kmkat and her kneedles

Hurrah!

Scroll down to #14. I am so happy I don't need to apologize for this particular piece of crap anymore.

A comment (not mine) on the recent British elections.

Okay, this is going too far.

  New business appeared this week on Main Street in a nearby town,
a lovely little city of parks and trails right on the beautiful St Croix river.

 You better believe the citizens are buzzing and the e-mails are flying. I might even attend their city council meeting next week. It promises to be more entertaining than Law & Order: SVU and NCIS: Los Angeles, my usual Monday night entertainments.

Even worse than the name of the business is what they sell: high-powered armaments and related gear. If you go to the website, you will find this in their "About us" page:

"...We support law enforcement, military, and sporting causes - we personally and as a business contribute to organizations like americansnipers.org, wounded warrior foundation, as well as local causes, and plan to expand that as we grow our business..."  

How many ways can you say, "WTF"?

Somewhat related: Charleston, and the next time.

Sometimes I knit wicked good and sometimes not. Guess which one this this post is about.

Example of "sometimes not".

Oh, sure, that looks like one completed sock and one done nearly to the heel. But it is not.

It is one completed sock and another in the process of being frogged back to its roots. 

The sad part is that the second one was done a couple inches past the heel turn, to exactly the spot marked with a stitch marker on the first sock. (I knit socks toe up.)

This is what happens when Your Knitter grabs a US#1.5 needle to cast on instead of the US#2.5 that she always uses for double-stranded socks. That sucker was w-a-y too small.

Never fear, however. I frogged, rewound the ball of yarn, cast on with the proper needle, and am almost to the heel turn again. The sock is going much more quickly on the US#2.5 needle :-)

* * * * *

This was a Gradient in progress.

On Monday night I got ready for my 13+ hour stint at the polls: wind four skeins of Shibui Silk Cloud into cakes, divide those cakes into twelve equal smaller cakes, put each one into its own little plastic bag so they wouldn't tangle, do a provisional cast on, and knit the first inch or two of this gorgeous thing:

 

By the time I left the polls on Tuesday it was about 14" (35cm) long. But the next day I discovered that I had an error in the seed stitch about an inch back, so I began to tink. You can imagine how much fun it was to tink that mohair/silk yarn.

See the cut in the yarn at the top of the photo? That happened when I was about halfway to the first error and I had begun to cut -- very carefully, I thought -- the sticky fibers that were making it so hard to tink. 

Crap. Gonna have to tink back an extra few rows.

I was working on this in the car on the way to Rice Lake, about an hour away and where Smokey had an appointment at the VA clinic. We were giving another person a ride; when we dropped off Smokey at the clinic, I got out of the back seat and walked around to the driver's seat.

Unbeknownst to me, my yarn was hooked around my foot.

What I found when I picked up my knitting again.

I am not sure what I am going to do. Right now the project is sitting in time out to consider its sinful ways. Unwinding three strands of heavily twisted mohair might just be more than I want to tackle. Maybe this will be a short cowl that does not loop twice around the neck. Stay tuned.

* * * * *

Let's end this on a humorous note, m'kay?

Observed in Rice Lake.

 

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

(My apologies to any attorneys reading this.)

 

Smokey bought a small table-top fan for us to use for white noise when we sleep.
Simple, two-speed switch, plugs into an ordinary AC outlet.

 

The instruction manual was 20 pages long.

Winter is coming.

I was ready for cool weather -- layer on the warmth, snuggle up, hot drinks, etc. -- but I was not quite ready for snow yet. Happily, it mostly melted right away. 

Winter is coming.

The dark comes an hour earlier -- boo! hiss! -- but there is light peeking around the shade when I wake up in the morning.

Winter is coming.

The election is over, the results are in, sadness all around. Our efforts increased voter turnout in our county by nearly 10% -- yay! -- but not enough to swing the state and local elections.

Winter is coming.

Now we must gather the political signs from the roadsides and the hay fields and stow them safely in a barn somewhere.

Winter is coming.

In more ways than cold and darkness. 

The mind boggles.

photo credit: John C Abell via photopin cc

Coupla stories.

First. This happened a friend who was traveling home from Chicago last week. It was sent as a letter to the editor of a number of newspapers throughout our congressional district.

Dear [incumbent candidate],

You owe an apology to 40 or more people you stiffed while boarding United flight 3650 from Chicago to Minneapolis on Tuesday, October 14, 2014. After we passengers waited patiently an extra hour for a mechanical repair, you and your companion brazenly cut through the waiting crowd to board out of turn. When the agent politely insisted that you wait for your group, you displayed a temper tantrum, as a clearly embarreassed companion retreated back to the crowd. Finally, you completely intimidated the agent and boarded. She seemed to give in to your bullying and the fact that you were delaying the rest of us from boarding. At first I thought that you might have some important business to attend to, but when I passed your seat you were busy playing solitaire on your tablet.

It is not often that we get a window in the true personality of our elected officials, but this incident spoke volumes about who [you]* really [are]. Your self-centered arrogance matches with your complaint that $174,000 a year is an insufficient salary. It illustrates why you have nothing in common with the Wisconsin citizens you serve. Why should you worry about common people like the people you were elected to represent? The money interests you cater to support you, and for you that's what counts. I can understand why it is said about you: "There's less to him than meets the eye."

Second. This was related to me by a colleague who placed an ad in all the local newspapers to run the week before the election.

"The woman behnd the counter finished filling out the paperwork for the ad and said to me, 'Okay, that will run in the November 5th edition.'

"I looked at her in amazement and replied, 'The election is November 4th!'

"She gave me a completely blank look. I don't hink I have ever seen anyone look as clueless as she did at that moment.

" 'What election?' "

I don't know about where you live, but our TV stations have been wall-to-wall political ads since Labor Day, and the roadsides bristle with candidate signs, also with ones that say, Vote November 4. How could someone not know there was an election coming up?

Usually when I encounter someone as oblivious or dumb as this, I think to myself, "...and then they voted."

Clearly, I do not have to worry about that with this woman.

 

* I have mentioned many times where I live. You can easily figure out who this incumbent candidate is.

 

Help, Feedly is down!

 

The Kat™ to hackers: Get a legitimate job already! Quit messing with our internetz!

Winter, go home. You're drunk. (redux)

I would love to show you some photos of the 12" (twelve inches!) of snow we got over the past day and a half, but my computer will not recognize my camera, and LastPass (which I installed after reading about the Heartbleed security screwup) refuses to allow my iPhone access to Gmail. 

Sometimes I almost wish for pre-digital days. Almost. But in those days I didn't have a blog and hadn't met any of youse guys so...

First, the snow. It started sometime Tuesday night or the wee hours of Wednesday. When I got up Wednesday morning to let the dogs out, the words out of my mouth do not bear repeating on this (mostly) family-friendly site.

There were only a few inches on the ground at that point, which were not enough to keep me from a scheduled appointment and multiple errands. 

The snow continued all day Wednesday and into the night. This morning, Thursday, it was deep enough (twelve inches!) that we called Doug The Plow Guy to rescue us. Smokey had planned to plow it himself, but at some point he remembered that Da Yeep had not been started in a month and would most certainly require a charger. Charger (on wheels) is roughly the size of a floor model humidifier but heavier, and he did not relish the idea of dragging it through a foot (did I mention we got twelve inches?) of wet heavy snow up the driveway hill to the detached garage.

Call Doug The Snowplow Guy.

Second, the camera. No idea why it is not talking to the computer. Probably a poltergeist or a gremlin hiding somewhere. 

Third, LastPass. This is a $12 program that generates a really, really random password for every site that you tell it and stores them in its online vault (heavily encrypted, multiply firewalled, and probably protected by some Dumbledore-created charm). As I was working my way through my nine pages (nine pages!) of sites that require a password I chanced to wonder just how this was going to manage to screw up my life.

When I tried to use my iPad last night I found out.

Today's task is figure out how to get LastPass on my iPad and iPhone, assuming that is even possible. Somehow I cannot imagine that BoingBoing/Gizmodo/Lifehacker would have recommended the program if it were not iGadget compatible. I hope.

.

.

.

Well, Doug The Plow Guy came... and got stuck. Smokey is out there right now attempting to free Doug's truck with Da Yeep. 

Will I make it to my 3 pm meeting? Stay tuned...

 

Money.

Offered without comment: Follow the money... if you can.

Solidarity forever. And knitting.

This is what it looks like when you recruit people to get on a bus at 6 am to ride through the cold (it was -19˚F when we left Eau Claire) to the state capitol to lobby their their legislators in support of libraries. Some talk, some read, some are glued to their iPhones or iPads, and some sleep.

Oh, and one of them knits. (More on that later. Non-political types may want to skip down past the YouTube to the knitting.)

Tuesday was the annual Library Legislative Day in Wisconsin, and, as a trustee of the regional library system, I participated. (Sadly, given that my state senator and assemblyman are both firmly in the pocket of Governor Walker -- who is firmly in the pocket of ALEC, the Koch brothers, and anyone else who will donate significant money to his campaign(s) -- I am not sure how much good it did. But it needed to be done and I did my part.)

Perhaps you remember the demonstrations at the Wisconsin state capitol back in 2011, when Walker's legislature stripped the public employees' unions of much of their bargaining power. 

Those demonstrations may be diminished in size, but they never quite ended.

 

Okay, enough with the politics. What about the knitting, Kat?

As I mentioned before, I started working on the back of the Fairfield sweater in preparation for the trip. Got the ribbing and the first couple rows of the pattern done.

Here's what it looked like when I got back home.

That may not look like a lot of knitting, but it is 147 stitches wide. Such is the downside of being a Woman Of Substance.

Want to see something funny? Here is that same knitting doing its impression of a radioactive sweater:

Yup. Red is still darned hard to photograph.

It's two-fer Friday.

There is just way too much happening not to post today. None of it is earth-shaking, but hey, that's what blogs are for, right? Minutiae?

photo credit: j.edward ferguson via photopin cc

Thing 1. Smokey was scheduled for knee replacement surgery this coming Monday. But pre-op physical doc decided he needed a stress test first, and that appointment got screwed up. As a friend said upon hearing the news, "That's what [you guys] do, right? Reschedule surgeries?" 

Surgery will be later in February. Now to reschedule the stress test. Good news is I can attend Library Legislative Day in Madison, which I had previously had to bow out of. Bad news is Smokey has to endure more days of pain.

 

One of Smokey's vans, untouched since last summer (bad brakes).

Thing 2. Our driveway has not been plowed out properly this winter AT ALL because Da Yeep was laid up. My all-wheel-drive car has allowed us to get in and out while Smokey and Younger Son and Kiera The Teenage Helper worked on the Da Yeep. Younger and Elder Sons have both partially cleared it with our smaller snowblower at various times, but we have had a lot of snow since then.

Wednesday night I had to go to a meeting. The ruts where we drive are packed solid, but apparently I got off a little too much to one side into the soft snow. Car was jammed against a tree. By driving back and forth ~5 feet at a time (exactly as YS had last Sunday when he got my car stuck in another spot in the driveway), eventually I was able to get the car out and continue to my meeting. I dreaded seeing what I had done to the passenger side door.

On the way my side view mirror on the passenger side suddenly started flapping in the breeze and flew off. I went back but couldn't find it in the dark. Happily, it was only the actual reflective mirror; the enclosure is almost perfectly intact.

Also happily, there is NO damage to the passenger door at all. The only casualty was the mirror and a tiny sapling that got broken off; the real tree, a pine ~6" in diameter, is unhurt.

 

Thing 3. After my meeting I went to knit at a friend's house. Called Smokey to tell him about getting stuck. He and Younger Son had pretty much gotten Da Yeep, our plowing vehicle, back to working order last weekend. He did the last little thing(s) and went out to plow so I would be able to drive in safely. 

The snow in the ruts was so hard he had to make multiple passes, shaving off a little each time with the plow blade. On the third pass he got stuck. Or one of the back wheels fell off, we're not sure. (Seriously.)

Da Yeep was stuck at the entrance to our driveway. I left my car on the lane and waded through the snow to the house when I got home. I cannot tell you how glad I was for my Nantucket Bagg, which converts from a tote bag to a backpack in about 2 seconds. It is so much easier to balance with empty hands.

 

photo credit: Anonymous9000 via photopin cc

Thing 4. The next day (yesterday) Smokey went for the aforementioned stress test. I went along for the opportunity to knit in the car and in the waiting room and, more importantly, to have lunch at our local Indian restaurant. We both had to walk the ~300 yards uphill through the snow to where my car was parked at the lane, not an easy task.

Much frustration re: stress test (=irony), but a lovely lunch nevertheless. New iPhone came in handy. Called Lennie The Super Mechanic to send a tow truck to retrieve Da Yeep and bring it to his shop. Came home, parked my car in the lane again, and waded through the snow -- downhill this time, whew! -- back to the house.

Tow truck came a few hours later and loaded up Da Yeep. After they were gone I rashly decided to drive my car down to the house so Smokey would not have to walk up the hill again. 

Guess what: I got stuck. Different place, other side of the driveway, bah humbug. Once again converted tote bag to backpack and stuggled down the hill, losing one brand-new fingerless mitt in the process.

Thing 4a. Today I emailed several friends who live nearby, asking for recommendation for a reliable snow plower. Got three so far -- yay, friends! Smokey has the list and numbers, will call.

Okay, that enough whining. Time for something fun!

Thing 5. I was on Twitter this morning and saw this.

Clicked over to Instagram and saw this:

The stars aligned! I have been on a yarn fast since 1/1/13 (bought exactly ONE skein of laceweight since then; was trying to make it to April so I could truly say I had not bought yarn for a year) but this was too good to pass up.

• Cotton/merino blend: pure wool is too warm for me >90% of the time.
• Red: I have been lamenting the lack of a red sweater in my wardrobe.
• Aran weight, #9 needles: a sweater should go relatively fast, even at my speed.
• And the price? Fabulous.

Comments on Ravelry seem to indicate that the yarn is splitty and may be closer to DK or worsted weight, but I can deal with that. Cara emailed me that she mailed the yarn today. Whee!

Sunday random.

1. Voice :: activated.
2. Counter :: sales.
3. Marked :: man.
4. Loving :: cuddle.
5. Coat :: fur.
6. Pounce :: cat.
7. Dehydrate :: tomatoes.
8. Desire :: in the elms.
9. Concern :: related.
10. Broth :: chicken.

* * * * *

Now for the truly random...

• I cleaned up one of my email inboxes yesterday. It had over 600 messages; now it has 3. The rest all got filed appropriately or deleted. I feel very good about this.
• One of these days I need to do the same thing with my Gmail inbox, which has 341 messages. At least none of those are unread.
• It was 6 above on Friday. Today the snow was almost melting. I was too warm in my wool sweater.
• High on Wednesday is predicted to be several degrees below zero.
• On a somewhat related note, I am loving this winter. Lots of snow = a gorgeous sight, and ultra cold weather just means piling on the hand-knits. 
• I was discussing this winter with a colleague on a committee last week. We agreed that this is like winters used to be back in the Good Ol' Days.
• Yes, I occasionally find myself being one of those who refer to times past.
• But I still like a real winter. None of this wimpy stuff with not enough snow to keep the septic drain field from freezing, not enough cold weather to be able to wear wool.
• ...and it was uphill both ways.

* * * * *

From Neil Gaiman's blog:

My not being currently on Twitter meant that you did not have to endure any grumbles from me about Federal Express leaving packages at houses they were not addressed to, or, alternately, handing over packages to the US Mail service, who then stoutly maintain that the house I'm in does not actually exist and returned said packages to the sender.

I can sympathize. We ordered a new color laser printer/scanner/fax from Amazon on December 27. FedEx delivered it about January 2 or 3, but left the 70-pound box by the mailbox. Which is ~300 yards away from the house, up the hill and through the woods. I guess I can understand why the delivery person did not want to venture down our semi-plowed driveway, but anyway. Smokey found it a day or two later. This was all during one of our extended periods of below-zero weather. Guess what? The toner cartridges -- all four of them -- were damaged by the cold, so the printer prints really, really badly. 

I contacted Amazon and they will exchange it, but new ones are on back order, yada yada, so the whole process is going to drag on. I predict that at the end of that process, either 1, that item will no longer be avaiilable, or b, the price will have doubled to what it was from any other vendor on the planet.

The alternative is to keep the machine and order new toner cartridges. The three color ones are >$100 each, the black is merely $70. New toner cartridges would cost more the the entire machine.*

::grumble::

Speaking of FedEx, they also decided to leave another package from Amazon at the local post office, who said they sent me a notice -- which I never got.

::grumble x2::

* * * * *

Discussion of all the viewpoints is nice, but when an organization is supposed to stand for something, eventually we have to stop airing our individual viewpoints and decide where we take our stand.

And that is all I have to say about that.

* * * * *

Tomorrow I plan to blog about knitting. Remember knitting? It is a wonderful hobby that we all enjoy, and I have been doing a lot of it. Smallish projects, but still knitting and still enjoyable.

* * * * *

And now, because what good is a blog post without a photo, here is what I was doing at 6:30 tonight.

Percy's and my handknit sweaters were getting acquainted.

 

 

* Writing this made me realize I should recontact Amazon and see if I can get replacement toner cartridges instead of trying to exchange the entire thing. It also made me realize that if I had bought the machine locally (not even possible, and even if it were I would have paid ~4X what I did), I would be dealing with someone I know instead of someone in Cambodia or the Maldives or Tierra del Fuego or wherever Amazon's customer service center is located. Oh, well, first world problem, right?

Sunday and a DST rant.

1. Partner :: spouse.
2. Villain :: bad guy.
3. Signature :: Needles. Duh.
4. Homespun :: yarn. x2.
5. Ultimate :: quest.
6. Don’t! :: do it!
7. Musical :: comedy.
8. Candor :: Voltaire. Oh, wait. That's Candide, right?
9. Terrified :: of rats.
10. Virus :: computer.

* * * * *

I don't want to hear any whining about the daylight savings time change. It's one hour, for crying out loud. It's not like you just flew from Minneapolis to Tokyo and have a fifteen hour time difference to adjust to. It's a one-hour lag, like flying from Minneapolis to Denver.

Get over it.

(Unless you have a really, really stubborn body clock that refuses to adjust easily. Then you have my sympathies.)

* * * * *

And now a little post-Halloween scaring (via the bloggess.com).

* * * * *

On Saturday I went to One Day University at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The lectures I chose to attend were:

• Iran, Israel, and Why The Mideast is Such a Mess. Charles Freilich / Harvard.
• What Would the Founding Fathers Think of America Today? Wendy Schiller / Brown University.
• How The Brain Works: Why We Do What We Do. Marvin Chun / Yale University.
• What Can We Learn From The Ancient Philosophers? Laurence Cooper / Carleton Chris Something-or-other / New Orleans University. (Professor Cooper hurt his back last week and could not attend.)
  

It was fun and interesting and thought-provoking, so much so that I signed up for the next one in Minneapolis, in April. Younger Son is thinking about going with me.

Since I had to be in downtown Mpls at 9:30 am on Saturday, I drove in on Friday to stay overnight, run a few errands and, most importantly, see some of my favorite people* -- the Knit Night Orphans. It was delightful to knit with them again and chat. Don't know when I will be back to do it again but I am already looking forward to it.

A few sights seen along the way:

The post office in Lindstrom, MN, where I stopped to mail my mittens to Adrienne.
Translation, anyone? I don't read or speak Swedish.

 
Yarn bombing observed along Minnehaha Parkway.

* * * * *

And now for something completely different: YS playing keep-away with Percy.

Thirty-nine seconds of doggie delight.

 

* Except for the person in the group who essentially accused an unspecified one of us of stealing two of her knitting books. That was... awkward. Especially when she commented that she had known most of us for over ten years. (Three of us are newcomers, thus apparently more deserving of suspicion. Er...)

 

Picking some nits.

I may have mentioned that John Sandford's Prey series of police procedurals are my favorite over all other mystery/suspense/procedurals because his characters are so darned intelligent yet understated. Yesterday I picked up the latest one, Silken Prey, at the library. I am on page 94 of this 400+ page potential bestseller and have found three --three! -- errors that should have been caught in the editing. 

1. "Rose Marie's husband opened the door; he was holding the Times in one hand and a piece of jelly toast in the other."

What, he has three hands? How did he open the door with stuff in each hand? If he put something down to answer the door, why are both hands still occupied?

2. (sorry, don't remember what this one was so I cannot look for it}

3. "I've got a cabin on the Wisconsin side of the St Croix [river], north of St. Croix falls."

It's St. Croix Falls, dumbass. The falls are there, but the name of the village is St. Croix Falls.

The Prey series is still my favorite, editorial nit-picking aside. I'll let you know if that changes.

 

Edited to add: On the very next page there was another one. After correctly detailing the protagonist's highway route from St. Paul to St. Croix Falls via I-35 and US Hwy 8 through Chisago City, Lindstrom,  and Center City, the author mislabels the highway leading north from SCF, calling it Hwy 82 instead of Hwy 87. There is only one highway leading north that the character could have taken, so why bother to disguise it? I think it is another goof. (Elder Son was a fact-checker at the NYU student newspaper during his undergrad days. Now we all know where he got his nitpicking ways. When I read the sentence in #1, above, to him he asked if the character had a foot-operated door. Yep, the acorn does not fall, etc.)

The rant for today.

I was reading today's Feedly feeds and came across this helpful link at The Morning News:

Always wanting to keep myself at least somewhat informed as to the state of the world, I clicked on the link. The article came up and was immediately overlain with this:

I am not a news junkie, so the free limited access to eight article per month looked just about right. I clicked on the the Subscribe button and got this. It was four screens long. I cropped and pasted them together to be continuous:

There was no way to get past the overlain subscribe screens. Clicking on the darkened area underneath, the actual article, did nothing.

And if you can find anywhere in that four-screen image that allows one to sign up for the free, eight articles per month, subscription, you're a better person than I, Gunga Din.

It's World Women's Day.

Cheerfully stolen from my friend Jocelyn's blog.

For the record, I am treated quite well by pretty much everyone. I wish I could say the same for the rest of womenkind,

Life is random, why not me?

1. Baked :: Alaska.
2. Excited :: to go.
3. Print :: out of,
4. Obstruct :: -ionist.
5. Bladder :: full.
6. Matrimony :: wedding.
7. Car :: many.
8. Reconstruct :: Civil War.
9. Lenses :: contact.
10. Best for last :: save it.

* * * * *

I got to thinking about John Sandford and his Virgil Flowers novels because I noticed a new one had come out, Mad River. Love John Sandford, love Virgil Flowers. Maybe not quite as much as I love Lucas Davenport of the Prey series, but close. Couldn't remember which of the books I had already read so I requested all of them (five plus the newest one) from the library. Have been reading them one after the other, kinda like 350-page potato chips. Just started #4 AND got the email that the newest one is waiting for me at my local library.

Heaven.

Edited to add: the reason I like Sandford's novels and characters so much is that they are the most intelligent but down-to-earth ones I have read, amen.

* * * * *

Speaking of books.

I sit on the board of trustees of the regional library system, which is currently embarking on its [latest] long-range planning process. Members of the board were tasked with visiting all the libraries in their respective counties and chatting with the directors about the services they get from the regional system. On Friday the other board member from our county and I visited four municipal libraries and had four wildly varying discussions. Wildly varying in a good way, mind you -- their experience in the library system ranged from 1 to 29 years and their education/library size/community demographic varied almost as much.

It was an interesting and informative and fun way to spend a day. Which is good because next Wednesday we are going to do it again with four different libraries.

* * * * *

I liked the yarn I knitted the fingerless gloves out of so much (it's been sitting in my stash since 2007, why haven't I used it before?) that I decided to make myself a hat from it, the Twisted Toque from 60 Quick Knits. 

Fail.

Sorry, I should have taken a photo to show how terrible it looked. If you scan the projects in Ravelry you may notice that on some, the non-stockinette portion of the hat sort of... sticks out. Mine looked like the one in the link but much, much worse.

Ribbit.

In hindsight, I think the problem was that the pattern was written for Cascade 220, which is a light worsted, and I knitted it from a plump worsted. Perhaps if I had gone up a needle size all would have been well. 

But we shall never know because I am NOT knitting that pattern again.

So there.

Not that I am bitter or anything...

 * * * * *

(something I commented on another blog that seemed so revolutionary and astoundingly awesome that I had to include it here)

The possible long-term effects of global warming have been endlessly reported upon, but the day-to-day effects have been downplayed. I have concluded what the latter means for us in the northern latitudes is that our weather will change more quickly than we are used to. The past few weeks, with fronts blowing through seemingly every other day, are what have convinced me of this. Makes sense meteorologically, too -- globala warming is basically just more energy in the atmosphere = more volatile weather.

Kinda fun, actually. Every morning is a new surprise. Can I go into town minus hat/scarf/boots or will I need long underwear and three pairs of socks? 

* * * * *

Have any of you been watching House of Cards on Netflix? I started last night, got annoyed in the first 30 seconds*, so annoyed in the next three minutes* that I stopped watching. I eventually went back and am now ready to start episode 2.

But it is not nearly as good as the British original with Ian Richardson, imnsho. I blogged about that once twice before. When Kevin Spacey delivered that line -- You might very well think that. I could not possibly comment -- I actually groaned. He is a great actor, don't get me wrong, but this whole thing seems kinda flat compared to the original.

I will continue to suffer through it, though ;-)

* They broke a primary law of good writing/movie-making: show me, don't tell me. When FU kills the dog, that is showing; when he expounds to the camera to give every bit of background information we may need, that's telling.

 

Random thoughts on a Wednesday.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am writing this on Tuesday night.

* * * * *

I may not like the character of Lady Mary Crawley -- she is shallow, arrogant, and self-centered -- but if I were in trouble I would want her on my side. In addition to her less desirable qualities, she is also smart, tought, good in a crisis and exactly the person who could save my ass.

* * * * *

From the latest issue of Time magazine, in the article on guns and gun control:

"I'm not anti-gun. I'm just not pro-dumbass."

- Steve Mostyn, wealthy Houston trial lawyer, gun enthusiast, and friend of Gabriel Gifford.

* * * * *

The thermostat installed with our new ground-water heat pump does everything except wash windows. It reports on the outside temperature, the inside temperature, checks the forecast for imminent weather, and sends us emails if anything goes wrong.

 

Too bad the system doesn't keep the house warm. (Thermostat is set for 67˚, but the indoor temperature is 57˚. This is because it is -8˚ outside, and the system needs more ground water than the well can deliver.)

But at least it is significantly warmer inside than out...

If I'm feeling better, it must be Tuesday.

Let's start out with a bit of slothfulness. Sloths are slothful.

Trivia question of the day: for what delightful cartoon show on Nickelodeon did Mark Mothersbaugh compose music? (Answer buried in the linked Wikipedia article.) (I loved that show.)

* * * * *

I am feeling better today, having spent most of the last two days in bed and/or sleeping. Having an iPad makes lying in bed much less boring; just another wonder of the connected age.

On the hip situation, I am now confronted with this decision:

• Have the surgery in 2-3 weeks and probably not be able to work this tax season. Although I would be recovered enough to return to work by early March, it is really, really difficult to jump into the middle of tax season. The annual learning curve is just too steep.
  
  
• Work this tax season and have the surgery ASAP after April 15. A cortisone shot this week and another in early March would ensure relatively pain-free mobility, and working would give a pleasant boost to the checking account.

What would you do and why? Discuss.

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The nurse that I talked to on the nurse line on Sunday ordered me to get a functioning fever thermometer. She wanted to know my temperature and I had to tell her our thermometer was not working properly. I bought that thermometer, an electronic one, last summer so that Elder Son and I could tell if Smokey had a serious infection or just a superficial one. Darned thing insists that everyone's temperature is in the range of 92.4˚F -- 94.2˚F. What with all the kerffluffle during Smokey's recovery, I no longer have the receipt. Damned Wal-Mart. Clearly, it's all their fault.

Yesterday Smokey went on a major errand-running and shopping trip to the Twin Cities. One of his tasks was to purchase a new thermometer. He reports that the traditional glass ones, which I had ordered him to procure, are apparently no longer available. WTF?

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And now for a bit of fun knitting.

Yarn: Colorado Yarns Durango, 50/47/3 wool/acrylic/viscose, worsted weight (perhaps discontinued?), ecru and brown.
Pattern: I used Ann Budd's basic mitten pattern from A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns* for the thumb gusset and did the mittens in 3x1 rib. Recipient's hand is same length as mine but slightly more substantial. Ribbing makes the fit more forgiving.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#7; #6 for contrasting end row and bindoff.

These are for an acquaintance who has a coffee kiosk on the highway in my teeny tiny town. Although she claims it is warm inside her 6'x8' building, she has to keep opening the window to take orders and hand out coffee and make change. I suspect that her hands might welcome these during January. I don't know her well, but I do know her well enough to know she deserves these. (She has the best coffee EVAH!)

A side benefit of making these is that I finally figured out what stash yarn -- the ecru Durango -- to use for a pair of long fingerless gloves for myself. I want them for when I am reading in bed; my hands and forearms get cold, and it is annoying to have to keep pulling my pajama sleeves down when I'm wearing regular fingerless gloves. Yeah, it's a real bitch, I tell ya...

* Do you have this book? If not, why not? It is a great resource when you want to make a basic [thing] and just need a little help on the shaping or the cast-on or something. Or, you can follow it blindly; no shame in that.

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Last night I was on the Twitterer. I found it humorously ironic that the most plentiful tweets in my feed were, 1, Chuck Todd (NBC news) live-tweeting the Notre Dame-Alabama game, and b, Amanda Palmer and her followers tweeting about kindness and selflove and how to stop the bullying.

Maybe we should introduce Chuck and Amanda and let them educate each other. Or, really, let Amanda educate Chuck. (Nothing against Chuck Todd. He is one smart dude. But, srsly, which is a more important topic?)

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Speaking of the Twitters, did you watch the season premier of Downton Abbey? Of course you did; we all did. Want to relive it through the eyes of a highly jaded but clever sheep? This guy preserved Dolores Van Hoofen's live-tweet of the premier. What a hoot baaaaah!

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Today is the twelfth fourteenth day of Christmas so I unplugged the lights on the tree. I'd really like to make a tree cover out of a sheet and just store the whole thing somewhere out of sight until next December. But I will probably just let it sit in the *conservatory* until Christmas. Like I have done for X years.

Once the kids leave home all tradition and semblance of civilization go right out the window.