person review: beckie

this evening i went for cake with my friend beckie. on the ride home she told me i should blog about it, so here i am.

we ate:

hazlenut meringue

hazelnut buttercream, whipped cream, hazelnutty meringue... it was like sitting in front of a crackling fire with brilliant, sympathetic friends and the stars glimmering above, but in my mouth. sweet but not saccharine, light but not dry, tasty but not overwhelming.

we knit and talked and looked around and talked and ate and talked and knit some more and talked. we talked about our lives, sex, the cute, mohawked server's excellent ass, our families, knitting, sex, that guy over there with the beautiful, expressive face, the cake, sex, the couples cuddling at almost every table, her work, that guy over there, sex...

the company trumped the cake, easily.

unsurprisingly, an evening spent with an old friend with whom inhibitions and reservations have long ago been shed is wonderful. old friendships fit sweatpants. i love sitting and knitting with a woman who agrees with me that the man over by the wall has perfect arms.
bek gets ten out of ten for proving definitively that friendship is the best thing going.(sorry for the sappy post, but i'm all blissed out right now. i'll be all witty and clever another day.)

nasal revelations

yesterday i visited a clinic to see about some recurring, extreme nosebleeds i'd been having, and i learned a few things.

1. it is a surreal experience to have two strangers looking up and inserting objects into my nose.
2. getting one's nostril cauterized without anesthetic is freaking painful.
3. i have a crooked nose.

it is item #3 that this post is concerned about.

i had no idea! my partner tells me that it's always been crooked and he just assumed that i knew. the doctor told me that my deviated septum (as a crooked nose is called in the medical community) is caused by a serious blow to the face, resulting in a broken nose. but i've never broken my nose. have i? could i have broken it and not noticed?

i called my dad. he was as surprised as i to hear that my nose is crooked and was once broken. we reviewed my youthful facial injuries together, and came up with nothing. the only serious blow my face has ever sustained was to my eyebrow.

how the hell does a person break her nose without noticing? wikipedia says it could have happened as i descended the birth canal, but how does a person go through life with a noticeably crooked nose without noticing? here, take a look.

head-on. notice how the nose points to your left?
with my head turned, so my nose is symmetrical. you can see from my glasses frame that my head is turned quite a bit.

ok, so i'm not owen wilson, but the fact that i survived my self-obsessed adolescence without noticing a crooked nose is astounding. am i utterly deluded and have no idea how i actually look? am i so utterly unselfconscious that i never bothered to look? i don't think that's it. i spent as much time obsessing into the mirror as any other teenager.

i'm making up for it now. brushing my teeth last night was bizarre. this huge, crooked schnoz stared me down. i had to go finish cleaning my teeth in the kitchen. it's become overwhelmingly obvious, taking over my whole face. i prefer not to look up when i'm washing my hands.

what next, do i have some tattoos on my hands that i've never noticed and don't remember getting? will additional kids i've birthed and raised without realizing it start popping up?

knitting, knittting and knitting.

yesterday's post was written in a respite between torrential nosebleeds. those nosebleeds led to me spending most of today in a clinic waiting room, knitting. eventually the doctor cauterized my nose, (!!!!!) but not before i got a good lot of sock knitting done. i hope daffodylic likes them.

three of my friends are pregnant. i'm surrounded by fetally attractive women. i only have a handful of friends, so this is practically a mathematical impossibility, but there you have it. so i have some planning to do. these friends tend towards yarn snobbishness, but i think when the baby is puking on everything and my friends haven't slept, showered or eaten in days, they'll be ok with machine washable baby clothes.
i have a baby sweater made in moda dea's tweedle dee, and it's soft and pretty. you can't tell by looking that it's not natural fibres, and only a true yarn snob could tell by touching.
i'm also looking at sirdar's snuggly dk. it's soft, springy and washable. not gently shorn from baby alpacas hand raised by children in the andes, but i'm hoping my friends can overlook that. if the pattern is cute enough, they might. here are the patterns i'm considering:

this raglan sweater would be easy to add a graphic to the front of. i'm thinking a skull or something. newborns never wear enough skulls, you know?

this dress is so sweet. i want to make it so i can look at it and bemoan the fact that i have no daughter. i would not sully this design with skulls or silliness. it's too nice for that.

finally, this hoodie has a cool texture that would really show off a more interesting yarn.
the miles of seed stitch might kill me, but if i survived i could embroider flowers or a little truck or something on it.

so, preggos and non-preggos, what would you like best for your progeny? are my yarn choices appalling? do you despise my project ideas? what would you like for your hypothetical or actual offspring? you have a better idea?

a confession

on our little holiday, after the babes were in bed, my partner and i gladly changed the channel from the toddler station to one with more adult content. we were chatting, joking, drinking, snacking. it was really nice.
then an image came on the screen and everything changed. i became utterly deaf to my partner. i couldn't tear my eyes away from the screen. my mouth went dry, then was flooded with juices. my guts twisted, my thighs trembled...

it was a red lobster commercial.food porn deserves its name. definitley. i was shocked at my strong, instant reaction to the image of crustaceous flesh. no human, no matter how sexy, could have caused that visceral and physical of a reaction in me. these images are nice, but they aren't the ones in the red lobster ads. you know the ones. the light is yellow, warm, inviting. the steam rises from the tender, juicy flesh. a chunk is speared and dunked in a cup of garlic butter. the mind instantly recalls that the only thing better than garlic butter is seafood in garlic butter, especially lobster.
then begins the obsessing. how can i get to red lobster? can i afford it? does it matter? what if i just went for one of their (relatively) cheap-o lunch specials? but those, looking at the online menu, don't include lobster. would shrimp satisfy me? probably not, it'd need to be the real thing. when could i go?

around and around these thoughts go, driving me to distraction. i need to refocus my mind on something more productive. less expensive, frivolous and fattening...
knitting.

late february lists

tomorrow my little family is going away for a one-night vacation. we'll chase the kids around outside then chase them around in a pool, and when they're too tired to stand up we'll put them to bed early, break out the booze, and watch tv. i can hardly wait. i haven't watched law & order since last summer.

today i have been packing. it used to be that packing to go away for one measly night would take three minutes, right before i breeze out the door. but things have changed.
so far i have:

• a 5 inch high stack of books for the babes and i. this doesn't include my partner's reading stack, which will doubtless be at least a couple of inches
• a french press, freshly ground coffee, and mugs, since the small town where we're going might not have the quality of coffee that we have come to require
• a bag with fruit, eggs, rice, juice, soymilk, cereal, etc, etc. enough food for several days.
• ten diapers, two baggies with wipes, two pairs of underwear, three pairs of pants, three shirts, two pairs of socks, two swimsuits, two sweaters, long underwear, a sleeper and a pair of pj's. and i haven't packed a single item of clothing for myself, yet.
• the laptop, charger, camera, and extra batteries. should i bring the crappy old camera, just in case?
• a 6 inch stack of cd's for the road. this will doubtless grow before we leave, and we will still bemoan the lack of selection at some point.
• yarn, needles, and accessories, plus the pattern for the bff socks. also, all the additional help i could find for the two new stitches i'll be using, a cabled increase and a cabled decrease. all somewhat legibly written on the back of some junk mail.
• tomorrow before we leave town we'll need to stop for groceries, booze and more books.

~*~

today my valentine's present arrived from my friend claire. lookit!

amazing, face-rubbingly soft organic cotton, my favourite! and hearts, to be all seasonally-appropriate. does it get any better than this? because i don't think it does. the really cool part is that literally a minute after opening the mail and being overwhelmed with glee i felt a little surge... time to use one of these puppies! claire, your valentine's present isn't late. it's exactly on time. thanks, lovely!

for the love of the yarn

it all started, as these things do, on ravelry. that place makes people do silly things. 'ravelry made me do it' is probably a legitimate defense to use in court.

first, i learned that my local yarn store (lys) had some yarn that i love on sale. 3$ per big skein of soft, local, beautiful wool. then i just happened to be perusing the patterns for things that i could make with that weight of yarn, and i found this.i've never knit a sweater before, but isn't the best time to start when the yarn is on sale?

that did it. the yarn had my head in a death grip and wouldn't let go until i got some. so i made a deal with myself. if i could run all my errands and make it to the lys on one bus ticket, i could have the yarn. if anyone could make it to the five places on my list and the lys (which is far from all the other places) within the hour that a bus transfer is usable, i would say that the yarn gods must be smiling on them and they should get the fibre they seek.

so, of course, i did it. lightning-fast trips to the bank, the library, the drugstore... i did not stop to smell any roses. i had mild panic attacks every time i had to switch buses. what if i just missed it? what if the bus came late? for what was intended to be an enjoyable day off from my domestic responsibilities, it sure stressed me out. but i did it; i deserved all the yarn my backpack could hold.

my final bus dropped me off a little ways from the lys. google maps says it was about a mile. but have i mentioned the weather? it was -33 celsius that day, -27 fahrenheit. bloody cold. and the wind was crazy, blowing sheet after sheet of insidious snow into my face and into all the corners and crevices of my hat, my scarf, and my coat. it was worse than this looksand actually not that fun to walk in. that mile took me half an hour.

i got to the store and found my beautiful yarn. at the checkout i did what it took to cram the yarn into my already full backpack, telling the saleswoman that there was no way in hell that i would carry a bag, my hands needed to stay in my pockets for warmth. as i wound my scarf around my face and arranged my hat and two hoods, she jokingly said that she hoped i wasn't going out walking in that maelstrom. she was visibly shocked when i affirmed that i was. i admitted that if ever my commitment to yarn snobbery was challenged, it was today. but it's common knowledge that i have more stubbornness than smarts, so there i was, in the industrial area (read: bad bus service) in a winter storm.

my original plan was to stay at the store and wind all my yarn into balls using their equipment, saving myself heartache later. but the sun was about to set and the storm wasn't going to get better any time soon, so i figured it would be better to go for my stroll while the drivers could see me walking in the road instead of waiting for it to get dark. (the sidewalks were impassable)

i trudged, head down and shoulders hunched against the wind, through the storm. it sucked. but i happened to look up at just the right moment, and saw a bus! for a moment i thought it was just my wishful thinking taking me for a ride, but the rare and elusive bus that drives that route just happened to be going past! i sprinted and waved and yelled. (this is the place where if i were making this up i would say the bus driver didn't see me, but this here is a truthful account, yo)

the bus stopped. my transfer was long since expired, but the driver so admired my tenacity that he let me ride for free. the most wonderful part is that the bus i was on passes within a block of my house. i was home, drinking hot coffee, 15 minutes later.

but the story doesn't end here. nosirree. i may have escaped frostbite, but there were still more (less dramatic) adventures to come.

remember how i didn't wind the yarn into balls? well, i'm making socks out of that same yarn, from a skein that i bought (and wound) earlier. i'm almost at the toe of the second sock, but the yarn ran out. this evening i got to wind the skein into a ball.

oh, pshaw, you say. big deal. you probably do it all the time, just for fun. but do you remember that i have a 3 year old and a 1 year old? not so fun.to keep it all out of their reach, i had to hang the yarn from my splintery, beat-up bedroom door. as i wound, the yarn caught on the wood and caught on itself and caught on the wood again. plus yarn from the top kept slipping off the door, creating a messy tangle at the bottom of the loop. when the boys realized what i was doing, the wanted in on the action. they enjoyed swinging the door open and closed, crying when made them stop, kicking the door over and over, lying on the floor wailing when i made them stop, begging for treats, whining when i said no...

i wished i was back out in the blowing snow.

it took a couple of miserable hours, but i got it done.
it seems like a lot to go through for something so small, but this is yarn, people. 100% worth it. now i can finish up the socks and get them mailed off (they're already late for my dad's birthday. i'm a very bad daughter) and start a new, exciting project. one that uses yarn that is already neatly wound on cones.

today on etsy

this evening my babes are playing happily without me, the jelly beans are flowing freely into my mouth, and i have a headache, so the siren call of etsy lured me in. i found:

this yarn for my friend amanda. she would make amazing, hand-dyed socks with it. she's incredible, you give her a blank canvas and she makes art.
these seeds for myself, especially these: and these: (because i love growing nontraditionally-coloured things)

this for myself, because paisley reminds me of my sister and i have a thing for green
this for my bathroom, because it's beautiful and the bathroom sink would look much nicer with it.
and, finally, this for daffodylic, because it's beautiful, like her.

i might get the soap dish, but probably nothing else, thanks to my personal economy. plus my toilet is broken and i need something pretty to distract from the stench. but man, etsy is a freaking wonderland for virtual window shopping.

urgent call to activists

your attention, please. there is a serious problem, and all of you need to contribute to rectifying it. if even one of you slacks off, this tragic occurrence will continue. that would be unacceptable.

we all need to contact the USNANA (underwear styles naming association of north america) to let them know that a major error has occurred within their profession:

boy shorts are not actually for boys.

i know what you're thinking. there's no way that such revered and admired academics as these could have made such an obvious mistake, but somehow it has happened. in spite of all the clinical studies, the peer-reviewed research, the veritable fount of information that is the JGSN, (journal of gitch style namers) in spite of investigation of the subject dating back to the greeks, or even earlier... somehow they got it wrong.

i know you're thinking 'who is that chick to question a conclusion reached by the hallowed profession of lingere labelers? does she have an advanced degree in skivvieology?' the answer, friends, is no, but i have eyes and i know what i have seen.

boy shorts are definitely not for boys.

think of a baguette in a grocery bag. think of a strand of hair escaped from a turban. the man-bits don't fit. the dainties don't fit. the name doesn't fit.

so join me in my letter writing campaign, my organisation of global protests, and my personal grief at having been so misled for so long. join me and right this terrible wrong.

i'll see you at the trillion person march on washington.

**because i'm silly like that, i propose a contest. the last one was so much fun, don't you think? whoever can come up with the best new name for boyshort undies by the end of the month gets a bunch of handmade giftcards. i'll break out the crayons, construction paper and posterpaints and send you at least ten whimsical little cards to inscribe and pass on to those you really ought to give cards to.

comment away.

dear

dear lover:
you are a saint. thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou for watching the kids when you got home from your (12 hour!!) night shift. when i got home (at 3 pm!) they were happy, well fed and clean. i'll find a way to repay you.

dear baby:
you can sleep now, it's ok. in fact, babies all over this time zone are sleeping at this very moment. go ahead.

dear sock:
please knit your own damned self. and be done by monday morning, ok?

dear obama:
when you started choosing your cabinet i was bummed, it looked like all the hype was going to come to nothing, based on your choices. but you've proven my pessimism wrong, so far. i definitley don't agree with you 100%, but you've gotten more right than any other politician active in my lifetime. thanks!

dear money: you should consider entering in along-term, stable relationship with me. i'm very nice, i promise.

dear daffodylic: i really wanted to talk to you last night, then again this afternoon. i wish you lived next door.

dear self: you're doing ok. things aren't perfect, but you are doing well. please take moments to be peaceful and grateful.

dear winter: enough already, get lost

dear ikea: i'll see you in april, and i can't wait.

kisses,
me

grossout contest winner

the contest is over, these are the entries:

1. "Haggis - food with a heart!"
2. "It's not a mineral, it's not a vegetable - must be an animal?"
3. "Now with the right amount of squish!"
4. "It comes in a can!"
5. Haggis, The dinner to eat with a friend.
6. Haggis, AN excuse to drink scotch
7. Haggis the OTHER OTher white meat
8. Haggis, Down home cooking for the down home family
   
9. Haggis, the Heart of the party.
10. Haggis: The heart of Scotland in a can
11. A wee taste o' Scotland
12. Haggis in a can: It don't get much better than this! (yes, the grammatical error is on purpose)
13. Haggis, a step above roadkill
14. Haggis, not even your mom would eat this.
15. CANNED HAGGIS: Slightly less disgusting than a big pile of crap!
16. Haggis: Naturally gluten free!
17. Haggis - eat it at lunch and your mother in laws cooking will be greatly improved at dinner!
    
18. Tasty, High Protein Snack!
    
19. "Slow Cooked" in "Natural" grease!
20. Also used as an industrial-strength cleaner!
    
21. Won FIRST PRIZE at Milton Valley's Annual Science Fair!

i was surprised, relieved, and disappointed that no one went to the dark and strange world of offal/awful puns. it would have been so easy to say 'it's not awful, it's offal!' or something. but you all kept away from there. my readers are classy that way.

it was really hard to choose a winner. my favourites were 2,10, 19 and 21, but the people i've asked to help me choose kept saying that a different one was the best. honestly, i'd overlooked it. it's in with a bunch of them that all start the same, and my eyes skipped right over it. but the more i looked at it the more i liked it, and so i give you the winner:

Haggis, the Heart of the party.

maria, you opted out of the actual contest, but i'm still going to send you a prize. i'll figure out what eventually. good job!