So this morning, I turned on the water for the shower and squinted at the odd flurry of activity around the faucet. Not having my glasses on, I had to get quite close before I saw all the ants running in and out of the tiny crack between the faucet and the tile. Oh well, I said to myself, there are usually a few ants in the shower, no big deal. I splashed them away and pulled the little doohicky to divert the water to the shower head.
For a brief but intensely horrible second, the shower ran ants intead of water.
Then, later, the bottom element on the oven stopped working, and there is nothing sadder than bread dough that's been a 100 degree oven instead of a 350 degree one. The oven is a new-fangled one that doesn't have fuses, just a digital display that is blinking "F3." I miss fuses. You knew where you were with fuses. So I tried to bake in the bread machine, but apparently I got distracted by something shiny while measuring the liquids because that loaf came out with the dimensions of a cabbage and the density of plutonium.
And then I was spraypainting some terrain pieces and had a lapse of reason about the purpose of the little arrow on the nozzle. So now I look like a very dainty chimneysweep.
I think I'm just going to bed.
Well, the ways of different cultures seem strange at first, but it's Thanksgiving here and I have to say it's timed with the weather. The Canadian Thanksgiving date was quite hot, still definitely summer. Now it's cooler, cloudier, and the deciduous trees are actually changing colour.
Don't have time for a really well-thought out post because I'm making Pumpkin Gingerbread for a T-day dinner we've been invited to. To which we've been invited. Whatever. But I just heard a story on NPR that's too good not to share. They were doing a show on T-day cooking disasters, and mentioned a cookbook with a receipe for popcorn-stuffed turkey. The ingredients forgot to specify "4 cups popped popcorn." So all over the nation, apparently, people blithely filled their turkeys with 4 cups of unpopped corn, and roasted them. Well, started to roast them, until the popcorn popped and blew the turkeys apart. They ended up recalling the cookbooks.
And here's my traditional Thanksgiving link, in the spirit of introducing weirdness to every holiday:
The Electric Sheep Thanksgiving Special
Enjoy.
I just keep accumulating these things, so I might as well share them.
Happy Halloween! (somewhat late, but still funny)
Ikea ad (really cool ad. Might take a long time to load, but (I think) worth it. Once the big white title disappears, the ad is interactive. Mouse on it.)
Heinekin ad (Made me laugh and laugh. Mainly because I remember the Slimelight and a couple of hundred hard-core London Goths all dancing their little black hearts out to "Yellow Submarine.")
Kung Fu F*ck You (Naughty word warning, but a most impressive tribute to a classic genre)
The City (It's a model of San Francisco in Jell-o! How cool is that???)
My next car
My next knitting project
Got Medieval (a blog by a medievalist who chronicles "slipshod use of medieval European history in the media and pop culture." One of my new favourites)
I suppose everyone who reads this is Canadian and doesn't really need to be reminded or have this explained, but this post is in honour of Rememberance Day.
(saying "Happy Remembrance Day just seems inappropriate, somehow)
This was a weekend of the red wine.
Saturday morning, we went with Carl and a friend of his to a local winery for their "cork equity" event, where they have free food and a couple of people playing the accordion (um, accordions, I guess, not like there were multiple people all playing one accordion) and they'll fill up the bottles you bring for $5/750 ml. They sell empty bottles, too, in case you didn't bring your own. So that was neat and we got some bottles of a nice Shiraz/Sangiovese blend.
Then Saturday night we went to Teatro Zinzanni for the City of Villains launch party, which was very nice and featured quite a bit of red wine and (for me, at least) a cocktail called a "Lemon Drop." I would link to a recipe, but none of the ones that come up on Google (at least the first page; did I mention I'm lazy?) seem to match what I had. It featured lots of fresh mint, anyway, and was very tasty. I like mint. I figure that was my vegetable serving for the day. Cryptic bussed everyone to The City and back, so we were all free to indulge. The food was good, and the entertainment was spectacular. There was a piece called "Vertical Tango" where the dancers basically performed a tango up and down a 20' pole. Amazing. And there were twin trapeze artists, and a guy who juggled seven hats, and singing, and a theramin solo, and face painting, and little troll dolls on the spoons, and everything.
And tonight R:tAG and I watched Sideways, and had to pause the movie about 20 minutes in to open a bottle (not f'ing Merlot!) .
This was a nice weekend.
... I just heard a radio ad that really made me realize that I'm in California. To paraphrase:
Dad: "Son, we need to talk."
Son: "Uh, what?"
Dad: "Your mother opened your closet to hang up some shirts and we found what you're growing in there. We're very disappointed in you."
Son: "Uh, I can explain!"
Dad: "I mean, yellow leaves, wilting stems... you're using such a poor lighting system! How could you expect to grow anything good like that? We thought you knew better!"
Announcer: "Come to X garden and hydroponic supplies..."
Heh.
I just got my hair cut. I was aiming for Stephanie Leonidas and I think I ended up with Laura Bush. Sigh. Ah well, hair grows.
So here're some pictures. I had to get R:tAG to log in as me and upload them in order to get this to work. Same browser running in the same XP login, but when I type, it doesn't work. When he types, it does. I am not a superstitious person, but this is putting me on a path that will end in waving a dead chicken at the monitor during the dark of the moon.
Anyway, this is the punkin. Note the greenery in the background. It was a serious culture shock to see kids in costumes that don't have a parka and a toque as integral components.
This, as threatened, is almost all the knitting I've done since I moved here (mid-March) Not shown: a pair of child's kilt hose, a lace shawl, a felted purse, a 6' scarf and a couple of dishcloths (all gone for gifts to various folks).
- Three stuffed animals (bear, elephant and squid)
- Two baby hats
- One baby sweater
- One baby blanket
- One pair felted slippers
- Two pairs of socks
- Three scarves (two rectangular, one triangular)
- Seven longsleeved sweaters, most with cables. I like cables. And yes, it gets cold enough here.
- Two tank tops
- One odd felted box (center bottom) as a semi-successful experiment
- Three Jayne-Cobb style hats (all in one night - they go quick)
- Half of a lace tablecloth (the white thing at the upper right that looks like a jumbo-size clot of ramen)
Any questions or requests for details will be cheerfully answered and/or supplied. Knitting makes me happy. But you'll have to wait until R:tAG is home to see pictures, apparently.
OK, those of you who use Blogger... I still can't upload images. It goes through the whole megillah then ends up with a very useful error message that says "image not uploaded." This happens with Firefox and IE, and with .JPG, .PNG, .TIF files of all sorts (including ones I didn't create), and with both computers we have in the house (they do use the same router, though). I can however, "upload" (sideload?) images that are already on the Web, i.e. that have a URL.
My Javascript console says Error: compareForm is not defined, source file http://www.blogger.com/posteditor.js if that helps. Any ideas?
The truly odd thing is that R:tAG can log into Blogger and do THE EXACT SAME THING and get a picture uploaded. We haven't changed browsers, WinXP login sessions, nothin'. However, I made a bran'-new Blogger account, and wasn't able to upload pictures on it either.
Blogger hates me. Everyone hates me. I'm gonna go into the garden and eat worms.
Well, a (slightly) belated happy Halloween, anyway. Oddly enough, I don't get sentimental at the traditional times like Christmas and Thanksgiving... Halloween is when I'm missing friends and family. Says something, I guess.
True to my own tradition, I made my trademark punkin. I'd provide an illustration, but Blogger is being bloody-minded about uploading pictures right now.
No point in doing the knitting post either without pictures. Maybe I'll post this and try again ("have you checked to make sure the power's on?") .
