Just Call Me "Granny"

Boy, it's been all doctors, all the time around here lately. My son has a sinus infection; my dog has an ear infection; my mom had surgery today on the arm she broke racing scooters with my kids. (Yeah, you read that right. Not a Rascal. A Razor. She's a cool nana. The surgery went fine and she is resting at home.)

I went to the eye doctor yesterday.

I don't like going to the eye doctor. I'm not big on people playing with my eyes. I don't like the drops or the little stick he uses to look under my eyelids or the camera with the pokey thing on the end that he sticks in my eyes to see if I have glaucoma (I don't). Mostly, I don't like the little chuckle he always gives me when I explain that there is something wrong with my current glasses. I keep cleaning and cleaning them and they don't get any clearer. He doesn't understand that the problem is the glasses. He insists that the issue is my eyes. Specifically, they are getting old.

You can see why I don't like going to the eye doctor.

This particular visit netted me a prescription for new (stronger) reading glasses. (We will not discuss the eye doctor's continuing insistence that I should be wearing glasses for distance as well, nor the additional prescription he forced on me for said glasses, as it will be joining its fellows from the last two visits in the pile on my desk.) The reading glasses I can live with. Mostly because, without them, I cannot read, use a computer, or knit, and without those activities, I would have far bigger problems than a need for glasses.

The new prescription means I get to order new glasses. I can't wear over-the-counter reading glasses. My eyes are vastly different in the amount of correction they require, and each eye has a different degree of astigmatism. Standard reading glasses make me feel seasick.

My current glasses look like this:

And they're fine. They help me see, and I enjoy that. But they're a little bland. So I ordered something different this time:


A little spicier, no? And since I spend a lot of time reading and knitting outside and always have to choose between reading glasses and sunglasses in those situations, I ordered them with lenses that automatically darken in the sun, like this:

I think they're kind of cute. Maybe even verging on stylish. Still, there's no getting around the fact that they're reading glasses. Sigh. Just call me "Granny." Minus the scooter.

FO: Death By Cables

Just in time for summer, I've finally finished Death By Cables! This sweater has the dubious distinction of having taken me longer to complete than any other project ever. It's been on the needles since October of last year--that's seven months; longer even than Icarus. Mercifully, the temperature has dropped from its 100 degree high two days ago to an absolutely lovely 69 degrees, just in time for my photo shoot.

Pattern: Dickinson Pullover by Kathy Zimmerman from the Fall 2007 Interweave Knits (my favorite issue of any knitting magazine ever).

Size: I followed the pattern for a 40 inch finished bust. Mine is not actually 40 inches. I'm not sure how to measure accurately because the ribbing and cables draw in the fabric so much, but I have a 35 inch bust, and as you can see, the finished sweater is fairly clingy. (This may change. I haven't washed and blocked it yet, which is also why the cables are a little uneven looking.)


Yarn: Berroco Softwist Bulky (wool/rayon) in burgundy. Seven skeins, I think. The yarn is beautiful: drapey and soft, with a gorgeous sheen from the rayon. I will never, ever use it again. It was the biggest pain in the world to knit with. The rayon is not only incredibly slippery, but splits like nothing I've ever seen and snags on everything. Working numerous cables and textured stitches in this yarn was like slowly peeling off my own fingernails. The only yarn I have ever disliked working with as much is Berroco Cotton Twist, which is a cotton/rayon blend, and for exactly the same reasons.

Needles: Size 8 (for the body) and 6 (for the collar) Knit Picks Harmony circulars. They were perfect for this slippery yarn.


Mods: I made the body two inches longer and the sleeves 3/4 of an inch longer than the pattern called for, to accommodate my height. I'm very happy with the finished length of both body and sleeves. Other than that, I followed the pattern to the letter. There's a first time for everything, I guess! If I were to do this again (and I won't--not ever), I would leave out the textured stitches on the sides of the large cable motif on both the body and sleeves and knit those sections in plain stockinette. I like the textured stitches, but they added four whole charts to the pattern, and those charts were not in sync with the cable charts and were impossible for me to memorize. Without those, the pattern would have been much, much easier for me to follow, and I would undoubtedly have been able to finish months ago. So although I like the way they look, I wouldn't knit them again.

Do you think this finally gets me off the hook with the KG?

And On It Goes

I consider myself a decent knitter. I've got yarn; I've got needles. I even have many, many completed projects that look good and fit correctly. But recent evidence indicates that maybe I need to reconsider how I think of my knitting skills.

I've been through a whole string of knitting disasters lately: gauge issues, fit problems, seaming goofs, running out of yarn (that's been a big one). Last night I discovered a whole new way to screw up.

I finished the knitting for Death By Cables! Yes, despite 100 degree temperatures, I've been plugging dutifully along on a chunky weight cabled wool pullover. And--who'd have thought?--all that knitting led to a finished sweater. Or, um, at least a finished something.

What's wrong with this picture?

If you guessed, "Hey, someone sewed those raglan sleeves to each other!" you're right. Just for the record, I don't have two right arms. I do, however, have a sweater with two right sleeves. You should have seen me trying to make it fit. I have spatial orientation issues, so it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that no amount of pulling and adjusting was going to get the left sleeve onto the left side of my body when it was sewn to the right sleeve.

Fortunately, I have other projects to share with you.

We have a pool in our backyard, and, like most pools, it is in full sun. This is lovely when one is floating in cool water, but not so lovely when one is steaming in the hot tub. For years, I've wished our hot tub was located in the shade, but there didn't seem to be any way to arrange this, since the hot tub is integrated into the pool. And then I saw a picture of an offset umbrella and a lightbulb went on.

We faced a small dilemma. The very large weighted base required to support the cantilevered umbrella would not fit on the narrow strip of concrete that edges the hot tub.


So my brilliant former-engineer husband came up with an alternate solution. He bought a pre-formed concrete footing and bolted the bottom section of the umbrella pole to the top of the footing.


Then he dug a big ol' hole in the raised bed behind the hot tub. He dug down far enough to sink the entire concrete footing below the level of the patio.


Then he reinstalled the landscape blocks and backfilled the hole. We put the umbrella into the base, and voila!

Instant shade (almost)! We've been delighted to find that the hot tub remains in full shade until about 3:30 in the afternoon. After that, the late afternoon sun slowly creeps under the western edge of the umbrella and lights the hot tub. But during the hottest part of the day, the hot tub is in lovely, cool, refreshing shade, while the pool remains in full sun. No frogging required!

Look! It's a Meme!

Romi tagged me for a new meme, and since I do love a good meme, here we go:

"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was living in San Diego, recently married, with a new baby, and had just started law school.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Get my nails done, teach astronomy to fifth graders, clean the bathrooms, go grocery shopping, read bankruptcy law

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Cheezits and milk, granola bars, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal, candy

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Seek excellent financial advice, pay off debts, set up a charitable foundation, buy a farm and raise fiber animals

5) Places I have lived:
San Diego, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Russia, Germany

7) 6 peeps I wanna know more about:

Sophanne
Melissa
Kristin
Annie
Heather
Sharon
Tammy

But since I'd actually like to know more about all of you, please feel free to play along if you'd like! (And, as always, if I tagged you and you don't feel like playing...don't.)

Dear Knitting Goddess:

You win.

Dickinson it is.

Seriously?

Halfway through the second sleeve, I've run out of yarn.

Score:
KG: 12
Knitter: 0

Sometimes It Takes a Bitch

After I wrote my post yesterday morning, I started thinking about the dishwasher saga, and the fact that I paid a lot of money and wasn't getting what I had paid for, and no one seemed at all interested now that they had my money, and even threats of legal action weren't helping, and people...I got mad.

So I did it.

I packed up a load of dirty dishes in a cardboard carton and drove to the showroom. I made a brief effort at containing my righteous anger, but when the store manager attempted to tell me that his service department wasn't responsible for my problem in the first place (even though I've been dealing with them for six weeks), because my dishwasher was no longer covered under the original warranty, and I needed to call the extended warranty people...well. I unloaded a whole heap of crazy pissed off bitch all over the place. Several people ducked under desks and I'm pretty sure at least one of them pushed the panic button. When my head swiveled 360 degrees and flames shot out my nostrils, the manager got on the phone. I overheard his end of the conversation. I took careful note to make sure it didn't involve words like "hostage" and "insane" and "police". It did involve statements like "in my store right now" and "not at all happy" and "I really don't think that's going to go over well at all".

The end result is I'm getting a brand new dishwasher, installed, at no cost. With a brand new warranty and a brand new extended warranty, also at no cost.

And I got out of there before the police showed up.

Score one for my inner bitch.