There’s no knitting in this entry.

We got our lights back last night. Tree on the line (it seems to be our Hurricane Destiny). I am impressed that we got ours back so quickly, since we were an individual outage and we don’t have lots of crews working. For obvious reasons. And yes, there are the usual gasoline issues.

We lost some trees.

But whatever. I’ve got a house to attach my electricity to.

I’ve also got a whole lot of shock and dismay and outrage about the situation in Louisiana which looks to me like it derives from Poor Planning, one of the greater sins in my worldview. Poor Planning all the way from “Let’s Build a City on a Flood Plain without consulting Holland!” to “Well, y’all just start walking and hope for the best.” I could go on, I’ve got lots to say about the situation. But I won’t. And someone needs to shoot the looters. And shoot whoever is shooting at the people evacuating (what possible good could that do?!). Two days of deplorable conditions (and rest assured: conditions are atrocious) is no excuse for acting like terrorists. Situations like this are a call for Americans to rise to the occasion with dignity and with a respect for the inherent dignity of others. We need to see the best in people not the worst. It’s not the natural part of this disaster that is the most horrifying.

If you want to help – and I sincerely hope you do:

• Red Cross Disaster Services
• Noah’s Wish
• Southern Baptist Convention Diasaster Relief
• The Salvation Army
• The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Disaster Response
• Red Cross Gulf Coast Blood Services
• Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund
• This is FEMA‘s master list of legitimate charities with links. Don’t be duped by solicitous emails.

And there are a bunch of sites that are offering coverage of the situation. WKRG is one of our local stations out of Mobile. They’ve got streaming video if you’re interested.

Check (and report) rumors at Snopes.

The right front of Elspeth went much better than the back. This is probably because I charted the whole thing.

The best part is that I made it with Sharpie which bleeds through paper. This way, when I turn it over, I have a chart for the left side too! Genius I tell you. Except that in spite of double checking, I still managed to make a mistake in the pattern. The corrections are shown in turquoise.

Lucy has been a big help with Elspeth. I don’t know how I’ve managed to knit anything without her.

We also been keping an eye on the weather.

I am a big fan of NOAA

It looks like we’ve lucked out this time. We’re still in the Cone of Probability (and here are some fun charts to look at. I am especially fond of the Strike Probability.) but Katrina appears much more interested in Louisiana this time. It all depends on how soon she turns North. The Hurricane guys are more confident about this projection (the steering currents aren’t very well defined) which is better for us but bad for New Orleans: being below sea-level complicates things.

This is what Elspeth looks like moments before she is ripped back to the arm holes.

I have had the worst time deciding when to stop making pattern repeats on the raglan armholes. I started by leaving them out if there wasn’t going to be room to make a complete slanty. But it looked like I had left something out. So I ripped. After studing the picture, I decided to put as much as would fit. But it looked like a mistake when there was only one YO. So I ripped. Finally, I settled on: If at least half of the pattern will fit, that is, at least two YOs neither of which interferes with the raglan decreases, I will put it in. Then I had to rip because I counted wrong. And one of the cats (I’m not naming any names. She knows who she is.) bit my yarn in half. Twice. AND they took my red scissors. They were on the table and now I can’t find them anywhere. I expect them to turn up in the dog’s bed in an attempt to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit. I finally finished Elspeth’s back yesterday.

At my present rate, I should be finished with this tiny, little jacket by late September. *weeping* That does not include the time I will need to spend persuading my mom to put the crochetted edging on for me. I forgot about the stupid edging. *gnashing of teeth* I suppose this is fine. It’s not like I’ve finished the dress I wanted to wear it with. I’ve gotten to a point where I need to turn on the iron. But when I turn on the iron, I need to be prepared to iron the pile of clean clothes that is waiting to be ironed and hung up. And I just don’t want to.

Want to see something else sad?

I like the new place mats, though.

Empire Dreams has been reduced to the sum of its parts. I wasn’t happy with the legnth before or after the place to put the bow. Since I need to legnthen it in both places and the bottom has that little scalloped edge (otherwise I could have gone back to the tie place and just made it longer and then added to the bottom) I decided to pull it all out. Naturally, I wasn’t able to make this decision until after I had sewn it all together. You haven’t really lived until you have un-seamed a sweater. As I ripped and pulled and wound and questioned what I was doing, I further justified my decision by telling myself that I didn’t really like how loose the gauge was and I should have made a smaller size and that maybe I wanted to put garter stitch on the bottom and leave out the tie all together. I’m not sure if I am going to remake the sweater in the book or change a bunch of stuff and just make a knit shirt to wear with my skirts. I’ve decided not to decide until i’ve finished Elspeth.

If the yarn for Michael’s cardigan comes first, I’ll be off the decision-making hook ’til next spring!