When the Bear and I got married 19 years ago, Uncle John gave us a novelty garter with a musical charm that played the wedding march. There is something about the electronic warbling of that thing that instantly irritates and/or intrigues cats. Every so often when I'm digging in my underwear drawer, I activate it and the cat goes bananas. Bear, I still miss you every single day and have only just made it to not crying every day. Pink's song "Who Knew?" makes me cry because it makes me think of his leaving me. No he didn't leave me on this plane of existence but he's just as gone and three years is rapidly approaching.

I'm reading a fascinating book, Foreign Babes in Beijing by Rachel Dewoskin. Aside from its witty observance of China and her fellow foreign babes, it is a startling view of a person who did something most of would never dream of doing. Admittedly Rachel came from an American family deeply involved in China from her childhood, but you or I would not just take off for Beijing on any job we could wangle just to go live there with our university level Chinese. It would be like me deciding to go to Nairobi because I speak what I know is a smattering of Swahili. To top the whole foreign immersion experience, she signs up to be an actress in a TV soap opera (whose title is the book's) to play a version of herself as seen through Chinese eyes, which is hardly flattering or even accurate. All Westerners smell of milk? I recommend this book highly as a view into China that would be hard to get otherwise. I am fascinated with modern China and Japan, especially how they are incorporating Western idioms into their culture. (My Ph.D. thesis was going to be on how modern technology had been expressed in Swahili) Culture clash is one of the things I find fascinating, even in science fiction. One of the best is the "Foreigner" series by C.J. Cherryh, latest volume just out.

Yes, I do speak a smattering of Swahili. In grad school I specialized in African linguistics and learned Swahili and Hausa, and took classes in Twi and a Bantu language. I actually taught Swahili for a year. It's a relatively simple language to learn, if you can call a language with 9 noun classes and whose verb tenses are expressed by adding a syllable in the middle of the verb. Of course, none of this gets you a job in the real world, hence I fell back on my original (i.e., from junior high) plan and became a librarian. I've been a librarian of sorts since 1976 and it's taken me many places and I've made lots of friends that have changed my life. After all I met X2 in a library, and met the Bear only because my work institution happened to have the creaky frame that was the Internet in 1990.

It is bucketing rain here and I have gotten over the novelty and am glad the reservoirs are filling up, but I'd really like to get in the garden to tidy it up. I know I'm going to have to hire a professional to do the ultimate clean up, but there are weeding and pruning I could do. I dug some potatoes to put in the pot of split pea soup I have on the stove and had to prune back a rose bush to get at them. I also retrieved another pumpkin, this time for use as veg not soup. In the supermarket yesterday I bought "buttermilk scones" hoping for American biscuits and, while the texture is about right, there's something off in the taste. Too sweet too. I was intrigued by frozen sweet potato fries until I read the label and found out they were imported from Canada! How on earth did sweet potatoes from Canada end up in my frozen food aisle? Canada is of course famous for its sweet potatoes.

Swans news: yesterday J and I went to Sydney for the day to watch the Swannies play. Before details of the day I will explain how we managed this. When the Swans first sent out membership materials for Canberra members, they told us they were changing the package, due for the most part to the ACT government no longer forking over a share of the money to hold the match at an ACT venue. This had reduced the number of matches being held in the ACT. The Swans instead offered us a package of one match in Canberra (last weekend's match vs the Bulldogs which I missed due to illness), one in Sydney at the SCG and one in Melbourne. Both J and I thought that a decent bargain and paid our membership. When the actual sign-up package arrived, the match in Sydney was at ANZ Stadium, which is the huge arena built for the Olympics. You have to walk miles from public transport or even from the entrance to your seat. I called the membership office and reminded them that they had promised us SCG tickets. After much rustling of papers on their end, they acknowledged that yes, they would honor the SCG promise. So, we signed up. When the final membership package arrived, the materials all said ANZ stadium. I got nowhere with trying to contact the membership office online but J took the matter further, partially because she was already angry at them holding a night match during Earth Hour. Somehow she managed to wangle us 2 member's tickets to a match of our choice at the SCG. I feel sorry for those Canberra members who didn't get this opportunity, but I was very satisfied.

So yesterday we did a one day excursion to Sydney, which started off on the wrong foot when my alarm didn't go off and I had to throw myself together in a hurry. Fortunately, due to some precognition, I had gotten everything ready the night before, down to socks and underwear laid out, so I was only a little late. We stopped in Marulan for game snacks (don't ever buy them at the venue) and discovered that the BP in Marulan was selling Krispy Kremes. Thus fortified, we continued and actually made it to the park & ride site (UNSW carpark) without getting lost. The Bear, who knew Sydney intimately, always drove in Sydney and I never paid much attention to details, and they've built new roads since we used to go to Swans matches. We took our bus to the SCG, went to the members office, retrieved our tickets and discovered we had the option of sitting in the Ladies Pavilion.

When I was hoping to get match seats in the SCG, sitting in the Ladies Stand was my dream, built in 1896, it epitomizes to me the charm of the old SCG. This was also our first view of the new SCG since construction was competed. The Victor Trumper Stand (named after a legendary cricket player) had completely absorbed the area formerly known as The Hill. which used to be simply grass and where the unwashed masses watched events and where the loudest commentary on any match's proceedings emanated from. It is all very spiffy, which is why I wanted to sit in the old part of the stands. We got 2 of the last remaining seats undercover (the skies were threatening) and settled in.

Somewhere along the line I had overlooked the fact the the Fremantle Dockers were no longer the walkover they used to be. It looked like cocaine was not the only drug of choice among the WA player community, because these guys were seriously large. They dwarfed our lads and won most contests where mere muscle ruled the day. The umpires didn't help either. We also were missing several key players. Craig Bolton is injured. Mumford is on suspension. Keneally left early, and Jude Bolton and LRT were cycled on and off the field. Henry Playfair did well and kicked his first goal. Official match summary here. In the third quarter the heavens opened and it rained almost the entire rest of the match. I have never before had the luxury of under cover seating so I was very glad we had manged to sit in comfort. Got the bus back to the car and drove home, stopping in Marulan for burgers. I was safely home by 9.30.

The outing only confirmed and refreshed in my mind how lovely going to Swans matches at home in the SCG is. And why tickets to ANZ Stadium are to be avoided (except for finals). There was a decent turnout (about 70% capacity I'd guess). The crowd was lively until the downpour (and it really rained). Nobody in our area was drunk or obnoxious. I think next year J and I might opt for a 3 game SCG membership and buy our Canberra tickets because there are times J can't go to matches here and I don't like going by myself.

I spent the beginning of the week sick with some sort of lurgie (bug) that sapped what strength I had and gave me a sore throat instead. I slept a lot, read a lot, made the Imp infinitely satisfied with me being held captive. My best book of the week was Marion Halligans's The Apricot Colonel. She usually writes about Canberra, so it was nice to read with an idea on my mind's eye of where she was. It would be lovely to have Tilly's as your local drop in spot. The Fog Garden was the first novel of hers that caught my attention, and since it was about a woman whose husband had just died, it planted a subconscious thought in my brain. Never assume that life will always proceed in the fashion your are planning.

Work on Thursday really tired me out, so I am not going to push with anything today so work tomorrow will be bearable. I finally got the brush fencing that screens the front entrance to the house repaired. One more step in renovations. Now I can get at the front garden more seriously.. I noticed that the fencing guy had tromped thoroughly on my iris, so I might sacrifice them rather that trying to figure out how to incorporate them into the landscape. If you don't know and love iris, they don't do well and look scruffy.

It's sort of been back to work altho I miss a day here and there. I get very tired easily and forget about that problem till I hit a wall. I still am not stable enough to do much yard work and winter has arrived in Canberra. We've had several below zero mornings and frost everywhere. The garden really only needs a tidy and put to bed for the winter so I'm not stressed about that.

This link was passed on thru one of the lists I'm on as a way to get rid of your stash. If I didn't already have a washing machine on its last legs, I'd be tempted to try. All that alpaca would make a spectacular rug. I'd have to do some deep thinking to figure out how raw filthy fibre could end up as a flat shape of any design.

I continue to work on getting the house ready to go on the market, which involves everything from painters to new light fixtures. So far I'm not getting very far since we all know tradesmen don't answer their messages or don't actually submit quotes after they have been to see you. I hope to move into a smaller house with minimal garden, but still have room for my crafts, etc. I have a new mantra: I need a skip.

Book report: I finished Neal Asher's The Line of Polity which was a rip-roaring space opera full of androids and space ships and all that stuff. The sci-fi equivalent of popcorn. I'll probably read more of his; I found a box of book I had packed while moving things out of the Bear's room and found another of his. I also found several books I had forgotten I'd bought so saved me buying them twice! I am now reading Sheri Teppers' Raising the Stones. Her novels are frequently about relations between the sexes but set in some far off imagined space, and told with great sublty, like a flower slowly opening. Her best, Grass and The Gate to Women's Country, are, to me at least, classics. My BBBB continues to be Eleanor and Franklin and I gound a biography of FDR in the box of books.

I must thank S for introducing me to Eat Your Books, a site which has indexed hundreds of cookbooks. You can now have access to all the recipes in your own cookbooks without trying to remember where you saw a recipe, or having a new (or old) ingredient and need a recipe for it. I am waiting for a promised load of a lot of out-of-print books since a lot of my cookbooks date from the '70's and '80's when I cooked a lot more and gave frequent dinner parties. One of the problems I'm having in looking at new houses is my Danish oak dining table which will sit 10 with the leaves out. I haven't given many dinner parties since I got here, but I would like to again so I don't want to sacrifice the table. Besides, I made needlepoint seat covers for the 4 chairs, and have a china cabinet full of bone china and crystal that goes with it.

Tomorrow J and I go to see the Swannies play at Manuka Oval (i.e., in Canberra). The team has already been hit by injuries so our stellar start to the season has stuttered. But we'll be there to cheer them on. Bradshaw has been outstanding and was an inspired trade. In an after-match interview a couple of weeks back, he admitted he hadn't learned all the words to the team song. For you non-Aussies, an AFL team returns to the locker room after a win and gathers in a circle to sing the team song, and all the fans in the stands sing it at the end of a win as well. Strangely, many AFL songs are American in origin with the words changed. Ours is the Notre Dame football song with the words altered.

I truly outdid myself this week in the tired and befuddled stakes. Wed. is a non-work day that I should really take as a rest day. But there are things an adult has to do in their normal life and non-work days are the only times I have for them. So instead of resting, I had two business appointments on Wed. which involved driving all over Canberra. I got up on Thursday morning believing somehow it was Friday. So instead of going to work I went to my GP, which is what I planned to do Friday morning. I was sitting in the waiting room feeling tired to the point of nausea. On the way home I suddenly realized that I had lost track of Thursday. Fortunately my boss is convinced I shouldn't be working 3 days a week to begin with and my job is less than essential. So I went home and slept for 4 hours. If the fibro pain don't get you, the fatigue will.

I also had a minor fall last Saturday, simply due to vertigo induced by too much bending and turning. Getting up with a knee not in action was interesting, especially with somebody knocking on the front door at the same time. I was very stiff the next day and now have a lovely purple bruise on my bum. My new knee is otherwise progressing beautifully and only needs some more time internal healing and losing a bit of swelling and it will be the equal of the left knee. There is little pain and it's so nice to be able to walk and stand. My hip no longer hurts too.

We've been having a lot of rain here. It's so unusual that I keep being mystified by this strange noise on the roof. We used to go for months without rain and now we are sodden. Of course this stage of my garden needs no rain, and my lawn has grown into a prairie again. I'm still not confident about my ability to push a lawn mower so it will have to stay that way. The Weather Pixie is having some system problems and I hope she will re-appear.

I attempted to return to work last week, and while the work experience wasn't a disaster, I managed to have it all catch up to me when I pretended that I was back to full functionality. You know, like when I forget I'm sick and do way more than I should. I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I cannot work and simultaneously do any work myself on prepping the house for sale. It's work and let somebody else do it, or not work and do things myself. So for the time being I'm hiring people to do things like paint the exterior, do some garden maintenance, etc. I'll take some time off and work at cleaning out and boxing up things for that scaled down minimalist look that seems to matter for house sales. I also have been having trouble getting to sleep. The little twinges of pain that I can ignore when I'm moving around come out to play at night and I still can't sleep on my side.

Today D and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and went out looking at display homes, just out of curiosity and for ideas about decorating (although I don't think I'll take the idea of attaching an entire animal hide to a wall as art). We saw houses that were too small, houses that were too big (and way too expensive), and at least one that was just about right. What I would give for a new kitchen done the modern way. I don't think I'm in danger of redecorating my house so I don't want to leave, because there's a lot of garden that needs to be maintained and I'm just not up to it any more. It did hit home to D today that my downsizing would mean an end to berry jam, but my fans will have to resort to the shops or gourmet food provenders and pay a lot more than they have been paying me.

Swans are currently #2 on the ladder having defeating Brisbane tonight. I did not watch because I also managed to fall today (simple vertigo) and am feeling rather battered. Knowing my body, I'll be sore tomorrow but the bruises will take a few days to appear. I decided instead of raising my blood pressure watching footy I'd coddle myself with British crime dramas.

Book report: Raced through Edge of Evil by J.A. Jance, which was recommended by X2 and it was a ripping read. I'm back at fat sci fi with The Line of Polity by Neal Asher, who is another of the new wave of British space opera producers. I think I have read another of his altho I can't remember which one. I've managed to read 150 pages of this in 2 days so I think that means I like it. This is the second in the Ian Cormac series but I don't think I've read the first. Since he's horribly prolific, I imagine I'll work my way through them. I wish I read quickly enough to get books out of the library, but with the exception of quick shots like the Jance novel, it usually takes me far longer then the library borrowing period to read a book.

Just to prove I have been doing something while sitting here, the hank above is the 4 oz of BFL I bought from Sheepish Creations in January. It was a pure delight to spin but then BFL always is. I haven't gotten my hand on any of the superwash version but I think it would make superb sock yarn. I was surprised at how what looked like small patches of colour in the roving managed to spread themselves out over the entire hank.

It's been a long slow grind here, but I'm close to being back to functioning normally. Last night the muscles in my right ankle and lower leg decided to go berzerk on me and they are still sore today. I know this is a transient thing (unless this is how the problem my sister is suffering with started) so I will push on. I was going to try driving today and going to grocery shop, but I'll stay home and iron instead. My main problem with the knee is stiffness after being in one position for an extended period. I can sit at a table or desk with my feet flat on the ground but getting up and walking afterward is awkward. I am supposed to go to work next week and it's the sitting at a desk part of it that may hold me back. I also get tired quickly but we al know that FM can be blamed for that as well.

I have been knitting too and these are my latest socks. Opal Neon in red, red, and red, with a little orange and pink. I've started a new pair using the hand spun blue yarn I finished a while back. My first hand spun socks! I also received my copy of Knitted Jackets and it has several designs I like. I have enough pullovers but not enough vests or cardigans/jackets, so that's where my knitting will go. The Irish XO vest it done to the arm holes so I feel like the end is in sight.

My Swannies have been doing very well. J took me to the markets and retired to my house to watch them thrash the Roos on Saturday. There were patches of beautiful flowing football when the team played like a well oiled machine. And this with a team that we still had to watch with player list in hand to answer the "who's that?" questions. Some of the new line up like Bradshaw and Mumford look like really valuable trades. Hannebery was outstanding. We're in 3rd place on the ladder with 3 wins and one loss.

Book reports: I finished Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. It started off promisingly with altered geopolitics, nanotechnology revolutionising society and, for the characters of the story, high 19th century Victorian Britian being the social standard. But somewhere along the line, as the central character grew up, the novel lost its way and sputtered out in a very unsatisfactory ending. I have his Baroque cycle in the to-be-read section and I hope it doesn't leave me disgruntled as well. Eleanor and Franklin is almost too interesting to be a BBBB. I was surprised to learn that Eleanor was very shy and self conscious, due to her atypical upbringing. She was also very conservative in some ways, being in favour of Prohibition and against women's suffrage. She never forgave Franklin for his first infidelity and therefore for most of their public life they were estranged. She still loved him deeply but could never forgive that loss of trust. I'm now reading S.M. Stirling's The Sword of the Lady which is the 5th novel in his series about the US after the Change. The series is quite addictive. I have the latest Peter Corris calling to me, and the latest C.J. Cherryh Foreigner novel due out in a week or so, not to mention the other things in my bookcase. I will be sorry to give up my reading time when I go back to work.

I have been thinking about fibromyalgia a lot since my adventure in hospital and the way my body continues to throw pain at me all beyond "reasonable" amounts for the action involved. I had my staples taken out yesterday and, while on the scale of painful experiences, this should have been low, I was a basket case. Some of it is natural squamishness about medical procedures, some anxiety about what would or could happen, and some is just unreasonable pain reaction. From MedicineNet.com: "The cause of fibromyalgia is not known. Those affected experience pain in response to stimuli that are normally not perceived as painful." It's so hard to explain why you are in agony when you look and act like a normal person, and even when your rational brain is telling you the pain isn't really as bad as the sensations you are perceiving. I am beginning to think of it as neurological and not rheumatoid-ish. The only medication currently working is Endone, which I understand can knock normal folks out, but with me, it just takes the pain away for a couple of hours. I am now only taking one or 2 a day unlike the regular stream I was getting in hospital.

Meanwhile, I read, watch TV, knit, do my exercises, and otherwise manage healing. It's hard to believe that 2 weeks ago I was being operated on and today I am walking around the house and feeling more or less OK. (Of course, I am always in pain but we don't talk about that)

Just a quick update to let you know I am alive. I came home from hospital after 6 days and bypassed rehab completely. Apparently they were short of beds and they started me on exercises while I was still in the surgical ward. I was up and dressing myself at 3 days. I did go through a nightmare ride with pain management. The anesthetist didn't really understand fibro pain. I got a spinal injection of morphine instead of a general and that was supposed to cover all my pain needs for 24 hours. After 12 hours I was climbing the walls and begging for my own meds back. Instead I got a morphine pump and still was withheld my normal meds and sleep aids. I didn't sleep for about 3 days until they pulled the pump, put me back on my normal meds, but the on-service dr couldn't believe I still needed sleeping pills so wouldn't give me a full dose. To be fair to the anesthetist, who came to see me later, she really didn't understand how pain works in fibromyalgia, that the pain is in my brain not really in my muscles. I just wish these folks had looked at my medical history, spoken to my GP even, to understand that I had been on the regime for years and that they couldn't just start playing around with pain meds because they thought some arbitrary dose was sufficient. They also dispensed the meds at their convenience and since I am so dependent on several of those drugs, a three hour delays could make me cranky.

I also loathed the hospital. The nurses with few exceptions were super. The food was horrible. I had friends bring me fresh fruit because there was none on the menu and few veggies either. One day I ordered nothing but sandwiches and they were a bit concerned, but I had my fruit and tomatoes. Nothing to drink but coffee, tea, juice or water. The beds had very thin mattresses on a metal base and I had that to add to sleeping problems. That was also my reason for jumping at the option of going home. My nice soft adjustable bed let me sleep for 10 hours straight and also to elevate my leg to reduce the edema.

I am slowly working on the knee, trying to balance bed rest healing and exercises to gain flexibility. It already feels so much better to stand on than the old knee. I am eating out of the freezer. The Imp is delirious to have me back but she doesn't understand why she can't sit on the right side of my lap. On the other hand we have had many games of fetch and lots of petting and cuddling,

Today you get thought hot off my brain, as long as I can remember what it was I was going to say! Some may know I have a Masters in Linguistics, or that I was ABD (All but dissertation) on the road to a PhD in Linguistics. My field was sociolinguistocs which usually got short shrift in formal linguistics because of the reign of Noam Chomsky, with whom I disagree almost entirely. Chomsky viewed what actually came out of the mouths of speakers as insignificant compared the the black box of language in the brain. Besides the fact that brain research has shown that language is not a black box (read Oliver Saks) unless you consider the brain as a whole as the black box, you know as well as I do that people from different places speak the same language differently. Most commonly this is in pronunciation. I have learned how to spot a Kiwi (New Zealander) in 25 words or less. There are certain phrases that Aussies quote as telling signs, but I hear it in the change of different vowels. "Definite" come out as "difinit"

I've been collecting Australianisms since I got here and add new ones every week. Last week I heard "the duck's guts" meaning "everything" or maybe "kit and caboodle". Now I didn't stop and quiz the speaker about whether this was something his mother said and where she was from, but this was new to me. To Americans, "to take a squiz" or "hit for six" may be as mysterious, but they are now as part of my vocabulary as "the whole nine yards".

What prompted today's post was reading Meg Swanson, who is practically a god to us knitters, write about the enormity of Elizabeth Zimmerman's contribution to knitting. I should give up on "enormity" whose dictionary meaning (Mirriam-Webster) is "an outrageous, improper, vicious, or immoral act" but is almost universally used today as "a huge amount". I can see people needing a noun to use from "enormous" but "enormity" ain't it. But I might as well forget it as I have forgot my battle over less vs. fewer. In linguistics classes, especially grammar and meaning forums, you would frequently be given sentences that you could signify as ungrammatical, and in papers read in conferences votes could be taken about whether sentences were grammatical or not (and what about that black box, Noam?). I have to restrain myself from correcting people or even grilling them on where a phrase came from (dialectology, very not-black-box). Written language is even worse and it's not just non=native speakers who mangle it. Yesterday I got an email from the Library's own book store apologozing for getting a "sir name" wrong.

I've got a lot of phrases from my mother, but I've lived in Australia long enough that I can't even tell now whether I'm using American or Aussie terms for things. I remember my first problem with "haberdashery" which in the US means men's clothing but here means what Yanks would call "notions", those extra bits and pieces for sewing, like tape measures and needles. Americans rarely lose their accents here, but my vocabulary is a dog's breakfast at the moment.

I am also crushed to find out that the only day President Obama will be in Canberra will be the day after my knee surgery. I was ready to stand outside the US embassy and wave a flag but I won't be able to now. I'll be physically close since the hospital is just a mile away but not good enough. Rats.

Another friend is now fighting cancer, and I have been told I better get used to this as I get older. There are a few people my age or older who are disgustingy healthy but for the most part nearly every one I know of my age has some medical condition that they are battling. I know our genetics is not wired for us to live this long, so naturally things start to fail with age. Medical science can keep us alive longer (see BFLB's blog) but the cost in dollars and angst and pain is not insignificant.

Apologies that the Weather Pixie seems to have disappeared again. I haven't removed the link in hopes that the site revives as has happened before.

Today you get photos. Above is the result of my spinning some of that really long alpaca I showed you before. I spun directly from the locks and it was pretty easy and it seems to be a really firm yarn, due to the very long fibres. I may try it as warp for a scarf.

Next is a shot of my crepe myrtle, one of the many things planted by the precious homeowner in ridiculous places. This is between the two driveways with my next door neighbour. The drought has been so bad it hasn't bloomed in years but all the rain that we have had here has finally coaxed it to bloom. It's right against a utility pole as well, and sometimes gets the not very gentle attention of utility folks. The other pink shrub in front is an oleander which blooms no matter what the weather.

Since I've mentioned rain, I'll tell you that we got 60 mm. in one day this weekend. Thunderstorms and lightning (very very frightening) (sorry, I couldn't help it) and torrential rain. My back yard was soggy and no lawn mowing got done. Today was supposed to be sunny but isn't; it's overcast and breezy and I hope we get some sun because the lawn now needs to be mowed. I have larvested some more potatoes, and continue to get tomatoes.

And here is my main knitting project at the moment, the X & O vest from Folk Vests, knit in a mohair and natural brown wool given to me by BFLB. It's knit in the round, and around me is a long way. Each row seems to take forever. I need 6 repeats of the X and O cables to get to the armholes, and I've done 2. I'm using my Knitpicks Options needles with a long cord.

I am very dissatisfied with how much weight I've gained. Back to what I was before I went on a brand name diet and lost 30 kg. I am not eating all that much and don't snack but I know it's because I am not getting enough exercise. The problem at this particular point is that exercise, even walking, makes my leg muscles spasm and hurt. This is only solved by rest. Only 11 days to my surgery and I hope this will let me walk naturally for the first time in years, and also be able to target weight loss. Since I've decided to postpone my next trip to the states, I need to work on fitness, just to take the trip, even without weight loss.

I have just looked out the back window into the garden and saw a flock of about 15 silvereyes. They are so tiny and travel in flocks, so you can be surrounded by a dozen tiny twittery jewels. They are common in my back yard, but seeing them sitting in a row on the back fence is not common.



I now have a scanner that works and I have a bunch of old photos to scan and potentially to share with my unknown readers. This is the noble Haile Selassie, when he was still a kitten and not yet noble. He was my first cat and in some sense my favourite cat. He had a very grave and quiet personality, although he was good at cat soccer with a crumpled piece of paper. He lived first in ex-1's dorm room at my uni, then with my parents for a year until we found a place that allowed pets. He moved to Washington from Chapel Hill, and then to Ohio where he finally succumbed to old age at 18. He was loving without being demanding or clingy, a good lap cat and tolerant of the kitten we later introduced into the household. The kitten worshiped Haile so there was no conflict and Haile's nobility at having this small orange thing follow him around and sit next to him was charming. I though all cats were like that and I was very surprised to discover each cat has its own personality.

Here are the almost-Olympics socks, which I finished a few nights ago. I have since started a new pair, back to wool this time, in Opal Neon which is red, several shades of red but red. I am halfway down the leg on the first one. I have also been knitting on the Irish vest but one row is a very long one, since it's knit in one piece. Lots of seed stitch and cables. Unfortunately, I am discovering that after an evening of knitting knit/purl in either ribbing for the sock or seed stitch for the vest and my hands are quite sore the next day. They don't hurt while I'm actually knitting so I refuse to give up, but I try (even though it's excruciating) to do nothing for a little while at least while watching my evening TV. Doing nothing does not come easily to me.

To the left is the produce of my garden from yesterday's work day. I was digging up weeds near the potatoes and noticed they were dying back, so I dug a little further and produced about 8 potatoes, some of which I had for dinner last night. I thought that the eggplants had succumbed to the weather but they had produced fruit even if it is small. Likewise, I thought the beans had given up, but when I looked deeper, I found beans! And of course, a selection of tomatoes, from Black Russians to yellow cherry tomatoes.

Books: I raced through Sue Grafton's U is for Undertow in record time. I am beginning to bore with her style and this one I felt was contrived. You could tell from the way it unfolded how it would end, and Kinsey's chance of being at the right place at the right time was a bit too convenient for me. I am also tired of being stuck in 1988. I am now reading William Gibson's Spook Country, which is spare and elegant and makes you feel slightly off centre.

I am slowly getting the house ready so I can go off to hospital and then recuperate. I washed my bedspread today since yesterday's rain never materialized and now find the forecast for today is 40% chance of rain. I hope it will dry without another rinse. If is stays dry I may mow the lawn. I'm arranging to get my car repaired while I'm unable to drive. My Foxtel box is full of movies and other things of interest. I enjoyed Monarchy which showed the Queen as a very alert and energetic lady, although I still wonder what's in that ever-present handbag. She alone must support the millinery industry of the UK, not only by her own use, but by all the people she receives wearing hats as well.

Unfortunately, life is back to boring routine leaving little to blog about. The girls went blackberrying again this AM but the berries had passed their peak in the rain and we left with little to show for our efforts (and I fell once). The rain totalled 130mm in my rain gauge. I have lots of pumpkins and the lima beans are climbing vigorously. I had to mow the lawn for the first time in months due to the downpour.

The Imp had her annual vet check and has been put on a diet. I thought she looked a bit chubby and her weight has grown too far. No more "Fussy cat" food for her. Maybe I need to play with her some more.

I have been enjoying the figure skating at the Olympics. I am not officially in any knitting Olympics groups, but I have been charging along on the lime green socks because I can knit on them without thinking. I adore figure skating and we hardly ever see it here in Oz. To make up for that, I am watching all of the cable broadcast stuff, from Estonia to China, seeing all the skaters, not just the top ones which you'd see in the USA. Therefore, I have seen many pairs and men (so far) fall on the ice, which was practically unheard of in the 80's when I was seriously into skating. I have never skated myself, having discovered early on that ice is very hard. With my balance issues (I can't even use crutches) skating would be one big bruise.

I finished Nine Dragons and it was one of Michael Connelly's best. Where Harry goes from here will be very interesting and new territory. I have turned at last to the next S.M. Stirling, The Scourge of God, in his series of The Change. I find them really engrossing and full of detail. The initial trilogy was top notch and I hope he can maintain the momentum. For my BBBB, I have also finished American Colonies and have turned for a change to Eleanor and Franklin, since I realized when visiting Hyde Park how little I really knew. To read in the first page that the Roosevelt ancestor started out in Dutchess County by buying Beekman Swamp, and my great-great-grandfather was born in Beekman, I felt a tie already.

I'll skip the grovelling abut how I haven't posted. The only valid excuse I have is that I am trying to stay away from the computer for physiological reasons: I have edema in my legs that gets so bad I can barely walk sometimes and sitting for long periods doesn't help. I have to do it at work, but I don't at home. And there are other tasks at hand that involve standing up. We went blackberrying in the mountains a couple of weeks ago and I therefore made blackberry jam. It is the season for zucchinis of blimp proportions and while my own plant hasn't produced any, I have another source. Thus I make zucchini pickle relish, which has some rather addicted fans. Lots of standing.

The photo at left is to demonstrate that both residents of the house are birdwatchers. There are a lot of baby birds around and The Imp appreciates large noisy birds on her front lawn.

The only news I have is that I have a date for my right knee replacement: March 24. So in a little over a month I'll be back in hospital for about 10 days and home for a month. The X-ray showed up a strange growth looking like a second knee cap above the real one. My surgeon said (obviously) that he couldn't tell what it was till he looked at it but now that I know it's there, I can feel it. Oh, and I fell on my right knee again, tripping over a garden hose. but it's mostly a scrape of the sort we got as children and has left no lingering aches.

We have had very unusual weather for Canberra. While I say this, I have been looking at all the photos of Washington in a blizzard, since I have several close friends there, one of who I talk to daily. I actually miss snow. I grew up in New York and remember lots of snowy days, wearing snowsuits to school and rubber boots, sledding down the modest hill near my house. Even 12 years in Ohio didn't dampen my enthusiasm, especially with a fireplace to make things toasty. I don't like driving in snow, especially when so few people know how to drive safely in it, and I don't like that feeling when you put your foot on the brake pedal and the car continues on its original course. Here, however, all we've had is rain. After so long without it, you forget what it's like to be damp. Last night it rained all night, and we had 40mm in the rain gauge this morning and now it's raining again. My tomatoes and pumpkins will certainly appreciate it. Too bad it's too late for the beans. We officially had one of the hottest Januaries on record.

I mentioned a few posts back about an attack of buying spinning fibre on Etsy and here are some of the results of that late night splurge. The batt to the left top is called "Cashmere Camping" from JAHtsemer.esty.com, the bottom pouf is alpaca from Alpaca meadows, the two spirals are Rambouillet from cjdelights, the purple hank is merino & tussah silk from Birds Nest Yarns and the far right is merino and Tencel from Woolgatherings. My fingers itch to spin. However, finances will not be tempted this way again. I will not succumb to insomniac shopping again even when the Aussie dollar is so strong. Besides, I have 2 bobbins of the long brown alpaca spun and I'm dieing to see what it looks like as yarn. In the meantime I am knitting my lime green cotton socks.

Book report: I finished Alistair Reynolds' The Prefect and really liked it. A very far future mystery and a real page turner. I've read most of his work and he is one of the best of the new breed of what seems to be called space opera, but I would just call hard science fiction. With so much of the sci-fi sections in bookstores taken over by fantasy, it's sometimes hard to find good stuff. Another advantage of letting Amazon suggest things, but I rarely buy a new author without being able to read the front and back matter. I'm not as bad as the Bear was, since he read the end of novel before the beginning. Heresy! I understand Reynolds has a new novel out but I will attempt to stay away from bookstores for a while. I've started Michael Connolly's latest Harry Bosch novel, Nine Dragons. I expect to race through it like I do most of the series.

To the right is what I bought from Sheepish
Creations when they were having a sale. Two hanks of BFL but no choice of colour. I am not disappointed.

I have been very careful not to spend money and then I had a visit from my dear MIL and she is a bad influence. We spent most of Weds at the mall, doing things like going to Medicare, having lunch, seeing Avatar in 3D. But she was very taken with the product of my bread machine. I explained that it would only do one type of bread and that it had no "bake only" cycle which is what I need to make sourdough in it. She also decided that my toaster was too old (it was yellow plastic and bought about 15 years ago and can be temperamental). She decided she would buy me a new toaster (it you are thinking Cylon you know I can relate) so we went off to Myer while in the mall, and we chose a toaster and she also replaced my electric knife which had died a while ago. It is much easier to cut homemade bread with an electric knife. While we were in small appliances I took a look at bread machines and of course fell in love with one of the most luxurious models. MIL insisted that I needed it and I succumbed. This one will do everything except slice the bread and butter it. We had to come home and do a test loaf before we went out to dinner. It is faster than the old machine, has a "bake only" cycle and you can even specify how you like your crust. It produces a loaf that is more standard in dimension than the tall loaf produced by the old Panasonic. Oh, and BTW, MIL wants the old bread machine! I am now testing the new Breville on pumpernickel which the old machine made bricks of. My credit card took another hit.

I have not been sleeping well, or rather, I have not been sleeping. Falling asleep before 2AM is the exception, not the rule, and though I needed to see my GP, I simply could not get up at 6AM today after not getting to sleep until 3AM last night. You see, I am now back to walking around malls, working, etc. and my legs have started to hurt again. I spent a day taking the ornaments off the Christmas tree while MIL was here which of course is all standing, What do I do when I can't sleep? I try reading. I toss and turn, I play Mah-jong, read blogs, have toast. None of those worked last night so I headed back to Etsy and naughtily bought spinning fibre. The LAST thing I needed but my will power is very low in the early morning. Too bad I can't swap some of the alpaca for it. I have started spinning the long alpaca straight from the locks and, I might be wrong, but I think this is strong enough to be warp. I of course need to sample, but 6" long fibres tightly spun feel strong enough for warp if they can stand abrasion from the heddles and reed.

I have cast on the Irish XO vest from Cheryl Oberle's Folk Vests in Brook's Farm moorit wool & kid mohair (a gift from BFLB) and a pair of summer socks in Katia Mississippi 3 in lime green. I am rethinking the cabled cardie as another simpler pattern has caught my eye and I am in the mood for something simple. There's also the possibility of knitting Girl Friday in Berocco Softwist Bulky which I bought at half price on the last trip to the states with the Bear.

Last evening I was alerted to some commotion in the back yard involving a lot of unusual squawking. I took myself and the camera outside to find the plum tree festooned with juvenile king parrots. They didn't really care about me so I watched the parents feed and fly off, and the babies retire to the power lines in the back. I could walk right up to them and snapped away hoping to get the action of the parents regurgitating food into a baby (just as big but dependent). Unfortunately it was so far into dusk that I only got silhouettes. This is the first time I have seen young king parrots in my back yard so I am glad that all the Cheeps have produced new parrots. I also heard on a podcast at work yesterday that superb parrots are making a comeback and I now know that they are in my neighbourhood as well. They prefer a particular type of acacia which I should research.

The day before Australia Day is about to dawn, I am finally back on-line. I have been sick for 2 full weeks, and only now am not totally exhausted. Back to work tomorrow, still coughing a little. I'm sorry I deserted my reading audience but there was nothing left to write about unless you want to know how many boxes of tissues I went through. I managed to tack a cold on the end of the infection so I ended up blowing my nose a lot even though my head was clear when the infection started.

I finished Mappa Mundi and it ended as a good thriller ought to, although I still can't believe the main premise of the science part of it would be manageable in our lifetime, and the novel was set pretty squarely in the present day, with a few computer whiz bangs to make it all work. I raced throug C.J. Box's Open Season, which is the first in his series on a fish & game warden. A real page turner even if you did sort of see it coming. I tried reading a straight novel, and found it too close to reality for me. I didn't want to read about somebody else's unhappy childhood when I have one of my own. So I've started Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect, and while I don't remember a lot of the details of his universe, it feels more comfortable than 1954 suburbia. I read to escape, not dwell in the past.

It's been a blue day here as I miss the Bear most on Sundays because we had a Sunday routine that I can't replicate by myself. My dear MIL arrived this afternoon for a 3 day visit. She is always welcome here. We'll go see Avatar together and take down the Christmas tree.

Good news or bad news? How about good: here are my completed knitting projects pushed along by enforced house arrest. The shell is knit out of Cyrstal Palace Choo-choo yarn, in the colourway actually featured at Yarnmarket. I picked up balls here and there until I had enough for the shell. I have a weakness for ribbon and there's more in the stash. It took my a very long time to finish this which has nothing to do with the pattern or the yarn, just intertia. It fits, but will be worn under another layer for my aged modestry. The other is my second attempt at lace (that is, successful attempt) and is only feather and fan in Touch mohair. It is soft and scrunchable and I don't think I'll block it. It went in with the moth-balled winter stuff. I am next starting on a cabled zip front cardie, which will require me to sit down quitetly and establish the pattern. Out of medium grey handspun in sorta bulky weight. I am also going to start a vest an I'm leaning towards a Chris Bylsma design. Trying to use a gift from BFLB of merino and kid mohair in a toast brown. What can I say--I'm addicted to cables.

Healthwise, no good progress to report. I continue to cough and wheeze. I saw my GP on Friday morning and he said the hospital was not needed but put me back on steroids and more antibiotics and wants me off work and to see him on Tues. So I cough and wheeze and am generally tired because I can't sleep because I cough and wheeze. The steroids do make my RA better--my hands are much less inflamed but I still can't get my rings on, so I guess the joints are still stuffed. Without steroids, the RA in my sternum would be screaming by now and I'd have to be on steroids. I have a lung infection that is apparently going around and causes weeks of coughing. Coughing is my friend, because I am still coughing gunk up, but it's not fun. I am very tired and would love to nap, but find myself parked in from of the TV watching National Geographic and BBC dramas. I enjoy Torchwood, Innocent, Carrier, Eureka, and The Story of India. As you can see my tastes are eclectic and I trhow in the odd nature documentary or sci-tech explanation. No day time soaps for this viewer.

I am also still on my quest for perfect bread. I bought one sourdough starter through the mail and have 2 more on order. I am reading Classic Sourbough
which seems like a very sensible and down to earth approach. I watched a show on The Food Lover's guide to the Planet (Nat Geo Adventure) about bread and they showed 4 different breadmakers all using live starter and not bread yeast. May not all be classic sourdough but live starter seems a good start. Tuscan bread is a favourite and that's what they do. Ed Wood also goes someway to demystify flours. There seems to be a blokes network for sourdough on line where women seldom are heard, but I made sourdough for years in in North Carolina without serious analysis and I am sure I can do it again. Good bread is the staff of life. When I'm not miserly eating low-fat yoghurt for lunch, I eat bread, cheese and fruit. I don't find that excessive.

I am reading Mappa Mundi by Justina Robson, and while the plot is racy, this is one where the Bear would say the science doesn't hold up. I cannot believe that they would have cracked the link between physics of neurochemical reaction in the brain and control of personality/will in our life time. Yes, it is a horrendous idea but the science doesn't convince me, all though the conspiracy theories and good vs evil is intriguing if implausible.

A brief post for those of you who care about my health. I am once again knocked down by a mystery illness. No mystery about the symptoms, just origin and cause. The cough I developed last Friday by Sunday was keeping from sleeping and I was developing a chest so wheezy that the noise of that was alarming, When I woke up at 6AM Momday I decided to do something and went back to the clinic to see any doctor. He put me on Ventolin and antibiotics and told me to go home and rest for a week. I am still coughing but the little I cough up seems to help with the wheezing, as does the Ventolin. I finally got some sleep yesterday. I can really only not cough by sitting up so I have watched a lot of TV (a plug for Foxtel) and finished the ribbon shell finally. It shows a bit more flesh than I should at my age but over a light T shirt should do well. I wove ends on the lace scarf, so I shall have to pull my wits together for a new project. I want a around the house cardigan or a vest out of my handpsun so I shall have to brave the studio's pattern library.

The first week back at work was not thrilling, but then I didn't have high expectations. Unfortunately the collection development people thought the crap I had was wonderful and a valuable addition to the catalogue (groan) so I am forced to catalogue it. How a 1960's catalogue of machine parts can arouse so much interest is beyond me, but I serve an apparently weird clinetele.

The visit with SIL and BIL went fine, with the stand-out in their estimations was my pumpkin pie. Huh? Since they have no such thing here, it must be as exotic as a pavlova is to an American. BIL voluntarily took on a piece of home maintenance I have been unable to deal with (back screen/security door sticking) by removing the door, adjusting its wheels and cleaning out the tracks. The last bit I could have done but not the rest. Thank you, G.

We are in another patch of 35C+ temperatures, until Tues or Weds they say. I shudder to think of my electricity bill but I am able to do stuff around the house with a/c where last year I would have been flat on the bed sweating. Instead I managed to iron, and poke away at genealogy. I have no berries except blackberries which have outdone themselves. I may actually accumulate enough to make jam. I have lots of green tomatoes but no ripe ones. The pumpkin vine is beginning to expand and my last lima beans are up. I've had one cucumber but no zucchini.

Reading The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and while he's very excited and enthusiastic about the global economy, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yes, isn't convenient we can buy cheap clothes from China but should we? I realize that there isn't much hope of resurrecting the garment industry in the US or Australia, and we reap the benefits every time we shop, but there has to be a down wide to this. The Chinese worker is making much more than they would have pre-globalization but are they going to want more? Are we ready for China to deal with a middle class with greater aspirations than buying cheap knock-offs of designer labels? Since I tend to shop at K-Mart I am at the bottom of the food chain, but I worry about the big boys throwing punches above me. I don't think the flat world is a fair world, maybe fairer than it was but a lot of people lost jobs along the way and I don't see former clothing workers re-inventing themselves as designers of bleeding edge aerospace components, just because that's where the jobs and money went. I know I couldn't live without constsnt Internet connection and that has a wider reaction than me being able to do genealogy research at a distance. Something to think about and watch in the future.

Meanwhile I have suddenly developed a nasty chest cough with no other symptoms to help excplain it. I coughed all night and don't look forward to doing it again and would like it to go back wherever it came from.

Greetings to 2010. For once I did not stay up to watch Sydney fireworks, which I understand were their normal stupendous standard. Instead I went out to the movies with D to see Avatar and then came home and uncorked a bottle of bubbly, had some cheese & crackers, and talked until nearly the magic hour. I have never put a lot of emphasis on when the clock ticks over the a new year, but I do like Sydney's fireworks, which why I usually stay up.

As expected I have spent major portions of the week off work sleeping, sleeping and then taking a nap. I also spent almost 3 hours waiting to see my GP which I hadn't anticipated but there were already 8 people ahead of my on his queue before I got there, and I got there before he did. When it wasn't raining it tended to be hot, so I haven't done as much outside work as I would have hoped for, but the garden chugs along without me. I've done the occasional weeding and re-typing of tomatoes, put bird netting over the plum tree, and got no berries at all. It was either too hot or too cold and they just didn't mature. My neighbours did a halfway job on cutting back the overhanging shrubs--just the minimum they could do to meet the letter of my request, but not enough that we won't be back to square one next season.

Then there was the problem I had putting up the bird netting. A couple whom have been close to the Bear and I since I came here came over. Since he is tall, I asked for assistance in putting the bird netting on the plum tree; I had already had one cockatoo shredding tree and green plums. When I reached out to get the ladder to climb up for my end of the netting, I failed to notice a wasp nest under construction under one of the rungs and I got stung 3 times in rapid succession. I don't react well to insect stings (especially wasps), and insects will sting me and leave everyone else alone (I was the only person stung at this time). I expected swelling and irritation but more than 24 hours later and my forearms and right wrist/hand were very swollen, red and hot and the swelling was progressing rather than receding. So I called the toll-free health network and spoke to a nurse who advised me to see a doctor within the next 4 hours. By this time it was 7PM New Year's Day. Fortunately my clinic was open and there were only a few other people there so I was in and out, with a script for Prednisone and an antibiotic (just in case). Today most of the swelling is down, but the back of my hand is worse and bending my wrist is like trying to bend an overinflated balloon. I expect another dose of steroids will fix that. My SIL and hubby are due to visit in Tues and I'd like to do a little more cleaning before they arrive.

I did go through the huge box of the Bear's slides, which indeed went back to the 60's. I found the wedding photos from his first marriage. Luckily I have been in contact with his first wife so I could ask her if she wanted all the slides of their honeymoon (she said no). I scanned and kept every photo of the Bear and/or the rest of the family. This took about 2 days.

Finally, as if I need to, I'll give a huge plug for Avatar. It literally blew me away. I almost don't want you to go to the site and download the trailer; I want you to go with zero expectations, as I did more or less. It is so real, so overwhelming, so vivid, so imaginative. I felt I was living all those science fiction novels I had read about first contact. We didn't go to the 3D version but now I think I want to see it again, maybe in 3D this time. I had to remind myself (when I was not totally embedded in Pandora) that this was animation. Those wizards at Weta in Wellington (NZ) outdid their Lord of the Rings and I know when Avatar comes out on DVD I will wait for the 5 disc ulta-extended edition and may even spring for a Blu-ray player for it. If you go to the website, try to do so after you see the movie. Don't spoil all the wonderful surprises that are there for you to see with eyes wide open. and jaws thoroughly dropped. I dreamt about the movie that night and I can't wait to see it again. One thing I am very glad about turning 60--I can get into movies cheaper. Thus my suddenly going to movies all the time! D and I spent a lot of time gasping at each other. "That was so amazing/fantastic/overwhelming/wonderful!!"

Merry Christmas! I've been absent and I have no excuse but surges (mostly down) in my mood and unbearable heat. I swear I must have insulted the weather gods by installing air conditioning, because we have had more multiple day stretches of 35C and over before Christmas than I have experienced in 19 years in Canberra. While the a/c makes daily life a lot more pleasant, I'm still loathe to turn on the oven and I actually lose my appetite when it's that hot. Also, I try not to be greedy with my a/c and only aim at 24C (I am still arguing with the thermostat) which is really too hot for me to sleep in comfortably. I'm a sleeper who likes a chilly room and lots of blankets to burrow under, not a stuffy 24C. So I haven't been sleeping and not eating much, my right leg is giving me fits (a euphemism for pain) and I've been depressed. Oh, and the garden is nearly cooked. No berries to speak of, although I do have lemons. For Christmas day I am delighted that we are having good steady rain. Not cheery, or covered in snow like parts of the US, but needed badly. Above is my Christmas tree, each ornament has a story, and it has few lights this year because 2 of my strings had died. Since I brought them with me from the States and they weren't new then, I can't complain. I'll buy some new ones for next year. The Imp has taken to chewing on the lower branches, which I don't get, but so what else is new? The angel on top was a gift from BFLb, there are many animals (especially bears) native to both the US (squirrels, cardinals) and Australia (emus and wombats). My Christmas presents to myself were sourdough starter and a lapis lazuli square spindle. My dear MIL gave me the latest Harry Potter DVD and a seafood cook book. I have a tray of mangoes so I suspect I'll make mango jam either later today or tomorrow.
This is the skein of Optim from Conjoined Creations I've been spinning and it does feel like silk. Instead of finishing the several projects I have going, I suddenly decided to knit a mohair scarf, so a feather and fan scarf in pastels is 3/4 done. I hope to use the next week to finish off at least two of the projects languishing. But my first priority for the holiday break is sleep. I am now going back to bed with the latest Kathy Reich mystery and hope I fall asleep. Christmas dinner is going to be cheese and smoked salmon on crackers, cherries and mangoes, and pavlova for dessert.