January One -- Cuba Libre Socks

June 28, 2005

A Tisket A Tasket...

A candy apple basket...

I have three more rows to go on the 11th repeat, which will give me twelve baskets on either side of the divide. My goal is sixteen or seventeen. The pattern is very easy, so easy I keep fucking it up - especially on the first two right side rows of the repeat. Something about the k2togs and ssks is freaking out my brain because once I get past those, I'm fine. And now of course it's taking a MUCH longer time to get through a row. Those purl rows are killers. I realized why too. You have like twice as many stitches to knit. On the right side you're always knitting some together and creating yos - on the back you have to purl EVERY SINGLE STITCH. But I'm plugging away. I can see the end and it seems so close.

I've also been slowly knitting on my retro rib socks:

I have to admit, these socks aren't half as fun as my stripey ones. I'm beginning to think I'm a stockinette sock girl - as long as there are funny stripes. But I have been getting loads of compliments on them when I knit in public. People keep thinking it's a sleeve for a kid's knit. When I tell them it's a sock, for me, they look at me like I'm crazy.

Speaking of which, time for more forward progress on my brain. I'm finally admitting to myself I have a touch of OCD - but, of course, without the compulsions that get you a clean, organized house. Just the crazy, wacked out obsessional thoughts! Who knew I could be so lucky!?! Shrink day today, so maybe a meds adjustment is in the works. Although I don't do too well with medications - of any kind. I'm very sensitive. ;-) Oh and Tom Cruise - FUCK YOU.

I got a new toy this weekend. A new phone! I've had my old one for a LONG time. Longer than these things are supposed to last - especially when three babies have chewed through them. But a new toy I have and I've discovered the wonders of RINGTONES!

When Georgie calls from his cell phone: DETROIT ROCK CITY!
When he calls from work: UNDER PRESSURE!
When he calls from home: OUR HOUSE!
When my sister calls: BLISTER IN THE SUN! (or maybe the theme from Days of Our Lives. Hers may change.)
When my bro calls: CALIFORNIA LOVE!
When Joe Random calls: 1 THING!

Georgie wants me to work in Tubular Bells. You know - the theme from The Exorcist? I can't even hear that shit without getting creeped out. Let him put it on his own phone!

I'm having a fantastic time - Georgie and I spent hours (literally - we were at his office) going through ringtones. I'd try to stump him with a polyphonic greatest hits of our lives. No good Bruce tones though. Bummer. Tell me what your favorites are!

Off to do stuff. Thanks for hanging out with me!

Posted by Cara at 10:01 AM | Comments (16)

June 13, 2005

Lemmings and Lace

Well, my experience in the city yesterday was decidedly UN-Seinfeldian. (By the way, the Puerto Rican Day parade episode has never been shown on TV after the first airing - it's not even part of the syndication package. Guess it ruffled a few feathers.) Seriously - the whole day couldn't have gone better: super cute kids, great party entertainment (the kids were laughing the whole time), nice employers. The traffic was fine - if I had a job in the city on a Tuesday morning I would've hit more traffic. Thanks for the good lucks. I think they worked.

Without further ado, I offer you boring progress pictures, just like I promised on Friday:

The short row sleeve is coming along nicely. I finished the increases and am about to start the decreases. I love how they say do the increases and knit until you reach 191/2 inches. Guess what? On my last row of increases I'm going to be about 201/2 inches. I realized my row gauge is about two rows over. No biggie, I'm thinking. I like my sleeves a little long anyway. So onto the decreases. Have I woven in any ends? NO! Damn they're killing me!

Not much progress on the sock - although I did rip it a few more times before I was satisfied. I'm still a little hesitant about the purls at the joins - I moved some stitches around on the needles because the ktbls were looking REALLY bad at the joins - but I've tried it on and I can live with it. I'm not sure how to fix it though since I'm pulling the yarn as hard as I can. I swear my hands are completely cramped after only a few pattern repeats. I'm doing the Retro Rib from IK Winter 2004 in Koigu Color #2151. The yarn is definitely more green - think retro aqua Cuban colors. I'm not loving this like I was loving the Purple Socks, but I'm persevering.

Because I have no mind of my own and you can't turn from one blog to another without seeing LACE, I conveniently became obsessed with The Flower Basket Shawl pattern from IK Fall 04. I've never knit lace before, so I immediately turned to the Great Enabler and lace knitter extraordinaire. She, in turn, sent me over here, and she, then, pawned me off over here! (That's Cassie, Margene and Teresa - in case you were wondering! Damn you girls are good at the enabling!) Anyway, once I saw Teresa's Flower Basket Shawl (make sure you look at ALL the pictures!) I was a goner.

Suffice it to say, by Sunday I had ordered two balls of Zephyr Wool Cotton SILK (tussah silk to be specific!) from The Knitter in Iris (and about five different kinds of sock yarn. I went a little crazy with the sock yarn this weekend. I'm a little nuts over the whole striping thing.)

Teresa was so kind - emailing me different yarn amounts and advice. I can only hope my finished project looks half as wonderful as hers.

Oh and I can't discount the help I've received from two other sites! There's an FBS Redux knitalong going on, and through them I found Becky's gorgeous FBSes. She's got three so far, I think. They're amazing. And she took the time to write up this tutorial for lace-impaired people like me! With all that support, how could I not succeed!?! Thank you ladies! I'm eagerly awaiting my yarn. (I even joined this! Craziness, I know!)

I saw two movies this weekend - both made me cry hysterically (think it's time to up the meds?) - but were about as different as different can be. First, on Saturday, I watched Hotel Rwanda. I'm finding it really difficult to say I enjoyed this movie, but I really did. It was incredibly well done. One of the best movies I've seen in a while. The story was extremely well played out and Don Cheadle was amazing. Absolutely HEARTBREAKING. But it made me want to learn more about the region and what happened there. It utterly amazes me - the destruction human beings can carry out.

Then, on Sunday, I watched 50 First Dates. I know, I know, it's like feast or famine (culturally) around here, but I had seen bits and pieces of the movie at my sister's and couldn't understand the end, given Lucy's situation. So it was on cable, I caught it about five minutes in and knit. Man did I cry! How sad is this movie? I guess hopeful too, but I don't know it seemed so sad to me. In the end it's a complete rip off of the existential classic Groundhog Day, but I guess you could say I enjoyed it. Maybe I just needed to cry some more. (Hey Jen - have you seen Groundhog Day? Add it to the list!)

I'm going to leave you with two pictures - one of which is explained in the extended entry.

First, a rose:

If you haven't already, check out the roses Laurie posted today. Gorgeous!

Last, but not least, I was inspired by Lauren's post the other day about her amazing adventures in Israel. It's been five years since she was there. It got me thinking back to my OWN amazing adventures in Israel - and MY GOD! it's been fifteen years since I was there! How come it feels like just yesterday? I scanned a picture of me from the trip - one of my favorite pictures of me ever. I never looked as good as I did then -

Yes, that's me in an army uniform with my long flowing hair - if you'd like to learn more about it, read on....

Wow - you're still here? ;-)

Okay - let's harken back to the summer of 1990. A couple of months before I had broken up with my boyfriend and went home for the weekend. I cried a lot. My dad, unable to deal with my crying, asked if I wanted to take a trip - maybe I wanted to go to Israel with my mother this summer? I said ok through the tears and promptly went home to be with the love of my life. (Yes. Georgie and I have been together for fifteen years. I broke up with the other guy so I could be with him. I was a hussy back then....)

The summer before, my mother had gone to Israel (actually, it was either the first or second year, I can't remember) and volunteered in the Israeli Army as something of a replacement reservist. The organization that sponsors these trips is called Sar-El. Basically you get really cheap airfare in return for three weeks of service - and you can stay on after that as long as you want. When my mother had gone before, she worked in an army hospital near Tel Aviv - in sort of a candy stripper job. All in all, I think she made around five trips with Sar-El.

When we went, we boarded a bus in the dark and drove for a few hours to our new home - smack dab in the middle of the Negev Desert. We were stationed, if you will, on an ammunitions base right outside of Be'er Sheva. We lived on the top of a hill on the base, which was the home of soldiers who were in some kind of disciplinary trouble (read banished) and outside workers. My job consisted of waking up at 7am and heading down the hill to sort old landmines. I had to take them apart (they were all dead) and separate the parts for recycling. Sometimes I sorted through old bullets - again for recycling. My mother worked in the shop painting and occasionally welding. I think she liked the welding better.

We were all issued standard uniforms which we wore every day. We would work in the morning - like 7-12 and then have lunch in the mess hall. Then, sometimes we'd go back to work, but most days we'd go back up to the hill and put our bathing suits on and lay out. I had the best tan ever when I got home. Seriously. The desert winds were wonderful. We'd wash our clothes - even our thick towels - then hang them up and they would be dry in like five seconds. During the day the temperature would get up into the 100s - maybe 114 at the highest? At night, though, it was freezing. We'd wake up to frost. And always I had at least three dead bees in my bed. I never understood that. I never got stung - but they were always there.

The soldiers on the base were pretty funny. The boys were ridiculously gorgeous - I'm a sucker for dark skin and dark eyes - and most of the people on the base were Sephardim. One asked to sleep with me (he was sort of joking) and I told him he'd have to ask my mother. Of course, he was very upset to learn that my mother was standing with me the whole time. Our group leader laughed until he cried. The soldier never looked at me again. I became pretty friendly with the second in command on the base and we were pen pals for a long while. He lost a leg in a motorcycle accident many years later. I don't think I'll ever be able to get on a motorcycle now. We lost touch a a while back.

Sometimes we'd go into town at night - Be'er Sheva had a modern mall and some of the best ice cream I'd ever tasted. I can see the stand when I close my eyes. I wish I could taste the ice cream. One night we went to the movies at the mall - we saw Pretty Woman. Stadium Seating. With Hebrew subtitles. Pretty Funny! One thing that was difficult to get used to - the soldiers always carried their guns. Even when they weren't in uniform. So you'd see UZI toting semi-teenagers walking through the mall. It was surprisingly peaceful though.

On the weekends we were off and allowed to travel around. We usually went up to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem - those are some of my favorite memories. At the time I was in school - a Religious Studies major - and I dragged my nice Jewish mother around to every Church site possible! I was all about the historical Jesus. We even walked the Via Dolorosa. It was the time of the end of the first Intifada, so many of the markets in Arab section of East Jerusalem were closed. We had a soldier with us when we toured with the group.

I remember crying after visiting Yad Vashem. Yes, because of the tragedy, but also because of the guilt I felt loving a non-Jew the way I did. I pined for George the whole time I was there. (Of course, I broke up with him for a weekend when I got back, but that's another epic post - we broke up on Friday and got back together on Monday and have been together ever since. In fact our anniversary is that Monday - August 6.) I've made peace with it - my note in the Wall was about him and I think our union has been blessed - by many gods, for sure.

I remember swimming in Lake Tiberius - the only fresh water in the entire country. I remember the water actually tasted sweet. Floating in the Dead Sea was remarkable and a sure-fire way to stop mosquitoe bites from itching. Basically burned the sting right out! (WARNING: Don't shave your legs before you go into the Dead Sea - and don't let the water get in your eyes! Whatever you do - NOT your EYES!)

My mother and I basically tourned the whole country. We went from Safed to Eilat and everywhere in between. But it was in Be'er Sheva where my true love of the desert was born. We left on July 31, 2000. The next day Sadaam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

I was talking to my sister this morning, and she and I both don't believe my trip was fifteen years ago (which means it was seventeen years since she was in Israel!) I remember it very well - thanks for indulging me.

Have a great day!
Cara

Posted by Cara at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2005

I Love Ewe!

DAMN that Margene's good! Sitemeter says I average around 200 visits a day to the blog. Yesterday, I had a whopping 473 visits! About 80% of them from Margene! Thanks grrl! And she works magic too. My feeds should be good to go now. I emailed Bloglines and they reset the feeds. Apparently that's all I needed to do. We'll see how fast this post comes up.

And thanks to all of your comments on the socks. I SO appreciate it! I've got the AC cranking so I can keep them on all day. Crazy, no? Who cares. I made SOCKS!

In other boring knitting news, I FINALLY cast on the sleeve for short rows. I know I've said this a million times, but god I love Rowan Wool Cotton. It's so soft and the stitches are so beautiful. Seriously, if I could only knit with this yarn I would be okay. Better than okay. This is my plan: everyday before I knit on the sleeve I will weave in ends on the short row back. So far I'm good all the way up one side. That leaves the other side and the short rows in the middle. This way, when I cast on for the front, the only ends I'll have are on that said front and I can weave them in while I'm knitting the second sleeve. I have some plans I might implement on the front, too, that should hopefully cut down on ends considerably.

I also cast on for a second pair of socks. Retro Ribs in Koigu. But I don't like how the pattern's looking at the joins so I might rip it (AGAIN) and move a few stitches around after a couple rows. We'll see.

Here's a super dooper boring picture:

I promise to spare you knitting pictures like that one. At least until Monday. ;-)

But, I do have something cute to show you! I'm sure you've all had moments like this. You know, you walk around your house every day and manage NOT to notice things that have been there forever, under your nose, calling out to you "Whohoo! You! Yes, you, over here! See me? I'm a really cute thing to blog about!"

When Jen was here the other day I suddenly turned to a spot in my office THAT I LOOK AT EVERY DAMN DAY and noticed this little guy:

You see, I never realized but my husband is prescient. He bought me this a million years ago - no, really, it has to be over ten, possibly even twelve years old. We were living in the old apartment and he bought it for me for Valentine's Day. It's actually a pin (why I have it pinned to a lamp shade is beyond me, but that's where it's been since the day I got it.) It came attached to a card that said I LOVE EWE! Did he know that one day I would become wool obsessed? When I reminded him of it yesterday, he was thrilled. More super hero powers for him to go along with his superfantastic dish washing. I'm so lucky!

Anyway, it's a monsoon outside. Dark, thunder, torrential rains and yet it's still unbearably hot. Imagine that. So I thought I'd leave you all with some beauty for the weekend - whatever your weather!

Have a good one!

Posted by Cara at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)