What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

Remember that scene in Bye, Bye Birdie? The one where everyone’s on the phone trading gossip about Hugo and Kim? I was thinking about that song this weekend because it was a blogger phone fest! Ann, Wendy, Vicki, Jen! Great to gab with you girls! Can’t wait to see you soon!

It was a good weekend overall. Saturday I made some good headway with my work and Saturday night we had a wonderful meal at Gigino’s. It’s a little Italian place in Tribeca – on Greenwhich Street – and we’ve never had a bad meal there. It’s been consistently outstanding for a long time. A long time. I started with my favorite salad – sliced pears so thin you can see through them, some kind of parmaesan cheese, also sliced thin, arugula, walnuts, pomegranates all sprinkled with white balsamic. I LOVE it! Then I had a (large!) rack of lamp roasted in their brick oven with peppers and onions and string beans and roasted potatoes in a kind of au jus sauce. The potatoes were spectacularly crunchy on the outside and like mashed on the inside. Warm chocolate cake for dessert. To die for!

And then we went shopping for music – ends up Virgin Records at Union Square is open until 1 AM. I couldn’t get over how busy it was outside. Okay, granted, we were in the Village near NYU on a Saturday night on a beautiful night in October – but it was packed! Craziness I tell you. We came away from Virgin with some Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash and some Ray Charles. Excellent!

Did anyone catch the Saturday Night Live season premiere? I thought it was pretty damn funny. I watched some of it before we went to bed (it was late! I taped it.) I was laughing my ass off. LOVED, loved the Morgan Stanely mock commercial. Please tell me you saw it!

Yesterday, we beached it!

Those pictures are straight out of the camera (the point and shoot.) The sky was the most amazing blue – it was a perfect day. I don’t think I broke a sweat, but I was warm and cool (you get that right?) and I just love the beach in October. I hope we get to go back a couple times before it really is too cold. That’s me knitting on a new shawl. Or at least knitting the first seven rows over and over and over and over again until I finally got the very strange 3 to 2 decrease that the author has developed. You know how that goes. And now that I’ve done about 26 rows, I’m not sure I want to do it on size 8 needles. I’m using the same Twinkletoes yarn (different color) I used for DFS, only the shawl is a garter stitch pattern (knit the odd rows). The pattern calls for Jamieson and Smith 2 ply jumper weight, which seems like a really loose ply, but still fingering weight – so the trade off should be okay. I may try it with size 7 needles and see if I like it better. I know, I could swatch, but WHATEVER! Where’s the excitement in that?

Speaking of frustrating knits, what the fuck! You’d think a simple drop shoulder sleeve would be a no brainer. Does that mean I acutally have a brain because I can’t get the damn thing to work? If you recall, I decided to do a modified drop shoulder on the Almost Everyday Cardigan. I bound off 8 stitches at each arm and continued straight to the shoulder. Well, when I increased the sleeve to 94 stitches (which matched the cast on for the back) I barely got to the bind off for the arm when I sewed it in really quickly. Back to the drawing board. Originally I had done 15 increases (one every end) every 4 rows and then 11 increases every six rows. I ripped back and ended up with 15 every 4 rows, 5 every 6 rows and then another 10 every 4 rows. I think. I’ve got it all written down. And I was smart – I did a knit into the front and back increase so I can see them really easily. Got me to 102 stitches. Just barely worked – I still needed it to be longer to get me all the way across the bind off. So I ripped again back half of the final every 4 row increases and did every other row increases. Same number of rows, but an extra ten stitches. I didn’t sew it in yet, but it looks like it worked. How crazy is that? Please don’t tell me I should rip and start the whole thing over. I think I can get it to work and it’s supposed to be oversized and all. Damn though. This sweater should be done already. And to add insult to injury, I’m worried I won’t have enough yarn. I think I need another hank.

Do you have a madeleine? I do. Last night I sent G to the store to pick up some Acne soap (my face is breaking out so bad!) and some candy. They didn’t have these new Junior Mints – but they aren’t mint – they’re caramel inside and they may be the best candy ever! Junior Caramels! I told him instead to get me some gummy bears. So he brought home the CVS store brand kind. As soon as I saw the bag, I knew!

When I was a young girl – I don’t know prepubescant – maybe 10 or 11 – I used to ride my bike to this Polish candy store. They sold gummy bears (the first time I’d ever seen them) in plastic sandwhich bags with a twist tie on the top. I’d bring the bag home and climb into bed and eat them while I read with my clock radio playing music. To this day whenever I hear certain songs I immediately remember a particular book. Back to the gummy bears – with the proliferation over the years of gummy candy (worms, aligators dinosaurs, you name it) the gummy bear has been basterdized in a lot of ways. Rarely can I find the exact bear I used to get at the Polish candy store. They’re very chewy, almost hard, and after awhile your jaw hurts. They have a very subtle flavor too. But they are THE.MOST.SATISFYING. candy ever. Georgie brought them to me last night – the EXACT kind – and I swear I almost cried. My madeleine. What’s yours?

I leave you (wow I was chatty today!) with the picture that greeted me when I awoke this morning. We’re
completely fogged in:

It seems like it’s starting to lift and I’m going to go run a bit later. Some blocking today and maybe some seaming and I may or may not cast on for the second sleeve. My left wrist hurts a bit today so I may take a break. Or cast on for a second sock. Or find the first one (I lost the first sunshine sock. My house is such a mess.)

Have a great day!

PS – Here’s what it looks like now – about two hours after the first picture:

Wild huh? I love weather.