Category Archives: Knitting

Not Dead Yet!

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Ole Pickle-Puss

Our day began with Harry’s vitals, taken by Cassie. Results? He’s not dead yet. Good thing, because otherwise Jane would kill us. Actually, my day began earlier at Starbucks. I ordered their Iced Green Tea Lemonade. I won’t be getting that again. Anyway, he was alive when we left him and headed over to Nichols Arboretum. Once parked there, we headed downhill into the humid, overgrown, mosquito and tick infested labyrinth that greeted us. Halfway down we met members of the U of M women’s cross-country team, “Keep running ladies! Only five more miles of sweltering training left to go.” With that kind of exhortation going on from the team leader, we decided to turn tail, but instead of going back the way we had come, we took a side path that took us into Forest Hill Cemetery. Once in the cemetery, we struggled to get out again. “Bring out your dead! I’m not dead yet. Stop being such a malingerer and get on with it.”  There were many interesting tombstones, one in particular that caught my attention was for the Shamma family—Daddy, Mommy and Zade:

يَا أَيْتُهَا النَّفْسْ الْمُطْمَئنَّةُ ارْجِعِي إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ راضية مرضيّة
فاتخلي في عبادي وادْخُلي جنّتي

O tranquil soul, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing [to Him], so enter among My [righteous] servants, and enter My Paradise.

Spun, Julie Hoover

We eventually busted out of the cemetery and made it back to the car and then drove to Zingerman’s Deli for lunch. Believed it or not this was my first trip to the original store. On Saturdays it is too crowded. Anne and I shared a Reuben. When ordering, I was asked if I wanted an old pickle or a new pickle. Not understanding, I asked what’s the difference? Apparently, garlic flavoring for the old and more salt for the new. While dining, I noticed a couple of testimonials on the wall: “the Reuben is killer”— President Barack Obama and “on a scale of 1 to 5, I give it an 11”—Oprah. After lunch, we walked across the street to Kerrytown and Spun, “Young girls they do get woolly cause of all the stress.” Whatever. Anne bought more yarn to make me a new cap. 😉

Michigan’s Law Library Reading Room

Our next stop was the AT&T store, where we got some of Anne’s iPhone’s many problems fixed. Long story short. she will be getting a new phone next month. Then back to Harry’s. Nothing to report, except that he was still alive. We sat around with him for a while until he went to dinner, still breathing. We landed upon Cafe Dominick’s, across from the law library. Rich our classmate hosted us. More importantly, I got his older brother David’s number. I spent many a summer night hunched over a card table playing wargames with him, along with Armin, Ned and Cooper.

Cafe Dominick’s

Property Management

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Going Crazy while Modeling Her Chainmail Sweater

We ordered a new air conditioner. It will be delivered on Friday. It was a lot more expensive than fixing the old one, but it should last longer. This will give me peace of mind over the summer. In other news, we are planning two trips to the cabin this summer. The first in May, where after a New York wedding, we will accompany Anne’s sisters to the cabin. They have big plans for a new water heater and spraying for powder post beetles. We’ll hangout up north until our new windows are ready, then return to Saint Louis for their installation. Between the A/C and the new windows their costs will blow our home improvement budget.

Monumental Knitting Needles

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Red-Yellow-Black Double Ellipsoid “Twin”, Isa Genzken, 1982

Genzken’s Ellipsoids are hand-painted monumental wooden floor sculptures that touch the floor at only one point. Appearing to hover above the surface, these works express the artist’s lifelong interest in precision engineering. Genzken based the sculptures’ design on geometrical calculations of an ellipse (an elongated circle), for which she enlisted the help of a computer programmer. Her embrace of computer technology is at odds with the Ellipsoids’ handmade qualities. When the works first debuted, critics and other artists compared them to crafted objects like knitting needles, a seemingly gendered interpretation that led the artist to describe them as “weapons.”

Yesterday, Anne’s weekly knitting in public meeting resulted in another 9-1-1 call. No, no one was stabbed. One of the other participants had a seizure. Calling the ambulance is fast becoming a regular occurrence at these geriatric get togethers. While it was not a stroke, the victim was eventually carted off to the ER and will have his antiseizure medication increased.

I remember after 9/11 that knitting needles were temporarily banned as aircraft carry on, but the pacifying properties of their use was deemed to outweigh any risk of them being used as a weapon. That will remain true until the first time someone is actually attacked with these needles. All of Anne’s needles are much smaller than the two six-meter monsters pictured above. That is a good thing, because they would never be allowed onboard as carry-on anyway.