The Update Update

Here is the denouement of all the dangling ends of my posts of the last few months. Not that it has been all that suspenseful...
* Yes, I eventually finished my Olympic Sweater. I even wore it to England and back, as sweaters take up a lot of room in a suitcase. When I wore it to work this week, one of my knitting coworkers recognized the sweater from its pattern. Very impressive! That had never happened to me before. We had a long conversation about flaws in the pattern, including the difficulty of fitting the collar to the body. When I was riding home on the train, I realized that the sweater was an excellent illustration of that problem. Somehow, part of the collar seam had come loose and I had live stitches just hanging out, waiting to be rescued by my darning needle. When I get around to it, of course. I like the sweater a lot, but it does that hateful, slouchy cotton thing. Still, it's a much better fit than the last one.
* That show I was doing before I left for Europe is plugging along without me, just as I like it. The designer paid me for it when I got back in town. We occasionally discuss the project, but we're both finished with it. This is what I missed about design while I was working exclusively as an engineer: designers get to leave after opening.
* I bought a ticket to see Sir John in Love at ENO as a sort of pig in a poke. I like opera and I like Falstaff, I reasoned. Margaret the musical director assured me that it would be beautiful as it was composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. She was absolutely correct. My previous exposure to his work was hymns, hymns, and more hymns. They're lovely, but not terribly exciting. His orchestral work, though, is amazing. Naturally, iTunes doesn't have a recording of the opera. Sure, it's fairly obscure, but they have forty-odd recordings of his hymns, folk songs, etc. Maybe iTunes isn't such instant gratification after all.
* My phone changer did work in Europe. So did my ipod charger, though I hardly used my ipod that week. While I was walking around Paris, on a beautiful rainy evening, with my ipod stowed away in my bag, I began to wonder how much we lose with our ipods. Not hearing loss, but things we don't hear because we're too busy listening to the Gipsy Kings. Don't get me wrong, I love my ipod. It makes public transportation bearable. But what about all that ambient noise?
* Hey, everyone waiting for a postcard from Europe from me. Don't hold your breath or swear at the post office. I forgot to mail the cards that I spent two hours composing at a cafe and found them at the bottom of my bag the other day. I was sick, I was busy, post offices in Paris keep weird hours. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But, if you ask nicely, I can give you your beautiful French postcard. Sorry, no naked ladies.