I May Be Right, You May Be Crazy

Every once in a while something happens that makes me shake my head in wonderment.  Wonderment tinged in dismay.  Perhaps dismay tinged in wonderment is more appropriate.  Do you ever want to just shake someone really hard and shout “Are you out of your f*ing (except really say the word) MIND, you complete MORON?” 

Oh well.

So I’ve been very busy with school.  In these first two weeks or so of grad school I’ve expended more mental energy than I did during the entirety of my undergrad work.  Calling it work is an insult to the very idea of work.  Alas.  I have, however, been able to knit; I’ve brought my Cocktail Sauce Sock with me to knit on between classes and it’s grown some.  I also started a sock in a baby cable pattern with some Opal that the delightful Sobe sent to me in a swap.  I LOVE it!  Knitting socks is quite fun.  I think what I will do is knit each sock in a different pattern, thereby lessening my chances of becoming bored while concurrently increasing my collection of interesting socks.  See how clever I am?

I don’t have any pictures.  I don’t have much else to say, either, unless you want to hear about my Bi-lingual Ed class, my thoughts on NCLB, and just how very tired I am lately.  You don’t, do ya?  I don’t, either.

I Just Want Your Extra Time and Your (Hershey’s) Kiss

Last night I dreamt entirely in Chocolate. Two childhood friends and I were at a café and all of the food was chocolate. Chocolate cake, cupcakes, brownies, cookies (but no pie, which is odd because today is National Pie Day!), everything was chocolate. In my dream, my delight was such that all I could do was giggle! I woke myself up giggling! Today was indeed a good day, even though I spent it largely with my BLE textbooks, becoming very vexed indeed that seemingly nothing can escape the insidious encroachment of politics.

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The yarn you see above is Tofustsies from South West Trading Company.  Tofutsies! The color shceme is Stand on Your Own Two Feet.  (I’m sorry, I’m not Old School enough to say ‘colorway.’)  And I must thank my Secret Pal again for the Sensational Knitted Socks book! Without it, I would have stuck this yarn in the bottom of my stash, never to look at it or touch it again. I am having so much fun knitting this. I just LOVE it! It’s springy, soft, and wonderfully colorful. What’s not to love? I do admit to being a bit perplexed by the shrimp and crab shells, and since this is only the second pair of socks I’ve knit I’ll be honest and say the curiosity factor is what made me buy the yarn, not any love of sock knitting. However, I may indeed be a sockaholic now because of it! It’s apparently naturally antibacterial, which is a good thing. That’s all I’m saying.  It’s not as squishy (there’s that word!) or fluffy as my poorly lit shot would have you believe, but it is fun.  It glides nicely, but never slips.  So there we have it. Tofutsies, I love you!

This is going to be a new purse for me. She shall have bamboo handles and a wild bright lining that has goldish accents.

Ok! Salmon and wild rice for dinner. Care to join us?

“Say you love me!” “You know I do!”

Thank you thank you for the nice comments about my bag.  No, I did not hand-sew that thing.  I got through one long seam and thought “This is some kinda CRAP!” and took myself to Target, where I purchased for myself something called The Shark Euro Pro X mini sewing machine.  Actually, the words ‘mini sewing machine’ do not appear anywhere on the box, and the only thing to clue you in to the fact that you’re buying a very small sewing machine is the picture of it on the package.  So.

 

Ok, if you have any sense whatsoever, any sense, any taste, any love for me at all, go see this movie.  Jason Bateman?  Zach Braff?  In the SAME MOVIE??  Do they want me to embarrass myself in public with the loud, heavy breathing that will, in all likelihood, be mistaken for panting and it will be no mistake?  Yes.  In fact, I’m sure that’s precisely what Jason Bateman and Zach Braff had in mind while making this movie.  Oh, and Amanda Peet!  Meerowr! 

In a Secret World, We Were Colliding

Plain outer flap?

 

 

Or flowery outer flap?

 

Not to rush you, but I do have class next Monday and would like to use my new bag. J

My Heart is a Brick and I Cannot Pick It Up

I have fabric.

I have an indomitable will.

I don’t have a sewing machine.

I don’t have a messenger bag pattern.

And if I Choose to See This as a Sign, It Surely Is

I love it when people can name that tune!

It’s fun to sometimes realize how small the knitblog world is, because it seems SO vast. I saw this on one of the blogs I read quite some time ago, at least a month, and I’ve seen it with increasing frequency. I don’t know that I can narrow this down to six, but here are some strange things about me:

Ø   I got married in Gibraltar. So did John Lennon and Yoko Ono. So did Sean Connery and at least one of his wives. I think the lesson learned here is that if you want to have a long, happy marriage, don’t get married in Gibraltar.

Ø   I am a descendant of Grover Cleveland, 22^nd President of the Unites States.

Ø   When I was a little girl we lived in Mission Viejo, CA. The rec center we belonged to had a high dive board and occasionally Greg Louganis practiced there. One day I tripped and fell on the poolside and he scooped me up. Thanks, Greg Louganis!

Ø   When driving, if I have to switch lanes I try to arrange it so that I don’t run over the reflector thingies on the road. If I can successfully switch lanes with no run-overs, I feel confident that I’ll have a good day.

Ø   I secretly believe that the fortune in my cookie truly is meant for me. I guess that’s not a secret anymore.

Ø   When I was a senior in high school I was in a production of The Fiddler on the Roof put on by the seminary down the street from my school. I developed quite a debilitating crush on a man who was a third-year seminary student. That meant that in less than a year he would be ordained a priest. (Ok, technically a deacon, because that’s the first step, but still.) It was shameful, the things that ran through my mind. He is the ONLY former crush I have not Googled.

There we are, then. So I won a skein of STR from the wonderful Cara! I’m quite pleased. I’m going to make a pair of Pomatomus, just see if I don’t! Let me rephrase that. I’m going to try!!

Chloe had her birthday party this weekend. Whoever tells you that having five ten-year old girls in your apartment all at the same time for a sleepover is a good idea is LYING to you, and is obviously trying to put you in some sort of zombie-like, not quite conscious state so as to allow for more easy thievery of your yarn. I baked what was later called a Scab Cake. Gross. Red Velvet cake with chocolate frosting. Can’t have cake without chocolate frosting. Then it’s not cake! Trying to get this close-up resulted in a somewhat chocolate-coated camera. What’s a girl to do? Why, lick the frosting off the camera, of course!

Let’s Make it Clear That This is Free Love

Ok, to clarify, I believe those two items down there to be slippers socks, not straight up socks. So if’n someone has a hankerin’ to laugh with glee at my “I should try STR” essay, I didn’t lie when I said I’ve only knit one pair of socks

Perhaps I should expound a bit.  Here’s my plea:

 

I don’t know if I can best the Floyd’s Knobs lady. I have made one pair of socks, and it was for my father for Christmas. It wasn’t very enjoyable, as I knit it with Cascade something or other in a solid (but lovely) chocolate color. It was very very boring. Emphasis on the very. And the boring. I’m worried, though, that like every loss of virginity experience, I’ll fall into a love that won’t be reciprocated. I’ll turn into some sort of sad, clingy girl, and look for the bittersweet tang of First Love with the entire STR line! Here’s how it’ll go down:
“STR, you never call me!”

“But after we met you bought eighteen of my brothers!”

“But but but… you were my first! The most special! Doesn’t that MEAN anything to you?”

“I thought it meant something to you! But all you do is walk all over me!”

“Well, you’re *socks*. I thought that’s what you wanted!”

“How would you know what I want? You just stuck needles into me, twisted me around, and you wouldn’t even do Magic Loop!”

“Magic Loop! I’m not that kind of girl!” And that’s when I’d throw that pair of socks in for a wash, because only dirty socks would suggest such a thing.

I now leave you to sing Depeche Mode songs to yourself.

I’m Only Here to Bring You Free Love

  

I know Ed hates it when I put crap on my laptop.  I think he does something with electronics or some such, but I haven’t been able to ferret out from his blog what his precise occupation is.  I have no knitting going on, so…. there’s lunch- sushi, Pom BlackBerry Pomegranate Tea, and apple chips

So.  You’ve all read mention of JungleJim, the love of my life, my one true love, so on and so forth.  I don’t think I’ve ever shared stories of StingRayJim.  I guess it’s because he’s not prominent enough in my life to inspire any stories, and that’s ok.  He’d be appalled, by the way, to hear such talk, but that’s the way it is.  Just this once, though, here’s a story.

This morning for some reason known only to StingRayJim (because I wasn’t paying 100% attention, if you must know) we were discussing Pope Urban II.  This was after our discussion of the Carboniferous Period, which I didn’t believe had actually transpired until a Google search verified it.  I was reading aloud all about the Carboniferous Period (go ahead and say it out loud, it feels funny) and got to the part about stratigraphy.  I pronounced it STRA-ti-gra-phy, when it turns out to be stra-TI-gra-phy, like calligraphy.  If you’ve ever spoken to me, you’ll recall how I am a total pain in the ass when it comes to pronouncing words properly.  For example- exactly.  There’s a T in there, people.  Cost-Co.  Also a T.  Promptly.  And yes, I say of-ten.  So when StingRayJim suddenly said “stra-TI-gra-phy” I laughed.  I laughed so hard that I cried, because my shame at mispronouncing a word was too grand to contain. Also, what makes it worse is that I was actually thinking of the stratosphere when I said stratigraphy, and as we all know, the stratosphere is not part of the earth’s crust. 

In two weeks I start my Masters classes to teach high school English.  No child left behind!  (Which is not a grammatically correct statement.  Left behind….. what?  The tool shed?  The supply closet?  Behind what?)  Perhaps when I’m a real teacher we’ll write essays on What the Carboniferous Period Means to Me.

 The other day I was out running The Geege’s errands with her.  We were at one of those giant bedding/kitchening doohickey stores buying linens (but not things, we weren’t at THAT store) for the new beds she’d purchased two hours earlier.  By the way, the things I do for the Geege are innumerable and varied.  I flopped down on so many mattresses in quite an unladylike manner.  Anyway.  Back at the bed and bath and more-than-those-two-areas store.  I spotted this very peculiar sign and had to snap a photo.  What’s that last item?  I didn’t want to search the aisles for regurgitated Cap’n Crunch.  No thank you.

That’s it!  That’s all I’ve got.

A Lovestruck Romeo Sings the Streets a Serenade

 

Those oversupermegapainful Fuzzy Feet weren’t the end of me. Oh no. For some reason I had to keep knitting slippers. Mostly because I signed up to test-knit a pattern for some slippers. So I knitted two pairs, and you see them both below.

I started to knit this lovely scarf in a fantastic, berry-colored yarn, something called Afternoon Silk. Let’s examine that, shall we? Afternoon silk. Does that mean that the rather scant silk content of the yarn makes it more appropriate for the afternoon, and a higher silk content would lend itself to perhaps more eveningly (Yes. A new word. You read it here first) activities? I don’t know. What I do know is that the pattern called for more attention span than I had at my disposal.

I’d like to take a poll here, and please feel free to participate. Who among us thinks that in real life, non-Napoleon style, the kid who played Napoleon Dynamite is actually rather… hot? Also, next time you logon to MySpace, check out the banner ad along the top of the page. Do you see a Knit Picks ad? I do. And I’m slightly tweaked out by that.

PS- My Blogger Secret Pal sent me a gift subscription to Interweave Knits. How much does she rule? A heck of a lot, that’s how much. You know what’s also cool about her, in a non-material way? She always asks about my kids. It’s hard to say which makes me happier….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And When at Last, Youth’s Bitterness Being Past….

I had thought that all my days were cast

Amid most lovely places; smitten as though

It had not learned its lesson.

–William Butler Yeats

 

A few things have occurred to me.  Firstly, many of my favorite knit bloggers have recently taped episodes of Knitty Gritty!  When I meet Vickie Howell in February, I’m going to ask her “So is Cookie A as cool in person as she is on her blog?  And how about Charles?  I bet he’s a character and a real sweetheart, too.  Ooh, and how about Scout?  Was she sharp and warm at the same time, like I imagine she is?  And I must know what it was like to hang out with Amy.”  And then I’ll politely ask for her autograph, and I’ll buy some of her yarn, just so she knows I wasn’t after her for her celebrity stories.  (Sweet!  I’m going to meet Vickie Howell!!!)

 Secondly, 2006 seems to have been a very difficult year for some of my favorite people.  Dude, 2006, why did you suck so much?  Because at times, you really did, I’ll tell it like it is.  I’ll now sing my verse of the “2006 Sucked Real Bad at Times” song.

 Very early in the year there was the startlingly vicious flip-out perpetrated against my minions and me by their horrendously evil father.  But on the flip side, JungleJim fought for us like a tornado-fuelled attack hound.  We’re still dealing with all of that, and until that well-aimed meteorite for which I fervently and frequently wish actually comes through for me, we’ll continue to deal with it.  There was the culmination of JungleJim’s financial woes.  But that whole equal and opposite reaction thing came into play and ooh lordy loverman is makin’ some cash.  (I was raised with the belief that it’s quite impolite to discuss money, and it is, but I’m being honest here.)  I had three different jobs last year.  One job almost drove me to a nervous breakdown.  I quit on Valentine’s Day, and the ladies shared the roses that JungleJim had delivered to me.  One lasted … almost exactly a month and it was one of the most unpleasant jobs I have ever held.  I’d go back to Teta the Evil Spider Monkey From the Scariest Depths of Hell before going back to the month-long job.  And then there the job from which I was unceremoniously dumped VIA EMAIL.  I’d almost feel bad that the boss’s business has tanked, but then I remembered that I was dumped via email and that saves me three nanoseconds of guilt.  There was Chloe’s surgery, Nolan’s skull fracture, Jim’s spider bite that abscessed into a gross hole in his arm.  I don’t know how I avoided catastrophe, but I did, and everybody healed nicely. 

 You know, here’s how we ended the year.  MexiChlo, Noleander, JungleJim and I played Dragonology for a while, we watched old school Bond movies on DVD, had a nice dinner, and then cuddled up on the couch for more Bond.  We all went to sleep with hugs and kisses, snuggled up in our beds.  Full bellies, warm blankets, and our family all together.  Looking at it that way, some of the lingering hurt is soothed a bit.  A big bit.

So far, 2007 is a kick ass year.  I start grad school in two weeks.  My knitting has improved.  My felting has nowhere to go but up.  My kids are happy and healthy.  JungleJim has filled the gap in our little family and as my girl Bjork sings, All is Full of Love.  Hit me up sometime.  I’ll spread some to you!