Dear Meatloaf,
As a child, I spent many hours listening to Bat Out of Hell (on vinyl!), singing and dancing whilst doing household chores with my sisters. I cannot count the number of times I have watched you sing “Hot Patootie” before you meet your untimely demise at the hands of the world’s favorite sweet transvestite. I even gave Bat Out of Hell 2: Back into Hell a good shot, even though it wasn’t as good as the original. I’ve heard you were fabulous in Fight Club, and I loved you in Formula 51. However, while watching tv this morning, I saw this:
Occasionally, my husband looks at me and says “my toes are cold. I have no hand-knit socks.” Now, many people would say it was cold hearted of me to live with him for going on four years now and have not knit him socks. These people would be the ones who don’t know that he wears a size 13 wide (US Men’s) shoe. Thems some big, wide feet. And because he is frequently too warm, they can’t be too heavy. And, they need to be knit at a tight gauge so that they won’t wear out in the first month that he wears them. Enter some lovely yarn and I embarked on what is proving to be a somewhat arduous journey.
Knit to 9 stitches per inch on very pointy size zero crystal palace bamboo double pointed needles, these socks started with a figure 8 cast on. In that cast on, you cast on a smaller number of stitches and increase to create a toe pocket. In this case, that number? 40. Total number of stitches in a single round once I finished the toe increases? 88. To give me an unstretched size of 9.75, 90% of my husband’s foot circumference. Once the toe was done I knit a little further with pagoda (the orange) to get a toe that looked right before I switched to the seaweed (green yarn). And then I just kept knitting for, well, a while.
Right now I’m stalled a bit, I haven’t been knitting much. I’ve reached the point where I need to be thinking about the heel. Because my husband also has big ankles, the afterthought heel I was originally going to use would make it difficult to make sure the sock will fit up and over his heel. My current thought is to put the sock on waste yarn, knit a heel (using the same figure 8 technique I’m using for the toe) and graft it on, then go back to knitting as scheduled, up the leg. I just need to get around to picking it back up. Stay tuned for the further adventures of the giant man-socks.
And now, apropos of nothing, I give you the pig butchering guide:
Today, the joyous occasion is in honor of my much beloved husband who–much to his chagrin–is 29 years old today. He refused to let me bake him a cake, he doesn’t want a party and in general wants to pretend April 1st is not happening. I love him far too much to let this day pass without a schmoopy, sappy, public note devoted to the celebration of his birth. Because, of course, he couldn’t be my husband if he’d never been born.
So happy birthday my love, it’s happening whether you want it to or not! And remember, from now until June 4th, you can tell people you’re three years older than me. It won’t really be true, but I love you enough to play along.
Mim over at MimKnits wants to see our favorite harbingers of spring. I haven’t had much time to go out and take photos this spring (although it has definitely sprung here!) I took this photo of a bud on a star magnolia tree in Portland on the 16th of March. The tree was already in full bloom which is one of the things I love about Oregon, allergies notwithstanding.
My one consistently favorite sign of spring is the budding of the crocuses on campus. Here’s a shot from last spring, taken in mid-February.
And mine certainly haven’t been idle! Two trips to Portland in the past three weekends, projects and all kinds of other things have kept me from having the time or energy to blog. I certainly have the fodder, just not the mental process.
The Pi Day trip to Portland was a great deal of fun. We were finally able to cash in the wedding gift from TheBoy’s bosses; a two night stay at the hotel of our choice. And what was our choice? McMennamin’s Kennedy School, one of our favorite places to stay in the city. Formerly a school, each classroom is now split into two bedrooms with a shared entry from the main hall (opening onto a tiny hall leading to the rooms). There is a cinema grill, a restaurant and two bars as well as a soaking pool and conference-type rooms. The best part? Chalkboards in the rooms and a distinct lack of TVs! Here’s what the main entrance looks like:
The weather was grey, damp and cold all weekend. Friday meant a trip to Ikea, where I picked up a new stool to use while spinning for a whopping $6. It’s wonderfully bright green as well. I’m hoping that it will get lots of use in the coming months.
My Pop-pop would have probably been horrified by this but may I point you to Danny Boy as sung by the Swedish Chef, Beaker and Animal. Pop-pop was American by birth location only, my Nanny and Granpa (my dad’s grandparents) came to the States from Ireland in the early part of the 20th century. My sisters and I are the last generation to carry our family name, which is pretty sad for me, even with its horrible silent G.
For the more traditional amongst us. My family always celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with a family dinner of corned beef and cabbage, something I try to make every year for my very much non-Irish husband. At least he appreciates a good slice of corned meat. May you have a great day, whether you celebrate quietly with family, raucously with green beer or not at all. Sláinte!
As much as I love living in Oregon there are a few downsides. It’s a temperate climate, which means spring starts in March (although the rain does not stop when spring starts, it just gets generally warmer). Because of this, we have an extremely long ant season. Two days after I first moved into this apartment there were swarms of ants, in the pantry, in the bathroom*, in the cupboard over the stove. I threw a mild tantrum about this, having never experienced this kind of infestation anywhere. Luckily, the rent I pay covers pest control and I happened to report it to the office while the pest control man was there and he came up and treated my apartment and put down some traps. Since then, we’ve never had an infestation anywhere near as bad, although we continue to have them, intermittently.
We had our first of this warm season on Sunday. A few scattered ants had shown up lately, skittering around the microwave cart as though they owned the joint and I’d wipe them up and carry on. On Sunday, by chance, our garbage can was pretty full and had been pushed back to make contact with the wall. And oh, did they swarm, from the corner of the kitchen winds in a line down to the trash. Many many ants. Enough to make my skin crawl. There were even a few in my (thankfully) nearly empty airtight sugar container. I began wiping them away with damp paper towels, and then rubbed the rind of a lemon wedge against the wall since I’ve read they don’t like citrus oils. We tied up the trash and took it out, swept the floor well and moved the foodstuffs off the microwave carts. Since then, I’ve only seen a few ants hanging around so I’m calling it in my favor.
*Apparently ants can be attracted by soap and shampoo and the like. Additionally, they like to travel along warm water pipes in the walls, hence how easily ours traveled between the kitchen and the bathroom.
