Keeping In Touch

So, much of the media today is taken up with the obvious. The oddest comment, I think, was one I heard from a caller on NPR insisting that in the past five years, there has been no national introspection. I can only assume she meant "there has been no introspection that has resulted in a conclusion with which I agree."

On a selfish and personal level, we had a great weekend. Neuba and Pokey had public transit issues on Friday, and I got to ponder once more how completely and unobtrusively the cell phone has become part of my worldview. Saturday was R:tAG's company picnic, with good food, schwag, and train rides! Yay! We left a skitch early to see the Yarn Harlot, who was obviously tired but still a very funny and kind person. And they were giving out door prizes, and as soon as they said "And this one goes to the person who travelled furthest to be here," I started poking Neuba to just go up and claim the prize, since there was no way in hell anyone else would win. And she got camel yarn!*

I am holding The Sock with Ms. Pearl-McPhee here. I am smiling way too hard, but I'd just had some wine and awesome spaghetti carbonara**, and was actually talking to the Yarn Harlot. So I was a bit overexcited. She got us four (the husbands were there too) to all sing the Smarties song together as a test of our Canadian-ness. You know, "When you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last..." I had that damned jingle in my head for the next twelve hours.

And the next day was the RenFaire (huzzah!). It wasn't the Pirate Weekend, alas, but it was still fun. I was semi-sort-of looking for a top to wear with my new corset, but I simply can't bring myself to pay $88 for a metre of crinkle cotton, half a metre of elastic, and six seams. I was likewise semi-sort-of looking for a skull mask, but again came away empty handed. Unlike the clothing, the masks were not something I could do myself and they were lovely, but still awfully expensive. The best bit of synchronicity for me was when we were just walking in, and I heard doumbeks and raitas. Perking up like a hound of some sort, a belly-dancing hound, I tore over to the stage, and caught a Hahbi 'Ru performance. Yay!

And I'm not even mentioning the standard weekend activites like dance class and a trip to a gaming store and watching the new MST3K disc. So it's actually quite nice to be sitting at work right now, in a climate-controlled office and on a comfy chair, doing only one thing.

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* Not just the colour, the actual fibre. I think Neuba was a bit taken aback when the first thing I did after she gave it to me for inspection was to smell it, but I'm sure she was even more weirded out when every knitter she handed it to did the exact same thing.

** There were about 300 people at the talk, so we had time to find a neighbourhood Italian place and have a lovely dinner before our signing tickets came up.