NaBloPoMo, xviii

Another day, another post where I'm phoning it in with a pair of hand-knit socks and cheap shoes and another birthday shout out! This time birthday wishes go to Opa while my socks and shoes are ...



These socks were not knit by me. They were a gift from a friend to whom I had given the yarn. The yarn gift was not because I was nice, but because the yarn was hexed and trying to drive me crazy. Despite my lack of genuinely generous intent, I was lucky and gifted with gorgeous socks. It pays to have nice friends, huh?

The shoes are cheap K-Mart specials. I bought them several years ago to wear in the rain. Now I wear them in the snow. Not that it snowed today. I wore 'em just because. If you look closely you'll see that at some point Dogeralla decided to have her way with the lace on my right shoe. She didn't totally chew it though, so I can still wear them in semi-polite company.

NaBloPoMo, xvii

It is getting late and my dinner is disagreeing with me. These two things are important as they explain why I am phoning it in on this here post. A post posted for the sole reason of meeting my NaBloPoMo obligation.



The cold weather is starting to arrive and my hand-knit socks are starting to emerge. Today I wore some of my favorites, knit last April, with a newish pair of shoes to go see No Country For Old Men. The shoes are Target specials and the movie was okay. I wanted a little more redemption in the end, but my husband he disagreed thinking that the movie was great as is. We both agreed that my socks were cool, as were my shoes. Or at least if he disagreed, he had the sense not to do it out-loud.

NaBloPoMo, xvi

Today is Joan's birthday ... shout out to Joan! Go Joan, it's your birthday! Happy Birthday!

Speaking of birthdays, remember how I was saying that the bean NEEDED to be born of 4/6/8 so I wouldn't screw up and forget its birthday? Well let's just say that I wasn't being a total smartass when I made that declaration. Though I remembered Joan's birthday, I did not remember to send out her birthday card and gift in a timely manner. Which is to say, I was planning to mail it out today. On her birthday. So she would get it Monday, not on her birthday. Whoops. But even a bigger whoops is that I don't have her new address. My great plan, which actually was kind of a sucky plan to begin with, just got worse.

Also, Dogerella? I TOTALLY forgot her birthday. Last year I remembered, and threw her a party. This year, not so much. Which is a bummer. Not only for the dog, who I know was crying on the inside despite her act of nonchalance, but also for me. Because you know me, I love me some cake. Celebrating your dog's second birthday is a great reason to have have cake. I'm thinking that maybe we should throw her a "surprise party" on Saturday. The surprise being that, Ha! It's not your birthday but mom is having cake anyway!

Even though I screwed up the dog's birthday, I've gotten some redemption ....



Remember how I was the teeniest bit bitter that Baby Girl didn't win (or place in) her doggie costume contest? Well that right there is a picture from our local newspaper, announcing the winners of the doggie costume contest. Somehow Baby Girl's picture ended up with the winners, even though she wasn't one. Obviously this means that even the newspaper people thought she should have won! Guess I wasn't just one of "those" moms after all!

NaBloPoMo, xv

Barry Bonds' screwed-upedness has mucked up my husband's day, causing him to have to work extra late; thus, mucking up my dinner plans. I no like Barry Bonds. Unfortunately, Barry's screwed-upedness isn't really all that interesting and worthy of blogging about here at Chez SouthPark. Well at least over in my half of Chez SouthPark, the husband may disagree since sports news is his bread and butter.

In any event, we're half way through NaBloPoMo and I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel for content as my knitting progress doesn't really keep interest on a day-to-day basis and the nut-jobs I work with are behaving themselves and not providing me with much blog fodder. Which is why I am whipping out an old chestnut of a finished object. Ta da:



This is a square that I knit back in August for a baby blanket for one of my fellow SnBers. She was having a boy and she and her husband were decorating his room in a nautical theme. The ladies decided to make her a baby blanket comprised of individual squares that each of us made. The rules dictated that you had to make a ten inch square in blue machine washable yarn of a specific gauge (a gauge which I have forgotten). I had offered to do a nice lacy square but that got pooh-poohed. Something about a choking hazard or having fingers caught. I dunno. I then offered to knit my name so that everyone would know which square was mine, again I was pooh-poohed. Bah. These women are picky, let me tell you.

In the end, I went with the obvious and knit up an anchor. I found the pattern here but it has been updated since I knit it so I'm not sure if it exactly like mine. I don't remember encountering any errors in the pattern, so I am not sure what was changed. In any event, I lucked out in that no one else went with the obvious nautical stuff and so mine was the only anchor. Whew!



As you can see, the back is not nearly as nice anchor wise. But, it does have the pretty knit stitches, so that is a redeeming quality, I s'pose.

Since I finished this in August, August 15, 2007, to be exact, I don't remember any of the details I usually include with my finished objects. I know it took less than four hours total and that it looks more complex than it is. I started before work, did the anchor bit during my lunch hour, and cast it off that same night. Should you ever need to knit an anchor, using stitches instead of color work, this is a great option. I do believe that you can click on the pictures to see them super big if you want to get a good look at them.

NaBloPoMo, xiv

I'm going to visit some clients in jail this afternoon. Usually this is a fun thing. I get out of the office and meet, um, interesting, people. Last time I did this though, I was invited into a cell with a madwoman. I'm not even kidding. She tried to attack the officer that was dealing with her restraints to get her to the visit. From what I gather there was some spitting and some kicking and some poking, well as much as one can kick or poke with her arms and legs cuffed. But you get the point. I respectfully declined the offer to be escorted into her her cell, citing the lack of privacy and potential breach of attorney-client confidentiality. I really wanted to site the what-are-you-friggen-nuts-I-don't-need-any-new-bruises-thanksalot thing, but took the high ground.

NaBloPoMo, xiii

Someone had a bee up her bonnet yesterday, huh? I have issues with all the fuckers in this world that think they deserve a hand-out, or even a hand-up, just because they are breathing. Lack of personal responsibility is one of my pet peeves, and with everyone telling me I should sue or something because my employer owed me more than two weeks, well, it got me going. But I'm over it. So there ya go. Let's move on to rainbows, cotton candy and knitted delights.



Why yes, those are some work-in-progress shots of my sweater! Not because the pictures are all that great or fascinating, or that my sweater sleeve is almost done; mostly because I am running out of things to say. I figure if I am going to say them again (i.e., I worked on the sleeve some more), I should at least provide pictures.

You'll notice, if you look very closely and squint, that the sleeve seems to be switching colors. This happened despite my knitting from two balls at once because I am the opposite of slick. That is to say, I did knit from two balls at once. It's just that I started at the same point, with each ball new, so that I ran out of each ball at the same time. So basically all of that switching was for not. I just created a bigger area before the color change. So, I'm a creating a new category, a new thing with knitting rules for my feeble mind, a section consisting of "notes-to-self." Now normally my note-to-self is something along the lines of, 'X sits bare-assed on public toilet seats; note-to-self, don't sit on seat after X.'* But I evolve, I learn, and I grow. So, I'm expanding my notes-to-self to include useful knitting knowledge in the hope that it prevents further calamities ...

Note-to-self, when using two balls of hand-dyed yarn to provide color uniformity or mask color non-uniformity in large knitted piece, start knitting the balls from different points so that you don't run out of the two balls at once creating one big block of what you were trying to avoid. If you mess this up you'll need to add a third ball into the mix and that is a royal pain in the arse.

Okay, well, hmmm, that is hardly a succinct little gem. I'll have to work on it. And, speaking of working on it, I found the missing jaywalker socks, so I could, hypothetically, start working on them too!

* That one is for BeFri. She was dating X and almost spit Diet Coke on me when that particular note-to-self came into fruition.

NaBloPoMo, xii

My office is actually open today, despite, you know, it being a state and federal holiday and the courts being closed and all. Which it turns out was okay, because guess what, I learned my two week maternity leave was raised to three months. You might think it was due to my amazing powers of persuasion, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit my only persuasion was something along the lines of ... Hahahahahaaaaa, did you say TWO weeks? Heheheeee. I must of misheard because I swear you said you wanted me back at work two, as in one, two, two weeks after giving birth. Wicked persuasion. It must have been my hysterical laughter. All kidding aside though, I do, honestly, believe my employer had every right to stick with the two week offer and that I am lucky that the head honcho changed his mind. Although now that he is up to three months? Done! Sold! Deal! No take-backsies!

Recently I've heard multiple stories about people having horrible work/maternity leave issues. But even as I was starting to become a member of that crew, the whole my-employer-kicks-puppies-and-pregnant-ladies crew, I would still find myself getting annoyed at people's bitching about their jobs. Ironic? Maybe. But here's the thing. Your office/job/company/employer? It doesn't owe you anything. If you don't like the conditions in which you work, or the policies of your employer, then you can quit. Does it suck? Sure. But you're not entitled to a job. You're not entitled to some mythical amount of time off. When I was facing a two week maternity leave, I had to decide what I was going to do about it. It was on me. I had to decide if I wanted to look for a new job now, quit after I have the baby and find a new job when I was ready, or wait it out and see what happened. Obviously the latter option worked for me and I didn't have to wait it out very long. But the point is, my employer owed me nothing. Yes, I've been here for over five years. Yes, I have an impeccable work record (frivolous prisoner grievances aside). Yes, I think it is the nice thing to do, to let someone take time off after having a baby. But no, I don't think my employer has to do it, or even that it owes me.

I realize that there are laws that govern big(gish) companies. I researched those very laws so I would know what my options are. So I do realize that in certain situations, the laws dictate that your employer does in fact owe you something. But for the most part, not so much. It really irks me when people whine about life not being fair. Life's not suppose to be fair. Pull up your pants, tuck in your shirt, and grow the hell up. Instead of waiting for someone to give you something, to do something for you, get it yourself, do it yourself. Maybe they have different laws in Notamerica or Utopia or Stickistanvlackia. If those laws are so great, those places so fabulous and friendly, then go there. Leave. Buh-bye. Actually DO something for once instead of whining about how someone should do something for you. Geesh.

NaBloPoMo, xi

My in-laws were here this weekend. Well, my MiL and a BiL and his wife. A tiny group compared to the herd that I married into. Only my MiL was staying with us, but that was reason enough to try to get the guestroom up and running again. Can you imagine telling your 72 year old MiL that she is crashing on the couch? So, not wanting to give up our bed ('cause we are selfish like that), we really busted ass to finish the room, and despite my oodles of snot and general malaise, we managed to get it done. Sort of. The room needs curtains and a television and some bedding newer than, say 1998. We also need to do something about the dresser in there that was my husband's from, well, way before 1998. So work still must be done, but it is back into usable condition. So I'm cool with it.

For your viewing pleasure we have some 'befores.'



Just like the last time I did some before and afters, my before pictures are really before, as in before we owned the house. But you can get the idea. See that brown wall? That is the textured wallpaper that hid a wall horrors. And see the shelves? They were painted into the wall, requiring dry wall repair when removed. I won't even get into the mess that was the carpet ... but only because the carpet is gone and I don't want to trigger some PTSD moments recalling it.



Now we have freshly repaired, primed and painted walls and real hardwood floors. We also have 'bookings' for the next couple of weekends. So hopefully we didn't miss something critical and none of our guests get beat up by a falling wall or a previously unseen floor tack.

NaBloPoMo, x

Despite what you've heard, or rather haven't heard, I have done some knitting. On my sweater. If only because I misplaced the socks I was working on. D'oh! I'm about three inches closer to the end of this sleeve than I was before. Doesn't make for exciting picture so you'll just have to believe me. The upside is that with all of the decreases, my sleeve is starting to pickup speed.

NaBloPoMo, ix

Bonus points for everyone! If you guessed, you were right. All of my whining was true. But today, today is a much better day. Not only did I have a fifty-five year old curmudgeonly man use the work "yeppers" (as in, yes, sure, no problem, yeppers) twice while talking to me, I got to see these gems on the back of a correctional officer's truck.



Can you make those beauties out? No, let me make 'em bigger ...



Seriously dudes, who in the hell puts that on his car? I'm assuming it is a him, but that is totally gender bias on my part. After seeing that as I was walking into work, I just had to laugh. I mean life, it could be worse. I could be married to the person that owns this car!

NaBloPoMo, viii

Today has been a rough day. The type of day where you just have to laugh at the absurdity because otherwise, you might kill someone. Bonus points if you can figure out if today has sucked thus far because ...

• my cold, it still lingers;


• last night I forgot to bring home the file I needed for court this morning, and only remembered this morning when I was thirty minutes past my office, causing me to have to turn around and go pick it up, thus back tracking and adding an extra hour to my morning drive;


• my pinkie finger hurts as I somehow slammed it in between my car door and the mirror of the car next to me in the courthouse parking garage;


• my case that was set for ten o'clock was not heard until eleven thirty so I got to stand around in tall, uncomfortable shoes for an hour and a half;


• the first thing that I was greeted with when I walked into my office this afternoon was a client grievance sitting on the top of my desk; or


• I am being offered two weeks, unpaid, as my maternity leave.

NaBloPoMo, vii

My pants don't fit well. This in and of itself would not be the end of the world, had I not discovered the unfittingness during my drive to work when it was way too late to change my pants. You see, my pants, they fit fine when I'm standing up. When I sit down, it's NO GOOD. So when I got dressed and was messing around the house, they were great. By the time I got to work, breathing was a challenge. Add in the fact that I am trying to breathe through gallons of snot and well, life here is not pretty.

In fact, it is so unpretty that I have found myself unable to sleep, unable to read, unable to knit, and unable to watch tv. Put these things together and you have a very boring Jenna. I am (probably) on the mend, so let's hope that by tomorrow I'll have something to tell you about other than my snot. Otherwise this will be a really long NaBloPoMo for everyone concerned ... and I may resort to telling you stories about the old people trying to learn how to vote using those high tech things called "scantron forms" which is only funny when you are sick as hell and slightly delusional. And, maybe also funny when the 80 year old man who was complaining that he wants the "simple, common sense" lever system reinstated causes you to reflect back to when you relocated to a new state and had to give up hanging chads for the lever system, a system that made NO SENSE, and that you needed to have explained to you.

NaBloPoMo, vi

Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning, I contracted the plague. Surprising since I just got over the plague from last month. I guess my immune system really is busy working on other stuff. I knew I was sick when I decided that my dinner could consist of three of the gawdawful banana Reese's things that had been left on the end table next to the couch for some unsuspecting fool. So in the end, I spent last night with kleenex jammed up my nostrils and cough drops chilling in the back of my throat. I sat there for hours thinking of sleep instead of actually sleeping. It was truly lovely. Lovely like being stretched on the rack or poked in the eye with a stick.

Speaking of sticks ... or not, my husband was able to remove the carpet and the tack strips from the guest room floor. Now we have a slightly holey, slightly dirty, hardwood floor. Should the planets realign and my head drain, I hope to get the room done by Thursday so I can do some more work on my sweater. If not, well, there still are those three banana Reese's cups.

NaBloPoMo, v

Day five of NaBloPoMo and not only do I have nothing (interesting, funny, exciting) to report, I also still can't type NaBloPoMo for squat. I don't have any new knitting to show you, and the one picture I took of my socks to say, "Hey look I really did knit!" Well, it looked like the last picture I posted of the socks, so why bother? I didn't get much more knitting done after my airplane knitting, since I spent yesterday working on our guest room.

A few weeks back my husband got a wild hair about the wallpaper in the guest room and decided to rip it all off. It was this thick, textured, almost grassy type stuff that I didn't find too horrible. But apparently he did because, poof! It was gone. Which is great, but the glue behind the wallpaper? Not gone. Also, the walls? In shit ass shape. So for the past few days we have worked and worked and worked. Well, he has worked and worked and worked, I maybe only worked. But we've got the ceiling and the walls cleaned, repaired, primed and painted. Now we are on to the ripping up of the carpet and the removal of tack strips on the floor and then painting the molding. Once that is done we have to clean it up, reload the furniture, and we'll be ready to roll. Which doesn't seem like too much work. But for the fact that the work, it has to be done by Friday because my MiL is coming up on Saturday and going to be staying in there.

I'm sure we'll get the room done in time (I'm not sure at all, I am totally bluffing here), but the real question is, will I get my hair to behave by then? Last week I got my own wild hair and decided that I wanted bangs. I'm not sure what I was thinking. But now I've got em. This whole willy-nilly-I-want-bangs-thing is not unprecedented.

In March of 2006, I gave myself bangs. I had eaten six, yes 6, oatmeal cream patty/cookie Little Debbie things and ended up on a sugar/oatmeal high. A high so diabolical that it seemed totally logical to give myself a haircut. Despite my oatmeal/sugar induced euphoria, I did realize that cutting my own hair, and hacking off six inches or so RIGHT IN THE FRONT might not be the smartest thing to do. So, as a precaution, I cut the bangs about an inch too long. What that extra inch was gonna do as a precaution beats the hell out of me, but that is what I did. I ended up with bangs that rested nicely on my eyeballs.

Remembering this tale of woe, I decided to have a professional cut my hair. And she did a lovely job. A job so lovely that I have a hard time duplicating it. I got the bangs to do right once, on Friday night, which if I had to pick one time not to have them all wonkily curled, was the perfect time being that people were taking pictures and stuff. Every other time, however, they have given me a headache (literally, somehow ten wispy pieces of hair on half of my forehead gave me a headache) and I've eventually pulled them back.

So the big burning question (well questions, as I have two in there) this week will be, can we finish the room, and if so, will it help me get my hair to do right?

NaBloPoMo, iv

I am back from Miami, with a little more life experience than I had when I left. And, surprisingly, that extra life experience didn't come from my conversation with Janet Reno (with whom I schmoozed like I was some big shot or something) or from suffering through one of the worst quaterbacked games in the history of football. No, it came from a conversation I overheard in the ladies room at the Orange Bowl.

I was behind two women as I walked into the restroom and from the snippets of conversation I caught, I learned that they were mother/daughter and that they were talking about a boy the daughter had brought home for her mom to meet. As we each entered the stalls and started to do what one does when one is in a bathroom, the mom said, "I have to tell you, I have exceptional gaydar and that boy is not not sleeping with you because he cares about you and wants to make it special."

NaBloPoMo, iii

I'm in Miami today ... Bienvenido o Miami! I'm basically here for twenty-four hours. I jetted in last night to watch my family receive a post-humus award on behalf of my aunt and today I am catching a Hurricane game and jetting home. It makes me sound much more adventurous that I am. Jet setter, ha!

I got some knitting done on my socks the way down. The sweater is just too big to schlep when I only am using a carry on for all of my stuff. I can't post a progress shot from here, but trust me, you'd be impressed. You'll just have to wait until tomorrow when I am on my home turf.

In the meantime, have I mentioned that we had the big sonogram on Thursday? The one where you find out all sorts of neat stuff like fingers, toes, chambers of the heart, penis? Yah, well our baby seems to have all of its parts, but it is finicky ... and breach ... and using it's umbilical cord like a loin cloth so we don't know what gender it is. Fortunately we have another appointment in three weeks. Hopefully the baby will give up the goods then.

NaBloPoMo, ii

Not only have I been lax with my knitting updates, I've also been lax in my 'thank yous.' Recently, well not so recently as I have just admitted to being a slacker, but let's just pretend that it was actually recently, because really, recently, it is a good way to open up my sentence. So.

Recently, we've received some neat baby booty from EiC and Joan. EiC is my husband's good friend from way back in high school. He is an author and big wig book executive guy. Now he is an "editorial director," which I think means that he picks which books his company publishes. It could mean that he is a regular schmuck that has been there so long that they gave him a fancy title. But he is smart, so probably not. It use to be, however, that he was a regular editor at a different big fancy schmancy publishing house in New York City. While he was there he could get me free, advance copies of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. Though he has definitely moved up the career ladder, I do miss the free early bird Stephanie Plum books of yesteryear. Anywho, I've digressed, shocking I know.



EiC sent us a couple of neat books. One, The Pregnancy Countdown Book counts down the pregnancy process day-by-day, as if the title didn't give that away. It is totally breezy and not at all freaking me out. Unlike the other books on the topic, such as the one given to me by my doctor that has a whole huge chapter on hemorrhoids and contains several gems about what should and should not be placed inside the vagina during pregnancy. Right in the beginning of the book. Jizzy Frickin Crizzy! That book scared the crap out of me and for the first time in my entire life caused me NOT to read the last chapter first! If you are going to start with with hemorrhoids and vaginal probes, I don't need to know where you are going to end, thankyouverymuch. TPCB, however, has not yet freaked me out. It is still talking about happy stuff at day wherever I am at ... day 156 (had to look that up). There is real medical info, but there is also fluff. I like fluff. The book was light-hearted enough that it lulled me into a sense of comfort so warm and snuggly that after reading a few days when we first got it, I decided to read ahead. Dammit! I knew better, but I did it and you know what, my nice funny irreverent book is real nice and funny and irreverent about babies not ever wanting to come out in the "fourth trimester," the days after the countdown has come and gone and you are overdue! Nonetheless, it didn't scare me, so it is a keeper in the SPR library.

EiC also sent us Sci-Fi baby Names. Can I just tell you how great this book is? If you and your husband have totally different opinions on the whole name thing (Zeus IS a totally viable name and leads to the awesome nickname Z), this can give you some fresh ideas ... Guinan (from Star Trek, TNG, dispenses mind altering libations and snipets of wisdom) or Vril (from Action Comics #42, super brainiac with iffy ethics and megalomania; will end up in jail or with a Nobel Prize). Need I say more?

Joan, she is my friend, a friend from the drunk delightful times known as law school. Joan lived with me in law school and knows that I love my sleep. A lot. And she also knows that I can be a teensy bit whiny about not getting my sleep. It seems that she is concerned that the whole baby thing could mess with my sleep. Totally ridiculous I assure you. I mean, I am sure that our baby will be the one baby in the entire world that falls right into a sleep pattern that mimics its parent's sleep pattern perfectly. Joan must doubt this as she has given us to items which are sure to help our little bean drift off into blissful slumber.



Joan sent us a video, or I should say DVD as that is probably the more accurate term, on how to make your baby sleep. Dr. Phil recommended it. Sounds good to me! I haven't actually watched it yet. I am putting off the viewing of the sleep DVD until it is closer to the time we'll need it. I don't want to forget the important bits. Also, we're out of popcorn. And anytime you put a DVD in, with the exception of DVDs of the adult variety, you really need popcorn. I may also still be a little freaked out after watching the National Geographic special, In The Womb. It is a really neat show and I like all the scientific stuff (each piece of DNA is six feet long! SIX. FEET. LONG. You can't see it with the naked eye, but it is a half an inch taller than my husband!). Nonetheless, the show was a little unsettling. I suspect that is because it seems weird that all that stuff is happening inside of me when I still feel normal. But there ya have it.


The other goody Joan sent was a whole wheat wrapper, uh, I mean a swaddling blanket. I am really psyched about this one. All parents seems to have stories on the magic of the swaddling blanket. So I am hoping that it can work its magic at Casa de Moi. Not that we'll need it. Again, our baby is going to be the non-fussy, sleeps perfectly, bundle of sugar and spice. In any event, we are totally gonna be using this. It comes with very detailed instructions, which is very important because despite the fact that we'll be wrapping the baby up like a burrito, I don't think my burrito making skills (which are quite impressive if I may say so myself) will be all that helpful.



Anywho, my thanks may be late, but they are totally heartfelt. Thanks EiC and Joan! You guys rock!

NaBloPoMo, i

Today marks my first post of NaBloPoMo, and hopefully somewhere along day four or so of this month long blog posting festorama, I will quit stumbling every time I type NaBloPoMo. Otherwise this is going to be a very long month as far as my fingers are concerned.

Anywho, I've been somewhat lax about keeping you up to date (in case you're curious, up to date and the hyphen situation was making me twitch, I've decided to go with no hyphen as I am using it as a verb and not a one word type of adjective thing, this could be wrong, I don't know for sure and Strunk and White are currently out of my reach, just know that I did think about this as I didn't want to make your eyes bleed, because me, I care) on my knitting progress, which I know disturbs (and saddens) you to no end. My apologies.


As for the sweater of doom, I mean the sweater that I absolutely love to bits, it is coming along. Slowly. I've gotten a couple inches done on one sleeve and am trying to knit at least two rows a night. At this rate it should be ready in 2010. Fortunately, well for purposes of sleeve knitting anyway, I have midget arms, so the sleeves shouldn't take too long once all the decreases start to take effect. If I had normal arms we'd be looking at 2012 or so, I'm sure.


As for the Socktober socks, yah, well I was going to cheat and make them peds so I could finish them in time, but, um, I didn't even get that far. I have two toes and one and one half feet. I need some more foot, some heel and some leg and I'll be good. Unlike the socks which are not striping good (or for the grammar police, well, which doesn't have the same symmetry as good, but is actually the right word choice, I think, again Strunk and White have deserted me). I like the stripes clean, sharp and demarcated. I've got that. But I wish that the stripes were different widths. These stripes are all the same widths and this does little for me.


And, in case you were curious, the Limited Edition Elvis Presley Reese's peanut butter cups are not good. I repeat: NO. GOOD. You may wonder how I ended up with these banana flavored confections, if not, indulge me. It was 100% bad luck. Normally we don't get trick-or-treaters in our 'hood. But each year I panic at the last minute and buy some candy just in case. Last year we got one kid who wanted money for UNICEF and not a single one wanting candy (Him: Knock, knock. Me: Hello! Happy Halloween! Reaches out with hand full of candy. Him: Holds up box. Would you like to donate to UNICEF? Me: Huh? Him: Would you like to donate to UNICEF? Me: Does UNICEF want candy? Showing hand full of candy just there for the taking. Him: No. Me: Um, then no, no thank you. Him: Okay. Walks away WITHOUT candy.). Nonetheless, I was worried that this year, this would be the year we were rushed by unruly trick-or-treaters demanding candy goodness. So, at 4:45 p.m. on Halloween evening, I went to my local grocery store to pick up some candy. And guess what, they only had one bag of Halloween candy left. If I wanted Christmas candy I was golden, but Halloween? Not so much. So I took that one bag of candy thinking it was Reese's peanut butter cups with an Elvis theme for Halloween ... not an Elvis flavor. We had two trick-or-treaters, and despite the fact that I gave them huge heaping handfuls of this banana badness, we still have a two-thirds of the bag left. I think will bring them to knitting next week to share.

Happy Halloween

"HELP! Somebody, PLEASE! Get me the hell out of this haunted house!"

I Am So Bummed

So today was the annual Halloween contest at Baby Girl's daycare place. As you may recall, I was stressing over her costume because last year she won and thus set the bar VERY HIGH. Well I my brain was churning and working away when BAM, thought I had a GREAT idea. An idea so fantabuolous, Dogbert was sure to win again. Not that I am that kind of mom or anything. We'd totally be okay if she was only in the top three. I mean, the dog was a bum and you don't always expect greatness from a bum.



But it turns out, bums aren't winners and they aren't even runners up. Now I don't begrudge the winner.



A weimaraner confederate soldier? With his own gun. He totally rocked. He deserved the win. But a doctor ...



I don't think so. Maybe it's sour grapes, maybe it is because Baby Girl is MUCH cuter, or maybe it's the fact that this year there were actual judging criteria this year other than "pick your favorite," but Boo and I are thinking (rationalizing) that Baby Girl was automatically out of the running since she won last year. I mean, come on. How could this sweet little bum not be in the top three?



Fortunately Baby Girl is a good sport and didn't seem to mind the loss. In fact, she seemed a little relieved that she wouldn't have to spend the day in the spa. Cat was also relieved, and grateful, for surviving another year un-costumed.

She Wasn't Kidding

So I've been chewing on this whole Halloween costume thing for Dogeralla, and I must really be stressed over it because last night I dreamed about the dog's costume. There are so many other good things I could be dreaming about (Brad Pitt, strawberry shortcake, remodeling my kitchen), that it was kind of a bummer. If was even a bigger bummer because the dream costume was a dud. I had dressed the dog as Mary from Mary Had Little Lamb and tied a stuffed lamb on a rope to her collar so that every where that Dogeralla went, the lamb "was sure to go." Except instead of walking in front of the judges, she kept chasing the lamb and chewing on it. ix-Nay on the ary-May costume.

Moral: Don't tie things to your dog.

I was explaining this to Kay and somehow the conversation morphed, as conversations are wont to do, into a conversation about people Halloween costumes and Kay shared with me an idea she recommended to her best friend. It is perhaps the worst costume idea I've ever heard, so I though I'd share it with you ...

Her: So I told her she should dress up as a tulip.
Me: Huh?
Her: You know a tulip? Wear a pink shirt, green pants, and tell people you are a tulip.
Me: That is the worst costume idea I've ever heard.

Weekend In Review

5 - The number of friends on our Rhinebeck voyage. Also the time at which I had to wake up to ensure I was on time for our Rhinebeck voyage. A time in the morning in which I do not like to be up.



2.25 - How many hours is took to drive to Rhinebeck via squiggly windy back roads. Squiggly windy back roads with lots of pretty scenery like horses and um, other stuff.

200 - The number of dollars I spent in first twenty minutes, at the first place we visited. Damn you The Fold and your Socks That Rock! I haven't even used my STR from last year's Rhinebeck voyage and yet you pulled me in and now I have more.



4 - The level of bedlam, compared to last year's, trying to get to the Socks That Rock. This, honestly, could have been because we arrived about thirty minutes earlier than we did last year. Or, it could be that the novelty and orgasmic enthusiasm surrounding the STR seems to have abated.

6 - How many skeins of yarn you can get for $200, two of which consist of 995 yards of a kid mohair, silk, nylon blend. I may have been worried that 995 yards would not make the bee shawl that I wanted and it may be that this isn't even the yarn that I was looking for and that I had a colossal, and expensive, brain fart.

1 - How many times someone in our group saw the Yarn Harlot. This was unusual compared to last year when we saw her a gazillion times and she may or may not have been stalking us. It was also funny because a newbie who wasn't there last year wanted to try to find her again so that she could see her. Had we seen her again, this could have help balance the stalking karma from last year.

2 - The number of people I saw at Rhinebeck that I know in real life. Excluding their entourages, because that would bump me up to like 5 people that I know, and that would make me seem MUCH cooler than I am.

3 - How many bloggers (with sites where I lurk) that I saw.



4 - The number of people that giggled at Baaahhhb, The Talking Sheep Puppet. "Hi! My name is Baaahhhb. Where is my wife, Baaahhhhbette?"

1 - The number of creepy dudes interested in Baaahhhb, The Talking Sheep Puppet.

1 - The number of Baaahhhb, Jr. talking sheep puppets that came home with us.



1 - Number of vomiting pumpkins I saw.

4 - How many times I had to use the Rhinebeck loo and did not have to wait in line. Which was totally awesome. I hate to have to wait in line, bouncing from foot to foot, hoping my bladder does not prematurely explode.

0 - The number of rows I completed on my knitting while at Rhinebeck. I thought I left my pattern in the car, which it turns out I did not, I had it with me, but I digress. I couldn't make the pattern work as I didn't have enough stitches. I tried to knit the same row four or five times and then just gave up since I couldn't check the pattern and figure out what I was doing wrong. Boy was I amused to find it in my purse, in the sock knitting bag, the bag in which I had stored my sock and had removed it from to try to knit on.

5,000,000 - The number of rows completed on the knitting of my compadres. Compadres who did not forget their patters or have brain farts.

2 - The times I stopped for carny food. I love me some carny food.



2 - The types of carny artichokes I ate.



2 - The number of items our gang purchased that read "NON-INFLAMMABLE." And, just for the record, does this mean it IS flammable?

30 - The number of dollars I gave my husband when I got home and realized I forgot to put gas in his car after driving it to Rhinebeck and back.

10 - The level of my gratitude, on a scale of 1 to 10, that my husband did not tell my to drag my tired ass back to the car and fill it up so that he wouldn't have to this morning on his way to work. Especially in light of the fact that, had the situation been reversed, I might not have been as cool about it. I hate to put gas in the car and might turn into a raving lunatic if someone drives my car and gives it back to me with anything less a full tank.

0 - The number of football picks I made this weekend. GODDAMMIT! There goes my hope of winning!

12.5 - The hours of sleep required to recover from Rhinebeck; the consecutive number of hours I spent sleeping Saturday night to Sunday morning.



100 - The percent of love I have for the new goodies that came home with me (and the boy and critters to whom I came home).

Socktober Is Here

I've been diligently working on the green sweater. I pseudo-kitchenered up the shoulders and mattress stitched up the sides (taking Mr. Puffy's advice and starting in the middle). I picked up the stitches for a sleeve (twice, because I may not be so smart and not know front from back) and have been working on a sleeve. And despite all of this hard work, and a block of about six hours of knitting time between now and tomorrow, I realize that I will not be able to finish my sweater by the time I leave for Rhinebeck. I do believe this is the first time procrastination has bitten me in the ass. It could be because I had no real do-or-die incentive (e.g., failing a class, getting thrown out of court, etc.) or it could be because this sweater is just huge. Like afghan huge. Like afghan-bedspread-for-an-extra-tall-and-wide-king-sized-bed huge. Or it could be because I cheated and started on some Socktober socks ...



I know! I know! I said I wasn't starting anything until I finished the kangaroo beast, but I couldn't help myself. This cheery Lana Grossa was calling out to me from the yarn room, begging to be knit. Mind you, the Socks That Rock yarn, the yarn I waited for a gazillion hours in a million person line for, the yarn that was the Holy Grail of my Rhinebeck trip last year, it still hasn't been touched. Not at all. Well I guess technically it was touched when I put it away in the yarn room, but it hasn't been touched in a knitterly way. So once I finish the kangaroo sweater, and the Socktober socks, then I'm pulling out the STR. For real. Unless something else calls my name. Like tomorrow, at Rhinebeck.

Boo!

Being that it is the season for all things spooky and scary, I wanted to scare you all. I thought about telling you that I had started another sweater, ha! Or showing you spooky pictures of Dogbert all dressed up in her Halloween costume, but then I decide on something totally different. I thought it was time to come out. I've come out to all of my "real life" friends, and now I'm coming out to you ...





Ha! You thought I was going to renounce my heterosexuality, turn in my NRA membership, start taking T, develop a deeper voice and a fondness for square dancing? Nope, nothing quite so ... I was going to say, "nothing quite so drastic," but hello? There is a person GROWING INSIDE of me. Pretty fucking drastic. Also pretty fucking fantastic. Next month when I am posting every single day, I'm sure I will run out of interesting things to share with you and end up regaling you with tales of my neurosis over this whole pregnancy/baby thing, but for now I'll tell you that we are:

1) having a baby;
2) said baby appears to be human (though the ultrasound makes that seem questionable as the baby looks like a cross between Skeletor and Beavis.);
3) said baby is GROWING INSIDE OF ME; and,
4) said baby is due on April 5, 2008, but because I suck at remembering important things I have decided that its birth will be occurring on April 6, 2008. This is really for the baby's sake as I'm much more likely to remember 4/6/8 (who do we appreciate?) as a birthday then 4/5/8. 4/5/8 is forgettable and I know any kid with 23 of my chromosomes is so going to want presents on its birthday and for that to happen, I need to be able to remember the birthday.

Ghetto Seaming

As you may recall, I decided to kitchener the shoulders of my sweater closed but ran into a slight problem with undoing my cast-off. Well you will be pleased to know (or maybe you won't, but I am sure you are too kind to tell me otherwise) that I solved this little problem and now have both shoulders seamed. And neatly seamed at that. Huzzah!

And now, a photo essay on my journey into 'making it work' kitchener style. All photos can be clicked on to make bigger, not that it helps, but there ya go. In order to fudge the kitchener, I first had to pick up my stitches on the row underneath my undoable cast-off row so that I had live stitches. I got out my size zero needles and picked away.



This actually took some thought. I had to make sure I was picking up the same side of the stitch all the way across. I decided to pick up the front bit of the stitch and said to myself, "on front, skip back," as I made my way across. I also had to count, recount, and then recount again, to ensure that I had picked up the right number of stitches. Counting is hard. I no good at counting.

Once I had the stitches on the needle, I had to figure out how to orient everything so that my kitchener would work. This also took some thought.



Once I thought I had it right, I started kitchenering away. "Knit off, purl on, purl off, knit on."



I did a few and then checked to see if it looked right.



It looked right so I kept on going. And going. And then, voila! I was at the end.



For the most part this was a huge success. The cast off row gives the seam some heft, but not too much. My only issue is that I seemed to have aligned my stitches slightly differently on the second shoulder so that it aligns half a stitch off. On some other project, this would drive me nuts. On this one, I just don't care.

Thunderstorms

This weekend the weather at Yarnbeck is suppose to kind of suck. Somehow I doubt that will slow the masses.

Rookie Mistake

I went to a doctor's appointment this morning and left my knitting (and my book) at home! On the flip-side, I am now well versed on the human papilloma virus thanks to an informative free periodical.

Call Me Merriam

Yarnbeck (noun) yärn-bek
1: Formerly known as Rhinebeck;
2: the New York State Sheep & Wool Festival

I'm quite proud of this new word I've created. Maybe it will one day catch on and end up in the Urban Dictionary between Yarn Balls (which are NOT what you think they are) and Yarn Gargler (also NOT what you think it is and totally NOT related to knitting. AT ALL!).

And, holy crap, Katy bar the door! I can add my own words to the Urban Dictionary. Woot! Woot! Please hold while I delve into the world of narcissism and memorialize my dorkedness ... So I just totally submitted Yarnbeck to the Urban Dictionary folks. I'm not sure they will take it as it is not exactly hip slang and my definition and sentence were anything but sexy, but we'll see. I'm suppose to check back here to see if it is accepted.

And to return to our regular programming ... I have made NO progress on the sweater. Despite the gaping neck/head hole, of which I have not made a decision about what to do, I did try to seam up the shoulders last night. It was, um, not pretty. Or rather, pretty fugly. The variegation in yarn thickness melded together to make a really horrible lumpy seam. S'no good. So I undid the seam and decided to heed the advice of those smarter than me and undo my cast-off and then kitchener the shoulders together. Which is great and all, but I can't seem to uncast-off the back piece that I finished sometime in 1983. Not sure what I did there, maybe I was high at the time, but it is not coming undone whatever it was. My latest brain storm involves faking the kitchenering by picking up the last row of stitches before the cast-off and using those with the front stitches and then seeing what happens. This could totally be crafting gone bad.

Not related to knitting, or my plan for the disastrous sweater, but equally cockamamie, is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and my voluntary participation in same. Often I subject to you my babble, having to write every single day for the month of November is going to result in me subjecting you to a hell of a lot more of my babble. Prepare to enjoy (or cringe)! Should you be interested in participating (which I really hope you are because I could use a lot more stuff to read during the day and further my procrastination), you can look here for last year's info, prizes and whatnot and click on the box in my sidebar to sign up and see this years info.

Hell & Damn

Well I remembered to bring the monstrosity sweater to work today to take photographic evidence of my progress. Which, it turns out, was both a great idea and a terrible idea. With the magic of a timer, I figured I could take a few pictures of the sweater on me. So I binder clipped the top of the sleeves/shoulders together and, voila! Except, crap!



That big gaping neck? No good! No where in the directions does it say anything about picking up stitches at the neck, or doing anything to the neck which means that this is the neck unless I work some knitting hocus-pocus. After I saw that picture (and the panic of knitting this little bitch months and months on end for naught receded), I figured that maybe I just needed to adjust the bits and make sure they were evenly spaced front and back. So I did that. And lo and behold the stupid little shit looked EXACTLY the same.



This is when I started to say fuck. A lot. I guess I am going to move forward. I mean, what have I got to lose? Don't answer that. I am going to try to remain optimistic. I haven't blocked it, I didn't have enough binder clips to hold the sides together (and asking Office Manager for a box of binder clips is a sure fire way to give up the fact that I am doing something other than work behind my closed office door), and the hood might just be the knitting hocus-pocus that pulls this baby together. Right? If all else fails, maybe I could pick up some stitches and create a smaller head hole. You know, do extra work. Because I love this sweater so much, I just can't work on it enough. Grr.

Razzle Dazzle

I finished the front of my sweater! I did! I did! But, I finished late last night and I immediately ran to bed so as to avoid inevitable end of the Yankees season and the bellowing of "This is BULL SHIT!" that would follow. In my hurry, I forgot to take a picture of the greatness that is, well, um, a large greenish rectangle. So, to distract you, I thought I would share a picture of the absolute worst color nail polish for someone with my skin tone.



The picture is a bit blurry and the color is not spot on, but I think you can see that it does not look as if I painted my toenails, but instead it looks as if they have contracted a particularly virulent strain of funk and are planning to rot right off me feet. Sexy!

Cake

I love me some cake. I've always loved me some cake. When Boo used to travel two to three days every week during football season, I would buy a one person cake the day he left and savor it the entire time he was gone. Lately, I can't seem to get enough cake. I think it started with BeFri talking about wedding cakes and progressed from there. Last weekend I even had cake, some really good cake and some kinda bad cake, yet it didn't really satiate my need for cake.

So I haven't really posted about Crazy lately and my insane job (and yes, this will tie into cake, just you wait and see) because though the insanity level at my workplace is still hovering around Red Alert, Give me a Gas Mask and a Straitjacket, the insanity has not been Crazy driven. In fact, for the last few months she has basically ignored me which is a wonderful, wonderful, thing. The silence on her part was a total blessing and I am totally kicking my own ass for messing that up (and yes, this will tie into cake, really, just have a little patience).

You see, on Tuesday, Crazy left some magazines on my desk. And instead of ignoring her like any smart person would do, I decided I was classy or honorable or some dumbass thing, and as she was walking by my office and not looking at me, I yelled out, "Thanks for the magazines!" And yes, I see the incongruity of all ghetto yelling "thanks!" while claiming to be a classy well bred broad offering my thanks but let's not talk about that, m'kay? So I shout my thanks like the ghetto girl I am and instead of a nod or a grunt she full on stops, comes into my office, and speaks in her little girl voice about how she wanted to say "Hi" to me but thought we weren't doing that because she said "Hi" to me twice and waived to me once and I totally ignored her. Oh, and in addition to using a baby voice she is doing this weird little girl dance that was totally disturbing.

So, she delivers her soliloquy and I say, "Well obviously I didn't hear you or see you because I would never rudely ignore someone on purpose." Which, for the record, is a total friggen lie. I would ignore, and have ignored, people, including her, on purpose. But though she has me beat in the crazy as hell department and lies more than anyone I know, I have her beat in the ability to lie well. Not that it necessarily was a lie, I don't remember ignoring her, maybe I really didn't see or hear her, or maybe I did. Either way, from that point on she got it into her head that we are friends which is bad, B.A.D., bad. Unlike cake which is very, very, good, and going to be tied back in. For real.

So on Wednesday Crazy came in and told me about a dream she had where the two of us were at some fancy outdoor ball/picnic where there was a shoe and fashion show. Now aside from the fact that I didn't want to hear about her dreams because no one ever wants to hear about other people's dreams because they tend to bore, I didn't want to hear about this because ew! Yuck! And, ick! She kept talking about it and I kept nodding my head wondering if she would go away and for how long would she stay away once she was gone and though she kept coming back to talk about her riveting dream, I left at noon and kinda blocked it out.

Which brings us to today. And cake. The fuckin whack job corners me on the stairs this morning as soon as I walked in the door and told me she brought me a cake. Since when did we have the type of relationship in which we bake cakes for each other? NEVER! We have never been, and will never be, cake exchanging friends, or even friends for that matter. Well turns out I must have had a look of horror on my face because I learned that she didn't bake me a cake, she got a free one last night from KFC and Crazy decided to bring the cake in and give it to Receptionist and me because we're "those people that eat cake." Um, "those of people"? People with mouths? People with tongues? People who like light fluffy sweet foods? What does that mean?

I rejected the offer of cake being that I still hadn't reached my desk, it was 8:00 a.m., I had a warm egg and cheese sandwich in my purse, and I was totally freaked out. So five minutes late she brings the cake into my office and puts it on my desk. I had had a few minutes to regroup so I again rejected the cake, gave some excuse about having my own breakfast and then mentally decide that I was going to stand up for all of "those people" and not eat her stinking cake. So there! Take that you wacko cake pusher!

Well wonders of wonders, at lunch time guess who walks by my office, with a piece of cake? Yep, Crazy. She is one of "those people" too! Ha! And she says, "It's not bad, not real good either, but not bad. It may have chunks of chocolate in it." And with that, my moral indignation of behalf of all "those people" went down the crapper. Because hello, chunks of chocolate! When I later finished my lunch, I had a slice of cake and it wasn't very good. But it was cake and so I'm not going to complain, even if it was Crazy cake.

Notwithstanding the cake, all of this buddy-buddyness is not working for me. I told Boo that I couldn't take this whole you-and-I-are-pals thing any more and that I was going to snap and do something to get back in on the silent treatment. But then he reminded me that I'm going to be needing something from her in the future and so I need to suck it up until then. So I will keep my mouth shut a little longer and hope that the next cake is vanilla. Or red velvet. I love me some good red velvet cake.

Hello There Sexy

I love October. My husband, he loves September, but me, I love October more. I like the chilly October air, the turning leaves, and the chance to put up dust collectors holiday decorations. This October though, it is giving me stress.

There are only 18 days until Rhinebeck and my sweater is only two rows closer to completion! That being said, I am vowing to knit my little fingers to the bone this weekend. I have SnB tomorrow night and then some down time Friday afternoon. Then I have the three hour drive to and from New Jersey this weekend. My goal is to finish the friggen front of my friggen sweater. That then leaves me two weeks to knit two sleeves and a hood, seam up the entire thing, block it and get it ready for wearage at Rhinebeck. I think this is a reasonable goal. I also think Kennedy was killed by the magic bullet. Okay, that last part was a total lie used to illustrate my point. My point being that my goal is um, slightly unreasonable. But it's all good.

In any event, and not withstanding my sweater's status at the time of Rhinebeck which I am sure will be done and worn because I am going to knit that sweater like nobody's business, I am starting a pair of socks the first knitting minute I have after Rhinebeck. It's Socktoberfest people!