kmkat and her kneedles

Ladies and gentlemen, we have lace.

Sometimes a weekend flies by and I don't even know where it went. This weekend, however, was a treat and a delight. Well, Sunday was a treat and a delight, and Saturday was greatly improved by the 12 hours of sleep I got Friday night.

I'm in a little lull at work right now; the madness that was the past month and a half has largely finished (27 huge partnership returns, plus another 15 amended returns for some of them; all of them feed into about a gazillion other returns, many of them trusts, which in turn feed into a minigazillion more returns -- so everyone and his Aunt Nellie were breathing down our necks, "Aretheydoneyet? Aretheydoneyet?") and the next round (the minigazillion trusts) hasn't started, so I was able to take Sunday off.

Sunday was a bee-yoo-ti-ful day in the Midwest. Warmish and sunny, at least for the first half, no rain. People were out walking their dogs and taking their children on tricycle adventures. Me, I slept in. Ahhhh!

At noon I hit Needlework Unlimited to purchase a #3 Addi Lace 32" circ. The lady there was nice enough to wind up my second skein of the Malabrigo laceweight after I explained to her that my swift and ball winder were 75 miles away. Then a stop at Starbucks for some high-test caffeinated goodness and I was ready to cast on.

The knitting scene:

 

The dogs kept me company. They like being outside, watching other dogs go by (::whimper:: ::squeak:: Please, oh, pleasepleaseplease, can I go play with that dog? That dogs looks like the nicest dog in the world!) and generally admiring the day.

  

I cast on. I knitted and I purled and I yarn-overed.

 

 

And I frogged.

::rinse and repeat::

Eventually I got past the first eight rows and got into the chart! See how far I am?

 

Yeah, one row. At one point I did get as far as having five crossed off, but my success was short-lived. Damn, there are the wrong number of stitches between the markers! Again!

I cannot tell you how many times I knit the first dozen or so rows of Icarus. It turns out, as I knew all along, that the key to lace knitting is to 1, count, and B, pay attention.

Guess what? Those are the two things I have trouble with in knitting: 1, counting and B, paying attention. The pattern is perfectly clear, The charts are mind-bogglingly simple. But it is still necessary to count. And pay attention. The problem was 100% user error.

By 8 o'clock Sunday night I had achieved this:

Actually, I did eventually end up with about 1-1/2 inches of perfect lace, but I didn't want to jinx it by taking a photo. So you will just have to trust me that perseverance did pay off and I did memorize the pattern and I did in fact knit it. Perfectly. As long as I paid attention. And counted. I am ashamed to tell you that the highest I ever needed to count was three. It was rather more difficult than it sounds.

The Malabrigo has mild objections to being frogged. It doesn't seem to mind tinking quite so much, but the first yard or so of my gorgeous laceweight is looking a little... fuzzier than the rest. Now, I can frog with the best of them. I have frogged Kid Silk Haze, fer cryin' out loud. Repeatedly -- I didn't want to waste a precious inch of that stuff. But the Malabrigo didn't like parting from itself once it got looped into a stitch. So when the stitch count got wonky, I tinked.

And tinked again.

Although I have been known to surreptitiously increase or decrease to make a stitch count work out, or to resort to the ol' trotting (or galloping) horse theory of rationalization, I am inordinately proud to say that I did not cheat even once on this lace. I knew that once I got into the main chart and got going I'd be able to memorize the pattern and find my rhythm. It did seem to happen -- eventually -- although every damned stitch and row in that 1-1/2 inches of lace has been knit at least three times.

* * * * *

A found a couple signs of impending spring while I was knitting outside. Look what is growing! No, not the trowel, that has been there since last fall, the TULIPS!

 

 

Here's a view of my sweet knitting spot this morning:

 

Another 10" predicted. Sheesh, enough with the snow already!

Contests: to get and to give.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Chris, I saw last week that Purling Dervish was having a contest. Off I went to enter, and lo-and-behold, a few days later I got a congratulatory e-mail from Stacy, the Dervish herself. I won! W00t!

Tonight I was heating myself a little dinner in the microwave tucked into the corner of our department -- there is a very nice break room downstairs with tables and banquettes and vending machines and lots of microwaves and a toaster and a toaster oven, but I use my eating time to commune with y'all, so I tend to eat at my desk -- and while my dinner heated (Kashi Chicken Florentine and a bowl of cream of chicken Florentine; sensing a theme here?) I checked the nearby file drawer to see if I had any mail. Wowzers, there was a package for me!

It was soft and squishy -- whatever could it be? Well, I kind of knew because Stacy had said when she posted the contest what the prize would be. Work with me here, 'kay? (The suspense builds.)

Whatever it is, the inner wrappings coordinate well with an individual tax file. Good thing I wasn't working on a partnership return; those files are blue. Or a gift tax return -- those are bright yellow. Horrors! (Suspense builds.)

Could it be.. yarn? (Suspense reaches unbearable level.)

Why, yes! It could be!

And this is not just any yarn. This is Malabrigo 100% merino laceweight. Two (2!) 50-gram skeins. That's 940 yards, folks. Enough to do some serious lace damage.

Now, I am not a lace knitter. I have attempted a few easy lace patterns in the past with less than stellar results. All attempts were frogged after a couple inches. But some say that the key to success in learning something new is to do it with a yarn or fiber that you love.

If so, look out lace -- here I come!

* * * * *

In the interval since I wrote the above, Things Have Progressed. Nora is hosting a shawl KAL. She blogged about it for several days, agonized over her choices, solicited input from her readers as to what shawl she should knit. In the process of reading about it Thursday night I got snagged, er, hooked. The Icarus pattern has been googled, purchased, downloaded, printed, and currently resides in my knitting bag. Icarus is mostly stockinette, with regular columns of k2togs and yos; the *real* lace doesn't come until the end, when I will be ready for it. I hope.

My swift and ballwinder are at the house in Wisconsin, so I sent one skein of the Malabrigo with #2 son, who is going there this weekend with his girlfriend (also a knitter, can he pick 'em or what?) Their assignment is to wind the laceweight into a ball, firm but not too tight, don't wind too fast or the ball will fly off the ball winder, be careful a strand doesn't slip off the winding platform and get tangled in the gears. Can they do it (the winding)? Can I do it (the lace)? Stay tuned.

* * * * *

I had a contest here myself a couple weeks ago. Remember this picture? Now it has a caption.

"I have six stitch markers, the fifth dpn, and the remote. You gotta problem with that?"

Congratulations to Sheepish Annie! Chris and I each picked our own several favorites, then I chose the winner from the overlap.

I know that Annie is a lace knitter, but guess what? That Malabrigo is all mine. Sheepie, you are getting something else (bwahahaha). I already know what the non-fiber, non-chocolate bit will be.

Thanks to everyone who sent funny captions. To be brutally honest, I had an ulterior motive in staging this particular contest: I wanted to entice people to send me things that would make me smile or chuckle or gigglesnort or laugh out loud during this, a rather stressful time of year for me. Last year I just came out and begged. This year I was sneakier.

* * * * *

Now, for your amusement I give you my winning entry in Purling Dervish's contest. First the set-up:

I know, you’re all here for the contest portion of this post. Recently, the possibility of not returning to my current position due to the floppy paw has been brought up. Something about being in front of a computer for 9 hours a day not being conducive to having full use of my arm. I was asked “Have you thought about what job you would do if you couldn’t go back to what you were doing?”

::: blink, blink ::::

::: deafening silence :::::

I hadn’t even considered that. Not on my radar at all. My thoughts were: Doctor fix. Do PT. All better! Return to my job. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

Apparently not.

So the contest… give me an answer. What job could I do? or What job would you do? Don’t worry about education or talent requirements. No answer is too silly or too serious. It just can’t be sitting in front of and using a computer all day.

To get you all started, the first two that came to my mind are:

1. phone sex operator
2. pastor

No, I do not have issues, why do you ask?

Here’s a review:

• Post your answer to the question “What job could I do?” or “What job would you do?” .
• Let me know if you only knit or if you knit and spin. (I kept typing sit and spin)
• Random number generator will pick three lucky winners.
• I may even throw in a special prize if you make me pee my pants .

I guess her pants landed in the laundry that night because I won the Big PIMPing Prize. And here it is, the pee-pimpin' comment that won the Malabrigo:

Theoretical physicist*
Ethicist
Economist
Philosopher

The common factor among these, of course, is that those people don’t really DO anything. They read a lot, they think a lot more, and then they talk. Endlessly. The floppy paw thing? No problemo, dude.

My personal choice would be Empress of the Universe. But I would hire others to make all the decisions I didn’t want to be bothered with and to enforce my decisions on the important stuff: what sodas to have in the vending machine, what the chef should make for dinner tonight, what to knit next. You know, the important stuff.

* I have been listening to a biography of Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist to end all theoretical physicists. (He specialized in thought experiments.) And I've always been fascinated by non-Newtonian physics, although I will freely admit I don't really grok it. See the quotation visible in the first photo, above.

Eye candy Friday: the spring-is-just-around-the-corner edition.

What's that in the tree? I can't quite make it out.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

This guy was singing his little birdie heart out Wednesday morning when I went to work. His whistle was so clear and loud it seemed to echo among the houses on our street, so it took me a while to figure out where he was. Turned out he was perched in this huge cottonwood in our next door neighbor's back yard.

The sunlight was hitting him just right when I first spotted him -- he looked like a flash of fire in the tree. As I dove for my camera, a mom was walking her kid to the school bus stop and that freaked him out enough that he moved to a different branch. Damn.

But he was still sufficiently gorgeous that he should have no trouble charming some cute little female cardinal into his nest. Love is in the air. Spring must be near.

Good-bye, Mr. Hassler.

One of the best people in the world died last week. His funeral was today. (At that link there are links to a number of obituaries, from newspapers in Brainerd, MN, to the New York Times.)

He was the 12th grade English teacher in my high school but departed to teach at Brainerd Junior College before I got to his class. Everyone loved him, as is evidenced by the comments from former students at the guest book linked from the site linked about.

His books are wonderful, in the same vein as those by Richard Russo -- small-town life, with all its quirks and humor and occasional darkness. Staggerford, his first novel, featured a couple things straight out of my high school: a cafeteria situated in the basement and a forbidding librarian*.

* I started to type, "Mary Kropp, where are you now?" But instead I decided to google her, just out of curiosity. Amazingly, I found her. She died in 2001 at the age of 93. I guess the mean ones live longest.

She may have been a wonderful person to her friends and family and colleagues, but among the students she was feared mightily. Unlike Mr. Hassler.

Knitting. It's everywhere.

So there I was a few weeks ago, sitting in my cubicle, crunching numbers and revamping spreadsheets and doing all that magic stuff I do, when I overhear some words that sound familiar.

Knitting.

Felting.

Ooooh, pretty.

So I scurry into the cube next to me to see what's happening.



Margaret, the administrative assistant who toils in that next cube, is also a knitter. She recently made herself some felted slippers and brought them into the office for another admin to take home and felt in her top-loader. This was the show-and-tell after felting.

I love the colors of these. I have been fond of purple and red together since my gardening period, long before those crazy Red Hat ladies got hold of them.

Here's Margaret -- rightfully proud -- in her natural habitat.

Margaret has since made another pair of felted clogs in two tones of blue. Go, Margaret!

Random Wednesday.

F is also for famous, which is how I am feeling right now. Check out my picture, right next to Dale-Harriet's, over at Franklin's post about his Yellow Dog photo shoot.

* * * * *

We got some snow yesterday. This is around the corner and up the block from my house.

 

It was several inches of heavy, wet snow that made all the trees and bushes very pretty.

Some people are just too darned conscientious for their own good. These folks had already shoveled their sidewalk by 8 a.m. Don't they know it's gonna melt almost immediately? Or at least by June?

 

Across the street, Linus was looking a little... bedraggled.

 

Downtown, we have people to take care of these things. Wouldn't want anyone to get their Ferragamos wet.

  

Don't you love how I take pictures through the windshield? While driving. Not to worry; I didn't hit anything. Yet.

* * * * *

Observed at the office:

 

* * * * *

Last week I bought some daffodils from the the Cancer Society to brighten up my cube.

 

Knowing how fast they open, I thought it would be fun to photograph them every hour and make a blog post about it.

 

 

Hmm. It's a slow game.

 

Not a lot happening.

 

Okay, I guess they are opening. A little.

 

Ya wanna see the high-tech tripod I devised so I'd always get the same angle on the shot?

 

Upside-down glass on top of a pile of notepads, camera on top of the glass. Yeah, I know. I'm a genius.

 

Jumping ahead...

   

   

Did you notice how I put the digital clock in there now, so you can tell that an hour has elapsed? Genius, I tell you.

   

   

Yeah, I was getting bored, too. They seemed to be going pretty much directly from barely open to... dead.

 

* * * * *

Matthew's joke. (You have to imagine him saying these things)

 

"So, what's happenin'? Where's the action tonight?"

(scuffle, scuffle, whisper, whisper)

 

"Police! You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say..." etc.

Knitting fun, kitties, and kontest(s).

Don't panic, you are in the right place. I repainted the walls here at Le Blog du Chat (no, I don't speak French -- how could you tell?) That brownish-orange at the sides is the same color as the walls of my office at home, the home on the lake that I haven't seen ::sob:: in about ten years. The new theme reminds me of home. [/pity party]

* * * * *

A couple weeks ago I joined Chris and Jeanne for their regular Wednesday night knitting. Cursing Mama was there, too, but Deb was home nursing a sick husband. I could tell you about the wine and what everyone was knitting and what we giggled about, but I know what you are all really interested in: kmkat got to meet Chaos! and Mayhem!

Yes, it's true, I did. And I am going to reveal the dark truth about those two famous black felines. They may be extremely fond of Chris, but they have a deep distrust of strangers, even strangers bearing yarn and Addis.

Chaos kept a watchful eye on me from the top of the cat tree.

 

His gaze was the pure definition of baleful.

I swear I got multiple pictures of May, too, but they have mysteriously disappeared from my camera. I think my batteries were failing; or maybe it was May's magical powers of disappearance, I don't know.

When I first arrived, May came to investigate me. Being well-versed in the manners of cats, I held out my hand and let her sniff me thoroughly. Once that ritual was played out, she deigned to let me scratch her under the chin and pet her, much to Chris and Jeanne's surprise. Apparently May is generally not that tolerant of strangers offering affection.

Then I broke the the unwritten rule -- I picked her up. She let me know, albeit very politely and without claws or teeth or any unnecessary violence, really, that she didn't care to be picked up and would I pleasepleaseplease put her down Right Now? So I did.

She was very interested in my knitting and Addis all evening, though. Luckily for me, Chris is attentive to Mayhem's destructive interest in such things (nom, nom! snickety snick! tooth marks on the Addis! yarn now in multiple pieces!) and warned me (repeatedly; I was all oblivious to the danger lurking at my elbow) when she got too close.

* * * * *

 

Awhile back I won one of Jeanne's prizes for knitting preemie caps. She brought these prizerly goodies to our knit night for me. (Not Tabby; she's been mine since 1992.) Jeanne gave me some fine chocolate (yeah, like there is any other kind) and a wonderful Debbie Bliss book. Can you tell which one of those two chocolate wrappers is actually empty? Didn't think so. I'm soooooo sneaky; I opened the milk chocolate one v-e-r-y carefully so I could recreate its original pristine-ness when I could take a photo. Thank you, Jeanne! and thank you for helping me not to break my no-yarn-in-2008 pledge.

* * * * *

Speaking of contests, it's about time for one here, don't you think? Take a gander at this photo and give me a caption. Yes, before you ask, that is Chaos under the ottoman and Chris* with the knitting.

 

Random number generators are fine and good, but for this one I'm gonna go all subjective and judgemental on you and pick the caption that makes me laugh until coffee comes out my nose. I may ask Chris's opinion, or I may not. I'm quirky that way.

You can put your entry in the comments, or, if you don't want any of your own personal inspiration leaking all over the other contestants, you may email it to me privately at antlerkat-typepad AT yahoo DOT com. Deadline is, um, midnight CDT, Friday, March 21. Prize TBD, but it will definitely include something fibery and something chocolatey. And maybe something furry and purring... the winner will just have to wait and be surprised.

*Chris thinks I either should have cropped out her entire face or left it all in. I like to think my half face crop is way oh so artsy-fartsy and creative and gives it a sense of immediacy and stuff. What say y'all?

F is for...

Franklin.

On Saturday I went to Yellow Dog Knits in Eau Claire.

It is a sweet little yarn shop, full of fibery fun and wonderful staff. It is where I met La Harlot back in 2006. I think there is a plaque somewhere.

Saturday I met another famous knit blogger. And photographer.

He was as delightful in person as he is on his blog -- personable and easy to chat with. Of course, once a person has knitting in her hand, how could she be nervous, even in the presence of the great and famous?

There were about 65 knitters who came to be photographed, but Dixie of Yellow Dog had organized the whole thing so well there was no waiting.

Dixie's son Nick was there.

Isn't he cute? Wanna see a close-up?

She has trained him right. What a guy.

Oh, did you notice Franklin's earring?

I say again, what a guy.

* * * * *

Thanks for all the sympathy and encouragement after my whining yesterday about working so many hours. Today the pace slowed a bit. I can never see that coming -- I feel like whatever is happened right now will continue to happen... forever. Now, though, I think I may survive. Maybe even get a full night's sleep a few times this week. Whew.

E is for...

exhaustion.

I had great plans for the letter E. It was going to be a post about entropy.

en-tro-py ...broadly : the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system...a process of degradation of running down or a trend to disorder

Yup, that's what I was gonna do. I was gonna have tasteful photos of my desk, a monument to my ability to pile papers higher and higher; the floor of my office, a museum of everything I have touched in the past six years; the dining room table, buried under piles of mail and discarded packing materials and various other incoming detritus; the front entry, filled with the artifacts of a months-long sorting of the tools project that has run aground on the reefs of distraction.

Entropy is kinda like gravity. It's always lurking there in the background, just waiting to screw with me. One little stumble and gravity is right there to pull me hard to the ground. A few days of not paying attention to keeping things picked up and entropy is right there to multiply the disorder.

But that post ain't gonna happen. The pictures didn't get taken. And if there are no pictures, there is no post. I think that is written somewhere in the Manual of Me.

Instead, E is for...

exhaustion.

This is quickly becoming the tax season from hell. Occasionally a tax season breezes by with only modest amounts of overtime. More often, there are systemic bugs that complicate our work lives. One year there were so many computer issues slowing the process that there was literal panic on April 15th. One year the network crashed on April 10 and everyone sat for three days until the tech guys got it back up. (Happily, that was the year before I started so didn't get to enjoy the experience.) Some years the balance between incoming work and the staff available to do it tips toward the staff side; overtime drops (but staff worries about layoffs). Some years it tips the other way, and we burn the midnight oil (and staff grumbles).

This year is one of the latter kind.

This series of numbers:

10, 10.1, 11.3, 11, 10.3, 0, 11.8, 12.5, 9.2, 11.2, 8.3, 11, 0, 6.8, 12.33, 11.1, 13.6, 11.1, 6.5.

represents how many hours I have worked on the days since February 26. There are a couple zeroes in there; those are the two Sundays I took off, but notice how I worked 10.3 and 11 hours, respectively, on the Saturday preceding each, in order to gain myself that blessed day of rest.

And it is only March 16. Four more weeks to go. ::Le sigh::

Tagged.

I’ve been tagged by Ruth! Here we go…

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 (or more) pages.
Stories that Changed America: Muckrakers of the 20th Century, edited by Carl Jensen, Ph.D.

2. Open the book to page 123 and find the 5th sentence.
Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler's eye through much of the year. (An excerpt from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson)

3. Post the next 3 sentences.
Even in winter the roadsides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The countryside was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streans which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay.

4. Tag 5 people.
Sheepish Annie, Erika, Deb, Suzanne, and Heather.

Random Wednesday a la Norma.

 

No, you are not in the wrong place. I'm channeling Norma.

A few days ago Last week Norma did the bestest post, wherein in she quoted a sentence from each of the many blogs she reads. Since I am a shameless thief I am brain dead imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I am gonna copy her.

Here goes:

1. “Oh, by the way…” he said, walking back to the front step. “You wanna get married?”
2. In other breaking news, liquid water was spotted in the wild yesterday.
3. I'm doing this twice a day during this trip to keep my resistance up and fight any emerging bugs that might be sticking to the windshield of my Prius.
4. Although I agree that sad mutant babies deserve mittens just as much as regular babies, I was aiming for a regular mitten. 
5. I really have no feelings for Colin Firth.
6. For those of you keeping track of my parking/snow removal saga this season, you can add another tally mark in the Oh, I Just Give Up column.
7. “I hope your class is also covering the more important KSL, Mom, because the big kitty and I are getting plenty tired of having to communicate with you via these photo captions!” 
8. If she has to pee at all, that's a different story. 
9. In the end, I decided that the only thing I really collect is...yarn.
10. I really thought that mattress stitch would change my life.
11. And heel gussets to make one weak in the knees?

Some of these are from blogs you probably already read. Perhaps one or two of them will introduce you to someone new. They are all over a week old. In any case, this was a fun post to put together.

Even though TypePad ate the first draft. Apparently they read my praise of their service in a comment somewhere and decided it was time for the universe to exact its revenge.

Everything you always wanted to know about Jeopardy.

I made it to the Jeopardy audition on time Monday afternoon. One point for me.

I had managed NOT to spill my lunch on myself earlier in the day. Add another point.

My power socks (my favorite hand-knit ones) were dirty so I had to wear non-handknit ones. Deduct one point.

The Polaroid they took of me turned out not half bad. Add one point.

I didn't know all 50 answers on the test. Deduct some points, but pleaseohplease, not too many.

I managed to be energetic and personable during the interview. I think. Add a bunch of points, okay?

The audition was held at the Hotel Ivy, a new establishment just a few blocks from my office.

I was in the 3 p.m. group.

This is Glen, who is a contestant coordinator -- maybe even the head contestant coordinator -- for Jeopardy. He may have said that. He said a lot of things, veryveryfast. He was entertaining and good at his job but, my gracious, he could talk fast. Actually, both Jeopardy people that spoke were very energetic and talkedreallyfast. We don't generally talk that fast in Minnesota. But they were fun and entertaining and really, really tried to help us all do our best.

I remembered Glen from one -- or maybe both -- of my other auditions. He's been doing this for awhile. He told us some of his employment history in the game show industry. Given when some of those shows were on the air, I calculated that Glen must be at least 50. An extremely well-preserved 50; he looked about 30.

So.

You want the play by play? I can tell you all about it, but I can't tell you any of the questions on the test. They made us swear and sign in blood that we would never reveal any of the questions because they use the same test in different cities. If I tell you they will take away my birthday and kill my dog. And come after you all. I'm just being kind, really, by not disclosing the questions.

 

There were 20 people in my group. That is considerably fewer than were in my previous group auditions. I don't know why and I didn't ask. It didn't seem important.

First, we took another 50-question test. It was administered from DVD -- the category and question came up on the screen and Johnny Gilbert read the question. We had 8 seconds to write the answer on our answer sheet. I kept a loose score in my head; I think I got all but about 6 or 8 of the questions right. Pop culture and sports are my weak spots. My Shakespeare kinda sucks, too.

 

Then, while two of the staff scored the tests in another room, Glen entertained us and we asked questions. I asked if I could take photos for my blog and was absolutely floored when Glen said, Sure, why not?

Then it was time for the mock game and the personality interview.

 

Three people at a time stood at the front, each with a buzzer in hand, and played Jeopardy. Glen kept encouraging them to Speak loudly! Pump up your energy! Have fun! Keep clicking!

The three people that are standing in the above photo are, if I remember correctly, a stained-glass artist and mother of six (ages 21 to 30-something; she declared emphatically in answer to a question during the interview that she was NOT suffering from empty-nest syndrome); a teacher from St. Louis, MO; and a recently retired English teacher from Duluth, MN.

 

This is Glen, Corina, and Carlos. Glen and Corina asked the interview questions. Carlos ran the computer and video equipment. There was another woman who didn't say a lot and whose name I don't remember.

 

This is Miriam, a grad student at the University of Minnesota who is studying for her Ph.D. in (something like) speech pathology and a man from St. Cloud, MN, who has a garage door company and a 10-month-old daughter. He said in response to the interview question that was asked of everyone that he would use his winnings if he, A, got on the show, and 2, won big, to buy a condo near the Twins ballpark. If he could persuade his wife that it was a good idea.

Miriam asked for my blog URL. Hi, Miriam! Hope you get on the show!

There were a total of five sessions on Monday and Tuesday at the hotel, plus some other, presumably larger, auditions at the Mall of America. Somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 people *qualify* to appear on the show every year; *qualify* means they pass the test with a good enough score to be invited to this audition. Not all of those people do well enough in the mock game and interview to be invited onto the show. Watching the others play the game and be interviewed, I judged that only roughly a third of them were television-worthy -- able to keep the game moving, no dawdling over choosing the next category, enjoyable to listen to. But the Jeopardy people didn't tell us one way or the other if any of us made the grade; they just told us that we could assume we were ALL in the active file, the file from which they choose contestants. Only about 400 people actually get to appear on the show every year. We all did the math and said to ourselves, It could be me!

Prospective contestants stay in the active file for for eighteen months. I plan to sit right next to my telephone until September, 2009.

* * * * *

Matthew lent me a cable that lets my camera talk to my computer. Oh, happy day! I have taken a fair number of pictures in the past few weeks while I didn't have my camera cable. Pictures make it possible for me to write this blog. With out them I would have to rely on words alone and that just doesn't do it for me. In the coming days I'll be able catch you up on my comings and goings and blatherings since February 24th, the last time I was home. And left my camera cable behind.

Me. Me. Me.

Today is the day.

I have qualified twice before for Jeopardy -- passed the test, played the mock game in front of their staff, been interviewed by the Jeopardy contestant searchers -- but have never been called to appear on the show.

In 1999 they held an open audition at the Mall of America. I stood in line with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other people to take the 10-question pretest. Everyone who got eight or more correct passed to the next level, where, in a large room with about a hundred others, we took a 50-question test. Those who got at least 35 correct were *qualified* to be on the show, but now needed to demonstrate that they could stand up and press the buzzer and ask the question and talk intelligibly in front of people. In groups of three we played a mock game of a few questions and were interviewed, just like on the show.

In 2005 my husband happened to be watching the show and saw that they were holding a contestant search in Chicago on the Monday after April 15th. He got me on the list, then called to tell me what he had done. (Thank you, Smokey!) I visited my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live near Chicago, and BIL drove me to the audition at Navy Pier. It which was exactly like the one in Minneapolis, minus the part about standing in line and taking the 10-question test. During the initial 50-question test I happened to be sitting between a young man who had recently graduated from Yale and a young woman who was a grad student at the University of Chicago. Neither of them passed the test, but they got acquainted during the sessio and I think they went out for coffee afterward. They may have gotten an unexpected benefit from the whole experience.

This time the 50-question test was online on January 31. I had signed up a few weeks before, after getting an e-mail from the Jeopardy people announcing the test. Yes, I am on their mailing list. Actually, I had signed up a year or two ago for this same online test that was being given at that time, but we went out to dinner that evening and I got home too late to take it. This time I was careful to be seated at the computer with no distractions and in plenty of time. And apparently I passed.

PRINT OUT AND BRING THIS LETTER WITH YOU – ADULT INTERVIEW

Congratulations!  We are happy to confirm your appointment to participate in the full audition for Jeopardy!. That will consist of playing a “mock version” of Jeopardy! to assess your game-playing skills, a short personality interview, and being re-tested with a new 50-question test. If you pass all the requirements to become a contestant you will be entered into the contestant pool for one year.  However even though you pass the test, we cannot guarantee that you will be invited to do the show.  In fact, even though you are invited to the studio, there is no guarantee that you will appear on the show.  You will be responsible for all expenses such as parking and travel to and from the audition center.  If you are invited to Los Angeles to do the show you would also be responsible for expenses to come to Los Angeles.

Maybe the third time will be the charm?!

Wish me luck!

But I'm not much of a drinker. Really.

89%DRUNKARD

Thanks to Miss T for the link.

D is for...

dumb.

If you are here to see pictures of the Friday night fun at Deb's, you are out of luck. I'm pretty sure I took some great photos, but although I had my camera, the cable is 75 miles away. Dumb. Damn. You'll have to check out Chris's and Deb's pictures. We had a great time knitting, eating, chatting, and playing with the animals. And I got to meet Vicki Knitorious. She's famous, you know.

Saturday I worked all day and well into the evening. But that meant that Sunday was... a day off!I slept in, ate some yummy fettucine Alfredo left over from dinner the night before, read blogs, did my laundry, and knitted. It was a lovely day.