Late afternoon:

me, writing notes for my toast. They put me last because they (rightly) knew that my speech would be the most emotional.

A silent auction of some of Marnie's prints, to benefit the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)'s support of gay marriage

Tom's friend Gwendolyn did Marnie's hair and makeup

FINALLY! It’s 7pm, time to head down to the prairie, where the ceremony will be held.

we all walked through the forest, past the sugar shack, to get to the prairie where we waited for Tom and Marnie to appear.

and here they come! We all broke out into applause when they appeared. Tom's niece Ella had gathered a bunch of prairie wildflowers for Marnie to carry, at the last minute.

This is SO THEM. Even in this moment, there was a lot of laughter.

married! Joe just pronounced them married, after the most beautiful ceremony and vows. And there was much applause, laughter, tears, and joy.

Then we all returned to the Lodge, for a wonderful dinner catered by a local restaurant. They don’t do catering – they just did this for Marnie and Tom. They bought all local ingredients for the menu, purchased the morning of the wedding.

Marnie watches Tom order his food - I love her gaze at him

a moment's pause. I think she looks so beautiful, even in this thoughtful moment.

Night fell as we were eating dinner, and then we had the speeches and toasts. Without exception, everyone talked about how much Marnie and Tom laugh together, how absolutely right they are for each other, and how much they mean to us all. Marnie and Tom had their dance, then Marnie had selected a song to dance with her dad, and then there was our song, one that has enormous meaning for Marnie and me – L.O.V.E., by Nat King Cole. It’s a long story …. but you can bet I cried throughout the whole thing.

the tent, lit up with little bits of starlight and a lot of joy

Marnie's gannetts hanging from the tent rafters

FLYING HOME SUNDAY

Only because we had to, we flew out on Delta. I hate Delta. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever taken an uneventful Delta flight; I’m sure it would be memorable if I ever had a Delta flight that was uneventful because it would be the only such experience. We flew from Madison to Detroit, where we had to change planes (with a 1-hour layover), for the flight home to LaGuardia. Like all our other flights on this roundtrip, we got to the airport to find that the flight to Detroit was delayed by one hour. There were no other flights that would get us home that day, no matter how we arranged it. So we just had to hope for the best.

While we were in the air, someone – one of pilots, we think – came on and said this: “Sorry we got a late start, and we know most of you are worried about making your connections. But look! Look outside, it’s a beautiful day! It’s still a beautiful day to be flying!” And so on. Mr. Mindfulness, trying to reorient us. It made me laugh.

So we got to Detroit, the connecting flight knew there were 19 of us on the now-late plane, so we ran off the plane, raced down the terminal, and raced onto the very VERY hot plane. And then we sat. And we sat. And we sweated in the heat, and we waited. An announcement was made that we’re waiting on the pilot, who was coming in on another flight that had been delayed. Later, an announcement: the pilot has just landed! We should be taking off in about 5-10 minutes!  Later, another announcement: “Hi, I’m your new pilot with the replacement team. We have no idea what happened to the other flight crew. We should be taking off shortly.”

SO DELTA. We did finally land, only to face incredibly bad traffic. We got home considerably later than we dreamed we would. But I got a lot of knitting done; finished my Wowie Zowie socks, and got a great start on Peasy.

fantastic socks, taken against a backdrop of your standard Best Western bedspread.

Peasy! Easy! Fun!

the bit of lace on the front panels

And now, I begin my new life as (a) the mother of 2 married daughters, and (b) a freelancer. I’m finishing up the unpacking/straightening up details, finishing a lot of paperwork, and then I start my new life scrambling for work. Know anyone who needs (1) a manuscript developed, (2) a good writer, (3) a market research consultant, (4) a survey designer and programmer, or (5) a data analyst? If so, send them my way!

Thanks again for all your very lovely best wishes, they meant a lot to me.

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#1 – One of my all-time favorite movies, Dead Man, directed by Jim Jarmusch, and starring Johnny Depp. This link will take you to a short video by A.O. Scott of the NYTimes, reviewing the movie and showing some great scenes and surprising cameos (Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Robert Mitchum!). You can’t stream it on Netflix, but you can add it to your queue. There isn’t anything I don’t love about this movie – the actors, the story, the absolutely GORGEOUS black and white cinematography, the striking imagery, the weirdness, Gary Farmer as Nobody, Johnny Depp as William Blake, the references, the landscape, the ending, the feeling, the music, the depiction of the west, the depiction of native american culture, everything. Ostensibly, it’s about the journey of William Blake, out to the west, and then his journey after being shot. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s literary, full of symbolism and metaphor, it’s spiritual, it’s just amazing. I don’t even know how many times I’ve watched it, and I always want to watch it again. It’s meditative and moody, and so am I so I absolutely love this movie.

#2- A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford and starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.  Again, not available for streaming but you can queue it on Netflix. I’ve never seen any Colin Firth movies, but I want to, after seeing his performance in this movie. Of course it’s a very stylish movie – veering occasionally into a little too much focus on the style of it, leaving me to wonder if I was just watching an extended ad for some vague product, but it has enough substance, finally, to overwhelm that feeling. Colin Firth gives such a subtle performance; he conveys every kind of feeling you might imagine, even though he’s playing a man who is relatively buttoned up….but not really. You just have to look closely, as he says once. Julianne Moore is gorgeous, enhanced by the wonderful style of the 1960s. It’s a haunting movie, and I was completely taken aback by the ending. I wanted to watch it again from the beginning, as soon as the last credit rolled. If you like a lot of action and excitement you won’t find it here; but if you enjoy lingering, and thinking, and being absorbed by a mood, you’ll find that here.

I got a few rows of knitting done last night, on my little socky-poo:

heading down the foot toward the toe

I’ll say one thing: these are going to be warm socks! I tried this one on, oh so carefully, and the fit is wonderful, and the squishiness guarantees warmth. Now if I can just imagine the day when I’ll long for warmth.

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here's how you use it

I keep it in the drawer with my other miscellaneous stuff next to the couch; now and then I see it and think “maybe I’ll use that to count rows” but of course I don’t. My dad died in 1982, and this is one of 2 things I have, of his. If you know what this is called, let me know! It’s probably just called a counter. But I like old things like this, old machines.

For a bit of knitted content, since that’s the ostensible reason for this blog, I set aside my circle socks to finish (or at least almost finish) Marnie’s wedding shawl. Here’s how it looks now, with the heel flap. I just adore the color changes.

heel flap done, ready to pick up gusset stitches

And finally, since I’ve mentioned that Marnie’s wedding is handmade, I thought I’d show you a bit of her invitation. She is a print-maker and artist and book artist, so she put it all together for a truly unique wedding invitation. Guests received a giant mailing tube in the mail; inside was a large woodblock print of the wedding cabin, done in the style of the old WPA National Parks posters. It’s amazing. She carved the blocks by hand, of course, and printed them all one at a time.

Also in the tube was a small handmade book providing all the details – the when, where, how, what else to see, etc. It’s so charming I wanted to show you a couple of things from it:

adorable, right? this is the front cover of the book.

When you open the book, you get the charming story of the beginning of Tom and Marnie’s life together. She handset the type:

the top of the page (click to enlarge, and you can read it)

the bottom of the page

Then there are a few pages of specific information, followed by the schedule of events for the wedding day. I draw your attention to one part of that page:

look in the red box. are they cute? YES.

I love this. I was never clever enough, or self-confident enough, to think about any options beyond the norm. It worked, and that was good enough!

But isn’t that adorable? Really? It’s not just me, right? She also included unique postcards in each tube for the RSVPs. Each postcard featured a great old woodblock print of the WPA National Parks. Ever the artist, she created a flickr set to show all the responses. They’re often quite wonderful; click here to see them.

We’re dying here in NYC; today it hit 102 in Central Park. Lest you southerners or westerners scoff “102, big deal!” keep in mind that people here don’t have central air, for the most part. They have little window units, if they have anything at all. My husband was telling me that when he first moved here, people used to leave their apartments and sleep in Central Park when it was too hot, but then it became too dangerous to do that.

Stay cool, yo.

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madelinetosh - tosh merino light, in northumbria. THREE glorious skeins!

flowers from a very dear author and friend, and Crumbs(!) cupcakes from a very dear colleague and friend

the rebirth of my wowie zowie sock! YAY for following patterns and friendly assistance!

is there anything more beautiful than a peony?

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So, one of my ravelry friends (hi Margaret!) gave me some sock knitting tips for my Wowie Zowie sock since she’s knitting them too (and using the same yarn, but a different colorway, so very lucky for me), and tonight I’m going to cast on again with the same yarn. I was making new-knitter mistakes, misunderstanding just how much yarn 8 extra stitches per row can consume, and underestimating how much yarn my few rows of ribbing were taking up. It’s a close fit, anyway; the pattern uses 460 yards per sock, and the balls contain 480 yards. Not a lot of room for adding to the pattern. In addition to my newbie errors, I’d somehow missed the close fit which would’ve made me much more cautious with my modifications. I’ll also try to lighten up a bit and not knit so tightly, for heaven’s sake.

I’m thrilled! I particularly loved that yarn with that pattern, and was entirely smitten with the interaction between pattern and color changes. In fact, I was thinking about how much I’d like to wear them with a skirt so they’d be visible to everyone. Show them off a little. Feel happy when people say “hey, where did you get those amazing socks!” because I expect people would actually ask me. That kind of thing happens to me.

come back to me, lover sock....

Isn’t it great when you’re in love with the things you’re knitting?

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And the yarn – I totally love the yarn. I love the shifts in color, and the particular colors themselves….that brilliant turquoise, a deep olive, dark reds, light purples, rich browns. And this variegated yarn works great with this pattern, because the color contrasts are so interesting.

BUT. Oh, how there is a but. As Pee-Wee Herman said to Simone, sitting in the dinosaur’s head, “everyone I know has a big but.”*** For some reason I wasn’t going to have nearly enough yarn! After only 3 pattern repeats, I was more than halfway finished with one ball of yarn. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and they always listed 2 balls of yarn for a pair of socks. And the pattern makes these 3D squishy socks….but mine were stiff like heavy cardboard. I kept going back to ravelry, looking at other people’s project pages for this pattern knit with this yarn, and my needles were the same size as theirs. I must have been knitting very tightly. I know I was, actually, because I was fighting the needles.

Desperately I decided oh what the hell, I’ll just make the tops kind of short. Three pattern repeats, that’ll be ok, right? But what if I still run out of yarn, and end up needing to buy another ball or two? Then I’d have too-short socks for no good reason. I forged ahead, trusting – other people got one sock out of one ball of yarn, other people used these needles, it all worked out, other times and other projects I thought it’s not going to work but then it did so just keep going, trust the project.

Two-thirds of the way down the heel flap I finally threw in the towel. I pulled the sock off the needles and pulled it on my foot, just to see. Yeah, it was stiff and cardboardey. I had clung too tightly to the yarn and needles. Kind of like life, during hard times – clinging too tightly is not going to help. I love it when knitting reinforces a life lesson.

***here’s that clip from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, where he says that hilarious line to Simone:

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Last night I cast on and it was such fun knitting, I just kept saying “Just let me finish this needle” “After this row I’ll be ready for bed” “Let me finish this pattern repeat.” YOU know how that goes.

circle socks - incredibly fun to knit, and fast!

I added a short section of ribbing at the top, just because I always like ribbing on my socks. Want to see that cool section up close?

whoa. that is REALLY cool.

I’ve decided to name this pair of socks Wowie Zowie, for the most obvious of reasons.

I hope to get something done today besides knitting. Wait. Do I really?! Or is that just what we say because we know we’re supposed to do something besides knitting. I think that’s it – I would actually love nothing more than to sit in my cozy little spot, with endless cups of mint tea, good movies on Netflix, and to knit the whole day, until it’s time for sleep again. Too bad I need sleep.

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Anyway. I proudly introduce you to the Minkeys …. pink monkeys, get it? (the word minkeys makes me giggle because I hear it as Inspector Clouseau — Chief Inspector Clouseau — would say it.)

the top/left sock hasn't been blocked yet - the other one has

oh, you minkeys

i love socks.......

The yarn is the incredibly soft Felici, from KnitPicks. The first pair of socks I knit with this yarn still looks great, after a couple years’ washing. They get a lofty halo, but they’re very hard-wearing. And they don’t need any special care at all, double good for busy people.

These socks are for the bride-to-be, my daughter Marnie. When my older daughter Katie got married, she gave Marnie a t-shirt that said “I’m a worm farmin’ power liftin’ bad ass” and that really says it all. Since Marnie has this photo in her Facebook photo album (and therefore it’s public) I don’t think she’d mind my posting it here.

Marnie and Tom, getting married in a few weeks - taken at Katie's wedding rehearsal

It’s such fun finishing something, if only because I feel a little less guilty about casting on a new project.

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knitting the 2nd minkey

So last night, after our lovely day of celebrating my husband for Father’s Day, I had to head down to the Wall Street area to have dinner with an author whose work was partly responsible for my becoming a social psychologist. There were still crowds of tourists – many in town for the day celebrating their own husbands and dads, from the look and sound of it. I took my place, standing in the middle of the car, and pulled out my knitting. Like I do. A couple of stops later, much of the crowd exited the train, and a new crowd entered. An older woman with very obvious false teeth sat down facing me, and started grinning and chattering about the sock I was knitting. She has a friend back home who makes socks, she couldn’t wait to tell her about seeing me standing up knitting something with all those stripes (self-striping yarn, ma’am), and all the holes (it’s lace, ma’am), on all those needles (we call them double-pointed needles, ma’am).

Her warm friendliness seemed to open the door for conversation with me about what I was doing, because all of a sudden everyone around me started asking questions, wanting to see what I was making – how do you do that standing up? It was nice, and I enjoyed telling people all about it. That crowd left, and I took a seat.

The man I was sitting next to just kept up the conversation. He was curious about using 4 needles – oh, that’s how you knit in a circle! He realized I was knitting a sock and asked how I made it smaller to get to the toe. Oh, that makes sense! It made me laugh, and remember the days when my kids were young, and I used to take my spinning wheel to their classrooms for a demonstration of spinning – usually during the “let’s learn about the farm” week in the spring. The girls always wanted to touch the wool to their cheeks, and they asked where Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger. The boys just wanted to know how the wheel worked.

I guess those tendencies remain even in adults. It made me very happy, the whole thing.

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beautiful, beautiful marilyn

From the NYTimes:  “There is a sublime silliness to Halsman’s images that can make you laugh or at least smile regardless of how often you see them. They may offer incontrovertible proof of Schiller’s claim that ‘all art is dedicated to joy.’ Evidently the simple act of getting off the ground requires giving in to something like joy. You have to let go.  One of the purest examples of this joy is an image of Halsman himself, holding hands with a smiling Marilyn Monroe several feet off the ground. Facing his partner, he seems ecstatic, as if he cannot believe his luck.”   Credit: The Estate of Philippe Halsman/Laurence Miller Gallery

Second: this line from Nabokov, which has haunted me since I read it yesterday.  “The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.”

And third, one minkey down, one to go:

one minkey down, one to go!

And a bonus thing that made me smile and feel all sorts of things, courtesy of an email from Marnie:

“have you seen marina abramovic’s endurance performance “the artist is present,” where she sits in chair for the entire length of her retrospective. there is a chair opposite her, and visitors sit and look at her and she looks back. the flickr group is so compelling: about 1/4 of the people are in tears.”

Here’s to an interesting Wednesday.

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