Well, here we are. They’ve all
gone away. We had a good time. The little girls, two of my three
great-granddaughters, are unspeakably delightful. I didn’t take any pictures,
but other people did, and I hope I’ll have some to show you soon. It was odd to
have the frequent conversational references to “grandmother” refer to Rachel – who is
brilliant in that role.
I tidied up the socks and gave
them to Rachel. And Alexander and Ketki came over to see his sisters and his
cousins (no aunts) and went away in the Calcutta Cup vest – so that’s two
end-of-year FO’s. And today I finished knitting the stripey hat, although it
remains to be seen how easy it will be to block out that tendency of the lower
edge to curl.
I already can’t remember why I
bought two stripey-hat-kits, but I did, and I went straight on to cast on the
second – there’s still time to finish it before Christmas. (I’m not really doing Christmas this year, but there’s
no getting away from its presence.) This time I persevered with the cable
cast-on. I didn’t recognise the interesting-sounding variation you mentioned in
your comments: I hope to explore that avenue before it is forgotten. And I hope I’ll
knit a stripe or two on the second hat while watching this evening’s political news.
And on top of all this, the
package has arrived from Kate Davies with the yarn for the Stronachlachar –
needless to say, it’s the right colour, and very tempting. It will be a great
inducement to get the second stripey hat out of the way as soon as possible.
Non-knit
I feel I ought to have
something to say about the political situation, but I don’t. It’s bizarre. A
few days ago I watched a video of a talk given recently in Baltimore by a man I
knew well at Oberlin – he and I were successive editors of the Oberlin Review
and indeed, for a while, co-editors. He went on to a distinguished career in
journalism.
His talk was about Britain
Today, and he is well-informed although I don’t think I gleaned any
illuminating insights. The disconcerting thing was that I didn’t recognise him,
even sitting there watching for half an hour or so.
It is wonderful and heartwarming to read of your great-grandchildren and I am always pleased by a Gilbert & Sullivan reference but I came here to let you know that I did not recognize someone recently either: my own father in a current photograph. We are estranged and I had not seen or communicated with him since 1996.
ReplyDeletePeople do change with time, and there is also the context factor. I am not face-blind but I use context cues. I recently had trouble recognizing someone I have casually known for years, because she was out of the two different contexts in which I normally see her. I knew the face was familiar but couldn't place it until she very pleasantly reminded me where I'd seen her.
ReplyDeleteI read something somewhere online (so scientific!) about how most of us recreate images of faces very vaguely; for the most part, even those of our dearest are vague outlines with emotional context added.