2/26/04

This morning I forgot to grab my hat as I went out to the bus, and I didn't cry and gnash my teeth with regret.

It's a heat wave!

2/24/04

Still no sock pics. I went climbing, then felt really junky last night. I think I caught a stomach-y thing that J had over the weekend, but not quite as bad--I only wanted to yark, whereas J sealed the deal, so to speak.

So, not feeling good enough to do some real work, I've been putzing around, and found this (and extensions of it here and here)

It would be really far-fetched to call me a romantic. I didn't cry at my OWN wedding. But reading all the comments on the second of those links, which shows that random people around the country have donated over 9000$ so that some couples who have probably wanted to get married for a long time but couldn't had some pretty flowers to brighten an already bright day... well, I've been wiping my eyes for a while now.

2/23/04

Oh, right. Sock pictures. Oops. Tomorrow, perhaps.

2/20/04

Hey, I finished making socks! There are still two small yarn ends to be woven in, but I decided to wear them anyway, since it is cold and damp and my cotton socks got all splashy and weren't cutting it. Pictures on Monday, I'm sure.

For those local people, if any of you take the bus around 9ish am or 5:30ish pm and have seen a crazy broad knitting, that would be me. I've decided that socks are second only to hats as Perfect Travel Knitting, being small, taking a long time to finish, and not making me homicidal if the bus lurches and I lose a stitch or two. I did one sock while home for Christmas, and I've been working on #2 since then, almost every day but only on the bus (and occasionally in the lab when I have a long experiment going). Today I realized I was on the very last row, but couldn't finish up before I got here, so I sat in the office for 20 minutes and bound everything off.

And then I exposed everyone to my crusty toes while I tried them on. And they fit! And they're cozy! I'm so pleased.
***
While at knitting group last night, I missed what was apparently a very entertaining NOVA episode about dogs. I came home to J saying "ooh! Ooh! This is what a narcoleptic dog acts like!" And he proceeded to act all excited, get loose and floppy-armed, and fall limp on the bed.

And I laughed, so he did it again. And again, and again.

There's a pretty good image of an actual dog having a narcoleptic bout here, if you scroll about halfway down. It looks almost exactly like J's human interpretation, splayed legs and all, and it's been making me laugh all day.

I particularly like the blurb under the picture. "He dines enthusiastically." I've never heard a better way of describing all dogs with all food at all times.
***
I feel like, since I frequently talk about LGBT rights, and since most of the country seems to be talking about LGBT rights at the moment, I should have something to say. But really, besides "yay" and "let's hope it continues", there's not much to say that hasn't been said by more thoughtful folks than myself.

So, yay. Let's hope it continues.

2/18/04

Well, at least the primary's over, and now I can stop listening to journalists on the national evening news making fun of the cheese-eating state I'm living in at the moment.

Seriously. I mean, it's cold here. Really cold. People like the Packers, and wear jackets advertising said team. There are lots of farms. We GET IT. A few nights ago (I think it was on NBC) there was this guy that seriously spent half of a story about the Wisconsin primary saying things like "These boys are from SheBOYgen. They don't NEED coats when it's 15 degrees outside."

WTF? You're there to ask old men what they think of Dean, not to stroke the egos of people living on the coasts.

Watching the story put me in the unfortunate position of defending Wisconsin, which is pretty bad considering I don't even really like this place. If there was a way for me to finish up my degree in New England, I'd be there, not because of any problem with my coworkers or boss, but because I like seeing my family more than twice a year and not celebrating when the temp gets above freezing.

2/17/04

Apparently I'm not quite feeling well enough to do any real work, because a bunch of things I've been meaning to do just got done on the website. Among these:

Updating the archive page (which now goes into the future, so I can be lazy with it for nearly a year).
cleaning up some codey things that you can't see but which make updating a bit faster.
Adding a recipe page, since I went through all the effort of writing them up, y'know?

Gawd. Crafts, recipes, one would think I'm vying for Martha Stewart's place while she's indisposed.
***
Feeling better, thanks. I still sound like Marianne Faithfull, but that's something I can live with for now, so long as my brain stays functional.
***
A link for thee: The Story About The Baby. Man helps create baby. Man helps raise baby. Man writes hilariously about baby, and takes the funniest damn picture I think I've ever seen in my life. Man proves with every sentence why I want nothing to do with the direct rearing of baby.

Do you suppose this counts as "laughing at" as opposed to "laughing with"?
***
And here's a story about me being a grumpy sick bitch:

So, there's this online charity crafting group I belong to. For the most part, they're a very nice bunch of grandmotherly types who send emails about their children, their grandchildren, and how much they wish their children would have grandchildren.

But lately it seems like they've been becoming a very Christian bunch of grandmotherly types. Now, I don't mind that people HAVE a faith, but the implicit assumption that everyone in the group shares all the same beliefs kind of bothers me. Prayer requests, forwards about weird computer blips proving the Bible to be true, and how great that is, and how we should tell all our friends, and how dare those terrible people try to separate church and state when they're talking about the Christian church and not those terrible brown people, etc, etc, etc. I put up with it for awhile, because the point is that sprogs get blankets and booties to keep their widdle toes warm, yes? But today I read it and it was just too much. Clearly this is not a group that wants a noisy straight ally that believes in evolution (and is a SCIENTIST!) and doesn't want a baby of her very own and doesn't even go to CHURCH on Sundays and if she did would probably go to a BUDDHIST one, can you imagine? Even if I do make some extra hats and blankets to keep small young people warm.

So, I quit the group.

And wrote a grumpy letter.

To the entire mailing list.

The entire mailing list, consisting of grandmotherly types that spend their free time crocheting little outfits for underpriveledged newborns.

I'm going to Hell.
***
And here's some babbling about looking at apartments--"story" is really too kind a word.

So I looked at a couple of places yesterday and found one I like, which means that J and I have a choice between two apartments at the moment.

One of them is a unit in a pretty big apartment building, very clean but surrounded by a lot of people, including barking dogs we heard on our way in and out, in a decent neighborhood but far from anywhere we ever go, with one extra room that is in no way connected to other rooms (technically a 2-bedroom, but this room would essentially become a big closet because we're lazy if people don't have to see).

The second is the first floor of a two-floor house, across the street from an ice cream factory (which really isn't that loud the times I've walked by) but less than 5 minute's walk from anywhere we might want to go. It also has an extra room, but it's the front room of the house--which means, more room to play, but less room to stow. And has more character, with nice wood molding and big old-style kitchen cabinets.

I think what's happening with me right now is I want to want the house in the fun neighborhood, even though the other place is a bit more practical. Nyarf. Frustration and indecision.

2/16/04

I've been about as sick and miserable the past few days as a person can be and still describe their illness as "a cold". Of course, someone who says they have "a cold" typically has a bit of a sore throat, OR a runny nose, OR a stuffy head, OR a cough, OR is full of lung-junky, OR just feels a bit crummy and achy all over.

When all of these things happen simultaneously, one can still call it a cold.

One can also call it ASS.

At this point, however, I'm feeling a bit better--well enough to come to work, go look at apartments this afternoon, and go home to make soup for my poor dear, who came down with The Worst Cold Ever yesterday.

It's his fault for kissing me, I suppose. Occupational hazards of spousehood.

2/13/04

Ok, so I'm typically not much of a quiz-sharing person, but the irony of taking one and having my namesake pop up on the screen struck me as bloggable:

"Macedonian Dwarf". Heh.

2/12/04

Last night I had a strong craving for a peanut-covered main course, so J and I went to a nearby Thai place for dinner. Unfortunately, my cucumber salad was so spicy that I nearly cried, and couldn't really taste the rest of my dinner.

Of course, I still ate the whole salad, so make of my complaints what you will.

I was fully expecting intestinal difficulties after that, but was pleased to spend the rest of the night watching tv and designing an upcoming knitting project that will probably incorporate some lace. I fell asleep trying to decide just which combination of laciness would look right.

Unfortunately, my body had merely decided to delay the festivities, and chose to celebrate Poopenfest 2004 at 2am. Before the intestinal party fully woke me up, I had fevery half-dreams of Very Stressful Lace attacking me. The symbols on the graph kept meaning different things, needles turned to curlicues in my hands, and angry teeth of yarnovers threatened to take over us all!

I need to knit less. At least right before I go to bed.

2/9/04

Jeremy recently decided to create the soundtrack to an action movie using only music that we own. Now, don't ask me why--to me this is the adult equivalent of the kid with a cat in one hand and Nair in the other--but in any case, he had this idea. I came home on Friday night, and he was listening to one of my classical CD's. Impressed that he actually seemed to be enjoying it, I asked him what was up.

"Oh, this is PERFECT for the meeting with the ancient martial arts master," he replied.

The end result of this exercise was a theoretical movie that would end up somewhere between "Star Wars", "Iron Monkey", "The Little Prince", and "Lawrence of Arabia". This is partly the fault of our music collection, which is woefully short on Action Movie Music, and long on Middle Eastern and Indian music. And Run Lola Run.

When he finished taping it and played it end to end, complete with pantomimed fight scenes, it was so silly and wonderful that I needed to share. The scene titles alone are so good, here, that you can pretty much imagine the whole movie. I'm just amazed that in the course of 2 hours, by playing around with songs he likes, that he was able to make up a coherent story (at least, coherent by Hollywood standards). I put my creative energy into knitting, he puts it into this.

I've also included the names of the songs, so if you're bored or a lazy scriptwriter/composer, you too can enjoy the Soundtrack to J's Crazy Action Movie.

Opening Sequence: Battle in Deep Space/Crash Landing: "Mars" from the Planets by Gustav Holst

Rescued by Alien Children: Feels like rain, Monsoon Wedding Soundtrack

Traveling Across the Desert with the Alien Children: one of those hippy Andean music CD's from Putumayo

Arriving in the Capitol City: some song by DJ Logic

Hoverbike Chase through the canyons: Running 1, Run Lola Run soundtrack

The Desert Chief's Foxy Daughter: Leily from the CD "Arabic Groove", another Putumayo record

Meeting the Ancient Martial Arts Master: "Neptune" from the Planets by Gustav Holst

Learning the Deadly Arts: Casino, Run Lola Run soundtrack

Sneaking into the Overlord's Palace: (preferably involving some sort of rope over a wall) 7, from Moby's Play

Hand-to-Hand Battle With the Overlord (In His Burning Palace): Introduction, Run Lola Run soundtrack

Defeat of the Overlord/Ending credits: Somebody has to pay, Run Lola Run soundtrack

2/6/04

With Valentine's day coming up, and lazy horny cooks everywhere getting nervous about cooking romantic meals for their significant others, I thought I'd share this recipe, which I happened to make last night and is one of my favorites.
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Quiche: the easiest way to impress someone. It's Tasty! It Looks Complicated! It's In French! Young single people take note: making spaghetti for that romantic dinner with some terrible salad-in-a-bag and a can of sauce will get you NOWHERE. You make this, which is no more difficult than scrambled eggs, some rice (or, okay, pasta) on the side, and go through the trouble of washing and chopping some lettuce while everything else is cooking, and I promise your esteem will improve in the eyes of that person across the table. I can't promise you'll get lucky, but if it was me you would.

Quiche For Dummies

You'll need:

3 or 4 eggs
milk
cheese (Cheddar, Colby, and Monterey Jack are good options)
spinach and/or broccoli (frozen ok, and usually what I do, but thaw it)
and/or fresh mushrooms and/or fresh green onions (about 1/2 cup in all, whatever you pick)
pie crust (go ahead and use the Pillsbury, I usually do, but make sure it's had 20 minutes at room temperature from the fridge before you mess with it).

Directions:

Break 3 eggs into a 2-cup measuring cup and look at it. Is it at 3/4 cup or less? If so, you have smaller eggs, and you'll want to break the 4th into there as well. If it's between 3/4 and a cup, don't add the 4th egg.

Then, leaving the eggs in that measuring cup, add enough milk for the eggs and milk combined to equal 1.5 cups.

Put into a biggish bowl and beat with a fork until there are no blobs of yolk. About 30 seconds if you're vigourous.

Put your pie crust into the pie plate, and make sure if it's store-bought that it's all in one piece.

Pour the egg/milk mixture into the crust. This would be a good time to turn your oven to a smidge above 350 degrees F (less than 375F).

You can grate the cheese, but if you're reading "Quiche for Dummies" you probably don't have a cheese grater, so slice pieces of cheese about as thick as American Cheese. About a third of a typical Cracker Barrel block is good, which I'd say is a half to full cup. Plop half of it into the crust in a relatively even arrangement.

Plop your half-cup of veggies into the crust, arranging evenly. (note that if you put fresh mushrooms in, the end result will have a bit more water in it than it will otherwise, though it still tastes fine. If you want to get all fancy-pants, heat the mushrooms in oil for 5 minutes until they've sweated a bit).

Put the rest of the cheese on the top, and make sure that everything in the pie has been covered by egg by pushing down those stray bits of cheese and broccoli sticking up from the surface.

Put the pan into the 350F oven and wait for 40 minutes. Of course, this would be a good time to make that rice (which'll take about 30 minutes to cook), and then wash your lettuce (while both things are cooking). Towards the end of the 40 minutes, check the quiche for doneness by slightly jiggling the pan. If it's done it won't move, if it isn't it will be jiggly in the middle.

After 40-45 minutes it should be set. Take it out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes. Then slice it up like a pie. Eat with impresee.
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A funny story about quiche--my senior year I lived with 3 other students and a loving but misbehaving dog. I taught my best friend how to make the quiche, and it was a fairly regular meal for both of us, since there was always eggs and cheese in the house.

One hungry night we both took hefty slices of the quiche and sat watching tv in another room, while the last third of it sat cooling on the oven. About 20 minutes later, we went into the kitchen, planning to split the remainder, and complete our egg-and-cheese bender.

We walked into the kitchen. The pan was on the oven, but the quiche had been cleanly removed.

"Do you think one of the housemates had some?" I asked.

"Maybe, but I didn't hear either come in or leave," replied Dan.

Slowly, oh so slowly, we looked down at the dog.

The dog with the expression of perfect innocence.

The dog with the single perfect crumb of cooked egg on the tip of her nose.

slurp went her tongue over her nose, which would have removed every scrap of evidence if she'd done it 10 seconds before.

She made us laugh so hard we just couldn't get mad at her.

2/4/04

On Monday night I got a ride through the slippery roads to the climbing gym, where a few friends and I pretty much had the run of the place, since not many other people were foolish enough to be driving around in the snow. I had a really good night--I'd read a couple of climbing books recently and felt like all that blathering they did was finally sinking in.

Plus, my hands are finally getting sufficiently crusty to be of use. So, I scampered around to the eclectic music selections piped in by the staff, feeling strong and only moderately uncoordinated.

Towards the end of the night, someone popped in Hello Nasty, and, as happened the few other times I've heard the CD in the past 5 1/2 years, instantly felt stacks of plates in my hands and heard the loud bitter swearing of dishwashers through a kitchen door.

Star Island, in addition to being a bad place to work and a good place to find a husband, suffered from media deprivation. Sharing a single phone with 90 other 17-22 year olds, having 5 or 6 days off over an entire summer, and living on a tiny rock with minimal entertainment sources led to a dependence on the few people smart enough to bring music or videos with them when they left for the island in early June. For the waitstaff, we typically had two choices: Beastie Boys, or Backstreet Boys.

The former usually won, thank goodness.

So once we'd gotten all the conferencegoers out of the dining hall, someone would plug in the beat up stereo, and we'd clean the tables and set up for lunch, listening to old white guys rapping.

On Saturdays, when a new conference came in, I'd work with the chamber crew, stripping beds and sweeping floors. With the conferees gone, every single stereo would be in use, which led to an even more limited music selection. I must have heard that damn album two or three times a day, every day, all summer.

And then I left, and my awareness of the album faded back to next-to-nothing.

Hearing it played at Boulders reminded me of how much of a role music plays as life-wallpaper, and how just a snippet of something you haven't heard in 5 years can make you that person you were before. There was a moment late in the CD--which I usually didn't hear since setting up for lunch took 20 minutes and we always started from the beginning--and, hearing it, I had to pause mid-climb, because I wasn't a grad student in Wisconsin with her hands gripping fake rock, I was making a bed on the top floor of one of the Cottages on the island. At that moment I could have told you the color of the sheets, the other people working in the building that day, and how long it was until dinnertime, how long until I could go to sleep, if I would see Jenn's cute friend Jeremy that day.

I'd be perfectly happy never living that life again, but listening to the sounds of a world I used to live in isn't so bad.

2/2/04

Well, after last entry's mention of silly old knitting books, what should I receive in the mail but a bunch of silly old knitting books? A friend of my mom's, another knitter, sent a bunch of knitting booklets from the 40's and 50's to me in the hopes that I'd get a kick out of them, and maybe a few ideas.

I am, and I have. It's really interesting to see instructions for things like short rows written in a way that assumes the knitter A: has some familiarity with these techniques, and B: that they have a brain in their head, and can figure out that if you have 20 stitches, and 20 rows later you have 10 stitches, that you should be averaging one decrease every other row.

And while I'm enjoying reading the patterns--they're incredibly readable compared to today's choppy and overabbreviated patterns--I'm also delighted with the copy.

"Plaid, as you know, is all the rage today" is currently my favorite sentence EVER. Someday I will scan the ad it comes from and share.

Until then, many pictures.



I've had several aloe plants in my life. Typically they live until I move, then I throw them away or give them to my mom, who can kill any plant within 6 months of its arrival no matter how basic its care requirements are.

But this aloe, this one is different. J and I bought the monstrous one soon after we married, when it was about the size of one hand.

Like our relationship, the aloe has grown and become lovely in its strength.

Unlike our relationship, it's been producing offspring at an unconscionable rate.

What you see here are the results of the most recent Aloe Baby Removal Program, the second in the last 6 months. All babies (save the two currently in the windowbox because we ran out of containers) are in the process of being brought to loving homes. Most of those smaller containers hold two baby plants. How many in all? Well I lost count, but I gave 7 pots away, and there are still 3 babies sitting on my windowsill, so at least 15.

Fifteen! I suspect that Bach has been reincarnated as a houseplant.

People still appreciate the offer when we make it. An aloe plant? They're good if you get burned right? Easy to care for? Sure, I'll take one!

I fear what will happen in the next few years, however, if this rate of reproduction continues. My friends will all have aloe plants, my bosses, a secretary I thought of a good excuse to thank, everyone will have one. "Yes, they're very easy to care for, so no, my plant hasn't died yet. Why do you ask?" Soon I'll be reduced to leaving pallets of them on nursery doorsteps, sneaking back to the car in time for J to peal away into the night.

You want one? Let me know in a few months, there should be a new infesta-- I mean, crop of them by then.



This is the hat I made for my mom. She liked it, so a similarly patterned scarf will be in our near future. The yarn is Elann's Sierra yarn, nearly out of stock at this point. It's lovely stuff, if you have the opportunity to work with it. It knits up much softer than it feels on the skein.

The top is my favorite part, for some reason, so here's a picture of that too.



I typically don't show shots of works in progress, but for major undertakings I feel like I should spend SOME bandwidth on it. This is a somewhat dissapointing picture of the front of St. Brigid. Really, it looks like the back of the sweater in the link. Just trust me on this one. The variation in the yarn tone clumps a little strangely, but I still think it's quite lovely.

The front is about a quarter done. Then I'll take another break and work on mom's scarf. I'm willing to have more than one project in progress--by which I mean unfinished-- but if I have more than two things actually on the needles at any time (a "home project" and a "bus project"), I get sick of everything and end up ripping things out. This way allows for both variety and accomplishment.