color me many things tonight

There's the color of my yarn, and then the color of my skepticism with Wikipedia as well. Let's start with the latter.

Annalea has tagged me with a meme (my first!), to "go into Wikipedia and find things that happened on your birthday. You're supposed to list three events, two births, and one holiday". Sounds kind of fun, actually. I've looked at things on Wikipedia before, but never poked around the site in depth. I know that there's some level of question about it as a source, since anyone can edit it, but as long as you're willing to allow for that, it works for me.

I went looking for October 9th, and one of the first things I noticed was this:

1000 - Leif Ericson discovers Vinland and becomes the first known European to walk in North America.

Now, I'm sorry to sound all spoilsporty, but who was taking notes as to what exact day Leif stepped off the boat? Do we really know for sure it was October 9? For the purposes of the meme, it counts, but color me skeptical.

Anyway, that's one, and I choose it because of my Scandinavian ancestors.

A lot of historical events are negative in a bad way: battles, deaths, and so on. For my second event, I chose one that is negative in a different way. I just like this one:

1582 - Due to the implementation of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

There's something about the fact that for the people of these countries, there is no October 9, 1582. I like that. (I'm just funny that way.)

And in case I get back to England any time soon, let me celebrate this event from more recent history:

2005 - Smoking is fully banned on the UK rail network.

There's something I can get behind! Smoking: ugh.

Two births next. John Lennon is the easy choice, I already knew he was an October 9 (so is Sean Lennon for that matter). But guess who else is? Oh, let me do this right.

1940 - John Lennon, British musician and songwriter (The Beatles) (d. 1980)

Like everyone doesn't know who he is. But I did not know I shared a birthday with an actor I quite like in the Shakespearean-classical-"you know, those types of movies" field:

1936 - Brian Blessed, English actor

He was in Branagh's Hamlet, in Much Ado About Nothing, in Hal V ... wonderful man. And we share October 9! How about that?

(I would have picked one of the hockey players, but I've barely even heard of them, so what fun is that?)

There are, I must say, some rather dubious-looking "holidays" to choose from for October 9. It's not explaining to me, for example, why the 9th is Sarrasin (Buckwheat) Day on the French Republican Calendar, it's just trying to talk to me about buckwheat. Still, it's rather in keeping with the flower theme I've had going of late, and it's a lot less scary than some of the others. Go look if you want to see for yourself.

So there's the meme done. Now the other part, I'm supposed to "tag" five other bloggers with the same meme. It's kind of like a benign virus that way. So, let's see. If you want to, if you have time, if you're interested, etc., consider yourself tagged, you wonderful bloggers, you:

• Monica
• KnottyKitty
  
• Korinthe
• Ducktastic
• Tammy
  

And of course, there's no obligation. Plus, if you're not on the list and want to participate, please do. It was fun.

Now, want to see some knitting?

You know you do...

Of course, at this stage of a blanket, imagination is required. It's like Kali one year putting her excess zucchini in the lunchroom at work with a sign saying "Free zucchini bread: some assembly required." Right, Kali?

First, the blanket with cast-on and one row:


Then you have it at half a dozen rows. With flash, in focus but glare and too bright:


No flash, truer to color but slight out of focus. It's hard to get it right some days, you know?


This is the stitch pattern I'm trying. It's too soon to tell if I'm going to, a, like doing it, and b, like it in this yarn, but so far so good.


The final thing to color me tonight? Tired. I shall report in, hopefully, this weekend, on a birthday party I have been invited to which features a dunk tank (a first for me, that), and on the baby shower on Sunday. But now, to bed. May your dreams be peaceful and yarny.