I took my knitting out today–this is the first time my poor socks have been out of my purse since I turned the heels right around Christmas. Poor things. It’s a darn shame, too, because I like them so much and really look forward to being able to WEAR them.
They are Socks That Rock–my first time using it–in the Harlotty colorway. I love the colors, too–greens and golds and a purplish-brown . . . very nice. Very "me," too.
Mom and I had gone out because she needed a new photo album, but we stopped at this brand-new little Starbucks on Eisenhower Parkway. (Interesting–within a 20 mile radius of my house, do you know how many Starbucks locations there are? Thirty-eight. Sheesh! No wonder it’s so hard to find a good, independent coffee place.)
One thing I found kind of amusing, in a "Why couldn’t they have thought that through a little better" way? When I went to the ladies’ room to wash my hands, there was this how-to sticker on the blow-dryer, telling the employees that they needed to wash their hands, and explaining the steps (for those who apparently have never done so before, I guess). But the little illustrations? Note that step five is "Dry," with a pictogram of hands using a towel to dry themselves, and step 6 tells you to turn off the water, using the paper towel. This is troubling to me for a couple reasons–not least of which being that I kind of expect that people know HOW to wash their hands. But, as a rule, don’t you usually turn off the water BEFORE you dry your hands? Because, why waste all that running water when you don’t need it any more? But even more worrying–this was on a BLOW-DRYER. You know, one of those hot-air devices that you wave your hands underneath. There was not a single paper towel in the restroom. If you were the kind of person who really needed to read and follow those cute little pictograms, what would you do? You might think to dry your hands under the dryer, I suppose, but obviously, the water would never be turned off, what with your not having a paper towel to turn it off with . . .
Is it just me, or is this a sign of a dwindling Western Civilization?
After we got home, I continued the trend I started last weekend, and did some basic cleaning-out of my side of the hall closet. Well, the stuff on the rack, anyway. Do you think I have enough coats and jackets to keep me warm? Not to mention gloves, hats, mittens, scarves . . .
And yes, I keep my winter accessories in a hanging shoe-organizer. It’s perfect. It doesn’t take much space, keeps everything within reach, and is a whole lot easier than a bin on the top shelf or on the floor with the boots.
I find it interesting that almost nothing in my coat collection is black. There’s a leather jacket, that you can’t really see, and a hooded parka in the back, but otherwise . . . almost everything’s a color of some kind. Or camel.
Or grey. I have one grey, wool item . . . a cloak. This dates back to the late 1980s when I was in college. By then, I’d been a fan of fantasy books for years, where many, many characters wore gray cloaks, and I wanted one for myself. So, for my birthday my freshman year, I asked for however-many yards of coat-weight wool (plus lining material and assorted notions), and then made it for myself. I used the Folkwear pattern, but skipped the hood, because it was way too full and looked difficult to wear.
I have to say, really, that this is the warmest winter garment I’ve ever had. Because your arms and hands are under the cloak, the body warmth helps keep them warm, and for walking across a cold campus on a frosty day, well . . . really warm. I carried my books in a messenger bag at the time, too . . . even though carrying backpacks casually slung over one shoulder was THE way to carry school supplies at the time . . . but clearly fashion wasn’t foremost on my mind at the time, huh? Anyway, the cloak kept my bag of books from getting wet, too. And on warmer days, it was easy to toss one or both sides back over my shoulder. I loved this cloak. About the only thing it wasn’t good for was shoveling snow or cleaning off my car . . .
The hood I added later, my sophomore year. It’s one of those rare days that I can remember distinctly, from beginning to end. It was January, and I had been taking a Jan-Term course at school, but commuting back and forth for the three weeks of the class, rather than living on campus like I did during the regular year. It was a class on uses of imagery in writing, and how language affects the psyche . . . Anyway, just as class ended, around noon, it started to snow, and I remember driving home very carefully in Mom’s car, trying to keep the back window clean. When I got home, I decided to pull out the sewing machine and my extra wool from the year before to make a hood for my cloak. Because I decided that I NEEDED one. I was reading Patricia Kenneally’s The Copper Crown (a book which I heartily recommend to anyone, along with the entire series), and all the characters were sweeping around in hooded cloaks, so, naturally, I needed one, too. So, I worked that afternoon on figuring out how to make a hood, sewing in buttonholes (by hand) to make it detachable, all while the snow piled up outside. Around 4:00, I went out with the electric shovel to try to clear at least some of the driveway for my Dad and my sister, who would be home from work soon. I just managed to get about a car’s width cleared out for most of the driveway (the extent of the extension cord) when Dad called. He had driven to the bank my sister was working at and was following her home . . . she’d had an accident skidding on black ice a few years earlier and was still nervous about winter-weather driving . . . the traffic was horrible, and they’d pulled over at some gas station so he could call home so Mom would know that they were on their way, just . . . it could be a while. (And yes, this was before cell phones.) She told him I’d managed to clear at least some of the driveway, so that he knew that it would be okay to try to drive through that mountain of snow left by the street plow at the top of the driveway, that it would be clear once he got past that, and he and my sister could both get their cars off the street without having to shovel . . .
Oh yes, Mom and I went for a walk in the crystalline, glittering fresh snow the next day, with our miniature dachshund, Jilly, with me wearing my cloak (with hood) and feeling just oh, so appropriately dressed for a snowy day. And that I ended up carrying Jilly, who was cold, under the cloak with her head sticking out . . . perfectly happy, and both of us warm . . . I did a similar thing with my niece when she was tiny, too. My sister’s house was a modular, and delivered in December, and when we all went up at some point to see the house–which, naturally, didn’t have heat–I sat on the floor in the dining room with my 7-month old niece in my lap, both of us wrapped in my cloak and toasty warm, while everyone else walked around shivering . . . Yep. I love my cloak!
I apologize for not posting last night. I was so tired last night that I didn’t knit, I didn’t spin, I didn’t post . . . I’m lucky I managed to answer email . . . and my light was out at 11:37, which is even earlier than for a normal night, much less a weekend when I usually stay up late reading. All I did last night was sit in front of the TV, reading from the big, heavy, fascinating Team of Rivals, which, let me tell you, is an amazingly good book about Abraham Lincoln and how he got his most competitive rivals for the Republican nomination to be on his team as part of the Cabinet during the Civil War . . . fascinating.
And, of course, I wanted to show you some Saturday Sky . . . although I really took this picture a couple mornings ago, as the sun came up . . . I love that golden strip beyond the clouds….
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The timing is good in ONE way, though, in that it gives me the perfect opening to tell you that February is Pet Dental Health Month. 
