2nd July Dishcloth

I'm in a Yahoo group that has two dishcloth knit-alongs each month. One starts on the 1st and the other one starts on the 16th. Here a picture of my July 16th dishcloth.

The patterns can be found on their Monthly Dishcloth Overflow blog.

The Ravelry Dishcloth Swap is in process of sorting and sending back. I am anxiously awaiting my package wondering which five cloths they will choose to send to me.  All of the progress pictures I saw on Ravelry were beautiful. 96 Packages of dishcloths were received. 96 pkgs X 5 cloths/pkg = 480 dishcloths to sort and swap, making sure each return envelope has five dishcloths and isn't over the postage weight limit. That's a big job. I do not envy the people in charge of that.

Lily from Texas, whoever you are, please email, skeinafterskein@gmail.com The moderators have a question about your package.

Heavy Sunshine

Yesterday the July sun reached her hand out and grabbed me, simultaneously searing my skin and stealing all my energy, so that I was only capable of trudging from car to house to collapse into a chair upon entering. I finally understood the slow pace of summer in the “South.” The sun's ever shining long fingers reaching into the core of all humans who dare brave the outdoors, disabling their ability to effect any urgency in all aspects of their lives, including their drawn-out, drawling conversation. Before yesterday, I do not recall ever experiencing, nor did I ever conceive possible, heavy sunshine.

A Poet Walks into a Bar

A poet walks into a bar.

He sees the black light above the pool table.

Why does black light look purple?

Why does black light make white glow?

How can light be black? Aren't they opposite?

A black hole absorbs all light,

yet a black light illuminates white?

This does not compute.

Pour me a Black Guinness.

Then this might make sense.

Let's try this again.

A black hole absorbs all light.

Light is the opposite of dark.

So, a black light is opposite of a black hole.

Black light must give off extra light.

It bounces off the pool table.

The white catches it.

It glows.

Wait, why is it purple?

Pour me one more.

Black light is purple.

Purple reflects red.

There are a lot of different reds.

Red headed girls are pretty.

Her shirt is white and glowing.

So black light makes white glow

because red heads are pretty.

Wait, I forgot the pool table and the black hole.

I need another drink.

The black light is above the pool table

because the pool table has black holes

that try to absorb the white ball of light

so the purple reflects on her pretty red hair

because she is wearing a white shirt

and is smiling at me.

Yes, enough Guinness

makes sense.

My Husband's Grandfather was Born in Africa

My husband's grandfather was born in Africa.

He grew up speaking Swahili and English.

He ran around the jungle half naked as a child.

He went to college in England and Canada.

He became an OB-GYN.

He married, and moved to the United States of America.

He raised a family in Michigan.

He was an African-American.

His parents were the first Methodist missionaries to Africa.

He was born in Africa, grew up in Africa, but

he had white skin.

My neighbor calls himself an African-American.

He was born in the United States of America.

His mother and father were born in the United States of America.

Their parents and grandparents were also born in the United States of America.

He has never even visited Africa.

What makes him African-American?

He is an American, like I am, except

he has brown skin.

I once worked at a yarn store.

A black woman with an English accent came to shop.

The shop owner asked her,

“So, do you call yourself African-English?”

She was insulted, and replied that she was English.

She was born and raised in England.

Her skin color was immaterial.

Howl at the Moon

I want to go outside,

look up to the sky,

raise my arms and swoon,

and howl at the moon

tonight.

The man in the moon

looking down on me,

smiling greedily,

awaiting his praise

tonight.

Let everything go,

and howl from my soul.

Must release, repose,

and resume my life

tonight.

by: Paula Dean Nevison

Why I'm Not on Facebook

Facebook has enabled a new kind of predator, a social predator. These people use the fact that most people on Facebook are good people. They use other people's desire to help, to further their own agenda (for self-aggrandizement, financial gain, notoriety, revenge, or to spread lies and smear other people that they have a “score” to settle with). Facebook allows people to say things “privately” to their “friends” so nobody calls them on it. Nobody researches it. They can instantly un-friend anybody that disagrees with them, or uncovers their lies. Most people on Facebook don't want to be considered “rude” and/or they are busy with their own lives, and don't really care about yours, so they won't say anything “bad” or “mean”. It is the perfect situation for a sociopath, because they can live in a world where nobody will contradict their view of right and wrong. I know a woman who is a “super-Christian” on Facebook, but in the real world is a foul-mouthed, drug-using, irresponsible, burden to her aging parents. I know a man on Facebook who represents himself as a loving, caring, Christian father who has been wronged by THREE ex-wives. Seriously, three failed marriages. What's the common denominator? Hmm. Caring Christian fathers don't make their daughters sleep in their beds.

I choose not to be on Facebook. My blog is public for anyone to view. I am posting my opinions and including links to some of the facts that helped form them. Do I think that Facebook is bad? No. I understand the convenience of Facebook and far-away relatives, but I choose to talk to my friends in person and on the phone. If you only know someone through Facebook, then you don't really know them. Most people on Facebook probably really are who they say they are. Unfortunately, that makes Facebook an easy place for predators to play.

Knitting in Court, Again

I was knitting in court again yesterday. Judges don't like it when people don't show up. Judges don't like it when people completely disregard court orders. The judge was not pleased with my ex-husband's absence (again). He couldn't be bothered to come to court in Mobile, AL after being arrested for drunk driving in Fort Mills, SC. What's he going to wine about this time? Being too broke because he's stupid enough to drink and drive? Having his Bible open on his ottoman in his bragging picture on Facebook (after he told my attorney he has nothing but a couch and a truck – in a tape recorded conversation) sure did him a lot of good (Mr. Piano-man). Maybe his Facebook friends will send him more money like last time when he begged for money to pay his attorney (then didn't pay her). Another reason he probably didn't come to court yesterday, his attorney here dumped him too, probably didn't pay him either. What did he do with his Facebook friends' money? He talks about how he loves his daughter so much. Is he trying to be the example of the man she should not date? Drinking and driving is how he can kill somebody else's precious daughter. Between a .10 and a .16, Dude...that's a lot of drinking. Good thing orange is one of his colors. Back in the '80s, he had his colors done. He is an “Autumn.” Only Autumns look good in orange.

The good news is that I'm 2/3 finished with the baby blanket I was knitting. It is pink and yellow and orange. It's the same pattern as the light blue blanket. I'm on row 121. It is squished onto my 36-inch needle (shorter than the current perimeter of the blanket), but it will be flat and square when I finish. I started the third ball of yarn yesterday (3 of 3). The edge will be solid pink. The colors in my photo aren't exactly right, but I am a knitter, not a photographer.

Larkspur and Delphinium Poem

Poem for Jenny

Larkspur and delphinium, wild and tame
transcriptions of the same essential idiom
(as lullaby, corralled, is requiem,
a sigh, bound and gagged, a lyric poem).

Earth's trying to remake herself with stars,
her own inky domain of skyey colors.
She wants everything. It won't be hers.

Her starry flowers, heedless of safeguards,
will launch their blue and purple rockets heavenwards
and leave her to her dusty browns and reds,
her brief sky shattered, just as words —

the good ones, anyway — will quit this page
before I ever pay this garden homage
or name the pain I'm trying to assuage.

Nonetheless, these clusters are in flower
if only for an instant, as they were
a year ago, when Jenny (this poem's for her),
knowing how I love them, put them here

to make the way around my house less bitter.
My next-door neighbor, she'd watched things shatter
and so came by to plant and tend and water

and whatever else it is that gardeners do.
And I remember catching a dim glimpse, as if through
an impossible tunnel — what's all that blue? —
and thinking, as one thinks of something wholly out of view,

how lovely it would be to lay my eyes on them,
though they were there, waiting, each time I came home:
larkspur out the back, out front delphinium

(the cultivated version for the public eye,
its wild incarnation just for me . . . )
and once or twice I did suspect that beauty
and kindliness had aimed themselves my way

but each was such a difficult abstraction,
at best unverifiable, uncertain,
a meteor I wasn't sure I'd seen.

I, who'd been so lucky up to then,
was utterly astonished by what pain —
in its purest form — can make out of a person.
It was (such things exist) a brutal season

and one that's not entirely departed
though time has passed; flowers, twice, have sprouted.
The earth will be, twice over, broken-hearted,

which means, at least, according to King David,
in his most unnerving psalm, closer to God.
Me? I'd leave some distance if I could
though it would be untrue to say no good

has come from any of this. See? out my window
the earth again has sheathed herself in indigo;
this may be the time she makes it through:

her sapphire daggers, bursting their scabbards,
carve frantic constellations: elfin songbirds
vehement with blue and purple chords;
earth's reaching for her heavens, I for words

or any chink of rapture I can claim.
Delphinium. Larkspur. Larkspur. Delphinium.
Let me claim you as you climb and climb.

Jacqueline Osherow
The Yale Review
Volume 93, Number 2
April 2005

http://www.cstone.net/~poems/poemfosh.htm

Handmade Hugs

Today I met with a group of women that have been getting together once a week for the last ten or more years. They make and donate baby blankets to the Children's & Women's Hospital, and lap afghans to local nursing homes and shelters. I have only been able to join them occasionally, but every time I do, I wish I could meet with them more often. I brought a little lap afghan that I made using Tunisian crochet, and I started a new one for them while I was there. The new one is a burgundy version of this one.

Little Boy Blue

Blue baby blanket is finally finished. However, it is a little larger than the other blankets I've made with this Spanish Armada pattern. I used the same size knitting needles each time. Hmm. The yarn must be puffier. My table is 40 inches wide. I think I will give this to a little boy, instead of a brand new baby. I know a lady who is pregnant with a girl. She has a toddler son. Now I need to make a smaller baby girl blanket. Then I can give it, and this one, to her. Maybe it will help her son feel special too. With all the excitement of the new baby, older siblings often feel left out.

Finished the "to be continued" Jeans

My teenage daughter thought it was stupid for me to bleach my jeans. When she saw me start to paint them, she decided that she didn't want to come to the movie tonight with us (because I was too embarrassing to be seen with). Today as I was finishing, she changed her mind. She likes my jeans and she's coming to come see the movie (Sons of Liberty) that her dad was in.

Playing With Bleach

I bleached my jeans. I turned my black jeans into “Harley” jeans and my blue jeans are “to be continued.” I'm going to paint all over them today. Hopefully they will be finished by tomorrow night. I want to wear them to see the movie, Sons of Liberty, that my husband was in, if they turn out how I envision them. Tonight I'm wearing the black and orange pair. The Crescent Theater is showing a movie that was directed by Paco Cabezas, the same guy who is directing Tokarev here in Mobile right now. My husband is in Tokarev(super cool). So we have tickets to see this movie tonight.

Happy Independence Day

I finished my needlepoint just in time.

Maud

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewelprint of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,...

The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait." 

Alfred Lord Tennyson

This is just a little bit of this long poem. You can find even more of it here, 

http://www.bartleby.com/42/6491.html

LARKSPUR

most likely
you first saw the spark
it shouldn't surprise you plenty
you've got the glow and spar

and best of all
you're navigation is set
closed to the public
you've said not quite yet

your solution's
avoiding problems
well ask if you reached enough
when dusk comes
by: Corey French

http://hellopoetry.com/words/larkspur/poems/

I'm not sure what I think about this poem. I believe she is talking about the flower, but this poem just makes me stop and go...hmm...

Flower of July - The Larkspur

Larkspur, can refer to any one of 300 species of perennial flowering plants in the delphinium family, as well as to their close cousins in the consolida family. Its genus name, delphinium, comes from the Greek word for dolphin, because the plant was said to resemble a dolphin’s nose. Other popular names include lark’s heel, lark’s claw and knight’s spur.

The flowers grow in groups along a single stalk, much like gladioli, and range in color from whites and yellows to deep reds, blues, and purples. Each flower has five petals and a protruding center – its “spur.”

Larkspur is poisonous if ingested, and is responsible for many cattle deaths in areas where it grows wild in pastures. This flower has significance in Greek mythology as it grew from the blood of Ajax as he threw himself on his sword during the Battle of Troy. Native Americans used Larkspurs to make a rich, blue dye. European settlers used it to dip their quills in as blue ink. It is also said to have medicinal and magical properties, and has been used to cure eye diseases, asthma, dropsy, and head lice. It was also believed to provide protection against lightning, and, in Transylvania, it was planted around stables, allegedly to to keep witches away.

http://www.farmersalmanac.com/blog/2011/07/04/july-flower-lore/

http://www.1stinflowers.com/fom_july.html