got milk?

Now that I’m off deadline, I’m hardly in the office. We’ve had all sorts of wonderful adventures I’m going to share with you next week. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a heartwarming — and slightly gross — photo of a brand-newborn calf and his momma.

Note the crow off to the right just waiting to get a tasty meal of bovine placenta. Mmmmm….

He was born yesterday afternoon, just minutes before we drove by and snapped his portrait. He stood there shakily, bawling as he tried to poo. I can relate.

Incommunicado

I’ve had a particularly dreadful deadline this month, which explains not only the lack of new posts but the big ol’ cold sore that popped out on my lip. Ack! Anyhoo, I’ll have a longer post on Wednesday — we’re going into The City tomorrow . . . for FUN! — but I’ve got to leave you with a little reunion souvenir. My friend sent me a group shot — who are all those old people anyway? — and this portion struck me as funny. Do these guys know how to hold their beers, or what?

Throw Me A Lifeline

About a half a round after starting ball 2 of 4 of Latoya, I came across this.

Unfortunately, it was right in the middle of a stockinette section so it would be quite ugly to have this big ol’ knot popping out. Note my fuzzy lapwarmer.

Yesterday, I was really whipping out the acreage at Uknitty when I realized I goofed on one of the ribs on the front – I was off by one stitch. Luckily, it was only for a few rows but it was definitely noticeable enough to frog. I don’t frog easily so you have to know this looked bad, even though I failed in my bloggerly duties and forgot to take a pic.

With all the talk and visiting, I just put Latoya away and waited till I could really concentrate on running a lifeline.

I’ve never had to frog quite so much with such a ‘complicated’ pattern. I was a little nervous but it worked out perfectly! I’ve already made up the lost ground, even with some fuzzy help.

Bovine Bonanza

My Secret Pal sent me another package of goodies. This one was decidedly beef-flavored: Cow card, “Eat mor chikin” cow from Chick-fila, magnets, post-its, key chains and a couple of the inevitable cow crap items: The Original Cow Pie (delish!) and a jar of — ah hem — Cow Poop. These turned out to be chocolate covered sunflower seeds and they were delish too!

Hubbo was bored until I started pulling candy out of the box. Then he became very interested. But I got to it first!

This bushel of bovine booty was Nosy1′s way of telling me where she’s from. You see, this sneaky little stitcher sent me packages and postcards from all over the friggin’ place so it was impossible to pinpoint her location. (Just in case I was too dense to get it, she tossed in a spoiler: a beer mug with ‘Wisconsin’ on it.) She said that California and Wisconsin battle for the Dairy State title, which is silly. I mean, everyone knows California is home to happy cows!

When not obsessing about being stood up in high school, I’ve been tearing up Latoya.

Actually, I made another goof but I think it’ll work out. The traveling rib was made by decreasing the front ribbing. I was supposed to then knit the pattern straight until the piece measured 4″. But I read ‘knit another 4″.’ I caught it after 2″ — the piece measures 5″ — and thought about frogging back an inch but thought better of it. I’m starting the waist shaping so, instead of decreasing every inch, I’ll do it every 3/4″ or so and the total length will be close ’nuff!

Poor Poor Pitiful Me

My 20 year high school reunion is this weekend. I’ve bitched at great length mentioned it before and, since it’s looming, it’s been on my mind. Plus, I got an email from an old friend who will be attending. She’s a sweetheart and consoled my insecure soul by relating that she too had to find out about it the hard way.

Yesterday, just before dashing off to the airport, she sent me a note about a Yahoo email group for our class. Wha?! Again, I felt like the ugly stepchild. The last to get asked to dance. Always stood up. Poor poor pitiful me.

Hubbo heard about it all night and said the sweetest thing ever: “I’m sorry.” I think that’s the first time he’s ever just let me rant and not tried to fix it. That’s progress, people!

Aaaanyhooters, this situation actually affected my dreams. I was part of a group that didn’t really want me. They sorta had to take me (can’t recall why) but made it clear they didn’t like me. Can you say insecure? Can you say therapy? Sheesh!

You’d think that 20 years later, I’d be over all that BS. I’d say “Nerts to them!” I’d know that they’d be really happy to hear from me. Instead, even though I was reasonably popular, I think none of them like me. I think none of them have grown like I have. I think they’re all the same petty, spiteful little beasts they were in school. It’s so ridiculous that I’m embarrassed to write it but it appears from my ranting and dreaming that this is how I feel deep down. In other words, insecure.

Now here’s the topper: I just got a Classmates.com email from a guy who went to our school for our senior year only. We made out once at our graduation party and he asked me out. I got all dolled up and waited for him to show. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, I cried. Not because my heart was broken but because I was humiliated.

And now this guy who I figured never thought of me once in the last 20 years — he obviously thought I was an ugly pig dog, after all (even though I was thin and pretty) — sends me an email. Honestly, I wanted to reach through the computer and slap his mullet-topped face for standing me up 20 years ago. Then I felt a little like crying — still do. Then I sent him a pleasant “Hey, I’m really happy to hear from you” kind of response.

Now that’s progress.

Pfffftht!

I normally carry a camera with me at all times. Sorta goes with the job. But last night, when I got home, Hubbo asked when I wanted to go for a sail, before or after dinner. A quick snack later, and we were bobbing off in our little sailing dinghy sans camera. Luckily, I’d forecasted that we might be bobbing for quite awhile due to a complete lack of wind, so I brought Latoya along for company. “There’s no knitting while you’re sailing!” Hubbo exclaimed. “Pffftht to that!” Indeed, I made nearly an inch of progress during that lazy sail but no pix.

I do have pix of some mystery yarn my big bro gave me for my birthday.

It’s 100% wool, hand spun and hand dyed, and he picked it up at a local farmers market. What I love most about it is that when Bro saw it, he said “That’s LaDonna.” And it is. I absolutely loooove the colors and can’t wait to knit with it. But, as I told my SIL, I have to be inspired. I think it’ll end up being felted as it’s way too scratchy to wear but that’s all I know at this point.

WILD TANGENT: It’s been absolutely beautiful here the last few days. Not your normal Sausalito weather — foggy, windy and surprisingly cold — but sunny, fogless and in the 80s. Of course, being the greenie that I am (heh hem), I’ve been biking to work. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with my ever-growing arse, not at all. I’m just being environmental. Yup.

Aaaaanyhooters, I must have had a great big cheesy smile (or a big booger) on my face on the way home last night because nearly every single person on the bike/walk trail smiled right back. These are the days and the reasons I love living here.

Here’s a reason why sometimes I really don’t love it here:

The feeling of entitlement some people have in Marin County is truly mind boggling. “I can’t fit my enormous Hummer in a regular parking space so I’m just gonna park in the fire lane — screw everyone else, including fire trucks.” I see it all the time and it drives me to distraction.

But then I come home to this:

Totally Pawesome

Aaaaah. I’ve finally found the rhythm and I’m groovin’ with Latoya. On Friday night, Hubbo went sailing with a friend (racing, actually) so I had a some uninterrupted alone time to retackle this little bee-atch. I checked every single row before starting the next, just to make sure I hadn’t Moebius’ed it. Now I’m confidently chugging along!

Can you spot my boo-boo? Luckily, it’s really only visible on the wrong side.

I’m thrilled at how much progress I made over the weekend. Especially considering that most of Saturday was spent racing on this same friend’s sailboat. I’d hoped to take a few shots but I was kept waaaaaaaaaaaay too busy. If you’ve never trimmed a spinnaker in a race, you haven’t lived (and you probably don’t have a sore neck from looking up, and sore hands from your death grip on the sheet, and your butt probably still doesn’t ache, even though it’s two days later . . .). Anyhooters, I hoped to get in a few rounds Saturday night but I was too exhausted and my hands hurt too badly for much knitting.

This color is much more accurate.

For the first time in weeks, I made it to U-Knitty yesterday. It’d been so long that I only recognized one gal (shout-out to Arlene)! It was lovely meeting the new ladies and catching up with everyone else who came after me. Laurie’s going to place a bulk order for some scrumptious (I’m not kidding) possum/merino yarn from New Zealand. She was making a sock yesterday and I just about died from the softness. She says it’s really really warm (it’s hollow), highly durable and comes in some yummy colors.

Reading up on this yarn was an education. First of all, the Australian Brushtail Possum is different from what we Yanks call “Possums”. The Pozzum (Oz Possum, get it?) is a marsupial (not a rodent) and was introduced to NZ in the early 19th century for the fur trade. As the fur trade fell off, the pozzums increased greatly in numbers, threatening indigenious species, selectively targeting plant species, eating endangered bird species, spreading bovine tuberculosis, etc. Pozzums are to New Zealand what rabbits are to Australia — a blight.

With no natural predators, pozzums are literally getting away with murder so conservationists are trying to bring their numbers under control. The only way to do that is to ‘humanely collect’ feral animals. Ok, so they’re killing the little buggers. This doesn’t bother me as I’m no vegetarian but I know some folks might get irked by this turn of events. Here’s the conundrum: The Kiwi government is rightly trying to keep indigenious (and endangered) species going strong but ‘invasive’ species wreak havoc on those attempts. What then to do with the ‘invasive’ pozzums? Honestly, I think it’s brilliant to market the fur — increase demand of it and the population of the destructive critter will decrease (the desired result). I for one will happily buy the supersoft and durable yarn while wearing my leather shoes and eating an In N Out burger!

Will The Real Latoya Please Stand Up?

My Latoya is getting as annoying as the real Latoya. I’m adjusting the pattern so I can knit it in the round, like Miss Thang/Mud Flap Girl. Twice I’ve cast on and twice I’ve apparently twisted the stitches when joining in the round. That’s one way to get a Moebius!

I was way too tired last night to do anything but frog the dang thing — I was about 1 1/2″ into it and really getting into the groove before I realized! Grrr….

You Say Serape

A million years ago (like, three), I threw together my first striped project. A simple garter stitch ‘Mexican’ style scarf for Hubbo. Now don’t ask me why I call it ‘Mexican’ — the stripes just sorta remind me of those awesome Zarape blankets you can buy at the border crossing. Anyhoo, I don’t remember what the yarn was — something cheap — but it was 100% wool. Hubbo thought it was nice and promptly stuffed it in our foul weather gear locker. When it was cold, he might bring it out but not always. No biggie — it was uncommissioned.

Then I accidentally chucked it in the wash because it was smelling funky. I have no idea what I was thinking. I obviously don’t need to tell you what happened.

Felt city. But after the initial “DOH!”, I realized I liked it much better lightly felted. It has more heft, looks more ‘together’ and is warmer. Hubbo likes it better too, as you can see here. Luckily I knitted it up extra long to begin with so the length is still substantial.

Hey! Is that a Malabrigo toque on his tiny little head?

Heart-y Party

We interrupt this regularly scheduled knitting post to alert you that this is an insanely long post about my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. Feel free to skip down to the actual knitting stuff.

What a great party! Deadline was over on Friday, May 25 and we took Silent Sun, the boat we live on (Rob tried to talk me into taking little Tess but I nixed that pretty fast — no camping for me!), to China Camp for the long weekend. We had a terrific, relaxing time and I plowed through Stephen King‘s Lisey’s Story. I got zero knitting done, mainly because I was reading the whole time. I wish I was good enough to do both at once — I know it can be done — but I’m not so I had to choose.

Wild tangent: What you don’t know about me is that I’m normally a voracious reader. For example, I read 64 books in 2004 — SIXTY FOUR! Of course, most of that summer was spent at anchor in Barclay Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island doing nothing but reading so it’s little wonder. 2005 was a busy year, what with the trip up the Inside Passage to Alaska and back, so I didn’t have as much reading time — only 35 books that year. Then I got this ‘real’ job. One that took up a lot of time and, more importantly, energy. All I wanted to do when I came home was plop in front of the TV, veg out and knit. The grand total for 2006: six books. So far this year I’m right on track with three books read. Embarrassing!

After our little trip, we had a bunch of running around to get ready for the big trip to Oregon. I worked for 3 hours Wednesday morning, picked up the rental car (we’re not confident in my little Corolla’s ability to make it there and back in one piece) and took off. We spent the night in Weed, CA. If you never get the chance to spend the night in Weed, count yourself lucky. ‘Nuf said.

My sister Sandy and I were whirlwinds the whole weekend.

Thursday we did the shopping — Costco, party store, Big Lots, grocery store. This was all between 2 and 6 p.m., when we had to rush over to my niece’s choral concert. She’s a sophomore and I know a lot of the prime solos went to seniors but lemme tell you, Maria blows all those brats away! A couple of them just plain sucked! We were understandably irritated about it, which made Maria glow with happiness. Her Aunties were sticking up for her!

Friday was spent decorating the hall. It’s really a new annex to my parents church so we got to use it for free and man, it was nice. We didn’t have a plan, just a jumble of stuff that we knew we were going to use. Once we started setting up though, everything flowed smoothly and we ended up with some seriously lovely decorations.

Both my sister and I woke up about 6 a.m. the morning of the party, waiting for the other to wake up. An hour later she decided to take a shower and I was up like a flash! We were at the church by 8:30, men-type-workers in tow.

Slackers!

They set to inflating the balloons — with strict instructions not to waste any of the expensive helium by talking funny — and we set to the hors d’oeuvres. We had a lovely variety of Costco fare and handmade goodies: meatballs and raspberry chipotle sauce, little cream puffs, goldfish crackers (hey, I never said we were high class), salmon mousse on crackers, shrimp mousse cucumber boats, brie and strawberries on crackers, etc. And of course the cake — your basic but beautiful chocolate with buttercream frosting.

Nearly 100 people showed up, at least 15 of whom were at the wedding 50 years ago!

Half the original wedding party joined us!

We all shared wonderful memories,

my niece finally got her solo,

and mom cried . . . a lot. In other words, a total success!

And no one got grumpy or cranky or even a little testy. Not even when, during the clean up, someone let a bunch of balloons loose into the fans nestled in the 25′ high ceiling. Twenty futile minutes of trying to get them down led to my brother saving the day.

It’s called a ‘stadium lift’ and it’s used by firefighters (he’s one) — note that the ladder is solely supported by the three dudes holding safety lines. You should have heard the squeals of concern by all the little old ladies! My aunt couldn’t stand to watch my brother ‘free climb’ so she and my mom held the bottom of the ladder.

Yeah, that’ll help. But it kept them busy and happy. After Brian unraveled the balloons from the fan, Dad took his Red Ryder and popped them all one by one, never missing.

What a great ending!

We now return to our regularly scheduled knitting post.

I made a good deal of progress on my cardigan on the trip — of course I forgot to take a picture this morning, so I have no proof. Both front pieces are done and connected, and I have about one inch of the back done. And there it will sit until Latoya is done.

About three weeks ago, I ordered a bunch of yarn from Joann.com. It was supposed to take about a week to arrive but two weeks later, the package was still MIA. I called the day before we left and, even though their website said it would be shipped USPS, it was shipped via UPS. Normally not a problem but I gave my PO Box. Apparently it was delivered the day after we left.

I was disappointed to not get it earlier because I wanted to get started on Sandy’s birthday present but how exciting is it to come in to work to find a HUGE package waiting for you?! Look at all the yumminess:

For Rob’s cabled throw/blanket — Lion Brand Wool Ease Quick N’ Thick in boring old Denim:

For Sandy’s Latoya — TLC Cotton Plus in Kiwi:

For my On Deck Pullover — TLC Cotton Plus in (gulp!) Hot Pink:

I hate it. hate it hate it hate it. Honestly, I really like the color but would never ever wear it. As I type this, all the Hot Pink is on its way back to Michigan to be exchanged for Spruce, a mellow seafoam-like green.

I must have been in a particularly spunky mood when I settled on Hot Pink — it’s soooooooooooooo not my color. I think Spruce is boring mild enough to be worn more often.

And here’s where I apologize to my TERRIFIC Secret Pal Nosy1. She sent me a great package right before we left that included a ball of purple Rowan Calmer, a pattern for a cabled hat and a bunch of other goodies. I took a pic of it all but it’s disappeared into the ether so THANK YOU NOSY1!