Knitting Update

I was going to title this entry "Not Politics" but I have to include a picture of my new knitting bag, which disqualifies the post from the non-political realm:

They really liked the bag at Urban Knitters yesterday. I hope to be able to use it tomorrow at the RNC opening. (It's available at CafePress).

I had lunch today with Girl-child and she didn't seem to remember the Poseidon sock I had started at the August Drunken Knitters get-together, so here it is:

And I finished my first pair of Mother's Day socks yesterday using the Yukon bamboo that I got at The Yarnery. The pattern is Reversi by Mean Girl:

A Birthday Present for McCain

The votes are in…

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Veep-stakes

The Obama choice was not so surprising - an old, white guy to placate the old, white folks. Impeccable foreign policy background. One of the poorer members of the Senate, so clean financials. Boring but solid. He probably doesn't even have any "other" women who will pop up unexpectedly; Biden's just that reliable.

And then we had today's announcement. Wow. That was a surprise!

If you'd been harping about someone's readiness to take over the most powerful job in the world, would you have chosen someone who's in her first term as governor of Alaska (and whose background is mayor of the town of Wasilla) to be in the #2 spot? Of course, her conservative positions on social issues are impeccable.

I've grossly miscalculated the voting public before, but really, is this a competitive ticket?

On Natural Selection

Off to College

Girl-child went off to college yesterday.

I thought I would be sad, but I guess I'm too excited for her to be sad. We had a beautiful day for the move, and her best friend came over to see her off:
They look happy, but they are not so happy that they will be in different cities now. C'est la vie.

The dorm closet is better than her closet at home (that's not saying much, actually, since she doesn't really have a legal closet at home):
But squeezing four girls into a triple room is going to pose challenges:
It does look stark, but hopefully that will just make it more fun to see how it becomes home as everyone moves in and fills the space with their stuff and their personalities. Good luck, Sweet-pea!

Fun Weekend

Just so that you all know, all was not drudgery over the weekend.

We went to the State Fair family-style and saw small animals as well as large ones:




The Sock-Monkey-Lady had a piece in the Fine Arts Building this year (those are sock monkeys going through a meat grinder - gotta lover her sense of humor):

These are the disgusting twinkies I mentioned earlier (I wasn't making it up):


We went for a ride on a cable car and saw topiary turtles:




We saw all types of food on sticks - even hot-dish (that's a casserole if you're not from here) and boulders on sticks too:

We also went to The Walker for mini-golf and found this delightful hill of signs:


This one was my favorite:



The happy golfing family:

The final scores:

The boxes are still here, the lawn still has to be mowed, but I'm sure it can wait. Girl child moves into her dorm on Tuesday .... we had to have some fun!

Did I Really Do That?

So I started some socks for Girl-child even tho I'm working on several others at the moment ... I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I may have a problem ... anyway, I started the second one because when I got to the heel flap on the first I didn't have the right reinforcing thread in my stash... when comparing the two to make sure the cuffs were the same length I found something unexpected .... observe .... see the problem?


That's right, the cuff on one of the socks is 3x1 and on the other is 2x2:

It may be the first time Girl-child didn't have a fit when I frogged something!

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

So I found a very cool page on MPR that has interesting fair numbers here…

… and to continue my Fair musings/observations:

I was sorry that I forgot to take my camera, but then I thought maybe it didn’t matter, ‘cause how could you explain to a person who asks, “Hey, are you taking my picture? Why are you taking my picture?” and your only response would be, “Well, I just wanted a picture of you to put under ‘fashion disasters’ on my blog.”

I had to look at The Sartorialist when I got home.

I am sorry I didn’t get a shot of the fat, old guy in the Superman suit outside of the main entrance though.

There are always the people who wear matching outfits … I suppose that makes it easier to find one another? … and then there are WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE who wear clothing that is two sizes too small for them. I always want to pull them aside and say, “You know, if you wore clothing that fit, you would not only look a lot better, you’d probably be more comfortable too. Have you ever thought about wearing clothing that fits?”

And the women in heels.

And barefoot kids let loose from their strollers to run around (eeewwwww!!!!!!!!)

And skin fried by the sun.

And there was that woman whose breasts were falling out of her top and I wanted to say to her, “If you really wanted to share that tattoo with the world you should have put it somewhere else, ‘cause I am NOT enjoying that tattoo at all!”

*sigh*

I know, I'm far from ideal myself, but ya really gotta wonder sometimes...

And what is with people who don’t understand that the kids are exhausted and need to go home? How would those parents like it if someone yelled at them when they were tired and needed a nap?

Now, I may be the only person at the Fair who has a hard time finding something to eat. Wow. Not so easy. I ended up with an Italian sausage for dinner and a lingonberry ice cream cone for dessert.* Yum. I find the idea of deep fried twinkies and candy bars so revolting I couldn’t bring myself to try the fried green tomatoes (which actually interest me, if nothing else because of the movie). Then I was going to have a beer but thought better of it since I had no idea what the volunteer stint would be like. Good thinking. We were really busy.

We got all types - from the cranky one who complained about EVERYTHING … “Wool is just too hot; I’m menopausal you know ... Cotton is too hard to work with (and then, when offered soy or corn fiber) ...oh, I don’t like the feel of that…” (maybe you should try something different, like, button collecting?) - to the dad with three kids who all knit … and one them was FASCINATED with socks (my kind of kid!).

And what a lot of BEAUTIFUL things are on display in the Creative Activities building. Really. Inspirational. I’m hoping we go as a family on Monday so I can peruse things more carefully. (Many people suggest that I submit things to the Fair, but I’m really not interested in what others think of my handiwork. I enjoy making it, I enjoy using it, I enjoy seeing my friends and family enjoy what I make for them. And that’s enough for me.)

The end of the night was a little tricky since all of us who were scheduled ‘till 9:00 had taken the bus there, but we packed everything up, divided it up and, hopefully, everything will show up at the Guild meeting next month.

So that's it for now.

*Oh, and a cashew salted nut roll to save for later – which I just had a couple of bites of right now. Double yum!

We Interrupt State Fair Coverage for this News Flash

Seriously folks!



And I liked this coverage of it:

Quick! How many houses do you own?

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Whatta Day!

So after taking it fairly easy this morning I went out to Prior Lake with Auntie to finish packing my mother's place and wait for the Salvation Army/ARC to come and pick it up.

I thought I might loose it when I saw the empty place, but I held up remarkably well. I'm sure the fact that I have boxes all over my dining room helps. Relief overcomes grief. I never realized that while dealing with an elderly parent, Alzheimer's, the whole thing, that dealing with the "stuff" would be so difficult.

But it's done. It was too little for a sale, too much to give away, but give it away I did. They were very appreciative. I have boxes to send to my brothers and for one of my nephews and then I'll stuff more boxes in my basement and face it another day.

When I got home from that, I changed my clothes, got my knitting bag and hopped on the bus to the State Fair where I volunteered for the Minnesota Knitters' Guild in the Creative Activities building.

We were busy. Lots of interested people.

Of course, I went early enough to look over all the beautiful things and see what won ribbons. To my delight, Shelly won blue for her blankie and also the Sweepstakes (among other prizes). It was so fun, 'cause while I was admiring it in the case, a woman standing next to me said, "Is that knitted?" Yes, I replied, it's knit out of leftover sock yarn. I think she didn't believe me at first. We talked a bit about it and I told her about Shelly's blog and she said, "So you know her?" and I said ....

Yes, she taught me how to knit.

That's it for tonight... I'm pooped.. I'll try to post nasty comments on fair-goers tomorrow...

On Republicans, Chocolate and Whining Online

(Thanks to KMKat for the National Priorities link to the right.)

I’m having a bad day regarding Republicans.

Last night we had our annual block party, which was kind of a disaster given the downpour.

But worse than the rain …

Boy-child needed a ride right in the middle of said downpour and I happened to make a crack to the neighbor when I got back about how I had mixed feelings dropping my child off at a house with Republican lawn signs … and I realized the neighbor is a Republican.

Now, I like to think of myself as open-minded. I have a few friends who are Republicans. Really, I do. But this guy kind of pissed me off. I managed to hold my tongue, but I really wanted to ask him:

How do you think your special-ed child will be affected by the unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind? How do you think your child affects the rankings of the public schools?

How do you feel about the prospect of your young son being sent to another country as part of an occupying force when he turns 18? Are you that confident that it will be over by then?

How do you feel about the economic cost of the war?

Ok, no, I didn’t ask the questions. But maybe I will when I bump into him at the grocery store…in the meantime I parked my car in the street, with the new special bumper sticker (see bottom of page). It will be one less spot for the neighbor's friends to park their SUVs.

On a brighter note, KMKat also lead me to a BoingBoing news video about Tcho chocolate. Who knew? Fascinating and informative. Here are the links to part 1, part 2 and part 3 of the video. Plus, possibly my favorite bit of trivia from it: Timothy Childs, who founded the company, used to be a software developer for NASA. Does that make it Space Chocolate? I gotta find me some Tcho!

And regarding on-line forums and other types of ranting … Yarn Ball Boogie was complaining about how the Ravelry forums have gone down the tubes what with everybody writing so much about nothing and I agree – not that I’ve ever participated in those forums, or any other for that matter. But I have noticed that the content of, say, comments on news articles tends to be either empty or vitriolic. Recently I read comments (I don't remember exactly where) about the Postville illegal worker bust and it made me wonder where all those anti-immigrant and anti-Semites came from?

But then, that’s what bloggers do, isn’t it? Whine online.

It's All About the Health Insurance

... Cinderella, Snow White and Tinkerbell (among others) were arrested today on a misdemeanor count of failure to obey a police officer...

What next?

Measuring Up

So I was cleaning out my e-mail and stumbled upon this - too good to throw away, I must have thought.

Anyway, I e-mailed the supposed creator of the mural (Edge Designs) and got a response that they had not been the creators of the mural (very nice of them to respond so quickly).

That made me check Urban Legends to verify.

Turns out the picture is real and the bathroom exists. Only the text of the e-mail is false. Check out the story here.

And enjoy the picture:

Knitting Update

We have several socks in progress:

And one finished pair:

And a gratuitous picture of Mozart on the "new" dresser...I suppose he's fascinated with it 'cause it's not dusty and there is some open space on it...of course, that won't last.

Advice

So we've got some guy in Nigeria who is advising men not to follow his example: He's got 86 wives and somewhere around 170 children.

Hello?

Monday Morning

We went to The Guthrie last night and saw The Government Inspector. Very enjoyable. Really, you can't go wrong with The Guthrie even though the new building is not as nice as the old one. (Frankly, I think the new building sucks. I mean, who wants to walk through a restaurant to get to their nose-bleed seat with no leg room?) Girl-child was checking out the bios in the program to see which crew members studied at the U (several, including the stage manager).

I finished the gift socks this weekend (no picture) and started a blue sock while at Drunken Knitters Night that may become a Poseidon sock (no picture of that either) and also started a plain sock with some Regia (nope, no picture).

I think maybe I have a problem.

Anyway, in between Drunken Knitters and The Government Inspector I was sorting through my mom's stuff and getting ready for a charity pick-up. It's amazing how much stuff a one bedroom apartment can hold. It's also amazing how little stuff a person really needs, 'cause a lot of what I have taken and had sent over to the nursing home has not even been unpacked.

Time to clean out my house.

We also managed to go to Market Bar-B-Q, watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics (taped) and I have only a little over 100 pages left in my book, World Without End.

Oh, and Boy-child found a video/DVD rental place with about a gazillion titles down on 15th and Nicollet, but alas, they do not have Storm Center with Bette Davis. It's not available for home viewing :-(

And of course, with the ramp up to the election, there has to be something political added. Today it comes from someecards.com:


Oh, and I got a fab new bumper sticker - I promise next post will have some pictures!

On Libraries, Venus and More Politics

Did you hear that Obama was at the Copper Dome?!?!?!?!?

Meanwhile, McCain was at Sturgis. Check out Bateman's take on the visit:


I read somewhere, I'm not sure where now, that Austrians are whooping it up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Venus of Willendorf. Mind you, this Venus pre-dates the "original" Venus by thousands of years, still, ya gotta love the vision of female perfection from those days ...

Speaking of women, did you hear that women will now be allowed into the library at Dammam, Saudi Arabia without a male relative escort? We've come a long way, baby!

And speaking of libraries...does anyone know how to get a viewable copy of Storm Center with Bette Davis? I looked on WorldCat and it seems that the only libraries that have it own the reel version. Neflix doesn't have it. I'm ever so curious to see it.

And a gratuitous picture of Girl-child at the Uptown Art Fair:

A Note on the Paris Video

Ok, I just want to say that after posting the Paris video this morning I found links to it on Salon, BBC, El Pais and others as well as coverage on the local news and NBC this evening. I don't remember where I saw it first, but I'd guess it was on Salon.

You saw it here first. Or you could have, if you'd been reading me first thing in the morning.

Anyway, it gave me a smile and I guess it's making other people smile too. Way to go Paris. Even if you're not really that hot.

Paris for Prez

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Sunday Blues

KMKat inspired me to re-examine the colors and layout of the blog ... I'm sure I'll waste plenty more time before I decide how I want it for the next ____months (before I change it again).

My hubby got me these fab earrings at the Uptown Art Fair. He went with Girl-child and her best friend while I worked on sorting out stuff at my mother's apartment. Hopefully I'll be able to go with next year... I know they have amazing things there - many of them quite pricey but beautiful all.

And I inadvertently started another pair of socks this weekend. Not sure how that happened ... they're made out of the Casbah that I got for Mothers' Day. I used blue reinforcement thread on the toe which makes it a little too blue, but tolerable. I'll maybe look for a different reinforcer color for the heel.

And I simply must post a flower picture since I have been diligently watering so that they don't all shrivel up and die in the heat:

Headlines

So did you hear that Jerry Lewis was detained at the Las Vegas airport for trying to board with a pistol? Apparently he claimed it was a prop and he didn't know it was in his carry on. Makes me giggle just thinking about it.

I bet he doesn't fit their usual profile for the type of person who enters the airport packing heat.

Reminds me of a few times when I've been stopped. And Boy-child too.

Did you see the latest McCain commercial that plays Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Barak Obama as similar celebrity types? Look alikes too, I say. Triplets separated at birth.

On a brighter note, the folks in Turner, Maine can check out garden tools at their library. What a great idea! I wonder if I can get them through InterLibrary Loan?

And whaddaya think? Did the US offer Karadzic immunity or not? He claims that there was an agreement between himself and Holbrooke. Seriously, the guy is sick and crazy. But the US government has done some strange things over the years.