House Bill 1255 and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollow

Oh beautiful day! This can't be Philly in July--it's about 72 degrees with a breeze and no humidity. Tonight the Philadelphia Orchestra is playing in the bowl in Clark Park (gentrification anyone?). But it's free, so how elitest can it be, really. We'll be picnicing with our friends from the neighborhood (Sylvia--one of the best cooks I know), her husband Michael (who is eccentric but as excellent taste in imported wines) and their daughter Alessandra who is Diego's age. Al and I will be bringing a sheet to sit on and the pleasure of our company.

Yesterday Penelope and I got up early and walked to Penn to witness a historic bill signing that will at last give midwives in PA prescriptive authority. Here is Tony Soprano signing the bill:

Just kidding, he just looks like Tony Soprano. It's actually Ed Rendell, the governor of PA.

Behind him are the states reps from various counties who worked on the bill. The dean of the School of Nursing who is Egyptian and the most fabulously put-together looking woman is beside him. Her name is Afaf. Isn't that great. Anyway, it was a very exciting thing to see as PA is the last state in the country to allow cnm prescriptive privileges and so many people have been working on this for so long. Funally. The medical association with their turf wars and their expensive lobbyists lost to a bunch of nurses! Hah!

So that's the big news here. Because this is supposed to be a crafty blog, I'm posting some pictures of finished objects: 2 pairs of socks. Both are knit with Lorna's Laces. The blue pair is from Nancy Bush's excellent book "Knitting Vintage Socks." I probably picked the ugliest and most boring pair of socks in the whole book. Don't ask me why. The pink pair is from yarn that I first saw on the Harlot's yarn crawl in NYC. Some significant portion of the monaey for the yarn goes to breast cancer research. I didn't buy it on the crawl (told myself I had enough sock yarn...hah!) but then craved and coveted so much that I made my dad go back to the store and get it for me. He actually got me 4 skeins, so I have 2 and a half left! The pattern is the Jaywalker Socks from MagKnit which was a total internet craze last winter. Now that I've knit the socks, I'm not sure that I get what all the fuss was about. But that won't stop me from embarking on another internet-fueled knitting project: the Rogue pullover (google it if you're curious, since I don't know how to post links...)

And look what just arrived special delivery:

It is a good day.