Invite to Strip?

The actual work part of the day today was a tad boring (read- we all wanted to run away screaming), so my cohorts and I skipped the large group dinner and went to a local pub/bar and had burgers and beer instead. Much better alternative.

As I was there, I was realizing the last time I was even IN a bar was over a year ago before I left the Island and the last time I DRANK in a bar was before I even left for the Island. Wow, a long time ago. So that was interesting. I learned more about my colleagues than I had known before- it was not a negative experience.

Then, once I got back to the hotel, I was riding the elevator up to my room with two (old) men from another campus, (one of whom knew my name, which freaked me out- I'm kind of low man on the totem pole) who invited me to a party in one of their campus hotel rooms. Okay- not too bad. Then, the other old man looked at me and says, "We've even got a pole around here somewhere."

WTF? okay- I admit, I'd had a beer at this point and this may have added to my confusion. Then he tried to make some joke about the "Pole" as in, a guy from Poland, but at that point- it was a bit much. And, what are you supposed to say to that? I said "No, but thank you anyways" and left it at that- but seriously? Making jokes about poles to some random girl who happens to work for the same employer? Can you say harassment? geez.

What a day. And tomorrow is going to be even longer.

Car Paranoia

I'm off to a three day workshop thingy for work. This happens twice a year, but this is the first time since I've been here that Ranger Man has been here for one- which I was really excited about because I thought it meant that I wouldn't have to leave my car at work the entire time and worry about something happen to it. I am paranoid about someone breaking into/stealing my car. It's only happened once (the breaking into part, not the stealing part), and ever since I have been completely paranoid about it happening again.

So, of course, even though Ranger Man is "home" he isn't going to be able to drop me off tomorrow at work (nor would he probably be able to pick me up on Saturday)- so I'm still the lame-o who has to leave her car in the parking lot because she has no one to drop her off. And I'm going to be worried the whole time that something is going to happen to my car. Ugh. Lame and Paranoid are not my best looks.

A little bid of this and a little bit of that

Weirdness. This feels very surreal and strange.

The TDY that was pushed back has now been cancelled altogether. For those keeping track, that leaves Ranger Man without any major movements of any long lengths of time for about four months.

Four Months? What on Earth am I going to do with him for four months straight? This weekend we had to have a talk about how if he wants to get a workout on his bicycle, he needs to go ahead and go for a ride without me. That he can do that because we don't just have the weekend together before he leaves again, so he needs to workout and he's going to need to leave me at home, and not feel guilty about that. Of course, it is hard to take my own advice and I still feel guilty when I try to write and he goes into another room to leave me alone to my random out-loud outbursts and attacking the keyboard (writing is kind of a loud process for me).

But really, that's a long time. I don't know how to have him home for that long...

Luckily, I have knitting. I finished Chapter 1 last weekend. OKay- I finished the draft and I figure that the yarn reward was partly to reward/motivate the draft completion and partly to make me feel better because first drafts are always crap and hopefully the edits will be brutal. So...

I am planning on making Liesl, and I ordered some Rowan Summer Tweed in a powder blue color to make it. I think a cotton/silk blend will be a nice garment for mid-Summer Georgia. I may have also ordered another skein of sock yarn- with the WEBS discount, the sock yarn ended up being about $1, so I really couldn't resist!

I leave you today with pictures of another completed pair of neverending socks of doom. Ranger Man's Dad is one of the best knit-wear receivers I know (ranks high up there with my Grandma, who is another knitter)- so it is ONLY for him that I would go through this again:


(Yes, the ends have been woven in since I took the pictures). Sorry about the cat butt- If I try to get cat Head in the picture, he attacks the socks and heaven forbid I try to take a picture without the King of The House in it at all!

These pictures doesn't fully capture the hugeness that are size 14 socks on size 1 needles.
Plain Vanilla Socks, The grey is Knitpicks Essential/Stroll/Whatever they're calling it these days and its tweedy. The Brown is Elann Sockittome in some sort of brown colorway. Nutmeg or something like that.

For being GIGANTIC socks, they only took about 3 weeks. By contrast, the last pair of plain vanilla socks I did for my womens' size 6.5 socks took 1 week.

Call me Ms. LovesToRant

The Way To Annoy the Library Worker/SGA Advisor/Community Service Coordinator #897:

2.5 hours before a big meeting to plan for a brand-new and very exciting event, when I am frantically typing with my eyes glued to my computer and have an even greater amount than usual of random books and papers strewn across my desk-

Be sure to ask me what my ideas are. This will not only disrupt my train of thought, but it will take time away from preparing for said big meeting. Thus- doubly annoying me.

Especially if you had volunteered to contribute ideas but didn't follow through, leaving me to do it all.

OMG. seriously? The world does not revolve around you, Mr. Snowflake student. Since you obviously did not care to help out before hand, you will have to wait like everyone else for me to explain the process. Seriously, I think it's like some sort of a drinking game for them or something- how much can we annoy Ms. Library Worker today?

Geesh.

Chapter 1, almost done!

Loquita asked about the writing, so I thought I'd share publicly.

I'm *ALMOST* done with Chapter 1. Well, with the draft of Chapter 1. I have to go back to the archives on friday and then will spend saturday and sunday writing and re-writing, but by goodness the draft of the first chapter will be emailed to my advisors next Sunday night.

Then, there will be yarn purchasing. A while ago, I told myself I woudn't buy any yarn until I finished the first chapter. It's worked, I haven't bought any new yarn (not that I really need any right now)- I've done a ton of knitting from stash, and I've gotten the writing done.

More importantly, once I finish (i.e. completely done) the entire thesis, I am going to learn to spin. I'm aiming for that being right around SAFF time.

So- that's my timeline and my rewards. And now, to go to work to pay the bills.

Turkey Knitting

So.... flying to Istanbul from Georgia takes about 15 hours. Then there are layovers: We flew from Atlanta to Philadelphia, where our flight was delayed and from Philly to Paris, where we had missed our connecting flight and had to wait another 6 hours, and then finally Paris to Istanbul. All in all, over 24 hours.

I brought sock knitting, of course (and an extra set of DPNs in my checked luggage in case anything went awry with security on the way there), and cast on a pair of socks after we had boarded the plane in Atlanta. I knit almost the entire time we were sitting down (we spent some time wandering around airports because we were tired of sitting)- but it was still a good chunk of knitting at one time, and it helped ME to not be annoyed with all the delays. Ranger Man did not have such a soothing mechanism and was not pleased. I finished all but the toe of the first sock before we landed in Istanbul:

I finished the first sock in the evenings while we were in Istanbul and cast on the second sock. Then, I got sick and rather than having super-knitting-productive plane rides home (without flight delays, literally only took 15 hours, thank goodness!), I spent the entire time blowing my nose and being miserable. The thought of looking down at my knitting and encouraging the snot flow was not appealing, not to mention that my eyes were watering so much that I couldn't keep them open that long (how's the for graphic, sorry guys). Ugh, it was terrible. Plus- the first flight I literally thought my ears were going to explode due to congestion and air pressure. Not fun. So the second sock took longer than 48 hours. But as you can see, they're completed nonetheless. I made them an inch longer than my feet, so they will be a Christmas Present for someone. I just need to figure out who!

Pattern: Sunshine, by Cookie A from Sock Innovation.
Yarn: Elann Sockittome in the Rose Wine Colorway

I am in so much trouble

So, anyone who has spent much time around me knows that I like to knit. Perhaps "like" isn't a strong enough word- since it occupies all of my non-working/non-writing time- but the point is that it doesn't take long to figure out that knitting is a major component of my life. This includes knitting, looking at yarn online (no LYS in these parts), spending time on ravelry, and listening to knitting podcasts.

Ranger Man isn't dumb- he understands this. He fully supports and indulges my yarn habit, knowing that (a) it makes me happy (b) it keeps me busy (and happier) when he's gone and (c) aren't there worse things that I could be doing?

So, back to the yarn activities- did I mention listening to knitting podcasts? Sometimes, I'll listen to them before bed. It's a good way to clear my head from whatever icky things might be in there that give me bad dreams and focus on one thing rather than racing thoughts that also keep me up. Thus I'm usually on the look out for new knitting podcasts to listen to that are relaxing (read: few verbal tics) enough to listen to before bedtime. Right before we left for Turkey, I heard about a new one: Electric Sheep. I was listening in bed while Ranger Man was reading a book, and it was so witty and funny that I kept laughing out loud. Note: This is seriously unusual for me, I almost never laugh out loud at movies, so to laugh *repeatedly* at podcast must have been strange. He wanted to know what I was listening, so I shoved an earbud in his ear mid-giggle.

This podcast is funny, witty, intelligent and not so knit-centric as to be completely exclusive. Ranger Man has spent enough time around me that he knows a bit of knitting terms and could pick right up and follow along, and soon he was also laughing (not so unusual- he's a much better laugher than I. In fact, he watched "Madagascar 2" on the plane ride home from Turkey and he was laughing so hard and loud that I just about died of embarrassment).

He enjoyed it so much that it's become a bit of a ritual. Now, when there's a new Electric Sheep podcast, we'll listen together before bed. This podcast talks a lot about guerilla knitting, and Ranger Man has decided to make this cause his own. We'll be around town somewhere and he will, out of the blue, say "you know those boat trailers in the parking lot at the Marina? They'd be great targets for guerilla knitting" or "that statue needs a scarf."

I emailed the podcaster and told her about this strange knitting phenomenon. This Big Bad Scary Ranger Man who is enjoying listening to her knitting podcast with his girlfriend and who is championing the cause of guerilla knitting. She got such a kick out of this that she talked about us on her next podcast. (I believe it starts at about the 32 minue mark, if you're not interested in the knitting content).

Here's the part where I get in trouble. Ranger Man's mom sent me an email with some pictures of a motorcycle covered in knitting, as a sort of joke. I chuckled slightly to myself, thinking "she has no idea what Pandora's box she's just opened," and replied with some other pictures of guerilla knitting, including the tank cozy and the phone box. Not only that, I told her, but your son (and my Ranger Man) has been quite the advocate of this type of knitting, and sent her the link to the podcast.

Now, I did this with good intentions- I think that the more involved she feels in his life (and of course, the more I am instrumental in that feeling), the less snarky she will be when I see her. What I didn't count on was her sharing this podcast with Ranger Man's mentor- i.e. the ORIGINAL big bad scary Ranger Man. oops. I totally emasculated Ranger Man this weekend and it was completely on accident. He is ssooo not happy.

Is it wrong that I think it's hilarious?