C'est Moi

I have taken away blogging control from the Monkeys because all they do is bitch bitch bitch. You think they would have enjoyed our nice peaceful vacation out west. But nooo, to hear them tell it, you would think it was all disregard and neglect sprinkled with moments of terror. Silly socks. It was a great trip.

As previously noted, I did end up sunburned after thirteen innings of afternoon baseball. A sunburn that my hat somehow did not protect me from, nor did the sunscreen. A sunburn that left white marks along the side of my face from where my sunglasses were, but red everywhere else. Let me tell you, now that it is peeling, I'm looking ten types of hot. I have to beat the men (and women) off with sticks. Nothing stirs desire like peely discolored facial skin. Nothing. I also managed to sunburn the top of my hands. Also very sexy.

The trip was a bit of a money drain as I bought too many souvenirs. And yes, one was from Louis Vuitton. But dude, I so needed a new, bigger, much bigger, wallet. It wasn't so much a souvenir as a necessity. It's not like I bought a purse or a suitcase, though I may have been tempted. Same with the stuff from Lush. Also necessities since I am a flakey sunburned freak. The yarn and the jewelry, they were more of the emotional necessities. Things that make you smile. Yes, rationalization is a fabulous thing.

Speaking of yarn, here is a picture of my loot. The colors don't look quite right, but since the picture was taken while stuff was still in my suitcase, I can't say that it is much of a surprise! My overall haul was quite tame if you ask me. The Artfibers sock yarn is in the upper left. It is Valparaiso. A wool/alpaca blend. I was skeptical when it was first shown to me but once I knit it up I found it stretchy and feel goody. There were two other yarns recommended as sock yarn, but neither knitted up sockaliciously. The other two Artfiber yarns are going to be scarves. I think. The two purples off to the right are the Utah yarns. I was told these are made by Nancy Bush (or her company). It is a thicker gauge (I am thinking US 2's would work nicely) which means it will knit up quickly.

Can I take a moment to vent on the state of wifi in American hotels? How is it that when we stayed at the Park City Best Western the wifi was free, but we get to a nice hotel like The Brown Palace or The Westin St. Francis the wifi is not free, it is twenty dollars a day! Let me get this straight, I can pay eighty bucks a night and get free wifi, but if I pay two hundred plus bucks a night you want to charge me for the wifi. Are these people high?

Moving on. I think you may have gathered that I did not get much knitting done, despite all of the driving because I was too busy gawking at the scenery or smoking crack. Even though I was cracked up, I did finish both heels, and have hope to complete the Monkeys this weekend. Maybe then I can finish unpacking and write a proper thank you for my friend. Because saying "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!" doesn't seen like enough.

Remember my hexed yarn, the yarn I tried to knit into Sideways Socksthirty different ways and could never make work? The yarn I was going to burn in the fireplace, but instead ended giving to my friend. Well, recently she was working on the yarn and making some really pretty socks. She would say the hex was gone and I would giggle thinking, just wait! Well shows you what I know! That is a pair of Naga socks, knit with 100% de-hexed yarn for yours truly! Yes, my friend decided to make me socks from my own hexed yarn. So again I say, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I love them from the pretty pattern, to the picot edge, to the perfect fit. Yeah Socks!

Last Stop, San Fran!

Holy Crap Peeps! It is Gay Pride Week in San Francisco and I am all gay pride colors! (In case you forgot, we are still pretending that I am in San Fran since I wrote this while I was there but had no internet connection since knitter mom was a cheapskate and refused to pay twenty bucks a day for wifi.) Several random strangers have offered to take me to the transgendered parade but my knitter mom fears I may never return. Also, what can a sock transgender into? I'm totally looking forward to my new home, but ending this "how can we torture the Monkeys" vacation sooner than anticipated makes the parade tempting. More so in light of my most recent experiences.

The knitter woman, she locked me up at Alcatraz! That's right. Then she bought some gasp acrrrr ..., I'm not sure I can say this. She bought some acrrrryyyyylllllliiccc yarn there too! Apparently the inmates at Alcatraz were allowed to knit and knitting is souvenir appropriate. I tried to tell her that just because it is a knitting related souvenir at a prison didn't mean it had to come home with her, but did she listen? Noooo! Something about kismet. Kismet my arse. The fool paid twenty bucks for acrylic yarn and cheap wooden needles!



She did mitigate the acr, acryllll, the yarn from Alcatraz with some awesome stuff from Artfibers. There was some neat brown sock yarn, some pretty red scarf yarn, and this poison green stuff she just loved. She was glad she had seen Cara's blog entry over at January One or she would have never known about the joy of Artfibers.

She even got to make to tiny swatches. The sales girl/yarnmonger told her they could be bigger, but she didn't want to be gluttonous. With yarn, let me tell you, she is gluttonous with the food on our trip, good gawd does she eat! She did get to take a picture of me at the "tasting area" which is unusual. The yarn girl told her she could take "just one" though, so she did, with a smile and a thank you!



I also got to experience the Golden Gate Bridge. And I do mean, experience the bridge. Crazy ass knitter mom and her husband BIKED the bridge. Mind you, she hadn't ridden a bike in years. Like ten years or more. And she is NOT coordinated. Somehow she didn't fall or drop me. But she did scare the daylights out of me. She would scream or giggle hysterically if people rode next to her and since she is a slow biker, many real bikers rode next to her as they passed. Speaking of real bikers, I think she also scared them in a Oh-boy-Crazy-tourist-nearby kind of way. Every time she passed a real biker, she dinged her handlebar bell. Let me tell you, I was SO embarrassed. Yes, they know you are a tourist by the bike, do you have to add to it with all of that bell ringing?



The wind was insane, as were the hills. I was sure I was going to fly out of her bike pouch. I was also sure I was going to never make it because knitter mom didn't understand the whole gear thing and couldn't figure out why she was having such a hard time getting up the hills. Eventually her husband had to explain, use the finger gear thing, not the thumb, because "high" and "low" were beyond her. But you know, as ridiculous as she was, it was a fun part of the trip. I mean, how many socks ride a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge?

San Fran hasn't been all madcap craziness though. There was some baseball, some garlic fries at the baseball park (totally disappointing - they smelled a thousand times better than they tasted), and some more baseball.





I got to see a Barry Bonds home run. Even if he is the biggest cheater in baseball, it was a bit of history. I also got to watch knitter mom get a funny sunburn during the thirteen innings of the second game we saw. Hehe! She ended up with a white forehead (protected by her had), a red chin and cheeks, and a real pretty outline of her sunglasses. I figure that was cosmic retribution for dangling me out of the car window so many times!

Even though I didn't get lucky on my date in Denver, I did get some romance at The View bar.



I also tried to run off and get some "romance" at the Green Door massage and sauna place, but knitter mom said no. Something about not having enough money for antibiotics since she had purchased her souvenirs already.



So our trip is all but done. We have a red eye flight home, and I am hoping she will get to knitting on us. But you never know. She might see more scenery she has to stare at or something else so less important than we are. Either way, we seemed to have survived this vacation and are so use to traveling that the trip to our new mom's home will be a piece of cake.

Monkeys Loose In Colorado

Hello Peeps! Monkey socks here, still (we haven't been lost despite a moment of panic that maybe half of us was lost) giving you a shout out from Colorado! Last you heard I was in Utah (remember how there was wonky Wifi and so we pretended I was not home safe and sound, unharmed by my traveling knitter .... well we are still pretending ... pretending I am still on vacation). So, after a mouthful of Mormans, we moved on, onto Colorado.

A state, I might add, where my abuse continued! First, it was in Glenwood Springs. I was taken on an Alpine Slide at the Cheesiest-Amusement-Park-In-The-West (yes, the ride was awesome, but I think part of that was adrenaline and fear for my life thing, I mean, the park had her sign a waiver in case she died, she didn't have to sign a waiver in Utah for those rides, and furthermore, I didn't get to sign the waiver, no one asked me, I would have never signed a waiver, I have a bright future ahead of me, I am going to a good home where the people are nice, no sir, I would have never waived squat!) and then I was taken to some hot springs.

It was all bass-ackwards! Traveling knitter mom takes me OUT INTO THE OPEN on a the ride of DEATH, where I should not have been permitted to see the light of day, but then leaves me in a bag, on a chair, while she frolics in the hot springs (and dives off a diving board being the only adult other than her husband, much to the amusement of all of the people watching but not the kids waiting in line for the old people to hurry the hell up and get off the diving board) when she could have been knitting on me. When do I get to come out and partake of the relaxing hot springs? When she is drying off and ready to leave. Grrrrr.



We took a drive to Aspen which was really pretty, though I thought it was kind of mean to HANG ME OUT OF AN OPEN WINDOW OVER A CLIFF just so she could get a picture. Yah, pretty, beautiful, now BRING ME BACK INTO THE CAR! And the drive along Independence Pass was great (had we not been worried about the flashing blinking neon gas light and how hard it would be to push the rent-a-wreck, also called the Rav-Whore, thirty or so miles, we could have really enjoyed the scenery, as well as the three red Ferraris that were hauling ass up and down the mountain at insane speeds). I was a little cold at the continental divide on Independence Pass since I still do not have a heel (like woman, could you please quit gawking at the scenery and start knitting? Driving is prime knitting time! What the hell is wrong with you?)




I know it didn't have anything to do with the real Twin Peaks and I sure as shit am not a camping kind of sock (I need my creature comforts like air conditioning, room service, and a phone book full of "masseurs"), but I liked checking out the Twin Peaks campground and looking for Laura Palmer's body in a stream!



I'm sad to say I did not find Laura and I did not see FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper either. I did, however, see a ball game at Coors Field (where Bobby Abreu waived at me, the pretty sock, not the girl with the HUUUUUGGGGEEEE tracts of land sitting in front of me). Despite Bobby's flirtations, I was disappointed with the game since my team lost.



I stayed in the same hotel that the Yankees stayed in and I was majorly ticked when they lost night after night but would still go out clubbing, partying, or to some other shit (I suspect it involved "masseurs")! We'd be coming back to the hotel at midnight and the players would be all dolled up and going out. I may have asked my knitter mom to drop me so that I could trip a player or two as they strutted out the door, but she managed to restrain herself. Mind you, I can be held out of the car window at high speeds or dangled over a cliff, but there is no way she is going to hurt cutey patooty Yankee players. Life is so unfair!

I got to experience more of that "fear for your life" thing when we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. I was dangled over water falls, trudged through snow while my knitter mom was wearing flip flops and almost wiped out and cut her foot (which was numb from the snow so she didn't feel it until later when she could have already contacted gangrene and dragged me into a desolate life inside a purse with my other half stranded in some hotel, while her husband and many doctors administered life saving drugs hoping to stop the poison from swimming into her brain - as if it was all that great of a brain to begin with), and held up at yet another continental divide.



I was also dangled in front of some hungry animals like a snack while crazy knitter mom said stupid ass stuff like, "Here Moosey Moosey Moose!" "Lookie here you cute little Deery Deer ... look at my pretty sock!" Hey dummy, your foot is bleeding and I bet the little Moosey whatever can smell it. Think Jaws. You're gonna be the snack, not me!



It is truly amazing that I have lasted this long. Especially since the most handling I get is for photographs and not actual knitting. Only one half of me has a heel flap. It is disgraceful! Our trip culminated with a jaunt to Boulder to see the University of Colorado, and a ride on Ralphie for me. Thankfully the people of Boulder are a peaceful lot and seemed to have forgotten that the Miami Hurricanes last beat them at football, otherwise they may have laid a mob smack down on me and my Hurricane hat toting knitting mom!



My time in Colorado ended with a double date with one of knitting mom's husband's friends. He took us to a place that had many dead animals on the walls which kind of freaked me out a bit. Once we had the food though I forgot about Bambi's glare. It was some really good food.



Unfortunately my date wouldn't put out. Bobby had gotten me all hot and bothered and my date, well, apparently he isn't into the hand knits. I think he may have been embarrassed to be seen with me. What Ever. Maybe I'll get lucky in San Francisco.

Still Monkeying Around in Utah

Yes, People! It is me, your favorite Traveling Monkey. I tried to send you more love (and another cry for rescue) from the Great State of Utah but the free Wifi and internet access went wonky so you are going to have to pretend that I am not back home, safe and sound.

Pretend I am in Utah, the state where you have to become a member of a club to get a drink because there are no "public" bars! And let me tell you, when you are vacationing with a woman who takes you on chair lifts to ziplines and then on the ziplines themselves, to freestyle ski jumping swimming pools, or plonks you down on a curling thingamajig for a picture and then forgets you are in there and walks away until she hears some random child ask his parents why there is "string on the granite," or loads you into a bobsled ...





... well, you need a bar. Pronto. And, sure, there may be a joke about a sock walking into a bar and asking for a drink, but that joke, it didn't happen in Utah!

Crazy traveling knitter mom, she tried to butter me up with some food at the Sundance Resort Deli (which was quite fabulous), and she tried to butter me up some more by working on me while lounging on the Sundance patio (also fabulous, that whole being creative in a mecca of creativity thing) but then she ruined it with yet another height defying chair lift and then a long ass drive to Moab, Utah. A long ass drive where, I might add, she did not knit on me at all because she was looking at scenery or some other bogus thing!



Moab has Arches National Park. A really pretty place.



But it's not so pretty when the dumbass your with decides to take a hike for "prime picture taking opportunities." Her pictures of her and her husband on the rock came out fine, but when it's my turn, she leaves my knitted sock bit at the top with my ball bit next to it not thinking about the fact that hello, you left me on an incline with a piece of my anatomy being a ball, a round ball which rolls.



She is holding my ball part (and just so you know, constantly talking about "my ball part" makes me feel kind of funny) in her hand and my sock part is way up there, the speck on the rock in the picture. It is kind of hard to make out because she was LAUGHING AT ME while she was taking the picture! Yes, she laughed as I rolled down a VERY HIGH rock. She found it hysterical that I almost careened to my death. Bitch!

Monkeying Around in Utah

Dear Soon-to-be-Mom,

My birth mom, she is a crazy biatch! First she drags me on a plane and starts knitting away in public, while sitting in the middle seat and endangering those next to her. And, while she was knitting away she never noticed that she DROPPED MY BALL. Of course it rolls down a few rows and under some seats. I was so embarrassed. She had to CRAWL UNDER A STRANGE MAN'S LEGS (!!) to retrieve me. I thought that would take the cake, but no!

Once we got to Salt Lake City, she decided to take me to the Great Salt Lake.



Have you been to the Great Salt Lake? Sure it is pretty and beautiful and all that stuff, but, hello, salt smells. I fear I do too! I see a bath in my future. Grrr.

From there she took me and my smelly self to the Black Sheep Wool Company yarn store. This was really cool. It is a yarn store formerly owned by Nancy Bush. Yes, the Nancy Bush of sock pattern fame. It was like some sort of cosmic sock thing. I felt the good juju. She bought some of Nancy's local yarn which made me a little nervous since, yo, I'm not done being knit yet, but it needs bigger needles and she didn't bring any, waahaahaa!



She tried to class me up and get me some edumucation at the University of Utah (which some dummy tried to say was the real U but everyone knows there is only one U and it sure as shit ain't in Utah!).



Then she tried to get me some religion. This turned out to be a total dud. Sure, the temple and tabernacle were pretty, but all the scriptures about gays being bad and so forth got her TOTALLY hot under the collar.

When we left Salt Lake City, I thought I would be in for a break. Maybe even a nap. There is this whole time zone change thing goin' on that has me mentally messed up. But no. Turns out the big ole lush wanted a cider and a buffalo burger. That's right, buffalo.



I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. This woman, she is crazy! She is threatening to take me on a bobsled or a zipline. Her husband, he seems opposed, so I am hoping he wins this one. Yah never know what could happen to a poor little defense lil' Monkey when she's flying down a friggen bobsled with a lunatic!

Best Wishes,
Your Monkey

Answers

Every now and then I get random questions in my comments or e-mails. The e-mails I can answer, but because blogger won't let me ask for a commenter's e-mail address ... well, I can't write a commenter back (damn you Blogger!). So, here are some answers, observations, and such which may or may not have been in my comments.

• The pligg and ravelry buttons in my sidebar ... I copied the pictures (the pligg from Alison's blog's front page and the ravelry one from the somewhere in the ravelry website) on to my computer, futzed with the size in my picture editing software, loaded them up into photobucket, and then linked to them on my sidebar. Easy peasy!

• My Pal's Monkeys' in progress. The yarn works up really nicely. Surprisingly nicely.

• My ball winder does in fact have a little bump which you can push the metal bar thing over to lock it into place. All of my drama and contortions were totally unnecessary, had I actually looked closely at the thing. One hundred percent user error.

• My vacation (or, Are you really so snotty that you only go to snobby stores?) ... We are going to Utah, Colorado, and California. The impetus for this trip was the Yankees' away schedule. My husband lured me in with tales of Olympic bobsled rides, alpine slides, and ziplines. Then he snuck in the baseball stuff. Not that I object to watching hot men in tight pants flex their muscles and prance around, because I so don't, that is always a good thing. In between death defying rides and scenic drives (Pike's Peak, Moab, and so on), we will be watching the Yanks play the Rockies as well as the Giants. I am hoping that Barry Bonds has some major home run karma goin' on so that there is a possibility that one of our games could be the one where he breaks Hank Aaron's record. Not because I like Barry (I don't and would prefer that he not break the record, but my preferences mean squat), but because we could totally sell our tickets for some major moula because YES! I am totally that snobby and superficial and would love all of my souvenirs to come from Louis Vuitton. And, should Barry Bonds screw me over (like how his home run hitting is all about me?), then I am looking forward to oogling A-Rod's butt and grabbing some garlic fries.

• Some of the random searches that have landed people here ...
  "fuking in publick park" What is with the pub-lick? Lick, is this some sort of pun?
  "southpark sock my balls" I am thinking this person was looking for some ball sUcking - not sOcking. What a disappointment my site must have been. Nary a ball is sucked.
  "bad septic system, cant afford a new one" Dude. I am with you. I feel your pain.
  "boring republican idiots" Did you run out of interesting republican idiots?
  "world biggest booboo turd" Ummm ???

• My Sidewinders ... They are on the back burner because I am an idiot and do not know how to follow directions. I need to rip out my toe shaping and start all over. Since I am going to have to do that, I am thinking about ripping back my heel too. Basically ripping back everything, right to my crochet cast on, which, if I may say so myself, is perfection!

• The Crazy factor at work ... No, it hasn't gotten any better. In fact, I was just commenting today that it seems to be ramping up. We are at Delta Force Five, Code Orange. We've been treated to an entire day of crazy because someone had the unmitigated gall to (finally) change the batteries in the fire alarm in front of the bathroom, right before Crazy had to use the bathroom, causing her a delay of seven seconds. Obviously treatment like this requires the hurling of obscenities and a trail of tears.

Ziggily Zaggaly

I think I may have mentioned that my Chevron Socks were finished despite lack of photograph evidence, yes?



Well here ya have it! These were a quick, fun, particularly painless knit ... once I found the right pattern for the yarn. Yarn which was a very nice gift from my SP9 Pal (someone I still don't know who was ... who were you SP9?!?). Even though the yarn was suppose to be a practice pair of Monkey's, something that just look gawd awful and almost made me quit the Monkey pattern all together, I still think these are happy socks. Not socks of DOOOOM! And even though they were frogged seventy gajillion times, the yarn held up nicely.

When I finally settled on Charlene Schurch's Chevron pattern, and got to knitting, the socks flew off the needles. The pattern is particularly quick to knit. I modified the sock pattern itself to work better for me and my idiosyncrasies. The leg is shorter because the yarn was thicker and I didn't want it all that high up on my leg. I made them toe-up, because, well, I am partial to the toe-up formula. And, I used the Queen Kahuna gusset and heel. That is really a pretty little gusset and heel, if you are one that likes gussets. If you aren't well then, no matter how pretty, you wouldn't like it so much.



I have one change/idea for the next time I use this gusset and heel, but I sitll like them as is and I'm glad I decided to use it on these guys. I think it works really nice with the pattern and yarn.

Overall these were a fun and quick knit.



Yarn: Two Waters Fiberworks, Merino Sock
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Chevron Socks, Sensational Knitted Socks. Modified to be toe-up with a Queen Kahuna gusset and heel.
Time: 13 days.
Care: Hand wash cold, dry flat.

Priorities

My husband and I are going on vacation next week. He's planned our flights, hotels, transportation, entertainment, and such. He's printed out our itineraries, tickets, confirmations, and directions. I, on the other hand, have printed out the address and store hours for all of the local yarn stores, Louis Vuitton stores, and Tiffany & Co. stores.

Tick

Since eight o'clock this morning, I have listened to the chirp of the smoke detector. Apparently two of the ones in my office need new batteries. Not just one, but two. Instead of addressing this incessant (one chirp every five seconds) chirping right now (or anytime in the last few hours), someone has decided to just leave the matter be. Several people complained. Nothing is being done. I offered to climb the chair and change the batteries myself, but I was told no. I'm developing a facial tick. My eye is twitching.

I called to complain to my husband about this. When he answered the phone I asked how he was doing. He replied, "I want to punch some people in the head." I took that to mean he wouldn't show the proper outrage over my chirping problem so, being the supportive wife that I am, I offered to punch some people for him. But only if I could start with some of the folks in my office.

Am I On Candid Camera?

Ummm ... what the hell?



I know I can flake out at times. My mind wanders and I am totally lost in Lala Land. I got it. But how the hell did I miss this? Last night I was winding the yarn for my Pal's second Monkey. Everything sounded like it was going smoothly but at one point when I looked down I noticed that something was HORRIBLY wrong. I've never seen anything like this nor have I heard of anyone doing this. I believe this puts me in the running for '07 Bonehead of the Year. My husband was down stairs working on work, work that like, maybe pays our bills. But that didn't stop me from dragging him away to come help me unmess my mess. It took the two of us twenty minutes, but we got the thing unwound and back on the swift.

He left and I started to ball it again and things were going smoothly until, thwack! It happened again. Fortunately, I saw the first little bit go haywire, so I stopped and undid it. It took me several tries and some luck, but I finally figured out what happened. The metal bit you feed the yarn through was swooped around front (I assume because I had the ghetto tiny table, mini-swift, ball winder set up going on in full effect), which caused the yarn to feed into the winder wonkily, which then caused the yarn to wind around the winder itself. So, if the metal bar thing was pushed out and stayed there, things went fabulously. Which was fine and dandy, but since the metal bar wanted to come forward, it was not so fine and dandy.



In the end, I had to use my heel to hold the bar back (I'm telling you, it is nothing but class at Chez SPR). Fortunately my contortions worked so that I had everything ready to roll in time for The Sopranos.

Speaking of which, can I just take a moment to say how conflicted I was with the ending. I mean, I know Six Feet Under set the bar WAY high for series finales, but come on. I wanted more Soprano mafia stuff. They did a great job in creating tension in that last diner shot. I think everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for something, anything, to happen. Well anything other than the screen going blank. There were so many great bits to that episode (FBI guy sleeping with FBI girl to get info for Tony, how awesome was that?!?), that it sucks that there was not something a little more in the way of the mafia stuff. I mean, I get it. All that shit with Bobby and Sil and Phil, it was di rigeur mafia life, but come on. I wanted more.

What AM I doing?

So, first, proof. I really did start my Pal's Monkey's and I am soooo loving them. The yarn is working up beautifully thus far (as you can tell by the picture, NOT!). My Pal wrote me back and mentioned that she loved the Monkeys with a picot edge. So this is good, and bad. Because I am me, I had already completed the ribbing and a pattern repeat before I read her response. So I am feeling a little bad that she isn't getting the picot edge. Maybe these socks will fly off my needles and I can make a second pair for her with the picot edge? Yah, who am I kidding? I've already got my second project in the works.



I will openly announce to one and to all that I am a big ole cheater. I am making my Sidewinders in the form of a ped so I can make them fast, fast, fast. And, I am using the left over yarn from the last pair of peds I made which means I am using them for my gauge swatch. Heh.



To take my totally punk-ass-cheater self to the next level, I am changing sizes to account for my gauge being wrong. Yah, this could go badly. My notes read something like, "rows big, sts small, more rows = bigger width and less stitches = shorter length." This could be false. I dunno. It's all good though. I have faith in the good sock karma. I figure I am do some!



I do have one suggestion for those making Sidewinders and that is to make sure you really tighten up the double decreases of the heel. I didn't do that, even though someone else told me to do that (a totally blonde moment if I may say so myself), so I have a little bit of eyelet action going on.