Happy Groundhog Day!

Non Sequitur is particularly good on that subject today.

Brain has been skipping about like water on a hot griddle since yesterday morning. What you see is what you get.

I saw a billboard advertising this, so I checked it out once I got to work. The cost is reduced for couples, or if you buy tickets to the series. [There’s a punch-line in there somewhere. I can just feel it, but it’s not coming to me.] The lecture series is sponsored by The Container Store. I’ve spent enough in there over the years, not to mention working there one Christmas when I was in college in the 9o’s, that I ought to get in for free.

Why should I pay $25 to a university for a lecture that will confirm what I already know, that middle-aged people and older people can be wonderfully creative, and that it’s often as much due to time of life [nobody beating on the bathroom door to holler “Mom, she’s breathing my air!”] as it is to native ability? Particularly when I can get an “attagirl” from my primary care physician for a $20 copayment and spend the difference at Half Price Books?

I also saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed “we believe in nothing”, with a web address in tiny letters that I couldn’t quite read, beneath it. I didn’t think he would want me to put my bumper 3” from his in order to make it out. Something beginning with “L”. I googled the phrase and came up with “nihilism” and “Lebowski”. If you believe in nothing, isn’t that a belief in something? Black holes are “nothing”. Amazingly powerful “nothing”.

Do you suppose that nihilists get eaten by black holes when they die?

I see all kinds of neat stuff when I’m out driving. It’s almost enough to make me invest in a Dictaphone. Do they make one that plugs into a car’s lighter? Not that I think every thought that bounces off the walls of my brainpan is worth keeping, but it would be easier to just say something into a mic and retrieve it later, than to reach for my pen and hope that there is a napkin in the cubby between the seats.

I was charging my phone at my desk [because it was chirping in my tote bag yesterday morning], and one of my coworkers came by, picked it up, and remarked, “I would know that this was your phone, because it matches your nail polish.”

Well, yes. I do try to be consistent when it comes to the really important things in life. And we all agree that the un-accessorized life is not worth living, right?

Speaking of accessories, my friend Leslye [L: do you want me to link to your blog?] showed me what she’s been up to recently. She has learned how to do Viking knitting, which looks like I-cord made from sterling wire. Which led me to Google, which led me via curiosity about nalbinding, to this website, which states in the header that a bellwether was often the oldest *female* sheep. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that a wether was a neutered *male* sheep, the ovine equivalent of an ox. And he could safely be trusted to lead the flock home, because he had no interest in, ahem, leading them astray.

Other than that quibble, it’s a neat website. And maybe there are uppity middle-aged female sheep who butt the wether and take the bell and announce themselves, like Alexander Haig, to be in charge.

The current incarnation of the costume is done. I picked up a bolt of lemon yellow ribbon and an Op Art button before dinner and the dance last night.

This is the dress as originally finished [Tan, this is for you]:



This is the dress, shortened 5” and with the black trim.



This is what it looks like now.



You will note that I have sewn the flower to the bodice. If LittleBit turns out to be accented in the same colors as another cast member, let the other cast member deal with it, i.e., go to JoAnn’s and get new stuff. The next teacher who says, “yes, but” about this costume is in danger of getting cabled and bound off.

Speaking of which:



So what did I do today? A matinée at the movie tavern, where I quaffed beer-of-the-root and inhaled a black bean burger and some sweet potato fries. Groceries, though I sure didn’t want to put down my knitting and leve the house again. The KnitPicks podcast. Downloading Firefox as my new browser and linking my blog photos to Flickr [Explorer refuses to play nicely] and then to Ravelry. Buying costume jewelry for LittleBit’s costume. A short but delicious nap. And in between it all, lots of blessedly uncomplicated knitting! Oh, and I overcooked the frozen salmon fillet, neatly turning it into salmon-flavored leather.

In honor of today’s silent poetry reading, I offer “Fibonacci Woman”.

Like the pattern in a daisy’s eye,
spinning outward
from near-nothingness,
building in smooth slow spirals:
This is template for a woman’s life.

First a gleam in father’s eye,
an answering smile in mother’s,
egg and seed dervish into multiplicity,
becoming eye, hand, capillary:
catcher’s mitt for flying spirit.

Leaving the circle of mother’s arms,
small sorties into the world, and back,
growing in strength, wisdom, confidence.
Woman as chambered nautilus, pearlescent,
French-curving into grace and fortitude
until she grows beyond all earthly boundaries,
playing crack-the-whip with God,
and flies boldly into eternity.
© 1998 [Me, from one of my chapbooks] All rights reserved.