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God, how I miss you all. And how I miss posting and reading blogs and replying to emails and all that good non-essential but wonderful stuff. I’m stealing time at work right now while my trainee is at lunch…..

The Must-Have is now the Must-Bolero. Single-handedly, I WILL bring them back into style. I have no freaking idea what happened (and I don’t want to examine it too closely) but not only is it too short, but it was WAY too small across the front. Way. Lemme say it again. WAY too small.

I’ve said it before – I’m a fix-whatcha-got kind of person. There was no way in hell I was going to rip it out. I loved making it, but not enough to make it again, at least not anytime soon. So I faked it. I added a moss-stitch panel and wide ribbing. I slapped a zipper on (but I pretty much screwed that up, not stretching out the fabric first, turning the front into a butterfly kind of gather – then I stood in my bedroom telling myself over and over “it’ll never be noticed from a trotting horse….” but even I couldn’t live with that – I took out the zipper and reinserted it right).

It’s all right. It’s such a gorgeous pattern, and it looks good on. I think I’m disappointed most of all because I wanted a cozy throw-over-everything kind of sweater. I got a short jacket instead.

I went out for a fabu rainy night on the town last night, dinner at Zuni, 5 dozen oysters and 7 beautiful women: What could be better? You know you’re looking for trouble when the very first round of drinks is over $70. Thank god I took BART to the City, ’cause I wouldn’t have been able to drive after those Sapphire martinis….

AND Kathy got a shot of the bolero. Here you go. Deb was tucking in a stray thread on my shirt. I was looking weird. Can’t explain that.

And here’s one more, and I’m still goofy:

Kisses to all and to all a good week – maybe I’ll be back soon? I have to tell you all about the breakfast I had with marvellous Anne and show more pics of the bolero….. I want my baby back…. please…… Good thoughts sent out to HP and here’s hopin’. Miss you.

But I’ve started the new ribbie cardie from BonneMarie. I need a sure thing, you know? Miss y’all.

Posting from phone so brief. Must-Have is bolero for 9 year old. Sigh. Gauge was on, dunno. 6inch button bands help a bit… Deeper sigh…

Here I am! But I’m only back for a minute. Horror of all horrors: I have to ship my computer away for a while to be fixed. Nothing wildly wrong with it – just an internal part that charges the battery – but I want to get it fixed while still under warranty.

But this: It’ll take ten to fifteen business days! Oh, sweet Jesus. I’m one of those TechnoReliant people. If you’re reading this, chances are good you are one, too, and god knows if you have a blog, it’s a certainty. How am I going to do this?

Oh, I’m terrified. Isn’t that silly? It’s not even the thought of being cut off from blogging, which I’m sad enough about, but the thought of sending my whole little baby out there into the world. I’ve seen what the postal services can do to packages. Hell, when I ordered this laptop from HP, FedEx never delivered it. Two weeks later, after many tedious phone calls, it seemed that my computer had just walked away from their Oakland office. HP cheerfully sent me another one, overnight, but WHAT IF THAT HAPPENS TO THIS ONE? I am sentimentally attached. Silly, I know. But I’m not wiping the drive before it leaves me (although I have backed everything up), which means that 477 pages of my novel will be crossing the country without me. All my photos of Italy (also backed up). Lord. My finances, in all their bloody chaos.

Will it miss me like I’ll miss it?

I’m going to have more time, though. I’m giving myself a break from the novel (always an easy thing to talk myself into – hooray! One more excuse to procrastinate). I’ll write, the morning pages at least, but that might be all.

I think I’ll mop. Yeah. I haven’t mopped…. wait, let me think…. Maybe not this year.

Hey! I Swiffer! Big Swiffer girl, me. And I Wet-Swiffer, which cleans the floor with some kind of liquid chemical cleaning agent, so I call it mopping. But actually sponge mopping, down on the floor scrubbing? Not in a looonnnnggg time. Maybe I’ll do that with my extra time. And clean the hall closet. And decide on an archival method to store my knitting patterns (all ideas cheerfully accepted). I’ll knit, of course, but that’s obvious.

So if you don’t hear from me, don’t fret. I’ll be checking email from work when I can, and perhaps browsing a few blogs when I duck into them, but that’s just not the same as reading from home, tucked on my couch, knitting at the same time. Now THAT’S happiness. Browsing blogs at work is rushed and half-assed. I doubt I’ll post at all – half-assed reading is one thing, half-assed writing another (not that my posts are things of great meaning or content, but I like them to be somewhat edited before plastering them up on those great BlogWalls).

For a goodbye – here’s from this morning, before Thanksgiving dinner (fabulous, Christy did it all), before watching Love Actually (silly but JUST the holiday ticket), before the drive up the coast and home. We’re all wearing sweaters I made! Not planned, but cool.

I’ll miss you. Come back in a couple weeks? Mwah.

Quick post. Yep, sure am feeling better than I was over the weekend. However, I haven’t been taking it easy, working long shifts with short turns (ten hours off) because now other people are sicker than I. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, though, isn’t it? (Oh, I loved the Cookie Monster….)

Have to go in early tomorrow on my day off for overtime and then I’m driving from work to the folks’ for Thanksgiving, so I won’t be posting or checking email until probably Friday night. I’ll be taking the two cats (my catsitter doesn’t do holidays, and can you blame her?) so wish me luck. Sometimes I put the top down on the ‘vertible just to drown out the howling. Five solid hours of Digit keening is enough to make me a dog person.

I leave you with the scary fact that my site got hit by a person searching for “Indigo Girls stalker.” That’s frightening for many, many reasons.

And this. I know we know where angora comes from, but look at this. This kills me:

From here (more pics, but slow load). Thanks, OutOut, for the link.

And proof I still knit occasionally, the sleeves and the fronts of the Must-Have, just cast on for the back:

Happy Thanksgiving. Give the love you’ve got – we’re so lucky, ain’t we?

1) Bungee-jump
2) Caulk
3) Leash a cat
3) Wash in the machine

Okay! I know.

I know! I heard you, I heard that gasp of horror.

How was I supposed to know? I thought felting happened when HEAT was applied. Even some warmth, perhaps. But in COLD water? And just a little agitation?

The secret project felted. Oh, just a little. ON ONE SIDE.

I panic-blocked it – you know the method – where you throw your whole body into the object, twisting and pulling, muttering things about gods and saints and things you wouldn’t want your grandmother to overhear. I think I managed to right it. Almost. How many times have I said I’m of the “never be noticed from a trotting horse” camp? Too many? Is this fate? Taunting me? Testing me? Seeing if I really am a tithing member of the Church of the Trotting Horse?

Well! I am! Vehemently! I’m gonna give this project away at Christmas and ride away quickly. On my trotting horse. And I’ll never be noticed.

I’m feeling better – and THANK YOU for the well-wishes. I really felt like I was on death’s doorstep there for a couple of days. It needed a good sweeping, too, I can tell you that. Back at work today, where I’m going to try to take it easy, but it’s going to be tough to train for ten hours without much of a working voice. But it’s nice to be moving around again. (Oh! Go say hi to Bethany!)