A wheezy hiatus from from an old friend

My letter to Macy's.

Hopefully, one day, they'll listen.

I have been a Macy's customer since I was old enough to shop on my own, and, as Macy's Herald Square is around the corner from my office, I often have dashed over there on lunch hours, or after work to buy whatever I need. I have always appreciated having such a full-featured store so close by.
Your recent remodel, while lovely to look at, has made this impossible.

I am allergic to perfume, and while previously the perfumes and colognes occupied a space that was somewhat segregated from the rest of the cosmetics, etc, it is now more integrated with the rest of the first floor. The fragrances were so strong, in fact, that I could still smell them in both the cellar, and in the Mezzanine. I had to cut my shopping trip short, because I had an asthma attack and needed to leave.

I respectfully request that you reconsider this arrangement. While I understand that perfume sales people would like to attract customers, I would hope that this could be accomplished without alienating the rest of us. Until this happens, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do my cosmetic, housewares, and handbag shopping, elsewhere.

Regretfully,

A non Poll Poll

Ok.. so I have a poll-type question to ask but I don't feel like building an actual poll so I'm just going to ask the question and hope for comments.

I'm one of those knitters that never actually finishes anything... like ever. And this is why..

I cast on for something, anything, and i'm going along nicely and then I'll glance down at what Im doing and see a mistake. The mistake isn't huge, and its like 10 rows back, and I think "noone will notice that" and I knit another 10 rows. At which point I can't stop seeing it.

Now I'm 20 loooong rows away from the problem (or some insurmountable difference) and its something like lace, or somethign else with a ton of decreases and whatnot and I really really don't want to go back and undo and fix it. But I also don't feel like I can go forward either. So I put it down while I contemplate the problem. A month later I pickthe project up, can't remember where I left off, but I see exactly where the error is, I have a little panic and put it away, often for good.

This is a problem. Its an expensive problem, and its resulted in a gazillion, slightly irregular, unfinished, projects that I don't recall where I left off so I can't even resume, all over the damned place.

Which brings us to today.

I'm knitting a pair of socks and somewhere at the very beginning of the stitch pattern (below the 1 inch cuff about 3 rows in, I got off the pattern by 1 stitch, creating a skew. The pattern is fine below there, but there is this glaring (to me, anyway, I mean how glaring can something be that is in little tiny yarn on little tiny needles) mistake at the top and i'm now 20 rounds below it.

So what do I do?

Do I keep going/ I mean its a sock. socks get worn, and worn out, and a small mistake on a couple of rows under the cuff arent going to make or break the thing?

Do I fix it, knowing I will keep noticing it?

How do I force myself to do one or the other?

How do I jump this hurdle so I don't end up with another project that is in the "why the hell did I stop knitting that" pile?

Who asked you?

So Maura Kelly of Marie Claire posted this the other day and stirred up a lot of anger.

These are my thoughts on the whole thing.

Here’s the thing, for me. (and I will articulate this poorly, I’m sure)

I’m fattish. Medically anyway. size 14 sometimes size 16 others, right now i’m in a 12. Medically obese, but not necessarily unhappy with my weight or how I look, most of the time.. If i pay attention to my weight its because I feel like it. Sometimes I do, and I enjoy losing then. And sometimes I don’t feel like it. Like right now. don’t get me wrong, I used to be obsessed with it, and one day I woke up and just didn’t care anymore. It didn’t seem important. Best thing that ever happened to me, that.

So the arguments that this kind of thing provokes bother me because they buy into the social obsession/importance of weight.

Stupid woman at Marie Claire claims fat is unhealthy. Many justifiably angry people argue that fat and health are not necessarily related. They’re right, but what does it matter if its healthy or unhealthy? Whether it is or not isn’t the point. I’m under no moral obligation to pursue health if I don’t want to. My body, my choice. Does it cost other people money? possibly.. so does driving, and smoking, and industrial pollution and a lot of other things. What level of attention I give it is a personal one, decided between me, my spouse and if I feel like involving them, my cats. And is no one's business but ours.

The problem with her being hurtful isn’t specifically that fatter folks have suffered enough with attempts to lose weight. Granted many have, and they shouldn’t have to. But some of us don’t suffer at all. Some people (and this is horribly scary to the weight obsessed), don’t actually give a shit about their weight.

(Imagine what it feels like to have people youv’e spent your whole life trying ‘not to be like’ or looking down on, telling you that how you’ve spent your life (trying to be thin) is unimportant.)

For many people it isn’t a choice. But for those for whom it is a choice, its a choice we have a right to make. Just like being unmarried, or choosing not to be parents, or, for that matter choosing to be parents or choosing to get married. I can choose to be fat because I am too busy with things I care about to make it a priority and there isn’t a damned thing wrong with that.

What Ms. Kelly did ts not wrong on the basis of what individuals experience, or because she has the science wrong. Its wrong becuase it marginalizes an entire group of people based on arbitrary criteria.

cleveland12

cleveland12
Originally uploaded by weaselrina

Paper.

Spending a beautiful saturday inside writing a paper.

oy.

If only I had time

I would be doing nine million things.

Like sitting for a whole day listening to the absolutely awesome 'best albums of 2009' list over at

http://powerpopreview.blogspot.com/

I've been so busy I didn't know that Ian Hunter had an album out.

and I love Ian Hunter.

I'm going to try and listen in between the schoolwork - I've been missing out.

Adventures in cosmetic application

or.. How not to put on eye cream. step 1. put a blob of eye-cream on your right index finger. step 2. realize that to put on eye cream you need to remove your glasses.

step 3. remove glasses, using right hand, thereby spreading said eye-cream all over lenses.

step 4. take a bow.

Another proud moment.

Why it pays to read the terms of service or Why your Mac needs internet security software

Hi all - I just recently became aware of this so I thought I'd share. This is just a public service announcement for those of you who don't think you need an antivirus program because you have a Mac. And it has nothing to do with viruses

If you connect to online banking using said Mac, or your retirement account or your investment account, it is very likely that their terms of service say that you are covered in the event of fraud or hacking or whatnot but only if proper precautions are taken on your computer.
Which means if the machine you access the account from does not have internet security software installed you are not protected against financial loss.

It is not true in every case but definitely worth running the software if you aren't up for reading your terms of service.

Ok.. I admit it.

I'm panicking about swine flu.

Fine.. everyone I talk to is being all too-cool and  calm and detatched and jokey and tsk tsking the media for being all inflammatory and overreacting and making fun of people walking around in masks, but me? I'm nervous.

Maybe its because I stupidly read everything i could find on the 1918 flu.

Maybe its because I'm vaguely nuts anyway. Or because I'm asthmatic.  Or because I live in a densely populated metropolitan area and take public transportation with people who cough, sneeze and drool all over everything. Or because the background on my Twitter page is a flu virus.  Or because I have an internet connection and an unbearable compulsion to read.  Whatever it is, I can't seem to get calm about this.

There, I said it - anyone else?

Um. so yeah.. that was a Joke..

So for those of you who were genuinely concerned that I might have a Madame DeFarge/Richard Nixon complex.. No, I do not really have an enemies list.  Unless you count walnuts, mohair, health insurance companies and oak pollen as enemies (which at the moment, I do).

Atchoo.

:)

(p.s. does anyone know where my Optivar eye drops are?)

Knittiing Updates

The Cashmere neckwarmer is mostly finished, It needs to be blocked and have buttons added. and the ends woven in. I'm actually considering adding a single crochet border to compensate for the weird mistake where its wider in one spot than others. Its driving me a little crazy. Ok. a lot crazy. I have this bad habit of permanently back-burnering projects when i've discovered I've made a mistake and it is too far back to fix, so it was a really big deal for me that I actually went thru and finished this

When I was a kid and took piano lessons my instructor always used to yell at me because if I made a mistake I had to go back to the beginning of the piece and start over. I see I've brought that compulsion forward.

I liked knitting this, Its just simple enough that I can do it on the train while watching tv on my phone, and the yarn is gorgeous. (Artyarns 5 ply cashmere) I've started a second one (to be given as a gift) solely to be worked on on the train. (and other periods where I want to knit but can't pay attention to it) . As I discovered this morning, I can even balance a cup of coffee while knitting this pattern and watching tv on the train- perfect.

For non-train knitting I've revived my Falling Water Scarf. I'd completely forgotten I started one and was glad I could easily figure out where I left off. I was looking thru my ravelry page and saw this listed in my projects, and had no memory of it at all. Fortunately it was one of two things I've managed to list in Ravelry (I have tons of others i've been meaning to) because it was the only way I remembered what yarn I was using. (Malabrigo Silky Merino)

My goal for the summer is to finish or frog every project that was left stranded in the middle.

Seems reasonable.

Well. this will clearly need blocking.

scarf
Originally uploaded by weaselrina

The scarf is nearly done, it will SO need to be blocked
and while i really like it, the one break in the color pattern is driving me batty. I may do a duplicate stitch over it.

How does my enemies list look? ;)

There are two types of people in this world.

Ok.. so apparently I fell asleep last night before posting this because I took a benadryl and it knocked me out and I just noticed it sitting in my drafts.
I intended to include more links
but now I don't remember what they were.
Seriously, benadryl should be a controlled substance.

There are two types of people in this world.
And a million ways to finish that sentence.
The first time remember hearing that opener it was followed by "Beatles people and Rolling Stones People"
and the most unusual one I'd heard was "Those that like Halvah and those that don't"

Growing up in Brooklyn in the late 70s and into the very early 80s there truly were two types of people in the world: Those that listened to Rock and those that listened to Disco. I distinctly remember narrowly escaping several fistfights that were precipitated by someone throwing down the "rock sucks" or "disco sucks" gauntlet
And if you happened to be in Junior High at the time, everything about your existence was defined by which of these you chose. Who your friends were, what clothes you wore, where you hung out, what hairstyle you had.. all of these fell in line behind your musical choice.
.
I was a rock person, driven, at least in part, by my lack of desire to style my hair every morning. Rock people definitely had it easier in terms of the personal maintenance, and I think my wardrobe for a few years consisted largely of black rock concert t-shirts. Perhaps if i had the easily-styled hair that neatly and easily fell into those Farrah Fawcett flips, the entire course of my liie might have been different.

Fortunately Junior High ended and we all moved on to more meaningful pursuits and became passionate about more important things, such as Atkins vs. Weight Watchers, Facebook vs. Twitter and the all-important Mac vs. PC . . Musical rivalries of this type do still exist though (the styles have changed but the dynamics haven't).

So anyway, my point. Because I grew up in such a volatile musical climate, it suprised me tremendously when I first learned that the artists don't always share the same allegiences as their fans. For this reason I always enjoy hearing musical artists talk about their influences and likes and have them be things that you would never associate with them.

Here we have Wyclef talking about Bruce Springsteen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6psg0BEg94


An article on Frank Sinatra and a whole bunch of people:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-05-11-frank-sinatra_N.htm

On a related note: I also really got a big kick out of seeing Dee Snider singing "Tradition" from Fiddler on the Roof on one of those VH1 "I love a decade that isn't this one" things. I would love to see a remake of Fiddler starring Dee Snider as Tevye.

Creative aging.

When I was a kid, my mother gradually developed diminished hearing in one of her ears. 

She said it was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and gleefully pointed her deaf ear at anyone she didn't feel like listening to.  It was  indicative of her personality for sure, but I'd imagine teaching first grade for 30 years made her appreciate quiet when she heard it.

My father had the same joyful reaction to losing his sense of smell as he got older.  As a life-long New Yorker, this I understood  immediately.

As my mother's hearing in her (left i think) ear worsened, she would often 

mishear things in peculiar ways.  Most memorable to me was a public service annoucement that New York City ran in the late 70s encouraging people to put their garbage in garbage bags (as opposed to piling their refuse in the cans, attracting all manner of wildlife --->>). I don't remember most of the song, but the chorus was the repeated words "bag it, bag it", prompting my mother to run in all offended at the insulting language and to yell at me for listening to such things.

Imagine my sense of nostalgia today as we drove home from our luxurious weekend in Danbury CT (yes, really), and Kanye West's "Amazing" came on the radio, and I turned  to my husband to say .. "Ok, so I know he can't really be singing about raisins, can he?".  (At another point, it sounded like "Raisinettes" too).

I can only imagine this is going to get worse.  

I didn't mind the song per se, but it sounded like he was singing Karaoke,  rather than a song,  (the vocal track sounded completely disconnected from the music -  DH's observation)

On a completely different note,  today I discovered yet another difference between living in the suburbs (as I have for the last year and a half),  and NYC where i spent the preceding 40 1/2 years.  Living in Brooklyn for that many years, you grow used to hearing people scream at sporting events.  You can hear them from blocks away.  When the Rangers finally won the Stanley Cup after 54 years, people were going to their windows in between periods and bellowing random gutteral sounds out the window.  

Here in Westchester, they scream at golf.

on television.

Really. 

I'm not kidding

I came home from my weekend away to hear someone screaming "Attaboy Tiger" from behind their closed door. 

Its a whole new world.

So I still remember how to knit.. who knew..

I love long weekends.

And I've been in dire need of a break.
Never content to have one thing going on at a time, I was seduced into picking up a second project heading into my long weekend.

To backtrack a little - my husband and I never seem to have time to work on the stuff we enjoy.. life tends to interfere. So we committed to spending this weekend doing the things we never seem to get to - in my case its knittng and blog stuff.

I started the weekend in Katonah Yarn where I picked up some Artyarns Cashmere 5 in a blend of purply colors to make this Cashmere neckwarmer  (note: links to a pdf).

I'm enjoying this so far, and its looking pretty good...

The only real complaint I have, is that the two projects I have going at the moment are this, and the baby raglan sweater made from the yak/marino blend, and both yarns are stranded rather than plyed so I'm constantly splitting stitches, which is starting to drive me a little nuts.

Make that two complaints - or one and a half really, this scarf has a psso 2 purl stitches on the purl side, and with the splittiness of the yarn it gets a little wearing. 

Still, its yummy, soft, and easy and fast, exactly what I needed for this weekend.

Oh yeah.. went to Stew Leonards today too - forget the Disney folk, this is truly the happiest place on earth

Please Disregard

this post

Yes, I really am this immature

But I saw this and couldn't stop giggling.

I am a 12 year old.

Give me a Y... Give me an A...

I'm knitting I'm knitting!!

It has been ages since I've picked up the needles to do anything.  Partly because I've been so hideously busy, and partly because I just have too many hobbies  to devote enough time to any of them.  But I've missed my yarn so much and I'm happy that I finally broke into the stash and looked around.

Of course the stash is like a museum visit,  but I'm not doing stash knitting.  I felt like I had to buy something new.

Just like I always do. I'm facilitating economic recovery, don't judge ;)

I went to School Products yesterday where I picked up some yummy 50/50 Yak/Merino blend in a textured looking brown (with rust tones blended in, much more nuanced than it appears here It is is color #4.  I also picked up my eleventeenth size 8 Addis.  I don't know where any of the others are.  I suspect they are in the same vortex occupied by the cat's toy mice and most of my odd socks.

And I will be knitting the house pattern - a ribbed baby raglan turtleneck. 

Which is cute and squishy and probably won't fit any children I actually know but its small and has more than a 50 percent chance of being finished so i'm knitting it anyway.

I've come to understand that most knitters have completion issues on projects, and that it is often caused by the desire to start the next new wonderful thing, but mine are more often than not caused by the following:

1. I make a mistake, and spend the next 3 inches of the project wondering if I should ignore it or go back and fix it. 

2. I decide to ignore it, after all noone will likely notice it but me.

3. I change my mind and decide can no longer ignore said mistake because in my mind it has grown to be a giant angry blemish on the face of my otherwise happy garment.

4. I procrastinate un-knitting because that isn't nearly as much fun and put the project aside.

5. I lose the row counter that tells me how far along I was on this project so that..

6. When I pick it up again, it seems too confusing to go back and deal with it.

So it sits, with the needles in it.

Which is how i end up with 15 million row counters I can't find, a lifetime supply of duplicate needles and a list of unfinished projects.

But I'm an optimist.

I've already cast on this sweater.

And I've already made my first mistake (in 2x2 ribbing no less.. how is that even possible?!)

We'll see how far I make it.

We have a winner! (or two)

Kostia is the winner in category one (for the most specific answer, and she correctly identified 'store brand")

Stephanie in category two. (you would have won this even if others had entered I think, Inspired! :)

More on what you have both won  later this evening an when I'm home from work!

Congrats both!

Fighting the Sunday Blahs

With a teeny tiny contest.

Here's how it goes.

I went to the "other" supermarket in my area yesterday and saw the following sign.

Evidently the A & P guy has been moonlighting.

Your job is to post in the comments  and tell me what product is being sold here. (winner 1)

Or to give me a really amusing wrong answer. (winner 2)

you can also email in your comment to thomasp5ina@gmail.com

If more than one person actually enters, and gets the right answer  I'll use some super scientific method of determining the winner. (eeny meeny miney mo) So don't hesitate to answer if you see your answer already.

Its actually pretty easy I think.  

Winners will get their choice of

A. A mug tailored just for them from cafepress

B. A wee little garden gnome kit (blame  @rickenbakr ) for this suggestion

C. Something from my yarn stash if you are a knitter.

You have until Monday at midnight.

PS I'm keeping the comments in moderation until all entries are in :)