Rachael

Posting from phone so brief. Must-Have is bolero for 9 year old. Sigh. Gauge was on, dunno. 6inch button bands help a bit… Deeper sigh…

Here I am! But I’m only back for a minute. Horror of all horrors: I have to ship my computer away for a while to be fixed. Nothing wildly wrong with it – just an internal part that charges the battery – but I want to get it fixed while still under warranty.

But this: It’ll take ten to fifteen business days! Oh, sweet Jesus. I’m one of those TechnoReliant people. If you’re reading this, chances are good you are one, too, and god knows if you have a blog, it’s a certainty. How am I going to do this?

Oh, I’m terrified. Isn’t that silly? It’s not even the thought of being cut off from blogging, which I’m sad enough about, but the thought of sending my whole little baby out there into the world. I’ve seen what the postal services can do to packages. Hell, when I ordered this laptop from HP, FedEx never delivered it. Two weeks later, after many tedious phone calls, it seemed that my computer had just walked away from their Oakland office. HP cheerfully sent me another one, overnight, but WHAT IF THAT HAPPENS TO THIS ONE? I am sentimentally attached. Silly, I know. But I’m not wiping the drive before it leaves me (although I have backed everything up), which means that 477 pages of my novel will be crossing the country without me. All my photos of Italy (also backed up). Lord. My finances, in all their bloody chaos.

Will it miss me like I’ll miss it?

I’m going to have more time, though. I’m giving myself a break from the novel (always an easy thing to talk myself into – hooray! One more excuse to procrastinate). I’ll write, the morning pages at least, but that might be all.

I think I’ll mop. Yeah. I haven’t mopped…. wait, let me think…. Maybe not this year.

Hey! I Swiffer! Big Swiffer girl, me. And I Wet-Swiffer, which cleans the floor with some kind of liquid chemical cleaning agent, so I call it mopping. But actually sponge mopping, down on the floor scrubbing? Not in a looonnnnggg time. Maybe I’ll do that with my extra time. And clean the hall closet. And decide on an archival method to store my knitting patterns (all ideas cheerfully accepted). I’ll knit, of course, but that’s obvious.

So if you don’t hear from me, don’t fret. I’ll be checking email from work when I can, and perhaps browsing a few blogs when I duck into them, but that’s just not the same as reading from home, tucked on my couch, knitting at the same time. Now THAT’S happiness. Browsing blogs at work is rushed and half-assed. I doubt I’ll post at all – half-assed reading is one thing, half-assed writing another (not that my posts are things of great meaning or content, but I like them to be somewhat edited before plastering them up on those great BlogWalls).

For a goodbye – here’s from this morning, before Thanksgiving dinner (fabulous, Christy did it all), before watching Love Actually (silly but JUST the holiday ticket), before the drive up the coast and home. We’re all wearing sweaters I made! Not planned, but cool.

I’ll miss you. Come back in a couple weeks? Mwah.

Quick post. Yep, sure am feeling better than I was over the weekend. However, I haven’t been taking it easy, working long shifts with short turns (ten hours off) because now other people are sicker than I. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, though, isn’t it? (Oh, I loved the Cookie Monster….)

Have to go in early tomorrow on my day off for overtime and then I’m driving from work to the folks’ for Thanksgiving, so I won’t be posting or checking email until probably Friday night. I’ll be taking the two cats (my catsitter doesn’t do holidays, and can you blame her?) so wish me luck. Sometimes I put the top down on the ‘vertible just to drown out the howling. Five solid hours of Digit keening is enough to make me a dog person.

I leave you with the scary fact that my site got hit by a person searching for “Indigo Girls stalker.” That’s frightening for many, many reasons.

And this. I know we know where angora comes from, but look at this. This kills me:

From here (more pics, but slow load). Thanks, OutOut, for the link.

And proof I still knit occasionally, the sleeves and the fronts of the Must-Have, just cast on for the back:

Happy Thanksgiving. Give the love you’ve got – we’re so lucky, ain’t we?

1) Bungee-jump
2) Caulk
3) Leash a cat
3) Wash in the machine

Okay! I know.

I know! I heard you, I heard that gasp of horror.

How was I supposed to know? I thought felting happened when HEAT was applied. Even some warmth, perhaps. But in COLD water? And just a little agitation?

The secret project felted. Oh, just a little. ON ONE SIDE.

I panic-blocked it – you know the method – where you throw your whole body into the object, twisting and pulling, muttering things about gods and saints and things you wouldn’t want your grandmother to overhear. I think I managed to right it. Almost. How many times have I said I’m of the “never be noticed from a trotting horse” camp? Too many? Is this fate? Taunting me? Testing me? Seeing if I really am a tithing member of the Church of the Trotting Horse?

Well! I am! Vehemently! I’m gonna give this project away at Christmas and ride away quickly. On my trotting horse. And I’ll never be noticed.

I’m feeling better – and THANK YOU for the well-wishes. I really felt like I was on death’s doorstep there for a couple of days. It needed a good sweeping, too, I can tell you that. Back at work today, where I’m going to try to take it easy, but it’s going to be tough to train for ten hours without much of a working voice. But it’s nice to be moving around again. (Oh! Go say hi to Bethany!)

Not feeling up for much today, either. The well-wishes mean so much, though. Thank you!

Only this point:
Recently Cari had a post about the song you won’t admit to liking, even though you boogie to it in private. This is along the same line – I have a new addiction to a very embarrassing food.

You know when you’re sitting at the beach or in the park, and you see young mothers feeding their children out of those little plastic pre-stuffed child-food bags? And then you see them sneak a little something into their own mouths? In my mind, that always smacked of eating cat food somehow. It’s just not right. We’re not SUPPOSED to eat baby food.

Oh, my friend, yes. (Deep sigh) Yes, we are.

May I suggest Gerbers Graduates Fruit Juice Snacks? They’re (shhh!) awesome. They’re like gummy candy but with less stick and more sugar. They rock. I bought three boxes the other day at Target and felt a little guilty about it. I was depriving needy children of their sugar high.

Seriously. Go get some. Plus they’re rich in vitamin C. Yup. Those moms on the park bench knew what they were doing. Now you. ‘Fess up.

You know you’re sick when you can’t knit. I can’t even bear to touch anything, or have anything touch me, and the very thought of wool running through my hands makes me squirm. And that’s just too sad. A cold, sure, knit away. But this kind of flu? I want to lie in bed and never move again.

But I’m up for a minute to say: Thanks for the comments. I swear to god, I got up just to read them, to make myself feel better. And they work! I love two things when I’m sick, and two things only: 1 – taking my temperature (I have one of those electronic dealies) and 2 – getting nice notes from wonderful people who want me to feel better.

The only thing about being a grown-up and living alone is that you have to take care of yourself. It’s so easy to just let the kleenex pile up on the floor and eat nothing but vitamins and that last piece of wrapped cheese, but it does make you a little sad. Just a little. I was lying on my sofa, thinking of the good old days when my little mama would cater to me, bringing me Nilla wafers and 7-Up, and I wished for one small feverish (101.5) moment that I was little again. And you know what?

That’s when sis Christy came over bearing:
Taco Bell Mexican Pizza
7-Up
Ginger ale
Nilla wafers
Orange juice
Theraflu
Good wishes

Aren’t I luckiest? Just a little food in my tummy and a lot of love in my heart – I’ll be better in no time and knitting again. Now back to bed with me (101 even).