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Archive for February, 2006
A Meme To Appreciate
Friday, February 10th, 2006Soft and Warm
Thursday, February 9th, 2006Last Sunday, as I try to do twice a month (with varying degrees of success) I attended my friend Li’s face-to-face role playing game. I actually managed to give my character something to do, which given my exhaustion level by the time I reached Sunday afternoon is a minor miracle, but that’s neither here nor there.
I walked in the door to be greeted with a hug and the words “I have something for you.” This mystified me no little, because as far as I knew I hadn’t left anything at her house recently that I had not intended to leave. (The fuzzy slipper-socks in chaos pink don’t count. They were left on purpose, so that I don’t have to remember to pack slippers.) She turned around to hand me a small piece of soft green wool in a beautiful paisley jacquard weave. It was absolutely lovely, but I couldn’t imagine what might fold up to so small a bundle. I unfolded it to find a fine lightweight shawl, long enough to wrap without having to be held. It is wrapped around me even as I write this, nearly weightless, very soft, and almost as warm as the hug that came with it.
Thank you, Li.
Happily Warped
Wednesday, February 8th, 2006My loom has arrived and been duly removed from its box. It came pre-warped, so that it was possible to simply start weaving, the which I have done. I expected to have some learning curve on this, and I suspect I will get faster at it with practice. But the weaving itself feels remarkably natural, with no least trouble with things like controlling weft tension. I’d not stopped to think that a loom recommended as a child’s table loom would be small enough to fit on an adult’s lap, but it is. And so there it sat last night, as my husband played his new Babylon 5 DVD and I listened. By the time he got home, I had enough fabric woven and wound onto the cloth roller that he thought I’d been at it all afternoon, when in reality it had been less than an hour.
Our son watched me for a while, deciding that while he does want his own loom, he wants to wait awhile before he gets it. I’m thinking I may get him a small lap loom (otherwise known as a tapestry loom); it’s less confusing to look at. But meanwhile, he gets to see his mom learn a new skill. He not only hears that it’s ok to try and to be imperfect, he gets to see it. He gets to hear me sigh, and look up to see me correcting an error and then going on. That can only be a good thing.
This project is in colors I would not have chosen for myself, though I’ll finish it for the practice it provides. If I’m not wild about the resulting shawl I can give it away; while not quite perfect, I can already tell it will be good enough for that. But I’m already plotting the next one, looking for rigid-heddle weaving charts and sources of cotton and linen yarns. I’ll experiment with my own designs when I have a better sense of how warp and weft interact. Who knows? I might even do an Arts and Sciences entry for SCA, either simply of fabric I’ve woven or of something made out of it. But whether I do or not, I’m having a lot of fun.
Mr. Literal
Tuesday, February 7th, 2006We’re teaching our son to answer the phone. Part of the script is to ask “who is this, please?” if he doesn’t know, and then to tell me, preferably without first hanging up on the caller. So when the phone rang this afternoon, I was treated to the following:
J: “I’ll get it!”
Me: “All right”
J: “Hello?” A pause, then “Do you know who you are?”
And my son wondered why I was laughing.
Salutary Reading
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006A friend of mine posted a serious rant about her younger sister’s job hunt and employment status on her livejournal. It seems her sister is in the vicinty of 30, has always lived at home, and has never held a steady job. That’s hard to envision in this culture, but it does happen. But it is what my friend, and those commenting on her post, have said about their parents that’s gotten my attention. Basically, it’s that their parents won’t tell their daughter things she needs to know to get on in the world because they want her to like them.
My son is eight, and when I tell him things he doesn’t want to hear, he often says “if you tell me that again I won’t like you.” I won’t say it didn’t bother me at first, because it did. But my stock answer to him has consistently been “it’s not my job to make you like me. I’m your mom, and it’s my job to teach you to be responsible”…or that some things have to be done even if they’re boring, or that good manners and consideration for others are not optional at any time, or any of a myriad of other things. We’re consistent, too; appealing to the other parent just makes the parental invocation of authority a chorus rather than a solo performance.
My friend’s adventures with her family tell me that what we’re doing is exactly what needs to be done. I have to wonder if their folks ever told their younger daughter what we’re telling our son. And if not, and they’re likely to have to do it for the first time now, then I feel genuinely sorry for all of them, because it’s going to be pure hell.
Proof
Thursday, February 2nd, 2006I’ve done it. For the past (mrph) years, every time I saw it, I’ve been promising myself a rigid-heddle table loom. It’s one of those things that’s not expensive enough for me to put it aside, but costs enough that when there’s little discretionary income, I couldn’t justify it.
“Someday” has just become “today”. I’ve ordered my loom. It should be here in about 10 days. In terms of modern shipping, that’s a fair amount of time. But when I’ve waited years for it, another 10 days is nothing.
Marked Down
Wednesday, February 1st, 2006One of the things the gym does is weigh me weekly, and today was the day. Last week I was pleased with the result, but didn’t trust it not to be in the range of normal fluctuation. But now it has lasted, and so I can happily report that a bit over 10% of the total amount I’m trying to lose is now gone.
Yes, I’m unabashedly proud of that. And best of all, I can feel the difference.
Now Appearing
Wednesday, February 1st, 2006I had some minor and optional repair work done to my oven yesterday, getting the electronic thermostat adjusted. It looks fixed now, per the repairman’s equipment, but the true test is yet to come. Meanwhile, we got into some interesting discussions. One of the things that came up was the appearance of the letters “j” and “w” in the Engilsh language.
Now, I don’t actually know when those letters first appeared with the uses they have now. I’d suspect sometime in the 15th or 16th century, just because of the social flux of that period. But they do appear in the on-line edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, in Old English, and so I told the gentleman. He blinked, then said “Wait. You read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for fun?” When I acknowledged that I did, he just shook his head and went back to calibrating my oven.