More things Garrison Keilor says

Nothing like a superbaby to bring a smile to your face and say, "Yeah, when the aliens come to turn us all into slaves he will probably be good breeding stock." GK:Did I ever tell you about your myspace pic? *shakes head* Very unflattering, it's almost like poop on celluoid. Me: Thanks for the comment on my myspace pic, I always enjoy being told how poor I look in pictures. Every woman does. GK: I think I need to challange Kaylee to a hell in the cell match to prove my dominace to my woman. Me: You know Kaylee could just put her hand on your forehead and keep you out of arm's reach, right? GK: Ok enough about my height, I will not be mocked about my height, especially from a dark haired Polly Pocket. Meh, I can't tell trailer trash from zombies, that's why the deep south scares me so much. It's like a long forgotten friend, when you finally stand in front of said friend all you want to do is hug and grope them, patting them on the back in an awkward fashion. GK:*chuckles* Yeah, winter gets cold here. Then this white stuff starts to fall from the sky and I swear it's like the world is coming to an end. Me: White stuff? I've heard about that. They call it show or something right? GK: No, in my lands its called the white death. Me: So perhaps you should consider one of the bright shining lands to the south where that doesn't happen. GK: Hah! The south is full of the soft! All that sun breeds in weakness! Me: Yeah people are always remarking on the incredible weakness that is me. GK: Well you are of the weaker sex... so you are not totally to blame. But your hips are good for breeding, so there is some reedemable value there. Me: Yeah, women with all their bleeding and child bearing and putting up with men's crap, total wimps. Ok... but I still feel the internet is for sharing porn.

Clown College and disturbing Instruxions

I have finished my nephew's sweater. It's Auspicious Coincidences from Compassionate knitting but I have taken to calling it the Clown College Sweater because of all the orange. So much orange. Since orange makes my sister happy though, I'm happy with it. The buttons once again are courtesy of the UK knitty that sent me lots of buttons, Suzzane. I like the way they look, sort of subdued compared to the riot that is the rest of this thing. I had planned to put six different buttons on it from my collection but thought better of it and used these simple wooden ones. Pattern: Auspicious Coincidences. Yarn: Odd balls of Sugar and Cream Cotton leftover from the Christmas Dishcloths. Needles: Clover/Takumi Size 7 bamboo 24" circs for the body and the same brand but DPNs ( I put point protectors on the ends and used them like straight needles) for the fronts. Addi Turbo size 5s for the trim. Adjustments: The fronts match and the sleeves match though the pattern calls for randomness. This is because I was too lazy to be random. Things I learned from this pattern: Knitting in ends sucks almost as much as weaving in ends. I stull suck at finishing work as you can see from the fact that the stripes don't line up in the front. I don't ever feel the need to make this sweater again. Too hard. Actually it's all very simple and boring, it's just that all those endslead to me wanting to scream and scream and then scream some more. I'm just really glad to be done with this thing. And now I'd like to leave you with this insanity. I got lunch at Rally's yesterday and this weirdness was on the side of the bag. I'm not sure what to be concerned about out by most, the fact that they advise you to cram a cat in a fast food bag, that they feel the need to emphasize that you should use YOUR cat, or that they spelled 'instructions' with an X. And just so you know when you get the cat in the bag it looks like it's wearing a basketball jersey and gold necklaces. It's all very disturbing. It would seem that they invite you to submit and view these pictures at a website devoted to something I'm sure PETA has problems with. That is the randomness of the week.

You can't take us anywhere.

I have no knitting to show off today. I need to finish the Clown College (aka Auspicious Coincidences) Sweater by Sunday but I hate working on it so I have no idea if that will happen. I've been adding an inch to the sleeves for the past two days but that means they're only 3" long now. Too many ends. Never again! Since I have no knitting to speak of I'll tell you about my weekend in Maryland a few weeks ago. I went out to visit my friend Tonka who's going through a hellish divorce. The blonde in the picture with him is his cousin who for the duration of this story shall be known as Syrrah (she's from Texas, as is Tonka) because throught the story I'd like to tell she was hammered, though you could probably tell by the fact that she's trying to do bunny ears on him from like 25 feet away. Anyway, on Saturday night Tonka decided we should all just drink. That was the plan. I am not good at adhering to any plan no matter how simple. In order to foul up this very simple evening I got another friend of ours who lives one state over to drive down and hang out with us, Garrison Keillor (so called because of his very soothing almost condecending NPR type of voice). That in and of itself didn't ruin Tonka's evening in the bottle, it was the fact that GK arrived hungry thus forcing us all to go eat something which involves driving, an activity that is notoriously incompatable with drinking. Well, Kaylee (a lightweight) and Syrrah had both had a few drinks before we left and Syrrah only weighs about 12 pounds so she was tipsy, add to that some kind of fruity pink drink at the restaurant and you have a recipe for entertainment value. Especially at the place we went to: a Japanese Hibachi place where the chef cooks the food at your table. If you haven't been to a place of this type I'll describe it for you: The hibachi table sort of 'C' shaped and the chef stands inside of it at the grill which is a stainless steel sheet. Around the outside edge is a counter/bar where the patrons sit. There was room at our table for eight people, since there were only five of us another (unfortunate) couple had been seated at the other end. The chef will make all of the food with great showmanship, spinning and cracking eggs with his (butcher's) knife and chopping up an onion and stacking it so it looks like a volcano (they spray something flamamble in it and fire shoots out the top). Seating chart: Veggie Lady, Veggie Man, empty seat, Kaylee, GK, Me, Syrrah, Tonka So we're all sitting at this table with some people we've never met and come to find out that the couple is vegetarian and won't eat anything that touches our food because it ours has meat in it. Kaylee mocked those people for the rest of the night. I'm not sure whether or not they heard her. Now you as readers of my blog, know that I can be an asshole, what you don't know is that Kaylee is never like that. She's sweet and wonderful and generally the kind of person that you want to hate for her multi-multitalented ability to do absolutely anything but you can't hate her because she's just so damn wonderful. It would seem that hard cider really takes care of that because she was just merciless with her comments all night. Made funnier by the fact that she was using a poor stage whisper to say them which I couldn't hear since she was on the side I don't hear well from so then GK had to repeat it all for me. Meanwhile, Syrrah is sucking down her fruity pink drink. As the chef, a terse but otherwise pleasant Japanese man, finished up our food and packed up his cart to move on to the next table Syrrah says to him, "Uno mas onion volcano!" in her flat voweled Texan accent. The confused chef looks at her bows his head and keeps going so she shouts after him, "UNO MAS!" and continutes to shout it about three or four more times as he walked away prompting me to turn to her and remind her that he probably doesn't speak Spanish as GK and I laugh uncontrollably. For the rest of the night we randomly shouted out "UNO MAS!" whenever things were getting dull and started cracking up all over again. After dinner we gathered at Tonka's place for the drinking to commence and ended up playing Asshole, a drinking card game which no ammount of explaination could make Syrrah understand. I won't go into the specifics of the game but if you've played it you know about the ranks and everything. She was the asshole for most of the game and just couldn't stop running her mouth to the President. I think she went and passed out at like 9:30. And that's what I did on my summer vacation.

Showing off.

Veste Everest is finished. I actually finished it the day before I was supposed to give it to my MIL, talk about getting in under the wire! I don't have a picture of her in it yet, she hasn't tried it on, but here's one of my mom modeling it. She made me promise not to put her hair or pants in the picture, hence the Marie Antionette look (please also note my own shadow in this very fine photo, prize-winning photography here at Stuff I Typed, I know it's why I have all 5 of my fans). Yarn: I used Patons Decor in Barn Red. I purchased five balls, thought I was going to run out and got two more, and only ended up using four and a half. Needles: Cheapass Susan Bates pink aluminum needles in size 7, Addi Turbo size 5s for the ribbing. Things I learned from this project: purling through the back loop blows (ribbing). Adjustments: I did an extra pattern repeat to make the body longer, I could have even done one more it would seem, that is one short vest. I think I switched needle sizes to get gauge, I can't recall now. I haven't looked at the pattern in awhile. All in all I'm happy with it, I only made one mistake and only I can see it and when it's on no one can see it. I think I did a nice job on it and I feel very accomplished at having completed an entire garment, especially one with cables. It was an easy pattern to memorize and very good to take along different places. I reccomend it as a good cable starter pattern. In other news, I've cast on for the sleeves of my nephew's sweater and there's not a moment to lose since there's a baby shower on Sunday. I'm going to have to haul ass. I will never do that project again. I'm knitting in the ends as I go and I still want to just scream or puke or both. Too many fucking ends!!! You'd think I'd have noticed that before, right? Next up will be Red Todd Kidd's other sock, I supose I should reward him for getting that new job! And then I might, just might, make a sweater for Lucky. That boy is in need of some clothes that fit. Also he wears a size small (if you add six inches in length to the thing, lol) so it's not the usual miles of boring that most guy sweaters end up being. We'll see.