whatifknits

First off, I’ve been meaning for quite a while now to post a picture of the great dishrag that Laurie (of Knittinggarden) sent me for Dishrag Tag. The pattern has lots of texture—a definite plus in my book—and it’s in one of my favorite colorways: Peaches ‘n Creme Daisy Ombre.

Not only that, but she included both chocolate and these beautiful stitch markers. You will no doubt be shocked to know that the chocolate was no longer available at the time of the photo shoot. The stitch markers make me feel like a contessa whenever I pick up my knitting. It’s quite a struggle not to start putting on airs!

Yesterday at 5:00, after several hours of me marking papers and Melissa running lino-blocks through her press, I idly raised the question, “Do the A’s have a home game tonight?” A quick check of the schedule revealed that indeed they did and that it started at 6:05. We dropped everything and headed out to the coliseum, where our commitment to the game was rewarded both by free A’s t-shirts from Chevy and an A’s doormat giveaway.

We were mightily chuffed and enjoyed ourselves immensely, despite some unfortunately doormat-like playing by the A’s, who lost 3-7.

I’ve been cruising about the internet today, trying to catch up on all my blog reading (and to do a bit of actual work, incidentally). Kim Hargreaves has a new collection out—all pretty, though nothing I found irresistible. I checked out the projects in the new Rowan Magazine. I even looked—without buying—at theWoolie Ewe‘s Rowan/RY Classic yarn sale and at Little Knits, where I stoppered my ears against the siren call of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK.

But my willpower broke down when I got to CatBookMom’s Yarns. Her list of recent shawl pattern acquisitions sucked me in with the unstoppable force of a black hole. Before I knew it, I’d followed the breadcrumbs she’d strewn along the path straight to Goddess Knits, where I bought not one, not two, not three, but four shawl patterns. There’s Beltane. Also Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Midsummer with a lovely mix of solid and lacy areas. And sweet, sweet Petticoat with its vertical lace panels that remind me of insertion lace on vintage underthings. I have yielded to temptation—and I regret it not. Thanks, CatBookMom!

The pile of dishrags grows ever taller, but I haven’t much knitting to talk about besides that, so I thought I’d share one of my amusements: The Shakespeare Game.

The purpose of the game is to imagine one’s self a director/producer and to dream up a novel production of one of Shakespeare’s plays. The ideas can be quick concepts—setting Romeo and Juliet on the Israel-Palestine border, for example—or more elaborate things with whole proposed casts, costume ideas, and the like. When I teach my summer Shakespeare class, I invite my students to play this game. I also have it going in the back of my head during the course.

Last year, when one of the plays Shakespeare Santa Cruz presented was King Lear, I imagined a production set in an assisted-living facility for people with Alzheimer’s. Lear would be one of the residents; the play would be his fantasies acted out by other residents and staff. This summer, I had the idea of making the setting even more specific: New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The storm on the heath would be the actual hurricane. I picture a large-screen tv on the set, playing a continuous loop of news coverage of the disaster, with regular cuts to George W. Bush saying, “You’re doing one heck of a job, Brownie.”

This year, Shakespeare Santa Cruz is presenting Much Ado about Nothing and The Tempest. Since Tempest is often seen as Shakespeare’s “retirement play,” in which he foreswears the magic of theater and retreats to live an ordinary life, I’d like to try producing it as the final film of an aging director—sort of Sunset Boulevard-like. Ariel would be the director’s assistant with a clap-board to mark the beginning and end of scenes. I’d play Caliban as a Hattie McDaniel type: a gifted African-American actor forced to play mammy roles.

I also imagine a production of Taming of the Shrew done as tragedy, rather than comedy, in which the insults are sincere, the violence real. Watching a production like this would be grueling, but it would open up all sorts of ideas that are lurking right now under the script we’re so ready to laugh at.

Think back to your high school or college Shakespeare. What plays are you familiar with? What would you do with them to make them anew for audiences?

Christopher Smart (1722-1771) began his life ordinarily enough in a well-off, but not wealthy, Kentish family. He attended Cambridge, but left without receiving a degree and moved to London, earning his living as a literary man. He edited magazines, and wrote both satires and poems.

Beginning in the early 1750s, Smart was consumed by a growing religious mania, accosting passersby in the streets and demanding that they pray with him. This led to his confinement in a madhouse from 1756-58. Ben Johnson questioned the necessity of Smart’s institutionalization, famously noting, “I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as anyone else.”

Smart’s “Jubilate Agno,” (reportedly composed in the asylum) was an immense, rambling poem, finding God’s hand in all he observed and noting the many ways that creation found to praise its creator.

One version of Smart’s life’s story has him sharing his madhouse cell with a pet cat, Jeoffry, whose every action he delighted in. Whether or not Jeoffry actually shared this stage of Smart’s life, he does make a substantial appearance in “Jubilate Agno,” serving as an example of all that is good in creation.

As a cat-lover, I’ve been partial to this poem since I first encountered it in grad school. But I also treasure this poem for the hopefulness it embodies. For Smart, the ordinary is proof of the miraculous: a cat’s playing with its prey becomes an opportunity for salvation; feline grooming a hymn of praise. Were I living Smart’s life, I doubt I would be so ready to appreciate, so quick to see beauty.

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry (excerpt, “Jubilate Agno”)
Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually–Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

I haven’t written about Mystery Stole 3 in a bit. That’s because I’ve gone into teacher mode, which can seriously compromise my ability to work complex patterns. When I get home from work after 6:00 or so, all I’m interested in is dishrags, dishrags, dishrags. Quick, bright, varied, easy-to-try-something-new-on dishrags. Or maybe a washcloth for a change of pace.

I have nonetheless been faithfully downloading the patterns for MS3 and trying to track a few of the overwhelming thousands of posts about it. The design is coming out asymmetrical, with one end pointed and the other finishing in a graceful curve. To achieve this, the pattern switches from back-and-forth knitting to knitting on the diagonal, picking up stitches as one progresses.

To be frank—I’m intimidated. I have no trouble picking up stitches to add a button band or to “piece” a knit along one edge for a patchwork effect (my results are sometimes lovely, sometimes not so lovely, but I’m not intimidated). But the knitting one piece onto another as I go, picking up one stitch per row, that frightens me for some reason.

Based on the pictures I’ve seen by folks who are further along in the pattern than I am (here‘s an example at Tangled String) I’m thinking about opting to knit the first several clues twice and then grafting the identical halves. The wing design is gorgeous, but I really do like the lace pattern of the pointed end better and… no one-stitch-at-a-time pick-up.

So here’s my question. If I decide to go for the double-pointed option (which I really do find prettier, not just less intimidating) am I copping out; is this one of those projects that has something important to teach me and upon which I should refuse to compromise or is it OK to follow my own tastes and inclinations, even if this means skipping part of the challenge? (That’s a long sentence I know, but I was trying to really keep it one question.) I would love to hear from other folks, those who are further along on this pattern than I am and also those who just find themselves with an opinion on this topic, whether or not they’re part of the MS3 undertaking.

When Melissa and I made our trek to Oregon, we took Interstate 5 North, then cut west to the coast highway for the drive home. We’d already been talking about retiring to western Oregon when the time comes, now we’re absolutely set on it. Here are a few of our favorite sights—photos by Melissa.

Once we hit the coast, we did a little jog north to Seaside.

Our first night driving home, we pitched our tent at Devil’s Lake campground.

The coastal bridges in Oregon are wonderful, solidly constructed of steel and concrete, but with crenellations and turrets that set each one apart and speak of a time when beauty wasn’t sacrificed to efficiency.

The dunes were breath-taking, but not where we’ll retire. Melissa took these two photos in a protected area. A few hundred yards to the south, the dunes were given over to all sorts of roaring, grinding all-terrain vehicles that had obliterated the beach grass and wildflowers.

The roadsides were thick with flowers, including a favorite of mine—thistles.

If we could pick any of the spots we stopped at for our future home, we would choose Port Orford. We stayed in a small motel, just across the road from this beach and managed to squeeze in a walk before the rain really started pounding.

Port Orford is the furthest point west in Oregon, so if it’s going to rain anywhere in the state, it will rain there.

When we got home, our tent was still drippy from the rain we had at Devil’s Lake, so Melissa set it up inside to dry out. Damian quickly nominated himself Chief Tent Inspector.

Lucky for us, he seemed to find everything in order.

Go here. Read some columns. Read a few more. Laugh. Read the piece for today and think of me.

Like Jon Carroll, I am dealing with raccoons. Dealing with raccoons is like scrubbing the toilet. You do it, you think you’re home free, then you start getting those tell-tale signs that you’re going to have to do it all over again. In fact, as Carroll points out, dealing with raccoons has a cause-effect correlation with scrubbing the toilet.

My cats expect twenty-four/seven, indoor/outdoor access. Now, if I lived in a bigger home, perhaps for their safety and my peace of mind I could fight them on this. But I live in a loft-like, two-level home that has no interior doors (except for the bathroom). I cannot shut the bedroom door and leave the unhappy cats on the other side of it to complain out of earshot about my trampling on their individual liberties and their burgeoning sense of claustrophobia. If the cats aren’t happy, I have nowhere to hide from them.

Each cat has a particular I-want-to-go-out-now-and-I-don’t-care-what-hour-it-is routine.

Bea’s technique goes like this:
1. Climb onto the dresser.
2. Jump from the dresser onto the bed.
3. Jump off the bed.
4. Dash downstairs, then check if the staff (aka me) is following to open the front door.
5. If the desired result is not achieved, repeat steps 1-4 as necessary.

Here’s Sparky’s variation:
1. Chirp.
2. Chirp some more.
3. Keep chirping.
4. While chirping, knock something off the dresser.
5. If the desired result is not achieved, repeat step 4 as necessary, moving to progressively larger items.

So I’ve set things up to let the cats come and go as they please.

Unfortunately, raccoons are about the same size as cats and probably even more intelligent. So we have a few happy weeks during which Bea and Sparky come and go as they please and I get some uninterrupted REM sleep.

Then the raccoons (re)discover my home. “Look! The ‘in’ is open!,” they chatter to one another, after which they race upstairs and start chomping down kibble as fast as they can. At some point the prolonged crunching drags me from my sleep—the only way Bea or Sparky would be eating that much is if they’d received puncture wounds in their little bellies and the food was falling straight out again.

I turn on the light. The raccoons shout “Cheeze it!” and run willy-nilly for the escape hatch. I wait a few moments to allow them a graceful exit, then close up the cat access as Bea and Sparky come out of hiding and sniff at raccoonly traces that I am too uncivilized to appreciate.

Sometimes Bea and Sparky are traumatized enough that they don’t even bug me about the twenty-four/seven, indoor/outdoor thing for a day or two. But then the raccoons fade from memory and we’re back to our two sets of steps 1-5 as outlined above.

If I’m really lucky, those few days of limited access get the raccoons to cross me off their route, but then access is restored and sooner or later the raccoons figure out that I’m back in business and—whee!—we’re at it again.

Right now, we’re at one of those points where the raccoons have rediscovered the all-night kibble palace that is my home and Bea and Sparky are refusing to give up on 1-5. Maybe it’s time to try shutting the one door I do have and sleeping in the tub.

P.S. The Mason-Dixon washrag with self-striping yarn? Gorgeous! Pics soon.

Academic jobs (and many others, I suppose) tend to be pieced together out of a variety of activities/obligations. Right now, I’m juggling three chunks of work: my Shakespeare class, a textbook review for a publishing house, and mastering my “new job”: ELWR (Entry-Level Writing Requirement) Coordinator at UC Santa Cruz. You may remember my entry from May when I talked about the joys of UC’s statewide writing placement test and the process of reading thousands of student essays (two to three times each) over the course of a single weekend. Well, I’m now in charge of that exam on my campus and all the record-keeping and detail-tracking-down that entails. I will coordinate four yearly administrations of the exam here, organize two major readings of student portfolios, track all the pass/no-pass data, make sure student records are accurate, and do anything else related to the placement exam that falls into my lap—returning calls from worried students and fretting parents, projecting class enrollments, and the like. This job requires a very detailed calendar and a gazillion to-do lists. I’m approaching it with the idea that if I do 3-6 little tasks for it pretty much every day, then I won’t get buried alive. I desperately hope I am right about this.

Today I sorted through several hundred electronic files bequeathed to me by the former ELWR Coordinator. I didn’t read them all, but I created my own on-line filing system for them in hopes that I’ll be able to find the data I need as questions arise. I also did my first-ever work creating/adapting excel documents and sent those out to various people.

Having been a dutiful worker bee, I’m now heading home for some knitting, some noshing, and some baseball watching. I’m on number two of the four-of-a-kind pattern-writing project. I’m also back to playing with dishcloths. Did you know that Lily’s Sugar & Cream comes in self-striping colorways? I didn’t—at least not until I came across this yarn at Michaels over the weekend. On an eight-inch dishcloth the stripes come out one-to-two inches wide (wider than the pictures on Lily’s web site make them appear). I can’t wait to try combining one of these yarns with a solid color for a Mason-Dixon style dishcloth.

By the way, if you’re a reader of fiction, check out Tracy Chevalier’s Burning Bright. To sum it up in a sentence, Burning Bright relates a year in the life of two children who are neighbors of the poet/artist/philosopher/printer William Blake (1757-1827), but that description doesn’t begin to do it justice. This book is a wonderful mix of opposites: simple on the surface, but complex in the topics it deals with; both a story of childhood and an exploration of English politics at the time of the French Revolution. It reads easily, but stays with you, leaving you to ponder all sorts of interesting questions.

Melissa’s cat Maggie has an unusual build: long, supple back, shortish legs and tail. She also has a tendency to roll her eyes heavenward.

In her younger days, her woozling and eye rolling made her quite the coquette, as you can see in this portrait by Melissa.

These days, her appearance is more that of the well-indulged concubine.

With all the eye-rolling, she sometimes takes on the appearance of a saint in ecstasy. If she could, Maggie would no doubt tell us that she has no choice but to be saintly—how else would she manage the patience to put up with Damian?