Rachael

I’m so pleased that I have so many grammarians as friends! Of course, grammar and knitting are similar – tricky little bits to be manipulated, pushed and pulled; not everyone looks to see how something is made, but if one does, each stitch/word is important in strengthening the whole.

Okay. I may be pushing the analogy.

But I love it how y’all pulled out the books and looked it up for me! This could push my laziness to new extremes. Don’t spoil me. After reading the excellent comments, I’ll keep writing Ds and 1990s, but I’ll try not to be so annoyed when I see it written the other way. Humph.

I’m a wee cloudy this morning/afternoon. Last night I pushed my tiredness and cold-remnants right out of my head and went out. First, I went to the local hang-out, which is scary mix of old and, um, old. I read a novel recently that was set in Oakland in the late sixties, and the author described the White Horse in one of the scenes. The furnishings are still the same. So are the people. I counted, no lie, three mullets. We had been looking forward to the karaoke. But when it started with a rousing rendition of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” we moved into the pool room. We didn’t dare come out for a long time.

I then heeded my best judgment even less and drove over to the City to meet this girl. She sometimes reads this site, so I hope it won’t come as a shock to her to learn that I’m totally using her for her bar. Well, she’s cute, too. But damn, it’s a good bar. You could sit, by yourself, for hours at the White Horse, and only the crazy Hawaiian shirt guy would talk to you. I’ve been to the Wild Side West perhaps four or five times, and people hug me when I walk in. It’s technically a women’s bar, but it’s also the neighborhood bar. I met Paul last night, who lives around the corner and edits the Bernal Journal. Nope, you can’t make that up. While I try to limit my alcohol intake to a reasonable level (I swear I do, yep yep), there’s just something about bar culture that I fit into. Gawd, I miss smoking, though. Eighteen months.

I’m trying to slyly (all right, I’m not that slick) make myself a part of this crowd. I had a bar once, that I loved. I lost it in a break-up (even though we had drawn up the pre-nup-bar papers), and I’ve been looking for one ever since. I wrote about going back there, not too many months ago, with a girl I was seeing. We were chased out at the end, great huge ugly slurring men screaming “Lezzbi-yans!” after us. (I really think they thought it was an insult.) Guess it was a good thing I lost that bar.

So now I’m waking up slowly. No hangover – I didn’t drink more than a few beers – but I’m sleepy and slow. Back to work tonight. I was given the heads-up by a friend on today’s Fresh Air: Terry Gross interviewed Niki Caro, who wrote the screenplay for and directed Whale Rider. I rarely listen to talk radio, but I turned it on and pulled out my knitting. It was a wonderful interview (catch it if you can) and I remembered how soothing it is to sit and actually watch my hands move with the yarn. Usually I’m watching the computer or the TV while knitting, multitasking my little heart out. This was calming and so nice. Terry Gross, though. Humph. Why does she bug me, just that littlest bit? She thinks she knows everything, doesn’t she? Okay. She does. But still.

I need confirmation from my beloved Grammar Avengers. Now that I’m done with grad work, I’m more of a Grammar Aficionado. I know the rules, and I’m annoyed when others break them. But I also know that in my own haphazard writing I break the rules or simply don’t notice that in haste I’ve used the wrong form of a word. Ugh. What was once unbearable is now almost acceptable. Laziness? Age? (At thirty-one, I can now say I’m in my mid-thirties. You think?)

But help me, please. I may be wrong.

In referring to grades received, it would be incorrect to say “I received all A’s.” Right? Shouldn’t it be “As,” without the apostrophe? Like “CDs for sale,” or “I’m in my mid 30s.”

In the new Harry Potter (god bless, I finished, what a ride), there are multiple references to Harry receiving D’s.

Am I mad? Am I flat-out wrong? Someone back me up. Every time I hit another sentence that had “D’s” in it, I had wild one-sided conversations with myself – no, her editors wouldn’t have let that happen, there must some kind of exception when it comes to letter grades, no, I know I’m right, it’s three in the morning, I could be wrong.

Grammar aside, I’ve started a new little sumpin-sumpin. Apparently addicted now to tanking, I’ve decided to cable another tank up. I’m going to make the bottom third in this simple cable pattern, with the top half remaining firmly ChicKami-esque, since I lurve that pattern. We’ll see.

And I leave you with a snap of Digit. He’s outside the window, in the barren window box (I planted a lettuce-seed sampler there, and got nothing but ugly looking spouts), crying for me to notice him. How could I not notice that face?

It’s done! Made with Baby Bernat in cotton, using Bonnie Marie’s awesome pattern. It has a few mocha coffee spots on the front, and I’m a little alarmed at how the stripes in the bust kind of striped out into wide swathes of solid color, but it’s cozy and soft. I used the fabulous wide strap version, but I raised the neck in the back.

Okay, weird pose. I was in a hurry to go to work.

See the mocha stain?

Raised neck.
Oooh la!

With his permission, I submit to you the front of a co-worker’s vacation postcard.

This is what it said on the back.

I’ll make it legible:

Greetings from Ireland. I must confess I ran into a bit of bad luck. Today, our first day in Ireland, I went jogging and got bit by a dog! Then Katie and I were passengers of a very violent auto collision. Our car was totaled. Katie’s neck and face were hurt. I hurt my back and broke several ribs. Feel very sore but we lived. I feel like hell. Will try to enjoy the rest of our trip.

(Update – Katie’s fine now, Bob’s kidneys and ribs are healing nicely.) I KNOW it’s terrible, but reading it makes laugh hysterically. I’m a very bad person. Luckily Bob has a good sense of humor. It’s the Very Worst Postcard Ever!

Baby-yarn ChicKami almost done. Pics this weekend. Working mad hours tonight and tomorrow and then I should get a weekend (albeit a shortened one). Fighting the cold with all my Vitamined C might.

OMG, now it’s official. Califonia is CRAZY. Gary Coleman’s in the race. See this fabulously funny East Bay Express article on the governor-race-as-art-installation.

Also: This is great. New gifts to make for Christmas.

Just because I CAN put up pictures, whenever I want! I just wanted to see his face again. Digit doesn’t repose easily, or gracefully, so when he does accidentally fall asleep on the bed next to me (so undignified!), I like to capture the moment.

Crap. Now I’m getting the cold that I felt trying to get me last week. I don’t feel sick yet, don’t feel anything but a mild ache under my skin and a thickening of my throat. That tap-tap-I’m-gonna-getcha feeling. Oh, hell, no. I’m not going without a kicking, screaming fight. Unfortunately, I’m working sixty hours this week, and I’m only half-way through. Damn.

BUT – I’m getting a lot of knitting done. Working on a modified ChicKami in that baby yarn I was using for the sweaters. Of course, I was at work last night, a brand new gorgeous big-as-they-come (but don’t admit Venti) mocha at my elbow. I turned to say something witty and sparkling to my co-workers and knocked the whole damn thing over. It flew, top cracking off while still in the air, a hard rain of mocha dropping through the room. Do you know how much coffee is in a Venti? The whole amount covered three computers, a fax machine, dripped into three drawers and drained under three floor rugs. I was devastated.

But I gotta tell ya. That Bernat baby yarn – that stuff is meant to be washed. It was the easiest mocha clean-up I had in the whole room. I had to scrub the keyboards, but I merely swiped at the yarn with a sponge and it lifted off. Hear this, young mothers. Or mothers of the young, whatever.

I was so tired driving home I forgot how to drive. Really. I made a right turn near my home and realized AFTER I had turned that I had forgotten to look left.

I will drink more coffee tonight. I won’t knock it over.

I still had energy when I got home, however, to play with Adah (note her Wendy mousies):

She’s not possessed by the devil, I swear. (Wait – that could explain a lot…..)