For Jez

What I had for breakfast.


More, because I am exceptionally cruel

Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness

Oh. my. They had RASPBERRIES today at the farmer's market. They are so fantastic, these first raspberries of the season. They're golden raspberries, but they're still raspberries.

I promised K the love monkey that I would save some for him, bring some home, but it's proving hard. Self control is not my strong suit here.

Strawberries, I still love you, but there is nothing like the first raspberries. Nothing.

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Why I'll probably never be a famous knit designer

1. I'm slow. So slow. I am 3/4 (more?) through the S33kr1t lace project and um, it's been 4 weeks? It'd probably take Cookie a couple of days to whip out this puppy. Seriously, I see people who whip out lace in a couple weeks and all I can do is sadly sigh and wish for speed.

2. I like my raspberries too much. I don't think designing will keep me in berries as I prefer.

3. I'm not the kind of person where people will write of meeting me that I was very warm and friendly and gracious. I think they'd probably write that I was shy (the kind version) or standoffish (the other), clumsy, and talked too much about raspberries. Gunga galunga. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice. *

* gratuitous Caddy Shack reference

Yet another reason to put off putting in contacts in the morning

I found 4 drowned ants in my cereal. We've been having recurring ant problems, but only ever see just 1 or 2 at a time (My kitchen countertops GLEAM they are kept so clean and crumb-free). Just think if I'd been able to see the little jerks BEFORE I started eating.

I found that a regiment of ants had chewed through the cardboard box, then the plastic bag, on my new box of cereal. Mmm, nothing like a whole slew of tasty black specks scattered through a not-quite-sealed-anymore bag of cereal. Seriously LITTLE HOLES CHEWED IN THE BOTTOM. ARGGGGGH

If only I could train the cat to eat ants.

More of the pretty

Because all I seem to be able to manage is pictures

Wisteria blooms (although not my wisteria).

Also, the puddle of tortoiseshell fur also known as Frances says: what? What are you lookin' at?

The weed of the bishop, and I killed a rosebush this year

I, um, haven't been very good at socializing in any form recently. If it's not obvious by now. Better to close my mouth and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.


that would be the titular weed. On Dave's Garden there're a whole lot of negatives about it, but honestly? I'd rather have its kind of invasive than ivy, which is what I consider the thug of the garden world. This stuff doesn't GROW UP UNDER THE HOUSE SIDING, and it's easy to pull out. Maybe it's not so strong because of our dry summers. A lot of plants act differently around here. Like the akebia, which I found was classified as a menace in the East. You know what's a menace? the stupid blackberries.

And yeah, I killed one off this year. I even waited a couple extra weeks before pruning because it was a cold Winter and Spring. No love. And it was my favorite one, with the big orange bloom. RIP big orange flowering rose bush.

On the plus side, the irises popped out in the last couple days. They're like the prom queens of the garden (the oriental lilies are the divas)


The weather has been fan-frickin-tastic lately, and I spent a lot of Memorial Day weekend just lounging about in the sunshine. I guess I should be a more interesting person, but it was lovely.

I have a new seEkriT project, in stealth mode in case the recipient reads the blog (does anyone any more? I am a lame-o.) It's a pile of nothing right now anyway.

So THAT'S the purpose of my life

I've been outed at last. I'm really just an emissary of Fat Satan

Oh, this is essay is so full of teh awesome:
"Take the...elevator, you pulley-hating Luddite freak!"

Plant shows: feeding my bad habits since 2001

I went to a plant show a couple weekends ago and bought way too many plants. The same day later on it decided to hail, and so that's my excuse why they're not all potted yet. It's like new yarn - all the possibilities are there and none of the liabilities, unless you make yourself stop and think about where it's all going to go and when you'll spend all that time doing that planting.


I put this big delphinium in a pot on the front steps. It's blooming NOW. I have to stop and look at the flowers every time I walk by. I am a sucker for a dramatic plant.

And Vanna, show us just how tall that flower stalk is - 2, almost 3 feet.



This doesn't look like much but it's a shame there is no web smell-o-vision because this is a lemon-scented geranium. Just rubbing the leaves a little releases the fragrance.

I have wanted a columbine for years but this was the year I caved.
I admit I was too lazy to grow one from seed. Maybe next year.

It, of course, is blooming now too, feeding my terrible habit of craving instant gratification. Don't worry, I got a hardy fuschia too, which shouldn't do its thing until well into July.


The columbine is hard to photograph, but it has the mostly ethereal flowers. It'd be nifty to have a garden full of odd flowers, wouldn't it? Definitely would need a passiflora in there somewhere.


And last of all, my bay tree is blooming. This one's 5 years old, it's not a new plant. I didn't even know they bloomed. It's gotten very rangy, I badly need to prune it back for better form. Anyone need any bay leaves? Or maybe I'll just get some rooting hormone and start a couple new trees, then I can avoid having to plant all those hostas I bought. Yeah, good idea.

Do not forget

It's back to cold weather again, blowing wind and overcast cold skies. I miss my taste of summer.

At least there is cherry tree denial. These pictures are actually a couple weeks old. The trees have already leafed out now.


This is the line of flowering cherries planted next to the waterfront, as part of the Japanese Internment camp memorial. A beautiful monument to an ugly, ugly time in U.S. history.

Filthy Mouth & Bad Attitude

The weather has been perfectly gorgeous lately, starting with Saturday, just to shock us all into submission. I just keep trying to get a glimpse of outside at work. And I take a lot of walks. I'd get tired of this weather if it were around all the time, but it's an amazing thing after a winter of cold & rain. Everything's blooming, or just finished blooming, or coming up on blooming, and there's that new Spring green color that you only see once a year.

Which is a good thing because I'm barely hanging in right now, and a sunny sky, shorts, a t-shirt, and a margarita help quite a lot. I'm not knitting. I've got a billion things to do and no inner compulsion to do them.

In positive news, the rheumatologist says it's very unlikely I have an incurable autoimmune disease gradually destroying my back. I just suck, that's all. Oh, and I have a vitamin D deficiency. From lab tests performed in February. In Portland. Where 1/2 the city has a Vitamin D deficiency by February.

I have these super enormous dosage Vitamin D pills I take once a week now, and hopefully that'll recalcify my bones 'n' all that. Meanwhile I do my damn stretches and exercises every stupid frickin' day because at least then it doesn't get any worse. I've taken to doing them (so so boring) while watching old season 1 X-Files. Dear X-Files, I know you were based in BC, could NO ONE tell David Duchovny how to pronounce 'Oregon'?

Also there are a lot of scary, scary forest shots. And they shouldn't have ripped off the Repo Man death-by-radioactive-alien thing, because it is just funny.

I'm also sort of pissed that the latest batch of hormones (changed BC a few months ago: see needed recalcification of bones, above, among other things) appears to have slowed my metabolism EVEN MORE, so despite some changes in diet and exercise in the last few months, I weigh slightly more than the last time I was in the doc's office. OH JOY.

My current obsession

Double-striping socks, with 2 balls of Mini Mochi from Crystal Palace, alternating every 5 rows.

Tip: if you do short row heels to make the stripes all line up (at least one side. arggh), you need an EVEN number of rows. Rows upped to 6 rows per skein on the heel.

Really, the hardest thing was figuring out how to carry the extra yarn so that it wouldn't show through. I finally memorized a twist that worked and spent more time deciding on just how tight to pull it. I'm thinking the second sock is probably going to look better.


This yarn, though. I freely admit being sucked in by the colors and the stripiness. But it's a 1-ply. It's got nylon, sure, but I'm probably just denying reality by making socks out of this; the single ply just isn't going to hold up to much strain. Dear long-stripe sock yarn manufacturers: really digging the colors, but could you see your way through to a PLYED sock yarn?

Oh well, love is blind.

In other news, I really like riding my bike. It's just so much fun. I like riding my bike even more on warm sunny Spring days. Hopefully my back will not kill me for today's adventures. Wheeee!

Love for the Dizzy Blonde

Yes, I'm pimpin' the La, 'cuz she does nice work. I've bought a couple of her skeins of sock yarns and they are the good stuff (I also appreciate muchly that there is plenty enough yardage for big feet like mine. Look, I don't want to be a hater, but I don't buy Jitterbug, period, because 320 yards doesn't even cover my FEET let alone cuffs).

This is the La behind Dizzy Blonde Studios & she's teaming up with Knitty Knitterton's House of Awesome for a SUPER EXKLOOSIV yarn club. (I have no experience with Knitty Knitterton, but I'm sure she sells a quality product, plus she's got the sexiest shark on Ravelry).

All the details are at the Mean Girls Yarn Club blog, so go take a look if you are so inclined. Did I mention the SUPER EXCKLOOSIV? Because there's only 50 spots. Signups open up tomorrow.

No, this isn't from the club - just one of the regular colorways:

Crows & Worms; must be Spring

So while it continues to be cold here, it must not be *that* cold, as everything's finally budding out, although more than a month late. The weather's settled into its usual Spring pattern of stratocumulus (big puffy clouds usually obscuring the whole sky) with cumulonimbus moving through, dumping rain or hail for 5 minutes, then the next one lines up to come through (I picked up The Cloudspotter's Guide on a whim in the sale items at Powell's, and it's great. But I like knowing the names and behaviors of things). No lightning though, ah well.

The other night when I was walking home from the gym (ok, so 45F is really not that cold. It's all relative, though), it was a worm-basking night. It hasn't really been raining THAT hard, and the ground can't be saturated, so it's not all drowned worms. I don't know why, but on these nights the worms come out of the grass & dirt and moonbathe on the sidewalks. Seriously, these enormous nightcrawlers will be extended 5 or 6 inches onto the sidewalk from the lawn. If you startle them by stepping too near, they immediately pull back into their holes.

Every night I see this it reminds me of this time I went collecting nightcrawlers for fishing with my Grandma. She lived in Utah and their yard was watered once a week via an irrigation ditch system -- it would flood the whole yard. The night after this happened we went down to the ditch (maybe 2 feet deep?) into the mud with a flashlight. The key was to shine the flashlight on the muddy sides and snatch the worms out before they could retract into their holes.

Also, the crows are building nests. I know this because every Spring they go looking for nest-building sticks, and we have this big dogwood out front which is a Prime Target in Crowdom. They'll fly into the tree, perch on a branch, and then latch their beaks onto a branch and work at it until they've ripped it off. Then they fly away who knows where. Nature's Pruning is what K the love monkey calls it. I would be less annoyed if it didn't leave small branches littered all over the lawn. Actually, I'd be less annoyed if I didn't have a lawn, really, but I haven't remedied that yet.

Who needs a big hibiscus blossom? I certainly do.

The weather in Wales

Yesterday it was cold, raining, and the wind was shaking the trees. It was the kind of day that I always pictured would be what the weather in Wales was like all the time (I perhaps read too much British-isles based fiction when I was a kid. Or at least there were some memorable ones). A far cry from this:

Yes, proof that I did actually go to Hawaii.

We stayed at a bed & breakfast on Maui, a real lovely place, just my speed. Plus, um, gorgeous?

I actually relaxed and enjoyed myself a whole lot more when skinny women in bikinis weren't walking around everywhere. I don't do resorts well. I know, need to just get over myself. Well bleh!

Black sand beach (well, more like black rock) on the east side of Maui. There were tiny black crabs crawling around those rocks


Look, I lived in Southern California for a bit so I'm not one to ogle palm trees, but this was a particularly nice specimen.

I came back with a spotty sunburn (stupid rubbed-off sunscreen), a bunch of mosquito bites (bleh), and the wish I could have spent a few more days swimming in the ocean. It was fantastic.

All today's chocolate is medicinal

Almost a month, but not quite. Sorry, every time I go to write, it just sounds stupid.

Spring has been pretty cold (for here) so far but things are stubbornly budding out anyway. I'm on the tail end of a cold (7 days! Thanks immune system!) and just trying to sleep through the night without waking myself coughing. Maybe tonight's the lucky one. At 3 am the other day I discovered that possibly dark chocolate is a cough suppressant. Since neither the diphenhydramine or the dextromethorphan seem to be doing a thing, I figured, why not try? Tastes better too.

The crocuses (crocii?) say: screw the cold

The hellebore's on board for that.


I've been reading too much news. And then something happened last weekend that kind of slashed my already very small stash of self-esteem. Later, coming home, I flipped on the radio and it was the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem, and that just about summed up my mood. But hey, doing better! Everyone looks better when they're not uncontrollably coughing, is my motto.

And look, I actually finished something!

Tthe pattern and yarn from Twisted's (LYS) 2009 one-skein club: a special pattern and skein of yarn every other month. My mother-in-law sneakily signed me up for my birthday. It was a lovely present.


The yarn is Malabrigo Silky Merino. It's gorgeous stuff and a pleasure to knit with, although I believe it's already been established that I have a difficult time refusing anything involving silk. These took less than a skein, and I did an extra repeat on the arms. AND I FINISHED THEM IN FEBRUARY. LESS THAN A MONTH FROM OBTAINING THE YARN. I might just croak from the novelty of it (my voice is now an octave higher today. Win!) I needed some kind of success, OK? Also, sometimes it's just really nice to follow someone else's pattern, exactly as written, and just knit and have something turn out beautiful.

P.S. Saw this on Metafilter and it makes me giggle every time I look at it: Urban Camouflage, or how to blend in at Ikea.

Reading

Hi. Back from Paradise. It was lovely and I swam in the ocean and snorkeled and hiked and came back relaxed and with a bit of a sunburn (damn swimsuit rubbing things off). My red badge of courage. Ha ha.

Maybe I'll post pictures of clear blue water and palm trees soon, or maybe I won't be so cruel. For not being a tropical paradise kind of person, I'll just say I enjoyed myself very much, especially seeing as it SNOWED AGAIN when I was away. We weren't gone long, I just haven't been very good about the communication side of things lately. Say for oh the last 9 months or so. Maybe the mojo will return.

Anyway. Inspired by Fillyjonk's and Kmkat's reading posts, I'm doing my own, because I've been through some good stuff lately and wanted to share.

(I hesitate to share any of my personal opinions about media, as people's tastes vary so wildly, even about generally accepted 'great literature'. So don't stone me, please. I find life too short to read anything that I don't enjoy, is stimulating, or I'm required to read).

Over Christmas, my Mom the mid-school librarian brought with her The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Wow was this good. Every time I start despairing about 'young adult' (ugh, hate that term) literature, I need to remember this and others. It was hard to read at times (look, I'm a softy and a sentimental fool. I cry at pictures of cute kittens) but absolutely absorbing. I agree with my sister-in-law on this one, I couldn't decide whether to root for the protagonist to win or not-to-win so she wouldn't turn into an emotional monster.

Second one was from the library after reading through the Onion AV Club's Favorite Books of 2008. I've found great stuff through their book reviews before so I checked some of these out. David Sawtelle is still in the hold line (I think I'm up to 100 out of 500 now), but I got my hands on Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris and it was fan-frickin'-tastic. It describes, in detail, the creation of the 5 films that were up for Best Picture in 1967. It's focused on the films, but the author also discusses the historical context (Hollywood-centric, but also general American history). If you like to know the stories behind things, this is a really fantastic book. He must have interviewed hundreds of people, as well as going through archival notes, footage, diaries....

Did you know that Sidney Poitier was the star of *3* of the highest grossing films of the year, and yet _In the Heat of the Night_ was filmed in Illinois? Black actors from movies shot on location in the south were getting death threats. I think I'm going to have to pick up Nixonland next, but I know it's going to break my heart, how much people can hurt each other.

I also finally opened A Passage to India, which I've been meaning to read for years and years, and sadly, I don't think I can get through it. The author's style and my tastes are two separate curves that approach but do not intersect. I admire his writing but we will go our different ways. I was also having a lot of trouble with the casual racism (not the author, just coming from the characters).

I am finally within 50 pages of the end of Against the Day and really I'm only sticking it out to say I made it through. There are bits of beautiful wonderfulness in here but it just all feels too random. I prefer his other books, and some of those I even have a hard time getting through. They just felt more worth the effort. Or maybe I'm just a tasteless hack, because my favorite (although I greatly respect and do enjoy Gravity's Rainbow) is Vineland, which is supposed to be his tossoff, just-for-fun book. Somehow his storytelling and language and weirdness and predilection for odd cultural references come together in a perfect form for me in this book. I told K coming back on the plane that it's too bad we weren't on Kahuna airlines being robbed by sky pirates as Takeshi escapes with the help of Zoyd Wheeler. Because that sounded like quite the party.

Oh just one more, The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd which just kept making me cringe but I had to keep reading. Snark levels and wanton cruelty to uncomplicated schmoes like me runs high in this book. Entertaining but I don't think I could read this one again, and yet I had a hard time putting it down once I'd reached the middle. Part fascination with the abomination, I'm sure, as I was wondering just how much worse the plot situations could get.

I'm not going to admit to my other recent choices except for Galactic North, which was pretty good but I kept wishing I were reading Revelation Space again for the first time. Otherwise, I need my plot-heavy gym books (mumble Terry Brooks mumble) and I'm only slightly ashamed to say it.

Also

I obviously, obviously, NEED TO GET THIS VIDEO:


Cardio for Indie Rockers

I think this line from the review says it all:

"The closer you are to graffitti, the deeper your stretches will be. That's the key to indie rock fitness."

Xmess

Did I mention we went to visit some of the nieces for Christmas? Here's the baby, crawling around. Her older sister is in CONSTANT MOTION and I'm not that skilled of a photographer.



She's 9 months old and has a very distinct personality from her sister. It's fun to watch, and I got to play with both of them a lot. Little fluffhead there is quite the extrovert. She's quiet, but she REALLY doesn't like to be separated from people.

Neurotic

Which about sums it all up lately. Obsessed about weight (ha ha, what else is new?), exercise, diet; worried about the cat (she's fine, she's even gained 3 ounces in the last few months. Unless she's dying of cancer, in which case I can't do much about that anyway. She doesn't act like she's dying), the economy, the environment, my parents (who might actually really be retiring this year. I'll believe it when I see it). I hate all my clothes, they all feel tired and worn and don't fit very well (ha ha, kind of like me). I am second guessing and criticising my professional work, my workouts, my interactions with othe people, my color choices, the evenness of my knit stitches....

But really I have many great things, lots of wonderful stuff has happened to me, and I really really appreciate everything I have. Which why it drives me nuts when I get like this (yes, I've got a part of my brain commenting on another part of it. arggh).

At least I can deal with some of the physical tension. I've been stretching. A lot - sometimes 3 times a day. I also got a foam roller a couple weekends ago so I can be better about doing an IT band massage daily
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/flexibilityandstretching/ss/FoamRoller_5.htm
rather than relying on the gym's roller. I don't always get to the gym every day. I still need to get big exercise ball, but for now I'll still rely on the gym's.

An open letter

Dear World,
I have decided to go around naked from now on, rather than spend any more time searching fruitlessly for clothing that makes me not feel like a whale. I think I am just a whale. Hope y'all don't mind the jiggly fat.
Love,
Big Alice

P.S. Well, maybe I'll just wear socks. All those skeins shouldn't go to waste, plus I just discovered Sock Dreams (not affiliated. Just enamored)

Don't get around much any more

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.
Despite some traveling drama (really, not all that much, considering. One of my coworkers had her PLANE CATCH ON FIRE - not a tiny one either, a big commercial one. Now, that was a story. Don't worry, she's fine), we made it all the places we were intending to go and saw most of the people we would have liked to see. Nonetheless, it's almost comforting to get back into routine, but I sure miss the free time. We haven't had any problems despite the snows, ice, and lately the torrential downpours (I-5 is closed 60 miles north of us, with 10 feet (FEET!) of water on the freeway); thank you so much for your comments and concern.

It is 9 days into the new year and I'm already behind. Agggh. I'll try to catch up this weekend. I've only got a dozen or so Christmas cards left to send out, and a couple packages, buy a couple wedding presents, answer a bunch of email, call the dentist, the vet (yearly appointment), and the cat lady, make a laundromat run to wash the quilts... and I'm going to Hawaii in February, for the first time. Just because.

Happy new year!