October 19, 2005
Ryan Regains Control
Phew! Order has been restored to the universe. I have wrested control of the blog back from The Mysterious K with a minimum of bodily harm to either party—although a few priceless Ming vases were shattered along the way—and this blog entry is being written on a PC, as it should be. "Macs rule," indeed. Harrumph.
But, really, thank you to Ms. Mysterious for filling in for me while I was learning how to take the web-design world by storm. I think she liked it more than she's willing to admit...and practically burned out the Refresh button on her Mac. The good news is she may have more opportunities to post next week, if she’s up to the challenge… What say, Dear Readers?
Yes, the Tiffany exhibit was outstanding, if you don’t count the witchy old lady who crabbed at us Not To Touch when we…well…weren’t. I have to say, museum guards are really Up There on my list, along with people who don’t pick up their doggie poop and The Guy Whose Truck Has Been Taking Up All Three Parking Spaces In Front Of My House For The Last Few Weeks Because He Parked It a Little Too Close to the Tree Behind Yet a Little Too Close to the Mailboxes in Front. There’s a special feeling of awe, silence and reverence that accompanies being at a perfect museum exhibit, that accompanies being surrounded by unparalleled beauty and genius (enhanced, of course, by the smug and holier-than-thou feeling of doing something edumacational) and then, wham!, a guard comes along and makes you feel small and stupid. I hate that. Hate. It.
Witchy Old Museum Guards aside, as I said in a comment, you locals, if you get a chance to go, go! Folks from Vancouver, WA—come up. Folks from Vancouver, B.C.—come down. Folks from Eastern Washington—come left. Folks from the Peninsula—come right. Some amazing, beautiful stuff. Stained glass is just the tip of the iceberg. You have no idea.
And the dinner was great, too...although there was a moment when I realized that, although I had ordered something with a high-class-sounding name—something like Tagliatelle a la Salsa Bolognese Fresca e Semplice—I had actually ordered...spaghetti. A special anniversary dinner at one of the fanciest Italian restaurants in town, and I order...spaghetti. Sure, the noodles were flatter and wider than I'm used to and, sure, the sauce was particularly rich and meaty and the flavors perfectly blended and, sure, the presentation was bellisima, but you can’t fool me. It was spaghetti (or, as we've called it ever since we saw it mispelled on a roadside sign, "spageeeti.")
An Anniversary Disclaimer: If I were Someone On the Outside, I would look at the photo of TMK’s new Typing Toasties and think, 19 years and all she gets are some lame-o, baby-sh_t brown fingerless mittens?! Let The Record Show that TMK requested the lame-o baby-sh_t brown fingerless mittens, or, more specifically, MongoLEEan camel yarn fingerless mittens...which happen to come in only MongoLEEan camel color, which happens to be...you guessed it.
How was the yarn to knit with? Well, that in itself was a saga. In the ball, the yarn feels nicely soft, quasi-merino-ish. When I started to knit with it, however, I discovered that it was chock full of pieces of Gobi Desert grass—which was actually quite enchanting. I mean, how many knitters get to pick little pieces of Gobi frickin’ Desert grass out of yarn spun from the hair of a Gobi frickin' Desert camel?! And the picking of the grass continued to be enchanting until I realized that the combination of the slight roughness of the fiber, the small, sharp pieces of dry grass, the fact that I am a tight knitter, the unorthodox and convoluted way that I hold the yarn in my right hand, and the action of rapidly pulling the yarn up and over and around my fingers caused the yarn to actually cut right into my skin like a miniscule bandsaw. Ow. Many applications of bacitracin (or, as my sister calls it, “basset razzin”) and Band-Aids were required.
The yarn redeemed itself, however, when I washed it. The first mitten, which I just washed in dish detergent, came out quite acceptably soft. The second, which I washed in dish detergent and rinsed in a very rich conditioner, came out about 25% softer. But, alas, still babysh_t brown. I think I see a dye vat in the mittens’ future, if I can wrest them back from TMK, who has thoroughly and completely proclaimed them hers forever 'n' ever.
As for me, I was given a beautiful pair of gold earrings. Which I wore Saturday while I was being crabbed at by Witchy Lady, while I was gaping breathless at yet one more piece of amazing stained glass, and while I was showing how cosmopolitan I am by ordering spaghetti. And Sunday while the challah rose, I knit, and TMK played Sly Cooper. And Monday while I learned all about the mind-boggling intricacies of cascading style sheets. And Tuesday when I spent the day wishing I were back in class, at the museum, at the restaurant ordering spaghetti, or knitting. And today, ditto.
Knit-In
I emailed everyone a flyer with the details of the Knit-In. If you didn’t receive it, or have any questions, please let me know. The number one thing we need are folding chairs to accommodate the 27 (!) people who responded.
I was a wee thing when my mother took me to a tiffany exhibit. I still remember the awe I had and to this day absolutely love stained glass.
And I know he created so much more.. but there is something about the glass that moves me.
tell that crotchety old witch to pull the broomstick outta her.. Ahem!
Posted by: anj on October 19, 2005 10:46 AMYou know there is a phone number an upstanding citizen can call to have a vehicle that has been parked in the same spot for 3 weeks TOWED away at the owner's expense. The City comes by and puts an "official looking" sticker on the offending vehicle first giving the owner 48 hours to move it which usually does the trick...not that I'm wanting you to turn in your neighbor, I'm just saying...
Must see that Tiffany exhibit. M
Posted by: Mary B on October 19, 2005 11:41 AMMaryB, because I sensed the truck had moved a few inches from one day to the next--meaning it was actually being driven and wasn't officially "abandoned," darn it all--I tried the direct yet indirect approach first before I called The Magic Number (which TMK actually put to successful use recently in a different situation) and fortunately it worked. I don't know who the owner of the truck is so I left a note on his windshield asking him to *at least* move up so other folks can park in that same area which he did (yay!) and then a few days later he parked somewhere else altogether. A happy ending!
Anj, I was surprised by Tiffany's talent as a painter. Really amazing!
Posted by: Ryan on October 19, 2005 11:47 AMIt's CAMEL brown, isn't it? I hate it when I'm knitting and pulling out bits of the scratchy environment. But you couldn't leave that stuff to chafe TMK's delicate wrists!
And congratulations on wresting control back - I was always afraid to go anywhere near the TV when they announced they controlled the vertical, they controlled the horizontal. Yeeks!
And, btw, I believe ALL Italian food is basically spaghetti.
Posted by: Patti on October 19, 2005 12:09 PMDon't disparage the fingerless mitts! They don't deserve that. They are a lovely camel color and I thought they looked spiffy. TMK can wear them with anything. Is it really the color of baby sh*t we don't like or is it the stench?
Posted by: Laurie on October 19, 2005 12:11 PMLaurie, the camel yarn does indeed have an extrem "animal" scent to it--but, again, I think that's cool because, again, who, really, gets a chance to sniff Bactrian camel fur (safely)? However, the smell pretty much disappeared after I washed the mittens. Or, more exactly, they smelled more like a Bactrian camel wearing perfume!
And the brown? I'm just not a big fan of brown in general but TMK thinks the color is spiffy, and that's what matters.
Patti, actually, a lot of the grass was so small and so tightly spun in to the fiber that I had to leave it but, again, washing the mittens helped a lot. BTW, if you've never worn fingerless mittens, they are amazing. Within five minutes, your hands and fingers warm up considerably. Very cool!
Posted by: Ryan on October 19, 2005 01:10 PMAHEM! Do you know how many days I spent running around Ulaan Baatar desperately trying to FIND said yarn?! What I wanna hear is that it's an unusually enchanting shade of ECRU! Or reminds one of the rich silt in the NILE DELTA evoking memories of one's HONEYMOON! Or the mocha-filled canole at your anniversary SKETTY HOUSE!
Bactrian Camels smell fine! How do I know? I smelled one! And yesterday (I swear this is true) I kissed a llama named Maybelline on her fuzzy cheek. She, um, smelled fine too. Somehow I've lost my train of thought...
Posted by: Cuzzin Tom on October 19, 2005 01:25 PMWatch those vows, Tom.
Posted by: Patti on October 19, 2005 01:58 PMI THOUGHT we'd be hearing from you today, Cuzz.
You know, don't you, how much I love this yarn and how much I appreciate Your Yarn Quest? I really do. The yarn is being used only for Very, Very Important Things--like anniversary gifts--because when it's gone, it's gone and I will be very sad. And I do enjoy the...er, uniqueness of the smell. I've sniffed the yarn more times than I'd care to admit. (And you'd laugh at how many times knitters to whom I showed the yarn immediately grabbed it and sniffed it too. All true knitters to the core.)
But that color, dear Cuzz. Perhaps it looks good against Mongolian skin but put it next to my pasty, freckly skin, or TMK's olive toned skin and...urp.
Hey, as a monk, aren't you supposed to abstain from kissing females?
Posted by: Ryan on October 19, 2005 02:02 PMI've got to defend the museum guards. I was a museum guard for several years in college. If it weren't for the guards all those lovely things in the museum might not be there for you to enjoy any more. It is a tough, sucky job. Just be glad some one else is doing it for you.
Posted by: Jessica on October 19, 2005 02:33 PMJessica, logically I know you are totally right and that the guards are incalculably important in terms of guarding the irreplaceable art and that it must be an awful, sucky job, and that sometimes the guards are even just *volunteers* who are paid nothing yet still have to put up with pissy patrons. And I tried, I really tried, to see it from the guard's point of view. But I just kept feeling cranky.
Part of the problem was that we weren't touching anything. True, we were looking at it closely but only the better to appreciate the craftmanship and the detail which I thought was the whole point of the exhibit. But, you know what? I don't want this to be what I remember about the exhibit. I want the amazing art to be what I remember. That's really the most important part or, if you'll pardon the pun,
p(art).
Thank you for speaking up on behalf of the guards, Ms. J!
Posted by: Ryan on October 19, 2005 02:48 PMMs. Ryan, would you rather CT go around kissing males? Hehe
The museum trip sounds like it was fab. I love the geology room at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Purty rocks.
Those fingerless gloves kick arse, no matter what color they are.
Oh and there might have been an update to a certain blog thing. Just saying.
Posted by: Stalker Angie on October 19, 2005 02:52 PMAny chance you & TMK will bring the mittens to the knit in? I really want to be able to say I know what a bactrian camel smells like. I have visions of saying "You smell like a bactrian camel, and I should know!"
Posted by: Elaine on October 19, 2005 03:03 PMWe'll try to remember, Elaine! What we'll need to bring, though, is the yarn, not the mittens. The yarn smells like the real thing.
And maybe I can convince TMK to bring Mongol LEE as well....
Posted by: Ryan on October 19, 2005 03:06 PMI don't recall where I heard this, but I seem to remember that camel won't take dye well and that is why camel-hair yarn is brown, tan or cream. Of course, this rumor may also be the direct result of my new job, namely sealing--by hand--anywhere from 800 to 1,000 envelopes a day. My brain may be making things up out of sheer desperation.
Posted by: Nina on October 19, 2005 08:15 PMI love the color of TMK's gloves....
I'm jealous of my husband... he's in Seattle this week SO close to Ryan and TMK and a Tiffany exhibit (pout).
But - I have to agree with TMK. Macs Rule.
Posted by: melissa on October 19, 2005 08:37 PMAll right, I'm gonna say this once and I'm only gonna say it ONCE!
Don't.diss.the BROWN!!!! My eyes are brown. And brown is one of my favorite colors. So stop calling it names!
pfffffft!
;-D
Posted by: Norma on October 20, 2005 08:54 PM