Whole-Wheat Spaghetti with Lemon, Basil, and Salmon on the Food Network

Whole-Wheat Spaghetti with Lemon, Basil, and Salmon on the Food Network

Odds and ends from work

Having really beefed up my reading volume in the past few months, I find myself starting to spot things about the imaging industry that give me pause.  Some things are so obvious – more digital printing in niche industries means less inventory of printed material, printing on demand is the norm, direct to press or plate systems are expanding.  In the down economy there is a sense that the heyday of printed documents for the construction industry has seen its day – there will never again be the sort of printing runs of full size construction documents that we saw in the final quarter of the twentieth century.  But what forms of visual communications will expand in the coming years?

The signage industry is expecting flat screen electronics to crop up everywhere from elevators to malls.  In an uncharacteristic turn the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association welcomed vendors of those devices at their annual Trade Exposition in Las Vegas this year, and there was a definite air of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” in their presence.

I am really interested in the future of Internet providers of specialty graphics – the No Bricks And Mortar crowd that have become such consumer pleasers in the recent  years.  Even with the digital tools at my disposal I have ordered customer printed novelties (Christmas ornaments, family calendars) through these sites.  Reading Printing Impressions today I learned that Shutterfly – social expression and personal publishing site – acquired WMSG, a digital direct marketing provider with strong data, printing and marketing analytics (located in Dallas) to expand their commercial printing business.  I wonder how that will work for them. 

Magic cast on for toe up socks, mittens etc

Cushing

Facebook Website for the Mother Ship

Cushing

Burning Question: Why Do Ebooks Cost So Much?

This explains a lot -- also seems to indicate that once the frint end load is covered costs should start to come down . . .

Burning Question: Why Do Ebooks Cost So Much?

Michael's Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdx5nGphnAI

It always makes me cry but it makes me feel like he is here with me.  I like to crank it up real loud!

Tubular bind off for ribbing (or anything)

http://www.savannahchik.com/2006/11/tubular_bindoff.htm

World's Best (and easiest!) Banana Nut Muffins

World's Best (and easiest!) Banana Nut Muffins

Getting in the water

All the wet, white bodies moving in various modes through the water-therapy warm pool. The noon Adult Swim crowd is significantly geriatric, some approaching the water with walkers, canes, protective footwear. Oddly very few women are wearing anything to protect their hair, but many of the men favor the skin tight racing swim caps to keep their wispy hair intact. One man’s wasting body is almost painful to look at – his scapula bones wrenching away from his torso when he strokes slowly in the water creating sharp wings above his back. But he strokes on, on his belly and then his back, covering about twenty yards, stopping to stand, and turning to reverse direction, never touching the wall, never apparently walking on the pool floor. Other men and women are swimming in the lap lanes, powerfully or weakly, racking up point for stamina and exercise. Many women are walking or doing calisthenics at the edge of the pool, squatting out reps of ten – rest – ten, standing push-ups against the wall, intermittently walking laps forward and backward on the lane lines. The men who are exercising in the water keep their distance, avoiding the women walkers who sometimes pair off to visit while they walk, wearing their glasses and earrings, making social time out of the process. Many of the flaccid white bodies strolling in and out of the locker rooms are almost sexless, with drooping breasts, flattened buttocks, hanging upper arms that tell of too much weight (current or former), or muscles long gone, or the atrophying lack of use that arthritis brings. But they are all here, basking in the soothing water, fighting the effects of gravity, relaxing tensions that are so much a part of everyday that they go unnoticed until they are gone.




AT 1:01 on Mondays and Wednesdays in the summer the swim camp arrives, signaled by the first energetic eight year old boys to spill out of the locker room, boys who wore their suits so they wouldn’t have to waste time changing in the locker room, boys who wanted to get every minute out of the pool that they are allotted.. They don’t bother to walk in from the zero entry area that the seniors and young children favor – they jump in or, if they are tentative, walk down the steps into the “deep” end of the lap pool. Pretty soon the pool is teeming with six to twelve year olds, with goggles and wet pony tails, tagging each other, sneaking in a “cannon ball” behind the guards’ backs, making no pretense of actually swimming, but clearly able to swim if required. No more need for lane markers except to protect the area where the area where squealing wet bodies are shooting off the slide. Open Swim is just that – open to all comers and energizing in it’s craziness.



Weekend Adult Swim hours still have the complement of water walkers and aqua exercising people of a certain age, but with the added attraction of real lap swimmers, young adults in tank suits and Speedos, and thirty-somethings knocking out ten laps as part of the workout regimen before soaking in the hot tub. There is always a sprinkling of fifty-somethings who are rehabbing a new knee or hip joint, winding up physical therapy for a surgical repair, or just acknowledging that the exercise in the water is the exercise that doesn’t hurt the next day – the secret that the seniors have been keeping during the weekday hours.

Elizabeth Zimmerman's Sewn Bind Off

Method


Using a tapestry needle with an extremely long tail of yarn, pull the needle through two front loops as if to purl, then back through the first stitch as if to knit. Drop the first stitch off. Repeat to the end.


Variations (working in the round on a circular needle)

Pull the yarn tail through two front loops as if to purl, then back through the first stitch as if to knit. Move the first stitch to the right-hand needle, making it the last stitch of the round. Follow traditional method as above.

Ever Heard of Twitter?

Ever Heard of Twitter?

Transcending: Words on Women and Strength by Kelly Corrigan

Welcome to Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel It's like this . . .

When you are going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas of Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several house later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there yo must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would have never met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around . . . and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills . . . and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy . . . and they 're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away . . . because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But . . . if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things . . . about Holland.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All Rights Reserved.

Letter to Sara

Dear Sara,

I really don't have any brilliant message to impart, but I wanted to touch base and see how you are doing. It meant a lot to me to see you at the wake, but of course there was very little chatting for me there. I can't believe that the funeral was a week ago -- it still feels like five minutes ago to me.

You know, I have so much admiration for women who can do what you do -- spend your talent and energy with patients who mostly don't get better. I mean, I know that they get better for a while, but some of them don't and with patients like Mike I know that you knew from the beginning that he had something that people can't live with for very long. He had such a good year, though, that it must be horribly painful to see that end. I know that it is for me . . . but I wouldn't have given up what we had for that year for anything.

Anyhow, back to you -- thank you for letting yourself befriend Duff (and me). It made the whole process of fighting to have that year so much more human, and the treatments so much more bearable. I know that you don't have to do that, and that most patients don't get to bond up with one person because you just can't let yourself be that open and still do what you do. All I know is that it was a wonderful gift to us, and I am grateful (but sorry for the pain that it caused you). Saying goodbye to you was the beginning of Duff letting go, and I know that you knew that. I just hope that you also know how much genuine affection he had for you. That was his gift in life -- to be able to share himself with so many people that he cared for, and you were certainly one of them.

So thanks again. I am not going anywhere, and I will try to stay in touch but if that doesn't work I just wanted you to know what a difference you made in our liives and how if you don't do anyting else nice this year you can still know that you make the world a bette place just by being yourself. I know that you will soar through school and not be delivering chemo therapy forever. Be happy and stay smiling. I am sending you a picture of himself.

Stay in touch if you want! We are getting a little more normal every day, but things will be different now. Like I tell my kids, though, different isn't better or worse -- it is just different and you make of it what you want.

Love,

Cathie

Wear Sunscreen

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40; maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.

(a column in the Chicago Tribune by Mary Schmich, 2005)

Leftover spaghetti recipe

http://alladither.typepad.com/halfassedkitchen/2009/07/spaghetti-frittata.html

Really stretchy Bind Off

Great for the top of socks, arm warmers, necklines, lacey edges, etc.

K2, slide the left needle into the front of the two stitches on the right needle and knit them together (leaving one stitch on the right needle). K1 one again, and repeat the process until one stitch remains -- pull tail through loop and weave in.

Moving Mom

For about a week after changing rooms she was more agitated than usual.

"Am I here because I am dying?", she wants to know. "Everyone here is really old and crazy."

How can you say "That is why you are here"? Even if she is not REALLY old, she is increasingly more frail mentally with each passing day. She doesn't need help standing up so much as her brain no longer tells her why you would want to stand up -- or what muscles you would need to do that. She isn't happy or unhappy about her surroundings. She is just slipping slowly, inexoribly into a place where the surroundings don't really matter so much -- as long as she is warm and clean and not hungry. She sleeps not so much from boredom as from the exhaustion of constantly having to try to make sense of every little thing. What day is it? Is it morning or evening? Why are these people all smiling at me? Should I know who these young people are? Didn't I just eat? How did I get these clothes on? Do I have a purse anymore?

Knitted Star Pattern - Inside Knits - Knitting Daily

Knitted Star Pattern - Inside Knits - Knitting Daily

Cable cast on for stretchy edge

This cast on creates a solid edge. It is quite similar to the Knitted Cast On. The difference is in where you insert your needle and draw the loop through. In the Knitted Cast On, you are drawing it from the previous stitch. Here, we draw it from between the two previous stitches.
Make a slip knot and slide it onto one needle. Create a second stitch by using the Knitted Cast On method.
Insert the tip of your right needle between the two stitches in your left needle.
Wrap the yarn around and draw a loop through.
Insert your left needle tip into this loop from right to left and remove your right needle from the stitch. (I find that this is easier if you use a crochet hook to maneuver the yarn through the cast on process)
Repeat these steps to create the appropriate number of cast on stitches, lightly tightening the stitches as you go along.