kmkat and her kneedles

Ten on Tuesday, the refrigerator edition.

(I am typing this on a free, public access computer in the middle of the exhibitor hall at the annual conference of the Wisconsin Counties Association. The purported reason for these free computers is for participants to check their email. But since a large percentage of the attendess are on the downhill side of 70, the computers are not terribly busy. So I will take this opportunity to post.)

Ten Things That Are In My Refrigerator Right Now

1. Milk, 2%, some portion of a gallon.
2. Large chunk of bleu cheese.
3. Catsup.
4. Mustard.
5. Jalapenos.
6. Klausen dills.
7. Pickle relish.
8. Romaine lettuce.
9. Mushrooms that were fresh when I bought them but that are probably a slimy mess by now.
10. Several plastic refrigerator dishes containing things that were once food but are now an ongoing experiment in mold culture.

I am 300+ miles away from my refrigerator. But these are things that are ALWAYS present. Especially #10.

ADHD.

Smokey has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as does #2 Son (except for the hyperactivity part; thankfully, neither of them is hyperactive). He recently sent me a link to this article about ADHD and marriage.

The line we both loved: "Although life with ADHD can be trying at times, it is rarely boring."

Amen to that!

The saga of the broken washer.

You know your washer is A Lemon when there is a song and video about what goes wrong with it.

From this site:

"This song is dedicated to all of the Maytag Neptune Front Loaders and explains a common failure on these machines and offers a solution. The failure is the door latch wax motor, part # 12002535, which will fail on all Neptunes that shipped with them. Once you have this failure your Neptune will not enter the high speed spin and your clothes will be soaking wet after wash cycle completes. For more Maytag Neptune information see http://www.neptunehelp.com."

From what Smokey and I can figure, the wax motor is the thing that locks the door on the washer when it goes into its high-speed spin cycle. If it does not function properly to lock the door, the washer will not spin. We think that the wax melts, allowing the door to lock; when the spin cycle is done, the wax cools, rehardens, and unlocks the door. Whoever designed this li'l hummer had clearly never heard of the KISS principle. ("Keep It Simple, Stupid!")

I would like to say here that every one of those photos of the inner workings of the washer look veeerrrry familiar to me. Whenever Smokey had to remove and/or replace a part, I had to hold the door or the control panel or something. He could look at those photos right now and name every single wire, switch, and microswitch.

The washer was free to us (had belonged to my mother-in-law, who washed no more than one or two loads a week in it for four years), so disregard that $900 price tag. To date we have spent perhaps $50 on repair kits/parts and about that at the laundromat. Still a lot cheaper than a new washer :)

For the record, no, the washer is not fully functional yet in spite of any number of attempts to make it so. We still have high hopes, though -- there are lots of helpful instructions and remedies out there on the internet, plus one guy even emailed Smokey a long list of trouble-shooting steps. Eventually we will get the right combination and part and the phase of the moon will be right and the incantations will finally take effect and Voila! My washer will work again!

Until then you can find me at the laundromat...

Parkour.

You all probably already know about parkour. But have you seen this?

Suddenly the stuff that Spiderman does no longer seems so impossible...

Ten on Tuesday, the birthday edition.

Carole's birthday was Monday (happy birthday, Carole!). I wonder if that had anything to do with her choice of topic for this week...

Ten Ways To Have A Happy Birthday.

1. Be alive on your natal anniversary. Without this one, nothing else matters.
2. Drop lots of obvious hints to your family; also to friends and co-workers if appropriate. You don't want anyone to feel badly because they missed your birthday.
3. Have a family and friends to celebrate with. This one takes some preparation. It generally does not work to attempt to generate a family and/or friends the night before The Big Day. Plan ahead.
4. During the years when you are collecting family and friends, be sure to chose wisely. Select friends who are considerate, thoughtful, generous, and fun-loving. Rich doesn't hurt, either.
5. Among the hints you drop should be at least one concerning where you would like to be taken for dinner. Under no circumstances should you have to cook your own birthday dinner.
6. Keep your expectations under control. If you haven't managed to acquire a Bill- Gates- or Warren-Buffett-level friend, do not expect to be flown to Paris for lunch.
7. Be appreciative of everything that others do for you on Your Special Day. This will help to encourage a repeat performance next year.

That's it. Sorry I couldn't come up with a full ten. These seven are guaranteed to be foolproof, though :-)

Arrrr.

Talk Like a Pirate Day is a lot more interesting when the pirate is played by Johnny Depp.

Here we are again.

Andrew requested that we go camping somewhere while  he is home for his four-week break, so here we are again on the North Shore. Yeah, it's a tough life.

Before we left I decided to be A Good Mom and bake some cookies to bring along. For the record, I hardly ever bake cookies; brownies, lemon bars, the occasional birthday cake, yes, but cookies are too putzy. This time I decided to go all out -- oatmeal chocolate chip (oatmeal = healthy, right?), and while I was at it, a double batch.

A double batch made a lot of dough.

Really a lot of dough.

In an unusual turn of events, this vacation did NOT start the day after Smokey had finished up a string of night shifts. This meant we could get up on Monday morning, pack the mini-mini-motorhome, and actually leave during daylight. What a concept!

On the road, Smokey driving, me riding shotgun and knitting, and Andrew riding in the back of the van and doing what he does best.

The weather forecast for this week on the North Shore was, in a word, chilly -- highest high was predicted to be 57°. Happily, that was way conservative. Tuesday was warm enough to sit reading and knitting in the sun in jeans and sweater. One of us was even foolhardy enough to venture into Lake Superior, although he did admit he came out pretty darned quickly. Wednesday had a 30% chance of showers but was also the day I needed to teleconference to the county finance committee meeting. So we spent the afternoon in Grand Marais.

The chipmunks are still populating the campground. The are still bold aand still highly annoyed at all the people in their campground.

I attempted to get a photo of the chipmunk that kept trying to climb my pants leg to get  at whatever I happened to be eating at a given moment.

But it didn't work.

Ten on Tuesday, the football edition.

Ten Reasons to Watch Football

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Why, no, I am not a football fan in the least. How could you tell?

New toy.

The scroll wheel on my wireless mouse stopped working months ago. Eventually I decided it was time to replace the mouse, but right about then Apple announced its new trackpad, and I decided to try one of those instead. My plan was to buy one in Minneapolis when we went there to pick up Andrew at the airport. I'd see if I liked it, and if not, I could return it.

So we stopped at Best Buy on the way to the airport.

Out of stock.

The clerk told me they had received two.

Think about that. Two.

He also said he thought that the Apple store in the Mall of America -- which I had hoped to avoid because it would take far more time to get in and out of the megamall -- was even less likely to have them in stock. Apparently BB has more pull with Apple because they sell more stuff.

Think about that, too.

So I gave up and ordered one directly from Apple.

 

The verdict: I like it just fine, maybe not quite as much as a really good mouse with eleventy-seven buttons, but just fine. It cost about the same as a mouse like that and takes up slightly less space on the desk than the mouse pad (and it matches my keyboard, although it is not comfortable to line them up with each other like the Apple ads show them) so I'll keep it.

And that's the news from Chez Kat™ today.

Herding cats.

Hear ye, hear ye!

As I tweeted Tuesday night, #1Son took the GRE and got a 1570; perfect on the verbal (why are we not surprised?) and 770 on the math. He is one happy camper.

As I mentioned last week, he plans to take a year off between years 3 and 4 of medical school to get a master's degree in public health. The top schools in that field are UC--Berkeley, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and he had his scores sent to the US schools in that list (the London school was not on the approved list of place that GRE scores could be sent). He hasn't studied the offerings of the schools in enough detail to rank them intelligently in terms of being a good fit for him but says that his uninformed first choice is Harvard. I suspect that is because Paul Farmer is based there, and Farmer is one of his idols.

Smokey's and my favorite is the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine because hey! what a cool name! Victorian England and globalism, all in one!

After he finished the test we had lunch and took care of errands for him. Had his eyes checked and ordered a couple pairs of glasses -- yay, America's Best! He also wanted to go to Goodwill because he needed some dressier clothes; the dress code for his rotations over the next two years of med school is shirt and tie. Thirty-six dollars later he was the proud possessor of four fancy-schmancy shirts, seven (mostly) silk ties, and a pair of dress pants. Then we hit Kohl's for some more dress pants (very scarce at Goodwill), socks, and shoes. This is more dress clothes than he has ever owned, having lived in t-shirts and shorts and jeans and sandals and sneakers ever since he was old enough to dress himself.

I asked if he would be the only one in his class wearing a dress shirt and tie from Goodwill, and he said no, although it would be highly unusual for the attending (what the rest of the world would call "doctor") to do so.

The America's Best store was delightful, completely contrary to my one experience there a few years ago. On the two pairs of glasses I got at that time, a lens kept falling out of one pair and the bifocals were too high in the other; in addition, the staff were, to put it charitably, non-solicitous. The staff yesterday were all having a great time, both with each other and with the customers. It was completely entertaining just to sit in the corner, knitting on my Red Scarf and listening and watching. I plan to give them another chance next time I need glasses.

Ten on Tuesday, the end of summer (and one day late*) edition.

Ten things to do before the end of summer?  Sheesh, I could probably make a list of a hundred. Let's try to pare that down, m'kay?

10 Things To Do Before the End of Summer.**

1. Get a tan. Hmmm, probably too late for this one.
2. Hit up the farmers' market for veggies. Last summer I was at a farmers' market almost every week. This summer? Um, not yet, that's why it is on this list.
3. Bring the Swedish ivy plant in from the deck. It is magnificent. Hope I can manage not to neglect it to death this winter. Given my despicable record of caring for house plants, it is a wonder my kids survived to adulthood.

Okay, that's about it for what I want to have accomplished by the end of summer.

Things I Want To Do Before Winter Comes:

1. Have the septic tank pumped. Supposed to have this done every three years. I'm a little behind.
2. Wash some windows. I'm a little behind on this one, too.
3. Sneak in a couple more mini-vacations. No problem, mon.
4. Finish the multi-colored striped top-down raglan. Just need to finish the hem and knit the neckband.
5. Nag Urge Encourage Smokey to move some vehicles so we are not dodging them all winter. To be fair, I'm pretty sure this is already on his list, too.
6. Knit myself a pair of mittens. And a couple more Calorimetries. Already have the yarn :-)
7. Finish the two Red Scarves on the needles and get them in the mail.
8. Knit some hats and maybe scarves for Erika's friend's clients.

Whew! That's enough. I didn't get a chance to finish this post on Monday or Tuesday (see next post) so you get it today.

** "Before the end of summer"? Sheesh, summer is over. Here is our thermostat today right before I turned on the heat:

Socks and YouTubes.

Here are the socks I finished on vacation. Please curb your enthusiasm.

Yarn: Zwerger Garn Opal Zirkus/Circus, color 2006.

Further details here on Ravelry.

These are a little bit wrinkly because, sheesh, block socks? Are you kidding? The wrinkles disappear as soon as I put them on my feet.

Weird thing: the heel on the sock you can't see is 3 stitches off-center because apparently I cannot count. Didn't discover it until I was doing the heel on sock #2.

::cue foreboding music and worry that sock #1 will always and forever twist on my foot when wearing it::

Didn't happen, whew.

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Kudos to Chris for finding this YouTube. Coffee, meet keyboard.

While we are YouTubing, here is something the same but different.

Another one found via Chris.

So there I was...

...at the laundromat.

 

I turned around and guess what I saw?

 

Somebody decided to have their wedding photos taken on Main Street in Luck. Those photographers you see? Were just a small part of the crew. There were at least six people with cameras and reflectors and makeup kits and director's chairs.

Okay, I'm kidding about the chairs.

I don't know what you think, but that looks to me like a weird wedding photo pose. Groom with his back to the bride, who is leaning casually against a plate glass window. In her elaborate gown. It was a pose, too -- I saw the photogs snapping away while bride and groom held it.

Weird. Both the pose and the fact that it was happening at all.

Saturday random.

The Onion: Sarah Palin's speaking demands.

Forbes: How commodity traders get their *inside* information.

Boingboing: For all your puzzlement needs and Boneless clubfooted woman invades Melbourne.

Meet my new wallpaper. From Gizmodo's (or Lifehacker's, don't remember) photo challenge.

I like to keep my desktop icons along the right edge of the screen; this composition is perfect. It doesn't hurt that the kitteh in the photo is the spittin' image of our En Ensch (but looks way smarter)...

Relax, I'm much better better now.

Whew. If you want to be really appalled, read Marianne's comment on that last post:

"jeeze louise, I hope you're feeling better! Bobby had an episode similar, ended up in ER with a kinked intestine, one of the interns dubbed him Tasmanian Devil (he sounded just like him, the cartoon character) he spent a couple of nights in hospital getting morphine shots to relax and unkink (which it did), he wasn't complaining :^)"

So, moving on...

Do you read The Bloggess? Cuz today's post is frickin' hilarious. And the comments on pretty much every one of her posts are as funny as the post itself. My favorite comment on the linked post:

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Hey, ya wanna see some knitting? Cuz I got some. I finally finished these socks while we were on last week's mini-vac.

Oh, you want to see the ENTIRE pair of socks? Well, all righty, then.

Yarn: Berrocco Vintage (50% acrylic/40% merino/10% nylon worsted weight) in 5182 Black Currant (red), 5187 Dungaree (faded denim blue)(no longer available at Webs), 5177 Douglas Fir (green), and 5192 Chana Dal (gold). I bought one skein of each from Webs plus one of 5185 Tide Pool (bright teal) with the idea to make several pairs of multi-colored socks until I used up the yarn. I was also curious about how an acrylic blend would wear and feel in socks. The first pair I made from this yarn demonstrated that it is not warm as the equivalent weight of wool (Duh) nor does it breathe quite as well (Duhx2), but it is still acceptable (Whew.).
Needles: US#2 from the toe to the ankle, then increasing one needle size every inch or so until I was using US#4.
Pattern: Wendy's Generic Toe-Up sock. I love this pattern.

Yes, there were a LOT of ends to weave in. Wanna see a few?

No, it was not the excessive number of ends that kept these OTN for six months. I ran out of the red and waited to order another skein until the next time I placed an order with Webs. But, silly me, I didn't double-check the color name and number and ordered Black Cherry instead of Black Currant. Black Cherry turned out to be a perfectly nice color and one that I will use eventually, but it was much darker than Black Currant and would not work in the socks. So I had to wait until the next Webs order.

This pair of socks, just like the first pair, were inspired by Kristin Nicholas's socks in Kristin Knits. I am enchanted by her colorful-ness. Such fun. I am also enchanted by the notion that knitting can be about playfulness and not just tastefulness and usefulness.

Skip the first paragraph and go directly to the videos if you are easily grossed out.

Thursday was a horrible day. I spent most of it in bed, after spending a good share of Wednesday night night poopin' and pukin'. You needed to know that, right? It is now nearly midnight on Thursday and I am thinking that tomorrow will be better. Maybe I can eat and drink something besides the two cups of herbal tea and banana that were all I felt safe ingesting today. The cause of all this was a slightly plugged intestine that suddenly decided it was Time To Move. When Wednesday night's dinner (sloppy joes, corn on the cob, and sauteed spinach) realized it coudln't go down, it decided to come back up with a vengence. I puked so hard that the last couple heaves produced blood.

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Now that you are all thoroughly revulsed, how about something fun?

Humor for Thursday.

(Normal body temp is 36.x and normal pH is 7.4. Asystole means no electrical activity in the heart, i.e., flatlined.)

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From graphjam.com.

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Best blog comment ever (found on another blog, not mine):

"I hate Walgreens. Especially since they gave me a hard time when I brought in MY prescription for Xanax and they *refused* to fill it. They’re just amateur. I mean, LOTS of doctors write prescriptions with red crayon and on purple construction paper. And just because she’s five doesn’t mean my kid isn’t a real doctor."

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I didn't do the Ten on Tuesday this week (did any of you even NOTICE?) because I really never have need to lighten my mood. Smokey refers to me as his "KS95 wife". (That's a Twin Cities radio station whose slogan is (or used to be) "Always 95 and sunny!") It's not that I am naturally upbeat; I am most definitely not. But 20+ years on antidepressants has reversed that tendency. Yay for modern psychopharmacology!

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BTW, did any of you other TypePad users notice that they changed the helpful formating icons at the top of the editing window? They did that RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of when I was writing this post. For a minute there I thought I was having acid flashbacks. (Not that I ever did drugs in the 1970s, you understand. I would never do such a thing. Ever. No. Definitely not.)

Bear!

Last Thursday evening when we were eating dinner at Cascade Lodge on the North Shore, Smokey left the table to go out to the van to get a refrigerator dish for his leftovers. (No styrofoam take-out containers were harmed in this act.) A moment later he came hurrying back into the restaurant to get me.

"There's a bear in the parking lot!" he said.

I grabbed my camera and followed him back outside.

 

The chef was out there, too, flapping a flattened cardboard box at her and yelling.

 

He told us she had been coming to the dumpster for two days. He had put wooden rods through the metal loops at each side of the dumpster (one is visible in the photo above) so she couldn't open it.

Didn't stop her.

 

The flapping and yelling did convince her that she was not welcome.

 

 

We returned the next night for the Friday fish fry. The chef -- and some pipe and rebar -- had solved the problem.

 

Poor hungry bear...