The price of idiocy.

In the past few days, I've had to fill up both cars as Christian and I have been driving a great deal. Both of us commute to work, me to two jobs and Christian a long way to his one. We also drove to Bellingham to visit the in-laws. Because I felt as though GWB had personally slapped me across the face when I saw the obscene total for filling the Corolla yesterday, which has never cost more than $35 before mid-last year, I thought I would take a little looksee at historical gas prices as reported by the Energy Information Administration.

What I found was that, averaged over all US regions and all formulations of the regular grade of gas, the price between the beginning of the current wretched administration to four days ago has increased 166.93%. We cannot use regular gas because it makes our Corolla engine ping, so this does not quite reflect the increase in price for our useable grade, but the increases are fairly consistent across grades. Because I wanted to be fair and accurately reflect what a oil-control interest can do to an administration, I compared this rate in inflation to the rate of inflation during the Clinton administration, who, as far as we know, had no familial interest in oil price fixation. From 1992-2000 (including the election year, which could have impacted the price because of public perception of impending change), the price of gas increased 22.12%. Yep, a 144.81% difference between the two periods.

Interestingly, the rate of inflation during the Clinton administration was 22%, as well, so the rate of inflation kept pace with the gas prices. Now, the rate of inflation during the current administration is 25%, and we are currently in a period of slow growth. We are watching oil barrel prices increase at a rate that will prevent many Americans from being able to get to work, consequently leading to an even greater reduction in the workforce. Ironically, this hasn't seemed to decrease gas consumption in the largest, most polluting vehicles, as those who can afford SUVs and the like can afford to fill up, so pollution will not be decreased significantly by this change. And reducing car traffic would be fine if the gas prices had increased because of gas taxation where the taxes could be funnelled back into the community and directed towards bettering public transportation. However, because gas-burning public transportation will cost more to operate, using this transportation could become prohibitively expensive for the marginal population in the US who have to budget strictly to survive.

That a president who is so utterly disconnected from his public was elected by people who thought he seemed like a good guy with whom to drink a beer, it seems somehow tragically appropriate that those people can no longer afford to drive to the bar.

Hum hum hum hum.

Man, I'm freezing.  How does my skinny neck hold up this huge head?

Keesh moi, dahlink, for I am lofly.

Please, Christian, can I have them?

I disapprove of your photos.

I really have the smoky eye thing down.

My Suri coat brings all the knitters to my corral.

Hum.

Nom.

Yum.

Choke

What a craptastic audition I had yesterday.  Extra breaths, poor phrasing, imperfect high notes, inconsistent support...my God, am I 22 again?  I left the room feeling exactly as I used to when I was young and terrible, like I had just fought a battle against a horde of terrifying enemy using only a feather duster and good intentions.  I honestly thought I was past this stage, the stage where I truly don't feel like I have any skill, not to mention talent.  Not that I'm ever going to burn up the stages with the sheer spectacularity of my voice, but sheesh, some consistency would have been keen.

I think I like knitting so much because, when one is finished with a project, one can look back upon it with pride and pleasure.  No matter what you make in the future, you always have this one lovely thing from the past to remind yourself that you can make something good.  With singing, the past doesn't matter, only what you are doing now and in the future.  I sang well at my last audition but this one, but it couldn't matter less.  Singing is proving over and over that you have what it takes to be together when it's important.  It's actually seeing someone you're auditioning for look impressed at your skill or technique and getting hired because of it.

I didn't get a small part next season at SO, so I'm going to have to look for a different day job that can give me more hours, and that's a hard thing with which to come to terms.  I think I just need to know what the future holds, at least for now, and then maybe these auditions won't hold so much sway over me.  I hope.

No, officer, I'm not hiding a cria in my coat.

I know that I don't have a farm, or a barn, or a backyard big enough, but I really, really want an alpaca. I mean, I can wear a resipirator when feeding or grooming it, and can find a corner in the house for it to sleep in at night, they don't really get that big, and their fiber doesn't contain any lanolin, so I'm not allergic to it. They make nice humming sounds when they're happy or sad or mad or hungry or tired or lonely or in love so they hum all the time and they have really, really soft noses and their fleece can be sent out to be spun into yarn that would keep me happy for a long time, and they can't possibly eat that much and the boys would love them ('cause there's more than one in my imaginatory backyard now) and we could take them on walks around the neighborhood and do halter shows at Alpacapalooza and maybe someday we could have our own alpaca farm and wouldn't that be swell? Wouldn't it?

Warning

After picking the jalapenos off of a Vietnamese sandwich, never blow your nose without washing your hands first, because corporate tissue is useless and your finger will poke right through and the capsaicin under your fingernail will contact your mucus membranes, causing you to get a nose bleed and make your nostril feel as though you just inhaled a large quantity of fire from an acetylene torch that was aimed right at your sinuses, consequently forcing you to dance around your office like a cracked out grinder monkey holding a cold, wet paper towel to the inside of your nose just when your boss comes in to ask about his travel reimbursement. And, you know, that just doesn't send the right message about your reliability as an employee.

McOddison of Weirdsville

I can't explain them, but I wish I could find the deeper meaning of my unrelentingly strange dreams. For example, last night. I shall lay the scene:

There were some earlier parts of the dream that evaporated from my memory as soon as I awoke, like cotton candy on the tongue, but I seem to remember underground passageways and canals of water. From what I clearly remember, I am staying in a large hotel that is also half research laboratory where studies are being conducted on the levels of heaven. I'm myself and then a man, the lead researcher. I suddenly realize that all of the other guests are enormous, big-headed alien cat-people who will eat me if they find me. I'm nervous because everyone else has received a post-it telling them to which level of heaven they are ascending, corporally. I'm hiding behind some drapes when I suddenly see my yellow post-it, telling me that I'm going to level 10, but I don't want to. I want to live, I think, loudly. I dash from my hiding place, out of my hotel suite, where the furniture has suddenly grown to massive, cat-person appropriate size. I run to the staircase, using my passcode to bypass the keypad, and meet up with another fleeing human. We run out of the exit door, and suddenly I'm in the car with Christian, but it's 1955 or so, I'm a femme fatale with a giant, flippy 'do and Christian is a Rock Hudson-esque character. Now, Rock was on Lucy yesterday, so I know where that came from, but huh about the rest of it.

So, we're staying at the beach in the house of a hotel owner, and I'm wondering why I thought big-headed alien cat people were trying to eat me. We're in the car, as I said, and I see that, on the large stretch of sand and grass behind the hotel are hordes of performing cats. I'm now in the lobby of the hotel speaking to the owner and telling her about the people eating giant cats, and we come to the conclusion that I was feeling anxious and the performing cats must have lodged into my subconscious, leading me to believe that I was going to be devoured. Yep, good explanation. Anyway, Christian and I are apparently part of some suspense film in which I've stolen some money and Christian is the fiendishly clever hero who has to fall in love with me and bring me to justice. We spend time in the bar of the hotel, which is inexplicably in the kitchen of the beach house. We get into the car AGAIN and are driving winding, jungly roads and suddenly the "film" we're in ends and we have to log on to a website to see how the mystery ends. Tina is there all of a sudden and she is reading the end of my story to me as I'm sitting at Christian's feet, next to the gangster I defrauded of money who is sitting in front of a screen covered in vines while the ocean rages behind even though I'm then suddenly dressed in an enormous purple hat leading a herd of schoolchildren, because I'm now the meanest beloved teacher in England's Edwardan history. Lost yet? Imagine how I felt when I woke up.

Make it stop.

Why, WHY I ask you, am I knitting socks on size 0 needles at 9 stitches to the inch in a yarn so dark I can barely see what I'm doing?  I love my Dad...I love my Dad...I love my Dad...I'm just trying to talk myself into not pitching them and making him a sweater with the One Ring inscription knitted in intarsia around the body and armbands.  Because that would be so much quicker to make.  Yep.  Quicker.

Never promise what you can't deliver.

I have too many knitting projects going that need to be finished by this weekend. Observe:

That is not including Christian's Aran sweater and my lace shawl, which are both on the needles but close to smothering me with their unfinished, wooly bulk, and I'm sure that everyone is wondering where THEIR promised projects are.  I know where they are.  Lurking in my sewing cabinet, sending out guilt waves and taunting me with more interesting patterns than the ones I'm working on now.  

I got absolutely no work done in Spokane.  I had the sheer overpowering nephewitude to contend with:

My boys, minus one.  Deco was sick with the stomach flu, so we got the chickens for almost the entire time we were there.  As a non-parent, I have never really understood how you have to

 keep little boys busy all the time or they will eat your head, but be really cute while they do it.  This photo was the only time I think the sat still the entire day.  This was, of course, before the St. Patrick's Day parade started when they were given candy by every business owner, cross-dresser and guitar playing gorilla that rode, walked or cycled past them.  A side note:  apparently, parades like the one we attended are community affairs, and Dad said that anyone who wanted to be in it just had to show up wearing green.  There were daschund clubs and cement companies and, inexplicably, one older couple riding a golf cart with sparkly antennae on their heads.  However, I still don't get how the crowd could have been more interested in this:

Than this.  No one even seemed to notice the camera crews.  All I have to say about the film that was shooting is that it's by the director of Mansquito.   Go read the review.  It's worth the five minutes.  Maybe that's why no one cared.  

Anyway, back to the boys.  Jayden is wrestling now, and won a silver medal.  Seriously, though, I felt bad about how hard I was laughing at the tiny, skinny, big-headed little kids politely pinning each other to the mat and then crying if they were pinned too hard themselves.  Jayden was an amazing little champ, and so polite.  He thanked the boys he beat and was even gracious to the one boy who beat him.   He didn't understand what the "grey" medal meant, any more than the "brown" (bronze) one he had won the week before.  He made me and Shelly wear them as he couldn't be bothered.  He was more interested in showing us his outfit and explaining how important his shoes are to his being a real wrestler.  It was all very sweet, earnest and five.  

So, after wrestling and McDonald's, we took them to the parade, brought them home, went to church, got pizza, watched SpongeBob, ate popcorn and were given more unadulterated, unrestrained love than any non-parental adult gets in a normal, full year.  Jayden is so skinny now that he's all knobby elbows and knees, and, when he hugs me, all I can feel are ribs and spine.  However, he somehow gets squishy when he wants to lay his head on my shoulder and fall asleep.  Kyan's arms are so chubby that I can't help but bite him constantly, and nom on his fingers, especially when he's in his jammies and all sleepy and warm.  He, apparently, though, is forty, and, when Mom asked if he'd like one of us to sit with him on the hide-a-bed before he fell asleep, he shrugged his tiny shoulders and said, "No, that's OK.  I go to sleep by myself."  And then he asked for his binky.  

Shelly played with them all the next morning, winning their love and eternal devotion.  I had an audition that afternoon, and if only I could tell you about it here, I would, but it's just too, too unbelievable.  We also went to lunch and then to the symphony, so we only got to see the boys for dinner that day, but they told both of us how much they loved us and would miss us.   And then they fought over which of them Mom would carry to the car.  Our victory was short-lived.  

So, with no knitting having gotten done for three whole days, I'm backlogged.  Meh, it was worth it.

Yes, I know.

We've forced most of you to watch things such as the videos below in person. Too bad. The chickens are so cute, you'll want to watch again, and again, and again, and again....

And my next project shall be...

something made of this, for those times when I just don't feel safe walking alone from the opera house to the parking lot.  Or, I could knit us some gloves with which to handle Sasha.  However, I have no doubt that Kevlar would be no impediment to the beak of doom. This, though, might protect the precious hands of the husband and preserve them for the putting.  If it's good enough for the space shuttle, it's good enough for us.  Space couldn't possibly be harsher than that bird.

And, as a bonus...

Chuck Jones? No? Did he animate for Sesame Street?

Episode 2

Note the homage to "The Full Monty":



Simon, you're a genius.

No.

Nonononono.  I want heeeeeeeem.

Shaky

I'm still shaking.  There was a yarn sale today.  You scoff.  A yarn sale.  How bad could it possibly be?  Little old ladies and acrylic.  Pshaw.  Well, to give a non-participant an idea of what Christian and I faced, I want you to remember a time, long ago, when a dimpled doll made mothers manic and children crazed.  Do you recall those news reels showing desperate, ashen moms lined up for hours outside Sears and K-Mart to buy Cabbage Patch Kids, and, once inside, attacking other mothers with handbags, umbrellas and their own limbs in order to get one?  Well, subtract the bodily harm and you have today, but packed into a 600 square foot yarn shop filled with antique tables against which to bash hips and open bins against which to mash toes.  Stir in 300 women and a handful of men desperate to get sock yarn and Handmaiden and Kidsilk and Koigu for 50% off.  Fifty.  Percent.  Off.  Read that again with me.  Do you understand that, if yarn goes on sale, it's maybe 20% and then online, so you have to pay for shipping.  There is no such thing as a 50% off yarn sale.  And it wasn't for one or two things.  No.  It was for the entire shop, books, needles and notions included.  The whole shop.  

Most of us shoppers were feeling slightly guilty about this event, as it was a literal fire sale.  Hilltop Yarn is in a spectacular old American foursquare house, and, like homes of this vintage, the wiring has never been replaced by the building's owner, who is not the shop owner.  Because of the advanced, elderly age of the wiring, the fire that started in the breaker box was sadly inevitable.  While the fire was contained in the basement, the smoke was not, and all of the yarn had to be sent out to be treated with ozone.  Unless you have been inside a yarn shop, you can't understand how much fiber one can squeeze in, and every single ball and hank had to be packed up, sent out, sent back, unpacked, marked down, and reshelved.  Apparently, the shop allowed all of those who helped them with the labor to come in the day before to buy whatever yarn they wanted at half off.  According to the staff, those damn bastard few purchased 10% of the stock.  However, that did leave 90% of the stock for the rest of us.  

As Hilltop advertised this sale on every knitting website and with every knitting group, we all knew that today would be, well, a knitmare.  Har.  I bribed Christian into joining me, as I hate to face the masses alone.  We were the first to arrive at around 9 am, two hours before the sale was to begin.  Within ten minutes, ten or twelve more people had arrived.  By ten, the line was down the sidewalk.  By 10:45, the line was down the block to the stoplight.  They let us in a few minutes early, and it was a desperate push to the sock yarn.  I got one ball before I was nudged out of the way.  I did my best to get around the corner to the alpaca, and I think I got enough to make a sweater, which is shocking considering how many people were trying to do the same thing.  I then wedged myself into the room with the specialty stuff, like the above-mentioned Handmaiden and the Lorna's Laces and all of the other fancy pants yarns.   We all kept trying to direct traffic to move clockwise, but order was impossible.  One woman ended up serving as an auctioneer, shouting the names of what yarn was left from the corner, while the rest of us hurled ourselves against the back wall of worsted.  We had been advised to bring our own shopping bags, so I had an enormous tote that Karen gave me for making her sweater, and, by this point, I had filled it to literal bursting.  Those of use who were ready to check out formed a clump of determination and started the progress towards the two registers.  

There were many, many people who had only just entered the store when I finished, and they were fully expecting to have equal access to the remaining yarn.  Ha.  Hahahahaha.  That's when people started to get snippy.  The small, vocal group of latecomers and slow movers then tried to tell us to move so they could get access to the registers as they hadn't moved in 20 minutes.  Those of us at the front turned and tried to stare them down, but there were tall, tall people in the way.  It's probably for the best.  I would have had to drop my yarn to scrap with them.  

My arms and legs were shaking by the time I reached the register.  And there, behind the counter, were the two skeins of Tilli Thomas I had been desperately hoping were still in the shop and on sale.  Did you notice that there is no price listed on the website I linked?  Yeah, there's a reason.  At 50% off, one hank was still $60.  Yes, that's right.  It's one of the most expensive yarns on the market, but I will never find it for that price again.  I bought one hank in champagne with chocolate colored crystals, and will stroke it and kiss it until I finally figure out what the hell I can knit with it.  

When the cashier was unloading my bag, the women behind me actually started gasping and commenting on how I had gotten the best stuff, and how did I do that?  How??  I was the first person in the doors, that's how.  My obsessive compulsion paid off.  Witness the glory:

I need a nap.

Repetition

Do you ever feel as though having to put away dishes one more time will cause you to snap and start throwing every plate and bowl out of the too-small cupboard because the door won't shut when all the little ramekins are neatly stacked next to the measuring cups? Do you ever wish that you could throw out all your furniture and bed linens and rugs and curtains and paintings and electronics so you don't have to do anything other than vacuum the bare floor ever again? Do you ever want to give away all of your clothing and become a nudist (or exhibitionist) so you never ever again have to do laundry? Does even the idea of having an appointment with your gynecologist sound preferable to sorting through all the mail? Do you ever want to hermetically seal your house and live in a bubble so no dust ever touches any horizontal surface?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please tell me. We should form a group and do chants. Maybe learn witchcraft. Harness the undead to clean the microwave. Take up hooking to have enough money to hire a housekeeper. All of those things sound pretty reasonable.

Instant Gratification

Knitting is rarely about doing anything quickly, especially when knitting something like this:

As I like to do everything quickly, this paradox and accompanying hair-rending can sometimes be troublesome to the soul.  Knitting is equal parts pleasure and therapy for me and I'm always looking for ways to be the faster, cooler knitter who blows the minds of other knitters with her expertise and prolific production of perfect, pulchritudinous products.  

Anyway, I've been trying for days to learn this technique of knitting, brought to light by the Yarn Harlot, who is the coolest knitter in the world as well as the most, well, prolific, if I may reuse a word.  I can't get it, though.  I just can't.  It feels awkward and strange and I keep dropping stitches.  I could not feel like a bigger loser, as other Ravelry knitters have tried it with great success and it has improved their speed and badassness and I really, really want to be a rock star, sex goddess knitter.  It's very important to me as I must be really good at things I love.  And now, I have to surrender this technique for a while, or until I start a new project where I can just knit on one side and purl on the other, as I've been trying the technique on Christian's aran, which is a mixture of purl, knit and cabling on each side.  I could be unintentionally just making it very hard for myself by trying a technique in the middle of a project with changing stitches, but IF I WERE A GOOD KNITTER IT WOULDN'T MATTER.  Pant, pant, pant.  

Fortunately, there is one aspect of knitting that satisfies the IG impulse, and that is buying pretty new yarn from the LYS with which to make a baby blanket, and then making a center-pull ball on my baller and swift.   That's not enough gratification, though, so then I have to ball all of my gorgeous new laceweight with which I'm going to make this.  Then, I have to fondle my new sock yarn that I'm going to use for Dad's socks for his belated birthday gift.  It's not getting any knitting done, but it feels pretty and soothes my troubled mind and I can convince myself that I'm actually saving future time by ensuring that the yarn I've purchased is up to snuff.

I have the tiniest fixation on balling yarn.  Since I got my baller (Heh.  I'm twelve.) and swift for Christmas (thank you, Lynn!), I want to ball everything, including loose threads from clothing and feathers dropped from the birds.  I spent a good two hours last night winding aforementioned laceweight into large, double-hank balls so it is usable, as knitting from a hank = a giant, horrid mess.  

The result, perfect little piles of delicious alpaca, makes the rest of it worthwhile.  

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.