Mini, Come on Down!

The poop yarn?

I threw it out. There was no way that was going into my tub to get washed. Blech.

In the interest of full disclosure - that is not the first time I have been a bird's target. In fact, it was the 4th. Go figure. According to many of you - I must be really really lucky.

The second time was actually pretty amusing.

It was 1998, I had graduated from college. With all of my earthly possessions loaded in my car I drove into Washington, D.C. to start a internship at a national park. A time of transition. Of freedom. There is nothing like fitting ALL of your life into a car and starting out in a new place. I was definitely feeling great, the sun was shining and my windows were open. I hit the beltway (the big circle highway around D.C.) and flew through traffic at about 60mph. A loud noise startled me and I felt wet. I looked to the center of my car and realized -

A bird had crapped and somehow managed to target me, inside my vehicle, through my sunroof, going 60mph. The physics there are completely mindbending. Don't even try to figure it out. Just know - at that speed bird crap splatters EVERYWHERE.


*****

And now a word from Mr. Bookish,

I SPENT TWO DAYS IN THE FREEZING RAIN AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY BROKEN ARM (or How I Survived Wet Wool Fest 2006).

Aside from that time I was lost in the woods and had to survive on grubs for 9 days… picking the winner of the WET WOOL FEST 2006 PRIZE is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Man, yall are good!

If I had read all of these BEFORE the event (like I was supposed to), I would have taken Rycrafty’s sage advice, snuck in behind the Bookish Girl and picked up a few of those fawned-over items and held them back for future birthdays, etc. But I am a dumb-ass. (Thanks for the heads-up Ry!)

I was genuinely impressed with all responses (Katie Couric, Cute knitter chicks, but you can’t go home with everything you see, sexual favors… haw!). But thank God I DIDN’T read these before the event… because with a little hindsight, it’s clear which response I HAVE to choose.

And with these words:

“He can coast for at least ONE MONTH on this....forgot to take out the trash? "but I went to NHS&W!". Don't want to sit through a "chick flick" "but I went to NHS&W!" It can be used oh so many ways…”

I crown Mini the winner and my newest bestest friend. Let’s just hope there’s at least one back rub in all of this somewhere… or at least one forgiven hang-over.

God bless you Mini… and God bless America!

(The broken arm, crazy guitar synthesizers, beers, tequila and more beers, and torrential downpour stories will have to wait another day.)

peace"

*****

The Mini referred to is Ms. Minestrone Soup. Girl, send me your address and I promise to mail this (sometime in the next decade):


Sock Yarn from Dorchester Farms. One of my favorite festival vendors. His sense of color is right up my alley. Usually a bit different from the normal hues you find.



And the broken arm that Rob "claims" to have? It's not broken, it's barely bruised. Unfortunately his arm had a run in with my hand. Poor Robby....


In other interesting news.... many of us (myself included) get endless hours of amusement from reviewing the google search terms that get people to our site. My new favorite one just appeared within the last 24 hours:

"girls who fart with there [sic] pants off"

Oh yah. That's me.

I'd like to make a deposit please

"People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart. What Mary Whitney used to say was, If there's farting in a room where they are, you may be sure you done it yourself. And even if you never did, you better not say so or it's all Damn your insolence, and a boot in the backside and out on the street with you."

- Margaret Atwood
Alias Grace, 1996


I read this as I was drying my hair this morning. It struck me as a genius series of thoughts and words. Truly captures some of my thinking lately. I digested a few more paragraphs and headed off to work.

There I was greeted by A DAY. We all have had them. No event in particular. Just a series of incidences that make you want to THROW OPEN YOUR WINDOW AND TEST THE AIR CURRENT'S STRENGTH.

This paragraph ran through my head and framed my thoughts. An interesting day, I was glad to wander home and take a bit of a lie down followed by Chinese take-out (sans MSG thankyouverymuch). There is little that Chinese take-out cannot fix.

Rob and I have been doing quite a bit of thrifting. I will surely find the time to explain in more detail the joy I find in this and the treasures I carry home. I have been working on recycling a particularly large wool sweater that I found. Last night I formed skeins, soaked, washed, rinsed, washed, rinsed, and hung the little bundles out to dry.

I came home tonight to check my little babies.

As a statement on the day this is what I found:


Not sure what you're looking at? Here is a hint:



Robby said that the bird wanted to buy my yarn. When I asked him how he knew that he said,

"He liked it so much he put a deposit on it."

And that, my friends, is the kind of day I had.

Trudy the Tetrahymena has Left the Building

Wayyyyy back when (have you noticed I say this a lot) I conceived and started to implement a genius idea.

I was going to knit a Tetrahymena for my BFF's husband Chad.

The prototype was completed before the holidays. And then this big alien ship came down and possessed my body. Unfortunately this alien didn't know how to knit, but man did it ever know how to eat! Whew. It just ate and ate and ate...

Okay - so the alien did not come down and I did find appropriate yarns (Brown Sheep and some eyelashy crappy crap) for the job and I knit and knit and knit. I finished the project right around my Birthday and felted the sucker for good measure. Unfortunately I did not take any before pictures.

Picture me this: a deflated astro-turfy covered pear shaped foot ball sized sack.

Here she is all stuff up and ready to be sent.



Robby made a name tags for her. There would be nothing more embarrassing than Chad not being able to recognize the organism on which he expends the majority of his creative and scientific energy. I was worried the astro-turfy look would throw him off (note to self: choose another color next time.)


Chad seems to think Trudy the Tetrahymena sounds like a porn name. Hmm, what kind of porn is Chad watching? Juli you should keep a better eye on yer fella. ;)

The name was actually inspired by this character:


Truly Scrumptious in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang (alright. so we have a long running argument in our house. I happen to think that Charlie and the Chocolate factory (the old one) is an incredibly scary horrible scary horrible movie. Rob laughs. However, he claims that Chitty-Chitty is a terrifying movie not suited for children.** We have serious debates here. Weigh in with your opinion. Your voice will be heard!)

We had just watched Truly sweeten her way into the hearts of Dick Van Dyke when we were faced with the naming task. Trudy fell right off of our lips and onto the tetrahymena.

Chad received his gift this week. Upon receipt he sent and email off to me. Get this - there is another knitted tetrahymena out there!!!

Chad sayzzz:

"The crazy thing is that this isn’t the only knitted Tetrahymena in the world. Two weeks ago I was at this meeting and this guy had one made for him….crazy huh? He has been traveling all around the world with it, taking pictures of it on mountain, tall buildings etc. Tetrahymena people are a little crazy."


Eh, big deal. Knitter's who knit them are crazier!

**ETA: For clarification, our debate is actually about which was/is scarier to us. Rob used to have nightmares about the child-stealer in CCBB. I have always thought Charlie and the CF was wayyy scarier. Neither of us has ever considered the appropriateness.

Quiz Show

Let's talk quiz.

You all did pretty well. I kept all the questions within the realm of what an average reader could know if they paid a lot of attention. Having said that, I am notoriously horrible at coming up with information at the ding of a bell and have royally screwed up some of my friend's quizzes. Some of them I purposefully messed up just cause I thought it would be funny.

A few people did really really well. The Purloined Letter was the only one to get 100. I have to admit this freaked me a bit - because I wasn't aware of this person until this quiz. However, I emailed her and she had admittedly guessed on a bunch and got lucky.

Rob did well - only missing one (about the lace.) And Emily (my roommate from college took the quiz and obviously did well too. Most of the people that scored higher know me in real life (or have met me.)

I think this is so interesting. I am fairly open on my site. I am not so into self censorship. However, there are things that never make it to the pages, or when they do are mentioned in passing. It is interesting to compare these levels of intimacy. You all don't really know many of the things that I would say act to define me in real life- like my height) or my degree. But, you obviously know other things about me - like I am the funniest, wittiest, dorkiest, reading knitter out there. ;)

I laughed my ass off at a few answers.

1 - Cara thinks I'm 5'7". I am 5'3". Do you have any idea how much time I've spent standing next to, near, or in the same proximity of this woman? C - I may not remember what side of the bed you sleep on but I would likely guess your height.

2 - Cynthia thinks Rob is younger than me. He is 13 years older. Cynthia (in a blog worthy event that I failed to blog about) stayed with Rob and I earlier in the spring. She spent the night in our guest room - harassed by one of my four animals (she did get that question right.) She spend an evening with Rob and me, graciously taking us out to dinner. Now, I explain this not to mock Cynthia - even though it is pretty funny. But to demonstrate that age is defined by your attitude about life - not your body.

Rob is 13 years older than me. However, he often gets carded and behaves like a much younger person. He is full of life and humor and has a baby face to match. When we first started dating he nervously told me his age. I shrugged it off mostly because I wasn't thinking that our relationship would get serious. My mom was super excited to hear that I was with someone older she said, "Good he's got all the piss and vinegar out of him." That's my mom. Five years later and - we're married! The age difference doesn't show it self too often. Only when we talk about culture from our youths. My first concert vs his first concert. A concert I went to when I was young and the same concert he went to when he was old. But, that's fun stuff.

3 - Maryse thinking I was born in Berkley, CA. I was born in Dallas, TX. She said that she just couldn't bring herself to believe that I was born in Texas. Hehehe.

4 - Many, many, many of you thinking that my Master's degree was in English. So sweet. But really, I think if that was the case than my degree school should be burned. I am horrible horrible horrible with grammar. This should be abundantly clear to all of you. In fact, there are typos and grammar errors in the quiz! I am a bit old fashioned in that I believe English majors should be champions of the language they carry on their degree. My degree is in Geography. I concentrated on Water Resources and Ecology. My thesis focused on a species of fish in Northern Georgia. I relied heavily on statistics and tenacity. Somehow it worked, I earned a degree. Something I honestly never thought I would do.

There were others, these are the ones that float to the top at this minute. Thank you all for taking the time to learn more about me! I got a lot of amusement from this!

Here, for the record, are the correct answers with a bit of commentary.


1) In what city was I born?
a) Dallas "I'm really a redneck", Texas.
comment: My parents are from Upstate New York. My father works for a major company based there. In the early 1970's he was transferred to Dallas. They lasted about a three years. During that time I was born. Soon after my birth they transferred back home. That is where I was raised with my brother and sister.

2) Growing up what was my favorite thing to do?
d) Read
comment: duh! When asked my hobby I always got very embarrassed. I felt like reading wasn't really a hobby and that people would make fun of me. Poor kid. When I was very young, just about to turn 5, I would sit next to my mom on the couch while she read. I always had a book with me that I read too. Except, I did not really know how to read so I watch my mom for cues. When she turned her page - I turned mine!

3) How much older than me is my husband?
b) 13 years

4) How many animals am I owned by?
a) 4 - 2 dogs, 2 cats
comment: I introduced each of these beasties early in my blog's career. We have two cats: Kumar and FutureMan, and two dogs: Gabby, and Rya.

5) What is my middle name?
c) Lynn
comment: First name after a little girl my mom used to babysit for, middle name after my mom's best friend

6) If I could live anywhere in the world, which would I pick?
a) Water, Water, Water
comment: This was another one that most got wrong. I love the water. I grew up on and in the water. My childhood home is surrounded by lakes and we always had a pool growing up. I studied rivers in school and came into my first big girl job to perform research on rivers. The ocean is my solace. I would love to live on the water. We currently live about 15 minutes from the beach and just a few miles from two major East Coast Rivers (the Charles and the Neponset.) All other places I could take or leave (I do love the mountains) but water is the place for me.

7) I have a Master's degree in what subject
a) Geography

8) How many lace projects have I completed in my knitting life?
d) Ha! Yah, right.
comment: I have assembled all of the necessary tools to conquer this one. There is only one thing I'm missing - balls.

9) How tall am I?
c) 5'3"

10) How old was I when I learned to knit?
c) 27
comment: I think this is wrong. I think I was 28. Dang! I got my own quiz wrong.

In which the Girl gets her panties wet and loads up on Tequila

If you have not yet heard about the biblical rains that are slamming my fair city you must be stuck in a hole. Or not on the East Coast. Really is there a difference?! Tehehe. Kidding.

We did make it up to New Hampshire for the Sheep and Wool festival. It was wet. Saying that is just about the biggest freaking understatement of the year. Robby and I left early Saturday morning. Typically a road trip of over two hours leads to some change in weather. Not in this case. We drove and drove and it rained and rained. It was a bit cold as well.

We arrived and hit some of the barns. I showed Robby the wheels, the fleece, the yarn. He took a bunch of pictures met some of the girls that I hang out with and made nice with his fellow fair goers. Then his boyfriend Mike showed up and the two of them high-tailed it out of there and were off to greener pastures (or at least drier ones.)

I stuck it out for a few more hours. Wandered around. Laughed with some of the bloggers, ate food, drank hot cocoa (seriously, how is it that something so simple could Save. Your. Life.) I managed to get everything that I came for, with the exception of one item (part of a secret gift that will be revealed at a later date.) It was difficult to socialize through the rain, the mud, and the chattering teeth. I went solo for much of the afternoon which was an interesting experience.
My credit card is a bit hurt by the whole weekend.

Among other things I was pleased to find a Kumihimo Disk at one of the booths. 'Member when I blogged about trying this? Well this is the first one I've been able to locate in person. It seemed silly to pay as much to ship something as it was to purchase it. I was determined to wait until I found one in the real world. I did. I haven't tried it yet - I'll give you the scoop when I pull it out.

I left the fair in the late afternoon because my panties were wet from all of the damn rain. I headed over to our hotel to warm up. I was determined to finish the second sock of my pair before we headed to dinner that night. I wanted to wear it out! Total nerd. I did not finish the sock before we left. However, I did finish in the bar while we waited for a table. Fortunately Kellee was able to snap a shot with her cell phone for posterity sake. Keep in mind that I wasn't drunk - yet.


Yarn:

Yarn: Fortissima Mexiko/Fairisle
Needles: US 3
Pattern: Ann Budd's Handy Book of Knitting Patterns sock pattern. Roll top.


How cool is it that I finished the Mexiko sock in a Mexican restaurant?!

See all of those Margarita's on the table.? Um, I drank a lot. In my real life I rarely drink A LOT. I hardly ever get drunk. It's a testiment to my love for these random internet knitters who blog that I felt comfortable enough to imbibe. That and the hubber was there to take care of me. And, he would have if he wasn't too busy drinking all on his own! ;)

We woke up late the next morning, had breakfast with Elisa and Mike, rearranged cars along the lines of sex and interest and Elisa and I headed up to Patternworks. The boys headed to the guitar store and then the bar. Shocking, I know. Patternworks was a great place. I felt pretty inspired while there and managed to find some cool tools (I'm a sucker for some tools), a pattern book (or two), and a felted fish kit.

I feel very warm and fuzzy today. Happy and proud that my man spent the weekend with me and truly enjoyed getting to know the girls that I spend so much time with. Some weird cosmic thing was going on and there were a lot of husbands/sig others floating around. Our dinner included four of these characters. Watching them fit so flawlessly into the seams of our group was really neat. Just goes to show - A little knitting can bring you quite a lot.

I picked up a super cool prize for the winner of last week's contest. I just have to get Rob to pick who it is!!

This wagon is too fun to avoid

Seriously - how funny is it when something travels through blog land and you see it over, and over, and over, and over again?

It drives you crazy.

The repetitiveness, the sheep mentality (hehe), the utter lack of originality.

You follow the links,
you place you answers,
you marvel at the little bits of information that you know
or don't know about people.

You are slowly pulled in...

You wonder.

How well do they know me?

Oh what pretty Links you have.

So, I am working on a fun project that is taking a lot of my free time. The finished knits parade is not quite over (groan from the crowd.) It will pick up again in a bit.

Rob and I are headed up to New Hampshire this weekend for the NH Sheep and Wool festival. This will be Rob's first fiber festival and well, he is not so excited. Shocking! I know!

In fact, Elisa and I had to bribe our respective partners into attendance with promises of "boyfriend alone time" (background here: Mike and Rob have many of the same interests and sincerely enjoy eachother's company independet of Elisa and my friendship. This is great and we have all dubbed their affection for one another as you would if they were dating one another.) (Kellee is still working on hers).

Their expected reply was: "Grumble, Grumble, well, I GUESS I'll go if he's going. (Sudden smile) HEY! I bet there are MUSIC stores up there." Dear Mike has mapped out a thrilling weekend for them both. I'm hoping that Rob will spend some time at the event, just so he can get a taste of the fun sheepy goodness.

Maybe he'll even make it to the TGKWB* lunch event (details here if you're interested).

Here's your opportunity to lend him some of your best advice.

Leave a comment with one (or both) of the following:

1 - Why he should attend.
2 - Survival techniques for negotiated the hysteria that may occur when Knitters (and Spinners!) are faced with SO MUCH FIBER.

They funnier the better. I will have him pick the most compelling and we will send you a bit of something from the festival.

Deadline for responses: 6pm Friday, May 12th. We'll announce the winner that night.



On another note,

I ran into two interesting items in today's papers. Check them out, some food for thought.

Poll Gives Bush His Worst Marks Yet
Graphic of Poll Here. via NYTimes. Generally Polls drive me crazy. I have a background in statistics and the media's warping of the statistics behind the polls is, more often than not, really quite irritating. This is true no matter how I feel about the topic. However, general trends like these and the details about perceptions is quite interesting.



Scraping to fill the shelves of the Bush library Op Ed in Today's Boston Globe.


* The Gaggle of Knitters Who Blog.

Strong Arming an Armhole

Hiz-aaa. How fun was my last post? I crack myself up pretty much every day. However, it's nice to know that every once in awhile I can crack you all up too. The baby that will receive the outfit is the new babe of my neighbors. Just in case you're wondering, this is what a Dominican/Parisian looks like:



The hair! The hair is almost enough to make you throw out your birth control and demand to be fertilized.

Almost.

Not quite though.



Here we have yet another finished knit. This has been here before, (the pictures do not work on this link. Picture a half finished baby knit sweater.) like other knits before it, it pissed me off and got stuck at the bottom of my bucket. Where I told it to fuck it. This sentence was served without a peep from the sweater. Which leads me to believe it was guilty of the accussed, either that or the medication is really working to lull those voices in my head.



What could a sweater this cute do to deserve an extended sentence at the bottom of my bucket? The armholes. I didn't like the armholes. By the time I got over this truly horrifying crime the babe for which the seater was intended was clearly too large to wear it. So, I ripped a bit and blocked a lot and have gifted the sweater to a co-workers new baby.

I'm telling you. We are all babies all the time here.