Not just any kitten video–a video of “Giant Men Meet Tiny Kittens.” It’s as good as you’d think:
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WIP Wednesday
(WIP = Work In Progress. Not to be confused with an Unfinished Object, or UFO)
I got some sewing in over the long weekend. This is more ponte de roma knit and I’m once again hacking a pattern for wovens and hoping it works in a knit. So far, so good.
(I really like how the zig zag stitching around the neck echoes the pointy parts in the print.)
Goodbye, August
How about some scenes from the long weekend and the last days of August?
The grasses around the pergola have taken off:
One of these (recommend, but use more maple syrup than they call for):
A golden clearing in Millcreek Sunday morning:
Labor Day Links
You can read a good overview of the American labor movement and unions as a political force right here in The Atlantic.
And you can read Langston Hughes’ poem from 1935: “America Is Not America to Me” (full text here; this is from near the end).
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today-O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Anyone else feel like the last week or two have been twice as full as normal? There’s a chapter in Little Town on the Prairie called “The Whirl of Gaiety” about how much social activity Laura is having in the little town in the Dakota territory. I think of it when I have a busy schedule (apparently I’m not the only one).
2. This GQ article about the man in Maine who lived alone outside for 17 years with no human contact was a fascinating read: “The Strange and Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit.”
A Love Poem
I’ve posted one of these just once before and I was thinking of Toby when I did so. But you know what? Life is short. Let’s post more. This one had me at the deer tracks part.
Over your gray and white oval marble-top kitchen table,
the meeting of our eyes makes the room grow brighter.
Our faces, layer after layer, become so vibrant
the light appears to crest in waves.
We have become changed by it, nothing can be
the same after it. When I bend down to touch
the shape of deer tracks in the damp sand, it is in
the same way I place my fingers over your body.
When I stand beside a freshet in a meadow
the sun catches the rings of the water’s long ripples
in the wind, that is the same glimmer we hold
when our eyes meet in the kitchen over
your gray and white oval marble-top table.
Every day for the rest of my life, yours is the face
I want to see when I awake in the morning.
A Reminder
Tuesday Project Planning: Copycat
If the shift in the light and the rainy weather we’re getting weren’t enough to remind me fall is coming, I’m feeling a renewed desire to knit things–the final sign that yeah, maybe I won’t be able to hang on to maxi dresses and sandals all year and had better get something warmer going.
The first thing I want to make? A new hat for hiking in cool weather, inspired by (copied from) the author of the blog The Noisy Plume.
Are you reading this blog? It is beautiful. Written by a jewelry designer/photographer/backpacker/yogi/all around luminous person, her blog is how I want my life to be. That picture above? It’s not a catalog; it’s her weekday!
But until I can move to Idaho or Montana and hike around with my dog and make beautiful things in my studio, I’ll have to copy her hat shown here. I think this pattern (with a pom pom) will be pretty close.
(Image taken by Jillian from The Noisy Plume, pulled from this post, with thanks for the inspiration.)
Happy Birthday, National Parks Service
The Writer’s Almanac tells me, “It was on this day in 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the act that established the National Park Service.” As the lobbyist who pushed to get the Park Service founded says,
“Who will gainsay that the parks contain the highest potentialities of national pride, national contentment, and national health? A visit inspires love of country; begets contentment; engenders pride of possession; contains the antidote for national restlessness. … He is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here who has toured the national parks.”
There’s more history I had no idea about (lobbyists?) here. I’ve had the Ken Burns documentary about the national parks on my list for months now; maybe tonight is a good night to break into in.
Happy Birthday To My Dad
It’s my dad’s birthday today! I could talk about how he’s his grandson’s absolute favorite person, or about how strong and handy he is, or about how he lives by The Cowboy Code, or about how he has so much knowledge about so many things, but instead I will thank him for raising me without once casting doubt on my ability to do anything because I was a girl.
Since I’ve been lucky enough to find a feminist to date in Doc, I’ve been thinking about where I got the expectation that I wouldn’t be humored or dismissed because of my gender, and it goes straight back to how my dad treated me growing up. So thanks, Dad. And happy birthday!
This picture isn’t about raising strong daughters. But it IS about plaid shirts and Christmas cookies, and it’s too great to not post.