Big old museum

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art one day. It was big... I'd been once before with Elaine (reported in this long and rambling post) and Stephen had never been. We went especially to see the exhibit of Manet and Degas, but of course, there is so much to see! 

First just a couple of Egyptian things, a lovely sheep, for example. 

This is a "mummy portrait." Faces painted on boards and placed on mummies. I found this one surprising and very modern looking. 

It's hard to take pictures of a giant painting, but here is a bit of Christ's leg, as painted by Manet. 

And the legs of a dead Toreador, also by Manet. Just look at those silk stockings!

Three girls peeling potatoes, dressed in vibrant red! By Leon Frederic. You notice this one from across the room, and I found it surprising they were not noble ladies doing handiwork, with those red dresses.  

So many paintings. So many other things! The gift shop alone would take a day to explore fully. 

And so we say farewell to the Met museum. Perhaps I'll be back again when I am 80 or so. 

Really, tomorrow

Guess what, I cannot face the millions of pictures I took at the Met. I volunteered at the VIFF cinema this morning and am going to see Metropolis this evening, with live music and everything. Still jetlagged, I'm just not feeling the blogging energy. 

So I give you this 19th-century nekkid man as a placeholder, and will be back again tomorrow!

Back at home

I was away and now I'm back. 

We went to New York City because Stephen was involved in a "music and art inspired by physics" event at Hunter College. We stayed nearby in Midtown Manhattan; we went to rehearsals and performances and Stephen watched a day of recordings while I found a yarn shop and other things. We ate with the artists and performers, often in Brooklyn. We looked at skyscrapers and other things; took the free ferry to Staten Island; went to the park. I didn't include any pictures of our day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- maybe tomorrow. 

This was the view from the roof of our hotel 

The stage set up for a rehearsal

Look at all those different yellows

As close as we got, from the Staten Island ferry

Outside Knitty City yarn shop

It has that pretending-to-be-handknit look

Hoo boy, the building actually moves on wheels

A coffee shop

And now we are home, the leaves are quite golden around here; my Christmas cactus bloomed in my absence. Tune in tomorrow to see if I can face the gazillion pictures I took at the Met. 

The state of the knitting

Sometimes Blogger still surprises me, after all these years. For example, today it uploaded all my pictures in the opposite order to what I wanted. It is all knitting, and I suppose I could just tell my story backwards, but I really think I have to move things around and get it the way I want. 

Ahem.

The main thing I am knitting these days is my blue cotton top. I really want it done by, um, the day after tomorrow, but I realize now that that might not happen. 

This is the front, with the faux cable. The dotted line there shows where I started increasing for the sleeves. Of course the front and back are not the same, so I have to do what I can to make sure things match up.

That cable was such a pain to knit that I did something different on the back, copying a chart from an old Rowan pattern. Now I think the back will be better than the front. The troubles I have....

That project requires me to look at the pattern and keep track of my rows, and it just was not suitable for film-lineup knitting. Of course, when I got home from a day of watching movies, I was not full of liveliness and concentration, so it didn't get much attention at all during the last week or two. 

I took my scarf of scraps to lineups. I am almost finished the bright green, moving through some greys. I will have extra grey and am not sure how the whole thing will come together. We'll just have to wait and see. 

One day something made me not take that scarf, but to start on a dishcloth instead. I can't now recall what the issue was, but now I have a 3/4-knitted dishcloth. 

I ran out of the "mortar" colour, added a new one, ran out of the "brick" yarn and so will finish with bricks and mortar all one colour. That is the joy of knitting dishcloths! Who really cares what colour it is?! 

On Friday we will set off to New York City for a week. I will tell you more about that shortly, but one of the things I have to do to prepare is find a suitable knitting project for planes, hotel rooms, sitting in the park or the Shake Shack. I bought this yarn called Jack O'Lantern at the Knit City a while ago (oh, my goodness, I didn't tell you about that...) and it is perfect for Zoolandia, an oldie but goody from Stephen West. Kind of interesting, kind of easy pattern to remember. If New York is really boring, I'll have this for Halloween! (I hope it won't be.)

Knit City was a big fair and sale of all things knitty, at the end of September. There were tons of vendors and I think I did well to only buy a couple of skeins of this yarn. I don't think you can see, but there are tiny sparkles throughout the yarn! Two skeins will make kind of a giant shawl!

I don't tend to do much for Halloween, especially not hand-knit a specially spooky shawl, but this could be kinda fun! And even for the rest of the season, it is just my murky colours. 

Back tomorrow (or the next day) with travel plans! I don't suppose I will take the laptop with me, so Blogtober might end sooner than planned, but one never knows. 

Festival roundup 2023

I am home from my last VIFF movie. It was Pot au Feu, originally titled La Passion de Dodin Bouffant, a movie about cooking and food and passion and love and more cooking. To honour it, a teeny bit, I fried some shallots with my frozen hamburger patty for dinner. This was partly to clean out the fridge -- those shallots had been there all week, waiting for me to find a moment to eat at home!

Movies I saw this festival: 

• Swan Song
• Mr Dressup
• I'm Only Here for the Riot
• Old Oak
• Octopus Skin
• Il Boeme
• Pot au Feu
• Winter Chants
• The Promised Land

Octopus Skin was kind of weird; one had questions. I saw it because I was ushering, and actually had to dip out at the very end, so the big question is whether any of the questions were answered. I suspect not. Winter Chants was probably better than I thought, but I found myself nodding off! 

Il Boeme was full of opera, singing, Italian sights and sounds. We learn at the very beginning that our hero dies of syphilis; which of the beautiful women in (or out of) their wonderful period costumes gives it to him? 

I kept bumping into people in the lineups. That's one of the great things about a film festival -- talking to people in line! I know a few co-volunteers, but I seemed to come across them all the time. And they knew the person behind them or someone passing by... I got a lot of recommendations for even more films. I can't do the 2 or 3-a-day, especially since Stephen was out of town these last few days. No one but me to come up with something to eat at the end of the day! But I am happy with my first VIFF; looking forward to many more. 

Missed a day

Oh, dear, I didn't blog yesterday... there goes Blogtober!

I was busy!

I went to see The Promised Land in the afternoon. It was great: full of action, moody Mads Mikkelsen, good and evil and all sorts of fun stuff. Since it was in the afternoon, I found myself coming home at around 6 pm, so I sat at the beach and waited for the sunset. 

Stephen is out of town for a moment and there is nothing good to eat at home, so I went to a restaurant that I have often looked at and he has often pooh-poohed. I had some pretty good shakshuka, but next time I'll go for the stuffed eggplant. 

To do today: another movie, and dinner at a friend's. This retired life is exhausting! 

Actual knitting for October 4

Today is grey and gloomy, but at least that means no awkward shadows on the knitting. This is my scrappy scarf I've been carrying around lately. I have here a bit of Koigu -- the wild green -- and a few plain grey bits that were once heels and toes in socks -- I think actually one unworn sock which I inherited somehow and unravelled.  

There is some other sock yarn in there. I seem to recall making Elaine a pair of socks of this when she was quite wee. Fifteen years ago, maybe? (Ah, wait, only 12 years ago. That links to a picture from a long blog post from 2011!)

Today's adventures have just begun. Looks like we will be going out for lunch somewhere, then I will go to the cinema and Stephen and his sister will get on the little float plane and buzz off to Victoria. I will, I suppose, get some leftovers for dinner when I finish my shift. And I get to pick the next little ball of yarn to fit in to the scarf!

October 3

I might have said that I'd show you my knitting, but alas, the day has fled away from me. 

I can tell you that I had a rather boring day volunteering and a frustrating dash through the streets to try to catch the sunset.

While I was going around the block to find an open passage, Stephen and his sister were sitting in a bar with a view of the sunset. Oh well, the sun will set again, I feel sure!

One day soon I will have lots of time and write you a great tome here. Just not today.

Day two

Today, actual knitting content. Sort of. 

I can show you the yarn I have not yet knitted up into a scarf, but I cannot show you what I have knitted, because I went to volunteer at the VIFF festival this morning at 8 am, did some knitting at my post and on my break, and then left it behind. I just realized, and sent off an e-mail, so I hope it is there tomorrow when I go again. Who would steal a bit of knitting from a fellow volunteer, right? 

I blame the coffee and pastries. I was working at an industry event, so directors and producers and whoever were coming in for networking and talks, and we had laid on free coffee and sugary breakfast pastries, yogurt, fruit and so on, and there were plenty of leftovers for us. Since it was so horribly early, I had a cup of coffee when I arrived, and then another, and an apple turnover and maybe some sweetened yogurt, and maybe even another cup of coffee. I was positively vibrating when I left, so no wonder I didn't remember my knitting. 

As you see, I have a bunch of fingering weight scraps, mainly greeny-greyish-blue-and a few bits of red. Terrible photo, because the sunshine has disappeared and so you get reflections on the countertop. 

I started out making a triangle, but then realized that all these scraps would make a pretty skimpy triangle, since I'm just knitting garter stitch on suitably small needles. Now we have a long thin scarf, with one pointed, triangular end. One day, if all goes according to plan, it will get another point at the other end. 

Tonight I go see a movie; tomorrow another shift. The saga of the lost knitting will continue!

The only way to do it

They say it is Blogtober! That's kind of like NaBloPoMo, but in October instead of November. I will give it a whirl and see if I can kickstart this blogging business again. 

Beautiful trees just down the street

Now that I am in Vancouver, the annual schedule of festivals and things has changed. The Vancouver International Film Festival is on right now; in Toronto I might have done TIFF in early September, but was really busy at the end of April with HotDocs. 

I have seen three movies so far, and do my first volunteer shift tomorrow. The Old Oak was about a small town in northern England dealing with incomers from foreign lands. Some people are nice and some are horribly racist and stuck in their ways. It could have become a bit sappy but it was well done. There is a happy ending; it's just not the happy ending one might expect. 

Yesterday I saw Mr Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe. For a Canadian of a certain age, Mr Dressup was the guy, in 1968 or so. Actually the show continued for almost 30 years! It was a feel-good movie with lots of interviews and chats with his coworkers and children and grandchildren. It will be on the CBC next year sometime. 

Another documentary today: Swan Song, about Karen Kain and the National Ballet of Canada, and covid, and Swan Lake, and ballerinas. It was lovely, but I now find these things so depressing. Mental stress, physical injuries, grand traditions that include racism and harmful stereotypes... who needs it? Karen Kain does seem like a lovely person and I would gladly sit down for a glass of wine with her, though!

Old habits die hard: I was very early for today's show

This film was also made with the help of the CBC and will show on their platforms in a short while. I think the CBC version will be longer and multi-part. 

I have a knitting project for home -- the blue top I showed you last time, and a knitting project for movie lineups -- a bunch of fingering weight scraps that I am knitting into a scarf. But it's dark now so I will show you that tomorrow!