Finished Object Alert!

Yup...I'm still here. I've just been really busy lately; I've barely had time to knit and certainly haven't had a spare second to do a blog entry. I'm on vacation the week of May 10th, and plan to get LOTS of knitting done. For everyone who has been following the painfully slow progress of my twirly skirt since last July: I will post photos of the completed skirt sometime the week of May 17th. I'm going on three airplane rides, and the skirt will be the official carry-on project. Twirly is my most traveled UFO. It's been with me to Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and the Adirondacks. In two weeks it'll see rural Indiana and Las Vegas. Sheesh.
I've been working on a Cable and Lace Pullover (by Cecily Glowik MacDonald) which is coming along. I love the pattern and it knits up really quickly. No photos of that I'm afraid. Next time.

I just knit another Darkside Cowl (by Sarah Fama) because I was looking for some immediate gratification. I'm not sure what I'll do with it - it'll probably be a holiday gift. Yes, I'm starting my holiday gifts.

I have an update on my flooded condo. (Remember the idiot in the unit above who broke his toilet??) I got the estimate from my contractor and we're looking at over $35K in damage. I should've beaten the crap out of that guy when I had the chance. Since he was completely incapacitated as a result of drug and alcohol over-use, a) he wouldn't remember a beat down and b) I'd feel much better right now. I should've definitely taken his dog. Jerk.
Well, that's all for today. I have to post the cowl to Ravelry and step away from the computer. Bye.

Quick Follow up Post...

I just finished posting the "real" entry below, but this is so funny I have to do two last pics.
This is what I have to deal with when I sit at my computer. Tubby is snoozing with her head on my keyboard and Munchie is camped in my lap. No one in this house ever heard of a kitty bed. Bye.

Happy Spring!

Bet'cha thought I fell off the planet, eh? Nope, just right out straight. Last weekend (at 1:45 AM) my condo in Chelsea was flooded when the idiot living in the unit above broke his toilet. Literally. Broke his toilet tank in two. Then, not realizing he was about to wreck the two units below his (he didn't notice the tank was completely cracked- water pouring out of it should've been the first clue), staggered across the unit to his bed and passed out. By the time I saw his unit, there was 3" of water up there. I think I was in shock because I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around what was happening. The fire department tried to rouse him by using the phrase, "Don't you know you're unit is flooded?" Numb nuts replied that his unit was NOT flooded, and the fireman bent over, scooped up a handful of water and threw it in his face. It's an amusing visual, but I missed that exchange because I was already trying to get ServPro over to my place PRONTO. You ought to see me deal with a crisis at 2:00 in the morning. I spent 40 years in the Hank Martinson school of how to do everything right, so once I woke up, I was like a machine. Due to the flooding in Mass and Rhode Island, I couldn't get an adjuster to come for a visit until Monday, but hopefully the repair process can get underway and won't be too painful. I need to give a special shout out to my friend B (and her kitties) who lives in my condo and has been a great sport this week under really crappy circumstances. She had two dehumidifiers the size of refrigerators and three jet engine fans blowing for nearly 72 hours. The whole thing is just an unnecessary pain in the ass. As far as the guy upstairs, who does that? Even a week later I still can't believe it.

And now onto Spring...

I met up with my mother P for lunch yesterday, and she brought along these lovely roses. I was thinking that I should've brought her flowers as I was driving up to see her, so I felt kind of bad when she pulled these out of her hat. As you can see, they are a lovely pale peach color and opened up beautifully.

I took this second shot to point out that the orchid I received as a holiday gift is still thriving after nearly three and a half months! My other two are still domant. You can't see them, but they are there in the background snoring.

I bought the hyacinths and the flat of pansies last weekend up at Chapman's Greenhouses in Beverly Farms, MA. (Hi C!) The hyacinths have exploded and their scent fills the house. Since it finally stopped raining, I'm going to plant the pansies out front today.

I'll probably split and move a couple hostas out back as well. My backyard is trashed. I had a giant frost heave out their this winter, and I have areas of the lawn that have sunk as well as tree limbs everywhere. I can hardly bear to look at it. I'll just stay focused on the pansies and the hostas. When the yard dries out, I'll call someone in for advice.

And finally, since this supposed to be a knitting blog, I have a couple shots of the progress on my sweater. The darker color is truer to the color of the yarn, but the close up shows the stitches. It is coming along well. I have about one row's yarn left before I start a new hank, but I'm not sure where I put them. I know I the other five are all together b/c I separate by project to keep the queue orderly, but not being able to find this project bin will gum up the works. Current project yarn does not belong in the attic, but maybe it's up there. My sister H is really good at organizing...maybe I could somehow coerce her into helping me with my yarn?? Please?

Another Cable and Lace Pullover...

Quick post tonight. I cast on Cecily Glowik MacDonald's Cable and Lace Pullover on Saturday , which is an overdue holiday gift for my friend J. I didn't do even one stitch yesterday (I finished my taxes!), but this is what I did Saturday evening and part of Sunday. Not really a lot, but enough to show. This is my second one - I made one for myself in the fall, but ended up giving it to my sister H because it looked so much better on her. Here she is on the left, looking lovely. (Sorry H...I needed a model.) I'm going to make the neckline on the current one a little different. I don't think I'm going to do the split yoke as called for in the pattern. J has small shoulders, so I don't want it falling off her. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Of course.

Ciao for now.

I made it home from Chicago...

God morgon, hur star det till? Har du saknat mig? (That's Swedish w/o the necessary dots...How are all ya'all? Miss me?) I'm home safely after dealing with the usual (you pick the adjective) TSA staff and (you pick the adjective) taxi drivers. Although, the worst was the screaming two year old on the plane, so maybe I'll start with that. Wait...I'll start by sharing today's soundtrack: Music from the 20's, 30's and 40's. Something snappy and French is playing right now. I dig Pandora. Check it out. http://www.pandora.com/
So I was in Chicago from Wednesday afternoon until Friday at a conference. The actual conference was 8-5 Thursday and 8-3 on Friday, and by the end of the second day I was pretty fried. Here are some of the suggested titles that I may or may not be adding to my library. Click on the image to get a good look. To be honest, I think I'm going to add Knitwear Design Workshop by Shirley Paden to my library first. Anyway, I ran into a Quality person from one of our hospitals the first day at lunch, then again at lunch the second day and we shared a cab to the airport. It was very cool to meet someone in my organization who I normally would not have the opportunity to meet. She works out of North Shore Medical Center in Salem, and I'm out in Needham which is about an hour away from her location.

I got to the airport w/ about an hour and a half before we had to board, so I had time to grab something to eat (I won't bother relating that story - I bought some food and ACTUALLY TOOK IT BACK), find a seat and chill for a bit. Not sure if I've mentioned that I don't like loud noises. I have a history of hearing loss on my right side, and although I've had surgery to restore most of it, I have a terrible time when there is a lot of background noise. Being in a busy airport is a perfect example of a situation that fries my circuits. I had ear plugs with me, but the ones I had only blocked out about 30 decibels, and that wasn't even cutting it inside the airport. So we board the plane, and during the half hour between sitting down and taking off, it was already clear that there was a two year old three rows behind me who was going to make the trip a painful one. The kid was going bonkers, and the parents were not trying to engage, distract or calm her. Two and a half hours, man. After two days of dashboards, run charts, control charts and sigma levels, I thought the screaming would cause my head to explode - I can't even imagine what it was like for the people who DIDN'T have earplugs. I'm reminded of the final M*A*S*H episode where Hawkeye cracks up. He was on a crowded bus with a woman who had a rooster that was wouldn't stop cock-a-doodle-dooing. She ends up killing the rooster to shut it up. But the twist was that wasn't a rooster. She smothered her baby to stop its crying, which is what causes Hawkeye to crack. Now, please don't assume that just because I can't stand screaming children on planes that I want to smother them. I don't. It's the parents that I want to get my hands on. When it was time to get off the plane, I looked back to make sure I caught the father's eye, and you can bet we shared a moment.

Both of the nights I was in Chicago, the weather was beautiful and I had the opportunity to walk all around. I was staying at the http://www.sofitel.com/gb/hotel-2993-sofitel-chicago-water-tower/index.shtml which is just a couple blocks from Michigan Ave and not far from Lake Michigan (which bears a striking resemblance to the Atlantic Ocean when you're standing at the edge of it).

The hotel is named after the water tower which is pictured here during daylight and night time.

It looks like a castle - it's just beautiful, and is across from what I think is the water authority building that matches in architecture.

The first night I was there, I walked up and down Michigan Avenue, and stumbled upon Lawry's Restaurant. That is the same outfit that makes the seasoning salt. I had no idea they were actually a restaurant, but they are a big prime rib place. I thought what the hell, I like prime rib, so in I went. (I should also mention that it was Saint Patrick's Day and most of the people wandering around were into it: wearing green, faces painted green, big plastic green necklaces, obnoxious green hats - the whole bit.) So I go into Lawry's and it's one of those "old" established restaurants, with big leather chairs and servers wearing the same (ugly) uniforms that have been worn since 1938. Here comes the funny part: During my normal life and routine, I don't buy meat, I don't cook meat, and I eat very little meat. Everytime I go on a business trip, it seems that I try to eat an entire cow, and then I wonder why I'm sick. I pulled this same shit in Atlanta last fall, and my friend TK (are you still part of my readership, T?) can attest to it, as he was a witness. So at Lawry's they do all the food at tableside. First I had the special spinning salad. Then, they told me I had to wait for my meal b/c the Shannon Rovers, who are the local bagpipe and drum corp were coming INTO THE RESTAURANT to entertain us for about six or seven songs. Did I already mention about the loud noise? Yikes. But at least it gave me some time to digest my salad before they brought the meal over. They don't bring a plate - they bring a rolling oven, and the chef cuts whatever you'd like. I took the smallest cut they had, but I think they need a smaller micro cut. Popovers come with, and they sold me on the baked potato and asparagus. (I passed on the lobster tail, shrimp cocktail and dessert which they tried to sell me, but still ate WAY too much.) I told myself this would NOT happen the next night. I was going to eat a light meal and splurge on dessert. How do you think that went? You'll have to wait to find out.

The second night when I walked over to Lake Michigan, I had to pass the Museum of Contemporary art, which sadly, was closed. I snapped a shot of these three guys and headed into the gift shop.

I like to buy myself a little trinket as a remembrance when I go on trips, and this time around I decided on the ring shown here. It is made of an acrylic zipper with a microsuede backing and elastic band. Very cool and comforable to wear, plus it is an exact color match to my reindeer leather and pewter bracelet that I got at the Swedish festival last winter. Sure...not everyone would wear this wacky thing, but it suits me perfectly. For dinner I went into a restaurant called Grand Lux Cafe and could tell immediately that they were affiliated with Cheesecake Factory (CF owns them - separate mgmt). They have a bunch of desserts cooked to order, and I noticed they had beignets, so I spoke to my server about one of the small salads, ordered that for my meal, and asked to have them whip me up the beignets for dessert. The salad was good, but in keeping with the CF philosophy, even the small was big. Then he brings over the beignets, which are pictured here. I looked at them and thought, are you shitting me? (They are sitting on a 16" or 18" oval plate.) This is enough dessert for 10 people. Each of these treats was nearly the size of my fist, and there were eight of them. When the server came back I said, "You should have warned me and suggested that I skip the salad." He said, "Yeah, it's a dessert built for two (two what?), but it's our specialty so I'm glad you tried them." Wow. I think it's best if I just stay out of restaurants for a while.

This is turning into the blog post from hell. I started this yesterday morning, and have left the house twice - once to get my hair done and once to go to the end of the Red Line Yarn Crawl open knitting session at The Stitch House in Dorchester last night. I walked into the SH at 5:40 and won the 6PM drawing!!

I never win anything, but pictured here are the contents of my goodie-bag. Maybe my luck is changing. Can you imagine? I'm one of those if-it-wasn't-for-bad-luck-I'd-have-no-luck-at-all people, so hopefully this is an omen.

Okay, so you're finally all paroled. Thanks for sticking around to read this entire thing. Almost feels like you were on a restaurant tour of Chicago, eh? Now I need to finish my taxes. Bye.

The mother of all storms has ended...

But not before I had some minor rain damage. I have a leak in my chimney, so there was water dripping down into the basement, and also water in my attic that stained the ceiling here in the office. The contractors were already contacted a couple months ago about the chimney, but they're not stupid - they won't go up on the roof in the dead of winter. No one expected a fifty year rain storm, so I'll just have to deal with it. I was talking to a guy at work whose shingles were blowing off his roof at the height of the storm. He was actually up on a ladder trying to attach a tarp to his roof in gale force winds and pelting rain. Sheesh. So many people's houses were flooded; I'm really lucky to have gotten by with so few water issues. So now there's not a cloud in the sky - it looks amazing out. No pictures today, but probably when I post over the weekend. I'm going to Chicago today, and I have to head into town to pick up my former roommate G, who is watching the cats for me.
I had a 3rd row ticket to see Henry Rollins tonight, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Rollins so I'm sending G in my place. His spoken word tour is one of the high points of my year, and I'm really disappointed to miss the show. I've seen him a bunch of times and met him twice. He is a very cool guy - and was awesome about writing back to me (about a dozen times) when my foot was broken for most of 2008. That year, I sat in the front row of the Orpheum with my cast up on the stage while he was speaking. Oh well. There's always next year.
Like an idiot, I didn't opt to stay in Chicago an extra day. I had nothing better to do this weekend, and since I was already going to be there, I should've found something cool to do on Saturday instead of coming home directly after the conference. But not all is lost - I have an appt to have my hair colored on Saturday, and that is always fun. I've been seeing Janice at Backstreet Salon in Medford, MA exclusively for over a decade. Saturday she's going to kill me because I gave myself a haircut with my clippers. I was overdue for cut/color, and the length was making me crazy. If you have short hair, you know where I'm coming from. Anyway, it's all gone now. One of these days I'm going to march in there with a bald head and just ask to have my eyebrows done.
I'm terrible about packing, but I'm running out of time so I have to finish. The only knitting I'm taking on my trip is Tink's Twirly Skirt, and I'm taking Porter's & Olmsted Teisberg's book Redefining Health Care. My team at work is hearing Michael Porter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Porter speak on the 31st. If you're all good, I may write on that topic further.
Alright. I guess I'm done here. I'll check in in a couple days. Bye.

Wow. Have some rain...

I forgot to turn the clocks ahead, so it seemed pretty strange when I woke up at 8:30. To help me sleep on weekend mornings, I've been kicking the cats out of my room around 4:30 when they start to stir. Unfortunately Munchie's screaming isn't kept out of the room by the closed door. If it wasn't so disruptive it would be funny. Does anyone know a siamese whisperer? I need an intermediary to tell her to knock it off.

Last weekend was beautiful - so I'm glad I went over to walk around Deer Island. Here are a couple pictures that I promised:

First, the clean harbor memorial. I totally dig this memorial. The inscription reads: The law secures to the people the right to a clean harbor. Indeed. There's our clean harbor in the background.

So here are the new wind turbines I mention last week. I wonder how much of the plant's power is generated on site.




And here is my town. Everthing looked so nice last week, and this week I think the whole place is going to float right into the ocean. No need to worry about my sump pump...it's getting a workout, but unless I lose power for the day, the basement will remain nice and dry.

I have so much to do. I'm going to Chicago on Wednesday for a conference until Friday. It's presented by IHI (Institute for Healthcare Improvement) and the topic is Building a Quality Measurement System That Works. I generally don't talk too much about work because for work I have to use the half of my brain that's not fun OR funny. Anyway, I need to pack. I have to hit Target for travel size stuff, do laundry, and get some food in the house for my friend G (who is staying here w/ the cats for the three days). I'm meeting D and B to drive up to Yarns in the Farms at 12:30 (yes, in a monsoon) so I should head over to the grocery store now. It's just so gross out.

So I finished my bulky sweater. Or, I thought it was done (all my ends were woven in and everything) when I put it on for D to take a picture, and we realized that one sleeve was shorter than the other. Shit. I knew immediately that I had left out a seven round decrease repeat. Such a stupid error. I just counted wrong. Now I have to frog the ribbed cuff, add the stupid seven rows, and reknit the cuff. What a pain; I was so careful about counting my decrease repeats, but oviously not careful enough. Here is the picture - it's the right sleeve that is screwed up.
Yesterday I visited a new yarn store. I'm mentoring my friend J as she knits her first felted bag. She lives out in Maynard, so we had a lovely breakfast in Marlboro, and then hit Knit Purl in Sudbury. http://knitpurlsudbury.com/ Very nice store. I got in and out of there without buying anything - although J was kind enough to buy me a skein of Lamb's Pride Worsted in a beautiful seafoam green. Thanks J!
I have to go to the grocery store, so I'm signing off. Nightmare. Wish me luck.