Thursday, April 27, 2006

Is that not the cutest picture? There's even kitty tongue.

Hezekiah may be the first cat ever, in the land of Catdom, that likes to sleep in. Sheba felt it was her one duty, to roust me out of bed at the ungodly hour of 5am. (Huh. Maybe that's why I get up early. Twenty years of that would pretty much cement a habit in stone). Of course, once that job was taken care of, she'd go back to sleep.

Hezekiah gives me the fisheye when I try to bound out of bed (and by bound, I mean scooch up to the top of the bed, carefully pulling my legs up and out and over her so that I don't disturb Her Majesty (because she's laying on the covers effectively pinning me in bed.) I'd just stay there, but I have needs. Coffee.



That's my parents wedding cake topper Mom unearthed cleaning their garage out this weekend. So it's........47 years old, last March. Wow. Her dryer died, so I went with her to the laundromat on Friday (because, as is written in The Immutable Laws of Appliance Breakdowns, the dryer didn't die until there were two loads of wash that were dripping wet.) She dragged my dad out over the weekend and picked up matching(!) washer and dryer set.

This is my progress on the Moll Flanders Shawl so far: I'd put up the previous picture, but then you'd have proof positive that I'm going backwards. Sadly, it's pretty obvious (after 4 or 5 rows, anyway) if it goes off pattern.

But yes! Why didn't I think of that? Thank you, Imbrium and everyone who agreed with her. Clearly the shawl pattern is too simple. That explains it! No wonder!

That, or I'm an idiot.

Anyone know anything about Hempathy by Elsabeth Lavold? As in, is it scratchy, comfy, good for warm weather, bad for warm weather, etc. I'm thinking of using it for my Elizabeth I project but I've only seen it online.


Meme I won't inflict on anyone but feel like doing myself (and feel free):

Accent: None. I'm from California! It's YOU PEOPLE that talk funny!
Booze: Nah.
Chore I Hate: Cleaning toilets. Yuck.
Dog or Cat: Cat! But I like dogs too. One of these days I'm getting one of those huge black poodles.
Essential Electronics: Surprising everyone, I say a TV
Favorite Cologne(s): None. Migraineur. I'm pretty much anti-scent.
Gold or Silver: Gold. Silver. Gold. Oh, I can't choose. It used to be gold but I've seen the merits of silver.
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Insomnia: Occasionally. Mostly from caffeine overload.
Job Title: "Staff" Seriously. That's what my Dad put on my business card originally.
Kids: I'm in favor of them. Oh, me? None.
Living arrangements: Suburbs. House. Backyard. Older house, so you can't jump roof to roof in our neighborhood.
Most admirable trait: Oh yeah, like I'm going to fall for that one. My humility in the face of all my fabulous qualities.
Number of sexual partners: At a time? One. Lately? Don't ask. It'll depress me.
Overnight hospital stays: Several. Mostly eye surgeries.
Phobias: Getting lost without a map I can read. Asking for directions. (why bother? They'll either tell me to "go left at the Murphy's old ranch..." (which is currently a gas station or a Wal Mart) or start off with "you go west 4.2 miles and then south for ........" uhhhh, I barely know left and right.
Quote: "Live in Your World. Play in Ours."
Religion: Lutheran
Siblings: one younger brother
Time I wake up: 5-6ish
Unusual talent or skill: I can untangle jewelry and now yarn. Yay.
Vegetable I refuse to eat: Beets. But beet greens are edible.
Worst habit: My love for animals. My work ethic. Actually my worst habit is probably is my work ethic. I didn't even put that in bunny fingers.
X-rays:
Teeth and my neck. (Pinched nerve that showed up on the X-Ray. What are the odds?) If you're a big wuss it doesn't come up much. In fact, I've never broken a bone.
Yummy foods I make: peanut butter & honey sandwiches.
Zodiac sign: Leo

Kind of an interesting article on why alphabet letters look the way they do.

House next week is a two parter - Part 1 Tuesday at 9pm as usual, Part 2 at 8pm on Wednesday. No Bones next week. Bones is getting much better. Admiral Chegwidden (JAG) was on it last night. Kid Rock was on CSI-NY. Tonight, Without A Trace. Tomorrow, Dr. Who. I tried to pre-order Dr Who on Amazon, but the price dissuaded me. Of course, I then proceeded to spend that amount on books (which is so different).

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

At last I did this without copying someone else's handwriting. I must have been a forger in another life. You've all seen this meme, right? Write a pangram, sign your first name and post.



I'd post knitting news but the only news is that I'm not going to finish the shawl as the Moll Flanders project at this rate and possibly I'm going to heave it into traffic in a fit of rage and frustration. It IS SO ANNOYING. I've actually memorized the pattern to the point where I'm not even carrying my 3x5 cheat card around (well, geez, it's a 3 stitch repeat. K3, or (yo, slip 2, p2sso, yo). The only change is that the rows start with a 2, 3 or 5 knit stitch repeat and it's pretty easy to remember and/or count the row below.)

SO WHY IS IT THEN SO FREAKING IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO KNIT THIS WITHOUT SCREWING IT UP?

Sunday, April 23, 2006

You Are Furry Boots
They're not just boots. They're your dancing shoes!
Okay, Ann, what did you do? Yes, you. There is no way I'm those boots.
The Wikpedia search meme on my birthdate yields the following interesting facts (okay, interesting to me at least):
Events:
1040 - King Duncan I of Scotland is killed in battle against his cousin and successor Macbeth. (cool).
1842 - Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida to Oklahoma. (oh, lovely)
1893 - France introduces motor vehicle registration. (See? The French are Evil.)
1936- Rainey Bethea is hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky in the last public execution in the United States. (A black man hanged by a white woman)
1994 - Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as "Carlos the Jackal", is captured.
Birthdays:
1473 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, daughter of George, Duke of Clarence (d. 1541)
1771 - Sir Walter Scott. Scottish historical novelist and poet (d. 1832)
1851 - Doc Holliday, American gambler and gunfighter (d. 1887)
1865 - Guido Castelnuovo, Italian mathematician (d. 1952)
1926 - Lina Wertmüller, Italian film director
1941 - David Crosby, American guitarist and songwriter
Holidays
United States- National Code talkers Day
Hmm. My birthday isn't listed as a National Holiday. For me. Odd.


No pics. I'm at work, killing time until the freeway clears and then off to play. Can you believe that on my first day back to work I was expected to WORK? Honestly.

Also no pics because I'm basically knitting four rows of the prarie shawl and then ripping it back. I did have the momentous awe inspiring once in a lifetime miraculous act of fixing a lace stitch by dropping stitches and knitting them back up yesterday - only the stitches involved! Not 800 freaking rows!!! But to make up for it, six rows later I've picked up a stitch somewhere. I know all I have to do is rip back to the added stitch, but honestly. Shouldn't there be a limit to how many times this can happen on a single project? It's not like I'm close to being done either. (Or ever, at this rate.)

Too bad I didn't get a pic of Hezekiah carefully pulling out each and every "cake" of yarn out of my Sonora yarn store bag last night. And by "carefully", I mean with as much rattling of paper and noise as felinely possible, with the occasional hanging of herself on the bag handles. I tried to help, but she got quite indignant.

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Many, many days off, very little to show for it....



.......other than possible return to close to sanity. I've been off for days and days and only managed to finish the Adamas shawl (last Monday) a book, (Tiger in the Shadows by Margery Allingham - I kept thinking of Chittavrtti's Life Of Pi Tiger), went to a movie (Friends With Money - not half bad and for being a fairly unrealistic portrayal of anyone it rang surprisingly true) and up to Sonora and Columbia for what turned out to be a daytrip (much to Sheri's dismay, I'm sure. She drove. But we did drive in the red convertible with the top down. (Oh, okay. Until me and The Movie Star whined enough about being cold and windblown and Sheri put the top back up. But it went back down later.)


The Movie Star.




The set: (somewhere on Hwy 49)















But most importantly, The Yarn Store in Sonora, By Hand Yarn. And I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the outside! It's evidently the old drugstore - because it has D R U G S embedded in the doorway - remember those? It's roomy and comfy and has multiple couches and gorgeous yarn (why didn't I get the Koigu there?) but I got this instead: (and it came in skeins and The Movie Star and Her Entourage wound it for me under the watchful eye of Patricia - who hails from Pleasant Hill, which is practically where I live. Small World.



.














Columbia would be a great day trip or longer. It's an old gold town with the original buildings along with homes still being lived in(!) and little shops and the historical mixed together. The Movie Star and Her Entourage hand dyed candles by dipping them, went into the jail (very, very tiny) dragged us up the hill to the old schoolhouse and the cemetary. They didn't get to pan for gold but they didn't seem to interested in it either. But you can.

Here's my Moll Shawl so far - out of the Misti Alpaca. It's so cool! I redid it once (I tried to frog it and ended up snapping the yarn in a fit of rage - I was barely started and it was being BAD, but it revenged itself on me by having a really wonky looking point this time out. It will either block out or I'll hang weights on it. I mean, beads.

The first attempt.



The latest. You know, I think every surface in this house is brown. Brown couches. Brown velveteen duvet cover. Butcher block island. Wood tables and chairs. Wood roll top desk. I might have to copy Jenla and cover everything with mosaics. Shades of brown, no doubt.



Okay, it looks better than that. A chair isn't the best pose, eh? I ran out to my LYS today to get wood needles - the metal ones were driving me crazy catching the glare outside. It was gorgeous! For approximately 4 days.

My poor twinset. I started it but really, I should use it as the gauge swatch. Because no, I didn't knit one - I've barely knit 5 rows other than the I-cord on the left front as it is and it's more complicated that I expected from garter stitch and I-cord. Darn that Lily Chin. But a good gauge swatch. If I ever knit it, because my original point was Marji's Tudor Roses KAL! (yes, I had a point. I usually do. I just never usually get to it).

Alice Starmore's Tudor Roses book. I love the Elizabeth but the Mary Tudor and the Katherine Howard and the Anne of Cleves..........but honestly, the Elizbeth is the only one I have half a prayer of both finishing and then wearing. Unless I move to a cold, cold climate.

Becky, thanks for those links! I like the capelet, that looks very Moll but I might make it for Wuthering Heights. Out of wool, no doubt, and knit it on the beach in June. Hopefully it'll be 102 by then. Oh, and Carrie, I got Richard Rhodes "Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague" because I'm all about plagues. The Secret History of Domesticity is HUGE! And Women of the 12th Century (Eleanor of Aquitaine and six others) is like 100 something pages. I would have expected vice a versa, for no apparent reason.

Stephanie!!!! You didn't tell me History of Britain was on ALL DAY LONG on Wednesday. Argh. I totally missed it. I've barely flipped the TV on all week (except I watched Dr. Who last night. I really like this Dr. Who, I'll miss him next season) and have been taping everything else. I thought I'd sit around and read but I've effectually sat around staring into space (see frogged shawl. See one book read. See one day trip. See girl with way too much time on her hands doing nothing with it.)

On the other hand. Blissful. Wasting time. What could be more fun?

Also for no apparent reason (other than Moll did) I want to say "effectually" all. the. time. but I can't work it into normal conversation. ~ Possibly because it hasn't been normal conversation for 300 years but mostly because I've been locked in the house with a cat, a book and a shawl and haven't really tried.

Monday, April 17, 2006

I FINISHED IT!!



My overseer. On top of the garage. Ever get that creepy feeling someone is watching you? Got a cat?


From this:


To this!












Whew. I'm glad I didn't stay up last night to finish the last 3 rows - binding off took me 45 minutes alone. I'm either the slowest knitter in the universe or that was a LOT of stitches. (Little of both). But my Adamas Shawl is done! The ends are all woven in, it's off the needles - okay, I haven't blocked it yet, but it's done!

Started March 6th 4th, finished April 17th. It's not even all that horribly off either which kind of amazes me. I need to block it so you can see the diamond edging better, and hopefully some of the fubar less.

It's so pretty. But pastel. What made me pick out pastel? The vast majority of my wardrobe is black and white. And blue jeans. OTOH, it goes well with blue jeans and a white shirt.

The AAA travel agent managed to muck up the Yosemite reservations. She confused us with wanting the Lodge in the Park with not setting for the one out of it. Bah. So naturally, we lost out on both.

Medium is on tonight! In theory. I wish they'd quit monkeying with the schedule. I'll be buried in books. Finished Moll Flanders - I've been reading the literary criticisms in the back, Virginia Woolf's father Sir Leslie Stephen slammed it and Dafoe fairly well, comparing Moll Flanders to a police report. "......For this reason we do not imagine that 'Roxana,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' or Captain Singleton' can fairly claim any higher interest thatn that which belongs to the ordinary police report, given with infinite fulness and vivacity of detail. "

Mind you, a nicely written police report.


An elegy for Moll from the "prime wits of Trinity College in Dublin" (by T Read in 1723)

Alas, what News doth now our Ears invade?
What Havock has grim Death among us made?
With the impetuous Fury of the Dart,
Moll Flanders he has wounded thro' the heart:
Moll Flanders, once the Wonder of the Age,
Whilst she remain'd on this terrestrial Stage,
Is gone to take a Nap for many years,
For which ye ought to shed as many Tears.
We mean her chiefest Mourners ought to be
The chief Proficients in all Villany,
Such Persons who go on the sneaking Budge,
And will for Mops and Pails thro' Dublin trudge
House-breakers, Doxies who can file a Cly,
And those who aout of Shops steal privately
But you that can't cry, yet would seem to weep,
Your handkerchiefs in Juice of Onions steep,
Then rail upon the cruel Hand of Fate,
Which would not grant Moll's Reign a longer Date.
A longer Date, said we? Indeed too long
She liv'd to do some honest People wrong;
Such Wrong, that had she her deseerved Due,
She had been whipt, and glimm'd, and hanged too;
but all the Paths of Vice so much she trac'd,
That hanging her had any Tree disgrac'd.
Howe'er take care below, among the Dead,
For tho' the mortal Life of Moll is fled,
She may perhaps as now ye cannot feel,
Your Shrouds, and Coffins, else your Bodies steal,
As Grave-diggers in England do, to be
Mangled to pieces in Anatomy.
But hold, deceased Moll we must not blame
Too mcuh for tho' she glory'd in her Shame
Of being dextrous Thief and arrant Whore,
Yet we some Pity for her must implore,
And give her deathless Memory some Praise,
In that she ended well her latter Days,
For of her num'rous Sins she did repent,
And dy'd a very hearty Penitent.

Budge- thief without the help of an accomplice
Cly - pick a pocket

I have my doubts on the sincerity of her repentance but it was nice to see ONE of her 12 children named. Yes, the one that brought her news of her inheritance.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Literature Map

Is this cool or what? Literature Map.

And some sad news. My best friend had to put down their 13 year old yellow Lab, Chelsey last Saturday. I wish I had a pic of her here to post. She loved me because I was willing to let her be the lap dog that she believed she was (all practically 100 pounds of her) and she was just the sweetest thing. She used to eat the veggies in the backyard garden, Chuck and Sheri fenced it in and Sheri caught her leaning over the white picket fence, craning to reach a tomato. I really just didn't want to believe she's gone.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

When one is frustrated, overworked, stressed, tired, clearly taking things too personally, in what freaking world would the phrase "You need to chill out" help?

Actually, it did kind of help because I had a completely inappropriate tantrum (well, not so anyone else could notice, thankyouverymuch). That and I went home at a decent hour, didn't so much as flip the TV on (blessed silence) and read Moll Flanders until late in the evening. (That would be 9:30ish. Yeah, I know. I'm a wimp. But I'm up at 5am. Possbily because I fall asleep around 9pm)

Tonight! PBS at 8pm "Pets, A Very Natural History" followed by "Royals and Their Pets" at 8:50.

This morning I got up and popped The Detective(1968) w/Frank Sinatra into the DVD player. Ralph Meeker (Mike Hammer from Kiss Me Deadly) played a cop in it, along with a very young Jack Klugman (even if he does pretty much look exactly the same) and a blond Robert Duvall.

The prerequiste blond, Lee Remick, a college professor who falls for "the only real man she's ever met" (Frank Sinatra, Honest Cop, of course) turns out to be a nymphomaniac that her shrink has evidently diagnosed as "wanting to blow up the only family she's ever known - or - lack of maturity" (This was the on screen diagnosis. Can you believe it? Considering her childhood spent bouncing around in foster care, I don't think they were even close.)

But all this is just a side dish to the unbelievable homophobia in the film. I mean, seriously. Even FS, who was a compassionate tough guy, still has some really bizarre stereotyping going on there. Clearly we've come a long way from 1968. The plot and the plotting wasn't half bad, but the casual bigotry was just freaky.

Maybe they cast for the blue eyes. Frank Sinatra. Lee Remick. Jacqueline Bisset. There were a few scenes of FS driving around in his police car but sadly he looked a bit like a bobblehead doll during them.

Oh, and to clear something up - I'm not nowhere near faithful to my notebooks, but I do love 'em.

One and a half repeats left on Adamas. It's making me a bit teary. I'm almost done! No more counting it off......I'm going to miss it. It's coming out pretty well too, since other than botching the count, I've managed to pretty much slavishly follow the pattern.

Now I need a project for my train trip to Yosemite next week. Two days, one night. What? Of course I have WIPS. Trips require new. And a book (or two) .

What's that you say? Scenery?

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I Wish I was A Robot. I'd be HAL.

Cybernetic Artificial Replicant Responsible for Immediate Exploration

Oh, you do not want to know what I'd like to explore right now. Suffice it to say, I'm walking around my office muttering "bad word, bad word, increasingly foul bad word" (because mere bad words are not enough.) But enough about work.

Am I the only person left in the secular/non secular world that was unaware that the Forty Days of Lent, isn't? It's more like 47 days if you stop short of Easter. Sundays don't count? What kind of scurrilous logic is that? So fie on it all. I did my 40 Days and then.........well, I sort of ran amuck yesterday. Bought this (they were out of the Kali bags, fyi), picked up:
Women of the Twelfth Century, Volume 1 : Eleanor of Aquitaine and Six Others,
Queen Isabella : Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England,
Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage,
The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge,
The Uncrowned Kings of England: The Black History of the Dudleys and the Tudor Throne, and 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry.

Not to mention what I picked up at the library. Ha. I am so not coming up for air come Tuesday. Except maybe a road trip or short trip w/Sheri. I'm actually kind of thinking Taos, NM, but can it be done in 3 days? Four?

Tulips from the rain soaked back yard.
I was at Carrie Scribe's the other day discussing our notebooks, so I thought I'd share mine. One stays with my knitting and is sort of a log of projects, diary and list of projects/patterns I want to make someday and where the pattern is. Fancy cover, eh? I have pretty bound books, but I never seem to use them more than once or twice. They don't lay open. Not unless you crack the spine and I've been yelled at too many times to do that (without guilt).

The other I drag around in my purse (and it shows). It's knitting, addresses, books I see that I want, notes, the occasional list of food I ate that day, etc. The Decrease Row page is what I tried in desperation because I must have ripped out this sweater 1800 times while I was waiting for my car to be fixed - nothing like spending six hours in an automotive shop. They were very solicitious. They would have ferried me somewhere, but hey, I was getting more done there than at home.


Scarlett Street with Edgar G. Robinson was much more satisfying. A girl in love with a cad playing an unhappily married man for a fool. It had more to do with his being a great albeit undiscovered and insecure artist than his marriage, but still played for a fool. There's murder, there's a frame, there's a set up and sadly there's guilt and remorse but luckily it's all too, too late.

Layer Cake is up next, then The Detective. Somewhere in there I am going to finish the other two repeats of the Adamas Shawl and the edging (and possibly the blocking) by Easter Sunday. Or I will wear it on the needles.

Anyone watching the History Channel's limited series Ten Days that Changed America? One of them had to do with the atomic bomb (timely! for me), the assasination of McKinley (which is how Teddy Roosevelt rode into office, he was the Vice Pres at the time), the massacre of the Pequot Indian tribe in the 1600's (led the way for the whole Manifest Destiny bit) and tonight - Elvis!!

House tonight. It's Tuesday, right?

Oh, and Carie of Chatterbox, if you're around, write in. Your blog and email vanished and now I'm a bit worried about you.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Boy, My Answering Machine Doesn't Look like that.

"Mr. Hammer, whom you are calling" what, they were random dialing? Is that an awesome answering machine contraption, or what? Built right into the wall, the size of a small air conditioning unit and looks like an old (huge) tape recorder. Wow.

And the crazy phone numbers! I love the name numbers.

Wow, what a bad movie, Kiss Me Deadly. It actually had kind of a killer plot - all about some missing plutonium and nuclear explosions , but since Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker, not half bad to look at) was busy chasing dames, slapping bad guys, (a very, very young Jack Elam), harrassing opera singers and art dealers, I had no idea what the heck the story was about until........well, actually until I googled The Manhattan Project, Los Alamos and Trinity. Not a clue during the movie. Mostly he was chasing after Cloris Leachman, who turned up dead, everyone around her was turning up dead, everyone around Mike was turning up dead or threatening to turn him/them up dead, or kissing some dame.

Oh! And Mike's secretary had a ballet barre and a stripper pole in her house! 1955. More like today than I realized.

Cloris Leachman made her debut in it - shrieking like a banshee during the opening credits - I'm sure the director made her, but ye gads. The Greek sidekick was annoying too, with all his "Pow!"'s and "Va va voom!" and "3-D Pow!" 3-D pow? Surprised that didn't catch on as a catchphrase.

A quote from the John Donne poem that inspired Robert Oppenheimer to name his project Trinity, (direct from Wikpedia) 'As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are on, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.'" ("Hymn to God My God, in My Sicknesses"). Oppenheimer continued, "That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, 'Batter my heart, three person'd God;—.' Beyond this, I have no clues whatever."


Lyssa, there's an invisibly printed H and C and M on the car clock buttons at the bottom of them, you hold down the "c" button and then press the "h" button to change the hour. At least that's how it works on my car. Not that I did it for years and years. In my car, the time was always standard, until it drove Sheri crazy one day and she fixed it. The one, the ONLY ONE advantage to "springing forward" is that it's easier to change the clocks. But that's it.








Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You?




You are Wallace Stevens. You love everything, especially the sound of things. Too bad you are so obscure that at times even you don't understand what the hell you have written.
Take this quiz!









Today the air is clear of everything.
It has no knowledge except of nothingness
And it flows over us without meanings,
As if none of us had ever been here before
And are not now: in this shallow spectacle,
This invisible activity, this sense.


By Wallace Stevens.

Speaking of invisible activity, I finished two more rows.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Death By Caffeine How much of your favorite caffeinated drink would it take to kill you? Take this quick test and find out:
It would take 292.50 cups of Starbucks Tall Caffe Latte to put you down.

Ha. I could drink that standing on my head and doing cartwheels and juggling. Hmm. Maybe a wee bit too much caffeine at that. That was brought to you via Kat With A K.

Unbelievably, my work is not doing itself. Doesn't it realize there's a deadline? A really, really close deadline? And I don't want to do it anymore?

Oh, and I meant, look away, Mim, so that you wouldn't see what an idiot I am, and not as a reflection on your instructions. Because seriously. Not noticing that I'm knitting from the top down? Not realizing that I'm making a triangle shape? How?

Reading Moll Flanders (well, listening to it in the car - I love this! For once it's worked really well, I'm on the last cassette) I'm re-thinking the Dr. Who scarf. For one thing, well, I could make a bad excuse for it, but it's not really a good fit. (Shockingly enough. But if it was still winter? It would so be my project. And a long wool scarf - what are the odds it's going to stay that cold around here? It's amazing we've had this much rain/cold as it is.) Hey. Which it is. Again. Raining. Wow.

I was thinking that the gorgeous Misti Alpaca Jenni got me would make a good Moll project. The burgundy color is perfect, because Moll is n't really a red woman, but she's no innocent pink neither. The Wool Peddlar's Shawl from Folk Shawl is the right time period (I think), but I'm thinking that maybe the Garter Lace Prairie Shawl might be right. She did spend time in Virginia (prairie, right? Right?), the Misti Alpaca is so much finer than the pattern would suggest - Moll is led completely by misfortune and fate into her......well, misfortunes and fate. So she says. So much finer than her actions would suggest....

Dr Who tonight! Part 2. Outside of that, I have no idea. I watched House - what is with those roomies? There's more to Jimmy Wilson than meets the eye. Bones was actually good Wednesday night. Yay! I love me David Boreanaz (although possibly butchering his name). Hey it was a good week for Buffy/Angel alums, Buffy's little sister was the sick girl on House (yeah, I can't think of her name on the show but it's Michelle Trachtenberg, late of AMC), and Lindsay of Angel was on Bones. And General Chegwidden formerly of JAG! (On Bones. Keep up.) (It's me? Oh, it probably is.) But I'm glad to see that the show is better because the first few episodes I wanted to smack the chick into the middle of next week.

Waiting for me from Netflix is Layer Cake with the new James Bond, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) a Mickey Spillane thriller, and Scarlet Street . Edgar G. Robinson is the protagonist in it. Yes, I am having a thing for old movies, every since I re-watched Out of the Past last week. Robert Mitchum AND Kirk Douglas! Both more or less bad! With a bad girl. What's not to love? It's my favorite movie ever.

Okay, brief knitting content. Not mine. Not for a week, I'm sure. Are those cool or what? They're only a few centuries old. I'd love to knit something along those lines one day.



Have I mentioned how much I hate, loathe and despise Daylight Saving Time? No? I hate it! Hate it! Had another migraine yesterday, thank God for prescriptions that actually work on migraines and don't leave you comatose.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Migraines Are Good for Something...

My little helper.

At least I was forced to go home and crash for a few hours. Finally looked through the Vogue Knitting and Knitter's Magazine magazines, there were even a couple of patterns I'd like to make and wear. Why do I love lace lately? Got my copy of Nicky Epstein's Knitted Flowers in the mail too (oh, get this - Amazon said it was shipped March 30th with an expected arrival date of May 3rd - because Richmond is so very, very far from Concord evidently. But maybe when they moved the clocks forward they didn't just skip an hour but a month, because I got it yesterday, April 4th.)

Cute stuff. It doesn't look like it has much that isn't in her Knitted Embellishments book or patterns that I haven't seen in magazines - that dratted Floral Bag is in it - I just know that one day I'm going to break down and knit it (it's cute! but oh so very inappropriate).

I'm down to the last couple of repeats on the Adamas Shawl - Mim, look away - I just last night realized that I'm knitting the shawl from the top down. I was looking at the edging chart (yes! I'm that close to finishing!) trying to figure out - do I need to pick up stitches? Can I just skip it? when it dawned on me - top down. I knew I shouldn't have started it when I didn't have time to actually knit it. I mean, basically that's all I've done is knit it. Didn't really have any time to look at it and it deserves so much more attention, it's so pretty!

That's a picture of one of my egregious errors I was going to attempt to drop stitches and fix, before I came to my senses.

I've been listening to a cassette of Moll Flanders on the way into work - the reader has such a lovely voice, she's really helped me get into the book - and the book takes getting into. All those capitalizations! (Even if I do it all the time. That's so different). The peculiar language (well, it was written a couple of centuries ago, but every time I read "stile" I don't think "style") - I love the lovely footnotes at the *gasp!* foot of the page (I hate loathe and despise having to flip to the back of the book to read a footnote that half the time is only a citation anyway). Moll sounds like a fun girl despite herself. Oh, the trying circumstances of fate when one only wants to Be Good. And Not Starve.

House was on last night, NCIS too, but I taped them both and slept. There's a show called Bloodlines: Technology Hits Home on PBS tonight that looks interesting (reproductive issues, developmental biology and genetic testing), but mainly there is LOST. Now that I've given up on trying to make sense of it, I'm enjoying it a lot more. However! I've deciphered what the numbers mean. C.A.S.H. C.O.W.

And CSI-NY, of course.

Dr. Who was part one of two last Friday. Grrr. The one 6pm Stargate SG1 I've gotten to see lately was also a part one, Jolinar's Memories. I'd rather miss part one and see part two, you know? I've probably got it on DVD but.....I'd rather complain and whine. It just comes to me so naturally.


Nice article on MSN.Wife, Shall I Compare Thee To A Donkey?. Well, why not. My husbands compare favorably to asses.

Get Your Slogan Here
Mine?

Just for the Taste of Tiredness

Wow. Appropriate. Back to the Salt Mines.

Monday, April 03, 2006

(Unofficial) Poetry Monday

Marina Ivanova Tsvetaeva

You who loved me with the falseness
Of truth - and the truth of lies.
You who loved me-beyond
Anything!-Over the edge!
You who loved me beyond
Time-Right hand, wave!
You love me no more:
The truth in five words.

12 December 1923

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Thief! Stop! Stop thief!

Someone stole an hour from me.

I hate daylight saving time. It doesn't change a minute of the amount of daylight available. It means that when I'm getting up at my normal break-of-dawn time, I didn't have any time to knit this morning, there were other *people out and about and I was gypped out of an hour that I could really, really use this time of year.

*They looked like people but they acted like Zombies. Now I know why I'm such a Mary Sunshine in the morning. It's an irresistible impulse, it's annoying, and there is nothing they can do but growl feebly in my direction since they're not quite awake and functioning. Good morning, Sunshine! You too!