This is relevant to my interests

From Free Vintage Crochet

I've been re-reading the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I loved the books as a child, picked them up again a year or two ago, and have found they make superb comfort reading.

Last night I noticed that Laura was knitting a "nubia" for her sister, Mary. Given my past interest and work in Nubian studies, that stuck out a bit.

As near as I can seem to find in very brief Google and Ravelry browse, a "nubia" or "nubian" is a long scarf or shawl, wide enough to drape gently over the head and around the neck. This PDF from Ragged Soldier gives a modern example along with an historic illustration. They seem to have come into fashion in the late 19th Century and lasted through the early 20th.  There are vintage/historic crochet and knitting patterns available as well for free and on eBay and as Kindle "books" on Amazon. (I strongly recommend searching the internet for patterns found for sale on Amazon, as they may simple be free patterns converted (or not) to Kindle file format.

Image by mek22 via Flickr

Not sure this is a Nubian goat, but photo kicks ass.

The term  seems to have no connection to Nubia the place or Nubians the people, despite both terms being used. I thought maybe it referred to Nubian goats, but they don't look much like fiber animals. Then I thought maybe the droopy ears and the scarf over the head looked sort of alike.

But, no, I finally found this:

Nubia. [From Latin nubes, a cloud] A knitted or crocheted scarf of Soft, fleecy material, worn about the head and neck. (Source)

So, no telling people their hand-knit or hand-crocheted scarves make them look like goats. Probably for the best.

In other news, the weather has cooled of here and my head and hands are making it felt. Hopefully will level out soon.
Also, the idiotic Personhood Amendment failed. So I will have no reason to use the phrase "pry my IUD out of my cold, dead uterus."

Dammit, George RR Martin

Image via WikipediaI finished A Dance with Dragons two nights ago.  Mr. Martin needs to cut it the hell out with the cliff hanger endings, especially if he is going to take brazillions of years between installments.  This is not good for my patience.

Otherwise, um, we're fiddling with my thyroid dose again trying to find the sweet spot.  I'll have to get the lab work done after we've moved to see if we got it right or need to fiddle more.
I have had another round of Botox shots for migraine.  Took a bit longer to feel (or not feel?) the numbness and paralysis in my forehead.  Still getting migraines, but not quite so many.
I am in an ongoing odyssey of trying to get replacement CPAP supplies and possibly repair before we move.  I have been trying for a month actually, but referrals keep getting lost or not sent and it is seriously starting to piss me off.  I am sensitive enough to stress and extra activity even with the CPAP but sleeping without it (or without it operating properly) will make everything WAAAAYYYYY worse.  And increase the time for my recovery to baseline functionality.  So, weeks or months to recover from the move, etc., instead of days or weeks.

I am still tired and shaky and hurty and having sleep problems after overdoing the packing last week.  Grumble.  The whole moderation and pacing thing with CFS is a pain in the ass sometimes all the time.

Still packing.  I have a lot of yarn.  Way more than I thought.  Mostly single skeins of acrylic or acrylic blend intended for amigurumi.  So I should, like, make more amigurumi and stuff.  Derp.

I have set aside my emergency travel projects and stash and a pile of actual paper books in addition to my Kindle.  I may have done that even before setting aside the important papers that should be easily available.

Oreo has had a bath and is grumpily curled up on my lap in a blanket to keep warm.  He finds the packing deeply confusing and a bit frightening and so has been even more of my furry shadow than usual.

Little Bodice Ripper on the Prairie?

I have a deep and abiding fondness for the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Read them as a child and adored them, then picked them up again a couple years ago as comfort reading and discovered they were still wonderful. As an archaeologist and historian and general nerd, I was also interested in more information about Laura and her family. So, there's this book - Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Donald Zochert.  I scored it from Paperback Swap.  The cover is tripping me out.

The front cover isn't so bad.  They were clearly trying to capitalize on the Little House on the Prairie TV show without getting too far into potential lawsuit territory, which explains the Michael Landon looking dude on the left there.

Then there's the back cover:

Yeah.  I have many questions.
I'm assuming that's Laura over there on the left.
What isn't clear is why she has her blouse unbuttoned halfway to her navel.  Or why she has short, Brady Bunch hair.
On the right, I'm guessing Almanzo Wilder.  I was unaware until now that his family  had Neanderthal ancestry of sufficient recentness to give him a really distinctive brow-ridge.   Or that he apparently highlighted his hair.

Seriously - WTF?

The author, Zochert, writes in a weird, simplistic kind of folksy way that is sort of like Laura's.  I can't decide if this is annoying yet.

I definitely have not hit any bodice ripping yet.

Dizzy

Nice low-key day again today.  I went and bought some new reading material.   I'm shopping for spindles and spindle kits.  And while I'm at it,  I'm collecting titles of resources on the history of textile production, archaeology and textiles, and in particular textiles in the ancient Near East (and Egypt, for those who have decided that Egypt wasn't part of the Near East).  I'm hoping for a library excursion some time next week.
Partly this is out of curiosity - textiles were not really something I paid much attention to prior to getting interested in knitting and crocheting -  and partly with a vague idea of developing a continuing education course about textiles and the ancient Near East, possibly with a bit of hands-on fun with drop spindles and wool and/or linen.
Actually, I should amend the above - textile production was something I worked on for my BA paper long, long ago, but I didn't delve much into it.  I should probably dig that thing out again and have a look at it though...

I should be doing stuff

Still recuperating from a very busy week and so spent most of the day reading in bed again.  I don't know if it's the weather or tiredness or what but my pain levels are back up too, especially in my hands, which makes working on the Xmas stuff not really happen so much.  And my right hand has been going numb just from holding a paperback book, so I think I'll give it a bit more rest.

Anyway, we did go and get our Xmas tree last night from Home Depot.  I rode around on one of the courtesy scooter thingies because spasms plus pain plus tired plus giant-ass store does not make for a good mix.  This one was nice enough but very slow.  Very reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode when George winds up in the low-speed chase on the scooters.
Our tree is very nice - a Douglas fir this year - and it smells wonderful.  And we found wintergreen plants for sale and scored one.  I was very excited - there's a part in Farmer Boy  about collecting wintergreen berries and leaves to eat and use for flavorings, so extra nerd coolness.  They should do well in our window - the need indirect light which is perfect.

And I've missed a day again

Forgot to post yesterday.  Whoops.  I have a bunch of polymer clay to play with though, which is very exciting. I'm not sure if I want to share what I'm planning to do with it.  Partly I'm not sure if it will work.  Partly I'm hoping if it does work that I can start production for sale on Etsy.  And combined with that, I'm slightly worried that if I discuss or feature it broadly before I have the shop up and going someone will take my idea and run with it.  Not very generous of me, I know, but after the time I've spent in academia I'm ever so slightly paranoid.

I've started a gauge swatch for one of the Xmas gifts I'm making.
Oh, and I achieved all of last week's goals last week!

I've also managed to have technical difficulties with Blogger (I was trying to schedule my Thanksgiving post for, you know, Thanksgiving and it kept posting it right now.  Stupid.)

Today, however, I don't feel like doing much of anything but reading.  I'm on another Wikipedia marathon about the USSR, spies, human intelligence gathering, and numbers stations, among other things.  Numbers stations are essentially dedicated shortwave radio stations that broadcast Morse code, numbers sequences, and/or spoken alphabet strings (as in A=Alpha, B=Baker, etc).  Some of them have music at the beginning or end of broadcast sequences.  They are almost certainly a communication method for spies of various agencies, in many cases probably sending coded messages that can be decoded with a one-time pad.  They also give me a serious case of the creeps for some reason.  Just the idea and the recordings of some of them.  No idea why that is.  Maybe the disembodied voice(s) speaking random numbers and letters.  One of them features a child's voice as the recording as well, which is extra creepy to me.
Anyone who cares to have a listen can go to the dedicated page for The Conet Project on archive.org

Meh

Bad day on the pain front - probably a mix of the result of extra spasm-y goodness lately plus all the stupid human tricks I had to do for the doctors yesterday. Napped much of the day.

Found out that the neuropsych cognitive testing does allow for differing ranges of intelligence, so if there are deficits for me it should be clear and not be explained as meeting "an average, so you're fine." Not trying to be a snob or anything but that was a bit of a concern for me because I've always tested well above "average" usually into the 99th percentile or higher. And I'll be really interested to see a) what the testing entails and b) what the results show. I certainly feel like there has been some decline, but whether that will show up in more objective testing will be interesting to see. Still waiting to hear when the testing is scheduled.

Went and watched the hubby's coworkers play softball and chatted with people. Ignored the less than tactful question from someone about why I wasn't playing. I totally wish I had thought to respond with "because the softball will dent my cane." Oreo got to come along and had fun begging for food and playing with a little girl. My kind of girl too - she was wary of him at first but then dived right in for petting, and kissing, and "woofing" at him. Ridiculously adorable. And Oreo was a very good little gentleman.

I'm now sacked out on the couch waiting until I can dose myself with more ibuprofen and re-reading Mairelon the Magician, soon to be followed by The Magician's Ward by Patricia C Wrede.