You were perfectly fine . . .

My baby is reading now

Yes, I know. I mentioned this already.

But it still blows me away. Not so long ago, I wondered if my only child would share my greatest passion: escaping into the world of books. She didn't seem interested in reading more than a picture book at bedtime, and even then it seemed more about the togetherness than about the story.

We would regularly take trips to bookstores and read together, but she seemed to gravitate toward all the gimmicky stuff they sell in bookstores these days. The Disney Fairies books got her interested in chapter books, which was more fun, but she was still not interested in doing the reading herself.

Then came the start of 1st Grade. Her teacher told the kids she expected THEM to read to US, their parents, for 20 minutes each night. We sat down with a Strawberry Shortcake early reader, and . . . she read the entire book to me. Gasp! Who knew?! The entire time I'd been reading slowly, following the words with my index finger, and despairing that she was even listening, she'd been taking it in.

Now she's devouring the Rainbow Fairies and the Magic Tree House books. Last week in the car, I asked her a question and she was reading so she ignored me. Ha! Like I said before, I know this will annoy me in a few years, but right now? I'm all verklempt.

In other news, I've finished a few projects--two baby sweaters, and four baby blankets, and probably some other things I've forgotten. Here are some:

Henry's Blanket:

Kate's Sweater:

Sally's Blanket:

Kate's Blanket (with Kate in it!):

Matthew's Blanket:

Sally's Sweater (with Sally in it!):

Blogus Interruptus

Hmm. It's been so long since I updated my blog that I had to email for my password. Ah well. That's life.

What's up now? Well, I've done a little more knitting, some unexpected crocheting (for the 2 nieces and 2 nephews I earned during 2007 alone!!), some writing, some working, and--you get the idea. For awhile I stopped believing I had anything to say. (If my husband is reading this right now, he's choking on his AMP energy drink . . . Poor dear, I always have plenty to say to him!)

Worth mentioning: My daughter learned to read!! She has begun to ignore me while engrossed in Magic Tree House books. I know this will annoy me in a few years, but right now I'm so glad about it that I'm all verklempt. It's disgraceful, but there you are.

Also, I've changed careers again. You don't want to know. Suffice it to say that when I don't post for a week or more, that's why.

I'll have photos of projects I've finished in the last couple of years (cripes! It's been years!) soon.

It's good to be back.

Where did Jen and La suddenly go?

Went over to JenLa for my evening fix, to see if Laura "SuperSoaker" Alpaca had further interview material with Jen, but their address is bringing up a generic webpage instead of theirs. Which gets me to thinking: I sure hope that all of you who added Jen's cool Olympic buttons to your blogs and webpages saved them to your OWN server first. Otherwise, that kind of unexpected spike in usage can get a page shut down really fast.

La and Jen: We're missing you guys--come back soon!

Stitches West, anyone?

I did manage to sign up on time for Stitches West this year (is it just me, or do the signups for this seem unnaturally far away from the actual event . . . ? I just don't usually plan that far ahead for, well, anything.).

Having been out of the loop for awhile, I would so love to hook up with others who are going. Drop me a line if you'll be there.

I'm signed up for three classes too:  Friday afternoon is "Two Hands, Two Colors" with Sally Melville (chosen because I'm determined to learn how to do this; I currently hold both colors in my left hand and drive myself batty). Saturday morning will be "First Choices" also with Sally Melville (so I'm really hoping not to find her annoying in on Friday afternoon . . . ). And Sunday all day will be "Norwegian Mittens" with Beth Brown Reinsel.

I've never taken a knitting class before, so this should be interesting.

Hope you've all been well; I've missed being in touch.

Scarier than Halloween

Want to read something truly scary? Put down the Stephen King and try some James Dobson. Go ahead--I'll wait.

My favorite part is where he says:

"What did Karl Rove say to me that I knew on Monday that I couldn’t reveal? Well, it’s what we all know now, that Harriet Miers is an Evangelical Christian, that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life.  . . .

"[but] Karl Rove didn’t tell me anything about the way Harriet Miers would vote on cases that may come before the Supreme Court.

"We did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context or any other pending issue that will be considered by the Court. I did not ask that question. You know, to be honest, I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade. But even if Karl had known the answer to that and I’m certain that he didn’t, because the President himself said he didn’t know, Karl would not have told me that. That’s the most incendiary information that’s out there and it was never part of our discussion."

Please. This kind of dissembling is right up there with "I didn't leak Valerie Plame's NAME . . . I just leaked that Joe Wilson's wife was CIA, so that doesn't count." Or, "It depends on what your interpretation of the word 'is' is." Come ON people.

My other favorite part was where Dobson said he'd gone for advice and counsel to Chuck Colson. Any bells ringing here for those of us old enough to remember the 70s (or at least the Redford/Hoffman rendition of them)? Yeah. Chuck Colson is a felon who served time for obstruction of justice committed while serving as White House Counsel to Richard Nixon. How charming. A few months ago when the notorious "Deep Throat" Watergate source was revealed to be Mark Felt, Colson was quoted "disapproving" of Mr. Felt for his disloyalty to Nixon.

According to Colson, telling the truth is BAD, breaking into offices and stealing information/bugging is GOOD, lying to the American public that pays your salary is FINE, as long as you are being loyal to someone--even if they are corrupt and committing crimes. OK. Golly, I can totally see why people would call this guy for ethical advice.

WTF is going on in America today??? I want my rational reasonable non-religion-soaked country back!!!

P.S. Did anyone catch Laura Bush popping out of one of her tea parties to comment that the criticism of Ms. Miers sounded like sexism to her? When did Republicans start believing in sexism again? I thought they'd announced (probably on the flight deck of a ship just outside San Diego harbor) that racism and sexism have been magically eradicated, so we don't need those pesky affirmative action programs (not to mention Title 9) that threaten to keep Biff and Skippy (or was it Scooter?) from taking their rightful places in the beer-soaked fraternities of America's finest universities.

It's a whole new world.

Hello. I have news. Quietly happy news (as opposed to the jumping up and down, Alchemy Yarns on 50% off sale happy news). Probably you'll think I'm crazy--although if you've read this blog much, you KNOW I am.

I've been a lawyer for 14 years. I'm proud of the accomplishment, and I love the law--studying it, and writing about it. But I really hated BEING a lawyer. The lifestyle was relentless and made me miss too much of my kid's life. And the posture of constant conflict was making my spirit hurt. Seriously. So I decided to do something else.

In March I took the California real estate broker's exam, and in April I started work as a mortgage broker. I'm finding that I really like having my own business, and I love the math (who knew??) and the networking. Best of all, I can really knock someone's socks off with good work and good service, because I'm used to working a lot harder than this.

So maybe I am crazy, but I'm tellin' ya--I feel like I just got out of jail. Now I can read the Supreme Court decisions because I want to, and write articles because I have something to say. I still have my law license, so I can use it when I want--the best of all worlds.

Another update: My mom is done with her 6 rounds of chemo and started radiation therapy yesterday. She's doing great.

Knitting--yes, I've done some. I'll take pictures and share later. It's really hot here, so I'm sticking to small projects for awhile.

Jeezus, I'm lazy.

I'm knitting, I swear. And reading JenLa. And that's about all.

Mostly, though, I'm cleaning out the garage and office. Why? Well, dh and I had a Marital Moment on Saturday, and I was reminded that I am 40 and have certain adult responsibilities, several of which I have allowed to languish despite my ample unemployed free time. He's right. (Egad, don't tell him I said that.) So I got out my Martha Stewart label maker, several large plastic bins, and a box of contractor's garbage bags, and got to work.

A week later, the end is in sight. Yes, a week. What? Oh. I'm a pack rat. Irrefutable evidence: I still have (or had, until I pitched it this week) the Ryder truck rental agreement for the truck I rented to move from UCLA to San Francisco for law school in August 1987. Just to give you a little perspective, that summer Whitney Houston didn't take drugs or even know Bobby Brown yet--she was busy skipping through her videos singing "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." Madonna was still pairing snow white hair with jet black eyebrows. And Michael Jackson was touring "Bad" instead of being on trial for . . . well you get the idea.

I have to go get rid of more stuff. God only knows what I'll find next. Shoot me. I mean it.

adventures of an aspiring polyglot

For my Ulla heart socks I had to do a little language research. I know, I could just ask someone on the KBTH list to help, but I have this THING about doing it myself.  I know it's odd of me. Like knitting socks isn't tricky enough.

Imagine my delight when I found Marjutin Neuleet/Neulesanasto. (Don't ask me what that means. I have no idea. Yet.) It is a fantastically detailed and useful glossary translating English/American knitting terms into Finnish. I freaking LOVE finding stuff like this on the Internet! And wonder (again) what the hell we all did for so long without it.

No pictures until Monday--the husband went to his annual sales meeting this week and took his cool fast laptop with him . . . so I'm stuck with the schlumpy old desktop that is twice as old as my kid. And A LOT slower. If I tried to download photos onto this thing, I fear that it would begin to smoke and sputter, then collapse in on itself leaving a gaping black hole in the middle of the desk. Or I would become so frustrated waiting for it to do something--anything!--that I'd begin to smoke and sputter, then collapse in on myself, leaving god-knows-what behind.

Whatever it is, I hope there's a term for it in Finnish.

pop quiz

Compare and contrast this statement from the 2004 State of the Union speech:

Many of our troops are listening tonight. And I want you and your families to know: America is proud of you. And my administration, and this Congress, will give you the resources you need to fight and win the war on terror. (Applause.)

with this ("Hurt Troops Often Denied Pay, Benefits," by James Herndon, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 18, 2005) and this ("U.S. Soldiers Lack Best Protective Gear," by Jonathan Turley, USAToday, December 17, 2003--quoting testimony by then-commander of forces in Iraq General Abizaid indicating that he did not know "why we started this war with protective vests [i.e., body armor/"bulletproof vests"] that were in short supply.")

Every time I see a vehicle with a yellow "support our troops" ribbon and a W sticker I wonder how they've missed the fact that these are contradictory sentiments. Supporting W translates to ensuring that our troops are sent into battles we aren't prepared for and don't need to fight, that they are sent in without the armor and careful planning needed to protect them and ensure the success of their missions, and that if they are hurt or killed they will be hidden from public view and denied the health care and other services they and their families have been promised.

During the recent presidential campaign, W and his minions repeatedly stated--and apparently many people came to believe--that the lack of body armor and other equipment needed to protect troops in Iraq was somehow the fault of Sen. Kerry, who voted against the $87 billion appropriations bill for the war in Iraq. Hello? We invaded Iraq in mid-March 2003; the appropriations bill was sent to Congress in September 2003. Um, I'm pretty sure that nothing I do today is going to cause retroactive harm (or benefit) to someone 6 months ago. And the bill DID pass ("easily") in October 2003, so Sen. Kerry's vote had no effect . . . except to give the W camp something to twist and lie about.

My grandpa used to tell us: when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Why in this most critical situation don't W's actions speak louder than his words?

when NOT in Rome . . . dream of Finland?

I missed SW in Santa Clara this weekend, but on my way over to JenLa to check out what I missed, I found this: ULLA, a knitting netmag (like Knitty) from Finland. The pattern index is here. My new goal in life? To become a knitting polyglot so I can knit every pattern I see. Is that too greedy of me?

Here is the one I'm going to try.

How cute are these? I know, they're just socks. But still. Is it wrong to be obsessed?

At least it's not a poncho.

And here is the cartoon from this issue of ULLA, reproduced here in honor of husbands like La's and mine who . . . well, they don't get the knitting thing. No translation needed.