Knitting ADD

I can't seem to focus on any of the 142 projects I seem to have adopted. I'm all twitchy looking for the yarn for Green Gable. I cast a swatch in the Cotton Fleece, but I'm not lovin' the feel, so I'm going to grab a skein of Cascade Sierra tomorrow and swatch that up and see what happens.

Then there are the Hippo socks. I got a new needle for them last night and now I have to do a swatch to make sure I get gauge so I don't have another debacle like the last attempt. I joined the Pomatomus KAL and now I feel like I really need to get moving on them so I don't start getting demerits. I don't want them to kick me out of the club.

Which leads us to MP. I'm just barely beyond the rib on the 2nd cuff and am on row 3 of the pattern. I don't want to completely drop them in a corner because I'm afraid I won't come back to them, and I'm sure Stick would like them eventually.

So, I think for the most part I'm going to work on starting GG and start on the Hippos. (Sorry Stick! I won't forget!). Tomorrow is going to be a whirlwind jaunt through Old Town to hit Springwater and KH, then off to watch the boys play with tools. I wonder if they'll have their tool belts out. Hmmm.

P.S. - Psst! This was my 100th post!

A frog, a hippo and a lemming walk into a bar

A frog...

I decided I have to frog the Pomatomus sock. My yarn overs are wonky and I tried to pull it over my chubby calf and it had to do some MAAAAAAAAAAAAAJOR stretching. I still love the yarn and the pattern but it just needs to be worked larger.

...a hippo...

So, as I said, I'm recasting on that sucker. I have to buy new needles; I don't have a size 2 circular. I also joined the Pomatomus KAL today, or at least sent the mail to join it. We'll see what happens.

...and a lemming...

When I was at Borders today, I picked up The DaVinci Code (it's finally out in paperback). I managed to resist it through all of the 30% off sales and the mini-clubs devoted to swearing this is the greatest book ever for as long as I could, but I finally just decided to throw my $7.99 at Mr. Brown and be done with it.6

...walk into a bar

Tonight was Bob Saget's twin's birthday din-din at Rio Grande. Mmmm, quesadillas and sopapillas. Had a SHIT day at work so the margarita-rocks-salt certainly helped get over the hump.

Lustful Thoughts

Years ago I fell in love. With a duvet cover. I was strolling through Bed, Bath and Beyond in Pentagon Centre and there it was. I'm not much of a flowery girl - quite the opposite for the most part really - but I HAD to have it. I didn't have the $60 or whatever ridiculous amount they were charging for essentially two sheets sewn together, but that didn't matter. I went to the store to VISIT the duvet cover.

Finally payday arrived and I scurried off to the mall to make it my very own. Now, I present to you, my spring duvet cover:

Oh yeah, I finished MP1, too.

They came from far and wide

...or at least they will this weekend. This Sunday is D.C. United's home opener against the New York-New Jersey MetroStars/MetroStars/New York RedBulls or whatever the heck they're being called this month. Apparently the MetroScum - and they'll always be the Scum - rented a bus for their little minions to travel south for the opener. I have no idea what kind of numbers they're looking at but I like my numbers better.

Soefsoef is apparently flying out from Denver for the opener; I'm not sure if she's here for a business trip and it's just a coincidence or if she's just coming out to visit for a week. AND Steph is coming out for a half-work, half-play trip. YAY! I don't think I've seen her since she and Mr. Steph were here a couple of years ago for a whirlwind East Coast trip. She'll be here for both the MetroBull and the Chivas game the following week. I can't wait to see her! So far the only things I know we're doing are the two DCU games and we're going to the National Zoo on Friday to see Tai Shan and the rest of the animals.

I've been slaving away on MP. I have about an inch left to do before I start to decrease for the toe. If I don't have enough yarn for the toe this time, I'm just gonna finish the decreases in a different yarn. Maybe a lovely fun fur. Someday I will figure out an interesting way to take pictures of socks in progress. I tried to figure out if I could squeeze it onto Brutus' or Pooky's legs, but it was a no go. Hopefully I'll have at least finished MP1 by the end of this week.

I cast on my Hippo socks* Saturday night while watching Madagascar with the divine Ms. M. In between outbursts of, "Hey, that part was in my video!" I managed to cast on and start the ribbing using the Magic Loop method. I keep getting tangled up in the 40" cable, but so far it's working okay. Of course, I haven't actually read the pattern all the way through - that's like searching the house for your presents before Christmas morning. Anyway, I'm using the Cherry Tree Hill in Peacock. I luuuuuuuuuuv it. The photo's a little dark but you can start to see the little design starting to take shape. No more work on it til I finish MP1 though.

*The hippo socks, for those of you who haven't caught on to my non-stop renaming of patterns, is actually the Pomatomus socks for the Winter 2005 edition of Knitty. I can never remember Pomatomus but it reminds me of hippopotamus and...well, there you have it.

Salsa with a Twist

You know, I was only mildly surprised to see a guy dancing salsa with the pole on the Metro as I came in to work this afternoon. You know, you don't get to see this kind of stuff during the a.m. rush hour.

Comfy pants

Nothing like the delicate swish-swish serenade of comfy corduroy pants to make a gal comfy.

Of course, could live without the chub rub, but whatevah.

I just finished turning the heel of MP1 - again. I feel that under normal circumstances, one should only have to turn two heels per pair of socks, but I've always liked to do things differently. I'm a rebel that way. I had to ask Stick to remeasure her feet since when I frogged the sucker yesterday, I forgot to make a note of how long the foot should be. I'm just that clever - what can I say?

I think I'm going to have to start working on something else non-socklike while I struggle my way through MP. It's almost April - Stick's not going to want to wear wool socks before October anyway, right?

I cast on Lucy Lu while I was in Atlanta with some this Berroco Softwist in a dark green. It knits up super loose (of course, b/c I'm substituting yarn) but I'm going to keep trying with it for a while and see what happens. This photo doesn't really do it justice - makes it look too shiny, but that's it more or less it. And then I really want to cast on Pomatomus with my Cherry Tree Hill blue stuff. You know how I love to cast on.

I think I need to set new mini-goals for myself a la the Knitting Olympics. I work so much better with I have a deadline. Of course, for right now, I can blame Stick for her incomplete Jaywalkers. After all, I can't really do anything until she tells me how long her foot is, now can I?

It was the best of times...

I'm back in D.C., all safe and sound. Despite a delayed take-off and a VERY bumpy flight, I got home safe and sound and home in plenty of time to order chinese food. Mmm, eggdrop soup on very unhappy scratchy sore throat. Doc says sinus infection so back to my friend Anti Biotix. Yummy!

So, I finally got around to finding some photos from the new Georgia Aquarium.

Some snazzy starfish and sea anemone and sea urchins and other things that we could reach in and touch but that I didn't. Then there were the cool beluga whales. These three kept swimming in and out of the photo frame but I couldn't quite get all of 'em in there.

Last but not least we have the snazzy Ocean Voyager display with its 23' x 61' foot viewing window and the two big ol' whale sharks whose names have completely escaped me (Stick, do you remember?)

RANT: I would've had a MUCH better time at the GA Aquarium if we could just have eliminated 75% of the people. I've been on this tear lately but people just don't give a shit about anyone but themselves nowadays and it makes me insane! Parents pushing their kids in front of people and we're supposed to just move out of the way so little Johnny can see the sea lions. Old women screeching about "Look at the penguin!" to a 2-year-old who just wants to go to sleep. People ignore the No Flash Photography signs b/c it's more important for them to have a good picture to take home to show people who couldn't POSSIBLY care less than to potentially negatively impact the little critters fluttering around in the water. Grrr.

Okay, all done. So far as I know, Stick likes MP. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to frog the sucker to have enough yarn to finish the toe. Bastard sock.

...it was the worst of times

Sunday dawned grey. Very grey. We drove to Hampton in just over an hour, and then it rained. And rained. And rained. Stick amused herself with her new "big can coozie" and her snazzy 48 hat (I have SUCH hat envy right now) while we tried to stay dry. We eventually schlepped up to our seats (I'm not entirely sure why she needed two seat cushions...) and hung out under the overhang and prayed for the rain to stop. It didn't.

For 4 hours.

This is as much excitement as I saw at Atlanta Motor Speedway. They eventually ran the rain-delayed race Monday morning at 11 but there'd been another forecast for rain so we didn't drive down. We're not terribly bright.

Turns out -immie finished 6th and maintained his lead by 50 pts over eventual race winner Kasey Kahne. *insert token Kasey squeal here* Next week's Bristol so that should be the end of out Top-10 streak. LOL.

And now, I leave you with a picture of Ms. Riley, stealer of my shotgun seat and Queen of All Alarm Clocks:

georgiageorgiageorgiageorgia

Aside from the aborted landing on my arrival at ATL, my trip was relatively uneventful. No issues with security, no issues with fellow passengers. Trip was entirely uneventful. My tummy has been relatively uneventful too, thank goodness.

Thursday went off pretty much as planned. We stopped at The Varsity on our way home from the airport - yummy chili dogs, HUGE parking deck for a drive-in of all places but fun. We then proceeded to spend, oh, 3 hours at Why Knot Knit? We were both desperately searching for a reason to buy yarn - we eventually walked out with a few hanks. I got yarn to try this pattern by Berroco. We'll see how it goes.

After that, we went to the 5 Seasons Brewpub to meet Stick's friend Steve for drinks. She hadn't seen him since she moved back south so it was good for them to check-in. Then we went to a restaurant that I've completely forgotten the name of. Three Dollar Cafe, maybe? Anyway, they didn't have their liquor license so they were sending people next door to buy booze and then they could bring it in and consume it. Random yet hilarious!

Yesterday was the Georgia Aquarium. The first, say, two-thirds were rather disappointing but the Ocean section and the tropical fish section (I'll get the real names later) were really impressive. The ginormous glass wall in the Ocean section was unbelievable; my pictures won't even do it justice. I'll upload when I get home.

So far the weather forecast is calling for rain tomorow and Monday. I am NOT amused.

All My Bags Are Packed...

...I'm only semi-ready to go.

Mostly packed. Just a handful of things left to toss in my carry-on. As I mentioned to Hol last night, I've reached the final stage of obsessive over-packing. The stage where you just say "F*ck it!" and make sure you have the most important travel trinity: ID, credit card, cell phone. Any and everything else is gravy - unless you still have paper tickets, but that's so rare nowadays.

I figure I'll call for a cab pickup in an hour or so - I could technically metro to DCA but since my bag weighs 85 lbs, I figure I'll just spare myself and get irritated with my friendly neighborhood taxi driver as nature intended.

The only thing I have left to pack is projects. I have to find MP, and I guess I'll take Inny along for shits and giggles. I'm sure I'll end up picking up a little somethin' at WKK this afternoon - just to show moral support.

Okay, I have to bolt - can't miss my flight!

What's the Buzz?

As promised, I listened to the sountrack to JCS today and I'm still not blown away. Unfortunately, "What's the Buzz?" is now stuck in my head. I am less than pleased about this.

My flight for Atlanta leaves in almost exactly 60 hours. W'HOO! That means about 62 hours until fun, embarassing happy dances in the airport. The bad news is, Atlanta has decided to cancel their food festival on Saturday, so now we need to schedule something else. We can still hit the parade and look for the ononon, but we'll see how things end up.

I embarked on the second stage of MP tonight, just to keep a certain level of confusion in my life. It'll have to go to ATL, of course, but I can't decide on my backup project. Inny may be too cumbersome; I don't think the Lava Flow is a good idea...hmmm. Maybe Inny is the answer after all. I have a couple of days to figure it out - maybe I'll cast on Pasha for JB, since apparently her mama's preggers again.

T minus 4 days and counting

Four days until I head down to Hotlanta - I can't wait! A little water main break under Chain Bridge earlier this afternoon severely curtailed any illusions I had of getting some pre-vakay laundry done this afternoon.

My weekend was good, but fairly low-key. Friday night I did a little emergency shopping and had dinner with Melyssa & her friend. Saturday M & I went to Costco to buy B products then I lounged with Pammy and Angus and did a little work on MP. She's working on her Zeeby's bag and is well on her way to being thoroughly addicted. Pete called while I was over there - he's doing well in A-stan but is really bored. P & I are both okay with him staying bored. We watched Rent (the movie) while I was over there, and we're planning on getting tickets to the stage show at the Warner. The movie...well, I think it would've been okay if I hadn't seen the stage performance, but it was just weird. Can't wait to see the stage show again now that I finally know all the lyrics.

Today was another musical theater kind of day. After hanging out with E earlier today for movies and knitting, I dashed up to the Hill to see Jon K. in "Jesus Christ Superstar" performed by the St. Mark's Players. It was really hard for me to put Jonny aside as the guy I know and focus on Peter, the character was playing. I'd definitely go see another performance; I know they're doing "Bye Bye Birdie" but that's not until next Spring.

You'll note that I didn't say anything about watching the Vegas race. I'm actually watching it Tivo'd now. Kenseth and Jimmie are running 1, 2 - I figure that's how they'll finish barring anything extraordinary. Caution. Okay, only 20 more minutes of Tivo time people - I'd better get the checkered flag.

Umm, I just pulled a muscle in my ass jumping around like a crazy person. Jimmie passed Kenseth (sorry Bec), coming off turn 4 in a PERFECT replica of Carl in Atlanta or himself in Charlotte! W'HOO!

My ass really hurts.

MP is cursed

I haven't posted this week b/c I haven't been doing a whole lot of knitting. Well, that's not entirely true. There's been a TON of knitting. And tinking. And knitting. And frogging. And knitting. And swearing. Alot. Still. Eternally. I'm irritated with myself, the yarn, Igor (who stole 3 of my dpns last night and had the nerve to stow them away in my work bag), you name it. I should really set the sucker aside for a couple of days until I can calm down but that would make too much sense. Maybe I'll beg Holly to fix it for me.

Okay, so I had a fashion police moment earlier today. I cruised to a department store on a futile search for a new jacket and on my way back to work, I saw a woman with her hair in a ponytail. No big, really - I wear mine in a ponytail virtually every day. I had to do a double-take, however, when I noticed that holding her hair back was a children's ponytail holder - you remember, the kind with the hard plastic balls with the air bubble in the middle. The kind where if you stretched them too far, they'd snap back and damn-near break your finger when it recoiled. While I was trying to wrap my brain around that, I saw ANOTHER woman wearing one.

Now, these were both women in their late-20s, early-30s, well dressed in skirts and blouses for work. And these huge honkin' ponytail holders that I'm sure are captured for posterity in my school photos from the 2nd to 5th grades. I fully accept the fact that I am not a fashion-forward kind of gal, but the return of that trend is just puzzling to me.

Update: I achieved temporary dominance over the evil MP from hell (there's your superlative, H) around 12:30 last night and promptly put it down before more damage could befall it. Maybe it's nocturnal and only wreaks havoc during the nighttime hours...

Mental health...?

Not so much.

I took Friday off work originally as a mental health day. I've had a cold off and on...well, forever. Then I somewhat foolishly decided that since I was taking the day off anyway, I might as well go get my hair done. Four hours and $100 later...well, at least it's straight. I'm not crazy about the cut, I HATE the length but at least it should be managable in two weeks for the schlep to Atlanta. We shall see.

In a rather foolhardy move, I stayed up til 4:00 Friday morning watching WarGames (which I'd never seen beginning to end) and casting on Mystery Project (MP). I knocked out a few rows while getting my hair done, but I kept passing out under the hair dryer. After I finally finished up on U Street, I headed down to Knit Happens for Knit 'n' Nosh. Getting there at 4:00 is really the way to go. Plenty of time for wine, drooling over Carl E. and semi-bonding with Steph over NASCAR (despite her dislike for -immie, but who doesn' thate -immie these days).

The rest of the weekend was pretty tame. Watched a lot of TV, did a fair amount of knitting. I worked on Mimi from Knitty but a) he's not done and b) my workmanship is a wee bit shoddy. Shocking. Even Igor can't be bothered to check out Mimi.

The rest of the weekend was pretty tame. My big sis had some people over last night to help clear out her wine rack and being the kind hearted, generous and giving people we are, we rushed over to lend a helping corkscrew. Today was brunch and Shag, to start the season right.

Apparently we're roadtripping to Memphis this year. I'm not responsible for this.

And you thought I made him up

Meet Igor. He's gnoshing on K2 while I get my act together and finish dinner and a snack for Knit 'n' Nosh tomorrow night. I made the Three-Cheese Chicken Penne Florentine - it was quite tasty. I pawned some off on my roomie and she enjoyed it, too, so it can't be too heinous. Of course, it took way too freakin' long to make, but other than that it was all good.

So, after I finished playing Julia Child and fast-forwarded my way thru Tivo'd CSI and unearthing Igor, I cranked out the rest of K2:
Pattern: Mini-socks on Two Circulars

Yarn: Um. I lost the ball band. I think it's Regia 4-ply. Color unknown.

Needles: 2 size 0 Addi Turbo circular needles

Modifications: I made them a bit longer than the mini-sock length - added about 4" to the length.

Started: Sometime in December, 2005

Completed: March 2, 2006

I'll try to see if I can figure out the yarn at KH tomorrow afternoon.

I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow morning but now I don't have any knitting to work on during the two-and-a-half hour process. Maybe I'll cast on the Mystery Project (MP) before I go to bed, so I can work on it on the metro and at the salon.

I will not stay up until 4 in the morning watching WarGames.