Pic-NO

Dear Picot Bind Off:

This is an OFFICIAL break up.* You suck. I really read up on how to do you. I swear. I friggen researched for fuk's sake. And, after careful consideration, I realized that most of the instructions were the same and that I had to do this. I understood. Made sense. Seemed easy. So I did it.



And I got that. Crap. A big, fat, rolling over, laying down, refusing to stand at attention picot bind off. What the hell? Upset, but not yet deterred, I ripped out your pointy little nubs and tried some different things. I knit some rows of garter stitch and re-bound off. Result? Rolling. I knit some ribbing and then bound off. Result? Rolling and some weird spacing issues. I knit you on smaller sized needles. Result? Least offensive rolling, but rolling nonetheless. I sewed some of your picots together at the ankle bits to pull you tight. Result? Fugly sides, tight opening to get my foot in, and picots pointing different directions.

So you know what Mr. Picot, I gave up. I have one semi-decent photo of my foot at a weird angle, forcing your picotness to as much as attention as possible, at least on half of the sock.



I'll look at this photo and think about what could have been been. And then I'll remember the shit you put me through last night and say KISS MY ASS!

Love,
The Girl Who Tried To Use You Eleventy Gazillion Different Ways But Then Gave Up Because I Am So Over Your Cute Little Points.

*Opa's sister dumped one of her boyfriends in a restaurant one night by screaming, "THIS IS AN OFFICIAL BREAKUP!" As she was screaming at him, she slammed her hands on the table with such force stuff went flying. Then she left. I find this to be awesome and if I ever have a break up, it is so going to be an official break up, not one of those namby pamby unofficial ones.

Whoopsie

Did I promise knitting content for today? Hahaha. Well you see there is this little thing that I forgot, that is to say, I may have needed to bind off my latest project and WHOOPS, don't ya know, I don't know how to do the picot bind off. Yet. Soooo, that is my project for this afternoon. Picot bind off. In the meantime, let me use a little razzle dazzle, huggle muggle, something or other to divert your attention from my lack of knitting ... Hey! Look! A Dog!



This is my Uncle's dog. His name is Precious. Why aren't you laughing yet? Okay, think The Silence of the Lambs ... Buffalo Bill ... Precious. Ha! Got it now? My aunt and uncle named their white toy poodle pup after a fictional serial killer's white toy poodle pup. Amusing, well, to me anyway. Having never seen the movie, they didn't get it and didn't want to hear about and his name is Precious because he is precious and that is the end of that so shut it. The dog is cute and yes, even precious when he isn't going all Jeffrey Dahmer on his toys, and I love him to bits and enjoy chewing on him, but his name is still ridiculous. So anyway, here is a cute little puppy, sitting on the porch, in South Florida, WEARING A SWEATER! If his name didn't make you giggle, shouldn't the fact that a dog, who has a fully functional fur coat, is wearing a sweater in the hottest place on earth get you to chuckle? No? Not so much. Damn, it is the sweater isn't it? Made you think of hand knit sweaters and my non-knittingness. Crap.

So, uh, you wanna hear about my experience at carmax (yah, I am naming names, you people SUCK so there) where a random appraiser attempted to bend me over and then NOT use vaseline? No? Okay! Okay! I'll go learn the picot bind off!

Yippie-Kay-Yay

Didn't I say something about only needing to have my label cloud fixed to set my blog back to rightness? Well guess what? I did it! Yah baby! So if you are having label cloud issues and you used this to set up your cloud, I'd say look in the comments here for the answers or at least inspiration.

You'd think with all this blog repair I wouldn't have had much time for knitting, but you'd be wrong. Actual knitting content tomorrow? Maybe! In the meantime, how about some animal yumminess?






The title to this post is a tribute to my boyfriend, Bruce Willis. Know which movie it's from?

Oy!

If this whole attorney things doesn't pan out, maybe I have a future in web design. NOT!

Nonetheless, I, who knows squat about computer programming web code stuff, was finally able to get new progress bars. Mind you, my old ones are still gone. I have no idea what happened to them. Blogger, the internet, fate, or the meter man, your guess is as good as mine. I ended up contacting several strangers with knitting blogs and asked what they did; reading so many source codes my eyes started to bleed; and, actually trying to write my own code. Ha! In the end I used the information from this site. The instructions made sense to me - I "got" it. So there you go. Progress bars fixed or replaced? Check.

Now if I could just get all of the labels in the Label Cloud centered I'd be golden.

I Don't Get It

Dear Blog,

You are screwing with my sidebar. Yesterday you had percent bars, the ?^%$@! side way socks under bad knitting karma, and my labels nice and pretty, but today? All gone. I don't get it. Can I please have my stuff back?

Sincerely,
Me

Day Two

Today I again find myself plagued by some mild gastrointestinal distress. Normally that would not be oh-so-blog worthy but I fear that the distress may be effecting my brain because for absolutely no apparent reason several things made me laugh uproariously this morning on my drive into work that were anything but funny. To wit:

• I was driving behind a man in a Toyota Corolla. A slow driving man. As we seemed to decrease speed even more I said, out loud, "We seemed to have hit a snag in the 'Go Plan' Mr. Corolla." At which point I started giggling and the laughing and then teared up and had to find a tissue. Now "We seemed to have hit a snag in the 'Go Plan'" is not funny. Dorky? Absolutely. Saying out loud to your self in the car? Even dorkier. But not so funny. Nonetheless, even thinking the words "Go Plan" still make me giggle. Go Plan. Heh.
• Part of the reason I was worried about Mr. Corolla's failure to adhere to the Go Plan was because I was hungry. And so, after passing Mr. Corolla, my mind wandered to food. And to lunch and the dinner and then somehow I started thinking about the food at my wedding. We had a small reception at Morton's, a friggen steakhouse, where for some unknown reason, I decided to order salmon. Of the twenty-eight people that were there, one person ordered salmon, me. What the fuck? I am a huge meat loving, steak craving, carnivore, why for the love of all that is beef, did I order salmon? It was at this point that the giggles started. Heh, I ordered salmon from Morton's, at my own wedding reception, hehe. I am a dork. Then the laughing started. Salmon, whaaahaaaa, salmon. Then the tears came and I had to find another tissue because my first "Go Plan" tissue hadn't held up.
• So I regained my composure, but was still thinking about dinner, and Morton's, and thought, "Yummmm, Morton's. I want to go to Morton's and not get salmon. Hmmm. If only I had money. Maybe we won the Powerball last night. You know what. If we won the Powerball and Boo didn't tell me," and this is where I started speaking out loud to myself (again), "I am going to be so pissed. Can you imagine? I'm coming to work, feeling like ass, or a pending ass explosion, and yet I am a gazillionaire but because Boo forgot to tell me I have to go to work. Hell no! That is fucked. He better have told me if we won. I wanted to sleep in. Dick." And then I started to giggle and laugh at myself, because hello, if we won, I am sure he would have told me, oh, like seconds after he found out so I was basically getting annoyed at something that DID NOT HAPPEN.
• I again regained my composure and am still thinking about Boo, who may or may not be a dick if we did in fact win the Powerball and he forgot to tell me, and I remember him waking up, stretching, pointing to the ceiling, and in his best disco voice singing, "It's raining men!" And then I start to laugh and require yet another tissue.

So you see, I believe I may be suffering from delirium. Or maybe I am just plain "touched." Because none of these things are amusing and no way explain why I went through three tissues to mop of my tears of laughter. Tissues which, by the way, left little clumpy bits on my waterproof mascara coated eye lashes that in my (delusional) mind looked kind of like snow flakes and sent me into another fit of giggles.

Sockasantora

I had a hard time thinking up a title for this post, as all the sockasomething variations I came up with sound like terminal ailments and not rock 'n roll sockage. I ended up going with this title because I am lazy and more thinking was going to make my brain hurt. Also, I woke this morning feeling a little pukey, with a hint of gastrointestinal distress, and so maybe a malady is more suitable that hard core punk coolness. I really did feel quite craporific and over-tired, and pondered the pros and cons of calling out sick. But the one big pro of dragging my arse to work was the thought of an entire Crazy free day. Yes, Crazy is taking a vacation day, which means the rest of us basically get a vacation day too. And why would I waste that kind of goodness being home sick? So I dragged my arse, and my Wild Kat socks to work, and decided I could finally take some pictures and put up my FO post as a reward for going in.



Once I got here though I balked at photographing and posting my socks because my office is less conducive to good sock photography than Space Mountain. I mean do you see how busy my industrial carpet is? Clashes with everything. I guess I could have stood on my desk, and used the faux brown wood as my floor, but I just wasn't feeling that adventurous. Which is a shame because my socks deserve better. I had originally had vision of the Wild Kat socks surrounded by zebra print fabrics and piles of Good & Plenty. Needless to say, that ain't happenin'.



In any event, here are the Wild Kat socks. Made with the infamous Tofutsies sock yarn. There are a few things that I didn't like about this yarn. First, it is super, super thin. Being a loosey goosey knitter, I had to use super skinny needles in order to get a decent fabric. And quite frankly, I could have used even smaller needles and had a nicer result, but then I would probably still be knitting away on these bitches. I also found the yarn to be quite splitty. I switched from Addi needles to KnitPicks needles because the KnitPicks have pointier points. But even still, I had some splitting. I also hear that the yarn fades a lot in its first wash. I haven't bathed them yet, so I can't comment on that.

Even with my ambivalence about the yarn, I really like these socks. And the pattern. To make the socks work, I had extra stitches (necessary in order to make the socks fit my foot) for the sole on the bottom needle and only the lace pattern stitches on the top needle. I think I could have used one needle size up on the lace part of the sock, but I didn't bother to try.



In the end the socks work and they fit quite nicely. I was worried the top part was little too high, but when I wear them with sneakers (as opposed to loafers, heh) they are the right height. High enough that the sneaker tongue doesn't eat them but not so high that they are big and noticeable.



Yarn: SWTC, Tofutsies, June sock club limited edition color
Needles: KnitPicks Circs, size 2.0 mm (US 0)
Pattern: Wild Kat, sort of
Modifications: Made into a ped with the lace pattern from the original cuff used on the top of the ped. Used my own toe and heel patterns.
Time: 07/16/07 - 08/15/07
Care: Machine washable.

Visitors

I haven't been posting as much as I usually do. Not because my life has settled down into normality, it hasn't, unfortunately. I've had boatloads of crazy, and Crazy, and maybe some goofy going on. But all this crazy/Crazy/goofy is taking up time, a whole lot of precious time*, all kinds of fun blogging time.

For example, this weekend my husband's oldest sister and her family came up for a visit. This wasn't really crazy or goofy, but it did eat up my free time. My husband was quite excited because he's lived in Connecticut for ten years and his sister was finally visiting for the very first time. I was excited because the mountain of pet hair accumulating behind the couch/love seat/television/bookshelf/any piece of furniture we have was finally going to be evicted. Not that I wasn't psyched to see my SIL and her brood, I was just a little more psyched that we were going to have a very clean house. Because honestly, isn't that the best part of having house guests? Yah, I had fun playing put-put golf (being that I shot not one but two legitimate holes in one because I am awesome and am the put-put golf master of the universe) but it really wasn't as exciting as sitting back on my freshly vacuumed couch, while my bare feet bounced around on our Stanley Steamered carpet and my eyes watched television on our freshly dusted screen. I mean don't get me wrong, we aren't total dirt bags when we are left to our own devices, but you may have to pick of a stray piece of lint or cat hair if you are employing the ten second rule.

So the house was clean and waiting for our guests who some how took a three hour drive and turned it into a five hour one. Which was fine because those extra two hours were vital in our preparations. You see when people stay with me they are quizzed on our amenities. Is this weird? Maybe, but it is also quite useful. During one such quiz session, Joan pointed out that it would be nice to have bedside lamps so that you could read in bed and not have to get up to turn off the light. Since I don't think I have ever had a bedside lamp, this was both foreign to me and a brilliant idea I had to act on. So brilliant that I forgot about it until about thirty minutes before my SIL's scheduled arrival. Fortunately they were still a state away and I had time to run up to the triple B and buy some bedside lampage. Crisis averted.

When they did arrive, a tour was given (although "tour" may be a misnomer because we don't live in some fifty thousand square foot mansion which would be nice but also weird because what the hell do you do with all that space) and the kids decided they didn't want to stay in the same room as their parents which meant they were going to bunk down in The Yarn Room. I found this oddly reassuring. This confirmed that my little yarn collection isn't really all that scary. I mean a twelve year old girl and nine year old girl were asking to crash on the air mattress right next to the bountiful yarny plushness. How scary could it be?

By the time they left I had somehow lost at Cranium and Life (the real 1963 version, not the new mamby pamby version that has Shady Acres or some such nonsense instead of the Poor Farm and lacks Revenge spaces), but had succeeded in spreading the joy of the playground spinning pole, so I would say it was a good visit.

I didn't get much knitting done while they were here, which is probably not surprising. Though I did get a row or two done on the Monkey peds showing my SIL's husband, an engineer, how to knit. He was intrigued but not interested in becoming a knitter. Odd, I know. I finished my Wild Kat socks some time ago but have not had custody of the camera and have been unable to photograph my pretties. Yah, yah, my husband's whole department is moving into new, high tech space and yah, they are going to have a mini JumboTron (MiniTron??)in their new office area which may be worthy of a picture or two, but hello, I need the camera for blogging purposes!

*Know where this came from? Yah, probably not. Like I said, I have had all sorts of goofiness going on, like this song floating around in my head.

The End Is Near

This weekend was spent in the yarn room. Not reclining on a chaise, sipping mint juleps while knitting along on a cashmere sweater in the yarn room. No, it was all unpacking box after box, untangling skein after skein, and placing yarn ever so gently on the shelf only to watch it come tumbling down two minutes later when the next ball of yarny goodness was trying to plop on the shelf. And just for the record, this yarn is never moving! Yarn fell, tumbled and rolled away, and of course unballed, so often that I've decided that the bookcases and yarn are going to be considered permanent fixtures and shall never moved except to be knit because I am not messing with this EVER AGAIN.

You would think that after spending all of the weekend, well except for the part where we went to the dog park, or when we went to get some ice cream, or when we went to the mall ... okay, a lot of the weekend, you would expect that after spending a lot of the weekend working on the yarn room we'd be done. But you'd be wrong because yarn room, still a work in progress.

I have all of my aunt's yarns unpacked and stored (though not in any sort of logical fashion) and most of my yarn too. My yarn? One shelf. Her yarn? As my husband said, "Holy fuck!" I have one sweater worth of yarn in our basement that has not been put away and none of my needles or notions have been loaded in. But since I need more furniture in which to put this stuff, things are kind of at a standstill.

So, to show you that I really have made some progress, I present you with a before (as in, before we moved in, this is what the room look liked and though the decor went with previous owners, the carpet and the wall color didn't, and maybe this isn't really a good before set since the one wall that isn't photographed is the one wall I am using for the yarn storage, but it is the best I've got so let's just go with it):



And, an after (which isn't totally an after since I'm not done yet and it is a crappy picture that really doesn't show you much other than those bookcases are loaded with an obscene amount of yarn and I was some what off kilter as I tried to get a photo of the yarn but couldn't back away enough to get it all in one photo):



So there you have it, 99% of my yarn put away in a somewhat orderly fashion. All of the pink bags contain partially knit projects which I will need to rip out and then reclaim the yarn, and the sweaters on the top shelf are waiting for finishing so I'll need to decide what to do about those too. Just thinking about this makes me tired. I need a nap. One more reason I totally need a nice chaise for the yarn room!

Whew!

My Sockapalooza 4 Pal, blogless Sandy of Plano, Texas, received her socks and she loves them and they fit! Yeah baby! I am so relieved and so happy.

And, for those of you that questioned my sanity of sending chocolate, to Texas, in the summer, who didn't think to question me before I sent the chocolate only to do so after it was TOO DAMN LATE so thanks for nuthin', well guess what beeznatches, IT DIDN'T MELT ALL OVER EVERYTHING! Or, if it did, Sandy didn't tell me, so we'll just assume it was all good since we are lacking evidence to the contrary!

Yowsers

I've always gotten a funny feeling when I think of the UGG. I mean, I tend to have cold feet in the winter, so the practical part of my brain says that fur lined softness in a squishy comfortable boot is a good thing, a really good thing. But then the part of my brain that has eyes and some vanity says, YUCK! Plus, they are sort of trendy, or pseudo-trendy, or formerly trendy and I can totally see my thirteen year old self (living in Florida where it was never cold and I would never have had an actual need for fur lined footwear) begging my parents for a pair for my birthday and then after finally getting them, wearing them with a short, faded, blue denim mini-skirt and a maybe a Coca Cola shirt (you know the one, kind of a jersey style long sleeve, collared shirt in a dark color, mine was blue, with a beigey white burlappy type of material patch along the middle of the boob area and with the Coca Cola cursive logo printed in the red). I'd wear this outfit to the mall or maybe the skating rink inwardly smiling because, DAMN! My outfit was so cool. And this whole image makes me shudder, and maybe even blush a little, and is the number one reason why I will not pay over a hundred bucks for shoes that probably would manage to keep my feet warm when I am sitting in my family room.

And though that may be my number one reason, I now have a clear and definitive number two reason on why the UGG is bad, bad, bad! To wit:



What, you don't see anything too terribly wrong? Take a closer look:



Good lord what have they done to yarn? Wool all over the world has hung its head in shame. First it was blended with nylon, then it was molded into this atrocity. These are not good. Plus they slouch. They are like a late 80's/early 90's EG Smith sock and a shoe all rolled into one. Another fantasy my thirteen year old self would embrace with love, affection, and magical fairy dust.

The UGG website reveals that this, this sock/shoe thing, comes in a tall version and a short version. They are called "crochet" boots but the description says they are knit. Either way I say, hell fucking no! I mean, HELL FUCKING NO!

Godspeed Little Monkeys

I mentioned yesterday that I mailed my Sockapalooza Pal's socks yesterday. And by "I", I mean "my husband" but we'll just pretend it was me and that I am not super suckey at making sure things get mailed out on time without a little help. Anyway, they were sent off priority mail to their new home, but not before I cleaned them up and packed them in.

As you may remember, these little socks have had quite a journey. They were attacked by my ball winder, well actually they were attacked by my ineptitude, with my ball winder merely the instrument of my evil, or, um, idiotic, ways. They flew across the country to Utah where they tanned at the Great Salt Lake, hung with some Mormans, and drank some booze. They also rode a zipline and an alpine slide, sat in a bobsled, rode on a chair lift, chilled at Sundance, and fell down a mini-mountain. From Utah they went to Colorado where they went to an amusement park, went swimming, checked out a couple of Continental Divides, saw some Yankee baseball, ran from some moose, and ate with many dead animals. From Colorado they went to San Francisco where they were locked up, biked up and over a really long bridge, watched Barry Bonds hit a home run, and enjoyed some pretty scenery. Once they were back at there temporary home again, they relaxed and recuperated with some John From Cincinnati (which they still don't get but totally enjoy). With calm restored, they were ready to be sent off to their new home.

But first, the little suckers needed a good bath. So I whipped out a packet of Soak (which I loved so much that I went out and bought a bunch more of the little packet sized Soaks because they are the perfect size for sink washing socks and a lot easier to deal with than a bottle, well at least for me, maybe this is totally inefficient, but it works for me so let's move on) and bathed the hell out of them. I made sure to wash behind their ears and put on their clean underwear to help insure that they make a good impression on their new mom.



Once they were clean and dry, I buckled them in, left some sustenance and a few other little things, wished them well, and sent them on their way.



I hope their new mom likes them!

Fifteen

Today marks the fifteen year anniversary of my first date with Boo. Last year on this date, I waxed poetic about our anniversary and our first date. Okay, that is totally a euphemism as I am not really so poetic. In fact, I am so unpoetic (fuckity fuck fuck) that it might be more of a lie than a euphemism. And yes, I realize it's "an" euphemism not "a" euphemism but it sounds wrong in my head so I am taking poetic license, except, ergh, I am still not poetic so is it really my license to take?

In addition to our years-together anniversary, today is also the four year anniversary of our engagement. Four years ago today, Boo proposed while we standing at the top of the Empire State building looking toward Yankee Stadium, where we had our first date, and toward "the lesbian couch," where we had our first kiss.

So yah, today, big anniversary. We're celebrating with some bookcase staining and some regular old working. But not gift giving. This isn't a "here are some diamonds" kind of big anniversary. Since we aren't doing the gift thing, I decided to ask Boo to provide me a commemorative service. Not that kind of service you dirty perv (though I might reserve that kind of service request for later), I asked him to mail my sockapalooza box for me. And he did. Which makes me very happy. Which is the biggest reason we are still together after fifteen years. Not the mail thing, the making each other happy thing.

After fifteen years, Boo still makes me very, very happy. Yes, he can frustrate me like no other can. He can move me to the brink of violence like no other can. But, he can make me smile like no other can. Laugh like no other can. Blush like no other can. He can move me like no other can. In other words, he's perfect for me.

Thanks for fifteen years Boo! Happy Anniversary!

Hooray Socks!

Last night I received my socks from Carol, my Sockapalooza Pal, and I totally lurve them lots.



The yarn, Cherry Tree Hill, and the pattern, I think it is the Crosshatch Lace pattern in More Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch, knitted up nice and sproingy and feel fabulous. The socks not only look great, they fit great too!



Thank you Carol!

P.S. The title to this post is a nod to one of the more enjoyable group of commercials out there. Hooray Beer!

Stained

I think I may have mentioned that we are working on constructing my Yarn Room. And, well, still working on it. In the "progress" column we have trim painted, wall touch-ups touched-up, ceiling touch-ups touched-up, bookshelf frame stained, and rug purchased and placed. In the "will this ever end" column we have shelves, oh god the shelves, to finish staining, the other book case to stain (and can I just take a moment to comment on how absolutely miserable staining is? I have stained myself more than the furniture. But for the wonder of acetone, I would be a mahogany color right now!), and putting everything in and away. The latter of which is going to be sheer torture. I would whet your appetite with a before picture, but alas, I didn't take any. Whoopsie!

Anyhizzle, normally I would be hating the whole "going to work with all of this home repair shit in flux" thing, since I would rather be home slaving away on the room then at work slaving away on work, but today, not so much. Because Crazy? On vacation for an entire glorious week. So guess what, I am going to get some work done and then I am getting some knitting done! Yahoo! I haven't knit in ages, or um, since last Wednesday's SnB, same thing really. I have a gusset, a heel, and a bit of cuff and then the Wild Kat socks are ready to be worn.

Tomorrow I will have some knitting content for you, in that knitting content means, info and a picture or two of my Sock Pal's socks be sent off into the big bad world. I have visions of packing the box all pretty-like, filling it with nice little treats to compliment the socks and lining it with sugar plums, and pixie dust. I have visions of pictures so pretty, your heart will beat in excited thumps just hoping that the socks and their box of fun will be yours all yours. But this might be a hallucination due to stain fumes.

I Need A New Job

Is it passive-aggressive or just assholian to ...



use all but the last square of toilet paper, go into the closet and get a new role out, unwrap the new roll, and leave the new roll on top of the toilet instead of replacing it on the dispenser?



I'm going with Passive-Aggressive Asshole.

Great Company, Okay Food

Dinner with Joan was wonderful. Dinner itself, well, I've had better. Somethings were great, somethings were average, some things were bleh. Nonetheless, I took a few pictures for BeFri and man do the pictures make the food look great.

Deconstruction

This weekend was a very good weekend. The husband and I started the destruction of the room formerly known as "Cat's Room" and started the construction of the room soon to be known as "The Yarn Room" but is currently being referred to as "That Fucking Mess Down The Hall." The husband and I, who are slightly less handy, than say, a banana slug, some how managed to fix two HUGE yardstick sized wall divots, paint the room with two coats of Crocodile Tears colored paint (or, as we call it, Baby Poop Khaki), and rip up and remove the carpet, an unknown substance we can only assume was carpet padding, and five gazillion staples and tack strips. The hardwood floors now resemble a colander, but compared to the carpet, this is an improvement. Also, the holes in the floor should work well as dirt and dust collectors saving me time and energy on the whole "cleaning" thing. All in all, we are inordinately pleased with ourselves. You'd think we cured cancer with the amount of fist pumping and shit-eating-grinning that was going on.

We still have some trim painting, rug purchasing, furniture placing and the all important unpacking of nine huge moving boxes full of yarn to do before Thursday. The day when Denver comes to stay with us for an entire week while he is involved in a trial. One might say this deadline is not really flexible and that maybe I should call out of work "sick" to ensure that the guestroom is clean, and all extra furniture/yarn/paint supplies are not impeding the restful god-I-just-need-to-relax-because-the-jury-is-awful-and-opposing-counsel-is-worse guest bedroom area. But then one would under estimate my ability to fake it when necessary. What boxes? Oh those! They aren't boxes, they are a post modernism abstract representation of the fall of capitalism through the prism of the uneducated poor peasant.

Despite this looming deadline, tonight's agenda is delightfully absent of things pertaining to "That Fucking Mess Down The Hall" as Joan is in town for dinner. God how I love Joan and her impeccable timing, we could not have planned this better. Joan, it turns out, is one of those hipsters with a cool job that jets her in town for "meetings" so I guess I really love her hippie dippie cool job and the impeccable timing of its meetings. All along I thought she was a normal working slob like the rest of us. Just goes to show what I know. Anyhizzle, after she meets and does whatever one does in meetings (in my office that usually is "ducking" or keeping a discreet tally of "fuck" usage but I suspect her employers are a little less crazy and a lot more unlikely to throw things at each other), she'll have time for dinner before she jets right back out. We're trying out a new place because there is nothing like having a newbie in town and having them act as guinea pig. Well other than having a newbie stay in your guest room and have to climb Mount Boxalympus to get to the bed.

One Is The Loneliest Number

It hasn't been all play time and cooking at Chez SouthPark (though I did make some delicious brownies for dinner last night and found them particularly delightful for breakfast today), there has also been some knitting.

There, unfortunately, has not been cleaning, which means that I will be spending my Friday night with the toilet, and not because I plan to overindulge in the spirits and have a rocking time (I may do that Monday night when Joan jets in from DC for dinner), but because I have the pest control guy coming over Saturday morning and god forbid he think that we are the type of people that don't scrub our toilets on a use by use basis. Actually, I do basically scrub the toilets on a daily basis which is good, I do not, however, put away my laundry or sweep up the pet hair tumble weeds with any sort of regularity (or um, ever, unless someone is coming over). Both of which Mr. Pest Control is likely to notice. I wish there was someone I could pay to come over and put away my laundry and sweep the floors. I mean, I am sure there is, but I'm broke and the cleaning fairies aren't likely to do it for $5.00 an hour - gah! that isn't even enough, didn't the federal minimum wage just get raised to like $20 and hour, or um, $5.85 an hour?



So, me, cleaning tonight, sans cleaning fairies. Which means I won't have much time to give this guy a friend. He looks like he wants a friend doesn't he? I started the second sock and put the Monkey ped on the back burner for now. But then I had to put the second Wild Kat sock on the back burner too, because maybe I forgot to bring the directions to SnB and the only thing I could work on was the Kangaroo Duo sweater (finished the front pocket!). At least I didn't lose them. The directions have been placed with the socks now, so once I clean out the mountains of Cat and Dog DNA, I can get to knitting.

Cheese Head

Earlier this week, I was reading Janet Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum book, Lean Mean Thirteen. The book wasn't bad. I loved that series, from inception, with passion and verve. In fact, my love of the Plum books was such that I use to barter sexual favors with my husband if he would get his best friend, who was an editor at the book's publishing house, to get me an advance copy. Sometimes he could, and other times he couldn't. He has since moved on from that job which makes me VERY SAD. But anyway, Stephanie Plum series, loved it. These days, my love is more like. I am finding the love triangle a little tired, the exploding cars a little redundant, and Stephanie's lack of growth disappointing BUT I still really like the books because they are funny (torture by needle anyone?) and the writing is enjoyable to read.

So, I was reading Thirteen, and macaroni and cheese kept cropping up in the story. Now it may have only come up once or twice, but when it did, it stuck in my brain like white on rice. I was going to similize (is that a word?) with stink on shit, but decided the food simile was better and more apropos since I am talking about food. Which I guess means I shouldn't have just said that last sentence or so since I just erased all of my thoughtfulness. Anyhizzle, I could not stop thinking about macaroni and cheese. Which is great and all but I was home, it was late, and I had no macaroni and cheese, nor did I have the right ingredients to make it. What to do?



Why go all MacGyver and use whole wheat spaghetti, skim milk, reduced fat cheddar, and an assload of butter to cover up the fact that your milk and cheese are of the more healthy variety. It also helps if you have some whole wheat bread you can toast, slather in yet more butter, and make into bread crumbs with a little of that dried mystery spice "Italian herbs" to cover up the fact that you macaroni and cheese looks a little off.

I have to say that the my little experiment turned out quite delish, if not as healthy as the list of ingredients may imply. I was pleased with myself, even if it looked like an amorphous blob and not the piece de resistance of mac and cheese. Not withstanding its look, it was so good, I thought about calling it a cassoulet.

Toy Hoarder

Status Quo

So far this morning, I:

• broke a buckle on my shoe;
• dropped my water bottle twice, spilling water in my car trunk and losing the bottle lid;
• had my microwave safe container of beefaroni (breakfast of champions) explode so violently in the microwave that the rubber lid (with, ironically, holes to allow air to escape and prevent explosions) left a prefect outline in sauce on the microwave door front window where it hit;
• fell off my chair; and,
• dropped a contact lens on my office bathroom floor - eewww!

You could say that I have a case of the Mondays, but I am still in a decent mood, so maybe not. I figure my recent turn in luck is to balance my fabulous weekend where I spent relaxing hours on the beach knitting away, fun hours chasing my husband and dog at the park, and productive hours finding missing things like my glasses and my bracelet. Also, I have JFC chilling in my DVR for tonight's viewing pleasure and salmon chilling in the fridge for tonight's dining pleasure, so how bad can today be? Did I just tempt fate to show me? Damn that was dumb. JFC will have been miraculously erased and my fish will have ptomaine. Now THAT would suck!

I had thought about calling out sick today because there is a fun party thing at my husband's office this morning. But I decided not to, which may have been smart since several other people in my office are out today. Or, it may have been dumb since that means there are less people to keep Crazy occupied and out of my office. If it turns out that my husband's morning is gobs of fun and I am stalked by Crazy, I may change my perspective on the day. I may also have a banana daiquiri for lunch, hold the banana, and the ice.

On the knitting front, I finished one of my Wild Kat socks and have started the toe of the other. I have also done several repeats on the Monkeys and am ready to start the gusset. I decided to heed your advice and send only the original Monkeys as planned but also, as suggested by Rebecca, add a note indicating I am (crazy) fearful that the socks might be too snug and so have a pair of peds set aside in case the Monkeys are too tight. To be fair, and for full disclosure, it wasn't so much y'all that convinced me as much as the fact that I love how these new socks are knitting up. They are a little loose on me, but not so lose that I can't keep them.

Um, What?

People! I have found my stitch guagerthingamajiggy. What? You didn't know it was missing? Well it was. Just one more thing in the series of things I have lost (including but not limited to my brain which I don't miss so much and my glasses which I totally do miss). But missing no more, is my stitch gauge. I found it and decided to celebrate by bringing it to work this morning. Yah, what the hell kind of celebration is that, I have no idea. But I was so happy to see it, I threw it in my purse where, consequently, it will get lost again.

Not lost is the poodle wine bottle cover that winged its way to Opa and is now being loved (in ways that I can only hope are legal). Opa said he'll 'hug him, and kiss him and squeeze him and call him George.'* Okay, maybe I added the George part. And cleaned up the reported signs of affection for my G-rated audience. Heh!

I do realize that some dirty pervs could put things other than wine bottles in the poodle cover, but since Opa is not that much of a dirty perv, I am sure things will be fine. And let's see if I can pull this out of the gutter now? Umkay? So, Opa, wine, poodle. He did comment that George (I guess that name is going to stick now) is much nicer than the poodle wine bottle cover he purchased on eBay. Huzzah. I am sure that this is because of the fantabulous tiny face pompoms that KAN made. She rocks! I think we should go into business and mass produce Georges. We would first need to create a market, but how hard can that be? There is a sucker born every minute. Two words: Pet. Rock.

And, unrelated, two more words: Ravelry. Flickr. I've been a member of Ravelry for a little bit now and have been somewhat of a dud as an active participant. Mostly because you need a Flickr account to upload your photos. Bah, I say, bah! Thus far, that is my one and only complaint. I love searching the site and looking at other people's projects and I'd love to add my projects, if for no other reason than for my own personal enjoyment, but I hate the thought of having to open a new account (obviously I don't have a Flickr account) and then uploading pictures over there first, before being able to put them on Ralvery. And that, is all I have to say on that.

But I do have something to say about Sockapalooza, or more like something to bemoan, because I am crazy, and also, because I have not bemoaned enough of late. As if. Heh. So. Last night at SnB, my friend L was knitting a pair of Broadripple socks (which are gorgeous an strikingly similar to my Chevron socks and something I now definitely need to add to the things-I-may-one-day-knit-if-only-there-were-34-hours-to-a-day-or-if-I-could-quit-my-job-and-get-paid-to-knit-stuff-for-me-and-only-me list) for her Sockapalooza Pal. Which is really nice. But she already knit a beautiful pair for her pal. And these Broadripples are a second pair of just-in-case-the-others-don't-quite-fit variety.

Now, being that I am a jerk, I was all, "Nooo, the others will totally fit. (Totally true. I do think they will fit.) You so do not need to make a second pair!" And she was all, "But what if they don't fit? These are a little bigger and stretchier so they will totally fit." And I was all, "Well then you should keep the first pair for yourself. (Because the first pair is awesome and also, it is setting a bad precedent of being too generous!)" And yes, you probably have noticed that shows that she is generous and nice and I'm assholian and selfish, but whatever, that is not the point. Focus!

So, after seeing her act of kindness, I started thinking and getting nervous that my pal's Monkeys wouldn't fit and that I was totally deluding myself into thinking that they will. When I got home I pulled them out and tried them back on again. Now it may have been the excessive amount of caffeine in my system (love you B&N cafe), it may be that I am gaining fat in my feet and ankles, it may have been that someone broke into my house and swapped out the Jungle Stripe Monkeys I knit with another pair of Jungle Stripe Monkeys, or it may be that my mind was messing with me, but I swear the things felt not at all loose. Which they should since my pal's feet are bigger than mine! They felt like they fit normal but not with a lot of extra stretch. Soooo, I say crap. And hell. And damn. And even fuck!

And I say now I have a dilemma, and I have a solution, I think. I want opinions. Por favor. So here is what I am thinking. I am going to send my pal the Monkeys that I made for her. No question about that. But, I am thinking of hopping on the L train and also sending my pal another pair of socks as a just-in-case-the-others-don't-quite-fit pair. But, because I am not a super speedy awesome knitter like L, and also because I have basically a week, I am thinking of a ped (my latest trend in sock knitting, or the sock of sock knitting slackers, depending on your point of view). Specifically, a ped that is knit toe-up, with the monkey pattern on the top and a picot edge/bind off. This sounds like a great little ped in general huh? And it sounds totally doable in a week. Right? I even have the red yarn I was originally thinking about using for my pal just waiting to be used.

So here's my question ... do I knit the ped and cover my bases in case I am not being crazy and the original Moneys are too tight, or do I say, "Pushaw! They will fit!" and blindly go on with my current socks for me as if I don't have a care in the Sockapalooza world?



* Mistress Google has let me down and not been able to tell me where that quote really came from and the best my husband can do is tell me it was form a cartoon. Oy! Where is Miss Cleo when you need her?

Things I Shouldn't Admit

It's not often that something totally tickles me to the point of idiocy. But I confess, John from Cincinnati has done this. Last night I was knitting while HBO rebroadcast Sunday's episode, an episode so awesome that: 1) it caused Boo and I to pause it several times and ask, "WTF?"; 2) it caused us to rewind bits because we were laughing and couldn't hear the show over our own guffaws; 3) it gave me a craving to listen to the some Morrissey; and, 4) it caused Boo and I to ask each other, "Do you get it? I don't think I get it. We better save it in case we need to watch it again. Did you say you got it?"

So anywho, good stuff on the ole boob tube last night. So good that I whipped out a post it note and wrote down some of the funny lines. That would be the idiocy part of the "tickling me to the point of idiocy." Because really, what am I trying to remember and why? If I ask, "What's your policy on guests smoking herb?" You are not going to say, "Not permitted!" You are not going to laugh knowingly (though I just totally cracked myself up here). No, you are going to either have me committed to Promises (Hi Britney! Hey Lindsay!) or tell me I have to share. If I tell you to, "Baptize that fucking pistol!" in my best infomercial voice, you're not going to spew soda from your nose because you are laughing so hard. You're going to step back a few feet. Slowly. Cautiously. So there you have it, me writing down funnies from a show that only one other person watches. Me, reaching an all new level of, um, me-ness.

Also, not related to anything other than me doing dumb things, yesterday Boo and I traded cars. But I seemed to have forgotten because last night I walked up to a black car and couldn't figure out why the remote was not unlocking the door. It took a few seconds for me to realize, "Hey! This is not my black car!" And then a few more seconds to realize, "Hey! We traded cars! I'm not even driving the black car, I'm driving the green one!" Then after I found my green car, and the remote still wasn't unlocking the door, I finally realized, "Hey! This remote is not for the green car!" Yah, yesterday was quite a day.

Notwithstanding my utter blond-oddballness, I did manage to get a few more rows done on my Wild Kat socks. The gusset is done and it is time to turn some heel. Hoo-YAH!

Not the Same

Adding four packets of hot cocoa mix to one cup of water will not satisfy your craving for 1) a brownie or 2) a cookie or 3) a milk shake. It will, however, give you hot cocoa so thick that you want to sneeze, cough, or gasp as you consume it.

Prostrate

This weekend was a blur of inactivity sprinkled with times of rest. I think I slept and lounged more this weekend than I did during the entire week. I managed to leave my house occasionally. Saturday I went to breakfast knitting and Sunday I went out to dinner. Otherwise I was one with some horizontal surface. Dogbert is ready to disown me since her weekend foray into the wilderness was canceled so that I could concentrate on creating a perfect ass impression on the couch. Cat, however, was quite pleased with the lounging and napping and relaxing and planted himself on my lap so as to help my ass sink into the couch a little further and make that perfect ass impression. Though I mostly did nothing other than breathe, something I also worked on perfecting, my sock grew a little.



I am working on the Wild Kat sock, the pattern that came with June's Tofutsie limited edition color sock yarn. I think it is a sock club type of thing, but my LYS had it and I thought I would give it a try.

I am modifying the hell out of the pattern, making it a toe-up ped, with the lace pattern of the leg being the top part of the foot as opposed to the recommended ribbing and I'm using my own gusset/heel preference and have futzed with the stitch count so that it will fit my giganto foot. I really liked the pattern of the leg and had an insane itch to knit it, but didn't want a full sock. It could be because it feels as if I am knitting super fine thread with unbent staples (size US 0 needles). This is thin yarn and super skinny needles, and a row consists of a gagillion stitches. I suspect these peds will take the same amount of time it would take to knit a normal pair of socks so I definitely didn't see a full length sock in my future.



I did think about starting another pair of sideways socks before I whipped out the Tofutsies and even picked out a yarn form the stash. But I hesitated because the sideways sock and me, we don't seem to play well. As you may recall, the first (several) attempts went down in a fiery blaze and the second one was eaten by the ether. Is the third time the charm? I dunno, I'm going to ponder it. But in the meantime, I am going to work on the Tofutsies and practice napping.

Mystery Unveiled

What do you when you lose your primary knitting project and a few days later your friend, Opa, jokingly requests that you knit him a poodle wine bottle cover? Why, you take that request seriously and you knit him a poodle wine bottle cover.

You can click on any of the pictues to view them larger.

I'm totally smitten with my poodle. And if I was any kind of wine drinker, this baby would not be leaving my home. But fortunately for Opa, any wine bottles that come into my house are emptied pretty quickly. I did find an old bottle of wine in the back of the fridge that I was able to use for final photograph pictures, which was good (and also weird because there was less than one good solid swig in the bottle so why we kept it, I have no idea). I had used a Grey Goose vodka bottle as a test dummy (since the wine bottle was as of then undiscovered) while I was knitting along, but it wasn't shaped quite right for this pattern. That vodka bottle is a little too tall and thin. Opa is lucky I didn't have any Absolut chillin' because I think the poodle would have fit that bottle a lot better and this poodle just may have become a Connecticut resident! Assuming my husband didn't make the poodle "mysteriously" disappear. Husband, not a lover of the poodle.

I followed Erika Knight's pattern in Simple Knits With a Twist. The pattern called for some Rowan cotton yarn, but because I know Opa, and because Monsieur Poodle is going to be used around stain makers (i.e., red wine and Opa), I substituted Sugar 'n Cream. Also, I had no idea what I was doing, so I figured it would be better to mess around with the cheaper stuff (though I don't think the Rowan is uber expensive or that I saved a whole lot of money). Both are one hundred percent cotton and I got gauge with the Sugar 'n Cream. Having not touched, seen, or tested the Rowan, I am not sure how they compare in person, but the Sugar 'n Cream was fine for poodle purposes. I found the yarn to be a little splity, but nothing too bad. This may be a function of cotton. I've never knit with it before so I'm not sure. I think a nice wool yarn would work okay, as would a high end acrylic.




The pattern itself was fine. Nothing too complex; though I did need some help figuring out why my stitch count was off in the beginning. Something about reading the pattern ... yah yah. There is a whole lot of seed stitch going on which was a bummer since I am not a big fan of the knitting of the seed stitch. It makes a pretty fabric though, so I used it and I am glad I did. I followed the pattern with only minor modifications when it came to the pompoms. I added a tail! What poodle doesn't have a poofy tail I ask you?



I suspect the tail was omitted in the pattern because good god you have to make a lot of pompoms. Let me just say now, I am not a very good pompom maker. I thought I was until I had to make so many! I suspect I could make better ones if I bought the gadget, but up until now my fingers always did the trick. If I ever decide to go into the poodle wine bottle cover making business, I am so buying one of the pompom making gadgets! I'm also hiring KAN who kindly helped me with some pompom making. She is an expert pompom maker and the only reason M. Poodle has face pompoms.




Yarn: Lily, Sugar 'n Cream, Color Hot Blue, #01742, Dye Lot #161771, 1 and 1/2 skeins
Needles: Susan Bates Quicksilver Circs, size 4.5 mm (US 7)
Pattern: Retro Poodle Bottle Cover, Simple Knits With a Twist by Erika Knight
Time: 4 days.
Care: Hand wash cool, dry flat.

Tease

I forgot that I had taken this picture to tease y'all with the mystery project ... and to bitchily rub in my fabulous beach knitting environment.



You've got to love a Beach Knitting Weekend! Thanks TWG!

Desculpe, não falo português.

The mystery project, or the project I haven't photographed because I can't find my camera or I am lying about it and have my camera and just want to be mysterious, not to be confused with Mystery Stole 3, a project that has beading with a crochet hook, something I learned this weekend and would totally be working on if only I had actually really read the info on the Mystery Stole 3 in time, well THAT mystery project is almost done. I worked on it last night while watching the Home Run Derby. A Home Run Derby that won me a five minute massage (Thank you Alex Rios!), despite being extremely boring.

During my knitting derby time, I realized I have to take a trip to the store for a VERY important component. Something I thought I had, and very well may have had had at one point, but have since lost. Assuming I can find the thing at the store, and then get it home without losing it, or anything else, then I should be able to finish it tonight. If I can manage this, which as recent events have shown is somewhat iffy, then, I will give a great big unveiling at SnB on Wednesday and if that goes well, then on the blog. Though I am nervous. Let's just say that the reception of the mystery knitted goodness by the one person who saw said mystery goodness, my loving supportive husband, well, it was somewhere along the lines of "Good God! I can't believe you are actually making that. I shall never get this image out of my head. I think you must now provide me with financial compensation for ruining my retinas."

Speaking of all things vision, I have found two missing items ... the contact lens solution and the pen. Mind you these are two of the shittier items I lost and not the items I would choose to recover, if only two items were recoverable. I think there is a lesson in there somewhere. Like if you are going to wish on a shooting star, be specific ... Star light, star bright, blah blah blah I wish I find ALL of my stuff tonight.

P.S. The shower glove is the best invention for the shower since ... um, soap? Anywho, they are gloves, made of somewhat scratchy material, that you use like a wash cloth in the shower so that you exfoliate and cleanse all at once. The material is light and airy so that it is bendy and flexible (unlike a loofah glove which is not bendy and flexible) and it dries off pretty quickly. Comparatively, the wash cloth neither exfoliates nor dries quickly and is a big ole dud.

I am in no way endorsing this company, all my gloves came from H20 Plus back when it made the gloves extra scratchy (and BeFri worked there and always seemed to get them for free), nonetheless, here is a link to several variations so that you can see what I mean. If you have never used a shower glove, and you decided to give 'em a try, prepare to be wowwed. I would recommend that you look for the scratchier ones as part of the wow factor is the extra good exfoliation.

P.P.S. Desculpe, não falo português. = Sorry, I don't speak Portuguese Senhor Spammer, so don't leave your junk in my blog trunk.

Property Dementia

My damn sock is still friggin missing and I am not happy about it. I wasn't in love with the sock per se. I have another pair of socks in that yarn that I like well enough because of the fit and style. But, eh. The yarn, it always looked dirty to me. I like the colors in general, but together, dirty. The needle, it didn't really light my fire. Oh, and it still turned my finger black. The stitch markers, well them I liked, but I can make more. Nonetheless, despite my overall apathy about the project itself, I am still irked. How could I lose it?!? What the hell is wrong with me? I went back to the bookstore to see if anyone turned it in to lost and found.

As an aside, I have to tell you what I did in hopes that talking about my dorkishness will atone for said dorkishness. I somehow reverted to my inner child, embarrassed about my inability to keep track of my stuff, and while at the lost and found area I claimed I was checking for a "friend" who I knit with on Wednesday nights at that store who had lost her knitting just two nights before. I admitted to being a knitter who knits a that store. But I couldn't seems to acknowledge that it was my knitting that was MIA. In hindsight (and even at the time) I realize my fabrication was both lame and slightly Sybil. Didn't stop me from making up a friend though. Me = Dork.

So back to my missing sock. I not only checked the lost and found "for my friend," I checked the area around where we knit (except for the actual chair that I sat in because there was a dude sitting in it and I thought he might get weird if I started groping around his ass area). So I can only assume my sock is gone. Like gone daddy gone. I love you Violent Femmes. This makes me sad and angry. Also, a bit fearful, because I am sensing a trend.

This weekend a friend hosted a lovely girls/knitting weekend at her family's beach cottage. I know I packed up all of my stuff when I left and I left nothing behind. I know everything I own made it into my car. So, it is a great mystery to me how I managed to lose my prescription-I-need-these-to-see-because-I-am-blind-as-hell-without-them-glasses, some contact lens solution, a shower glove, a pink hair clip, a measuring tape, my brain, a pen, my blue tooth hands-free ear piece thing, a bracelet, and probably a few more things which I have yet to need so I don't know they are missing or that I can't see that are missing because I don't have my glasses. Of my lost items, I found one. The shower glove. And, truth be told, I didn't find it. My friend did. Lying on the ground by the trunk of my car. Which I am sure was a fate that was similar to my sock, without the whole "finding the lost thing" part.

In sum, I need a keeper. Also, have you seen my stuff?

Even though I can't seem to keep my shit together, I decided to start a new knitting project. A project which I almost finished this weekend but just has a few finishing details. Normally I would give you an in-progress picture or two, but since I am so close to the end, I'll keep you in suspense. Oh, and I might also have just maybe "misplaced" my camera.

MISSING

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SOCK?



Who:
One part of one Sidewinder. Looks sort of like the picture above, with a few less errors and a little more toe.

Where:
Last seen July 4, 2007, at 9:30p.m., at Barnes & Noble.

Known Consorts:
Addi Turbo Lace needle, size one and several stitch markers.

Additional Information:
May have run away with needle and markers feeling unwanted and under appreciated after having been tossed in knitting bag with ickrylic. At last meeting with knitter exchanged disparaging comments with said knitter (e.g., "Why are you sucking sock?" "Why don't you know how to purl through the back loop knitter?" "Stop sucking smelly sock!" "Stop purling through the front loop assmunch!").

** Approach with caution. May be sockicidal. **

Ramblings

I have a huge piece of lettuce stuck in my teeth. Which really, considering my teeth, is not all that weird being that I have a gaping space back by my molars, which as far as gaping spaces between your teeth goes, is not such a bad place to have it. No one can see it and I've never needed braces. Just dental floss. But I digress, the lettuce, it is being fidgety and anti-dental floss. It is irking me. So there you have it. I'm irked because lettuce, it is being digestive resistant.

I'm also not feeling the whole work vibe. Which considering me and my job, is not surprising. Also, Crazy is on hyperspeed crazy, which fuels my desire to not work and say, pick at the lettuce stuck in my teeth instead. This morning she was very concerned as to why I was at the town hall and not in the office. She quizzed multiple people about this. Guess updating my notary stuff, stuff that I have only because the office needed a notary, well I guess that is really personal time. She wanted to dock me time. I told her she couldn't dock me for the notary time, but she could dock me for the time it took me to walk over to Starbucks when I had finished the notary stuff.

It use to be that I was not much of a Starbucks fan and often thought its coffee tasted like ass (or what I assume ass would taste like, should I ever have a cup 'o ass). When I visited Seattle, I tried every Starbucks I passed hoping to find a winner. I never did. I think I spent about two hundred bucks on various coffee drinks that I threw away. I suppose it was my taste buds and not Starbucks that changed because now, I have a few things I like. Opa first introduced me to the chai latte which I cottoned to like a hooker to crack. From there I found the fat free latte and the Java Chip frap. The plain ole coffee, still ass-like if you ask me, but the peripherals, they rock. So today, when I fell in love with a new peripheral, the ham, cheddar, egg sandwich, well, I was willing to be docked the ten minutes it took to purchase that bad boy because DAMN it was DELISH! It was also surprisingly filling in that I couldn't finish my lunch this afternoon. Either that or my clothes are so tight that the space needed for my lunch to reside was being squashed up against my rib cage. I'm going to give the Starbucks sandwich the benefit of the doubt (and maybe I don't want to face the possibility of my clothes being so tight that I shouldn't be going to Starbucks in the first place).

Which brings me to now, where I am feeling pleasantly plump and a little sleepy and not the least bit motivated to work. I'd knit, but my knitting is in the car. I was trying to make myself work today and to do that I left my knitting in the car. Distancing the temptation or something. My knitting projects are not really lighting a fire under my ass, so I don't think I want to travel the stairs of death to go get them and work on them. For anyone who is following along, I am back to my Sidewinders (having ripped out the whole damn thing up to the provisional cast on and started all over the night before last) and am also working on the kangaroo sweater. Because really, it is nine hundred degrees out, could there possibly be a better time to knit a heavy wool sweater? I do have in my car a CD that I just purchased. A new album I like enough that it very well could give my JT album a run for it's money. Should I feel like braving the stairs of death, I think I would do it more for some tunes than for my knitting.

Oh, and not related to anything at all above, I almost messed my self earlier. I wanted to sign into my blog and made a typo. I type http:\\southparkrepub.blogPSot.com, instead of SPot, and ended up on a bible school site. Yes, bible school. For a good minute or two I thought someone had hacked my little ole atheist blog to put up Jesus stuff. It took some careful reading for me to see that it was all user error and not diabolical hacking or weird divine intervention. Once I saw that it was my goof, then I was okay, well, but for the lettuce in my teeth.

Evil

Dear Stairs,

You suck big hairy mutilated monkey balls.

Love,
She Who Can't Stop Falling Down You And Now Has A Pain In Her Knee And A Swollen Purple Toe Which Is So Not Cool Especially In The Summer When I Want To Wear Sandals But Can't Because Hello Big Swollen Icky Toe.

Surfing With My Monkeys?

I didn't finish the laundry, paint my toe nails, scrub the stove, or black top the driveway this weekend, but I did do something. Oh yes I did! I finished my
Pals' Monkeys during a John From Cincinnati marathon. And I'm not sure quite where to go with this. Do I tell you about the socks or the show? Because dude, that show is WEIRD! Wickey wackety, what the hell is happening, that may have been funny but I still don't get it, weird. We had DVR'd the show and this weekend and while the husband was away, I had a chance to watch all four hours of, um, what, I don't get it. Of course no one I know is watching this, and the husband hasn't had a chance to watch it yet, so I can't ask WHAT THE HELL? The show has made me laugh which may be because I am too dumb to get it, or it might really be funny, either way I am sticking with it and hope to get a handle on what is going on sometime soon. So I am confused by the show (and a little in love with Austin Nichols) and I have a real urge to go surfing, which in light of my natural ability (none), and despite the hours of surf lessons I took in Hawaii (I mean, shouldn't I be able to learn to surf there of all places?), is ridiculous. I should NOT be near a surf board unless I am using it as a raft to perfect my tan.

So, that is my take on John From Cincinnati, which could have been said in one sentence instead of a whole paragraph. To wit, I don't understand this show but I'm going to keep on watching because I heart John.



Even though I was stumped by the show, I was I able to complete the Monkeys. I am pleased with how they came out, and I hope my pal is too! The color in the the middle picture right above it pretty spot on, when you are close up. When you back away the color does change to something similar to the color in the first and last pictures. It's neat. The socks are a little loose on me so I believe they will fit my pal perfectly since her feet are a little bigger than mine. Please, oh please, let them fit! Let there be enough ease! Now I just need to pack them up all nice and pretty, wait for August 2, and hope that she likes them!



Yarn: Lorna Laces, Shepherd Sock, Color 302, Jungle Stripe
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Monkey (modified to add eight more stitches)
Time: 20 days.
Care: Machine washable.