Lower Broadway, somewhere between West 4th and Houston.
East side of the street.
Open door.
For Cassie
January 13, 2005 By
Fess Up
January 12, 2005 By
What’s your guilty pleasure?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this after my confessional post yesterday about liking 24. It makes me uncomfortable that I like it, but I still get pleasure out of watching it.
So what’s yours? Do you eat at McDonald’s on the sly even though you’ve been a vegetarian for years? Do you secretly keep tapes of W’s State of the Union to watch when you’re alone? What do you derive secret pleasure from – even though it goes against what you believe?(I’m not talking about silly stuff here, although some might think my watching a television show is silly. But it really does bother me that I like it, yet I’m unwilling to give it up.)
Let me know I’m not alone!
And now I will tell you some things about myself. (Found on Nake-id Knits via Wendy.)
Grooming Products
Shampoo: Rene Furterer Fioravanti Volumizing Shampoo
Moisturizer:
Body: Pond’s Ultra Silk Body Lotion [Discontinued, but my stash survives.]
Face: Neutrogena Oil-Free Moisture for Combination Skin
Hands and Feet: Nexcare Advanced Skin Creme
Cologne: Au Naturel by Moi
Razor: Venus
Toothpaste: Crest Whitening Plus Scope
Electronics
Cell phone: Motorola T720
Computer: HP
Television: Which one? We’ve got three.
Stereo: Four of these – we tend to like Panasonic products though.
Home
Sheets: 100% Egyptian Cotton Wamsutta in EXTRA DEEP. Our bed is huge.
Coffee-maker: none
Car: 1988 Honda Accord and 2002 Nissan Altima
Stationery: My own PhotoArtCards.
Beverages
Bottled water: Poland Spring from my very own water cooler.
Coffee: Never touch the stuff.
Vodka: In the old days, sure. Now I’m more of a red wine girl.
Beer: MGD
Clothes
Jeans: Sonoma Stretch Five-Pocket (no freakin’ boot cut!!!) from Kohl’s. My new fav.
T-shirt: Georgie’s old Jockey v-necks, soft and worn and still smelling like him – used as pajamas.
Briefcase or tote: felted tote or LeSportsac bag
Sneakers: Asics Gel Kayanos
Watch: ESQ by Movado, but I never wear it.
Favorite Places
My home, my sister’s home, La Quinta Resort & Spa, Cape Cod.
Necessary Extravagance
Yarn and knitting books, of course. Cut & Color.
My life’s an open book.
The Power of the Internet…
January 12, 2005 By
when used for good, not evil, is amazing.
HB1677 is one of the most horrible things I’ve seen yet coming out of our government. Apparently, John A. Cosgrove, a Delegate of Virginia (Who votes for these people? Don’t answer that!) proposed a bill requiring women to REPORT A MISCARRIAGE TO THE POLICE. Here is the bill summary:
Report of fetal death by mother; penalty. Provides that when a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman’s responsibility to report the death to the proper law-enforcement agency within 12 hours of the delivery. Violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.
Thankfully, bloggers have managed to stop it!
I have to go throw up now. My lunch, along with my faith in humanity, are sewer bound.
Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt
January 11, 2005 By
Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt.
Isn’t it funny how when you say Mr. Pitt a lot it takes all the sexiness out of the man. Here’s Mr. Pitt. Sexiest Man Alive. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t work.
That said, I must admit I’m a bit sad over the breakup. I liked them as a couple. I really did. I was rooting for them. I wanted at least one hollywood blue state couple to stay together (Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson don’t count – I don’t care how blue they are, they LOOK too red.) Why couldn’t someone like Rush get divorced? Now that would be news. You know, Mr. Family Values, Bush really IS god and all? How would that look in the press. What’s that you say? Mr. Rush-give-me-all-your-oxycontin-or-you-die-Limbaugh has been divorced not once, not twice, but THREE FREAKING TIMES? And he’s still allowed to call himself a Republican?
I actually feel a little better now.
Okay. Here’s my Brad Pitt story. Circa ’94ish.
Georgie and I and another couple (can’t remember who they were to be honest) are sitting in PJ Clark’s, the ultimate Irish Bar/Hamburger joint in NYC. At the table behind us, is this guy, with three other people. He’s got really long hair, very scruffy, but somebody famous. I always tell people, when looking for famous people on the streets of New York, if someone looks THAT much like a famous person – it is that person. You have to remember they’re totally out of context when you see them on the street. So we’re sitting there, trying to be inconspicous and all, trying to figure out just who this guy is. Georgie thought Ethan Hawke. But probably because that was the name that came to his tongue first. Of course, it was Mr. Pitt. And he looked exactly like this. Sort of Legends of the Fall with a Kalifornia psycho edge to him. There you have it folks! I’ve been thisclose to Mr. Pitt!
In the A Little Self-Promotion Never Hurt Department….
Good news on the work front. I have a new ad up on Baby Zone. Hopefully it will bring lots of traffic. (Yeah, I’m at the bottom of the page, but I’ll rotate up every 30 days.)
School Daze
As luck would have it, Jen had her driver’s license stolen! Whoo hoo! Sure, it’s bad for Jen, but good for me because I had company yesterday at the DMV. I had to renew my license. The picture’s not bad.
What does an hour and a half at the DMV get you? That’s right – a start on the front of School Daze:
And here’s the start of the front:
I’ve finished two repeats – The cable is a sixteen row repeat over 24 stitches. I’m not sure how I’m going to split for the v-neck anymore. I could split at the 16 row mark (it looks like there were 61 rows in the body until the arm decreases on the back) or I could let it go for a shorter v-neck and do another eight rows or so. I’ll play with it.
The whole thing is probably a smidge too wide and a smidge too long, but I’ll live. We’ll see when it’s done. I’m happy with it so far. I think the yarn takes the cable really well.
Technical Note
Something’s wrong with the gallery where I host my pictures. They’ve been having trouble for a little while now, and I’m hoping that the fact that the entire site is down today is proof that they’re trying to fix the problems. It’s a good product, one I’m happy to support, but I fear that if the problems aren’t fixed soon, I’ll have to go elsewhere. So if you’ve been seeing some broken picture links, especially in the archives, this is probably the reason. Hopefully all will be well soon. Thanks for your patience.
ATTACK!
January 10, 2005 By
A DDos attack at that.
As many of you may know (well, you should know – I blogged about it. C’mon people – there WILL be a quiz!) I switched hosts around Christmas. Everything went pretty smoothly and I was terrifically impressed with the customer service. The cs at my last host was pretty much non-existent. These new people were emailing me Xmas eve. Very nice.
Apparently their service is so good, they host many a blog. (They have good MT support – which is one of the reasons I went with them.) Some of these blogs are very controversial. (I won’t link to them because I don’t want any backlash. Yes, they are pretty bad.)
Well, these blogs (I’m assuming) were the subject of an Internet attack that took place Friday night and Sunday night. The way I think it works is that an unimaginable amount of information was being sent to the servers so as to crowd them so bad no information could get through. The result – all the servers appear down, which means no websites for me! (And many others.)
That means no this site, no K1R2, no business site. No good.
I and my sites are a little ity bity pawn in the big bad war against opinion (alright – some pretty sick opinions, but opinion nonetheless.)
Now I’m all for free speech. The free-er the better. I remember my Hebrew School teacher telling us all the time – you have to let the Nazis march, because if you tell them they can’t march, then they can turn around and tell you YOU can’t march. So bring on the vitriol, I say. Especially on the Internet. (You can turn it off, people. Just like the TV, close a newspaper, etc. It’s called free will and goes hand in hand with free speech.)
So what do I do? I like the service – I’m very happy with it – especially in the time of outage – regular updates. They seem to have worked very hard to get everything going again. I guess I’ll wait and see what happens. The last big attack they had was in 10/2003. Maybe they won’t have another one for a while.
Speaking of attacks….
He’s ba-aack!
That’s right! Our favorite Lost Boy is back with a vengeance. It’s totally not my thing, but somehow I’ve become completely addicted to it. It all started one ridiculously rainy weekend we spent in Nashville. Georgie was having hip surgery and we were pretty much confined to our hotel room, and not just because he was recuperating. Noah would have had a field day that weekend. The best part was we had the first season on DVD. You CANNOT watch just one episode. We watched many, only coming up for air to eat and sleep. We somehow made it home that weekend just as the blizzard was hitting and were stuck in the house for another few days and watched more episodes. The way a cat takes to nip, I took to 24. Scary, I know.
But Georgie LOVES this show. He gets so excited which gets me excited and it’s so over the top as to be grand almost.
BUT, (yes another but) it’s AWFUL. It taps into all the paranoid red state ideals of America Against the World! Fight for Freedom! AND, to make matters worse, it’s on that faux news channel.
If I like it, does that make me a bad person? Do I have to give back my Roe vs Wade button? My ACLU card? My blue state status? (I swear! I didn’t know Amazon was BAD!)
I ask you! How can something so good make you feel so bad?
School Daze
I managed to finish the back while I was at my sister’s. I’m still a little iffy on the sizing, but I’m going with it. I cast on for the front and finished the rib – now the fun begins! Pictures later. Hopefully.
Oh and Picot-Boo will have to be ripped, yet again. But this is the last time, I swear.
I’m back, baby! I’m back!
Midnight Fly-by
January 7, 2005 By
Just stopping in to say hi. I miss my blog. Isn’t that strange? But I’ve become accustomed to its face.
It’s after midnight and I’m up in “my room” at my sister’s house. She has a three story house, with two bedrooms on the third floor – it’s sort of a repository area, if you know what I mean. My room is up there – with a TV and currently, my sister’s new laptop with wireless Internet! Yay! Almost all the comforts of home, except I miss Georgie. I just hate sleeping without him. Although it was nice falling asleep, for a little while at least, with my amazing niece. I miss her and my nephew so much when I’m not with them – almost as much as I miss George. I wish I could have them all closer together, but that’s not to be, at least not any time soon. So I trade off and I’m always missing someone.
I’m incredibly lucky at the amount of time I get to spend with my sister and her kids. When I come down (it’s not that far away – North Jersey to Philly), I get to spend a few days always. That means I’m with the kids 24/7 which is the only way to get to know them. I see all their moods and love them all the more for their stark human-ness. It’s awesome to see their minds churning, learning, burning with information every single second of the day. If you’ve never been teased by a toddler, you don’t know what you’re missing. I have loved these children within an inch of my life since they were conceived. And the best part is that I know they love me just as much.
Sorry. I’m a little maudlin tonight. Missing my love and overwhelmed with emotion for my babies. Sentimentalism sucks and I try to avoid it at all costs. But whatever. Sometimes it’s just there.
I actually got some knitting done today – I decreased for the armholes on the back of School Daze. Hopefully I’ll be able to knit a lot tomorrow – the kids go to school and my sister has work. I’m also going to visit my grandmother – I’m hoping she’ll be up for an LYS crawl. I don’t know if she’s been to any real yarn stores – discount craft stores don’t count! I’m pretty sure there’s a store not too far from her that carries Art Yarns. I’m in love with the stuff!
Anyway – thanks for your comments yesterday – it’s nice to know I’ll be missed, even if I’m still (kind of) here!
L, C
Don’t Don’t Don’t Don’t …Don’t You…Forget About Me
January 5, 2005 By
I say…La. La la la la. La la la la.
Enough already!
So will you miss me? I’m heading out to my sister’s this afternoon until next Sunday. I will be scarce, as it’s hard to get computer time when my delicious nephew and niece are running about screaming Cara, Cara, Cara!
I will probably have no time to knit either.
Met up with Cassie yesterday at Purl. I exchanged some yarn and brought home a Knitting Pure & Simple Sock Pattern (#216) and Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks per Cassie’s recommendations. We had a lovely time, as usual, although I think Cassie may have said I was boring. (see comments on this post.) Say it isn’t so, Cassie, my sweet!?! 😉
Slow progress has been made on both School Daze and Picot-Boo, but I’m still not sure about the gauge on PB. I will have to measure it against my niece tomorrow to see if I need to rip YET AGAIN. Thankfully it’s a really (super)fast knit.
I leave you all with this:
Overheard while I was on the phone with my sister the other day –
“Only ONE pair of underwear. ONE pair. Did you hear me? I said ONE PAIR OF UNDERWEAR!”
Ah’s the joys of parenthood.
PS – Even though I will be away, I will be still be giving out memberships to K1R2. Just leave a comment here.
Look what I got!
January 3, 2005 By
My friend Jo sent me some beautiful stitch markers, all the way from Australia! Thank you Jo!
Aren’t they so cute? I can’t wait to use the pink hearts when I start working on the front of School Daze. Speaking of which, here’s some progress on the back so far:
It’s knitting up nice and quick – I’ve got about 10″ done already. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the changes in the yarn – sometimes it’s thick and sometimes it’s so thin it’s like thread. Makes for an interesting texture though. I’m enjoying it, but the real fun will be the front.
I started on Picot-Boo yesterday, and then had to start over, but it’s okay because this yarn is DIVINE! It’s so, so soft, has a wonderful sheen to it and the color is out of this world. I can’t wait to get started again so I can show pictures. The problem is the gauge. The label says use US#7 and get 4.5, but I’m getting 5.5. (It’s funny too because isn’t 4.5 around Aran weight – this stuff is pretty thin. I’d say it’s probably meant to be knit on 5s or 6s.) So rip I did. Luckily it’s for a tiny little girl, so there wasn’t much to it.
Oh and my review of Maggie Righetti’s Sweater Design in Plain English is up at K1R2.
Champagne and Cherry Pie
January 2, 2005 By
That’s how we brought in the New Year. We used to do fun and exciting things, like fly off to Detroit Rock City to Kiss on New Year’s Eve, but ever since the millennium I’ve felt like staying home. My goal in life is to make my birthday as normal a day as possible. It’s not so nice to have a “special” birthday. I want a day like everyone else. Basically, I want a day I can forget about.
Yesterday came pretty close. We had some cherry pie and champagne while Regis fucked up the countdown. (He was SO off it was February already by the time he finished. Actually made me miss Dick Clark.) Waited for the calls to come in from my siblings. (Each one asked – am I the first to call? For the record, my bro, Jeddy, won this year with a call at 12:01. Of course, it was 9:01 for him – he lives in LaLa land.)
And then we went to bed.
Woke up the next morning and opened my birthday book!
Dad gets it right again! Something I don’t have and haven’t read. Yeah Daddy! I also got a very generous gift certificate to Borders from my parents and a huge gift certificate to the Yarn Market from my best friend Margo and her family! We’re talking enough for about three sweaters people! Whew!
Besides making all my dreams come true, providing a roof over my head and feeding me, Georgie got me a chocolate fondue kit and Vanilla Cocoa tea from the Chocolate Bar in New York. We’re having fondue for dessert tonight!
We started our Spanish Lessons yesterday as well. It’s our goal to learn Spanish this year. Today was lesson two – it’s going well. I’ve decided Ribby Cardi is the knit for that. I’m not in a rush on it, and it’s a good easy knit while listening to the Senor and Senora babble away in my head. We’re having fun with it. G has declared we can only greet each other in Spanish. Thank god today we learned how to say Buenos Dias, otherwise he’d be getting the silent treatment.
School Daze
I cast on for my first design! So far I’ve got the 2×2 rib done on the back and I’m in stockinette land for a while. It’s going really quickly though. I want the back done fast because it’s boring. The exciting part will be the front and the glorious cable running up the middle. I’m really excited about it – the Manos is looking beautiful too.
I’ve been reading Sweater Design in Plain English by Maggie Righetti. It is an amazing book – easy to read and I’ve learned more about knitted items in the few pages I’ve read than anything else. I think it helps that I’ve been knitting for a while and have actually made a sweater. I’ll review it in full on K1R2 tomorrow, hopefully.
I’ll take some pictures of School Daze tomorrow. I’m hoping to cast on for Picot-Boo today as well. I wound a ball of the Art Yarns Supermerino today – that stuff is beautiful!
If 40 is the new 30…
January 1, 2005 By
does that mean I’m 25?
Wishing you perfect gauge, pretty yarn and peace of mind!
