Now Norma Knits

Well, I Won't Be Going To Harvard Law Any Time Soon

I know this with certainty, because I know that I ran out of time in the logic games section and just filled in all the remaining bubbles as "D" (there is no penalty for wrong answers, so it behooves one to guess if need be) after the five-minute warning was given (and before the clock ran out). And "all D's" is not for Hahvud. 

And I am sure glad that the essay section is not graded, because mine was pure shite. It was the end of the long day, my brain was mush, I hate writing out in longhand (in No. 2 pencil, no less), and I was so exhausted by that point that I hardly felt that I could lift my arms, let alone with the extra weight of a pencil in one hand and the extra effort of trying to string two sentences together in any sort of coherent thought. But the rest seemed not unreasonable. I cannot hazard a guess as to my score, but I am just masochistic enough to think it was fun. There were some interesting characters there (my fellow test-takers), some fun interactions, and even some schmoozing. 

I couldn't have asked for a better testing environment -- it was a nice facility, I had lots of room to spread out my stuff, a comfortable chair, it was well lit, and nobody had a fit or coughed (much) or sniffled or tapped their pencils or wore eau de Glade air freshener (see this post if you don't know what I mean), or any other such nonsense that might have made it a miserable testing experience.

When I got home I carbo loaded at a local Italian restaurant and came home to have Ben & Jerry's vanilla ice cream topped with ginger vodka to celebrate, found Mr. Jefferies to be in an especially sweet and charming and cuddly mood, learned that there was a ton of crazy-mad activity (of the good kind) in the Knitspot Emergency Red Scarf Knitalong, that there is the promise of cheesecake on Monday from AnnaMarie, and my funky lengthwise striped seed stitch scarf on the needles proved to be an agreeable companion for the evening. 

Thank you for all your positive vibes and nice messages. You guys here and in Facebook are some kind of awesome.

The score will be available in 3-4 weeks. If it's too humiliating, I might not tell you what it is...or maybe I will. It'd be a character builder, eh?

Just Another Friday Night

...but not really.  As of yesterday, my stint with my wonderful med student has ended, at least for the time being, because she is off to a rotation in a different state.  So.sad.  I'm moping. I'm going to intensely miss her, her fellow students, the wonderful faculty, the totally

jazzed 

way that I have felt at being in med school classes at this stage in my life -- the whole damn wonderful experience has been life-changing -- and oh, yeah...

the income.  There is that, too. 

I've still got some other classes which are also fun and interesting and will keep me from applying for food stamps, but I'm going to definitely feel like a fish out of water for a while, with not enough to do -- a feeling I'm not too fond of. 

Oh, but wait.  It's not all bad: This will give me a chance to get back to the gym on a more regular basis, knit more, and study (which really just means "practice a lot," because there is no real "studying" to be done) for the LSAT which is scheduled for December 5th.  

AND it'll give me time to turn up the heat for the Red Scarf Fund fundraising.  I spent last evening contacting friends and shops for donations, and OMG, people, put on your seatbelts.  You are gonna like this. 

For example, here is my lovely friend Miriam, modeling her gorgeous design called Cloisters....

...which is but ONE of the fabulous patterns she has donated for some lucky winner(s).

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And my hilarious and fantastic friend Laurie has donated six bars (winner's choice of scents) of her amazing Blessed Juno soap.  This is my absolute favorite soap of all time, and I'm never without a stockpile of it. Many a day I have lingered in the shower just.one.more.minute, all because of Laurie's wonderful soap.

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If you are a shop owner, an Etsy shop owner, a bookshop owner, an indie spinner or dyer or fiberista or chocolate maker or soap maker or potter -- or have connections with any of the above or more that I may not have thought of -- we can use your donated gift certificates or tangible items to further entice people to make donations to the fund.  Be creative! Have a gift certificate for an online cupcake shop or something unique from where you live? Let us know, and please email us a photo of your donated item to redscarffund@gmail.com (that's also where you should email us your donation amounts to be entered into the drawings).

I'd ask that you ship the items directly to the eventual winners, so that I don't have to bear the expense of all the shipping.      

In exchange for the donated prizes, I will give you or your shop my blog and Facebook exposure, you will have the wonderful feeling of Doing Good, and you will have my and Cookie's and the OFA's heartfelt thanks.

Pass it along!  And thank you.  

Or, if you wanted, you could just donate now:

Court Date, or Counsel, Approach The Bench

This article really brought back some memories of my days in court.  

I've known some odd lawyers and judges in my day.  So many of them have quirks that are either charming or repulsive, and one wonders sometimes -- particularly in the case of judges -- how the hell they ever made it to the bench.  Sometimes "smart" really does mean "weird as hell," but that is not to say that all the weird ones were even that smart.  If ya know what I mean.  

Not long ago, I had a chat with one of the med students, who said to me, "I feel like judges are like the surgeons of the legal world. They've made it." 

Ah, youth.  

Inside I was laughing my ass off, trying not to snort, and was thinking thoughts of My Cousin Vinnie when I looked at him and said, "Yeah.  Well, maybe not always so much," and I went on to 'splain:  Probably more often than not, what he said is true. But more times than we'd like to know about, it's just a matter of who you know and how much money you have, where you went to school, what political favors you are owed, and the same-old-same-old that happens in every other aspect of life.  

And I guess one's weird quirks, or even the fact that one's law practice to this point requires the newly appointed judge to Mapquest how to get to the courthouse because the last time he's seen the inside of a courtroom was in his swearing-in ceremony, do not necessarily negate the fact that one might be qualified and could even turn out to be a great judge. But as someone who sat in court for all those years, I have often wondered WTF?  

The article about the attire that I linked above brought back memories of one judge I worked with for many years.  He was a very nice man -- as far as I could tell, a devoted father and husband -- and if you'd see him at a party, he was Mr. Affability.  But in the workplace, he could not have been more stuffy, stiff, and weird.  Behind his back, people referred to him as "Chuckles," in the most ironical way.  He often turned his chair backwards while he was on the bench, and people thought he was sleeping (in fact, we are sure he was sleeping at least once or twice or a couple of dozen times).  He said that was how he thought.  There would often be these incredibly uncomfortable and long and awkward pauses when he was asked a question.  Or he might seemingly be in this sort of half-sleep, or daydreaming or whatever, and then abruptly do or say something that was totally bizarre.  One time when I was in his courtroom, right in the middle of an attorney's opening statement to the jury -- which is one of those really crucial times in a lawyer's presentation, duh -- this judge sort of barked out, "Counsel, approach the bench."

Approaching the bench is this sort of solemn and relatively rare moment meant to be used for something quite unusual.  The at-the-bench proceedings were on the record in those days (who knows what happens now, since they hardly use court reporters in court anymore, but tape recorders), and I'd have to jump up and make my steno machine tall on its tripod, and stand next to the bench to take down the whispered conversation.  It was stuff that was meant to be outside the hearing of the jury, the parties, and other people in the courtroom. Often it was to do with rules of procedure or some big juicy Perry Mason moment where somebody had just, or was about to, spill the major beans in violation of the rules or some ruling that had been made previously.  Or it could be something like the judge had noticed that one of the jurors or one of the attorneys was asleep, or the defendant was making eyes at one of the jurors, he saw someone pass a note to someone else -- or who knows what it might have been.  It was usually something quite adrenaline-inducing, at least for me.  

In this one bizarre instance, the judge said to the public defender, "Your top button is not buttoned."

Seriously.  The attorney to whom he was speaking was a cute, charming, but incredibly shy and bumbling, and not terribly nattily dressed, public defender.  He was usually tugging at his clothing and tucking in his shirt and fidgeting while he was speaking, and never quite getting at looking neat and unrumpled, but he was definitely within the bounds of proper dress for the courtroom at all times.  From my perspective as the court reporter, if he only could have completed a full sentence, we'd have been golden.  I never did know how to punctuate that poor guy.  The dash key was used more in his transcripts than any other lawyer I've ever known.  I admittedly did want to strangle him on more than one occasion.

But to interrupt the poor guy in the middle of his opening statement in a criminal case to tell him the top button of his shirt, under his tie, was not buttoned?  

One of the more bizarre moments in the history of the courtroom, if I do say.  Even the State's Attorney who, in moments of a trial in a criminal case, was the mortal enemy of this public defender, met my eyes with a bemused look that said, "Did that really just happen?"

Yes, indeed, it did.

As did this incident, involving the same judge, different attorney:

Traditionally on the opening day of the term in the county court, all attorneys who practice in that court came together for the Call of the Docket -- all the cases expected to be addressed that term are called, lawyers say, "Yes, your Honor, that is my case and we will be ready for trial on such-and-such a date," or something of that ilk.  And, well, mostly it's a waste of time. The most I can say for it is it was an easy day for me three or four times a year, and I got to have a fun social day with every attorney and his brother and sister.  

Well, one year one of the attorneys had broken his toe and wore flip-flops on his feet with his bespoke suit.  It was the same Judge Chuckles presiding that term.  The attorney was called to the bench and chastised about his disrespectful attire.  

The attorney said, "I apologize, your Honor.  I'll try not to break my toe in the future."  (To be fair to the judge, the attorney had not told anyone that the reason he was wearing flip-flops was because he had a broken toe, and if he had, I'm quite sure that even Judge Chuckles would have forgiven him his transgression.)  

Being a guy quite heavy on The Grand Gesture, this attorney went home during the lunch hour and appeared in the afternoon session in his $250 wing tips, the front half of one of the shoes cut out.

The memory still sends me into fits of snorts and giggles.  

Ah, we did have fun.    

Random Wednesday

1.  Mr. Jefferies has coccidiosis, or at least an evaluation of his stool sample (yes, we had the poop!) revealed coccidia.  However, even before the sample was brought in to the vet, he seemed mostly back to his normal self in all respects.  He has his energy back, he is eating and drinking and peeing and pooping (and whining and teasing me for treats and to play with him endlessly).  Yay for normal bodily functions and behaviors.  He has medication (Albon) to take, and he will remain on the bland diet for the rest of the week, at least.  I think he had a very mild case of it, or more to the point, I think he has a strong immune system that recovered from it pretty quickly. Fricking people who don't pick up their dogs' poop.  And fricking him for eating it at every chance he can get (he's fast).  I'm quite sure that's where he got it.  I know he could get it from the ground even if people DID pick up their dogs' and cats' poop, because coccidia is microscopic. But having the poop right there for him to dine on like it's the greatest delicacy in the world increases the chances, I'm sure, a hundredfold.  

2.  The Paul Roberts talk on The End of Food was enjoyable and very illuminating.  I find him to be almost a clone of Michael Pollan -- or vice versa; I'm not sure who came first -- or maybe they were twins separated at birth -- but I saw Michael Pollan first, so to me HE was first -- and Roberts wore a suit, whereas Pollan wore a t-shirt that said, "Vote with your fork," (heh-heh) but the message is pretty much the same.  Roberts had some other important economic angles from which he addresses the subject, though. I commend you to go to his talk if he comes to your area -- or I should say I commend you to buy his book, I suppose.  

2 a) He did say a few times that, being in Burlington, Vermont, he knew he was preaching to the choir, and in my individual case, of course, that is true.  He reiterated the general message that Pollan delivered here last year:  The rest of the country is watching you, Vermont, when it comes to food production.  

2 b).  He said that "overnourished" is the new politically correct word for "obese."  Let's hear it for political correctness.  

2 c).  His talk did make me rue the quarts of berries and pounds of beans, et al., that I did not get put away for this year -- the ones I mentioned in my post last week or so.  And it made me eager to redouble my efforts to grow my own as much as possible and keep it local and small-scale as much as possible.  But, you know, that's nothing new.  I must buy some beets, if I can find some available at a local farmstand, and pickle them.  The beet harvest I gathered the other day from my own garden was too small to bother pickling any -- we'll eat them fresh.  We've already eaten about a third of them.  Yummilicious.

3.  To the growing-my-own end, yesterday I went to Gardener's Supply to get some Milky Spore to try to cut down the population of Japanese Beetles in my garden. They have risen to astronomical levels this summer, after having been kept at bay for quite a few years after my last application of the stuff.  They really did a number on the plum trees, the roses, the strawberry plants, the asparagus, and the green beans this year.  Hopefully next year they will be less in number.

4.  While at Gardener's Supply, I picked up packets of sprouting seeds for the winter, and microgreen seeds to give one last shot at growing something in my garden soil before winter sets in.  

I had a long chat with the owner? manager? (not sure which) at the shop yesterday, who indicated to me that the growing zones have all been moved up a half a zone as a result of global warming.  We talked about our mixed feelings about that.  As northern gardeners, we do appreciate the longer growing season and the greater range of things we can successfully grow, but it also seems to have an ominous feel to it.  Other parts of my state (sorry, Gayle) have already had at least two killing frosts, but we haven't been hit yet.  Knock on wood.

5.  I've had a number of more questions about the raised beds in my garden.  They are made of black plastic, they are very lightweight, super-easy to assemble, and inexpensive.  They also come from Gardener's Supply.  I can't recommend them highly enough.  They have changed my whole gardening life.  You could make your own raised beds by nailing boards together, but for my money these are so much easier (they literally take 3 seconds per corner to assemble, with no tools required), and they keep in the warmth and moisture a bit better, without the risk of getting slivers, cutting, measuring, or hammering my finger into oblivion.  Then again, if you've got some two-by-sixes or two-by-eights hanging around your house (not pressure-treated) and if lack of $39 for a Grow Bed is keeping you from growing some of your own food, then by all means, slap some of those puppies together and throw some soil in, some seeds in, water it, and grow something!  

6.  I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about Red Scarf Fund fundraising this year.  I have been offered a few prizes (I have some gorgeous red Signature Needle Arts needles sitting here beside me, for example, and some generous gift certificates from Anne Hanson, along with some hand-dyed yarns offered), but response and reaction to my mention of it was tepid at best. Not sure if it's worth the work and headaches.  I suppose anything is better than nothing, though.  

Bushed

Yesterday I:

• made a plum compote kind of thing with fresh plums, a little water, a little maple syrup and lemon juice, which I simmered till it was saucy and served on the
• gluten-free pancakes I made, which are definitely not on my present diet (but they were delicious and worth every calorie); and I
• did considerable prep work for my next CART event, part of which was reading this article, which in turn, due to its content, got me fired up to get outside and 
• harvest the beets; 
• manage the compost bins (which means emptying and spreading the contents of one that was completely ready, and then relayering the contents of one that has been in the waiting position, so that it will decompose better); and then I
• shelled some Dolloff beans that have dried since I picked them last week;
• prepared the beds for planting the garlic, which involves shoveling out a few inches of soil; setting it aside; adding bone meal and blood meal and lime and loosening and turning the soil;
• planted the garlic (two 3X3 beds, and one 3X6 bed -- I believe I planted 72 cloves, which should yield 72 bulbs if all goes well);
• purchased three bags of Intervale compost and spread it, with the replacement soil, on the three beds in which I planted the garlic (they just await some mulch of either straw, spoiled hay, or shredded leaves);
• pulled out some vegetable plants that are past their prime for the year;
• moved two raised beds to what I hope will be better locations for next year;
• refilled them with their soil;
• fertilized the asparagus with more rock phosphate;
• threw Mr. Jefferies' toy so he could chase it, and beg me to throw it for him again, 2,319 times;
• untangled his tie-out cable 29 times;
• brought in some broccoli and Swiss chard;
• watered the new plantings;
• cooked dinner, which was composed of salmon filets; a salad that I concocted of raw broccoli, raw garlic, red onions, an apple and some celery dressed with sunflower oil, apple cider vinegar & maple syrup (it was surprisingly delicious); cooked beets; and wilted Swiss chard;
• backed up my work files off my computer, and did some long-overdue deleting of old files;
• wrote this post

I am wiped out.  Today I may do nothing at all.  Or I might take care of the strawberry bed by cutting back the plants; finish the new compost layering that I didn't finish yesterday; reposition the old compost bins in "better" locations (I am forever searching for that sweet spot that is perfect); and make pickled beets.  

Or

I may do

NOTHING.

at ALL. 

Geoffrey Chaucer yfryed mi brægen*

*fried my brain

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But let's see what I can give you.  Today is Day 2 of the Red Scarf Project. As of yesterday, you could start mailing your completed scarves, together with cards of encouragement and gift cards for things college students might need or like -- school supplies, fast food, coffee chains (and I think you know what I mean by that), and the like -- if you are able to be so generous.  The deadline is December 15th, so don't worry if you haven't started your scarf yet -- there is plenty of time.  But don't leave it to the last minute -- you know you'll be crazy doing holiday knitting at that time, right?

The mailing address is:

Orphan Foundation of America 
The Red Scarf Project 
21351 Gentry Drive 
Sterling, VA 20166

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Gale Zucker has updated her wonderful poster with this year's deadlines.  You can download it from this link, (zipped files) within which is a pdf for a poster you can print off and place in your favorite knitter's hangout or local yarn store.  

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P.S.  We were talking about cards the other day, and just after, I found these:  

They're from Quotable Cards.  I love 'em!

*Thunk*

I picked up the books for the two M.A. English courses I am covering this fall.  

Holy crap. 

(Mind you, I don't have to read all these - just familiarize myself with the vocab and concepts.)

Yesterday Margene remarked that with the opening of the new school year, I am back in my element. As usual, she is right. I love a challenge, and you know what?  I'm good at what I do.  It's nice to find something you're good at, that you enjoy, and to be able to make a living at it.  As tenuous as that last statement is from semester to semester, season to season, because it is hard to be self-employed and to always be unsure whether I will indeed be able to make a living at it, I do feel that I am in my element and it's where I should be.  Have I mentioned (yes, I believe I have once or twice) that I LOVE WHAT I DO?!

So today I'm off to cover Convocation.  The featured speaker is Tracy Kidder.  And next week?  Kristen Schaal is visiting.  In the meantime, there is orientation for an OB/GYN rotation bright and early Monday morning.

Pinch me.  

If all this variety does not stave off Alzheimer's, I don't know what will. 

Busy, Busy

This is opening weekend at the university, so I'm very busy.  Events here and events there all weekend, followed by classes very early Monday morning.  But yesterday I was able to go to the gym, and also take a nice break in the autumnish-feeling cool-yet-warm-and-sunshiny day, to enjoy a Skinny Vanilla Latte avec knitting at Starbucks.  

And after getting set up for the evening event, I had about an hour to knit some more, so the scarf, it is a-growing, and boy, do I love it!  So soft and squishy, and such a wonderful color.  Keep your hands off my scarf!  It's mine, all mine!

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Thank you for the wonderful card ideas yesterday!  They were uniformly great and very inspirational.  

Have a great weekend, everybody!

This 'n That

I forgot an important "B" the other day -- broccoli!!!!  (What was I thinking?!)

And look how well it's doing.  (So far.  We must not take these things for granted.  Last year they all died a horrible fungal death after giving up their initial head of broccoli -- at least I got something out of them, but I was very disappointed.  This year it's a different variety -- 'PacMan' -- so I hope they'll do better.)

And we've got some good C's coming up, as well:

Love the lacy look of the outer leaves.  Actually, I don't love it at all, but as long as the slugs (or whatever it is that is wreaking this havoc) stay on the outer leaves and leave the heads alone, all's fair in love and cabbage. 

Thanks to all the Michael Jackson video-watching (I almost never tire of watching some of those videos), some good progress has been made on the red scarf.  I do love this color of KnitPicks Swish (Fired Brick), and though this mindless scarf is all I can handle right now, at least it's a little bit of something for this poor little ole knitting blog. 

I've got sort of a busy week coming up, though there is no work-work scheduled.  Tomorrow I provide lunch to the workers at a Habitat for Humanity building site.  You just know they be gettin' some home-grown lettuce in their sandwiches.  I sure do wish I had some of AnnaMarie's homemade bread, but they'll have to settle for store-bought.  It should be interesting for me to manage preparing food for, and serving, a group of people, since I will be on a liquid-diet cleanse that day to get ready for my Tuesday, ahem, medical procedure. Ergh.

Then there's this antique transcript I need to try to get out, assuming I can still read the steno.  Court reporters will love this:  The court hearing was done in 1989.  Yes, I kid you not.  Twenty years ago.  Let me see if there might be any issues with this:  I had just upgraded my computer system at that time, from the old system that took up an entire room in my house and about five laborious steps to create a transcript -- took the whole night to translate a file that I then had to heavily edit.  First it was written on a digital tape, which was put into a tape-reader and put onto an -- are you sitting down? -- 8-inch floppy disk, which took like an hour (which at that time we thought was lightning fast)!  That then was put into a computer to read and try to match the steno to English. Then I edited it -- which was a lengthy and labor-intensive process, and then it was printed on a dot matrix printer.  It took a couple hours to print a half-hour court hearing, and several hours to print a day's worth.  There was carbon-interleaved paper, the edges of which I had to tear off, rip apart each page, take out the carbons, and collate the multiple copies. 

So in 1989, I was now up to a new system that had a five-inch disk and about two fewer steps.  It was a bit faster, but I can no longer read those disks, because since that time I have changed computer systems three more times, and that's not even counting the generations of software.   But also: Since that time, my steno theory was ripped out, stripped down to its nakedness; I was lashed and thrashed and trashed, and lowered to my lowest point; and right when I was at the point where I would almost rather choose suicide than go on, I was retaught how to write, and I have continued to modify it and tweak it and make it the perfect fit so now I can write realtime steno in practically whatever subject you throw at me with only the occasional kooky error such as the other night, "as pennies" came out "aspenis."  The speaker had earlier asked the question, "How many of you pick up a penny when you see it lying on the ground?" and later tied that in by saying that some people treat other people as pennies, i.e., worthless. 

So "aspenis" for "as pennies."  That's a word boundary error.  I had defined AS/PEN as "aspen," and the "-ies" ending decided to translate, in one of those moments of artificial intelligence gone terribly wrong, as "-is" so it almost looked like (but thank goodness it did not, quite) as "as penis," but in any event it translated as a NONword.  Ah, yes, it's always something....that's the third sure thing, after death and taxes.

Anyway, I have procrastinated taking a look at those musty, moldy steno notes that the court sent me because some guy wants to know some little detail in them.  I seriously doubt if I can read them, and I really probably should have just looked at them when they were first sent to me so I could just certify that, "Forget it, bub. It's been 20 freakin' years. Get over it."  So I have to do that this week.

In yet another blog non sequitur, the asparagus from the previously ailing bed continues to grow and produce, and ahhhh, here is a beautiful sight:

 

The new asparagus bed is freshly weeded and OMG, I found all these little asparagus ferns coming up.  After a few rains and some time, and the rock phosphate feeding, it is indeed coming alive.  That is not the 30 roots that I planted by a long shot, but I have confidence that more will come up.  Can I get a woohoo?!  After the weeding shown above, I spread four bags of Intervale compost, some more lime, and some more rock phosphate over and around it, and watered it in.  I am going to get a bale of straw to mulch it, and I think that next year we will be swimming in asparagus. 

I have put in a brand new grow bed:

Ahhhh, it's like a fresh canvas.  I put in a bean tower and planted it with Dolloff beans (a true Vermont heirloom shell bean) sent to me by the Extreme Gardener.  I also put in a fresh planting of arugula, Renee's Stir Fry mix, Romaine, and basil seeds.  When I started, I intended to put in beets and bush beans.  I have no idea how I got off track like that, but apparently the canvas spoke to me.

Made My Student Laugh

"Minstrel shows" repeatedly translated as "menstrual shows."

Sometimes that friggin' software just tries to be TOO smart.  If it would have just given it up already and translated phonetically as it should, it would have been fine.  Gah. 

I am so tired I can't write any more.  I need to get my beauty rest, as my highly un-P.C. former office manager used to say.  It was a long, hard day and night last night, and is going to be one of those crazy days of running around for appointments today, followed by another 3.5-hour evening class.  zzzzzzzzzzonk.