Prickly and Soft

What could be more repelling than a rose branch?

You would think it was protecting liquid gold. Ouch!

And soft? Well, the princess, of course. Being disturbed by my mere presence.

And his lordship, soft and fast asleep.

And the pair:

Somewhere in between super-prickly and ultra-soft is my knitting. I've finished five repeats of the lace increase chart, and the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey nature of the pattern is revealing itself, when properly encouraged (I had to roughly pin it out).

Which I find encouraging. And in this day of no-job-news-at-all, I'll take my encouragement where I can get it.

Updates: Knit and Job Search

Before I get to the knitting and job-searching updates, let me show you the one photo I took outside today. It's raining and not particularly picturesque, but when I saw this sign, I felt I needed to capture the moment.

It's hard to see, but the top portion says Bradlees. According to Wikipedia, Bradlees closed its last store eleven years ago, after declaring bankruptcy in 2000. I remember when there were Bradlees stores around Massachusetts, but I hadn't even heard of Fretter. Again according to Wikipedia, they closed their stores in 1996. The store currently in this plaza was a Target, but the sign is stuck way in the past. So I wondered, have they not updated the sign? Or has there been vandalism? Who would steal a Target sign? Unless the point is to reveal what's underneath. Thoughts?

Anyway, back to the updating. On Monday I interviewed at an agency in Boston, as I mentioned, so that's the less-scary type of interview. It went fine, and there's been no progress yet. Then yesterday, I heard back about the temp position I mentioned week before last. I had kind of given up expecting to, because the agency woman stressed that they were looking for someone right away*, and would I be able to schedule an interview with just a day's notice, and so on, making me think that when I didn't hear anything for over a week, they were passing me by. But no, apparently not, and we set an appointment time for an interview today.
*Not the only thing she had wrong, as it turns out.

Once that was scheduled, I e-mailed the HR woman at the company where I've had 2 phone interviews*, apologized for pushing, and asked if I was still under consideration because I have this other opportunity, etc. She replied right away that I was, and she would check with the director about their next steps.
*Or 2PIC, for short.

Today, I went trotting into Cambridge (thank you, GPS, for helping me after my wrong turns), and made my way to the appointment, which was near the Cambridgeside Galleria (so I parked there, is why I mention it). Since I don't love driving into the city, as I've mentioned recently, and since that part of Cambridge might as well be Boston for driving/commuting purposes, I was very pleased to hear that their office relocation, which the agency had told me would be in a few months, is actually happening sooner than that. The boxes all around the office were a big hint! And in fact, they're looking for someone (some two, actually) to start at the new location, which is appreciably closer to where I live, plus has free parking. Much better!

It is still a temp job, slated to go through September. The work itself sounds fine, proofreading, mostly for formatting, and they promised to keep me busy (to which I gave my standards reply, I'd rather be busy than bored). Being a temp job is a strike against it for me, and the pay isn't great (tho' better than unemployment). Of course, there's always the possibility of getting another position there once this contract is up (and they've had time to see how wonderful I am). The 2PIC job is "permanent" but as I have painful recent experience to illustrate, permanent doesn't mean what it used to. I e-mailed the woman there again, and haven't heard back. And there we stand.

So I'm knitting! The second sock is ready to start the heel flap, and I also started a shawl. Here's a better picture, or rather two, of where I am now with it:

I like the top picture for the color and texture, but the flash one shows the holes a bit better. Blocking this one could be very interesting, I think. The pattern is "Bigger on the inside" from Knitty, and it's a Doctor Who homage (in, of course, Tardis-blue yarn). I'm in the Time Vortex section, which you knit from end to end before picking up stitches and knitting the Tardis* part down. So cool! The yarn I'm using is the Blue Faced Leicester from Blue Moon Fiber Arts that I picked up at Webs in February. I was delighted when I realized that I had this on hand. Such a Tardis-y blue!
*Can you believe that Blogger's spell-check doesn't recognize "Tardis"? Of course, it doesn't recognize "blogger's" as a word, so I suppose I shouldn't expect much.

So far so good, and I will keep on keeping on. While trying not to think about job-search things that are all In Someone Else's Court, or about other life things that are too much to think about, or the weather, which continues cold and rainy even though I put in a specific and pointed request for warm and sunny. Who's in charge of that, anyway?

Brain Full: Random Photos

I've watched a lot of Doctor Who this weekend, and while it's been good and fun, my brain is a bit full. So look at the pictures!

Check out the green car I saw recently. Really that green!


Also, I kind of kinneared it, since it was behind me (I was stopped for a traffic light). I only had time for one shot; not bad!

House detail, noted while (again) stopped for a light.


Highway traffic was bad this week; I spent a lot of time on side roads, and thus a lot of time stopped at lights.

Pretty sunset sky.


And finally, let us take a lesson from the cats. When it is time to relax (and to a cat, when isn't it?), they do it right.


Enjoy the weekend, all. I am: I slept in, and will do so again tomorrow and the day after. I've done dishes, and vaccuumed, and put away my suitcase, but I've also watched all of Doctor Who, Season 4 (I did start last night). Whew! Now that's a day.

Doctor ... Who?

I'm having a really good time watching all the (modern-era*) episodes of Doctor Who in order, and I'm definitely catching things that didn't make sense in certain episodes when I saw them before ("New New York" ... "New new Doctor!" I get it now!). And since I'm borrowing them from the library, I'm not paying $300** for the privilege (although I would quite like to own them, so I could watch them over again, and whenever I want to ... but not enough to spend $300 on it).

*I have to confess, I've never seen the older ones. I believe this may be sacrilegious in England, but can I help it that I didn't grow up there? This means, once I've caught up on the modern ones, I'll have something to do next!

**According to Amazon, each of the "first" three series are list-priced at $100 (oh, sorry, $99.98, like that's better), though they do discount them, and of course one could try eBay or the like. But still.

I would like to say that the whole Time Lord transformation idea is an absolutely brilliant way to deal with the issue of the main actor wanting to leave a series. Instead of the "old Darrin/new Darrin" foolishness, just have the character able to (in times of extreme danger only) transform from one actor to the next. Out with Eccleston, in with Tennant!

Shall I also reveal just how much of a nerd I am? Why not! When I was first starting this, and trying to figure out the chronology and the actors and all, I realized that the ninth Doctor is Christopher Eccleston (Eccleston has nine letters), and the tenth Doctor is David Tennant (Tennant, right?). Bingo, I can now remember which is who. I'm sure this is very old news to the faithful, but I came up with it on my own, and was as proud as can be. I'm all about the mnemonics, me.

Of course, using the library does have its issues. The biggest pro is, it's free, and that is big. The biggest con, I think, is that they sometimes will let other people take out things I want, so that they are not immediately available for me. Can you believe the nerve? And the next con is that you can borrow each one for seven days, which seems like a very short time when it means you can't borrow ahead very far, but a very long time when you're waiting for others to return things.

For example, I went to the library one day to pick up series two, and found discs 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Two is out. That was a week and a half ago, and it's still not mine. Humph. And you know that when 2 comes in, 3 will be out. But there's no point in borrowing 3 while waiting for 2. (Actually, I took 3 out when I got 1, in case 2 came in that week, but it didn't.) I hate waiting.

I initially found it ... ah, interesting that the library broke up the set to loan out the discs individually. I'm of two minds about the practice. On the one hand, no pressure to watch all the episodes in the space of a week. On the other, you may end up requesting and waiting for discs and be frustrated like the above example.

Actually, different libraries have different policies, meaning I can sometimes get the complete season in another place (but there are, presumably, six times as many people requesting it, so the wait tends to be longer). This is one of those times when having cards to three different library systems* works in my favor.

*I realized the other day that I have two of those (14-digit) card numbers memorized, while I can never remember my (9-digit) driver's license number. It may have been (okay, was) less secure when your Social Security Number** was your license number, but at least I could remember it.

**I understand that babies are issued SSNs now, is that right? At birth, I mean, or possibly in utero. Gather 'round Grandma, kiddies, while I tell you what it was like Back in the Day. I believe I was 13 when I got mine. (Of course, that's 26 years ago, giving me plenty of time to memorize nine whole digits.) Excuse me while I totter off to rest now.

Confused yet? Me, too.