Julie and Julia go to the Panda Buffet.

Went to the movies- Sunday matinee- senior discount ticket. I enjoyed "Julie and Julia" so much. The screenplay should get Nora Ephron an Academy Award nomination, and I hope both Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci get them, too!
DH is ready to read "My Life in France", which I have, and he has some notion of cooking a lot of Julia's recipes, as though their happiness (Julia and Paul) was somehow enhanced by the recipes, and not the other way around.
He also said "You blog." Whatever that means. I think he's got a screenplay running in his head.

We left the mall, and went to the Panda buffet for supper. There's ironic contrast for you!

Day #2 at the State Fair

On Friday, I was back at the State Fair, this time with a couple of knitting machines, and another MKer, to demonstrate machine knitting in the Arts and Crafts exhibit. BMKFF (Best Machine Knitting Friend Forever - left photo) and I had a great time. We had only met by email before today, and we certainly didn't get as much time as we wanted to chat.
Getting onto the state fairgrounds, finding parking to unload, carrying and setting up, tearing down and repacking aside, the day was a walk in the park. Happily, I had help from the volunteers at the arts & crafts exhibit. I especially appreciated Dan's help at the end of the day.
We were set up, and knitting, shortly after 10:00 am. A steady flow of people stopped by all day. We were scheduled to demo from 10 to 2, but before we knew it , it was 4:00!
Around noon, I headed to the Pepsi International Bldg, for a lamb gyro. It took me until 2 to get it all eaten. Driving home, I picked up some caffeine in Pulaski (and I stopped at Collosse Cheese.) By the time I had unloaded the car at home, I knew I had had a long day, but a great one.
Everytime that I knit with someone else, it recharges my MK batteries. BMKFF gave me a big boost, with her noodlings on the passap. She had some terrific samples, and the cutest baby socks. I came home and apologized to my passap, Polly, which I have to walk by to get to Bette Brother , Susie Singer and Sally Superba. I sense Polly needs more than an apology.

The Butter Sculpture at the State Fair

Here are pictures of the butter sculpture. This year's entry, called "Cow Power", is a reference to the good old days when milk was delivered. By Milkmen. It also references the generation of methane from manure, a source of fuel that many farms generate and use. So far, so good.
The thing that hit me was: There are 3 cow characters in the sculpture. They are all dressed as males. Not one of the 'male cows' (true oxymoron!!) produces milk. Could we not have had one of them dressed as a female cartoon cow?
Maybe they could have had a female cartoon cow, representing a housewife, accepting a delivery of milk? How funny would THAT be?
I know you are thinking that the sculptor was a guy. Wrong. I saw the tape. Sculptor of this 800 pounds of butter was a woman.
You are also thinking "who cares?" You are right. This doesn't matter at all. Except that the American Dairy Association, which pays for this display, has clearly made sure in the past that the display had 'gender balance': If there's a young boy in the sculpture, there's a young girl.
AND, this is the American Dairy Association, not some other organization that doesn't know a bull from a cow, or which gender of cattle produces milk. Maybe that's the touchy issue here.
Still, I recall butter sculptures in the past (I think they are real memories) that did not shy away from depicting anatomically correct udders- And to tell the truth, you can walk a few hundred feet from the Dairy building to one of the cow barns, and see them in the flesh.
No, I don't think this year's sculpture needed udders. It just needed a girl, cartoon or not.

Yarn Love

This yummy pile of yarn is the result of an impulse buy -
Let me start over-
I went to Stone Mills during the wool/sheep festival, and I bought a large bag of fleece. The shearer was shearing the vet's flock. The fleece was pretty clean, but mainly I bought it because it was nice and healthy, and it was the right length- around 3-4 inches. There were bags of lincoln cross fleeces (8-10 inches) and romney fleeces (6-8 inches)- but I wanted something that would run happily through the drum carder. So even though I had to skirt pretty hard to get just the quality part of the fleece, I was happy. It cleaned up nice. I spun 17 ounces total, and 1188 yards. So that amounts to a batch of sport weight (more or less). Then, I dyed it with Cushing acid reactive- Used the burner on the gas grill to simmer the batch. After drying, I rewound the skein. It's just lovely and soft. Glad I left it as a single. I am going to try it on the double bed knitting machine. I'll let you know how that goes.
By the way, this was spun on Big Zippy. (Check the old posts under 'spinning' and 'spinning wheel' labels.)

Golf and more Golf!

On Sunday, DH and I joined the fun at Willowbrook Golf Course for the Resolution Center golf tournament. We were in the coed division. (Wasn't it nice of them to have a coed division? I never mind that the hot golfers come to win, win, win. I just come to golf and enjoy the day, and support the Resolution Center. Still- nice to compete in a different division than the 300 yard hitters.)
On Monday, The Ladies Monday Night league at Cedars wrapped up. We had a nice fun-night, and some great lasagna. See you all next year!
On Tuesday, I met up with DC (Darling Cousin) in Cicero, and we went to Brookhaven Golf course for 9 holes of fun. First time for me at Brookhaven. Nice course. then we went for lunch at Pronto Joey's, and my ankles are still sloshing after the having the wonderful (and very bad for you) eggplant sandwich. We did some other stuff, too, but this post is all golf!
Today, it is raining, and there will be no golf.
Soon, we'll be hip deep in bowling season, and as the days shorten it will get tougher and tougher to find some daylight to golf in. Sigh!

Golf on Friday morning---

I was bumbling around at 7:17 this morning, sipping my coffee and going for the paper, when Mark said "What time are you golfing?" THEN I remembered that I was supposed to meet my foursome at 7:15. So I left immediately for the golf course. I was the last to arrive, and I only held everybody up for a few minutes.
After today's round, I think I better golf early in the morning all the time. I carded a 50 (Woo Hoo!!) and I had 3 pars (double Woo Hoo!!!) Of course, maybe it's not the time of day. Maybe it's golfing with no bra. Will find out tomorrow.

Where have I been?

Boy, there's the question. Do you mean geographically? I've been to VA, NC, and Ontario.
Do you mean I haven't been blogging, and why is that? That's a longer answer.
Do you mean you missed me?
I'll try to catch you up later, but for now, I'll just tell you about today.
Today, I went to Lake Bonaparte, and joined a picnic with hand spinners. There were children in the water, there were wet dogs under the picnic table. There was fleece, and linen, and spinning. There were kayaks and canoes. There was FOOD! I don't know when I will be able to eat again. Not today, for sure.
The breeze off the lake just blew away everyone's cares.
We noticed that there are DEC campsites up the road by the boat ramp. Hmm. We are thinking of coming back here in September, with the camper. The dog agrees that that is a great plan.