kmkat and her kneedles

Saturday chuckles.

You know that person who forwards every damned chain letter and e-mail joke that crosses her monitor? The one sometimes sends you racist forwards about how we should send all those &$%# immigrants back to wherever they came from and how everyone should speak English, dammit, never mind that every one of our grand- or great-grandparents didn't necessarily speak English, either?

It is worth it to open her e-mails because sometimes she sends pure gold. Which I will share with you. Because I'm generous like that.

All of you have probably seen some of these, but none of you have seen all of these. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linkety-schminkety.

• A newly-discovered-by-me blog that cracks me up on a regular basis. Here's an little taste.


• Food for thought.


• Blood from a stone; special IRS form for free-lancers.


• Feminine product ad cliches.


• A famous quote from the late Douglas Adams about the nature of progress and inventions:
  
  1. Everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;
  2. Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;
  3. Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.


• My book group read The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver this month. Since I already had the audiobook on my iPod, I decided to listen to it rather than request the hardcover from the library. I started several weeks in advance -- plenty of time, I thought. But a few days before my group would meet, I realized that the book was not 8 but 16 CDs long (I had ripped the CD version from the library to my iTunes (and deleted it after I finished)). Mild panic ensued and I started listening at every available moment. It was nip and tuck whether I would finish in time. On the day of book group, when I had 4 CDs worth to go I remembered that the iPod offers the choice to listen to an audiobook at normal, slower, or faster speed. So I listened to the last few hours of the book at faster speed. Kinda like reading really, really fast...


• I finished the second sleeve of the multicolor striped top-down raglan. Then I frogged the cuff of the first one and am re-knitting it to match the second. Photo essay maybe tomorrow on the cleverness of the cuff.

Because I know you wanted to know.

Found at greatwhitesnark.com via boingboing.net.

Crow drama.

The scene.

A crow arrives.

Slowly they gather.

Anybody else coming?

Apparently crow #2 found a better branch. Good stuff under this bark, mate!

No matter how tasty the bugs are, the wise crow keeps its eyes open.

Sometimes it is enough to know your buddy has your back.

But when your lookout buddy leaves, it is probably time for  you to go, too.

The End.

A walk in springtime.

Sunday was a gorgeous day here, sunny and warm with a tiny breeze.  I knitted in the porch for the first time this year, even had the window open.

But before that I went for a short walk. Luckily, I had my camera along.

The round-lobed hepatica are in full bloom. Meet my latest wallpaper:

 

These little pretties are the first wildflower to bloom in the spring here, usually before anything else is green on the forest floor. They vary from white through lavender to nearly purple. I saw tons of them yesterday.

I didn't investigate this yellow flower -- it was off the road and up a hill (yay for 6x zoom and cropping!) but it looks to me like a yellow violet.

The odd thing is that the wild yellow violets do not bloom until after the wild purple violets, and those generally bloom in early June. They have barely shown their leaves yet. Further investigation is needed, as much as I dislike walking over rough ground.

Some kind of club moss, I think:

 

Partridge berries and more hepaticas:

 

Partridge berry is a low-growing ground cover whose red berries persist over the winter. They are edible but not palatable to humans (I tested this myself). The hill behind the house used to be covered with mats of partridge berry and club moss, but we lost most of it when we had to put in the new septic tank and drain field. :( 

All of that is a far cry from this, found last January somewhere on a bike forum:

 

That is not my boy but easily could be -- he has the face mask and helmet and headlamp and has biked over that bridge in Minneapolis many times.

I think I prefer the wildflowers of spring...

* * * * *

Perhaps you are curious as to what I was knitting on the porch? It was a potholder to be felted and added to the stash of stuff for sale at the Friends of the Polk County Libraries booth at local festivals this summer.

 

You get the artsy shot because there are all sorts of wonky stitches and ends not fully woven in (you can see one of the ends in the photo). Given that it will be felted I didn't worry about such details.

As you can see this uses the log cabin pattern; after the initial square of 10 garter ridges, work 5 ridges, bind off, pick up stitches along the next edge, rinse and repeat. Simple, eh? I am ashamed to tell you it took me four (4!) tries to get it right. Actually reading the pattern instead of just skimming it made the difference.

40 days and 40 nights. Mememe.

1. Do you like bleu cheese? Love it. I live in Wisconsin; there is no cheese I won't eat.
2. Have you ever smoked? 1969 - 1974. Not since.
3. Do you own a gun? A .22 that was my dad's and was the gun I used for rifle training in sixth grade. Also a couple antique-ish shotguns/rifles, don't remember which. Dad was a hunter and kind of a collector. I think he had 8 long guns (no hand guns). The rest went to my cousin, a favorite of Dad's and also a hunter.
4. Favorite type of food? Edible is good. Chocolate is mandatory. Anything with garlic and/or shellfish is good. Gravy. Mashed potatoes. Mexican, Italian, Thai. Very rare steak. At a traditional meal I tend to eat my vegetables first, don't know why.
5. Favorite type of music? Hard rock. Other rock. World. Classical.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? Good right off the grill. Otherwise, meh.
7. Favorite Christmas movie? Love Actually.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? A glass of fresh orange juice and a 4-shot grande latte.
9. Can you do push ups? Have never been able to except once in a dance class, age late 20s. We were doing swing-through push-ups with coordinated breathing, and I did one, no problem. Totally amazed myself. Had never done one before, haven't done one since.
10. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? Opal engagement ring. I lost the original about 15 years ago and have replaced and subsequently lost it twice. Time to replace it again.
11. Favorite hobby? Three faves: reading, knitting, surfing the web. (Sorry, I don't do non-compulsory rules very well.)
12. Do you have A.D.D.? Nope, but Smokey and #2 son do, so I am can recognize it at 100 paces.
13. Do you wear glasses/contacts? Yes to both.
14. Middle name? Marjory, after my mother.
15. Name three thoughts at this exact moment: I wonder where I put my iPod? I need to find my iPod so I can finish listening to the book for Monday night book club. If I can't find my iPod should I go to book club anyway?
16. Name three drinks you regularly drink: Water, coffee, beer, wine. (See "compulsory rules", above.)
17. Current worry? Sustainability in everything -- energy, food, economy, etc.
18. Current hate right now? People who lie to win elections.
19. Favorite place to be? Right here.
20. How did you bring in the new year? Asleep in my bed.
21. Someplace you’d like to go? Tahiti, the Louvre, Italy, Greece.
22. Name three people who will complete this.
23. Do you own slippers? No, but I need to make some for myself to wear when I go to knitting group at others' houses.
24. What color shirt are you wearing? Red.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Have never done it so I don't know.
26. Can you whistle? Yup. My mother gave me a really, really hard time when I was a kid trying to learn. "A whistling girl and a crowing hen / Are sure to come to some bad end."
27. Where are you now? In my home office.
28. Would you be a pirate? Nope, too much of a coward and law-abiding.
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? Whatever earworm is currently occupying my brain, typically some pop song from the past 30 years.
30. Favorite Girl’s Name? Kathryn (yeah, that's MY name).
31. Favorite boy’s name? Don't have one, but when I was growing up I loved the name James.
32. What is in your pocket right now? Nothing.
33. Last thing that made you laugh? No idea. I laugh way too often to keep track.
34. What vehicle do you drive? 1998 Isuzu Oasis (think Honda Odyssey; they were made in the same factory and are identical except for the name on the outside).
35. Worst injury you’ve ever had?That broken ankle in 2008.
36. Do you love where you live? Absolutely. Smokey and I both give thanks to our luck several times a week that we are fortunate enough to live on a clean lake in the woods in a beautiful rural area.
37. How many TVs do you have in your house? Don't know. There is the one we watch. There may be others hidden in storage areas.
38. How many computers do you have in your house? Don't know. In use are two desktops and a netbook. Smokey's laptop died last week. He has at least half-a-dozen to-be-rehabilitated laptops.
39. If you changed your job, what would it be? Empress of the Universe as long as it was a part-time position.
40. If you had three wishes what would they be? That each of my boys finds a good woman to spend his life with, that Andrew makes it through med school without a nervous breakdown, and that Smokey's and my health maintains. Yeah, that's probably more than three. Whatever. I'm greedy.

* * * * *

And now a public service announcement.

Thanks to Heather for tweeting this.

Busybusybusy.

Woo boy, it is good that things have slowed down. It has been rather a frantic two weeks.

Election. I was re-elected to my seat on the county board of supervisors by a landslide of 7 votes (out of 201 total votes). Taking a page from W's book: A mandate from the people!

Administrator. The county board of supervisors completed the first step of its multi-year reorganization of county government by hiring a county administrator. We have been a $50+ million enterprise without a CEO. The final pieces of this first step were taken last weekend when the four finalists for the job came to town. On Friday night there was a reception for the candidates, their spouses, certain department heads and spouses, and county board members and spouses; this was to allow us all to meet the candidates in a quasi-informal setting. On Saturday morning most of the board and certain department heads sat in on the formal interviews, which were conducted by the three supervisors on the selection committee. At the same time the candidates who were not being interviewed right then were either completing a writing exercise, getting a tour of the county campus with the sheriff, or being informally interviewed by another group of a dozen or so department heads and union representatives. All the employees who were involved presented their opinions on the candidates to the board; then the board met on Saturday afternoon in closed session to decide which candidate we wanted to hire. Offer and acceptance were made over the weekend.

Board meeting. Board met on Tuesday evening to confirm the employment contract.

Meetings. I had seven meetings, most of them for the county, and most of which overlapped with at least one other, on Wednesday of this past week -- 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Managed to attend every one long enough to do what had to be done. On Thursday I had a mere four obligations, once again mostly county, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.,  and met them all. The last one was knitting group -- perfect way to end that killer 2 days.

Taxes. Oh, yeah, our income taxes -- federal and two states -- were due on Thursday. Before I could do them I needed a place to work.

Desk before:
 

Desk ready for tax return work (those two piles are all county board stuff; tax stuff is another pile, personal stuff is a third fourth pile:

I spent 11 hours last Sunday doing the majority of the tax work, finished the rest here and there during the week, and had Smokey mail the returns on Thursday. One payment and two refunds later we are out $26, which I consider to be pin-point tax planning.

Desk today (damn!):

Sleep. I spent most of Friday sleeping. Sleep is good.

Word clouds.

This is my last post:

 

Here is the blog:

 

Make your own clouds here .

Whew.

Election results were posted at about 10:30 p.m. I squeaked past my opponent by 7 votes, 101 to 94.

There are 23 seats on the county board; 9* 14 candidates were unopposed. Of the 14* 9 seats that were up in the air, 2 went the *wrong* way, imho, and the rest are okay with me. 

Our county has suffered with >50% turnover in supervisors every 2 years since 2002. The previous board voted to sell bonds to build a new justice center and invoked the wrath of the voters, and the Tea Partiers won 5 or so seats. I think this turnover trend is ending, thankfully; it put us 8 - 10 years behind the curve on what we should have been accomplishing to move the county forward. In this election only 5 seats turned over, and the winner of one of those had been on the board before for a couple terms. Given that it takes a good 6 - 12 months or longer to really be an effective supervisor, the experience that this new board has will be all to the good.

I am a (mostly) happy camper tonight. Very sad about the two seats that went the wrong way, but happy with most of the endings.

* Oops. Thanks for Jeff for correcting me.

I wanna be elected.

Today is (county and village) election day here in Wisconsin.

And if that song sound vaguely familiar, it might be because of this:

Happy Egg Day!

Found at disapprovingrabbits.com.