My Middle Name is Patience

Jury Duty! But first, whining.

Air your own grievances, proclaim a crush, express an opinon at Bureau of Communication.  It's a wee bit addicting.

I'm not whining about jury duty. I've NEVER gotten on a jury before and they call me with repititious monotony.  So yay! After two days of jury selection, I got on a jury! I'm way too jazzed about this, aren't I? It's so cool! At last.

I'm way behind on blog reading,

 What, there's no cut and paste on the "rich text" part of TypePad? Geez. They are so lucky that there has been no seaming or much knitting or reading this week.

The sweater fronts and back have made it as far as the desktop for said seaming, but no actual seaming has taken place. It turns out that when one has gotten used to dragging oneself into work by say, 10am, driving twice as far by the ungodly hour of 8:30am causes one to want to sleep all the time. I know, I know. You pity me my grueling work hours. They're just nice now. 

There is also a partially knit sock and what I hope is the FINAL incarnation of my mother's shawl/stole/scarf, but honestly, I've been too brain dead to do anything but lay around and read. I do get to "craft" in the downtime during court, the Judge said. Let's see if the cops downstairs let me in with a sock on the needles.

Still reading The Hollow Crown by Miri Rubin. It's described as a "magical introduction to the late Middle ages" but I'm uncertain how helpful it is as an introduction. It's confusing enough being somewhat familiar with the timelines. She tells of Henry VI's infant ascension without stating that Henry V was married other than in a throwaway sentence relating to another marriage, much less that he sired any progeny or dropped dead, in something like half a page.  Way too much information, very organized, completely unintelligible.

Well no, that's harsh. It's pretty fascinating really, all the tidbits of facts and figures, towns, jobs, literature, land, food and more  but it's not that comprehensible as a whole. Maybe that's why it's a good introduction? Something that catches your interest leads to more research.

 It could be me too. Possibly. That brain dead bit might be holding me back. Has anyone else read it?

Wordless if Typepad Has Anything to Say About it.

These little fellows were at the petting zoo at the San Ramon Kite Festival on Monday.

(Could this [Typepad] be any slower? I hope not. It's going to make blogging impossible. Ravelry is almost as slow for me. )

Escape!  (The pig rooting under the fence. Oh, this is HORRIBLE. The spacing is all off, there's a lag in typing and backspacing, this is ridiculous.)

Unfortunately the Festival was a bit of a bust (too) because the music was so horribly loud that even The Teenager couldn't take it and we were out of there a little more than an hour.

Oh well. More time to sit in The Chair (Hezekiah loves being a lapcat) and knit while re-watching season one of MI-5. I knew that A&E had cut out about 15-20 minutes, but wow, what a difference in characterization that made. The knitting wasn't the V-Pointed Cardigan although if I'd known it was going to be winter again after four days of 104 degree weather, it would've been. But then again I'm so close to finishing it, I can't possibly knit on it. What if I did finish? The world would end.

This is where Hezekiah would rather be than inside. Skulking in the bushes, spying on the neighbors.

Anyone  hear about Poetry Out Loud while it was going on? I caught the finals for our area on the community channel last night (from Feb 23rd) and it was pretty impressive,  junior and senior high school students recitations.  For the first time EVER I think I got an e e cummings poem.

No Camera, No Topic, No Knitting

....no service. Non-sense? Something like that. I just finished twelvish days or so off of work and accomplished NOTHING. It was lovely. Of course now I wish I'd knit more - it's COLD today. Why didn't I finish up my cardigan? other than it's been in the high 70's and why didn't I finish reading Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery And Murder in Medieval England over the weekend? Because she's putting me to sleep at night. Treachery, adultery and murder has never been quite so dull. Maybe it's all the minutae.

Oooh, I did manage to knit TWO dishcloths. But then I managed to delete my ENTIRE photo album from Adobe Photoshop file. It must've been duplicated though because the pictures didn't disappear. I think. And I can't find my camera....but I think I left it in the trunk of my car. So you'll have to wait to see the pictures of the groovy yarn stuff that I won from Deb's contest and what La sent me out of the blue. W00t!

raidergirl3 is doing a clever fun little book meme It's Tuesday, Where Are You? (that I found via Book Mine Set.)

Marvelous Monday

Meaning I'm off work and finally blessedly alone. Except for a certain cat in my lap who was highly displeased with me earlier but has decided to forgive the flea medicine. I had good intentions.

Four days off and nothing to show for it. Read a little, knit a little, slept way too little - what's with insomnia when I can finally sleep? I've been a zombie. Still am, but a slightly more awake zombie today.

I don't even have any pictures to post. Oh! It turns out that although it's absolutely lovely outside [insert pictures of lilacs and roses] and they're gorgeous to look at, I'm still freaking allergic to them.

This Time Next Week I'll be......

Well, I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing, but I guarantee it will not involve adding machines, tax forms or for that matter, a desk. It should be involving all those right now but I'm losing my will to live. I mean, work.

And next time when I run into Craftylily at Peet's, I won't be running late to the office and desperate for caffeine. I've ran into her twice this last month! She has a very cool decal on her car but she'll have to post a pic of it because I........was running way late and needed caffeine to think of taking the pic.

If you look closely (or click on the pic) there are cows peacefully grazing on the left side of the hill. And look how GREEN! Wow. It's why I've always thought California cows are happy cows. At least the ones by my house seem to be. Chatty bunch though.

Julia of Knitting History and I were chatting (aka emailing) about the purpose of The Queue on Ravelry. My view is that The Queue should fulfill all the pattern needs/wants/desires that I, my next eight lives (well, hey. I am a Leo after all) and any reincarnations to follow me might have. (Although there might be a problem with the passwords.)

Other people should fill their queues with good ideas for my queue. No? Your thoughts?

Speaking of queue, a certain person who shall remain nameless athough she is X(Heather)at X (Lectio) and who made an ill-advised bet with me (ill advised on the grounds that I am never wrong and if I am.....well, see above) and she was wrong! Wrong! Jake did not join into an unholy alliance with Constantino. I was surprised Eric didn't though. And now she owes me mittens.

And, most importantly, I was right.

I thought I might knit her Mitts for a Dystopian Future if, by some sheer chance of random chaos in the Universe had I been wrong. (But mittens for a dytopian future. It's cold where she lives. There's this stuff called snow? I'm not sure if you've heard of it.) That or FrankenMitts. (Both of which are in my queue, but just in case you want to see and have never heard of Ravelry)

Clearly Heather has nothing to do (note the fluffy rip & read reading list she has there) and clearly I don't actually need mittens (see green hills above) but that has nothing to do with anything. Okay, I admit it. (Since it's fairly obvious.) I just wanted to gloat.

And not figure cost basis for a few brief moments.

Hez sez: "What? Who did you say you were? My mother told me not to talk to strangers."

Is There Still Life Outsde?

Since I'm  not around a whole lot. I miss you guys! Busy, busy! Which is actually a good thing but sometimes the late nights, early mornings, the inability to remember how to make a knit stitch or work the remote control for the TV...... it makes me wonder. What should I be when I grow up?

You Should Be in the Military

You are driven, focused, and an extremely hard worker. And while you can be ruthless in getting what you want, you also have a compassionate side. You are able to balance your own desires with the needs of others. You'll do almost anything to get the job done, but you're not willing to step on anyone's toes. You do best when you: - Are working with others - Are in a fast paced environment You would also be a good CEO or school principal.

What Should You Be When You Grow Up?

Huh. Didn't see that one coming. The military? The description is fairly accurate, as long as "extremely hard worker" is followed by "long period of such productive activity as knitting, reading, pestering the cat and staring at clouds."

Speaking of TV shows (weren't we?) watch Jericho. DB Sweeney is back as Goetz from Ravenwood which normally I would be quite jazzed about but since he was also in Strange Luck and Harsh Realm and I loved both of them before they were cancelled......It's getting really good. Even the twerpy Dean wasn't twerpy.

What's going on with Lost? It's actually been pretty awesome, possibly because I LOVE time travel/time paradox/parallel universe stories. Desmond and Penny's relationship is now a complete cypher. They haven't been together since they broke up before 1996? Seriously?  I'm starting to really like Daniel.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles are doing the same flash back/flash forward time traveling thing but I'm still trying to make sense of them. (I just watch Lost uncritically now. If it eventually makes sense, yay. If not? Oh well. As long as I don't have to watch Jack parade around in his righteous whatever, I'm happy.) I'm also getting a kick out of seeing David from 90210 as John's uncle-from-the-future.

Law & Order continues to be so good!

Alas, Lipstick Jungle is a bit of a mess. I unreasonably hate Kim Raver so much that I can't watch her for long and for some reason Andrew McCarthy is creeping me out, I have no idea why, I like him normally. Paul Blackthorne is hot which is allways a good reason to watch a show.

Dr. Carson Beckett is back on Stargate Atlantis! Well, at least they found him in a Wraith/Human hybrid holding cell. Is it really him? Is he a replicator? Is Dr. Kaylee getting replaced?

Stupid HGTV revamped their TV schedule today. I want to see Knitty Gritty! It's been on at 7am on Fridays only and Simply Quilts at 8am every day. (Pacific time) Not today. Boo. At least I noticed it before I ran out the door and stopped the tape. Simply Quilts looks like it'll be back on Tuesday. Wednesday's show will be featuring Kaffe Fassett. What can I say? I love coming home after working 8500 hours and watching the amazing things people do with fabric.

Speaking of amazing things with fabric, isn't that buttonhole band gorgeous? Here, look. Look sideways. For some reason, the iPhone doesn't like to take pictures the angle I want it to, no matter which way I hold it. It's similar to my copy machine constantly rotating the image when I don't want it rotated! Gah. Machines.

I'm three inches from the underarm shaping, still on the right front.  I was really hoping to have this done at the beginning of Feb and now I'm just hoping to have it done sometime this winter/spring.

Hez chortles at that. See how she sits with her paws over the edge? It's really cute when she hangs her whole arm over.

Flu & Tax Season - What could be more delightful?

Well, tax season is delightful to me, I enjoy doing them but the flu? Not so much, especially since this is my second round with it in something like 3 weeks and this time not only do I have the ever popular running-like-a-faucet nose but the slight fever that's causing massive body aches and chills and it's not like I can stay home and sleep the day away (but I'm not that sick anyway. Just icky feeling sick.)

Also? Whining.

I'd post a picture of the cute dishcloth and skeins that I won from  The Barefoot Cobbler's Resolution Contest (A resolution that I totally ---shhhh, have not even attempted yet) (The resolution was To Get a Jump on my Christmas Knitting/Presents, which I am so going to do. Later.) but I'm not really sure where I put my camera. (It's somewhere. Probably at home on the bookshelf). And then she nominated me as a You Make My Day blog! Along with The Fairy Godknitter, the lovely mrspao at mumblings and Knitted and Purled which leads me to believe that you are all very sweet but misguided. Snark! Gossip! That's me. OTOH, snark & gossip makes my day.....

I am completely wimping out on passing it on - I sat on my cat this morning, for Pete's sake. I am not to be trusted. (In my defense, she'd burrowed under the covers and I had no idea she went back to bed.) Hezekiah is fine, by the way. Fit as a fiddle. (Is it possible that this cold has morphed me into a hale and hearty 70 year old retired admiral from the 1800's? Because that's the voice in my head. Shhh. I'm blaming Jane Austen).

Oh, but I'd be really remiss if I didn't review the two (yes two! Two whole books!) that I'd read in January. Becoming Charlemagne by Jeff Sypeck and Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson by Susan Birch and Hannah Joyner.

Unspeakable: The Story of Junius Wilson broke my heart. It's the story of a deaf black man born in the early 1900's and his lifetime stint in a mental ward in the South. His family, the medical staff, the law, the government, all had a hand in keeping him locked up for their own various reasons. I loved that I understood the logic and emotion behind all involved in the decisions, it scared me silly to think that it was so easy to do. We've come a long way, but have we really? I highly recommend this book.

Ooookay. Well, I do love breakfast. And pancakes.

Maudlin Monday

TV: Anyone watch Mansfield Park on the Masterpiece Theater Jane Austen series last night? Anyone else have a hard time placing who the sister Maria was played by? The New Bionic Woman. Could not believe it.

I think I caught a glimpse of Adam from MI-5 in the crowd during the wedding scene.

Well. I think they caught the, ah flavor of the book.  I haven't read it and was basically flipping through the book last night double checking the scenes, it seemed to be a somewhat faithful adaption if hideously abridged, not that the nuances of Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram's fondness of Fanny came through. It seemed to be somewhat added to the end. But oh well. Not half bad. How did it stack up to the book if I'd actually read the book beforehand?

And, typically, there's another good show on during the Austen series timeslot, if an entirely different century and culture. Breaking Bad on AMC at 10pm Sunday night is pretty intense. It's an interesting compare and contrast of society of 1808 to 2008 (note: blogging license with the dates) if you watch them back to back. (That link is a clip, so be warned.)

Knitting-wise:

That would be the back of the super secret not-jinxed-yet cable cardigan and another preemie cap for the K3tog Preemie Cap drive. Yes! Another! I have finished multiple caps! As in, more than one, which is normally quite pathetic but I was having one unbelievably difficult time with the first one. 

Here's a better another shot of the back of the cardigan: It's just fiddly enough to keep it interesting but easy enough to memorize. Even the shaping is easily done.

In Bad Parenting Cat news, I managed to squash Hezekiah under the automatic garage door on Saturday coming home from work. I'm fairly certain I only managed to pin her but it freaked me out and I don't think she was all that happy with it either. She immediately ran away from me into the back yard but considering it was dark and rainy, deigned to come into the house about an hour later. She's been hopping in and out of her cat tree and hasn't missed a meal yet, but she's still going to the vet later this afternoon. I keep thinking internal injuries or hairline fractures. And the guilt! The guilt! I feel so horrible.

Mt Diablo as seen from Pine Hollow Rd last week. No snow now, but there was still some over the weekend!

I have recently discovered The World of Podcasts (love my iPhone!). Anyone have any favorites to recommend? I've subscribed to

• Cast On
• Sticks and Strings Knit Science
• Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
• Hot For Words
• Berkeley Groks
• The Math Factor
• Stash & Burn

Hez sez: "How could you?"  And "Check out the 24th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering."

Snow! And Happy Birthday, Mom

Snow!

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz. Very interesting. I was a wee bit shocked by my results.

Steven Pinker's YouTube lecture at Google on his Stuff of Thought.

See? All knit up. More or less. See that little green stitchmarker? Right across the big gob of excess yarn? (Gah. That had better block out). That's my favorite muck up to do EVER. For some reason, I manage with astonishing repetitiveness to drop a a stitch on the edge. Good thing I generally add selvedge stitches but still.

And? Two of them! I have sleeves! Multiples! They even somehow managed to come out with the almost same row count which is amazing, after reading my notes with a Not Decimated By The Flu brain.

Now I just need a back and fronts and a collar and.......oh wow. One piece at a time. And shhhh. This is an semi secret project so that I don't jinx it.

I hope you're all watching The Sarah Conner Chronicles Mondays at 9pm on Fox. It's actually doing pretty good in the ratings which is either a testament to the genre reaching a more popular level or there's nothing else on. I don't care. Quit cancelling shows I like. However......uh.....I'm sort of watching Island At War and taping TSCC.

Anyone catch Northanger Abbey Sunday night? Second in the Jane Austen marathon on PBS this season. I love that particular novel and they did a pretty good job of translating it to the screen, unlike the previous outing of Persuasion. Next up: Mansfield Park, another Austen I haven't read. Think I can read it by Sunday? I'm really engrossed in Unspeakable. We're not that far away from when being black, or deaf, or different got you locked up, even by your family. We have so much, we need to focus occasionally on how very far we've come but not forget where we've been or where we want to go.

The Flu is not Fun

Yucko, in fact. I thought I was pretty much cured after a weekend of coughing, congestion, stuffiness and snot but since walking upstairs to my office has left me pretty much wanting to curl up and sleep on my desk, maybe not. I hate having a fever that gives you the cold shakes and why on earth is sleeplessness part of the symptoms?  The least a cold should do is confine you to bed, knitting, reading, watching TV or sleeping. Sleeping. Not tossing around alternately freezing and boiling and going through a forest of Kleenex.

Oh well. I am pretty much over it. Just not the self pitying grumpy part, evidently.

There's been knitting but I'm afraid if I show it or name it, all productivity will cease. (Oh, okay. Check this out. ) (Yes, that's productivity.) (It is too.) (I'm working under the assumption that a lot of the irregularity will block out. Which it might, you know.)

At least it wasn't as bad as knitting preemie caps for K3tog. Everything that could go wrong with the first cast on did. Moebius'ed. The cable cast on came apart. (I have never had that happen before. I've moebius stripped a join occasionally, but even that's rare for me, much less having the cast on itself unravel. I'm not even sure that's physically possible, other than it happened.) What else? The join was a mile wide. The number stitches I cast on was really off for the yarn I was using. Good thing they're tiny.

Did anyone catch Persuasion Sunday night? I'm fairly positive (which was confirmed) that no way would Anne go running down the streets after Wentworth. I have got to read the book. I'm on a PBS kick. I watched Island at War last night - part One of Five [gnashes teeth] and despite it being another Nazi flick, I was pleasantly surprised. Well, not pleasantly, the Nazis invaded the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, represented in the movie as St Gregory's Island. The story follows the islanders and how they deal with the occupation.

Tonight is Monarchy with David Starkey at 8pm. I'm on a PBS kick.

Happy Cat! Basking in the sun. Shivering on the cold deck, but basking in the sun. Basking in the sun inside too with the added bonus of having a lovely set of knitting instructions to lay on.