Notes? Who needs notes?

Apparently I do, since I don't recall anything that I thought about posting yesterday. So the Teeming Millions will have to be satisfied with the pictures I took of a couple feral cats at work.

It's less scary now

RB altered the clown picture at work. Much less scary now. The "honoree" is Mr. Boss Man's Boss. And yes, I got his permission to post this :-)

We've been working on new tombstones for the haunted house. We've found some good sayings online, but most of them are too long for our crummy brushes & cheap paint. Still, there are short ones out there and we've used a couple of them. My favorite so far is "Once I was. Then I wasn't. Now, I ain't again." They are kinda dull colored in normal light, but wow do they pop under the blacklight! One of the ones that Ralph did ("Open Grave--This Space For Rent") looks almost 3D.

Well, gotta keep this short as I am supposed to be getting ready for work.

Yet another cranky day

Crummy day, but I don't want to put off the Teeming Millions with wah, wah, wah, so I'll avoid that as best I can.

Ralph got the roof up on the haunted house, a couple of the props up, and worked on the laser vortex. It's not quite right--having trouble getting the height adjusted in such a way that it looks really really cool, but doesn't blind people.

Knit a little nest today for the mini-duck. Isn't quite right, and I've got a good idea as to how to fix it. Larger needles, and a few more cast on stitches should do the trick.

Well. That's about all I can post without calling in the wah-mbulance, so I will leave off now :-)

Last Sunday in October

Feeling less cranky today. All the walls are up for the haunted house, and some of the tarps. Ralph has the week off & I'm sure he will get most of the work done during his vacation. Wish I had time off too so I could help. I really thought we'd have it pretty much finished by today, but the plywood walls take a lot longer to put up than the old easy-ups & tarps we used to use.


Finished, or I should say re-finished, the Monterey "Witchipoo" shawl today. Those three extra repeats really make a big difference. It comes just about to my wrists now, and hasn't even been re-blocked yet. I am much happier with it, and have enough of the orange yarn left for another small project. Thought I might make a felted pumpkin, just for the heck of it.



And that about says it all for today.

Cranky today, too

Been very cranky again today, and I don't know why. Sure hope this mood passes soon because I do not like it one bit. Ralph is less than pleased with it too, for that matter.

We took the dogs to the dog park today. Sadie was very clingy, didn't want to be more than 3 inches from Ralph at any given moment. The other girls had a lot of fun running around & playing with the other dogs.

Getting started on putting up the haunted house. Moon is here helping Ralph, and there really isn't anything for me to do on it right now so I came inside to save them from having to deal with my crankiness. Maybe I'll go knit for a while. That sounds like the best idea I think.

forgetful day

Forgot the camera AGAIN. Forgot to bring home my notes for what I wanted to put in my blog. So, the Teeming Millions will have to make do with a short post tonight.

Looking forward to getting the haunted house up tomorrow. Don't think anyone is coming to help; Sis is helping her friend Duh move, haven't heard from The Boy, and MH2 just got out of the hospital following an emergency appendectomy so it is best that she stay home. And, of course, her husband Moon will be taking care of her and that is as it should be.

Forgot to mention an act of kindness that I witnessed a few days ago. Coming off the freeway exit was a disabled car being pushed by three people. This is not a good area for one's car to stall; it's uphill, plus people are merging into the exit lane because it is also the lane leading to the onramp. Anyway, a truck pulled in behind them driving veerrryyyy sllooowwwwly and turned on his emergency flashers, thus protecting the people pushing the car from oncoming traffic and alerting other drivers that there was something for them to be careful about. I thought that was really nice of the driver.

Making some good progress on the shawl. Have finished the first pattern repeat, and am on row 6 (out of 8) of the second repeat. Looks like I'll have enough yarn for three, maybe three and a half repeats which will add about 4 inches or so to the length of the shawl. Maybe even 5 inches once it's blocked.

Washed my dragonscale wristwarmers last night. They weren't dry this morning, which made me quite glad that I knit that second pair. Even though the days are warm, the mornings are brisk (it was 54 when I left this morning) and those really do help keep my joints from aching.

Today was Mr. Boss Man's birthday, and I forgot all about it until I actually got to work. Sheesh.

cranky!

see more pwn and owned pictures

Posting a pic from "Failblog.org" since I failed to bring my camera to work, and thus failed to get a picture of all the lovely smoke on the mountains. Didn't see any actual flames, although I did see a firefighting helicopter.

Very cranky tonight; good thing Survivor is on in just over 30 minutes. Hopefully that will cheer me up a bit. Just lots of idiots on the road, then I was driving almost an hour longer than I anticipated because Ralph asked me to pick him up at work. Of course, he called just a few minutes after I got on the 105; if he'd called a few minutes earlier I would have stayed on the 605 to the 405 and saved 10 miles & 20 minutes of driving.

I really want to knit tonight, but there isn't much time before Survivor & with the pattern I'm doing I don't dare try to knit during the show. As I think I mentioned in a prior post, I've picked out the cast-off on my Monterey shawl (oh, I should post a picture of that again to refresh the memories of the Teeming Millions) and am extending it by as many repeats as I can before I run out of yarn. It's not a particularly difficult pattern, but it does have increases & decreases on every row so if you mess up, there isn't any obvious all-knit or all-purl row to frog down to.

Oh well. That's going to be it for tonight I think. Sorry it wasn't more interesting.

Scariest decoration EVER

This clown painting is without a doubt the scariest addition to the office Halloween decorations. The eyes, especially, are pretty creepy. You really need to click on it & see the large image to appreciate it. Just . . . creepy.






This shot here is looking directly at my office door, or rather at the section of black plastic which hangs over my office door. This explains why the cleaning people have not emptied my trash in five days, except for the one time that I remembered to take it out of my office & put it over by someone else's desk. It also explains why sometimes people jump when I come out of the office unexpectedly. Plus I have the amusement of hearing the plastic crinkling as people try to find the door.

Misread a sign this morning. It actually said "loan modification" but I read it as "loan mortification." With the housing/lending market the way it is, perhaps how I read it is more accurate anyway.

The knitting pattern for yesterday & today in my knitting calendar is for felted fortune cookies. They are actually kind of cute, although other than cat toys I can't imagine having any real use for them. One thing I did like is it gives good instructions on knitting a circle using short rows. I have been thinking for a while of attempting to make a pattern of Pig from "Pearls Before Swine," and this would be an excellent base for it I think.

Speaking of knitting, I was thinking about that very topic today while I was spinning at lunch time. It occurred to me that if you ask someone what they are making, they will answer along the lines of "a hat" or "socks" or "a sweater." The exception is if they are knitting a scarf, which invariably will get you the answer "just a scarf" as if such a project were shameful or insignificant. Why is this? Why is it "just" a scarf? Odd.

Going to be putting up the haunted house this Saturday. Don't know if anyone is planning to come help set it up. I hope so--it's a lot of work for just the two of us--but I feel funny asking people to come over and work, even if we offer to take them out to eat at say, oh I dunno, maybe George's. . . . .

The birds. They mock me so.

Couldn't find the camera this morning. Thought about taking Ralph's & decided against it. So of COURSE the hawk was back on the window ledge this morning. So of COURSE a lovely mockingbird landed in the tree next to my car at lunchtime. After lunch, as I was getting ready to go back into the office, I did solve two mysteries though: The Secret of the Really Heavy Purse and The Mystery of the Missing Camera. Sigh. Later, back in the office, I saw a large crow flying towards my window at a perfect angle for some really great shots--had I had time to grab the camera, that is. And then on the way home a large pelican glided over the freeway, as if I could safely drive & take pictures at the same time.

On the plus side, today I had my first-of-the-season coffee with Peppermint Mocha creamer. Love that stuff! I usually stick several in the freezer so as to have some once they are no longer available. I know the label says not to do so, but it hasn't seemed to adversely affect it. Although the caps have a tendency to shatter if you drop a frozen bottle on the floor.

And a minor triumph: I managed to tink back the two rows, and am ready to add a lifeline and continue knitting the shawl. I should have enough yarn for at least three more repeats of the pattern, which should add about 2" to the length.

Bought some Peanut Butter Chips Ahoy cookies last night & had my first one this morning. Rather disappointing; not very peanut-buttery at all. Once I got accustomed to the fact that they don't taste like peanut butter, I realized that they are rather good nonetheless.

Found a cute "small dog haiku" on Google today: "Thanks for the new toy./Fifteen bucks! You shouldn't have./Too bad I hate it."

Another weekend ended

This has been a good weekend. Ralph did go to archery, and I spun about 1/4 of a bobbin's worth of yarn. Chatted with some folks who were curious, of course. One guy said it looked cool; I said it keeps me out of trouble. He asked where I got the fiber; I said that particular batch had come from Solvang. He said "you used to work for Ralphs, didn't you?" Turns out he was one of the old managers back from when I did indeed work for Ralphs (that's a So Cal grocery store for those among the Teeming Millions who may not be familiar with the place), which explains why he looked familiar. We talked a bit before he went on his way. I also chatted with a woman who was knitting a scarf for her daughter. The scarf is being knit from a fuzzy/fluffy yarn that is pink, blue, purple, and glittery. I will let you guess the age of the daughter, and I bet you get it right within a couple years :-)

Afterwards Ralph said he had talked to one of the instructors, who has an archery supply shop in Fullerton & found out that a good set of equipment for a beginner would cost about $200 or so. He wanted to go to the shop to look around. I asked if he had enough money to look around and he, being all Mr. Innocent, said we don't need money to look. I knew better--I knew if we went to the shop he'd want to buy stuff & said as much. He grinned & said he had enough, so off we went. I sat in the car & knit while he shopped (finished the orangutan's leg, hooray!). He bought a bow, some arrows, a quiver, and an arm protector. I did not ask him what he spent & he did not volunteer the amount, but I'm guessing it was more than $200 by the looks of the equipment.

Since we were in the area, we went to Rutabegorz for lunch. I haven't been there in years, and my goodness it has changed. Some of my favorite items are no longer on the menu (including their "rice-a-rutas" which was a mix of chicken, shrimp, and rice served with cheese bread & salsa), and they definitely have a new--and inferior--bread supplier. However, the vegetable cheese soup was as delicious as I remember it being, and Ralph loved his mushroom quesadilla & pumpkin soup. Mind you, he had ordered the chili, not the soup; when we pointed this out to the waiter, he looked dismayed, said the soup was on the house, and brought the chili as well. Needless to say Ralph was STUFFED by the time he waddled out of there.

Today was Ralph's D & D game, and while he & his friends played I was in the bedroom doing something that was very very very scary--at least, it was to me. I really did want my shawl to be longer than it is, so I picked out the cast-off edge (!!!!). And I was an idiot--I couldn't find the woven-in end, so I figured I'd just cut the last stitch & unravel it that way. Well duh, I discovered AFTER cutting the stitch that the reason I couldn't find the end was because it was on the other corner! So I had to unweave each of the 364 edge stitches rather than just plain ripping it out (a process that took several hours, interrupted by occasional bouts of reading to save my sanity), and now I have the other end of the cut stitch to tink back to remove the edge row & get back to the pattern. I also had to make an emergency run to the yarn shop in order to get a second size 9 circ, so that I had another needle with which to tink (all the other circs I have were either way too small, way too big, or had way too short a cable). I got there 15 minutes after they closed, but the clerks took pity on me & let me in anyway. No size 9s, but I did get an 8 with a 32" cable & that will do for the tinking.

Also stopped at the bookstore. Didn't buy much--an audiobook that was on sale for $6, and a couple puzzle magazines. The guy at the checkout ahead of me was buying a book called "Blogging for Dummies" and all I could think was, "What's so hard about blogging that you need to buy a book to learn how?" He was also asking about the shop's return policy, verifying more than once that he would get his money back, not just an exchange, which leads me to think he's going to use the book just enough to get his blog started & then bring it back to the shop. Guess he's never heard of a library.

Of course, that got me thinking about my blog. I know that Sis & The Boy and a couple other people read it, and I've also had comments posted by people that I *don't* know which got me to wondering just how many people read my blog, even if it's only a one-time thing when they go through the "next blog" random viewings. I thought about asking everyone who reads this particular post to comment on it, even if it's just to say "yup, I read this," just to get an idea of the number, but decided that seemed like I was being vain. Guess I'll just have to keep wondering :-)

Nothing really going on

Not much to post about I'm afraid. Saw a couple license plates that amused me yesterday: GEDACLU & INEWAYS. Ralph has almost finished the pop-ups for the haunted house; they are looking really good. They even have strobe lights that turn on when the spook pops up. And the Etiquette Hell website (www.etiquettehell.com) has been updated, which is always a fun read.

No big plans this weekend. Ralph wants to go to archery today, so I will probably bring my wheel & spin while he has fun with his little bow & arrow :-) Need to do a bit of housework today as Ralph is hosting a D & D game tomorrow. Not sure what I'll do during the game; I may stick around, or I might go to the bookstore or something.

I finished my second pair of wristwarmers yesterday morning. They are snugger & warmer than the first pair. I really like them a lot. Of course, now I have no knitting project on which to work. . . except the orangutan. I really ought to finish that.

Geography Fail

One of our projects is located in the city of Santa Clarita. Yesterday I received a document relating to the project, which placed it in the city of "Santa Clarity."

In other geography news, when asked which direction she would need to go to reach South Carolina from Florida, one of the DJs this morning responded, in all seriousness, "South." Either she plans to circumnavigate the globe or she thinks South Carolina is in the Virgin Islands.

Survivor tonight! Hope my team does well.

Think I ticked off someone at work today. CE & I got into, well, not quite an argument but certainly a heated discussion over whether or not "The Exorcist" is based on a true story. Her position is that other than a few changes such as making it a girl instead of a boy, the story is true. My position (which incidentally is also the position of the book's author) is that he wrote a work of fiction based on an alleged case history that he had studied in college. To say that "The Exorcist" is true would be like saying that, if the story of Noah & the Ark is true, then so is "Evan Almighty" since the movie was based on it. Anyway, I hope she's not too upset with me.

Middle of October

They have added yet more decorations to the office. The Haunted Hallway has been extended to include the area in front of my office (my windows are covered in black plastic--very isolating!) and three cubicles. Since most of the decorations & decoration budget had already been used, the decorators got very creative with spider webbing and the xerox machine. Several of us photocopied our faces which look pretty eerie under the blacklight. The picture to the right is HB's face & hands. We've also got footprints on the ceiling, and RB made a cool coffin out of styrofoam. The pic I took today didn't come out too well, so I'll try again tomorrow.


Have I mentioned how glad I am that I frogged those socks? I've already gotten a duck & a set of wristwarmers out of them, and have combined them with some handspun to work on a second set of wristwarmers. Plus, I think I'll have enough to make a third set if I again combine it with some handspun. I am much happier with these projects than I ever would have been with the socks.

Speaking of wristwarmers, it's been really cold in the office lately, so today I wore my wristwarmers, and my shawl, and a thick woolen scarf. As soon as I got to work I fixed myself some hot tea, then settled in at my desk. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that it was about 1,200 degrees in the office. Gah! Needless to say I didn't wear my woolies for long.

Ralph came by for lunch today, and to see the office decorations. We went to Pizza Factory & split a medium pepperoni pizza. It was sooooooooo good, fresh & hot out of the oven. Much better than nearly-cold-from-being-in-the-delivery-truck-for-20-minutes pizza.

What a Monday

The radio station KOST has a trivia quiz in the morning, their "Show What You Know" game. Two people call in and it's a best-of-five quiz. Today they had a theme in honor of Columbus Day. I was quite dismayed. Neither contestant knew that Columbus was born in Italy (they didn't even try to guess). Neither contestant knew that Queen Isabella financed the voyage (one guessed Queen Mary, the other Queen Elizabeth). One of them did correctly identify the "Santa Maria" as the third ship, which gave me some hope, but then came question #4: "Columbus's visit to the New World proved that the earth was what?" The same contestant gave the answer they were looking for (round), but excuse me--it was well established by 1492 that the earth was round, and the purpose of the voyage was to find an alternate trade route to the Indies (and based on that, you could consider the voyage to be a total failure). Very frustrating to listen to such a level of ignorance. I e-mailed the station when I got to work, but I doubt anything will come of it.

VERY windy today. Walking into the building lobby was like walking into a haunted house with all the moans, shrieks, and groans of the wind. Even in my office it was fairly loud; I had to turn my CD player up a bit from normal just so I could hear it, and the drafts through the not-so-airtight windows caused the blinds to sway gently. Made it very cold in the office, too; so cold that I was almost tempted to put on the socks that were in the car--the ones that I wore to the dog park. The ones covered in dog-park-dust. Ick.

I wore my new wristwarmers today. I was very glad to have them. Of course, I managed to spill hot chocolate on them, although it was only a few drops. Just enough to leave a little stain. Sigh.

Ralph & Moon have made some good progress on haunted house props, constructing a new pop-up and repairing the old one. Soon we'll be ready to start setting everything up.

Knitting & craft fair

Had a really nice day yesterday. Started out sharing a quiet morning with Ralph, then headed out to Chino to knit with Sis, The Girl, and NM. Spent about two hours there, then we (except NM) went to the Sugar Plum Craft Fair. Saw lots of attractive items & sampled many a tasty dip, but didn't buy anything. I lucked out at the parking lot--not only did I have no trouble finding a parking space, but the ticket machine wasn't working when I got there, so the attendant just waved me through for free-a $12 savings!

I did have some problems initially with my project (the wristwarmers featured in today's picture), so I set that one aside & sewed the little duck that I had knit up earlier. I still need to attach the wings & sew on the beads for the eyes to finish it up. I frogged the wristwarmers & studied the pattern last night, then this morning was able to knit them up without trouble. The problems I had yesterday stemmed from two things: one, the pattern says to cast on 49 and it should only be 48; and two, I had the stitches divided on 4 dpns instead of 3, which made it more difficult to see if (or rather when) I had miscounted the lace pattern. I restarted them this morning at 5:00 am, and had them finished before noon--and that included a two-hour break for housework & breakfast. Figure about 4-1/2 hours actual knitting time. It was a fun project--I'm ready to start a second pair :-)

One other thing I noticed about the pattern is the chart for the lace does not match the written instructions. I had to study the accompanying photo rather closely to figure out which was correct. It's the written. However, the chart would also make an attractive pattern so I might make my second pair using that.

Been thinking about the yarn I am spinning for my next shawl (see earlier post "Another Quiet Day"). I don't think I'm going to have enough to make a nice, long shawl. This leaves me three options: another short shawl (meh), use this yarn for something else & spin a different yarn for the shawl (hmmm), or use multiple colors (could be interesting). Of course, I'll finish spinning up the current roving & see how much I actually have before deciding.

Friday! TGI Friiiiidaaaaay!

Had a good day today. Got some fairly nice shots of a Northern Mockingbird perched in a tree in the parking lot at work. Busy most of the day, and got to leave about 25 minutes early. Don't know why, Mr. Boss Man's Boss just decided that we could go. I wasn't about to argue.

Check out this website: http://www.laconservancy.org/issues/issues_griffithpark.php4 Scroll down to the penultimate photo--it's one that Sis took when we were at Griffith Observatory. The LA Conservancy got her permission to use it. Isn't that awesome? The arm in the far right of the photo belongs to Ralph :-)

Took a short video at work, a "tour" of some of the Halloween decorations. It took forever to download onto Flickr which means it would take 10 forevers to post it here, so please click on the link over to my flickr site & take a look.

LOL!

Just found this on I Can Has Cheezburger. Love it!


see more puppies

Another quiet day

Not much to talk about today. Work was dull. Ate my lunch long before lunchtime, so was able to spend the entire lunch hour spinning. Finished off the bobbin that I started on Saturday--yeah, I know, it shouldn't take a week, but if you only count the time actually spent either spinning or pre-drafting, then it only took me about four hours. I really like how this is coming out. I plan on making a shawl with it, and I need to select a pattern. Something with only a few rows in the repeat, I think, so I can use as much of the finished yarn as possible. Since I'm Navaho-plying it, I won't get as much yardage as I did for the first shawl, which was knit with a two-ply.

Survivor is on tonight. Hope my team does better this week than they did last Thursday. I don't want to have to put another dollar in the pot. Which reminds me, I need to put a dollar in the pot.

Neighbor D's house has sold already. I haven't met the new neighbors, although Ralph did. Neighbor R & Neighbor M told me that they (new neighbors) are a lot like us & we should get along fine.

I am very hungry and have no idea what to have for dinner. There is chicken in the fridge, but we've had chicken three days in a row & I want something different. Maybe I'll order a pizza.

I will never learn.

Always bring the camera. Always bring the camera. Always bring the camera.

Needless to say, I did NOT bring the camera to work today; didn't want to waste time looking for fresh batteries since I wanted to stop & get a coffee at Starbucks. So what happens? A large juvenile red-tailed hawk perched for almost 4 hours outside of KM's window at work. And I mean RIGHT outside the window, on the building ledge, its head about an inch from the glass. I took a few shots with my cell phone, but have no means by which to transfer the pictures to the computer. Sigh.

Speaking of Starbucks, they have new "signature" hot chocolates. One of them is salted caramel. Yes, you read that right, *salted* caramel. Yuck! The display board suggested trying them iced. Um, doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of getting a *hot* chocolate? Or maybe it's like that old "What's Happening?" episode, where Shirley explained to Rerun that if he wanted his hot chocolate to be hot, he needed to order it that way: a hot hot chocolate, not just a hot chocolate.

I wore my shawl at the sales meeting today. One of the sales agents really admired it, and I let her try it on. It looked so good on her, I was tempted to give it to her. Alas, I am selfish and did not give in to the impulse. Maybe if it wasn't my first shawl, not to mention my only one so far, I would have let her have it.

I spent way too much time on the stairs today. I walked up to our office (three flights, a total of 69 steps) when I got to work, then down two flights (44 steps) to HR, back up to the 4th floor, down one flight to legal, back up again, down to the bottom at breaktime, then back up again (at a run this time, as we had seen the hawk & wanted to get a close look before it flew away; we needn't have bothered since he was there for at least another 3 hours), down at lunch, up after lunch, then down again at day's end. Good thing I didn't take my second break or my legs might have fallen off, ha ha.

Today's picture isn't exciting, I know: just tonight's dinner salads. BUT! The chopped up purple-y stuff is the one and only bell pepper that our garden produced this year, and the yellow tomato is from our garden as well. Yum!

WHAT is on the freeway?

Listening to the radio this morning, I tuned in to a traffic report just in time to hear the announcer say, "There's Hugh Jackson on the 210 freeway." It took me a second to realize what he had actually said was, "There's a huge accident on the 210 freeway."

There was also a bit of an accident on the drive home. No cars involved, but a truck carrying bags of onions lost part of its load in the middle lane. By the time I passed the spot almost all of the onions had been smashed; you couldn't even see the asphalt through the thick layer of squashed roots. Good thing I had my windows up & the vents closed :-)

Today CK & HB put up more Halloween decorations about the office. Those are CK's "bloody" hands--she was putting up bloody handprints all over. There are a few more pix up at my flickr site, or will be by tomorrow night anyway. Don't know for sure if I'll be headed to flickr tonight or not. Anyway, I told Mr. Boss Man that it wasn't easy for me to work today, not when they were busy building Susan Heaven in the hallway. :-) The hallway actually looks really cool; they covered the walls with black plastic & put strips of black plastic over the open ends of the hallway to make it dark inside, then installed blacklights & a couple gruesome pictures. They've got a strobe & a fogger too.

By the way, we finally figured out why the tomatoes on the one plant in our backyard weren't turning red: they're yellow tomatoes. Duh! We picked about a half-dozen that were just on the verge of being overripe, and I cooked some up last night with chicken & garlic. Trés yummy!

Boring day

Brought my wheel to work & did about 20 minutes of spinning after I ate lunch. Nothing else of interest has happened all day. Today's picture is of Hoover, who decided while I was spinning last night that the best place to take a nap was on my roving. You can see a bit of it sticking out from under his big belly.

Where did the weekend go??

Can't believe it's 5:00 pm on Sunday already. Doesn't feel like we did a lot today; read a bit, spun a bit, took the car in for an oil change, had a late lunch at George's, and yet here we are at the weekend's end. Sigh.

Heh heh--Ralph has the TV hooked up to the computer, so whatever is on the monitor is also on the TV screen. I keep glancing over to see what's going on on the TV "show." Look, my blog is on TV, ha ha!

Back to George's though. I think they must have a new supplier for their ingredients. Everything tasted just a little bit different from normal. Now, before y'all panic (especially The Boy) the food actually was a little better than normal, which I would have said was impossible but there you have it. The calamari was a little bigger and a little more tender; the grape leaves on the dolmethes were also more tender; the spinach in the spanokopitas was a bit more flavorful. Even the--darn it, I can *never* remember the name, it's a dessert that looks like shredded wheat with chocolate sauce on it--was crispier and a not so cloyingly sweet. Absolutely delicious! And their new location is much larger & more open than the old spot.

And that's it. How could a day in which we did so little go by so fast?

That was close!

Got a bit of a scare today. We went to the movies (saw "Igor," more on that below) and as we walked up the street to the theater we noticed that our favorite restaurant, George's, *wasn't there.* It was a new place called "Omelette Inn." !!!!! Fortunately we asked the guy at the parking structure if he knew when it had closed down; he looked confused and said, "It was open yesterday--I got a validation from it." So we drove up the street and whew! it's in a new location. The new spot looks much bigger than the old one, and it's in a more "party" part of town so I'm sure they will get lots of business. They looked pretty busy when we drove by which I think is a good sign.

The movie was OK; nothing great, but not horrible either. They had Technical Difficulties at one point; the film got stuck and the projector actually burned a hole in it, which was interesting to watch but did sort of disrupt the story line. Ralph let the manager know of the problem. The film got spliced back together, which took about 10 minutes or so & chopped out a few minutes of the movie, and the manager handed out a free pass to everyone in the theater which I thought was a nice thing for him to do.

Forgot to mention that I had a nice surprise yesterday. I got an e-mail from Amazon.com notifying me that they had shipped my book. This was a surprise because I had received e-mail from them a few weeks ago saying that shipment had been delayed and it wouldn't ba sent until mid-November; originally it was supposed to ship in mid-October so instead of being delayed it actually went a little earlier than the original date. Then, to top it off, the book *arrived* yesterday as well, so I was pretty jazzed about that. The only thing is, it's the last book in a trilogy ("Inkdeath," the first two being "Inkheart" and "Inkspell") and I can't decide if I should read it now, or re-read the other two and reacquaint myself with the storyline since it's been about a year since I read them. PLUS there was a preview at the theater today for the movie version of "Inkheart," so I'd like to re-read that before the movie comes out. Even though it's been a year, I could tell from the preview that they'd made some pretty big changes from the book. Still looked good, though.

Tonight's photo was taken by Ralph. It's a watusi bull, taken at the LA County Fair.

Gotta love Saturdays

I've had a pleasant day so far. Ralph wanted to try out the free archery class at El Dorado Park, so after breakfast we headed out there. I brought my travel wheel & spun up almost half a bobbin's worth of pale green merino/silk blend (possibly a future shawl!). He really enjoyed the class and will probably go again next week. Afterwards we went to Polly's for lunch, then stopped for hot mochas on the way home. I did a bit more spinning and am now brainsucking for a bit before heading back to the wheel. Or possibly off for a nap. . .

UPDATED: By the way, you should look at that mountain picture on my flickr site; I corrected the color and it looks 10 times better.

IT'S A CHEAT!

First off, apologies to the Teeming Millions for not posting last night. I was very tired & didn't want to stare at a computer screen any longer than I already had at work. So tired, in fact, that I fell asleep a bit after seven and actually missed the first ten minutes of Survivor.



Today's picture is of a cheat. See, one of my escrow officers is expecting (due in February) and today she found out it's a girl. I was thumbing through my knitting calendar looking for cute baby things, and the project for August 1 looked very familiar, as though I had seen it recently. I went back to October--and sure enough, the project for October 1 was practically identical to it! The only differences I can see are 1) size--Aug 1 is for infant to one year; Oct 1 is for one to four years; 2) Aug 1 is knit in 3 colors, Oct 1 is in 4; 3) the cuff is folded down on the Aug 1 pattern and 4) the Aug 1 pattern appears to be more felted. They are even knit to the same gauge--and hmmm, look at that, they were submitted by the same contributor. Granted, there are those four differences, but frankly I don't think they are enough to warrant two separate patterns in the calendar.

Speaking of my knitting calendar, today's pattern had a misplaced modifier. It was described as a "hooded child's cardigan." I guess that means only a hooded child can wear it. Otherwise they would have said "child's hooded cardigan."

Today at lunchtime we had pizza & chicken kickers, and watched "Star Wars" in the conference room. The food was very good although I could have eaten about 100 of the chicken kickers (they are soooooooo tasty!) and we all had seen the movie so often that we had fun mocking it. Don't get me wrong, we all love the movie; it's just that we all practically can recite it by heart from end to end.

Speaking of food, we picked a lemon off our tree & squoze the juice into the salsa. Oh my, what an amazing improvement! I'm really glad that there are more tomatoes ripening because we've practically polished off the quart of salsa that he made already.

Today at work CK & HB started putting up Halloween decorations in the office. I am really happy about that; I *love* Halloween, and we weren't allowed to decorate for it in the old office. This was the result of ONE person complaining about it being against her religion and having "created a hostile work environment" when we had a decorating contest. They gave her a paid leave of absence until after the 31st. I say, suck it up and act like a grown-up! How would she feel if the non-Christians had tizzy fits over the office Christmas tree & poinsettias? Even after she left the company we still weren't allowed to decorate, not even in our own office/cubicle space. Spoilsport! Anyway, there are strings of orange lights, fake cobwebs, fake blood, and window-cling ghoulies all over. My office window (the one that looks into the hallway) has a cool window-cling grim reaper. Reminds me of Death in the Discworld series.

'Swednesday

One thing for sure; you cannot claim that I am a clockwatcher. My watch stopped today at 8:05 am. I didn't notice until nearly noon. Suppose I ought to wind it more than once a month.

Reading a rather interesting book called "The Year of Living Biblically." The author decided to spend one year living by the rules of the Bible as literally as possible. I picked it up because it sounded funny, and bits of it are (love how he stones adulterers by pretending to trip & "accidentally" dropping a pebble on their shoe). However, mostly I find it thought-provoking. I'm about as far from religious as one can get (an online quiz tagged me as "neo-Pagan" whatever that means) so I wasn't expecting that to happen. It's not changing my views on god or religion per se, but it does make me pause on occasion & really think about what he is saying and/or doing.

I've decided to frog my diamond stitch socks. I'm just really not happy with how they are turning out, and I know I can use the yarn for other projects such as a Death of Rats and/or a duck for my office desk. Kinda hate to do it, since I've done so much work on them but I know I will never enjoy the socks.

Month end is over!

Had nine closings yesterday, bringing the month's total to 32. That's a pretty good month, that it, but I'm glad it's over. I've only got about half that scheduled for October. Of course, there were a lot of "rush" closings (two to three week escrows) as we were trying to get them done before the down payment assistance programs went away.

Not much else going on. Worked late last night, got home a bit after 7:00, watched the end of "The Beast with a Billion Backs" with Ralph, then went to sleep. Oh, we did sample the salsa he made last night. It's good, but not as good as it should be. Can't quite figure out what is missing; a little lime juice, perhaps.