As I embark on my 18th straight workday, I am thinking about work itself. I was brought up to believe in work. I admire hard workers. I believe that working hard toward a goal is satisfying, and that we are designed to work and to gain a sense of accomplishment from our work. I believe that work is love made visible and that he who chops his own wood gets warm twice.
I just don’t, at the moment, remember why I believe these things.
My continual working this summer has made me cross, tired, whiny, and self-centered.
Obviously, there is a limit. But the new term is beginning, so I am getting calls asking me to teach Sunday school, to help on projects, to start my Tuesday class, to make a decision about the Chamber Singers and the Master Chorale.
I will not be going to the first rehearsal of the Chamber Singers tonight, of that I am sure. I am just too whiny, cross, tired, and self-centered. I did go to choir practice last night, but that is a duty as well as a pleasure, while the Chamber Singers is strictly for fun.
The HGP begins on Monday and I am determined also to get back to the gym next week. But this week I have been determinedly loafing in the mornings — after fixing breakfast, cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and seeing the boys off to school, of course.
Am I whining again?
Anyway, here is the sheep modeling Pipes. I have a bit less than 2 inches to go before dividing the work into sleeves and body.
It is not a very good fit for the sheep, I fear, but I think you can see the nice geometric effect of the colorwork.
I am about to get to the end of what is, I think, the third skein of Telemark. Nice yarn. It knits up pretty stout and wintery on small needles. I want to try it on larger needles as well, out of curiosity, but I think it would still be a smooth, warm fabric. Just the thing for hats and mittens, but not for socks, I think, unless you are going to tramp about in the snow. Which, come to think of it, many of us will be doing along here sometime. Hard to imagine as the temperature continues to flirt with triple digits, but it will come.
Update from yesterday : Saveloys, Sighkey tells me, are not hot dogs. I am now confused. Here you will find a picture of saveloys, with the explanation that they can be used for “quick and easy hot dogs or a main meal component.” So now I am really confused. What kind of hot dogs are not quick and easy? And how could they be a side dish? Apparently, in the country where this ad was made, hot dogs are a complex dish created with some kind of sausage. What’s more, Cheerios are also a sort of hot dog, I mean sausage, but you can eat them cold after boiling. Really — up your jumper!
The savs in your link are Australian I think – and we already know that Aussies are a little strange….We of course, are not 🙂
In NZ the saveloy is shorter and fatter than the frankfurter although not quite as short and fat as some of the European-type sausages that we can now get over here. (Our NZ sausages are long and skinny – but not as long and skinny as frankfurters) Hot dogs in NZ are probably still most commonly thought of as a saveloy or fat sausage, covered in batter, deep fried, and stuck on a stick dipped in tomato sauce. (Hmm attention to word order here… the ‘hotdog’ on the stick is dipped in tomato sauce, not the stick…) They were/are(?) a common accompaniment to chips (of fish ‘n chips fame – or your fries). Despite a surfeit of American culture on tv I think it is still a little uncommon to refer to the hotdog as represented on aforementioned tv programs (a ‘hotdog’ or ‘frank’ sandwiched between two halves of a bread roll – which is probably a little healthier than our version)
Oh yes, and cheerios are cute little baby saveloys that are still the most common non-sweet food presented at little kids’ birthday parties. We always had a bowl of cheerios, a packet of toothpicks and little bowls of tomato sauce at our birthday parties. You stab a cheerio with a toothpick, dip it in the tomato sauce, and count how many times they fall off the toothpick and into the sauce amidst great hilarity.
Confused? You won’t be after this episode of ‘Savs’.
Amusingly enough, your “tomato sauce” is our ketchup. Here, tomato sauce is eaten on pasta. Cheerios are a cold cereal made of oats. A bowl of Cheerios stabbed with toothpicks and dipped into tomato sauce is, in American English, something requiring a strong stomach and a lot of manual dexterity (Cheerios being little loops of cereal about 1/2 inch across). But I can tell that you have a lot more sausages than we do. I think what you call a hot dog is perhaps a little like what we call a corn dog. Although there is something called a Vienna sausage which is a sort of short hot dog (or frankfurter) fed mostly to babies. They come in a can.
How did you manage to eat anything while you were here? Were you constantly astounded when you asked for things and were given things from completely different food groups?
The babies come in a can? Now that’s something we haven’t got around to yet. You are so much more technologically advanced than we are 🙂
The only thing I had trouble with when I was over there was when I asked for ‘tomartos’ and the poor boy at the Subway counter had no idea what I was saying. His female co-worker translated ‘She means ‘tomeightos’ ‘
I didn’t really eat very healthily over there – that would have reqd some approximation of cooking and, as I cook as little as possible over here there was no way I was going to cook any more over in the US. I know, I should be ashamed of myself. I pay for it by having to listen to members of my families nagging me about it