Little E in his digger sweater:




Me, looking kind of little in my new office, testing our new camera:


Luckily it's sunny today, though incredibly cold for Seattle and our office building. Happy December!

No, actually, I've been working like crazy. It's Ken Burns season. But in bits and pieces, we're moving the house forward, and I'm knitting... right now I'm sending out a press release. Then, I think I'll strap on my flowery new helmet, climb back on my bike and ride away...

working the door

didn't get paid on Friday
didn't gass her up
didn't go out searching for the heart of Saturday night
accidentally found a good time anyway.

Thanks for having us at your beautiful wedding. (If you check out the photo set, you'll find the word "beautiful" about 100 times, not counting tags.)




Seth captured some moments while I was just sinking into them. You might think he was distracted by taking the photos, but here's me immediately after the ceremony, realizing that Seth has rather teary eyes. It didn't stop him from taking all the good photos you'll see.




His toast was also coherent, which mine wasn't too far from (Seth wasn't joking when he said he's not supposed to let me give toasts if I haven't written them down first). What I was trying to say is that I've learned a lot from you, Betsy, and hope to keep learning the thing you seem to have had nailed since birth: what's worth worrying about and standing firm on, and when not to worry. Of course, I'm a born worrier, but we do have that stubbornness behind us when we know something's got to be done (and done right).

And then there was my favorite kid at the wedding, and her handiwork. I know she had help, but I don't know from whom.



Here's the story. I was in the restroom when I heard someone (someone young) say "...so it won't be too suspicious." I came out of the stall to find my new friend, an approximately 9-year-old girl wearing the best outfit of all the girls (black tank top with horizontal stripes of gold sequins, blackish stretchy skinny jeans [only 9-year-old girls should wear skinny jeans, fyi], and gold sequined high-tops; I had recently told her how much I liked the outfit, to be rewarded with a super cute smile/head-duck "thank you"), washing off a tube of Nature's Gate toothpaste. "So what won't be too suspicious?" I asked her. "We teepeed Betsy & Kyle's truck," she said, "and wrote 'Just Married' on it." "Oh, good job," I said. "You have to do that."

Unfortunately, neither did I take a picture of my new best friend (also note, she was one of several kids who brought books with them to the wedding, I believe a Harry Potter book in her case), nor did I know that she and her co-conspirators also used their healthful, natural toothpaste (same brand we use--but maybe they just ran to the PCC to pick up a tube during the reception) to write "PIZZA" on the back of the truck--so I have no idea why it says "PIZZA." None. But I like it.

So once again... Happy Wedding, Betsy and Kyle.

In the past few months, all free time has been rushed, stolen out of other time, such as this evening at the Mariners game (think this is probably Ms v Detroit early in the season). Now I'm on vacation in Portland and learning about 'Yo Gabba Gabba" (and that's all I'm going to say about that). But oh look! Free time! The only down is that Seth's stuck in Seattle--for more on that, you'll want to scroll through his photostream... his major work project is wrapping up just in time for my birthday.

So, more free time is definitely in order for me. Now I'm off to pursue it.

Maybe we can start by finding another worm in the garden.

blogging
reading blogs
commenting on blogs
updating facebook
seemingly everything work-related
seemingly everything house-related
downloading and uploading photos

I just looked at my phone to see if I had any good pics to upload but they're all a) reference photos for Seth ("should I buy this?") or from April when Ken Burns was here.

In lieu of anything better than this, that, or the other then: this is all for now, and now I'm headed home (if this PBS brochure printed better this time).

My sister posting to her blog, calling to get advice on buying double-stuf mint creme Oreos from the grocery outlet (and leaving me that message when I don't pick up), leaving a message of Henry telling me very important news (vacuum, giraffe, Elliot ["aya"]).

A knitting weekend getaway with women who make it easy (not to mention fun & delicious).

People who say things like, "The shop will be open Sundays after Jesus sees his shadow."

Gary's grunt just now as he strode past my desk.

Getting contract help for proofreading our viewer guide, and super colleagues who do amazing work.

Friends who'll drive you and/or your Craigslist-new rug around on a Thursday night.

An invitation (or save the date, anyway) to the wedding of two excellent people.

Seth.

Finding something creative and funny at a grocery store I don't really like.

I want to be back here--not in the pictured location, but here, online.



Time will prove me out.

For the past three days, I've been in 10-hour training, requiring me to get up at 6 a.m. Honestly, I didn't know I could get up without the snooze alarm until a few weeks ago, when we decided: no more snooze. I didn't know I could get up before dark. I hate it. If you want to place bets on how late I sleep on Saturday... okay next Saturday... sigh.

(The only problem with this post is that I'm actually still.at.work. No more. Goodnight!)

Actually, it snowed last night--but Regina's baby shower was during lunch. I successfully delivered the cuteness and avoided the cakieness (though it was very tempting).

Since last week, I've knitted two hippos, a bit of sock, the bind-off row on a Land's End sweater for a coworker, the sleeve cap of my Olympic Sweater (that's the Torino Olympics, thankyouverymuch--more on that sometime), and the lace edging for the body of that sweater. I've stitched up the hippos and some of the sweater seams, and selected fabrics for our bathmat.

And I've done lots of work, and went to Portland, and now I'm getting back to work. Happy Friday!

The first thought when I saw the subject line "Video and Step-by-Step Tutorials: Inserting Thrums" was "Really? Are people that dumb?"

Sorry, world.

Sorry about the layoffs and the greedy CEOs and Congress and that it turns out, [the theory that] if I could just take control of everything, it would be better [is totally wrong]--because turns out I don't have *time* to take control of everything.

So, I will be deleting your Knitting Daily e-mails for now. I will be telling people "no." I will be making plans to hang out with people I like, and leaving work to do it. But I will work hard while I'm here!

And that's all I have time to write! Here's a picture of the tiles in our bathroom for you.

Try me, or rather, try the NewsHour podcast, or just the NewsHour Art Beat blog.

Not only is it the news, but it has brought poetry back into my daily life, and connects me to other arts--and that makes me want to go connect with art in person.


Rose Hips
By Sean Norton


Due to the late
March freeze and pale sun--flat as a plate--
the clumps of wet snow everywhere, the
midnight falling of things
one hundred days cannot erase,
this deep night with its absence & God

hardly feels deep all of a sudden.
The lens in and out of focus.
Good lookin' right? I didn't mean
to scare you with the sweet potato.

I am held tighter than the needles
of a pine. And I am held out to the soft
flesh of things, lowly & protected.

I have been mad longer with love
than I have been alive.

-from the NewsHour Art Beat blog. Go over and listen to it first (33 seconds) then come back and read it.

It might help that I've had very little TV time lately; this is technically a TV show (and from my station) but I like the quiet calm.

Now back to packing. House photos soon.

Is that really my life? I do have some goals for today, several already accomplished, but others require leaving the house--not a strong point for me. Here's a gift for you, from me and Mr Cranky, and from the internet geniuses:



(not my kitten)

Just for good measure, here are some grown-up pets in handknits. They LOVE wearing them, which is why we do it.


(my long suffering kitty cat; Elliot in the same sweater)


(my sister's dog, and my most popular Flickr photo ever)


Now I'm going to shower, one of my loftier goals for the day. For everyone who's traveling, I wish you safe routes, good food and happiness at the end of your journey. For everyone staying home, good choice. See you soon, wherever you may roam.

Seth is completely stir-crazy; I've knitted three complete projects and done finishing on at least three others; we walked a couple of miles, slipping the entire way. The grocery store lines wrapped around the produce section, but the express lanes line was only six people long. Now back to knitting Seth's Christmas mittens and encouraging Seth to use a good recipe for pumpkin cake.

Listen for Henry's "wow."



The closing date of our house moved around a bit and now it looks like we'll have a new home for boxing day.

I'd say we're still early in the process, but we're kind of right in the middle of it, too, and I think I understand what people mean by calling life a rollercoaster, finally.

Also, here's my new hat. I don't think I've ever been more pleased with any hat I've knitted for myself.



Details on Ravelry: www.ravelry.com/projects/crankyisgood/flora

In absence of time to write further about exciting goings-on: I am really looking forward to Pie Day. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

I have been inside all day; it's rainy and I'm looking forward to the extra hour of sleep tonight--provided I get out and use some energy soon.



But I have done some knitting.

As you may know, in my old life, I devoured books in their traditional format, and in my current life, I devour them via fancy little headphones. (The actual process: Load up 4-5 audiobooks on CD from the library, import them into iTunes, listen on the dying iPod. Repeat.) Maybe a year ago, I started rejecting bad books. I'm not all that picky about readers (though Librivox is generally a challenging, hence the library/professional approach) and I'll listen to more mystery novels than I'd ever read on paper, because I'm often listening when doing the laundry. And though there are occasional audio-novels that capture my attention so much that I really have to work to stop the story and get on with my life, these have nothing on the print novels that have made me stay up all night, linger at home before work (later and later!), walk into shrubbery as I read while walking--good old fashioned paper books still somehow better capture my imagination.

So anyway, there I was, listening to Countdown: An Eve Duncan Forensic Thriller by Iris Johansen. From reading the back, I know there are cops, a mystery involving ancient history, and a bad boy hero. Fine. But really, here's what happens:

Disc one. Oh, Jane's an orphan who grew up on the streets, taken in by super high-tech cop/forensic scientist couple, and her pseudo-brother, also a former street kid, is shot--in Boston because they're both at Harvard. Right. Note that there is nothing remotely Bostonian about this story.
Disc two. Jane turns out to be the spitting image of a long-dead (Herculanium? Vesuvius?) actress who supposedly had a buncha gold that everyone wants. Jane's been dreaming about/obsessed with her--and the bad boy with Jane--since a drama involving a killer obsessed with the ancient actress.
Disc three. They run off to a freaking Scottish castle. With a guy called McDuff.
Disc four. The bad guys not only are brainwashing former armed forces guys into being suicide bombers, but are planning nuclear attacks on major U.S. cities. A character's dad is beheaded. Of course this is not described in great detail because this is the coziest "thriller" I've heard.
Disc five. The girl and the bad boy still haven't had sex, but if I hear one more time about "flushed with heat" or "a shiver went through her" or "the sexual tension was powerful," I might hurt someone.
Disc six. His shoulders are so broad, she wants to dig her fingernails into them. WTF. I laughed out loud while washing dishes, at least. The dirty plates don't usually provoke such mirth.
Disc seven. Yes, I'm still listening, as very low-level background to the rest of my life. Can't even remember what happens in disc seven, but maybe it's when they have to secretly leave the castle because Homeland Security is going to somehow get permission to surround a foreign castle and interrogate The Good Guys.
Disc eight. Jane and the brainwashed-but-coming-out-of-it-lovable-Scottish-"boy" (he's 20) separate from the pack to go to Idaho where the evil mastermind dude is camped out. The sub-evil-mastermind is just in it for the gold.
Disc nine. Betrayal, double-crossing, the author starts actually counting down the days... or else they're just going faster and I never noticed before because for a thriller, this thing is paced like a Sarmago novel.
Disc ten. Wow, that's a long denoument, and really boring, too. The love of family and friends is even better than the sexual experience like no other she got with bad boy Trevor.

The thing about audiobooks: It's hard to flip forward to the end and see if you really want to find out if it's worth the trouble to get there. This happens rarely in my reading life, but it does happen when I'm stuck with a book and nothing else to read, or it's a book highly recommended that's not taking for me. (As a kid, I used to read the last page regularly, but never the blurb on the back.) It's also nearly impossible to flip forward a few pages at a time, or run your eyes faster down a boring page (dialog with way too many adverbs). This can mean a bad book is an awful lot worse as an audiobook.

So, which mystery novel on CD will I pick up next? I have three on the shelf, none of which are (over)due yet.

While I wouldn't recommend Countdown on audio (and sis, I doubt it'd be engrossing on paper either... she never goes back in time in any sort of satisfying way), I would highly recommend the Norwegian Baby Cap pattern:




It knitted up nice & fast and elicited the appropriate amount of "oohs" and "aahs" and demands to know the pattern at the shower we had for Karen at Jen's house on Sunday--and when you're at the home of your LYS owner and surrounded by the shop's all-knowing--not to say cynical--staff, you know you hit on something good.

(Why I have only two blurry photos of the darn hat is basically that I was in a hurry. Let's hope for a picture on baby in a month or so!)

On Ravelry / direct link to the pattern

I will be casting on for another very soon!

Sometimes you just get mad. Who are they to have all this crazy talent?



xox,

Cranky

PS Kay & Anne will be performing here on 10/14 at the U Bookstore and I've already consigned vellumblue to come along. Will you be joining us?

1. Origin of the slang term "the downlow" or "the DL." Now I'm thinking a lot about when slang words become acceptable English language terms and won't result in people coming up to me to chastise me mildly (if not intentionally; the person was just informing me, but you know how that feels) for using them. (Monday, 9/22)

2. I laugh a lot more frequently now that I have "The Onion" headlines in my feed reader. To wit: Palin Brushing up on Foreign Policy at Epcot, and earlier this morning, Members of Twisted Sister now Willing to Take It. Whether or not I read the articles is beside the point; I may or may not be torturing Mr. Cranky by reading snippets aloud. (Real article shared in Google Reader by Maggie: Palin is Ready? Please. by Fareed Zakaria is also cheering; it is good to have input from a trusted source.) (Monday, 9/29)

3. "Okay, so the item between the muffin and the cinnamon roll is coffee cake, but what kind of coffee cake is it?" or to clarify, "what flavor is it?" is a stupid question. (Sunday, 9/28)

4. The Mariners are trying to lose (Fri. 9/26), but it's still pretty fun to sit on the third baseline, even if it's rainy (because the roof does still close properly) (Weds. 9/24).



That is all for now. Copious knitting updates are due in later.