Fall Colour

Remember that land emergency I had last week? This was at that office.† So

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

from me and the people at Land Panic Inc.%

Saturday, I took a class from Annie Modesitt, who is funny and supportive and charmingly neurotic. Her cabling without cable needles is worth the price of admission just for the story about the gallant but slightly perverted prince and the wallflowers.‡

And here she is with my new best friend, Cheryl Oberle, who also took the class.§




[SUMMARY: I stalk celebrities and I have the pictures to prove it.]

And I finished the Sparkle Socks! And they're very nearly the same size!

One thing I found cool was, in knitting socks on two circular needles, I can just use one of the extra pointy ends as a cable needle.¶ It makes me feel very efficient and clever.

The Lizard Ridge, strip two, three squares down and three to go:

[SUMMARY: KNIT BLOG!]

And in keeping with the title theme, here's to prove that Colorado has trees just as pretty as Rhinebeck:




And giant sunflowers you could use to slay a dragon:




And, apparently, fall colours include green and gold.

This was taken at 3:00 the afternoon of the game. What were these people doing that early? Did they think Mile High would be general admission?

And how did the Packers end up with home field advantage in Denver?

[SUMMARY: No, let's don't talk sports. Let's focus on the pretty leaves.]

Ooooh... just wait 'til tomorrow. Boy, do I have a treat for you!

For now, I have to go watch my clients do the Thriller dance on the sixth floor.#

†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I'm sure they're wondering why they're paying someone who stands -- with reckless disregard for social normalcy -- in their lobby, taking pictures of their bird.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I'm dressed up today. I like to get my inspiration from my surroundings and let a costume come to me organically. I'm a dust bunny.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): Nope, you're going to have to take the class to get the story.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Who would be *thrilled* to know I'm crowning her "new best friend," I'm sure. Cheryl teaches knitting classes at Posh (Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack) and is helping head up the new North Denver Knitting Guild (first Wednesday of every month, Tenn Street Coffee at 44th and Tennyson, starting November 7, just in case you're interested). She's my celebrity knitter brush with fame. She even knows my name. You can touch me for a dollar.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): This was before I learned about the gallant but slightly perverted prince. I had to make my own cable magic.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): I'm not kidding.


ETA: I almost forgot the tiny little story I promised yesterday.

Once upon a time, I wound my yarn clockwise on my purl stitches. If you knit in the back of your knit stitches on the way back, it is stockinette stitch using the Eastern method. If you don't, you end up with what we call "twisted stitches." Frankly, it doesn't make a good goddamn's worth of difference to the aesthetic of the finished project, but you know how some people can be about some things.

I went to a knit night at an LYS (no longer with us), where a fussy and petulant little man looked over my shoulder and said, "Oh. My. God. What kind of stitch is this?"

"Stockinette...?"

"Oh, no it's not. I don't know what it is, but it isn't stockinette. Knit and let me see what you're doing."

Then he told me I was winding my purl stitches up wrong and made me knit a couple of rows the right way.

"See how much better that is?"

I was young (couldn't've been more than 35) and star-struck (he was knitting fussy little Nordic colour-work mittens on fussy little 00-sized needles that looked like fussy little fishing line) and meekly thanked him, even though I couldn't really see that much difference, only now my knitting looked kinda wonky from changing horses mid-saddle.

Annie taught me I wasn't knitting wrong, I was knitting in an exotic Eastern way the fussy little man could never dream of in all his fussy little dreams.

Can you tell I feel all vindicated and stuff?

OK, I'm really done now. Time to go trick-or-treating on the seventh floor.#

Time to Lick the Pig

Yes, it's brain lint time again. That time when rug burns sing, knitting goes feral and pigs get tongue-baths from winsome tots.†

Have you ever seen one of those French slice-of-life movies? Personally, I find them boring and awful, but I've seen one so I have some basis for comparison here. This first bit is basically my own little slice-of-life. It has no purpose beyond the "Huh."

When I was cosied up in my comfy chair Monday afternoon, I heard sirens from the north. They came closer and closer and a big, white fire truck pulled up right in front of my house.‡

The driver (wearing an official-looking navy blue uniform with a badge) and a fireman (wearing the giant fire coat and fire boots and placing his fire hat on his head as he hit the ground) hopped out. The fireman grabbed an axe and they both turned toward my house.

They looked up the long flight of stairs to the front door.§ They took two steps left and looked up my neighbour's stairs. They circled around opposite sides of the truck and disappeared, presumably to look at the across-the-street neighbour's door.

They came back around to my side. The fireman put the axe back in the hold of the truck and they both hopped back in.

Then they hopped out, grabbed the axe, milled¶ for a few minutes, jumped in the truck and drove off.

[SUMMARY: Huh.]

The movie people were back across the street from the office yesterday. Now they're gone again. I imagine it would be a royal pain in the ass to put up tents, take down tents, up with port-a-potties, down with port-a-potties every single day.

George Karl, Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson will be filming next week.

I think George Karl is going to be surprisingly good with his seven words onscreen. I seen him on the news last night and I think he's got that certain something.

[SUMMARY: Uh... really?]

Um... Brother? You won't appreciate this. I'm going to give you this 37 seconds of your life as a gift. Just skip to the next one.

I leave for New York a week from today. I think it's about time I think about my shopping list for Rhinebeck# and travel knitting.

Yorick will be done. Sparkle Socks will be done, or nearly. I'll certainly take the Massive Debt Father's day Arrrgyles for Brother and I may start a pair of Rainbow Socks out of a nice ball of Austermann Step with Aloe and Jojoba I've been hoarding.

It would probably help if I had a better Christmas plan. Both with what I should be knitting in the tens of FAA-supported hours I'll be experiencing next week and with what I should (and shouldn't) buy at Rhinebeck.

Musing.

Pig-licking.

[SUMMARY: Are we going to do this every week, AntiM?]

Oh, wait! Not this one either. Try the next exit.

Speaking of Rhinebeck... I'm going to be a bingo square in Stitchy McYarnpants's Rhinebeck Bingo.




It's not some big, unforeseen honour or anything. I volunteered.†† But, y'know... didn't get rejected.

I just thought y'all should know, just in case it makes you happy.

[SUMMARY: Attention whore.]

OK. You can tune back in now. It's football.

Just in case y'all were sitting there wondering, "Man, I haven't heard anything about Marin's fantasy football world lately. I wonder how she's doing."

I am at the top of both of my Pick 'Em leagues (one boys, one girls). Even after picking the Broncos in both leagues last week and even picking them against the Colts in one league two weeks ago.

I am firmly planted in the middle of my fantasy league, a stunningly mediocre 3-2 record and a supa-hot one-game winning streak to my name. Or the name of BOB, as it goes. Brother -- because I know you're dying to know -- has crept out of the sub-basement and is in second-to-last place with a far inferior 2-3 record.

And, while our feisty Canadian friend remains a few points ahead of me in the overall standings in the Onion Shattered Fantasies League, I whipped her sassy Canadian ass this week and am roaring toward a comeback.

[SUMMARY: I don't suck at sucking as much as you thought.]

DayQuil isn't supposed to make you dopey, is it?

You don't suppose it's just me, do you?

[SUMMARY: Getting warmer.]

I miss my Fling. I think I even miss the Male Lady just a little. Mostly I miss being able to breathe. I'm pretty sure a lack of snot-free oxygen to the brain is causing these blogblahs.

Please have a lovely Wednesday. For all our sakes.


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): My father, for the record, says the kid in the pig-licking photo reminds him oh, so much of me. I was afraid to ask if it's just the blond curls or if it's the insouciant tongue action.

Hey! Stop that! My father is NOT thinking that kind of tongue action!

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I suddenly became very aware of my insurance.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): For a moment, I honestly wondered if my house was on fire and they were seriously contemplating letting it burn so they wouldn't have to climb the stairs.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Two people can mill. I've seen it with my own two eyes. Which... don't mill. Even though there's two. Like the story about the people. Please make me stop.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Because pretty yarn out of context is a dangerous thing for the pocketbook and the stash. There are so many (whisper) useless hunks of fibre in my stash because I bought a ball or a skein in magpie mode and don't have enough to do anything compelling with it.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): With my hand waving madly in the air, shrieking, "Oo! Oo! Pick me! Pick me!"

Alas, Poor Yorick...

...I pinned him to the sofa, Horatio.†

I figured thus: I am knitting socks for Lorree and Yorick for Jeff. Yorick must be felted, blocked and dried prior to next Wednesday. The socks can be knit in the six-plus hours I will be on planes and in airports and such. The socks can be finished on the bus from Newark to Grand Central Station. The socks, if needs be, can be finished sitting at Riverside Park across the street from Jeff's building.

So Yorick wins, for the time being.%

Praise be, Yorick is a pretty quick knit, though I have made two skulls now and neither one of them came out to the right number of stitches, or even to the same number of stitches. For some reason, multiple yarn-overs can be difficult to knit in and out of while trying to count properly.




Don't Panic.‡ The one on the left is not all wonky due to my inability to count,§ I just didn't pin that one.

I'm having some palpitations over the felting process, not for any typical reason, but because I used Ella Rae Classic for this and the pattern calls for something alpaca or angora -- y'all know... bunny yarn -- but I thought bunny yarn might not be masculine enough, so I switched to this.

Then I poked at one of Bag Lady Kathryn's felted Ella Rae bags and I'm worried about it getting too dense for a scarf. I'm envisioning Jeff laying it across the back of his neck, then bending and twisting and capturing it quickly under the front of his jacket before it springs loose again.¶

I'll just have to keep a very close eye on the felting process so it gets felted enough for me to trim out the eye- and nose-holes, but not so felted it becomes a neck pillow.

I guess if worse comes to worst,# I can tell him it's one of those draft dodger things to put across the bottom of a door or window to keep cold air out.

I also turned the heel on the second Sparkle Sock yesterday just for variety. No dick warmers in my house.††

[SUMMARY: Knitting!]

Speaking of Bag Lady Kathryn,‡‡ when we went to Hotcakes (a recommended experience) Sunday morning, we came out to this:




Kathryn said, "Do you have your camera?"

Why, yes. Yes, I do.

[SUMMARY: Mini Coopers!]

Can we backtrack for a minute?^

I didn't take my camera Saturday night because I figured they wouldn't allow cameras in the concert. Turns out they didn't check anything very carefully and I could have smuggled it in just fine. As it stands, I have these great pictures on my camera phone,§§ but I don't know if I can do anything other than send them in text messages. If I can, I sure as hell don't know *how* to do it.

[SUMMARY: Technology!]

I forgot to tell you a little tidbit: when we ran up to Coors Field Saturday after Genesis, Shanny gave me his media pass to go inside and poke around. Mostly, I took pictures of the media pass on my camera phone, but I did enjoy waving that thing at all the Coors Field official-types who wanted to get in my way.

"Media!" I said,¶¶ sticking it in their faces with all the grace and cool of a three-year-old meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland for the first time.

[SUMMARY: Sport!]

And this last bit is just a pretty picture of a historical building across the street from my office. I thought the sky particulalry pretty. I'm sharing.




[SUMMARY: Art!]

Happy Tuesday, ev'ry-bahdy!


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): That's not even funny. I just wanted the chance to show off my crazy-big Shakespearean knowledge. The day I can toss out the primrose path speech here with jaded nonchalance... that'll be a proud, proud day. And y'all know I'm going to be looking for excuses now.

%FOOTNOTE (percented): I bet you're *stunned* at the unprecedented level of logic I am able to reach. It's all the sleep yesterday, I tell you.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I miss Douglas Adams.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Both in and out of triple yarn-overs and to four.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): In my mental movie, he forgets about the rogue scarf and goes to pull his wallet out of his jacket to pay for a newpaper at a newsstand. He yanks the zipper down a couple of inches and starts to reach his hand into his inner pocket. The scarf pops out, the recoil snapping Jeff's wrist and zinging a woman (buying gum next to him) in the face.

THEN... the scarf's eyes glow red but only the guy in the newsstand sees it. He goes home in his '57 Chevy and dismembers his wife, then climbs into their chest freezer with a 45 of "My Boyfriend's Back."

The scarf whispers to Jeff's cat at night, causing the usually-docile feline to eat the neighbour's dog and several small children.

One night, the scarf inches into the kitchen, humming to itself before it slithers into the coffee maker.

Jeff and Lorree have friends over for brunch the next day and everybody drinks coffee filtered through the demon scarf and they all go mad, giving in to their basest impulses and acting out 1950s dead teenager songs.

Later that day, they all die on separate railroad tracks before the folksy sheriff with the dark past can capture them.

The scarf is last seen disappearing into a cargo crate off Battery Park.

Voilá. Stephen King story.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): "Worse comes to worst" or "worst comes to worse"? Each makes a sort of elegant sense... of course, I may just be high on my recent think-tank triumph in figuring out which project to knit first for the imminent trip.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I could get all dirty-sassy-funny here if it weren't so pathetically true on so many levels.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Nice segueway.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Just playing at polite. My blog, my backtrack.

§§FOOTNOTE (double-D curvy): Well, they seem really great when I blow them up from postage stamp-size in my head.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (para-para-para-paragraph): OK, OK... squealed.

Knitting! Mini Coopers! Technology! Sport! Art! Sometimes Sex!

Man, this blog has *everything*!

This is My Brain on Zamboni

TTHFCIF

Any Philly's fans out there?

So yesterday I was nowhere near a computer I could use all day. Then I went home and TiVi'd and knitted until bedtime.

It was lovely not going anywhere or doing anything.†

I intend to maybe do a little more of the same tonight.

[SUMMARY: Lazy and loving it.]

I'm rapidly approaching the heel on the last Sparkle Sock and I cast on Yorick last night and got the first skull and two or six or ten inches% of the scarf part done.

I may finish those up before New York after all.

[SUMMARY: Still a knitblog!]

I can't get all wild-hairy tonight anyway. I accidentally^ blew off my grandmother two weekends running and I *must* go see her tomorrow. Otherwise they will revoke my granddaughter card and my cousin Tani will take over Most Favoured Granchild status solely on the basis of having the most recent baby.

We can't be having that.

[SUMMARY: Family politics.]

Besides,‡ I do love my grandmother and it makes her really happy when I come to visit. And if we get the conversation steered the right way, I learn really cool things about Dad that I can use as leverage should I need it. Or just for fun table talk at family dinners.

[SUMMARY: And the family politics just keep coming.]

It's going to be a busy, busy weekend. Before I talk futures, let's visit Wednesday night's hockey opener.$

I love mechanical things, toys. From C-batteries to supercharged cars to jet engines, I love them all. Perhaps the Zamboni most of all.§

And look at this one:




Feng-schwogie!

Huh. It just occurred to me that I may have sub-consciously bought the Mini Cooper because it is the car that most closely resembles the Zamboni.&

Anyway...

The preamble for a game has all the subtlety of a drag queen.

The ice goes red...




...the ice goes blue...




...the ice spins and dapples and goes red and blue and flashy from all sides and there's stuff that looks like leopard spots or maybe ripples in a pond and spotlights swing in mad circles and...




...and then they bring the players on. Loudly.

Look!

One hockey player... two hockey players... three hockey players... four, four beautiful hockey players!¶




That's it, I'm out.

[SUMMARY: Can't count past four.#]

Then skate-around...




...then face-off...




...then a hat trick by Stastny. I do have a picture of hats on the ice and little maintenance people shuffling around with garbage cans, picking up the hats off the ice. But it's at home. In my other computer.

I'm pretty sure that, in looking at the 27,000 pictures I took to get this one...




...I didn't realise one of them was the hat trick and forgot to upload it so I could share.

Things you might want to know:

That shot that I am claiming is the best of 27,000 is because of the reflected skaters in the glass around the ice.

See, I have a strong shiny-object lobe in my brain.†† It finds objects and fixates on them and won't let go until some loud noise or person next to me waving their hands in front of my eyes snaps me out of it.

When I watch basketball, if I hear a shoe squeak -- just once -- I can no longer focus on the game because I can hear *all* the shoes squeaking. With football, it's night games where the lights turn the players and their shadows into highly mobile jacks.‡‡

Wednesday night, for the first time, I noticed how cool the reflections are when skaters go by the panels of glass in the corners. This may be what passes for artsy in hockey.

Despite all that distraction, I do know the Avs won. I cheered every goal.§§

[SUMMARY: Hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey hockey]

Kelley drove and picked a parking lot+ under not one, but TWO cranes.

[SUMMARY: Always the cranes...]

So this weekend... ah, this weekend.

Tomorrow morning, I go see Grandma. Tomorrow night, I go see Genesis.

Sunday morning, breakfast with Bag Lady Kathryn (not too early, I admonished, Marin will be shutting down a bar Saturday night).

Possible snow.

Broncos.

Family dinner.¶¶

Avs.##

Possible Rockies.†††

Drinking with Kelley.‡‡‡

[SUMMARY: Is there such thing as too much fun?]

And late to work on Monday.

Happy Friday, ev'ry-bahdy!



†FOOTNOTE (crossed): I say that like that isn't exactly what I did all weekend last weekend. Well, except for the part where I helped Bag Lady Kathryn paint her dining room. Well, I be. I guess I was useful last weekend. Yea, me!

%FOOTNOTE (percented): How am I supposed to gauge this? The boys keep telling me ten inches looks like *this*, but then the sweaters never fit.

^FOOTNOTE (careted): Yes, it's possible. No, I won't teach you how.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): This is not the afterthought it seems. I'm nicer than that. Shut up.

$FOOTNOTE (moneyed): Mostly because I'm in love with how well my camera handled hockey.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Yes, even more than the variable-speed, purple, g-spot vibrator. That's a *lot* of Zamboni love.

And that sounds ten more kinds of dirty. What is wrong with me today?

&FOOTNOTE (ampersanded): So much Freud, so little time.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): And I do mean beautiful. Hockey players are hot. So hot. Oh, my C-batteries! Seriously, other than Scotty Bowman, who is the exceptional toad that proves the rule, hockey players have a minimum level of hotness that rivals the upper echelons of real-world male hotness.

Does the ice keep their skin pretty or something?

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Some of you may recognise the amazing improvement this represents, since I couldn't count *to* four earlier this year. Knitting has helped me grow, and I'm a better person for it. Or at least less likely to blindly accept the wrong change at Starbucks.

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): No, AntiM! Say it ain't so!

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): The pick-up kind that comes with a red ball that you got when you were a kid.

§§FOOTNOTE (curvalicious): Sometimes smacking the guy in front of me in the head with my camera as I did. It's OK -- he was cheering for the other team.

+FOOTNOTE (plussed -- the opposite of non-plussed?): I just want to be sure you understand that I didn't park us somewhere just to get under the cranes (dirty!). It was Kelley's choice, all her own free will and everything.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (all the pretty paragraphs): For which I will bake the first cherry pie of safe-to-turn-the-oven-on season.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like a beer at last call): Who moved gametime Sunday to allow for a possible Rox game.

†††FOOTNOTE (tres... tres cruces bonitos!): Y'know... if they don't put the Phillies away Saturday. Also, if you're in Denverish on Sunday, don't be. At least not downtown. Sportsfest, Oktoberfest, 12,000 women in pink hats (Race for the Cure, in case I out-clevered myself on the reference), free parking... it'll be a madhouse.

‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (railroad tracks!): Who works for a credit union and has Monday off for Columbus Day. Hey, I can't let my girl drink alone.

Keep Your Penis in Your Genus

Take that, Google!

Did anyone else watch "Cavemen" last night?

I just have a crapload of brain lint for you today, as I did nothing useful last night and apparently don't intend to do anything useful in the very near future.

Well, except for hockey.

Because I volunteered to help Interweave Press with this year's Sticks 'n' Stitches,† I'm on this special offers mailing list for the Colorodo Avalanche. It's not totally rockstar-VIP, but it is a nice litte tweak.

Kelley and I are attending tonight's season opener. I don't know if you've ever attended one sporting event (i.e. -- tonight's hockey game) while a big sporting event from another sport is going on (i.e. -- tonight's Rox playoff game)... it's really wound up.

The Rox score will be updated frequently -- maybe even constantly displayed. During TiVi timeouts and such, they'll show highlights from the baseball game. The Pepsi Center will hum and vibrate with the energy of 19,000 swept up sports fans.

So don't call me tonight 'cause it's going to be off the hook.‡

[SUMMARY: With hip talk like that, I could write sitcoms for CW.]

Can I just say here than anyone who doesn't read the comments... well, they're not necessary to your mental health or your understanding of the complexities of this blog (*ahem*), but brilliant and incisive minds come from all corners of the Innernets to comment, kibbutz and debate the merits of the term "pounded like a two-dollar whore."

It's a regular Algonquin Roundtable there under the surface. You should try it some time.

[SUMMARY: This may partly be a shameless slurp to ameliorate the ick that is to follow. But it works 'cause it's true.]

Right across from the office I'm working in (I can see it from my window) is a Hampton Inn Suites. I walk right past it on my way from the parking lot to the office in which I'm working

Every morning, there's about a half-dozen tourists waiting for their rental cars from valet or catching a cab or gearing up§ for a big day's cruise around downtown. An odd pattern I've noticed: they're almost always wearing Bronco shirts -- the entire family -- and the wife and daughter are more often than not wearing pink Bronco shirts.

Every day. For two months.

And about three-quarters of the nights when I'm heading to my car, Papa John's is delivering pizza. Doesn't matter if it's 4:00 or 7:00. Papa John's is there.

I wonder if the people at the front desk of the Hampton Inn Suites notice these vignettes.

[SUMMARY: Now that work has slowed down a bit, I apparently have too much time on my mind.]

I was trying to come up with a title for today's post. I got stuck in a "bits and bobs" loop, but (or because) Franklin just used that delightful little phrase. So I thought, "Google. Maybe there's a sort of thesaurus for phrases¶ and I can discover an equally delightful little phrase."

Read the footnote -- I didn't find a phrasal thesaurus,# but I did come across a website for English idiom, including a message board for ESL linguists trying to get by in the English-speaking world. I read through several of the forum entries and it fascinates me that they are so fascinated with phrases like, "to grease a palm"†† or "work like a dog."‡‡

[SUMMARY: English, she is more interesting than we remember.]

There's a girl on Ravelry with the screen name "Diva de los Muertos."

Best. Screen. Name. Ever.

Don't think I didn't stalk her and tell her so.

[SUMMARY: *slurp*]

My rug burn is almost completely healed. I need a new one.

[SUMMARY: Is she whining about sex again?§§]

Heh. I've been waiting for a good opportunity to use this picture from Cute Overload. Perhaps it could be the first installment in the Phrasaurus:

Lick the pig: jump the shark, screw the pooch, bite the big one, cock a snook, take the mickey, wag the dog, milk the joke.

[SUMMARY: This has to end soon.]

You know, when Enchanting Juno gets whimsical and musey, it's like a soft summer evening, warm and golden and jasmine-scented. It brushes melancholy and touches on philosophy and there's wisdom and usually fibre somewhere.

When I get whimsical and musey, somehow we end up with rug burns and children licking pigs.

[SUMMARY: Where do I go wrong?]

Ooh! Ooh! Fibre! I started the second Sparkle Sock last night and am halfway up the foot.

[SUMMARY: Weak attempt at knitblog.]

Second choice for TiVi quote blogtitle: "You all have numbers so we'll be doing this alphabetically."

[SUMMARY: Wow. This passes for blogfodder?¶¶]

You're right. I'm done.

Go Rox! Go Avs!##


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): January 5. Mark your calendar. $27 gets you tickets -- much better than last year, my buddy Brendan in the Avs' ticket office tells me (he also tells me, "You have my direct line. If you need tickets this season, just give me a call and I'll see what I can do." I love Brendan. I wonder if Brendan has ever operated a crane...). Your $27 also gets you a hot dog and a drink, plus a goody bag (which I will be helping to assemble in one fashion or another).

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): I may have full-circled right past dork and back to cool. Humour me.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Camera, fanny pack for Mom, fishing vest with guidebook for Dad, comfortable shoes, bermuda shorts, Barbie backpack for little Amber... it's a daily festival of guppying up to the stereotype

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Nope. Not that I could find. There should be.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Phrasaurus?

††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): I never realised how dirty that sounds until just now.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): You may be wondering why, after a certain amount of research, that's the title I came up with. Hey, a chance to use the word "genus"? I'm there.

§§FOOTNOTE (Pamela Lee got nothing on me): Why, yes. Yes, I am.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (more paragraphs than sense); Why, yes. Yes, it does.

##FOOTNOTE (pint's a pound the world around... believe I'll take two): Take Marin with you!

All Better

Any Padres fans out there?

WOOT!

Welcome to Tuesday. Before I soothe your weary knitter's soul with pictures of yarn an a half-FO,† allow me to make one last play for your sympathy after the last few weeks of long work days and 5-fucking-30 in the ayem days and such.

This is what I worked:



I saw every document in every box and wrote a little ditty about each well associated with all those documents. I caught errors‡ and put together prospect packages.

It was a LOT of work.

OK. You can stop sympathising now. I'm all better.

[SUMMARY: You just skipped the entire first section of this post, didn't you?]

Now let me make you all better.

Yarn!




I believe I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I went a little crazy over a dishcloth pattern.This was how I discovered Herrschner's is not quite as craptastic as I'd always believed. Anyway, these will someday§ be lovely hand-knit cloths.¶

[SUMMARY: I am a sucker.]

I decided to knit We Call Them Pirates.# I decided to knit it out of something comparable to the pattern yarn from Sylvia's House of Fuzzy Crack. So I ventured into the Innernets to do my due diligence, get the particulars so I could substitute with style.

Turns out the Dalegarn Hauk from the pattern is treated with TEFLON for water and wind resistance.

[SUMMARY: I am a sucker for yarn technology.]




Many of you may already have seen the next yarn at Red's place.

I have no fear of redundancy.

If nothing else, Red doesn't talk as much as I do and didn't liken deadly sins to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Keep reading. You'll get there.

This is the second installment in the Seven Deadly Sins Sock Club. I'm far happier with the colours in this shipment than the wishy-washy ones in the last. And it's been educational.

The lovely red-purple is Lust, and I'm all about that. I'm pretty sure my lust is all reddish and purple.

However, I was a little skeptical about Sloth being blue. Turns out, light blue is the colour classically associated with Sloth.

Of course, it also turns out orange is the colour of Gluttony and red is the colour of Wrath, so there's very little consistency in the colour selection at Fearless Fibers, but how else do you pick what colour Sloth is?

In my head, the poor girl is looking at the mutt-brown she used for gluttony and saying, "I should have used that for Sloth.†† Now what am I going to do?"

So like any good denizen of the twenty-first century, she Googled and found myriad references‡‡ to Sloth as light blue.

Anyway, it's a pretty blue and I like it, even if it doesn't make me feel particularly slothful.

Here's another thought (apparently, the presence of sin makes me think): How do you suppose she decided which pairs to send? Lust and Sloth: two great tastes that taste great together?

Hey, you got your Sloth in my Lust!

Well you got your Lust in my Sloth!

[SUMMARY: This is how my mind works. And you read the whole thing. Who's the sucker now?]




At Alpacas on the Rocks last weekend,§§ I got this stuff:




I had the conscious thought that it would knit up REALLY FAST, so it would be good to have some around in case I needed to whip up a scarf at the last minute for someone. Kinda like the trick of keeping cookie dough in your freezer so you can always whip up some homemade cookies for guests.¶¶

[SUMMARY: Martha Stewart got nothin' on me.]

And if I never find a worthy recipient, I'll just pet it and love it... it's baby alpaca, after all, and soft as a bunny.

The Sparkle Socks I started so long ago (see: Club Level Beverage Station... that would be one of the earlier games the Rox won) are nearly due. It's a good thing I work better under deadlines.

I finished the first one last night. It's just a basic sock pattern, but I went all rogue knitter and added some cables## and some calf shaping††† and now I feel just like Grumperina.

Except that I will finish both socks.






[SUMMARY: Delusions of grandeur...]




Crane truck!

[SUMMARY: It pretends to be about the knitting, but it's always about the cranes.]

Happy Tuesday, ev'ry-bahdy!


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): One half of a finished pair, that is. Not one half of a whole. Well, it is one half of a whole, but the math was really easy 'cause it's socks and that means one sock is done, rather than "I'm going to knit a six-foot scarf and, oh, let me measure... lessee... aught plus aught, carry the aught... yes, it looks to be three feet."

You're so glad you stuck around for the footnotes.

‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): The people I'm working with love me. Twenty-seven emails a day of, "Please confirm these numbers, it appears there is a payout situation that's not being accounted for..." or "Oil and Gas Commission records indicate the spacing in this area is 160 acres encompassing the SE of Section 17. Your records show 640 spacing..."

Another footnote you're glad you read.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): But not today.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Except the stripey one, which I suspect will suck ass and not show off the stitch pattern at all. I looked right at the word "stripe" at herrschners.com and... I don't know... decided they didn't mean me? Oh, yes. It *says* stripe, but I'm sure it will variegate for me. I am SUCH a dork.

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Thus:




††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): 'Cause, y'know... sloths are brown.

‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Which is, of course, what I did when I read the letter that said Sloth is blue. If you go here, there's a cool thing where you can turn a cow blue.* Click "skip intro."

*FOOTNOTE WITHIN A FOOTNOTE: That is not my cow!

§§FOOTNOTE (Brick House): Not the very last weekend. Not like two days ago, when the Colts beat the Broncos. More like last last weekend when the Jaguars beat the Broncos.

¶¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphs everywhere, but nary a drop to think): For the record, I don't have cookie dough in my freezer just waiting for company. I have Grey Goose in my freezer and it's mostly mine. I just don't want you to be disappointed if you drop by and there are no cookies in the offing.

##FOOTNOTE (pounded like a two-dollar whore): One big one on the front, two little ones on the back. For simplicity's sake, we can just call it Marin's own design.

†††FOOTNOTE (wow. That's a lot of crosses): You can see the calf shaping in the picture. Doesn't it look like I knew what I was doing? Grumperina wants to be me.

p.s. -- Still a knitblog!

Death & Yarn

Apparently an ongoing series.

For those of you who don't read comments or might miss comments or who would be grateful to your dear ol' AntiM for not making you go dig the comment out, this from Brother:

Yo - wait, wait, wait. I wanna go back. (How far you gonna go back? We're gonna go way back...but you aren't really NWA people, are you?)

As Administrator of my sister's estate (and you wool-sucking vampires should be ashamed of yourselves), I would like to make all claimants aware of a new caveat AntiM's bequeathments:

Anybody who should come into possession of yarn promised but not delivered as socks either to Brother or to Great White Father at the time of AntiM's death shall be obligated to complete said socks for delivery to promisee.

The Executor has spoken. Put that on your needles and knit it, you vampires.

[SUMMARY: I'm dead, you ghouls! Is anyone going to mourn my untimely passing or are we all going to fight over the disposition of the fibre in all its myriad forms? Yeah, don't answer. Totally rhetorical. And in answer to your question, Brother, we're really KWA people. You know what I'm sayin'.]

A new knot in the WIP that is this whole Grim Reaper vs. The Stash† is knitted into the mix. Which brings me to a tangent I've been fomenting over the weekend: Deficit Knitting.

As of this morning before I checked the vast sea of OOT‡ email, I was one baby blanket and one pair of Father's Day socks in debt. Then I read that another friend had a baby§ last Monday and I should probably oughtta knit a little something (sweater?) for New Gretchen. So sort of three projects in debt.

In the red on the knitting.

Writing fibrous checks the needles can't yet cash.

Post-dating your knitting.

Oh, c'mon. I know y'all have done it: wrapped a half-finished Christmas scarf with a note you'll finish by Valentine's Day, deviously suggested you really want to make X pattern for BFF, but you want her to be able to pick out her very own yarn (like you're doing her some sort of special favour, but knowing full well you forgot her birthday until her husband called and invited you for dinner at the last minute), plopped an enormous bag of sock yarn in front of brother (*ahem*) and magnanimously offered to knit WHATEVER HE WANTS out of your considerable stash because you missed the boat on the only major holiday he gets to claim as his own.¶

And like credit card debt, you probably SHOULD pay off the debt you have before you incur more.

And like credit card debt, there are always occasions that lead you into the temptation of more more more debt, even possibly getting an entirely new credit card to segment your debt that much more.

And like credit card debt, you know there are things on the horizon that have the very real potential to put you in debt that much further.#

[SUMMARY: Debt is debt, though my brother is slightly less likely to levy your bank account than the IRS.]

Which brings us full circle to the macabre subject at hand: Knitting After Death.

And the ongoing feeling that dying takes a lot of work and organisation.

If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, the IRS would get theirs. CitiCards would get theirs. Even the electric company, I suspect, would get theirs. But who looks after the yarn creditors?

Add to the ever-growing list that someone must complete AT LEAST the debt projects. So anybody who wants to partake of the stash inheritance will have to finish something on my needles in proportion to the quality and quantity of stash for which you are vying.

[SUMMARY: I can't die! I haven't written all the rules yet!]

Brother, you may need to educate yourself on the finer points of fibre to make an educated decision on equitable project distribution vis-a-vis stash desires.

Don't let the knitters guide you. They're lovely people, but morally... unpredictable when cashmere is as stake.

Speaking of the IRS, I got a couple of really splendid letters from them just before I left for the Lake. This will necessitate, I'm sure, HOURS of re-straightening what has already been straightened.

Fucking money suckers.

[SUMMARY: 1) Got almost all the way through a post without using the F-word, and 2) vampires one and all.]


TOMORROW: Lake. Maybe even a movie about a turtle if I can figure out how to post it.

SERIOUSLY: Murphy -- not the bastard lawyer, but the cute little doggie -- is no longer with us. More particularly, no longer with poor Sarah. Take a moment of silence for sweet, fuzzy, compelling Murph and cuddle your pets today, won't you? *sniff*


†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Which sounds like a WWF bout or one of those monster truck rallies.

‡FOOTNOTE (double crossed): Out Of Town. I pronounce it as a single word... just so you can sing along at home.

§FOOTNOTE (swerved): Well, mostly his wife had the baby, but you know what I mean.

¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Curse you, Drunken Jackass!

#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Like Christmas, or the two pairs of socks I want to finish before I go to NYC in October.

The Redhead Always Starts the Barfight

The world has gone bananas. This morning my workaday world became a whirlwind of excitement and energy and, oh, yeah... WORK.

[SUMMARY: Work!?]

There was SnSnBnW last night, as evidenced by these two photos:

Taken early, while it was still light outside and the bar was well nigh empty.








That's (L to R) Candice, Kathryn and Sarah...

Taken later, when it was dark and there were many, many non-knitters at the bar.









...plus Red.

Do you see the look of befuddlement on the guy's face at the table behind us? Now, it may just be due to the flash in his eyes, but I like to think he turned to his friends and said, "Dude! Did you notice anything strange about this bar? Look around. I didn't know this was a knitter bar," he and his buddies slowly inching toward the door, hoping not to be mistaken for one of them... the knitters.

I also have this little SNL-style skit playing in my mind where a nice, clean-cut, possibly Mormon couple breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they hike a couple of miles in the burning heat for help, only to walk into a lively bar.

When they enter, it goes dead silent, all eyes on the newcomers. A tough-looking redhead (it has to be a redhead) slowly lays her half-knit baby booties on the table in front of her, stands to an impressive height** and says, "Looks like you folks are lost." The nice Mormon man gulps and moves slightly in front of his wife, as if to protect her...

Of course, this scenario would probably end with the nice Mormon couple being clothed in hand-knits within and inch of their lives, but I like the idea of the knitter bar as a place of mystery, wonder and more than a little terror.

As much as I love y'all and would like to stay and chat, I have a company to sell.**

[SUMMARY: I think I need my own TV station so I can do Knitter Bar skits and the Traffic Channel.]

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): This is how you know the redhead isn't me.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Yeah, not really. But it sounds more impressive than, "I have to go update some shit so someone else can sell this company and make a billion dollars."**

...**FOOTNOTE WITHIN A FOOTNOTE (asterisked): Literally.

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Since you asked, I knit a little on a lot of things last night (The Heathers ["God, aren't they fed yet? Do they even have Thanksgiving in Africa?"], Sparkle Socks, Stupid Blanket) and I even counted to three after a beer without losing my place, my mind or a single stitch. All hail!

Ketchup

So here's the brief (in chronological order, not in order of importance):

1. Wednesday night when I was at Favourite Bar with Megan-from-Work, Male Lady drove by and slowed waaaayyyyy down as she passed. Did I mention she has the same little red convertible as Kelly, but with a different coulour top? Anyway, I got home and there was a PNHead call on my caller ID from roughly ten minutes after she drove by. So it's slowing down now that I'm not hanging out with the love of her life,** but it's not quite out of her system.



2. Thursday: Woolstock.



3. Red called Friday night while I was on the phone with my father to tell me she and Jenny and Amber (you remember Jenny and Amber from Woolstock, right?) were doing the First Friday Art Walk on Santa Fe, carrying fun adult hot chocolate (which sounds like a service of which you might be able partake in a whorehouse in Bangkok).
   
   I discovered my caller ID doesn't capture phone numbers of calls that never actually rang out loud, so I couldn't call Red so I didn't go. I stayed in and knitted. There was Bellocqage, there was Sparkle Sockage, there was Stupid Blanketage. It was good.



4. Kelley and I went shopping at the fashion show at the Oriental on Saturday. We both bought Vamp Bags. Kelley bought Debbie
   
   
   
   in a very cool plummy colour and I bought Vicki
   
   
   
   in a very cool green. I also got the Skulls-in-Hats tote, and a tshirt with a pumpjack and derrick on it. Now, it also has fighter planes, so I'm pretty sure it's a blood-for-oil political statement, but I told the be-pierced and heavily inked artist I'm very excited to have a tshirt I can wear to work on casual Friday.**



5. Saturday night, we went to Favourite Bar (this is after a day of shopping, dining and drinking) and left by 8:00. Yeah, I know, but remember how you found in college when you started drinking at 10:00 in the morning, you were pretty much ready for bed (or ambulance) by 10:00 that night? I'm no longer in college. If I start drinking at 2:00, 8:00 looks like a pretty reasonable bedtime.
   
   Anyway, we left before Sex Toy was scheduled in to Favourite Bar and Kelley suggested I should at least text him, which I did.
   
   The next morning, I heard the twinkle-tones of a text message coming through from the celly downstairs. I went down to check, assuming it was Sex Toy, but no. It was The Boy. Texting to say he's good and wishing me a happy Easter. Huh.
   
   The first thing Tani said? "He still has your number in his phone." Would you believe that never occurred to me? What mostly occurred to me was: Huh. Does he really think I have enough influence over Kelley to get her to talk to him?
   
   Anyway, I texted back the following (verbatim): Good & thanks & you too.



6. Of course, Monday was sitting-on-twins day, followed by the mad rush home to see if Secret Pal's package had arrived. I opened my little box and -- joy! -- there was a key to the bigger box, indicating a PACKAGE! I opened the bigger box and there was NO PACKAGE! It was empty. I almost wrangled a guy walking by to ask him if *he* saw anything in the box. I thought perhaps I was experiencing hysterical blindness. But, no. I called the post office... it was left on the front porch... too big for box... sorry we left the key and freaked you out...



7. Tuesday: Magic of pedicure impeding magic of receiving presents, but feet renedered unembarrassing (my car is clean and my feet are pretty. What is the world coming to?)



8. Tuesday later: Presents! You saw.



9. Wednesday morning: Funeral.**



10. Wednesday morning later: Another BLM field trip.



11. Wednesday afternoon: Back to office.



12. Wednesday evening: Wanted to go to Goosetown Tavern with Downtown Denver SnB (who seem like my kinda chicks all the way 'round, but I've yet to meet them) and be on TV like a rock star, but worked until 8:00. Went to Other Favourite Bar for dinner and a (one. single.) beer. Christopher bought me a second beer. Never look a gift beer in the mouth.


So I had time to knit and ran into a new mathematic adventure: now I can't count to three. I'm going to have to do some serious backtracking on the Heathers ("Well, it's just like - they're people I work with, and our job is being popular and shit.") to even figure out what went pear-shaped. I think between the second beer and the basketball game, all hope of counting to three was lost.


13. Work today. SnB tonight. Hopefully to bed early.

Now we're all caught up. Who would have thought the most interesting thing about me is The fucking Boy? How degrading. How anti-feminist. I feel dirty.

Thank goodness I have a solid Bath Whore Support System waiting for me at home.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): That's The Boy, in case I outclevered myself again.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): For one, I think he was seriously considering refusing to let me have the shirt on grounds of issue, but his capitalistic little heart beat too strong and he gave in.

For two, my first thought? Honestly? "It has airplanes AND oil accountrement. I'm going to be the most popular girl at Easter brunch!" (what with the Tallest Hairiest nephew's love of all things avionic and both father and brother being in or late of the petroleum industry.) Did I mention dork yet today?

For three, may I take this opportunity to point out that I and mine are fully involved in DOMESTIC exploration and production, so whatever you think of the industry, never try to paste a blood-for-oil label on us. And vote domestic-production-friendly in 2008. It's good for the country, it's good for you and it's good for your dear ol' AntiM.

**FOOTNOTE (asterisked): For one, Catholic. I know all the words, mind you, but I felt like a black man standing on a corner in Gstaad... so outnumbered.

For two, sad. Made me think of Mom. I mean, I think of Mom every day, but this was a LOT. And it wasn't one of those, "Oh, Mom would have loved that" things, it was Mom and death. It makes me sad. And tired. And tired of being sad.

Club Level Beverage Station

Happy Harlot Day!

Kelly-with-a-Maren? Just-the-Rockies hammered the lowly D'Backs, 11-4. Keep telling yourself, "It's only the Rockies... It's only the Rockies..."

Check this: a *seven* point eighth inning, with the rotation lapping itself. It's not rare-rare that a player bats twice in an inning, but it's rarely a good sign for the defense.

[SUMMARY: Nyah-nyah-nya-nyah-nyahhhh]

Client's office is six blocks or so from Coors Field. We had a nice lunch at Il Fornaio (including wine) and trotted up to the field.

I'm tempted to leave out the part where, two blocks from the stadium, Cindy said, "I better check for my ticket. Do you have your ticket?" and I realised immediately I'd left my ticket in the stall in the bathroom at Il Fornaio.

Also? This may not be the time to mention I left my wallet at home yesterday morning -- AGAIN -- and had to go all the way back to get it because, well... it's much easier to get out of the parking garage if you pay.

[SUMMARY: What is wrong with me? And why hasn't anyone taken my car keys away?]

Anyway, once the ticket crisis was averted, we trotted (once again) up to Coors Field.



The crabapples are blooming. For those not in the know, those pink trees on the left are crabapples.



The Player is poised and ready to serve.



The girls were poised and ready to be served beer. And baseball. Let's not forget the baseball, what with all the beer flying around.

Since you asked... Cindy, Patti, Jo


Patti (who made this all possible and spent the day saying, "It's on me.") has her own brick on the walk in front of the baseball arch. Her husband bought it for her (that's the date of their wedding). Never was there a more deserving brick owner.



Welcome to Coors Field, Home of the Colorado Rockies.



You may note how subtly I slip in with this next picture that we weren't just right off home plate, but in CLUB LEVEL. We had the Club Level Beverages to prove it.



Scoreboard with the Rockies Clock.



The boys of summer.



The Rox bullpen.



And the sparkle sock takes a page from the Yarn Harlot book and gets her photo taken on my seat (Seat 8, Row 8, Section 227, didImention Club Level). FYI? Knitting in Ballparks (KIB, too) can cause the man next to you to move down a seat so he doesn't have to either acknowledge your knitting or break his neck trying to ignore it.

Knitting toe-up socks around girls on the loose from the workaday world and buzzing on multiple Club Level Beverages can bring up all variety of contemplation for the use of the work in progress.

My best story about the sock: I'm just looking for the man who needs it for a, um... cozy. It's a hope chest, if you will.



[SUMMARY: Life is good.]

Sentimentality Alert (if you're having a really good day and don't want to come down, avert your eyes)!

This one, chronologically or just logically, maybe should have gone in the beginning as an entrance to Coors Field. It's the Ball Arch (that's my name -- it may very well have its own name) and it's very cool. This is the second time I've taken a picture of it.

My mom did watercolours. She was good at copying things and was always looking for something to paint for me (is it any wonder I rarely knit for myself when my gene pool so clearly revels in the gifting of creative endeavours?) and after hearing how cool the Ball Arch was for the fiftieth time, she told me to get a picture of it so she could paint it.

Two seasons and about 14 games later, I finally took the picture. I don't remember if I ever gave it to her. To be honest, her enthusiasm for creative giving was a little overwhelming at times and I often felt... unworthy? Time consuming?

I so wish I'd realised she wanted to paint for me (and everybody else) the way I wanted to knit for her (and everybody else).

I never finished the scarf I started for my mother the year before she died. She never painted the Ball Arch for me. Both of these minor tragedies are my responsibility.

I know this is uncharacteristically maudlin of me, but the oddest things and the oddest times bring Mom roaring in. Today, the Ball Arch did it for me.

So hug your mom. Get on top of those little obligations that are hanging out there. Trite as it may be, once you've lost someone to the wilds of mortality, you can't overemphasise the fleeting qualities of time or the pain of opportunities lost forever.

This has been a public service announcement from your dear ol' AntiM.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): Is Steve Finley related to Chuck Finley whose video vixen wife, Tawny Kitaen, beat the snot out of him with a high-heeled boot ten years ago? Now, woman-on-man domestic violence is probably no more laughing matter than man-on-woman domestic violence, but can you imagine the shit Chuck got in the locker room when the newspapers splashed the story that he had to call the police to protect him from his wife?

**FOOTNOTE (unasterisked): I made someone snork a mini-Snickers out her nose yesterday when I went to retrieve a Diet Pepsi from the freezer. I said, "I like my Diet Pepsi like I like my men: dark and ice cold." Thought I'd share, 'cause you're just the crowd to appreciate that.