Knitting myself well

A blur of a week, what with trying to breathe past virus and the daily workout of coughing up my lungs. Significant improvement to my abs must result, as everything hurts enough.

A great week for mindless knitting to finish up projects however. Let it never be said that I do not make good use of my time, in whatever condition I find myself.

The down side of course is that as I begin to feel better, I have attacks of 'startitis' that are so frequent that more blurring takes place.  I began the Orkney Pi shawl in Zephyr wool & silk lace weight. In fact, I began it several times and may have to begin it again because I think the first round is a bit wonky and I don't want to knit thousands upon thousands of yards and millions of stitches only to see that the first dozen are wrong.  It's a ruddy trial to begin a circular shawl with ten tiny wee stitches on three needles that just won't behave.  Once I'm past the beginning it knits up beautifully.

I'm nearly done the Hemlock Ring blanket in blue mohair that I began in August.  I think I know who it will go to, but we'll have to give it a bath and make certain it 'works' before I announce the recipient.

Once I'm upright more of each day I'll finish the arm warmers, blend yarn with borrowed wool combs to spin for the socks that will go with them.  For now it continues to be sofa time in my household, so I can stay as close to the wood stove as possible without roasting body bits. It isn't as if I mind knitting time on this order, I only mind the virus and coughing all night. Hopefully the latter will be done soon.

Post-election blahs

Wouldn't you know it, all that exposure to electors made me sick! Not from them being electors of course, but because many of them were generously sharing viruses. My theory about a virus is that it won't leave me alone until I share it with you. 

The election itself was probably enough to make me sick. In the poll I worked the turn-out was, in a word, pathetic. Less than 50%. Either nobody cares that we have a democracy or as I also heard during the day, that people whose families have lived in the same place since before Confederation refused to vote if it required them to show picture ID. I mean really, people. What's the big deal? We show picture ID in lots of other contexts. Apparently elderly rural folk find this requirement beyond obnoxious. But while others in the poll knew these folks, I didn't. In an urban or any large poll you wouldn't know the people. A requirement for identification (and there were dozens upon dozens of options) hardly seems a good reason to stay home. I think what I find so appalling about the voter turn-out, whatever the reason for it is that in so many places in the world people pay with their lives to vote and we can't get our butts off the sofa to go do this? Sad, very, very sad.

And then there was the outcome. Not a surprise but a great disappointment to me. My wish (okay, fantasy) was for a NDP/Green party coalition to run the country, not a increased mandate (albeit still a minority one) for wacko Tories who don't get the urgency of environmental issues, and in fact deny there are issues at all. I was very impressed by the moxie of the Green Party leader. One of these days Canada will elect someone with vision. Meanwhile I promise not to hold my breath until that happens.

I took a jaunt to Wolfville on Friday to look for likely properties. I'd hoped to stay overnight in the valley but felt too rotten to inflict myself on dear friends, and didn't want to share my virus there. I prefer to share anonymously so you (whoever you are) can't track it back to me.  How very nice of me, eh?

One of the highlights of my day trip though was a view of a house that meets all my criteria in terms of cuteness, breathing space, location, size, studio and office space, but fails to meet the price range I'm working with by a mere $100K. Ah well, can't have everything I suppose--but it's good stuff to be dreaming on even so.

The other thing that was a spectacular first for me was apple picking. How is it I have lived 10 years in Nova Scotia and have never before been in an orchard to pick apples? We found a U-pick place where they had Northern Spy apples as well as the usual Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, Ida Red, and Russet varieties. I now have 10 pounds of handpicked Northern Spys in my pantry and as soon as I share my virus with someone and it leaves me alone, I'll make something deliciously apple-y.

Finished the chocolate lama/mohair sweater coat and it is wonderful, everything I hoped it would be. I think there may be enough sunshine today to take some photos. The next spinning project: beige lama/mohair will make a good lap blankie. I have a pattern for one that uses a variety of gansey patterns. That might be fun. Need to track the pattern down so I can figure out how I need to spin the fibre for this. 

We had hard frost overnight so that's done in the geraniums I forgot to take in last night. Ah well, I felt too rotten to bother with them and believed the weather channel that the temperature wouldn't drop below freezing.

My only activity in the last 36 hours has been to throw logs into the wood stove to try to get warm. The ambient temperature is fine, but the virus tells me that I'm still cold. No amount of wool sweater layers seems to make a difference either. Some part of me believes that if I keep knitting sweaters I'll be warmer this winter. While that works once I'm up and dressed in same, it doesn't do a thing to get me out of bed on a morning when the house is cold. I still have the oil furnace thermostat set really low as it isn't winter, but I might have to reconsider for the duration of the virus.

In my quest to share my virus anonymously I believe I'll head to 'China-Tire' for a replacement wheel for my wheel barrow--one that can't go flat. Wish me luck?

Joblet

I have a joblet to do, as a poll clerk for Elections Canada. Who knew this was such a complex task that it required a 3 hour training session and a 100 page manual? 

It will also require considerable stamina. I must arrive at the polling station location, a rural fire hall, at 7:45 am and remain there until the ballots are counted, probably by 9:30 pm. To en-sure this, I will be called by someone at 6:15 (how nice is that?).  

I am required to bring sufficient food and water to get me through the entire day. I may have call-of-nature breaks but every time either I or the DRO are  away from the table, voting will stop until we are back. I have a long list of tasks, hence the 100 page manual. The only thing I don't have is the big responsibility and I'm grateful for that. For example I may not touch a ballot at any point in the process. That's the DRO's job. Thankfully I have plenty of other papers and forms to touch or I might have a problem with that (big grin!). 

I have already voted so I don't have to concern myself with my basic civic duty on the day, only the advanced version, aka poll clerk, which will make me the stunning amount of $167.00 which works out to what? $11-12 per hour? What I will say is that it is interesting to understand this part of the electoral process, and I expect to be a very, very tired old fart when it is done.

Okay, I have a 'thing' about....

...ripping out knitting projects. In the last few weeks I've ripped out three projects to keep myself on track with knitting everything twice. So far so good, eh?

...pens. As a writer I can never (never!) have too many nice, good, fancy, or expensive? pens. Same goes for notebooks, printer paper and watercolour paper.  Oh, and mechanical pencils (what's with that?)

...garlic. It's autumn. Winter isn't far away. One can never! have too much good garlic to approach a winter's worth of cooking and soup making.

...good olive oil. If I have several litres of the tasty stuff I'm rich, well olive oil, garlic, onions and chili flakes.

...blankies. I've been cold in winter, as a child and latterly as a younger adult. I have more blankies now than anyone requires, just in case.

...food in the freezer, even if it isn't edible. There's comfort in having a full freezer, even if it is mostly frozen compost now.  If push came to shove, I'd still be able to eat, I just wouldn't enjoy it all that much.

...the pantry. It should always contain plenty of canned tomatoes, tuna, beans and tetra packs of broth.

...having plenty of toilet paper on hand. Nothing worse than being too poor to have tp when you need it, that and tissues for one's runny nose.

...the fibre stash.  One can never have a stash of spinning fibre or knitting yarn too vast. I never know when inspiration will strike and in winter it can be days until the yarn store opens or the post-person delivers your project order.

...the wood pile and kindling.  Can you spell warm?

...hunkering down. As soon as the weather cools I knit sweaters, socks, hats and count my wealth in terms of all of the above.  Looking good this year, in spite of not having a job.