ever get that feeling...

...stuff happens for a reason?

will explain more later if i'm right.

in other news, let's give Northern Gold, "The Breakfast Company" props for making nut- and seed-free granola that i can eat! AND it also has dried blueberries and raspberries to boot!

i'm so sad, however, that it's the only crunchy food in my house, because i'm a little jittery, and crunchy food is good for jittery.

downhill fast

this is not a good week.

i was also supposed to knit the body of peruvian 5 inches, not 4. i may scrap it and retry the whole project in a different color, anyway.

there is also other badness afoot but i can't talk about it for a bit.

growl.

poo-poovian

i have mostly finished peruvian and i hate it:

i think it's funny that the other thing in the picture are the feminine products.

anyhow, it's not deep enough (i did the 3 inches recommended in the pattern plus an extra inch because even though i have a ginormous cranium that seemed mighty shallow) and i tried adding earflaps.

maybe i'll feel happier about it after it's blocked and i finish the corner boings and weave in the ends...

and i STILL don't think that looks like a bird.

pictures of fiber arts and furry mammals

here's my stash. it's messy. oh well!

this is the cable scarf i restarted for the sister:

here's the old version of it (please notice how tightly it's knitted! argh!)

this is my monkeyfaced dog lying with knitted kyoto:

since you can't see finished kyoto in that picture:

and here's my lelah. i have a hideable strap that i haven't decided whether it will function:

here's the peruvian in process:

since yaymee doesn't want to see branching out until its finished, you have to go here to look at it.

and just because, here's another ernie picture next to my summery orange tote

timmy!

so, i got an email from timmy a few minutes ago saying he's bored in bratislava, but here are some pictures they took of him.

i didn't know what to do with them.

so i share these with you now.

here's a teaser, go to my flickr site for the rest!

and remember, drool is bad for your computer, so restrain yourselves.

drop

great flaming monkeys of productivity!

i have 4 w.i.p.s right now. yes, FOUR. usually, i will have maybe about 2 w.i.p.s, just to give me a different color yarn to look at every now and then.

but i'm working on:

• yaymee's branching out out of microspun in lime
• a sarah tank for me out of lilac cottontots (there's a mistake in the pattern, it should be *p2tog, yo (k1, yo) five times, p2tog* and i'm still trying to figure out how to get the lace patterns to line up because they just don't... maybe start the lace row 2 stitches before the beginning of the row? so i keep getting to the beginning of the second lace row and getting frustrated and working on other things... i also can't find christine's email address on her page to ask!! i'll look again.
• my sister's cabled scarf out of rowan polar in smirk (sniff - why would they discontinue this?)
• and a peruvian for a friend (surprise - don't know if they read this regularly or not) out of something or another

granted, i started the peruvian last night at about 9 and went to bed at 10 with it 70% finished, so that will bring me down to 3 w.i.p.s not long after i get home tonight. but still, 4 is a lot for me.

aw, nuts...

i didn't get the other internship that i wanted.

sad heather.

more on matty's band

so, if you went to the mtv site for you hear it first (i don't have time to redo all the links - they're in the previous post), you'll see matty phatty in the maroon shirt from the screen caps, and wearing the striped tie in the publicity photos.

if you went to their website (which i KNOW you did because you're good and obedient and you fear that wrath of heatherfeather), you get to listen to five (FIVE!) complete tracks! may i be so bold as to highly recommend "bang theory," "tit for tat," and "grammarian"? yes, i may.

if you happen to be so lucky as to live in a town where they're playing soon (unlike me, but i was promised at least a single tour stop in colorado) go see them!

and remember, punches comes out tomorrow so buy it.

in other music news...

i got the ep of world leader pretend's debut called rubble-rousing misspent bouts from james the chick for my birthday. mostly i got it because the guitarist is my friend from college, rockstar matt. (fyi, they're on mtv's you hear it first this week)

and i listened to it and wanted it out of loyalty to rockstar matt, who is one of the coolest people i've ever met. he's fun, he's crazy, he has the kindest most generous heart EVER, and he is just all around mr. goodguy. and he seriously ROCKS.

and IT ROCKS. seriously, it is AMAZING. it's indie, it's rockin, it's really musical, and it's just lo-fi enough to make it sexy and a touch grimy.

and their first full-length major label album, punches, is being released tuesday. SO BUY IT!

i'm so proud of matty phatty (and if you're reading this, matty, put that in your pipe and smoke it, baby)

frustration

i've been so hung up on the knitting lately, i've not touched the guitar in over 10 days. it's been since i was in france 7 years ago that i went that long without playing the guitar.

but at the same time, i don't want to play the guitar because i'm going through my periodic frustration about songwriting. i would LOVE to be a professional musician but i just write stupid music. and i don't want to have other people solely write music for me. (in the vein of britney etc.) and while i really do like doing covers of pre-established music* i know that i can't pay rent on that.

in good news, i usually move when i get frustrated, and i'm not moving anytime soon. is that growth?

grump grump grump

*a lot of people aren't fans of doing covers because someone else already did them, i think that the beauty of the cover is that everyone brings something different to music, to painting, to sculpture and will have their own interpretations of it. it will be significant for its own reasons. there is no "right" interpretation. there's the interpretation that the artist had behind it, but it will always mean something different to someone else.

since i'm on summer vacation knitting is the thing i do more than sleep so since sleep is boring to talk about i discuss knitting a lot.

i started yaymee's branching out last night. i did 2 repeats of the pattern, screwed the last one up and tried to frog just that one repeat and wound up frogging down to the garter stitch and re-doing it. every know and then i find a hole in the middle of a leaf (caterpillars?) but don't really mind that - it will remind her that it's handknit. but about 10 repeats into the pattern this afternoon (seriously, i've been staying up until 2 knitting and then getting up at 7 to knit more) i did something so dreadful i nearly wept.

i dropped a stitch. because of all the yo's, and ssk's, and sl2-k-p2sso's, I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE IT MAY HAVE GONE. let the blue language begin.

so i put it down and started my sister's scarf that i began in january and frogged so i could do a prettier cable pattern. because my row counter goes up to 99, i chose the pattern that repeats every 24 rows instead of the one that repeats every 132 rows or so (yes, i know i could roll over and be relatively certain i'm not on row 2 when i'm really on 102, but the less thinking the better. that's what i always say) the cable pattern i got is from girl from auntie. and upon recollection, it appears to be the same pattern that freddie used to make her daddy a birthday scarf.

i'm making that scarf with rowan polar, a lovely, chunky wool/alpaca blend that i just learned has been DISCONTINUED. so i bought myself a single splurge skein with which to do a lace scarf of some sort. it's the first week of summer and all i've got in the work are scarves.

however, i also bought some cottontots with which to make a minisweater with i-cord ties and non-poofy sleeves, and a sarah tank which i've chosen over a soleil. white and lilac, respectively.

in more knitting news, i taught pei lo mein how to knit, purl, cast on, and do ribbing. she's going to start with a scarf to get comfy wielding the needles, and then she wants to make a tempting.

in sleep news, i fell asleep this afternoon during macguyver.

in non sleep or knitting news, RACHEL HAS A BLOG! in that blog, i learned that tel aviv looks a lot like balboa beach in the o.c. also that i do NOT understand israeli doorknobs.

in final knitting news, i found what i would love to make for mara's birthday...

F.O.! maybe.

so i finished lelah last night. it's blocked, it's fun, it's strapless... after all the talk i did about strappage... i may still make haltery or cross back straps later. i should have bound off the back a good 2 inches before the front as the top part is soooooo long so as to render me decent that it is toooo long in the back and gets bunchy. the bottom part is really long - the lace reaches past the top of my inseam in my favorite jeans. i actually sort of like that aspect of it. but i just don't love it love it... pictures one day.

anyhow, this is the coolest story ever.

thangs

these things make me happy lately:

• kathrin shorr
• the secret life of bees (the last sentence of the first paragraph: "the way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.")
• matthew lee
• kathrin shorr's cover of matthew lee's song "center of your heart"
• lip emollients
• nectarines
• mint chocolate chip ice cream
• sleeping dogs
• the dream of getting bookcases one day
• advil
• going to summer camp
• interfacin' with you lovely people.
  

lelah report

i knitted like a madwoman this weekend, and while lelah's not done, it needs only about 4 more inches of stockinette on the top and then i'll add strapolas to boot. i have the ribbon at the ready. however, 4 inches of stockinette in sportweight yarn on #5 needles takes a while to do, much less do well. i figure that it takes about 32 more rows (or at least that's what my swatch tells me) to make it decent. and since i've got 172 stitches per row, it will require 5504 stitches to finish that sans straps. however this weekend i did 9 repeats of the lace and 7 inches of stockinette, so considering i just restarted it last week, it's gone pretty quickly! or i've procrastinated all weekend by knitting.

i went to buy the ribbon for lelah yesterday and really wanted to buy some really soft yarn. it was fuzzy but the softest yarn ever. since i am opposed to fun fur, i felt weird loving it, but it felt much more like angora than the dreaded eyelash yarn. i want to start soleil when lelah and yaymee's birthday product are done and need to select the yarn for that bad boy!

anyhow, i'm making yaymee a branching out for her birthday - we're gong to pick out the yarn (douceur et soie) on thursday or friday so that i can start it even though her birthday's not until october, because if i start it in september, it won't be done until she's in burkina faso.

heartstuff

my sister's best friend has an 18 month old daughter named annika. my sister and annika's mom have been best friends for 20 years. my sister is annika's godmother.

by and large she's a healthy, happy little girl, has exhibited normal growth, development, language acquisition, etc. she doesn't let her mother talk on the phone because annika will pick up her pretend phone and jabber into it, climbing into mama's lap. she has some funny word sequences that are quite common, but funny nonetheless, like saying "thankyouwelcome" when someone gives her something. to fall asleep, she recites her vocabulary until she's no longer awake. the baby monitor lets her parents hear her saying, "head, nose, eyes, cheeks, mouth, smile, fingers, hands, feet, baby, milk, crackers, dudley, dog, cat, mama, papa, annika, funny, eat, please, thankyouwelcome, snack, treat, sad, bark, moo, flower, dunner, laugh, work, please..." until the words get more slurred until they stop completely.

next wednesday the 29th, annika is having open heart surgery to fix a congenital heart defect wherein she had holes all over the inside of her heart, making the chambers leak into one another. needless to say her parents are very worried. so if you don't mind, please say a prayer, light a candle, offer happy thoughts, warm fuzzies, etc. for annika, her parents, my sister, and the surgeons next wednesday. thanks!

roaming through the southwest (updated by request)

amy and i left for santa fe on friday morning around seven am. we were lucky enough to hit rush hour in denver AND in colorado springs, too!

as we were driving down we stopped here and there at various gas stations and convenience stores and other places with public toilets. at one of them, in wagon mound, new mexico, there was an 8-year old or so little boy who kept staring at amy and i and hiding behind the aisles and peeking, etc. while we were waiting in line for the bathroom. when finally amy got to go in, he said: "pssssst!" looking over at him he said, "why are you guys talking to each other?"

an interesting question, so i thought about it and said, "because we're friends and we like talking." (just fyi, it was a tiny story with little ambient noise so we were talking quietly). he said, "you should really stop, because you're bugging me."

what? just then amy came out and i told her she should talk to him, but he had disappeared. so, that was over.

we began to see signs for ft. union as we were leaving wagon mount, so we decided, hey! let's go see a fort! We got there and learned that it was the largest of the western forts a la dances with wolves. here's a picture of the remaining ruins:

while inside, i asked who kit carson was. in colorado, he has a county, he has streets, and he's all over the place. he's also all over new mexico. luckily, we learned who he was:

i also took a picture of the fort name that makes me feel SO happy on the inside!

Anyhow, we were back on the road and we made it to santa fe around 2 pm, checked into our hotel, and realized we REALLY wanted food. thus began the quandry. we were going to eat dinner at the shed that night (amy having been to santa fe before i let her take the lead), but realized we'd need to eat before then. and amy couldn't wait for the green chile a second longer. so we went to the blue corn cafe.

luckily, i was insanely thirsty and had 3 full glasses of water before getting our food, so i ate about a 1/4 of it. but we were both uncomfortably full at that point, so we went for a walk through old town and the plaza.

we looked at the numerous jewelries being sold, looked at shops, and people-looked in the plaza. then we wandered down to the cathedral of st. francis:

in many ways, i felt like i was on the abc tour of rome (another blasted cathedral) but it was nice because the art was amazing and it always feels familiar. so we wandered more and found the loretto chapel, which was a required stop since loretto is my mom's middle name and an uncommon one at that! but it was closed, so we decided to go back on saturday. but here are some outside pictures of the chapel from friday:

and then we saw st. francis again at night:

by now it was 10 to 9 so we figured we wer as hungry as we'd get so we went to the shed... it was really good (as were the margaritas - vacation!) but i was still too full to enjoy it really, yet i woke up the next morning craving their bread. we walked back to the hotel and went to sleepies.

i woke up early saturday morning, had the free breakfast and knitted in the sun by the pool until yaymee woke up. we then went to the bishop's lodge to wander about the lovely lovely grounds:

hi yaymee!

and saw some amazing parcels of land that we'd buy if only we had millions of dollars. this is the view of the sangre de cristos that the development has:

we went back to loretto chapel, went in and looked around and saw the miraculous staircase (it didn't used to have banisters, and it has neither a central support or external trusses holding it up, and it's totally made with wooden pegs - no nails or glue). also the inside is modeled after saint chappelle in paris:

we spent the rest of the day laying low by the pool and napping (vacation!) when we got moving we went back to the blue corn cafe and had more new mexican food... it's all so good! and then took pictures of strange things in santa fe:

a big-footed, fertile kachina. their mouths are ALL OPEN!

a headless cowboy riding a harmonica-playing horsie

a watermelon-eatin' jackalope. anyone know why so many kachinas eat watermelon?

an oasis of judaism in a catholic- and native religion-filled city (hi mara!)

a spooky statue that kicked yayms in the head. i was so startled to see how anatomically correct the statue was i made a bit of a spectacle of myself and shouted, "oh my gosh, it has avocados*!" to the dismay of a passerby who heard those words coming out of the adjacent shrubbery and he jumped and the couple walking behind him had the best laugh of their month. it was really funny.

anyhow, the next day we drove up to chimayo (the lourdes of the u.s.!) and looked around there. (you can go to their website for the history, frankly, i'm tired of writing this post...) we went to the santuario:

there was a store next to the santuario that sold milagros. that's spanish for miracles. who knew that's where you went to buy them?:

and then we had lunch at rancho de chimayo... seriously, yum. best food i've had in AGES. here's a picture of the green chile stew:

is there any need to have food that insanely good? the scenery was also excellent:

from chimayo we drove up to the taos pueblo and looked at (as well as wandered around inside) buildings that are 1000+ years old. they hold up pretty well:

from taos we came home by way of the enchanted circle. i got carsick so i was happy to stop in eagle's nest, nm. we didn't stop again until we reached pueblo to pee (hence it being called p-town), and then got back to denver around 9:30 to the delight of my pet.

FIN

*(i changed the word describing what i saw on the anatomically correct statue under the picture below because i didn't like the search strings people used to wander into my site. so sincei hate to think that i succumbed to the decree of mary queen of scots steve, i will say i took his advice and called those particular bits avocados)

signs, signs, everywhere the signs...

when we were in new mexico, we saw this sign at fort union:

our possible interpretations of this sign included

make your dog sit when wearing a leash

be certain to lean back when next to your dog

be cautious around sitting dogs

leashes cause you to listen to fat joe

make dogs sit in the foreground

ignore all of your mid-limb joints when near dogs

daddy-o

happy fathers day to papas old and new!

and a super happy father's day to my own personal daddy who misses his kids when they're long distance than i think his ginormous heart can really bear - but he bears it 'cuz he loves us!

i love you pops!

lelahlelahlelah.....

so instead of working on rabbit fever like i should be, i'm all caught up in lelah. it's a lacy pattern! and it's working! and i've got 5 repeats of the pattern finished, of a total 10 - 12 (i like tops to hit just below my ASIS (the poky part of the hipbone). so it's about 30% finished...hurrah! i have been working out the straps i'm going to add in to make it stay up better.

in fact i've been thinking about it so much, i dreamed how i'm going to do it. i hope that i'm a good visionary. i am not crazy about the straps that lauren put on her lelah because of how they go with the top, but i like them for their functionality (i.e. how they work with foundational garments)

but i really need to work on rabbit fever...

IM is not all it's cracked up to be...

yaymee and i were IMing yesterday and we were speaking french online, and we had a moment of miscommunication.

xanga's not doing direct links to posts at the moment because it blows a tad, so here's the transcript.

from yaymee's blog:
"Friday, June 17, 2005

Sometimes I think trying to communicate online is a waste of time. Funny how I am saying this by typing it out on my new blog, huh? My online "Who's on First Moment" of yesterday: heatherfeather: I love the french word for canoeing. me: what is it? heatherfeather: Canoeing. me: but what is it? heatherfeather: to operate a canoe. me: What is it in French? heatherfeather: canoeing. me: huh? heatherfeather: canoeing, but with a french accent. like shampooing in french. OK. Now I gotcha, Heather!"

betterness

the migraine's mostly gone, kyoto's 99.9% finished (i want to steam block the collar now that it's stitched on to get it to lay flat), and i'm on the 3rd repeat of lelah's fishtail lace pattern!

did i mention i frogged lelah AGAIN? because once i learned i was doing twisted knit stitches, i realized why the YOs weren't appearing as holey as one would wish. so they say 3rd time's a charm, and i have started it the third time and made it (for the first time of 3) past the 2nd repeat. it looks MUCH better than it did before! there is one lelah in her gallery that has straps, which is ultimately my plan, but i don't think i'm going to make straps like the one in the gallery... i think it will involve i-cords, however.

it's summer, though, so i am going outside. and knitting. even though i have to write a paper on rabbit fever.

today i woke up

with a migraine.

tally-ho.

let it be known far and wide

that i love nectarine season.

now i have to go do some work... on summer vacation and i'm still doing research... [sigh]

wow!

yaymee has a blogola!

still not cohesive

so i'll just post a bunch of stuff. again.

yaymee says that she's sending me the santa fe pix today... yay! i'll probably even be motivated to talk about the trip since i know you're dring to know what i do when i'm away from the computer.

funniest sentence read yesterday: "...she wanted someone to rescue her from the crazed, butt-closing lunatic."

most surreal thing i've seen today: good wife's guide (snopes says it's probably fake. whew.)

trivia learned this morning: today is the 40th anniversary of the studio recording of bob dylan's "like a rolling stone."

tomorrow is my 1-year anniversary at my job. why, yes, i DO still work for the temp agency without benefits. thanks for noticing!

if you clicked on the link in the snippet above, you'll see that someone thought that i had watched a lakers game. i can honestly say i have never watched more than 3 consecutive minutes of basketball in my life.

i just smashed my right ring finger inserting casters into their sleeve so it will stay in the crate i bought them for. it hurts like a mofo and is hard to type not using a ring finger. it's also bleeding quite freely now. woohoo!

w.i.p. photos finally!

i don't have a digital camera except for the one on my phone which blows. so i brought my knitting to work. here's a peek at kyoto:



and a peek at the seed detail


i still need to do some weaving in of ends and the seed detail for the collar and finish sewing 1 sleeve closed, as well as finish attaching the sash to the top. but it looks like a something now instead of a bunch of little things that don't look like anything. the tension's nightmarish (i don't recommend putting down stockinette for 6 weeks and picking it up, expecting the tension to match exactly) but all in all i'm relatively pleased!

and here's a peek at lelah:

if you're wondering, that's NOT a lock (like julynn thought) to keep other people from working on it when i'm not working, that's a stitch marker.

Update: so, i just learned that i do a twisted knit stitch for my knits. i never knew this. and i think i will hate knit stitches less and love purl stitches less if i switch. and i have just confirmed that i'm a continental knitter to boot. interesting the things you learn by actually reading how to do them. knowing all of these things, james, i should confirm that yer mama was a continental knitter.

random stuff again

• when we were in santa fe, saturday morning i sat by the pool and knitted knitted knitted (this was before all the frogging frogging frogging). it turns out that was a good choice because it was world wide knit in public day. (luckily it was world wide frog in private day, too)
• want to download the "mating song of the north american dork" legally and for free from amazon? it's not the kind of song i thought it would be but it reminds me of gina forsyth, with whom i used to play scrabble. my favorite song of gina's ("the sweetest sound") can be downloaded here.
• there's also a song that i felt required to download if only for its name.

quick updates 'cause i don't have a lot of time

• santa fe was amazing. great food, goregeous landscape. pictures to follow - i hope.
• knitting was prolific. i did 4 repeats of the fishtail lace pattern in lelah on size 11 circulars before i decided i hated it in that size and frogged the whole bloomin' thing and re-cast on size 9s. so i've got almost 2 repeats of the new lelah on the size 9s.
• sunning was good - being darkly complected i pick up lots of sun very quickly. however even with sunscreen i appear to resemble a wallet these days.
• taos pueblo was incredible.
• native american shops appear to give me cramps.
• ernie was a good dog and missed me very much while i was gone but not enough to pee on the carpet which makes him a VERY good dog.
• there's a pot of coffee calling my name. i figure i should get a cup so it stops shouting, since i am in a place of business at the moment. wait, i mean, i don't update at work, i'm actually at home... aw, nuts.

saint faith or holy faith...you choose the translation

so it's the weekend of my vacation - the first since i went to PDX for james and jaimie's wedding...hopefully i'll get out there in the next few months to meet a product of said marriage!

but i'm going to santa fe tomorrow... so it'll be a teeny bit quiet around here.

for those of you chomping at the bit for a kyoto update (you know who i'm talking about) i've finished all of the major parts, have sewn the front pieces on to the back, and one sleeve on... i still have to do the double seed stitch detail that goes around the neck and sew another sleeve as well as attach the top to the bottom, but i'm SO much closer to done than i ever thought possible.

so to celebrate, i cast on for lelah this afternoon after swatching it 3-4 different times. i wish i had a set of circulars that was actually good for this yarn, though. it's my first foray into lace-ish knitting and stuff!!

i have to finish packing for santa fe and to mentally prepare to recreate this bit of advertising genius...

travis is here!

welcome little travis mack keller!

i already love you so much!

big kisses to mama (who had 2.5 really long days) and papa - i love you guys too!

about 8 lbs and 6 oz around 6pm (pdt) june 8, 2005.

(what's up with these mcnamara babies being so goregeous and photogenic at birth?)

simple minds...

this hasn't stopped being funny and it's been almost a month...

is this a joke?

or can you really buy amish, mennonite, and plain clothing on the internet?

thanks to chris for the link

thanks to...

(doh! because i'm lackin' in the smarts department, this has been saved as a draft since thursday - but i'm updating the time and date or this post will be hidden!)

...james for being the bestest friend a gal could have (even though she didn't have a baby for my birthday)

...yaymee, crazy mara, pei lo mein, fritzie, timmy, andrew, chris, jenny, kate, rachel for havin' some good (fairly) clean birthday fun

...annie and jills for the cards (i love you guys! i'm working on coming to the wedding next month!)

...erik for the random reminder that my birthday had already occurred and for timing it so well that i got a cd on my actual birthday (take it man, tell them you planned it that way)

...pman for the late birthday wishes and a whole use for belated wishes

...cherz for the birthday, um, song?

...jay for the gifties (really, i didn't think - or expect - anyone to go to my wishlist for real!) that were totally unnecessary but really appreciated

...my upstairs neighbors for the brownies

...my parents for making and raising me and sending me lovely skirts

...ernie for allowing me to sleep in the day after my birthday but waking me early enough on my real birthday that i made it to school and turned in all my papers and stuff on time and went to class.

...derrin for telling us to bring pizza and beer to class on my birthday since it was the last class and would be a downer since we'd be talking about people who died, as well as analyzing the reasons they died for FOUR HOURS.

note to travis

this is not your mother speaking. this is not your mother's photo (it's dooce's photo)

OFFICIAL NOTICE:

why am i so uninspired of late?

this had been 50 questions but i deleted some of them because of the content that i don't really want on the web... nothing dirty, just prudent.

from neurotic fishbowl

1. Your name spelled backwards: rehtaeh
2. What is the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? pictures of a new baby
3. What's your favorite restaurant? tough call... can't remember the last time i didn't want a chicken greek salad from pete's, though.
4. Last time you swam in a pool? friday at yaymee's.
5. Have you ever been in a school play? yes - i was the angry neighbor in a play version of the 12 days of christmas in 5th grade
6. How many kids do you want? either some or many or none.
7. Type of music you dislike most? JAZZ. freakin' jazz.
8. Are you registered to vote? yes.
9. Do you have cable? yes.
10. Have you ever ridden on a moped? nope. i always read that word as the past tense of "to mope."
11. Ever prank call anybody? nope.
12. Ever get a parking ticket? yes
13. Would you go bungee jumping or sky diving? probably not.
14. Do you have a garden? ew, no! i don't touch dirt.
15. What's your favorite comic strip? tough call... either far side or calvin and hobbes.
16. Do you really know all the words to your national anthem? yes.
17. Bath or Shower, morning or night? showers in the morning.
18. Best movie you've seen in the past month? the incredibles.
19. Favorite pizza topping? pepperoni.
20. Chips or popcorn? eh.
21. What color lipstick do you usually wear? i liked too faced's butterfly kiss and screen kiss and duwop's lip venom gloss in snowberry.
22. Have you ever smoked peanut shells? clearly. oh, wait. what? peanut shells? no.
23. Have you ever been in a beauty pageant? nope.
24. Orange Juice or apple? orange, definitely. but there are those days when a nice glass of apple juice is all i want.
25. Who was the last person you went out to dinner with and where did you dine? crazy mara and i got take out from whole foods. i haven't eaten out with people in a while though.
26. When was the last time you voted at the polls? last presidential election.
27. Last time you ate a homegrown tomato? "home" is such a relative term. either yesterday or years ago.
28. Do you know how to pump your own gas? yes.
29. Ever order an article from an infomercial? no.
30. Sprite or 7-up? sprite.
31. Have you ever had to wear a uniform to work? yes when i worked at java city. or at least i had to wear black pants and a white collared shirt.
32. Do you believe in love at first sight? nope.
33. Ever call a 1-900 number? negatory.
34. Can exs be friends? i don't think so.
35. Who was the last person you visited in a hospital? my sister.
36. Did you have a lot of hair when you were a baby? SO MUCH.
37. What's your all time favorite Saturday Night Live Character? tough call... i like unfrozen caveman lawyer and mr. no depth perception and toonces the driving cat. (guess what my favorite seasons were!)
38. What was the name of your first pet? stuffed: bito the ferocious. stuffed with guts: molly.
39. What is in your purse? gum, wallet, cell phone, keys, lotion, sunglasses, lipgloss, girly products, and about 200pgs. of research on tularemia.
40. Favorite thing to do before bedtime? read.
41. What is one thing you are grateful for today? that i've got amazing people in my life.

a reading list

the dean of my school emailed this reading list for the incoming students for the fall. i probably will not be reading any of them (for totally superficial and stupid reasons... that and my plan to spend the whole summer thinking about harry potter and the half-blood prince), but if you're curious, these are the books he thinks they should read:

MOST STRONGLY RECOMMENDED

• Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, Vol. II, Cambridge UniversityPress (Does not have to be read in its considerable entirety; a fewchapters will be sufficient to give the reader a new set of tools foranalyzing all societies.)
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso Press (One of the mostfamous books on the phenomenon of Nationalism.)
• Ernest Gellener, Encounters with Nationalism, Blackwell Press
• William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth, MIT Press
• Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft, OxfordUniversity Press
• William McNeil, The Pursuit of Power, University of Chicago Press

RECCOMMENDED

• Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, Beacon Press
• Alan Moorehead, The Blue Nile, Harper Perennial Press
• E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1789, Cambridge UniversityPress
• Eric Helleiner, States and the Emergence of Global Finance, CornellUniversity Press
• P.J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Managing Global Issues,Carnegie Foundation

midwiving by proxy

since james the chick's in the ol' hospital in early stages of labor - while it's no one's first choice circumstantially, mom and baby are okey-dokey.

so since her favorite brother (soon to be travis' favorite uncle) is blogging by proxy, i'm going to midwife by proxy...

send your good vibes and happy birthwaves over to portland because you love her!

if you don't know her, send them anyway because i said so and i'm bossy, persistent, and will kick you in the shins if you don't.

saint margaret of antioch, (one of the) patron saint(s) of childbirth would be a good person for you to chat with at this time.

wow! surprise!

a baby i didn't even know was ON my fertility list!

hello to lillian (lilly) faustina s. born to mike and katie s. on june 1 at 8:02 pm! two babies in one day!! and it's no longer 1 down, 2 to go, it's now 2 down, 4 to go! (congrats to ellie and pat who are expecting their third son in august! and i forgot about my cousins monica and tim who are due in august, too.)

should i go back and count my cousins ann and jay (hey, i'm part filipino, i have more cousins than is decent!) who had jacqueline amy last month? and cousins dan and myla who had noah in april?

why do people think i'm kidding about knowing MILLIONS OF BABIES?!?

interesting tidbit - of all the babies i know, lilly's older brother aidan was the only one who couldn't wait to get to the hospital and was born (unplanned) on the bathroom floor.

no f.o., almost a new w.i.p.

i've knitted more this weekend than i did all last quarter. i'm 85% done with the second sleeve of kyoto, leaving me with just the left front panel (took about 3 hours to do the right one) and the border. i've got the tapestry needles ready, so hopefully it will be done before yayms and i head out to santa fe on friday. not because it will be particularly cold (however 100% cotton sweaters aren't the warmest things ever), but so that i can bring a BRAND NEW PROJECT! i can't handle having multiple w.i.p.s so i usually finish one before starting another.

what about the lovely cabled scarf i'm making for my sister that i started in january? well, i frogged that baby because i was knitting SOOOO tightly that i used almost a whole hank of rowan polar (in smirk!) on 3 feet of scarf. that, and it's june and she lives in southern california so there's not much hurry on that one.

so yesterday i bought the stuff to start on my own lelah! i actually bought some lion brand microspun yarn in coral. and it is softer than just about everything i have ever touched. it's a bit smaller than the gauge in the pattern but with a golden calculator to divide (to divide!) i'm going to try fudging it and having more of the fishtail patterns. it's also my first foray into lace patterns (now that i have successfully mastered yo's!). i'm not sure about the ribbon detail - because i'm me, i think that there are few colors that actually clash (it's all about the confidence with colors. patterns, however, do clash), so i'm toying with the idea of a lime green velvet ribbon. however, i am needin' me some new needles because the microspun does NOT like my bamboo 9 and 11 circulars...

i'm also wondering if i won't have to knit me up some straps because of my inherent distrust of elastic where my...parts are concerned. i'll play it by ear and decide later.

*f.o. - finished (knitted) object
w.i.p. - work in progress

culling thoughts from a brain made of oatmeal

i want kyoto to be finished. i'm also a little dismayed that since i got my swatching to match the pattern's, the right front panel is a full 2.5 inches too long. we'll see what happens and maybe i'll have to be ultracrafty and shorten it without frogging.

i woke up with a migraine and i'm working on it going away so i can do the yoga tonight with yaymee.

everyone send your giving-birth vibes toward pdx so that semaphoria isn't in limbo anymore. her brother thinks she needs to do the kung fu hustle to get travis out. i think she should take a 24 hour nap before labor. she's been quiet lately so maybe she's doing one of those two things (labor or nap) as we speak!

stuck on ben harper's "steal my kisses" this morning

house cleaning elves keep on letting me down. they never show up, or if they do they don't clean houses.

haiku-girl: thanks for the owl. i'll be there asap. which reminds me, we found the location of a portkey when we were at the Lounge on friday. there was a giant fireplace with a drawer in the mantle. so susannah opened it (hoping it would be a mystical portal - well, i was hoping it would be, anyway) but found a post-it with an address inside... i'll drive up there later to see if we can find the portkey.

people have left for the summer, some people have left for longer, other people have left forever. fritzie's gone until january, timmy's gone forever, rachel's gone for the summer, lots of people who have graduated are gone forever... however, i'd estimate that 80% of the graduates of my school will wind up in washington, dc so chances are good we'll run into each other in dc in the future.

i'm going to take kyoto to bed, knit-a-bit and sleep until the pounding stops in my head so that i can do warriors, crocodiles, trees, and boats this afternoon...

kyoto w.i.p. notes and other stuff

finally, i feel like kyoto's truckin' along again. i have the sash, the back a sleeve and one front panel finished. that leaves me with a front a sleeve and the detail seed stitch across the front. then comes the seaming. oy the seaming...

laat night crazy mara and i went to lounge (not to be read as "bounce" although their logo's a little ambiguous) to meet up with susannah and sam. what they DIDN'T tell us was that it was someone's graduation party. and someone we don't know, to boot. however, we happened to arrive there at the end of the party when the people we didn't really know were leaving, and we hung out with susannah, sam, laeticia, blair, and two really tolerant people who were on a first date and happened to sit with us. anyhow, mara and i left relatively early because i was sleepy and she was sleepy, and we were both crossing into crankytown. it was fun, but we were done.

people's fair, which was on deck for today, was rained out. so c.m. and i went to whole foods for unagi bowls and sushi.

and i took a nap because i don't have any homework to do.

they tore down my mystical portal at school... so i have to find another way to get to hogwarts...

hey fatso, oink oink, too many twinkies.

flight of the navigator's on abc family tonight.

i love that movie...

compliance.

see ya later, navigator

large dog at large

yesterday, ernestine had his first taste of freedom since he was 9 weeks old. for a reference, he is 5 1/2 years old.

we were wandering around out in the yard on the leash, getting ready for him to do his stinkystuff, when forwhatever reason, the ring on his headcollar (gentle leader... we're fans!) caught the latch to the leash and he was liberated. we stood there looking at each other for 30 seconds trying to grasp what happened. i bolted for the back gate to close it (the yard DOES have a fence, however it's in many ways "notional" and it is likely to be knocked over with dirty looks and harsh language. and ernie has jumped over it before when he saw a cat. hence the leash.) he bolted for the front gate and hit the streets.

on my way to the front gate, i handily closed the side gate that goes to the neighbor's yard. i made it to the front gate, and saw him halfway up the street. knowing that if i were to approach him he'd keep running, i let him see me and turned around and ran toward the yard again. so, he ran into the yard, i shut the gate, and ran down the side of the house opened the door to the house and got him inside.

it took all of about 120 seconds, but it scared the crap out of me. my dog is a spaz. he's funny and sweet and snuggly and ridiculous. and he hates kids and dogs and cats and strangers. so, since he's never been at-large before, i have no idea how he will actually react if he gets next to kids or dogs or cats or strangers...

i'm glad he's home, he wasn't hurt or lost, and that no one else was hurt or lost...

i pretty much decided it was oh-beer-thiry when we got inside.

then i went to mara's and we watched the incredibles, which was so much fun!

oh baby, baby it's a wild world

my new upstairs neighbors consist of a mom and her 2 daughters. the older daughter is turning 16 today (i can't for the life of me remember the names of the daughters... very unlike me, so somewhat disturbing) and it's the last day of school. so the mom is having a limo pick her and her friends up from school and having a party that will last until late late late... i may or may not remember that is a slumber party. it's also her first boy-girl party.

a 16 year olds birthday party that will last from 2 pm until ??

i cannot remember the last time i had thought "is this a boy-girl party?" but i do have to wonder if it's a boy-girl slumber party.

do boys even have slumber parties if girls aren't hosting?

so there will be much tearing things up. which means there will be much ernie barking tonight. however they made me brownies from scratch for my birthday so i shall sit quietly, knit, and read. sleep may or may not happen.

1 down, 2 to go

hooray for matt and jenn g. who had joshua richard g. this morning at 6:15 am, at the corresponding weight of 6lbs 15 0z! he's totally cute at the ripe old age of 3 hrs, but he's not my baby to post pictures of.

james and jaimie, dan and francisca, we're waiting...

creaky like a rusty chain hanging from a bolt on a suspended railroad tie

now that i have all of this "free time" nonsense, it turns out i haven't much of consequence to say.

usually this type of post is followed up with a wordy post or an annoying meme, so we'll see what happens now.