Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 17

Thanksgiving

We were thankful for a beautiful morning, both for the beauty and for the weather that let friends drive safely from their homes to ours.


We were thankful for our friends, who come from distant cities to share this meal, for having a place for them to come, for the bounty they bring of various foods, and for having food ourselves to share with them.



This was the buffet table -- ham at one end, turkey at the other.  You can see steam rising from the turkey.  Two other dishes weren't on the table yet...setting out the food was still happening.  The gravy boats weren't out yet, for instance.  Here's one--sauted sweet potatoes, apples, with dried cranberries and nuts, right after it came from the kitchen.





We gathered at the table (not everyone's there yet, or in their places.



I don't have a picture of all the desserts, which is a shame, but between this part of the feast and dessert was some cleanup time and a long walk on the land to work off Phase A and make room for PIE.  This was a year of PIE.  We had a lot of PIE.   Most of us took tiny slices of at least three of the six pies plus a slice of cranberry nut bread.

The Night Before

Thanksgiving is the one big feast I do...yes, there are other parties, but they're all more casual.   For Thanksgiving, I pull out all the stops in terms of table decorations and food.  (At my level, that is.  Others do much more.)   Ordinarily, the prep starts back in October and carries on in an orderly fashion.  This year, however, the discovery that my husband has another cancer (discovery made about two weeks ago) threw my prepartion for a loop.  That plus various things in the Outer Real World.

However--though today has been a mad scramble and I'm not done yet--preparation has made progress.


What will be the buffet table.  Actually two slabs of plywood with folding legs
bolted to them, that we made about 30-something years ago.  It has
a new rust-colored tablecloth. 
This is the table where we'll eat, across the room from the buffet layout.   You'll notice the plates don't match.  It's a feature, not a bug--didn't have enough plates in the pattern I grew up with (the multi-colored flowers) and bought a set of six blue-and-whites to alternate with them.  No two of the blue-and-whites are the same--they're replicas of older stuff.  This table is newer, a major splurge a few years ago.  Before that used two tables that weren't the same width or height, and with unreliable drop-leaves.  One was the dining room table I remember from childhood; one is the one we bought a few years after we married.  Worked for years.


The table's not fully set, of course, and has no centerpiece--that raffia cornucopia partway down
is to remind me to lay out the apples and grapes artistically in the morning.
Yes, the plates will be centered on the chairs, and everyone will have flatware. 
Right now there's a pumpkin pie in the oven and I'm relaxing online instead of doing the remaining rounds of chopping, dicing, slicing and sauteing so that tomorrow I can put things together fast.   I have a pint of homemade spiced pear/apple/red wine glaze for the ham in the fridge, the turkeys are mostly thawed, and all the ingredients for my half of the vegetable dishes (guests are bringing some, plus rolls, and desserts)  are all in place, except for some sauted onions and garlic.  Friends are bringing homemade cranberry sauce, sweet potato/apple saute,  green bean casserole,  pecan pie, apple pie, cranberry nut bread.  Should you wonder if we can eat all that...no, but we count on leftovers, and also having enough for any person who needs it. 

Should you wonder why I took the pictures today, it's because many Thanksgivings running, I've been too busy and distracted to think about pictures until too late, as the others' taillights were vanishing up the street.  Maybe I'll get lucky this year and get a picture of the table in its full array, but probably not.  "Hey, Elizabeth, where's that little dish to put the olives in?"

What are we thankful for?  Life.  Health, however it is.  Friends.  And having a day to celebrate them.  There's more, but...I need to go dice some more onion and garlic and get with the slicing of carrot and celery sticks and the chopping of parsley and cilantro.

The Whited Sepulchre: The Stench of Corruption

The Gospel According to Matthew 23:27...Alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites.  You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look well from outside, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth.  So it is with you: you look like honest men, but inside you are brimful of hypocrisy and crime...

And here we have the white sepulchre, the carnal house of white supremacy, covering itself in white sheets and hoods, but inside--hatred, hypocrisy, crime.   For the coverup that began on the day Michael Brown was shot down for walking down the middle of a street...the day the police department began its campaign of lies to prove that he was a criminal and deserved to be shot down and left lying in the street for hours...that day was nothing more or less than the construction of yet another whited sepulchre of exactly the kind Jesus meant--a collusion of those in power to justify the murder of another African-American youth.  Whitewash the story, make it all about the poor innocent white man (in a car, with a gun) who was afraid for his life and had no other choice but to pour bullet after bullet into a kid...try to cover up the long stinking history of racism in Ferguson, of mistreatment and neglect and downright dishonesty towards its African-American citizens. 

But it cannot be done.  The stench covers the land...there is not enough whitewash and or white sheeting to smother that sickly odor: hypocrisy, hatred, malice, deceit.   It is not just in Ferguson.  It is in every state, in every county of every state, in every community in every county of every state.  The stench rises from every grave where a person of color lies who was killed because he or she was black or brown...while white people who had done the same thing walked alive and free, from every cell in every jail and prison where a girl or boy or man or woman sits confined because they were black or brown....while white people who had done the same thing went free or got "community service." 

You are like tombs covered with whitewash; they look well from outside, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all kinds of filth.

Those in power in Ferguson are white--have been white--have been content to see their African-American citizens suffer--to deny them justice, to deny them education, to deny them any respect at all.  Educated people.  Cultured people, they will tell you.  Law abiding people.   With that shell of white on the outside, they believe they're entitled to all the respect, all the privilege.  But inside, they are filthier, dirtier, nastier, uglier, more vicious than an entire slum.  And they know it.   And so they project their own crimes, and their hypocrisy, onto the poor, the powerless.  Instead of cleaning out their own filth, they blame it on others.

...And so on you will fall the guilt of all the innocent blood spilt on the ground...

And from Chapter 25, 31-46: When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit in state on his throne, with all the nations gathered before him.  He will separate men into two groups, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

The reasons for the division, for who is a beloved sheep and who is judged an unwanted goat?  Not intelligence, not creativity, not education, not wealth, not the color of their skins, not fame/celebrity, not power...but something simpler and much harder.   For the sheep, they had obeyed the command to love their neighbors:

For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was a stranger, you took me into your home; when naked, you clothed me; when I was ill you came to my help; when I was in prison you visited me.

And that meant "anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did for me."

The goats...did none of these things and for that--for lack of love, for refusing to grasp that everyone in the community was a brother, however humble--...they will go away to eternal punishment.

There are, this tragic night, white people in St. Louis saying they're afraid now.   Never mind that whites control the government, the army, the National Guard--that they have the armor and the guns and the bullets and the tear gas.   These people have created in their own minds monstrous images to justify the killing of Michael Brown and others, the jailing of thousands more.  And so they're afraid. 

And they should be afraid.  But not of the people they think are scary...people who, at worst, can only kill their bodies--but of God, who can unmake them wholly or send them to eternal torment, as many believe.  Of God, who can see right through that white skin into that evil heart and thus knows the reality of each individual.   They should be afraid of Judgment.

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Frustrations, Medical

So...husband's annual post-cancer-surgery checkup includes CT scan and endoscopy.  Last year all was negative.  Year before, all was negative.  This year...a new tumor.  The endoscopy was supposed to give a sample for pathology.  Last time--when the first tumor was found in his stomach, the first endoscopy produced only gastric mucosa...not a piece of tumor--and had to be redone.  This year...same thing.  Instead of finding out this week what the pathologist said about the tumor, he's going to have to have another endoscopy, another wait for the pathology report, before he can see the surgeon who'll do the resection.

So not only does he have to go through the procedure twice (and it's not fun, even though he's medicated to the gills) but it takes up a day of my time--he needs a driver to and from, and someone to wait at the facility while they do the procedure.   Which means sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a room where I can't get away from the two TVs blaring out on a station I don't like--talking heads talking in ways that raise my blood pressure.    Then as soon as he's in recovery, I'm expected to go back and sit with him (he's not really conscious at this point; the chair in there is even more uncomfortable) for close to an hour before he's considered fit to be driven home (about a half-hour drive.)  And at home, he has to be watched for 12 hours to be sure nothing's going wrong with the recovery.

Some people may be able to write their day's wordage in that situation, but I can't.   I try to knit.  I've waited in the car in the parking lot,  or in the foyer (the chairs are not more comfortable but there's no TV...just the main door to outside whooshing open and shut and people walking by, which is not a problem.   But hospitals and clinics exude tension and worry (and those blasted news-and-talk television stations do nothing to ease it.)

Most of all I resent his having to go through this again.  A second tumor is bad enough.  A second endoscopy just to get a biopsy of the tumor is...really, really annoying.

And Lunch...

First the bone-in hunk of pork (blade roast) slow-cooked overnight in a 225F oven with its dry rub and some Lea & Perrins.  It was falling-apart done when we got up this morning.  Then the meat was taken out for shredding, and the brown rice cooked in the pot juices plus some water.  Then the Ro-tel diced tomatoes & green chilis and a can of black beans went in and some of the meat was returned to the pot.  A little homemade chicken stock loosened it up (the rice decided to take up not only its measured water but all the pot juices as well; the juice from the can of Ro-tel wasn't quite enough.)

A very hearty lunch for me.   Husband had a nearly-overflowing bowl. 

The rest of the meat, divided into packages, will go in the freezer to be ready for other meals.

Unpacking the Issues

From the many-many-many emails and tweets women (including me) have gotten about That Shirt, it's clear that for many of the angry crowd, keeping straight exactly what the argument is about is...unimportant or unrecognized.  This is an attempt to unpack the various issues involved, and why it's still a live topic.

My previous post on That Shirt explained why the shirt was an issue--what it was about it that brought out complaints.   It was more about the semiotics of clothes--how it is that clothes send messages, and what kinds of effects those messages have on those who see the person in the clothes.

One group responding to the orginal criticism of That Shirt focused on the issue of whether or not the shirt was actually sexist (or wearing it was sexist).   Within this group, other issues appeared:  whether sexism actually exists, who gets to define something as sexist, whether sexism is actually harmful, whether something not intended to be sexist can be sexist.  In general, in this group, even the more moderate commenters focused more on claims that the original complaints about the shirt were unjustified.  That they were unfair, that they were too strong, that they lasted too long and came from too many women.  The complaints were also interpreted (variously--not the same by all) to mean that the women who made them were angry with all men, blamed all men, labeled all men sexist (it was a shirt the women called sexist, and the wearing of it in that social context: a behavior, not a person.)   Why, some asked, didn't women just drop it?  (Because they were still being attacked.)  Some repeated the same thing over and over, as if repetition would compel consent.

Another group produced volumes of violent, angry, threatening communications as a reaction to the original complaints, and for them, the issue had nothing to do with whether or not the shirt was or was not sexist:  it was an attack on the right of women to have and express opinions that those men and women found objectionable.  These communications were simllar to those produced by the Gamergate group and those aimed at women scientists, journalists, politicians, and other women who make their opinions public in venues beyond private blogs.  They included insults (calling women stupid, ugly, unqualified, abnormal, extremists, terrorists, and of course "feminazis"),  mocking, threats, and maledictions: stating the hope that the women would get fatal diseases, be raped, be beaten, commit suicide, be killed.  And threats, both of physical harm and social exposure that can lead to physical harm.

On the surface, the moderate commenters seem quite different from the angry haters, but the underlying issue in both sorts is that women should not have opinions these (mostly) men and some women disapprove of, and should certainly not express them if they do.   Women's understanding of a situation is unwelcome unless it mirrors men's.   Their concerns are unimportant and likely based on "just your opinion" not "facts."  (For instance, in the many challenges to the concept of sexism, and the statement that sexism harms women.  When someone says to a woman "It's OK for you to say I feel that's sexist, but wrong to say it IS sexist--it's just your opinion"  that is, ironically, a statement of opinion that the speaker is sure is a fact (because his own opinion is right.  Naturally.)   The men comenting (those who didn't limit themselves to insults)  regularly exhibited the behavior they complained about in women, with no apparent insight that this was happening.

So there are two major issues:

That Shirt as an example of the semiotics of clothing.  It is worth recognizing, and talking about, what clothing "says" in an world full of diverse opinions about what's acceptable in a given situation.   Not to attack Dr. Taylor, but to reveal how what we wear affects those who see it--not only among our friends, our own colleagues, the people in the neighborhood.   Especially individuals whose platform extends outside their own culture should be cognizant of what their clothing "says."  This is not just a feminist issue about one shirt, though one shirt sparked the discussion.  It's an issue that affects everyone whose familiar clothing is perceived with some bias elsewhere.

Silencing (and thus excluding) women is an example of sexism.   The attacks--both moderate and immoderate--on women who criticized That Shirt reveal continuing disrespect for women, and a lack of conviction that women are fully human--real people (and thus allowed to hold contrary opinions and express them without retaliation.)   The silencing of women has been an issue in many cultures for a long time.   Those who believe women should be controlled, confined, silenced have used both verbal and physical means of silencing them--some more violent than others.  Where a culture claims to value women and seeks more equal representation by women in various fields, silencing in those fields is of specific concern... a discussion of what constitutes silencing behaviors, and what the effects are, would be worthwhile.

So, There Was This Shirt: When Clothes Talk

A friend of mine in New York City has talked and written about the semiotics of clothes--and she's my go-to person when I need an outfit to "say" something specific in a specific social context.  She's never led me wrong.  My own interest in clothes is on the other end of things--are they comfortable, and will they stand up to what I'm doing in them?   I loathe "fashion" because it routinely makes clothes that are comfortable and work for me disappear, in favor of clothes that are less comfortable and more fragile.  But that's a side issue here.

On the day of the Rosetta Program's great triumph, the landing of a device on a comet, a prominent scientist and leader in the program wore That Shirt.  No one else on the live stream or news media wore anything like it...there were people in pullovers, people in T's, people in jeans and something, and managerial types in suits and ties.  But this person wore what looked like a Hawaiian beach-type shirt, covered with pictures of Babes.  Voluptuous females in less than complete attire.  Several things resulted from that shirt's prominence on the screens of TVs and monitors.


Women--the kind of women who were watching because they like science, are interested in the space program, are astronomers or astrophysicists or other scientists, who had followed the Rosetta Project before--began commenting negatively about That Shirt.  They said it was typical of the kind of thing that makes women feel uncomfortable in STEM fields, in grad school, in tech employment--that it sent the message that women are viewed even by team leaders as sex objects, not intelligent people, that such images contributed to the difficulty of recruiting women into STEM fields and retaining them there.   In response, a certain type of men started attacking and insulting the women who complained about That Shirt.  Some men began posting negatively about That Shirt and about the men attacking women who complained about the shirt.  The attackers then attacked those men.

Women were told they were stupid, ignorant, fat, ugly, oversensitive, weak, incompetent...and ruining the attackers' pleasure in the successful landing by bringing up something so silly and trivial.   They were told that "normal people" hated them.   Attackers expressed hope that the women would get Ebola or  AIDS or be raped, or be beaten or be killed, and told them to kill themselves, f*ck themselves, and of course shut the f*ck up.  A few threatened that they would kill these women themselves.  Men were told they were stupid, ignorant, and in some cases, were stated to be "not male at all."

The shirt wearer changed, apologized, and as far as I'm concerned, that's fine.  What isn't fine is that days later the attackers are still bombing womens' accounts in both Twitter and email with hundreds of hate messages.    But that's not what most of this post is about.  It's about cultural signals expressed in clothes.

A few illustrations:  First, an African-American lawyer was arrested at Austin's airport some years back on suspicion of being a drug dealer because of  his clothes and jewelry, he was told: "You're dressed like a drug dealer."   He had a white friend go through the same airport at the same time of day wearing his clothes--the "drug dealer outfit" and the police didn't blink.   This is a case of "these clothes + skin color" having two different meanings: black man in Italian-cut suit and  bling = drug dealer; white man Italian-cut suit in bling = wealthy, stylish, professional.    The clothes had a message, but that message was context-sensitive.  Second: As an older woman, I went to an electronics store wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a slightly geeky message on it (local SF convention) and was ignored by staff--couldn't get anyone's attention to answer even one question.   On another occasion I went in wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a major Japanese-flavored comics convention on it, and was quickly acknowledged as a likely customer by multiple staff members...great service, made my purchases and got out in record time.  Third:  I have a collection of T-shirts from various places with designs that suggest an interest in multiple locations and activities.  Strangers would look at the one with the horse on it and ask if I owned a horse, or took lessons.   At the one I bought in Australia and ask if I was from Australia.   At the one with the slogan about writing on it and ask if I'd been published.    No one looked at the Australian one and asked if I rode or owned horses.  No one looked at the horse-themed T-shirt and asked if I was writing a novel.   More than that, when I wore western-themed shirts and jeans, people assumed I rode western style, and when I wore riding britches and a non-western shirt, people assumed I rode flat-saddle.  Fourth:  Sports fans know team logos and colors and readily identify fans of the same (or opposing) teams by the colors and sports-related clothing they wear.  Other teams (including the teams associated with the ESA, with the Rosetta Project specificially, with the Philae lander specifically) have team shirts made--that's also true in the tech and in the gaming industry.  At trade shows one company's team will wear matching shirts.   Fifth: There's a style of straw hat common to many women writers in this state when they're going to library and school and book fair functions, that they don't necessarily wear for anything else.  It says "writer" to them and to the public.  I could put in more illustrations but I said "a few" up front.

Clothes talk.  My usual clothes say "I don't really give a flip about clothes and I'm not advertising a point of view, an occupation, where I live, my income level, or anything else."   Jeans, plain T-shirts, shoes.  My clothes for occasions say "I'm interesting and creative and someone whose books you might want to read" (from lessons learned from my far more fashion-smart friend in NYC) or "I'm a member of this choir" (robes or concert blacks) or "I'm a safe little old lady."   Or, if I'm  going to meet a group interested in a particular topic...I'll pick a shirt that "says" to them "I'm one of you; I belong in this group."

So consider what it means to wear a garment that expresses a view of a particular race or sex or political party in different contexts.  There's the blatant and aggressive slogan that tells the designated group they're not wanted, that you hate them, that they're worthless: you can find such shirts online (and I've seen some on the street.)  Shirts for white supremacists, shirts for homophobes, shirts for and against just about anything.  Those shirts say "I am a bigot and I hate this group and that's all you need to know about me."  And these shirts are always rude to at least some of the other people on the street who disagree, because they completely disrespect anyone different.  It's all "I'm right, you're wrong, and I'll attack you for being different."

Then there's the blatant proclamation of identity, what you are (my Texas Democrat shirt for instance) without directly attacking what someone else different is  (does not state an oppositional stance, though it's implied in the political process)  These shirts say "I'm a Cowboys fan, like it or lump it" or "I'm a Catholic, like it or lump it,"  "I'm a Marine veteran," etc.   In some contexts (wearing your Cowboys shirt  to go for a bike ride)  these shirts may not be confrontational--but in another context, they can be.   (A Cowboys' shirt in a Steelers bar on game day?  Yeah.)  Where you wear the shirt talks--it says what you think about those who are where you wear it--your understanding of your audience and their likely reaction to it, and your attitude towards that likely reaction.

So what does a loose, gaudy sports shirt say (leaving aside for the moment the nekkid blondes?)  On vacation on the beach, it says "I'm a tourist on vacation on the beach."   On "casual Friday" in a relaxed company, it says "It's casual Friday and I'm being casual."  On the podium at a major scientific announcement it says "I'm a rebel; I don't have to dress like anyone else--I'm casual and breezy and entitled to dress as I please."   It expresses by its casualness that this event isn't really that important--nothing to dress up for, not even to the extent of putting on a less gaudy shirt.   Not even if the person in the shirt knows he's going to be interviewed and visible to people around the world, his words translated into many languages...it's not worth considering how that shirt will be seen.   Had it been a shirt with fern fronds printed all over it, it would still have been...not the ideal shirt for the project leader to wear on a very special day.   But no one would have cared what he thought of ferns: ferns aren't people.  Same for palm trees, hibiscus flowers, a beach, sailboats: those are all objects, not people, and if he likes shirts covered with images of ferns, palm trees, flowers, beaches, or sailboats, it can have no effect on those objects--they don't see the shirt.

What, then, is different about a shirt covered with images of people?    Simply, people are not objects--they are people, and can be affected by how they are depicted in any form.   They see the images; they see meaning in the images; they see those images in relation to their own lives, as an expression of the wearer's attitude towards them.   And the non-sociopaths among us care what other people think of them, in some degree.  A montage of African American faces done as mug shots says "The wearer of this shirt thinks all African-Americans are criminals."  Such a shirt would be obviously offensive and racist.  A montage of white men in professional attire--doctors, judges, lawyers, scientists--says, "The wearer of this shirt thinks white males are the most important, most valuable citizens."   Also offensive and racist, though maybe not to the white men.  And so That Shirt, a  shirt covered in images of scantily clad female bodies, talks directly to female people: girls and women.  It does not say: "The wearer of this shirt likes, admires, and respects women."  It says "This wearer thinks of women as sexualized objects, objects for him to stare at, show off to others, touch, own, and use, just as he looks at, shows off to others, touches, owns, and uses this shirt."    It says "When this wearer looks at women in his office, in the lab, in the factory that makes the parts for the project...he assesses them in relation to the images on this shirt--as sexual objects that either meet or do not meet this shirt's standard of sexual desirability."

Leaving aside the reactions of women with access to a Twitter account or commenting on the livestream comments section, think what That Shirt has said to those religions and cultures that distrust and dislike science, who disapprove of the space program, who are gutting science textbooks to make them conform to religious ideas.  Think what it says to those who oppose secular (including scientific) education even for boys and men, and all those who  put more strenuous limitations on the education of girls and women:  it says they were right. It says that their fears of the sexual freedom of the intellectual, scientific, "free" societies is justified--that in fact women would not be safe in an environment where a leader, an important man, wears such a shirt.  Secular western society is as bad as they claimed.  It's ammunition for the willfully ignorant, the willfully anti-science.  It gives legitimacy to the "protection" of women by denying their freedom.

The wearer of the shirt (or any other piece of clothing) may not, of course, know what a shirt is saying...although, given the amount of discussion about the difficulties women have had of being perceived as fully human, intelligent, capable of and deserving of respect, it is difficult to understand how some men still do not grasp that a shirt covered with lascivious images of women isn't showing respect for women when worn as a senior representative of an international scientific project.  But accidents can happen; innocent mistakes can be made--your cat or dog can throw up on or poop on what you planned to wear, and you can grab the only clean shirt you have left, hoping someone will bring you something else when you get to the office.  Given the sincerity of the apology, which I accept, maybe that was what happened.  But that doesn't change what the shirt said.   The shirt spoke loudly.  Some people objected loudly.  The wearer changed shirts and apologized.

And there it might have ended if not for those men whose attacks prove just how far we still have to go to achieve anything like parity among the sexes or rational discussion of issues.  They do not merely disagree: they want to destroy opposition.

But they won't.

Connecting the Stitches

My mother was a knitter (and every other kind of needlework), and taught me, over a few Christmas vacations, to do simple knitting--garter stitch, stockinette, ribbing--and then knitting in the round with three needles.  But she made all the round things; I made scarves.  And then, away from her, one baby hat.  Then I moved back to a hot climate, and had the sweaters she'd made me if I needed sweaters, plus the hates and mittens she'd also made.  I quit knitting and went to other things.  When I started knitting again, I made scarves, until the breakthrough that started me on socks.  So much I've told before, here and elsewhere.  But last night and today...I came across her knitting-in-progress, in a workbag of hers I hadn't explored before.  The cuff of a mitten, and two sock cuffs for slipper-socks, one finished and one not.  None fit me now--my wrists and ankles are thicker, as hers also became at about the age I am.  But...there they are, her perfect, regular stitches in ribbing, white socks and blue mitten cuff.  (Picture below cut)


The white yarn is Coats & Clark:  40% wool and 60% "virgin Orlon, bicomponent acrylic (I don't know what that means, chemically).  The blue yarn is Bernat "Sesame", a 100% wool yarn not available anymore-she used it on a number of my sweaters. These yarns were available in McAllen, Texas, where she lived, in the 1960s and early '70s.  I believe the yarn was purchased in the mid-60s, from the pattern book date I found with the mitten cuff, when I was in college and she was knitting a lot.  Why these projects weren't finished, I don't know.  Something else was more interesting, maybe.  She made the two pairs of socks for me (made in about 1969/70)  just like these cuffs: 48 stitches, on size 4 needles.   (I now use 60 stitches, on size 5s.)

The sock cuff on the right is shorter than the one on the left, but about four rows longer than it was when I found it.

Because I could not resist working on the same needles with the same yarn to see (among other things) how different our gauge is.  I'd already put my foot through the work to see how the cuff felt--and I can get it on, but it's very tight.  I played around trying to match her exact tension, which seems (in this anyway) to be a bit looser than mine but not as loose as when I tried to be loose.   Also--with that much cuff done--why not finish it to match the other and then make socks?  These wouldn't be comfortable for me, with such snug cuffs, but they might fit someone else.  She was planning to mix yarns--what's left of the Coats & Clark isn't enough to finish a pair, but in with this was a skein of Red Heart, a slightly different white with the same ratio of wool to Orlon bicomponent acrylic.  I have no use for the yarn otherwise, really.  And...it's doing no one any good sitting there partly made up.

It still feels...weird.  Strange.  Inserting my needle in her stitch, moving her stitch off...adding an entire row, then another, so all the stitches on the needles were those I'd made.  Like extending the rows in a carefully designed but unfinished garden, or painting a border on the bottom of a picture.   And yet very satisfying.  These were her needles (all but one--I switched to five-needle system I use now), and what I touched, her hands had touched.  Every stitch bound her work and my work together like nothing else I ever did with her.  There was a lot she didn't teach me about knitting in the round (only that it took at least four needles, three to hold the work and one "traveling.")   I discovered that she arranged ribbing stitches on the needles the same way I discovered worked best to prevent laddering: start each needle with the knit stitches, end with the purl stitches.  Though she appeared to be knitting with just three standing needles and one traveler, she had left both cuffs with four needles in--with the split at the start of the row, mid-back.  There's a certain awe about trying to finish something my mother made--she made so many beautiful things--but also a lovely feeling of connection through generations.  Yes, Mother, your daughter finally got her act together and can make useful things with needles and string.

Ominous Comets and Other Musings

Years ago, a group of humans imagined, designed, built, and operated an incredibly complex machine, a machine that today released the machine it had been carrying...and that second machine approached, and landed on, a comet.   I do not know the name of every person involved in that remarkable achievement...there were, in all, hundreds of them, a community dedicated to getting the Rosetta Project to this point, even as some people by necessity left, and others joined, the group.   It was not one nation's achievement, something that makes me happy because it means no one nation's problems are likely to derail the continued movement of humans toward space travel.   I watched the ESA live stream and when the worried looks began to ease, and the first smiles--and then more smiles--showed appeared, quickly followed by cheers, hugs, fist-bumps, I rejoiced with them, tears of happiness stinging my eyes.

Once upon a time, comets were considered celestial warnings,  a sign of something terrible happening, or about to happen.   Now this comet, carrying its new addition, a machine of human construction, can be seen as a sign of something wonderful, something hopeful for humankind.

Or not.  Because we have learned, as our communicative reach has grown, that on this planet, wherever humans are, there is always something terrible happening, or about to happen.   Some of it is, and has always been, beyond human power to predict or prevent:  "'natural disasters"  we call these, though now we come closer to prediction in several areas, when anyone listens.  But some of the terrible happenings are the direct acts of humans: deliberate intentional harm done to one another,  ignorant harm done to the planet that sustains us.  Whenever a comet shows up in the sky, something terrible will follow...because the terrible events are numerous enough, and our pattern-making minds find "the year (before/after/when) the comet came" to be a handy marker for it.

Today as I watched the live stream, listened to people speak who had found the comet in the sky 45 years ago, or built part of the instrumentation that went into the lander, or sent the rocket off ten years ago, or spoke with pride of a city or a team involved in some part of the project...I knew that along with my excitement and my joy at the success,  this landing and this comet would also be linked to other world events and events in my own life, both terrible and hopeful.  A school  blown up by a suicide bomber because "Western learning is evil"....so children must die lest they imagine such things as landing on a comet.   An agreement between nations to cut carbon emissions.   The release of a friend's book.  An anniversary.  A death.  The discovery yesterday that my husband had another stomach tumor.

The comet speeds on, drawn inexorably by the simple--but inexplicable--force of gravity, its exact route resulting from the attraction between two masses, the much larger one of that star we familiarly call the sun,  the much smaller that of the cold comet, leaking its substance as the sun's heat joins the sun's mass in changing the comet from its original size to something smaller--and, ultimately--something nonexistent.   It moves without reference to this planet; we are at best a tiny perturbation in its orbit, if our orbits happen to come near one another.   Nothing happening here changes it: not births, not deaths, not health, not sickness, not peace, not war, not anything....so it has been for comet after comet, aeon after aeon...until today, when something here...an idea, a dream, a plan, a group of people saying not just "what if?" but "how?" and then "let's try"  created from thought and skill and hard work something human that landed on that comet.

And so this comet is an omen, and cannot be anything else: an omen that our reach--even our grasp, in the bodies of our making--goes beyond the planet we live on, beyond the International Space Station some are able to visit, beyond the Moon on which human feet have stepped, beyond Mars, where others of our machines rove and send back pictures.  Our reach has gone farther before, in machines that took pictures, that sent back data.  But placing an object, a human made object, on a comet...as with Mars, as with the Moon, that's a lot more than a drive-by.   Our human touch has done that.

And our human touch blew up those children.  Signed that treaty.  Held newborn infants.  Held the hands of the dying.   Pulled triggers with intent to kill.  Pulled fragments of shells from wounded flesh.  Kneaded bread.  Stirred a pot of soup.  Stirred a vat of poison.  Stroked lovers' bodies.  Stroked a bow across the strings of a cello.  Set brick and stone in place.  Set a mine in place.  Poured water for the thirsty to drink.  Poured poison into a well.  Used technology to spy on someone for mischief.  Used technology to peer into my husband's body and locate a cancer.  Everything that humans can do, is done as soon as a new capacity comes to humans.   Everything that humans can do is done somewhere, every day.

As omen, the comet can mark any event in anyone's life, any accident, any intent, any good or evil deed.

Today, we became an omen to the comet.   Even out in space, even far away and traveling fast,  a comet is not safe from us.   I'm happy about that, because I have always been fascinated by stars, by distant planets, by the concept of a frontier, of places still unknown.  But  as omens go, we are ominous.  Our desire to see, to touch, to do things to whatever we see and touch--our curiosity and our urger to manipulate that which we find--and then our drive for dominance, common to the structure of social mammals--ensures that we will not explore harmlessly.   Those of us who want that exploration to go on (and I am one of them) must admit, and accept, that putting humans elsewhere means bringing along the whole vast baggage of human neurology--our innate behavior patterns--and human history, over which many comets have presided as omens of danger and disaster.

I hope we humans, we busy, inquisitive, inventive, noble and evil, kind and cruel, loyal and quarrelsome, constructive and destructive humankind, are someday perceived as a good omen.  And I think that's going to take some working on.

As They Grow Up, We Grow Old

Having a kid who's over 30 means every birthday sparks thoughts of one's own age far more than it did when said kid was three.  I didn't consider his birthdays linked to my age when he was shorter than I was (even when he got to be taller.)   He was kid, I was parent, kids grow up and...we just sort of stick somewhere until they're out of high school.

But, of course, that's not true.  Every year the kid has a birthday and grows not just up, but older.  Every year every parent has a birthday, too.  From a thirty-something when he was born, I became a sixty-something, year by year gaining that one year he gained.  Same for my husband.   That thirty-something person didn't have any gray hairs yet.  Didn't have the skin lesions.  Hadn't yet been bucked off and kicked in the rear on the way to the ground, leaving some permanent hip damage.  That thirty-something person wore glasses (and had for thirty years) but had no cataracts or other vision difficulties.  Still had the very low BP, the "naturally" slower heart rate of the younger fitter self.

The thirty-something person had written, but not yet published, fiction that would in fact end up being published, and still in print.   Had at that point quit knitting, and had never knitted a sock (I have now...)   Still had a live mother, a live step-grandmother, and a live (if pretty much estranged from) father...none of them are alive now.   The thirty-something person had never been to all but one of the countries I've since visited.  So the thirty-something years since I was that person have not been empty years all on a downhill slope.  I've done a lot, enjoyed a lot, learned a lot (and enjoyed that), made new friends...and, inevitably, have gotten older.

We had a simple celebration today--a couple we've been friends with forty-something years now came up, and we had lunch and sang to the "kid" who isn't a kid anymore and went for a walk on a lovely fall day, and...we all have gray in the hair, and we're not exactly the same shape and we sure weren't about to play a little football or volleyball because there are gimpy knees,  cranked necks, sore shoulders,  vision problems, and various other things.   A walk out to see if we could ID the migrating songbirds (no--too many leaves still on the bushy trees, and smart birds staying well down in cover) --was more our speed.  But very pleasant.

A good day, a very good day indeed, when one's thirty-something "kid" is now a decent adult human being, and one's friends are still friends, and one's health is good enough to enjoy a meal with them, walk out and enjoy a field of grass blowing in the wind and birds flitting (inconveniently) through thick cover, their short alert calls not identifiable (except for the wrens: Carolina and Bewick's both.  They're resident year-round.)   The colors of rain-refreshed grass in the late slanting light, the brilliant red of a few late flowers, the soft purple of a vine on a rail fence.   Sixty-something is just fine.