Good Things

I hope Martha Stewart won't mind if I borrow her phrase ...

Well, it's still "Too Darn Hot" - and Lorraine, you are so right, Ann Miller did sing that in "Kiss Me Kate!" Which of course, got me to thinking about Ann Miller. Now a lot of you youngsters probably don't even know who that is, but she was a singer and dancer, both on stage and in the movies. I was always fascinated by the big pincurls she often sported in front of each ear - they were perfectly formed curlicues and of course never moved even one millimeter! Especially as a kid, I thought it must be some kind of glue that held them in place. And of course, once I was old enough to understand how it all worked, realized that it actually was a glue of a sort ...

Sadly, I couldn't find a picture that showed her pincurls. But when I Googled her, I was led to this website. Who knew such a thing existed? And apparently Ann was quite a busy gal!

Anyway, it was enough to distract me for a little bit from the incredibly awful heat and humidity. I keep trying to think of blizzards, but even though I can imagine them in my head, my body remains unconvinced.

In other good news, I was lucky enough to find a copy of the book Christmas Stockings to buy for myself! I had been thinking about getting a copy, but of course didn't when it was newly in print. Last year, I had it in my cart at the Interweave Press Hurt Book Sale, but then cancelled it when the shipping was nearly as much as the book. Turns out that was pretty stupid, because it's out of print, and though copies are available, most of them were way out of my price range.

Enter Ravelry, and its endless possibilities for finding all kinds of things. With some poking around and inquiring on a couple of forums, I was led to Kathy (Ravelry link), who was selling a copy of the book for an incredibly reasonable price. This of course meant that I had to ask her, did she realize that she could get a lot more for it? (This is one of those times when my mother would have said, "Oh for God's sake, there's no reason to be so damn honest!") Long story short, she did raise the price, but still well within reason as far as I was concerned - she even thanked me for being so nice! So the payment was sent, and the book should be on its way to me. I am quite pleased with the whole experience. I hope she is as well.

In knee news, things are on the mend. I will not bore you with the detailed story of the bandage, the allergic reaction, and the call to the dr's office that was never returned. But things are improving, and I've been using tough love to treat it as much like a regular knee as possible. It doesn't look nearly as scary and disgusting as it did even just last week, and I can move it a lot more than I could before.

Knitting-wise, I'm still plugging away on my Bon-bon Socklettes, and Blueberry Waffle Socks. I didn't make as much progress as I'd hoped last week, so any pictures of the current state of things would look pretty much the same. Even though they are small items, when it is this hot and humid, it's hard for me to get motivated to knit much of anything!

OK, that's it for now. Hope it's more comfortable wherever you are!