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It was a good drive down the coast, but I felt disconnected. Looking back, I can hardly remember driving today. I played music, even though I had a book-on-CD on the seat next to me. I didn’t stop for too many snacks. The cats didn’t howl much. I had the distinct feeling that the car was moving me. That sounds weird, but I think I mean this: Instead of riding in the car, I was very conscious that it was pushing my body forward. That make sense? Dunno. Not a lot of traffic. I got two Krispy Kreme donuts at the outset to sugar-high me up. (I have to say, I have a lot riding on White Castle hamburgers now. We got Krispy Kreme from the east, thinking they MUST be over-hyped, but heck no, they weren’t. They are as good as the legend had foretold. Now, as I plan my Spring Fling east, I’m thinking about those discrete little bite-sized hamburgers. Are they really as good as they say?)

The little mama is doing all right. She’s such a trooper. This tells you something about her: Today, while she had some time to slay, she watched the DVD of Winged Migration and loved it so much she played some of it back again. Inn’at great? I’m not going to watch it, meself. I know myself well enough to know that I’d be one of three things by the end: vastly irritated, motion-sick, or too emotionally invested in the birds’ welfare.

Thinking about the drive again.

Why do people tail-gate?

There’s absolutely no reason to EVER tail-gate. ‘Cept maybe at a football game, I suppose. Having never been to a football game, I can only imagine the fantastic tail-gate parties that must occur at such events. (Two years ago, the Raiders were playing the *Can’t Remember the Team’s Name* on one of those hotter’n’hell late autumn day. One of those days when the wind whipped everything for miles, including the coals from the hibachis left cooling while their owners were inside the stadium watching the game. Eighteen cars burned up in the parking lot. Can you imagine? The Raider Nation coming out to find their SUVs torched? It was a losing game, too, if I remember correctly….)

Rambled enough. Knitted a bunch today on what promises to be a crappy little pullover made from two strands of crappy yarn held together. I was hoping crap + crap would = fabulousness, but hell, I shoulda known better. Been a long time since I worked with anything acrylic (we’re talking Red Heart here, folks. The anti-cashmere. It’s kind of interesting in science project kind of way).

Here’s a thought I can’t get out of my head: A candy-colored Noro Lo-Tech sweat. Ooohhhhh. Off to bed with me now. G’night.

Taking a quick trip Home this weekend (my weekend, that is, which by now you know is the opposite of YOUR weekend).

Home, I’m sure you know is vastly different from home. For me, Home is the Central Coast, just south of San Luis Obispo, a little town called Arroyo Grande. Little h home is Oakland. There’s a world of difference between Home and home, and some of those differences are:

Strawberries
Clam chowder
Little Mama
Fog
Pops
No TV channels, cell phone reception, or fast internet connection

Therefore, when at Home, I knit a lot. Mom’s got some physical stuff going on, and I’m going home to kick some ass. Nicely. Sweetly. But firmly. Her doctors don’t seem to take her seriously, and how can you blame them? She’s the cutest thing ever. But HEY! She don’t feel so hot. They need to fix ‘er. Or I’ll know the reason why. I’m the biggest pushover in the world, seriously. Too Nice, according to all who know me, especially exes. But not when it comes to my family. Just try it. *balled fists*

Bethany’ll hate me, but here’s a shot of the little Mama and Bethy on a bench where we eat donuts in the mornings. (That was the last we saw of that leather jacket hung over the end of the bench — Beth’s heart is still broken about it. We drove away and left it behind. Shoot.)

Non-sequitur: Iris Dement makes me happy.

Off to pack a little (surreptitiously – if Digit gets wind of my road trip, he’ll won’t come back in tomorrow morning after his necessary potty run. Don’t tell him).

Oh, and go say hi to my knittin’ friend Laura, who has a new blog here and a preggers one here. And alison also posted an Eye Up shot of a hat, too! And Anne just slays me, no matter what.

I had eight hours off last night, got off at 11pm after a fourteen hour shift and I’m now back, at 7am for a twelve hour shift. I always forget that eight hours off doesn’t mean eight hours sleep. If you get off work and are asleep in bed in an hour, and get up one hour before you have to sit down at your terminal, you’re still only getting 6 hours. And who goes right to sleep like that? Not me, man. I’m thinking too many wild cashmere thoughts.

Like this, hanging in my bathroom:

That’s sin on a stick, baybee. It’s proving rather a pain in the ass to wind into balls. The swift and winder are ESSENTIAL, but it kind of sticks to itself on the swift, making the winding slow and tedious. It’ll be worth it, it’ll be worth it, it’ll be worth, I tell myself.

Of course, soon I’ll be spinning cashmere, I assume. My blog-friends are such freaking enablers. I love them, madly.

And one of them sent me a little treat not long ago, a glorious cone of some buttery yellow wool which I happily wound up into balls (I told someone the other day that I love winding so much that I’m about to wind the cat). Then I married it with a strand of the Paton’s Classic Wool in light natural that I used for the Must-Bolero and started working it into another Bucket-O-Chic (having given my blue one to Bethy–it looked way better on her).

I love the way this one turned out! BonneMarie ROCKS!

Now, for a full work day. I’m going to try to take it easy and hope the citizens are in happy, mellow moods. Yeah. Well, I’ll be in one, so that’s all that matters. Enjoy your day.

I have now officially gone crazy. You heard it here first.

Went to Marshalls with my friend Marama and found a little something. Okay, a big something. A big, cushy cashmere sweater, size men’s large. It was kind of gray/brown tweedy, and I LOVED it. I wore it around the store, begging Marama to tell me it was WAY too big for me.

– Nah, it’s all right.
– No, TELL me it’s too big.
– It’s kinda cute in that sloppy weekend way.
– I canNOT buy it.
– Fine. Don’t buy it, then.
– I HAVE to buy it.

Then I told her I was gonna buy it and rip it apart for the yarn. She looked at me like I had grown a third ear. But come on — it was huge, and the yarn itself was pretty heavy-gauge, as cashmere goes. Standing in the Marshalls aisle, I studied it: Looked to be about 6 thin plies, threads of gray, brown and a soft off-white. I examined the seams: It was made in pieces, not in the round, but I could see the seaming okay, and I thought I could do it. I figgered it would either be the best or the worst fifty bucks I had ever spent. (Fifty bucks! Imagine! At Marshalls! It had originally been two hundred, then marked to ninety-nine when it hit the discount store, and then another 50% off by the time I arrived. Meant to be, I tell you.)

Got home, and got nervous. So I tried it on.

Yep, a leetle big. Then I sat down and started snipping. Okay, ripping up sweaters is HARD. Especially when it’s fifty bucks of glorious cashmere. (Some people love it, some are ambivalent, but I am a cashmere whore. I mean it. It makes my stomach drop to touch the good stuff.)

I worked for about three hours on it and now it’s mostly in pieces and I managed to get one sleeve unravelled. I put it into a loose, curly skein using the swift, then wet the strands and hung them in the bathroom from a coat hanger, another coat hanger hung from the bottom (with a box of shower-curtain rings attached for weight.) When they’re dry, and straighter, I’m gonna wind them into balls.

Dude. Good thing I got that ballwinder and swift! (But if I hadn’t, I prolly wouldn’t have bought the sweater. Damn. Chicken or the egg?)

I hope it works I hope it works I hope it works. I want to make a nice, simple V-neck raglan, in this thick cashmere sin. Oh, yes. I’ll keep you posted.

And just for Friday fun, here’s where Adah slept last night. I didn’t have the heart to move her. It’s my overflow yarn basket, where I had thrown a couple of sweaters. And yes, that’s Indulgence to the left. Shhh.

P.S. Got some Imitrex from the doc yesterday for the migraines. Whoopee!

We put Bethany on the plane this morning. For those of you following her adventures, she’s my little sister (twenty-four, but I’ll call her Kiddo ‘til she’s eighty-two) and she’s out on the road, seeing the big ole country in her pickup truck named Tach. She left the truck in long-term parking in Atlanta in order to fly back for Christmas (which, you saw, was AWESOME) and now she’s back to the rambles. (Lord, I hope no one broke into her truck over the holiday. Cross your fingers for her….)

And you know how Mapquest is either really right or really wrong? Wrong this time, yep (I use Yahoo maps, myself). Got a leetle bit lost on our way to San Jose airport, but Bethany and I are so incredibly, overly fixated on being early that we managed to dump her curbside about two hours early. This was AFTER getting lost, and hitting a horrid snarl of traffic from a big accident, and two donuts each.

Here we is:

See, darling Greta? My sunglasses! Now, I’m home to play catch-up, all those things like bills and laundry that need to be done now that the fun is over…. (And a whole pile of yarn from the Boys needs to be swifted and ball-wound. Have I told you how much fun a swift and ball-winder are? Seriously, put a yarn purchase or two on hold and buy these things iffen you don’t already have them. When you get up to speed and the yarn is flying, FLYING, I tell you, onto the winder, it’s comparable to the feeling you get downhill skiing. Just for a second, but it’s there, I promise.)

Oh! Almost forgot: Go see The Station Agent. What a brilliant little jewel of a movie, enjoyable from the first moment to the last. Sigh. A good, wake-up-the-next-morning-and-think-Oh-That-Was-Nice-kind-of-movie. Enjoy.