On this day…

Good morning and happy Monday! Yes, happy Monday. It is possible.

It has been a rough couple of weeks as I dealt with my seemingly seasonal insomnia. As the days get longer, I have trouble getting to sleep at night and staying asleep early in the morning as it starts to get light and birds start singing. I hit my breaking point Thursday night/Friday morning and slept all day on Friday. The rest of the weekend and last night were pretty ‘normal’ as far as sleep goes for me, and I feel fantastic now.

On this day last year I sang in my second spring concert with the Albany Gay Men’s Chorus. We commemorated 50 years since the Stonewall riots and our concert included an entire suite of original music written by one of our chorus members.

This year’s concert has been pandemically preempted and we have not had any rehearsals since March. There will also be no Pride Parade this month either. In light of that, and also in response to the nationwide protests against the systemic racism that infests police departments in practically every city, and the deaths of unarmed black citizens as a result of that racism, we have put together a little virtual performance of “Why We Sing” which has become our sort of anthem. 

Also on this day last year, our family grew. Nine week old Jade came home with me from Pennsylvania. I had driven down on Friday night and come home with her on Saturday morning, leaving me just a few hours to unwind and enjoy our new puppy before my call time for our concert that evening. 

The last year with Jade has been a whirlwind of new experiences for all of us.  She is the youngest puppy we have had, and raising her has been a lot of fun but it has also been very challenging too. Jade had a number of nicknames as a very young puppy including Bitey-Monster, Raptor-Puppy, Veloci-puppy, and more.

She was stubborn and willful from day one, and she still is, but her nicknames have changed to Peanut Puppy, Pretty-Pretty Princess, and Psycho Sister. Jade turned a year old in April, and she has mellowed considerably since she was a wee little pup. She is still a bit of a psycho but her raptor instincts have slowly given way to a more lovey and cuddly side that is absolutely adorable. Jade has also just started her first heat cycle, so she is technically no longer a puppy. But as long as she is the youngest dog in the house, we will probably still refer to her as a puppy. 

There hasn’t been much knitting here in the last few weeks. I have been whittling away at the first of a pair of socks since I finished the knitting on my sweater project. The next step with that is sewing the pieces together which is not one of my favorite things to do. I have woven in all the loose ends on the front, back, and sleeves in preparation for sewing them together, but that’s as far as I got.

Some people like to leave the ends (usually extra long, too) and use those to sew the pieces together, but I find dealing with long dangly pieces of yarn very cumbersome as I’m trying to knit. I have, more than once, mistakenly knit with a loose end rather than the strand of yarn coming from the ball. Since it is just a pile of pieces and really doesn’t look like much at this point, I will forego adding a picture of that project and show you my sock instead. 

That is all I have for right now. There will be more later in the week about the upcoming North East Men’s Fall Knitting Retreat, and my musical side journey with the violin. Have a great day!