A New Day Has Dawned

First of all, dear readers, I want to apologize to those of you who read yesterday's post. I typed it in a moment of weakness. To those of you who were so kind as to leave comments and suggestions, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. However, I've decided to delete the entire horror story. It was just too depressing for words (no pun intended), and I decided that it had no place here. There is one thing I want to say about it, though, and then we'll move on to the fun stuff.

I am going to destash. One of my lovely readers suggested that I try and destash through my blog before I put them in my Etsy store, and that's what I'm going to do. I had a talk with Hubster, and he told me to only sell those skeins which I'll never knit. So today, we're going through the entire stash. I know, though, some of the yarns which are going to go.

As soon as I have a complete list of what's for sale, I'll list it here (hopefully by the end of the weekend). I can tell you, though, that I'm selling all of my Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, all of my Opal (including some old and rare skeins, as well as two complete Rainforest collections - the older and newer ones), all of my Schaefer's Anne, and any duplicates of indie yarns. I'll be keeping all the other indie yarn I've acquired because I love them too much to give them up. Hubster understands this and is fully supporting my decision. What I'll do is sell it on a first-come, first serve basis. If any of you have need for any of the yarn I've listed already, drop me a note at pamtheknitter@gmail.com. I'll be happy to take pictures and quote you a price. I'll be doing everything through PayPal just to make things easier, and the price I quote will include shipping.

That being said and done, I'm back to normal today. Last night was a good talking night interspersed with some slapstick comedy. More on that later.

I told you all that I had some yarn and other goodies on order. The Yarn Fairy was working today, so I hit the jackpot yet again. I had to take two pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Here is the first picture.



Here we have Lovesticks Sock Yarn in "Vegas Baby!" and "Watermelon Slice (Dark)", Prairie Daisy Handspun in "Kaleidoscope", and My Small Wonders in "Camouflage" and "Earthly Goods".

Next we have these lovely creatures.



There is Gypsy Girl Creations in "Cotton Candy" and "Winter Solstice", as well as Perchance to Knit in "Hedera Helix", "Fragile", and "Mexacali Peppers". I do believe that "Mexacali Peppers" is a duplicate (you know you have too much yarn when you finally can't remember what's in your stash), so there's a strong likelihood that I'll be selling one of them.

Have you ever noticed that you seem to go in color runs when you select yarn? I didn't have a lot of blue in the stash, so I decided to buy some. All of sudden, I'm being bombarded with blues, blue combined with hot pink, blue with electric green, blue blue blue. No matter. It will eventually get knitted into something.

I also got my first shipments of the Art Walk Sock Yarn Club and the Woolgirl Sock Club. I won't show those because as usual, I don't want to be a spoiler. Let me just say that the yarns in both are gorgeous, and Jen did a kickass job of putting together a package. Too exciting! My sock and yarn clubs are things that I'm going to keep at all costs. They're just too much fun to get rid of.

Now for a bit of humor.

Last night after we saw the therapist, Hubster and I went to The Cheesesteak Factory for dinner. I knew it would be crowded, but I like their food and didn't want another English muffin. So we got our little mechanical buzzing thing and were told that it would be about 45 minutes to an hour for a booth (I hate tables, especially there - I always feel like I'm in a fishbowl). So we went outside, had a smoke, came back in, stood, sat, went back outside, had another smoke, came back in, sat, dozed, and well after an hour the buzzing thing FINALLY went off. So we went up to the desk and waited some more for the girl to take us to our booth.

We got down the aisle and she informed us that our booth wasn't bussed yet, so we stood in the aisle waiting. While we were standing there, we noticed (how could we NOT) a young couple sitting at the table right next to us. He had that dopey, sleepy-eyed look that young men (well, all men) get when they have a boner the size of Manhattan and was kissing her in an... um... rather inappropriate way. On top of that, he had his hand placed firmly on her boob and was caressing it. I couldn't stop staring and Hubster couldn't stop making remarks. Not that they would have heard us - it's amazing what a couple bottles of wine will do to people.

We finally got the all-clear and were seated at our booth. We hadn't been there for more than five minutes when a waitress bounced around the corner, scaring the shit out of us. She announced in a loud and happy voice that her name was blah blah blah (I was in shock) and she would be our waitress. Then she bounced away. That was the last time I spoke to her.

A few minutes later, Hubster pointed out that the tables next to us (all four of them, and they're long) were pushed together, which meant only one thing. Yep. A party. And here they came. It seemed like hundreds, but there were probably about 30 of them. All in their early 20's, all half in the bag, and all loud. Balloons. Gifts. And worst of all, cameras. I thought I was going to go blind from all the flashes popping. You have to figure that these people see each other all the time, yet they had to have pictures of each other standing there in the aisle. Go figure. And then I realized that 30 years ago, that was me with my friends (did I ever have that many friends?), looking at the old fucks sitting at the booths around the tables and thinking, "I'll NEVER be like that." Famous last words.

Then we were approached by a young man with some sort of weird splint on his arm. He proudly announced, "Good evening, guys! I'm blah blah blah and I'll be your waiter for the evening. Our specials are...". GUYS? I have the biggest tits of any guy I've ever seen. Now, I realize that being a bald woman sometimes confuses people, and I've been called sir a few times, but this guy was supposed to be paying attention to us. You could tell that as soon as he said it, he looked at me and realized his mistake. I'm not bragging, but Hubster bought me a rather large diamond ring (I don't recall ever seeing a man with a large marquise center stone on a wide band of diamonds) which you can't miss, especially when light of any kind hits it, tits that have to sit on top of the table because I can't squish them under (although without a bra, I can tape them to my knees), and somewhat feminine features. I kept looking at Hubster, he kept grinning at me, and at the end of the monologue, the waiter said, "And please allow me to apologize for my mistake." It would have been okay had he looked at me, but he stared at Hubster the entire time (Hubster is 6'4" and rather large, so maybe he was afraid Hubster would get out of the booth and beat the living shit out of him). So I looked at this young man and back at Hubster, and said in a rather loud voice, "See? I TOLD you we shouldn't have scrimped on the sex change and gone to Argentina!" I thought the dude was going to drop a load on the floor. He turned visibly purple, took our drink orders, and ran away. I was pleased with myself and couldn't stop giggling.

We ordered quesadillas as an appetizer, and since I can't eat anything hot, we ordered them without chiles. They arrived without the side condiments (guacamole, sour cream, salsa). I don't like them without sour cream, so I asked Hubster to please go find the dude and ask for the side dishes. He didn't want to do it (he being hungry and happy to eat them as they were), so I began to look for the blind bastard. I saw him walking rapidly away from us down the aisle. So I decided to go after him. And then it happened.

I had on my ratty old sandals with two straps going across the top of the foot. They tend to fall off sometimes. I slid across the seat as fast as I could (big flat asses are good for some things), planted my left foot in the aisle, and swung my right foot around in order to stand up. It would have worked just fine, except I was moving too fast. My shoe came off. I kept going. I literally fell out of the booth flat on my face with my ass sticking up in the air and wedged between the table and the wall.

Hubster didn't dare say anything or even giggle. Instead, he crammed a condiment-free quesa into his mouth and began to drink a lot of Coke. The party of young drunks fell silent as I lay there in the aisle, cursing like a sailor who has just been told that the whorehouse is closed for the night when he's shipping out in the morning. And then the second thing happened.

CLICK.

They took a picture of me.

I gathered what little was left of my self-esteem, picked myself up off the floor, brushed off my tie-dyed shirt, and hobbled down the aisle. The dude was desperately trying to not look at me. I made it up to him, told him that we were missing the condiments, and carefully walked back to where we were sitting. By this time, the party was in full swing again, and they were all waiting to see if I was going to offer a repeat performance. No chance. I carefully slid in the booth with as much dignity as I could muster, picked up my Coke to take a drink, and promptly dropped it on my shirt. The whole thing.

This time Hubster couldn't stand it. He burst into hysterics, got up, and went to the men's room. A few minutes later, he returned with a fresh Coke and a bunch of towels to try and mop up the mess. The only time I made a worse mess was in Reno when some clown unscrewed the top of the hot maple syrup container, and I poured the entire thing on my dress... after we had checked out. Argh.

Those English muffins are looking pretty good.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Monster Scorned

I knew it! Remember when I said that YFIT wasn't bringing packages on the Yarn Fairy's day off? It was confirmed today by two things: a) the sheer volume of yarny goodness which you are about to feast your eyes upon; and b) the Yarn Fairy telling me that YFIT and some others weren't delivering parcels on his day off. Wait until Hubster hears this. He's going to be pissed.

Thank goodness the Yarn Fairy was here today. Otherwise, he might have needed a hand truck to bring everything up on the porch. Here, for your pleasure, are two pictures showing what arrived today.



This picture contains The Painted Tiger in "Wind" (Merino/Silk) and "Crisp Green Apples", the little bear sitting on those cakes is "Acid Panda" by sunfleur1, Curious Creek Fibers in "Birches in Norway", Lavender Sheep in "Truffle", Zen Yarn Garden IN-SNYC in "Apricot Kiwi", and Zen Yarn Garden 100% Cashmere in "Terracotta".



This picture contains Smoky Mountain Fibers in "Lavender Blue" and "Turquoise Jewelry", and Spinning Yarns Online in "Gecko", "Dark Foliage", and "Regal".

I also got a couple of bags of moth-deterrent herbs and some books (two technique, one pattern, one novel, one spiritual - all knitting). Jen at Woolgirl was also kind enough to send me another skein of the club's yarn so I'll have enough to make the socks offered last month.

So what the hell does all this yarn have to do with the Monster? Everything.

You'll recall that I mentioned karma biting me in the ass - yesterday, I think it was. Karma not only bit me in the ass again this morning, but I almost was in fairly serious trouble for a while.

The usual ensued last night. We both fell asleep after dinner, and it wasn't until close to 4:00 a.m. that I picked up my needles. I got a fair amount of knitting done on the Monkeys when disaster struck. I don't mean your ordinary "Oops, I dropped a stitch" disaster, either. I mean start the fucker over disaster.

I have no idea of what happened, but I was doing an SSK. Somehow, one of the stitches slipped off the needle and began it's perilous journey down the sock. I watched where it went and thought, "No big deal. I'll just grab it and bring it back up."

If only it were that simple.

What happened next was a comedy of errors that wasn't funny in the least.

Before I had a chance to fool too much with the stitch, I dropped my lighter. Instead of just dropping the foot rest, getting off the Monster and picking the lighter up off the floor, I did something really stupid. I decided to get on my knees on the cushion, lean over the foot rest, and pick the lighter up that way. Unfortunately, when I did that, I couldn't see where the lighter was. So I began to move backwards to drop the foot rest. That's when the real horror of the morning occurred.

As I was teetering on the cushion at an odd angle, the Monster decided to take revenge on me for all the coffee I'd spilled, all the ciggies I'd waved over it, every bad word I'd ever said about it, and snapped the foot rest shut. On me. I was trapped between the chair and the foot rest by my legs.

As if that weren't bad enough, the entire chair then tipped forward on top of me. What made it really horrible was that I was bracing myself against the floor with my hands, had my legs and right hip literally trapped in the jaws of death, and the entire weight of the chair pressing on my hips and back from behind. We were both at a funny angle, and I quickly realized that I couldn't get out. I couldn't move. In short, I was stuck fast.

So I did what any other sane person would do. I yelled at the top of my lungs for Hubster and began to bawl.

You see, I have an auto-immune disease that has decided to take the form of a muscular and joint degenerative condition. My immune system, instead of fighting off disease, is a disease. It eats whatever it attaches itself to - cartilage, muscle, etc. It perceives my body as a giant intruder that needs to be disposed of. On top of that, I have fibromyalgia. Not only did I have my legs trapped, the chair was wrenching my joints at an unnatural angle, thereby causing them pain. A LOT of pain. The more I struggled, the more I got stuck and squished, and the more it hurt. The more it hurt, the more frightened I became. If Hubster didn't hear me screaming, I'd be stuck like that for over an hour until he got up. Fortunately, he heard my screams and came charging down the hall, got me untangled, and put the chair back upright. Unfortunately, my knitting and everything that was on the chair or foot rest also came crashing to the floor. Hence the unfixable error in the sock - the yarn got ripped out of whack as it got caught while falling.

I did everything I could think of. I dropped the whole decrease area down to see if I could just reconstruct it. Nope. I tried weaving the stitches back the way they were. Nope. Nothing worked. Then I realized that the yarn must have caught on the edge of something, because a piece of it was pulled out longer than the others, and a couple of the stitches were tangled together. So then I decided to pick up a row above the heel, rip it back, and just knit the section over. Nope. I couldn't find a straight row to save my soul. That, of course, is part of what makes Monkey Socks so beautiful - the way the lace pattern forms, the way the pattern moves and breathes, how everything intertwines and blends in with the next set of the pattern. I think because of the trauma of the fall, it somehow got mangled up just enough so that I couldn't find a straight row (or at least one I could follow around and pick up). I had no other option.

I swore a lot, cried some more, and cut the yarn. I've just cast on to begin all over again. I know now what I'll be taking to Stitch 'n Pitch with me. So now I'm covered with bruises on my legs, my hip hurts like a bitch, my wrist has a rip in it where it raked across the edge of the chair when I was falling, my knees hurt, and it hurts to breathe. But I keep one thought in mind as I labor over the socks yet again.

At least it wasn't buffalo.

I Just Don't Understand It

Here I thought today would be yarny heaven. While I did get some packages, it wasn't what I was expecting. Don't get me wrong - any yarn is better than no yarn. It's just that I'm expecting some club packages and other single things I ordered, and they should have been here by now. If YFIT has screwed this up for me, I'll rip off his balls and make them into earrings.

Here's the yarny goodness that arrived today.



From the left, we have Elliebelly Handpainted Yarn (BFL) in "Eire", Zen Yarn Garden in "Bliss" and "Blue Moon" (these two are going to be used together in stripes - I need to find a simple pattern that will showcase the yarn) and Yarnahoy in "Nuts to You" (another wild yarn that needs something very simple so the yarn won't compete with the pattern). I should also be getting some books from Amazon today and tomorrow. I have to cast on for Sunday's Stitch 'n Pitch, and I'd like to start something new (there's a surprise), so I have to decide which yarn I'm going to use, get that going, and stick it in a bag that fits within the ballpark's strict size guidelines. It would be a bummer to get to the park only to find out that my yarn bag is too big for their size restrictions.

I got quite a bit done on the Monkey socks last night. While I did doze for a while, I've long since taken the pills that knocked me on my ass just a few weeks ago They're not doing anything now. So here I sit, wide awake, with no sleep in sight.

Hubster pointed out last night that I need to begin practicing my flute for the upcoming concert so I don't embarrass myself. I realize that I need to do that, but first I have to find the flutes. I can see their boxes; I just can't get to them because of the yarn bins in the way. Hubster has agreed to help me with the room, but I fear it might turn into one of our famous home improvement projects.

I'm happy to report that SwissKnits' idea of covering the Monster has worked like a charm. Not only has it prevented the Monster from eating every notion I own, it has also covered every burn, every coffee stain, every everything that makes a brand-new piece of furniture ugly. I will never buy microfiber furniture again. You get heat near it and it turns into a big green torch. I also didn't spill any coffee last night. Something must be wrong with me.

Karma has a way of kicking you in the ass when you least expect it. Our new next-door neighbors have been parking their truck on their front lawn. As old as San Lorenzo is, it still looks really nice. The residents have kept their homes and yards in terrific shape, and the village was built around 1945. These houses don't need molly bolts to keep things hung on the walls; these walls are made with chicken-wire, so they're thick and strong as an ox. Anyway, this dude's truck makes the street look trashy, so I finked on him. This morning, I called the Homeowner's Association and told them that we had some dude parking his truck on his lawn, which is strictly against the CC&R's. I normally hate those things, but I decided that since we have to maintain our homes, this dude was going to comply, too. I no sooner got off the phone than:

RIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG RIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

I picked it up without thinking or checking the caller ID. I hadn't had my coffee yet, so my behavior can be excused.

"Hello?", I say.

"PAM??????", comes a panicked female voice on the other end.

Oh no.

"I CALLED YOUR HOUSE LAST NIGHT AND I GOT SOME SERVANT WHO DOESN'T SPEAK ENGLISH SHE MUST BE YOUR MAID OR COOK AND SHE WOULDN'T LET ME TALK TO YOU SHE HUNG UP BEFORE I COULD ASK FOR YOU IT'S WORSE THAN LAST NIGHT I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

A maid? A cook? No, she was talking to both of them yesterday. Where the hell does she think I live, Blackhawk?

Well, it's just as I thought. She didn't listen to a word of what I said last time, went ahead and used the forbidden yarn, and began rattling away again. I was a bad teacher. I couldn't take this again. So I said,

"Look. I don't mean to be a bitch, but I told you from the start which yarns were preferred for this project. I've explained everything to you more than three times. You have the book in front of you in case you need help. I've told you to not use that damned buffalo and what it would do if you kept frogging, and you plowed ahead and used it anyway. Now you have a $75 skein of felted yarn that won't frog at all, you still don't know what a lifeline is, and I'm not going to throw you one this time. You're on your own."

At which point, I hung up the phone and sat down at the table. I was actually shaking. I've never done that to a student before.

The phone rang immediately and I knew it was her, but I figured since I'd just ripped her a new one, I should at least talk to her to see what she thought. Sigh.

"I DON'T REMEMBER YOU TELLING ME ABOUT BUFFALO FELTING AND I DON'T REMEMBER ABOUT LIFELINES AND THE BOOK IS NO GOOD IT DOESN'T TELL ME HOW TO FIX THIS PROBLEM AND YOU'RE THE TEACHER SO YOU NEED TO TEACH ME INSTEAD OF YELLING AT ME."

Quite right. I do need to teach her instead of yelling at her. The problem is that she only showed up to the first class (again... this is her second time taking this class, and she did the same thing the last time), and even though I explained all this stuff to her, she isn't listening. She's too busy telling me how she knows how to do this. If she knows how to do this, why is she bothering me before I have my coffee?

So I said,

"Look. If you came to the class sessions, it might be easier for you to understand. As it is, I've explained and demonstrated every concept that you need to know to get to the point where you're supposed to be. I told you the last time you took this class that you can't use that yarn. It's too thick and not suitable for this project, and it's certainly not good for a beginner. I can tell you where to put the yarn, but I don't think you'll like it."

I'm sure she thought I was referring to shoving it up her ass, but I was actually going to tell her to put the yarn in the trash, because unless she's making a Santa with a brown beard, it isn't suitable for anything else. Well, maybe stuffing in a toy.

There was a horrified intake of breath on the other end of the phone, and then she said,

"IT SHOULDN'T MATTER IF I COME TO CLASS OR NOT IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TEACH ME NO MATTER WHAT I DO I PAID A LOT OF MONEY FOR THIS CLASS AND I WANT IT BACK AND I WANT IT BACK NOW YOU'RE A TERRIBLE TEACHER AND I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS AND IT'S YOUR FAULT THAT MY BEAUTIFUL YARN IS RUINED YOU SHOULD PAY FOR THAT TOO I WANT TO TALK TO THE OWNER AND GET ALL MY MONEY BACK SO I CAN TAKE A LACE CLASS WHO'S THE TEACHER FOR THAT?????????"

I said, in a much calmer voice than I felt like using,

"I'm the teacher for the lace class, and you're going to have to use even smaller needles and the yarn I tell you to use. You are NOT allowed to use buffalo. If you do take that class and bring the buffalo with you, I shall take it away from you and stuff it in the nether regions of my yarn bag, only to be removed when the class is over. By the way, you cannot get a refund for a class you've taken twice on the same dime, whether or not you've shown up. I don't mean to sound nasty, but do you understand? And I should mention that lifelines are an integral part of beginning lacework."

I should have known.

"WHAT'S A LIFELINE AND WHAT DO INTEGERS HAVE TO DO WITH A YARN CLASS?"

Well, I suppose they could be used to figure out the yardage for the shawl you're never going to learn how to do. But I didn't say that. Instead, I said,

"Have you considered taking up another hobby... perhaps something like paint-by-number?"

She slammed the phone down so hard that my earring fell out.

Hee.

Who Needs Monster Movies When I Have My Own?

First of all, the YFIT is NOT doing his job. I know that I have packages coming. Not many, but I do have some. I've had problems with this guy, however. He never delivers packages. Our regular Yarn Fairy must have the day off, because first of all, YFIT was an hour late. Then he delivered nothing but junk mail. Please. This clowntard is too lazy to pick up packages at the post office because then he'd have to deliver them. So, poor readers, I have no pictures to show you today. However, tomorrow should be a bonanza. I've also just been sucked in to one of Sheri's Sneak-Ups, too, so later this week should be a bonanza. Not to mention going shopping at Woolgirl. Uh... I was forced to do it. Yeah. That's my reason and I'm sticking to it.

Last night started out the same way as every other night. We ate burgers for dinner, and then I settled down in the Monster to begin my knitting. Everything was going along just fine until the first mishap. It was time for a cup of coffee.

Ordinarily, this would not pose a problem. However, I had just awakened from yet another unscheduled nap, so I didn't know my name let alone have any motor functions. Hubster very wisely picked up my knitting and placed it far out of harm's way, even knowing which direction I usually throw my coffee and putting my knitting on the opposite arm of the Monster. Sure enough, I not only spilled, I ejected. When I heard dripping on the floor, I knew I had really done it this time.

Two dish towels and numerous paper towels later (not to mention mopping the floor), I was ready to knit again. Or so I thought. I was way late taking my pills, so I downed those. Yep. It happened again. This time, I got myself, the chair cushion, the arm cover, and the footrest. Fortunately, I had never really awakened, so my knitting stayed in the same place it was put in originally. I had to resort to putting a heavy fleece blanket on the seat cushion in order to sit on the damn thing.

I fell asleep again and woke up at 9 a.m. to discover Hubster snoring on the couch. Apparently, he had gotten up to go tinkle and sat on the couch for some unknown reason. It took me some convincing to get him to go back to bed for another hour, and then I fell asleep again. I was awakened at 10 a.m. by his alarm, and I've been up since, knitting on the gussets of the Monkey socks.

I think the Monster has eaten one of my DPN's about four times so far today, my lighter, a stitch marker, my counting bracelet (I somehow undid the damn thing), and who knows what else that I didn't find. Each time, I had to stop what I was doing and dig in the cushions for the missing object. I've managed to find everything, but I can't help but think that the Monster is taking revenge for my soaking it with coffee. Now when I walk in the house, I instantly smell coffee. Is it the coffee pot? No, it's the Monster, reeking of all the spilled joe that I've baptized it with. Now I have to find a cleaner to get all the damned stink out of it.

Not only that, the phone rang early this morning. Who was it? You guessed it.

"HELP! I DROPPED A STITCH IN THE INCREASES RIGHT BEFORE I WAS SUPPOSED TO KNIT STRAIGHT AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT AND I'VE GOT A LADDER RUNNING DOWN TO THE TOE AND I'M USING BUFFALO AND I CAN'T RIP IT BACK ANY MORE BECAUSE IT'S FELTED AND MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE USED REGULAR WOOL BUT YOU DIDN'T TELL ME IT WOULD DO THIS HEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP."

I said, "Me no speaka Angleesh" and hung up.

So far, the phone hasn't rung again, except for someone telling us that we've won a trip to Tahoe.

Thank goodness vacation is next month.

If I can last until then, and the Monster doesn't eat another DPN which I don't have a replacement for.

Time for lunch and a cuppa. Far away from the Monster.

Dazed and Confused

Before I begin today's rant, a small offering of yarny goodness. See? I told you that my yarn buying was slowing down.



The skein on the left is by See Jayne Knit in "The Leaves Dream of Autumn". The skein on the right is by WooleyGlassStudio in "A Flower Bed Surprise".

Now for what the title of today's missive is all about.

I'm not as young as I used to be.

Yesterday was the birthday lunch for my daughter. I had suggested a bunch of places to go eat, most of them in San Francisco. She had chosen a long-time institution in Berkeley, a restaurant named Spenger's.

Kidlet rode BART (sort of like Disneyland's Monorail, except without the commentary and not as safe) to the station nearest our house, so Hubster went and picked her up. So far, so good. I was running late as usual, so they came to the house, picked me up, and off we went.

When I was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time roaming around Berkeley and San Francisco (aka The City). However, I had my grandpa with me, who was a retired cop and could name and find every street in the Bay Area. I blithely would go with him, not paying attention to where we were going. Therein was one of the problems that we experienced. But I get ahead of myself.

We arrived at Spenger's right on time - in fact, I even had time to have a smoke outside before our reservation time. Now, Spenger's used to be a first-class restaurant - huge portions, delicious food, a place where everyone from bums to the mayors of every city in the Bay Area and all the members of the professional sports teams would come for lunch or dinner. Some years ago, this venerable old lady was sold to a corporation, who decided to keep the original name and change the menu a bit. They didn't change much of the decor, either - although the enormous canary diamond that was kept in a bulletproof glass-enclosed diving helmet in front of the reservation desk was gone. It felt very much like the Spenger's of old, the place where I had frequently gone for lunch with grandpa. But it wasn't.

So we checked in, the lady seating us grabbed menus and steered us to our booth (the place was almost empty - not a good sign), and we settled in for what we thought would be a good lunch. The menus were different, though - they were just long sheets of paper instead of the hardbound tomes you usually got. Then I saw it. They had put "Happy Birthday Amber!" on the top of the sheets along with the date. A really cool thing, we thought. So we decided to keep one menu for us and give the other two to kidlet. A good start.

Then we started reading said menu. It was greatly condensed - maybe it was the Sunday brunch menu, we thought. No matter. There was still enough food to sink the proverbial ship. So I decided on crab and shrimp Tater Tots (I had no idea what they would be), Hubster ordered clam chowder, and kidlet ordered coconut encrusted shrimp with a horseradish sauce for dipping. The waiter brought our appetizers (mine looked like like little deep-fried turds with tartar sauce), and we began our culinary adventure.

The main menu had some good-looking stuff on it, so I decided on a Seafood Newburg (shrimp and scallops in a puff pastry with Newburg sauce), Hubster got the rex sole (fresh from the Bay), and kidlet got some salmon pasta thing. No problem. Except we were halfway through our appetizers when the main courses arrived.

If there's one thing I hate when I eat out, it's poor timing by the kitchen. I hate having my appetizer still partially uneaten when my meal arrives. So we pushed our appetizers to the edge of the table for removal and started on our main courses.

Mine looked like someone had upchucked some strange sauce all over it. The puff pastry was clearly from a Peppridge Farms box (and squished at that - I used to have to make hundreds of sheets of puff pastry when I was in culinary school, so I know the real deal), with big sea scallops (I like the small bay scallops) lying on the plate along with prawns (there were three of each - good thing I had some Tater Turds first). There were a few mushrooms scattered on the plate, and this entire concoction was put on top of mashed potatoes. Interesting. I'd never seen a brown Newburg sauce before, but I figured it was the chef's take on it. So I cut into a scallop, scooped up a piece of puff pastry and a mushroom, got some sauce on it, and stuck the fork in my mouth.

GACK GACK GACK

The scallop wasn't cooked all the way through. If there's another thing I hate, it's undercooked seafood. So the scallops got pushed to the side, and I attacked my three prawns. Then I noticed it. The chef had left the legs on. So I pulled off the tail along with the legs and popped a much smaller prawn (now a shrimp) into my mouth with some puff pastry, the other mushroom, and a little of the sauce.

The prawn was overcooked - tough, chewy, and tasteless. Sigh. I looked at Hubster's plate to see how he was doing.

He was staring at his dark brown fish. Dark brown? Did the chef pan-fry it in browned butter? Nooooo. It was the color of this particular fish. Hubster is used to eating Petrale sole, which is a nice off-white color. At the most, it turns a little brown around the edges if it's cooked a little too long. It's a delicate fish with a delicate flavor. And it always comes in fillets. This was a whole fish with a whole skeleton. Poor Hubster didn't quite know how to eat it. So I showed him how to grab the skeleton at the backbone, rotate it towards him, and drag all the bones out while they were still attached to the backbone, thereby rendering two perfect fillets for him to eat. He did his best and only lost a little of the fish. When he tasted it, I think he wished he had lost a whole lot more of the fish. It was terrible. Not at all what he was used to.

During this fun and games session, kidlet was munching away on her pasta. I was impressed - she usually orders fried prawns and nothing else, so for her to order a more sophisticated dish (especially one with salmon) was a sight to behold. She ate most of hers, I ate what I could of mine, and Hubster ate his (because Hubster always eats his unless it's so horrible that even he, the human garbage can, can't stomach it). Then the waiter came back and asked if we would like dessert.

I normally don't have dessert, but I figured they would sing Happy Birthday to the kidlet, so I ordered a flourless torte. It was the least of the evils on the dessert tray - I just don't do sweets. Being a retired pastry chef didn't increase my liking of them, either. Hubster got some horrible-looking apple pie with walnuts and caramel sauce (it came with cinnamon ice cream), and kidlet got a volcano cake.

They brought the desserts, I braced myself for the gathering of waiters, and.... nothing. The menu, although cool, had been the big birthday thing. Argh. So I tasted my dessert. It was like eating a bittersweet candy bar and was so heavy that I could barely chew it. Hubster plowed through his pie (he loves all things sweet), and kidlet liked her volcano cake. We paid the bill and left, terribly disappointed with the whole thing.

So then we decided to go see if any of the shops in Berkeley were open. Even though it was late afternoon on Sunday, school was back in session, so I figured maybe we'd find some interesting things to look at. We took off down the road, intending to turn on Ashby Avenue (a major thoroughfare) and scope out the area. That's not exactly what happened.

Hubster took a wrong turn (I don't know why that man listens to me when I give him directions), and we wound up on some strange street which was clearly residential. I told him to turn left, figuring that if we headed towards the university, we'd find something. We never did find anything of note. The university loomed in front of us and we had to turn left again (there was a junky street festival of some kind going on), and all of a sudden, we found ourselves going up. And I do mean UP. The little road we were on was headed almost vertically straight up into the Berkeley hills. Traffic was backed up in the other direction (this was one of those roads where you have to pull over to let cars go past - it was narrow), I was blathering on about the cool houses, and kidlet was serenely sitting in the back, looking at the Bay shimmering in the not too distant distance. Some woman had tried to parallel park and wound up with the side of her car completely jammed against a pickup truck that was parked - she was trying to figure out how to get her car out of the truck - and we kept climbing. We drive an Expedition, and that truck was never meant to negotiate narrow, windy roads in the hills. It would have been okay if the traffic in the other direction wasn't backed up and scattered all over the place. Hubster was getting nervous and was trying desperately to get off the hill. I finally told him to turn left yet again and get on another narrow street that looked like it would take us down the hill. He did, and it did. Finally - back to large streets. We still didn't know where the hell we were until I saw a sign that said, "Welcome to Albany". We had left Berkeley behind, crossed into another county, and wound up in another town.

We finally spotted a freeway sign and headed in that direction, getting on the freeway and heading for home. Kidlet didn't want to go home (she never wants to be there), but I was very tired and it was time to go. We dropped her off at the BART station ((B)ay (A)rea (R)apid (T)ransit, because I know you're all dying to know what it means), and headed home.

I don't remember much of the rest of the evening. I was supposed to call a friend, but it was too late. I fell asleep in the Monster and didn't pick up my needles until 4 a.m. It wasn't a sound sleep, either - I kept waking up. I did some knitting, fell asleep several times with it in my hands, spilled coffee all over my new Vogue Sock book (ARGH ARGH ARGH) and just narrowly missing my knitting, spilled coffee again all over the Monster (I don't know why I even try to drink stuff when I'm that tired), and wound up awakening at 9:00 a.m. to the sound of Hubster's alarm. Today is his day at the office, so I have the house to myself.

So that was my exciting day yesterday. Today, I'm getting as much sleep as I can, and then I'll knit tonight. I'm turning the heel, which is always an exciting time for me - it means I'm on the home stretch. With any luck, I'll stay awake long enough to finish that.

And not spill any coffee on it.

A Day in the Life

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten about you.

After all, this is awfully late in the day for me to post something.

No, I've been knitting, searching, swearing, dozing... the stuff I'll talk about later.

First, the porn.

Now bear in mind that this is two days' worth of stuff from the Yarn Fairy and his minion, the YFIT (Yarn Fairy in Training, for those of you who have forgotten). I have to admit, though, that even I am sort of embarrassed by the sheer volume of yarny goodness which I'm about to present to you. It took three pictures to get it all photographed without crowding anything, but I hope you'll enjoy everything. Gabby has gotten over her snit and posed with everything.

Because there is so much yarn and I can't keep everything straight, I'm simply going to list the yarns in each picture. Many of you will recognize which yarns are which.

The first offering.



The pattern in the back (I apologize for you not being able to see the details) is called "Tumbling Blocks" and is by Leah Oakley Originals. This was part of a yarn swap where she sent me a club offering by Sleeping Dragon and I sent her... well, I sent her a skein of yarn outside of her color box. That big square of beautiful blue-hued yarn is handspun by Moody Landscape. If you look closely, you can see a rectangle knit out of it. It's spectacular. Then there is Dream in Color Smooshy in "Visual Purple" and "Happy Forest", and Woolly Boully in "Fishing With My Father".

The second offering.



This one contains Sereknity in "Autumn Blaze" and "Tree Frog"; Dream in Color Smooshy in "Dusky Aurora"; and a new dyer for me, Sheepaints in "Pumpkin" and "Kitty Paw" (I'm REALLY stoked about knitting this one).

The final picture.



The first three were skeins I bought from a lovely lady named Zonda who was destashing. The first two are from a dyer I've never tried before - Sunshine Yarns in "Dark Forest" and "Tiger"; Yarn Pirate in "Brown Sugar"; and then two from Etsy - RazzyTazzy Knits in "Neapolitan"; and Wooly Treasures in "Candy Kisses".

I also got a bagful of stitch markers and a counting bracelet from Hide and Sheep (you MUST go buy some of Susan and Todd's wares - they will even customize the bracelets for you at no charge, and their workmanship is incredible), the first club offering from the TV Yarn Club (chick flicks) courtesy of White Oak Studio (I almost fell off the Monster when I saw what they sent - if you get a chance to join this club in three months, do so - you'll go nuts), and my first club offering from Sharing on Etsy (a gorgeous yarn as only Karen can do in a really cool container). I don't like to show the club offerings in case people haven't received theirs yet, and I don't want to be a spoiler.

I had room in my newest bin, so I explained to Hubster that they're like freezers - they're not as efficient if they're not full. I don't think he bought it.

On to my night of horror.

It started as it usually does. I knew I was sleepy, but I was bound and determined to reach a certain point on the Monkey socks. I figured that if I was careful, I could easily reach my intended goal, put the knitting away, and actually lay down in my bed (I don't even remember what it feels like, but I seem to remember something very soft and squishy and wonderful). Hubster was up late with me too (I think he was hoping I'd come to bed with him), and earlier in the day, he had bought me a sandwich from our favorite Italian deli. I was hoping to eat the sandwich when we got home (which was about 8:00 p.m.), but I had left it out on the counter because I don't like cold bread. What I should have done was to take the roast beef out of the sandwich, refrigerated that, wrapped the roll in foil, and then reassembled it when I wanted to eat it. Instead, I was late as usual for my appointment, so we took off out the door and the sandwich languished. I was starving when we got home, so I got the sandwich, opened it to slap some mayo on it, and decided I'd better taste the meat before I ate it

GACK.

It was beginning to turn bad. So in the garbage went my beloved sandwich and I ate... you guessed it. A ham sandwich on an English muffin. I'm starting to resemble an English muffin.

After dinner, I settled down in the Monster to begin my knitting. I figured that I would be done in an hour, I'd take my pills, goof around online while they kicked in, and then hit the hay. Simple, right?

Wrong.

As usual, I fell asleep in the Monster and woke up at intervals with my knitting in my hand. I would knit a few stitches, fall asleep, wake up, knit a few stitches, fall asleep... this went on through most of the night. I finally woke up at 4:00 a.m and realized that I hadn't even knit 10 stitches. That was my hour-long project. Sigh.

I got Hubster off to bed (he looked so sad that I wasn't coming; not that he wanted to play slap and tickle, but he wanted to cuddle), and I got myself something to drink and prepared to finish my knitting. I wasn't tired anymore, so I figured I could finally get it all done. Everything was going swimmingly for awhile - I had a lot of stuff TIVO'ed, I had my drink, I had everything else I needed on my table - and then it happened. I had to go pee.

Not a big deal, right? The bathroom is right across the hall from where the Monster resides. The big deal is that I have to take everything off the foot rest, put it on the chair, put the foot rest down (no easy task for some reason), and then hustle off to the bathroom before I pee on my feet. I managed to do that just fine, exited the bathroom, sat my big ass on the Monster, and pulled on the lever to raise the foot rest. Then I put everything back on it (it makes such a terrific shelf), reached for the fifth needle to begin knitting again, and...

It wasn't there.

I tore that chair apart. I found dust bunnies the size of my head behind and under the Monster; I found a dead moth the size of Manhattan; I found all kinds of things I would rather not have seen. But did I find the needle? No. So I began to swear. Loudly. I hope the neighbors didn't hear me, although at the time, I didn't much care.

After I had exhausted all my options, I finally had to resort to my secret weapon: Hubster. It was 6:00 a.m., and I hated to wake him up, but he's really good at finding things. So I went in the bedroom, got him up, and explained what had happened. He began a thorough search of the chair. At one point, I thought maybe the needle had been on the foot rest when I closed it down, thereby flinging it across the room, but it was nowhere to be found. Hubster even lifted the chair up (that man is STRONG), and all we found were the arm covers and back cover for the Monster that the idiots who delivered it hadn't bothered to give us - they were tucked way up under the Monster. Then, as Hubster began to lower the chair, we heard a plink. We looked, and lo and behold, there was the needle. It must have been wedged in the Monster somewhere we couldn't reach it, and I was very lucky that the needle didn't break when I sat in the chair and raised and lowered the rest. If it had been a steel needle, it may well have broken in half. Given that it is bamboo, it might have flexed enough to save it. Thank goodness. That meant I could finish my knitting and not have to wait until today to buy another set of needles at $15 a pop. (Yeah, I know it sounds stupid for me to complain about how much something costs, given the sheer volume of yarn I buy, but there's something obscene about paying that much for DPN's.) Hubster made some coffee, sat down at the computer, and has been awake since. I think we're both pretty punchy, so a nap together before we go out tonight is in order.

I finally finished my knitting, put it away (with the fifth needle safely secured in the ball of yarn), watched some TV, dorked around, and finally got around to photographing all the porn. Now I need to put it all away, go water my plants, and then collapse. Today is our daughter's 30th birthday, but she has plans with a friend of hers, so we'll see her tomorrow. I won't be posting tomorrow because we'll be gone all day with her, so I'm taking the day off. I'll be back on Monday.

No doubt with more porn to share with you, and hopefully some funny stories about our adventures in Berkeley tomorrow.

Have a lovely Sunday, my dear readers.

Another Night, Another Haul, A Major Mistake

(yawn)

Sorry about that. It's the aftereffect of dozing in the Monster yet again, which this time had dire consequences. But more about that later.

You know, sometimes I don't realize my buying capacity. This is what arrived in yesterday's mail.



Gabby kindly consented to pose in this picture. She's been kind of cranky lately (one of those female things, I think), so this is the only picture she wanted to be in. Anyway, this picture contains Wooly Wonka Fibers in "Zinnias" (beautiful colors and slightly fatter than fingering, but not as fat as DK); YarnAddict Anni in "Plum Pie" (soft as a cloud); Keegan Lane Yarns (meliabella) in "Twilight Foliage" (the color blending is exquisite - and she kindly put it in two skeins for my two sock knitting); and Gentle Sunset Yarns in "Berry Banana Orange" (a gift because I was her first customer) and "Lettuce".

This second picture contains all Merlin The Cat Yarns.



The colors are "Grandma's Kitchen", "Tzara", and "Orange Nut". The put-ups on these are incredible - 560 yards on the superwash merino, and 430 yards on the superwash merino/bamboo/nylon blend (Tzara).

There was a SOTM yarn, too, but I couldn't show that.

Lastly for your yarny viewing pleasure, there are these two remarkable creatures.



These are by Greenfingers on Etsy. The goddesses are filled with herbs enclosed in a silk pouch so they don't leak out (oh geez, they smell heavenly). Her knitting is exquisite, the colorways on them move and swirl, and her construction techniques are beyond reproach. We're currently working on a custom goddess; I've always loved them, and I love the female form in it's natural state (read: curvy and not stick-thin). Do I swing like a tire in the breeze? No. I just appreciate beauty in all its forms.

So that's what I have to offer in the way of yarny happiness. The Yarn Fairy hasn't come yet, so it's anybody's guess what will show up today. I know I have a bunch of stuff that hasn't shown up yet, but I am proud to say that I haven't bought anything for a few days. We all have to start somewhere.

"Hello. My name is Pam, and I am a yarnaholic. It's been three days since I've partaken of yarn bingeing."

Now for the horror that was my night.

Actually, the night started out well. I had been knitting most of the day, and Hubster was up with me, so it was really pleasant. We went to the grocery store at a reasonable time (for us, anyway), and the plan was for him to BBQ chicken. I was making some cheesy pasta to go with it. I told him to give me about 20 minutes' warning before he took the bird off the spit so I could get the pasta going. No problem, right?

Big problem.

I fell asleep and he couldn't wake me up. Thank you, drugs.

I woke up just in time to eat. The Blond Love God had done everything - made the chicken, made the pasta, gotten everything ready for dinner, and all I had to do was get up, sit down, and eat. We eat off TV trays in front of the TV (we used to eat at the table a lot in our old home, but now our table is our desk - sigh), but it's comfortable because we have one of those ultra-thin wall-mounted TV's that's on a swivel arm that telescopes, so we can both eat in comfort in our respective chairs and see the TV without craning our necks. I digress.

He walked back into the kitchen. I fell back asleep. He couldn't wake me up again.

I woke up at 1:30 a.m. I hadn't eaten since the night before (I tend to eat once a day - it's just what I do), so I was ravenous. I was also pissed. The darling man had put my dinner in the oven, turned the oven on and off so it would stay hot but not get overcooked, and done everything possible he could think of so when I did wake up, I'd have a lovely dinner. I was pissed because I had slept through everything. Again. So I took my dinner out of the oven (it was hot), sat down, and took a bite.

GACK.

The noodles were a congealed mass of cheesy shit, the chicken was as tough as my ass, and I was PISSED. Not at Hubster. I love the man more than life itself. I had ruined his dinner. He apologized for not being able to wake me, but he had no reason to apologize to me. Quite the contrary. It was entirely my fault. So at 2:30 a.m., I wound up eating an English muffin with ham on it while I watched Alfred Hitchcock with tears streaming down my face.

The tears were for two reasons. One, because I had ruined dinner for us. Two, because before I sat down to eat, I picked up my knitting to set it aside and noticed something.

I had dropped a stitch that had run down through a SSK on the previous row and something else on the row before that. That's when I burst into tears.

Now, had I not ruined dinner and not been in such a shitty mood, I would have sworn loudly, sat down, and fixed the problem. But it was compounded because these were my Monkey Socks. For my pal. And I had RUINED THEM. Obviously an overreaction, but you understand.

So I ate my crappy ham sandwich (the third or fourth night in a row I've had this particular meal), washed my hands, and sat down to tackle this problem.

Now, whenever I'm faced with a problem like this, all my years of knitting fly out the window and I'm convinced that I can't fix it, that it's ruined, and that I'll have to start the whole thing all over again. That's what I was thinking as I gazed at it.

After gazing at it for a while and turning it in all directions (don't let anyone tell you that stitches can't fall off bamboo needles - sticky my ass), I realized that I simply had to reconstruct the previous two rows and work the dropped stitch up through them. And that's what I did. Guess what? It took me two minutes to fix it. And the stitches weren't even stretched out of shape. Good as new. Whew.

Between then and now, I've fallen asleep again (I have to be somewhere at 6:00 p.m., so I don't think I'm going to get any more sleep), so I think I'll wait for the Yarn Fairy, get some things ready to mail, and then sit down to knit some more. Maybe I'll eat something, too. And have some coffee.

Maybe I do know how to knit after all.

I Need To Change My Phone Number

Last night, we're sitting there after dinner watching TV, when it happens.

Out of the blue.

RIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGG RIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGG

Hubster answers the infernal thing.

I hear him say hello, and then he says, "May I ask who's calling?", followed by, "Just a minute, please.". (I'm telling you, the man is more polite than I ever was as a secretary.) Since it's after 9:00 p.m. and I'm not expecting any calls, I immediately think that someone has died.

He hands me the phone and shrugs. I give him the eye (you ladies know which one), take the phone, and tentatively say, "Hello?"

A frantic female voice begins babbling on the other end, and all I catch is, "It's a ring!".

Oh.

It's one of my students, and they've fucked it up again.

I get the caller to calm down, find out who it is (I still don't know who it is even after they tell me their name - I'm horrible at remembering names), and then get them to slow WAY down and explain the problem to me. It's a common problem, as it turns out. They've not followed the cable of the needle around and knitted with the wrong needle, thereby knitting the sock onto the wrong one. So now they have a ring firmly fastened by the two socks and don't know how to fix it.

I explain to her how to get a spare needle, transfer the stitches on it, and get the thing straightened out. I make her do it while I'm on the phone. I don't want her calling back in ten minutes with the same problem. But trouble is still lurking. She has taken off the wrong set of stitches and still has a circle instead of the needles falling free.

I explain again what to do, she does it, and now she has a ring with stitches on two spare needles. I sigh. I take a deep breath. I light a smoke. And then I tell her how to straighten this mess out and patiently wait while she does it.

Finally. The problem is solved, she thanks me from the bottom of her heart, and we hang up. I meander back to the Monster, settle myself in, and pick up my Monkey socks. I'm feeling a little sleepy, so I want to get as much done as I can.

RIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG RIIINNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG

I look at Hubster, he looks at me, shrugs, and picks up the damned torture instrument.

He goes through the same opening questions, hands the phone to me, and shrugs again.

I say, "Hello?" and get a different female voice jabbering away at the speed of light, telling me that she has dropped stitches three rows back in the gusset increase section, has ladders running like a cockroach across a tenement floor, and has she ruined the socks, and what should she do, and the yarn cost her a small fortune because she used buffalo, and I didn't cover this particular eventuality in class, and... and... and...

I light another smoke.

I know who this one is. This is the one I told specifically NOT to use buffalo because it's hard to see, has a tendency to full when you rip it back too many times (and she has ripped this poor thing to shreds), and since these are her first pair of socks, she should really use something that's a lighter color and more tightly spun. I ask her how far away from the lifeline the ladders are.

"What's a lifeline?", she asks.

I drop my ciggie on my boob and frantically try to put out the fire while balancing the phone on my shoulder.

"Uh... you didn't understand what a lifeline was when I explained them in class?", I ask.

"What's a lifeline?", she repeats.

I relight the ciggie that I had just smashed out against my pendulous boob. I inhale deeply. I let the smoke barrel out my nostrils. Then I choose my words carefully, because this woman doesn't let you get a word in edgewise, is a know-it-all, and gets angry very easily.

"I explained what a lifeline is in the first class. I told you again what it is during the second class. I refreshed everyone's memory as to what it is during the third class... oh wait... you didn't come to the third class, did you? No matter. I'll explain it again." And I do, and then I ask her if she bothered to put any in.

"You didn't tell me I had to put one in," she says.

Well, that's not true. I told them to put in not one, but two, and where to put them, and why, and this just illustrates my point. So I explain to her that the easiest way to fix this is to put one in after the fact, rip down to it, and then put the live stitches back on the needle. It's far easier than trying to rip back, pick up all the stitches without missing one (this is dark brown buffalo, after all), and it will teach her how to do it. So then she wants to know if sewing thread will work.

I tell her that no, it's not the optimal thing to use because it will cut that $75 a skein buffalo yarn like a hot knife through butter. I ask her if she has crochet thread. Of course she doesn't, because she's a knitter, not a crocheter, and would kitchen twine work?

I tell her no, that it's too thick, and then I ask her a question about her personal hygiene. I ask her if she flosses her teeth.

Now this was probably the wrong question to ask, because then she goes off into a litany about her dental cleanliness, and how she never gets cavities, and... and... and...

I cut her off and tell her the reason I asked is because she can use dental floss. She pauses, yells for me to hold on, drops the phone (ow), and I assume runs to the bathroom to check her dental floss supply.

I light another smoke.

Then all of a sudden, I get a stream of conversation pouring into my ear, and what I finally understand is that she's asking whether mint, cinnamon, or plain is the preferable flavor, followed by waxed or unwaxed, regular or tape, and... and... and...

The woman does indeed have good dental hygiene.

We finally get the problem sorted out, I tell her to put in lifelines from now on (and to get some crochet thread), she thanks me from the bottom of her heart, tells me all about the wool afghan she knitted for her boyfriend's truck but it was the wrong color and she spotted a mistake towards the beginning when she only had two more rows to do and she ripped the whole thing out and she spent hundreds of dollars buying wool for it because she hates acrylic and she loves buffalo and she wonders what it would cost to make one out of that and does buffalo come in blue and... and... and...

I tell her I'm glad her problem is solved, say good-night, and hang up.

I settle back into the Monster, pick up my Monkey socks again, and am just about to knit a stitch when...

RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG RIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG

You know the opening script. This time, the hysterical woman on the other end wants me to repeat everything I said in the last class. From the top. Slowly, so she can take notes.

I light yet another smoke. No wonder I can't quit.

I finally get her to understand what the class was about, what her homework is, how to do it, and if she has any problems to refer to pages so and so in the book. She thanks me from the bottom of her heart, tells me that my class is the best one she's ever taken, and hangs up.

I wander back into the family room and plop down into the Monster. I dare the phone to ring again. I glare at it and say bad words to it. I pick up my knitting, get the needle into the first stitch, and...

I wake up six hours later.

At least I didn't drop a stitch, although the Monster seems to have eaten a DPN.

Shit.

A Little of This, A Little of That...

My dear readers,

I don't have anything specific to blab about today, so I thought I would touch upon a few different things. It's sort of stream of consciousness typing, if you will.

First of all, this post is so horribly late because of those damn pills. I ate my dinner last night when I got home, settled in to watch "The Queen" while I knitted, and the next thing I knew, I was still in the same position on the Monster and it was 4:00 a.m. Another five hours had disappeared without my knowing it. I did a few things (like open up the mail that came yesterday), and picked up my knitting again. I got one round done, and then it was 11:00 a.m. I knew Hubster had a meeting and wanted to get up at 10:30, so I called for him. He answered from the other side of the computer and scared the shit out of me. I had slept through the alarm and didn't realize that he was already awake and had the coffee ready.

So I've managed to stay awake all morning, have knitted an entire pattern repeat on the Monkeys, photographed the booty from yesterday, and am finally sitting down to type. I still haven't taken my pills from last night, let alone today's first batch. I really have to get my life in order and get this sleeping thing under control, especially since the little ones are coming very soon. More about that later.

First, the booty. I was right - because of the holiday, I got an enormous haul. I think there were a dozen packages in total. I had to photograph them in two batches because they all wouldn't fit in one picture. So, for your viewing pleasure, the first batch.



The batik set in the upper left corner was custom-made for me by Blue Kitty Designs. It's a sock bag with a matching needle case and pouch for notions. It's beautifully done, and even has a plastic tag holder on the handle with little cards to stick inside so you can write down what project is in the bag, your name and address, or whatever else you want to add. The two skeins of yarn (the ones without the wrapping) are Woolly Boully in "Sunshine Family" (a new yarn base for Jenny), and "Lotus Blossom" in her Softie Sock base (it's so squishy!). The beautiful organza-wrapped skein is by Wooly Treasures in "Envy", a gorgeous, subtly changing colorway. The cake is by Prairie Daisy Handspun in "Autumn Delight", another subtly changing colorway that is going to be gorgeous when it's knitted up. The little monsters are Sam, Sharon, and Chloe - the maker was kind enough to send Chloe along for free because she missed her sister Sharon. :) I got them to put on top of the Mac next to Gabby. I just thought they were awfully cute, and they're also beautifully crafted. The book is by Wendy of Wendy Knits. She was kind enough to allow me to mail the book to her for her autograph, since I won't be at Stitches East (but I'll be at Stitches West!).

The second load of booty is yarny goodness (what else?).



In no particular order, there is Dream in Color in "Cloud Jungle", "Good Luck Jade", and "Dusky Aurora", and ShiBui in a bunch of numbers. I got these particular colorways because two of them are going to be made into socks with alternating stripes, and the other three are going to be made into socks with alternating stripes and some other textured stitch or possibly cables. I haven't got that far yet. There's also a fiber braid from Sweet Sheep (I keep forgetting that I signed up for that). I think it's called "Summer Garden". Also received but not shown are two pouches (I use them for my stitch markers which I sort according to size and/or type) and a SOTM. I used to keep all my SOTM kits in a separate bin, but that went out the window when I started going apeshit with the stash. I have officially stopped buying yarn now (well, except for Sheri's Sneak-Ups and Jen's new offerings), but I'm desperately trying to stay away from Etsy. Later this month is the TKGA show (where I'm actually taking four classes), and they're going to have a market. Then we're going on vacation. I have to stop buying now or I won't have any money to spend at either place, and I really want to spend some buckolas on vacation.

So last night I went and taught my third installment of the sock class. Most of the students had completed their homework (with the notable exception of one poor soul who had gotten her needles so hopelessly tangled that the only way to fix it was to take everything off the needles, straighten it out, and then get her to knitting again). I got them started on the gussets, and they did very well. One lady, though, showed me her sock; it was large enough to fit Bozo. She didn't understand that the stitch count at the end of the toe increases was meant to be counted all the way around the sock. She put the entire number on each side. The poor thing had something like 170 stitches all the way around. I told her as gently as I could that she had to frog it to the point where she had the correct number. I hate to see that - it was beautifully knitted, her lifelines were in place, and she had done everything right - except for that. I felt really bad for her. Other than those mishaps, the class went surprisingly smooth, and the girls even laughed during it. It was fun. I came home, ate dinner, and thus began my evening of snoozing, drooling, and getting no knitting of my own done. I'm working like a fiend in my waking hours so I don't miss the deadline for the sock swap. Then I realized that I had homework for the classes at TKGA that need to be knitted before the end of the month. ARGH. We're going to a Stitch 'n Pitch a week from Sunday (A's vs. Texas Rangers), so I think I'll work on the swatches I need for class while I'm there. I don't particularly like baseball, and Hubster doesn't particularly like baseball surrounded by a bunch of needle-waving harpies, but he's going with me just the same. I'm mainly going for the goodie bag. Offer something free and I'm there. Besides, it's a container, and you all know how I feel about those.

Maybe you'll notice that my pictures are crisp, clean, and not wobbly. That's because while I was teaching last night, dear Hubster went over to Best Buy and bought me a tripod. He figured that if I was taking a bunch of pictures, it would be better to have something that would keep the camera from wobbling. He also bought me a couple of movies to watch while I knit. What a guy - he's a keeper.

The thing with the little ones is that Hubster talked to our daughter the other day, and she's about ready to explode. She and the kids are living with my mother and grandmother, who are getting up in years and tend to yell all day about nothing. It's a bad environment for the kids, and even though DD is 30 and should be out on her own, she's not emotionally mature and is incapable of taking care of herself, let alone the kids. It looks like we'll have them a little sooner than we thought. That means that Hubster is busy cleaning out the room that was to be his office so the kids have a bedroom. As for DD, she'll be spending some nights over here on the couch. I was so spoiled by my old house - I had five bedrooms and more than enough room for anybody who wanted to come stay. Three of the bedrooms were guest rooms after the kids left, but we were turning one room into their bedroom and another one into their playroom. Maybe one day I'll have something like that again. I hope.

I bought a new book called "Knitting Circles Around Socks", which shows a new way of knitting socks on two circs. I'm always open to learning new ways to do something. I've only glanced through it; however, from what I've seen, the method they offer is more laborious than the one I teach. We'll see. I also have to dive into my Vogue sock book and all the other ones I've bought. I just don't have the time, what with my weird sleeping schedule. I have to be "normal" before my classes so I can go to them like any other person, sit through them and learn something (purely by accident, three of them are being taught by Nancie Wiseman), and then when vacation comes, I can actually get up at a decent hour so we can enjoy the attractions longer than an hour before they close.

I think that sums up everything that's been going on. For now, I'm tired again, so I think I'll have a smoke and then take a nap. Maybe tonight I can stay awake and get a lot of knitting done. I'm not knitting anything else until I finish these socks, which are actually going pretty fast (thank goodness, especially since I'm not a fast knitter). It would be nice to spend the evening awake with Hubster.

And maybe I won't find a DPN sticking out of my chest.

Bags, Bags, and... Did I Say Bags?

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I slept. And slept. AND SLEPT. I've got to cut back on those pills because... I sleep. I was going to knit most of the night on my Monkey socks. And what did I do? I fell asleep with my coffee cup in my hand. I haven't even taken my pills for last night. Argh. I have to get back on schedule.

Anyway...

Some of you may remember that I was going to show you pictures of my bags and indicate which ones were for sale. However, after trying to pick up all my bags, it rapidly became evident that I don't have room in this house to spread them out, let alone put them all in less than ten pictures. So I decided to take pictures of just the ones that are for sale. With two exceptions, they are all by Martha of Green Mountain Knitting Bags. All are brand-new; I haven't used any of them. The other two are by Offhand Designs. They're also unused. I just have way too many bags, so I promised Hubster that I'd get rid of them. Should they not sell here, I'll put them on eBay. I'd hate to do that because of the fees, but I do have to get rid of them. So, without further ado, here they are.



The two to the right are the Offhand Design bags.











What's so unusual about that little red bag with the chickens on it is that it was one of Martha's first prototypes. I bought it because it's one of a kind. Well, they all are (Martha's bags, that is), but that one is never to be seen again. They're made of chenille, tapestry, and/or upholstery material, or a combination thereof (I think the chicken bag is a heavy cotton upholstery-type fabric).

I'm asking $125 each (postage included) with the exception of the little chicken bag. That one is $50. I paid around $140 for most of them - some of them were as much as $175. The prices are negotiable to a point. I'm already taking a loss, which is okay, but I also can't lose a ton of money on them. I hope you understand. Her bags are in high demand and usually sell out almost as quickly as she can post them (which is once a week on Thursdays). She still does customs, but the waiting list is astronomical. So here's your chance to own one and not have to wait.

If you're interested in any of them or would like to see pictures of the interiors (most of them have pockets), e-mail me at pamtheknitter@gmail.com, and I'll be happy to send them to you.

Sales pitch over.

In between all the sleeping, I did manage to get a good deal done on the Monkeys. They're gong very well, although I haven't handled DPN's in a long time. It took some getting used to having five needles all waving around like an octopus. I can't post pictures of them because I know my pal reads this, so you'll just have to wait until after I mail them to her and she's opened them. Suffice it to say that they're gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

My question of the week is: Why are some of us cute when we're bald and toothless?



I'm not cute anymore. I guess I'm still sort of pretty, although I'm fading like the petals of a rose too long on the stem. But then again, I'm accepting age gracefully. I've earned every one of these lines and impending wrinkles. Life has a way of etching itself onto our faces, our hands, our bodies. So we come full circle, some of us returning to being bald and toothless and even cute again. While I'm not old enough to be cute in a doddering sort of way, the disease has robbed me of my teeth and hair. It usually doesn't bother me unless we're out to dinner and I bite into something kind of tough or sticky and... well, I'm sure you get the picture. It makes for less than a stellar dining experience.

Enough maudlin shit.

Tonight, I have to go teach the third installment of the dreaded sock class. My students are going to learn how to do gussets. They should be able to grasp this one, since it's the same as doing the toes. Then the fun really starts. Then they begin to short-row it up the heel flap. And then the fun REALLY starts. Then we learn how to meld the flap stitches with the gusset stitches. That turns the heel. I may need to call on one of you lovely readers for some Valium. Better yet, Ativan. Then I won't remember the evening.

Or I could just take one of the magic pills and fall asleep during class. But that wouldn't work, either. Then I'd drool all over myself and really look doddering. But not cute.

So that's all I have today, dear readers. Hopefully, the Yarn Fairy will arrive today overloaded with goodies, since there was no mail yesterday. And as much as I love having Hubster home, he'll be the one to get the mail.

Because I'll be passed out in the Monster, drooling.

I'm Taking The Day Off

Dear Readers,

I am going to take today off in order to relax, work on my knitting, and generally loaf around. I'll see you all tomorrow.

Have a wonderful, relaxing Labor Day!

Labor Day

I know you thought you'd never see it happen.

I'm going to dispense with my usual idiocy and talk about something that has been on my mind. It was sparked by a comment left by the shop owner I visited when I went to Sacramento the other day.

First of all, I want to publicly apologize to her. No matter what she thinks, I didn't mean to hurt her feelings. Apparently someone is saying horrid things about her and/or her shop on Ravelry and other places, but it's not me. She should know me well enough to know that I speak my mind and do so without hiding behind others. I hope she believes me, and I hope she knows that I do love her. It was just a horrible trip all the way around, and had she known what was going on in my life during the past several months, perhaps she would have understood a little better. But in any event, I'm sorry to have caused her pain and went out of my way to not mention her name or the name of the shop. Sacramento has a lot more than one yarn shop, so it would be anybody's guess who I was talking about. And yes, she made some comments that did hurt my feelings, and pretty badly, too. I deleted her comment because this isn't the forum for such things. If you're reading this, old friend, I would really like your e-mail address so I can write to you and explain myself.

In any event, she made a comment to the effect of, "Not everyone started by knitting lace and socks", or something pretty close to that. No, they didn't. Neither did I. While it's true I learned how to crochet by making doilies using size 100 thread and hooks so small I now need a magnifying glass to see them, I didn't learn how to knit that way. I learned how to knit like everyone else - one stitch at a time. She then defended her clientele and her yarn selection. Fine. To each his own. I'm entitled to my own opinions, and she's entitled to hers.

But it got me to thinking, especially since it's Labor Day weekend. Is our work the best we can do, or are we settling for mediocrity?

I was always taught that perfection was the goal, even if it was unattainable. Granted, working on my knitting and crocheting as a child wasn't always fun. I had things ripped out far more often than I had them praised. The backs had to look as good as the fronts or whatever I was working on was ripped out. Each stitch had to be the same as the next or it got ripped out. The same was true for sewing, embroidery, cross-stitch, or any other fiber art I was being taught. There were times I couldn't stand to look at the new ball of yarn that was purchased at Mervyn's (yes, Merv's was a real department store in the early '60's - they sold yarn, fabric, notions, and anything else you needed to make something or run a home). But I perservered, and eventually I learned how to do things to my grandmother's high standards. Even today, the first thing she does is look at the back of something to see if it passes muster, and I'm 49 years old. But I can cook most people under the table, run a house, make just about anything out of just about anything, iron perfect creases, and do any number of household chores. If I'm motivated, you can literally eat off my floors. This isn't bragging. She was preparing me for life. You see, back then she thought that a woman was good for two things: to be a good housewife and a good mother. Since I've been divorced and remarried, I failed on the first count. I wasn't the best mother in the world, either, but I'm a pretty good grandma. But when it comes to my knitting and crocheting (and many other household-type things), I turn into a monster.

While many of us take this weekend off and enjoy ourselves, others work and still enjoy themselves. Even though knitting isn't technically work, you're still doing something that makes something, so I guess in the strictest sense of the word, you're working. I'm working on my swap socks this weekend. I'm attacking them the same way I attack every project - doing the very best job I can. But do all knitters do the same?

There are different types of knitters. There are those who knit purely for the love of the art, and if they make mistakes, so be it. After all, it's a love thing, and who is going to look for mistakes? Then there are those who fix mistakes but don't worry about gauge. It'll work out somehow. And then there are those like me, who are perfectionists to the point of being anal. Is this a bad thing? If it causes so much stress that it takes all the fun out of it, then it's not worth it. But what really pisses me off are those who don't even want to try to expand their knowledge and learn new things. How many scarves and hats can you knit?

It never fails. No matter what class I teach (but especially socks or lace), there's at least one person who starts out the class by saying, "That's too hard. I'll never be able to do that". With an attitude like that, it's not surprising that they're usually the ones who drop out or never really get what I'm laying down. I also get the talkers - those who gab nonstop during the class because what I have to say isn't nearly as important as telling their neighbor (who just might want to learn something) about the dog across the street who always craps on their lawn, and gee, Harry just hates that because it gets dog shit (but they never say shit - no, it's usually poo-poo) on the John Deere lawn tractor blades. Worst of all, I get those who think they already know it all and want to make socks out of luxury fibers (I have one of those right now - she's using buffalo), even though I try to tell them that a lot of luxury fibers are delicate and will begin to felt if ripped out too much. So I've set down four rules in my classes and make sure that everyone knows them before I even crack their textbooks open:

1. When I'm talking, there is to be no talking to their classmates. It makes it more difficult for others to hear what I'm saying; hence, it makes it more difficult for them to learn.

2. No cell phones. Unless it's for a real necessity (children are home alone and might need to get in contact with their mother/father, they're on call for their jobs, etc.), there is nothing quite as annoying as someone's cell ringing in the middle of a sentence and then having them take the call to gab with Mabel about the party they're having in two weeks. I actually have a lady in my current sock class who apologized to me for having her phone on because her daughter was waiting for a liver transplant, and if the liver came through, she needed to know about it. I told her that that was DEFINITELY a good reason for not only keeping her phone on, but also for taking the call. And even after that, she still insisted on putting it on vibrate! It must be the tattoos that scare the shit out of people.

3. If you have a question, please ask me instead of your classmates. Your classmates are usually as clueless as you and will fuck you up something fierce if you listen to their advice.

4. Do your homework and do NOT go past the point where you are told to stop. You may think that going farther makes you a shining star, but it causes me to teach what amounts to multiple classes at once, since all of a sudden, everyone is at a different stage of the project.

I do have wonderful students who do as they are asked, learn what they're supposed to, and try their hardest to master the techniques. They tend to ask a lot of questions, and I don't mind one little bit if I answer questions from here to kingdom come. I even give them all my home phone number in case they have problems (and those who really want to learn do not hesitate to call me). I had one lady who mastered the socks by the third class, and then faxed me a letter on the fourth and final class explaining why she couldn't come. Her mother had just died and was being cremated in a Buddhist ceremony that day. She thanked me for giving her the skill to make socks, because one of her mother's wishes was for a pair of those socks to be cremated in. We all cried when I read the letter in class, and I have it to this day in a sheet protector so nothing happens to it. Those are the dream students. But they don't come along very often and, as a teacher, I understand that.

Also as a teacher, I hope that each student will have a positive attitude and will give it their all. Sometimes what I'm teaching is too much for their skill level. No matter what label I put on a class (intermediate or advanced, for instance, as well as listing the skills they need), there are at least two people who do not know how to cast on, even though they say they've been knitting for years. Sometimes there's a communication problem. Even though I work with people one-on-one if necessary, they may not understand how I'm explaining something, or how the book is explaining something. I'm very patient with these people and will explain something as many times as it takes for them to get it. That's part of being a teacher - learning how to work with all different kinds of people and doing my best to help them. But I'm also a person. Sometimes I have to excuse myself and go have a smoke so I don't blow my stack. But I've chosen to do this, so I have to learn to hold myself in check and scream out the window as I hurtle down the freeway on the way home.

I realize that this is a rant of sorts, but the point is this: if you're going to do something, try to do the best job you can. You've spent a lot of money on your fiber and are investing a lot of time in your project, not to mention the fact that you put a little piece of your heart and soul in each item you create. Have some pride. Even though all knitting is love, be proud of the job you do. Maybe it will become a cherished family heirloom. Maybe you'll want to enter it in a competition. Maybe you just want to see the smile on someone's face when they open their gift and find out it's something you made with your own two hands.

And a lot of swearing, cigarettes, and vodka.

Happy Labor Day!

I Should Have Been A Plumber

Sigh.

Hubster told me just how much I've spent on yarny goodness in the past three months. I was floored. And here I thought I was doing better. Unfortunately for me, he just accessed the PayPal site and looked at all the orders I've placed. He didn't even have to add them up; PayPal was kind enough to do that for him. He wasn't angry, but he did point out that we're supposed to be saving for a down payment. At this rate, I'll never have a house again. I was incredibly depressed. So what did I do? You guessed it. I placed an order for some more yarn.

Be that as it may, part of the haul that I've already paid for (and Hubster has already seen) arrived yesterday. I could only photograph a little of it because some of it is for my Monkey Swap Pal (I know you see this - ~~~waves!). So here is the little bit I can share.



You've heard of the Bee Shawl? Well, that pattern is for the Bee Stole, and the yarn in front of it is by Wooly Wonka in Tupelo Gold. I've got enough patterns for shawls, so I decided to try something a little different. The other yarn is by Sunnyside Ellen, and the color is Non-Fat Latte. I thought it was gorgeous.

Here's a close-up of the Bee Stole pattern:



This is my "Do Not Disturb" project.

I had an appointment at 6:00 p.m., so after that was over, we decided to go to Walnut Creek and visit Barnes & Noble. I hadn't been to that particular store, and since Walnut Creek is now a mecca for yuppies, I figured it would be large and very nice. Indeed it was. I had seen a book posted on another blog and wanted to try and find it. They had it, along with another book (pictured here):



For those of you who are as blind as I'm getting, the larger book is "Vogue Knitting - The Ultimate Sock Book", and the smaller is "The Secret Language of Knitters" by Mary Beth Temple. The Vogue book is predictably beautiful and gives history, techniques, and lots of beautiful sock patterns. The other book is hysterical. It gives common words we knitters use and defines them. With full credit being given to the author, here is one such definition:

"FINISHED OBJECT (FO) noun: The holy grail of knitting. Difficult to attain, not because of the knitting part but because of the finished part. Finished means completely finished - ends woven in, SEAMS sewn up, buttons sewn on. Some folks even put a cute little label in the back. No cheating by calling the loose ends FRINGE and the lack of buttons a DESIGN MODIFICATION. For an object to be truly finished, it needs to require no further work."

The words in caps are in small print and bold in the book; I just can't figure out how to make this damn computer make things bold. Of course, just like a real dictionary, the bold words are also listed with their own definitions. It's a quick read, fun to see that we're not nuts when we throw things across the room ("throwing" is also defined"), and makes a perfect gift for that special knitter (or husband who doesn't understand) in your life.

After we finished at the book store, we walked the streets (and I didn't make a cent) for a bit to see what stores were there. What stores WEREN'T there? Tiffany, Pottery Barn (in all it's permutations), William-Sonoma (where I picked up a professional deep-fryer and some odds and ends), every clothing store you can think of that doesn't sell jeans for less than a bill a pair, blah blah blah. I used to cruise that very part of town when I was in high school, and farmers would stop their trucks going in opposite directions in the middle of the road to shoot the breeze. I'm sad to see that it's turned into what it has. My old hometown did the same thing. I wish they would leave just ONE town the way it always was.

Anyway, on to the title of this rant.

As you all know, I knit two socks on two circulars. One of the cardinal lessons I grind into my students' heads is to make sure that they follow the needle they're using from working tip to loose tip so that they use the same needle. Otherwise, if they grab the other needle and knit, they're going to wind up with a circle made of the cables and held firmly together by the two socks. I have never done this particular maneuver. I've always been careful to use the correct needle. Until tonight.

As usual, I dozed off in the Monster with my knitting in my hands. Upon waking, I began to knit again. I finished knitting the side of the sock I was on. When I got to the end, I expected the cables to do their usual thing so I could knit the second side of the second sock. Instead, what was hanging from my hand was an interesting contraption made of a sock on top, a perfect circle in the middle, and another sock on the bottom. I had broken the cardinal rule I've taught for three years. I grabbed the wrong needle because I was drowsy and not paying attention. I had made a sock needle circle.

What to do? I stared at it in horror, reached for a spare circular needle, and transferred the stitches of the side of the sock which had to be knit on to it. Then I stared at it for a while longer because for the life of me, I couldn't figure out which needle to put the stitches on so I could continue knitting and have them fall free when I was done, thereby allowing me to turn the whole thing around and begin on the opposite sides. Hubster the mathematician and computer genius came over, studied the problem for a few minutes, and after I had explained what was supposed to happen, held up one of the needles and proclaimed that that was definitely (with strong emphasis on the word "definitely") the correct needle to put the stitches on. I followed his advice and wound up with both needles perfectly parallel to each other, exactly as I had started once I first transferred stitches. He was shocked. He was horrified. He was befuddled. This couldn't be, he said. He had brainstormed the problem, done the necessary mathematical calculations in his head, and come up with the answer. Whereupon I looked at it again (now I was awake), grabbed one of the needles, transferred the stitches on to it, knitted them, and had both needles fall free, ready to turn for the other side of the socks. Hubster stared at me slack-jawed. He mumbled something like, "But what I told you to do should have worked.". Then he congratulated me for fixing the problem and retreated to his computer, still muttering about how stupid knitting was.

For my part, I was glad that the problem had been solved. However, it took two intelligent adults an hour to figure out a very simple problem (hence, the lateness of this post). I remained calm throughout the entire ordeal and explained things to him as I would to one of my students. What I wanted to do was to THROW (definition in aforementioned book) the damned thing against the wall. But I might have broken off one of the points of my needles, and at $15 a pop, that would have been a bad idea.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

I should have been a plumber.