Riffraff

I have noticed lately during my evening walks that I see the same cast of characters over and over. There is the lady with a blond two-year old strapped into a stroller and a fat, shiny black dog whose leash is over one of the handles; she walks fast and always has a mobile phone jammed into her shoulder, and pushes the stroller with both hands. I wonder what she is always talking about. The dog seems to need the walk more than she does - she certainly doesn't seem to enjoy it. She is hurried and busy and seems to walk just to get one more thing off her list. Another lady always walks a short beagle with a big head—he's friendly but she isn't. There is a nice lady with an enthusiastic golden retreiver who is a jumper, and licks my hand when he sees me while she apologizes and keeps him from knocking me down. And the ten or eleven year old girl who walks her fluffy brown dog in a little pink ruffled top with ruching. I don't know why she dresses her dog this way in the heat, but the dog seems to like it. I wonder if the dog is a male and patiently putting up with his owner's tastes in clothing or female and secretly thinking she is the best-dressed dog in the neighborhood.

Since I am usually wearing a too-big pair of shorts and a dirty Manchester United jersey, I can only guess at what they all think of me.

I left our houseguest, who was indeed a Cabbage Looper, on some low bushes at the back of the field with a good supply of lettuce. I still can't believe how much he ate. But I guess if you think about it, lettuce is probably a lot of trouble for not much nutrition. I hope he has a happy home back there, but I am skeptical he'll survive the noisy blackbird who lives higher in the trees.

For Knitting Bandit: You were asking how to work the short-row heel in the "For Posterity" post. I can't find your email, but I'll try to explain it. You simply increase on the bottom of the sock only, which naturally forms a gusset or wedge of fabric. When you have finished the increases, you turn the heel just like you're knitting a top-down flap heel. The extra stitches you made during the increasing accommodate the bigger part of your foot, so you don't have to pick up anything for a gusset at all. Just make it bigger, then turn it (which makes it smaller). Try it! It will work. If you need any more hints, send me an email at meangirl at comcast dot net. I'll be happy to help.

And y'all, that reminds me, I'm going to move the comments over to Haloscan this week, but I haven't quite got to it yet. I think I need to - I want to reply to so many comments, but all I ever get in the emails is "noreply@blogger.com" or something like that. So I can't ever answer! If you want a reply, please include some way to reach you in the body of the comment (but leave out the @ and stuff; I'll replace and I don't want you to get spammed).

More sprucing up to come. On Twist, I'm about halfway up to the armpits of both sleeves. I worked on them all day today. I'm knitting two at once, and I'm afraid to mess up (as Betty will attest, I've been quizzing her about it because the last time I tried this my sleeves came out two different lengths) so I'm just cranking them out as fast as I can go. I don't know why I knit faster when I'm afraid I'll run out of yarn, or scared to mess up. But I am tired of this sweater and I need to finish the sleeves before I decide to throw the whole thing aside for the summer, which would be sad.