Month: October 2006 (Page 3 of 3)

Well, if you like Cyndi Lauper & ever have the chance to see her perform, jump at it. She put on one hell of a show last night, and the night would have been PERFECT had we not had the rudest girl in the world in front of us. Not so confidential to the bitch in seat J-18: YOU SUCK. There’s a reason you had an awesome view of the show – everyone else was SITTING DOWN. Oh, and nobody really wanted to crane their head around your stupid-ass interpretive dancing. (and folks, two security people asked her repeatedly to be respectful & she refused.) All I can say is, Karma is a Bitch. Because this particularly rude girl apparently lost something in her dancing & running around to other seats – and I hope it was really, really important and she didn’t find it. She disappeared towards the end of the show, and perhaps she was trampled. Sigh. A girl can dream.

But enough about her, she was just the gnat in the air on a gorgeous summer’s evening. That Cyndi can SING, and she did some crazy improv jamming in her encore, proving herself to be far more a musician than the entertainer she always has been. And, despite the rudeness situation, the Uptown theater continues to be my favorite place to see shows. We had some really fun, crazy drunk ladies behind us who were ready to do a takedown in the bathroom on this girl, so let’s just hope they got home and didn’t spend last night in jail. Now the Wo & I are up really early & he’s got an ambitious day planned with all sorts of outdoorsey work. Me? I’m gonna restore a little order, do some laundry, and then attack the DVR, before it starts deleting shows on me. I have a lot of tv-catch-up to do, and that means KNITTING. And possibly Thai food. Mmmm, I love weekends! Enjoy yours!

I have about six things in my head – half of which are angry & irritable, so don’t you want to come sit next to ME for a spell, especially if I have a knife handy? Mmm-hm, I didn’t think so. So rather than go too deeply into those things, it’s been a rough week, let me give you a couple quick updates with the added benefit of PEECTURES. Doesn’t everyone love photos?

The new car:

I especially liked the first one because it’s almost stealthy, the way it’s reflecting the greenery around it. Like “Predator”. Only no dreads, and no icky face. I’m still bantering names around in my head – Shanny, “Alyssa” was funny, if only I liked the actress, it would be perfect. I’ve considered “Mia”, “Minnie”, “Machuko” and “Bertha the Blue Murano”, in honor of my Great-Aunt Bert. She was -let’s be kind – a rugged-looking woman, as manly as her name, but she wore dresses & hats and my father’s memory of her was mostly her fur coat that he would press his face into & smell her perfume & feel the softness of the fur on his skin. So it might have to be Bertha/Bertie, even though that name has no jive with “Murano”.

Then – and Lizzie-Lou, are you still reading me? I call these pictures, “Here, Lizard, Lizard, Lizard….”

These are squares that will eventually be sewn together to create Lizard Ridge, a wonderful Noro afghan from the latest Knitty. You can see there’s a choice – do all one color, or mix it up. Well, go figure, I am using 21 different skeins…. because I CAN! And I love the process, and the finished result will be crazy gorgeous. I need to go join one (or both!) of the knit-alongs that’s happening so I can see how other knitters are doing.

This weekend’s already going to fly by – tonight we’re going to Cyndi Lauper (tickets exchanged from the Depeche Mode debacle), and Sunday is Ren Fest, which is geeky, but I do love the setting & the food & holding hands in the sunshine with my sweetie, which just the thought of is enough to push some of my sadness & anger to the side. Bless the Wo for his True Colors, which are as vivid as Noro knitting, and for loving me so….

So, the new Murano is excellent, I love it, and once I could finally relax enough to not white-knuckle grip the wheel and stare straight ahead, I noticed a blemish on the dashboard. It irked me, and on closer inspection seemed to be just that: a blemish. So I toodled in to the dealership this morning,and they are ordering a new dashboard for me, as they were unable to solvent-it away. I felt relief, because I was gearing myself up for a Battle Royale – hello, the car has 150 miles on it, I barely drink coffee in it, why would I be digging in to the dashboard in Week One & rubbing schmutzig over it? (That’s like, an activity for Week #149.) The funny thing is that if we’d bought this car used, I would get over it, or, as a friend suggested, knit a dashboard cozy & cover it up, but the whole point of “new” is that you pay the price for something unblemished and as close to perfection that you can get.

As I drove away I felt very much like the Princess & the Pea…. but hey. It was about getting what I wanted – but it was more about right v. wrong & Truth, Justice & the Jennifer Way.

In a semi-related note, the ’06 model has the capacity to play MP3 CDs, which is awesome. I put in a mix CD yesterday, and was a little perplexed that it didn’t show any song/artist information, but I just decided to go with the flow & be surprised. Today, perhaps bolstered by my victory, I looked down and saw a button marked “Display”. When you push that button? All the music information is displayed. I know! How crazy is that coincidence? In any event, as I wrote the Wo, it was like Christmas morning, complete with a squeal of joy. After all, I knew I was bringing Sexy Back, but it was good to have it in black & white on the screen…..

Don’t worry. Even though the parallel to my own mother is right there, I laughed. With maybe a wee bit o’ the wince, but I still choose laughter. And it’s Wednesday! Halfway there. And, I’m feeling loads more comfortable behind the wheel of the new car. Now I’m focusing on not making the mistake I made four years ago in LaFonda right after I got ‘er: Speeding Ticket. It’s very easy to catch myself going fast because the ride’s so smooth, and being up higher & in a bigger vehicle disguises your speed a lot more. I’m sure that’ll be a great explanation to the muthafuckin’ motorcycle cop. I can only hope for the Hot Cop of Prairie Village. (He drives a cop car. And he’s smokin’. Hmmm. Maybe I DO need to speed through there…. heh…..)

So, yes. I’m back at work & muttering & puttering and taking care of things & extremely grateful I took the time last Thursday to CLEAN my desk off. Because that could have proved to be the tipping point, you know? So far it’s a rather herky-jerky hodge-podge kind of day, like I arrived too late at the ranch and they gave me Hooter, the Angry Mare, and Hooter is going to decide completely the pace at which we ride.

Meetings that were supposed to happen haven’t – and nobody bothered to tell me. So I get to do the aimless wandering-around with a blank look and eyebrows-raised face until I find someone to tell me what is going on. Other meetings are not starting on time and I have to ask to be told (aka, “GRAB ME please!”) when they will start, otherwise they will just start without me. These sorts of Business Nuances (BN)(tm) are the stuff that make my head sit lower on my neck, like a linebacker preparing to dig in and do some damage.

Or, perhaps, someone about to be thrown from Hooter. The countdown to Friday begins….

OK! So we’re back, safe and sound, due to our trusty driver Kyra, who pretty much drove the whole way. Beth was our local tour guide, since she is from the Quad Cities, and we hit the great local establishments under her guidance – Happy Joe’s Pizza for lunch on Saturday, and Whitey’s for shakes on Sunday morning. Yes. I said shakes on Sunday morning. Pumpkin shakes with Reese’s peanut butter cups. You try telling me it’s not for breakfast, because you are WRONG. Oh, yes, and it’s certainly a one-eyebrow raised kinda name, but once you have a pumpkin shake in your face, you could care less if it sounds like it was made by the KKK.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning, Friday morning. Here was our trusty transportation:

Kyra decorated our rented Kia Sedona with some festive magnets from Patternworks. (People, I can only do so many text links in one post, bear with me.) Basically our 6-hour trip took 12 hours on Friday, because we went to three yarn shops in Des Moines – Creative Corner, Donna’s Creations and theVillage Knit Wit(my favorite of the shops) – and then the Tanger Outlet Mall in Williamsburg, and we ate at the Amana Colonies in what can only be described as a blend between surreal and the Twilight Zone. I forget how much perm solution is consumed in my home state. No offense to those who do, because perms can be very helpful, however some people take it to a level it should never go. Our waitress was in a very interesting get-up, involving ruffles and layers and polyester, and her counter-suggestion for Dr.Pepper was Mountain Dew, and somehow that just clinched the oddness of the whole experience. But the sauerkraut was awesome, and the food was hearty, and it made me really long for the Rheinland Restaurant in Independence MO. Spaetzle….. Mmmmm… and it’s across from a yarn shop…… I DIGRESS!

So we got in to our hotel, and my Sleep Number bed worked…on one side. The other side had a broken pump, so I had this unbearable ridge halfway down the bed. The front desk sent up Vern, who was very sweet & offered to change the pump, it would only take ten minutes, but the broken a/c was another story, that would take over and hour & a half. So we moved rooms at 10:15 pm (FUN!) and continued to mess with the sleep number beds. I hate them. There you go! It’s always good to rule out something you thought at one point you might want to buy!

Saturday morning we headed out to the Yarn Shoppe, where we all found something we “needed”. Everyone at the store was lovely and helpful and if you find yourself in the area, find them. They were great! Then we had taco pizza for lunch, went back to the hotel & prepared for the wedding.

The ceremony was lovely, I cried (of course) and took lots of pictures. I’ll get them uploaded to Flickr in the next day or so. This is my favorite picture of the just-happily married couple:

Then, it was off to the reception, and we all had our knitting – because we know how to party! Actually, it was great because we were early, and it helped pass some time and the other guests pretty much instantly knew who we were. Each of the tables had a different cake, which was fun – ours was red velvet. I’ll give you a picture of the bride & groom’s table (butter pecan), and eagle-eyed readers will spot the same decorative tulle from the bridal shower, which made all of us go “Awwww”, because it was like a little piece of our dear friend Jo Ann was there at the party (she was unable to go because she was on vacation in France. We understood her not changing those plans.)

Despite having had several glasses of wine, our table allowed me to cut the cake. I was relieved to hear, later, that other people had the same issues transferring the cake in one cohesive piece to a plate. It all tasted excellent, and that’s what mattered the most! Perhaps if I had been industrious enough to stand up to do it….

The other notables from the party: Tamar & I are having a commitment ceremony to each other, the song will be “Dykes in White Satin”, it will be called “Brokeback Knit Night” and honestly, to try to capture all the funny moments would detract from the overall point of this blog post. :) We had a lot of fun, needless to say, and I’m just going to apologize right now for the fact I’m pretty sure I’m on the official video dropping a very loud F-bomb. God, you just can’t take me anywhere.

Sunday was our drive back, and we were able to shave some time off our previous record – at least three hours – and we also stopped at another yarn shop in Des Moines: Purls the Yarn Studio, which is my favorite of all in the area now. We stumbled on the last yarn store in the area, Knitted Together, because it was right by the awesome noodle place we went to for lunch, but alas, they are closed on Sundays. Oh well! I bought some Lopi at Purls and tried to make an entire hat for JWo in the last leg of our journey, because I borrowed everything from Beth, including the pattern, and somehow thought I needed to give everything back when the van pulled in to our driveway. It could explain why typing all this has made me twinge a bit….. I worked on a pair of socks the rest of the trip, and I think it’s safe to say we all had a really good time. It was a whirlwind, and I am extremely grateful I have today off – even if it’s going to be 90-degrees. Bleah. Fall? Where did you go, good friend?

OH and I made tote bags for everyone on the trip, you remember, the endless stream of pom-pom trim? And they turned out really well. I still need to take a picture of those, and finish the ones for the people who couldn’t go. So there will be more wedding/trip/bachelorette-party-related pictures and blog entries to come. In the meantime, I’m jealous of Justin & Kristin’s week on a beach in Mexico. But happy for them nonetheless! It was a great weekend.