Best Quote I Heard All Day
No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.
--Florida Scott-Maxwell

Happy 80th Birthday to my mother Elly on August 21st.

She taught me to speak good English, think for myself, stand up for what's right, and work hard.



And she taught me how to knit.

Elly didn't want anything fancy so we had a barbecue on my sister's deck this afternoon to celebrate her upcoming milestone birthday. Here's some pictures.

I don't want to make my blog into a fucking PictureTrail of boring family crap. But there are those who read this and know my family, so it will be of interest to them.

I guess Elly still looks for improvement in her middle-aged girl. But maybe not.

Lights Out, No One Home
You knew it had to happen. I was just waiting until the power came back and the Knit List was flooded with posts whose subject was "Blackout Knitting."

It didn't take them long.

I had visions of some idiot lighting 123 candles and her ball of yarn simultaneously. And then whining to the list that her stash went up in flames so that at least half the list would send her replacement yarn.

It could happen. I'm waiting. For those of you who read the list, would you like to hazard a guess as to who this KnitDweeb could be?

I have my short list, where's yours?

Fortunately, we lost no power in Lac du Budd; however, Loopy sent me an e-mail saying that power was out in her neck of the MI woods. She was running her laptop on the limited battery time she had.

I doubt Loop was worrying too much about whether she could knit or not.

Creepy Chris Stuff
Vis a vis our movie discussion in the Comments of the August 10th entry, Lisa stuck a great Chris Walken link into the last Comments. As she calls it, "All Walken noises, all the time."

When I saw my sister Karen, the scrapbook creator (or "scrapper," as they call themselves), I told her she missed out on a fine movie discussion. Karen occasionally reads the blog when she remembers the URL.

She's like that.

Karen's found plenty of ScrapDweebs on her scrapbooking lists.

I think she should do the sister blog to mine for scrapbooking. The Scrapping Curmudgeon.

Two rare and handy Sissyboos. Don't ask what Sissyboo means. It's Karen Kode.

And Michael, you're working too hard. Come out and play.