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Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for the comments on Orange Alert! Wore her last night to the movies, and she was warrrrmmmm…. (but not overly so, love Paton’s Classic Merino.)

Went to see Cold Mountain. Hmmm. I really don’t know how I feel about it, which is odd. I’m usually quite opinionated about movies (and lotsa other things, too, come to think of it). I enjoyed watching it. Mostly. I think. I remembered why I didn’t finish the book: It’s about WAR. I really hate war books and movies, ‘specially the ultra-realistic ones. This one had moments that saw me walking out of the theater.

(Didn’t tell my group this, but I left once during a particularly wrenching gonna-be-bloody-awful scene and came back after chatting with the candy people and washing my hands in the bathroom. And I couldn’t find my folks. I stood and stared at where I should have been sitting, but the group of four kicked back with their feet up on the railing in the front row were just too young. Shoulda been two guys and two gals, thirty-something range. The group I stared at was the same configuration, with a gap-seat for me where I should have been sitting, but they were all about nineteen. I TRIPPED for about three seconds. Then I giggled all the way back to my real seat down the hall in the right theater.)

It also had beautiful moments, incredible scenery (oh, Maggi, is that really North Carolina?), and truly stunning people (Jude AND Nicole? Perfect). Renee Zellweger, I have to admit, was amazing. I sat and actively enjoyed a great deal of it. Then I was grumpy upon leaving and remain rather ambivalent about it, and I’m still not sure why. Anyone seen it? Any thoughts?

Hey! More pop-culture:

Did you see Carrie’s arm-warmers on the Sex and the City premiere? Oh, my knit-gals are so cutting edge! Look:

Em’s:

Eve’s:

(And while we’re on the subject of her, Eve’s finished pretty-pretty Wave-Along, too!)

Of course, Carrie’s armers were blue camo fabric, but the sentiment is the same. She would have probably preferred hand-knit.

And I just have to address one of my comments. La Brainy says of Orange Alert: “What a great sweater! Is there any colour that DOESN’T look good on you? :)” Darling, please. It’s all in the digital camera. You have to know that for most pictures I post, I’ve taken at least ten more. You’re seeing the good stuff.

What you’re not seeing is this, where I appear to be addressing the spirit world. Or this, where I have lost my arms. Snort. Damn, every time I look at those I crack the hell up.

Last day with Bethany before we put her on the plane tomorrow…. Off to play!

https://rachaelherron.com/went_to_see_col/

A surefire way to beat those terrorism blues, I present to you Orange Alert.

A little closer:

And a detail :

It was meant to be a cardigan, but I like it so much that I think I’ll wear it like this a while, whatcha think? I can always steek it later…..

Specs:
Made with Paton’s Classic Merino in Paprika. It’s knitted in the round from the bottom up. I roughly used Bonne Marie’s rolled neckline from the Ribby Cardie and I stole those front cables right off my Must-Have. And the raglan decreases, although I’d like to take credit for them, are straight from a brilliant free pattern from Spelling Tuesday.

So basically, I didn’t make anything up myself. Nope. But I did the math and the measurements and there was never a pattern in front of me, for the first time EVER in sweaterland. I think of it like writing fiction: I know there’s nothing new under the sun, so it’s all in the way you put it together (and I made sure I borrowed only from free patterns and a pattern I had purchased myself). Nobody ever did THIS exact sweater before (and no one ever will — I thought I would remember to write everything down, but by the middle of the sweater I realized that I hadn’t been making notes. Sigh).

Yippee!

Bethany wrote the other day:

I have a serious question I need help with. How in hell does one make time to read every book out there, see every movie, watch at least a few of the less pathetic television shows (and some that are so pathetic it’s funny), knit a sweater every other week, cook gourmet dinners, find a mathematical equation to explain the platypus, make time for friends, and still find the time to fucking exercise?

Amen, sister. I’ve had several people ask me how I knit so fast. Here’s the ugly truth: I don’t really knit all that fast. I’m no Wendy, that’s fer sure. But you have to understand, I don’t clean my house much. I have those ceiling dust bunnies, you know the ones. I have no children. At present, I’m single, so I don’t even have to spend time keeping someone else happy. (That makes it sound bad, but you know what I mean. It’s nice to be happy with someone. But I REALLY like being happy with myself.) I work extended 10-14 hour shifts and get three days off a week. On my days off, I generally get about 6 or 7 hours of knitting time in — some morning knitting with some evening TV time later, or a whole afternoon of sitting around with the needles. And even on days I work, I can sneak some knitting time in around the phone calls when it’s not busy, and I get to knit with the TV or with a book until I go to bed. I do go out and play, sure, but what it comes down to is I knit a LOT. That’s it.

And it makes me happy. And not to sound too much like Mr. Rodgers, but hey. You do, too. Mwah.

Feeling much, much better today, and THANK YOU for all the well-wishes. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, which I promise I’ll keep, and I’m gonna march right in there ask for Imitrex (or Maxalt, whatever. Just give me somethin!). Yes, ma’am. Got faith in modern science? Shore do.

So I’ll fill you in a little more on what I didn’t feel like filling in yesterday — some more pictures! (Am I going overboard on pics? There are weeks when I hardly post any, when getting the camera out feels like a major pain in the ass, but when family’s all around for the holidays, it’s already out. So here y’are.)

Me in my new Bucket-O-Chic hat.

I *really* didn’t want to join the camp of Bucket Makers because I can’t wear hats. I have an enormous, man-sized head, and I look stoooopid in 99.99875% of hats. This one, while it does a little funny on me, kinda suits me. I’m so pleased, get this, that I’m gonna make another one!

And here’s a shot of Thursday night’s Knitting in the City group — no band played that night, so there was no one to shush us. And yay! Joanna came! (But no good pics of her came out….)

We did, however, get more than our share of gawkers, one man trailing a band of his downcast-eyed women who said that in his country all the women knitted all the day long, and they even made CLOTHES. We kinda pulled on our sweaters and said things like, “Yeah? Uh-huh.” He left happy that women were continuing the tradition. Ah, well. We do what we can.

Another man came up and said,
“Knitters. Jeesh. I have a highway patrol buddy and the other day he was following this woman who was KNITTING on the FREEWAY! She was weaving all over the road and not paying attention to anything. Can you believe that? She was KNITTING on the FREEWAY! He’s flashing his lights and whooping his siren, and she just keeps on knitting and driving! So my buddy gets on his car loudspeaker and says, ‘Pull over! Pull over!’ And the lady in the car just puts her head out the window and screams, ‘No, it’s a cardigan!'”

Kira didn’t think it was funny, but Beth and I liked it. Hee!

And here’s Nate, a Very Nice Guy, who comes to knitting and works on his beer cozies about once every three months. On Thursday he finished his second one! Round of applause, everyone. Here it is, wrapped around a beer glass instead of the bottle it’s intended for.

It takes a confident man to sit in a hip bar in SF with twelve knitting women, I tell you that. He’s a smart one, though. He knows it’s a chick-getter thing. The girls dig it.

Oh, and here’s my progress on the sweater I’m making up as I go along. I’m calling it, in honor of the current terrorism level, Orange Alert.

Actually, last night I finished it up. Kind of. It was totally meant to be a cardie. But I’m loving it as a pullover. (Hee! Pull over!) I may leave it as such for a while and steek it later (crocheted steeks here are the BEST). Pictures and talk about the process later, I promise. It was FUN to do.

Migraine today. I simply MUST get the doctor to give me something. (That means I have to both make and keep an appointment, something I’m terrible at doing.)

I’ve been fighting low-pressure headaches all week from the storms rolling through. But I’m finally (unfortunately) getting to the point where I can tell the difference between a bad headache and an impending migraine. There’s a low heat in the base of my neck and tops of my shoulders that foretells what’s gonna happen. That part hit about midnight last night and when I was still awake (and ready to die) at five am, I called in sick to work. The worst is over now, but I still can’t face light (the monitor is turned down so low I can hardly read it) and noise is killing me. And the neighbor boy got drums for Christmas. I can’t fuckin’ wait for him to go back to school. He started playing at ten this morning, a not-unreasonable time, I suppose. But they have as little wall insulation as I do, it seems, as when he starts playing I think he’s in the room next door to me, not across the driveway. The volume of it is ridiculous.

Kay. I’ve now headached and kvetched my way into being even grumpier. Excedrin does nothing, nor does Aleve or Tylenol or Advil. I’ve had all of ’em, all night and all morning. If I felt better, I’d go to the doc right now. As it is, I’m going back to bed. Erg. But I might take a sock to knit on. Yep. Hope your day is headache-free.

The rain broke yesterday and allowed us to put the top down as the sisters drove down the coast. Bethany mostly rode in the back because she’s the youngest and we can still make her do things. That and she likes the view. That and she’s just a leetle hardier than Christy (Christy, yesterday alone, had 4267 good traits going for her, I counted, but being hardy in the face of cold wind wasn’t quite one of ‘em. She bravely volunteered for the backseat at one point and we drove about six minutes. Bethany looked up at the trees and said, “The view’s better in the back,” just as Christy yelled, “It’s FREEEEEEEZZZZZING!” They traded back.)

Oh, see? Here’s Bethy:

Here’s Christy:

After some shopping at Phipps General Store, where I bought olallieberry jam and we looked at the animals (chickens, peacocks, a couple of rangy goats, and a baby pot-bellied pig wedged between the boards and its huge snoring mother), we ended up at our destination: Duarte’s for lunch.

They put us in the back dining room, which is a long walk through two other dining areas, and then through the bar where only locals sit and where the juke is stocked with Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. The back room still had its Christmas tree, which smelled like it had been sprayed with that fake tree scent. I was a little scared it would make the food taste like camp rations. But, oh, it did not. A crab melt and a Newcastle made the afternoon taste right. It was just us in the room, so we could be as stupid and loud as we liked. Which we were.

And the reason for the trip? Olallieberry pie. Christy had never tried it. And yep, it was just as good as I remembered. I’ve told you before, I don’t even LIKE pie. But this pie…. with its crust….. and the rich vanilla ice cream that places way more emphasis on the cream than the ice….. Here we are, in the midst of deep happiness (you’ll notice I’m wearing Olallieberry, my homage to the pie):

It was the perfect ride, with only one brief stop at Fengari in Half Moon Bay where I only bought one skein of Lamb’s Pride – you’d have been proud of me. Oh, and a Sirdar pattern I liked. I think that’s it. Then back home, top up in the dark.

Bethany and I celebrated New Year’s in the best way possible, I think (I’ve always hated that Search for the New Year’s Party, where you end up fighting with your significant other and not wanting to kiss ANYONE at midnight). We flaked on all the other things we could have done, sent Christy off with her boyfriend to do the Search, bought champagne and those little wrapped cheeses, and invited Rachel and Kira out from the City. While waiting for them to arrive, I called Maggi, who’s even more darling than can be believed. She has the best southern accent, something I hadn’t ever imagined in her writing voice but now can’t get out of my head. It was really truly lovely to talk to my friend, live and in person. Aren’t we blessed?

Then I picked up the girls from BART, and we all sat around knitting and watching old taped Buffy episodes until the ball dropped.

(New Bucket-O-Chic on m’head — need to block it a little still, but I love it.) I gamboled outside to let in the New Year and stood there, happily listening to the fireworks and the pops. And then I realized that although I live in north Oakland, it’s still Oakland, and there was an awful lot of gunfire, so I went back inside for more champers.

A good way to open the book of the new year, wasn’t it? Now we’re trapped inside in an enormous rainstorm that’s been pounding since two-thirty this morning. Digit just came in, a wet muddy snarly animal who hated like hell getting dried off. But he ain’t going out again, if that thunder I’m hearing means anything. Bethany’s in the tub, her favorite place, and I’m in my new favorite place, sitting on my grown-up loveseat, so all’s well. I hope all’s well in your corner of 2004, too. Peace to you.

Okay, no spoilers, but Return of the King was awesome. Lemme just say that a galloping Gandalf can make me cry, and Viggo singing…. well. I do believe I lost several years of my life, right there.

More hanging with the sisters today – driving down the coast, must get us some olallieberry pie after a quick yarn trip, perhaps? (Remember the camera, remember the camera, remember the camera.) It’s looking a lot like more rain, so the top might stay up, but it’s always down in spirit when the three of us are making faces out the windows.

Happy New Year! If you go out, be safe. If you stay in, open the door at midnight and let in a peaceful new year. Love to you.