Today.

Today I worked a full day.

Then I met the Lovely Myfanwe at her office and walked with her to Grant Park for the Taste of Chicago. While at the Taste we ate: chimichuri chicken wings, cumin-dusted fries with sweet mango tamarind sauce, stewed goat and jollof rice, fresh/hot potato chips with hot sauce, a giant bbq turkey wing, chocolate chip cookies, lemon ice, and a rainbow cone. We ate the turkey wing while sitting 50 feet from the Barenaked Ladies, who were performing tonight. And then we went to hear Honeyboy Edwards, the blues performer.

All of this -- beginning to end -- cost only $40.00 for the two of us. No kidding.

I love Chicago.

KNITTING

In knitting news. I am about 1 third of the way through Candle Flame Shawl. The Candle Flame was my first lace, and it made me very tense. It wasn't an appropriate pattern for first lace. But nobody could tell me I wasn't ready yet -- I knew better -- and I did it anyway. It wasn't disastrous, but I really wasn't ready for it and it just made things more complicated. I wish I had listened and waited, but you can't turn back time.

Anyway, I'm enjoying this knit a great deal. But I already looking forward to my NEXT project, which I believe will be Eugen Beugler's Lace Dream (aka Ostrich Plume) Shawl from Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine. It is amazingly beautiful. I should have the Candle Flame done in time to start this and have it established so I can take it with to knit in Dublin. I want to have the shawl done by fall.

I'm going to knit it for a very dear friend (who happens to be a physician) who has been ill for several months -- she had a rather indelicate surgery which didn't go well, the surgeon really did a number on her, and the wound was an absolute mess and wouldn't close and wouldn't heal and became infected which made her even more ill and the surgeon told her she was a baby and stopped taking her calls, so she just kept on changing the dressing while things got worse, which resulted in her loosing 12% of her body weight -- and she was thin to begin -- and, to make a long story short, she's had corrective work done by a new surgeon (who has filed complaints with the old surgeon's boss AND his boss's boss) and has a would vac and has been off work for two weeks and is embarrassed to have to tell people what has happened to her. If she can make it through all this, the least I can do is to knit her a shawl.

It's getting late, and I have had a big day. Good night, Gentle Readers. To sleep, perchance to dream.