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DMV. Oy. Where do they find them? I understand that their job is to deal with unhappy people. But come on, that’s my job, too. No one calls the police department when they’re ecstatically happy.

But I needed to pick up my plates (I YARN). I had an appointment last week to pick them up. Appointments rock. If you have one, you usually wait less than an hour. But when I went to remove the old plates, right before the appointment, I couldn’t get them unscrewed from the car. It was like those stupid bolts had rusted right to the car. I sat in the driveway, in the rain, after being up working and moving for 30 hours straight, crying because I was skinning my hands on the damn screwdriver. There was a gardening crew working across the street, and when I started disgusting myself by hoping that a big ole gardener would come help me I gave up, went inside and sat on the couch. I breathed.

So earlier this week, after getting a friend to remove them for me, I went to DMV without an appointment on my day off. (Appointments take about three weeks to get, and plates are cancelled and returned if not picked up after 30 days, so I had a time crunch.) I waited in line for about thirty minutes to get my slip of paper that said I would be number B140. The wait time on the scrolling marquee said I had a two hour wait. So I left and had lunch. Came back an hour and a half later — they were up to B40. I went and ran errands for an hour. When I came back, they were at B55. Two hours later, I gave up and just sat there for another hour, working on Cromarty. Basically, six hours later, they were only up to B95, and I had to be somewhere and left. Frustrated out of my mind. And it smelled funny in there. Hot and stuffy. Way too much hair product.

Yesterday, I went back for my last attempt. I arrived at 7:30, half an hour before it opened. There were only about a hundred people in front of me. When the doors opened, there were at least two hundred behind me. We waited in the ticket line, which took till 8:30 to navigate. Then I sat down to wait my turn. I watched an elderly man with limited English skills deal with the woman who was going to issue him the driving test.

She said, “You’re late. I can’t help you.”
He said, “But I wait in line.”
Loud, exaggerated words. “You’re late! Your appointment was at eight. It’s eight-thirty. Make another appointment.”
“But I take day off work for this.”
“I CAN’T HELP YOU.”

Luckily, he had a friend who advocated for him, who pointed out that he had been in line since 7:15, and it was only the sluggishness of the lines that had made him late. She still insisted that there was nothing that she could. She was SO rude and SO curt. His friend asked for a manager who said to let him take the test. Oh, that chapped her hide, all right. I was so pleased.

But the pleasure left when they called my number at 9am. Yep. The plate was wrong. It said “IYARN,” no space between the words, and it was all grouped over to the right. So the second half of the plate was blank. I even thought about accepting it for a minute. I couldn’t bear thinking about dealing with this all over again. So I asked the woman helping me. “How does this look to you?” She raised an eyebrow and said without hesitation, “Stupid.”

All right. I waited another hour for them to cancel the plate and re-send my corrected request. So in six to eight weeks, I’ll be doing this all over again.

https://rachaelherron.com/dmv_oy_where_do/

We had a marvelous day yesterday, and it was just like we thought. It was sunny, right up until the middle of the afternoon, when it clouded over. First thing, we went and looked at the most beautiful city in the world (next to Venice) from Alameda.

Then on to BART, where we went straight the Sony Metreon, a huge glass building that houses Sony shops and arcades and a theatre and restaurants. We gazed at the wonderful floors and high glass walls, buying nothing but touching everything, and spent a brief raindroppy period in Mel’s Diner next door. We’re talking big ole french dips and a sundae the size of my head (this is becoming a welcome trend, I think).

After lunch, the sun came out again! It was one of those perfect rare San Francisco days when the wind dropped and the sun shone and people smiled. We headed, of course, to ArtFibers (our second of three yarn shops), to see my friend Kira. Greta barely got out of there alive. It is only the size of her luggage that restricts her shopping at this point. She’s already putting a box together for me to send after her. This is what makes life, good, yes?

https://rachaelherron.com/we_had_a_marvel/

Two big YIPPEEs today.

Yippee #1: The Boys have extra Kersti for Cromarty. Different dye lot, but I SO don’t care. And thanks for all the comments — for a minute there I was feeling like the Wicked Sinning Knitter (forgive me, Father, I’m off in my yardage again). It’s a good lesson. For Starmore, buy eighty-seven skeins too many, and you’ll be all right.

Yippee #2: Greta’s here again for a couple of days! We’re going to play all day. It’s crazy when we’re together. We could sit and just talk. All day. Not exaggerating here. My friends have always thought of me as not a glass-half-full person, but the-glass-is-overflowing-all-over-the-table person. And Greta’s the same way. Wonderful, lovely, beautiful things will happen today, just because we know they will. If it rains, we’ll take shelter in a yarn shop somewhere and drink tea. And she and daughter-bird are the first two to stay with me in my new home. Two more perfect guests I could not imagine.

** She just said, “I love Hermann Hesse. He cracks me up. Especially when you read the German.”
She’s so fabulous.

https://rachaelherron.com/two_big_yippees/

It’s now official: I’m going to run out of Koigu Kersti for Cromarty. I’ve sent a panicked note off to the Boys to see what they can do, since the Koigu people apparently want to adopt both of them (which is so great – whenever I go into my LYS (mentioning no names, as I have several LYSs), the owner is complaining about how the Koigu people won’t work with her. Well, duh, lady. You’re such a whiner! Be nice, sweet, and utterly fabulous like they are, and Koigu will work with ya. Till then, get over your LYSelf).

Here she is right now:

I’ll need eight more skeins, if I’ve done my math right. What the bleeding hell? I got three extra skeins originally, just to be on the safe side. My row count is a little off, but I never really worry about that. The stitch count is spot on, and the sweater measures to the right proportions. I’m done with both sleeves and eight inches up the front, and it keeps eating up the yardage. Any ideas? Is it because I’m such a loose knitter and working on such tiny needles to get gauge that each stitch is eating up more yarn that it normally would? Can that be true? Was Starmore’s yardage off? Somehow, I doubt that. She wouldn’t be off by such a massive amount. Can anyone tell me how many yards were in the Rowan DDK the pattern originally called for? I thought they was pretty comparable to Kersti’s 114yds/skein, so I’m shocked at this difference. And scared. I know the dye lots won’t be the same. But will they be close?

It’s yarn. It’s color in yarn. It ain’t a national crisis. But I’m a little worried. Erp.

Hey! MagKnits is live! And I got to actually hold Mariko’s cup prototypes, and they’re AWESOME. I know what people are getting for Christmas this year…..

* And Em’s pre-Oscar commentary is FABulous. I hardly mind that I FORGOT to TiVo it. I can’t believe I forgot. I thought about while I was drying my hair…. and then poof! Gone. So now I’m at work and will miss most of it. But she made me forget all that….

** Thanks for all the wonderful Welcome Home comments! They made me feel terrific!

Welcome to my new home! Have a cup of tea? Or you want some wine, like me? Okay. Sit down. Lemme show ya.

This is how I moved. One carload at a time, one hand holding the shit in the car, the other on the wheel. At one point it started pouring and my cell phone rang at the same time. (I didn’t answer, duh.) But I thought to myself, what the eff am I doing?

But it was worth it:

My kitchen, with its red walls. Those are some cold tiles, but I tell you, paint comes right OFF those suckers.

Standing in the kitchen looking into the living area. There’s seating behind the low bookcases and that table is only a temporary solution. LauraJune is giving me her old table, yippeeee! That orange thing is the beanbag Greta and I found at the Wonder Longs:

The below is also a temporary solution. Another good friend is donating his couch to the Rachael Cause, and then I’m going to slipcover them both in another shade of Venetian red (note the Ikea table):

Now turn around, and look back toward the kitchen. These bookcases will get filled up attractively at some point. And the larger couch will run along it, too, leaving the bottom shelves as hidden storage! That was clever Christy’s idea. And the log-cabin is an old quilt top I made and never sewed INTO an actual quilt. Apparently it was waiting for me to move into this place to be used as a runner.

But I know this is what you’ve been waiting for. May I present the yarn center? (The yarn fills BOTH bookcases.)

And a close up:

That’s not only Noro Kureyon from the Boys, but my first attempt at spinning below it, in the purple. Don’t look too closely. I LOVE having so much yarn visible in my house.

And part of the bedroom here. A place in the open for the sweaters, and an old chair (aka cat seat) that I love.

Back in the living room, I have to show you what’s outside the side window. This thing is under the outside light, and at night it simply glows. I adore it. This is George:

Bought myself an orchid for the kitchen. How do you keep these alive?

All the art on my walls, with the exception of the Venice map in the bedroom, is my own (mostly prints of Italian photos). But this is one of my most prized possessions. Mom commissioned a friend of ours to paint this for me from a photo I took a few years ago. Even now I like to go back to Venice and look at the red boat (it’s always parked in this same spot at night….):

All right, that’s enough. But I HAD to show you what I’ve been up to. Now I can focus on Cromarty again….
Thanks, darlings, for visiting me!

*oh, and I just got hit by someone in Denmark searching for “glass you silly ass glass.” ???