Day 75: When a joke isn't

I am teaching my language and gender class this semester.  And I am a linguist, which means that I'm always thinking about the ways in which the use of language serves to (re)create social structures, especially structures of power.  And I have a fantastic student doing an independent study this semester on toxic masculinity and ways of changing the production of masculinity to avoid toxicity. 

All of this is to say that, when a dear friend said this weekend, as someone who believed he is doing a favor for us in watching over our younger daughter while she's at college, that he'd get a pitchfork to fend off the droves of people who would want her, it arrested my attention.  When I pointed out that she's more than capable of making informed and intelligent choices about her body, relationships, and sexuality, he said he was just kidding, with a bit of a wink and a nudge.

I didn't point out all the ways that it wasn't a joke.  I didn't point out that, for that statement to be a joke, it must rely on our shared understanding and acceptance of a set of social structures that have been labelled patriarchy, the oppression of women, toxic masculinity, and rape culture.  I should have.  But I did that social smoothing over thing, and copped out.  I should have, though, because when we put "jokes" like that out in the world, we repeat, believe, and create the structures that those jokes rely on.  In other words, they aren't jokes - they not only reflect but also make the world we live in.

Basically, that joke assumes that: men are sexually aggressive; women should be sexually pure; the sexual purity of women is of consequence to the men to whom women "belong" in some way (older brothers, fathers, etc); those men become upset when other men advance on those women and thus have to fight those other men off. 

Those assumptions are at the heart of the structures I mentioned above. They subordinate women to the will of men (either men's will to have sex with them, or their will that women not have sex).  They license aggression on the part of men by presuming that it is natural and innate (the evidence is strongly in that it is not).  Those two things coupled make rape culture seem natural (rape is what happens when females are available to male sexual aggression, which is why women are often blamed for their rapes - they shouldn't have been available, which is something they control; while men are not blamed, because their aggression and their sexuality are assumed to not be under their control).  All of these are hallmarks of patriarchy - a world which centers male stories and perspectives.

For this reason, I absolutely loathe the jokes about fathers waiting in the bushes with loaded guns to scare their daughters' dates.  They depend on the same idea that daughters are their fathers' possessions, and that fathers don't want them to be taken away by boys/men.  I also hate the "don't hit women" trope - it assumes the male violence is normal and that it must be restrained to protect weak women.  Why don't we say, don't hit people?  Honestly - why don't we say that?

Don't hit people, y'all.  And please don't make jokes that aren't.

Day 74: Back, one fewer

We flew home yesterday, Rick and I, one person fewer than we started with.  We had a great time at orientation, and exploring Seattle a bit while making sure that Kiv had everything she needs to get started with the quarter.  Having time to make the transition helps - first we're all in one hotel room, then she's in her dorm but we're still seeing each other, then off we go.  It's the moment the plane takes off that kind of gets me - this is how far away she is.  This is how long it would take me to get to her if something were to happen. 

At the same time, though, is the feeling of - this is the place where she gets to take her first steps into independent adulthood. This is the place that will nurture her learning, and the growth of her self.  This will become her place, where she is the knower, the insider.  This is her launching pad.

And check out the excitement - it doesn't get better than that.

Day 68: A big step

Tomorrow, Rick and Kiv and I fly up to Seattle.  Her college orientation is on Thursday, and then we have a day to poke around before she moves into the dorms at Seattle U on Saturday.  Rick and I will hang out on Sunday, partly because we haven't had a lot of time the two of us lately, and partly just in case there are any last-minute things we all forgot to pack or ship, and then we head home, and our younger daughter will stay behind.

I have to say, having done this once, that there is something weird about that walking away moment.  It's exactly the right thing, it's expected and exciting; it's not like it's even the first time we've left her or she's left us.  But this step feels bigger, somehow.  Bigger in all the right ways.  Bigger like she gets to figure out how she likes to be in the world without seeing herself reflected in our eyes each night.  Bigger like she gets to figure out so many things about herself.  Bigger like each year she goes back to school is one step closer to that day when coming home on breaks and holidays isn't the automatic thing to do, because she will have this huge expansive life of her own.  And we'll have an important place in that life, but an important place among other important things.  And that's all as it should be.  But that walking away moment, when we turn to go and she turns to stay.  Whew.  That's a big one.

As I think I mentioned, there was a time when I was going to go on retreat (cancelled in the Tilly time), and although I realized I wasn't going to go before I had to say it, I wouldn't have posted during the days I was there.  (Silent retreat and all.)  When I made the commitment to my magpie year, I knew that there might be periods like that.  I'd been thinking about the retreats required by my teacher training, but I've decided that I'd like to treat these five days as a different kind of retreat.  I'd like to treat them as a time to be fully present for this transition, without narrating it in my head in preparation for writing about it.  If it turn out that I have something I really need or want to share, I will.  But what I'm saying is, I'm giving myself a spaciousness here, with as few obligations as possible.  So I'll see y'all on the flip side.

Day 66: Done!!

So, as I wrote earlier, I finished this about a week and a half ago.  I took the finishing in alternating bits - weave in some ends, knit squares together, weave in more ends, knit strips together, weave in some ends, knit the sides, weave in the last ends.  That helped a lot with making all of the ends seem less daunting.  And today, after taking Kiv to Target to get the last (almost - there will be more Target shopping once we get to Seattle, for things we don't want to pack like light bulbs and school supplies) of her packing list, we finally had time to take a few photos.  I think you can see that she was humoring me.  And now it's folded up and packed away.  We leave midday on Wednesday. 

The details again.  This was The Shieling (the link is to my Rav project page), Kate Davies' spectacular blanket pattern.  The colors and yarn were so perfect for the pattern that I decided to forego messing around, and ordered the yarn from Kate.  I used 31 balls of Milarrochy Tweed (a wool/mohair blend).  I have bits and bobs left over, but only one full ball over the amount called for in the pattern (and that full ball is in the main color, Hirst).  The pattern is well-written and easy to follow, and honestly, it was a fun knit - it was only the timetable (and the fact that it's a blanket, so there's a LOT of it) that added a certain je ne sais quois to the whole experience. 

But it's done, and now my girl will have a hug to take with her to college.

Day 64: Sneak peek

This has actually been done for a bit, but there’s been no time for photos. Looks like I made that deadline!

Negotiations

I keep trying to figure out how to start these posts.  It feels to me, in some ways, like starting in the middle of the story - giving updates on where I am now, presupposing everything that's happened in the last year.  At some point, I'll go back and write about how I got here.  But not today.

Today, I'm thinking about how I've been learning to negotiate with activities and objects that I really never had to think about before.  One interesting aspect of RA, for me, is that, while I'm very lucky and none of my joints has undergone remodeling, they certainly aren't unaffected.  They can be uncomfortable quite a bit of the time, and sometimes actively painful.  But worse, for me, is that they often feel weak.  In a lot of ways, that is the feature of this year that I've had to bring all of my self-compassion and mindfulness to bear on, in order to avoid ruminating and spiraling into worries about a future that hasn't happened yet, and which may never come.  I grew up playing piano - my first real job in high school was as a piano teacher.  I knit.  I spin.  I write by hand (and love my fountain pens and Traveller's Notebooks).  I ride my horse.  I cook.  In each of these activities, I have always taken the strength and dexterity of my hands for granted.  Up until a year and a half ago, I had never cut myself with a kitchen knife - ever.  (And I cook a LOT.)  I zested my thumb with a lemon zester once (I don't recommend it), but that's it.  And then in the course of two months (February and March 2017), I cut myself twice, once badly enough that we sort of stared at it for a while and wondered whether it needed stitches (especially when it would NOT stop bleeding for half an hour, while I put pressure on it and held my hand over my head).  It was so unlike me that I didn't quite know what to make of it - I am not (was not) clumsy with my hands.  It wasn't until much later that I put it together, and came to think of it as the first joint-related warning sign that all was not well.

Rereading that, here's the statement that I think captures the emotional tension of the last year:

I am not (was not) clumsy with my hands.

That's a lot to come to grips with.  (ha)

One place where I have to do a lot of negotiating is at the barn.  The spigot handle of the hose I use to fill Disco's water bucket is often really tight, and the nozzle we've attached to the hose takes me two hands to open up and close again.  I have learned to notice the frustration and anger that arise when I struggle with these tasks.  Mostly, I manage to take a deep breath, laugh a little, and go back and take it slowly.  Mostly.

On days when things hurt, one of the toughest barn jobs is also one of the most ubiquitous - picking out Disco's hooves.  This is something that I need to do before and after every ride (and I also do it after turning her out) to make sure she hasn't picked up a stone which would stay lodged in the frog of her hoof, or under the shoe - that's uncomfortable, and not so good for her.  It also gives me a chance to check her shoes, and the condition of her hooves, and how her feet and legs are doing.  But hoof picking is a tough task.  It involves bending over, picking up a hoof, and holding it while I dig out anything that's gotten stuck in there.  D's pretty good about it - she picks up her hooves politely when asked (she even anticipates which hoof is next), but she doesn't do all the work of holding them up, and, lacking fingers and wrists, she can't do the digging out part (that's my job).

 That's her back right hoof.  I'm facing backwards, with my right shoulder against her right back leg.  I usually hold her hoof up with my right hand, but (in the interests of trying to take a picture), I'm holding her leg up between my knees, and the camera is in my right hand.  I hold the pick with my thumb on top and fingers on the bottom - the circle shows the pick itself, and the arrow is the direction it's moving.  The goal is to get all of the dirt (and whatever it's hiding) out of there.

For fun, I also took a video of what this looks like.  But my main point here is that this job works my back, both wrists (one to hold up the hoof, the other to pick), and especially the thumb joint and wrist (which has to use a rotational movement to get the job done) of the picking hand.  And I get to do this eight times (one for each hoof before and after riding) whenever I get out there.

At the same time, I'm aware of how good for me my time with Disco is.  Physically, it motivates me to keep moving - and believe me, riding a horse like her in the ways that we ride takes focus, concentration, and a lot of physical work.  Emotionally and spiritually - well, there's nothing like spending time with a half-ton dance partner to ground and uplift at the same time.

All of this captures an interesting tension that exists for me at this stage of the disease.  On the one hand, I am feeling and living the things that are harder for me, or that I have to negotiate differently than I have in the past - and I am sometimes feeling that as a loss.  On the other hand, I am keenly aware that I haven't (yet?) had to give up anything, and that I am so very lucky to have that be true, and to have Disco (among other things and beings) to motivate me to keep it that way.  I'm guessing that I'm not at all alone in living that tension, or in understanding the importance of finding and embracing those motivators.

And speaking of motivators - here's another one, with something to celebrate.  Kivrin, my 17-year-old high school senior, got her license on Tuesday!  She's happy, and I'm happy for her (and for me, as you might imagine).

You go, girl!

Little things (inevitably becoming bigger things)

I meant to post as soon as I got back from my recent trip, but immediately came down with an airplane cold (you know the kind I'm talking about - the one where you sit on a plane, listening to someone hacking up a lung two rows behind and caddycorner from you, and think, yep, here it comes, baby!), and have spent the last five days or so in sinus misery.  I can finally breathe through my nose again, and even though my head still feels kind of fuzzy and I frequently lose my train of thought, I figured I'd take my chances and try to compose something that makes sense.

What recent trip, you're probably asking?  Well, I managed to make time to go to Massachusetts to see my older daughter for her final riding competition of the year, and for her birthday.  Unfortunately, we were busy enough that I didn't also make time to see many loved friends and relatives while I was there - but not unfortunately, she and I had a lovely long weekend together, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I also didn't take work with me; I can't tell you how long that's been.  (So long, in fact, that I kept having to ask her: shouldn't I be doing something right now?  You know, other than eating and sleeping and knitting and reading and visiting?  Something like work?  No, mom, she kept reassuring me - no.)

She is one of the (once-)little things in my life (you know what I mean - not a little thing in my life, but she was once tiny) that is clearly (!!) not so little any more (and again, !!).

That's Tess.  (The girls are now old enough that I decided it was up to them whether I used their names or Older/Younger Daughter, and they have both given me permission to use their names.)  She just turned 19 last week.  That means it's been 19 years since I brought her home, a new mom, the first of my friends to have a child.  I so clearly remember sitting with my friend Leela at the kitchen table, the day after Rick went back to work, staring at Tess in her car seat then looking at each other and going, now what do we do with her?

Well, in spite/because of what we did with/to her, there she is, happily ensconced at college, halfway through the second semester of her sophomore year.  Majoring in Biology (which still comes as a bit of a shock - she was my unstoppable lit/social science person; just goes to show you what an excellent teacher can do to inspire a student, and boy did she have an excellent bio teacher in high school). While she was in class, I grabbed the opportunity to take my new camera for a walk around campus.

 It wasn't warm.  In fact, the lovely innkeepers at the place where we stayed referred to the weather as "raw", a word that I remember my mother using (it's not something you hear often from a Californian) to describe exactly the kind of chill, damp weather we had when I was there.

I found myself, as I often am, unreasonably charmed by the ice, encasing these leaves, and the lower lake. 

(Yes, I did manage to restrain myself from poking the ice with a stick. But only because the trees had already done it for me.)

 As I walked, I found myself near the greenhouse on campus, where I wandered into a fairy tale spring.

I took endless pictures of flowers, which I won't subject you to here.  It was so lush and beautiful, and they were able to grow such a huge range of plants in such a small place.  I wish I enjoyed gardening more, because I certainly love gardens!

And then, as it started to snow, I wandered around campus.  Yes, my daughter apparently attends Hogwarts.

 But our visit wasn't all classes and walks on campus!  There was much time spent with horses.

Including several brutally early mornings spent in astonishingly cold barns (the team riders call MHC's barn The Icebox - the name is well-earned).  Thank goodness horse blankets are warm and available (if you don't mind smelling of horses!).

I also got to see Tess compete with her team.

I never cease to be amazed at her courage and guts.  In these competitions, riders draw their horses by lot, and ride what they get.  Tess, like me, isn't naturally inclined towards public performance or competition, and yet there she is, quite literally getting back up on horses after falling off, getting thrown (last spring, getting a concussion), dealing with good moods, bad moods, squirrelly, calm, whatever she gets, and simultaneously having to think about her equitation.  I know that she didn't do as well in this competition as she'd hoped, but that doesn't change how I feel about her and who she is and what she does.

I'm still getting used to having a daughter who's living on her own, far away from home.  Getting to spend this time with her, in her space, was a real gift.  I mean, I know in my head that she has her own life, but there's something really lovely about getting to actually see her move confidently in a space that she has made her own, getting to meet and spend time with the fabulous, interesting, and funny women whom she's made her friends, seeing how she navigates a world that is entirely hers and never was mine.  This is exactly what we raise our children to do - to go out and be themselves in the world.  But it's not something that's easy to imagine before it actually happens.  And really, it happens again and again at different stages in their lives.  Each step that my girls take into themselves feels new and exciting, and, at the same time, exactly what I expected to have happen.  I found myself deeply touched by how willing she is to open the door and let me in for a while, sharing her time and her place with me.  Rick has business on the east coast at the end of the month, and will get to have his own visit with her (which makes me feel a bit less guilty about our snatched mother/daughter time).

And it wasn't all horses and ice.  I was going to avoid WEBS, because honestly - I need more yarn like I need a hole in my head.  But Tess had finished the project that she started while she was here for the holidays, and (my hand to god - it was her idea, not mine) wanted to go to get yarn for projects to knit in lecture.

That's the lovely scarf (it's HUGE) that she knitted (she offered to knit me one if I got her the yarn, and I was SO tempted, but it turns out I live in, you know, San Diego, and it's already April, so it didn't seem practical).  Of course, once I was there, I succumbed, but!  You'll be impressed - I got one thing, for one project, and I knitted and wore it while I was there.  I'll post FO shots next time, but here's a teaser in the meantime - another small thing that got bigger (those are little mini-skeins of, get this, cashmere; how could I walk away from that?!).
.

Unfortunately, after all of that loveliness, I came home not only to a cold, but to two missing chickens.  Because that left us with one lone chicken, and because there's nothing sadder in the world than a lonely chicken, three more small things came to join us last week.

 They, too, are (thankfully) getting bigger!

What I've done

Other than posting on the blog, because clearly that hasn't been on the Giant List o' Things To Do Yesterday (or, Preferably, Last Week).  During this past semester, I have:

- Prepped a completely new class, entirely out of my area of expertise (it's a class about public education, and I am, as noted previously, a linguist), as a hybrid course (meaning I can't BS my way through class when I haven't prepped ahead of time half of it is taught online)
- Written two letters of support for faculty sabbaticals
- Reviewed one tenure file and written a letter in support of that
- Written one letter nominating a faculty member for an award
  (it's worth mentioning that doing those letters takes WAY more time than you might think)
- Written student letters of recommendation
- Written (and I SO wish I were kidding about this) 2500+ email messages
- Finished the endless rounds of editing on a peer-reviewed article
- Prepared a conference presentation (I kind of overworked that one, and wrote 15 single-spaced pages for a 15-minute presentation - oops)
- Edited a conference presentation into something that could be done in 15 minutes
- Prepared comments as a discussant on a conference panel
- Written my last (!!) program chair report for my annual conference
ETA:  And I forgot the 10-year plan for my department, and the five-page single-spaced hiring memo I had to write.  Man, I have written more memos this semester than you can shake a stick at!

And none of that includes the usual round of grading, meeting with students, going to meetings (endless, endless meetings), running meetings (which I don't get to knit during - bitter, bitter, bitter).  Etc.  Etc.

Et - frickin' - cetera. *

Note that on that list one does not see, oh, you know: knitting or spinning or weaving.  I have, to my great pleasure, mostly managed to keep up my workouts, which now include regular yoga and meditation.  And I've shaved a minute off my best mile time, so that's also good.

But honestly.

I have managed to squeeze some knitting in - my conference in Chicago, long and exhausting (and cold!!) as it was, did give me some solid knitting time for once.  So while I don't have a lot to show, I do have a couple of FOs to present.  First, Song of the Sea (the long version):

This is a lovely cowl, which I knitted out of SeaSilk (which I adore).  I think that, in wearing, the pattern might show more clearly in something that slouches less, but I do love the weight of it around my neck.

The colors here aren't showing too well, so I'll try to get some pictures of this being used around my neck, in better light.  It's a beautiful sea-grey, which we all know is one of my favorite all-time colors.

The other thing I finished (largely because of the aforementioned conference knitting time) is Viajante, which I started way back in May.  It's (as a local knitting friend commented) a lot of stockinette.  But in laceweight, that makes it excellent travel knitting, and now that it's done, I think I"ll wear this a LOT.  It's knitted out of Lorna's Laces Helen's Lace Multi, in a colorway that I like to think of as "Kestrel" - some of you may remember my ongoing fascination with those lovely little birds of prey - and stretched out to block, it really kind of does look like a bird's wing:

You can see the colors much more accurately here:

This is a fun little pattern (for those of you who haven't jumped on board with it yet) that can be worn both as a shawl:

And as a poncho.

They are equally delightful and cozy - hence the predicted wearability of this one.

And that's about it.  My Green Wood sweater languishes in the basket next to the couch, because I haven't had the brain space for colorwork.  The TARDIS mitts, ditto.  I have cast on for a pair of socks for Rick; I have some small hope of finishing those before Christmas, we'll see.  As usual, I do not have major holiday-knitting ambitions: the socks for Rick, the TARDIS mitts for Older Daughter (I think if I can get the stitch count right, they'll go quickly), and socks for Younger Daughter.  That's it.

But classes are over.  I have three more piles of grading to get through in the next week and a half.  I am NOT prepping a brand-new class for spring.  So, while I'm afraid to say this out loud: maybe, just maybe, I'll get a break during this holiday break.

Meanwhile, by way of a peace offering, this is a virtual ensemble, created by 31 musicians around the world, playing separately, and then having their music aggregated into one lovely piece.  Older Daughter is one of those musicians (as is her fiddle teacher Diane) - you can see her early on in the video, under her real name, Tess.  I think she's pretty neat.

* This is an example of the only infix in English.  We have plenty of suffixes and prefixes, no circumfixes (affixes with two pieces which go on either side of the root), but just the one infix (an affix which goes into the middle of the root), and that's the f-word (although in British English, "bloody" and its euphemisms can also be used in this way).  In other languages with infixes, they are just normal parts of the grammar, not naughty words.  But we're special.  So now you know that you're doing cool morphological stuff when you stick the f-word into the middle of another word.  You're welcome.

Reboot

Thank you for all of the comments and feedback on my sweater conundrum.  My final conclusion was that the whole thing was trouble (very precise and technically-oriented, I know), so I ripped out both halves of the edging and started again.  Slowly.  I picked up for the outside facing, and then ran a lifeline through the stitches (which wasn't easy, as these are small stitches, knitted relatively tightly on small needles), so that I'd be able to find them again easily when I went back.  Then I knitted the front facing, put it evenly onto two needles (to keep from squishing all the stitches and making them unmanageable when I went back for the inside facing), and went back to pick up the purl bumps just above the legs of the original stitches (the legs being easy easier to spot now that they were on a lifeline).  That took eons, but it worked.  I should mention that there was also some very careful (and time-consuming) counting (and re-counting) of the 497 stitches on both sets of needles prior to the knitting of the inside facing.  Then I knitted them all together for the three needle bind-off.  That took the better part of all the knitting time I could devote to it last week (about 15 minutes to rip out everything I'd done, and then hours and hours - literally, though I wish I were exaggerating - to get it all done again).  I had that pretty much done by latelate Saturday night, when Older Daughter got home from this:

(Some of you may recognize the signs of prom.)  In fact, much of Saturday was spent on the getting-ready part of prom (getting nails done, for example).  There was even hair-doing.  I'm not much of a girl, really, and you've all seen how short my hair is these days, so that involved going out to actually purchase a hair-dryer and curling iron (!!).  I think Older Daughter was deeply concerned that the curling iron part of things might end up like this, but I finally let her know that I did, in fact, once upon a time own (and even use!) such a thing on myself, and it all turned out OK in the end.

Sunday morning (after coffee and croissants, my requested mother's day treat), Rick and I headed out (leaving prom-exhausted girls behind) to this:

The start of the Amgen Tour of California.  In downtown Escondido.  Where it topped 100 degrees before the race even started at 11:15.  After a quick lunch at home, we went out to the last King of the Mountain points banner to watch the riders come up their last big hill (they'd already climbed Mt. Palomar in the heat, poor guys); it was still over 100 degrees, under 25% humidity, and they looked pretty beat.  We stood in the shade and cheered (we even showed up on the TV coverage, heh).  I love a good stage race - we'll see how this one turns out.

Then home we went, where I finally (finally!!) picked up stitches around the bottom of the sweater, completed an i-cord cast-off around all of those stitches plus the ones still on the needles around the front and hood (it felt amazingly like a walk in the park after the facing debacle), and then did the same thing for the sleeves.  And wove in the ends.  And then this morning, knowing that we were in for another scorcher, I soaked and blocked the sweater before leaving for work.  The sweater is now, of course, quite dry.  All that remains is to put in the zipper.

(Bad picture, but it was that or nothing.)

That, my friends, is a sweater.  Ends woven in, i-cord edging complete.  Ends woven in (have I mentioned how many ends there were in this sweater?).  And double-sided front/hood edging?

Done.

Fly-by

OK, only three days off from my intended post.  I keep meaning to stick to posting on Sundays, but this last Sunday I spent getting a lot of pre-holiday shopping done (mostly the kinds of things that need to be made in advance or sent in advance), plus finding a pair of black slacks for an event that Older Daughter had to attend last night - can I just say that it's harder to find black slacks than you might think it should be at this time of the year?  (Can I also just say that it is perhaps time for Older Daughter to stop growing?  5'8"+ seems fairly reasonable to me, it's not like I'm asking her to stay at my 5'(ahemalmost)3", right?  Surely she could just take up coffee drinking like a normal teenager and we'll call it good?)

I've been postponing posting under the theory that it would be nice to have pictures of my finished and ongoing knitting, but I also realize that the chance of me and my camera and my knitting all ending up in the same place at the same time is pretty small right now, so I'm going with what I've got.  I did finish the second Wine Dark Sea sweater, so I'll try to get some pictures of that this weekend to post.  I also cast on for a pair of socks for Younger Daughter for Christmas, and I'm almost done with the first one.  They're just plain old socks, out of very colorful yarn (and, therefore, mismatched), just the way she likes them.  Holiday knitting this year will be minimal - socks for Younger Daughter, a hat (more on that in a moment) for Rick, and the beginnings of a sweater for Older Daughter (I got the yarn, and as she has not yet picked the pattern, I figure I'm not responsible for not having cast on yet, right?).

As to the hat, that will be knitted out of these two skeins of happy handspun.

Isn't that pretty?  That is spun from some gorgeous fiber, hand-dyed by Erica, who does amazing things with color (which you can't see well, in that washed-out photo, but more this weekend, I promise).  I liked the colors so much in this one that I didn't want the whole thing to turn out barber-poled - I wanted some of those colors to stay true, so I tried something I've never done before.  I spun the singles woolen, and then I chain-plied the whole thing.  I am delighted with the way it turned out.  This is probably the squishiest yarn I have ever spun - the skeins feel like marshmallows.  The colors will look very nice with Rick's eyes, so I offered to knit him a hat out of it.  He has requested something warm enough to ski in on cold days, so that's the plan.  The hat will need to be double-layered, but he suggested that he would be OK if the lining were knitted out of something else, in case there's not enough yardage.  I'll wind it up tonight and see what it looks like, but I really can't wait to cast on for this one.

Other than that, I've been spending as much time as possible outdoors.  A friend (who shall remain unnamed but not blameless) turned me on to Instagram, so I keep posting pictures of all the outdoor time I'm getting - something to do with my constant phone photos!  (If anyone else is on Instagram and doesn't mind a daily dose of outdoorness - or an every-other-daily-dose - I'm Knitting Linguist there, too.)

The ocean at La Jolla on Saturday had me dying to cast on for a sweater in the seafoam green yarn I got myself last summer.  Soon...soon...

But the most exciting event of the last little while was last night.  A few years ago, a dear friend of mine told me about an amazing program here in San Diego, called BEWiSE (Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering, I believe), whose goal is to get girls involved in science and technology earlier in life, so that they're comfortable pursuing careers in those fields later.  Older Daughter applied and got in, and since then, she has had opportunity after opportunity to participate in truly amazing workshops.  This August, the best one of all came along, and she applied and was accepted.  Fifteen girls are (get this) building a micro-lab which will go up to the International Space Station.  Inside that lab is an experiment that they have designed and implemented - the goal being to observe some phenomenon in micro-gravity.  There are only a handful of other schools doing this.  The girls decided to grow alum crystals to observe the effects of micro-gravity on the structure of the crystals, and they're working on their prototype lab right now (these labs are 2 x 2 x 4 inches).  It will be sent up to the ISS in March, and when it comes back down, they'll be able to examine the crystals under an electron microscope. 

Dudes.  She's designing and implementing an experiment that's going into SPACE.  For real.  Does it get cooler than that?

Apparently, it kind of does, because last night, the organizers of this project hosted a celebration event at UCSD's CALIT2, where not only did all sort of people who are heavily involved in advocating for science and technology education in the US come to speak, but there was a member of the astronaut corps, Dr. Yvonne Cagle, an amazing woman who spent 15 years as an MD before realizing that her dream was to be an astronaut, and then pursuing that dream.  That woman stood up in front of our girls and called them an inspiration.  I think it was a mutual admiration society, because you could see them light up when she stood up there - a woman who had gone before them, paving that road and making it a little clearer, a little easier to walk.

I don't even come close to having the words to say how thrilling it was, how proud I am of my daughter, and, when I saw those pictures of that astonishingly beautiful structure out there in space, built by people of often-warring nations, together, how much hope I have for humanity.