Category: comparative religions

See? I remembered it’s Wednesday this time!

October 8, 2008by fyberduck2 Comments

A major achievement, believe you me.

Let’s see. I’m afraid I’ve been a bad blogger and haven’t been photo-documenting things the way I should of. I’ll be better, promise. I’ve got tons of handspun to show off (squee) and I’ve just started the sleeve of my second Skif sweater.

I also bought thirteen balls of Rowan Felted Tweed in “Seafarer”, because I want to design a cabled hoody. It’s been plaguing me, honest. The other day, Dad asked, “What are you thinking about?”

“Designing a cabled sweater.”

I bet it’s not often one gets that reply.

Anyway. So you’re not completely bored and don’t hate me forever, I bring you historical pretty!

Introducing the Archduchess Marie-Christine of Leschen in her “self-portrait”:

It’s an oil painting housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. Maria-Christine was the sister of Marie-Antoinette, which is why I rather sincerely doubt that if it is her in the portrait (spinning on a lap-wheel!), she painted this herself. But, hey, it’s what Wikipedia Commons claims, so I’m going with it.

Love the little wheel. It’s just like Ashford’s Charkha, really. Only better, because it comes with a distaff! I want one. Quite cool for the 18th century. The black silk apron she’s wearing, to protect her from sticky fibers, is also a nice touch. Makes my spinning apron look quite drab by comparison.

Or it would, if I could actually find the dratted thing.

Ah well. Tomorrow’s Yom Kippur (tonight is Kol Nidre, but I’m pretending I don’t know that), and I’ve got the day off of work to repent and the like. I can’t say it will be fun (Yom Kippur never is), but it will be good to do.

That’s everything I’ve got to report at the moment. But I’ll bring progress photos – and maybe a photo of our mutant basil plant – on the weekend. Cheers.

A Passover Seder

April 20, 2008by fyberduck2 Comments

I feel less like a Bad Jew this year. If we tally up the holidays I have, in fact:

eaten apples and honey for Rosh Hoshanah
fasted for Yom Kippur
attempted to light the menorah (we won’t discuss the problems I had with that)
made Hamentashen for Purim
and had a Seder last night for Pesach

Admittedly, it was a little on the speedy side (two somebodies arrived over an hour late, so the food was going to become charcoal if we didn’t rush). Of course, I made the effort yesterday afternoon in the midst of cooking, cleaning and negotiating world peace to bring my digicam into the front room in preparation for the night’s events:

You can see above that I had to make do with the place settings – I could only find the hand-embroidered table cloth but not the napkins that went with it and only the damask napkins but not the table cloth that goes with them. Sometimes I think I’m followed around by Nargles.

Anyway. Because I am an idiot, I even remembered to take pictures of my sock in progress, being knitting with Lorna’s Laces in “Gold Hill” (and no discernible pattern):

And a pair of finished socks:

But none of the finished table or ceremony later.

(sigh) Oh well. It went well. Terrisa and Patrick eventually arrived and we all ended up staying up waaaay past our bedtimes. Opus arrived on time, so she gets extra brownie points or something.

Since I know I’ll get questions about the socks above, here’re the specs:

Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Silkie in “Blue Brick Wall”
Needles: 3MM 24″ Addis
Pattern: It probably goes without saying that I made it up as I went

I have to admit that I really, really liked this yarn. Much more than I normally enjoy Socks That Rock. STR tends to, in my experience, be a bit overspun and dense – making for a cast-iron-like sock. I know some knitters (many, in fact) who love that about STR. I’m just not one of that crowd. I liked that the Silkie was softer and smooshier. And I like the tweedy look. All we have to do now is see how they wear…

clarifications

April 8, 2007by fyberduckLeave a comment

“It is a good and gentle religion, but inconvenient.”
Mark Twain

TheBon brought it to my attention that it sounded (from yesterday’s post) as though I had been unbearably rude during the Good Friday service. I was not. In fact, I think I was very well behaved. I did not make any disparaging remarks* until we left the church (I have Views about being rude/ disruptive during any religious ceremony, or in any place of worship). After we left I did, I admit, make some angry comments to Emmos about the service (practically in Parseltongue, I was hissing so much). And the congregates that I mentioned who were offended bloody well shouldn’t have been listening in on our conversation, anyway. Eavesdropping isn’t good manners, so pfft to them. It wasn’t as if I stood in the middle of the church and screamed that they were all anti-Semites and should be ashamed of themselves (which I’m not implying, stop villianizing me :P).

TheBon and I met today (supposedly for Guild, but we were all by ourselves) where she practically scolded me. I explained what happened and then we got into a debate about modern Theology. In the end, we agreed on the fact that it’s all f*cked because no one seems to want to get along. Seriously, would it kill them?**

The merits of Paganism were also discussed and set aside. Too impractical.

And, I feel I should mention that I’m in a much better mood now, anyway. I even smiled at the Starbuck’s barrista when she wished me a “Happy Easter” and wished her the same as I walked away.

See? I’m not that bitchy. Not really.

Today was a long day. Everyone was cranky (including me) because nothing seemed to be working right. My beloved Kitchen Aid stopped working. I nearly cried, and it was the fact that I was near tears for a couple of hours that finally prompted Dad to start working on the thing.

I admit I was very upset when I confronted him after several failed attempts to get the thing started. 4 plugs and no go, and I was edging on hysterics. I need my Kitchen Aid. Dad insisted that nothing had been done to it whilst I was away, and that it had to be my fault that it wasn’t working.

This theory didn’t fly, nor was it received well.

“You’re taking this really badly,” he remarked. An hour later, he finally admitted to me that it had been left on the back porch, w/o any covering by the painters, while I was gone. Fabulous. Eventually it started working again (after 3 tearful hours), and I calmed down a bit.

By that time I had to leave to go to Guild. And, well, TheBon and I got lots of knitting done on our socks – her Jaywalkers and my second Spock. The toe of mine is completely done and the buttonhole gusset has been picked up. Just 9 rows to go, some ends to weave end, buttons to put on and I’ll be done.

Woot :D And that is all, before I manage to offend anyone else…

*although I did make a couple of faces at Emmos, who returned them – we were mostly nonplussed by a certain pastor’s “meditations” about modern heroes.

**I include the Jews in this – particularly some people I’ve met who won’t so much as talk to non-Jews, or have called me a heretic for suggesting that Palestinians have as much right to Israeli land as Jewish settlers.

the geometry is being mean to me

April 4, 2007by fyberduckLeave a comment

If I could slur typed words, this post’d look like it was written by a drunken sailor. I am that exhausted. Clue #1: I wandered around for over an hour this afternoon (doing chores), wondering why my right foot felt funny, and then looked down, finally, to see this:

I decided that being barefoot was underrated (it just wasn’t worth it to find the mate of either shoe) and I didn’t need shoes to work on Mum’s shawl, anyway. Here’s my progress:

I re-BO the top edge (3 damn tries today, St M can vouchsafe her threat to take it from me if I didn’t stop) with much almost-tears, whining, and hair-pulling. I then got the edging put onto nylon thread. It’ll fit. Thank g-d. I just need to block it, to make the grafting easier.

After that we had the most original (read: heretical) Pesach Seder ever. Here were our 4 questions:

Why is tonight different from all other nights? Emm is actually eating Thai food!
Why are we reclining on a faux-leather booth in a Thai restaurant? Because we’re too lazy/ tired to do an actual Seder! And it’s quite comfy, really…
Why, on this night of nights, are we eating rice noodles and rice instead of bread? Because they’re not leavened and they came with the meal.
What is this herb, and is it bitter? No, it’s hot!

You might have guessed that, instead of pulling out the Haggadot and cooking a large meal, Mum and Dad decided that we would eat out and pretend (I tried, but was overruled). One of the Pepsi’s acted as the 4 Cups of Wine. And the peanut sauce was the charoset. Wow, we’re Bad Jews.

After that we went and were even Worse Jews, cuz (I tried to convince them to order a gluten-free cake!) we went to The Sweet Life and got dessert. Yeah. Bad boys, especially. I’m gonna try and be good and not eat bread for the remainder of Pesach, but the odds of that are increasingly slim.

Anyway. Mum’s given her two week’s notice at her job in Olympia – WA state doesn’t have medical staffing requirements, so Mum and ONE aid (sometimes, if she’s lucky she gets 3) get to handle 60+ patients a night. Wow, that’s high quality medical care, eh? So, now Mum and Dad are looking at the Portland area. I’m staying out of it.

Other news… We watched Casino Royale last night (and again tonight), and I have to say it’s my favourite of the Bond movies. Oh, heresy, I know. Aside from this Bond’s major hotness (whoo!), the realism of the movie was very appealing (like the fact that Bond actually got beaten to a pulp several times and didn’t wander through the movie w/o a hair outta place…). It was fun. Long, but fun. Mum said it was truer to the books than any of the other movies, too. So, there ya go.

And, now I am finally going to go to bed.