I'm at the cottage.

It's pretty here.

And pretty cold.

Which is kinda good 'cause I forgot my swimsuit.

It's my sister's fault and I called and told her so.

She's bringing it to me tomorrow when we meet up at a family reunion.

I'm bringing red jello with bananas.

I don't know who was assigned to bring the valium, but I hope they aren't late.

My bananas never set right.

They always float to the top.

I like to float to the top.

Sometimes.

My fingertips are numb from chill.

It took me 24 hours to upload these pictures.

I started on it yesterday.

Now it's tomorrow.

My inlaws are on their way up right now.

My husband and children are golfing and I had 4 hours to myself. Two of these hours I have already spent bringing this to you.

One hour was spent playing spider solitaire.

I cheat.

I have one hour left to find some valium.

These are pictures of water.

One picture is smaller but it's the only way it would load.

And because I made a deal with blogger.

This deal had something to do with giving up my first born.

I'm going to miss him.

But he has been kind of annoying lately.

And expensive what with all that tuition and shit.

I probably won't be back for a few days because...well...you can probably figure that part out.

And I'm not really sure what's going to happen when Blogger finds out that my son is already born and in college.

I'm sure most of you will be out and about anyway.

Showing off your perfectly set bananas.

I try to reset the floating bananas with my finger.

I push them down and hold until they stop flailing.

Sometimes that works.

But it ain't pretty.

The whipped cream helps.

And Valium.

I harbor no ill-will toward you or your bananas.

Promise.

Speaking of promises, here are the afore mentioned pictures.

They're of water.

The lake and stuff.

Okay.

P.S. you might try to click them to enhance performance but I can't promise anything.

Labels: Cottage, eye candy Friday, Is That a Banana in Your Purse?, Pho-Ho'

When I was a girl, the last day of school always fell on a Friday. Come Monday morning, after just two days of abbreviated revelry, momma would march our reluctantly sinful asses off to two weeks of Vacation Bible School.

Hateful.

The church we attended was high on the Bible Thumpery scale, as were most of its constituents. Our family, on the other hand, while regularly church-going, was not that Thumpy.

Not-That-Thumpy as we were, we still held the Lord in high regard. Therefore, year after year our mother had us over the barrel of fear, in her stated expectation that we attend VBS. I mean, to say that you're not that "into" Vacation Bible School was akin to saying "No thank-you, Baby Jesus." Saying "No Thank-you, Baby Jesus" was akin to sending out handwritten invitations to pestulence, disease, immaculate-conceptions- minus-the-celestial-beings-to-vouch-for-your-hymen* or a broken Etch-a-Sketch knob that limits you to right hand turns, for all eternity.

I know.

So off we'd go. If not for the impeccably imperfect timing, Vacation Bible School wasn't all that bad. For one thing, none of the snobby rich kids from regular Sunday School were there. I once asked one of those Sunday School girls why she didn't go to VBS.

"Vacation Bible School is for bringing The Lord to non-believers. It's for the Neighborhood kids.

"But I'm a neighborhood kid."

"I know."

Another good thing about VBS was the treats. At the end of every session, we were offered a tiny dixie cup of room temperature kool-aid and a handful of pink frosted animal crackers.

You're jealous, already.

The very best thing about VBS, however, was the missionaries.

The church I attended was very big on Bearing Witness or Giving Testimony. The most important personal Testimony was the story of how one came to accept Jesus Christ as one's Personal Savior. The more miracles in the story, the better.

The other type of Testimony was the sharing of specific incidents of bringing others to the Lord. ::i.e. keeping score.:: Because missionaries often went on hiatus during the summer months, there was aways a plentiful supply for Bearing Witness to the poor, apparently unsaved children of my neighborhood.

One regularly visiting missionary family was based in Applachia.While their stories were not very exotic, the father could play a saw as a musical instrument ::hand saw, not the powered kind.::. He was also a ventriloquist.

The missionaries from Africa and South America always had the best stories.I'm not sure if that is because of the vastness of the geographical and cultural differences or because there was little chance of anyone in the audience being able to challenge their accounts. They also dressed in the traditional garb of their host nation, grossed us out with stories of eating grubs, drinking tea seeped from dirt and pooping in a hole behind the hut. All in the Name of the Lord.

There was one missionary tale that I never tired of hearing. It was the one about the piranhas. I had never heard of a piranha until I went to Vacation Bible School. According to my very reliable VBS source, a school of piranha can clean the flesh from the bones of a live, full-size cow so quickly that, within minutes of an unfortunate plunge, the cow was nothing but a skeleton. And a heart. Still beating.

I know.

After that heartwarming warmup,the next piece of the story is the one that kept me up nights.It was about the little Peruvian boy. Yup.

Just one day after accepting Jesus Christ as his Personal Savior,this little boy fell off of the family raft, into the Amazon, which just happened to be teeming with ravenous piranhas.

The boy floundered in the water more than long enough to meet the Fate of the Cow. But he didn't. The Newly Born Again Child was pulled from the murky,deadly waters, fully fleshed. That's right. With not even a razor burn. It was a miracle.

The lesson: Through accepting Jesus Christ as Your Personal Savior, you will never die by the teeth of flesh-eating fish, which remains as the number one urban child's nightmare.

Needless to say, every time that story was shared, in that chapel filled with sticky, muggy neighborhood children, many Souls Were Saved.

That Being Said
This post was intended to be about a current frustration with my having wasted the first two weeks of a perfectly good summer, on a worthless endeavor. But apparently I digressed.

And the above segue to the real post had a surprise, happy ending...so where was I?

Oh Yeah.
Mondo. I spent the first two weeks of summer working on Mondo.

On Sunday afternoon, I was this far on the front. Just minutes from casting off.



But there was a problem. Notice the straps? One is thicker than the other.



After recounting both armhole and neckline cast-offs, I realized my problem ran deeper than that. Inherently deeper. And stupider.

Remember how I was all bragging and shit on how I was adjusting the pattern to be shapely instead of tently?

Yeah?
Well.

The adaptation included changes in the number of cast-on stitches. Easy Peasy?

Yeah?
Well.

To the Left. To the Left.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take that change into account while counting out stitches for the cable placement. In row fucking one. I needed to be four stitches to the left. In row fucking one.

A Dingo Ate My Baby
It was more like a swarm of steely-toothed piranhas.

In a flurry of ravenous mania, the ill beknittin piece was reduced, in minutes, to nothing but skeleton.

And heart balls. Still beating throbbing.



I know.

The Sure Skank Redemption
In retrospect, I guess Vacation Bible School wasn't all that bad. I now realize that it takes more than two weeks of mandated exposure to under-strengthened kool-aid, flannel boards or my own stupidity, to ruin a perfectly good summer.



Shirley Goodness.

*The story of the immaculate conception always scared me when I was young. What if it happened again? To me? And no one believed? Not that I thought I was anything special. I mostly thought I was everything unlucky.

Labels: Deep Shit, Knit In Progress, Yore

So I asked him...I said, "What, exactly, are you going to do? I mean, do you have a plan?"

And he just looked at me for a moment. Then sighed before saying "I mayfly. I may not. Either way, I think it's still best that you go."

He turned his head, and I walked away.

I haven't seen or talked to him since then. I thought I saw him the other day, on the screen at the Dairy Dip, but it wasn't him. The butt was all wrong. But still...it gave me a start, ya know?

Some days I feel like I'm really making progress. That I'm moving on. And then, some quiet night, I'll hear the patter of wings on the window, or that funny little scritching noise he makes when attaching himself to the screen for the night. Next thing I know, I'm running to the window with tears in my eyes and heart racing...and it's a moth. A fucking moth. Or a June bug. And then it hurts all over again. Like it happened yesterday.

But I'm ready. I really am. I'm ready to move on. To take the next step.

So what do you suggest, Raid or Black Flag?

Labels: eye candy Friday, The Fly Who Loved Me

What The Butt?



This photo recently adorned the cover of a family-oriented clothing catalogue. Not only is the image totally creep, I'm pretty sure I went to college with that kid.

Real Knitting. No,Really.
I figured, WTF. It's Wednesday.



I finished the back of Mondo and have cabled twice on the front. I'm straying from the trapeze styling of the pattern on account of my deciding that Trapeze + Boobeze = Frumpeze. I'm giving it a bit of shaping, which I'm making up as I go along. Shut up.

I Dulaan
Du yu?

You've probably, all 17 remaining readers, been wondering how I've been coming along on my pledge to knit five articles of clothing for the Dulaan project.

Well, all 17 remaining readers, I'll tell you. I've been coming along fine. After I finished the yellow sweater, I told my husband that I needed to get crunching on four more items, to meet the deadline. He then reminded me that I still had several hats in storage, which were intended for a local charity last winter, but were never delivered. Five hats, to be exact.

I just love it when a disorganization comes together.



And then I remembered this sweater:



I still like this sweater, but it's kind of impractical for the local climate. If it's mild enough to wear it as a jacket, it's too mild for the attached scarf. If it's cool enough for the scarf, then it's too cold...aw, you get it. I only wore it once, on a crisp fall day, and nearly suffocated.

So, that gives me 7.

I spent the day slogging through the usual post-vacation debris, both physical and mental, whilst keeping an eye on Cakers, who was catching up on the neighborhood pack. And yes, the previous statement was yet another lame attempt at making yet another lame excuse on another lame post.

A post of which I now find myself at the end.

Labels: Knit In Progress, WTF Wednesday

Night swimming
Deserves a quiet night.- R.E.M.

Before my father died, when I was a kid, our annual summer vacation was two weeks of camping at a state park on an inland lake, in Northern Michigan. ::When your state is surrounded by Great Lakes, all other lakes are inland.:: My dad would leave for his morning fishing about 6 a.m., and return about noon.

After morning dishes, mom would take us to the grassy beach and eagle-eye us every second we were in the water. At noon, we returned to camp to eat lunch, and 30 minutes later were back at the beach, while daddy napped. About 3:00 p.m., purple-lipped and prune-fingered, we'd slog back to camp, where mom would commence with preparing dinner on the Coleman stove. ::Always a standard meal, with a meat and at least a canned veggie and sometimes potatoes.::

While we ate, a pot of water was on to boil on the Coleman, so after dinner mom could wash and rinse the Melmac and flatware ::Seldom did we use the paper plates, even camping.:: which had been transported to camp in a metal kitchen cabinet,left over from a kitchen remodel.

After dinner and dishes, my sister and I would usually run off to the playground.On a cool evening, there'd be a couple dozen kids playing softball or kick-the-can. On a warm evening, however, the playground would be a dusty dearth.

On a warm evening, everybody would be down at the beach, for a night swim. Everybody, that is, but us.

We never went for night swims.Dad wasn't really a hands-on kind of father,unless we needed immediate correction. And Mom claimed after-dinner as her time of rest, before having to get us ready for "cot." And who could blame her? Back then,camping was no picnic for moms.

Sounds carry differently at night than they do during the day. At night, the sounds of children swimming, to the ears of children not, is crisper and splashier than it is during the day. And definitely more cruel.

In adulthood, many times over, I have counted coup on the pain of being excluded from that twilight revelry, so long ago. When my son was young and I worked year round, I'd sometimes pack us a summer picnic supper and drive 50 minutes to Lake Michigan. There, we'd cool our toots on a nearly vacant beach, where just a couple hours earlier bodies were lined up, toe to towel.

The beach at night has a different feel. It's less urgent and more contemplative. People who go to the beach at night are not seeking the perfect tan or social opportunity. They're seeking the perfect calm and comfort of the perfect revenge on a marked disappointment of childhood.

Last night we took Cakers to a Lake Michigan beach,located in a very small town just a few miles from here. This beach is a favorite from when I vacationed up here with Cam, post-divorce.

While I didn't don a suit for this outing, ::I had good reason. Believe.:: I certainly enjoyed.

As did Cakers and a new, very synchronized friend.



The water was almost eerily calm, for Lake Michigan. And between the heat of the day, and cool lake water, a bit of a haze hung over the lake just off shore, giving this guy paddling around on a surf board, an ethereal, Egyptian look.



A bit later, a couple of teen girls paddled into view, and, unbeknownst to them, I'm sure, gave my zoom lens a bit of a performance.

Do you Hieroglyph?







Whatever the foreign body language they were using, it appeared to be effective. It wasn't long before Ancient Egyptian Boy paddled up.



Crying Sun
We've had incredible weather up here. The only rain we've seen in six days occured last night after we returned from the beach. And even then, the sun kept shining.



Eric's work is kicking off Wednesday, so we're heading back tomorrow evening. I think it's time. We've had 7 days of perfect weather. It's almost 90 degrees outside right now, and Cakers had to be cajoled to get her suit on and go outside. She wanted to stay in and play "school." I think she's lonely for some non-parental interaction and right now there are no school-age cottage dwellers in the 'hood.

Yesterday Cabana asked her for a little Playmate reprieve, so he could take a well-deserved nap. I interrupted her protest with a reminder that daddy deserves some quiet rest on Father's Day.

Her reply: It's actually Bother's Day, not Father's Day. ::Pause, with smile.:: So, Daddy, can you take me on a boat ride?

P.S. Please forgive spelling. I don't have Word reloaded on my computer yet, and the spell check on Blogger mucks up my margin settings, somehow.

P.P.S. I'm not sure how the photos will emerge, quality-wise. I had to shrink them smaller so Blogger could squeeze them through its tiny butthole, on upload. The quality I'm seeing is not great, but I'm on reduced quality dial-up.

The weather is here. Wish you were beautiful - Jimmy Buffett



No Fudgies* over here....



But definitely some knitting over there...



You have no idea what it took to put this post together. I don't know if it's the dial up or new browser settings as a result of the recent scrub of the hard drive, but I'm not exaggerating when I say it's taken me two days to be able to make and sustain a connection with blogger to 1) allow me to open a new post window 2) upload these pictures. This morning alone, it took me 45 minutes to get the login page to open.

Anyway, vacation so far has been sublime. The weather is amazing. In town, it's been hot, but with the little wind alley between Lake Michigan and our cottage, it's been perfect here. Water temp is 70.

We've been boating and floating and eating ice cream every day. Last night after Cakers went to bed, Cabana and I indulged in a little evening dip, just as the sun was setting. For some reason, night swimming always feels so indulgent to me.

Cabana hasn't received official notice for the new job yet, so he's been relaxing, feeling confident that he won't be needing to commute home for the kickoff until Monday.

Sorry for the lame post, but I'm feeling kind of nervous about getting this one launched before the next blog blight bites. If this pig flies, you may hear from me again, in two or three days.

*Fudgies = Tourists who engage in annoying fudgie antics such as taking pictures of family members posing as an iconic tourist attraction.

Labels: eye candy Friday

Cast on.
Cast off.
The Caster.

I finished the Dulaan sweater.



Looks pretty good except for the row of ribbing I left off on the front piece, which I didn't notice until I was halfway through.

Pattern: From Jil Eaton's Minnies

Yarn: Some thick, wooly yellow stuff that starts with the letter "G", which is followed by a few too many consonants for my brain to remember.

Our Lady of Provisional Castigation
Having finished the Dulaan sweater, I was left without a project to clutch during The Sopranos finale.

Next in my Qast-on Queue was the Sahara. I had the pattern. I had the yarn. All I needed was the ability to channel a person with an I.Q. greater than mine, ::i.e. the combination of my shoe size and the depth of Paris Hilton's personality left butt-cheek:: so I could get at least one good provisional cast-on, to get me started.

Ha.

First I tried the instructions provided with the printed pattern.

Ha.

Then I tried several on-line video resources.

Ha.
Ha.
Ha.

The closest I came to getting a provisional education was through the Knitting At Knoon instructional video.

When I first watched it, I didn't have my needles and yarn with me so couldn't follow along. But hell, they made it look so easy, I knew I could remember.

Ha. And Ha.

Part of the problem was that for most of the time I was trying to get learnt in this matter, I was outdoors supervising The Cakers and a friend, who was over for a play date.

When my son was little and had a friend over, it was a guaranteed free time for me. All he and his friends would do, for hours, is play with cars on one of those rugs with a town and roads imprinted on it. All I would ever hear from their little corner was low muttering and the occasional siren-sound-a-la-boy: Dooo-deee-dooo-dee-dooo-dee awwwwwwwwwwwh! Bawwnnnn! Bawwnnn! ::the horn.::

Anyway, girls seem to be different. At least mine is.

Mom?

What?

Can we run through the sprinkler in the front yard?

No.

Why?

Cindy doesn't have a swimsuit here.

She can wear mine.

What will you wear?

I can wear my old bading suit.

You don't have an old bading suit.

Well, can I run through the sprinkler in the front yard, in my bading suit?

What's Cindy going to do?

She can watch.

No.

Can she wear my underwear?

She can wear her own underwear, but...

Before I could finish, Cakers yells over to her friend: Cindy! My Mom says you can run through the front yard sprinkler in your underwear!

Cindy stares first at Cakers, then at me, in unabashed mortification. This was her first visit to our home, and after two hours of playing in the house, she still hadn't taken off her bike helmet. She also left her bike in the middle of the sidewalk in front of our house, facing the direction of her home. Apparently this recent kindergarten graduate has no problem casting on a provisional escape plan.

No. No sprinklers in the front yard.

They both walked away.

Fifteen seconds pass, and once again I have the crochet hook poised, perfectly perpendicular, near the point of the needle, certain this was going to be the one...

Mom?

What?

Can we run through the sprinkler in the back yard? In our own underwear?

Anyway.

The other problem was that I am not a crocheter and even after watching the easy peasy video demo, with yarn and implements in hand, I could not make my hands do what I was watching. I kept crocheting the knot off of the hook and winding up with three stitches on the needle and nothing on the hook. That would be great if I were casting on for a washcloth.

Then it was dinner.
Then I went for a walk.
Then it was 30 minutes before The Sopranos, and I had nothing on the needles.
Then I remembered some yarn I bought from Bron, awhile ago and that it's a perfect match for Bonne Marie's Mondo tank top. But I didn't have the pattern. So, about 8:40 p.m., I bought the pattern on line, printed it out, dug out the yarn, kissed the Cakers goodnight and by 8:55 p.m. I was on the couch, casting on, most non-provisionally.

I got quite a bit done, on account of how many times I had to look away from the screen, to avoid seeing what wasn't about to happen. ::For the record, I thought The Soprano's finale was brilliant.::



Here's a close-up of the fabric:



Got Claptop?
My laptop has returned from her cure. Evidently she had about every internetually transmitted disease in the book, and needed to be lectured, purged and scoured.

She's been sitting on my desk for the past hour, unbooted. I feel like I hardly know her anymore, and am afraid of facing the inevitable pain of a loss of such magnitude. And of reloading all my software. And I forgot to save my favorites. And I can't find my Comcast registration number. And tomorrow I'm going on vacation.

Tales of a Kindergarten Mutha will have to wait until I'm on the other side.

P.S. Blogger Users: Don't trust the Autosave. Before exiting, even if it says it's been saved, I type a letter, delete the letter, then save it again myself.

*You'll have to read yesterday's post for reference. But you don't have to comment. But you can. If you want.

I really need to clear the blog cache in my brain before moving on to a fresh, clean summer, so I'm just gonna let her spray.

Cue Alice Cooper, circa 1972
Wednesday was my last day of work for the 2006-07 school year. For the first time in years, I was actually ahead of schedule in completing my final duties. What a great feeling it was, to know that I was not going to be the Last Day Old Maid, sitting amidst a pile of "to-file", while office mates bid me summer adieus on their way out the door.

Earlier in the day I was not so confident I would be out on time. I had scheduled a very important meeting in another district. The Family of the Purpose of this meeting assured me that they had made arrangements to take a taxi to the meeting, were expected to arrive early. And I know this to be true, because I saw the taxi at the Purpose's house as I drove myself to the meeting, and per my estimation, they would be early. So, I get to the meeting place, and wait. And wait. Finally there's a phone call to say the taxi had a flat tire and another was coming and all would be even later.

They did make it, and the meeting went well, despite the time limitations. No harm, no foul. ::What the hell does that mean?::

Fast forward to my final drive out of the parking lot,after completing all my last day chores. I have my window down and am about to crank some Freddy Mercury/David Bowie, when I hear a weird slapping noise coming from the outside my car. Sounds like a flat tire.

I get out. It looks good. So I figured I was just being a little sensitive because of the event earlier in the day. But it was still kinda weird.

I get home, pull into the garage a smidge too fast, and harshly bump my front right tire off of the cement step of the garage entry to the house. I've scraped tire on that mutha many a time, but this was no scrape.

This was the all-weather, radial version of a Uranus Surprise.*

Yup. I popped a hole right in my tire. I don't think I've ever had a flat tire. Ever. Yet, 30 minutes earlier, I was pretty sure I did have a flat. But I didn't. And even earlier,I was practically related to a flat tire event.

There's got to me some universal meaning to this.
All I can think of is that sometimes, it just blows.

And Then
My husband is a self-employed contractor.
My husband has been self-unemployed for several months now.

His line of work is quite fickle, and even the most trusted intention or promise of a contract can fall apart at the last minute. He's had a few nibbles these past weeks, but no purchase orders.

With the high hopes of work later in the summer, we decided to take our vacation right away.

Anyway. Thursday. Cabana gets a call to see if he's available to take a job, with more details available Monday. ::Which means it's still not a sure thing.:: In the meantime, another shop is pretty sure they are going to need him to take two jobs, but they aren't entirely sure that they yet have the jobs to offer. In another meantime, still on Thursday, another guy calls to see if Cabana can take a seat ::that means sit at a computer and work on a job.:: in his shop for a couple of days, to finish up some easy detail work on a rush order.

This last item will give us some nice financial wiggle for vacation. A vacation we're postponing for a few days, with high hopes of Cabana being able to accept a couple of jobs, and turn down a couple of more. I'm not complaining at all, because he needs the work, but the timing is fuckily weird.

If he does get the work, he'll bring his computer to the cottage and squeeze in some vacation around the clicking. He may be able to handle all communications from the cottage, via email and phone, otherwise he'll need to commute once or twice. In order to correspond via email, he'll need my laptop from time to time. ::His work computers are work horses and don't have modems. We only have dial-up at the cottage.::

Butt Then
My laptop is fucked in the head. Evidently she picked up some nasty bug last time we were at the cottage, on dial-up. I don't know what the hell Mc*afee was doing as this bug was crawling up my back portal, without benefit of booze, lube or foreplay, but apparently, once this bug gets in, has the ability to temporaily disarm the McIffy.

The laptop is now at the cleaners and we won't know the verdict until late Sunday night. But if Cabana gets these jobs, we can't go on vacation without email capabilities. Outside of the base issues just described, I need my laptop.

And before sending the laptop to the cleaners, I spent hours fussing over her, cleaning and running ad-ware and spy-ware and going through the motions of believing that McIffy can do anything. It was kind of like taking care of a sick baby.

Thursday night, when I should've been drinking and resting up for my one and only stint as room mother, for Cakers' last day of Kindergarten, I was up late backing up my hard drive, in case she was going to need full frontal and ass-al lobotomies. And I was drinking.

::I was going to include my morning at Monster Kindergarten in this post, but it has the potential for too many complicated off-shot musings. I will say that by the time 1:00 a.m. Friday rolled around, and I was still backing up photos from my laptop, I was kind of wishing I hadn't volunteered myself for Kindergarten Mom. See, even the digressions on the topic are complicated.::

The only other computer available to me is a very old desktop. It's slow. It blocks shit that shouldn't be blocked. It blocks 90% of attempted photo uploads on Blagger, and instead gives me a Pop-Ups Are Blocked message, even after I Unpop the Blockups. It only lets me into AOL Webmail on even numbered dates, between the hours, er, minutes of 3:03 and 3:11 a.m. pst. It seeks permission to enter any and all websites, any and every time. And appears to be stone deaf, as it doesn't respond to any of my commands to knock that shit off.

And it's also pretty much Cakers' computer for her Dizney.com pleasure. While she's a bright girl, she's not quite understanding the concept of Eminent Domain.

On a positive note, I haven't killed anyone. Yet. I think that's a pretty positive start to the Summer of Uranal Surprise.*

And Then
I'm almost Effed Oh on the charity sweater.
I'm almost thinking about blocking Ariann.

On a Positive Note
I may have mentioned here, more than once, that I'm kind of not very physically coordinated. Well, I've got some good news on a newly developed, lifelong skill ::or what's left of it. My life.::

I can now sneeze and pee at the same time.
In fact, I do sneeze and pee at the same time.
Every time.

That's what I call Assure thing.

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, I Work Too, Now You're Whining, Tales of a Klutz, What the Hell and Oh Yea

Uranus is positioned for summer surprises.* -Subject line of today's email from my daily horoscope subscription.

Green Eyed Candy
Lame, I know.
So sue me, wrestler.





I've been living the bloggable life this week. Oddly enough,this so called bloggable living has left me little time to blog.

But I'll be back.

*When Uranus is positioned as such, for such, I think that it's best to keep the details on the downlow.

Labels: eye candy Friday, Pho-Ho'

Absquatuknitting
I have not yet blocked Ariann. And/or my boobs. I don't know where my life goes these days. I do know that it hasn't gone blocking.

A long, long time ago, I pledged five items to the very worthwhile Dulaan Project over at Mossy Cottage.

I'm not sure when I made this pledge, but I do recall thinking the July 1 deadline seemed like months away. Okay, maybe it was months away. But it seemed like months away, using Football Standard Time.* And then I kind of absquatulated from thinking of it again, until a couple of weeks ago.

I also kind of absquatulated from my duties to post this button on my sidebar.



I think a good place for the button on my sidebar would be where the Run-A-Go-Go button is. You know, for the event that expired April 1?

::Sidenote to Ryan: I've been trying to make myself feel better by reminding me that I'm a pretty small frog in this international knit pond and therefore am taking comfort in the knowledge that you've been getting lots of big-ass press from the big-ass frogs, representing all time zones, real or imaginary*.::

Most important is that I will deliver.
That is the most important thing. Right?

My first Dulaan item is this children's sweater from Jil Eaton's Minnies.



I chose this pattern because it matched the yarn I wanted to use ::Gjestal:: and it seemed like something I could whip out real easy.

Rip out real easy is more like it.

I can't even begin to explain how it was that I could not follow this simple, 10 stitch chart. You'd think I'd figure it out by looking at it. Me too.

Actually, it was that confidence of my ability to "play it by eye" that tripped me up in the first place. I actually know exactly what happened, but it's too embarassing to say. Yes. There are some things that are too embarrassing for me to share here. Plus, if I tell the whole story, I fear that people will suspect I am too stupid to be entrusted with the care of a five year-old child, and call protective services.

If I tell the whole story, some of you might determine that I am too stupid to live, and start a knitblog fundraiser to get me a well-deserved mercy killing. ::Ke*vork*ian is my statemate and he used to offer intrastate discounts...::

I finally wrote the damn chart out, row by row. By the time I cast off for the back, I was doing pretty well without chart or row-by-row instructions. But when I started the front, I started up the same play-it-by-eye mistakes.

Visitation Absquatulation
I'm pitifully behind in email correspondence and blog visitations and comments and facial hair maintenance. ::Last week I found a pube growing out of my nose. Not my nostril. The top of my nose. Age is a mother plucker.::

I have three days left of work before summer hiatus. I'm not really all that excited because The Three Days of What Lies Ahead is going to be the equivalent of being behind in the 4th quarter of a championship football game in that: 1) I'll be intently focused on goals 2) Time will feel like it's passing slowly but, 3) I'll also know the constant sensation of running out of time. 4) There will be lots of interference. 5) When it's all over, I'm going to smell real bad.

*Football Standard Time: You know how your husband/boyfriend/cable guy says he'll be ready to leave/eat/install cable line as soon as the game is over? And then you ask, "How long?" And he says something like "There's just 12 minutes left in the last quarter?" And 30 minutes later you ask "How much longer?" only to learn that there are still 9 minutes left? That, my friends, is Football Standard Time.

Labels: Bad Sports Metaphors, Charity Knits, I Work Too, Knit In Progress, Now You're Whining, When Knitting You is Hurting Me

It is still Friday, right?



Today at work, I embarked on a mission to eke a month's worth of overdue paperwork from the last four days of the school year.

On a related note, the seven remaining brain cells in the room have been assigned to overseeing the safe transport of a glass of wine from the table, to my lips, then back again.

A real post is on the way.

Labels: eye candy Friday, I Work Too, Pho-Ho'