Hiatus

–noun, plural -tus⋅es, -tus.

1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
2. a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.
3. any gap or opening.
4. Grammar, Prosody. the coming together, with or without break or slight pause, and without contraction, of two vowels in successive words or syllables, as in see easily.
5. Anatomy. a natural fissure, cleft, or foramen in a bone or other structure.

Origin:

1555–65; <> 

Related forms:
hi⋅a⋅tal, adjective
Synonyms:
3. break, interval, space.

I do not know exactly why this is happening. There are things happening in my life, bloggable things even. But on the rare occasion I sit down to the computer I can barely motivate myself to leave reasonably intelligent comments on blogs I read regularly. So if you haven't heard from me lately, please don't be offended. I'm still there, I just can't seem line up the two brain cells next to each other needed to line up words into a sentence or two.

This may be somewhat a result of the new job. On the one hand, I've been living my life on my own schedule for the past couple years, and rearranging it to suit someone else's schedule has been challenging, not to mention the fact that for about 35 hours a week someone else is "the boss of me". And on the other hand, although on the surface it isn't a particularly hard job, there are aspects of it that cause it to be rather more physically demanding than you'd expect, more so than it ever should be.

So all this to say, please bear with me for another week or two.  Hopefully by then I'll figure out by then how to organize my life for rest of the season so that I can conserve some energy and save a little to put towards the blog and other parts of my life that have been ignored for the past few weeks.

Apparently Sunday is the new Friday

Which means that yesterday was Saturday, today is Sunday, and tomorrow is Monday.  In my life anyway. And it will be that way next week also. The week after that and continuing for the entire month of July, Sunday will still be Friday but the following day will just be Saturday, or just Sunday, or perhaps some single day combination of the two that allows for a Monday to follow immediately after.  Confused yet?

I certainly wouldn't blame you. All this is because....(insert drumroll here)...I finally landed a job. And when you live in a tourism economy, what little weekend you get, (if any), doesn't usually line up with the weekend the rest of the world sees on a calender. I am not complaining though. I'm taking all the hours I can get, because it is just a seasonal job and will probably start winding down in September, or October if I'm lucky.  It isn't much money, but it's more than I make just sitting on my couch! (And if you can figure out how to make money doing that, please let me know.)

Even if it isn't the highest paying summer job in town, it certainly isn't the hardest either, and when all is said and done, would you mind spending a few months in a bookstore? Yep - that's right - a bookstore! The only one in town actually. Besides books, the shop also sells magazines, candy, maps, cards, and assorted gift items, rents movies, and has a decent sideline business in selling original and reproduction Catalina Pottery. I know what you are thinking, and sadly, no I don't get to sit there and read all day.  They have this wacky idea that you should be helping customers and ringing up sales, and even when the store is empty there's always something that needs to be tidied or some sort of busy work.  But I am surrounded by the lovely books all day and my planned reading list is growing quickly!

Raindrops keep falling on my socks

As expected our "May Gray" weather slid directly into "June Gloom". I don't really mind this anymore, I know the payback is that sometime in September (or October or November or December) when others are layering on sweaters and long pants, we'll still be sweating under sunny skies. But for added interest, today's forecast included a fairly high percentage chance of rain.

So I planned around that forecast, doing all my errands the day before and lining up indoor projects for today.  I was pleasantly surprised when the sun came out this morning and thought I'd take advantage of it by washing a few pairs of socks and hanging them out on the balcony to dry. 

About ten minutes after I got the last pair of socks hung outside - the clouds rolled in, the sky darkened, and the rain started.  So I dashed outside, collected my socks, and retired to the couch. Almost an hour later the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and the sun came back out. I figured okay, that must have been the big whoop-dee-doo rain forecasted, and hung my damp socks back outside in the sun to dry.

I kid you not - ten freakin' minutes later the clouds returned and it started to sprinkle. Again, I go outside, collect my socks, and place my tushy back on the couch. And a short time later...(you see what's coming don't you?)...the blankety-blank, ever-lovin' sun came back out! %$#&$@#$!!!

Okay, I can take a hint, thankyouverymuch. Fine. I will not dry my socks outside in the sun. I will dry my socks inside. On top of the oven. While it is baking chocolate chip cookies. So there.

Wanna get Loopy with me?

I have a lot of yarn. This is a fact. I know of people who have more yarn than I, I'm sure you do also. But by my standards, I have a lot of yarn.  I knew this to be true last year, so I deliberately put myself in check a bit.  But then came Stitches West in February, and an unexpected gift from a friend, and now? I have a hell of a lot of yarn.

I'm actually glad to have this sizable yarn stash, and glad that I purchased so much yarn back in the days when I had either more income or more hope of having an income. Because now I can entertain myself for months on end, knitting through my stash, without spending any money or buying anything more. Except for one thing.

I have a gift certificate from The Loopy Ewe for $25. I have been holding onto it since last year . Why? I'm not really sure. Indecision? Procrastination? I don't know. But I need to use it before it expires and after putting some thought into it, I've come up with an idea.

If you look through my stash you will see single skeins. Whether solid or multi-colored, fingering or worsted weight, wool or acrylic - it's just about all single skeins.  Great for a hat, a short scarf, or a pair of socks. Which is mostly what I want to knit, so no problem. But occasionally I do have the desire to knit up something that would require more than just a single skein. So instead of spending this $25 certificate on yet another single skein of pretty yarn, why not put it towards buying a few skeins of yarn for one specific project?

I've whittled the list down to three possible projects, and I'm going to ask for your input in helping me decide which one:

1. Malabrigo Celtic Cable Set

Last year I knit up a Celtic Cable Neckwarmer in Malabrigo as a gift. It turned out amazingly well, and I thought, why not do another one for myself? And then make a set of mitts and a hat to match?  The Loopy Ewe has worsted weight Malabrigo in many gorgeous colors, but I'm particularly fond of Cinnabar. 

2. Araucania Meandering Vines Shawl

I almost purchased a skein of Araucania Ranco Multi at Stitches, but held off because I couldn't think of a pattern for it. Then someone pointed out the Meandering Vines Shawl, with a very simple stitch pattern similar to the socks I am currently working on, I saw a couple on Ravelry that had been knit up in the Ranco Multi (like this one) and I was hooked. The stitch pattern is strong enough not to disappear in the colors and I've heard nothing but good things about the yarn. Speaking of colors - I like Verdigris the best. 

3. Noro Stripe Scarf

Does this need explaining? You know the pattern and I'd have happily jumped on that bandwagon a while back but that doing a decent job of it requires at least 4 skeins. I realize ordering the yarn online could make it tricky to match up colors, but I think the beauty of that pattern is the mingling of two different Noro colorways to create something unique. And the Loopy Ewe has plenty of colorways to choose from!

So...thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Bring 'em on!

Day of Dumb Decision

That's all I can say on the subject for now. 

Carry on.

The rest of the story

Last month I shared something unpleasant that happened and made me very angry. I suppose now would be a good to time to tell you the rest of the story.

I was indeed very angry, but I knew I needed to get past that anger in order to do anything productive about the situation. After I cooled off, I realized that going to our local paper or complaining to our local congressperson's office would be a bad move. I know our local city council has been blindsided in the past by issues they would have preferred to be made aware of first, so writing a letter to them seemed like the first step.  I didn't know if the other locals who had been burned by the US Census would agree, but it made sense to me. Remember, the idea is maintain the image of me=good citizen, Census = evil wrongdoers.

But as it turned out, I didn't have to write a letter to the Mayor and the Avalon City Council about this issue.  They were already aware. How you ask?  Well, here's where it gets funny, and I mean like stupid funny. 'Cause really, if someone chooses to burn a group of local residents, not noticing that one of those people just happens to be the Mayor's wife? That takes a special kind of stupid, don't you think?

So...if you want to see what happened next, go here. For easier viewing I will tell you that the fun kicks off at 12:20. Then the person from the Regional Census Office, (we'll call her "Corporate Carmen") gets up and starts weaseling around at 20:10. And as you'll see, she did a fine job of that - never answering any questions directly and essentially pointing the finger in every direction except her own staff. Which was a colossal mistake on her part. I firmly believe that if she had just stood up and admitted that a mistake had been made, took responsibility for the mistake, apologized, and then explained clearly and concisely what she could offer at that point in time - it would have been all over in about five minutes. But that's not how it happened.

Some might say she misspoke or danced around the truth, I'd take it a step further and say that what she said isn't the truth at all. And we have a word for that, don't we? I could err on the side of kindness, and suggest that she spoke out of ignorance, and just didn't have all the facts. Which is where I come in, at 36:31.  Bear with me here, and please be kind - I had no advance notice of the meeting and rushed over there moments before it started. I'm sure if I'd had a chance to prepare my thoughts would have been more organized and I wouldn't have sounded like such an idjit.

If you watch through to the end of that section, you'll see that others got up and spoke after me. I give them credit for having he guts to do it - I know I was sweating bullets up at that podium! But there were a few that just sat in the audience, and in the back corner where they wouldn't even show up on camera. I'm not quite sure what I think about that, I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.  Then Corporate Carmen spoke one more time, and then I did again after that, and it was clear that nothing would be resolved there, so everyone involved did as the council requested, and moved our discussion outside.

Somehow, even though I was sitting furthest from the door, I was the first one outside and Corporate Carmen immediately turned to me, put out her hand to shake, and offered her apology for what had occurred. I accepted her apology, but I informed her that it would have meant a whole lot more to me and others if she had spoken that apology inside the council chambers, while still on camera. She also asked me if I was interested in taking the very short-term job of just a few days they were able to offer. I said yes, I wanted whatever work I could get - but asked the obvious question, "How do I trust you?"  I never received an answer to my question, which I guess basically answers the question, doesn't it? 

The end result was that I (and a few other locals) worked for the US Census Bureau for all of ten days. Which is a hell of a lot less than the 10-12 weeks in the original job offer, but better than nothing at all. I also suggested to Corporate Carmen that she contact the local newspapers and ask them to run something about those of us who did get work and why, but apparently she wasn't interested in my advice. So the only info out there is what occurred during the council meeting.  And during the days we were working, we repeatedly bumped into the issue in a variety of ways, with a variety of attitudes.  "Oh yeah, you're the one who got MY job". "Hey, if you're counting people, make sure you count my wife. She was one of the people who was SUPPOSED to get a job". You get the idea. I don't want to imagine how many people think that I only got the job because I spoke up at the meeting, like the squeaky wheel getting the grease. The truth is simply that of the people who took the application exam and passed the background check, I had one of the top three highest scores.  Not surprising considering the amount of time I've spent taking exams in the last several months! 

Along with the paychecks that the federal government will be depositing into my account I got this:

The mug is going to the thrift shop (if they'll take it!) but the bag has potential. It was filled with nifty useful things like notepads, pens, paperclips, and post-its, and it's a useful cloth bag. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of carrying around a bag with the census logo on it so I'm wondering if it can be painted over? Any crafty ideas for this? Now that I'm unemployed again, I appear to have a little time on my hands!

Spring Forward, Tink Back

Sometime last month I hit a point where every single knitted item I had on the needles was either boring me senseless or driving me mad with frustration.  So when someone in the Hazel Knits group on Ravelry suggested a knit-along of any Hazel Knits yarn in any Knitty sock pattern...I was an easy mark.

I've had this particular skein of Hazel Knits in my stash for a while:

Drool all you want, it's one of Wendee's rogue colorways.  A one-of-a kind-whoopsie-how-did that-get-there-I-didn't-mean-to-mix-that-color-in-with-that-other-color happy accident! But maybe if we beg enough she'll add something like this to her regular colorways. (Hint, hint...) I picked this one up last summer at the Strands & Stitches Trunk Show in Laguna.

A bright, sunny yellow like that seemed destined for an open, lacy sock pattern and I found just the perfect one in Spring Forward.  So I cast on and just loved the way it was working up!

I was initially concerned about the 66 stitch cast-on, 56 is more the norm for me with that yarn. But I gave it a shot and was rewarded - the cuff fit comfortably and the stitch pattern on the leg did a nice job of hugging my skinny minny ankles without sagging. I really enjoyed the stitch pattern too, sailed on through the heel without incident, proceeded happily up the foot and through the toe. Which is where I hit a small snag:

That is my Spring Forward sock with, according to the pattern, four rounds left to knit before closing the toe with kitchener stitch. Clearly, that's not going to cut it. And let me be perfectly clear here - this is in no way the fault of the pattern. The pattern is just fine.  The source of the problem is my freakishly long toes!

I know that along with having long stick person arms and legs, I also have long fingers and toes. But it wasn't until I actually knit socks for myself, that I really knew how friggin' long they are!  I have yet to find a sock pattern that does not have to have additional plain rounds added in between the decrease rounds on the toe in order to accommodate the mutant digits. Sure we all have issues from time to time that may require pattern modification, but seriously? These bad boys seem to actually get a little longer each time I try on the sock in progress! Really!

So the sock that came so close to completion last weekend, will now be tinked back to the beginning of the toe and re-knit.  And maybe if I do it fast enough, I can finish it before my toes get any longer.