MD 2011

Happy Memorial Day! Hope you are all having a fun & safe holiday. We celebrated the weekend by going to a party held by Neighbors K & A yesterday afternoon/evening. They had so many yummy snacks set out that I was too full to eat when the burgers & dogs were done. We brought a Pita & Dip tray from George's: six different Greek dips and a big plate of pita triangles. It seemed quite popular. Someone else brought mini pigs-in-a-blanket, and I swear I could have eaten them all.

Today has been a quiet day; did a little laundry & grocery shopping, and washed all three dogs. Later we're going to grill up some hot dogs, and have that with some salad, baked beans, & chips. Oh, I should make something for dessert. Maybe the brownie mix that Ralph bought for my birthday & never baked. Which reminds me, I still owe him a birthday cake, too.

Our lettuce had two flowers on it yesterday, and they were already closed up when I went to take a picture of them today. I thought perhaps they would open when the sun hit them, but no dice. Luckily there are lots of buds so I'm sure I'll get a shot at some point. They look a lot like dandelion flowers when they are open.

And the answer is. . .

So , no guesses on the plant? That, O Teeming Millions, is a red oak lettuce. It's getting weirder looking by the day, too.

I somehow managed to leave my glasses at work yesterday, right at the start of a 3-day weekend. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. It is forcing me to go to Lenscrafters today, though, and I do need a new prescription. I've used those frames many, many times as well, and they need to be replaced. Still, getting an eye exam wasn't high on my list of fun things to do on a holiday weekend.

It's quiz time!

Today's pop quiz is What's That Plant?" Two clues: It's not a weed, and the leaves are edible. Answer will be in my next post.

Zoe is very quiet & subdued today. I suspect she's worn out still from yesterday's adventure. I am so thankful to have her back, and so glad my boss was understanding about me needing to leave early to go look for her. It's such a busy time at work and I know my being gone wasn't the best thing that could have happened.

In knitting news, I finished my hat & wristwarmers set today. There's enough yarn left for a pair of short socks, although I'm leaving the kangaroos off them. Between the hat & the mitts there are twelve repeats of the motif & frankly I don't want to knit it again just now. As long as the colors are the same, the socks should look just fine. And in any case, the 'roos would be hidden by my pants legs so why bother?



Did a little cooking to restock the freezer. I made one small batch of beef over rice (sans rice), and a huuuuuuuuge batch of beef stew with mushrooms. In retrospect I should have made less stew & more beef over rice (sans rice). Oh, well. I'm sure it will get eaten eventually. Still, with 8 cups of stew in the freezer and at least half that amount again in the fridge, it does seem to be a bit much.

Did I say "Pets--fauh!" Well, say it again!

Arrgh, yet another scare with the pets. I got a call at work around 3:30 letting me know that Zoe had somehow managed to get out of the yard. The neighbors were trying to catch her but no luck. I got the OK to leave work, came home, & spent more than two hours searching. The neighbors said the last time they'd seen her she was crossing the busy street at the end of the block, and because of traffic they couldn't safely follow her. She finally showed up at the front door around 7:00 pm. I'm sooooo glad she found her way home! As far as I can tell, she went OVER the fence into the neighbor's yard, which is not fully enclosed. There's some plywood leaning against the fence and I think she used that as a ramp.

No Faire for me this weekend; just have too much to do, including getting Zoe her rabies shot & renewing her license which is a wee bit past due. I'm trying to get it so her tag & shot are due at the same time as they are currently five weeks apart. I can't renew without the certificate, and the vet doesn't like giving inoculations early so there you go. It's only two weeks early at this point so hopefully he'll do it.

I've also been trying to sign up for a notary class. I get as far as the point where you have to actually register, and the website hangs at that point. I called the customer service line & of course they aren't open on weekends. Grrr! I will try again on Monday.

On a more positive note, I bought a loaf of rosemary bread. It's delicious! I used it to make a turkey sandwich for lunch yesterday, then had some with butter for dinner. It's a bit pricey, though, so it's not something I'll buy often.

Pets--fauh!

We've had two scares recently with the pets. The first was when we noticed the puffer fish wasn't looking very healthy. His color was bad & he was very thin. We put him in the hospital tank, but even with flake food he couldn't seem to eat. A little research & we learned that a puffer's teeth never stop growing, and sometimes a bit (no pun intended) of home dentistry is needed. Thanks to youtube, we found a video that showed how to do it. Using clove oil to render the fish unconscious, you then use sharp manicure scissors to trim the teeth. His had grown so much that we couldn't pry his mouth open--the teeth had wedged it as far as it would go. It was a tricky business, and not something I care to repeat. He's eating well now & I think a full recovery is in his future.

Now the next one is really, really gross so I'm going to start out by saying the dog is fine. Those of you with a squeamish personality would do best to skip on to the next paragraph. Last chance to skip this. OK. So I heard Hali walking around in the kitchen the other night, and figured she wanted out. I got up, let her out, and noticed two dark patches on the kitchen floor. Being careful not to step on them I walked over to turn on the light, and saw two of the most disgusting and horrifying piles of--well, I couldn't tell at first what it was. (One last chance to skip ahead and read about the mermaid!) The color was like diarrhea, but it smelled like vomit, and it was full of these pinkish leathery strips about an inch wide, that were kind of twisted & curled. I swear I thought it was strips of intestine or something. None of the dogs seemed to be in distress, although Hali looked a little cowed as she always does when we have to clean up any sort of dog-created mess. The mystery was solved the next day when Ralph found a chewed up package of what had been 20 beef-basted rawhide chewsticks. Apparently the dog swallowed them whole and then after a few hours during which they softened & uncurled brought them all back up again. The beef basting is what gave it the poo color. Scary, but a relief in the end. I'm pretty sure it was Hali, as she wasn't interested in breakfast that morning.

Today's photo is of a patron at Faire last weekend. Isn't that a great costume? She really was having a great time smiling, waving, and posing for photos. I saw her a few hours after I took this picture and she was still having a lot of fun from what I could tell. I think this is one of the best mermaid costumes I've ever seen.

I'm almost done with my hat & wristwarmers set that I'm working on. The hat is 100% finished; one wristwarmer just needs two last ends woven in, and the second wristwarmer has about an inch to go plus the thumb. I think I'll have enough yarn leftover to make either a pair of anklets or some gloves, too. The pattern is called fornicating kangaroos. It's much more subtle than the fornicating reindeer pattern I used on Ralph's hat. It'll be interesting to see who (if anyone) notices. Mind you, with summer coming on it may be months before it's cold enough outside for me to wear them, so it'll be a while before I find the answer to that.

Well, that was cool.

Look what we saw! Yup, it's the Delorean from "Back to the Future." We saw it while driving up Beach Blvd. on the way to dinner on Sunday. Unfortunately all we had with us for photo-taking was a cell phone, I was trying to get a picture from the back seat, the back window is a mess from dried-on dog slobber, and we never were able to get close enough for a really good shot. Still, under the circumstances I think this came out pretty well.

I think I'm done with Faire for the year. There's one more weekend left, however I'm ready for some time at home. Plus as much as I hate doing housework it'll be nice to have a full weekend to really clean the place up. I'm too tired after work & with just one day to get everything done, things aren't as spiffy as I'd like them to be.

It was a nice rainy morning today, the sort of weather where it actually makes sense for me to be a knitter in California. I wore my weird socks, honeycomb wristwarmers, Bloody Stupid Johnson hat, and dark mark illusion scarf. Of course they all had to come off once I was in the office--none of it is exactly "business professional"--but I sure was toasty warm on the way.

Gang aft agly

Yesterday did not go according to plan. I did give the guy a spinning lesson. I should not try to teach people to spin, because they Do. Not. Listen. No matter how many times you tell them, "Don't worry about the spindle, worry about your hands" or "The reason it's trying to spin the other way is because you've put too much twist in it; you don't need to spin it again" or "See how it's kinking up? You've put too much twist in it; you don't need to spin it again," "Draw out some more fiber to take up the twist," every speck of their focus is on getting the spindle to spin as much as possible without drawing new fiber out so that the twist actually has somewhere to go. I think next time I'll have them practice drawing out fiber without the spindle first.

Also, the person I was going to teach to knit didn't show up. There was someone else who wanted to learn how to do a purl stitch, and I did teach her, so that was all right.

And then there's the cortol. This is a fairly rare musical instrument with 13 finger holes. I loaned it to someone who returned it yesterday. Somewhere between where it was returned and St. Cuthbert's guild area, it fell out of my basket. Sigh. I know I never played it, but it still sucks to have lost it.

Needless to say I was pretty cranky by lunchtime. Ralph played so much music his lips were swollen, and we both decided to call it a day around 4:15. Despite being tired, we stayed up way too late watching "You've Got Mail" & now I'm up way too early with a day full of chores ahead of us. Oh, well.

I'm not even going to say how long it's been since I posted

Ok. Confession time. The real reason I haven't posted is because I have no good pictures to add to it. Seriously! That's why you've all been ignored, with no scintillating reading material. Or something like that. Anyway I'm bringing the camera to Faire today so hopefully I'll have some good shots.

Another reason is I was hoping to find a video to link to, but haven't been able to do so. What video, you may ask? Well, a few weeks ago I got to live a dream, and participated in a flash mob at Faire! We all gathered by the main stage, and after the Commedia burst into song. Soooo awesome. I've been told the video is on youtube, however I just can't track it down.

Today is going to be a busy day. I promised one person I'd teach him how to use a drop spindle, and someone else that I'd teach her how to knit. Someone else wants to learn how to do a purl stitch but keeps making excuses to avoid it (Yes, I mean YOU, SD!). Still, if I'm teaching one person maybe she'll come over & finally sit long enough to learn purling. I'm also bringing my wheel, which seems to be a big hit. One person even told me it was the "best gig" the guild has. A blatant exaggeration IMHO, since Helena's does so many things all the time. Heck, Helena's does more gigs with butter than some other guilds do all day! First there's the morning churning, where real butter is made. Then "Cousin Butter" makes a lovely sculpture from it (there's an article here: http://www.examiner.com/renaissance-and-medieval-events-in-los-angeles/st-helena-s-sharon-scott-creates-butter-masterpieces with a link to photos of some of her work). Lastly, the sculpture is placed on a glass-covered cake plate, paraded through the Faire and presented to the Queen. There's also singing, music, dancing, knitting, drop spindling, and juggling going on. They've even turned a puddle into a gig by "fishing" in it.

No Oedipus this year, alas. I think the actor that plays Oedipus might be having some back problems which make it impossible for him to do the show. I can't imagine anyone else doing the part. Disappointing, but no one wants him to do himself permanent injury just so we can do a play. The jokes are a little dated (na-nu, na-nu!) but it's still a wonderful show.