Mersydotes

(...sort of). Here are a few test swatches with stitch patterns that I was practicing.  It was fun to watch the patterns emerge as I went, even if the tension is all wonky!  It's been soooo long since I've done any knitting, and it was bothering me that there are such beautiful patterns and creations out there, but that I didn't feel up to the challenge. It all started when I was in college.  The resident advisor on my floor of the dormitory was a well-intentioned, psychotic young woman who was dead-set on making us 30 or so girls "bond".  I know- we were all horrified at the prospect too, but the RA was indefatigable.  One of her first attempts to create lasting friendship amongst us was to distribute a skein of acrylic yarn and a pair of knitting needles to each resident and assign us mandatory scarf knitting duty.  Although mystified, we dutifully made our scarves, but seeing as knitting is a fairly solitary task, we spent the fall semester knitt...

Hello my friends!  How are you all doing this late summer evening?  I'm here counting my lucky stars that I survived my commute today.  On my way out this morning, through a combination of unavoidable delays and my own naiveté, I spent two hours underground trying to make it to Brooklyn.  A mole could have tunneled there faster.  Needless to say, I was late to work in a serious kind of way.  I am wiser, though, and now I know that the F and the E are not in any way, shape, or form the same train, and that just because trains go to stops with the same name, they aren't all going to the same place.  Apparently, there are three Jamaica-s in Queens.  Be warned, my friends. The way home was much more straightforward although not much quicker.  However, (and here I'll finally get to the point) I experienced an exceptional moment while sitting in the Queens-bound M.  It probably lasted for all of a heartbeat, but this little mome...

The Beach The Dog The Rain The Yarn The Neighborhood The Everything, ~Mersydotes

It really has been hotter than a match head here as of late.  Snow cone peddlers sneak their way into every crowd, and the tinkling of the ice cream trucks haunts you throughout the day.  I feel like they circle like buzzards around the stench of the garbage piled in mountains, rotting on the curb.  Normally, the trucks play "Pop Goes The Weasel", but the one in our neighborhood likes to blast out "Silent Night", much to the dismay of all.   The metros are a good fifteen degrees hotter than the streets, and on the rare occasion a cooling rain falls, the water flows along the rails in rivers of sludge and trash.  I wake up and shower just to be soaked in sweat by the time the air-conditioned E train rolls down the track.   And then, out of nowhere, a perfectly gorgeous coastal summer breeze comes rolling through, tricking Mr. Mersy and I into thinking that it's not so bad here after all.  That's what happened on the Fourth, and we spent an eveni...