Monday was the annual Daddy Daughter Dance, in our little town.



The pink tights were HER idea. Initially I tried to talk her out of it, but 1) No way. Pink and red are related through white, she says. 2) What do I care? I would be spending the evening home alone, knitting.

The little hair tie thingie lasted about an hour. To quote a Cakers: "I pulled it out when I had to Rock It."

Well, duh!

Labels: eye candy Friday, Manpie, My Daughter Scares Me

The Dull
F.O. F.O.
I bore to tears, I know.
But no dull Sheila
When I drink Tequila.
F.O. F.O.

Anyway.

This is a hat.



This is another hat.



I knit these hats Mission-ary style, out of the Noro Fuji-no-Mojo. They will be donated to a chemo cap drive.



The Girl Grown Fast
Remember this little Nugget?



I posted that picture my first year In-Blog. Would you believe that she is currently wrapping up a very successful, premier season as a Girl Scout Cookie representative? She even made a couple cold calls.

And last night we received the much awaited phone call, with the news that she was selected to be in her school's production of Alice in Wonderland, as Gardner No. 3::Over 100 students tried out for 24 roles.::

The Girl Grown Wise
About once a week, in lieu of reading a bedtime story, I lie down with Cakers on the bed for what we call "girl talk," wherein I ask her to share a snippet from her day, and then share a snippet from mine.

Tonight she told me some goofy thing one of her friends had done at school. When I asked her why her friend did that goofy thing, Cakers paused, sighed with just a hint of drama, and said "She doesn't think her brain."

Gardener No. 3: Clearly a force to be rakened with.

Labels: Bad Poetry, Charity Knits, Knit Done, Missionary Style '08, My Daughter Scares Me

Between working late, co-managing a household, nightly homework monitoring and three days in a row of what feels like a cheese grater being taken to me holy vessel, I’m finding little time or motivation to participate in things like, the rest of my life.

But to get bloggy monkey off my maxi I’m going to do a quick n dirty post.

Spawn Time
Cakers was successfully launched into the 7th year our life together by a swim party at the neigbhorhood health club. ::The very place I met Cabana.:: I tell you, when it comes to managing 15 six and seven year olds, one large cake and a butt load of high expectations, a swim party is the way to go.

I was't able to get many good shots of the party. I used my zoom lens with the "action" setting, but the lighting for distance wasn't great. In the pool area, my lens fogged, which gave all the pictures a humid haze.

Even though it's clumsy and not well orchestrated, I just love this picture.

Maidens of Lemuria

This is Cakers and two of her bestest buds. This picture makes me think of some ancient, mystic place, minus the styrofoam water noodles, of course.

Yesterday fall finally arrived, in a glorious whirl of cool, color and wind.

After dinner I headed out for a walk. At the end the driveway, Cakers approached me on her bike and asked if she could come along.

And what a treat that was, on such a resplendent evening.

She rode almost beside me the entire 2.5 miles, jabbering. About 3 blocks into the jabber walking, she said, “Know what mom? Today in gym class, when I was jogging, I felt like a real woman.”

Good thing I wasn’t eating or drinking, or I may have spewed. After shaking off the immediate image of Bo Derek, slow bouncing down the beach, to Bolero, I asked in an amazingly brave voice, “How so?”

“Because I jogged for two minutes, without stopping. And that's what real woman do. Right?”

Whew. If only the feel of Real Womanhood was so easy.

Equal Time
College Boy is convinced that when he was about 3 years-old, I left him in a Blockbuster Video store and didn't notice until after I had driven away. Over the past year he has brought this incident up several times; in an increasingly accusatory tone.

It isn't true, of course.

Although there was an incident.
Which has been explained to him.
A buttzillion ways to Sunday.

As follows: We were leaving the Blockbuster store and I thought he was right behind me, but he wasn't, and the exit door closed before he got to it. As many of you know, the exit doors at Blockbuster do not open from the outside.

So, as he leaned on the glass door and started to wail, I darted out the second exit door and back in the Entrance. We were physically separated for less than 30 seconds.

But all he remembers is seeing the bottom of my reeboks, running away. And the crying.

So, in honor of his plunge into manhood, I made him a card:



The text on the front read something like: Now that you're all grown, I hope you can forgive me for what I'm about to tell you, about that unfortunate incident so long ago..

Inside: Get over it.

Knitting Time
I haven't been knitting much. When I've been able to prop my eyelids open long enough, I've been plugging away at this burp pad from the Mason-Dixon book.



The yarn is Cotton Ease. These pads are really fun, but not a quick knit for me. It's so purty, I find myself stopping all the time, to look at it.

Ass Time.

Labels: From My Loins, My Daughter Scares Me

...To the Dog Days of Summer.
And so it begins.

The days are getting shorter.

The neighborhood is getting quiet. ::Why is that the children disappear from the streets in August?::

And inservice itineraries are arriving in the mail.

All these things provide, in bits and pieces, psychological acclimation to the coffee-stoked reality that lies ahead: I'm going back to work.

Every August starts with a feeling of panic. It's not so much that I don't want to go back to work, because I do. I NEED to work. It's more about taking stock of what I accomplished over the summer. And what I didn't.

It's about counting coup and eating crow.
And making the most of what remains.

Tomorrow we're going back to the cottage for a long weekend. Our last until Labor Day. The In-laws are there. As is the dial-up that is rumored to have sent the Slowsky's to therapy, in search of their true bottom line.

All that being said: It's time for speed blogging.

Sahara


I finished her. Sleeveless. I just couldn't deal no 'mo.

Cabana took some pictures of me modeling Sahara, but they were horrible. I don't know if it was the angle from my leaning against the deck rail, or the camera flash picking up the white of my tank top through the sweater fabric, or a combination therein, but in the picture, it looked like I was nursing a six-pack of baby belugas under there. Not a lovely sight. Come to think of it, Cabana hasn't looked me in the eye since seeing the images.

Anyway. I hope to have a modeled view of Sahara to share in a few weeks, after I wrap up the Sea World tour.

In the meantime, the Effin' O Specs:

Pattern: Sahara

Yarn:Elsebeth Lavold, Cottin Patine.

Size: Medium

Comments: Really fun to knit, except for the parts that weren't. Some of the language in the directions was kind of confusing. One other thing I'm not crazy about is that the first decrease stitches in the front land right in the middle of the heads of the top two belugas. It gave my husband pause and has me thinking I may not be wearing it to work. Maybe some adolescent clients would find it distracting.

Would I knit it again? I initially was thinking that I would knit it in long sleeves for winter, but right now I'm kind of not wanting to think about it for awhile.

You might say that I'm...

...Sew Over Knitting
Sometime way back, I bought a sewing machine from the internets.

Because I wanted to sew.

But I didn't.

Sew.

And for months, my new machine sat silent.

With the blue packing tape still sticking to its tiny parts and stifling its little hopes and dreams.

For whatever reason,the untaping of the machine and figuring out how to use it felt like a huge project. It didn't help that it was set up in the basement, two floors away from the ironing board, and the only available floor space for cutting patterns.

A few weeks ago I went shopping for patterns and fabric, hoping to feel some excitement and get motivated.

I mostly got a headache. It takes awhile to get your sewing legs back.

Anyway. I bought some fabric and a summery pattern for Cakers and even went so far as to cut it out. And there it sat. I just couldn't make myself sew in the basement.

Last week Cabana did some shuffling of large exercise equipment, and set up the sewing machine in a cozy corner in our bedroom.

And...Voila!





I completed this outfit just minutes before a predesignated departure time for our Anniversary date ::Cakers invited herself and insisted on it including an Underdog matinee.::

My mom sewed most of my clothes when I was a child. Many times I remember her finishing up a hem or closing a neckline on a dress, while I'm wearing it, as the family is heading out the door to some event. I even remember being sewed upon in the car, on the way to the Sunday School Christmas program. And she always left a pin in. Somewhere.

Just like I did on this outfit. Cakers felt found it while at the movies. And I didn't close the elastic casing.

Next on the docket:



The top at the top.

Sew Seredipitous.
Sew. Before this, the last thing I sewed was my headpiece, for my wedding, which happened exactly eight years ago from the day I finished Cakers' outfit.

Last week Cakers announced that when she grows up, she wants to marry Tom Petty.

While at our anniversary dinner at Applebees, Tom Petty's Even a Loser came on over the Musak and Cabana looked at me and said "'Even a Loser gets lucky some time.' My theme song, eight years ago today."

Okay. I guess you had to be there.
I was.
And it rocked.

Labels: Boobs and Pee and Poo, Intendments, Knit Done, My Daughter Scares Me, Tree From Where I Fell

I can't believe what I haven't done with my time.

There are so many things I wanted to do.
And I just don't know where it all goes.
The time.

Well, I do sort of know where it goes. Being a mom and wife and laundress extraordinaire isn't like falling off a keg.

But still, it seems that when it comes to summer hopes and dreams, my mind's eye is bigger than its stomach.

Someone Left the Cakers in the Rain
Last weekend, after a Cakers-induced, chain-reaction family meltdown of near nuclear proportions, we decided to make all our little worlds each a little smaller, with an impromptu weekend at the cottage.

My in-laws were already up there, which always makes the impromtu-weekend-grab a little easier. They, of course, were thrilled to have us. Melted Down Cakers notwithstanding.

Anyway.

The Mind's Eye Goes Dry. You Know, Like the Sahara.
In keeping with the Eyes Bigger Than Reality theme, I had high hopes of finishing Sahara while I was up there. So high were these hopes, that I packed another project to start up at Sahara's conclusion.

As so often happens with hopes on high, my Sahara hopes were left high and dry.

I blame it all on the short row, from here on known as The Rut-Row.

The Sahara pattern calls for a series of five Rut Rows in a row, front and back.

Now, I have successfully completed a Rut Row. Maybe even two. But not all at the same time. In reality, wrangling five wrapped Rut Rows, all in a row, was a little rich for my rudimentary repertoire of cognitive resources.

"Rut-Row," she said, "It looks like a sphincter, come unraveled."

An unraveled sphincter, unrivaled in its ribald wretchedness.
Really.

So I ripped the Rut Rows.

After the fluffy-sphincters were ripped, I tried it again, this time with instruction manual in hand. Round two of Rut-Rows turned out better. Good, even. That is, until I made one little mistake in one little stitch. A mistake which could not be undone and redone, on account of me not knowing exactly how to undo and redo an already picked up Rut Row wrap.

Rut-Row.

One teeny tiny stitch and a touch of inepitude, brought the whole damn thing down. Again.

Rut Row Round 3 was pretty much right, although now that it's off the needles, one side looks a little assish, but I'm not sweating it. 'Cause there's nothing much worse than sweaty ass on a summer sweater.

So I finished the bottom edge and cast off.



Here's a close-up on the edging:



I don't know what the deal is with that one row of stitches looking the other way, but I just noticed it in the picture. Bah.

After casting off, I tried her on and I think she's going to be a keeper. I may have to make a long-sleeved version for fall.

::Speaking of "I just noticed it in the picture", at the cottage I took some shots of Cakers doing cartwheels on the beach. In a dress. Commando. I had no idea she was traveling so light and breezy until I uploaded the pictures and came across the one shot of her sticking a solidly squat landing. Facing the camera. It was quite the giggle snorter.::

Next on the Fucket Up Docket: Capped sleeves. With Rut Row shaping.

I have more stuff on my mind but there seems to be little time for little minds these days. That may be a good thing.

Labels: Bag-O-Hair, Bitchmom Screampants, If Knitting You is Wrong I Don't Want to Be Right, My Daughter Scares Me, Now You're Whining

Andy, Did You Hear About This One?
March, 2001. We were driving home from a family gathering, listening to an R.E.M. CD, while four-month old Cakers slept in the back seat. When Man on the Moon came on, Cakers immediately woke up and started crooning, like only a four-month-old can do, with lips formed in a perfect O, and that delightful scowl of concentration. She sang through the entire song, and when it was over, fell right back to sleep.

And then, from no where, I had a vision of my daughter, several years down the road. And it went something like this:



In my vision, the skirt was culottes, the Crocs were pointy-toed granny boots and The Cakers' hair was painted several shades of Seared Retina. But I swear, those were the tights. Striped, and just barely matching anything else in the ensemble, minus the hair.

After receiving the visual anointing, I had a strong sense of rightness about this child, followed by a brief wave of nausea, then goose bumps. I loved Andy Kaufman, although I can't claim to have ever understood his genius. I have a feeling my own Miss Thang will be leading me down similar paths of enlightenment, whilst performing high wire feats on the last of my aging, decrepit nerves.

And for the record, I didn't buy her the tights. They were a gift from a relative who never heard about my vision of Cakers while goofing with Andy and Elvis.

Why yes, those are moose on the t-shirt. And she did wear the outfit to school. We are pretty much hands-off when it comes to letting the girl pick her outfits, as long as bits and pieces aren't showing anywhere.

A little while later she was running around the neighborhood with this addition:



I'm thinking maybe I'm the one who should be wearing the life jacket. For the next 13 years.

If You Believe, There's Nothing up my Sleeve
Then nothing is cool.



Parts are joined.
Let no woman rip asunder.

This sweater is one p.b. hair from being an unhappy memory.

In relation to the above statement, following are sub topics on the matter, too sore to be discussed at this time:

1) One sweater. Three buttonholes. By three different fathers. Baby Daddy number three had a genetic predisposition for being inoperably useless.

::Have you ever tried unknitting an improperly created button hole? I have. The buttonhole in question will join Twinkies, cockroaches and stories about Anna Nicole Smith, in post-apocalypse infamy.::

2) I think Ariann is going to be too small. I admit to shooting for a closer fitting size, because the last two sweaters I knit for myself ended up being a little big through the chest and therefore kinda frumpy. For Ariann, my stitches were a little bigger than the required gauge, which I hoped would give my posse and me some psychological jiggle room.

3) I'm going to proceed with the sweater as though none of these words were ever written and read or uttered and responded to at the salad bar. ::Did you know that the voice of tapioca sounds just like Kyra Sedgwick?:: Besides, this sweater cannot be ripped. ::See item 1) regarding buttonholes and cockroaches.::

Hearts and Crafts

My current struggles with Ariann have commandeered all creative energies. The Travails of the Tell Tale Heart will be continued at a later date. Okay, I've been spending a little too much time at the Heart Candy site.

I'm knitting a doomed sweater. Have some heart.

Labels: Deep Shit, My Daughter Scares Me, The Heart of Man, When Knitting You is Hurting Me

1) Had a great Mother's Day. Cabana pulled together a fine spread of t-bones on the grill and aspergrass and I hardly had to do a thing but sit and grin. Okay, I helped a little by soaking the asparagus real good, because I happent to think that sand belongs between butt cheeks and 'ginas, and not the in the folds of a favorite veggie.

2) Got lots done on my second Ariann sleeve, which started out looking good but is now a perfectly puckered twin to the first sleeve. This sleeve in the round stuff is kind of painful. It's like singing the camp song Found a Peanut. It starts out fun and energetic, but by the time you "died anyway" you're ready to grab the bottle opener and head for the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

3) Cakers scored three goals at the soccer game on Saturday. She was thrilled on the inside, of course, but acted all shy and stuff on the outside. While she definitely got her game on, she also benefited from a little help from the opposing team's goalie, who managed to tie himself to the goal net with the string of his shorts, then couldn't get it undone. It was only after our team scored another goal and the poor kid brought the net down on himself while defending his post, he was set free by his father. Who was not happy.

Tie game?

4) At home, after the game, Cakers did what any 5 year-old would do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon: Sit atop a pile of wood chips, on a Talbots dress bag.



5) I bought some yarn. It's Lavold's Cotton Patine in a purply color. I bought it online, on sale, but can't remember where and for now, I don't care. It's headed to the Sahara. That is, if I can remember the password to open the pdf file.

I tried to get a clear shot in the outdoor light, but the Ched was having none of it.



6) Speaking of Cheddar, we had a health scare with him last week. It started out as a little limp but when he started walking like a drunken Cheesehead ::Is that redundant?:: we took him to the vet. My first and most serious fear was that he had cancer, which the vet was worried about herself, until the x-rays came back. Seems our boy has really bad arthritis, which is better than cancer, but can be debilitating.

The vet put him on a medication that seems to be helping, but there are some health risks with it, which I should NOT have looked up on the internet. But I did. Ahem. To me, the risk is worth it because if we didn't treat this as aggressively as possible, we'd be facing a quality of life decision about now. Labs gotta walk.

He definitely is feeling better, even though first thing in the morning he's still gimpy and his back legs tend to wind around each other, like a twist tie. The weird thing is, aside from the limping he showed no other signs of being uncomfortable or otherwise "pouty" as labs are wont, when feeling wonky.

7) Gotta go.
Have a Monday, everyone.

Labels: Fur, My Daughter Scares Me, When Knitting You is Hurting Me

It's Ear Candy Friday
Finding this C.D. for $5.99, was the only good thing that's happened to me this week. Well, besides tonight's takeout of orange chicken and sauteed green beans and rangoon. Oh, and some wine. I think. No. That was last night. The wine.


I am having quite a stretch of shit-for-jobs. And outside of a day's lull here and there, I foresee no end in sight until June 7.

Anyway.

Last night I found myself at the neighborhood pharmacy. Our neighborhood pharmacy is of the national-chain ilk, except it's small and neighborly, with dangerously crooked floors and a faint smell of musty, from roof leaks gone by. Despite the element of national-chaininess, I loves me some neighborhood pharmacy. ::I got lots of stories of old neighborhood pharmacy living, from standpoint of child customer, and later, adult employee.::

In a moment of stress-based distractibility, I took to wandering the aisles my stinky, bumpy, neighborhood pharmacy. I fondled back scrubbers, re-contemplated the meaning of Midnight Blue Mascara, re-considered starting an Easter basket collection and re-read a brochure about lady holes that smell like rotted carrot tops, such as found in the bottom of the vegetable bin. At least that's what I think it was talking about.

And when I saw this new-to-me CD on the display, I recognized it right away as the perfect little sumpin-sumpin my cheese-shredded brain was seeking.

I was not disappointed. This man's voice has always been able to move me to tears, but singing these classics, umm mmm, it's like a blankie for my soul.

You can sample the CD here. Unchained Melody is my fave right now, but there aren't any cuts I would kick out of bed for eating carrot tops.

What She Said
Yesterday Cakers asked me, in all earnestness, if we could please get Bella's Kitten Maker fixed, so she can have kittens. I don't know why, but it kind of made me want to cry. ::I know. Big deal. These days I cry at sight of dryer lint and Valerie Bertinelli.::

Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work.
I'm taking tonight off to dance and sing and drink, a bit. But the rest of my weekend belongs to the bitch in the briefcase.

Labels: eye candy Friday, I Work Too, My Daughter Scares Me, Now You're Whining, Too Tired for Pudding

What She Said
There's always one more squeeze in the toothpaste.-My Mom

I realize it's a bit lacking in grammatical integrity, at best, but it's exactly what my mom said to us when we were kids, upon hearing that we were out of toothpaste.

Although it doesn't stand up to any kind of scientific logic, my mother was always right. If we rolled the tube out flat, starting at the crimped corners of the tube, and pressed and pushed and kneaded with our finger tips, there would indeed, be one more squeeze. Again. And sometimes again, some more.

The Neverending Tube. Practically magic.

Of course it wasn't really magic, but mom had a bit of an investment in our belief in a homegrown miracle of perpetual proportions, on par only with Jesus feeding the crowds with a basket of fish. ::Or was it a bucket of chicken?:: Or one peripausal mother single-crotchedly keeping Kotex financially afloat, via a mere 3- week production. So before the truth could not be squeezed from the tube, a replacement tube would appear.

As a result of recent developments at work ::Read: Shit Storms. No umbrella.:: I'm feeling much like that near-empty tube of toothpaste from my childhood. And the powers-that-be are sounding an awful lot like my mother: "There's always one more squeeze. If we roll her out flat, starting at the crimped corners of her toes, and press and push and knead her with our finger tips, there will, indeed, be one more squeeze."

I hope they realize that there's no guarantee that the product they're seeking will come from the hole they're watching, or will be of the substance they're expecting.

And So It Begins
Yesterday, says my husband: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Cakers has a boyfriend. It's a secret. I promised not to say anything. To you."

"She told you not to tell me? Why?"

"I don't know. So don't say anything."

"How long have you known?"

"Wednesday."

Can a five year-old really be capable of breaking a mother's heart?

What am I supposed to do with the bitterness?

And the fear, for the future of our relationship?

Does she really not trust her own mother to keep a secret?

I'll keep you all posted on any breaking developments.

Oh yeah, his name is Cody.

Hair Spray
I get my hair colored every six weeks and a touchup every three weeks in between. For the three week appointment, my hairdresser applies the color to my sideburns and forehead hairline and sends me on my way, to rinse at leisure when I get home.

This system is a pain, mostly because by the time I get to the car, I look mighty strange and always get odd looks from fellow travelers on the road.

So yesterday my hairlady tells me they have a new touch-up product. Spray paint. For hair. She said it might work better than our present system, in that I could touch it up as needed at home and not have to wait for the three weeks. ::Weeks which are getting longer and longer, in direct proportion to the rate of my hair getting grayer and grayer.::

For about three seconds the idea was intriguing to me. And then I had a vision of reality. A vision of what Spray Paint For Hair, in my hands, would look like. And it went something like this:


I started laughing so hard, my hair lady had to stop cutting, so as not to accidently lop off the nearest orifice cover. My hair lady knows and loves me well. And after a few moments of contemplation of her own, she less than reluctantly agreed with my concern.

The work schedule this week will likely be blog-post/logical-thought prohibitive.
Just sayin'.
Cause I can just say that.
What I just said.

Labels: My Daughter Scares Me, With Grace My Ass

I borrowed Cakers' camera when I took those pictures for the Typical Day post. This shot was one of several that unloaded along with mine. I'm not sure what Cheddar is thinking but that girl has the look of love.

Labels: Fur, My Daughter Scares Me

Yesterday morning I was walking down the hallway towards the stairs, trying to be quiet so as not to wake the Cakers, when I heard her call from her bedroom.

"Mom!"

"What?"

"Hey."

Hey.

My five year old said Hey.

Otherwise, I Got Nothing
Except for this picture in a coloring book we were using last night.



Is it just me, or is this female astronaut asking for a diaper change?
Or something.

Otherwise, I really got nothing.

Labels: My Daughter Scares Me

I'm posting here today to tell you I have not time to post here today.

1) Cabana Boy has disembedded from the shop and now has Cabana Balls to the Wall here at home.

2) I had to stay late yesterday at work because of yet another emergent issue, which will require massive followup next week. I had originally planned on staying late yesterday to prepare for an important meeting I am running at 7 a.m. Monday morning and to finish up a document that is now over a week late and to do some work on a mandatory report that is .007% done (i.e. it's named and dated) and needs to be completed by the end of the day Tuesday. I brought said report and other document home to work on. Here. Who's that laughing?

3) Last night I was about to finish a hat for a local charity and found a mistake at the start of the decreases. With the help of a rich red buzz, I took this very well, and commenced to rip it back to the boo-boo. Before I knew it I had ripped the entire thing out, balled up the yarn and plopped it in my knit bag. I told myself I'd redo it today but I know I won't. I'm having a hard time with it because I feel guilty that I knit myself a cute hat while a bunch of knitters are busting their asses for charities. Although, at the rate of my current affective degeneration, I may become my own charity case, real soon. More on that. ::I SO should not be on this computer.::

Here's a better shot of my Republic color. ::Yes, this is the third post on this one effin' FO. I'm going for the Milkin' the F.O. in Blog record. Anyone know the current stats on that? Thanks.::


I wore the hat to work yesterday ::I never wear hats except when I'm engaging in outdoor sport:: and got lots of compliments. A friend who is a frequent flyer of the B-Republic recognized the model immediately. I feel very chi-chi in it, which is a rare and beautiful hat experience for the likes of a Pea Brain like me. Although when I was leaving the building yesterday, I ran into an administrator who stopped to update me on a situation. As he spoke, he couldn't NOT look at the big ass button. I wanted to ask him, Does this Button make my Head look big? But I didn't.

3) We've done nothing around here for Christmas. No tree. No outdoor lights. No shopping. Naught. We live in a heavily-draped-with-lights neighborhood, and every house on our block now has outdoor lights, except for us and the house that is still under construction. Most of them went up Thanksgiving weekend, when it was 69 degrees. I'm half expecting neighbors at the door, bearing cookies and casseroles under the guise of assumption that we have met with some Christmas-tree-light-preventing-tragedy. Cabana says he's on it today.

4) I have committed to making a handmade contribution to a charity, due this coming Thursday. I have, er had pieces and bits of the supplies required for the intended product stored hither and yon. It's a craft project involving paper and glue and photos. Amidst the living room carnage last night I found a few of those previously stored items required for this project. I am afraid to take a closer look. This contribution also requires a bit of knitting, of which I have knit not a bit. And I have not clever closing for this one. On to 5.

5) The mice are back. They have been chowing down on the D-Con, then crapping in the empty container. Evidently D-Con in Mouse means "Eat this Fiber. Live Forever."

6) I signed up for Google Reader. I once signed up for Bloglines but it would never let me log in and when I tried to sign up again, it said I was already a member. I'm still trying to figure out the big attraction with the readers. Is it just me or is it more work this way? It seems like a lot of clicking, especially if you fall behind a day or so and you have to read more than one post on a blog, as opposed to just doing it the old fashioned way, by visiting the blog. I'm definitely less inclined to comment. Yes, that is less inclined than my current less inclined inclinations.

7) Last night I was watching TV and on came that commercial with the man and woman watching "It's a Wonderful Life." You know, he's on the couch, she's on the floor, perfectly made up and cutely coiffed, like we all look at the end of the day. From his spot on the couch he reaches under the tree and hands her a gift of diamonds. The only thing in the room, it seems, is them and a tree and a T.V. I looked around my sitting area and this is what I saw:



Here's a closeup on that upper left ::except blogger put it sideways. Fuck you blogger. Just Fuck the Hell you.::



Note to self: Find Therapist for Cakers Entire Family.

In the meantime, I really have no business sitting here. It's almost Christmas for, Rice Cakes! I got some Muletide Ass to kick. Right after go I shoot some bubbles. Just one game. Really.

Labels: Christmas, Knit Done, My Daughter Scares Me, Vermin

Trying to calm a nervous babe on the first day of kindergarten...



...can be a daunting task.

Or not.



He We She got through the day with no reported calamity. In fact, there has been no reported anything. She's not talking about it. Period.

Before she went totally clam, she did identify Quiet Time at her new day care as her favorite part of the day. I found this somewhat disturbing, since my daughter is the Anti-Quiet. Something tells me my life will never the same.

Speaking of my life, I'm having a difficult time adjusting to this world of work shit. I'm tired. I can't sleep. And I'm consumed with whiny thoughts of days gone bye.

Later this week: Knitting and a Q.
As for now, I bid thee adieu.

I was coming home from kindergarten - well they told me it was kindergarten. I found out later I had been working in a factory for ten years. It's good for a kid to know how to make gloves. --Ellen DeGeneres

Labels: From My Loins, My Daughter Scares Me

I've been working on a post that doesn't want to be posted, apparently. And it seemed to simple at the start...

In the meantime, I give you The Cakers.



Is it me, or does anybody else see images of imploding Crayolas and Calendar Day weather icons?

Mmm Hmmm. Just as I thought.

Labels: From My Loins, My Daughter Scares Me

I start back to work on Tuesday and tomorrow we're waking The Cakers early to surprise her with a trip to the local amusement park. She's been begging to go for two summers now and we thought it would be a fun end-of-the-summer-topper.

Then, at the end of the week, we're going north for the holiday. What this means for the purpose of this one-sided conversation is that blog posts will be few and far between this week. It also means that I'll be topic hopping in this here post, so lace up those Red Ball Jets, and hang on. ::Spring sprong. Spring sprong. Remember that one, you late boomers?::

Kindergarten Krackers
I don't know who has it worse, me or her, but I do know this particular affliction has it all over ASS, with less attitude and more goofy. I swear, this past week has been like living with a pin ball in a pin ball machine. I get her subdued and focused for three seconds, turn my back and ping, ping, ping, she's bouncing off another wall, ding, ding, ding.

I'm kind of settling a bit into the notion of The Cakers in Kindergarten. I think I've been troubled the most by the thought that she's entering a whole new world of people and influences and adventures and starting friendships she very well may carry into adulthood.

My boy went to kindergarten once. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I now realize that kindergarten was the insidious beginning of the end of our life together as we knew it. Kindergarten is the gateway drug to college and/or otherwise growing up and leaving home. Which means that next week my baby girl will start the process of leaving her mother. And she's only four years old.

But she's ready for school. And really, I am too.

Are they ready for her is the real question.

Yesterday she wrote a story and made it into a book. Here's one of the pages.



Yes, it reads "I LOVE YOU ANA MOM ON CRACK BABY"

Now, before you go calling protective services, there really is a good explanation. See the heart with the crack in it, in this picture? Yeah, the pink one.



According to the author and illustrator, that crack represents a baby hatching out of a heart, just like The Cakers hatched out of her momma's heart. I'm just telling it as it was told to me, k?

According to the author, in that first page she was trying to say, from the third person perspective, "I LOVE YOU ANA, MOM AND CRACK BABY. The Crack Baby is the soon-to-be-born hatchling and, if I got the story straight, Cakers' imaginary baby brother or sister.

Crack Baby. Heh. Something tells me, once again, I got me a long, albeit interesting row to hoe.

Sew, What Now?
You may have noticed that there's been a sewing issue skirting knitblogland this summer. After weeks of oohing and ahhing and pining for some fresh shuttlecockin' of my own, I ordered this pattern.***

I first saw this pattern when Mariko modeled it earlier in the summer Mariko earlier in the summer ::It's kind of hard to keep up with the complexities of her proliferatin' ways*, I tell ya.::, and it was most recently referenced at Brainylady place.

The pattern came in the mail two days ago and I was very happy to see that the skirts look even cuter up close and personal. It also looks like an easy sew. I haven't sewn in years but the one thing I always liked about sewing, over knitting, was the immediate gratification quotient.

That quotient sounds particularly appealing after I recently decided that I need Trudie to be about 2 inches longer. One inch in the body, and another in sleeve depth. I decided this after completing the back and left front. It's really nont that demoralizing, since it's such a quick knit. But one thing I have learned about frogging is that it helps emotionally if I step away from the deed for a couple of days after. I guess it goes to that old adage "Absence makes the frog less harder." Or whatever...

So, while resting on my post-frog-knitting heels, my bigger ass plan for the weekend was to dig up and dust off the White boy from the basement, and whip me up a skirt. Or two. Even.

So a diggin' I did go, and came up with this:



Except this wasn't exactly how I found it. When I found it, the side door was open. You know, the door that covers the parts that make the other parts go up and down and shit. The inside of the machine was coated with it.

Now, I may not be the greatest housekeeper in the world, but people, this is not your common household dust. It's dryer lint. Icky, sticky, putridly mildewy dryer lint.

The storage room also houses the dryer vent tubing. The same dryer vent tubing that somehow disconnected itself from some vital, anti-lint-puke connection some time last winter. Unfortunately, because it occurred behind closed doors, the disconnect was not caught for about two full laundry rotations. That translates into about two full rounds of lint droppings upon my faithful White model 1477, who had the unfortunate circumstance of having his barn door open at that very time, just a foot away from the break in the tube.

After a futile, two-hour search for the operating manual, I took the machine out into better light and tried to clean it up a bit. It did not go well. This stuff is like lint gum on hot pavement. The outside surface is not my concern. But this shit is all over the inside too. Stuck like glue. If it is salvageable, the machine is probably not worth the price of getting it cleaned and tuned up. Especially since I'll have to fork over an extra 20 bucks for an operating manual, per my online resources. And I can't find the little box of sewing machine doohickies.

It's a pretty cheap model. For the total cost of getting it cleaned and tuned, replacing the manual and box of doohickies, I can buy a new one. Maybe it would have to be the next model down, but all I really need is a straight seam, buttonholin' ops and a zipper foot. Problem is, there's not much room in the budget right now, to supportyet another hobby,what with kindergarten start-up costs and college tuition. I guess you could say I'm up skirt creek.**

Needles to say, I am disappointed. Especially after my traipse through the carnage lead me to this piece of long forgotten fabric, which would be perfect for that skirt with the little flounce:



Pretty, huh? It's a rayon, I think. Washable, I hope. I've had it for 12 years, I'm thinking. Upon closer examination, you can see it has some unusual features to its personality. This looks like a gnarly claw, reaching for a spider.



And here's a depiction of Abe Lincoln riding a moose without antlers through the mountains of Arizona. Or maybe Osama Bin Laden on a donkey? Interesting, nonetheless.



Interesting as it is, it still looks like no new skirt for me, at least for awhile.

And you know what that means. I'm giving up sewing for lint.

*speaking of...Have you seen her new online Japanese fabric store? It's called Superbuzzy. Fun stuff. Go give her a click.

**A Sew Cool Update: Husband just said we can get me a new one. This probably means we can get him a new guitar. Care. Not.

***I had the wrong link for a bit. Sorry for the confusion.

Author's Note: I am temporarily showing only two posts at a time, until the margin- offending little fuck of a post gets bumped down a few. Is it any coincidence that it's the WTF Wednesday post? Hmmm? Exactly.

Labels: My Daughter Scares Me

...is for my big, strong, hunka, hunka, burning lens.

The Olympus E-500.



I received this camera as a gift last Christmas and have yet to mention it here. Until now. Of course.

The main reason I haven't mentioned it is that I really don't know much about it, except that it has a lot more pixels than my last one, that it takes around 14 fucktillion pictures before the rechargeable battery runs out and that it makes me very happy. I have yet to find make my acquaintance with the manual, but I'm sure it's very nice.

I was initially kind of uncomfortable with the extravagance, but I know better than to dicker with Santa. Besides, it has been my experience with the old hairy guy, that whenever he is really good to me, he rewards himself threefold, which gets me off the hook from that indulged feeling.

The second reason I haven't mentioned my new camera is that I've been feeling kinda guilty. About my old camera. And how, after it served me faithfully for 7 years, it was rewarded by being used to photograph its replacement, after which, it sat in a drawer for six months.

Oh, the humiliation.

In fact, I'm only posting this now because in January, I put the old dog back to work as the boat camera, because it's more portable. So there.

Even though I haven't found read the manual yet, I quickly came to appreciate the camera's diverse capabilities simply from looking at the easy-to-read dial on the top of the camera.



While I have yet to utilize all these features, the icons are easy to recognize and self-explanatory in their simplicity, as follows:

A-This is the Find Me a Girlfriend setting, as indicated by the icon of a woman's head, with a bouffant-y, upsweep-esque kind of do'. You have to tilt you head a little to see it right.

B-This is the Find Me a Boyfriend setting, as indicated by the icon of a man's, well, it's kind of hard to see in this picture, but it's clearly a profile of a man's, well, you know. You have to tilt your head the other way from the girlfriend angle to see that its clearly a man's, well, you know. If you can't see it still, I'll just say it's a big hangy thing kinda hanging over smaller hangy thing. k?

C-This setting will give you superhero athletic skills.

D-This one will make the person you are taking a picture of smell better. It also works for self-portraits.

E- This icon shows a star and a crescent moon, which is the universal symbol for for psychic powers. On this setting, well, you already know, right? I knew you did.

Although, I still don't know what that Auto PASM thing means. Although it sounds kind of freaky.

There is just one thing about this camera that concerns me. There are some settings that provide a brief description in the control panel screen, of the setting's specific purpose. There's one such description that reads "Shoot Active Children." I'm like, "All of them?" Yikes!

See? I don't need no stinkin' manual.

All I need is a thing of beauty on which to focus, and the rest kinda takes care of itself.







Scratchin'My Itch
Today is our 7 year wedding anniversary. Tomorrow we're sneaking off to the cottage for our annual slumber party for two, where we hope to float some boats.

So I'll be out for a coupla.

Bloggy Dearest
You are not getting up from this table until you have finished that meat.-Joan Crawford as depicted in "Mommy Dearest"

Before I get to that, LeeAnne, Neil, Kim and Chris, you may be excused from the table.

As for the rest of you...I'm going to keep putting Friday's post in front of you until you finish making your comments on it. I want no less than 15 bites.

And when I come back on Tuesday, I expect to find that you finished the job.

CeCe, Now
::You thought I was kidding, didn't you?::
Post Preface: The following post (this is not the actual post, part) is cognitively fueled by my family's genetic predispostion to explain every thought in one's head that is even remotely related to a given topic, at any given opportunity. Historically this familial phenonmenon has primarily been observed in restaurant settings where over the years, thousands of hapless wait staff have fallen victim to hearing loosely related thoughts and/or personal histories regarding menu items of interest, as shared by select (very) female members of my family. And it goes something like this (still not the post part, k? I'll let you know)

Waitress: Are you ready to place your order?

Fictional Female Member of My Family (FF MOM F): Well, the chicken looks good. Are there any nuts in it?

Wait Staff: Nuts in the chicken?

FF MOM F: I have diverticulosis. Just one sesame seed can kill me. ::pats tummy::

Wait Staff: Well, we wouldn't want that. Would you like some more time?

FF MOM F: The halibut looks good, but I just had fish on Wednesday. I had dinner with my son. He's been married four times,but this last one seems pretty nice. I think the rehab helped. When he was little I used to tie him to a tree in the back yard, so I could get some housework done and watch my stories. One time I accidently tied him to the dog. Boy, that was a quite the to-do. We had to put the dog down. Poor thing. Nerves, dontcha know.

Wait Staff: I can come back...

FF MOM F: Mmmm, I was thinking about the halibut. There isn't any shrimp in that, is there?

Wait Staff: Only if the halibut ate some as his last meal.

FF MOM F: Oh, no! I can't eat shellfish. Even if I'm sitting next to someone eating shellfish and I accidently stick my finger in their food or give them an open mouth kiss or something, I will spend the next two days in the bathroom, if you know what I mean. ::pats tummy::

Wait Staff: Really, ma'am, I was just joking. There's nothing on the halibut but a crunchy potato coating.

FF MOM F: There aren't any nuts on those potatoes are there? I can't have nuts...

Start Post Here...(you were warned, remember)
Ce Ce! What shall I see?
A horse's head where his tail should be.-Nursery Rhyme

A pretty face on a horse's ass. That's kind of how I've been feeling about my well honed skills at badly following a good pattern. But, back to that in a minute.

When Bonne Marie first released CeCe, I fell in love with her beauty, brains and personality, on sight. After purchasing the pattern, I decided I should finish that damned Peaches before casting on for yet another lace cardigan. Plus, it was too late to finish in time to wear to work for spring, when I would get the most use from a short-sleeved cardie.

And then: 1) Bonne Marie added 3/4 length sleeves to the pattern mix and 2) Peaches bit the dust.

And here we are, almost ready to make a selection off the menu.

After swatching three, gauge appropriate yarns from my stash, I found myself with no other choice but to go buy some yarn. At my neighborhood yarn store, I fell for a lovely wad of cocoa-hued Cascade Sierra.

Even though it wasn't on the prescribed list of yarns, I thought I could make it work because the gauge recommendations fit the pattern's. Mostly I thought I could make it work because I really, really wanted this color. It reminds me of buckeyes, which reminds me of the time I collected buckeyes as a kid, and thought they were so beautiful that surely people would want to buy them, so I went selling buckeyes door to door. I was, of course, mistaken. Consequently, over the next year or so, I was the neighborhood Kid's Choice for teasing and the random punch in the stomach.

I did get the stockinette gauge, but because I was in a hurry to cast-on for the next road trip north, I skipped swatching for the lace pattern. After casting on in the car and knitting up over four inches of pattern over the next couple days, I decided I didn't like the fabric. It was too beefy.



Now,I'm a girl who likes me some beefy. I likes me some beefy cakes and some beefy mitts and even a nice beefy wine. But beefy lace? Um no. Not on my swatch.

So I ripped it all out and started over with a larger needle, which resulted in the not-so-beefy look I was looking for.



Lovely, ain't she? My CeCe? The only comforting thought I carried with me, as I ripped out the four or so inches of the first try, was that the next try would go much quicker since I already had lots of practice with the pattern.

Ha. Well, let's just say my Comfort went Southern and I ended up ripping back two more inches, twice. You see...

::This would be about the time I'd start telling ya about that wintery day in the 7th grade, when I got off the bus and was laughing so hard that I peed my mini skirt. I mean, this stuff was a day's worth, race horse force, shooting and steaming from my in betweens, initially straight down into the snow, and eventually reduced itself to piddle, right into my stylin' plastic-fake-leather-look fleece-lined shoe boots. ::

...While going with the bigger needle, I had to go with a smaller size in the pattern, but I had memorized the pattern for the larger size, and therefore kept knitting that one, which reminded me of the time in kindergarten when I threw up all over my rabbit muff in gym class and how even though that muff never smelled or felt the same after that, I still loved it so..

Waitress: I'll give you a few more minutes.

Despite two more false starts, I'm happy to say I now have two full lace repeats completed, with nary a boo.

CeCe how I am?

Pre-K Wasteland
Things have been getting a bit gnarly here in the house of Cakers and Swine. We held up pretty well the first couple of days of being housebound on account of the inclement climate. While daddy worked in the basement, me and the girl had ourselves some crafty times, coloring, painting and doing nails via a special spa day afternoon. ::THAT spa thing was so fun that I've pretty much decided that it is an event not to be replicated until the Cakers'senior prom, or beyond, to better enable us to remain living and/or not incarcerated fully treasure the special and wholly unique memory of the day.::

At the end of the second day, however, I was seriously needing a cure for my shredded nerves. I did, however, make mental note of how well The Cakers was holding up through the hole-up. ::I'm now convinced that sound mental health can be talked to a slow, tortuous, and certain death.::

That being said, after my well polished Cakers was well in bed that night, I came upon this scene in the playroom:



Evidently, some of us hadn't been holding up as psychologically sound as I originally thought.

Here's a close-up of Mattel's latest release,Morning After Barbie:



This Barbie comes with her own bigger than life-size, hand free vibrator:



I'm not sure what he's planning to do with the compact car, but the dog adds a cute touch.

Really, things have been crazy ass around here. I am way behind in reading blogs and responding to comments. I especially wanted to get back to some of you on comments on my cottage neighborhood post. I hope to still do that. ::Sigh::

And I suppose I'm not even close to being caught up on the Alpha bit thingy, eh?

Thanks all for the compliments on the ribby shell. It really doesn't look as obviously swirly in real life, as depicted in the picture. I have worn it with total emotional abandonment.

I really need to make this a wrap. I've been working on this post for two days, two sentences at a time. At this moment, I should be taking full advantage of The Cakers being out of the house for a couple of hours, so excuse me while I try to fire up Barbies Robo-brator get some sorely needed housework done.

*Blogger will not let me upload pictures today at all. WTF, again? So the Barbie pictures are hand jobs and cannot be clicked to enlarge and look a little hinky, to boot.

Labels: ABC, Deep Shit, My Daughter Scares Me, Pho-Ho', The Casting On Couch, Tree From Where I Fell