I must be screwing up the math

Remember the fridge o' yogurtware?

In What to Eat (my current mealtime reading, highly recommended), Marion Nestle reports:

"Since [1978], yogurt production in the United States has increased... to a breathtaking 2.5 billion pounds in 2003. Although the recent figure seems like a lot of yogurt, it works out to just 7 pounds or so per capita per year-- meager by international standards. The Swedes, for example, consumer 63 pounds each per year, which means there is ample room for American yogurt producers to expand the market for their products."

I took a look at one of my umpteen nonfat, nonsweetened, non-nothing yogurt containers. 908 grams = 2 lbs., according to a handy-dandy internet conversion calculator. Each has about four servings. I eat yogurt for breakfast about five days a week. Let's add an extra 0.5 for the occasional snack.

I beat the Swedes even before adding the fraction.

It's so nice to be in the long tail of the bell curve.


p.s. Ms. Plankton and I have just discussed the proper terminology for "way over on the high end of the bell curve" for ten minutes. She'd just suggested "beyond the two-sigma range" when Big Papi won the game with a walk-off home run. Again. Said she, "Ortiz is definitely hitting outside the two-sigma range."

A bit of background-- literally

While I reread some old entries in lieu of either working or acknowledging that I will not work any more tonight*, I noticed the cardi/yarn photo from last week.

* C'mon. You don't reread old entries?


Imagine that cardi start a total of maybe 3" deep and a bit wider. I frogged Wednesday and started again one pattern size up.

FYI: That afghan is not an FO. Not my FO, at any rate. My grandmother knit it for me about fifteen years ago. (Which grandmother is a mystery. I'm serious. Both knit and crochet.) My sister has a matching one in white, which my mom still may have somewhere. They're both acrylic. While I have learned over the years to look down my nose at acrylic, you'd better believe I don't scorn this yarn. Absolute indestructibility comes in very handy... esp. when Eva decides that she wants to chase her mousie on the bed instead of on, oh, I don't know, the floor or something. I mean, who'd want to play on the floor?

Stephen McCauley

Heard him read for the first time tonight at the Grub Street party. (Unexpected observation: Chicks at lit parties dress up. Huh?*) As per the "Grub Gone Sweaty" designation, all the readings concerned sex. Guess I shouldn't've been surprised.

After a few spicy scenes, headliner Stephen McCauley took the stage. And reminded us that sometimes sex is bad. And read an acutely observed, squirm-inducing description of sex that's off the mediocre/depressing charts.

Naturally, I checked out his website when I got home.

* In the vein of Dan Savage's DTMFA and ITMFA, I propose WTFIT: What the fuck is that. Or WTFITA? (... is that about.) Delete the article: WFIT/A?

While I'm digressing, isn't this yarn gorgeous?

Apart from finding out that at least one successful novelist got his start in community writing classes, hey! Check out his online journal.

I apologize to him (if he's Googled himself and reading this) for violating copyright law. The journal format doesn't allow direct links to posts.

Without yet more ado:
--
Thursday, June 22, 2006

Went swimming today in nearby lake. Whilst reading in the sun afterwards, was approached by attractive man in sunglasses. Cruising, I assumed, and made the appropriate adjustments.

He lowered sunglasses and said: “Didn’t you know the lake is closed today for high fecal bacteria levels?”

Raced home to bathe in everything remotely antiseptic in the bathroom, but cannot get imagine of Swimming In Shit out of brain. Instantly succumbed to a variety of imaginary illnesses and infections.[...]

Friday, June 23, 2006

Have been searching bookstores for something to read this weekend. Seems to be a whole category of novels (apparently popular) that begin with a Tragic Event, almost always Involving A Child. Someone’s kid drowns in the swimming pool or falls out of a window, is kidnapped, or paralyzed in a diving accident, or killed in a drunk driving incident having something to do with the neighbors’ son. A child mentioned in the first sentence of one of these books has zero chance of survival beyond the first paragraph. Somewhat appalled by my own lack of interest in this genre. Suspect it reveals a serious character flaw. Have trouble reading past Tragic Event or, sometimes, even reading up to Tragic Event. Small child and a swimming pool, teenagers and a pier, anyone under the age of twenty driving a car—all fill me with a morbid sense of doom coupled with complete lack of interest. Surely not unsympathetic to Tragic Events in life. But at the start of a novel, they set in motion a formula, as in murder mysteries, that doesn’t engage me. I prefer the Insignificant Event, usually Involving A Middle-Aged Homosexual. Perhaps explains difficulty finding weekend read, not to mention limited appeal of own writing.

--
Compare to Woody Allen's Without Feathers. "Today I saw a red-and-yellow sunset and thought, How insignificant I am! Of course, I thought that yesterday, too, and it rained."

This week in Kitchen Stadium...

Okay, knitmongers/writers/CSA geeks/Sports Racers. Your challenge: Concoct a dish that uses three or more ingredients from the following list.

You may supplement with additional vegetables, but the Chairman awards extra points to those who don't.

- zucchini (1)
- weird greens that look sort of like collards mixed with bok choy and taste like mustard greens (about six huge stalks)
- some variety of summer squash that is pale yellow and partially pale green (3, none huge)
- heirloom tomato (1)
- basil (about 2 cups)
- orange beets (4-5)
- greens from the orange beets

Please take quantities into account; e.g., if you can make a tomato sauce from one heirloom tomato you're a better magician than I.

So, America, with an open heart and an empty stomach, I say unto you in the words of my uncle: Allez cuisine!

(p.s. I so would've used the original Japanese tagline if I'd found it online. Extra extra points if you can dredge it up.)

Copyeditor's delight

From Wired:

"Sperm Bank Spy Cam Spawns Lawsuit."

From the verb choice to the alliteration to the punchiness, that headline sings.

p.s.

Note change in tagline.

Truth in advertising, kids, truth in advertising.

Better run run run run run run run away

I'm feeling a little overloaded.

Deadlines: Somerville news briefs, including redoing briefs I thought were done; softball story; five pages of the novel.

Huh? Things I thought that were finished that reared their ugly heads again: A green-space short I handed in last week; my Reuters assignment from June, which can finally run this week if I get quotes from a Monday meeting in Roxbury, which I did despite the fact that I was home sick.

Thinking ahead: Covering something at 6pm Thursday; next week's news briefs.

Reading: Sudden, unstoppable drive to read through the rest of A.S. Byatt's "Frederica" tetralogy. I finished Still Life and am about halfway through Babel Tower.

Depressing: I didn't even make the finalist cut for a web content job I wanted and thought my resume matched. What did I do wrong at the interview?

Knitting: Started the cardi (new moon) and immediately knit about two centimeters' worth to fend off despair at how long it will take. Also despair at my unthinking purchase of 36" size-one needles, whose loop gets maddeningly in my way. In my defense, I bought them Sunday in the midst of sudden sicky wooziness.

I was thinking that any project that would require a 24" needle could use a 36" needle, so I might as well buy the long one. Huh? Bunched up, my ribbed cardigan back is barely ten inches long. And, plain brain sense here, I'm giving it a try: When. Will I ever. Knit something whose circumference is so big that it can't bunch onto a 24" cord. ON. SIZE. ONES.

Cooking: Sauteéd greens and zucchini; quiche with greens and zucchini, chicken/zucchini fajitas (tons-- everyone's invited for dinner). Sense a theme?

Further casualty of my wooziness, not counting the non-parallel grammar of these subheaders: I am not one of those knitting stash demons. When I read knitting blogs where people talk about all their stash yarn, I feel faintly green. Not with envy. I don't spend enough time knitting to load up on stuff for the future. The thought of having extra yarn fills me with guilt and horror and a subtle sense of morbid doom. In fact, I have only one impulse buy in my closet: The pretty greeny-yellowy hand-dyed silk from Lucy's yarn sale. Everything else is leftovers.

Well. Leftovers. Sales. I'm a frugal gal in many ways, and I'm already thinking (with dread) of the half-ball of forest-green Regia I'll have left after the current socks. So when I saw this green-etc. Regia yarn in a sale bin, 25% off, well. We've discovered my Achilles's heel.



(Note cardi start to the left.)

Wooziness! I now have two-thirds of a green Regia sock to knit; a self-patterned green-etc. pair of Regia socks to knit, and since the yarn's self-patterned I'll have to use a plain pattern that will bore me silly (did I mention that the cardi starts with 8" of K2-P2 rib?); and some future, imaginary pair of socks that somehow uses up all the Regia leftovers without forcing me to sew in ends every other night. I feel ill now in more ways than one.

Good thing I quit hating that yarn. Maybe I should take kitty's advice and just sleep on things for a night.

Standing in the path of an oncoming cold

Think I should give up the standard-issue ambition and open a quirky café specializing in greens and baked goods? Maybe in, like, Athens or Asheville. Or even western Mass.

p.s. At least feeling lousy gives me a decent excuse to watch both Iron Chef and the Miss Universe pageant.

Panic: It's what's for dinner

Thursday. Yesterday (Friday) I had something coherent and entertaining to say about Thursday. Now I'm just in a post-panic, pre-panic freeze in which I constantly think I have to work but then wonder what, exactly, I need to accomplish.

Well, two things are clear: Monday I need to have three Somerville news briefs written, and Tuesday is five-page day.

Thursday I had lunch at el Globo and met my current editor in the flesh for the first time. (She's edited my work since December.) We discussed my upcoming month-plus as the Somerville correspondent. I then returned to my day-job desk, relaxed and confident and ready to do lots of day-job stuff.

Panic. Suddenly I stared at the computer and realized that I had to turn in my first three news briefs by Monday. And City Hall closes at noon on summer Fridays. And did I mention that there's not exactly a ton of news in Somerville in the summer?

I work on articles all the time, but I'm not accustomed to having to find them all in one town. Nor to finding four ideas at once, even if three warrant only a hundred-word summary.

So. Four hours of frantic emailing, an hour of commuting, and two hours of Somerville city meeting later, I came home and collapsed on the couch. (Psst: If you know any news items coming up in the next month, please post a comment. It helps if there's an event that gives me a reason to write about the topic.)

Right now I'm not panicked because I found a news item this morning, wrote potentially three pages, and, um, just drank beer while walking my neighbors' baby.

- Almost done rereading Still Life, my favorite book.
- Set to buy #1 needles tomorrow so I can start the cardi on new-moon Monday, as per Patience's witchy dictum. (Lucy says that Patience has knit an entire sweater on #1s. Someone lend me her strength.)

Time to make greens-etc. quiche. You know how you can tell you might eat too much yogurt?



Granted only one of those containers currently holds yogurt, but c'mon. Check out that 'ware stash.

Oh! What else is for dinner?




Beet bread. Trust me, that crust is pink and those flakes are red. The (invented) recipe needs some tweaks, but I'm definitely on to something.

Who am I, and what have I done with my pants?

First the a/c. Now I find that I have decided to start getting around via bicycle. Despite my stark terror re. bicycling in the city. Ever realize that you've already made a decision before you even started thinking about a subject? I haven't surprised myself this much since I suddenly found myself gripped with the desire to get a pedicure last June.

Cute sweater, eh? If my knitting reach didn't completely exceed my grasp, I'd put it on the project list. Since I am not only short on time to knit but evidently absent-minded enough to screw up a sock cable so thoroughly that I had to rip out three cable repeats, I'm thinking waaaaaaay ahead to holiday presents. For people who will feel awkward because they didn't get me anything. And I'll have to explain that it's not about them; it's about me. I wanted to knit. They just happened to suit a project I liked. So... Jeff the Web Guy, if you're reading this please click down to the baseball content...

anyone have an idea for an incredibly geeky bleeding-edge tech slogan? It must be a two-word phrase, ideally four letters per word but three or five could also work if necessary. Yes, I wanna make knucks, which have already been pimped on some geek site and therefore noticed by JTWG. So far all I can think of is "CSS 4EVA," which just isn't sufficiently bloody. It's too bad "OPEN SOURCE" doesn't fit.

- If I stop typing and start leaving, I can squeeze in 50 minutes or so at the new Davis Sq. SnB. (Odd thing is that after two weeks of posts organizing this SnB, someone chimed in today mentioning that an Allston group moved to Davis Sq. on Tuesdays. Maybe she was on vacation?) Something about Spark gives me the willies-- the fancy-stroller, Educational DVDs, what-would-be-Park-Slope-in-NY mom willies. And the place opened a ten-minute walk from my usual yarn store. But maybe it'll just be a quirky, hole-in-the-knees* crafty place like some of the local arts stuff.

* That is supposed to refer to jeans. My brain's a tad over-medium.
p.s. I haven't made it to Spark yet. I'm talking about my perceptions from the magazine articles.

My, how easy would it be to get from my house to there to my yoga class and back home if I had a bike?

- I hit page 500 in IJ and remembered that something bad happens to my favorite character. And something bad also happens to my second-favorite character. And that the political stuff starts taking over in the second half in lieu of all the reams of AA stuff (really WAY unnecessarily much AA stuff) that I like in part one. So I have laid the book down for a night or two to regroup and quietly mourn the death of my hopes for the characters before I continue reading.

Oh, I knocked off Fun House in less than two hours. Kate's right: When comics have words, you speed through. I don't think I paid enough attention to the drawings. Speaking of Bechdel, Powells.com has a mildly fascinating video (.mpg link) showing Bechdel's unusual (?) drawing method.

- More about The Novel (so portentious!) some other time. I'm wondering how long I have to wait before I contact Frank Bruni or Michael Pollan and beg them to tell me about the politics of Chilean sea bass. I'll have to force myself to sit on my figurative hands. Considering I'm on page 5 and the sea bass won't show up until page 150 at the earliest. Can I possibly imagine writing 150 pages of fiction?

Baseball Content

I forgot that the Sox had a day game today. But I share with you, probably bogging copyright, the hilarity that is Surviving Grady.

... But I find it a bit concerning that the worst team in baseball has held us to a paltry six runs over 18 innings. Dudes, these are the Kansas City Royals. I don't want to see them leave town without us securing at least one apocalyptic blow-out under our belts. I'm talking Ortiz coming on to the field in those rasslin' shorts worn by The Junkyard Dog (you know, the ones with the word "thump" written across the ass) and pile-driving the pitcher before effortlessly tossing him into left field. Or a shirtless, red-eyed Mike Timlin chasing Brandon Duckworth with an oversized mallet. Or Terry Francona in a spiked collar and "Anarchy in the UK" T-shirt, flicking lit cigarettes at Buddy Bell. I want Esteban German tied to a stake in the outfield and Joey Gathright running frantically from a John Deere tractor driven by Trot Nixon. I want screams of pain and terror coming from the visitors dugout and Angel Berroa simply flopping to his knees a la Charlton Heston in the final scene of Planet of the Apes, pounding his fists in the sand and begging for the Royals jet to transport him and his compadres back to the cozy confines of Kauffman Stadium.


Awesome.

I leave you with a Thought from Kate(TM) after she received an unnecessarily unpleasant rejection slip:

"If you can't say anything nice, BITCH, don't say anything at all."

I caved

So stubborn, I was. Wrote in short-shorts sweat-glued to the couch yesterday, idly wondering how one might get salt-ring stains out of upholstery. (Um, any advice?) Waited for a bus for forty minutes this morning rather than walk to the T in the sun. "Hmm," thunk I to myself. "Is there any chance, any chance at all, that you might be cutting off your nose to spite your face... for no reason whatsoever?" Nah.

As I plowed through the blankets of hot air outside this evening, Doug called. Said he and Alison were just thinking about me and how sweltering I must be. Did I want to come over and pick up that a/c they're not using? Oh thanks, thanks, I was just thinking about that-- but I have to work tonight and I'm busy the next two nights, so is it okay if I come by Thursday?

Came inside. Noticed that the digital thermostat didn't seem to have any temperature reading at all. Though if I filled in those strangely broken digital lines, it might read... well... 00 or 02. Gamely opened all the windows and turned up the fans I'd left on all day. Made a sandwich. Ate that, iced tea, a cold beer, and spicy marinated cucumbers. On the couch. In the dark. Don't want to heat up the house by turning the light on, though it is awful hard to read the Sunday paper this way and I can't say I exactly want to start working.... Hey, the thermostat's down to 95!



I called Doug. Asked, "Can I come over right now?"

How long do you think it'll take to get this room down to the low 80s? I tacked a beach towel and a sheet over the doorways. After nearly an hour, it's still 90 degrees (which is unbelievably cool compared to the kitchen and bedroom). Maybe I'm doing this air-conditioner thing wrong.

Speaking of doing things wrong, I don't know how on earth I got the gauge measurements I think I got, because look at these swatches (excusing terrible indoor photography).



Should I just start the cardi on tiny needles already and quit trying to find some way out?

p.s. Kitty is so happy to finally have a cooler living room that she is... hanging out in the kitchen.

(Drop-)Deadline

Nothing like a deadline to force you to get work done, right? I've dawdled on one particular article since January. Why? Because I had no deadline. (Also, I was overambitious and couldn't figure out how to fit my cloth to a pattern.)

In March, it reached the point where I felt too guilty about my delay to even look at the file. After all, I devoured a good five hours of these webcomic artists' time. It's like when you've owed a friend a phone call for so long that you're too embarrassed to call them, so then you feel worse because you owe them a call, and time keeps extending out and the longer it goes the more impossible it becomes for you to call them. Friendships end this way.

Well! I got me a doozy of a deadline. I won't even get paid, but I just have to publish the damn thing. Here's hoping the site stays up past July 31 so my article doesn't sink without a trace.

So here I am in my hot apartment beavering away at that plus two-three Globe stories plus that Novel. If you knew that it takes an hour to write a single double-spaced page, why didn't you tell me?

The rest of the list:

- Reswatch on #3s was awful hard to measure since lace has holes. Also I cast off too tightly. I seem to have hit the stitch gauge and overshot the row gauge. Unless a knitter advises me otherwise, I'm going to stick with the #3s, size XS, and just check the length to the best of my pre-blocked ability as I go. I don't like short sweaters anyway.

- I didn't get my farm share share until tonight due to my own organizational laziness, so earlier in the day I (gasp!) bought organic, local produce at the store. Adapted a Farmer John recipe: Sautéed tofu with kale stems, steamed kale leaves, zucchini, onions, garlic, ginger, tamari, sesame oil, and cayenne. Served on the remnants of the barley (frozen) from the stuffed zucchini.

Which means that I am... out of zucchini! Horrors. Fortunately, two more big'uns arrived today.

--
Postscript, 12:34 a.m. I finished the webcomics piece. I cannot believe it. I even made word count.

My oh my

"Almost Famous," indeed-- I'm in the background of Wednesday night's Liv Tyler/Bebe Buell paparazzi photo (eyes closed, laughing my ass off), which is currently on people.com and in the Globe gossip column. J.Po., lead singer of the Rudds, stands next to me. He got me into Bebe's private birthday party because he and two bandmates are backing her up for several gigs this summer. What you can't see in that photo, because photos don't talk, is the conversation at that moment between me and John-- who, I might add, pulled me into the background to make like American tourists when the flashbulbs started going off:

JP: I am so going to get fired from this gig.
DJD: Eh, we won't be in the final shot. I'm sure they'll cut out all the non-celebrities in the background.

I shall include a link to the image, but only because I like you enough to not make you search for it. Jeepers. I'm kinda embarrassed.

I met Jimmy Fallon using the simple tactic of going over to cadge some (sugary) birthday cake. He was amiable. And talked about personal trainers with some Hollywood/music skinny woman. Yawn. Perhaps the very rich and famous really are different from you and me.

So as you can now tell, I left town for two nights. Didn't report a preview due to the rather paranoid concern that maybe someone reading this (a) knows where I live and (b) isn't my friend and (c) is a thief. Fly-by-night visit to NYC making like I'm still a rock chick. For the first time in ages I didn't out-and-out hate NYC, though I did find it jarringly foreign. Walk out of your sister's apartment in Chelsea, woozy, breakfastless, tired, in need of coffee, and bang a wall of hundreds of rushing people slaps up against you like a sneak ocean wave.

I forgot that the Metro-North ticket machine dispenses dollar coins. I fed it a twenty and felt like a Canadian.



(Only cellphone photos, alas: I didn't want to lug around a camera.)

Wed. night celebrity bash-- well, two celebrities and a bunch of random skinny moths drawn to the flame. Thursday I stuck around to see my favorite band perform for free downtown.



You certainly can't tell from this picture, but God they were great. As usual.



The only problem is that I talked about my novel to the lead singer, and he'd like to hear about it, which means I actually have to start writing the damn thing. Plus my new novel-writing class is having us write five pages a week. Now might be the time to clarify that when I said I wanted to write a novel, I meant that I wanted to have written a novel.

Project progress, NYC:
- Reswatch, nearly done (with a @#$%ed pattern, but it's just for gauge).
- Second sock, four-five cable repeats finished.
- IJ, past page 400, though it might now get set aside so I can rip through Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun House. Boswell? Who's Boswell?

In which Lucy becomes famous

She couldn't possibly have anticipated that a Monday in July would be her best-selling day of the year. Enough vacationing! Get back to that dye pot!

- I have finished about one-fifth of Infinite Jest, assiduously dog-earing pages for Ryan's plan. (I didn't even touch a skein of yarn this weekend.) The book goes a lot faster the second time, since you don't have to puzzle out the political backdrop.

- When you have a farm share, you have to spend at least two, maybe three nights per week amalgamating it. Last night was the second for this week. Adapted from my new CSA cookbook: vegetarian stuffed zucchini (barley, parmesan, young onions, garlic scapes, zucchini insides); carrot-apricot muffins (brown sugar, half whole-wheat flour, walnuts, lemon zest, ginger). Also a green salad.

The zucchini turned out surprisingly delicious. The garlic scapes, I think, added a welcome lemony note. Next time I'll have to remember to add some lemon to compensate. (We won't get garlic scapes for much longer.)

(Sorry about the lack of pictures. I'm lazy.)

- The swatch. Watch the swatch. Or something like that.

Pattern gauge: 28 sts/44 rows = 4 inches in lace pattern after blocking (on #2s)
Swatch gauge: 31 sts/42 rows

What the hell am I supposed to do about that? I'll try #3s and hope they don't make the swatch too big. (btw, I don't think I'll have the option of making a smaller size on slightly larger needles, since according to the designer's measurements I already need the XS. wtf? I know many people who are smaller than I. Maybe I have a disproportionately short and narrow torso.)

- Hence... I have started cabling the second sock.

The problem around here is...

that nobody understands me. At work. They're nice people, but not bookheads. So when my brilliant musician/writer/artist friend Ryan came up with a hilariously fantastic idea about David Foster Wallace (author of Infinite Jest), no one in the office got it at all. I emailed Kate, but she wasn't on the spot to laugh. (I must keep this idea top-secret for the time being-- um, except for Kate.)

The problem around here may also be my blocked cardi swatch. We'll see when I get home. After tossing around the options, I have decided that not making gauge and having to reswatch on larger needles is preferable to making gauge and having to knit an entire cardigan on #1s and #2s. (For you non-knitters, a #1 needle is approximately the width of a toothpick.)

Another problem is that the lace pattern goes ridiculously wrong on the penultimate row. A knittyboarder offers a fix that didn't work for me. Maybe it'll straighten itself out in the full-sized garment. Or maybe I'll just have fun.

Yes, I'm complaining. Only where I come from we call it kvetching.

Recent menus: Zucchini bread (already?!); big green salad for the 4th, to use stuff up; sautéed beet greens (thumbs-up); Italianish chard with onions, parmesan, a few walnuts, and parsley-dill yogurt sauce. (I had to use up the special dressing from last week that was too thick to dress a green salad.) The chard I'm not so crazy about, since after eating yogurt for breakfast I don't want more for lunch.

Brief book report

I have started rereading Infinite Jest.

Because one book on that nightstand that's over 1100 pages long just wasn't enough.

Sparkly fresh (Anna, this one's for you)

At an Independence Day bbq, I got involved in an absorbing and lengthy conversation about housecleaning. Turns out my friend Shannon is a fount of knowledge re. natural cleaning supplies. Here, her recipes:

[start]
Kitchen, bath floor:
fill plastic cup with half cup sea salt, add 12 drops tea tree oil, put hand over cup & shake to mix, then put salts in bucket and dissolve in nice warm water. Use to mop or scrub. Keeps ants away, deodorizes, and has some disinfecting properties. You could also throw in a little grapefruit seed extract, which is an anti-fungal. You don't need bleach. Just use elbow grease.

Rest of house (walls, baseboards, floors):
do same routine with lavender oil. Very yummy, soothing, and good for you/house.

Kitchen counters:
I just dissolve a trace of dish liquid (there's a good one with pear extract that I found in the "natural aisle" at Shaw's), and use the sudsy warm liquid. Again, you could squeeze a little grapefruit seed extract in the mix, and even a little vinegar, if you have grease to cut through. Or you could use old lemons/limes, cut in half, and wipe counters with those first, and then wipe up with sudsy warm water.

Bathroom tub: use straight baking soda like comet. amazing

At the end of the cleansing, dump a little baking soda down all sinks. Wet with just a little water, and flush through w vinegar. Let sit 5 minutes, then flush through with water. AND/OR, if you have a garbage disposal, dump the used old citrus rinds you used on your counters down & grind 'em up.

Mmm.... happy house, happy body.

[/end]

Project Sharon H. and I should start

A blog chronicling the typos of the NY Times.

http://typosofthetimes.blogspot.com?

I'm going to reserve that right now.

Oh, the hubris.

Wonderful things about living in metro Boston

#307: You get to swim in Walden Pond. The famous literary pond is simply the nearest and best swimming hole. I barely think twice about its history now. (Note that the swimming area is nowhere near the cabin, but that doesn't make a difference. It's nearer than, say, Des Moines.)

#308: We currently have a mindblowingly awesome rookie closer



who this week (a) broke the Sox franchise record for most rookie saves, (b) "notched his 25th save of the season, the most ever for a rookie prior to the All-Star break" (espn.com), and (c) got voted to the All-Star team. He will be mine; oh yes, he will be mine.

Given the hours I spend watching/listening to Sox games, I really should add "baseball" to this blog's topics.

--
Cast on both the cardi swatch and the second sock last night. After midnight. (I wanted to try out the Knitsmiths group but fell asleep instead after three hours spent reporting in a sports field.) The third time I mucked up the lace pattern, I went back to the sock. Can't fall asleep on that pattern yet. In comparison, the sock felt smooth and easy. ?! Perhaps the problem wasn't splitty yarn. Perhaps the problem is splitty me. I kept splitting Lucy's merino?/tencel sock-weight yarn on the swatch. Argh.

Anyway, the sock is now established so I can safely leave it alone for a while.

Mom surprises me for a third time in just over a week

Remember the afghan? The one Mom wanted to knit out of pricey Manos del Uruguay yarn, which I figure felts the second it meets water? Well, option #2 was Cascade 220 superwash. Mom called and told me that the superwash only cost $30 less, and she loved the colors of the Manos, and in fact she'd have to use more colors in the Cascade to try to equal the richness of the Manos.... We batted the question back and forth for a while. I pointed out that machine-washable = good. She pointed out that this would be an heirloom, and I could always store the afghan in a closet when I'm not home. I agreed that yes, I could wash it in the tub. (Oog. Twenty pounds of wet afghan?)

Finally I told her to choose, absolutely confident that she would choose the ritzier option because, well, she always does.

Cascade 220 superwash!? Who are you, and what have you done with my mom? She decided that if the afghan got ruined by staining or washing she'd feel miserable. Ooookay!

Oh yeah, the baby sweater pattern is the "Buttons Cardigan" from Cabin Fever.

And now for a non-knitting topic so the non-knitters don't get bored. Spent a couple hours today at Laura and Nixie's assemblage/collage art opening. Laura has photos online. She uses a lot of Spanish-language tarot imagery; Nixie's shadowboxes place girly stuff alongside rusted medical equipment. I'm considering buying one of hers-- something about "becoming a woman," with cloth fall leaves, red fire paper, gloves, beads, and a picture of her mother as a girl. It would look great in my wee phone alcove. Besides, art by friends is extra-meaningful.

Thursday night farm-share menu: Salad (red leaf, mesclun mix, Kirby cucumbers), special dressing (yogurt, fresh parsley, lemon, fresh dill), pizza (whole-wheat homemade dough, browned browned summer squash, sautéed white part of scallions, goat cheese, parmesan).

Cotton kills

One pima/tencel baby sweater, with added intarsia to hold my interest and drive me up the wall:





It behaved a little oddly when it hit the water. See the variegation?



And the yarn was equally wet all over. Hmm. See also the slight...



lack of color-fastness. (Is there a word for that? Besides "bleeding"?) Hey, while we're at it-- know what else is odd? The quantity of liquid that leaches out when you drain yogurt. This here is half the eventual amount:



Anyway, the sweater. It's a good thing I skipped my friend's baby shower, because there was no way I could have finished the sweater Sunday morning. Six ends per star, plus I had to futz in some duplicate stitch to finish the points and valleys. Plus I had to visit two places to find red Velcro and buttons, and then (a) sew on the buttons, (b) dab some hot glue on the back of the buttons to ensure that the baby won't pluck them off and choke (I hope you can machine-wash hot glue), (c) sew in the Velcro, (d) rip out two of the Velcro patches and redo them after I remembered that straight pins exist for a reason.

I finished the ends at the Peet's knitting group Tuesday, then set me down at, oh, eleven to start the fasteners. Yes, another two a.m. night. Someone suggested that I buy embroidery thread for the buttons, but no-- once I started, damn it, I was going to finish the thing. Even though I had to get to work early Wednesday and spend nearly ten hours personing a conference pubs table. (Just call me Danielle the Grouch.)

I actually washed and blocked the sweater after the Velcro (at 2 a.m.) solely to keep myself from bringing it to the conference and somehow trying to scare up baby wrapping paper. Instead I brought the sweater in on Friday (still no wrapping paper). Work friend MIA. I called her, just in case she was in the hospital having a baby. Nope. Home with prenatal sciatica.

Sock: Between smiling at people and explaining our wares at the conference, I finished the decrease and all but four stitches of the worst grafting job ever. Later I noticed that those stitches had fallen off the needles. How much do you want to bet that this sock is going to find a way, on the last four stitches, to sic me with yet another miserable slippery four-rows-back dropped-stitch repair job?

I'm not even looking at the thing until I have time to cast on sock #2 and knit five rows. Second-sock syndrome, I will stare you down.

--
Also, one microchipped cat:


... I won't torture her by sticking a camera in her face; she has to endure both a vet visit and an overnight guest this weekend. Plus she put up with a lot of extra carrying around while I intervened in a very disturbing relationship abuse situation at the vet's.

To cheer me up, let's look at pictures of last week's luscious cobbler!



Six pints of berries, folks. Even at Market Basket, that's fifteen bucks.



Worth every cent.