I found her (and the yarnovers, too).

This one day vacation thing works, as long as you don't look at a calendar. I've had a great day -- quiet, peaceful, and cool.

I love this sock. Yes, it looks wide -- it is, and it's really comfortable, and kind of slouchy. I don't usually like it when my STR flashes and pools, but this looks cool. And the heel is a new one for me. It's Priscilla Gibson Roberts' short row heel. I'll finish this sock tonight, and then I'll start the second one tomorrow. I'm using 2.5mm dpn's, and following the pattern as written. My only modification has been to lengthen the cuff a little. Good knitting.

Here's a close-up of the stitch, and a good shot of one of the lovely stitch markers sent to me by SpiderWoman (to commemorate her blogwarming a few weeks ago). It's very sweet, isn't it?

~:~

My goals for the coming week:

• Avoid the heavy lifting. My back aches. Let someone else do it.
• Continue to behave as if the Summer People are decent human beings. The woman who told me not to "get all uppity" when I told her I was next in line at the coffee shop the other day, however, was neither decent nor human. I opened up my NotNice and used it on her.
  
• Remember that water is my friend. Drink more.
• Finish gathering all the stuff I want to put in my Knit Socks Kit Swap package. I'm looking forward to putting it all together so I can send it off before the August 19 deadline.
• Order the books for the Rogers Memorial Library's Mason-Dixon Knitting event. Yes, Ann and Kay are coming to town! Wednesday, August 14 16 (thanks, Rho!) at noon, at the Southampton Historical Museum. Want to come?

~:~

I'll leave you with some of my day's other pleasures:

(Thanks for the suggestion, Teyani!)

Where's Jane? I lost her.

This is where I have been spending my time. At my desk. In my windowless cell of an office that is also the break room, a storage room, and the route to the bathroom. Here I went and got some Nice back, and I haven't had much chance to use it, because I have been ordering books like a madwoman. All week long. Even on my day off. Well, part of my day off, a few hours, but still (I did manage to keep a much-needed haircut appointment, which improved my mood considerably). When I'm not in the office I'm in the store, trying to remember what I came out of the office for. I shelve the books I ordered (foolish woman, don't I know how all these books got here?). I go home, wait for my brain to thaw and my feet to stop hurting, and before long it's morning, and time to go back to work.

I've been trying to knit the Rockin' Sock Club Hippy Crunchy socks, but I seem to keep misplacing the yarnovers (there are a lot of them). I had to stop, count, squeeze them in, and then rip out the row anyway because I still couldn't get it right. Then, having conquered the yo's, I breezed through the heel, only to pop a bunch of stitches right off the end of the needle. I was too tired to reconstruct the shaping, so I ripped out the heel, too.

When I find Jane again, sometime tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to make plans to enjoy my Sunday off like it's a seven days instead of just one. I'm going to sleep late, eat fresh blueberries, knit something, and think about anything but carton quantities and on-sale dates.

So I'll be back on Sunday, and I'll let you know how the one-day vacation thing and the sock are going.

Weekend + Visitors = Happy Jane

I think I've got some of my Nice back! I spent the weekend with my niece R, one of the Chicago R's. She's been in New York City this month to do the Summer Intensive dance program at the Paul Taylor School. I'm so proud of her! R is a fabulous (and I mean fabulous) dancer, and a hard-working and dedicated student. She's a sweetheart, too. And funny? How could I feel Not Nice with so much laughing going on? Anyway, she and two friends came for a short visit and a little break before the final week of their program.

The weather just wouldn't cooperate with their beach plans, though. This was my Saturday Sky:

It was so windy! The surf was too wild -- a tropical storm passed the end of Long Island on Friday -- and this beach was closed for swimming. It was practically deserted at 4:00 in the afternoon. The girls went for a look anyway.

We had lunch at the Sip 'n Soda, and a great dinner at a new Italian restaurant in Sag Harbor.Then we gabbed until Midnight, and the girls found places to sleep in my tiny studio apartment. I kept apologizing for the cramped accommodations, and all the cat hair, but we all managed pretty well. Everybody except Annabelle slept late this morning (she wouldn't think of missing her early morning sip of milk), so we went out for a late breakfast at the diner in Southampton. Yes, it does seem as though we went from meal to meal, doesn't it?

The beach was open this afternoon, so I dropped everyone off for a couple of hours before it was time for them to get ready to go back to the City. It rained on and off, but they were determined to go, and they had fun.

I had the best two days. Really. Thank you Sweet R, and your lovely friends C and S, too, for a special weekend! You are three absolutely amazing and inspiring young women.

There wasn't much knitting this weekend, but there was knitting talk. R brought the Tangled Skein From Hell (Blue Moon Bambu, just like what I'm using for my FBS) and we spent a little while working on it (we got quite a few yards wound, too). Let's just say there was a winding "incident" on a flight from Chicago to DC a while back... S is a knitter, too, and her mother and grandmother are knitters, so we had a good time talking about knitterly things. I cast on the latest Rockin' Sock Club pattern late this afternoon, so there will be pictures soon. It's a beautiful yarn this time, and the pattern for the Hippy Crunchy socks is fun and looks like it will be a pleasure to knit.

~:~

I learned enough from the comments to my last post to keep me sane for the rest of the summer! You are all amazing and inspiring, too. I'm a lucky woman.

• Was that poem a universal parental weapon, or what? I thought I was the only one!
  
• Yes, Summer People, Summer Not really applies to us out here.
  
• Nice is work -- it just is, no denying it.
  
• My Nice level must be set on high -- maybe I'll lower it for the rest of the summer just to see what happens!
• Kindness does go a long way, even when it seems futile. And you can always kill 'em with it!
• Part of what I try to do in any situation is consider the source -- whether that's good or bad -- and put myself in the other's position if I can. Sometimes that's just too frightening, though!
  
• I do think that this has a lot to do with my age. I'm not willing to give up my peace of mind, or my sanity, or even my time any more. I'm learning to pick my battles better, and to turn and walk away when someone else's insanity is too much for me.
• Good thoughts and kind wishes make my life very sweet.
  

N is for...

Nice. Or, Not Nice.

"Little Girl from Nice"

by Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

I'd like to think of myself as a kind person, and that I might succeed in my desire to live by the Golden Rule. I try to treat people with respect and compassion, and I hope that I'm mindful of the effect my actions have on them. In other words, I try to be nice.

It ain't easy. When I was a very little girl, I remember my parents, probably my father, reciting this poem to/about me:

"There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid."

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How's that for something to live down, or up to? Apparently, I had some "issues."

This is going somewhere, I promise. I do a good job of being nice at work -- to the mean people, to the elderly man with Dementia, to the stubborn, to the exasperating high-maintenance customers who assume that I can read minds. I'm nice to the patronizers, to the angry conservatives, to the parents of over-indulged children, and to the people who complain about the design of the free wrapping paper. I'm even nice to the deluded people who have self-published a book that they are sure will become a best-seller. I'm nice to everyone, whether they buy a book or not, whether I'll get something in return or not, whether it seems to make a difference or not. I can be very, very nice.

But I've noticed something lately. Nice seems to be costing me something more than just an effort. It takes something out of me, when it hasn't before. I'm not always so nice these days. I'm less accomodating. I don't say, "Oh, that's okay" to the staff any more. I fume. I turn from an encounter in which I was Nice in the face of Not Nice, and I think black thoughts. I can be horrid.

This isn't the worst thing in the world. I'm not a complete doormat, and I haven't been for years. I know who I am, what my limits are, what I want, what's acceptable. The problem is I've begun to reach my limits more often. Some days, even, I've had it up to here.

I could blame it on Summer. On the heat, on the crowds, on my long work hours, on the strain my brain and body must endure for these three months. But I take care to minimize and mitigate the toll Summer could take; and still, I'm less nice.

Maybe nobody notices. Maybe I'm just in a slump. Maybe it's a good thing that I'm more apt to get pi**ed off than I used to be. Maybe I'm finding some power that will propel me forward. Maybe I'm learning something.

My solution to this dilemma, for that is what it is, is to be patient with myself and everybody else. The Golden Rule doesn't say, "If you're nice to people then they'll be nice to you." There aren't any guarantees, there's nothing to expect, and there are no rules to the Rule.

~:~

There'll be talk of knitting next time. Won't that be nice?