i am a pinnacle of productivity and girlishness

i got a lot of stuff done today. and girlified in the process.

for instance, i finally submitted my program statement (one year late) and my application for graduation (one day early).

i also found out that i passed my french proficiency exam (required for graduation). woo!

i got my car (or as it has been called in the neighborhood, "wash me!") washed today. since my daddy raised me to take it to a place where you pay money to have other people wash and vacuum your car, i did that. who am i to dishonor what my father hath taught?

i also finally went grocery shopping... it was getting dire in my pantry and refrigerator... the presence of tumbleweeds and cacti are what ultimately drove me to shopping for food. and toilet brush heads. and liquid plumr foaming pipe snake (when you have 2450828418349018906139414316913095 tons of hair, even cleaning the drain out every day after the shower isn't enough to keep it from slowing down and making you feel like your ankles are taking the nastiest bath ever).

i got a new pair of black shoes - but i actually needed them. AND they're wide enough for my rice-pickin' peasant feet. AND they're comfy (although they do this odd suction thing that mades my feet adhere to the footbed. not unpleasant, just...odd). and i can dress 'em up (sorta) and dress 'em down.

(please notice aforementioned skirt hem)

i also got a pedicure. it was my first pedicure from a man. and let me say, he gave the most amazing foot and leg massage... i almost proposed before i came to my senses.

(self-conscious about my peasant feet so it's an obscured shot)

and my eyebrows waxed

(note to self - in supermacro mode, wear mascara)
(note to self - buy mascara)

and here's the aforementioned hair chopstick just because

and a gratuitous extreme closeup of the dogcreetur's nostrils

i did not buy this shoe today. i would hope the reason is clear.

i did not buy this shoe today. i would hope the reason is clear.
Originally uploaded by swandive00.

however, i've decided that i need a new pair of converse. the ones i bought in 1996 are a bit, um, worn out.

aimless days, uncool ways of decathecting

today is a goregeous day. it's going to be in the 70s again. every song coming up on random is a great one that makes me outrageously happy.

i'm a-gonna wear a skirt once i can find a good top to coordinate or decide that the one that i have all matchy-matchy doesn't REALLY need to be ironed for me to go to school. and i'm gonna get a pedi after class but before yoga. unless i get one after yoga.

and i'm gonna wear the red chopstick in my hair that lynne left in my car in new orleans 7 years ago because i'm pretty sure the statute of limitations on hair chopsticks expires in 3 years and they're by default mine.

this is entirely uninteresting to anyone but me, but not even that can bring me down right now.

can't be too cohesive yet

i've had a long day with a cranky baby.

it was 73 degrees today. weird.

lady eleanor has two balls and change. of yarn.

that shouldn't be nearly as funny as it is to me.

but it's not as funny as beaverslide yarn.

i like this knitty surprise. it's basically what i had envisioned (with a different cable pattern) for the not-a-sweater experience.

i'm toooooooootally done with this quarter. the calendar, however, says it has 2 weeks left.

stupid calendar.

i had an unexpected, totally welcome, and somewhat loopy phone call last night that made me feel the happies.

my dad's headstone came in last week. my mom saw it today and said it made her sadder than she'd realized.

there are whole days when i forget he's gone.

there are whole days where i don't feel sad anymore.

i think these are both good things.

i got a letter from yaymee today. she sent it on february 2nd. i read the first page (pei, fritzie, and crazy mara, if you haven't gotten yours yet, she says that she was going to write them right after she finished mine. so you should have them soon if you don't have them already.) and realized i needed to read it later when i can actually pay attention to it.

i have to do my stupid homework now.

37 years ago today...

...my mom dropped out of college, in a fit of love-driven madness, to elope with my dad - a sailor.

happy anniversary.

this is a sad one.

racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning

i'm getting punchy... i've been writing a very short paper on an annoying topic since 11 am. well, that's a bit of a stretch. of those 7.5 hours, maybe 2 of it has been spent writing the paper. i've been IMing, googling old circus instructors (it turns out one of my childhood circus instructors was a playmate of the month a quarter century ago... and i found this out in IMDB, and not at playboy like you assumed, you dirty minded scold), sending text messages, listening to music, and getting quite proficient at playing cubis*.

i've got about 1-1.5 pages left to write... it doesn't take me long to actually write it.

it's the motivation that takes a hunnert millyun yeerz.

look! random picture! washed out, old picture of jake and i in vegas about 3 or 4 years ago right before he moved to paris to be hemingway!

random picture of jake and cy from september:

*with the first free version of cubis, you could play all the levels over and over at harder levels a la tetris. with this version, it ends when you reach the 40somethingth level. that blows. also, it's described as a "block-rockin' game". what's up with that?

as if i needed another reason.

one more reason for being more than a little enamored of haiku-girl...

she sent me to katie davis' site to listen to her stuff. i have been listening to "los angeles" on repeat for the past 6 hours. except for the 4 hours when i wasn't home to listen to it, that is. i already have plans for covering it, um, in my living room.

it's a perfectly sad song. just the right amount of sad.

we also love h-g because she does pretty things with words and paint.

she's my girl-crush. hi haiku-girl! i heart you!

he's phenomenal. a freak, but a phenomenal freak.

ernie had his annual vet visit/vaccination trip yesterday. first of all, this dog freakin' loves going to the vet. even after his minisurgery last year, he still loves it.

granted, he isn't crazy about having his temp taken rectally, but even then, he still loves the vet, the techs, and running around the exam room. no matter where we've lived or who the vet is. Loves. It.

but he does want to eat other dogs, cats, and children, so that's still a problem, requiring us to get the first or last appointment of the day. but he's healthy an he's lost 8 lbs from last year (he was slightly chubby) and now he's a prefect weight, and his vet said his weight loss was "phenomenal".

it's easier to just not give him treats when he wants them than it is for me to not give myself treats when i want them, because it's not me wanting them when he wants them

or something.

shoutout to cope

he has increased my stats the past few days by linking to knitting pictures which i contend are of sweaters but he contends are of my rack.

so, um, thanks?

quel cauchemar

i had a spate of bad dreams last night.

one of them was gladly interrupted by a phone call, and i don't remember it at all.

i had another were i had a stalker who did creepy things like interrupt the music at a bar to play a pre-recorded manifesto about how he wanted to kill me, and how i couldn't get anyone to walk me home, and upon my arrival home, the stalker killed ernie first so he could kill me without being mauled by ernie.

then i had another dream where i was stuck shuttling an ex around town, and we went to this local indie rock clcub/venue and the door guy gave me a bunch of free stuff because he found out i played guitar and they give schwag to musicians, and i ran into erik at the club and begged him to hang out with ex and i and he wouldn't (gee, erik, thanks...). okay that dream wasn't horrible, but ex was annoying.

there are still people who give me hope

somewhere in the world is a woman i would like to thank. i've never met her, spoken with her, seen her, nor do i think i will ever know who she is.

on october 14, 2005 she was driving in riverside county, california on country village road just north of the 60 fwy. she saw a car pulled over to the side of the road and pulled over to see if anything was wrong.

let's think about that for a second. a car pulled over on the side of the road in southern california. would you pull over?

i wouldn't either.

but she did, and she found my dad after he'd called 911. he wasn't really able to speak clearly anymore, but she kept talking to him. she went to her car and got him a bottle of water and told him that she'd stay with him until help came. she talked to him, she sat with him on the side of the road until the paramedics came and took him to the hospital.

after calling 911, my dad had called my mom back to let him know he'd called for help. my mom asked him to leave the phone line open so the paramedics would be able to talk to her if they needed. they didn't - in fact my sister tried desperately to get the paramedics to find his phone by shouting to give them some information and find what hospital they were taking him to, but their siren was too loud.

but my sister and my mom got to hear this woman - this stranger - who just came to his aid at the time of his greatest need. she didn't effect a change in him physically, but in many ways, she provided comfort and aid to him, and to all of us.

i had forgotten about her until earlier tonight. i don't remember what made me think of her, but although i am feeling sad now and am crying like um, a girl, i'm really glad i did.

rogue WIP

so i made a promise not to start a second skein on lady eleanor - and i've held to that. would that i had made such a promise on rogue.

i kitchenered and it's not all that pretty, but it'll do. it was my first kitchenering and not as pretty as littlegoat's... (in my defense, i have no idea how to graft reverse stockinette on the cable pattern)

however, now that the body and hood are done, i needs me a little break before the sleeves.

finals, you know.

either that or it'll be a hooded sweater vest. sexxxxxy.

monk-e-mail update

just for ivar, who ate his baby today.

too bad, because his baby was freakin' cute.

i love it when people help me procrastinate before final papers

a little someone i like to call "MooCow" sent me this link the other day. it was a link that allows you to create a monk-e-mail.

this is the biggest time waster EVER. it's also the BEST WEBSITE EVER! (just fyi - before you go all nuts and stuff, they limit the number of times you can do the text to voice function). i have sent so many monk-e-mails the past few days...

it's odd how i tweak things to suit their recipient. for instance, i sent mariama (who wants to start a wine and yarn shop) this little doozy. she, in return sent me this guy, which takes out favorite sesame street song ("would you like to buy an O?") which has come to have many euphemisms and has a leisure suited chimp with geordi laforge glasses and a woman's voice recite the lyrics.

you may have been fortunate enough to receive this one. (the british monkeys can't say "doofus" oddly enough)

and one of my school friends, while we were working on a project realized the british male voice sounds like an evil james bond character and got it to say "the nuclear incident was unfortunate", to read the first sentence of his paper (about information warfare), and threatened me with a deadly nerve agent.

just for the internet, i got the chimp to say "pimpin'" because it's funnier that way.

i totally heart you, moo.

this position is so funny to me.

if i had a box just for wishes...

it would be an endless yarn box, complete with (knitting) needles in every size, an espresso drink-o-matic,an iPod with a battery that never runs out, and a stickymat that was actually sticky enough that my hands didn't slip while doing downward dog when my palms start "glowing".

in other news, i have nothing to post about, i'm 50 rows into the hood on rogue with sleeves left to go, i faithfully stopped knitting lady eleanor at the end of the first skein, and i had a really gross elbow ligament snapping situation every time i did chaturanga dandasana today. it also hurt a little.

dog picture!

in my ongoing efforts to be foresworn...

...i've cast on for lady eleanor. i did last night, rather. and i did twice, because when it comes to counting, i can be a bit of an alchemist and magically turned 56 stitches into eight 8-stitch triangles. (anyone who understands javascript who can tell me why the color of my progress bars shows up in preview and not in the published blog, gimme a call and i'll smile winningly at you in thanks.

however, i promised myself i wouldn't cast on for lady eleanor until both of my papers (one due next week, one the week after) were at least well underway, and my assignments due this week were finished.

i finished the stuff due this week, but haven't thought about my papers.

anyhow, my next goal is to not start a second skein* of noro until the papers are well underway. this is what i've got with one skein of noro silk garden on #8s

(somehow my colors indoors are truer under my reveal lightbulb than in direct sunlight or with ambient natural light. go figure.)

here's the yarny texture artsy shot

love the colorway (206) i actually like this yarn - it has lovers and haters, very few people fall between the cracks. the varying width, the schizo color joins, finding small shrubs within the yarn itself - i rather like it. it's insanely well suited to this pattern.

speaking of this pattern, entrelac has taught me something very important - learning how to knit and purl left to right so you don't have to turn the damn thing every 8 stitches. not only that, but i can knit english style lefty. if only i could do it righty, and hopefully be less afeard of fair isle knitting....

*i have to call them skeins. i am a 12 year old boy who laughed at this title.

i have to stay here

i can't go to chicago for the funeral - i have too much to do here. which is sad, because i really want to be with my mom right now.

we've had a rough 4 months.

The Weisenheimer family

that's my mom's side of the family - all quick-witted and smart-assed, every one. most of them live in the greater chicago area, an area i love but have only ever visited in my memory, but my memories of going out there are some of my favorites.

my mom's the second oldest of 9 kids, my youngest uncle is 11 years older than i am.

when i was probably 6 or 7 we were staying at my grandparents' house on the south side of chicago, and some of us grandkiddos were playing (or in my case, learning to play and failing miserably at) double-dutch. my youngest aunt on my mom's side ran home to take a quick shower for a date with the man who would become her husband, kevin. while she was in the shower, my grandmother decided to see if she remembered how to double dutch jump rope.

turns out she did and she totally kicked my butt.

my mom found her birth certificate about 15 years ago and saw that her middle name was misspelled on it. her middle name is almost unheard of, but very similar to a somewhat common name - the certificate had the more common name. she called her mother to verify that she had known her middle name correctly all her life, and my grandmother said, "of course you know your middle name, dear. there's just some boob of a county clerk in chicago who doesn't."
**************************

my grandmother is 82 now. she has alzheimer's and parkinson's. on thursday, she fell and broke her hip - the doctor said it was the most common old lady broken hip, and she was brought to the hospital for surgery. as of yesterday morning, she had declined significantly and started going into congestive heart failure. she wanted to talk to all of her living children and her brother. so my mom got to talk to her on the phone and said, "you've been a marvelous daughter and i love you." she talked to one of my aunts and said, "thanks for the memories."* my mom got on a flight to chicago 3 hours later. i just talked to my mom and it looks as though my grandmother will likely die today, and i will try to go to the funeral at some point.

they called a priest yesterday who came in and gave her the Anointing of the Sick, and everyone led a little prayer. my grandmother was lucid enough to ask if she could lead a prayer, and who is going to say no to that?

everyone closed their eyes, bowed their head, and my grandmother said, "look out lord, here i come!"

update: she died a few hours ago. what a good woman was my grandmother. i'm lucky to have had her.

songs to which i can't stop listening - the schizo version

it's been a while...

• "sunshine superman" donovan
• "toxicity" system of a down
• "ray of light" madonna
• "other side of the world" kt tunstall
• "shakespeare's sister" the smiths
• "skin" andrew bird
  

Smokey Robinson frozen dinners

nothing says dinner like a creepy visual representation of smokey robinson's head

fritzie, pei and heather

thanks for coming last night, guys.

and i win for the tiniest eyes in this picture.

six strings that sing, wood that hums against my hipbone

i use that title a lot. it's written on my guitar case in silver sharpie.

you know how you find a place that just seems right? like it's a home to you?

well, last night i saw T play at swallow hill, and realized i should have been going there the past 21 months.

michael tiernan

first of all let me say, that T is an AMAZING songwriter and has such beautiful technique and skill with his guitar. he's every bit as fun and engaging and funny as ever. he's a good guy.

i miss having live music as an integral part of my daily life. that's 99% of why i switched from a french major with international relations dreams (really? and now i'm in grad school for what?) to music therapy. was because i missed the live music. so i got tons of it in new orleans and athens. granted, two very different types of music, but i got it just the same.

when i was a music therapist i got to make music every day. i got to sit on the floor with my shoes off and play the spiderman theme on my guitar. i got to dance, play with a xylophone (i still have the stairstep xylophone that mina's mom gave me when i went to naples, fl in 2000) read books, pound on the drums... it was a good life - but not challenging enough.

but being at swallow hill suddenly reminded me of an appendage i'd let wither. i play my guitar every few weeks. i go see shows, um, never. i haven't played an open mic in 7 years.

i've been thinking of joining swallow hill since i moved to denver to go to shows, to use their facilities, to take banjo and mountain dulcimer lessons - but in all likelihood i'm leaving denver in a few months. i don't have a banjo or a dulcimer. it seems silly.

so it is my promise to myself that the next place i move i will seek out and find the acoustic music in that city (unless it's a town of 25,000 on the mississippi river in iowa) make music and find some happiness within it.

je suce

i have to re-take my french proficiency exam next friday. i have to pass it to graduate.

it turns out that never speaking french, nor thinking in it, nor reading it for nine years does not help one maintain fluency.

i miss being fluent in french.

but would love to be fluent in english, french, russian, italian, irish, portugese, japanese, slovenian, croatian, ukrainian, and (yes, i've fought it for years) spanish.

with a smattering of other languages. once i've got europe covered, i'll move to arabic, pashtun, chinese (all i can say is "good" in cantonese because you say "ho!" and who doesn't like to say that?) korean, tagalog, farsi, and swahili.

but i've got to go baby steps.

i would like a rock to wind a piece of string around, please.

i am a knitting bandwagonner. i look at other people's stuff and think: "hey! i wanna do that!"

like lady eleanor. jessica finished her eleanor and i was looking at her eleanor and other eleanors and thought: "hey! i wanna do that!" because in theory i'll have a real job by next winter and think she'd be lovely over a white oxford shirt, black or grey dress pants, and grown up heels. in my mind i also do my hair and periodically wear makeup and jewelry. i'm also as dainty and goregous as jessica, but that's another post.

but anyway, i bought 10 sk of noro silk garden in 206 from yarnbow on ebay and should have that in a few days.

also like rogue... there've been a few knit-alongs for her, but i just wanted to knit something out of the ex-mariah, ex-not a sweater yarn. this is what she looked like about an hour ago.

i finished the back, and have since started the front cables.

here's the puuuuurty side cable...well part of it.

let it be said that i love this pattern and think it's BRILLIANT. if i had done any forethought, however, i would have turned up the hem and knitted it to the body about 100 rows ago.

there's a chance i should be working on homework.

i'm changing the dog's name to bob barker.

people who make you enormously happy

several enormously lovely things have happened to me today. the only one i'm a-gonna talk about right now is that i got a postcard from patrick/pat/that'll-be-nigel-with-the-brie.

he's an amazing writer (i'm going to re-read his novel-in-process this weekend... it was so good i was a little mad at him for not having finished writing it yet) with a silly sense of humor who uses literary words i have to look up like ruritanian without seeming cocky and forgives me my telephonic phobia so generously.

in fact he makes me want to run to massachusetts with a bottle of wine and a baby seal in a picnic basket with an array of fingerpaint.

pat,

thank you for the card - you should be the moon as your eyes are blue.

i am the same, and thus remain -

any number of your scattered and lovely verbs,
heatherfeather

nine things i'll (definitely) never be

foisted upon yours truly by the utterly delish particleman.... and pawned off on... um... this is the part i'm not good at. pawned off on you. or you. or you. or you.

1. a man
2. an entemologist
3. a chicken sexer
4. a peanut farmer
5. an interpretive dancer
6. an astronaut
7. a participant on the amazing race
8. an adult film star
9. a golden god
   

some people call me the space cowboy

last night i met up for beverages with delta force* to hang out because we haven't since my crazy crazy practical final last may. we've all seen each other, but not all at once. and we met this time without our fifth, insane member. but we went to the atomic cowboy, ostensibly to play cranium. but delta 66 (aka delta jenny) left it in the car.

we had too much fun. jenny had too much wine. which was even more fun. there was a picture i can't WAIT to get of tipsy jenny next to psycho killer scott.

we were playing with my phone and i got these pics of scott/jenny's heads and scott. they're very dark.

i didn't get a picture of james and i. but jenny did.

it appears to me i've never posted about that final. it was crazy, it was 4 days long, there were land mines, ak-47s, a hostage negotiation resulting in the execution of all of our hostages, our professor was almost accidentally shot by a member of the red cross (think about that)...

if that's not making sense, the basis of our 4 days down in creede, co was to set up and run a camp for IDPs/refugees** in a non-permissive (i.e. actively violent) environment. think of running a humanitarian aid camp in darfur, fallujah, or the ivory coast. it was intense, it was educational, it told me that i'm not going to ever do that as a job. if you want to read my full review of the final exam, go here (word document). if not (it's 9.5 pages long) i summarize it.............NOW

however, we were the only team who had fun and ate well. for instance, my friend chris had a peanut butter burrito (peanut butter spread on a tortilla) every morning for breakfast. we had coffee, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. we also had steak with sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes, and roasted corn for dinner the night other people were eating beenie weenie out of a can.

i'm just saying there' s no reason for us to have not eaten well nor have had fun. so we did. and our weekend was better for it.

we all got A's too. even after the comedy of errors that was the penultimate adventure wherein we stepped on mines, got lost, etc... we didn't hit the anti-tank mine or have anyone taken hostage in the field.

* the teams were named alpha, bravo, charlie, and delta. we just felt cooler calling ourselves delta force even though we were unarmed and non-violent.

**just fyi, the "refugees" of hurricane katrina are actually IDPs. so stop calling them refugees.

in the category of another reason i'm insane...

i don't love chocolate cake. it's okay. i'll eat it sometimes. but i don't love it. for me, cake should be lemon. lemony lemon goodness with lemony lemon icing.

however, i was at blogging baby and saw a recipe for a cake i want to make so badly...

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake

1 18.25-oz package chocolate cake mix (get the extra-moist kind, it makes a difference)
1 3.9-oz package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup hot water
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 degrees Celcius). Grease and flour a bundt pan.

2. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, eggs, hot water, sour cream and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into bundt pan.

3. Bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then invert cake onto wire rack and let cool completely.

there is no adjustment given for cooking this cake at altitude (the thing i hate most about denver - i'm loath to bake anything), but i'm going to say add 1/4 cup of flour and if it's not moist enough in the batter state (but there's lots of liquid in this cake batter) add a tablespoon or two extra of water.

mmm... however i'd need to buy a bundt pan. not the biggest problem in the world. :)

music and yarn, or why i am blissfully happy

i bought some cd's i'd been meaning to buy. here they are. (click through to see what they are)

i didn't buy mike t's cd - he being a good guy sent it to me. thanks t!

but here's the yarn i wasn't up to showing off last night.

formerly jessica's frog tree alpaca sport (about 400 g of the green). needs a project. thoughts?

here's the alpaca cloud i bought from knitpicks in horizon. it's about 1600 yards and i'm thinking the peacock feathers shawl...

and finally, here's the paton's classic merino in its third incarnation: rogue. i'm finished with the kangaroo pocket and about 25ish rows past the hem rows. even with all the stockinette stitch, i love this pattern...

and the cable:

(shh... i did three rows on the hem before i remembered it was supposed to be twisted knit stitches... so the first three rows are regular St st...)

Collection of face and feet

Collection of face and feet
Originally uploaded by swandive00.

I like it when he puts his face and feet as close together as possible. He had just moved his footies so that his back feet weren't touching his nose anymore right before I took this picture.

Sleeping dogs are huge. How do they grow to six times the size they are when awake?

Another random Ernie thought: since he was an itty witty baby, if he is woken up, he lifts his head and gives you the most horrifed look ever. I don't blame him. But I do laugh at him.

i suck

so i was totally going to go to stacey's pad and chill with other knitterati (and maybe mock olympic knitters in the true spirit of my button) but i feel icky...

i just can't drive to littleton... sorry, stacey - i suck...

but in yay! news, i got a cd (boldly titled "The Best Mix Ever") from the dashing and gallant particleman today. i'm rockin' out right now! (until the opening ceremonies start, then rocking shall cease for now)

and in more yay! news, i got some alpaca from the lurvely jessica at fig and plum. yay alpaca!

as an indicator of the ickiness i feel right now, i can't even be bothered to take pictures... if THAT doesn't tell you something about how icky i feel, you don't even know me at all.

and a classic heather-quote by a non-heather in heathers that has no bearing to anything at all, lick it up baby. lick. it. up.

who's high maintenance?

so, v-d is next week, and i know that most of you are clamoring to confess your undying love for me.

therefore, here are some things to keep in mind whilst wooing me:

• i don't like getting flowers. unless they're daisies, and even then only like one or two, and if they're not delivered by you in person i'm not into it.
• candy's okay, but i can't have nuts, so you can't buy a prepackaged box of candy for me.
  
• platinum, not white gold.
• no colored stones. except maybe malachite or green sapphires.
• yarn is always good; either wool or alpaca.
• however, i'll also accept 12 skeins of noro silk garden in 232, 226, or 8.
• but i really just want help seriously cleaning my house and organizing my crap.

thanks for keeping these in mind. and if nothing else, i'm a really good cook and will make delectable meals for you in thanks. (not a euphemism)

shakespeare's ghost

i had a brief email exchange with someone today about their apartment number being "2B". my initial instinct was wonder how the other people can tell which apartment is theirs from all of the other ones in the building except for 2B, when they are clearly living in "not 2B".

and suddenly i had flashbacks to the college bf who was

OBSESSED

with shakespeare. in fact started writing a novel about someone robbing shakespeare's grave. (i don't know if you read this, but hi ajw if you do. i owe you an email)

and then i was remembering when we would go to the airport in new orleans, the parking garage was arranged in such a way that after driving up the sprial ramp* the first level you came to was level 2B and how all of us would usually park in 2B because there were far fewer levels named 2B than not 2B.

*i hate the tight spiral ramps that lead to parking garages. i get insanely carsick on those ramps. and when going down the ramp i feel like a green gumball.

it's a learning process, not a sweater

now, it's REALLY not a sweater.

yeah, i decided that particular cable pattern would lead to too much padding in the, um, chestal region. and didn't feel like designing something else.

so i bought rogue. casting on while sitting on the baby tomorrow.

wait! don't go! - updated

dear person in lincoln, nebraska who came to my site by searching "love match for me",

come back! don't throw away what the msn search engine thought was meant to be - give it a shot before you throw it away.

drop me an email.

cheers,
hf

update: it's 6 pm wednesday now, and someone has come to my page from iran (let me know if that link doesn't work, i never sign out of my sitemeter). i am number one when searching for "my match in love." i think my employment prospects will dim slightly if i move to iran for love. however, they spent almost 8 minutes here, so maybe...

linky dinks

• i love this site. literally love it. (ew, maybe figuratively)
• chris is gettin' all fancy what with him being all famous for learning to speak one of the remaining celtic languages and looking like a "scuzzy ukranian pirate".
• you may see in my sidebar that i am not joining the knitting olympics. there were nicer spectator buttons, but that one was nelson. how could i not pick nelson? ("ha ha! hey, that hurts...")
• when in high school i gave mariama a book on how to massage your cat. here's the knitted sequel as well as other yarn depravity. (link via crazy aunt purl)
  

that appears to be all i've got for now other than a whiny dog who wants to have a poo.

so excuse me, i have to attend to that.

really?

i finally wrote yaymee a letter and was online looking up postage* for mailing a letter to guinea.

and was startled by some of the things that are prohibited for mailing to guinea:

• Arms, ammunition, daggers, sword-canes, brass knuckles, blackjacks, and other secret weapons.

• Articles bearing the "Red Cross" or "Geneva Cross" as a trademark.

• Coins; banknotes; currency notes; securities payable to bearer; traveler's checks; manufactured and unmanufactured platinum, gold, silver; precious stones; jewels; and other valuable articles.
  

• Foreign products, natural or manufactured, having markings, labels, or wrappings of any kind that may give the impression that they are of French origin.
  

• Perishable infectious biological substances.

• Perishable noninfectious biological substances.

• Radioactive materials.

• Weights and measures not of the metric system.

the other ones i understand.

*$0.84 for 1 ounce via airmail

mmmMMMmmmalpaca frogs....

i got the first of my tax refunds (yes, i'm a dork - i did my taxes already. and online. and on a friday night) so i bought a small little gift for myself from the lovely jess of fig and plum.

i bought the frog tree alpaca sport.

no idea what i'm going to do with it. but you can bet i'll roll around in it for a while.

and i'm getting a pedi in a few weeks.

the rest goes into savings. [yawn] i know...

my lovely lady lumps might be smaller if i didn't like any of them

i think it's fascinating that when i was younger, i HATED butter, salt, and bacon. now, i like them. with some exceptions (except for salt which i just love).

i don't like butter on pancakes, french toast, or waffles. in fact i LOATHE it on those foods. i prefer butter on not hot bread, unless it's a super chewy sourdough roll. it's okay on plain ravioli with pepper.

i really don't like bacon on sammiches. i like it on its own, on salads, on some soups, and potato skins. but not on sammiches - especially BLTs (which i just don't care for ) or burgers.

and now i have "my humps" stuck in my head. (fergie's lovely lady lumps sure are lovely though...)

hoooooboy!

proving once again that cherzie is fun, here's his end of the hat-for-shirt bargain

here's the back

(if you can't read it, it says "your mom's a banana problem")

this makes me do the giggling mightily.

why am i so freakin' dark in february? i haven't seen sun in months...

for those of you who aren't in the know, this is a conversation between the guinean yaymee and myself last quarter during finals when we had the punchies.

i had no idea.

so, in lieu of watching the superbowl (or as my dad called it 'the superboringbowl') i did what any 28 year old woman would do: watched Little House - the Final Farewell.

which was, um, really uninteresting until the end. in case there are, well, all of you who have never seen this, there was a legal misunderstanding after the sioux treaty fell apart and walnut grove which had been a homestead town on former reservation land, actually belonged to an entrepeneur. so he told everyone, you don't own your land. you can work for me and still live where you've always lived or you can get out of dodge.

a side story had jeb and jason carter raising bunnies to sell for easter gifts.

luckily, charles and caroline came back to town in time for all this to go down.

anyhow, everyone decided they weren't getting off the land, so the Bad Man brought in the cavalry to evict everyone in 48 hours.

so the townspeople decided to blow all the buildings up, because he owned the land, not the buildings or businesses.

then we had a 20 minute montage of walnut grove blowing up.

and the final shot showed the little house on the prairie overrun with bunnies. obviously.

the end.

today

today i have been utterly unproductive.

i take that back, i started doing the waist shaping on my "learning experience, not a sweater".

and i made fresh asparagus to go with my chinese dumplings that pei lo mein made special for me (even without sesame oil!) because i couldn't go to her party.

thanks pei - they ultrayum!

i can't smell the funny aspargus pee-smell. it turns out the people who think their pee doesn't smell weird just can't smell the weird smell. they did tests and made people smell other people's pee to find out.

you know what sunday this is?

that's right, it's puppybowl sunday.


for those of you who have basic cable, watch dogs play with each other and drink water out of a bowl on animal planet. the website has instructions for planning a party (complete with ideas like hang a banner on your door saying "Welcome to the Dog House" and letting the kids eat ice cream out of dog dishes)

you think it sounds entirely uninteresting until 3 hours of your life are just gone with the paws in the water dish, the biting of ears, and the sniffing of posteriors.

gone.

if you don't believe me watch the video samples. you'll see.

comfort cravings

i've been craving filipino food... well some of it. some filipino foods scare me, quite frankly... if my dad said not to eat it, i listened closely. (see, balut - no graphic pictures, you're welcome - and dinuguan)

but chicken adobo (different than mexican adobo), pancit, lumpia, that fish soup that looks scary but tastes yummy...

and filipino desserts... like most asian/asian-pacific desserts, they aren't as supersweet as american desserts... some part-filipino people don't like them because they are too purple. to be frank, i'm not crazy about the purple ones, either. but the halo-halo, the puto (yes, i know that's a totally different word in spanish), anything with makapuno, even the avocado shakes, pichi-pichi (with cassava), salabat when you have a sore throat, turon before i was allergic to bananas, pastillas de leche, and hopia mongo...

and every now and then i wish i spoke tagalog... more than "it looks like you're sitting on a coconut,"* that is.

*yes, i do know how to say that. my grandma used to say that when the kiddies couldn't sit still.

a whole lotta nothin'

but here's an amusing song that i kept listening to this summer with maryam, that i sing to the baby upon whom i sit when she's eating her feet, and that makes me giggle.

(link goes straight to mp3)

my pal foot-foot by the shaggs

there never seems to be enough time

maybe last friday? the friday before? i was talking to the lovely and talented patrick (ahem, there is a link SOMEWHERE, mr. secretive) and i decided to see if i could still play jim croce's "time in a bottle" on my trusty little guitar.

it turns out i still can... except for 2 measures right before the verse starts... i've been working on remembering them for a week.

but this morning i went on autopilot and just played them. but i was so much on autopilot, i can only consciously remember one of the 2 measures...

if i keep fiddling enough i'll get it, i'm sure.

a few things

it's early on saturday morning. the dog knows not weekends and still needs to uses the outhouse at 6 am.

i woke up to no fewer than 4 IM s between 3 and 6 am that were very random.

yaymee updated her guinea blog and guinea pics - you should go look! when you look at this picture, see if you can't figure why yaymee doesn't think that wearing the local style of shoes will make people think she's native.

here's the gallery of demonic children.

i am taking my allergy meds and going back to bed.

am i still ill?

i had a social event tonight!

i went to dinner with pei lo mein. it was fun - food was so-so.

and we ate the worlds largest carafe of ice cream and brownie bits.

i am full.

to stop myself from snacking on it after we were done, i covered the remaining ice cream in pepper.

the waitress thought we were insane.

capo

a new capo a happy heather makes.

as well as supermacro mode that shows the texture of my microfiber bordello red happiness that passes for my couch.

i'm not so happy about the visible dog fur.

i'm off to make songs higher.

randomness

stuff i notice:

1. some people think heatherfeather is two words
2. vertical ribbing has purl stitches recessed compared to knit stitches, horizontal ribbing has purl stitches higher than knit
3. people really can't drive at the full moon
4. i'm happy this week
5. i am addicted to text messages
6. one of the best text messages i've gotten arrived last night while i was watching gay cowboys (eating pudding): "gay cowboys! yay!"
7. i have to cycle my deodorant brands every 8-10 months
8. my dog makes a sound a lot like "oooooooo" when he growls and isn't supposed to be growling
9. my mom has ridiculously funny ways to amuse herself. (eg: manipulating her grocery list so she's only buying things that begin with the letter b)
10. inari is goooooood
11. i confused maryam this summer by attempting a rant without telling her the topic. she should have known i was continuing a rant to which i had been eavesdropping
12. i just had to turn down a sweet nannying gig (3-4 days in another city, all expenses paid) because i have to go to school
13. danibear is coming to denver - i haven't seen her since thanksgiving 1997. she's gonna be my prom date. i'm not putting out.
    

pudding

i saw the gay cowboys (eating pudding) movie last night.

my reaction to the movie was similar to my reaction to the story: that was good. not pretty good, not excellent, not eh, just... good.

however two things surprised me:

1. wow. i guess i do think heath ledger is hot. and a good actor. and looks good in cowboywear.
2. wow. i guess i think michelle williams did an amazing job.

i also had gummy bears (haribo - mmmmmm) and noticed that even though i tell people i eat the gummy bears face-first, i don't always. sometimes i put the whole thing in my mouth, and lay the little bears on their sides along my molars, facing my tongue, then bite down, transecting them from head to foot, separating their fronts from their backs.

one on each side of my mouth at a time is the most gratifying.

and i like them, but clear gummy bears are my least favorite.

nap, then yoga.

as appears to be going around the internets, meh... i got nothing.

random factoid

my first kiss was with chris zahnheiser when we enacted the first kiss from romeo and juliet in 9th grade. which also reminds of my 16th birthday when my dad looked at me over the dinner table and said, "sweet 16 and never been kissed, right?" this walk down memory lane inspired by mr. k.

(act 1, scene 5)

ROMEO [To JULIET]

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

ROMEO

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET

Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray -- grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO

Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.

JULIET

Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO

Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET

You kiss by the book.

the post with pictures

i may very well be in a knitting funk. either that, or i'm out of inspiration.

i've turned the heels and am half through a lace repeat in elfine's socks. but i feel like there's a "this far and no further". i can't tell what's up with that, but here's where they stopped:

(if i haven't mentioned it lately, click for many sizes)

and because it's funnier that way, here - i've painted them blue:

however, i have started designing my first wearable! it's a cardigan, and i'm not going to post WIP shots of this because it's a learning process, not a sweater. if it comes out looking like crap, that will be my rationale. if it's earthshatteringly goregeous, i'll sell the damn pattern and call it "not a sweater". (as discussed over KIPP with alpineflower) i've changed the design and the gauge, but not after doing a bunch of maths and charts and diagrams. here's some of the maths that have been rendered irrelevant at this point:

yes, my handwriting is schizo.

while i'm picture posting... i noticed today that my doodling is both very orderly in its layout, and mostly seems to resemble, er, the sacred feminine:

as well as snails and "country feedback" lyrics