Now Norma Knits

337. Wednesday Weirdnesses

Well, how about a little bit of WTF Wednesday? 

I've got a little bit of wild and weird and wacko for you today. (Perhaps I should have saved that W.) 

We have an entry in the work category:  Here's another one of my translation gems, from a lecture on.... well, you'll see:

....acute endometritis.  It's just what it sounds like.  It can be associated with miscarriage.  It can be associated with retained products of conception, either from a therapeutic abortion, or even after normal delivery if all the placenta is not evacuated from the uterus. If a little piece of placenta stays in the uterus, it can incite an infection. So after you deliver babies when you're on OB, after the baby is all taken care of and you're delivering the placenta, the placenta is examined by UFOs and you look to see that it's intact and look to see that you have all of the placenta removed.

Should have been "by you folks." 

Gave Ally a laugh, anyway. Pay attention to that one, Ally, so you get it RIGHT on the boards.  Remember:  UFOs examine the placenta!  Srsly!  Would I lie?

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Pardon me, MR. J!  What mischief is this?

 

Poor beheaded lion.

UFO or WECU*?  Or Mercury in retrograde?

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In knitting news, I feel like I've entered Sleeve Hell.

I've ripped this thing out twice already.  I dislike the increases.  I can't seem to get them to look half decent, and I'm having flashbacks to the ill-fated Audrey sweater -- the one I divorced years ago because of the same evil ribbed increases.  In general, my stitches don't look pretty and even, either.  I used a lovely Addi Turbo needle for the body of the sweater, and I'm using bamboo DPNs for the sleeve, because that's all I have in US8 DPNs.  The yarn liked the Addis better, and so did I.  I've decided to proceed for a while and hope it will all come out in the wash.  I hate the uneasy feeling, and I like seams.  Seams are all nice and ordered and logical and structured. 

I am seriously considering knitting these sleeves "normal," flat, WITH seams, but at the moment, I'm just flowing with it.  I'm letting the weirdness wash over me.  I am becoming one with the weirdness. I'll let you know how that's working out for me. Soon.  Right now it's Weird Wednesday.  Embrace the weirdness. 

Or perhaps Marta will be a vest after all. 

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(*Wacko Evil Canine Unit) 

266. Or 267. WTF Wednesday Comes Back With A Rip

RIPPPPPPP! 

That is never a good sound to hear when one is getting out of one's car at work at 7:30 a.m., especially when one's work is over a half hour from home and is on a college campus, and one's work day runs from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. that particular day. 

How in the hell did that happen, in just this way?  It doesn't make sense, this rip.  That is in the back of my skirt, near the kick-slit in the center back, and this is denim, not some mamby-pamby fabric.  This is a long pencil skirt, and it's not even tight. Thankfully it could have been worse. It could have been an above-the-knee skirt, I suppose, and my nether regions could have been exposed to the world, and not just an extra flash of leg.

It's always something. 

And speaking of It's Always Something, Terry brought to my attention the night before last that there were as of that day 100 more days left to the calendar year, and that therefore I (and Sandy) must be off on our counting of the days in the Blog 365 project, since that day we labeled our entries 264.  Well.  I laughed 'til I cried, because we all love that Terry and her anally wonderful ways, and I don't know how to refute it.  I do remember one time when I repeated a number and someone brought it to my attention, so I fixed it.  However, maybe there was another time that happened!  There should really be 366 days this year, in fact, but we took leap day off, if you recall.  Or did I actually do that?  I can't remember if I was strong enough to actually not blog that day -- that was the "rule," but did I break it?  I think I didn't, which is to say I didn't break the "rule," and I did not blog that day.  I imagine I must have chewed off my right arm, but it seems to have grown back. 

It would be easy enough (but tedious) to find out about the numbers, and/or also to find out if this is the 267th (really 268th because of the leap year complication) day of the year, but as I'm writing this, it's easier for me to just ruminate-type and wonder-type, since, you know, the typing comes so naturally to me, than it is to look it up.  I am loath to go looking through all my entries this year (260-something of them!) to look, but if you are very bored and want to do it, be my guest, and report back to us your findings. 

However, I can hardly stop laughing enough to clear my eyes to type this thing, and I am typing by feel (I'm good at that, right?) because Terry has got me going so far into hysterics. To think that we might actually get to December 31st, after having written every single solitary day for well over the 365 (because remember I "practiced" for a good two months before the actual start of the project), only to find that I had misnumbered all my entries?  I can hardly stand it.  I think I should have an eggnog right NOW, just in case.  Make that a double.

Of course, in the end it doesn't matter what, or even whether, the posts are numbered -- just that we've blogged every day of the year.  Claudia and Kay said at the beginning of the project that they thought I was crazy enough ("in a good way" to quote them both) to do this.  It appears I am.  But I've got company, and it's company that frankly (sorry, girls, to have doubted you) I didn't think would stick with it.  It's my favorite hobby of all my many hobbies, so although I thought I might (and have) had days when I felt a little bit like I'd hit the wall, it's really natural and not hard for me.  For others, that is not the case.  I'm so proud of my compatriots for whom it's more of an effort.   

Terry, I love you.  More than you can imagine. Figure out those numbers, will ya?  Or I might just pull random numbers out the air for the rest of the year just for the hell of it. 

99. Bottles of Beer on the Wall

I couldn't resist that title when I typed 99.  Sorry. By the way, in case you are wondering, the reason for the numbers on my post titles is to count the number of days of the year in the Blog 365 project. There you go. One of life's great mysteries solved, and it's only Wednesday morning. Imagine what else you can accomplish this week.

But this post was intended to be titled "Unexpected."  And WTF Wednesday, of course.  But now it's also Stupid-Me Wednesday. Or "In Which I Admit To Being An Eejit. Twice or Three Times." (Do you really have time to read all this? You might want to skip it. Honestly.)

Here's the story:  The other day I did something stupid to my Mozilla Firefox browser on my desktop computer, and I can.not.get.that.sucker.to.fix.  I wanted to change my home page to the NY Times.  Somehow or another, instead of doing that, I changed it to a TEENY-TINY gif logo of the NYT, but not the home page of the New York Times, not by a long shot.

And worse. Exponentially worse. I rendered my Firefox browser unusable.  And when I say unusable, I do mean un-use-a-ble. No browser functionality.  No browser address bar.  Like that. 

I uninstalled it fully and restarted my computer and reinstalled it fully  about a thousand times (OK, maybe five.  But it seems like a thousand.) and every time, I end up with the NYT logo gif thingy again.  So I cleared my cache.  And I did it over again.  And I ran disk clean, or whatever it's called.  I told my computer to reset itself to two days ago.  Nada nada nyet, non.  For all I know, I have inadvertently hacked into Mozilla and permanently changed their entire website to the New York Times gif logo.  Lemme know if it's happening on YOUR computer and maybe we can clear this up before I get arrested and sent to the federal pen. 

But the strangest side effect happened: I was forced to use Internet Explorer, which I hate.  I have hated it with the power of a half-dozen suns for many years.  I have shunned it.  I have treated it much like I've treated my Amaryllis stepchild Rilona.  I have dissed it to people.  I have NEVER ALLOWED MYSELF TO USE IT. I would not admit to anyone in a crowd that I might even CONSIDER using it. Because in addition to me truly not liking it, it was totally NOT COOL to like it. No one would respect me in the morning.

And now?  I hate to admit it, but I like it.  My screen is way clearer.  The font for my Typepad account is different, and much, much better. Everything works faster than my old Firefox friend. My own blog site (and yours) is more pleasant to look at, pictures are clearer (it's the same site!  it should look the same!  WTF?!) Comment boxes work faster, though it is forcing me to type in my name and URL a lot, rather than remembering it, and that kind of grates on my nerves. 

I'm still getting used to some of the differences, but they're only differences, not BAD differences, per se. So really.  WTF?

And now, for the, OMG Was My Face Red portion of this entry.  You know yesterday's diatribe?  And thank you for all the great comments, by the way. Who knew people would get so rapt up in the topic of plastic bags?  (And does that not just go to enforce the truth of my new subtitle?  "nominally a knitting blog...but who cares?"  Don't encourage me; I warn you.)

Well, I'm extremely chagrinned to say:  Forget I wrote any of yesterday's post.

After several people commented that Hannaford's has recycling bins for plastic bags and offers reusable bags at a low price, I called my local Hannaford's, about three miles from me, and asked if they had bins for collecting plastic bags.  The person on the phone hesitated a bit, but then said, "Oh, yes. I didn't know what you meant. But yes, we do."  I asked her where they were, and she said, "Right next to the bottles-and-cans bins." 

OK.  So I loaded up all those plastic bags in the car (I considered carrying them on my bike, but there were too many to carry on my bike in one trip without causing a major traffic congestion problem. Picture a wide load looking every bit like a giant bag of marshmallows going down the road, holding up all the cars.) and drove out there. And I searched and searched, and I thought she must have misunderstood me.  Then I was about to go inside the store, and there was a quite small, almost hidden, bin that looked like a trash bin, quietly marked that it would take plastic bags on one side, and paper bags on the other.  Definitely not lit up with neon lights or anything, and definitely not very visible and definitely not trying to advertise or encourage people to notice it's there. But now I'm just being nit-picky.  Goodness only knows where they go after you leave them there.  Could be the landfill.  It doesn't say, and I'm probably just too cynical.

But anyway, I stuffed my bags in.  So, "Cool," I thought.  "One battle down."  I then went in the store to buy stuff just to reward them for taking my award-winning plastic bag collection off my hands and brought in my reusable bags to see how the clerks would react. 

I bought my stuff, and I was almost at the checkout, and I saw that, dang, they actually had some reusable bags with their logo for sale for $1.50 each, and the special price of "or 2/$3.00."  Being no dummy, I opted for the 2/$3.00 special price.  *cough*

And the clerk was a middle-aged lady, which means much older than I, and the bagger was a middle-aged man, also MUCH OLDER than I.  And the clerk politely asked me if I wanted my things put in my new bags that I was buying.  I said, "Either that, or put it in these bags that I brought."  She cheerfully said, "Okay, we'll put your NEW ones in the ones you brought."  And the middle-aged, much-older-than-me, man made conversation and said, "Someone bought bags last week and forgot them in their shopping cart!"  I allowed as how that would seem to be something I might do, and everyone was happy.  No sideways glances or downcast eyes or weird looks in my direction. I am not a weirdo! I have been validated in the mainstream store!  I can walk with my head held high from now on!  It's OK to reuse bags and not be thought of as on the FRINGE.  And they call this America.

Then I walked -- nay, danced -- toward the exit, and there was a stand selling a different style of "woven plastic" bag for 69 cents each. I actually like the style of those better than the $1.50/2-for-$3.00 ones, because they have longer handles for shoulder-carrying, but I decided not to go back and get some right then.  I dared not be thought of as a weirdo. Maybe next time.   

Anyway.  Boy, do I feel dumb.

 

 

58. Random Wednesday

1.  This is only the second time since November 1st that I have not had at least one post prewritten, and I had to come up with something on Tuesday evening for Wednesday. It must, therefore, be time for a Random Wednesday post.

2.  This is the 1,227th post in this blog.  I am too lazy to go back into my prehistoric blog to find out how many entries I wrote in that one before switching to this one in fairly short order.  The number 18 sticks in my head, so maybe that's it.

2.a)  I used to be phenomenally good with remembering numbers.  Heard a phone number once, knew it forever.  Your Social Security number?  Ditto.  Driver's license number?  Yep. Your address? Yeah. Account number?  Uh-huh. (This was tested recently. I had not ordered anything from a court reporting supply company for approximately, oh, 15 years.  I recently had to order something from them. The lady on the phone taking my order asked me my account number.  I hesitated for a second, then I said, "It might be..." I remembered it. Freaked me out a little bit.)  Now I can't even remember my own cell phone number. (Well, that's a bit of hyperbole, but not by much.  My brain done got all full up, apparently.  Or I stopped trying.  I think that's it. Also, things have gotten too easy.  There are cell phone numbers I "dial" every day.  But I don't dial them.  I hit "send," and it's all remembered for me. I don't need to remember them, so I don't.  I've almost never seen the number, so I have no way of remembering it. I sometimes worry, "What if I lose my phone?  I won't have ANY IDEA how to call this person."  It's those little worries that will be the death of me someday, I'm convinced.)

3.  Since I've been working out in the gym and weight-training in earnest, my appetite has moved from healthy to RAVENOUS. Consequently, I have put on four pounds. I'm not too worried about this, because I know if I want to, I can do something about it, muscle weighs more than fat, it's mostly in my butt, which was flat and needed a little oomph anyway, yadda-blabbity-yadda. I'll start tomorrow. Right now, I'm hungry.

4.  I've noticed that quite a few of my high school classmates work out at the same gym I do.  They look old.

5.  I've recently learned the interesting fact that some people's pet peeve is the fact that people have pet peeves. This was as illuminating to me as the time when we realized in this blog together that the legal term "term of art" is really itself a legal term of art.  How fascinating are circular things like that, hm?

6.  Everyone in little Vermont is excited that this year is the first year in the history of recorded time that the results of the presidential primary election here could actually make a difference. Usually by the time our primary rolls around, it's quite the moot point. We matter! We really, really MATTER! It's like Horton Hears a Who all over again.

7.  I just logged into Ravelry, and 1,526 people were logged in.  Huge!

8.  There are 259 feeds on my Bloglines list. I don't always almost never read them all, and thank goodness they don't all update every day. An admission: I also sometimes just click "mark all read."  I think it's time for the periodic trim-down, huh?

9.  While waiting for a class on Monday, I saw a guy doing a Rubik's cube.  He was pretty good.  All the girls were staring at him.

10.  I saw a student walk out of a class wearing a commercially made hat that was EXACTLY the same as the Snowball hat I made for Abigail.  Exactly the same pattern, and with no pompom, but clearly not hand-knit.  Did I mention EXACTLY the same pattern?

11.  I'm going to sell off some more of my stash.  Paring down is a part of my master plan.

12.  I just ordered 8 more skeins of Noro Silk Garden. I realize this makes No. 11 sort of a hollow gesture. 

13.  We're in the midst of another bear of a snowstorm.  Yesterday Xianglian said, "I hope this will be the last storm of the year.  Do you think it will be?"  I said, "NO!"  And at exactly the same time she said, "It's already the end of February," another student and I said in stereo, "It's ONLY the end of February!"  May, baby.  That's when we can be almost sure the snow is over for the season.  Almost. Maybe. 

14. Since I started using Catalog Choice, it seems like I'm getting more catalogs than ever.  Or maybe I'm just overly sensitive about it.

15. I did that silly quiz that says what year you belong in.  It said 1965 for me. 

In February of 1965, I had a newborn to take care of. In fact, it's quite spooky that I went looking for a 1965 picture TODAY.  I'm guessing this was taken EXACTLY (within a week, literally) 43 years ago.  Gail's birthday is February 18th. Freaky. She weighed 10 lb., 9 oz. when she was born, which in those days was quite something. See what I mean? Numbers. How should I know that? I was five, for fucksake.

I did look quite happy, though, did I not? (That's me on the left, in case you didn't recognize me.)  According to the quiz, that's when life basically stopped for me. (Well, NO, it does NOT SAY THAT. It says "what year do you belong in."  Tell me to get over myself!)

Within a few months of this, my father died and my life became very different indeed. This is, I believe, the last recorded (and actual) smile on my face for many a year to come.  As in, almost two decades.

OK, that was much more random and weird than I intended. I had no idea this post was going to develop a life of its own.  Sorry.  But it did, and it's staying put.

16.  There is a cool new tool called "matte" in Flickr toys.  That's what I used around that photo, and it made it look so much more fabulous than it did originally. 

WTF Wednesday - The Gym Etiquette Edition, Bloglines

Quote of the Day:

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.  -- Charles M. Schulz

For fucksake.  If you are coughing and sniffling and sneezing, PLEASE STAY OUT OF THE GYM, and ESPECIALLY off the elliptical machine that is mere inches from the one I'm on.  We're all doing heavy breathing, working out, breathing IN hard, and have you never seen those videos of water droplets and how far they travel after a cough or a sneeze?  STAY HOME when you're sick, you stupid numskulls! 

NEXT, if you've got intractable flatulence, stay the hell out of my yoga class.  We know who you are!  And we do not need to hear you toot your way through it, thankyouverymuch. 

Speaking of wind, there is the infamous pose in Bikram yoga called the wind-removing pose.  It took me about six months of regular classes, and a purchase of Bikram's book, to finally figure out WTF the instructor was saying.  I've taken classes with about six different instructors over time, and every single one of them mumbles through that phrase so it's literally impossible to know what they are saying.  "Next is winnimmmoommipose."  I swear it's because they don't want us to know it's actually called that -- and they don't want to encourage folks (thank you) to actually DO any of that-there WIND REMOVING.

Now, by way of apology for putting that image into your head, here's a little offering of seasonal joy, courtesy of the new camera:

At night!  No flash, no tripod!  Unbelievable.  They're not perfect, but for me -- a huge improvement.

The Return of WTF Wednesday (and Prizes)

I suppose it was time for a smackdown.  It was Wednesday, after all. 

I had a deposition yesterday; the deponent was a young Chinese woman.  I was marveling at her excellent English and marveling at my excellent steno and my even better hearing and understanding of her (excellent) English, because, you know, I am such hot shit.  All throughout the depo, she talked about a restaurant at a shopping center, and the entity or store adjacent to the restaurant was The Futon Bed. 

Makes sense, right?  Everything is good.  I'm such hot shit!  I am!  I am!

Then the attorney asked a question about the ATM.  Still nothing out of the ordinary.  The witness responded about the ATM at The Futon Bed, which I assumed was a store at the shopping center.  Could happen. 

Then what the f*ck was the attorney talking about next? 

The Fulton Bank.

All those times she said (or rather, I heard) "Futon Bed," she was really saying, "Fulton Bank."

Apparently I'm not such hot shit after all. 

*sigh*

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So, take a look at this. 

No, not the book, although that is interesting, too.  My name is in it -- you see? 

Anyway, that is 7 inches (wide) of pure cashmere.  Can you think of anything that would feel better than 7 inches of pure cashmere? 

Okay.  But other than that?

I am using Paula's "Corrugater" scarf pattern for this manly scarf.  Manly, yes, but I like it too.......  (Who is too young to know what I'm referring to there?  Step up and raise your hand.  You might win a prize.)

I am enjoying the knitting of this verra-verra much, even in the brutally hot temperatures we've been having lately. Yesterday I had some down time. I went into Bruegger's, which has delicious sandwiches (I highly recommend the Western Wheat, Available-All-Day, Breakfast Sandwich) and exceptionally virile air conditioning (some people were complaining it was cold and putting on sweaters!  wimps!), and I ate my sandwich and soaked up some of that air conditioning and knitted on cashmere for an hour or so.  This one thing might actually make me into a knitter once again.  Imagine that. 

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Speaking of scarves, are you knitting or crocheting on your red scarf?  The mailing can begin any time now.  We need to send a few right away so Doug doesn't worry too much that, with the excitement of the Red Scarf Fund, we've all forgotten about knitting scarves.  I assured him we haven't, and that once the weather cools down a bit, we'll be knitting even more.  :)

Doug reports that the Red Scarf Fund is at $4315 from over 200 donors!  Way.to.go, friends!!!  That is just wonderful.  I feel so good about it, I'm going to give away some stitch markers.  Right now.

Melissa, please send some or your sweet little stitch markers to:

Shelly G.

and

Donna W.

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Well.  That felt good.  And then there is the lingering memory of knitting on that wonderful cashmere..... 

I feel so good, I think I'll keep on giving.  How about if I have Kay send her lovely pile o' books and yarn to......drum roll, please.......

Rose, aka Madame Purl.

Ahh, now, that felt nice. 

But WAIT!  Don't go!  I'm not done yet! 

How about we have Margene give her Suri Alpaca Laceweight to the recently delurked Pamela M.  See?  Delurking has its advantages.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you again to all the donors! 

Now, go have a good Thursday, and don't forget to knit or crochet red scarves and send them to the OFA starting next week, through the month of October.

If I'm not too tired tonight, I'll draw some more prizes for tomorrow.  If I am too tired, I'll do it first thing Tuesday morning, following the Labor Day weekend.  Stay tuned.  Custom-knit socks could be in the offing.  You never know. 

Blah Blah WTF

blah blah blah jam blah blah plum blah blah apricot brandy blah blah campaign season blah blah blah work blah blah blah out of Vincent food blah blah blah too rainy to plant the trees blah a few more rows blah blah blah software techs blah blah reschedule breast exam blah blah computer kinks (hopefully) working out blah blah blah not enough time for yoga blah jam blah delicious pot roast blah need to pick the broccoli blah blah blah wtf blah blah redvines blah blah blah

blahbitty-blah-blah.

The Official Unveiling of WTF Wednesdays

Update at bottom:  Another Red Scarf Project button!

Thanks to Jen, we now have an official WTF Wednesdays button:

Grab it, save it to your own server, and have fun with WTF Wednesdays.  Do not hotlink.  Hotlinking is bad.  That means you should, on your PC, right click it, click "Save image as..." and put it on your own computer, then upload it to your blog from there. Do NOT click "copy image."  "Copy image" is BAD.

I don't know what you do with Macs, but I presume you know WTF to do with it if you are a Mac user.

So, apropos to Wednesday, WTF do we have here?

....to be continued. 

Maybe next Wednesday.  All together now:  WTF????!!!!

P.S.  Guess what?  I'm still swamped. So, um, I'll take care of more Red Scarf business in a bit. I will get the blog up and running, and a couple people have come up with some buttons for me already. One day at a time.  One day at a time.

Here are some button teasers for ya. 

Thank you to my Vermont neighbor Dusa for this one:

And my old pal Kim for this:

(great minds think alike!)

Scout made this one.  She's also custom-dyeing some yarn for the project. There'll be a giveaway, but you'll have to promise to use it for the project.  Fair enough?  I think so.  Thanks, Scout!

Go ahead, take one.  You know you wanna.  Remember the button etiquette as above, right?  And when I finally get the Red Scarf blog up, if you'd link your buttons to it, it'd be appreciated.