September Trip, I

This past weekend I flew to Florida to surprise BeFri for her wedding shower.* The surprise was probably not that much of a surprise as she said, "I just couldn't imagine you not coming." But the surprise real, feigned, or non-existent, the shower and the trip were a lot of fun.

I arrived late on Friday night and stayed with BeFri's sister at their relative's house. And by house I mean mansion. Not McMansion, but a full on 24,000 square foot mansion. I brought the sweater with me because I had an assload of time on flights and layovers, but in the end I didn't get much sweater knitting done. I did, however, get pictures with the sweater in the mansion because, well, that is what I do.

Here is the sweater with a World Series Trophy and with a Vince Lombardi trophy!



The sweater was getting freaked out during the photo session because the help, and yes, I just used the word "help" to describe people, who the hell am I? The help, in particular, the head lady help, she kept checking in on me, the weirdo taking pictures of the valuables. Or rather, the weirdo taking pictures of the valuables with what looked like a wadded up blanket. Since the sweater was shy I put her away and took a few more pretty shots when the help was not looking (which I'm sure fueled the fear that I was in fact casing the place and not merely taking pictures of things simply because they were neat).



This is the view from the master suite, and incidentally, I now understand why there is something called a "master suite" and to all you posers out there like me that think having a walk-in closet and a bathroom attached to your bedroom renders it a "master suite" know that that is not true and we are merely deluding ourselves. In fact, the guest room that I stayed in was more of a master suite than my stuff at home. It 1) was bigger than my master bedroom; 2) had a larger, fancier bathroom than any of the bathrooms in my house including my master bath; 3) had a walk-in closet larger than my house's guestroom; and, 4) had a partial loft which was about the size of my master bedroom. But let's move on.



Here is a picture of art. Real art. Like art you would find in a museum but instead it's in some one's actual house. Real art that probably has an insurance policy more sophisticated and higher valued than my homeowners policy.



What is so neat about this particular piece (yes, first it was the help and now it is the piece, I'm a freak with the vocabulary of someone in a much higher socio-economic class than that of which I am actually in!) is that it isn't a painting but instead is a gazillion tiny pieces of Venetian glass mosaic tile thingamajigs jammed together to make a picture. I'm sure the artsy fartsy term is not "jammed in" nor is it "tiny pieces of Venetian glass mosaic tile thingamajigs" but I don't know how else to describe it. So there ya go. Oh and the art, it had it's own label and description, like in a museum, but not, because it was in the foyer. Also, like the master suite, you may think you have a foyer, but you don't, not really.

So after ogling the nice house and embarrassing the hell out of my sweater with all of my picture taking/ducking the help, I readied myself for the shower, as in the bridal shower, not my bathing shower, though I did that too, in a steam shower which was more complex than the cockpit of a jet and made me twitch when trying to figure out how to turn on only one jet/faucet because the others were shooting at me all willy nilly and freaking me out. So the shower, the bridal shower.

There was some prep work done in which my surprise appearance was suppose to be ensured. That is to say, I didn't show up with BeFri's sister, but was instead snuck through the back door of a clothing store across the street and placed in a holding pattern until BeFri couldn't see me and then led across the street having to squat as I walked because my "blockers" were all six inches shorter than me.

But I did arrive and BeFri did act suitably surprised and so the ruse made everyone feel good. Like we were slick, even if we weren't. Which BeFri won't confirm or deny for certain.



The shower was at a paint-your-own-pottery store and BeFri had picked out plates, cups and colors for use to do. I being well prepared (or crazy and anal and nervous that mine would suck without having a DETAILED plan) had practiced drawing mine and even enlisted the help of a real artist to give me a template with which to work from. I was really pleased with my plate.



That is until BeFri's sister decided to put Van Gogh's Starry Night on a cup.



Now at first glance you might think Starry Night is not terracotta orange in color but know that this Starry Night won't be terracotta orange either. The glazes were fancy schmancy and all go on in shades of terracotta but then fire into different blues and greens and yellows. Hopefully BeFri will send me a picture of the finished products so that I can show you the magic of ... fire? A kiln? Magic something.

In addition to painting pottery we also got to eat. And boy did I eat. Specifically I ate the hell out of some cake. The cake was so awesome that even the sweater came out of hiding to check it out. The muggles, however, were freaked out by the sweater, and she got all nervous and ran back into her bag.



BeFri was not forced to open her gifts in front of everyone, which is good because she is so not into that. And also, some of the gift's were, um, unique. Like this.





What the hell is this? Half a sweater? BeFri was going with a shawl "like rich people wear to the country club" but I thinking that this is a bridal shower gift and should be homey or something am going with apron. Thus far no one else is seeing the apron idea.

She also got some slightly used lingerie in that the giver decided to try it on herself to make sure it would fit BeFri. Can we get a collective EWWWWW? One more time, EWWWWW, because what the fuk is that all about trying a thong on yourself to make sure it would fit your friend? Honestly, I could not make that up. The giver was so excited about the gift that she made BeFri open it after the shower officially ended, but before she got home. Dirty Giver proceeded to tell BeFri, as she was opening it, that she had tried it on and so knew it would fit (despite being eight inches taller and about seventy pounds heavier than BeFri). Yuck.

After we deloused BeFri, she and I went back to her house and she and her fiancé opened the gifts. Including the aforementioned APRON. Later she and I went out to eat and had some of the best spinach and artichoke dip ever at Houston's. Damn that stuff is good.

The next morning we woke up early and went to breakfast at a local jewish deli which was also delish and then I caught my plane home. Well one of my planes, because hello layover I hate you. I did manage to knit on my second flight. The flight that was so ridiculously short that there wasn't even beverage service. So I didn't actually get much done. But the little bit I did finish included ATTACHING THE POCKET. Woot Woot!

I now have about seven thousand inches of straight stockinet to go before some neck shaping. Oh the joy!


*FYI, in case you are ever enacting a surprise similar to this surprise, I suggest you have a back up plan, just in case. Ya see, had I truly surprised BeFri and had she had plans for Saturday night or Sunday, I would have been screwed, and also stranded with no place to stay and no way to get to the airport to get home, having been sold on the following by BeFri's sister ... "So, we won't tell BeFri you are coming. I'll pick you up at the airport Friday night, we'll stay a X's, and then Saturday we'll go to the shower. You can then go home with BeFri and spend Saturday night and Sunday with her and then she can take you to the airport." Which is a great plan unless, like I said before, BeFri had had plans. I realized the potential disaster at the last minute (and by "I" I mean my husband who said, "What are you going to do if BeFri has plans?" and to which I said, "Shit!") and made a back up plan with Opa which turned out unnecessary. But my point, as long winded as it is, is have a back up plan should you travel fourteen hundred miles to surprise someone.

No So Full Of It After All

I am tied for first place in The Football Pool!

Coincidentally, I am tied with the only other girl, who happens to be my friend and someone I recruited for the pool. That's right, I/we rock. Looks like I wasn't just just talking smack after all. And yah, yah, I know this was only the first game, but it is also an omen. An omen of my dominance! Wahaha.

Now if I could get that dominance going on the blasted sweater, that'd be great.

Football

I love me some college football. Having grown up attending games of National Championship teams, first as a kid then as a student, this is not surprising. So, on Saturday as I sat watching my beloved Hurricanes whomp on some Marshall butt, I thought it might be fun to have a college football pool. I tried to convince my husband of this, but he thought that a college football pool would kick my ass when teams like Podunk U. played C. Fla. Not convinced of my NCAA prowess, he poohpoohed the idea but suggested a NFL pool (something about less teams to tax my brain, what-ever). Well things evolved and now we have a pool. A real pool in which several of his manly man sports smart friends have joined. A pool in which I plan to kick some ass and dominate. A pool in which I plan to win so that I can buy me some Clapotis yarn with all of this manly man money (and a little bit of money from my non-manly man friends who join)! Of course, my best laid plans often go wickety wack and all my trash talking might just be a prelude to me coming in dead ass last and forking $20 over to some testosterone ridden, addle brained fool. But that's okay, I think it's going to be fun. Even if I suck.

I tend to have a lot of fun doing things I totally suck at, like bowling and mini golf and playing HORSE and tennis. In fact, the suckier I am, the more fun I have and the more trash I talk, thus convincing people I am not so sucky and then ruining their expectations of some sort of competitive game when they see my true level of my suckdom. But by then it is already too late since they are in the middle of a game with me. Wahaha. It is all part of my master plan. Yah, as if I have a plan.

But seriously, I am so going to win this football pool. This isn't even me talking smack. I have until tonight to have my teams picked and you know what, I am already done. Yep, I have thoroughly researched (those Cowboy's kinda have a cute quarterback and those Ravens have a lot of Hurricane players) and made educated, well informed decisions (eeny, meeny, miny, moe). I am so ready to win me some yarn!

Nuthin' Doin'

I've been busy cranking away on my Kangaroo Duo, which sounds like I should have a bunch of progress to show you. But eh, not so much. I'm still not even ready to join my pocket to my front. But I have a goal. My goal is to finish this sweater in time to wear to Rhinebeck. It will be my very first Rhinebeck Sweater. In years past it seemed the internet was full of people knitting 'Rhinebeck Sweaters.' I've started to hear some rumblings again, and have even seen a really cute sweater ready for this year, so I figured, why not join the masses. Maybe if I have a goal, I can crank out this sweater (knit stupidly on US4, 3.5mm, teeny tiny needles) sometime before I die. So I shall toil away on it until I finish, and not go yarn shopping for Clapotis, which makes me very sad.

To help me reach my goal, I've been knitting while I watch the boob tube. The husband and I were searching for a new show since nothing good has been on and since yet another show we liked was not picked up. Some internet surfing led me to Dexter and the husband approved, which was great since I didn't have a back up plan. So $13 later, we were Showtime subscribers on our way to Miami with a serial killer. I was a little leery at first because I'd look at Dexter and see David but kudos to Michael C. Hall for putting that to an end real quick. Let me tell you, Dexter is a great show and I totally recommend it. Through the miracle of OnDemand in about two weeks we were able to enjoy season one. Immensely. But the last few episodes, man, they had me hiding behind a pillow and cringing and squirming and doing many things other than knitting. That show built some tension. Some major I'm-scared-and-don't-want-to-look-but-I-have-to-but-no-oh-god-what's-happening-I-can't-stand-this type tension. So in summary, Dexter = good for watching, bad for knitting.

And, not related to anything else mentioned above, Rebecca nominated me for Rockin' Girl Blogger which is both very nice and somewhat confusing since I see myself as more dork than rockin'. I mean I talk like a fucking rock star, fuckin-a I do, but otherwise ... I dunno. I'm flattered, thanks Rebecca!



As for my nominees, here are a few ladies whose blogs I enjoy, none of whom I've met in person, and none of whom have offered me any money for said nominations ... Barb P, Nicole, and Susan. Not that I'm not totally open to bribery - if you'd like to pay me for a nomination, we can talk!

That's Weird

Recently it seems there have been several signs that the apocalypse may in fact be real and knocking on my door. So, lest you think I am crazy, I share with you the top four (I know four is a queer number but the fifth sign has not shown itself yet, so we are going with four) signs that the apocalypse is here.

Four - Yarn. As in, I have all of this beautiful plentiful yarn, and yet I don't have enough of anything suitable for a Clapotis. How is this possible? It's like, so unbelievable, kinda of like ...

Three - A rookie throws a no hitter in his second game start. And he plays for the Red Sucks. This should not be possible. Greatness isn't suppose to rise from shit.

Two - Flies. We've been bombarded with house flies and we don't know where they came from. Last night we (and by we I totally mean my husband, I just kind of directed) killed five muthafukin flies. They appeared out of no where while we were watching a movie. We don't leave the doors open, we don't even open our windows which all have screens. We are a hermetically sealed, air conditioned loving type people content to lounge in and breath our recycled air. Also, we took the dead body out of the basement over a week ago. There is absolutely no reason for the flies.

And finally, the number one sign that the apocalypse may be real and on it's way - My used purse is worth more than our used car. Yes folks, after multiple inquiries into the seedy underbelly of car dealings, it seems that my purse is worth about $200 more than our car. Yes the car has 220,000 miles on it. But still. The car runs, transports my husband 18 miles to work and 18 miles home each day. It can transport four, somewhat comfortably, hundreds of miles. My purse can't do that. It spends the majority of its time loafing on someone or something else. It swings on my arm or chills on a hook in my office, holding things like gum wrappers and receipts. Again I ask, how is this possible. And, in a delicious little twist, the guy that "valued" our car saw my purse and commented on how he use to get them in Germany for $10. Yes, he thought my purse, that is worth more than my car, was fake.

You may want to utilize a five foot buffer zone when interacting with me should I spontaneously combust.

You Can Never Have Too Many Pictures

Last night I made a somewhat embarrassing admission at SnB. You see, years ago, when I was really, REALLY, REALLY, young, I wrote a fan letter. To an actor. There was this television show called Knight Rider. Maybe you've heard of it? Talking car, tragic protagonist? Anyway, there was this actor in the show named David Hasselhoff. Today I believe he is known as "The Hoff." And, well, when I was young, I liked The Hoff more than I'd like to now admit. And, as an adoring VERY YOUNG fan, I wrote him a letter, a fan letter if you will, the only fan letter I ever wrote. And because my brain sucks and likes to torture me by letting me forget important things like, oh, my anniversary or my phone number, but remembering unnecessary things, I can perfectly recall the letter written in my little girl scrawl. I remember the letter verbatim and it maybe contained words like "love" and "marriage" and it might have been written in a red felt tip pen. And remembering this as an adult, it might make me blush. It might be one of the few things in the entire world that can make me blush because hello, David Friggen Hasselhoff? Although props to my eight year old self for crushing on a celeb who seems to have serious staying power and has not yet faded into oblivion, and boo to The Hoff who NEVER wrote me back (What's up with that Hoff? You weren't that famous then! Couldn't write to an eight year old girl? Send her a head shot? Not even a form letter acknowledging her correspondence? What. Ever. I am SO over you.). Anyway, so last night I admitted that I wrote this fan letter and a dear friend forwarded me this awesome, AWESOME picture, which I now share with you, because I love. Yes, I am a lover. Enjoy.



Speaking of pictures ... Seems I went a little nutty with the photographing of my Mini-Monkeys. I was on the stairs. It was late. The husband was at a Yankee game. The animals were hiding from me. I got carried away.



These Monkeys were originally intended for my Sockapalooza Pal Sandy as a back up pair in case the first pair I knit didn't fit. The first pair fit (yeah!) and so these became mine (yeah!²). The only down side was that they were a little loose in width. Instead of ripping back (lazy!), I decided to make them shorter thinking that the width could stretch out and compensate for length. It worked. They look funny off my feet, but they fit fine on 'em.



Several people who are probably a lot smarter than me tried to convert the pattern to a toe-up version, but, according to the down-low via Google, it didn't really work. I ended up just doing the pattern as written so they are upside down. S'all good to me. Plus, the yarn kind of mutes the pattern so I don't think people will notice. Gosh I hope not! Is there anything worse than being assaulted on a street corner by someone yelling, "You knit your Monkeys upside down. LOOOOOZZZZEERRRRR!"


Um, hmm. What happened to the colors here? Beats me. Camera = Possessed

Now that I've finished these guys, I am at weird point. I only have one work in progress. A sweater. A very big, lots of knitting left to do, and I have to pick up stitches sweater. But I made a promise to myself that I would finish this sweater before I start something else. So last night I brought (I originally was going with 'I dragged' but then I thought maybe 'I drug' and then I decided for a different word choice because my brain farted, in care you were curious) the green beast to SnB and made some progress. I worked on it a little bit last month and finished the front pocket, so last night I edged the pocket, having picked up stitches, which I did my wrong way and not the right way because I couldn't remember the right way. And then I started working on the body part, having picked up even more stitches, again the wrong way. Despite all of this stitch picking up, for all intents and purposes, I still only have one piece done. There is a rumor runnin' round that Fall is right around the corner, but being that it is suppose to be eighty-nine degrees out today, I'm skeptical. If, however, Fall did arrive, it would be nice to have this sweater ready. Also, it would be nice to have this sweater done so I can delve into fun stuff like cashmere.





Yarn: Artyarns, color (in my bag at home), 2 skeins with lots left over
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Monkey
Modifications: Added four more stitches to the pattern bit to make 'em bigger. Knit them toe up. Made peds.
Time: 29 days.
Care: Hand wash, dry flat.

It Was Late

"Woman I know you just finished those socks, but it is well after midnight. For the love of all that is holy, please, get your sock-clad feet out of my bed and LEAVE ME ALONE!"

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.