Yarn Porn

I know, I know: I'm a writer.

But my friend Kris started knitting again, and I see all the funky things she is creating, so while she and I were in the Adirondacks earlier this month, I wandered into the yarn section of the Old Forge Hardware Store.

Oh. My. Goodness.

It's obscene.

I spent way too much money replacing my crochet hooks (which X-Chromo lost), a pattern book, and sufficient yarn to crochet a fashion scarf for X. An easy pattern to ease me back into the artsy-craftsy portion of my brain.

X-Chromo was thrilled -- I chose that shade of green so dear to her heart. I said, "It's not as fuzzy as the scarf your aunt bought you a couple of years ago." X-Chromo said: "Auntie didn't make it for me."

I finished it last night. The photo is of X-Chromo modeling it.

Today, I bought yarn on line. I am going to make myself a shell from the same pattern book . . . a shell to replace a crocheted shell I bought from a street vendor in Greenwich Village over Thanksgiving weekend, 1988. I love that shell. But it's getting a little ratty. So I decided that I'm going to create my own replacement.

Finding the right weight of yarn was tough. I never realized that the variety available has exploded in the past 20 years. When Kris and I stood in front of the rows of skeins in Old Forge a few weeks ago, I understood why she calls it Yarn Porn.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year . . .

. . . is autumn. It's cool enough to be comfortable, but warm enough to eschew heavy clothing. You don't need boots or mittens. One of my friends says it's wonderful because her children go back to school.

LIFE RESUMES.

Cooking resumes. If one isn't air conditioned, cooking in the heat of summer is torture. Even boiling a pot of water for pasta steams up the kitchen. But autumn means soups, and casseroles, and other aromatic pastimes in the kitchen. It's warm apple pie and cider spiked with a shot of cinnamon schnapps; it's smoky red wines served with even smokier cheeses.

Last weekend, a friend and I drove into the Adirondack Mountains for another friend's booksigning. The leaves were already starting to turn color, not just the standard reds, yellows, and oranges, but burgandies, plums, rusts. Several times, the scenery stole my breath, especially later in the day, when the sun started to sink behind the mountains and cast spotlights on a tree or two. Mother Nature showing off.

One Summer Day

Last weekend, TV Stevie and I dropped off X-Chromo at her grandparents so she could spend the night with her cousins on Grandma & Grandpa's back deck. Then we hit the oh-so-scenic US Route 20 and headed for Cooperstown, NY, best known for the Baseball Hall of Fame. We were actually going to an opera at the Glimmerglass Opera House. Cooperstown is also the current residence of the artifact that gave my hometown its fifteen minutes of fame: The Cardiff Giant.

It was a lovely, hot summer day, barely a breeze rippling the green hills of rural upstate New York. There was a faint haze clinging to the landscape. Clumps of goldenrod in the roadside ditches reminded me that this was summer's last hurrah.

As our car crested a hill, we saw the most amazing sight. My first impulse was to think aliens had crashed landed their spacecraft on the side of the mountain, leaving giant propellers jutting up from the trees as evidence.
Then I realized I was seeing a windmill farm. I'd read about this venture in the newspaper, and applauded the committment to finding alternate energy sources, but I'd never pictured something quite so high tech. I'd envisioned something like the picture on the left, not the one on the right. TV Stevie also commented on how 'other worldly' the vista seemed, like something out of Flash Gordon.

I wished I'd brought one of the cameras I'd won at the company picnic a few weeks ago.

We enjoyed our opera and were impressed with the opera house itself. We chatted with someone whose seats were in front of ours and discovered we know mutual people.

After the opera, we called the restaurant at which we'd planned to dine on our return trip, only to discover a power outage had closed it for the evening. So we drove into Cooperstown proper, and found the best parking spot in the entire village: right in front of the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the second time that day, I regretted not bringing along one of my new cameras.

TV wanted to go into the Hall of Fame, but I've been there, done that, ain't gonna do it again. So we decided to 'walk around the village', which you may translate to mean TV Stevie goes into baseball memorabilia stores and The Divine parks herself on one of the street-side benches and makes notes on the pad she keeps in her purse.

Two blocks from the Hall of Fame, I discovered a little park, so I told TV to go to the Hall of Fame; I would fetch my AlphaSmart from the car and write. It was late afternoon/early evening, still warm, still light . . . I would have been as happy as a pig in its wallow to just sit and type. But he was no longer in the mood (and I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but then I'd told him before we ever left home that I was NOT doing the Hall of Fame).

We discussed what to do about dinner. Neither of us particularly wanted to stay in Cooperstown to eat, so we decided to find a restaurant closer to home, and to leave while it was still light.

Cooperstown is off the main roads, so one must take scenic routes even to access the Thruway (I90). The land is high and open in places, and we drove straight into a thunderstorm. Frankly, I was a bit worried about tornadoes, but once more, I wished for a camera to capture the lightning forking through the sky. We drove through the storm in a matter of minutes, got on I90 and headed home.

I suggested we try the 'new' restaurant three blocks from our house. It's been open for a year, but we've never gone because in its last two incarnations, it was sticky and icky. We parked in our garage, then walked up the street.

Wonderful food, wonderful staff, wonderful wine list. The walls are now painted a light butter yellow instead of sticky golden wood (maybe that was just the layers of cigarette residue, but it was nasty). Unfortunately, we were the only patrons at the time -- of course, it was also late for dinner in this neck of the woods. I do hope business picks up, because Licari's deserves success.

It rained while we ate, but by the time we'd finished our luscious meal, the moon was out and the grit and grime of everyday city living had been washed away. The moon wasn't quite full, worn a bit around the edges, but stunning none the less, a focal point as we strolled home.

The day had been one of those perfect days that you never forget.