My husband is still not well. Dozy, poor of appetite, highish of blood sugar. I'll have to get back to doctors tomorrow. And I don't feel entirely sprightly myself. I am devoted to William of Ockham, who has solved many a problem for me with his principle of trying the simplest explanation first. In this case, it would be that my husband and I are ill-ish from the same cause. But I don't think it's true, and my jaw isn't swollen.

I had considered dropping the blog for a awhile – medical bulletins from the geriatric ward are not what you look for when you open a knitting and general-life blog. But then my sister's husband sent me this, this morning:

and then came your comment, Tamar.

You may have learned that trick here, for Googling a specific blog, but it was because someone else, whose name I have ungratefully forgotten, had proposed it. This time, it goes straight into Evernote, and I will soon check out your suggestions for tracking down the particular post I want of Franklin's. Thank you.

So I'll go on for a while.

Knitting proceeded yesterday, amidst the general gloom. I earned my next percentage point. And a friend in CT sent me a picture I can't figure out how to post, of her yarn at Stitches East. The second time I went to Camp Stitches on Lake George (oh! Happy memory) I needed to get from there to the mouth of the CT River to visit my sister and my mother. Much on-line struggle with timetables seemed to indicate that it was easy enough to travel up and down the great river valleys, the Hudson and the Connecticut, but not at all easy to get from one to the other.

So I advertised on the Knitlist for a lift, and J. responded. She lives almost within walking distance of my sister. We had a lovely day's drive – we stopped at Webs! I've seen her only once since, when she and her husband, another delectable J., came to supper at my sister's house and I cooked them a chilli which was embarrassingly lacking in heat.

But we've kept in touch. She is now dyeing her own yarn, in a small way.  It looks sort of like Candace Strick's “Merging Colors” line, which I have always admired (but never knit). J. is working on an on-line sales site, and I will keep you posted.

Non-knit

Skeindalous, I was grateful for your reference yesterday to the Feral Knitter, writing about books. That website led tohttp://quirkbooks.com/post/new-years-reading-resolutions. And there I am tempted by the one which goes simply: Read that book. In my case, it would be Hilary Mantel's Booker prize winners. I've read a lot of Mantel, including her French Revolution one, “A Place of Greater Safety”. Why am I afraid of the Booker books?