It's a Wonderful Life with the Wife

Until last night, I had never participated in the time-honored tradition of viewing "It's a Wonderful Life." Todd, aghast at the possibility that he had married a philistine, bumped the film to the top of his Netflix queue, and it arrived just in time for Christmas. The general message of the film - should there be other philistines reading this blog - is that every person matters, and we never really know how much good we do, or how many lives we touch. An easy sentiment to sell, obviously, though that being said I do think it's a good film, with a remarkably strong script and well-directed, extremely fine acting.

The second half of the film involves George - the discouraged, suicidal protagonist - being shown by his guardian angel how different life would be for many people in his hometown had he never been born. The many predicable tragedies include the death of George's brother at age 8 and the town's descent into poverty and vice under the thumb of the Evil Capitalist Rich Man whose empire is only kept in check by George's humble savings and loan. All well and good. But what of the George's loving wife Mary? Had our hero never been born, what tragedy would have befallen her? This was the only tragedy that I didn't see coming, which probably did a lot to heighten my shock and incredulity. Her fate? Spinsterhood! And what do spinsters do? Apparently they wear glasses and work as the town librarian. Horrors! So...Mary's fate involves developing her mind and achieving financial independence rather than churning out 4 kids. Close call for Mary. Thank goodness George opts to keep his Wonderful Life.

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.

Getting back on the wooly horse

I've got a little therapeutic no-brainer of a project going on right now - something to give me instant knitting pleasure after mitten tragedy - pictures in a day or two, after I dig out from under a mountain of final grading. It is a bad time of year to be a professor.

In other news, I finally got myself back to the yarn store to buy replacement alpaca for my re-knit of the Wintergreen Mittens, but I am finding that I lack the heart to restart them. Instead, I was thinking maybe I'd try my hand at either Eunny Jang's Anemoi mittens:

















Or maybe the Lilyfield Mittens:






















Which do you think would look better in a gray/cream combination? I'm leaning towards Lilyfield at the moment, but I am not sure I love the cuff - solid 1 x 1 ribbing might look better.

Wintergreen Mittens

Why no photos of my progress on the Wintergreen Mittens? Because when I was coming back from the %^$#@&^ AAA conference, I forgot them on the plane. By the time I realized what I had done, it was too late. Apparently a ziplock bag containing two balls of exquisite alpaca yarn and one and a half beautiful mittens (one was completely finished and SO beautiful...) looks like garbage to a plane cleanup crew. So my mittens are gone. I am hoping posting this will help me move from anger to acceptance.

BSJ

I realize that the world doesn't need another Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket; nor does the world need extended commentary on how completely freaking amazing the construction is.















This particular BSJ was knit on a #5 out of just over one skein (oh well...) of Dream in Color's Classy in the color Blue Lagoon. If it weren't the worst point in the semester I would have rounded out the look with a pair of Saartje's Booties, but it is just not to be.















Suffice to say that I enjoyed knitting it and I hope little baby Gwyndolyn enjoys wearing it.

If he weren't my student, I would feel REALLY smug

Quizzes are a necessary evil - occasionally even the most dedicated student benefits from this most primitive of motivational tools. While I eschew the pop quiz, I do give most of my students a set number of quizzes over the course of the semester to - ahem - inspire them to make my class a priority.

So, grading a stack of quizzes this afternoon, I saw that an Obama-supporting student had used the 3 or 4 minutes he had to wait for his slower classmates to finish to decorate the back of his quiz with a big American flag anchored in Obama's name. Not to be outdone, his neighbor, a backwards-baseball-cap wearing type who, to his credit, had the courage to identify himself as a McCain supporter during our post-election class discussion of the candidates, decorated the back of his quiz with the following slogan:

[name of my college] LOVE'S MacKain

Yup.

I made a leaf!

Most of this was accomplished waiting for a late flight from Chicago last night. It remains to be seen if this mitten gets finished waiting in line at my polling station.