My Middle Name Is Patience

Moving....

2006-09-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yup, I'm relocating. Come look for me at My Middle Name is Patience. Same name, only at Typepad.

Dear Blogger

2006-08-29T19:11:00.000-07:00

Oh, go read Kelle's letter. It's perfect.

I think I'm going to migrate over to here. Let me know what you think of it.

Happy Birthday, Jillian!

Eureka is on tonight. And The Closer was on last night. I almost completely forget. Season ends next Monday (for The Closer) after an all day marathon.

Monday, Monday

2006-08-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Carie!

Is that not an adorable puppy, or what? And one of these days I'm going to figure out how to print out the pictures and give them to her mom. (Even though she's told me how, at least twice.)

See those seven stitches on the dpn? What idiot reads the directions and adds two stitches in the middle of those seven? Even if "pick up two stitches at the underside of the thumb" is too hard, you would think that, I don't know, glancing at my thumb would have told me the underside of your thumb is on the topside. Opposable, and all that.

In my defense. Mittens. Who wears them? We've had snow here, twice, in the last forty years and I bet you couldn't scrape a decent snowball from both of those snowstorms. And I'm an idiot. Give me lace.

But a pair! And they're almost the same size and everything! Woot! Woot!

The Summer Reading Challenge is coming to an end this Thursday. (As is Kat's Summer Reading Program.) Amanda, who hosted the Challenge, asks about it on her Sunday Book Talk post.

Read Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman this weekend (Edit: Argh! (580 pages). Marji sent it to me in the beginning of the summer. What a great book! It's a little before and after my period (it features Eleanor of Aquitaine's granddaughter, Nell, Eleanor of Aquitaine being one of my favorite historical women) and her husband, Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, pre-dating (by a few hundred years) my favorite Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. No relation between the two, just the title, but it was a fascinating look into a period of history I'm not that familiar with.

Weak kings, brutal battles between relatives, treachery, honor, love, family. I can't wait to read The Reckoning, part three in this trilogy. I can't believe I've never read Sharon Kay Penman's books before, she's much more historically accurate than most of the historical novels I've read, and furthermore, she explained at the end where she took poetic license and why.

Saturday at Last

2006-08-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Well. No pictures from Blogger today either. Harumph.

Anyway.

Happy Birthday to Theresa(who was my August Swap Buddy - I hope she got her box! I sent it on Wed express & they promised me it would be there yesterday), and Meg and to Elizabeth and to Mindy!

TGIF

2006-08-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

"We're going out, Mom? Cool!"

(Oh! I just heard the most hysterical song based on Love Potion #9. The ending lyric was something like:
"and if you think size doesn't matter
ask ex planet number niiiiine."

"Hello! Going! Ooooooouuuuuuttttt, Mmmmmmooooommmmmm. No I will not look at Aunt Carrie" (she did, but it was blurry).

Birdsong asked about my progress on Eliz I from Tudor Roses.......ahhhh......there is no progress. Other than the two rows I've knit since the last picture.

I kept getting sidetracked, and it was hot.

Hot in the way that made me believe that not only is global warming very, very real, but it would never again dip below 102F/39c in these parts again. Well, the first part may be true, but it did cool off.

And then I fell in love with Garterlac Dishcloths. I've made three. So far. And Log Cabins (I've made progress). I'm supposed to knit 6 pairs of mittens by October 1st and so far I've knit a thumbless beginner mitten. Hey. It's hot here. And apparently I don't know the underside of my thumb is at the top of the thumb opening so when the instructions read "cast on two stitches at the underside of the thumb" despite the fact that I had 7 stitches on hold and a join above that, I cast on two stitches in the middle of the 7 stitches.

Oddly enough, there was big hole at the thumb.

I totally would have taken a picture to commemorate my idiocy but I ripped it out before I thought of it.

I have almost finished one sleeve of Its Jacket.

My big decision is what to take with me on my vacation in two weeks. It can't take up much space. I have HOURS in airports. I'm flying in and out of Canada & into DC. I'm thinking the Moll Shawl because it would be perfect in size and complexity, but there's also Eliz I, Its Jacket (if I don't finish it before then.) (two weeks? hahahahahaha), mittens (except dpn's? do they care?)

Happy Birthday, Sandy!

What is up with Blogger now? Gah.

Read Plague Maker by Tim Downs (L) (390 pages). It was a pretty good action thriller about a decades old plan of one man to unleash a genetically engineered strain of the Black Plague on present day New York. The characters weren't completely one dimensional but were a bit thin. They did get off some nice one liners though. I'm a sucker for snark. It said something about war and the casualties of war but I'm not certain what that was.

Thankful Thursday

2006-08-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

Although I've heard it called other things.

No reason, not my pic, but c'mon. Cute baby pandas in a row. What's not to love?

Happy Birthday, Amanda!

The Summer Reading Challenge/Program is almost over. It doesn't look like I'm going to meet my challenge of 26 books but I did read mostly library books and I think I even managed a few from my TBR stack. I was surprised to find out how slowly I read non fiction, and really, how much "other" reading I do. Magazines. The newspaper. The net.

Ooooh. I've got a kitty on my lap. She's doing that hanging-off-my-leg-from-her shoulder-and-flexing-and-pointing-her-paw bit. It's so cute. And so odd to finally have a lap cat. Oh. She's also shedding like crazy. When is summer going to be over?

Random Wednesday

2006-08-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

"No! No, no, no, no, no. NO pictures. Darn paparazzi." [But I do love my kitty condo.]

Ta Da! A Garterlac Dishcloth from Dave of Criminy Jickets. The first of many, I'm sure. I've already picked up yarn that goes better with the kitchen. Thank you, Dave! For a great pattern and a new word. I've been saying "Criminy" like nobody's business.

In very, very sad news, Stargate SG1 has been cancelled after 10 years on the air. It outlasted The X Files ,which is probably why they didn't cancel it last year. Hate their new Big Bad.

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

Tuesday Might be My Good News Day

2006-08-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Jennifer at Full of Stitches and Eva of Pappardele!

Where did the title header come from? An old Barbara Streisand song? More Manic Monday of the Bangles? I've got it stuck in my head and that's the only line I can remember.

Did anyone catch The Closer last night? I always like the show even when I think they're going somewhere I don't like (that pregnancy test a few episodes back almost made me skip the show, but they actually handled it surprisingly well).

Tonight is my new fave, Eureka on the Sci Fi channel, preceded by new favorite cancelled find, Dead Like Me. Wow. A show that was on Showtime (or HBO or whatever) that doesn't rely on profanity and nudity for its plots. It's a pretty quirky clever show. Cancelled, mind you. But cleverish none the less. I've even atarted watching Criminal Minds last week for Mandy Patinkin.

Anyone watch Vanish on Fox yesterday? It looked intriguing, but another serial arc series doesn't appeal to me. Not to mention, they usually play out as if only the actual premise had any thought given to it. Playing that premise out over a season or more? Not so easy.

I think I've made it through one season of 24 all the way (too much tension and anticipation tend to turn me off completely) and Lost was a debacle last season. Not that I watched much past the boring episodes on the boring raft. I did tune into the finale - Clancy Brown! But otherwise? Meh. Is that Clancy Brown in the Home Depot commercials? As The Voice?

The Failed Prototype has failed. Really, I gave up on it. Not enough time and it needed a frame to really do it well. Possibly boning would work, but nothing I had around the house. I thought it would be cute (and it would have!) to make a sock bag look like an old fashioned medical bag. But alas, her birthday is Saturday and mailing it today is cutting it a wee bit close much less Friday night when I finally got the bag right.

Instead I worked a bit on Liz and a bit on Its Jacket and tried to organize my fabric closet. I think I have two plain fabrics, the rest are prints. Which is great, if you're making dresses or blouses but tanks if a nice calm Log Cabin is what you had in mind. Oh! Wooly Thoughts are selling their Mathematical Quilts on Ebay again.

I really have to download some new pics. That's a statue in Carmel Valley.

I am a
Hydrangea

What Flower
Are You?

"You are just a little bit of a show off and like to prove just what you can do. Every time someone double-dog-dared you, you proved that not only could you do it, but you could do it with style."

From Anne. Darn. I wanted to be a Sunflower like her. I like sunflowers. The little description isn't embedded in the "copy and paste" either.

Manic Monday

2006-08-21T08:11:00.000-07:00

At least it promises to be a manic Monday, if I actually do everything I'm planning. I spent the better part of yesterday on the phone. Thankfully, because I got farther on my prototype and made an egregious error. I might just do it Twig's way and just say that I was going to make her Failing Prototype but didn't have the time and if only I had it would have been perfect. You know, in my imagination.

Speaking of perfect, check out Monika's sweater.

Happy Birthday, TK and Laura!

Sunday is My Fun day

2006-08-20T06:43:00.000-07:00

Well, not really, but I just heard that old Bangles "Manic Monday" song. It's supposed to possibly hit triple digits this week. Gah. I'd like it to hit single digits and I don't mean celcius.

Happy Birthday, Leanne of HappyFroggieKnits!

Yesterday was lovely. A lot of reading, knitting and sewing, with the occasional time wasting foray onto the computer. I'm still horrible at Make a Word. I have to break Apprentice! A lot of time fooling with the prototype for my August Birthday Swap partner - finally it looks like what it's supposed to which is good, because I pretty much have to get it into the mail by tomorrow. Why can't I be one of those people who conceive a cute idea, sit down and whip it out in fibery goodness? And have the first finished project look at least familiar with what I'm trying to do. Alas.

Oh, did anyone catch the 200th episode of Stargate SG1? It was pretty funny. A love letter to fans that mostly was. A bit too much Gary Jones but the skits were hysterical. Star Trek, Farscape, Wizard of Oz, Team America.

The 4400 is on tonight - the season is almost over - hopefully Jordan Collier will kill off Isabelle or banish her. An omnipotent two year old trapped in a Bridezilla body is not that entertaining, at least to me.

I'm trying to watch Restoration from Netflix with Robert Downey Jr & Sam O'Neill but so far it's pretty boring.

Jenni moved to Typepad, something I'm thinking of doing. Check out her quilt! And her bunny, Gretchen.

Saturday at Last

2006-08-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Diane!

It's a DeVille! (Click on it to make the pic bigger) I didn't check to see if it had Dalmation seat covers, darn it. I hope I'm not invading privacy or anything, it was just too clever not to snap. Does this count for Kat?

Summer Reading Program/Challenge:

Language Visible: Unraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet From A to Z by David Sacks (375 pages)(L). This was a great book. I highly recommend it for anyone. Everyone. It has linguistics (that "an" before the FO is an "n" acting as a euphonic buffer) trivia, rhymes, history, wit and truly bad puns: "we all know what happened when the cow tried to jump over the barbed-wire fence: udder disaster." Can you guess what letter that's under? (The book is arranged with each letter as a chapter.) T!

The English alphabet has only been 26 letters for less than a couple of hundred years. Shakespeare didn't have this many letters! It was a big fight. I realize language is fluid but it's a little disconcerting to see just how fluid. Sacks tells the background history of where the letters come from, (the British/Canadian "Zed" for "Z" is more in line with the ancient/medieval nomenclature), what the letters have looked like down the ages, (the right to left reading vs left to right flipped a lot of letters so that we use the mirror image), oh, just all sorts of cool stuff. Did you know that M from Ian Fleming's James Bond real name is Sir Miles Messervey? And that the letter M was more or less a pictograph of water? (He tells Q's real name too.)

Highly entertaining and educational. I bought a hardback copy for my library.

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (that Hugh Laurie) (339 pages) (L). Speaking of James Bond, this is Hugh Laurie's contribution to the genre. His hero, Tom Lang, sounds remarkably similar to a tough Wooster, but that could just be me. Tom manages quite a credible American accent at times, if he does say so himself. He also says "As ye sew, so shall ye knit" which, yes. Love. (Okay, once, but once is enough sometimes). It's a pretty good spy thriller, lots of self effacing Brit humor, derring do, covert action, a pretty freaky plot if you believe in conspiracy theories. (As in, timely. And it freaked me out to think of it).

This is Hezekiah's plan for the day:

Mine is to knit and sew and clean and FINISH SOMETHING! I'm dying to do Liz (not that way) now that I've seen all the lovely Liz's at Tudor Roses. Not to mention all the other Tudors. I'm only to the sleeve shaping on the first sleeve of Its Jacket. Think I can finish it today? Tomorow?

Oh, and check out the gorgeous knitting of The Rainey Sisters.

Sheepish, Sheep and sheesh

2006-08-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Hallejah. Blogger is posting pictures again. Let's see if my blogline updates. I mght have to move to Typepad.

Yes, yes, I love my new scratching post. Go away. I'm admiring it from a distance.

The cutest teeny sheep in the world. Next to Ann's.

Side view. Aren't those bobbles for curls cute? BFF found her in Virginia City and had to get her for me because - sheep. And a knitted sheep at that. Possibly well on her way to becoming a Delores.

I got my Fishie Entrelac Mitten pattern from Laurie today! So cute. She's having a song naming contest right now too.

Oh no! I left off a birthday, and one that falls on the Future InterNational Holiday. Happy (Belated) Birthday, Susan!

Your Life Path Number is 1

Your purpose in life is to lead others. (Follow me! Did I mention my real name is Wile E. Coyote?)

You have great drive and determination. Nothing is going to stand in your way. (hahahahahahaha)

You seek out challenges and the spotlight. You'll take all the work - and all the glory. (Take all the work? Are they mad? And oh, the glory.)

Status and success are important to you. You demand the best from everyone and everything. (As long as I don't have to live up to these exacting standards.)

In love, you tend to take a protective role. You enjoy being the provider in relationships. (Wha'? )

You expect others to be like you, and as a result, you are often disappointed. (Now this is too, too sadly true. So, so upsetting that you are all not as fabulous, perfect and wonderful as I am. Did I mention modest and humble? Self effacing?)

A little selfish and vain, you always put yourself first. ouch.

Remember, everyone already knows you're great - you don't need to remind them!

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Hooey.

Julia at Knitting History had an interesting link today about knitting in public and how it was perceived as being standoffish, morally righteous and dismissive of the people around the knitter. Really? Morally righteous? Because I'm "producing" or "multitasking"? Criminey.

I knit because I'm so fidgety that if I don't knit, I'm probably jiggling my feet on someone's chair, whispering, or daydreaming. It helps me focus in meetings and classes (but it does have to be mindless, and it does depend on the forum). In coffeehouses, libraries, lines; lapsed knitters, lots of kids, and the curious tend to ask me questions. Have any of you had any trouble with anyone while you're knitting?

November 17th was a busy, busy night

2006-08-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Teabird,
Ruth,Hilary and Aurora! Lots of August 17th birthdays. I'd break out the Birthday Book Cake but Blogger is being recalcitrant. It did let me post the quiz I found at Teabirds.

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness.

Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul.

You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable.

Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings.

You have great vision and can be very insightful.

In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself.

Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend.

You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

2006-08-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Jenn! Her birthday is Wednesday the 16th, and her husband's is Thursday! That's so cute.

My parents birthdays are Jan 11 and 22, same year, same hospital, but they didn't meet until college.

No knitting news, no books finished, I had a lovely birthday, thank you for all the birthday wishes!!

oh! BFF gave me the cutest teeny sheep ever.

Or, As I Like To Refer to it: Future National Holiday

2006-08-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to you (and meee)
Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Abigail and meeeeeee
Happy Birthday to us.

"I know you've been dying to tear out this deck, I'm just helping! I would never, ever do this to furniture. [aside] That wasn't ugly."

Look! Actual progress on Its Jacket's sleeve between being feted at brunches and dinners and whatnot. Its Jacket doesn't have pretty stitchmarkers because I keep knitting on the deck and I dropped one between the slats, never to be seen again. Unless I do actually tear out that deck, or it collapses.

Cleo Might Not Be A Leo

2006-08-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

Cleo might not be a Leo but she's 24 years old! I found out where she lives and her real name. Cleo. That's actually a perfect name for her, I wish I'd thought of it. I told Hezekiah she's just going to have to suck it up, once you hit 24 you get to go wherever you want.

Speaking of going wherever you want, that's Laci's Museum of Lace and Textiles in Berkeley. I love that place. Nooks, books, patterns, ribbon, thread, not to mention old wedding gowns, fabric.....it is amazing. It's not even all that big.

They've got the knight and his fair lady flanking the door as you walk in. (You might have to click on the picture to see the knight riding the horse clearly. His Lady is across from him and not in the picture. )

Score at Skein Lane. The sale's only been going on since July 27th and already the place looks terribly empty. But all Rowan 50% off? Yowza. I bought chunky yarn destined to be mittens, and in the bowl, yarn for an oversized pullover out of the Knitter's Magazine issue #72. The single colored yarn is a light gray. Like the sky outside this morning. Fog! Yay, fog.

We're all agreed. It's A finished object, an FO (initials) and a foe. Once upon a time I knew the rules behind that. I'm reading, Language Visible by David Sacks that tells the history behind our alphabet. It was a column, so each letter gets its own chapter. It's pretty amazing, partly because I'd never gave it much thought. The Greeks picked it up from the Phoenicians, or was that the Etruscans? Either way, not a similar language at all, and yet the alphabet was able to adapt.

Oh! I got the idea for the Panzanella Salad from a pic and a description from Aurora, so she should have the actual recipe. I'd never heard of it either. It's so good though.

Y'know, it's much too early for my coffee to be playing horrible tricks on me. First, I overfill the coffee grounds so the water overflows and spills coffee all over the coffee maker and the counter. Then the lid isn't snapped on the coffee pot securely so it throws itself into the sink, spilling coffee all over the counter and my hand. And then it's not even that hot, which is good news for my hand, but lukewarm coffee? Bah.

Need more coffee to cope with this.

Happy Birthday JustJoan,
Tabitha and Mary Jo!

Edited to add: The Princess of Quite a Lot is two today! (Jennifer of Craftylily's daughter).

Think it's too early to call Mary Jo and sing Happy Birthday to her? After *cough*choke*sputter* years (since Kindergarden)..........she'll probably let the answering machine take the call.

2006-08-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Karen! (the 12th)

Aurora had a pic of a Panzanella Salad on her blog that I immediately went home and recreated with:

Yummy. I'm perfecting the recipe. (Meaning I'm going to have it every night until I get bored with it, and considering I had a peanut butter & honey sandwich from the 1st through the 12th grades and would get distraught if my mother snuck in say, a ham sandwich, I'm thinking it'll be about the time I don't have any garden tomatos.) We grew garlic so it's drizzled with garlic oil. (My cousin has an olive grove but sadly, the olive oil isn't from her). (Homegrown garlic and store bought garlic is pretty similar, however onions? Are amazingly good from a garden. I mean, onions? Who knew?)

Well, no peppers in the Panzanella. Those are going in the Pasta Primavera and scrambled eggs....... the tomatos are being eaten like apples. They're so red through & through! Every year it amazes me.

What? You want this ball of yarn back? But....but.....come and get it! If you can.
Hahahahahahahaha.....

Hey! An FO in a Day

2006-08-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

First things first. Is it "an" FO or "a" FO? Driving me crazy.

I finally decided to stop commenting everywhere how much I wanted to knit a dishcloth and just knit a dischloth. Other than mucking up the ball band pattern (slipping with yarn in front or back or whatever is the wrong way a couple of times) ta da! Done. In a couple of hours. I hope it shrinks up. But cotton. It has to shrink.

And this is my progress on Its Jacket. Despite claiming on the pattern specs and repeating it to susoolu when she asked, I said I'd used a size 3 needle on The Shell. Hmmm. That's a size 5 needle I'm using on Its Jacket and the gauge is tighter than The Shell. Maybe I didn't use a 3. Maybe I used a 6. Maybe I should write this stuff down in the knitting notebook I keep.

At any rate, adorable monsters doing adorable and monstrous things to yarn:

Cuddling adorably with her security yarn. Can you see that huge tuft of fur from her ears?

Bad Sophie! This is the same ball of yarn she took off with in Carmel. I was winding it back up after delivering peanut butter cookies to my BFF (I baked today too) and that little scamp snagged it again. I'm not sure how much of a lesson was learned with me saying things like "Oh cute! Wait, wait, let me get a picture first!"

I hope everyone at Stitches Midwest is having fun, learning lots, and enchancing their stashes.

Happy Birthday to Liz
and Jo in Boston! Both Thursday, August 10th.

Edited to add: and Jen of Jenla. One of the very first blogs I ever found.

Chrissy's birthday is Friday the 11th. Happy Birthday, Chrissy!

Birthdays & Birthday Presents. Or just Presents.

2006-08-08T10:32:00.000-07:00

A belated Happy Birthday to JennyRaye whose birthday was last Friday, August 4th. Sorry, JennyRaye! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Keohinani and Carole! Today, the 8th.

And look what Stephanie sent me! She says it was because she had that book already and what's a package without a ball of yarn, but I'm taking it as an early birthday present. Any way you look at it, awesome. I don't have that book and see the three-fold pattern on the left? It's a notecard! Isn't that clever? She did not, however, send me that measuring tape. Whoops. Thought I'd cleared the "photo shoot area" better. I haven't brewed up the mint tea yet but I'm looking forward to curling up with the book and the tea soon.

Blogger is being really uncooperative with pictures today. At least it let me get a couple in. So no cute pic of Hezekiah cuddling with the orange ball of yarn of Its Jacket last night or my progess so far on it. (Think tiny gauge swatch.)

Eureka is on tonight, 9pm Sci Fi channel. I can't decide if I like his house, S.A.R.A.H or not. It was pretty funny when it locked him out and made him apologize for missing dinner but I can see it getting pretty twee. OTOH, the show has a nice balance of quirky, serious, science and characterization. So far. Maybe my summer standards are lower but I'm enjoying the series.

August 7th Babies!

2006-08-07T10:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday, Thorny and Crafting Jen! (formerly FolkCat)Edited to add: Happy belated birthday to Jay of Jay's Craft Room.

In knitting news, I can't get the curved cable to work out the way I want it on Its Jacket. (The gauge is really different for the Silky Tweed than the Silky Wool - surely I knew that when I started? I did swatch, right? (hahahahahahaha). The problem being, I don't particularly want a jacket that's lighter than its shell, so I think I'm going to adjust the gauge a bit tighter (the yarn likes the tighter gauge, it drapes and feels better, is that odd or what?) and adjust the pattern. Since it's basically garter stitch and a 3/3 cable, it's not going to take much thought.

Pattern: Two Blue by Lily Chin from Knitter's Magazine Spring 1997
(The Shell. Its Jacket is In Progress. Sort of. Okay, I cast on the first 3 rows of I-cord, hopefully I won't be ripping these out. I think I've got the specs down.)
Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool. I love this yarn. Love, love, love. It's dream to knit with. I like that the dark brown yarn also has flecks of red, orange and blue.
Needles: Size 3 circular, Addi Turbos.
Modifications: None, conciously. The pattern is fairly simple, garter stitch interrupted by a 3/3 cable so it's nice and portable, reasonably mindless but not mind numbing. The knit on I-cord was surprisingly easy to do. (I hadn't done it before. Easy!) The only bit I would change is I wouldn't bother to invisibly cast on the I-cord cable side edges, that was a bit of a pain to sew up and needless aggravation.

Read Making History by Stephen Fry (of Jeeves & Wooster, A Little Fry & Laurie, etc) (380 pages) (L). After a slow start (the book concerns itself with Hitler and his legacy and I'm a bit burnt out on Hitler, World War II, current events in the Mid East etc) but once the plot unfolds (it involves time travel somewhat) it picks up and addresses the question, what would the world be like if Hitler was never born? The answers are pretty imaginative and surprising.

Finished A Pasage To India by E M Forster (372 pages) (Book Club). My, my. Speaking of class warfare and ingrained prejudices. (Jennifer had an interesting posting about this the other day.) No one was immune to it, no one fully overcame it, no one seemed to know anyone at all. A bit depressing, beautifully written, the best use of "He said/She said" I've read to date.

Whoo Hoo! An Actual FO & an I-Cord Tutorial (of sorts)

2006-08-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

August Birthday, the Sixth, is Katy. Happy Birthday, Katy!

And look! I finished something. The Shell! I did end up ripping the neckline I-cord edging out.. After the armhole edging came out better, softer, looser, it looked pathetic. Now I'm not happy with the join of the I-cord and the cable on the right hand side. That's my 2nd attempt and while I'm lettting it go for now, I'll probably unravel it and tighten up the gauge on the I-cord to match the gauge on the cable down the road. Say, Wednesday.

This is the best picture of it. I had it on in one shot but all you could see was a brown blob and that I really need to clean the bathroom mirror. (Which I did, and I also wove in all the ends. Of The Shell, not the mirror. I wonder why my English papers used to come back covered in red ink?)

Naturally today was freezing. I've got to finish Its Jacket.

Here's a stab at a pictorial tutorial of knitted on I-cord:

1) Normal four stitch I-cord.......

2) I've picked up a stitch from the edging (5 stitches on my needle), slid them across the needle and am about to knit the picked up stitch off the needle.

3) I've knit the first three stitches normally and now I'm going to knit the last two on the needle through the back of the loop. Four stitches!

Until, of course,

4) I pick up a 5th stitch from the edge again,

5) slide the stitches across the needle (normal I-cord procedure) and start the whole thing over again).

It was easy to knit the two together through the back of the loop, keeping the stitches loose helped. I knit the I-cord edging of both armholes, ripped out the neckline and redid it in a little over two hours. You'll probably be a lot faster, evidently I knit like a turtle.

I'd show you a picture of my helper/companion but she hid under the lilac bush the whole time. Probably mad because I managed to not tape SG1 Friday night and miss the middle of the darn thing.

I finished The River of Time, by Igor Novikov (367 pages) TBR. Very interesting look at time travel, the physics of wormholes and black holes. I'm glad I read it after the Physics of Superheroes, probably more would have been over my head. He did dash my hopes about time travel at the end - what he's saying is possible (not yet mind you) isn't what I think of as time travel.

August Babies

2006-08-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to the August Birthday Swap babies: 8/2 Kristina (I'm not sure that link works.)
August 3rd Rebecca
August 4th, Jes

and today's August Baby (the 5th) Martha

And I don't think that CarrieScribe got into the August Birthday Swap, but her birthday was August 1st.

Happy Birthday fellow August babies!

(and why yes, I've made a HUGE deal of my birthday in the past. I once put up a countdown in my office at work about 3 months before the Big Day. (Not a milestone birthday, just one of them) This was back when I worked for Faceless Corporation That Does TOO Care About Your Health! But Mostly Your Payments.)

Okay, that's the best I could do. I mean, ever. Once, each. So far. I'm terrible at this game! but it's fun.

This stitch pattern didn't work out in this cotton yarn - it's another twinset shell. That yarn and that stitch pattern would be better than suited to a jacket - it was THICK - but I think it would be a PERFECT stitch for a scarf in the Touch Me yarn. With fringe.

Today my goal (and I can't believe I've said "my goal" - I hate that kind of thing! We're so structured. All this leisure time we've been given with the invention of labor saving devices and we fill up our days with appointments more than ever. )

Ahem. But today, I really, really, really REALLY want to finish the I cord edging on The Shell's armholes! It fits and the weather is perfect for it right now. I did invisibly cast on the first four stitches.........but then I came into the computer room.......and now it's an hour and a half later. Ergh.

R has decided that these are the socks she likes, from the new Vogue Knitting. Nicky Epstein is the designer. I love her stuff.

Wow, they have a LOT of socks in that issue! There are even a few sweaters I wouldn't mind making.

2006-08-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Check out Lauries's mittens! That fish! It's cute. It's just so hard for a fish to be cute. And those cables! Now I'm jazzed to knit mittens, which is good, since I'm signed up at Ann's to knit six pairs. (June 11th has the details but she's got mittens from then on.)

(And a cool button Mouse designed.).

I haven't knit a stitch since Tuesday night. (And shhhh, I knit while driving home that night. The road was deserted! It's completely straight road! It was cool. I only did for a block or two.) My row count on The Shell's Jacket I-Cord is off. I'm thinking of knitting it to the measurement it needs to be and then picking up the stitches and measuring the darn thing all. the. freaking. time. The stitch count is fine. Grrr. Luckily it's just 3/3 cable and it won't get thrown off if I have to knit more rows than the gauge suggests. Ha! Finally buying too much yarn pays off.

Blearg. I woke up with a migraine at 4am this morning, took a Maxalt, went back to sleep, woke up headache free, but I feel like I'm underwater. Clearly too much housework yesterday.

Oh, and here's a great ~~timewaster~~ brain work out: Make A Word.

If you're in the Contra Costa County area of California, check out the CCTimes TV Critic, Chuck Barney's blog and post. Heck, if you're from anywhere, post. I think so far, I'm it.

Speaking of TV, Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days is back on Wednesday nights 10pm FX. And Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis are on the Sci-Fi Channel tomorrow at 9pm and 10pm. The crossover episode last week on SG1 was great. Atlantis, not so much. I guess we're getting a six month hiatus between seasons? Bah.

Oh, and Skein Lane in El Cerrito is closing! Waaaaa.

Keep a good thought for Rebekah's Nick. They've had a really bad run lately.

Look What I Got!

2006-07-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

Look what KSD of hand eye crafts sent me! I thought at first she confused me with someone in a swap, but no. She just sent it to me just to be sweet. My favorite color of yarn, a pretty magnetic monogram C (which I didn't even see at first), Chiclets, and yarn....intarsia holding things. (Please don't tell me not remembering the names of things is either a symptom of Alzheimer's or old age. I prefer to think of my mind crammed with vast stores of knowledge (such as supporting characters in 70's movies) with an indifferent filing system.)

I tried to post this yesterday but blogger was being recalcitrant about uploading pictures.

This lovely couple is kitty corner from the library in Carmel-By-The Sea.

And yes, I do know where all the libraries are wherever I've been. Yarn stores too. Priorities.

Ha! I upped my score. Okay, I did some homework. I'm not saying that my original score was bad just because Marji scored a 9, but I went from a 53 to an 86 when I took the test on RheLynn's than I did on hers. Coincidence? I think not.

And over at Anne's is a link to Yarn Monkey's 2006 Sock Wars (I really HAVE to sit down and use the help I was sent and learn how to post buttons. Soon.) Doesn't that look like fun?

Mermaid on the Beach

2006-07-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Isn't that spectacular? I love sand sculpture. I took the pic the last trip out and she was gone last week. Not to the ocean though, she was right off Ocean Ave. I think the sculptures are the Carmel version of playing music on streetcorners for money. Gorgeous, gorgeous work.

I spent most of my time at the beach last week reading and staring at the ocean. No camera, no knitting. Just me, a book and a towel so I could walk the shoreline and then flop down & read. And not have to worry about my purse, a chair, etc, etc. It was fun, but it was too short.

And was the weather perfect for Lambstown or what? It was something like 82 degrees, I heard. That's practically frigid for Dixon in July. Too bad I missed it. I almost drove there from Carmel since I left about noon.

Ohh, GRRR! Blogger just managed to eat most of my post. Fine.

Hugh Laurie is on Bravo at 8pm tonight on whatever James Lipton's interview show is called. The Closer is on at 9pm.

Heat & Fiber vs Beach and Ocean

2006-07-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Lambstown Festival is coming in at a distant 2nd to Monterey this weekend. I'll be in a continuing ed class tomorrow down there, so I'm bookending the day before and after to play in the Monterey Peninsula. So everyone who is going, and taking classes, take LOTS of pictures!

And notice how I'll be gone for 3 whole days? Well, one whole day and two partials. And yet. Check out my suitcase (which you can't because I didn't take a picture of it and it's packed). I have enough clothing for probably a week and all temperatures, four books, three WIP's and one new project. And I took out two projects (the pink cable and self striping socks). But just in case I'm stranded for several months, I'm ready.

SG1 and Stargate Atlantis have crossover episodes tomorrow night. Which I'll probably have to wait to see on Saturday because what are the chances the hotel gets the Sci Fi Channel?

Finished The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios (365 pages) (L).

Also finished A Fold in the Tent of the Sky by Michael Hale (355 pages) (L). *edited to add: I found this book on Helen's Knitting in the Shadows.

Oddly enough, the sci fi novel took me a day to read and the physics book three weeks. He wrote it "for the non specialist who is interested in a relatively pain free way to learn about the basic physics concepts underlying our modern technological lifestyle." I really enjoyed it.

James Kakalios has a breezy quippy style I like and he peppered the books with illustrations such as the 'cooling coffee effect'. "When you blow on your coffee to cool it off, you do not reduce the temperature of the coffee because your breath is a frosty 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Rather what you do is disturb the steam, pushing the most energetic water molecules away so that they are unable to be deflected back into the coffee. Once they are permanently removed from the coffee/steam system, the average energy (that is, temperature) of the remaining coffee decreases. This physical process is called "evaporation cooling" and is the process underlying the operation of refrigerators and why sweating is more effective in cooling you down if there is a strong breeze to carry the perspiration away"

*Not every molecule in a collection has the exactly the same kinetic energy. Those water molecules in the coffee that are energetic enough to escape from the liquid state form the clouds hovering over the coffee.

He didn't cover all my favorite superheroes, the Atom, Superman and Flash featured pretty prominently, but he did hit on a few of the X Men and the Fantastic Four. And yes, it was very breezy. And quippy. I like quippy.

The Michael Hale novel was an interesting premise. A corporation is formed around a team of psychics to both explore their gift and do business deals. One of the psychics decides to go farther and manages to time travel, changing the fate of Sharon Tate and his team mates, while attempting to amass a treasure for himself. It was a nice quick entertaining read. The characterizations were pretty thin.

And keep a good thought for Rebekah, Obsidian Kitten, and RheLynn's rescued kittens.

See? Knitting. And Improving My Mind

2006-07-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

Gawd. I came in yesterday to work on a P & L - NO a/c in the building on the weekends. And I had to copy millions of reciepts (at least thousands).

It was 111 degrees Farenheit outside (44 celcius) and it was FREAKING HOT inside. I wore shorts & a tank (no one here, obviously) and I wet down my hair twice in the 4 hours I managed to stay.

This weather sucks. It usually cools down at night but it's been in the 80's (27 degrees celcius) at night.

Nice Primary color Log Cabin, eh? The only reason I have the yarn was for a baby gift but it didn't quite make it in time for the baby (as said baby is a year old this month). I think I'm going to have to pick out the center square & reknit it, it's really wonky. I've only used 3 sizes of needles on it (because I keep losing them).

The Physics of Superheroes is great. (Not that I'm done with it. Not that I'll ever finish it. But I'm close now! Three weeks later). I highly recommend it, particularly for people who like physics lite (more or less) and mutant superpower info. It also had a fascinating tidbit on why blowing on your coffee cools it off, and it isn't because of your "frosty 98.9 breath". It's a really fun book.

Okay. Must work. But if I ever get home tonight, The Closer is on at 9pm and there was some PBS thing at 8pm that looked good. No idea what it was.

Pix!

2006-07-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Those logs are actually sea lions. Cross my heart. There's a close up a picture or two down, but it's not much help. Whoops, this is the close up shot. My bad.

Is this not a cool dude? In Carmel Valley, outside of the Pot Farm.

The obligatory amateur shot of the Lone Cypress on 17 Mile Drive.

There! Clearly sea lions. Or a logging truck wrecked up the coast. (Knock on wood. My cousin drives one of those.)

Basking in the fruit of ones labor. Possibly just digging and hiding in a hole. Very demanding work.

Yesterday I was at The Beach -

2006-07-19T12:02:00.000-07:00

- so why am I at work today? Not to mention, it's about 30 degrees hotter here. 105 Farenheit and it rained this morning! And it was hot! Hot! Bah.

But, the interesting stuff. First destination: Yarndogs in Los Gatos. Very friendly, nice selection. I picked up some yarn for a Log Cabin and some dpn's (thankfully, because it turned out that I needed them for the I-Cord on The Shell.)

Sophie even managed to pose nicely (she's Perpetual Motion). She didn't pull all the skeins out of the bins either, something I took for granted at the time, but after she emptied my yarn bag of yarn balls a few times over the weekend, I've come to realize that she and Hezekiah feel that yarn should be displayed. Displayed or dragged across the floor and thoroughly killed.

"What? I wouldn't dream of of doing anything bad! I'm too adorable." (Also, please let me know if these pictures are not adorable as I'm only allowed to post adorable pictures of BFF's puppy.)

The Shell at The Beach. The neckline is finished (except grafting the ends together). BFF feels that I should do the armhole I-Cord edging to "finish it" but I say it looks fabulous as is. Because I am lazy.

But I did knit the I-Cord pretty tightly on the right side of the neckline "learning" the process and I'm debating if I should rip the whole thing out and do it right. (And I'm only contemplate doing this because it did knit a whole lot faster when I got going on it.) Argh. I'll probably end up redoing it and doing the armholes. WTH, right? Might as well do it right.

Doesn't that look heavenly? Other than sunburnt shoulders (evidently I haven't mastered the art of the Spray Sunblock) it was so much fun. We did the 17 Mile Drive too. There were a lot more houses and buildings than I remember from the last time I was there. Pictures of a bunch of sea lions masquerading as logs on the beach to come.

Well, Phooey.

2006-07-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

And on a Friday to boot.

How can a Friday be bad? It can be, when one thinks that one is attending a seminar all day. A seminar in which one will learn and grow, become more proficient in one's career path and hear all about the ~~idiot~~ sage and wise ~~things~~ rulings of Our Government. And not incidentally, knit through the whole thing.

But alas. I can't read a calendar. It was yesterday. Luckily I'm now all paid up for the Jan 07 seminar, but......but......darn it, I was going to start another tank top. (No, not out of the Hempathy, *why do you ask? And Julia, what is this "swatching" that you speak of? Very mysterious word. I cannot quite understand...?) But I'm heartened by the news that it softens up. Any chance I can block the whole thing before I knit it? And any chance I can stop typing in this stilted fashion? (I blame it on Passage to India. I was listening to it on audiobook on my long useless commute.)

Might as well update the Summer Reading Program/Challenge.

Book #9: The Friendship Test by Elizabeth Noble (BC/L) (437 pages). It was a fairly compulsive read once I got into it, the plots were positively soap operatic, but the characters rang very one dimensional. The conceit of the book, the 'Friendship Test' was a quick judgment of how so-and-so would presumably behave in a concentration camp. Yeah, nice. It followed four very different women from college through, maybe their 30's.

Book #10 The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman (TBR/hb)(211 pages). Ha! An actual book I listed on the Challenge. I love Alice Hoffman, she's quirky and yet realistic in some way. It was an interesting look at lightening, loss and love and wasn't really about what I thought it was, but if I tell you, I'll spoil it. Not one of her best, but still good.

Book #11 The Mason-Dixon Line by John C Davenport (L)(116 pages). Okay, I admit it, I borrowed this book from the library because of my recent obsession with Log Cabin Knit blankets and the Mason Dixon Knitting book. But as Stephanie pointed out in her blog, the history of the US is pretty compelling too. She even mentioned Antietam, which is a creek that's part of the natural border of the Mason-Dixon line. I didn't even realize it was originally used to separate Pennsylvania and Maryland, I always thought it was in the Deep South somewhere.

I did know that Mason & Dixon were mathematicians and astronomers because I'd run across their names in one of my math/astronomy books - (hey! Mason & Dixon are people, and not say, towns). Mathematicians/astronomers from England drew a boundary in the US? Well, yes. They'd finally worked out a way to calculate successfully longitude - through - - - wait for it - - math and astronomy. (Not them, specifically. He did. (Galileo thought of it. Oh, go look it up.)

Anyway, it was a pretty fascinating book. It made a good case for the Mason-Dixon line being the root cause of the Civil War - that is, the differing cultures of Pennsylvania, run by Protestants, Quakers and capitalists and Maryland, run by Catholics and tobacco cartels eventually dividing the nation.

Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis start their new season tonight! Eureka premieres next week Tuesday. Now that looks pretty good. Even Max Headroom is in it! Geez, if it wasn't for the Sci Fi channel, I'd have almost nothing to watch lately. Other than The 440o and the Dead Zone on USA Sundays, The Closer on TNT Monday night, CSI NY repeats on Wednesdays (possibly Bones one of these days - a repeat of some reality game show? Please.) Various & sundry History Channel and PBS specials. Oh, and House repeats on Tuesdays. Uh, never mind. I watch a lot of TV. Why does it seem like there's never anything good on?

*if you are actually asking, I was going to make it out of Crystal Palace Salsa in yellow that looks like it's been discontinued (after googling for it) which, considering I bought it aproximately one hundred years ago (or maybe ten) and Straw Into Gold (Crystal Palace's retail shop in Berkeley) closed a couple of years ago [sob], isn't too surprising.

What? I had to start something new. Lace takes too much concentration, seaming The Shell seemed a bit too bold, the sock was at the heel turn (and doing badly) and.......well, dang it, I wanted to start something new. New! New!

Ha! Camera phone! You gotta have a picture if you can.

Random Babbling .(I've actually used this title before. Huh.)

2006-07-13T09:29:00.000-07:00

Pretty painted rock at the Orinda Shakespeare Festival park.

Look what came in the mail! At last. Only two months later. It feels like twine. Not going to be a tank top, I'll tell you that much.

Look what came in the mail! Bless you, Marji. (There were more but they've scampered off to good homes).

See, I am sewing the final Critter Blanket. (I'm backing it because it's awful! I can't decide how disturbed I should be that I continued to knit it as badly as it was started. Oh well. Consistency. Never had it before, might as well go with it now.) I found an unbelievable number of sewing UFO's in the sewing room, a nightgown that only needs the sleeves sewn on and a polarfleece jacket that needs to be lined, the sleeves sewn on and hemmed. (The others need more).

Actual completed Critter Blankets waiting for their companion.

The Shell. Both shoulder seams sewn! Neither side seam sewn. I-cord neckline not even attempted yet. (The sides aren't sewn! Jeepers.)

Working For The Weekend

2006-07-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

More accurately, working to pay off my yarn purchases. Case in point: Touch Me. Soooo soft. I probably could have resisted it had there not been a knit up scarf right next to the yarn........did I mention it was soooo soft? Pretty.... I can't quite decide what stitch pattern to use, I'm leaning toward a corset cable and some kind of ribbing.

The Log Cabin Critter Blanket is done! You might notice that the critter nearby is is not technically on the blanket, she's got her paws under it.

I pulled out the Pretty Pink Cabled Scarf to make myself feel better as a knitter and managed to knit up quite a bit more - relatively speaking. I knit to the end of the first ball of yarn, but thankfully it was a left over ball, I'd made the Miss Dashwood baby hat and some sockies out of it before starting the scarf. Hopefully the remaining ball of yarn will be enough to finish the thing but I could probably get away with a mismatched dyelot if I need to. I've seen tons of that yarn in that color.

Placing a stitchmarker to mark your progress is a genius idea. The first marker is where I picked it up on Friday (after a long, long hiatus).

Sadly, I didn't notice until last night that I had made THREE freaking mistakes on Friday. The count wasn't off! I've never mucked up a cable without throwing off my stitch count. Until now. Thank heaven for new mistakes, eh? Grrrr.

The mistakes are way too far down/not that horrifyingly awful to unravel and/or rip back (for me). I'll just know they're there and will undoubtedly point them out if I ever finish the thing and/or get any compliments on it.

Saw Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest on Saturday morning. It was.....okay. A little creepier than the first, a little too violent/gross out, waaaaay too long and clearly the middle of a trilogy. It would have been better to see it before the final movie, Labor Day 2007 and get the whole story.

And they could have skipped the whole island and dog scene.

But Captain Jack was as campy and sexy as always and Will Turner pirated up. I like Keira Knightly and she was suitably swashbuckly and nervy and implausibly disguised as a cabin boy. She and Captain Jack were quite the pair. I liked her old fiancee a bit better this go 'round.

I tried to watch the History Channel's Pirates of the Carribean last night but couldn't get into it. Couldn't get into much. At least they killed off someone I didn't mind dying on The 4400 but too bad it wasn't Isabelle.

Tonight, The Closer on TNT at 9pm. Bones is back (in repeats) on Wednesday at 8pm on Fox but the best news is that Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis start their new season Friday at 9pm and 10pm, respectively. They're an hour later than the previous season. The SG1 storyline sounds a bit awful and I'm not a big fan of the new Big Bad, the Ori, but Richard Dean Anderson is going to be back (for probably two or three episodes) and Ben Browder (Farscape) more or less took his place, (as much as anyone could replace RDA) so at least there's The Pretty, if not The Plot.

Finished Intrigue & Treason: The Tudor Court 1547-1558 (319 pages/TBR/HB) by David Loades. It had some interesting stuff in it, but it basically read as an expanded version of footnotes, complete with its own footnotes. I'd recommend it only for the hardcore historical buff.

Read The Friendship Test by Elizabeth Noble (437 pages)(BC/L) as a Book Club selection. It was okay. A little too long for my tastes but the soap opera twists kept me going. The characterizations and plotlines seemed very one dimensional.

A cat and her security yarn.

All I Need Is About Seventy Two Hours of Sleep

2006-07-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

Or maybe nine? Caught Restoration Comedy last night at the Caliofornia Shakespeare Festival. I'd post pictures but all they'd let me take were of the statues. Bo-ring. Well not, but still. The set this time was completely black & white and toile looking. Actually, it looked a lot better when it got dark than when it was backed up by the foothills. It was oddly enough, quite bawdy, something I should've anticipated but didn't. Not outrageously so, I just - didn't expect it for some reason. (I didn't do my play homework, that's why). The costumes were great and it was a well done production, the cast was fabulously cast.

But midnight is way too late for me. (It wasn't even midnight. It was more like 11:20 and I still feel like I've been up for days). Must be the 4th throwing me off. I woke up at my usual 5am on Wednesday and decided to go back to sleep and did. I never fall back asleep! I woke up at 9am and had to be at work by 10am. (The horror, y'know? Don't you feel for me? I stayed until almost 5pm last night too. Oh, the work ethic.) (It's the slow season).

You'll probably have to click on the photos - they're so dark! But it's two little hummingbirds sitting in the nest in the tree. You can see their little beaks (and heads).

I am so mad at Fashion Knit in Walnut Creek. I was there over the weekend, they had a sign saying they were open, I talked about it with the owner and a saleswoman and then - THEY WERE CLOSED! No sign saying they were closed either. I went back twice to check (just in case - I really needed that......er, darn circular needle) and ended up in Lafayette yesterday at Big Sky Studio where they did have a 40" circ in size 4 so I finished up the Critter Blanket last night waiting for the play to start. (I also kind of sort of bought Touch Me yarn and eyed a Berroco yarn that would be perfect for the Passage to India Knit the Classics project this month, if I actually had an actual project in mind.)

It's been weirdly deserted around here. Fourth of July is usually picnics & parades and there's normally hecka foot & car traffic bustling about doing just that, but the roads were practically empty. There were people out & about, mind you. But there was also parking. Everyone went out of town? Waaaay out of town?

Look! A puppy! She's getting big. (So BFF says, but she still looks baby puppy tiny to me. She also grabbed the Critter Blanket and dragged it under the table - more like a toy than a blanket. I had to rescue it, if only because I had 4 shortish circs in it. (What? I couldn't buy a long one. I improvised. I didn't even think of it until after I got back from my yarn store search. I'm an idiot). (But the long one was much, much easier. When (if)it's done blocking, I'll post a pic before I pop it into the mail to Rebekah.

Oh, I should link all this. But I'm tired. Is it 4 yet? 3:30? I came in late, why didn't I take a long lunch before I went home early? Now I can't leave early unil later.

Tragedy & Depair at the Symphony

2006-07-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

Look, look I tell you! [points tragically]. Twenty five minutes into the program, an hour before daylight ended and after I picked up the last edge stitch and started knitting the border.

I could have cried. (Well, I did a bit, but that had more to do with the rendition of Johnny Come Marching Home than my first ever circular needle breaking.)

And naturally I didn't bring my purse to "travel light" so I didn't have a spare (or stitchmarkers, not that I needed them after my circular needle broke, I believe viciously and with malice aforethought.) I did have a crochet hook and believe you me, I debated whether it would be a good time to "teach" myself crochet, but finally gave up and just enjoyed the concert. (As much as possible with a broken circular needle taunting me at my feet).

Here's a shot of the Martinez Bay where the concert was held. It was the 30th Anniversary celebration of the Willow's Theater. The Diablo Symphony played, beautifully, I might add, and the casts of 1776, John Muir's Mountain Home and Nunsense sang a few songs from their plays. Martinez is where John Muir lived for a time. And the nuns from Nunsense were also our waitresses! It was a hoot. The author even said a few words.

Here's pic of the Symphony and the Bluegrass opening act, the "Spinning Wheels". They were lying. There were no spinning wheels. They didn't even have so much as a drop spindle. The music was pretty good. A lot of really, really, really old folk tunes.

The Diablo Symphony Associaton.

Is that a beautiful sunset, or what?

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

August Birthday Swap Questions

2006-07-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

I can't find the blog where I originally found this book cover of a cat, so if it's your childhood favorite book of poems written in Polish, let me know! Google wasn't much help other than I have a ton of Polish poetry sources now.

I don't know why it is, but whenever I see a black cat, I think of Chaos.

And onto the August Birthday Swap questions. (And that's all for this post, so if you're not entertained by swap questions, you might want to head to another blog now, FYI)

What day is your birthday?
August 14th!

Are you crafty?
Very crafty, if not very accomplished. Needlework mostly, knitting, sewing, embroidery.

Would you enjoy things like: Buttons, ribbons and embellishments?
Buttons and stitchmarkers.

Do you dye your own wool?
Nope.

Do you like to scrapbook or make homemade cards?
Not really.

What small project would you be interested in making? Socks, mittens, scarf, hat, baby items, wash cloths, doilies, shrugs etc
Socks, mittens (I owe Ann 6 for her charity drive, but that's in October. Plenty of time. Plenty. Until there isn't...), scarves, hat, washcloths.

What are your favorite scents?
Since I have both allergies & migraines, I'm not a big fan of scent.

Do you like stationary and cards?
I do!

Do you like hand lotions or soaps?
Not so much. The allergies & migraine thing.

Do you like to sew or embroider items?
Love to.

Do you like beads?
I do, but I've never actually beaded much of anything.

What kind of mail-able snacks do you like to eat?
Shortbread, cheetos (I'm on a cheeto kick right now, thanks to Ooo Baby Knits aka Michelle).

Do you like to wear costume jewelry? Necklace, earrings, bracelets etc. I'm not much of a jewelry girl unless you count watches.

Do you like to play cards or board games?
I like them but I don't play much. (Scrabble & Crazy Eights are my faves)

What are your favorite colors of yarn?
Natural colors but I'm trying to branch out.

Do you like solid, variegated, heathers, or self stripping yarns?
All of the above.

Do you like kitchen magnets or key rings?
I tend to lose them.

Do you like picture frames?
No, I like my pictures loose in a box so you can shuffle through them quickly.

Do you like to make/or use stitch markers?
I love to use stitchmarkers. I haven't attempted to make any yet.

Do you collect anything?
Books. Yarn. Neighborhood cats.

Do you have any allergies? Smoke, food, fiber, pets, etc..
My allergies tend to run to flowers and perfumes these days.

Do you have any hobbies?
Knitting. Reading. Sleeping.

Are you a fiber snob?
I am. This was borne in rather strongly on me lately when I've been knitting that dratted Critter Blanket in Red Heart. I don't have anything against the yarn itself, it's just so darn hard to knit. Elann's Peruvian wool is fairly inexpensive and I love that stuff. I just can't knit happily with synthetic yarns. Darn, darn, darn.

2006-07-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Saturday sky, posted Monday morning.

Those two birds were chasing each other all over the place, that was about the clearest shot I was able to take. It was a weekend of chasing, the squirrels were racing around the eucalyptus & pine trees, the blue jay was chasing the mourning doves aways from the bird bath, the cats were chasing everyone. (you can click on the pic to make it bigger and see the flying birds a little better).

Is that not the cutest little red car? I didn't get any of the details on it sadly.

I'm beginning to loathe knitting. If this wasn't for homeless puppies & kittens and dogs & cats (and rabbits and whatnot) I'd heave it into the river. At least it's been logs and two colors. I can hardly wait to pick up the Big Critter blanket, with its endless off white stockinette stitch. On the plus side, I think I'm going to break even with the skein of Red Heart! For a while there I thought it was the unending Skein of Despair but it looks like the Log Cabin Tile will either use up the whole thing, or come pretty darn close. And I'm almost done. One last log and the mitered border. I really, really, really wanted to finish it Saturday, and then Sunday but alas.

Hezekiah helping.

Nothing to add to the Summer Reading, I'm slogging through Intrigue & Treason: the Tudor Court 1547-1558 by David Loades and while he places his footnotes at the end of the chapter, it's not much of a help. It also reads somewhat as an overview of his other Tudor books, there's more self referential footnotes than I've seen anywhere else. I can almost hear him chiding me for not reading the rest of his books before diving into this one. An odd slant. Why is it that 300 pages of non fiction takes me approximately a week to read whereas I can rip through a 300 page novel in a night?

Not much in the way of TV. I tried to watch Kyle XY the other night on ABC but I think I'm way too old to find clueless teen boys the slightest bit interesting. It's kind of a take off on the John Doe sci fi series, except that instead of washing up on a beach with no memory but an idiot savant encyclopedia of a mind, Kyle seems to know nothing at all. Maybe he did by the end of the show. I gave up after about 20 minutes.

The 4400 was pretty good. Thank heaven they didn't kill of Maia, but I've got to say, the future of humanity aren't doing such a hot job. Did they pick those people out randomly? Is there a purpose for any of it? I thought Isabella was The Way? She's getting on my nerves. I wish TV executives/storywriters would get the word - omnipotent beings manifested flesh is passe. Sunday nights at 9pm. I couldn't stay awake for the Dead Zone. Psych on Friday night after Monk on USA looks like an entertaining premise. USA is my new channel until the Stargates start up again on the SciFi channel July 14th.

The Closer is on tonight, but I'll be at a play. Two plays this week! Restoration Comedy at the California Shakespeare Festival on Wednesday and......something tonight at the new Martinez Theater. How bad is it that I have no idea? I mean, I knew at the time.

It's not Friday? Are you sure?

2006-06-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Oh, this looks promising: Migraine Ray Gun. Of course they're roughly $500,000 at this point, but that's sure to come down. Undoubtedly it'll lead to somebody asking me if I've tried magnets for my migraines - notice how the man pictured is not only trussed up but is getting an electrical jolt? Magnets alone are not going to do it. Thank you, but go away, Well Meaning Person. And no, Advil won't do it either. Geez. I've given myself injections before the advent of Max-Alt MLT, a melt in your mouth pill. Love Max-Alt MLT. Would I do that if I could clutch a magnet or take an Advil? (Geez, I hope no one would. Eww.)
And because I actually have nothing to say and no pictures to show:

Your Band Name is:

The Pink Geishas

Band Name Generator

Well that's better. The Bad Mutha Pickles? I don't think so. All I had to do was drop the capitals. What's with the quizzes lately? They're either 147 pages of 25 questions a page or one word. Happy medium, guys. (Uh, I suppose since I have no idea of the work that goes into it, I shouldn't complain. Yeah, right.)

No progress on any knitting. Didn't even pick it up yesterday. In fact, the only thing I did yesterday was manage to bash the heck out of my thumb pulling the hall closet shut. Sure, the thing sticks like crazy while I'm trying to close it but goes like greased lightening once my thumb and the wall were in close proximity. It looks a bit like a blood blister. With any luck, it'll start to look as horrid as it feels and then I'll post a pic.

Read Book #7 Children of the Company by Kage Baker (300 pages) (HB/TBR) Another installment of the company! ~~I think~~ the ~~5th~~ 6th in the series. It was a good quick entertaining read, but I'd rather have read about Mendoza. She was barely mentioned, other than a tidbit or two. The back story on Lewis was interesting, and having part of the story set in San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake was perfect. I enjoyed the introduction of various characters and their stories and the set up of the characters of the rival factions of the immortals is promising, but what I'd like to read next is the final showdown of the Cyborgs & The Company, aka, Dr. Zeus. Not that I'm ready to be done with them all, but I'm more than ready to find out just what the heck is going on. The one truly annoying aspect of sci fi. Serials are forever.

What? You don't consider that a book review? C'mon. Cyborgs. Dr. Zeus. Rival factions. Okay, okay. The books began telling the story of Mendoza, a young girl taken from the era of the Spanish Inquisition, her mentor, Joseph and her terrible love life. They're in the employ of Dr Zeus, a secret cabal also known as The Company who have discovered time travel, and use it to collect both priceless artifacts & children that fall into certain parameters and can be made into immortal cyborgs to do the scut work. Well, maybe scut work. I personally would love to collect Shakespeare's original works, etc. Well, maybe immortal. It's a given that history can't be changed but there's no information after the year......uh 2355? Some where around there. Whoo hoo! I actually got the date right, if not the series number. CHistory can't be changed, or is it that just recorded history can't be changed? Check here for a less disjointed review.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Edited to fix all sorts of glaring spelling, grammatical and date errors.

Monday B

2006-06-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Geez, I hope that blocks out. I'm sure it will. Just remind me, I'm a yarn snob for a reason. I'm just better at knitting with natural fibers. I don't know why, but there it is. Why couldn't I be one of those people who knit up something glorious out of anything? Besides, it's basically a learning swatch for the Log Cabins and it's perfectly acceptable for a shelter - washable, long wearing, and evidently a fabulous scratching post. [oh darn! the pic didn't come out. Hez loooooves to claw rugs. I'm trying to get her to claw up the couch I hate but no go.)

So. I sewed up exactly one shoulder seam of The Shell. Worked a bit on the Norwegian Second sock (to the foot gusset!) (I still don't like it much, but I'm blaming that on the Wool-ease). (It's the exact same yarn as the Big Critter Blanket, so I thought I'd get in some knitting in where there was some discernible movement.) Did a few more logs on the Critter Blanket Log Cabin and am inches away from finishing the Big Critter Blanket thanks mostly to spending yesterday in a Quantum Leap marathon viewing. Yay for the Sci Fi channel. Man, I'd forgotten how much I loved that show.

You know what the problem with taking Monday off of work is? Tuesday becomes Monday, only you have less time to do the work in. Bah. I suppose eating two cinnamon rolls for breakfast, after a dinner of popcorn and brownies wasn't the best idea either.

For the Summer Reading Program & Summer Reading Challenge I curled up and finished The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudley's and the Tudor Throne by Derek Wilson. (HB/TBR, 405 pages).

Very interesting. I hadn't realized that the family name was originally Sutton, or that Robert Dudley's grandfather served her grandfather, Henry the Seventh. After a lifetime of implementing Henry the Seventh's will (basically taking from everyone and giving to Henry as a lower level clerk & tax collector) he was beheaded for his pains after the King's death, more as a show of "out with the old and in with the new" when Henry the Eighth ascended the throne.

John Dudley, his son, also served in the court, but with much more royal favor coming his way. He even managed to keep that favor when Edward ascended since he was named one of Edward's three regents. He was also the father of Guilford Dudley, the spouse of poor Lady Jane Grey, and if Derek Wilson's historical reseach and interpretion is correct, he put his son & Lady Jane on the throne to carry out Edward's wishes (to maintain the new Protestant faith). There was no mention in the book of Jane Grey being beaten into submitting to her parents choice of spouse, as I'd always heard.

In any event, John Dudley's reign as regent or courtier came to an end when Mary became Queen and it was up to his son "Sweet Robin" to carry on the Dudley family tradition which he did as Elizabeth's unofficial co-regent and the closest thing she had to a husband. Elizabeth played havoc with his life.

The book was a fascinating look at the Dudley family and painted them in a very positive light for the most part. Derek Wilson makes the point that the Tudor and the Dudley family had a symbiotic relationship, as ivy to an oak tree, except that the Tudor's were the ivy and the Dudley's the oak and the case he makes for that rings true.

Goats in the last remaing horse stable on what used to be a quiet country road.

Gauge Matters & Other Amazing News

2006-06-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Notice how warped the Log Cabin Critter Blanket is? It turns out that if you vary your tension to see how much the fabric will soften up, it'll change size. Isn't that amazing? It's almost the basis of the whole gauge thing! Who knew? Gah. Evidently I knit at a different gauge sitting at a table reading too.

Other fascinating lessons learned: It's infinitely easier to pick up stitches American style (yarn in my right hand). No matter how simple a stitch pattern, it takes me an eternity to knit anything. If a stitch is really, really, really hard to pick up, it's just possible it's because it isn't necessary to pick up a stitch there. (I kept picking up stitches at the very corners of the Log Cabin. Uh, don't. Another reason for the warping.) Garter stitch is a pain to fix. (I dropped my obligatory stitch at the beginning of a log and couldn't quite squeeze it back in and in pattern. So there's a short row stockinette stitch "fix" running up the back of it.

I'm already planning out the next Log Cabin (addictive comes to mind) - I think out of the leftover primary color baby yarn....... If nothing else, it'll match the auto baby booties that are knit but not sewn up. I'm going to sew up The Shell at some point today too. I'm estimating it'll take me maybe an hour or two to sew it up and pick up and knit on the I-cord edging around the neckline. So I'm off by........2 or 3 hours? 2-10 days? Weeks?

Hezekiah, pretending she wants to come in and bond with me, but really only wants what she didn't eat earlier for breakfast.

The real reason to have a garden. They're the super huge beefsteak tomatos and I have a feeling they're going to take a super huge amount of time to gestate.

You Are The Hermit

You posses a great deal of wisdom and the ability to see people for who they are.

You are always looking ahead at the future, developing visions.

A loner, you tend to travel by yourself through life, seeking your own truth.

You don't crave material things or fancy titles. You have no baggage.

Your fortune:

It's possible that there is a unknown guiding figure in your life, ready to help you.

All you have to do is find this person and seek their advice.

It's also possible that you need to start seeking the meaning of your own life.

Either way, there's some deep thinking you need to undertake, and it needs to be done soon.

What Tarot Card Are You?

The only reason I post that "quiz" is because of the result. I like The Hermit. I think of myself as an Outgoing Hermit. The rest of it? Ha. No baggage? Deep thinking? Argh. Backed up one too many spaces & took out the whole result? Edited to say: Ha. Found it again.

Oh, speaking of deep thinking, The 4400 is on tonight! And The Dead Zone after it. 9 &10pm USA. Of course, Miss Marple is on at 9 & 10pm on PBS and I'm kind of fond of the old lady, even if I prefer Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple to this one. At least there's knitting going on. The Closer tomorrow night at 9pm on TNT. Having Brenda's mom show up is much more fun than I expected it to be.

2006-06-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

So. Guess what my mother is up to in the suburbs?
Yup. Oregano. Really. Just when I thought my mother was going wild in her old age. Wild with herbs. She's dried them for the last few years. It's the fresh basil that I love though.

Pretty puppy, Sophie! These pix are all taken the same night so far. That puppy is such a wiggle worm! And the stupid digital cameras have taken picture taking back to the beginnings. Pose! Hold that Pose! Hold.....Hold....Hold....Keep Holding......FLASH!!! And........ugh. Try again. Wait, the camera has to......do something, who knows what. Hate that delay. Rinse & repeat.

The Red Heart Critter Blanket. Not really a Log Cabin, but I have a ton of that turqoise and not that much black. I was beginning to feel badly for the poor critter that got that blanket - it feels like a welcome mat - until Hezekiah co-opted my knitting on it last night by sleeping on it.

Now I want to make a real log cabin. Check out Monika's latest.

A statue on 4th Street in Berkeley by Spenger's, where I have to say, we had horrible service. A member of our party asked for another roll and after ignoring him initially, the waiter informed him he didn't "have time for that now"and finally came back & explained that if Lonnie got a roll it would cause a chain reaction and we'd all want rolls. Seriously. Of course, he might have been right because at that point I was dying for a 2nd roll, not that I could have eaten one.

Myteriously, Lonnie was also the last to be served. Granted, that's happened in every group banquet I've been too (the late, wrong or missing meal), but the particulars seemed suspicious. Too bad, because Spenger's used to be great. New owners, new day, I guess.

Just a window display on 4th Street that I liked

Nothing much on TV. I've got Off The Map and The Weather Man from Netlix waiting for me on DVD, not to mention season one of CSI NY that I suddenly became obsesed with. More time to finish up The Uncrowned Kings of England and Wuthering Heights. I can't believe Wuthering Heights has come down the years with the reputation of being a love story. What a miserable group of people. I'm going to have to rent the movie once I slog though the book & see if Laurence Olivier lied to me. Excpet that I do know that I read it in High School. Maybe I've always had this jaundiced view of romance. And here I thought it was all those bad marriages.

Letting sleeping cats lie.

A Completely Boring Post in Which I Rant About 24 Freaking Hours of Daylight

2006-06-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Well, maybe 16 hours of freaking daylight but still. Way too much sunshine. Especially when I'm tired and want to go to bed and not have to take extraordinary measures to sleep.... (Eyeshades. Check. Blinds drawn. Check. Earplugs. Check.) Not to mention the idiot voice in the back of my head that's warning me I'm burning daylight and I could get so much more done if I just...........

No. Turn it off! What's with the I Must Accomplish Something Dictum, anyway? Why do I care, and what exactly do I want to get done? Other than lounging around reading, knitting and watching TV. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much all I've "accomplished" lately anyway. Sort of. More mindless viewing of E's 25 Hottest Celebrities! or VH1 - The 80's! than anything else. And what turned out to be a soft porn version of Fanny Hill that really bummed me out when Oliver Reed (why I rented it in the first place) appeared a half hour into it talking like Mickey Mouse with an English accent. I can't wait for Off the Map to show up [Netflix], courtesy of a recommendation from KSD. Sam Elliott and J K Simmons?

Look! A puppy! To distract you.

And look! A blocking Shell. And a disdainful Hezekiah, but that's neither here nor there.

Howevah! I have officially cast on Elizabeth I and worked the first.......uh, four rows, but she is now an official WIP.

Continuing to work on the Big Critter Blanket but miles and miles of stockinette stitch in Wool-Ease makes me want to strangle myself with the circ after an inch or two. You can't see how awful the tension is, or the odd yo's and skipped stitches in this pic, but it's the best I could get. Look at the size of the thing! That was evidently the back of ........something. A sweater, I'm guessing [it had arm decreases]. For who, I couldn't guess. Do I know the Jolly Green Giant? Well enough to brave the Boyfriend Curse?

So. To spare myself strangulation, and to cater to my latest obsession of Log Cabin knitting while still being both charitable & productive, the latest WIP is a Log Cabin Square for the Critter Charity drive out of Red Heart turquoise yarn (I have 5 skeins of the stuff) and some unidentified black yarn.

You know what's a truly wonderful thing? Work with Red Heart yarn for awhile and then pick up Elsabeth Lavold's Silky Wool. OMG. It is positively rapturous to knit with.

Not that I care that the former is acrylic or whatever and the lattter isn't - my snobbishness tends to run to 1) Does it itch? It'll be great for the shelter. It'd be great for a new kitchen throw rug too, I keep thinking, except my kitchen runs towards pink and blonde wood and the Red Heart is pretty clearly TURQUOISE. I can't imagine what I was going to make out of it. Five skeins?

Books read for the Summer Reading Challenge & Summer Reading Program, a book I actually had on my list! Wait. I'm not done with The Uncrowned Kings of England. I meant Not A Creature Was Stirring by Jane Haddam (*L) (287 pages) A Gregor Demarkian mystery that Bron recommended awhile back. Pretty good. The murderer was who I thought and for the reasons I figured, but I was never entirely sure and besides, I really wanted the murderer to be the annoying guy. The book is the launch of a retired, widowed Armenian FBI agent who specialized in serial killers and is enticed back into law enforcement by a former protegee to solve the murder in a wealthy businessman's family. Well, Gregor was invited to dinner the night of the murder and......geez. Enough spoilers. It was a nice fast sweet read, particularly after slogging through the End Note King.

*L = Library book. I decided to keep track of whether it's a library book, a book on my TBR shelf or if I just bought it.

A Completely Boring Post In Which I Rant About Footnotes

2006-06-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

Who on earth decided to put footnotes at the back of a book? (this is an entirely rhetorical rant, btw. I don't like it and therefore it's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, squared to infinity.)

Not only is it a PITA to flip back and forth but there should also be a separate numbering system for citations and for interesting sidenotes. Do I care that that the information about the aging Henry VIII's stuff came from David Starkey's inventory? (And that must have been a fun job, 500 years later.) Or that the fact cited came from letters & papers from the Spanish Ambassador? (Okay, I care slightly. It's interesting! But not enough to keep flipping back and forth to find out that it's a citation.) The footnotes I like tend to be more informative and or gossipy. And they belong on the bottom of the page.

Loads of footnotes in Robert Hutchinson's The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conpiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant. (L) (368 pages according to Amazon, but I'm betting that includes the appendices, index and his "cast of characters".) I found the book interesting but confusing as hell. Either I can't remember who anyone in the court is (and the habit of a family name and a heraldic title could not be more mystifying - how did that happen? The title came with the land?) or Hutchinson hopscotching around in time threw me off. One minute he's writing about Cromwell's beheading and the next he's in a Privy Council meeting.

The chapters address different areas of Henry's final years, so some overlap is to be expected to explain the circumstances of the next subject but combined with the miserable footnotes at the back of the book and not at the bottom of the page (where they belong) it was a hard read. He did have more minutiae that sparked the book up. I'd actually recommend it, particularly if you're fairly familiar with the Tudor Court. Lots of behind the scenes detail.

No knitting news. I wove in some ends on The Shell to block it, but haven't blocked it yet, continue to carry around Elizabeth I but haven't even cast on, still working on the Critter Blanket but 36" by 36" is going to take longer than I thought. Granted, I found the thing when there was already 24 inches done, so it's only a foot and a half of stockinette stitch on size 10's but doesn't that sound like it would go really, really fast? Not really. (But should be done in plenty of time for Basil & Abner's Charity Drive. )

But then again, I woke up with a migraine and spent the afternoon sleeping it off, so I didn't get much done today at all anyway. Great way to spend a Saturday.

Oh, and I cannot find Peaches & Creme yarn anywhere around here. The LYS don't carry it, which I can kind of understand, but Beverly's? Michaels? K-Mart? Do I have to drive to Pittsburg to go to Wal-Mart? I wish I'd realized that when I was in Oakland the other day. Wait, that's a K-Mart. Bah. Oh, and Alameda Co. doesn't have a record of my birth certificate so they had to send off to California State for it. Good thing I started trying to get my passport now for the late Fall. Maybe my dad wasn't lying when he said I was hatched.

To continue the ranting, bah on the wasteland that's summer TV. There's nothing on! A CSI NY rerun tonight that I've already seen. Tomorrow The 4400 is on and The Dead Zone premieres at 10pm, and The Closer on Monday at 9pm that I want to watch if only for J K Simmons. Okay, there are a couple of things on. I should watch the movies I've had from Netlix for ages, I suppose.

A statue at the Orinda Shakespeare Festival theater

Random Wednesday (because I'm a copycat)

2006-06-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, first things first. A pic of the baby penguin Photo Quilt soon to be on its way to Leti for her June 8th birthday. Think it will get there in time? That post office.

The yarn is Rowan's Wool Cotton in Rich. So pretty. I haven't cast on for Eliz yet, although I am lugging it and its entourage around in my purse and I did find the German Twisted Cast On Stephanie suggested. I think that's what I used on the swatch, oddly enough.

The shell continues to be unblocked and unfinished. The critter blanket is growing slowly. Dad's vest continues to be unfinished even though I should be madly working on it for Father's Day. It was only what? Supposed to be a Christmas present? At least it was only last Christmas. So far.

And I'm so ashamed. After all that nagging about KIP'ing on the KIP Day, I didn't knit so much as a stitch in public. I had a project with me though. (The Moll Shawl. I love that Misti Alpaca yarn and by gum, I'm going to finish that shawl.)

I did finish reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Wells (304 pp). I really liked it. It was an unflinching yet loving look at what was at best neglectful parenting and at worst, downright dangerous, but Jeannette describes her childhood with her brother and sisters and her parents with such cheerful humor that I walked away from the book feeling that she knew her family foibles quite well and loved them anyway while still not excusing them. Argh. Maybe I'll get better at describing books over the summer? With any luck? Or practice? It was a good book.

There's nothing on this week. Nothing! Not even reruns of CSI:NY tonight. The Dead Zone does premiere on Sunday at 10pm after The 4400 at 9pm. The 4400 wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, Isabelle was okay. What'shisname from Deadwood was a complete jerk - slapping her? I guess he wanted to establish authority early and decisively since she can kick his butt with her mind, but still. Not cool. And I was a little bit bummed about Lily.

The oleanders in the back are clearly dwarf ones. Bah. I like the geraniums though. Hardy cheerful little plants.

And because no post is complete without a quiz (I love quizzes)....

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

100%

Postmodernist

94%

Idealist

56%

Existentialist

38%

Romanticist

25%

Materialist

19%

Modernist

Fundamentalist

What is Your World View? (updated)

Huh. The things you learn about yourself. Not religious? What am I doing in church on Sundays? Other than singing off key and surreptiously knitting in the pew.

My Yarn Came!

2006-06-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, not that way. Finally got it in the mail Saturday and I still haven't cast on Eliz I, even though....

....I basically ripped the swatch off the needles so I wouldn't have to look for another pair the same size (or waste time binding off) and then.....I dithered about the cast on I should use. (I'm thinking long-tail). It's here! It's here! I can barely believe it.

At the Live Oak Festival in Berkley yesterday, I picked up this darling baby penguin postcard/picture (yeah, I need a picture of it here) that Sheri Rice made. Oddly enough, her business is called Paper Quilts. I'm pointing out the log cabin looking pictures to my Sheri (My BFF! And Ra & Sophie's Mommy) before I realize the various quilt patterns are not accidental. Yeah, my grasp of the obvious is........well, never mind.

A few long distance shots of the Festival. They had some amazing crafts there. No knitting in public, come to think of it. Not even the woman selling the knitware - not that I did more than finger a few scarves in her booth. There was a weaving loom in the booth next to her. I would love to learn to weave on a loom.

I did manage to finish back and front of the shell, which should be merrily blocking away but instead I seamed the shoulders (a 3 needle bind off looks dumb on garter stitch - is there any way I can just look at a project and just know that without trying it? Any way? Other than experience, I mean. It's sitting there while I debate seaming the whole thing together for the final I-cord edging and figuring out the blocking later, or block it while it's still reasonably flat. Yeah, Critter Blanket tonight during - Whoops! Must go! The 4400 at 9 on USA. (The Closer w/Kyra Sedgewick premieres tomorrow at 9pm on TNT. I can't quite decide whether I like the show or not).

I'll probably be compulsively reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, during it anyway. That girl had one messed up interesting upbringing.

The view from the million dollar houses they've been building in my neck of the woods. Yup, right next to a rock quarry. I was actually trying to get a shot of the full moon but....

Finished reading Dies the Fire by S. M. Stirling (483 pages). It's an apocalyptic tale that follows the fates of a Wiccan and her coven; a lapsed Lutheran pilot and his small plane passengers; the Willamette Valley and Portland area after 6:15 March 15th when something causes all electricity to fail and changes the properties of gunpowder etc.

A sort of a cross between 1066 and Star Date whatever, it was an entertaining, fairly plausible look at what the world turns into when, well, if not the clock - the capabilities turn back in time. The only thing I wish (other than the "love" scenes being rewritten because they were soooo dopey) was that a couple of the characters had shown up at the end. And that somebody knew how to knit and spin and they mentioned it. Crops, swordfighting, horsetraining, cattle, archers, yes. But c'mon, no spinners? No knitters? Phhht.

2006-06-09T10:34:00.000-07:00

First off, I hate it when Blogger is down. Even the comments? The horror! The nerve! And my email server went down too. It was awful. I had no choice but to work (and to leave early and go to Border to use my 30% off coupon to soothe my shattered nerves. )

Isnt't this fabulous? It's the Red Dress washcloth from Becky I mentioned earlier, that she gave to me to give to my Mom. Her pic came out so much better than mine too, so go to her site and check it out. It's the May 23rd post. Thank you so much, Becky.

And here's my progress on the shell, almost done! With the front. Then I get to seam it, and knit on I-cord around the neckline and armhole edges. Joy, oh joy. Not to mention it's a twinset, so the jacket still needs to be done. But later. After the critter blanket ( my *U2FO came out looking quite nice in photographs, unlike this damn shell. It's possible that there's an 8 row cable amid the 6 row cables, but it doesn't look that wonky IRL) and after Eliz I.

Tonight! Season finale of Doctor Who and the last ep with Christopher Eccleston.

Sunday: The actual season premiere of The 4400, 9-11pm USA. I was so very annoyed to discover the "new" show last Sunday was a "new" show of clips. Sorry about that, guys.

Kat With A K is hosting a Summer Reading Program, which goes really well with Amanda's Summer Reading Challenge 2006. So far I've read Freddy & Fredericka by Mark Helprin (reviewed in an earlier post). Out of the 553 pages of the book, I read about half of them after the 1st. (Kat's program is tracking the pages. Amanda's isn't).

I'm still reading Jane Hirschfield's essays in her Nine Gates: Entering the World of Poetry. It's just fascinating. I'm trying to read it slowly. One essay dwells on poetry's using music, intellect and image to be truly effective, and the representation of the camel, the lion and the child (to be delved into during a later post).

Mason Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner & Ann Meador Shayne (160 pages). I picked this up at Borders yesterday because it's impossible not to have heard of it and discovered that it had Log Cabin knitting! I'm a Log Cabin ~~freak~~ enthusiast. I've got Log Cabin Quilt books, a million log cabin quilt squares littering the craft room , tons of Log Cabin quilt plans (no actual FO's but that's not too unusual for me) so I was practically forced to purchase it. Now unlike Nancie Wiseman's Knitter's Book of Finishing Techniques that I also picked up and flipped through, (which will hopefully be invaluable when I pick up and knit on the I-cord) I read, cover to cover, Mason-Dixon Knitting, because as the Knitting World knows, they're both pretty darn funny and so very readable. Lovely patterns, a revolutionary idea of actually using your knitting and not say, displaying it in a museum case (which I've been tempted to do) (or hide it). I'm sure everyone already knows that the patterns are both pretty, practical and easy to read (we'll see if they're idiot proof when I actually attempt to knit one).

And now I must go out and knit washcloths.

Thanks to Heather's contest, I took her prize of a gift certificate to Amazon and applied it towards Symmetries of Culture by Donald W Crowe & Dorothy Washburn, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (I couldn't find it in a used bookstore around here, how weird is that?) and an anthology of poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva. I'm not too fond of this particular translation though.

Baby pictures in the park this morning:

Big ball o' fluffy feathers:

Big ball o' fluffy fur

*U2FO = Un-identified Un-Finished Object

Saturday - Knit In Public Day! Where are you going to knit, and what?

*Accept Your Probable Mediocrity...

2006-06-06T12:26:00.000-07:00

I found..........some knitted item yesterday hidden in a closet. I have no idea what it was supposed to be. A blanket? A sweater? Since it's 36 inches wide, and apparently the back piece, not even Santa Claus, the Jolly Green Giant, for the love of Mike, would ever be able to wear it. So, with some modifications (like fixing some of the most egregious errors - dropped stitches mostly - apparently I've always dropped stitches with wild abandon - nowadays I notice) and a sewn on backing (let's just say that the size 13 needles - plastic, mind you - is not what the yarn calls for), it's going to become a dog bed for Basil & Abner's Critter Charity Drive.

The shell of the twinset continues its slow progress. (Notice how it's become the shell's fault.) Maybe if I hadn't spent the vast majority of the day yesterday laying in the back yard trying to identify the wind whistling through specific trees - the eucaplyptus? the pines? the palms seem to be the only one that don't stand out - but I felt that it was the best use of my time. Also? Fabulous. Now I want to go lay on the beach and listen to the ocean.

The Rowan Wool Cotton continues to Not Arrive. (I did check & its on its way. Yup, the yarn is in the mail. I've heard something like that before. Where? Where?)

Here are a couple more pix from the North Berkeley Solano Ave Chalk & Chocolate Festival last month:

And, just to show off the glads (ignore the geraniums, the cactus; the onions in the foreground) in the back yard - last year I don't think a single one bloomed:

Becky of Moonlight Frogger sent me the Red Dress Washcloth - (pic to come) there's a purled heart over the heart on the dress! for my mother, who loved it. My mother lost both her parents to heart disease in their early 50's and has heart troubles herself. (Sadly, this last statement has sent my whacked out brain into an 80's loop of bad love songs. Someone stop it. Please!)

Oh! If you're in California, make sure you go and vote YES on Prop 81 today. Whether or not you patronize libraries (and why don't you?), they need a fighting chance to survive in this increasingly wired age.

Weekend

2006-06-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

Meet Sophia! Isn't she adorable? Look at that little Alfalfa hairdo she's got going there. This is about the clearest photo of the girl yet (an 11 week old cockapoo) - she is one friendly little whirlwind.

Check out the Vacation Swap package that Amy Artisan sent me! Those stitchmarkers were custom ordered & designed, not to mention the envelope purse Amy knit me (which I put to use for maps etc. in the car as she suggested) , the balls of pink variegated yarn for me to knit up, the notebook, the shortbread cookies (all mysteriously gone by the way), candied cherries, a pink striped pen, Aveen sunblock chapstick - and all this while the girl herself is gone more often than not! A big thanks to Amy for the fabulous Swap Package and a big thank you to Jennifer for putting the swap together.

I don't know if you can click this to make it larger (I'm trying out Adobe Photoshop) but what's in the tree over Sheri's deck is a teensy little hummingbird nest with a teensy little hummingbird sitting in it! I've never seen a hummingbird nest, or for that matter, a hummingbird sit that still for that long in my life.

And last, and least, the progress so far on the twinset shell - the cable looks better, and I'm almost to the arm decrease, but what is TRULY important is that the tomato plants its posing on look healthy and ready to deliver bushels of tomatos. Can't. Wait. We got a single yucko tomato out of 6 plants last year! Clearly we did something wrong. I can eat tomatos as if they're apples. Yum, yum, yum. And tomatos out of the garden are the only way to go. Even Farmer's Market tomatos don't come close.

Tonight: The 4400 returns. I think last season is running on USA today as a mini-marathon until the 10pm Season Premiere tonight.

Dr. Who's season finale is this Friday at 9pm. Yeah, nothing much else is on TV. The stray History/PBS/Discovery Channel show. I did however, finish Freddy & Fredericka by Mark Helprin as my first book in the Summer Reading Challenge. I liked it, it was a quirky fantastical retelling of the Prince Charles and Princess Diana story, if Merlin had sent Prince Charles on a quest w/Princess Diana as his only companion to conquer the colonies (the US) and find his Inner King.

Currently reading Jane Hirshfields essays in Nine Gates, Entering the Mind of Poetry. It's perfect for a summer day like today, to slow down, read and inhabit poetry fragments with her to guide me through them. Not just read closely and mindfully, but also to feel the pulse of the poetry.

Next Saturday, June 10th, is Knit In Public Day. Franklin's Panopticon Shop has T-Shirts with all sorts of cities represented. Not to mention, Dolores.

June Begins!

2006-05-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

This was taken last night at what turned out to be a free preview for Educators of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the California Shakespeare Festival (aka CalShakes) (before they told us no pictures).

Darn, because the puppets they used as half the cast were amazing. The staging, blocking and realism were incredible. Not so Shakespearean, but then again, when has that Festival ever? It's the old Berkeley Shakespeare Festival relocated to its own amphitheater (maybe ten years ago?)

The Summer Reading Challenge (forum) officially starts today and of course, I'm not starting with anything on my list, I'm not done with Frederick and Fredericka yet, Aunt Dimity is due back on Saturday, and four of the books on hold came in. (The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant by Robert Hutchinson (I love non-fiction titles. They're so.....overwrought in a descriptive kind of way), Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry by Jane Hirschfield and To the Tower Born by Robin Maxwell.

I can't get into the Summer Reading Challenge Forum either because evidently I'm not the Carrie K registered and it hates all my attempts to stay close to my name. It was a little disconcerting to see a CarrieK listed as a homeschooling mom - I've got no kids, definitely not bothering to school, home or otherwise, the imaginary spawn.

Neither back-ordered yarn has shown up for my Elizabeth I for the Tudor Roses KAL. Not that I'm done with the shell of the Twin Set - and I love that 3 foot rule, Jay! "If someone notices it from three feet away, poke them in the eye!" Advice that brings tears. Or I can go with Knittin Brit in WI said, it's a design feature. Like Jay made on his shirts. Go check out his "mistake". I should wish.

Got quite a bit done on it at any rate at the play last night, it's a fairly mindless pattern, and not nearly as boring as plain garter stitch. Argh! Why didn't I hold it up in front of the players/puppets & claim to be taking a pic of it?

In defense of Magneto and the X-Men 3 movie stunt Allison pointed out that the the distance to Alcatraz is 1.5 miles and the length of the bridge is 1.7 miles so considering that part of it was destroyed, it was almost a perfect fit. How is that too geeky? That's marvelous! I still maintain it'd sink like a stone, suspension cables intact or not, but at least the logistics work out.

In honor of the (still uneaten) Chocolate Lab, a way to keep track of your dog:
GPS Dog Collars. And you can get text messages from Fido! Well, not that kind, but still. I'd hate to see what Hez would send me.

Kelli crocheted a gorgeous dog collar. I keep seeing all these pet doodads, both because of Rebekah's Charity Pet Drive and Sheri got a cockapoo puppy yesterday that I haven't even seen yet. Puppies! Soooo cute.

. The knitter's version of Fuzzy Dice. (It's cold in the Orinda hills at night. Wool socks are awesome. Even better when they're dry.)

Kite Festival

2006-05-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

From the Solano Ave Chalk & Chocolate Street Fair:

(Click on the pic - it reads: And despite the fireball hurtling towards earth, IT WAS GOOD.)

Check out Rebekah's blog for her Charity Pet Drive, if you haven't already.

Aren't these the cutest? An ivory cat and a chocolate lab from Moonstruck Chocolates. So cute I can't bring myself to eat them. Yet.

Gah. That cable looks wonky in the pic, and after checking closely IRL, looks wonky period. Bad word, bad word. I'd crossed the cable right instead of left during the kite-watching, but dropped the stitches and fixed the cable (so exciting!) except I think I crossed it on the purl side. Okay, I know perfectly well I crossed it on the purl side but I thought it didn't matter. Silly me. At least the back is done.

Kite flying shenanagans and the Flying Gecko:

I survived the Benedryl but had to have three cups of coffee to get going this morning.

Memorial Day 2006

2006-05-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

This is actually the memorial to Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA (a county over from where my brother lives) but it seemed like a fitting tribute to Memorial Day.

I'd post the rest of the weekend pix, but I went to the Kite Festival in San Ramon today - - it was awesome - one guy flew 3 kites himself in one of the exhibitions, another did a really hysterically funny routine to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (with a kite!), a couple danced via their two kites - just beautiful - classical music too, perfect - nice and windy - - ..........

And there's the rub. Nice and windy. After awhile I realized that I couldn't quite, y'know, breathe? And my eyes were running, itchy and red. Blearg. So I came home and quite desperately took the first allergy pill I found. Benadryl. I might be going to bed at 7pm tonight. So all the pix tomorrow. The weather was great! Mid 70's.

Saw X-Men 3 yesterday - liked it, but it was missing something. Oh, and SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER! Especially for San Francisco tourism. I'm reasonably certain that when Magneto rips the Golden Gate Bridge from its anchorages to set it down on Alacatraz Island that the cables aren't going to keep it from sinking like a stone into the Bay. Not to mention, is the Golden Gate Bridge long enough to reach Alcatraz? Yeah, that's what I found fantastical. Not a hairy blue Kelsey Grammer or teenagers that can walk through walls. But the Golden Gate Bridge Express to Alcatraz.

Bridge Quiz.

See? Not much of a spoiler. Like the Lost spoilers. So incredible vague I think you'd get more out of the trailers ABC runs. But just in case.

Shohreh Aghdashloo (Dina Araz, the terrorist wife & mother in season 4 of 24) was in X-Men 3. It took me a minute to place her, her voice is unmistakeable but with her hair up, she looked so different.

Reading Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin. Different. A fantastical tale of a (very) thinly veiled Prince Charles and Princess Diana who have been found wanting as heirs to the throne and thrown (literally) into the world to make their way and prove themselves. It's pretty funny but it's definitely quirky.

Oh, I won a contest! Whoo! And the prize was from Amazon. Thanks Heather.

And in knitting news, I finished the back of the Endless Garter Stitch Tank (Yay!) and am working on the front. It may not be actually faster but it sure feels perceptively faster with that 6 stitch 3/3 LC cable in the middle of it. Cross your fingers that I get one of the yarns I ordered for the Eliz I this week. As in Tuesday.

eta: There! That should fix all the links.

2006-05-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, that was smart of Lost. Having Sawyer and Sayid rip off their shirts and swim to a sailboat w/Jack in the opening scenes, pretty much gave them a pass for the whole show.

Bask in the Pretty.

The actual finale/resolution/teases weren't horrible either. The hatch thing at the end of last year was pretty lame, but it was the concentration on the new characters this past season that bored me silly. It's actually looking good for next year. Michael, you are a Bad Man. And not such a hot father either. Think they'll get far? Oh, and Clancy Brown! I love Clancy Brown. He turned Sayid, I think. The connections are what's really fun. (Since there is no sense in the rest of it).

Wasn't House wild? I didn't twig that it was all a hallucination until roughly the time he started making out with Cameron via the robot operating mechanism. Too bad he didn't diagnose the Tongue Guy.

I hear Audrey lived on 24. Why? Why? I miss Kiefer. I want to watch 24 again! (Except, come to think of it, I've never actually watched an entire season. I either come in at the end & catch up, or the razor edge of anticipation drives me crazy and I have to quit watching altogther.)

Dr. Who has a two part season finale coming up next week, so it's not over yet and soon The 4400 and The Dead Zone will start up. Ah, summertime. Bless the network executive who started airing new shows over the summer, especially with the television season shrinking from 28ish episodes to 22.

Notice all the TV talk? Because there is no discernable progress on any knitting/sewing/crafting. I've actually socialized. I'm off to the Farmer's Market/Concert Thursday night series tonight, but hopefully I'll get some knitting in. Also it'll hopefully be Jazz saxophone as advertised because the group last week was not so much Blues as 60's rock. Not the same thing, y'know?

Congratulations, Lyssa, for passing 8th Grade math 100%! That test was much harder than I expected. Did I know that in the 8th Grade? Yeah, not likely. I didn't really learn math until I went back to college and had to take Algebra again. Oddly enough, it finally made sense.

I've been reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi and it's a pretty entertaining sci fi war novel.

And for the bored with time on their hands, The Sublime Philsophical Crap Test.

Oh, and in truly tragic news (not), Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were found guilty on nearly all counts. I hope they do hard time. Could you believe that Ken Lay tried to claim he had no idea what was going on? And they pay him a huge salary for what then, exactly?

The Official Start of the Tudor Roses KAL!

2006-05-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

Oh. Yesterday. And of course, I haven't started. I haven't gotten my yarn! Two for two. Will Eliz I be Rich red? Or Hempathy white? Only the postal service knows for sure.

Hezekiah meets Mr. Sloth. He stood up quite well to Hez batting at his paw - she seems to have
taken an instant dislike to him. You know, in a very old fashioned ladylike cutting him dead way (albeit swiping at his paw). But not for the camera. I told her that Chaos would've let me take that picture and the look she gave me! Clearly if Chaos jumped off a bridge, there would be one sensible cat who wouldn't follow his example.

Almost done with the back of the shell. The piece that I was going to finish last Wednesday. Oh well. I sort of forgot what size I was knitting and had to rip back to the arm decreases. Hez and I sat on the porch enjoying the rain while I knitted and tinked with it. And by rain, I mean it POURED. At one point, the eaves on the roof couldn't keep up with the torrent and it looked like a waterfall. See the comfy wool socks? I love that pair more than any other I've made, but they're not exactly showstoppers.

Yesterday I abandoned all knitting projects for some sewing WIP's while watching Sci Fi's marathon Andromeda. There's a cuff on a blouse that I absolutely cannot figure out how it's supposed to attach - for some reason the lining portion is the end of the sleeve, but the only way to work that is to attach the cuff about 6 inches above the end and, oh jeez. I'm going to look at it one more time tonight and if I can't figure it out by then, I'm hacking off the sleeve, lining it with that and then sewing the cuff to the sleeve. So instead I worked on the Victorian Nightgown. That's almost done, and if I could leave a seam unprotected, it would be completely done, but I can't do it.

My list for the Summer Reading Challenge:
(oh, and thanks Becky and Marji for the help on the buttons- almost got it, but not quite. I'll have to fool with it later.)

Mind you, this list is strictly from my TBR books (and believe me, there are more) and is subject to change on whim. As it most certainly will. But my general goal is the original 28 books read between 6/1 - 8/31.

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana & Michael Preston
The Queen's Conjuror:The Science and Magic of Dr. Dee by Benjamin Woolley
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn by Retha Warnicke
Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages by Miri Rubin
Dissolution by C J Sansom
The Wild Irish by Robin Maxwell
Her Majesty's Spymaster by Stephen Budiansky
Intrigue & Treason: The Tudor Court by David Loades
Bess of Hardwick by Mary S. Lovell
The Uncrowned King of England by Derek Wilson
London by Edward Rutherfurd

Okay, that was a pain. Note to self: Never take pictures of books again.

Good Omens, Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett
The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus , Owen Gingerich
The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
Captain Alatriste, Arturo Perez-Reverte
News of a Kidnapping, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Argument Culture by Deborah Tannen
River of Time by Igor Novikov
The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter
1968 by Mark Kurlanksy
The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
The Strange Death of Mistress Collins by Robert Begiebing
The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker
The Ice Queen by Ann Hoffman
Children of the Company by Kage Baker
Why Geography Matters by Harm de Blij

And in really depressing news:

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 8/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Season finale of House tonight!

Why Can't I Just Be Independently Wealthy?

2006-05-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.

And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.

Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...

Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

My ideas are strange? Ha.

Went to a meeting Wednesday night and when I discovered that I'd cleaned out the 900 dpn's I used to routinely carry in my old purse (not necessarily by design) in an uncharacteristic bout of optimism, I ran by the LYS and bought a set - you know, for when I finished the back of the shell so I could cast on and knit the I-cord for the front piece.

[sigh].

Yeah. Still knitting the back. But I am almost done. With the back. Of the shell. I was working on it last night at the Farmers Market/Concerts that Concord puts on in the Todos Santos Square a couple of times a week. The oranges and strawberries are so good right now! Yum. The weather is just weird. It was 90 on Monday, warm last night at 6pm when we got there and freezing (okay, 50-60ish) by the time the sun set. And it's supposed to rain tonight.

I'd love to knit a Hanne Falkenberg design, better that than a Fellowship of the (Wedding) Ring Shawl. But Elizabeth I first! As soon as the back-ordered yarn shows up. So Hempathy White or Rowan Cotton Wool Red. The post office is going to determine the color. (I can always make the Duchess sweater from Rowan #38 out of the other....)

It wasn't bravery that made me frog that cabled sweater, just to clear that up. It was that I'd never ever wear it and I couldn't figure out a way to carry it around and force people to admire it. So I think it's going to become Eris. Definitely a cardigan. It's a little bulky for some of the cabled sweaters I still want to knit from an old Knitter's Mag issue.

In TV news (because the world revolves around TV) - So many finales. So annoying. Stupid NCIS had Gibbs retiring. I'm not watching the show without Mark Harmon.

I love House (read: Hugh Laurie), so House was great.

CSI NY was good- shirtless Mac and Marine Command mode. Hubba hubba. Poor Flack got shot, but I tend to think of him as a mobile mannequin anyway - he's so darn pretty, he doesn't seem real to me, so his life threatening wounds? Not so life threatening. (C'mon. We have the technology to fix him! Since the 70's and the 6 Million Dollar Man. Why don't they show that on TV Land, anyway? And It Takes A Thief. I miss Robert Wagner.)

Dr Who tonight! Possibly the season finale. I hear "They're" going to move Law & Order Criminal Intent to 10pm Friday's next Season, and Bones to 8pm (Fridays) which is seriously going to mess with my Stargate SG1/Atlantis & Battlestar Galactica schedule. Although I'll probably watch the Sci-Fi channel and catch the others in the approximately 912 repeats that they now show per freaking season, much less syndication.

Calling All August Birthday Babies to sign up for the August Birthday Swap that Abigail is hosting. And if anyone can explain to me how to embed the link in the picture, I could finally add buttons to my site, not to mention having my eternal gratitude.

The Tudor Roses KAL officially starts on Monday, but not for me unless the aforementioned backordered yarn shows up. I can't wait to do something other than I cord and garter stitch (and lace. Still working on the Moll Shawl, but at the rate of knit 4 rows, frog 3, much to my mother's dismay because she wants to "borrow" it when I'm done. Temporarily Forever, as we say in our family).

And last but not least, Amanda's Summer Reading Challenge to start June 1st and end August 31st.
If I list the books I want to read during the challenge, think it'll jinx the process? There's a reason why my TBR books are starting to take over my library. [Which excuse sounds most plausible? 1.ADD. 2. No time. 3. I read library books first. 4. Book Clubs. 5. Can't knit and read unlike some people. Including knitting garter stitch, sadly. I have noticed that my garter stitch is hella more consistent nowadays. (Tell me you didn't think that black lace weight was Chaos at first. A picture without Chaos is.......just unsettling.]

Look what that talented RheLynn made me to give to my brother! Mr. Sloth! Isn't he fabulous?

My heart goes out to all of you that recently lost pets. I miss Sheba, even with this one around to cheer me up. And you know how I was saying that she liked to sleep in? During the winter. Now that it's summertime, baby, you've got to get out before the sun rises. Apparently so you can get first dibs on the foxtail/weed patch.

Garter Stitch. Endless Garter stitch.

2006-05-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

This? is what I've been doing for days. And days. And days. Garter stitch at 5.5 stitches to the inch.

It's not quite 12 inches yet because then I could decrease and shape the arms. No, there's another inch and a half to go before I get there.

Just knitting back and forth and getting nowhere. Good thing it's a shell and not a blanket or a full sized sweater and the front has that lovely 6 stitch cable feature on it, or I'd frog the darn thing now.

Elizabeth I, even at 6.75 stitches to the inch, has at least shaping and cabling and something other than the knit stitch. (okay, it's vaguely possible I threw in the Elizabeth dart shaping but that was rows and rows ago and with my luck will completely screw up the pattern). I'll be lucky if I'm done with it by the time my yarn (any yarn) shows up for the Tudor Roses KAL.

This is (part of) Sheri's backyard. Isn't it gorgeous?

Did I post a pic of the turquoise ring already? From a booth in an Art on the Streets in Walnut Creek a few weeks ago (or whatever they called it) Sica Designs out of Cazadero, CA.

I found this in my stash. I was going to make a throw for a couch except that it turns out that I absolutely cannot match colors to save my life and also - what was I thinking? Except it really does feel soooooo soft. But it looks like a dead muppet.

OMG, I have Dead Muppet yarn! The horror!

Speaking of Muppets, or TV really, NCIS season finale tonight. Tune in to see if they kill off Lauren Holly and make me happy or if you can hear my screams of anguish (and then Donald Bellisario's) if they kill off Mark Harmon.

House! DB Sweeney! I'm still mad that Strange Luck got cancelled. Possibly the season finale.

I can't remember what else is on TV. I need non-drowsy allergy pills. Nature hates me, but it's sooo pretty.

I'm asking you. Does this look the slightest bit comfortable? and geez. I need to do something with the yard. But I'm allergic to it.

2006-05-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's see if Blogger lets me post pictures now. A week later.

See? Pretty perky kitty with the correct placement of the tail. Huh. Not that you can tell.

Isn't that a lovely, lovely cable? And lovely yarn? It is, which is why I ruthlessly frogged it after being practically done. There is no way I'd ever wear it, not only would I look like a sack in it but I'd boil to death in it, or could wear it approximately three days a year. Maybe I could make Rogue out of it.

I swear, it took almost as long to frog as it did to knit. Well, maybe not that long, but still. Long.

Not much knitting news, I've been buried in a book or two. Read Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger - great, great book, despite the fact that it has at least 3 strikes against it - it's from the perspective of a 9 year old Jewish boy, his hero is a 3rd baseman which means it's also about sports (baseball! I knew that.) and it's set in World War I. (Nothing against WWI but The History Channel has burnt me out on it).

And yet? Great book.

Then I picked up Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job (okay, my number came up at the library's hold). There were some completely hysterical parts in it. I particularly liked the bit where he was walking the hellhounds and got into it over one of the dogs names.

No washcloth. Yet. I've got the yarn though! Surprised? I was. I have a much bigger stash than I realized.

Pollack (on Crossing Jordan) (because Marji asked) is the cute reporter that Jordan was dating/shacking up with that is much more suited to her than Woody ever will be. Oh, and the reason I don't watch 24 is because they haven't killed Audrey yet. I could take it for awhile last year because of Kiefer and William Devane, but waaaaaay too much Audrey. Hate Audrey.

Tonight is Without A Trace and last night was Lost and Bones and CSI-NY and I wonder how annoyed I'm going to be by Lost this week. If Sayid's in it, not that annoyed. (I've been taping everything. Migraine has come and gone all week, but (knock on wood) gone all day today.

2006-05-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

Not again. Blogger hates me, ate my post, again, both the yarns I want have a 3 week back order, I mucked up my swatch (which is actually the best place to muck up but still) and they killed Pollack on Crossing Jordan. They'd better not kill off Mark Harmon on NCIS tonight (or next week when it concludes). West Wing was bad enough.

House is on tonight!

San Francisco Zoo has their annual sheep/alpaca shearing this Thursday at 11am to noon, for anyone interested and/or in the neighborhood. They did say they use the shearing, but if enough spinners are there, things could work out very differently. I'm just saying.

Poor Kitty. Blogger isn't cooperating with the "After" picture. I have seen a cat before, but you can't tell by the tail placement. The surgery was successfully completed and the patient is resting comfortably. One more UFO down!

Edited to add:
Oh, and there's an August Birthday Swap that all August babies should check out. There's a button and everything, but blogger isn't co-operating.

I loved all the Dr. Who stuff on my comments! But everytime I try to say so, it eats them. Hmmm. Dalek Conspiracy?

So Much Work, So Little to Show For It

2006-05-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

I pulled out my copy of Lalla Ward's Beastly Knits for the Cat Chasing a Mouse sweater and while googling her found - she was Romana II from Dr. Who in 1979-81! Okay, that's just cool. Dr. Who is my new fave show. I can't believe I was never ~~forced~~ introduced to Dr. Who previously. God knows I've watched every other ~~lame~~ ~~interesting concept, hideous execution~~ fascinating sci fi show. At any rate, isn't that sweater great?

Stupid autoflash. I can't figure out how to turn it off. I can't figure out how to get my watch to stop beeping every hour on the hour either.

Yesterday I ziploc'd all my yarn (mostly)and rearranged the stash. Hopefully it'll help me keep a better idea of what I've got. Except. Well, I maybe sorta kinda ordered enough of Elsabeth Lavold's Hempathy (in off white) last week to knit up Eliz I and then kinda sorta maybe ordered online this morning enough Rowan Wool Cotton (in Rich) for it too. Just in case.

In the meantime, I did actually do a swatch for Eliz. Sadly I counted out the stitches I needed for the largest cable figuring.................ARGH! Blogger just ate my post. Too many references for it? Oh, forget it, I'll recap it tomorrow. It involved me bagging my stash and frogging my cable sweater and finishing a UFO. Oh, now Blogger doesn't want to add the pictures back eh? Argh. Again.

Sweet dreams, y'all.

Thoughtless Thursday

2006-05-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

*
Why is the Sci Fi Channel running Law & Order: Special Victims Unit? Step 5 on Dick Wolf's World Domination checklist? But WTH?
After House last night - and yay! Cameron biopsied Foreman's brain - I possibly would have done it without surgical tools or anesthesia but I'm just that kind of person - I was channel surfing idly around afterwards and found LOST [heh, heh, heh]. It's still on? Who knew? It might have been more tragic (the ending) if I'd watched any episode with Libby in it or didn't hate Ana Lucia so much. The tragic bit was that Sayid had a single lousy scene, that's the tragedy.

(no real mice were harmed in this picture. Hopefully, real mice are miles and miles away, cavorting in a field) .

Tonight Secrets of the Dead is on, but it's World War I (or II) and that gets enough coverage. I like my history a few centuries in the past. I've also got Intrigue & Treason in the Tudor Court on my bookshelves to read. And Dissolution, and probably others, but I have to knit sometime. I'm looking forward to the Tudor Roses KAL just for the reading and seeing what everyone else has knit (is knitting). Oh, and check out WIP Insanity for some beautiful knitting. I found her googling Eliz I but she, like Marina has some gorgeous stuff going on those needles.

Texas Ranch House was on PBS all week - completely missed it, even after Kat With A K reminded me, my brother asked me to tape it for him (I did, but I also ordered him the DVD from PBS. Just in case). Oh, and Kat With A K is starting up a new online magazine, Yarn Life, so pop by her blog and check it out.

A couple at the cauldron. Bird bath. We also get these teensy tiny brightly colored birds that are probably wild parakeets (a bit smaller) but I can never get a good shot.

Yet.

The summer is new.

The summer is not actually here either. After maybe four warm days it's back in the 70's. This is the East Bay? It should be broiling. I should be whining about the heat, not longing for it.
Nice road, eh? Not even a landslide. More like continental shift.

I bought a nice cheap Casio watch that's perfectly serviceable, nicely easy to read letters, several different modes, but evidently one of them was an alarm mode. I can't figure out which one it is or how to stop it. It's erratic too, sometimes it beeps on the hour (every hour) and sometimes its goes for hours wihout a peep. (No, I can't find the instructions. It was a $30 watch! I tossed it or lost it). Maybe I should go back and buy that nice Anne Klein watch I saw at Macy's.

This is the Moll Shawl all dressed up. So far, so good. See the wrapped yarn in the middle? That's what I have to knit to be back to where I was [sigh]. But isn't it pretty?

I'm on the verge of ordering Hempathy off the net for Eliz I without ever touching the stuff of seeing the color (whitish) just to have it. I suppose I should at least swatch the yarn I did get?

Random Babbling

2006-05-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

House Part 2 is on at 8pm tonight. WTH is Cameron's problem? Or Foreman's for that matter? I'd've had him fired or serving time (or both). Needlesticking someone? And Wilson was barely onscreen. That's just wrong.

Boy, that swatch looks muddy in that picture (previous post). I keep picking out colors (of brown, naturally) that have flecks of other colors that are only visible to me. Well, they must be visible elsewhere but I might need to take a pic in natural light (and not with my camera phone, on my desk).

Not yet though. Camera batteries charging. I've got lovely pics of the lovely lilacs that it turns out I'm quite allergic too. Now I remember why all my hobbies are indoors. I can't breathe outside. Nature. So overrated.

It was gorgeous, gorgeous Monday. I even got a bit burnt. How, I don't know, I was in the shade. It's such a lovely tan-line because it's basically just my shins and I'm crossing my legs. Very Avant Garde looking. Yesterday it was warm and sultry. Hez and I sat out on the deck while I finished reading Fairy Tale (quirky but interesting) and she toyed with the toy mouse.

So I'm currently reading Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague by Richard Rhodes. (Mad Cow disease). I have a feeling that I'm not going to want to eat much other than vegetables by the time I'm done. And possibly chocolate.

Today's weather? Freezing. Windy. Cold. Went out to water the vegetable beds and came back in and put on a sweatshirt. Brrrr.

Today's gas prices? Insane. $3.31 at the cheap station. Unreal.

My doctor made me wait an hour last Friday before he could see me (okay, undoubtedly it was because of other patients running over and/or having emergencies but I blame him), and in retaliation I made him wait while I finished frogging a row on the Lacy Prairie Shawl. (Well, and because you all know. You have to finish a row. Especially lace.) Then I sent it to its room to ponder its bad behavior but pulled it out last night and dressed it up with pretty stitchmarkers so hopefully it'll go a bit easier. It was just such an easy repeat that I didn't think I needed to, but I was wrong. (Wow. Those three words sound so wrong together.)

He thinks I have carpal tunnel and can stave it off with cortisone shots and OTC ibuprofen. Okay, I think that. He thinks I should have the surgery, but I've seen what they do. Yuck.

For the Tudor Roses KAL I don't have a yarn picked out yet. I haven't finished a single swatch. But. What I do have? Books lined up to read during the knitting of Elizabeth I.

- The Queens Conjurer
- The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne
- Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage
-The Wild Irish : A Novel of Elizabeth I and the Pirate O'Malley.

2006-05-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

The fabled gauge swatch for the mythic Twinset. Which I really, really, really am going to knit, especially since I've now done the swatch, am right on in gauge and have an idea of what Lily Chin was talking about. But Jennifer's right, that is an awful lot of I-Cord. Cool! Soon I can despise it as much as everyone does. I've never done I-cord for a pattern. And just in time to compete w/Elizabeth I in the Tudor Roses KAL. And wouldn't Jennifer's project at the Anti-Craft be perfect with it? All in the Family too!

Here's a fun little geography quiz that I manged to get about half right on. Hate that. I think I know something and then whammo. Proof that I'm an idiot.

I bought all sorts of balls of yarn over the weekend to swatch for Eliz I. No Hempathy though, I couldn't find any. I just don't want it to be too hot to wear around here. What do you want to bet I'll like the Rowan Cotton Wool the best, since it's undoubtedly the most expensive? I want to order Bogbean from the Virtual yarn site, just to see what the color is.

I'm putting off reading Pride & Prejudice because I just re-read it when the Kiera Knightly movie came out. Instead I'm reading Fairy Tale by Alice Thomas Ellis. I see why they repackaged the book - that cover is a bit disturbing.

And just for Poetry Tuesday, another poem by Marina Ivanova Tsetaeva

Go find yourself naive women friends
Who haven't checked miracles by number.
I know that Venus was produced by hand,
I'm a craftsman, I know the craft:
From the highest solemn muteness
Down to the thorough degradation of the soul:
Here's the whole divine staircase -- from:
My breath -- to: do not breathe!

18 June 1922

2006-04-27T11:00:00.000-07:00

Is that not the cutest picture? There's even kitty tongue.

Hezekiah may be the first cat ever, in the land of Catdom, that likes to sleep in. Sheba felt it was her one duty, to roust me out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5am. (Huh. Maybe that's why I get up early. Twenty years of that would pretty much cement a habit in stone). Of course, once that job was taken care of, she'd go back to sleep.

Hezekiah gives me the fisheye when I try to bound out of bed (and by bound, I mean scooch up to the top of the bed, carefully pulling my legs up and out and over her so that I don't disturb Her Majesty (because she's laying on the covers effectively pinning me in bed.) I'd just stay there, but I have needs. Coffee.

That's my parents wedding cake topper Mom unearthed cleaning their garage out this weekend. So it's........47 years old, last March. Wow. Her dryer died, so I went with her to the laundromat on Friday (because, as is written in The Immutable Laws of Appliance Breakdowns, the dryer didn't die until there were two loads of wash that were dripping wet.) She dragged my dad out over the weekend and picked up matching(!) washer and dryer set.

This is my progress on the Moll Flanders Shawl so far: I'd put up the previous picture, but then you'd have proof positive that I'm going backwards. Sadly, it's pretty obvious (after 4 or 5 rows, anyway) if it goes off pattern.

But yes! Why didn't I think of that? Thank you, Imbrium and everyone who agreed with her. Clearly the shawl pattern is too simple. That explains it! No wonder!

That, or I'm an idiot.

Anyone know anything about Hempathy by Elsabeth Lavold? As in, is it scratchy, comfy, good for warm weather, bad for warm weather, etc. I'm thinking of using it for my Elizabeth I project but I've only seen it online.

Meme I won't inflict on anyone but feel like doing myself (and feel free):

Accent: None. I'm from California! It's YOU PEOPLE that talk funny!
Booze: Nah.
Chore I Hate: Cleaning toilets. Yuck.
Dog or Cat: Cat! But I like dogs too. One of these days I'm getting one of those huge black poodles.
Essential Electronics: Surprising everyone, I say a TV
Favorite Cologne(s): None. Migraineur. I'm pretty much anti-scent.
Gold or Silver: Gold. Silver. Gold. Oh, I can't choose. It used to be gold but I've seen the merits of silver.
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Insomnia: Occasionally. Mostly from caffeine overload.
Job Title: "Staff" Seriously. That's what my Dad put on my business card originally.
Kids: I'm in favor of them. Oh, me? None.
Living arrangements: Suburbs. House. Backyard. Older house, so you can't jump roof to roof in our neighborhood.
Most admirable trait: Oh yeah, like I'm going to fall for that one. My humility in the face of all my fabulous qualities.
Number of sexual partners: At a time? One. Lately? Don't ask. It'll depress me.
Overnight hospital stays: Several. Mostly eye surgeries.
Phobias: Getting lost without a map I can read. Asking for directions. (why bother? They'll either tell me to "go left at the Murphy's old ranch..." (which is currently a gas station or a Wal Mart) or start off with "you go west 4.2 miles and then south for ........" uhhhh, I barely know left and right.
Quote: "Live in Your World. Play in Ours."
Religion: Lutheran
Siblings: one younger brother
Time I wake up: 5-6ish
Unusual talent or skill: I can untangle jewelry and now yarn. Yay.
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Beets. But beet greens are edible.
Worst habit: My love for animals. My work ethic. Actually my worst habit is probably is my work ethic. I didn't even put that in bunny fingers.
X-rays: Teeth and my neck. (Pinched nerve that showed up on the X-Ray. What are the odds?) If you're a big wuss it doesn't come up much. In fact, I've never broken a bone.
Yummy foods I make: peanut butter & honey sandwiches.
Zodiac sign: Leo

Kind of an interesting article on why alphabet letters look the way they do.

House next week is a two parter - Part 1 Tuesday at 9pm as usual, Part 2 at 8pm on Wednesday. No Bones next week. Bones is getting much better. Admiral Chegwidden (JAG) was on it last night. Kid Rock was on CSI-NY. Tonight, Without A Trace. Tomorrow, Dr. Who. I tried to pre-order Dr Who on Amazon, but the price dissuaded me. Of course, I then proceeded to spend that amount on books (which is so different).

2006-04-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

At last I did this without copying someone else's handwriting. I must have been a forger in another life. You've all seen this meme, right? Write a pangram, sign your first name and post.

I'd post knitting news but the only news is that I'm not going to finish the shawl as the Moll Flanders project at this rate and possibly I'm going to heave it into traffic in a fit of rage and frustration. It IS SO ANNOYING. I've actually memorized the pattern to the point where I'm not even carrying my 3x5 cheat card around (well, geez, it's a 3 stitch repeat. K3, or (yo, slip 2, p2sso, yo). The only change is that the rows start with a 2, 3 or 5 knit stitch repeat and it's pretty easy to remember and/or count the row below.)

SO WHY IS IT THEN SO FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO KNIT THIS WITHOUT SCREWING IT UP?

2006-04-23T11:06:00.000-07:00

You Are Furry Boots

They're not just boots. They're your dancing shoes!

Okay, Ann, what did you do? Yes, you. There is no way I'm those boots.

The Wikpedia search meme on my birthdate yields the following interesting facts (okay, interesting to me at least):

Events:

1040 - King Duncan I of Scotland is killed in battle against his cousin and successor Macbeth. (cool).

1842 - Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida to Oklahoma. (oh, lovely)

1893 - France introduces motor vehicle registration. (See? The French are Evil.)

1936- Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States. (A black man hanged by a white woman)

1994 - Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured.

Birthdays:

1473 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence (d. 1541)

1771 - Sir Walter Scott. Scottish historical novelist and poet (d. 1832)

1851 - Doc Holliday, American gambler and gunfighter (d. 1887)

1865 - Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician (d. 1952)

1926 - Lina Wertmüller, Italian film director

1941 - David Crosby, American guitarist and songwriter

Holidays

United States- National Code talkers Day

Hmm. My birthday isn't listed as a National Holiday. For me. Odd.

No pics. I'm at work, killing time until the freeway clears and then off to play. Can you believe that on my first day back to work I was expected to WORK? Honestly.

Also no pics because I'm basically knitting four rows of the prarie shawl and then ripping it back. I did have the momentous awe inspiring once in a lifetime miraculous act of fixing a lace stitch by dropping stitches and knitting them back up yesterday - only the stitches involved! Not 800 freaking rows!!! But to make up for it, six rows later I've picked up a stitch somewhere. I know all I have to do is rip back to the added stitch, but honestly. Shouldn't there be a limit to how many times this can happen on a single project? It's not like I'm close to being done either. (Or ever, at this rate.)

Too bad I didn't get a pic of Hezekiah carefully pulling out each and every "cake" of yarn out of my Sonora yarn store bag last night. And by "carefully", I mean with as much rattling of paper and noise as felinely possible, with the occasional hanging of herself on the bag handles. I tried to help, but she got quite indignant.

Many, many days off, very little to show for it....

2006-04-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

.......other than possible return to close to sanity. I've been off for days and days and only managed to finish the Adamas shawl (last Monday) a book, (Tiger in the Shadows by Margery Allingham - I kept thinking of Chittavrtti's Life Of Pi Tiger), went to a movie (Friends With Money - not half bad and for being a fairly unrealistic portrayal of anyone it rang surprisingly true) and up to Sonora and Columbia for what turned out to be a daytrip (much to Sheri's dismay, I'm sure. She drove. But we did drive in the red convertible with the top down. (Oh, okay. Until me and The Movie Star whined enough about being cold and windblown and Sheri put the top back up. But it went back down later.)

The Movie Star.

The set: (somewhere on Hwy 49)

But most importantly, The Yarn Store in Sonora, By Hand Yarn. And I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the outside! It's evidently the old drugstore - because it has D R U G S embedded in the doorway - remember those? It's roomy and comfy and has multiple couches and gorgeous yarn (why didn't I get the Koigu there?) but I got this instead: (and it came in skeins and The Movie Star and Her Entourage wound it for me under the watchful eye of Patricia - who hails from Pleasant Hill, which is practically where I live. Small World.

.

Columbia would be a great day trip or longer. It's an old gold town with the original buildings along with homes still being lived in(!) and little shops and the historical mixed together. The Movie Star and Her Entourage hand dyed candles by dipping them, went into the jail (very, very tiny) dragged us up the hill to the old schoolhouse and the cemetary. They didn't get to pan for gold but they didn't seem to interested in it either. But you can.

Here's my Moll Shawl so far - out of the Misti Alpaca. It's so cool! I redid it once (I tried to frog it and ended up snapping the yarn in a fit of rage - I was barely started and it was being BAD, but it revenged itself on me by having a really wonky looking point this time out. It will either block out or I'll hang weights on it. I mean, beads.

The first attempt.

The latest. You know, I think every surface in this house is brown. Brown couches. Brown velveteen duvet cover. Butcher block island. Wood tables and chairs. Wood roll top desk. I might have to copy Jenla and cover everything with mosaics. Shades of brown, no doubt.

Okay, it looks better than that. A chair isn't the best pose, eh? I ran out to my LYS today to get wood needles - the metal ones were driving me crazy catching the glare outside. It was gorgeous! For approximately 4 days.

My poor twinset. I started it but really, I should use it as the gauge swatch. Because no, I didn't knit one - I've barely knit 5 rows other than the I-cord on the left front as it is and it's more complicated that I expected from garter stitch and I-cord. Darn that Lily Chin. But a good gauge swatch. If I ever knit it, because my original point was Marji's Tudor Roses KAL! (yes, I had a point. I usually do. I just never usually get to it).

Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses book. I love the Elizabeth but the Mary Tudor and the Katherine Howard and the Anne of Cleves..........but honestly, the Elizbeth is the only one I have half a prayer of both finishing and then wearing. Unless I move to a cold, cold climate.

Becky, thanks for those links! I like the capelet, that looks very Moll but I might make it for Wuthering Heights. Out of wool, no doubt, and knit it on the beach in June. Hopefully it'll be 102 by then. Oh, and Carrie, I got Richard Rhodes "Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague" because I'm all about plagues. The Secret History of Domesticity is HUGE! And Women of the 12th Century (Eleanor of Aquitaine and six others) is like 100 something pages. I would have expected vice a versa, for no apparent reason.

Stephanie!!!! You didn't tell me History of Britain was on ALL DAY LONG on Wednesday. Argh. I totally missed it. I've barely flipped the TV on all week (except I watched Dr. Who last night. I really like this Dr. Who, I'll miss him next season) and have been taping everything else. I thought I'd sit around and read but I've effectually sat around staring into space (see frogged shawl. See one book read. See one day trip. See girl with way too much time on her hands doing nothing with it.)

On the other hand. Blissful. Wasting time. What could be more fun?

Also for no apparent reason (other than Moll did) I want to say "effectually" all. the. time. but I can't work it into normal conversation. ~ Possibly because it hasn't been normal conversation for 300 years but mostly because I've been locked in the house with a cat, a book and a shawl and haven't really tried.

I FINISHED IT!!

2006-04-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

My overseer. On top of the garage. Ever get that creepy feeling someone is watching you? Got a cat?

From this:

To this!

Whew. I'm glad I didn't stay up last night to finish the last 3 rows - binding off took me 45 minutes alone. I'm either the slowest knitter in the universe or that was a LOT of stitches. (Little of both). But my Adamas Shawl is done! The ends are all woven in, it's off the needles - okay, I haven't blocked it yet, but it's done!

Started March ~~6th~~ 4th, finished April 17th. It's not even all that horribly off either which kind of amazes me. I need to block it so you can see the diamond edging better, and hopefully some of the fubar less.

It's so pretty. But pastel. What made me pick out pastel? The vast majority of my wardrobe is black and white. And blue jeans. OTOH, it goes well with blue jeans and a white shirt.

The AAA travel agent managed to muck up the Yosemite reservations. She confused us with wanting the Lodge in the Park with not setting for the one out of it. Bah. So naturally, we lost out on both.

Medium is on tonight! In theory. I wish they'd quit monkeying with the schedule. I'll be buried in books. Finished Moll Flanders - I've been reading the literary criticisms in the back, Virginia Woolf's father Sir Leslie Stephen slammed it and Dafoe fairly well, comparing Moll Flanders to a police report. "......For this reason we do not imagine that 'Roxana,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' or Captain Singleton' can fairly claim any higher interest thatn that which belongs to the ordinary police report, given with infinite fulness and vivacity of detail. "

Mind you, a nicely written police report.

An elegy for Moll from the "prime wits of Trinity College in Dublin" (by T Read in 1723)

Alas, what News doth now our Ears invade?
What Havock has grim Death among us made?
With the impetuous Fury of the Dart,
Moll Flanders he has wounded thro' the heart:
Moll Flanders, once the Wonder of the Age,
Whilst she remain'd on this terrestrial Stage,
Is gone to take a Nap for many years,
For which ye ought to shed as many Tears.
We mean her chiefest Mourners ought to be
The chief Proficients in all Villany,
Such Persons who go on the sneaking Budge,
And will for Mops and Pails thro' Dublin trudge
House-breakers, Doxies who can file a Cly,
And those who aout of Shops steal privately
But you that can't cry, yet would seem to weep,
Your handkerchiefs in Juice of Onions steep,
Then rail upon the cruel Hand of Fate,
Which would not grant Moll's Reign a longer Date.
A longer Date, said we? Indeed too long
She liv'd to do some honest People wrong;
Such Wrong, that had she her deseerved Due,
She had been whipt, and glimm'd, and hanged too;
but all the Paths of Vice so much she trac'd,
That hanging her had any Tree disgrac'd.
Howe'er take care below, among the Dead,
For tho' the mortal Life of Moll is fled,
She may perhaps as now ye cannot feel,
Your Shrouds, and Coffins, else your Bodies steal,
As Grave-diggers in England do, to be
Mangled to pieces in Anatomy.
But hold, deceased Moll we must not blame
Too mcuh for tho' she glory'd in her Shame
Of being dextrous Thief and arrant Whore,
Yet we some Pity for her must implore,
And give her deathless Memory some Praise,
In that she ended well her latter Days,
For of her num'rous Sins she did repent,
And dy'd a very hearty Penitent.

Budge- thief without the help of an accomplice
Cly - pick a pocket

I have my doubts on the sincerity of her repentance but it was nice to see ONE of her 12 children named. Yes, the one that brought her news of her inheritance.

Literature Map

2006-04-14T12:41:00.000-07:00

Is this cool or what? Literature Map.

And some sad news. My best friend had to put down their 13 year old yellow Lab, Chelsey last Saturday. I wish I had a pic of her here to post. She loved me because I was willing to let her be the lap dog that she believed she was (all practically 100 pounds of her) and she was just the sweetest thing. She used to eat the veggies in the backyard garden, Chuck and Sheri fenced it in and Sheri caught her leaning over the white picket fence, craning to reach a tomato. I really just didn't want to believe she's gone.

2006-04-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

When one is frustrated, overworked, stressed, tired, clearly taking things too personally, in what freaking world would the phrase "You need to chill out" help?

Actually, it did kind of help because I had a completely inappropriate tantrum (well, not so anyone else could notice, thankyouverymuch). That and I went home at a decent hour, didn't so much as flip the TV on (blessed silence) and read Moll Flanders until late in the evening. (That would be 9:30ish. Yeah, I know. I'm a wimp. But I'm up at 5am. Possbily because I fall asleep around 9pm)

Tonight! PBS at 8pm "Pets, A Very Natural History" followed by "Royals and Their Pets" at 8:50.

This morning I got up and popped The Detective(1968) w/Frank Sinatra into the DVD player. Ralph Meeker (Mike Hammer from Kiss Me Deadly) played a cop in it, along with a very young Jack Klugman (even if he does pretty much look exactly the same) and a blond Robert Duvall.

The prerequiste blond, Lee Remick, a college professor who falls for "the only real man she's ever met" (Frank Sinatra, Honest Cop, of course) turns out to be a nymphomaniac that her shrink has evidently diagnosed as "wanting to blow up the only family she's ever known - or - lack of maturity" (This was the on screen diagnosis. Can you believe it? Considering her childhood spent bouncing around in foster care, I don't think they were even close.)

But all this is just a side dish to the unbelievable homophobia in the film. I mean, seriously. Even FS, who was a compassionate tough guy, still has some really bizarre stereotyping going on there. Clearly we've come a long way from 1968. The plot and the plotting wasn't half bad, but the casual bigotry was just freaky.

Maybe they cast for the blue eyes. Frank Sinatra. Lee Remick. Jacqueline Bisset. There were a few scenes of FS driving around in his police car but sadly he looked a bit like a bobblehead doll during them.

Oh, and to clear something up - I'm not nowhere near faithful to my notebooks, but I do love 'em.

One and a half repeats left on Adamas. It's making me a bit teary. I'm almost done! No more counting it off......I'm going to miss it. It's coming out pretty well too, since other than botching the count, I've managed to pretty much slavishly follow the pattern.

Now I need a project for my train trip to Yosemite next week. Two days, one night. What? Of course I have WIPS. Trips require new. And a book (or two) .

What's that you say? Scenery?

I Wish I was A Robot. I'd be HAL.

2006-04-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Oh, you do not want to know what I'd like to explore right now. Suffice it to say, I'm walking around my office muttering "bad word, bad word, increasingly foul bad word" (because mere bad words are not enough.) But enough about work.

Am I the only person left in the secular/non secular world that was unaware that the Forty Days of Lent, isn't? It's more like 47 days if you stop short of Easter. Sundays don't count? What kind of scurrilous logic is that? So fie on it all. I did my 40 Days and then.........well, I sort of ran amuck yesterday. Bought this (they were out of the Kali bags, fyi), picked up:
Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1 : Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others,
Queen Isabella : Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England,
Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage,
The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge,
The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne, and 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry.

Not to mention what I picked up at the library. Ha. I am so not coming up for air come Tuesday. Except maybe a road trip or short trip w/Sheri. I'm actually kind of thinking Taos, NM, but can it be done in 3 days? Four?

Tulips from the rain soaked back yard.
I was at Carrie Scribe's the other day discussing our notebooks, so I thought I'd share mine. One stays with my knitting and is sort of a log of projects, diary and list of projects/patterns I want to make someday and where the pattern is. Fancy cover, eh? I have pretty bound books, but I never seem to use them more than once or twice. They don't lay open. Not unless you crack the spine and I've been yelled at too many times to do that (without guilt).

The other I drag around in my purse (and it shows). It's knitting, addresses, books I see that I want, notes, the occasional list of food I ate that day, etc. The Decrease Row page is what I tried in desperation because I must have ripped out this sweater 1800 times while I was waiting for my car to be fixed - nothing like spending six hours in an automotive shop. They were very solicitious. They would have ferried me somewhere, but hey, I was getting more done there than at home.

Scarlett Street with Edgar G. Robinson was much more satisfying. A girl in love with a cad playing an unhappily married man for a fool. It had more to do with his being a great albeit undiscovered and insecure artist than his marriage, but still played for a fool. There's murder, there's a frame, there's a set up and sadly there's guilt and remorse but luckily it's all too, too late.

Layer Cake is up next, then The Detective. Somewhere in there I am going to finish the other two repeats of the Adamas Shawl and the edging (and possibly the blocking) by Easter Sunday. Or I will wear it on the needles.

Anyone watching the History Channel's limited series Ten Days that Changed America? One of them had to do with the atomic bomb (timely! for me), the assasination of McKinley (which is how Teddy Roosevelt rode into office, he was the Vice Pres at the time), the massacre of the Pequot Indian tribe in the 1600's (led the way for the whole Manifest Destiny bit) and tonight - Elvis!!

House tonight. It's Tuesday, right?

Oh, and Carie of Chatterbox, if you're around, write in. Your blog and email vanished and now I'm a bit worried about you.

Boy, My Answering Machine Doesn't Look like that.

2006-04-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

"Mr. Hammer, whom you are calling" what, they were random dialing? Is that an awesome answering machine contraption, or what? Built right into the wall, the size of a small air conditioning unit and looks like an old (huge) tape recorder. Wow.

And the crazy phone numbers! I love the name numbers.

Wow, what a bad movie, Kiss Me Deadly. It actually had kind of a killer plot - all about some missing plutonium and nuclear explosions , but since Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker, not half bad to look at) was busy chasing dames, slapping bad guys, (a very, very young Jack Elam), harrassing opera singers and art dealers, I had no idea what the heck the story was about until........well, actually until I googled The Manhattan Project, Los Alamos and Trinity. Not a clue during the movie. Mostly he was chasing after Cloris Leachman, who turned up dead, everyone around her was turning up dead, everyone around Mike was turning up dead or threatening to turn him/them up dead, or kissing some dame.

Oh! And Mike's secretary had a ballet barre and a stripper pole in her house! 1955. More like today than I realized.

Cloris Leachman made her debut in it - shrieking like a banshee during the opening credits - I'm sure the director made her, but ye gads. The Greek sidekick was annoying too, with all his "Pow!"'s and "Va va voom!" and "3-D Pow!" 3-D pow? Surprised that didn't catch on as a catchphrase.

A quote from the John Donne poem that inspired Robert Oppenheimer to name his project Trinity, (direct from Wikpedia) 'As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are on, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.'" ("Hymn to God My God, in My Sicknesses"). Oppenheimer continued, "That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, 'Batter my heart, three person'd God;—.' Beyond this, I have no clues whatever."

Lyssa, there's an invisibly printed H and C and M on the car clock buttons at the bottom of them, you hold down the "c" button and then press the "h" button to change the hour. At least that's how it works on my car. Not that I did it for years and years. In my car, the time was always standard, until it drove Sheri crazy one day and she fixed it. The one, the ONLY ONE advantage to "springing forward" is that it's easier to change the clocks. But that's it.

Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You?

You are Wallace Stevens. You love everything, especially the sound of things. Too bad you are so obscure that at times even you don't understand what the hell you have written.
Take this quiz!

Today the air is clear of everything.
It has no knowledge except of nothingness
And it flows over us without meanings,
As if none of us had ever been here before
And are not now: in this shallow spectacle,
This invisible activity, this sense.

By Wallace Stevens.

Speaking of invisible activity, I finished two more rows.

2006-04-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

Death By Caffeine How much of your favorite caffeinated drink would it take to kill you? Take this quick test and find out:
It would take 292.50 cups of Starbucks Tall Caffe Latte to put you down.

Ha. I could drink that standing on my head and doing cartwheels and juggling. Hmm. Maybe a wee bit too much caffeine at that. That was brought to you via Kat With A K.

Unbelievably, my work is not doing itself. Doesn't it realize there's a deadline? A really, really close deadline? And I don't want to do it anymore?

Oh, and I meant, look away, Mim, so that you wouldn't see what an idiot I am, and not as a reflection on your instructions. Because seriously. Not noticing that I'm knitting from the top down? Not realizing that I'm making a triangle shape? How?

Reading Moll Flanders (well, listening to it in the car - I love this! For once it's worked really well, I'm on the last cassette) I'm re-thinking the Dr. Who scarf. For one thing, well, I could make a bad excuse for it, but it's not really a good fit. (Shockingly enough. But if it was still winter? It would so be my project. And a long wool scarf - what are the odds it's going to stay that cold around here? It's amazing we've had this much rain/cold as it is.) Hey. Which it is. Again. Raining. Wow.

I was thinking that the gorgeous Misti Alpaca Jenni got me would make a good Moll project. The burgundy color is perfect, because Moll is n't really a red woman, but she's no innocent pink neither. The Wool Peddlar's Shawl from Folk Shawl is the right time period (I think), but I'm thinking that maybe the Garter Lace Prairie Shawl might be right. She did spend time in Virginia (prairie, right? Right?), the Misti Alpaca is so much finer than the pattern would suggest - Moll is led completely by misfortune and fate into her......well, misfortunes and fate. So she says. So much finer than her actions would suggest....

Dr Who tonight! Part 2. Outside of that, I have no idea. I watched House - what is with those roomies? There's more to Jimmy Wilson than meets the eye. Bones was actually good Wednesday night. Yay! I love me David Boreanaz (although possibly butchering his name). Hey it was a good week for Buffy/Angel alums, Buffy's little sister was the sick girl on House (yeah, I can't think of her name on the show but it's Michelle Trachtenberg, late of AMC), and Lindsay of Angel was on Bones. And General Chegwidden formerly of JAG! (On Bones. Keep up.) (It's me? Oh, it probably is.) But I'm glad to see that the show is better because the first few episodes I wanted to smack the chick into the middle of next week.

Waiting for me from Netflix is Layer Cake with the new James Bond, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) a Mickey Spillane thriller, and Scarlet Street . Edgar G. Robinson is the protagonist in it. Yes, I am having a thing for old movies, every since I re-watched Out of the Past last week. Robert Mitchum AND Kirk Douglas! Both more or less bad! With a bad girl. What's not to love? It's my favorite movie ever.

Okay, brief knitting content. Not mine. Not for a week, I'm sure. Are those cool or what? They're only a few centuries old. I'd love to knit something along those lines one day.

Have I mentioned how much I hate, loathe and despise Daylight Saving Time? No? I hate it! Hate it! Had another migraine yesterday, thank God for prescriptions that actually work on migraines and don't leave you comatose.

Migraines Are Good for Something...

2006-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

My little helper.

At least I was forced to go home and crash for a few hours. Finally looked through the Vogue Knitting and Knitter's Magazine magazines, there were even a couple of patterns I'd like to make and wear. Why do I love lace lately? Got my copy of Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers in the mail too (oh, get this - Amazon said it was shipped March 30th with an expected arrival date of May 3rd - because Richmond is so very, very far from Concord evidently. But maybe when they moved the clocks forward they didn't just skip an hour but a month, because I got it yesterday, April 4th.)

Cute stuff. It doesn't look like it has much that isn't in her Knitted Embellishments book or patterns that I haven't seen in magazines - that dratted Floral Bag is in it - I just know that one day I'm going to break down and knit it (it's cute! but oh so very inappropriate).

I'm down to the last couple of repeats on the Adamas Shawl - Mim, look away - I just last night realized that I'm knitting the shawl from the top down. I was looking at the edging chart (yes! I'm that close to finishing!) trying to figure out - do I need to pick up stitches? Can I just skip it? when it dawned on me - top down. I knew I shouldn't have started it when I didn't have time to actually knit it. I mean, basically that's all I've done is knit it. Didn't really have any time to look at it and it deserves so much more attention, it's so pretty!

That's a picture of one of my egregious errors I was going to attempt to drop stitches and fix, before I came to my senses.

I've been listening to a cassette of Moll Flanders on the way into work - the reader has such a lovely voice, she's really helped me get into the book - and the book takes getting into. All those capitalizations! (Even if I do it all the time. That's so different). The peculiar language (well, it was written a couple of centuries ago, but every time I read "stile" I don't think "style") - I love the lovely footnotes at the *gasp!* foot of the page (I hate loathe and despise having to flip to the back of the book to read a footnote that half the time is only a citation anyway). Moll sounds like a fun girl despite herself. Oh, the trying circumstances of fate when one only wants to Be Good. And Not Starve.

House was on last night, NCIS too, but I taped them both and slept. There's a show called Bloodlines: Technology Hits Home on PBS tonight that looks interesting (reproductive issues, developmental biology and genetic testing), but mainly there is LOST. Now that I've given up on trying to make sense of it, I'm enjoying it a lot more. However! I've deciphered what the numbers mean. C.A.S.H. C.O.W.

And CSI-NY, of course.

Dr. Who was part one of two last Friday. Grrr. The one 6pm Stargate SG1 I've gotten to see lately was also a part one, Jolinar's Memories. I'd rather miss part one and see part two, you know? I've probably got it on DVD but.....I'd rather complain and whine. It just comes to me so naturally.

Nice article on MSN.Wife, Shall I Compare Thee To A Donkey?. Well, why not. My husbands compare favorably to asses.

Get Your Slogan Here
Mine?

Just for the Taste of Tiredness

Wow. Appropriate. Back to the Salt Mines.

(Unofficial) Poetry Monday

2006-04-03T15:20:00.000-07:00

Marina Ivanova Tsvetaeva

You who loved me with the falseness
Of truth - and the truth of lies.
You who loved me-beyond
Anything!-Over the edge!
You who loved me beyond
Time-Right hand, wave!
You love me no more:
The truth in five words.
12 December 1923

Thief! Stop! Stop thief!

2006-04-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

Someone stole an hour from me.

I hate daylight saving time. It doesn't change a minute of the amount of daylight available. It means that when I'm getting up at my normal break-of-dawn time, I didn't have any time to knit this morning, there were other *people out and about and I was gypped out of an hour that I could really, really use this time of year.

*They looked like people but they acted like Zombies. Now I know why I'm such a Mary Sunshine in the morning. It's an irresistible impulse, it's annoying, and there is nothing they can do but growl feebly in my direction since they're not quite awake and functioning. Good morning, Sunshine! You too!

2006-03-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

Tame compared to Chris's subversive cross stitch, but the first one I ever attempted, for my mom, for the office. Also? Accurate.

In a note of epic tragedy: My watch stopped. My beloved Fossil watch that I can actually read the time all the time. For a practically blind person, that's very, very important. I can't buy a new one, Lent isn't over. I suppose I could get a battery for it, but I have the feeling it would cost more than the watch did. Grrrr. (No, I can't go without a watch! You might as well ask me to not carry a book around.) Good grief, is my wrist fat? My wrist???

No farther on any knitting - still half a row done on the shawl, still haven't done a gauge for twinset, still haven't done much but come home from work, crawl into bed, watch something on TV and sleep. Story of 1 last night was pretty entertaining and educational. I love stuff like that. No idea what's on TV tonight. Without A Trace, I hope. Next week? Martin's drug addiction catches up to him. ZZZZZZZ

Moll Flanders is the April Book of the Month for Knit the Classics and in April I would really like to both read the book and FINISH a project for it. Any suggestions? Can anyone come up with a way I can make the Dr Who scarf? Moll Flanders/Dr Who. It seems like a natural juxtaposition to me.

At least I'll only be working like a maniac until the 17th. I hope. I've got both the book and a book called Moll Flanders: An authoritative Text ready to be picked up at the library.

Yeah, along with Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation, Bart Ehrman's Lost Christianities: The Battle For Scriptures and Maocyr Scliar's Centaur in the Garden. Maocyr Scliar wrote the book Yann Martel interpreted Life of Pi from, but this isn't that book. Never mind that I'm still lugging around The Dante Club (page 45! I can't get into it) and my own TBR shelf is more like a bookcase. Oh, and did I mention the part where I basically go home to sleep? And work the rest of the time? (occasionally, mind you, just occasionally cracking the net...)

A Solar Eclipse! March 29th 2am

2006-03-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

Cool! Tomorrow, but mostly in Turkey, evidently. Those of us landlocked in North America (and chained to our desks) (who are up and around at 2am in San Francisco or 5am back East) can watch it live on the Exploratorium's website or the feed later.

Click the link just to check out the eclipse's progress on the map.

And, just to help out:

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic

At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung

You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping

Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

Yeah, like that's news.

Oh, remind me. I want this.

Tuesday Post

2006-03-28T11:57:00.000-08:00

Because it sure ain't Saturday. It's a Tuesday, through and through. The last weekend a distant memory, the next weekend too far away to count.

And on a more upbeat note, here's my haul from Jenni! Isn't that yarn gorgeous?

Here it is, balanced precariously in my lap (minus the chocolate). Oh, you can't really see the burgundy color in either pic. Bummer. I'll try the Ott lite at home, later.

And this is what I cast on last night because......because....because I hadn't started anything new in ages and was compelled to. You can't tell it's I-cord w/picked up stitches, partly because the yarn is dark and partly because I think I should've done a mini one to figure out the configuration first. And the gauge. Yeah. Because I'm all about gauge.

Kitty pic! Escaping. She likes to get under the covers until......I don't know, heat prostration hits? And then she dives out for the open window.

Medium pre-empted last night for stupid Heist. Grrrr. Note to NBC: I am NEVER going to watch Heist, particularly since you took one of my favorite shows spot to air it in. Phhhht.

Caught The Queer Case of the Irish Crown Jewels on KQED last night. (The link isn't to the PBS website because I couldn't find any info on it there). I'd never even known that Ireland had Crown Jewels, much less stolen. Turns out the deed was just as likely to have been committed by Francis Shackleton (brother of Ernest Shackleton, the explorer played by Kenneth Branagh) but Sir Arthur Vicars took the fall as Francis Shackleton had an alibi and was married to King Edward's favorite sister, and if that wasn't enough, was the lover of.......some bigwig. Big cover-up! Possible scandal! Fun stuff.

Tonight - House returns! Yay!

Wednesday looks particularly good for TV too. At 8pm, The Story of 1 narrated by Terry Jones, tells how the Hindu Zero and the Arabic numerals liberated us from Rome amoung other accomplishments, Lost at 9pm (hopefully with much more Sayid this episode), and then CSI-NY.

Pirates! They're the new.......

2006-03-26T13:42:00.000-08:00

uh, thing? They're everywhere. This is thanks to ~~Ann of Sheep Shots~~Iron Anne Kidd

My pirate name is:

Mad Prudentilla Rackham

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

I Got My Mystery Swap Stuff!

2006-03-25T15:13:00.000-08:00

From Jenni, the sly minx. My camera battery died as I took the first pic (and I forgot to get the batteries when I was at home, bad me) so I can't load the pic or take another, but she got me an awesome haul. Skeins of burgundy Misti Alpaca that I've already knit up into about eight different projects in my head, Bellagio chocolate (gone, mysteriously), Tony Hillerman's The Blessing Way (I love his books. Peter Bowen writes series about Gabriel Du Pre, a Metis Indian in Montana that I like too), a Southwest bookmark, Starbuck's Italian Roast Coffee..... just. Awesome.

Now that is what I consider using your vacation time wisely. Thanks, Jenni!

In more prosaic news, watched Dr Who last night -I liked it. Once Rose snarked that the 'last human on earth' was nothing more than a "bitchy trampoline" I was hooked. Good news! I can pre-order the first season DVD before its June release! Ye gads. I'm still Not Buying Things (when is Easter? When? When? Forty days is a really long time).

Yay for Swaps. I got to shop! It really is as much fun to give as to receive. I'm not even a shopping kind of gal, but evidently I'm a buying kind of one. When the cash register rang up the total and I handed over the money, it just felt so. damme. good. (See? Damme! Rhett Butler would say that. I'm all about Rhett Butler).

I bet EZ Rawlins would say that too. Watched Devil In A Blue Dress this morning and now I'm all stoked for a Blues or Jazz club outing. It's been so long since I've read the book, I really liked the movie. (Usually I read the book, hate the movie. I try to see the movie first).

Got a few more rows done on the Adamas Shawl, leafed through the Tudor Rose book (Elizabeth I or Catherine Howard?), picked up the tweed wool for the twinset, studiously ignored the Norwegian Sock (that doesn't seem to be knitting itself), (the pink cable isn't either) and now what am I doing? I'm Not Working, that's what I'm doing.

Must. Work.

Yap, yap, yap

2006-03-23T13:06:00.000-08:00

This cake is strictly for knitting content: Can you believe that? Colette's Cakes.

Howevah! This is the cake I want for my birthday. Or tonight. Whenever.

I took yesterday off because I was struck down suddenly by the I Can't Go To Work One More Day virus - it would've only been my 10th day in a row. I worked on the shawl - (realizing late last night that there are 14 repeats and not the ten I was thinking, which is good, because it may've been a wee on the small side, but is bad in that I thought I was halfway done. Two repeats ago. Nope, now I'm halfway done). The rows go without a hitch and then inexplicably, after counting obsessively and backtracking over the pattern, I drop a stitch or add one (or two, or three.....). At least now I can kind of fool with it in pattern but still.

So I wandered into the sewing room since I used to be fairly proficient at sewing and have approximately the same (if not more) UFO's, thinking to soothe my shattered nerves by doing something right.

Uh. No.

For one thing, I took the bobbin casing to clean (polarfleece sheds like a long haired cat in July) and couldn't figure out how to put the freaking thing back together. Mind you, it's two pieces, one of which will only fit one way and I've had that machine for ages. I should be able to do it blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back.

It took me *cough*forty minutes*cough* to figure out I was putting the ...whatmacallit in backwards.

After that self esteem destroying incident, I proceeded to sew the princess seam fronts to the back of the garment. After that, I picked up a book. I can't get into The Dante Club for some reason. Anyone read it? I'm barely 20 pages in, so it's not like I've actually given it a fair shake so far.

After that? TV. Lost. Is that really a miracle or is Sun messing with Jin's head? (Yes. All that took me all day. I got up at 6:30am too. Oh! I made Mexican Souffles too, but that was an hour out of my day. Of course those came out well. They're fattening. But scrumptious. And yeah, I picked up the blouse again and managed to get a big chunk of it done. Right. I hope.).
CSI NY.

Hezekiah and I killed a couple of menacing yarn balls too. She's so funny. She gets mad if I'm too helpful but bored if the yarn just lays there.

The sidecar in my earlier post has a......beagle? Snoopy dog in it. He's kind of facing the rider so you can see his head in the lower right corner of the sidecar windshield and some of his body is in the rest of the lower windshield. I know it's a crappy picture but I snapped it while sitting at a light craning around with the zoom on. If I had better photo skills (or photo software) I could've blown it up, but there you go. I don't and I didn't. But it was cute. He looked soooooo darn happy. Road Trip!

Tuesday? Is that All? Is it Summer yet?

2006-03-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

Gratuitous kitty pic.

Now this one you'll have to probably click on for the big picture, but look v-e-r-y closely at the chap riding in the sidecar.

I'd post knitting progress but I managed to knit about a quarter of a row before I gave up, watched Medium and fell asleep. Still no House tonight. I think only one more week of House-lessness.

A Little Progress & Flowers

2006-03-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

Sheri brought me flowers to the the office yesterday because I was in an intensely weepy mood but mostly because she's The Best Friend Ever. Straight out of her garden. Frost must be good for some flowers. See? All year 'round.

And in knitting news, with a little help from Mim, I'm halfway through the repeats on the shawl! (Please don't remind me that each repeat gets progressively longer. I'm trying to think of it as compound interest instead of EIGHTY BILLION STITCHES.)

And that's it. It's all work a lot, knit a little, sleep later.

(NOBEL PRIZE)
by Boris Pasternak
1959

Like a beast in a pen, I'm cut off
From my friends, freedom, the sun,
But the hunters are gaining ground.
I've nowhere else to run.
Dark wood and the bank of a pond,
Trunk of a fallen tree.
There's no way forward, no way back.
It's all up with me.

Am I a gangster or murderer?
Of what crime do I stand
Condemned? I made the whole world weep
At the beauty of my land.

Even so, one step from my grave,
I believe that cruelty, spite,
The powers of darkness will in time
Be crushed by the spirit of light.

The beaters in a ring close in
With the wrong prey in view,
I've nobody at my right hand,
Nobody faithful and true.

And with such a noose on my throat
I should like for one second
My tears to be wiped away
By someone at my right hand.

2006-03-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

The only knitting I've done the last few days was wind an extremely skewed skein of yarn into a ball at a meeting Wednesday night. Thoughtfully it took as long as the meeting lasted. There might be a reason it was such a great deal. Also? I need a ball winder. In fact, there are MANY, MANY things I need.

Next year, when I want to give up something for Lent, remind me to do something easy, like giving up breathing. It's not as if I set difficult to reach standards either. Netflix is an ongoing bill, so I can get all the DVD's I want (not that I've watched any since December).

~~Colors of InfinitColors of InfinitAnyone else catch y last night?~~ Good grief. I know I've got a cold that's dropping my IQ to my shoe size, but I did not type that. PBS special Colors of Infinity, hosted by Arthur C Clarke about the Mandelbrot set. Check out the Mandelbrot Set Generator.

Dr Who, the latest ~~incarceration~~ incarnation on the Sci Fi channel tonight at 9pm. I hope I'm asleep.

And, in the spirit of Lolly's Project Spectrum (I don't have to belong to play, do I?) here's a nifty little psych quiz:

Attentive Inventor

Well, nifty if it stops whiting out my blog.At least I think it's its fault. And yes, that makes perfect sense to me.

No, I've decided it's Blogger. WTH?

Wasabi is awesome for a stuffed up nose. Sadly it doesn't last long.

Not So Much Knitting Content

2006-03-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

Ambuguity blows. Hated The Lady and The Tiger right along with you. I did enjoy Life of Pi even though I can't decide which was the "real" story. I picked up Max and the Cats by Moacyr Sclair to see how differently Yann Martel wrote from his inspiration.

I'm going to have to read that Tom Robbins book. I thought I had, since I've read most of his books, but I can't for the life of me place it.

Jenni, GET OFF THE NET AND STARE AT THE SCENERY. Sheesh. Zion is beautiful. (And "Hi!" ;) (Picture not Zion, just in case you couldn't tell by the incredible amount of telephone wires. And houses. It's actually the best pic I got of all the snow on Mt Diablo and that was after pulling over a few times to snap a shot. I wanted to get both peaks with the snow but the only place I could see it really well was in the middle of the intersection.)

This is what Hezekiah is hissing at:

Or more clearly, this:

My aunt and uncle's newest child, Riley. Hezekiah was NOT amused that that dog was in the house, even for a couple of hours Monday night and breakfast Tuesday morning and she's not allowed to be at all. . (although.....wait. who reads this? Never mind) She punished me last night by running away all night (she showed up at 6am.) (I checked all night long).

After, of course, I went to the neighbors on one side and queried (nicely, mind you) if their (sweet natured) pit bull ate her (they claimed no, but would they tell me, I ask you? Okay, it turns out that their (sweet tempered) pit bull didn't but she could have), and then to the other neighbors who weren't even home.

Not much knitting - Mim! I can't believe you even came close to recognizing the pattern after all that marking and blowing up. I know you wouldn't recognize it by the knitting. I'm torn on whether I should just frog the whole thing and chalk this up to a swatch (which it should be) or whether I should just power ahead and run a lifeline in it every other row and just Do It Right From Here On Out and pray to the Blocking Gods. Thanks for all the kind words on it, guys! The color and the yarn, if not the knitting, lol.

Of course I did manage to watch some TV last night (How William Shatner Changed the World should be on again, Zee. I think it Aven mentioned it was a repeat Sunday night). On NCIS, DeNozzo was actually competent. Still hate The Director. Even the happy ending was ruined for me because she engineered it. (This is possibly a little too much hate for a fictional character.) Scrubs next, but I barely registered it before flipping the channel. It was the 3 month anniversary of Sheba's death, Hez was missing, I was not in the mood to be amused. Couldn't read anything new either, so I re-read parts of Life of Pi. I still can't decide which is the better story. I tend to believe the bulk of the novel and yet.....but they're both fantastic.

Dammit, if my aunt gave me whatever hideous cold she has, I'm going to throttle her. I can't be sick right now. At least I can't lay around the house on my death bed. I have to work. She has to visit during the busiest time of my year and get me sick???? (And not harboring any ill will at all by her bringing her adorable puppy and annoying my cat). Not at all.

Actual Knitting Content!

2006-03-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

Notice that there are row and rows of lace! Not necessarily Mim's pattern, I should probably say "as interpreted by" because what's up with all the dropping and adding of stitches that I do? It's not just the mohair either which is evil (but pretty) in it's own right.

I'm thinking that I can make this my Life of Pi project. Mohair, as Imbrium pointed out is from a goat (I think)and goats figure prominently in the book. More like scapegoat, and there you are! My knitting and the allegorical aspect of the book.

Jennifer made some of the stitcmarkers out of cats-eye and tiger eye, there are some aquatic looking colors, and voila. More reasons. The diamonds can represent the hardness of Pi's plight, or the worth of what he finds during it.

Did I mention I read Life of Pi? I really liked it, although I'm not a fan of the ending. Hate when authors, directors, etc do that. Make a choice. After declaration Pi makes about agnostics, atheists and believers, his author made the choice he despises most.

Yeah, woke up with a migraine yesterday and didn't have any Maxalt for it, so I took an old, old Fiornal. It worked, amazingly, and it also made me not want to operate heavy machinery, so lounged around and read and knitted all day. Lovely, lovely day.

Currently reading The Dante Club. Currently listening to the CD's on the History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts.

Anyone catch How William Shatner Changed the World on the History Channel last night? (Not you, Chris.) Boy, William Shatner has come a long way from the days of telling Trekkies to get a life. It was fun. I want to see the Computer Museum in the barn in Boulder Creek now. Madly.

More snow on Mt. Diablo. I think this is a record.

Season Finale For Sci-Fi Friday

2006-03-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

Stargate SG1 wraps up its 9th season tonight. With any luck, they'll find the weapon that can kill ascended beings and use it on every Ori in all universes because the Ori? Are a boring enemy. They sound good on paper but have been dull. as. dirt. Say what you will about the Goa'uld, but they were, for the most part, a good looking bunch. The Ori? Creepy looking. Why is every religious nutcase alien culture dressed in medieval garb? Just once I'd like to see them dressed like the Jetsons or Star Trek: The Next Generation. Claudia Black joins the cast next season. Here's hoping it's not a Vala's Baby arc.

Stargate Atlantis brings back ~~Tripp from the Enterprise~~ Michael the Wraith (Conner Trineer) for their season finale. I'm enjoying Atlantis more than SG1 lately. Maybe because the Wraith, while equally ugly are more entertaining? Maybe because I have an uncharacteristic crush on Rodney McKay? I like Ronin and Dr Beckett and I love the humor in the show. Maybe it's just more fun. I think that SG1 suffered from losing so many characters all at once. Janet Frazier, Hammond of Texas, Jack, Jacob. Not even my love of Ben Browder makes up for their loss. (Not that I'm skipping the show or anything).

And last, but certainly not least, Battlestar Galactica. I follow this one more hit or miss and I don't know why because every time I watch it, even if I've missed episodes, it's always gripping.

Yes, clearly this is What To Watch tonight. I'd post knitting content but all I've done is rip back the row on the shawl, do a couple more repeats on the turquoise scarf and contemplate ripping it all out. It's gonna be scratchy. I can't stand scratchy and Rachel doesn't like it much either. Unless I can turn it into a purse or a cell phone holder (not that she has a cellphone. Not that she doesn't want one) there really doesn't seem much point to keep knitting it. Something about getting home roughly 40 minutes before I crash makes knitting hard.

Oh! I had the weirdest dream the other night. I was teaching someone to count change. I hate that they take your $20 bill for a $12.87 purchase, enter it into the register and count back $7.13 in change which ends up with the dime and 3 pennies on top of the dollar bills. The *right way to do it is to count three cents to equal 90 cents, a dime to bring it to $13, two one dollar bills to $15 and then a $5 to total the $20 the customer gave you.

*and by right, I mean My Way.

Look what a client made me. Isn't that the cutest bookmark ever?

Snow again on Mt Diablo this morning. I might be able to wear my wool stuff after all. I can't remember the last time it snowed on Mt Diablo (but yeah, I know that it's happened) but more than once in the year? Amazing. You might have to click on the picture to see it. I snapped it pulling out of the library parking lot.

Lily Chin teaching in Walnut Creek March 11, 2006

2006-03-10T09:17:00.000-08:00

FYI: Lily Chin is giving a class on Tips & Tricks for Knitters 9- noon, and Tips & Tricks for Crocheters 1:30-4:30 at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center 2701 Tice Valley Blvd, Walnut Creek, CA on Saturday, March 11. The Yarn Boutique in Lafayette is sponsoring it.

2006-03-08T08:53:00.000-08:00

Cute puppy pictures from The Woolen Rabbit.

FYI: Lily Chin is giving a class on Tips & Tricks for Knitters 9- noon, and Tips & Tricks for Crocheters 1:30-4:30 at the Contra Costa Jewish Community Center 2701 Tice Valley Blvd, Walnut Creek, CA on Saturday, March 11. The Yarn Boutique in Lafayette is sponsoring it.

That rust yarn is to make this:

The DVD is from The Teaching Company at my brother's recommendation. I was forced to pick up a couple more (CD version) because they were having a killer sale.

Howard Heseman was the guest star on House last night! I had such a crush on him when he was Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP. Another crush was David Carradine in Kung Fu, and there he was on Medium Monday night. Repeat of Lost tonight, the idiotic discovery of Kate's obsession over a stupid toy airplane. Modern Marvels is on the History Channel, but since it's butchers, taxidermists and the history of leather, I think I'll pass. Cities of the Underworld, at 11pm looks interesting though. Archaeologists search beneath modern buildings in Istanbul, Turkey for ruins from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. I think I'll tape it.

CSI:NY is new. No word on whether another crush from my youth is on.

2006-03-07T10:09:00.000-08:00

Dear Doctor, I Have Read Your Play, published 1830
Dear Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one in its way,
Purges the eyes, and moves the bowels,
And drenches handkerchiefs like towels
With tears that, in a flux of grief,
Afford hysterical relief
To shatter'd nerves and quicken'd pulses,
Which your catastrophe convulses.
I like your moral and machinery;
Your plot, too, has such scope for scenery!
Your dialogue is apt and smart;
The play's concoction full of art;
Your hero raves, your heroine cries,
All stab, and everybody dies;
In short, your tragedy would be
The very thing to hear and see;
And for a piece of publication,
If I decline on this occasion,
It is not that I am not sensible
To merits in themselves ostensible,
But--and I grieve to speak it--plays
Are drugs--mere drugs, Sir, nowadays.
I had a heavy loss by Manuel --
Too lucky if it prove not annual--
And Sotheby, with his damn'd Orestes
(Which, by the way, the old bore's best is),
Has lain so very long on hand
That I despair of all demand;
I've advertis'd--but see my books,
Or only watch my shopman's looks;
Still Ivan , Ina and such lumber
My back-shop glut, my shelves encumber.
There's Byron too, who once did better,
Has sent me--folded in a letter--
A sort of--it's no more a drama
Than Darnley , Ivan or Kehama :
So alter'd since last year his pen is,
I think he's lost his wits at Venice,
Or drain'd his brains away as stallion
To some dark-eyed and warm Italian;
In short, Sir, what with one and t'other,
I dare not venture on another.
I write in haste; excuse each blunder;
The coaches through the street so thunder!
My room's so full; we've Gifford here
Reading MSS with Hookham Frere,
Pronouncing on the nouns and particles
Of some of our forthcoming articles,
The Quarterly --ah, Sir, if you
Had but the genius to review!
A smart critique upon St. Helena,
Or if you only would but tell in a
Short compass what--but, to resume;
As I was saying, Sir, the room--
The room's so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres and Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits--
My humble tenement admits
All persons in the dress of Gent.,
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent.
A party dines with me today,
All clever men who make their way:
Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton and Chantrey
Are all partakers of my pantry.
They're at this moment in discussion
On poor De Sta{:e}l's late dissolution.
Her book, they say, was in advance--
Pray Heaven she tell the truth of France!
'Tis said she certainly was married
To Rocca, and had twice miscarried,
No--not miscarried, I opine--
But brought to bed at forty nine.
Some say she died a Papist; some
Are of opinion that's a hum;
I don't know that--the fellow, Schlegel,
Was very likely to inveigle
A dying person in compunction
To try the extremity of unction.
But peace be with her! for a woman
Her talents surely were uncommon.
Her publisher (and public too)
The hour of her demise may rue,
For never more within his shop he--
Pray--was she not interr'd at Coppet?
Thus run our time and tongues away;
But, to return, Sir, to your play;
Sorry, Sir, but I cannot deal,
Unless 'twere acted by O'Neill.
My hands are full--my head so busy,
I'm almost dead--and always dizzy;
And so, with endless truth and hurry,
Dear Doctor, I am yours,

JOHN MURRAY

John Murray? It's Lord Byron, who I think was really Gordon George, but don't quote me. No particular reason why that poem caught my eye today, but I like it. Now I want to see a play.

In Knitting News: Worked a bit on the turquoise scarf which went much faster when I just eyeballed where the drop-four-rows-and-pick-up-the-5th-row-down-yarn stitch went instead of counting. I continue to add and subtract stitches with wild abandon, but I don't care as long as it's not unraveling, which it doesn't seem to be doing, so maybe it's another case of I can't count stitches.

Did I mention I gave up spending money for Lent? Not bills mind you (although I would love to have that conversation with say, PG&E and Cable) so of course, the very first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, I see this. I want it. Not to mention, I spend money like water. Not lots of it, but a fairly steady trickle. Coffee in the morning, lunch, books, yarn, the vending machine down the hall.....lots of little things here and there. I had no idea.

There was a suggestion on KFOG (local radio station) that we give up something random, like, say, punctuation, which appeals to me, but I don't think I could do it, as even text messages make me want to pull out a red pen and fix 'em.

House is on tonight! Scubs looks sad. That Risk Takers/History Makers show on The History Channel followed a 19th century exploration of the Grand Canyon last week, but it was a little too Amazing Race/Survivor for me.

What's up with all the concerts on the PBS stations? Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have a venue for them, but all the time? I'd like a little educational content occasionally. Newsflash for The History Channel. There's more to history than World War II.

I'm getting ready to cancel my subscription to the TV Guide. I can figure out that "various programs" are on during the day without having to verify that with their increasingly useless rag. They're not doing the local stations, their online magazine won't look up movies and programs by the actor, director or name of the movie and tell you all the showings anymore, the SF Chronicle thinks that there' nothing on TV between midnight and 6am (which, possibly, no, but I'd like to see for myself). Thank goodness for the Contra Costa Times TV Guide.

Now if TCM would just fold. AMC doesn't show movies much that I consider classic and you hardly ever see any movies made before 1980 on any of the basic channels. Bah.

2006-03-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

I wanted to show off my progress on The Adamas Shawl but I'd forgotten that mohair is pretty but evil. Evil, evil, evil.

(Warning. The following story was written late at night in a fit of rage and despair. It also illustrates beautifully why I did not grow up to be a famous novelist.)

What REALLY Happened in the Garden of Eden:

I don't think it was an apple or a tomato or anything from a tree. It was a sheep. (Tree/Sheep. Works for me)I think the Devil grabbed a skein of mohair (because who else would think of shearing an annoyed sheep, cleaning it, spinning it and then using it to knit stuff?) and told Eve "Look! How beautiful! Soft. Fuzzy......... Pet it......you can make gorgeous garments from this."

Eve looked puzzled and asked "What are garments?"

The Serpent (looking suspiciously like Jean Paul Gaultier, c'mon, tell me that this is not the work of the Devil)) replied, astonished "You don't wear garments? But cherie! they can show off your beautifully small waist! Those hips! Those thighs! And you'd look stunning in this......~~diaper~~ ~~culotte~~ ~~fashion disaster~~ Straight From the Runway Creation." (Granted, not knitted but perfect for Devilish representation.)

Eve, seduced, takes the skein of mohair to show Adam. He remains unconvinced until she tells him she'll knit him a sweater and manly matching scarf. And that, my friends, is how we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. By mohair and its evil seductiveness.

So. Short story? (On the shawl. Stay with me.) ~~No progress.~~ But I think I could tell you the first 10 rows in my sleep. How I keep getting off count is beyond me. Other than, well, I blame mohair ( and the inability to count in........evidently, numerical order) I zealously worked on it last night with earplugs in my ears in a small silent space and made it to the 17th row! Before I lost track. It was late though. This is strictly the fault of the yarn (hairy freaking string) and the operator. I've seen it knit up beautifully. But look! Actual knitting.

Book Swap Info: (for Knit the Classics)

Yarn:

1. What is your favorite type of yarn/fibers?
Well, it's not mohair at the moment. Wool really, but I'm in the wrong region.

2. Any yarns/fibers you absolutely hate?
Yucky feeling stuff. I don't care if it's natural or forged in a chem lab, if it feels good, I like it.

3. Any type that you would love to try but haven't yet?
Cascade 220 (I think that's the go-to felting yarn.) I want to felt something. (Isn't that a song?)

4. Any yarn allergies or sensitivities?
Itchy yucky stuff.

5. Favorite colors?
Orange. Red. Brown. At least that's what I seem to wear.

6. Favorite type of thing to knit: socks, lace, fair isle etc.
I like to knit everything. I manage to finish shawls, socks, the odd sweater (and I do mean odd)

7. Any knitting tools you would love to have?
That I don't have? More cool measuring tapes? Stitchmarkers.

8. Favorite tools you already have?
Crochet hooks. Freakin' indispensable. Stitchmarkers.

9. Favorite knitting designer?
Kathy Zimmerman, Nicky Epstein, Lily Chin, Deborah New.........uh, no. I like a lot of designers.

10. Favorite knitting book?
Stitch pattern books.

11. Any knitting books you would like?
The Pam Allen Scarf book. Out of Africa.

Food:

1. Favorite foods/flavors?
Peanut butter.

2. Foods/flavors you dislike?
Chuck roast. (I am now picturing someone mailing a chuck roast).

3. Any food allergies?
Nope

4. Do you like tea or coffee?
I love coffee, but pretty much just plain old (high end) coffee. No flavorings.

Books:

1. Favorite genre?
Black plague. History (mostly Queen Elizabeth era, or England). Mysteries. Time Travel.

2. Favorite authors?
Connie Willis. Alison Weir. Jack Higgins. Sharyn McCrumb, Alice Hoffman. Kage Baker. Charles de Lint.....

3. Top three favorite books?
Subject to change by mood

4. Anything you dislike to read?
Romances.

5. Do you like to listen to audiobooks? Cassette, cd or mp3 format?
I do. CD and cassette.

Misc:

1. Other hobbies besides knitting?
Reading, whining and complaining.

2. Do you collect anything?
Yarn and books. Stitchmarkers.

3. Favorite scent?
None. Migraines and allergies have made me a fan of scent free products.

4. Any scent you dislike or are allergic to?
Lavender. Rose. Perfumes.

5. Music that you like or dislike?
I like the Big Band era, Swing and Jazz most consistently. I listen to pretty much everything, but my taste is all over the map.

And now for pictoral knitting progress. This was done........four-fiveish years ago.

Isn't that a pretty border stitch? From Nicky Epstein's Knitted Embellishments. I loved it and "designed" a sweater around it.

Said "designed" sweater:

Notice anything, ah, peculiar about the neckline? Shoulders? Yeah. Back to the Frog Pond. At least down to the sleeve join. I think I'm going to knit them separately this time.

And this little number I did between rows 1-17 eleventy million times just to prove to myself that I could knit something. Notice anything odd about it? None of the ends or joins are weaved in. I finished it, washed it, blocked it and then thought.......hmmmm. Idiot.

Medium is on tonight! I didn't watch the Oscars last night (just to show how engrossed I was in the Adamas Shawl, I didn't even think of it until they announced the winners this morning - hey, actually accomplishing almost the whole upper body chart is way more important than dumb movies awards. But I did want to see how Jon Stewart did. I bet he was great.) Knit & Plenty had a hysterical post about the Oscars too.

I noticed when I was alpabetizing my.......whatchacallit list for blogs that I don't have even a fraction of the sites I have bookmarked and visit. Not even close. Bookmarking is sooooo much easier.

All About Books

2006-03-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

Lifted shamelessly from The Costco Connection March 2006 Vol 21 #3

And a Book Meme......that I can't remember where I first saw it because I was tracking it backwards. Here's where I last was; 50 books. And sadly, I was not officially tagged for it, so I'm not officially tagging anyone else but I'd love to see Chittas'vrtti, Chris, Imbrium, Teabird, Stephanie, Jenni, & Aven do one. Among everyone else IN THE WORLD.

1) Name five of your favourite books.

a. Loose Change by Sara Davidson
b. Centennial by James Michener
c. Gospel by Wilton Barnhardt (this is what the DaVinci Code wanted to be)
d. Any Jack Higgins thriller
e. Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

2) What was the last book you bought?

That would be three of them at Long's Drug Store Monday morning when I went in for Ibuprofen.

Ex Libris by Ross King
Catastrophes, Chaos and ~~Disasters~~Convolutions by.....~~a science fiction author whose name begins with a J but I can't remember and it's clearly not the right title....will get back to this.~~ James Hogan
And........~~something~~ Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Ha. Here's a pic of them in my car, along with the Books of the Month I picked up at the library while renewing Bleak House. Guess there's not a big demand for it, more's the pity.

3) What was the last book you ~~read~~ finished?

The Yarn Harlot by Stephanie Peal-McPhee

I'm currently reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Which reminds me. Rats! I think it's overdue at the library and I'm not done. (It was. $2.75. Whoops) Stupid plague. Couldn't read, couldn't watch the PBS series, tried to wait it out.

4) List five books that have been particularly meaningful to you (in no particular order).

Oh geez. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Odd One (? I read this in elementary school which was a long, long time ago. Loose Change (Sara Davidson). Second Nature (Alice Hoffman),The Last Place God Made (Jack Higgins)

5) Name three books you've been dying to read but just haven't gotten around to it?

Pull any three on my TBR shelf. They are all calling to me. Who Murdered Chaucer? Terry Jones. The Perfect Prince Anne Wroe. The Ice Queen. Alice Hoffman. There! Three is easy. Five? Not so much.

Anyone catch Six Degrees of Francis Bacon last night on the History Channel? I taped it because it came on at 11pm but it looks fun. The father of Science? Lost was actually good. Nothing but Without A Trace tonight, and of course, the 6pm showing of Stargate SG1. Not that I'm obsessed or anything. Not that I'm home by then either. What do I care? I've got the DVD's now.

I'd post knitting content, but I'm casting on and doing the first few rows of the Adamas Shawl
and lace really does look horrid. Especially when the yarn is essentially hairy string. Pretty color though. Oh, I'll probably take a pic of it tonight, but it's pathetic. Oh, check out this Olympic effort! Susoolu's Amazing Shawl.

The Last Hallelujah

2006-03-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

I love this song. No more (h)allelujah's until Easter.

LEONARD COHEN
(LYRICS)

"Hallelujah"

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I've got the version Leonard Cohen(the author), Jeff Buckley, Bob Dylan, Rufus Wainwright and K.D. Lang. Really, I like Jeff Buckley's version on Grace the best. He altered the lyrics at the end which I like better:

Jeff Buckley's version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah:

i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah

hallelujah...

well your faith was strong but you needed proof
you saw her bathing on the roof
her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
she tied you to her kitchen chair
she broke your throne and she cut your hair
and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

hallelujah...

baby i've been here before
i've seen this room and i've walked this floor
i used to live alone before i knew you
i've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...

well there was a time when you let me know
what's really going on below
but now you never show that to me do you
but remember when i moved in you
and the holy dove was moving too
and every breath we drew was hallelujah

well, maybe there's a god above
but all i've ever learned from love
was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
it's not a cry that you hear at night
it's not somebody who's seen the light
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

hallelujah...

Fat Tuesday and What sets us apart from Other Mammals

2006-02-28T10:06:00.000-08:00

My thumb is killing me but it will just have to suck it up and deal because apposable thumbs? Indispensable.

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others.

You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around.

The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it.

Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Ha. If I had it, I'd abuse it.(Shamelessly lifted from Lynne aka Yarnivorous)

Oh, and this is timely. (Also shamelessly lifted, this time from Dalai Mama.) It's the Monday the 27th post, about the fearsome Al-gebra movement.

More to come later, when I agonize online about what (if anything) I should give up for Lent. Desserts? I did that a couple of years ago and managed to lose about 15 pounds painlessly, but should I use Lent as a diet? It seems wrong. I could give up coffee, but I fear for people's lives. Also? Withdrawals. I admit it. I am a Coffee Junkie. I'm already working ~~24/7~~ 10ish/7 and since I keep wanting to read, watch TV and knit, I seem to have given up sleeping, but since I'm snapping people's heads off, it seems shortsighted.

Argh.

Later. ~~Must. Work.~~ Well, I must, but when there are quizzes like this around, what's a girl to do?

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Other than cry when Wallace Shawn is my alter ego.

And edited to add the All Important Television Viewing Schedule tonight ~~because nothing is more fun than Not Working~~ because I know you depend on me:

8pm
CBS: NCIS. Maybe the new Director will die in a blaze of glory or during one of the horrible, horrible Paris flashbacks and we’ll find out that Lauren Holly was the tragic lost love of Mark Harmon’s life and he’s hallucinating her now. Whatever it takes to get her off my screen.

(PBS) Nova: Artic Passage Two expeditions, one tragic, one triumphant, to pioneer a passage through the Northwest Passage. I love watching expeditions from the comfort of my comfy, warm bed.

History Channel: Risk Takers/History Makers. John Wesley Powell (1834-1902) explores the Colorado River and Grand Canyon for 3 months in 1869. With him are three other people I’ve never heard of (but probably should have). Can you imagine the Grand Canyon over one hundred years ago? It must have been fabulous.

9pm
Scrubs! (NBC)
No House :(

10pm
Boston Legal. I like this show every time I watch it (I miss Keen Eddie) but do I watch it all that often? No.

If you're up at 11 (which, please, I won't be), watch The Daily Show. It's on at 8pm too, but I never, ever catch it then. Why couldn't "They" have left it at 7pm? Why?

Cheese. That's an idea, Peeve.

The Dream, The Glory, The knitting!

2006-02-27T10:35:00.000-08:00

The Dream
by Aleksandr Pushkin

Not long ago, in a charming dream,
I saw myself -- a king with crown's treasure;
I was in love with you, it seemed,
And heart was beating with a pleasure.
I sang my passion's song by your enchanting knees.
Why, dreams, you didn't prolong my happiness forever?
But gods deprived me not of whole their favor:
I only lost the kingdom of my dreams.

And the Olympic Knitting Event comes to a close. Wow, you guys that participated have done some amazing work! Congratulations to everyone who participated. ~~Now I can stop feeling like such an unchallenged slacker~~. It's been awe inspiring looking at your WIPs.

Stitchmarkers! Jennifer of Craftylily made me these for my Adamas Shawl. And yes, I did pose them in many, many settings. Trust me, there are more pictures.

This is the turquoise scarf so far........and, incidentally, more stitchmarkers from Jennifer. It's a kind of polka dot pattern from one of the Harmony Stitch Pattern books. What? It's totally not a new project. It's uh......something else.

Was that great about Drew and Cheryl winning Dancing With the Stars or what? (Quit muttering "or what." I can hear you, you know.) I loved that Jerry Rice placed second. Go Jerry!

Final episode of Bleak House on PBS last night. I had to breakdown and buy the DVD today.

Tonight The Apprentice returns! Too bad The Donald is being such a twit about Martha's Apprentice show. I liked her show better, which is probably why they cancelled it. The tasks were more geared towards actual work they might do.

Medium w/Patricia Arquette at 10pm on NBC. It's not just her cute husband and the detective that's saddled with her that makes this show so good. The family interaction is so.......family. Psychic, but family.

Save a Printer. Blog.

2006-02-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

Really, it's the program I want to heave out the window, but the printer is easier. Who programs something that you can't collate? Automatically? After a fruitless, frustrating, curse filled hour (and incidentally, being directly responsible for the death of a forest), I finally stopped trying to collate it myself and printed it out. One. By. One. Over the years I've gotten so that I can tell someone over the phone on how to assemble an individual return because more people than I would have believed possible, go home, take out the staple and then apparently start flinging the papers about in either wild abandon or rage. Maybe both. But these forms? Argh.

Anyway. Thankfully the Olympics are over tomorrow because I am a) jealous of the amazing work done in an incredibly short period of time b) bored because you all are knitting and not blogging and amusing me (while I'm supposed to be working, but still) and c) uhhhh, that covers it.

What else is going on tomorrow? I get my stitchmarkers! Dancing With the Stars finale is at 8pm! I'm going to start the Adamas Shawl! Finish The Vest! Work! Join Exclamation Mark Over Usage Anonymous!

I finally figured out how to get a copy of this. Save As. Did I ever claim to be technologically competent? I did? I was lying. Someday I'm going to make it through their password system and get the T-Shirt. I'm not sure where I'll wear it, I don't actually tell people I've got a blog. My best friend pried it out of me and it's not like I don't tell her everything anyway, or post anything all that interesting.

Case in point. We're going out for dinner in.....about an hour. So what did I just do? Ate a vanilla yogurt w/wheat germ. Not that I was hungry. Not that the yogurt was the good-for-you non fat kind (it wasn't. It's Brown Cow's Cream Top Vanilla and it. is. yummy.) Did you know that a serving of wheat germ is two tablespoons? I, uh, sort of poured half a cup in it. I like wheat germ.

See? What could be less interesting?

Yarn related: I bought some Elsebeth Lavold (or however she actually spells her name) Silky Wool and Silky Tweed yarn to make a twinset from a 1997 Knitter's Magazine I suddenly came to realize I couldn't live without. (The yarn. I plan on being finished with it sometime in the 2000's. Any year that starts with a 2 sounds doable.) The jacket is going to be orange (because I was jonesing for orange yesterday) and the shell'll be a dark brown w/orange flecks. When the Silk Tweed yarn gets delivered, I'll show pix of the lot.

2006-02-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

This was the tense scene in the garage yesterday morning. Huh. There is actually a black cat standing nonchalantly in the doorway, just happening to be passing through the neighborhood, checking out.....something........ right outside the door...... (you might have to click on the pic. Apparently a black cat doesn't show up well against a black sky at 6am. Never mind. You can't see him even if you do click on it.) [picture deleted]

What? Could there be Science Diet food that a certain picky gray cat has scorned? Or really, more to the point, just how long has that laundry been sitting there?

Due to the aforementioned gray cat having, literally, a hissy fit, while sitting calmly in my lap, I didn't get a pic of him taste-testing her food for her either. All of it. It's a difficult process.

Here's a shot of an eensy part of my ongoing project pile and the oversized knitting and quilting "booksheves". The jeweled purse hiding in the corner my mother made in the 60's. I'd carry it around but the handle is some weird hard, hard iron form of plastic. Currently it's holding my regular knitting needles.

My cursed Norwegian socks are probably going to get ripped back to the beginning of the heel. Somehow I got off pattern (which I could live with) but the gaping instep hole will do me in. But as Lyssa says, "Finishing is for quitters. UFO's are forever."

Jennifer has my stitchmarkers for the Adamas Shawl ready! Due to hideous work conditions, I can't get them until Sunday, but I can't wait.

Anyone catch Drew & Cheryl's inspired freestyle to "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" on Dancing With the Stars last night? They should win. They were great. It was two hours! I'm so mad because I taped the normal hour and a half so I don't have them on tape. Grrrrrr. Season finale Sunday at 8pm.

Best Buy has a two for one sale on seasons of Stargate SG1, FYI. *IAC. I do, but then I have a love affair w/TV right now. And it's on tonight. (Time/space/dimension warping! My fave thing, next to Alternative Universes.) Along with Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. I'll be at a crab feeding stuffing my face.

That book meme is great. I love all the comments and reviews on it. Also? Seeing everyone's shelves. I did have tasteful bookcases in the living room, but they gradually moved to the wall in my room. If there's an earthquake in the night, I'm going to go out the best way possible. By book.

*If Anyone Cares

Book Meme! Awesome.

2006-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Lifted from *Chris:

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, ~~cross out the ones you won't~~, underline the ones on your book shelf, and (place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of).

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
~~The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger~~
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
~~Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden~~
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
~~Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk~~
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
~~The Secret History - Donna Tartt~~
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
{Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell}
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway - Hated it.
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - Never actually finished it.
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

I used to keep my TBR books on their own little section but since it threatened to take over the world, they got slotted into their respective categories, since I tend to read categorically anyway. Or whatever is available/portable/too hard to put down.

No knitting news, other than my stitchmarkers are ready! I'm so excited. Adamas Shawl, here I come. After I finish The Vest. All these FO's are mocking it and I can't have that.

*Who also told me what to google for to learn underlining and strikethroughs. Too cool!

In Truly Important News:

2006-02-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

I found my ruler!!! Thankfully. It tried to hide from me under the calculator (successfully for a week) but I found it! At last. I've been using some floppy bogus ruler.

2006-02-21T14:37:00.000-08:00

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way, I
doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

That would be Hezekiah telling me "Talk to the Tail". Or contemplating the road not taken. Me? I should have taken the other road. Idjit. Really, hindsight doesn't even enter into it. Common sense alone should have forewarned me. But alas.

But lookie! Multiple finished socks (hey, two is a multiple) posing on various chairs in the house.

Look at how darn close I am to finishing those darned Norwegian socks! Actually I thought I'd already knit the heel flap and after staring at it somewhat dumbfoundedly when it wasn't there, I remembered that I'd gotten about 3 checks into it before completely losing track of the whole 3 stitch two color, 3 rows sequence thing and ripped it all back. Honestly. Three is a very hard number to keep track of. Evidently.

Fixing Wool-Ease yarn sucks. The yarn squeaks, for Pete's sake. The white is nicer than the green for some reason but I wouldn't throw it out (unlike the crappy "chenille" yarn I picked up for .50 a skein) but it's not wool. I love wool. I need to move out of the Bay Area. Even with snow (see the pic? Look close! That's not just fluffy clouds....) it's still around 40 degrees when it is C-O-L-D.

Now that I've finished (almost) two pairs of socks, one immeasurably old, I'm in a frenzy to cast on a new project. I'm eyeing a twinset from Knitters Spring '97 (because I'm hotter than blazes in this ofice and my office mates aren't) and the bobble berry cloches from Knitter's Summer '03. What's a wool hat with bobbles doing in a Summer issue?

No, no, the question is not why am I thinking of making something so.....ah, whimsical. It's the Summer/Winter conundrum.

The reading in church Sunday was from Isaiah "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" If that's not a sign for me to start a new project, I don't know what is. (Hmm. It might be a sign that I've taken up Bible cracking (evidently you pick up the Bible with a question and wherever you open it to, there's your answer, a practice that sounds specious at best and dangerous at worst. What if it's Leviticus? Have you read Leviticus? They would be hauled off en masse by PETA and hanged and good for PETA, I say. All that horrifying animal sacrifice.)

House was on LAST night. LAST Night. Monday. I am so mad. I didn't even get home until 9pm much less tape it. Stupid American Idol. Season Finale of Dancing With the Stars Thursday! (To be followed by a no doubt, 2 hr show on Sunday). Battlefield Britain is the fight between William of Orange and James II for the throne Thursday night at 10pm. Tonight on Nova (PBS) at 8pm are new scientific theories of evolution and the 10 o'clock show looked good too, but darned if I can remember what it is.

My voice is almost gone but I feel great. Now I get all sorts of sympathy. Oh well, now I can appreciate it.

I will be so glad when the Knitting Olympics are over! It's so quiet out there!

EDITED TO ADD: Just once. Once. One little time, I would like to post after noticing the bizarre use of non contractions, misspellings, typos and weirdly worded sentences. The weird content I'm afraid is just me.

A Week With Medication or Seven Days Without

2006-02-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

In Praise Of A Contented Mind~

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
That it exceeds all other bliss
That world affords or grows by kind.
Though much I want which most men have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
~~~~~~~~~~
No princely pomp, no wealthy store,
No force to win the victory,
No wily wit to salve a sore,
No shape to feed each grazing eye;
To none of these I yield as thrall.
For why my mind doth serve for all.
~~~~~~~~~~
I see how plenty suffers oft,
How hasty climbers soon do fall;
I see that those that are aloft
Mishap doeth threaten most of all;
They get with toil, they keep with fear.
Such cares my mind could never bear.
~~~~~~~~~~
Content I live, this is my stay;
I seek no more than may suffice;
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look what I lack my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.
~~~~~~~~~~
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more.
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store.
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
~~~~~~~~~~
I laugh not at another's loss;
I grudge not at another's gain;
No worldly waves my mind can toss;
My state at one doth still remain.
I fear no foe, nor fawning friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread my end.
~~~~~~~~~~
Some weigh their pleasure by their lust,
Their wisdom by their rage of will,
Their treasure is their only trust;
And cloaked craft their store of skill.
But all the pleasure that I find
Is to maintain a quiet mind.
~~~~~~~~~~
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I neither seek by bribes to please,
Nor by deceit to breed offence.
Thus do I live, thus will I die.
Would all did so as well as I !
~Anonymous~

* ** * ** * *** *
Isn't that lovely? I wish I did as well as Anon. But in other news, I'm cured! Wow, what a vicious little cold. But the old adage is true, takes a week to get rid of it with medication or seven days with nothing. I still have a bit of a cough, but phhht. I was almost certain is was about to turn into wasting sickness, but nope, almost gone.

I went to a Bat Mitzvah today! My first. It was my mother's college roommate's granddaughter's Bat Mitzvah. Me and J, the middle generation, used to be penpals when we were in school. It's always so strange to me how moving most ceremonies are, and this one was particularly.

Snow fell last night. Here! I tried to get a shot on the way down, but it mostly looks like freeway. Look very closely on the mountains and you'll see what we consider the Snow Storm of the Century around these parts. Or not. Blogger doesn't want to co-operate. Hopefully it will be there tomorrow (faint hope!).

So how was Stitches West? I was going to try to slide down there since I was in Pleasanton anyway (about 25 miles north) but..... the Market closing at 6pm cut it a little close..........and I really, really, really do not need to buy more yarn. On the other hand. Need? What's need got to do with it? But I contented myself by picking up a copy of Secret Life of a Knitter: Yarn Harlot and the new Sandra mag. And, like Scarlett O'Hara said, "There's always tomorrow."

Pics of the Ugly sox tomorrow, and possibly, pix of the...........well, closer-to-being-finished Norwegian sock.

The Plague continues to plague me

2006-02-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

........but it's morphing into consumption, if by consumption you mean suddenly choking, coughing, hacking, possibly a furball but it feels more like tonsils attempting to escape through the mouth and nose simultaneously. Harumph. Yes, er, lovely image. At least not fatal. Except to appetites everywhere.

Pretty country road, eh? Kirker Pass between Concord and Pittsburg by whatever the Concord Pavilion is called these days and the home of the White Witch of Nortonville. Not taken today. It's raining! Weird. I was sitting in the back yard in the sun on Tuesday. Now I hear it's snowing on the Altamont Pass, but that's a bit south of us.

I finished my Ugly Socks last night! Huzzah! I immediately put them on because wool is warm. I have high hopes of finishing my oldest UFO, the Other Norwegian Sock. You know, in this century. Possibly before the month or week is out. There! That should jinx it.

Too late to vote for Dancing With The Stars tonight, but as long as Jerry Rice stays in and Drew wins ultimately, I'm happy. Michael Buble is the guest singer tonight.

If, of course, you're not watching Stargate SG1. Then, of course, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica.

Of course, of course, a horse that's hoarse, if ever a being could it would! Oh geez. I think I'm delirious. That's a little combo of the Mr. Ed theme song, something from The Wizard of Oz and of course, crazy.