A Stroke of Genius

It's official, I'm pretty amazing. Just in case you were in doubt before. So as you may recall, I was/am knitting these socks for Andrea (right now she's reading this, shaking her head saying "oh geez, what now Jessie? I'm never gonna see these things, am I?) but I didn't really like them. I showed them to her over Thanksgiving and she said she thought they were fine and she looked forward to wearing them. I continued on with the knitting of them, but the longer the cuff got, the more awkward and cumbersom it became and the less I liked even looking at it, let alone working on it. Then today I had a stroke of genius (hence the title). The reason I wasn't a fan was because it was just too much. Too busy, too eh. So I thought to myself, simplify! I came up with this:

One full round of the Bamboo Stitch, and then a spiral of it up the rest of the cuff. One spiral from the front of the sock, and one from the back. Anyway, it might be hard to get the general idea since there's only half of one side finished, but I have high hopes. Let me just tell you, the picture in my head is pretty great.

The other thing I did today was to make myself a hat. Remember the hat that Grace made? Well, I completely fell in love with the yarn (which I think I talked about a couple days ago...but I'm too lazy to go back and check) so I bought several hanks, and this one is the hat I made for myself. My favorite color combo, brown and light blue (the colors actually look better in real life, but you know, cameras, lighting, etc). I should have taken into account the fact that my head is enormous and added a few stitches to it, but it works as long as I don't need for my hair to look great or anything.

My photography skills are exemplary. :)

In Which I Even Amaze Myself

Several things about yesterday that remind me just how cool I really am:

1. I walked to the post office to mail Grace's mittens, and I didn't bother changing out of my heels because I figured, I can walk, no problem (internal alarm should have gone off right there). Well, I didn't quite take into account the icy slush that was everywhere because Boston doesn't really believe in clearing sidewalks so they're not death traps. I managed not to fall, but I came pretty close at least 3 times. The icy slush was probably not helped by the fact that I'm very clumsy in general and I should always know better than to go outside in scary heels when the weather is not good.

2. I finally got to the post office (a block away), went to mail the mittens and realized that I didn't have Grace's address with me. And I couldn't get her on the phone. So really I went all that way for nothing. It's a good thing I was sending my Christmas cards and some netflix movies back, although there's a mailbox right outside my building that would have worked just fine. Obviously, I still haven't mailed the mittens.

3. On the way back from the post office I stopped to grab lunch for my boss and myself (me? I think it's myself... I know my mom will correct me if I'm wrong) at Au Bon Pain and they have all these little stacked packages of mixed nuts and lemon drops and the like at the cash register. While I was paying I managed to knock not one, not two, but three packages of mixed nuts to the floor. I'm pretty sure the cash register lady thinks I'm a huge freak. She's probably not wrong. :)

4. Back at the office, one of my coworkers tried to cram 25 pages into the electric hole punch, THEN read the note saying to only punch 10 pages at a time. By then he couldn't get the pages back out so I tried to help him. He held down the machine while I pulled on the paper. I pulled and pulled and finally pulled so hard that the paper came out at such a speed that I accidentally punched myself in the face. Hard. I don't have a bruise or anything (thank goodness) but I do have a nice little red spot on my cheek (it's still there, this happened around 4 yesterday).

5. Getting off the bus later that night, walking down my street (this time I did have my sneakers on) and almost fell on my bottom AGAIN. I caught myself, but man! I should not be allowed outside in bad weather. It's just not safe!

I'm almost afraid for today...

Holy crap it's December

I feel like I took a nap for a minute, woke up and it's December. I'm still waiting for the start of summer! This is a problem. It's more of a problem because Amy's wedding is right around the corner, Christmas will be hot on its heels and the suddenly BAM! it'll be 2008. I'm so unprepared. I am looking forward to the change in year, however. I prefer even numbered years to odd numbered. I pretty much prefer even numbered everything to odd numbered anything. I can't really explain it, I just feel more balanced. I have no idea what to do about Christmas presents and I'm pretty confident that I'll totally forget about them until like the 22nd and then it'll be panic button time (that's what happens every year). I start out in January telling myself that when I see something that I think someone I know would really love, I'll buy it and then hold onto it for their birthday or Christmas or whatever. I think this is a brilliant idea in theory, but the execution is still pretty elusive. Oh well, I guess it's not really supposed to be about the presents, is it? I think I'm all set for Amy's wedding, I'm just excited and nervous (weddings always make me nervous, I'm not sure why. I become a ball of anxiety until the actual wedding has taken place and it's picture time. And it's not like I have any reason for this, I've never been married. Figure that one out).

I had a jam packed weekend of excitement. OK, maybe not, but keep in mind it doesn't take a lot to keep me entertained. On Saturday Sacha called and said that he had just purchased Rock Band for XBox 360 and would I like to come over and play it? Rock Band (for those of you who may not know) is a video game that comes with a guitar, a drum set and a microphone. You can have a person playing each instrument (or singing) and then you play actual rock songs and get scored on accuracy. It's incredibly fun and highly addictive. We played it for 12 hours. No, I'm not exagerrating. When I went to sleep on Saturday night I was dreaming of little Rock Band notes running through my head. I can't wait to play it again. :) It's a very good thing that I don't have Sacha's entertainment system because I'm pretty sure nothing would ever get done around my house (well, even less than what gets done now). Unfortunately for the boys, they decided to give me the microphone at one point and that was pretty much a disaster. I love to sing, but I have a tragically horrible voice (anyone who has seen me do karaoke can attest to this). It doesn't really bother me, but they had to listen to me for like 3 hours. They might develop an inner ear problem, but I did warn them so I refuse any responsibilty for it.

Sunday I just watched movies and knit a pair of mittens for Grace. I think I'm coming down with a cold (thanks, Sam) and my plan had been to spend my whole weekend in bed letting my immune system do its thing (alas, the Rock Band), so Sunday that's pretty much what I tried to do. I believe I watched 3 and a half movies (the half was South Pacific, that's one of those movies I only watch up to a certain point and then I imagine the ending I would have preferred in my head. I have several movies I do that with). One of the movies I watched was Waitress which I had from Netflix, that movie was very excellent. I definitely recommend it! It made me want to eat what I believe was the Bad Baby Pie... rent the movie and find out what I mean. I'm seriously considering looking for a recipe. Which would lead to cooking. Whoa.

Anyway, about the mittens. I've never actually made mittens before, but I figured I can read and follow directions (mostly) so I could probably figure it out. I found a pattern online somewhere for bulky mittens (because I was knitting them out of Malabrigo Chunky, which I'm having a little love affair with at the moment) and read it and proceeded to think that it was a little bit silly so I used it as more of a reference guide to my own pattern. The finished result is this:

Which I hope will fit the intended recipient, despite a slight disagreement between us on the size of her hands. She thinks she has these giant beastie hands and I think she has hands quite similar to mine, just a little bit longer (because not everyone was "blessed" with short, stubby fingers like me) and probably narrower. So I made some mittens that are just a little bit too long for me and I imagine they should fit her. Time will tell, I have to mail them out today so I probably won't know the actual sizing until the end of the week.

On a completely unrelated topic, in an effort to avoid rush hour on the T Friday night I decided to go check out Enchanted right after work at the theater a block away. I. Loved. It. It was so cute and fun and it's one of those that I could just watch over and over. I wouldn't have thought this was possible, but Patrick Dempsey's cuteness factor went up even further after watching it. That's tough to do.

Finally, this weekend brought with it the return of my knitting notebook so I can finally finish the projects that I had already started. I left it at Toni's a few weeks ago and I feel like I've been without my security blanket. But all is right with the world now!

OK, I think I'm settling on this one. Do you like it?

Fear not, you're in the right place! i changed the template because I was reading through and the combination of small white print on dark blue background was giving me a headache. This one is ok for now, but it's entirely possible that it'll change again in the near future....

grab your popcorn...

I'm pretty sure I can actually feel my intelligence seeping out through my ears today. I have a headache that seems to be unpacking some rather large furniture inside my brain as though it were going to stay for a very long time, which is slowly causing me to forget how to read and to lose my ability to focus. Stupid Tuesday.

Clearly, I'm in a fabulous mood and therefore thought I should for sure post something in order to spread my cheer to the rest of the world. :)

Actually, I was thinking I hadn't done a movie post in quite some time, and that's simply tragic. Here are some thoughts on my most recently watched flicks, going backward:

The Prestige which I currently have from netflix. I'm about a 50% fan of Christian Bale. I like Batman Begins and Reign of Fire a whole lot, but I'm not so into Equilibrium and The Machinist. I haven't seen American Psycho all the way through so I'll reserve judgment on that one (and I know there are a bunch of others but take my word for it that I only like him about half the time). Hugh Jackman is ok, although I prefer for him to stick to playing a romantic lead or a comic book hero. Scarlett Johannsen keeps making weird movies where her part isn't that great/likeable/interesting and I don't really get that (Match Point, anyone? No? Take my word for it, it's not a very good movie) Anyway, I heard this was a good flick, I like magic, two leading men who are easy on the eyes, figured I'd give it a shot. I watched this movie two days ago and I'm still pretty undecided about it. I'm also pretty sure I never want to go to a magic show as long as I live. It left me with a very unsatisfied feeling, which is too bad. I feel like I figured out the end pretty close to the beginning and then I was just biding time until they got around to telling me. See The Illusionist instead, it came out about the same time, got way less press and I think it's way better. Plus, it's got Edward Norton who is 100% cool all of the time and Jessica Biel whose name is Jessica and therefore must be ok.

The Incredibles, which I own. I love this movie. I've probably seen it 20+ times and I still love it. That's pretty much it on that one, I watched it Sunday during my Day of Pajamas and remembered how much I like it.

Live Free or Die Hard. Now, I saw this movie the day it came out in the theater, because it's a Die Hard movie and Bruce Willis is the star. These two things are a guaranteed recipe for me to like a movie. And yea, I know it's completely unrealistic and over half the things that happened in it are probably not even remotely possible within the laws of physics and the universe and whatever. I'll tell you right now though, it doesn't even matter. You give me a movie where Bruce is saving the world and being a carefree smartass while he does it and I'm happy. I was checking out amazon while I was at my parents' and saw that it was being released the Tuesday before Thanksgiving so I immediately purchased it and got overnight shipping so that it would be there in time to watch on Thursday. I watched it Thursday night with my brothers and my dad, and we'll just say that one of them sucked the fun out of it by refusing to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the ride. In fact, it sucked the fun out so much that I had to watch the movie again on Saturday when I got home. And guess what? I still love it. This one had the added bonus of Justin Long playing a nerdy computer genius, and I do love nerdy men. Moving along....

National Treasure. Let me preface this by telling you that outside of Moonstruck I really REALLY don't like Nicolas Cage. I think he's the king of the over-actors and he's pretty creepy in real life. That being said, I love love love this movie. It's another one of those movies that I could watch over and over again. Any movie that combines history with adventure and romance and good vs. evil, etc is a good movie. I can't wait for the sequel to come out, and here's the trick I've learned for sequels. Pretend as if the first movie was never made, pretend as though this movie has nothing to live up to and just hope that it can keep you entertained for a couple of hours. Do that and if it's still disappointing, you know it was a terrible, terrible movie and you just wasted 2 hours and $10 that you'll never get back (if you're seeing it in the theater).

Beowulf. Let me start out by telling you that no matter what forms of trickery your little brother uses to get you to go to a 3D IMAX movie the day after your friend's bachelorette party when you're completely hungover, IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA. The form of trickery my little brother employed was very clever. He sent me a text message and the only things I paid attention to were "beowulf" and "1:30". I had already agreed to see the movie, and it was only later that I realized the full message said "...seeing beowulf 3D at 1:30 if you are interested." But by then it was too late. I was committed. To watching an animated action movie three stories high in 3 dimensions. I did manage to make it through the movie without fainting or vomiting (I'm not sure how) but I did try to swipe the things coming at me from the screen out of my way because they were way too close. There was a lot going on there. My overall impression was that it was kind of a silly movie, I have a hard time taking animated characters that seriously and I was pretty irritated that Robin Wright Penn didn't actually look like Robin Wright Penn until the end of the movie. I'm serious, that almost completely ruined it. I will say that visually it was pretty amazing and if you're going to see it, ABSOLUTELY see it in 3D IMAX, because otherwise it would be pretty disappointing.

Next I really want to see Enchanted, which Grace saw over Thanksgiving and hated, so that pretty much tells me that I'll like it. Grace and I have completely opposite taste in movies. We always end up completely surprised when we go to a movie and both have a good time. Anyway, if this writer's strike goes on for much longer, I'm pretty sure I'll get a chance to get caught up on all the movies I'm missing in the theater because of the television season.

home again, home again...

Phew! What a trip! It was lots of good food, family, friends, driving, catching up, a little partying and even a couple of minutes to relax! I was in desperate need of a vacation prior to leaving and as my boss described it, I pretty much skipped out of the office last Friday. I made it into Detroit with no trouble and off we went.


Saturday was Amy's bachelorette party, and it was all the things a bachelorette party should be. It was wild and crazy and fun and outrageous and a completely great way to send Amy off from her life as a single gal. Two particular things of note from the evening: 1, it is extremely unnerving to be out at a bachelorette party with your crazy friends (trust me, we're crazy) and run into your 21 year old little brother at the bar with his friends. It was something I was just not prepared for. I mean, intellectually I know he's 21 but I hadn't seen him at the bar before and especially not some random bar in downtown Lansing that I'd never heard of before. 2, my mom is a trooper. I had asked her a few days before if she minded picking me up at the Lansing mall at 1am after the festivities because that's where the limo was dropping everyone off and I would most definitely not be in any kind of shape to drive. When she got there to pick me and the bachelorette up (Amy was staying with us) she even went so far as to take us through the drive through at Taco Bell at 1 in the morning. I don't know anyone else's mom who would pick up their intoxicated daughter and her intoxicated friend and take them to the drive through after the bar. Thanks, Mom, you're the best!


Much of the rest of my week was spent driving all over the state to see everyone I haven't seen in the last year...dinner with Lauren and her family, a meeting with the knitters, some quality time with Grace, a visit with Andrea and Tom, a mini reunion with my college roommates in Saginaw, Thanksgiving with the fam, lunch with Corene and Dan, lunch with Matt, some quality bar time with Cessa and some other cats from high school, the list keeps going. As I said, it was a busy week.


I flew back to the East Coast on Saturday, which was nice because it gave me all of Sunday to rest up and get ready to hit the grind first thing Monday morning. I was sitting in Metro airport (it seems like I spend a lot of time there these days...) and they announced that my flight had been oversold and they were looking for 8 volunteers to give up their tickets and take a flight the next morning, and that the airline would pay for overnight accomodations, food and give a free domestic roundtrip ticket. I thought that sounded like a pretty good deal and there was no pressing reason for me to come back Saturday as opposed to Sunday and I could always use a free ticket, so I volunteered. They told me to stand by and they'd let me know if they had to use all the tickets that were given up. In the end I did get on my original flight because they didn't need my ticket, but (I suspect) because I was the first person to volunteer they did upgrade me to first class. I rode first class once before and after that experience I said that coach is for suckers if you have the money, but let me tell you how much nicer it is to sit in first class when it's free. It was a good flight, I had a nice cab driver who didn't give me any attitude about having to drive to Winthrop (they hate it, because it's only like a $20 fare with tip as opposed to like $30 or $40 if they're going into the city...it drives me crazy when they complain about it) and I slept like a rock when I got home. There's something so comforting about being in your own bed after a long time away.



And now a little week in review picture show:

It's sort of hard to tell, but this is actually a picture of me and Amy, it's toward the end of the evening and I'm pretty sure she was trying to smother me. :) You can only see my arm in the picture, but this should give you a pretty good idea of the tone of the evening.

Next up is the sock that I'm making for Andrea (well, the first of two, considering that Andrea does have two feet and would probably like a matching set as opposed to the bold fashion statement of one socked foot and one bare foot. I asked her to try it on just to make sure it fit and she said, "oh it's perfect! It's almost like you knew the exact dimensions of my foot!" I let her know that it turns out I do have the exact measurements of her foot, taken at some point a few years ago that neither of us remembers. Needless to say, she's pretty excited to get custom made socks. But then, who wouldn't be? Another note from my visit with Andrea and Tom. We went for dinner at the Outback and I was wearing these super cute shoes that my mom ended up giving me which I do not believe are excessively slippery but they keep the floors so shiny and slick in there that I definitely bit it walking to the table. No one from the resaurant saw it and I didn't exactly want to call attention to the fact that I appear to need walking lessons so I just got back up and tried to play it off. I think that bodes well for next month when I'll spend a day wearing a floor length bridesmaid dress with a train, don't you?

Next up is Grace, who decided that she wanted to make herself a new hat while back in Michigan for the weekend (she made one a couple of years ago when we were roommates) but she's a little gunshy about starting and ending it so I gave a little assistance in that department. The middle, however, is all her. Pretty nice, eh?

Next up is my roommate reunion in Saginaw, this is 4 out of the 6 of us who lived together. We're pretty cute. :)

I think that's about it as far as pictures go and I know there are about a million more stories I could tell but let's be honest, this is pretty long already. I'll leave you with some very good advice that came in my fortune cookie this evening:

"Clear your mental, emotional and psychic space and you'll see."

It's a little unclear as to what, exactly, you'll see, but since it comes in a fortune cookie I imagine it's pretty great. Thanks for a great trip, mitten state!!

mitten state, here I come!

Well, I'm all packed and ready to go, lugged my ridiculously heavy suitcase into work with me so that I can head straight to the airport at 5 for my 7:30 flight...that was not the most exciting part of my morning. It's actually kind of disgusting how much stuff I had to pack for this trip. But then I tell myself 8 days is a long time and a girl likes to have options. I did limit myself to 4 and a half pairs of shoes (which was not easy, I can tell you). The half pair is my flip flops. I really don't feel like you can count those as an entire pair of shoes. They're like glorified slippers that you wear in public.

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There's a small group of regulars that always gets off at my bus stop in the evenings and we walk down the street together. It's a fairly common occurence as the days get colder that one of them will mention the fact that I'm still wearing my flip flops. I always explain that I will be wearing them until the snow on the ground makes it impossible (or at least uncomfortable). A few days ago we were walking and one of the ladies said to me, "you know, I find it comforting that you're still wearing your flip flops. Every day that I see you wearing them it makes me feel like it's not that cold, and I can handle it just a little bit better." See that? Wearing flip flops, healing the world one step at a time.

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Anyway, it's pretty freezing here today, and EXTREMELY windy, so I hope it's a little better than this out yonder at my destination. Even if it's cold, I've never felt wind in Michigan like what I get coming off the ocean while I'm standing at the bus stop in the morning.

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So anyway, farewell to Mass for the next week and "yes, Michigan!" to all y'all back home.

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Looking forward to some great lakes, great times. :)

not the most exciting post ever

I do love a 4 day weekend. I went to Rochester, NY this weekend for Toni's thesis show, which was completely amazing. I'm going to do a little PR here, go check out her website and see how talented she is! http://www.tonipepe.com/ .

Rochester's about a 6 hour drive from the Boston area, but my boss let me have Friday off so we drove over during the day so we could make it to her show which started at 4pm, then we had the whole weekend to relax and party it up a bit in celebration of her accomplishment. We headed back yesterday and today is a holiday for all state buildings and because I work in a state building (albeit for a private company) I got a holiday! So I got to have a little trip and I still get to have a little weekend to accomplish all the things I didn't do because I was gone all weekend (and all of last weekend, so I'm about two weeks behind). Plus, it's probably time for me to start thinking about getting ready to leave for Michigan this coming weekend. It's a whirlwind of travels and adventures this month!!

I did (shockingly) manage to finish the socks I made for Toni in time to give them to her this weekend (I mean, I was weaving in ends in the car on the way there, but that's fine. I always put off weaving in ends until the last minute. They ended up being a birthday/congratulations gift because I was too far behind the 8 ball to come up with separate gifts. I think she liked them, she immediately put them on and then wore them all weekend! Here's a photo of her modeling them.

I'm very happy to be back home and have a day to get my act together, 6 hours is a long time in a car, and when you're forced against your will to listen to Howard Stern it tends to feel more like an eternity. Add to that a tendency to get car sick and by the time I got back here yesterday I probably looked like a crazy woman with a twitch about ready to snap. Luckily I have recovered from being on the edge of sanity and for the rest of today I will be watching movies, cleaning my apartment, waiting for my groceries to be delivered (best. idea. ever.) and doing a little work.

I will be in Michigan 4 days from today!

It's Wednesday slash Thursday!

I know that it's Wednesday. But it FEELS like Thursday. And not in that, "yay it's Thursday-no wait it's Wednesday, crap there goes my good mood sort of way." In the "I have Friday off and Monday is a holiday so tomorrow is my 'Friday' with 4 days before I have to return to real life!" kind of way. In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a whole lot of respect for "real life" as they call it. I think it's pretty completely overrated in every way and I'm about ready to be done with it, thankyouverymuch. Is it really bad that I've been looking forward to retirement since the minute I graduated college? I'm not looking forward to being all aged and everything (not that there's anything wrong with being aged, I'm just saying I don't want to skip all the in between parts), I'm just done with being a productive member of society, working the daily grind, paying bills, paying taxes, not getting to stay up late during the work week, waking up early every day, etc. It doesn't really hold much interest for me. And while not all of that will go away with retirement, the pieces that will hang around will be ok I think.

I digress.

With no small amount of time in the car last weekend, more in the car this weekend, and some flights and such when I go to Michigan for Thanksgiving in a week and a half (!!) I'm getting lots of knitting time in (plus during the week I'm basically a hermit because I'm afraid that my tv will be lonely without me). I'm working on the Lorna's Laces socks right now, but they might be on their way to time out again because I don't like the second pattern I've chosen for the cuff. I mean, I could just knit a straight sock and I'm sure it would be fine and Andrea wouldn't disown me as her friend or anything. But I mean, come ON. Normal, man that's so boring (that was me gratuitously stealing lines from Encino Man). Anyway, I figure if push comes to shove they can sit on the back burner for a minute while I work on some other things (like, oh, seaming a baby blanket? What? What baby blanket that still isn't seemed two and a half weeks later? I don't know what you're talking about), start some new things (2-3 other pairs of socks), etc. And you know what? I will be seeing Andrea in just two short weeks, so wouldn't it be totally worthwhile to make her try on the socks (sock) up to the point they (it) are (is) now to make sure they (it) even fit(s) before I go any further? Yes, that's very sensible. Stop it. I know you're talking to yourself about my serious lack of attention span right now (well, maybe you don't actually talk to yourself. I do). But I ask you, is it really fair to knit this lovely yarn into something for my lovely friend if I'm not terribly thrilled with how it's coming out? No, no it's not. It's not fair to the friend, the yarn, the lovely people who made the yarn, the needles, the...... ok. I get it. I'm rationalizing like it's my job. I'm just waiting for inspiration to strike.

Here are my dilemmas in no particular order. One, as you can see from these pictures is the pattern on the cuff. I'm just not crazy about it. However, I know that Andrea reads this blog so if she happens to like it, I don't have a problem with continuing on. But the question I find myself asking is, if she's going to hate it and thank me awkwardly when I give them to her and proceed to never wear them because they're scary and hideous, why would I want to waste my time? She should get some input, don't you agree??

Second, there are all the other projects that still need finishing or are waiting in the wings.

Third, look what just came today:

Another bunch of sock yarn and another set of needles with which to knit sock yarn. What is a girl to do? Also, FYI packing for Michigan just became a nightmare as far as deciding what to take and what (if anything) to leave behind knitting wise. I am out of control. You'd never guess that before September I didn't even pick up a pair of needles for pretty close to 8 months, would you?

back to reality

"Oh hey Jessie, how was your weekend?"

Well, I'm glad you asked! My weekend was super fun and more than a little bit crazy. Friday I got out of work and happily it took less than two hours to get home (which is what happened the Friday before when the blue line broke and it took over an hour for replacement shuttle buses to show up) and while on the way to dinner with Sacha he asked me if I wanted to go to New York City on Saturday. I started thinking about it and couldn't come up with a good reason not to, so I said sure why not? We talked Suneil into the plan and first thing Saturday morning, off we went!

Now, I had never been to NY before, despite having lived just 4 hours north of it for over a year. Benny and Courtney both live in NY (they're friends from high school) so it was a perfect chance to get to spend some time with them!

We got into the city at around 1 in the afternoon and did the touristy thing for awhile, since I hadn't ever been there before and those boys are regular visitors. We had lunch at the Carnegie Deli where they serve the biggest sandwiches I've ever seen. Piled at least 6 inches high with meat. I didn't even get through half of it, but it was delicious! Of course, we did have to save room for cheesecake, which I've been hearing about for years. "oh my gosh Jessie, you have to go to Carnegie Deli in New York and you have to get the cheesecake because it is the best cheesecake in the world." Well, I can now tell you with absolute certainty that they were absolutely right. This cheesecake was magical, magnificent and glorious. It completely silenced me, which you know is quite a feat. As an idea this is a picture of the dessert window outside the deli...so delicious.

After we ate, we went on a little walking tour, to Times Square, past Madame Toussaud's (in theory wax statues are a really cool idea, but in reality up close they're unbelievably creepy), down to Ground Zero, over to Battery Park to check out the Statue of Liberty, and then back to the hotel for a party nap before heading to dinner and out for the evening.

For dinner we went to this little place called "Becco" which was in this neighborhood Benny took us to on what I think was 46th street. Oh my goodness, it was unbelievably delicious. Every single thing they served was magical. Ceasar salad, veal parmesean, bread, wine, etc. It was all delicious. After dinner we went out to a couple of bars where things got out of hand as they tend to do when old friends reunite in a fun city with lots of alcohol. :)

It was a crazy weekend, it was unbelievably fun, and I'm glad to be back home in Winthrop where things move a little slower and buildings are a lot smaller. However, rest assured that I will be going back. Much more to see!

is this weird?

So, all day today I've been switching back and forth between two pairs of shoes. This morning as I was preparing for work I thought to myself, "oh look! Clogs! Clogs that I bought two years ago and haven't worn in at least 12 months! I should wear those! Look how cute they are!" So I put them in my bag to change into when I got to work (for walking purposes I'm strictly a flip flops girl until the snow starts to fall). So I got to work, put on the clogs and immediately remembered why it is I haven't worn them in 12 months. These clogs are only a good idea on paper. On a hard floor they sound like horses hooves which is pretty distracting. Also, they're not terribly easy to walk in and unless the pants I have on are REALLY long, they look kind of ridiculous. I have a selective memory about shoes that aren't good to wear. If I go long enough without wearing them, I'll forget why I stopped wearing them in the first place! It's ridiculous

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Anyway, I had this other pair of shoes under my desk that I wore last week and forgot to take home (due to the flip flops) that I had taken off under my desk because the strap at the back was digging into my heel. So all day, depending on which shoe was closest to my foot every time I got up from my desk, I was switching back and forth. And the whole day I was thinking, "I really need to go shoe shopping and buy some brown shoes that are better." Now is a good time to tell you that I have 3-4 pairs of brown shoes in addition to the two that were at my office today. But it's not enough. I'm still looking for that perfect pair of brown shoes. It's an ongoing quest. And inevitably, every time I find that perfect pair of brown shoes, I need a perfect pair of black shoes, then a pair of unique shoes (red, flowered, white, etc) and then the whole cycle repeats itself again.

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Elsewhere, the parade for the Red Sox was yesterday. I'm sorry to tell you that I got outside right AFTER it had passed. I took a picture anyway, of all the people and the street sweepers. It's kind of a disappointment, but so was missing the parade (although what did I expect? It was Tuesday).

Happy Halloween!

world champs

So the Red Sox won the World Series last night. Swept the Rockies. In the end I got caught up in the excitement of an entire city and cheered along with them. It's infectious, you see. And I admit, it was some pretty amazing baseball they played in the last two weeks and I can't be mad at them for playing really well and making the games something to watch. I am looking forward to the parade, I hope I get to see at least a part of it. If that's the case, I'll be sure to take some pictures because I know how everyone likes pictures. Now don't go thinking that I'm a Sox fan now or anything because I'm not, but really, who are the Rockies? They've been around for like 5 minutes and good story or not I am firmly against brand new franchises winning the World Series (or Superbowl or whatever) until they've been around for at least 25 years. They need to EARN it. So there. :)

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I'm not sure how big of a story this is outside of New England, so for those of you unfamiliar: Before the baseball season began, this furniture company out here (Jordan's furniture) had this promotion called the "Monster Deal" (after the Green Monster, get it?). The deal was that if you bought any furniture from their stores during a given time frame, it would be free if the Red Sox won the World Series. As you can imagine, for the last two weeks this deal has been talked about pretty much nonstop and we've had to endure countless commercials from this guy who is incredibly grating on my nerves (sort of a Terry Hanks type figure for those of you from mid-Michigan). It appears that 30,000+ people bought furniture during this deal and the store is on the line for millions of dollars. They had people all over the news and the pregame who had bought furniture in the deal and were going to be getting thousands back. The store took out an insurance policy to cover themselves, but that is a crazy deal. Of course I'm now wishing that I could go back in time and have bought myself a really nice couch or something that would now be free, but alas. I would say I'm glad I won't have to listen to any more of those @$^@ commercials, but I have a feeling this guy will be using this as a marketing strategy for years. He's just that kind of a guy.

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So obviously the mood out yonder in Boston is pretty good today. A little sleepy, but good

A few quick things

Here are a few random things for you...

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First, I keep seeing commercials for Proactiv (and I'm sure everyone else does too, they're trying to take over the world with that stuff). For a minute every time I see the commercial I consider buying it, it seems like a good product, I know people who are using it and they seem to like it. However, I always stop myself and here's why: I'm one of probably 5 people worldwide who saw the movie Catwoman with Halle Berry and the bad guys in that movie created a face cream that was supposed to magical and fabulous but with extended use it horribly disfigured your face and made you sick unless you used it religiously for the rest of your life, in which case it would basically harden into a protective forcefield around you and your skin would be invincible. This is the thing that stops me from buying Proactiv. I'm afraid it will end up being some freaky science fiction thing that will either disfigure me or turn my face into a forcefield. I can't explain it.

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Second, I'm completely fixated on Johnny Cash at the moment. It hit me all of a sudden this morning. I'm so fixated on Johnny Cash right now that I went on Amazon and bought The Essential Johnny Cash which will be delivered tomorrow (thank you, amazon prime). My plan is to sit around my apartment this weekend wearing black, sunglasses and listening to some Johnny Cash. I'm not sure if it's funny or sad how excited I am about this.

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Third, yesterday I stopped at the Highland Convenient Food Mart down the street from my apartment to pick up a few things and there was this guy in line in front of me who smelled like an impressive combination of cigarettes, BO, sickness and some kind of drugs or something. He didn't appear to have washed himself at all recently and he was not exactly steady on his feet or having much success with talking clearly. He had come in with $100 of lottery winnings and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes picking out instant lotto tickets to equal that $100 so he could win even more. The problem he ran into eventually is that he couldn't decide on which tickets to buy. There is an impressive collection of instant win tickets at the Highland Convenient Food Mart, but still this guy couldn't find enough to buy. The store owner kept suggesting ones to him that he hadn't already purchased but he kept dismissing them as not being good enough. It was quite the process. I later saw this same guy trying to get on his bicycle in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Winthrop in the middle of rush hour with cars trying to dodge him. I would say if he made it back to his house it's probably a miracle. Wow.

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In other news, it's been a long week, I'm excited for the weekend. Aside from that I'm feeling particularly boring at the moment so I'm afraid that's all you get. :)

This is why Tuesdays are the worst

Tuesdays are not my favorite day of the week. In fact, in my ranking of days of the week (yes, I actually have one) it comes in at #7. Bottom of the list. Even lower than Monday. Quickly, because I know you're curious, here is the list:

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1. Saturday, for obvious reasons. Sleeping in, no work, staying up late, getting into trouble and still having a whole day to make up for it, etc.

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2. Friday. You have to work that day which isn't so cool, but you can still stay up late and do fun things and then sleep in the next day.

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3. Sunday. Yea, you don't have to work, but the knowledge that tomorrow you have to go to work puts a damper on the whole day. Not to mention (if you're me) you have to get all the productive things done that your lazy self didn't do on Friday or Saturday.

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4. Thursday. The week is almost over and it's by far the best night of TV.

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5. Wednesday. Workweek half over, you can at least see the weekend on the horizon.

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6. Monday. Actually not the worst day because you've still got some residual "weekend high". No, not in a druggie sense, but in the sense that you can still vividly (or whatever) remember the weekend so you can sort of ride on that through the day.

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7. Tuesdays really suck. The weekend was two days ago, the next one isn't for another 4 days and it's just work work work work work. It's always the day of the week that feels the longest, drains you the most and just generally makes you wish 5:00 would hurry up and get here.

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Now I know this probably makes it seem like I hate my job and that it's just how I pass my time from weekend to weekend. That really isn't the case. Most of the time I quite like my job. It involves enough of what my major in college was to make my parents happy that they didn't waste all that money on my education and it's enough of everything else that I don't want to repeatedly stick a letter opener in my eyeball. The majority of the people I work with are completely great and it's an enjoyable work experience. But let's face it, it's still work. If I had my way I would be independently wealthy, I'd have a large estate next to a large body of water to stay at and host fabulous parties that last for 4 days when I'm not driving around the country in my totally awesome car (that is of course environmentally friendly and gets excellent gas mileage) on an extended road trip seeing as much cool stuff as possible and staying with all the people I know around the country for various periods of time. (you should know that in this scenario I'm about 5 inches taller, my hair looks good every day and the fact that I'm basically living out of my car does not limit the size of my wardrobe or the number of shoes I own in any way)

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Sadly, I'm not quite there yet.

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But now, back to Tuesdays. Particularly this one. I don't think it's completely necessary for every Tuesday to end with a splitting headache shooting right behind my eyes to the point where I probably look a little like a psycho killer from a bad movie, but that doesn't seem to stop it from happening. Recently I've been making some effort to have more peace and harmony in my life (26 is supposed to be the year of peace...it's true, I make a theme for each year of my life) so whenever I feel myself getting worked up I try to step back, take some deep breaths, calm myself down so that I'm the picture of grace and balance. Well, if you know me you can pretty much guess how this has turned out. Yea. Kindly stop rolling your eyes right now.

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Even beyond that, I just have bad luck on Tuesdays. The last time my shower broke it was a Tuesday, when my electricity "accidentally" got turned off it was a Tuesday, last Halloween was probably the worst I've ever had and THAT was a Tuesday. You get the idea. Tuesdays are my arch-nemesis in weekday form.

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Oh well, at least I'm getting my hair cut tonight, which is my preferred method of relaxation. Then when I get home I'll put on my pj's and walk around my apartment in pretty shoes (my other method of relaxation).

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Until next time!

* You see what I've had to resort to in order to get a space between my paragraphs? Ridiculous!

Here we go

This weekend I'm in Lynn, MA (not exactly a destination spot) cat-sitting for Sacha while he's out of town.

The cat:

Yea, it doesn't look comfortable to me either, but apparently he enjoys it.

It's kind of isolated out here (pretty much the only thing close is a grocery store and some shady characters), so I have a lot of time on my hands for the next couple of days. One thing I'll be working on is this:

The aforementioned yarn for Toni's socks (Socks that Rock in Little Bunny Foo Foo). I'm going to try and get them done in time for her birthday (which is in like 3 weeks) so that'll be a bit of a challenge given my lack of attention span.

The progression of the blanket is as follows. Thursday night, it looked like this:




Right now, it looks like this:

Looks sort of finished, right? Yea, I haven't sewn the pieces together yet, which was my plan for the weekend, but I forgot to bring my notes along to try and figure out the best way to go about this. I mean, I know how to seam and everything, but I want to figure out how to make the seam flat since this is a blanket and you will be able to see both sides of it at some point. So, I think this will have to wait until I get home tomorrow night. Alas.

I did not run out of yarn, which is a good thing. And with that, I think you'll agree it's about time I start working on some socks!

Oh, and because I know you were concerned, UPS did finally deliver my DVD, so last night I got to watch Transformers. I love that movie!

Victory is mine!!

I just won my first auction on eBay!! I got 9 books by an author I really like (Patricia Cornwell, mystery/thrillers and sometimes her stuff seriously gives me trouble sleeping but I still like it) for $0.99! Ok, I admit that I already have two of the books, but still! That's 7 books I've never read for $0.99 plus $9.95 shipping and handling! Hooray!

So can you tell I like to win? :) I'm so happy. I will now obsessively check the progress until I actually have the books in my little hands.

Now, off to check if stupid UPS actually decided to deliver my DVD of Transformers today instead of leaving mean little notes like for the last two days and completely ignoring my signature giving them the ok to leave the package.......

why why!?!?!?

So have you noticed how the last couple posts have paragraphs that all run together? I can't make it stop. No matter how many times I hit "enter" between them when it publishes they all go away! I do know to put an extra space between paragraphs, it just won't let me !!!!!!!!!!!!!




Does anyone know how to fix this??

Email Junkie

So here's a fun fact about me. I'm totally addicted to checking my email. I know, I know, so is everyone else. But here's the kicker. I tend to take it personally if I check my inbox and there are no new messages. Like everyone I know got together and collectively decided NOT to send me email. I also manage to convince myself on a daily basis that if I simply don't look at my email for an hour or two I will without a doubt have a message from someone telling me something about their life or my life or SOMETHING (because how could it be possible that an entire TWO HOURS would go by that no one would think to tell me something?). What's more is I'm genuinely surprised when it doesn't happen (which is most of the time).

Ok, here's the thing: I like to think of myself as a mostly rational person. I acknowledge that I'm a little crazy sometimes and I tend to fly off the handle now and then and I may have been described as "scary" and "kind of intense" once or twice, but generally speaking it doesn't take me too long to find my way back around to being reasonable.

I can't make myself be rational about this. Perhaps it's a sign that I'm sadly lacking in a social life, but I don't think that's the case. I have great friends and we do quite a bit together and I'm also fiercely protective of my alone time (I do love me some alone time). I really just don't understand this email business. There have been times where I'm daydreaming and I think to myself, if I was somehow unable to check my email for like 6 months (in a coma, stranded on a desert island, kidnapped by pirates, off communing with nature somewhere) who would check my email to make sure all those little messages were saved for when I get back? Yea, you'd like to think I'm joking, but I've spent more time than I'd like to admit thinking about this stuff. It's completely ridiculous.

I know I promised pictures, but I couldn't stop thinking about this email business so I thought I'd put it out there. Pictures to come, I promise. Although I should tell you that really the only thing I've been working on is this baby blanket because I know that if I let my attention wander even a little bit this child will never see this blanket. It's taking every ounce of my willpower but the good news is that I should have a finished product this weekend. Still keeping my fingers crossed (although I am cautiously optimistic at this point) that I will not run out of yarn.

Book Day

I was thinking about it today and I could probably break the topics I like to talk about into 7 categories:

Knitting

Reading

Movies/television

Music

Weddings
Sports

Things that cause my mother to exclaim, "Jessica!" in an exasperated tone.

Today I have books on my mind. Keeping in mind that I spend approximately 45 minutes each way on public transportation every day (approximately 7.5 hours a week) and there's definitely not enough room on the train to knit what with all the people crowded everywhere (not to mention I get very uncomfortable when strangers talk to me on public transportation and knitting seems to invite that), I go through a lot of books. I am a little weird about what I read on the train, because I think people will judge me based on the book in my hand. I also don't want strangers to know anything about me so I go to great lengths to hide the cover of the book so no one can tell what it is I'm actually reading. And before you ask, yes I do realize that I'm a freak. I'm about one step away from making myself book covers out of brown paper bags like in junior high so that I can be super secretive and no one will ever know anything about me. Ever. I'm holding off because from there I fear it's not a very big step to hiding in my apartment and thinking the whole world is in a giant conspiracy against me. It's a road better not traveled.

My tastes when it comes to books are what some could call indescriminate but what I like to call open minded. Here's what I mean:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I've been trying to read this book since July. It's been sitting in timeout since the end of August because even thought I bought a paperpack with bigger pages and really small print, that is a HUGE book and it gets really heavy lugging it back and forth every day. Not to mention the fact that there are about 100 main characters and I was starting to get confused about who was who. I would like to state for the record that I did plow my way through almost 300 pages before admitting defeat. I'm thinking I'll try again this winter when the weather is crappy and I stay inside all the time. But it will be more of a read at home while it's sitting on a table because this book is deceptively heavy and I only have about a 30 minute attention span for it kind of situation.

Now I Can Die in Peace by Bill Simmons. This is by my favorite espn.com writer, it's basically a collection of all the columns he wrote from 1998 to 2004 starting when he almost gave up on baseball altogether and leading up to the Red Sox winning the World Series. He's completely hilarious, and I liked this book even though it's all about loving the Red Sox. The unique thing about this guy is that he writes from the perspective of a fan cheering for (and getting his heart broken repeatedlyby) his favorite team as opposed to just a regular sportswriter talking to all the athletes and coaches and insiders. If you're a fan of baseball, or really if you have a huge spot in your life for something over which you have no control yet still dictates all your feelings and you don't mind a bit of a potty mouth, this is a good book for you.

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice. The author is the daughter of Tim Rice (very famous lyricist for those of you unfamiliar) and it's a story about a girl in 1950's London-ish growing up post WWII in which her father was killed, her family is running out of money, and American music is starting to take over England (mostly Elvis). It's about falling in love, friendship, family, growing up and all that goes along with it. It was kind of fluffy, but I like a fluffy book every now and again.

On Borrowed Wings by Chandra Prasad. This one is the story of a girl living in a small mining town in Connecticut whose brother gets accepted to Yale and has therefore found his chance to get out and have a new, better life. Unfortunately, the brother is killed in a mining accident and Adele decides to assume his identity and enroll in his place (as women weren't allowed to attend Yale in the 1930's). So off she goes and experiences both the freedom and restraint of pretending to be a man. It got a little weird in parts but overall I really enjoyed it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'd never heard of this one until I was in Michigan a few days ago and my sister-in-law's mom mentioned it. Then, when I was at the airport headed back to Massachusetts there happened to be a Border's across from my gate and it was sitting right there in the front. I took it as a sign and bought it. It was VERY good, I definitely recommend it. Seriously, go out and buy it right now (or you know, get it from the library). I mean, it also has a couple questionable parts, but it was extremely good.

Every time I read a good book I'm so impressed with how a person comes up with an entire book that's interesting and fits together. I can't even imagine it. These are people with far more creativity than me. Sometimes I think if I read enough maybe some of that creativity will rub off on me and I can make a living out of writing books and buy a large estate in Maine where I will live peacefully at one with the world when I'm not on a book tour or selling the rights for a movie.... someday (sigh).

Yesterday I started Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, on the suggestion of my friend Corene. I got a voicemail from Corene not too long ago in which she brought this book up asking if I'd heard of it and if I'd be interested in reading it (Corene and I tried sort of a long distance book club thing a few years ago which sort of petered out) and I haven't been able to get it out of my head so I thought what better way to stop thinking about it than to actually read it! I'm very susceptible to the powers of suggestion, you see. :)

Once I finish this one it's on to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I'll be honest, I really have no idea what this one's about, but I think that's an impressive title and there was a big thing on the cover saying it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. I'm clearly also guilty of judging a book by its cover, but I'd like to think the Pulitzer folks know what they're doing so it's probably ok to take a chance on this one.

Does anyone have any suggestions of good books they've read for when I finish these?? I'm constantly on the lookout for a good read, it really makes the commute go SO much faster. I'm also trying to get the hang of this whole ebay thing (for book buying purposes) but so far I have not managed to be victorious at anything on there. I almost had a couple of the Princess Diary books for $0.99 but the auction ended when I was at the airport and apparently I watched too long without actually bidding. Alas. My new mission is to successfully find a reliable source for good, cheap books. Or to you know, actually win an auction on ebay. I can do it. Really. I'm sure of it. Sort of.

Next time I post I promise the post will be about something that includes pictures. I know it's boring with nothing bright and shiny to distract you from my rambling on and on, but really how interesting would a picture of me holding a book be? That's right, not that interesting.

Until next time!

I may have developed a problem

First, let me just tell you how good it feels to sleep in and have a day in which there is absolutely nothing I have to do. It's pretty great. By the end of the workweek I was pretty much sleep walking and my brain felt completely fried. So this weekend I'm just takin' it easy and watching movies and knitting up a storm.

Next, I think I might have a problem. With sock yarn. I keep buying it. I can't stop. Here is a quick tour of my next few projects, with another on the way....

Yes, this is the sock yarn that was just a short time ago the mystery socks for whom I had no recipient. I now have a recipient, but I ripped out the sock because I wasn't thrilled with the pattern and I discovered the complete ridiculousness of knitting a pattern I didn't like on a part of a sock that was going to end up covered by a shoe. so I am going to start over and do something cool with the cuff. Fear not, Andrea, you'll still get your socks. :)

Next, this is the yarn I found in a cute little shop in Arlington that I happened to walk past one day. I took one look and thought my mom would love it (it was only when I got home later that I realized it's almost exactly the same color as the last pair of socks I knit for her so I will definitely have to come up with some sort of cool stitch pattern for this one)

These three I bought online from a place called the Sheep's Tale (which was super on the ball about getting their stuff here quickly... I can't exactly remember where I found them, but I'm pretty sure they have an ebay store). Some solid colors, always good - I don't think I've ever knit a solid colored pair of socks. And I accidentally bought beige (I thought I was getting dark grey) but that's ok because now I feel confident that I have a color for sock yarn that a man would consent to wear (possibly my older brother who lives in northern Michigan. I'm sure his feet get very cold). I'm also confident that at some point I'll think of people who like pink and purple. :)

Next is yarn I just received in the mail today from Blue Moon Fiber Arts, in a colorway called "Olive Garden". I have to tell you that I didn't really expect it to be this sort of flecky coloring, no other Socks that Rock I've ever knitted have been like this. But I'm reserving judgment until I actually start working on them. Anyway, my sister-in-law absolutely loves the Olive Garden restaurant, so when I saw this I thought I'd make her some Olive Garden socks. I know, it's pretty cheesy, but I have a problem and I will justify it any way I can.

Soon to arrive is another Socks that Rock colorway called "Little Bunny Foo Foo". These will be for Toni, and she specifically requested the color from her perusal of their website. She claims that she picked it based on the colors and not the name, but I know better. That girl is crazy about bunnies.

The pink sweater is currently sitting in timeout because I don't want to actually deal with the sleeve situation. I'll finish it one of these days....

In non-sock related knitting, I'm working on this baby blanket for a friend from high school and his wife who are expecting their first child in December (can you guess if they're having a girl or a boy?). It's knitting up quickly and I'm mentally blocking the fact that each strip will have to be sewn together at the end, and just thinking about how cute it will be. It's the pattern for the circle of friends garter stitch blanket in Last Minute Knitted Gifts, only I've changed the colors. I'm having anxiety about whether or not I have enough yarn, but I told myself when I was ordering that it was only going to require one skein of each yarn, and that two of each would be wasteful and obviously double the price. Won't it just serve me right if, in the end, I have to order each color again and then not only will I have doubled the price, but chances are the dye lots won't match either. Alas. Also, because I am unable to properly follow directions, I accidentally started in the middle of the blanket. The white blocks will go through the middle. I know, this isn't a big issue, but please keep in mind that my major in college was accounting (which means chances are good I have a little bit of an OCD problem) and when things go out of order it makes me a little crazy. I've been trying to work on that, and apparently my subconscious is doing its part to help me out.

And, lastly, look at these super cute shiny red shoes my boss gave me yesterday! She bought them a year ago but despite the fact that the size is what she wears, they're too tight for her. She brought them in for me to try and I fell in love with them at first sight and was more than happy to take them off her hands. You know what's better that supercute new shoes? FREE supercute new shoes. I have to think of a good occasion for them to make their debut.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'll get back to my very busy schedule of sitting on my couch making pretty things for other people. :)

there and back again!

Hello! I have returned from the land of my birth (that sounds way cooler and more epic, right?) all in one piece and am glad to be getting back to the norm. I had a GREAT time, but it was sort of a whilrwind three days. And that's ok, because I get to go back again in 6 weeks and stay for a long enough time to actually catch my breath while I'm there.

A few things of note from the trip:

My flight left Boston at 6:00am on Saturday. This means that I needed to get to the airport before public transportation started running, and I don't have a car. This really isn't a huge problem, I called the local cab company and scheduled a pickup for 4:15am. I actually managed to finish packing and go to sleep fairly early so I could be up in plenty of time. It all went off without a hitch until we actually started driving to the airport and I was afraid I wouldn't even make it that far (I only live a few miles from Logan airport, it takes like 10 minutes to get there). My cab driver was chugging coffee like it was his job, driving like a bat out of hell and I believe the tires were completely bald, if the constant squealing was any indication. Good thing for me it wasn't at all slippery on the road. Anyway, I did, in fact, make it to the airport, where...

Security had not yet opened for the day. While admitting that I am slightly to moderately obsessive about making sure I have plenty of time when traveling, it's not unreasonable to get to the airport an hour and a half before your flight leaves, and in fact they TELL you to get to the airport at least that early. Therefore, I do not think it unreasonable to expect security to be open accordingly. While waiting in line for the checkpoint to open, I was standing in front of a couple headed on vacation somewhere (I'm guessing). It's amazing to me how some people stay together, for example: These two were standing in line, she was yelling at him for not making her breakfast and complaining about how hungry she was. She then magically pulled some food out of her bag and ate it, stating she had intended to save that for later but then she was sure they'd take it away from her during security. He explained that it was probably fine, since it wasn't liquid and she snapped that she has no idea what the rules are and for him not to even touch her. At this point I wanted to turn around and be like, "whoa buddy, are you sure about this chick?" and that was before the real kicker. This girl turns to her boyfriend and says to him, "you know, for your birthday I was going to buy you a nice trip somewhere, but I decided on something better. I'm getting you rhinoplasty because I hate looking at your nose." This clearly surprised the guy and he asked her why she would say that when she's always said he's cute, to which she replied, "no. I have NEVER liked your nose." I'm sorry to tell you that I thought it would be kind of rude (and obvious) for me to turn around at this point and look at them so I can't tell you exactly how bad his nose was, but wow. I realize it was 4:30 in the morning and people can be a little cranky at that hour, but I can't think of any situation in which it's ok to tell the person you're in a relationship that you hate their nose and they should have surgery. Seriously, if it's that bad, break up and find someone with a less offensive face!

Anyway, aside from that and the girl sitting next to me on the plane who didn't understand about personal space, it was a great trip! I actually managed to have some down time to relax and just enjoy life, although that doesn't stop me from being incredibly tired.

I'll leave you with a few pictures:

A view of northern Michigan starting to change colors.

The wedding tables, very fancy.

My little brother and me (I stand corrected, Mom) at the wedding.

overload

I have too many thoughts in my head today. And not in a "oh, I'm so smart there are just so many important things I'm thinking about I can't even sort through them" kind of way. It's more of a "I'm really excited to go to Michigan on Saturday and I have a lot to do and I'm excited for Grey's Anatomy tonight and I love baseball playoffs and I also love football season and I once again wish I had gotten a Tivo so I could watch Grey's Anatomy AND The Office tonight and I was just reading this really cool thing online this morning and I wonder when so-and-so who I like to read on espn.com/tvguide.com/foxsports.com/msn.com will write something again and I can't wait to see The Jane Austen Book Club at some point and I just bought a ridiculous amount of sock yarn this morning and weddings and babies and unicorns blah blah blah blah blah" type deal. Seriously, my attention span is all over the place. And I suppose it's fair to say that at some point in all the blah blah blah blah blah I'm thinking about work related things (you know, since it's 12:37pm on a Thursday) but really it's like 20% at most.

It's no wonder I have a hard time picking things to write about, I can't think about any one thing for long enough to develop a cohesive string of thoughts! Anyway, I guess it's going to have to be a little bit of everything.

First, last night's TV:

I watched the premier of Pushing Daisies and I'm pretty sure I liked it. I don't want to commit to an opinion just yet, but it had the right mix of trippy and "real" (for lack of a better word). I like the guy playing the main character, and I'll watch pretty much anything with Chi McBride (who is the coolest of the cool). One thing that kept throwing me was how much the chick in it looked kind-of-but-not-exactly like Zooey Deschanel to me. I have no idea what her actual name is and I'm pretty sure I've never seen her in anything else, so I will call her almost-Zooey until further notice. Anyway, the show is kind of like a cross between Big Fish and Monk (although not so much the OCD, more just that they solve crimes and the main character has a "quirk" if you will). If you like either of those things, I recommend checking it out.

Private Practice. Again, I can't commit to an opinion. One minute I'm watching and thinking "Hey, I'm enjoying myself, this is entertaining!" and the next minute I'm looking around my apartment for something to do to pass the time. Not a good sign. I will admit that it did make me cry at one point, but then again I'm a huge sap and I've been known to cry at commercials and greeting cards so take that with a grain of salt. I will say that I could live with less random medical issues and more of the characters' issues (I know, it's a medical show - sort of. I say it's an extended chick flick and should act accordingly).

Dirty Sexy Money. Let me tell you right now, I love Peter Krause. I have loved Peter Krause since SportsNight and if you don't know what that is, go netflix it right now because it's GREAT. Every time I watch those DVDs I secretly (or not so secretly) wish that there was a way they could reunite the cast and start back up again. Oh man, that was a great show. This show is ok too, but if they take a turn and start to make Peter into a lying, cheating jerk I will be so furious.

Yesterday was the first day of baseball playoffs. The Red Sox won.... I can't make up my mind if I want them to do well and keep winning or if I want them to lose so they can stop smugly talking about how good they are. What's worse: Red Sox fans complaining about how they blew it and bitching and moaning until the spring or Red Sox fans being all smug and braggy about how they keep winning? Honestly, I think it's even, so I don't really care what they do. My pick to win the World Series is The Diamondbacks. It hurts my feelings because I love the Cubs, but I just don't see it happening for them this year and I'm pretty sure that the Rockies will have come back to reality by the 2nd round and since the ALCS will probably be the Red Sox vs. the Yankees, it'll surely be overhyped and drag on and on and the NL will come along and sneak in to win the World Series. Anyway, as long as the Yankees lose I'll be happy. Stupid %()&#@#% Yankees.

Over last weekend I watched a couple of my netflix movies: An Officer and a Gentleman and Anchors Aweigh!. I had never seen either. In fact, it might be the first time I've seen Richard Gere in a movie with brown hair instead of gray. And let me tell you that Gene Kelly was one hot man in his day. (when did I start rhyming? how does this happen?) The problem now is that I can't get the Anchors Aweigh song out of my head. I don't really know the words, so it's running through my head a little something like, "Anchors Aweigh hm hmmm, ANCHORS AWEIGH!!!" Driving me crazy.

Now I'm trying to think of some sort of picture situation I could add to this post, but unfortunately I don't have any recent pictures of anything interesting. I'll try to remedy that this weekend. Also, since apparently no one liked the socks I'm making as no one has tried to bribe me into giving them the pair and the pattern is kind of turning out to be a pain on such a small scale, I'm pretty sure I'm going to rip them out and start over. I don't know, I keep changing my mind every 5 minutes. I feel like I'd be more motivated if I had a recipient in mind. Very strong hint: if you want something pretty and knitted personally for you by me, GET ON IT and tell me! Also, my mother is excluded from this, as her next pair of socks has already been determined and is about to get underway as I put these on hold until someone claims them.

Anyway, that's that from me for today, Happy Thursday to everyone!

Fine!

OK, you win. I went back and forth on the inclusion of the picture but you're right. It's kind of boring without photographic evidence of the scary bedazzledness. Here you go.....

There now. You see?

travelin' travelin'

As many of you know, I'm returning briefly to Michigan this weekend to celebrate my nephew's second birthday (!) and attend the wedding of a family friend. I am INCREDIBLY excited about it, so much so that I've been so far able to ignore that when it's all said and done I'll have spent approximately 3 and a half hours in an airplane (round trip) and 11 and a half hours in a car (approximately) as well as all associated airport/baggage claim time in three days.


What some of you may not know about me is that I'm completely neurotic and more than a little bit crazy. For example: I needed something new to wear to the wedding (well, needed might be a strong word, but whatever) but I hate the mall because I have no self control and am easily distracted (same reason I hate the grocery store and yet the major reason I love Target. Figure that one out) so I thought I'd solve this problem by shopping online, picking out a few options, trying them on at home and returning whatever I didn't like. I am a believer that it's always a good idea to get a second opinion on an outfit choice, particularly one for a special occasion, so I figured I'd try these on, have one I was leaning toward and just get confirmation that it was the way to go. Except that in the end I had 5 choices and honestly couldn't make a decision on them to save my life. I took pictures of each outfit (by the way it's not easy photographing your outfit as you're wearing it) and sent them to my fashion advisors begging for help.


Now, one of the shirts I bought looked online as though it was a muted bluish/green with something shimmery across the middle. While I do wear color, I pretty much stick to very muted tones and I will admit that most of my dress up clothes are black. So I thought this would be a nice little change of pace while still not being in your face. When the top arrived, I found that it was actually impressively royal blue. Like "HEY LOOK AT ME!!!!" royal blue. With some sort of bedazzled jewels across the middle, instead of the shimmery material I thought it was. I refer to it as "the scary bedazzled shirt" in fact. Of all the outfit choices I had, I absolutely knew this was the one everyone would hate and tell me to send back immediately, because it was both scary and bedazzled. However, in the interest of full disclosure I included it in the options if only to be able to laugh and say, "isn't this shirt scary and bedazzled?" Here's what I wasn't expecting: 100% of my trusted advisors chose the scary bedazzled shirt outfit as the clear winner. I then showed my choices to my boss and she also picked the scary bedazzled outfit (I'm seeing how many times I can legitimately type 'scary bedazzled' in one post. right now we're at 6). I guess it goes to show that I shouldn't be trusted to pick my own clothes. Of course, all the other choices looked ok too, just not for this occasion so my grand plan to save money by avoiding the mall has totally backfired as I am now keeping all the clothes I purchased. Oh well, I guess it was probably time for some new clothes anyway, right?


At any rate, my outfit is chosen (scary and bedazzled as it may be), my pre-flight trip to CVS has taken place (although I think I forgot at least three things so I will be going back...of course), I'm already mentally tallying everything I need to pack (but I bet you I still won't start to actually pack until sometime late Friday night and I'll still forget something) and I'm living in fear that I will somehow forget to call the cab company to set up my pickup for 4:30 Saturday morning so that I can make my flight that leaves at 6. Or, I'm afraid the cab company will forget to pick me up. There's no basis for this paranoia, I just can't help it. By the time Friday rolls around I'll be so on edge I'll probably be unbearable to be around. If I'm not already. Oh well, I usually settle down once I'm actually on the plane.


The other thing I'm doing this week is attempting to train myself to wear my hair in some configuration other than a ponytail. My hair has been in a ponytail since June, pretty much without interruption. All day it's in a ponytail, I sleep with it in a ponytail, pretty much the only time it's down is when I'm washing it, and then straight back up. Now, I'm planning to wear it down on Sunday at the wedding, and I knew that in order to do that I'd need some practice (hey, I told you I was crazy). Well holy crap my hair is long. I mean, I've been trying to grow it out for bridesmaid-in-December purposes but I was unprepared for this. Now the trick will be to see how long I can handle it before I make a hair appointment and promptly cut it all off. My guess it somewhere in the neighborhood of December 16 or when the weather starts to turn bad. :)