Laws of Gravity

Monday, February 23, 2026

Some Assembly Required

Sleeve two is finished!

While the pattern told me the piece needed to be twenty inches long, I had already knit one sleeve, and I noted how many rows of that I knit to get to the twenty inches.

I almost finished it Wednesday night, but it got late, and I was tired. So, Thursday night I knew I needed to knit two rows and then bind off. And done!

Well, not quite...

Then Saturday I knit the ribbings onto the bottom of both sleeves.

And so, now, officially, the knitting of the piece is (almost) done. All that's left is to sew it all together.

Which is going to take some time. Yeah, just when you thought I was done...

First shoulder seams. Then the sleeves. Then all the way up from the bottom seam to the end of the sleeve. Using mattress stitch. It's not hard. I will want to take my time to make sure it all stitches up nicely. No use doing all this knitting to have a mess in the end because I rushed the seaming.

Then, once that is done, I have one last bit of knitting to do. The collar.

But that's only after I'm finished seaming.

I'm close. I'm very close.

The sweater's previous posts:

Friday, February 20, 2026

Angry Birds IRL

Thursday. Ninth grade English, special ed. Eighth period.

It's district writing assessment time (as I've mentioned in previous posts). While the other classes I've been in have been in the midst of writing these or finishing them up, this class was just getting started.

Their essay was to be an argumentative one. They had studied the structure of the thing. This day was for the introduction of the topic. It had to do with climbing Mt. Everest and whether or not they should block people from doing so. (The kiddos get to pick a side and argue it.)

I showed them a quick video that the teacher had assigned. Then they read the first two of the three articles that were to be their sources. We read the articles together, looking at statements for allowing climbers in and statements against.

In the second article, one of the arguments against described how people did this thing in Moab, Utah with ropes and slingshots and... The description sounded horrifying.

"That sounds like Angry Birds in real life."

Absolutely brilliant statement, and totally funny. The whole class erupted in laughter.

Oh, I should probably mention that there were a total of four students in the class. But yeah, all four of them busted up laughing.

Me too, really.

Because yeah, that sounded suspiciously like Angry Birds.

I was now curious, so I went looking. Yeah, there's video...

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not tempted in the slightest. Nor did the class seem tempted either.

Once they were done laughing, we finished up the article. They'll spend more time reading a third article and figuring out what they're going to write, but I won't be there for it.

These essays are interesting as the teachers really go into the nitty-gritty of how to write. And part of it is how to think for oneself. Important lessons, truly.

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Spinning Wheel of Doom

Tuesday. Film Studies. Seventh period.

When I walked in the classroom first thing in the morning, there was a note projected on the screen. It said to leave the big screen down all day, and that the movie the class was watching would automatically start shortly after class started. Okay, then.

First period, things worked perfectly. The class watched Sisu.

It was a pretty violent movie. The teacher said it was in the same vein as John Wick. If you like that sort of thing, I do recommend.

Third period was sophomore English, which I wrote about yesterday. The screen projected a note to the kiddos, reminding them of what they were supposed to be working on. Then fifth period it turned into another note to me, saying not to touch anything.

It was a little creepy, but I've heard some stories of what subs end up doing, so I understood. I did not touch anything. Why would I? Everything was working perfectly...

Oh, you know what's coming.

Seventh period walked in. I took roll. Explained what they would be watching. (They watch movies all year, so this was nothing new.) Then, as planned, the movie started.

I got comfortable. We were about ten minutes into it when something blinked on the screen, we got the spinning wheel of doom, and the movie froze.

Naturally.

The teacher had left his phone number, so when things didn't right themselves, I texted him. When I got no response, I called.

I explained the situation. He said he couldn't fix it from where he was, and he couldn't leave. (He was on campus.) The class would have to do something else...

Luckily, this was a good class, so they found something to entertain themselves.

Just before the period ended, Mr. A walked in. He did something on his phone, and the movie righted itself. He had Apple TV hooked up, and he had programmed the full day on it. Somehow it had lost connection. Mr. A had the remote on his phone. If he had left a remote with me...

But, as I said before, some subs... Anyway, the kiddos had access to the film, so they could watch it at home. Not as good as on a big screen, but tech issues and all.

I was kind of glad not to have to watch the movie again. But I know they would have rather had it. Ah well.

It worked for almost the full day.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Weather Sense

I have very deliberately not been discussing the weather with y'all. I know much of the U.S. is buried in snow, and the temps have been bitterly cold. I'm sorry. It sucks. I'm wishing for an early thaw and an early spring. I can't even imagine how you all are coping.

Tuesday. Sophomore English, third period.

I was at the door, greeting students, as usual. As Jessica entered, she asked me to turn on the heat in the classroom.

Jessica was dressed in jeans and sneakers, and she was wearing a tank top. No jacket. Deep sigh...

At the end of the previous period, I checked the thermostat. It read 73 degrees. Knowing how many bodies raise the temperature in the classroom, I went to put on the fan. It was cool enough outside that there was no need for air conditioning. We definitely didn't need the heat.

I told Jessica no. Then I asked her where her jacket was.

She explained that when she stepped outside to leave for school, she noted how it was overcast and cool. But she didn't feel like turning around, going back inside, and getting a jacket.

Her problem, then.

The previous day, Jessica would have been dressed okay. The previous week, Jessica was dressed completely appropriately. Because the previous week, we were in the 80s. Yeah. End of January/beginning of February, and I had been wearing shorts. There were a couple days where we were pretty close to 90 degrees.

But the weather reports had told us the temperature would be dropping. Rain was forecast for Tuesday evening. Our projected high was to be about 65 degrees.

I pulled out warmer clothes. The rest of the class was dressed appropriately in long sleeve hoodies and the like. It wasn't bitterly cold, but it was not the day to be wearing a tank top with nothing over it.

Jessica admitted she hadn't been paying attention to the weather reports. So, I warned her that the rest of the week was forecast to be cool. She might want to be bringing her jacket for the next couple weeks.

This is very much a case of a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine. I do not understand why it is so hard for teenagers to learn how to keep up with the weather reports. There's a default weather app on every phone.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

Accountability?

I'm tired, so I'm going to let someone else do the talking today:

I will not let the world forget what the Trump administration did to Minnesota.

[image or embed]
— Peggy Flanagan (@peggyflanagan.bsky.social) February 12, 2026 at 3:42 PM

If you can't access the video, the post is here.

Although, I don't believe ICE is really leaving Minnesota. ICE is still in LA. But it's not making national news, so we've kind of forgotten. ICE is expanding, not retreating.

They are still committing atrocities. (Against children.) Do not forget.

Monday, February 16, 2026

How I Keep Track

Last week I got a question about how I keep the pattern for this sweater straight while I'm knitting it. This is one of those things that we knitters figure out along the way. My process works for me. I picked up some of it from other knitters, and some of it just made sense to me.

The pattern is When Harry Met Lucy. If you scroll through it, you'll see that the sweater is made up of five different panels. One center cable. Two side cables. And two raindrop stitches.

Each panel has a different number of rows to complete the repeat. How could one possibly keep track of all of that? Well, it's not really that hard.

There's my current sleeve. I have added lines to show each of the five panels.

Before I started, I took screenshots of each of the charts for each panel. (Working from charts is much easier than working from written out instructions. Especially for this.) Then I took those images and added them to a document. I adjusted the size so that it all was about the same and all fit on the same page. And I printed out:

The paper shows the wear it's gotten as I've used this for the front, the back, sleeve one, and now sleeve two.

I took a picture of the sheet where it's at right now, so you can see my sticky notes. Each one is underneath the row I will knit next, so I can easily see which stitches I should be making. It's numbered one to five as that's the direction I work while knitting.

Then the "wrong side" is the exact same, so I knit back (from five to one) knitting the knit stitches and purling the purl stitches. At the end of the non-public side, I move each sticky note up two rows, and I work from one to five again.

The sticky on the sticky notes wears off after a while, so I have replaced those sticky notes a few times. I also cut them to fit each panel. Panels one and five are worked multiple times over the stitches, while panels two through four are only worked once. The panels are worked bottom to top, so when I reach the top, I start over again at the bottom.

You can't really see the markers in my knitting if you look at my knitted piece, but they're there. I have a marker at each one of the lines, marking each one of the panels. Because if I somehow get lost in one of the panels, I only have to count back to that section, not back to the beginning of the row.

Any questions, comments, or concerns?

I'm getting close to finishing this sleeve. I'm not going to say how long it should take, because experience tells me the minute I make that guess, something is going to rise up out of nowhere and hit me across the face, stopping me in my tracks.

So, until next week...

The sweater's previous posts:

Friday, February 13, 2026

Cough-Wink-Cough

Tuesday. Photography.

Mr. S arrived shortly after I did. He explained that the art department was having their yearly planning session (which I was there for last year, covering a different teacher), and that he wanted to explain the assignment to the class. Okay, then...

Their "open house" was the next day, only they call it something different now. They've shifted it to now as the students are getting ready to choose their classes for next school year, and the event is more about the various elective teachers and other programs promoting their offerings.

Mr. S instructed his students to pick their best photograph and upload it to the slideshow that Mr. S was going to use for his open house presentation, to try to entice students to choose photography next year. They had to do it in a certain way so that Mr. S didn't have to go through and fix it later.

I completely understood what the kiddos needed to do, but it kind of did need to come from him.

While he was explaining the assignment, he had another announcement for the class.

Mr. S: "Oh, and before I forget, and in case I forget to mention this on Thursday... So, you know how sometimes your teachers will tell you they feel like they're coming down with something, so they're going to miss school the next day? Yeah, well, I feel like I'm coming down with something, so I won't be here... Monday and Tuesday..."

The class? Crickets.

I don't know if they got what Mr. S was hinting at, but whatever. I did. I really hope he had something fun planned.

Then Mr. S went to his planning meeting, which was practically next door to the classroom, and he didn't return at all. (Unlike the teacher I covered last year.)