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.

I’m trying to imagine my aged self, recollectin’ and chillin’ and throwing lines like “Ay yi yi, it’s the motherfucking D-R-E, Dr. Dre, motherfucker!” when I’m sitting in the social room with my other knittin’ bizatches. It sounds strange, but I can see it.

I’m on a HUGE learning curve this week. I won’t sugar-coat it, if I don’t think I’m going to use a particular knowledge, my brain doesn’t bother. I’ve got so many ideas & craziness floating around in there, it doesn’t need anything else. But obviously, I need to learn the car stuff. So I’ve been doing that. Then, my work peep gives me a nice lesson in iTunes & how I can listen to other people’s music at the office, and so I’m sitting her rockin’ out to Dr. Dre (motherfucker) Chronic 2001, courtesy of one of my homies. I have two awesome stand-out memories with this album, and I hope they stay with me until I die, because when I listen to the music & see those moments, it’s like turning a light on inside & I smile, and feel great affection for my friends and amusement at the situation. (Part of the amusement is that I’m listening to Dr. Dre in hte first place.) The first memory is JWo and I listening to it in my old apartment on the plaza, and playing dominoes. Good, good times. The second is when Liz, Ashley & I rolled out to the company picnic with it cranked, and we all had bad attitudes and it was just so funny & fitting and SO not the personality of that agency/the owner/most of the employees. Mmmmm or really three white gals from the Midwest, but please. Disagree & I bust a cap in yo ass.

Speaking of fitting in, it’s a funny thing, isn’t it? We get such pressure and influence to be a part of something, and yet we reward & laud independence and creativity and standing out from the crowd. Being different can be the most demonized and also the most lauded characteristic in a human being. Most of the people I hang out with and adore are not cookie-cutter type folks – and I’m getting in a minivan with five of them tomorrow morning! :) I hope they’ll let me play some rap music on our drive…..

If my driving in the new car is any indication, I’m entering my twilight years. I think I finally started to relax the last five minutes of my drive home tonight. It’s not that the Murano is THAT much bigger than the Civic? It’s the combination of about ten things: I feel like a rock star in it (an 80-year-old rock star), I think everyone should be looking at my car because it IS so pretty, I can’t tell where the front of my car actually ends, I am still getting the rythym of the acceleration and braking, the car does not even require I put a key INTO it, which is very discombobulating, and sometimes I think the car could be smarter than me.
Nah. I will never yield to the machines!

But I have been a gingerly-ginger driver & I look forward to getting more comfortable in it. It’s beautiful. I promise, I’ll get some pictures, but I’ve had deadlines, people.

Which brings us to Manic. Hm. Yes, tonight had something of “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie” quality to it, as I realized it was going to rain. So I told the Wo I was going to pull the dog crates that had been in my dad’s truck into the garage. And I went into the garage and started to clear room. Once that was started, it only made sense to make enough room for the new car, too. Shesus. JWo thought I was upstairs crafting and he finally came looking for me & discovered me, filthy & sweaty, going a million miles an hour. So we got everything in the garage, after dinner I did some decluttering & cleaning, and then I finished the umpteen yards of pompom trim sewing, did the iron-ons, filled up bags with goodies, and multi-tasked like crazy.
And now I’m as tired as a 92-year old woman and I best be off to bed. I promise, pictures of crafting & the car are coming. We leave bright & early Friday morning to head to the Quad Cities & I’ve still got to pack. And maybe find some music. And swing by the dealership to drop off one last piece of paperwork. And who knows what else I need to do. I need to squeeze some Wo snuggling in there, too.

Sounds like I need a list! I love lists. And sleeping! And taking my teeth out & putting them in my dog’s mouth!
HAHAHA just kidding. Kinda.

Well, I’ve been up since 5 a.m. today. Not to go for a bracing constitution in the cool morning air, or even a brisk walk on the treadmill in the basement, no, not even to really clean, but to expel all my nervous energy in the general direction of South SouthCraft. Which can obviously be found south of Due West Knitting. Because I can go crazy for crafting, and nothing inspires me like a road trip with all my homies! We’re caravaning (in a minivan!) to the Quad Cities to help our dear Kristin celebrate her wedding.

So I spent the morning doing some furrowed-brow sewing and laboring over different feet for the sewing machine, because I don’t know about you, but I don’t do a lot of pom-pom trim sewing, and yet here I am, sewing yards and yards of pompom trim and the standard presser foot says, “Hello, crazy lady who never gets up this early! I shall bunch the pom poms under my black sproingy thing and you shall furrow your brow and stick yourself with the pearl-topped pins in frustration!” So I gave up with the sewing and decided to take the factory-approach, and just start pinning and deal with the sewing later. Oh, and let’s just note for the record that I’m not sewing with regular thread. No. Metallic polyester and that took several go-rounds to thread ‘er up. But it’s strong! And shiny! And we love shiny.

Then I spent my lunch making another crafty item. I brought tools and supplies from home and I think I scared my boss who dared to come in to my office over lunch and ask me to get him tickets to a concert. Frankly, I don’t mind getting him tickets, but the requests do make me laugh. It’s like people think we get tickets to EVERYthing and if we don’t, we just bend over and print them out our ass. But that’s dessert talk. Anyhoo, I got most everything done, at least for those who are travelling, and I promise, I’ll put up pictures of ALL of this once they’ve been gifted, because it’s kind of a surprise, even though all of my travelling companions read my blog. HI! Start drawing straws RIGHT NOW for the privilege to sit next to ME for 6 hours each way!

Speaking of shiny objects, why the nervous energy? Oh I guess it’s because we bought a NEW CAR!!!! Come on DOWN! Last night the Wo and I drove and haggled and sat for a long time and then signed a whole bunch of papers, and we pick it up tonight, and yes, it’s a 2006 Nissan Murano, dark blue, tan interior (and amusingly I wrote to someone “leather interior, as opposed to that leather exterior”, because nothing says luxury like a burnished leather car.) I am a little agog, a little nervous, a lot excited, and now I have to clean out the garage again.

CIRCLE OF LIFE people. It always leads back to the goddamn garage.

In the quiet, in the dark
When the sadness rushes in
No distractions or obligations
To push it away.

“Time” they say, knowingly.
And I know that They Know.
Time will heal you.
It takes time.
Time is your best friend.

Time time time time time time time time time time time

Don’t they see?
All I have
Is this time, only time,
And with each passing day
Makes the point where you stopped
So much further away.

My truth is a prison
Walled in by sharp rock
That only cuts me
When I try to break out.

All these lessons,
All these truths.
All my tears,
All this time.

I hope they are right.

The women who handle the ActionLine for Kansas City.

Can I just say, every time I’ve called them? They have rocked my world and been very helpful. (Now, one time I got sent on to Sewer and they said I needed to talk to Water, who shipped me back to Sewer, and it took several months to attend to a water pipeline leak on a major street, but I blame those departments, not ActionLine.) They talk to you like you are a sister. SISTER. One of them. And that is, right there, reason to call them every day. Helpful is just the beginning of how they answer the phone. They laugh, they tell you about their dogs, they sympathize and they give it to you straight.

To date though, it’s my friend Beth who got the best response, in regards to the witches on her street (and I say witches, I mean yes, they cast spells and have a hulking “familiar”) who rummage through everyone’s recycling and make a mess: “Girl. She CRAZY.”

I have a feeling if the ActionLine ladies were running the city, we’d get a lot more done…..