The tidal waves in the Indian Ocean 30 hours ago must be a strong candidate for the title of the worst natural disaster in recorded history. Certainly if the number of people dead and ruined is to be the criterion. The eruption of Vesuvius in the first century AD destroyed more interesting places and things, probably. I am duty Listmom on the Knitlist this week, and am horrified that this event has caused not the tiniest ripple there, they who are always so prompt to knit afghans for hurricane victims in Florida and send needles and yarn to those who have lost all. Not that there's much to be accomplished by knitting, in this case. But someone could at least express awed helplessness.
We're having a nice time, and had a great Christmas. My son and his family came to Christmas dinner dressed every one in my knitting (just as I want everyone to do at my funeral) -- the new baby, now named Thomas, had on his Baby Surprise, and his older brother was wearing the striped Koigu sweater I knit him for his first birthday (the pattern is on my website, www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk). His parents were wearing socks of my confecting.
Pictures will follow, when we get back to Edinburgh.
Their are events for which there are no words; the horror is so overwhelming, the suffering so great that mere words, written in attempts to express what shakes the human soul, seem to minimize the horror or at least seem to reduce it to manageable-by-structure proportions. Take heart; I believe that a lack of language is sometimes a very good thing and in no way reflects poorly on those who can find no words.
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