Working the late shift

I worked the 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. shift today and got no knitting done because I am desperately trying to get the newsletter out before I go on vacation. And there was a serious epidemic of stupid going on, coupled with Internet access and VPN issues. I found myself explaining to a *programmer* that the fact that other people besides him were having VPN issues meant that it was likely the VPN problem and not his individual setup and in any event, I could not do eff-all to troubleshoot his personal issues until the VPN was actually functioning. I also hate the users who call up and tell me everything except their name and branch number - excuse me? How am I supposed to look up your data if you tell me your name is Mike in Chicago? We have probably 6 Mikes in various Chicago branches ... a last name would help too!

Yes, Ms. Packratty and Charlie are headed for Fripp Island SC in about 9 days to veg out and swill in salt water for a week. I will be taking several knitting projects and a stack of books along and very little else besides pajamas and swimsuits. Theme: Decompression. Badly, badly needed. Ms. Packratty is ready to start wringing necks over the phone.

I did, however, nip out at lunch (4 p.m.) and buy straight bamboo needles for the MS3. I'd have spent $5 more and bought bamboo circs, but Michael's is too stupid to carry circs in a full range of sizes. And if I'd had more time, I'd have driven to the nearby Needlenook, but I didn't have time, either. I was getting too frustrated with the join on the circs I was using AND trying to see the Vanilla Zephyr on white needles. Let's see if the bamboo is better. It's got a bit of grab, which I think is a good thing with Zephyr.

If I can get 5 more rows of clue A done tonight, I'll be delighted. And then I'm going to bed and getting up early to go to the tailgate market at the park for real tomatoes.

Tee Hee

Put in a lifeline at the end of the "page" of lace instructions and completed the 10 rows on the next page. Only had to tink back part of one row when I came up with too few knit stitches before the YO, K K that ends each knit row - counting the purl row carefully means I know that I'm starting the next row with the right number of stitches. Do wish my needles weren't white with ivory yarn, though.
And, I figured out that when a bead goes on after a YO, it's MUCH easier to put the bead on the stitch and pop it back on the left needle and then YO and knit the beaded stitch than to try to juggle the YO while putting a bead on.
And before I get too tired and start messing up, I'm going to thread in another lifeline and turn my attention to the second Monkeys sock. Picture of Monkey 1 tomorrow ....

Rape, sexual assault, culture and common sense

So after getting the tiniest 25 rows done on MS3, I went home and went to bed. No knitting last night, although I did, before leaving work, cast on for the second Monkeys sock in the Fleece Artist Nova Scotia sock yarn (which is yummy).

Then I read The Yarn Harlot's blog about the sexual assault trial in which the words rape and sexual assault, etc. have been banned by the judge. Just how far political correctness is going to go, I don't know, but this sort of cock-eyed thinking is clearly the product of a mentality where we have newscasters calling a rapist "the gentleman" or when prostitutes are called "ladies".
I have news for them - rapists are not gentlemen and hookers aren't ladies. But carry this sort of "we mustn't label anyone anything negative" mentality and you get a sexual assault trial in which the words sexual assault can't be mentioned.

Now that said - what in heck are these young women thinking? There have been a string of cases in which apparently intelligent (OK, attending college or grad school which should mean some degree of brightness) women go out and get plastered and bad things happen to them. No,
I'm not blaming the victim for the fact that there are bad people out there who do bad things, but I am saying, you know, just saying, that anyone with any sense has to know that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk in bars (and having friends that leave you while you are drunk) is a not very sensible thing to do. Is it fair, when men can go get plastered and the worst that might happen is losing their wallet? No. It's not. And the one thing that Jimmy Carter ever said that I agreed with is "Life isn't fair."

Now, that said, it behooves women of all ages to remember that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk or even tipsy with someone you don't know is probably not a good idea. And if you go out with female friends and one of them gets tipsy, don't let her wander off with someone she doesn't know. Exercise some caution - because there are bad people out there and while it would be really nice if we could live our lives as if there weren't ...

Even back in the long ago past when Ms. Packratty was attending college and there were no such things as "date rape drugs", we were cautioned not to leave a drink where anyone could get at it (there was a quaint, not so funny practice of putting hallucinogens in people's drinks back then and Ms. Packratty has always preferred her trips to come with airline tickets).

Ms. Packratty also noted the name of the accused reflects the strong possibility that he is the product of a culture with little or no respect for women, especially Western women. She also noted news reports that two other women came forward after the fact with claims that he had done the same thing to them. Perhaps this third young woman would not have been a victim of Pamir Safi if one of the prior victims had reported it. On the other hand, if the judge's ridiculous ruling on language reflects the local community's attitude toward rape, one might understand why the earlier victims did not.

So, to recap - the judge's ruling is insane (but a logical extension of the illogical political correctness doctrines) and young women need to exercise caution out on the town and men who rape should be punished.

I'm so much not a joiner ... yeah right

I fell right down that Mystery Shawl knitalong rabbit hole. Hard. And fell right off the "knitting from stash" diet too - although I made that for an entire six months (excepting dishcloth and sock yarn).













But yeah, I got suckered right in, even though I have never tackled anything but some very simple lace. Me and 6500 + others. Oy.

OK, the statistics.

Jaggerspun Zephyr Vanilla, 2 balls
size 5 needles and creamy ivory colored pearl beads from Beadwrangler (whose service is amazingly fast).

I've managed a whole 25 of the first Clue's 100 rows and thank heavens for the nice lady who is translating the charts. This should be quite a challenge.

Hope I'm up to it.

The latest of Summer's bounty.

Anonymous? Don't bother.

Put your name on it or don't bother. If you want to respond to anything I have to say, don't expect me to publish it if you are posting anonymously and I have no opportunity to respond directly.

Big News

I don't know when exactly or where, but I have been informed at a certain Canadian author is coming to Atlanta with her sock.

Happy 231st America!

The first member of my family to reach these shores arrived in 1632. Simon had been a yeoman farmer and served in the king's army, but when he had a chance to flee England for a place where he could worship as he chose and make more of his life than was possible in England, he did. Simon ended his days at 71, having married 3 times and fathered 17 children. He was also a major in the colonial militia, founded a town and was an overall success. On the other side of my family, Richard, born in the north of England, came to the colonies 3 years after Simon and also served in the colonial militia. He died at 81, having also married three times and fathering 14 children.

In the years since then, in every war and conflict through Vietnam, someone in my direct line has served this country. Willards and Hildreths have marched and sailed, fought and bled as officers and enlisted. I am descended from several officers in the Revolutionary War and dozens of enlistees. I am proud of this country, proud that we have managed to steer a course that still gives more freedom to more people than anywhere else - as well as more opportunity - and I pray we shall long be the example of freedom to the world.

With that, I will do my own version of a recent Canadian post:

A is for All of the citizens serving to protect this country and the peace of the world.

M is for Mercy. America has proved time and time again to be a terrible enemy but a merciful victor. This is another tradition I hope and pray we continue to follow even though it undoubtedly makes us appear weak to barbarians.

E is for English, our common tongue. Yes, we butcher the King's version, but American English is vibrant and lively and borrows freely from almost every culture we encounter. Barbecue from the Arawaks, amok from the Moros - if we find a useful word, we'll appropriate it. Look up boondocks, for example!

R is for our Revolution. We won our freedom and we have tried to spread the gospel of freedom.

I is for Invention. America was the first country to recognize intellectual property with a patent system and trademarks. The US Patent Office has patents that you can view online going back to 1790, when our country was barely a going concern. One of our Presidents has even held a patent.

C is for Charity. We excel at it both at home and abroad. If tragedy strikes a community or a country, Americans will be sending soup, bandages and cash within hours - and not primarily through government agencies, but through groups such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and dozens and dozens of smaller groups.

A is for ambition. In America, ambition and hard work can make you. Who your parents were or where they came from is much less important than what you want to achieve and how hard you are willing to work to do so.


The truth about this country is illustrated most vividly in the fact that all over the world in countries of every type, there are people standing in line and staking all they have on a chance to come here, whereas, I am informed, the line to leave here is small.

Don't get me wrong

I love our Canadian neighbors and our Canadian knitbloggers and I would certainly join them in a chorus of "O Canada" on July 1. However, the crowing about their "National Health Care" and labeling it "working" is just untenable.

First, the financing of their health care system is possible only because Canada has eviscerated its military and depends on the shield and buckler of the US military for much of its security. Although there are some plans in place to beef up the miniscule 60K active duty force, this is a tiny number of the people it should take to defend the large territory that Canada occupies. Proof of this is that the Canadian forces had trouble supplying replacement troops for the 850 people they sent to Afghanistan after their rotation was over. Imagine a country the size of Canada and they have so few troops that they had trouble rotating less than 1,000 personnel.

As for the working part of the health care system up there, I had an older relative here in the US just get knee replacement surgery in less than 3 weeks from the time it was determined that it was needed. There were other medical factors that slowed the process down by a week or the surgery would have been done even earlier. Contrast this with the fate of a grandmother of an acquaintance, who spent 6 months wheelchair bound waiting to get on the list to have knee repair (repair, NOT replacement) and finally gave up and crossed the border and paid cash to aUS doctor and hospital to do the job. Of course, the US doctors said a repair would only fend off a knee replacement by a couple of years, but in the Canadian system, she'd have waited another 6 months for the "repair" then when that failed in 2 years, she'd be on the waiting list for a replacement and God only knows how long you have to wait for a knee replacement. Maybe the notion is that she would die of old age in the wheelchair before the taxpayers had to fund the knee replacement.

Not to say there isn't plenty that could be better about the US health care model - for example, the fact that too many people use emergency facilities for minor injuries and illnesses is frustrating. We need to have urgent care clinics that can handle things like a severe ear infection at 2 a.m. or a hand cut open on a broken glass at 4 p.m. on Sunday without bothering the ER. Our military medical system used to do this very well, separating real emergencies from things that need care with some urgency, but don't require ER facilities. Apparently the civilian model mostly doesn't.

And I say all this as a private citizen with a chronic illness who has been occasionally uninsured and had to muddle through.