Sleeves and Thurber

Just take a look at my Feedjit over below on the right. Someone, someone with an IP in Somerville, Massachusetts, seems to be frequenting the environs here at Stacie's Adventures. Almost every single day! And I know I'm not that interesting! A stalker perhaps?

It is possible that TWO someones might be doing that, but I am going to assume for now that it is DD#2, Singing Daughter (the second might be her BF, Piano Man). I think DD#2 might be wondering if her mama is ever going to get back to her Gryffindor sweater.


Yes!

These are the two sleeves, being knitted simultaneously, with a Thurber dog book end gracing them so elegantly.

Not that I've gotten much knitting done this week, rather little actually. But when I got going, I made real progress.

Did I mention Thurber? I am a crazed JT nut, and regularly read his essays in the bathroom.

That is no slight upon his humor or writing style.

Presently I have been guffawing at My Life and Hard Times, though the stories sometimes start to seem quite similar to each other. Thurber thought nothing of sacrificing his family members' reputations as sane individuals if it would make for a good joke.

To wit: He describes in "The Night the Ghost Got In" that his mother on the second floor decided the only way to alert the neighbors and get them to call the police was to throw a shoe at their bedroom window, which of course shattered and woke them in a panic. (That's not the character assassinating part.) A few minutes later, Thurber says (assuming his typically self-promoting heroic son role), she "made as if to throw another shoe, not because there was further need of it but, as she later explained, because the thrill of heaving a shoe through a window glass had enormously taken her fancy. I prevented her." The quiet understatement of those three words makes it that much richer.

In fact everyone in his family seems a bit dotty (or a lot senile) except James.

Here's a nice link if you're interested in the whole catalog of options in his published works. I just pick up old copies at yard sales and used book stores.























Now, look closely at this photo below.
Can you see right in the middle a small green Satsuma tangerine baby? As they say on cuteoverload.com, Ahn.

It's starting to seem quite promising for a bumper crop this year, come early December. On good years, they are so juicy and sweet, not to mention that you can just zip off their skins, and that Satsumas have NO SEEDS, that it's just like eating a little bit of paradise every single day. Until they are all gone in early January. For now, though, we get to watch the small green fruits grow larger and turn lighter, green mixed with orange, and then orange, and then time to start testing them (DH takes this job very seriously), and finally, a big bowl of them on the table at all times.

Ahhhhh.

Must get dinner going so I can knit this evening while DH and I watch something on TV.

Happy knitting, happy autumn, and happy Thurbering, all!

All men (and, one would hope he thinks, women) should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why. --James Thurber

3 comments:

molly said...

:) Okay, you found me out. I like to know what my family's up.

<3

Mary Anne said...

ahhh, that little tangerine looks so sweet, lucky you!

James Thurber, wbat a writer. I haven't read his books in years but you've encouraged me, thank you.

Denise said...

What a great post - I haven't read Thurber in ages! My parents had some of his works, but I don't think I really 'got' his humour as a teen - time to revisit them - thanks for the reminder :)