Summertime, and the living's getting easier

I see a lot of pictures of Buddy, and I though that maybe everyone might like to see a good picture of me, because I'm a pretty girl. Sometimes they dress me up with a bandanna! -- Lucy the Dog

It's like putting sparkly hair clips on a Holstein. -- Buddy the Cat

I know a lot of knitters stop knitting during the summer because of the heat. Basking in the glory that is Mr. Slim, I have no such problem. It was 110 degrees today, but my kitchen is a pleasant 78. Sure, it's almost midnight and my garage is still 95 degrees, and the wine fridge is costing us something like four hundred dollars a month to run because it's out there, but my favorite knitting chair is cool.

No, my problem is one of time. Right after my last post, I fell into two months of looney work, and haven't had more than a couple of hours to knit. The arms of Bristow remain unknit, I haven't been able to knit any socks from all of the yarn and patterns that Purly gave me, and I have so much yarn shoved into the Yarn Cave that it's acting as attic insulation. I'm afraid to open the door and pull any of it out, because I'm afraid the heat blast might melt my face off. It's good for peppers, though.

I spent the past two months working on my company's disaster recovery drill in Arizona. We were only in Scottsdale for a couple of days, but the prep work before and the post-test work took up most of May and early June. Here's a picture of Belligero the Clown at the hotel during an afternoon gale.

I came home, then dove immediately into the next adventure -- driving my mom around for a couple of weeks after her knee surgery. By the by, if anyone knows someone with a need for total knee replacement, I know the guy to do it. My mom had the minimally invasive surgery, and she was walking around without aid within a couple of days of the surgery. I still had to stay and help them a little bit, because my dad's not what you'd call a good caregiver in situations like that. I ended up taking care of them both for a couple of weeks, and in that time I did some work around their house and painted their living room. Yes, I did finish the wall, but I can't find the complete picture.

Then I got back here and Buddy the Cat was so traumatized by my absence that he developed some kind of feline stress disorder that caused him to yak all over the house no matter what he ate, and fear his food as a result. He lost several pounds and just looked terrible. He's better now, after a couple of days of steroids and a couple of weeks of having me home, almost back up to his fighting weight. (That'll teach you to leave me, the Woman. I'm emotionally fragile, for God's sake.-- BtC)

So what's happening on the knitting front? Well, I decided that Bristow needed a couple of weeks off, and then it was my birthday and my friends bought yarn. I've put myself on a yarn buying freeze until at least Stitches West, but I figure it's O.K. if someone else buys it for me. Lookie!

That's Artfibers 'Chai', tussah silk, a pair of Bryspun needles and a pattern for a herringbone lace scarf.

And this is the Lucy bag, ten rows from the top. I'm knitting it in Lamb's Pride Worsted in 'Prairie Fire', which is oddly appropriate considering the weather. In fact, I only had it outside long enough to take this picture. I was afraid that the blazing sun would cause it to combust. I've never intentionally felted anything before. I'm looking forward to finishing it. Again, my friend bought the yarn for me, so no rules were broken. Just to make sure that I wasn't subliminally encouraging my friends to help me build up my yarn stash, I pledged to complete these two projects before starting anything else. Neither of these things are going into the stash box.

How do I have time to do any knitting, with all the housework and yardwork and such, you might ask? Two words: robot vacuum. It was my birthday present from Accountant Boy. It sweeps under the couches, it gets into the corners and under the cabinets in the kitchen, and it parks itself back on its charger when its battery runs low. I love it. Buddy tolerates it. Lucy fears it.

It sings a little song when it starts up...dooDoodooDOOOO!!!

Many Projects

We've got knitting projects, household projects, projects to track our projects, and a list of things that might help us with our project to track our projects. And yet we still can't manage to feed ourselves more than one meal in a row. "Cereal tonight?" "It's nightime?" "It's 10:30." "Oh, dammit! Cooking dinner was on my list!" "Tomorrow, maybe." "I'll print out the schedule."

I finally got on a roll with Bristow, which is way cool. I knit and tinked the first five inches about a dozen times, but now I think I've got it down. I washed and blocked this piece so I can see how it dries, see if I need to make any changes before knitting the rest of it. It's really soft now that it's washed. I'm knitting the small, because I tend to make things slightly wider than they're supposed to be, even when I think I'm on gauge. This one is no exception -- if the back and other side come out like this one, it'll be two inches wider than the small, which is cool, because the small was going to be...well...small. The extra width is going to give me a little ease.





This was how I spent last weekend. It doesn't look like it, but this is about 600 CDs, now meticulously organized and stored. It took hours to alphabetize them and make sure all of the right CDs were in their cases.

I had to have something to do, because there wasn't room in the garage for me to help Accountant Boy. Here's a little glimpse at his weekend...








At this point, he already had the bulk of the wine loaded into the cellar. I'd take a picture of the cellar, but I can't walk around to the front of it without knocking over all of the wine.














Yes, that's a laptop. Yes, we're cataloging the collection. Yes, I'm going to create a database and build a web interface for it so that A.B. can access it from any location. Yes, we're dorks.







I'm considering taking up a hobby of my own. As soon as I figure out how to hold the yarn without succumbing to the desire to eat it, I'll be all set to go. -- BtC






Hang on, cat-head-sized-ball-of-chenille, I'll find a way out for both of us. -- BtC

"This isn't the stupidest thing we've ever done..."

My husband works for a big beverage company. Big. Multinational. Australian for 'beer'. Dozens of large wineries in the U.S. and Australia, and at least a couple of breweries. As a result, we've acquired a lot of wine over the past year. Rather than drinking all of the wine immediately after purchase, which was my plan, he decided that we should look into carefully storing it in a large wine refrigerator. I'm told that at the size we're installing, such a unit is called a wine cellar. Anyway, drinking our way through the cases in the dining room was ruled out. Killjoy.

We have a long history of stupidity when it comes to home improvement. We staple up insulation at 2:00 a.m. We try not to disturb the neighbors with the chop saw, so we set it up in the tiny hallway outside of our bedroom, where the saw dust and smoke from the blade will set off the smoke detector. We save landscaping dollars by trenching the hard-pan in our back yard ourselves with a gas powered trencher, breaking my finger in the process, but not stopping us from working. "Huh. I don't remember it hurting yesterday. Maybe it's arthritis. Where's the shovel?" Our friends often say, "You guys are f*&king nuts!" They also often say, "Hey, maybe you guys should get out of the house. How are the fumes not KILLING you?!?"

So it was no surprise yesterday at 8:00 p.m. when my beloved Accountant Boy said, "You know what we should do before the cellar shows up tomorrow? We should texture and paint that wall in the garage so that it looks nice." I wanted to sit down and watch television, maybe work on the back of Bristow for a little while, after having to frog all of it the night before. I could have said just said no, but it would have broken his heart, so I went along with it, because I love the big guy.

At 8:30, we started spraying on the texture. "This isn't the stupidest thing we've ever done," he said to me, in a tone that seemed to beg for agreement. "No, honey, it's a good idea!" I chirped back at him.

At 8:34, we realized that we were spraying aerosolized chemicals on the wall, without respirators or adequate ventilation. He threw open the garage door so that we could breathe, and the neighbors could watch us do more nighttime home improvements. "O.K., maybe that was a little stupid, but still not the stupidest thing we've ever done." "No, honey, it'd only be stupid if we were found dead on the garage floor tomorrow. Good call on the open window!"

By 9:15, the spray texture was dry. We rolled on a coat of paint, and lo and behold, it DID look pretty good. By 10:30, we were done with both coats. And it does look nice, I'll give him that. We're going to be happy with the pretty, khaki wall behind the wooden cellar. It wasn't the stupidest thing we've ever done.

But it did keep me from knitting. I really wanted to get back on the horse after falling off so hard on Sunday. Look at this beautiful, even work. See how lovely the yarn works up at this gauge, somewhere in the 22st/4in range...oh, damn. Bristow's 19st/4in. The front that's half completed in my basket is 19st/4in. Not only did I have to frog all of this work, but I now have to figure out what I was doing to get the bigger gauge on these needles. Bye-bye, sweater back. I miss you already.

Happy and Ambivalent

This was a big one, and the picture's kind of dark. Let's see if I can see and remember everything:
- Candle in a jar with a delightfully un-sugary scent
- Two skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in Cream
- Two skeins Knitpicks sock yarn in Daffodil
- Two pairs of very small DPNs
- Fleece Artists sock yarn in Mineral
- Four skeins of Knitpicks sock yarn in dark oranges and reds
- Ghirardelli dark chocolates
- Handpainted merino
- IK Spring 2006
- A comprehensive collection of sock patterns and instructions, assembled just for me by my fantastic SP.

(It's in my spot, the Woman. I'm only seconds away from stepping over it all to get to the mesh fabric that enclosed it. By the way, where has she hidden the live finches? -- BtC)

I'm already making plans for all of it. I was going through the small project stash bin, and I noticed that the Berroco that she sent me at the beginning of the round is going to go perfectly with the Cashmerino Aran. I'm thinking about buying more of it and making a cropped sweater or bolero, then working a border around it with the Berroco. The dark orange sock yarn is indescribably beautiful. One of my favorite sweaters of all time, a cotton turtleneck from Victoria's secret, is close to the same colorway. I'm going to have to think about this one -- make socks out of it, or make something more visible? I don't know many people who look good in orange, but fortunately I'm one of them. Maybe I'll make a sock-weight Clapotis. I could go on and on about it, about everything from every package, but that'd only be interesting to me, to be frank. We'll come back to my plans for the newest stash members when the thinking's done and the doing starts.

My pal Purly is wonderful, really above and beyond what I would have expected. The packages and cards and e-mails always arrived just when I needed them. I loved our chats, and hope to keep 'em going.

I've had mixed feelings about this, my first Secret Pal round. The FamilyBanana got some really bad news about DaddyBanana at the very start of the round, and the combined stress almost caused me to drop out of the whole thing. I didn't know how I was going to keep up with everything in my life outside of knitting, and keep up with both my upstream and downstream obligations. I didn't want to let anyone down. Things, or more accurately, my ability to deal with things leveled off quickly with regard to DaddyBanana, and I received a lot of support and sympathy from Purly, so I took a deep breath and continued on. Then things went kooky with work and my commute, and my computer, and the 3,888,000 seconds of continuous rain, and Buddy the Cat's inability to digest carbohydrates. (Don't blame me, the Woman. You know what doesn't contain bulk fiber? A live goldfinch. Fetch! -- BtC) I've got a hundred reasons why I didn't put as much effort into either my upstream or downstream connections, but the point is that I feel like I've kind of let both ends down by not holding up the middle.

I'm pretty sure my downstream SP doesn't feel like I'm neglecting her. In fact, I think she's in the same place I am this round, horribly busy, things going haywire, trying to keep up. It's just that I had bigger plans, and now that we're ten days away from the end of the round, I'm starting to feel that inevitable disappointment in myself for not making every single one of them happen. I feel bad for letting weeks slip by without contacting her. And Purly! Poor Purly! I'd get a package, open it, take pictures of it, LOVE it, and then forget to post or e-mail her about it for days. "I hope your package didn't get lost..." I feel like such a heel.

This is the long way around to saying that I don't know if I'd do another SP round right away. And if you've read this far, for the love of God STOP. I'm even boring myself. Take your knitting and go outside. It's probably a nice day.

Cheesecake Buddy the Cat photo!

David, a Soliloquy

It is hard to be the David, so hard. I stand all day in a state of readiness, moments away from slaying the giant. I am magnificent, the image of a perfect man, frozen at the most critical moment of my young life. I am fierce determination and tightly coiled power.

And yet, I am sad. I am never the first David in any admirer's mind. That honor goes to Michelangelo's David, the fellow with the big head. And why? What is he doing to merit this love? He is a clod, a heavy browed brute. Where is the sense of movement, of action? He can't even be bothered to throw the rock.

I am rarely even the second David. That's the earliest David, the Donatello David, the fey little boy with the floral hat. Knee boots and a floral hat? Did he slay Goliath after coming from an audition at Centerfolds?

The other Davids are beloved. The other Davids are compared. I am an afterthought, if I am thought of at all. Woe is Bernini's David.

But wait! What is this? The lady of the house has knitted a scarf for the David! No longer must I stand under the air conditioner in my state of readiness with my neck exposed to the breeze. I am beloved above all other Davids.

Shut up, Verrochio's David. This is my day.

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This is the first completed crochet thingy I've ever completed. It's a long strip of single crochet (I think), made from the leftover yarn from Tubey. I worked it up in a couple of hours this week. I think it'll be a nice little scarf for the slightly cold summer evenings. It looks good on the David, but I don't intend to give it to him permanently. Shhh...don't tell him.