names – Page 2 – Deborah Makarios

March 9, 2018

I Am Not Lazy Either

I have always wanted to live up to my name.

Deborah, that is. Makarios I’ve had for less than seven years; and the name I had before that means swamp – not high on my list of life goals.

The name Deborah means bee, and, by implication, busy as a bee. Hardworking. Industrious. As I say, it’s something I have always wanted to live up to, but for a long time I thought I didn’t.

In fact, if you asked me, I would tell you that I was basically lazy, but just did things out of fear of letting people down, getting in trouble, or the sundry other negative consequences life provides for those who Don’t Do Things. I have the ambition of a potato and the dread fate of couch-potatoitis always seemed to lurk close behind.

When FlyLady said “I know for a fact that I have never been lazy and I will wager the same about you,” I wanted to believe her – but of course, I didn’t. She was writing in a book, after all – she doesn’t know me from a bar of soap.

I even wrote a blog post about how my husband isn’t lazy (still isn’t) but failed to turn the same focus on myself. Indirectly, his tiredness helped me to my realization.

Having worn himself to a shadder with all the work he was doing helping me prepare Restoration Day for publication, he needed some time off. So one day, we arranged that he would stay in bed all day, and I would do any of his household work that needed to be done that day. And bring him meals, of course, because lack of food is not good for lack of energy.

And it was as I was reaching into the cupboard for a small bowl to mould the couscous into an appealing shape on the plate that I realized I wasn’t lazy. Because a lazy person wouldn’t volunteer to take care of someone else for a day (or for a week, as I subsequently did). And a lazy person definitely wouldn’t go to the extra effort of making the meal appealing on the plate – particularly when they were already tired themselves.

Mind you, the moulding didn’t work. The couscous stuck to the bowl and it came out all anyhow. I could have oiled the bowl, I suppose, but if you’re going to pour boiling water into a bowl, there’s not much use in oiling it.

But that isn’t the point. The point is that I could have easily weaselled out of that extra work – no one was asking it of me, no one would notice if I avoided it – and I didn’t. And therefore, since laziness is essentially a disinclination to exert oneself, I am not lazy.

Sometimes unproductive, often disorganized and not infrequently tired, but not lazy.

December 1, 2017

(In)Coherent Crochet

Crochet has a reputation for being a gentle, quiet pastime, the sort of thing engaged in by little old ladies and the more productive sort of hippie. But little do people know what morasses of international confusion lurk beneath the tranquil surface of this seemingly innocuous hobby. I recently took up hook (to finish off a piece of knitting, as it happens) and I was completely boggled by what I found.

Take the hooks, for example.

British crochet hooks are numbered: the smaller the number, the larger the hook. A little counter-intuitive, perhaps, but reasonable. Except that when it’s a steel hook, for finer work, the numbering is different. Still bigger number for smaller hook, just… a different range of numbers.

So, for instance, a size 4 could be 6mm wide, or it could be 1.65mm wide. Slightly awkward if you order one for crocheting yourself a blanket, and then find you are crocheting a coaster.

And not only do the numbers overlap, so do the sizes. A 2.25mm hook could be a size 1½ (steel, for fine work) or a size 13. Furthermore, a size 8 could be 4.0 or 4.25mm, and if you want anything between a 4.0 and a 3.5mm – well, good luck finding what you’re looking for, because in the British system that is The Hook Without Name.

But let us not single out the British for these eccentricities. The American system is, if anything, worse.

Most hooks have a letter and a number: B-1, C-2, K-10½… Except for size 7, sitting there all on its tod between G-6 and H-8. Unlike the British system, the bigger the hook, the bigger the number. Except for the steel hooks for fine work, which do follow the British convention of having bigger numbers for smaller hooks.

Not, of course, the same numbers. No, no. The American numbers run from 2 to 10, thus ensuring that there is another hook labelled simply 7.

So a size 7 could be a 4.5mm American hook, or a 4.5mm British hook (that’s where they cross over as one goes up and the other down), or a 1.65mm hook. And a 1.65mm hook could be labelled 7 for the US or 4 for the UK, but a UK 4 is also a 6mm and…

And thank God for the Europeans, who somewhere along the way had the Idea of Startling Brilliance, i.e. why not make the sizes be the actual size of the hook?
Which is why most modern hooks, regardless of what market they are intended for and what other sizing system they use, are also marked with metric measurements, because then We Know Where We Are.

All we need now is for someone to do the same for the actual stitch terminology.

A slip stitch in the US is a UK single crochet. A US single is a UK double. A US double is a UK treble. You end up researching the genealogy of the friend who gave you a pattern in an attempt to discern what the very basics even mean.

And I have come up with a solution.

As follows. One of the first things you learn when you are beginning crochet, be it so plain as a coaster or dishcloth that you are making, is how to turn. And in order to turn (unless you are slip-stitch/single crocheting), you need to make a turning chain. And the length of said turning chain depends on the stitch you are going to make next.

Inspired by the sane approach of the Europeans, I propose that these numbers be taken as the basis of a new universal crochet terminology, and since numbers are already in use (no one wants to be told to make two threes or three twos or anything confusing like that), they shall have suitably abbreviable names.

The stitch requiring no turning chain (formerly known as the slip or single) shall be the Zero stitch, abbreviation Z.

The stitch requiring a turning chain of one (formerly known as the single or double) shall be the Solo stitch – Star Wars fans can thank me later – abbreviation S.

The stitch requiring a turning chain of two (formerly known as the half-double, half-treble or short treble) shall be the Duo stitch, abbreviation D.

The stitch requiring a turning chain of three (formerly known as the double or treble) shall be the Trio stitch, abbreviation T.

The stitch requiring a turning chain of four (formerly known as the triple, double-treble or long treble) shall be the Quarto stitch, abbreviation Q.

And there you have it! It may well be that I am the only one who will ever use it, but for what it is worth, I offer it to the world, as my contribution to international understanding and goodwill.

All it needs now is a name. I incline towards TurnWise – any other suggestions?

October 28, 2016October 20, 2017

Am I Cruella de Vil?

Not a question one often finds oneself asking. But when it first popped into my mind, I decided there was a case to answer, and promptly borrowed the book from the library to further investigate. The results were not as reassuring as I might have wished.

Cruella wears fur. So do I. [Disclaimer: I don’t buy ‘new’ furs unless they’re from a humanely culled pest species; and I would never knowingly buy or wear the fur of an endangered animal.]

Cruella likes pepper. So do I.

I like ink, too, though I prefer to write with mine, not drink it.

Cruella is married – so am I.
She has no children – neither do I.
Her husband changed his name when they married – so did mine!

Cruella owns a cat. So do I (two, in fact).
Cruella feels the cold. So do I.

In fact, I am feeling distinctly chilly as I look at this list. It’s not looking good!

On the other hand, I didn’t marry a furrier – though back in my high school days a personality test suggested I was suited to being a graphologist or fur designer. (I didn’t know what the former meant, and the latter seemed a bit redundant: they just grow.)

Speaking of school days, while I have been a student at a fair number of schools in my time, I have never once been expelled – as far as I can remember, anyway. Nor do I dominate my husband and force him to eat oddly coloured food smothered in pepper.

I don’t customarily wear slinky satin dresses with ropes of jewels – probably because, unlike Cruella, I am not a fabulously rich society heiress from a notorious family. Well, I’m not a fabulously rich society heiress, anyway (cough). Nor do I own a flashy chauffeured car which “looks like a moving Zebra Crossing” – in fact, I don’t own a car at all; I never have.

HMS Kildangan IWM Q 043387 — If Cruella de Vil owned a yacht…

My hair isn’t black and white either; it is a very dark brown with occasional silver hairs if I hunt carefully. Nor have I chosen to decorate my home in red and green marble (how revolting). Possibly the marbled interior of her home, when considered in the dim and rainy light of the English climate, goes a long way towards explaining why Cruella feels the cold so much…

Cruella’s cat is Persian, kept only because it’s valuable – she drowns all its kittens. My cats (“the Cat” and “the Kitten”), aren’t worth anything. Unless perhaps they get hit by a car and found by Claire Third (warning, cat lovers may find article/images distressing). Of the four kittens the Cat produced in her youth, three were re-homed and we kept the fourth. Most days the Cat seems to think drowning him would have been preferable, but that’s another story.

And for the record, I don’t want to make a coat out of Dalmatian puppies, not even “for spring wear, over a black suit.” I like puppy skins best when containing puppies.

So what do you think? Am I Cruella de Vil, or amn’t I?