“Getting raked at the gas pump”

A new phrase in my vocabulary. I found it in an article on the company website and googled it. I think the verb is off by one letter. Gas is $3.15 a gallon here. Milk is $3.50 a gallon. I’m slightly more concerned about the latter. Yes, I consume way more of the former, but the latter is more crucial to quality of life, chez nous.

I had read that a large part of this is due to our dependence upon corn. [Confirmed by the cover of the newest issue of Time, which arrived in yesterday’s mail at the office.] It’s everywhere. In our food, in our gas tanks, in our animal feed. Which is why eggs are now worth their weight in gold. I almost wish that I had my old house back, with the chickens and the rabbits and the goats. At least now I have a real job, and I would be able to afford good hay for the goats, and I’d have fresh milk twice a day.

Although I sure don’t miss having to go out in the rain to milk. Nope, don’t miss that at all. Or having to drag Tuffy from the pen to the milking stand. [She was just smart enough to remember how surprised the neighbor's cat was at being shooed out of the feeding tray one morning. One angry cat, levitating eighteen inches into the air and coming down into Tuffy’s face with claws extended. One terrified goat, breaking free from my grasp, executing a triple axel on the milking stand, and pronking like an antelope back to the pen then leaping over the four-foot fence. The 125 yard goat drag: a twice-daily Olympic event until we traded Tuffy for breeding fees for three more docile does.]

I am so jazzed! My “dontcha” [Knitty] shirt that I wore to the dance on Friday night of the singles conference, washed well. I plan on wearing it to Thursday night’s walkabout.

One of the legal secretaries at work was teasing me gently. She asked what was going on in the big conference room, who was in there, what they were talking about. She told me that my days of being Miss Independent Receptionist are coming to an end; that from now on I need to be alert for little tidbits that would benefit my [future] attorney. I know that she was mostly kidding, but there’s a germ of truth in there. A good receptionist is well-nigh invisible and absolutely impartial. A good legal secretary is above gossip, but savvy about politics. We are talking a whole new set of paradigms here. I have to grow Great Big Ears. And keep them close to the ground. And try not to step on them. Or anyone else’s.

I think that I’m done swatching and on to the knitting. I present for your knitting pleasure [Almost] Cozy, an adaptation of Danielle Schoonover’s design in the Fall 2004 Knitty.



I have modified the K2tbl [knit two together, through back loop] to a simple SSK [slip as if to knit, slip as if to knit, then knit them together]. It’s a subtle difference that would be obvious in an untextured yarn and is less fiddly in my much-frogged Denim Silk.

And some verifiable progress on Anastasia.



This grey dangling end is hanging from the row that will become the afterthought heel.



The actual color is about midway between these two photos.