Old Van vs Armadillo

First you have to understand that if you live in certain parts of the United States, there are armadillos.   Then you have to understand about armadillos.  They are armored mammals, which works for them when they are up against predators.  It doesn't help much when they've wandered into the highway in front of a vehicle traveling at highway speeds.  

They also have short little legs and very poor eyesight.  They seem to like to waddle along the side of a highway.  You can see the inherent issues.

Occasionally you will see a live one hoofing it down the shoulder of the road, but for the most part, the ones you see near highways are relatively flat.  However, live ones are out there, chugging along on their short little legs.  

There never really was an Old Van-Armadillo standoff.  The armadillos moved faster.

But there was this time that the Old Van ALMOST zipped by an armadillo.  It was on a downhill slope, and the van was gaining.  But then, there was a little rise in the landscape, and the van lost momentum.  And slowed down.  And the armadillo drew even with the van and then veered off into the desert.  Low, cheating armadillo!  Play fair, you!!!  

I think that at night when it slept, the Old Van dreamed about that encounter.  It almost got the drop on an armadillo.  And if the armadillo hadn't cheated, it might have.

Seriously, nobody thought Old Van was going to hit an armadillo, did they?  Good grief, no.  Hippie vans are very peace loving.  And also, it was very possible that running over an armadillo could cause an old VW bus to tip over.  

This is all.  Next time, I promise to make up a better story.

I Like Talking about the Old Van

I really do.

Because it had personality.  Not unlike a large, badly behaved pet.

And if during the summer the front seat passenger wanted to put his or her bare feet on the dashboard, it not only really didn't matter - it was more or less expected.  It harked back to The Day.

Everybody says 'Back In The Day'.  The thing is, nobody really knows when that day WAS.  For some, it was the '60s.  But not for all.  Just some.  There are people out there for whom Back In The Day was the mid '90s. Flexibility is good.  Especially if you are wanting to put your feet on the dashboard of the vehicle in which you are riding.  (It is uniformly agreed that it is very bad for the driver to do this.  Especially when the vehicle is in motion.)

Our old bus had quirks.  Although as I'd never really gotten the hang of driving a standard transmission vehicle, there's a possibility that not all the quirks were of the bus.  I may have caused a few.  It almost always stalled out when I drove it, especially when I tried to shift from First to Maybe Faster, the next gear up.

There allegedly was an ''H' pattern?  On the old bus, it was more of a drunken Y with codependency issues.  If you thought really pure thoughts, you could usually get from First to Maybe Faster.  Sometimes it was hard to tell because…maybe it was faster.  Or not.   I suppose speed is relative.  5mph is faster that stopped.  10 is faster than 5.  You can extrapolate this for yourselves.  Don't bother getting into larger numbers.  It never went over 55 unless there was a long downhill stretch involved.

There were basically4 gears.  First, Maybe Faster, This One Might Be Neutral and Sometimes It BacksUp.  None of them did anything consistently.  As stated, sometimes it backed up.  Sometimes all that happened was that the steering wheel fell off.  But that wasn't a big issue when it occurred  as the bus was not, nor likely to become, a moving vehicle.  So you just woogled the wheel around until it more or less went back in place and had another go at finding Sometimes It Backs Up.

To park randomly in a place where you could simply go forward as needed was the idea.  Sadly, most parking areas were not designed with this need in mind.  Sometimes you had to just attempt to find neutral and then push the thing around until you could drive away without a need for Sometimes It Backs Up.

We were extremely trim and fit while we had the old bus.

This is all for today.

Tomorrow I might remember The Trip In Which We Bought a Sheep Fleece.  It's a good story in that involves both an old VW bus and a real sheep fleece, which at one time had been worn by a real sheep.  Although the real sheep is not a player in that story.  I suppose we could have easily carted a sheep around in the old bus.  We just didn't.

There are many stories, among them The Time We Had To Stop Quickly, The Time There Were Cattle On The Road, and Head To Head With An Armadillo.  My numerous avid readers can vote.

In Which Cozy Natters On

I have not blogged in a long time.  Should I make a confession now?

Nah.  Let me just tell you some stuff.  A  friend of mine has a vintage ad, circa 1966, featuring the brand new 1966 VW mini bus.  It's shown sitting proudly in the driveway of a cute little mid-century bungalow, as if it's the ideal vehicle of the middle class 1965 family.  Dudes.  Really?  The only way a V-Dub bus would have shown up in that family's driveway is because their raggedy-ass college age son parked it there.  Possibly because he'd come home to announce that he was dropping out of school, renouncing the establishment and going to live in a commune somewhere unspecified.  

So, let's forget about RACAS now, because we know what happened there.  He dropped out, did his free living thing for a while, went back to school, got an MBA and now earns a 7 digit annual income.  

Let's talk about the micro bus.  Because we really don't know what would have become of it 50 years later.  Would it be nothing but a clump of metal in a wrecking yard somewhere?  The odds of it being still road worthy are pretty slender.  It might not have sustained roadworthiness into the 1970s.   If it survived today, it would likely be more in the lines of garden art than a functioning vehicle. They were badly underpowered for the size of the vehicle.  We actually owned one for a time - something art students were easily lured into because they were essentially just a big rectangle that you could configure however you liked, to transport your glazed pottery to the craft fair, hold all manner of oddly shaped supplies and gear, large canvases, etc.  And the interiors were really easy clean.  The seats were vinyl and bolted to the floor…which was just metal floorboards + rubber matting.  You could pop one of the bench seats out really easily for extra space.  And you could hose them out if something got spilled. Excellent in all respects except the little picky detail of - will it actually start, and then if having accomplished that, will it actually proceed in a forwardly direction?

Ours was prone to wanting a little boost to get into 1st gear. You could either get other art students to give you a push in return for carting their stuff to the craft fair. Or park on a hill. Or get an assist from what looked like a bunch of kindly Mafia guys on the turnpike in New Jersey.

(Why yes, yes we did. And yes, I'm pretty sure they were Mafia. Four guys in black business suits in July, driving a big Lincoln with tinted windows? You tell me.  They were stopped at the rest area where the van chose one of its (numerous) times to crap out. The potentially Mafia guys thought the kids were adorable and gave them a bag of tomatoes they said was from one of the guy's mom's garden. There were several bags of produce in the trunk of the Lincoln. If there were body parts or cement shoes in the trunk also, we did not see those.) Nor would we have seen them if we HAD seen them. We were stupid enough to have actually purchased a VW micro bus. But not total idiots. (It cost around $500, and the previous owner was VERY happy to get that…and this was not so long ago that $500 was a sum of money usually related to even very used used car prices.)

In time, we graduated from art school and did the Real Life thing, during which it rapidly came apparent that we'd need a car that didn't require a push start.  And so we found someone with a few bucks to spend on an iconic way of life.  Handily, his brother-in-law was a shade tree mechanic.  Who knows.  Maybe the old bus is still out there, chugging around somewhere.  But probably not.

We got a Buick and became boring.  

How about you?

My Garden Buddy

Every knitter should have a good friend like this.  She eats moths.

All things that wander are not lost...but some are

I have, I know it, a few scraps of plaid fabric.  I would like to find them. 

So far, they have remained elusive.

I have a bad feeling that I am going to have to move a number of big heavy bins to get to the one where they may be lurking.  But...you know how that goes.  The last place you look usually is where the item is.

Although it would not have been there if you chose that place to look first.  There is some kind of unwritten rule about that, I think. 

There are a lot of unwritten rules when it comes to tracking down stuff you KNOW you have, but just can't find.

The item well could be exactly where its supposed to be.  This is alarming, and often mildly upsetting.  What?  The hat is on the hat rack?  Really?? How can this be??? 

If it's something nobody else would have messed with,  it will be precisely where you put it the last time you used it.  This is frustrating.  You can't remember any of those details - not how, not when, not where, nor why.  And additionally, you can't pass the blame.  'THEY moved it and didn't put it back properly' won't fly.  And it's hard to admit that YOU moved it and don't have a clue.

There is an additional force involved in The Search For Something that must be addressed.

It is the Theory of Expansion. Say you are looking for a piece of fabric, or a ball of yarn.  Or a Chinese bird's nest, or a chunk of Kryptonite.  WHAT it is doesn't matter in the least.  Theory of Expansion functions equally well on all earthly and unearthly matter.

Here's how it works:  You have a bin full of (fabric/balls of yarn/bird's nests/ Kryptonite) and you must look through it to find the desired (fabric/ball of yarn/
bird's nest/chunk of Kryptonite).  To do so, you may need to remove some - or perhaps all - of these items from the container.  This is unfortunate, because when you fail to find the object of your search, you will need to replace the stuff (crap/junk/junque/garbage) you off-loaded.  It will not fit back into the bin.  


The Theory of Expansion has a corollary theory, which I shall call the Corollary of Undiminishing Returns.

How does that work, you ask?  (You HAVE to ask.  Otherwise I am just here chatting to myself, replying to myself, and sometimes really cracking up over my crazy sense of humor.  It's much better if you ask.  I will pretend you have.)

So, the Corollary of Undiminishing Returns is thus:  You have 10 items in a bin.   These items all fit nicely.  And lo and behold, 2 of them are what you had been searching for!  Kaloo-kally!  Frabjous Day!!!  You FOUND THEM!!!  

But don't get all over the moon quite yet.  You have eight items to return to the bin.  They will not fit.

There are more corollaries and various exceptions to them that need to be discussed, but not now.  I'm too depressed.  

AND I think I might be allergic to bird's nests.

Where I'm From

Where you are from is a lot more than what your home town is. 

These are some of the things that make up one small girl.  (Joe is a horse, and while she rides Joe often and cartwheels even more, the bit about the book in the barn is poetic license, she says.)


I'm from hours on Joe.
The tree I've ridden past so many times.
Kart wheeling past the red swing
and getting caught reading in the barn.

I'm from hours of drawing the wild flowers
and not being able to wait for the strawberries
to ripen and the tomatoes that went crazy in Mom's garden.

I'm from Grannie's hamburgers and Hershey's chocolate.
I'm from beautiful sunsets in the summer and watching
fireworks on the Fourth of July.

That's where I'm from.


So here's the big question:  where are YOU from?

Teawise tag wisdom

The more Yogi tea I drink the larger my collection of teabag tag wisdom grows.

Yesterday's tags are about boosting your spirits and maintaining a positive attitude.  This is always gracious and helpful news whether you receive it from a friend or by chance from the tag of your teabag.

And here they are:

Uplift everybody and you uplift yourself.  Yes.   Have you noticed how you smile when you're around a cheerful person?  Why not be that person?

Meditation is the medicine of the mind.  Of course this implies that you are meditating on things that are, to borrow the words of one Paul of Tarsus, true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.  "Think about such things," is his wise counsel.

Where are your thoughts today?  Are you seeking higher things or just rumbling around in the same old trough of Same Old that got you into the doldrums in the first place?

The final tag in today's lineup is short and to the point: Keep up.

Find that positive beat and let it set the tempo for your day.  :-)

Advice

 

 

This little tidbit, allegedly from an old sewing how-to book, keeps surfacing.

 

 

The sad bit is that people overlook the great advice in the first paragraph because of what comes next.  You should prepare yourself mentally for sewing.  You're going to be using potentially hazardous and usually expensive equipment.   And unlike knitting or crocheted projects, you can't just ravel away a mistake and have do-overs.

You cut that fabric wrong, and that's a done deal.

 

Good results ARE difficult when indifference predonimates.  True for pretty darn near any endeavour.

 

Please note that in the 1940s spirit of things, I used the word endeavour.   I don't know if I spelled it correctly, but there it is.  I used it.  Fits in so nicely with predonimates and lackidaisically.

 

But nobody notices that part.  They're all off about the poor chick needing to make herself attractive so she can be free of the fear that a visitor, or even worse, her husband, might drop by unexpectedly.   Making comments about her need to be powdered and lipsticked.  And to have her French chalk near to hand.  Making lots of comments about her French chalk.

 

In Ms. 1949's world, not everybody had a phone.  No cellphone, no texting, no FB, no face time.  Maybe not even a land line.  Somebody well might just pop in on her, and then spread the word far and wide that they went to her house at 10 a.m. and she was anything but pulled together.   There was no Twitter or YouTube, so people had to spread gossip the old fashioned way, but they got the  job done, you betcha.

 

I, my 21st century self, like to be neatly put together before I sew. 

 

Unfortunately, often once I've neatly gotten it together, I forget where where I put it.

 

 



Passing the hours blog style

Do ever pause to ponder how blogs pass the time when their human isn't actively writing in them or posting photos to them?

Do they whimper pitifully and make sad puppy eyes?

Do they just sigh and hunker down to wait it out, sure that you'll come back SOME time?

Do they sneakily make up posts on their own when you aren't looking?  (Hey, I read back a ways in my blog, and there's no way I wrote some of that stuff.  No way, man.  I think the blog did it.)

I think mine probably has a rich life of the mind, developed over the large blocks of time when I wander off and don't toss it many little tidbits to nibble.

(It likes multi-sylabic words the best.  I've heard it emit small burps when I get all sylabic.  Do you ever get sylabic?  Is that even a word?)

Most of the time, I just magine it as being all curled up on a one of those high class pet beds, eating bonbons and doing whatever blogs do.

How about you?  Do you imagine what blogs do?

(Bonus Cozy points for making rhyming comments.)

Tea wisdom

So lately, I've been drinking Yogi tea.  It's great stuff - herbal and healthful, and each package comes with information and illustrations for how to a yoga stretch or meditation pose.  My current favorite Yogi tea is Chai Rooibos, which reminds me of Mm'a Ramotswe in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency novels.  She's a big fan of rooibos tea, and also of seeking positive wisdom and balance in life.

So it's all good.

But that's not all! 

Besides yummy tea with excellent health properties, each teabag's tag has a wee saying printed on it.  Some of them are really uplifting and thought provoking.   I have one here that says, 'When ego is lost, limit is lost.  You become infinite, kind and beautiful.' 

I like that. 

Chugging Eagle

Chugging Eagle is no more.

He has gone to his eternal rest in the great eternal resting place of  his kind.

But before he went, he had a good and full life.  He spent his days peacefully, swimming, resting, eating, ruffling his plumes and probably doing a  bit of pooping as well.  What fish do. 

Because that's what he was.  A peacefully swimming, resting, eating, plume ruffling and sometimes pooping fish. 

And he did those things with verve and elan.

Because he was a Beta, and they look as if they deserve $5 words.  Which, with inflation and all, are probably worth about $17.50 by now. 

But the sad day came when Chuggling Eagle pointed his little toes to the sky, and he was laid to rest in the manner of his kind.

We won't speak much of this because Chugging Eagle was a small fish.  And we know how they are swirled out to sea (or somewhere watery) with a great rushing sound to commemorate their passage.

RIP, Chugging Eagle.  You will be missed.  (As long as we remember you.)

Artsy in the DNA

There seems to be this universal thing among people who craft to see something that would be soooo amazing to use in...something.  You may not know at this moment exactly WHAT...but... you know for a fact that you NEED IT.  If it's at the craft shop, or laying on the path by the road, no matter...you KNOW it's perfect...for...something. 

The whole aspect of what/how/when you'd use it is totally beside the point. YOU NEED IT. And so you get it and carefully store it, because...you'd be crazy not to...and then...it starts to draw more things to itself.  And so it goes.

One day I plan to write a how-to book about this phenom.  It'll explain to those who aren't 100% sure how to tell if they have the Crafty Gene.  (Simple answer:  if you have to ask, you don't.)  But I'll stretch it  out further than that so the book is worth the money. 

If I do this well, I'll time the book publication to coincide with the launch of my new line of storage containers.

I need to get this all underway quickly, before a pile of yarn or fabric topples over and devours my tabl...

In Which Cozy Writes in Her Blog

Ten days into the new year is a great time to try for a resolution, don't you think?

Not so pushy as those people who start resoluting before the new year even begins.  Not so slackardly as those people who talk about resolving and don't.
Just right, as that awesome arbiter of Just Rightness says.  Yes, this would indeed be Baby Bear, and aren't you proud of yourself for getting the right answer!

(Of course you are.  Groove on it.)

Don't immediately fritter all that rightness away by assuming that I'm here to SAY something.  What.  Did you think I was going to resolve to write more?  Oh, sweetie.  You so do not know me.  Writing happens or it doesn't.  There is no discipline here.  Just me. 

So, let's have a nice photo of minion hats and bid everyone a lovely new year.

Happy Mother's Day

I received this amazing card for Mother's Day.  It says that I'm awsom, which I find very flattering.  And the hugs and kisses are happy orange and yellow.  And they are in 3-D.  I don't think you can ask for a whole lot more than this.

Hitching Along

Here it is - the marvelous Hitchhiker! I'm about 35% done, based on weight of the remaining yarn, and it is so appealing.  This is one of those patterns that just really does demand you knit more than one.  but after this one, I'm going to step back and make 22 Clouds, using DK, just for a little change of yarn pace.  Funny how often I knit with fingering.

The scarf is displayed on weathered wood in the best of Regretsy fashion.  I always got a kick out of the way they'd offer you a photo of just a hunk of barnwood.  Here you go - photoshop your image on to it.  I should have made use of it.  Gots no barn.

 

(Regretsy is no more.   I suppose there really are only so many creative ways to talk about the same array of peculiar and offensive products/images.  Or call people out for their 'handmade' items purchased in bulk from Oriental Trader.)

 

Next up is a gratuitious yarn shot.  This is one of my last handdyes.  Lace weight merino, with a very mermaidy feel to it.  It looks cool and soothing and refreshing to me.  This is the 3rd up yarn in my 'make something next' cue.  After the Hitchhiker, after 22 Clouds is this.  I'm thinking another Martina Behm pattern, possibly Viajante.

 

And this is it for the moment.  My create-a-blog brain has just fizzed.  Browsers have shut.  Nothing is coming forth.  It happens.  Deal with it.

 



Hitchhiking

After several months of really not knitting much of anything, I've started a new project that really makes me happy.  A Hitchhiker - that clever scarf with teeth.

I'm up to 7 teeth on my new project, using a soft, squishy yarn in shades of blue from medium to quite dark.  The pattern calls for 42 teeth (if you knit and are on Ravelry, you can read up on the significance there) but I am maybe 75 yds below requirement for that.  I should get in excess of average human dentition, but less than 42. 

(Smiles toothy grin.) 

Pictures will be forthcoming by and by. 

Tag-along Scrap Blankie

Over the past few months I've been working on a cool scrap blankie made with all kinds of scraps of yarn, a lot of it contributed by friends.   It's ideal for whatever amount of leftovers you've got because lengths of  yarn are simply tied together, and the tied ends are left to add texture  to the finished product. 

Even a few feet of leftover yarn works.  If you're a crazy yarn scrap hoarder (translation: normal knitter), this makes it possible to use up all those appealing snips and snaps that weren't really long enough to use for much of anything.

And the little tufts are adorable - and they feel good to pet. 

In other news, if you're curious about how I shrank my tummy, check the link over there, AllNewMe.  It's good stuff.

And...Bebe is starting to walk.  Already.  She's growin' up so fast!  And loving those faux animal prints.  You're never too young to have style.

Freeze Dried Pantry Plunder

Ohhh!  Our freeze dried foods are here! 

The containers are color coded - pink for fruit, like the fugi apples, green for veggies, and purple for meats.  It's all so good, and there's virtually no sodium involved in any of it.  Even the chicken is very low per serving.  This pleases me so much. 

(The little mylar bag is mushrooms.  The hubs no likey, so those are miiiiiiiine.  Aaaaaallllll miiiiiine.) 

My Philosophy Mug

Here it is: my take on aging in a nutshell.  Or on a mug.  Mug works better.  Nutshell does not hold enough herbal tea. So if you were thinking this was going to be a deep and weighty discussion of the universe and life and so on, hahahaha to you.  You read my blog.  You surely never expected THAT.  Did you? 

 

Wanna Make Something of It?

Are you one of the lovely souls who have a tendancy to collect oddments that could be used somehow...in some way...even if you can't really think HOW you would use it or WHAT you would make.  But...it COULD be something...surely... 

And...don't throw that out!!!!  It's...STUFF. 

So then.  Is that you?

If so, tell to me what would be good to make with this:

Shown here with its Momma, the lint roller...