Yarn-A-Go-Go

This is how gosh-durn lazy I am right now. I'm on the couch, computer on my lap, knitting to my right, phone to my left, and I just took a picture of my knitting with the crap-qual camera-phone, instead of getting up to take a high-resolution photo. But that's the way it goes on Monday mornings (which are my version of your Sunday mornings. Only I get a Sunday morning with Lala, too, now that I'm not getting up at 6am to go train. I'm spoiled.)

So here's the pattern I'm working on:

It's the bottom band of a vee-neck sweater I'm making -- the sleeves, already done, have the same motif at the ends. The yarn is a wonderful alpaca from ArtFibers called Jadis. It's going to be a store model for them, and Kira wrote the pattern using their program, to which I added the colorwork.

It's fun.

I'm boring. Sleepy. Lazy. Oh, yeah.

Helped sister Christy move this weekend, into an apartment on Ivy Hill in Oakland that I absolutely covet. I mean, if I didn't have my own sweet little home, I would, for the first time in memory, be jealous. You walk into the foyer, and there are dark carved wooden support beams with iron-work detail. Big, dark slate floors, and inlaid ceilings. Then you walk down the hall (which is the best-smelling hall ever, spice and cocoa and a little Trader Joes-ish), and her door, get this, her door is a dark wood arch with ROPE around the outside, as are all the doors in the castle/ship building.

Inside, she has this amazing green tile in the kitchen that should be hideous, but is gorgeous instead, and a huge living room with windows that overlook all the roofs near the Parkway, and she has a tub with a window over it, and a big ole bedroom with a big ole closet, and let's not forget the gigantor closet in the living room that has two doors that used to house (and sadly doesn't anymore) a Murphy bed.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh. She deserves it. I fear, however, that when Bethany comes into town later this week, Christy will no longer be living alone.

All right. Off to give Digit the love he says he's never received, ever.

Friday Fun

Waxing and whining.

(Work safe, and SO funny.)
Link via Scamper.

Y'all have a good weekend, okay? I've no plans beyond helping my sister Christy move (and Bethany's ON the move, coming home the long way!) so I'll be resting and hanging out and I'm HAPPY about that. No wax for me, thank you. Razors, they're just fine.

MWAH.

Quick!

Distract yourself from the unpleasantness below, which is now happily behind us, by going to see Lala's dogs, who are, as Carrie would say, perfect schmoos. Don't forget that the wet wee dog is only a little bigger than your HAND.

Moving On

So I wrote an email  to the carpet guy. It was a good email saying "I know you were sick, I gave you two months to respond by mail, perhaps email is a better method for you. I'd love to hear why I haven't ever heard from you, by phone or by mail." I attached the old letter as a reminder, in case he had never received it, since I knew his office help was stunningly unhelpful.

I got an email back.

It said I was free to pay for the $750 polygraph to prove that his employee (who wouldn't lie) was telling the truth about not burglarizing my home.

I sat on the couch for a while and thought about how freaking MAD I was. Then I called him. A woman answered the cell phone, but I bamboozled my way around her, "Who is this?" "Oh, this is Ruth, returning his phone call." "What call?" "His call. This is Ruth." "Ruth?" "Returning his phone call. This is Ruth." But every time I said Ruth, I kind of mumbled it, until she gave up in frustration and handed him the phone.

"Hi, Michael," I said very clearly. "This is Rachael."

You could almost hear the "oh, shit," in his pause.

We proceeded to argue for the next twenty minutes. And I hate arguing. He went on and on about how he believed his employee, and how I was just trying to get a free carpet cleaning, and how every time he had talked to me before this he had told me that -- "YOU HAVE NEVER TALKED TO ME IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE BECAUSE YOU HAVE NEVER CALLED ME BACK!"

He insisted we'd had more than a few conversations in the past. He also accused me of being a scam artist, at which point, I do have to admit, I said, "You are an IDIOT." But I don't think he heard me. Even if he did....

It didn't end well. He never, ever saw my point that had he just been polite, the first time I called, I would have let it drop, months ago. But somehow, I feel better, just knowing that he's an asshole. You know? The world is full of them, and I wasn't being ignored anymore. Oh, he wasn't ignoring me, boy howdy. I did threaten that I would publish his unlisted phone number on my site and have YOU all call him, but I think that would reach right over into meanness, and I'm trying to stay on this side of nice. Trying.

But. In the post below, I give my review of his service and company. I've researched libel and slander, and he can't sue me for the things I wrote. (Aside - I was interested to read here that I can freely call him an asshole, because name-calling cannot be proved true or false. Heh.)

And I can't wait to be the first hit when google-searched for info on carpet cleaning in this area. And I'm happy to share my review.

Worst Carpet Cleaner in Oakland

Consumer Review of Carpet Master Chem-Dry, Oakland
Rated: Worst service I've ever received.

I found this company when searching for carpet cleaners in Oakland. On November 2nd, 2004, I had them come out and clean my carpets. The job was adequately done. The employee, Courtney, left his billing folder with my signed charge slip inside my home when we left. He called me and told me he had left it inside, and asked when he could come pick it up. I told him I'd go home after work at 5am and leave it outside for him for him to pick up at his convenience.

When I returned home, my house had been burgled by an unknown suspect, the bathroom screen pried off, the sliding door standing open, the back gate broken. The only thing missing in a house full of things being packed and money left lying on the counter? The folder.

After making a police report, I called to complain. Instead of the owner, Michael Lane, returning my call, the employee Courtney called, telling me he would never break into my home, and that I was only trying to ruin him.

I called the business repeatedly over the course of several weeks. The office help, Susan, was unhelpful and rude. She said on a daily basis that Mr. Lane would call me back, but he never did.

I sent a letter to Mr. Lane, now forwarded on to his franchise board and the Better Business Bureau, and in response, Susan called, saying that Mr. Lane would write me a letter taking care of it. Instead, I got a form response letter, "How did we do? On a scale of one to ten, rank our service." I was too insulted to even bother mailing it in.

On January 27, 2005, I finally reached the owner, only by finding his personal cell phone and email in a job advertisement he posted on Craigslist. He said that I could pay for a polygraph test to prove that his employee was innocent of my charges. He was rude, uncourteous, and disrespectful. He insisted that I was a scam artist, maintaining this even when I removed my request for reimbursement, telling him all I wanted was an apology and certain level of professional courtesy.

I have given up hoping for this. But hopefully this post will help someone deciding whom to hire. Should you need help dealing with this company, please contact me at writerach406 at yahoo dot com. Carpet Master Chem-Dry is the worst, not the best, carpet cleaner in Oakland.

* This is a personal review only. This is not libel, as a statement alleged to be defamatory must also be a false statement of fact. And yo. I couldn't make this shit up.

Grrrr.

Owwwwl.

My phone's on the fritz at home, which means I have no internet, either. I'm not really sure how the TiVo's working, since I thought the capturing of programs worked over the phone, but I'm getting shows, thank goodness.

Called PacBell -- they said they'd be out between 1pm and 5pm yesterday, which meant I got up with little sleep, not enjoying the prospect of greeting the guy at the door wearing nothing but a robe. Of course, at 5:30 I called and they said, "Oh, he came by at 4:30! He noted that you weren't home and that your phone line is fine."

I was home, I was watching the front porch, and my phone line wasn't fine. Bah. "Can he come back out?"

A chipper, "Nope!"

"Tomorrow?"

"Sure, with a 1pm to 5pm window."

Cool. I always enjoy that when I go to bed at 8am.

This little, minor glitch got me all worked up and thinking about the carpet guy. Not even that much about the carpet guy, but about the fact that the owner never called me back, not once. I didn't want the guy prosecuted or fired, I just wanted an apology from the owner. Dude. So then I was lying in the bath getting ALL pissed off, wanting to take a deep breath and just let it GO, already, but I couldn't.

Do you ever have those fights in your mind? They're way worse when you're fighting in your head with a loved one -- I always fight the battle from every possible angle, finding the winning stance, and then getting more irate as I try to file what they could say next to what I will say when the moment arises. So that wasn't like this.

But I lay there, thinking of how I could get an audience with the owner. I could fake a delivery of balloons. I could call, saying I was the media. I could say I was the mayor giving him a commendation. Anything to get him on the phone, since he neither takes nor receives calls. Lying, however, I usually find is a bad idea, so I let go of those.

Lala told me simply to write yet another letter. She's right. I'm going to do that. Again. An apology for extremely unprofessional behavior is all I want. Or even a fight would be acceptable! I just hate being ignored.

But it ain't enough to get all (literally) hot under the collar like I did. I'm going to write another letter to the owner and hope he has some decency in him. Somewhere. And then I'll let it go again. If I don't do something, I'll end up lying in bed, unable to sleep, fantasizing about showing up at his work, with a couple of big ole mean ugly-looking cops (and I do know a bunch of them, believe you me) and see what he has to say THEN, huh? That's the part of me I don't like. So I'll write a note and let it go for another couple of months.

So if I'm offline for a while longer, please forgive me. I'm probably fighting with the phone company.

**Added later - While it would be nice to use police resources to track the owner down, it would also be illegal and I would never jeopardize my job like that. Really. But the internet? Now there's a tool I can use. I just found a two-week old craigslist want-ad with his personal email listed, along with his cell phone. Letter has been sent. Phone call to follow. Oh, that was a satisfying find.

Long-Assed, Lots of Stuff

Oh, so much to tell you! I have not been blogging, but not because I am a Lazy Blogger (which is usually the case when I'm absent without leave), but because I have been a Very Busy Blogger. Too busy, in fact, to even check email, let alone blog. If I owe you email, please forgive me. It'll be a'comin'....

And a Responsible Blogger would parcel out the fun stuff, would make three posts of this, but I am not responsible. I am a Frivolous Blogger, and plan to frivol all over this post.

First. The March on Saturday.

It was really kind of amazing. First of all, Lala and I got there at right about the right time, had it been a peace march, which it wasn't. The rally was at 10, the march started at 11, so we got there about 11:20, expecting the people to be just starting to move. There was no one there! The streets were full of bored-looking tourists and street vendors. We asked a cop (Lala told me to boss him around, but I restrained myself), and he pointed, "They went that way, right at 11. I hear they're at 3rd now -- you can still catch 'em."

We realized that this march had been planned by mothers, not peace activists, thus it had left on time and in an orderly manner. We marvelled.

We caught up with them, and marched to Embarcadero, happy to see so many. Then they did something that we didn't quite get (yet) -- they stopped us marching and spread us out on the sidewalk, from Pier One down to Thirty-Nine. The pro-life march was coming, and instead of them yelling at us from the sidelines, as usually happens, it was our turn to line THEIR route.

Here, you can see them coming:

And then they're here:

You can see the same guy with the rosary here:

The cops were SUPER vigilant about keeping them within their lines, but you can see how incredibly close we all are to each other.

It was really something unimaginable, to be standing on the sidewalk, chanting "Back alleys, no more, abortion rights for rich and poor" or "Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide," right INTO the faces of people who believe so differently. Looking right at them. Into their eyes. There were moments of anger, moments of humor (like the little girl who marched with her tongue stuck out at us the whole time -- oh, she was so MAD that everyone was laughing), and moments of compassion. One woman in a wheelchair looked at me and then raised her fingers in the peace sign. Lala and I raised our hands in peace back to her. There were a lot of peace signs, actually. But that was the one that connected, that hit my heart.

Oh, there were so many MEN in that march.

They didn't chant, or sing, or yell, and most surprisingly of all, there were none of those horrific maddening pictures of aborted fetuses. Apparently they'd been given a last minute directive to tone it down, and I think it had a lot to do with how peacefully it went. Two people ended up getting arrested, which wasn't bad, considering that the cops had two city buses standing by as paddy wagons (which got covered in NARAL stickers as they moved slowly along):

This was taken after their march had gone by -- our march followed them, which created a bottleneck at Fisherman's Wharf, and they had to take another route to their rally site -- this was, I believe, the goal. Lala and I, however, left at this point, fearing both violence (which didn't happen) and that ArtFibers would run out of yarn (also, didn't happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry).

I'm making a little store model for them. I'll show you as I go. It's got a little bit of fairisle in it, which I started at a dark bar the next night. I am officially crazy. Lala's band The Whoreshoes was playing, and a bunch of my friends came to see her. Two of them passed me right by while I was sitting at the bar, probably because I had my head ducked all the way down until my forehead was practically IN the alpaca. The muttering kept the other crazies away, too. Never attempt charted fairisle in the dark. Believe me.

And did you know that all the Rach(a)els in the whole wide world live in the Bay Area? At one point during the show, there were FOUR of them sitting in a row, while another sang onstage. Last night, at the knit-out, a gal came by to say hi and introduce herself as a reader of this blog, and when she left, Rachel said, "Who was that?" I said, "Dur. That was Rachel!" (Hi, Rachel T.!)

Anywho, the show was fabulous, even though the vocal mikes sucked. I was pretty durn happy, though, that m'girl got one of the good ones, so her "Drinkin' in my Sunday Dress," in which she sings lead AND plays the banjo, sounded great. I didn't get too many good shots, as the curtain was a deep red, but you can see her playing her lap steel in the back:

And after the show:

I look drunk, yes, but I'm not. I was the sober driver (and roadie -- I totally got into being a roadie). Lala, well, you know. She didn't have to drive. Although I do believe she's sober in this photo. This was early.

Damn, she sounded good. And I'm not being (that) prejudiced, really. She's really good. I was struck proud.

And our knit-out! I apologized last night to Laine about all the hearts and flowers on my blog, all the romance mushy stuff that I really do try to keep at a minimum (if you can believe that) and she said, "WHY? That's why I read! You're like my own little romance novel!" So I guess y'all will read over the romantic gushing looking for the knitting content (I had some! Up there! I did!) or you'll close the link with a snap (silly old knitter-in-love), but I can't help it. She's just so durn cyoo-t. And I'm sure she would like you to know that she is Very Tough. Yes, she is. (And cozy.)

So. The knit-out was fabulous (it is at this point I should start another post, but hell, I'm on a roll). The beautiful and fabulous Monica was in town:

and in honor of that, we met up at the New Zealander in Alameda. I think by the end of the night there were about ten of us -- Elizabeth and Stella were the other bloggers there. Also in attendence were Rachel, Kira, Anna, Laine, Martha, Laura in Alameda, Won-Ju, and this guy:

He's also seen here:

We have no clue who he is. He's sitting in Rachel's spot while she takes pictures, and he's pretending to knit. He was very friendly. Hi, guy!

I committed a major foh-pah in the scheduling of the knit-out, though. There's a new knit-bunch in town, and they were meeting at the very same time, just three blocks down the street. What are the odds? So when the New Zealander closed, some of us marched (lot of marching going on) down and joined 'em. The Coffee For Thought Stitch and Bitch, y'all, meets in Alameda (1545 Webster)  at 7pm on Monday nights. They're the ones in the back. The group in the front is a sea-shanty singing group, and I gotta tell you, sea-shanties and knitting go very well together. In a weird SCA kind of way, sure, but they do go well.

Here we are in our new knitting place:

Is it possible this is long enough? Sheesh. I am off to Hoover Floormate my house. It works GREAT, by the way. I've been putting off using it all week, so I can get that gratification of sweeping up LOTS of dust'n'stuff. You know what I mean.

MWAH!

 

Knit Out Monday!

Whoo! Just like that! Last minute, I know, but we're freewheeling things, ain't we? Monica of Hollyweird Knits is in town, and let's show her how we play, shall we?

When: This Monday, the 24th, 7pm
Where: The New Zealander, corner of Central and Webster in Alameda (straight through Webster Tube to end of street, it's on your left). I believe they close at 9, so it'll be a short night, but we can always go somewhere else iffen we wanna. (Heh, I just called to make sure they don't mind a bunch of knitters, and the kiwi gal who answered said, "That'd be fine, I should think, as long as they're not too rough." We'll see.)

Email me (link in left sidebar) with questions, or we'll just see you there.

MARCH!

So you want to make it even more political? C'mon. Let's do it.

March for Choice tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the 32nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. There's a big ole march planned by the anti-choice contingent, and the march for choice is a response to that. Monica's coming up from LA, and we'll be wearing our Knitters Against Bush shirts.

Hey! It just hit me! I'm thirty-two. (You would have thought that would have hit me a little sooner, huh?) That's how long women have been able to make choices regarding reproduction, and honey, that ain't long. I'm sure glad Mom chose to carry me to full term (although doing the math, I realize that she HAD to), but I support her right to have made a different decision. Safely. There would have been quite a bit fewer sweaters in the world, however, and that would have been a sad thing....

Honestly? I'm a wee bit worried about the march. I've never worried about my safety during peace marches -- while some people stayed home, worried about terrorists, I always knew the Scary People With Scary Weapons didn't care too much about peaceniks carrying signs on their shoulders and kids on their hips.

But anti-choicers? Dude. Now there are some terrorists. And they (some of them, by no means all) hate people like me. Pro-choicers don't shoot or bomb. Pro-lifers do. And we're going head to head in SF streets, in two separate marches. That's a lot of vitriol in one space.

I'll have my knitting. And my yelling voice. Women's rights -- they WILL be the next thing to go if we don't take action. Pray for peace and act for justice.

Whew. Back to your regularly scheduled pabulum next week, but the serious shit'll hang around a couple of days, kay? Still, MWAH!

Not One Damn Dime

Fallen soldiers:

All the faces here. I remain ashamed.