Rachael

Why yes, I was in the VERY TOP row of the top deck.

I went to the Oakland Raiders versus the Chicago Bears game with some work friends yesterday. I’ve been wanting to go to a Raiders game FOREVER but people always say the same thing, "Oh, scary! You better be careful…. You should go with a guy…."

I freaking loved every minute of it (except I drank beer during the day, starting during our tailgate at 11am, and had a hangover by 7pm — that sucked. I forgot if you do that, you have to KEEP drinking. Silly me, switching to water).

I have never seen a sea of humanity more chilled out, more accepting, having more fun. You’d actually see Bears fan walking in with Raider fans, tailgating together. Granted, there was some ribbing but it seemed good natured on both sides. I’d thought the people who I first saw wearing blue and orange were brave — that they were gonna get beat up for SURE. But nah. No big deal. Raider Nation. That is a brotherhood if I ever saw one. The guys LOVED the other guys. We girls were fine to be there, but it was all about men bonding with other men that they didn’t know. It was cool.

And it was November 11! My favorite date on the calendar! And my favorite Raider is Janikowski, number 11. Kinda sad when the kicker is one of the best players — we lost, 17-6, not a big surprise. But even after losing, Raider Nation was mellow. Maybe they’re crazy at away games or something. But not at home.  So fun. And from the top row, you can see San Francisco. Gorgeous.

And while I was there, Lala took the dogs for a walk (to say that she doesn’t care about football is a gross understatement) and then made this super-great movie:

Music, too! That is my cute dog, Clara, with short (get it?) appearances by Harriet and Miss Idaho. We now HAVE to take them to the hills to walk — no more beaches for them, for a long time. No one knows when all this oil will be cleaned up from the spill. It’s awful in so many huge ways, and some small ones, too, like Clara not being able to play in the waves and roll on the sand — her two favorite things. But the hills are nice. This is in Leona Canyon.

And now I’m off to write some more for Nanowrimo — keeping up but only just….

I realized the other day that this was going to happen with the time rolling back an hour: On Tuesday afternoon, the sun set. I was not going to see the sun again until Sunday morning.

Think about that.

Damn. I’m kind of bummed just thinking about it, and I’m not one of those that really feels like they need sun — I love rain — winter doesn’t get me down, but oh, boy. That’s something. Tuesday afternoon to Sunday morning. I get to work at 6am, before dawn, and leave at 6pm, after dark. We have one small round porthole in our concrete bunker, but because of issues with glare on computer screens, we have the blinds closed all the time.

We don’t take breaks, don’t have the staffing (but that means I get to screw around on the computer and knit and write and all sorts of good stuff when it’s slow), but I might start trying to go outside at least once a day for a couple of minutes. I’m kind of weirded out by this. I’ve never worked this kind of shift at this time of year — usually I’ve worked midnight shifts where you get plenty of daylight in the afternoon/early evening hours before you go to work.

Weird.

Also: Nanowrimo is kicking my ass. I managed only 875 words today, and I’m quitting while I’m ahead. I assume I’ll bounce back, and my word count is solid, so I’m okay, but yipes.

I would like a nap.

This, however, cheers me up:

   

Miss Idaho is happy dog

and this is happy, too:

She’s so small she looks like one of those bobbleheaded things.

We will not talk about Lala’s cowboy hat that Clara ate all but the brim of this morning. That is not happy talk. No, it is not. Very bad dog. If Lala felt anything like I felt after finding the cashmere massacre, I feel very badly for her indeed. (Yes, Clara’s getting daily hikes, and training, and kongs. Just damn naughty. Grrr.)

Besides not setting my clocks back on the Fall-Back day, which leads to gaining like SEVEN HOURS over the course of the day —
7am – time to get up, NO WAIT, it’s only 6am! Whee!
Noon – maybe I’ll take a nap, NO WAIT, it’s only eleven! Plenty of naptime!
6pm – Dinnertime, NO WAIT, it’s only five! Time for drinks!

I even got in a fight with TiVo, thinking it wasn’t recording the Amazing Race, but it was going to, at the appropriate time, which I had forgotten about again. That is seriously how easily I forget things. I love the daylight savings change in Fall. LOVE IT. Hate it getting dark earlier, but that’s the price we pay for such a fun day.

But that is an old passion, not a new passion. My new passion is looking at kitties (and dogs) with cerebellar hypoplasia on YouTube. If you like cats at all, I swear to all that’s holy you have to watch this video about Charley right now. Like, NOW. You can’t not be moved by that. And moved in a funny, spastic, lovely way.

If that tickles your fancy, there’s also THIS one (Gordon as a baby and as an adult), and THIS one for siblings, and THIS one for the dog lovers. Oh, happy.

A. Lala is funny about our aminals.

B. I wrote another 1750 words, for a total of 3500 for the first two days of Nanowrimo. I hope. I’m writing at work, and I have no way to ship my writing out of here and no way to officially count words. Because of where I work, I can’t bring in any memory devices, no disks or memory sticks, and the computers that we work on are not connected to the outside world in any way, including to the internets. We have a separate internet computer to share, but I would never hog it in order to Nano at work. That’s just wrong. And it’s so NICE to have a job where I’m paid to know what to do and when to do it — but when there’s nothing going on, it’s not like I have to polish the silver or anything.

So I am left with two choices:

1. Write longhand. Response: No way in hell am I going to retype all that. Plus, I write so SLOWLY by hand compared to how I type.

2. Type it out on the computer in front of me. Response: This is what I’m doing, but I tell you, it’s WEIRD to write, print it out to hardcopy and then erase all trace of what I’ve spent hours on. I’m so used to saving and re-saving and saving to disk and saving online…  I’ve ordered scanner OCR software (ReadIris 11 for Mac – any users? Advice?), and even if I only get 85% accuracy (Apple says it’s more like 99% accuracy), I’ll be saving time. But to have those words, uncounted, only on paper…. it’s just weird, man.

C. Whooops. I don’t have a C. That’s it. Mwah.

Started Nanowrimo today. Did you? Hey, I’m going to use the Treadmill idea that was introduced to me by PoMoGolightly. It works wonders for motivation — there’s just something about accountability and thinking about WHEN you’re going to work the next day.

Basically, you track these things:

1. The date and the time. 2. How long I plan to
work. 3. What I plan to work on for this day. 4. Time when I stop
writing and total amount of time writing. 5. What did I actually end up
doing? How well did it go? 6. What I plan to work on tomorrow. 7. When
I plan to work tomorrow and for how long.

My treadmill journal is HERE; you can use it as a jumping-off point. It’s not interesting enough to read regularly, although feel free to keep me to task if you see me falling off.

Is complete!

I finally got around to joining the arms to the body, and from then on, finishing was a breeze. Especially since I was sick and had so much time to sit around and make yoke decreases. Boy, did I catch up on the TV I’d missed while being away.

Specs:
Pattern: Durrow, by Jodi Green, available free
Yarn: Lamb’s Pride Worsted, color kiwi, six skeins used
Needles: 7US to gauge 18st/4in

Mods:
I had read on blessed Ravelry that some people didn’t love the fit of the neck, that it was a little wide, and I didn’t want to start messing with arm-hole and sleeve shaping, so I did the whole thing in the round, joined the arms and body at the armhole, knit an inch, then decreased for a raglan every other row until it looked right. I did a neck a la Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Workshop, raglan style. Turned out to fit her perfectly, and I’m thrilled.

She chose the color, and while it’s wild and some people couldn’t carry it off, it looks perfect on her. Color is more true in this picture:

She likes it! She really likes it! Plus, it makes her look like she has guns. Not that she isn’t muscular, because she IS. But her shoulders look BUILT under those cables. Yep. Sexay.

In other, sadder knitting news, I wound up a skein of that lovely orange cashmere I bought in New York. My splurge. I cast on for a lace scarf. I am trying to learn to love the lace. I can DO the lace, but I don’t love it. And I see all these other knitters who rhapsodize over knitting lace, their faces brightening, their fingers quivering, and I want to feel that rapture. So I was trying.

I cast on, didn’t like it, got another needle, tried again. Went twice through the opening repeats. I was liking it. I left my knitting on the table. I took a shower. When I got out, Clara had strewn the whole damn ball all over the house, pulled it into little bits, all 400 yards. Hopelessly tangled. And it’s lace-weight, so it’s just impossible.

I have to admit, I cried. Contrary to what one reader thought (comment deleted), we don’t have enough money to be profligate — hell, we barely have enough money for beer! I had to work an 18-hour overtime shift just to be able to go on the trip, and I had a strict and small yarn budget. Those two precious skeins of cashmere were just that to me: Precious. And Clara DESTROYED one of them.

However, my wife has a certain level of ADD when it comes to things like tangles in cords, wires, and yarn, so she might be able to save it. I have written it off in my heart, or the hope would be too great, but I will pass the mess on to her and see what she can do.

BAD CLARA. Strangely, the only yarn she’s EVER gone after is cashmere. She destroyed another, cheaper skein once, not that precious, and she ate the arms and ribbing off a thrift-store cashmere cardigan. She never bothers my other knitting. I. Was. So. Mad. At. Her. Words cannot express.

And I even brought her a present from Rhinebeck! A border collie (which she loves loves LOVES).

Can you see it? She’s dreaming of cashmere…..

So I’ve given up the lace for now, and I’m casting on for Ariann, by BonneMarie Burns, in some grey Rowan Kid Classic that I’ve had in the stash for at least five years.