Re-Entry

Is it just me, or is there a powerful sense of Post-Represent Letdown in the blogosphere? Well, no, not for those of you who have your Representation still to look forward to! I have to remind myself that this thing has only just begun, and its momentum is still in its infancy. Still, from where I stand, after the excitements of last week it is not easy to settle back into the – whatever this thing is that passes for the Normal Routine of my life.

Yeah – maybe it really is just me.

This will be short on pictures, because I’m on the train into the city again (for more mundane purposes than last week, of course, but it’s only fair to admit that I got enough beer and skittles then to last me some time). Let’s see. There’s more old than new – I have a backlog of blog fodder ripening from previous weeks, but that mostly requires pictures I don’t have with me, so it’ll have to ripen a little longer. Courtesy of a round-trip on the Long Island Railroad, I’m hoping to finish knitting up the second Odile today and to get the Blue Stocking pattern, if not actually FINISHED-finished, at least ready for final proofreading.

What’s that you said? Writing Blog Entry = Displacement Activity = Procrastination? Ssssshhhhhhh – you weren’t supposed to notice that. Yeah, fine-tuning, double-checking math and continuity – these are admittedly not my favorite parts of pattern-writing.

And that’s another backlog: what with all the running around of last week, all the not being able to be in several places at once, we’re a little behind on filling orders – the more so as yesterday I entered a new and unespected circle of Toner Hell. I’m here to tell you, refilling toner cartridges is a false economy. (Yeah, Helen, I know… but the time-and-aggravation vs. money equation just doesn’t hold up, not for me.) NB to anyone who is waiting – that part of the operation is up and running again, I sent out a big batch of patterns this morning and expect to be fully caught up by tomorrow, so hang in there, please accept my apologies, don’t lose hope!

Yesterday, for no readily apparent reason, it suddenly decided to be spring here, almost spilling over into summer. HOT. The cardinal who sings Schubert (I kid you not, a little snippet of the Great C Major Symphony) made his first appearance of the season, perched high in the sycamore in front of my house. The dwarf irises burst forth and the snow crocuses started to look a little tired. As for the snowdrops in the back yard – when knitters take over the world they had better be prepared to battle Galanthus Nivalis for planetary domination. Those things may look pretty and dainty and innocent but I am convinced that they have an agenda to rival ours, and the steely determination to carry it through. Not to mention the sheer numbers…!

Open bedroom window last night. Something chirping octaves outside it this morning. It begins.

With all this heat and burgeoning going on, the temptation to cast on something new and frivolous and irrelevant is almost irresistible. I consider myself heroic for not putting ANYTHING in my knitting bag this morning but the actual projects at hand. By the time I finish this I hope to have my reward – Jennifer is working on the pretty spring colorway for the next sock, and with any luck I’ll be able to cast that on about the time I put Swan Lake to bed. (OK, so I blew January, big-time. How about this: we’ll be shipping Swan Lake by the time the real swans here have their cygnets. Yeah, that works. I know, I’m so NOT thinking about this being a warm winter slipper…. Work with me here, OK?) It won’t be irrelevant, but it will be new and lovely and frivolous and very seasonal.

Works for me.

Tomorrow (after assembling and shipping out another big whack of patterns) I’ll get some of those pictures from the past couple of weeks out of moth-balls and regale you with the other wildly exciting goings-on at Tsarskoe Tsocko. Coming up: some small adventures in DIY (both Do and Dye), some yarn porn and corresponding design fantasy, and some blue-eyed-baby eye candy.

And that’s enough procrastination for one day.