Excuse #11

The "Why I Have Neglected My Blog" series:

I was going to stop at 10, but this wandered across my email† and I had to take to my couch with the vapours,‡ precluding blogging for a few days. Under the subject "Subject: You might want to change your mind about Twilight" and the text "After reading this brilliant plea^ for a faithful movie adaptation of the fourth book, 'Breaking Dawn':"§

Why Breaking Dawn Must Be Made¶


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): From someone with a charmingly alarming sense of humour.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I'm not sure "vapour," when used this way, should take the British spelling. "Vapours" seems like a quintessentially Southern antebellum sort of thing.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Doubly brilliant in that it reveals that stupid vampires don't just sparkle, they SCUBA.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I haven't exactly changed my mind, but this did have the effect of making me wildly curious and likely to beg, borrow or steal Breaking Dawn just so I can witness the train wreck for myself.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): I know there are a bunch of delicate flowers out there. Thematically, linguistically... you're gonna want to take to your couch with the vapors.

ETA: This excuse goes to 11!

Holiday Conversations with Father

Marin: Omigosh! I didn't know there was a book on Bill Watterson!†

Father: I know.

Brother: Dude, you got her a book? That's pretty gutsy.

Marin: Yeah! You got me a book? Me?

Father: If you had known the book was out, I would have heard about it from you.‡

And that, my friends, sums up many, many aspects of my life, my personality and my relationship with my family.§

[SUMMARY: You're welcome.]

And happy holidays.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): With the inscription, "Maybe you'll finally find out why Calvin & Hobbes disappeared." My father knows what troubles me.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Don't tell, but I will actually completely clam up about something -- even hid its existence -- if I want to get it for somebody else for Christmas or birthday. Wouldn't it have been funny if I got that same book for Dad for Christmas?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Deep stuff, people. Fitting for end-of-year-end-of-decade rumination.

Bored of the Rings...

...has been on my bookshelf in one form or another† since 1980.

Now, finally, after 40 years,‡ the Harvard Lampoon has taken on another mega-star.

Be still my stupid sparkly beating heart.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Well, one ratty paperback after another, really. The "form" of which I speak is mostly a matter of level of disintegration and magnitude of coffee-stained pages.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Srsly. Very Short List says so.

Signs of the Times

Appropriate and sad... The Official Warning Sign of 2009.




And a section in my local bookstore.




I'm so glad I ditched Barnes & Noble... the do NOT have a Being Fabulous section at Barnes & Noble, but they frequently have a full section of stupid sparkly vampires.

Breaking Update!

So I was at the Tattered Cover website† to see if they had that new drinking and knitting book‡ Kim pointed me to and I noticed that Cutest Little Car in the Whole Wide World is still prominently§ featured in the tiny slideshow in their banner.

Let's hope the fame doesn't go to my head.¶


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): A B&N boycott is easier when you are minutes from one of the best independent booksellers in the country.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Pints & Purls

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I may be the only one who thinks of it as prominent.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Where it would wander in the desert for forty years.

Fashioning Felt

{Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum via Selectism}


On display through September 7.

[SUMMARY: And the bleat goes on.†]

I think it's also worth noting‡ that the Cooper-Hewitt also has a children's wallpaper and book exhibit§ going on, even if it isn't so much in keeping with today's knitblog theme.

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

Kapsule Woody - Karl Lagerfeld

Marin says: This stays very close to the skin, worth noting both because sometimes you don't want to overwhelm a business meeting or a movie queue and because things smell different when you lay your nose right on them than they do if you can get a respectable distance.

The initial tangle of prickly-dry cedar and bitter citrus smelled more like lemon Pine-Sol than it probably should have and I think that's because my nostrils were sealed to my wrists to get more than a vague pleasantness.

Actually, I'd say that's the hallmark of this one for me: a couple of inches away, it's a slightly sweetened woody haze, but up close it's woody and maybe raisiny and seems to have a touch of vetiver.¶ The overall effect is like a tawny port.

It's cosy and sophisticated, but with the lack of sillage it probably won't get any outside attention.#

Karl Lagerfeld†† says: Noble, rich and mysterious - all the refinement of cedarwood$ magnified with velvety plum$ and dense, dark moss.

Hans says: It smells like grapefruit. Like a Mad Dog. What are those things? Greyhound!‡‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): That's supposed to be a funny sheep joke. Y'know... for the knitblog thing.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Because beyond all the little things you know about me, I have a pop-up book problem too. So of COURSE I think this is worth noting.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Including several pop-up books. You can even see movies of the pop-up books.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... there's this sort of salty smell that I find smells a little like Play-doh that I've been associating with vetiver. Suddenly I'm wondering if it's actually moss. I'm clearly a work in progress.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): This is not an idictment. It's actually a very good thing sometimes (see: business meeting) when you don't want to clobber those around you. It's also like having a warm little secret all your own. Maybe I'm projecting.

$FOOTNOTE (on the money!): I'm claiming "raisiny" as close enough to "velvety plum."

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I can't tell you how much I hate this website -- it's one of those webmaster playgrounds where they focused way too hard on style and forgot all about the end user. On the other hand, there's a slidy-squares puzzle of Karl Lagerfeld if you click in the right place.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I had already offered up "bulldog." Hans says we should be bartenders, we're so good at this.

Worst Day Ever

Like things aren't bad enough.† I just broke up with Barnes & Noble.

I'll give that a moment to sink in.

I was loyal and faithful and gave everything I could give, and B&N abused me and made me feel small and stupid. I deserve better. And it certainly doesn't deserve me.

But I'm still very, very sad. I loved it so much and for so, so long. In the beginning, we seemed to have so much in common. First, the charming mailings, vast lists of sweet discounts printed on newsprint‡ that kept me up all night, fantasising about the possibilities. I was caught up in the romance of the distant and untouchable.

Then B&N moved to Denver. I knew things might change, but I was so excited.

Here, close to my home and heart, it made me laugh§ and cry.¶ I got wonderful emails almost every day. B&N taught me about worlds I never knew existed and offered me discounts unequaled anywhere else in the metro area.

It even made me feel special by offering me a membership. My very own card to keep in my wallet to remind me of it every day.#

Sure, there were a few people who told me it was a poor match. "Giant corporation," they said. "Pushing out independent booksellers," they said. But bigger isn't always badder, you know?

Time passed and I guess we started to take each other for granted. I assumed B&N would always be there for me, books in hand, DVDs on sale... and B&N began to think I would never leave, that even when it pushed me around and ignored me, I wouldn't go because we'd been together too long, I'd invested too much.

And I missed the first signs. Here we both were, downtown together. I'd just drop in on my lunch hour now and then. B&N always seemed to welcome me with open arms, but I guess there was a lot brewing under the surface.

I know, I know. I was stupid to believe the fairy tale. No white knight is going to bring me books when I want them. No prince is going to forgive me my bad days†† and appreciate me for who I am.‡‡ No hero is going to rescue me without great cost.

There are other fish in the sea. I just have to get back out there and find mine.

Meanwhile, I'm seriously considering calling the ex-.

What do you think Amazon is doing tonight?


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Don't get me started. You wouldn't like me when I'm started.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Remember when? Good times, good times.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Dave Barry, Erma Bombeck, Bil Kliban...

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Dog books.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I should have known something was wrong when it turned out I didn't even need the card -- just tap my phone number into the computer.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I know I'm old and feeble. Nobody has to TREAT me like I'm old and feeble.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): A chick with a credit card and a book problem.

A Mare, Egrets, Moose†

Just a few more days and I should be just about caught up.

Small. Subdued. Except, as always,‡ for the Subdude.§

So I have small¶ pictures.#





Pictures of kids are necessary, since Christmas is muchly about the kids.

Pictures of cats are necessary, since if you purport to maintain a knitblog, you must occasionally post a picture of a cat.††

Pictures of Brother are necessary when he is sporting the very festive Batman pajamas.‡‡

Pictures of AntiM and her various adult relatives are NOT necessary§§ when they are adequately represented¶¶ by the Brother picture.

[SUMMARY: Rules were meant to be made up.]

I got skulls in my stocking, and I'm delighted.





Finally, wine charms I can get behind.

[SUMMARY: Wine charms that say "poison" could be very useful.]

I don't want to run down all the loot,## but I did get one very, very blogworthy gift from Jeff's mom:†††




Mrs. Berry% writes entertaining mysteries set in a small southern town. I thought I owned most of them, but it turns out there are a couple I was missing.

Turns out there's one that's NOT EVEN OUT YET that I'm "missing."‡‡‡

Excuse me... WAS missing.§§§

My elitist little heart just goes pitter-pat.

Check out the inscription:




The temptation to take a red pen to it and return it is fierce, but I do have some sense of propriety.¶¶¶

[SUMMARY: Don't look a gift book in the inscription.]

Tomorrow, more exclusive, inside news.###


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): You know... like the Sandra Boynton card. For the record, if you Google "wee fish ewe a mare egrets moose," there are 694 entries. 691 of them are blogheadings. I am an inadvertent sheep.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Except that first week he was off afternoon naps. We looked up in the middle of family dinner and said, "Where's Dr. Doom?" He had taken himself to bed. At 6:30. *That's* subdued.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): If Tallest, Hairiest Nephew is the Dude, it follows that his little brother is the Subdude.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Size doesn't count.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Which you can click for big if you just can't get enough of the Batman pajamas.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Rule 112 (c). For cat. Also? The cat is sitting with the Appalachian birdhouse the nephews got me for Christmas.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I said, "Oh, Dr. Doom, what a great present! I think your dad should go put it on RIGHT NOW, don't you?" That may explain the look on Brother's face.

§§FOOTNOTE (speaking of redundant): And, in fact, would be redundant.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (puts on his pajamas one leg at a time): Probably outdressed.

##FOOTNOTE (oounding home the point): Even my white fig diffuser and my George Hamilton autobiography. No, I'm not making that up... it's the adjunct to my very own copy of Zorro, the Gay Blade.

†††FOOTNOTE (three crosses to bear): Who has played bridge AND Scrabble with me and still clings to the belief that I can read. Bless her heart.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): She will *always* be Mrs. Berry.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (how do you diagram that?): I realise the usage is untenable, but I will give up all semblance of grammatical decency to get to the punchline.

§§§FOOTNOTE (§§§ubtle): That's me trying to be subtle.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (très, très, très... c'mon -- it's a multilingual pun. I don't have to finish it, do I?): I have no sense of propriety. I'm just trying to ensure I still have a place in Mrs. Berry's heart and a shot at sainthood.

###FOOTNOTE (pounding the celebrity beat): Me and Paris Hilton.

'Atsa Lotsa

TTHFCIF

So did you like that tease yesterday?

Didja spend many happy hours daydreaming about the possibilities†... over-the-top cocktails, ten-course gourmet dinners, celebrity parties, a meeting with the King of Burundi, wild naked romps?‡

I should've been a marketing major.

This weekend, I am...

*drumroll*

[SUMMARY: The suspense is killing you.§]

...making cheese.

Mozzarella, to be exact.

Did you just what-the-fuck and smack your computer? Sorry 'bout that. I know it's not glamourous, but it's sufficiently odd enough to blog it.¶

A couple of months ago, The Book Club that Changed the World# read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

Barbara makes cheese.

Now I want to make cheese.††

So I sent away for the beginner's cheesemaking kit% and book^ and Annie and Tani and eBeth and I are going to make cheese on Sunday.

The first big object lesson in making your own cheese is finding the only way to get milk that isn't ultra-pasteurised is to buy a local brand.

I think there's a "duh" in there somewhere.@

The nice man‡‡ at Robinson's Dairy asked me why I wanted non-ultra-pasteurised milk. I told him you can't make cheese with ultra-pasteurised milk.

I could almost hear the lightbulb go off over his head.

"We've had a few calls lately about that and I had no idea why people were looking for it. That makes sense."

Which means maybe we're not the only people in Denver making cheese this weekend.

Small world.§§
*************
I did my push ups last night. I did ten extra. My butt is killing me.

By the end of this thing, my butt is going to be a veritable stone globe. Not only do I work my butt really hard in the interest of keeping my alignment correct for push ups, I spend roughly 48 hours during football season clenching and doing reverse squats as I drive my team to victory.

I may not play football, but never let it be said I don't participate.

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

Wanda - BPAL (oil)

Marin says: I'm trying to teach myself not to be surprised when there's a roll-out on oils. I had convinced myself that the primary difference between the BPAL oils and "real" perfumes is the lack of construction. But I guess anything that has more than one ingredient is subject to those ingredients degrading at different rates.

The first blast of Wanda smelled very strongly of a deep, sour red wine before turning into a rose-and-sandalwood sort of smell.

Funny, from an impressionistic distance, it weirdly fruity, like Fruit Stripe gum. What is the alcohol and fake fruit thing?¶¶

Up close, I'm getting an unpleasant licorice and ylang-ylang## I can't abide. If it doesn't improve in a few minutes, I'm washing my arms.

For the record, it did mellow out, but too strong and too sweet for my taste. Enough that I forgot about it and left it until late that night, when it was a ho-hum sweet smell clinging tenaciously to my wrists.

One thing you have to say about the oils: they do stick.

BPAL says: Along with Loviatar, she has become something of a Patron Goddess of all Dominatrixes, Wanda is the breathtakingly beautiful sable-wrapped marble queen of Sacher-Masoch's fantasies. Her scent is a deep red Merlot$ with a faint hint of leather, sexual musk and body heat over crushed roses,$ violets and myrtle.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): That's me, centre of your universe.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): In order of probability.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): You may kill me when you see how far I've led you astray.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Keeping in mind that I thought tennis racquets as party favours was good enough to blog. It's a slow season for everybody, isn't it?

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Not as grandiose as it sounds. I made them read The Map that Changed the World early in our history and it was almost universally reviled. This led to the tongue-in-cheek name and the very serious rule that we never, ever read a geology book again.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): See, the book problem doesn't just cover a life overrun with books, it covers the collateral damage my checking account takes with every new book-driven whim I chase.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Which I think of as Fisher Price My First Mozzarella.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Naturally.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): 'Cause, y'know... the book is about eating locally.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Pat.

§§FOOTNOTE (stir your curds): Still wouldn't want to paint it.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (heads up!): See: One Leaf Clove

##FOOTNOTE (lb lb): I generally like licorice. Maybe in conjunction with ylang-ylang it becomes bad.

This is My Pig Nose

A funny perfume story: I've learned not to use my right wrist when reviewing perfumes.

All day, it sits on my glow-in-the-dark pig rest,† and the pig rest has taken on all my perfumes. So my right wrist smells entirely different from my left wrist, and not at all like the perfume I put on that morning.

[SUMMARY: I'm making my own perfume.]

A funny knitting story: I've only knit one sweater before‡ and it was top-down and seamless, so the Vampirates sweater with set-in sleeves is new territory.

This was never more obvious than when I knit up the first sleeve and tried to figure out how it would fit into the armhole and realised§ I hadn't knit the shoulder cap.

I had to un-bindoff and finish the thing properly.

[SUMMARY: When dorks knit sweaters.]

A funny book story: I came back from the bathroom¶ at 4:00 this morning to find Cat for Scale lovingly licking the edges of the pages of the second Vampirate book. I wash my hands before I read it,# so I don't think there's residual food anywhere.

Weird little cat.

[SUMMARY: Weird little household.]

I believe that covers that covers all the major hobbies. Except drinking.††

We're clear for the day -- I'm going to go wash my pig.
*************
Clair de Musc - Serge Lutens (edp)

Marin says: Perfume. Kind of non-descript and remarkable only in that it had no alcohol or aldehyde edge and an undefinable sweet smell.

I've had conversation recently that musk may not be quite the animal/sexual smell I thought it was -- everything I've smelled that says musk lately seems to be sweet like baby powder. Not my cup of tea.

The Perfumed Court says: A floral-woody-musk fragrance with notes of delicate orange blossom and white iris from Tuscany.

Hans says: Definitely soapy, but a particular soap... *sniff*

Dove. *sniff*

Dove lotion bar.††


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): With 45 hearts!

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Green Gable.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Only two days later!

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): That damned pee-every-time-I-roll-over thing.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): It is, technically, someone else's book. And he hasn't even seen it yet, so I have to keep it neat and clean.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I think I will now have a drink.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): I actually don't have a footnote. Just wanted to say hey to Lyda, who was worried when there were no footnotes yesterday. I know she has a system and everything.

Play that Funky Anthem, White Boy

Before we talk about all the things I'll be finishing, let's talk about something I'll be starting:




Out of this:




Which wasn't supposed to come in until the beginning of September, but my pusher, Sylvia, lured me to the House of Fuzzy Crack Friday to pick it up.†

This yarn is 30% rock.‡

When Sylia got the sample cards for this, it didn't matter how much yarn I already have. It didn't matter how many projects are already on my needles. I started thinking of knitting something out of rocks.

My geology-lovin' little heart grew three sizes that day.

And I liked the pattern when I saw it in the new Interweave Knits and was considering what to knit it of when the Yarn of Rocks came in.

So happens the pattern's even written for that EXACT GAUGE.

[SUMMARY: Fate.]

And before we get into things I'll be finishing, let's take a quick look at a couple of things I'm in the middle of. Like this:






That's the Malabrigo Lace Secret Pal sent for my birthday, and I finally found a project for it, the somewhat inelegantly-named "Scarf with French trellis border from Weldon's 1890 and bramble leaf center."

I'm calling it Purple Prose.^

Then there are Dad's Low Tide Socks, which now have heels§ and a little bit of leg.¶




I used a new heel method# that I really like: Short row, with no wrapping and turning and picking up wraps. Look how pretty it is:




But I'm not working on those projects for a little bit while I complete my Ravelympics events.††

Oh, look how much a knitblog this really is!

[SUMMARY: Just showing off.]

I completed one event in WIP Wrestling‡‡ mostly on Saturday,§§ and did fuck-all on my other WIP Wrestling event.¶¶

I wove in the ends on the Malabrigo slippers that are -- technically -- a Mother's Day present for my grandmother, and washed them and stuffed them with washcloths to block them into some form that didn't look like crumpled paper.

I then sat down to knit the acorn embellishment. I determined that said embellishment mostly resembled an oddly-coloured, hand-knit sperm, so I decided to leave the embellishment off.




Sunday morning, when they were dry, I took them out to get artsy photos of them for the blog and Ravelry.

I believe I succeeded in stirring up bees more than I succeeded as an artist, but I think I should get an A for effort.##

[SUMMARY: I did little, yet accomplished so much.]

I had already determined my final event in the Ravelympics would be the Sweater Sprint, because I wanted to knit a skull sweater for Tallest, Hairiest Nephew's birthday.

I found a skull chart on Flickr (the skull designer is on Ravelry under the same name)...

...and then I went to Barnes & Noble at lunch and found a series of kids' books called "Vampirates."

So THN is getting the books too and I'm modifying the skull to have fangs.%

I'm giving myself a little pat on the back††† for remembering how fun and quick the colourwork was on the Monkey Pack and how dreary the miles of solid stockinette was.

I started the back of Vampirates and am saving the skull part for last, just to treat myself.

[SUMMARY: Old dog, new tricks.]

I fully embrace my dorkness in getting excited over something called Ravelympics.

Mostly, I embrace the fact that the threat of public humiliation in the face of failure of the stated objective is a powerful motivator for me. So I'm confident I'll finally finish the Lizard Ridge and have THN's birthday present done on time.

Know thyself.

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): OK, I was going there anyway and she hadn't actually managed to get the email out to me before I showed up on her doorstep, thumping a vein and jonesing for yarn, but I'm going with "lured" anyway.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): See the label?

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Note the lifeline. I am smarter than I look. After three frog sessions, I'm smarter than I look.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): No longer dick warmers!

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Technically, the It Happened One Night phase.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): New to me.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Being a competitor is really hard. You have to devote yourself to the competition. You can't be distracted by rock yarn.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Grandma's Blues, the 100m freestyle of my WIP events.

§§FOOTNOTE (flip turn): Lizard Ridge, the 800m IM of my WIP events.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (two little Ravletes on the podium): I'm disciplined, not insane.

##FOOTNOTE (pounding to the finish line): Kinda like the Special Ravelympics.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I have it on good authority that I'm not just playing to my own inner eight-year-old boy. THN will be thrilled. Brother and eBeth both say so.

†††FOOTNOTE (gold, silver, bronze): Another one.

Long Time No Lick

Couldn't you just slurp 'em up?

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

Heat is not my favourite medium.†

But the little yard outside the Baptist church I can see from my window currently sports a crew‡ of landscape maintenance technicians§ and one of them has his shirt off.

Let's just say this boy should ALWAYS go shirtless.

Hey, you have your boys of summer, I have mine.¶

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

Sunday night at family dinner, I mentioned the crane in Houston that broke free and killed its oppressors.#

Brother gave me that... Brother... look.

Dad began to wax eloquent on cranes, and Brother said, "You have a crane thing? Is that where she gets it?"

"No, this is years of observation."

Heredity. Cranes are in the blood.††

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

Speaking of nature vs. nurture. Sort of:

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Doom said, "AntiM, I wish I was a girl."

So, y'know, partly worried that one of my favourite nephews was experiencing gender identity pains and partly worried about what this would do to his childhood, I said, "I'm sorry to hear that. Why do you wish you were a girl?"

"Because girls get to like princesses and I love the princesses only boys aren't supposed to like princesses."

Caught halfway between laughing and crying, I said, "Boys can like princesses if they like. There's not a thing in the world wrong with liking princesses no matter who you are."

So I was at Target Sunday and, on a whim,‡‡ I checked on the pink aisle to see what they had in a Disney Princess. Lo and behold, they had a set of Disney princess action figures. There was only one set left. I bought it and decided to give it to him right away.§§

It should be noted for those of you who may think the Dr. Doom appelation is inappropriate for such a sensitive little boy that there was a princess death match at dinner and Ariel kicked some major ballgowned ass.¶¶

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

Soldier Boy called yesterday.

If you cast your mind back, the last time he called, I called back to say, "I need time to shave my legs. Please give me notice next time."

So the message, "I'm in Denver for a couple of days and thought maybe we could get together for a beer. I know the last time I talked to you, you said you need time to buff and polish, so I'm callin' to see if we can get together tomorrow or Wednesday. Maybe get some munchies."

I think it's heartening to know he listened. I think it's even more heartening that he remembered something from that long ago.###

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

I gave in.

At lunch, I bought this:




The fact that there are vampires and scent## surely make up for the fact that when I couldn't find it in Fiction and Literature or Sci-Fi/Fantasy and asked at the information desk, I had to be led to the teen section.†††

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

I also bought this:




I believe knitting is waning fast as a fad.

I looked at my local grocery store.‡‡‡ I looked at Borders. I found one lone copy of Knitscene at Barnes & Noble.

While I was at B&N, I checked the knitting section to see if there's anything I need.§§§

The knitting section is less than half what it was a month ago.

When I was looking for a picture of the cover to post here, I found that neither B&N online nor Amazon.com is carrying Knitscene anymore.

I suspect there are a lot of that particular type of snob¶¶¶ who will purport to be thrilled not to have to cope with amateur hour at the local yarn store anymore, but if knitting is no longer the It hobby, I think we'll see less books, less yarn, less patterns.

More isn't always bad. Popularity isn't always a curse.

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

Finally, let's take a sniff at today's perfume: Guerlain Aqua Allegoria Angelique - Lilas.

This is my *ahem* Danielle Steele scent.%

And it smells like lilacs. For a long time, it smells like lilacs. It smells like lilacs right out of the bottle and keeps on smelling like lilacs. I thought for fleeting moments I got a whiff of grass, but it always went back to lilacs...

...until about 3:03 this afternoon, when it softened into a cedar-tinged light musk, which I really rather like.

Huh.

I love the smell of lilacs when it arrives in the spring. Around day three of lilac season, I'm done. That first whiff is a harbinger, a soft, sweet sign of the season. The fifty-first whiff is a blanket of sweet I can't get away from.

I feel the same way about orange blossoms in Scottsdale.

Damn, I'm picky.

The Perfumed Court says: "Lilas creates a sensual blend of soft floral notes, bright green notes,* and subtle musk$ notes. With notes of pink peppercorn, jasmine, Seville orange,^ angelica,= lilac,@ ylang ylang,& cedar$ and heliotrope."

Hans says: *sniff* *eyeroll* *pause*

"I rather like that."

He cocked his head, beckoned with his fingers for me to hold my wrist up again, took a deep whiff and said, "Fruity!"

I guess Hans could smell the orange.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): At least when it comes to weather.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Three guys. I could mow this lawn, trim it and blow the lawn schrapnel off in less than an hour. Three guys? I am, of course, mostly bitching because I only got to watch the Young and the Shirtless for about ten minutes.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I made that up. It sounds really PC, doesn't it?

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Let's not talk about the Rockies just now, shall we? Concentrate on the pretty boy with the pretty chest.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm developing my own theory on the Mass Crane Collapse of 2008.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Wouldn't it make a fantastic nature vs. nurture study?

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Much surrounding princesses is whimsical.

§§FOOTNOTE (turn around when you're two, turn around when you're four...): Justifying my psycho-auntdom, who knows if he'll still be into princesses at Christmas?

¶¶FOOTNOTE (and the winner is...): I like to think this is because Ariel is a redhead.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like the ego of a 41-year-old in the teen section): Thank you, Secret Pal.

†††FOOTNOTE (three times a vampire): I really thought the guy said the books were in "thirteenth century." Wishful thinking.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (railroad tracks to nowhere): Which not only didn't have Knitscene, but isn't carrying knitting magazines at all anymore.

§§§FOOTNOTE (yarn over): Read: anything I don't already have.

¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (three needle bind-off): You know the type -- the ones who get sputtering mad over the phrase, "Not your grandmother's knitting" or the designation "hip."

###FOOTNOTE (oh, the pounding I could have had!): Though disheartening that he apparently got booked up for the couple of days he's here. We talked for a bit and he kinda said, "Nobody ever comes to visit me in Vail. I try to touch base every time I'm in Denver. Talk to you later." Does *anyone* know the Boy-to-Girl translation of this? Other than, "Marin is not getting laid any time this week"?

%FOOTNOTE (percented, because four of anything is anathema): From "Zoya," the first Danielle Steele book I ever read, about a Russian noble who was friends with the royal family and had to flee in the face of the Revolution. Zoya and the royal daughters wore Lilas and it was used to denote a trip down memory lane for the post-Revolution portion of the book. For the record, I checked another Danielle Steele novel out of the library, hated it and never read Danielle Steele again. I re-read Zoya every couple of years just 'cause it's a good yarn.

*FOOTNOTE (asterisked, ibid): Where? WHERE ARE THE GREEN NOTES? I'm pretty sure I like green notes.

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed, ibid): Ha! Got one!

^FOOTNOTE (careted, ibid): Lookie there. Hans was right. I knew he'd redeem himself for the very flippant "diaper" comment.

=FOOTNOTE (equaled): I wouldn't know an angelica if it bit me in the ass. Isn't angelica that stuff that makes yarn sparkly?

@FOOTNOTE (atted, ibid): Duh

&FOOTNOTE (ampersanded, ibid): There's ylang-ylang in this? Wow. Maybe ylang-ylang isn't the spew of the devil I thought it was. Out of fairness to ylang-ylang, most of my experience with it is in the form of bubble baths from Whole Foods that are supposed to be sexy. Oh, yeah. I'm that girl.

Bring the Music

Part I of today's 3-part series on why this was the best birthday ever.

Brother musics. I read.

Not that I don't listen to music and not that Brother doesn't read, but Brother has a music problem and I clearly have a book problem.†

For my 31st birthday, he got me a CD player. I got one for myself for my 20th birthday‡ and it had ceased to work long before.

As dopey% as it may be to get sentimental about a piece of stereo equipment, that 31st birthday CD player brought music back to my life. I probably hadn't listened to six hours of radio and no CDs in three years when he gave me that.

[SUMMARY: *sniff*]

Now, for my 41st, Brother has brought the music again.

He gave me a one-year subscription to emusic. Now, I have an iPod. I've been musically capable all on my own for years now, but this will bring something back I haven't had for a good, long while: exploration.

I've done most of my musical exploration through my brother for the last three or four years.§ He makes me a CD every Christmas¶ and I go buy various CDs or MP3s from the artists on it and I feel very hip and underground.

Sometimes a little dangerous.^

[SUMMARY: I am dork once removed.]

emusic doesn't trade much in the mainstream.#

I'm going to have to listen to a lot of weird stuff. I love listening to weird stuff so long as I have some means of organising the weird stuff. Just going to Cheapo Discs and randomly pulling potential weirdness out of the bins... well, actually, that might be fun once or twice,†† but guided weirdness suits my inner planning Nazi so much better.

So I get 30 tracks a month, with all the joy of musical discovery married to the complete time-suck of Music Maker.‡‡

[SUMMARY: Hey, wait...]

Brother is still trying to take over the world.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): And we will both admit to having video game problems so severe that neither of us will keep games on our computers. Brother once, in an attempt to subvert my powers and take over the world, got me Music Maker for Christmas. This is a musical video game, more or less, that allows one to remix songs, compose songs, distort notes, add syncopation, change keys... in short, I spent 17 straight hours remixing one bar of "First and Last and Always" and had to remove the software from my computer. Later, Brother admitted he really wanted Music Maker for himself but he knew he would be homeless and unhygienic within a month if he had it.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Trust me, this was a hundred years ago. I don't think anybody else at my whole college had a CD player in 1987. Not only am I influential, apparently I'm a trendspotter. I am also pleased and more than a little smug to report that my college boyfriend didn't think CDs were going to last and refused to invest in the player or the media until he was confident they'd be around to stay. I believe he was still running vinyl and cassette tapes in 1992.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Is there an "e" in dopy? Dopey? Dopie?

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): To be honest, my finding The Duhks and Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos was indirectly through Brother, as he was directly responsible for my XM Radio. Just so's you know... I keep a tiny notebook, about the size of a business card, in my car so I can write down bands and songs off obscure XM channels. I am that dork.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): With some odd stuff he thinks I need and often some utterly esoteric circa-1983 thing that's been off my radar for years.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Y'know... hip hop...

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I tried Rush. No Rush. I tried Sisters of Mercy... *that's* too mainstream for emusic. They do, however, trade in Duhks and Margot, so I know there's something out there for me.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I did that at Bleecker Bob's in the Village on one of my NYC trips. Cool, but kinda like trying to kill pigeons with a scatter gun. You miss more than you hit.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): *ahem* I probably shouldn't admit this, but the first time I played computer solitaire (1992, for the trendspotter record), I discovered it (while watching the evening news - I mention that so you can get a bead on the time frame) buried in the directory of a DOS-based computer my uncle had given me to take to Antarctica. I messed around with it, gradually figuring out all the key commands (no mouse) and looked up and it was 4:00 in the morning.

No, I've never played Prisoner of Zenda. Now you see why.

Secret Pal 12 Question 5

We briefly interrupt our extended coverage of Marin's birthday for this important Secret Pal update:

1) Where is your favorite place to go for vacation/holiday?
2) Where is one place you'd like to go?

1) I have two favourites: New York and Lake McConaughy... for almost opposite reasons.

I love New York City for the energy, the museums, the seizure-inducing glut of available activities and my friends Jeff and Lorree, who are the perfect hosts for how I like to travel.†

I love the Lake because it's the only vacation I take where I really vacate. Drive four hours, just me and the Cutest Little Car and the iPod... check into the air-conditioned cabin... beers... random potluck dinner... beers... sleep... breakfast a Junie Mae's... bloody mary... sit in the water... sit in the water... lunch/nap... dinner... sit on the beach... sleep... breakfast at Junie Mae's... bloody mary... sit in the water...

[SUMMARY: Long stretches of slug punctuated by sudden bursts of vodka.]

2) I'm limiting myself on that second question to places I've never been. There's a long list of places I'd like to go back (Oh, New Zealand, how I've missed you...). I think top of my list for new adventures is England. I want to see the home of Shakespeare, Monty Python and William Smith.‡


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Fortunately, they also think I'm the perfect type of traveller to stay in their guest room, so... y'know -- symbiosis.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Arguably, the Father of Modern Geology, subject of Simon Winchester's book, "The Map That Changed the World." It also happens that book is the reason I'm no longer allowed to pick geology books for book club.

Did You See It?

Bloody Stupid Johnson has a commemorative hat!

Paperback Buyer

TTHFCIF

Guess where I am? Guess what I'm wearing?

If you guessed my basement and footie pajamas, you are right.

If you guessed Tahiti and edible undies, you're a pervert, but thank you.†

Werk was really slow the last couple of days and I'm still coughing and wheezing a little, so I took a mental/chestal health day.

[SUMMARY: It's two vacations in one!]

By the way, I figured out why "Sohows Boobls & Thong" was so funny. It sounds like Foul Ole Ron and would go very nicely with "millenium hand and shrimp."

[SUMMARY: Buggrit!]

Anyway, here we are back at the book procurement arm of the Rickety Blog.

First, the book version of the Howl from yesterday:%




The ripples in the book just add to the artistry.‡

Speaking of artistry, I got my prize winnings for turning in the Kislings for their over-the-top Christmas light display from Cheryl. And it came with a postcard of the Stitch Diva... logo? mascot?




The prize, of course, my own personal copy of Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair.




Knitting From the Top,§ which I have been told is an excellent book, embracing not just the classic top-down raglan, but also top-down sweaters with inset sleeves.¶




Under the auspices of the current sweater-knitting# frenzy, I also got The Twisted Sisters Knit Sweaters, which gives all kinds of good info on fit, but I'm mostly interested in being able to make an effective V-neck. There are a lot of sweaters I see and think, "That would make me very happy, if only it had a V-neck."

Now I feel I have the tools to make those changes.††

I will say I hate most of the actual sweater patterns in this book, but I really like the clear illustrations of how to make the PARTS of a sweater and issues of fit.‡‡




OK, I took a lot of pictures of this last one. I got really excited about it, which is really strange for at least three reasons:

1. I have owned one tam in my life (I was eleven) and I never thought much of it, so I have no affinity for tams and, in fact, generally believe I will look dopey in them.§§


2. I get easily confused with concept. I like patterns that tell me exactly what to do. Oh, sure, when I get all cocky, I'll switch it up -- make a sleeve a little longer, use a different rib, knit it toe-up -- but I don't want someone to just tell me how to do it and let me do my own. I want just a little more hand-holding, at least at the beginning.


3. Not nearly enough colour pictures. I am shallow. Packaging, colour pictures, presentation embodying a modern graphic sensibility -- these are all things I look for in a knitting book.

Yet this one doesn't give pictures of twelve tams and the exact instructions for making them.¶¶ It gives a bunch of black-and-white photos with corresponding charts to show how to make various shapes, like petals and scallops (first pic) and leaves and buds (second pic).




It shows how to do decorative decreases like the swirl and the zig-zag.




And it shows the relation between the floppiness, rate of increase and diameter of a tam.##




Ooooh... kaleidoscope. Pretty.




So it appears my unwitting New Year's resolution may be to educate myself on the impetus behind knitted items rather than just picking shiny patterns and knitting them verbatim.

[SUMMARY: Sea-change... no sea needed.]

I don't know why this guy was taking pictures of the office building where I work. Hans and I speculated that maybe he's a downtown building photographer. We wondered where we could get a job like that. We wondered if he could see us. We wondered whether we'd show up in his pictures. We made faces and smashed our noses on the window.

Then Hans said, "I can't believe you're not blogging this."

Thus.




Oh, crap. I just found poker is on for tomorrow and now I really do have to ship-shape my stupid basement.

We always knew it wasn't going to happen until the last minute, didn't we?

[SUMMARY: Duh.]

You have a happy weekend. I'm going to go store some boxes out of sight.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): You are my new best friend!

%FOOTNOTE (percented): One of the many advantages to being at the home computer is access to that which Blogger ate yesterday.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Humour me.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): These two books were photographed using a very special technique wherein I stand each one on its spine on the bookcase in my office, take a horizontal photo, then turn the photo vertical in Corel. It's like old Hollywood special effects magic.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And ponchos! And pants! I'm NOT going to knit myself a pair of pants or a poncho, no matter what Barbara Walker tells me to do.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Or, more correctly, "...the current thinking about knitting sweaters craze..."

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Delusion itself is a marvelous tool.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): 'Cause fit is an issue. Y'know... sohows boobls and all.

§§FOOTNOTE (tams on the fly!): Dopier.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (gooses stepping): In all fairness to Mary Rowe, she did include charts for all the colourwork shown in the book and did give patterns for knitting tams... just not one specific pattern for one specific tam, if that makes sense.

##FOOTNOTE (pounding like a ghetto hoopty): I love that illustration. It reminds me of the little black-and-white cartoons in Playboy. Or Women's Day.

Frickin' Stock Show

OK, the sheep is a sheep and we all think that's pretty cool, but "pretty cool" is the tip of the iceberg† in describing the blistering cold that comes with the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo.

Every year. Every SINGLE year. It's like some weird childhood myth all bulked up on reality 'roids.

You know how you remember every afternoon that year you got a swimming pool it rained -- not just rained, but thundered and lightninged^ -- but if you actually talk to your parents or check the National Weather Service charts, it only rained once every two weeks in that rainy, rainy year, and was, in fact, considered one of the worst drought years in the history of your history? 'Cause all you can remember is the days you couldn't swim because of the thunderstorms? Even though there were only apparently two all summer?

This is like this, only everything you remember is true. You can have a fairly balmy November, a downright mild December and *BAM!* The second the Stock Show comes to town, the mercury plummets.

And by "you," I mean, "I."

[SUMMARY: Global warming, my ass.‡]

Those of you who live in the midwest or eastern seaboard know cold. And it's that moist, creepy cold that worms its way in through the very stitches in your clothing. It's a cold propelled by winds off the lake.@

But that's a relatively warm cold. If there is water in the air, it's warm enough that it hasn't all gone to ice. Not necessarily warm, but warmer than.

Here in the high desert, it gets bitter. Not the good bitter, like 70% cacao chocolate, but the nasty, biting bitter of a 40-year-old with no sex life, no romantic prospect and nothing but a spoiled cat to keep her company in these, her twilight years.§

Dry cold will hurt you.

Dry cold sands your eyes and turns your lungs to styrofoam when you try to breath. It frosts your nose hairs and aches your ears. Your face shrinks instantly like like time lapse photography of mud after a summer cloudburst in the desert. You go, "Waaauuuggghhhh!!!" when you exit your car.¶

[SUMMARY: Take that, dead horse!]

It gets too cold to snow.

So many people think I'm makin' shit up again when I say that, but it's absolutely true. A simplified version, but true. The colder the air temp, the less the capability of the atmosphere to hold water. Now, you can have snow at very low temperatures, but uplift factors and upper atmosphere issues come in.

In Colorado, we have no upper atmosphere. We have precious little atmosphere, period. So it gets really cold and the water that already wasn't there isn't capable of hanging around and it doesn't snow.#

Or it spits these minute, stinging ice pellets.††

Damned unpleasant, that's what it is.

[SUMMARY: Someone got up on the cold side of the bed this morning.]

I did wake up to a newsletter from The Brown Palace in my email today:


A Bull in a China Cabinet at The Brown Palace,
Friday, Jan. 25

Well, not really a bull, or a china cabinet, but this is as close as it gets. The National Western Stock Show's 2008 Grand Champion Steer will walk down a red carpet to be put on display during Afternoon Tea in the hotel's lobby. From 11 a.m. - 1 p.m., catch a close-up of the steer and have complimentary photos taken with him.


[SUMMARY: Every fucking bitter cold winter cloud has a silver lining.]

In even brighter news, I did go to the mailbox this morning% and send many thanks to Cheryl, for rewarding me -- simply for having the most tasteless neighbours$ -- with a shiny copy of "Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair."

And to Annie B, my new best friend at Interweave, for gifting me a book of my own choosing from the Interweave library for all my hard work‡‡ on Sticks 'n' Stitches. The "Knitted Tams" book bears closer scrutiny at a slightly later date, but let me tell you I'm excited about the principles it illustrates.§§

Speaking of principles, I also got Barbara Walker's "Knitting from the Top," and I'd like to thank Taos Books for not thinking just because other people are charging upwards of $100 for the book, they have to jump off that building too.¶¶

You'll also be pleased to know I brought my camera AND yarns and knitting books to the office to photograph them in daylight. You know what this means: I can knock off a thousand words for every photo I post.##

[SUMMARY: Tomorrow may be a better day.]

Besides, knitting pictures always make it all better.



†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Dude, I should write for Parade or one of those low-quality anti-journalistic fluff additions to the Sunday paper. Did you see that stilted opening? The tortured segueway? The bad, bad pun? Of course, I meant it all *ironically*...

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Yes, I'm pretty sure that's a word.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Well, not so much an ass as a sheep.

@FOOTNOTE (atted): There's always a lake.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Maybe I'm projecting.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Which I did. And scared the nice, normal guy waiting to cross at the light next to me.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): It has to be really, really cold to actually be "too cold to snow," according to my research, but I've also been in 40-below cold. See: Gunnison (my home town and college stomping grounds). Also? "Uplift" might not be a technical weather term. I think I got it from a Victoria's Secret catalog.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): No-see-ums for the ice age.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): Yea, me!

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): I'd like to thank the Academy and god and my parents and the Kislings...

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

§§FOOTNOTE (twister! ): And the pretty pictures.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (gophers): As in, "If all the other bookstores jumped off a building, would you jump off a building too?" For the record, it was a very reasonable $18.50, deemed to be in "very good" condition and is actually in brand new condition.

##FOOTNOTE (pounding like a Stock Show wind): I said, "can," not "will."

Lunch with B&N

No, no, no... too cold, no jacket, didn't walk to the Barnes & Noble at lunch.

Instead, I indulged in the Annual Holiday B&N Online Shopping Spree.

My nephews can now go to the best colleges.

Lunch:

The Book Club that Changed the World† has book showers for mothers-to-be.‡ We are feting our second adoptive child tonight. A trip to Barnes & Noble at lunch was... inevitable.

And, for once, totally justifiable. Even to, say, Brother.




Of course, Brother might not be quite so behind my auxilliary purchase, but y'all can back me up.




†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Yes, that's the name. From one of the most reviled books in our book club history, The Map That Changed the World. I chose it, I liked it, but it did lead to the "no geology books" rule, which we've managed to stick to far better than the "no Oprah books" rule.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): A brilliant idea, elegant in its simplicity, dreamt up by my late, great mother.

News Flash!

Back from lunch.

Did not go to Barnes & Noble.

Alert the media.