Tuesday, February 28, 2006
olympics galore
Image hosting by Photobucket Image hosting by Photobucket Image hosting by PhotobucketCheck out my Knitting Olympics gold medal - is that cool or what!? Image hosting by PhotobucketThanks so much to Yarn Harlot for thinking this up and then doing it and then getting a medal for us and . . . well, it's been a heckuva lot of fun. (Hey - only two years until the summer olympics!) Image hosting by PhotobucketHere are some pictures of my completed KO project, two close-ups and two on the adorable birthday girl. The basic pattern is from Louisa Harding's charming Miss Bea's Rainy Day and I used Rowan's terrific All Season cotton. I changed things a little, though. On the sleeves I did the increases on top of the arm rather than on the seam edges by using yarnovers on either side of the center stitch to make it look lacy. I also made the coat a little larger by adding a panel on the back with cables like the front and a center strip in moss stitch. I put a crocheted ball button at the neck to be softer for her chin; the others are craft store kitty buttons. For once something I made is big enough to be wearable for more than a few weeks! Knitting olympics: yeah!

As for the "real" Olympics, I thought the closing ceremonies were lovely, didn't you? The Italians were so excited, it was heart-warming. What an odd world where it seems almost old-fashioned to hear Johnny Weir and Sasha Cohen so enthusiastic and happy. I even liked Bocelli (unusual for me) and I loved the air floating - hey, maybe that will become an official sport one day! I'm not sure what the deal was with the "brides" and the lilies, but they certainly were pretty. Pretty sad tv coverage and way too wry and dyspeptic print media reporting, and yet, enjoyable olympics again this year. Athletes' olympics: yeah!

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:03 AM

Friday, February 24, 2006
happy birthday
Happy happy birthday to one of the tcgitw!! Incredibly, she is 2 years old today! I can't believe she's so old and yet I also feel as if she's been here forever. She's such a sweetie and I hope she has a great day and year. (Family partying will occupy most of the weekend so little if any blogging for me.)

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Permalink | 2 comment(s) | posted by jau at 8:10 AM

Wednesday, February 22, 2006
idol5 men
(Remember that this is the first year I've watched, so treat my comments with kindness.) Of the 12 men who sang, I swear only five were actually on key. What's with that? And why didn't Randy or Paula mention anything about it, leaving Simon to be the only realist? That's the 'schtick', I guess. Anyway, I'll be interested to see who gets booted. I'm guessing that's not a great feeling. On the other hand, when Simon compliments someone as warmly as he did Taylor Hicks, it's a real kick.

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Permalink | 3 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:02 PM

energy in an olympian and idol5 women
Just a bit of a muse today, about how one can be swept up in the positive energy of it all, at times, I'm glad to say. Sasha Cohen at the Turin/Torino Olympics, excited and happy with her performance, obviously having a good time and we did too. It was certainly the most lyrical and athletic and exciting ice skating I've seen so far this time.

Meanwhile, in my first year watching American Idol - yes, I'm obviously a bit behind the times - I was quite caught up in the excitement and energy of the twelve female singers last night. Several tried too hard or sang in styles that aren't especially my taste, but two or three were so pedal-to-the-floor and almost totally on tune and everything. It was delightful and breathtaking. The men are going to have a hard time matching it tonight.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 3:30 PM

Tuesday, February 21, 2006
the turin olympics
A friend asked me today whether "Turin" (as in "the shroud of Turin") is the same place as "Torino". We agreed that it was probable but decided to look it up. Thanks to the Shroud of Turin website for this:
It is actually not correct to call the city Torino here in the U.S.A., but that was a decision made by the television network that brings us the Olympic games....In the U.S.A. we do not refer to Rome as Roma, Florence as Fiorenza [sic], Naples as Napoli or Milan as Milano. The Shroud is the Shroud of Turin. In Italian it is Santa Sindone de Torino [sic].
and to Wikipedia for this:
Turin (Italian: Torino; Piedmontese: Turin) The name of Turin comes from Tau, a Celtic word that means mountains. Its Italian name, Torino, translates as "little bull"; hence the coat of arms and the symbol of the city. The area was settled by the Taurini in pre-Roman times.
So I guess NBC will say the "Milano Olympics" and the "Moscva Olympics" when and if the time comes. Tolerance and understanding have apparently taken a new leap.

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:43 PM

Monday, February 20, 2006
olympics
My entry in the Knitting Olympics is coming along fine. I'm spurred on by the physical athletes as well as the birthday on the closing day. Details when it's all done, not now, since I am a serious believer in The Law of Negative Causation (whereby perfectly innocuous and/or good things are soured instantly upon the utterance of a declarative positive statement). Call me superstitious or silly, I don't care, I've seen it in action too many times.

As for the "real" Olympics, is it me or has ice dancing deterioriated since last time? Don't know if it's the new scoring or some other reason(s). The wildly colorful costumes were circus-y and the music was lugubrious or tuneless. Plus, the new extreme athletic requirements detract from dancing and artistry. Maybe by next time it will balance better - one can always hope. And, of course, we are at the mercy of the dreadful coverage. NBC advertised "ice dancing at 8:00!" but didn't show one blade slipping along until 9:02, then showed only a couple of performances before subjecting us to six hundred and fifty-eight commercials followed by skiing and jumping (interesting but not what I wanted to see). At 10:20, those of us who were still there got to see a few more performances before being whipped back to skiing. Since it's all on tape by the time it's broadcast here, why not let skiing fans see the entire event, then skating fans, etc. And what's with the almost relentlessly crappy commentary which is either uninformative or goofy ("he's going fast down the hill so he can finish well" - really? wow! is that what an athlete at an Olympic ski event wants?) It's no wonder that "House" and "American Idol" are trouncing them in the ratings. I really love the Olympics. Maybe things will improve this week.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 11:53 AM

Sunday, February 19, 2006
goofy
It's not as if the world needs another comment on Cheney or hunting but I have to clear my head of some of the things I keep thinking as I read what's said by mainstream and even blog media. I am not a fan of guns anyway because it seems to me that a person who has a gun is way too likely to actually use it and quite probably in a haze of fear or anger, neither of which go hand-in-hand with good judgment, you know? Also, habitués of quail and target hunting usually know the rules and are super attentive to their own and other people's presence, so it's pretty clear this was just exactly what they're saying, namely, an accident. But a stupid accident, no matter how horrible, isn't a deliberate act, and even if Cheney wanted to blow his friend to blazes, it's dumb to call him a terrorist. Careless, maybe. Someone you don't like, maybe. Oddly reserved, maybe. Lots of things. But not a terrorist. Especially while calling those who riot and murder about publishing cartoons 'protestors'. Words have got to resume meaning what they mean or we're going to lose whatever slim chance we may have had of rationally dealing with the highly-charged world as it is at present.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 5:22 PM

Saturday, February 18, 2006
c is for complimenting
One of my favorite ideas is the Complimenting Complimenter. The idea is saying nice things to people, some of whom you know and some of whom you don't know. There's a list of birthdays to which one can add oneself and even get nice wishes by email. Kind, delightful, lovely.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:44 PM

My Brain's Pattern

You have a tempered, reasonable way of thinking.
You tend to take every new idea in, and meld it with your world view.
For you, everything is always changing. Each moment is different.
Your thinking process tends to be very natural - with no beginnings or endings.
What Pattern Is Your Brain?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:19 AM

Friday, February 17, 2006
hilarious
Ordinarily I would simply provide a link to a recommend post but I can't resist putting this here entirely. It's from trustygetto who turns out to be a lawyer in Michigan. FWIW, I work in a corporate law firm myself. The attorneys in my firm are exceptionally nice, bright and interesting people so I usually loathe lawyer humor. This is a witty exception.
White House announces "No Lawyer Left Standing" Initiative
Impatient with efforts to close the courts to litigants, the Bush Administration literally fired the first shot in its groundbreaking "No Lawyer Left Standing" initiative. Vice-President Cheney, hunting on a private lawyer ranch near Kingsville, Texas, bagged an impressive buck (Harry Whittington, UT Law '50). Under the new program, hunters may take one white shoe in-house lawyer or three outside lawyers daily. The limit has been suspended for trial lawyers.
"We've just got to thin the herd," said the Vice-President. "We've tried tort reform and caps on damages, but people are still suing." Cheney added, "It's easy and fun. In Texas, you can shoot in almost any direction and hit a lawyer."

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:35 PM

Sunday, February 12, 2006
pc'ness
More and more as I get older, I try to accept what anyone says or espouses, without objection if at all possible without being dishonest. So I'm wondering whether political correctness is being taken to Beckett-like extremes in an example DADvocate has brought to our attention in a post about hot cross buns being outlawed in Great Britain which the British Telegraph also wrote about. The tasty bready morsels are traditional breakfast food during Easter and they seem innocuous to me. But, no. Seems the icing, in two lines across the square tops, is meant to suggest a cross and therefore Christianity is referred to and therefore non-Christians might be offended. (Who knows/remembers the origin of the icing and does anyone pay attention to it? Shall we ban matzoh lest non-Jews feel offended?) In order to keep a sense of perspective, I genuinely don't know whether my first reaction is simply a "reaction" or not. I would therefore like to take a completely unscientific poll and find out whether you, dear reader, think the hot cross bun removal is (1) gracious and perfectly reasonable in the interests of us all getting along or (2) overdoing an attempt to not cause offense.

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Permalink | 7 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:10 PM

display
Yes, I've fiddled with the page background again. One of these days someone will say they like it and it will coincide with a time I like it too and then that'll be that. I'm clicking my heels together and saying I believe, I believe....

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:14 AM

dorothy hammill
I feel very very old. I've just read that it was 30 years ago today Dorothy Hammill won her gold medal in figure skating in Innsbruck. Her voice still sounds exactly the same and her hair still shines and slides around on itself in just that way. If you're old enough, you remember that everyone had to have that haircut for a while. She could have children who are adults! (Maybe she does.) Her skating was really lovely and charming. It was fun to watch her. Congratulations and thanks, Dorothy!

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:48 AM

Saturday, February 11, 2006
betty
Her legacy is our ability to choose. Girls and women now have all the choices they can think of, and the freedom to make them - or not - in huge part because of a feisty, argumentative, talkative, pushy, loud woman who was willing to to put pen to paper.

I was going to leave the comments on Friedan to others but decided I really had to say something myself. It's hard to believe that only 30 years ago married women could not be issued credit cards in their own name, but it's true. The world has changed so radically for women in the last thirty years that many newly adult women don't have any idea what things used to be like. All the talk about "having it all" is now about which choices to make or reject. As recently as thirty years ago, only the wealthiest and well-connected women could get a bank loan without a male co-signer. Being a woman was an exceptable "excuse" to not serve on a jury. Women's health books were shelved under "disease" in major book stores. It wasn't until 1971 (Reed v. Reed) that the Supreme Court held it unconstitutional for males to receive automatic preference as administrators of wills. And it was in that decision that the Court officially stated that women were "persons" (!).

In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, a collection of her and others' thoughts compiled from a survey she conducted for her 20th college reunion. Boy did it shake things up. It's not overstating to say that this book was an emotional and intellectual earthquake in the just-out-of-the-conforming-fifties. She used words like "oppression" to describe the way many women felt about the way they felt "forced" to live but unable to talk about aloud. The book directly inspired thousands of women (and zillions indirectly). Women began to talk about what they really felt and admit if they hoped to find fulfillment in many and different ways. This spark that began the so-called women's movement is sometimes characterized as denigrating the role of homemaker but even Friedan delighted in raising her children. It's dreaming and making choices that were the holy grail. She thought everyone should be able to have dreams and make choices about their lives. And now we all can. And she started it. Bless her.

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 10:50 AM

knitting olympics
The real ones began yesterday in Italy and the knitting games began yesterday all over the world. An absolutely astonishing 3908 4048 wild and crazy yarn people are participating (as of this writing - maybe there'll be more by the end). The idea is to begin a project during opening ceremonies and finish before or during closing ceremonies. Needles to the ready, yarn at the side, let the games begin....!

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:45 AM

Friday, February 10, 2006
what can one say?
Have you ever heard a word pronounced so oddly that you actually don't know what to say? A long-ago college-educated friend of mine pronounced "supposedly" with a "b" - "supposubly". I worked up the nerve to ask her why she said it like that and pointed out its spelling and meaning. She listened, admitted puzzlement herself, . . . and continued to say supposubly. Yesterday I heard another educated and well-read person say it the same way. I've been too startled to know what to say. It's not wrong grammatically, after all, it's just wrong and isn't a real word. What can one say?

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 4:11 PM

Wednesday, February 8, 2006
At least no one burned down the church or an embassy, or killed anyone, yesterday. But it's nuts that some adults in positions of authority and responsibility can't exercise even a teeny bit of self-control. They just have to grab every chance they get to go "nya-nya-nya", even using Coretta Scott King's funeral to sneer. Amazingly, Bill 'who-cannot-resist-a-political-moment' Clinton was fairly respectful to everyone present. Not Jimmy Carter, though; as if he wasn't the most ineffectual person ever to be president, the most mealy-mouthed - well, okay, at least one of the top five. Anyway, as usual, Chris Muir says it humorously and with just the right light and apt zing:
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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 2:26 PM

Monday, February 6, 2006
cartoons, my foot
If, like me, you have puzzled about the Muslim cartoon frenzy not only because they're cartoons but also because they were published five months ago which is a helluva long time to chew one's infuriated cud before blowing one's stack, and in case this wasn't out there where you'd seen it before either, guess what?! It turns out that there IS a logical explanation! Beginning from (since it's been 5 months and they were cartoons) "who wanted or caused the heat to become so turned up and why at that this particular moment?", yesterday was the day when the International Atomic Energy Agency officially reported Iran's nuclear research and development to the UN Security Council, which explains the timing. And as for Denmark, it turns out that if the Security Council decides even to consider imposing sanctions on Iran, guess who will chair the Security Council?! It's . . . Denmark!! So the frenzy wasn't about cartoons (duh), it was about making darn sure Danish diplomats know that Muslims can be majorly mobilized. (Okay, "majorly" isn't a real word but I love using it anyway.) It's all along the lines of "if you don't let me have your sandwich I'll beat your brains in." Can you say "childish bully"? So here's the thing: if Iran is sanctioned, there will be retaliation of the kinds of behavior they seem to really enjoy (rioting, beheading, killing, etc.). Ergo, all is made clear. Well, in fact all is ridiculous and stupid and thuggish, but it's clear what the bruhaha was really about. My recommendation is that we go buy lots and lots of Danish things and keep in mind that it's the Danes we're talking about on the receiving end of all this at the moment. These are the people who quietly and steadfastly stood up to the WWII thugs. (Thanks to Random Jottings and his references.)

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Permalink | 0 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:46 AM

Saturday, February 4, 2006
outlook on life
I participated in my friend and superb blogger DevraDoWrite's interesting discussion begun here and continued here. Now I want to elaborate a bit further. I have aimed for perfection in many areas of my work and, unwittingly, my life. Of course I failed, as seekers of perfection are bound to do, but I have concluded that the most important reason to try and not seek it is to be able to explore one's thoughts - and to express them - with greater freedom and joy. There is very little joy in perfectionism and our time on this earth is way too short to waste so much time worrying about absolutely perfect grammar or spelling or whether the fork is eleven and a quarter inches to the left of the knife. One of the blessings of blogs (an awkward word but I guess that would be something else to try not to care about) is that they are so utterly expressive and full-force, pedal to the floor. Most bloggers (or at least most that I read) are superb writers and really smart, and their output shows it, but I really think we should suspend some of our extreme criticism therefor (which is one of my favorite not-misspelled words). It misses the point, aside from wasting time. Should readers point out every misspelled or omitted word in every posts? I don't think so. We are all - sadly, regretably, lamentably and wonderfully, fascinatingly, gloriously - human. When someone shows me that perfectionists and those who impose perfectionism are more (or even as) caring and kind human beings than mistake-makers and those who let mistakes go, I will let myself act on noticing these things again.

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:19 AM