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.

Girls Weekend

Another year, another awesome Girls Weekend in Cape Cod.


Best quote: "I'm Sweden and you're out of here!" The weekend started with an apparently sober twenty-something man, saying this to his lover, while making a rock and roll hand gesture. I don't know what this means. None of us know what this means. And yet, it was appropriate at all times.

Best Text Message: justleaveheralonewerebusy

Dirtiest activity: Being a "Dirty Monkey"?? Nope! Strawberry picking. There was strawberry picking in which I picked one strawberry and was very pleased.


I then picked a second one which was dirty AND had a bug on it and I pretty much freaked the hell out. I also slightly freaked because I was getting dirt in between my toes because I wore flip flops. Note to self: Don't wear flip flops when walking in dirt. Nonetheless, because my cohorts were diligently picking away, and because a little girl of about two was diligently picking away next to us, and because I didn't want to be a pansy, I was shamed into picking some more. Eleven more total. Well, I guess twelve more total as I picked one, started to eat it ...

Second Best Quote: "You're stealing!" Someone IN OUR GROUP yelled at me while I was tasting the merchandise because to eat a strawberry prior to paying for said strawberry was stealing. Note, there was no sign, no warning, no nothing telling you to keep your greedy lips to yourself and DO NOT EAT THE STRAWBERRIES. No, there wasn't. Also, the little girl next to me was eating each one she picked and not a one went into her basket but did she get yelled at for stealing? No! Anyway, even though the strawberry wasn't very good, I finished eating it because if I am gonna be a thief, them dammit, I am gonna rip off as much as I can. Which, I guess, turned out to be one mediocre strawberry. I am no mastermind criminal. In any event, once I was away from the dirt and bugs and you know, NATURE, the picking was quite amusing to me as I had the largest box and the smallest haul.


Worst Question Asked to a Stranger: "Do you know what a head shop is?" Our waitress thought head shops dealt with a different type of head, as in giving ... well, never mind, you get the point, we didn't get kicked out and the food was delish, so the tea shoppe was a success despite the fact that no one, other than me, knew what a head shop was. For the record, a head shop is real and not something I made up. It is a place where you go to buy drug paraphernalia.

Moment of Redemption: After last year's resounding pottery disaster, which I pawned off as a hostess gift, I was determined to redeem myself at the paint your own pottery place. And, actually, I think I may have. I gooped on three layers of the paint so unbelievably thick that the mug was about a pound heavier than when it started. I hoped to avoid streakage, but with paint that thick and goopy you never know what will happen, so, fingers crossed.


There was a slight mishap when someone (KAY!!!!) got purple paint on my dry, perfect, piece of art, not when we were at the table and painting but when we were putting them up for glazing. I did an emergency repair, but you never know. So, in conclusion, if the mug sucks, it is all Kay's fault.

EXCEPT, HOLY FUK I SPELLED SWEDEN WRONG ON MY MUG AND NO ONE TOLD ME! I just saw that RIGHT NOW, as I was proof reading this post. Maybe I should have proof read my mug. DAMMIT. Now I am gonna have to give this away too.

Worst Spelling Error: Sweden. On my commemorative mug. Suck.

Common Photographic Theme: My boobs can't be contained.

    
Seriously. In every group shot, and some alone ones, at least one of my boobs is making a run for it. Ridiculous.

Weirdest "Best Piece of Advice You've Ever Received" per the game Loaded Questions: Just pick something to go with it.

Most unique "Place you'd like to be born" per the game Loaded Questions: Mars.

Number of random animals we saw up close and personal: Two!

  

Most Overprice Food: Gourmet cupcakes. Don't get me wrong. They taste good. But no matter how good they taste, $17+ for 6 cupcakes is robbery.


Shopkeeper: That will be $17.85. Me: What? Oh no, I only got the half dozen on the left, the ones on the right are hers. Shopkeeper: Yes, I know. Yours are $17.85. For reals? Even better is that when I sent a picture of the oreo one to my husband telling him I had gotten him a very special treat, he replied, "It looks like dog poop." Great. $3 dog poop. Awesome. Since I had paid a small fortune for the cupcakes, and because I had heard that everyone who bought the fru fru cupcakes had mushed them on their way home, I treated mine like royalty and packed them in my bag in a way guaranteed to prevent smushage. And it worked. The dog poop cupcake and his five pals made it home safely.

Number of times I forgot to knit in public on KIP day: All but two. Twenty gazillion places and I forgot to knit at all of them but two.

Proclamation: No matter what (like say moving to Kentucky), we are doing a girls weekend at the Cape every year.

The Bloom Is Off The Rose

I got absolutely nothing done at work on Monday. I didn't answer a single letter, I didn't even log my mail. Actually, that's not totally true. I did manage to take a legal call and I answered and sorted the sixty-four e-mails that had accumulated while I was in Miami visiting with my uncle before his surgery. Oh, I also got a cheap thrill. But work-wise, nada. And the day, it flew by. It was fun and it was over. All of a sudden it was 4:30pm and I had done nothing but relocate two piles of crap work. Yesterday, I got some work done. Clients' crap correspondence was organized, I devised a plan of attack to get stuff done and I even finished three or four of those things. And in the end, the day, it didn't fly by, but I wasn't staring at the clock counting the seconds either. Which brings us to today, apparently the slowest day ever. I've pumped the boobs (exciting), eaten breakfast (ham, egg and cheese on a multi-grain bagel, yum), caught up on my celebrity gossip (Justin Long, you slut!), read my e-mail (hi boo!), written to two clients (you crazy fuks), chatted with Mr. Cool (bad knees suck), and yet it is only 8:31 a.m. How is this possible. It should be like 10:00 a.m.

And, is it just me or is my use of the word "got" totally ghetto? I write like I speak and well, maybe I need to take a remedial English class or something. Yowsers. Ghettoness aside, I can't believe how slow this day is progressing. An inchworm moves faster than time in my office. Prof. Larson's business law class moves faster than time in my office. Invasive anal examinations performed by knowledge seeking space aliens move faster than time in my office. Gah.

Also slow, my ability to blog about Miami. I brought my camera with me and took some great shots of Lady Bean on her first boat ride and playing at the Stiltsville house. I had planned to blog about the highlights of my trip (afterall my uncle's five hour surgery, not a highlight, though surving the surgery was) but I am slow, however, and have not managed to upload any of the good ones. Instead I have this one ...



... a comparison of what I brought to Stiltsville for me (on the right) and what I brought to Stiltsville for her. I had my phone, camera, knitting, sunscreen and a hat, whereas, she, she had two bags of stuff.

I also have these two pictures...




... which should be accompanied by my mental soundtrack of "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How much longer?" I have several pictures of Stiltsville, but none of the trip out there. I was trying to get some shots that would capture my mounting excitement as the houses got closer and closer. I didn't really do that.

The last picture I managed to upload is from the front patio/deck of the house looking at the city of Miami ...



It is one of the least interesting pictures I took. I really need to get my butt in gear and get those pictures off of the camera. And, if I had brought the camera to work today, maybe I could do that to pass time because even with all of my blathering .... it is still only 9:02 a.m.

Bucket List

Lately, or rather, every other night or so, I wake up to pee and then am struck with wicked insomnia. Having been an All-Pro, All-American, All-Star sleeper, this is absolutely HORRIFIC for me. I use to be able to "nap" for four hours, go about my business and then sleep for another eight hours when it was bed time. Now, not so much. It sucks. But it also gives my brain time to percolate over the ridiculous and the sublime. More often the ridiculous. Which is how, I ended up making my own 'bucket list.'

Though it doesn't yet feel quite real, all signs are pointing to "Yes, you will be having a child in three and a half weeks!" Which means that kid-free life is about to kick the bucket. The next logical thought, for the sleep deprived at four in the a.m., is that Boo and I need to create our version of a bucket list. Granted, now is the worst possible time work-wise for him to do anything fun, and I am not exactly at top form. Nonetheless, it seemed like a brilliant idea (which might be why you should never make any important decision between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. - you are either drunk or sleep-deprived).

In any event, there are a lot of possible items for our bucket list. Well, there were are 4:00 a.m., since then many of those brilliant ideas have filtered out into the ether and whenever I try to think of something I draw a blank, or utter something so silly that Boo just snorts at me and continues on with whatever he was doing. Basically, with the exception of jaunting out to Hawaii for a few days, something that unfortunately isn't possible, all of my ideas are lame and revolve around restaurants we should try or re-visit one last time and things we should buy (including camera number four now that camera number three has died which is why I have no pictures and am just yapyapyapping over here). I'm not sure what this says about my personality. Because, like I said, my ideas, well, they are lame. But, I am one to persevere - or one who has lots of middle of the night insomnia of late - so I kept thinking. And I thought some more. And I thought real hard and BAM, I came up with an idea ... a day trip to NYC. Wild, huh? I know. And, in all honesty, the impetus for a trip to NYC came while watching this so I can't even claim it was truly my idea.

Anyway, Boo use to live in NYC and he proposed to me (as opposed to some other skank) on the top of the Empire State Building, so I thought that between us (or really just based on him) we had a pretty decent familiarity with the city, but it turns out we don't. Neither of us has been to the Top of The Rock. Chu-ching! As soon as he said that he had never been, I knew we had a bucket list worthy day trip.

Now, because I am me, I am not planning the trip. Instead, I have proposed an itinerary that includes the Top of the Rock, some specific shopping, and several food stops. I am the worst trip planner and I have given him all of my ideas and said, "Make it Work!" We'll see what happens.

More of the Same

I'm still not finding the funny, or the blogworthy and interesting, though this morning I did find the pissed-off-hormonal-indignation as I trudged through horrible weather to get to work on time when nothing else (including the courthouse NEXT to my office) was opening on time simply because Crazy wanted sympathy. Yesterday she left at tenish for no reason, or one of three totally different reasons, depending on which person she told. So when I walked in the door this morning and saw her crying at the receptionist's desk, I know she expected me to drop everything and say, "Oh no! Are you okay? What's wrong you dear, sweet, kind, caring woman?" Having just slipped and slid my way over a mountain to drag my ass to work, that wasn't happening. Instead I chirped, "Good morning!" and waved. It might have been slightly rude, but honestly, it was better than calling her a self-absorbed, sympathy-junkie, bitch face.

So, since I am probably not fit for regular conversation as of yet, I'm cleaning out my closet, er, camera!

Here is pedicure sock number one.





I did find the ball of crap yarn that I thought I'd lost. It seems I never took it out of my suitcase. Whoops! I wish I could say I did the same with my camera battery charger and extra battery, but they weren't in there and can only be presumed missing. In any event, I am onto pedicure sock number two. My next pedicure is a week and a half away, so I have some time to get these guys finished. I suspect though that I will single handedly bring an end to winter by finishing these socks in a timely manner. I have power like that. Also, I can bring the rain by simply washing my car. I am magical!

Here are a few of the pictures from my trip to D.C. You are being spared the three thousand self-portraits during which I was trying to get the Washington Monument, Capitol, or some other neat building in the background. I look at them and it is like a Where's Waldo? I have to laugh at myself. I could have asked one of the five people with me to take my picture with the item of interest but that would have been, well, normal.

    
    
    

Here are some more of my D.C pictures, those these are of our Indian dinner, which had my new favorite Indian dish Palak Chata (crispy spinach).

Medicinal

I'm back from a great time in D.C. where there were all sorts of fun times (a man crashing the baby shower to take the stinkiest ... more about that later) and fun things like the world's best ice tea bag which for some socialist reason is unavailable "up north" and delicious cake with dancing babies on it ...




But, before I regale you with the good, I need to share the bad, or if not bad, disappointing.



What? You must be thinking, those socks are lovely, not bad or disappointing. But that my friends, is the power of photography. A little illusion, a little huggle muggle, a little bait and switch, or something. Because while those pictures look passable, only when you see the socks full on, no holds barred, do you see the bad.



Gahhhh! I have pooling. Ugly ass, where the hell did this come from, you can't hide it pooling.



I worked all of the pattern part of the first sock, the non-pooling sock, on the train ride up and while at Joan's and was feeling pretty good about the project. I started the bad sock on the train ride home and almost lost my breakfast. I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done different to cause such a horrific spectacle. But then, it hit me.



My skein was plagued by one of the common complaints about Colinnette Jitterbug. There seems to be two common complaints about this yarn: skimpy yardage and knots. The yardage thing wasn't a big deal to me since I knew about it going in. I also knew about the knot going in, as I had seen it when I was dividing and winding the skein into two balls. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. Never in a million years (because maybe I am dimmer than I think I am) did I believe it would change the color flow and cause pooling. Had I thought that this was even a possibility, I would have started the second sock at the top so that the knot and subsequent pooling would have been on the foot part, the part no one would ever see.

Needless to say, I hate the pooling. If I loved the pattern or the yarn, I would rip this out and redo it upside down, but frankly the socks don't float my boat. They are okay, I guess. I like how the pattern made the side seam area wavy ...



But the pattern causes weird puckering (my ankles are swollen enough thanks to Lady Bean, I don't need to have my socks enhance this look) and the overall effect isn't anything to write home about. I still love the color and the yarn itself is an okay knit. It isn't splitty and it held up real well to multiple rippings I had when I was trying to get the right size/stitch count/etc. going. Will I wear them, sure. Will I admit to knitting them myself? Maybe not!



Yarn: Colinnette Jitterbug, color Raphael, 1 skein.
Needles: Knit Picks, size 2.75 mm (US 2)
Pattern: Two different feather and fan patterns mixed together used with a generic toe-up pattern.
Time: 24 days.
Care: Machine wash cold, machine dry low heat.

Ate My Way Through Boston

This past weekend I went to Boston for Girls Weekend v. 2 and it was lots 'o fun! My hostess gift was the most wretchedly painted pottery piece ever, painted during the Second Annual Girls Weekend v. 1. It was a huge hit though. Really it was. Madam Hostess was thrilled. As thrilled as if I had given her, say, a fresh pile of elephant dung.



Yah, the "blending technique" didn't work for squat. Even though I gave the worst, or at least most unattractive, hostess gift ever, no one kicked me, tripped me, or left me to fend for myself in a city full of people who talk funny. We saw a movie (27 Dresses, it was cute and didn't make me cry), wandered Quincy Market, rode the T (something I had never done before), and I even managed to get a row or two done on the socks (yah, I know, a row or two, not something I should be bragging about, but hey, I am now done with my gusset increases and it's time for the heel turn; that means I am halfway done, maybe even less since this yarn is skimpy with the yardage). Oh, and we ate.

     

     

     

Even with all of the normal day-to-day eating, I still had room for cake.



Surprise baby shower cake, yummm! Way back when I first came out of the we're-having-a-baby closet, Kay mentioned that she would not be throwing me a baby shower. To which I replied okay, we should have a Girls Weekend instead. Apparently I am a greedy biatch (something that Crazy thinks too as she is telling people that I am very selfish) because Kay thought this meant I was requesting a Girls Weekend Shower. I wasn't, but now that I've had one, I think I might advocate for some sort of deal in the future! If people agree, all Girls Weekends should end with me getting lots and lots of presents because I like presents, almost as much as I like cake!

     

Not only did I get great clothes and towels and toys, I also got some useful information.



Yah, it seems some people are worried about my parenting skills. Smart people! The shower was a surprise, and an   awesome   wicked cool surprise at that. I had a great time and Lady Bean is building a wardrobe to rival   mine   her dad's.