Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 36

Respect. Or Not.

Like many others, I've been following the news about the riots in the UK through Twitter posts in addition to regular news media...following links from one tweet to another, at times.  This led me to someone whose tweets are entirely negative--not only about the riots themselves, but about things reported to have been said by some of those involved.   One of the things tweeted resonated particularly because it seems to me this is a) typical of the privileged and b) also typical of the tangles humans get themselves into in social conflict.

The comment was in answer to someone who said the riots were (at least in part) the result of the participants not having gotten any respect from authorities, and the comment was "Respect must be earned."
When I was in high school, in a particularly annoying class with a particularly annoying and less than stellar teacher, I got in trouble for answering honestly a question the teacher asked, and was scolded by the counselor (to whom she reported me) for not respecting the teacher.  And my answer then was exactly the above: "Respect must be earned."    It's a handy answer for those who feel themselves superior to the person they don't respect.  In truth, that teacher was a lousy teacher, ignorant of material she should have known to teach that class and pretending to knowledge she didn't have.  I knew a lot of stuff she didn't know; I was trying to prepare myself for a first-class university and she clearly resented that...she didn't respect me, or for that matter higher learning, and I didn't respect her.  

And yet, in hindsight, while I still consider her a lousy and unqualified teacher far more interested in being respected than in being worthy of respect...I see my teenage self as far less able than I then thought, and certainly unwise (though not necessarily wrong) to say what I said--both in answer to her question in class, and to the counselor.   And in present sight, when a privileged person (which the person whose tweet I was reading clearly is--educated, financially secure, quite used to being respected in the field in which the person works)  uses that "Respect must be earned" to put down and ignore any reason why a rioter might have rioted other than bad character...I'm not comfortable with the answer.

I come at this now from another fifty years of life and education from my angry high school self.   I know more about human biology and what we inherited down the gene lines.  I know more about how many different kinds of people function in society: what choices they have and what choices they make and some (never all) of why.  I know more about politics and economics.  As a fiction writer, I've spent some serious time learning these and other things...and I've been in society, not apart from it, in various roles and in various groups.   (And that's why the title of this is Respect: Part 1.   What I want to share is too long for a single post.)  

First, a definition to be used here (in full awareness that other definitions are in play elsewhere.)   Respect is recognition that the other person is real: that they are worthy of being a partner in reciprocal interaction.   To respect a person is to listen, to see, to attempt to understand (even if, at the end, you don't.)   It is not agreement...I know people whom I respect (and listen to, and attempt to understand) while--on at least some issues--I cannot agree with them.   A respectful relationship is not one-sided: both parties listen, both parties share, both parties treat each other as worthy of the time.  Thus it is reciprocal.

Respect and fear are often confused.   The belligerent parent or teacher or police officer who says "You better respect me!  I'll teach you to respect me!"  wants obedience (or attention, or most commonly both), not respect.  Such persons are quite happy to have someone fear them--be too afraid to disobey or disagree.  Respect  is not fear.   Fear can exist without respect--and commonly does.   Fear breeds resentment, anger, a desire to transgress, to get even.

Admiration and respect are often confused.   The person who has achieved something we find good is often said to be "respected" for that achievement (even when the person is otherwise an A-one blot on humanity.)   But what we actually feel is admiration, sometimes rising to awe.   Honor and esteem arise from admiration and are not necessarily reciprocal.  If respect is mixed in, it's because the admirer has already built in a respect for individuals.  I admire a lot of people for their skill, their artistry, their intellect, their wit, their creativity, their craftsmanship, etc.  But many of these I do now know as individuals--I do not know whether I respect them as individuals.  And just having outstanding skills does not always engender respect--as achievement is perceived as a form of power, it can also engender resentment, anger, envy, etc.  

If respect does not arise from being intimidated by someone's overwhelming power (the parent/teacher/law officer/other) or from awareness of another's achievement, then where does it arise?   What is the spring of real respect?

Respect is part of the fundamental reciprocity of human social interaction from birth.   It is a relationship between individuals, in which each sees the other as fully real, and it is learned in the way of other relationships--by experience and example.  If you want a respectful child, respect the child.   Humans are mimics.   Even autistic children (as I have reason to know) are mimics to the degree possible.   So children learn to be respectful by experiencing respect from those--especially those in power--around them.   Not only respectful treatment of them, but respectful treatment of others by their models.  

Respecting a child does not mean indulging the child, or spoiling the child, or allowing the child to be a tyrant to the family.   It does mean acknowledging the child's reality as real to the child: that the scared child is scared, that the angry child is angry, that disappointment is real.   It is amazing, when you pay attention, how often children's reality is denied without thought by adults:  "You're not really tired."  "You're not that hungry."   "No, it's not too hot--now sit still."  "That doesn't really hurt."  "It's not that bad."  Children whose reality is dismissed as nonexistent or unimportant most or all of the time learn that they are not respected--they are not heard--and by extension, that when they are older, they will not have to listen to or respect others realities.

If they are privileged children, they grow up to dismiss the realities of the poor and fabricate reasons why they don't have to listen.  If they are poor, they grow up to find that their adult realities are dismissed by the privileged and their concerns are still not heard.  They are right when they say they are not respected, even if their experienced definitions are wrong.

In the UK, as in the US, gender and racial and class distinctions have the practical result that some people are treated as nonentities.   Their opinions are ignored or abruptly dismissed as worthless.   They are not seen, or heard, as individuals of value...and what they learn from that, and from the way they are treated, is that power allows others to ignore them...so if they get power (by whatever means) they can then treat the others as they themselves were treated.   When I was in grad school, a new program brought talented high school students from predominantly low-income Hispanic neighborhoods out to the university for a special program.  Immediately a few faculty expressed the concern that "that kind of person" wouldn't really learn much, wouldn't stay in the program, wouldn't benefit from it, and would damage the lab equipment they used.  I had heard this in high school in South Texas as well...that it was a waste of time and energy to help "those kids" because they would all just drop out.

How much respect--in any definition--did "those kids" get?   Automatically shunted away from the better academic classes to the lowest, automatically seen as potential dropouts, their contribution to their family's welfare ignored or scorned as proof they were not committed to academics...who ever actually saw them, or listened to them?   In those days, high school faculty paid little attention to students as real people anyway. 

Whether or not those students did anything wrong, they were judged unworthy of respect by those in power.   How could they "earn" respect, even in the faulty definitions of the day?  What could they do?   The school respected wealth, power in the community, "prominence," a particular set of other social virtues.   The school (like most people) "respected" (admired or feared or both) a wealthy white businessman even if in secret (or not so secret) he was a wife-beater, a bully to his children and his employees.  The school did not respect those who lacked these attributes or who had a particular set of socially disapproved conditions.    A kid from a poor family cannot become rich, powerful,  or change his/her skin color.  I knew from my own experience in high school that studying hard and making good grades did not get respect from most of the teachers, let alone the staff--they regarded "grinds" as suspicious (especially if they were girls.)   The only students who got real respect were the children of parents the school knew had power.  I was a "child of divorce"--socially "at risk" (and in some circles already condemned.)   Nothing I did, nothing within my control--not good behavior, not good grades--could compensate for those things I could not control: we had a low income, we lived in a small house (lucky to have a house!), my mother was a single parent and worked full time. 

That's mild compared to what the kids in the barrio faced, and what kids in ghettoized neighborhoods face.  The police weren't always stopping me to see if I'd committed a crime.   I wasn't in constant danger from drive-by shootings.  I knew--from the other not-respected kids--what additional burdens they faced that I escaped.  And I experienced just enough of that--just that little bit that landed on my head and back--to know what it does to have that kind of unearned contempt.   The kids whose parents were respected did no better than I did--they weren't more mannerly, they didn't make better grades, they didn't study harder--but they got respect.  Teachers did not question their right to have dreams and ambitions--did not try to shunt them into "appropriate" classes for their presumed lifetime of servitude.  And no, they did not "earn" it.

Though I don't agree with the position that "Respect must be earned"...I think rather than attack that statement head on it's worthwhile to ask "Then do the people you consider lesser have a way to earn it?  What would it take for you (and others) to respect the people in one of "those" neighborhoods?   The ones you think you're superior to?   Are your demands to "earn" respect connected to reality at all?    If there are no jobs--if there is no housing--and your demands depend on holding employment that pays enough for what you call "decent" housing...then how, exactly, are these people going to earn your respect?   If there are no good schools--if the libraries have closed--just exactly how is that child supposed to "earn" an education?   If you have allowed a neighborhood to exist with no access to beauty--no parks--and no access to learning--and no quiet and no peace--and everyone in it laboring under the suspicion of the police because they're "that kind of people", the kind you think deserve no respect...how the HELL are they supposed to earn it?  They're presumed guilty for existing.  

And you think you've earned the respect you get?   You think it's all due to your hard work and your good character?  How many times in childhood were YOU stopped by police when you had done nothing wrong?  How many times did teachers assume you were the one who stole something because of where you came from?  How many times were you eyed with suspicion by shopkeepers, yelled at, scolded, for things you had never done?   Or conversely, when your respectable and respected parents took you out, how many times were you treated courteously and respectfully because they were respected, and they were respected because they were clearly "our type"--they dressed well because they could afford to; they spoke well because they'd had the education and opportunity to learn;they had money to spend; they had a house or a nice apartment and you had access to parks, libraries, museums, schools where your right to that access was assumed.

Money "earns" that kind of respect.  Unearned money "earns" it as easily as money for which you worked 16 hours a day in a sweatshop.  Power earns that kind of respect.  It has not one damn thing to do with good character, or actual hard work...it has to do with whether you've got the money and the power money confers.  Money to clothe your child in the right clothes, to have their teeth straightened, to live in the right neighborhood, to furnish your house with the right things, to be sure your child goes to the right school...that's how that kind of  respect is "earned."  And there are those who cannot ever "earn" that kind of respect, the way things are set against them.  They have no respect because there is no way for them to earn it: no way to become powerful, wealthy, and just like you.   

The other kind--what I call respect rather than "deference" or "admiration" or "fear"  is "earned"--if that word must be used--one by one, one person at a time, by treating individuals as real and their reality as--whether you see things the same way or not--real-for-them.   

Ritual disclaimer:  as others have said, diagnosing is not the same as excusing.   But here's the thing: if you goad people far enough, they will behave badly.   It's still bad behavior but who started it?   What the excuse of those who behaved badly when they had power? 

Lizard & Lilypond

This was supposed to have been the larger version of a green anole hunting insects on waterlily pads in the pond, but the larger version wouldn't upload...so here's the small version.   It was, after all, a small lizard.

Whew!

Husband's surgery was Monday; today I brought him home.   The biopsy was negative.  The week has been...difficult.    Some other difficulties lie ahead.  But at the moment--he's home, it's not cancer, things are looking good.  With the realization that "looking good" can change to "oh, sh!t" in a moment, we are nonetheless rejoicing.

I was correct in my guess that I'd get almost no writing done this week (did manage a little) and most of that was due to sheer exhaustion, both physical (doing his part of the chores around here as well as mine as well as the heat) and emotional.   There was neither time nor energy for writing.  Totally different schedule than I've been on, where writing comes first in the day, with breaks for housekeeping stuff, and outdoor time in the evening.   Because the heat, I was hurrying out at or before dawn to start the morning chores.

I'll still be doing the outside chores, but will not have the longish drive to the hospital and back in the heat of the day, so that'll help. 

Norway's Tragedy

I can't begin to express my sorrow for Norway and the victims of the tragedies there...I've been trying to think how to say what I feel and it's just...not...coming out right.   When I've visited a place, there's more sense of connection--I suppose that's natural, but...my brief visit to Norway in 2005 was very special to me.  Oslo was a delight; the people were wonderful to me.  I walked down those very streets; I saw those very buildings,  I got lost (twice) and friendly, open-hearted Norwegians helped me get back where I needed to be.   I enjoyed every moment of my time in Norway, and I grieve for its losses, which are both physical and emotional.  

One Woman's Writing: HOW Many Words in Print???

While doing online r/e/s/e/a/r/c/h/ goofing off today, I ran across something (now do not remember the train of hoofprints) that led me to Scalzi's blog post on George R.R. Martin's productivity.    He compared his own in the same period of years to Martin's, as one way of showing that the delay in presentation of A Dance with Dragons wasn't due to lying around doing nothing...it's a perfectly respectable word count for the years involved.    But naturally, (or it seemed natural today, rather than, say, clean a room...)  that made me wonder what my productivity had been for those years. 

So I dug into the novel files to check the word lengths on the relevant novels, and added them up.

HOW many?   REALLY?  (run the numbers on the calculator again)
To my amazement, in the same period (actually a little less)  I had written & published more words than either Scalzi or Martin, and that's not counting the short fiction.  Just the novels, five of them: the last three Vatta's War books and the first two of the new Paksworld books.   And not just a few words more, but several hundred thousand more. 

So if Scalzi's 440,000 (counting the book coming out in 2012) and Martin's 416,000 are both respectable amounts of work for that period, what about 721,000 words for the same period, not counting my 2012 book or 885,000 counting it?   Double Scalzi's output.  More than double Martin's.

That made me curious about how many published words I have out there, just in novels.  I don't have all those novels in the same computer format (sigh!)  but I do remember what editors said about the lengths of some of them.  Twenty-three novels (or twenty-four counting next year's.)   None is under 100,000 words.  The science fiction ones are mostly in the 120-130,000 range; the fantasy ones are all over 150,000, most between 160 and 170.   Again not counting next year's book, the estimated total comes to over 3.1 million words--published and in print--in the novels alone, about 3.3 million if I include next year's book.  That's way more words than I thought (the knuckles of my right hand have tried to tell me) and more than my husband guessed.

Wordage alone is no guarantee of quality, of course.  In fact, words in print just means words in print.   Some people write more than I do; many write less, blah-blah-blah. 

But...damn.   I not only wrote three million words (lots more than didn't make the final cut, but that's beside the point) I got over three million words published.   And twenty-three books are all still in print.   My first book came out in 1988--23 years ago.   So...23 books in 23 years totaling over 3 million words...plus the short fiction (enough for another 100,000 word book.)

I have not been goofing off after all.  Those years include parenting a child with autism who is now a fine young man struggling (determined) to get through college.   Coping with many a life challenge, in addition to that: parent's final illness and death, husband's parent's final illness and death, various other things.  I think it explains the state of the house and maybe the state of my waistline. 

 

One Woman's Kitchen: New Pots

Last year, I decided to replace damaged and less-than-satisfactory old pots (ranging in age from 30-60+ years of use) with new ones, as a gift to self for my 65th birthday.   I had been considering this for several years,  talking to friends in person and online about their experiences with different brands of pots and pans.  I had bought, or been given, pots that wore out too quickly, were hard to clean, etc., and the survivors were just not doing what I needed them to do.  From a warped frying pan that wobbled on the burner to an ancient roasting pan that took 45 minutes to an hour to clean (we don't have a dishwasher)  to a stock pot that could not be put to simmer and left...it was time and more than time.   I wanted pots that suited my style of cooking, that would fit in the storage spaces I have (it's not a huge kitchen), that had good thermal properties (would hold a temperature), that were easy to clean (no dishwasher--easy on my elbow-grease.)

I make my own chicken, beef, and lamb stock; we raise and sometimes process our own meat (beef and lamb); we have a vegetable garden.  A lot of my cooking is one-pot and slow: the stock, soups, stews, chili, curries, etc. that make good use of range-fed beef.    In winter I'm making the stocks and soups and go in the freezer to be re-constituted in summer. 

I started slow, with one each of brands I'd heard good things about.  I already had a few pieces of Le Creuset enameled cast-iron and knew how good they were in the oven and how easy to clean.   All-Clad, though, was a new brand for me--I'd heard great things about it (the actual moment of choice was the friend who'd had an All-Clad pot for 35 years and said it still cooked and cleaned up like new.  In 35 years, I'd be 100.  Not needing to buy new cookware at 100, most likely.)   In the months of my 65th year, I added a piece at a time, replacing the older cookware.  Some of the old (the older RevereWare pots) were still desirable for less heavy-duty cooks...and have new homes.   As of now, I have five new All-Clad pieces and two new Le Creuset pieces.


For the first time in my life, I can consistently fry eggs over medium--without breaking the yolk--and make omelets.   I still have--and we use--the cast-iron frying pans my mother used, but they're not the best egg pans in the world (!) and the All-Clad fry pan has taken over all the egg-work and some other lighter frying chores.

The saute pan--a later purchase--is now my favorite way to make French toast, and I also use it for the usual saute tasks.  I've always sauteed in the cast iron ones before, but the All-Clad heats up faster and very evenly, and nothing sticks.  It's lighter than the big cast iron, and thus easier to move the sauteed stuff into another pot if I need to.   It has a lid, but I photographed it without the lid. 

The roasting pan cleans up in very few minutes, with much less effort, than the old aluminum one--and the handles give a good, safe, non-wiggly grip on it.   It's (just barely) big enough for an 11 pound ham (not going quite that big again--a 9.5 pound ham fits on its rack nicely) and perfect for all but the biggest roasting/baking projects.  (We did a stuffed boned leg of lamb this spring--a lamb we'd processed ourselves--and it was amazing.) 

The 8 quart stockpot is now my go-to pot for boiling potatoes, making larger batches of soup (for later freezing), cooking pasta, making chili or curry, etc.  The 12 quart stockpot has made it possible to make smaller batches of stock (one-chicken stock) compared to my big old 20 quart stockpot that takes up more than half the stove and isn't worth using unless you're making a big batch of stock (3 chickens, or 10-15 pounds of beef bones and beef.)

The larger LeCreuset is perfect for making braised beef ribs--goes from stovetop for sauteeing onions, etc. and browning meat to the oven for long slow moist cooking.   I've also made chili in it.  (Which pot I use for chili or curry depends on how big the batch is.)   The smaller one is perfect for a "just us" soup (either from freezer or from scratch) and the larger one holds enough soup/stew/etc.  for a company meal.  

While it would be fun to have other pots, I don't have more storage space (had already co-opted the hall closet into a "pantry" across the hall from the kitchen) so the only replacements left would be a large All-Clad roaster to replace the old large aluminum roaster and maybe a 4-quart All-Clad soup pot.   But this is ample, along with the cast-iron I already have, and the saucepans (the RevereWare saucepans are still serviceable and their shorter handles fit into the remaining storage space.)   One or more of these pots is in use daily; all of them have been used multiple times with reasonable but not finicky care.   They've been used by family members as well as me, and cleaned by family members as well as me.   I'm enjoying cooking more, with the better thermal performance, and spending less time scrubbing pots, with the better interior surfaces.  

One lesson learned--a hindsight lesson--is that I put up with inferior pots for years longer than necessary.  Both these brands are expensive.  But if I had bought one really good pot every two-three years (something I could have saved up for) as my wedding-present pots began to go bad, I could have been cooking with these beauties much longer,  cooking better with the better thermal properties, and saved myself hours and hours of pot-scrubbing.  

Yarn Loot...

Yesterday, while preparing the kitchen for today's painting, I got email from Gauge that my needles were in.   I thought "If I'm diligent and get the painting done early, I could maybe go into the city and pick them up."   The email also said they were having a 20% off everything in the store sale.  Visions of the yarn I've yearned over but not bought (:"No new yarn until you finish those projects!!!") began to circulate in my head, but I had a wall to paint.

And besides.  I didn't need more yarn.  There is a lot of yarn around.  I may not like all of it that much, but it's yarn, and it should be used before new yarn is brought in (um...like the 25 balls of yarn I bought for the new projects?  Which aren't going to use that much?  Yeah.)   Because of various things I didn't get down to the city reasonably early (despite finishing the painting itself by 8:30 am...then came the cleaning up, and the waiting for it to dry to see if it needed a second coat, and the removal of tape, and the moving furniture back, and....)   So I was hot and dry and tired when I got there...no, that's an excuse.  I walked in and....this appeared when I upended a sack on the kitchen table.
I

The store kindly helped me ball three of the hanks on their equipment.  The ones that look orange/red are actually this color, much cooler, with hot pink in the mix:

   
Yes, this is one of the yarns (and both colors of it) that I was lusting for last week.   I got all the remaining skeins of the turquoise mix, because they were all one dye lot (though how that works with variegated yarns I have no idea.  But it was a reason...um, excuse?... I could cling to.)     I also have no idea what I'll make with it (a shell would be nice.  Can I knit myself a shell?  or a sleeveless longer thing?  I don't know, but I may find out realsoonnow.  The hot pink/red/etc. mix just makes me happy to look at it.  They had only two.  Maybe wrist warmers?   Maybe I'll just hang it on the wall where I can look at it.  

It's a silk/cotton/wool yarn, and the brand is Noro. 

It's a good thing they didn't have Berroco Jasper in the colors I like best in the online catalogs.   I might've come home with much more.

I can tell myself hiring someone to paint that wall would've cost more than I spent on yarn, but...let's not test that idea.


 

Home Improvement: Paint

This is what our kitchen wall (the one that's not cabinets) looked like before:




An intermediate step was looking at paint chips in the store and getting a little jar of sample to put on the wall, where it looked really silly for a couple of days, as we looked at the color as light changed through the day.




And finally, the furniture back in place again:


We like it a lot.  There will be a picture or so on that wall (not the same one, though) and there's more painting to do (around behind the refrigerator...we didn't feel like moving it today.


  

Weekend Plans

Over 30 years ago we moved into this house.  It was built in the mid-50s, so by 1979 it was only a young adult, as houses go.   It had been built by one family, then bought by a couple retiring to town (all 600 inhabitants) from the country.  Someone--I suspect the older couple--had paneled the kitchen, the room next to the kitchen (an awkward space, long and narrow, that's hardly more than a passage from the utility room to the kitchen) and the 18 foot square living room with brown fake-wood paneling.   The color wasn't unpleasant by itself, but it had a gray-rose base tone, and the kitchen cabinets, real wood, with a golden tone, did not work well with it.  But we could not afford to do anything.   And did I mention the turquoise Formica countertops?  No?  

As time went by I put in new flooring (not the gold/orange/cream patterned vinyl the first owners put in, which also went oddly with the rose/gray faux-wood paneling, but a muted pattern in white/gray/grayblue.   That took pressure off the turquoise countertops.  But there was still the faux-wood wall.  Meanwhile other stuff happened, and still other stuff happened, and finally, this year, after the 30+ years, I got real chairs into the kitchen instead of folding chairs.  They went nicely with the cabinet wood, being real wood themselves.   They did not go nicely with the faux-wood paneling on the wall against which they stood.  Hmmm.  

So after much discussion through the spring of what colors to try, given the other colors, the size of the kitchen, the tablecloths we already had, etc.--and after a hiatus caused by a medical emergency and two conventions--I finally made it to the store and looked at paint colors.  Lots of paint colors.   Brought home several paint chips (or swatches or whatever you call them) and one jar sample of the color I thought might be best.   (Trying to pick paint in a store, under its lights, instead of at home in the light of the room to be painted--unless you're just going with white--is tricky.)    Then I scrubbed off two sections of the wall to be painted (one higher, one lower) and shook up the little jar, and painted two big-enough  messy areas on the wall.  Let it dry. 

And amazingly, that was the right color.  YES!   So today, we have a full gallon of said paint, a new dropcloth (the old dropcloth had worn out), painters' tape, and the rest of the stuff you need to paint a wall.   And tomorrow morning, when it's as cool as it ever gets in summer, so we can open the door for ventilation, i will paint that wall and never have to see the paneling argue with the cabinets again.    Eventually there will be pictures.

Clickety-clickety: Knit & Purl

The knitting projects continue to move along--slower at home than on the train, since there are many other things to do (writing, gardening, cooking, laundry, and--this weekend--painting the kitchen wall. (Just one.  The others are covered with cabinets or stove and fridge.)  

Project 1, the blanket, is only 8 1/2 inches long...but forty inches wide.  I just calculated that it's 340 square inches of knitting.   Size 7 needles.

Project 2, the scarf, is right at four feet long, and at six inches wide it's 288 square inches.   Size 8 needles.

And I'm wondering how that can be right, since both yarns contain the same amount per ball, but Project 1 is just getting to the end of ball 1, and Project 2 is quite a ways into ball 2.    It has to be the needle size, but smaller needles mean more stitches/inch and that should be more yarn per inch of stitches...shouldn't it?  Apparently not.   I can understand that a larger needle takes more yarn per stitch, but would have thought that fewer stitches per inch (and fatter rows) would cover the ground at the same or better rate than the smaller stitches.  Maybe that works only with a bigger difference between needles?  Or maybe not at all.

Project 1 is supposed to end up about 48 inches long, and that suggests that it's 1/6 done (roughly) and 6 balls of yarn should be enough.   I have (had at start) 10 balls of that yarn.  Which suggests I'll have plenty left for a couple of scarves or for something else.  Project 2 was going to be a 2-ball length (estimated at 6 feet) and we'll just have to see.  It's got to be six feet, and seven isn't too long.   The person it's for isn't super-tall but also isn't short.   I don't have any new pictures of them (and they don't look that different from the last pictures of them (posted on the Paksworld blog (2 images) and here (1 image)) except a little longer.  Well, quite a bit longer in the case of the scarf.

Eventually I hope to have what turn out to be my favorite needle sizes in both wood (for regular use--love the feel) and acrylic (for any place that "security" is an issue.)   Gauge, the yarn shop I'm using as a source of supplies, has the ones I want on order (plus ones I'm not yet allowing myself to want...)   I haven't yet bought yarn there, though, because I'm working through the yarn I bought online first.   However...my self-control may lapse; there's a cotton/silk/nylon yarn they have that I would really love to make into something for myself.