R is for Roving

R is for roving. As mentioned, I've been roving and I bought some – that is, my favorite souvenirs from this vacation are the lovely fiber I picked up at Spunky Eclectic in Lisbon, Maine, a paradise of all things fibery. I had the pleasure of meeting the fabulous Amy and the good fortune to arrive just when new stock had arrived but was not yet uploaded to her website. Most was still in shipping cartons. You can imagine how I felt (sound effects included chortle and snap!).

Perhaps the choicest of the plunder was this Abby batt, 60/30 Merino/silk, in the evocative, Maine-appropriate colorway, Blueberries for Sal. I'm a big fan of Robert McCloskey's books, too.



I picked up some Spunky Supernova in colorway Pumpkin for September Sockdown, but a moderator disallowed it. It would seem that asking if one's yarn is suitable is an automatic disqualification. File this under KALs Gone Wrong.



As for Economics Gone Wrong, the Fed and Treasury have a plan to to protect money market funds by vastly expanding the power of the Treasury Secretary, and Congress properly has its own ideas about oversight and value to the taxpayers. Whichever way the executive and the legislative branches sort that out, the exquisite karmic irony that a rabidly anti-regulation Republican regime felt compelled to make multiple massive interventions into free market capitalism is matched only by the still-unreckoned cost to U.S. taxpayers – not only the price tag, so far estimated somewhere 'round USD 1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000), give or take a few hundred billion, but also the lost opportunity costs. Kiss kilo-, mega-, and giga-bucks goodbye and say hellooooo, tera-bucks! ::deep breaths:: It's no wonder I'm channeling William Safire.

I wonder if Teh Mess isn't about to enter a new phase. Up until now it's been possible to ignore or even stigmatize people who lost their homes to foreclosure. It's easy to decry the fat compensation packages on Wall Street. But the next victims in the financial crisis are retirees dependent on pension and investment portfolios. Even cautious investors could have had their life savings substantially eroded or wiped out. (Just imagine if Social Security had been privatized!) Retirees are always among the most vulnerable when Wall Street tanks and the least able to recover - and they are among the most reliable of voters.

Given the rapidly changing economic situation, the presidential debate this Friday has changed topics from domestic policy to foreign policy. And PBS has an online candidate poll: Who do you trust more to fix the nation's economic mess?

OK, back to my happy place. Zarzuela's Fibers now has its own Ravelry group, Zarzuela's Fiber Junkies. I love the Zorro vibe of the button! Jessica's fibery goods are available online through her Etsy shop or at the Garden State Sheep & Fiber Festival, October 4-5.