Jesus SAVED Us!!

It's true! For those of you who need visual proof in the power of Jesus, look closely at this photo. That tiny pitcher on the baseball mound? That is Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jesus Luzardo. And when my friend Lisa and I went to see the Phillies play the Cubs this past Wednesday, Jesus saved us from losing another game! (And for those of you wondering, Jesus is regular-sized - I took that photo from our seats.)

It's been a rough few weeks for our Phils, but on Wednesday they beat the Chicago Cubs 7-2. And my fave player, Kyle Schwarber, hit a home run which I am sure he did because he heard I was there. 

😂

Lisa and I try to go to one game together every year. We text a thousand times every day, but generally only see one another this one time. We've been friends now for about 25 years, since we were co-workers. She left to give birth to twin boys, and I moved to other jobs. But we always kept in touch. And she is the one that met my niece Amanda ONCE, and immediately added her to our text chain! The three of us are the ones keeping each other accountable in our exercise routines.

Lisa is hilarious just in general, but she is also one of those baseball fans, that knows *everything* about each player. I swear if you asked their shoe size, she could answer immediately. She's also really impatient with them. Whenever they win, she is on cloud nine, but when they lose and/or play poorly, she texts me: "Sell the team." So it was a really fun afternoon, and though it was warm it wasn't humid, and we were under an overhang, so it was especially nice to be out of the direct sun.

Apparently, the person that Lisa bought the tickets from is a regular, and part of a group that are always there for afternoon games. When we first got there, the two guys behind us asked "How do you know Brian?" And a bit later, when a young woman and her friends arrived, she said to me "Are you Brian's wife?" to which I responded that was "that bastard's ex-wife and he lets me have tickets for one game a year." She looked slightly surprised, but I doubt as much as Brian will be when she asks him about his ex-wife! They were all a fun group of people though, so it made the whole game even more enjoyable.

*****

A bit later this morning, I'm headed out to get my hair cut. I'm trying a different place in my neighborhood, so wish me luck. I like the person I usually go to, she is very nice, but the last few times I've gone, she has just been on autopilot, and not really tried anything I want to try. Plus, we are getting to the time of year when I want my hair short all over, and she doesn't want to do it that way so that I don't "look like a man." 

So I'm trying out a different place, which is slightly more money, but if I can get a haircut even close to what I'd like, it will be worth it. 

I just hope I don't go there hoping for a cut like this

And come out looking like this:

*****

This weekend, it is of course supposed to rain at least some of the time. Tomorrow we are headed to the No Kings protest here, but that is our only specific plan for the weekend. Since our weekends are generally pretty quiet and uneventful, we'll likely need Sunday to recover from doing something out of the house on Saturday! We always joke that, if we are like this at our current age, if we are lucky enough to live to be 80 years old, we'll only be able to do maximum two things a week, so that we have time to recover!

Whatever plans you may have, I hope you can enjoy your weekend. Even if you also get some rain, at least a lot of the plants and flowers are enjoying it, right?

This Particular Monday is for an FO Post

This weekend was vastly different than last.  The protests continued, with more people and more meaning, and they were completely peaceful, which was good all the way around.  The weather was OK on Saturday, though a bit humid, but Sunday was PERFECTION. 

It was also different because I finished one of my projects!  Recently I showed you this:

I'd been working on it much longer than I'd wanted to, and though I was pleased with the result, I was annoyed that it took so long.  I've been doing pretty well with my self-imposed-in-my-brain plan to knit a pair of socks each month, and May was nearly over.  I decided that instead of switching up on my projects somewhat equally, I would give sock #2 more attention. 

Project:  Sousa Socks
Pattern:  adapted by me from the Stars and Stripes Socks, by the Sockguy (from the long ago Sockknitters listserv)
Yarn:  Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, colorways Navy and Glory Red
Needles:  US size 1
Modifications:  The whole project was a modification!  (Also, the colors in the first photo are actually closer to how they look in real life.)
Notes:  This pattern and kit was from a very long ago offering and had been in my stash since not quite 1776 ... seriously, though it has been there a LONG time.  I started following the pattern as written, and it seemed so fiddly to me that I just gave up.  But then I decided to put my own spin on it, and see what happened.  I named them the Sousa Socks because John Philip Sousa wrote "Stars and Stripes Forever," and I was still trying to go with the theme.  I kept the stitch and row counts of the original pattern, and just changed the combination so that it was much less fiddly. 

I really do like the finished socks.  The heel construction was new to me, so that was also interesting, and in some ways much quicker than the regular heel and gusset construction, though it ends up looking much the same.  The second sock, needless to say, knit up much more quickly, since I wasn't starting from scratch with what I was doing.  They will probably be way too warm to wear on July 4th, but maybe they will work for Labor Day some year??

This is only the second time I've ever knit with Lorna's Laces yarn, and this is old - when Lorna herself was still the dyer.  It is soft and lovely to work with. 

Now onto another pair.  I'm voting for plain vanilla this time.  😜

May You Live in Interesting Times

That is (supposedly) an old Chinese proverb.  And if it is, well, this week alone has fulfilled the "interesting" part, even if not in the way we might all want "interesting" to be.  Since today is Three on Thursday, I thought I'd share some recent things (two international, one local) that have meant that life is way more interesting than it ever needed to be.  EVER.

1.  There we all were, going along, living with the stay-at-home orders due to the Covid-19 virus.  Fortunately, it seemed that in a lot of places (including Pennsylvania), things were on the downward turn as far as the infamous curve was concerned.  Even Philadelphia is/was supposed to get to the Yellow Level of reopening starting tomorrow.  "Interesting," right?

2.  And then in Minneapolis, a black man named George Floyd was murdered by a human POS who was on the police force (along with three of his colleagues), who felt that it made him look powerful, forceful, macho and who knows what else.  And that was the last straw in a series of incredibly more frequent and awful events.  A peaceful protest here took an extremely sideways turn, resulting in looting, fires, and vandalism.  There have been/are subsequent protests, which have been mostly peaceful - well at least the protesters were peaceful - except for one with tear gas (grrrrr) and one where some white nationalists showed up in one neighborhood with bats to use against protesters.  Most places of business in the neighborhood are still boarded up and closed,  and curfew is still happening.  "Interesting" but for all the worst reasons.  Though hopefully this version of the word will lead to actual, humane change.  Here in Philadephia, one symbol of police brutality and racism has already been removed, and we have been working for that for years, so at least there a small glimmer. 

3.  Next up - this:

This is a photo that a local viewer sent to a TV station showing the approach of a derecho yesterday afternoon.  This thing was brutal.  At our house alone, we lost a tree, a huge chunk of ivy was ripped off the side of the house, and power went out briefly (some are still stuck with that last part - fortunately, in the city, it came back on within 5 minutes).  Upon closer inspection, the chunk of ivy that fell landed on top of our viburnum bush and the flowers I'd planted in the garden.  So, RIP to those.  I'm glad we'll be able to get rid the ivy (once The Tim gets the small chainsaw he ordered), but sad that the sweet-smelling bush and my flowers are gone.  Especially since everything had been doing so well this year.  But WAIT - that's not enough!  Last night we had a tornado-force storm and were told to take shelter.  Fortunately, nothing worse happened and it moved along pretty quickly.  But between the two storms, our neighborhood looks pretty darn sad.  How "interesting."

I don't know about you, but I'm ready to go back to dull and boring.