Dr. Wheels in the flesh

Doughy Dutch Baby of Indeterminate Sex

Seeks Sweater in Flattering Hue.

It's the Tomten, for a baby shower my Mom will attend in a few weeks. She will be greeted with Western Michigan Dutch Cooking to the Extreme. Stewed fruit compote. Cheesy egg casseroles. Pigs-in-the-blanket. Ultra-sweet cinnamon rolls. Fresh? We don't need fresh! We have lard!

Not that I or my family members are health nuts; we all enjoy red meat and wine and beer and chicken with the skin on and butter. But food that is just... shall we say "not good?"... is another matter.

Positively SPARTAN!!!!

First, WHEELS OF FURY!!! It reached my Dad today, so there will be photos to come. My Dad was in a freak motorcycle accident a year and a half ago which severed his spinal cord between C6 and C7 and did all sorts of other damage from which he recovered with the speed and determination of one possessed.

Note: when riding a motorcycle, please wear the absolutely best helmet you can purchase. The best helmet is the reason my Dad suffered absolutely no brain damage.

Due to Helmet and Weaver stubbornness, he returned to teaching (high school math) part-time about six months after the accident. Six months later he was back to work full time. Oh, and building a frightening upper body in his home gym. And riding one of those hand-pedaled bikes. This hat is my tribute to him. I feel unworthy wearing it, but this will have to do until he sends me a photo of himself.

To what can one compare such heroism? Well...



I bring you the yarn for: 300: THE SWEATER. Soon to come: 300: THE SWATCH. The colors and all, well, it was irresistible.



Until then, see the movie if you want a stunning work of art that actually reflects much of the Greek conception of self and nation during the period of war with the Persians. Did I note that I was an academic in a previous life?

Meet the New Boss

A strange encounter with one of my supervisors last week included a conversation about "Professionalism." A concept with which I have never had a quibble. However, this conversation included many eddying tangents indirectly addressing my appearance. What I gathered, and it was by no means directly communicated, is that administrators at this hospital "should be helpful but invisible to patients."

In other words, not seen, and heard only in passing and then quickly forgotten.

Seeing that this is how I looked during all my job interviews, it seems, in this respect, they've hired the wrong person. Oh, my hair was more of an "eggplant" color during the interviews. And that hot pink streak, well, it was Safety Orange. Fortunately the surgeons I work for all appreciate my look, which is very professional in all its funkiness.

In knitting news: Wolle aus Deutchland ist angekommen! That's Evilla Vorgarn, a skein of 8/2 yarn, and a big hank of Kauni Effektgarn. Chris would not take a picture of me rolling around in it.

One tiny hint:

A new design that I like to call "WHEELS OF FURY."

SNOW!

I'm taking advantage of yesterday's snowfall and spending the weekend wearing
jammies and knitting. While I work on projects I can't show anyone yet, here's the portable knitting I take on my commute. First, a basic top-down sock in something called "Maxi Ringel." I believe this is a discontinued yarn. The fact that I love the way it knits up makes up for the fact that it is splitty and therefore not all that easy to knit. It also has the positive quality of being very, very durable. I made Chris a pair of Maxi Ringel socks two years ago, have been washing them in the delicate cycle of the machine about every 2 weeks, and they still look great.

The green one is a Yukon Leaves sock (I printed this pattern out years ago, and am not sure if that link will work...), knit in Socks that Rock lightweight, color: Emerald Isle. No complaints about the quality of this yarn.

While staging these photos on the porch, I locked myself out of the house... choices were to wait until Chris got out of the shower and could hear my yelling and door-pounding or to run through the quickly-accumulating snow drifts around our apartment building to our back door. Chris was taking his time, so I did the latter. That was enough "outside" for a while.

That's an MRI of my head.

Just sayin'. Chris got me the viewer for Christmas from some crazy surplus place on ebay.
And a glimpse into the work process here. This is what's in the works right now. Bins and shelves of other things reside in every other room of the house. The four colors on the bottom right are going to be a Red Light Special hat very soon. As soon as Chris saw the gallery that Brooklyn Tweed set up, he declared that he needed one. Time to get to work.