July 07, 2008
July 06, 2008
cake
Juno recently wrote about cake, asking for recipes.
I never lose a chance to share this story - The Year of the Cake, by Greg Walloch.
I saw Greg W. late at night one night on Trio and a show called The Moth (a NY nightclub, with a literary storytelling series)- where for a month they followed 7 storytellers. Greg's story had me *riveted*. He's a NY comic, gay, with CP - and his cake story is phenomenal on so many levels.
I wrote him shortly after the show, and we have kept in sporadic contact since then. When Toby's a little older, we'll make a trip to NYC to see him live. I've tried to get various venues at work to bring him to up to RIT without much luck - but maybe someday ;)
May 29, 2008
Hard core sitting
I've been meaning to blog this for a while. Aaron Fotheringham is a kid who wanted to be included at the skate park with his brother - so he just started - I believe the other kids pushed him to the top of the ramp and then let go LOL. He's been a chair-user exclusively since the age of 8 (though he used crutches between age 3 and 8).
Don't miss the videos at his site -the second one especially - while it's kinda long, it gives a good overview of the reality of what he does - the falls, the practice, and the thrill of landing a new trick for the first time. Near the end, there are some really poignant moments where he's working with a little kid (age 4) and showing him how to get going in the sport of hard core sitting.
Some other links of interviews with Aaron:
May 26, 2008
Toby Tiger
Toby has been lobbying for an OX Ugly Doll - and we also started getting Craft magazine - where a recent issue had directions on making your own crazy plush monsters. So, I printed off a jpg of OX, enlarged it, traced it in sharpie, and used it as a pattern. I had a remnant of purple fleece in my stash, and while Toby argued that OX was really green, he finally decided it'd do.
The O is two buttons from the bin of old buttons from my grandmother, the X and mouth are embroidered plus a bit of red fleece for the tongue. It's stuffed with wool fluff that I'll never spin (my first attempt - I bought a greasy fleece, washed repeatedly but never got all of the grease out, the dye didn't take well b/c of that - and while I hand-carded the whole dang thing it's just not going anywhere). It's a quick and easy project - it would have been quicker and easier if I had cut the ears and arms a little wider - turning them right side out and stuffing them was a total PITA. I'm hoping this will morph into him wanting to make some of his own monster plush dolls - for now, he's stuck on having the commercial one.
Even with this one - he claims it'll be the teddy bear for his "real" Ugly doll!
And here's Toby last week:
Terry has started taking the kids to one of the local Unitarian churches, largely at Hannah's request. Their children's programming is great - especially the programs for pre-teens and kids coming of age - so I don't mind. Last week, they had an end of year children's celebration - and Toby was SO excited about being on stage - he asked for a dress up shirt with a tie, a real one (not a bow tie). (Shh, it's a clip-on, don't tell him that there's a "real" way to tie ties). He's heading down the now complete (but only nearly complete in the photo) ramp on the front of our house - it is SUCH a major difference to have the ramp! He gets himself out to the school bus every morning now - I go with him to pass off his backpack etc., but not having to lift him down the stairs etc.? Priceless. Thanks to the State of NY taxpayers - the house is a lot more functional for Toby these days.
Good thing, b/c he's getting way WAY too heavy to lift anymore.
May 25, 2008
Thanks...
Everyone, really, thanks.
There's not much more to say really.
Well, aside from the details of getting pix off the camera and sharing yarn, WIPs, and FOs.
I am rather stricken by the vast quantity of folks in my "circle" who are separating from long (some very long) term relationships. Is it just that I didn't notice so much while not in the same predicament myself? Very strange. Mind-boggling really, in a really sad way.
I spent the day outside getting a raised box built for tomatoes, transferring dirt and compost, planting 48(!) tomato plants, plus some broccoli, beets and orange peppers. Still to come is tossing down some lettuce seed (and transferring some started lettuces if I can find them). Next up, making a reasonable stab at keeping the boxes weeded... I am ending the day with a seriously angry knot in the lower left side of my back - eesh.
I also need to get pix of Toby and his new ramp - what a difference to our lives!
Last up, a new computer arrived at the house to replace a 9 (?) year old one - largely for the kids to play on, plus email for the grownups. It also has a video card compatible with Second Life so I'll want to play with *that*. The old one is behaving seriously erratically - hopefully it'll work long enough to get the rest of the stuff on it off onto the external hard drive. The only downside is that the new computer comes with Vista - and after some serious googling, I'm either going to wipe the hard drive and downgrade it to XP, or partition the hard drive and have it dual-bootable (Vista on one, XP on the other). I'll also look at whether I can boot from an external hard drive (this says it can be done - though it recommends installing a mirror image of the internal drive - I'd do it off of the old computer I guess - and having it sit there in case it's needed - really, I'd rather use the external with XP and use the Vista internal drive in case the external crashes!)...I have a decent-sized external hard drive; it might be even easier to do it that way. Any tips from the geeks out there? The one thing I'll probably lose if I revert to XP completely is the TV tuner thingie that comes with this computer (I gather there's no XP driver for it). I can't say as I'll lose sleep over that one - the house TV has local channels only (no cable), and getting TV through the computer is far from a "need" or even a "want".
May 21, 2008
Heart hurts
Where to begin.
I broke my children's hearts this weekend...Terry and I told them that we were separating. Nothing could have prepared me to how it'd feel or for the extent of the repercussions to their lives. Yes, it makes me question my decisions that led me to here...not because I think they were wrong decisions (the reasons for separating run pretty deep), but because I wish I could have spared them. They deserve more and better though, as do the grownups in this picture, and as my favorite songwriters remind, the only way out is through.
They're doing ok. Hannah's more cerebral about it. She's still scared and her world has been shaken. Toby's worried - mostly because he really doesn't understand it. He has a keenly developed sense of being at fault for most things wrong in life, so we have our work cut out for us in terms of him not taking this on as his. Hannah's teachers and friends have been phenomenally supportive - which is great to see. So far, they seem to do better during the day, and it gets hard at night. We keep telling them that we still both love them to pieces, and we'll continue to take care of them, and that the parenting piece was always something that we did particularly well together and that that piece will continue, and that this isn't their fault at all, it's stuff that Mamas couldn't work out.
Aside from that, things are going reasonably well. Work is slowing down to a dull roar, as Teri notes. Skating is in a weird space - there's not much ice to be had this time of year, I'm rink hopping at weird times of the day and it's about to get worse for about 4 weeks. Then my rink opens up again - I will never understand why New England rinks seem to feel the need to shut down in May and June and sometimes all summer. Rinks in warmer parts of this country stay open all year long - what a concept! I have a blog post percolating about some video resources available online re skating - and some pictures to share from Adult Nationals at Lake Placid.
Knitting is happening. A pair of fingerless mitts are about done, and I'm trying to finish a few pairs of socks that are nearly complete too.
I have a work/play/work trip coming up in a few weeks - I'm attending my college reunion and presenting at it - they're having a focus on my department/major, as two faculty are retiring (one this year, one last year) - both were faculty when I attended back in the early 80s. Then I'm heading down to the Bay Area for the better part of a week. Then, I'm heading to Reno NV to present at a conference. The fun part - I'm bringing Hannah with me. She is *thrilled*. She hasn't seen Grampa Charlie in far too long, and she'll be meeting one of her donor siblings...in the last few months, she has been talking with two of them on the phone, we'll meet up with one of them who lives in the area. It has been cool and mindblowing honestly to see these relationships build.
Knitting calls - I know I have been hiding in the wood work of the blog living room lately - it'll pass.
May 05, 2008
Coolest data representation I have seen in a while
I have so many things I'd like to blog about - Toby, skating (Adult Nationals, and Dance tests - I have passed the Rocker Foxtrot and the Tango so am moving on from Silver dances to Pre-Golds - wheee!), plus lots more - but have to post a quickie data thing for now.
This is the coolest data representation I have seen in a while. I happened upon it here - Flowing Data, a new blog on my blogroll. It's a New York Times graphic, where rather than using a traditional pie chart to break up and portray how folks spend their budget, they have divided the pie into sections, and then each section also has chunks corresponding to areas of spending - with amounts in that chunk and the increase/decrease from last year. The chunks are color coded by side of the change in prices - so it looks more like a stained glass window. It's also interactive - you can click on individual areas.
While my job as an Institutional Researcher does not involve a lot of visual representation stuff, I think it's hugely important. Edward Tufte's work is phenomenal - I inflict one of his essays (on the use and mis-use of Powerpoint) on my Research students. Lately, I have been following Freebase - which is a cool attempt that sort of combines my interest in mind-mapping (an example is here) to organize stuff and the vast amount of data available on the interweb. Sort of. If you really think about it. Which is what I have been doing.
At some point, I know I'll have the headspace and time to blog more - bear with me while it's a bit hit or miss please :) I am knitting - there's an FO on the horizon - so there's that at least!
March 16, 2008
PCAS recap
It has taken me all week to return and recover and re-enter and catch up!
Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals was a blast. I got to meet up with old grad school friends of mine and hang out with their kids, visit my alma mater, go to Powell's, and - skate and skate and skate.
I skated in three events - Adult Gold Ladies Championship III, High Figures, and Masters Ladies Interpretive Light Entertainment/Comedy II/III. All went well. The figures event though was easily the highlight. There were 8 people who competed in the High Figures event, and three in the Low Figures event. We had several practices on Fri and Saturday - it was defintely cool to patch on designated patch sessions - everyone on their own patch of ice, no music - and moreover no dance patterns, MIF patterns, or multi-revolution jumps careening through the figures layouts!
This picture cracks me up. You may need to embiggen to see it - but the judges are standing still and in focus, I am a ghostly blur.
The event itself was amazing. They coned off the ends of the ice for warming up, and one by one, folks were called out to lay out each figure (we each did two - first a one-foot 8, then a FI to BO bracket). I was the 6th person to skate the one-foot 8, and the second person to skate the bracket. The test levels of the 8 people had a wide range - I have passed my third test on the standard track (there's the preliminary test, and then tests 1-8), my friend Brenda has passed her 2nd test, someone had passed the Adult Silver test (fairly similar to the 2nd standard track test), three folks had passed or taken (and not quite passed) their 8th test, someone had passed her 5th test, etc. The main "feeling" during the event was more giddy than nervous - judges and competitors alike were really exited to be competing figures! There was also a huge audience in the stands - more than I expected.
I laid out really nice figures - the one-foot 8 was a few inches wider on the starting side than the other side, but aside from that, it was really nice. The other side was lined up, the change of edge was clean, and it was nicely traced. The bracket I did was *great* - I don't think I have ever skated the figure that well! The two circles were a little offset from each other - but aside from that, it was really nice - the F brackets were clean and nicely shaped, the back brackets were so well traced I couldn't believe it. I went around for the third bracket and the first two were *right* on top of each other - the third was about an inch away. I ended up in 4th place for this figure- the top three folks were all 8th test skaters, and they did just a beautiful job - you can totally tell the extra control and edge quality with those extra years of doing figures and testing under their belts. Rumor has it the skating club will try to put together a figures-only competition next summer (09 sometime) - they'll pick 15 figures, you sign up for the three you want to compete, and whoever wants to do it can. FX they do it!
There was this funky hand-operated ice resurfacing thing they used during the event - it covered over the prior tracings and left the ice clean for the next batch - they did it after a few skates to clean up the ice. Who knows how long that thing has been sitting in storage.
I skated reasonably well for my freestyle event. My spins were great - and often those suffer when stiff-kneed and nervous. My footwork went well - I edited one small piece of it (changing a counter turn into a three-turn), and forgot to look up (I am perenially trying to stabilize myself by looking down - it doesn't work and looks bad to boot LOL). My jumps were so-so - I two-footed the first axel, I popped the lutz of the luzt/loop/loop combination, and fell on the second axel which is supposed to be a combination jump too. I edited out the third combination jump and turned it into a solo flip - oops. (Part of a well-balanced program is having both solo jumps and combination jumps). I placed at the bottom of the entire group of 15 skaters but really? I'm fairly happy with the skate. Goals for the next month are to get the jumps solid and not "eek", and work on presentation points.
The interp event was decent too. I typically am mortified to skate this event - I purposely picked music that is beyond my introverted comfort zone - I skate to some goofy pots-and-pans rhythm music that I pulled from a Sandra Boynton CD, you can preview it here. Last year I skated it bedecked in kitchen utentils and paraphenalia - measuring cups at the bottom of my shirt that whirled around when I spun, etc. This year, I wore a chef's coat and a single pot on my head - plus a few wooden (well, plastic) spoons in my hands. I managed to be much more playful with it - and ended in a three-way tie for 4th place with my friend Brenda and someone else. Since I've only ever placed at the bottom or very close to the bottom with this program, I was pleased.
Brenda and I after checking the scores -
There was a little bit of yarn shopping too - I looked up Yarnia.
You pick different strands of yarn and combine them for a custom blend. The one on the left was aimed at a denim look - it has some silk blend, cotton, and I think wool in it. The one on the right I was aiming for a coppery yarn - it's mostly a variety of wool blends with a boucle in there I think.
One month to go (a little less really) before Adult Nationals - wheee!
March 05, 2008
FOs
I have finished a few things that have yet to be ravelried or blogged - this is a catch-up post.
The official last FO of 2007 was Poppy - laid out to block on New Years Eve:
I LOVE this sweater. I wear it at least once a week, twice if I can
get away with it. It fits well, I love the colors (ahem, I knitted
another sweater with the same colorway, and also painted the house the
same colorway LOL), and it's soft. What's not to like. I had issues
with the second sleeve requiring much ripping and re-starting, but it
finally worked out.
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I finished this sometime last Fall:
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Hannah *begged* for it - a nosewarmer from Knitty. 
I made a few mods - I used leftover Fleece Artist sock yarn and thus adjusted the number of stitches, and for the band, I knitted an i-cord, and when it was done I threaded some stretchy elastic through it.
Hannah has worn it a lot this winter - Toby's lobbying for one. It cracks me up.
Hannah's clay sculptures crack me up too. She has been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes:
The photo is dark but it's a little gnome figure slicing off the top of a snowman with a chainsaw. !!!
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I also finished another pair of lobster mitts for Hannah - out of homespun yarn. I don't have pictures to share as the mittens keep walking out of the house in the morning before I am awake enough to grab the camera.*
This year, I have finished a few things.
These socks:
They're made using a cotton/lycra yarn from Greenwood Fiberworks (though she's not presently showing any for sale). Grumperina has a good photo here. She reviews it here, and lists it as her favorite non-wooly sock yarn here. While I prefer wool and wool-blend sock yarns, this yarn was not bad for a cotton yarn - the lycra definitely gives it a wooly kind of give. It's a bit hairy to knit as it shrinks after it's first encounter with water. I ended up wetting the cuff, measuring the size before and after shrinking (both stitch and row gauge), and sorting out how long to make the foot from that. It makes a great fabric that hugs your foot and doesn't stretch out like that made with regular cotton yarn. I have two more skeins of it and will certainly use it again.
I have been working on more things. These fingerless mitts have given me fits:
The first attempt didn't work b/c I didn't like the stripes clashing with the lacy ribbing of Pomotomous (a sock pattern from knitty, adapted into fingerless mitts; other options here and here). Notice the thin even striping though - these mitts have also been an exercise in gauge. I believe I cast on 72 stitches here.
This is start #2. It's Socks that Rock yarn in Monsoon colorway, from the 2007 Sock Club. I also cast on 72 stitches - in fact, I ripped back to the first row and started there without re-casting on. I thought I'd try the pattern that came with the socks - and adapt it for fingerless mits. I liked the cabling and stripes this time - but the pattern makes for a very unforgiving tube of fabric - it was too tight to fit over my forearm muscle. So it got ripped. Note the difference in the striping! The cabling v.s. the ribbing is the only difference - it's the same number of stitches on the same Knitpicks needles.
Try number three is using an X O X O cable pattern. It is working out well - one mitt is done and the second started. I'd be well into my second whole PAIR without all the ripping LOL.
I am working on a pair of Pomatomus fingerless mitts too out of other yarn - details in a future blog post. I have made it past the first pattern repeat and am a little off somehow - to continue the pattern, I'd have to start with a K rather than a P or something (details escape me at the moment). I'm stuck at figuring out whether to rip and fix it (though I can't figure out where it went off) or just continue merrily along and "read" the knitting rather than making sure the knitting follows the chart.
And a gratuitous Hannah and Bassoon shot:
I'm not sure what they're laughing about but they're both having fun being the 5th grade bassoonists.
I leave tomorrow a.m. at the crack of dawn for the Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals - skating here I come!
February 24, 2008
Neglect
Yes, I have been neglecting the blog. Suffice it to say, breaking up is hard to do. It has occupied a lot of my headspace and you know? While it's not that I haven't had stuff to say, it's hard to say it to an "open" audience. So I haven't. In a nutshell, we are inching forward, and things will be ok. There's a level of craziness about it all, though I'm not sure it'd be possible to go through something like this without some craziness.
Knitting. I am making good progress on a pair of cabled fingerless mitts, though they're slow going as they're a tight knit. I am a thumb away from the first one being done - so casting on for the second is on the horizon.
Socks. Oh. My. Hell. I have two pairs that have been in progress for a while - a simple picot-edge stockinette pair, and a 3-1 ribbed pair. I finished the first sock of the stockinette pair - and it is waiting for me to cast-on for the second. With the ribbed pair, I have finished the first sock, and am maybe an inch from the heel on the second.
When I noticed: CRAP. I have gauge issues, *and* I have managed to cast on an extra rib (4 stitches) for the second sock. It's about an inch bigger in circumference than the first. While yes, I have contemplated creative solutions (slicing and grafting), and just living with it, it's probably headed to the frog pond.
It's irritating as it means that three WIPs now need some thinking/work time - casting on etc.
The saving grace is that in less than two weeks I have a cross-country flight to Portland OR for Adult Sectionals - a skating competition. I switched sections this year to Pacific Coasts rather than Easterns - as Pacific Coasts added a figures event. Figures! I am competing figures - a rare event these days. There are nine people registered for the event - quite a deep field for most adult skating events. I am *so* excited. I'll be doing a Freestyle and Interp event too - but it's the figures that I am really excited about.
I have been baking a lot of sourdough bread lately - it's really rather fascinating. I tried a no-knead method most recently - I resisted it for a while because I didn't think it could possibly work. It works, fabulously.
Pictures? Yeah, someday ;)
