...And Just One More Thing...

I just heard that Peter Falk died.  I have seen a few Columbo episodes, and he certainly was wonderful in them, but I do believe I'll always remember him as the grandfather in Princess Bride.  I'd always wanted to meet him, but I knew he was pretty old.  In his 80s, it turns out.

I wonder if Princess Bride would have been so popular now.  For instance, the set-up!  The kid's at home sick, and of course playing a video game.  Sure, an old 8-bit, but a video game nonetheless.  So at least that part would be shared by today's kids.  But what I was talking about was the reading aloud.  I adore being read to, even now.  Audio books are nice, but there's something so cozy when it's someone you love, right there beside you reading.  I read to Michael sometimes.  It had been a long time since he could see and hold a book well enough to return the favor.  But I'm so glad we shared that love of books!

It was really a blessing that my family all car-pooled together while I was growing up.  Both parents were teachers, so we all packed in to head to school.  I remember freezing mornings in old Mr. B, the '66 Pontiac LeMans.  Later on, there'd be a procession of trucks, big things that had to do farm duty after the school run.  Dad picked super-cabs so that us kids had a seat in the back rather than all cramming on a front seat.

And each morning, Mom would read to us while Dad drove..  Not just kiddie books, either!  We covered Dickens, James Herriott, Agatha Christie, all sorts of books!  It served to get more classics into our heads, expanded vocabulary, interesting discussions when a book finally concluded, all sorts of benefits of 15 minutes a day of reading aloud.  When my fifth-grade teacher read "A Wrinkle in Time," it was all I could do not to get it from the library and read ahead!  The whole class was enchanted, or at least stayed quiet enough not to bother the ones who were.

Would kids today get that?  Or would they just ask why not put an audiobook on an iPod or read it on a Kindle and why bother Grandpa to read it aloud to them?  I hope they would understand why.  It's a gift, an expression of love, to carefully choose a book and read it aloud.  And it doesn't matter what age you are, you can enjoy it.  Even just the funnies from Reader's Digest, if that's all the time you have.

I'd best get back to reading "Much Ado About Nothing."  Now there's a good read-aloud, even if it is just to the puppies.  The bard knew what he was doing with the language!

My Peeps!

Time to show off the new glasses!

I am really loving the brainy-specs.  It didn't even take long for coworkers to notice them on Saturday!  Oh, last working Saturday for a few weeks, another reason to be happy!  My new sunglasses haven't arrived yet, but they should soon enough.

The house is looking better than ever.  I'm boxing up loads of stuff so it'll be easy for the guys to put in my new flooring.  Wood floors in kitchen, living room, and hall.  It should look very unified by the time it's done.  And hopefully be easier to remove Saffron's hair!  I'll get an area rug to keep my tootsies warm near my chair, but other than that I should have an easily-sweepable surface.

I still have to pick a travel project for my next journey.  Something for the movie swap?  Something for me?  The shrug still isn't done, and the to-be-felted bag needs finishing but involves four big balls of yarn... maybe Mystery Projects 2 and 3 need to get started... just a bit of a hint, they're a hand item and a neck item.

Then there's the Whoops! project.  That requires some explanation, I suppose.  I should have gone to work at noon last Saturday.  I arrived at 9 am.  Whoops!  So, I went over to the yarn shop to shoot the breeze while I waited.  Of course, Bex convinced me to join the Mobius scarf class, even though I'd already made one mobius!  It's not hard for her to convince me, really.  I bought some lovely merino and yet more needles and got to work.  It'll be a present for one of my aunts, since I'm not wild about pinks and fuschia, and have loads of scarves already.  We'll see how basket-weave translates to mobius knitting!

Home and hearth... okay, so calling my knitting my "hearth" is a little bit of a stretch, but it is quite a cozy thing, don't you think?  And both are things I'm gaining more pride in.  A beautiful house and creative endeavors, there's the dream.  Well, the part of the dream that involves things, anyway.

Marathon Knitting And Work

Yikes, I've really been at it lately!  I put in a full weekend at work, plus I've been knitting pretty much every second I've been at home.  Minus some exercise time.  My back is telling me about it.  Could be all the time I spent on my stomach on the bed, looking through pattern books.  That, or too much time trying to get 5 stars on the Kylie Minogue song in Dance Central.  Still a fun game.  One more Saturday, and I'm free for a while!  More time to knit, then!

I was talking to my mom about playlists on my iPod.  One of them is based on all the songs with "one" or "only" in the title.  There were a lot!  I mentioned leaving out the ones that came up with "alone" or "lonely" and she pretty much said I should avoid those because they might make me sad.  Really, I don't find it bad to be sad sometimes.  All the time would be really bad, yes!  But if I never acknowledge feeling down, or sad, or mad, or downright miserable, then it'll be worse because I bottle it up and my blood pressure goes sky-high.  It's really very good for me to let it out sometimes.  Plus, I've got some very good songs with those words.  Currently, the "random" list seems to be pulling them out all in a row.  If it gets to be too much, I switch to my Summer Sunshine playlist.  Once again, lots of songs with those words!  Kinda heavy on Beach Boys and British Invasion songs.

I found my nail polish for the trip.  The stuff on my fingers keeps chipping horribly, but I might try painting my toes.  After all, the sandals are cute.  Might as well make my feet as cute as possible to go in them!  My liquids pouch is still rather empty.  I wonder what vital thing I'm forgetting...

This trip... oh, I need it so much.  Getting out of town will be a welcome change.  As best I can tell, it'll be quite a bit cooler, so I'm taking a few layers.  More weight in the ol' backpack, but not too different from Toronto.

Heck, anywhere these cicadas aren't is an improvement.  Missouri seems to be very buggy right now.  I pulled the first tick of the season off me.  Really, I guess that's not such a bad record; usually the ticks have made their presence known long before now.  Especially with the dogs, it's hard to never get a tick.  I just grab them before they bite and introduce them to Mr. Flushy.  And yes, wash my hands after the procedure.

HAHA!  Tom Lehrer just came over the speakers.  It reminds me of one of the funniest moments on Graham Norton.  Daniel Radcliffe turns out to be a Tom Lehrer fan, and sings "The Elements"!  To be honest, he's not that great a singer, but getting through all the elements is a pretty awesome feat.  Did I mention seeing this already?  Oops, if so.  Graham is responsible for me laughing my way awake each morning.  And discovering that I can't quite fit a shower into a commercial break.

Once again, I've used Monday quite well to recharge enough to face the week.  Bring it on, Tuesday!  I can take ya!

Cicada Kinda Day

Work is insane.  Should I be surprised?  The start of Summer Reading, hot hot weather, cicadas droning on everywhere... it gets people's nerves on edge.  In the last hour of work, I had two people ask me to do a "bug check", not on their computers but on their backs, because the cicadas were grouping near the doors.  I counted four on the floor, not counting the two that Kathy took outside.  Ugh.

But earlier in the day, my coworkers at least had the sense of humor to pretend like the cicadas were our fantasy ball teams.  We all had at least two teams, that way.  High injury rates, especially for players who got near car windshields!  My dogs, who eat quite a few cicadas even though I try to prevent it, are overzealous security officers.  The mole they dug up was an overenthusiastic fan!  The cicada droning is the team song.

Luckily, the next draft isn't for 13 years.  And yes, I'll still be most relieved when this season's regularly scheduled games are over!  Heheheee...

Cicada facts for those of you who got here hoping for something serious.... only the males are droning.  The females click, the males drone.  If a female rejects a male, he might hang out near her, droning irregularly to interrupt the song of any other male who might try to woo her.  She gets distracted, doesn't respond to the new male, and the stubborn guy gets another chance, eventually.  He hopes, anyway.  So, apparently even cicadas have problems with stalkers!

I gotta look up when the 17-year brood arrives.  Maybe I can arrange to be out of the country for a month or two around that time...

Good is Far From Perfect

Today, I embarked on several new knitting ideas.  Christmas is coming, after all!  (really, knitters think like this.  Maybe other crafty types too.  Good stuff takes time.)

I decide, this bag pattern is nice, but why don't I change this and this and do this a bit fancier?!?  Bex is proud of me doing this, I'm sure.  A plain garter-stitch bag bottom?  Nah, let's do seed stitch!  Why?  Because I haven't done it before.

It looked lovely to start out...

... then I read the instructions again, specifically the part that reads "with two strands held together" !  I had only one ball, the rest of this yarn was stuck in hanks, which you can't knit from.  I have a ball winder, but not the other tool that goes hand-in-hand with turning hanks into balls: a swift.

(there's the ball winder.  And my Adipose toys!  Aren't they cute, for fat?)
And anyone who knows Malabrigo knows that this yarn can be a bit difficult.  Still, I wanted to get this project started, so I set to work turning this...

... into one of these:

For some reason, the ball made at the shop pooches out in the middle, and mine is concave.  That bit of knitting had to be frogged, but I'm quickly making progress on it once again!  Now, do you think the seed-stitch texture will even be visible once it's felted?  Hope so.

Oh, did you notice my thumb in that picture?  Painted!  Woo!

I Feel Pretty and Witty

My house looks flippin' gorgeous right now.  New roof, new siding, and the last piece of the puzzle, new garage doors!  I should take pictures.  And soon, the interior!

Lately, I've been thinking a bit more about my appearance.  I've got loads of pretty necklaces, several nice colors of nail polish, and my hairdresser has often claimed jealousy over my natural hair color.  What do I do with these elements?  The necklaces are stored in pretty boxes, I lose the nail polishes, and I just tie my hair back.  This should change.

So, I'm going to make more of an effort.  I've been wearing a few of the necklaces to work, and as soon as I find the nail color I intend to take with me to London, I'll start painting.  Maybe even my toes.  The hair?  No, I won't cut it.  Well, maybe get it trimmed, but I really like being able to ponytail it!  My new glasses are ordered, as well as prescription sunglasses.  (I could do pretty much an entire blog post about the good service I've gotten from the eye place, and the shoe repair shop a little further on down the street.)

Michael liked it when I dressed up.  He was so happy when I found a neat corset for wearing at conventions.  We both loved to point out that I got my wedding gown at Hot Topic, and it looked awesome as well!  He wanted my hair to be long, but this stuff tangles if you look at it funny.  I would bet that soon after my big trip, I'll lose patience with it and get it cut short.  I'll try not, but gaaaah!  It already frustrates me to try keeping it looking its best already!

The whole "coordinating wardrobe for travel" has paid off in regular clothes as well.  When I actually steel my nerves and go looking for clothes, I consciously seek out ones that go with most of the rest, rather than "ooh, that looks cool (but clashes with everything else I own)!"

 And here's the "witty" part!  I'm rapidly finishing the Shapeshifter Shrug, and it looks brilliant if I do say so myself.  The colors are matching perfectly, even to the buttonholes!  Speaking of which, I just ordered twenty lovely little (okay, not so little) buttons for it.  It'll take forever to attach them.  See the little bundle of yarn?  That's all that's left of the first skein for this half.  As long as I do a decent color-match when I attach the next, this project will be as close to perfect as I could ask.

After that, I'll have to figure out what to do with this...

The Brood Drones On

The cicadas will drive me insane.

Seriously, this is going to go on for a few more weeks?!? Yikes.  In case you don't live where cicadas are, here's a quick rundown.  Every 13 years, a group of insects called Brood 19 emerges from the ground.  They've been waiting to hatch for over a decade, and they waste no time in droning out a mating call for several hours every day.  They congregate on trees and bushes and can really be quite hard on the greenery.  They're big, ugly, flying things, a little like locusts.  One theory is that they come out in such numbers so that birds and other predators literally get tired of their taste and leave them alone after a while.  I can believe it.

At first, I couldn't hear them at my house.  I wondered what the big ugly bugs were doing (dead) on my doorstop, but there weren't that many, so I didn't think much of it.  Then I visited my parents this past weekend... my gosh, I thought I would go deaf!  The drone was incredibly loud, even inside the house.  I quickly turned on a fan for some white noise, but it only partially helped.  After all, I had to take the doggies out for their walks.

When I got back to my home, I realized, yes, they are here, but the tone is different.  Higher-pitched, just a little less disturbing, but still present.  As I drove home with my window down, I discovered they very much prefer certain trees to others.  The volume changed significantly between one grove of trees and the next!  I didn't have time to determine if it was tree species or proximity to people or what that could have influenced their preference.  I just know, it's quite a relief to know they don't seem to care much for my yards.

Wow, just had the thought... the last time they emerged, I hadn't even met Michael!  I was in college... maybe their drone contributed to the burnout I felt that last summer of classes.

Maybe by the time I'm back from London, Brood 19 will have shut up for another 13 years.