A Slight Improvement

There's a little bit of good news chez Libran. Jez seems to be a little more alert and she's eating and drinking a tiny bit. And just a few minutes ago, a dove landed on the deck near where she was sleeping and she reacted almost like she normally does when prey lands within what she considers striking distance. Then the dove flew off and she returned to a lethargic state. At this point, though, we're grabbing on to anything that resembles progress. Yesterday she even sat in my lap for a bit while I was knitting. It was almost like old times.

Thanks to everyone for providing support through this tough period. It has helped.

Knitting Progress
I acquired the required 4mm crochet hook and cast on for the Too-Many-Choices Top and managed to knit almost two inches. The Twize (pronounce twee-zay) is a worsted weight bamboo yarn and is relatively easy to knit. It does split because it's about a kajillion ply. The resulting fabric is soft and drapey. Once again, I'm playing fast and loose with gauge. I did not get gauge with my gauge swatch; the swatch was about 1/4" too small. Going up a needle size didn't help much; the swatch was an 1/8" too small and I didn't like the way the fabric looked. However, it now appears that I am getting gauge, assuming that I'm counting correctly (and that's always iffy). So I'll blithely knit on and see what happens. I'm loving the color of this yarn:



The color photographed lighter than it actually is; the colors in the yarn are turquoise, purple, and black. I think that the Twocean colorway really does reflect the colors of a tropical ocean.

Eating Locally
I haven't been successful at all with One Local Summer. None of our meals recently have been 100% locally produced. And with Jez being sick, I didn't go to the farmers market on Saturday. Last night, though, we had dinner at our favorite local restaurant. The appetizer special was an eggplant salad that was out of this world and contained all local produce. If you can get your hands on Sweet 100 tomatoes, do so immediately! Sweet 100s are tiny little tomatoes that are amazingly sweet. For the salad, Chef Patrick deep-fried them for eight seconds, then removed the skins. He put them in a balsamic vinaigrette that had shallots and a touch of garlic. The tomatoes and vinaigrette were poured over lightly fried eggplant that was so tender it melted in your mouth. The salad was finished with a combination of finely minced herbs: thyme, parsely, and basil. It was outstanding and that easily could have been my entire meal. Tom and I had a very nice evening, which we desperately needed after this past week.

Today we're going to visit his mother so he can do some work on her house. Unless there's yard work to do, I'll get some more knitting in.

Have a great Labor Day!