Vacuous

Silence has reigned supreme over here. I think because I am out of the blogging habit. Also, because I have had nothing of import to report, or rather, nothing funny. LB has started talking in her sleep which sends me into fits of giggles, but is not funny to the casual observer. I did have a mole removed on my knee that is "abnormal" and now a bigger chunk is going to be removed, which is totally hysterical, no? No? Oh, um, well. Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time. Let's see, a while back we had a girls' weekend in Boston and went wedding dress shopping for Kay. It was a good time but I can't remember making an ass of myself in such way that would be worthy of blogging. Uh, I went to Florida to see Depeche Mode in concert. It was fun and I found out that I am attracted to rock stars who are gay and dance like gay men channeling Buffalo Bill (check out his dance around 2:17 and then 2:30, somehow it is hot on Dave Gahan and not so creepy, or maybe I am twisted, or both). Right. You don't want to hear me gush about Dave and his hot gay serial killer vibe like a thirteen year old girl rhapsodizing about ... Zac Efron? Who do thirteen year old girls rhapsodize about?

Despite the lack of funny, I have had some crazy. Well not Crazy, actually that is not true, I did get a note from Crazy. She forwarded me some junk mail with a note pointing out that Office Manager had failed to mail the stuff to me and congratulating me on The Deuce. I never mentioned that to OM, or even Kay, because I have decided not to share stuff that serves no purpose other than to hurt someone's feelings. Which sounds virtuous, but is not. Recently someone opined that I was "ripped off" on some repair work and I was really ticked. Why would you say that to someone? Let's assume that I did get ripped off, it's too late to do anything about it now. Do you honestly think that telling me that I was bent over is somehow constructive or going to benefit me in any way? No, you're telling me that to make yourself look good. You apparently know so much more that I do and would not have been ripped off. You are awesome and I am a schmuck. That is what you are saying. As it happens, I did not, in fact, get ripped off, I did get pissed though and have decided that I am better than this other person and so shall no longer say stuff that serves no purpose other than to make someone else feel like an assheel. So you see, this prohibition on sharing certain information is rather self-serving, and not virtuous. Also, for what it's worth, there is a good chance that someone at some point is going to piss me off and I am going to say something mean just to be mean because I am not virtuous and that is how I roll. Anyway, I digress. A lot. Though I got a letter from Crazy, it was sans gift, and not like the crazy I was going to share. Crazy, as in my own personal and not the person, has been visiting me in the late night hours and THAT is where I was intending to go.

You see, lately I have had the urge to spend. Or rather to buy. Stuff. Stuff I don't need, but I like and I want. Being 'retired' means that we are on a budget and I can't buy frivolous fun things a la Louis Vuitton. Well I could, but I'd be fiscally stupid, so I've restrained myself thus far. Also, I don't think I could sneak a purse, let alone a new car, by my husband without him noticing something was up and then I would have to explain and well, just no. So I've been good and not gone on a spending spree. That being said, from 4:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., when I am awaken with an urge to pee and am the unable to fall back asleep (DAMN YOU PREGNANCY INSOMNIA!), I try to plead with Lottery Karma. This is the part where I dance with crazy, not there part where I want to buy pretty things because really, that's not crazy. Anyway, at this queer time of the day ... morning ... night ... whatever, I explain to the voice in my head (a sign crazy could be in play), which I think that Lottery Karma (like Santa Claus? come on! crazy!) can hear, that I don't need to win hundreds of millions of dollars. No, I only need a few hundred thousand - after taxes of course - so that I can pay off our student loans, and mortgage, and car. It all seems so logical in the moment. I'm not being greedy. Just asking for a nugget to pay off our debt so that I can live a lifestyle that I'd like to live. Basically I am negotiating with my own inner monologue regarding a fictional influx of a large amount of money. Obviously this is crazy and I know it. This, however, will not stop my silent conversation tonight.

I likey

You know Barney? The purple dinosaur with green spots? An awful song that make your head explode? Well, it turns out he has two redeeming qualities: saddle bags AND cellulite!

The End of Summer

I suspect that we won't get any more pool time in before well, next year. Well, outdoor pool time. Outdoor pool time in our kiddie pool that was suppose to be the dog's pool but that it a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time. So, I have Lady Bean and her final pool picture of the season!



Now if my tomatoes could just ripen, PRONTO!

Blah

I have three (one, two, three) ongoing knitting projects, which is frankly two too many. Unfortunately, I do not like any of them. Which means I am pondering starting yet another project. This is not a good idea. But it is probably a better idea than hitting the Louis Vuitton store or shopping for bras.

I am gestating fetus who never stops moving. She is constantly fussing around in there and this has caused me some angst over just how active she is going to be once she is no longer confined my the limits of my insides. I am trying to ignore this thought process.

I no longer have to figure out what to do about my one pompom socks. A trip through the washing machine took care of the remaining pompom. Actually, I guess I still need a plan. I can wear them, have my shoes eat them, and get pissed. Or, I can buy another ball of the yarn to make two new pompoms. Or, I can give them to a smaller footed person in the hopes that her shoes won't eat them.

I am craving pumpkin bread but am trying to be good and watch my sugar and carbs (emphasis on trying). Being that pumpkin bread is all sugar and carb, I really shouldn't make any. I did search the internet for a lo carb recipe and found two. Both sound ... interesting? But I suspect that if I make them and they suck, well then, what? The world will come to an end? Probably not. But still. Traditionally the stuff I make from scratch is better than the pre-mixed boxed stuff, so that would lead one to think, hope, suspect, delude one's self into believing, that the lo carb from scratch recipe won't be too bad. We'll have to see.

I am no longer wearing my gimp shoe and had grand plans of celebrating the gimp shoe's life span with a photographic tour of all of the hand knit socks I wore with it. Mind you I wore that shoe for almost six weeks and only have six sock pictures to show for it. Not exactly good follow through on my part. And NO, I DID NOT ONLY WEAR ONE PAIR OF SOCKS PER WEEK! I am not THAT dirty. Anyway, I have the six pictures sitting in the computer, so I am gonna post them. Forgive me.




My cherry (or grape, I can't remember) tomato plants turned out not to be total duds. The one I planted months after buying it gave me four tomatoes. Not bad considering the neglect. The other one, the topsy turvy one, gave me ten thus far. I have another five sitting on it that are green. I'm not sure if I should leave them on the vine and hope they ripen despite the colder weather. I don't think they would ripen if I plucked them and brought them in, which is I why I am leaning toward letting them sit on the vine. In any event, I have a grand total of fifteen tomatoes which is better than nothing I suppose. LB ate fourteen of them so that is kind of cool. Unless she develops a third arm. In which case, I am a terrible parent!

My basil rocked this season and I still have a tiny bit left I can harvest, if I get off my butt. I must have somehow redeemed myself in the Basil JuJu department.

The dill weed? Total fucking dud. Enough said.

Fifty-seven

There are many reasons I love my husband, but every now and then he does something that causes me to add a new reason to the list. To wit:



I was gone for the weekend and he taught the Bean how to put her cup in the cup holder in the car. Do you realize how much of my life I have spent searching for a random cup that she has dropped while trying to drive? Well NO MORE! I'd like to say that if I knew the back seat had a cup holder, I would have taught her this neat trick, but yah, probably not.

Bag n' Basil

I've been plugging away on my orange bag that I may or may have not previously mentioned ... a bag to hold the recycling that I actually take to the recycling place (as opposed to put out at the curb) so that I can get my nickles back. Nickles back from the state, as in cash money, not Nickle Back the religious band.

Anywho, I had a problem where every eight or so rows I would twist and turn and knit my yo before my stitch and though it was on the bottom of the bag, it still made my eye twitch which usually means RRRRRIIIIIIIPPPP. But this was the bottom of the bag where only grimy dirty bottles and cans would see, so ripping wasn't totally necessary, if I could only tinker down and fix it. Ha! For the life of me, I could not figure out how to tinker back and undo my goofs. I tried and was unsuccessful. Heck, I even sought help that was not helpful. Which, it turns out, is because I am a dummy! You see, the yo's were adding stitches every other row so even though it looked like the goof was on the first or second stitch, it wasn't. It was way down in there. I needed to ladder down at stitch ten or twelve not one or two ... and this is making NO SENSE. But let me just say that I was sitting in a comfy chair, with my feet soaking in a massaging, bubbling, pedicure bath while my husband worked on the computer on some boring work thing when TADA! The light bulb went off. Unfortunately, due to home remodeling projects, Boo and I were trapped in the same room and he was working and had told me I was only permitted in the room if I promised not to talk to him and so I was unable to share my TADA moment. But in my head? I did a cartwheel and let out a WHOOP! I was WAY IMPRESSED with myself. I mean WAAAAYYYY IMPRESSED. So, the light bulb went off, I figured out my goof and fixed one of them. The I fixed the other. Then I went to fix number three, then final goof, and hubris kicked my ass and somehow I unraveled something critical and the next thing you know, I am ripping back to the cast on row. Which, fortunately, I was able to salvage as I couldn't make the cast on work and someone else did it for me. The lesson being something along the lines of don't get so cocky or you'll take a cock in the ear. Well maybe not, but there is a lesson there. But all is well now, and I am plugging away and the bottom is no longer twisted and I am happy AND without an eye twitch. Score.

Speaking of score. With my bountiful basil I have had to branch out since pesto is yummy, and creamy pesto is yummier, but too much pesto is tedious. So, I branched out and made this salad and it was DELICIOUS! I suspect she has a real camera as her picture looked like that and mine looks like this:



Do not, however, let my crappy photograph dissuade you from making this salad, you know, if you are tomato-mozzarella-basil-salad inclined. It was quite good, both alone, and in leftover form as a topper to my steak. In fact, I am making more tonight!

Delectable

She looked so damn cute, I just had to share!

W-w-w-wwwhhheeewwww

Barely, but yes!



Now listen Dummy! Don't do that again!

C-c-c-cccrrraaapppp

Binding off ... EZ's sewn bind off ... Will I make it?

Bling II

I never did my F.O. blog post on my pink sparkly sock because I didn't like how the pictures came out.



I kept thinking that I would ask my husband to take pictures of my socks but it never came up. Or, I would think of it when he wasn't home. Or, I'd think of it when he was mowing the lawn. You know, at all of those opportune moments.



And, at some point, I totally forgot that I had shitty pictures I wanted to replace. Then I broke my foot, got a sexy new shoe, and decided to wear hand knit socks every day and create a photo journal of them (which I will be posting because a) I am a dork; b) I am lame; c)'Cause I want to, so there!). It was about this time that I remembered that my pink sparkle socks were never photographed nicely and, being that my feet were two different sizes - pregnancy minor swell and broken shit major swell - the nice pictures were no more than a pipe dream. Which, kinda sucks but really, in the grand scheme of things? No biggy.

But then, because yes, I am a drama queen and there is always a BUT. THEN. But then, my sweet angelic little love child decided to play with the pink sparkle socks, and how could you blame her? Pink! Sparkle! Hello? But then, her play resulted in one being left under the desk in the office and the other being buried in a load of laundry. This might not seem like it is worthy of a BUT. THEN. but wait! BUT. THEN. My husband did that augmented load of laundry and the sock survived ... the pompom did not!



Now if I had actually done that F.O. post, this would be TEAR JERKING! You would know that:
a) This yarn was a left-over yarn swap for which I only had enough for one pair of peds;
b) Worried about yarn yardage, I was skimpy with the heel flap;
c) The skimpy heel flap was problematic as my shoes ate my sock after a single half an hour wear;
d) I MacGyvered a resolution ... POMPOMS! Pompoms prevented the shoe from eating the sock ... a very attractive speed bump, if you will;
e) Remember that yardage concern, well, post pompoms, I have no more yarn left over. None. Nil. Not one tiny fiber.

Had I finished that F.O. post, then I could have gone with my original post idea which was:

One of these things is not like the other ...



But alas, I did not. So you get a rambling post and I get to relive, through poor photography, how much I enjoyed those pompomed pretties! Oh, and in case you are curious as to what a pompom looks like when it comes out of the dryer ...



This is all that remained in our lint filter. Pathetic, eh? I'm not sure what I am going to do as I can't seem to bring myself to remove the other pompom. I loved those pompoms. For so long as I wear my gimp shoe, which I really hate, I can probably get away with the mismatched pompomedness, though the gimp shoe did eat my sock creating a uncomfortable and slightly painful situation. I suppose I could go out and buy more yarn, but $20 or so for a pompom, that seems a little excessive.

Until I decide, this is gonna be my F.O. post, but it might also be the R.I.P. post too.



Yarn: Berroco Sox Metallic in Guava, #1375.
Needles: Addi Circs, size 2.5 mm (US 1)
Pattern: Standard toe-up ped, using the cast on, toe, and heel mentioned here.
Time: Two weeks.
Care: Machine wash warm water. No bleach. Lay flat to dry. FOR THE LOVE OF COOKIES DO NOT PUT THIS IN THE DRYER!

Futility

Isn't there a saying that goes something like, insanity is the act do doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result? Although, as I type that, I feel like that must be wrong because isn't that scientific theory? You repeat the same things over and over and if you don't get a different result, well then, hot damn, you done invented or discovered something sciencey? I'm going to vote science and say that despite my many years of trying to grow herbs and killing them, and again trying this year and having things look, well, bleak, I am a scientist at heart. A cautiously pessimistic scientist who decided to fix her broken herbs by adding more dirt to the pots. My husband had the good idea that we should stake the stuff, but when asked to elaborate and explain how we woulod do this, he gave me a shoulder shrug and said, "I thought you said I only needed to help for a moment, this is taking way longer than a moment." You could say he moved past cautiously pessimistic and into, YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME WOMAN! Anywho.

With my husband's help, I went out to tend my plants and add more dirt to their limp broken stems. I didn't have much more dirt, but I used up the rest that I had and built little dirt mounds around the bases. I also used the white plastic herb/plant labels as counter-weights to prop things the opposite direction of which they were leaning. While I was out there, and much to my was-only-suppose-to-have-to-carry-dirt-I-may-have-been-duped husband's dismay, I decided to also trim back my basil and limp weed dill weed. The tomatoes being are left to fate, and she seems to be a cruel bitch.

I had not planned on trimming back anything, and so I had no vessel in which to transport my bounty. Improvising, I borrowed my daughter's lego box lid. I'd like to say that this, like my dirt mounds, plastic label counter-weights and homemade icepack (water with a little isopropyl rubbing alcohol mixed together in a ziplock, left in the freezer for a few hours, makes a perfectly cold slushy icepack) are ingenious. MacGyver-esque. My husband, he has taken to calling me MacGruber. If I could catch him, I'd show him my MacGruber alright. In the meantime, I am going to feed him homemade pesto and he is going to like it.

Distasteful

My daughter has taken to "reading" books while I change her diaper. It skeezes me out; it's like the adult equivalent of reading while in the loo.

Overkill

On Sunday I fractured the fifth metatarsal in my right foot, which is a fancy way of saying I broke my foot. It was rather lame as I slipped on the last step/carpet and careened into a baby gate. Yes, a baby gate which is suppose to protect people (well little people) from injury, was the thing that injured me. Had the gate not been there the only thing hurt would have been my pride. Instead, after several hour at the ER, I ended up with a splint, a walker, and hurt pride.



The ER referred me to an orthopedist who looked exactly like Elvis Costello. Two days after visiting the ER, I saw Elvis and he decided that considering my lifestyle, swinger and celebrity extraordinaire (or pregnant mother of a toddler), and the type and location of the fracture, I could make do with a fracture shoe and stock in Tylenol. I could go on and on about how great the shoe is compared to the walker, which I still use when my monkey, I mean my daughter isn't around. But in reality, the shoe and situation still kind of suck since I can't drive and the monkey and I are trapped in our house, alone together, for hours and hours. We can't even go out in the yard because if she decided to bolt, well, I couldn't catch her. But I am not going to complain about the foot (for now), because this post is not about the injury, it is about adding insult to the injury.



Yes, not only is my foot broken, SO ARE MY PLANTS! We had a few storms over the last two days which seem to have knocked over or broken my poor little plants. And, since I am gimpy, I can't do squat to fix 'em! Okay, maybe it's not because I am gimpy, maybe it is because I am Plant Plague. For whatever reason, the plants are giving up. I tried to prop them back upright but every single last one fell right back over. Not only that, the tomato plant that I cut way back to save is still going belly up, with two unripe tomatoes on the vine no less. I'm not sure what to do now, and even if there was some solution, I actually am somewhat encumbered by the fact that I am gimpy. So instead of doing anything I am throwing my hands in the air and giving Mother Nature the double fisted, digital salute. It's just not right, my foot AND my plants? Really?

I Should Be Packing

We're off to Joisey to spend a long weekend with my MiL. If visions of crazy, baby-free marital nights danced in your head with that sentence, then you probably are unaware that my MiL needs knee replacement surgery and is unable to lug twenty-five pounds of baby around, and thus, unable to watch said twenty-five pounds so that we could have crazy, baby-free marital nights. It is all good though because I plan to have crazy fun nonetheless. Assuming, of course, that I quit Facebooking and blogging and instead start packing. Gah. Packing. Boo. One thing I need to remember to pack are my Jaywalkers. All that ripping paid off and I have two properly fitting feet. I still had to reconnoiter things a bit which meant that my heel flaps are a tad bit short, but I am not alarmed. I just need to knit up the legs and badda bing, badda bam, done! I plan to accomplish all of this knitting while sitting on the beach. Which, unbeknownst to my husband, means he will also be sitting on the beach, only instead of relaxing he will be entertaining the aforementioned twenty-five pounds and making sure it doesn't run or float off into the sea. This arrangement seems totally fair. We each get a kid. He watches one and I grow the other.

Lycopersicon Esculentum L

Sometimes I look out at my "garden" and I feel quite pleased, other times I look out and think that I am an idiot. Most often, if I ignore the prolific plantings of my friends, I feel like a smug idiot, which is a nice blending of the two. Yesterday, I was leaning more towards smugness than idiot when I spied this here tomato.



It is beautiful! Properly tomato shaped. Pretty red color. How could I not feel smug? Now, this isn't exactly something I've grown from scratch. This was the plant I bought that already had one baby tomato on it (which subsequently died) and I figured this would be a good bar ... it had one tomato so if it grew no more, well then it was because I am cursed, not because the plant was defective. So, my point as convoluted as it is, is that I can't really say I grew this tomato (though it wasn't even a flower when I got the plant) since the plant was kind of doing it on its own but even so, I still felt awesome about my tomato growing skills. Well, until I took a step back and looked at the actual plant.


In case you can't tell, 99% of the leaves are brown, yellow and dying. Awesome, eh? Now the plant has been in this sad state for some time now and still managed to make that one beauty, so I am cautiously hopeful that the others will ripen and not wither and die. Otherwise I will have paid $11 for one, albeit pretty, tomato, which is kind of lame.

The tomato plant that I actually did buy as a squirt, and didn't cheat on at all is, well, doing squat. Actually, that is not totally true. The topsy turvy tomato that I have babied and given lots of love is giving me squat, but the one that I had in its original pot for months and months and only a week ago planted in a proper pot, well it is showing potential.



It has one lonely, unripe,cherry tomato on it ... I am keeping my fingers crossed!

Ribbit!

So I've been plugging away on my Jaywalkers and I finished both toes and both feet and was on to the gusset and heel of the first sock when I remembered the tragedy that befell my green Jaywalkers (where the the gusset and heel were longer than the foot and I had to cut the toe off and perform some knittery magic) and I got a little nervous. Well one thing led to another and I got out the green Jaywalkers and I compared and then I hemmed and then I hawed and then I hemmed and hawed and then I decided to not do as many gusset increases and then I compared some more and then I hemmed and hawed again and then I put on the socks and said MUTHERFUCKER!



I had done exactly one row of the heel turn and there were like five million left which meant it was going to be WAY TOO BIG and how did I not learn this painful lesson from the last go around? Needless to say there was a whole bunch of ripping. And by whole bunch I mean inches. Yes, inches. Plural. As in I wasted precious nap time on knitting shit that I had to unknit. MUTHERFUKER!



I had to rip back through that dark plummy purple stripe. That is over four inches of knitting. GAHHHH. And? And. And I had to do it twice. Because I had to do it to the other sock. Have I said mutherfuker yet?

And We Shall Call Her Jatrick

Because Joan so sweetly asked ...

The Deuce, having not wanted to give up it's gender at our previous ultrasound, took pity on us this time and splayed her legs so wide that she won't need to see a gynecologist until she is thirty; she can just refer the doctor to her ultrasound picture.


I seriously can never make heads or tails of the ultrasound photos, and I swear this child is messing with us a little extra because she likes to move around constantly; thus, ensuring all pictures look like storm fronts. Nonetheless, when it came time to peak at her lady bits, she went all Showgirls so that even I said, "Hey look! Three lines!" Which is, in case you are curious, ultrasound speak for the vagina.

Not only is the Deuce a girl, she is a thumb-sucking girl. Well, at least that is what I was told that we see in this picture ... a human, on her back, sucking her thumb.


Um, okay, if you say so.

Bubble

I had a dream (stories that start like this ALWAYS suck, I KNOW. Do you care about my dream? No. Oh well.) about Twitter. And in my dream, I set up a Twitter page/account/thingamajig and then added it to my blog and I said to my dream self, "You should do this in real life." So, of course, I did. But here's the thing, what in the hell does one do on Twitter and who do you follow (well other than Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore)? Those are serious questions for which I'd love someone, anyone, you, to answer.

In the meantime, I am thinking that maybe I should delete my Twitter account and set one up for the Bean or for Dogbert. They'd probably be a lot more interesting. But this is something I will have to ponder later as I must now go stop the Bean from chasing the dog while carrying a (full) plug-in air freshener and a bottle of white-out. I can't see it ending well.

Presto! Pesto! Oh Boy!

Four semi-packed cups of home grown basil + one Mark Bittman pesto recipe = A Happy Girl! Actually, I exaggerate, all of the basil didn't go into the pesto, the leftover was for bruschetta, but this t'aint about no bruschetta, it's about the pesto, my very first experience with my homegrown herb. Homegrown herb, heh, wonder how many stray google hits that is gonna bring me.

First I took my freshly plucked basil and hand washed each individual leaf, cleaning all dirt off. Idiotically I am MUCH MORE relaxed when I buy fresh basil at the store; no individual leaf washing, the whole package gets a quick douse under the faucet (I just spelled that Fawcet, as in Farrah, as in I see too much pop culture on tv and the internet and it is rotting my brain). But then again, I know what lurks in my yard (i.e., psycho deer that try to attack my pooch and the turkey mafia) and it ain't pretty. So right, I washed the hell out of the basil and then, and only then did I give it a spin in the salad spinner.




It sure looks pretty! Well maybe it doesn't. Maybe it is some sense of farmer pride that makes me find this to be the most beautiful basil in the whole wide world. Maybe I am deluded. Or, maybe it really is the most beautiful basil ever. Once the basil was clean and drying, I gathered the rest of my pesto making goodies.


Note that neither the coffee maker nor the pink little girl socks are crucial to this recipe.

You may also want to grab slave labor, uh, I mean a sous-chef. The sous-chef, if under-aged, may turn out to be a hindrance as all she will want to do is sit on the floor and play with raw pasta noodles. But if she is cute, she can provide comic relief if your pesto goes to shit.



So I followed Bittman's basic pesto recipe, except that I added a dash of Romano cheese because I have crappy reading comprehension skills and randomly added it in my head. Also, I detoured from the recipe when it came to adding the oil. I like my pesto thick and after adding half the oil I was worried it was going to be a watery mess. Granted, you don't add the cheese (well the Parmesan, a/k/a the cheese called for in the recipe) into the food processor, you mix it in by hand after the oil and other ingredients are processed, but still, I was scared.

                   
This one has no cheese.                                                 This one has lots of cheese.

It turns out that the full amount of oil probably would have been fine (hell, it is a Bittman recipe after all), but I can only say probably because I just started mixing cheese in with no thought or care to measuring. I was just going for what looked right. I may have used less cheese to compensate for less oil, or maybe I am just a cheese loving fool, or maybe both.



It really doesn't matter though because in the end, I had some DELICIOUS pesto!

Ostentatious

Summer is here and I was thinking ... limos have pools in the back, why can't our Accord?



If you look closely, you can tell that Honda was thinking the same thing ... there is a hook for your towel off to the right.