My Male Models

First up - let's have a big hand for the return of Fred...!
Today we have Fred wearing my finished (and blocked!) Mystic Light Shawl. Made of 2 skeins of Handmaiden Seasilk, doesn't he look just lovely?

Next, Fred shows off the Goddess Knits Anniversary shawl. Made of Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Papaya Heather - a little over 3 skeins was needed - on 3.5 mm needles, it is a lovely circular shawl.

Blocked to approx. 5 feet in diameter, just look at that detail!

Next up, we have Mr. Me modelling his custom knit 4 by 2 rib sweater. Featuring an allover rib pattern, saddle shoulders and a turtle neck, this sweater was knit out of 3 skeins of Cascade Eco Wool. Doesn't he look warm and cozy as he travels up the Saint John River?

Election? What Election?

Since this blog isn't about politics, I'm not going to espouse any political opinions here, aside from urging all of you who live in democracies to always exercise your democratic right to have a say in your country's future. I don't care how you vote so long as you DO IT!
As I'm sure that most of the world knows, the United States is in the midst of a Presidential Election. Unless you're Canadian, you may not know that we too are in the midst of a general election. This is where the knitting comes in. I've noted that many of the American knitting blogs that I read are very openly proclaiming their support for one candidate or another or making reference to political groups that they belong to on Ravelry.
"Interesting...", I thought, since I'm not seeing the same sort of open political support on Canadian knitting blogs, nor references to political groups on Ravelry. "This requires more investigation", I thought to myself.
So I headed over to Ravelry and did searches on Harper, Dion, Layton and May. There is one group, Canada Indecision 2008. It has 85 members.
Then I did searches on Obama and McCain. The search under Obama yields 8 groups. The largest is Knitters for Barrack Obama with a whopping 3,147 members! McCain yields a similar number of results (with some duplication) and while The McCain Ravelry is significantly smaller than Knitters for Barrack Obama, its 510 members still looks impressive compared to the 85 interested in the Canadian election. Since we don't have a Vice Prime Minister, I won't even go into the groups about the US running mates...
What does this say about us? Are Canadians really that disinterested in our political future? Or are we just more private about it? Or maybe we all decided to follow the advice of Peter MacKay as given to Alexa McDonough: "Stick to your knitting!"

How I Spent the Last Day of Summer

Aquila has left her Summer anchorage and has made the journey back to the yacht club where she will soon be snuggled in for Winter. Since we have to motor upriver against the current, I did manage a little bit of knitting time...

1982 - The Music Meme

I've seen this music meme on a number of different blogs recently and thought that it might be fun.

So, here are the rules:
A) Go to musicoutfitters.com
B) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year
C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline or italicize your favorite(s). Do nothing to the ones you don’t remember (or don’t care about).

1. Physical, Olivia Newton-John
2. Eye Of The Tiger, Survivor
3. I Love Rock N' Roll, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
4. Ebony And Ivory, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
5. Centerfold, J. Geils Band
6. Don't You Want Me, Human League
7. Jack And Diane, John Cougar
8. Hurts So Good, John Cougar
9. Abracadabra, Steve Miller Band
10. Hard To Say I'm Sorry, Chicago
11. Tainted Love, Soft Cell
12. Chariots Of Fire, Vangelis
13. Harden My Heart, Quarterflash
14. Rosanna, Toto
15. I Can't Go For That, Daryl Hall and John Oates
16. 867-5309 (Jenny), Tommy Tutone
17. Key Largo, Bertie Higgins
18. You Should Hear How She Talks About You, Melissa Manchester
19. Waiting For A Girl Like You, Foreigner
20. Don't Talk To Strangers, Rick Springfield
21. The Sweetest Thing, Juice Newton
22. Always On My Mind, Willie Nelson
23. Shake It Up, Cars
24. Let It Whip, Dazz Band
25. We Got The Beat, Go-Go's
26. The Other Woman, Ray Parker Jr.
27. Turn Your Love Around, George Benson
28. Sweet Dreams, Air Supply
29. Only The Lonely, Motels
30. Who Can It Be Now?, Men At Work
31. Hold Me, Fleetwood Mac
32. Eye In The Sky, Alan Parsons Project
33. Let's Groove, Earth, Wind and Fire
34. Open Arms, Journey
35. Leader Of The Band, Dan Fogelberg
36. Leather And Lace, Stevie Nicks and Don Henley
37. Even The Nights Are Better, Air Supply
38. I've Never Been To Me, Charlene
39. '65 Love Affair, Paul Davis
40. Heat Of The Moment, Asia
41. Take It Easy On Me, Little River Band
42. Pac-man Fever, Buckner and Garcia
43. That Girl, Stevie Wonder
44. Private Eyes, Daryl Hall and John Oates
45. Trouble, Lindsey Buckingham
46. Making Love, Roberta Flack
47. Love's Been A Little Bit Hard On Me, Juice Newton
48. Young Turks, Rod Stewart
49. Freeze-frame, J. Geils Band
50. Keep The Fire Burnin', REO Speedwagon
51. Do You Believe In Love, Huey Lewis and The News
52. Cool Night, Paul Davis
53. Caught Up In You, 38 Special
54. Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Diana Ross
55. Love In The First Degree, Alabama
56. Hooked On Classics, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
57. Wasted On The Way, Crosby, Stills and Nash
58. Think I'm In Love, Eddie Money
59. Love Is In Control, Donna Summer
60. Personally, Karla Bonoff
61. One Hundred Ways, Quincy Jones
62. Blue Eyes, Elton John
63. Our Lips Are Sealed, Go-Go's
64. You Could Have Been With Me, Sheena Easton
65. You Can Do Magic, America
66. Did It In A Minute, Daryl Hall and John Oates
67. I Ran, A Flock Of Seagulls
68. Somebody's Baby, Jackson Browne
69. Oh No, Commodores
70. Take It Away, Paul McCartney
71. It's Gonna Take A Miracle, Deneice Williams
72. Love Will Turn You Around, Kenny Rogers
73. Don't Stop Bellevin', Journey
74. Comin' In And Out Of Your Life, Barbra Streisand
75. Gloria, Laura Branigan
76. Empty Garden, Elton John
77. Yesterday's Songs, Neil Diamond
78. Crimson And Clover, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
79. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Police
80. Here I Am, Air Supply
81. I Keep Forgettin', Michael Mcdonald
82. Get Down On It, Kool and The Gang
83. Any Day Now, Ronnie Milsap
84. Make A Move On Me, Olivia Newton-John
85. Take My Heart, Kool and The Gang
86. Mirror Mirror, Diana Ross
87. Vacation, Go-Go's
88. (Oh) Pretty Woman, Van Halen
89. Should I Do It, Pointer Sisters
90. Hot In The City, Billy Idol
91. Kids In America, Kim Wilde
92. Man On Your Mind, Little River Band
93. What's Forever For, Michael Murphy
94. Waiting On A Friend, Rolling Stones
95. Do I Do, Stevie Wonder
96. Working For The Weekend, Loverboy
97. Goin' Down, Greg Guidry
98. Arthur's Theme, Christopher Cross
99. Through The Years, Kenny Rogers
100. Edge Of Seventeen, Stevie Nicks

Going through the list, I have come to wonder if there isn't a difference between the American and Canadian top 100. I'm amazed at how many of those songs I have never heard of and how many of my favourites are missing. Am I really that far off the beaten path? Time has dulled any memories of songs that I truly disliked at the time, so I haven't indicated any "dislikes". And way back in '82, I actually heard some of the bolded songs above live and in concert at The Police Picnic 1982. Let's hear it for the band...!!!

The Ribs Come Marching 2 by 2

My children have become very picky about their socks. I blame myself. Older Son always had an issue with the seams on the toes of "store bought" socks, but his complaints about "bought" socks have multiplied since the introduction of "Mom made" socks to his footwear wardrobe.
Our kids started back to school on September 2nd, right after Labour Day, and since every new school year means new clothes, that must mean new socks, too... Right?
Older Son has scored 2 new pair of 2 by 2 rib socks this year. Why 2 by 2 rib? Because they're snug but not too tight nor too loose and they stay up...
I think that I may have created a MONSTER!!!

(No - he doesn't have 4 feet and no, a second model was not used. If you're going to goof around and put your socks on your hands, your Mom is going to make you let her take a picture of it so that she can show both pairs at once.)

Intellectual Property

Since I am a working Mom of two kids who travels 75km each way to and from work every day, I cherish my Saturday evenings at home just past the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately for me, Saturday evenings are often spent ironing. Fortunately, I have the company of Randy Bachman and his show Vinyl Tap on CBC Radio One. Mr. Me still misses Danny Finkelman, so I can pretty well count on some peace and quiet... This past week, his show was Part 1 of Girl's Names. He is doing the list alphabetically, with Part 2 this coming weekend.
One of the interesting things that I learned from this show is that you cannot copyright a song title! As examples he gave the title "Jane" and "Gloria". Hmmm... Makes sense and very interesting! (Okay - I'll admit it, I LOVE trivia.)

Then before bed I thought that I would check out bloglines and see what was going on. I came across these entries over at Shut Up, I'm Counting. I'll admit that I arrived at the "Move along - nothing to see here" point, so I never saw the since removed post on the other blog, but in light of the show that I had just listened to, I found it rather interesting. I mean - can someone "own" a commonly used phrase? Do we all need to be that mindful of every small thing that we write or say?

And perhaps more importantly to me: Do you think I need to be worried Leonard Cohen might realize what the inspiration for my blog title was and threaten me with legal action??? Dance... Knit... Love... Time... C'mon - work with me here...




What do you mean that Mr. Cohen has never heard of me and he probably doesn't knit?

Injustice

My photography skills do not do justice to my SoTS iii hint number 2 which was completed a couple of weeks ago but not photographed...
Now if I could just get back to it and get cracking on hints 3 and 4!

Eeeeewwww!!!!

Today at lunch time I decided to check the e-mail account where I receive notification of blog comments. Now, I don't get a tonne of comments, which is just fine and rarely from people who I don't recognize by real name or blog name.
Today there was a comment on this post from a sender that I didn't recognize. I opened it up and read it. My first thought was "English is not this person's first language". So I clicked on their profile. I read it and was still thinking that there was enough there that it was possible that this person could be interested in my blog. So I clicked on their blog link...
I was very glad that my monitor faces away from my office door and that my door was partially closed. I felt the need to shower (which was impossible) afterwards. Eeeewww!!!
The comment has been deleted since none of you need to see that stuff and I know that sometimes I do click through to blog pages from comments that have been left on blogs that I read. I've also enabled comment moderation because of this.
I shudder just thinking about it! (And I'm no prude. Ick!!!)