slashbluegreen | Reading

I've been thinking about Wake Up Dead Man some more even though I haven't gone and looked up the list of books, because I am not ready to purchase new ebooks yet, and that's what I'll have to do for the ones there I haven't read before.

Meanwhile though, I have been rereading some Agatha Christie. I am not exactly a giant Christie fan, but I have read most of Agatha Christie's works (and usually multiple times) because I like Golden Age mystery as a genre and my MIL was a superfan, so I have had convenient access to paperbacks of Christie's works.

And I realized with a start yesterday that while the setting and setup in Wake Up Dead Man is in some respects is EXTREMELY typical of Golden Age detective fiction, in another it's very very unusual - ( Some spoilers )

cimorene

The last time

waxjism rearranged plants she put the three biggest ones - trees, they are trees - all at the west livingroom window.

Left to right (above) are Benjamin the ficus benjamina or weeping fig - inherited from Wax's granny and at least 25 years old; Jules Feiffer the pachira aquatica or money tree - bought as a baby from a nursery because I really wanted it (love the braided trunk) between 2014-2016, so it's pretty old, but it's only ever grown up and it never gets any fatter and barely has any roots; and Nelly the Hibiscus × rosa-sinensis, known colloquially as Chinese hibiscus, China rose, Hawaiian hibiscus, rose mallow and shoeblack plant - this was MIL's pride and joy and I think Wax said it's older than her, so probably at least 50 now. Jules especially is apparently crazy about the light there, even though the grow light died and Wax replaced it temporarily with a normal lightbulb. The window is a jungle.

The north window shelf is covered with three Thanksgiving cacti, two dormant orchids, a philodendron Henderson's Pride, and a polka dotted begonia. This shelf has been more cluttered at times, but it still gives a very strongly planty impression.

cimorene

1. ( Reread: Georgette Heyer mysteries )

2.( Reread: almost all my DWJ books )

3.( Reread: Agatha Christie Parker Pyne short stories )

4. ( Wake Up Dead Man, the new Benoit Blanc movie )

5. ( Heated Rivalry )

cimorene

My right shoulder has been making itself felt with a very small uncomfortable pain since I finished the first triplet sweater last Thursday. (Or before.)

You may remember that last spring I knitted way too much and did Something to it. When I consulted the health center advice, it said that barring certain more severe symptoms, you should rest it and take painkillers and just give it time and that it could take three months to feel better. So I did, and it didn't keep hurting after that. So I haven't talked to a doctor about it.

And that's why I was trying SO HARD to not knit too much when I started knitting again last month. I tried to knit only a few hours a day, though I did get into hyperfocus and knit for five hours a couple times. A couple of weeks ago I hit upon the idea of making myself read one complete paperback book per day to constrain how much time I could spend knitting. I thought it was going pretty well, but just the last few days I noticed this minor discomfort... I hoped it would go away with a few days of rest. But I've kept free of knitting, sewing, and even drawing and writing for five days now, and taken paracetamol even though it's not really that painful, more like mild discomfort.

But it's still like this! I'm afraid to start knitting in case it sproings again! And I'm even worried that targeted stretches might make it worse instead of better!

cimorene

Wearing wool boot socks over your normal socks is standard in winter. For this purpose it doesn't matter how rough or itchy the socks are.

But wearing warm and cozy socks against the skin is different. It's best if they are wool because of its superior warmth, breathability, and anti-smelly properties, but not every sock yarn is good for the purpose. For instance, the popular Schachenmeyer Regia Pairfect, dyed to make two identical socks including the self-striping Pride socks, is a bit scratchy.

Merino "luxury" sock yarns are pretty popular - merino being the finest and least scratchy of sheep wools - especially hand-dyed ones, which were so trendy about ten years ago that small dyeing businesses were springing up like mushrooms and ill-advised ugly projects made with spatter-dyed wools (it looks fine on socks but the colors do unfortunate things on sweaters and other large canvases) were similarly all over Ravelry. Merino is smooth and silky, but it feels a little like cotton because the fiber is so fine and so tightly spun, so as a result the socks are not fuzzy or cozy.

Alpaca is the best fiber to add the fuzziness to a cozy sock, but it's not as stretchy and elastic as sheep's wool. Wool socks made without elastic already don't always stay up well, depending on a lot of factors, but alpaca by itself is limper, so the challenge is how to blend alpaca and sheep's wool.

I have raved in the past about the sock wool Spøt by Sandnes, which made wonderfully fuzzy thick socks and is now discontinued. But their elasticity was so bad that they couldn't be worn out at all.

My newest socks are made with Drops Nord, another alpaca blend, which I am currently very happy with. It's 45% alpaca, so it's likely that the texture of the fabric makes a big difference. My socks are cabled, and that might be holding their shape. Ribbed and stockinette socks are the worst at staying up.

cimorene

That week of ultimately unhelpful jobseeker course three weeks ago not only wrecked my energy for cleaning, any projects, and my daily stretching and exercise routines, it also left me with too little energy (focus? Even with methylphenidate!) to update my pet photos or interior design blogs on Tumblr. Or to shop for holiday presents for my parents and sister.

I have enough energy to spend that time on the computer, but just not to focus on what to post/buy. 😭 I am planning to try again today. Wish me luck.

mrshamill

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

cimorene

I was just getting really annoyed thinking about how it is not hard at all to wind your own center-pull yarn cake, so why can't mass-produced yarn balls pull from the center? (They can - there are some brands that do - but most of them don't work very well.) I got annoyed enough to just try a websearch for my question and found this forum discussion:

This is a very basic question, but

"...do you prefer pulling yarn from the inside of a skein or the outside? And why? I usually pull from the inside, but the other day I decided to try the outside for a swatch. I have been used to “untwisting” yarn as I knit, but this time it was ridiculous. I ended up winding the skein into a ball from the inside before trying again. (I have a ball winder, but don’t usually use it for hand knitting projects.) [...]"

[Responder B]: "You're correct, it all has to do with the twist of your yarn. Most commercial yarns are meant to be pulled from the inside, but there are so many yarns out there, that is not a rule set in stone. You obviously added more twist when you tried using your yarn from the outside. A yarn butler would help that problem because it allow the skein to roll off the skein rather than it unrolling and slipping off the end which adds a twist. Some low twist yarns or singles yarn you have to be very careful with otherwise you will completely untwist it and it will pull apart while working. Yarn bowls can be helpful with controlling twist as well."

Oh, what. Oh, UGH, that's so annoying! That makes sense, I guess. It just annoys me.

Pulling from the center seems more convenient in every respect to me, so why would you design it deliberately the other way? Obviously this isn't self-evident and there must be a lot of people who think it makes more sense or is more convenient to pull from the outside. I hate when my strong preferences are outliers like this because everything is working against me.

what the hell is a 'yarn butler'? What an annoying term. I could google it but I didn't.

I know about yarn bowls and I always found the concept a little annoying too, because I carry my knitting around in a bag and the bowl is hard, larger than my bag usually, and also frequently breakable. I typically put the skein in my knitting bag and that usually prevents it from rolling all over the place, although obviously it doesn't have the little loop to catch the working yarn and so isn't as effective as the yarn bowl concept.

cimorene

It happens every year at this season that when the sun never comes up properly all day it feels like I have never woken up properly either, but it's always just as frustrating and I'm never prepared. Sigh. Time just comes unglued, because it's overcast all the time and it's only daylight (wan gray daylight) between 9 and 4 at best. A week could be a day long or a month long. It's like I'm dreaming, but not as pleasant, because my hands or feet are usually cold during the day.

Sunlamps have never been very noticeably useful for me, which is extremely depressing, but also not bad enough for me to completely give up on them. The worst part is that regular outdoor exercise probably would help but it's completely unattainable. You might as well tell me that a hundred pushups is the cure.

cimorene

I intend to watch the three released episodes of Heated Rivalry so I can know what everyone (my wife) is talking about, but I haven't got to it yet. I am obviously spoiled by Tumblr posts but I haven't watched the bits between the gifsets.

I rewatched Derry Girls over the last two weeks while attempting to knit this nephew sweater (made it to first sleeve cuff again, finally!). That show is so good, and it's so frustrating, because there's nothing more that's like it! All the main adult actors are also so good, but none of them have a long back catalogue of other comedy to watch! And of course the writer, Lisa McGee, needs time to write more things.

I have a long list of things I've been intending to watch and rewatch, but it feels like I don't have enough emotional bandwidth, or attention, or something, for starting new long things that are going to be dramatic.

So I've been watching a ton of non fiction instead:

➡️very old Folding Ideas and Hbomberguy videos

➡️Mentour Pilot's back catalog of aviation disaster explainers (previously I was familiar from watching over

waxjism's shoulder)

➡️Defunctland episodes that aren't too Disney-focused (a mention on Tumblr reminded me and I've only seen a few before)

➡️KyleHatesHiking videos about true crime, accidents, and missing persons cases related to hiking and outdoor sports (recommended by my sister last week)

➡️BobbyBroccoli science scandal documentaries (there's a new movie on Nebula, but otherwise I've watched them all before)

Meanwhile Wax is filling our bird feeders (seed and tallow ball) sometimes multiple times a day and the bird traffic is constant. Sipuli will sit by the window watching them like tv. Tristana is happy to sit in a chair facing the woodstove and watch the fire like it's a tv, sometimes for hours.

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Fat Cats and Friends

I'll have the Dancing Boys, now

More about the Golden Age detective fiction context of Wake Up Dead Man

Aggressive trees and greenery

Books and Media

Ominous music sting for the right shoulder

Sock yarns

I'm not even sure if pathetic is the word...

On grief and a rotten year

Sandnes skeins are definitely designed to pull from the outside and it's inconvenient!

SAD whining

TV, bird tv, fire tv

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May 2014

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