Short Takes

Three short takes tonight... I promise I will mention knitting, but you might not like it...

Number One:

Although I completely expected something terrible to happen, I was, nonetheless, very angry that some poor employee was trampled by shoppers in front of a Wal-Mart on Black Friday last week.
He wasn't just run over, he was run over TO DEATH! Why is it that shopping has become a dangerous sport in America? This is not the first year that someone has been injured or killed as a horde of greedy shoppers push their way into a store for the great early bird bargains the day after Thanksgiving. Who wouldn't risk their life to get the Paula Deen 10-piece non-stick cookware set for the low low price of only $99.97 or a Nikon Coolpix L18 8MP Digital Camera for only $99.84. (that might be the one Ashton Kutcher uses!!!!! OMG!)

I couldn't express this story any better than poet Andrei Codrescu. Click on this link: Deadly Stampede At Wal-Mart Not Surprising : NPR Best to listen to the audio. His voice has so much pathos.
If you read the comments, it is evident that several people really disagreed. Especially, the pro-lifer who uses any tragedy to remind women that they are scum.

Number two:

Why is it that we bailed out AIG for a whole heck of alot of money...("Just take this money, Wall Street Guys, and do whatever with it. No need to tell us what you plan to do or justify what you did."), but the Manufacturer Guys who hold together most of the middle class jobs in this country have to write an essay before Congress will even consider helping them. HMMMM
(You'd better have a plan, M Guys or no money for you). You get the picture...

Number 3:

Shame on me for reading shlock magazines. A very famous musician was interviewed about what he expects from his "women". Well, he expects great grooming including top of the line pedicures, manicures and facials. Oh, and let's not forget Brazilian Waxes. All of his women have to have Brazilians. No hair anywhere but on the head. Click the link, read the description and wonder when women had to be hairless to be women. I was under the impression that when you GOT hair down there you became a woman. This younger generation of men is disgusted by hair. This is extremely creepy. I must say -- Women of the world keep your "down there hair"! If your man wants you hairless, wouldn't he just prefer someone who didn't have to shave or wax it off at all? I TOLD YOU THIS WAS CREEPY!!

And if you are someone who has had SO MANY Brazilian waxes that no hair will grow there any more, maybe you can knit yourself some pubic hair.

I told you you wouldn't like it when I finally mentioned knitting...

Closely yours,

Carol

A Pain in the Neck or Wherever...

In one of my recent blogs, I mentioned that sometimes I skip a blog day because I am having significant pain. Those of us who are in the chronic category of pain and have become enlightened to what's out there know that it is not good to live with pain. I know a lot of people who think that living with pain is some type of martyrdom. There are those who won't go to docs for some reason. But what they don't realize is that the longer a person stays in chronic pain, the more permanent the pain becomes. It has to do with nerve pathways.

Anyway, if you are in pain, it would be a good idea to find a pain doctor. There are many organizations that represent people in pain. Some of them are: American Chronic Pain Association, American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Pain Foundation.

Many people who take medication for chronic pain still live active, happy lives. There are also many activities that reduce pain, yoga, for example. Also - swimming, meditation...My favorite is knitting.

Stay close!

Carol

P.S. I don't mind blogging away happily knowing that only one person is reading my blog. I'm not sure why I am so shy about letting people know that I have one. I haven't even told my family and friends. Oh, I did tell Sofia's mom so she could see Sofia's pretty sweater online!
Later!

Ravelry /The Trouble with Substitute Teaching

This blog is supposed to be about substitute teaching, but let me just start with a knitting comment. Last night I signed into Ravelry. (Yes, thank you Charles Leck for teaching me how to do a link!) For those of you who do not know, Ravelry is an online knitting community. I joined not knowing the POWER of a community like this. I have never joined MySpace or any of the other social networking sites, but if you are a knitter Ravelry can take you places you never dreamed of in the knitting world. You really have to join to understand, but I am working on my little Ravelry "world" as we speak. If you are a knitter, please join. It takes a few days. (There is a waiting list). Have I piqued your curiousity? I hope so.

Now, for substitute teaching. The trouble with it (or ONE of the troubles) is that you don't always work on the days you want to. That's pretty obvious. What isn't obvious maybe to some people is that if you want to work, you have to be ready to work even if you do not have a job arranged the night before. Let me try to explain. The high schools that I work for start classes at 7:20 am, an ungodly hour for Mr. Kotters and sweathogs alike. Frequently, I will get my phone call to sub at 6:45 am. It takes me a good 90 minutes to get ready. Make coffee, eat cereal, shower and use (ahem) the bathroom, get dressed, put on my face, (when I was 25 I could skip this part, but no more...), pack a lunch....you get the picture. So, what I have to do, is get up at 5:15 whether I have a job or not, do all those things, and see if I get called. This is what I did both yesterday and today. And guess what...I'm at home blogging. And making $0.00 for doing it.

I like at home days, but with the economy the way it is, I should have been working today!

My best to you. If you google Mr. Kotter, you can watch old episodes.

Carol

Closely Knit or Completely Spaced Out?

First, I have to mention how thrilled I am that the election is over and that Obama will be the next President of the United States. I worked very hard...well actually, I canvassed and made phone calls and prayed a lot. I made up a visualization involving Barak surfing... starting from the Atlantic Ocean over the entire country from the East coast to the West Coast and into the sunset over the Pacific picking up electoral votes the whole way.

Mostly I just worried, not only during the last few months, but over the last eight years about every single egregious action of the Bush administration starting with reinstating the Global Gag order (his first order of business as president) not to even mention Guantanamo, torture, the Patriot Act, the Iraq fiasco, turning the whole world against us...

I see hope, choice, and relief coming in the next four years. Go Mr. Obama, lead us. Now I will stop being preachy.

After reading my first post, my son mentioned that my blog doesn't seem to have a focus. I think that not having any focus is what I am, what I do,in a macro sense. Micro-ly I have intense focus. When I read, I read. When I knit, I knit. When I write, I write. When I yearn for social justice, I yearn with focus. But my day overall has no focus at all.

This is what I did today. I had a doctor's appointment after which I stopped at a bookstore for no reason at all. In the vestibule I was distracted by the SALE books. A cookbook about SOUP attracted me. Last spring, I made vegetable broth for the Passover seder, but I wanted an easier recipe. I efficiently found the vegie broth recipe which looked good. Finding a comfy chair, I proceeded to giraffe the recipe into my Palm Pilot. (My husband commented later, "Now that's labor intensive!") I must have wasted a good hour and a half looking through the book for a soup recipe that didn't have any pig parts (not Kosher), didn't have cream (too fattening, can't serve with meat), didn't have more than 4 ingredients, (too much of a pain in the ass).
I finally found one and giraffed that one into PalmPilot too.

Is this pleasant distraction or completely spacing out? Will I ever make this soup?

When I got home I took a nap because all of this giraffing (plus the one hour drive to and from the doctor) was exhausting and then I read the NYTIMES. (I think am the only person in this small town in Missouri who takes the Times every day). I found the section about the election that graphed the results state by state. But now I have to explain something else.

By the way this is all trying to convince myself that one can be completely spaced out AND sort of sloppily focused. Kind of "closely knit". (my knitting sometimes being sloppy) I know I will get around to talking about knitting real soon!

During the election, if I got really nervous about the polls, I looked at a website my hair stylist recommended called fivethirtyeight.com. I decided to see how close they really were. So, with the NY Times and the website final projections I made a chart showing each state, the winner, the winning percentage (projected by 538) and the actual winning percentage. Except for Missouri and N. Carolina (which were undecided when the paper was printed), Sean Quinn and Nate Silver, 538's analysts, predicted who won which state perfectly and were damn close or exact on the percentages. Amazing.

But the point is WHY DID I DO THIS? I have no deep personal connection to this website or its creators. I have no interest in statistics or even in elections (as long as my candidate wins). I'm just playful and spacey in a weird intellectual goofy way.
Could be that I had to retire too young. See you another day.

Today for example

First Blog/ A Knit Quote

Like I really have time for this! This blog is just an example of the kind of thing I get into while I am waiting to take a shower or eat lunch. I am insatiably curious about how to do things...all kinds of things. On the computer, with yarn, fabric? and in my head. While I can't commit to anything, if I just start doing them, maybe...just maybe...I will finish or continue.

Well I did finish knitting and sewing together a sweater for Mark, my husband.

A quote:

We might knit that knot with our tongues that we shall never undo with our teeth.
John Lyly