Category Archives: Alongs

B is for…

Books!

(Yeah, ok, so I did D yesterday. Yes, I know that B doesn’t follow D. But since I started the ABC-Along with C, I’m playing catch-up. Onward!)

I’ve been a reader since I was 5 or 6 years old. We didn’t get to watch a lot of tv, but we were always encouraged to read. In fact, back in my days of internet dating, one of my major requirements was for being a reader over being a tv watcher. The bookshelf above is only one of several in my tiny condo. Plus all the books stored in boxes under the bed. Plus the big stack of library books…

So Amy had perfect timing with this book meme yesterday.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won’t, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby – F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story – George Orwell
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
1984 – George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
(The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini)
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 – Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons – Dan Brown
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
(The Secret History – Donna Tartt)
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell)
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement – Ian McEwan
(The Shadow Of The Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Dune – Frank Herbert


B is also for Bad Black Cat. Saturday my friend Jan drove up from St. Peter. We went out for Thai at Ruam Mit Thai in downtown St. Paul and then saw a great show by Christine Lavin and Claudia Schmidt at the Fitzgerald Theater. (We did have our knitting backstage passes, but Christine was too frazzled from bad travel experiences to knit.) Jan slept on my futon couch and headed home bright and early Sunday morning.However, I had not cleared this visit with the Cat Chaotic and he was peeved.

“I don’t know where you get off having your friends over without asking me first.”

So peeved, in fact, that he is trying to eat the couch to punish me. My couch is not usually covered in Army camo – just when it needs to be protected from sharp pointy cat teeth. Please send wine (for me, not him – he’s too young to drink).

D is for…

Disjointed, which is what today’s entry will be.

D is also for Diablo II! At the beginning of every winter, I get sucked back into Diablo II for at least a few weeks. My character is a level 78 Amazon named Chrystabel… and it would be best not to ask how many hours of my life have been lost getting her to level 78. Let’s just say I could’ve knit several Alice Starmore sweaters or become fluent in Spanish. At the very least, I should obviously have knit poor Chrystabel a sweater and some leggings – like most female video game characters designed by men for men, she’s a bit nekkid:

Tangent: Chaos is not a big fan of Diablo II because I do not make an adequate lap while playing. He much prefers knitting.

And D is for… Diablo, brother of Chaos.

Tangent: Note that Diablo had Very Large Feet as a kitten. They both did. Not surprisingly, they both became Very Large Cats.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall – who’s the fairest cat of all?”

Olympic Knitting Tangent Update: I am in the home stretch on my sweater – I probably have less than 20 rounds left to knit. I should finish things up tomorrow. Thursday at the latest. I’ll post a picture then.

In which I actually post a progress picture

Here’s my progress as of Monday evening – body done up to the armpits and first sleeve about 1/2 done. I’ll warn you that this is not a particularly photogenic project – look! Black blobs on the carpet… but wait? Where is the black blob? Hmmm…

The sleeve and I have have gone a few rounds of ripping. (Carole had warned me of hubris and offending the knitting gods in the comments on Sunday and she was so right.) I knew I didn’t want the bellshaped sleeves in the pattern, but I didn’t think through what I did want until I had cast on, sealed up the hem, and knit merrily away for a while. Finally, denial just didn’t cut it anymore. Rip rip rip, refigure the numbers, and off we went again.

Tonight I go home and take a hard look at the gauge on that sleeve compared to the body gauge… I’m thinking that, because knitting the sleeve is sort of like knitting a sock and I knit my socks tightly, my gauge on the sleeve is too tight. It might be mandatory that I drink wine while knitting the sleeves – what do you think?

Oh, I tracked down that missing blob:

“Go away. I haven’t forgiven you for that incident earlier. It’s not my fault when you lead me into temptation.”

Update: Go check out Gale’s pictures – she went and saw the care packages getting packed up for the Red Scarf Project! Thanks for letting us know, Norma!

In which I have some setbacks and an alarming realization

Jeanne has posted her pictures from Friday night! Head on over and check them out for a slightly different perspective on the evening – or if you’re morbidly curious what I look like when slightly tipsy and being menaced by the Bugman.

First, the minor setbacks of yesterday. I briefly left my Olympic knitting unattended and returned to find it partially off the needles. Hmm. A puzzle. I wonder how that happened. No culprit was in sight.

“Bwah-ha-ha!”

The sweater was easily returned to the needles. However, about 16 rows after changing to a new ball of yarn, I discovered that the extra skeins of yarn I ordered are nowhere near being the same dyelot as my originals. A dark and dramatic line was readily apparent. Argh. So I ripped back to where I’d added the new ball (losing about 2800 stitches in the process) and switched to one of my original skeins.

In the process of removing the sweater from the needles, I learned the source of a mysterious “drag” on the cable of my circular needle – some small nicks, similar to what one would expect from sharp little fangs. Hmm. A bit of work with some buffing emery boards took care of that.

But… Here it is, nearly Day 3 (I’m not even 48 hours into this) and… I’ve reached the armpits of the sweater. I’m about to start knitting the first sleeve. Oh oh. It appears that I’ve radically underestimated the time it would take me to knit this sweater.

There was baleful glaring last night…

But only from the Malevolent Bugman… Jeanne swears it’s something I bring out in him. She also swears that he’s warming up to me. Hmm.

“You will submit to my will, puny human. Go get me some Kitty Kaviar and be quick about it.”

First we got comfy in our sweats and readied our cameras.

“Chris, if you post this picture on your blog, I might have to kill you.”

We loaded up on wine and snacks.

I was settled in with a cat on my lap – truly, all the comforts of home.

“Don’t be honored by my presence – it’s because you’re sitting in my chair.”

We watched about three minutes of the opening ceremonies, found ourselves wondering WTF, and switched to Shrek 2, The Princess Bride, and Pitch Black. We did manage to switch back right in time to see the torch lighting extravaganze.

“Let me know when they’re going to light the torch.”

And at the end of the night (around 2 a.m.), we both had respectable progress to show.

C is for…

Chaos! (Like, duh.) Yes, I joined the ABC-A-Long. I’ve enjoyed reading what everyone’s been writing, but I thought it was closed… until a few days ago, when Heather posted that she’d just joined. I’m so there! (Thanks, Heather!)

I’ve missed A and B and I’ll go back to pick them up… after the Knitting Olympics. We’re going basic services for the duration of the Knitting Olympics. You have been warned.

Anyway. C is for Chaos, my utterly chaotic cat, whom I’ve known since his birth (and even before – I felt him kicking inside of Riley!). He became mine at a rough point in my life; having his warm, purring, busy self helped ground me then and now. He is an endless source of companionship, entertainment, and exasperation. What more could I ask?


“Psst… she means to ask all of you for more tuna, please. She just forgot.”

A Blogger’s (Silent) Poetry Reading

More details at Grace’s Poppies – with thanks to my friend Deb, who introduced me to this poem through the gift of a small but lovely book she made for me…

The Weight of Sweetness by Li-Young Lee

No easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.

Song, wisdom, sadness, joy: sweetness
equals three of any of these gravities.

See a peach bend
the branch and strain the stem until
it snaps.
Hold the peach, try the weight, sweetness
and death so round and snug
in your palm.
And, so, there is
the weight of memory.

Windblown, a rain-soaked
bough shakes, showering
the man and the boy.
They shiver in delight,
and the father lifts from his son’s cheek
one green leaf
fallen like a kiss.

The good boy hugs a bag of peaches
his father has entrusted to him.
Now he follows
his father, who carries a bagful in each arm.
See the look on the boy’s face
as his father moves
faster and farther ahead, while his own steps
flag, and his arms grow weak as he labors
under the weight of peaches.

Sunday, sunny Sunday

Thought I would include several more pictures of Chaos in the hat. I don’t think he was annoyed… Don’t forget that this is the cat who likes to walk around with a paper bag on his head. The hat was probably just a warmer, fuzzier, more colorful paper bag from his perspective!

Just hanging out on my…er, his chair.
Note that he’s licking my hand, not biting it!

Yesterday I drove down to St. Peter to have lunch with a friend. It was a gorgeous, sunny day – something we’ve had all too few of in Minnesota recently. After lunch, we always wander over to the Tangled Skein, which has a very nice yarn selection (but no website, alas). Notice the lovely hot pink and orange Noro Kureyon on the right, Mama_Tulip?!

The Tangled Skein also had loads of Malabrigio, which I’ve heard a lot about but haven’t ever seen before. It was wonderfully soft.

Here’s a close-up of the orange for you, Mama_Tulip:

Alas, I remained true to Stashalong and took only pictures from the store…

Oh oh

If you haven’t stopped by Yarn Harlot today, head on over and find out about the Knitting Olympics. What the heck – it sounds crazy but entertaining, so I signed on. I’m not sure what I’m going to knit yet – I have to do some stash excavation first. Any suggestions? Here are the rules from Steph’s site:

1. The project must be a challenge for you to complete in 16 days.

2. There are no rules about what a challenge would be….Use your own conscience.

3. While this is intended to be somewhat difficult (like the Olympics) it is not intended to ruin your life. Don’t set yourself up for failure. (Olympic athletes may cry, but they do not whine pitifully, sob and threaten members of their family with pointed sticks because they haven’t slept in five days.) This is intended to (like the Olympics) require some measure of sacrifice, and be difficult, but it should be possible to attain.

4. No casting on before the flame is lit.

5. Finish before the flame goes out.

6. You may swatch before the games. (I consider this “training.”)

Thanks for all the, um, creative suggestions for where sparkly red mouse (SRM) might be. Wherever he is, I don’t think he’s lonely, since I assume sparkly neon lime green mouse (SNLGM) is with him.

If I find either of them in the fridge/freezer/stove, I’m moving out – the cat can obviously take care of himself at that point! I have a strong suspicion that they’re hanging out under the stove, way in back behind the power cord where the yardstick can’t get to. I am awfully tired of pulling out the stove, though. I have resorted to pulling the tails off the other sparkly mice in an attempt to increase their appeal… Nope. He knows that a tailless sparkly brown, orange, or purple mouse is not the same as SRM or SNLGM.

Eileen -You should worry if you’ve started channeling Chaos! ;p
Tink – Hopefully you will recover from your exertion. Good job! Under the stove is the last place I will look.
MrsPao – I did check in my tote bag and, alas, no mouse. Chaos often does send mice to work with me, so it was a very good guess.

Added 5:25 pm: Well, poop. SRM was not under the stove or the fridge. (I’m sure my next door neighbor wonders why I move my appliances so much!). SNLGM was under the stove with SOM (oooh-la-la!) and Chaos is happily playing with SNLGM… for now. Until he starts looking for SRM again. Heck, I’ve even tried ripping the tail off another SRM (SRM the 2nd or 3rd), but he knows the difference.

Hmm, I’m posting from work, without access to most of my photos… Let’s see, hmm, I guess it will have to be baby pictures. Here’s Chaos at one week:

Here we are when he was about 10 days old: