Earworm

I have an earworm this morning. My head resounds with "Take a Letter, Maria." No clue whatsoever what has put it there. Very strange. At least it isn't a song I despise, such as "Send in the Clowns."

Ended up not going to archery yesterday, which was a bit of a disappointment. We did get the car smogged, hooray hooray. We are such horrid procrastinators--we've had the car registration renewal notice for about two months, and still didn't manage to get the car smogged & the fees paid on time. Only four days late (only, she says) but that means paying the late fee; and while that's only an extra $11 it's the principle of the thing.

Lots of fires around right now, the closest being in the Corona/Yorba Linda area. Far enough away that we are not in any danger, but close enough that we had ashfall yesterday & rather smoky air. We may not go to Knott's today due to the poor air quality, which would be another disappointment to me. However,I completely understand and realize that not going to an amusement park is LESS THAN NOTHING compared to losing your home in a fire & I am going to focus on how lucky I actually am.

We did have a nice visit with GH & BH yesterday. They are still not sure if they are going to move in with us or not; they are hoping that the apartment works out. I hope it does too--it's a much better proposition for them as it will put a bit of money in their pockets & they won't have to worry about whether or not our dogs will get along with their cats. We will know in a couple of weeks.

Got an old picture for today. We took this shot of an orange bishop at the Madrone Marsh back in August. I *may* have already used this one, in which case just consider it a blast from the past, ha ha :-)

And I am *this close* to having finished spinning up the glacier green merino/silk. I'm pretty sure I won't have enough for a decent length shawl; I haven't actually measured it and am estimating about 600 yards total & I really need about 800 or so. Still, I have other rovings & who says you can't make a two-color shawl, right?

Speaking of roving, yesterday I was thinking of a fiber store I once visited in New Mexico. They had a wheel I was interested in purchasing, and of course I wanted to give it a test spin before plunking down my $800+ for it. The clerks were surly & unhelpful and after finally getting the wheel set up so it could be used (it had been tangled in fibers, drive band was off, no orifice hook to bring the yarn through, etc.) I asked if I could have a bit of roving so I could oh, you know, actually SPIN SOMETHING. The one clerk huffed and glared and yanked off about six feet of Shetland (why I remember that it was Shetland I don't know). Now for those amongst the Teeming Millions who don't spin (inconceivable!), let me tell you that six feet is a ludicrous amount of fiber to hand someone who just wants to test out a wheel. Four inches would have been more than enough.

Anyway, I was thinking of that yesterday when I got to the last two feet of the glacier green. I thought to myself, if I had predrafted that six feet of roving, how long would it have been? So I measured my fiber after predrafting (which I almost always do twice) and discovered it had stretched to thirty-six feet; eighteen times its original length. Wowzers! So that surly clerk had basically handed over one hundred and eight feet of Shetland wool so I could test the wheel. Guess she thought I was planning on making a sweater for her in gratitude for her grudging assistance. And no, I did not buy the wheel. Even if I had loved it, I wouldn't have bought it from those grumps.