New Year's Eve Pranks

I love tracking numbers. It's almost as good as driving the package cross-country myself, leaving it on the doorstep, ringing the bell, and running away.

(This is the Secret Project. As soon as it arrives, I can post the finished photos! *waits anxiously*)

Finished!

The Secret Project is done! Want to see a photo?

(Okay, that was probably mean. But I'm very excited to have finished so quickly. I'm hoping to mail it next week, so a real photo will be posted sometime in January.)

Knitting

Not much to talk about this week. All of my finals were on Monday, with my final project for one class being due at midnight on the previous Sunday, so the week was spent in frantic cramming and then recovery. You'd think I'd have learned better study habits by now, but obviously I haven't.

I did finish 2 knitting projects, and I've started another one:

The last of the Potato Chip socks for the Warm Woolies 10 for 10 campaign, which ended on November 30. Yes, I missed the deadline with these, so no yarn prize for me, but at least they're done and sent, and some kid will have warm(er) feet.

My scarf for the OFA's Red Scarf Project. This is actually the second one that I've started this year, because the first one has some fairly intricate cabling, and I didn't think I'd be able to finish it before the deadline. I'll keep working on that one after Christmas, and it can be one of my scarves for 2010.

I'm pretty pleased with how this scarf turned out, although if I make another one I may go down a size or two on the needles, because the fabric is a little loose. Then again, it's also made of Cotton Ease (cotton and acrylic -- Yay for free yarn!), so I included a note suggesting that it be sent to someone who doesn't have terribly cold winters.


I knit this lengthwise, circularly...

...and then steeked it, unraveled the edges, and knotted the fringe. It sure seemed to go a lot faster than the more traditional method of knitting back-and-forth across the width of the scarf! The stitch pattern is diagonal rib, and I changed direction halfway through, to eliminate potential bias stretching.

And here's the project that I cast on yesterday. Can't tell what it is? Good! Then the recipient of this gift, if he or she reads this, won't be able to either. I'll post a picture of the final item once it's been delivered.

Crud!

Carp, it was Friday yesterday, wasn't it? This weekend has been consumed by flailing and studying for finals, so I didn't notice. Regular blogging will resume next Tuesday.

(Smiley snagged from TSR.)

Late addition: A friend Tweeted this link, and I thought it was a very interesting e-mail discussion between two guys who have been friends for years. They're talking about gay marriage: why one guy has a problem with it, and why the other one thinks that he shouldn't. (Shouldn't have a problem with it. Was that clear? My brain is dead from studying.) Both of them remain calm and respectful of the other throughout the whole thing, which is amazing to me, given how my discussions with my sister have gone. Maybe she just needs to get an e-mail address so we can communicate that way?

A Movie You Should See...

*... or at least, some of you should see. If you want to. And know what you're getting into. But it's really, really good, and I love it! You should absolutely all see it. Every one of you. Unless, well,... [repeat from *, ad nauseam]

The movie? Shortbus (Warning: Wiki link. Contains SPOILERS.)



So, why am I hedging my recommendation? Well, there's a lot of sex in the movie. A Lot. If you have a problem watching sex, you're not going to like this movie. Also, for my readers with kids, you're going to want to watch it when they're not around. It's all reasonably vanilla. Even the scenes with the character who's a professional dominatrix are pretty tame.

The interesting thing is that, when I first watched it, the sex right at the beginning of the movie was... startling. A bit shocking even. However, as the movie went on, I wasn't startled or shocked at all. When I watched the commentary track, the director talks about how he actually showed less and less of the sex and more of the human interaction/connection aspect of it as the story progressed. So it wasn't just my skewed perception.

Another reason I'm hedging is because of a friend & reader who I think wouldn't have a problem with the sex, but might be bothered by the character who (SPOILER ALERT!!) attempts suicide.

I got the movie from Netflix and watched it probably at least a dozen times before I sent it back. And I've now requested it for Christmas -- from my Christian fundamentalist sister. (Hopefully she doesn't look too closely at it when she's shopping.) The commentary and documentary in the Special Features are also excellent and quite interesting. And if you want another, somewhat more coherent, review, here's what The Other Andrew has to say. (He's so much more articulate than I am.)

But really, how can you not love a movie that has one song that asks "How can I repay you for saving me and my hardwood floors?" (just ignore the weird video) and ends with a scene where a marching band shows up during a singer's performance and the whole thing becomes a raucous singalong?

Also? The film offers a different and interesting reason for the northeast blackout. Just thinking about it makes me giggle.

In Knitting News:

These are the items I managed to complete for Warm Woolies' 10 for 10 Challenge. Notice that there are only 9 of them. Rats.

You've seen the purple socks and the red sweater before, but the other three socks and two sweaters were all completed after my last knitting blog post (11/13/09). Here are individual shots for those of you who may be interested:

Potato Chip Socks in 3 yarns/yarn combos



Warm Woolies Mystery Knitalong Sweater II (aka Calda Lana at Ravelry)
I had to learn how to seam for this pattern. A good skill to have, I'm sure, but not my favorite at this point.



This is the striped version of the Warm Woolies Mystery Knitalong Sweater III. (You may remember that the red sweater was the solid version of this pattern.) And yes, the third pair of socks above were made with leftovers from this sweater.

Now, on to the scarf (scarves? We'll see how fast I am.) for the OFA's Red Scarf Project.

Calling All Knitters & Crocheters & Weavers

Image created by Gale of She Shoots Sheep Shots. Used with her permission.

Norma of Now Norma Knits fame has posted in several places over the last couple of days about the shortage of scarves that have (or really haven't) been received by the Red Scarf Project. (Yeah, they haven't received mine yet either. Their deadline is after the Warm Woolies one, and I promise I'll crank out that scarf as soon as I can. Maybe 2 scarves, if I can find another scarf's worth of yarn.)

If you've never heard of the Red Scarf Project, well, follow either of the above links for a bit of information, or click on the Red Scarf Project button to the left of this entry. Or check out the Red Scarf Project Blog. The scarves made for/by the Red Scarf Project are distributed by the Orphan Foundation of America (OFA) in Valentine's Day care packages. These care packages are sent to college students who have aged out of foster care and have no family or other support networks. Often the OFA care packages are the only mail that these students receive that's not junk mail or bills.

The Red Scarf Project needs good quality, handmade, unisex scarves that are 5 to 8 inches wide and at least 60 inches long. They must be made of sport, DK, or worsted weight yarn. (Lighter weight yarns aren't likely to produce a unisex scarf, and scarves made from heavier yarns won't fit in the boxes that are donated for shipping.) The good quality is important, and the scarves must be new.

The deadline for the project is December 15, although since they need another 2000 or so scarves, if it's a week late, they'll probably still be grateful to get it. If you can help out with this, or if you know someone who can, please pass the message along.

If you don't knit or crochet or weave, or you don't have time to make a scarf, you can still get in on the act by donating to the Red Scarf Fund. (Paypal link here, or you can mail a check to the address on the Red Scarf Project Blog.) If you send an e-mail to RedScarfFund [at] gmail [dot] com with the amount of your donation, you will get one entry for every $5 into the drawings that Norma is organizing on her blog. Most, if not all, of the prizes are full of wonderful, fibery goodness. (If you're not into fiber, please remember that I am, and my birthday is very soon after Christmas. *wink*) The Red Scarf Fund provides "emergency aid because life happens and foster youth don’t have the safety net most people call ‘family.’ Red Scarf aid has paid for: medical bills, eyeglasses, musical instrument repairs, new tires to pass inspection, and sadly, funeral expenses."

So, who wants to help?

Fear

Fear: (n) 1. a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
(from dictionary.com)

There are more definitions, of course, but this one fits pretty well. I am afraid. In general, I don't show fear, for pretty much the same reasons that I don't cry in front of people. In fact, there have been 2 occasions in the past 10-plus years when I have shown fear in front of my family. Both of them are still talked about.

One of them involved a very large spider that jumped out of a drain in an infrequently used sink while I had my glasses off. Now, I'm blind as a bat without my glasses. 12 point font is too blurry to be read at 10 to 13 inches from my eyes (depending on which eye I'm using -- my right eye is worse). Without my glasses on, I could clearly see this spider posturing, see the aggressive positioning of its forelegs and the movement of its chelicerae (mandibles in non-spiders. Yes, I looked it up.). Freaked me the hell out, because I'm really, really not a fan of spiders near me. They're fine away from me, killing bugs and all that. Just not if I can see them.

I yelped. My sister and the dog we were dog-sitting both came to see what was going on, and my sister wouldn't get within 6 feet of the sink because she could see the size of the spider and wasn't getting near it. Neither was the dog, but she's a known chicken. I put my glasses back on and dealt with it, although my sister urged me to just shut the door and stuff a towel under it until the dog's owners got home in a few days. (My sister and Phil Jupitus have a bit in common there -- the relevant bit about his living room runs from about 4:30 to 5:00, although the whole thing is funny. There are 3 parts to it, and I highly recommend them all if you have some time, although you'll need about 25 minutes.)

The other time involved school and applying to the HIT program. I think the problem that time was that, if I wasn't accepted, I had no idea what on earth I was going to do. This one doesn't get laughed about when it's brought up. I don't say much of anything, and my mom and sister look at me out of the corner of their eyes and then at each other with a "What the hell's wrong with her" sort of expression. Good times.

Right now, I'm afraid of this winter. I don't usually feel this bad until the middle of January at the earliest, and I've been fighting it since early November. I can't quite imagine what February's going to be like. And I think that I probably don't want to know.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that school is not going well, and I don't really expect to be allowed to remain in the HIT program after this semester. This means, of course, that once again I have no idea what on earth I'm going to do. I don't think I could manage a full-time job right now. There's no guarantee that I could find one, even if I could handle it. And yet, my mom's 65. She wants to retire next spring. I know that the fact that I'm not working makes her worry about retiring. In school, with decent job prospects when I complete the program, I think she probably would have risked it, since I'd be working within a year or so of her retirement. But if I'm not working, if I can't? I just don't know.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record here, but I really think this all goes back to the pneumonia in 2007. Before that, I could work. I could walk at least half a mile at one go, although it wasn't much fun. I believed that things would work out, that I'd get accepted to the programs I was planning to apply to, that I'd find work after I graduated, that said work would allow me to get my own place. Now, I don't think I can work, I can't walk, and I really don't believe such pipedreams. Maybe the antibiotics shouldn't have worked. Maybe I was supposed to die then. It sure as hell would have been easier, since I was so sick that I didn't understand how sick I was, so oxygen-deprived that I couldn't comprehend the danger I was in.

I almost wish I'd get H1N1 or something. Some real disease that sometimes kills people. Then I could die without it being my fault.