Medicare For All - Public Option Now

Knitting Friday

This is a late entry although I started writing early this morning. Let’s just say I’m nursing a refrigerator; sitting in the kitchen, typing, and waiting until the cycle kicks off and I’ll know things are back to normal. You see, the water pipe in the back of the fridge gets clogged and you have to remove it from the back, clean it out and screw it back on. Simple repairs, you say. We shall see. But this loused up my posting so here’s just the pattern I typed up this morning.

Based on Wisp but not Wisp: (Thanks to Wisp:
http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEsummer07/PATTwisp.html
for showing me the lovely pattern. My lace pattern is however your ubiquitous *YO, K2tog*.)

Some Background: I have made two modified Wisp shawls as triangles but I have never been able to use garter and lace patterns in a diagonally knit rectangle, until now. (I’m not going to bother with needles, etc. You can check with Knitty for that. Or, I do what I do; use larger needles than called for. I'm not listing abbreviations either - cause I'm really tired - but you can check last week's Knitting Friday.)

Set Up Section: CO 2 sts
Row 1: *Kfb* (4 sts)
Row 2: K
Row 3: *Kfb* (8 sts) (Mark as RS)
Row 4: K1, *YO, K2tog) K1 (This is the lace pattern.)
Row 5 & 7: Kfb *K* Kfb
Row 8 (WS): K
(Very Important re: garter/lace pattern: 1. In Section I and II, you decide how wide and long you want your shawl. In Section III, you are decreasing to one stitch and you must work the number of rows needed to get there. Therefore if you work large garter and lace patterns (ex: 10/20 rows) in the first 2 sections, you may run out of rows to complete this pattern in the last section. 2. You need 50% more lace rows than garter for the pattern to “pop.” ( 6/4; 12/8, etc.)

I. Increasing Section: work to desired width
Garter Pattern: Work for an even number of rows
Row 1 (RS): Kfb *K* Kfb
Row 2: K
Lace Pattern: Work for an even number of rows
Row 1 (RS): Kfb *YO, K2tog* Kfb
Row 2: K1, *YO, K2tog* K1
Notes: 1. Starting on the RS, you will begin the lace pattern, then the garter and lace/garter/lace/garter, etc.. 2. Repeat these sections till you reach the width you desire. 3. End with the lace or garter pattern

II. Even Section: work to length
Garter Pattern:
Row 1 (RS) Kfb *K* K2tog
Row 2: K
Lace Pattern: (On even number of stitches.)
Row 1 (RS): Kfb *YO, K2tog* K1
Row 2: K2tog, *YO, K2tog* K1
Notes: 1. Begin both pattens on the RS. 2. Mark the right edge of the RS row. 3. This edge will always be Kfb edge in this section. 4. In this section you will be increasing (Kfb) on the marked edge and decreasing (K2tog) on the opposite edge. 5. Be sure to read the directions for the lace pattern since your increases and decreases are done on different rows. 6. End this section ready to work on RS.

III Decreasing Section: work to 1 stitch
Garter Pattern:
Row 1 RS: K2tog *K* end K2tog
Row 2: K
Lace Pattern:
Row 1 RS: K2tog *YO, K2tog* end K2tog
Row 2: K1, *YO, K2tog* K1.
Notes: 1. Begin both pattens on the RS. 2. Do not knit tightly in this section. Working K2tog each side tends to do this. 3. See "Very Important" in Section I. 3. Be sure to keep in pattern. 4. You may want to end as you began in Set-up with 1 or 2 rows of lace followed by 3 K rows. 5. Work to 1 stitch

Finishing: Lightly wet block to rectangular shape. I made my model in cheap acrylic and I was able to hand shape it into a rectangle. If you don’t work tightly on Section III, it should be your call re: blocking.

End Notes: Experiment. Make the garter section a seed stitch section. Work the lace with a K row for Row 1 and a P row for Row 2. As long as you work with a two stitch pattern like YO, K2tog or YO, P2tog or K1, P1 and follow the pattern for the increases and decreases at the edges, the sky's the limit.

And finally: Please don't copyright this pattern as your own but do enjoy making it.

Happy knitting.

Oh, the fridge sees to be working. Happy Days!

Medicare For All - Public Option Now

Website Wednesday

Before the website, a book recommendation:

The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era by James M. McPherson.

You can get it at Amazon and Barnes and Noble but I'll give a plug to Borders where it's the cheapest ($9.99) and where I bought it.

First a little background: I already have the non-illustrated, paperback version of this book. I have already used this book for an online course from Barnes and Noble (remember those?) about the U.S. Civil War. But there I was, killing time at Borders in the Bargain Books section and about half-way down the shelves I see this large version of the McPherson book. As I reach to pull it up for reading, a nice employee (well, they are really all nice) walks by and says "Hello" to me. That distraction coupled with my responding greeting and losing my grip on the book, caused the book to propel to the floor missing my feet by inches. And that was a very good thing since this book is very heavy.

But, like finally discovering Waldo amidst all the pseudo-Waldos, this incident brought the book to my attention and finally to my dining table where it sits now. The reason it sits there is because the damn thing is so heavy it would crush a reader's lap.

However, never judge a book by its outside (or weight); this book is one of the best, if not the best, study of antebellum U.S. and Civil War U.S. I will not link to NRO but their reviewer was spot on; this is one fantastic book, made so much better with a treasure trove of contemporary illustrations and their informative captions.

Don't like war stories? Then read it for answers to why the U.S. is as it is today.Too often people deride today's dirty politics. Read this American history and you'll find out a lot about our present history. This is one of those coffee table books which is a must-read. Don't miss it.

And now, my website: http://www.thedailycontributor.com/

I first discovered this website by looking at their examples of adult Halloween costumes

http://www.thedailycontributor.com/halloween-costumes-part-1-80s-costumes and
http://www.thedailycontributor.com/halloween-costumes-part-2-90s-costumes,

and many of these are quite easy to make.

Then I went on to read: Thanks for visiting TheDailyContributor.com! There are many popular blogs on the Internet today and our goal is to become one of the most popular blogs of all-time. Our pop culture blog has many inspirations and our writers are motived (sic) to write about pop culture. Come back and visit us anytime and we will most always have new and fresh pop culture content. Our goal to become one the most popular blogs on the internet starts and ends with you, our readers. We can't become one of these popular blogs without you guys coming to check us out. To help make our pop culture blog on of the most popular blogs on the internet please send us an email letting us know how we can make this site one of the most popular blogs. Tell us why we at TheDailyContributor.com, a pop culture blog, are on our way to becoming one of the more popular blogs or tell us why we will never, ever, ever become one of the most popular blogs on the Internet.

And, I decided to look around.

Current Halloween postings include Halloween drinks (which sound like they would knock your socks off) and how to defeat ghosts and vampires.

Other popular topics include: 10 best cartoon dads, must-read Marvel comics of the '90s, Zelda (I love Zelda!), and strange language in corporate America. It's light, fast reading; you don't like one topic, here's another one you might.

There is a frequent posting of different Google search results for random topics. "I think my sister...." and "Why is my...." are the two current searches. I get what he's doing but I probably won't get the why of this unless I search the archives. Or less, this is really, really cool and in; but I'm not. Take a look at these searches and see what you think.

If you think this is all fun and games, hit the links on the right. Under Fashion, there's a posting about using summer and spring fashion pieces in your fall wardrobe and the advice is not bad. Or under Dating Advice, you get 5 ideas for fun October activities including a horror movie marathon.

Or click on Essays. There's a short one comparing Sir Gawain and Beowulf and The Quest for Identity, with a link to a very short review of the movie, Beowulf, one of my favorite all-time awful movies.

So go take a look at The Daily Contributor and help make it one of the web's most popular. This blogger has put a lot of work into making this a very enjoyable and informative website.

Medicare For All - Public Option Now

Movie Monday

I discovered what a good actor David Thewlis is this week. I had liked him as Professor Lupin in HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But it wasn't until I checked with IMDb that I realized he played the pianist, Kinsky, in Besieged.

The great acting? In HP, I thought he was over 6 feet tall (which he is) but in Besieged, I was sure he was around 5' 6". Now, that's great acting!

OK, I'm joking but I do like Thewlis. I really have to watch Besieged again because I viewed it as a pleasant, unrealistic little romance. Then I read the plot. Apparently, I missed some crucial minutes in the beginning of the movie. And I mean very crucial. I have been trying to catch the movie again but my movie package seems heavy on the vampire motif so close to Halloween.

I did see Bolt and found it delightful. It's a "seen it, been there" animated plot but Bolt is soooo cute. (Yes, I am a sucker for dogs.)

The only thing I didn't like was the fire scene. That smoke inhalation would have killed a moose. OK, I know it was fantasy but it was teaching some good lessons and movie going kids are never too young to learn fire safety.

And finally Appaloosa. This has been my piecemeal movie since I think I still haven't seen the whole thing in one sitting. But every time I'm getting longer and longer pieces and I'm going to go out on a limb (I know, the paid movie reviewing community is shaking) and say this movie will become an iconic Western as time goes on. (Hopefully, more iconic than High Noon where the young Grace Kelly marrying her figurative grandfather, Gary Cooper, still bothers me.)

Appaloosa is based on a Robert B. Parker novel. Now my only previous contact with Parker was an audio book which I listened to on a long trip to Boston. Parker is a laconic writer but I don't remember him as a nuanced one.

So kudos to Ed Harris as director and co-writer and Harris and Viggo Mortensen as the main actors for fleshing out a probably bare bones plot with thematic depth. Renee Zellweger played a "real" woman's role in the Wild West well though I would have liked to see a different actress in this role since Zellweger for me is always mugging in Chicago. Jeremy Irons plays your stock villain with powerful friends with aplomb. Poor Irons I always wanted to pull that wad of cotton out his mouth. You know, the one they put it so he could lose his English accent.

But watch this movie. From start to finish. It's better than High Noon because it tells the tale after the cameras stopped rolling, movie stars went home and the West came out to live.

Finally, the answer to last week's math enigma:

A candy merchant receives 3 opaque boxes. One box contains mint candies, another contains anise candies, and the last box contains a mixture of mint and anise. The boxes are labeled Mint, Anise, and Mixed. All of the boxes are labeled incorrectly. What is the minimum number of candies the merchant will have to sample to correctly label each box?

Answer: You need to take out only one candy but it must be from the Mixed box. Why? The key information in the problem is "all of the boxes are labeled incorrectly." So:
the Mint box is either Mixed or Anise
he Anise box is either Mixed or Mint
the Mixed box is either Mint or Anise.

Take out one candy from the Mixed box. If it's Anise, you know the Mixed box is Anise. So the Mint box can't also be Anise, it has to be Mixed. That leaves the Anise box to be really Mint.

I told you it was a forehead slapping answer.

See you on Wednesday.

Medicare For All - Public Option Now

Knitting Friday

As you know, I really admire the patience of lace knitting. I really don't have that patience and since I like carry-along projects, I make a lot of that so simple lace pattern:

Row 1 & 2: K1, *YO, K2tog* K1
Row 3 & 4: Kfb *K* Kfb

O larger needles and heavier yarn, it makes the shawl pictured on the right. (More on this later.) On smaller needles and lace weight yarn, it produces this pink beauty, pictured on the left. (Note: the shawl on the right is really dark blue, dark green, black and beige. The colors you see must be imposters.)

Now, the finished shawl worked up very quickly but my pink wonder is taking forever even though the only difference in needles is US 10 for the lace weight and US 10.5 for the heavier weight (Paton Classic Wool.) I know I should be using sharp metal needles for the lace weight but I'm using my old, reliable wooden needles. Sort of a bear in the YO department but fantastic if the phone rings and you throw down your knitting to answer it; the aitches stay on the needle. And, since I'm working as Daredevil Knitter Who Is Not Using a Lifeline on this project, this is very important to me.

I will probably be working on this pink project into the winter. But at the end of the day, I will discover just how large a triangular shawl with a border I get with one skein of Knit Picks lace (44o yards.) Answer to follow at a later date.

Now on to the finished shawl is Paton Retro. As I mentioned last week, this was sooooo retro looking in its original life as a cardigan that I frogged the whole thing and made the shawl. The shawl was done in a variation of the above pattern:

Row 1: K1 *YO, Y2tog* K1
Row 2: P1 *YO, P2tog* P1
Row 3: Kfb *K* Kfb
Row 4: Pfb *P* Pfb
For the rectangular shawl, at width: K2tog or P2tog at the ends of Rows 3 & 4. At length: K2tog or P2tog at both ends of Rows 3 & 4.

I think it looks much more sophisticated this way, is as warm as a thermal blanket and may or may not have its ends edged - I'm still mulling that part over. The pattern is modified stockinette stitch but there is no obvious dreaded st st curl, though there is a definite right and wrong side. I figure I used less than 500 yards (2 and 1/2 skeins for a 18.5" x 56" shawl - it's very stretchy.) I'm leaning towards using the leftover wool on an edging since I already have too, too many leftover partial skeins hanging around.

This week, I hope to start a cardi/shrug in Paton's Woodrose Heather. Pictured at right is my red Wool Ease cardi with those crazy half sleeves. I like it. It's not that warm but it's not an objectionable first (well really second) "try this out in the cheaper yarn" project.

Here's a project you may want to look at:

http://cache.lionbrand.com/printablePatterns/20137ad.pdf

It's Lion Brand so you must do a free registration and it's one of their free downloadable patterns in Cotton-Ease. I like the Farrow Rib and the side slits but I think the total of over 200 stitches for the body is way too big for the X-Small. However, the final look is pretty enough to work out some alterations.

See you next week. Happy knitting.

Public Option Now

Website Wednesday

My mind is obviously visiting another planet today since I can't seem to wrap it around Website Wednesday. So, I'm going to use my free pass today. You know the kind you get in school for being really, really good and it says that you don't have to do your homework for one day.

So, I'm going to use a variation of that schoolhouse pass since I did do my homework and here is my website pick for today:

http://theplaceswelive.com/

It's about worldwide poverty and slums and miserable living conditions. You get to hear and see households in poverty from four places around the world: Kenya, India, Indonesia and Venezuela. Then you enter households in those countries, see the living conditions and hear from the people living there.

I think poverty stinks and it makes me want to vomit when I hear rich people talk about how the poor abuse the "system."

Take a look for yourself.

Medicare For All

Movie Monday

I watched the same movie twice this weekend. OK, I know that I’ve seen Pirates 3 more times than is healthy but this movie really necessitated at least two viewings. Come to think of it, most movies do. The first to watch without a clue as to what is going to happen but hopefully with a clue as to what it going on. The second with experience and knowledge so you can cross the T’s and dot the I’s. This movie is in Spanish with English subtitles which added another reason for two viewing.

First, before I tell you about this twice-watched movie, let me tell you about Goldbach’s conjecture. Goldbach was a 18th century Prussian mathematician who had a couple of conjectures. A conjecture is an educated guess, a speculation, a good hunch. Here is Goldbach's most famous:

Any even number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two prime numbers.

Like 12, which is the sum of 7 + 5. Or 838 which is 827 + 11. And on and on. Now, since numbers are infinite this conjecture can’t be proven in a traditional way, though computers are taking us closer to infinite and beyond....... So it will probably have to be proven true in an nontraditional way. But on the movie which gives truth to the saying: Math is your friend.

Fermat’s Room (2007)

Oh-oh! I may have to digress again because are you wondering who is this Fermat. Fermat is listed as a 17th century amateur mathematician who was on par with Pascal and Descartes. Now Fermat had a lot of theorems but it was his last which is the most famous and eluded proof until just a few years ago when Andrew Wiles of Princeton University solved it.

Now that’s all I’m going to tell you about Fermat because I don’t understand his work at all. On the movie, for real this time.

As the opening credits roll, a black gloved hand is arranging doll house sized furniture in an doll house room. Then the movie starts with a young mathematician ("Galois") entertaining some pretty girls with examples of Goldbach's conjecture. We learn fast that he’s a celebrity to them since he has solved the conjecture; this fact has been publicized in the press; and he soon will be presenting a paper on the subject.

The first inkling of trouble is when he is summoned back to his dorm room to see that it has been vandalized and his computer and all his notes destroyed. The paper presentation will have to wait.

Next scene: a depressed mathematician playing chess with his physician. He says he had been contemplating suicide but then remembered he had this date to play chess. The plot advances as he shows the MD an invitation to solve a mathematical problem. Those who solve it will be invited to a dinner and night of mathematical enigmas. The invitation is signed “Fermat.”

Only four people solve the problem: the two mentioned above, a young woman and an inventor. All are given famous mathematical names for anonymity: Pascal, Hilbert, Olivia, Galois and all finally arrive together at a grain warehouse which contains deep inside it, that’s right, a full-sized room identical to the one we saw being furnished in doll-house size at the beginning.

And so we enter into the spooky world of locked room/creepy old house mysteries but with a twist: This room is set up with four hydraulic presses pressing in. Every few minutes, our “heros” get math enigmas to solve long distance on a PDA in the room. They have one minute to solve them. A wrong answer or a late answer causes the presses to shrink the room a little each time. Oh, did I mention the door is locked?

The rest of the movie has the our heroes frantically working out math problems while attempting to stop the room from shrinking and trying to figure out why this is all happening to them.

This is a very intriguing movie. You’ve probably seen a variation of the plot before but the math is real and an important twist. It’s no McGuffin (a device which moves the plot along and then is of no importance) since if they don’t answer those problems in a timely fashion, they die.

Is there a way out of the room? Is there a connection between these people? How are their math names important? Will the director take pity and give us the explanations? Will we have a happy ending? You’ll get no answers from me but watch the movie. You won’t be disappointed.

And finally, one enigma from the movie. It’s a classic. See if you can solve it.

A candy merchant receives 3 opaque boxes. One box contains mint candies, another contains anise candies, and the last box contains a mixture of mint and anise. The boxes are labeled Mint, Anise, and Mixed. All of the boxes are labeled incorrectly. What is the minimum number of candies the merchant will have to sample to correctly label each box?

(This is one of those problems where you slap your forehead and say: How could I have missed this? if you don't get it.)

Medicare For All

Knitting Friday

My photographer is getting ready to go to work so I will be without pictures today though I may be able to edit them in tomorrow.

This has been a productive knitting (and frogging) week.

First, I finished the cardi/shrug I wrote about last Friday; this time in red . I used less than 2 and ½ skeins of Wool-Ease Red Sprinkles which comes in 162 yard skeins. I made the sleeves about 4 inches longer than the brown one and I blocked this baby. I’m very pleased with the finished garment since this may become my generic “shrug” pattern. If you remember, I have never been successful in making a shrug. Even the few which fit passably were too bulky to wear under a fall/winter jacket. While I did have trouble pulling down the half sleeves of my red creation under a winter jacket this week, my next try will have longer sleeves and that should eliminate the problem.

And speaking about my next try: well, I did try another cardi/shrug this week and frogged the whole thing. Here’s the story: I had bought 3 skeins of Patons Classic Wool in Retro some time ago thinking I would make another shawl. However, since getting on this cardi/shrug bug, I decided to use the Retro as my next cardi project. I was sailing along almost through the yoke (this is a top-down raglan pattern) when I took a good look at how the colors (tan, dark blue, brown, green and black) were displaying and decided that I didn’t like their placement. Looking at the skeins, I would never have said it would knit up in stockinette and look retro 1970s, but it did and I didn’t like it. But the good news is I have a shawl pattern for you today.

Retro Shawl (not really a retro look, but I’m pretty unoriginal with names)
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool; 3 skeins - which may be too much
Needles: US 10.5
Extras: long strand of yarn
Interesting: This shawl doesn't curl. There is a WS but it doesn't look bad.
Abbreviations: CO = cast on; Kfb or Pfb = knit or purl in the front and back of the same stitch = 1 st increase; st(s) = stitches; K2tog = knit two stitches together; RS & WS = right side and wrong side; xs = # of times you repeat a direction.

CO 2 sts. Set-up row: Kfb, 2xs (4 sts) Start pattern:
Row 1 RS: K1 *YO, K2tog* K1
Row 2 WS: P1 *YO, P2tog* P1 (Note: YO on the P row take an extra wrap)
Row 3: Kfb, *K* Kfb
Row 4: Pfb, *P* Pfb

That’s it for a triangle shawl. Just keep working these four rows and bind off after Row 2 in straight knitting. I haven't decided if I'm going to edge it.

What is the long strand of yarn for? Tie the yarn to mark the right side of the shawl (Row 1 and Row 3.) That’s the only marker you need. Here how it works:
1. When you are ready to work on the marked side: if every other stitch on your needle is slanted (due to being a YO) you know you have finished Row 2 (WS) and you are ready to work Row 3.
2. When you are ready to work on the marked side: if every stitch on your needle is straight (due to being all K) you know that you have finished Row 4 (WS) and you are ready to work Row 1.
3. When you are ready to work on the unmarked side: if every stitch on your needle is straight you know that you have just finished Row 3 (RS) and you are ready to work Row 4.
4. When you are ready to work on the unmarked side: if every other stitch on your needle is slanted, you know that you have just finished Row 1 (RS) and you are ready to work Row 2.
Trust me. This is long-winded explanation but you’ll pick it up fast and it works better than any row counter.

I’ll leave you with a pattern I’m going to attempt next. That is, after I cast on in a solid wool for another much-needed top-down cardi/shrug.

It’s: http://heldasland.blogspot.com/2009/03/free-simple-shawl-pattern.html

It’s a triangular shawl using the treble stitch. I'm very excited to work in the treble stitch and I’m hoping I can convert it into rectangular shawl.

Next week: Directions for my Retro Shawl as a rectangle which is knit on the diagonal.

Oh, and really one last thought: go take a look at the Lion Brand patterns: http://www.lionbrand.com/. I think so many of them look huge on the models. What do you think?

Happy knitting.

Medicare For All

Well, a health care reform bill has left the Senate Finance Committee. Now the biggest capitalistic health care guns will come out and valiantly attempt to gut any “socialism” from the bill. I’d like to say looking at industrialized Europe’s social safety net: How did Americans get so mean? But weren’t we always mean? To the indigenous population, to slaves, to immigrants? But these people didn’t matter; still don’t matter to “real” Americans. Now the only difference is the ruling oligarchy in order to keep their money and power must ravage the middle class. Maybe I should be asking: How did Americans get so stupid?

Website Wednesday

But I am in a happy mood. Even happier than just a few minutes ago. Some background: I had selected a medical/health website for this Wednesday and I was pretty happy with it though I don’t like to recommend that type of site usually. Then I started reading a thread over at Ravelry which asked the question: What do you serve for dessert? (OK, I know it’s not knitting, but I was interested - and hungry.) I thought I would get links to recipes but most of the posts just listed the desserts people eat. (Disclaimer: I have a 100-calorie bag of kettle corn popcorn once a week. I love popcorn!)

But one poster took pity on us, Ravelers, and linked to a baking website. Thus, my pick for this Wednesday:

http://bakingbites.com/

BB says about itself: Baking Bites is a site for those who love cooking and baking, whether your preference is to whip up simple chocolate chip cookies, decorate fanciful cupcakes to slow-rising artisan breads. In addition to being a recipe resource for home bakers, the site is a source of baking tips and advice, food news, reviews, discussions and inspiration - all in addition to of those recipes, of course! The site was founded in 2004.

Baking Bites was named as one of the best 50 food blogs in the world by the London Times, and has been featured in other newspapers and publications, including the Washington Post, the Sacramento Bee and People Magazine Country Edition.

Nicole Weston is the writer, the baker and the tester. She is also an equestrian so be sure to take a look at Jazz on the “About” page.

Now to the website. First, there is an up-to-date blog covering an array of food related topics. Currently, some are about airline food, spice, donuts, rice pudding (w/recipe), and Korean food.

Scroll the middle right vertical bar and get recipes such as homemade Girl Scout cookie recipes or black (chocolate) and white (marshmallow) Rice Krispie treats.

Or scroll the same vertical bar for “Categories” and links to all sorts of food related topics.

Then scroll the far right vertical bar for food news from other bloggers. (Oh, those delicious looking pictures are making me hungry!)

Need all your recipes on one page? Click “Recipe Index” on top and scroll through Nicole’s recipes to your heart’s content. There’s a from-scratch banana upside down cake which I would like to try with a mix (probably not as good but easier for me) and all those pesky bananas I wind up with but without enough days to eat them all. While many of the recipes are the dessert variety, there are recipes for such categories as Souffles, Tarts (with main course tarts), Travel, Soup, Side Dishes and Salads.....the list goes on.

OK, let me stop now. I want to start scrolling these recipes. There’s one for homemade raisins. You need very hot weather for it but I want to be ready for next summer.

Happy reading and baking.

Medicare For All

Munchies on Monday

I was writing this week’s Movie Monday during our installation of FIOS last week. (And kudos to Don [don’t know his last name] the Verizon tech/installer. He was fast, knowledgeable and unobtrusive. All you could ever want and more from a guy who is climbing in the attic, basement, and through all the rooms of your house.) But then once I got FIOS and two free months of HBO and Cinemax I sort of went to the dark side TV-wise and gobbled up as much viewing as I could be I zoned out into sleepland. Bye, bye Movie Monday writing.

And then it was Saturday and I was eating at a new restaurant on Rt. 1 in West Windsor, NJ (they advertise their address as Princeton but I think this part of Rt 1 is still WW) and I thought: Hey, I can write a restaurant review. Hmmmm, let me see, what’s the alliteration? Munches on Monday. OK, I’m good to go.

BT Bistro - 3499 Rt 1 S, Princeton, NJ
BT Bistro has replaced the steadily-declining Charlie Brown which occupied the site for over 10 years. BT Bistro is attached to a small hotel which looks like a two-story motel from the back. Almost like a precursor to Marriott Courtyard but so much older and less slick.

We were traveling the day we stopped at BT Bistro so it wasn’t like: Hey it’s lunch time, let’s eat. We were passing the place about 11:45 a.m. (found out lunch is 11:30 to 4) so we stopped in. The layout is the same and CB except booths have been removed, the place looks cleaner though still dark. When we arrived, we heard workmen and discovered that they were laying the dance floor for the evening crowd and yes, they were serving lunch. (Don’t you love it when you enter a restaurant thinking a) Boy, am I too early? and b) Are we going to be the sole diners? We weren’t the sole diners, a group of young girls soon came in and when we left, close to 1 p.m., another couple had arrived.

First, some particulars: I loved their cutlery. It was artistic while being sleek and functional. And, when the food arrived, I loved their dishes. They were restaurant white but bowls were set on an angle which adds panache to even mundane food.

The Appetizer: But the food was not mundane. We started with shared calamari for $9. No, squiggly pieces resembling Davy Jones’ face in Pirates 3 here. All the calamari were wedding ring size and shaped, coated with a Russian dressing colored sauce and accompanied by red peppers and green pieces of what tasted like small chunks of sweet pickles. (Hey, I didn’t say I knew culinary terms.) Now, my benchmark for the best in calamari is the Old Ebbett Grill in Washington, DC and I have to say BT Bistro’s version came very close. We ate the whole thing and that’s unusual since with most servings of this dish you always come to those unattractive and tough bites at the bottom. Calamari here gets an A.

While waiting for our sandwich and salad entrees, the waiter cleared the table, replaced the cutlery, swept the table of any crumbs (Yes, they serve bread without asking.) and left us with a pristine table.

The main course: I had grilled chicken with, avocado and oven-dried tomatoes over greens. There was a lot of chicken and it was very, very good. I’m going to say it was poached and then grilled since it was plump and light. (But don’t forget, I have no idea if I'm right here.) Once again, probably the best chicken I have ever had atop greens. The greens were fresh, the tomatoes were not reeking with salt and the avocado was arranged in dollops under the greens so it was sort of an unexpected culinary treasure hunt when you found it. All for $9 and very rewarding.

Hubby got the pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries and an unlisted coleslaw. He liked the meal in this order: 1) coleslaw - delicious and unusual, possibly because a man ingredient tasted like celery; 2) fries were light and fine, not heavy and oily and 3) pulled pork which was surprisingly oily and also dry. His meal was $8.

Final thoughts:
Would I come back/recommend? Yes and yes. Only talking about lunch, this is a place you could take business clients or come with a group of women. Prices for lunch are right in line with area prices for this type of restaurant.
What were the lunch prices? Entree prices range from $8 for the pulled pork to $14 for herb-crusted flounder. We got bread with our meal. The “real” lunch entrees come with salad and/or a vegetable. They list an All-You-Can-Eat salad bar on both the lunch and dinner menu but it was not available.
How is their “butler” type of service going to make out? I can’t see them continuing with this high-end table service unless they are going to change themselves into a high-end restaurant. Of course, they should then turn the hotel the same way. I really don’t need table sweeping and new cutlery for a fast lunch (though it was nice.)
Is it BYOB? No, which for us is a minus.
Need reservations? Not at this stage for lunch. It’s a big restaurant.

OK, that was my first restaurant review. Hope it was helpful.

Here's their website: http://btbistro.com/

Medicare For All

Knitting Friday on Thursday

Because the Verizon man is going to shut down my Internet service pretty soon. I should "wake up" with FIOS but I'm taking no chances.

Today, I have a pattern. Not an original pattern, I’m grateful for the Cali Cardi:

http://www.flyhoney.com/flyhoney/the-cali-cardi-pattern.html

and the my garage sale gem, Spinnovations 4, for inspiration. I’m talking about the top-down half-sleeve cardigan which was pictured last Knitting Friday. I’ve worn that cardigan/shrug and I’m starting on another one in Wool-Ease red with flecks. By this one, only my second, I have the pattern in memory: it’s that easy.
First some particulars:
Needles: US 8 and US 10 in circular and double pointed.
Yarn: DK but you can use any yarn as long as you have two different needle sizes as above and increase or decrease your CO stitches. I’m using no more than 3, 197 yard skeins of Wool Ease.
Abbreviations: BO = bind off; CO = cast on; K = knit; Kfb of Pfb= knit or purl in the front and back of the stitch; M = marker; P = purl; PU = pick up; RS = right side; Sl = slip; st = stitch; WS = wrong side; *....* = work between asterisks till next set of directions or till end of row.

Short Sleeve Cardigan/Shrug - Which means it has one button on the neck band but does remains open in the body, like a shrug.
The Cast On: I read a lot about cast ons for top-downs. The number of stitches ranged from 50 to 90 and more. But I have a little neck and large COs always necessitate gathering at the top of the neck band. So between my two sources listed above, I decided that the Cali Cardi of CO 50 sts would work for me. But the key here to fit this to your size is whatever CO number you use, you are going to increase it by 20 stitches and a multiple of 5 when you start the yoke. So to begin:
CO 50 sts using US 8 needles and work about 1.5 inches in seed stitch this way:
Row 1: Sl1P as edge st, *seed stitch across* K1 as edge st. Mark 1st row as RS and continue in the seed stitch, keeping the first and last 4 sts on all your rows in edge st and seed stitch. End ready for a WS row. Still using US 8 needles and keeping the first and last four stitches in seed and edge stitches, increase 20 sts in P as Pfb evenly across.
(Formula for dividing yoke into 2 fronts, 2 sleeves and one back: Divide the number of sts on your needle by 5. The number you get will be the stitches for each front; subtract one stitch to get the number for each sleeve; add two stitches for the number for the back. At 70 stitches it was: 14 - 13 - 16 - 13 - 14. Place a marker after each stitch count. 14 M 13 M 16 M13 M14.
Yoke:
Row 1 RS: Sl1P, seed st on 3 sts, K to 2 sts before M, Kfb, K1, SM, Kfb* repeat ** to 1st st after last M, K to last four stitches, seed stitch on 3 sts, K last st.
Row 2 WS: SlP, seed set on 3 sts, P across to last 4 sts, seed st on 3 sts, K last st.
Continue these two rows increasing 8 sts every RS row for the length of the yoke. (I worked until the sleeve section had 40 stitches. Don’t forget this sweater is not going to meet in the front.), ) End ready for WS row.
Separate for body: Change to US 10.5 needles.
Set-Up Row 1: On WS, Sl1P, 3 sts in seed, P across to second M - 1st sleeve/back marker. Go back and take the sleeve sts you just purled and put them on a holder, removing the markers as you do. Then, P across to last M - sleeve/front marker. Go back and take the 2nd set of sleeve sts you just purled and put them on a 2nd holder. P across to 4 sts before the end. Work seed st on last 3 sts, K last stitch. (You should have all your Ms removed.)
Set-up Row 2 RS: Sl1P, work seed st on 3 sts. K across the front section. CO 6 sts (Put M between the 3rd & 4th CO st.) Continue to K across the back sts. CO 6 sts (Put M between the 3rd & 4th CO st.) K across to the end, working the last as 3 seed sts and K1 for last stitch.
Set-up Row 3: P across keeping your edge st/seed st border and pulling the sts tightly around the CO areas.
Rest of Body:
Row 1: Edge/Seed border on 1st 4 sts, *K* end Edge/Seed border on last 4 sts.
Row 2: Edge/Seed border on 1st 4 sts, *P* end Edge/Seed border on last 4 sts.
Continue in stockinette with the 4 st seed/edge border with no increases or decreases to the length you like. (I did close to a regular cardigan length.)
Hem Border:
At length, change to US 8 circulars and work a 1 inch or more seed stitch border. with edge sts. Do not bind off, work the crab stitch up the front band (the edge stitches should make this easy), across the neck band and down the other front band. Cut yarn and weave in ends.
Sleeves: Put the 40 sts for one sleeve on US10 DPNs. At the underarm section, take your yarn (leaving a very long tail) and PU 6 sts from your sweater body underarm 6 sts CO. (PU three sts before the marker and three after.) Mark the beginning of your round and K around on 46 sts to your sleeve length. (I knitted straight to about elbow length with no increases.) On your last row decrease 12 sts evenly. (I went from 46 to 34.)
Sleeve band: Change to US 8 DPNs and on 34 sts, work 3 rows of seed stitch. Bind off not loosely or tightly. Work same for second sleeve.
Finishing: Weave in ends. Use the long tails you left in the underarm sections to close any holes. Steam press your sweater. Get a button that “pops” and sew it to the left side of the neck band. Don’t worry about buttonholes; seed stitch is very elastic.

I’ve been very unsuccessful with shrugs and most shrugs I see have too much material under the arms. This cardi/shrug has none of this. It fits well but not tight ly. The half-sleeves have a funky look - not your grandma’s cardigan. And, it’s such an easy knit. I’m offering this not as my own pattern design but my own pattern tweaking. You can probably run with this and make it better. I want to design a top down lace cardi, Maybe you can figure that one out.

Happy knitting.

Medicare For All

Take a look at this Frank Rick column:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/opinion/04rich.html

I'm pretty disgusted with members of both parties when it comes to a national health care plan which includes a strong public option but I do think there is a major difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Republicans may argue in private but they are willing to stand behind racists and no-nothings in public. Democrats disagree in public. Which may be messy but is vital to an hope of a democratic government.

Website Wednesday

My e-mail is having serious problems. I sent my website choice to my account yesterday and it never arrived. It's there in the Sent file. It was addressed correctly but nothing moved into my mailbox. I hate gremlins!

But the Google gods were kind this time and I was able to find my choice with no angst at all:

http://www.onesentence.org/

I love this site and I've know about it for some time but I think the short film I wrote about this Movie Monday brought it to mind again.

One Sentence says of itself:
One Sentence is an experiment in brevity. Most of the best stories that we tell from our lives have one really, really good part that make the rest of the boring story worth it.

This is about that one line.

It’s easy to submit your one sentence story. There are terms and conditions; basically you give up any rights to your submitted one line story. But, and this is a big but for it says: You may have your entry removed or opt-out of these terms at any time by e-mailing me.

So it looks like you should have no problems submitting a story. Then again, you need never submit one. Just read one, and then one more, and another, and another......they are so short. And, so many of them are so good.

Finish the first page? Click “More stories” and go into the archives. Or go to the end of the archives and click some Tags of interest.

Perhaps all men do live their lives in quiet desperation but at One Sentence they all seem to be worth a read.

Go take a look.

Medicare For All

Movie Monday - Review of Forever's Not So Long - running time: 12.17 minutes

(Edited: A reader pointed out I didn't link to the movie. Sorry. I linked last Monday. Bad me.) Here it is:

http://foreversnotsolong.com/

I think the most perfect form of literature is a well-written short story, with the emphasis on short. Unlike a novel where you need layers of fillers or else you might only have a short story; a really good short story says it fast and then you think it long.

That’s what happens in Forever’s Not So Long. It’s a very short film about impending doom and how some humans cope with it.

In just the first minute of the film, George is frantically packing (but quite obviously ineffectively packing since who searches for photos of Italy or space blankets at the end of the world?) and Cindy is ready to take a powder on him (I’ll just take out the garbage, she says.) for good.

That’s it. The radio announces buses will make two more trips to the safe zone. Cindy takes out the garbage and beats it away and our hero is left to end his world, alone. But not before learning from Cindy that she wants to break up and be with Alberto, who is from Italy.

True to the mundane, George (our hero) on hearing this and also knowing they are both facing death, calls to her with this trite question: What does he have that I don’t have?

We’re 1.37 minutes into the plot and George closes the window and the tale begins.

Or does it? Within 30 seconds we have the best joke of the movie: the TV announcer revises the epicenter of the disaster from Cincinnati to 15 miles south of Manhattan. It’s the map shot that makes it funny. And the joke advances the plot: George now faces doom without the possibility of rescue.

More humor as a doomed friend from Hoboken calls and George tells him about Cindy. The friend replies: You know I never liked her. You can do better.

I see a theme. Let’s follow it. Pete, a Hoboken friend seems at peace as he tells George he is going to eat Doritos with chocolate milk and watch The Neverending Story. George bemoans after hammering away at his and Cindy’s picture: I’m going to die alone.

Or is he? What follows is a swiftly and cleverly crafted encounter with another woman first with George telling her all their lives are pointless and probably always have been. Followed by his request: Do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?

We’re now 6+ minutes into this 12.17 minute film. Watch the rest. It won’t end happy but it’s not really sad.

Did it remind you of Musee des Beaux Arts by Auden? Especially these lines:

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm

It was filmed in Brooklyn, NY. It's an amateur film with amateur touches but it's a very good production. Shawn Williamson as writer and director has crammed a lot of thinking stuff into a very small area and he shows many fewer seams than larger, expensively-financed productions. You may want to remember his name.

(Edited again: Did I write this originally too early in the a.m. or after too much coffee? I can't believe the mistakes I didn't catch.)

Medicare For All

Knitting Friday on Saturday

Note: This site is acting wonky so I'm posting before the photos are in. They will follow today. Promise.

(You can tell I started this post yesterday. I always feel so guilty when I miss a day. Then I read blogs which start "Sorry, I've been away for three months.......")

(Written yesterday)
Well, I'm writing this in the a.m. but my photographer is at work and when he returns he has promised to take me to a new diner. (Yes, I am sucker for good diners - that's why I'm a Jersey girl!) So, I don't know when this literary masterpiece is going to be posted since I promised pictures last Friday and reneged and I'm not going to do that again.

It's been a wild week. I "fired" a volunteer a few days ago and today she sent me a e-mail saying she was resigning. Cripes! I'm back in 7th grade!

But knitting-wise, it's been even more wild.

The Shalom cardigan is no more. That is really one neat cardigan and was working up with such a professional finished look. I was happy, happy, happy. And then I had to do some normal repairs, like a twisted stockinette column which had a purl stitch a few rows down on the right side. Normally, you would drop the stitch down to the error and pick it back up to the needle, twisting as you go.

The first time I did this, the stitches spread out after the repair so that the tightly spaced pattern "winged out" in the area of the repair. OK, I thought, my error, I can rip back. Which I did and then continued on. After working another increase section in the pattern, I'm tooling along and I see another wrong stitch a few rows down. Bingo! The same thing happens. I rip down to the problem and the stitches fan out.

That's when I realized that the increase rows were the problem. You increase about every third stitch on those rows unlike a to-down raglan which increases 8 stitches every other row,. Here you do large increases in spurts followed by a patch of even knitting. This works fine unless you have to rip back to fix an error. Then you get the fanning out of the stitches. So, I guess the experience level of the Shalom cardigan should have been "Godlike."

Back to the frog pond it went. But all was not lost. I decided to cast on like the Cali Cardi:
http://www.flyhoney.com/flyhoney/the-cali-cardi-pattern.html with 50 stitches, followed by a seed stitch collar of an inch and one-half followed by an increase to 70 stitches, Then I started on a typical top-down raglan. At this moment, I'm finishing the second half-sleeve and the picture of it at right is unblocked. This pattern worked up very well and next week, I'll post the generic pattern.

(Continued on Saturday)
One of the reasons, this post is a day late: I met another diner meal laced with MSG and deciding to make my drink of choice with the meal soda and not coffee (which dulls the MSG effects) I returned home for a two-hour nap.

Now let me digress and discuss naps for a second. I know my nightly sleep pattern is shot to hell. I know I can feel tired during the day because of this. I know I can fall asleep at ungodly early hours (whenever possible) in order to compensate (which also messes me up more since I'm awake a 12 a.m., bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.) However, the fatigue which comes from my allergy(?) to MSG is completely different. It's a fatigue which tells me that unless I get a nap immediately, I will die. Yup, it's that bad. So, you say: Why do you eat at dives which use the stuff? Unfortunately, all types of restaurants use MSG. At this point, I'm down to one diner with fantastic coffee and one Chinese buffet as restaurant choices. End of digression.

Last night, I ordered $50 worth of lace yarn from Knit Picks. Well, really $51.47 which was the closest I could come to their "$50 and free shipping" offer. I wish I had a mirror to see the angst I feel when ordering online. I seem to be able to spend money in actual stores but I am so torn when I shop online. Perhaps it's because you can't walk away from a web "deal" with anything but a promise of goods to come. But I overcame my angst and got some lovely lace on sale because I love lace. Never thought I would say that. Yesterday I was wearing my first shipping lace purchase from Knit Picks (when you only needed to spend $45.) I made it into a 3-dc cluster shawl which is so light and airy and, I think, pictured in an earlier post. And I thought: This is so pretty. And light. Why do I not have more of these? And now, I will.

Enough rambling. Thanks for reading. I did get long-winded - or else I just wanted to practice my typing skills.

Here's a pattern for you to look at. It probably my next project:

http://www.menwhoknit.com/community/?q=node/3036

There is no picture of this shawl but I have 400+ yards of lace and this pattern's even row is knit which is plus if I decide not to block.

More on this next week.

Happy knitting.