Mmmm. Noro. Pretty.

Not much else to say - I re-wound one of the balls of yarn to get brown stripes at both ends of the scarf, though in retrospect this fit of anal retentiveness might not have been in the spirit of the design. Now the ends are slightly mismatched, which is way more annoying than the quirky charm of totally mismatched. Of course I will wear it anyway - in fact, I broke it in today by taking a walk across Central Park to check out a few exhibits at the Met. It was a cold, gray, rainy January day, and the scarf kept me warm and dry, if not exactly cheery.

Beautiful but boring

As promised, some photos of the post-mitten-tragedy healing project:

















It's the Noro two color striped scarf, colorways 245 and 268, four balls. Photographing the colors accurately proved to be much more challenging than the knitting itself. The stripes that look black are really deep purple; otherwise, thanks some quality time spent in iphoto, I think I've got the rest of the colors about right.

Halfway through, I am bored, which I take as a sign that I have healed and am ready to start the Lilyfield Mittens.

"Vacation"

I'm back from a rather disappointing vacation in Portugal. There was some unusual and often lovely architecture (Ask me about the Manueline style! I dare you.)
















And a popular form of Portuguese Christmas decoration looks a lot like Santa has been executed, which really warms my heart:























But beyond these minor perks, Portugal left a lot to be desired. However, with the perspective afforded by a good night's sleep, and in the spirit of self-help, I have decided to suppress my natural inclination to complain openly about the whole experience and instead ask myself what I learned on the trip. Which is just to say that I am now going to complain in a roundabout manner.

I learned, most importantly, that drinking massive amounts of Portuguese wine and port does not give me a hangover. I have no idea why this is the case, but thank goodness it is, because heavy drinking made everything else on the vacation more bearable.























I learned that I am old, which is to say, I am set in my ways. If I cannot eat (mostly) vegetarian food, do yoga on a regular basis, and/or have full, large breakfasts (as opposed to nasty dry rolls, Nescafe, and in one memorable instance, little snack cakes with an expiration date of December 2006), I become a weeping, angry, and, frankly, extremely constipated monster.

(No picture here. I'll reconsider if I receive an overwhelming number of requests for photos of the above mentioned monster.)

I learned that I am actually a raging Orientalist. Clomping grimly along the cobblestoned lanes of the umteenth walled medieval city built by the Knights Templar (now overrun with packs of feral Italian tourists), I found myself thinking all about how much more interesting Indian public space is, with the livestock and the crumbling ancient splendor, the wild traffic, and the exotic people with their exotic street food harboring exotic intestinal parasites; looking at the umpteeth crumbling castle with little to note beyond the style of crenellation, I found myself thinking about Mughal architecture, grand Hindu temples, and Ellora and Ajanta. I am apparently Adela Quested after all, and if Edward Said were still alive and if he knew me, he would be very, very disappointed in me. Good thing I'm unimportant and he's dead.























I learned that with great concentration and deep breathing, it is possible for me to knit in a car without getting carsick, even on twisty mountain roads in the heart of the cork/grape/olive/orange producing regions of central Portugal. Positive note: cork trees, freshly shorn, are strangely beautiful:
















The result of my car-bound knitting efforts was the completion of the muskox scarf, now blocking happily, soon to battle the frigid 50 degree temperatures we're currently experiencing here in New York.























I also made a lot of progress on a Project That Cannot Be Named On This Blog since it's a gift and the recipient may be reading this.

And finally, I learned that Portugal is the most loathsome little backwater of a provincial European wanna-be nation that ever adopted the Euro as its currency because at the Lisbon airport they confiscated my knitting needles - rudely - and made me run back to the airline counter and check them as baggage. In my six years of post-9-11 flying - national and international - this has NEVER happened; most recently at Newark airport on the flight to Portugal, during a hand check of my backpack, the homeland security guy pulled out my knitting bag and said "Oh - okay - knitting needles. We couldn't quite tell from the x-ray machine. Sorry about that. No problem." For readers who might wonder if maybe knitting needles should be banned on flights, consider this:
















To the old Sesame Street tune: One of these things is banned on airplanes out of Lisbon; c'mon, can you tell which one; can you guess which thing is banned on airplanes out of Lisbon; guess before my song is done; and now my song is done.

And if that doesn't convince you of the absurdity of banning knitting needles on flights, consider this:
















That's my index finger, of course, pointing upward, asking you to reconsider the above needle/pencil comparison.

Stalking the Clintons

Blizzard, lingering flu, and winding, unplowed New Hampshire roads: nothing kept us from making a seven-hour drive to Plymouth in order to see Bill Clinton in the pink, ex-presidential flesh. Crashing the New Hampshire pre-primary circus is a tradition of Todd's; in 2004 I was also sucked in, and this year two intrepid friends of ours managed to join us, wedging themselves into the very small back seat Todd's volkswagen (the back seat normally functions as trash can, to give you some sense of why, at the very least, we should call these friends intrepid).

At the entrance to the Bill event, I successfully lied to a secret service agent who, after a cursory paw though my bag, asked me if I was carrying anything sharp. No, nothing sharp.























Just the number five circular Addi needle I'm using to knit this basket-weave qiviut scarf. This is not the most fun knit in my rotation - it's laceweight and I have enough laceweight projects in my life right now because I'm still trying to finish what I started with the whole bridesmaid lace stole project, about which I can only say arrrrrrggggghhhhh. On the plus side, qiviut, aka muskox, is a fascinating fiber: freakishly lightweight, very soft, and extremely warm.
















Also fascinating and extremely warm, though not at all lightweight or soft: Bill. On the road for Hillary, the ex-President gave a rousing and lengthy speech extolling the virtues of the lady Senator from New York. We did learn a few things about Hillary, though mostly I learned that all the well-worn observations about Bill are true: he's a great public speaker; he seems totally sincere; he's very smart; he cares about you. I whorishly pressed through the crowd after the speech in order to shake his hand, and in the process of moving to the front of the pack, as I watched him converse with all manner of 80th generation crank from New Hampshire, I could see that he had the rarest and most powerful type of charisma: the kind that comes from appearing to be completely in the moment and completely interested in what is being said. It is not about Bill at all, and this egoless engagement, purely enacted, is ridiculously attractive and powerful.
















Hillary (with her daughter and mother in tow) did an event the following evening. Our senator impressed me, and the crowd seemed impressed, too. I did not make an effort to shake her hand, though in retrospect it might have been a good time to ask her why the voice mailbox at her office is always full whenever I call to protest whatever MoveOn tells me to.

Between Bill and Hillary, we stopped by an event for Republican candidate Ron Paul. This is a man who believes that all America's problems can be solved if we start using gold coins for our currency and cease government regulation of everything except women's uteruses. Is anyone surprised this man is from Texas?