Mixed Bag

I have a cold and I feel like ass. Which totally, totally sucks. I'm no good at being sick. I don't handle it gracefully. I tend to whine, "I don't feel good." A lot. I prefer not to take anything for my colds, which is fine when you only get sick once every few years but suckey when it's that time once every few years when you are sick. In any event, I feel like crap and my brain is somewhat mushy right now. But that is not going to stop me from reporting that ...

I. The yellow thing is in fact "a shawl like rich people wear to the country club" and NOT an apron. Which is totally lame. Turns out the gift giver and another guest at the shower make these ... things ... and sell them. It is good that BeFri didn't call the number on the label and say, "I received this weird ass wrap/apron/sweater thing as a shower gift and I was wondering, what the hell is it?" as she probably would have been talking to the gift giver herself!

II. Lately it seems like several people I know have gone, or are going to be going, to England. And every time I someone mentions England, I beg (rather shamelessly) for the person to keep a look out for black currant candy/pastilles. To which I get a smile and a nod and a look of, "Uh, What??" So I try to explain how Joan is evil and introduced me to the wonder of the hard chewy black currant goodness which lives everywhere but America and then I move on to how she'd get them in England when she visited and how she sent me black currant goodies from abroad, like the Black Currant Life Saver. And at Life Saver my fellow Americans say, "Oh!" Because we know the Life Saver. But then people go and travel in England and have fun and they can't find them and they think I made this candy up. But look!



Photographic evidence to show all you doubters that they do in fact exist. It just seems that they only exist in Australia. So my bad for using them as an example of the black currant delights available in Great Ole Britain. That's not to say there aren't other, better, black currant candies in London. Because there are. I just know it.

III. I worked on the Kangaroo Duo sweater at SnB the last few weeks and I even worked on it last night in between nose blows. And you know what? I am really sick of that sweater. And I am not even onto sleeve island. Hell, I even have hood island to contend with, and that totally makes me shudder. What is so annoying is that there have been hours and hours of knitting and hardly any progress to show for it.





I tried to get all creative on ya and pin it out so you could get an idea of the huge amount of boringness going on, but I had some issues. For starters, I had to use thumbtacks for pins and the floor kept rejecting the thumbtacks and sending them flying. It did add a little adventure to the photo shoot as I was forced to duck and weave. The other issue was all the movement of the colors in the sweater and all of the movement of my office carpet mixed together to make it seem like a three dimensional optical illusion picture. Either that or you might just feel motion sick. In which case, my bad, didn't meant to make you wanna hurk! Overall the photo shoot was a bust, but I figured I should share share the joy that is my work in progress.

I do have a bunch of traveling coming up ... a flight to Florida for BeFri's wedding, a drive to The Cape for Girls Weekend, a drive to New Jersey to see the MIL ... and all this traveling lends itself to knitting. So I should be able to make my Rhinebeck goal. But the thought of knitting that sweater, and all of the knitting that is left, well, it is killing me. I know if it is the only thing I have with me to knit, I'm not going to have a choice, but man am I tempted to start a sock or a scarf or a Clapotis, something small and fun, for my travels.

IV. I dreamed about knitting socks last night. Very specific socks. I even dreamed about buying the yarn, Fleece Artist yarn, a yarn I've never used but hear lots about, to make the socks. I blame this dream on my lackluster sweater interest/progress (see supra III ... and what the hell as that?? I just Blue Booked my blog. Jizzy Crizzy I need help. I think I am embarrassed by this. Well not so embarrassed that I am deleting it, but still embarrassed enough that I feel I must make amends for my dorkdum by sharing said dorkdum with the world). Anyway, I dreamed about knitting Fleece Artist socks which is kinda weird for me ... Fleece Artist socks on a nekid Bruce Willis, oh yah, knitting Fleece Artist socks, not so much.

V. The Cuisinart saga has come to an end in that Cuisinart will not do squat for me, despite my best (and repeated, at the urging of Williams-Sonoma Awesome Sales Associate II) efforts. At some point in the future, I will have to make a decision, but for now I'm doing nothing. Which means that you can not throw a party in which people need to bring food. I mean, you could, but then you wouldn't want to invite me since I would be bringing a veggie plate or something else equally boring. And not inviting me, well that would be mean. I'm sick. Don't kick the sick girl when she's down.

For anyone interested, Consumer Reports rated food processors in December 2006, and rated the Kitchen Aid ones slightly higher than the Cuisniart ones. The top three choices were Kitchen Aid models KFP750, KFP740, KFPM770 with Cuisinart's DFP-14BCN and ProCustom II DLC-8S coming in a couple of points behind. Also, Williams-Sonoma has a new policy where it guarantees any appliance type things you buy there for life. So if your Cuisinart craps out 30 years from now and Cuisinart won't repair it or help you out with a discount, Williams-Sonoma will either fix or replace your machine, or give you the money back that you paid for it. I couldn't find this policy on the Williams-Sonoma website, but it is hanging on the wall in my local store and Awesome Sales Associate II explained that this was a new policy recently enacted.

VI. Guess who is last in our football pool? Not me baby! I am in a tight race for first. It's neck and neck I tell you! (Or in plain English, I am in second place.)