Cascade and Conservatives

Today I taught a knitting lesson. My super-cool hairstylist and I have been bartering: one haircut for two knitting lessons. We had our knit lesson last week, and moved on to purling today. It's fun to teach, especially in a barter context: I get to feel like I have a useful skill that somebody might actually want, which is not always the case when you're an academic. It's frustrating too, though, because it makes me remember exactly what it felt like to be learning to knit--like the most awkward toddler trying to use a fork. It just doesn't seem natural, until one day it suddenly does.

After the lesson I drove up to our new LYS, Bluebonnet Yarn Shop. I say local--not really. It took me about 40 minutes to get there, whereas our old LYS, Hill Country Weavers, is about 15 minutes away. But the trip was worth it. I like Hill Country Weavers and buy a lot of yarn there, but they are definitely skewed towards the luxury side of things. When I first started going there, there was some Lamb's Pride mixed in with the Rowan, but they've moved away from the basics. Bluebonnet, on the other hand, does have luxury stuff--I had to pry my hands off the Cherry Tree Hill--but it also has an entire WALL of Cascade 220. I wish I had had my camera with me to take a picture because it was beautiful, and just what I was after. I picked up this



to make a buttonhole bag, and this



to make...Pasha! I love him so much, but I am actually making him for a friend who is defending her dissertation next week--she is fond of a penguin. After the sweater, I wanted a smaller project for a little instant gratification, and I think both the bag and Pasha will take care of that.

Incidentally, I wound the Pasha balls while watching Hannity & Colmes on the wretched, wretched Fux "News" Network. Normally, I would never engage in such an activity, but my dad, a Catholic moral theologian, was asked to be on the show to comment on the Terri Schiavo case. Initally, they told him that he would be the only guest, but then they got Mel Gibson and Jesse Jackson to come on, so my dad only got a few minutes. In those minutes, however, he was a well-dressed voice of reason and dignity in the face of the trainwreck that is Sean Hannity. At least Alan Colmes had the courtesy to refer to my dad as "Dr." whereas Hannity kept calling him "Thomas" in the most scornful way possible, and when my dad said that Catholic moral theology permits the removal of the tube, Hannity accused him of personally wanting to kill Terri Schiavo. Man, Sean Hannity sucks.

An update: my dad has been receiving hate mail from the Christian right because of his appearance on H&C! A representative sample:

"What about the "spirit of charity" of some third rate Kennedy slave like you who condemn someone who is cognizant to death? I can't believe someone actually pays a guy like you who went to barber colleges (I went to Vanderbilt and Washington Univerisity in St. Louis) to sit on staff, even if it is a podunk place in Worchester. It's a good thing that the homosexuals have a good use for you; otherwise, you would have to earn a living like the rest of us. I am sure your wife can't wait to give you the power of life and death over her; you will show the same charity to her as Terri Schiavo; execution first, trial in a theoretical sense later."

My dad's response:
"My wife and children know not to prolong my life when the efforts to do so are disproportionate, as the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith says I may.

I am always appreciative of the spirit of charity of the pro-life adherents."

Wow, the restraint of that man--he is a better human being than I would have been in that situation. Meanwhile, my dad's a pawn of both Ted Kennedy and the gay mafia! I couldn't be prouder. I'd better go knit him something...