I think my eye is going to be all right. I was astonished, when I got home from the appointment, at the ease and relief I felt. I must have been reeely scared.

I was emphatic (thanks, Tamar) in telling them that sight in the affected eye had deteriorated during the week. The nice man agreed – I’ve got fluid on/in/under the retina, and it may need laser treatment. They prefer to leave it a few weeks – he explained it all in Layman’s Terms and I’m afraid the word “pudding” occurred – and the delay won’t affect the outcome. (Unlike a detached retina, which he assured me I hadn’t got -- that needs prompt treatment, he agreed.)

My next appt is towards the end of November.

Not the least happy event of the day was a message from Leslie B. of NJ. Our virtual friendship goes back a long way.

When I originally got online, ’94 I think it was, the very first thing I did was sign up for a newsgroup called (I think) rec.crafts.textiles. I’d read about it in VK. Nothing happened. I think I even tried to send a message once saying, “Is anybody out there?” Then, somehow, I discovered that it needed to be rec.crafts.textiles.yarn – and I began to get messages.

It was wonderful, after a lifetime of being nutty about knitting all by myself, suddenly to be in touch with other loonies. I wrote a note once about finishing a shawl for a baby, and Leslie wrote to me and said, why don’t you join the Knitlist? And I did. And the rest is history.

Those were the great days of Phyllis Stein, and of Selma Kaplan’s virtual parties around her virtual pool, to cheer up the stay-at-homes who couldn’t go to Stitches. (I don’t remember any talk of Rhinebeck. Is that more recent?) I’m still in touch with Phyllis, and Selma has become a flesh-and-blood friend.

Here are Alexander’s socks. I’m just over half-way through the dread k2p2 rib the second time. As I think you can see, I now do gents’ socks with a k6p2 rib for the body and the top of the foot. The knitting is not as blissful as the plain vanilla st st round-and-round I used to do, but it’s bearable, and I think it makes a neater sock.

I don’t see how anyone could bear to work toe-up, and have the awful ribbing to do at the end.

I’ve embarked on row 44 of the 9th repeat of the Princess centre. One more evening should finish it off – but that won’t be until next week, as we’re hoping to go to Strathardle today at last. The weather is abominable: if the Forth Bridge is closed, we’ll turn around and come back. Otherwise, I should reappear next Wednesday.

Angel, I'd love to know which Ohio college you're at. I was at Oberlin. You could email me at the address in the sidebar if you don't want to make the information public.