Monday, November 29, 2004
ACK!
Monday. Still moving. Barely.
Also still moving house. Next time I'm burning it down.
We shall resume our regular broadcasts by the weekend. That is, unless I die.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Sunday. Yes.
Yes, I am going to have to return Sunday. In about two hours, in fact, right after I finish working this graveyard shift.
Oh frabjous day.
Kill me now.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
And Now, The End Is Near
And so I face, the final packing ...
ack!
A word of advice. If your husband is anything like mine, do NOT let him pack anything. THIS (see above) is his idea of "ready to move".
And so I shall roll up my sleeves, roll down my stockings and hasten to the truck, stopping for no man. Or woman.
We have a truck today and tomorrow, then Saturday is moving the last of the small stuff and cleaning. Please dog let it be over on Saturday; I have to work the graveyard shift on Saturday and I don't think I could face coming back on Sunday ...
We all know I'm coming back on Sunday, right?
Anyhow, I shall be offline until this gruesome task is complete. If I never return, you can have my stuff. But only if you pack it first.
Monday, November 22, 2004
She Who Must Be Feared
The moving madness has me in its grip. Nothing to report except madness and sore muscles, therefore I leave you with a picture of Herself, lurking in wait in the Chinese Maple leaves ...
The Mighty Hunter
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Other People's Accomplishments
Yet again I am posting about other people's stuff. Marlene has just finished the Rogue and is it gorgeous or what? I'm thinking that if I can get over my pathological fear of cable needles, and oh, perhaps FIND same (I think they're in my old purse) that I should take a run at this. Then again I've just read that it's for experienced knitters with advanced cabling. Maybe I should go back to making scarves, thusly:
Sage Moss Stitch Scarf
That's a little closer to my speed, I think.
On the disappointing knitting front, this:
Terminal 'Tard Tank
Is going to be consigned to the frog pond.
I don't like it, I don't like doing it, and it looks like ass. Stripey ass, at that. This means that every single piece of clothing I have tried to make for myself, apart from one fuschia basketweave scarf that was too short to give to anyone else, has either been the wrong size, has been given away, or has been frogged.
I suck.
But at least my friends and family have nice clothes ...
Thursday, November 18, 2004
I Am A Neglectful Strumpet
But any post that gives me the opportunity to use a delicious word like "strumpet" can't be all bad. I was saving it for a special occasion and now I have one! I have discovered that there is a heretofore-unsuspected enclave of drunken knitters right here in my home town! *squirm*
"Heretofore unsuspected". Does that mean that I suspect them of something now? Who knows? Probably.
Of course the fact that I'm working three jobs, moving house, have a small child, am too poor to even pay attention and am in school at the moment precludes my contacting them to see if I can join in the merriment, but there's always next year ...
Gives me a reason to keep chewing through the restraints and heading out to work every day.
Today has been a fun day. No, really. Fun. That's what it's been.
The asstrumpets who lived in my new home before me left the place decidedly less clean than I had hoped. You see, MY version of cleaning involves actually taking the dirt OFF of stuff ...
Yeah, who'd a thunk it?
Anyhow, I was over there tonight steam cleaning the carpet, which contrary to my first opinion thankfully is NOT brown, so not only am I cranky and sore and smell like a goat, I'm very very tired. However none of this negates the fact that I haven't posted in far too long. Bad rabbitch.
Then again smelling like a goat might not be all that bad a thing. That delicious fleece I got at the Puyallup Fair was goat, at least some of it was, and it's not smelly at all. I'm eternally grateful to whoever washed the goatpoo out of it before they put it up for sale. Can you see putting that on your resume? 1994-1998, Head Poopwasher at Sunnybrook Farms. Perhaps not.
There has been desperately little knittage Chéz Lapin of late, however I have plans to remedy that as quickly as possible once I've "downsized" (read: thrown all of my crap into the Smithrite) and have finished this move. I'm thinking that Michelle is going to get her new hat early in the new year, as I have decided that broke or not I'm buying myself some carding combs and a spindle for Christmas. I've found a cunning series of spinning and carding video clips online and am going to see if I can bumble my way through the process without having to make yet another unreturned phone call to the lady who I hoped was going to teach me.
Stay tuned for the sure-to-be accident laden tales of my journey down yet another lane of the wonderful world of fibre arts.
Speaking of journeys, I would just like to take this moment to express how dearly I wish that those people who think it's already Christmas would take a journey. Immediately. Preferably somewhere very warm and where the poolboy has a pitchfork.
No, really d00ds, it's NOVEMBER. Now, as a non-Christian I don't spend a lot of time contemplating the miracle of Jesus' birth and the celebration thereof. But heathen or no, I can still read a calendar and do math. I have a child. Although I never went into labour with her (because I'm not NUTS), I do understand the duration of said event. Labour does NOT last two months. So ... even with adding the time spent on Mary's labour and delivery to the Blessed Event, and even adding the time for the three wiseguys to go out and buy appropriate gifts and get their wives to wrap them, and MAYBE even adding the amount of time it takes to write that note to Auntie Sadie about how you really do love the orange sweater with three sleeves that she shipped to you from Pennsylvania, even adding ALL OF THAT, there is no way that Christmas lasts over two months. I'm thinking two-three weeks, tops. So, at the risk of sounding like a Jesus-hating Grinch, take the fucking lights DOWN already people. Have you no shame?
Don't make me get out my slingshot.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Bwaahaaahaaahaaaa!
I have absolutly nothing to give you today and so am trying to distract y'all from that sorry fact with links to other people's incredibly amusing pages.
Having little shame, I have no qualms about resting on someone else's laurels, and this lady is hilarious. She seems to understand that a knitblog doesn't actually have to have knitting content in it, although I must say she has more knitting on her page than has been appearing on my lazy-assed blog of late (you'll note here that is is the BLOG that is lazy-assed, not me). She also has the most amusing linkage -- the November 1 link to Skot's poem to his wife on her birthday actually made me hurt myself.
My hysteria might have something to do with the fact that the rampaging Visigoths near whom I reside aren't very interested in the fact that I work shifts, and I therefore came to work with so little sleep that I have some sort of funky nosetwitch tic sort of thing going on, but I think it just might be that she's really funny. No really, go look. I command it,and such.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Little Pitchers Have Big Ears
So, we're in the middle of getting ready to move house. I'm packing and I must say that my temper is ... well ... frayed. I was looking for a marker to write on one of the (two) boxes that I have so far managed to pack. My husband was being a dork, which is hardly surprising to anyone who knows him, and wouldn't help me find the marker. I finally said, loudly and impatiently "Just FIND the freakin' Sharpie!"
All of a sudden a small pink bombshell streaked past, seven or eight barettes in her hair, triumphantly screeching "I'm a freakin' snarpie!"
Heh. My daughter is now a "freakin' snarpie".
I'm going to have some serious explaining to do at daycare.
Little knitting has been accomplished. I can hardly even call this a knitting blog any more, however I shall continue to do so until they pry the Addis out of my cold, dead hands.
That being said, little writing has also been accomplished. However, I shall leave you with the next excerpt from my world-shattering novel. Please remember that you're reading the first draft here, and when I hit the day before deadline day, I'm going to be scrambling through everything I've already written and adding enough padding to make the required 50,000 words.
And so, from where we left off ...
*****
... took a firmer grip on my battered briefcase and exited the train at my station.
Upon arrival at the office, the entire incident slipped from my mind amidst my frenzied attempts to fabricate some sort of crap to present to the client. I had an hour left before their arrival; hardly long enough to write a presentation. I briefly considered using the first half of the hour to drink the overcooked coffee sitting in the pot in the staff lunchroom and the second half to write a suicide note, culminating in my spectacular leap through the boardroom window in front of the horrified eyes of the client.
I remembered just in time that my office was on the second floor. The most likely outcome of such a course of action would be that I would bounce embarrassingly off the plate-glass window and have to sit on the floor in my snagged panty-hose and last week’s blouse with a mouse on my forehead and then have to try to explain my actions. I could hardly expect to pass it off as a visual enactment of my award-winning advertising campaign. And if in fact I managed to get through the window, the brief plummet to the grass plot below the window would, at best, result in a broken leg or sprained ankle.
Neither scenario would produce a workable presentation or a good enough excuse for the fact that, through my wretched self-indulgence and advanced slackage, I had absolutely nothing to give them. I opted instead for supping of the burned coffee accompanied by riffling through previous presentations and faster-than-light cutting and pasting into some sort of document.
I did, however, take a brief moment to reflect on the fact that DeliMan was, in fact, worth this entire mess. Never underestimate the gratification of satisfying a dangerously pre-menopausal libido.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Blogger is a Bitch
I've been trying to update for a day or two now, but Blogger hates me, it's clear.
Anyhow, the only knitting action has been to finish an order for 10 dishcloths, and there are only so many garter squares of yarn I'm prepared to post, so you'll just have to make do with the next excerpt from the novel.
Continuing on from where we left off:
*****
... In a stolen Mercedes. His Mercedes. While being serenaded by a mariachi band hired with his own Platinum American Express card.
And although most of the weekend was lost in a drunken haze, I was pretty sure I hadn’t yet descended to that level. Yet. Give me time; the week is still young.
I can’t lie worth a damn. I have no idea why I got into advertising. It makes almost as much sense as a nun taking pole-dancing lessons, but without quite as much chance of career success.
I hung on the strap, dozing, until I heard a small voice muttering “Ratslayer aside, whispered something” over and over again. I opened my eyes as the train slowed for the next station, only to meet the disconcertingly direct gaze of a small, wizened man -- at least I think it was a man. He gave me a cheeky grin which startlingly did not crack the layer of dirt and grime on his face, winked, said “Ask Wilma if we can go,” and then exited the train.
I had little time to ponder this peculiar performance, as the next subway stop was mine. I wrote it off to a combination of alcohol-induced madness (his or mine, I wasn’t sure) coupled with a great lack of sleep (mine), took a firmer grip on my battered briefcase and exited the train at my station.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
A Gloomy Day
Well, I'm about to head off to bed, seeing I can't stay up long enough for America to make up its fucking mind, but it's looking more certain by the minute that the semi-trained chimp will be back in office again.
All I can say is well, if you made the bed you might as well lie in it.
And if you didn't vote for Bush, my condolences. There's nothing much to be done about it.
Man, I hope I wake up tomorrow and they've gotten a million absentee and provisional votes or something.
That being said, here is the first excerpt from my novel, as requested by Juno:
*******
What’s That You Said?
The day started pretty much as any other day: I woke with a hangover and with only seventeen minutes to get ready before I’d be late for work. Despite this I kept pounding the ‘snooze’ button until even I could justify no further sloth.
There was no hot water. The inconsiderate bitch upstairs always has the nerve to get up half an hour before I do and then takes an endless shower. Yeah, I know this problem would be alleviated by getting up on time, but really d00d, let’s deal with reality here.
The cold shower woke me up enough for me to get dressed. I hastily crawled into the least-crumpled clothing I could find in the shambles of my bedroom, gulped down two glasses of water, grabbed my briefcase and ran out the door to the subway, hoping to god I had a token in one of my pockets.
Fate was smiling on me. I found a token, barreled through the turnstile and forced myself into the overcrowded, smelly subway car just as the doors hissed closed. Grabbing a handhold I went immediately into semi-snooze mode, hoping that by some miracle the 20-minute ride would afford me enough rest to be able to function at work. I had a client meeting at ten and had to pull some sort of amazing presentation out of my ass in the hour and a half I had until the client, affectionately referred to in my mind as Fatty McYap, and his sidekick arrived in the boardroom. I was always intimidated by the sidekick; a wiry, tense little woman who often seemed about to start frothing rabidly at the mouth while yapping shrilly and poking holes in my presentations.
I had a feeling she could see right through my pretense of competence.
It wouldn’t be hard. I didn’t have the first clue what I was doing, and the weekend spent sampling the charms of the new guy from behind the counter at the funky deli down the street rather than working on my presentation hadn’t improved on my sketchy and unrealistic ideas for marketing their latest useless product. It had seemed the only wise course of action at the time, however upon more sober reflection I had to admit that the only move higher on the “Career Limiting Actions” list would be something along the lines of being caught in an amorous embrace with the client’s Shih Tzu. In a stolen Mercedes. His Mercedes. While being serenaded by a mariachi band hired with his own Platinum American Express card.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
It Was A Dark And Stormy Night
It would seem that this is the season to tell tales. And I'm such a fucking lemming I've signed up.
Go check it out here
Wish me luck, babycakes. The first 2223 words are written.
