123's and abc's

First of all, y'all knitters should go look at januaryone's post about casting on for ribbing. Fanfreakingtastic! I used an alternating cast-on like she shows for Joe's ill-fated brioche-stitch hat, but didn't realize what it was until I read Cara's explanation and realized that I could do it for ANY ribbing!

On with the backwards Jackson 5 reference: I grabbed this meme from Rebekah (I followed a link from Wendy Knits this morning when I should have been working on my taxes. I know, it's only January, but I have to have them done by the end of this week for other reasons. bleah. Yes, I'll go back to them in a minute...) So anyway, I saw this meme and since I figured that no one would be tagging me for it, I'm going to crash the party and tag myself! It's such a nice, literary meme that I had to do it.

The Page 123 Meme
1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, look down to the 5th sentence.
3. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Include the title and the author's name.

See? Who could resist that? Since I'm a rule-breaking party-crasher, I'm going to take the liberty of changing item #3. I'm going to post the text of the next 5 sentences, because I live by the motto that more is better. So here's mine:

After the shearing Jo had gone home and stunned them all with her sacrificial present, the profit from her bounteous hair, her one beauty, as her sisters so backhandedly put it.
"If Marmee had begged Jo to go cut off her hair and sell it," Swede hypothesized, "I wonder how heroic a thing it would have been."
I didn't say anything. But I thought: Aw, crumb.

Here are some of the things we bought, Swede and I, having propped Dad in bed with a a cup of beef tea: Aunt Jemima syrup in a brown bottle, twenty pounds of white Robin Hood flour, a sack of raisins and another of currants, two gallons of whole milk, a three-pound can of Hills Brothers coffee, a box of chocolates, free, Otto Schock swore, of clandestine jellies, and a Christmas turkey, purchased live from the poultry man on the edge of town, who had me hold the bird's legs as he beheaded it--how they flailed and pounded in my palms; that creature just flung me all over the yard. (Peace Like a River by Leif Enger)

No, it's not Dickens, but MAN, this guy can crank out the long sentences. I love this book. It was one of my book club's picks about two years ago, and the shelf of books-I-really-love is to my left with this book sitting closest. I was sorely tempted to pull out The Count of Monte Cristo or The Glass Castle (this month's book) or maybe My Antonia to see which page 123 had the best selection. I think this will be fine, although we just barely missed a sentence in which Mr. Enger worked in the words "mien" and "sagacious".

I've been entertained by other's meme posts in the past and even done one. I pooped out on the alphabetic meme after Cara gave me the letter V and I could only think of things like ventriloquism. I think I should probably steer clear of meme's about ME (who wants to know about me and my laundry?) but I love reading them from other bloggers. It's the voyeur in me. Maybe I should try again with that letter V thing. I have a problem with vacillating--should I publish this whiny post or not? Usually I choose not. I wrote a big long post about voice and my deep inner need to find my own, but it was consigned to the void of unpublished posts that I'll stick in a journal instead. The abc-themed meme is supposed to have 10 words starting with a particular letter that represent concepts/themes in a person's life. I haven't done it properly, but I'm going to list a few more V-words and call it done. (By the way, that's the fleece I washed for my spinning class.)

1) Violets--All that I hold dear about my childhood is represented by memories of picking violets in the springtime. I adore spring flowers in general, and violets in particular. I love their fragrance, their colors, their tenacious habit of popping up in the grass. Since I have no pictures of violets, here are blooms from the Christmas cactus that just returned from a month at the plant spa. (That would be the month in which my mother takes my plant to her house and feeds it and loves it into blooming--wouldn't it be nice if we could be plants?)

2) Valor--My mother told me when I was young that my name meant valor--and that meant that I'm capable of doing difficult things. Many times in my life I've been buoyed by the thought that my mother thinks I'm strong. See that picture of PeeWee in front of the poster there on the sidebar? The poster of Rosie the Riveter rolling up her sleeves? That's my mom, right there telling me "We can do it!" Me and the Christmas cactus. (I love my mommy, can you tell? Right now she's babysitting PeeWee and Middle Sister so that I can work on my taxes. Right. I'm on it--in just a minute. I'm almost done here.)

3) Voracious--I'm afraid I have a bit of an obsessive personality. I tend to go on binges. Reading binges, knitting binges, sometimes even chocolate binges. I usually don't binge on food (except at holidays--hello? Who can resist the cardamom bread?) because I don't like feeling overstuffed (just regular-stuffed is fine, though). But I have a REAL problem with neglecting other obligations when faced with the temptations of good literature and good yarn.


That's all. No more about me, at least for now. Your turns Marly, Kristen, and if I may be so bold, Cara. (You see, Cara is one of the popular kids and tagging her feels a little presumptive.) 123's or ABC's or both, you pick. Marly, you get letter J; Kristen you get letter T. Cara, you're so prolific, I figure you can always use a good meme.

****Shirlene! I'm tagging you, too! If you so desire, you get letter B--but will you please at least do the 123 meme? I'd love to know what book is close at hand by your computer. I'm nosy like that.