P.S.

I saw this truck on the way to the Karen-the-acupuncturist's this evening. Cute, eh?

spooooky

The trailer for the next Harry Potter film looks juicy:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809791044/video/9048692

did I mention I knit too?

Mostly, I get my yarn from Joann's in the Columbia Crossing shopping center. I do this for several reasons:

• they have a great selection of yarn (the local Michael's doesn't have as good a selection)

• they always have sales on yarn


• they have coupons in the paper and online all the time


• the yarn is on the inexpensive side


• sometimes they're out of or low on a particular yarn I'm looking for, and if I order yarn from them online through Amazon, I don't pay any shipping if my order is over $25


• Borders is right next door and Target is a short stroll across the road (this makes for a green habit instead of driving all over the place)

There are 3 other local yarn stores (hereinafter referred to as LYSs) within a reasonable driving distance - Celtic Knot Yarn Shop, All About Yarn, and Cloverhill Yarn Shop.

Now, I am all for supporting local businesses, but I can only venture into a LYS once in a pink moon because their yarns, although wondrously luscious and pretty, are far more expensive, and I am a single working girl on a budget.

Still, the pink moon was about due, and my friend Gwen-the-technical-writer wanted to learn to knit.

Celtic Knot was having a fundraiser for breast cancer patients. If you made a donation of $3 (in cash), they gave you a yarn kit, which consists of a skein of a pretty pink yarn in a large magenta Chinese takeout box, along with patterns for knit and crochet. You make a scarf out of the yarn and attach a tag to it, bring it back to Celtic Knot, and they give it to Survivors Offering Support. SOS then puts a care package together that includes your scarf, and the package is delivered to a cancer patient on the day of her surgery.

Gwen likes pink, so we decided this would be a great way for her to learn to knit, for us both to do some good, and to have an excuse to use pink yarn.

Yarn stores are like book stores for me - I can't get out of one without buying something, despite the stash I have at home. So in addition to the pink yarn, I got 2 skeins of slightly more expensive yarn than I usually buy, and 3 skeins from the bargain bin.

We took the yarn back to my place, ordered sushi, popped in a DVD of Jeeves and Wooster (I've mentioned before how much I love Stephen Fry), and had a stitching session. I showed Gwen the basics, and she quickly got good at the casting on and the knit stitch (a darn sight faster than I did when I learned), while I wrestled with the patterns the shop had provided.

I think there's a mistake in the crochet pattern because I got these huge loops on the sides that didn't look right, and the ruffle knit pattern doesn't tell you how many rows to knit before doing the second ruffle. I modified the crochet pattern a bit and finished the scarf that afternoon, but it didn't look long enough for a scarf, and I didn't think blocking would help much. I frogged it all (yep, I am insane) and started again with the intermediate knit pattern. I love the ruffle on the end, but I want to make sure I have enough yarn to do the second ruffle. I've sent an e-mail to the shop to ask for help with the patterns, and hopefully, I'll get it all figured out.

In the meantime, here's what the scarf looks like so far (is that a cute ruffle or what?):

Here's another scarf I started as well. This is the yarn from the bargain bin, and it's sooooo soft.:

so long, professor

I just read that Randy Pausch died today. Somehow, I thought through sheer will and good humor, he would have beaten the cancer.

I also hate the phrase "lost the battle with cancer." It sounds like it diminishes the person, somehow.

Apparently, he went to Oakland Mills High School, and I think his mother still lives here.

If you haven't seen his Last Lecture or read the book, it really is worth the time.

frisky's

My friend Jane-the-gardener sometimes finds injured baby animals on or near her property. She takes them to this sanctuary, where if possible, they are rehabilitated and re-released. If they can't be re-released, the sanctuary looks after them for the rest of their lives. Jane says the caretakers are wonderful.

They have a great Web site: http://www.friskys.org/index_rollover.htm, and quite a menagerie of animals.

Check it out and donate to it, if you are so inclined.

oscar's at it again

Shortly before my boss left, she gave me a note cube that has a photo of Oscar Wilde on the side. It's the famous photo of him taken in 1882 - he's got long hair, he's wearing a fur-lined jacket, and he's leaning his face on his hand. I've only used a few sheets from the cube because I find it comforting to have him at my desk at work. He has a "lighten up, Cate" look on his face.

I've mentioned before that I encounter him frequently. Just today, I found an Oscar Wilde quote widget for Facebook. I've also encountered Dorian Gray twice in the past week - BBC7 had a two-part dramatic presentation last week, and on Sunday, I stopped in at Daedalus and found an audio version read by Stephen Fry (who played Oscar Wilde, incidentally, and whose last podgram, Wallpaper, was about him).

I think Oscar's poking at me with his walking stick because I'm revising chapters for my grad class, and I'm starting to panic about my thesis. I've got four months to do a complete revision and polish on my novel. That seems like a lot of time, and it would be, if I were working on the revisions full time. But I'm not. I've got a full-time job, a possible conference in October, and the usual Life Stuff. So not really as much time as it might appear to be.

He would probably tell me to lighten up and not worry about it so much. I've got a scrappy draft done already, so it's not like I'm starting this thesis entirely from scratch. And after all, he wrote the original 50,000 word version of De Profundis (by hand, no computer or typewriter) while in prison doing hard labor. I have it easy compared to that.