this volume is his treatice on the benefits of spinning, which led to a fascinating exchange with Rabindranath Tagore.
* Tolstoy, by Henri Troyat. The definitive biography of Tolstoy, who has to be one of the most fascinating and complex writers of all time. He also influenced, and corresponded with, Gandhi.
* Voluntary Simplicity, by Duane Elgin. This is one of the best critiques of our materialistic culture, and the antidote to it. The foreword by Ram Dass is just as compelling as the rest of the book.
* Divorce Your Car, by Katie Alvord. I was well along the anti-automobile path when I was asked to review a copy of this book several years ago, but it really helped me catalog the many reasons I don't like cars. It's just as relevant now as it when it was published.
* Diet for a New America, by John Robbins. I'm not still a vegetarian, although I continue to shy away from meat, and this book provides great incentive for doing so.
* The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. I've long been a huge fan of Michael Pollan's and had read most of this in some form or another in his New York Times articles, but this is a great compilation of the current state of industrial food, and the alternatives to it, regardless of how much meat we eat. For a fun read from Pollan, I also recommend his earlier Botany of Desire.
* Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. This cookbook is pretty much the bible of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Its hardcore (and controversial) nutrition for those who want to eat like our pre-industrial ancestors.
* Handling Sin, by Michael Malone. Everyone needs a completely escapist and fun summer novel, by a writer you're probably never heard of. I've read this one twice, and I rarely re-read.
* The Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler. My neighbor tucked this novel inside my bag when I was leaving for Christmas vacation a couple of years ago. The heroine walks away from her family while on summer holiday and doesn't come back for a year! I suspect many mothers in their 40s can relate to this.
* In the Absence of the Sacred, by Jerry Mander. If I were to read this again, I'd feel bad for spending a beautiful Sunday morning updating my blog, even though I'm outside.
* The Fifth Sacred Thing, by Starhawke. Did the previous one depress you? Then read this novel that envisions how society might function if we tree-huggers get our way.
* In Service of the Wild, by Stephanie Mills. This is from one of my favorite books from one of my favorite writers and a dear friend.
* Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, by Alan Weisman. If Stephanie's wild service inspired you, take a closer look at another community that's doing similar work.
* Wanderlust, by Rebecca Solnit. This is an outstanding history of walking as well as a guide to the inner journeys accessible with our feet. I was inspired by this book to plan a hike from my front door to the tip of South America in celebration of my 50th birthday. That's just a few years away, so I guess I'd better start figuring out that Darien Gap crossing.
* Earth Odyssey, by Mark Hertsgaard. Particularly compelling is his chapter on the automobile, which begins with a midnight taxi ride from the airport to downtown Bangkok.
* Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. I'll probably get blasted for this because it's so politically incorrect, but I first read this when I was 12 in North Carolina and have never forgotten it. If you can get past the racism and pretend you haven't seen the movie, you'll find a memorable story about a courageous woman who defies social conventions to live by her own star.
* Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. I don't elaborate on Jane.

I'll probably have more to add to the list tomorrow.

The search for meaning

As Glinda the Good Witch advised Dorothy, "it's always best to start at the beginning," and so as I embark on homeschooling, I've started at the beginning by reading a book about the end. In this case, author Neil Postman's "end" is really more about the entirety. I first read The End of Education several years ago, and I decided a few weeks ago that I could use a refresher on it since I recalled it answering that basic question that nearly every parent hears at least occasionally: "Why do I have to go to school?" For the homeschooling parent, the question may be edited to "Why do I have to learn that?"

Postman argues, basically, that schools need a better mission statement, a raison d'être, or, as he puts it, a god to serve, and this must be a god that doesn't fail. I'll give a full review of the book after I've finished re-reading it, but in brief synopsis, an example of a current popular god that has failed is the god of economic utility, which basically says "study hard and you'll get a good job after you graduate." It's not that this maxim is inherently untrue, but it doesn't exactly infuse a young person with a sense of higher purpose. By replacing this narrative with -- according to one of his suggestions -- a narrative that prepares students to be caretakers of the planet, we begin to restore the collective consciousness and meaning that has been missing from institutional education.

Grasping for that meaning prompted me to pull out my copy of Walden yesterday. My daughter yearns for what she views as the ultimate simple life: the romanticized, school-free existence of the Kalahari bush tribes featured in The Gods Must Be Crazy. In an effort to explain that school may not be essential to the human condition, but learning is (even Kalahari children must learn skills to survive in their world), I found the famous words of Thoreau, which are inscribed on a plaque near the site of his cabin at Walden Pond:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

I'm persuaded that freeing oneself from the materialistic cultural paradigm is an entrée to a life more focused on learning, even if that does not involve "school". My next task is to implement a home school that celebrates true learning, the kind that rewards us with meaning.

Fun Links of the Day:

I got a kick out of this Salon blog describing a Facebook unfriending. Surely all those who have been friended by people they haven't even thought about since high school will relate to this.

In another humorous Salon essay, Gary Kamiya wonders how the macho American male will adapt to Fiat's impending takeover of Chrysler. Enjoy!

And finally, rubber lawn chairs in Times Square? Tis true!

Homeschooling -- Can I do it?

Barring any earth-shattering events this summer, my daughter will not be returning to school in the fall. I'll refrain from elaborating on the circumstances that prompted this decision; suffice it to say that my husband and I believe this to be best for our daughter emotionally, mentally and academically. We remain ardent supporters of public schools -- and our son will continue in public high school -- but have recognized that our daughter needs a different environment at this time in her life. We are fortunate to be able to provide it for her.

I'm currently feeling a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of directing the education of a rising 7th grader. I've been researching this for most of the past two months and wonder if I'm up to the task. There are so many options, so many resources, so many possible directions and approaches. I need a home school fairy godmother!

We'll actually start some form of home school this summer, on a limited trial basis. I want to see if I can rekindle my daughter's natural curiosity and channel that to learning, and I also want to make sure she will cooperate with me as the "teacher", or more appropriately, the educational facilitator. But summer is much too gorgeous and short in northern Michigan for us to spend any of it bothering with an online math course, so I'm keeping it light.

Her assignment for the summer will be to read 6 books (2/month average): three of my choosing and three of hers. I told her she can choose shorter books, but they need to be somewhat age appropriate. No counting books, haha.

The three I've selected for her are Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, for an engaging and accessible survey of science; Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' Reindeer Moon, because its heroine is a teenage paleolithic girl who hangs out with lots of animals; and Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, because, well, it's Rushdie!

Now I just need to somehow make the days stretch to about 50 hours instead of 24 so I can figure out what we'll be doing come September. Comments and advice welcome, if anyone reads this.

A fine spring day in northern Michigan brings me out to the front porch with my laptop. A breeze carries the sweet fragrance of the antique lilac bush on the west end of the porch, and the only improvement I could imagine to this day would be another 5°F and some friends stopping by with coffee and croissants.

It's doubtful that I have any blog readers after a three-year hiatus, not that I ever had many anyway. I don't mind chatting with myself, especially when a topic has me worked up.

The topic isn't knitting, which I think may have been originally a flimsy excuse for me to get on my soapbox online. Knitting content is nonexistent today, because knitting has basically been nonexistent. I may get back to it soon, now that I've kicked the habit of World of Warcraft (brief pause for gasps of shock from millions of readers).

Nothing could send me back to the blog faster than a need to make a rant about cars. I've just spent my spare leisure time for three days reading 18 pages of comments on the topic of "Car Free in America?", an interesting reader discussion in the New York Times.

I admit to skimming some of them, but unless I missed some major text, in 18 pages no one mentioned the endangerment cars bring to our children, except for the comments from parents who said they can't allow their children to walk or bike because it's unsafe. These parents must not be aware that cars are just as much, if not more, of a danger to children who are IN them. Car crashes remain the leading cause of death for persons under the age of 25.

As a parent who was very car-lite when my children were small (thanks to our defunct and greatly missed neighborhood carshare experiment), I appreciate the difficulties of lugging youngsters and their gear about in bike trailers, strollers, or on public transit, especially in Michigan winters. Often, even if a car isn't a necessity, it's an irresistible convenience. But in the interest of safety, we should consider reducing the amount of time our children spend in cars, and whenever possible, advocating for infrastructure changes that will make traveling through our communities more comfortable and safer for all.

Oooh, if I post today, I will not have gone a full year between blog entries! Of course, I don't expect that anyone is still reading...

No knitting content. I need to clean the house, and hopefully I will uncover my digital camera in the process, and then I can take some pictures of completed projects.

The real reason I'm trying to remember how to use Blogspot this morning is that I want to talk about energy again. Gas prices are tickling that $3 spot and it's not even hurricane season. Seems everyone is wondering how to escape pain at the pump and thinking about ways to salvage their budget. Before doing something really unwise, like sacrificing those organic strawberries, consider these options, in order of impact:

1. Move. This is the most drastic, of course, but also has the most potential for a big payoff. The trick is, as gas prices continue to rise, this option may start to seem less drastic but more expensive as housing prices in convenient locations are bid up. Fortunately, we took this step 8 years ago; prices in our centrally-located neighborhood have nearly doubled since then (and we're in a small town in the upper midwest -- not bubble territory!)

If you are in a situation where a move is at all possible, you may be discouraged by the high cost of housing in central locations. Moving may require a major downsize in living space. Would that really be such a bad thing? Maybe, maybe not. Just something to consider.

2. Downsize your car. If you're driving a big gas guzzler, you've probably noticed that the resale market isn't that great for them right now. Do you think it's likely to get better? Figure when you can best afford to take the bath. Maybe you'll just have to drive the guzzler till it dies, but don't make the mistake of buying another one!

3. Let the kids take the bus (or walk, if close enough) to school. If the school the bus goes to is really dreadful, consider option #1 again.

4. Rethink leisure activities. Our local newspaper had a story about people who are planning to cancel their summer vacations because of gas prices. I wouldn't put that on the top of my list; instead, I would reevaluate recurring, extended obligations such as the kids' soccer team. Look for recreational activities close to home. If you have motor toys (jet skis, snowmobiles, etc.), consider non-motorized alternatives.

5. Walk, bike or use transit whenever possible. Even if you live in a bike-hostile area, you may be able to enjoy biking when visiting bike-friendlier locations. A friend of mine lives too far to bike to town, but she brings her bike in on a rack, parks the car, then uses the bike to go between errands. Bikes can be equipped to haul a lot of stuff.

6. Bring your own lunch. That is, if you would otherwise have to drive to get it.

7. Cluster errands.

8. For more ideas on reducing car dependency, read "Divorce Your Car" by Katie Alvord.

9. Educate yourself. If gloom and doom motivates you, check out "The End of Suburbia" by J.H. Kunstler. For a more proactive spin on the situation, start with The Community Solution. In the worst case scenario (represented by Kunstler, et al), energy scarcity results in the end of civilization as we know it. In the best case scenario, it is a tremendous opportunity for us to create a post-industrial civilization that brings human potential to its fullest realization while maintaining the integrity of the planet's other life systems.

"Mendocino" cardigan in Peruvian Collection alpaca. Design from Pacific Coast Highway by Alice Starmore. Just finished.

And that's all the knitting news for now.

Turning to the voluntary simplicity section of this blog, the topic foremost on my mind in recent weeks is peak oil. Probably most of you are familiar with this phenom, which is not about the end of oil but rather the end of cheap oil. If this term is new to you, I urge you to get acquainted with it as soon as possible. There are dozens of websites and I won't recommend any in particular at the moment; a simple google search will keep you busy for hours.

Well, actually, start with this recent article by James Howard Kunstler that was published in Rolling Stone. It's getting a lot of attention. Perhaps it's a bit alarmist, but if you check around the internet a bit, you'll find equally alarming reports from the likes of Goldman Sachs and T. Boone Pickens, as well as Bush energy advisor Matthew Simmons.

So what are you doing to prepare for a future of rising energy prices? If (or, more likely, when) gas hits $3/gallon, what will the impact be on your life? What about $4/gallon? Or $5/gallon?

It's easy for me to say, "Hey, I rarely drive, and our one family car gets about 30mpg, so why should I worry?" But energy costs impact almost everything. So while I'm not sweating bullets at the gas pump, and I'm not a big shopper or consumer of imported goods, I'm quite concerned about keeping food on the table and a reasonable level of comfort in our house. I don't feel entirely secure about food because we don't have a place to grow our own, but I'm happy we're at least long-time members in a local CSA.

The house is a bigger concern. Recently I had a friend, who is an expert on alternative energy, do an audit. The bad news is that our walls are basically paper -- R3 -- as the blown-in insulation has all settled. Our attic also needs more insulation. The good news is that despite the draftiness of our 115-year-old house, we don't have a huge problem. My friend was shocked that we manage to heat our house in frosty northern Michigan for about $850/year. Apparently our habits have reduced our heating bills by at least half of what they should be. We turn the heat all the way down at night and sleep under thick down comforters. We also turn the heat off when we leave the house for more than a few hours. And we keep the heat set to a level (our thermostat isn't accurate, so I can't be more specific) that is comfortable with those thick wool sweaters (Ha! There was more knitting content after all! Knitting pays for itself by lowering our heat bills!) My friend told me that only about 1 person in 100 is willing to turn back the thermostat (surely he exaggerates!) Our furnace and hot water operate on natural gas.

Our electricity bills are also fairly reasonable at about $35/month. The refrigerator is our biggest electric drain, and we have a modest one without an automatic ice maker or any special features. We don't have a hot tub, and we use compact fluorescents in most of our light fixtures. We also don't have, or need, air conditioning.

Still, I don't want to kick in another $1000/year or so if energy prices double, so I have to figure out how we can be even more efficient. My friend recommended doubling our attic insulation, replacing the weather stripping on our doors, installing storms on the windows that don't currently have them, and consider putting window quilts in the bedrooms. He says just the attic insulation alone will probably drop $200/year off our heat bill.

My other focus of action is volunteering with our local currency initiative, Bay Bucks. While the link to surviving in a post-peak oil era may not seem obvious at first, I believe that community-building activities will prove crucial. The communities that are most self-reliant will be those that can best adapt.

Beaded shawl in Turkish mohair. Unfortunately, it's hard to see the beads in the photo.

I thought it was time for some knitting-related content, since this is supposedly a knitting blog. And yes, that's snow in the background. Still. (sigh)

In joint knitting-and-politics content, Leslie of NakeidKnits (one of my favorite blogs), has started a KnitIn in protest of the outrageous Senate vote to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (I can still barely type this because my blood boils whenever I think of it!). Leslie has an inspired, brilliant idea to knit with qiviut to show our solidarity with the residents of the Arctic. Read the details on her blog.

Yes, luxury yarn can be used to save the world. Absolutely. Why didn't I think of making the qiviut-ANWR link? Well, I'm grateful to Leslie and eager to order a skein or two from Folknits.

March Madness Update

After Round 1, the ACC is 5-0. Yep. And the Big East? Not so good.

Go, go Vermont Catamounts! Thanks for taking out Syracuse, who was supposed to offer Duke its toughest battle for the Final Four. Catamounts, I wish I could have seen your game, or more than the last .4 seconds, but unfortunately, I live in the Midwest, where CBS apparently believed viewers were more interested in time-outs and conversations at the scorers' table in the Wisconsin-Northern Iowa game. Boo, CBS. But yay, Catamounts. I hope you beat Michigan State tomorrow so you can get one more win before falling to Duke next weekend.

That last sentence will likely get me run out of northern Michigan. After 13 years in Michigan, I have yet to warm up to any of the local sports teams. Maybe that's because it's hard to warm up at all here!! (And it could be because I've only recently started paying attention.) I was surprised yesterday to see the Carolina game on TV because I assumed its opponent, Oakland, was from California. Nope, it's a Detroit-area school. I had never heard of it! I think Michigan State is the only other Michigan school in the tournament. North Carolina, my native state, has five teams, three with a very good chance to get in the Final Four.

Wilderness -- Who Needs It?

So the Senate voted yesterday to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I do not have sufficient words to express my contempt for those 51 senators. I hope that all across the land today, people who live in the states of those 51 senators are recruiting and funding serious opponents for them in their next election and that they will all lose their jobs because of this. My senators, I'm happy to say, were not part of the dark side.

I tried, but could not find through googling, a letter Michael Moore had written during the 2000 presidential campaign in which he assured Nader supporters that bad things would not happen if they voted for Nader and Bush got elected instead of Gore. The letter was primarily about Roe v. Wade and how Moore would not be lured into voting for Gore because of dire predictions about Bush getting Roe v. Wade overturned. Moore assured his readers that such a thing could never happen. He listed several dire predictions about a Bush win and called them "scare tactics." I can't remember if he mentioned ANWR. As it seems that the Bush administration is successfully dismantling many of the things we cherish, I'd love to find that letter from 2000 and make a scorecard from it.

Oops! It might sound like I'm blaming Michael Moore for this. Not at all. Well, not much. There are a lot of people who deserve more blame than Moore and Nader. I suggest we all look in the mirror to see who to blame. Anyone who uses oil has a share of the blame. Why don't we all resolve, in addition to calling our senators and imploring them to stop this crime at the next step of the legislative process, to reduce our fossil fuel use, even fractionally.

Those who are willing to make a big, bold move might consider getting rid of their cars. Others might try converting one trip a week from car to bike or other alternative. Still too much? How about this -- when driving to the mall, park at the first open space you encounter. That will save the gas required to drive another 50 ft. for a closer space, plus you will get a little exercise.

One of my pet peeves is seeing vehicles -- usually large, gas-guzzling SUVs -- idling for minutes in a parking lot in wait for a closer space that someone is vacating when an open space is not more than 20 ft. away! It is absolutely senseless. Another pet peeve is parked vehicles with engines running. I see this every day when I'm walking my kids to school. Sometimes cars will be parked outside a house for many minutes (15 from the time I first pass to the return pass) with engines running, presumably so the driver will not have to get in a cold vehicle. Then around the school in the afternoon, almost every parent waiting for pickup has the engine running, even if they are 10 minutes early. Rule of thumb: if more than one minute will lapse before you will move the car, then turn the engine off! Do this and you might save one of the last pristine wildernesses on the planet!

March Madness

It's time to return to my winning horse. Duke's opener is tomorrow night. In my new role as obsessed fan, I've made a bracket and plan to be closely following all the action for the next three weeks. I have Duke beating Louisville in the national championship game, which will be karmic payback for Louisville beating Duke in the same game my senior year, thus denying the best basketball class ever (Mark Alarie, Johnny Dawkins, Jay Bilas, David Henderson, Weldon Williams) a deserved national championship. I doubt anyone else has Duke and Louisville playing for the national championship this year, but as I said, I'm in a time warp, so there you have it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! The leprechauns visited our house last night and left the kids little chocolate coins wrapped in gold. My 8-year-old was delighted.

Yep, life really is like a roller coaster ride

I will start this blog entry on a happy note because I must end it with sad news.

Sometime last week, my usual bout with Seasonal Affective Disorder took a turn from the February hide-in-bed-watching-movies-and-knitting-with-a-2lb.-box-of-SeesCandies-at-my-side stage to the coming-out-of-it-with-manic-energy stage. That is good news. I've been singing and dancing and otherwise jamming to spend all of this pent-up winter blues energy. (My favorite new song on my iTunes lineup is Chely Wright's energetic rockabilly remake of "You Never Can Tell.")

But the good news doesn't stop there. Back in January, still reeling from the November elections when my side got its butt emphatically kicked to the curb, and then learning of the school board's nefarious plan to shut down my daughter's elementary school, I decided I had had enough of always being on the losing side of everything. It was time to find a winning horse. What could it be? The answer came one day when I observed my hubby listening to yet another sporting event on the internet radio. Hmm. I seemed to remember that my alma mater had a pretty good basketball team. "Hey honey, do you know what's up with Duke this year?" "Oh, the usual. They're loaded as always, in the top 10, of course." A winning horse.

So I decided to become a fan. I googled the Duke basketball schedule and nearly every game would be televised, most on ESPN. I started watching. It was hard at first because I didn't really have a clue what was going on. I was a typical Cameron Crazy during my student years, but that was two decades ago. Since then, I have been worried about other things, such as trying to get people to stop driving so much (another losing horse). I didn't know the name of a single Duke player. But thanks to ESPN, I got up to speed in the past two months.

One thing I immediately noticed when tuning in was that Duke, despite its top 10 ranking, seemed to be the underdog in almost every game, according to the sportscasters. Even Dick Vitale (why is he at every Duke game?), who had previously given the impression of liking the Blue Devils, was very uncomplimentary about this year's team, except for J.J. Redick, who he keeps calling "the best shooter who has ever lived!" So I wondered if I had picked the wrong year to become a fan.

My doubts were answered this past weekend when I got to cheer as my team beat my hubby's team in the ACC Tourney semi-finals and then hung on to cut the nets down the next afternoon as ACC champion. Woo woo woo woo woo!!! As for the incredible J.J., everytime he makes one of those impossible 3-pointers, I want to start humming, "hey, hey look at me, I'm Mrs. Robinson." What a hottie!

So now my team has a surprise number one berth in the big show. Even if the Devils don't make it all the way, it feels great to be along for the ride as long as it lasts.

I have recently discovered another surprising aspect to this. Apparently, in the years in which I was completely ignoring sports, Duke turned into Carolina. How did that happen? Back in my day, Carolina was the most hated team in the world. It was ABC. Duke was loved! Now it's ABD. Apparently, the only place in which the Devils are cheered now is Cameron. Well, I may in a time warp, but I still remember how to hate Carolina. May they go down in Round 1!!!

Devastatingly Sad News

Even since I've been doing this blog, I've had a link to my friend's blog, The Cornered Curmudgeon. If you click that link, you'll see that there will be no more brilliant insights from the curmudgeon, now revealed as Bob Conn. Bob's death is a deep, personal and grievous loss to those of us who were blessed to know him personally, but it is also a loss for humanity. He was an uncommonly wise man. Our world was richer with his presence and it will be poorer with his absence. But I am resolved to do as a friend suggested at last night's memorial service -- that those of us who knew him live the rest of our lives as a tribute to him. It will be no easy task.

Is stash reduction possible? Ever?

I'm finally getting over what must have been the flu. I've spent a significant chunk of the past week and a half in bed, knitting and watching movies. I started another beaded shawl and Mendocino, a longish cardigan from Alice Starmore's Pacific Coast Highway. I have a couple of finished projects, too, but I'm too tired to get the camera out now. Maybe tomorrow.

Before the flu hit, I was able to stop in at the annual sale at my favorite local yarn shop, Lost Art. Despite the fact that I already have enough yarn to keep me knitting for the rest of my life, I bought more. I am basically an anti-consumer; I don't shop for leisure and rarely go into any store that doesn't sell food. But I have a weakness for yarn. I plan more projects than I can possibly start. Now I'm starting to fear that the boxes of yarn stashed in my closet will become a source of guilt and stress. Except for the leftovers, every skein is attached to a planned project. Some have been on hold for years.

What I would like to do is resolve to purchase no more yarn until I'm completely out, both of commercial yarn and fiber to spin. I would like to force myself to get creative with leftover bits of yarn. At the very least, I would like to shrink the stash down to the four plastic bins designated for yarn. So back to knitting. Completing Mendocino will get rid of almost two bags of Peruvian Collection Uros.

Gandhi and Spinning

My recent hiatus from blogging was also a hiatus from blog reading. Imagine my surprise to come back and discover that the spinning bug had captured even Wendy, arguably one of the most popular and influential knitters on-line! (I am envious, but not surprised, that she is already more accomplished at spinning than I likely ever will be.)

I haven't yet had the leisure to check all 600 or so sites on the knitting blogs webring (from which mine has apparently been booted, with good reason), but I'm curious ... how many other knitters have taken up spinning? What are your motivations?

I'm an occasional spinner, but primarily a knitter. I became interested in spinning long before I took up knitting, but I lacked the opportunity to learn. A few years ago, I noticed an ad in the classifieds for a used spinning wheel and went to check it out. For $100, I purchased an Ashford Traditional, two large bags of raw fleece, a set of drum carders, and three extra bobbins. I ordered the "Hands On Spinning" book and attempted to teach myself. I couldn't get the hang of it. Then good fortune intervened. Our recent year in Colorado brought me into the orbit of the magnificent fiber shop, Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins, and its co-owner and gifted spinning teacher, Maggie Casey. Voila! I finally became a spinner.

My initial interest in spinning was spurred by my admiration of Gandhi. This originated during college, when I wrote a paper in a public policy and ethics class analyzing themes in Salman Rushdie's brilliant masterpiece, Midnight's Children. Researching background on the caste system and the religious struggles featured in this novel led me to the writings of Gandhi. This encounter with Gandhi's life and teachings was perhaps the key turning point of my life. It awakened me to different thinking and banished forever my previous goals of serving only the needs of my pocketbook by pursuing a lucrative career in something like corporate law.

Anyone who knows anything about Gandhi knows that the spinning wheel was the foundation of his plan for India's political and economic independence. He also advocated spinning on moral grounds. One of the most fascinating sections in the Gandhi Reader, (ed. Homer A. Jack) is a published exchange between the Mahatma and the great poet, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore questioned the value of burning foreign cloth when it could be used to clothe the poor, calling it a "magical formula" instead of the "precise thinking" of economic science that he believed India required (yes, it is odd that a poet would make this argument). Gandhi replied:

"I venture to suggest to the Poet that the clothes I ask him to burn must be and are his. If they had to his knowledge belonged to the poor or the ill-clad, he would long ago have restored to the poor what was theirs. In burning my foreign clothes I burn my shame. I must refuse to insult the naked by giving them clothes they do not need, instead of giving them work which they sorely need. I will not commit the sin of becoming their patron, but on learning that I had assisted in impoverishing them, I would give them a privileged position and give them neither crumbs nor cast off clothing, but the best of my food and clothes and associate myself with them in work."

Gandhi urged all of the people of India, rich and poor alike, to spend at least one hour a day spinning. In addition to the political, economic and moral benefits, he believed that spinning was a deeply meditative act. Of course, he was right. Sadly, I don't spin on most days and it is a rare day indeed that I spin for an entire hour. However, I have sometimes become so relaxed at the spinning wheel that I actually caught myself snoring, while fully awake and still spinning!

(Warning... I'm about to get on my soapbox!)

I'm thrilled that spinning is catching on. While our western industrialized nations are not the India of the British Raj, we are not so different, either. Very few of us, if any, live independently from the sufferings of the poor. Sweatshop labor clothes us, toxic chemicals endanger the agricultural workers who harvest our cheap food, and oligarchs enrich themselves while oppressing the poor in the countries that fuel our vehicles. Even if comfortable Americans, such as myself, are spinning cashmere and silk just for fun (actually, I haven't the confidence to try cashmere or silk yet; I'm still working on basic wool), perhaps we might slightly, even if only for a moment, spin the solidarity that Gandhi envisioned.

At the risk of making this much too long, I leave you with one other influential passage from another novel I read in that same college class. In Robert Stone's A Flag for Sunrise, a party of comfortable North Americans is traveling by car through an impoverished Central American country. Their conversation:

"What I wonder," Bob Cole said in his strange tremulous voice, "is whether the people down here have to live this way so that we can live the way we do."
"I'm just a soldier," Zeccca said. "But I think the answer to that is no. It sounds too simple to me."
"But it's not a simple question," Marie said brightly. "It's a really complicated one."
Cole turned to Holliwell.
"How about you, sir? You're something of an expert. What do you think the answer is?"
"I have to confess," Holliwell said, "that I haven't figured that out. There are lots of gaps in my expertise. I don't know what the answer is."
"We have to believe it's no, don't we?" Cole asked. "We couldn't face up to it otherwise. Because if most of the world lives in this kind of poverty so that we can have our goodies and our extra protein ration -- what does that make us?"
"It makes us vampires," Holliwell said. "It makes us all the cartoon figures in the Communist press."
"What if you found out it were true?"
"Me? What I do doesn't matter. I'd go on doing what I'm doing."
"How about you, Captain?"
Zecca took one hand from the wheel and turned partway around toward Cole. Marie kept her eyes on the road.
"What are you, Mr. Cole?" Captain Zecca asked. "Some kind of an agitator?" He asked the question humorously, with more of the Toledo in his voice that he usually permitted.
"Not at all," Cole said.

As promised, the photo of my only finished knitting project of 2005:


A Peruvian-style hat, made with Peruvian Collection pure alpaca, from a pattern in Sue Bradley's 1991 book, Around the World in 80 Sweaters. 

That's it for the fiber content for this blog today. Tomorrow I will bring you musings on spinning and Gandhi. But for today, I have ...

Movies!!

If you haven't yet seen Sideways, by all means, go. Immediately. It certainly deserves its Oscar nomination, and I'm thrilled that for the first time in, oh, about 15 years, I've actually seen one of the Oscar-nominated movies before the big ceremony. Usually, my grown-up movie backlog allows me to happily mine the $1-for-7-days section at the neighborhood rental store. Actually, to be quite honest, I have enough titles on my "must see" list that cable TV is a "good deal" because so many of those films have a decent chance of being shown on TCM!

Anyway, an impromptu girls-night-out thing Sunday took me and two pals to the local cineplex. We eliminated the slasher and action movies, as well as the movies our kids might want to see, and finally those with inconvenient start or finish times. We were left with Sideways and Phantom of the Opera. One of my pals had read a lukewarm review of Phantom, so Sideways it was. We did not regret our choice. Not only is this movie very, very funny, it's beautifully filmed and it has something to say. I won't divulge more. The only possibly negative aspect, at least for me, was going back into the dreary northern Michigan winter after spending two hours enjoying the California wine country scenery. We all wanted to go to dinner in Solvang afterwards.

and restaurants

Unfortunately, we were left with the neighborhood pretentious-but-poorly-prepared-food place. While I appreciate the owners' intent of trying something hip and urban in Traverse City, I think it would work out better if they hired kitchen staff who actually know how to prepare ponzu sauce. Or at least lowered the prices to compensate.

I generally eat out for two reasons. The most prevalent is to avoid cooking and cleaning. When that is the motivation, almost any restaurant will suffice as long as the bill is reasonably representative of the quality. The other motivation is to taste something I could not have prepared at home. If I'm spending more than $30 for dinner for two, the second motivation is in play and I'm not easily satisfied. I would rather spend $100 for an exceptional meal than $40 for a mediocre meal.

Fortunately, we have a few very, very good $40 places in the area. We also have some exceptional restaurants. My favorite is Tapawingo, which is one of the best restaurants I've been to anywhere in the world. It's about an hour's drive and quite expensive (at least $150 for dinner for two with wine and tip), so consequently we only eat there for very special occasions (such as 5-year anniversary increments), but I would be happy to blow our entire dining budget there and make do with beans and rice at home every other night.

On the other end of my fantasy restaurant scale is Kathmandu, a small Nepalese-East Indian eatery in Nederland, Colo. During the year we spent in the Boulder area, I was a frequent diner at Kathmandu and I sorely wished I could have packed the place in my bags and taken it back to Traverse City. Besides having the best saag I have ever tasted, it was friendly and affordable. My daughter was in half-day kindergarten then, and about once a week, we would stop in for lunch after school. They never charged Leah, who only ate rice and a bit of fruit from the lunch buffet. Generally, I hate buffets; when I pay to eat out, I prefer to stay at the table and have someone bring food directly from the kitchen. Yet I could find no quibble with Kathmandu's $6.95 lunch buffet. I would always eat almost an entire plate of saag, a little rice, some of the yummy rice salad, a bit of the curry dish, and some of the other vegetable special. Naan hot from the oven was delivered to my table. It was perfect. I miss it dearly.

We interrupt this blog to bring you a technical message:

I'm working on getting photos up. Apparently the MSN thing was not successful (thanks for the heads-up, Janet). Until the ISP techies can figure out what's wrong with my webspace, I'm trying Blogger's Hello thing. But I'm still figuring it out, so keep checking back if it's not working yet.

Scroll down to the January 24 entry and you should be able to see the photos now without the annoying request for a MSN groups account. Sorry about that! To compensate you all for your trouble, I will post a brand new photo of the recently-completed Peruvian hat tomorrow. (Remember: tomorrow=mañana)