Sunday, June 28, 2009

The aliens are coming!

I finally finished the alien head tank. Turned out pretty well, but I shall wear it tomorrow and see if I can get an on-me pic. Picking up all the stitches for the neck was giving me palpitations so I gave up and crocheted around the edge. I can live with that. Work is giving me the pip. I just realized I have to move my office and the entire library by the beginning of August, and I'm on vacation for two of the four weeks. Nice.

Speaking of work, some people have too much talent to be wasting their time there:


Aren't these the best little... whatever the hell they are's ever???

Monday, June 22, 2009

Things I will never do again.

Birth anything.

Shallow dive into six inches of shallow water, no matter what my sister says.

Knit a tiger dress.

Sleep with someone because I feel obligated.

Move.

Assemble a fucking barbeque. Mostly because this one's going to take me the rest of my life.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Just for the record...

...and then I'll let it go.

You don't set someone up so they can be friends. And if you're not interested, you gotta say so. Otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time.

Take care.

Oh yeah, and mammograms aren't nearly as bad as I expected. OK, it was a bit horrifying to have my giant boobs smushed between SEE-THROUGH plates but otherwise it didn't hurt much, it was maybe mildly uncomfortable.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Stuff...

I cannot knit lace on my 360. I don't know if it's me or the machine, but it's gruesome.

My February Viking Sweater is ticking along quite nicely. Slowly since I've decided knitting at work is unacceptable. Ah well, in a week it will be too hot to wear it so there's no rush.

Knit up the front of my Lotus Blossom on the 360 in half an hour only to discover my gauge was whacked. I swatched and everything, I just didn't check what I got against the what the pattern called for. Einstein.

My children are animals. 'Nuff said.

I have a new baby. A very early Singer/Superba SIT. Of course one of the ones Patrick doesn't have. (I have run across numerous references to Patrick today as he is the Superba king, and it makes me sad.)

I LOVE this machine. The needles are sticky and need replacing and the yarn mast has issues, I suspect, but otherwise look like it will work like a charm. I can even cannibalize the extra clamps from my 360, which is about the only thing it is missing. $50. Quelle bargain. Roni Knutson has a pic of one on her page and it's the only one like it I have seen - and it shows what that round thing is for!
Good thing I have no social life as I can think of much better things to do with my time than waste it on someone with no interest in me.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Cute little bastards

There I am, happily minding my own business composing a shit-or-get-off-the-pot email to my little friend when I hear the unmistakeable rustling of critters on my back porch. I am in the kitchen, with the door to the back porch open behind me. All the doors are open, in fact, in and out of the porch.

Now Toronto raccoons are not little cute things. They are large, fat and feisty. They thrive on garbage and like nothing better than to root through what I am too lazy to cart out to the green bin.

I get up, making a maximum amount of noise in an attempt to get them well out of the porch before I get there. Fortunately they are out of the porch, but to my surprise there is still one lingering on my (new, pristine, unsoiled by raccoon shit) deck. Not so big and menacing, though, so I'm surprised it's still there. I look out the door, intending to shoo it more forcibly away, and there is the littlest wee baby raccoon. About the size of a 2 month old kitten, I'd say.

So my tenderness knows no bounds and I attempt to shoo them away anyway, but the baby is very slow. It must be very new. Finally they manage to make it to the back foliage, mama glaring at me as she wait for the little thing to stagger to her and I go back to the kitchen. I remember my laundry and go get it to hang on the line.

As I come back out to the porch, mama is back in the garden. WTF? Finally I clue in - there's another one! Sure enough, she goes under the pool, propped against my ornamental BBQ (due to it's spectacular malfunction last night) and retrieves another slow baby. This time they are gone much more quickly.

So tiny. So cute. So not wanted in my back yard. I put the garbage in the green bin, did up the clips and shut both porch doors. Don't come-a knocking mama. You're cute but I'd rather you all got run over by a bus than came to live under my deck.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

It ain't right, I tell you.

My neighbour, my friend, has thyroid cancer. She just got married, had her first kid, bought her first home.

Nothing bad better fucking happen to her.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

New Nouvelle Nouveau

Ah, what a lovely day. It's the start of a new season, which is always so lovely. Warm - not hot - air, shiny new leaves and grass, the smell of growth. I love spring, REAL spring.

New pedicure. I'm addicted to shiny new polish and the feel of industrial equipment shaving layers of crap from mine feetses. I feel so purdy.
New cell phone - soon. Mine is on it's last legs and I'm done with PC. The new phones are the worst of the worst, so I'm going to go out on a limb and try *gasp* 7-Eleven mobile. From what I've read it's reliable, cheap and the phones are much better quality.

New swimming season. I remembered! Calvin I got in by phone on the way to work, having given up waiting at home. (What did we do before mobiles?) Jack, by innerwebs, at work, after the meeting I rushed in for was cancelled >:( 4pm. If that means I have to leave early one night a week for a month, so be it.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Retro

My friend Barb has a machine which stamps messages on little metal coins. Tres cool. Apparently they were around in the 70's - at Union Station, Centre Island, probably lots more tourist traps. (I wouldn't know - my parents weren't keen on anything that required money.) You select some letters and it punches your message (for a lasting keepsake!) on the metal token.

She made me this:I'm "Sensei" because I know how to read a pattern and can tell the difference between worsted and fingering weight yarn. Not exactly onerous qualifications, but I'm tickled pink none the less. Barb and Cathy are "Members". Hee. So pleasing. I find the "Good Luck" very appropriate in so many ways.

Also - I saw this on Steeles on my way home from work and I really wanted it. Too bad I don't have a pickup any more.
And I must have a disorder - I want to knit this for Amy Singer:


I loves me some Viking sweater. Miraculously (seriously) I have the same number of stitches in each section of knitting, exactly the right amount.