Monthly Archives: June 2005

The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?

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Or, possibly the worst play I’ve ever seen.

The Husband and I went up to the city last night to see the last play of ACT‘s season. This is the theater’s description of the play:

A.C.T.’s new production of this landmark and controversial play brings the powerful voice of three-time Pulitzer Prize–winner Edward Albee back to the Geary stage for the first time in over 30 years. Martin is a middle-aged man at the pinnacle of a successful career. He has loving relationships with his brilliant wife, Stevie, and his teenage son, Billy. But suddenly Martin makes a shocking confession that changes everything. As he struggles to explain himself to his family, they all sink deeper into the awful realization that something truly terrible has happened to their beautiful world—something so far outside of “normal” that it just might destroy them. Clive Barnes of the New York Post deemed The Goat “unquestionably one of the wittiest and funniest plays Albee has ever written.” The original Broadway production won the Tony Award for best play in 2002, and was declared by the Village Voice “the play most likely to be talked about seriously—angrily, ferociously—for years to come.”

Sure, it was funny for the first bit… very black humor sort of stuff. But, by the end, it was taking itself way too seriously. I don’t know, maybe I missed something. But, I found the ending disturbing… who wouldn’t find it disturbing? It end with a woman covered in blood, a dead goat, and a man sobbing over said goat while his son and best friend watched. Yeah…

So, because of this jaunt to the city, I got no knitting done last night. I got home and fondled Birch a bit, but I had to convince myself not to actually work on it. I was tired… my eyes were tired… not a time to work on lace. We’re going out to dinner with one of the Husband’s co-workers tonight; I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to do between getting home and going out. I think I will give it a go though… I’m in love with the soft fuzziness of the fabric the Kidsilk Haze is making.

Now for a real post

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I did indeed cast on for Birch last night. I even swatched first… and I’m not entirely sure I was getting gauge because Birch is one of those patterns that gives you gauge in pattern instead of stockinette stitch. It looked like it was right, and this is a shawl, so I don’t need to be bang on. Of course, now I’m worrying that my gauge might be a little on the big side. Of course, I’ve only knit 4 rows so far, and the cast on edge is really loopy, so it’s hard to tell if things are a bit loose or not. It could just be that I haven’t knit enough yet. When I was swatching for Ribby Cardi, I got a gauge of 8 sts/inch after knitting about an inch… my gauge changed to 9.5 sts/inch after I knit another inch. I think I’m just going to have to cross my fingers and hope that the stitches work things out amongst themselves… ripping this out would be beyond a pain in the ass. I tried to rip back my gauge swatch and ended up breaking the yarn. *sigh*

Thankfully, I have all these knitting problems to worry about cause otherwise I’d be worrying about the fact that my manager is on a 2 week vacation to Europe. This is worrisome because there are certain things that have to be done on a daily and weekly basis… and it’s end of quarter, so I have to take care of that report, too. Of course, one of the automated scripts we have broke on Friday night, which meant I had to run a whole bunch of things manually when I came in on Monday. Boy, did I have an argument with that computer… I had to reboot 3 times. *gah* And now people are coming to my cube and asking me questions about projects I have no clue about because I’m not working on them.

Other manager: Can you tell me when we’re planning for this search tool project to go live?
Me: No, but I can tell you that it’s being tested* at the moment.
OM: Can you tell me which server it’s set up on?
Me: Nope.

Hopefully, this won’t drive me crazy… I just have to make it to the 12th.

*And that’s only cause I’m included in the alias my manager sent an email out to.

Ooo… softness

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There’s something really nice about an anticipated package showing up a whole day early. I ordered 3 balls of Kidsilk Haze in Majesty and Rowan 34 from Knit Happens last week after they announced a sale. (Unfortunately, the day after I placed the order I heard about the eBay place that sells Kidsilk Haze for $9.50… *sigh*) According to UPS, my package was to arrive on Tuesday. I like to check how things are going (even when there’s a date set for delivery and it says it’s on time. Things can change…), so this afternoon I ran my tracking number through the UPS website, and it says it was delivered this morning. But, the nice shipping guy had not been by my desk. I decided to check my mailbox on my way to get some tea from the breakroom, and that’s where I found a nice package filling my cubby hole. 🙂

The Rowan magazine is lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. And there’s actually some other pretty things in it… sadly, Rowan considers a 40 inch bust measurement to be an XL. I may have lost 25 lbs on my diet, but I’m still 6 inches away from a 40 inch bust.

The Kidsilk Haze is so soft. I know people have been fawning over it all around the knitting universe, but wow. I’m glad I decided to make Birch out of the yarn called for. This will make a really nice shawl.

I think I’ll probably be casting on tonight…

Nifty Goodies

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I’ve been working on the shawl slowly, concentrating more on my Ribby Cardi. But, the shawl is growing nonetheless.

Yesterday, I came home and found a package just for me. My secret pal sent me 2 skeins of Araucania Nature Wool Chunky in a gradiated purple (pretty), a size 5 24″ Clover circular needle, a set of three soaps scented like angel food cake, chocolate, and strawberry, and a really cute card.

Speaking (writing?) of Secret Pal 5, I have received the last of the orders I placed for things to send to the secret pal I’m sending to. Now, I just need to go pick up chocolate-y goodies to put in the package, and I should be able to send it off on Saturday. Yea!

A Third Incarnation

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Friday night began the third incarnation of the Brooks Farm Duet shawl. I had to run the yarn through my ball winder twice to get a manageable ball, but it was well mollified. I discovered looking through my shawl books that the Gracie shawl from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves is the Elfin lace pattern, so I’m using the swatch chart for my shawl. I didn’t want to make a Farosee shawl, and the swatch chart is just the lace pattern in a triangle. Reading the chart is a lot easier than using the written directions from Barbara Walker’s Treasury. I’ve actually gotten a few repeats done, and of course, I’ve forgotten to take a picture.

But that’s okay, because I cast on for another project on Sunday. I got the needles I needed for Ribby Cardi on Saturday. The yarn convinced me to get started, reminding me how cold my cube has been lately (I don’t care what the facilities guys says he’s done, it’s still cold), and how a nice sweater would help to keep me from turning into an icicle at my desk. It’s going really fast… I’ve gotten about 9 inches done so far (I’m knitting the body as a whole), and I’m going to make the underarm length 15 instead of the 13.5 the pattern calls for cause shorter shirts always ride up when I sit down.

I have broken down and purchased Rowan 34 and 3 balls of Kidsilk Haze in Majasty to make Birch. I would blame people, but Cate has already done a fine job. 🙂 I’m trying to look at this as a good thing… it’s my reward for having lost 23 lbs so far on my diet. While I am quite happy to have gotten my 20 lb star at my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday, I needed something a bit more substantial to celebrate, so of course, I bought yarn.

Lacy Frustration

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Apparently, there was yet another earthquake a couple hours ago… which would explain the faint shaking I felt (I thought it was our neighbors at the time… but they were being awfully quiet, which isn’t normal).

As for the title of this post… I went poking around in my lace books trying to find a lace border that would work with the Brooks Farm Duet yarn. I have picked out the elfin lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s 1st Treasury. I even used the outside end of my ball of yarn (cause I didn’t feel up to winding up the second hank just yet) to try it out and see how it looked. It looked pretty good, so that’s what I’m going to go with. So, what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that the yarn loves it, too. The yarn is now trying to convince me to rip out three weeks of garter stitch (granted, three weeks of only sort of working on it) in order to use the lace pattern on the whole shawl. It feels like such a pain in the ass to even consider ripping out a triangle of garter stitch that’s about a foot long down the center… but I’m finding a part of myself arguing that, if I don’t use the lace pattern on the whole shawl, I’ll be eternally disappointed. I don’t like the idea of being eternally disappointed with the first shawl I make for myself… this yarn deserves better. This yarn knows it deserves better, which is why I’m probably going to rip out all that garter stitch once I finish posting this entry.

I think I’m going to have to reball the yarn before I get started again… maybe that will remind the yarn who’s in charge…

Just in time for the weekend

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We now return you to the regular knitting content…

The shawl with no name continues… slowly… but then I haven’t been devoting a lot of time to it. I’m beginning to think it is upset at me for not having named it yet. I also think it is beginning to lament the fact that the only lace I had planned for it was a lacy edging… it’s now making mutterings about why can’t it have a smaller garter stitch triangle to make room for some lace before the edging. *sigh* So, I’m going to have to hit the books again and see what jumps out at me. Any suggestions?

At least I’m liking the way the variegation is looking.

The only other thing on needles (and getting any attention) is a pair of socks for the Husband. I wanted to call them the Dope Fiend socks cause I worked on this one while loopy on vicodin. I thought it was a funny name… the Husband was not impressed. So, they shall just remain a pair of socks for the Husband.

Aren’t you terribly impressed by my gusset?

Tomorrow, I am planning a short trip to the LYS to pick up needles for making myself a Ribby Cardi. I decided that the very pretty yarn I had picked out for Mariah was not as dark as I would have liked. And the whole goal of this exercise was to procure for me a darker cardigan to be worn over darker shirts (I currently have a light grey/silver cardigan that looks plain silly over a black tee). So, I bought a copy of the pattern… and promptly used it as an excuse to buy more yarn. *grin* I will be using Knitpicks.com Wool of the Andes in Mist (the body) and Hollyberry (the arms and collar). I am also going to try knitting as much of it in the round as I can… hence, the needed trip to the LYS. I don’t seem to own any size 7 circular needles of any length. Thus, me and a ball of yarn will venture forth tomorrow to verify gauge and make a needle purchase. It’ll be an adventure, right?

Heller Estate Ladybug release

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On June 6th, the Husband and I drove down to my parents’ place in Monterey so that we all could go to the Heller Estate Ladybug Release Party, which they were holding for members of their wine club. The vineyard is up in Carmel Valley… it took us about an hour to get there from Hwy. 1.

Vines

There was wine, cheese, fruit, that sort of thing. I was very upset about not being able to drink anything (vicodin and wine don’t mix), but was glad that that didn’t mean I go stuck driving those hideous winding mountain roads to get there. There were kitties who were very friendly — the orange and white tabby was named Chardonnay, and the grey tabby was named Merlot. Since I spent a lot of time sitting in one place, they seemed to have no problem with wandering over to let me pet them.

We were given a short tour of the winery… the tour was short only because the winery is small. The vintner and the owners talking about making organic wines and what is involved. The vintner even showed us his prize compost heap. Barn swallows nest in the eaves of the building and eat lots of insects. The have owl houses to bring in nesting owls, which along with the cats, help with rodents. They also release ladybugs to control aphids. We split up into groups of two, and each group got a container of ladybugs and a spray bottle with a sugar solution. The instructions were simple… open the container, spray the lady bugs, spray the vines, shake out the ladybugs.


Unfortunately, I found aphids on my chives a couple days later… I should have smuggled some ladybugs home with me.