i am having the traveling itch. it's actually a moving itch. not as in relocating an itch from one part of my body to another.

but i want to move. i want to make a drastic move.

i want to move to a different country.

i wonder if i can make it happen.

cross your fingers?

it's a funny sort of mood that i have found.

i'm in a nick drake sort of space. but not in the blue monkey sort of way. but in the quiet, thoughtful way.

i am not motivated to knit the gull stitch cardigan (i'm still on the back, because i got bored waiting for the armscyes to pass... have 3 more inches before neck shaping). i'm really not motivated to work on mr. pants' scarf either.

and because i'm a big fat liar, i bought a skein of cherry tree hill supersock in peacock. and am knitting 2 toe-up stockinette socks and not really hating it at all. see, the problem with me and socks is that i really really WANT to want to knit socks. i want to love the process. and the genesis of this desire is that i am in love with sock yarn. i want to make socks that are goregeous and handknit and lacey and cabley and ribbed. i love eye of partridge and dutch heel flaps. i love figure-8 cast ons and short row heels. but why don't i love sock knitting? i dunno.

mr. pants is going to be working millions of hours a week for the next few months (millions of hours is around 85-90), when coupled with the distance, means time in each others' presence will be few and far between, but that much more rare and lovely, like a wild bird.

zoboomafoo
Originally uploaded by swandive00.

happy birthday to the p-man.

peace out, dawg.

the past month i have been dreaming about my dad a lot.

it's reassuring because in my dreams, i remember small details of him that i didn't know i could remember so clearly. in fact, i didn't know that i had forgotten them.

the shape of his feet, the silly dance he'd do when he was excited about something, the tone of his voice when he was not feeling well, the light in his eyes when he was showing off a new gizmo, the crestfallen dismay and secret upwelling of admiration on his face for my cojones when i ran off with his brand new wireless keyboard when he was in the middle of writing an email, how he didn't like personal issues disussed in public, the smile that he wore only before going deep sea fishing, the laugh he reserved for clients, the laugh he reserved for us, the smell of his sweat on a hot day (not as gross as it may sound here), the particular shape of his hat hair, how he'd make his accent stronger purposely when he was in a silly mood, how he couldn't remember the lyrics to 99% of the thousands of songs he would sing along to.

one of my biggest fears right after his death was that these tiny details would be lost in the murky, overcrowded recesses of my mind. but my dreams are letting me hold on to those for just a tiny bit longer.

and i'm taking every tiny bit i can.

my dreams are vivid. they are detailed and heavily plot-intensive; if i can remember it clearly enough to recount it to another person once, i will remember it forever. there are characters, storylines, plots, subplots, intrigue, and in at least one incident, a soundtrack. my dreams are vibrant and in pulsating technicolor. typically, colors play a significant role in my memories of dreams. (note to self: use "memories of dreams" if writing angsty, bad poetry.) in those dreams, i am often myself realized to a single extreme. more often than not, i am everything i have ever wanted to be, because these are after all, my dreams. (however, not always)

when sleeping, i am kind, generous, funny, clever beyond expectation. my shrewdness never outweighs my compassion. i can say the right thing at the right time. i don't hurt anyone, with or without intention. the challenges i face make me stronger, and i can enumerate the ways in which they do. i never feel beaten down or overwhelmed - the price of lessons learned are never too dear a cost.

conversely, albeit less frequently, i also have my flaws magnified - my impatience, my stubbornness, my ego, my self-righteousness. but each challenge makes me stronger. but without fail, the greater lesson comes when i awake, faced with my knowledge of my penchant for these.

i don't think of myself as a hippie-dippy new age sorta gal (but i have been accused of being a "dirty hippie" on more than one occasion - still trying to figure out why). i can be, and am often pragmatic to a fault. people think i'm brave and realize my dreams because they are dreams - i do this because i am pushy to a fault with myself, and am afraid to try 325 other ways to make myself better and stronger. but i do have an idealistic streak a mile wide that i force myself to temper with knowledge so i descend into neither naivete nor cynicsm. i laugh at myself when i'm ridiculous in my dreams. but each challenge, each success, makes me stronger and more knowledgeable. and the greater lesson comes when i awake, faced with the knowledge for my penchant for each of these.

the pants and i took some time just for us this weekend and voyaged around san diego county. it was something that we both needed very badly to recharge our respective and collective batteries and work through some stuff. both were basically accomplished and... nah, i'm done talking about that.

among other things, we went to the san diego wild animal park in escondido, and got to see meerkats. we love us some meerkats. meerkat manor is one of our favorite tv shows, like, ever (sadly we missed it on friday and don't know what happened to flower and columbus - shhhhhh! no spoilers!). there were lots of pictures of meerkats, some of lemurs, and random pics of other animals. click on the meerkat to see more amminals. he wants you to.

1. FIRST NAME? heather

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? according to an overly opinionated stranger when i was an infant, i was a lovely child wastefully named after a pestilent weed.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? today.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? sometimes. it's pretty schizo.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? hmmm. pastrami?

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? duh. totally.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? yes. it's called Love me, love my caribou. other than that, i don't journal.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? unlikely.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? oooh, tough one. froot loops, golden grahams, cinnamon life, special k with red berries, rice krispies, cheerios... okay, now i'm just listing cereals.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? negator, skeletor.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? in ALL kinds of ways.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? strawberry.

14. SHOE SIZE? 8.5w - i can try 9s or 9.5s in a pinch if there are no wides, but they're never as good.

5. RED OR PINK? red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? i'm SUCH a crier.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? ernie, pei lo mein, jake, and semaphoria.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? yes. and i mean EVERYONE. and by "send this back" i mean, don't email it to me.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? i'm wearing a brown yoga tank. no pants, no shoes. (i'm in bed)

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? crappy chinese food around 4pm.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? patty griffin.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? duh - an offensively caustic green.

23. FAVORITE SMELL? sleeping dog buttered popcorn smell, mr. pants' neck, snow.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? mr. pants.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? eyes, smile, laugh.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from? all 98908394808143630986242 of 'em!

27. FAVORITE DRINK? today, a pumpkin spice latte.

28. FAVORITE SPORT? yoga

29. EYE COLOR? Brown

30. HAT SIZE? extra ginormous. 7 3/4, also known as 24 3/8".

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? sometimes. glasses other times.

32. FAVORITE FOOD? are you seriously asking me to choose one?

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? ever since the arachnophobia/jr. mints incident, i don't do scary movies.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? winter in california, summer in maine, fall everywhere, spring in colorado.

36. HUGS OR KISSES? depends who's givin' 'em out.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT? warm brownies, lemon cake, lemon bars, or ice cream.

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? your mom.

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? there's a dude who lives in saskatoon who probably won't.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? the voyage of the dawn treader by c.s. lewis, see no evil by robert baer, the internet by everyone (including you, most likely)

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad? i don't have one!

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? gilmore girls, the unit, dog the bounty hunter

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? meerkat barking, bunny growling, and ernie yawns

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? beatles

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? manila

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? i can sing the alphabet backwards and do the splits

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? denver

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I stole it from 98908394808143630986242 knitbloggers

i live at the base of the cajon pass.

the mountain pass you drive through on I-15 to get to the desert to get to the vegas. since it is, indeed, a mountain pass, the high pressure winds the start in utah and push down to southern california are funnelled through this pass at astonishing rates. these are the fabled santa ana winds. the winds that make people cranky, give you miraculous sinus infections complete with 103+ degree fevers, and contribute to our fabled wildfires.

and they're blowing today. good luck if you're in a piddly, light car and driving on an east-west freeway around the pass. and also good luck if you have a roof or fence that needs work for the next few days, as you're likely to lose them in the 80 mph gusts.

...that i am establishing residency in california today. or at least my car is.

but i'm still hunting for work on the east coast.

FO!

boring FO pictures ahead! because i've had a loooooooooong 2 weeks month and it's too late for me to try to be footloose and fancy free in my photography!

FO report:
pattern: zephyr style's rusted root
yarn: brown sheep cotton fleece in sedona red
needles: US6 and US4
date started: maybe october 6, 2006?
date finished: october 14, 2006
pattern mods: ZERO extra increases (or subsequent decreases) in the sleeves so they wouldn't be poofy, but would instead be normal, top-down raglan sleeves. because i don't need extra puffiness in my sleeves. or any, really. i changed the bust decreases to be paired instead of done in the front and the back half as many times instead of only in the back twice as many times. i also added some hip increases because, um, hello, i have hips, but i don't really know that they were necessary. i also didn't do any ribbing on the collar because it goes WAY higher on my neck than i'm usually comfortable with as it is - although it may make it easier to wear a crew neck shirt under it.
notes, miscellany: fun pattern. what i liked about it is that as a top-down raglan (which can get deathly dull during the increase sections), the BOR is in h e middle of the bac, and the lace pattern was in the front section. basically, this broke up the monotony of it. pattern was well written, straightforward.


i screwed up the lace pattern precisely one time and it's right over my bust, so it jumps out at me pretty drastically. and it's a good 10 inches from the bottom, so i'm not going back to fix it. i must live with it. if i can.


in these pictures, i've been wearing it all day (yay for handknits that get worn!) so it's a little stretched out and wrinkled in spots. it fits pretty well - for a top i was anticipating having zero ease, it has about 1-2 inches of ease, which works okay for this.

okay, i'm tired and in a bad mood, so nighty night internets.

right now.

a year ago, i was in a very different place than i am now (well, metaphorically - i'm lying in the same bed posting when i posted last year on this weekend).

i'm currently knitting rusted root in brown sheep cotton fleece (sedona red). the bizarro thing is that is the yarn used in the pattern picture, that had been languishing in my stash. in the same color. i usually won't knit something in the same color as the pattern - sometimes the same yarn, but it typically offends my sensibilities to be int he same yarn, same color. oh well. it's about 2/3 finished.

last weekend, while mr. pants and his bro were playing with r/c cars, i ran to joann's and picked up 4 gigantic skeins of lion brand fishermen's wool and started knitting the aran sweater on the label. out of sheer boredom. i was using boye balene straights. which are WAY too slow for virgin wool, so i'm going to transfer it to either my addi's or the slick susan bates acrylics that i can never remember the name of. but i'll probably recast the whole thing because it looks like crap and i ran out of stitch markers. it wasn't really a sweater with a purpose, it gave me something to do with my hands when i was watching as the nissan silvia and the 350-Z in 1:20 scale zipped around my feet and antagonized ernie.

and last night, my sister and i went to a newish lys in riverside, closeknit. it was far better stocked than many of the lys i've seen in the 909, and she says she has the largest stock of sock yarn in the area. if only i didn't hate knitting socks. but i bought some cascade yarns ecological wool in mediumish brown (there's a reason i don't have a marketing degree, whatever that may be).

i've been eyeing leigh radford's gull stitch cardigan for about a year, and i swatched tonight on my inox metal 10.5 circs (they're new! i love them!) and i'm going to cast on tomorrow. how much fun is it to knit a sweater on 10.5s! yay for bulky yarn, big needles, and instant gratification sweaters!

i still have about 1/2 of mr. pants' scarf to go - but rectangular scarves bore me a little.

okay, they bore me a lot, so i knit a bit here and there. but i'll finish it because mr. pants wanted a black scarf, by gum. and i love me some mr. pants.

if only he wanted a gull stitch cardigan. if only i weren't afraid of the sweater curse.

when i was getting my toesies pampered and polished the other day, i had the pleasure of hearing someone complain about their service. they had gotten the bella pedicure which costs 12 dollars more than the standard, no-frills pedicure, and didn't like the job their nail tech did. (let me say, pedicures are my ultimate self-indulgence, and i've had my share of lousy pedicures, so i understand that) she said the tech didn't properly slough her feet, use the mango exfoliator, massage her feet or legs, and just left her there for 5 minutes while her callus remover softened her feet (in the tech's defense, you have to leave it on for 5 minutes to give it time to work).

first she was complaining to the tech (after the pedicure), and said she wouldn't give her a tip. the tech apologized and offered to talk to the manager to see if she could waive the cost of the pedicure. the girl said that she wanted to talk to the manager herself. so the tech got the manager - whose first language was not english - and the girl who was complaining suddenly started talking much louder and more slowly. i was sort of amused by this process at first because the girl's mother had talked to the manager during the fabled lousy pedicure, and the manager had already agreed to waive the cost. so the manager came up, apologized and offered to waive the cost of the pedicure. the girl said, "i want to speak to the owner." the manager said that the owner does not live in the country, and couldn't be reached by telephone at this time, but that she was happy to accomodate her in order to keep her business.

the girl looked at her and said, "i don't know if you've ever heard of something called a marketing degree, but it's where you do a good job the first time so that your customers don't ever have to be unhappy because then your customers will go out and do what's called bad marketing and tell everyone they've ever met not to come and get pedicures here."

hmmm... i had thought a marketing degree is where you receive formal education from an institution to learn how to reach a potential client base and convince them to be consumers of your product.

and then i thought, well, i don't have a marketing degree and i think you're not the highest wattage bulb i ever done met.

the moral of this story is: if you're going to be all condescending and rude, be sure you know what you're talking about.

this is my dog. (well, technically, he's mr. pants' dog now. regardless, ernie doesn't know that.) he loves to eat sticks. right now, in mr. pants' yard, there are giant 8 foot long sticks that are so straight that they're not fresh off the tree. but i don't really know what their purpose is...

other than to tempt ernie to pick them up and gallop around with 8 foot sticks, that he then chomps on to make into 9 inch sections of stick that he can shew on an spit out.

i think he likes them because sticks taste like dirt. and wood, i suppose.

in other news, isn't my cameraphone ridiculously good? it's almost too good, if you ask me. whatever that means. not in a "oooh! look at me with my fancy cameraphone!" way, but in a "whoa - we live in a supatechnological freakin' age, yo." sort of way.

i haven't bought no one cares what you had for lunch, (oops, forgot to mention that link is NSFW) but i've seen some of the ideas floating around there from maggie's book. one of them is reposting a note from jr. high. since moving back to california, i've come to the sad sad grips that my parents may very well have lost my yearbooks from high school and jr. high when they moved to this town when i was in college (but haven't given up hope and plan to ransack the garage once the craziness has subsided), along with my copious notes that i saved from jr. high when semaphoria and i were crazy note passing chiquitas.

but i did find one in my bedside table. folded in the way that only teenage girls fold notes.

and i got so excited that i decided to post it. however, i can't post about 91% of it because it's a full-force rant about her jr. high boyfriend. and no one needs to read most of it. but there are some bits that are too random to be anything but our surreal flavor of old inside jokes.

while no one will find this amusing but semaphoria and i, here it is. for instance, the mega story which semaphoria recently found in her bookcase would be much more surreal, much less redacted, and much more dated with the pop culture references to how long home alone was #1 at the box office, but i can't find that one.

in the comments, you can tell me if you would rather hear what i was planning on having for lunch.

Muffi (Editor says: don't ask) -

[redaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacted] Why, oh why, do I put up with it? (Probably because I'm on slugs!) Ack! [redacted] Have I lost my half of the brain? (And is the other half still on the ski club bus?) To quote Shakespeare, "Never smuggle grapes into a foreign country." Has S. fallen victim to the trendies? Has un-trendyism fallen to the trendies? (Long story) SLUGS! ACK! I need them, yet I am locked in this dark cell (aka math class) in which The Enforcer (aka Mrs. K.) is putting my brain on the stretcher. (I am also being deprived of my slugs!) I need to female bond (But don't let Norm know).

Death to the Trendies,
The Lucky Chicken Foot

P.S. Can you do a beetle dung revert to chopstick?

interesting to me is that i have recollections of about half of these inside jokes (1/2 brains, slugs, Norm) but only the vaguest memories of things like the grape smuggling or why semaphoria's nickname at that point was the lucky chicken foot.

(p.s. i'm having 1/2 of a baked potato with blackened chicken, broccoli, and cheddar cheese from claim jumper. maybe only 1/3 - i've been underwhelmed by food the past few months. still not pregnant, maryam.)

i finished a sock for like the first time, EVAR.

it was a snowflake sock. on US2 needles. i actually like knitting on tiny needles because the stitches are so small and pretty.

but it's official: i'm not a sock knitter. i finally finished a cuff-down sock, and did the dreaded grafting of the toe.

and i can't think of any reason i'd go and knit another sock. not even to finish the pair.

saturday night, the pants and i went to mccabe's in santa monica to see antje duvekot and ellis paul.

it was amazing.

i haven't been to a folk show since october 22, when i saw dar williams at the fox theater in boulder, 6 days after my dad died.

(thud)

anyhow, it was the first folk show the pants had ever been to, it was the first show we've gone to together, it was my first show in nearly a year. and iy was incredible. i'll say that antje is really supercute in person, really funny and amazing live. (i'm not crazy about her studio album) she did "dandelion", a breakup song that i can't remember the title of, "jerusalem", "pearls", "judas", and maybe one other song. as the opener, she didn't have a long set.

ellis paul, i'd never heard much of. so it was a relative unknown. and he was incredible. he's got a great mix of folk, americana, bluegrass, and rock. he's funny and engaging, and knows how to successfully walk the line between cheesy and hilarious. i loved him. he did 2 great woody guthrie songs ("way over yonder in the minor key" and "god's promises"), he did an incredible texas christmas song ("snow in austin"), a greyhound bus song ("3000 miles"), "words", and "conversations with a ghost". he's an incredible songwriter, performer, musician, and he nearly made love to a $5500 froggy bottom parlor guitar that was for sale at mccabe's. ellis' 2 disc "greatest hits" sorta album comes out on the 10th - you should pick it up.

i love going to good shows- it makes me want to write music, but i never do. i makes me want to sing songs which i often do. i love me the folk singers.

i love me the folk shows.

i can't wait for the next one...

i have two, TWO, TWO FOs to report today.

number one is rogue number two! here are some pics of it - click through for big.

FO report:
pattern: jenna wilson's rogue
yarn: patons classic merino in too teal, 4 skeins.
needles: addi turbos/susan bates silverados, US7
date started: um... sometime in late august? the 20th or so? it was a tuesday.
date finished: october 1 (i had some motivation issues this time around)
pattern mods: i made the sleeves longer so they'd be long enough. so i added 14 rows of stockinette to the sleeves before starting the sleeve cap shaping.
notes: last time i knitted this on US6 needles because i'm a dummy when it comes to gauge (i evidently can't count or measure), and it was too short (the top of the kangaroo pocket was at the underside of my, um, lady lumps, the sleeves were 2 inches too short). this time i wanted a rogue that would fit and was willing to deal with too-long sleeves instead of too-short ones. yay for new sweater. want to remember how short the first one was? here they are side by side.

and number two is the long-suffering lady eleanor. it's rough being nobility. i took lots of pictures of this one, so here ya go (click through for all the pictures in all her glory).