The Spy I Knew

For some reason, I was curious this AM about a woman I once knew. She was an attorney at the Pentagon. We worked together implementing legislation to reform the Government procurement process. I particularly remember one Saturday when she met me at my office to work on the project and she brought her daughter. She sat on the floor to work - I admired her ability to do that since she had an artificial leg. She was very smart.

Some time later, she was arrested and convicted of spying for East Germany and trying to spy for South Africa. Turns out she was not as smart as I thought.

I wasn't able to find out if she is still in prison. I wonder what ever became of her daughter.

I'm Dying Today

I've just spent 2 days Oooing and Ahhhing over the beautiful hand dyed lace yarns that could be used for my mystery shawl. But I've promised myself I wouldn't buy new yarn until my current stash was reduced to something less embarrassing. So today I'm making my first attempt at dying yarn.

I have a LARGE cone of wool lace weight yarn. So I wound some off and gave it a try. Right now it's steaming. Once it's steamed for 30 minutes, and cooled I can rinse it and see what I've done. My colors are probably not the best - deep turquoise, dark forest green, pine green and plum. The pine green seems a bit dull, but we'll see. I probably should have stuck with just 3 colors.

Today is Mother's Day. I got cards from 2 of my stepchildren and from the dog and cat. My own children haven't come thru yet, but it's still early. I had expected to be sad today, because I'm estranged from my older daughter, but I did get a very nice message from her on Friday - so I'm feeling pretty good after all.

I've had to hunt down yet another skein of the purple yarn to finish the shawl from Hell. I still have about 22 rows to go - and if I can do 2 rows a day I'm doing well. It just has to be finished before the mystery shawl KAL (knit-a-long) begins.

Oh, the baby wrens in the garage have hatched. I've heard them, but not seen them yet. Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there.

Mystery Shawl

I'm so excited (but I don't get out much). I've joined a group to knit a Mystery Shawl. I've never done this before and don't know what to expect, but it is something different and I think it will be fun. I've chosen a yarn from my stash, a beautiful dark peacock cashmere/silk blend and have knitted my swatch to make sure it's what I want (and to check the gauge). It starts on June 14. Every week we will get more clues about what to knit.

That gives me until June 14 to finish the Herbert Niebling shawl I'm working on and (hopefully) to finish Rachel's sweater (tho she won't need it until winter).

Meanwhile, I have continued cleaning closets. I actually tacked the one in the front bedroom and have it to the point where you can actually walk into it and find something! The back bedroom closet is done, but there is stuff left over (broken dolls) that I need to figger out what to do with. I'll try to find them homes.

Food Poisoning

Well, THAT was interesting.

I've never had food poisoning before - at least not that I know of. It started last Thursday. Here it is Tuesday and I'm just starting to eat again. Today is the first time I've seen the outdoors in five days. It was so awful, I wouldn't even wish it on an enemy. Well, maybe it would be good for a suicide bomber. They'd never be able to blow anyone up because they couldn't travel that far from a toilet.