knittertating

2009-09-27T23:38:00.004-04:00

i got my crafty mojo back and finished up some old projects and made a few new things.

here is a medley of what i have finished/made recently:

the lighting is horrible in these pics, but you get the idea.
-- from top left, we have a mini-skirt from a burda pattern
-- then there is the ripley hat without ripples in malabrigo worsted weight
-- next is a picture of one of the fingerless mitts (also from ysolda)
-- then there is the cowl i made (without a pattern) with some handspun my sister made for me
-- another shot of the fingerless mitts
-- finally there is a picture of my rib and cable socks from interweave knits fall 2005

i've also been busy with school and all of the related school activities. and i am tired.

this week there will likely be some good music shows... but i don't have much time to spend at shows, so i have to make wise choices on who i will see.
monday night -- japandroids with the mt. st. helen vietnam band
thursday night -- the horse's ha (for free!)
friday night -- matt and kim

i missed the sleepy sun show last week... i was way too busy. i also missed the fruit bats and am bummed, but there was just no way i could make that show and get all of the work done that had to get done. i did catch starfucker, which was just so-so. a few weeks back i caught the felice brothers -- which was awesome. go see them!

okay, this is turning into a list of shows i've been to or have missed, which is kind of boring. so i'll get back to work now and leave you with this.

my soundtrack for tomorrow

2009-08-19T22:40:00.004-04:00

they played such a great show here earlier in the summer. they are great performers and, shucks, their songs are so sweet.

servant to all and servant to none

2009-07-09T14:52:00.003-04:00

the video is crappy in this clip, but it's a great version of the song.
it is a palace kind of day...

also did you know there is a word for 'harmonica' in Seri? yeah.

this and that

2009-06-01T22:40:00.000-04:00

once a great place...

2009-06-01T18:14:00.003-04:00

i temporarily rescued a beagle mix last week. he was running down the sidewalk of a busy street. i grabbed him, went to the bike store and they cut a tube and tied it to his tagless collar. i took him home. unfortunately (for me), the owner called the pound right after i reported this little guy missing and then called me to schedule their reunion. his name was dewey, but i would have called him pepaw. it made me seriously want to adopt a dog again. but will one ever live up to patterson's legacy?

i can't get enough of sufjan stevens these days. i am particularly fond of his kcrw set from morning becomes eclectic. you can listen to it here.

my vegetable garden is look really schnazzy these days. i have the following veggies in the ground:
3 heirloom tomato plants and 1 plum tomato plant
3 sweet pepper plants (different varieties)
4 rainbow chard plants
3 beet plants
4 broccoli plants
4 brussel sprout plants
1 basil plant
1 dill plant

i got all of my plants and soil at urban roots.

i also temporarily got my knitting mojo back. i stumbled upon a yard sale from the former owner of the (no-longer-in-business) local yarn shop 'looped back'. i got some laceweight hand-dyed yarn and am knitting up a loose garter stitch scarf with it -- completely experimental. i love the fabric it's making. i also got some more of her lovely alpaca yarn.

i'll be gone lots this month -- which is good and bad. i have so much to do... so i should get to it.

in the mean time, check out bonnie 'prince' billy if he's playing live near you. his show in toronto was amazing. the helio sequence are also on tour and they rock. period. also, while in toronto, i went thrifting/shopping in the leslieville neighborhood. it was cool -- definitely worth visiting again.

...just rolling with it

2009-04-28T22:35:00.005-04:00

i think that knox says it pretty well here.

of course, it's also her birthday soon.

shortly thereafter someone else is having a birthday. and hot damn, i wish i could make it to the party.

and i just found out that the helio sequence is coming back to buffalo next month. ah, yes. the show last summer rocked my world. it should be another good one.

i think more good news is on its way this week.

love and poetry

2009-04-22T18:05:00.002-04:00

Originally uploaded by hello bum

it's gray and rainy and dreary here. the trees have no leaves and i'm still wearing tights with skirts. i'm behind on so many things and stressed out by all that's on my plate. but there are some things that are still making me smile. here's a list of them:

1. 'mockingbird' by ryan adams -- here is a link to a live version of that song. it's bittersweet in a way that gets me every time.

2. my first sightings of tulips here on my run yesterday -- they were yellow and red.

3. longer days!

4. the prospect of wearing vintage summer dresses soon (like the cute vintage items found here)

5. camping in may!

6. my upcoming trip to italy

for now, i must get back to work... my short-term motivation being that i get to go swimming later.

that crap you said...

2009-04-08T07:54:00.007-04:00

it meant something. to me, at least.

richard buckner put on a good show last night at mohawk place.

he played quite a few songs from "the hill", which was nice. he mixed in a bunch of others, all coming together as if they were connected. the word 'sad' does not do justice to some of his songs. but what can i say: they hit all the right buttons for me last night.

at the end of the show he left part of his song playing, stood up, put his jacket on and confidently walked past all of us in the audience to the door and left. the lights came on and so did some other music. i put my jacket on and headed toward the door. as i walked outside, two other gentlemen were to my right smoking cigarettes and buckner was to my left. for a moment, he seemed boyishly nervous and self-conscious. the two men to the right started walking toward him and said, with thumbs up in the air, "great show!" and he responded with something like "really?". they were right, it was a good show.

dear emily sparks...

2009-04-01T22:22:00.004-04:00

winter is slowly coming to a close. i have mixed feelings about it... caught in the middle of some kind of seasonal tug o' war. i long to go cross-country skiing more and bundle up with tea and warm socks, but i want to be outside in the warm sun as well... ah, to be fickle.

right now i am thinking of this poem from the spoon river anthology that was set to music by richard buckner. for a limited you can stream his album 'the hill' here. i recommend it.

a post of sorts

2009-03-31T20:13:00.005-04:00

right this minute i am thinking

1. spelt flour pasta isn't that bad. really.

2. 10pm telephone meeting with advisor is not so hot, but necessary. i guess.

3. i am so done with jury duty, but we haven't deliberated yet... waiting for "the law" as told to us by the judge.

4. i wish i were still in hawai'i. on the north shore.

5. i am making a sourdough starter using this recipe. i hope that it turns out.

6. i want to learn more about making kombucha at home.

7. i am sad to be finishing 'what i talk about when i talk about running' by murakami. it's really enjoyable.

a recipe

2009-03-04T16:55:00.005-05:00

i like food. maybe my tastes are not as refined as those of my sister, the former chef, but i think that i genuinely appreciate fine cuisine or just quality food made with care. in some ways, it's funny that i'm starting this post with those words because the recipe i am about to share may not seem like it fits into the category of "fine cuisine". it is nonetheless good, healthy, inexpensive food -- and that's alright with me.

as i mentioned in my last post, for the most part, i am not eating meat right now. when i was looking for info about the veganomicon cookbook i stumbled upon this page which contains a link to a recipe for "snobby joes". at first i thought -- weird. i didn't eat sloppy joes as a kid or as an adult, so i didn't find it very interesting. but then i thought about it -- i like my vegetarian chili a lot, but i kind of got burnt out on it and this recipe could be thought of as a new version of vegetarian chili to me. so i made the snobby joes, but i made some changes to the recipe and i thought i would share it with you here (unfortunately sans photos).

my version of snobby joes
(adapted from isa's version from the veganomicon)

ingredients
1 cup uncooked lentils
4 cups cold water

1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium-sized onion (yellow or white), diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 poblano pepper, diced
1-2 teaspoons salt (depending upon how salty you like it)
2 tablespoons chili powder (i used ancho chili powder)
2-3 teaspoons dried oregano
2 cloves of garlic, minced
15 oz can of tomato sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste (or a few squirts from your tomato paste tube)
a little bit of water (from rinsing out the tomato sauce can)
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon yellow mustard

rolls or bread to eat this stuff with

directions
start by cleaning your lentils -- make sure there are no stones or weird things in there. rinse them off. put them in a sauce pot and cover with the water. put a lid on the pot and bring to a boil. once they start boiling, lower the heat and simmer for around 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender, but not super mushy. drain them and put them to the side.

10-15 minutes before your lentils are finished cooking, heat up a large pan or soup pot (something with a large bottom surface area) to somewhere between medium and medium-high heat. once the pan is hot, add the olive oil. once the olive oil is hot (you can tell this if you drop a piece of onion in and it sizzles right away), add the onion. saute for a few minutes. add the bell pepper. saute for a few minutes. add a teaspoon of salt. add the poblanos. continue to saute the veggies until they are softened, but still somewhat crisp. add the chili powder and oregano (and any other spices you might fancy). stir and let that cook a bit (so that the herbs and spices soak up some oil). add the garlic, stir constantly for a few minutes and then add the tomato paste. stir. add the lentils. add the tomato sauce. stir to combine everything. turn the heat down a bit until it just simmers lightly. at this point you can let it simmer for 10-20 minutes, adding water as needed to keep it moist. right before you're ready to eat it, add the maple syrup and mustard and heat through.

turn the heat off, cover the pan and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. get your rolls or bread ready.

serve the snobby joes over the roll, open-faced. i like to add some cheese to the roll before putting the snobby joe mixture on the roll -- something like a mild cheddar tastes good here.

that's it. easy, healthy and rather inexpensive. i'm thinking of adding some more veggies to this like diced carrots and maybe even some chunks of sweet potatoes.

some non-crabby stuff

2009-03-03T15:52:00.002-05:00

that last post was kind of negative sounding. so here goes a post of not-so-negative things. that show featuring the music tapes was, after all, very happy.

1. baking cookies while trying to write a paper is not a good idea. but cookies baking in the oven smell so good and are putting me a in a good zone for finishing up the sections of the paper i was working on earlier. b is right -- good smells are important. and these cookies are for friends, so they are extra-special. i love sharing food with people.

2. the delicious cookie smell is covering up the smell of someone in my house cooking meat last night (i think it was my new upstairs neighbor). i couldn't believe it, but that smell of hamburger meat frying grossed me out last night. even though i have switched to basically being a vegetarian since last october, i never thought i would be the kind of person who would feel unpleasant at the smell of meat cooking. i guess this means my flexitarianism is really taking hold.

3. i went to a new cafe in my neighborhood to work today and it was great. the cafe was perfect for work and i got some writing done. although, for a brief bit of time there was a guy next to me whistling to the music -- i think that might be verboten cafe behavior (don't you?), but whatevs.

4. i kicked that general malaise (GM) in the butt last week. so GM, don't even think about creeping back up in here!

5. i had an awesome workout yesterday. run + swim = good times.

6. the voices of the members of ida are so pretty. here is a lovely clip of them (which is 1 in a series of 4 clips). it's not for people with a short attention span, but it's worth it if you have a little bit of time to kill.

7. got to get back to writing school stuff... i'm starting to sound like my own private motivational speaker here. yuck.

this is not really a post...

2009-03-01T21:23:00.002-05:00

it's just a version of something i wrote on my hand last night when i saw julian koster playing his singing saw in the audience at soundlab.

Originally uploaded by blueberryboat9

to the girl who kept saying 'sorry' to everything:
fake shutter speed sound is not music.
kay?

he had the same sweater on. love the orange banjo strap.

general malaise

2009-02-26T15:42:00.002-05:00

i'm not feeling well today. but these two gents from HEL looks made me smile.

this one is inspired by everything he gets for free, like his flatmate's wardrobe.

this one is inspired by sports and political history of the 70s and 80s.

i am really digging the songs from juliana hatfield's new album. here is an acoustic version of 'shining on'.

okay, back to my cookies and tea.

dance dance dance

2009-02-20T09:27:00.002-05:00

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo

Breaking it up – alternative live video. Filmed by: Christian Haag from Lykke Li on Vimeo

an animal collective remix via the prefix mag.
'my girls', remix by hatchmatik

i can't help it. it's friday and i want to dance. dance. dance.

one small thing

2009-02-16T09:22:00.001-05:00

this morning i can't stop listening to this song by nick cave and the bad seeds. so good.

found entry 3

2009-02-15T21:49:00.003-05:00

"i heard the other day on NPR that it was the start of whaling season off in this distant alaskan town. i thought, what a life -- marking time by such things... the whales are here, the fruit is ready, the sun is gone for good, the turtles are making nests. and then i realized that tonight is a full moon. and i'm a taurus and what does this all really mean except something that you read in a weekly paper. for fun. and amusement.
i just want to tell you what it is i want and what it is that i'm feeling in every little moment i look at you and your skin and your eyes and your neck. and when you list body parts like that it sounds so freaking ridiculous, but those are parts of you. parts of you i look at and lose track of time. because time just happens and in those moments i can't be bothered with the mundane aspects of life, like breathing or rain or socks."

three things

2009-02-09T11:33:00.011-05:00

1. a little talkie-talk
i feel like my posts have been pretty vacuous lately. they have been something like extended twitter updates or facebook status messages -- little snippets of what's going on in my head at any given moment in time (and even at some undisclosed moment in time in the past, via my "found entry" posts). perhaps it is the case that extended narrative of what's going on with me seems even more self-indulgent than posting little thoughts or curiosities. but i should just give that up because having a blog is pretty freaking self-indulgent. and who is out there reading my blog? (interpret that as your chance to leave me a comment on this post.) you are surely a small voyeuristic bunch. but please don't get me wrong, i like it that you are reading these words. it validates this self-indulgent off-and-on habit of mine.

2. music
on a completely different note, next week i'm going to see antony and the johnsons. i'm excited about it. i hope that they will play a version of beyonce's 'crazy in love'. i can't get enough of their rendition of this song today.
here is a clip of them doing it:

he ends the song by saying, "who says that i'm not a teenage girl?"

3. knitting
and yeah, i'm still knitting, there's just no real photographic evidence of it.
i received a lovely knitted gift for christmas. here is a strange picture of me wearing the shawl/scarf that e made for me out of local handspun yarn:

she also gifted me some of her own handspun. i made a cowl (or neck gaiter) out of it. i just have to sew in the ends on that one and i can start wearing it. maybe a picture of that will be posted here some time in the future. or maybe not.

found entry 2

2009-02-08T20:04:00.001-05:00

"did i ever tell you that i once got a job in moldova? well, i did. but i didn't take it. i didn't move to moldova. i guess you probably know that, right? sometimes i wonder what my life would have been like if i had moved there for a few years. did you know that the capital of moldova is kishinev (or chisinau, depending upon how you spell it)? that's where i was supposed to live. and there would have been electricity outages and rabid dogs and all sorts of exciting things happening in russian that i wouldn't have understood for a while. things would have been really different if i had moved there... do you think it would be possible to go back and do it all differently?"

this reminds me of a dream i had...

2009-02-04T15:30:00.001-05:00

bodies of water

something i read

2009-01-31T10:25:00.005-05:00

Originally uploaded by BIFRÖST

"science is founded on the conviction that experience,
effort and reason are valid -- magic on the belief that
hope cannot fail nor desire deceive."
-- bronislaw malinowski

music and myth

2009-01-28T09:02:00.004-05:00

i don't know why i keep thinking about that claude levi-strauss book "myth and meaning". i'm still processing it. and although i found a lot of it interesting, for some reason the final chapter on music keeps coming back in my head... when he talks about music taking over the structure and function of mythology. the example he discusses is the recurring theme of the renunciation of love in wagner and that the only way to understand the recurrence of the theme throughout this long story is to try to see if the events which represent that theme are one and the same... okay, you get it, right? if not, just read the last chapter of his book because what i really wanted to talk about is something different. namely, reading about wagner got me thinking about country music, and i mean music like maybe what george jones made popular... country music with a narrative, frequently an autobiographical one. so i thought, that would be a fun project -- looking at the narrative constructed in country music or american folk music and see how the structure and function is comparable to mythology, as discussed by CLS. in my quick search for such studies, i found this boo k.

looks cool. it's on the 'to read' list... like so many other books.

in the meantime, i can't stop listening to this song by band of annuals... it's a little bit country and little bit folksy.

ineffable

2009-01-26T17:13:00.004-05:00

so what is the order of operations?

-- see something
-- have an emotional response
-- can't describe that emotion with any words

hmmm?

photo by BIFRÖST

vampires and zombies

2009-01-25T15:42:00.004-05:00

this post is for bryan and his funny story about vampires.

this is the zombie part:

i really like the sound effects in that video... it was found via something JD told me to look at. he's been doing work for long now and told me to look at this interesting piece from will wright and brian eno. but to be honest with you, i haven't finished watching the wright/eno thing. some day.

purple

2009-01-22T18:57:00.003-05:00

this photo is by jackson eaton
and i'm really digging it right now.

found entry

2009-01-20T00:39:00.001-05:00

"this isn't a letter to you anymore. it's a letter. to no one. to me. a letter to groucho. it's a crinkled letter with a coffee stain on it. it's the last drop of tea in the bottom of the cup that doesn't really have taste but is obligatorily consumed to empty the cup and quench the last bit of thirst. it's the tea dregs. it's the sting in your eyes after crying. it's the wandering mind that distracts me to the point of procrastination."

lots of snow

2009-01-19T10:59:00.005-05:00

it's been a while since i posted... not that i have a fanbase out there, but this snowy day inspired me to write something and share it.

i was away for a while -- incommunicado for a couple of months, kind of living in a tent. it was nice to get away, but there's nothing like being home, even if it means now i have to deal with all of the regular day-to-day shit that is annoying.

during my travels i went to the calexico kxci fundraiser show in tucson. no pics of that, but it was fun.

back in november i saw elf power with vic chesnutt at club congress. it was a really interesting show. elf power really impressed me. here is the tucson weekly preview of it. here is vic chesnutt on npr -- worth checking out.

back in october (?) i saw okkervil river before leaving buffalo. it was a good show, but i think that eric bachmann's band kind of stole the show.

here are some things that i have been thinking about lately:

-- this post by juliana hatfield really got me. it's about dealing with her dog dying. it's about love and loss. made me miss my girl.

-- i really like this new bon iver song.

-- gotta get in as much cross country skiing as possible these days...

and on that note, that's what i'm going to go do.

music blahs

2008-09-06T13:12:00.006-04:00

with catfish's hiatus, i have to find new music on my own. well, i don't have to, but i'm taking this as an opportunity to go out and see bands i've never heard before. this is something i used to do all of the time... but somehow, after moving here i forgot about how much fun that can be. so let's go.

james jackson toth (of the wooden wandd) and the dutchess and the duke played the mohawk place. they were both great, but in different ways.

james jackson toth, pictured below, played solo with an electric guitar. he has this bluesy, country thing going on. he sings in a sultry way, kind of like greg dully, but less, dare i say, sleazy. i dig the sound.

i bought his new album. after my first listen this morning, i think it's really great, especially the first side of the first album. thanks again james for playing a good set and for giving me a deal on the vinyl. i really do owe you a loganberry shake or something.

as for the duchess and the duke, they were entertaining and melodic and all around a good time. maybe the show would have turned out differently if they hadn't been so inebriated, but who knows.

there were only around 20 people at the show, so it made for a real up close and personal time. they also had people in the audience singing and playing percussion with them. it was certainly an interesting experience.

diamond sea

2008-09-04T02:03:00.002-04:00

definitely one of thurston's greatest songs... kind of epic in a way.

i want to say a lot today, but i'm feeling flustered and hyper-charged at the same time.

wonder where dradams is posting now... is it a tumblr-only party?

in the meantime, here is a pic of me in my favorite hipster cut-offs.

quite possibly the saddest movie i've ever seen

2008-09-03T08:26:00.001-04:00

los amantes del circulo polar

untitled

2008-08-31T21:22:00.002-04:00

i heard these two songs on the radio the other morning:
tunic (song for karen) by sonic youth
so. central station by REM

it was that kind of day. but it in between i heard some rocking 70s tune. i can't remember what it was. but it rocked and the lyrics were something about guys getting women. i think that was a mega-theme in 70s rock. and i had an idea of kim gordon + 70s rock... you know, transforming 70s rock by having a band that is comprised of tough women singing these silly 70s rock jams. okay, the first step is practicing on my argentinian acoustic beauty.

it's not like anyone is reading...

2008-08-27T15:11:00.002-04:00

but hot damn, i was inspired by this:

here is why it is bothersome to make art with conviction... or to do anything with conviction

this makes me want to get up every morning and work on my dissertation for six hours straight and then spend the evenings learning how to play my silly little argentinian hand-me-down acoustic guitar and when i'm not doing that, i want to be designing the alpaca sweater that i have been trying to make for myself for a while now or writing poetry that i've been working on in my head...

we all have our own version of stage fright... or at least most of us do. i can relate so much to what ryan has to say recently, with this sort of re-birth that he has been going through (at least as he has been expressing it in his blog). i am inspired to sit and write down my own version of this... my own testimonial to myself about my convictions as an academic, as a linguist, as a woman, as a knitter, as a guitarist...

thanks ryan. i really appreciate you putting yourself out there. your vulnerability is amazing... it sparkles and mystifies me.

schuba dooba do

2008-01-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

well, it's not 'skuba doooba do' it's more like 'shuba dooba do' (like 'shit' not 'skate'). i kept on pronouncing it like 'skate', but i guess because it's in chicago schuba's tavern is pronounced like the 'sh' sound in 'shit' or 'chicago'.

saw bobby bare jr. there last night - good show. i am a sucker for his tune 'i'll be around' and they did a great job on that one last night. i'm curious to see how his shel silverstein tribute album comes out.
the opening band was great, but i forgot their name. they were this rocking set of four guys from memphis, tennessee. i wonder if anyone out there saw them and remembers who they are????

go bears.

i think guero canelo saved my life tonight

2007-12-30T23:41:00.000-05:00

...well, it was actually friday night. i heart calexico.

the show was great.

the opening song of their set (goin' to acapulco) and the closing song before the encore (guero canelo) were fabulous - as were the other songs, but these were so well placed in the set. definitely one of the best calexico shows i've seen so far.

one of the openers, a hawk and a hacksaw, was really quite interesting.

and maybe next time photos of some knitted presents that have already been gifted.

the nytimes says...

2007-12-23T08:54:00.000-05:00

that this is what we're saying:

ny times buzzwords

one of those buzzwords happens to be "kinnear", popularized by the yarnharlot.

funny stuff.

to join or not to join

2007-11-06T08:36:00.000-05:00

well, i guess that's not really a question since i can't officially join anymore. what i'm talking about is InaDWriMo (International Dissertation Writing Month) (see a post about it here and thanks to PhDknitter for mentioning it). it's part of the whole jumble of 'get-things-done-in-november' activities which have semi-clever acronyms.
regardless of the fact that i can't officially join anymore, i can hopefully use this as a way to get more done this month. it is a crucial month and i have so much to do - finish a presentation for a conference in january, finish a poster for a conference at the end of this month, work on a presentation for my dissertation committee... yikes! i also have a potential journal article that i need to develop further... not to mention the regular dissertation crap -- yowza!
to top it all off, tomorrow at this time i'll be in charlotte, waiting to catch a plane to mexico city. i guess i definitely have to bring my laptop to get some work done while i'm gone. i had this grand idea that i would be traveling around without having to lug around my stupid laptop and whip it out for the security guys at the airport and could go sight-seeing without any guilt of not getting work done. what was i thinking?

knitting content

2007-10-31T10:43:00.000-04:00

just a quick post... i have been knitting on a gift for a while, so i haven't been able to show pictures of that. luckily, i've finished with that and was able to move on to something else. i wish i had been working on what she was working on, but alas, i'm just not that creative. here is what i did on monday:

and another crappy shot:

this is my interpretation of jackyll and hide from knitty. because i was in a time crunch and used what yarn i had, mine ended up being knit out of bulky weight yarn. i used lamb's pride bulky in sandy heather. the mouth and nose (which are dark brown - not black) are made of some unidentified stash yarn that i picked up from a remnant bin a few years ago. i used some of the tips from adrian.

all in all i like it. people at the party last night were amused and my head stayed warm on the walk over to the party (bonus!). a few issues with mine include the mohair content of the yarn (fuzz everywhere, including in your mouth) and i should have gone through with all of adrian's tips because the eyes initially came out wonky. i tried to repair them by adding a crochet edge... not sure if it works.

if i find the time today, i'll have to do take a few better pics of it outside, including a modeled shot. i think it looks quite amusing on.

potential new lease on life...

2007-10-24T12:34:00.000-04:00

i have been pretty sleep-deprived lately due to what i fondly refer to as 'the patty situation'. patty has had a couple of surgical procedures on her foot lately and consequently, we haven't been able to exercise her and she has to wear an elizabethan-collar (e-collar) on all of the time (which means at night when she decides that she wants to go to the bathroom at 4am, the cone gets jammed into anything in her way - and let me tell you, this is loud). i know that i shouldn't make any comparisons here, but i feel like i have a new appreciation for new mothers and fathers.

so let's have a little photo-montage of 'the patty situation'.

here she is, all healthy not long before 'the accident':

doesn't she look great?

here she is again, keeping busy on her nasty rug (note the back foot you can see is the one that has been affected by nerve damage):

then what happens? she decided to chew one of her toenails off on her lame leg. i don't have any pictures of that. take my word for it, you don't want to see it.

turns out she chewed so much that the bone was exposed on her foot. they tried to save her toe by sewing up the skin around it. here she is recuperating after that procedure:

her sutures didn't hold and back to the vet we went. we scheduled an appointment for toe amputation. on the day of surgery, patty was a real trooper. here she is after that surgery, all groggy looking:

it's been over a week since her toe amputation and the vet has been hinting at what the future might bring for us... leg amputation. it's kind of a bummer, but we think it is likely patty's best option. we don't know if she was chewing on her leg due to the weird sensation that she might be experiencing there due to nerve damage or if she was bored or what. whatever the reason, it's not good for her. we were worried about being able to exercise her just a week before this all happened since she started dropping her foot completely while walking, causing it to drag on the ground.

although it sounds pretty grim, leg amputation might be her new lease on life. if this can allow her to walk without dragging her foot and could potentially eliminate the weird sensations she might have been having in her foot, than it would be good for her quality of life. we're going to talk to the vet about the specifics on friday... well, i won't be there (i have a dissertation proposal to defend!), but steve will be.

catching up...

2007-09-26T17:31:00.000-04:00

as i was catching up on blog reading, i saw this post by jane simpson and thought the discussion was refreshing.

she followed that post up with another interesting outlook here.

jane's first post about this seems to be in response to claire's first post about it (something i am reading now for the first time). go get 'em!

here is her continuation of the discussion.

talking about language death

2007-09-26T10:15:00.000-04:00

it seems like the spot in the NYTimes which focused on K. David Harrison's research has really grabbed people's attention.
i belong to the Indigenous Languages and Technology list and there has been a lot of discussion there regarding language death and the attention that this issue is getting in the media. the responses have been very positive over there and i share the excitement.
there have been some other responses on this topic, including that by the lousy linguist which began here. see also the language guy's response here.
i have mixed feelings about the issue at hand - language death and what we (humans, and especially linguists) should be doing about it.
while i personally am not a member of a community that speaks an endangered language, i do conduct fieldwork on an endangered language. my friends and language consultants in the community seem to be somewhat aware of the fact that spanish is quickly taking its hold on the younger generation of speakers, but it's still at the early stages so people do not see any immediate danger of their language "dying". i want people to keep on speaking their language, but does my opinion count? who am i to say what members of this community should or shouldn't do since i don't even belong to the community? what is my role in the discussion? will informing community members about the potential of language death do anything? what can i do, if anything, so that community members themselves fight to keep children speaking the language? these are the kinds of questions i ask myself on a regular basis.
and one thought just comes back into my head which was brought up by a friend and fellow linguist - this community has survived so much over time. the mexican government tried to kill them, they survived all kinds of illness and hardship and yet, they still speak their language and have maintained many aspects of their culture. so what is the biggest enemy to potential language loss - television.

that is so buffalo

2007-08-31T17:45:00.000-04:00

i know there aren't that many readers out there, but anyone who is reading this should give the tv show confessions of a matchmaker a try. Patti Novak is so absolutely buffalo (from the perspective of a non-buffalonian) and the people on this show are unreal. at times i cringe so much at the way people act that i have to leave the room. and for those who wonder what buffalo really looks like, there are all sorts of shots of the city in between scenes.

pinkish stuff

2007-08-16T18:50:00.000-04:00

during the last week or so i've had my eye on these prickly pears by my parents' house in tucson. there are a bunch of ripe fruit on them in the street median near their house and i figured the county won't mind if i go and pick some of them. so i did. i made sure to leave enough for the animals by picking only a few from each cactus. here's what the last few looked like in my trusty bucket.

(forgive the date stamp on the photo - i'm using my parents' camera and i forgot to get rid of that thing!)

then i peeled them and cut them in half in preparation for the blender.

after that i put them in the blender, blended them and strained them.

tomorrow morning i will turn this into a sauce to put on top of the mesquite flour crepes that i will make. yum.

more of myself

2007-08-15T19:52:00.000-04:00

i've been known, on occasion, to watch the oprah show. i hadn't watched it since some time back in april and instead of finishing up some schoolwork i decided to tune in to oprah today. while watching the show today, i finally put it together that something that drives me nuts about oprah is a particular discourse style that she has adopted (most likely within the last 10 years or so). what i'm referring to is the way she talks in this psuedo-therapeutic way. for instance, the general theme for today's repeat show was 'becoming more of yourself', featuring celebrities confessing pivotal moments in their lives that allowed them to find out who they really were. guests even used these technology-based metaphors to talk about their minds - for instance, saying that they had tracks laid when they were young of the relationships in their lives and she figured out how to lay knew tracks to change the pattern of the relationships she was having, i think there was also a comment by Diane Sawyer about reprogramming yourself. this isn't the best example of what i'm trying to say, but i think that oprah has adopted certain metaphors which she uses to describe her life-philosophy and spiritual beliefs which most likely stem from the self-help realm or from psychologists (and her guests seem to follow suit). i also read on wikipedia's entry for oprah that the wall street journal has even coined a term after her style of confessing personal matters publicly as a form of therapy - "Oprahfication".
my big wonder is, has anybody done a linguistic study on the kind of language oprah (or other talk show hosts for that matter) uses, especially the metaphors she uses when she is focusing on topics of "spirit and self"????

back in the u.s.

2007-08-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

well, i made it back to the u.s. last week and am slowly getting back to work. i was pretty exhausted after my ten week fieldwork trip. lots of data collection and lots of work and that's on top of the daily stress that comes with living in a remote community, of which you are not a member. my flickr family and friends can see some pics from the trip. i haven't uploaded them all, but they will be coming in time.

for now, here is a sock that i was working on before i left. i just picked it up again this last week. it's socks that rock in the downpour colorway.

the photo is kind of crap since it's from my parents' camera and i was too lazy to figure out how to chop off the date stamp in an eloquent way...

on a side note, it's not like anyone is reading this blog, but in case you are i want to give props to a blog of some friends - between tuesdays.

i'm away

2007-05-27T14:19:00.000-04:00

ok, just a quick update that i'm in mexico doing fieldwork for my dissertation and will be away until august.

right now the weather is pretty nice here - much better than in tucson. at night it is even a bit chilly. but by august, things will change. july is going to be tough. i've done it before and can do it again, so i'm confident i can make it work.

no knitting for now, but i have a sock in progress back in tucson. it's socks that rock in a really pretty colorway that i can't remember, maybe it's called 'downpour'. it has greys and browns and other pretty neutral colors.

that's it for now. more in august.

my favorite sock yarn (sort of)

2007-04-11T10:12:00.000-04:00

finally a post about the hand-dyed sock yarn.
let me give you a recap on the vitals:
bare merino wool in fingering weight from knitpicks
procion dye from dharma trading company
i used two colors to make this: turquoise and some crazy red color (i think it was jungle red)

this is half of the yarn cake of this stuff. (the other half is in the sock!)

and above is the first sock.

i used ann norling's adult basic socks pattern. it's my old faithful for socks. i prefer this kind of heel than a short-row heel.

i really like the subtle striping that is happening in this yarn.

i have one more skein of this yarn and i think i should come up with a boyish colorway and knit steve another pair of socks.

puerto libertad is not liberty cove

2007-04-10T12:35:00.000-04:00

ok, maybe the title of this post does not make sense, but just give me a minute to explain. while writing out my budget for this summer's fieldwork trip, i wanted to find the mileage between tucson and puerto libertad. at first, i came across this site from wildsonora. this site talks about issues that are considered threatening to the attempts at keeping sonora "wild". ok, that's cool with me. i was particularly interested in the articles about development in puerto libertad and the coastal highway project. in the past, i have heard so many rumors about the coastal highway project, but wasn't sure how much of it was serious. the link from the wildsonora website to this site made me cringe. liberty cove seems to be some investor's wet dream of how to sell even more vacation property along the coast of the sea of cortez (because, let's face it, rocky point is just too full). the intro page to the liberty cove website is a joke. the liberty cove developers are sneakily hiding one little thing.
--> check out the photo on the wildsonora page or look at the similar one here. is that what you want in your backyard? the smoke trail from those smokestacks goes on forever. puerto libertad is a sleepy little fishing community with the exception of the natural gas operation they have going on there.

who's that with an ACD?

2007-04-04T19:07:00.000-04:00

who knew that owen wilson had an australian cattle dog named garcia.
check out this link from people for proof.

finally another post

2007-04-04T10:37:00.000-04:00

steve is away and he took the digital camera with him. before he left i forgot to take photos of stuff i wanted to share. for instance, we dyed more sock yarn last week. i ended up using a total of two colors to get a beautiful, sorta striping sock yarn. steve has a great stash of procion dyes from dharma that he has used for dying clothes. although it's not the best thing for dying wool, it does the job. i picked out two colors: jungle red (i think) and turquoise. we used the two jar method (instead of three) and the middle lump got a watered down version of the turquoise-red mix. i also had a much smaller skein than what is desired for "true" self-striping yarn, but it is nevertheless turning into something really beautiful. pictures of that next time.

i also wanted to mention something that i discovered after arguing with steve about dye safety. i was under the impression that non-food-worthy dyes were really unsafe and that whatever comes in contact with the dye should not be eaten off of, etc. i was being obsessively careful about this when steve got annoyed with me and decided to look up the material data safety sheet. we were using fiber-reactive dyes NOT acid dyes. fiber-reactive dyes in their powder form are not exactly safe (ie, you shouldn't inhale them or eat them and they shouldn't come into contact with your skin). BUT, they are so much safer than acid dyes. even though we have a separate dye pot and all that, i think it's important to mention that fiber-reactive dyes might be a safer alternative to acid dyes and offer better color choices than kool-aid or food dyes.

on another note, i finished some socks for steve out of wildfoote sock yarn in the "zane grey" colorway. pictures to come.

hodgepodge of potpourri

2007-03-16T18:09:00.000-04:00

still no finished pictures of the sienna cardigan. i found an old tweed vest at a thrift store and stole the fake leather buttons off of it, but sewing those suckers on is another story. in the meantime, i made a sock for steve. i will reveal them when they are both done.

i also picked this guy up at the thrift store:

it's a drip glaze platter from an old company in ohio.

my chile seedlings are doing well:

the photo is, as usual, crappy, but check out those little guys!

also, no need to put away the cross-country gear yet. looks like we'll have a snowy weekend.

finito

2007-03-04T19:02:00.000-05:00

it's the end of the weekend and i have a few things to say, but no real pics to post. that will happen later in the week.
i finished the sienna cardigan, sans buttons and i still have to wash it. i need to go on a thrift store search for an old sweater with good buttons or a jar full of them.
i went cross country skiing twice this weekend, but only one time really counts. i went to delaware park the first time with patty by myself. patty threw a fit and just wanted to go back to the car after only a little bit. but this was a good test of my new skis/poles/shoes because the baskets on my poles hadn't been attached very well. that was my own fault.
today we went to hunters creek (see some info here about it). this was our second time there and patty had a blast. it was fun for us too, but next time we have to plan for a longer trip to make it worth it. we're still figuring out the trails.
even after two miles of running through the snow patty isn't tired.

next time we'll have to bring one of the cameras and snap some skiing shots.

getting some seeds started

2007-02-23T13:26:00.000-05:00

unfortunately the sienna cardigan does not have sleeves yet. i am working on the sleeve caps, but this hasn't been a good week for knitting.

in other news, i joined the native seeds/SEARCH gardener's network. essentially this means steve and i or perhaps our landlords will test out some of the native seeds/SEARCH seeds to see how they do in the climate here. the gardener's network doesn't offer as many seeds as the regular seed listing, but they still offer quite a few. i am going to try patagonia chiles (capsicum annuum), navajo hubbard squash (cucurbita maxima), tepehuan tomatillos (physalis phildelphica), and blue speckled tepary beans (phaseolus acutifolius). some of these guys, especially the tepary beans might not have a good chance here, but we'll see. that's part of the fun. i started to test germinate the chile seeds last night. since i won't be around this summer (summer fieldwork), i am kind of bummed out about not being able to see what happens, but i'm eager to get the plants started and planted before i leave.

a new book

2007-02-19T10:06:00.000-05:00

steve gave me a book for valentine's day and boy am i happy. here is the book hanging out with my jade plant.

i'm super excited. i want to make so many things out of here, especially a yoke sweater.

on top of the book is my jade plant. this was started from a cutting (actually it was some bit of a jade plant that had fallen off of the main plant). the cutting was so small, just two small leaves and they fell off once i got roots going on it and planted it. now it seems to be doing better and scheduled for a pot transplant. the pot it is currently in is from a nearby thriftstore. i normally hate glazed pots, but this dragonfly pot has worked out well.

i went cross country skiing on saturday and sunday (two separate trips). we took patty along and she loved it. i had a blast too. i need to find a cheap used set or perhaps a good end-of-the-season deal.

snowy day

2007-02-14T09:42:00.000-05:00

we went out to our valentine's day dinner, just as the storm started. the wind was blowing pretty hard and the flakes were flying. but these weren't your average flakes, they were really frozen tiny little pieces of snow. when we got home, we were glad to be in our warm apartment. we were chilling out on the sofa. i had prepared the hot water bottle and was snuggled up against steve and we were watching law and order and ka-chunk - the power went out. this is actually a pretty common occurrence in our house since it's old and there are three apartments in it. during the winter when the upstairs tenant uses the heater, it can cause part of the power in the house to go out. interestingly enough, during the october storm we had power the whole time. last night, it seems that the transformer blew. right now they're replacing the transformer behind our house and it's still storming away. here are some pics:

those power guys (and gals) are crazy. the guy who has been at the top of the pool taking the transformer off and is now putting the transformer on is quite amazing. he was waving at us at one point.

as for knitting, the sienna cardigan is coming along nicely. i have the back, the two front panels, one sleeve minus the sleeve cap and one sleeve minus a few inches and the sleeve cap. i'm in the home stretch there.

after knitting up part of the second austermann step socks and getting different gauge on the second one, i'm going to rip that one back and try again after sienna is done. i'm also thinking of some other gift projects to keep myself busy.

just a quickie

2007-01-30T10:19:00.000-05:00

the knitty winter surprises are up and i really like this pattern. it's called "thermal" and it's based on longjohn top. laura made it. i had no idea she was studying linguistics.

progress report

2007-01-28T14:15:00.000-05:00

even though school has started, i have managed to make some progress on stuff. the australian open has been facilitating my knitting.
here is the progress on the sienna cardigan, using knitpicks swish:

so far i have the back panel done and am working on the right front panel. here is a better look at the front panel (with no flash):

i had to make some adjustments to the way i was knitting this since swish shrinks and my gauge was a little off.

here is an update on the swallowtail shawl (do i have to reference it?!):

as for my austermann step socks, i am having gauge issues on the second sock. the gauge is smaller even though it's being knit with size 0 bamboo needles, just like the first one. the only difference, sock #2 is being knit with shorter DPNs. i think i need to just rip out sock #2 and start over.

that's about it for now. back to work.

what a day

2007-01-26T08:19:00.000-05:00

it was pretty cold yesterday. here is what the national weather service has to say about yesterday's weather:

...THE BUFFALO CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR JANUARY 25 2007...

TEMPERATURE (F)
MAXIMUM: 18 at 1236 AM
MINIMUM: 5 at 1159 PM

BUT, that doesn't include the wind chill values. with wind chill, we had single digit temps and potentially negative (fahrenheit!) temps as well.
with "the coldest air of the season" here yesterday (as the NWS likes to say), i decided to drive to school. of course, my car decided to break down, but as i found out, it was under weird circumstances. at the end of the day, i came home with a new radiator, a fully serviced transmission and an oil change. cha-ching.

as for knitting, i am working on the swallowtail shawl with 2-ply shelridge farm laceweight that i got from the destash blog. it's taking a while, but i might post something if i can pin it down properly for it to even be remotely interesting.
i'm almost finished with the back of the sienna cardigan... just a bit more to go on the arm section and then i have to start shaping for the neck. i hope to be around and have enough light to photograph them both tomorrow.

baby stuff

2007-01-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

i wanted to take a quick photo to document these guys before they go out to their recipient on saturday.

these are the better than booties baby socks. you can find the pattern on the website for interweave knits here. the bonnet is sort of my own creation, but it's heavily inspired by a pattern in a Bernat pattern book from 1957. the book number is 57. the book is quite cute, especially the cover where it says "the big book of hand knit fashions for small fry infants and toddlers". i love the use of 'small fry'.

the color on the yarn is hard to see since i used a flash. the sun has been in and out all day today. this is the hand-dyed yarn that steve and i made. here is a photo of the bonnet in action on a nalgene bottle.

i have to admit that i was inspired by hello yarn's bonnet for this pattern. you can see her bonnet here.

jazz at the bookstore

2007-01-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

steve graciously accompanied me to the free in-store performance by ron sexsmith tonight. i'm not a big fan of the single from his new album, but "jazz at the bookstore" was really good (also on his new album). while at the live performance i spotted a woman knitting. i think she was part of ron's entourage because otherwise i thought it to be out of place to be knitting at a record store live performance thing (right?). she was knitting something blue with big needles. it sort of looked like part of a sweater. i wanted to ask her what she was knitting, but after the singing was over and ron was blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, steve wanted to leave the place.

no knitting photos today, but i finished some baby socks (using this lovely pattern, better than booties baby socks, by Ann Budd) and am working on a baby bonnet from a vintage bernat pattern book. i'm using the yarn that steve and i dyed (the green stuff).

salsipuedes

2007-01-04T15:50:00.000-05:00

have you ever started doing something and then at some point during process realized that you were going nowhere. or perhaps you started something, say, you started knitting a sweater and you were all gung-ho about it and then months, maybe years later you thought, that was a bad idea, what was i thinking? that's what i thought last fall with the previous sweater i started knitting with the encore yarn. during my first year of grad school here, i started knitting this sweater. i had done at least the front and the back, but i was so fast and loose about it that i didn't count rows or any of that fancy stuff. i just kind of knit it and took some measurements. then it sat in my plastic storage tub for years until this fall when i thought - salsipuedes, get out if you can. so i ripped it out and here you go, a finished top-down raglan using this pattern by Pamela Costello.

the whole salsipuedes idea came from this book that i'm reading right now by Thomas Bowen called "Unknown Island: Seri Indians, Europeans, and San Esteban Island in the Gulf of California". the salsipuedes islands are some islands that spanish explorers/missionaries encountered while trying to explore the sea of cortez and they coined them as the salsipuedes islands. these islands are part of the midriff islands that have caused lots of problems for seafarers trying to navigate through that area. i've been reading all about it in this book.

yeah but no but yeah but...

2007-01-02T09:19:00.000-05:00

although i am not terribly interested in discussions about what a certain social group's (say, for instance, british teenagers) vocabulary size is, i couldn't help but crack up about this post on languagelog. the post talks about vicky pollard, one of the character's from the tv show "little britain". my interpretation of the vicky pollard character was that matt lucas (the guy behind vicky) really was making fun of british youth for similar reasons that the BBC News made their claims and gripes about the small vocabulary size of british kids. liberman's post on languagelog puts this in perspective and his use of type/token plots of vicky's "vocabulary" and data from the 2003 Fisher corpus illustrate that vicky's problem is not her vocabulary.

toe-ups

2007-01-01T11:12:00.000-05:00

i'm making some progress on my first toe-up socks. here is a picture:

i'm using austermann step and size US 0 knitting needles and am using Wendy's generic toe-up pattern. i really like working with this yarn and am very excited to wear these socks when they're finished.

i finished the top-down raglan yesterday and wore it out to a party. it's not really what i would call party clothes, but i wanted to wear my first real sweater. maybe a picture of that some other time.

happy new year!

busy bee

2006-12-30T14:46:00.000-05:00

we had a good christmas here, even though it wasn't white. it was nice and quiet with good food, good wine and good times. we watched movies and relaxed. we ate our big dinner on christmas eve and then just relaxed on christmas day. here i am playing with patty and her george w. toy in front of the live christmas tree. the bf surprised me with this on christmas eve morning. how cool!

on the night of the 25th, we dyed some yarn. here are some pictures of the results:

i took a skein of knitpicks merino fingering weight (as pictured on the left) and dyed it seafoam green. it's hard to see the true color in the picture, but the color is slightly varied due to the dying process. i like it. we used acid dye from dharma trading company. they have great dyes and great instructions for first timers.

this next picture is of some plain cotton yarn that we dyed, again, using acid dye from dharma. you don't use vinegar to set the dye for cotton material. i had already knit these washclothes and we dropped them in the dyepot as is and they turned out great.

well, i'm almost done with the top-down raglan. i am just finishing the collar. after that i want to start projects using my christmas present yarn. i got some austermann step that i am going to make some socks out of and i got a ton of swish. i think i will either knit ariann or the sienna cardigan from the fall 2006 interweave knits.

mr. messy

2006-12-22T10:24:00.000-05:00

i really enjoyed reading this new york times article this morning. i can relate to the messy work space, both my desk at school and my work space at home contain many piles. this article, in a way, made me feel like i could embrace my piles and that i shouldn't be so ashamed of the clutter. organization is overrated.

on another note, but surely, not too unrelated (especially after reading this post), let me introduce patty, our dog.

here she is. this photo was probably taken within the last few months. we think she is an australian cattle dog, at least, that is what the SPCA said. she certainly seems to have certain traits of the breed, including a single mask (the black patch covering her right eye... sounds like she's a pirate). she also seems to have merle markings on her fur. regardless, we love her.

the first post

2006-12-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

after reading countless blogs, especially knitting blogs, i have finally decided to create my own.

here you will find semi-regular rants about my knitting and my life as a grad student. hopefully the rants will be funny and not just full of bitching and moaning.

here the first photo of one of my works in progress. it's a top-down raglan. i'm using this pattern. i'm also using some encore worsted weight yarn. i know that it's not a luxurious yarn, but it's easy to care for and not a big investment. it's been sitting in my stash for a while.

the other work in progress are some gloves for the bf. i found a bag of cheap synthetic yarn at a thirftstore in tucson (it was $1 for countless balls) and i'm using that. it's for biking and he lost his other pair. i'm using this pattern as my inspiration. here's a photo

that's it for now. i need to get back to school work. i know that school is out, but as a grad student school is never out.