Another post from the missing month. This originally appeared on 25 June 2004

Back to knitting.

Having successfully restarted my younger daughter’s raglan in Regia 6-ply Crazy Color, I can now report a modicum of progress:

It’s interesting to compare this pattern of striping with the one I was getting back when I was working in the round:

Same yarn, different width. If I had the strength I might even begin again, using the same strategy I employed for my Typeset Tee. That would make even wider stripes, but I’m too lazy to begin this no-think fill-in project for a third time.

The Play’s the Thing

How did I manage to knit off six inches each of the back and front in one night? I was at an audition.

I’ve mentioned before that The Resident Male was in a production of King Lear back in March (he played Kent). He has just tried out for a small role in a staging of Macbeth. But I didn’t go with him. My older daughter is caught up by the whole thing. At 13, she went to try out for one of the boy’s roles – Fleance (2 lines) or even MacDuff’s son (about a dozen lines) . She dutifully prepared her audition piece – Quince’s prologue to the miniplay in Midsummer Night’s Dream in Act 5, and read for the part. I told her that she’d be the youngest person there by a dozen years or more, but she was undaunted. She even made her way through the infamous tongue twister

Whereat with blade,
with bloody, blameful blade,
he bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

Something I can’t see myself managing. I was tickled that she did so well. I have no idea if she got the part. Callbacks are on July 1st, but whether or not she’ll be cast she did us all proud.

The Latest Buzz

House nonsense goes apace. Yesterday’s big setback was the discovery of a huge colony of bees nesting in the floor below the sleeping porch. They get in through an old drainage pipe that sticks out through the stucco. The electricians working on wiring that part of the house were less than delighted to find the things. I was even less amused.

Under Massachusetts law the only available option besides letting them bee is to hire a licensed beekeeper to relocate the colony (not that I’d want to poison the little buggers). The hive must be removed after the bees are moved, as its contents would decay over time and cause even more problems. We’re trying to get a fix on how long the bees have been there. The longer they’ve been hoarding honey, the larger the removal cost, extent of the demolition required to get at the hive, and subsequent repair costs will be.

The only consolation is that the beekeepers will test the honey for edibility. If it’s uncontaminated (highly likely), we get to keep it. If there’s any quantity, I intend to have mead brewed from it so we may at the least, drink to both our and the bees’ new homes. Needless to say, things like this are not covered by insurance.