Gun Time

I did it! I ran my first half-marathon last Saturday, and I’m walking and talking today.

Standing at the starting line, I was pretty sure that I was going to foul the whole thing up. My team didn’t do much work on pacing. After fourteen weeks of training, I still can’t run at a steady pace on my own. I run too fast, I hurt myself, I slow to a crawl for a bit, then start running too fast again. Half of the Walnut Creek coaches, including the pacer that I run with on weeknights, decided not to run at all during the race. “Allen? Why are you in jeans?!? ALLEN!!!”

Worried, but determined to run a good race for my sponsors and for myself, I ran along on my own for the first quarter of a mile. Then, my friend Nicole pulled up beside me. She and I have done long practice miles together, and, more important, she has one of those fancy watches that tells her if she’s running at the right pace. I was elated to see her. “I’m going to try to run without stopping for at least five miles, then switch to intervals. Is that cool?”

“Nicole, I’m so happy to see you that I’m cool with however you want to run this thing. Let’s do it!”

At mile marker 5, we agreed that we both felt good enough to keep going without switching to intervals. Nicole’s foot started to hurt, but we pushed on through. At mile 6, we saw the first of the half-marathoners coming back toward us.

“Have you seen any other AHA runners yet? I’ve been keeping an eye out for our team jerseys.”

“A couple of guys, but no women. I think we’re the top two AHA women running the half right now. Sweet!”

We ended up running all the way to the turnaround, stopping for a brief comfort break at the halfway point. A gel shot and some water, then we were on our way again. “How’s your foot, Nicole?”

“It’s…numb? Is that good?”

“Well, I’m no doctor, so I’m going to say that it IS good.” The big muscles in my legs had started to fatigue, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. If she was still going strong on one good foot, I didn’t want to do anything encourage her to slow down. The gel shot kicked in just as I thought I wasn’t going to be able to keep up, providing me with a critical boost of energy.

A few minutes later, we started crossing paths with our AHA Start Training teammates. “You’re really close to the turn! Keep at it! Good job!” It felt amazing to be running out there while cheering on the rest of our team. We kept at it, jogging and cheering and clapping, until we passed the last outbound racers coming toward us on the trail. Our teammate Sally can only walk, and not very quickly, but she was determined to try for the whole thirteen miles. Prior to the start of our training, she hadn’t walked more than half a mile at a time in thirty years. We came across her at our mile 8.5, which would have been her 5.5. “Incredible job, Sally! Wow!” I don’t know if she finished. I hope she’s proud of however far she made it.

We slowed at an aid station to pick up some gummy bears, a surprisingly effective source of mid-race glucose, and happily gnawed on them as we trotted along under the trees for a few more minutes. Finally, we agreed to drop back to a fast walk for a hundred yards or so. We checked her watch and saw that we’d jogged straight through for almost ten miles, farther than either of us had ever gone at that pace.

At about 10.5 miles, picking up the pace again, she pointed off to our left. “Hey, who’s that guy waving at us? Is that your boyfriend?”

“Yes! Unless we’re hallucinating. Are we hallucinating? How did he get out here? I need more gummy bears. Wait…yep, that’s him. Ten second hug break!” I skipped off course and threw my arms around him. “C’mon, Nicole, you hug him, too. He’s really good at it!” Hugs all around and a laughing “keep running, sweetie, this isn’t the end of the race”, then we were back on the trail. She said that I should have kissed him some more, but I replied that it would have added too much to our chip time. “Plenty of chances to kiss him after we cross the line. Finish strong, girl!”

We walked a good bit of the last two miles, but sprinted when we saw the cameras and heard the announcer calling out the names of the racers as they came in. (If any of you have ever run in an event organized by Brazen Racing, you know how great they are about personally welcoming you across the finish line.)

We ran under the arch at 2:44:46. I know that it’s not supposed to be about the finish time or where I placed in the results, but I’m still proud to say that I was near the middle of the pack overall, and finished faster than half the women in my age group. Not bad for my first long race.

48 hours post-race, I’m happy to report that I’m not in any danger of losing any toenails, and my legs feel good enough for me to consider running again within a couple of days. I’m running another half-marathon in less than a month. I feel fantastic.

And, yes, there was plenty of post-race kissing.

Friday the 13th: The Miniseries

Well, here it is, readers. This is the official start of the end of my marriage. In this envelope, on less than ten sheets of paper, are Peter’s petition for divorce, my response, and two copies of the process server receipt. It was mailed out on Friday the 13th. I don't know why, but I find that hilariously appropriate. We went on our first date on Halloween, after all.

You might think I’d be sad about this. You might be thinking, “Aww, Suzanne, I’m so sorry! You must be crushed!” It might surprise you to know that this is not the case. I’ve got a lot of good going on, and I’ve never felt better. Let’s take a quick break from me falling behind A-to-Z challenge for an update, shall we?

I’ve dropped fifteen pounds since Thanksgiving. All of those sweaters that I knit that were just a little tight? They all fit now. It’s all been through exercise. I haven’t changed my diet at all. What magical new exercise could do this? Why, running, of course.

The Start Training team is coming up on week 12 of our program. We’re doing twelve miles this Saturday, then the half marathon in two weeks. This program deserves a post of its own, which I’m going to give it sometime very, very soon. It has changed my life.

My hand is almost healed enough for me to stop wearing The Immobilizer, which is a good thing, since The Immobilizer is a little the worse for wear after being in Winston’s mouth. Knitting resumes!

Alive, healthy, and relatively uninjured at the moment, I figured it was time to start dating. After what has to be a record-settingly short time online - a mere three days - I met someone amazing. This also deserves a post of its own, which I’m also going to give it sometime very, very soon. As soon as I can break away from kissing him. Readers, he's hotter than the sun.

Feeling fit, feeling strong, and feeling an unbridled happiness for the first time in years, I opened the manila envelope and filled out my part. It’s the end of something good. It’s the start of something else good. It’s all good.

The Immobilizer

Today's whether report is about two different yet equally unappealing choices.

"We can shoot a little bit of cortisone in there," said my long-suffering hand surgeon.

Remembering how painful it was the last time he stuck a needle into one of my hands, I blanched at the suggestion. "Or, I could just, you know, give up knitting. And fishing around in my purse for change. And brushing my hair. That's another option I'd be perfectly willing to consider."

"Well, we can also try immobilizing it for a few weeks, and you can take Advil--"

"Yes! Let's do that. I already throw those magic beans back by the fistful. They're not making much of a difference anymore. Maybe if I doubled up again?"

He looked somewhat alarmed.

"I mean, I take them according to the recommendations on the bottle, of course," I added. "Of course. I love my liver. We're very close."

He's so low-key, and such a consummate professional, that I never know if he knows when I'm joking. I hope I bring a little levity to his day.

I chatted with the nurse at the counter about my impending divorce for a bit. We've developed a friendship over the couple of years I've been going in there, despite our rocky start. "Come back just to visit!" she said, after I made my follow-up appointment. I should bake cookies for them.


So, now I have three weeks with what I'm calling The Immobilizer. It looks so imposing that it ought to have a proper name. It extends two-thirds of the way up to my elbow. It's fairly macho, much more substantial than the brace I bought at the store a while back. Doesn't it look like it should have rockets or a laser attached to it? I wonder how much it would cost to rig something like that up. I wonder if he'd laugh out loud if I walked in there with a laser pointer and some Nerf rockets strapped to my wrist.

Challenge My Nuts!

"Challenge my nuts!"

I used to work with a guy who would shout that from his office. He'd bring in seasoned pistachios - wasabi, cayenne, and something even hotter - and try to get people to eat more of them than he could. Most people wouldn't take him up on the challenge, but that wasn't really the point. The fun was in the invitation. "Are my nuts too much for you?!"

English wasn't his first language, but he was fluent in it. Fluent enough to know that what he was saying was borderline inappropriate, but that if he said it with a heavy enough accent, nobody would call him on it for fear of embarrassing him. "What if he doesn't know what he's saying is funny?"

He'd been in the U.S. for decades. He knew. But he'd sit in his office and joyfully yell out, "Mike! Try to put my nuts in your mouth!"


I finished Emerald Across the Bay on Sunday in a less-than-stellar 1:43:15. I finished Bay to Breakers twelve minutes faster than that last year, even though I was laboring under the strain of trying to keep a Gatorade gel shot from tearing my guts apart from the inside. I was hoping for somewhere around 1:30:00 for EAB, given how much more training I've been doing this year. I'd like to blame Belligero for adding to my weight, but he's only about two ounces. More likely, the issue was poor pre-race nutrition, and a lack of pacing. I ran too fast early on, and lost steam at about mile marker 5.

I consider Sunday's finish a success anyway, because I felt good after I crossed the line, and I'm not limping today. In fact, I went out running with part of my team this evening, and we're going out again on Thursday. I'm learning that it's not the Olympics; I don't have to leave everything I have out on the trail during every run.

The question isn't whether I'll be able to finish the half-marathon. I already know that I can walk thirteen miles without breaking a sweat. The question is whether I'll do it the way I want to do it, running across the finish line, ready to turn around and do it again. I'm hopeful.

A couple of my friends commented on my picture when I put it on Facebook. "That's a *real* Suzanne smile!" Yes. Yes, it is.

Prep Talk

I sit on the bed for a long time with my jacket still fastened and my scarf around my neck. I know I should get some sleep, but I'm kind of...I don't know. It feels weird to be here by myself. Not at all bad, but weird. I feel like I should go back out and do something, like the evening shouldn't be over.

I spend half an hour carefully laying out my things for tomorrow morning, then rearranging them on the other bed to take this picture. I don't feel any less wound up.

I realize that I feel that way because this is the first time in my life - in my entire life - that I've gone out of town and stayed by myself without it being for work. This is my first solo personal trip.

I set the alarm clock and two separate alarms on my phone. I try to get the alarm for the Touchpad to work, but it refuses to make a sound. I spend longer than I should trying to get onto a network so that I can look for a better app for it. I give up after twenty minutes, when I realize that I'm just procrastinating, that I won't need the Touchpad. If I'm this nervous about waking up on time, I'm not going to need more than two alarms anyway. I'll wake up every hour between now at 6:00, anyway. That's how I am.

Everything is ready for tomorrow. I have my gel shots, my water pack, my spare socks, and my D-tag. I have my headphones, and my rain hat, and my race bib. I have Belligero ready to go into a secure location so that he can run with me.

I don't feel ready for tomorrow.

Rice Krispy

We've now reached the point where I have to decide whether or not to go to the doctor.

My hand surgeon predicted this problem a couple of years ago. He and the physical therapist both noticed that weird things were happening with both of my hands.

Me: "Aren't tendons supposed to slip off the knuckles when you make a tight fist? To get out of the way if you...um...hit something?"

Hand Surgeon: "No, that's absolutely not what they're supposed to do."

Me: "Then mine are better than everyone else's, because they have a protective adaptation! Woohoo!"

Hand Surgeon: "It's going to be a problem at some point. It doesn't hurt now?"

Me: "Nope! My only problem is my mangled pinkie, so if we can focus on that, we'll be cool."

Hand Surgeon: "Eventually, though..."

Me: "LALALALA! I can't hear you! LALALAAAA!"

I don't want to hear that I have to have surgery, but I can't keep ignoring it. I woke up this morning and wiggled my fingers. Something in the middle of my hand snapped, and something else crackled, and another thing popped. Not good.

New Choices for a New Life

Saved it!

Today's big choice was whether to get up and meet my running team, or crawl back into bed after slapping at the alarm half a dozen times. I did a little more than six miles before 9:30 a.m. But it was close - really close - to going the other way. This is what I was looking at when I made that decision.

The Plan

Twelve days...twelve days...twelve days...

The 100th running of the Bay to Breakers is happening on May 15th. I've been training for it for weeks, with a little more than one more week to go before I have to rest in preparation for race day. I'm worried, readers. Excited, but worried.

Bay to Breakers and I have a stormy past. The first year we entered, AB and I finished in just over two hours. That's an average of about 3.8 miles an hour, even with the slog of the 11.5% grade of the Hayes Hill and a "mandatory" stop at the bison paddock so that I could take pictures of them. Even at that pace, I bruised my toenails so badly that two of them fell off. We had not prepared at all for the event. My running shoes were too short, and neither AB nor I had run more than a mile or two at one time. We hadn't done any training on pavement. He could have finished faster, but he slowed to keep pace with me, and I struggled to keep pace with him.

The second year, we trained a little harder. I did more cardio at the gym, and trained with weights twice a week. AB did at least a couple of full miles on the treadmill. We still raced together for the first few miles, but I encouraged him to run ahead at mile 6, and he gratefully sprinted away from me. He finished at 1:32, and I finished a few minutes later. We felt great.

And that's when things went horribly wrong. "Let's walk back along the race route and see all the floats." I knew what AB really meant was "let's walk back along the route because I want to see the party that's going on behind us." I often think that AB thinks he missed out on a whole lot of the college experience by meeting me when he was so young. We didn't go to keggers, and we never went to Cancun. We studied, and we had jobs. We were responsible adults, which feels like a synonym for "boring" in retrospect. I feel bad for him, bad that the opportunity to experience the Spring Break culture passed him by. So, when the opportunity to be among drunken revellers presents itself, I sometimes cave in to his wistful suggestions.

So we walked back a couple of miles, and then a couple more. We ended up all the way back at the panhandle, stepping around people passed out on the grass and urinating in the street. What we'd neglected to factor into the plan was that these people had been drinking for several hours by the time made our way back down the route. Some of them had been partying for the entire weekend. It wasn't as interesting as he'd hoped it would be. It was actually kind of gross. "You wanna walk back to the buses, or catch a cab? Remember, the bus line is back at the park, so we'd be walking in the wrong direction to wait in line for an overcrowded bus full of sweating drunks." When presented like that, the obvious choice is to get a cab, right? We thought we'd walk up a few blocks to the Haight and hail one. Easy. We felt smart.

Who would have thought that it would be impossible to get a cab on race day, with fifty-thousand people jammed into the park or passed out within a mile of it? People with forethought, that's who. The cabs stayed far away from that half of the city that day. Well, we didn't know. So we kept walking, thinking eventually we'd see one. We were not carrying phones for some reason, so we couldn't call a dispatcher. Walking, walking, walking, periodically pausing at bus stops in case we'd found a line that didn't go near the park and wouldn't be full. Dozens of packed buses lumbered past us. More walking. Eventually, we came down to Van Ness and started to see cabs and half-full buses. "Well, we're so close now that we might as well keep walking, right?" We agreed on this, not realizing that we were still two miles from our car. I don't know if it would have made a difference if we had known. We were marching for the pride of marching at that point. We laughed merrily at our own stupidity as we skipped across streets and past confused tourists. "I think we took a wrong turn somewhere! Do you know which way we go to get to the race?"

We got back to our car at the Metreon, turned the heated seats on and drove home. When we got out of the car, we realized how much damage we'd done. Everything stiffened on the drive home. AB's legs would not straighten out, and my foot felt like someone was hammering a railroad spike through the right edge of it. We hobbled into the house - him hunched over like he had a hernia, me hugging the wall and hobbling - and fell on the couches, unable to get back up for the rest of the day. I had to hop up the stairs on one leg, because I couldn't put weight on my foot. Later, sitting at my computer with my leg up on another chair, I used Google Maps to plot out the hike we'd done. The race is 7.5 miles. We'd covered more than seventeen miles on foot.

Still, that was my best run yet at 1:38. "Next year, we're going to CRUSH this thing!"

For one of us, this turned out to be true. AB finished the race in 2009 in under 1:30. I took considerably longer, in part because it was hot that day, but in larger part because I didn't have him to pace me. We'd decided to run the race separately right from the starting line. I was proud of him, but very disappointed in myself. Things went awry that summer, with Daisy moving, my job ending, and the house needing so much preparation before it could be rented again. I got out of the habit of working out, and eventually stopped going to the gym altogether.

Last year, we registered and paid to race, then slept in. Our excuse was that we'd just taken Molly in and didn't want to leave her at home, but the truth was that we'd done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. I hadn't made any effort to stay in shape in almost a year. I was in the worst shape of my 30s. It was depressing. "We'll decide tomorrow morning..." We stayed in bed with our eyes closed until 9:30 the next day, neither of us letting on to the other that we were awake. Once it was too late to make it to the race, we got up and went to Starbucks. "NEXT year, we're totally doing it."

And that's this year.

I've been running at least twice a week for a few weeks now. I bought a treadmill when my beloved chick gym abruptly closed, and The Amazon's been giving me running goals each week. AB has also been running, and doing the Insanity DVDs. I did my six miles last night and, while it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, I'm not feeling at all bad today. I'm running on the road tonight, so that race day won't be the first time in two years that I've tried it. It'll be good, no matter how I finish. I keep telling myself that it's just one event, and that my REAL goal is to finish and not be crippled with sore muscles or plantar fasciitis for weeks afterward, and that's true.

But still. I want to crush this thing.

Lanesplitting

Ugh, readers. Just ugh.

I tried to get a good picture of myself in this skirt, but through no fault of either my knitting, the pattern or the yarn, every one of them looks like I'm about four months pregnant, or, more likely, like I'm trying to smuggle contraband into the country under a pregnancy pillow. As I am neither with child nor a drug mule, this is not a comparison I want to make when I see pictures of myself. But there it is. These four might not look that bad, but bear in mind that they're the very best ones I took, I'm sucking in my midsection mightily in them, and anywhere that you see a fold in the sweater, assume that there's an equally deep fold of me underneath it.

Yes, I know the solution is to exercise more, and I'll be able to do that more regularly once my office moves back down near my old gym. That doesn't fix today's pictures, or the few from this weekend where I thought, "Oh, that's just a bad angle making my shoulder look beefy. And that's a bad angle making my waist look thick. And that's a bad angle giving me jowls." The photos from this weekend had more 'bad angles' than a remedial geometry class, and I hate them so much that I don't even want to share them.


I know, however, that if we wait until I feel lean and tight enough to properly model this skirt, we could be waiting a good while, and I don't want to have yet another finished item go undocumented and, in all likelihood, unworn until then. This is me right now, and this is how I look in my new skirt, so I'm going to face it and move forward.


Details
Pattern
Lanesplitter by Tina Whitmore, Knitty First Fall 2010 (Ravelry Link)

I picked it because it's like nothing I've knit before. I don't usually think to wear skirts, much less knit skirts, but I'd like to start. Also, I figured I could get it knit with less than one of my many not-quite-sweater-length skeins of Interlacements worsted.

Size
16" long, 36" hip circumference. This gives me about two inches of negative ease at the hip. I went with a shorter length because I have fairly short legs.

Yarn
Interlacements Dyer's Choice (Oregon Worsted Stripe in a non-standard colorway), Knitpicks Shadow in Lost Lake, and Cascade 220 Superwash. I used exactly one skein of Shadow, which I carried along with the Interlacements to thicken it up slightly, so the skirt totalled about 440 yards. I used about fifteen yards of Cascade 220 Superwash for the waistband.

The worsted on its own was a little too bright, but the carryalong yarn muted it just enough to make it look rich and tweedy. I'm glad Accountant Boy weighed in while I was picking between Lost Lake and Vineyard. It would have been a very different look if I'd carried along a wine-colored yarn.

Needles
Addi Clicks - size 8. I love these needles.

Time
October 19th through November 11th, 2010.

Modifications
I made it shorter than the pattern, which was really easy to do. I only used one skein of yarn, since Interlacements color repeats are so much shorter than Noro. I crocheted a waistband instead of folding one over elastic. I figure this way it'll be adjustable if I decide to take it in later. I can unravel the superwash crochet rows and redo it.

Conclusion
I love this skirt. I loved watching the colors shift along the rows as I knit, and the squishy feel of the work as it grew longer. I used some stash yarn and it came out exactly as I hoped it would. I'll probably make this pattern again.

Just as soon as I lose a few pounds.

Tenacity

"At this point, we probably should...but, you know, let's try one more time." He bent my finger farther, beyond the point where we'd been able to move in in therapy, well beyond the point of excruciating pain, and tried for another grab. "Shoot," he said under his breath. "They never do this. We ought to schedule a time in the O.R. to...maybe one more shot at it?"

I admired his tenacity. As a tenacious sort myself, I willingly went along with his attempts. Well, you can see how well that worked out.


Anyway, all of the pins in my finger have been out for a couple of months now, and it's starting to move a little more freely. I can bend it in so that it doesn't stick out when I make a fist, and I can stretch it almost all the way straight. If I keep it warmed up and limber, it almost feels like a normal finger. I've put a lot of time, attention and effort into it these last few months.


All of that work has taken its toll, and has made me think of things that haven't been getting my time, attention and effort.

The pictures in this post were taken with my phone, not a proper camera. I haven't been making the time to get out the good camera and get the right lighting and composition in my shots. It hasn't mattered much, as I've only been looking at them on my phone, not posting them or sharing them. I've also been relying on my phone too much for email, which means I'm not keeping up there, either. I haven't been writing.

For the first couple of months, my finger was so swollen and sensitive to any kind of jostling that I couldn't do much exercising. While the pin was sticking out of it, I couldn't get it wet. It goes without saying that I couldn't hold a leash and walk Molly and Winston. It's been better than that for a few weeks now, but I haven't gotten back into exercising.

I also haven't been knitting, lately because of my hand, but it's been longer than that since I've made anything that I really loved. I started Pas de Valse back in December, and all that's left are the arms. Just pick up the stitches and knit them down to the wrist, but it's been untouched in my knitting box for at least four months.


It's funny. When I could have been doing all of those things but wasn't, I kept coming up with reasons why they weren't possible. Not enough time, have to clean house, have to keep an eye on the dogs, have to sort through the mail, too tired, too hungry, too much to do to get anything done.

Once I really COULDN'T do all of those things, I found that I really missed them. I thought about why I wasn't doing them back before the accident, and realized that it was just laziness. Oh, I have a lot of handy excuses, like "I don't like where my computer sits", and "I'm too out of shape for anything I knit to look good anyway", but they all come down to that. It's frustrated me all summer, realizing that I'd let so many things slide.

Now that my hand's almost better, I'm trying to refocus on creative things. I've countered "my computer's in a bad position, and the chi's all wrong" by getting a newer, smaller, much more portable laptop. I can sit with it on my lap and type for hours instead of fifteen minutes. I don't believe in poison darts and bad chi, but I know I haven't been good at writing at home since we moved, and I think it has to do with every spot where I can put that big, old laptop. Now I don't have that excuse.

I joined my old gym again and started back with The Amazon last week. My physical therapy sessions have become less about my finger and more about my upper body anyway, so it's like working out three or four times a week again. It feels good.

I still haven't picked the grey sweater out of the box and finished it, but I plan to do so within a few weeks. In an attempt to get back into the swing of knitting, I picked what should have been a quick, gratifying project. That's it up in the first picture, Juliet in Jo Sharp Desert Garden. Of course, I would pick a project and a yarn that would tire out my already compromised hand after one or two rows. I wanted to be it done with it in a week, but it's been more than a month to get that far. Seven more rows until I can bind off the sleeves, but they're taking forever. I keep thinking I should start something else, or just finish the grey sweater, but then I think, "...maybe one more shot at it?"

Damned tenacity.

Ninja Training

Hello, readers! It's been a while, mostly because I rarely have time to update my blog, due to my taking on the work of all of my laid-off comrades. This makes me sad, both because I miss my friends and fear for my own job, and because I have so many stories to tell.

Like, for example, my story about how I've always wanted to be a bad-ass ninja. I've never mentioned it before? Curious, as it's been my motivation during every one of my periodic fitness crusades. Not that I think it'd ever happen, but if corporate terrorists decided to seize control of Bishop Ranch 15, Building A, I want to know that I'd be able to subdue at least a couple of them, rappel down the building and run to the police station down the street. And maybe win a knife fight all Steven Seagal-style, with the twisty-wrist hand-wavy thing he does. Never mind that we don't have knives in any of our kitchens anymore because departing employees have taken them home, so we have to serve birthday cakes and pies with plastic utensils. Never mind that Seagal looks, well, let's not mince words here, more than kinda sissy when he's pretending to be in a knife fight. And if you're wondering why terrorists would want to overtake a little loan servicing shop in San Ramon, or how I'd be able to fend them off with a spork, you're missing the point. Bad-ass ninja. That's the point.

To that end, Accountant Boy and I took a judo class about ten years ago. I wasn't very good at it, because I could never learn how to do the most basic fall properly. If you watch professional wrestling, you know the fall I'm talking about. It looks like you're falling flat on your back, but your arms take most of the energy out of the landing, slapping the ground just before the rest of your body. I couldn't ever get that right, even after a hundred tries. I smacked the back of my head on that mat enough times to finally just give up.

I started going to the gym not too long after that, and while I occasionally got to the point where I felt like a bad-ass, I gave up my dream of being a bad-ass ninja. Sure, I was strong enough, but as soon as someone tripped me or knocked me off balance, I'd be done for.


Lately, though, I've started to wonder if the ninja agility is maybe in there, waiting to come out. A few months ago, Winston swept my feet out from under me while he was sprinting through the house. I flew into the air, suspended completely horizontally above my foyer. Somehow, I managed to land almost flat, forearms forming a triangle that kept my face from the hardwood, my palms and the tops of my feet taking most of the force. I wish I'd been able to see what I did, because I'm certain that it looked awesome, like something a gymnast would do. Winston thought it was cool, at least. He congratulated me by licking the top of my head.

And, a few weeks ago, it happened again. Winston and Kaylee, Daisy's dog, were running around the cul-de-sac, and I made the mistake of calling Winston and then turning my back on him. He ran at full speed into the back of my knees and swept me up like the flap on a pet door. As I found myself up in the air over my neighbor's sidewalk, I thought to myself, "Huh. This is how people die. This is how I'm going to die. I'm going to crack my skull on Barb's sidewalk. Un-be-f$%king-lievable."

And then, as if by magic, I was on the ground, flat on my back, but not dead. I lifted my head up slightly to look through my feet at Daisy and our dogs, all now across the street in my yard.

"Dude! What are you doing on the ground?"

"I...Winston ran into my legs...and..."

"Did you hit your head? Oh my God, are you O.K.???"

By this time, I was walking across the street and dusting myself off. "Yeah, I guess...yeah. I'm O.K. My hands hurt, and I landed a little hard on my hip, but I didn't hit my head. I didn't hit my head."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head? You seem a little off..."

"I didn't hit my head because I did a bad-ass Judo fall! I did it! I'm like a bad-ass ninja! My hands kinda hurt now, though..."

What's up with my knitting, you ask?

I got this far on Katje, and then Winston got into the yarn.


I did a little more work on Big Stripey, and then Winston got into the yarn.


I rolled these two skeins up into big balls and started to swatch them, and then Winston...you get the picture.


To be far to the poor guy, it is pretty hard to resist a big ball of string, especially when it's so close in texture to your favorite fleece toy. He's a young dog, with a lot of curiosity and boundless energy. If he eats my yarn and repeatedly tosses me into the air as though I were a particularly untalented matador, who's fault is that?


"Blunder? Are you reflecting on your flaws? Are you sorry for running down the Woman? Twice?"

"Yeah. I'm the saddest dog in the whole wide world."

"And for repeatedly trying to eat her handicrafts?"

"Yeah, so sad and sorry. I'm just gonna stare out the window and sigh for a while."

"And for urinating on the garage floor instead of in my cat box?"

"I'm really, really sorry for...hey, wait a second. I didn't do that last one!"

"J'accuse!"

By the way, Mascorro, if you're reading this, drop me a line! I've been wondering what you've been up to for the last few years.

Cadenza

We now interrupt my trip down memory lane for some knitting content. I know! Nobody's more surprised than I am, believe me. Since finishing my Zen tank, I've had a severe case of project paralysis. I can't seem to start anything. I look at the stash and I look at my Ravelry queue, and...nothing. It's not that I don't have anything to knit. It's that I have too many choices.

Because I'd said that I was going to use the yarn I'd bought myself for my birthday, that narrowed my options a bit. I only had 512 yards of it, and I'd resolved not to buy more, or to complicate things by buying a complementary yarn to bring me up to a full sweater amount.


"Hey, Suzanne? Why isn't the first picture a modeled shot? What's the deal with laying it out flat on your lazy Susan?"

Yeah, that's pretty nice, huh? I like the wood behind the knitting. It makes a nice backdrop, and I've been looking for that kind of thing. Anyway, let's dive right into the details.

The Pattern
Kinda-sorta the Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet, but in a different gauge, with seed stitch instead of ribbing, no border at the front to keep it from rolling, completely different increases at the shoulders, longer, with short-row shaping at the arms and around the back, and...O.K., it's a really just a top-down raglan cardigan and I ran out of yarn to make anything more of it.


The Yarn
Colinette Cadenza in 'Raphael'. I used just about all of four skeins of it, so let's say 500 yards. It was a lovely yarn to knit, and I had a great time watching the colors mix together. I knit with three skeins at once to prevent pooling, and it made perfect sense when I was doing it, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to explain it. I just tried to work it out with a handful of pennies and some lined paper here at my desk, but all I managed to do was irritate myself with the sound of scratching coins.

"Suzanne? That's a close-up of the lazy Susan shot. What does it look like on a person instead of your bar?"

What needles did I use? Glad you asked!

The Needles
Here's where I run into trouble, being at work and all. I know I used the Boye Needlemasters, but I don't remember the size. I know they were the lilac points, because I haven't put them away yet. Umm...eights? That sounds about right. I used 12" Addi Turbos for the arms, and they were eights as well, except when they weren't because I mixed a nine in there by mistake.

The Time
I started July 21st and finished some time toward the end of August.

"Suzanne? Is there something wrong with the back? Why aren't you wearing it?"


The Modifications
The back? Yes, I did do some extra work on it. I've got a pretty broad back, so anything that's going to hit above the kidneys is going to bow up unattractively unless I add some fabric back there to bring it down. I added short rows at the back at 3-6-9-12 stitches from the edges. I like lifted increases, and since this yarn was so much smaller than Rowan Polar and heavily variegated, I figured the lacy YO increase wouldn't stand out enough. Also, I...I didn't add a button...look, I give up. It's not at all like the AIC. The only thing they have in common is that they're both cropped and they're both made of wool. I just wanted to be able to say that I'd done one, because everyone else is doing it. Because I'm a bandwagoneer, O.K.? Now you know my secret.

Here's another one. I didn't swatch for this project. I just picked a needle size that I thought would get me close to 18/24, cast on 97 stitches and went for it. It's a miracle that it fits.

"But does it? Because now we're starting to get suspicious..."

Conclusions
I love this little sweater. I know a lot of knitters don't like seed stitch, but it's one of my favorites to do. I don't mind switching between knits and purls with every stitch, and I love feeling the texture as I'm working. The finished sweater is too short and too tight to pretend to be a cropped jacket, which was my original intent, but that's cool. It isn't my usual thing, and I don't know how much wear I'll get out of it...

"...especially since you're not wearing it now. Seriously, what's the deal?"

Alright fine. Here. Here's me wearing it. See, the thing is that I've had a less than successful summer, fitness-wise. I had the whole toenail-falling-off thing happening again, and my work's all demoralizing, and Starbucks has that damned two-dollar cold drink promotion going which means iced white mochas at half price, and so on. As a result, this sweater is disappointingly not so cute on me. Don't let the picture fool you. I look slender because I've got my arm raised above my head and I'm taking a really deep breath in while stretching upward. The foreshortened perspective is doing me all kinds of favors as well.


So I love the sweater, but I don't love wearing it at the moment because it's a visual reminder of my lack of willpower. This is part of the cause of my project-picking-paralysis (PPP). I keep thinking, "That'll look good once I trim a few inches off of my waist. But I haven't done it yet, so I shouldn't start on that, because it's just going to disappoint me." Accountant Boy and the Amazon have promised to shove me forward down the path to svelteness, and both seem to think that losing fifteen pounds by the holidays is a reasonable goal, so we'll see.

The real test will be A.B. driving me to the gym while I sulk in the passenger seat, stubborn tears of anger welling up in my eyes. "You said you wanted to go, honey." Blink, blink, blink. "Do you not want to go? Because you can stay in the car while I work out." Blink, blink, sniff. "I'm going..." I always end up following him in. I don't know why I give him such a hard time beforehand.

Anyway, it's knitting and it's done. Yay!

Lazy Sunday

The Walk

"Hey, Mom! Yeah, getting ready to head to work... I sound stuffy? Oh, yeah, because I'm wearing my new sweater, and it's really fuzzy. I'm kind of worried that it makes me look broad...a little more than a month from now...yeah, I have a running program. Starting today, I have to run/jog/walk twenty miles a week. I think I can do it if I walk to lunch and go to the gym on the way home every night this week."

Later that day, I stepped out into the bright, warm day. Here is my account, written minutes after I returned, overheated and uncomfortable, to my desk.

April 10, 2008 - 12:45 p.m. PDT

0.1 mile - two geese fly overhead. "Geese are so beautiful," I think to myself. "Maybe I should stop eating meat again."

0.2 miles - Realize that I'm wearing an angora sweater over a black shirt. It's a gorgeous, sunny day, probably 80 degrees. Stop at the light, pull off sweater. Do not turn back to put sweater in the car.

0.4 miles - Smell the blooming shrubs. "I'd never notice how lovely they were if I weren't walking. Good for me!"

0.5 miles - I am walking with the weight and heat retaining equivalent of a Pomeranian slung over my arm. Shift sweater to other arm. Feel how hot it is already. Shift it back to original arm.

0.7 miles - Cross over the freeway. Get a little panicky on the overpass. Cars appear to move much faster when they're speeding past below you.

0.9 miles - Start to think that walking was a bad idea. Wonder if anyone from work would come to pick me up. Remember that I don't have my cell phone.

1.1 miles - Stop in for a moment at the chick gym. "Hey, Ellen! Just taking my friggin' angora sweater for a walk and thought I'd pop in." Leave the following note for my trainer: "Amazon -- Walking to Jamba. It sucks. I'm hot. Halfway there. -- Me".

1.3 miles - Notice that there aren't lights at the pedestrian crossings on the Crow Canyon overpass. Avoid being hit by cars entering the freeway.

1.5 miles - Stop at a light. There's a guy with a sign advertising a lunch buffet at Pizza Hut. He's waving the sign back and forth. Wonder if his arms get tired by the end of the hour. Don't actually ask him.

1.7 miles - Buy Jamba. Pause long enough to notice that I'm drenched in sweat. "I've been walking for a long time! I bet it's further than I thought."

1.9 miles - Think to myself, "Don't be disappointed when it's not further than you thought. Don't be disappointed when it's not further than you thought." This becomes a mantra.

2.1 miles - Concentration on mantra broken when two cars smack into each other at the Norris Canyon/Camino Ramon intersection.

2.4 miles - Get back to my car. Climb in and drive route I just walked. Determine that it's 2.4 miles. Am disappointed when it's not further than I thought.



Details
Pattern - Fluffy Angora Menace

It's my own. I wanted to see how far approximately 700 yards of yarn would go toward making a garment, because I've got a lot of 700-yard bundles in the stash. I've also got a few 500-yard skeins, and now I know that they'll at least be good for vests, because I knit the body of this sweater with less than that.

I was at the same gauge as the Two-Tone Shrug, so I figured if I cast on the same amount of stitches it'd fit across the neck and shoulders. I knit from the top down, increasing every other row at the raglans, every fifth row at the neck. When I started to think the v-neck was going to be too deep, I switched to every three rows, then every other row to close it up faster. It makes a nice, sharp u-neck instead of a v-neck.

I knit 3/4 sleeves because I wanted to sleeves to be exactly one skein long. Also, I was bored by the color and irritated by inhaling the fluff, so I wanted to just be done with it.

As I was knitting it, I kept changing my ideas about what I wanted it to be. I started off wanting something classic and Ann Taylor-ish. Then I thought it'd be better if it were more rustic, sort of like 3x Chic. I couldn't decide what to do with the collar, and I kept thinking I should make a shawl collar and then remembering that I'm allergic to angora, so I'd have to keep it from touching my neck. I ultimately went with a simple crochet collar.

The thing that's kind of hard to see in this picture is the texture. Every fourth stitch on every other row is twisted. The fuzz is obscuring this detailing.

Yarn - Elsebeth Lavold Angora in 'Driftwood. I used a little more than seven skeins, and only broke into the seventh skein in order to do the crochet edging. The important thing to know about this yarn is that it's been in my stash for at least four years. It's one of the big amounts of yarn that I bought because I didn't yet understand that 'closeout' didn't mean 'you have to buy it now because you'll never be able to get anything like it again and you'll regret it for the rest of your life'.

I love the feel of this stuff, but man does it get messy. This weekend, I spent two hours with a sweater stone and an electric shaver trying to knock the halo down. I succeeded, but it was hard work. Unfortunately, I was doing the defuzzing in the breakfast nook, and apparently I didn't get all of the tufts of fiber cleaned up. Buddy's been sneezing violently for three days.

Needles - Addi Turbo US#6 (body and arms) and Addi Natura US#4 (ribbing). Size F Brittany Birch crochet needle for the edging.

Time - February 13th to April 9th. If I could have tolerated knitting it all the way through, without throwing it on the bar and leaving it sit for more than two weeks, it would have been done on March 23rd. I had everything but the neck edging done at that point.

Modifications - None, because I made it myself.

Conclusions - I'm proud of it. It's not a flashy sweater, so it doesn't get much notice when I wear it, but they don't all have to be flashy. With a solid shirt under it, this sweater does a great job of framing necklaces, which was one of the results I was hoping for. I wore it again yesterday, and A.B. said I looked hip.

I'm figuring out that I'm not so much a fan of top-down knitting at the moment. I like having pieces to finish. Top-down is good for projects where you don't know how much yarn you're going to use. I certainly have a few yarns in the stash that are going to require this type of construction because I didn't buy enough of them and I can't get them anymore. I'm not swearing off of it forever. But I'm not going to make another top-down anything for a while.

After last week's heat spell, we've gone back to normal springtime temperatures. I should get at least a couple of more wearings out of Fluffy before logic and reason dictate that I put it away until November. It might even fit better by then, if I keep up the running. I look broad in it...

We All Float On

So close. So very close to having a picture of the completed Fluffy Angora Menace. I have the arms done, and most of the ends woven in. I don't love the waist bind-off, but I could have lived with it. In my haste to just get it finished so that I could work on something more colorful and less allergenic, I made a calculation error on the neckline. I crocheted into every stitch along the v-neck, not every three out of four. It's way too loose. I know I'll be able to redo it tonight in about half an hour, and I could redo the waist pretty easily as well, but now I'm mad at it. And I feel too soft in the middle to wear it, anyway. And it's 77 degrees outside right now. Dammit.

In brighter news, I won a contest! This contest! I'm so excited! I've already got the perfect pair of jeans to go with it.

In light of my winning a contest for a close-fitting knit vest, and of the aforementioned state of middle softness, I thought it'd be a good idea to go ahead and register for Bay to Breakers. We did it last year, and we pledged to start training for this year as soon as we'd recovered, and then...well, just read the entries between then and now. There were disfigurements, both sports-related and clerical. There were huge changes at home and at work. There was very real sadness and loss. Everything went sideways. We're recovering, but we now have a little less than two months to train, and we're not in nearly the same condition that we were in at this time last year. Ah, well. Now that I've gone through the experience of losing a toenail, I know it's not something to dread. That's pretty much my new motto. "Now that I've gone through (x), I'm not dreading it anymore."

Finally, another missive from the strange world in which I wander. There's always something a little off in my world, something going on just beyond the corner of my eye. I like living in this world, because it's an endless source of entertainment. Sometimes, it's about hauntings. Sometimes, it's about corporeal things that are not quite right. Usually, as is the case today, it's about my cat.

Buddy may have learned to command Winston using our hand signals. Last night, I watched as he raised up his paw and wagged it around a little bit in what I thought was a precursor to a slap across the nose. Winston threw himself to the ground and rolled over repeatedly, as though Buddy were giving him the signal to do so. Now, maybe it was a coincidence, the paw gesture and the response. Maybe Win was trying to use every trick that he knew to ingratiate himself with the tiny king, and I happened to read too much meaning in his playful maneuverings. Maybe. But I know what I saw. Even if nobody else ever sees it, even if he never does it again, I'll never be convinced that it was anything less than Buddy commanding the dog and the dog obeying.

Clever Phrases Elude Me

On Winston, knitting and fitness --


Yes, we changed young Bug's name. He's as cute as a bug, which is probably how the name came about in the shelter, but the name just wasn't working, in part because 'Bug' is too close to 'Buddy', but in larger part because I've never understood the phrase 'cute as a bug'. I find insects and arachnids fascinating and somewhat alien, but not cute.

We bandied about names for a few days, briefly considering Kojak because of a perceived resemblance to Telly Savalas, and rejecting several other names outright. "You know, when he gets that inquisitive, thoughtful look on his face, he reminds me of Winston Churchill."


The Woman! How could you? I thought that I was your Churchill! I must now despise this usurper!

We call him Win for short, because he's a WINNER.

So angry. So very, very angry. And I don't like that he tries to sniff me in personal places. Dog never tried to do that. She respected my privacy. He needs boundaries, the Woman.

It's a sign of friendliness and affection, Buddy.

In a shady side-street bath house, perhaps. You do know that I still remember how to, how shall I delicately put this, demarcate my limits, yes?

Noted.


This one's smart. He caught on to 'easy' after about five tries. He will not lunge for that ball, no matter how enticingly we wave it in front of his muzzle. We have to constantly modify the order of commands we give him when we're practicing our obedience lessons. He learns them like they're pieces of a dance routine. "Sit - down - sit - look - down. Got it. I don't even need the hand signals."


Here he is with his friend, Miss Josie Kat, his neighbor at Pit Bull Hall. We took him out there a week ago to play with her. We're hoping that she finds a home in the East Bay, maybe on this side of the hills, so that we can get them together for play dates. (We'd settle for her just finding a home ANYWHERE. She's been at the Hall for a long time.) That's another big difference between Winston and Lucy. Win likes playing with other dogs, something that was just too hard for Lou.

With everything that's happened in the last month, I haven't really had quiet time to think about my old girl. I'm only starting to do that now, to miss her. I miss the howls of joy when we'd ask her if she wanted to go for a walk. I miss her peculiar, goofy preference for hot concrete over cool, soft lawn. I miss her intense concentration when we'd give her strange commands like "out of the kitchen" or "let the cat drink from the water bowl first". I miss the way that she'd quiver from nose to tail when we had her in a sit-stay, barely able to contain her ever-present glee. The staff at VMS sent us a lovely book with condolences in the end pages a couple of weeks ago, and one of the notes in it said something like "Lucy was a joy, because she was so happy to BE."

We've been saying that Winston's smarter than Lucy was, but I think that's a misrepresentation of her intellect. She was smart in her own way - as smart as she needed to be to make us happy - and maybe more willful than we knew. She knew all of the commands. She also knew that staring blankly at us for long enough meant that we'd give up and let her get away with not obeying them.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, because I want to reassure myself. I want to feel that I'm not trying to replace her, to make light of the loss of her by comparing her unfavorably to the newer, and in some ways 'better' dog. I emerge from these frequent reveries with the same conclusions. It wasn't too soon, because Win needed us and we needed something bright in our lives after those weeks of darkness. He's not a replacement dog, because Lou was irreplaceable. He's not even a better dog, because that'd mean that we were judging them by the same standards, and that's not fair to either of them. He's simply a different dog.

He's also not a perfect dog. See how little progress I've made on my fluffy angora sweater? Guess who wants that angora in his mouth? (Hint: Buddy loathes angora.) I spent two hours untangling and rewinding 100 yards of it the other night. We keep reminding ourselves that he's barely more than a puppy, just a year old, and that he's a little mouthy as a result. It's just that he's got such a big mouth.


It's about seven inches down from the back of the neck now, with about an inch to go for it the armscyes to be deep enough for layering a shirt underneath. I'm pretty close to the point where I'll separate the sleeves, and also fairly close to closing up the v-neck. It should fly off the needles at that point, and in a good way, not because half the stitches and a ninety-yard ball are in a pit bull's mouth.

I'm in the early stages of my annual fitness restart. I ran on Saturday, and Accountant Boy and I lifted weights yesterday. My goal for this week is to make it to the gym just two more times. More would be super, but I'm trying not to set my expectations too high. Next week's goal is to feel good enough about my progress to call my trainer and schedule an appointment. My last call to her, a voicemail message, went something like this:

"Yeah, uh, Amazon? It's me. Hey, I'm not going to make it to my session tomorrow, because my dad suddenly, uh, died. And I'm O.K., so don't worry about me, but the funeral's tomorrow and I'm standing by the bathrooms at Costco in a business suit with a cart full of liquor because it's my job to get everyone drunk and keep them drunk. Did you know that they'll open a checkstand for you if you walk up in a suit? Weird, huh? I think it's because A.B. and I look like FBI agents. So, yeah, not training tomorrow. Look, I gotta go because I hate people who talk on cell phones in stores, and now I'm one of those douchebags. Talk to you soon, O.K.?"

I should maybe call her back.

Turtle Power

For many years now, Accountant Boy has affectionately referred to me as Turtle. I think it stemmed from my need to have a good, solid shell around me into which I can retreat, and also my willingness to push forward with the weight of the entire world on my back. In many ways, I'm more like a hermit crab, but Turtle sounds cuter than Crab, so Turtle stuck.

He's to the right of me here, saying, "Paddle! Use your turtle powers!"


So we went camping this weekend. We put up our tent, referred to as "Tent Mahal", "The Chateau", "The Biltmore", "Pickfair", and "Huge-Ass Tent", unpacked our stuff, arranged everything in the shell just the way I liked it. We bought the tent on sale from REI.com. In our defense, we'd never seen it in person. We had no idea it'd be this big. When we realized what we'd done, we decided to roll with it, really make it ridiculous. Note the tassles on either side of the doorway. What you can't see, because I didn't take pictures of the interior of the back room, are the silk comforter and pillows, the battery-operated ceiling fan and light, and the queen-sized inflatable mattress that doesn't take up even half of the floor. Last year, because I didn't go on the trip, A.B. stayed in the tent by himself, which made its extravagances even more obscene.


Look at it in comparison to the other tents. Accountant Boy is more than six feet tall. He can stand without stooping in this tent.


Breakfast on the morning of the hike. I took this picture to illustrate how huge the guy next to A.B. is.


The hike consisted of a three mile climb up a moderately steep fire road, followed by a short descent to the river. The river portion alternated between short swims across slow-moving pools, and miles and miles of climbing across exposed river rocks. In previous years, there had been more water in the river. I was given to believe that there would be more floating downstream. Instead, there was this.


I know I've mentioned my frightening lack of depth perception before. Here's where it really becomes a handicap. "Honey, just pick your line and WALK. You're going to be way more tired if you hover over each rock before you step on it." When I tried to follow A.B.'s advice, I'd invariably badly overreach and end up stretched out between two boulders, or completely miss my next step. It didn't occur to me until the next day that the root of the problem was my eyesight. I tried to pick my line and walk it, but I just couldn't tell how far away the next step was going to be.


Most of the way, A.B. helped me by actually holding my hand as I hopped tentatively from boulder to boulder. There are no pictures of this, as we two were alone for most of the hike. Soon after this shot, we lost sight of everyone else and didn't catch up again. I know he would have been up with the front group if he hadn't stayed back to help me. I love him for this.

Some of it was a lot of fun. There were watery points, and features that wouldn't have been visible if the river had been higher. Take this slide for example. I'm told that last year, it was completely submerged.


We weren't an outdoorsy family when I was young. I think this might have been the second time in my life that I'd been in a river. I kept looking down as I was pulling forward, exclaiming, "Look, honey! There's FISH!" Then, I'd turn back and find that I was a good thirty yards ahead of him. I have a strong, fast stroke. I loved the water. I wish there had been more of it.


What did I learn on this trip? I learned that I might actually like camping, maybe with a little less in the way of camping equipment. I know it's car camping, but that doesn't mean we have to fill the car with half the contents of our house, and a tent that's roughly half the size of our kitchen and dining room. Everyone at the campsite did this, to some extent. Yes, our tent was the biggest, but everyone had an embarrassingly large collection of supplies.

I learned that I'm a really strong swimmer and paddler. A.B. suggested that I might like rafting or kayaking. "Would I have to climb over two miles of algae-slick rocks with the boat on my back?" "Not usually, no." "Well, then. I think I'll love it."


We were the first two people to reach the bridge at the top of the trail. We stood side-by-side and stepped onto it together.

I love Accountant Boy. I didn't have to learn that on the camping trip. I already knew.

Blofeld

First, a note to anyone who might be feeling bad about laughing at the last post -- please laugh. It became funny about twenty seconds after the explosion, like Saturday-morning-cartoon-funny. I'm fine, even though my frayed eyelashes are still getting hung up when I blink. "Your eyes are fine. Your eyelashes did their job, alright," said my optometrist. "Oh my GOD!" said the girl at the Lancome counter. "I'll take a tube of that lash conditioner, please," said I.


"Who keeps doing that? Guys? Who keeps filling the friggin' candy jar by the coffee pot with those little Baby Ruths? Smith, is that your doing? STOP IT! How many times must I tell you to put stuff in there that I DON'T LIKE? Would it kill you to buy Almond Joys once in a while???"

Damned candy bars. I was just going over there to get a spoon for my very healthy, sensible yogurt, and I happened to open the jar. Now I feel all sugary and ashamed.

On the plus side, the damned candy bars are sitting on a sleeve of Cobweb, about three centimeters away from the start of the cap shaping. I realized the other day that I really don't have as much time as I thought I did before the wedding, so I'm throwing all of my knitting time into this one project until it's done. I'm still loving the lace pattern and the yarn. Putting the Baby Ruths on it showed me that it's going to look good with all kinds of colors, not just coppery earthtones. I think it'd be really nice over something blue.

I also realized that I like seeing knitters' works-in-progress at all stages, and that by saying things like "still knitting (x), but it's too boring to show you", I was doing exactly the opposite. So no more "I'm knitting the sleeve, but who the Hell wants to see a picture of a half-finished sleeve, anyway?" posts. I know I'd want to see a picture of a half-finished sleeve. I love pictures.


Accountant Boy and I were in San Francisco on Sunday. We had coffee at Caffe Puccini. The couple on the other side of the window sat down, had some pie, and then fell fast asleep. His head is tilted as far back as it can go, and his mouth is wide open. You can't see the woman in this picture, but she's face-down on the table. It looks like someone came by and blackjacked the both of them.


My toe got worse, but I still maintain that the nail isn't going to fall off. The force of my will is going to hold it in place. I think. It's not at all pretty, but it's holding its own. On the off chance that you're reading this while enjoying a fine meal, I've made the picture quite small. You're welcome.

Sunday evening, lying in bed, unable to sleep after my ordeal, I complained bitterly to Accountant Boy. "You know, between my gangrenous toe, and my knee, and my crispy hair, and the burn on my arm," because the blast also took the hair off of my forearm, the one I always burn when cooking, "I might as well just admit that I'm turning into a hideous caricature of a person. I'm going to end up wearing an eye patch, rolling around in a wheelchair with a peg leg and a HOOK for a HAND! And my tooth hurts, so I might as well tell Dr. Alves to put a big, metal cap on it, on ALL of my teeth while he's in there. I'll roll into the office tomorrow in my armor-plated wheelchair with my burnt, bald head and my metal teeth and my eye patch, while Buddy squirms in my lap as I try to pet him with my HOOK HAND LIKE A VILLAIN FROM A JAMES BOND FILM AND..."

"...the brakes on your wheelchair will squeak."

"You're an asshole, A.B."

"skrrrreeeeEEEEEEEEEECH..."