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The olympics is less than 2 weeks away, streets are already closed, False Creek is shut down. The city lock-down has begun.

The weather has been mild but incredibly grey around here for what seems like months now. Somehow, the trees and flowers have decided that it’s spring. The cherry trees are blooming and my bulbs are coming up. I hope the mild weather stays, but we could really use some sun.

The monkey and I decided to make some lifestyle changes for this year and so far, so good. Gir’s enjoying the evening walks, our bank account is liking the dining at home thing and we both like game night and the regular out to a movie. Slowly but surely these things are becoming habits.

I’m already behind in my work and I’ve decided not to go to Madrona this year. I plan to make up the lost time a bit this month.

I did get caught up on the pair a week:

Pair 5 is done (an alpaca blend from Dianmond) and pair 6:

A Yarnissima pattern in Malabrigo sock, is on the needles. I got so used to cranking out the plain ones (they’re what I prefer to wear) that I forgot how nice it is to do a pattern. And the pattern is working up quite quickly too. Think I’ll do more patterned pairs for the next little while.

Seriously.

I am a professional procrastinator. This making sure there’s a post every Monday is giving me hives. But I am here with yet another post to bore you with the work of the past week.

I’ve started swatching the handspun and it’s knitting up very nicely. I haven’t quite got the stitch pattern sussed for what I want yet, but it’s ont he right track. I’m thinking plain with cable and garter trim. Just have to find the right cable.

I’m falling slightly behind the pair of socks a week pace I had, but here are the fourth pair:

The amount of stuff in the to do basket is looking almost manageable now and January isn’t even over yet. I’ve also managed not to add to the stock pile. These are both very good things.

The next spinning project is on the wheel:

It’s a yak/merino blend ( I think) in Puck’s Mischief from Blue Moon. Lovely soft stuff. Got a square shawl pattern in my head that hopefully will translate well with this yarn. There’s a lot of fibre though, so the spinning is going to take quite a while. Especially as it’s laceweight.

And yeah, I did take that pic in my bathroom. I have an evil cat that likes to chew drive bands. Wanna make something of it?

So drunken neighbour who chops wood at 3am is selling his house. Even when he gives me something I want, dude screws me over. He’s selling it as a lot at below assessment value. There’s been realtors all over the place since friday. I have visions of a giant stucco behemoth blotting out the sun and a summer spent suffering construction noise and dust.

I hope our neighbour’s next neighbours are worse than he is. Bleh.

Or does this year have a transition feel?

It’s not even three weeks gone and it feels like change is on the way. Maybe that’s what the endless litany of craptasticness last year was preparing us for.

It’s kind of upsetting my tea cart right now. I feel off balance and out-of-sorts. The hibernation urge is very strong, I don’t want to go anywhere, talk to anyone. Hopefully, it will pass.

Things may already be looking up as I noticed a “for sale” sign on drunken neighbour who parties all night and chops wood at 3am while intoxicated’s house. Of course, he’s trying to sell it himself and hasn’t done any work on the place, so this may take a while. Still, it’s a hopeful sign.

The spinning for cardy is done:

2lbs of 2ply light worsted. It’s soft and lofty. Swatching starts soon. Hopefully I’ll be able to design it this week.

The third pair of socks for the year. Haven’t decided what to do for the next pair. Maybe a pattern, except I like to do this while I’m doing other things so I need to not have to pay much attention to it. Hmm, have to think about that.

This is the lovely piece Lorena sent:

It’ll be going up on the alder in the yard as soon as the weather’s a bit better.

Now I know why I hadn’t been posting much, sometimes the weeks go really fast and thedaysallblurtogether.

It’s been pretty status quo around here over the past week. The monkey’s back at work and I’m trying to get through my pile of “to do”.

We started walking around the neighbourhood in the evenings with Gir. That new habit got off to a bit of a rocky start on day one when an elderly lady tried to run Gir and me over. I’ve had some close calls before, but this one was the closest ever. We were at a pedestrian controlled intersection and had the little walky guy in our favour, she was turning right. I made eye contact with her, because I never trust anyone with my life, she saw me and then came right for us. It took me jumping (almost) out of the way (she was coming fast) and yelling before she even stopped.

Scary.

The monkey said he thought I scared HER and I really hope I did. Next time she and some other pedestrian may not be so lucky.

Fortunately, all of our other walks have been really nice and completely uneventful. Unless you count Gir chasing big dogs on the beach. Which was just funny to watch. Wish I’d had my camera with us yesterday for that. It was a beautiful day and the view of the mountains behind the Peach Arch was lovely.

The Canucks have pulled out of their losing streak just in time for Olympic hiatus. Speaking of:

Our tickets finally came. Only took 6 months and a metric crapton of money. I’m sort of looking forward to and dreading the olympics. It sounds like Vanoc is effectively shutting down all roads in and out of any venue area to all but transit. Since we live in an outlying area, this is going to make getting to and from the events a very lengthy process. Here’s hoping they beef up transit enough to support the events!

Stop laughing!

This is the spinning that was accomplished this week. That’s 2 giants skeins (over a pound) of light worsted for cardigan knitting. Should have the rest spun up and washed this week.

First socks of the year are done and this is the second pair. Yet another item that should be done this week. The colour is more red and brown than the pic, but it’s a very grey day here and the flash screws with colour. It’s Zauberballe, thanks Kerry! I love the little pouch too. Already have my tools in it.

My friends may have limited wrapping skills, but I assure you, they are talented in other ways. Which I will have to prove in next week’s post as the mail was very unkind to my present and it needed a little TLC. Thanks Lorena! I love it and don’t worry, it’ll be right as rain as soon as the glue sets.

2009

Seems like a lot of us are happy it’s over and really hoping this year will be better, or maybe just less of a kick in head.

Although the mail just came and the government is already wanting it’s money.

Happy New Year from Canada Revenue!

The year ended as it always does with 2 weeks of indulgence that we start on my birthday. This year gave me a new memory for that day as an old friend had a heart attack and died. He was only 43. He’s the second one in as many years and it’s given me some grief and a wake up call. Do something now or be next.

I’m on it.

Last year wasn’t a complete bust. I did make it through the sock yarn bin and then some. I didn’t keep track, but rough estimates put the pairs of socks I made last year around 40 or so.

These are the last socks of 2009, made between the 20th and 31st (we watched a lot of dvds).

These are the first socks of 2010. I’ll finish them tonight.

This is the last project of 2009 and the first one of 2010. Hopefully, by the end of the month it will be a       2 ply DK weight yoke cardigan for a friend.

This is my get through pile for 2010. I plan to turn it all into garments of some sort by the end of this year. Aiming for an empty basket!

This is how my bedside table looks now. The monkey got me a Kindle for Christmas and I love it. And yeah, that IS Cryptonomicon underneath the Kindle. I’m over 200 pages in. It took me all year to get there. I refuse to admit defeat. Aiming to have another 200 pages read this year. At this rate I will have it read by mid 2013.

Wish me luck.

I’m leaving off with a happy pic. The monkey (centre) and friends holding one of the sturgeon they caught on their trip last fall.

Mondays this year will be blog days. This is a hell or high water situation as it’s been three months since the last post and really, I do feel guilty. I will fix this situation and I’m starting now!

eta:

Gir wants everyone to know that he’s feeling good. His drugs are at a very minimal dose and he’s back to running around like a giant furry goof. Also, that he can jump on the couch and bones are tasty.

Hard to believe it’s been a month since we did the landscaping! A few weeks ago, we had bunch of guys come and do this to our backyard:

We had to take the bottom two steps off the deck ( I say we, but I mean the monkey). But here it is, ready for the concrete. Forms are in, gravel’s down and the rebar is ready. We thought about doing this ourselves, but after watching it get done properly, I don’t think I would ever try to do this myself. And I don’t think it would have turned out nearly so nice.

Concrete in and ready to be smoothed.

Like this:

Then they added the expansion lines:

Then they put down the dye powder and stamped it. I don’t have pics of that because it was appallingly dusty. I have no idea how those poor guys get that stuff off. It was everywhere!

The finished patio looks pretty sweet. Of course now the weather is crap and we won’t be able to fully enjoy it, but we won’t be tracking in mud anymore. And with all the rain lately, the timing couldn’t be better.

August was a jam-packed month around here. Just ask anyone who knows me. I’ve barely brought my head up for air. No one’s heard from us, or seen us for ages. Some likely think this is a blessing.

The first week was given over to Sock Summit in Portland. I returned from that to the monkey’s two weeks off for summer vacation. Ha! Vacation? No vacations around here. There were new windows to install:

Yup, that’s a big hole in the front of our house where glass should be. Monkey looks pretty proud of himself doesn’t he? That would be due to the fact that he installed all of the new windows himself. Alarm sensors and all. Our house is very old. It’s a shotgun shack from around the very early 1900s. No one wanted to install new windows for us. The two companies we found that would do it gave us what we fondly refer to as “fuck off” quotes. These are quotes so ridiculously high that either you’ll laugh at them or agree. Either way, the quoter wins. One way they don’t have to do what they think will be a troublesome job and the other, they get stupid amounts of cash for the troublesome job.

So the monkey did it himself. Clever monkey.

Then there was the “hey, the backyard still looks like crap after 13 years of living here” landscaping project. Again, there were some quotes, very similar to the window quotes, so we did it ourselves.

It took us three days, six yards of topsoil and several hundred dollars worth of plants. It took us another three days to recover.

The monkey went back to work so he could have a rest.

This is the second delivery of soil. Try not to laugh when you read that we thought 2 yards would be enough.

The finished beds:

The backyard is almost done. Just a couple more things to do and a bunch of crap to be taken to the dump this weekend. Before the inlaws arrive.

In the midst of all this I decided that I hadn’t done a swap for a while (several years) and went ahead and joined a spindle one.

I was partnered with blogless Rain from North Carolina and she sent me some really great fibre, tea, choco and a spindle from a maker I did not have in the massive collection.

And yes, that’s Looshkin. He’s a teen now, with the charming habits that go along with it. He apparently thinks that Uzume is prettier without fur on her back. He is wrong.

Such a little bastard.

In other unrelated news, we bought a lathe last night. Make of it what you will…

So. I spent most of last week in Oregon helping out at Sock Summit.

It was more than I thought it would be and in some ways less.

I met some wonderful people, saw some fabulous friends that I really don’t get to see often enough, didn’t get enough sleep, food or fluids.

The marketplace was great and I didn’t go to far overboard. I’ll post pics later.

We ate Thai street food, had a doughnut at Voodoo and saw that the signs everywhere saying, “Keep Portland Weird” are apparently working.

Anna Zilborg was great. Everything I expected and hoped she would be. Smart, funny, humble and just really nice. Barbara Walker was all of those things and really made me examine how I feel about women and our place in the world.

Which brings me to feminism.

I stopped calling myself a feminist in the 80s.

I wanted to wear make-up, do shit to my hair and just generally feel attractive in my own way. Ferfuxsakes! I liked wearing a bra! These things had become taboo. There was a large group of very loud (and hairy, let’s not forget hairy), very angry women saying that these things were thrust upon women by a patriarchal society. We were supposed to become our own people by being like them.

Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me either.

And sin of all sins, I liked men. Especially men with their own opinions that were maybe different from mine and weren’t afraid to tell me.

I have spent my life pursuing male dominated career paths. It’s been rare that I have felt out of place. And when I have, I’ve turned it to my advantage. It’s truly what you make of it. You can either rail against inequality, accept it and do nothing or you can change it from within. Quietly, intelligently and with the understanding that things don’t change overnight and being hostile and aggressive only pisses people off.

Back to Barbara Walker.

During her talk some of the questions put to her amazed me. Really amazed me. She told us that she had spent a great many years knitting clothes for Barbies. Someone actually asked her how she felt about dressing Barbie as a feminist. Her response that Barbie had a great press team and had Ken who was very much in the background was great, but it’s a doll! A doll. If we’re still obsessing over the effects of Barbie on our society, we are so screwed. Of course, then some brain trust brought up the fact the a certain fast food chain still has boy and girl Happy meals and how discouraging this needed to be for all feminists.

Really? With all the crap going on in the world right now, Happy meals is where you think we should focus our efforts for change? Here’s a thought, just ask your kid which toy they want, don’t put it in terms of boy or girl. Or better yet, EAT SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Unfreaking believeable.

Long story summed up: I am a feminist. I will NEVER admit to it in public.

And I like Camille Paglia.

So shoot me.

Last week we had the lowest tide of the year and the monkey took part of the day off so that we could take advantage of it and walk out to the border marker in the middle of the bay.

Somehow, the marker manages to look this far/close for at least half an hour. But this is how far from shore we are at this point:

It’s about 2 k out to the marker. Seems further when you’re wading through tide pools and wet sand, but we made it:

That’s me holding my shorts up as they get more water-logged. The water was up to my thighs on this side and yet, only knees on the other side. Obviously, I didn’t know it was shallower on the other side or I would have gone that way and saved myself a 2 k trek back to the car with a soggy bum! You can see how low the water is from the high tide mark. I’m 5′ 5″ for reference.

Here’s the monkey on the shallower side. To his left, that little white rectangle is the Peace Arch, and on the right side of the pic is Mt Baker. Hard to see in the small size pic, but it’s there. It was a gorgeous day and the water was incredibly warm.

Herons where everywhere:

There were a ton of starfish and anemones on the bottom of the marker that almost never see the light of day:

There were clams and oysters digging their way back down in the sand to stay away from hungry seagulls and the hot sun:

It was just a great walk and special considering it’s really only possible once a year.

This week the heat has been a little unkind to the pets. They spent most of their days lying on their backs in the hallway looking dead.

But the flowers have loved the heat. I just have to remember to water them.