virginia woolf, by her sister, vanessa bell
Posted by Hello

Screwpull Love

I love corkscrews. In my old place, I had a bunch of them hung around one of my kitchen windows for ready access at a moment’s notice. My favorite was one that had been at our shore home and that I grabbed on my very last trip there before the house was sold. It was a beauty. Stamped “Made in West Germany” it was a great way to open wine. A tiny bit complicated at first, it was an amazingly nifty little piece of equipment loved by most, but not all, of my wine swilling friends. I also had standard Italian corkscrews, waiter’s corkscrews and some novelty corkscrews such as the old Zig-Zag model from France, which was resurrected by Restoration Hardware.

I had never tried the Screwpull until I was at my friend Lisa’s for dinner one night. I couldn’t get over how easy it was. But I was unwilling to part with the hundred bucks required to get me one of my very own. But the other day I walked into our local department store, Karstadt, and they were selling one at a closeout price of twenty five euros. I grabbed it and brought it home and tried it immediately! Amazing. This one is made by Solingen, a big German knife and metal manufacturer. I love it.

I'm Blue Today

I’m blue today for a thousand reasons and none at all. I am feeling isolated from the people I love, my family and friends, and I miss my old life and working for Tom. I miss my things, my kitchen stuff, and my paintings and pottery. I think if I looked around and saw some more familiar things I would feel better. My paintings and stuff are scattered around South Jersey. I have a silly little spreadsheet telling me what is where. I brought a few things, very few.

Our apartment does have one thing that makes me feel good, loads and loads of books everywhere. Chris reads as much as I do. Often we spend our evening quietly with our noses stuck in some book or another. When we went to Ireland, we were so thrilled to go into the great Waterstone’s Book Shop and see stuff in English that we bought some crazy amount of books, twenty, I think, which earned the heavy sticker on our bags coming back.

Chris was recently in England and picked up Bill Clinton’s My Life for me. Very thoughtful of him. I have been dying to read it. I know the book has been getting savaged by some of the critics but I am enjoying it thus far. His childhood was a minefield and it is fairly obvious, to me at least, that many of his misdeeds, or perceived misdeeds, were a direct result of it. I didn’t agree with everything Clinton did, but I thought he was basically a good man, brilliant in many ways, definitely charismatic and overwhelmingly compassionate. This is very apparent in the book. I’d rather have Clinton with his indiscretions any day than what we have now, a liar who sent young people to their deaths to further his agenda among so many other horrid things.

Knitting Continental Style

I am feeling very good about myself having taken the time and effort to teach myself to knit in the continental style which means that I am holding the yarn in my left hand and picking it, rather than throwing it with my right hand. It seems easier and more natural now that I have learned it.

My first big project using this new method will hopefully be a blanket for Marcus and Allison’s new baby girl, Kendall. I have to go downtown and buy some yarn today and get rolling. I am looking forward to this!

I am currently finishing a scarf for myself. Of all the stuff I have knit these past months, nothing has been kept for my own use. I really need to knit something for Chris too. I was thinking about a pair of socks! He has dozens of socks without mates and I am just dying to throw them into the trash. Maybe if I knit him some new pairs, he can be persuaded to start tossing the old unmatched ones!