Month: December 2005 (Page 3 of 4)

I am just sayin’. Since the hubby drove me to work, I was car-less, so Kristin and I ventured out together for some lunch. We weren’t in the car two minutes before it got stuck, because some dumb cluck hasn’t cleared the parking lot yet.

Much attempting of the tire direction, the level of gas, and yet the car? Not going anywhere but backwards, and that is a finite venture as well, given the metal pipe fence. At one point, we had ‘er in neutral & were both pushing, and that didn’t work, either. Finally, I got behind that car and I bump-pushed. Repeatedly. And assisted in getting that sucker un-stuck. At this point, it is also the proudest moment of my day.

Do you know how much her car weighs? 3,563 pounds.

I’M JUST SAYIN’.

MIGHTY.

We do.

The snowplow hasn’t come down our street (after all, it’s supposed to warm up this weekend, so why bother? I loooove the dedication to snow removal ’round these parts….) I’m inside, lollygagging around and waiting for all the accidents to take place so when I go in to work, it’s clear. My industrious (school’s out today) husband, on the other hand, is shoveling. The dogs? Having the times of their lives.

We’re getting snow. Lots of it. (Well, lots for Kansas City. Panic! Panic! The grocery stores are being raided of all bread and milk as I type.)

I’m about to head out into the driving mecca that is my hometown now, and go through what I endure every year, which is much gritting of the teeth, cursing & fleeting wishes I was back in Minneapolis, where most people know how to drive in the snow, don’t overuse their SUV power, and they actually have more than two snowplows for the entire city. You think I exaggerate? I DON’T. Up there, living with snow is a way of life, not an occassional crisis.

On the MN drivers test, you have to identify the flashing lights of a snowplow. Here, it’s more like, “pick the ranch house that looks most likely to be a meth lab.”

Don’t you try and tell me I am boring. I know how to rock it out. I just spent half an hour tonight searching online, comparing pricing & then ordering a part for our humidifier. Because I’m a responsible adult? I also got a new filter. Then? THEN? I played Sudoku online. Because I read somewhere doing different things & working on puzzles is supposed to help stave off Alzheimer’s. It’s never too early to start worrying about dementia. Especially when your career’s in advertising.

There was a time in my life when I fell down a flight of concrete steps & took all the skin off my shins. (Bloody Hell! Didn’t break a single dish, though!) My father showed up half an hour later (he was moving me out of my college apartment) and in horror asked, “Don’t you have any band-aids?” Huh? Who has band-aids when they’re 20? That’s a pitcher of beer! Now I have a small plastic crate labeled “First Aid” with various band-aids, including some Hello Kitty bandaids, first aid TAPE and more neosporin than you can shake a stick at. Last year I bought a CANE after my enhanced gymnastics routine. I hung the cane up in the garage this fall and actually thought, “Well, at least I’ve got that for later.”

At this rate, I’m going to have a LifeAlert and the Clapper before I’m 40.

…As A Child.

You know what I’m talkin’ about. I would lie in my bed, staring out the window at the trees silhouetted in the moonlight & fantasize & dream about finally getting one of these things. It would change my life, all for the better. I’ll be interested to see how many were your dreams, too – and what your list would look like. Call it a meme, borrow the idea for your own blog. Share it!

5. A Swimming Pool. Not terribly practical in Northeast Iowa, especially RURAL NE Iowa. I, of course, did not dream for an above-ground pool, either. I wanted an in-ground, heated pool. With a bubble roof. I don’t know if it was truly Olympic-sized? But it was a BIG ASS POOL in my fantasy world. Never got it.

4. A Pogo Stick. So, again with the practicality. Yes, you might think, hey, that’s not so bad, what’s the big deal? Why deny a child her god-given right to attempt to kill herself by bouncing around on a stick? Well, please reference the above wish – because along with RURAL comes GRAVEL. And hard dirt surfaces. We did not have cushy grass lawns, the only grass was on a hill, around the gardens, and a bitch to mow. I did not profess to knowing all I know now, so my desire for a pogo stick lived on. I did not get it, instead, my father made me stilts. Moderately fun, but again, there was no spring-action in the stilts. SIGH.

3. A Boomerang. You know about this simple device, I’m sure. You read about the aborigines in Australia, and while you didn’t necessarily need to go take down some kangaroos, you couldn’t imagine a more stellar, riveting show you could perform on the playground. Perhaps it could also work to knock fruit from trees. (Nevermind we only had crabapples.) I believe I had a cheapy knock-off, which I never succeeded in throwing correctly, but I knew if I got a True Australian Boomerang, I would be collecting fruit and wowing the other 4th graders in no time. Instead, I violently flung a piece of plastic into the dirt, up over my head, and generally away from me, causing me to trudge trudge trudge to pick it up & try again. Never succeeding.

2. A Scooter, Vespa, whatever. My own mode of transportation, and faster than a pogo stick. Every Sunday, I would check the classifieds in the Des Moines Register, and dream about having my own scooter. I would visualize myself speeding off to town, NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, the high-pitched whine of an overfed mosquito, to have a part-time job, pick up some milk, anything that would rationalize buying it. I did not think of the practicalities (GRAVEL! HILLS!) and was always frustrated by my parents’ dogged determination to DENY ME MY FREEDOM. Freedom in a scooter. Don’t think the last craze over these things didn’t tug on my heartstrings a wee bit.

1. Discovering I Was Given Up For Adoption By The Queen of England In A Shroud Of Intrigue And Mystery. Listen. Delusions of grandeur have to start somewhere. I didn’t care about how mean and pinched she looked, I just wanted that palace, the guards, and those little corgi dogs. And the tiara.

It’s funny now, because I want for so little. I have many, many things to be thankful for, my life is not extravagant or filled with pogo sticks (god help me now, I’d break both legs), and yes, I did (weakly) try to convince my husband we should get a house with a pool when we were looking, two years ago. DE-NIED. But, I don’t lie awake at night & yearn for one, either.

I will never be completely practical, I’ve always been something of a dreamer. I married someone who knows about insurance liability & the fact he would get stuck cleaning the pool, and would tell me in a kind way I would burn the engine out on a scooter. I’m just going to have to settle for being some form of royalty I bestow upon myself. I like the sound of Czarina….

This year, my holiday wishes include peace, good health, laughter, and love. Could I get more schmaltzy? That’s Czarina of Schmaltz to YOU.

Just cover myself in Vaseline & roll around in the sand.

That would pull all of my irritation RIGHT into focus and serve as performance art at the same time.

However, I’m not the only one having grouchy times. The holidays do bring out the best, don’t they? MMMm, love your hair, hope you win!

Anyhoo, the internet was down at home this morning, I didn’t pre-write anything, and the day has been spent pretty much mixing vaseline & sand. Thus, you have been stuck with an unintelligible knitting post written last night.

I love the holidays. Good thing I’m not getting a week off.

GOOD THING.

I have, however, decided to name everything bothersome & irritating “Habu”. Get your Habu off me. Take that Habu and SHOVE IT. I don’t WANT Habu for dinner. Habu is being mean to me. Piss up a rope, Habu. Habu is the tool of The Man.

Habu Holidays!

I started a knitted purse on Saturday night, and all I did was BITCH BITCH BITCH. It’s a kit from Habu Textiles & you carry one strand of linen (tight, twisted little bitch of linen, but I like it) and one strand of linen PAPER (crazy, insane, keep thinking it will rip) and you create a very unpleasant fabric if you were wearing it as a shirt, but since it’s a purse, it’s fine, rather interesting, and threatens to be gorgeous.

So it’s clear I’m having a nasty Angelina-Jolie-Flirtation with this yarn, so let’s talk about the directions for knitting. They’re done in the “Japanese style” with numbers and dashes, and you read them from the bottom up.

8-1-6
5-1-4
1-1-1
(+11)

This means you’re increasing a total of 11 stitches. The first row, you increase one, one time. The next is every FIVE rows, increase one stitch, do this a total of four times. Next is every eight rows, one stitch, six times. Sure it makes a shitton of sense now, but Saturday night I was cursing a blue streak. And then? Apparently drawing hair-thin arrows pointing to both sides of the diagram meant “INCREASE ONE STITCH ON BOTH SIDES YOU IDIOT” which means 22 stitches, DUH, why don’t you intuitively read the Japanese instructions, Jennifer? So I ripped out my crazy dangerous yarn and did it correctly.

Knitting with wool is just so much easier. This is going to be my “interspersing” project while I work on other things. And? The song in my head for THIS project, of course, would be “Turning Japanese” …… every few rows a little chorus in my head goes, “I really think so…. da de da daa da da ” Got me a case of The Vapors, I do!

I have just woken up cranky the past two days. Not good! As if that weren’t an obvious observation. I’m out of sorts, I can’t make up my mind on what I want to do, and am generally behaving like a sullen teenager. Wahoo! Don’t you want to come sit by me on the bus?

I went in to Kristin’s office yesterday and said, “I am being a PILL. I just want you to know it has nothing to do with you.” which of course, she already knew. But it’s always good to put things on the record. And then I proceeded to say something to the effect of since I was already in a bad mood and out of sorts, why NOT wear mohair? It’s kind of a hair shirt for me, the mohair. That insane clown posse scarf I knit? Mohair. I will admit, this mohair is not too bad, in that it really doesn’t itch much, if at all, but psychologically, I know I’m wearing mohair, it’s a pain in the ass to knit with to begin with, why WOULDN’T you just complete your cranky-mood day by wearing a mohair scarf? If only I’d thought to wear the underwear that bind & bunch! It could have been a whole outfit tailored to irritate and accentuate discomfort.
Now, I’m out of sorts because I’m hungry, I need to go to Costco but I don’t wanna, I need to do a lot of things, I don’t wanna – hey? remember that crazy accomplishing-everything-and-exhausting you Jennifer from a week or so ago? She’s buried in the back yard. Wrapped in a shroud of mohair.

I was randomly taking pictures yesterday, because I was driving, so of course, I should take pictures to document the fact I was up & driving at 7 a.m. (I even took one of the mo-fo who cut me off, hope you saw the FLASH and felt bad, asswipe!). We drove up to Omaha for a new biz visit, convinced our boss & co-worker (male) to go to String of Purls, where they felt uncomfortable (they were only in the store two minutes, you would have thought we were in a adult bookstore, the way they acted), and then hauled ass back home again. Left home in the waning darkness, got back home in full darkness.
Here’s Kristin, about to enter the yarn shop:

Big sky & geese on the return trip ….

And you know how I love using the rearview mirror as a “device” in pictures… our co-worker, driving us home:

Yesterday was a looong day. I think there are people who love the feel of the road or the earth or the water moving under them – those people become truckers, pilots or sailors. I prefer solid ground beneath my feet, for 6+ hours in a car numbs my butt & when I went to sleep last night, I could still feel the phantom sensation of being in a car. I did, however, get a lot accomplished on the Icehouse Clapotis (THANK YOU to Lyn for the “Electric Blue” song reference) and we had a lot of laughs on the ride. The weekend is nearly upon us, and I’m glad glad glad of that!

I feel a little like tiny Tim (from Scrooge, not the ukelele player) when I wave my coffee cup at you at all and shout, “Happy Friday, Everyone!”

Yeah, so I write some of my blogs ahead of time. Usually the night before, and because I’m on this free lame-ass blog publishing format, I have to come back in & actually publish on the day it is supposed to appear. In discussing my pre-writin’ skeeelz, JWo responded with a Kanye-West-flavored shout out, “We want pre-write! We want pre-write!” because Gold Digger was on the MTV2. I’ve noticed as I get older, I have started to speak as the old people before me spoke, and I’ve started with putting the “The” in front of the Nouns. Excellent! Soon I will proclaim I wash my hands in the Zink.

So, here it is, a pre-write published the night before, because I’m going on a road-trip new business adventure with three co-workers (the lovely miss K included…we’ll be the dynamic duo in the back, knitting.) I’m bringing my camera, because this should be entertaining. We begin at 7:15 a.m., so please, feel sorry for me in an outpouring of flowing sympathy. Welcome to Screwsville! Population Moi!

In any event, I wanted to post a shitton of finished knitting & the current WIP. Because every day, every day I knit the yarrrrrrrnnnnn.

Here’s the finished result of my handpainted yarn, knit up in a fishtail lace pattern. I need to block the finished scarf, but it’s very vintage-y feeling, the colors are softer in real life.

I dubbed this scarf the “Insane Clown Posse Scarf”, because at the end, you have over 1,200 stitches on your needles. DO YOU KNOW HOW INSANE THAT IS? Certifiable. That’s how insane. Oh, and a good refresher course in just how much I dislike the mohair.

This is the hat & muffler I knit for JWo to keep him warm on his hunting expeditions. It’s a cammo color of Lorna’s Laces worsted, and super soft.

I liked the yarn so much, I’m making a Clapotis in the same yarn – but the colorway is “Icehouse”. Tell me you aren’t trying, right now, to remember what in the hell that band’s big song was. Because it’s been bugging me for 5 days. Kind of like having an itch just out of reach in the middle of your back. Just now? I have been Googling & searching, and yes, I can find album information, but no song snippet to finally jar ye olde memory out of slumber. ARGH.

If you click on through to the Flickr site, you’ll also see the finished hat, mittens & scarf sets I made for Roger’s niece & nephew, and another picture of the fishtail lace.

So, the date says Thursday, but I’m sending this baby out early – just like I have to get UP early. Have I ever mentioned before how un-morning-person I am? The Jennifer, she likes to sleep in.

9:20 p.m. UPDATE: I am hot on the trail of an official Icehouse site. No promises (that was also one of their hits!), but the site is here.
9:26 p.m. UPDATE: FU*K! That had nuthin. This is totally why I pre-write! Sweet Cracker Sandwich, praise the VH1. No Promises was the big song. Very Ah-Ha sounding. God, 1986 was a long time ago. Back when we played the cassettes. ;)