... and I can still count on one hand the number of times I've felt the need for a coat this year. So odd.
Still no pictures, but dammit, I'm going to talk about knitting.
I've been just itching to cast on for my Olympic project, which would be Bad, and Cheating, so I'm distracting myself with all sorts of little stuff. I started a doily. I am so not a doily person, but I love knitting with teeny tiny needles and thread. Plus after this, the Olympic sweater will seem like I'm knitting with broom handles by contrast and will go speedily. I started and finished a hat. And I started a Secret Project which has had both positive and negative progress (i.e. lots of knitting and ripping) because I'm both designing it on the needles and using scrap yarn. I gave up last night after I realized that the yarn I was using just wasn't going to do what I wanted nohow, even after knitting and ripping it about six times, and I didn't feel like digging around in my stash closet in the dark. At least it was a small stitch count at that point.
I'm also ploughing through the mound of books I got at Dark Carnival during our lovely trip to Berkeley last weekend. I just finished Rats, which I'd been meaning to read for a while. I liked it, though I was hoping for something other than a personal "This is me in New York" story. I was expecting either an academic work (Rats, Lice and History) or a small specific story as used a springboard to broader themes (The Orchid Thief) and I don't think Rats was either.
But I couldn't believe the number of grammatical errors in the text! Either authors don't use editors any more, or the editors are getting more ignorant.* This was my favourite, on page 176:
"By 1952, a team of 14 men was exterminating rats, including Louis A. Lindecop, the port's chief sanitary inspector at the time."
I do not think that sentence means what you think it means, Mr. Sullivan.
Tonight we're playtesting some material for Deadlands:Reloaded, and the creator of the game is running it. This is definitely the upside of living here and R:tAG doing what he does; meeting the people responsible for all the stuff we love. Oh, and to link the themes of "knitting" and "benefits of living here" (not to mention the theme of "finally being gainfully employed"), Stitches West is soon. Squee!
Oh, and some links to stuff from coolhunting, which is a fantastic place to waste time:
A cool alarm clock
A cool USB stick
A cool guitar
A very very cool knitting project
And just plain funny (um, but adult content warning):
New Acronyms for Today's Discerning Freakazoid
WFIE!
* Or I'm getting pickier and more crotchety. What are the odds?
I told meself I'd include pictures with my next knitting post, and I haven't got 'round to taking them yet. R:tAG and I have been having very early nights these past few evenings; we've both been feeling tired and run-down.
So, a Conservative minority government. Prime Minister Harper. I found out first through blogs; the Canadian election got practically no coverage here (though I seemed to remember something about Frank McKenna on NPR this morning but I was 3/4 asleep. I checked on Yahoo just now, though, and it looks like I wasn't imagining things.) No surprise, though I desperately, desperately hope that this was a reaction against the Liberal scandals and their long term in office rather than an endorsement of all the Conservatives' policies (though to be fair, it looks like the Conservatives are attracting a wider range of opinion)
I was so proud to be from a country that actually practiced all the ideals that Americans are always going on about... life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness regardless of personal characteristics, separation of church and state, concern for the environment, tolerance and respect for all, etc. The same-sex marriage bill in particular made me want to run out into the streets singing "Oh, Canada." I've never had anyone be able to explain to me what is wrong about two people who love each other wanting legal recognition of their relationship. Any discussion inevitably ends with invoking the Bible (not on my part) which as far as I'm concerned in that debate has as much relevance as invoking Betty Crocker*. You disapprove of gay marriage? Don't marry a gay person. But how will two gay people marrying each other affect you in any way?**
Whoof. Anyway. In summary, stay good, Canada! I want to come back to a country that's just as great a place to live as when I left!
* OK, this is threatening to turn into a multipage rant, but I have to mention one of the odder arguments I heard; that allowing same-sex marriage is impossible because the government can't redefine marriage. Firstly, who exactly does get to define marriage? Secondly, the government has redefined all sorts of words, most in relatively recent history. Voter. Property owner. Legal drinker. In fact, the gummint and the courts are redefining the word "legal" in many ways, all the time, and have already redefined "marriage" by legislating an automatic common-law period in the 1970s. Where were all the marriage-definition-preservers then?
** A good article is here. I especially liked the sentence "It took more than 50 years of pitched battles before states fully recognized one another's divorces; it may well take that long before Boston marriages are good throughout the nation." It put this into a bit of historical perspective and reminded me that things really have improved over quite a stunningly short period of time.
Someone who I don't even know has volunteered to organize Team Canada, bless her needles. As part of my training, I've almost knit up all the lovely Luxury alpaca/silk yarn I got at Christmas. Wonderful stuff. Most of it went to Tempting II* and the leftover part-skein is going into some wristwarmers. I've made these for gifts a couple of times now, and each time I wind up wearing them thoroughly testing them until it's time to give them away. So these are for me.
I'm also almost finished Tubey, done in expensive (but sooooo worth it) Satori (Colour 8, the gray/purple/black) from Artfibers. I had a knitgasm with this yarn. No stripes, just showing off the wonderfullness that is Satori. I'm using smaller needles than Artfibers recommends (5.5 mm instead of 6.5) so I ran out of yarn, had to get more, found out the dye lots didn't match, undid about 15 cm of the body, and re-did it alternating rounds of old and new yarn to blend the dye lots. And such is my love affair with this yarn that I didn't even mind. Much.
Knittius, Altius, Fortius!
*OK, so I'll put this in a footnote since most of my friends' eyes glaze over when I go on about technical knitting details, but I've put this blog on the various Knitting Olympic sites so who knows, a few knitters might visit. With Tempting II, the instructions for the neckband seem to be off. The only way I could get it to work was to knit a neckband stitch together with a body stitch at the end of RS rows (SSK as written) and at the beginning of WS rows (P2togtbl). Otherwise the neckband was way too wide and flopped about horribly. I was using a slightly smaller gauge, so I knit a size up from normal, but the stitch counts and everything were the same. Anyone else find this?
As I was driving home (no traffic tsuris today) listening to the radio, I started wondering what everyone else was listening to in their cars. Then I started wondering what it would be like to be able to feel or even see RF signals. Because at work, I have an RF tag to get into and out of the parking lot, and another one for the office. I have a wireless network at home and work. There are a lot of radio stations here (I have a hard time finding a blank FM station for my iTrip when I travel more than a couple of km). Almost everyone has a cell phone. Almost everyone has garage door openers.
Imagine feeling or seeing all that. Weird.
Ah well. Off to paint minis at my home away from home.
(oh, apropos of nothing, check this out. And if you want an antidote for the wholesomeness of that, try this.)
So the commuting honeymoon is over. Apparently by coincidence, although I am not discounting the "schadenfreude of the gods" explanation, up 'til now the drive to and from work has been fine. "I don't know what the fuss is about," I naively said to myself, zipping along 85. And on the radio yesterday morning, there was a report that described traffic where I was as "stop-and-go" when I could clearly see that wasn't the case. All those traffic reports I've been listing to with horror, describing flaming wrecks, full loads of lumber spilled across two lanes, babies being born and people dying of thirst in gridlock... all lies?
Well, there was an accident today (not involving me!) and let me tell you, traffic backs up damn quick on a California highway. I'd already seen how traffic can come to a standstill for no apparent reason, but when there is a reason it takes even longer to restore the flow.
The radio traffic report didn't mention "my" accident (at least not by the time I actually made it to work) but they were focussed on the Bay Bridge, the state of which actually made the NPR guy say "I'm really glad I'm in the studio right now and not driving anywhere."
Ah well, work is going fine (and yes, I'm posting from work, but it's my lunchbreak. Nyah.) So now that the stress from unemployment is relieved, I'm at a stress deficit. And that will never do. So I'm participating in:
The Knitting Olympics! Yep, you cast on after (or during!) the lighting of the torch, and finish when they put the torch out. 16 days. It's supposed to be a challenge for you but not impossible. So I'm doing Inishmore. Technically, I'm doing Inishmore again, because I did a longer (tunic length) version once already in a lovely deep red. But that's OK, I think. I mean, the Canadian Olympic hockey team has played hockey before, right? It's not the actual knitting that will be the challenge,* it will be the timeline.
Can-a-da! Can-a-da!
* Without blowing my own horn (toot toot!) I've been knitting long enough that I can't think of much knitting that would be a challenge for me mechanically as long as all the directions are clear. I remembered this technique I read about once where you knit two socks at once, one inside the other, using a double knitting technique. But you don't have anything to show off at the end other than two ordinary looking socks. Inishmore is much more impressive. And I also thought about something from Debbie New's Unexpected Knitting since that's the only knitting book I've seen that has stuff that I think I might not be able to do. But I want to savour that, plus I'd probably have to buy yarn and I should really use some of what I have.
