Woke up this morning with a song stuck in my head. I don't actually know the name of it; it's one we sang in our 6th grade Bicentennial extravaganza, Patriots on Parade. I suppose it's fitting, since the first line of the song is the title of today's post, but really. It's been more than 30 years. Why do I even remember it? Probably for the same reason I still remember all the dance steps to I Am Woman from the same play. And the name of the play, for that matter.
On vacation this week, and so far it's been excellent. Got some knitting & reading done on Saturday, as well as fixed the sprinkler and tidied up the front porch (sweeping, trimming the wisteria, etc). Sunday we went to see Brave followed by dinner at the pub. Yesterday we went to the Getty Villa and toured the gardens (photo in today's post is of one of the ponds there), had dinner at our favorite Mexican place, and baked a batch of brownies. This morning we did a bit of pruning & weeding in the backyard. Ralph cut two large branches off our poor overloaded lemon tree. I picked about four dozen lemons off the cut branches & have them in bowls out front with a 'free lemons' sign; there are still plenty more should those all get taken. Shockingly, I even remembered that today is Tuesday in time to move the cars to the other side of the street before the street sweepers come.
Last month was a big event in the life of our friend SS. After three years of seminary, she was made deacon in her church. You can tell by the smile on her face how proud & happy she is. She did have a bit of an irreverent moment, though. At one part in the ritual, the three officiants were to prostrate themselves on the floor while the bishop spoke of the spirit of Christ coming to them & filling them. SS told us that at this point she thought, "Odd--I didn't know the Holy Spirit smelled like floor polish..."
The Ravellenic Games are coming up. These were formerly called the Ravelympics, but some of you may be aware of the brouhaha over that. If not, just do a Google search for "USOC Knitting" and read a few of the stories that come up. This year I'm actually co-captaining a team: I am the First Mate of Team Pissdrunk, representing the Simply Nonsense for the Sake of Fun group. I've changed my Ravatar for the games; I've posted it here. The original image is from the blog Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch, and can be found at the end of this post (which is pretty funny and I highly recommend reading it): http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/09/party.html Most of the team have Jack Sparrow Ravatars, but I'd made mine before realizing that JS was traditional & liked it too much to change it.
Anyway, this year I've got four projects planned: socks (sock put, single skein sprint, and lace longjump); a lamb (toy toss); a shawl (shawl sailing, lace longjump, and balance beads if I decide to do the beaded version of the pattern) and finishing up the sweater I started two years ago (WIP [work in progress] wrestling). I was only going to do three because I was sure I could finish them in the amount of time allotted, but figured if I *knew* I could finish, it wasn't really a challenge, was it?
Had a nice picnic for Father's Day (or as we call it in my family, Fathead's Day). Quite a few of us there: myself & Ralph, Lizard, Duh & Happy, and my friend Termite, who was a surprise guest for my Dad, who hasn't seen her in years. Plenty of good food & good conversation, and of course my camera battery died as soon as I tried to take a picture :-/ Ah, well.
