Now Norma Knits

I Have a Wee Problem

Alrighty then, so I started that seed stitch scarf in that gorgeous red Cascade 220, which I LOVE, by the way. And I never ever ever (never ever say never ever) buy just one skein of Cascade 220. I never.ever.do. I almost always buy two skeins -- I don't know why. If I don't buy two skeins, I buy a sweater's worth, plus an extra. (That'd be seven, for me.)

And so I'm blithely knitting along, and I go to locate the 2nd skein. I can't find it anywhere. It now appears that I used it last year or the year before, for a Red Scarf that was color-block, sort of. I ended up not liking the way it came out -- the gauges of two of the yarns (both Cascade 220) were different enough from the third yarn that it really wasn't nice enough to send to the OFA. So it's been in my closet all this time, and I just pulled it out to send to the Salvation Army, but it hasn't gone yet. 

In the meantime, I searched Ravelry for this yarn, and I was lucky enough to find two people who have it in their stashes. I wrote to one person, who only has one skein. I figured she probably wouldn't mind selling me the one skein. She wrote me back to say that she was sympathetic to my plight but all her stuff is in storage and she'd have to try to see if she could find it. So there is still hope, but, well, I know how *I* would be if all my stuff was in storage -- no way would I be able to locate a single skein of Cascade 220. Another person has six skeins. She might not want to break up her lot, but I'm willing to buy the whole thing if she wants to help me out. I love this color enough that I'd happily knit scarves in it till the cows come home, and I'd even love to knit a sweater for myself in it. But there is no contact ability in her account. So no go there.

And here's the hilarious (well, I guess that would depend on your definition of "hilarious") part of this story: I started writing this post to ask you all if you'd check your stashes for Cascade 220, Color No. 9404, Dye Lot 5433, and before I was finished the 2nd paragraph, I thought, "Well, you dummy, why don't you rip out the red portion of that uglyish scarf and reuse the yarn."  Doh.

So. Problem sort of solved, and I was going to delete this stupid story. But then I decided that I guess this peek into the snow globe of my mind still makes for a blog entry. 

 Not blonde anymore; just slightly flaky.

I Swear, I am a Magnet for The Weird...and other Monday Musings

At 12:03 a.m. Sunday, the entire household was sound asleep, all of our lights were off, and .... what was that?  Mr. Jefferies has bounded off the bed, he is barking, and it seems like we heard something, too.  As the fuzz starts to clear, we wonder, "Was that the doorbell?"  But it doesn't seem possible.  Then we realize there is a car in our driveway, with the lights on.  Yes, we decide we think the back doorbell rang.  And then the front doorbell rings (the back doorbell is one ring, the front is a double ring).  

It's the most disorienting thing, and upsetting.  And Mr. Jefferies is barking, I'm trying to calm him down, and we're both wondering, "Who could this BE at this hour?"  

David's eyes finally adjust to the darkness and the car lights enough that he is able to identify the car as a St. Albans City police cruiser.  Hm. One of David's positions is as the State's Attorney (in other states, this is often referred to as "District Attorney") for the adjoining county.  Once in a while the State Police have to visit, but normally they call first.  S.A. City PD is not within his jurisdiction, but it's conceivable that the Franklin County S.A., who lives on our street, was maybe not available or something, and they might call on David to answer an important question. Not too far-fetched, but STILL.  The doorbell in the middle of the night, when we are clearly asleep?  Do I need to tell you the shivers that were going through my entire body at that point?  This can only be bad news of the most excruciating, gut-wrenching, pulling-fingernails-out-by-their-sockets kind.  I'm nearly throwing up.

So David pulls himself together and gets dressed and goes to the back door.  I had opened a window and the police officer said, "Hi, sorry to bother you so late.  City Police," which then sent Mr. Jefferies into paroxysmal barking, understandably so -- cripes, *I* was nearly barking at that point, and I'm not even a canine. 

David talked to her for a while, and then comes back upstairs.  I ask him what was THAT all about.  "Well," he said, "she said that there's been some vandalism in the area.  The State Police called the City Police to say that they saw some kids spray-painting mailboxes, and she wanted to assure us that they were investigating it."

I kid you not. 

a) That must be one very bored police department;

b) How inSENSITIVE can they be?  A visit in the middle of the night from a police officer should be reserved for something like "Your son was killed in Iraq."  "Your spouse was in a horrible automobile accident."  "Your house is on fire." "There is a bomb in your mailbox, but don't worry -- our crack team is going to disarm it."  Even, "There is a homicidal psychopath on the loose.  Keep your doors locked."  NOT "Somebody spray-painted some mailboxes in your neighborhood."  

I made a written complaint to the Chief of Police.  David made me sanitize it by editing a lot of what I wanted to say out of it.  

Fucking lawyers. 

That's one reason I'm glad I have the blog.  Nobody censors me here. Nobody'd better even DARE.

So, first the black cat incident, and then this.  

And then yesterday Mr. Jefferies was sick all day.  I was forced to lie low myself, taking care of him, and we're going to need to see the vet today, I fear. 

Norma('s)(es)

I'm a little touchy right now.  Use my name, and bump me out of the top three hits in Google, and you'd better at least be good: 

This Norma I like, and she actually had the name before I did. My name is Norma with middle initial J., for my maiden name. Two judges I worked with for many years always called me Norma Jean. Though I tried, I never was able to sway them from their mistaken belief that Jean was my middle name.

No, some new Norma Knits character has not entered the scene and stolen my name.  Just a new slew, apparently, of overpriced restaurants with the name Norma's.  WHY, all of a sudden, is the name Norma's so in vogue for restaurants?  From what I can glean, the one in Manhattan is not new, but it is only just recently showing up on Google when searching for "Norma," so it must have just recently gotten a website or somehow padded the numbers so it shows up high under not just "Norma-apostrophe-s" but plain "Norma" as well.  Still not higher than the friggin' ammunition company with the same name (WTF?) and now a pipe coupling group?  HONESTLY!  Who the hell visits a pipe-coupling group's website?  Numbers are clearly being fudged here.  

But the restaurant in New York, and the fact that hardly anyone is reading my blog anymore, has bumped me down to about sixth on the totem pole.  I used to be able to brag, "Just Google Norma and there I'll be, about the third hit."  Not anymore.  My star has burned out.  Pfffffft.  Fizzzle, fizzle, sputter.  

That's all right.  Must be it's time to reinvent myself again.  Stay tuned. 

But I was intrigued.  We'll be going to New York soon, and while there, we will dine at Bobby Flay's restaurant Mesa Grill again, as we enjoyed it so much last time.  I thought, "Well, maybe we should go to Norma's, since I can't seem to avoid it, and see if it is ALL THAT."  

So I looked at some reviews.  They're mixed, except they all agree on one thing:  It's expensive.  But I did enjoy the following exchange that I read in a blog.  The blogger wrote that the restaurant didn't treat his/her child very well.  Even made the poor tyke drink o.j. from a paper cup!

(I apologize for the formatting issues, but it just.will.NOT.format correctly when I cut and paste it here, and Typepad will NOT allow me to indent it without in turn indenting my entire post, and it makes everything fugly as all get out.)  [FIXED due to Rachel's help.  Thanks, Rachel!]

But my big issue with Norma's? As their website claims...

Do we like kids? More than whipped cream.

Thing is, they sure don't act like they like kids (but judging by the menu, they sure like whipped cream). My 20-month old was given a rickety high chair, a paper cup from which to drink her juice from, and kind of brusque, disinterested service from our waiter. Generally, we found that in other restaurants that claim to be kid-friendly - Blue Smoke, Landmarc - the staff tended to be, well, friendly towards the kid; at Norma's the service was indifferent at best, and the maitre d' was especially chilly (perhaps because I wasn't in a suit-and-tie, although I think it was because his tie was too tight).

One of the blog's readers commented:

I love Norma's, but only when I'm in the mood to have a ridiculous, sweet, cavity-inducing breakfast (although I do like their foie gras french toast also). It's not gourmet food by any stretch, but I found the pricing pretty fair for what you get and the neighborhood, etc. I don't have kids, so I can't speak to the child-friendliness of the place, but knowing how crowded it can be I wouldn't think of it as an ideal place to bring a child that needs a high chair. As for the staff's indifference, well, I doubt that the management can dictate just how effusive their staff has to be when in the presence of children, and basic politeness is probably all that's "required." Not everyone likes kids (I SURE don't), and though I'm sure there are people that would have gone gaga over your little one, you may just have run into a few that are child-haters like me.

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That just cracked me up and made my day, because, you see, we've recently had some abysmal experiences with children (and their clueless parents) in restaurants.  They ought to be banned.  Seriously.  They've banned smoking, and I often find that less offensive than people and their kids. 

We did, however, have one relatively charming experience with children in a restaurant.  And believe it or not, it was at another overpriced restaurant named Norma's.  I kid you not.  They're everywhere!  They're like locusts!  (Kids AND overpriced restaurants named Norma's.)

I don't have a lot of effusive praise about Norma's at the Topnotch.  Their cold soup sampler was interesting, cute (read: teeny) and pretty, but I didn't order it -- David did -- and he doesn't love cold soups much, not to mention big flowers floating in his food, the way I do -- so he would have a different review to offer, I suspect.  (The menu did not state that the soup sampler was cold, and none of the names were dead giveaways that it would be cold, so that part was a surprise.)  

I ordered a pomegranate martini which tasted like a cough drop and cost about 13 million dollars. I couldn't finish it.  Then again, every time I have ordered a flavored so-called martini anyplace (a Lemon Drop, for instance) I always think they taste like cough drops (and not in the good way), so I think it's possible that I just don't like martinis.  I say "so-called martini," because honestly, does anyone really believe that sweet chocolate-mint concoction (or whatever the latest iteration is) is really a martini?  But for the shape of the glass they are in, they bear absolutely no resemblance to martinis.  But I digress.

At Norma's at the Topnotch, I ordered a local heirloom tomato salad, and it was horrid.  Under-ripe, tasteless, pulpy tomatoes, cut in big chunks and piled up on the plate in what was an attempt at artful.  It has been just an awful year for tomatoes in Vermont, and I get that, oh yes I certainly do.  But then cut your losses.  Make it into soup or sauce or don't serve it.  Especially if you put a huge, hefty price tag on it.  The restaurant makes a large claim that it relies on local ingredients in season, but that salad was the only "local" thing on there, and for an outsider, it would not speak well of "local Vermont cuisine."  

The bread basket was awesome, and included some amazing cheese scones, but I shouldn't eat any of that (though I sure as hell did, for those prices).  Because the prices for everything else were so exorbitant, we ordered burgers.  Like $25 burgers.  (I actually can't be sure of that price, but whatever it was, it was way, way too high for a burger, especially in Vermont, even if it is in chichi Stowe.)  

Literally just down the hill from there, Abigail and I had stopped at a snowboarder-bum's burger joint a few days previous, and for $4 or thereabouts, we had the best burgers on homemade buns and the best fries and coleslaw ever -- easily up there in the top 5 burgers and fries I've ever had.  I overheard the guy behind the counter say he'd been schooled at the New England Culinary Institute, and it seemed entirely plausible, dude. You just gotta love Vermont.  

Norma's should be ashamed to charge what they do for admittedly a pretty nice burger, but at a steak price.  The steak on the menu, it wasn't even filet mignon OR local, and the price was blasphemous.

Anyhoo, how did I get distracted into giving a full restaurant review?  That wasn't the intent.  It was all about the kids.

While we were there, a couple arrived with two children, and were seated two tables over from us.  I groaned, because we had not long ago had to make a complaint when we took my mother out for dinner and the kids they seated next to us not only made it impossible to talk with each other, but came and got into my purse and nearly made me crazy.  That night we made a pledge to each other that from now on when we went to a restaurant, we would ask the host/hostess to not seat any children near us.  But there we were at a sort of fancy resort in Stowe, so it didn't occur to us that kids would show up.  Little did we know.

(Google "Norma's Sign" image, and this is one that comes up, taken at some other place called Norma's that I might actually like.)

One of the kids with the family was school age, and one clearly going through Terrible Twos.  But much to my surprise and pleasure, the mother was having NONE OF IT.  The mother refused to allow that child to act like an ass, and she wasn't embarrassed to discipline him (no, it was not abuse) until he stopped pounding his knife into the table and throwing things and grabbing things and knocking things over.  She got him under control and he acted like a civilized human being for the rest of the evening.  Imagine that.  I could almost die happy now.  

I knew something very plainly in a flash, and I said to David, "They're not Americans." (between the lines:  And thank GOD for that.) They were French or French Canadian.

Of course, the glowing moment took a different turn when, in the middle of the meal, the mother took the kids to the bathroom and the father started making eyes at me.  Yep.  French all right.  

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.... The "I'm Not Sure Which It Is".... and the WTF

THE GOOD:



All my tomatoes are about to blossom.  They have buds and the plants are sturdy and healthy.  This one is an heirloom variety that I've never grown before -- Cherokee Purple.
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THE BAD and THE UGLY

Yesterday reader Hat commented, "Your plants all look so healthy Norma.  Do you not have ANY pests and diseases?"

Oh, yes.  Yes, I do.



That pathetic-looking thing is Chinese cabbage.  It is in a bed with these:



A red cabbage...



...and these nubbins which should be pole beans.  They are all in the same bed, which seems to be particularly infested with something that is voraciously eating them.  Ya know, proponents of the non-organic way of gardening, or maybe a better way of putting it is purported debunkers of the merits of organic gardening, claim that all this natural material is unhygienic and harbors pests and diseases.  In this case, for this one bed of mine, I guess I have to agree with them.  But that is one bed and one bed only.  All the rest (that's about 12 others) are thriving.  So for my money, I'd just as soon let the voracious beasts feast on this bed and leave the rest alone, while I enjoy the bounty of the rest of my garden pesticide- and poison-free.  However, it is early enough in the season that I think I might dig up this bed, put another layer of soil in, line the edges with marigolds, and plant some bush beans in it.  It doesn't look like those cabbages are going to be dinner for anyone but the bugs and worms, so I might as well get something for my efforts.  So I think I'll be doing that today.

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More GOOD AND BAD:

Mr. Jefferies is 99.99999% fully housetrained now.  He is a perfect darling!  He signals that he needs to go out by quietly standing beneath our feet, assuming the position for having the leash put on.  All we need to do is be aware of the cue.  He still has an occasional pee on the papers in the kitchen put down for that purpose, but he never poops inside.  Not only that, but he associates "walk" with "poop" and no longer does it take the 1.5-mile walk to get him to do his business, but only a block or two.  This is GREAT.  But my hopes of those ten pounds being melted off by the frequent run-walks required to get him to do his thing are dashed.  I guess that means I gotta get back to the gym in earnest.

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GOOD and WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?



The coriander is thriving, and soon it will go to seed if I don't do something with it.  The problem is I'm the only one in the house who likes it, and then only in teeny-tiny measures, and only in a rare Thai-inspired dish or whatever.  I hate to see it go to waste, but .... there you go.

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GOOD and OH DEAR, NOW WHAT?



This year confirms it:  The compost bin is THE PERFECT PLACE to grow winter squash.  They immensely benefit from the heat and protection. These went in very, very early -- way "too early" for squashes to survive the cold weather that followed, but they could not be happier.  I put a bag of potting soil over the top of the full bin of still-decaying compost and took the lid off.  I planted the marigolds near them to hopefully discourage the moths which lay the eggs which become squash vine borers, another pest that I am plagued with.  But now what?  These four plants are thriving, but given that, they are definitely going to overcrowd the space as they tumble down and around.  Just adjacent to the compost bin is one of the pear trees, some sunflowers, and a bed containing thriving broccoli and pole beans.  It's a case of too much of a good thing. 

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The WTF:



Sunday morning coffee on the deck, listening to the birds and breathing in the fresh air -- alone, because David believes that what separates us from the beasts is the ability to eat INSIDE.  But I'm out of half & half, and skim milk in the coffee -- well, just ugh.  And an experiment gone awry:  Yesterday I harvested lots of parsley and mint.  The large majority of it was made into a highly successful tabouli in which I substituted brown rice for the wheat.  DELICIOUS!  But then I had a bright idea -- mint brownies are good, right?  So I finely chopped a ton (all right, a quarter of a cup) of mint leaves and put them into my brownies.  Apparently this is what comes of a '70s girl who never tried pot.  Do not try this at home.

Oh, Geez.

I did not mean for the final line of my last post to be left there dangling like that.  That's what I get for pre-writing posts.  That post was meant to be posted the day before, but then the whole Claudia hilarity ensued, so I redated it, but when I proofread it I missed that line.  Does that clear things up or make them muddier?  Probably a whole lot of needless information, but you must be tolerant -- I'm a fish out of water with the work having come practically to a screeching halt, and to add insult to injury, I'm kicking the can -- AGAIN.  For those just catching up, I mean the Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi (I love them both equally, with Diet Pepsi having a slight edge in the race) can.  I have fought an ongoing battle against my addictions to them for several years now.  So here we go with Attempt No. 1,388.  I really mean it this time -- No, I really DO.  (pfffft)

To that detoxifying end, I'm drinking copious amounts of water, green and black tea, herbal tea, yerba maté, and even some fruit juices.  I'm surprised I can even sit at the computer long enough to type, what with all that liquid going in. (What goes in must come out.)

So that's one reason why I did not finish my long Verizon story.  Another is I realize readers only have SO MUCH of an attention span.  Not to mention writers.  Sheesh.  I even pondered whether I was going to hit "publish" or just plain "delete".  But I decided the story must be told!  (I'm taking the piss out of myself here -- no pun intended.)  Honestly, I had nothing else to say, as I have heretofore mentioned, since I've got no crocuses to show.  I do have progress on my cardigan, but man is THAT boring to show.  You've seen one yoked knit-top-down cardigan in-progress photo, you've seen them all.  When it was just-slightly-less-than bolero length, I did put it on over my bare breasts to take a photo -- you know the kind I mean. You don't?  Well, think about it. But that's been done to death, and by women with perkier breasts and better home photo studio setups than mine.  I think I'd best stick with whatever it is that I do best.  (What is that, again?)

So. Where was I before the brain fuzz of detox set in?  Oh, yes!  The WINNER of the 2nd Chance Blogiversary Contest is:  Kate F. from Kentucky!  She said it made her Monday a little less pissificated.  (Wait, that's a word?  Spell check did not even flinch.  I suppose I should look it up, but I'm just going to leave it there.  It suits me, even if I'm not using it in the right context.)  I've got a sweet little package of goodies to send her.

What else?  Oh, yes, back to the BlackBerry story. 

After we became fast friends because I dropped the f-bomb on him, my BlackBerry guy (you don't mind if I call him my BlackBerry guy, do you?) asked someone with authority, I guess, if we could exchange that piece of crap (my words, not his) for something that might work.  He got the authority, and he said they'd transfer all the stuff for me if I'd come back in about a half hour.  This was good, since I had not had lunch yet, so I went out and came back.  I have a new unit which seems to work.  And also, since we were now budz, and I confided in him that, just like most things technical, I believe I am vastly underusing the BlackBerry -- mainly because I am paranoid that if I ask for something or download an app or something, that I'm going to get a new charge on my bill.  He set my mind at ease about that, saying that if that were going to happen, I'd be asked for a credit card number -- so download away! 

He asked if there was anything I'd like in particular.  Well, apart from, you know, a sugar daddy, for which I don't think there is a BlackBerry app (though I'd probably be surprised...) one thing I really wanted on my BlackBerry is Weatherbug or something similar.  Well, didn't he just go right ahead in front of my eyes and download a weather app for me (not Weatherbug, but about the same) and fix the settings for Burlington, etc. 

I had some questions about how some other things worked.  BlackBerry is INCREDIBLY nonintuitive and illogical, to my way of thinking.  Everything you want to do is hidden in a complicated menu that, once you know how to do it it's easy, but figuring it out will make you go bald everywhere but those private places that you have to wax.  Every time I want to know how to do something, I have to Google it or ask a friend who's had a BB longer than I.  He cleared up some things, but more importantly just with those words up above, "to set your mind at ease" about the billing thing, he gave me confidence to fool around with it once I got home and I got some settings changed and some things figured out. 

And I also Googled how to make the browser work.  That is another area on the BB that is CRAP.  The "browser" icon just kept taking me to how to add more email accounts, but did NOTHING else.  Hello, "browser" should mean I can BROWSE the INTERNET.  If I could ever get it to do anything else, it would be so slow and so cumbersome it was never worth it.  Ugh.  But in my research, I found the best little wonderful -- fast and sweet and clear and easy to run (and of course, developed in Norway, not the U.S.) browser for BlackBerry.  It's called Opera Mini.  I love it because it's got a sweet O icon, and I looooooovvvvvve O's.  But more than that, it works slick as a whistle, it's fitted properly for my little BB screen (rather than the old one that required scrolling and scrolling to get to the other side of the page if need be) and it's FREE.  If you've got a BlackBerry and your browser, like my old one, is C-R-A-P, go and download Opera.  You'll thank me. 

And so.... I'm sure the saga will continue.  But for now, at least, the BlackBerry is working -- it even kept on long enough to have a phone call at my home with Ann yesterday without dropping the call! -- and I've got a browser that works and it's sending me email. But today we are having another snowstorm, the tower will probably get iced up or something, and then all bets are off.

The only thing that my BlackBerry guy did that pissed me off (after the initial "I bet you didn't try this" trick) was to recommend that I buy the $250 gizmo to give me a signal in my home.  He pointed to it and suggested I get this wonderful thing.  I told him that yeah, a woman on the phone suggested I get one, and it's $250, right?  He says, "Yes, but it's only a one-time cost, and it's a lot cheaper than putting up a tower, and you'll have great service."  I put the kibosh to that with this statement: 

"Mmm-hm.  I'd like it if Verizon GAVE me one of those." 

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P.S.  Dave sent me a link yesterday that gave me no end of glee:  Vermont has the most heathens in the country! 

Dreams

Yesterday morning I bolted upright from a dream at 4 a.m.

"OH MY GOD!  I missed the last day of medical school!"

In my dream, I was a student and I had forgotten to get up for the last day of classes, which was yesterday.  Of course, as dreams are, it was confusing, because at the same time I was saying, "Why didn't Ally text me?!"  In my continuing confusion, I noticed that my phone had been put on silent and I said, "Oh, no! I left the phone on silent!  That's why she didn't text me!"  Then the fog started to clear, the panic receded, and I went back to sleep 'til 5. 

The second-year students have the month of February "off" (I can feel Ally's hands coming through my screen right now, trying to shake me and say, "Off?!  Off?!  Are you NUTS?!" though she would never do such a thing.) to study for, and then take, the medical board exam.  Following that, they will enter their clerkships in clinical rotations.  Or something like that.  It's all pretty much Greek to me.  But what I do know is, I WILL NOT BE GOING WITH.

Damn. 

There will be some lectures and meetings that I will cover for Ally into the future for a while, but I have come to feel like a part of the class, and the students have treated me as such.  I'm gonna miss them.  Big time. 

If life had been different (like, 178 degrees different), I would have/should have gone to medical school back in the day.  I had the smarts, I had the grades, I had the class standing, I had ... well, everything except any sort of guidance and support, both parental and in the schools.  I am the classic case of "fell between the cracks."  So life handed me this opportunity in my late '40s.  It's been such a gift.  So maybe I didn't fall through the cracks after all.

But anyway:  Pardon me while I go find a corner, my blankie, and my thumb. It's time for a good pout.  

Will everyone please join me in shouting:

Best of luck on the exam, Ally! 

Blog Apathy

Good Lord.  This could be a sort of a cry out for help. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, hm?

If there is one thing (besides your just plain being a total wanker with no redeeming qualities except your perfect teeth and Jennifer Anniston hair) that will make me unsub from your blog really quick, it's posting entry after entry that says nothing but, "I was going to blog, but I have nothing to say," or some variation on that theme.

And yet, here I am, doing the same.  This is strike two.  Three strikes, and I'm going to be thisclose to unsubbing from my OWN blog.  That would be bad. Having to resort to unsubscribing from my own blog.  I mean, really.  How bad can it get? 

I am just so busy getting rested (It's a hard job, you know!  And one I'm not too used to!) and healed up.  And I'm doing a GOOD JOB at it!  Things are really looking up!  (They are!)  There is much, much less pain, and Cindy is working her wonders on me.  But still, it makes for nothing to say. 

The wind is blowing so freakily* hard right now, it feels like the top of my house is going to be blown off.  And the deep freeze is arriving today. 

I do have a little sumpin'-sumpin' planned for February, and it involves sun and warmth and water and relaxation.  Should be good.  And if Mother Nature does not cooperate, I will have to just cut off my leg and eat it, RIGHT THERE IN THE AIRPORT. 

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*That one was for Ally.  It was a blooper yesterday when I was supposed to be writing "frequently."  Honestly, sometimes I wonder about me. And then the other day they were talking about "loss of lover function."  Not.  It was supposed to be "liver."  But apparently Freud was hard at work that day. 

364. Sorry, Wrong Number!

So here we are at the penultimate post for Blog 365.  It seems like it should be something profound, eh?  All I've got for you, though, is a series of kvetches.

I'm back home with another week off.  I'm wishing the arms would be pain-free so I could knit, and they are finally making progress, but they're not there yet.  The herbal supplement seems to be working, but it's a subtle improvement, not a magic bullet kind of one.  I saw the chiropractor last night who gave me electric stim, some special stretches to do, and an admonition NOT TO KNIT (bastard).  Apparently I was so mad at him for saying that (or my arms were still twitching so profoundly from the electric stim, and in addition my brain was turned off), that I was later weaving across the center line in my car.  Or so said the police officer who pulled me over. 

TRUE.  But apparently I was so cute and charming myself, that once he smelled my breath and found I was not drinking, he let me on my way. But not before he noticed that my inspection sticker was about to expire in two days.  My gawwwwd!!!  Could anything more go wrong with my day?  At least he did not make me get out of my vehicle on the pothole-filled road to do those manual dexterity tests that I have always heard about -- the ones about which I, a person who practices yoga and who is in pretty damn good shape, have always said, "Who could do that?!"  Seriously, who could stand on the side of the uneven road, in the dark, with a police officer's flashlight in the face, with cars going by and the wind blowing, and hold up his right leg 12 inches off the ground while touching his nose and looking backwards, without swaying?  Honestly?  Who!  Raise your hand if you can even do this on the flat floor of the yoga studio!  Come on.  Raise your hand. 

Who has seen the Reno 911! episode about manual dexterity tests where the woman police officer starts giving jazz dance commands because the big ole fat drunk guy passes all the rest of the dexterity tests, and guy gets them ALL PERFECT?  Oh, I love that show.

Wait, I have more kvetching to do. 

I have another massage scheduled for Wednesday (rescheduled from Saturday because of my spontaneous trip to NYC).  If I'm lucky, I should be ready to knit just in time to go back to work next week.  Sigh.  

I seem to have gotten rid of the woman with creditors calling my BlackBerry number, but now I'm getting wrong numbers with a freakish frequency.  WTF! 

There were three yesterday while I was traveling home from New York City.  Is that even possible?  And they're always these chipper, "Hi, Diane!" or "Hi, Stevie!"  "Hi, Julie!" thrilled-to-hear-your-voice kind of phone calls.  And I go, "WHO?!"  and they say, "This is GAIL!" or something equally thrilling and chipper.  And I go, "Who are you trying to reach?!"  And they go, "Oh, sorry.  Wrong number." 

Bleeding hell.  WHAT is that? Who ARE these people who are supposedly dialing the wrong number and getting my BlackBerry? Why is my number apparently so eminently mis-dialable?!  I believe they are some sort of sales calls, but I don't really know.  They make it sound like they're my long-lost sister.  It's a good thing I am so friendly and good-natured and love people so much, is all I'm saying. In case that was ambiguous, it was intended as sarcasm.  Pfft.

I went out for Chinese food with a couple of colleagues the other day, and this was in my fortune cookie:

Riiiiiiight. Please define good luck, Mr. Fortune. 

It ripped when I was putting it in the scanner.  I figure that's meaningful in some way. And it can't be good.

350. Are You Ready For This? A Special Stupid Tuesday Edition of Now Norma Knits, With A Little Book Review Added For Extra Fun

How to take part in the world's most stupid exercise:

Step 1.  Buy rather expensive laundry appliances from a reputable and trusted dealer. 

Step 2.  Pay money for them to be delivered and installed. 

Step 3.  Pay money to simultaneously have a licensed plumber available at the time of delivery because he has to unhook the gas from the old gas dryer and hook it up to the new one. (No one can touch gas hookups except the gas company or a licensed plumber. Preferably one with an IQ higher than 12.)

Step 4.  Discover, after the installers leave, that neither appliance works. 

Step 5.  Listen to the stupid Typepad-esque answer of "It's probably your fault."  Argue the point.  Demand that someone come make them work. 

Step 6.  Have them come, purportedly fix them, then leave, when you're gone. 

Step 7.  Return home to find them NOT fixed in the least.

Step 8.  Rinse and repeat (Not the laundry.  The appliances don't work, remember?  The process. It's a figure of speech.)

Step 9.  Return home after a stay away because of bad weather to find that one of the two now works (the water pipe threads were stripped by the first installers), but the other doesn't. 

Step 10.  Throw a tantrum and insist that the other one get fixed or they can come pick up their hunks of steel and "gimme my money back."

Step 11.  Wash tons of laundry that has been building up and hang it to dry on racks (At least it's economical, green, and probably the Right Thing To Do.  Except when one has just bought a $1,000+ appliance to do the same.)

Step 12.  Call the plumber and ask, "John, um...is it, um, possible you, um, did not turn on the gas?"  (You can see what's coming, can't you?)

Step 13.  Listen to the plumber reassure you, "Oh, yes.  I came back a second time to be SURE it was on. Your dryer is going to work, don't you worry.  All you have to do is turn it on and off manually four or five times.  Well, you might have to do it 12 times, because there is air in the gas hose.  And then it will work."

Step 14.  Stand there stupidly turning the dryer on and off for the next 2.5 hours, at least 1,009 times.  Still cold. 

Step 15.  Scream bloody murder to the sales place.  Get a call from the repairman, who says, "It must be that the igniter got cracked during delivery."

Step 16.  Go to work before the repairman arrives Monday morning.

Step 17.  Arrive home after work to get the message from spouse that......

have you guessed it yet?  Of course you have:

Step 18. The *&^%$# gas had not been turned on.

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It was only the extremely timely arrival of my copy of Franklin's book

that saved me from doing something drastic. I turned to page 1 and started laughing.  It was one and three-quarters hours later when I stopped to catch my breath, only to realize that I had completely lost the urge to disconnect the gas dryer hose and duct tape it to my mouth. 

Oh Franklin, you are a sweet, funny dear, and now you may add Suicide Interventionist to your already impressive resume.

If I had gone to Harvard, do you think we would have ended up married? 

Oh. 

Well, yes, there is that. 

Never mind, then.

This book is a delightful and refreshing little gumdrop.  Franklin's humor is smart and fresh and genuine, and you don't have to be a knitter to get it.  When I put it down briefly to stir the pasta sauce, I had to wrest it from my non-knitting husband's hands so I could keep reading it.  That, my friends, is an endorsement. 

If you don't already have the book, ask Santa to put a copy in your stocking -- it will fit in there so nicely.  Make sure you take a pee before you open it, though.  Honestly. 

318. Gobble?

My friend Ann is looking for the pattern for these:

This was made at least 25 years ago by her mother-in-law who passed away recently.  Ann thinks the pattern might have been in a Workbasket magazine of "ancient" vintage. 

Can anyone help?

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The COULD YOU JUST DIE addendum of the day:

When I recently showed off my new Central Park NonHoodie to my hairdresser, she was totally WOWed.  She said, "It looks like a sixty-five-dollar sweater!!!" and said that if I wanted to "forget" it at the shop, it would be more than OK with HER, and asked if she could have a blue one, too, for Christmas.

I had to stifle my mirth.  Of course I know that was a compliment of the highest order.  It meant she really thought it was AMAZING and GREAT and DOESN'T LOOK HOMEMADE, which are all compliments of the highest order from the nonknitting public.  But knowing what we know about how much our yarns cost (though it is possible to make a sweater like that for the range of $65 -- in fact, my Peace Fleece was bought through a co-op at wholesale prices, and so indeed my Central Park was made for less than $65) that does not even begin to factor in the time involved, etc. -- even given my Knit Math (tm) that I wrote about the other day.  But still -- a nice, nice, and very sincere, compliment. 

BUT:

I got my new LLBean catalog the other day, and as I was flipping through, it took me about 20 seconds to find this.  Holy crap.  $34.50, for basically the same sweater (though no cables on the back), and all ready-made.  Sigh.