off to Ireland in a few days; new word for snow

Until today, as a former-North-Dakotan Minnesotan, I thought that I had experienced almost every kind of snow.

I left to go on my training run-walk this evening (if you, addressing ,of course, the legions of souls who patronize this here site have not noticed, I'm raising money to cure leukemia and lymphoma, see sidebar at right). I didn't believe the forecasts for snow. It was warmish (34 degrees fahrenheit) and dry (my hands were really dry at least). I started my 4th run time (12 minutes left of the run-walk) and I noticed tiny snow flake. They got bigger. I started inhaling them. It was a good kind of inhale, fresh and clean. After my last run period, I was walking down 25th Street and I heard the snow fall. I had never heard it before. The snow was icy-ish and frequent. It made a sound like paper being rippled. A few people commented on my lack of winter clothing and pitied me for getting caught in the snow fall, until they saw from my expression how much I was enjoying it. I can only explain my recent acquaintance with this sound with a) avoiding the snow fall by watching Star Trek episodes one after the other. b) being in a car or on a bike during this kind of snowfall c) global warming introduced me to the paper crackle snow.

I recently became fascinated with the idea of reintroducing the classical education to the young people in K-12. Not in the home schooled christian sorta way though. It just seems sensible to incite debate during junior high, instead of continuing to force students to memorize shit. If you let the younger kids know that the memorization part of their lives will be over at some point, they might get into more it. They might find songs to memorize stuff. I'm all for the trivium. I might even make a t-shirt that says trivium on it.

"You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, and now you're even older. You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, and now you're older still."
--They Might Be Giants

Erik's is ok if you are looking for something obsure

O.K. I have had a personal grudge against Erik's Bike shop ever since one of their stores opened in Dinkytown right next to the Varsity Bike shop, the bike shop that always had my back as a student at the U. This weekend we were looking for a race for an axle for a Giant road bike from the 1980's. We went to Freewheel, the Hub, Penn Cycles. We tried to go to Grand Performance and Express Bikes (they are closed on Sunday!). We tracked down Rice Street Bikes, where the bike was purchased originally. Now it is a frisbee golf store.

We finally gave in and went to the Erik's bike shop in Dinkytown. There was a young man manning the store, all alone. "If you like pina coladas" was cheerfully playing the Muzak and I felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. He found the races! In like 4 minutes. Pretty impressive.

A friend and I spent the afternoon yesterday being vulture-like at a yarn store that is going out of business on 58th Street and Nicollet. I snagged 10 skeins of 100% mercerized cotton for $20, some little circular needles and sock yarn that actually makes making wool socks cheaper than buying them. I'm looking for US #19 circulars that are 40 inches long to make t-shirt rugs. I think that I should be able to make Tubey with the cotton. I hope that it is springy enough. I made the swatch last night and it was beautiful.

knitting crazy, free beethoven cd's

Last week I actually did a really very "Office Space"-ish thing. I was manning the front desk at my office and I actually started to knit to pass the time because there was nothing going on. No students, no emails, no phone calls (a couple days earlier a young man called who seemed unfamiliar with voice messages. Kati: You called the Center for Writing? Guy: Yah, but no one answered. Kati: You didn't even get a voice message? Guy: Oh, well someone answered, I just couldn't talk to them.)

So, I added a little knitting progress thing in the sidebar. Pretty cool.

I've started on a hat for my roommate. He has a yellow winter jacket with gray accents so I'm making him a gray hat with dark blue accents. I like that he will remind people of the new Guthrie or IKEA. Will it make people realize that the new Guthrie looks like IKEA? At Christmas my boyfriend's mom served scrambled eggs in a beautiful dark blue bowl. I immediately thought of IKEA.

If you go to the Orchestra on your way to work this morning, they are giving out pastries and Beethoven CD's.

My transmission is toast. Luckily I have rainy day money. Money for that weird rainy day on Tuesday when I took my car into be looked at.