Monarchs on the move

There’s been a patch of campus that has been under construction for about as long as I’ve been going to school at this university. I say “about as long” because this summer, they finally took down the temporary wall around it and planted a butterfly garden. There have been plenty of butterflies (and moths) taking advantage of the garden all summer, but now that autumn is officially here, the most common butterfly around these parts has been the monarch.

This has actually been the first time that I’ve managed to get a picture of the butterflies in this garden–I haven’t been quick enough on the draw in the past, but as the monarchs start their annual migration, they’ve become more and more common. I have to admit that I’m very impressed with how resilient these little insects are. That something as delicate and fragile looking as a butterfly can make it all the way from the northeast to Mexico to overwinter is just amazing to me.

Right on the button

One of my absolute favorite things about New York City is that you can find a store that’s dedicated to pretty much anything that you’d ever need or want to buy here. As a treat for myself for getting through half of the sleeves of my sweater, and to try to spur myself on to knit the rest of them, I decided that it was time to pick out the buttons for the cardigan.

I actually had several options in terms of button stores (and fabric stores, and trim stores…), but I decided to keep things more local and check out Tender Buttons on East 62nd St. It’s a rather small store, but there’s a wall that has boxes of buttons, stacked on shelves from floor to ceiling and arranged by color and material. They also have cases of rare and antique buttons that can go for significant sums of money. It’s quite a sight, and it was definitely hard to stay focused amidst all the shiny, shiny buttons.

Because my sweater is a tweedy, greenish tan, I knew that I wanted something that was pretty neutral, and fairly light in color. The cables are really the star of the show here, and I was afraid that dark wood, leather or plastic buttons might distract from them. I also wanted something natural looking, so after browsing around the whole store I decided to look more closely at the shell/pearl and horn buttons. As pretty as the pearl buttons all were, they were just a bit too light and stood out a bit too much from the yarn. There were some green snail buttons that were very attractive, and more muted in color, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find 9 that matched. I could find plenty of abalone buttons that were the right size and fairly well-matched in color, so they were a definite possibility until I lined up several of them on the sleeves of my sweater and realized that they might be too shiny and attention-grabbing. Next up were the horn buttons, plus a set of greenish plastic buttons that were “not horn, but nice”. I finally settled on the albino horn buttons that are pictured up top, and I think they should do pretty well (aside from being slightly too big when I measured them again at home). Now I just have to get around to those last two inches of sleeve so I can start knitting the yoke of this sweater.

Eye Candyapple Friday

Even though we’ve been having a week of very, very summery weather, fall can’t be far away. The rows of decorative crabapple trees that are planted along one of the paths here at the university are starting to bear red, jewel-like fruit.

I’ve been making progress on the sleeves of my sweater, albeit very, very slowly. I’ve got about eight inches of each sleeve done, which means I’ve finally hit the stockinette portion of them. I do hope that they start to go faster now that I only have to worry about purling once a round, but all the rearranging that knitting two sleeves at once entails really cuts into my knitting speed. Perhaps the best thing that I can say about the technique is that I’m guaranteed to have matching increases and sleeves that are the same length, because it sure does take a lot of patience

Eye Candy Friday

First, another glimpse at some of the waterlilies from Longwood Gardens…

And then a peek of sleeve for those adventurous enough to click through.

Eye Candy Friday: How Do You Like Them Apples? Edition

The summer months are clearly starting to wind down–the days are getting shorter, the nights cooler, and the football season started last night (sigh). When you live in the “concrete jungle”, it can be easy to miss other signs of fall, but sometimes you just sort of stumble across them in the most unexpected places.

Take this apple tree for instance. Seemingly neglected, in a part of the city not known for its agriculture, it was nonetheless loaded down with fruit when J and I came across it while searching for the entrance to a New York City landmark. And what landmark might that have been?

Does this narrow it down a bit?

How about this view?

We found the tree while we were walking around the Lower East Side, meandering our way towards the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Later on in our trek, a kind police officer pointed us toward the staircase that saved us a couple of extra blocks of walking and some intimidating street crossings.

We only meandered about one third or so of the way across the bridge. It was very hot that day, and we wanted to give ourselves enough time to eat a proper dinner before our evening’s activities instead of trying to find a subway stop in the immediate vicinity of the bridge on the Brooklyn Side. I definitely do plan to go all the way across someday, to see if trees grow in Brooklyn as well.

Miles of stockinette to go

After getting off to a rocky start,, I’m finally making progress on my Tangled Yoke Cardigan. I’ve been doing way more modification on the fly than I thought that I might have to, what with the needle change shrinking my row gauge, and realizing that one extra inch of length probably won’t be enough to keep the garment from being midriff-baring. So here I am, changing the spacing between increases willy-nilly, and hoping for the best. The waist shaping should be fairly foolproof, though, as long as it hits in the right place. I love how forgiving knitting can be.

After I get through the last 2-3 inches of this, it’ll be time to cast on for the sleeves. I’ve been tempted to attempt to knit both at once, just to try something new, but I don’t really trust myself to not create a tangled mess or to knit both of the sleeves together. On the other hand, if I do them separately, there’s no guarantee they’ll turn out to be the same length, or that I’ll manage to get all of the increases perfectly lined up. Decisions, decisions.

If you can’t stand (Joba) The Heat…

It was a nearly perfect day at the ballpark. I had a pair of tickets to Thursday afternoon’s Yankees-Sox game, so my cousin and I got to watch our Yankees shut out the Red Sox and complete the sweep.

After shooing some interlopers out of our seats and brushing off the pile of peanut shells they’d left all over the place, we settled into Section 57, row Z. I’ve only been to a few weekday day games, and I had never been in the bleachers at one, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. The crowd was very mixed. There seemed to be a large number of out-of-towners (a few too many in from Boston for my taste), people just taking a day off, and a few people who had decided to…”pre-party”. A pair of the latter sat near us for a couple of tense innings, but managed to move along to somewhere else before getting ill, or ejected, or both. After that, everyone immediately around us was quite nice, even the Sox fans–I can respect a guy who shows up wearing a Yastrzemski shirt.

One of the first things we were greeted by when we arrived was fellow blogger Curt Schilling warming up in the Boston bullpen. It’s always interesting to watch another blogger at work. It was especially gratifying to watch him serve up a home run to Robinson Cano in the third inning:

And then again in the fifth:

Aside from those two home runs, and three singles to Derek Jeter and one to Melky Cabrera, Schilling pitched quite well. In fact, it was a real pitchers’ duel, as Chien-Ming Wang, who got the start for the Yankees carried a no-hitter through 6 innings.

He did end up issuing four walks over 7 innings, but he also struck out 4 batters, including David Ortiz twice.

Things got kind of hairy in the seventh inning. Kevin Youkilis reached first on a throwing error by Derek Jeter, and then Mike Lowell singled, breaking up the no-hitter. The next batter, J.D. Drew grounded to third, and Alex Rodriguez attempted to tag Youkilis, and then threw to first to get Drew out. I say Alex attempted to tag Youkilis, because the Sox first baseman ran out onto the grass to attempt to avoid the tag, which should be an automatic out. At first the umpires didn’t call him out, but the Yankees appealed, and the correct call was made.

Neither Youkilis nor Francona liked that reversal very much, and Francona argued the point until he was ejected from the game. Between this and the uniform check, Terry must have been having a bit of a day. It was just as well, then, that he didn’t have a front row seat for the 8th inning.

The inning got off to a good start for us, because the man we’d all been hoping to see came in out of the bullpen:

Joba Chamberlain had worked an inning on Tuesday, which meant that, according to the “Joba rules”, he needed to take Wednesay off from pitching. He wasn’t as sharp as he’d been in previous outings. His control wasn’t quite as good, and he gave up a two-out double to Dustin Pedroia. He did get out of the inning without allowing a run, but the Yankees did get Edwar Ramirez started warming up during the bottom of the eighth.

Edwar had plenty of time to get warmed up, too. Hideki Okajima started the inning for the Sox, and the Yankees proceeded to blow the game open. He got Johnny Damon to fly out, but gave up a single to Derek Jeter, who ended the day 4-4.

Bobby Abreu then doubled Derek in all the way from first, leaving a base open.

The Red Sox then made the extremely questionable decision to intentionally walk Alex Rodriguez, setting up an epic battle of the Hidekis. The Sox lost that battle on a number of levels.

First, Bobby and Alex successfully attempted a double steal, causing Jason Varitek, the Sox catcher, to throw the ball away into left field. His throwing error allowed both of them to score (Alex scored standing up, all the way from first). Matsui followed that up by legging out an infield single, further exposing the folly of pitching around Alex to get to him. That was the end of the scoring for the afternoon, as a combination of Okajima and Snyder got Jorge Posada and Andy Phillips to ground out.

The game took another turn for the bizarre in the top of the ninth inning. Joba came into the inning, which was in itself a surprise, since his rules dictate a day off for each inning pitched. The first batter he faced was David Ortiz…

…who flied out to left in a most clutch-tacular manner.

Then Youkilis came up to bat, and the trouble started. I’m not sure exactly what happened here, both because my seats are about as far as you can get from the pitcher and home plate, and because I’m not a mindreader. What I do know, is that Chamberlain (who had been shaky in the 8th inning), with a 1-1 count, threw two consecutive pitches inside and way over the head of Kevin Youkilis. My cousin and I were actually worried that he might have been injured, to lose the plate so quickly, because there was no way that Torre would ever tell the 21 year-old future ace of the rotation to make a statement. But whether or not there was intent (and I actually personally doubt that there was), Angel Hernandez, the home plate umpire, ejected Chamberlain without a warning.

Chamberlain was replaced by Edwar Ramirez, for the final two outs of the game.

He nearly made things interesting by finishing walking Youkilis, and then allowing him to advance to third on two passed balls. He and Jorge did eventually get on the same page, though, in time to strike out Mike Lowell and get J.D. Drew to pop up, to end the game.

And there was much rejoicing, both on the field and in the stands.

This picture is in here as a bit of a photographic aside to another one of my fellow bloggers. Based on his attire alone, I would have pegged this man as a Sox fan. However, he cheered when the Yankees scored, and shook hands with the people around him after the game, which means that either looks are deceiving, or he’s such a good sport that he goes around congratulating the fans of the opposing team after they win. So it goes to show you that Yankee fans can be just as fond of vaguely unpalatable beverages as their Sox-loving counterparts.  Or that Moxie drinkers are incredibly polite.  One of the two.