reading: A Stroke of Midnight

A Stroke of Midnight, by Laurell K. Hamilton
ok, my expectations of laurell k. hamilton are really not all that high. she is a pulp fiction style writer who tells fantastic stories about vampires, were-animals, and faeries in modern times--this is somewhat cheesy but in general, works for me. i expect a certain amount of fluff from her, but also a quick escapist read that will be entertaining. lots of sex and bloodletting--a guilty pleasure the hippie and i (and his mother) share. it used to be that i thought if her like phillip k. dick--an author who makes up for so-so writing skills by being such a great plotter. lately, however, she has been disappointing me. she dwells so much on the details of every sex scene in her last few books that she is actually stalling in the story telling. they are degenerating into soft-core porn novels with no real plots--it's sad.

a stroke of midnight is one of her faerie books, continuing the story she (sort of) started in the last one, a caress of twilight, but in neither book is there ANY conclusion to anything at all. the end is just like the end to a chapter, with no loose ends tied up, no thing to think about till the next book comes out--no cliffhangers even. *sigh* this book ended just as it got going. overall a blah experience. she would have done better to have waited till the story was complete and then published one big fat book.

looking forward to better book experiences, i am planning to finish up jonathan strange and mr. norrell before we leave for the beach (in less than two weeks!), and i have my beach books all lined up:

• the time traveler's wife, by audrey niffenegger, about which i have heard great things
• assassination vacation, by sarah vowell, which looks FABULOUS (the dedication made me laugh), and was highly recommended by our friend, jason puryear
• the mermaid chair, by sue monk kidd, who wrote the secret life of bees, which i LOVED and highly recommend

wedding weekend

i can't believe it's taken me so long to write anything about last weekend--i have had too much actual work to do at work, and at home, i am just trying to catch up from not being home on the weekends for the last month! anyway--kimmie is all hitched up now, to her beloved scott. they are chillin' in st. lucia, and i am terribly jealous of their week in the tropics.

jenn and kristin


ann-marie and bruce

as for me, i came through my latest stint as a bridesmaid relatively unscathed. this is largely in part to the presense of the lovely people you see here: my fellow bridesmaids jenn and kristin, as well as kimmie's cousin ann-marie and her fabulous husband, bruce. we hung out with these guys more than anyone else last weekend, and they made things quite a lot of fun. so, let's see: the earrings were a hit, the dresses look shinier in the pictures than they really were, and were pretty OK except for their tendency to show every drop of water that came within ten feet of them (gotta love taffeta), my silver charles david shoes were as fabulous as i knew they would be, and my manicure and pedicure both survived the weekend. (a miracle for the manicure--i am hell on my hands!) ann-marie, that rebel, had some glitter on her manicure and some little purple flowers painted on her toes--i admit i coveted those flowers! also wonderful to see was how in love with each other ann-marie and bruce are--they have been together 20 years and married for 14, and they are still like teenagers--flirting and laughing together. so cute!

a highlight of the wedding reception was a song that we the bridesmaids wrote and sang for kimmie during the toasting. kimmie has SO many great stories, but unfortunately most of them are not really meant for public consumption, especially by people like HER MOTHER! so, while sitting at our table drinking, we started toying with this little song containing some rather cryptic versions of many of her "adventures"--it was actually pretty damned funny, and ALL the bridesmaids participated, and ALL the bridesmaids actually got up in front of the 250-ish guests and sang the thing to her. she laughed; she cried. so i am calling that a success.

in other wedding news, this was the first time in my life i have had an updo i actually LIKED. i usually feel like the updo looks like straightend and re-curled ass glued to my head with 4 cans of hairspray and 200+ bobby pins, but this time--no! it actually looked more kate-winslet-ish than i ever knew it could. i swear, if i lived in atlanta, i would make an appointment with this woman who did my hair in two seconds--she has curly hair herself, and i think it made ALL the difference. have to highly recommend the blowout salon on paces ferry road if you are are ever down that way and need some hair care.

and i can't say enough about the hippie at this wedding. it was not the most fun weekend for him, but he was just great. he kept me company and helped me get ready for all the events, and came to the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the reception and got his social on--he chatted with strangers, got to know the other bridesmaids, and was in general VERY supportive of me. plus he looked just HOT all weekend--he cleans up well. plus--as if that's not enough--i learned this last weekend that the boy can DANCE. he LIKES it and makes other people dance, too! he is so awesome--love my hippie.

i would say that the biggest downside to the weekend was the wedding photographer, who made us go outside before the wedding, where the ground was wet, and do things like RUN toward her in our formal wear, and play ring-around-the-rosie around kimmie, and kept saying, "can't you guys go any faster?!" i think she was unaware of the fact that we were, in fact, grown women in taffeta skirts and 3-inch heels sporting $50 updos that are easilly jarred loose by RUNNING! hello?! plus, she glared at ME when i took any pictures. grrrr.

all of that said--the woman really does take great pictures--i am forced to admit this after pursuing her website, Lori Suzanne Photography. she may have rubbed me the wrong way, but she really is a great photographer.

oh, and the flowers were moldy. ew.

the motherlode

the motherlode

apparently today is administrative professionals day. who knew? the bosspeople from my day job just came in here and gave me 6 bottles of FABULOUS-looking wine. oddly enough, i have never had any of these, which is something of a statistical improbability. the hippie and i, we drink us some wine, so it's cool to have all these new ones to try now--whoo hoo! the bosspeoples--they be cool.

i am a 50's housewife

Mr. Clean MagicReach

it's funny how a cleaning product can actually change your life. last night i cleaned my bathroom with my brand new mr. clean magic reach scrubby thingy, and i think this might be the cleanest that room has been since the house was built in 1930-somehing. i have kylie to thank for this one--i was helping her clean the apartment she was moving out of last weekend, and she handed me one of these to use. it's a DREAM! it's like everything good about a swiffer and scrubbing bubbles and a scrub brush, all rolled into one thing. i bought one the next day. and as i was picking mine out, this other woman came into the grocery store and started looking at them, too. she goes--have you used one of these before? and yes, i sold her one. mr. clean should be sending me money for how much i have talked about this thing!

i know we are all liberated women here, and that we are glad to have the choices we have today and to be free to do what we want with our lives, yadda yadda yadda. but i swear, i think in my heart, i just want a clean house and a fabulous dinner on the table. oh, and to make stuff. i think most of the women i know feel this way too, at least some of the time.

and over the past several years, i have periodically had these bizarre, commercial-like conversations with so many of the women i know--we ALL seem to get off on a good cleaning product.

i have karen to thank for the scrubbing bubbles, sam for the mr. clean magic erasers and the oxy-clean, kimmie for the clorox wipes, jenn for the swiffer and the vanilla-lavender downy, and i just had a long conversation with emily about cold water tide (which sucks, by the way--stick with your plain old tide). in turn, i have sold many on these products as well as the dish soap from williams-sonoma, about which i am evangelical. i am also in love with my new lavender-rosemary dryer sheets from restoration hardware.

i also learned this past weekend from eric's vacuum that my vacuum cleaner sucks, and i now want a new one (a dirt devil one, bagless, with a hose long enough to reach the corners of my ceiling). heh--tina, who works across the hall from me is trying to win a free vacuum online as we speak--see? we are ALL 50's housewives is some ways...

i wish i was home cleaning.

countdown to the beach

beach house 2005

time flies, man. hard to believe that there are only 26 days till we go to the beach. every year, my physics study group and i take a week and head to the beach together. we generally have between 5 and 12 people for this adventure--this year we have 9, including baby ella. we are renting half of this beach house you see here, called a tarheel east. (i think it's a stupid name, but then beach house names always seem to be...) i always really look forward to this trip--i get to cook all the time, walk on the beach with my hippie, hang out with old friends, go sailing, poke around in some shops, and eat a lot of really fresh seafood, so it's just about perfect for me. some of what i am anticipating this year:

sailing out to the cape lookout lighthouse with lookout cruises. these guys run a laid back cruise line with bunches of different options--twice we have gone on their sunset cruise, but i am hoping to do something a little different this year. they have a cruise out to the cape lookout national seashore, which includes a lunch catered by the beaufort grocery company--fabulous--and lots of shelling time. plus you sail by the lighthouse, which i have never seen.

eating at stardust in morehead city, easily my favorite restaurant in the state. i am hoping our favorite waitress, darla, is still there and that we can sit in the cubby area upstairs. they have the best food--it's sort of an upscale lowcountry dining experience with great attention to detail. the vegetables are more than half the show and are as fress as their daily catches. YUM!!!

mixing drinks with meredith. last year i didn't feel much like drinking, but i seem to be getting back into my groove. i have been drinking a lot of wine lately, but something about the beach makes me want the mai tai and well, anything with a bunch of fruit and umbrellas and flowers in it. hunks of pineapple and edible orchids and flamingo straws in my tiki glass. oh yes. maybe i will dig out those coconut cups we made a few years back--wonder where those are...

unexpected riches

today i came home from work to find not one, but TWO packages waiting for me on the front porch. whoo hoo!

beehouse teapot

package #1 was from alyce and contained this fabulous beehouse teapot. i LOVE this company's teapots--they are designed for one person to use, and have a removable stainless steel infuser inside. the design is just beautiful, and as i am sure you know by now, i am SUCH a design whore! a totally unexpected and unnecessary gift, but i love it anyway! yay for a new teapot!

vito's mixtape vol. #1

package #2 was from jo's puppy, vito, and contained an excellent new mix of music. i immediately threw it in the stereo and turned it up loud to listen to while doing some house-y stuff before the hippie got home from work. yay for new music! and now, to work on vito's secret surprise...

add to all this the new yarn i bought today to start my crumpets project, and this is indeed a day full of goodness.

tea and crumpets

crumpets

i just joined my first knit-along online. i am going to (attempt to) make this little dress you see here, a pattern called crumpets, from libby baker (available over at chiagu.com). i think that, instead of an actual dress, i am going to make a top like the one wendy made--i like the idea of being able to pair this with some jeans for the active little girlfriend. now i just need to figure out what size to make, what yarn to use, where to get beads, and how to do that weird picot cast on. whew! i am a little scared of this thing, but also totally excited to try it! you guys think good thoughts for me and pray i don't totally snafu it. i probably won't get started on this till the weekend, but watch for updates (slow ones as this is going to take me a while!)

tales of woe and moments of dumbassery

let's just call yesterday a shitty day. it started with a nightmare (literally), and ended with a fight. not a good day. the evening was a VAST improvement, as i declared it a fuckit evening, and dragged the hippie out for some fried oysters and beer. you tell me what fried oysters and beer can't fix? especially when you can walk to them and especially when you have a fantastic and extremely Southern waiter. when the hippie was done, the waiter did not ask him if everything had been to his satisfaction--he said, and i quote, "hey brother, you get enough?" god how i love the South sometimes.

this morning, i had another nightmare about my friend kimmie's wedding. in this one, i forgot my shoes and my dress, and came to the church with nothing but a make-up bag. i went back home, grabbed everything, only to put it all on to realize that the skirt was about 5 inches too long and the top was too tight to zip up. imagine the panic. and then to add to my woe, my toes were sporting a blazing red rather than the sedate french pedicure kimmie has specified for this event. i literally woke up in a panic. so of course i got up immediately and put everything on to make sure it was all just a dream, and wonder of wonders, the whole thing fits better than it ever has before--the waistband on that skirt is actually kind of LOOSE! this, folks, is a miracle! i DO need some larger boobs for this top i will be wearing, but luckily i can fake that with a few pieces of well-placed underwear.

as for the dumbassery, that also took place this morning as we stopped for a muffin on the way to work. i locked the keys in the car. with the car running. moron. and the hippie was all pissed, and i was all feeling stupid, and it sucked. thank god for brian who bailed us out. the hippie now has the spare key in his pocket in case of future stupid tricks like this one. yes, it has happened before...

herbs for the cooking

yesterday, the hippie's mother asked me to write her a little list of the fresh herbs i use--i had no idea i actually used so many until i started writing. and in the end, i came up with a list i thought might be worth sharing. mind you, i don't know a ton about growing these bad boys, and in fact, killed a lot of them off last summer, but here are the herbs i regularly use in the kitchen, in order of how often i use them, with notes:

• thyme: english thyme is my favorite. i use this with everything from stews to eggs to herb stuffing for poultry to rubs for roasts to lima beans.
• rosemary: italian or tuscan blue are my favorite varieties. get the bushy kind, not the creepy kind. i use this much like thyme. it's also great with lamb and on baked salmon.
• basil: LOVES the sun! the more you clip it, the more it will leaf out. excellent on sandwiches as well as in anything italian of course. indispensible in thai food, too.
• garlic: grows well alongside roses, believe it or not. it will keep aphids off the roses and the rose roots give off gasses that benefit it.
• mint: spreads like wildfire and can't be killed. excellent for mint juleps, the hippie's favorite summer afternoon libation. also good in lemonade and tea. i sometimes use it to garnish desserts, too.
• oregano: obvious italian/greek food uses, but also good to make herbed mayo for sandwiches and for dipping artichoke leaves into. greek oregano is better than italian in my opinion.
• cilantro: a must-have for salsa and for black beans and many mexican and southwestern dishes.
• sage: EASY to kill! silver tastes better than purple. great in sweet soups like butternut squash and carrot.
• marjoram: somewhat delicate, but great with steamed or glazed carrots.
• chives: great with potatoes, cheesey things (like mac & cheese), and mixed into butter and spread onto fresh bread. YUM!
• sorrell: good in light summer soups and with eggs. very delicate flavor.
• dill: sour cream and dill potato salad is fabulous. many uses, but a little goes a long way.
• parsley: use this in just about anything for color and a mild flavoring. i like it in potato salads and in soups and in spaghetti sauce.
• fennel: IF you like licorice, which i do NOT, but this is a big, cool looking plant that will come back on its own every year. people like to eat the whole bulb, sliced longways and pan seared or grilled.
• lavender: i have not cooked with this yet, but i have plans; i have a recipe for a beautiful chocolate and lavender cake I want to try. and even if you don't cook with it, you can dry it for yummy smelling sachets.

this makes me want to try another potted herb garden this year, but maybe this time i will read up a bit more first.

one good tip i got last summer--for fresh tasting herbs int he winter, take what you have left at the end of summer, chop it up, and then put them into ice cube trays. put a little water on them and freeze them into ice cubes. when you are making stew or spaghetti sauce in decempber, just throw in a few cubes, and voilá.

if you guys have any suggestions for stuff to do with herbs, please pass them along.

bee bottle

bee bottle

i have this little antique glass honey bottle i bought at the flea market for two dollars one saturday long ago--it originally held a copious 4 oz. of honey, and it has a little beehive embossed on the front. i keep it on the sill of the window that separates my kitchen from the sunroom/cat room/work room/back porch that's off the kitchen, along with other various small bottles and vases and my sad african violet that will obviously never bloom again. every spring and summer and fall, i walk through my yard and pick tiny bouquets for the bee bottle from the myriad of blooming and growing things that were planted and shown the love by the original owner of the house. this is this year's first bee bottle, and i was so happy with how pretty it is that i decided to share it. yay for spring! :)

visiting alyce

adam with his baby blanket

as you know, i was in boston this past weekend with alyce and her little family. adam, her new little baby, is a beauty. this picture is how i found him when i arrived--sleeping peacefully under baby blanket #2, HIS baby blanket. i admit i was unbelievably pleased with this--i didn't realize how happy i would be to find something i knitted in use this way, but man is it satisfying!

the visit was just awesome--i have not spent that much time with alyce since we lived in new york together years ago. you forget just how much you love a person. and i feel like i helped her and rick and the baby somewhat. they are of course going through the adjustments every new set of parents faces. the first months seem both fabulous and oh so hard. anyway--it was just great to hang out, help out, and get a baby fix all at the same time. plus, while at alyce's, i finished up a scarf, whipped up a baby hat for adam, and made quite a bit of progress on baby blanket #3.

i also ended up with an afternoon free to spend with the sam, which was a HUGE and unexpected treat. it was a GORGEOUS day. we got to have brunch outside, shop a little (i bought a new pink raffia hat for the beach and ALMOST bought a fabulous lamp, but talked myself out of it, which may mean i am growing up at last...), and even stop for tea before heading back to alyce's.

all in all, a great long weekend.

adam sleeping on my lap

i have to leave you with one more picture of the baby--i took this one with my treo sunday morning while messaging the hippie as adam was napping on my lap in a rocking chair. did i mention that i love my treo? oh, and don't think that this baby is always so sedate and quiet as these pictures here indicate--he is sometimes more like a wild animal even though there is usually a calm after the storm. :)

thoughts on new york

when you fly from points South to boston at night, if you sit on the left side of the plane, you get an amazing view of new york. i used to do this nearly every other week for work, but i had almost forgotten about it.

last night i looked up from knitting on the plane just in time to see it--beautiful as always in spite of the dark places where the world trade center used to be... the street grid so clear from the sky that i could easily count up to the blocks where i once lived and worked. remembering the pasta maker and the cheese guy and the movie theater and the fabulous thai restaurant in my old 'hood. remembering my day to day life with alyce and my shopping excursions with rita. remembering when i was paid to paint and create all day... a part of me will always miss new york.

then again, sitting in the airport last night waiting for my own flight, i found myself surrounded by a group of new york businessmen with big expanse account and even bigger senses of entitlement. they were all screaming at the airline personnel, as though that would cause their plane to arrive more quickly--wasted energy. and after the plane was past the city, i remembered that i was blocking out how lonely it often was and how my boss was so frustrating and the time my apartment was robbed... these things make me glad to be gone.

that is the nature of new york--love and hate in equal measure.

and no--no desire to move back, but yes--think about it almost every single day.

note: the above post brought to you courtesy of my new treo. :)

boston calling

tomorrow i go to boston to see alyce and rick and baby adam. i am so excited i just can't stand it! it has been years and years since i have had whole days to spend with alyce. my plan is to clean her bathroom and make lots of dinners and hang out and knit and talk to alyce while she snuggles with her baby and i fold all the laundry. i hate it when people go see a new mother and just hold the baby the whole time and don't do any of the work!!! but i digress...

baby blanket #2

i decided that since i was going to see alyce tomorrow, this was a perfect time to share some pictures of the baby blankets i have been working on. this one is baby blanket #2, which alyce already has. (the baby has, in fact, already had his way with it, and it has been washed multiple times.) i am about 1/2 way through another one just like it. as soon as i finish (hopefully this weekend), it will get stuffed into a box and mailed away with the balrog t-shirt and hat. :)

baby blanket #1 (detail)

and for kicks (and becasue i love the color), i am including a detail of baby blanket #1, the first one i made, and in fact, the second project i started after the knitting class jenn and i took last fall. this one is in custody of ella, the baby of jeff and carrie, and it, too, is taking a baby beating. this is as it should be. fyi to my fellow knitters, this blanket is a simple 4 x 5 basket weave with a 6 stitch garter edging. at 72 sts wide, it takes 5 balls of paton's melody, which i recommend ordering online from the yarn exchange. i have had some GREAT experiences with this company, and they priority mail everything for just 5 bucks. whoo hoo!

makin' some sparkly stuff

my friend kimmie is getting married at the end of this month, and i am in the wedding. like most brides, kimmie wanted to get some nice little earrings for her bridemaids for the wedding, and she came to me for a consultation. the dresses are purple with silver and clear crystal embroidery around the neckline, and the earrings are the only jewelry we will be wearing. most of us will have out hair up or blown out straight, so we decided that something dangly but small involving clear crystals was the way to go--not necessarily easy to find. further, one bridesmaid doesn't have pierced ears, so that was presenting a whole other challenge.

earrings for kimmie's wedding

anyway--after many emails back and forth about this, i ended up volunteering to whip up something for her this weekend, and here it is. (apologies for the blinding bright spot on the wooden ruler i stupidly chose to put next to the earrings.) these are sterling silver with austrian crystals from swarovski. you can't tell from this picture, but the smaller crystal is the exact color of the dresses, which was just good luck. i am pretty happy with how these came out, so i thought i would share. all in all--this was pretty cool to do. it's been about 10 years since i made any jewelry to speak of, so i had forgotten how much fun it is! i whipped out 8 pairs of these yesterday, and managed to only break one crystal. i went and got a replacement today, so i just have one more earring to go. and then i will get back to kntting. whoo hoo!

not just living in sin

heh. apparently the hippie and i are not only living in sin, but we are also BREAKING THE LAW! who knew??? yet another old law that the uber-conservative north carolina politicians are afraid to take off the books for fear of being seen as anti-family. gotta love the bible belt...

um...no. just no.

horror the first: this article is just appalling--how is this legal? in about HALF of the states in the US?!? EW. i am generally pretty damned open-minded about social issues, but i swear--this makes my skin crawl. yuck.

horror the second: tell me what these people are thinking. i mean, really--i don't even know what to say. are they serious?

balrog

balrog t-shirt

behold the balrog t-shirt for the little tyke. yes--there is a story here--i am getting to it. as well you know, i am working on various knitting projects, including, but not limited to baby blanket #3. this one is to be part of a gift for dylan, the new baby of my hippie's dear friend grutos. thus, the hippie has been after me to knit a balrog into the blanket, or make a stuffed balrog, or something of the sort. things which, i fear, are still well beyond my knitting capabilities. BUT... with the help of another friend, clay, i found and purchased the t-shirt you see before you now. excellent. and could a balrog look less threatening? i think it's perfect for a baby. hurrah!

li'l balrog hat

and now you see before you what i have created as an addition to the fabulous balrog t-shirt: a hat to match.^* why is it that there are so few cute things for baby boys??? that always irks me--all this cute stuff for girls, but almost nothing for boys. boys need cuteness to!!! but i digress... anyway, this little hat is from the knit knack kit and is called a li'l critter hat--when you put it on the baby's head, it makes little ears/horns. tell me what could possibly be cuter that that? the yarn is julia from kristin nicholas, a fabulous soft worsted weight lambswool, alpaca, and kid mohair blend--so soft and smooth--it's a dream to knit with, and the colors are awesome.

in addition to these riches, we got some little baby jeans and little black socks, and i am on a mission to find a little plain black or grey or red hoodie somewhere in the universe--simple baby clothes are HARD to find! and don't worry, i am still going to finish the baby blanket too. plus another one that is quilted. :)

*photograph of hat brought to you by my brand new treo650. excellent.

new toy

treo 650

in case you are wondering why i am awake and blogging in the middle of the night, it's becasue i am overcome by an OCD moment. see...i have this new toy, and all i want to do is get it completely set up and perfectly operational IMMEDIATELY! i have already started...how do i stop before ALL the birthdays and events and adresses are in there? how do i stop until the whole christmas card list is in and the thing is all backed up on one of the many computers we have around here? how do i stop??! i know i have to go to bed, but i know that once i get there, i will just be thinking about downloading new ringtones and wallpapers for the background of my brand new treo650. the hippie was able to put HIS down and walk away--he is already sleeping--WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??? i think it's just been too long since i had a new gadget to play with. maybe if i can just get the list of wines we like in there, i will be able to sleep...

the farmer's market

my friend emily sent me email tellimg me to blog about the farmer's market. (or should that be farmers' market? i am never sure. anyway...) i am guessing this is because i was going on and on and on and on about it to her on the phone earlier today. but here is the thing--i LOVE the farmer's market (or farmers'...whatever.) and i wait in the spring for the flowers to start to bloom because that means it's time to start going again--time to add it to my weeked food shopping ritual. so now, it is ALMOST time! yay!

i have been going to the farmer's market (farmers'?) since i moved back South in 1997. i love to support the local people and get the yummy fresh in-season things for CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. i have a peach orchard to whom i am loyal, as well as a guy who grows elephant garlic, the old man who comes with a whole truckload of sweet peppers, a young and inexperienced, but very passionate herb seller, a crazy but very cool honey lady with the BEST honey in the world (her label says little flying cows, and her creamed honey has won the blue ribbon at the state fair for the last several years), and the best--the flower lady.

the flower lady is a wholesaler who brings her leftovers to the market every friday and saturday during the spring and summer. for christmas, she makes beautiful wreaths of dried flowers and herbs and boxwoods, too. (we pick up the wreath when we go to buy our christmas tree and some firewood for the coziness.) she knows me as i know her: we are always happy to see each other; we give each other updates on our lives; i don't know her name, but i have watched her children grow up. the flower lady has seen me through multiple phases in my life, and has declared the hippie her favorite of all the guys i have dated since i have been buying flowers from her. i don't know what it is about having fresh flowers in the house, but there are few things that make me happier. i have been known to take my last three dollars and go get the flower lady to make me a $3 boquet. her flowers are fresh and last forever, and she taught me a trick of putting a teaspoon of sugar and a few drops of bleach in the water to keep them fresh longer. she's awesome.

the other thing i love is just walking through the place. there are about 5000 people there on the weekend in the summer, everyone from old ex-fighter pilots who strike up tattoo conversations with the hippie, to migrant workers, to crunchie granola-ish families, to suburbanites lost in the rural culture they are suddenly immersed in, to gourmet hobbyists looking for the freshest and best ingredients they can find. there are dogs and kids and people and piles and piles and piles of fresh fruits and vegetables. there are plants and flowers and fresh herbs. there are fresh baked breads and ten-layer cakes and old fashioned buttermilk pies. there is a ton of laughter and mingling, and it smells warm and fabulous.

you guys should go.

reading: The Bitch in the House

The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage, edited by Cathi Hanauer
while this book has a lot of insights into women's daily lives, and while i related to many of the views presented in its essays, i have to say, it kind of depressed me. so many women are so angry at their "plight" and seem not to appreciate the choices they have. it is a good book, but for me, not a fun one. i would like, actually, to read a counterpoint to it in which the women are just as honest, but about the things that they enjoy about being women and living the lives they choose to live. this one is hard for me to recommend, as it left me feeling somewhat blah at the end of it all...

as a side note, i have heard that the rebuttal to this, the bastard on the couch, which is edited by cathi hanauer's husband, daniel jones, is a bit less insightful. even so, i feel like i should at least check it out.

two years

my, how time does fly. the hippie and i have been living together for two years today. seems like it has FLOWN by in some ways, and in others, it seems like we have just always been together. funny how time does that kind of double whammie on you. two years. kind of hard to believe. i still love him just as much as ever, and he is still my favorite man. i still love waking up with him every morning and falling asleep with him every night. i still love how he smells. i think i will keep him. happy two years, hippie!

tonight we are going to dinner at second empire and then to the ballet with harry and jenn to see coppelia, about which i know little--it's jenn's favorite ballet. maybe some drinks after, although i can't drink much what with all my medication. here's to not falling asleep from the stupid cough medicine. further, here's to not having a coughing fit at the ballet! sometimes my body, it does not cooperate with my plans for celebration.

reading: Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
whew! this book was not an easy read. it was GREAT, don't get me wrong--it was just difficult to stomach many of the facts reported in it. i am glad i have already sworn off fast food, and i am more convinced than ever that if i ever DO have a baby, it is not allowed into a fast food establishment until it is at least sixteen years old and driving its own car. i figure at that point, i can't stop it from doing watever it wants to anyway. but i digress...

the most interesting/horrifying part of this book is the information on the working conditions and food safety regulation enforcement (or lack therof) in the meatpacking industry. it is astounding how greedy and profit-driven people are, to the detriment of both their own morality and also the health of the general populace. it was also fascinating to learn how tied into politics these issues are, when politics should have NOTHING to do with protecting the health and well-being of our nation's children.

the other sticking point to me is the fact that 9 times out of 10, i don't know where my food is coming from. you eat out, and you just trust the people in the restaurant to take care of you--perhaps stupid when you really think about it. and even in the grocery store--the last time i bought beef from a big chain, it was red on top, but grey and weird on the bottom--i just threw it away. let's hear it for whole foods and their ready information about the farms where they get their meat and produce. free range meats taste better, and i feel better about eating them, too.

can you tell this book makes me want to stand up and rant!? i would recommend this book to anyone who has ever eaten out. it's fascinating and scary and a real eye-opener.

two other books about food, fat, and health i highly recommend:

• eat, drink, and be healthy by walter c. willett
• fat land by greg critser

and while i am at it, super size me was awesome, too.

the kindness of strangers

i decided to make a fabulous baby sweater and cute leggings to match from my knitting book, simple knits for cherished babies. i thought--challenging, but do-able--now to find the yarn. so i called my local yarn places and no one had it. so i looked online and could find nothing. i did a big generic search for jaeger cashmere, the yarn in question, and finally came across a person making something (a beautiful shawl, to be specific) out of this yarn, so i asked her on her blog to email me. and lo and behold--this woman knew everything i needed to know. the yarn is discontinued, but she was kind enough to send me all the information from the yarn label so that i can at least find a suitable substitute. this, people, is when the internet rocks. so--a special thanks to my new friend erica over at e's knitting blog.

my best friend's baby

my friend alyce had a little baby boy this morning at 4:10am. she's healthy, he's healthy, and i am so excited and relieved and happy for them i can't even begin to describe it! the baby's name is adam richard dinjian. adam for alyce's brother, who is a fabulous person, and richard for his father, who is, i am SURE, doting on the baby as we speak. baby adam weighs 7 pounds and 8 ounces, and he is 20 inches long. i cannot WAIT to get up there and see them!!! today i will be making some travel plans...

much love and good thoughts to to alyce and rick and baby adam. welcome to the world, little baby boy!

morning cocktail

this morning i took so many drugs i actually put them in their own little bowl on the table beside my oatmeal. i took my standard blood pressure pill, multi-vitamin, and baby aspirin, along with an enormous antibiotic, two cough supressants, and a pair of advil. i skipped out on the cough syrup, as the codeine makes me too sleepy to work. did i mention i am sick? the bad news: i have an upper respiratory infection. the good news: it IS getting better--my coughing fits are down to about 10 minutes at a stretch from the 3 hour ones i was having this weekend. so yay for progress! i can't seem to catch any breaks on the health front lately. and it's hard to go to the gym when you are hacking up a lung, so i am getting nowhere with the weight issues either. i have even been too tired to knit the past couple of weeks! think good thoughts for me people--i obviously need them.

geek moment: these are the geeks i know

mike owen's acretion disk simulation^*

today i checked the astronomy picture of the day, as i always do, and behold: i actually recognized the work! one of my favorite teachers from nc state, john blondin, works with 3-D hydrodynamics code of his own (and his grad students') design. this image was produced by one of his grad students, mike owen, with whom i used to teach astronomy labs back in the day. this stuff almost makes me miss school...
*click on the pic for the whole apod article.

rant: loud ass cat

when you are sick as a dog and barely able to breathe, and sleep is not coming easily, the LAST thing you need to hear through the darkness is a cat licking itself at about 75k decibels! scout is the LOUDEST ANIMAL ON THE PLANET!!! first, she meows. she meows the minute she can see the bottom of her food bowl and does not stop till you fill that bitch back up to the brim. this can start at 1 am, 7 am, 2 in the afternoon--just whenever that ceramic shows through. she meows for attention, she meows to call the other cats, she meows when she can't find you. and worse than that--she LICKS HERSELF CONSANTLY! i mean ALL-THE-TIME. if i could spell the sound of the licking, i would describe it for you in greater detail. suffice it to say that it is LOUD, and PERSISTENT, and involves a lot of wet, squishy sounds, repeated over and over and over and over again. and at 4 am, this elicits thoughts like, "i will KILL that cat! i will. one more lick and she's toast." last night i threw four pillows at her--i admit it. if anyone needs a new cat, just let me know. she's real sweet when she's quiet. really.

my first flickr post...testing...testing...

gabriella on the boat dock

since gabriella's birthday was just this week, i thought it was a good idea to use a picture of her to test out this nifty new flickr account i just set up. please forgive me if the layout of this post is not fabulous--consider it a work in progress... if this works out, i may use flickr for all my photo albums, which i desperately need to get online! this picture is from the wonderful day we spent picnicking and sailing and hanging out at lake jordan last september.

reading: Fluke

if you notice, i have added a section on what i am reading to the sidebar. i am generally reading a few books at once--some educational, some instructional, and some for pure brain candy style enjoyment. and i have decided that when i finish a book, i will give an opinion or two on it. so, withouth further ado, here is the first one:

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, by Christopher Moore
i adore christopher moore's books in general, and fluke was pretty great. there is quite a bit of interesting whale science in it, but it was also just damned funny. moore has a very irreverent sense of humor, and is really good at juxtaposing characters that seem unlikely combinations, but then actually turn out to work really well together. he reminds me of authors like tom robbins and matt ruff in that respect. he also doesn't hesitate to make fun of anything, but still seems to respect the things he is satirizing, and for that i love him. while this book from him does not replace my favorite of his efforts to date, lamb, it is definitely a fun ride. highly recommended...

four hundred dollars later...

my car is fixed--we picked it up yesterday with its brand new starter and newly welded heat shield and its fresh oil. whoo hoo! i LOVE when i get to spend an unexpecetd $400 on my stupid car! oh yeah, and let's not forget the $30 i had to give the tow truck guy when he came to get the car (becasue it would not start) monday morning and the damed thing started right up!!! AGAIN!

and i know i should not complain--this car was a gift on which i paid not a dime. but i don't care! unexpected expenditures SUCK! oh well. i will stop whining now, and just be glad that a) it wasn't more money, b) it was something simple to fix that they fixed in one day, and c) that the little bitch is back to running again!

mary and gabriella

yesterday mary came to town. she is one of my favorite people, and she has not been to town in FOREVER. although she is here for work, she has chosen to stay with us! yay! she will be here till wednesday. having her around just makes me happy. :)

of course, while she is here is when my body decided to give me a whole new cold. i don't know what in the hell is going on with my body, but i jsut keep getting sick over and over and over! UGH! but i digress...

so last night we took mary with us and headed over to jenn and harry's to celebrate gabriella's second birthday! i can't believe that she is already TWO YEARS OLD!!! it really seems like yesterday that i was holding jenn's hands while gabriella made her way into the world--that remains one of the greatest experiences of my life to date. i love that little girl so much, it's like she's part mine. i told the hippie the other day that i was glad we are such a big part of gabriella's village.

and while i am on this topic, let me say that she is just a beautiful child, and that she is no longer a baby at all--she is definitely moving on up. walking and running and talking a mile a minute. she has started to pretend, and she is SO MUCH FUN! she loves to be thrown into the air, to play with the kitties, to sing, to paint and draw, to dress up her baby dolls, to dig in the dirt and plant things. everythign she does is funny it seems--last night i could not stop laughing at her antics. even when she is tired and being a pill--she is still a joy to be around. i feel like jenn does--i just wish she would SLOW DOWN!!! she is growing and changing so fast! i guess that is what kids do...

tea, biscotti, and a clean bathroom. oh, and some art, too.

few things make me happier than having a clean bathroom. perhaps that is somewhat ridiculous, but there it is. my bathroom is sparkly. and i even put up a chrome hook so that i can FINALLY hand a hand towel in there. i am in serious house cleaning mode, but have stopped to have some tea and biscotti and to revel in the open windows before i continue.

i am feeling rambly--i will just warn you right now...

last night the hippie and i had a pleasant foray to first friday in downtown raleigh. this is a raleigh event, held the first friday of each month, when the art galleries and many little downtown shops stay open late. our friend eric had an animated piece opening at a little gallery called DesignBox, so we wanted to go check it out and offer our support. my favorite thing at this show was actually artwork by eric's friend angi--she had this series of 4 paintings based on jaberwocky, one of my favorite poems of all time, which i have known by heart since i had to memorize it for a school thing in the third grade. it was just beautiful and very fey, and as soon as i can afford it, i will buy a set of these prints from her. :)

and it would not be a first friday without a walk through artspace, which is this enormous old warehouse building full of artists who all work together to promote, show, and sell artwork. the two people we have to hit when we go there are kathy ammon, from whom the hippie bought a painting to give to me our first christmas together, and from whom i am betting we eventually buy more, and ann harwell, who we call the quilt lady. she has definitely elevated a traditional craft to an amazing art form. my favorite piece from her is called church in the wildwood, which sadly i will never be able to afford. but damn, it's awesome. this picture really doesn't do it justice, but at least it gives you an idea.

art makes me happy, too. every time i walk int artspace, and i smell that linseed oil and turpentine, i want to go drag out the paint and the canvases and have at it. i really wish i had more room to paint, but there is just not enough space here. someday, however, i will definitely get back to it. for now, i will content myself with knitting and wire things and drawng and the occasional piece of stained glass.

this morning we got up and went to a big country breakfast at big ed's, which i can thank emily for introducing me to. we ate our body weight in eggs, bacon, grits with red eye gravy, biscuits, and the biggest, best pancake i have ever had. we split one and could not finish it--the thing was at least an inch thick in the middle! so--no lunch--i am having biscotti for lunch. and tonight we are staying in for dinner--i am making lobster ravioli and a caesar salad. it's just going to be a decadent day all around.

except for all the cleaning. which i am now going back to, as i have run out of biscotti and tea. here i go--later y'all.

filled with depression

there is no worse feeling than when your dream house goes on the market before you are ready to buy it. from the minute we moved into this neighborhood, we have been lusting after this house, wishing it would go on the market, although we were sure it never would. even a year from now, and i think we would be jumping on this house, but we are just not ready yet. i am filled with sadness at missing out on this beautiful stone cottage--both of us have always wanted a stone house. and this one is right here in our fabulous neighborhood, just down the street from where we live now. it is perfect, with its curved stone walkway, its arched red door, its side porch with the swing on it, its high peaked roof, it's granite counter tops, its butler's pantry, its walk in closet, its tudor-style dormer windows, its giant basement, and its old azeleas just getting ready to bloom. it is just a perfect house. i want to weep.

stupid fucking car!

harry and the hippie went to go look at the car, and the damned thing started right up! nothing is worse than a car you can't trust, even to be consistently broken! the good news is that the car place i go to and love had some good suggestions and the thing that is wrong is most likely not TOO hard to fix. *sigh* but now i will be afraid to drive it till this gets fixed, which won't be till monday.

what a pain in the ass.
bleh.

friends are the best

right now the hippie and harry are off trying to fix my car. they just came and got my keys and took off with them. i am a lucky girl to have such great people in my life. now, just cross your fingers with me that they can get it fixed!!!

stupid car

this week i have been feeding the kitties of my friend, sonya. and well--their bowls are too small and too generic, and they don't have enough toys (they are new kitties). so i decided that as a present to sonya and the kitties, i would truck on over to target at lunch and pick up some cute, larger bowls and some toys and stuff. turned out to be a fruitless trip, as target had only one of any set of bowls, no help for me, and a bitchy check-out lady. even when i picked out a second tier bowl, they would not sell it to me because apparently it was part of a set. i ended up scrapping the whole thing after wasting way too much time.

so i go back out to the parking lot, hippie in tow, already grumpy, and the fucking car won't start. it has power, but won't even roll over. not a spark of life in the bitch. so i call people till i get a chick from work to come get us. thank GOD someone could come. now i gotta deal with this mess of what to do with the car, how to get it to the car place, and how to get myself to work tomorrow while the hippie goes to his class. what an ENORMOUS pain in the ass.

so i borrowed our friend harry's jeep to go feed the kitties, who had produced a NASTY hairball, ate ALL their food, shredded the toy mice i gave them on tuesday, pulled down and murdered a poor innocent curtain, and dumped over a pot of dirt about 4 times their size. the destruction was amazing. they even bent the curtain rod into an unusable configuration. very motivated little fuckers. cute though.

anyway. now i am tired. and grumpy. and i want a new car. a mini, to be exact. a graphite one with silver ghost flames up the sides... but i digress.

grossed out

a few weeks ago, i encountered a woman who grossed me out in the bathroom so much she was almost a man, man. now, normally i don't really pay much attention to what's going on in the stall beside me when i am in the ladies room, but this i could not help noticing. there was a glint of gold on the floor beside me, so i checked it out. two little foil wrapped chocolates sitting on the floor, next to a stainless steel coffee mug. um. on the floor. in the bathroom. in a stall. and one by one, the person next to me, unwrapped and ate the chocolates and washed them down with her coffee WHILE SITTING ON THE TOILET. she literally came out of the stall licking her fingers. i am filled with disgust. and now i think about this every time i go into the bathroom.

desperate times...

nothing is more depressing than being forced to eat the LAST PIECE OF CHOCOLATE in your entire stash because your raging hormones are in more control of you than that dog was in control of son of sam.

i wish i had some more chocolate.

what's going on with the needles?

i have decided to give a little knitting update. some of you will be bored to tears by this, while others will be fascinated i am sure.

baby blanket #2 is complete! it came out even better than the first one, so let's hear it for some practice. in fact, i have already given #2 to alyce, whose baby is due in early april and whose baby shower was this past weekend in boston. she loved it, so my work there is complete. blanket #1 has been photographed and packed for shipping to little ella, the daughter of friends in san francisco, but i admit i am SLOW with that whole getting to the post office thing.

now i am hip deep in a second felted bag, which will be a birthday present for sonya, who has expressed GREAT jealousy of the one i have already made. (it is safe to discuss this here, as i KNOW sonya never reads weblogs--she has not the time.) the cool thing is that sonya basically told me what she wanted by expressing her envy of MY bag and then talking about the colors she would have chosen for it. so voila. that is her b-day present.

i am also making a grey wool scarf, a silver scarf, a blue heathered scarf, and a purple scarf with some extremely expensive yarn. i like having a few scarves going on as back-up.

what's next you ask? next on the larger project list is baby blanket #3, and then i will be done with baby blankets for a bit. THANK GOD, as i am a little bored with them at this point. i have some new books, so there is a list of things i am DYING to make after i finish up these few gifts i have going on. i am DEFINITELY making us a set of lace pillow cases. and i am definitely going to try out this baby dress that terrifies me, but MUST be done. and there is also a fabulous pattern for a knitted cashmere teddy bear that i think i just may have to tackle just for the hell of it.

i love the women in my knitting group, by the way. it's awesome to have time to sit and just talk to other women. all of them are awesome, and we are all so different--they are a group i would never have met any other way. let's hear it for knitting class, which started it all! :)

in other, non-knitting, but sort of related news, i now have access to my website and all my photographs again, now that the hippie has built us a new file server to run alongside our webserver. so yeah--expect a knitting webpage from me in the near future, folks. i have pics of everything i have made, i just need to get them up and running. maybe this weekend if you guys are lucky...

geek moment: destruction of the earth

some EXTREMELY geeky humor shared with me yesterday by samantha:
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html^*

i am still laughing. but then, i am a geek. :)
* the sam on this website is not MY sam. this sam is a total stranger.

food, a retrospective

i have been thinking again today about health and fitness and nutrition, and about all these changes i continually try to implement in my life. it's hard to keep it up, man.

i admit, i have been very bad on the fitness front lately. it's been so long since i went to the gym that the personal trainers are starting to email me to see if i have, in fact, died. granted, i have not been having the best run of health luck lately, but we all know that it's just too easy to use that as an excuse. *sigh* so i am giving myself another day to recover from the cold and the general run-downedness (is that even a word?) i have been dealing with this week, since tomorrow is friday anyway. but come monday, i am going to make the sincere effort to restart at the gym. i have some new gym clothes, which SHOULD be inspiring me. but instead i am looking to the ill fit of a certain taffeta bridesmaid's dress for inspiration.

on the food front, however, the changes i have made are a bit more solid. the hippie and i redid those first two weeks of the south beach diet, and that was good. i am, as i have said before, floating around at just under 200 pounds. and now that we are out of those first two weeks, i don't care if we follow that diet all that sringently anymore. i think i have made some somewhat permanent changes that are causing me to have an overall healthier outlook on food.

as i was explaining to samantha today, i no longer even come close to craving anything processed. i have become an avid label reader, and i am put off by anything containing dyes, tropical oils, hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and "flavors," be they natural or artificial. i also have sodium and sugar and fat limits for myself. put that all together and there goes anything processed. it is almost ALL bad.

i don't remember the last time i had a potato chip. i have not had a french fry since january 3rd. i have pretty much eliminated potatoes from my diet altogether, as every nutrition book i have ever looked at recommends.

so yeah, go me.

now, all that said, i still have no will to resist my PMS cravings for chinese and indian food. and man, when i want chocolate cake, i do not stop until i get it. and yes, i still put sugar in my tea. if i am away on vaction, i don't think about it all very much, although i still don't eat fries and chips and crazy amounts of simple carbs. so it's not like i am some eating angel over here.

but man, when i see moms at the mall happily feeding their kids fries and soda, i want to run over screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" i think if i ever have a kid, it will be hard for me not to be a food nazi.

i am rambling, i know. but like i said--this is a retrospective.

and you know, the weirdest part is what i DO miss. i miss oatmeal creme pies. i miss pop tarts. i fucking LOVE pop tarts! but oh well. if my ass is skrinking, i guess it's worth it. i think so anyway...

ask me in another 6 months.

V-Day

happy valentine's day, people. i gotta say, this is the dumbest holiday known to man. it seems designed to make you feel like crap if you are alone, when--hello??? what is so wrong with being alone??? and it is designed to imbue all parties with an odd sense of obligation if you are in a relationship. half the couples i know get into fights on valentine's day because someone falls short of the other's expectations.

and yet, we are all somehow susceptible to this madness. as rational as we are, we all secretly want the stupid roses and the jewelry and the chocolates and to be swept off our feet. but who the hell wants that just becasue one's S.O. feels obligated to do something special so that he/she does not get into trouble. all in all--this is just not a fun day for any but the most shallow of people.

so yeah. we, like most couples, have our traditions in spite of our mutual general disdain. ours is cheap mexican food and a buck-fifty movie. so tonight, we are heading to el rodeo for some diet-blowing mexican. sadly we are denied the buck-fifty movie, as the theater is being remodelled, but i am sure we will figure something else out. maybe if we feel really crazy, we will go print out some academic papers at the NCSU library. and i WILL eat some chocolate before it's all said and done.

we are just off the hook--i'm tellin' ya...

more starbucks, please

*sigh*

today after lunch i went to starbucks to get the hippie a cappucino, as he was stuck in a nasty meeting and could not get away to come to lunch and he loves cappucinos and i thought i would cheer him up. i even got them to put the cappucino into his migo so that it would stay hot while he was eating the lunch i was bringing him, which turned out to be a good thing, as we ended up delayed because of the president who was driving to the airport and therefore caused the highway we were on coming back from lunch to be shut down FOREVER!!! but i digress...

anyway. so i was in starbucks, which as you know, i LOVE! and i was DYING to try the new drink of chocolatey chocolateness, the chantico, but denying myself this blessing as i am dieting and TRYING to be good, especially as yesterday was the first time in like 7 years that i have weighed and not seen a pesky 2 as the first number of that weight, and i would like to keep it that way. so it is unfortunately going to be a little while before i can have a chantico. this makes me sad.

google > mapquest

who knew messing with online maps could be so entertaining?! this morning, the hippie pointed me to google maps, which is AWESOME and makes mapquest look like it was written by third rate monkeys. check it out. really.

this has street level maps of my tiny little hometown even. and you can pan around on the maps. and the directions don't suck. all in a web browser! yes--i am impressed.

spring's a-comin'

i can tell spring is coming becasue the people in my neighborhood are all starting to work on their houses. i always like watching what they all do. our 'hood is filled with beautiful old houses, most of which have been well kept and are shown the love on a frequent basis.

right now, i am watching the people who moved into the tiny brown bungalow last year try to decide what color to paint it. i have always thought this house needed to be a different color, as it has been all dark brown since we moved into the 'hood. i mean ALL brown--the trim, the brick, the wood siding--all of it. so when the new people moved in, they immediately won my approval by painting all the trim a light clean cream. and now they have long strips of different colors painted on the front siding--they are either going to pick a nice medium williamsburg blue or a darker cream. either one will be great, although i badly want to stop at their house and recommend that they go with the blue. i am SURE they are dying for my input.

i am also watching the people who added a new front porch onto their formerly box-like house last year, who have just stripped down to the wood to repaint their classic white and who are adding a second floor screened in porch. very cool.

and last but definitely not least, i am keeping my eyes on a complete renovation of a huge beautiful old house from 1918 that was in DESPERATE need of it. you should have SEEN what the former owners did when they redid the exterior of this house--EW!!! words cannot describe the madness that leads to the romoval of a second storey porch to add on huge oversized house high faux neo-classic ionic columns. but the new people--THANK GOD!--are taking it back to it's original double porched glory. the sad thing is that they keep getting vandalized--someone made off with their original copper gutters. further, and somehow worse, someone took an antique cast iron bathtub from inside the house! atrocious what some people do. but i am sure this place is going to look FABULOUS when they finish it. go cool people!

all of this makes me want a house to fix up. but i can wait--a good house is worth waiting for. :)

the most boring post so far...

our lunch today was cut short by all the people in the kitchen at our office. can we say overstimulation? i don't know why, but sometimes all the hustle and bustle in there just grates on me, and i have to get out of that small room with 50 people in it eating, microwaving their frozen meals and leftovers, buying Bad Food from the vending machines, and arguing about politics and the cost of oats. sometimes i want quiet. like now.

so i am spending the rest of my lunchtime alone in my office, quietly blogging about nothing much.

tonight i get to meet emily for some knitting at last. we have been trying to manage some time together for over a week! i never seem to have enough time with her now--i got spoiled by spending so much time with her when i was laid off. today is one of those days where i sort of miss the solitude of home and the ease of keeping up with the household chores and the time to make things. i haven't made a wire thing in over a month! but oh well--at least the bills are getting paid.

god, could i write a more boring post?! i am going to shut up before i put you all straight to sleep.

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.

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

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.

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!

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?

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???

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.

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.

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!

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.