Lots of Knitting

It's usually safe to assume that I'm knitting, but I haven't talked about it much lately, have I? Well, let me do so! It's a better topic than the snow is, that's for sure.

Tonight, I finished a hat. It's knit flat and seamed, which was a new one on me. I mean, you look at this:

And you don't instantly think hat, do you?

You may not think this looks exactly hat-like, either:

But when put on the head of a human (using facial nonrecognition; I am so high-tech):

Ears. Meow.

(The shirt, by the way, was chosen for today.

)

The hat is for wearing to the Boston Women's March in a few weeks. If you are unfamiliar with these hats, let me direct you to the Pussy Hat Project for more details. I used some Malabrigo I had on hand, color Damask. It came out a little big, but I think it will work. In fact, if the weather is cold enough, I could wear it over another hat!

I also finished the latest pair of purse socks, but haven't taken good pictures of them yet. For now:

That gives you the idea, anyway. Interesting yarn, far more colorful in good light than it appears in average lighting.

But the most exciting knitting I've done recently was blog-secret until Mary Ellen's birthday. I made her an octopus.

She likes purple, so I used a skein of fingering that I had, making for a smaller one than what my brother got. But the pattern is the same one, Cephalohedron, Or as I call it, indiscriminately, squid or octopus. Whatever. More photos:

What's more, I'm going to be making another one sometime soon, since I finished this one in Florida, and yeah, my mother wants one. Who can blame her? If I go through life leaving a trail of knit octopuses*, there are worse things.
*Apparently, strictly speaking, octopi is wrong because it's putting a Greek ending on a Latin word, or vice versa--I can't even be bothered to google it, sorry.

I think that's all I've finished lately, but I did start the next purse sock, of course. Having used cushy but tough Socks That Rock for that last pair, I went for cushy and soft this time, and more color. Crap photo:

As so often happens, the yarn is doing interesting things knit up, and depending on how you look at it, I might be knitting a mostly blue sock:

Or a mostly pink sock.

Fortunately, this doesn't bother me.

If You Have To Ask...

...if the writer's first language is English, the report is not off to a good start.*
*When I'm in the office next Friday, I'm hoping to sneak in a conversation with this guy's boss, who I know, about how dangerous his command of English is, in the sense of not making us look stupid.

It isn't really this, either:

I know they aren't stupid; in terms of knowledge of their subject matter, they're smarter than I am. (Plus there's that whole "speaking more than one language" thing, also not something I can do.) But if you can't communicate it clearly, you don't sound smart. To me, anyway.

But even worse than a writer who gets things obviously wrong is one who makes stealthy mistakes, such as was the case in the last hurry-hurry-hurry report I worked on in December.

Any time I begin to notice a lot of mistakes in a report, I'll start to make a list of them, partly to relieve my feelings (it really is that bad!), but also to see what happens frequently, so I can check for other places they might have done it again. In this case, there were so many that I broke the list down into things that were only done once or twice, and things that were done more often (see below).

Some of them aren't actually uncommon; I often see writers who confuse complementary and complimentary, for instance, or use regime when they mean regimen, and it barely flicks the needle on the aggravation-meter. Don't get me started on that/which, or "patients that/companies who" or any number of things that are against our style guidelines, but those are all common.

I'm pretty sure, though that I've never seen a report with so many uses of the wrong word, that sounds like the right word. It's easy for the eye to slide right over "Drug X sales are higher then compared to drug Y" or "Sales are expected to decline a considerate amount" unless you read really carefully, and at the end of the year, in the final rush, we don't have enough time to catch them all. I can only hope I caught most of them.

At least he did give me a good laugh, when he wrote that "Company B expects to recuperate its investment"--it took me a minute to figure out what he meant, but I suppose if English isn't your first language, it would be easy to think that "recoup" must be short for "recuperate." (Spoiler: it isn't.)

used (multiple times)	meaning
then  (as in "then compared to")	when
then	than
complimentary	complementary
manor	manner
besides from	aside from
there	where
considerate	considerable
regime	regimen
varies	various
used (once or twice)	meaning (?)
threating	threatening
refractive	refractory?
visual impairments	visible?
altragias	arthralgias?
recuperate	recoup
good positioned	well positioned
remain	retain
principle	principal
competiveness
opinioned

A Laugh

I don't know about you, but I needed a laugh today, and this gave me one. Watch all the way to the end!



Now if the Bruins could just play a good game tonight...

A Question of Tastes

I took a picture of a house recently. Architecturally, it's the kind of thing I like, if not my absolute favorite example (what, no turret?).

I like it either in black and white:

Or in sepia:

(Fun with Picasa!)

However, in actual color, it makes me wince.

Too much. Too bright. I think it's the green accents that push it too far, for me. What do you think?

Water in Many Forms

I'm trying to be low-key about 2017--I really want to think it will be a better year than 2016 was in so many ways, but I kind of don't want to scare it off or tempt fate, either. I'm not really superstitious about the new year, I don't make sure my house is all cleaned up (ha), or cook black-eyed peas, or think that how I spend the night will "set the tone" for the year, but ... sshhh, don't let 2017 see how hard I'm hoping it will be a good year.

If one did believe in such early auspices, today wouldn't have been a great day, anyway; I had good intentions of starting to tackle the dirty-laundry mountain, but I went downstairs to get the first load of towels out of the washer to find water all over the floor, the sink full of water, and even a few inches of water in the bottom of the washer. (It was already raining* out at the time; do you think I've angered a water spirit?). Hmmm. Good intentions thwarted, all right.
*Better than snow!

I got the load out of the washer, squeezing the excess water out as needed, and threw the towels into the dryer. The property manager is working on getting someone here tomorrow to look into it, so I don't even have to do that part. But as I don't want to load all the laundry into my car, it will remain dirty for a little while longer, anyway. Hopefully not too long.

And anyway, tonight it's back to water aerobics, speaking of water. A friend mentioned that her yoga class yesterday was completely full, even the teacher having less than a full mat space, so I wonder if the resolution bump will be visible in my class. I don't recall noticing that last year, but it was at the other gym, so who knows.

Finally happy birthday to Mary Ellen!

A Lapful of Kitten Helps the....something something something

Yeah, it's New Year's Eve; yeah, I haven't even shared all my Florida photos yet; yeah, yeah. I spent the afternoon with a kitten. Must show the kitten!

My friend and her husband (the ones who had the twins, if you're a long-time reader here)(oh my word, they're nine already?!) got the kids the kitten for Christmas, or rather, Santa brought her; she's a Siberian, which as a breed is hypoallergenic (her husband's allergic to cats, but is having no problem with Merry).

I took a lot of pictures, and many of them did not come out well, due to low light or kitty in motion. Here is a rare shot of her both awake and in focus.

Here with the flash, so you can see the colors in her fur.

And here, no flash, and looking almost black-and-white in comparison.

We played for a bit, she wandered around, and then she came and settled on my lap to bathe.

Bath done, the lights started to go out.

That's not just floof in her ears: those are ear-lashes, really. She could pick up ham radio with that.

Pretty soon, she was fast asleep.

This was my view for a while; I started to get leg cramps, so I tried picking her up to hold her instead.

She didn't mind.

Sleeping kitten in arms, watching the Bruins game? Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Peep of nose!

That face! And all the floof.

Her front paws are dark, but the back paws are light. The tops:

And bottoms of paws!

Wiggles.

Shifts.

But still sleeps.

Finally, I had to put her down to go to the bathroom.

And that's it for the photos, as the light dwindled. Such a good cuddle-cat. The Bruins even won! She must be good luck.

Bergeron had a good game, and on the post-game show, when one of the commentators mentioned that Bergeron was looking more like his old self than he has recently, the other guy said with great enthusiasm, "Happy new year!"

Another "Finally, Friday" Feeling

This has been some week. It's always hard to wrench away from vacation and return to reality, but ugh. Parts of last night didn't go to plan, either.

I did go out, as I had said I would, telling myself that the heavy rain was at least preferable to the snow that other areas were getting. When I got to the gym, though, I found a note up about holiday hours, which said that on Thursday, classes would be held as usual until 5:45. Which, yeah, guess which class starts st 6? Or would, if someone didn't decide that New Year's celebrations should start two damned days before New Year's Eve? (I mean, really, what's up with that?)

Since I was already there, I went ahead and went in anyway; as one of the other women who showed up (there were four of us all together) said, we were doing free-form aerobics. I stayed over half an hour, which was all I could make myself do (though I'm proud I did it at all, really). Then I went to the grocery store, so I could cross that and the bank off my list (since the bank has a branch inside the grocery store), plus, you know, have food in the house. Getting everything out to the car in the pouring rain wasn't much fun, and neither was driving home in the now-wintry-mix. Still, I got it all inside before the rain turned fully to snow, and even before the thunder, which was startling, to say the least.

So I had some dinner, and watched the Bruins surpass their usual stinker of a first period and actually come back for the win, what an amazing thing. And rare, ahem. But it was more enjoyable than I was expecting, so there's that. We'll see if they can repeat that tomorrow afternoon.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

So I'm off to swimming, followed if at all possible by a stop for groceries (I am out of a whole lot of stuff). And the whole time, this will be playing in my head:



I must say, as a kid, this whole thing went right over my head....

Here But Not Here

Still tired, still sore, still fine. Running out to dinner and a movie with a friend. Tell you about it later!

Point to ponder: The joke is that when January comes, we still write the old year on checks and things. Is anyone else finding this week that they want to be writing 2017 on things already? Just want this year to be over?

Just me? All right, ponder a pelican instead.

Back, and Tired (what else is new)

When I was making my travel plans, and even when I was traveling yesterday*, I had every intention of going swimming tonight, but despite going to bed early last night, I am really tired today, and my arm muscles are so sore that it clearly would not be a good idea.
*When everything went perfectly fine, no problems at all, thankfully

So I am going to stay home, work on unpacking more, and watch at least part of the Bruins game, before going to bed early again. Today was not a bad work day, especially as the other two editors were off, but it exhausted me nonetheless. I would like to need to feel better tomorrow, not worse.

Meanwhile, ponder this:

And consider why anyone would do that to such a nice thing as caramel corn.

Merry Christmas Adam

My mother and I went for a walk on the beach, a nice thing to do two days before Christmas. It wasn't a perfect day, but it was beautiful.

A gull in the water.

And a snowy egret, looking pensive.

Sweeping vista.

 Two ibis...

...very busy...

...eating lunch.

Busy, busy, busy.

Whatever they eat, there was a lot there.

We had something to eat ourselves, at a restaurant overlooking the beach, They had flags up for the fire department, police, and the American flag.

They also had this sign in the ladies room.

It must play havoc with the plumbing, don't you think? Although there's also the fact that if I tried to wash my feet in the sink, I would end up losing my balance and falling over. Klutz, know thyself.

Floridaaaahhhhh

It's nice here.

(Photo taken on Monday, it's more overcast today, but you get the idea.)

Packing, For a Jet Plane

Thanks for the travel well-wishes; it's snowing today, and I was just out digging my car out of it, which is depressing to look at, but I keep thinking of where I'm going, and that the odds are good I'll make it mostly on time, knock wood.

Speaking of such superstitions, I made a mistake recently, if you can call "letting a thought cross my mind" a mistake (I mean, how do you stop it?): I thought, "It's been quite a while since I had any spam comments on my blog." I wasn't even overly excited by the thought, just mildly pleased, but now I've had three of them on my recent post about blocking the lace shawl, and doesn't that timing seem odd? Three, from Tuesday night to Saturday? Just a coincidence, I'm sure, but still. What is it about that post that's attracting them, I wonder?

Anyway...I decided to take my computer with me, to make it easier to catch up on things like cleaning out my woeful inbox, and having it ups the possibility of my blogging before I get back (no promises, though). Happy holidays, y'all!

Kind of Done

So, how is work? Let me pause here, before going back to work after dinner, to give you an idea:


via GIPHY

And also:

But, an hour tonight and a couple tomorrow, and that is IT. I am in vacation mode, I have a week off, I am going to spend it with my mama, in Florida, and it is ALL GOOD.

Speaking of mama, this one is for her:

Meanwhile, in honor of the frigid weather here today:

Busy, Busy, Busy

Like everyone is at this time of year, right? Not that much of what I'm doing actually related to the holidays, but the feeling of busyness translates. So there are pluses and minuses.

Like, work is full-on batshit insane, but I got to hold a baby last night!

And the Bruins lost last night, but it was in overtime so they got a point, and they have another chance to win tonight.

And the low temp tonight is supposed to be 4 degrees, but by Sunday, when I'm flying out, it should be 50.

And ... I've got to go now. More sometime!