West coast friends....

if you are going to Stitches West, please stop by the booth of Crafting For The Peanut Gallery/Rabbitworks, where you will not only find beautiful handmade wooden lovelies like darning eggs and lazy kates, and the initimable Rabbitch and her handpainted yarns, but you will also find a small batch of Black Bunny Fibers yarns and patterns. Look for Booth 1242 and give them a big hug from me.

This week has gotten away from me, and not especially in a good way. Tuesday was the two-month anniversary of my dad's death, which still seems surreal to me, and we're getting smacked with more snow tonight and tomorrow. I'm feeling out of sorts, so I'll sign off now.

P.S. For Philadelphia area knitters, Clara Parkes' visit to Loop has been POSTPONED due to bad weather. (Thanks, J.!!)

Dental Damn

"Faced with the choice of enduring a bad toothache or going to the dentist, we generally tried to ride out the bad tooth. " -- Joseph Barbera

Remember that list I made last week? Of the things that were indicating how effing old I am? Well, add this one:
4. Today, part of my tooth fell out.

Okay, maybe it was an old filling (which isn't a bad thing, since the Lyme-Nuts are telling me I need to take out all amalgam fillings). Or maybe it was part filling, part tooth. Or maybe I'm turning into a toothless crone before your very eyes. No matter how you look at it, it sucks.

However, at least I am reasonably sure it won't get infected. (A little I've-been-on-antibiotics-for-months humor, there.)

The Tantric Tantrum

Yesterday was not a particularly pleasant day, let's just say. I started out the day with a schlepp to my Lyme doctor (an hour each way; long story). He upped one of my antibiotics and took some blood. This trip fatigued me more than it normally would.

The bright point of my day -- the cream in my Tastykake -- was a quick knitting meet-up with Liz. I've grown extremely fond of Liz in a short time and she's a kick-ass knitter, too. We met and had hot beverages and knit and kibbitzed. Liz is helping me out by test-knitting a pattern that has been through multiple revisions but it's such a cool pattern I think it's worth it. Here's a quick peek at what she did:



Our knitting time was all too short. After I picked up the twins from preschool, and my mother called to tell me she wasn't going to come tomorrow because we were supposed to get a blizzard a volcano was scheduled to erupt hot molten magma all over the Pa. Turnpike they were calling for a few snowflurries, G. decided to have a complete and utter hissyfit. It lasted for two and a half hours.

It was, in fact, a tantric tantrum.

Now rest assured that G. had a perfectly good reason for her snit. Something about her coloring book not being right. I won't bore you with the details of the screaming, the threats, the thrashing, the rending of garments (or the stuff that G. did). Suffice it to say that it was ugly. In the midst of the fury, G. starts grabbing her crotch. Her not being a pop star, I realize this suggests she needs the bathroom and I ask her if she needs to go to the toilet. She says no. I even take her to the bathroom, but she's kicking and screaming and I'm afraid I might smack her head on something she might hit her head on the sink or something.

She comes to find me about fifteen minutes later. (I was locked in my bedroom with my hands over my ears, humming "The Star Spangled Banner" while shouting "I'M NOT LISTENING!")

Dear readers, she had urinated on the floor.

Yep, she had showed me that... um, she wasn't gonna take no orders from no honky bitch about where to ... um, well, I'm sure she showed me something. Please excuse me while I go try to figure out what it was.*



*When daddy came home, she immediately sauntered up to him and asked for all her treasured princess-iana that I had confiscated on the theory that any kid who pisses on the bathroom floor doesn't get to play with cool sparkly shit. Tom asks her why the stuff got taken away, and she puts on an Oscar-winning display of insouciance and ignorance, while managing to suggest by the set of her eyes that it was because Mommy's Paxil needs upping. "Were you acting like a brat?" Daddy guesses. "SHE PISSED ON THE FLOOR!" I shout. My husband, nicknamed (more or less affectionately, depending on the mood I'm in) Clean Boy, has a single reaction: "Oh God, where?!"

Short Attention Span Wednesday

Truth in Advertising?

I'd like Ralph Nader to take a closer look at the deceptively-named tee-vee show "Dancing with the Stars." The next edition's cast includes these has-beens wanna-bes stars of stage and screen: actor Vincent Pastore ("The Biggest Loser" -- and oh, yeah, "The Sopranos"); Beverly Hills 90210's Ian Ziering (who apparently doesn't know how to pronounce his own name, calling himself "Eye-an"); former 'N Sync Member Joey something or other; future ex-Mrs. Paul McCartney, Heather Mills; Miss USA 2004 Shandy Finnessy (IMHO she'll never top her stellar work on "Lingo"); and several others too depressing to even think about.

Topic: "Dancin' with the Stars" is neither dancing nor with stars. Discuss.

No-Bull Book Reviews

I've got some more knitting book reviews coming up, but notwithstanding some reader requests, I'm not going to review any books put out by Interweave Press. They are the publishers of my upcoming book and since I pride myself on honesty and objectivity, it just wouldn't be right for me to opine about their newest releases. We're all about journalist integrity here at GKIYH. (Although, ahem, I do love Lace Style, Favorite Socks and No Sheep 4 U...)

Speaking of Journalistic Integrity

WTF is with the mainstream news media? There's gavel-to-gavel coverage on the Anna Nicole who-gets-to-bury-the-putrefying-corpse hearing, while serious issues, like the Scooter Libby trial (doesn't anyone care that high-level government officials are willing to blow the cover of CIA agents for political purposes?) and the current clusterfuck in Iraq (if we're doing so well over there, why is Britain pulling out its troops? and if Britain is doing it, why the hell aren't we?) get virtually no coverage.

Can We Knit-Bloggers Please

please come together in a display of unity and decency, and stop saying the following: "dudes" (particularly when used to address readers), "alert the media" and "just sayin'"?

Please?

Who says Philly is a second-rate city?

Where else would you find Nora, the piano-playing cat?