Remember

Growing up, I would watch the nightly news with my parents and we would hear of terror attacks in Ireland (though I am sure there were other acts of terrorism, the IRA car bombs and such stood out in my mind). It always seemed so alien to me. The thought that someone would blow something up, for "God" or their religion ... ? I didn't get it. Now, years later, I still don't get it. With all the news and media coverage about the 9/11 attacks, you can't help but be introspective. You can't help remembering where you were. You can't help question why it happened or when it will happen again. Your God tells you that blowing up people is acceptable? The loss of life and property that occurred five years ago was senseless. To harm people. To destroy property. To do this for your God. Unacceptable. There is nothing that I can say that hasn't been said seven ways to Sunday so to speak (holy alliteration!), so I'm moving on to babble about the little things in my life that are significant to me but so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Today I just realized (actually I have suspected this all along so really it was more of a confirmation than a realization) that I have done little to no work this month. This is not good. Using my some what iffy math skills, I believe I have only done 18% of my work that I should have done thus far. Yah see, we have a modified billable hour type of deal and I should be at 60 right now but instead I am at, um, 16. Yah. Not good. I suspect I am suffering from a little procrastination ...





Mind you, knowing that I am WAY behind has not caused me to move into hyper-drive and work HARDER FASTER or even work at all. I'm still sitting here blathering away to the internet instead of pulling up my bootstraps and getting to work.

And, maybe I am just in an ornery mood, but how apropos is the name of this skirt? I mean, come on now! You are going to lace up my ass in such a way that the ribbons will accentuate the ass width? That, my friends, is some intolerable cruelty both to my ass and to your eyes!

Speaking of knitting, sock number two (of the gazillion dollar sock class) is coming along. I am going to make it match number one and hope for the best. If they are a little large, c'est la vie. Oh, and The Mess? Almost un-messed. JJ has been at it all weekend and thinks it might be done by quitting time, TODAY! That is in FIFTEEN MINTUES - 15 minutes - one quarter of one hour! If that happens, you'll have some pictures my dear internet of the un-messed masterpiece and I'll have some knitting!

Sockalicious

Le Class Deux of the Gazillion Dollar Sock Class was today! It unfortunately embarrassingly only took me the entire two hours to knit the gusset. Am I amazing or what? Yah, yah. No one else in the class seemed to be fairing much quicker than me, so I didn't feel too bad about the lack of progress. There was one woman who was ahead of us and she seemed to be having HUGE problems with the heel - in her defense we were a yapparific group and she is a talker so there was a lot of distraction. In any event, since I didn't get it done in class, when I got home I decided to give it a whirl. The first time I did it, I ended up way off center. Whoops! Damn that Dallas Swat for sucking me in! I redid it and it came out ok. Um, at least Baby Girl thinks it did.



No, I think it did too.



Except (isn't there always an 'except' or a 'but'?), I think that it might be a little long so that the heel is in an odd place.



Isn't the heel suppose to be on the bottom of the heel of the foot?? I dunno. The instructor had plans and couldn't stay after class, but she planned to be at the LYS on Friday and invited us to come in and ask questions. I'm not sure what to do about my other sock. My other foot is need of a sock ...



Because it ain't got much right now ...



But do I go ahead and bring it up to the same place? What if that is the wrong place? Then I would have two wrong ones. I mean the sock feels a little big, but not terribly so. I'm just uncertain ... that means I am gonna procrastinate.

Smile!

We bought a new camera! Yeah!





This is not totally Spendy's fault. We actually needed a new camera (well as much as anyone needs a camera). Our old camera was lovely and gave us a lot of good picture, but she was dying on us. She wouldn't hold her charge; she ate new batteries like ... um, I can't think of a good analogy ... all I can think of is "like a fat kid likes cake" except that is not what I am going for. Crap. Anyway, she was only good for a dozen pictures a pop. Not terrible but inconvenient. She also had a flash issue in that it took about fifteen seconds to recharge the flash between pictures. Fifteen seconds doesn't seem like that long until you want to take a picture and you have to wait. In any event, the old gal has been sent to pasture (i.e., I am keeping her charging in my vanity so that if something cute happens in my bedroom I have a camera RIGHT THERE ... Not that kind of cute you sicko - cute with the animals. Inevitably they do something uber cute but I don't have a camera there so I can never capture it. Like this morning. Some how both Baby Girl and Cat were sleeping belly-up, under the covers with only their heads and front paws sticking out, right next to each other. They were like a little married couple. It was too cute but you'll never know the reality of that cuteness because I had no camera.)

So anyway, I charged the new baby and had her loaded for bear ... but I had nothing to photograph. So I took pictures of the old camera:





And then, I ended up taking a picture of The Mess ...



It was sitting on the mess of my desk - so messes all around. WooHoo! I gave The Mess to JJ, a friend at work, to work on. She has unknotted me in the past. At lunch time she had almost HALF unknotted. Did you hear me?? HALF?!? Can you believe it? I did bribe her with breakfast. But still - half! Christ Baby Jesus! I can't get a tenth of that much unknotted in quadruple the time.

Color me impressed!** In any event, she (unknowingly) has become the first person to put in a 'request' saying that she really liked The Mess (well the part not messed) and that she wouldn't mind one. I must be a real knitter now!

**How cool was that color change huh? I am becoming an HTML wizard. NOT! But I can block and copy the shit out of stuff!

Niceties

SnB'ers are SO NICE. I had someone else spend all of SnB trying to untangle The Mess. I had shown up at SnB a half an hour early and spent that half and hour working on The Mess. I had maybe made two millimeters of progress. Our SnB was being held at the LYS I had purchased the yarn at so I had just about decided that I was going to throw it out and start all over. I was mentally planning a different color scheme thinking that blues were cursed (they still may be, I have no definite answer one way or the other). In any event, the SnB'ers started arriving and one spent the ENTIRE time working on untangling AND she made HUGE progress. I was able to finish my row. Not the whole set of pattern rows (yet) but at least the row that I was on. I am now feeling renewed and revived. The Mess shall be saved from the trash heap for at least another day!

We interrupt this post to announce that the boss lady, she is so not nice! Office Manager just came in to ask me, "Honestly, tell me the truth please, do I look horrible?" I said, "No! What did she say?" Tears welled and eyes watered, "She just walked up to me and said, 'You look HORRIBLE, terrible, HORRIBLE.' I know I look tired but do I really look THAT bad?" I reassured her that she looked fine, she does, and then suggested the following responses to further such comments, "Gee Crazy, I didn't realize I looked bad. Thank you so much for telling me." Or, "Huh. I didn't see how bad I look. May I have the name of your eye doctor? Maybe I need 'eye surgery'." Office Manager laughed but I don't think she'll use em.

I'm Back

My vacation was too short ... but my luggage's was not. Apparently it decided to extend its three hour layover in DC to a full day. Wish it would have told me first. I might have tried to smuggle some liquid on the plane - like the liquid in which my contact lens are (hopefully) swimming; or, the liquid I use to fight my face's desire to have the complexion of a thirteen year old or the liquid I roll on my pits to prevent stink; not to mention, the liquid I use to mask said thirteen year old's complexion or to line my eyes. Yah, my bag, and all of my cosmetics, including my contact lenses, and such never made it back.

**Edited to Add: My luggage arrived later this afternoon. All was well except for my bottle of perfume that cracked and had to be thrown away. Oh, and my first ever home made pom-pom that I tied onto my black suitcase to distinguish it from all of the other black suitcases? Gone.**

The trip itself was a weird combinations of highs and lows. It was really nice to see my uncle. We had several good laughs and I was relieved to see that he seems to be doing okay. The game? Blech. The whole thing made me sick to my stomach. I didn't have high hopes but still. Moving on ... the 4S, as before, LOVELY.

I (accidentally) left my favorite tee shirt on the bed and it was scooped up with the linens by the housekeeper. [I know better than this having lost my blankie when I was five years old at a hotel under the EXACT same circumstances and being traumatized so severely that to this day I *almost* always make sure the bed is empty before I leave my room for the day.] Anywho, we stumbled back to the hotel at about 1:00 a.m. after the game, soaked from the constant rain and sad from the loss. I fell hopped into the shower, cleaned off, and got ready for bed. When it came to the "putting on the jammies" portion of the evening, my jammies being my favorite tee shirt, I realized it was gone. After a search of the room by me and then by Boo, we realized that the shirt was truly gone. Boo called the front desk and asked for someone to look for it, but I honestly had no hope of it being found. Interestingly the front desk person said he would alert housekeeping and security. Um, security? I'd like to see that report, "Missing: mens XXXL white tee shirt with red and black lettering of the words "powering the future" and names of various corporate sponsors. Has red pizza sauce stain dead center front, brown soda stain on the bottom right front, unknown stain on front left nipple region, and small tear in right arm pit area." The front desk manager called us back about twenty minutes later and asked us to search several places. I told her I had searched the places she suggested, as had my husband, and the woman was a little snotty with me as if I had some nerve accusing them of taking my shirt when it was obvious that this was the 4S and thus, I was the one who had to have misplaced my stain ridden shirt. I could just hear her calling housekeeping, "Yah, some dumb woman in room X is claiming that WE took her large, ugly, old, STAINED tee shirt. We are the 4S, we don't do old or stained. I know the dumb ass lost it but could you check anyway so I can document it in my report."

I was actually teary eyed over the loss of my shirt. [Boo was a little disturbed by my despair, "Babe. It's just a tee shirt." "No it's not! That is the shirt from the off-site meeting in Florida that you missed, for me. Remember? You gave me that shirt when I was in the hospital for my gall bladder surgery. *sniffle* You could have gone to Disney World but instead you stayed with me AND you gave me your free tee shirt. Besides, it is the perfect length and size and I just broke it in and I LOVE THAT SHIRT! *sniffle*" What can I say, I am pathetic.] But guess what? It was found! The snotty woman called back and said it was found with the linens (HA! I TOLD YOU SO!) Because it was with "soiled" linens they needed to launder it and promised to have it waiting for us four hours later when we were checking out. It was waiting for me as promised and it was returned to me laundered and folded and in a hermetically sealed bag when we checked out at the unholy hour of 6:30 a.m.



I wanted to smell it and see if the stains had been magically removed by the power of the 4S but thought it would freak out the hotel folk (I got weird looks when I simply clutched it to my chest like a lost child) so I just tucked it into my bag. This may have been a terrible misjudgment on my part because it is in my suitcase and thus now missing (again)!

In happier news, for the first time ever, I knitted on the plane. Screw 'snakes on a plane' we've got "Knits on a plane!" I was concerned that security would stop me and my knitting stuff but it turned out a-ok. I brought my simple knit shawl on its circular bamboo needles and it went through without a hitch. Being the anal-retentive freak that I am, I printed out the TSA's policy on carry-on knitting needles as precaution. I never needed it though. I did get a few glances from fellow fliers but only one person commented. This nice man who was seated in my row at the window (I was in the aisle seat) said my shawl was "very pretty" and that he was envious because he couldn't bring his "hobby" on the plane. Turns out he likes to build miniature wooden sailing ships. I am thinking that the TSA's policy concerning carry-on wood working tools is something along the lines of no-fucking-way. That razor sharp blade being problematic and all. I got a lot of my shawl knitting done and have almost finished the first skein. The sample I saw used only one skein but since I am big I want my shawl big so I am thinking I will use at least half of another skein. We'll see.

It's Been One of Those Days

I woke up early to meet some of the SnB girls for a little Saturday morning knitting. Though I over-slept, I still managed to shower and get there on time. I even got a nice parking spot. So far so good (we'll ignore the over-sleeping bit). I brought along the snarled mess as well as my socks thinking I could ask for suggestions about the knots and then work on the socks. I started with the socks and as I was knitting along I realized I had a perfectly round hole. In the middle. About an inch down from where I was working. I thought I must have dropped a stitched. Nope. I added one. One of my SnB'ers looked at it for me and said I could fix it by stitching it up later or ripping it back. Yah, I'm anal, I ripped. Then I showed her the mess of the scarf, she just shook her head sadly. There was talk of cutting the yarn and suggestions on how to hide the break. Not what I was hoping for. Another SnB'er, who is apparently as knot challenged as I, worked on it for an hour. When I got home I worked on it for two more hours. The progress was minimal. I cut the yarn (and am still sick over it). I worked on it for another hour. It was still unknittable.



I wanted to clean the house before we left for our trip (yeah! a vacation! happy stuff!) so I thought I would vacuum first. Though I don't have a Dyson (Dear Santa ... ), I still like to vacuum. It soothes me. It does not, however, soothe the animals. Cat hid in one room and Baby Girl ran into another. Somehow Baby Girl backed herself into the office with no way out. She was scared shitless.



Literally! Needless to say, I ended up mopping the floors as well. I tried to keep my humor. I e-mailed Boo a picture of the poop. He was working and I snickered at the thought of him opening that missive up.

When I went to put my cleaning supplies away, I lightly tapped the shelf above the cleaning supply shelf. It holds my nail polish, a bottle of which was sitting on the edge. I am sure you are not surprised to hear that the bottle fell and exploded. There was nail polish and glass everywhere. More unplanned cleaning commenced.



Cookies, I thought, cookies would make this day better. I made a batch of my regular chocolate cookies and decided to throw in some toffee chips. I prepared the first tray of cookies and had enough batter for about three more cookies. They wouldn't fit so I put the first tray in and loaded up a second for when the first was finished. After about 25 minutes and three checks, I couldn't figure out why the first tray was not cooking. Turns out the stove was on 250 not 350. Whoops! I upped the heat and threw the first tray back in with the second. I figured the first tray could use an extra minute at the proper temperature. Wrong. The first tray caught on fire. The smoke alarm went off. Turns out toffee chips no like high heat. Not only were the vast majority of cookies ruined, so was my favorite tray. After soaking for hours, the burned bits will not budge.



Fortunately though, the animals were not too traumatized by the alarm - no one shit themselves. Fine, I thought, I'll work on my tangled yarn some more and watch some t.v. - I worked for FOUR more hours ... it is sill unknittable. I gave up and went back to cleaning. As I was hanging up a bag on the coat rack, the whole thing fell over. Let's hope things perk up once I start my vacation!

You've Been Up to No-Good

I can tell. Might want to fix the ears before you give me that innocent look. Maybe flop them to the front. Like they are suppose to be. Just a thought.

I Cried

Today I drank a Diet Pepsi and I cried. Madre LOVED Pepsi. She wouldn't drink Coke, or Diet Coke or any other colas. Only Pepsi or Diet Pepsi. I always hated Pepsi but growing up, whenever I was at BeFri's, Diet Pepsi was the drink of the day. If I showed up with a partially consumed can of Diet Coke, Madre would give me so much grief. Oh the ick faces she would make. They were always accompanied with threats of tossing me and my sub-standard soda out on our ears. Today I was at a restaurant and ordered a Diet Coke. I received a Diet Pepsi. I burst into tears after the first sip.

I wanted to tell my aunt how much it hurt, to vent at the unfairness of losing two moms. Then I realized it was three and I cried some more.

Later, I decided to lose myself in knitting and t.v. I turned on some Dog Whisperer and pulled out my scrumptious scarf. I gave my yarn a tug and the whole middle came out in a lump. I knew it was bad. I started to try to untangle the knot. It wasn't working. The knot grew as did the mess. I thought, "I should ask my aunt what to do" and I cried again. Four hours later, I had made NO progress with the knot and I cried again.

It's Official

1) I've started a stash. I was always one of those people who thought stashes were silly because, hello, why not just buy what you want when you are ready to knit it. But then I started reading knitting blogs and got all sorts of ideas and then Yarny emerged and the rest, as they say, is history.

Last week I went online yarn shopping (because the $300 I've spent at LYSs in the past week and a half was just NOT enough) and found some cheap (60% off cheap) acrylic machine wash yarn that I can use for socks for Boo* and all those friends who I could make socks for but are not knitters and thus would balk at hand washing socks. Viola:



At least I think you could make socks from this yarn. If I am wrong, well, I'm not going to think about that. We'll just pretend that I am right even if I'm not, k? K! Since I was shopping online anyway, I went looking for the yarn for El Noro. I found it ...



... it, and another neat yarn which would make pretty socks for me ...



Again, I am assuming you could make socks from this yarn. Maybe I should seek professional assistance or advise. Hmm ... In the meantime, I've placed the stash in a dark corner of a closet where it is unlikely to come under the scrutiny of Boo.

2) One of the things I have eaten recently should have killed me. In recent days I have consumed:

• a bakery cranberry orange muffin with a raw inside (man did that gushy bit tasted good though);
• a coffee shop jumbo cookie with raw middle (more gushy yuminess);
• a salad with creamy ranch dressing that sat in a hot car for two hours before I ate it (tasted fine); and,
• a handful of pretzels left sitting on mail from an inmate at the inmate mental hospital (lord only knows what was on that man's hands as he penned that letter)

Nonetheless, it was the eggplant from a local pizza place that I had today for lunch that has turned me green. I don't know what to do with myself - my stomach just feels so WRONG.


* An aside: For some reason Boo is totally not into me knitting stuff for him. He was tres excited when my aunt knitted him a hat, scarf, and afghan so I thought he would be excited if I knit him something. Not so much. In fact, last night I measured his foot for sock making purposes and he wouldn't move so that I could verify that my measurement** was accurate - the tv show he was watching (on the seven ways outer space is going to kill earth) was too intriguing. WTF? Shouldn't he be psyched about the thought of something handmade from his dear sweet wife? He may need to be pinched. Though on the upside, this means I can make more stuff for me without feeling shitty about neglecting him.

** An aside to my aside (this could get ridiculous): If my measurements ARE accurate then his mens size 12 foot is only ONE INCH bigger than my ladies size 10. Um, hello?? If I wear mens shoes I need an 8 and so this means that each size up is only a quarter of an inch. That seems too small!

To Move or Not, That is the Question

Oooops! Somehow I posted the title before I added the text - one more reason why I am questioning whether I want to move here for my blogging or if I want to stay at LiveJournal. Argh!?! What to do. The Internet seems to feel this is a better service and that I (well someone who knows what they are doing) will be able to customize more stuff over here which is REALLY appealing because I like customizing. But, on the other hand, I know what I am doing over a LJ and don't have a clue here. Shizzle. I guess I'll give this a week.

And, while I figure out what I am doing, I will leave you with this ...