All my love and thanks for all the places we've been, crises we've survived, children and grandchildren we've loved...
...and your great patience in teaching me too many things to list...what I've learned from your pleasure in sharing with everyone who comes within your range.
All of us look forward to many more June tenths with you--
most especially yours truly ...
We first noticed it earlier in the week...new guy named by Obama administration. A mention on the Yahoo news. "Who Is Ron Bloom?" the Wall Street Journal's blog queried on Monday.
Time magazine called him "Obama's Car Non-Czar." You see, this one is 20 years younger than mine, not from Brooklyn. Similarities? Both dress casually for meetings but my Ron Bloom likes to knit during his.
Yesterday there was more inside the front section of the ever-thinner New York Times.
I've always told him to be more formal about his name, really, it's Ronald.
People in academe would ask if he was the creator of "Bloom's Taxonomy" Not even close.
These are pictures of my Ron Bloom. Top photo, ten years ago in Mexico--the other two as he appeared recently, grandfathering in Portland, Oregon.
The knitter/weaver/spinner--formerly Chair of Home Economics (a very different sort of economy than the one in the news) at Morgan State University And my feminist spouse.
He is not, I repeat, the one who has been appointed to save the nation from its car sickness. He has been driving Toyotas for 20 years.
UPDATE: Thanks, Hattie, links now working.
You'd think it might be the other way around, that I'd be energized by returning to the Big Apple, its subway sounds and sights. No, been very slow--not reading blogs much, not writing here. In the week we've been back have been housebound mostly. Oh yes, to the doctor about persistent arm/shoulder pains...more later.
More serious medical stuff has been around Ron's lingering Northwest cough (see Marianna at Hattie's Web; visiting grandkids in Seattle was her source). He was helped by going to one of Providence Hospital's Urgent Care sites. Great views from the parking lot! But then a nasty side effect of leg pains. Turns out antibiotics depleted his potassium. He's fine now, vitamined-up.
We had such a good time with our grandkids. What a
treat to live right across the street from them. So much so that I will refrain from details of the challenges of the house where we stayed.
Instead, here's a view of some of their shell collection under a tub. Folks who own the place have spent many years working in southeast Asia, like us they have run out of places to store shells. There were gorgeous baskets too.
Back to my lethargy in the City. Finally have one idea: I was employed! Yes, life with our daughter, Rachel, means you are in her system. For seven weeks, we retired from retirement. Found this perfect button at a cute store in her Portland neighborhood, with its cute name, Noun. They take pages from discarded dictionaries and make $1.00 buttons. Wore mine pridefully, along with Obama buttons.
Though it had warmed in Portland the day we left--and did so periodically during our visit--it was very cold as we stepped off the plane in New York.
Our son was back to wearing his huge, fur-lined hat. The style he wore as an undergrad at Wisconsin, then again in grad school at Brandeis.
He finally got a Visiting Prof gig at Tulane in New Orleans (before Katrina); very hot summers. Ron tried the hat, then Roxie, of course!
Now all in our extended family in the City have colds--not restricted regionally.
Postscript: You wonder why button appears upside down? Me too!
Life happens. We had a plan to trek upstate for the yearly New York Sheep & Wool event known as Rhinebeck. But I spent two hours in the dental chair last Friday, so we missed the chance to see local friends, faraway vendors we've come to know. We have a special fondness for Rhinebeck-- heralded spot where Ron was seized with the spinning urge earlier in the century. Oddly its explosive recent growth has not made internet connection more reliable--reason for no link here. Maybe that's a good thing?
Loyal to the fiber, we'd planned our September trip to Portland to synch with Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival in nearby Canby, Oregon. Seems to be known locally as OFFF, at least that's what I learned from Judy Becker of PDX Knitters. She is famous for "Judy's Magic Cast-On," and a tiny business card that illustrates her technique.
The photo of me is on her blog Persistent Illusion, the first online appearance of the Couverle (French for "lid") from Knitty.com, re-imagined as a Condom Amulet--with the addition of a double-knit pouch to hold the all-important Safe Sex accessory. It was Amanda Gale of the ManThong Condom Amulet who suggested the inside-out style for those wishing to be less modest. (Pretty Aaucania cotton yarn, hand-dyed in Chile, purchased at Portland's Close Knit on our previous visit.)
We also met Cindy, Bobbie Wallace, Monica in the PDX Knitter's tent provided by the Fest in exchange for free knitting advice to the public. All decked out in Obama buttons, though mine was new to them. We plan to connect with them again on our upcoming, longer visit in the winter.
[Big Apple Knitters and NYC Crochet provided free help for an event hosted by yarn companies for a couple of years in Union Square. Nothing was for sale so it was a drain on resources of local yarn stores to provide staff simply to raise their visibility. Good place for beginning knitters, mellow at the outset in 2000,then became very crowded mostly by people seeking freebies. Now gone.]
Of course Ron bought roving. I am in a not-buying-yarn mode at the moment. We found a beautiful small rug for a wall in our daughter's home. It was woven in Teotitlan del Valle, a village of weavers near Oaxaca, our favorite Mexican city. "Vida Nueva," a Zapotec Women's Cooperative formed this first, and only, all-women's cooperative to market their handmade rugs directly to buyers. Pastora Guitierrez, a member of the co-op, was at their booth with Juanita Rodriguez, their stateside supporter from Corvallis, Oregon. Beautiful designs; you can contact them to order or volunteer to bring their work near you by emailing vidanueva@comcast.net. .
More sightings at OFFF...connecting again with
Carol, the Oregon shepherd we met at Black Sheep Gathering in June, student from Oregon State University who told me all about the Agricultural Extension Service, and a couple of very Portland-style innovators.
Th
ree fronts, one back
, cigarette coupons. Purchased in Portland, Oregon, 2008. First drawn to them by size--3.5 x 6.3 cm--followed by curiosity. "Where Flax is principally grown" and the colored map, and unknown terms, "Heckling and Scutching Flax."
The small sign next to them, "Japanese cigarette papers, $2.00," explained the writing on the back. Under the Japanese, light green image, barely visible, "PIRATE Cigarettes W.D. & H.O. Wills, Briston & London." Appears to be early 20th century.
From the Tobacco Timeline , a must-read for reformed/ anti-smokers, like myself,* I'm reminded of my own smoking mother:
1933 (my birth): Chesterfield begins running ads in the New York State Journal of Medicine, "Just as pure as the water you drink . . . and practically untouched by human hands." My mother must have believed this, collected paper coupons glued to the back of each Rahleighs pack. 
It might have bothered her, a serious leftist politically, that much of the dirty work of tobacco preparation was done for low wages by young women in this Bristol, England, factory (ca. 1920). But American radical thinking in her time, late 1920s and 1930s, was focused on domestic labor issues. 
Like the lives of coal miners and their families who lived at the edge of poverty, often in company towns.
A feminist lens on the world can get in the way of simple pleasures. Freud or W.C. Fields, "Sometimes a cigar is just a smoke"? Or a collectible bauble does not have to remind me of North Carolina, source of so many big, bad leaves, home-base of our recently disgraced former Presidential candidate.
At Writerquake, Lydia attacks Friday's sad news, by throwing words at the wall, those of John and Elizabeth Edwards' from their interviews. Using Wordle, a cloud technique, she offers a creative approach to disperse the anger and sadness many feel toward the couple.
[*For more on the perniciousness of direct marketing, see Trinkets & Trash, "artifacts of the tobacco empire."]
A visit to Oregon this time of year is not complete without experiencing produce in the open-air. We began in Eugene where we'd gone for Black Sheep Gathering. We made a point to visit the bountiful town market before the sheep so we could bring our own lunch along.
For reasons only the natives must know, the worst sort of fast food is available at the Gathering--nothing fresh, no lamb. Curious.
As great and glorious Eugene's Saturday Market is, it was the waste-conscious sensibility that got to me. Imagine, a container for compost. Of course, this assumes that everyone knows this is for waste that can be composted not as I initially thought, "They bring compost here?" And everyone know which stuff belongs in it? Remarkable but then I live in another universe where it is someone else's responsibility to kee
p the earth clean--not ours.
The specialness of our trip was taking Zach, our 6 year old grandson, along on his first overnight trip with us. He was very comfortable with this Angora sheep and all the wool-centric happenings. Though very sensitive to wearing wool, we cannot knit or spin for him, nothing was a problem with the live product.
He was encouraged to be up-close with the animals by Carol Ronan, a sheep breeder in Selma, Oregon.
We watched the judging--Carol even encouraged Zach to come into the ring with her--as she won two ribbons for her animals. We'll return next year and see if he's ready to get in the ring.
We opened the car doors--his and mine. Whack! It was 105 degrees downtown in downtown Charm City last Saturday afternoon. Walls of heat marked an earlier, 20th century entry into Baltimore not far from here...in another car, August 1969. I was eight months pregnant and the faucets and toilets in our rented place only delivered hot water. To be fair, the city has lovely seasons--crisp Fall and glorious floral Spring.
Twelve years ago, the children gone, work done, never fully integrated into this southern city, we returned to Manhattan. We returned to see how Lisa Anne Auerbach, an artist known to me through knitting, had transformed my "Knit a Condom Amulet" zine to become part of her installation, 
The Tract House.
She collected a sizeable group of "lifestyle tracts" from others like me who had something important they wanted to say to the world. Located in a storefront on 123 Saratoga Street, it is a few blocks away from the larger exhibit at the Contemporary Museum, "Cottage Industries."
While we looked over the tracts, collected them as everyone is encouraged to do, a young couple walked in. They were students
from the nearby culinary school, were quite taken with the full table--ranging from a high school student's anguished, "I Hate Baltimore" to "You No Longer Have To Throw Your Holey Garments Away!" to "Save the Beans." And so much more including Lisa's own D.D.I.Y. manifesto arguing, "Don't Do It Yourself." You have until August 24 to see for yourself (open Wednesdays through Saturdays).
Lisa Anne's intricate machine knitting on the wall highlighted the titles of many of the tracts and added to the obsessiveness of the entire storefront operation.
All that was needed: a sweaty person in formal wear out front demanding the passerby to "Step up...See what we have for you inside (voice drops) to read."
We did our part. I enacted my true self by collecting one of every tract, then reading them all that night in my motel bed. You can do something like that by going to The Tract House link where all are artfully arranged and available for careful reading. Let me know your favorites.
In Federal Hill, another part of downtown, I'd belonged to Resurgam, a
co-op gallery, had my first show in 1989. Discovered it's no longer there; probably
closed sometime in last three years. We drove by the house we'd lived in for 25 years...large and unwanted after the riots of 1968 and discovered it had been sold again and was being expanded. It's the American way even as what we really need to do is contract.
I am always ambivalent about Baltimore, the city's low-rise scale becomes more appealing the longer it's behind me. Would there have been another place to be a feminist therapist in just the way I wanted...to raise children with lots of green space around them...morph into my own art?
We were concerned that Roxie and her parents would get caught in long delays as they travelled out of New York on Christmas Eve. So it was quite a surprise to get a call this morning from Leanne that their flight had been cancelled by bad weather in the midwest.
Making the best of it, they decided to take advantage of a clear, bright day by coming in to see the sights.
We met up for lunch at Ollie's Sichauan on West 42nd Street at Ni
nth Avenue. On the trip downtown, I saw for the first time several walls of mosaic murals in the 8th Avenue subway at 42nd. In writing 
this post, I learned its perfect title--Losing My Marbles. Artist Lisa Dinhofer created it in 2003. The link has a full length photo of this wall, one of three. The online site, "SubwayArtGuide," is an illustrated catalog of 210 art works--mostly underground. Roxie wou
ld love the colors, clap her hands and 
probably try to eat them as she's doing here with the bamboo steam basket from our shrimp dumplings.
It was a treat to be with her another time; it will be mid-January till we are all back in New York. And then she will be one year old.
Two full days at Rhinebeck, aka New York State Sheep & Wool Festival, has left household heavier with many bags of roving purchased by Ron for spinning. Virtuously (wink, wink, as I calculate how many projects it will take to use half of current stash) my purchase was one skein of Seacolors from Maine--which one can only obtain by being there. Self-control gave way in the adventure's final moments.
How It Began. Through the miracle of cell phones, Xtreme English, on-sabbatical Elderblogger, and I meet up. She does not currently knit, reveals a longing to make colorful socks like the ones she buys, hands me her latest take on the world.
She first graced these pages under the guise of MAW, an emerging artist. Pleased to introduce M.E.C., who meant to sign this jaundiced interpretation of knitting wimmim. However, she, her daughter and I were totally fixated on watching Saturday afterno
on's Sheep Dog Trials. 
America is dotted with Sheep & Wool Events to give breeders of these fine animals an opportunity to meet, judge their animals and fleeces. In this event, the farmer/handler directs her/his dog to go through timed paces in herding sheep. MEC must have better photos; mine give sheep and one competitor a bit of visibility. Massachusetts Sheep and Wool was the first place I saw this--andhas glorious close-up. Their entire site puts the wool source up front--Rhinebeck, please note.
Famous Online Person & Fan Meet 
Clara Parkes, first time book author, creator of Knitter's Review, was gracious in her receipt of her very own Condom Amulet, "Orange, my favorite color!" (Knit from impulse-purchase synthetics, decorated with vintage buttons, plus New York City Condoms and Post-It pad inside.) My thank-you for her telling the knit world about my Safe Sex project on Knitter's Review.
Read section on "Color" from Clara's The Knitter's Book of Yarn, as we drove back to the festival on Sunday morning. Ron was driving. Find it something I've been waiting for--an informed discussion of terms, especially hand-dyed and hand-painted. Pretty patterns. I like the name and look of Scaruffle, could be right candidate for stash yarn.
We'd stayed overnight with our friends Mike and Mary whom we'd visited this summer in Cragsmoor. What a treat to see the Fall colors from high up in the mountains. The four of us talked about our need to leave "the City" for refreshment in more natura
l settings.
More Author Meet Ups Luckily learned about Sunday Book Tent happening (hidden on Rhinebeck website) from Kay Gardiner, friend and knitter of The Ballband Keychain Condom Amulet, soon to appear in online zine (see
button at left). I'd wanted to meet Ann Shayne, Kay's writing partner in book and blog, Mason*Dixon Knitting, a production bringing together Nashville and New York City in a non-musical way. Sent her home with red amulet. More vintage buttons, yarn-- found in Pennsylvania antique store-- from torn-up wool dress, probably Amish. Busy signing books, Ann works away; Kay smiles for the camera.
Across the way
, Clara Parkes is also busy. Knitters want to buy books! 
Faster than a sheep to shawl competition (inside joke, M.E.C. could illustrate), Ann and Kay on Monday posted someone's photo of elegant, heads-up Ann in a BIG hat. Made by the irrepressible Lisa Daehlin, here wearing it. Knitter/opera singer, Lisa and I have known each other through yarn, k
nitting circles song recitals for years.
She's created two Amulets for Condom Amulet zine. I was carrying around the most recent--amulet as wire bracelet. She and a member of the new Ravelry community have a technical exchange. A months-old online group, Ravelry was everywhere. Saturday you knew who they were by their ID buttons; Sunday, tee-shirts. Kay and Lisa tell me it is the latest, best idea.
Recent Comments