I’m dying to show you how the Raven mitts came out; my neighbor has been happily wearing them for ten days now. But due to some technical difficulties Chez Garter, I can’t access any of the pictures I took. They’re backed up, so if McGrumpy the server winds up needing an emergency trip through the mail to the server doctors and they erase everything (it’s happened before), all will not be lost. But I’ll need to beg your patience for a few more days.

In the mean time, I’d like to thank you all for your kind reception of the Axel mitts. I’ve been wearing Mitt the First around the house while trying to spin enough yarn to complete Mitt the Second. There’s plenty of roving left, happily. We’ll see if I can achieve anything like the weight and twist of the first lot six months after the fact – don’t hold your breath.

Not much knitting progress to report from the past week, unfortunately. The Fishtrap sleeves are creeping along and have reached about 10″ each, but I’ve been swamped with the world’s dullest work: indexing case files for one of my father-in-law’s malpractice suits. (He’s the one suing the delinquent lawyer, not the other way around. I’d like to sue the delinquent lawyer’s entire staff for incompetence and a failure to grasp the basic principles underlying chronology.) Anyway, five fat boxes stuffed with legal documents stand between me and a beautiful long weekend, and they make me want to weep. Can you tell I’m procrastinating by blogging about absolutely nothing when I should have my nose in a ream of worker’s comp claims? Sigh. Please send a career. Or at least some tasty alcoholic beverages.

I hope all who celebrated it had a joyeux noel, and that there were ample food and drink and chiefly harmonious interactions with relatives and plenty of yarn and knitting books under the tree. I meant to post to this poor neglected blog before the holidays, but the demands of the above (and of the press to finish the Yuletide knitting) kept me away from the computer. Now I’m in Colorado for a reunion with Mr. Garter’s family and — hopefully — for a little skiing. I have brought the Fishtrap Aran to crack away on, since another big storm is expected tomorrow and it may be a few days before we can get to the slopes. On the plane, I finished as much as possible of a rather retro brioche hat for the husband of the raven mittens neighbor, using my handspun of last July. Yes, I missed the Christmas deadline, but fortunately he has a birthday on January 3. I also worked up the first of my Axel fingerless mitts in the teal handspun. Quick, quick knitting, those mitts. The second should be done in no time. Hopefully I’ll have pictures for you soon, but in our race out the door to the airport we forgot the memory card for the camera. We’ve been meaning to get a back-up card anyway, so if we can find on on offer here in Frisco, we’ll have pictures of the vacation and the recent knitting.

I hope you’re all still enjoying a merry holiday season and getting a little extra chance to knit!

He is always warm.

He is interested in everything.

He can always make me laugh.

He lets me know when I’m wrong but doesn’t ever hold it against me.

He likes going to the theatre, the opera, and the ballet, and he’s man enough to admit it.

He looks good in cycling gear.

He’s passionate about the world, and also about me.

He can make up stories about dragons.

He can laugh at himself.

He buys textbooks–the brain-destroying technical kind–and reads them for no reason but his own edification.

He gives wonderful foot massages.

He can cook, and he’s not afraid to experiment. Seriously. He put cardamom in the tomato sauce for eggplant parmesan, and it was tasty.

He can drive a forklift. (I’m jealous.)

He thinks we should go live in Paris for a year. He doesn’t speak French, but that doesn’t intimidate him.

He’s learned to preface his requests with, “When you finish that row…” He may not understand the knitting, but he respects it.

He has good taste in furniture.

He can run a marathon. Oh, and a triathlon, too.

He remains good natured in spite of my merciless taunting about his taste for fantasy novels.

I should go easy on him, because he also appreciates Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

He is better with children than I am.

He encourages me to write.

He is generous and thoughtful, even to people he doesn’t know.

He can dance.

He warms up my side of the bed first, and then he lets me put my cold feet against his toasty ones.

He used to take his grandmother to the pub for a pint.

He’s protective of and responsible about his family.

He doesn’t mind cleaning the gutters.

He saves up interesting things to show me.

He’s only twenty-nine, and I get to keep him forever. Happy birthday, sweetie.

There have been a few requests for the ginger mojito recipe, and I’m happy to oblige. Keep in mind that I don’t have much experience mixing drinks, and any time I’m in the kitchen I go mostly on instinct and don’t measure very religiously, so feel free to adjust this to your own taste!

Firstly, the ginger-infused rum:

Place a whole ginger root (I used a piece the size of my rather large hand) on a baking sheet in a 450 degree oven; bake 35-40 minutes. The ginger will get a little bit leathery, like pirate skin. When it’s cool enough to handle, slice it all up and toss it in a pitcher. Pour a bottle of rum over the ginger and leave the pitcher in the refrigerator for two days. Strain out the ginger and the rum is ready for use.

Note: the resulting brew will be fiery with ginger. I like it that way. If you prefer a beverage that puts less hair on your chest, infuse the rum for a shorter amount of time or use less ginger. Or more rum. Arrrrrr.

Now for the mojitos, as pioneered by Mr. Garter, who was kind enough to mix up the first batch although he likes ginger less than I do. For a single serving, you’ll need:

Mint (as much as you like, but at least five or six leaves)
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp. turbinado sugar (or regular sugar if you prefer)
1 oz. ginger-infused rum (or regular rum, if you must have a mojito this minute)
ice
club soda

Drop the mint leaves into the glass and mash them vigorously against the side with the back of a spoon. Add the sugar and lime juice and stir the mixture to dissolve the sugar. Then add ice and pour the rum over it. Finally, fill the remainder of the glass with club soda. Give it all a good stir at the end, and garnish with more mint and even some chopped crystallized ginger if you want to be shoregoing fancy. Drink up! No scurvy for you!