Yarn-A-Go-Go

Lace Socks

Hi. My name is Rachael. And I'm a plain ole sock-knitter.

I do mean plain ole. For the life of me, I can't knit a fancy sock. I can knit a fancy sweater, sure. Bring it on. But socks? It's like time stops and I all I feel is annoyance.

I bought Nancy Bush's gorgeous Knitting Vintage Socks. Started one of them, got from the top to the heel and just wanted to spit. Put it away.

But I love the IDEA. I don't think I'd ever understood it before, but then I got the BEST pair of socks in a swap from Siow Chin and I got it.

(Sorry for the crap photo -- this is the best I could do in the bathroom light -- they only looked good against the laundry, and I'm tired of waiting until they're clean and dry to photograph, since I always seem to wearing, washing, or drying them.)

Lacy socks are the best. They make your feet feel sexy, even without a pedicure. I love love love them. (Pattern is from the same book, btw.)

So I knew I needed to make some, even after I'd gotten mightily tired of knitting the vintage pattern. Too wide. Too long. Too much lace already! I decided to switch it up. I took some koigu, cast on with my regular toe, added a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker, just across the top, made my reg'lar short-row heel, and continued up with the lace, now going all the way around. Couldn't be easier!

Or more irritating. Gah.

I think I'm just a knitter that likes having to look down as little as possible, since I'm always doing something WHILE I'm knitting, and lace socks are fiddly. Fiddlesticks. At least with cables you have great long rows of NOTHING going on, and only have to glance occasionally. I was ready to throw these socks away (really) until a friend mentioned that I should make ankle-socks. Oh, bless her.

Cute! And done! One more sock to make, but it's already half-way to the heel, just this afternoon. Oh, yeah. This is more like it. Fickle me. (And I've finished making the yarn for the rest of the handspun sweater, but it just won't dry in this damp air. Almost there.)

There. Aren't you proud of me? A whole post about KNITTING? Can I be excused for the rest of the month?

Now. How beautiful is my future sister-in-law Won-Ju? (Go see her new art (including cards!) -- it'll knock you out.)

(Yes, I know the shawl is lace. It's bigger. Different. Right?)

    PS - Hello, New Zealand reader! Isn't that counter on the right cool? Somehow now I feel like people are popping by to say hello..... Would you like some coffee? Tea? A cocktail?

So because Rabbitch will die if I don't say anything about the house and SOON, I will just say that my realtor is optomistic. He was, in fact, VERY optomistic, saying the loan docs are done and there's no problem. Isn't that what they say right before a problem?

Lala and I are slowly realizing that there's a better chance than not that we'll get to buy this house. (!!! -- that's the sound of the top of my head coming off in sheer amazement and outright disbelief.) If we DO get it (how many more days? 12 or 13?), then things happen like paint! And boxes! And movers, because god bless it, no matter how poor we are, I hate moving and movers are angelic sweaty beings whom I worship blasphemously. And being together at the end of the day. One tube of toothpaste. That kind of thing.

I've never lived with anyone else besides family. Did you know that?
.....
.....             
           those dots up there show where my brain just shut down. Done. I'm taking a bath and getting up in six hours, so that's all she wrote for tonight. But oh! I've been writing a bit! Gold stars for everyone.

Okay, this is getting weird. I'm at the cafe while my clothes spin dry, and there are three really nice sweaters in here. One white traditional Aran on a tall bespectacled guy wearing a baseball cap, one orange/black fair isle worn by a an older guy who types with his arms outstretched, and one gorgeous all-over Aran worn by a woman who looks like she writes poetry about rivers and is perhaps a nurse.

Me, I'm in a zip-up cardie I bought at Wal-Mart equivalent in New Zealand, machine made and acrylic. I love this thing. Why is it that I've made one zillion sweaters (or at least it feels like it) and I still don't have The Perfect Sweater like this one?

Oooh. I had been sitting up in the window, but I moved because sitting in the sun made me too hot. I'm glad. I'm now farther away from the whistler, the guy who doesn't know the new-age song he's whistling to along with the overhead piped-in music, and he is attempting harmony anyway. It's something I do unconsciously, too, so perhaps it bugs me more in other people.

Such a busy week! Work kicked my ass. This was my first week on the new shift: Up at 430am, out of the house by 5am, work 6am to 6pm. I now know why this particular job is less drama-fied than other dispatch agencies: There isn't that much time to gossip or create drama. There isn't that much time to do ANYTHING. I knit about six rows on a sleeve yesterday. One stitch, put it down for an incredibly busy hour. Three more stitches, put it down for another hour.

On Tuesday, it was so busy that I was a little scared. I mean, I was keeping up, but just barely. I was on one channel sending out medical calls to three cities, two channels had two working fires in two separate cities, and another channel had a haz-mat response on the freeway. All in my one ear. All freaking day, it was like that. And I'm making phone calls to utility companies and city agencies and answering 911s (although I wasn't supposed to -- it was just too busy not to). Let's put it this way: We tried to watch an hour program (okay, it was the Bachelor Paris) that someone had taped off TV. We had twelve hours to do it in. We only got about twenty minutes watched that day, in minute-long bites between calls.

I looked around at the end of the afternoon and said, "Is this normal?" If they had said, "Yeah, this is what we do everyday," I'd have freaked OUT. Instead, they looked as drained as I did and said, no, it wasn't always like this. Thank god.

Sure makes the time go, though.

Today's my only full day off to do errands, so I'm running around, getting moving boxes and supplies (tape! Must remember tape! Always forget tape), and then I'm going home and I'm going to start to pack. Really. I promise.

Let There Be Light

Just this week I have learned this about myself: I cannot change a light. Of any kind.

1. All my flashlights are dead. That is always guaranteed in my house. Nothing I can do about it -- if I change the batteries, they're still dead inside a week. Just how it goes. I need one of those wind-up kinds someday.

2. I had the mechanic fix a headlight this week when I got a tune-up. The headlight that I had been meaning to install myself had been rattling around the back of my car since at least August. (It was particularly handy to wave said bulb at the police officer when pulled over -- look! I really DO mean to fix it! Tomorrow! Promise!) I find driving at night with two headlights so COOL. I had forgotten that.

3. Lala strong-armed me yesterday into changing the burnt-out lightbulbs in my house. She was astonished to find that I have a store of them (of course! They are a staple, like flour and extra toothpaste -- that does not mean I have to change them when burned out. Silly). When we counted, I had SIX lightbulbs burned out in my tiny condo. I've been living by the light over the stove and the string of white lights in the living room for a while now. (Truth: We didn't change the two outside, but that's another day, says me.)

So it's light in here. I suppose that's good, although I can see the dust bunnies better, and that's not a main goal right now.

Went to see Janine the other day. She shows a picture of her goody-box. I show a picture of her AND her goody-box.

Could she be cuter? No, I think not.

Also:

That there behind me and my chins is a real, machine-made Sale Pending sign. And haven't heard anything about the loan from the mortgage broker. No news is good news? (We did get the Amount You'll Pay docs from the lender, which made me hyperventilate again, but only until I did the math, and after that I was only wheezing.)

And a pic for La, just because:

Help!

Quick, I'm at work and very far away from any Elizabeth Zimmerman help -- I need percentages, and I can't remember.....

What percentage of number of total body stitches do I need to:

1 - have around the top of the sleeve at widest point before I join to body to make raglan?

2 - place on stitch holders for underarms?

Anyone? Dude, thanks!

Showing Off

Okay, that was weird. I just showed my apartment to prospective renters, a couple, and it was the strangest feeling. Yes, this is my house. Poke around. Do you like it? Do you like it?

I didn't say that of course, but I found myself restraining myself. They asked about the deposit, and I told them, and then I wanted to say "but we can negotiate!" I didn't, again. It's a little early to panic, this after showing it to one couple. A couple? This place is small! I kind of wanted  to talk them out of it, and I didn't know why. You need more room, you two! Go!

Very vulnerable feeling. All of this is kinda vulnerable-ish, though. It's all good. And Lala just pulled up with bagels. Bless her.

And

Before I forget: The Whoreshoes are playing tomorrow night in SF at the Plough & Stars. I'm on call, so I'll be there if I don't get called in to work.....

Lists

I canNOT seem to get motivated. I have too much to do, and the lists are so daunting that I haven't done anything, really, in the last two days. Been catching up on sleep. Have been spinning. (I'm making a sweater out of handspun and I ran out, so I really needed to do production spinning.)

When I was sick last week, I didn't clean the house. There is still a pile of kleenex next to my side of the bed, and the stack of dirty clothes is making me crazy. I look around the house and think PACK! Get boxes! (Anyone got any boxes?) PACK, for the love of Christ!

But ohmygod, are we really moving? Will they really give us a house? How can we pack when we don't know that for sure? I hate the fear behind the word "escrow" even though I love having the ability to be in it. Well, hell. I suppose if I totally pack, and the bottom falls out, then I can unpack and know where everything is. Packing. Sigh. I love unpacking.

All this talk about packing has got me thinking about other things, and I'm cracking myself up. Ahem. (Did anyone else see Jon Stewart the other night, with his discussion of the political taint? Heh.)

Also: The wedding planning. ACKKKKK. Every time I start to get serious about doing something for the move, I open the computer and start to think about things for the wedding. Note that I didn't say I start to DO things for the wedding, because I don't. I go online, look at invitations, and then close the computer, overwhelmed.

Here are the things I know I need to do:
Order invitations
Order white lights to decorate
Order linens
Do I need to rent glassware? I'm thinking plastic, yo. My peeps are humble stock.

Oh, the list goes on. I can't think of it all right now. You who know this stuff: We have the hall, we have the band, we need the photographer and the invitations, we have the food/drink worked out if sketchy. What the hell am I forgetting that needs to be done right now, three months to go?

Oh, besides the dress. Shut up. Smart ass. I'm working on it! (The skirt is done -- yippee!.) And what about the veil? And the shoes.

MOVING! See how I work my way away from packing? Erg. It's all good, though. Really good.

Money

I was at the bank yesterday, making a deposit. After three and a half months, direct deposit has still not kicked in at the new job, so I end up carrying the paychecks around the bottom of my purse until I manage to get to the bank every once in a while.

Hey! While I'm there, I can get cash! Yay, cash!

Withdrawal from checking: $60.00

Whirrrr. The money spits out. I touch it. Whirrr. The machine SUCKS the money back in.

Neener, neener, neener. Wasn't that pretty? Wasn't that money nice? Wouldn't you have liked that burrito you could have bought if there had been money in your pocket? No! You can't have it! You're not a good enough person to have our money! We've changed our minds!

I went in the bank and told a customer service rep. She said, get this, "Oh, yeah, that machine does that."

Hello? Fix the machine? Money is important, especially when the tummy is rumbly..... It was slightly horrifying. That's what you always wonder will happen when taking out large amounts (or is it just me?), and then it did. Goodbye, sweet cash....

I just now called the bank, and they're going to credit my account, but that's still not very well cash, is it? Man, I think I'm hungry, because now all I can think about is that burrito.

On my way to work, but I just wanted to tell you: Yesterday Lala and I took a little spy-walk in the neighborhood and walked by the house. There had been an open house planned for the weekend. So, leaned up against the front gate was the realtor's open house signboard with a handlettered sign that read: "Open House Cancelled. Sale Pending."

We plotzed. That's US. WE'RE the pending.

How are you going to handle me like this until February 10th? (That's the hoped-for close of escrow date. I hope I hope I hope I hope.....)

House

Holy shit! They accepted our offer. Did I tell you? No, I didn't. We found aNOTHER perfect house (and Lala, who has grand, mighty big trust in me is taking my word for this, since she couldn't make the viewing due to work), and made an offer, and they accepted it. It WAS on Friday the 13th, which for my family is a very lucky, good day, and the door was opened for me by Davis, my realtor's brother -- he opened the door of my condo for me the first time, and I felt the same way then, that I would live there and be happy there. It felt right. Like home.

Of course, this means that it has to make it through escrow. Ack. Yeah. And I couldn't sleep last night, convinced that we weren't going to be able to afford it. (We did the math in the morning and we can, if we drink cheap beer and eat beans.)

But it's sweet and it's yellow and it has three bedrooms (yay!) and a fireplace and a yard and a creek and a glassed-in front porch. If someone took a marker to the Thomas Guide and drew a line that delineated the border between the golf links and the drug dealers, we would land RIGHT on that line. It's spittin' distance to richey-rich, but a block up is a kinda sketchy. The street itself is lovely, a culdesac of sweet little well-maintained homes with nice cars in front. No bars on the windows. And did I mention that it's right at the top of our price range? Yeah? I did? Tappitty tappity tappity tap, drum my nervous fingers on anything within reach.

Well, as Celia and Nancy said today at the knit-out, that's the way it's supposed to be. We're SUPPOSED to be terrified. That's natural. Do you have ANY idea how much better that made me feel? A lot. A whole hell of a lot. Seriously. Can you say that to me a bunch more? The mortgage always gets paid, right? The cell phone bill? Sure, let's hope so. But the mortgage will get paid. Both mortgages, since I'm going to keep the condo and rent it out.

ACK!!!!!!!!!

The stress level just shot up again. Nancy said, to that bit, "That's the smartest thing you can do. Of all the regrets we hear, isn't the most common one that we hear is that they sold that piece of property they should have held onto, years ago....."

God bless her. And all the knit-out-ists that showed up today. How fun it was! A ton of people showed up, more than I ever expected, and we basically took the cafe over. At one point one lone woman had been surrounded by people with pointy needles. At least she was a new knitter, so she didn't mind too much. One woman, while ordering coffee, remarked to one of our group, "Is EVERYONE knitting here?" The cafe was FULL of knitters. Happiness. A gal named Jennifer even came up to us near the end and said, "Hey, I'm knitting too, can I join you?" She didn't know about the gathering, but she was a perfect fit, one of several librarians, knowing people in common with our group. I admired her for doing that.

Here are Celia and Nancy, who might have saved my sanity:

Me with Maia:

    See? I am deranged.

    The Jeni Group

Many more fabulous people were there, and I'm so bad at remembering things and sites, and I'll totally screw them up, so I won't even try. But I do remember that Cordelia has a new site, so go tell her hello!

And cross your fingers with us for a smooth escrow, wouldja? It would mean a lot....

Yes!

The Knit-Out is still on! I've been in bed for five days -- the cooties are good and old and you won't catch anything, and I've GOT to get out of the house. (Really, I'm feeling better. Thanks for all the well-wishes. It seems to be going around, huh? Myrrh and elderberry next time, I swear I'll remember.....)

Saturday (tomorrow) the 14th, Temescal Cafe near Article Pract on Telegraph, Oakland, 1pm Be there!

Dude. Four days down with this crap. The doc said bronchitis, but honestly? While I'm terribly prone to lung things, I think this was just a bad flu. The lungs have cleared somewhat, which they wouldn't have done with the big B, and the head has stuffed up more. Stupid fever's been the worst part, since fever makes me cry when someone drops a spoon. Lala's been a saint.
Rachael: Will you put the toilet paper in the bathroom?
Lala: Yes, but can it wait until I unpack your groceries in the kitchen? [The groceries she lovingly and kindly brought to her sick girl.]
Rachael: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! Hic. Sniff.  WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH.

She's a good sport, she is. Then she made terrific pasta and didn't mind when I cried into it. I hate being sick.

Also: Sudafed makes me insane. Just so you know. I was up all night on a super-bad ephedrine trip, worried about absolutely everything. Frantic. Miserable. It's a good thing I'm not a big worrier, because it turns out that a) I'm good at it (when on drugs) and b) it blows. Sudafed is worth taking if you're on your second box of kleenex in five waking hours, but that's about it for me. I'm back down to a box of tissues a day today, and that's good enough for me. No Sudafed, no Dayquil, no dreams when I finally fall asleep that I'm a waitress at Denny's and have to serve beer to all the boys I broke up with while in college.

Enough. I'm tired of typing, and I'm behind in email, so forgive me. I have to go watch more old episodes of the Gilmore Girls now. That's better than Sudafed. They do all the frenetic fretting for me.

    Miss Idaho, looking for love.

PS - My sister Christy just called, and she's bringing me an enchilada for dinner! Yay! Life can go on! I'm about vanilla-wafered out.

And Yes.

Now that I've been outed by both the Lala and the Feral, I'll admit it -- I did the unthinkable this weekend.

I bought a knitting machine.

This was after taking Nancy Robert's all-day knitting/dyeing class. Oh, my god, was that fun. You should do it. She taught us machine knitting AND dyeing, all in one day. Can you imagine?

And a knitting machine followed me home. You should have seen how it cried. I had to. Sadly, I've been too sick to even open the box yet, and that's very unlike me, but I have something to look forward to over the weekend.

Blech

Sick with bronchitis. I hate being sick, and I hate lung stuff (although I hate strep throat more, I think). Staying in bed/on couch for the next 24 hours and hopefully I'll burn it out. Lala's on her way over to bring me tea and crackers, so I'll feel better soon. The candle only burns at both ends for a while and then the flame meets in the middle and burns the person who's holding it, the person who starts to wonder why the hell am I even holding a candle that burns from both ends when lighting from Ikea is so remarkably inexpensive?

Off to cough. Get some more sleep, people. Yeah, that means you, too. Nasty bugs going around....

Houses

So here were the housing options presented to us today in our realty crawl (this is after driving around together yesterday, looking at approximately one million listed houses, only to find out they're almost ALL already in escrow, even though they show as active in the listing):

61st: Oh, my god! The perfect house! (Shut up. Yes, again.) It’s yellow! It’s in a great neighborhood, has a crawl space that could be turned into something COOL, like a painting studio or a place to put yarn, just imagine, and it has three bedrooms, meaning one for each of us and one to share, and it has built-ins and a fireplace, and a huge yard, and it’s a great location, and it’s a great price, and it’s everything we want.

We're so writing an offer on this one. The market's dropped. The owner's dropped his price thirty thousand dollars from his original asking price last month.

Then we hear from the owner: He doesn’t want to sell for the reduced price that his realtor placed on it, and we can’t afford the inflated price, so he’s just going to hold on to it and rent it out.

Oh, the sadness. We send in the offer anyway, and hope for the best. There’s still the chance that he’ll review the offer and grant us our crazy-pants wish, and we hope for that. Hoping....

57th: From the outside, adorable. Or, as I like to say, ah-door-ablay. Low peak and red garage door, great street. A sweet pink cottage. Love it. Older guy on the front porch smoking, looking with little interest at us as we drive by at one mile-per-hour. I ask my realtor about it, and she says that per the owner, we must write the offer on this fixer-upper, tilted roof and all, SIGHT-UNSEEN. No getting into the house for a lookee-loo, to see what the bedrooms look like or whether there’s a toilet in the bathroom or not, until the offer is accepted. Then we can go in and look around and have an inspection.

??

We write an offer anyway. ‘Cause we’re like that. Crazy. Reckless.

Yikes.

63rd: I know, location, location, location. So we’re not sure about this location. There is a car with tags six years expired parked in front of us. But we look, and the house is wonderful, in that “fancy” way. You know, granite countertop/stainless steel appliance way. Lovely, new, burnished hardwood floors. New paint (red and orange, loved it). Best part: the converted garage in the backyard, with a full kitchen, bath, living room and bedroom. Can we say, hello, Lala’s practice space? Damn. That would be cool. The dogs running between houses, us sharing a kitchen and a bedroom, but able to get our own space, too. That’s damn attractive.

We drive the area to see if we can feel it out. Not too bad! Only yelled at once, and it’s more like the complimentary yelling. Lala finds a cop, and I get out and talk to him, having no fear of cops, even when they’re dealing with someone handcuffed in the back of their car.

“Hey, I’m local 911. Thinking of buying here. Whatcha think?”
Wince.
“What about two girls living together here in this neighborhood?”
More than a wince, now I’m getting a shake of the head. “No. Not for you two. Rough neighborhood.”

I give him the numbers on the street.

“Nope,” he says, “two blocks from Avenal? That’s a huge drug deal corner. Really. Go somewhere else.”

He’s a young guy, too. The young cops are the tough ones, the dumb ones, the ones who refuse to see a threat on any corner, so when he tells me that, I listen.

We write the offer anyway, thinking that a compound like that, basically two houses on the same lot, is a very good idea for two very independent people. However, if it turns INTO a compound, that would be bad.

We get a call later that night, that they’ve accepted our offer, contingent on the provision that we keep the tenant in the garage apartment. Hell, no! Zap. At least we don’t have worry about the neighborhood.

Sigh. It's harder this time, wanted the most for our limited resources. Fun, yes, and house or no house, Lala's my girl.

Our house is out there. We just have to find it. That's it.

Knit-Out!

Just a reminder:

Saturday, January 14th, 1pm at the Temescal Cafe, 4920 Telegraph, Oakland.

I have more to tell and show you (SOCKS!) but I'm running out now to meet Lala for dinner and then a movie at the best theater in Oakland, the Parkway, so I'll catch up with ya later. Mwah!

PS - I think it was a rat, driven up from the sewers by the rain. Ew. Is that better, or worse?

I'm So Over Cats Today

I opened the door to my kitchen in the dark when I got home this morning. The light switch is annoyingly placed across the room, so I have to walk through the kitchen in the dim light from the outside fixture in order to see. I could just see the forms of four catnip mice on the kitchen floor. I've been pleased recently that they're playing so much with the mice, throwing them all over the house.

I flipped the kitchen light on.

Three catnip mice were on the floor. And one mouse with beady red glaring dead eyes, stopped in death and probably terror.

Ew. Ew ew ew. We had just been talking at work about how mice can die of fear, and this one wasn't mangled or eaten (weird, but thank god), just frozen on the floor.

What I hate is that foot nudge you have to do. Will it move? Sure its eyes are open, but is it playing possum? When I use the toilet paper (WILL I NEVER REMEMBER TO BUY PAPER TOWELS?) to pick it up by its tail, will it wake up and double up on itself to bite me viciously in the wrist? Of course it won't. In rigor mortis, there's a pretty good chance it's permanently dead. But the fear is there.

It's the first mouse. Hopefully the last mouse. Cats are good for lots of things, this being one of their best features. But ew.

Threw it out. Ew. Ew ew ew. Took out the trash. Then Digit, in his excitement, threw up all over the kitchen floor (not on the rug, yay!). WILL I NEVER REMEMBER TO BUY PAPER TOWELS?? Toilet-damn-paper SO doesn't work the same way.

Ew.

But the kits were nice and warm to sleep with today. There's that.

New Year’s Eve found us driving up the coast to Bolinas, a small beach town north of Stinson Beach. It’s the town that the state of California has given up signposting – every time they’d put up the green direction signs, residents of the town would go out to Highway One and take them down. It has no stoplights, lots of dogs, two restaurants, and one saloon called Smileys. The saloon, and by proxy, the town, has embraced the Whoreshoes as their own personal band, and the girls are celebrities when they come to town. It’s kind of nice to be a celebrity by association, actually. Once the main restaurant re-opened late at night, just to feed the band and friends free quesadillas and root-beer floats.

I was a little worried about going up – you might have seen on the news the flooding we’re having in this part of the world. There are three roads that lead to Bolinas. Two of them were having flooding problems, and we’d never taken the third. But Lala was driving, and we made it out just fine, her reliable car fording the small rivers running across the twisty back roads.

There was no power anywhere on that part of the coast. It was quiet when we pulled into town. The one grocery store sold me a pack of emergency cookies by candlelight.

The saloon, however, was the one place in town with a generator. So when I walked the dogs down the pitch-black road toward the water, this is what I saw when I came back.

The saloon is also the hotel, so I had electricity to run the curling iron, thank god.

Anyone know what's on the back of my jacket? Present from sister Bethany, and I'll get a better photo later this week.....

We ate dinner before the show, as we always do, at the restaurant across the way from the saloon. What’s it called? The Coast Café? Something forgettable like that, but it’s a delightful place. The owner lived in Thailand for seven years, so he's used to running on propane, and they were offering their full fare minus deep-fried products, all served by candlelight. We walked in to hear tinny music, and Lala was the first to notice that a real live Victrola propped on a front table was making the sound.

I had a lovely catfish sandwich. We were merry. We were actually shushed by another diner, but Kirk was in the middle of telling us about catching a mahi-mahi in the lobby of a Hawaiian hotel last week after bribing the hotel lobby security guard (thirty-four pounder! Dude!), so we probably deserved shushing.

The show was great. The had an opener called KemoSabe, a great boy-band who rocked out, hill-rockabilly style. The girls put on a great show. Of course. They always do.

    Being a rockstar is rough.

    Nate, great knitted beer-cozy maker.

    The objectification dance. Don't ask.

Then, when we woke up to another incoming storm on the morning of the New Year, I said to Lala, "Hey. The holidays are over."
She said, "Thank god. I might throw a party to celebrate."