Rally 'Round Dolores

I didn't really want to hear the answer, but I asked anyway.

"Dolores," I said, "Why did the front desk just send up 400 yards of red, white and blue bunting?"

She was too busy talking on her Bluetooth to answer, but Harry chimed in.

"We're having a rally!" he said. "With cookies and balloons and speculating pundits and everything! What's a pundit?"

"Harry, shut up," said Dolores. "I can't hear what Mr. Gore is saying."

"Mr. Gore?"

"Yeah," Harry whispered. "He decided to throw his weight behind Dolores because she's the only candidate made entirely of natural fiber."

"Does he realize that's the only natural thing about her?"

Dolores shot me a look.

"Could you please," she hissed, "take this into the kitchen or something? I'm hammering out my stand on the environment. Go ahead, Al honey. No, nobody important, just some people I hired to set up the folding chairs. What are we saving this week, rainforests or whales? Both? Who the hell has that kinda time? Pick one."

The kitchen was full of cookies. Mrs Teitelbaum, smeared liberally with red and blue frosting, was attacking a lump of dough with my best rolling pin and humming "We Shall Overcome." I reached for a cookie and got a rap on the knuckles.

"Those are for members of the media only," she said. "You have to show me your credenza."

"Credentials," said Harry.

Mrs Teitelbaum bristled. "I don't care if this is a political setting," she said. "There's still no excuse for that kind of language."

I gingerly picked a sample off the pile. "What exactly is this supposed to be?"

"Well," said Harry, "Dolores wanted them in the shape of the Fibertarian Party logo but we couldn't find a sheep cookie cutter, so Mrs Teitelbaum used Rainbow Brite instead."

"And she made the eyes out of–"

"Olive pits," said Harry. "That part was my idea. We had bunches left over after Dolores's martini fundraiser last week."



The candidate herself bustled in. "Numbers," she snapped. "I want to know how many, and who. Gimme the big names first."

Harry riffled through his spiral notebook.

"Well, I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of people. We have 'maybes' from Aerosmith, Donna Summer, and the guy who played Schneider on 'One Day at a Time.' Julia Roberts says she still hasn't forgiven you for what you said about Mary Reilly to the Washington Post so forget about it. Laura Bush is a yes, but she'll be wearing a blonde bouffant wig and please remember to put 'Carmelita Dupree' on her nametag. And Mrs Teitelbaum's friend Rose is coming and says it's okay if you want to use the folding tables from the senior center, but they need them back the next morning for the poetry slam."

"Word," said Mrs Teitelbaum.

"This not good, " said Dolores. "I need a halo of celebs around me for the big speech at the end. Get on the horn to Julia's people again and tell them if she doesn't show up smiling in something sexy I'm going on 'The View' to talk about Dying Young."

"Check," said Harry.

"And did you go through the entire A list in my address book?"

"Yes."

"Who's left on the B list?"

"Winona Ryder, Anne Murray and Yo Yo Ma."

"Shit. Okay, if we can get Julia and Aerosmith that should fill up the frame pretty well, but I want one of those goggle-eyed Obama-style choruses weeping joyfully in the background. What's the estimated turnout as of this morning?"

Harry tap-tapped on his calculator. "Not counting you...eleven."

"Eleven hundred? I'm glad we booked the bigger party room at the Best Western"

"Um, no. Eleven. But with you it's an even dozen!"

"Eleven? How the hell am I supposed to demonstrate my overwhelming groundswell of support with eleven people?"

"Well, it's ten people, really, because I was counting Tinkles and he's a cat."

"He's very politically aware," said Mrs Teitelbaum. "Every time Mary Matalin says something on 'Meet the Press,' he throws up on the rug."

"Dandy," said Dolores, munching morosely on a Rainbow Brite. "I have a handful of nobodies, an incognito first lady dressed as Dolly Parton and a vomiting cat. This isn't a political rally, it's a new season of 'The Surreal Life.'"

Knitting Up the Cabled Sleeve of Care

Given the state of the household, knitting is more than ever a refuge. I'm almost finished with the first sleeve of the as-yet-unnamed Lorna's Laces Fisherman Yarn sweater. (The basic pattern is Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage sweater from Knitting Without Tears, Knitting Workshop, et al.–like the Seneca Sweater, but this time I plan on saddle shoulders instead of raglan.)

I knew I wanted to put cables into this project, but I didn't want to knit a cabled sweater. Not yet. So I decided on a little Aran braid running up the outside of each sleeve from wrist to elbow, a simple four-row repeat from Barbara Walker's Second Treasury that appears far more complex than it actually is.



If you look carefully, you'll also find I've worked the paired increases on top of the sleeve, a Joan Schrouder innovation I read about in Janet Szabo's fantastic book, Aran Sweater Design Putting the increases above instead of below apparently yields a more anatomical shape. I also love the look of the new rows branching out from the central motif.

Knitting the braid was so diverting that I reached elbow-length in a flash–and realized I hadn't considered the transition to plain stockinette. After frogging several half-assed solutions that I didn't even bother to photograph, I decided to try 'unbraiding' the braid so the individual ribands would appear to flow upward and melt into the fabric. It proved to be quite simple, really. An outward twist here and there, a sneaky purl increase to separate the two central strands, and voilà.



Eureka, dudes. Here was not only the smooth transition I wanted, but additional width (from the releasing of the previously cabled stitches) exactly where I needed it.

I'm not the first person to do this, but it was the first time I've ever done it and I figured it out on my own. It was one of those savory little knitting triumphs, the likes of which non-knitters will never know. Doesn't it just break your heart to think of those people?