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arguchikI find a bittersweet irony in the fact that Wall Street is tanking, and The Washington Post is even heralding the end of American-style capitalsim, while my father disappears further into the fog of Alzheimer's disease. Both of my parents are children of the Great Depression, but my father was particularly self-aware and vocal about that. He was actually making predictions about what we're experiencing now, back in the 1980's when Reagan came to power and started deregulating industries left and right. In some ways I'm glad that he (Dad) isn't aware of what's happening now, but at the same time I'm sad that he doesn't get to feel satisfied or vindicated, or explain to me (and my siblings) in excruciating detail how the current crisis is "exactly like" the one that shaped his childhood world. I really miss the stories he used to tell to embellish his scathing indictments of U.S. economic policy. It is weird to me that his life has been bookended by financial panic and economic crisis. Dad was born in 1925, and he grew up very poor. Mom was born in 1932 and grew up less poor--what I'd call "lace curtain Irish," except that only her mom was Irish...and she didn't hail from a lace curtain background herself, she only rose into that status by marrying a guy with recession-proof skills (my maternal grandpa was an auto mechanic).
So here we go...
READING: Farthing by Jo Walton. I picked this up at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, upon my friend Sarah's recommendation. So far I'm really enjoying the book--I'm only about 50 pages in, but it's fascinating. It is both a murder mystery, and an alternate-future SF story, set in a post-WWII England in which Germany did not lose WWII, and Hitler remains in power, ruling over (from what I can tell so far) much/all of Western Europe. I'm also still working on Wallace Stegner's Spectator Bird. I love that book, too, but I picked up the Jo Walton book because...Stegner is great, but he's really serious, and I wanted something more lively to read.
WEARING: Still in the sweatpants and sweatshirt I put on when I got up this morning. I'm working at home today, so I don't really need to put on "outside" clothes.
PLANNING: Not sure what I'm going to be doing this weekend. It's still amorphous. No big plans coming up in the next few weeks, either.
KNITTING: I've been a little bit stalled out on my knitting this week. I haven't started anything new. I worked on my Endpaper Mitts (Ravelry link--you won't be able to see this unless you're a Raveler), and got through the first two increases for the thumb gusset. I'm also still working on my second rendition of the Lace Ribbon Scarf, and my first pair of socks (the first sock is finished, and I'm about halfway down the cuff of the second). I have been carrying the scarf project and the socks project with me on the bus, but I have mainly been using the scarf as my bus knitting project--because I am afraid of using DPN's on the bus. Well, the other day on the bus I was like..."fuck it, I want to work on the socks!" So I did, and disaster did not ensue. Nary a DPN mishap: no chasing a stray needle under a seat or down the aisle, no inadvertent jabbing of an innocent bystander. It was fine, enjoyable, a perfectly acceptable bus activity. I'll keep doing it...we'll see how long my luck holds out. Oh, and I have also knit a couple more inches onto my rendition of Jess's Gansey. I need to start on the sweater I want to make for my mom, and then I'll be knitting a cardigan for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glaucon. I'm sort of dragging my feet on these projects, I think because I really want to fool around with some sweater design ideas I have for 6 skeins of emerald green Cascade 220 that's in my stash. That's enough to make a me-sized sweater (and that's what I bought it for), but not a glaucon-sized sweater. I have other yarn in my stash for him, though--actually I have yarn for two different sweaters that I'm planning to make for him. The Sweater Curse be damned! (I've already made him one sweater--he was wearing it yesterday, actually--and that didn't activate the Curse, so I'm probably safe.)
So here we go...
READING: Farthing by Jo Walton. I picked this up at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, upon my friend Sarah's recommendation. So far I'm really enjoying the book--I'm only about 50 pages in, but it's fascinating. It is both a murder mystery, and an alternate-future SF story, set in a post-WWII England in which Germany did not lose WWII, and Hitler remains in power, ruling over (from what I can tell so far) much/all of Western Europe. I'm also still working on Wallace Stegner's Spectator Bird. I love that book, too, but I picked up the Jo Walton book because...Stegner is great, but he's really serious, and I wanted something more lively to read.
WEARING: Still in the sweatpants and sweatshirt I put on when I got up this morning. I'm working at home today, so I don't really need to put on "outside" clothes.
PLANNING: Not sure what I'm going to be doing this weekend. It's still amorphous. No big plans coming up in the next few weeks, either.
KNITTING: I've been a little bit stalled out on my knitting this week. I haven't started anything new. I worked on my Endpaper Mitts (Ravelry link--you won't be able to see this unless you're a Raveler), and got through the first two increases for the thumb gusset. I'm also still working on my second rendition of the Lace Ribbon Scarf, and my first pair of socks (the first sock is finished, and I'm about halfway down the cuff of the second). I have been carrying the scarf project and the socks project with me on the bus, but I have mainly been using the scarf as my bus knitting project--because I am afraid of using DPN's on the bus. Well, the other day on the bus I was like..."fuck it, I want to work on the socks!" So I did, and disaster did not ensue. Nary a DPN mishap: no chasing a stray needle under a seat or down the aisle, no inadvertent jabbing of an innocent bystander. It was fine, enjoyable, a perfectly acceptable bus activity. I'll keep doing it...we'll see how long my luck holds out. Oh, and I have also knit a couple more inches onto my rendition of Jess's Gansey. I need to start on the sweater I want to make for my mom, and then I'll be knitting a cardigan for
glaucon. I'm sort of dragging my feet on these projects, I think because I really want to fool around with some sweater design ideas I have for 6 skeins of emerald green Cascade 220 that's in my stash. That's enough to make a me-sized sweater (and that's what I bought it for), but not a glaucon-sized sweater. I have other yarn in my stash for him, though--actually I have yarn for two different sweaters that I'm planning to make for him. The Sweater Curse be damned! (I've already made him one sweater--he was wearing it yesterday, actually--and that didn't activate the Curse, so I'm probably safe.)
