Distracted by Spring, with Baseball Report

Spring seems to have finally arrived here. It's been sunny and warming up; flowers and trees are blooming; and the goldfinches have returned to the feeder:

At this time of year, I spend an awful lot of time outdoors. I went for a long 4 1/2 mile walk this morning, and it felt very good. I haven't picked up the doily, but I did do some work on the STR sock club socks, guessing that the next installment would arrive before I finished these if I didn't get a move on:

This is STR mediumweight, on size 2 needles. I've never used this yarn before, since I typically prefer the thinner sock yarns. It's pretty cushy and soft (again, unlike my typical experience with STR). The picture of the sock on the pattern doesn't have as much color variation as mine does, however. I'd prefer it with less variation, but this is still a lot less eye-singeingly bright than last installment. The pattern is pretty easy to follow, and goes quickly on the size 2 needles.

Baseball Report -- Long

The other reason I spend so much time outdoors this time of year is Little League/Babe Ruth baseball. Here in Arlington, Babe Ruth and Little League are two separate entities. We started our kids out in Babe Ruth, because you could pick which kids and coach you wanted to play with. Mr. T coaches Jr. Jr.'s team with a friend from down the street. Sr. Jr. started out on one team with a very nice and very good coach, but after two years, we switched him to another team to be with boys from his school. He played with his new team for three years, I think. His new coach, while a very nice guy, just wasn't able to control his team very well. The kids were losing a lot and sniping at each other, and a couple of parents who were assisting him were taking over the team. All in all, it was getting pretty dysfunctional. We thought about switching him back to his original team, but we didn't want to risk hurting his new coach's feelings. Several other kids from the team also left. So this year we switched Sr. Jr. to Little League. In Little League, the teams are chosen by the coaches in a draft system, so the teams end up roughly comparable in terms of skill levels, and there's no favoritism shown by the coaches toward their own children. Sr. Jr.'s new coaches are just two young guys who want to coach. They've been very good so far.

Sr. Jr. pitches. Even though I'm his mother and therefore pretty biased, I can see that he's really good. Last night was the opening game. As fate would have it his old team (with the not so good coach) was playing his first team (with the good coach) one field over from where Sr. Jr. was playing his game. I got to say hello to friends and keep an eye on their game too.

Sr. Jr. was the starting pitcher. The game started even though the ump hadn't shown up yet. Up Sr. Jr. goes and fans the first two batters. The next batter made it onto base on a pop-up that should have been an easy out, but all the infielders called for the ball and at the last minute backed off, in a typical Little League play. It was okay, because Sr. Jr. fanned the next batter to end the inning. When the other team was about to start, the ump arrived. At this point, the opposing coach started complaining that Sr. Jr. hadn't been pitching from the right place on the mound, and it wasn't fair because he'd "blown it right by our players." So the ump made them redo the game. Sr. Jr. walks up to the right place on the mound and proceeds to fan the first three batters all over again. Ha!

This meant, however, that when he came up to pitch the "second" inning, he was really in his third inning of pitching, and was clearly tired. He started throwing balls and walking some kids, so the team switched pitchers. In the end, the score was 11-11, but the game was called because there was another game scheduled. Sr. Jr. had been about to come up, with the bases loaded. He was so upset! He was mad about having to pitch the first inning twice, because if he had pitched two scoreless innings instead of one, the team would have won.

I pointed him to the scoreboard of the game his old team had been playing. They had lost, 19-7. I reminded him that no matter what, his team was in the game and being competitive, and that he should be proud of his pitching.

At the end of their game, Sr. Jr.'s first coach -- the good one, whose team won that game -- came over to say hi and chat. I said, "Looks like your team had a good game!" "Nah," he said, "It wasn't competitive. We must have had 21 walks in the game."

(I promise I won't do long play-by-play baseball reports for all the games this season!)

Gotta run to the bus stop now, so I hope you're all enjoying your days, as well.

Drive-By Posting

Too little time here. Weekends at this time of year are for baseball and other such activities. We managed to get half a game in yesterday before getting poured on. Today was the "opening ceremony." It was grey, drizzly, and COLD, after several warm days. Here's Sr. Jr. at the opening day festivities. I said, "Smile!" and he said, "I am smiling."

Jr. Jr. tried tickling him. It didn't work.

In my last post, I showed you a picture of my Mystery Lace swatch, blocking. Here's what it looked like five minutes after I finished that post:

I imagine the the pins couldn't have been too comfortable.

I continue to work on the Annette doily. I'm almost at the midway point in the row count, but obviously, since the rows get bigger and bigger, there's a lot more than half the knitting left to be done. This is a lot of fun to knit. Kippi of the comments mentioned that she had gotten some of the recommended cotton yarn to knit hers, and wondered why cotton would be the appropriate choice. Now that I've come further along in the knitting, I can see that cotton would have more body that the silk and alpaca lace yarn that I'm using. My yarn is great for drapey shawls, but you want a doily to be a little stiffer. I think I might get some cotton yarn to do any future doilies. Here's a picture of where I am now:

Here's a close up:

Please note that this was just pinned out quickly for photographic purposes. It will look a lot bettern when it's blocked correctly.

Tomorrow, the County is relining the sewers on our street. This means that we will not be allowed to use our water for 8 to 12 hours, starting at 8:30 am. As luck would have it, tomorrow is also a Teacher Work Day, which means the kids are out of school. Having no water with the kids at home is bad enough, but we're also not allowed to flush the toilets! Doing so could cause sewage backup in the house. So, I need to vacate my house tomorrow, and figure out what to do with the kids for 8 to 12 hours. Nothing's open at 8:30 in the morning, either. Bleah. It's already shaping up to be a crappy week.

AFO -- Almost Finished Object

Look what's blocking --

The Flutter Sleeve Cardigan, almost done. I have some shopping to do tomorrow that will take my near my LYS (Uniquities, Vienna, VA, wonderful place), so I'll stop off and get some buttons. After it's dried, I'll just sew it up, do the seed stitch border on the sleeves and the little tabs (if I decide to do them), and I'll be done. Looking at that picture, I see I need to go upstairs and do a little adjusting. Because my gauge was spot on, and because I was worried about this growing when wet, I didn't have to do too obsessive a job about blocking it. (Plus, I usually re-block it after all the seams have been sewn and all the trim added.) Overall it was a fun, fast knit, and I hope it looks good on me.

I did cast on the new Socks That Rock sock kit socks, even though I haven't finished my Spring Willow socks yet. The Spring Willow socks (aka Will Spring Never Come?) are knit on size 0s, while the STR socks are knit on 2s, so when I want to feel like I'm making quick progress, I work on the STR socks.

I was hoping to use the yarn that I'm in the progress of spinning to knit a doily, but I may not have the patience to wait until the yarn is done to cast on for that project, either, so keep your eye on this here bloggy thing for some pictures of that.

Spring is finally arriving, however, and that means two things here Chez T -- yardwork and baseball. It was 70 degrees yesterday, so I raked all the leaves out of the front garden and dug up a Mountain Laurel and a rhododendron (sob) that didn't make it through the drought-ridden past two years, even with my diligent watering. I have some ideas about what I want to replace them with, so it's off to the nursery for me soon.

Things get very busy with the baseball schedule. Sr. Jr. has practice three times a week, and Jr. Jr. has two practices. Add in all the other after-school activities, and it's a rare day when we're not rushing off somewhere. Games start next weekend. Some of Sr. Jr.'s games don't start until 7 pm, meaning we won't be home those (school) nights until around 9. In addition, he's on the "M1 call-up list." He plays in the M2 league for the 9,10, and 11 year olds. M1 is for the 12 and 13 year olds, but occasionally, due to illness or other conflicts, those teams are short a player, so they have this list of kids from the M1 league who are good players that they can call to fill in. I'm thrilled that Sr. Jr.'s coaches think he's good enough to be on this list, but it means there will be weeks with even MORE baseball than normal.

I'm still waiting for Vogue Knitting and Knitter's to show up, but Spin-Off arrived yesterday. I love Spin-Off. I usually read it slowly, savoring every last article and picture. I marvel at the beautiful skeins of handspun yarn that readers send in for the galleries. The Fall issue, however, was the only issue of Spin-Off I've ever been disappointed in. I actually skipped several articles! I know! Shocking! This issue looks great, though, so I'm going to savor it.

Finally, election politics. As I predicted, the extra long primary season has resulted in me being utterly sick of the whole thing. I thought Obama's speech on race was beautiful and brilliant. Like Jon Stewart said, "Wow. Someone's talking to the American people about race... as if they were adults!" Unfortunately, I don't think that the 24 hour news babblers are capable of acting like adults. In fact, I think it's in their contracts that they must scream and yell about everything and avoid any and all complexity or nuance. And it's not the point of opposition campaigning to act in an adult manner, either is it? Who will challenge McCain for accepting the endorsement of the religious right -- the same group that said America brought 9/11 on itself because of "the feminists, the abortionists, the gays, the lesbians, and the ACLU"? The very same people he once called the "agents of intolerance" are now his good buddies. This is just a slightly more sophisticated -- but no less cynical -- version of Willie Horton.