My ISE5 scarf is coming along nicely. I think I have 15 repeats done of the 27 the pattern calls for. I think I'll probably be doing some extra, though.
And I really should be fringing my cousin's scarf.
Currently Reading
So, I sat up (too, too late) last night finishing up Feet of Clay. gee, I just love Terry Pratchett. I was thinking of putting a quote up here from the book (and perhaps I will later this evening) that just reminds me so much of the Bush Administration.
After I finished the book, I snacked the cats and brushed my teeth and headed to bed....and The Yiddish Policeman's Union was in the living room. Now, I've already said it was late and I should have just turned the light out but I really need to read for a few minutes before I go to sleep. Fortunately...well...remember I mentioned those stacks beside the bed? On top of one of them was Ellen Klages' Portable Childhoods, a collection of short stories. I think it was probably mentioned on Readerville, since that's where I get most of my recommendations. So I read the first story in the collection. (Yes, the whole story. I couldn't stop reading.) These are fantasy stories, "glimpses of what lies hidden just beyond the ordinary." The first story concerns the relationship between a lonely little girl and her family's cleaning lady, Ruby. It made me think of the cleaning lady we had when I was a child, Clara.
I called her, for reasons that have never been clear to anyone, Boof. She was, thinking back on it, a tiny woman, though very strong, with roughened hands, who smelled of Comet and cleanliness. She always let me watch her pour cream in her coffee (Mom always took her coffee black) and I loved to watch the swirls. Clara would wait until the cream stopped its swirling, and I was satisfied, before she'd stir it up. She was there when I came back from the hospital after my eye operation, though it wasn't her regular day. One time, when we were back in Baltimore after we moved down to Virginia, my mom and I tracked Clara down at the house where she was cleaning (at our old neighbors) and I got to see her again. I was about 12 or 13 at the time and I remember how small she seemed to me. She and my mom stayed in touch for some years by exchanging Christmas cards but then the cards stopped. And I guess Clara did, too. She was such a touch-stone of my childhood. This story brought a lot of that back to me. I wonder now what she thought of me, chattering away at her all day long.
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