During

Any fool can rise to a crisis;
it takes a real man to handle the day to day challenges.
-Abraham Lincoln; paraphrased (poorly) from memory

The knitting around here has been slow going. See how long it took me to actually felt these things? And with the "unseasonable" humidity around here lately, it's going to take a while for them to dry. In other news, I just moved for the second time in two months (one word of advice: don't), I seem to have lost an entire kitchen box (the one with my pots and glasses), my family is coming to visit, and I still haven't made curtains. But at least I'll have some felted clogs . . .

Hard Choices

Life is choices.
-Rob Orr, my high school biology teacher

Sometimes, this NewCaliforniaLifestyle of mine just gets too challening. Hard choices to be made between two very good options. Saturday presented one of the biggest challenges yet - knitting with the super-duper San Diego knitters or sailing in the bay. With all affection for the knitters, they meet pretty often. A day on the water is a little harder to come by.

Do you see the sock in the photo? Barely there, but I did knit a whole couple of rows of the heel flap just so my knitting wouldn't feel TOO neglected.

In other meta-knitting news, I've discovered one of the great consolations over overnight call. As previously discussed here, we wear our uniforms with pride at my particular military installation. Except after 1600 on overnight call when we can wear scrubs. Scrubs are all sorts of comfy fun (see Gamecock Doc - she agrees), but that also means I get to wear my fun brightly-colored handknit socks every fourth night. What a deal, what a deal!

And as a related note for those of you following the "now-she's-a-doctor" saga, thank God for the 80 work week. I am post-call today, so I was leaving the hospital after my 30 consecutive hours were up. (And in my particular military installation, we change back into our uniforms - with pride, of course - on our post-call mornings.) I made it off the wards to the intern locker room - No bookbag. Went back to the call room. Went back to my locker. Made it out of the hospital to the edge of the courtyard - no cover (uniform hat). Can't go to the parking lot without a cover. Back to the locker. Made it out to the parking lot - no keys. Lather, rinse, repeat - I got my cell phone on the fourth trip. And I felt just fine. Doesn't that make you glad I wasn't taking care of patients at the time?

Before

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

-Benjamin Franklin

Return of the MeMe

We are all the same in this notion:
The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
-Wilma Randolph

Is it just me, or has there been a relative shortage of memes around knitting blogland? Jenn over at Knit'n'Lit threw up a question an embarassingly long time ago:

What's In Your Notions Bag?

Has a bit of a game show ring about it, doesn't it? Anyway, some time ago I took a photo of all the stuff I usually keep in there and kept forgetting to post. So here goes. My notions bag:1. The bag: The darling Flitgirl gave this to me many years ago as a cosmetics bag. What could provide better comesis that knitting notions?
2. The scissors: I stole these from my mom shortly after I started knitting. (I'm pretty sure they came free with a knife set she ordered.) It's all about the cover.
3. The stitchmarkers: My only fancy stitchmarkers, courtesy of the lovely ladies at the Ocean State Knitting and Crochet Guild.
4. The tape measure: A dime a dozen. I buy them whenever they go on sale at Joann's. The better to lose them later . . .
5. The yarn scraps: From whatever I was working on prior. They come in handy as extra stitch holders, stitch markers, or anything, really.
6. The nail file: Nothing ruins a good afternoon of knitting like a snagged nail.
7. The darning needles: See "tape measure" above - I lose these like there's no tomorrow. Somehow I threw one across the room at knitting group the other day. By accident. Seriously - you had to see it disappear to believe it.

Go make this a meme on your blog (you know, to perhaps cover up for all that knitting that you HAVEN'T been doing), do give due credit to Jenn.

Un-Seamly

Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.
-Oscar Wilde

One of these photos is all that is right about knitting in San Diego. The other is all that is wrong about knitting in San Diego. (And you'd better get this one right . . .)

Here are some of the lovely friendly knitters of San Diego:Dis from A Little Loopy and Knitzalot from The Purly Gate and some of their blogless friends were among the first to welcome me to the knitting fun in San Diego. There are knitting groups - yes, plural - on a very regular basis. They are fun people. They knit. How much more perfect could it be?

Well, I could be able to keep my eyes open well enough not to make mistakes like this: Hard to see with the flash, I know, but do you see how I seemed the completely wrong part to the completely wrong part? I want to wear this cool tank for MyNewCaliforniaLifestyle . . . but that lifestyle is tiring!

Let the Games Begin

A good plan, violently executed now,
is better than a perfect plan next week.
-George S. Patton

Remember the plan? That reading list plan that I developed last week two weeks ago? Well, I am pleased to report that I have put it into action.

The plan - for those of you too lazy to click backwards - is that I'm actually going to knit things from the pattern books I own, instead of buying more. An incredible concept, no? I'm going to make a good faith attempt at a project from a different book each of the 13 "months" of my intern year. (Don't laugh. No really. Don't.)

So far, so good. Check out the hat from Baby Knits from Dale of Norway. (FYI - I've seen rumors that this is out of print. If that's true, run, do not walk and go buy your copy. It's a great pattern collection.) I'm making the cover sweater and hat, and starting with the hat. You can see the beginning of the ladybugs on the right.

(Excuse the flash. There's not even enough sun in sunny California for me to be home during daylight hours more than a couple of times a week.)

I'm not sure what delusional planet I was on when I decided to do a fingering weight fair isle sweater and hat during my first month on the Internal Medicine Wards (OK, you can really stop laughing now), but I'll finish it eventually. I am getting some time to knit between all the craziness that makes my pager my best friend, worst enemy, and constant companion. There are all sorts of fun knitters in San Diego, and I'm trying to make as many knitting gatherings as I can. There's another one tonight, so I'll fill you in on all the good times tomorrow.

Colors

The secret of Happiness is Freedom; the secret of Freedom, Courage.
-ThucydidesWhere I work, Colors sound every morning and every evening.
The bugle calls and work stops, just for a few moments,
as the flag goes up before the salutes. At sundown, it repeats in reverse.
Twice a day that ritual reminds me that I do not work in an ordinary place. My patients parachuted into Holland in 1943 and were injured in Iraq last week. They spend six months of every year at sea, or 18 months at a time forward deployed. The people I work with - doctors, nurses, corpsman, pharmacists, radiology techs - have run combat hospitals in tents and tsunami relief on hospital ships. All around the world, under that flag hearing that same bugle call. All in a day's work.

Happy Independence Day.

A Challenge

If we knew what it was we were doing,
it would not be called research, would it?
-Albert Einstein

If you've been over to The Amazing Lace recently, you know that the action is hopping. Things are hot. People are knitting lace, writing poetry, and performing daredevil stunts of staggering genius. While I couldn't even hope to approach most of them (people are writing sonnets and poems in iambic pentameter, among other things), I did have a little bit of a poem that I jotted down during some lecture last week. I stuck it in the pocket of my white coat, thinking that at some point in my 3o continuous hours in the hospital this weekend, I'd have five minutes to blog it.

How wrong I was. Intern call is way different than med student call. From just about 0600 Saturday until 1200 Sunday, I didn't sit down once, unless it was to put something (work-related) into the computer. I did get to lay down and doze for about 30 minutes, but that was it. It was a good night and I'm not complaining - But, no poem. Now I'm home briefly before collapsing and I realize that I left the poem in my white coat. So here's the post-call free association poetry you get instead (Sorry!):

The lace.
The pace.
The race.
The amazing lace pace.
The amazing lace race.
The amazing race pace lace.
The lace pace race pace lace.
The lace.

Actual knitting to return tomorrow. The clogs may even make their first appearance.