She's Okay

A quick update as I'm supposed to be cleaning and baby-proofing. We have visitors of the 15-month old & 2x4 legged variety coming today/tonight/soon.

First, and most important, I found out about the Irish Rose. She's in good hands. She has not been abandoned and will, hopefully, one day find herself in the water again. My friend Kiko filled me in. No rumors, straight from the source.

Oh, and me? My neck is sore, but not trying to kill me anymore. I did catch the cold that's going around work. You just KNOW that once one person gets sick in a company that has "blast doors" and central air, that everyone else is gonna get it too. Just a matter of time. It was fun answering the phones yesterday with that "sick" voice people have, trying to pronounce the words as your nose decides at JUST THAT MOMENT to become so stuffy that you can't pronounce anything correctly. Of course I have froggy living in my throat right now, but that too shall pass.

I did lose all sense of taste and smell though. Let me tell ya that was a ball of no fun. I can just barely taste my tea this morning, so that's getting better as well.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled baby-proofing.
Happy Saturday!

Poise, Grace, and Advil

Maybe I should rename this blog Damage-Girl! It's definitely a nickname I cannot seem to shake.

So this week's adventure involves much poise and standing up straight. Maybe I'm in training to become a super-model (stop laughing). Or maybe if I refrain from moving my neck AT ALL it will STOP HURTING. I don't remember doing anything strange that would tweak it so. Notice I say "remember." I could have chosen to use the word "imagine," but we all know I have too twisted an imagination for that to be at all useful as well as G-Rated for our reading audience.

Ahem, moving on.

As I got up, BEFORE DAWN to go do my morning stretches (you would too if you had my hip) and the cagillion "scrunches" to try (in vain) to control that tummy area, I felt more than heard this little "thing" go off on my right shoulder, and now the right side of my neck and accompanying earlobe are trying to kill me. Or at least drive me stupid with pain.

I stole the Advil liquid-gels (only the smaller bottle Andy, the Costco-sized bottle has been moved to your bookshelf), and have been very good about medicating myself every 4 hours on the 4 hours... that doesn't quite sound right, but as I've still got another hour and 14 minutes until my next set of pills, I could care less about grammar at this point.

I thought I was going to DIE when I had to stick the telephone receiver "under my chin," bend over, AND move my arm in just the right fashion to pull some papers out of an envelope to read off the names over the phone. I saw stars, my eyes actually crossed, oh god, oh god, let me die, it hurt so much.

Urgh, I need to go practice looking down my nose at the computer screen so I don't keep hurting myself. I've just about perfected "drop-shoulder-dip" turn. Yes, poise and grace, though touch-typing, a swivel chair, and NOT bloody dropping my pen (again!) under the desk also help out loads.

I know I don't look anything like her (I hope), but you know what if feels like? Or maybe I just imagine myself as? That really scary Grace Jones video from the 80s, remember? She's sporting her freaky crew-cut and her head is rotating very oddly and at one point her mouth opens up extra wide... remember what I said about my imagination?

Must. Go. Find. Scary Grace Jones. Video.

It's About Time!

So a miiiiiiillion years ago, Crafty Modster put out the word that she was getting rid of some stuff from her sewing area. If anyone wanted it, give a holler. She had trim/bias tape/edging on show and I wanted it:



To receive it I had to say yes to everything:



That was hard, eh?

Like I said, that was a miiiiiillion years ago and I'm so sorry I'm just getting around to posting and thanking in a blog-ficial capacity. Cuz you know, it doesn't really happen unless you blog about it :).

Now I have absolutely NO excuse not to rehem a pair of work pants that I thought I'd gotten out of the petite (hi I'm short AND fat big boned) section of Macy's when in reality I seemed to have gotten it out of the "OH BOY WE GOOFED ON THE LENGTH" section of rejects. Of course I didn't realize this until I wore them to work for a while and wondered why they looked funny in the front when I wore them at "off-waist" level (the crotch drags like all get-out) and came up just shy of my ankles when I wore them at "gramma" waist level. Stylin', I know.

Some day I will wear clothes that actually fit right. It's a goal I have. I think I might be 50, but dang it! I mean to have me a regular wardrobe by then...even if I'm a bag lady, I will dress in style! I mean, well, if all the pan handlers I see 'round these parts can drive nicer cars, wear more expensive sneakers, and don waaaay more expensive coats than I own, then I too can pull of tailored suits while pushing my stolen grocery cart! Or something.

Of course if it took me this long to post the edging pictures...well, let's just say that my most immediate goal is to take some pictures of the leaves changing colors. Seattle has like, seasons! Well sort of. Autumn is currently being usurped by a mini um, what's the PC term? "Native American Summer?" Right.

g'night Gracie.

Summing Up My Weekend:

This bit of conversation should explain it all:

Andy: You know, in all the years I've hung out with Tim, I don't think I've ever seen him sick.

Me: That's funny, I have, remember, when we all lived together? He was all "stuffy sick." But he doesn't have the habit of going room to room and coughing and sneezing and just feeling miserable. He stays in his room, away from healthy people, so that they don't get sick...

(Of course I added the coughing and sneezing sound-effects for emphasis.)

I'm not sick yet, but it is only Monday :).

Cultural Literacy and Keeping it Real

I'm not all that sure why "Keeping it Real" is stuck in my head. Not as a song or anything, just the phrase. As I'm a bit culturally illiterate about the latest "hip hopping" happening, um jive? I really don't know why it's in my head in the first place...la la la...ignoring it.

But the first bit? Yeah, so a not-so-recent lunch conversation popped up when everyone in the room had finally seen "Pirates of the Caribbean-Dead Man's Curse" (or as I started calling it, "Dude! It's my dad!") that I've been meaning to share...but yeah, where have I been?

Moving on:
One person in particular simply HATED it. Every single minute was torture as she understood little to none of it. The line that made everyone look at each other and wonder if she really had been transported here from Mars was, "I mean, who was Davy Jones? And what locker? That was a chest! They didn't explain anything!"

Yep, that's where that there "Cultural Literacy" comes into play. Someone else asked if she'd ever watched the old Warner Bros. cartoons, you know with Bugs and Elmer and such...that would be a no. They were no longer playing them on regular ol' TV when she was growing up...eep.

Right. Well, I don't know about you, but if it hadn't been for those intriguing cartoons from the 40s, 50s and 60s (most of which I didn't get until I was WAAAAY older--esp. the placards that various toons would hold up showing a screw + ball? Yeah, anyway) I think I probably would have been deep in the dark cave of misunderstanding myself. I grew up in a Mexican household. I had no idea music in ENGLISH existed until pretty late in the game. Didn't everyone answer the phone "Yell-ooo?" Didn't everyone put their daughters' hair in braids and learn to dance around in big skirts and clunky shoes (okay, maybe that was just my kindergarten), didn't everyone know English as their second language?

How weird is it gonna be for the future generations...and sometimes I do have to consider someone a mere 4 years younger than me in the "next" generation...not to have those, um, what would you call them? Pointers? Clues? Connections? That bind us all as goofy Americans.

So what makes me laugh out loud now is the fact that those old cartoons are being beamed all over the planet now...so if you do not have a satellite dish in your backyard, you will never be exposed to classic Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny hijinks...but someone across the planet from you might be. Does that mean they will be more Culturally Literate in American ideology than, um, us?

How scary is that?

Sea Pup!

E.T.A.: NO, he's not hurt or dead or anything, honest! He was totally sunbathing and having a roll-around when this picture was taken. We have others, I just thought this one was cute! No Sea Pups were hurt during the walk, honest! Around the other side of the beach you can hear where the CROWD of lions were howling it up. He probably just wanted some peace and quiet.

This is the pic that wouldn't load last time.

Down at the South beach end of Discovery Park we came upon this little guy. No we weren't the first to discover him by a long shot. As we approached a PACKED area we saw that there was this park ranger all set up with a tripod and what I thought was some measuring tool or camera or something...then we got closer, at it was a telescope. How odd, looking out at the ocean? Spying on ships? But it's not pointed to sea....it was pointing at the little guy on the beach.

The ranger was walking a perimeter around the little guy to make sure no one got too close. If you wanted a closer look, ta da, telescope. Sweet huh? Yeah I wanted to take him home too, but where would I keep him?

It was really funny to see all these people around us snapping pictures with their cell phones. I am so gonna be the little old lady who still has a "real" film camera that, my god gramma, it only takes pictures? It's not an mp3/phone/email/ereader/star trek data plaque? What good is it?

Yep, and I'll probably have funky Noro afghans in every room, doilies covering all my furniture, and wear bunny slippers out to the corner store when I run out of cat food, or whatever. (This would entail my actually procuring a cat or 7 first...)

Random Friday: Discovery Park

Man, I hate "errors during upload," especially when I'm trying to do stuff "under the table" at work and such...sheesh!

Anyhow, moving on, one picture did upload so I'll share:
This is the view rewarded to you if you make it past the sewage smell on the "loop trail" at Discovery park. Cool huh? I cut some of the picture down as there were random people sitting on rocks and on the trail. Oh yeah, the wonders of Photoshop...some of you with the nicer monitors and the telling eye will be able to tell that there is a "ghost" on the path. There was a jogger/walker lady SMACK in the middle of the picture...so I um, edited her out. When I was doing it I got this erie "science fiction/double feature" feeling, like I might be editing her out of the world or something (this is what living on little-to-no sleep will do for you, people!)

My talents know no bounds some days. Yes, I'm so humble to boot, too!

I wish I knew what was up with the other picture I have to post though.

Where was I? Ah yes, scattered. I mean, the lighthouse!

Sitting at the edge of the water there, I felt the same wonder and awe that I've always had with the whole water/ocean thing. Less with rivers and such, unless, say they're as big as the Sacramento River. Or as wild as the American River can be. Lake Tahoe was rather big, and if you squinted and blotted out the other end sometimes you could convince yourself it was the seashore. Okay, sometime I could. I'd never lived so very far from the ocean as I did in Tahoe. I'd never lived so very close to the ocean (on land) as I did in Hawai'i. (Cuz on the boat? yeah, you're living ON the water...inches away from the water, now that's close.)

The best advice I ever got about the ocean was to never underestimate her. Oceans can't be "it's." There is too much life and character to them to relegate them to non-beings.

Yeah, I remember this really calm, wonderful sail to Monterey from Santa Cruz with a return trip the next day...Oh boy, the next day? 15-20 foot seas in the Monterey BAY. What had been a 5 hour trip there turned into a 15 hour trip BACK. The food poisoning or whatnot I picked up from the breakfast out did not help one eensie bit. (I started getting sick almost exactly 6 hours after I'd eaten, and WAY before the storm hit so if I was seasick? It was 5,000 times worse with my upset stomach, you know?)

Out at the lighthouse I also got to watch all the sailboats out for the day. Andy took a few pictures of them as well, but that really made me feel bittersweet. I'm still a little sensitive about the whole boat thing. Oh, and the "Irish Rose"? She was SOLD. Now I just have to get my nerve up to ask the right people as to whom. I feel like I'm in high school...or junior high more like. I could cut to the chase and contact my X (shivers up my arms), or I could ask a friend of a friend of a friend...which is what my 12 year old self is saying is the absolute best thing to do! (Urgh, my head hurts thinking about it all.)

But it's FRIDAY...and I have the "It's aloha Fri-day, no work til' Mon-day" tune in my head and 4:45 is not coming soon enough for me today...I have "Lost" and some "Stargate SG-something", and a number of knitting projects waiting for me at home...(eep! sock! I'm down a needle! I had it last night...but...it's not here now...the day really can't end soon enough now...)

Where do I begin?

The title might mean a long post, which I will try to avoid...but there's just so much...

Let's start with the fact that I love Andy's camera. I must find a way to steal...I mean BORROW it more often. At least until I find a remedy to my lack of digital means of photography.

Okay, since I got, um ahem, several comments from Aloha & Oreos Jill, let's go there next.
These (yes, I went for "more than one" since you last saw it), are the wooden sock suitcases that I first saw on the Yarn Harlot's page (scroll down a bit).
I dutifully emailed the address she'd first posted but, alas and alack, the email bounced! So I searched high and low and up and around until I tracked down (scroll WAAAAAY down) the latest and most viable email to date: jhd [at] atlanticbb [dot] net (change the words in the brackets to their appropriate symbols please).
So her name is Joan Debolt. She's in Pennsylvania. And for $20 plus shipping, you too can have a wooden sock suitcase. Her hubby cuts them to the length you need. As you can see, I have an 8" and a 7" one, as my 6" needles are really almost 7, and my 7" ones are happy in the 8" tube. Go figure.

Only one cap of the tube comes off. That's why I have the hair tie on the "non-removable" end. Cuz you know I'm the type to try until I wrench my hand...or damage myself in some other silly, but permanent, way. Prevention is the something or other...right?

The wood is not finished. I took a super fine bit of sand paper to one of them, there was a "scratchy" spot. I'm also thinking of coating them with Tung Oil, at least the outside bit, to keep the wood looking nice and prevent any sticky fingerprints, mine or others :).

You can also see that I've progressed on the greenie sock a bit more than the second bootie, eh? I've realized I really really really like US1s over US0s. The sock seems to grow so much faster, and as I stated before, the yarn is much softer. I so took a break. Now that I'm down to toe decreases in the green sock I've gone back to the bootie...I couldn't stand the guilty feeling I got every morning that I packed my bag for work. Poor bootie...so I'm working away on the gusset decreases, today at any rate. Because I'm trying really really hard not to look at this:
In fact I have to wrap the yarn back up because I just want to touch and touch and make a skein and maybe get some needles...Vesper Sock Yarn! Again, from JILL!!! It's my prize for the 10-15-20? week-long Swatch Contest she held. I think I was last place. I never expected to get anything and it's just so awesome! The colors are 10x brighter than what you see above. I'm thinking this will be perfect "dead of Seattle winter" knitting. When the gloom and grey get to me, I'll have CANTALOUPE in bright and soft and squishy colors to make it all seem better.

And see, Jill? I still have the box of Meles there. Though, um, I'm not quite sure how many are left. The package arrived on an UNUSUALLY warm day for these parts...maybe in the high 80s? The metal mailbox may have been a tad bit warmer...right. So the packaged smelled yummy(!) as there was mele soup inside that little box. Happily it was all contained. But when the temperature came down, it um, became, um, one big mele. So I've been chipping away at it little by little, always so very happy when I get a piece of macadamia nut...man I miss Hawai'i like you don't understand in those seconds. You know, before I remember why I needed to leave so very badly.

So much more to share, but I'm stopping here as I need to run those errands I avoided yesterday. Besides, Andy chopped all my hair off and I need to see what it looks like after a good shampooing. No, he's not a hairstylist, he's a computer programmer. Yes, I trusted him to cut my hair. I wanted a trim as I've not had one in about a year. He, um, yeah trimmed it. I was thinking 2-3 inches. As he said, "I thought it was going to be 3 inches, but that's the length your hair wanted to be." So it's just a tad below my shoulder now...about 6 inches worth of hair on the floor of the bathroom. What's funny here is that it really is no biggie. I got over that "long hair" trauma when a college housemate cut my 20" of tresses. I don't think I've had my hair that long since. I think it's that "long hair is for little girls" thing that my family has. They were all a bit shocked and amazed when I did it.

Aack, diarrhea of the fingers...I'm gone. Happy Sunday!

Sleeping In...

What a treat!

Of course I'm behind on the laundry and everything I wanted to do today...but most of it has to be called on account of, yes, RAIN. What? Here in Seattle? Rain? No. Way.

Instead of running around town I will listen to the gods and their declared "crawl back into bed" day. Yet another reason it's nice to be selfish and awful and not have kids. Aaahhhh. Besides, I woke up with a nasty headache. Not a migraine, just my sinuses wishing me a happy rest-filled weekend! Gotta love them.

I owe postings and pictures and I was gonna try to deal with that today, but Sudafed and my pillow keep calling me. So I'm off to take a happy little red pill or two, and crawl away until the pounding behind my right eyeball settles down.

Better living through chemistry.

Short Weeks Throw Me Off...

Wading through heavy traffic does not help the situation.

School started.
Did you notice?
I did. My commute just lengthened by 10 minutes. Each way. No, I'm not dropping off any Tactless-minis on the way to and from my drudgery. I simply get to endure that many more people on the road at the same time I am. Honestly, if they stagger "start" times for jobs so as not to have 10 million people on the road at the same time, why don't they take schools into the same kind of consideration? What good is it to start work at 9 or 10 AM (I wish) if these people are out on the road at 7AM, along with us working stiffs, so as to get junior to class on time? Someone forgot to take their logic pill that morning.


Either I'm running a slight fever or the drive home put too much sun on my face...either way I need to go have a lie down.

Peace out!

Your Mom Is So Cool!

Generally I have to scramble and scrape for blogging material.
Not as such today. I think I have to start with just now and work my way backwards...


Well, actually a few days ago:Can you all read this?
I got it on about Wednesday when I took a side trip home from work to check out the "local" bookstore (it's in a different city and about 3.7 miles from my house). Dare I plan to attend?

We-e-e-elll, I penciled it in. Couldn't hurt. You never know with a 3-day weekend.

Then after the migraine recovery and the dead-tired feeling and the laundry and the "let's go to Discovery Park," and the "let's walk (hike) the 3 mile loop trail" (my idea, I blame only myself), and the "man I'm hungry let's go get a burger!" I wasn't all that sure if it was gonna happen.

And yet, somehow, Andy got me home by 4:50 PM.

I'm starting to hit the "rum-dummy" stage (it's been a LOOOOOONNNNGG day), so I'll type faster...

I ran in, packed my copy of Knitting Rules! (which I got at a discount from Norma's Yard Sale), my green sock, and a couple bucks for a mocha, cuz man, I was hurtin' for a nap and caffeine is my friend. I arrived in time to order the mocha and hear them announce the "5 minute warning."
I borrowed Andy's camera. This is the ultra zoom mode as I was sitting (mocha in hand--thank you Egyptians and my Aztec ancestors for giving us the ingredients for such a lovely beverage) in the very last row in the very last available chair.

It's not so much a "reading" as a talk, which was really cool. Having worked in bookstores in the past I've gotten a chance to hear a bunch of authors read from their work. Yeah, well, they are called AUTHORS and not READERS for a reason. Stephanie basically gave a talk focusing on or around her and her writing. Most of her material did come from the latest book and it's such a trip and a treat to hear it straight from her, this is not always the case, mind. Now it's really neat to put a "voice" to the words I read.

Oh, and be able to knit while doing so, and it NOT be considered rude? That was just beautiful.

You know what I wish I could do? I really wish I could tell her kids how cool their mom is. This of course means JACK coming from me, as I am not exactly the epitome of cool. Anyway.

But look! Star-struck me says, "SHE HELD MY SOCK!
And I somehow remembered the English language when I told her I finally found the wooden sock suitcase I'd been searching for! (Another topic I should blog about, but time/energy...you know how it goes, soon. If you've been looking for it and/or Joan's new email address, and just can't wait? Here: jhd [at] atlanticbb [dot] net--replacing the symbols for the words in the brackets).

I don't know what else I babbled...Cool? No, it's definitely not MY picture by that definition. Maybe I should look under "dork." Somehow I was able to ask for this:
See, during the question and answer section of the program, someone asked about what to do with snarky comments from people who say that it's rude that we all knit AND do things like have conversations and watch the sights and all.

Her advice was simple, we have to communicate the fact that we ARE listening/looking. We're actually multi-tasking and really we should treat the yarn as "enhancing" the experience. OR, she said, she could write this woman a note.

I decided to go for the note.

I am in desperate need of unconsciousness now, as the adrenaline has just about finished dissipating. What a trip today has been! Woot! (I think when they put super-mega-dork in Webster's? Yeah, my picture, definitely.)

Sleep for Healing

Or maybe I should call it "Crashing?"

I'm not sick, yet.
I think my body is shutting down to make sure I don't break down any more than I have already. Or that's my pop psycho answer to my need to collapse at the end of the workday yesterday AND today.
Although yesterday?
MIGRAINE.
I had no choice. I miscalculated. It'd been so long since I had a real full-on "M-word" that I didn't catch it before the sparkley lights invaded. Fellow sufferers will be nodding their heads at this point. I took my 800 mg Motrin anyway. I think it may have kept my head from splitting at all it's old concussed seams, but only just barely.

Today? I just crashed. Again, probably because I was running on adrenaline and caffeine. My body HURT this morning from the unrealized "clenching" it was doing last night. I really should have taken a second Motrin dose, but I was too busy being semi-conscious and denying the fact that I was going to sleep WITH the MIGRAINE still raging. Yes, I know, why didn't I just slit my wrists while I was at it. I was just so tired. I didn't want to ride out the pain anymore. (For those of you wondering? I'm the kind that has to stay awake until the pain subsides or I go all hardcore "fetal position" with tensed muscles, ALL OF THEM, throughout the night. This didn't hurt so much when I was twelve, but at 32 going on 90? O-U-C-H!)

Suffice to say? No knitting. No finished bootie. No August Project Spectrum.

Oh well. I'ma gonna use September to "finish up," yey for "make-up" days :).

Happy 3-day weekend! I'm not sure I'm doing anything, but I'm all full of wishful thinking!