Sigh

What is it about this scarf? So today I manage to bring both needles with me, a huge stride in the direction of Finishing Up the Scarf, and merrily knit about 16 rows. Ooops, time to attach the next skein! The next skein? (Much rummaging through bag.) Yoo-hoo, next skein!? Left the next skein home. I'm really in no great rush to finish this...well, other than the thought of my cousin turning a gentle blue in the Chicago winds as she waits for it...because the yarn is exceptionally yummy. Debbie Bliss's Rialto. Squooshy and plump, it glides through one's fingers like butter glides over a warm skillet. Only with less grease.


Currently Reading


I am still reading, and savoring, The Unfinished World. Some parts of it are a little hard for me to read, though. Of the three main characters, two have lost their mothers and miss them terribly. My mom died just about a year ago and I miss her so much. (And boy, would she hate being mentioned here. "Fool's names and fool's faces are often seen in public places." she said to me many times.) She was a great cook and sewed most of my clothes when I was little but never tried knitting because "it has too much math." She had a great talent for making and keeping friends, something I wish I had inherited. She was opinionated and judgmental and funny and smart. One of the smartest people I'll ever know. She was always reading and, in her last years, she read mostly non-fiction (with dashes of Angela Thirkell, who she adored). She was always telling me something she had learned from her reading.

When I was little, I loved the fact that my mother had an account with a bookstore in Oxford, England (Parker and Sons) and would regularly order books from them. My brother and I grew up with Puffins and Peacocks and Penguins. Some of my favorite books came from Parker's -- A Fair to Middling, The Family From One End Street, The Warden's Niece. I got to know some of my favorite authors -- William Mayne, Leon Garfield, Alan Garner, Gillian Avery -- through the Puffins my mom ordered for me. The summer after I was a freshman in college, Mom took a course in Oxford and took me along with her for the 6 weeks. I remember walking into Parker's with her and she waved at the shelves and said, "Just pick out whatever you want." Parker's had a shipping department in another building and Mom and I made several trips there with armfuls of books for them to ship home for us. She gave me my love of books, or at least encouraged that love mightily.

Miss you, Mom.

(Hmmm...I lied. The Oxford visit with the "pick what you want" was when I was 13 or 14....by the time we went there when I was in college, Parker's had been bought up by Blackwells.)