So Late It's Early

Take my car keys.

Revoke my intelligent feminist membership.

Talk sensible to me.

For fuck's sake, invoke an intervention.

Boys carbonate me.

The Boy confuses me.

Oh... look at the time. I gotta leave you with better than that.

This is Shane (and Carna/Karna -- see, I didn't ask the spelling... bad blogdork, bad! -- not that CKarna's an afterthought, just that I've known Shane longer. KCarna? TOTALLY cool.). I've known him my whole life. He's the best-looking guy I know that wasn't drawn by Marvel Comics. Totally objective there.‡

Eye. Fucking. Candy. Both of 'em.†

Click for big. Seriously, if you don't click for big, there's something wrong with our relationship. Trust me. You WANT to click for big.

That should make you feel better.

And if I can't feel better, the next best thing is that y'all should feel better.

I know, I'm a train wreck. Don't worry about me. Weakness shines through some days. While it ain't pretty, it's nothing to worry about.

[SUMMARY: Look at the fucking time. Does it look like a good time for coherent thought?]

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): In my next life, I want to be this photogenic.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed -- oh, the irony): I'd jump The Boy in any public place in a heartbeat. I'd gladly bake Shane cookies. See the objectivity?

All Hail!

Yeah, I think I'm funny.

So we had some weather here in Denverish yesterday. And I feel this is my opportunity to really anger the various gods and become smote and probably change the course of weather for the entire country.

I have been making predictions on the weather since last spring. So far, I've been just about dead on.† People who've heard me in all my weather goddess sturm und drang‡ would tell you I've been pretty accurate.

[SUMMARY: Have I never heard the word "hubris"?]

I figure the real test is to make a big ol' public production of it.

So here it is: In general, it's going to be a wild summer here in Denverish. It will be wetter than last summer, with storms almost every afternoon from mid- to late-June through July. Maybe before and beyond, but those hot central summer days are surely going to be like the summers of my childhood when all I wanted to do was swim all day and we got lighteninged out every fucking afternoon.

There will be an abnormal amount of thunderstorms and hailstorms and we can expect to see tornadoes as far inland as Aurora.

It will totally suck to be in Holyoke.^

I'm not sure about the fall and winter yet, but I'm going to re-iterate last year's prediction and go for a mid- to late-September snow of the sopping wet type that crashes trees and power lines and makes the newscasters go frowny-faced as they report on the number of little old ladies who have been without electricity for days.

If it makes y'all feel any better, we're going to have an absolutely stunning autumn this year because of all the water in the spring and summer.

Honestly, I know almost nothing about the weather.

[SUMMARY: Heh. I'm still laughing at "sturm und drang." I'm turning into Bob the Jackass. I should have said "Ah."]

I see cycles like that little kid in the Bruce Willis movie saw dead people. Of course, you can laugh§ because I'm talking 20-year hard cycles and 10-year interim cycles and my sample is running on 30 years now¶ so I'm just blowing smoke.

Really, really accurate smoke.

And now that I've said this -- here, in this very public venue, where all manner of mouse, man and god can surf it -- it will be hot and dry and nothing extreme in the slightest because that's how Murphy$ plays me each and every fucking time.

Besides, I used up all my Kharmic Green Stamps yesterday on a $4 parking discount.#

But the weather was cool and extreme yesterday and fit into my grand prediction nicely.

Here are some pictures I took, for I am a blogdork with a new camera:

From the 10th storey of Writer's Square, south

From the 10th storey of Writer's Square, north

Hail to the left of me...

...hail to the right.

Let's zoom in for a closer look at that hail, shall we?

Now I get all artsy and stuff.

Oh, hail... my umbrella!

Patio at Cheesecake Factory from 10th storey

Brimfire and hailstones - 16th Street Mall from 10th storey

Damnit, Jim! This is a knitblog, not the Weather Channel!

[SUMMARY: Enough talking about the weather already! Sheesh, hasn't our relationship progressed enough that we don't have to talk about the weather?]

SNSNBNW was last night, but it didn't get too crazy. How crazy could it possibly get... five women (two redheads), a bunch of beer, some pointy sticks, ranch dressing and string?

Yeah, I know. If we took pictures, we could probably make a fortune in internet p0rn.

Red did bring the horrifying pink fuzzy synthetic stuff (don't ask so many questions -- go look it up) and knit it into some truly festive mary jane slippers for her wayward sister.

[late edit: That's Wayward Sister. Carry on. But not a snake.]

And I did an impression of myself trying to count to four, which would probably have been funnier if it wasn't so tragic.

Other than that (and the ranch dressing thing), pretty tame.

I got some yarn in the mail yesterday from Rabbitch's shop.



The colour is actually pretty good on my monitor... it runs from a deep, red orange, right through sunset into dreamsicle. I'm going to make socks like this for Bronco season.%

A cameo appearance by Cat for Scale, who seems to be very suspicious of sock yarn in general, but this orange stuff in particular. He actually circled it long enough for me to get about ten pictures of his orange-sock-yarn paranoia.

Kelley's birthday today. We're hitting up Vita (New Bar) before meeting the boys (yes, The Boy too) at Three Dogs. Maybe that will generate some interesting blogfodder.

Keep y'all's fingers crossed, K?

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Except the proclamation that Denverish would have a very wet, very heavy early fall snow in 2006. That wasn't right.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): TELL me that's not funny. And clever.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): I know a whole office of people who might want to remind me it pretty much sucks to be in Holyoke anyway, but I'm talking river-of-blood-plague-of-locusts-rain-of-frogs-your-Honda-has-holes-in-the-hood kinda sucks.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): And I would expect no less of you. You're too smart to take me seriously.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I can't count to four; you do the math.

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Murphy the Bastard Lawmaker, not Murphy the Darling Doggy. In case you (and Sarah) haven't noticed, I have a little long-distance puppy-crush on Murphy the Doggy.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): If I get into the parking garage by 8:30 in the morning and park in the 20 spaces allotted to early bird parking, it's only $8 to park. Otherwise it's $12. When I arrived -- LITERALLY -- at 8:31, the ticket dispenser wasn't working, so I parked in the early bird anyway and they gave me my early bird ticket (which I probably didn't deserve, but, hey -- ONE minute!) so I only had to pay the $8. Yep. All those Kharmic Green Stamps I was saving for a pony have been delegated to $4 off parking.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I can't *tell* you how proud my mom would be.

A Case of the Mondays... er, Tuesdays

What'd y'all do this weekend?

Friday, I took a half-day and met Kelley, who also only worked a half-day† and was starting her two week vacation. We had lunch, shopped a little, visited Kelly the Bartendress and Fast Eddie, popped by Favourite Bar and hung out with The Boy. And Sex Toy. Until the two of them got weird and abandoned us, so we went to Patrick Carroll's, which I liked a lot.

See, Kelley pretty much has Favourite Bar wrapped. Don't matter that I was there the second day they were open (not for the bar, mind you -- I used to get take-out elk medallions about once a week for dinner) and was a regular, known by name to several bartenders, for a year before I even met Kelley. Don't matter that I go in there all the time by myself. It's still Kelley's bar.

But Patrick Carroll's? Patrick Carroll's is definitely my bar. When Kelley and I walked in, the bar was crowded and we decided to walk down to see if there were two seats we could cobble together. By the time we got to the centre of the bar, Jim had shuffled a guy down and had my Smithwick's on a coaster and waiting for me.

It's good to be a rock star.

[SUMMARY: Do I think I'm a rock star AGAIN?]

Cute Jim, making Marin points on the evening.


Shylin (sp?) and Cute Christopher as well.


After a single, lonely beer and a shot, The Boy called Kelley and asked us to come back, so we did. Because, y'all know... I'm not quite over the whole Boy thing.

I may be an idiot. But maybe not.

[SUMMARY: Bars & boys & The Boy. Check.]

So we went back to Favourite Bar, where Sex Toy was adamant that we (he and me) should spend a little quality time when he was done for the night. Then he quit (his night job, suddenly, under a cloud of ill will) and was in a pissy mood, so said, "Not tonight, dear," and that was that. He promised to call Saturday.

Here's a fun little tweak to the weekend: The Male Lady showed up for the first time in weeks right about then, and Kelley decided she missed the Male Lady. She insisted that Male Lady is really a good person, that everything would have been OK except that The Boy fucks everything up, that Male Lady and your dear ol' AntiM would probably get along really well, but...

1. Ship has sailed. There was a point when I was willing to go so far as to be civil to the Male Lady in public places and other people's houses for the sake of the comfort of others. Lookin' out for the world, that's just how I roll. That pretty much went out the window when she called me a fucking bitch and picked a fight at Favourite Bar.



2. The Boy and I were getting along pretty well Friday. He's newly uncled‡ and I think the endorphins of delivery are still swimming in his veins, 'cause we talked a lot and he was all mellow and nice and wanted to be Marin's friend. Consequently, Kelley was in a down-phase with The Boy, 'cause if he and I are getting along, she's pissy about him and if I'm pissy about him, she defends him to the end of the earth. I'm not sure how much of that is by design. I'd really rather not think about it too much. In any case, I wasn't really down with the whole "Everything would have been fine if it wasn't for The Boy" path.

Here's a question I'd like to put out to the peeps: Do you think people are more honest when they're drunk?

[SUMMARY: Of course I have a reason for asking. And yes, cagey is my middle name.]

Then Saturday I kicked back for most of the day, did summa that knittin' stuff what y'all like so much, and got ready to go back out Saturday night.

Fuck me shoes. I remembered the heels being higher, but it's just as well they're not.

Kelley's friend, Gina, was in town from Texas for a few days, and her dad§ is head of security at Le Rouge, which is a pretty hip spot here in Denverish. Lines around the block, maddening crowds¶, outrageous drink prices... all the things that mark a truly hip venue.

Here are the girls at our reserved table.#

Robin, Denise, Gina, Kelley: VIPs

If you have a really good memory or a weird trick memory that holds on to odd bits (see: Darjeeling means "land of the thunderbolt"), you may remember Touch from St. Patrick's Day. He bought me a couple of drinks and presented each with a kiss... not because Touch (young, adorable Touch) is into AntiM, just because Touch is Touch.

Anyway, Touch tends bar at Le Rouge, so we got a photo.

Kelley, Touch, Marin... please don't aks me what was going on with my hair. Or chins. Both have become completely unmanagable in all the humidity.

This is what our corner of Le Rouge looked like at 9:30.

This is what the club looked like at 10:30

There were many pretty, pretty people.

And these nice couples...

Couple #1

Couple #2

...came to our table 'specially to swab tonsils and girl-swap. Seriously, they were practically in my lap, we could *hear* the slurping over the amazingly loud music+ and I would almost swear they switched partners a few times.

I would just flat out swear to it, but you may notice in the pictures the boys are wearing identical white polo shirts and the girls are wearing remarkably similar tank/cami tops, so I might just have missed the details that indicated who was who.

See? Same shirts.

They also managed to knock over those drinks you see in the bottom left onto the table three times. I spent a lot of the night picking ice cubes out of my purse.

Of course, I went to the bathroom and knocked my own water glass over, so I can't say too much.

On the way home, Kelley got that old time religion and re-renounced the Male Lady with a hardy whatthefuckwasIthinking.

Sex Toy did not call.

[SUMMARY: Bars & boys & klutziness. Check.]

Sunday brought a phone call from The Boy#, a little KIP/KIB with Kathryn at New Bar% and dinner and drinks at Favourite Bar with Kelley and Jenny D.

[SUMMARY: Bars & The Boy & Knitting. Check.]

On Monday, I knitted.

And knitted.

And caught up on The Riches.

And Studio 60.

And knitted.

I F'd an O! Another cable clutch for Kelley's Bday (tomorrow -- I hope it dries by then). Took about half the time the first one did. I guess learning curves really don't mark the shortest distance between two events.

[SUMMARY: Knitting. Check.]

Here's a little WIP action to make this boring, boring post so much better:

L to R: Green Gables, Kelley's Cable Clutch, a to-be-felted bag, socks for dad (toe up! two at once!), a linen stitch$ washcloth, a drop-stitch scarf out of lavender-infused novelty yarn^

[SUMMARY: I still think knitting pictures make things better.]

DK nation meets tonight. Maybe they can fab me up a little.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Can you say, "train wreck"?

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): As in, he just became an uncle. Not that he just got an uncle. That would be weird and improbable.

+FOOTNOTE (plussed): The music was so loud my ass was vibrating. It made the garage door at the golf course look (feel?) like butterfly wings.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Former DEA agent, all 'round nice guy, looks like a Soprano

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Kelley bone connected to the Gina bone, Gina bone connected to the Daddy bone, Daddy bone connected to the Le Rouge bone...

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I know the phrase is "Madding Crowd." I did "maddening" on purpose. And for good reason, though the crowd was probably madding as well.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded - again. What the heck is my fascination with the pound thing today? Don't answer that): I know. And I'm still processing some of this. Some day, maybe I'll have a story.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): ...who doesn't want her picture taken, so you'll have to look back at last Tuesday and just imagine her on the patio at New Bar, sipping a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and knitting.

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Well, because linen stitch is SOOOOO money. *snarf*

^FOOTNOTE (careted): How much farther from wool can you get? None! None more farther!

[SUMMARY: Yada. Yada. Yada.]

Snakes on a Plane

TTHFCIF

I did something brilliant yesterday. Well, I think it's brilliant. Sarah laughed at me.*

See, Sarah, genius knitter, writes her patterns out on index cards, which helps eliminate that thing I do where I read the first six instructions on one row, then accidentally let my eyes drop to the next row and end up with some truly wonky cables.

Sarah has suggested several times, after watching me de-wonk my cables, I might want to try the index card method.

Red has seconded.

I have mostly ignored.

Until I had this brainstorm.†

I trotted over to my friendly neighbourhood Office Depot‡ yesterday and got some index cards for ink jet and laser printer.

Yeah, baby.

I put the cabled clutch pattern (row by row, with all the arcane cable instructions printed on each appropriate card) on MS Word index card templates and voilá!%

Cards I can reprint when wine is spilled on them.¶

Cards I can correct at will.§

[SUMMARY: Techmology. Making our lives better every day.]

I also discovered yesterday that it isn't easy taking a photo of a computer screen.

The cards in their natural habitat.


[SUMMARY: Techmology. Dangerous in the wrong hands.]

But look how pretty when they're all printed.



As I mentioned, there was media coverage of last night's Stitch Therapy. I still don't know where they came from (Hoboken? Mars?), but they were very nice and if I ever find my picture has been published or I've been quoted, I'll certainly make all of you read it/look at it and give me a Scooby treat and scratch behind my ears and all that.

[SUMMARY: Limelight ho!]

Anyway, Stitch Therapy meets New Camera:

Red brought her wheel.


Mary Kay spent her night patterning a 50-year-old crocheted skirt Lijia brought, while Sarah spent her night finding errors in the Vogue Stitchionary. Mary kay and Sarah may be WAYYYYY beyond my knitterly scope.


Heidi and Lisa-prounounced-Liza are just happy I didn't run the first picture I took of them. Mad photo skillz.


I hate to admit I don't remember the name of the lovely woman (hello, what's-her-name! I'm your new best friend!) on the left, and I'm not sure I know how to spell Lijia there on the right, though that's what we'll spell her for now, since that's how her name is pronounced.

Sylvia's sister, and by far the best photo I've ever taken of Sylvia, even though she looks terribly serious and she's mostly not terribly serious.

You know how I kinda dropped (clumsily) head-first into the DK Nation? ("Um, I don't know if anybody's interested or whatever but I kind of like knit at this bar...")

Well, last night Sarah was talking about hot springs and Red is planning a white-water rafting trip for Sunday and I said, "We should have a knitters' retreat to Jackson. I know a natural hot springs you hike into and we can go white-water rafting and last time I checked there's a really cool yarn store in Jackson..."

I guess I'm planning a knitters' retreat to Jackson, Wyoming in, say, September. Just puttin' that out there.

[SUMMARY: Joiner to leader in a blurt.]

By the by, I spoke too soon the other day: First Among Imaginary Kellys's blog has definite purplocity.

OK, enough of this knitting crap. Bob and Mira would be so proud if they knew I was actually delving into the socially relevant here.

There's an AP story y'all need to know about. And maybe help me out a little.

You can read the actual story here. Go now. I don't know how long it will be there.

The short of it: A man tried to smuggle 700 live snakes, including two cobras, onto a plane in his carryon bag at the Cairo airport yesterday.

Here's where you can help:

1. Does the term "smuggle" not connote some sort of... covertness?
2. How covert can you be with 700 carryon snakes?
3. Did Samuel L. Jackson ruin plane travel for the rest of us?
4. You can carry on cobras but not DPNs?#
5. As Brother pointed out, how fucked up does the security at the Cairo airport have to be that the guy even THOUGHT he might be able to bring live snakes (of any kind, of any number) on a plane?
6. How funny is the concept of carryon snakes?
   

[SUMMARY: Snakes on a plane!]

Happy Friday, ev'rybody.

*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, oddly enough): More because I was so pleased with myself than because of the actual idea, I'm sure.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): And I'm sure it has nothing to do with my need to never, ever do anything the way someone else tells me I should, like a two-year-old saying, "I can do it myself!"

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Where, if you're into this sort of thing (and I have the feeling some of you are), they have Mr. Clean Erasers, the four-pack, on clearance for $5.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): How do you like my accent now? Boo-yah!

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Not that I would ever spill wine on my knitting patterns. Actually, Sarah spilled wine on my cards and I said, "No big deal! I can reprint that at will!" That's just how I roll.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Not that I would ever accidentally put in an extra p2 on Card 4 or anything.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): OK, I made it a little about knitting. Just for you.

I'm getting a block (or maybe just two) of tickets for Stitch n' Pitch at Coors Field on July 28. Anyone interested (including cousins, sisters-in-law, brothers, random tourists, ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls, those undecided...) can let me know by, say, next Thursday (May 31st) and I'll include you.

It's $19 and you get a gift bag (you like gift bags), in case that sways your vote.

Blurt.

In My Defense

I have almost nothing to say. It isn't going to stop me from talking anyway,§ but I thought you should be duly warned.

Last night was Book Club. I not only didn't lose the book, I read 220 pages at Favourite Bar† in 1.5 hours to finish it in time for Book Club. I believe that is a record, even for me.

Also? When I got there? To Favourite Bar? Bartender Eric asked, "What can I get you to drink?"

"Iced tea."

"Very good."

*pause*

"Long Island iced tea?"

"Nope. Just the normal kind."

*pause cricketcricketcricket pause*

Ah, reputation.

[SUMMARY: When pressed, I am capable of amazing feats.‡ This does not necessarily apply to housework.§]

Tonight, there will be press at Stitch Therapy at Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack. I don't know who. Could be Barbara Walters, could be some chick from the North Denver Tribune.

Either way, I'm wearing makeup.§

BTW, Mira-from-Book-Club (if you check back to the last Book Club, I mentioned that she thinks I'm an idiot), upon hearing there would be media coverage of Knit Night, begin channelling Bob, saying something to the effect of, "Oh, my God, that's gotta be the most boring thing you can put in a newspaper. Please! People sitting and knitting?"

I said, "Mira, every time we get together, you manage to insult me about five different times."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"I don't mean to!"

"I know. That's why I don't actually get mad at you."

[SUMMARY: I am so very reasonable,§ even in the face of great adversity.]

So if you see Mira, poke her with a knitting needle or something. Let her know knittas represent.

And Marin isn't an idiot.§ At least not for knitting.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): With people asking about the book and trying to talk to me the whole time.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Like reading at a motion-sickness inducing pace, mechanically-assisted camera-flinging, failing to drink on a Wednesday night and pacing for an hour-and-a-half. Oh, yeah... I'm a fucking Olympian.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Somewhere, my family is laughing.

Housecleaning. Literally. Figuratively.

First, more camera. Here are last night's drunken knitters:

Sarah, genius knitter.


Steph, once knitted a Green Bay Packers bag for her m-i-l (Megan-from-Work in background)


Kathryn, knitter who doesn't want her picture taken, so this may be the last time you ever see her.


Megan-from-Work, novice knitter and eager to post this picture on MySpace to show she's out on the town, having fun, dudes. And it gave me a chance to check out the very special "night portrait" mode on the new camera.



Just to catch you up on the non-knitting news:

I texted (yeah, I know) Sex Toy Friday 'cause he'd mentioned the previous weekend that he wasn't working Saturday night and maybe we should get together. He texted back yes, Saturday, he'd let me know when.

So I went through this interesting (Is so. Shut up.) exercise Saturday. See, I always think there must be a way to hedge Murphy,† so to that end, I carefully calculated how much cleaning and primping I should do.

I figured if I spent all day Saturday cleaning house, shaving legs, getting pretty, he'd never call. If I wallowed in my recliner, knitting, watching the TiVi and scarfing Cheetos,‡ he'd call to say, "I'm on your front porch and I must have my way with your orange cheese grit-covered ass right now."

I sought a happy medium.

Mostly this meant me pacing around Posh (a/k/a Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack) for an hour-and-a-half§ until I felt I had reached optimum t-minus and counting.

I cleaned the master bath, vacuumed the bedroom, changed the sheets and arranged the KY artfully on the bedside stand. Skipped the flower arranging, dusting, clearing of dining room table, disappearing of stash.

I showered, shaved, lotioned and perfumed. Skipped the salt scrub, nail polish, eyebrow maintenance.

I put on an adjustable cleavage sweater,¶ a whole realm of war paint and...#

...called Red and went to New Bar, where Kelly the Bartendress and her brother, Fast Eddie, were sadly lacking, but New Friend the Counselor joined us.

Red drunk texted a bunch of people from my phone (never leave your celly with a drunk redhead), I eventually took her home, had a brief visit to Patrick Carroll's to see Cute Jim (got carded! got drunk!) and went home to sleep alone.

Apparently, I shouldn't have shaved my legs. I'm pretty sure that's what put me over.

Being blown off? One of the itchiest, most uncomfortable, ego-blasting, hurtful, sleep-killing, nasty things a person can do to me. Just for the record.

Sunday, Red and I went to brunch, and I have a question for all y'all:

How can someone who purports to be allergic to eggs eat french toast?

There was a guy across the patio (I love patio season) saying he wanted the french toast breakfast, but he didn't want the eggs because he is allergic to eggs. The waitress tried to confirm he was asking his french toast be made without eggs, but no... he said he could have the eggs as presented on french toast, just not the scrambled/sunny-side-up/poached variety that comes along with the french toast breakfast.

French toast. Bread enrobed in eggs. Eggs. Allergy. Huh?

It bugged me all day Sunday. It's still bugging me.

Red is laughing her ass off somewhere right now.

Anyway, we went to Mount Falcon Park for the ill-fated Wreck of the Edmund Fitz-camera and sneaky cactus, discovered Troublesome Gulch, visited the new yarn store in Arvada (Knit Knacks, but I can't link them because they have no apparent website), got ice cream and went home.

I knitted a little.

Kelley called later that evening and took me out for drinks. She put her head on my shoulder and said, "I hope you're not mad at me. I feel really bad." I'm a forgive-but-never-forget kinda girl (as is Kelley, so she should get it), so we're mostly good. She's taking two weeks' vacation starting at 1:00 Friday afternoon. I'm taking off early Friday so we can get in some trouble. And get our feet prettied.

Monday happened.

Tuesday happened.

Happy Wednesday.&

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Once again, Murphy the Bastard Lawmaker, not Murphy the cute little doggy.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): You know that's a registered trademark of the (probably) Frito-Lay megacorporation, right? I've heard horror stories about people getting lawyer letters for using words like "kleenex" in their blogs without the proper legal trademark reference and I don't want to go down that slimey slope.

By the way, Kleenex is also a registered trademark. Not breaking any laws here.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Yeah, it seems excessive, but I can pace like a frickin' tiger, baby.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Zippered cardigan. Easy access, too.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Right about here in the schedule? Male Lady called. Yep, it's been over a month since the last time I heard from her, but she called at 7:22 MDT Saturday evening. Make note, body in ditch, she's still trying to buy the house next door. Could we take up a collection or something? I don't think we actually have to buy the house, just enough to bribe the neighbours not to even THINK of turning our block into a wildebeest preserve.

&FOOTNOTE (ampersanded): Tonight is Book Club. I have not yet lost the book. Yea, me!

Oh! Hey! Almost forgot! Anybody in or going to be in Denverish on July 28th want to go to Stitch N' Pitch at the Rox game? I'll probably get a block of tix next week, so let me know.

Missing Links

Go check out Red's blog if you want to see what I lost when I offloaded the camera Sunday.

My MiCo is the one on the right.

Photophilia

Wanna witness my new camera in action? OK, not in action as such, since it's REALLY difficult to take pictures of your camera.†

Here are all the new orchids you haven't seen yet:

This Cattleya is the only one of the new orchids in bloom. It's fragrant. It also looks all raggedy because the first thing I did upon getting it home was to knock it over, breaking one of its blooms off and permanently scarring the other.


None of these are blooming, so they're not that interesting, but you have to look at them anyway, because (once again) I control this space:

L to R: tiny little Phalaenopsis, won't bloom for four or five years‡; bloom-sized something fragrant (it's a very pretty violet and white and I don't remember what variety it is... Dendrobium, maybe?); a tiny little jewel orchid that's purported to be very rare. This is the one I'm most likely to kill.


[SUMMARY: This is not an orchid blog. But it is a picture blog. Ignore the lack of knitting. Revel in the pictures.^]

And you're WAYYYYY more interested in this. It's yarn. You like yarn.§

L to R: Austermann Bamboo Soft in pink, blue, white and brown with a hint of olive; Colinette Jitterbug in the Jewels colourway; Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Amethyst Heather (which looks more plum than amethyst to me%) for the Rowan 40 Juno.


Closeups. Because I can.
































I hate to brag, but my new camera has a lifetime subscription to purple, so I no longer have to suck the blue out of my photos in Photoshop, lending that Hiroshima glow to all surrounding items, just to show a little purple to my peeps.

[SUMMARY: I have found a camera smarter and more colourful than me. I Robot had it wrong; the revolution will not be perpetrated by robots, we will be taken over by digital cameras.]

Speaking of Juno...¶

I have a serious knitterly numbers problem. Here's the stitch sitch:

Yarn the pattern calls for: 4.5 - 5 stitches per inch on US 6-9 needles
Yarn I got: 5.5 - 6 stitches per inch on US 8-9 needles

I. Can't. Count. To. Four.

So why did I think I was going to be able to substitute yarn?

The most upsetting part is I remember being really excited that the Knit Picks yarn was the exact same gauge (per the ball band, at least) as the Rowan yarn mentioned in the pattern.

Clearly it's not.

Clearly I'm deranged.

Juvenile onset Alzheimer's. Take my car keys from me. Roll me to the home before I kill again.

What's more, the pattern calls for the yarn to be doubled, which, if I'm reading it correctly -- and I'm probably not -- would make a hell of a difference in gauge. I think there's algebra involved in this, 'cause you don't just double the yarn, the needle size and the gauge, right? There're averages and means and quadratic equations and imaginary numbers# and shit, aren't there?

Is it going to be too, too fucked up? Should I save the amethyst WotA for... something else? Is there a protocol for figuring this out I should be aware of to avoid future fuck ups?

Of course, that last question is moot, because even if I'd known the protocol... well, I really thought I was buying yarn of a sufficiently similar if not identical weight/gauge, so I probably would have just started wrong and stayed wrong regardless.

Still, it seems this is something I should know. You know, to avoid future fuck ups.

[SUMMARY: We hates the maths.]

I'm guessing the only thing I can do is knit a swatch and see what happens. Maybe being the world's tightest knitter will serve me well this time.

[SUMMARY: Sing with me... Justifi-CA-tion!]

Having nothing to do with photography at all, but TOTALLY noteworthy even in its lack of purplocity, First Among Imaginary Kellys FINALLY got her blog up! Be the first on your block to join the Kelly revolution!

And, finally, no photographic boondoggle would be complete without a Cat for Scale*:




†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Of course I tried it. What do you use your self-portrait setting for?

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I gave one just like it to Tani, mother of baby Bert for whom Stupid Blanket was forged. I thought it would be kinda cute for him to grow up with his own little Bert orchid. They'll grow and bloom together. Awwwww...

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): "It has raisins. You like raisins." Hmmmm... maybe one of my hundred or so pairs of socks in the chute needs to be a Better Off Dead pair of socks. Lotsa good quotes there.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): I'm doing the Jedi mind trick on you, in case you missed it. It's only a matter of moments before I start waving a bagel in the air, saying, "Droids, sir."

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Somewhere, my brother is singing, "purple is purple so why should it be you and Mom just want to call it burgundy..." If you're a child of the 80s, you get it.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Yes I was.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): As far as I'm concerned, *all* numbers are imaginary numbers.

*FOOTNOTE (asterisked): I'm wondering how long it will take for Ally or Red to point out the bottle of KY on the nightstand. Ha! Beat you to it!

It's Mine

Photophobia

Do you know how many things there are to think about when buying a digital camera? And we all know no good can ever come of thinking.

At least I know what's important to me: small enough to stick in a pocket, image stabilisation for drunken photography and macro capability so I can get good shots of stitch definition.

I'll be toddling over to Office Depot and probably down to Wolf Camera at lunch. I'm already shaking from camera withdrawal; I don't think I could wait a decent amount of time to mourn the old camera before moving on to the new one. I may be the Anna Nicole Smith of digital camera owners.

(If this analogy made sense to you, bless you. I think I'm funny.)

Here's an interesting coincidence that I should maybe file away with "Darjeeling means land of the thunderbolt" and "one horsepower is the amount of force it takes to lift 500 pounds one foot in exactly one second" as useful information: This is not the first time I've lost something valuable by setting it on the roof of the car.

Last March, a friend and I were going hiking, and when I was tossing my backpack in the back of her Subaru, I set my wallet on top of the car and didn't think about it again until we got to the trailhead. Hike cancelled, credit cards cancelled, new driver's license procured (with fancy vision restriction added)...

So I apparently only forget things on the top of the car if 1) they're valuable, and 2) I'm hiking.

Presumably, all I have to do is trigger myself not to set good shit on the top of the car when I hike. I've done it twice now, I should note the emerging pattern. I'm not guaranteeing this will be the case, but at least those of you who might be inclined to hike with me can help keep an eye on me.

[SUMMARY: Same senility, different day.]

Shall we address a couple of items from the comments? Since I'm not sure I want to speak of Marin's Weekend of Redemption and Rejection just yet?

Sure we shall. Know why? 'Cause I'm HBIC† and I have the keyboard.%

First, for Brother: I'm planning on using "WAYYYYY better knitter than my brother" mostly as a weak substitute for actual satisfaction in our nonexistent, ongoing sibling rivalry.‡

Second, for Brother: I don't need a camera to post lingerie shots from the lingerie knitting book. Through the magic of the Internets:

Click on her belly button to blow her up. Heh. Digital blow-up doll. Heheh.


[SUMMARY: Internet p0rn at its camera-free, knitted finest.]

Third, for Anna-Liza, the 8 Random Things meme§:

1. I have told fairy tales to penguins. In their natural habitat.
2. And otters. Out of their zoo habitat.
3. I don't like drinks with sugar. I don't mind if they're sweet, mind you, just as long as it's *artificially* sweet.
4. I have never been in love.
5. I know every word to "My Baby Takes the Morning Train," which I consider to be the worst, most insidious piece of musical crap every put on the radio, and I would swear to you I've never heard it all the way through even once, but I somehow seem to know every single word.
6. I actively seek gross sock yarn to knit socks for my father and brother. I have even Googled "gross sock yarn."¶
7. I love Canadians in general, Steve Nash in particular.
8. I use a pre-paid cell phone because, despite my love for technology and gadgets, I still don't like cell phones much and consider mine to be for my convenience rather than yours. This generally costs me about $100 a year and frequently confuses real people in the real world with real cell phone angst. 'Specially since I so often forget it places, let it run entirely out of juice (forgetting to charge it for days) or leave it on the charger (also for days).

I get to tag somebody, right? I don't think I've ever seen Ally answer one of these things. Come to the dark side, Ally...

[SUMMARY: Meme: chain letter of the new millenium.]


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Head Blogga in Charge

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I urge you to adopt "WAYYYYY better basketball player than my sister" as your own scrap of cold comfort.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Oh, the power! The rush! Caligula!

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): See how cool and collected I was there? But this is the first time anyone's ever tagged me, so I feel like a real blogger and all growed up and stuff. Because I'm a dork.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): No. It didn't help.

Flash My Stash for SP10

Oh, for fuck's sake...

You know how I'm a dork and a little fuzzy around the edges and can't count to four and really quite old?

Well, Red and I went for a hike today. I had too many things in my hands and wanted to change from my dusty, cloying, sweat-laced shoe-n-socks to my sandals. So I put my camera on top of my car.

Y'all can see where this is headed, yes?

I can't believe it. On the one hand, I paid $700 for the fucking camera when it was brand new and the latest thing going. Granted, three years ago. As you know, this means they give them away with breakfast cereal these days.

To be honest, though, it's been pissing me off lately. This may be a battery issue rather than a camera issue, but...

And I've thought more than a few times about buying a more compact camera. I even mentioned that to Red not a half-hour before I jettisoned the camera.

Now I have my chance.

Of course, I lost the lovely wildflower shots from today. And the weaving worms. And the other cutest-little-cream-coloured Mini parked right next to my Cutest Little Car in the Whole Wide World in the parking lot at the trailhead. But Red has one of those. She'll share. I know she will, even if it takes a promise of crockpot dyeing to do it.

Oh, fuck, though. Losing a major piece of techmology because YOU SET IT ON THE ROOF OF THE FUCKING CAR.

Um... embarrassing. Upsetting. Take my car keys from me, I shouldn't be allowed to drive.

And SUCH a hinderance to the concept of Flashing my Stash for the SP10 contest.

I am nothing if not resourceful, though (it's a redhead thing, Red agrees). I am recycling my stash from a couple of weekends ago and hoping the SP10 police will accept it, 'specially in light of my total bereavement over my camera (it had a 2 GB CARD IN IT. I lost the capability for 2 GB OF KNITTING PICTURES.)

Here is my stash (+/-) from a couple of weeks ago. It looks pretty much the same, but with the addition of a half-dozen books and at least 10 skeins of sock yarn.

Forgive me. I am a dork and I am old.

I did, however get carded at Patrick Carroll's when ordering a beer Saturday night. Apparently, I have very good skin.

All you ProActive hos eat your hearts out.

Livknitting Room stash, pre-cleaning

Yarn Room Stash, pre-clean

Nice, neat, Livknitting Room Stash, mostly clean, less Lorna's Laces, Rabbitch yarn and bamboo stuff I just bought from Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack

Holy Cats

Is it too cliché (lovin' the accent mark) to say TGIF?

Well, with me, it'd probably be more like TTHFCIF,† 'cause I try to avoid dangerous religion, politics and vodka preference‡ issues in my non-confrontational blog.

Speaking of non-confrontation (like the segueway?), guess who called this morning?

...and it got really busy last weekend
...and then The Boy's sister had her baby seven weeks early and everybody's in a tizzy
...and then she was going to email yesterday but it got all hectic

And she apologised, so I thanked her for that. I also reminded her with the weird non-love/ex-love triangle with The Boy, I'm overly sensitive about the blow-off thing and will continue to be. I told her I see no reason she couldn't have taken a minute or two to shoot off an email, text message or (*gasp*) phone call just to say, "Sorry, so busy, miss you."

She said she might call this weekend if she has time. We'll see.

Enough of that.

[SUMMARY: Nobody cares about Kelley's transgressions and my abandonment issues but me, but I figure if you had to live through the whole shitstorm, you might as well get the updates. Just so's you can sleep at night.]

I promised you BoyCraft. And shopping. At the same time.

This may not be nearly as funny to you as it is to me (and my brother. And my sister-in-law. And possibly Tani and Annie... OK, so I at least have a small audience here), but I took my dad yarn shopping last night.

I may have already told this story, but I'll brief it here so everybody can catch up: My father is semi-actively looking for a girlfriend. I teasingly suggested (many times, until he was maybe a little sick of me beating the dead horse of that joke) he come to knitting group to either meet women or meet women who know women he might want to meet.

He decided to take ballroom dancing lessons instead. Because it's more manly (my interpretation, not his).

I continued to make the joke about him knitting.

Then my sister-in-law, who apparently *can* see the forest for the trees, and has two small boys, so she knows something about the psychology of the reluctant, suggested he would be the absolute cherry-on-the-sundae at the the family Christmas party (where about 35 of us exchange ornamental items -- mostly handmade -- in white elephant style) if he knitted something, just 'cause nobody would ever believe it. It somehow also came about that my brother will also knit his Christmas project this year, adding to the hilarity and family legend.

The two best things that have come out of this so far:

1) Mother's Day, as Dad and I were making arrangements to get his supplies, eBeth (the sister-in-law) said we should get a bunch of movies that we've already seen, so we don't have to pay that much attention, but so we have adjunct entertainment, and I will teach Dad and Brother to knit and help eBeth remember how.

It's like I have another knitting group in the making. One where I don't get to drink beer or say "fuck," but where I'm absolute top dog, and WAYYYYY better than my brother, so at least I have that going for me.

2) Walking my dad into Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack, introducing Sylvia to Dad,§ and introducing Dad to the world of fibre.

Things Dad learned:

-you don't want to knit the whole thing in cotton.
-Addi Turbos are pricey
-finding the right colour of green or red is often impossible and you have to tailor your project to the selection at hand
-yarns have different weights
-when you buy the yarn for your first sweater, Dad, you'll want to be sure to buy enough for the whole project at once so you get all the same dye lot so you don't get weird gradations in the middle of your sweater, but if you somehow use all the white yarn for your stocking up and need more, it won't make that much difference because the white bits aren't right next to each other anyway.

I got quite a look on that last one. Nobody tosses looks like my dad.

So he bought three balls of Mission 1824 Wool ("This is wool?" "Yep." "How do you know?" "Because it says 'Mission 1824 Wool' on the ball band." *cricketcricketcricket* "That thing is called a ball band." "Oh! I see!") and a set of Bryspun circs and probably wondered why a package the size of a mating pair of hamsters cost $23.¶

I shall keep you apprised.

[SUMMARY: All happy families are the same. Families who knit together are whacked in their own unique ways.]

Meanwhile, I wish you grown-up friends, humour of family and a really, really long weekend.

And Grey Goose. 'Cause I like you.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Thank the holy fucking cats it's Friday.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Who am I kidding? All about gettin' my Goose on.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): As my pusher.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Welcome to my world, Dad. Can I have my allowance now?

This weekend... I flash my stash for SP10 Contest number 3

Flakes Everywhere

My father used to say middle school is like an explosion in a cereal factory.

I trust you to get it.

But why do so many people stay flakey well beyond its useful life function?†

This is starting to look like my very first post, where I typed for DAYS and deleted and reworked and got all critical on my own ass... and eventually blurted. I've probably put six hours into various versions of who makes bad friends and why guys are easier than girls and the heartbreak of psoriasis.

The long and short? The eventual blurt?

I don't know.

I don't know how you make grown-up friends. I don't even know for sure if it's possible to "make" friends. Friends may just grow like metaphorical flowers on a trite piece of country-kitsch wallhanging.

For me, it boils down to honesty. Well, honesty and responsibility. Most people lack these in larger quantities than is strictly functional.‡ And that's why grown-up friendships are so rare.

I know you can eliminate a lot of the shitstorm by keeping things as shallow and one-dimensional as possible.

Not in a bad way.

In a low-maintenance, see-you-next-week-maybe, minimal responsibility/minimal chance for hurt feelings way. Knitting groups, adult education classes, bar-hopping -- ways to indulge in human contacts without necessarily making human contact.

It's like the styrofoam peanuts that fill the voids in your time and keep you from rattling around, but have no real nutritional value.

It's like babysitting and being able to give the kids back at the end of the night.

And it's probably a good way to test-drive a few folks and see if you want to take your mutual shallow thing outside that one-dimensional realm.

Not only that, if you have too many people in your world for whom you'd lay your life down, you're in imminent danger all the fucking time.

Seriously, those people you find (and thank gods we all have some of these) who are willing to be responsible for you, let you be responsible for them, and you can all be honest amongst yourselves... those people should be cherished. And encouraged. Possibly rewarded.

Go knit them socks.

[SUMMARY: Have a simile -- I made plenty.]

On the list of things to cherish, people who get my sense of humour.

Case in point: yesterday, I sent an email to various family members, thus:

*************

Would each of you please provide me the following measurements at your earliest convenience:

Chest (the biggest part):
Hand (around knuckles):
Glove length (fingertip to wrist joint, right under the heel of your hand):
Shoe size:
Head (measure around forehead where the band of a stocking cap would fall):

*************

I figured it would allow me to knit on a whim or for a gift-giving occasions without having to tip my hand and spoil any potential surprise.

("Dad? It's me. Could you please go right now and measure around your knuckles? What? No reason. Just... curious. I certainly wouldn't be knitting you some gloves for your upcoming birthday.")

My sister-in-law replied thus:

*************

> Chest (the biggest part): 3 wine bottles.
> Hand (around knuckles): 1/2 wine bottle
> Glove length (fingertip to wrist joint, right under the heel of your hand): 1/2 wine bottle
> Shoe size: 3/4 wine bottle
> Head (measure around forehead where the band of a
> stocking cap would fall): wine bottle and a half

I lost my tape measure today, but I'll send standard English measurements soon.

*************

See? Funny and gets my funny. We'll probably keep her.%

Um... knitting: I finished the second border piece for Stupid Blanket and will have someone who knows better show me how to crochet it to the body of the beast.

I bought sock yarn yesterday. Pictures when we all need to feel better.

I tried to buy a blocking board at Hancock Fabrics yesterday, but to no avail. I don't want to wait six weeks for one. I'll probably spend three months looking for one in the stores.

Cat Bordhi has a new sock book coming out. The blurbs are so intriguing, but vague. It's like reading a wine review and wondering what the oenologist means by "altruistic."

I'm tapped.

But I know I have a responsibility to y'all to provide you quality knitting and quantity verbiage. And I won't let you down, at least on the verbiage front.

Knit me socks?


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): You know, to balance out hormones and shit.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): That's the nod to the fact that we all have weak spots and bad days and not even the bestest of us is honest and responsible all the time. I seek not perfection; I seek only reasonable measure. And not fucking with me.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): At least long enough to find out exactly *how* she measured her bust with a wine bottle. I might have to demand a demonstration. I'll take pictures.

Tomorrow... BoyCraft 2, the Shopping Years

Prometheus Bound

No, that's not the wine it took to get to bind-off. Not all of it. That's just wine for scale.*

Last night, after making some sort of Drunken Knitting error on Stupid Blanket; after realising I couldn't even figure out what the Stupid error was; after deciding the only way to fix it was to remove at least the last row-and-a-half of Stupid knitting... I made the executive decision to bind the sucker off and call it good.

There's still about 6 inches of border to be attached, so it won't be quite this paltry.†

No more stupid linen stitch. No more Stupid Blanket. Whatever will we do for entertainment now?

[SUMMARY: ding dong the witch is dead... la lala la lala la haha)

Meanwhile, back at the Male Lady...

As some of you know, the house next door to me is for sale.§

I took off a little early Friday and was sitting in the livknitting room, minding my own damned business and... well, knitting... with all the windows open and what to my wondering ears should appear? The screaming dulcet tones of one Roethlisbergerian Male Lady. Talking to my neighbours. About their house.

*coughchokecoughgagspew*

Maybe it's not her.

I can't go to the window, she'll see me.

It's probably not her.

Why would she even *pretend* to want to live next door to me?

So I ran into the neighbour Sunday afternoon and, yes, a Male Lady ("She works for the post office," said neighbour Jamie, cheerfully) was inquiring about the house.‡

My brother has suggested buying the property as an investment. After all, it would be easy to manage (and monitor) a property if you lived next door. And it would be easier to sleep at night if the Male Lady *didn't* live next door.

[SUMMARY: Lovely two-bedroom townhome, desirable urban setting, close to Starbucks, busline and drunken knitting, price just reduced, inquire within.]

Also? I was walking home from Drunken Knitting last night and she drove right by me, heading toward my house. I'm not saying she actually drove to or past or anything (cars are remarkably hard to distinguish once they're just a bunch of taillights in the distance), but she drove past and my skin crawled all over again.

I tell you, people, it's Kharmic Green Stamps. Things were going pretty well. I had Kelley to do stupid shit with, the Male Lady was still funny, it looked like The Boy and I might at least come to some detente, there were hops growing on the patio and orchids on the sill and the occasional hot young Sex Toy in my bed... and I got the gods all hubrised up one night and they threw up in my car.¶

[SUMMARY: My theology is pretty fucked up, my grasp of Murphy# is spot on.]

Smitten like a Pharisee, I'm off to work.



*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, oddly enough): The cat wouldn't hold still.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Let's see... about two wine bottles wide plus about two wine bottles tall... what? How do you measure baby blankets?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): You can already see where this is going, can't you?

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I almost said, "Oh, please, for the love of all that is holy, don't sell the house to that wildebeest!" but I figure that's taunting the gods in an all-too mythical fashion. I'd not only end up with the Male Lady as a neighbour, she'd probably get pregnant by The Boy and have twins on my front porch.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): It sounded funny in my head. I think it may be funnier as "hubrissed." OK. I thought that was funny too. I'm going to stop now. This can only end in tragedy.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Not Sarah's dog, Murphy (because y'all would most certainly question where I was grasping the poor creature, and you'd have good reason) -- Murphy of "if anything can go wrong, it will" fame.

Hey, Sarah, that's my own little shout out to your very cute and personable little dog. Scratch his ears for me. Tell him I was thinking of him. Tell him to bite any big, burly Male Ladies he may see.

Tomorrow... "How to Make Grown-Up Friends: a fantasy" by Marin

A Vow of Silence...

...might be my only hope.

Had you going there for a moment, didn't I?

What the HELL is wrong with me? I went to Favourite Bar last night for dinner and Eric the Wayward Bartender was working (he's been going to real estate school, so I haven't seen him in a month). It was all very pleasant and normal until... well, I'm pretty sure I said, "Guess who I'm sleeping with," then told him.

That's crass and grubbing for the limelight and unnecessarily forward and I'm sure TMI and not any of his business in all likelihood and not my story to bandy about like there's nobody else involved for sure.

What the HELL is wrong with me?

[SUMMARY: I was raised better than my recent actions would indicate.]

Anyway, how was your weekend?

*ahem*

I knit and knit and knit on Friday night,+ finishing the fuzzy, felty clutch. It's my first felted project. And the first time I've done cables since the first cables I did five years ago.

Because I'm such a fucking nightmare,† and we all know knitting pictures make everything better,‡ here are the pictures of the felted clutch:

Done knitting, not started felting


Fresh out of the washer, not yet blocked


Blocked, dry, no cool little magnetic clasp, but we'll get there soon enough


So, let's see... I'm supposed to do the who/what/when/where on this, right?

Pattern: Cleo Clutch by Chrissy Gardiner for Spun Magazine.
Yarn: Cascade 220, um... blue. Probably 9468. I have quite a bit of yarn left over (leftover yarn? Bah!), but probably not enough for a whole other purse.
Needles: US10, Denise, would have been much faster on Addis, but I either have no size 10 Addis or they're stuck in a WIP (or a wormhole in the time space continuum with all my fucking Book Club books§).

This was very pleasant to knit, and I dig the felted cables thing. It was a great break from Stupid Blanket, the cables made it interesting, and the pattern is obvious enough after the first repeat that I didn't lose count (much) doing the KIB thing at Other Bar. And that's saying something for your girl who can't count to four.

So that's good knitting.

[SUMMARY: Yea, me!]

In bad knitting, I did another repeat on the Lacy Racy Bellocqs, then realised I had misread the pattern just a tiny bit and instead of doing a repeat of the pattern before starting on the calf shaping, I just barrelled right in, plant the flags and damn the jam, and now I'm 108 stitches into the calf shaping and afraid to have my sis-in-law try it on for fear that ONE INCH of missing ankle ruins the whole thing and requires frogging.¶

[SUMMARY: Bad Marin! Learn to read!]

Back to good knitting (after a fashion, no pun intended). I received my gift tags from Knitterella via Stitch Diva Saturday. That's fast. That's service. I'm delighted.

Just look how cool!


Can I take a moment to sing the praises of Stitch Diva?

I love the patterns on Stitch Diva, and when I buy them, I always just download them. One of the patterns I scarfed up last week didn't download properly, so I shot off an email asking if someone could help me.

Within a half-hour, Chie at Stitch Diva had emailed me the full set of pdf's for the pattern and apologised and wished me enjoyment in knitting the pattern... I felt all warm and fuzzy. Really, shouldn't knitting make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

I also have to give props# to The Yarn and Fiber Company, and I should have done it sooner.

When I went on my quest for Rowan 40, the Y&FC price was about three dollars cheaper for a new copy ($19.99) than the cheapest used copy ($22.97) I found on ebay and all those other auction/used book sites.

THEN... they have free shipping on everything, so that was my price, period.

And while their shipping policy says if you order after 3:00 any business day (which I did), it will probably go out the next day, they shipped mine within an hour of my placing the order and it arrived two days later (rather than the four promised in their shipping policy).

[SUMMARY: Yea, Stitch Diva! Yea, Yarn and Fiber Company!]

Let's see... we've covered the good and the bad. How 'bout the ugly?



Yeah. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. But I had fun. Actually, I think if I wasn't paralysed by the point where the twist meets the draft, I'd be pretty good at this spinning thing.

Kate is laughing her ass off somewhere right now.

[SUMMARY: I didn't pay my purple bill again this month, but look what I can do with a few yards of roving and a spindle!]

I got up fairly early% Saturday morning and went to Fantasy Orchids to get a little something for (new-mom and future proud owner of Stupid Blanket) Tani. And maybe me.

I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of the box of orchids I came home with. I have more than doubled the orchid population at the Barfly Beach & Resort in the last week.

While I was at the hothouse perusing the flowers, Kathryn of the Drunken Knitters texted to see if I'd like to have breakfast a Kyle's and I said yes. Kyle's is across the street from Patrick Carroll's where the drunken knitting happens (at least the more organised version of it) and just down the street from Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack. Not a bad locale for a breakfast joint.

That was all lovely diversion while I was waiting for Kelley not to call, then I went to see Spiderman 3 with dear old buddy Mick, an Elk, whom you may remember from poker night.

We had a couple of beers,†† saw the movie, and agreed it was 40 minutes too long. Then we had dinner (in the form of a trio of fried things off the Chili's menu. Chilli's menu. Whatever).

Then I went to Favourite Bar where everybody asked where Kelley was and told me she had been in earlier with The Boy and I took Sex Toy home and had a brief‡‡ but body-bending romp then Saturday was over.

[SUMMARY: A shitload happened on Saturday.]

Sunday brought fresh ink:

Didn't know you were getting half-naked Marin pics, did you? Hide the children!


This just goes to show that with a little judicious positioning and cropping, back fat can look like arm muscle.

Yes, it does.

Shut up.

And up close. Dear gods, I'm white.


I got the MOM 2-22-06 last year in Vegas on Mother's Day, but I asked the nice buzz-boy to make it 50% greyscale so it wouldn't be very dark. I changed my mind this year and asked my friendly neighbourhood buzz-boy (Justin at Celebrity Tattoo on Tennyson) to darken it up.

Justin also drew the dove, since I didn't want one with a baby Jesus in its mouth or a rainbow-coloured halo or flames shooting out of its eyes.

On a side note, it's damned difficult to take pictures of your own shoulder. I have half a big-assed memory card full of shit like this:

Look! It's Marin hair!


I took the close-up by setting the camera on top of the oversized TV in the livknitting room and taking full advantage of the time lapse between pushing the button and taking the picture.

Who knew that annoying 5-second delay would come in handy?

Then we had Mother's Day dinner at the brother's, which was very nice.

Then it was Monday and I barfed all over my blog and I had dinner at Favourite Bar and stuck my foot so far down my throat I qualify for the Tracy Lords (Traci Lords? Whatever) discount at the dentist and Kate saved me by calling to say she was at Patrick Carroll's having dinner and I joined her and it rained like I might need to take two of every animal into the Mini Coop and now it's Tuesday.

[SUMMARY: One more day of this crap and I may qualify for my own telethon. Am I whining again? So soon? Did I not learn my lesson?]

Time to go kiss a frog and see if I can get all better.

Maybe if I slip him some tongue.


+FOOTNOTE (plussed -- non-plussed?): You know, with no Kelley to lead me otherwise.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Today, tomorrow and apparently always. Holy fucking cats, I'm ashamed of myself. What the HELL is wrong with me?

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): And frogs. Frogs make everything better. Only I don't have any frogs, which might explain the horrifying lapse into personal fuckitude. Lack of frogs can turn your whole world sideways.

§FOOTNOTE (does that thing have a name?): Have I been cursing way more than usual today? No, stop, that was mostly rhetorical. Yes, yes I have. I know it. And I'm kinda sorry. I mean, it certainly speaks to the mood of the day, but really, it's not your fault. Have a frog or a bubble bath or some ecstasy or something and try to pretend it never happened.

¶FOOTNOTE (para'd): Not the good frogging we've been discussing, not the frogging that makes it all better, but the frogging that would truly suck because I have no lifelines that far back and it's all lace, baby. Pray for me. Better yet, pray my sister-in-law has short ankles.

#FOOTNOTE (numbered): Yeah, I said it and it's tired, but I'm old and I'm probably going to pretend it's ironic so maybe I should get some slack here.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): You know, no Kelley keeping me out late and all that.

††FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Like I'm going to continue non-alcoholic solidarity with Kelley when she blows me off. I try to be the bigger person; I'm not THAT big.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (double-double-crossed): Just an hour this time. He had to be at work at o'dark thirty. Hey, just because Eric doesn't need to know about my sex life doesn't mean you're off the hook.

TOMORROW... return of the Male Lady.