Rachael

with the sweater I’m making for my guy friend (bartered for couch and wall painting help) that I’m eternally grateful for TV. Dude, 3X1 ribbing. The whole thing. Feel my pain, wouldja? But it is, like, the coziest big ole sweater I’ve ever made, and if he hates it, I’ll keep it. I kind of hope he hates it.

Okay, can we talk Colonial House? I had to take a break to write this. This is for several reasons. One, if I write now, I can sleep in tomorrow without feeling guilty for having not really blogged much for DAYS (sorry ’bout that). Two, I can’t stand to watch what’s going to happen on this sixth episode. Had to pause it. I was at once sad and happy to see the governor go back to Waco and the present day. He and his whole family seem like beautiful, wonderful people that I would be glad to call friends. Only thing is, the governor wouldn’t call me a friend. He’d call me a homosexual sinner, and I’m bummed that he never got called on his homophobia – that he never had to confront Jonathon and that they never got a real chance to talk. I also can’t stand what’shisname the New Governor, and I like his wife even less. Erp. The revolution is coming. I can feel it.

Also — I really liked when Don Wood said that if they didn’t straighten up, they’d be known as the F-ckin’ Lame Colony. Heh. The humor of this particular show comes directly from their lameness.

Enough TV talk. I never used to talk TV. I didn’t even have cable for most of my life. Cable is relatively recent in my life. TiVo is still brand new. And hear me now, I won’t go back. You can’t make me. No pillar of salt, me. Won’t even look back to say goodbye to my cable-less self….

I went running today! It was the first time this week, and I ran three times last week. I hate to admit it, most of all to my non-athletic-and-proud-of-it self, but I’m still liking it. A lot. I actually like the running part more than the walking-because-I’m-gonna-die part. The running hurts less somehow. I also HAVE to call it running, even though what I’m doing is more like a jog. A really slow jog. Even a semi-quick walk. I have short legs. What am I going to do? I canNOT say that I’m jogging. That’s just dumb.

Oh, and I’ll leave you with the best picture EVER. The little mama (wearing the Mindless Raglan) and blissed out sleeping Adah:

My sister Christy graduated about twenty-six years ago.

Today, she graduated again, receiving her Master of City Planning diploma from Berkeley.

Isn’t she bee-yoo-tee-ful? I’m the proudest sister in the whole wide world. She had a small ceremony yesterday within her department, and today was the large one, where she wore her robes. What IS it about that hood that’s so wonderful, that has so much power? I loved seeing her in it.

And you must have the obligatory LittleMamaInHat picture:

Christy, you ROCK! I’m so proud that you’re my sister, and my friend. I love you.

I went to bed late last night (well, as late as a girl who works midnights can say is late) and didn’t fall into real sleep until about 5am, when Adah decided she wanted to eat. That’s a little early for us, so I usually put her out in the living room until about 6 or 7, when I’ll get up and feed them and then go back to bed. This morning (oh, the guilt), I didn’t wake up to their crying. I always wake up to their crying. Usually the slightest whimper of hunger wakes me and then I can’t get back to sleep.

Today they cried until 10:45, when I finally woke up, looked at the clock, and said Shit. Because, you see, there’s only one litterbox in the house, and it’s the depths of my closet. In my bedroom. To which they had no access.

Not sure which one it was, but s/he had pooped very neatly into the sissal Ikea two-dollar rug and then rolled it up. Not kidding. Wasn’t that sweet? But still. The looks on their faces! Betrayal! Shock! Disgust at having to live like cats in the wild.

I’m a Very Bad Cat Mom today. Digit and I were had been in retroactive-mother’s-day-present negotiations, but today the talk has been tabled until further notice.

And by popular demand! Mariko’s running tips! Whoo-hoo! (Besides the knitted jogbra, the last line is my fave.

Well, I think it’s great you are going to start running. I’m sure you will get loads of unsolicited advice, so I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon! Here are a few suggestions so easing into running will be fun and painless (the most important thing):

– Get yourself a good pair of running shoes. Transports, which is just up on College Avenue, is a good place, and they will fit you with the appropriate shoe for your foot type (that is VERY important. Don’t let me catch you going to Big 5 or the 24-hour Long’s for your shoes!!!!). A pair will cost you probably $80-100 but will be well worth it.

– If possible, run on soft surfaces such as DIRT. Dirt is your friend, and concrete is not. Do not run on sidewalks unless you absolutely have to. They are murder on your joints. When I first started running, which was when I lived in Berkeley (sigh), I ran around the little dirt track at that park on Cedar Street. It was perfect for me because I didn’t have to think that hard (since I was just going around in circles), and I could keep track of my progress very easily. Sometimes having to find a route is psychologically more brutal than just going to a track. So, to start, that might be an option for you. Also, I initially ran with a walkman because I hated running, and I needed a distraction. After a couple of weeks, though, I decided to go cold turkey. I figured that if I was going to become a runner, I needed to learn how to run without music (plus it’s really dangerous).

– Pepper spray, if alone.

– Don’t start worrying about the marathon yet. First you need to get into routine running and build up a baseline. The marathon is far away, and you have a ways to go before you get there.

– Please don’t knit yourself a jogbra. I don’t think it will be very effective (you are, after all, a loose knitter).

– Don’t worry about speed. Maybe find yourself a nice little path or track on a soft surface and begin by running 1/2 mile (that’s what’s nice about a track), walk 1/2 mile, run 1/2 mile, walk 1/2 mile. Maybe for your first week or two just work on ONE MILE, then slowly build your way up. Pay attention to what your body tells you, obviously.

– When you start building up to higher mileage, explore! My favorite runs in the East Bay were the Strawberry Canyon route by the Berkeley campus, and the Inspiration Point area at Tilden Park. Gorgeous.

– If you like social running, join a running group or start one. I have several friends in Berkeley/Oakland whom I am trying to coerce into joining me for some part of the Chronicle Marathon, and they would love to run with you. They are kind, funny, generous souls, and they would adore you. They are also trying to get into shape right now, so it’s not like they are going to run you into the ground and leave you for dead.

Mariko sent me the BEST list of running tips. I can’t thank her enough for that. Especially this one: – Please don’t knit yourself a jogbra. I don’t think it will be very effective (you are, after all, a loose knitter).

I’ve got errands to run today, and I just hate that. I wish that you could do EVERYTHING on the internet sometimes. I was one of the first people to order groceries from WebVan when they went into business. I abhor grocery shopping (and most kinds of shopping, yarn excluded), so I thought it was brilliant that I could sit up in the wee sma’s clicking on what kind of tomato I preferred most, and that some strong young man would deliver it two days later, bringing the boxes down my stairs for me! It was like a miracle.

*Sniff*

The good old days….. WebVan’s gone now, and I can’t afford the actual store delivery prices…..

Today I have to go spend my monthly hundred dollars on the prescription cat food that keeps Digit alive and grumpy. Then I have to go stand in a huge line for the birth control pills that are obviously not necessary for anything but pain management, and which my insurance will not dispense to me in any greater quantity than one month at a time. Because I might sell them on the black market? Pssst…. Gotcher top-grade progesterone right now, kid. Dime bag. Innerested?

Then, what else? I know I have to go somewhere else. Oh, yeah. The grocery store. I’ll hit Trader Joe’s, which lessens the overload on my system by being easier than somewhere like Safeway. At least I like most of their stuff and don’t have to navigate through Processed Cheese and Chip land quite so much. But Bay Area Trader Joe’s stores might kill you. Really. People are crazy inside, and it’s worse in the parking lots. At the Emeryville one, I used to park across the street in the hotel parking lot and then walk back to my car with my loaded bags, just so I could avoid the BMWs vying for first place in the I-Beat-You-To-The-Stoplight race.

Then, though, I have to go to the yarn store. No, really. I do. I have to go. I lost my Article Pract measuring tape somewhere on the trip, probably on the plane home, since I know I saw it there last. I rarely lose anything, but this is a GREAT thing to lose. I should lose it more often. Not only does it promote my fave store, but it means I have to go back and visit Christina. I swear I won’t look at yarn. Uh-huh.

Ugh. Besides that last, I don’t want to leave the house. Family’s coming in to town, though, for sister Christy’s graduation from Berkeley with her master’s (whoo hoooooo!), so I kinda have to possess the rough approximation of nourishment in my house. A remainder of gouda (ooh! Hungry!) and fourteen beers left over from camping ain’t gonna convince my mother I’m living healthy. I am, Mom, I swear. I ate two bananas yesterday…..

Off to it. Mwah.

Just a couple of things:
A dead fish sachet. Wins as funniest knitted object I’ve seen in a long time.
And the whole wide world, knitted. Wanderlust, indeed.

https://rachaelherron.com/just_a_couple_o/

With her permission, I give you the only work-safe campin’ photo I have, Kelly knitting. This doesn’t show the beer or the dog at her feet:

It is a little odd, this new home. Yarn-A-Go-Go. I write. I knit. I yarn. Brenna has fixed me all up, and you can officially update your links. Please? Yippee!

Okay, now I can’t think of anything I want to say. Huh.

Actually, there’s too much I want to say. I wrote today, in the sun, outside, writing for the first time on my garden swing. I KNEW I bought the one with a sun-shade for a reason. It’s my writing swing (and my reading and napping swing, too). Damn, it feels really good to re-claim what I know was already true, and give it voice and authority in my on-line life.

I never meant to have a knitting blog. Really. When I started blogging two years ago, it was just a place for me to write, to get my thoughts focused, to jumpstart the real writing. But I was a knitter, too, and I liked to read the knitting sites. When I moved to Typepad last year, it was easier for me to connect with knittin’ buddies, what with that elegant commenting feature ‘n’all. But I never joined the big knitting ring, never described myself as a knit-blog, although that is what I became. And I’m happy about it, too. I’ve made some of the best friends I’ve ever had, right here, because of the knittin’.

But really, I’m a writer. Yup.

[Aside, does my kitty up there really look like he’s heaving up a hair ball? I’ll have to change him again….. Yes, my cats throw up yarn. Now there’s some yarn-a-go-go for you. Ah, well. There’s only so much playing around one can do with copyright-free graphics and not lose one’s mind…. I’ll do it later.]

Speaking of losing one’s mind, I canNOT focus today and track a single thought. I’m thinking about too many things. Right now, I’m primarily trying not to think about the fact that I’m trying to turn into a runner. I know. I don’t run. As Greta says, I’ll run only if something is chasing me. Or if the ice-cream truck is moving too quickly down the street. Why, oh, WHY is the desire to run taking me over right now? I called a friend on Monday and asked her to lunch, knowing full well that she’s my shopping buddy. I pretty much hate to shop, so whenever I have a shopping chore, she comes along. I told, “I need to buy running shoes.” Instead of snorting, which my other friends have done with much glee, she asked me to run a marathon.

Let me say that again: She asked me to run a marathon. In Hawaii. The AIDS marathon. In December.

I said yes.

It might be the most stupid yes I’ve ever said, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t think of what to write today, because I’m trying not to confess what I did to y’all, my readers, who might somehow think they should hold me accountable FOR RUNNING A MARATHON. Mariko? Honey? We need to talk. Mariko and her friend Hedi are marathon queens. Hedi told me recently, “I think I’m going to run a marathon in every state.” (I think I’m going to eat ice-cream in every state, is that kind of the same thing?) And they’re about the size of both of my cats put together. Now, I’m a healthy girl. Shall I call myself big-boned? Sure, why not?

A marathon? Cripes.

I’m reserving the right to flake. But I’m going to put my shoes on in a minute here and go for my second (ever) run. Training starts second week of June, and I don’t want them to know I can’t even run up two flights of stairs without turning beet-red. Good god.

See? As soon as I got honest with you, the tongue was loosened, wasn’t it? Oy.