Saturday, October 06, 2018


I’ve done a little bit. I’ve got a new central heating system – Greek Helen’s efficiency, again – and I needed to figure out how to turn it off when I’m away. My brother-in-law found the manual on-line (that’s what you do, these days) and printed it out for me on my lovely new printer. Today I sat down and did the figuring-out. It’s easy.

And I have a card that looks like a bank or credit card, but which in fact you load with money in advance. The modern equivalent of travellers’ cheques, I guess. I originally got it to take to Palermo. Today I topped it up on-line.

And – the big one – I spent a very happy half-hour with the Edinburgh Yarn Festival class list for next year. Except for the fact that they still haven’t persuaded Franklin to come… I’m going to try for Felicity Ford and Tom of Holland, if I can find a family member willing to give up next Saturday afternoon for me. The actual booking won’t take long, but the preliminary nervous tension, the being poised over the keyboard ready to refresh the screen at 4 p.m. precisely, is fairly wearing. I’ll be in Naples.

And that’s about it. A couple more rows on my swatch. I can always get some more sock needles at Cathy’s Knits next week if I haven’t finished that sock.

Non-knit

Shandy, we didn’t talk much about Kavanaugh when my sister was here, because there really wasn’t much to say. I think we were all agreed that it was his tearful testimony to the committee which really disqualified him for the Supreme Court.

There is an interesting and to me horrifying article in this morning’s Times about Greek letter fraternities. We have never had them at Oberlin. They are as strange to me as to any of you. But Kavanaugh is quintessentially a frat boy, I can see that. The article says that all but two presidents since 1825 (Carter & Obama?)  have been members, and 85 percent of Supreme Court justices. That’s far worse than the strangle-hold Eton has here, or even public schools in general. And public schools are, to some extent at least, a civilizing influence. Fraternities are not.

4 comments:

  1. And Kavanaugh is in. This is catastrophic for the United States.

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  2. Separation of powers?? Oh, let's talk about Italy, and kntting. I wonder if they still have travellers checks? I felt so sophisticated when I bought mine for my first trip abroad at 19. This morning I am ripping out a few 200 stitch rounds of a sweater because I sleepily mixed up the cables.

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  3. Jean, I’m a few days late, still catching up on stuff here. It was such fun to see you and meet Archie and the cats. What a nice young man he is, you are lucky to have him to hang out and travel with, I know you know that! I had a nice time in Edinburgh and arrived home late Thursday night here, about 5 AM Friday morning your time....that was a long day, I t’s good to be home!
    Have fun in Italy!!

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  4. 11-6-18 revenge will be ours - that is the election day. then if we DEMS take back the house impeachment can begin on Kavanaugh. or just vote everything down of the REP and take over the committees and start planning to take over the Senate. Women are LIVID ... there WILL be consequences to the old white REP men on that Judiciary committee... mark my words. the Tide is turning... there is HOPE.

    vote vote vote vote. that is the only way we can win now.

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