A personal failing.

Why, I ask you, do soft-spoken, laconic, deliberate people make me want to eat my own eyeballs with a hot fork? Why do they make me want to poke them with the fork with which I just ate my eyeballs and then scream, "That minute you just spent breathing and mumbling, I will never get it back!" Why do I hate them so much that, when I answer the phone and one of them is on the other end, I feel the need to slam the handset on the desk repeatedly and tell them that their time is up and they can't ever use the phone again?

I hate them. I hate people that I have to strain to hear, I hate people who cannot finish a sentence, I hate people who can't decide between 2% milk and non-fat milk and hold the door of the freezer open at Albertson's when all I want is some half and half and I can't get it and they won't move out of the way, despite the fact that I've asked them to and have had to take to nudging them with my cart. For the love of God, can they please drink some coffee, go for a jog, shoot up with heroin, and do whatever it takes to keep up with everyone else?

This is far worse in person. Don't look at me with cow eyes because I'm going too fast for you. Don't open and close your mouth repeatedly before you speak. Don't try to slow things down for me because you think I need to take life at a more leisurely pace. Don't EVER tell me to take a deep breath when I'm speaking to you because I seem flustered. I seem flustered because you cannot be bothered to exert enough mental energy to answer the question that you are paid more than me to answer. And stop blinking so much. No more blinking.

If you are elderly or very young, I exempt you from all of these opinions. If you are incredibly shy or anxious, you're excused, too. You are fine, you do what you need to do. If you are not any of these things and you simply don't see the point of expediency, please, for my eyeballs' sake, take a speed-reading course, learn to love Red Bull, watch any movie starring Rosalind Russell, and stop waiting on me in every store I seem to frequent.

That sound you just heard?

It's my ovaries exploding.




















God, I miss them. No, not my ovaries! The boys, silly people.

Bonjour, ma chere.

I am Monsieur Mander, S. Mander. I am wondereeng why you are bozzering me in my weenter slumbairs. Do you not 'ave ozzer petite creatures of zee slimy variety at home zat you can rip from zeir peaceful rest and poke and photograph and expose to zee cold, cold sea air? I beg you, put me back where you found me and go find a snake or somesing.  

It's the sound of the paw patting the cheek.

Gets me every time.

What have I been doing with my life?

Getting an invitation to join Ravelry has been a blessing and a curse.  It's a blessing because, oh my God, the volume of patterns and amount of help available is incredible and people actually swap unused or unwanted yarn, but the other knitters, they are kicking my ass.  Cables, lace, intarsia, Fair Isle...one knitter who has been knitting for the same amount of time that I have has finished 49 projects.  I haven't tallied mine, but 49?  Not even close.  And my Lord, the galleries.  There's a little pool of dribble on my laptop from staring at things that make my knees get all achy in the back from lust coupled with a hearty helping of terror.  All of my work seems shabby and feeble and lacking fineness and imagination.  I suppose in another 27 years, I'll be able to have invisible yarn joins and hand-dyed socks to make younger knitters jealous.

Reason 1,254,783 to get into shape.

Snowboarding is actually pretty damn fun.  However, when one is so out of shape that one cannot even push oneself up to a standing position when sitting on the hillside to enable oneself to do a maneuver that would get one to the bottom of said hillside, one should most likely start working out so the next session isn't quite as pathetic and hopeless.

Inky

Must scratch. So itchy. So tempting.

And it's all suddenly so clear.

Upon turning to Lifetime to catch Golden Girls, I was dazzled by the last five minutes of this movie, during which a young woman from Texas with big dreams and only ambition to keep her reaching for those damn stars sings the Habanera very badly at her prestigious music school recital while the bitchy girl she has been trying to best with her raw talent and angelic nature watches scornfully from the wings dressed as the Queen of the Night (wish I had seen that scene, too) and then suddenly is whipped into a costume change, given a headset mic and spun around to sing her own heartfelt words set to Bizet's tune about not letting anyone hold you back from your goals and that it's always darkest before the dawn and oh my God, kill me, and then I see that it was based on a book by Britney and Lynne Spears.  And now I really want to see the whole thing.  

A nice kind of life.

It's the best kind of day.  A mostly clean house, hours of uninterrupted knitting and a lovely old movie I've never before seen.  The first sock is done:

And the second toe done.  I need to figure out how to reinforce the heel so it doesn't wear too quickly.  

I have spent a good deal of the day avoiding any contact between fabric, the couch, my husband and my new tattoo:

Yes, it hurt.  I wanted to die all during the first ten minutes, but then I just wanted to repeatedly hit the artist.  I love it and it's beautiful, but getting tattooed seems to be like having a baby; you forget once it's over how much it hurt or you would never do it again.  Don't tell Mom.  Despite the fact that it's merely a ball of yarn and some needles, it may as well be a leopard ripping my flesh, exposing bloody veins underneath with the words, "Satan is my Husband" over the top for all the difference the content makes to her.  So, it's our secret.  Sweet.

Short bus...I mean, short row socks.

Sock at 8 pm:

Sock at 11 pm:

Damn you tiny stitches...DAMN YOU!!!

Itty Knitting

A wee sweater for the lovely V...

My first short row toe...

Knit on size 0 needles at 8 stitches per inch.  Are you hearing me?  EIGHT STITCHES PER INCH.  That's small.

Most. Brilliant. Thing. Ever.

Why didn't I think of this?  Aloe, IN THE YARN!  Genius.

Why, WHY will he not let me do this?

It's bridge night.

I'd better make an ambrosia salad and have daquiris in the fridge.

And the kids can stay up to watch Lucy in the rumpus room.

Waterloo, I was defeated, you won the war.

Waterloo, promise to love you forever more;

Waterloo, couldn't escape if I wanted to;

Waterloo, knowing my fate is to be with you; 

Waterloo, finally facing my Waterloo.

But our dictator has such white teeth.

Tom Cruise is preaching the new world order.  He knows the way, people, he understands what needs to be done.  Like other zealots before him, he is not a spectator, he is in the game, he knows that he has the answers, he can't rest until he brings everyone around, whether they know they need to be brought around or not.  He's all in, baby, and you should be, too.  He has seen the light.  Now, if he could just tell us what he's actually talking about, maybe we could be on board with him.  On Battleship Earth.

Spigot

I know that dreams provide a drain for the crap that builds up in our psyche so it doesn't back up and pour over the sides of our brains, but why, at 35 years old, am I still having dreams that my parents dislike and are disappointed in me?  I had a terrible, terrible dream this morning that my father, who in real life has always been very loving and supportive, told me that I bore him and that he hates it when I come visit.  I was young and single in this dream, so I was facing this rejection on my own, and I just felt so blasted, especially as my dream-mom just stood at the sink nodding her head agreeing with Dad as he dismissed me.  

I hate waking from these type of dreams and feeling so shattered, especially as my family is so loving, and it feels as though I'm betraying them and their unfailing kindness somehow.  However, I know that every kid is truly convinced that they are the least favorite and that their parents secretly love their brother/sister best, but I thought I'd be safe from such thoughts at my advanced age.  Guess not.

I can watch no longer in silence.

I was not pleased with the new Masterpiece Theater Persuasion that aired on Sunday. As you all surely know, this book is my absolute favorite. I've likely read it thirty or so times, have it digitally on my phone, have a pocket sized copy and have visited Lyme (with Julie) to see where Louisa Musgrove fell. I am a tough critic of adaptations. However, the 1996 film was lovely and made only small changes for the sake of timeliness, and the changes did not negatively impact the story. I cannot say the same things for this most recent production. My grievances? I list them for you, in the order in which they appeared in the film:

1. Lady Russell was written in the film to be a) unaware of the direness of Sir Walter's debts, b) out of town when the decision to rent out Kellynch was made, c) colder and more imperious than Jane Austen intended (many, many mentions were made of her in the book as being warm-hearted and loving towards Anne and the rest of her family, despite Elizabeth and Sir Walter's not being worthy of such affection), d) far less involved with Anne in her day to day life than explicitly stated in the book. Consequently, her persuasion of Anne to not marry Wentworth before the story begins seems to be incomprehensible. Why would a woman so removed from their scene have such influence? She was meant to be a second mother to Anne, not a snobbish and diffident neighbor.

2. The Musgroves were written to be too young and too thin. They were not meant to be slender and elegant society people, but rather large and comforting country folk, the opposite of her family.

3. At Lyme, Anne's speech about women's constancy in the face of the loss of hope was intended by Austen to be the final catalyst that spurs Wentworth to confess his abiding love to Anne, not as an aside directed at Benwick that Wentworth doesn't even hear.

4. All the scenes in Bath felt rushed. Mr. Elliott's courtship of Anne and her growing unease towards him were given no development or motivation. Thus, her reasons for truly not wanting to marry him, aside from her hope of Wentworth, were never explained. Lady Russell's desirousness of the match, Anne's own desire to see Kellynch preserved, Anne's doubts of his integrity, all of that was eliminated (except by one brief mention), and thus we were not allowed to see that Lady Russell's ability to persuade Anne to do what she did not want to do for the sake of family was gone, replaced by Anne's own mature desire to do what she knew to be right.

5. Mrs. Smith's one scene didn't convey the extent of her disability and the depth of her friendship with Anne that would lead her to disclose not only the duplicitous nature of Mr. Elliott but the weakness of her own husband. In the book, it was only Anne's firm resolve to NOT marry Mr. Elliott that made Mrs. Smith tell Anne what kind of man Mr. Elliott truly was, and not that Mrs. Smith thought that Anne was going to marry Mr. Elliott and so she had to stop it by telling Anne of his character. That is an important distinction.

6. The Musgroves (Charles and Mary) would not invite themselves to stay with Sir Walter and Elizabeth. That the footmen were carrying their luggage into Sir Walter's house was absurd. Mary was far too aware of precendence to do such a thing and Charles was too indifferent to the Elliotts to stay with them.

7. In the book, Wentworth waited for Anne to read the letter and come down from the hotel to the street. He would not have left, or run off, or tried to avoid her. And why did we not hear the whole letter? It's the lovliest thing ever and we were robbed of it.

8. Most importantly, Anne would NEVER EVER have run through the streets of Bath looking for Wentworth. It is utterly contrary to not only her character, but to the gentility and dignity of the women of her class and time.

9. My biggest complaint, however, was the absurd purchase of Kellynch by Wentworth for Anne. There is no way on God's green earth that Sir Walter would have sold, especially to the sailor husband of his least favorite daughter. It was ridiculous and utterly unnecessary.

I will never understand why, when such flawless source material exists, screenwriters insist on rearranging a book's order of events, ignoring clear character descriptions and adding superfluous and incongrous events when the existing events are not only sufficient but necessary to ensure the continuity of narrative.

As I am not as familiar with Northanger Abbey and it looks sillier and more fun (which is appropriate as it is a parody of the popular gothic novel of the period), so I'm hoping that I will enjoy that adaptation. The rest could be tricky. We'll see.

The proof is in the knitting.

I finally found a fingerless glove pattern I liked, so Lee finally gets his matching mitts:

And it only took me a YEAR, but I finally assembled my blocking board from Lynn and Sal (with Christian's canvas stretching expertise) and blocked my Grandma's scarf knitted with yarn Mom bought in Minnesota expressly for that purpose.  We had to buy a piece of plywood on which to mount the fabric and pad, and I avoid home improvement stores like a Bellevue housewife avoids Value Village. 

Seriously, though, Mom and Dad spent Thanksgiving in a lake cabin with Dad's brother and sister and only went to the neighboring yarn store ONCE.  I would have asked to eat with the owners so I wouldn't be too far from the yarn.

If the commercials have already made me cry...

Imagine what the actual programs will do.  Have oxygen standing by.  Of course, the BBC Persuasion is one of the most perfect pieces of filmmaking in the history of celluloid, so any crying could be of chagrin over the ruination of my favorite book in the whole wide world.  However, I've seen the Emma as it was made for A&E and features a pre-Hollywoodized Kate Beckinsale, and I've memorized the P&P already, as it's the seminal one also from A&E that features the delicious Mr. Firth, so, I know those will be good.  And, Billie Piper is in Mansfield Park, so it should be chav-tastic, even if it's not Austen-elightful (okay, that one was crap).  Such expectations.

Things I will never do:

1. Brush a friend's dog and save the downy undercoat (well, I'd never brush any dog as I wouldn't survive to save anything).

2. Spin said downy undercoat into yarn.

3. Dye said yarn using the crushed carcasses of beetles I found in the desert.

4. Knit said bug-dyed dogwool into a kicky little purse for the dog's owner.

Nor would anyone, you say, disbelievingly? Have I got a show for you.

Oh brother, my brother...

you are wrong. I'm sorry, Mark, but there it is. Clementines are not better than Satsumas. Why, you ask? With Clementines, the pith, it does not peel off easily in long, satisfying, easily discardable strips as it does with Satsumas. And Clementines are oddly firm, as though they're Satsumas that have had Botox or really like to work out. And yes, they're seedless and the rind is easy to peel, but I still end up with a ball of pith cud clenched in my molars after eating a slice. And, while I know the pith has all the vitamin C, I still do not enjoy the fibrous stringiness.

I miss my fruits de saison.

Notes on Knitting

I'm going to my first Stitch 'n' Bitch tomorrow.  I've never knitted en masse, so I don't know what to expect, but I'm apparently one of the experts.  Heh.  Before I go, I'm going to try and find a fingerless glove pattern that doesn't make me want to barf, but I don't know what kind of luck I'll have, as I've been looking for hours and none of the patterns are what I want, and if they're modifiably close, the thumb gusset shaping instructions seem to be written in lorem ipsum.  Could be because it's 11:30 on a Friday night after I've worked both jobs and I'm really tired, but could be that I'm just really dense and can't learn how to do anything unless someone physically shows me first.  That, and they're all on double points, which I only use to gouge out the eyes of people who try to make me use them.  So, have to find circular needle pattern.  

I have met my Waterloo in my friend Karen's sweater.  Never trust a website for gauge or quantity of yarn needed.  Both wrong, ran out of yarn, frogged and am half done with front, need to frog front and both sleeves can't seem to pick project up again as I'm depressed as Plath about it.

I decided to knit the sweater for new baby V in the round until the armholes, using three colors instead of two and carrying the yarn instead of cutting and reattaching.  So far, I likey.  I hate seaming, even with the sewing machine of glory, so the less flat work, the better.

I am terrified of entrelac.  I never, ever want to try it, and I wish Vogue would stop designing everything with brazen panels of it.  Stop.  It.  

I bow at the feet of the Yarn Harlot.  That is one funny bitch who can knit ANYTHING.

I've signed up for my first knitting class, on knitting socks using the Magic Loop.  I have some beautiful alpaca yarn I bought to make Christian some work socks, so I'm very excited.  Too excited.  It's a little sad.  I have to wait until March, though, as the opera schedule has killed my evenings and weekends and, consequently, my will to live.

I finished Lee's hat and now just need to felt it.  That leaves only these projects to go:

1.  Christian's Aran sweater and kilt socks

2.  Mom's chevron lace sweater

3.  Angie's lace tunic (which I have to design)

4.  The dragon hats for the three nephews.

5.  My lace ballet wrap sweater that I've been wanting to make for a year.

I vow to the knitting gods that I shall forevermore swatch or be cursed with ill-fitting garments.  I do solemnly swear.

What I did on my Christmas vacation:

Attempted (unsuccessfully) to take Jayden and Kyan ice skating with Christian and Julie:

Knitted Julie a new hat (to replace this one that SHE LOST.  You may ask why, after losing said charming hat that I knitted for her in painstaking fashion, I would make her another one, and the answer would be because I'm powerless against her.  Just look at that face!  Could you say no?  Didn't think so.  Well, and she'll be freezing in Minneapolis this winter.  I had to have some sympathy.  And, how many people would wear a knitted pineapple?):

Played a fantastic game called Bananagrams (which we're buying, and will most likely be killed at by Rich, the word king) that is like individual Scrabble, and had these particularly breathtaking word combinations:

I'm particularly proud of my "skedaddle-stunner" combo.  Christian's "ingratiated" is pretty impressive, too, as is "taxidermy", especially when coupled with "rhapsody".  Smart boy, what?

I have post-Christmas letdown.  Thankfully, I have a box of See's to get me through.

And now, for something completely snowy...

It snowed all last night. Three new inches, more expected today. I understand that Seattle had the first white Christmas in many, many years, as well. My soul, she is content.

I hear chuckling from above.

It's been snowing beautifully the past two days. Now, it's raining. All of the intense weather-related emotions I felt as a child that kept me from actually enjoying anything at all unless the weather was perfectly appropriate for the season/holiday/alignment of the planets have dropped back upon me like the safe that killed Marvin Acme. I was so happy and joyful today when we were skating (sort of...more like watching while Julie and Christian propped up Jayden and shoved him around the rink) and it was snowing and now I just want to go to bed and cry. Why do I get so terribly overwrought about the weather at Christmas, you ask? Excellent question, and if anyone can tell me, I'll give them a dollar. If I haven't spent it on liquor in which to numb my sorrow.

Best. Present. Ever.

I'm passing the baton on a grant, and the renewal is due January 1st. Christy, friend and co-worker, is the lucky inheritor of said grant, and, as the submission deadline is a holiday, she called the grant administrator to ask whether they would like it on the 31st or the 2nd. The response? "Eh, we usually are pretty flexible about renewals, so two weeks later, there's no rush. Sometime in January." Huh. This is a first. It would probably be inappropriate but seemingly fitting to send him a bottle of champagne with the paperwork.

There really is no place like it.

Home at last.  We didn't leave Orlando until 6ish EST so we got home latelatelate.  I missed the chickens, so I'm glad we didn't stay longer, but it was still hard to come home.  Man, did reality smack me in the ass this morning.  We have so much skanky laundry and the house is covered in feathers and dust, the Tivo isn't working and we have bills, bills, bills.  I hate it when companies change names without notification.  We received our car insurance bill and I would have pitched it for an ad if it hadn't been so thick as the name had changed to Titan.  Ugh.  I really don't like companies named after giant, evil, god-killing monsters.  Thanks, Nationwide.  

Anyway, WDW was fantastic; we had an amazing time.  The weather varied between lovely and temperate and the inside of Satan's mouth.  The parks were only crowded on our last day, so we decided that, the next time we go, we won't end on a Saturday.  We took the Keys to the Kingdom tour, which rocked our socks, and our guide was Distastic.  It was a little ackworthy to see Jessie from Toy Story without her head, though, in the backstage costuming area.  She was very young and pimply and I don't know that I ever needed to know that.  The evenings that we spent in the Magic Kingdom were some of the best I've ever spent.  I think all of us were a little overwhelmed to see Cinderella's Fairy Godmother at our fancy dinner on Saturday night in the Castle.  That the fireworks were going on outside was merely coals to Newcastle.  

It can be hard to dissect a vacation right after taking it.  Too many images and experiences get jumbled together and any kind of sense of timeline is lost.  We spent considerably less than we expected, so I'm proud of that.  Money is tight as I've had a month-long break in regular opera paychecks and we still have Christmas.  We all got pretty sick (well, half of us) at varying times during the week and whatever it is we have has settled into my sinuses.  The wretched air from the plane made my and Shelly's sinuses feel as though the entire top layer of membrane up there could be peeled off like a dried-up pudding skin.  Pretty image, huh?  

This week, I have rehearsals, the Ju-Ju is back from Africa and visiting tomorrow, I have to finish poor Karen's sweater and send off the criminal knits.  And clean the house.  Ugh.  Reality sucks.

Pissy

Made egregious error at work.  Caused panic and upsettedness.  Heart just not in it, apparently.  Checked checking account and damn mortgage accelerator took out extra payment (per agreement of which I was totally unaware as had nothing to do with implementation of), thus eliminating the cash for Disney World.  Now will have to use credit and that just makes me angry.  Don't have any more opera checks coming until med-December.  Don't want to sell Apple stock for vacation.  May have to.  Hate car payment, hate house payment, hate credit cards.  Want to sell everything and live in cottage in forest far away from calendars and grant budgets where can raise birds and alpacas and reptiles and spin own yarn with which to knit garments to sell and earn living.  Christian will have to telecommute.

Photogenic

Christian snapped some amazing pics of Sasha preening, so I shall now force you to view them (well, you could navigate away, but you WON'T, because you love seeing pictures of our birds, don't you?).

I love the long tail feather shots with the fuzzy feather fluff on the back:

That fluff is all over our house.  I have to vacuum every other day or puffy balls of down skitter away from us as we walk through the dining room.

He leans forward and stretches out one foot behind him to zip his tail feathers:

This is my favorite shot:

His belly feathers always look slightly greasy and disheveled, and we feel as though we should bathe him more, but it doesn't seem to help.  He must run into the bathroom after we leave and slather himself in hair pomade.  No wonder why we go through it so quickly.

Breakthrough

Sasha let me scratch his back today, even while Christian was sitting there scratching him, too.  He let me preen a pinfeather and feel his fluffy back under the primary feathers.  He has the floofiest down imaginable that feels like kitten fur (without inducing the hives).  Birds are alarmingly fragile-feeling, though, when you get down to their skin and bones.  Skinny pencil necks, hard little craniums, dinky little ribs.  I like to kiss their little toes as they seem to be the sturdiest bits about them: they're all leathery and scaled, like an iguana, but you can't kiss an iguana because of salmonella, so it works out best for everyone if I just kiss the birds' feet.  Well, except for the birds.  They really don't like it.

Review!

I'm only disappointed that they didn't mention my blinding cape.

Busy, busy, busy like an average heighted bee.

Rehearsal on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 2-9 or 10 pm, after having worked from 9-2.  We open tomorrow and I think it will be fantastic.  I have a mirrored robe that glints like a liturgical disco ball and I'm wearing so much makeup that passing drag queens shake their heads and spit into their hankies so they can wipe my face.  We all look vaguely "We Three Kings," which I suppose is appropriate as the season approacheth so quickly.  Fa la la and all that.  

I love Christmas.  I love it.  Love. It.  We leave for Disney World two weeks from today, and, not only will the parks be decorated for Christmas, but we're attending Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, so it will be an orgy of festivity combining two of my favorite things.  I'm doing the thing where I try to not get too excited because I'll make myself sick from anxiety over whether or not I've planned enough.  Now there's four people other than my husband to keep entertained, but, they're pretty prepped to be made happy by our trip without my having to do a thing.  Not that I won't try to do lots of things.  Lots, and lots and lots of fun things.  Not excited.  Not at all.  I really should go to bed.  Can't sleep.  Too excited.  

Sad realizations.

Ricky Ricardo was a lousy singer.  On the positive side, Lucy's dresses were gorgeous.

Well...

it only makes sense.

All Growed Up

Shelly and I drove to Spokane this weekend to see the nephews and the folks. Now that the boys are living there, I'll have to make the trip more often as the vital vitamin N blood level drops when I go too long without being tackled or told that I'm loved by a three year old with a lisp. This time, Christian couldn't go as he had to work absurdly long hours to prepare for some big work event, so we left early on Friday afternoon after picking up Mark to take him home before he had to return to work on Monday as he's not telecommuting right now. We listened to mostly Broadway musicals (Curtains and Avenue Q, which both give me hope that the American musical isn't dead) and then some really dirty comedy once the musicals were over.

As this time we left early and returned late (as I don't work on Mondays), we saw the boys repeatedly, visited my grandma, got fitted for bras, walked around the "old" part of town and met up with a former college professor with whom I've maintained contact. Now, when I was 20 and he started teaching, he was in his early thirties, so his first group of students weren't too far from his age, and many of us maintained friendships after college as he's still one of the most hilarious people I've ever known. Mom had sent me an article a while ago on how he purchased an old home in town and was renovating it. Consequently, we got in touch and made plans to meet up and see his house. However, what I didn't remember from the article was that he bought one of the original Kirtland Cutter mansions. We met up at the Music Building on campus to see all the changes in my former program and went to see the house. I wasn't prepared. As we were driving there, we discussed the absurd Seattle real estate prices and crappy square footage and I asked him how big his house was. He asked me about mine, and I told him that it was around 1,200. He replied that his was slightly larger. As soon as I saw the house, I could communicate only in expletives and choking sounds. I think my exact words were, "motherfuckingsonofabitchholyshitohmygodareyoufuckingkiddingme?"

At around 10,000 square feet, the Mission revival style house, built in 1907, was the house I had driven by perhaps a million times when I was a high-schooler and undergrad coming home from my friend's house around the corner and cried over with lust and longing. The house was in, what could most kindly be described as, a catastrophic state. The stucco was discolored and crumbling, the addition on the north side had been veneered using garden lattice and aluminum, and the outside was defaced with wires and tubing.

Since buying the home a year and a half ago in a transaction described my him as borderline insane, my friend had to wait for the current occupants, elderly individuals in need of round the clock care, to be moved to their new home before he could move in and begin any work. That took six months. It took another two months to reskim the stucco, and, while he was encouraged to demolish the addition added in the 60s, he went in the non-recommended opposite direction and rebuilt the infrastructure, recreated windows and doors to match the main house, added a porch on top surrounded by a retaining wall to perfectly match the porch below it, and converted the entire wing, which had formerly been the dormitory for the residents and was in ghastly and deeply disturbing shape, to a master suite with a closet larger than my living room. I cried when I saw that room. I also cried when he showed us the new living room/dining room/concert hall that had recently been completed. Two sets of pocket doors were recovered and refinished and replaced to lead from the foyer to this room, box beams were recreated to match the library across the hall, travertine floors were laid and a bathroom at the rear of this hall with its two filthy toilets was torn out and rebuilt to now contain an original claw-foot bathtub found in the prison-like basement bathroom.

As he walked us through the rest of the house and laid out the plans for work and Shelly and I sobbed a little at every bit of stone (hand carved to represent medieval-style woodland creatures) and woodwork and each piece of molding and leaded glass, I recalled a line from Pride and Prejudice, when Jane asked Lizzy when she first fell in love with Mr. Darcy. She replied that she could date it from first seeing his beautiful estate at Pemberly. When I asked him if he was dating anyone (because I have no boundaries and married people always want everyone else to be married), he replied no. I don't think that will be the case for long.

With a ho ho ho and a hee hee hee.

Sasha can imitate us saying his name in a low growly voice perfectly, which he follows with his witch cackle.  Why did I spend hundreds of dollars on toys when, more than anything else, he loves a brown sock knotted in the middle and chases it after he throws it across the cage, like a dog playing fetch.  He then laughs again.  It's the thing we can do to get him to stop yelling for us, make him laugh.  He'll laugh and laugh and I really think he knows what it means, but, of course, the things he does are so funny that I'm sure previous owners have laughed when he did them, so it could be that he's just repeating a pattern.  Still, it's adorable and a welcome change from the brakbrakbrakbrakbrakbrak we've been hearing for months.  

Cyril now will yelp when Sasha is screaming, but it's kind of a small, squawky, shrieky sound that is more funny than annoying.  He also fluffs up and then shrinks down with each exhale when squawking, so he looks like a blue poofball toy that's being squeezed.  

Watching my beloved poopers makes it even harder for me to think about the birds Tina is trying to save in Panama.  Apparently, the red tape is such that it may be impossible to bring them to the researcher who can save them.  They will most likely be sold under the table as pets.  

The captured parrot trade is a huge business in Central and South America as well as Africa and Australia as netting and then selling birds is a hugely profitable endeavor as there's almost no expenditure required, just brutal nets that tangle feet and wings.  The death rate of parrots captured and then transported for sale is between 40 and 50 percent, according to CITES.  The sale of captured, wild birds is illegal in the US and the EU, but birds still enter the country through smuggling and are then sold to unscrupulous pet shops.  These wild and ill-treated birds understandably make very poor pets and often die from starvation due to neglect in new homes.  

I really think I need to get involved.  Information will be forthcoming.

I am easily assimilated.

Fine.  I joined Facebook.  Now I have THREE pages to keep updated.  Hmpf.

Three kinds of day.

Morning:  Crappy start, very tired from show closing party the night before.  Behaviorist supposed to come at 9:30, had time down as 1, came at 10:30, stayed for three hours.  Successful session for Christian, not so much for me as was sushed repeatedly like five year old in movie theater.  Cost $240, were planning on $80.

Afternoon:  Excellent time with Rich and Shelly at awesomely tacky Auburn SuperMall.  Shopped at Disney Parks outlet (overstock from Disneyland), found final four blown glass ornaments from 50th anniversary set (have two, couldn't afford rest on last trip) for half price.  Saw "Nightmare before Christmas" in 3-D.

Evening:  Utter shit.  Hit beautiful white stray cat on way home.  When got out of car to try and save cat, saw cat's mate run away.  Cat died in car on way to emergency vet.  Never had this happen before.  Really can't stop thinking about it.  Sick to my stomach and can't get imagery out of my head.

Still, heard from cousin Steph this morning, and she got in to UW for medical school, which is freaking incredible.  So proud, especially as 1) she took time off to volunteer in three countries, went back to school to do pre-reqs and worked while doing so and 2) is first person in family to go to med school.  Christmas this year will be full of celebration.  Need to think of suitable present.  Briefcase?  Wingtips?  Old fashioned doctor's bag?  Hmmm.

Please, though, say a little prayer for the kitty.  I'll do the same.

I shall hop a plane tonight to help.

Because she's WAY too damn modest to post about it herself, I'm going to share my sister's parrot rescue story. To recap Tina's story so far, she's a wildlife biologist who is taking three months off of her normal life to study songbirds in Panama with a grad school colleague. She emailed me this story yesterday:

"Saga 1 -- Parrot rescue! At this park we work at there's a little "office" and people who guard the park work there. They had 4 parrots in 2 small dirty cages, and a mess of other bad things you don't want to hear about. I expressed my concern to (her colleague) about the condition of the cages, the food, water, etc, and said it was not good, and what could I do about it? I started changing their water, and bringing them fresh fruit myself. On Wednesday, we went in and one bird was gone. I asked (another colleague) to ask them what happened, and they said one of the other parrots killed it. I was not surprised given the small cages, mixed species, no proper care and attention. But I was furious and could think of nothing else the rest of the day, as they didn't particularly seem to care. (Colleague 1) thought they have only had the birds about a month, and they were confiscated from someone, and the park people were just going to see "how they go". Well, they are not "going" well!! So I told (Colleague 1) I wanted to talk to whomever was in charge and tell them this wasn't right, or find some way to make it right. Well, the person I can talk to was not there today at the park. But back at Tupper today, he introduced me to (a researcher), who does some work with parrots. When I explained the situation, she immediately said, bring them to me and I'll take them. She'll fatten them up, clean them up, and see what can be done regarding adopting them out or releasing them. I am SO ecstatic. I cannot wait to get those birds out of that situation. I'll take them Saturday when I have a gamboa truck. Yeah!! I just feel awful about the 4th bird, why didn't I do something sooner?"

To which I replied, of course, you rock and have done everything you can. Because she's awesome.

Criminal Knits Check In!

All right, knitters of fury, post in comments and let us know how you're coming with hats, mittens and scarves for Miss Clara's little chickens. Leave your email and I'll send you her address for to mail said objects of warmth and comfort. Woot!

Technical Delays

Tech week always prevents me from posting. Four to five hour rehearsals every night for almost ten days tend to make one a wee bit listless. However, the opera has opened to two excellent reviews, and the only umbrage I take with both is the reviewers' criticisms of the set, which I love and think is freaking brilliant. Aside from the (hateful) raked platform stage, I find no fault with the scene the sets set (hee) at all. On the contrary, I think the feelings of mild claustrophobia and decrepit opulence suit the tone of the opera beautifully. And God, can Nuccia Focile sing. That woman is a heart-wrencher, she is.

Knit for the Criminals, 2007

To all the Forumites who wish to give the criminals in Miss Clara's classroom a warmer winter than they'd have otherwise, here are some patterns and sites to get you going:

This link has a ton of free hat and scarf set patterns.  This is a VERY easy mitten pattern, and this is a very easy hat AND mitten pattern.  If you are going to make either of these using one type of yarn, you can make a matching scarf by casting on six inches worth of stitches in the same yarn and working in garter stitch until you run out.  

Here's also an easy earflap hat and this is your standard stockinette hat.  All of these patterns are great stash eaters.  You don't need much time or yarn for any of these.  Good luck, and email me if you need any help!

Hmph.

Strong is not pronounced "schtrong," despite what the Army wants you to believe. Watching all of Season 1 of Heroes while home sick from work has made me peevish because no one can kill Sylar, dammit, and New York will get blown up before I get a chance to visit again. My nephew, Kyan, called me to tell me that he misses me and I bawled. Gus the three toed box turtle eats superworms like his head is a particularly prehistoric vacuum attachment, and it amuses me to watch his little steam shovel jaw scoop up the leftover crunchy bits. Crap, and speaking of vacuum attachments, I STILL haven't emptied the vacuum cleaner bag to find my diamond earring that got sucked up while I watched in slow motion, too torpid to intercede.

The behaviorist came to help us with Sasha, so we're reading to him and trying to make our presence near his cage less unbearable. It turns out he was pretty terrified from having the cage under the window, so we're undoing our own damage. I hope we can hold him again. Cyril is mad because we got him a new, separate cage, so he bit me, which hurt my feelings. However, he's so cute when he's mad I can hardly stand it. Who's the cutest fluffy angry birdie? He's also gotten very chubby and has breastbone cleavage, which is bad, apparently. I need to take him to the vet for his annual anyway, so I'll ask their advice.

The skylight in the guest bedroom is leaking from a old and busted seal. And why the hell am I so dizzy all the time? I just really want a piece of fried chicken, but then I think of KFC and their awful practices and lose my appetite. Christian and I have hardly seen each other in weeks because I'm rehearsing so much and our vacation seems impossibly far away, even though it's now in less than two months and, between now and then, I have two shows, a holiday and possibly surgery, for which I'm trying to lose weight so I'm hungry all the time. Christian just brought me home a beef and cheddar, though, so I'm fine now.

We had a turkey dinner on Sunday to say goodbye to Tina, and I have no clue what to do with all the leftovers, especially the gravy, which I hate. All the stuffing is gone, too, and that's the best part. Man, I still need to find out what Steel Pig puts in their sauce, now that they're closed and I have nowhere to get my fix.

I wonder if I'm depressed about something.

Why not to read opera reviews.

I read a review in the NY Times this morning of Romeo et Juliette at the Met, and the critic effused greatly about the young mezzo playing Stephano, who is a recent graduate of Juilliard's bachelor and master's programs and is managed by the top agency in the US. Now, I love to hear fantastic young voices, but sheesh, it can be depressing to read about those who have had a charmed career. Of course, that means nothing about her personal life and its hardships, but I can viciously hope that, when not making triumphant debuts at major international houses, she's a lonely spinster who sits at home and eats an entire gallon of Haagen-Daaz while watching A Baby Story on TLC.

An Obituary for Alex

And from CNN:



He was one amazing bird.

Photos from the fair, as promised...

Dr. Who done in needlepoint. Yep, David Tennant. In needlepoint.

Plus an angora goat, because, well, I like mohair.

And really, he's very silly.

If knitting is crack...

I'm definitely its bitch.  I just finished the fisherman's sweater I started LAST YEAR, but since I designed it, it didn't come out even approximately the right size.  It was supposed to be for Christian, but I didn't swatch my cable pattern, and I didn't realize until way, waaaaaaay too late that the center cables I chose would make the sweater about four inches too narrow. Length right, width wrong.  Once I realized that the sweater wouldn't fit Christian, I put it down for many months but thought about it constantly.  I decided that I'd give it to mom, but that's when I thought the body and sleeves would be shorter than they ended up.  I had to pick out and then redo the collar as I also hadn't even followed my own pattern well enough and had not made the armholes the right length.  The good thing about it all is that I think it will now fit Tina as she is very tall and slender and has longish arms, so I'm thinking it will be perfect, and I'll be able to knit Mom something pink and beaded.  I'm just glad someone I love can use it.  And it is quite attractive:

A sad event, indeed.

I just found out that Alex, the African Grey belonging to Dr. Irene Pepperberg, died unexpectedly on September 7th. His last words to Dr. Pepperberg before going to sleep, were, “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.” For the complete article, see here. I am distraught.

I shan't spend it all in one place.

We went to the Puyallup Fair yesterday, ostensibly to eat ourselves into a coma and chortle heartily at the tragic fashion parade in true, obnoxious, elitist, suburban form, but it was really to see if I won anything from entering my shawl in the Home Arts competition, which I DID.  I won second place, which was certainly a surprise, as I made two rather large mistakes in the border and didn't block it aggressively enough.  I won a magnificent $3, and I hope they give my my prize in check form so I can frame it next to the ribbon and this picture:

The first prize went to the shawl pictured below, the pattern for which is in "A Gathering of Lace," a book I also own. 

 

It is very beautiful and very well done, but I must comfort myself with the knowledge that the body of my shawl is one pattern and the trim is another, and I taught myself how to knit on the trim by picking up edge stitches, and in the winner's pattern, the book SAID how to do it, so nyah.  

Here was some of the competition. This one was very lovely:

And then there was this one, which, well, huh.  It's very Cher as dressed by Bob Mackie in the 80s if Bob favored acrylic fun fur which, really, he did.

I also got to see real Angora goats, from whence we get mohair (not angora, that comes from rabbits), and see mohair boucle yarn spun by one of the artist exhibitors in the hidden hall of classy (not with a k) handiwork.  Thankfully Shelly remembered where it was, as I had forgotten from last year.  I have never really been tempted to spin or dye my own yarn until now, as the colors and textures and materials were so gorgeously delicious that I only narrowly avoided humiliating my friends and necessitating a call to the fair police by throwing all the racks of skeins to the floor, stripping off my clothes and rolling in the piles of superwash merino and bamboo blends.  I was only allowed an hour in the hall, though, so there just wasn't time.  Next year, maybe.

Diagnosed

So, all the tests are done and all the tubes are out. A week and a half of sleepless nights are over and I feel a surprisingly strong sense of relief and I am no longer annoyed at, well, everything (Christian is heard to breathe a sigh of relief from his Redmond office).

It was confirmed that I have a hiatal hernia, which I knew. It's a sliding hernia, the more common type, thankfully, as a paraesophageal hernia is v. v. bad and can cause icky problems, like esophageal strangulation, which sounds like the esophagus would make little acky noises and hold its hands to its throat in the universal sign for "give me the Heimlich".

Anyway, the hernia isn't large, which is good, but it's either caused the sphincter at the base of my esophagus to become incompetent (useless thing) or the incompetent sphincter caused my stomach to migrate into my esophagus. Chicken...egg...

Interestingly, I also have a wastrel esophagus. It doesn't perform its job adequately, and sometimes not at all. The wretched manometry showed that the muscles don't move in synch to push food down, and sometimes give up all together and just flap around while looking for a place to nap.

Consequently, I can get a Toupet fundoplication performed to correct the hernia and limit the reflux, but this procedure isn't quite as effective as the full fundoplication, for which I'm not eligible because of the layabout esophagus. Another wrench in the works is that I'm too heavy right now to ensure the best outcome from the surgery. I actually felt a little sorry for the doctor, as he seemed a trifle nervous to bring up my weight, as though I would heave around my ass and smother him in outrage for letting that taboo subject be discussed amongst strangers, like my weight is an illegitimate child or Auntie's affair with the neighbor's hunky son. But really, saying I need to lose weight is like saying that global warming exists. We know it's there, it doesn't have a quick solution, but it's perfectly manageable if we all work together and exercise some restraint. Consequently, before I get the procedure done, I need to get the plump little ball rolling. Support and solidarity are requested.

Tube in, stomach contents out.

First three of four tests are done. First test, horrible. Large tube embedded with metal sensorballs inserted painfully through nose and down throat, inducing several vomiting bouts, embarrassingly, and then had to swallow salt water and viscous gel meant to simulate chewed food, all to test muscle strength and coordination as well as sphincter capabilities. Scrumptious. However, husband's love proven yet again, as held hand and petted head and lifted me up, while I oozed liquids from eyes, nose and throat. Wonderful husband. Love husband.

Finished test and then very happily sedated for second, of which absolutely nothing is remembered. Lovely drugs. Hiatal hernia confirmed. Had yet another tube inserted through nose, down esophagus and into stomach, fortunately while groggy enough to not care. Came home and was surprisingly alert, although surprisingly exhausted. Oddly, no reflux and belching now, irritatingly. Want proof of vexing issues. Where is proof? Need acid now. Must keep diary of incidents, but few incidents to report, as of yet.

Shelly and Angie came over and gave beautiful present, cupcakes and ice cream because they are loveliest friends and wanted to help. Shelly even taking me back tomorrow so I don't have to drive. At 7:30 am. Must buy chocolates for that.

Tube out tomorrow morning and then barium swallow. Consult with doctor at 9:30. Cross your fingers and hope for possibility of laparoscopic repair.

It burnses, it burnses.

Day five off Prilosec. Scope not for two more days. Esophagus burns. Throat hurts. Acid bubbling up from lack of sphincter. Intestines cramping from unaccustomed levels of gastric juices. No caffeine as makes more burning. Finally understand what endoscopy clinic questionnaire means when asks if stomach symptoms interfere with every day life. Can't sleep. Wake up coughing. No voice. Can't sing. Must constantly eat bland food to give hydrochloric something to do. However, all food sounds horrible as want to vomit all the time. Very burpy, which causes much embarrassment.

Bright side, lack of energy means I re-finished front and back of Aran sweater as only want to sit on ass and watch Coupling marathon. Don't want to work tomorrow as will be very busy and is Christian's birthday. Want to celebrate (in limited fashion). Can't wait for glorious drugs for scope.

By God, it works.

Thank you, Boombella.

Edited to add video!

Wait one cotton, pickin' minute...

Have I misspelled Sweetener this ENTIRE time?? Did I accidentally change it? I know I spelled it right when I first made the blog as I LOOKED IT UP. Am I going crazy?

Submishe

Thanks to being browbeaten into compliance, I've submitted my shawl (despite the fact that it's still not flat and thin enough and needs to be blocked again) to the Puyallup Fair to be judged in the Home Arts category. I love that quilting, cross-stitching, sewing, pickling, canning, knitting, crocheting, etc are still called the home arts. I've been trying to think up other, more suitable names for them, like:

1. You've Become your Mother Arts
2. Go Home and Fix your Husband a Drink Arts
3. Would You Like Some Cool Whip on that Jello Arts
4. Jesus is my Accessory Arts
5. Feminism Never Happened Arts
6. I am a Feminist and I'm Doing this Because It's Fun, I Swear Arts
7. I have Fourteen Cats Arts

I also have to say that I was pretty amused by the guidelines for submission. One area the judges will pay special attention to is cleanliness of the submitted piece of knitted, crocheted, quilted or cross-stitched work. I'm picturing a nicotine-stained afghan knitted in Red Heart Pound of Love acrylic with bits of Spam still stuck to it. The image is very clear.

Heartachy

It's a cosmic punishment for being so smug when he first came home with us. I know that. That's what happens when you have pride. You get part of your cuticle torn away from your thumb. Poor Christian.

We're having some aggression issues with Sasha. We were foolish (so foolish!) when we first brought him home, and we have unleashed upon ourselves Nature, red in tooth and claw. Literally. I doubt that Sasha had any structure in his previous homes, if his behavior is any indication. He gets frustrated very, very quickly and his moods can change faster than a teenage girl's. All of the bird books espouse structure and consistency in the same way that books about human children do. They need rules, the books say, they need to rely upon their humans for the guidance as well as for food and shelter as, in their captive situations, they cannot provide any of these things for themselves. Don't begin patterning your bird with negative behavior when you first bring them home as it will lead to problems down the road. Carefully monitor your bird's posture and vocalizations as they will tell you what your bird is feeling and how to respond to it. Yep, yep, all true.

The charming and hilarious video below? Oh, if we could only go back and undo what has been done. He's nesting now, trying to build a home for a mate that will never come. He's mercurial and irritable and wants everything his way because we've set no boundaries. Christian can no longer pick him up from the ground or play with him in the same manner as he could even a week ago.

Birds bite because that's the only way they know how to communicate certain messages. This morning, Christian tried to step Sasha up onto a t-perch. Sasha didn't want to go, but Christian persisted, as he had always been able to do in the past. Sasha latched onto his thumb and wouldn't let go. I had to intervene with another hand-held perch and put Sasha back in his cage to allow Christian to tend to his very badly battered hand. It was torn in two places and bitten in several others. It's gotten very hard to tell which bites are new and which are old as Sasha will preen the scabs off the old bites if given half a chance.

It's a hard thing, wanting an animal to love you because you love it. We know Sasha is very attached to Christian, but fear of being bitten has changed a relationship that they both had grown to enjoy and rely upon. We now have to totally restructure how we interact with Sasha, try to establish a wholly different relationship, and that will be hard. We had gotten so complacent about being able to pick him up off of his cage and play with him that it will be a wrench to have to be more disciplined about using hand-held perches. I'm actually quite heartbroken that this poor bird that has had such an inconsistent life up until now has to endure more change because we were too lazy to pattern our interactions with him properly from the first day we brought him home.

Kakapo

Thanks to Rich (and, via him, Douglas Adams) and my obvious and compensatory (yes, I know about 50 people lately have said I need a kid) love for and obsession with parrots, I've become a little fixated on the Kakapo (fluffy bunny), the extremely endangered, flightless and utterly weird New Zealand parrot (pooper head).  Now, my favorite living artist, Eleanor Grosch, has a print of the Kakapo (chicken butt), and all proceeds from purchases of the print go to Kakapo (squidgy doo) rescue.  

She's my hero.

American Arrogance

There is a fine line between observing a problem and creating one. This is a perfect example of the latter. Considering that the folks unwillingly sucked into this controversy are actually involved with animal welfare and conservation at home (and here, as one of the ambassadors went to EVERGREEN and lives here half the year) and chose to come to our beloved zoo as an opportunity to share their work, the argument that they are "part of the exhibit" is offensive and ludicrous, especially as it implies that the very people who are working the hardest to protect their own environment and who have traveled around the world to help us greedy bastard consumers understand that our wastefulness has far-reaching consequences are naive enough to be hoodwinked into a being part of a Victorian sideshow.

Mad as Pants

In the British sense of the word, I mean:

Knitting my Shroud

You all know about my fixation with alpacas. During the first visit to the farm of long-lashed will-destroyers, I purchased from the farm store a beautiful hank of dark turquoise fingering weight alpaca yarn spun from the animals at the farm with a shimmery metallic thread plied in. I debated long about what to knit with it, as it was very expensive, $36 a hank, and I wanted to make something particularly lovely and worthy of the cost and effort. I couldn't decide and couldn't decide and kept buying more and more of the yarn every time we'd drive to Bellingham to visit the IL's and would stop at the farm (well, I'd take the exit without any say from Christian as I usually drive and he is at my mercy). No one else was buying it, and it was all one dye lot, so I kept accumulating it at $36 a pop until I had four of the five hanks available, which equalled 1,460 yards of yarn. That's a lot. I just couldn't bear to knit anything boring with it, so I kept swatching and frogging and setting it aside to think on it.

Late last year, while reading one of the many knitting magazines that litter our bedroom floor and make me twitch either with disgust from the hideous waste of perfectly good wool or with lust over yarn I could NEVER afford, I came across an article on knitted lace. There were pictures of the most incredible shawls I'd ever seen, straight out of Queen Victoria's dress wardrobe. Catherine the Great would have gone to war over some of these pieces (she apparently was given a gift of a spectacular wedding-ring shawl from the Hebrides and had the eyes of the knitter put out, ugh, so she couldn't knit any more, but the knitter's daughter had learned the craft and passed down her skills to following generations, bless her). Anyway, I really wanted a good project to be portable and beautiful, so I found a pattern I liked from KnitPicks.com (as they had really jumped on the lace train (snork)), the candle-flame shawl pattern, and brought it on the plane with me to England last January. I only finished about a few inches on that trip as we were so busy, but I had lots of time this last Spring in which to knit and finished the body in about three months. It wouldn't normally have taken nearly so long, but I had to periodically set it aside to work on other projects, like hedgehogs and sweater sets.

Once it was done, though, it seemed a little drab. I had purchased second hand a book on traditional knitted shawl patterns and the author had charted out some beautiful edges. She also included instructions on how to actually knit the edging onto the body of the completed work by picking up edge stitches every other row. As I really wanted to make this damn thing spectacular (I had visions of walking into a performance and hearing everyone gasp with awe and admiration of the sheer gorgeousity of the thing), I picked a wide border that I thought would compliment the overall pattern of the body. I had also, unfortunately, read an article about beading your knitting, and HAD to buy Czech glass beads in the same color as the yarn to add to the yarn overs in the edging. Yeah. Just a little mad.

So, I threaded on all the beads and started to knit, and it took a really, really long time. I fortunately realized fairly early in the trim knitting that I'd run out of yarn and had to ask the farm to send me the final hank of yarn that had, fortunately, not been purchased. I was getting so close to the end by the last week of July that I spent six hours knitting last Monday while Shelly and I watched the Thin Man movies I had received from Christian for our anniversary (thanks, honey!). Well, after seven and a half months, 5,470 feet of yarn and 1,500 pre-strung beads, I finished the damn thing. And boy, did it look terrible. However, it's supposed to. Lace knitting looks like a pile of twisted ass when finished, as it has to be aggressively blocked to lie flat and look proper. I read all the lace blocking instructions on reputable sites and decided to make my own blocking frame out of PVC and eye hooks. It took about five hours last Friday night to cut the pipe, drill the holes and screw in the hooks. This is what it looked like (and it's modular so I can take it apart to store and make any size to allow for varied garment blocking):

I had to soak the shawl in warm water and mild detergent, and then gently press out the excess water with a towel. Bask in the lumpy shrivellness:

To get all the little edge points to stick out and get the body to lay flat, I strung each point with twine and ran the twine through the hooks:

Christian helped me, and once all the twine was in place, I pulled it tight and began to see the incredible definition of the lace pattern in the body and on the edge:

I cannot tell you how this sight made me feel. It was so lovely and graceful-looking that I could barely believe that gallumphing me had knitted it.

When I took it off the frame after it had completely dried, it only sprang back the tiniest bit. All of the edging peaks stayed peaky and the pattern definition stayed defined. The pretty beads make a wonderful clacking sound when they hit together and give the piece a lovely drape, so my efforts were rewarded.

The final measurements of the thing top 9 feet long by 3.5 feet wide. Should provide me with plenty of coverage, if I can only think of something worthy with which to wear it. Maybe I'll have to make a dress. Hmmmm...

On the radio, sounding REALLY annoying...

The topic for the second hour of KUOW's Weekday was birds in the home, so I HAD to call in and put in a plug for parrot adoption. You can listen to it here. I'm about 35 minutes in. Do I always sound that over-eager and knowitallish? Ugh. Still, good topic.

And what a lovely day it is, too.

Today is a momentous day for two notable reasons:

#1, my mother in law, the lovely and charming Lynn, who not only gave me her son but many knitting tips and tools, was born. May she remember this day for all the glorious things sure to come to her, deserving woman that she is. Lynn, may you ride all day in perfect weather and only come home because there's an excellent bottle of wine and a cake waiting for you with a new puzzle to complete afterwards. Sal, do you hear me?

#2, the muffin head was born, fluffy pooper bunny that he is.

There is much to celebrate.