I hoped, when I posted yesterday, that somebody would know the chemistry building at Mt Holyoke. Thank you, Pascoag Girl, for being the somebody! (comment yesterday)

Mary Lou, I had to google Eugene V Debs – but the process rewarded me with the article you mention.

The only really desperately important chore left for today is to polish my shabby shoes. But I tremble. Things which ought to be easy, never are, these days. Archie and Fergus will be here for lunch. I'll give them chilli con carne I think, easy and satisfying. It will be very nice to see them.

Then Archie will go back to school, leaving Fergus who will of course be joined by his mother, Greek Helen, tonight. She and I have a number of important points to discuss tomorrow morning such as how to help her father with his computer and how to turn the central heating on and off and how to make porridge. Even such simple conversations become tricky when the doorbell starts ringing.

I have packed all the important things already, such as yarn. I hope to finish those eternal Pakokku socks and maybe even start the next pair – I'll be taking Arne & Carlos yarn in hopes.

It would be just as well to make some progress with socks. I have retained a whole bag of sock yarn from the Slaughter of the Innocents. And on top of that, I had an email just now from "Knitcircus Yarns Web Store" saying that my order was being shipped. A moment of pure panic – what order? what on earth? But then I remembered – those rather glorious graduated socks which had to be specially dyed. And Amy Detjen signed the message!

Actual knitting, as always, has moved forward but slowly. I am nearly halfway through the final, right-side welt of the Dunfallandy blankie border. There must be well more than 500 stitches by now but that is not a sufficient excuse for this interminably slow progress.

I won't try to write tomorrow. Americans, I hope the snow is not as bad as forecast. I should be back here on February 1, with any luck, with news of Loop and of the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York.