Last Saturday

My goodness, when am I going to tell you about last Saturday? More than the flowers, that is. It was such a good day, and I have to share! I spent the day in Rhode Island with my three friends, of Maine and Florida and many other adventures.

Before we hit the road, let me share a headline from the Globe that morning.

You can imagine how I wanted to call the paper and ask how, precisely, I can avoid mosquitoes. I'd love to! (Though I want to get one of these and try it next time, to see if it really helps the sting. Seems too good to be true, but worth a try.)

Moving on! We brought together a lovely potluck lunch: chicken salad, green salad, fruit salad, and cukes and tomatoes fresh from the garden.

Not just any cukes, either. I had to get a picture of this one.

Delicious and a decent weapon! She said it grew that big in a week. I imagine if you stood quietly by the plant, you would hear it creaking.

After lunch, we hit the road. Our first-time destination was a small town called Wickford, which apparently is the town that The Witches of Eastwick is modeled on. Not having read the book, and unable to remember if I saw the movie, this was not personally stunning news, but the town is beyond charming. Cool funky little stores, including a bookstore and a yarn store, a place that makes its own ice cream, and just generally quaint and charming in a wish-I-lived-here way.

A number of the houses have signs like these. Guess my favorite?

Particularly if you know that Increase was an actual name, way back when, as in Increase Mather.

We also saw this plate, by the way, and though I don't know what it means, it was certainly deemed blog-worthy.

Back to historical charm in architecture. So many lovely details.

Yes, please, I'll take it. Screen it in, but that is one lovely porch.

And one determined plant. Going up!

Why no windows on the second floor? Who has a theory?

Yes, yarn store. The Mermaid's Purl!

Funky eclectic shop, but perhaps the building used to be a bank? That door has a vault look, don't you think?

Outside the "old" library. Someone stole that poor boy's book! Who steals a book from a statue?

This car really was red, not orange. Pumpkin?

We finally pulled ourselves away from Wickford, and drove around Jamestown admiring the scenery. Found a place to park and rocks to sit on, admiring more closely.

There was clear evidence that when we weren't there, the birds used our location as a dining hall. Messy eaters!

But even on an imperfect weather day, quite lovely.

Back at base, we reprised lunch for dinner, followed by this special event. Can you Groupon for a bakery? Can you say "chocolate cake with caramel mousse frosting and Oreo crumb sides"? I can!

 Not the best photos, but it was too good to take the time!

Anything with caramel like this is excused from anything but being enjoyed.

Carlos Says

Better, But Pooped

I did in fact go back to work today, and man, there is no high like that post-headache feeling. Whew! It made the report I was editing seem far less onerous than it had Tuesday morning, when I was struggling to make sense of the Indian-English-ness of it through a haze of head pain.

By mid-afternoon, I was pretty much over that initial joy and back to earth, though, particularly when Word decided to randomly remove the section numbering through the document. Oh, you thought you were in section 11.4.1? Make that 1.41.1. What's the difference? Argh. How did Microsoft come to rule the world again?

Well, never mind that. The point is, somehow it's Thursday night, which means tomorrow is Friday. Funny how losing a few days will make a week fly by! I'm wiped out, so I'm going to spend the evening peacefully on the couch with knitting, an old movie, and possibly a cat. Peace out.

Slightly Better; Hopeful

I didn't make it to work today, which I hate, but I'm feeling cautiously better tonight, and my appetite is returning, which is a good sign. I ate less yesterday and today combined than I usually eat in one day, but feeling hungry is comforting, when just mid-day I was musing that I didn't want to eat, but I wanted to want to eat. Half a slice of toast with peanut butter doesn't usually hold me for so long!

Anyway, if the situation doesn't decline again, I'll be able to go to work tomorrow--AND to the library to return the Doctor Who dvd that's due today, oh the shame if it! I thought of going, an hour or two ago, but decided paying the fine was smarter than pushing the head too soon. And on that note, step away from the computer...

Hanging In

Guess what I hate even more than knowing that if you haven't eaten for eight hours, you can still throw up, more than once.

I hate knowing that from experience.

So, a bad day. Not so bad right now, but paranoid. Hanging in.

A Floral Teaser

I had my stitch and bitch group tonight, and then when I came home I finished the book I was reading (Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman, and it was very good [it's kids/young adult fantasy, really well done]), and now here I am, tired and about ready to start the bedtime ablutions.

So, although I haven't told you about Saturday yet, how about some flower pictures from Saturday? Yes, I thought so.

 Not a uniformly sunny day, but a lot of floral beauty.

Including this one, but that's part of Saturday's story.

As the Olympics End

Cat-egory: Synchronized Sleeping

Well, Bob, I'm afraid we'll see a deduction on this one. You see that Miri, she's the one in front, well, her ears are out of synch with Carlos. The judges are going to catch that. Too bad, it's a good routine otherwise...

What Night is Tonight? Why, FRIDAY!

The fact that today is Friday has redeemed it from being an otherwise imperfect day. That is, it was still imperfect, but I didn't mind as much, because it's Friday.

Can I get an amen?

Surprises, or Anticipation?

There may be no such things as a free lunch, or maybe there is, but there's one thing I know. A free lunch that comes out of left field does have a price: social requirements and unmet expectations. 

I was thinking about this today, when it turned out that my boss didn't put my name on an e-mail to the office at large, saying that she was getting lunch for us today. Not that that counts as a problem, of course, and it was really nice of her to buy us lunch, but, well, I wish I had known ahead of time.

I like to be ready for things, that's what it is. She also didn't tell me about a monthly meeting that was this morning, so there she was calling me into the conference room for something I didn't know was happening until five minutes earlier, and thought I didn't have to go to, and I was unprepared (not for contributing anything, since I didn't have to, but in terms of meeting prep like having gone to the bathroom, grabbed water and a notebook, etc). And then she asked me to take notes for her--no pressure!

I guess I look forward a lot, which may not be an ideal mindset--"live in the moment" is good general advice--but when you're working, looking ahead to a nice lunch, a good book, and getting outside into the sunshine is natural enough. Instead I got to choose a what's-in-that-one sandwich and eat in a chilly conference room with scientists, which isn't meant to be denigrating, they're nice people, but it does mean that symptoms of Lyme disease are considered appropriate lunchtime conversation.

I don't hate all surprises, but I'm a planner, as well as an anticipation-savor-er. I enjoy getting ready for a trip, making lists, thinking of schedules and when I need to leave and where I'm going to go.

What about you? If someone said, "Hey, can you leave for London tonight?" would you say, "Yes!" or "Oh, but I'm not ready! Packing, lists, where's my passport, what about a hotel...?"

Updates of Knitting and Work (Environment)

YOlympic Knitting Update
As it turned out last night, I overstated the case when I said that I only had to cast off the YOlympic shawl. How many times did I look at the instructions? Even specifically to see if there was anything else to do after the final lace section repeat? And yet it wasn't until I sat down and looked at it that I thought, "this doesn't seem right for the bottom border ..." looked at the picture, and finally saw the bit of the pattern just before it says "bind off" where it turns out you have to "knit four rows". Oops! I'm glad that I didn't have this revelation during the closing ceremonies ("Quick, knit 1200 stitches and then bind off 300!"), but it wasn't a problem mid-week. I knit one row last night, then brought it to my alternate-week knitting group tonight and finished it there. Happy dance! My hands hurt a little, but it's worth it.

I wonder how much blocking will change the way it looks? It should open the lace part up a bit, at least. Well, I won't be getting to that for a little while; I have plans this Saturday, and I doubt I will fit it into my single get-everything-done day Sunday. Maybe the following weekend. I'll get before and after pictures, of course.

The Continuing Saga of the Temperature in the Office 

I hadn't wanted to jinx things, but as of last week, the temperatures at work have been much more moderate, running around 76-77, a 5-degree increase over the previous averages. It was so very pleasant to not be freezing! To not have to wear two or three layers, and to be able to concentrate on something other than how cold I was. To feel neither shuddering relief at stepping out into a hot day, nor shivering resentment at stepping out into a not hot enough day--this is good, as is not feeling that I must park in the sun so the car will be hot enough to warm me up quickly when I come out of the building.

Or it was. Unfortunately, Tuesday morning when I walked in it was freezing. Apparently when the early arrivals noticed the heat coming on (something that has happened before; it's a very weird building), someone went to move the thermostat and overcompensated, and it was about 71 all day. Brrr! I find it distracting to be so cold. Picture me yesterday, wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt, a light long-sleeved shirt, a fleece jacket zipped up, a scarf, and fingerless mitts, shivering in the breeze, hands in pockets whenever possible. Ridiculous. I was still wearing corduroys, wool socks and closed shoes, or I don't know what I would have done; one of my poor coworkers wore a skirt. Mr. Thermostat-Adjuster fell several places on my list (or rose, depending on what you call the list). 

Mid-afternoon, I remembered that a month or so ago, when I was cold, I'd brought in a pair of microwave hand warmers I have, and I nuked them to put in my pockets. It helped a lot, since even with the mitts my hands were so cold I didn't want to keep my hand on the mouse between moves. Ridiculous to need it, but glad to have it.

Today one of my coworkers made a (minute) adjustment, and it was about 74, which is much more bearable. (No, I don't know why we didn't try that yesterday. Please do not apply logic. Our brains were frozen too.) Especially considering that in my rush to leave home in the morning, I left my long-sleeve shirt and sweater on the kitchen table, whoops! Still had the fleece, but it wasn't what I'd planned.

Speaking of work, some more new people have started at work recently, and I've noticed something. Fellow working women, please ask someone you trust if you have a limp-fish handshake, and if you do, work on that. I don't like the hand-crushers either, but there's middle ground.

No Blogging: Knitting!

Hey, I'd write more, but there's this shawl that needs casting off, and ... what's that?

Oh, yeah, YO-lympic knitting in three ... two ... one ...

Thirteen Thousand Words

YO-lympic Knitting

Today has been a day for doing laundry, for cuddling the cat (who does not feel that the combination of the heat* and his furriness should stand in the way of making up for last weekend), for watching the Olympics (and it's nice to see some of it live: I got to see Serena Williams win singles gold this morning and do a happy dance), and for knitting.
*Even with air conditioning, doing the laundry raises a sweat, and fur sticks to my face.

If you were reading here two years ago, you may recall my Olympic knitting project from 2010, a vest that I finished a day before the end of the Games, and that actually fit me! (And if you weren't, or want a refresher on the whole concept of knitting Olympics, start here.) (Also, if you click on the "Knitting Olympics" label at the bottom of this post, you can see all the posts that I've tagged with that.)

For this year, I wanted a challenge that wasn't too big a challenge, since I consider "starting a new job" to be my overall summer challenge, and I need my knitting to be supportive, and not a source of added stress, these days. I thought about different things, but in the end I went back to the mystery yarn that my mother brought me at Christmas-time. Remember, it turned out to be Manos del Uruguay? I mentioned that I might make a Wingspan with it, and in fact I started one but felt no love for the marriage of yarn and pattern, so rrrriiiiiiippppp, the yarn was still available. I looked on Ravelry, and picked a pattern to try again, the Colonnade Shawl by Stephen West. Last Friday, during the opening ceremonies, I took time out from packing and all to cast on.

I worked on it more while at Grandma's last weekend, and found it well-suited for hanging out, catching up with Mum, listening to Grandma, having an on-and-off-headache knitting.

 It shows off the colors in the yarn well, doesn't it?

Soon, though, I discovered that this simple pattern is a little deceptive in its simplicity.

First, there's an error, in that it is not possible to finish the first section on a right-side row and start the next section on a right-side row. It just does not compute! After checking Ravelry and finding others with the same problem, I accepted that at least it wasn't me, and did another wrong-side row from the first section before going on.

A bit more seriously, I found that the lace section was very easy to lose track of. All you're doing is a combination of knit-two-togethers and double-yarnovers, but in some of the four sections across you start with one and in some with the other, and it's super-easy to lose track of whether you're supposed to YO2 at the end of a section or not. Especially early in the pattern, when you're still figuring it out! And while yarnovers are easy to fix in the next row, fixing them from the row after is pretty much impossible (for me, anyway). On Sunday, when I tried to fix one and botched it, I knew I was going to have to rip that part out and try again. Tinking the rows, when you're talking about 200 or more stitches, loses its appeal very quickly.

So what I did was to make a little chart of how many stitches I should have in each section after each increase row, so I can check. Mildly annoying, but much the best solution, and I have had no (unfixable) problems with it since.

I took pictures this morning, when I had done 5 of the 8 repeats in the lace section. It's on a long enough needle that I can kind of spread it out, though not completely.

I'm happy with it!

This yarn is very much thick-and-thin: some segments are like bulky and other like lace. Pretty wild.

That's going to add an interesting dimension to the shawl, I think.

This has been your 2012 Knitting Olympics update, brought to you live on location.

"Clutch Arrow from Oh!"

Watching the Olympics tonight.

Knitting along on my Yo-lympic project (that's an Olympic knitting project with lots of yarnovers).

Can stay up late, and can (will!) sleep in.

Happy.

You?

A Little Geeky Recommendation

Don't know how many of you are fans of the webcomic XKCD, but it's a lot of fun (though sometimes I don't "get it", but I figure it's me being not quite that day's flavor of geek, and try again next time). Don't you have to love a site with this on their page?

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

I do (have to love it, that is). So I recommend that one, and if you go there, be sure to hover your mouse over each image to get the extra info (a text box appears when you do, and it's usually extra funny).

I heard recently that the same guy is doing a weekly blog called What If, where he addresses the "strange hypothetical science questions in my email". I finally got around to reading it, and it is more great geeky fun. It's deeply physics-y, which I wouldn't have thought would appeal to me at all, and to be honest I've skimmed some, but.

But.

I cried out over a throwaway in the post on Yoda, which addresses the question, "How much Force power can Yoda output?" when he references getting information from a Star Wars fan wiki called ... wait for it ... Wookieepedia. Ah! Excellent! I spend a fair bit of time every day of Wikipedia, checking if some word or disease is "actually a thing", so it's fresh in my mind.

The end pun on that post is also good.

I'm off to see if the Olympics coverage is showing anything other than basketball and boxing, which have been my pre-prime time options all week. If only I wanted to watch either! Are you watching any of it?

Yup, Again

Somebody's drooling on my arm...