Zombie Love

I decided to buy candy for the little demons, and we had about 10 kids come to the door (anyone want 4 pounds of Tootsie Rolls and Tootsie Pops?). Some were hesitant to knock or ring the doorbell, and some were really nice (“Can’t go wrong with Tootsie Rolls!” which makes me think that yeah, maybe I did go wrong and the kid was just being polite in the same way he’s polite to his auntie who gives him crew socks for Christmas), and overall it was a good time. A good way to start being part of this neighborhood we live in. Participating, and all. I didn’t dress up for the trick-or-treaters, though.

I had this great idea for a Halloween costume. I was going to be Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, because I heart her (don’t talk to me about the first half of Season Four, I haven’t seen it yet) and I like her style. I often wish I had the nerve to punch the daylights out of my authority figures, too.

This was going to be a good costume. I was considering dyeing my hair blond and had it in mind to purchase the tank tops that the BSG military wear under their uniforms (I’m such a geek). Turns out, though, that time moves forward whether or not you’re paying attention to it, and sometimes it moves faster than you think. I didn’t get any part of my costume prepared.

So on Saturday, the day after Halloween, I decided on a new costume and went to the local resale shop to find something suitable. Miraculously, I did in fact find something that sort of matched what I wanted. NinjaHusband asked me what I was going as, and I gave him this long and sort of rambling response during which his eyebrows got higher and higher on his head, as if the looking askance at me wasn’t enough and they wanted to be as far away from my crazy as possible.

I dressed up in Day of the Dead makeup & clothes. Day of the Dead isn’t a zombie movie (as was guessed by many of my fellow party-goers), it’s the Dia de los Muertos holiday, blah blah blah, it’s totally not worth going into the whole thing. I looked like this:

It’s not that crazy, though I’ll give you that it’s hard to explain. Whatever. I had fun and NinjaHusband said my makeup looked good and I did it all myself and though I did not win best costume at the party, I managed to scare and then enchant the wee Mad Cow at the party:

Her parents were Zombie Cowgirl and Zombie Cowboy, zombified when their cow got mad cow disease and bit them. Backstory is essential to a good Zombieween.

She cried when she first saw me, but then wanted me to pick her up many times throughout the night and delighted in yelling “SKULL!!” at me whenever she saw me. Good times.

You can see all our Zombieween pictures here, including the one where CornBred dressed up as a zombie version of my husband.

Adam and Beth were the best hosts ever, and Zombieween 2008 rocked hard. Well done!

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To see the senorita with flowers in her hair

This past weekend we went to Kentucky to visit the new baby girl (and her parents) for whom I made the blindingly pink baby blanket. We had a blast.

We left about 1:00pm on Friday, and made our way through the city and onto I-65 south. This is a deceptive highway, lulling you into complacency with its straightness, making you think that your drive will continue to be easy-peasy. And then you hit Indianapolis. Bastards with evil brains devised the freeway naming and exchange system, and vicious evil bastards came up with our directions (Dear Rand McNally, I want 40 minutes of my life back please. Love, me.). It didn’t help that NinjaHusband remembered a way through the city that was different from the one on our directions, and it didn’t help that when we followed the directions (get on 465 and stay on it for 21.3 miles till you find 865) we discovered that there is possibly a wormhole in the middle of Indianapolis. Because it didn’t take us 21.3 miles to find 865. It took us maybe 3 miles. Maybe the directions were wrong, but I choose to believe that within the confines of the Indianapolis city limits lurkes a benevolent wormhole that channels innocent travelers immediately to their destinations. And how can I get one to move in between us and Chicago.

Anyway. We got to Lexington in good time and got to our friends’ house and met Miss O. for the first time.

Mom A. and Baby O., sitting on a porch in downtown Lexington. Look at those cheeks!!

Miss O.’s parents loved the baby blanket I made, and the word on the street is that she likes it too. Of course, I have no pictures of her actually with the blanket, because that wasn’t the point. The point was to take pictures of the tiny new baby.

However, Miss O. decided to smoosh her face into the chest/shoulder/arm of whoever was holding her.

Husband holding baby. Right now, the hottest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Including Dominic West half-naked in an episode of The Wire.

This one shows her face a bit better, and she looks just like her dad. Our friend M. has beautiful hair, which O. loved to grab in her sleep.

After we sat and chatted we walked home. Miss O’s mom was feeling sore, so I carried the baby. Seven-and-half pounds doesn’t seem like much, but after a walk of a mile or so my arm started to cramp up. When we got back to the house this seemed like the best course of action:

It was a great weekend. I’m so glad we got to see our friends and meet their baby, and hold their baby, and make faces at their baby… possibly we should get one of our own.

And the best part about Lexington, and the parts we saw of it were really great, is this:

Gas was only $2.98 a gallon. Win!

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In praise of…

Air travel We flew out of O’Hare on Friday with our friends Margaret (of the comments) and Wade. (things went ultra smoothly as we only had carryon bags and didn’t check any luggage.) This was my first plane trip with NinjaHusband (oddly, as we’ve been together almost 11 years) and it was very very cool. Not only did I get a seatmate I could actually lean against and drool on without repercussion, I got free help with the landings.

I’m a huge fan of air travel for the speed and convenience (sort of… I don’t really like taking off my shoes in public or having a stranger paw through my undergarments to get to whatever set off the buzzer), and I love the heck out of the takeoffs. Love them. Can’t get enough. However, I’m a basket case on the landings. The plane seems to descend, then go back up, then descend again, then go right back up, and my stomach is not built for such things. I have vomited on airplanes before (twice), always on the landings. (Plus, when I was 13 and my family was flying back to O’Hare from Orlando, my Dad pointed out to me the cemetery located just to the right of our runway as we landed and said, “How convenient, that must be where they bury the ones who don’t make it.” GREAT MORALE BOOSTER, DAD.)

Anyway, this weekend I was able to close my eyes and lean on NinjaHusband and let him deal with the landings (apparently, and I didn’t realize this until this weekend, my being alert and completely freaked out makes the plane land safely. But if I pass this responsibility on to someone else, the plane still lands safely. I just had to find the right person). No vomiting!

Washington, D.C. I love the heck out of this city. We flew in to National Airport (okay, it has another name but we do not speak it) and there is a Metro stop right there. Easy! We rode the Metro to our stop and the hotel was a block away from that station. Easy! When we went to lunch the next day, the Metro took us to great vegan chili cheese fries. Easy! The wedding was at St Mark’s Episcopal Church and the reception was in our hotel (Easy Easy!). Everything about this weekend was easy, which is due to the awesomeness of Washington DC (minus the madmad running about the White House or Capitol Hill with a shotgun and a sword and some arrowheads, which closed a bunch of streets on Capitol Hill but which no one is reporting on so no links), and due to the awesomeness of…

Jason and Becky who were kind enough to get married this weekend.

the ring bearer, who was Becky’s little brother

I brought zero knitting with me, which turned out to be the right choice because I had absolutely no time to knit. I slept on the plane both there and back, and our hours were filled with wedding fun time all weekend. Oh, and NinjaHusband sang beautifully at the wedding. There were tears, and not just from me.

If I can make it through this week, I’ll show you my most current projects. (Hint: the green socks haven’t moved at all. Another Hint: the purple socks are not speaking to me anymore.) The swatches have been blocked, though, as you can see from the pretty purple squares, and I’ll be starting the math on the Cable Spiral Pullover soon. If I can make it through this week.

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Random before I leave again

1. Guys, the doula training last weekend was beyond awesome. It was amazing. Three solid days of birth talk, with seven other classmates and two instructors. Huge.

It’s hard to boil it down into a few words that won’t bore you if you’re not a birth junkie. I can say it was energizing and exciting and eye-opening and delightful, but that’s not even a tiny bit of it. Seeing my weaknesses and strengths in this capacity was so fun — especially seeing where I need to improve. I feel like I got so much out of this past weekend. I’m so very happy about it.

2. Very little knitting has been done in the past week. I’ve done nothing on the green socks, and nothing on the purple sock. Too much busy happening all over the place. I did work up two swatches (on two different sets of the allegedly same sized needles) in Knit Picks Merino Style (in Cornflower, though the actual project will be in Frost). They are blocking as I type. Next step is to measure my swatches, then measure myself. I’m going to add waist shaping to this sweater, which is exciting and new. There will be math, and there will probably be me curled up on the floor, weeping.

3. My ipod loves Coldplay tonight. Huh.

4. I’m leaving again this weekend. Friends of ours are getting married in Washington, DC, this Saturday. We’re flying out Friday night, NinjaHusband is playing guitar and singing during the wedding, and then we’re flying home Sunday. Busy busy busy.

And very little knitting done this weekend, too. Does anyone know if metal DPNs are allowed on domestic flights? The TSA website isn’t saying, though they do have a “sharp objects” section.

And I just realized I need to go buy tiny travel-sized contact lens solution, hair products, and whatnot. This is how they’re stimulating the economy, eh?

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Merry Holidaytime!

Special thanks to Penny for sending this lovely piece!

Have a delicious/happy/joyous/cylindrical holiday (I’m feeling a little abstract just now)!

May all your gauge swatches never lie to you, and may your yarn never snag!

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Recap and Review

My Stitches Midwest 2007 Experience can be summed up in the following picture-less points (sorry, the Dada camera is still at the repair shop):

1. If you can help it, don’t go to Stitches when you’re ill. It really brings down your energy level and there is nothing at Stitches that feels better than a nap.

2. That said, I had a really great time hanging out with Femiknitter and exploring the giant knitters’ playground that is Stitches. I loved every minute of the four hours that we were there, and had a blast napping when we got back to her folks’ house. And eating spicy food that opened up my sinuses. And going to bed really early. (Nick was right; the knitter in me was stronger than the cold, but just barely.)

3. I managed to stay within my self-imposed yarn budget. This was both an awesome thing and a sort of sad thing. It was awesome because, hey! I’ve got self-control, but it was sad because hey! when else am I going to see this much amazing yarn in one place. I blame my self-control entirely on my cold, of course. Had I been more lucid I would have said to hell with the budget and pulled out the MasterCard.

4. I purchased 6 balls of Kureyon (enough to finish up the afghan) (mostly bright colors); 2 skeins of ShiBui Knits sock yarn in Orchid; 2 skeins of Koigu in black (I’m not linking to anything here because, well, it’s black Koigu. You can probably imagine what it looks like.) because I have some pretty Koigu leftover from my first socks and I think that color would make cute toes and heels on a black sock; 1 skein of Chapman Springs STR in lightweight and 1 skein in Sapphire STR in lightweight (apparently not on the website yet) (for a Chevron Scarf… mmm!); and 1 enormous cone of Valley Yarns something-or-other that is comparable to Rowanspun (I don’t really know… I was delirious from the great deal — $32.00 — and the fever) in a luscious brown-with-pinkish-bits. It’s going to be the Tangled Yoke Cardigan from the new IK.

5. Not a huge haul, but everything I bought makes me feel good. And I had a plan going in. Everything I bought had a specific and pre-determined purpose, except the ShiBui Knits sock yarn. That just made me giggle, so it had to come home with me. Having a plan RULES!

6. This is the part where I make a little grumpy noise. I’m going to preface my grumpy noise by saying I like Tess’ Yarns. I love Melinda’s color sense and I love the base yarns. Last year I bought two skeins of their microfiber ribbon, but didn’t have a pattern for it (do you see why I went in with a plan this year?). What made me a little grumpy was the set up of their booth at Stitches. None of the yarns had pricetags on them — you had to get a price sheet (of which they kept running out, and were taxed with printing more) to find out what the stuff cost. And when I tried to buy a pattern for the microfiber ribbon yarn tank top, I had to wait in line THREE TIMES because the pattern just could not be found (It eventually turned up, after my third wait in line, as we were ready to leave). This is just a review of their service at Stitches in a crazybusy situation — I’m sure the online and bricks-and-mortar store service are better.

7. I am feeling much healthier now. I’m not at all disgusting anymore, which pleases me no end.

I’m sorry this post is so boring and picture-less. I’ve had to rely on a surreptitiously borrowed camera, and it’s not always available when I want it to be. Hopefully the Dada camera will return to me soon, free of all its Dada tendencies.

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In Martian Years I’m 14 Again

Have you ever wondered how old you’d be on another planet? (It would be different than on earth, because of science.) Who hasn’t? Through the power of the internets, you can find out your age on other planets. It’s a great way to start your work week. By not doing some work.

This link is posted in honor of someone (who may or may not be a friend, a knitter, and/or a blogger) whose birthday may or may not be today or near today. I may be making this person up.

And despite the vast amounts of time I have spent on Ravelry in the past … um, 6 days, I have actually managed to knit something. Nothing very exciting, of course, but it’s something and I knit it.

Kureyon 183, a gift from CathiPink

Kureyon 128, from Heather

Alright then, two somethings. These two blocks bring the total to nine, and I’m working on the tenth — I’m halfway there!

Now I’m off to stalk the Ravelry ISO board for more Kureyon.

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I Am With My People

My day started all virtuous-like. I went to the chiropractor (where I heard, again, that I’m running sideways, and to stretch ALL THE TIME), went to the gym, then stopped at various stores for those necessities I mentioned.

And then apparently I made a vow to devote my writing time equally between normal writing and parenthetical writing (I think it’s working out pretty well so far).

So, I ate lunch, thought about what I was going to pack in my knitting bag, showered, and then had like 3 more hours until I wanted to leave for Oak Brook (I wanted to get there early, but 6 hours before the reading started sounded a little nuts, even to me).

What did I do with all that time?
I made the bed (a rare occurance Chez HookOn, unless I’ve just changed the sheets)…

… I washed most of the dishes and cleaned the counters and (though you can’t see it from here) I even swept and sort-of-mopped the floor (I used a wet paper towel to get all the leftover crumbs)…

… and I cleaned the stove (it was truly horrific. The bowls and protective rims that sit under the burners? I’m not sure if I have ever cleaned them, and I’ve lived in this apartment for three years. They are soaking in the sink.)

At this point I was feeling quite virtuous, and very deserving of a trip to see my most favorite author. I selected projects to take along to the reading, two of which you’ve already seen…

the grey bag ends (heh) for the to-be-felted bag,

and the second pair of socks (STR Fred Flintstone, lightweight, 2.5mm needles).

(make note of how much shorter the top sock is than the bottom sock… this will come into play later on.*)
The third project is a headband (the same one that Femiknitter made a while back) that I just started yesterday as I waited to leave for Oak Brook. I’ll talk more about it later, because right now it is just i-cord, and you know what that looks like.

I left my house about 4:00pm with my knitting, necessities, water, and camp chairs. Why camp chairs? Because I heard that Borders in Oak Brook was only putting out 75 chairs. Then I heard it was 100 chairs. Foolish muggles — when will they learn?

Laugh at me if you will, but I get a little nervous driving into the suburbs when I’m going somewhere for the first time. I don’t get nervous about the actual driving, but I worry that I’ll miss my exit and accidentally drive to Indiana (almost happened once).

I arrived without mishap at 5:10pm. Here’s the view I had (from the fourth row… yes!!!!)

I walked in and saw the tell-tale signs that I was not the only knitter there. Shawls on shoulders, knit-or-die t-shirts(no actual picture, I was walking out of the bathroom and, strangely, didn’t have my camera ready), felted bags… it was great. I bought some books and while I was in line I saw a woman wearing this great pink cabled sweater (do I have a picture? No, of course not) and I asked her if she made it and if I could touch it AND SHE DIDN’T BACK AWAY! She was a knitter and she understood!

I don’t know if this applies to anyone else, but I’ve gotten the feeling that people (muggles) think I’m working a few beers shy of a six-pack when I walk up to them and ask to examine their sweaters. This is off-putting (to me) and makes me feel like my knitting is this highly un-understandable weird anomaly, and therefore, you know, so am I.

But this! This room full of knitters! I felt completely at home and comfortable. If you know me personally, you might snicker at this, but generally I feel kind of shy and awkward with people I don’t know. Especially groups. However, this appears to apply only to muggles. I was all over the place, talking… (turns out my one-seat-away neighbor Renae [Hi Renae!] used to live in DeKalb and demonstrated how to use 2 circular needles to make an in-the-round item [a new-to-me concept]) …and ogling yarn across the aisle and getting up to talk to the knitter about where she got it and what was it, and having a grand old time. Everyone was saying things like “I love that, what is it?” and “What are you working on” and eventually a wise woman stepped up to the microphone and said “While we’re waiting, who wants to have a show-and-tell?” So we all showed off what we were working on. It was amazing. It was like this huge stitch-n-bitch full of happy energy. During the show-and-tell (I think), Nick sent me a text message saying he hoped I was having fun. My return text message said “I am with my people!”

Anna (who has written about all this already) and Heather were there by this point, and we were just looking at each other grinning. Grinning like fools.

Then Stephanie appeared. She blogged us blogging her blogging us (one of those infinite cat things… infinite blogger?),

(the Bohus? freaking stunning in person)
and she spoke. And she was hilarious and encouraging and unifying and hilarious and smart and strong and ohmygod was she funny. I saw her two years ago (or thereabouts (I just said “thereabouts.” I am my father.)) and I loved that experience, but I had just learned to knit and didn’t feel comfortable doing any work while I was trying to listen to her. This time, I had no trouble knitting while she was talking (I knit on the socks only, by the way), and could even look up from my knitting when I got to the stockinette parts! I felt like a real, live, grown-up knitter!

After she was done speaking and taking questions (during which she introduced a seven-year-old knitter to the word “harlot” and some of its meaning, and almost fell over laughing while doing so), we all got in a line to get our books signed (knitters with children first!). Strangely, the three of us all had socks on the needles. A lovely fellow knitter took our picture:

and then I took hers — blog, meet Rachel. Hi Rachel!

Her sock (that of her second pair ever) matched her knitting bag and her top and jacket ENTIRELY BY COINCIDENCE. She may be the most coincidentally well-put-together knitter I’ve ever met. (it was great to wait in line with you!)

Then we got to the signing table and I gave Stephanie some wee gifties (from the three of us DeKalb knitters) and I got to hold the sock (!!!)

and of course, we’re blurry.

I had the best time.

*(And the socks that were wildly different lengths when I began my tale?…

… I can’t tell them apart now!)

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Some Observations

1. The weather has gone bat-shit crazy, as is usual here for March. Yesterday it rained all morning, got sunny and warm at lunchtime, then went grey and evil during the afternoon. Then it snowed all night with high winds (my apartment building? It sways in the wind. Yes.), and that seems to be the trend for today. Fantastic. But the weird-and-happy thing is, the wind that’s blowing feels not as soul-crushingly cold as it has been. That long-awaited season (I’m not going to jinx it by saying its name) is coming!

2. I have purchased new yarn.

Cherry Tree Hill in Monet.

Fleece Artist in Moss.

I decree that this is not a falling off of the KFYS wagon. I have determined that casting on for a second pair of socks practically equals finishing a second pair of socks, the prerequisite for purchasing more sock yarn. Plus I wanted it. Plus the CTH has turned into a beautiful teal-green-based rainbow of a yarn cake. And the pretty pretty Moss is for a specific project (more on that later… it is marinating just now). So I am entirely justified. I mean it.

3. Our friends Mark and Amy are coming to town tonight! We haven’t seen them since New Year’s Eve: Hammerfist Style and I’m totally excited about it. Friends of ours are having their wedding reception tomorrow, and MarkAmy are staying with us and it’s going to be awesome with the cooking together and the dressing up for the party and the hanging out. I’ve started the pre-preparation for the crockpot dinner I’m going to put together on my lunch hour, and dinner will be ready just after they get here, and all will be awesome. Awesome, I say!!

4. I have made progress on the to-be-felted tote.

I finished the base,

and cast on about thirty-seven times for the side. First it was too small. Then it was too big. Then it was way too big. Then it was too small. Now it is just right. Ugh. Garter stitch is a little sneaky stitch when it comes to how many stitches equal how many rows. This last time (the time that seems to be working, unless I have jinxed myself by saying that) I cast on 64 stitches, which is the number of ridges (2 rows of garter) I have in the base. I hope this is right.

5. My Mom’s feet make sort of cracking/snapping sounds when she walks. It’s not painful (I think) or problematic, her feet just do that. When I was little I could always tell when she was walking down the hall or up the stairs or wherever, just by hearing her feet snap. I never really thought about it until I moved out of the house and didn’t hear it regularly anymore. This morning, as I got up early to chop vegetables, my feet made the snapping noise and I realized that my feet have been making that noise for a long time. I have my mother’s feet. It made me all happy.

(I just don’t have any good recent pictures of me and Mom, what with the camera being a twit, so I give you a picture from my wedding day)

Anyone else have any physical trait from your parents that makes you smiley and happy?

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My camera is a vampire

Yesterday was a damn fine day.

I had a guest, we went shopping, watched a goofy movie, and stayed up really late.

And I discovered that my camera only takes decent pictures when there is absolutely no natural light. It’s a damn vampire. Let it not be said that my camera defies artificial light. Oh no, it defies natural light. So helpful for color accuracy. Stupid flux-capacitor problem.

Anyway! I had so much fun hanging out with Femiknitter and I probably acted like a squirrely puppy all day because I was so excited to see her. Yes, I did just see her in October, but this time we got to spend all day together and she stayed over and we knit while watching Talledega Nights and that doesn’t happen every day, you know. (I’m usually pretty good with words, but the only way to adequately describe my excitement is to grin all huge, jump up and down, and twirl a bit. See? Squirrely puppy.)

Oh yes, there was yarn purchased (on sale! 20% off! I’ll justify it anyway I can!):

I bought 1 ball of Noro Kureyon #40, 1 ball Noro Kureyon #182, and 2 skanks of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Flames (Flames! On the side of my face!). I’ve been coveting that colorway of Lorna’s Laces for a while (and then there was a sale!), and since I announced my love for Lizard Ridge, I thought I’d get a couple balls of Kureyon to have around whenever I want to start that deliciously portable project.

And what’s this?

Why, it’s a centerpiece bowl full of sock yarn on my dining table of course!

(candlesticks = wedding present; bowl = Christmas present; sock yarn = sweet, sweet yarny goodness)

And hey, this is my last post for the year, so I want everyone to have a safe and fun-filled New Year’s Eve! Woohoo!

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