Random Thoughts

Going to leave this tab open all day, and just record some of what crosses my mind.  Would that be okay with everybody?

Why, thank you.

It is my Favorite Day of The Year.  Christmas Eve is all about baking cookies (at least in our house) and excitement and being finished with all the rushing about and that marvelous anticipatory quiet and stillness that descend after the sun goes down.  Christmas Day can sometimes disappoint.  Christmas Eve never does.

Proof of the use of an Amazon gift card*:

 (Below "Bringing Up Baby is Saramago's memoir.  When I finish with his novel, All the Names, either that, or the letters to the President book, will be my next read.)

One of our Christmas Eve rituals is cookie-baking.  I'm also baking a breakfast casserole and a coffee cake for tomorrow, so there'll be more kitchen activity than usual.  We also always visit a live Nativity scene one of the local churches has, then come back to open one gift each, then watch "The Muppet Christmas Carol."  

Mama, Daddy and I didn't really have any Christmas traditions, unless you call me having to pull these off Daddy's feet after a tough Christmas Eve at the store one:

 Each year, when we go to the Nativity scene, I wear these in honor:

Inside the boots will be a pair of handknit socks --- made from Deborah Norville's "Serenity" sock yarn.  Now, I'm no Deborah Norville fan, but Jo-Ann had the yarn on sale for a ridiculously low price, so I got some.  I bought 2 skeins each of 3 different colorways, and it turns out that I got a full pair out of just 1 skein.  How often does that happen?  This is the color I'm wearing:

It's beautiful worked up, and is nice and soft.  Maybe an early holiday miracle?

Have a Magnificent Christmas.  You've been a great support in a year that I needed constant boosting.  Thank you.



*This mostly for the benefit of Twinnie.

The Christmas Sock

For me, at least, this week has gone by the way adults like/need the few days before Christmas to go, and that children despise the few days before Christmas to go --- slowly.  Not at a snail's pace, mind you, but at a nice, manageable pace that let me breathe normally.  I was able to do what had to be done without being frantic.  I was able to check and double-check "What Must Needs Be Done" lists, deprived of that it-will-never-happen-now pit-of-the-stomach feeling.

Except for stockings.  Stockings are my annual fifth column.  They were a tad easier when the children were small, and little toys fit snug down in the heels and toes.  Now, though, they are pretty tough.

Stockings, to me, have always been the secret weapons of Christmas.  In all the hurry and flurry of getting to and unwrapping what's under the tree, they're sort of forgotten.  When someone does remember to get to them, what an opportunity there is for a final hurrah --- a primo elfin gift or two to finish off the day.  So, I tend to focus on stockings beyond candy and fruit --- hoping to find small treasures that will top the day off in a special way.  

 

(I'm sure a good deal of that comes from having a father who was a jeweler --- lots of fantastic, sparkly things can fit very nicely into a stocking.)

 

Another reason I'm such a fan of stockings is that they can come shaped as cowboy boots:

I have a boot-shaped stocking which hangs on my bedroom door each Christmas.  It's for decoration, as we each have cross-stitched stockings hanging from the mantle.  But, if someone felt compelled to slip something into it, there wouldn't be a fuss made.

Ten Essential Songs

1. "To Love Somebody" --- Bee Gees
2. "Words"--- Bee Gees
3. "Gold" --- Emmylou Harris
4. "American Trilogy" --- Elvis Presley
5. "Darkness, Darkness" --- Iain Matthews
6. "Take It Easy" --- Delbert McClinton
7. "Seven Spanish Angels" --- Ray Charles and Willie Nelson
8. "Amazing Grace"
9. "Tennessee Waltz"
10. "When A Man Loves A Woman" --- Percy Sledge

You?

Because Alan is a Two-Time Knitters' Hunk, and Sam is Our Reigning KH

Sam Neill is crazy, wicked clever and funny.  He is also a winemaker who periodically asks his friends to contribute their Essential Listening music lists.  This is today's:

Alan Rickman

Special Guest  DJ Thespian LEGEND, Alan RICKMAN Star of Bottleshock (Just to show this is in some small way connected to wine.)
Ladies aanndd Gentlemen! Tonight only, direct from Broadway, the utterly unique and completely brilliant Alan Rickman, right here in the Dayglo Disco spinning his discs just for you. And you. And you two in the corner. Yes it's Alan Rickman ... NOW I have your attention. Yes, it's the man who brought you Snape in Harry Potter (if you're under 20), Valmont in the RSC's Dangerous Liaisons (if you are grown up), the bad guy in Die Hard, he IS Colonel Brandon, Truly Madly ... oh alright you’ve got the picture ... and masses of other luminous performances on stage and screen. He is, like his namesake Chicken Rickman, sexy, charismatic and very scary. And here he is ... RESPECT ... sashaying up to the turntables with a stack o’ wax under his immaculately cut  armpit -- give it up, if you please, for one of the greatest actors of his and any other generation -- the simply great, the inimitable the fantastic ...Alan RICKMAN!!

---

These are songs to have grown up with:
I Won’t Dance - Fred Astaire                                        
My hero. Completely disciplined, completely free.
I’m Easy - Keith Carradine                                 
From Robert Altman’s great film, Nashville.  The scene has an acting lesson from Lily Tomlin.
Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts - Bob Dylan                                             
10am. Monday morning. RADA student. Our brilliant teacher, June Kemp, gets us moving.
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Roberta Flack                                      
Just listen.
Desperado - Langley Schools Music Project
Recorded in a school gym in 1976. The singer is 9 years old.
Dancing in the Street - Martha and The Vandellas            
Just dance.
Real Good For Free - Joni Mitchell                                        
She says it all, really. No comment required.
Coney Island - Van Morrison                                      
Nostalgia about everything. Everywhere.
You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling - The Righteous Brothers                  
Last dance at the party. A red light bulb. The dregs of cheap wine.
Imagination - Little Jimmy Scott                                         
A great jazz singer rediscovered just in time.

---

Thanks to Alan from taking a few minutes from learning his lines and rehearsing Seminar for Broadway. Fascinating list, and illuminating too. Go see it if you can.
Oh, and when we said inimitable, we were exaggerating. In the Proprietor’s experience, AR has one of those voices that actors all over the world absolutely love to imitate. Like Michael Caine and Sean Connery. And Christopher Walken. It’s a compliment.
Anyway, we always love any Rickman performance.  What’s your favourite?
He is the Bee’s Knees. Practice your Rickman with that phrase ... mutter through your teeth with eyes half closed and a kind of hypnotic drone “...heeez the beeez neeez." Good.

Priorities

Before I give you the Tennessee slide show, and the bullet points of my trip to Nashville, let me say these things:

My darling Roxanne is blogging again!  The girl is HISSterical.  Give her a read.

The just-as-darling Jo reminds us that now's the time to knit scarves for the 2012 Special Olympics. I did this last time, and felt so involved.  Everything you need to know is here.

Go check out Knitter Bunny's fantastic double knitting rabbit scarf. It's her own design, and she did a great job.

Me?  I got some Christmas knitting done while I was gone.  Other details of my trip tomorrow!

Fall Comes to Athens

A fairly representative sample of the lack of color around here.  Too many pine trees, not enough leafed.

Still knitting like a fiend.  This project was to be for the etsy shop, but I am so in love with the feel and color of the yarn, I'm going to have to keep it for myself.  (It will be a cowl.)

The color is "Sweet Potato" from KnitPicks, and, I swear, I can smell and practically taste sweet potatoes when I just look at it.  I was skimming around the KnitPicks site the other day, and was devastated to see that this color is being discontinued.  Would that there were enough money in my bank account to buy all that they have.
Finished my first Who's Feet scarf:

 Thirteen feet and three inches altogether.  It will be given to the first Whovian I ever knew, my best friend Lisa.  (Who probably doesn't read this, so no worries.)