What a wonderful day I have had. Time with friends, a bit of window shopping and shopping, a massage and a healthy dinner at Zen Palate. The best of all? Walking! I did not have to drive a car at all today.

I am Pittsburgh-bound again (just for a fun family visit) through the end of the month. All will be quiet on the Lumay blog front until then.

Have a wonderful time while I am gone.

I find it rather interesting that within a matter of hours of yesterday's post, my Lenten promise was put to the test -- and shattered. I nearly crashed into the car in front of me as the driver (who had been yakking on a mobile phone for two miles) came to a stop and forced his/her way into the crush of oncoming traffic in the right lane -- without signaling.

Everyone from Jesus to Al Jourgensen would have been shocked by my angry spew about "coming to a complete stop on a highway" and "not using an f*ing signal, you f*ing cow". How can I do good in the world filled with people unwilling to go the extra mile (literally) to not put themselves and other drivers at risk of an accident?

Earlier, I realized that, in spite of an on-gauge and lovely swatch, the Cropped Card-again was showing signs of failure.


Judging a project after a mere two rows may seem premature, but I know me (and my knitting streak) well enough. This is not going to work out.


Tonight is my knitting circle, and my sole focus will be Bella's neck and armholes. Maybe I can even wear it this weekend...

Hey, I know it is Wednesday. Ash Wednesday to be exact, so for the Catholics the party is over. Raised a Catholic, I gave serious consideration to my Lenten sacrifice in my younger days. Although I have not observed Lent in a long time, I do think about sacrifice and surrender while the party rages on in various cities around the world.

But this year, I have a notion to get on board with Lent, but in a slightly different way than I did as a young Catholic girl. Rather than deny myself in the name of holiness, what if I made a point of giving of myself to others for next 40 days? What if I made a point of being a kinder person? What if I choose the positive over the negative? What if I decide to respond rather than react? I have not quite figured out the particulars, but surely there is a way to honor the basis of a religion that delights and irritates me. For another interesting take on Lent, check out Deb's offering -- PresbyLent.

My Lent will not be without a bit of sacrifice and punishment, as I have decided to give it another go with the Blue Sky Cropped Cardigan. In a prior life, it was the Blue Sky Blobigan, and presently, it is the Cropped Card-again.

After so many weeks of not knitting, I feared I might have lost the desire. For weeks, my attendance at knitting group was to socialize some of my favorite people over a bowl of Vegetable Chow Mein -- one of the few gluten-free "Chinese" dishes.

While I knitted a few rows of Bella Thursday night, there was little joy in it. I was convinced that I should sell my stash and pack away my patterns until my shoulder and my interest in knitting returned to 100% capacity.

What a difference a few days make!

I worked with pain-free diligence to complete the front of Bella and "seam" (actually three-needle bind off) the shoulders. The little roll at bottom is still bothersome, and I am inclined to rip out the cast on edge and work additional rows of garter stitch along the bottom. The pattern calls for the armholes to be worked in garter stitch as well, but I fear it may create a rather bulky look. A bit of experimentation lies ahead.

Still scouring the bookshelves with a critical eye, I am judging the value of a book with some simple questions:

Have I read this?
Will I read this?
Will I read this again?
Will I be able to easily replace this should I desire?

This morning there were twenty-six unread books (ten fiction and sixteen non-fiction) living on my bookshelves. I managed to move five (all non-fiction) off the shelf to either sell or donate. Sadly, one of the purged books is Life Interrupted, a gift from Christmas 2005. The book is Spalding Gray's unfinished monologue at the time of his disappearance/death, and it also contains some of the eulogies from his memorial services in New York City and Sag Harbor. As much as I love Gray's work, Life Interrupted gave me an empty feeling -- then and now.

Part of my culling process is assessing a book's readability (or re-readability) by my reaction to it. I read two or three random pages, and if my reaction is higher than ambivalence, the book can stay. The few out-of-print books on communications, culture and popular culture I own were exempt from this process.

I head to Pittsburgh at the end of the week with one of two of those twenty-six unread books as my travelling companion.

My boss is a great guy. He is quite flexible in terms of my schedule, allowing me the luxury of a morning Italian class on campus, as well as physical therapy and doctor's appointments during work hours.

Early today, I was working through some billing and budget issues, and he came charging into my office asking me to sign something for him. Slightly irked, I turned and asked what it was. He merely responded, "Just something for me. You seemed like the perfect person". I looked at the signature line, and beneath it were the words:

Disinterested Witness

"Disinterested Witness...Oh, that is funny," I intoned flatly. Then I grabbed my purple pen and signed with glee.

So here I sit, in all of my disinterested glory, unsure if Rhinebeck Weekend is a keeper or not. I still think the color is more blue than light grey, and the fit...I am not so sure that the fit flatters. But then, neither does the overgrown hair and zombie eyes.

Naturally, today is the day that ten ex-boyfriends will find this blog and thank their lucky stars that they extracted themselves from romantic entanglements with me before I started to look so haggard and hardened.

Have a great weekend.

Happy Snow Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It is difficult to say which made me smile more: Joe's poorly arranged pink roses in a POM Wonderful glass or having a snow day (no work)! It is a close competition, and not far behind is the fact that I did not bother to "pretty up" the arrangement before its close up. Because my floral arranging skills are on par with Joe's, I will leave them as they are and call it Wabi Sabi.

While it feels as if I wasted the day in front of the computer, I did cook two Foroccan (Faux Moroccan) dishes for dinner. There is a pot of chick peas simmered in diced tomatoes, cinnamon, cumin and cayenne pepper for the vegetarian in the house and a medley of carrots, onions, diced tomatoes, lamb, cinnamon, cumin, and ginger in the crock pot. The gluten eaters will get couscous, and I will have grits.

The great purge (of my house, not my stomach) continues. Today, I scoured my bookshelves and listed roughly 30 books on Half.com. That copy of Andre Gide's The Immoralist that has accompanied me, unread, for nearly twenty years (!)? Goodbye! After two decades, I must be honest; I am not going to read that book. Too many times I have lied to myself. Too many times I believed the false promise that I would start that book (or any other) "next". When "next" means twenty years, it is time to say "goodbye".

The thrill of my Italian class is still fresh, although I am finding the balance of work and class a bit tedious. What keeps me going is the desire to regain a bit of the low-level fluency that I worked so hard to attain. Frankly, I find the standard classroom approach to learning a second language rather inhibiting. While grammar reviews and verb drills are wonderful and necessary, there is no better path to language learning than opening your mouth and letting the language stumble and tumble out.

I like to watch Italian television and films to tune the ear to the language, but the one I watched last night was impossible to enjoy. Sedotta e abbondonatta (Seduced and Abandoned) is of that period in Italian film where Southern Italians are characterized as dirty, sweaty, screaming hot-heads with fierce fists. Maybe filmmakers of this particular era were mocking certain Italian stereotypes, but I can barely stand to watch these movies -- all of the noise and the shouting!

In fact, I found myself feeling anxious for the movie to end. That is when I thought about my post and how I can control some of the beauty and ugliness that comes into my life. I immediately ejected the DVD and sealed it back into the Blockbuster envelope. Although it does nothing to improve my Italian, I would rather savour an hour of The Travel Channel's Francesco's Italy: Top to Toe than endure a 120-minute marathon of screaming.

Thank you all for your concern for my health. I felt better over the weekend, but I awoke yesterday with a gripping abdominal pain. In spite of the "gut" ache, I went to work. After all, what fun is a sick day when you are actually sick? A curious aside: why is it that I feel tip-top Saturday and Sunday but suffer all manner of ills Monday through Friday?

To make myself feel better, I wore the new Mary Janes and carried the new handbag yesterday.

The weekend was a rather productive one on many accounts.

Friday evening I watched The Vassar Devil Wears Prada courtesy of a Netflix free trial. I was expecting very little beyond frivolous entertainment, but even that was barely met. I think I waited too long to see the movie, and it did not live up to the hype and frivolity. The most entertaining elements of the movie were Stanley Tucci's gawdy ring and Anne Hathaway's god-awful bra. Why are foundation garments such a challenge for the stylists of films and knitwear magazines?

Saturday afternoon was a shopping in Connecticut. I exchanged one pair of cute, but uninspiring, flats to Macy's for two pairs of shoes: adorable flats by Arturo Chiang and die cut Mary Janes (in Tan) by Style & Co. I also found that most difficult of fashion accessories -- the handbag.

Saturday night was for reading, and I finally finished William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition". Much like my Friday night movie, the book was a touch disappointing. It fell flat for me early on, when I realized that it was less about the future of advertising and branding than triple-crossing espionage. Reading this was just a test of my patience and my endurance, and I should move that to a different arena, like the gym.

I am back to "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight", which is proving to be a rather "difficult" read given that racism and/or alcoholism occurs on nearly every page. Since the recommendation came from someone very dear, I am inclined to soldier on.

A discussion came up today with a friend about choosing to eliminate negativity. She has gone as far as deleting negative programs from her Tivo lineup. While some may say that it is ridiculous to hide from the reality behind shows such as CSI and the like, do I really need to "feed" myself a heaping dose of ugly in any form, be it real or fictional? I am not suggesting that we need to hide our heads and opt for ignorance in matters at home and abroad, but why not try something different from time to time? Why not endeavour to treat ourselves to a day of nothing but beauty?

This morning I awoke with the sensation floating in that strange space of simultaneous hangover and drunk. Rather unusual considering my night at knitting group was not only devoid of knitting, but of alcohol as well. Clearly, something was amiss.

Other indicators included the desire for trousers and milky tea.

Long-time readers may know that I never wear, nor do I own, trousers. Yet, this morning, I stood in front of my closet wishing for "easier" clothing. The thought of slipping on a pair of loose-fitting jersey lounge pants seemed like heaven. Ignoring this rather clear indicator of fever/illness, I slipped on a skirt and headed to the office.

At the office, I craved Saltine crackers and milky tea. Milky tea? No offense to those who like a little dairy with the brewed leaf, but I abhor milky tea. In fact, I was convinced that the United Kingdom would cancel my student visa and order my deportation simply for my refusal to get on board with the English love of (hideous and greasy) milky tea. I suspect my abhorrence for milky tea is purely an associative thing. After a bout of stomach flu, the first thing my mother served me was weak, milky tea and four or six Saltines.

I sullied my Earl Grey with milk and swapped the Saltines for 2 gluten-free corn thins, but my dis-ease would not subside. In fact, the milky tea threatened to be more enemetic than comforting, so I abandoned it and choked down the second thin -- with all of the appeal of compressed packing peanuts -- dry.

While on the topic of unusual food, I must mention that I tried Quorn, that meat substitute favored by devotes of Calorie Restriction, earlier this week. To be exact, I tried Quorn tenders stir-fried with asparagus. The company's advertising tag line is "Quorn, it might surprise you", and indeed, it did. Actually, I was very pleased to find a non-meat alternative to tofu. Other than the rare (in both senses) serving of beef filet or venison medallions at a restaurant, I do not eat much meat. Frankly, preparing and eating meat skeeves me -- especially chicken.

As for the shoulder, I started physical therapy, but thus far, the sessions are 20 or 30 minutes of intensely painful muscle manipulation. Next week I get to try that arm circle/bicycle thing, which will surely make me feel like an 80 year old woman.

Knitting content will be sparse for a few weeks, so it time to ante up and make good on the double tagging courtesy of Petula*Darling.

WATER WORLD
I hate to wash my hair. I used to think this was a holdover from the time that I had waist-length hair, but I realize that I just dislike the shower. That feeble mist of alternating hot and cold water is not inviting. I abhor the being simultaneously wet/dry and hot/cold. By contrast, I adore an outdoor shower. The straight-from-the-spigot ferocity of the water mixes with the fresh air to create that luxurious pleasure of skinny-dipping. (4)

TWO BY TWO
Maybe it is a biblical impulse, but I cannot eat "finger food" snacks in anything but multiples of two. Nuts? Licorice bits? M&Ms? All must be eaten 2 or 4 at a time. This rule also applies to French fries, which I also try to pair with a mate of an equal or similar length. Between avoiding gluten and fried foods, this bit of food weirdness is seldom exercised at present. But in its height, if only three pieces remained in a bag of candy, I ate two together, bit the remaining one in half...and eureka! Two pieces!

Similarly, when I would bum a drag of a cigarette (when I was in the process of quitting smoking), I would insist on two (or four) drags. I could not stop at one or three. (2)

A WILD HAIR
I used to pluck the small amount of white hairs from the chest "bib" of my otherwise black cat. After I had moved away, my mother thought that the cat was going gray because he suddenly had this small patch of white on his chest. My dear kitty was not the only one to suffer at my hands. The few times my father suffered from sunburn, I insisted on peeling off the skin. My torment is self-inflicted, as well. I have a bunch of wiry, dark hair hiding amongst the light brown and gray. I have a strange compulsion to pluck those wild hairs. When I find a wiry gray hair? Bonus. (3)

SPITEFUL
I go out of my way just to step on cracks in the pavement. I will not deviate from my course; I will willfully walk under a ladder. If need be, I change my stride in order to not start each flight of stairs with the same foot. (3)

I think this particular piece has made several laps around the blogsphere, so I am going to let this horse down without further flogging.

Worth Repeating

Oddly enough, one of my favorite movies is "Groundhog Day". Maybe I watch the entire movie because the scenes with the character Ned Rierson are so damn funny.

There are a few experiences I would relive, and my introduction to Rumi is one of them. In honor of today's blogger poetry readings, a Rumi quatrain:

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you are gone, I cannot sleep.

Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.