Tempe Gets a Reprieve

I’m fixin’ to go to bed. DH and I are getting up a bit early (or early for me, anyway) tomorrow to finish packing and take off for New Orleans. I was going to pack today, but time got away from me. But the knitting is mostly packed, so the most important part is done!

I’ve almost finished DH’s socks, and it’s killing me. All that’s left is weaving in the loose ends. But I really need to get to sleep, so I guess I’ll take the socks with me and finish them in the car. But it’s hard to put them down when they’re so close.

I’m taking the camera, so I hope to have all sorts of interesting pictures from the trip. Don’t know if I’ll get a chance to post them before I get back, but it’s possible. DH is taking his laptop.

I’m actually feeling insecure leaving so much of my stash behind. You’d think three baby blankets might not be enough knitting for four days, two of which probably won’t have a lot of knitting time in them. Sad. I found myself thinking, what if I want to start a pair of socks? Sheesh! I’m addicted to *wool*?

But, we’re gonna have a good time and get good pictures. Y’all behave yourselves while I’m gone, and be prepared for some wonderful pictures!

Temperance Comes Close to Death

Today DS picked up a video game he saved for, pre-purchased, and has been awaiting with great eagerness. He came home and informed me he didn’t plan on working on cleaning his room or uncovering Jimmy Hoffa today. No, he set up his PlayStation 2 in the living room and prepared to play Kingdom Hearts 2.

So, OK. I can understand that. However, an hour or two later, blue air began to drift in here from the living room, accompanied by the loud noises of a *very* pissed off young man.

Seems Temperance had somehow knocked the PS2 off the coffee table onto the floor. Well, I’m not surprised. I’ve done that on occasion and even Simba has been known to miss and land on the various wires strung from TV to the coffee table.

However, DS claimed that Temperance broke the PS2. This would be bad. Then he brought the game DVD in here (where I also have a PS2), and it sure looked scratched to me. So we attempted to load it into my PS2 and it just didn’t load.

Threats have been made against Temperance’s life (making a kitten-skin cap has been suggested) and he has yelled at her. (Which undoubtedly upset her, as her beloved Daddy doesn’t do that.)

The angry young man and his now broken game have left for the game store to replace the DVD. I’m terribly afraid they won’t have any extra and won’t replace a game broken by the user (so to speak). Which will not help the angry young man’s mood. I’ve considered leaving early for choir practice, as I’m not completely sure I’m up to removing his fingers from around Temperance’s throat if things go badly.

He left them out in the house, which is fine. If he calls to tell me what I’m afraid he’s going to tell me, I think I’ll round them up and put them in their room before he gets home. While he’s really a pretty easy going guy and not at all violent, I don’t think it can hurt to have a door between him and Tempe. Sigh.

Make a Guess!

Today I informed DS that it’s time the rest of the house looked a lot less like his bedroom. The clothes, toys, etc. need to be moved out of the living room.

In fact, I’d like his bedroom to look a lot less like his bedroom. Really, in order to have a place for the rest of the stuff, things in his bedroom must be moved out or at least moved around.

I suggested, even, a radical idea. He has a lovely dresser we bought for him a few years ago and it occurred to me it might be an interesting and novel idea that his clean clothes might be stored in it! (Heaven forbid I should suggest the closet. No one can get close to the closet and the door can’t close because of the stuff in there.

His dresser is full of something, but it’s clearly not clothes of any sort. So I thought I’d ask y’all – what do you suppose he’s got in there?

My guess is Jimmy Hoffa. And maybe Amelia Earheart.

Any other guesses?

Many Musings and Such

So, it turned out DH and I didn’t drive to New Orleans yesterday. He spent all this last week home sick. Since normally he only stays home sick when he cannot get out of bed (or when I’ve tied him to the bed), we decided not to risk a relapse and have rescheduled for next weekend. He’s feeling much, much better today and plans to go back to work tomorrow. (Well, I guess that’d be today now!)

I usually enjoy having him home, as he’s a quiet and easy companion. (Unlike DS who is, generally, neither.) And, other than the being very sick, this last week was no exception. I’ll kinda miss having him around. I *won’t* miss the curse-till-the-air-turns-blue moments when he attempted to get his laptop computer to see and use the printer on his computer. (Or, I think, to even see the desktop computer at all, even from just inches away. Blind as a bat, that laptop.) Otherwise, he’s pretty pleasant. I did think it was funny to have him watching daytime TV with me. Each soap opera brought forth questions. “What are they arguing about?” (Her son caught her in the act with a man married to somebody else.) “Why are those two pretending they’re not a couple?” (Way, way too long and too stupid a story. Trust me.) “Cute kids, that couple. Aren’t they a little young to get married?” (Yes. But her parents don’t want her seeing him and no, I won’t be explaining that, either. Not a stupid story, but definitely too complicated.) Even funnier was watching him watch commercials. I guess he doesn’t seem commercials much any more. He mostly watches TV in the living room off of the DVR and fast forwards through the commercials. So he was reacting to commercials that I’ve seen so many times now I no longer pay attention. Like the (admittedly cute) commercial with Jerome Bettis talking to an adolescent about controlling his asthma well enough to play football. I *think* that commercial’s been on since before the SuperBowl. Certainly since shortly after it. I no longer actually see it. But he enjoyed it. Funny. (OK, I’m easily amused.)

The other thing occupying my time this week, other than knitting, has been changes in my main community. The main troublemaker in the group, a woman with a quite severe case of Borderline Personality Disorder (in my non-professional but way too experienced opinion) has decided to punish us by withdrawing her presence, along with that of the two men she’s sleeping with. I can tell you, we feel terribly chastised. Really. I’m so upset about it that I’m wondering how one goes about getting a day declared a national holiday, to be celebrated by confetti, a parade, and fireworks.<g> Even newer folks who weren’t completely sure what the problem was have been drawing deep breaths of relief.

But of course, nature abhors a vacuum, so a couple of her followers have been stirring up trouble in her stead. I’m convinced both of them have been skipping their meds. One of them is so easily manipulated that I suspect she was talked into her latest tirade. The other thinks she’s smarter than everyone else and also seems under the impression she’s somehow in charge of something. (She’s not. We kinda don’t have people truly in charge of much, which is mostly how we got into this mess to begin with.) She’s verbally condescending and the email that patted me on the head and pointed out where I’d been a good girl and where I had no right to speak was particularly ridiculous and stupid. I’ve about had it up to here (way, way over my head) with the both of them.

It’s my strong hope, though, that with the main troublemaker removing herself from at least the front lines of the fray, her acolytes may calm down and decide to learn to work *with* people instead of creating problems. I suspect both of them are capable of existing within a community if they’re not being twisted around by someone with much more serious problems than theirs. Clearly, neither of them have a whole lot of people skills, but one of them (the condescending one) seems intelligent and is probably trainable. Hard to tell about the other one. She’s so far out of control that one can’t tell what she might be like really.

Knitting: DH’s socks are getting close to being finished. That’s one advantage to working with thicker yarn – it takes fewer stitches to cover the same amount of flesh! I’ve got about three inches to go on each sock. I need to work on some other things this week, as well, but it’s all in good places for that. But I’m really enjoying his socks, even though I don’t care all that much for the yarn!

On Friday, I had SEX. (That’s a Stash Enhancement eXperience, for the non-knitters.) I went to my local yarn shop (LYS) and shopped without worrying about price. My fellow staff members, where I work (obviously) had given me a lovely, large gift certificate to show their appreciation. Back in November and December the “leaders” kept talking about how they were going to give all the staff a raise (except me) and about the five staff members. Guess who staff member number six is? I didn’t complain about the raise part – my current paycheck doesn’t keep me in Starbucks for the month and it’s more for the ability to call myself staff than for the money. Which, of course, made the second bit particularly galling and I’ll admit I complained. But it was nice of those who *did* get raises to share a bit of it, and it was fun to shop without worrying about price.

I bought another skein of the yarn for DH’s socks, just to be sure there was enough. Then, thrill of thrills, I found two kinds of sock yarn I’d just been reading about on the Net and figured I wouldn’t see in person for years, if ever. One is a Fortissima Colori that is self-patterning such that it makes red and white stripes, interspersed with blue with white bits. I’ve seen pictures of it knitted up, and they aren’t really stars. That’d be difficult to do with just the yarn, anyway! But I still coveted it and the only place I’d seen it online was out. But my yarn shop had several skeins of it! I was thrilled.

The other one I was really excited about is a new yarn called Step. It is infused with aloe vera and jojoba oil. I bought two different colorways of that and expect to thoroughly enjoy both working with it and wearing it!

I also got another Fortissma Colori. The colors in it are downright drab, which I normally wouldn’t buy, but there are silver sprinkles all over it. And while most of the yarn is various shades of beige, there is a nice denim bit, so the socks should be wearable with blue jeans. I guess I’m easily pleased.<g>

The other thing I shopped for was for car knitting for the trip. In my women’s chorus there are three babies expected in the next few months. One woman, a lovely, tiny little thing of (I think maybe) Indian ancestry (as in Asian Indian) is expecting, Goddess help her, twins. I know, I know, people have multiple babies all the time these days and seem to manage. But just thinking about trying to handle more than one of DS, especially at the same time like that, makes me want to go have a nice lie down. Anyway, I was thinking of making baby surprise jackets for the three of them. But then I thought about *three* of them, and punted down to three baby afghans. (Or, for the British among us, three knitted baby blankets. One of my English online friends one inquired with some hesitation whether it was a custom among us to give each other puppies when a baby was expected.<g> (hi, diane!) So I picked up three different yarns to make three of those knit-on-the-diagonal square afghans. One yarn is bright yellow with spots of bright primary colors; another is a pastel green with sort of attachments in various pastels; the third is a strong red with a second strand that varies among other strong colors. I normally don’t knit with the bright yellow, and I’m convinced despite much evidence to the contrary that *nobody* can really wear that color. I’m thinking I might give the pastels to the single baby and the bright yellow and strong red to the twins. But anyway, those’ll be easy to work on in the car or even in a hotel room and will definitely make good mindless knitting for a while.

Today we picked a different New Orleans hotel. (Long story about that that I won’t bore you with.) While I was examining website, I came across what was called an interactive map of the French Quarter. I suppose it was interactive in that when you moved your mouse pointer over a red dot, it told you what the dot stood for and you could click it for more information. Some of the stuff under “shopping” were quite wonderful sounding. Including a tea shop where you can not only get coffee or tea but also Tarot readings. (I think that’d be a bit of a busman’s holiday and plan to skip the fortunetellers, except to maybe exchange professional tips!) But you can buy decks there, so I’m planning to check on maybe a French Quarter themed deck as an unusual sort of souvenir. (We’re already signed up for a tour that promises a “gris-gris” bag. I have a bag in my jeans pocket that a friend who moved away a while ago helped me make to ward some of the negative energy in my church, but I’m hoping the need for it may be easing up and that a new bag would be good.) There are also a couple of voodoo shops. Maybe dolls for the troublemaker and her acolytes? Nah, that’d really be against my religion, such as it is. (“An it harm none” I consider important! I do think the kind of energy you send into the universe comes back atcha.) Maybe some sort of doll or something to have them just go away quietly? (Or maybe get back on their meds!) Have to think on it.

I kept steering DH in the direction of a couple of hotels that take pets (only it costs $50). Simba will really miss DH while we’re gone, even though DS will be here to take care of him. But, as DH rightly pointed out, while Simba enjoys riding in the car, 8-10 hours is probably asking a bit much. He might not be happy we’re gone, but he’d likely be less happy to go with us. Anyway, they weren’t quite what we wanted, anyway. Simba will not be going to the French Quarter.

I forgot to mention I got brave the other night and auditioned for a small group in my women’s chorus. The chances of me being picked are pretty much none, but that’s OK. I looked at more of that piece and discovered that even the Alto 2 part goes up to a high D. Now, I do have a high D and I can almost always reach it. It’s not even horribly screechy. But it’s far from lovely and generally not something I’d trot out in quite such a small group. But at least I didn’t embarrass myself horribly in the auditioning, which I did last time, so it was brave of me to try again and that’s enough for me. As much as I enjoy singing and have come to be almost comfortable having people actually watch me sing in a group (even a small group), I’m not sure I’m really up to soloing. This piece wouldn’t have been soloing; they’re planning on eight women, two per section. But it’s close enough to count in my book. So I’ll settle for having stood up and tried!

Which reminds me, today at church the Preludes (two songs) and the Postlude all were songs and I knew two of them, so I asked the choir director if some of us could sing with her. Bless her, she made copies and arranged it, so we sang Beautiful Dreamer, a Kern/Hammerstein song I actually didn’t know but it was pretty, and Follow Me, from Camelot. It was such fun!

OK, way past bedtime. Thanks for listening, anybody who actually reads this!

Hi, Ho!

I don't normally do these, but I saw this and had to try it.

The Muppet Personality Test


Turns out my fear that I'm actually Miss Piggy was wrong. I am, in fact, Kermit. I was hoping for Kermit, even though I really don't always look good in green. Cool!

FOs and UFOs

First, Finished Objects. This is a pair of socks I made for my friend Victoria last year. She was wearing them when I went in for my appointment this week, so I took a picture. The yarn is in a colorway I couldn’t wear next to my skin – they’d just bury me without checking to see if I was breathing – but it looks great on her. The funny thing is that when she pulled up her pants leg for the picture, she had the socks on inside out! I pointed out the difference – in this pattern, there are floats on the right side of the fabric – and she thoughtfully fixed the problem for the picture. I’ve noticed that the socks I gave DS are often worn inside out, too. I can generally tell at a glance when a crocheted or knitted object is displayed with the wrong side out. I forget not everyone has been doing this sort of thing since they were 16 (35+ years – EEEK!) so it’s not obvious to them. I try not to be obsessive about correcting it, but it was necessary for the picture. Thanks, Victoria!

This is the reason I had my camera with me at all. This is the Longhorn-colored scarf with the (I hope) happy recipient. The pattern is garter stitch drop stitch. Pretty much mindless knitting, which was great. It was very kind of Joanna to allow me to take her picture – she doesn’t normally care for that. I understand that. I hate having my picture taken! You can’t really tell in this picture, but the yarn is not really a solid color. It varies from a fairly light orange to a good dark burnt orange. It was great to work with. This is a pound of superwash DK weight in (I think) brick from Mystical Creations Yarn. I really recommend this yarn. The people were very nice to talk to over the phone and I think their colors are beautiful! I’m really happy with the way the scarf turned out.

Also, the fingerless mittens done for my friend Tricia. Simple pattern, really, from Not Just Socks. I just lengthened the ribbing below the wrist, figuring she could turn them up like sock cuffs if she wanted, but the length could help her keep warm. Yes, those are my fingernails. No, I don’t do that myself! I pay a very sweet, lovely young woman to keep my nails and hands both in good condition and nice to look at. She drew all that free hand. She is amazingly talented and I’m lucky to have found her. I’m even considering following her to a downtown salon (I hate driving or trying to park downtown) if she ever leaves the nearby salon! I treasure her and her talent.

Next, Unfinished Objects. DH’s socks are coming along. The short-row heels are finished. They are not lovely, but there are few if any accidental eyelets, they fit on his heels, and I’ve started up the leg on one. I will definitely need at least another skein of this yarn, but I think I’ll work till I run out on both of them. I have a gift certificate waiting at the yarn store (thanks, fellow staff members!), so that’ll be a good thing to start spending it on. I’m continuing the small eye of partridge heel flap up the back for a few inches, which actually looks kinda cool. At least that’s what DH said. I think he was disappointed when I said that eventually that’d be discontinued and the regular pattern (twin rib from Sensational Knitted Socks) would take over.

I’ve also been working a bit on my Hollyberry Basketweave socks. The toes are just stockinette, so I’ve been using one of them as mindless knitting. However, I took it to my women’s group yesterday and then discovered I’m about at the toe decreases, so I stopped. I like to get both socks to the same point before moving on, so I ended up without knitting in the meeting. I need to be more careful – it’s hard for me to sit still, even when I’m paying close attention, unless I have something to do with my hands!

I’ve also been working on the backup Olympic socks. I’ve finished the heel flap on both and will be doing the heel soon. I’ve been planning on what to take with me on our trip. I figure I won’t be doing a lot of knitting while actually doing touristy things, but since it’s a long drive to and from, I will need knitting for that. I can’t very well pack my whole stash (ha!), but I want to make sure I don’t run out! Since we’re driving, at least there’ll be plenty of room.<g>

Having made plans for knitting for the journey, I need to turn my attention to things like making sure all my prescriptions have enough to last – less important things like that.<g>

Insanity or Stupidity?

I went to bed last night with the song, “Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead!” echoing in my head. (That sentence will mean something to some folk; if you don’t understand it, it’s not something I can explain in public. It is, however, something that is making me very happy indeed!)

Update for Suna: I went to the Knitting Guild yesterday and my knitting teacher helped me with the short row heel. I finished it today (on the third try). It is not lovely, but it’s clearly a heel and it has no eyelets. Unfortunately, we just tried it on DH’s foot and he’s pronounced it too short, so it’s back to the frog pond for me! Even if I get the heels correct on both socks on the next try, I’ll have done 6 heels on these socks. I’ll put in about three extra rows on the bottom of the foot before beginning the heel. Also, as I know where DH wears out his socks, I’m doing the basic heel flap stitch on the back of the heel. The short row heel goes down to about 20% of the stitches. There’s 30 stitches in the heel, so I short-rowed down to 6 stitches. So, when long-rowing, I did the sl 1, k 1 on the right side heel flap bit. I did it in Eye of Partridge style so it doesn’t pull in any. (Eye of Partridge is sl 1, k1 on the first row, purl the second, k 1, sl 1, on the third. It’s a pretty pattern, it still pads the heel to help with wear and tear, and it doesn’t pull in like the regular heel flap pattern.) So, Suna, with any luck I may have handled the short row heel! It was awfully nice of my knitting teacher to help me, too, as she fell last week and either badly sprained or broke her left wrist – and of course she’s left handed. She has an appointment to get it checked out on Monday; let’s all keep a good thought!

Now, about the Insanity or Stupidity? bit. DH has long said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of – well, I thought he said stupidity. He says he calls that insanity. Either works for me. This comes up for me because I’m trying to decide if the Bush Administration is Stupid or Insane. (Maybe both?) I’m speaking of the reaction to the latest poll numbers. Almost no one who isn’t brainwashed is now saying that they have no confidence in this administration, that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and that Iraq is a disaster. So what is the administration doing? Sending Bush back out on the road, to talk down to the American people! Again! Cause it’s worked so well the last few months, right? Really, is this just stupidity, or have we actually wandered down into insanity?

And, ya know, I have a *lot* of disagreements with this administration and there’s sure a lot of things I’d like to fix about them, but I honestly believe the first thing I’d fix if I could get my magic wand to work is the tone of voice they use to talk to us. I mean, really, I don’t allow *anyone* to speak to me that way! (Just ask DS. No faster way for him to end a conversation than to take that tone with me.) You know the one: the I’m smarter than you and you’re pretty stupid; this is so obvious that even Cave Men get it tone. It absolutely *infuriates* me. It’s so disrespectful!

But, oh well. I really think the witch is about dead. Life is good.

Cats Don't Believe in Physics

They really don’t. Simba, at 14.5 pounds or so, you’d think gravity would have imprinted itself on his consciousness. You’d be wrong. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he refuses to believe in gravity or any other physical laws. He has good company in the Kittens of Chaos. Heck, a lot of the chaos they create is because they firmly believe that 5+ and 7+ pound kittens can walk over precariously perched boxes, etc., to get wherever it is they want to get to. (Of course, there is usually an easier way to get there, but why take an easy way when one can defy gravity?) Simba is now so big that, if he isn’t paying attention, he sometimes comes close to falling off the topmost sleeping tray on his “tree”. Does he worry? Of course not! It can be pretty funny to watch the three of them attempt to run around the house as if Newton’s Laws didn’t apply to them.

Of course, these are the same optimistic creatures who remain ever sure that if they beg Mommy hard enough, she’ll give them her food. This has never happened. But they are ever hopeful.

DH is home from work today – too much vacation time saved up, so he needed to take some. He was rather frantically looking for his glasses this morning. He’d been messing with his computer (and evidently mine, which we will have to discuss) and had removed the glasses, which had then vanished into thin air. He eventually drove off to his appointment without them. (See, I never have this problem. I can’t see shit without mine and never take them off except to sleep and bathe and such.) Anyway, I was just now looking for something and about to get out of my chair here, and put my foot down on something I hadn’t seen before – sure enough, the missing glasses. DH is blaming Simba, who insisted on getting to the window in this room by going *over* everything, instead of around it. It’s certainly a possibility. I’ve not known DH to ever leave his glasses actually *on the floor*. So I didn’t look at the floor this morning, only on all the flat and non-flat surfaces in the area. So DH has gone off, with his glasses *on* this time, to take DS to the car place, where his car has happily eaten most of his (DS’s I mean) tax refund. Much moaning and groaning occurred two days ago when that verdict on the car was reached. Moaning about whatever the new, impossible-to-find game system is, which was what he’d planned to buy with the tax refund. By yesterday he’d calmed down. He bought a new Game Boy instead.

Bad news and good news on the knitting front. I gathered my courage in both hands and attempted the short row heel on one of DH’s socks. It was a disaster, involving impossible to pick up double wraps and accidental eyelets. I spent most of yesterday evening tinking the damed thing. (“Tink” is “knit” backwards, so tinking is carefully unknitting. As opposed to “frogging”, which is when you “rip-it, rip-it, rip-it”.) This time I’ve put in a life line (that’s a piece of scrap yarn that prevents you frogging past the scrap yarn and helps you pick up the stitches). I’ll do the first part of the short rows again before I find time to get with my friend Suna or go to the knitting guild tomorrow and throw myself on their mercy.

On the good news side, I’ve finished the knitting part of the fingerless mitts for Tricia. I have to weave in the loose ends and get a picture taken of them and then I’ll send them off. Maybe. Unless I wait till she’s updated her blog. I’ve read that entry probably 15 times, before I gave up. Don’t you bloggers know you have a responsibility to your readers?

Reading, Shopping, and Knitting. Oh, My!

I had a cool day today! It’s spring break here, so no women’s group, so I was sleeping in. About 10:30 the phone rang and woke me up. It was a nice woman from my church that I’ve talked to a few times that wanted a Tarot reading. So we talked about stuff for about an hour, until Angel came up on the bed and said I’d been talking on the phone too long and he needed attention.<g>

Anyway, I met her at my favorite Starbucks and did a reading that I hope helped. It was really interesting. I love doing readings! I wish I could do more. Not only does it feel like I’m helping someone, and it gives me a bit more spending money (never to be sneezed at!), but it really gives me a kind of high. Plus, it’s just fascinating to watch the cards and their meanings fall right into place. A particular card at a particular spot in a spread can mean several different things. So you give the client a meaning or two and suddenly you get a whole new aspect of her problem and more meanings fall into place.

I use books when I read. Not because I’m not familiar with the cards. I’ll admit I’m more familiar with some than others, but I’m familiar enough with my main reading deck (Robin Wood Tarot) to manage without the book if I needed to. But what happens when I use the books (Robin Wood’s book and Mary Greer’s Reversals book) is that I’ll be looking through the meaning and a sentence I’d not paid a lot of attention to before suddenly jumps out and demands my attention. It may be because of what I’ve talked to the client about, or sometimes it doesn’t make any sense that it needs attention, but I’ve learned to read it aloud anyway. Today that happened several times – a sentence in the book was so obviously connected to what we’d been talking about that it fell into place like a puzzle piece. And after that, more things fall into place.

I love watching that, I really do. It’s just way cool.

I’ve been thinking about offering a Tarot course over the summer at my church. I need to sit down (well, I *am* already sitting down<g>) and write up something about it and submit it to the Adult Programming folks and get their approval, but I haven’t felt ready yet. I’m feeling a bit readier tonight.

So, after the reading, it was on to the original errand for the day – clothes shopping. I had planned to try and find a Lane Bryant that supposed to be in the next city north of me (which is not that far away), but since I was up near the church already, I went to the one in the nearby mall. But first I had to eat.

One of the things I’ve noticed before is that when I do a good reading, I get hungry for protein. Meat, cheese, eggs, whatever. Protein. So the first stop was the food court, where I had a cheeseburger and cheese fries, which helped a lot. However, I’m still craving protein tonight, so I’m snacking on some cheese cubes from the refrigerator.

After the food, I found the Lane Bryant and quickly found stuff to try on. Right now, Lane Bryant is aiming at me. I never know. First I found a matching skirt and shirt that look lovely together (both in Blue Haze). I had to go up a size in the shirt – the regular size fit, but the larger size was more comfortable. I had (as you can see) found these online, so I was looking for them. Then I found a skirt that they don’t have online for some reason. The top of the skirt, from the waist to about where the leg meets the hip in front, are blue jeans, a fairly heavy denim. In the belt area there’s some sequins and things, and then around where the denim meets the rest of the fabric there’s some more. Pinkish sequins. Normally I wouldn’t even look twice at a denim skirt to wear any time but the very dead of winter. *Way* too heavy in the heat. But since this denim is only around the hips, I tried it on. Had to go up a size in that, too – but then I often have to go up a size in non-stretch blue jeans. Anyway, after the denim (which includes great pockets – I *love* pockets) the fabric is really much lighter. Some of it is dark brown, but it’s real light weight. The skirt is very swirly. I like it. I found another couple of possible skirts, but after the first two worked, I didn’t try them on. Two was what I needed.

Anyway, after finding that skirt, I looked for a shirt to go with it. The blouses they had with it were both long-sleeved and dark brown, both of them big no-nos for me except for (again) the dead of winter. I found a shirt with a flowery lacy material with the same basic colors in it, with a nice lining. (They had a lot of lovely lacy tops, all of them sheer to practically nonexistent. Sorry. Not for me!) I liked it. But the sales girl helping me thought it was too busy to go with the skirt, and I think she was probably right. So we kept looking. She thought maybe a pinkish t-shirt, to go with one of the pinks in one of the materials in the skirt. Fortunately, pink seems to be in this year. It took several tries but we found one that goes great, and it even has sequins around the neckline, which goes well with the skirt. I got the lacy shirt with the roses on it, too, and another pink t-shirt (I must be having a pink period), bought myself some more coffee, and came home.

I suppose I did *some* gathering type shopping – finding the other shirts to buy – but mostly the trip went by the script: find what I’m looking for, shoot it, bag it, and bring it home.

Tonight, since it’s spring break, I didn’t have choir practice, so I’m enjoying watching Wednesday night shows I normally only get to see in reruns. Tomorrow I have nothing scheduled till Yarn Lovers in the evening, so maybe I’ll gather my courage in both hands and try the short row heels on DH’s socks. Tonight I’ve been working on finishing that burnt orange scarf. I’m determined to use as much of the yarn as possible, but I think I’m closing in on the end! And after the short row heels, I’ll finish Tricia’s fingerless mittens. (Which I’ll be more likely to send to you, Tricia, if you update your blog! Sheesh. Don’t you other bloggers know I sometimes rely on you for amusement and entertainment?) Those are probably less than a few hours from being finished. That leaves the Hollyberry socks on the needles, and leaves me free to – cast on more socks! Yea! (One pair should probably be Bob’s Longhorn socks. I’ll need to skein that wonderful pound a yarn up! Simba will love that. He loves to help with the swift. In a non-helpful, actually obstructionist sort of way.)

Singing, Shopping, and Losing My Blankie

OK, now I can answer Suna’s question in one of her comments. She was wondering what the song was I needed translated. I had to wait till I had my hymnal in the house, because I keep confusing it with another song. It was Gaudeamus Hodie. Which looks to me as if it’s about a Most Gaudy Hoodie, but I’m pretty sure it’s not.

I’ve been confusing it with Laudamus Te, from Vivaldi’s Gloria. We did that song in the Tapestry fall concert, and I truly hated it. Hated it, hated it. Never quite learned it, and now I can’t get it out of my head. And just to make it even more fun, the church choir is doing selections from Gloria for our spring concert. I am now quite certain that I am not a fan of Vivaldi. Fortunately, we’re not doing the actual Laudamus Te, which was written to be a duet, though in Tapestry we just did it in two parts, sopranos and altos.

Speaking of Tapestry, many of us have decided we don’t like the French Canadians. This goes against my natural instinct. Generally I like Canadians, even if they do talk funny. But we had a French Canadian song in the fall concert which was hard and not fun. About half our songs in that concert were not in English, including the Canadian one. But I can actually pronounce French – I took two years of French in high school. French is really easy. You put a self-righteous sneer on your face and swallow all the consonants. But this song was really, really fast. For the spring concert we have some odd kind of song (I forget what it’s called), but it’s written in almost all sixteenth notes, it goes pretty quickly and – just because we managed the French, sorta, I guess – there are no actual words, French or otherwise. It’s all nonsense syllables. But not just *any* nonsense syllables. No, since we’re a group of between 30 and 50 women, we need to be doing the *same* nonsense syllables. It’s even harder than the last one and even less fun. I think many of us have decided we dislike French Canadian music!

Cute kitty story: yesterday afternoon, the Kittens of Chaos were loose in the house. Simba decided he had an attention deficit and came to me in the front room and asked for attention. So I picked him up and we were just settling in with Ray came into the room. He saw what was going on, and uttered some long sentence in Kitten, which I took to mean, “Hey! That’s *my* grandma you’re molesting there!” Simba and I ignored him, so he jumped up on the back of my chair and uttered another long Kitten sentence, which evidently meant “Un-paw that Grandma, sir!” And the next thing I knew, the two cats were chasing each other down the hall. I thought, why, if I was being fought over, was I without feline companionship? Sort of like a girl who finds two guys fighting over her, only to realize that the whole thing is more about their bond than it is about her.

I went shopping today. Clothes shopping. I don’t particularly like clothes shopping. When you’re my size, the selection is limited and the prices are high. To make it worse, I have an idea what I want. DH and I are taking a quick trip out of town at the end of the month. (Housebreakers, don’t consider this an opportunity. We’re leaving the young, strong DS at home, along with the attack cats.) Anyway, I figure I need a couple of somewhat nicer than normal outfits for eating in nicer than we normally eat in restaurants.

I’ve been eyeing an outfit on a woman in a pretty new commercial. The actress, who is probably wearing about a size 2, is wearing a swirly tiered skirt and a cute top. I don’t need exactly that outfit (especially since the top is a sweater and it’s already too warm for sweaters around here), but I like the skirt. So, between appointments today, I went shopping. I found a couple of skirts and tops that I thought would be good, but they just didn’t fit well. The first one, I kept wondering why that elephant was wearing pink. (It was the right size, just the wrong skirt.) The second one I liked the skirt of, but there were no sleeves. There was way too much of my arms hanging out. Way too much. I did find one shirt, though.

So, tomorrow I go out again. I looked at Lane Bryant on the Internet and it looks like this style is in, so I’m gonna try Lane Bryant. I never know with them. Some years they seem to be aiming at large size 12 year olds; others the styles seem like something I could wear. This time there seem to be several things I’d like. Wish me luck!

I’m just not a good clothes shopper. Or really a good shopper at much of anything except yarn. Most women seem to think shopping is sort of a game or an entertainment. They’re sort of gatherer types. “Let’s go see if there’s something I like!” seems to be the idea. I’m much more of a hunter. I want to find what I want, shoot it with an arrow, and drag it home. Shopping for me is a chore, not fun.

I’m afraid I’m also going to need shoes to go with the new outfits. Goddess help me!

I saw my first bluebonnets of the year today! I didn’t get a picture of them – the only camera I had with me was in my PDA and besides, it was not a good spot to stop the car and take a picture. But I’ll look for more.

I’m not completely happy that spring is here. It means I have to give up my blankie. Again.

Back when my body first started flirting with menopause – which I wish it would just go ahead and embrace already – I discovered that I was suddenly more sensitive to temperatures than before. Not just heat, which I already had a problem with, but cold, too. Generally, I like cold. But at night I found I was having trouble getting to sleep, because my legs were cold. The only solution seemed to be either an electric blanket – which they don’t recommend you use with a waterbed. But DH remembered a blanket he gave me years ago. It’s reversible, with a cute picture of kittens frolicking on each side. One side has a dark brown background, and the kittens are in cream and gray and light browns. The other side has the same picture, but with a cream background and the colors all opposite. The side with the dark background looks better. However, if you put that side down, it holds in the heat better. So now, when it starts getting cold, we put that blanket on my side of the bed, pretty side down, and my legs don’t get cold. And the cats love that blanket. The colors match Angel, which he appreciates, and Simba likes it, too. So we’ll all mourn it, but it’s about to be too warm to keep it on the bed. I hate giving up my blankie!

Talking to Kids, More Olympic Knitting!

Why don’t people learn how to talk to their children?

I was up at my church tonight, doing the Order of Service (bulletin) for tomorrow’s service. Tonight was movie night, and during the movie a couple of girls came out and hung around in the hall. They were very well behaved, really, but were *very* bored. As we were leaving I spoke briefly with the older one, whom I don’t know well. Among other things, she said next month her mom said she’d have to go to a local storefront babysitting place. (I used such places for my own kid on occasion; other than being an expensive alternative, I don’t have a problem with them.) It was clear from her tone of voice that she wasn’t happy about that, that it was some sort of punishment. I suggested to her that that sounded like a lot more fun than hanging around in the hall. She brightened up at that thought and agreed and also remembered she’d be able to take a nap, so her legs wouldn’t get so tired. Why couldn’t Mom have used that approach, I wonder? Rather than getting angry, why not say, “Next time let’s find you something you’ll enjoy doing. How about (insert babysitting place here)?” Now I’m feeling a bit bad that I didn’t open the church library and let her and her sister look at the kid’s books. (Mom could have done that, too.)

One of my Knitting Olympics teams is staying together and getting prepared for the next Olympics! Team DPN (where all the team members can blog) is planning joint training periods and such. The first training period, unfortunately, is occurring right when DH and I are planning a quick vacation trip out of town. We’re driving, so there’ll be plenty of knitting time on those two days, but I suspect not so much on the days we’re sightseeing!

On the knitting front, I’m nearly finished with the burnt orange scarf. I haven’t touched it since Tuesday, but there’s not much left. I’ve got DH’s socks to the instep. These socks are toe up and will have short row heels. Since my experience with short row heels is both limited and unpleasant, I’m going to have to sit down in front of the computer with various tutorials and concentrate to do them, so they won’t be accompanying me to church or meetings for a bit. They did go with me on Wednesday and got many compliments on both the color (a lightish pine green) and, I think, the pattern (Twin Rib, from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch). Cool! I’ve also got on the needles fingerless mittens for one of my online friends. They were fingerless gloves, but she expressed a desire for the mittens instead, and the pattern is so close that changing over to the mitts is easy. They do have one “finger” – the thumb, which is good, since I already did the part that will become the thumb. I’m at the point now where the (new) patterns calls for smaller needles, plus paying attention, so, again, this will not be accompanying me out of the house. So I’ve picked up the backup Olympic socks. For those paying attention, these are top down socks in a red, white, and blue Trekking XXL, with the leg done in Double Fleck Stitch from March 9 in the 365 Knitting Stitches perpetual calendar (and handy stitch guide!). I had just got past the cuff on both and started the leg on one when Lion Brand bailed me out, so I’m thinking getting to work on these will have to take the place of the Olympic Training Period. (I must admit I’m not excited about these training periods, if they involve me having to knit on only one thing the whole time. Instead, I think my training will be to stick to my plan of knitting on one thing a day and changing every day.) But I’ll be staying on Team DPN, anyway. It’s so cool to be an Olympian!

Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly

Change of topic.

One of my absolute favorite TV shows is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. (MSNBC, 8/11 pm Eastern). Keith is a sportscaster and as such (or so I was taught in journalism class, a couple of eons ago), he’s allowed to be a bit ... uh, *looser* in his broadcasts. Keith is both funny and pretty darn liberal (though he’s got a clear bias against bad drivers, which actually I share). Once you get used to him, his biases can be great fun. He loves odd video, especially from overseas, and he strongly dislikes the various hate-filled neo-con broadcasters. Especially Bill O’Reilly, whom he often calls The Big Giant Head.

I don’t know exactly what started the problem with O’Reilly. I get the feeling at least some of it is personal. But it’s pretty clear O’Reilly doesn’t like him much, either.

During the last few months, one of Keith’s bit is called The Worst Person in the World, wherein he awards bronze, silver, and gold level awards to all sorts of people who’ve done bad or really, really stupid things. (Only he called ‘em worse, worser, and worst.) Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter (with her picture wearing an eye patch?), and Bill O’Reilly often make the list, frequently as the Worst. One evening O’Reilly even earned a trifecta, getting all three levels for three different things. He’d clearly had a good day.<g> Whether it’s this part or something else, Keith has clearly gotten under O’Reilly’s skin. Or scales. Whatever.

A couple of weeks ago O’Reilly launched a petition drive to bring Phil Donahue back to MSNBC, because he’s “so concerned about MSNBC’s poor ratings”. (Yeah, this from a No-Spin Zone? Ha!) He didn’t mention that Donahue’s time slot is now being occupied by Keith. He even flat-out lied that Keith’s ratings are down from Donahue’s. Not true. Now, I love Phil Donahue. I always have. But I love Keith there and really don’t want to see him go. Clearly, Keith is not worried. He began his segment on the petition drive by breaking into song: “Happy days are here again/the skies above are clear again”. Then he gleefully reviewed clips of times he’s “mentioned” O’Reilly. Then he filled out the petition himself. Then he showed various MSNBC staffers, including Dan Abrams, lining up in the studio to fill out the petition, too.

All this has evidently caused O’Reilly to lose even more of his tenuous grip on what he laughingly calls reality. On Friday, Keith covered O’Reilly on his radio show not only hanging up on a caller who mentioned “Keith Olbermann’s show”, but actually threatening that caller with “Fox Security” and possibly a visit from the authorities in wherever. Then he went on to tell his callers that if you call his show, he has your phone number and “if you say anything untoward, obscene, or anything like that, Fox security then will contact your local authorities, and you will be held accountable”. It’s not clear whether mentioning Keith’s name is merely “untoward” or possibly “obscene”, according to O’Reilly.

If you’d like to read a transcript or hear the clip, you can do that here.

If you’d like to read what the guy making the phone call has to say, you can find that here. He did actually hear from some guy at Fox, who said he was “harassing” O’Reilly. Mentioning another program (not even a direct competitor, if I read the schedule right) is harassing?

Tune in to Keith tonight and see if there are any updates! Maybe O’Reilly finally imploded today? (We can only hope!)

Getting Back to Knitting

After slathering my right arm with massage oil for the last few days, and hanging onto the fluorite ball when I sleep at night, the possible carpal tunnel problem is down to twinges. Thank goodness!

I worked this morning on the Longhorn colored scarf for the daughter of my friend/counselor. It’s nearly done! I worked most of this afternoon and evening on one of the fingerless gloves for my online friend Tricia, who for some reason gets really cold hands while working at her computer. These are made from sock yarn (Trekking XXL) on size three needles, so it’s a loose fabric. But it fits the gauge in the pattern, and since no one will be walking on them, that should be OK, I’d think.

I’m planning on working on the other glove tomorrow, to get back on the pattern I’d established of working on a different project every day. Oh, the pattern for the gloves is from Not Just Socks by Sandi Rosner. Cool book with some cute, cute patterns.

Late in the week (Friday, maybe?) the pound of yarn for Longhorn colored socks for the husband of my friend/counselor came in. The yarn that’s making the scarf was originally ordered for the project, but I found it to be too thick. This is fingering weight, as opposed to DK weight, so that’s good. The color on the new yarn is even better than on the first yarn – lots of orange, from light to well burnt. I haven’t wound it up into balls yet, but I’m figuring on that this week. I’m hoping the pound of yarn will be enough for several pairs of Longhorn colored socks. The second pair will be for me!

I missed my friend Suna at church today – the choir sang a round as part of the offertory, in what I suspect is Latin. Since the only language I speak is English, I always used to ask Suna to translate anything non-English. I was hoping the very nice man with the operatic voice I was sitting next to might have taken Latin as part of his vocal training, but no dice. I hate singing words when I don’t know what they mean! Although since it came from our hymnal, it can’t have been too bad. And from the markings on it, we’ve sung it before. I just don’t remember what they mean!

Spring has sprung here in my part of Texas, meaning I probably won’t be wearing socks much more for a good six to nine months. Sigh. One of my online friends was complaining yesterday about the snow they’d gotten. I’d trade her our 80+ degree temps in a heartbeat!

A Slow Day

So, a bit of a setback on the road to recovery. I evidently was a bit under the weather today. I didn’t go to my women’s group, then I had to lie down and the next thing I knew, I was taking a nap. So, didn’t get much knitting done, but my wrist is still unhappy with me. I am returning the favor.

Did anybody else see clips from the tapes of the briefings of the President before Katrina? In which a weather man said the levees might be “topped”? And Bush promised the government would help? Are any of us surprised that, indeed, some people *did* foresee what happened?

Here’s a picture of the Simba. He likes to watch when DH does dishes and on this night, wanted to watch from close up. DH reported that Simba was removed from the counter several times before DH got to the recyclables, at which point DH decided it wasn’t worth the effort any more. It’s a bit hard to see, but take a good look at Simba’s tail. Look, specifically, for the tip end of it. See? It’s in the water. Yes, his tail, known in our house as The Evil Doctor Tail (because he used to chase it intensely), is not afraid of getting wet. Simba, as has been noticed before, is a very odd cat.