La, La, La, La, La, La

Ever wondered what else you could do with that Fiber Trends clog pattern? How about this?



Or my personal favorite:



SMURF HAT!

Not Much To Say

I finished my taxes and will be getting back considerably more of a refund than I'd anticipated. I should start side businesses and lose money more often. Other than that, there's not much to report from here, so I offer you a little something I saw a while back. For a little bit it was on You Tube, but Comedy Central is pretty aggressive about getting their stuff off of there, so here it is directly from them, but in two parts. I think it's fairly self-explanatory.

One Down

I could've made the leg longer, I suppose (I certainly have enough yarn), but I'd done the standard leg-as-long-as-foot crew length and was tired of the ribbing, even though I opted for 2x2 so I'd have to move the yarn back and forward less. I am pleased as punch at how nicely this fits. I have read some complaints from other folks about short row heels not fitting quite right, about them being too snug in the instep and the like. These work well on my feet, though, which may have to do with the fact that I did more short rows at the heel to make it fit my narrow heel better. After all, there's no rule that says you have to do as many short rows at heel as at toe, or vice versa.

I also went down from 2.75mm (US2) to 2.25mm (US1) needles for the leg to make it a bit more snug. And for the cast off, I used the one Grumperina describes in this post, which very quickly became my favorite for socks when I was making them for my niece & nephew last fall. All in all, a very pleasing experience, and I think this may become my new favoritest sock pattern.

The other thing I've been working on (in lieu of cleaning off the desk and dealing with my taxes like I'm supposed to be doing) is designing a Fair Isle pattern for my wedding vest. Yeah, I've got over a year to work on this particular project, but if you haven't noticed, I'm slow about these things. Now is when it needs to be planned out and swatched. Because David is planning on having his vest tailored in (most likely) a tonal damask, I went hunting around for damask patterns I could adapt - I wanted something a bit swirly like Eunny Jang's anemoi mittens - and found a likely candidate in a pattern with curly leaves, which I'm doing a bit smaller and with viny tendrils. A bit of work needs to be done on it before I can begin swatching (two possible yarn combinations are en route), but I should have it hashed out within the next week.

And now maybe I can see about this desk before I head off to bed.

Sleepyhead

I've been awfully tired the last couple of days, and I'm not sure why. Wednesday was understandable. I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:30AM to go to a continuing education event in New Hampshire and only got about 6 hours sleep after being up for about 34 hours before. It was a good day, though, as the speaker was a friend from school whom I hadn't seen for probably ten years. On top of that, one of classmates - who I didn't realize lives less than an hour from me and whom I also hadn't seen in nearly 3 years - was also there, so it was kind of a mini-reunion.

And there was knitting ! I took along my sock-in-progress and started knitting away when the lights went down to help keep myself awake. Then I looked over and saw the woman sitting next to me was also knitting (a poncho, on a very nice wool/acrylic blend that had been gifted to her). Then later I noticed a woman on the other side of the room was knitting (a pink sock on two circs for her daughter - I asked during a break).

Today kind of defies explanation, though. I slept pretty solidly for nearly 12 hours, which one would think would be sufficient to recover, but I still woke up feeling rather zombie-ish. This evening we went to see Karen - the laughing sweater model who can be seen here modeling some of David's 2007 line (scroll down a bit) - in what I believe she said is her second public performance with her four-woman acoustic band, and I was using David as a pillow for most of the show (not a reflection on the music, though it was kind of soothing).

Anyway, aside from the sock, which is very near to completion...



...it's been a fairly unproductive week off so far. This is not good, as the major item I need to get done this week are my tax returns. I put the basics into TurboTax some time ago, but with all the alpaca stuff (both owning them myself and treating those of other people) it gets a bit more complicated, and it's all that complicated mess that I need to haul out and get sorted. At least I know that I didn't make any money at any of it, but it still needs to be documented. First, though, I need to deal with this:



After I've gotten more sleep.

A Letter

I've been mulling this letter over in my head for a while and finally put it all down and sent it to my congressional representatives.

I, like most people, remember very well the morning of September 11, 2001. I had worked the night before and had awoken and learned of the attacks about an hour after they occurred. Along with much of the world, I spent most of that day watching in shock, though not in disbelief, at the horror that had unfolded and weeping for the innocent lives that had been lost. Having paid a modicum of attention to the forces behind the steady rise in radical Islam and the resulting attacks against the US during the previous decade - the World Trade Center in 1993, US embassies in Kenya & Tanzania in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000 - it had seemed likely to me for some time before that there would eventually be a major attack carried out on US soil. The only thing that shocked me was the scale of that attack.

Similarly, I anticipated and saw the jingoistic nationalism that arose as a result of the attacks and which was promoted and encouraged by the Bush administration. And while I certainly saw the rationale for going to war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, I had reservations about the commitment of a President who had previously dismissed the idea of nation-building to prosecuting that war effectively and engaging fully in the effort that would be necessary to establish a truly functional democracy in a country that had known only war - war the US had a hand in promoting - for a generation.

These fears, of course, were to be borne out - first as we failed to deliver the level of aid that the President had pledged to Afghanistan, then as the drumbeats of war started to lead us away from Afghanistan and towards Iraq. I watched for over a year as the Bush administration built its case to start a second war before completing the tasks we had taken on in the first. And although any reasonably critical analysis of the President's case for going to Iraq showed it to be little more than gross propaganda, if not outright lies, I watched as the Congress basically gave him carte blanche to proceed with what was almost certain to be a monumental misadventure.

For most of the past four years, I have watched Congress give this President a blank check to drag us deeper and deeper into this war - every day losing more American lives and every day losing more ground in Afghanistan, where we once actually stood a chance of doing some good. At every misstep, the Bush administration has offered us shifting rationales, more lies, and now outright defiance with regards to a war that has cost us in lives (currently nearly 3300 American service personnel - not to mention tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqi civilian lives, and over 24,000 American servicepersons wounded), in money that could have been used domestically for our common good, and in our honor and standing before the rest of the world. It is beyond time for this to stop.

The current Congress has a real opportunity to provide some long-overdue balance to this President's power, and it is imperative that it do so. I applaud recent efforts by both houses to place time limits on our engagement in Iraq. It should be clear to anyone by now that the President has neither the will nor the desire to leave this disastrous path, and Congress should not allow him to continue along it. Although he has promised to veto any legislation such as the bills recently passed in both houses which create timelines for our withdrawal from Iraq, I strongly urge you to vote to override any veto. Come what may, we need to remove our forces from Iraq, finish the job we started five-and-a-half years ago in Afghanistan, and set about trying to heal the damage this President has been allowed to do to our country, both at home and abroad.

Easter Socks

Last night I finished these:

Yarn: Mountain Colors Bearfoot, Colorway: Ruby River
Pattern: Widdershins, Generic Version

And promptly cast on this:

Yarn: Sportweight Superwash/Nylon from Scout's Swag, Colorway: Cerrillos Mine
Pattern: Toe-up Sock using Sherman short rows

Happy Easter, everyone!

I Had to Go and Get Cocky

I'll admit it. I've been feeling a bit smug the past few days about not being sick on my birthday this year. And then I realized that I haven't had my usual winter of one cold after another.

So naturally, I got walloped good with one last night and the snot factory kicked into overdrive. I'm being kept in a relatively functional state by 24 hour Sudafed (for which I had to sign over my eternal soul and give blood, urine, and DNA samples so that Big Brother can save me from turning it into meth in my bathtub).

All I can say is, it's a good thing those TV cameras came around a couple days ago, 'cause I am not fit for mass consumption at the moment. Now if only the crazy drunks would just stop calling.

April Showers?

This was the view from our front door this afternoon:



I actually don't mind these April snowstorms so much, as they generally melt off quickly. The latest snow I've ever seen was on April 28, 1994, when I was living in St. Paul. It was 6" of heavy wet snow and absolutely lovely, and it was almost all gone by the next day. This one is supposed to linger a little longer than that, but it'll be gone soon enough.

And when I trekked down the hill to check the mail, there was a package containing this:



Sock yarn from Scout! This is a superwash/nylon sportweight that Scout just got, spun exclusively for her, and I'm the very first one to get some all dyed up ("cerrillos mine" colorway). Thanks, Scout! All I can say is mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, soft. Now I have to finish up that Bearfoot sock to free up my needles.

A Brief Plug

David has been bugging me to mention this, and I keep forgetting, but he and the artists' co-op he belongs to signed on as underwriters for his favorite local radio station. WXGR is a non-profit, non-commercial station, and since they're a low signal station (meaning they have a very limited range), most of their listeners are web-based. They specialize in electronic/trance/world music, so if that's within the scope of your musical interests, give them a listen. And maybe consider donating, so that David will have something to listen to while he works.

À Vos Aiguilles!

I stopped by the post office before I headed to work this evening to pick up the Tricot Machine CD, since they required my signature to release it.

I love, love, love it.

Here are the lyrics for the first track - Introduction au Tricot Machine:

Savez-vous tricoter?
À vos aiguilles!

À l'endroit/À l'envers
Tricoter sur le gros nerf

À l'envers/À l'endroit
Une maille à la fois

À l'endroit/À l'envers
Une maille de travers

À l'envers/À l'endroit


Anyone care to give a translation? I get the gist of it, but I don't know that I could do it justice. Lee Ann? Spiff? The rest of the tracks don't have knitting references that I noticed, but the music is really wonderful. And as Lee Ann mentioned, très quebecois.

This Just In

I've been interviewed tonight by two of the local stations about that animal abandonment case I mentioned the other day. I believe one is going to air this evening; I'm not sure about the other one. Anyway, there are brief items about the case here & here. The owner of the animals is being charged with felony animal abuse, which will hopefully lead to a long sentence.

Birthday Recap

It was really a very mellow day, in a good sort of way. I got up around 2 something, which is not an unusual getting up time for me (I was still kind of tired after 10 hours' sleep, though, so I'm thinking I need to cut back the Requip dose a bit). I walked downstairs to find David with balloons in his hand and a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face. He'd slipped out while I was sleeping to get me a card, some dark chocolate, balloons and a cake, and I surprised him rather than the other way around. Tolo was pretty pleased with the balloons, too.



My inbox was full of birthday wishes. Thank you all (and a special thank you to Scout, who put a rush on some new sportweight sock yarn to me. I can hardly wait!). I did a whole lot of nothing for a few hours until I had to get ready to head to Portland, where my folks met up with us to take us to dinner. Since they're less familiar with Portland than I am and since they hadn't seen the new clinic, we met up there, where I gave them the tour and where the staff had cooked me up an extra special confection.



Then we went out to eat at the Sebago Brewing Company, since I'd never tried their beers before and was in the mood. I had the Hefeweizen with appetizers and the Boathouse Brown Ale with my wild mushroom ravioli and would recommend either. Yum. Then we all had some of the lemon creme & white chocolate cake that David had bought. Yum, again. Then we all headed home.

Non-Birthday Goodies

Today's mail brought a package from Schoolhouse Press containing this book:



This is part of the wedding planning, of course, as it's a given that I have to wear handknit kilt hose with my kilt (which is yet to be made, but will be in a Baird Modern tartan). I have a 1 pound cone of DK superwash that is destined for this purpose, which should give me plenty to practice with to sort out the design I want.

I'm also awaiting some shade cards from Two Swans Yarns for the Jamieson's Spindrift. I already have shade cards for the Jamieson & Smith yarns, but I want to knit a Fair Isle vest in mostly undyed wool with some accent colors that reflect the colors of the kilt tartan, and the Spindrift will allow me to do that all in one weight of yarn. It also looks as though I may find better color matches, and I like that Jamieson's processes their wool right in Shetland, instead of shipping it to a mill in England like J & S. My Shetland forebears were fishers and crofters, which means they struggled to scrape by while the fruits of their labors got shipped off to Scotland and England and made other people wealthy, so if more of my money as a consumer stays on the islands, I see it a bit as paying back their legacy.

A Southward Jaunt

What does it say about me that with an entire afternoon in Boston, this is the only photo I managed to take (On Dartmouth at Newbury, in case you were wondering)?



I feel I must point out, though, that David encouraged me to take this one. Is it any wonder I love him?

The trip wasn't all about dead things, though. I did manage to complete the heel on Sock #2 that I've been working on. Gusset finished just as we arrived at South Station, heel turned while we waited for the return bus, and heel completed just before we arrived back at the bus station in Portsmouth, which is pretty much exactly what I expected to accomplish.



I need to get this finished up quickly, as there will soon be sportweight sock yarn from Scout here that will be just begging to be made into socks.

We also made a visit to Woolcott & Co. while we were in Cambridge. Unfortunately, Sean wasn't working (as he had commented, though I kind of figured that would be the case), so we still have not managed to meet in person. I did, however, leave with a skein of Schaefer Yarns Lola and two skeins of Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool - one green, one brown.

Of course, the shop staff all thought I was getting the Silky Wool to make a tam, as Sean has so recently done, but I actually got it to go with some other I've had for some time with the intent of making a scarf. I have some leftover grey Silky Tweed from this project and some Silky Wool in red & blue, but I've been concerned that it would end up just a bit too red & blue, so the green and brown should tone it down nicely.

As for the GLBT wedding expo thing that was our initial reason for making the trip, it was small and pretty much what I expected. Which is to say, I can't say I was disappointed because I wasn't really expecting much to begin with. It was good, though, to talk to some of the vendors and get a few ideas - not to mention to figure out how much we can save by not hiring them.

Miscellanea

Just to clarify, this is my 38th birthday. I am now in my middle-late-30's - next year will be the late-late-30's. Technically speaking, my 38th year will not be complete until 11:35PM Eastern Time Monday night. But despite being the timespan of a sitcom away from being an April 3rd birth, I have had to endure a lifetime of, "Born a day late, weren't you?" Because, yeah, nobody's ever said that to me before. At least I'm likely to age more slowly than most of the people who said that - a distinct advantage of not looking your age.

Anyway, we will be meeting my parents in Portland and going out for dinner, which will be a lot of fun. Despite the fact that we only live 2½ hours drive from each other, I don't see nearly enough of my folks. They're good people, and I feel very fortunate to have had them as my parents.

And a note to JJ: If you drop by here again, feel free to drop me an e-mail at mel dot vassey at gmail dot com. Since you're at Davis, I'm sure you know my friends Karl & Michael. Do be sure to tell them I said hello.

Hey, What Happened to Saturday?

Actually, Saturday was pretty much shot as of about 4:30PM on Friday. I left work Thursday morning with one patient in the hospital and returned Friday to a madhouse. And it all went downhill from there. As if the heavy caseload weren't enough, the news services started announcing that the FDA is doing testing on pet foods from another contract producer in the big pet food recall.

As you might imagine, this ratcheted up the general hysteria and our poor receptionist was nearly in tears trying to keep up with all the phone calls from panicked people who decided that we must have some special insider knowledge. Because we manufacture the foods ourselves in our spare time, of course. One woman called at least three times because she didn't want to believe that her cat's food hasn't yet been affected by the recall. No problems with her cat, mind you, just trying to get a head start on whipping herself into a frenzy. Because it's not like we have actual sick animals to take care of or anything (FWIW, so far we've seen three cats that probably were food-related cases - no deaths yet, but certainly life-threatening illness).

Then at 2AM, animal control from a nearby town brought us 5 dogs and a cat from an abandonment case they'd discovered that evening - pet hoarders who abandoned the farm when the couple split up. The lone surviving cat appears to have survived by cannibalizing the cats who died. The dogs were scared, thirsty, hungry, and all looked like hell, but appeared to need TLC more than anything. There are many times when my job gives me reason to hate people, and this is definitely in the top 2 or 3.

Then to top it all off, a major surgical case came in right as my shift was ending and the waiting room was once again filling up and the phones once again started ringing off the hook, so I stayed on a few hours extra to keep my replacement from having a huge backlog once he got out of surgery. With a lot of caffeine and a nap at the halfway point, I finally made it home around 1PM, then to bed just before 4.

Sunny Days

The weather has been quite nice this past week, and although the dry air of the last few days has been murder on my hands and lips, it's dried up the mud nicely (just in time for rain, according to the weather forecast). I'm not the only one who's been enjoying the spring weather. Rosa loves being able to nap in the yard again.



She's not so thrilled about having her naps disturbed, though.

And although last night was a bust for knitting, I've been able to get a bit more done tonight on the second sock to the one I started way back in December as my holiday travel sock.



I'm halfway through the gusset increases, so I hope to be able to get the heel completed by the time we get home tomorrow from Boston. We're going to be making a day trip down to go to a GLBT wedding expo. It doesn't look like it's going to be a huge affair, but we wanted to see if we could get any ideas for the wedding. I'm also hoping that we'll have time to stop in at Woolcott & Co. while we're in the neighborhood.

Then Monday is my birthday, and I actually have the day off. Last year I was scheduled to work on my birthday but I got out of it by getting the flu. Not recommended, really. Scout is making me think maybe it's a 37th birthday thing, but Cate wasn't sick as a dog for hers last fall, so perhaps it's only a problem for us Arieses. Anyway, I think my parents may come down or meet us in Portland for dinner to celebrate, which should be quite nice.

I Thought 2008 Wasn't Until Next Year

There's been some debate going on in the comments at Joe's blog this week. I've really stayed out of it, largely because it's too damn early to really start adequately assessing the candidates. I have been reading Glenn Greenwald's blog on Salon, though, and today's post articulates and puts a voice quite nicely to why I've felt a real unease about Hillary's candidacy. After all, what good does it do us to perpetuate a system that doesn't really work for the people the way it should?