The Blithe Traveler

Abandon Wheels All Ye Who Enter Here

We, of course, would never abandon Hope.

Venice. I love this city more than I can express. And there is no logical explanation for the way I feel, although, perhaps my love affair continues because I have never been to Venice during the high tourist seasons. My children love this city as much as I do, if not more. They have both declared that Venice is the place they most long to live. How can I not love that about them? Of course, while most people adore Venice for its culture, art, and history, we have a different sort of love affair.

Pasta and pizza top the list. You can, of course, eat these foods in other locales around the world. But they think the best pasta and pizza are in Venice. As a grown up, I would argue otherwise, but frankly, I don't see the point in peeing in their Vermicelli.

Gelato. You will notice they are wearing winter coats. It is winter. The temps were quite mild, as Venice is farther south than Brno or Vienna, but it was still chilly. Around 6C degrees. Double that and add 30 if you want a translation to Fahrenheit (with a shout out to K. Briggs and the ineffable Bob and Doug for that useful tidbit¹). But gelato on the Grand Canal trumps a chill in the air any day of the week.

Pigeons. The scourge of the earth for Venetians, one imagines. But for my children? Hours of entertainment. And while the three of us kept looking around, wondering where Jeff was (Korea, if you are the sort who cares), I was secretly grateful that he wasn't around as we spent hours just hanging out with the pigeons. For some people, it is the Guggenheim. For Cultural Troglodytes, we have our Wing-ed Friends.

And the glass blowing. Although this is technically "glass sculpting." In addition to desiring a permanent move to the City of Love, the children have both declared that Glass Blowing is an art they are going to learn. I did explain to them that it's not the sort of thing they are going to be offered as an after school activity (let's face it, 2000 degree temperatures - in any format - and children simply don't mix).

They have both had a love of this art all of their short lives, though, and I really should make an effort to find a glass blower in our locale who wouldn't mind them watching for a bit here and there. Blowing and sculpting both fascinate them. Although, now that I think of it, perhaps I should introduce them to clay? A potters wheel might generate the same interest with less risk.

And me? I just love Venice. There is something about the light, the history, the age of the place that just stops my heart.

Okay. And pizza. There is some good pizza to be had.

 

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¹ Doug: "Like how many beers would that be, if you want like, a sixpack in metric?"
Bob: "Six, six is 12, 30 is 42 beers. 42 metric beers."
Doug: "That's good for me eh. Count me in on metric."

Finger Holiday

November was a tough month for my man hands.

First, there was NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). If you are not a follower of this particular brand of crazy, every November (since 1999), hundreds of thousands of people give up their regular lives and pound away at the keyboard, attempting to disgorge 50,000 words of fiction.

In 2011, 256,618 people participated. The completion rate was 14%, so I consider myself lucky to have actually managed it. I have tried this in two previous years and written something shy of a gross of words, so in my case, three was the charm.

Now, I'm not writing fiction exactly. I wrote about our years in China, with the idea of starting a new book. Since my last two books were both quite niche, I'm trying for something a bit more general market this go round. What I have at the moment are 50,099 words. It's a bit like having spun a good bit of wool into yarn, though. It's just a beginning. Spun wool does not jump up one morning and magically transform itself into a sweater. No more than my 50,099 words are anything resembling a "book" right now.

Application of time and brain power will transform them. Although, not right this second.

I also managed in November to jam out 19 blog postings, adding another 13,335 words to my total for the month. You can imagine why my tired fingers rebelled as of December 1st, making a strong argument for a break from writing. 

I should also confess that the November writing didn't stop me from my main winter occupation, which is trying to knit fast enough to stay warm.

In  November, my poor fingers managed:

I love this scarf. It's knit from 100% Indian silk that I ordered from Bangalore. It's a heavy weight silk, so it's warm, warm, warm. The tricky bit will be to keep it from pilling and pulling, but holding it in place with a shawl pin seems to keep it stable, which will help.

Then there was this:

A friend of mine showed up at school one day wearing an H&M sweater that was just gorgeous. I decided I needed to have one just like it, so I whipped out this purple wool. I bought the wool in New Zealand almost two years ago, and have been holding off using it, mostly because I don't really love purple and it's a thicker wool than I typically like to knit with. No, I really don't know why I bought it. I had instant buyer's remorse, which is probably the real reason it has been skulking in the back of my yarn basket for so long.

The sweater turned out close to the H&M sweater, although quite a bit longer than I had planned. It was meant to be cropped. However, it is lovely warm and perfectly comfortable, so a huge win. Whew. No more buyer's remorse over that purple wool, although, I still have enough left for another sweater, as you will see shortly.

I have some alpaca a friend of mine brought me back from Peru, so I may try to knit this sort of sweater again and make it a bit shorter.

And then this. I make this pattern a lot. This is a wool a friend of mine sent me from Alaska last Christmas. I have been trying to turn it into a scarf for a year, and pattern after pattern left me thinking, "Meh." So, I finally turned to my old standby. Done, done, and done.

And now it's December. Until this moment, I haven't written a word since November 30th. Although the purple wool sung a siren song. This is done but for a button band:

The children and I are heading to Venice for a long weekend; which is what really prompts this return to blogging. Who can resist the siren call of writing about one of our favorite places on earth?

With a little luck and internet access, more tomorrow!