Rachael

Yep. This is the reason I’m still sitting here.

I only got 72. We didn’t have cable when MTV came out. Okay, we never had cable.

Man, today I was going to say: Hey! The signing for the new Stitch ’n Bitch book is tomorrow night in San Francisco, let’s go! I had images of meeting up with some of the San Francisco bloggers and putting names to faces. I had already planned to meet up with friends afterward to knit at a bar downtown, so I thought it would be perfect.

Then Kira pointed out that the San Francisco signing is in Walnut Creek. Whatever. The one time I’ve already made plans to be in the City, something cool is happening in the East Bay? Lord. But I figger I can buy the book anytime and I’d rather have a beer and work on my Must-Have Cardigan that I’ve finally started, so I’m foregoing the signing tomorrow.

The Must-Have:

FMS. Fear of Missing Something. One of my girls (Cari, Em, alison, can’t remember which one) said they had that, and I got it bad. What FMS leads to is overbooking, which leads to exhaustion, which leads to flaking. No one likes a flake. But at least I try to admit it when I think I’m going to. Brooke called me the other night to try to get me out to a Halloween party. I was soooo tired from working all day and I did that whole, “Cool, I’ll try to meet you there. Don’t expect me, but I’m hoping I’ll get there.” She said, “Don’t flake!” I said, “Oh, it’s highly likely that I will.” There. Warning given.

But I do promise the girls (Kira and Rachel) so often that I’ll come see them in the City and then flake out that I’m not giving this one up.

FMS. Hey, sometimes you really DO miss something. You know my Stitch’n’Bitch that I used to lead? I held it on the first Sunday afternoon of the month at the gay bar down the street from my house. I’d have anywhere from three to fifteen people there sometimes, and it was great. I had to cancel the whole damn thing when I switched shifts – I’ll be working Sundays for the next six months. I took the listing off all the bulletin boards, off the websites where it was posted. I felt sad.

Then Tara said, “Hey, I’m going to the SnB this Sunday.”
I said mournfully, “I’m sorry, I cancelled that. I can’t lead it anymore.”
“No, my friend who owns the yarn store is holding it.”

Okay. Now I’m replaceable. AND to add insult to injury, I asked Tara later if it was fun. “Yeah, it was great. You know, the editor of Bitch magazine came.”

Sometimes you do miss something.

Oh, well. Ain’t gonna miss nothin’ today. I’m going to start my laundry here in a minute, and that’s my cue to sit on the couch for three hours while it washes and dries. I sit and knit and read all the blogs I haven’t had time to read all week. I LOVE laundry time. Then I’m going to walk to the local coffee shop and do some writing. Maybe I’ll do that whole writer-angst thing and dress in black and try to look soulfully pained. Or maybe I’ll just stay in what I’m already wearing, sweatpants and my Lo-Tech and be a comfy East-Bay writer instead. Or just be Rachael. I like that the best.

It’s hard to type with a large, heavy, needy, kneady, somewhat smelly body trying to suck the front of your sweatshirt. Digit is the terror of the neighborhood (thus the smell of dirt on his coat) but is the quintessential pansy at home. He hisses and spits and acts like he hates Adah and is going to send her on to her maker in about fourteen seconds, and she just rolls her eyes and walks right by him to the food bowl.

So Digit’s on me right now. Adah, however, is on the bed, still sleeping off last night’s indignity. She a bathtub cat. I know. You can hear it coming, can’t you? Every night she sits on the edge of the tub and I pet her with one wet hand and hold the New Yorker with the other. Two years we’ve done this. Never a problem.

Last night, the bath was WAY too hot, so I was edging myself in, and she thought it was petting time. I gave her a cursory pat while trying to breathe through the scalding heat. She thought it was a real pet, leaned in and slipped.

Luckily, she wasn’t injured. Luckily, *I* wasn’t injured. She managed to hurl herself up and out of the water without using me for purchase, thank god. She started to bolt and then stopped, standing completely still in the middle of the bathroom, water running from her soggy legs and bottom. I think she was just trying to make it all go away. I laughed so hard for so long that Digit actually walked into the bathroom (he generally avoids that room). He stared at me laughing, put his tail down and stalked out. I laughed ‘til I cried. Am I terrible? Adah still isn’t over it. I hope she does get over it, though. There’s nowhere nicer to pet a kitty who drools than in the tub. You can wash your hand right off and start over.

Off to work today – yep, it’s a day off, but they needed a quick 8 hour slot of OT filled because someone called in sick, and I’m happy to do it. Christmas is coming and the purse is slim. Need to money.

New knitting update tomorrow, I promise. Happy y’all have found the secret. It’s like a big blog scavenger hunt, no? Happy day to you.

I finished the secret project! And it’s up on the web! Those of you who know where I love to buy yarn, it’s there. Those of you who don’t, or are possibly related to me and don’t know what the secret project is, DON’T SNOOP! If you can’t figure out where it’s posted and you don’t think I made it for you, email me. I’ll tell you where to look.

Hee! Makes me happy.

Thanks for all the positive comments on the Sweater I Hate. Maybe I’ll wear it sometime….

It’s raining here tonight – just started as I was driving home. I love the sounds I’m hearing right now: Digit’s rough tongue washing himself, the hiss of the gas heater next to me, the people upstairs thumping about (somehow homey), the rain falling in large enough drops outside that they’re making that plopping sound, the occasionally great THUMP as Adah hurtles her little body at the bathroom door, hoping to get out so she can steal Digit’s food. Okay, that last isn’t a nice noise. It’s a pretty funny one, though.

Look! This is cool. Adah has her own little doppelganger. This is Adah:

Shelley in England (from Jane):

I had a migraine yesterday. A real one. I was at work, and the headache started up and just kept getting worse. I have new respect for all you sufferers out there. It sucked. Understatement. Not only did I just want to lie in the dark and/or die, but I got snappish and teary and all out of sorts. I also turned stupid and refused to go home sick, preferring to play the martyr. How annoying I must have been. I woke up this morning feeling completely sick and hung-over. The hang-over with none of the fun. Shite.

And today I started training a new person at work. It’s kind of big deal for me – I’ve dodged the trainer bullet for a long time. Scared, I guess. Dispatching is just such an impossible thing to teach – it generally takes about three to five months, sometimes longer. It took me three years to start to get comfortable with the job, and training feels like stepping back to the beginning, somehow. Reliving the agony. I had a dream last night that I was trying to talk to the trainee and she wouldn’t listen to me and when I looked down I had forgotten to put on shoes. It was awful.

I talked constantly for almost ten hours today, until I was hoarse, and I said almost nothing. For everything I taught her, I thought of forty-seven other things that she absolutely had to know right at that very moment. Frustrating and difficult, but somehow satisfying. Don’t quote me on that.

(But training is going to be so all-consuming for the next month that I won’t be posting as often. Or as well, for that matter. I’m sooo brain-fried right now. I feel like I’ve used my allotment of words for the whole week, just today. And it doesn’t really allow for me to take a break, so no writing on my lunch break. MUST WRITE AT HOME. Must not rely on work breaks to get my writing done. Hold me to it, kay?)

Off to make a lamb chop (wish me luck) and take a bath. And off to bed early tonight, ‘cause I’m gonna get some writing in before work tomorrow morning. Yippee! Hope you’re as happy and warm and dry as I am tonight. I lurve fall, don’t you? Knittin’ weather if I ever felt it.

I had a lovely phone conversation the other day with Leslie of Nake-id Knits. It was the first time I’d ever spoken to a blog-friend, and it really was weird at first. Then we fell into it – just as you’d think would happen. What I found curious were not only the connections that we’re all already aware of (the knitting, the writing, the cats, the (generally) liberal stance, the graciousness of spirit), but also our shared rapidity of speech, an ability to zoom from one topic to another and back again. It must be the knitting. The ability to make it up as you go along. She’s of the “trotting horse” school of thought, as am I (as opposed to someone like Becky whose finishing work is the stuff dreams are made of). It was a blast to talk about this kind of thing, to reference familiar blogs in our conversation, dropping names and sites, knowing we’re all just one big ole happy family.

I love it. We’re lucky, don’tcha think?

Plus, I get some great readers who are non-knitters who boost my spirits in just the same way. The other day my friend Nichole called me just to say she had read the virtual highway entry and wanted to thank me for making her laugh. She doesn’t knit, but she loves me despite my obsession. And special props go to Brandy and Kathy, who have read since day one, who make me feel so special. (One day Kathy’s son was in dispatch, and she said to him, “Oh, David, this is the website lady.” I didn’t think he’d really know what the hell she was talking about. Yeah, Mom. Whatever you say. But he exclaimed, “No yoga in the bathtub!” I almost fell off my chair. He knew me, all right.) And Brandy’s a knitter now!

Didn’t know this post was going to be a love-fest. But it is. There you go. Thanks for reading, thanks for being my friends. It means more than you know. Or heck, maybe you do.

Anyway – what I WAS going to talk about is the opposite of a love-fest. Yep. A knitting hate-fest. It’s what I haven’t been talking about (no, it’s not the Secret Project, but that’s done, too) because I was too busy just making it.

I hate this sweater. Hate (almost) everything about it. Won’t frog it because I hate ripping out my knitting and I hate this yarn. Not worth rewinding. It’s just Plymouth Galway Highland Heather, color 741 – not even that despicable a fiber. Good solid hundred percent wool. Nothing fancy. It’s the color I despise. What was I thinking?

In the sun, it’s beautiful. In the sun, there are hints of yellow and blue under the mint green. MINT! Aaaaaarghhhh! And how often do you wear a sweater in the sun? Huh? Huh?

And the pattern, a photocopied no-name travesty, is unavailable anywhere on-line. For good reason. I can’t even begin to document how many problems there were in the pattern. Just plain wrong, written in language that was just plain stooopid.

For these reasons, and for the sake of my sanity, I cut it short. Whap! It was supposed to have full sleeves with the pattern done down the arms. No fucking way. It got cap sleeves just so I could bind it off yesterday, for once and for all.

The thing is, I hate it too much to even give it away. That’s when you know it blows. The only way I find it tolerable is layered under black, which means I’ll wear it only on winter nights when I know it’ll be cool enough to keep two layers on (I overheat quickly). While cap sleeves might look good on some, they don’t on me, baby. I’m a tank-girl. Cap sleeves make my arms look like thighs.

Enough ranting. Here’s the monstrosity:

A detail of the twists which were pretty all right, I suppose, once I rewrote the (almost wrote “code”) pattern:

Digit weighs in:

Me dancing in black. Trying to cheer it up.

Sheesh. At least it’s over. Mint…. Grumble….

No post tomorrow, no time, so have a great weekend! See you Monday! Mwah!