spud says hi

Free time

The extra time I've had in Oak Park, necessitated by my visa issues (now resolved--it came Tuesday morning, so I'm set for my flight tomorrow), has actually been really nice.  I got to relax a bit after a very busy year (I still tend to think in academic year terms, unsurprisingly), and particularly after a pretty stressful last few weeks.  This was enforced by the fact that for the first week I didn't have access to my computer, due to having left my power cord in Toronto.  We've been reunited, but I still haven't done much work.  However, those extra ten days have let me do some things.

• I got to see a bunch of tv finales!  When I made my original plans, I didn't really think through the fact that I'd be flying away on the same day as the Lost finale.  What was I thinking?!  I'm intrigued by where a number of shows are going, and so this has been oddly nice.  I also watched the end of American Idol, which I don't usually watch regularly.  My parents, do, though, and my mother is OUTRAGED that Adam didn't win.

• I helped my mom put in her vegetable garden.  This meant:  tomatoes, herbs, eggplant, peppers, and cucumbers planted as plants, and patty pan squash, turnips and beets planted as seeds.  The turnips are already sprouting, too, which is fun.
• Rhubarb experiments!  See those huge leaves in the background there?  That's the rhubarb after I'd cut off several pounds of rhubarb stems.  When I got here and saw the plant, I told my mom about the amazingly good rhubarb sorbet I'd had a few weeks before.  She replied, "well, I have an ice cream maker."  And so we experimented, and made some remarkably good rhubarb sorbet, and some slightly less good, but still tasty, strawberry-rhubarb sorbet.  Yumminess all around, really.

• I finished my green sweater, though I have yet to block it or sew on buttons.  Still, the knitting's all done, with an improved collar, I think.  Pictures, though, will have to wait until I'm back from Russia and can block it.  After that I started one of my Russia projects--the forest path shawl, in a lovely lightly variegated alpaca lace weight yarn.

• I have tried to help broker a peace between cats.  Ziti and Sophie are actually doing remarkably well together.  My mom got Ziti a collar with a little bell, so Sophie knows when he's coming.  This actually seems to have helped a lot, and Ziti appears not even remotely phased by having this put around his head.  He scratches there a bit more than before, but hasn't tried to get it off.  The funniest thing so far to happen was a few days ago, when Sophie was sitting on my lap.  I then called out for Ziti--and she got very mad!  She whipped her head around to stare me in the eye and hissed with all her little body.  I apologized for offending her, and apparently we're now OK.  And Ziti's just a big galoot, who alternates between wanting to chase Sophie and being completely under her little paw--the second funniest thing that's happened is Sophie hissing and him immediately flopping over in submission to her will.

And... that's all I can think of at the moment, though I've done other stuff, too.  But now, repacking calls.  And tomorrow (well, Saturday, really), Moscow!

How does my garden grow? Eh...

So so, I'd say.

Herbs?  Just fine, thank you very much.  I've got basil and rosemary and sage peeking out from behind the marigolds.  There may be some lurking oregano, too.  And in another box I've got more basil and thyme and peppermint galore.

Crazy climbing thing?  Also doing well.  It had a bit of a setback when a section of its tallest climbing... limb?  vine?... got broken off, either during a rainstorm, of which we've had some doozies, or perhaps by... SQUIRRELS.  I have no evidence for that last conclusion, merely suspicions.  But despite that, it keeps on climbing and spreading away.  Now I really wish more than one sproutling had survived.

Tomatoes?  Well, there it's a mixed bag.  On the one hand, look!  Red tomatoes!  WOOHOO!!!  I've picked three!

On the other hand... that's probably all I'm going to get.  Rather than the copious greenery and fun that I'd hoped for, my fake topsy-turvy tomatoes have not turned out to be all that.  Perhaps I needed a bigger container?  Or different soil?  Or to cover the plastic?  Or no marigolds?  Or... no clue.  But, basically, this is the best looking of the three plants, which isn't saying much.  Ah, well.  Live and learn.

In totally other news, I went to see Mamma Mia! yesterday.  And I kind of loved it.  It was of course utterly ridiculous and silly, but also totally insane and awesome, made by people who were clearly having an absolute ball in the process.  Basically, I went in thinking that it was likely to be fairly... bad, but with Abba songs and Colin Firth singing (sigh, Mr. Darcy... I watched What a Girl Wants solely because of the scene in the preview which featured you dancing in leather pants, just for the sheer ridiculousness of that image), which would make up for it.  And I was very pleasantly surprised at the degree to which it didn't suck.  I'm not going to pretend it's a great work of cinematic genius, but it was deeply enjoyable, and I found myself grinning and/or bobbing my head along with music for virtually the whole thing, but for a few moments when I got legitimately teary or had to laugh uproariously at something.

This probably says bad things about my taste.  I DON'T CARE, AND AM LISTENING TO ABBA GOLD RIGHT NOW.

It's ALIVE!!!!

One... just one, but ONE... of my little climbing seedlings survive the depredations of squirrels and rain and hail by hiding behind a marigold.

I'M SO HAPPY.

Wouldn't it have been cool if there had been more than one?  But even so, look at this thing start to go!  And, hey, mom, the thickness of these posts is clearly not stopping it from making a run for it!



See?  Tiny spiky leaves, ready to unfurl and spread.

Also, happy Independence Day, and belated happy Canada Day.  It's confusing being an expat when one's home country and country of residence have national holidays so close together, but not the same.  Like, really confusing.

Whee!

Look what's coming!

Well, poo.

See that?

That's where my lovely little seedlings were sprouting, getting ready to send up green tendrils with red flowers to brighten the weathered wood of the deck.

And now, nothing.

I'm not sure that I should blame the squirrels for this.  I don't think they're totally innocent--I know I saw marks of digging in this box--but nor do I think they deserve the lion's share of the blame.

It's the weather, the hard, heavy rain and even a bit of hail that hit early last week.  Again, I know, this is hardly an event compared with the results of rain along the Mississippi, but, still, poo.

(Sorry, by the way, for using "poo" in the title of this.  I know it's a little childish and gross.  If you're really grossed out, don't read the rest of this parenthetical.  This week I went to the gym for the first time in... forever, and was reading through some of its materials.  I couldn't believe their pool guidelines.  Six or seven points, all of which boiled down to "try not to get poo in the pool, and by the way, don't drink the pool water in case people are disgusting, anyway."  Ick.  Ickety ick ick.)

Ahem.

Despite that, my lettuce has been growing fantastically, and I've already had two salads based on it.  So, yay for that.  It's pretty good salad, too--I think I chose some nice varieties.  And, actually, I've probably got to be better about eating more of it, because it's getting a little crowded.

And, really, what I need to eat is basil.  That's taken off like you wouldn't believe.  Since I like basil, this is not a hardship.  Ooooh, I just thought of something I haven't made in ages.  Mom found this recipe somewhere, and though it's odd, it's also really good.  It's a very quick sauté of leeks and tomatoes, to which you add a vast amount of basil, feta cheese, a little chicken stock (optional, obviously) and lemon juice, and then toss with pasta.  You wouldn't necessarily think all those flavors would meld together, but, wow, they really do.

Man, I think I've got to head off to the grocery store.

Growing things

So, first, I'm writing this while simultaneously listening to a bunch of a cappella group versions of unexpected songs via youtube.   No, I don't know why.  But it's making me smile.  And there are A LOT of them, which means this current strange pastime can continue as long as I want it to continue.



Right now, my "garden" is far more interesting than my knitting.

The things I first planted went through that stage when they shed all the flowers they'd acquired in the greenhouse, and now they've settled in and are sending up copious new blooms.  And if anything, these snapdragons are coming in even more richly shaded than I expected.



Seeds are going crazy, too.  This is eventually going to be something called a "cardinal climber," and will hopefully provide color all along one railing of my deck.

One thing I think is interesting about seeds is the way the very first leaves of the sprout are always a bit different than everything that comes later. The grown-up leaves of this one are so interestingly shaped, too!



The lettuce? Getting pretty close to the early eating stage.  I've got two varieties in there, "Buttercrunch" and "Speckles," which is a Romaine variety.

But though the garden grows, the knitting remains kind of boring.  There's stuff happening, but nothing that feels worth photographing.  And it's going slowly, because I'm actually reading for fun more than watching TV (note the actually changing "books by the bed list" on the side!), and the TV I'm watching has at various points been dancing, which I actually want to, you know, see.

But eventually there'll be something worth showing.  Until then, flowers will have to do.

Things that annoy me (and a couple of things that don't)

I'm in a complaining mood.  Blame a bit of school stress (which, yes, should be done by now, but isn't).

• Squirrels!  Or, whatever keeps digging in my pots!  The battle wages on, ever and eternally, it seems.  Let's put it this way--I identified a bit too much with this NY Times article today.
• People who write in library books.  Yesterday I wasted half an eraser ridding a university library book of pencil (thankfully) marks so I could photocopy it for a course packet.  And still there's a bit of ink in there that annoys.  And don't even get me started on the people who feel compelled to correct or otherwise write in public library books.  I recently read a humorous novel in which someone had underlined every reference to mental illness, and corrected syntax and grammar (SOMETIMES WITH A QUESTION MARK, like, they weren't even sure of their corrections!) to boot.  ARGH.
• People who don't pass people turning left.  Driving in this city is generally not fun, which is why I don't do very much of it.  But what really annoys me are not left turners--I mean, sometimes you've got to turn left, so what can you do?--but the people who pile up behind the left turners instead of passing them, thus really blocking traffic.  Granted, sometimes you can't pass, but often... YOU CAN.
• My current ISP.  My connection speeds have been incredibly erratic recently, and when I've called to try to get things fixed, the tech people have been just as much salespeople trying to get me to upgrade as tech people.  I keep telling them that I'm unwilling to spend MORE money with them to upgrade if I don't get a stable connection for a while first.  Whatever.

In the meantime, I have apparently become hooked on So You Think You Can Dance.  Seriously, some of these people are freaking amazing!  Like this guy, who didn't get past the audition round, but who... it's like he has no bones... or like some invisible giant is moving him around.  CRAZY.

Day 6 (of the tomatoes)

 And already a bud!

A tiny one, barely anything, really, but suggesting flowers and tomatoes to come.

The weather's been lovely and mild, perhaps a bit cool in the evenings, but generally conducive to growing.  And rain, even, which absolves me of the responsibility of watering.

Though, really, I've for some reason gotten into the habit of going out every morning to check to see if there's any signs of digging or eating, and to check on water and all that, too.

All's good so far.

There's baby (wee tiny baby) lettuce.

The evil squirrels currently seem more interested in EATING THE SILL OF THE WINDOW ACROSS THE WAY.  That can't be normal.

I, meanwhile, am interested in eating yummy things like strawberries and rhubarb.

Here I've cut up a big stalk of rhubarb and a bunch of strawberries and tossed them with a little sugar.  They're sitting in a pot, looking pretty, releasing juices.

Then they cook down into a lovely... well, to be perfectly honest, they sort of cook down into a lovely goo.  But a yummy goo, not an unpleasant or gross one.  Perfect over yogurt or ice cream.  Though I'm out of both of those things at the moment, unfortunately.

And while this was cooking (OK, that's a total lie.  After this cooked, and then on and on and on... this turned into a HUGE project that took all afternoon) I worked on this:

I added fringe to my (now completed) reversible ribbed shawl.

How huge a project was this?  Each side had approximately 180 pieces of fringe to be crocheted on.  THAT'S A LOT.  Especially when you're dealing with black yarn that makes it tricky to see the individual stitches you're trying to pick up.

AND THEN.

I did a fancy knotted edge.  (Inspired by this. [Scroll down a bit.])

(None of this was called for in the pattern, incidentally, but I thought it'd be cool, and make the whole thing seem more finished.)

But a picture of that will have to wait.

General catching up

I just had quite a bit of fun being touristy in my still-new city.  Not only did my visitors and I go to Niagara Falls, but we also went to a few scenic places around Toronto.

From one of them, I took this picture of the skyline.  The CN Tower really does stick out in this kind of image, doesn't it?  It's hard to believe it's as tall as it is, I think in part because it's a little bit away from the rest of downtown, so there aren't other tall things nearby for comparison.

(We didn't go there, incidentally.)


Instead, we went to Casa Loma, the crazy castle-house built by a (briefly) super-rich Canadian in the early 20th century.  Can you tell that he had a little bit of a thing for Olde Tyme-y Royalty?  This isn't even the biggest tower of the place--that one (from which I took the above picture, by sticking my camera out a little slit window) is still a bit under scaffolding, so my pictures aren't great.

Incidentally?  There were crazy numbers of Russians at the place.  It was very, very busy, I think in part because of a city architectural festival that was on this past weekend.  I can't count the number of people I heard speaking Russian.  I found this interesting.

As you can tell, we had fantastic weather for all this--the gardens were particularly nice, and let us be all out in the sun.  And that made me want to tackle my "garden," aka my deck.

So, after my sister and b-i-l left on Monday morning, Mom and I tackled that.  We got some more herbs to replace the ones that got eaten, as well as some heartier, stronger smelling ones that might repel little beasties.  We planted a ton of marigolds in all the boxes and pots, in the hopes that their smell (which I personally love, but I know a lot of people don't like) would keep the demon squirrels away.  We stuck pinwheels bought for a buck (oh, wait, excuse me--a loonie) each in Chinatown in most of the pots, again in the hopes of scaring away squirrels.

And we made these.

What are they, you ask?  Homemade topsy-turvy tomato planters.

In a previous life, water bottles.

We cut off the bottoms, poked three holes around the new top edge, threaded twine through the holes, very carefully threaded a small cherry tomato plant (apparently larger tomatoes get too heavy for the unsupported stems) through the mouth, filled them with potting soil, and topped them off with a marigold (again in the hopes of saving them from rodent predators), and then tied the twine ends together and hung them from... hangers.

I'm so excited!

Here's what's really amazing about them.  See the one on the left, how the tomato plant sticks straight down?  That was yesterday when we were relaxing after our labors on the deck (and facing off with kind of scarily determined squirrels... yes, I'm currently a bit obsessed with them... I foresee a series of blog posts on my personal squirrel wars).

Today?  Look!

It's already turning up to grow the "right" way!

I'm sorry, but that's damned cool.  Oh, nature, and your fascinating ways.


I have also actually been knitting, though I am fairly sure that I knit NOT A SINGLE STITCH on Sunday.  Shocking, I know.

I started another sweater after finishing off the hex coat, reduced, but it's not very interesting yet.  It will be, because it's the gorgeous Tangled Yoke Cardigan.  I'm knitting it in Silky Wool, which is giving me a slightly too big gauge.  That's actually OK, though, because my ideal size is one half way in between two of the pattern sizes, and I think because of the cabled yoke there are limits to how much you can tweak the stitch count.  This way I'm knitting the size on the small size of where I want to end up, and will hopefully be able to block the thing into something appropriate.

And I'm now nearing the end of my reversible ribbed shawl.  There's actually a fair bit more of it than this, now.  The pattern calls for it to be yet longer than it currently is, but I'm getting--not tired of it, actually, because it's been a perfectly pleasant, and more interesting than expected, knit--but to the point where I think it should stop.  Especially because I think I've decided it needs crazy knotted fringe on it.

It is also very, very soft, very, very fuzzy, very, very warm, and very, very heavy.  It's kind of gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

Two days!!

That's how long it took for someone--damn you, squirrels! or maybe raccoons!--to eat up my newly potted basil and oregano plants.

Grrr.

They left the rosemary alone, which suggests... well, actually, I don't know what it suggests.

I have attempted to retaliate... er... cope... by sprinkling cayenne pepper over everything, since I've read that little city beasties don't much like it.  We'll see if that saves the other things I planted from further denuding.

In other news, I am utterly enthralled by the current Masterpiece Theatre (oops, it's just "Masterpiece" now, for whatever marketing reasons) show.  I've watched a number of this season's shows, but not all of them.  I didn't entirely like a couple of the Jane Austen adaptations, though some were fine.  I couldn't cope at all with the new version of A Room with a View.  Seriously, the '80s movie is one of my favorite movies, and this just wasn't it.  It's odd, actually.  I'm not in principle against remaking movies, or new movie/tv versions of old stories.  After all, plays get produced over and over again, and they maintain their interest.  And I reread novels, too, with different but still general pleasure.  But this one... no, the older movie is just too ingrained into my sense of what that story is.  The new one just couldn't measure up to not just the older movie, but my longstanding attachment to it.

That sounds a little crazy.  Well, there you go.

Anyway, what I wanted to write was that I'm enjoying the current series--Cranford, based on a few novels and short stories (I think) by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I have laughed (at admittedly silly, slapstick bits mostly involving gossipy ladies of a certain age and animals) and I have cried.  I have no idea where it's going next.

And how about this?  At one point I dropped my knitting, so caught up in the story was I.  Seriously!

If your PBS station doesn't repeat it, it's streaming on the pbs website (assuming, of course,  you're in the US... it's blocked here).

Also, for what it's worth, I am now caught up with and watching Battlestar Galactica.  It's... fine.  I don't think it's as utterly stupendous as some seem to think it is, but it's good.  I do, however, have one major nitpick.  How on earth (or rather, on the way to earth) have they not run out of cigarettes?  And why is every single ship apparently overheated (in freezing cold SPACE) to the point that everyone sits around in (kind of stupid looking) tank tops and a sheen of sweat?  OK, that's two nitpicks.  Still.