Those Knitblog Strumpets of Ingenuity have done it again, with The Knitblog Scavenger Hunt. And it goes something like this:

-Your finds must come from knit blogs.
-You may not use a blog for more than one item-all items must come from different sources.
-Finds can come from current entries or archives.
-You must post your answers with the title of the blogs they were found on and a link to the blog/item (permalinks where appropriate) on your blog. If no permalink is available, give us the post date.
-Do not steal anyone’s bandwidth-which means you should not hotlink pictures.
-You need to comment at JenLa and let them know when you have completed this meme.

My scavenged booty:

1. A blog which you think people have not discovered.

Saunshine. Check out her patterns on the sidebar. I'm really lovin' the Regine, and am very interested in seeing the rest of the lacy tank she's been teasing us with for a couple of days now.

2. A blog whose author lives close to you physically. Just get as close as you can, it’s all relative.

Our beloved T-Bears: Blackdog and Crowing Ram (I know you said just one, but they're a package deal, k?) And yes, I've met them.

3. An unusual or weird animal picture.

From Rabbitch. How did she get them to do dat?

4. An entry that made you laugh and got you strange looks from family or co-workers.

Franklin's soap opera. I had to stop reading it a couple of times because I was filled with murderous writer's envy so I could catch my breath, from laughing so hard.

5. An idea you wish you’d thought of.

It's only good and proper that I go back to The Source on this one.

6. Something you’d like to knit.

Diamond Fantasy Shawl. My first choice was going to be Eris, but there's already been a lot of that pattern going around with this MEME and I'm kind of oppositional like that.

I am not.

7. A picture of something you consider beautiful.

All of Cara's banners at January One. ::In case you didn't know, every time you click onto the site, you get a different one. Go ahead, try it. Click in. Out. Now in, again.::

The girl's got skills.

8. A blog whose author you’d like to one day meet in person.

This is a hard one. There are many, of course. But I'll have to go with Kimmy.

9. A blog of someone you have already met in person.

There haven't been that many real life meetins' for me. I've come real-time face-to-face with Her Knitterly Highness The Handknitter, on several auspicious occasions. ::That girl's got skills too. Hi Sarah::

My Pretty Smart Pony
After The Cakers went to bed last night, I came across this:



At first I found it disturbing. After a few moments of ponder, however, it made a perfectly disturbing kind of sense.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Pair of Pants
Work this week (so far) has been so insanely, ass-kickingly, crisis-oriented busy, I'm actually enjoying it. It's like having a gaping, raw canker sore that you can't stop poking with your fork tongue. You hate the pain, but love the resulting racing heart.

What I'm trying to say is that I'll be low riding 'round here until the weekend (aka start of spring break).

You need chaos in your pants to give birth to a dancing star.- Nietzche's Tailor

Post post note: That last post messed up something on my alignments or margins, so I'm going to one-post-per-page until the bad seed gets bumped down.

Labels: MEME, My Daughter Scares Me

When a man is tired of pants, he is tired of life; for there is in pants all that life can afford.-A Webpage Devoted to Putting Pants on Famous Quotations*

I have finally panted my way across the the finish line in the one-woman race against logic. Yes, the 4-6 Hour pants project from Last-Minute Knitted Grifts is done. I didn't keep track of how many hours it took me to finish (who does that??). I do know that I cast on three weeks ago and didn't knit every day in that time frame. I figure I have at least 20 hours invested in the project.

Anyway, this is a good news story for you and for me. The good news for you is that after this post, you will waist no time further reading my crotchety tirades on the topic. The good news for me is that my family can now safely return home. I've missed them.

All that being said, before we get the final product, I'm gonna need to bitch just a little more. ::Remember, I said "after this post, you will waist no time further ..."::

The Finish Whine
First of all, I need to say that this is my maiden voyage in trying to explain a process through captioned photos. Secondly, I need to say that I am a person who is easily confused. In other words, my attempt did not go well.

The directions for finishing the waistband include the use of live stitches still on the needle, being joined to purl bumps (I keep wanting to call them Britney Bumps), previously marked with scrap yarn.

The following series of photos illustrate the process as described in the book. In the first picture I am supposed to slip one stitch off the knitting needle with a sewing needle which has been armed with a length of yarn that is three times the circumference of the waistband, which came out to 60 inches. Of yarn. Threaded through a sewing needle.

After I slip the stitch onto the sewing needle, I'm supposed to pick up the first bump, and join them together by pulling the 60 inches of thread through the stitch and the bump, all while holding the waistband down.











Once the stitch and the bump become one lump, you are supposed to pull the scrap yarn from the bump. For the record, I hadn't gotten that far in the above photo series.

Here's the boggler: That was just one stitch, which means there were 115 more stitches to go. Each requiring the same exact treatment, to be commenced after I cleared up the rat's nest left from the first one.

That's when I had an epiphany: This is some fucked-up repugnant shit.

So, after detangling the quagmire, I wrestled the once live and now dead stitch from Britney's first Bump, revived it with some mouth to mouth (which may have included a bit of Vanilla-Rum-and-Vernors-tainted drool, and put it back on the knitting needle.

Then I did something really crazy. I cast off all the stitches.

Here they are, being sewn to The Bumps. Quick and easy.



Here's a close-up of the final results. Ain't she purty?:



Now the burning question: What were the designers of this pattern thinking? Is the field of knit pattern design becoming the new playground for sick fucks who enjoy toying with the trusting knitter's sanity?

Now, the second burning question: How many of the 4-6 hours were assigned to this task?

I'm tellin' ya, if I would have had to endure 115 more experiences like I had with the first stitch, somebody woulda died.

And honestly, by this point in the post I had hoped to have some clever and witty observations. But I'm so over this pattern. And the topic. And I'm tired and had a bad work week past, and have a worse one coming. So with that, I introduce to you, the final product:



Oh Pants, thou art sick! The invisible worm That flies in the night, in the howling storm Has found out thy seams Of crimson joy. And with his dark secret love, does thy thread destroy. -Same Website

*I had no idea there is an internet subculture devoted to replacing key words in quotations with the word "pants." The quotes at the above-linked website are pretty stupid at first glance, but by the time I finished the list, I was giggling through tears. Okay, maybe that was the stress crying. I had a bad day at work on Friday. I can't write about it, of course. And there's probably more waiting for me tomorrow. So you go hug somebody. I got a knitting book to burn.

Labels: When Knitting You is Hurting Me

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.-Groucho Marx

Last Friday I was walking past the high school at the very time the varsity basketball players were being dropped off to catch a bus for the big game. Regional finals.

As I stood at the curb of the drive-way and watched the mom-driven cars with the win-driven passengers pass me by, I started to cry. Even though the brief surge of emotion caught me off guard, I quickly identified the source. Time.Flying.

See, I'm having trouble wrapping my pea brain around the fact that it was just over a year ago that I wrote this post about my son's last high school basketball game of all our lives. The game that set in motion the Perpetual Snot Fest That Was My Face, well into June.

I can't believe that it's coming up on one year since I started drinking heavily planning my son's graduation open house, plans that included a little Trippin'Down Memory Lane .

In about six weeks my son will conclude his freshman year of college and come home for the summer, to bug the ever lovin' shit right outta me. ::He's a colossal HBO hog.:: But the real emotional kicker for me has been The Cakers getting her draft papers for kindergarten, in the mail.

My baby. Starting kindergarten (providing she passes the physical). And me just pretending it ain't so. See, I know how this story ends, as described above. Only by the time she goes to college, I'll be feeble-minded. And off my rocker to boot. Late-onset Post-Traumatic Scrapbooking Disorder, they'll call it.

I have been preoccupied lately with this time thing. I've been feeling like that last clip in the final episode of Six Feet Under, where they fast forward through time for each of the characters,while Clare drives away at the speed of car. That's how I feel. I'm Clare's car. Same ol same ol, while the rest of my world is flying by, and eventually away.

Ack. I really wasn't going to get so fucking dramatic today. My original thoughts for this post were about my chronic fear of getting old and catching the same Mom Butt Disease that the lady on the Pizza commerical has. You know, the one who sprints down the street while carrying a pizza? They make it look like her life is so busy that her husband can't stop the car to pick up a pizza. The real story is that her husband is trying to leave her and her ol' lady khaki ass.

Getting Into My Pants.
I'm done with the pants, except for some weird ass shit I gotta do with the waistband. I have been putting this off for two days, and I'm sure I'll go five. But here's what I got so far:



The hole for the waist cord is about as gnarly as the crotch hole. I didn't use the cable cast on this time because the yarn ends up on the wrong side of the needle and, well, I didn't really care.

The Question
Is Cheesy Blogging better than No Blogging At All?

All right people. It's official. Work is kicking my ass. Again. I knew it was coming. It happens every year at this time, in the world of speshul ed. Because I blew my I-Can't-Blog-Good-No-More whine wad on The Test, I thought I'd take a more subversive tact, which is to distract readers from the lack (absence?) of interesting, current fodder, by linking to a past post which may be unfamiliar to new readers, and hopefully forgotten by youse faithful.

In fact, it was one year ago today that I pulled my first official cheese post, by rerunning a post from the previous year; an ode to my husband on his birthday. ::Happy Birthday Honey. Zoom.:: I won't link to that, because even I have my cheese link limitations. But it is a good read. Both times (i.e. March 22, 2004 and 2005).

An Asside: Has anyone else noticed that crime shows on TV are starting to borrow story lines from Scooby Doo episodes? Can you spell Saturated Market?

Labels: Deep Shit, Passages

Crotchless Friday
Remember how I was wondering which time zones the test knitters for the baby denim pants were flying between when they created them in 4-6 hours? Well, I finally figured out that the 4-6 hours is how long it takes the emergency suicide crew to talk a person who is trying to knit this pattern, down off the roof.

In other words, the joining of these two legs in happy pantimony was not an easy task. It probably didn't help that I didn't understand the instructions:

Join Legs
With 16" circular needles, knit across *so many* stitches of leg on needles, cast on 5 stitches using the cable cast-on method, transfer stitches of the second leg to a 12" circular needle and knit *so many* stitches of second leg, cast on 5 sts using cable cast-on, knit remaining *so many* stitches of first leg, all on 16" circular needles.

First of all, that is one long-ass sentence. Second of all, that is one really,really long-ass sentence, which didn't make much sense to me.

The biggest problem I had is that the first set of cable cast-on leaves the added stitches at the beginning of the next row. But the rest of the instructions imply that they are at the end of the last row. Actually the instructions imply much, including that the knitter has done this kind of thing before.

After following the instructions to the best of my ability, what they told me I should be knitting next, was not what I was looking at on the needles. The two sets of five added on stitches were side-by-side when they should have been across from one another. Right?

I looked online for awhile but didn't find any complaints or further explanations, so figured it must be me. And if I'm the problem, I'm the cure. So I dejoined and separated and did it my way, which was to look at the picture and guess.

I'm happy to say, I practically pulled it off:



Looks good, you say? It really doesn't. It's all raggedy at the join and there's this bar of yarn that stretches cross the hole. See?



I guess it's still hard to see. Let me add a visual aid:



Honestly, I could give a rat's bung hole that my crotch is a little tough and stringy. I figure what doesn't come out in the wash can be addressed with some well-placed poking at the hole with a sewing needle and thread.

I'll keep you posted.
You may now uncross your legs.

A Little Air of the Dog
Lest someone accuse me of being all about knitting, all the time ::snort:: here's some St. Paddy's Day glory, hung over from last night. For Sandy .

E is for The End of the Trail Tale

I grew up in a working poor, urban neighborhood, walking distance from downtown Gr*nd Rap*ds. Our house was at the bottom of a hill, at the end of a one-block, dead-end street. Next to our house was a wooded lot we called The Woods (100 x 300 ft, and far less wood than weed).

Anyway.

Most of the houses on my block were built around 1900, while a couple legendary structures were built before the turn of the century. The last three houses built on our street included our house, the house next door, and a four-family apartment building directly across the street from us. I haven’t been able to get a hold of my mom to verify, but I'm pretty sure our house was built in the 1920’s.

I’m sorry for the all the detail, but you’ll soon understand the relevancy.

Word on the street was that before the block was developed for residential, The Woods was a junk yard. As a child, I dug for buried treasure, and on rare occasions would come up with something cool, like a colored-glass apothecary bottle. Or a fork. For the most part, my Earth Booty was limited to pottery chips and rotted scraps of drapery.

When I was about 10 years old, I went rubbish rooting in new, uncharted territory; the drainage ditch across the street, on the apartment side* of The Woods.

That's where I found this:



If not for the fact that I was 10 years old and thought the guy on the horse was part duck,I probably would have left it in the ravine. When I brought it home to show my mom I half-expected her to yell at me for bringing trash into the house.

Au contraire.
She was thrilled.

Not only did the piece fit nicely with her antique décor (remember my mom’s chest?), she was mostly excited that this corroded, stanky duck/man/horse thing was a replica of a famous sculpture titled The End of the Trail

“It's A Remington,” she said, in a tone that suggested my jaw would be hitting the floor, shortly. Jaw remained intact, on account of my thinking a Remington was a razor blade.

“Of course, it’s not worth anything now, because of the rust, but it was probably worth a lot of money, at one time. It’s one of Remington’s most famous works.” ::It was not until years later that I learned the piece in question was actually A Fraser .::

When my mom asked if she could have it, I said “sure.” I didn’t get the big attraction anyway. While she commenced to chipping away the loose rust with a butter knife, I asked her the meaning of the duck’s head. After hearing that the duck snout was actually a clump of hair, I still couldn’t see it. I could, however, almost imagine it was a feather, on account of the guy being Indian, and all.

Over the years, my little duck man held a place of honor on the fireplace mantle. It was often a topic of conversation when visitors came to call. I loved hearing my mom tell the story of how it came into the house and how it was probably quite valuable at one time. On account of it being, you know, one of Remington’s most famous works.

One Man's Junk....
Enter the internet.

In preparation for this post, I did a little on-line research. You know, for storyline verification. Okay, for bragging rights.

A quick google lead me first to this site, where I made the heart stopping discovery that my little sculpture was not the real deal. Clearly.

Both the horse and the duckman have too short of legs. The duck bill is all wrong, as is the horse's tail. It’s not the same sculpture.

Further research lead me to Ebay, where I found several more variations on the theme, most of which were selling for over $100.00.

And then I came to this:



That’s my little ducker. At the time I stole this photo, the highest bid was $3.91. Ouch.

Truthfully, no illusions that my statue was worth anything. But neither did I expect it was not what I thought it was. And my momma said it was A Famous Statue. Maybe even worth something, at one time.

And now I learn that it’s nothing but a miserable, cheap knockoff.

I think the worst of the disappointment settled into the heart of the one time little girl who, while not dirt poor, grew up in a home where there was little material fluff. :: For example, for Christmas, I couldn’t have both Gumby and Pokey. Just Gumby for me. Pokey for my sister.::

For a child to pull something famous and Almost Worth Something from a musty pile of leaves, and turn it into a family heirloom, is powerful stuff. And you can’t go trifling with things like personal legend and myth.

I think that's why I got stuck in trying to finish this post. The story had a surprise ending for the author. A bit of irony that requires a bit of adjustment.

The End of the Tail
Since getting over my shocking discovery (really, I am) I have been wondering about something. Fraser created the original model for “The End of the Trail” in 1894, but it didn’t become well-known until 1915.

Let's go with the assumption that my Duckman is a knockoff. How did it get knocked off, mass produced and dumped in The Woods by my house, between the years 1915 and probably the mid 1920’s?

Maybe Fraser got the idea from someone else.
Maybe Fraser was the Knockeroffer.
Maybe my guy is famous after all.

You can see a picture of the real thing, here.

I’m sure I had more to say on this, but truthfully, I’m sick to death of thinking, talking and writing about it.

P.S. Just today I found this link. 300 bucks? Not too shabby. And it says they were made in the late 1800's or early 1900's. Hmmm. The Plop thickens. He still looks like a duck.

*We usually stayed clear of the apartment building across the street, on account of The Russian Tenants. This was the 60’s, people. Russians were bad. They kidnapped babies and fed them vodka. And they had bad teeth. And wore funny hats. And they were really good at gymnastics. ::Dude. Except for that gymnastics thing, I just described Uncle Skeeter!.:: Unfortunately, by the time we figured out The Russians were actually The Latvians Who Came to Our Country to Escape The Russians, they weren’t feeling real neighborly. In our defense, one of their adult children did bear a striking resemblance to Illya Kuryakin Poor woman. Just sayin'.

Labels: ABC

Okay. Here's the deal. I have exactly 20 minutes to write this post (and at 8:59, I'm publishing no mattah wtf not.) And I'm not too happy about it.

Earlier this evening I spent about 2 hours writing the "E" post for the ABCDE along. The topic was about something I've owned since childhood. It was something I found, when I was around 10 years old. I thought it was a treasure.

So I get the post about 3/4 done and go searching on line for a related website for some background information. Instead of producing background information for post (and personal)validation, I pretty much received a backhand of truth. The thing I thought was one thing, for 37 years, was, well, I don't know what. But I need more information. Sorry about being so cryptic and shit, but I need to do some research. I need to consult with the closet family archivist. My mom. And it's not going to be pretty. The information I have to share with her is going to pretty much scramble the historical infrastructure of our family. Yeah. Some serious shit. So serious that I am not even concerned with how long this paragraph is rambling.

So, please bear with. And seriously, it's not that exciting of a story. It's just going to take me a couple days to retell it.

In the meantime, here is some knitting:



I really like how the second leg is practically identical to the first. So far.

That's the kind of shit I'm talking about. Good, precise, boring-ass knitting. I may have mentioned that this pattern is from Last Minute Gifts. Or whatever the hell that's called (remember, I'm on time restriction. 6 minutes to go) According to the authors, this pattern falls in the Make it in 8 hours category. Yeah, well the only way I could make these pants in 8 hours would be if I were on a spaceship with...time is up. Fuggitaboddit.

Labels: Tree From Where I Fell

Thanks for all the kudos on my test results. While I wanted (and planned) to answer some of those comments up close and personal, it appears that me and the life I put off living over the past 6 weeks, have suddenly become reacquainted. In spades. It didn't help that for about three days after the test, my brain felt like it was humping on a cheese grater.

Post Testicular Stress Disorder
So, I’m sure you’re all dying to know how’s Life Behind the Testie for the Newly Objectified.

:: And I promise, I will try to make this the last post on The Subject I can’t Seem to Shut Up About. In the meantime, please bear with, while I find other things with which to fill my time::

::In fairness to moi, it’s hard to ignore something that ate your head.::

PTSD Knitting: While in the throes of exam obsession, I had a very difficult time reading or even comprehending blog posts about knitting. At the time, it was nothing more than fuzzy on the brain. No doubt that was merely a defense mechanism, to prevent me from flinging myself into a vat of 9-inch aluminums. That being said, neither will I be spending any time further, trying to figure it out such matters. In fact, I’m way over learning some shit and look forward to my rapid devolvement to pre-test levels of functional stupidity.

*I’m pretty sure my co-workers are also over the new improved me. In a meeting the other day, I actually used Hawthorne Effect in a sentence. With meaning.

k.

Back to Knitting. First of all, is it too late to get in on the Knitting Olympics?

Damn.

k.

Knitting.

My first, post-test yarn yearn was to start a new project (of course.). You may recall that BT (Before Test), I was working on a baby cardie for a co-worker. ::He’s small-framed.:: I got as far as picking up stitches for the collar, before deciding that the thing was a tactile hideosity. At least for use as a baby gift.

::For the record, Cotton-Ease doubled, on one-size too-small needles (in the spirit of good gauge), does not make for good fabric for a sweet baby gift. Fencing garb? That's another story.::

I will finish the baby sweater eventually, for charity.

Since I already told this co-worker that I was knitting a baby gift, he is now kind of expecting something handknit.

::Note to self: Don’t do that anymore.::

Therefore, in my plans for casting on anew, I stuck with the baby gift theme.

After a quick glance over the stash accounts, I determined I could get a swift, yet satisfying leg-up with this number, from Last Minute Gifts (the denim baby drawers):



The yarn is that Denim Dammit stuff from Elann, which I had been saving to complete the Anchors Away* sweater.

k.

More knitting.

Saturday, on the way home from the exam, I stopped into my favorite, local yarn shop, for some therapy-on-a-string. Unfortunately, I was too fried to even look at the yarn. It was nothing but fuzz.**

I didn’t leave empty-handed though, thanks to an impulsive, nearly blind book purchase. More on that another day.

PTSD Working:
Plump with pride from a test well taken, Monday morning I floated into work on a cloud of vainglory, convinced that I possessed powers to heal, through mere presence.

Ha.

By 9:00 a.m., in the aftermath of an unprecedented deluge of concurrent, constituent-based behavior issues, I was well off my high horse and flat on my ass. Next, I tried to figure out (yet again), how all my charges managed to squeeze into the same damn handbasket, at the same time. In other words, the devolution had begun.

I was well on my way to normal.
In a handbasket.
And it was good.

I've got lots more things to talk about, but I’m worn. And it’s my first free Friday night in weeks. So I'll leave you with this weekend treat:

fox hat

::Since I've been living in a rathole the past several weeks, there's a very strong chance that this video link has already been around knitblogland, and back. Please forgive if I missed it at your place. I received my own copy in an email, but couldn’t figure out if or how I could load it directly to my post.::

::Yah, I'm a techtard.::

::But I’m your techtard.::

::And it’s Friday.::

::So tonight, we drink. ::

Adoo.

*A sweater I started two years and 20 pounds ago. Cate, I swear that I was stretching that ill-be-fitten front sweater piece across my girls at the very time you were writing the post containing our Knit While it Fit KAL. I tried to comment on your post but it wouldn’t stick. I think you had your boring comment filters on. In retrospect, I think it was a good move.

**Special Shout-out to my buddy Char, who gave me today's fuzzy inspirations. Fuzzzzzzz. Hope you're feeling better sweetie. You can leave a comment where it says piggies going wee wee.

Big Ass P.S. I know I am pathetically behind in my sidebar updates and blog cruising. Hopefully this weekend.

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, I Work Too, That Damn Test

Okay. After 3.25 hours in front of the computer (minus a pee), I hit the "score" button and covered my eyes.

30 seconds later, peeking through my fingers at the bottom of the screen, I see:



Hot Damn! I passed. Just barely, but who gives a Freudian hump? I passed. I passed. I passed...

I put my head on the table and tried to calm my jangly nerved self. After a moment or two, I look up at the screen to read the rest of the notice, and see the rest:



75 is passing. 84 is kicking names and taking ass.

::On the huge monitor, the 84 part was way over to the right of the screen and out of my "between the fingers" view. I was rather an emotional/cognitive wreck. K? And a person can be both goofy and brilliant.::

Almost the entire exam was vignette based. There was not one question on psychotropic medications. No cholinergic or primordial side effects to recognize. Nothing on research design either. And the one question about the differences between structural, strategic and Milan systems (which I knew, dammit) meant as much to me as "What color Froot Loop gets soggy before all the others?"

Not complaining. Nope.

Now I just have to figure out where to begin in my effort to reclaim my life. But not today. I'm plain worn out. I feel like a living, breathin' specimen of backwash.

And I'm 84 fucking percent okay with that.

License to Kill Drive
Now here's a quick (or not) little story about how this (or someone's) testie was almost dropped on its furry ass and how sometimes the fingers of universe gotta get pokin' in some goofy pie to get things going in the proper, predestined manner.

About a month ago, I get an email at work from personnel. In this email I am told that my personnel file is missing the I-9 form and could I please come by the office with the proper documentation (driver's license and soc. security card) and fill out the form?

It was a busy week and I knew for a fact that I provided all this info when hired, because I used to hire people and I just knew the deal, so I ignored it.

A week later, I get another nasty reminder. Again, I'm in no hurry. However, I do remember to put my social security card in my purse while at home, in case I get inspired.

Later that week I happened to be in the administration building for a meeting. As I was getting into my car to head home for a four day weekend, I remembered the form. Thinking once and thinking twice about trekking back across the parking lot in a slushball storm (it was raining slush balls at the time, weird, apocalyptic shit going on.) I decided to get the email monkeys off my back and went back in to fill out the forms.

As the secretary is putting the form in front of me, I tell her that I'm pretty sure that I filled this out back then. She was silent for a moment before sheepishly explaining that they had to go through 800 personnel files, checking for proper documentation and when they came to the last 100, they decided it would be easier to just make these people reproduce instead of going through them. And then she said she was sorry for the inconvenience.

I was not thrilled to hear this rationale, but truthfully, I'm a pretty flexible person when it comes to stuff like this. Besides, I was in the building anyway...

So the form is filled out and the secretary hands me my driver's license and says "That's expired, you know." I had no idea. My husband handles the car stuff and must not have noticed the driver's license renewal reminder with the car registration/tabs renewal. Back in November.

No biggy. I think.

Halfway home through the slushball storm I find myself almost having to pull off the road. Not because of the slushballs. Because I think I'm having a heart attack. Because I just remembered something.

Per the instruction packet I received after registering for the licensing exam, I MUST bring two items with me on the day of the exam: 1) The authorization letter that says I can take the exam and 2) a valid driver's license. Unexpired. It says just that in the instructional packet. Unexpired driver's license.

If not for having to make the wonky, irritating and totally unnecessary stop at the personnel office, in the middle of a slushball storm, to fill out a form that I didn't really need to fill out because I already filled it out, I would have shown up at the exam yesterday, with bells on, and an expired driver's license.

Because I never would have caught it.

I would have forfeited my seat and fee and have to wait 90 days to reapply. And then I would have had a word with my husband. Word.

Now, is that some weird, synchronitious shit, or what?

It was that odd little bend in the matrix that gave me a considerable boost of confidence that the outcome of the test was going to go my way. I don't think all those guardians of the test-icular universe would have gone through all that effort to mess things up, just to get me to sit and fail.

I believe. You?

Labels: Deep Shit, That Damn Test

I should soooo not be doing this. But here's the deal: I may be a bit hepped up on some prescription medication that I took at rather unfortunate intervals (i.e. I might have taken one but before it could kick in to help me remember that I already took it, I took another. Maybe. Hey. Things ain't been right up there for a coupla days...just sayin.)

Anyway, whenever I sit down to study, I can't. The words swim, my heart races and I end up plucking imaginary chin hairs with my bare fingernails and dreaming of better days, like all-day root canals and Vagnitis on a Hot August Night.

To distract myself, I thought I'd check my email and maybe a couple blogs. So I just happened over to Crazy (my ass) Aunt Purl's place, and read the cool story about a boyfriend she had when she was 19 years old. At first I happened to be jealous that she had such a cool boyfriend-at-19 story to tell.

But then I said "hey!" and then I happened to remember a boyfriend-at-19 story of my own. That's right.

When I was 19, my boyfriend peed on my mom's chest.

In the living room.

It was antique. The chest.

He was drunk. The boyfriend.

When I saw what he was doing, I screamed and ran to the kitchen and grabbed some Bounty. Then I screamed some more and ran back to the stream of the crime, and held the Bounty under the pee, like a safety net.

How did it work, you ask? Well, let's just say that there is a reason the marketing people over at Bounty have never used the image of a weeping, drunken 19 year old holding a sheet of their paper towel under a hot, beer-fed peefall. It did not go well.

Fortunately, beer pee doesn't smell much and my mom was never the wiser. I might tell her, someday.

My boyfriend's story was that he usually peed off the front porch, into the bushes. My mom had a dried flower arrangement on her chest. He thought he was on the porch.

Now I gotta go. If any of any of you of the psychic persuasion have any advice for my face to face with the big fat testie tomorrow, now is the time.

Otherwise, I'm good.

::No proofing on this one. As Is only.::

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, BUI, Yore