QOTD: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." - Jorge Luis Borges
Reading: Ed McBain, Money, Money, Money
Listening to: the radio
Decluttering accomplishments: did another used book store run, leading to 30 or so books out
I had a quick trip to the west coast this week. Flying to Los Angeles for a two hour meeting is mildly absurd, but it was a pretty interesting meeting. I'd misread my ticket and thought my flight to L.A. was earlier than it was, so I actually drove to the airport. That meant driving home, too, and I noticed a couple of entertaining things along the way. One was a car in the next lane with a large cardboard box tied to the roof. The amusing part was that the box indicated the contents were a "hard shell car top carrier." I also noticed a car with a "Virginians for baseball" bumper sticker. Personally, I'd like to see baseball in D.C. itself, but the proposed sites in Arlington would also work for me. Baseball in deep suburbia, however, doesn't cut it.
In addition to a hectic work week (and the trip to L.A. was the least of it), I had a pretty busy weekend. Saturday was housework and decluttering time, including another excursion to sell books. This time, I succeeded in selling about 2/3 of what I'd taken with me. One thing I've noticed is that I always feel like the clerks at the bookstores are being judgemental. Will they stand up and cheer at the wonderfulness of what I'm offering or will they sneer at my taste? It's completely ridiculous to worry about this, but I'm still pleased when another person's rejects pile is higher than mine.
Today was an arts and crafts day. I've found a place here that's more or less comparable to Wildfiber. It's called Springwater and it's in Alexandria. They do various fiber classes and have some association with something called the Art League, which has a pretty intriguing catalog of their own. The class I took today was on using Kool-aid to dye yarn. It only works with protein yarns, i.e. wool or silk. We dyed various wools, both fleece and spun. We also died both real silk and soy silk and silk scarves. The one fiasco was a batch of silk scarves which got scorched, possibly because of using salt as a resist. Some of this was done in dye pots (basically, stainless steel bowls on the stove) and some in the microwave. I'm particularly pleased with a variegated yarn in autumn shades. We also entertained ourselves making up names for colors. For example, the dye made from a packet and a half of ice blue raspberry lemonade and a half packet of kiwi watermelon comes out to a lovely turquoise shade we called Aruba. A mixture of man-o-mango-berry, cherry, and black cherry plus a blended brown made up of bits of more or less every color made a variegated fleece that we decided should be called tequila sunset. It was a lot of fun and quite simple. It's also nice to dye with something nontoxic - all we really used was the Kool-aid, vinegar, water and salt. The teacher suggested we should enter pieces in the spring show, so maybe I'll use some of the wool to make socks or legwarmers or something else suitable for that. Come to think of it, I could use a new winter hat.
Of course, none of that did any good towards my efforts to make my den look less like a yarn shop. Maybe I should start doing needlework on the metro, instead of reading.
Copyright 2003 Miriam H. Nadel