Another day, another dollar.

Our niece C. came with me on yesterday's hospital visit. We found my husband much as he had been on Sunday. He still had oxygen tubes up his nose. The antibiotics were no longer attached, but the machine was still there. The male nurse in charge of things, whom we love and trust, said that OT was holding off for a couple of days. Tamar, yes, oxygen saturation is being tested and “bloods” taken. C. thought he was a bit chirpier than when she visited with me last week.

Then a couple of hours after she dropped me back here, she phoned to say that her daughter (another C., I'm afraid; this threatens to get confusing) had been thrown from a horse and was conscious and waiting for an ambulance. She phoned again later in the evening to say that the younger C. was in the other major Edinburgh hospital, in considerable pain, being given morphine, in a neck brace and a pelvic brace, but able, at least, to wriggle fingers and toes.

And she phoned just now to say that her daughter has been admitted to an orthopedic ward. Initial xrays have come up clean, but she is still in a great deal of pain, still being given morphine.

Knitting

Well, Fantoosh is wonderful. If anyone is holding back – I can't imagine it, but... – you must go ahead. It's hard enough to be fun. It's easy enough to be fun.

Kate D. is right – the lozenge pattern is easy to master. I had a bit more trouble with the question of how they connect to each other, but I think I'm getting on top of that one. I've finished the set-up chart, two lozenges, and the first iteration of the “proper” chart, another four. I've embarked on the six-lozenge row. There are another ten repeats of that chart to go, counting the one I'm doing, each one adding two more lozenges to the row.

I am irritated with myself for not being able to work out a simple arithmetic formula to tell me how many lozenges there will be altogether. Obviously, I can just write down a list of the repeats – 4,6,8,10,etc. – and add them up. But there must be a snappier approach.

I love the yarn. And the first thing I must do this morning is go off to Meadow Yarns and order a new KnitPro needle or two. I don't seem to have any in the right size – not surprising, with the number of WIPs I am piling up. It's surprising I have an available needle at all. But it's too shiny, and the yarn itself is sort of slippy. I'll be happier with the slight adhesiveness of wood.

Scifiknitter, I suspect you're right that it's going to be impossible to drop Fantoosh from the Active WIP list. Here they all are:

A system will be required. The late, great Judy Sumner used to have a different WIP for every day of the week. I'm getting dangerously near that position.

(Scifiknitter, a friend called around last week to tell us that his girlfriend, a woman I suppose in her 50's, has a rare form of lung cancer. She is Dutch, living in Amsterdam, and has been enrolled in the trial of a new drug in which not many people are involved, world-wide. I wonder if you and Lieke are trying the same thing? So far, Jimmy said, she's doing well – it seems to have stopped the disease in its tracks.)