Sidewalks, snow, shoes, birds, art and knitting complexities

The sidewalks are in much better shape now. The City’s snow-clearing teams have done an excellent job on almost all the sidewalks I use for walking or running. Interestingly, though, sidewalk conditions seemed to deteriorate as I got closer to downtown. Maybe it’s because the City expects thousands of pedestrians can trample a walkable path just as well as a plow. I don’t know. I do know I wouldn’t want to go for a run on Somerset Street east of the Beer Store.

I’m not sure what the story is with these shoes and stockings. They were just sitting there abandoned beside a fire hydrant on Somerset Street. Did some woman suddenly come to her senses and realize heels were stupid, especially in the snow? Did she just step out of her heels and march home in bare feet, a changed woman, unshackled and free?

Here’s a picture I took from the bridge over the O-Train tracks. There’s no story here. I just thought the snow looked cool.

Speaking of snow, I’m feeling bad for the birds these days. All their sources of food have been covered with snow. I was thinking about the possibilities for bird feeder street art. (I’m just throwing the idea out there in case someone wants to do something with it.)

Knitting Club was a little different today. It coincided with a lunch hour webinar that one of our members had signed up for, so we all crowded into her office with our needles and yarn and knit in front of her computer while learning about employer-assisted housing programs in communities with sky-high rents like Calgary, Banff and Vancouver.

Afterwards, I needed some time with my knitting guru to decipher a pattern. This involved the boardroom, the whiteboard which prints, and a spreadsheet to map out a complicated sleeve. And calculus, a Latin translator and a genie with three wishes. I’ll do the actual spreadsheet on the weekend, but I think I know enough now to understand what the pattern is saying.

Does anyone else think that knitting patterns should all be written in the same style, using the same conventions, and in such a way that one does not need professional assistance to understand them?

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