Hobbies of Acquisition

Of course, if Ms. Packratty is going to have hobbies, they will be hobbies that require getting things.
Like the 2,000 or so books that dominate Ms. Packratty's home.
Or knitting. Yes, indeed, knitting is a truly deadly hobby for packrat people - one can always buy more yarn with the self-delusion that you'll find the perfect pattern for it someday and it's too affordable or too pretty and won't be available when said perfect pattern becomes available.
When Ms. Packratty first learned to knit, her stash acquisition was hampered by living in small towns without good yarn stores and her miserable reporter's salary, not to mention the fact that the Internet wasn't even a gleam in Al Gore's eye ....
But then, settled down in Atlanta with several excellent yarn shops even a decade ago, the packrat impulse started setting in. But it was really the yarn outlet that started it. What I thought I was going to do with that spaghetti thin lavender chenille, I can't imagine. Oh, yes, I can imagine - all I need to do is look at the $2 price tag on the cone to tell me what I was imagining. 10 years later, it's in one of the many folding top totes stacked in one of the Chez Packrat closets.
Unfortunately for the Packratty budget, fiber snobbery set in quickly and many of the totes are full of silk, laceweight cashmere and the like.
However, Ms. Packratty occasionally dips into the stash and depletes in a worthy cause, to wit:

A baby blanket done for former manager's third child - no, it's not sucking up - 3rd children are lucky if they get a baby picture, let alone a hand-knit blanket This used up most of a wad of Debbie Bliss Cashcotton that had attached itself to me - I bought some white for the edging and then changed my mind and edged it in the same color.

However, that still leaves me 5 pair of felted clogs, three pair of socks and two sweaters behind for the year .....

Now if I could just figure out what to do with those 10 skeins of hideously expensive Noro silk .... not enough for the cardigan or jacket of Ms. Packratty's dreams, but far too beautiful and pricey for anything minor.

Political Orthodoxy

I read people who write about Republicans and conservatives as though we were some monolithic, consistent group; yet it is the liberals and Democrats who seem to demand much more political orthodoxy from their members. For example, a Republican can admit to being pro-choice — and many are ... but for a Democrat to admit the slightest qualms about abortion at any stage of pregnancy is unthinkable.

Perhaps it is a matter of not being able to see any nuance. For example, as a former reporter, I am hardly in favor of censorship — yet the liberals say that anything done to stem the tidal wave of pornography and filth inundating us would be tantamount to destroying freedom of the press. Excuse me, but I just don't see it.

Our intellectual freedom doesn't depend on having porn piped into our houses, completely unregulated, on radio and television - airways that, in fact, do belong to "we the people". Does that mean they should be open to all manner of vileness just because one tenth of one percent of the population practises a certain perversion?

Oh, yes, I can hear it now. "Blue nose. Puritan." Hardly. I suspect that many of those who might come up with such epithets probably think that most of the porn that's flooding into homes and offices and even schools is like Playboy, maybe a little racier. Have I got news for you .... At the risk of disgusting yourself, you should do a little research before you call me a blue nose - what you may see may cause you to toss your cookies.