What I Don't Understand:

*Pretty much anything to do with computers. I simply cannot process the idea that everything with computers is based on zeroes and ones.This is not logical, says I.

*Facebook. I joined once years ago, and within minutes I was notified that I might want to be friends with so-and-so, who went to my high school. And graduated years ahead of me. No thanks and it creeped me out. I didn't understand then that it wasn't that person himself who was trying to be my friend; it was some computer/mathy algorithm thingy putting us together. I deleted my account the same day I opened it.

A year or so ago I opened a new FB account with a pseudonym, just like famous people might do. (Do they?) I only wanted to see my daughters' photos and news and keep up with my bookclub. But a couple of months ago I decided that using a pseudonym was just silly, and I "changed" my name to my real one, and set tight security, to the extent that I understood the settings, and now I am more confused. I have no idea who the people are that FB says I might be interested in following. Is FB sending MY name out as a sort of potential creepy stalker? I DON'T KNOW.

*Pinterest.  I joined, again---briefly---and I understand that it is a "virtual" bulletin board, but I've never used a real bulletin board, so I just wasn't interested in it.

*Twitter. NO NO NO NO NO! Too much information, and I don't mean the creepy, salacious kind of TMI, just literally TMI. Way too much to read, and I always felt obligated to read everything anyone tweeted. I deleted that account.

*Instagram. My granddaughter created an account for me so that I could see her drawings and photographs and those of my younger daughter. But I have yet to figure out how to see them. I think they invited me or I invited them to my, um, nothing, but so far, no luck in checking out what is there.  

***Followers. I really don't understand this. I am not on Pinterest or Twitter or whatever Google is talking about, but I keep getting notices that I am being followed by so-and-so. What are they following when I don't even post anything? I did google myself once; I have an unusual spelling of both my first and last names so I was easy to find. However, there is one other ME, and she is a physical fitness trainer in New Zealand. I wonder how many people are following her, thinking they are following me, whoever me is since I'm not even on these sites. My niece was following the other me, thinking that it was real me, until I clued her in. 

AND, weirdest of all, I keep getting notices that someone wants to link to me on LinkedIn.I am not on LinkedIn and never have been on LinkedIn, so how is this happening?

Oh yeah.  It's that computer/mathy algorithm thingy. That I don't understand.

Very Random

In the news.

First up:  Baxter

He lives to escape this house and be an outdoor cat. We started out by letting him out on the deck with a baby gate at the top of the stairs.

Pfttt he sneered, jumped over the gate, and down the stairs he went.

So then we (royal we, meaning my husband) built a tall gate/door using lattice.

Oh, pulleeze, said Baxter.  And then he jumped up and over, and went down the steps.

So then dH put lattice above the other lattice so that he couldn't climb over.

Again? sniffed Baxter, and found all the weak spots between pieces of lattice and wiggled out through them, and, of course, down the stairs he went.

NOW, we think we have him trapped.

He climbs up the lattice a.n.d, can't figure out (so far) how to go across, upside down, the horizontal piece at the top.  There is also a piece coming back from the corner of the post and he can't (so far) get around that.  

So he is confined, for now.  I'm not betting against him.

It is sort of an ugly solution, but maybe when the lattice is stained to match the rest of the deck, it won't be so bad. I hope.

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In further news, inquiring minds have been inquiring What did Knittergran get for Christmas? (You know you have.)

This:

What is it?

That's what I asked too; turns out it is a boot jack. I have a pair of boots that I just love, but I can only wear them when my husband is home to pull them off of me. Problem solved, except for TSA agents. If I fly alone and want to wear my boots, well, I can't. I don't think I can ask the TSA agents to pull them off of my feet, and I don't really want to carry my boot jack with me. Takes up space that can hold knitting!

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Which reminds me:  knitting.  

I frogged the huge sock and have started over with the yarn that matches the finished sock.

And I finished this:

made from this:

It's a simple generic pattern.  (Cast 120 stitches on to size 7 circular needles, knit until you don't want to anymore, or until you have just enough yarn to bind off with, use Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, and you have a cowl.)

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In other news, I heard a commercial on NPR for a program called News in Slow French, I checked it out, and I love it. I have a subscription now and I can listen to it anytime and for as long as I want. Since my French-speaking friend moved back to Quebec a few years ago, I haven't had anyone to speak French with, and I don't want to continue to lose what I had. This program is perfect. There is also News in Slow Spanish. 

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Soon I am off to the gym where I work out with a trainer who is trying to kill me.

He is not this scary, but ALMOST!

So far, he has not succeeded in getting rid of me, but he keeps trying. OUCH!

If he continues to not succeed, I will live to write another post.

Time to Frog

Rats.

When I pulled out my very organized knitting project (hah!) at last week's knit night, I discovered that I had left the YARN home. I had finished one sock and was going to start the second at knitting.

Well, no problem!  Knit night is held in a yarn shop. So I bought a skein of sock yarn and started on a new pair. The label looked familiar, and I realized that it was the same brand as in the socks I had left the yarn for at home. Score! Because I love the yarn.

Yup, same brand, but different yarn. I didn't discover this until yesterday when I realized that one sock was not like the other; it was much larger. Ooops.  

Sallyknit read the labels, and the gauge for one yarn was quite different from the other. I should have used fewer stitches and maybe one size larger needles.  

So now I frog. I really need to:

a. read labels
b. make gauge swatches (probably not going to happen)

Smile!

If I Could Pick One Holiday

to go full tilt on, said the man across the aisle and one row ahead of me on the bus, it would be Valentine's Day.

I call bs on that. What man really loves Valentine's Day, c'mon.

I took a Greyhound bus last week for the first time in, oh, five decades or so, to get to Atlanta from Savannah. I had helped a friend drive from West Virginia to Port Royal, SC where she rented a house for a break from the winter at home. Anyone I tell that I took the bus says with a worried look, Oh, how was it? as if it were a new, mysterious way to get around.

Well, it was just like flying, except nowhere near as crowded, and on the ground instead of in the air. And the real bonus:  I didn't have to deal with airports on either end of the trip. But I do wonder how Greyhound stays in business if all of their routes are as poorly travelled as this one was. 

The one thing that has stayed the same from five decades ago is the people on the bus, specifically the odd ones. The man who spoke about his favorite holiday spent the entire three-hour trip between Savannah and Macon, GA trying to persuade some woman that she and he should be in a "relationship," a word that I heard him say over and over.

Well, good luck, sir.

When I last took a bus trip, it was over five hours long and a young woman who got on in one small town spent her time on the bus shrieking about problems she was having, and how she was going to get off at such-and-such town and kill herself. 

Well, alrighty, then.  

At another town, a man got on and decided that he could help her. I am suspicious of what help he was planning to offer, but they both got off the bus a few towns away from where he got on.  

I am sure that just as many slightly-off kilter people travel by air, but the planes are too loud to allow eavesdropping, thank goodness.

However! In the non-bus-related portion of the trip, I loved the Spanish Moss. It was much more lush than any I saw in Savannah, gorgeous. (I may have taken a lot of photos of the moss.)

 

We ate lots of seafood, including at this cute place, which collects dollar bills donated and signed by customers. They covered almost every surface in the place, including on the ceilings in some of the rooms.  When all of the surfaces fill up with dollars, the owner takes some down and donates them to a local charity, which accepts the dollars even though they are signed, drawn on and painted. The bank accepts them and they are probably destroyed and replaced by the treasury.  

 

We ate here one night, and watched as shrimp boats came in for the night.

We did very little shopping in Beaufort but I like the name of this business:

Guess what they sell.

And of course, we went to my favorite place, the beach.

It is at Hunting Island State Park, and it is a beautiful place, with a very narrow road leading through the pines and low shrubbery native to the area. There weren't many birds at all, but we did see a male bluebird. Who knew? They like the beach?

This is the lighthouse at the park:

Nope, it is not near the water, and that is because it HAS been near the water, and then IN the water since it was built in the 1800s. Storms constantly change the shoreline here, the lighthouse has been moved several times and since it is no longer used, it's just a tourist attraction with the addition of ---of course!---a gift shop.

Now, back to normal, which apparently means gray rainy weather. 

And knitting.

I Found A Knitting Shop!

Of course!

Morning in Port Royal, SC

Spanish Moss

I returned from Austin in time to go to West Virginia to go to Port Royal, South Carolina.

Phew.....

Look at this gorgeous moss!

Back to Georgia in a few days. But first, lots of seafood please.