Germander Sage

Pretty #3: Mmmmmm...Artyarns Regal Silk. The color variations aren't in the yarn. They're due to the reflected light from my kitchen window. I don't know what this is going to be yet, but whatever it is will shimmer like nobody's business.

Don't look at me like that. I couldn't help but buy it. Yes, it's an addition to my stash, and yes, I said I wouldn't do that. But eleven dollars a skein! C'mon, now. How was I supposed to say no to that?

Know what we haven't done in a while? Resolution update! Wheeee!

--Still exercising, although I'm starting to resent how it's cutting into my relaxation time. I swam a mile yesterday, and it didn't utterly destroy me. That's a big accomplishment for me. I love the water, but I'm not a distance swimmer. What I mean is, I'm not yet a natural at it, but I'm getting there. That gets me thinking about what I say about myself, what I think about myself. I've always thought of myself as 'not an athlete'. "Everybody's going hiking? I'll hang out at the tent with our stuff. I'm not a hiker." What that means is "I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up, and I'm afraid I'll slip on the rocks, and I'm afraid I'm not good enough..." It's like a delusion of grandeur in reverse. And it's a load of crap, but after this much time, my whole sentient life, it's the way I think. If you watched 'Dead Like Me' on Showtime, it's like George's narration over the episode where she joins Dolores' bowling league. "Why was I so afraid..." By the way, if you haven't seen 'Dead Like Me', it's a gem, and it's available on Netflix.

I told Accountant Boy about my hiking fears, and he replied, "Your balance is better than mine, and you're not going to have any trouble keeping up. You just need to believe it." That's my new mini resolution. Believe it.

--Be a Better Programmer - still working on it. I'm actually starting to believe that I AM a programmer, not someone who accidentally fell into the job and hasn't been found out yet. Other people apparently already think of me as the former, but I'm convinced that I've duped them. One of us is wrong, them or me. It's probably me. Same mini resolution as above. Believe it.

--Knit from stash - yes! I love how Cobweb is knitting up in my second-oldest cache of stash yarn. I'd show pictures, but I've decided to knit all of the beaded portions first, and there's already a nice picture of beads and yarn in a previous post. Pictures when I get to the lace, I promise. I've only added that Regal Silk to the stash since the cataloging.

--Meet knitters - I suck. More specifically, my fitness regime is taking priority over knitting group. That mile in the water took more than an hour last night, after which I went home and collapsed on the couch. Technically, I DID meet some knitters. It's just been a long, long while since I did it. Does that count as a complete resolution?

--E-mail friends - Our friends? The ones we never respond to? They sent us a birth announcement for their baby the other day. So now we have a fresh, new reason to respond to them. We're on it, distant college friends! In a tragic technological turn, the computer that held all of our addresses and phone numbers suffered a catastrophic hard drive failure a few weeks ago. We have to rebuild from scratch, because we don't have any contact information backed up anywhere else. In a hilarious twist, this means that the only people for whom we have contact info are our distant college friends, because we've got their address from the birth announcement envelope. Looks like this resolution's getting new focus, whether we like it or not.

Even I'm bored by the resolution posts, but they're keeping me honest. It's the end of April, and I still know what they are. That's an accomplishment in itself.

Hey, know what all of that bark, the nitrogenated black bark that I shoveled for seven hours, those tons and tons of bark did for the garden? Everything's gone wild. The nitrogen is already seeping into the soil.

Gratitude: Every evening when I come home from work, this is the first thing I see when I open my car door.

Cripes!

First off, thanks to everyone giving suggestions so far on the future shrug-o-lero. I've had a great time seeing so many patterns that I hadn't come across before. I'm putting all names in the big hat at 11:59 on Wednesday night and drawing out a winner for the Mountain Colors. There's still time to enter, and I'm still undecided on the pattern, so don't be shy.

Oh, so many things happening, no new pictures.

Accountant Boy and I got it in our heads that we should finish landscaping the yards this year, so we've spent the last three weekends working outside. We also got it in our heads that Daisy and Falstaff's yard would be easy to landscape if we applied some principles of xeriscaping to it, so we've actually been working in three yards simultaneously. My main jobs were bark shoveling and sprinkler line maintenance. My ankles ache from all of the time spent sitting on my heels to adjust the drip manifolds. The pain wakes me up at night. Note to self: give up dream of being an MLB catcher.

Starsky's almost done! Just the belt left, now. The boring, boring belt. No, I won't call it done and take pictures and be all proud of it without the belt, because it's not completely done, and if I'm allowed to pretend like it is at this point, it never will be. Note to self: knitted belts suck.

Buddy's old owner swung by yesterday while we were toiling in the yard and asked if he could see him. Buddy has now been with us longer than he was with them and, with all of the time and money and love we've poured over him in our eight years, I don't think there's any doubt that he's our cat now. I know the old owner just wanted to say hello to him. Old owner's a sentimental guy. He still owns the house he grew up in on the other side of our back fence. He still has Buddy's mom after fifteen years, along with a few new cats that they adopted to keep her company. They're a big-hearted family, and he's a good man. When I brought Buddy to the door, he didn't quite recognize the booming voice of his old owner and he pushed back against my shoulder. I felt kind of bad about it, because I could see that the old owner's feelings were a little hurt by it. "You guys should come by when you have a few minutes to sit down inside. He doesn't understand why I'm holding him in the open doorway. He'll come right up to you if you're sitting on the couch..." We said that, and we meant it, but still. Note to self: formulate plan for spiriting Buddy away in the dead of night and living on the run with him, should his old owners decide to reclaim him.

Resolutions? Oh, yeah. Those friggin' things. Well, the exercise part's going well, and it's been three weeks since I had a Casper's chili cheese dog. I swam fifty laps in a row last Thursday without using the kickboard, and I felt like I finally understood how to breathe and swim at the same time. Knit from stash is still on track since I've been knitting the same damn sweater for the past four months, and it's out of stash yarn. Be a better programmer is hit-and-miss. I have some days where I feel really good about it, and some days where I don't know what I'm doing, in both the literal and figurative senses. Oh, and we're the crappiest friends in the world, because we STILL haven't written to any of our long-lost pals. So I'm still three for five on the resolutions, but at least it hasn't gotten worse.

Gripey as this sounded, I'm actually in a great mood. My yards are going to be lovely this year, and Daisy and Falstaff's front yard will be, too. The peach tree might actually produce peaches for the first time. I'm almost done with a really involved sweater, just in time for lighter, simpler Spring knitting. I'm getting stronger and sleaker. My ankles hurt, uh, less? Yeah, that's a good thing. My ankles hurt less today than they did last night.

Oh, and since I'm throwing everything but the kitchen sink in this post, here's a gratitude. I'm grateful for this lovely April day, and that I'm less than two hours away from stepping out into it. Maybe I'll go home and take some pictures.

Six of Nine

This was my daytime home for six years. Six years. Most people don't stay with the same company for that long anymore, let alone in the same cubicle. Most of the people in my department were here when we moved into this space.

"Remember when we moved in here, and raided the upstairs floor for cubicle parts because we all wanted those cool accessory panels? I still have to have a coat hook over the side of one wall so that it'll stay in place."

"Remember when we set spring-loaded confetti traps in that office so that confetti would shoot out every time our old boss opened the door? Wish I'd know that was going to be my office when he left..."

"Remember when we stole all those desk lamps? It's amazing. We've been using them for six year and none of the bulbs burned out. Good lamps. I'm moving mine myself. I don't want anyone to steal it."

We've been a happy team for a long time. I've been with the company for almost nine years. That's today's gratitude. If I haven't said it before, here it is.

Gratitude: I'm grateful for my job and the people who work with me. They're an important part of my life.

But now, with a week and a half's distance between us, I'm happy to say that I don't feel that way about that cubicle. It looks pretty crappy with everything stripped out of it. If I were being honest about it, it didn't look much less crappy before I vacated it. I thought I was going to miss it, and I didn't want to move to the new floor, with the high-walled workspaces and no windows visible from my chair. I was wrong. My new workspace kicks ass.


The picture doesn't do its awesomeness justice, but trust me. It's awesome. This is easily the best space they've ever put us in. I have room to hang artwork, and I have this cool little space for my fountain.

It's all good. I need to get a little tray for my tea and water area, and then the decorating will be complete.
Even the boys have a place of pride on the bookshelf.

Oh, and I stole a schefflera from the old floor. Maybe six years from now, we'll be saying, "Hey, remember when we moved down here, and we stole all of those potted plants from the old floor, and you rolled that gigantic ficus across the courtyard on an office chair?"

Remember when I said that I thought there was a conspiracy afoot to keep me from enjoying a crisp, cold Coca-Cola? This is the reason, this monster of plastic and steel. It decides, seemingly at random, whether or not what you really need is a Diet 7up. You press the Coke button, it's a 50/50 shot that you'll get a Diet 7up. You press the Diet Dr. Pepper button, same thing. The guy in the next cube put a dollar in the machine once and, without pressing ANY buttons, got a Diet 7up. "It just shot it at me and spit out my change. I swear I didn't press anything. I think it's possessed."


Luckily, the movers gave us the machines from the other lunch room. How do I know? Don't they all look the same? I know, because I heard this from the team across the lobby from us. "I think that machine's trying to tell me I have a fat ass! I pressed the button for Pepsi, and it gave me a Diet 7up!"

When Life Hands You Lemons

Hey, you know what we haven't done for a long time? A gratitude!

I'm grateful that my citrus crop survived the recent freeze.


I love my lemon tree. It's one of four plants on our property that were here when we moved in. The mulberry tree, the wax-leaf privet, and the Tournament of Roses rose bush are the other three. The gardener hates two of them. He trims the privet back so far that it looks like a wicker basket with a handful of leaves tangled in it. I've never discussed it with him, because I've got this thing about the privet. I hate it as well, but I won't be the one to say we should get rid of it. That'd be the perfect spot for the Japanese maple, but I feel like I'd be betraying the privet by making the suggestion. So we do this wordless dance, Ron the Gardener and I. He buzz-cuts the privet in an attempt to get me to say I want it gone, and I pretend to like it that way, looking like a twig lollipop.

He's not shy about telling me that the mulberry will eventually destroy everything within a five hundred yard radius of its trunk. Good luck with that, Ron. I'm not taking out the only source of shade in my front yard just because it's going to crush my sewer line and the sewer lines of my seven closest neighbors, and crack the foundation of my house, and possibly send a taproot down to plumb the very waters of the river Styx. It gets hot out here, man! I need that tree.

awaken burnout bluebonnet

Gratitude for today: I'm grateful that I'm healthy.

When someone coughs near me at work, I can say, "Hey! What the f*$k? Go HOME!", and that's the end of it. I don't have to worry that I'm going to die by catching whatever they're spewing out into the air. Well, unless it's that avian flu or the Hanta virus. I remember reading something about the Hanta virus liquifying your organs or drowning you by filling your lungs with green ooze, something horrid like that, and whether it's true or not, I'm scared shitless of the Hanta virus. But by and large, not worried about anything common.

My beautiful, young cousin is going through chemotherapy, and her little boy has a cold. Last night, she couldn't resist hugging him, even though she was supposed to stay clear of him until he was well. Now she has a cough and she's having trouble breathing. She tries to comfort her seven-year-old son because he's just told her that he's scared that she'll die, and that's what happens.

You know a few posts ago when I said that I'm usually laughing about what I'm typing, and you'd know it if I wasn't laughing anymore? Here's an example. Not laughing.

I know that the thing to do is love someone and support them, but keep living your own life. That's what my cousin wants. That's what DaddyBanana wants. Well, really what DaddyBanana wants is for all of our family to live in a gigantic house, 'Dallas'-style, but without all of the drinking and whoring and clubbing each other over the head with expensive Chinese urns. O.K., maybe the drinking wouldn't bug him. Anyway, I know I should be able to empathize, but keep on going with my seemingly charmed life. I'm usually pretty good at it, but not at the moment.

I've got all kinds of neat things to talk about today. I've had a fantastic week. I met my fitness goals, I met my work goal, I met Ceallach. A.B. and I caught up on some fantastic television while I knit 'Bella'. HBO brought back 'Rome' in all its bloody glory. Buddy got over his most recent bout of stress-induced bulemia, the apparent cause of which is so ridiculous that people think I'm making it up when I tell them. I was not haunted by the Ghost Okies. It was a great week, but I feel shallow talking about any of it this morning. I'll feel better by tonight, and I'll have loads to say, especially about the hauntings. Accountant Boy's having an unexpected reaction to the mere mention of them. Note to self: stop telling A.B. that our house is haunted by Dustbowl-era migrants.

See? Already pulling out of the blue. By the way, "awaken burnout bluebonnet" was the subject line of some spam I received this morning. It struck me funny.

My eyes! My eyes!

I've been in a meeting for five hours, and I just can't take it anymore. I have what I can only assume is a legitimate medical disorder, where the flickering of a projector screen makes my eyes roll back into my head and eventually knocks me out. It's like some kind of mesmerization. It doesn't matter if I'm interested in the subject. It doesn't matter if the speaker is speaking directly to me. I just conk right out. So after two hours of biting my finger and attempting to not look at the huge white screen with the tiny, unfocused black text all over it, I switched seats.

Trouble is, now the projector itself is ever so slightly shining in my right eye. It's as though someone is poking the inside of my eye with a small, blunt instrument. If you've ever had laser surgery on your retina, you might know the feeling. If you haven't had that unique experience, I would recommend against it. "Try to look straight ahead, now..." You're shining a friggin' laser in my eye in order to burn my retina, guy. The only thing keeping me from bolting out of here now is the tongue depressor you've got pushed against my orbital bone. Seriously, who performs eye surgery with a tongue depressor as a retractor? Apparently he did a great job, because my optometrist is still raving about it nine years later. Laser pointer and a popsicle stick. I mean, really. But I digress.

Point is, my eye hurts, and my head's following close behind. "We're starting back up in a couple of minutes."

Ah, nuts.

Oh, ummm...Gratitude #4 -- I have the use of both of my eyes.

The Wild, Wild Sea

Pretty #2 - More Fiesta Insignia La Boheme. I bought it because the colors looked like San Francisco Bay on a choppy afternoon. They're actually a little lighter in real life, but still lovely. I'm going to make the Portland Pullover from the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits with it. The blue bleeds like crazy, so I'm knitting it on aluminum needles. The only aluminum needles I have in the correct size are these super-long Susan Bates straight needles. It's a good thing this is a fast knit, because those heavy needles are not fun to sling around. The yarn makes a lovely teal stripe around my left index finger. I've put this one aside for the time being, as I've got two sweaters and a scarf ahead of it on the priority list.

The colors of the yarn and the bean pot are accurate, but the counter is way off. Weird.

Gratitude #3 - Can I say Mama Mellace's Cinnamon Roasted Almonds again?

They're that good. No, I don't work for them or have any financial stake in their success. O.K., fine. I'll pick something new.

Gratitude #3(a) - I'm grateful that I have a warm place to call home.

We walked through Union Square on Sunday and got stopped by a guy taking donations for a soup kitchen. Accountant Boy gave him twenty bucks. "He said you looked like a movie star, so I though, 'What the hell? He had a good sales pitch.'" I know what he was really thinking, because I was thinking it, too. We were having a great day, happy in every respect, walking around San Francisco in the cold. We were happy because we knew we'd be able to get back in our car and turn on the heater, and go home and turn on the heater there, and be relaxed and warm. Why not give the guy twenty dollars so someone else can be warm for a couple of hours? We have it too good not to share.

Resolutions?

Fitness -- I've been to the gym four times since Friday. I'm working up to the running goal, hoping to soon reach the point where my toenails don't hurt after the workout. I usually hit that point about three weeks into the program, when I stop running on my toes. The Starbucks weekday ban went wrong today, because I though I had a morning-long meeting that would require a gigantic espresso drink. When I got here, I discovered that the meeting is tomorrow, but I already had the gigantic espresso drink. What was I supposed to do, throw it out?

Knitting -- Still knitting things that never actually made it into the stash, but at least I haven't purchased any new yarn. That's gotta count for something.

Be a Better Programmer -- I'm designing the screens for A.B.'s wine database. In our spare time, the .Net consultant is going to help me with the data binding and process flow. I'd feel guilty about doing this at work, but my manager says that any programming I do is valuable, even if it has nothing at all to do with the mortgage industry. I feel much better about this than I did a couple of weeks ago, much less like vomiting from stress when I think about coming to work tomorrow.

Contact -- I sent a long overdue e-mail to my dearest cousin this morning. Next week's e-mail goal? Our friends from college. They've sent Christmas cards to us for the past four years, and we've been meaning to get back to them for the past three years, eleven months and five days. We pick the card up off the desk in the office and say, "We HAVE to get back to them." The card sits on our desk, not lost in clutter and not covered by anything, no good reason other than procrastination, until the next year's card shows up to replace it. "We REALLY have to get back to them!" They have no way of knowing this. As far as they know, we either hate them or we're dead. I'm going to remedy that situation next week, if not sooner.

Meet knitters -- Tomorrow! (I hope...)

I finished one sleeve of Bella. I'm going to knit both body pieces, then see if I have enough yarn to make the sleeves longer.

Finally for this afternoon, I leave you with this. I have the distinct feeling that I'm being haunted. Yes, by a otherworldly spirit. No, I don't believe in that kind of thing, either, what with my Dana Scully-like belief in the primacy of science. Maybe I'm sleeping strangely because of the cold, or maybe Accountant Boy is gaslighting me. Nevertheless, I...but more on that later.

Gratitudipus Rex

I was just over yonder at Ceallach's blog, pokin' around for a few minutes between my Afternoon of Intensive Learning Merriment (Ailment, for short), and she's doing a very awesome thing. No it's not all of the knitting and dyeing and spinning, although that's pretty awesome. It's not the fact that she's apparently climbed Mount St. Helens, which...dude.

No, it's the gratitude. She's taking time each day to name something for which she is grateful. I think this is a grand idea, and I'm going try it, too. Maybe it'll be a blog post, maybe I'll figure out how to add it to the header. I'm not sure yet. Maybe I should have some lunch before deciding. Which leads me to my first gratitude.

1. I'm grateful for Mama Mellace's Cinnamon Roasted Almonds. So tasty!

What? You were expecting something more expansive? Maybe I'll get there. It's a big list, and if I start thinking about all of things for which I'm grateful, it's overwhelming. So nuts. I'm grateful for nuts.

I have it good, I tell you. I'm not sure that always comes through in my posts, the good humor underlying it all. Any of you who've said, "I know I shouldn't laugh, but..." in response to anything I've written, here's the thing. You can go ahead and laugh. I'm usually laughing as I write it. If the worst thing in my life at that moment was that my hotel room was a little smoky, or that I cut my finger while making soup, and I manage to kvetch about it for three thousand words, then I've really got nothing to complain about.

2. I'm grateful that I have nothing to complain about.

I've actually started saying that to people when they ask, "Hey, how are you?" in the elevator. "Oh, I can't complain." It actually makes me measurably happier for at least a couple of minutes after I say it. Give it a try next time someone throws a rhetorical how's-it-going at you. "Can't complain!" Say it and believe it, at least a little bit.

* * * * *

I've mentioned the ridiculous stash before, but I've never documented it. I'm not about to start now, because sweet fancy Moses! That's a lot of yarn. I am occasionally going to let a few of the pretties out for air and photo shoots.

Here's Pretty #1. This is Fiesta La Boheme Insignia in one of the test dye colors that went to Webs' clearance area. I don't know what it's going to become yet. I have 650 yards of it. I've got something Spring/Summer style in mind, and I think I'm going to design it myself. Maybe this could be April's sweater of the month.