8/31/04

Evidence of magnetic poetry usage: I call it "The Sasquatch Dating Service":



Yes, I am aware that it's "yeti" not "yety". One works with what one has.



8/26/04

I mentioned before that the site is headed towards a major retooling, complete with URL change, heavy reorganization, and addition of J as a co-pilot. I've come up with a new name, and with the new name comes a very specific mental image that makes me giggle, and will require all of my weak, weak Photoshopping skills to even approximate.

I need a couple of pictures to bring this mental image to life--and specifically, I'm looking for an SEM picture that doesn't have too high of an ick factor (to see what I'm talking about, this image is a good example. Ick, right?). I have some worthy candidates that I've taken myself, but even if it's an image that won't be published, putting a part of my work up here gives me just enough of that "you might get in trouble" widginess that I know I probably shouldn't.

So I'm wandering around Google Images looking for something appropriate, see something that has almost the exact "look" I was going for.

Where's it from?

My own research group. Arg!

A mild frustration, but also nice to see that our stuff is out there in the forefront. It's like overhearing a conversation where both people are talking about how great you are.



8/25/04

This week from our CSA, we got a bunch of edamame. I'd been curious about these for awhile, so I'm looking forward to trying them.

The pictures on that page I just sent you to don't reflect the reality in my fridge, though. They're hairy. Not moldy or anything, they just have the surface texture of testosterone-laced peaches. And I'm a lot less picky than I was as a kid, but putting a hairy thing in my mouth in order to suck out a soybean is a little frightening. So I may shell them first.

In other soy-related news, J picked up a packet of pudding mix at the co-op last night, not noticing that it was made by Mori-Nu or that it was very clearly written on the package "Just Add Tofu!" I didn't notice either, but then, I wasn't the one that put it in the basket.

He was very unhappy with the revelation when we got home. I said I'd make it and eat it myself--I've tried all kinds of vegan versions of things, and unlike hairy vegetables, a little tofu pudding isn't going to frighten me away. But the phrase "tofu pudding" strikes such fear into his heart that my making or worse, eating the stuff just might prevent him from ever sleeping again.

So off it goes to be returned. Poor little tofu pudding mix, we hardly knew ye.

Lesson learned: never assume that the thing you're buying at the Co-op is the version sold to 98% of customers at regular grocery stores. Fortunately, I'd already learned that lesson with the vegetarian pemmican.



8/24/04

So, I've been reading Morte D'Arthur, translated to modern English. It's my bedtime reading--although there's at least a joust per page, with lots of blood and beheadings and such, it's not a particularly disurbing form of gore. With the exception of the one jousting-while-knitting dream, it gets me to sleep without much trouble.

A great number of scenes go something like this: Sir Mixalot, disguised for no particular reason, comes upon a knight he didn't recognize. The two fight for two hours(never 1.5 or 3, for that would be most unseemly and unchivalrous behavior, apparently). They hack each other to Monty Python-esque bits, when finally Sir Mixalot's adversary yields.

"I've never fought such an excellent knight as yourself!" Mystery Knight says. "You must be second only to Sir Mixalot himself!"

"But I am Sir Mixalot", he says.

"Oh, Sir Mixalot! I'm Sir Puffenstuff, and have been looking all over for you! I wouldn't have fought you, but I didn't recognize you in the disguise! I'm disguised, too, because my armor's at the dry cleaners."

And then they fall all over each other, kissing and crying. Even when they start off strangers, they end up promising to defend each other, before they go off to some forest man's shack to recover from the HUGE GAPING WOUNDS THEY JUST GAVE EACH OTHER.

So a few nights ago, I read a particularly sloppy change of heart to J. "What is it with these boys? They get mad for no reason, they become best friends for no reason. What the hell?"

"Better than holding hateful lifelong grudges the way most women I know do."

I paused, preparing a comeback, but my immediate visceral response surprized us both:

"I'd still want to smash that lip-bleaching bitch's face in if I saw her walking down the street."

A bit of background for males or saintly women that don't have this hackle-raising response: a smidge over six years ago, there was a young woman who I thought--THOUGHT--was flirting with J. Before we were dating.

Got that? He didn't even know I liked him at this point in time.

Six years ago. A little more, even.

He didn't even like her. Plus, he married me.

I WON.

SIX YEARS AGO.

The mere thought of her is still enough to elicit my hair-pulling instincts.

Then I think of being in junior high and the slow pecking to death that a few of us girls received. How they managed it so well that the same girl came out of the gym locker room crying EVERY TIME. How easy it was for some of them to step on other people's tenderest emotional places--to cheer for my public failure, to ask the fatherless girl how her mom had so many babies, to act like the chubby girl was so monstrous in proportion that they couldn't manage sitting on the same side of a picnic table without falling off.

I think of all these small indignities--12 years later!--and I get tense and wary. They weren't even so harsh with me; I just kept their claws sharp. And anyhow, I stood up to them more often if they were bothering other people than if they were bothering me, so bothering the other girls WAS probably a better way to get my goat.

Women are, by and large, nothing near the hippy ideal of the caring and nurturing mothers to all. Lying just microns below that delicate surface is a snarling beast that'll rip the eyes right out of your head if it means she can get higher up the social ladder.

It mostly gets kept right under that surface, resulting in shiny blades of passive-aggression just waiting for a polish.

Just because the injuries they give can't be seen doesn't mean they don't give them.
************
Apparently I'm bitter today.



8/19/04

I was considering making some gloves for someone in the near future, but don't feel like giving it away by asking them to measure hand span, etc. The only hand I have to compare to is my own, but considering I had a friend that was scared of my "freakishly long skinny fingers" as he called them ("you're like the Cryptkeeper or something!"), I thought I'd make a visit to my best friend Google to see if it could give me a hand, so to speak, with some average ballpark figures I could start from.

No good average hand span measurements, but a REALLY LARGE AMOUNT of links related to, um, sizes of things that are supposed to be related to hand size. I really didn't need to see all that. I get so mad when completely innocent searches turn up the nasties. It makes me want to apologize to my computer.

I'm an innocent little flower. I swear, Mr. Toshiba.



8/18/04

Is it me, or did the "but this time around, the atheletes aren't competing naked (enormous wink)" joke become a tired and silly cliche the second time it was made?

I heard a slight and still unfunny twist on this joke this morning, as they discussed the shotputting competition that'll be taking place at the original stadium in Olympia. They had a quote from one of the atheletes saying that honestly, they didn't think anyone would really want to SEE naked shotputters, as they tend towards a rather *husky* stature.

Without drawing breath I described for the tv two friends of mine for whom such a competition would be the answer to many prayers.

One of them was a college buddy of mine, and the two of us had come up with a complex meat-based system of classification which we used to describe a variety of male body types. She strongly leaned toward the side of steak, perhaps even into cheeseburger territory. For her, Adonis would be a shotputter. I, on the other hand, was strongly on the side of chicken, or even a salmon, so long as they knew how to eat.

I sometimes fear the company I keep.



8/17/04

I've been watching the Olympics, thinking about my new bike, and alternating between reading a sweater design book and Morte D'Arthur. My copy of Arthur's a translated version--I know folks claim that English speakers can follow Middle English, but I've tried and failed before, and seem to lack a talent for language extrapolation.

All of these activities blended together too perfectly last night, as I fell asleep. In that half-dreamy state, I watched armorclad knights jousting on bikes, using needles with half-done rectangles hanging from them, as announcers described how critical every second was for the competitors.

It was strange enough to reawaken me, which is saying something.



8/16/04

I rode my bike to work this morning (about 4 miles, according to Mapquest). Between my fear of cars that some would consider irrational but I can only think is ENTIRELY RATIONAL BECAUSE THEY'RE MADE OF STEEL, the fact that I haven't ridden a bike for more than 5 minutes since high school, and my general out-of-shapeness, I did pretty well. I was feeling pretty wobbly when I first got here, but everything feels good enough at the moment that I think I'll be able to ride back tonight too. Riding the bike took about the same amount of time as taking the bus, and considering riding the bike included a couple of "walk the bike across the street as an excuse to catch my wind" pauses, I'm sure that once I get the hang of it I could get here a few minutes faster. Other bikes were passing me left and right.

Hooray for bravery and getting in better shape!
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Speaking of bravery, I finished two mini-knitting experimental projects, this weekend, not for the faint of heart: steeking and intentional felting.

For the non-knitters: Steeking is taking a lovely and whole piece of knitting and cutting a big horrible gash down the middle of it--in this way you can knit a big armhole-less tube for the body of a sweater, then cut holes where you want sleeves or a neckline to show up. Felting is intentionally doing the equivalent of throwing that cashmere sweater in the wash and having something suitable for Barbie come out.

Most people consider these occurences "horrible disasters" rather than "fun ways to spend a weekend", but there are good reasons for wanting to have a felted or steeked garment. Plus, I've never done either before, at least, not intentionally. So it's time to play with string while the cardigan I'm designing percolates a bit.

I tend to do a lot of experimenting in the summertime, though I've been moving too slowly to do much until now this summer. It's too hot to have a big heavy thing on my lap, and I like getting the hang of something before jumping into the real thing.

I'll be doing a project with steeking sometime in the near future (it will be my Major Winter Project, I have the pattern and needles, I just need to buy the yarn for it). And I have the merest glimmer of an idea for a felted garment. I have no love lost on those hideously colored felted bags that everyone's been making lately, but felting itself makes an extremely warm fabric. Something felted as a piece, not cut and sewn together, is something I imagine would make a lovely fall jacket, or heavy-duty cardigan as a second layer in the winter, so long as the yarn used is fine enough so you don't turn into the Michelin Man.

One thing I'm curious about wrt felting that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere: if a curly piece of stockinette goes through the wash, is the resulting felted fabric also curly? I intentionally didn't put much of a border on the swatch to investigate.

Both the steeked piece and the felted swatch will need to make a few trips through the washer before I feel confident about them, but my steek passed the "whack it against a wall and pull on it in all sorts of ways to try and uravel it" test, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Also: I finished J's socks (just in time for his birthday!), and the tanktop, which is excellent. Plus, a tiny alpaca swatch to send to Dan, to see if he's allergic. The alpaca was very tasty. If the fiber does bother him, I'll have no problem keeping it for myself.



8/12/04

In an effort to pick up where I left off in the lab (I've been writing lately), I was poking through my files to figure out what data I'd slogged through and what I hadn't. Because I forget where I put things, I found this picture in with things, actually, you know, important to my research:


Which I'd meant to put up ages ago, and only got as far as scanning it sometime in May, then forgot about it again. A friend of mine was taking a photography class and needed some subjects. So she came with us to the Farmer's market last summer and gave us the paparazzi treatment.

I love this one. It hangs at one of my desks. The J-ish-ness of it just shines through.



8/11/04

I already wrote a dang long entry, but this should really go first.

Local People: Anyone need an air conditioner?

It's a couple of years old but we've hardly used it at all, maybe twice this summer, a dozen times the summer before that, and about half of the summer before that, because I don't like cold air blowing on me. Our new place has a built-in AC, too, so we don't need it. If you're not too far, we'll bring it right to your door, for goodness' sakes! My contact info is on the contact page over to the left there if you're interested, or stick a comment in the comment box.

Update: J didn't think I made it clear enough that the air conditioner is for sale, not for free. So, it's for sale.

Back to the blather.
******************
Mentally play intermission music in the back of your head as I write this. Personally, I'm fond of that "Let's go out to the Lobby" song. These are just some place-holders until I catch up with myself.
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Intermission entertainment #1: The Name Game

This site will soon do a sort of backflip to an actual domain name, and probably become a co-production with Mr. ChemGrrl, at some point in the semi-near future. If I'm reworking the site, which will involve large amounts of recoding, I may as well give the whole thing a new name. If you can come up with something clever and appropriate, start yapping.
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Intermission entertainment #2: Not so much a recipe as a thought experiment with food.

One frequently sees the tip that applesauce can replace some or all oil in cookie recipies. I've seen this work perfectly (chocolate chip cookies at the kosher kitchen I worked in, after much experimentation), and fail completely (a fat-obsessed housemate once made some disastrous minty things that even the dog wouldn't touch). I had a can of pumpkin that I wanted to do something with, and wondered if pumpkin would work the way applesauce does. They're both wet and mushy and full of cellulose, right? So I found a low fat applesauce-substituted cookie recipe in one of my books, replaced applesauce with pumpkin, and lo! It is tasty! Of course, the good thing about the applesauce is supposed to be that it doesn't taste all appley, and these certainly tasted like pumpkin, but I LIKE pumpkin flavor, so all was well.
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Intermission Entertainment #3: Yet another thought experiment, this time fiber-related.

When I got married, I bought white shoes. With heels! Ok, so the heels are less than an inch high and I still fell down, but they're the closest thing to grownup shoes I own.

They're there, really.

But when the heck am I ever going to wear white shoes again? Hopefully never. So I'm out 50$ on perfectly good grownup shoes whose only downfall is being made of white fabric.

Hold on, did I just say "white fabric"?

"You didn't." I know you're saying this. EVERYONE says this.

I did.


The dye came off of the tub, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, it also came off the shoes. They look fine there, but one quick rinse was enough to wash it all away.

Clearly, I needed something more permanent.

Did I just say More permanent?

It's your turn to say "You didn't" again.

And once again, I did.

Here are the shoes. I did this at the end of May, actually, so it's been awhile that I've meant to show these. I wore them to my cousin's wedding with a long gray dress and told anyone that would hold still long enough that my shoes were covered in marker. You can see that they're a little streaky, and the insides are pretty smudgy, but from 5 feet 4 inches up looking down at my feet, the streakiness looks intentional, and you can't see the insides when I'm wearing them.

I figured there were two possible outcomes to this experiment. Outcome #1: The shoes are unfit for human habitation. But then, they were WHITE SHOES. I'd never wear them again if I left them as they were. Outcome #2: The shoes are okay to wear. In which case, I just saved myself the money and hassle of buying shoes! And now on the occasions I wear them, I can regale my companions with my white-trash tales. A win-win combination!
----------------
Intermission entertainment #4: Let's have some knitting pictures already!

All right.

Photographic proof that I've picked up stitches and they don't look awful! Previously, I'd gone around the very edge of a piece and just threaded my knitting needle through at appropriate locations. Then I'd wrestle for a row, knitting all these lumps that were not intended to be knit off of, knit the neck however it was described, bind off, and have an awful looking mess where my head is supposed to go. I'd undo it and redo it several times, then give up and crochet the edge, or attach a neckline sideways.

Then I saw an online conversation a while back that set off all kinds of "oh duh" alarm bells, and asking stupid questions on other people's web sites set off a few more.

Oh duh #1: instead of pushing the needle through all those lumpy spots, how about you knit or crochet into them and put THOSE loops onto the needle? This is slower, but I found myself getting much less upset at all those little bumpy things.

Oh duh #2: You don't really have to be at the tippy-toppy edge the whole way around. Grabbing the stitches where they're comfortable is less likely to angry up the blood. You also can avoid odd-looking gaps or loose spots by skipping around them entirely--more difficult to do when you're RIGHT at the edge. As I know.

Oh duh #3: the revelation that is the sewn bind off. It seemed ugly the first time I did it, since it doesn't have the nice braided edge of the typical bind off, but it's grown on me. For stretch-requiring edges, like on socks and necklines, I won't do anything else now.

The result? My Shapely Tank has smooth and lovely arm edgings, and the neck looks pretty nice so far too. This may be the first time I've made something that I'll wear normally, not just for special occasions or days I know I won't be in the lab.
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Final intermission section: The Weather, Of Course.

I'm comfortably wearing a multistranded wool jacket I finished a while back (the pictures keep coming out poorly, but they'll be up soon, I promise). IT'S THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST. It doesn't seem fair.

Permalink

8/5/04

I'm going to need to turn my less essential brain parts off for a while and go into full Worker Drone(tm) mode.

Since Worker Drones(tm) don't have hobbies or opinions, what that means for you, dear reader, is a notable absence of much of anything here as I put myself on temporary online hiatus. Gimme a week. Maybe two. I will be checking email (since even Worker Drones(tm) have mommies and, more importantly, bosses who write to them), but that'll be about it.

In the meantime, I'll give you a project. I did 5 minutes of investigation but didn't come up with much.

Empire Who's Who. Got a letter from them yesterday extolling my virtues. Your thoughts? Moneymaking scam? Legitimate networking tool? I'm leaning towards the former, but found next to nothing after a cursory search.

Worker Drones(tm) don't need resume padding.
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As to this going offline thing: some of you who know me will be rolling your eyes at this, knowing that my personal strength of will with things of this ilk are pretty much zero. But when I get told very specifically what needs to get done, I do it. And when it's my own fault it hasn't gotten done yet, well, that's that. This is why I was always so dangerous in the dining hall.

I am, after all, only a prole.



8/4/04

I forgot to mention the best/worst instance of Magnetic Poetry I've seen. ZenClear reminded me.

For some gift-giving occasion, Dan once got a naughty magnetic poetry set from one person, and a barnyard-related word set from someone else (okay, I gave him that one).

The result was not suitable for children. Or anyone else.
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We've reached the latter phases of moving. One of these phases is the Figuring Out O' the Bus Schedule. Since I'm here, that one appeared to work out all right.

The second one was the Sudden Flooding O' the Town and the Panicking Because We Haven't Yet Added Flood Insurance to the New Basement Apartment. If it weren't for the fact that I've read about this happening elsewhere recently, I would have assumed that fearing for water damage was a rather UNUSUAL part of moving.

We drove through submerged roads last night to check on everything. I've never personally seen roads covered with so much liquid water. We had to reverse direction at one point, because the water was up to the doors. This was a keeping an eye out for Noah level of flooding.

Fortunately, the apartment was fine. Not a drop so far as we could see. There was a little leakage in the storage area, but the boxes didn't get too wet.

Phew. Pretty much the only thing left at this point is The Moving O' the Bed and The Supercleaning O' The Old Place. Then The Stopping O' the Talking About the Moving. Yay!



8/3/04

Unexpected things always pop up when moving.

This time around? Magnetic poetry. We have a full-sized fridge now (the old one, while not a dorm fridge, was very small), so some of it will be going up. Something to occupy my brain when I'm waiting for the water to boil, y'know? We have three sets between the two of us: a basic set, Food-Related, and Personal Ads. Should make for entertaining combinations.

The food-related one came with a metal lunch box. I played with it last night, too tired to knit or pay proper attention to the tv. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it, though my impatience at finding words like "is" and "the" results in vaguely Engrish-sounding expressions.

[coffee][says]
[why][drink][this][brew]
[my][raw][juice]
[always][fights][your][lunch]



8/2/04

How do two people who actively avoid the accumulation of stuff have so damn much to pack?

We donate unworn clothes. I have personal "things can only take up this amount of space at any one time" rules, which means that if I buy a book, that means I'll be giving one to J to sell on Ebay, and if I buy yarn, it means that I've knit through enough to make space for it in the Rubbermaid tub.

I do own a lot of sweaters. I'll admit to that one. And I have a fondness for mixing bowls.

Still. Two garbage bags of sweaters are not the problem. All of these boxes of I-don't-know-where-they-even-came-from-and-how-they-got-so-full are the problem.

On the upside, the new apartment is SO NICE. There were a couple of things I'd had minor reservations about--the kitchen is much smaller than the current one, and the carpet was a dark brown shag that screamed "I was bought on remainder in 1978". But this is the first time I've walked into a new apartment and had it be in better shape than I remembered. Fearing the worst, the things we brought in the first carload were mostly cleaning related--the vacuum, the box of soap and sponges, the radio to keep us entertained while scrubbing mold out of the fridge.
But the carpet's been replaced with a normal rug! And they repainted! And while the kitchen is small, it's big enough for two people to walk by each other without difficulty. And we've got more cabinet space! And a double sink! And even though the lease claims no pets, we saw several cats peeking at us from their balconies!

And it's so clean I picked up a sponge and couldn't find a single thing to wipe off!

Can you tell I'm looking forward to living here? Yeah.

It'll be a little while before everything gets moved in, since we've got two weeks until the lease on the old place expires. Hopefully, moving the UNGODLY AMOUNT OF STUFF WE HAVE will go smoothly.