November 29, 2004
For The Love of God!
One of The Mysterious K’s and my favorite cartoons is a Gary Larson effort in which a man is launching an all-out tirade against his dog. The man believes he’s being eloquent and communicative and that the tirade will make the dog A Better Dog but, in fact, all the dog hears is “Blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Ginger, blah, blah!” Well, now you know what the .Net training was like. Don’t get me wrong. The trainer—a brilliant 24-year-old wunderkind—was articulate, enthusiastic, organized, a fount of information, in short, a fabulous trainer and, trust me, I know from trainers. But all I heard was “Blah, blah, blah, blah, HTML, blah, blah, blah, blah, Web, blah, blah, blah, blah, XML, blah, blah, blah, blah, time for lunch, blah.” 16 interminable hours of this.
It didn’t help that on Day One the woman sitting on my left picked her nails. Didn’t chew. Didn’t file. Picked. The entire day. Pick, pick, pick. Pause. Pick. Pause. Pick, pick, pick. Pause. Pick, pick. Pause. Pick. I spent most of the afternoon trying to formulate a plea that didn’t start with a shriek and “For the love of God, woman!!!,” but came up with nothing.
And on Day Two, the man sitting on my right turned each and every page of the 500-page manual, one by one, from beginning to end, for no reason. Whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh, whssh… My only thought? “For the love of God, man, pick your nails! Pick. Your. Nails!!”
I realized I had finally reached my limit when I started incessantly and obsessively drawing little daisy petals around the bullets in my notes. But it finally came to an end and I am, for the record, not A Better Dog.
My revenge was knowing that when I exited the classroom I would launch immediately into a long, luxurious, 9-day vacation. And I did; I luxuriated with great gusto. But now, the vacation being over, I have to say, "For the love of God, no more turkey!" The lovely friends with whom we spent Thanksgiving—they of the child for whom I knit sweaters—made a huge, brined, flavorful, moist, delicious turkey and sent us home with enough leftovers to last two more days. But then, on Saturday, The Mysterious K also made a turkey since, as she explained it, you lose your Michelin rating as The Best Cook Ever if you don’t make a turkey for the Cooking High Holy Day. So, let’s do the math, shall we? Thursday: Turkey. Friday: Turkey: Saturday: Turkey. Sunday: Turkey. Oy. (P.S. She kept her Michelin rating; even added a star, I think.)
Knitting Knews
The sweater I frogged while on The Retreat has regained form and function. Here is a photo of it when it was about a third the size it is now.
The picture is a skosh bright. The Falk Dalegarn yarn I’m using is actually a beautiful, rich pumpkin orange, brighter than terra cotta, warmer and spicier than International Orange. The pattern is from the Jo Sharp book Knitting Heartland and is, in fact, the orange sweater shown in the middle of the web page. So far, I’ve found no mistakes in the pattern, and would recommend it to anyone. It’s a fun, rhythmic mix of stockinette, cables, and moss-stitch diamonds, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy enough to knit without having to look at the pattern.
On a different note, this morning I'm trying to wrap my head around what amounts to a "Beam me up, Scotty" experience. I know how the post office works; I know that when I mail something to someone it gets magically beamed from Here to There, but it's still weird to go to Pink Tea and see a photo of the skein of yarn that was in my possession a week ago (you need to scroll down a bit). Enjoy, enjoy, Caroline, and let us know what you make with it!
Note to Cuzzin Tom: The one two three four chocolate bars? Of course, I wanted ta' send my cuzz a little extra sumpin' but it was also a matter of currency since, in short, 4SBC = 1LL or, in simpler terms, the cost of four bars of Scharffen Berger is about the same as one skein of Lorna's Laces. (Oooo, a new idea for the Commune: Our only two forms of currency will be yarn and chocolate. Yarn will be the "dollar" and chocolate will be the "coins," since you can break it up in small pieces. Whatcha think?) Oh, and Cuzz, we're all dying to know: Was one of the guests at your party the guy who created Rocky & Bullwinkle!
Yeeeeeee gods! I've been a vegetarian for 12 years and have not cooked a turkey in at least 13, does that mean my Michelin rating is into negative numbers now?!
Missed you! Glad to hear you had a restful vacation.
Posted by: Kristen on November 29, 2004 12:23 PMI always end up next to the person with the sniffles who doesn't believe in tissues. Sniff, sniff, snort, sniff, snort, sniff, sniff, sniff.
Posted by: Jessica on November 29, 2004 12:40 PMYes, high-five, amen, clap, wave, on the new currency for the commune.
Posted by: Norma on November 29, 2004 01:05 PMOh, my gosh, Jessica--I had completely forgotten! The nail picker was also a snifflesnorter!
Kristen, if your being a vegetarian and not having cooked a turkey in 13 years has affected your ratings, I say we dump the Michelin system and start something new! Which reminds me; sometime I'll have to write about the compromise TMK and I have set up to cater to my was-once-a-vegetarian-but-isn't-anymore sensibilities.
And, yeah, Norma, I figured at least one or two of my readers would go for the chocolate/yarn economy system. :-)
Posted by: Ryan on November 29, 2004 01:20 PMthere is no way a chocolate/yarn economy can fail-
i just love all the bright colors you use- makes me realize that in my wardrobe, (ha! what a grandiose term for the things i wear) khaki represents the *brights*! new year's resolution number one: go for some orange-
among those highly pesky people who invariably sit near me at a conference or a seminar there is usually a nail tapper too- click, click, click on the table- i've always wondered if the pest was tapping out messages to cronies in other areas of the room-
glad the holiday was a good one- stay happy-
Posted by: barb in texas on November 29, 2004 01:54 PMWell after a week of Mossy Cottage AND Mutually Reclusive deprivation, I salute your return to the etherwaves, and throw whatever commune votes I might represent to support the yarn.chocolate economy as well. (How many yarns would a nice Pinot Grigio be??)
Posted by: joan on November 29, 2004 01:55 PMNow when you say chocolate as coins, does that mean any chocolate? Can we use chocolate chip cookies to get cotton yarn and double fudge brownies with chocolate icing for a nice angora/wool blend? Maybe a whole hot fudge cake with black walnuts to get cashmere? I mean, just how would this break down? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea. I'm just needing some specifics here before I hit the baking aisle at the store.
I always get stuck next to the person who taps their pen against their teeth like their mouth is the Texas A&M band drumline, or the ones who have to click their pens like they know the double jeopardy answer. Argh.
Please excuse me. I have to go find something fudgy and chewy.
Have a great day!!!
Posted by: Stalker Angie on November 29, 2004 01:59 PMJoan, because I can't help myself, I ACTUALLY went online to find out what the average price of a reasonable pinot grigio is and, according to one article, you can expect to pay anywhere from $10-$18 for a good bottle. Which means, at the $10 level, it would cost you one skein of Lorna's Laces Worsted, and you would get some chocolate change back; at the $18 level, you would need to give the seller one skein of LLW plus approx. $2 worth of chocolate change.
And even before Angie posted her comment with all sorts of legitimate questions about the yarn/chocolate exchange, my head was starting to spin with similar questions. For example, how would you carry the chocolate around with you without having it melt? And different yarns would obviously be worth more; one skein of cashmere would be worth a crapload more than one skein of Lion Brand. And one piece of high-quality chocolate would be worth more than, say, one Hershey's kiss. And, what would you do if you broke a piece of chocolate apart to make change, and it broke at that funny angle that it always does when you're trying to break it exactly in half? Who would get the extra pointy part? You, or the vendor? So many questions...
Posted by: Ryan on November 29, 2004 02:13 PMThe sniffers are the ones who REALLY get me, although the strangers who fall asleep on you during plane trips (and somehow they are never Johnny Depp)are a close second. I would say that there should not be a fixed standard on the wool/chocolate currency. It should float depending on the desires of the parties involved - I wouldn't give you Lion's Brand for milk chocolate, but Scharfenberger 70%, especially if somewhat cold, that's worth cashmere. Kim
Posted by: Kim on November 29, 2004 03:59 PMEnjoyed the post, as always, but laughed with real delight at the notion of a yarn/cacao economy. We would *so* close the trade deficit.
Turns out the guy at T'giving, Joe, was in fact the Art Director for Rocky & Bullwinkle. As my father would say, a delightful old croc, present with his longtime companion Jude, regaling us with tales of working on the cartoon in Mexico City. Like a dope, I forgot to ask him if he encountered Kerouac, Burroughs, et al. But I retain a wonderful mental image of him in his Rocky ball cap, happily chomping a chunk o' Scharffen Berger dark. I did share but, to be honest, kept the mocha one for me.
Click on my name, if you like, for the birding part of my Patagonia adventures.
Note to Kristen -- the local whole foods market makes a turkey somehow outta tofu. Now on *my* planet, that earns you serious negative stars (as, I must say, did the chefs who prepared my dinner. There was NO GRAVY made from the turkey drippings. Made me miss my mommy) but it may very well be different on yours.
Now. Ya'll might be interested to know that the "Stitch 'N' Bitch" books got a very flattering sidebar in this Sunday's NYT Book Review. My wheels are starting to seriously turn with a major article idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to realize it, but I laughed when I saw two distinct meanings depending on whether you saw the "'N'" as a contraction for "ing" or "and". The tidbit that made me go, "WHAT!?" was that somewhere in the second book are instructions for knitting a little Joey Ramone! My teen idol!
And I felt an odd mixture of vindication and annoyance when I saw the Sunday Times also carried a front-page feature on alpaca ranching. Neither the AZ Republic or the more local Daily Sun bought my article, which was pegged to Xmas Bazaars this past weekend. Dopes.
Posted by: Cuzzin Tom on November 29, 2004 04:46 PMOh man, love the orange sweater!! I would look like a pumpkin in it, but that is beside the point.
I love Gary Larson! The cows always crack me up...
Glad you're back! L
Posted by: Lisa in Oregon on November 30, 2004 09:30 AMNote to Cuzzin Tom--Never fear, there was no Tofurkey (yup, that's what they call it) on my table! I will admit to using tofu on occasion and even liking it, but the whole "let's pretend it's meat" goes a bit far for me. However, there was no gravy either, not even the mushroom kind. I did make, from scratch, winter squash gnocchi with sage pesto, if that will buy me any monk points. ;)
Ryan--My problem with the chocolate economy is that I'd be perpetually broke 'cause I wouldn't be able to keep from eating it! I guess I'd have to carry "big bills" (cashmere perhaps?) at all times!
Posted by: Kristen on November 30, 2004 09:45 AMKristen--the gnocchi *so* buys you points, if for no other reason than the guests around your table get to say "gnocchi".
Posted by: Cuzzin Tom on November 30, 2004 10:16 AMthe commune must have a nail or wood currency for tmk ;-0
Posted by: vanessa on December 1, 2004 03:18 AMYay, Ryan's Back!!!! I love th sweater, it reminds me so much of the First( and so far only) Gansey I knit, except mine was in boring dark blue.
Thanks fer the comment, the cranberries were yummers.
cheers
devin