Really. I mean truly and really and this is the end and who keeps throwing the dice on my game? Weren’t we done, when the light bill charge of $1600 was attempted? And wasn’t the icing getting the Pizza Hut collection notice? And then, then! I thought I’d discovered the silver dragees on my Dung Heap Cupcake, that was Saturday night, when my bank called to ask if I’d been buying things all day on the Internet. From various newspapers around the country. Ah, no.

Apparently someone got hold of my Visa check card numbers, and had a heyday, placing online classified ads. But I am SLEUTHY. I have someone in the accounting department at one of these newspapers checking INTO it, you cockaroacha from hell! So I will know exactly what your thieving ass is peddling! (However, sadly, you are not related to the Bastard Burglars. They are going to get acid enemas in hell if I have any say in the matter.) But we got the card shut down, and so on and so forth and the waves on the shore and we beat on against the current, and yes, it’s all very F.Scott Fitzgerald except with loads more cursing and not enough gin, and we (the Royal We) thought, “Sigh! Life has served me a very bad Dung Heap Cupcake.” But I at least thought we were done.

And now today, I got a statement from Discover, chiding me for being so late and asking me to pay the money the Bastard Burglars spent on gas right after they left my (emptied) home that afternoon back in June. And the Super Duper Crackerjack Fraud Investigation department wasn’t open when I called and I got some damp-behind-the-ears representative who stammered and apologized and gave me a number to call tomorrow, and told me two conjectured reasons why I would now suddenly be getting this bill, one of which is that they’ve decided I indeed DO owe the charges and of course that set my hair on fire, and now I have to go knit myself some boxing gloves, perhaps out of Noro, because it is truly so beautiful, but I’d sure hate to get blood on hand-knit boxing gloves. And I don’t have time to knit a pair of boxing gloves overnight, despite the rumors I keep illegal workers in the attic, and I am tired of fighting and battling these horrid distractions that pull me away from healing up the things inside I NEED to cope with, and I do not want to eat Dung Heap Cupcakes anymore. Apparently mine also have edible glitter on them, and within a week I expect to discover some marzipan figurines that sit on top. I hate marzipan.

And I’m mean when I’m out of patience and I don’t edit my tongue and I’m angry at having to fight large companies and police departments and collection agencies and have to stand in government lines to get replacement paperwork and being vigilant is tiring, and I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. I didn’t steal anyone’s worldly possessions, I didn’t run up fraudulent charges, and yet it is all my mess to clean up, but we know how I do fight for justice and righting wrongs, and attempting to keep things fair, whatever that might mean, and that, my friends, is the only thing that keeps me pushing forward, but it still makes me angry. And tired. And sick of this fucking cupcake. And yes, I still give the mean old lady across the street the finger, every day, when I go out to get the paper. I do it subtley, and it’s essentially at her house, not her in particular, but in the end, it’s the small victories that carry us through the darkest of times.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.”

My friend Kristin has made the assertion on more than one occasion that I have illegal immigrant children living in my attic and I make them do my knitting. What can I say? Some people drink; I knit like a fiend.

I give you the final six blocks of Lizard Ridge:

And after I finished the final block, I began the arduous fun of seaming. As I stated earlier, I’m sewing three blocks into a strip, and then blocking them. After they’re done blocking, they get seamed into the final afghan. The seaming was a Battle Royale – I did my first three following the Principles of Sewing, which in this case, is WRONG. You can’t line up the ridges to their mirror end – these pieces fit together like a puzzle! So where there’s an outward curve, you must line it up with an inward curve. I’m sure this information is in the directions/pattern? I realized this morning I didn’t bother to look at it again. So I ripped those two seams out. I was using a tapestry needle & trying various stitches – whip stitch and semi-mattress stitch – neither made me happy. Since I’m a pretty speedy slip-stitch crocheter, I tried that out. That looked a bit better, though given the nature of the pattern & the yarn, you will still see the dark purple Cascade peeking through. It’s not like I’ve got a lot of “color concerns” going on, using all these different colors!

Once I got going on seaming, I couldn’t stop. Here’s the finished pile of three-block strips:

Notes Thus Far & What I’d Do Differently:
-I needed two extra skeins of Noro to finish the afghan; it might be a function of me being a looser knitter.
-There’s been discussion about doing the afghan in panels, not blocks – I think it would work, and obviously would cut down on the amount of time needed to seam. (Though you’d need a bigger space for blocking.) I think you’d want to plan out your color choices a little more if you did it this way.
-I’m still wrestling with the idea of putting a border on this. If I do a border, I fear it will require crocheting, which I’m not a fan of.
-Also wrestling with putting on a backing – possibly wool felt? A backing will require some sort of quilting – I was thinking maybe 6 buttons, placed in the center of each four-square. I’m not sure if I’ll just whip-stitch it to the backing? There’s a lot to figure out if I go the backing route…. or at least I need to get those kids back out of the attic……

The local CBS station just ran a story about a guy who broke into a local sub shop up north, went into the basement – and ate a bunch of raw cookie dough. And then passed out. They found him in that (presumably sated) state – wearing only a t-shirt. I’ve been desperately trying to find the link to the whole story, but it’s not up anywhere yet.

Let’s go out on a limb & hazard a guess: Stoner dude?

I took a bunch of pictures the other day on my drive home – nothing earth-shattering, but I wanted to capture some of the fall colors that line my commute on Ward Parkway. There’s a tree by McGonigal’s Meat Market that’s been particularly spectacular. Even though it’s blurry, I like it – because everything does go by quickly. Time, the seasons, life experiences, fall leaves… and with the rains and wind this week, there won’t be much left on the trees and we’ll be in Winter weather mode before we know it.

Even now, I look back on April, May and June of this year and think, “It went so fast. He went so fast.” I make my choices differently, now. I see things differently. Time is a limited commodity, and it’s precious. I don’t have time or patience for things, people, situations that sap my energy or my time. Our leaves are only on the tree a short time.

We just got back from one of the funniest, strangest, chaotic rep lunches to date. I can’t even describe it, but the three of us (agency side) were in top form with our random topics of discussion and it led to some very funny conversations. Our IT person here wants to get a channel on XM and broadcast us for profit. (Of course, we’d have to be on XM so as to not get fined by the FCC every hour for the swearing.) And yes, this is the same IT person who left the seminary, so we just thank all of the deities that he finds us amusing, rather than offensive. In any event, just like lunch, today’s blog is a complete randomizer…..

-I need to put my license plates on my car, and I’m thinking about getting the frame/cover that you put over it, just to make it that much harder for someone to steal my tags. Not that cutting each tag into 16 smaller pieces with a box cutter isn’t enough of a deterrent. (By the way, it’s Bring Your Box Cutter To Work Day. Did you participate?)

-My hair FEELS good today, however, it doesn’t look very good today. I don’t know what’s going on, and I guess I’ll just be grateful I don’t sit in front of a mirror.

-I am alternating between being as frozen as a popsicle and burning up. Either the HVAC is incredibly inconsistent, or I’m going through menopause about ten years early. Or I’m coming down with bird flu. I hear the threat is back. Anything to swing the elections, hm, fearmongers?

-OH! YEAH! Speaking of elections, here’s the conversation my husband and I had last night.
“Did you steal the sign out their yard? That sign?”
“NO!”
“Did you? It’s been gone for about a week.”
“NO, James, I did NOT steal the signs.”
“You can tell me, you know. I can’t testify against you. It’s the 5th amendment.”
“It is NOT the 5th amendment, that’s YOUR right not to incriminate yourself. That thing’s not an amendment. And NO! I did not steal it!”
“Well, you can tell me if you did.”

FOR THE RECORD. As much as I detested the signs (anti-stem-cell research, anti-abortion), I never took them. I fantasized about it, I envisioned running over the signs with my car, but it was a delightful afternoon when I drove home and saw they were gone.

And that, my friends, is your Wednesday Randomizer, a little peek into the maelstrom that is the inner-workings and pathways of my brain! You may return to your work (Ok, internet surfing.)

All I’ve done today is bitch. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Some of it was work-related, most of it has been related to the burglary, and the fact that three months later, someone is writing checks on our closed account. GOOD FUCKIN’ TIMES.

Yesterday afternoon, a little collection notice showed up, claiming we’d written a check for some Pizza Hut back in early October and that the check had been returned. Duh. The only time in my LIFE I’ve spent around $61 on pizza is when I moved. Apparently our little idiot friends who tried to pay their $1600 light bill ordered their bitch asses some Stuffed Crust Monster New York Bitch Ass Hand-Tossed to celebrate. I fucking hate these people so much, all I want to do is slap them. SLAPPITY SLAP. God, it would feel good. And maybe make them do manual labor. And take several things from them that they really like. Maybe then the universe would balance out.

In any event, it fueled a new set of Rage Pistons inside. I called the police again, and was more than a little disgruntled to have to leave a voicemail. And then was appalled with myself for the message I left, because I? DID NOT STOP WHINING. I couldn’t. I just went ON and ON and ON and the hardships and the inconvenience and the lack of action and the questioning of how much longer do I have to endure this whack ass situation?

And when I hung up, anyone in my vicinity heard me mutter, “Mother FUCK the po-lice.” Because if you want to get something done, it’s good to quote Dr.Dre around the po-po.

Well, they called me back, at least the front desk lady did, and she tried to tell me it had gone to fraud. UH-NUH-UH, lady. I’ve officially hit Terrier Mode on this, and I am not letting up, because if I do, my head will explode off my body, and I’d prefer that not to happen. So she goes off and thirty minutes later, a Sergeant calls me back. He’s apparently new, and that seems to be the saving grace. He used to work in fraud. He sees these latest developments as LEADS and is actually pushing to get something done. Making calls himself. Holy shit. I become a completely different person in the space of 60 seconds. I even brought up the cell phone package they tried to buy when this first happened. He has no knowledge of this, nothing in the file – despite the fact I went over ALL of it with a detective. Let me interrupt myself to tell you one solid thing: GET NAMES. I document like a muthah, but I did not have everyone’s name written down, and that’s crucial. There’s no accountability without it. And you know what he said? “It’s no problem to get a subpoena, I can do that in no time at all.” OH MAH GOD. I was torn between gnashing my teeth in a fit for the lost time, and kissing him, because this has been all on me to push, to prod, with limited power, all this time and finally, someone’s doing something. ANYthing. He gave me his fax number and I sent over all that information as well. Jesus.

So then we went to lunch, at Chili’s, and were seated next to eight policemen. It was all I could do not to take them all down (unrelated, recall my deep-seated fear around police officers that I will lose control and try to take their guns.) Kristin offered herself up to be wounded so she could go home for the day. She’s selfless, really. And then they gave me the wrong dressing again, or now they’ve changed the recipe, because it’s no longer Honey Lime, it’s Honey Lime Mustard That You Hate And It’s All A Vast Conspiracy To Make You Crazy. However, this time, the waitress did not argue with me and we found a reasonable solution (Balsamic Vinaigrette! It’s tasty!) and I did not have the hatred displaced errantly in her direction.

Now I’m just looking for other things to take on, as long as I’m in this mode. I’m like Joan of Arc, crusading through, except now that I think about it, things didn’t really end well for Joan, so I might need to re-think my role as a Vanquisher of Evil and Terrier Proponent For Justice. Maybe I’ll get some Thai food for dinner. Red Curry Beef: soothing the savage beast.

I took today off because I had to get license plates for my new car. That in of itself wouldn’t make you think “Uh, yeah! Whole vacation day! Who’s Lazy?!” – but this was one of those sequential things, like when you give a mouse a cookie. (Mmm, ok, let’s not talk about mice.) Anyway, I needed to get plates. As long as I’ve made the trek there, I should update my driver’s license and have my current address on it. I thought this would take the same requirements as renewing, so I perused the website and discovered I would need seventeen different pieces of paper proving my existence in the universe and my place of residence – one of which was my social security card.

Which, of course, was stolen in the burglary. So, now we back that thing up (call me Big Daddy) and put a trip to the Social Security office in front of the DMV. I thought about wrapping myself in red tape last night, just to mentally prepare. Let me just say that the DMV part of this excursion was a cakewalk. Though I did realize I’d forgotten my insurance card in the car, and on my way back to the DMV, I did speedwalk so I’d get in front of a very frail old lady who looked like she was going in to renew her license so she could drive to the cemetery and die. There wasn’t too much waiting, but enough for me to notice the fact the staff at Ye Olde DMV is getting into the Halloween spirit. They have giant monsters and skeletons (like, people-sized and three-dimensional) and the eyes light up and sing. Sort of like Billy Bass on a whole new level. And yellow caution tape draped all over the posts and dividers that corral you into line. That’s not what I expected. AT all.

Speaking of things you don’t expect, nor did I expect to have my purse searched by an armed security guard at the Social Security office. Thankfully, I did not have to remove my shoes, because it’s freezing here and the floor was tile. The actual process to get a new card was straightforward, and I didn’t have to wait too long, but long enough to see another armed guard stroll through, who later wished me a nice day in the parking lot – not that I could park there, because all the spaces were full. The whole armed-guard thing, juxtaposed with the mostly-elderly clientele, was the weirdest part of the whole morning. I marvel at my own naïveté sometimes. As I was driving off, I couldn’t believe I said it out loud, but I muttered, “Freedom isn’t free, is it Jennifer?” And I answered myself with, “It’s not the same kind of freedom anymore, is it?”

So, I’ve been cranking over the past couple of weeks, and have two more sets of photos – 12 more blocks – to show for the freneticism! (Is that even a word? It oughta be.)

Since these photos were taken, I have one more block completed, and another on the needles – five total blocks left to finish! Woohoo!

I’m holding off on sewing any together yet, because I want to get alllll my blocks done and then arrange them so there’s some degree of color balance. As for finishing, I’m planning to seam three together in a strip, then block the strips, then do the side seams. I’ve been weaving in the ends with each block when I’m done, so as to not have a Knitter’s Finishing Nightmare waiting for me – which of course would stand in the way of me actually completing it!

I also find my mind wandering to some sort of backing for the afghan. I’m not sure what that would be – a soft wool panel, perhaps? But then I’d have to do some degree of quilting/spot-tie panels, and that might be evolving the project to far beyond where it needs to go.

After all, I have more yarn just screeching to be knit!

Ack. It’s been A Morning already. Suzy’s barking woke me up, and I let her outside; I didn’t go with her, because it’s freakin’ cold and raining. As I’m standing by the back door, I hear, “SQUEAK! SQUEEAK!” coming from the breezeway….. the preferred Mouse Habitat, apparently. Oh lordy. And that’s what she was barking at, I believe. I thought I heard scuffling last night, but there was nothing in the glue traps. Things change overnight.

I won’t go into great detail, however, you can imagine that I was wishing mightily that the JWo was home! I wrestled in my head through all my options, but in the end, I needed to quickly and humanely dispatch said mouse, and honestly, I just don’t have a future in vermin control. Let’s just say I was also wishing I had threaded my robe tie at this point. But no, it was still in the laundry basket and I was relying on arm pressure to keep it shut. Half-naked mouse bashing on the front step is probably someone’s idea of a sexy good time, and yes, I’m trying to bring sexy back, but for me, this does not work.

I’m going shopping. It’s the only good antidote I can think of right now to turn this day around!

Long-term readers know my youthful obsession with All Things Pioneer, my desire to wear a bonnet; I often drifted off to sleep, imagining myself in the back of the covered wagon, off on another adventure. I must have read a lot of period pieces right around the same time I owned every Holly Hobby doll to have such a confluence of old-timey goodness influencing my youthful psyche. Everyone should just be grateful I didn’t sustain my love affair with calico.

One of the things I remember reading about, and thus wanted to have one myself, was a mustard poultice. I don’t even like mustard, really, and the descriptions of having a mustard poultice applied were never glamorous – people writhed in pain – but hey. This is the same girl who wanted the mumps.

I seem to find myself doing most of my grieving for my father in the car, on the way to work. Whether it’s a particular song that triggers memories, or just feeling like I have a 15-minute capsule, that has a definite closure (because as understanding as they are, I doubt my boss would get on-board with the All-Crying, All-Day-Long plan for work.) During this time, I think about how this pain feels, how I would describe it, what makes it different each time, why it only hurts sometimes yet is inexplicably, always there. What will fix it? What would ease it? And my ever-wandering mind ran right over and pulled the bonnets off the pile and held up “poultice”.

This sadness, this pain, it feels like another layer was inserted into the existing layers of my epidermis. A bruised, blue-black-orange layer that pools and slides and can be as thin as paper or as thick as a brick. And a poultice is a hot mixture that is spread on the skin, opening the pores and drawing the illness out and smothering it in its own mass. To the best of my knowledge, there is no poultice for grief. I spoke with my therapist about my sadness, and told him that (a while back) a very caring person suggested I should increase my medication, talk to my doctor, if the crying and whatnot continued. I told him I felt myself resisting it, just the idea of trying to mask these emotions made me envision my heels digging in. It’s not that I enjoy how I feel; I just think it would only delay me “getting through”. Even though intellectually, I know, there isn’t a point where you get to be rid of this pain, ever. It gets easier, it doesn’t haunt or pierce or feel like a kick in the stomach; at least that’s the general consensus from those who’ve carried their pain longer. I trust them. And I’m not debilitated by my grief – I go to work, I function, I even laugh hysterically at Bubb Rubb and his whistletip interview.

I still cry fiercely and hard when I realize how fast everything happened, when I see the fall colors my father so desperately wanted to live to see, when the sharp hard truth that he is dead cuts through the jumble and flotsam of everyday life. And when those tears fall, and I feel the huge sadness under my skin, I wish for a poultice, to pull some of it out of me, so it won’t hurt quite so badly, it will make the soul-sucking pain end a little sooner. Time, time time. The universal healer. Oddly enough, the song that has made me cry every time I’ve heard it? Time After Time. Just the line, “If you’re lost, you can look, and you will find me”. Because I know, if I look hard enough, even in the recesses of my mind, he is there. Probably putting mustard on a brat, just to make fun of me. But he’d like that the word “poultice” is still in my vocabulary.