Friday, January 28, 2005

good knitting news

so nothing is better than the feeling of elation you get when you have been working on a baby blanket for what seems like a year, and never getting to the end, then you realize you are also not going to have enough yarn even though you bought what the pattern told you to, and then you look closely at the size of the blanket, and you realize that it is going to be ENORMOUS if you knit all the rows the pattern told you to knit--but then--you think--wait! did i read this right? and you realize that NO! you didn't! and your baby blanket really only has 112 rows rather than the 212 you thought it was going to have. WHEW!

it really doesn't get any better than that.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

cooking

somewhere over the course of the past few weeks, i let myself get out of the habit of cooking. the hippie and i have been eating out WAY too much lately. and i realized last night, as we were unwinding from a VERY stressful day over a fabulous meal at one of our favorite restaurants--i missed my own cooking. so tonight i made a good, simple, healthy dinner, and i was delighted by it. if i don't cook for a while, i forget how much i like it, how relaxing it is, and the satisfaction that comes from eating something tasty and good for me that i made myself. cooking is like any craft to me--i even like going to the grocery store (i may actually be the only person on the planet who feels this way) becuase i walk around and get inspired to make things. and tonight i had the added bonus of running into friends while shopping for salmon. excellent. and now i am full, but not too full, and i feel good about eating healthy. so yeah--tonight's dinner made me happy.

and now i am finished with the dreaded late night conference call, and i am going to go spend the rest of my evening knitting on the couch with a girl movie in for amusement in the background. i have my tea, i have my biscotti, and i have my headset so that i can continue to knit if someone calls. it will be divine.

status report

mood: eh--ok
body: run down and bleeding
craving: chinese
work: too busy
house: mostly clean
family: quiet--this is good
friends: great--would be better if they were all closer
cats: lazy
knitting - bag: felted--EXCELLENT
knitting - baby blanket#1: 56 rows out of 200
knitting - baby blanket#2: new yarn arrived today and is beautiful
money: what money?
bills: not till friday, man
evening plans: dinner, conference call, knitting
dinner: making this
brain: dead

Friday, January 21, 2005

the bile rises

utterly horrified by this ridiculous piece of news: Christians Issue Gay Warning on SpongeBob Video.

just totally fucking stupid. sometimes i am amazed that these people are actually the same type of animal as me. really.

the part that bothers me the most is this:
Christian groups however have taken exception to the tolerance pledge on the foundation's Web site, which asks people to respect the sexual identity of others along with their abilities, beliefs, culture and race.

"Their inclusion of the reference to 'sexual identity" within their 'tolerance pledge' is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line," James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement released Thursday.
here is my question: where in christianity is it taught that tolerance is crossing a moral line? is not christianity about making decisions for yourself and not casting proverbial stones at the "sinners"? and even if one is to take an evangelical stance, is it not the responsibility of a christian to reach out to the "sinners" and embrace them, and to share their belief systems with them? tell me where it is taught that you should lash out at others? tell me where it is taught that you should fill your children with hate?

god i hate fundamentalists.

if you don't want to watch the fucking video, then don't watch it. but don't come in here and try to dictate the decisions of other people.

alpacas

perhaps we should just sell out and start up an alpaca farm. the more i read, the more i love alpacas.

grey day of babbliness

it's hard for me to believe i have not posted in over a week! time really flies by sometimes, especially when you are busy.

last weekend jenn and gabriella went home with me to my parents' house while the hippie and harry were off in pittsburgh for a game weekend. it was great to have the company for the trip home, and my parents are utterly taken with gabriella (as are we all!) there was a lot of hanging out and talking and knitting--an excellent weekend.

the only problem is that i seem to get behind on all my home stuff when i am gone like that! i am still catching up on the general maintenance. and i have to say, the ridiculous little snow storm we had here on wednesday, which debilitated all of raleigh and caused us to take SIX HOURS to get home from work DID NOT HELP!!! but i digress...

so a week has flown by, and now i am faced with a weekend that should be good, if perhaps a shade overbooked. tonight we will see eric, a fabulous friend of the hippie's: we will have dinner in durham at another thyme and then go see part of a local film festival--a film called ong bak (described by eric as, "no-wires no-green-screen all-analog superstuntwork worthy of jackie chan before he got all doughy"), which stars tony jaa, who is supposed to be the next bruce lee. the hippie is sure to love all the muay thai stunts, and i admit, i am intrigued myself.

in other events this weekend, provided we do not get all iced in, tomorrow we will be heading to the gainey's with the johnsons for an evening of hanging out in burlington and seeing the new baby et al. and sunday may entail some wings and beer and football. the hippie is all hyped up for the steelers to win, but i have to say, i am more of a patriots girl myself. it may be war in the house by sunday. :)

today it is grey and cold-ass outside. i am thrilled that i will be spending the evening mostly indoors. i am NOT thrilled that i can't seem to find the yarn i want to use (patons melody in sunrays) for the new baby blanket i was planning to start this weekend. *sigh* i blame that on the weather too, because hell--why not? grey days just suck.

if we do get iced in tomorrow, i am making a fire and a big ol' pot of venison stew. and watching the rest of season three of 24. damn grant for leaving the crack that is 24 at our house!

i guess i should get back to work, but man, babbling is a lot more fun.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

a note about tea

i know i am Southern and all, and that we are supposed to all love tea. but man--i LOVE tea. i love it strong and black and hot and soothing when it is cold and grey outside. i love it iced and sweet when it is hot and i get to sit on my front porch for an afternoon with a good book. i love it when it is warm and spicy and disguised as milk and sugar when i feel like i just need to relax. i love it when it is fragrant and alcoholic and filled with honey when any part of by body is aching. and as a tribute to this, my single favorite beverage, i will now direct you to some fabulous teas:
  • Mighty Leaf
    with their silken, hand sewn tea pouches and their amazingly high quality loose teas, this company takes the tea experience to a whole new level. i especially love their vanilla bean, earl gold, and bombay chai teas.

  • Hale Tea Company
    i first had the english breakfast tea from this company when i received a small box of it as part of the wedding favor i received when my cousin christin got married in charleston. it remains the single best english breakfast tea i have ever had. it is just unbelievably smooth. (props to the hippie for ordering me a bunch of it for christmas! whoo hoo!)

  • Taylors of Harrogate
    the makers of the FABULOUS scottish breakfast tea. all of their teas are solid, but the scottish breakfast is a hands down favorite almost everyone to whom i have served it. it is strong and black and has a rich red liquor. i love it with lots of milk and sugar. (NOTE: i have not personally purchased from the link i included above--i buy it from a southern season in chapel hill, nc.)
i suggest you go make some tea RIGHT NOW!

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

the sam and i

this morning the sam and i were messaging, as we do every morning. and afternoon. and some nights... but i digress...

let's just call it a running conversation.

anyway--in the course of la conversazione, she said something along the lines of, "she screams texas although she's from oklahoma, but same difference." same difference. it occurred to me that it is important as a Southern person, that you have other Southern people to talk to so that people can understand what the hell you are saying. people who GET things like, "cut off that light," or "y'all," or "i tell you what." i will never forget rita (not Southern, but still cool) spitting water all over the floor when she first heard me use the descriptive phrase, "hog wild." sam says her favorite is "in high cotton," and i have to agree that's a good one.

further, we had some discussion of the word audacity (see stupid creationist comment in previous post about animal sensitivity), and agreed that it would make a good name for a little girl. i pointed out that with my last name, jones, i could name a child ANYTHING and it would sound ok. Audacity Ann Jones. Stigmata Marie Jones. maybe for twins?

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

rant: hold music

why why WHY is it that every time i am put on hold for any reason, i am forced to sit through at least 20 minutes of the worst music i have ever heard in my whole fucking life?!?! stuff that sounds like someone handed michael bolton two synthesizers and a bunch of crack and just turned him loose. this crap is just god-awful, and i may lose my mind before someone at sprint answers the fucking phone!!!!!

is it that they have given up on trying to please everyone, and decided to please no one? because i swear to you, no one actually CHOOSES to listen to this pseudo-jazzy noise.

ugh!

geek moment: animal sensitivity

science of a different sort...

this was just too cool not to share--check out this amazing article about animals' possible ability to sense the coming of natural disasters:

http://www.dawn.com/2005/01/10/int8.htm

i wish I could hear at frequencies that low! what did humans do wrong that we lost all that stuff in our evolution???

Friday, January 07, 2005

people i loathe
(an abbreviated list by jacqueline s. jones)

i was listening to this complete tool who works in my office today talking about mundane shit, and i just wanted to slap him for being the synthesis of all that grates on my nerves about other people and makes me insane and causes me to think about firebombing whole towns. so in my arrogance, and my opinion that MY people are the BEST people, here is a list of some of the things that just make me want to scream:

  1. people who refuse to try new foods. i am not saying you have to relish everything set in front of you, but dude--at least try it once. if you hate it, you never have to eat it again.
  2. people who do not see beauty and can't appreciate good aesthetics. you don't have to agree with me about what is beautiful, as long as you can find your own beauty in this world.
  3. racist people. nothing seems more idiotic to me than racism.
  4. people who do not understand that cleanliness and grooming are important, especially if you are going to go out in public.
  5. people without the motivation to satisfy their own curiosity. for example, a person who wonders what a word means, but can't be bothered to look it up in a dictionary.
  6. people with huge senses of entitlement. you have to earn what you get in this life--no one owes you a goddamned thing.
  7. people who can see success only in material objects, and who cannot appreciate that success means different things to different people.
  8. people who are lazy when it comes to bettering their own lives. people who know what they want but don't go after it out of sheer laziness.
  9. people who live in fear--fear of new things, fear of failure, fear of other people's opinions... fear immobilizes you if you let it. we all have it, but you just gotta get over that noise.
  10. self-absorbed people who are too caught up in their own shit to care about other people.

and at the end of all that, the people i hate the most are those who tell me i am crazy for my passions and for pouring so much energy into my life, and/or people who tell me i can't get everything done.

no--i am not opinionated in the slightest.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

talking to rita...

talking to my friend rita always inspires me to make more stuff. she is an awesome jewelry designer, and i would show you her website except that it is totally out of date--i think she might kill me if she suddenly started getting requests from the internet for all this jewelry she can't make anymore. beyond the jewelry, she is also a beautiful painter and one of the smartest people i have ever met.

but yeah. miss working with rita, and dream of having a shop with rita someday. nothing could be better that owning a little shop with her where we could both make things all day and sell them to all the wonderful people who would come through our doors. we could stock the whole store with things made by us and by all the other cool women we know who also make beautiful things.

too bad rita and i live so far away from each other and that neither of our SOs does something that could be easily done where the other one lives. because i think if we lived closer together, then we would have already done this. i really do. dammit.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

alias!

tonight will be fabulous.

first, the hippie and i will go eat a quick and healthy mediterranean dinner at neomonde, a fabulous restaurant and bakery.

then, i will go meet the fabulous women in my knitting group for some knittin' time, during which i hope to make it to the fun part of my soon-to-be-felted blue bag where i get to put in the novelty yarn accents. love the novelty yarn! also love the girl time and the knitting time et al. NOTE: here is the bag i am making; it's the small, red bag in this picture.

and then, the hippie and i will go over to our friends jason and maggie's house for the season 4 premier of alias. alias is like crack, and tonight, we get TWO WHOLE HOURS of it (minus commercials). i am predicting that jack bristow will be revealed to be even more of a badass than we thought. and i bet sydney gets blindsided at least once and caught twice. she's just the worst spy ever--but i digress... thank god lauren is dead. i just can't WAIT!

whoo hoo for the evening ahead!

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

warning: post will be rambly

i am feeling like babbling, and you, internet, just have to put up with it. or if you would rather not, then you can go be entertained by one of the fabulous blogs to which i have linked in my sidebar. if you are game, however, stick around, and we will see where we go.

i made a new year's resolution: no french fries and no chips for a year. that's all. i have other goals for the year, but i would not call them new year's resolutions. like get out of debt and start saving some money, lose about 50 pounds, yadda yadda yadda--all the usual shit i talk about. but the fries and chips thing is a bona fide resuolution. done with those till 2006.

i bought my friend jenn a fabulous knitting book for christmas, weekend knitting, by melanie falick. and the funny thing is, jason's grandmother bought the same book for me. not that i think this is a total coincidence, but man, am i glad to have it! it was recommended to me by becky ganzhorn, and awesome woman i wish lived close enough to me to actually hang out with. i am dying to make like half the stuff in this book RIGHT NOW. but i have to finish a baby blanket, two more scarves, and a felted bag i am working on first. then--look out.

so, tonight i am having an evening at home alone--the first in a long while. and while i love my hippie, and i am happy to see all of our friends as much as we can, i am also glad for a bit of time to myself. especially becasuse tonight there is nothing i feel i have to get done. i am puttering about, and it is fabulous.

the hippie was telling me today that /. had an article on blog reading in 2004 in which they said that blog reading was up 58% last year. i have a personal theory that this is because so many technically-minded folks were (and still are) unemployed. if they are like i was, then they are already online, so why not read something interesting while looking for jobs that don't exist? thus, the blog. i bet this trend just continues to grow. people like looking into other people's closets, even if the closet turns out to be not so interesting.

speaking of which, a friend of mine recently told me my blog was boring. he said that i talk only about work and cleaning, with which i do NOT agree. but still i have been thinking about this. i think that the problem is that he has known me a long long time, so he knows many of my stories. i am a story-teller by nature, something i got from my mother. and if you talk to me in person, then you quickly learn that i am animated and amusing and talk with my whole body. and i think that these stories for which he longs would not translate so well to the internet. plus i am faced with two other problems:
a) i think that, taken out of context, some of the stories could grossly misrepresent me or offend someone utterly by accident. it is hard to get your intent across all the time with just type.

b) many many many of these stories are about my family, and i am reluctant to put their stories on the internet. further, some of them involve *ahem* somewhat *ahem* illicit activities.
so--um--no. the things i talk about here are just whatever things i happen to be thinking about. maybe i will try a couple of stories sometime to see how they go, and then add from there. but internet, i am not optimistic.

and for a complete non sequitur: yesterday i fed ella catherine, the baby daughter of my friends jeff and carrie, and then held her for like an hour. she fell asleep on my chest like a little bean, and it was divine. (but i think it scared the crap out of the hippie.)

and on yet another completely unrelated topic, i bought some new black pants at last. (i'd show you a picture, but they are gone from the website already.) i have been trying not to spend too much on clothes as i am not the size i want to be, but a person just needs a good pair of black pants. my previous ones died a long and painful death, but--they're dead, jim. so thank god a suitable replacement could be located. i also decided to forego the fabulous john fluevog shoes i almost bought to wear with my jeans in favor of getting some new workout clothes. the workout clothes will do mo more good right now i think. my ass needs to be in the gym, and i am hoping that fashion will help inspire me.

let's see--i can't think of shit else, so i must be done rambling for now. thanks for putting up with it for this long.