Three Years in the Failing

Sad news. I failed in my challenge to make 10 knitted or crocheted items from 10 books in 1000 days. I just checked the timer on my blog's homepage and realized that it ended somewhat unceremoniously yesterday*. Oops. I got to within 1 project of success when there were 48 days left. I chose to make a pair of socks using the 8 Stitches per Inch Socks pattern by Ann Budd. This was more than enough time to finish a pair of socks, at least now that I have learnt how to do continental knitting. However, as I was coming to the end of my pregnancy, I needed to prioritize my knitting, and a patchwork blanket I was making for my daughter was more important. As it happens, I didn't get the blanket completed before the baby arrived, but my attempts to do so caused me to fail in my 10 things challenge. The socks are now on hiatus, but the blanket it almost complete. If my daughter enjoys the blanket, I will consider it a sacrifice worth making and wait until the next knitting challenge to see success.

*It was yesterday when I started composing this post.

Puppp This!

I should buy a lottery ticket, certainly before I wrap up my pregnancy. My rationale for taking up gambling is that I have spent my daughter's gestation beating the odds on the symptom front.

I found the following statistics on the interwebs, so please don't quote them in a professional forum, but I think they illustrate my point nicely. The most oft cited side-effect of pregnancy is morning sickness, which affects about 65-70% of women. I didn't throw up once. Depending on which website you go to, swelling affects 75-90% of women. I am 4 days past my due date and I still have my wedding ring on. In fact, working my way down the "Most Common Pregnancy Symptoms" list I googled, I didn't get any acne, spot bleeding, back or pelvis aches etc. I'll admit that I have peed a little more often and have bought more antacids than usual, but I would argue that if something can be replicated by a night out drinking, it's hardly a bona fide side effect.

All in all, I was loving being pregnant. I had this little life inside me that I could feel moving around. Unencumbered by such plebeian concerns as vomiting or searing lumbar pain, I could enjoy preparing for her arrival, daydreaming about how she will grow up, and generally getting the most out of this wonderful time. After all, I had dodged all of the common symptoms of pregnancy!

Here endeth the bragging. I have already blogged about my rhinitis of pregnancy, which, if you include runny noses stemming from queuing for a taxi in the cold as part of a normal night out, can be eliminated as a sympathy-meriting side effect. Triviality notwithstanding, this was step one of my lottery ticket idea as less than 15% of pregnant women experience this symptom.

But in the last week, I have really hit the jackpot of rare symptoms. I had some stretch marks below my naval since the middle of my third trimester. Being so in love with pregnancy, they really didn't bother me at all. However, the Universe obviously got sick of hearing me say "My pregnancy has been a breeze." and "I hope this pregnancy lasts as long as possible because I am really enjoying it.", and decided to unleash the fate I had so adeptly tempted. A few weeks ago, my stretch marks got a little itchy. Nothing terrible; kind of in the range of how it feels if you didn't shower right after a good workout. But over the next few days, the itchiness got more intense and frequent. I read up on itchy stretch marks, and stumbled across the term Puppp.

Puppp, or pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (translation: itchy bumps that preggos get), starts out as mild itchiness below the belly, but spreads around the torso, down the extremities and basically everywhere that's not hands or face. The itchiness gets more and more intense and there's nothing that can be done for it, other than the pregnancy coming to an end. I think I am getting close to scratching my way to a C-section, so I may be able to accommodate that cure. And it goes without saying, that having your entire torso covered in "papules and plaques" can only make you look even sexier in those last days of pregnancy. Couple that with the image of someone vigorously scratching themselves as if they were infested with scabies and you start to paint quite the picture. I normally take photos to add to blog entries where relevent, but if you google Puppp, you'll see why I deviated on this occasion.

Puppp affects less than 1% of pregnant women, and while the cause is unknown, 70% of that 1% deliver boys. Other suspects include large babies (causing excess distension of the skin). I have been assured my midwife that my daughter is both female and normally sized. If my math isn't failing me, and I offer no guarantees on that point, that puts me in an elite group with 0.3% of pregnant women. Yippee!

As I mentioned, I am four days beyond my due date and I am doing everything I can think of to induce labour. It's been 2 weeks since I have slept for longer than 2 hours at a time, before needing to reapply my Aveeno Oatmeal lotion, which only sort of works. Another blogger summed up the misery best when she said that she would have traded Puppp for a different condition that could potentially kill her, on the condition that it didn't cause itchiness. Also, and this may be the itchiness-induced sleep deprivation speaking, but the phrase Puppp is patronizingly diminutive! Were Kittt or Bunnn already taken?

All that said, the Universe can go and bite itself. As miserable as this condition is, anytime I feel my daughter kick, hiccup or wiggle around, I am so in love with the experience that I don't feel anything but unadulterated joy. Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to buy a lottery ticket... and some Vindaloo curry!

Cold Feet

In lieu of doing actual work whilst at work the other day -because that isn't going to happen- I was perusing Ravelry.com. My friends have been stubbornly refusing to keep me entertained with new project pictures or blog entries recently, so I resorted to reviewing my own projects. I have my projects sorted by category (Sweaters, Accessories, Babies, etc.). I was looking through the entries in my "Sock" category, when I rather depressingly noticed that the mortality rate for this particular type of knitted item is disturbingly high. I have completed eleven pairs of socks (I thought it was more), and a scant six pairs are still with us. One of the surviving pairs are the Earl Greys that I made for my husband. He wore them the day of the wedding, and has kept them in a ziplock bag ever since. I would like to think this protective measure was an act of sentimentality, but he informed me that they make his feet too hot, and that is why he doesn't wear them. Another surviving pair are the Universal Toe-Ups, which were the first pair of socks I ever made. The fact that they were made from the virtually indestructible 25% Nylon Magic Stripe yarn renders their survival somewhat less than triumphant. Also, as they hail from my earlier days of knowing how to measure gauge, they are a little on the baggy side and rarely worn as a result.

Alas, my favourite socks were invariably the ones that fell victim to early demises, which, while sad, stands to reason. All is not lost, though. While I have loved and lost, I have also learned. After the nascent phase of using man-made fibre heavy chain store yarns (e.g. Magic Stripes), I became consumed with hand-dyed, entirely natural fibres. While an important part of the learning curve, I have since developed a more balanced world view, where small amounts of nylon serve the greater reinforcement good, and superwash wool can protect from the heartbreak of surprise-feltings. Nonetheless, I wanted to bid adieu to my erstwhile footwarmers.

In Memoriam

2010-2010, felting accident

2009-2011, hole

2010-2010, lost

2010-2010, felting accident

2008-2009, felting accident

Here Come the Midterm Elections

The following quote sums up less eloquently than I ever could, how best to fix the problems in our democracy. It made so much sense to me that I thought it was worth transcribing. Sorry for the strong language.

"Here's a very sad truth. This system that we've created which we argue constantly is better than any government in the world. "We're number 1." This democratic society that we've created. I am more disappointed in this society and in this government that we've created around election time than I ever am. And that's the time you're supposed to be uplifted. That's the time you're supposed to be walking around [proud]. Oh, we should be preening. "Hey rest of the world, look at this democracy we've created!" And it's fucking nauseating right now! I've said it a million times. Here's the deal. You wanna run for something? You get no money. You get no commercial time. There's no anything. There's debate, and if you wanna learn about the person you go to the fucking library. And then people do this, they go, "Oh, well if you do that, then a lot of people aren't going to vote." Good! Fuck 'em! Well, what do we give a fuck? There's 300 million people in this country. So what? A hundred million people vote? That's not enough? 50 million people vote? If 10 million people voted for the presidency, but I thought they were intelligent, well-read folks that, by the way, took the time to get up, go to the library, read about the candidates, educate themselves, watch the debates, so on and so forth. If it was 1 million. And I thought it was 1 million of the best and the brightest, I'd be completely fine with that. It would be under 1% of society; I would still fine with that. I would not be amongst that 1 million. Thank you."
-Adam Carolla

Well, This Sucks!

Grumble. I broke my hand today. It's not looking good for my knitting in the near future. I will work on rigging my cast (it's in a splint until I meet with the orthopedic surgeon) with a knitting needle holder. But for now, I'm just going to feel sorry for myself.

A Tale of Two Mitties

It was the best of times, it was the worsted of ti... sorry. I am a slave to even the most belaboured of puns. Besides which, the knitting project I am going to speak about was made from sock weight yarn!

I made some mittens for a design collaboration with my friend, Kristine. Thankfully, I test knit the adult size, because they do not fit quite as well as I would have hoped. There is too much room above the fingers and not enough room between the cuff and the thumb, meaning they always feel like they are just about to fall off. I corrected the pattern and sent it off, but that left me with a pair of slightly ill-fitting mittens.

I was finally motivated to make a new pair when I started cycling, and was given the gift of an iPod (Thanks Ben!). Both activities necessitate the use of my hands, so I set about making a pair of Broad Street Mittens using the 100 Purewool Merino Fingering I purchased quite some time ago. The pattern has some gaps in the instructions, but I was able to improvise and I was really happy with the end product. The last part of the project was completed in Ireland, where my brother, Sam, saw them and asked that I make him a pair. I adapted the Knucks pattern, which has a child's size, and made him a pair in Noro Silk Garden Sock.

289 reprazent!

I got back to the US, and wore my mittens all of twice before losing them. I searched high and low for them. I phone-stalked the Olive Garden I had been to that day, ransacked a friend's house and even had my realtor search her office for them. They were gone. I don't deal with loss at all, and found this particularly hard to cope with as I was homesick and they were a memory of a fun time with my brother.

I tortured myself with the idea of finding them for over a week before deciding that I had to come up with a more productive way of forgetting about them. I have more of the yarn I used to make them, so decided to reknit them in time for my Father and Brother's upcoming visit in February. I prefer the colourway of the new mittens and once I repose the silly photo of me and my brother in our matching FOs, I will be chock full of closure.



I just hope that someone out there is enjoying my orange mittens.

Sideline Call: Substitution!

My 10 things challenge has stalled recently. I approached the projects in descending order of preference, and easiness. The unfortunate, yet painfully predictable, consequence of this approach is that, with each successive FO, the projects are becoming less and less appealling.

After finishing the Deborah cardigan, I looked at the remaining books. There was nothing I had any desire to make, nor was there anything with an acceptably low time burden in order to get through the necessary number of projects. It occurred to me to "suck it up" and make the smallest possible size of something I don't like, and for which I would have no foreseeable use. But it occurred to me that this was a self-imposed challenge, and it would be ludicrous to turn my beloved hobby into such an abhorrent chore.

That said, I don't want to give up on my challenge altogether. You may have guessed from the title what my solution to this conundrum is. Instead of admitting to my failure, I am opting to reclassify it as a deferred success. I have four other knitting books from which I am yet to make anything, so I am calling them my alternates. In penance for this light cheating, I promise to sell or donate the books from which I cannot bring myself to make anything.

The Rejects:

The Replacements:

You Like Me! You Really, Really Like Me!!!

Buttons has been quite standoffish recently. He hates Panthro, so spends most of his time growling at him, glaring at us (for being the "bringers of the grey menace"), and generally being wherever we are not. This obviously saddens me, and I long for any sign that he loves us. Evidently, he does!

For those of you not familiar with cats, being presented with dead vermin is the highest form of affection in the feline world. And Buttons was very eager to get inside the house to give me my treat. So much so that I felt oddly guilty for pretending I hadn't seen him! Worse still, he meowed to get my attention, and in the process dropped the mouse(?), which then scuttled away to, I can only presume, live out a long and happy murine existence.

You're not still vegan, are you?

The Greener Side

"But when it comes to bad for the environment, nothing - literally - compares with eating meat. The business of raising animals for food causes about 40 percent more global warming than all cars, trucks, and planes combined. If you care about the planet, it's actually better to eat a salad in a Hummer than a cheeseburger in a Prius."
-Bill Maher

I have recently begun the process of transitioning from gluttonous omnivore to equally gluttonous vegan. This has garnered me the expected level of ridicule and criticism, both humorous, which I enjoy and participate in, and malicious, which I resent, especially given the sources from which that variety invariably comes. It hasn't evoked quite the level of vitriol that my body art choices of yore did, but it's a spirited second. In my days as a meat-eater, I too looked down my nose at the granola gang, and was frightfully put out by the mere thought of having one to dinner. I get it! My previous views toward vegetarians and vegans have afforded me a some pragmatism for dealing with the reactions my current dietary choice has brought me. Some. Not an infinite measure. My patience for the latter form has pretty much been tapped. So, in favour of losing my temper, I chose instead to vent here, and, hopefully, coherently explain my position. I hope to briefly detail the events that led me to where I am, and assuming I remember to do so, rebut the common criticisms I've been facing.

1. The Build-up
I got engaged. Then I bought my wedding dress. Then I wrote a thesis, and in the process became a little overweight. The wedding dress still fit, but not in a way that I would want to have documented in a wedding album. In particular, my arms had become the size of an average woman's thigh, and my wedding dress was strapless. Not a good combination! It was six months away from the wedding, and while I had a reasonable amount of time to get into a shape other than round, I did need to be more than passive about it.

For me, the classic restrictive diets serve only to remind me of the wonderful cheesecakes and fries I'm not eating to the point that my self-deprivation explodes into a frenzied binge and I end up consuming more calories than I would in a normal day. Exercise works pretty well for me, so I hauled out my The Firm Body Sculpting Systems and set to working out daily. That was great for toning, but for the purpose of reducing my actual mass, some alteration to my diet needed to happen. As I mentioned, I am a gluttonous pig, so reducing the volume of food I eat invariably leads to disaster. To accommodate my big appetite, I decided to aim for high-fibre food (brown rice, lots of pears and celery, etc.). I also decided to cut out dairy, a mixture of my new fun lactose intolerance and a helpful dietary hint I got from talking to a new mother. She was skinny and attributed her slim figure to being forced to go dairy-free so that she could breastfeed her colicky child.

2. The Pesco-Ovo-Vegan
I was reasonably happy with the weight loss I was achieving when I ran into a different problem. I was living in Austin, Minnesota for six months before I got married, and worked beside the Spam factory. Thank you economy, the ration-esque treat was in record demand and the Hormel plant was working overtime trying to fill demand. The town reeked constantly. The air was saturated with the smell of either seasoned pork, which was bad, or raw pig meat, which was rancid. The move to excluding meat from my diet stemmed rather organically from this half-year long olfactory assault. I was at this point still eating eggs and fish.

3. Ready-Steady-Cook!
I'm now married and living in the wonderfully liberal Northeast. I have a colleague, who together with his wife, is a full vegan, and I have found him to be a wonderful source of recipes and information. On their advice, I bought the Uncheese Cookbook, which has exposed me to a whole new battery of cooking techniques. I have learned so many new things about how foods work together in recipes, and I am ceaselessly amazed at what can be replicated in vegan form. The thing I love most is finding new challenges in cooking. I have gotten as good as I plan to for the majority of things I make, so adding a whole set of restrictions has been like advancing to a more difficult level in a computer game. Otherwise, the daily task of making dinner becomes more and more of a chore. Adding to this challenge is the leaps and bounds my multitasking skills have made in catering also for a husband who has no interest in trying vegan food.

I decided to extend the culinary challenge by fully excluding animal products from my diet; basically, to see if I could. This was also prompted by a few other factors. The first was my health. A mixture of my restricted diet and yoga (the exercises in The Firm were too much for my weak knees) have me feeling healthier and happier than I have ever felt in my entire life, and I reasoned by moving further into veganism, I would feel even better. The second factor is my increasing concern was the environment. I'm not getting into that debate here as I have already rambled enough, but there is rock-solid proof that excluding animal products helps.

So that's pretty much it. I am at a point now where I describe myself as transitioning to veganism. I am still working down my supplies of Worcestershire sauce, Fish sauce and cane sugar as I don't feel that the wastefulness of throwing them away helps anything. I am also still unwittingly eating animal products that in foods I assume are vegan (feel free to add to my list in the comments!!!). I also feel that I haven't been vegan long enough to identify myself as one. I would liken it to quitting smoking, and the length of time it took before I felt comfortable calling myself an ex-smoker.

The main criticism I have been getting is that I am being difficult. I can't say that I disagree, as I have felt that of other vegetarians and vegans in the past. That said, I have tried my hardest to minimise that side-effect by agreeing to bring my dinner with me if I were going to someone's house. As mentioned, I have been happy to cook two meals each night, to avoid forcing my husband to engage in my lifestyle decisions. Finally, I have been very careful to not be holier than thou. I have not said word one to anyone about their eating choices, environmental impact or health issues. It's not even that I have been holding back from doing so. This is my personal journey and I have no desire to convert anyone to over to it. I initially made the promise to eat non-vegan options if I were at a restaurant or someone's house where no vegan alternative was available. However, as I have decided to move further into a vegan lifestyle, I have since decided against doing that. I do not feel this is hypocrisy as I was not being disingenuous at the time, so much I see it as a progression in my own personal choices.

Another point some people like to make is that this is just a phase. Maybe. In fact knowing me, I'd go so far as to say probably. It's safe to assume that I won't ever return to dairy as I seem unable to consume it without being in pain, but I may someday return to eating meat. However, for now, I feel happy and healthy with the way I am living, and I really resent that people would try to take something away from me that makes me feel good when it harms no one else. I hope to remain committed to this lifestyle. I think this would have an even better chance if I had people's support, or at least if I lacked their abject disapproval. It's not even a case of committing to this lifestyle per se. I have not missed anything. My favourite food is Thai cuisine, which lends itself to a vegan lifestyle, so I may have it easier than others. I can honestly say that I have experienced no cravings or longings for any of my previous animal-product containing fares, and I can only hope that this will translate to a long-lived success in veganism.

It has been implied that the statements I made in the past about vegetarians should preclude me from being allowed to give up meat. I admit I made derogatory comments about this lifestyle; comments I now understand to have come from a place of ignorance. I do not feel, however, that I have to go down with the ship to speak. I admit now that I was wrong and my opinions changed as I obtained more experience and information. It drives me insane when politicians are accused of flip-flopping, as I feel such an atmosphere inhibits growth and progress, and I no more plan to pander to such accusations in my personal life.

The more ridiculous things that I get asked are why can't I just be normal, or why can't I just eat meat/normal food? Of course I can. I haven't sustained any injury to my lower mandible, nor have I developed a neurological disorder whereby I would forget how to chew! I choose not to. Simple as that. I am still working toward finding my place on the spectra of diets and lifestyles. For instance, I do not plan to rid my house of animal-containing products. As long as I don't eat the bar soap in my shower, I don't see it as an affront to being a vegan. Nor do I feel that stealing honey from bees is exploitation of animals. There are those that are more lax than I am, and there are certainly those that are more extreme than I am. I don't yet know where I am on the normal scale, but with each bit of information I get about the food I eat, and the world I live in, I am slowly figuring it out.

Here are some resources that have been really helpful:
Choose Veg Recipes
Veg Web Recipes
Is It Vegan?

Book Report: Dead in the Wool

Today, I'm going to hijack my own blog to give a book report. For my report, I read Died in the Wool by Mary Kruger, which I bought on-line. I picked it specifically because there's a "Pattern Inside Just for You". Kristine warned me that the patterns from knitting mysteries are riddled with errata. Nonetheless, I was excited. I love murder mysteries, I love knitting and I love free patterns... where's the problem?

When I received the book, there was no inserts or pull-outs, so I reasoned that it may be part of the story. Well, that's kind of fun. So, I set to reading it. As Murder-She-Wrote meets Elizabeth Zimmerman goes, the book was enjoyable! The writing style was pretty mediocre, as is often the case with cheesy murder mysteries. But, it was entertaining enough that you'll suffer through the repetitive and stilted dialogue, as you make your way to finding out just whodunnit.

Alas, as the pages were dwindling, there was no sign of my purchase-prompting pattern. I leafed through the remainder of book and didn't see any pages that looked like a pattern. I thought that maybe it had been lost at the warehouse. In my haste (and procrastination), I wrote a scathing customer review, which I have since edited.

Why the rewrite? The pattern had not been lost. What I had originally perceived to be the last chapter was actually the first chapter of the next book, and the "patterns", all three of which fit on a single page, were sandwiched between this and the final chapter. A flimsy "I'm not a knitting designer" disclaimer precedes the so-called patterns, proving that the author herself felt embarrassed about how lame these offerings were. To her credit, neither of the garter stitch fun fur scarves nor the garter stitch hanger cover had any of the errata of which Kristine had warned.

To say I was a little disappointed would be putting it mildly! Throughout the book, there were numerous descriptive references to a Norwegian Sweater. So many, in fact, that I was convinced that was the pattern we were going to get; maybe even hidden in segments throughout the narrative! It would have tied in nicely with the story, and been worthy of the "Look Inside for an Original Pattern Just for You" teaser on the back cover.

Bringing me to my next point. Fun-fur scarves are not "original" patterns! They are a dime a dozen, and they're not even patterns really. Cast on, knit until you get bored... ooh, can you repeat that?? It's a good bet that someone who is so new to knitting that they need instructions for a garter stitch fun fur scarf probably won't be drawn to a knitting mystery book in the first place!

Never mind! I have five more knitting mysteries to get through (some by different authors). Hopefully, there's a least one CO-worthy project to be found!

What's On Your Mind?

Not much, really. This blog is, at times, a testament to just how little is goes on in my life. You both may recall the less-than-epic tale of a fly landing in my coffee and the monofaceted adventure that was the the time I didn't like how a sock was turning out.

The concept of a blog, aside from being a wretched neologism, is an almost overly manicured snippet of one's existence. I can't speak for everyone, but when I write entries into my blog, I edit multiple times before, and often a few times after, I publish them. Unless there is some time-sensitive content, I may even save a draft, allowing myself to return to it with fresh eyes. It may be the daughter-of-a-writer in me, but I always like to ensure that each entry is a well-structured and witty use of my diction. The problem is that with each successive edit, reality yields a little more to a dramatic or entertaining narrative.

That said, it's hard to write an entire paragraph without letting some element of your personality slip through. While the cold facts you deliver may not mean much, what you leave between the lines might be a candid display of who you are. For instance, forensic linguists were able to prove that an author, other than Jane Austen, completed the novel, Sandition.

But what if you're not writing an entire paragraph? I am of course talking about the increasingly popular hobby (or compulsion) of updating one's Facebook status message. As a moderate narcissist, I can completely understand how someone may think that their entire friend list would want to hear every banal detail of their day. I am drinking coffee. I am done drinking coffee. I am going to the store because I ran out of coffee. I mean, it's boring when it's someone else. But my life is just riveting, and other people obviously feel the same way about it. Solipsism aside, I often wonder if, at the end of a day of keeping our friends apprised of our every little movement, when we then meet one of these friends fin person, have we rid ourselves of everything we could talk about? To be fair, there's a little more to Facebook than status messages. We can show pictures of events in our life, which could represent a graphic novel-style depiction of our existence. We can also lay out, albeit in bullet points, a description of our lives: where we live, who we're dating, favourite quotes, and so on. Best of all, we can link offsite to more in-depth accounts of what we're up to, such as our blogs.

The same is not true for my newest pet peeve: Twitter. Twitter has stripped away all the remotely expressive elements of Facebook and left us with the most self-indulgent and attention-span bereft feature. Twitter is what's wrong with society. It is instant gratification, self-involvement, and anti-social behaviour all rolled into one. And to make matters worse, the parlance associated with it is just plain aggravating. Instead of updating your status, you are now tweeting. And it is everywhere. More so Myspace during its heyday. It seems that every celebrity is tweeting. An astronaut tweeted from space. News of a revolution in Moldova surfaced over Twitter. Worst of all, I just heard that an NPR presenter has a twitter account (and no, I am not telling you who it is!).

I know I sound like a old-aged pensioner reminiscing about the good old days before the newfangled doodads brought about the end of society. I am sure that similar concerns about interpersonal communication were raised during the advent of the telephone or the hand-written letter. I remember the increased availability of the cell-phone evoking such worries, though, at that time, I was youthful enough then to be firmly on the side of the new technology. Maybe twitter, like the many communication technologies that preceded it, will allow for a positive evolution in our interpersonal exchanges. It could be that by clearing out the need to exchange more banal details of our day, we can spend our time together discussing more profound or esoteric issues. Perhaps someone may see your seemingly inconsequential status, which you would never have relayed to them in person, and be prompted to share something amazingly life-altering with you as a result.

It is possible that I am just such a long-winded, gasbag that I could never fathom limiting myself to just 140 characters.

Dear Dr. President

Picture Stolen from the Associated Press

You may have heard that President Obama was invited to give the commencement address at Notre Dame, and also to receive an honourary degree. Some felt that his pro-choice voting record was in such stark violation of the Catholic Character that he should not be invited to speak at the school, and should certainly not receive a degree.

This reminded me of President Bush's speech at Notre Dame. His action's were serious violations of the Vatican's anti-death penalty and anti-war stances. So why were pictures of slain Iraqi civilians or electrocuted Texans not flown overhead in the run up to his speech? Are we allowed to cherry-pick our favourite morality issues? Is is because President Obama is a democrat? Is it, dare I suggest, a race issue? Nope. It's remarkably something even more pathetic. It turns out that the big ring leader in the recent protests was none other than Alan Keyes, famed for losing the senatorial race to President Obama back in 2004. So, congratulations to my fellow Notre Dame students. You allowed yourself to be pawns in what can be boiled down to "Mommy, Obama took my seat and he won't give it back!"

I missed the chance to meet President Obama. The reason I missed my graduation ceremony is that I had promised to go see my fiancé's graduation prior to the date and commencement speaker being announced. I had at that point already moved away from South Bend, and I had no intention of returning to Notre Dame for reasons I will not go into here. I just wanted to make it clear that my absence was not some act of one-issue-fanatical boycotting, like this idiot. In fact, missing the chance to be in the same room as a man that I both love and admire will go down as one my biggest regrets in life. Hopefully, I will get my US citizenship in time to vote for his second presidential term, which would be some small consolation to me.

I did, however, learn something interesting at my fiancé's graduation ceremony at the University of Arkansas Medical School. The awarding of degrees occurs in ascending order of importance. The first diplomas are handed out to certificate earners, then to the associate degree candidates and so on. What was of interest to me is that the very last, and therefore most esteemed, group to collect their diplomas are the PhD candidates. Even the dentists, pharmacologists and medical doctors are lower down the list. To really drive home the point that the PhD is the apex of academia, the PhD candidates are the only ones to be hooded on stage.

I am making this point because of my issue with the Associate Press's arbitrary title usage decisions. Yes, I am still on that! It really struck me when I was watching a broadcast of a certain right-leaning 24-hour news station* recently. In the piece, they referred to President Obama as either "Mr. Obama" or "the President", but were careful to avoid using the phrase "President Obama". I am not, by even the loosest definition, a regular viewer of this channel, though I do have specific memories of President Bush being referred to as "President Bush" during his term. I wondered if this was a mistake, or if it were a more sinister effort on the part of the news channel to refuse to identify "Mr. Obama" as the president. My mind wandered further, and it occurred to me that President Obama taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago once upon a time, and was therefore likely to hold a professional doctorate. One trip to Wikipedia later, and yup, he does. So, if the journalists at this news station refuse to refer to him as "President Obama", should they not at least be calling him "Dr. Obama"?

* I can't find the piece in question, so the news channel will remain nameless.

Done!

T.G.I. Over! I finally finished the Ben sweater. What an ordeal! I'll spare you the majority of the gripes I had on this one, but suffice it to say, it took ages, everything that could have gone wrong did, I hated every moment of it and I the only person who will like the end product less than me is its intended recipient.


As this sweater took over a year to complete, I decided to do the finishing in a way that wouldn't make it look like I was inebriated for that length of time. So, I returned to the scene of the crime (berroco.com) and found that they have some really neat videos for how to finish your knitting projects. Here are the ones I used, and man, was I off-base before. I think the lesson learned here is that half-reading finishing instructions and wandering off, assuming you know it all, doesn't work so well. Shocking, I know!

Picking up stitches:


Seaming Shoulders:


And my personal favourite, the finishing feature I was so badly hamfisting my way through, I can only assume I invented my own wrong stitch;

The Mattress Stitch

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May 4th, 2009: I just found out that the sweater design I used is famous!!! Eveidently, Mo Rocca of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me fame commented that he didn't like knitted sweaters. This mobilized a group of Ravelry knitters to make him a sweater. They chose the Ben pattern and presented it to him!

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There's No Tact in Tattoo... Trust Me, I Checked!

This train of thought was prompted by watching a segment on a certain morning show that I prefer not to admit publicly to watching. The topic was tattoos. Evidently, Jessica Alba has had a little bow tattooed above her coccyx, the location of which qualifies it as a so-called "Tramp Stamp". The conversation covered a number of celebrity inkings, the one that stuck out in my memory was Brad Pitt's map of the New Orleans levee system. The stencil of an actual band wagon must not have been to his liking, I guess. Come to think of it, what does a band wagon look like? I digress. The really interesting thing about this piece was the choice of diction. In what is usually a light-hearted and often inconsequential morning show, many of the statements about tattoos were uncharacteristically condemning!

I have a tattoo. Some people might say that I have more than one tattoo, but on the off chance that my parents are reading this, let's leave it in the singular. I, by no means, speak for the tattoo community. I'm not even sure that it necessarily qualifies as a bona fide community. The art of tattooing does, however, represent any number of things, from cultural heritage, to personal history, to the proof of binge-drinking gone awry.

Like any product of disposable income, tattooing is a reflection of our personal preferences and opinions, running the gamut of gaudy to tasteful. However, unlike other representations of personal choice, tattoos have the unique ability to evoke the most vitriolic of comments from people. Normally, when confronted with someone else's poor taste, most people will keep quiet, find anything remotely related that is nice to say, or simply lie their way through a complement. If your friend was showing off his new car, you would never abruptly tell them, "That make of car is just so ghetto!" If your room-mate was displaying the spoils of her most recent shopping trip, you probably wouldn't blurt out, "Mini-skirts are for hookers." It's not the opinion I take exception to; It's the feeling of complete entitlement that people seem to have to blatantly insult your personal taste to your face. In any other situation, people at least remove the derogatory parlance, opting for more of a positive spin in their assessment. For instance, to the fabric-wielding room-mate, you would have probably replace references to the oldest professional with more generic comments about longer skirts bringing out her eyes.

My fiancé and I were chatting with a mutual friend, who asked if he had any tattoos. He didn't so much as flinch before launching into his diatribe about tattoos being dirty and gross, and how he would never abase himself enough to get one! Labouring under the perception that my fiancé has reasonable eyesight, and doesn't suffer from prosopagnosia, I can assume he knew I was within earshot. As I am sometimes a little high-maintenance, this was certainly a departure from his usual routine of toiling to avoid insulting me! I want to be clear on the point that this does not rise above the level of puzzling interest for me. I have not started a Facebook group called "Tattooed Individuals Deserve Better Interpersonal Treatment!" nor I am petitioning congress to add "Tattooed Individuals" to the list of protected characteristics. I just never understand what it is about tattoos that prompts people to set aside their diplomacy. My best guess is that it's the association between tattoos and the seedier elements of society, punk rockers, gang members, Amy Winehouse, etc. etc.

I doubt it's that simple, but nevertheless, let me explain the story behind my tattoo. My best friend, with whom I spent most of my formative years, was celebrating her birthday. We knew that she would be leaving the country, and decided to mark our friendship, and on some level maintain a bond when we were separated by getting the same tattoo of a rose. I am glad I got it, and looking at it reminds me of a wonderful friendship and a great, yet erstwhile, period of my life.

PS. Mom and Dad, if that wasn't the tattoo you knew about, Sorry!

Bed, Bath & Bewildered

This is basically an open Futue Te Ipsum to the folks at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I am getting married to my wonderful fiancé in June. While I am only interested in being married to the love of my life, gifts have become an integral part of weddings in modern society. Accordingly, I have set up gift registries for my guests. While I have a few items at the Target Club Wedd registry, I have the majority at my Bed, Bath & Beyond registry.

A few months ago, Faith, Carly, Aubrey and I went to set up my gift registries. I am not much of a home décor enthusiast and decided to avail of their sagely wedding wisdoms. We made a day of it and ended up knitting at the Indulgences Café. However, before we could treat ourselves to a sit 'n' knit, we had to get the tedious registering out of the way. Our first stop was Bed, Bath & Beyond. We were taken all around the store on an extensive tour by a very helpful store associate, with whom we chatted for about an hour. The key point is that nothing was omitted from his exhaustive description of the registry program. Almost nothing. The conversation also included many references to the fact that I am from Ireland, as are many of the invitees of my wedding.

I was thus a little irked when I received an email from one of my Irish guests saying they had attempted to purchase a gift from my BB&B registry but were unable to do so. They were precluded from doing so because are not US residents. Why, in this economic climate especially, would a company reject a consumer's attempt to give them profit? I doubt anyone is worried that BB&B could be used for international money laundering schemes, nor could any of their products be adapted for nefarious purposes.

I was scratching my head for rhymes and/or reasons, until it occurred to me that this may be a jurisdiction issue. If there were any rejected payments, BB&B would be unable set the bottom-feeding, sub-human, scum that is the private debt-collector on my guests in Ireland. If this is the reason, I find it aggravating, and quite frankly insulting, if it is the case that BB&B prioritize their right (legal, not moral) to assess usurious fines above good customer service. I am also furious that half of my guest list being unable shop from my gift registry was never so much as mentioned to me at the time I was creating my registry!

I have contacted BB&B for clarification, and I am awaiting a response. If this is a genuine error, or if they emend their policy, I will happily, and expeditiously, delete this post.

You Did Not Just Go There!

It is reasonable to assume that I am not part of the demographic the F150 commercials are trying to attract. I have on occasion referred to the purveyors of those poorly built (Jeremy Clarkson's opinion, not mine!) gas-guzzlers as bottom-feeding scum that lay waste to the future of our planet out of nothing but pure greed. I have not had much better to say about their loyal customers, and worse still for any lobbyist who thwarts those who try to shield mother nature from their environmental matricide.

However, full strength vitriol is energy consuming and I am not, by nature, an activist. Over time, I have scaled back my ire for these environmental hazards to feelings of smug superiority any time I see one on the road. I even felt a slight sense of karma when I saw one spin out on an icy day, and then felt guilty for the rest of the day.

Until I saw the new F150 commercial, that is. Wrath back! Bigger and angrier than ever before. See if you can guess what crossed the line for me!

Ad Nauseum

I normally restrict this blog (still hate that word) to my knitting projects or the really mundane things that constitute my existence. Like, how big a pile of snow got or pictures of my new coffee mug. But it's good to branch out every so often, and so I thought I'd expand upon a pet peeve of mine. Televised commercials. Yes, I know, I am really departing from convention on that one. Who doesn't hate that the ad-makers sacrifice your living-room ambiance in favour of blaring volumes in order to compete for your attention, and ultimately your hard-earned cash? Worse still is the shear inanity of most commercials. Long gone are the halcyon days of the Hamlet commercials or drawn out teaser campaigns. No, bright and loud are what cut it now.
However, those are trite observations at this point. The more recent trend is to be completely inappropriate. Congratulations to both Verizon and Hardee's for their renewal of every negative stereotype of the Italian-American community. You know? The ones who have huge families, constant debt and Mafia ties (I learned everything I know about them from TV). Yet, that's a relative "after picture" of sensitivity training compared to Burger King's Whopper Virgin campaign. "They didn't even quite know how to pick it up." Wow. Way to make your taste test (versus McDonalds) as absolutely, and needlessly, tasteless as possible!
And if you're done figuratively vomiting in your mouth, why not do so literally? Seriously, why on earth did Mountain Dew think for a second that exploding giant bugs would entice us to ingest anything, never mind a product of that colour??
I wish they would pull all these recent offensive ads, and in their place, air footage of the advertising agency pitch meeting where someone suggests these campaigns, and no one in the room points out how atrocious they are. At least, I haven't seen that wretched Vehix woman in a while.

A Skein of the Blahs!

My friend and I have a light-hearted back and forth about colour choices. She attributes my love of quiet neutrals to my inner "boring Brit", where I see her love of loud primaries as a reflection of her gaudy Brazilian tastes. Xenophobia aside, we have been reasonably good influences on one another and I have, over time, begun to buy yarn in colours other than " light dusty pink".

I was an especial glutton of the visible spectrum when I decided to buy Noro Kureyon sock yarn while in San Francisco. Noro is known not for the softness or durability of its yarns, but solely for the use of colour. I picked a skein that had bright pink on greens and yellows with light and dark versions of each contrasting against one another. I have found this colour-way on colour cards and also seen how it knitted up in projects by other Ravelry users. In both cases, it is always vibrant and diverse in the appearance of colours.

I picked a pattern that wouldn't compete with a bright, multi-coloured yarn and started knitting my sock. The cuff came out dark green and then became more of a pastel green before turning into a slate colour. But that was okay; the most interesting yarns have some dull colours off which the brighter ones can play. Halfway down the leg a very dull salmon colour and greenish-yellow appeared before reverting to a mucous green at the heel. I am now well into the instep, and the yarn is still predominantly green; no sign of the bright pink that initially convinced me to buy the not-so-cheap yarn. I would never have dreamed such a visually boring sock could come out of such a brightly coloured skein. I couldn't have picked a more boring set of colours on purpose, English blood notwithstanding!

Adding to my woes, I made a major, and deeply stupid, mistake on the heel and so gave myself the chance to knit the sinusitis-fabulous green section twice. This was made more delightful by the fact that the yarn itself has all the tactile qualities of an emery board.

I shouldn't whinge too much. I am promised that once I knit up the yarn and hand wash the sock, it will magically convert from feeling like a fitted loofah into something I would want near my skin. And as for the colours, the socks may come in handy if I ever need to visit an otologist - "My snot was this colour, but now it's more like this one."

There IS a Doctor in the house!

Customer: Help! This man is choking!
Waiter: Is there a doctor in the house?
Organic Chemist: Why, I am a doctor.
Waiter: Help this man!
Organic Chemist: Oh, I am not that kind of doctor. I have a PhD in chemistry and I am on the tenure track at a local liberal arts college.
Customer: He's dead.
Waiter: Well, thanks for wasting that 30 seconds, "Doctor"!

Don't worry. Thanks to the Associated Press, such tragic scenarios would never play out in real life. Despite the fact that the AP has no role in awarding or stripping degrees, the AP Stylebook states that when referring to people who have been awarded academic PhDs, they should be referred to as Mr. or Ms., with the Dr. prefix being reserved for medical doctors. Like this one:



This is in spite of the fact that the word "Doctor" is from the Latin word "teacher" (doceo, docere, docui, doctus – to teach), and was used to refer to the most learned people in a society. Back in the day, it was the case that the most educated person in a village would likely have been the local physician, but I should point out that this was at a time when phrenology was considered the wave of the future!

What, to me, is more interesting is that the AP, for the most part, comprises people who have only received a bachelors. This means that a group of people lower than me on the academic totem pole have bestowed upon themselves the right essentially to strip me of the academic reverence that I have earned.

I can only conclude this means that any group, who have no particular role in awarding academic titles or honors, can, at their discretion, decide to refer officially to others as they please. So, with that precedent in mind, I will henceforth be referring to members of the AP with the prefix, Lobotomized Peon.

"Leg To Stand On" Fail
Pay attention to how the journalist refers to Dr. Baldwin.

28 is the new 72!

I have often made jokes that my cat ownership, my knitting addiction and my love of Murder She Wrote and Perry Mason should make me eligible for honorary AARP membership.
Evidently, the AARP agreed...


And to make matters worse, I was getting ready for bed a few weeks ago when, what did I see glistening atop my head in the mirror???


It's a little hard to see, but I am going grey! I am yet to get married, have kids or, for that matter, turn 30, but apparently my trudge through old age is well underway. Don't be alarmed if I yell at you for being on my lawn or talk at length about how much a nickel used to get you; I'm just filling out the set. The one thing I will not be doing, from now on, is tempting fate with my ageist humour!