I met Roger for dinner at our favorite haunt, Thai Place (in Westport), because our absolutely most favorite waitperson in the Entire Universe works there (Amy) (who is Chinese, not Thai) and she always makes sure we have plenty of Thai Iced Tea (Nectar of Gods) and always has a joke for us. Last night’s joke started with “What do you get jackass with onion?” and we filled in the missing verbs mentally, and I said, “Somethin’ stinky?” and she said, “Hole on, I be right back.” She darted off and returned with a small notebook. She had written down the joke! I love it! I should start doing this, because I usually forget everything but “something about a guy, and then it ends with Blow it out your Ass!” and it’s only funny to me and awkward for the target, usually my husband. Anyway. The joke goes like this, and it’s a double-duty joke because it has two punchlines and right now I’m terrified I’ve already forgotten them, because I didn’t write them down.

What do you get when you cross a jackass with an onion?

Answer 1: A Stinky Ass (this might have been created on the spot for my benefit)

Answer 2: A piece of Ass that brings tears to your eyes!

While the joke itself isn’t that funny, Amy’s delivery is everything. She’s the bomb!

Immediately after dinner, I had to rush home. I thought I might actually heave-ho into a garbage can along the sidewalk, much to Roger’s consternation. He told me to go ahead, but know he’d be forced to follow suit. After getting home & having some quality time, I determined that the culprit was NOT Thai Food, but the panini sandwich from Panera I’d eaten for lunch. It had left me a bit queasy & adding spicy red curry catfish to the churning machinery was enough to send things into high alert. I am just grateful because I love Thai food so much, if I had to stop eating it, I don’t know what I would do. Just typing about it makes me crave it!

Tonight is Knit Nite, which is going to be held at an IHOP, should be interesting! I wish it were 5:00 right now!

Yes, that was the subject line from one of the 55+ spam emails I get on a daily basis, and it made me laugh enough that it stayed in my Junk mail folder, just as a pick-me-up for those days when I don’t feel like a Vessel for anything, let alone Our Lord. As a former spelling bee champion (I was a contendah, daddy, I was!), I am a bit disappointed in the scribe chossen by the Lord, because it really is important when you get notifications like this, that everything be spelled correctly. I can’t frame this or even forward it to my friends, because it’s got that slipshod feel now.

….sigh

I crowned myself the Queen of Cream Sauces last night, because I can say without hesitation that there are two things I do with impeccable skill: parallel park & make a cream sauce. In cleaning out the pantry over the weekend, I found an assortment of half-used bags of pasta in a variety of shapes. I under-cooked the pasta, put it all in a big lasagne pan, and then whisked my magic: cream sauce, to which was added 4 cups of shredded cheese (sharp cheddar, colby, jack) and then some chunked Velveeta just for the guarantee: damn good cheesey-ness. Topped off with parmesan cheese. We had some leftover – getting hard & crunchy – artisan garlic bread, so I cut that into bitty bits, tossed with butter & used those rich crumbs to top the whole shebang off, put in the oven at 375 & baked for about half an hour. It was almost too rich, if there is such a thing! Leftovers will be eaten with lots of steamed broccolli, my favorite veggie, which will sop up some of the cheesey cream sauce & cut through the overall richness. I am excited to get my yarn wound for the Shardigan (which is not a Summer Shardigan, but rather a Holiday Party Shardigan) – I don’t have loads of time between now & the party & best to get crackin’! The Folly is coming along nicely, and those little flowers were meant to be done intermittently, because they do hurt my hands a bit. 16 large flowers done, 16 large flowers to go, and uh, 24 small flowers to go.

Please, Lord, if I am your Vessel, let me finish this cardigan…. flowers & all!

I have spent the day in the same items of clothing I chose when I decided I was cold & needed something to putter around the house in – at 9:30 a.m. It’s over 12 hours later, and I’ve spoken to one person on the phone, had MANY conversations with Suzy, who is staying at home this weekend while Polly gets some hunting experience, and I have done diddly-squat beyond what I’ve wanted to do, most of the day. Interestingly enough, my unshowered, stick-straight hair has actually stood up more on one side of my head as the day’s gone on, I’m not sure what physics-defying mechanics are at work, but I look more bed-head-rumpled at 10:17 p.m. than I did after I got up this morning. As my dear art history professor Susan Strauber would describe a Corot, my hair is “movemented”…. we never believed that was a real word, but it worked, and is particularly applicable to my hair profile today. I didn’t go outside & plant tulips, because I wasn’t dressed for it, and could not bring myself to change, apparently. Lazy, lazy daisy am I! But I checked my work email & Heather from dooce.com had replied to my query – how big is Leta’s head – so I’ve started a fun little hat for the cutie-patootie. Kristin & I will hopefully get the hats done & off to her before it gets too much colder! I switched from the poofy pink yarn to a skein of biggy print I had left from some socks – it’s way more fun, and I’ll use the poofy pink for little Lily Wenger, maybe make her a beret or something. Baby knits are so fun because they go so fast, and the results are so adorable! I’m completely making the pattern up as I go, so here’s to doing it without running out of yarn…. I better go do some of the work I brought home – the week ahead will be grisly as usual, and I never seem to learn the lesson of doing a little at a time ….. kinda like those tulips…..!

So, we are just past the three-week mile marker for James & his bi-Pap machine. It is a miraculous little device; I have dubbed it the “iron lung” in my head. It truly keeps him breathing through the night, unless he pulls his mask off, and then his snoring usually wakes me up & I have to tell him to put it back on. But even that has gotten less as time goes on. And within a week, I was seeing glimpses of my “old JWo”, like he is shedding a skin that bound him and crippled him and his healthier, more-human self can re-emerge into the light. I’ve even flipped around and am sleeping side-by-side with him again. It’s really nice. (It will be nicer once we get that damned headboard done!) Two nights ago, he held my hand as we lay there, waiting for sleep, and through his mask he said, “Thank you for being so patient.” And without even thinking, I replied: “I’m patient because I love you.” It is so nice to have that level of love & trust. I don’t think I ever believed I’d find it with anyone, and now I don’t know how I’d live without it. I’ve also become a much more patient person, because of my relationship with him, and as I’ve gotten older & less demanding that EVERYthing on earth go my way. Most of the time. :)

There is something incredibly satisfying about throwing an object (like a pop bottle lid, or a pile of paper) at the garbage can & having it “thunk” right in. Most people take this for granted, don’t they, their ability to accomplish such a mundane task? Not me. I am AWFUL at basketball and other similarly-skilled sports. Here, take this surprisingly heavy object, don’t double dribble, run back & forth & evade all these waving hands in your face until you get within ‘range’, and heave said object up in the air and through that stringy thing on the ring. What-flippin-ever. Let’s just say, it’s not the sport of choice for short fat women in this country. The hand-waving in my face, I will never, ever forget. It made me want to throw the ball RIGHT IN JOLENE’S FACE and break her nose. My own cheer would have gone something like this: BE AGGRESSIVE, BE, BE AGGRESSIVE, GO! GO! GO! HA HA! I BROKE YOUR NOSE!

So whenever I throw something halfway across my office and THUNK it goes in, or even more exciting, I bounce it off the backboard of the wall and it THUNKS into the garbage can, I mentally award myself with praise and two points. I have no idea what my score is, but I’m winning.

I am entering the time of year where everything piles and piles and piles and threatens to all tumble & crash to the ground into a thousand shards of Things I Used to Love Before They Broke Into Shards. It makes me very intolerant, and slightly homicidal. Witness driving to a birthday lunch, when a woman errantly looked across the street & thought “Hey, it says Don’t Walk, but that old saying ‘the Pedestrian has the Right of Way’ should trump that.” Lady, you are lucky to be alive because as I hurtled down the hill, WITH the green light & right of way, I shouted at you, “Lady, prepare to DIE!” and I really didn’t think I’d do that much damage to my car if I hit her. She looked pretty small, in fact. Fortunately for both of us, she stopped trying to cross, and I became less cross – eventually. I have been yelling about making love to goats (I don’t practice it, but the plastic farm animals in my supervisor’s inbox have started it up), and my jaw is getting tighter and tighter. I chip my front teeth in my sleep. My dentist said re: the last chip, “It gives you personality”, to which I replied, “I don’t NEED more personality with my teeth, I have PLENTY to start with.” He did not offer to cap me up, and I can’t afford capping anyway. However, it’s cafeteria plan time, so hey, let’s pencil it in for next year! I did ask if we could do titanium caps, so as to curb the chipping. Apparently not. Maybe if I went to the BlingBling place over by Bannister Mall I could get Hooked Up. Basically, I’m sensing that I need MORE TIME to myself and I also need to get my shit together. Our house looks like we’re trying to get picked for one of those “Clean Sweep” shows, except I don’t have time to take pictures of it, and if I had to enter the Make-A-Wish foundation, I’d fervently hope that someday I’ll put my laundry away & actually get it all done! The great news is that I care less. I tell myself I don’t care, but it’s not completely true. I care, because it’s part of my wiring system. I am just re-conditioning myself to put in a filter, so I don’t care about EVERYthing, and some things have more weight than others. This practice, I believe, is commonly labeled “prioritizing”!

Tomorrow, I am sleeping until 7 a.m., because that damned Witty Knitter is out via email, and everyone else can just wait their happy asses out for it to arrive in the mail. Peeps, it’s called a computer and an information superhighway. Think about gettin’ on it and off the wagon trail. Just make sure you look both ways before crossing, because you never know who’s speeding down the hill right atcha, and you daresn’t cross against the lights……

My hands are tired from knitting, my body is tired from – well, I’m not sure what its excuse is. I only got 18 tulips planted (hey! I have 98 to plant, so only 80 to go! wooo hooo!) and it was arduous, even with the HoundDog Digger, because the ground is so wet it won’t release from the cone that you stomp into the ground. And the Hound Dog Digger is not the lightest piece of equipment (which is good, I prefer sturdy over cheap & bendy), so whacking it four-six times after stomping a plug of earth into it, was just a little more than I’d bargained for. Plus Polly was observing from her kennel & whining, which made my nerves more than tired, it made them rubbed the wrong way & grouchy! It’s funny, I’m putting in “Sophisticated Ladies” by the dog kennel, and Mike observed last night, “For the doggies to look at?” I said, “Yes, because they’re Sophisticated Bitches.” There’s nothing like fifth-grade humor among friends.

There may be an elann purchase in the near future, because I’m not enraptured with some of the colors I bought for the flowers for my Folly. I have a purple & a lime that I do like, and I think I’ll stick with a similar color scheme that the designer had, adding a deep fuschia rose, and a navy blue. I have a bright red, pale yellow, and sky blue that I’d ordered, and they don’t make sense now. Oooooh, but an afghan could incorporate all those colors, eh? LOL, I just can’t stop. Maybe baby sweaters would be better. But it’s handwash. Hm. Well, I’m sure I’ll find some use for it all. :) It’s a sickness, and I’m certifiable. Certifiably tired, that’s for sure. Off to turn the oven on, for my hunting husband is homeward bound, and we’re having salads & pizza for dinner. Yum!

Oh, yes, I’m bad….. I bought yarn ….. more yarn than I planned on buying – but hey, it was all gooooood. The Studio had their awesome sale & I got loads of yarn for lots of projects, and walked out saying, “I’m done buying yarn for a while.” To which Kristin replied, “Yeah! Until next week.”

Well, it’s not even next week and I’m freebasing all this Tartelette I found on eBay, because the prices there are way cheaper than even “on sale” at my LYS, and I smell holiday scarves as presents. (My yarn nose is amazing. A veritable bloodhound.) I seriously am going to have to be stopped. If only Two Rivers was a more glamorous retreat. I need like a detox yarn spa, where I bring my OWN stash, but get massages & manicures & pedicures & tasty healthy meals cooked for me and it only costs, like, $30.

The Folly is humming along, I thought the acreage knitting was really going to be annoying, but in fact, it’s going pretty well. I grabbed out some of my flower yarn to take along tonight for a small project if Game Night is not holding my interest. (That’s the kind of guest I am. You’re having me over for a game night? Well in case I get bored with what you have going on, I have my knitting, right here! LOL!) I’m looking forward to Genghis Khan beforehand, apparently the new one up north is pretty spiffy. I need to stop at Home Depot on the way to Roger’s and get a Hound Dog bulb planter, since tomorrow is Tulip Day for me, and I’m not kneeling & planting 100 bulbs!

Had my first session of the Felted Door Mitten class today, the students were all at different levels, but I feel pretty confident that they’ll all be able to go off & make some serious progress between now and the 20th. I enjoy teaching, and it’s fun to teach new things that delight people, like a knitted cast-on, for instance. Two students decided it was the Greatest Thing Ever! It’s rewarding to have that kind of enthusiasm. And I got paid for my classes, so it actually made me feel a little better about this Yarn Binge I’ve been on!

Better get dressed & going if I’m to be on time…. for once!

Good night, sweet Jesus, why do I love to go to scary movies? I went to “Saw” with Roger & David yesterday, and Hollywood has figured out if you’re at the scary movie, then you are a perfect taret for ALL the scary movie previews! I was ready to bolt before the movie even started, what with crazy redneck killers and dead people talking and the only preview that wasn’t terrifying was a funny movie coming up starring Bill Murray & Owen Wilson as deep sea divers on an illegal quest to kill a shark that killed Bill’s best friend. Bill Murray in a wetsuit, doing a little hip-shifting dance, is enough to make even the terrified laugh.

Saw, on the other hand, was a lot like “Se7en” or however that movie was spelled, and it yet it wasn’t as perfect as Seven. The acting was a bit lame-o. Felt more like watching a college production desperately trying to be Mamet, than a big ol’ Hollywood movie. Even so, there were some taught, freaky-ass scary scenes, and of course, the mongo big twist at the end that was just so implausable, at least, it made me less fearful that psychopaths are, at this very moment, plotting my torturous demise. When I saw Seven, I had to go home and check EVERYTHING. Closets, even full closets, under the bed, everywhere. That movie flipped me out, and in part because we didn’t know what it was about, just that maybe it was a mystery/detective movie, and so what that we’re going to see it at 11:00 at NIGHT.

Onward & upward. I finished the cutest little booties for our United Way fundraiser, I will get a pic posted soon. I’m going to try & whip out another pair (different style) before Wednesday. We had a few trick-or-treaters last night, and none were teenagers, thankfully. I think when you get to the age you can mow lawns, it’s time to buy your own candy.

I thought today was Polly’s Burfday, however, James thought it was the 4th. I told James we would just have to celebrate her Burfday ALL WEEK because she is JUST THAT SPECIAL. Polly demonstrated her agreement by licking my chin. I just checked her papers, and Wednesday, the 3rd, is her 1 year Burfday. I love that dog a little too much.

Back to work. I swear, the next seven weeks (hey, there’s that number again) better go by smoothly or I might just have some BlueFlu.

When you wear glasses & have to sneeze, and you instinctively turn to your left, and sneeze violently, right into the fan? That sets the tone for the whooooole day.