Archives for July 2006

So we’re on our way to Chez Panisse the other night, on my birthday. Lala asks me how old I am. This is not an idle question — neither of us can ever remember how old the other one is. I say that I am now 33! Yay! 3 times 11, which is my favorite number. Wooot! What a great year it’s going to be!

I’d already said that to LOTS of people in the last few days, co-workers and such.

Suddenly, it feels very familiar.

Let’s look back at my blog post from last year, shall we? On July 5, 2005, I wrote, "Thanks for reading. Y’all are a great part of my birthday, too. Thirty-three! That’s three times my favorite number! Woooot!"

Yes, familiar.

So I say to Lala, with growing concern, "What year is it?"

We think for a while.

"It’s 2006, I think."

"Okay," I said. "I was born in 1972."

We move our fingers and count under our breath.

"Shit. I’m 34."

Lala starts laughing.

"I’m THIRTY-FOUR. I lost a whole damn YEAR! I’ve been 32 for TWO YEARS!"

I was pissed. And amused, yes. But so irritated. Apparently I knew how old I was for one day last year, and then forgot all about the fact that I’d had a birthday. I would have sworn to my mother (who would have had to think hard about the math, too) that I was turning 33 on Wednesday.

Dang it.

So, what you’re waiting for: Chez Panisse was perfection. I had the best beef I’ve ever had in my life. And a baked goat cheese salad. And a ginger something dessert that went SO well with the port. The ambiance was perfect, the waitress excellent and understated, and my escort was HOT. What more can I girl ask for?

Also, this just in: My boss at work just gave me a bag of fleece, unwashed, raw Jacob wool from his sheep named Ulysses. I’m gonna have to learn how start from (almost) scratch.

I swear I have. You don’t come here for THAT, do you? If you do, I bet you’re disappointed a lot.

I have been knitting, but I feel like I’ve been working on this one thing for YEARS. I’m making the IK corset pullover, but I’m doing it in leftover wedding-dress yarn, DB’s DK weight cash-cotton. I’m doing it on 2US needles, in order to get the fabric I want, so I’m having to make the largest size in order to compensate for the difference in gauge. Which means I’m knitting and knitting and knitting and it’s not getting any bigger. The sleeves are done, and about 2/3 of the front. I think I’ve been working on the front of it since before I could ride a bike.

Clara’s very quiet. Hang on a minute.

Okay, she’s all right. She can be very naughty in the space of thirty unwatched seconds, though.

What was  I saying? Oh, yeah. Knitting. Boring. I am bored by the knit. I REALLY want to make the Gathering Intentions cabled sweater from Fiona Ellis’s new book, and I want to spin the yarn for it, too. I think maybe I’ll start that today. I’m not motivated to do ANYTHING else today. I’ve been finding that lately, after these incredibly busy, sleep-deprived weeks, that I don’t want to do anything on at least one of my days off. I should clean the house, and I should do laundry, but instead, I think I’ll spin and goof off. I have to work some overtime tonight (hello, holiday triple-time-and-a-half!), and then I have tomorrow off, and IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! Tomorrow, that is.

We have reservations to Chez Panisse tomorrow night. It’s the #5 restaurant in the Western Hemisphere, according to Wikipedia. A friend gave us a gift cert for the wedding, and we’re using it. I can’t WAIT.

Ohmygod, I had a dream this morning that I was marrying Lala again. Yes, that’s something we want to do, as much as possible, in as many countries as will let us, but not, as my dream went, at the same location as the first wedding, and not at 10 in the morning, and not when I’m running two hours late and I’m at the store trying to buy champagne and flowers and strawberries in a hardware store, and I realize I forgot my wedding dress at home and no one will answer their cell phones so I can ask them to pick it up, and then I realize I have to wear black low-heeled shoes with my ivory dress because I don’t have anything else. Then I woke up after last being in a boat with my mother, trying to row to the wedding, since the car ran out of gas, but we’d just realized we’d spent 30 minutes rowing the wrong way….. I actually had to make myself go back to sleep and get married, just to prove to myself that Lala would have waited anyway. (She did, by the way.)