I Should Really Be Working Right Now

But instead, I am lurking in the blogosphere. Lurk, lurk.

I was just thinking to myself that I needed some more cards - our "shit, it's so-and-so's B-day today" card stash is quite low these days. Plus, I'm starting to think about invitations and save-the-date cards, etc. So of course I pulled up the Cardjackers site, and lo behold, they linked to a post of mine from last August! Of course, it's not like improved flow to the site or anything, but I thought it was pretty nifty.

My friend Kendra alerted me to a website, www.notmartha.org, which she describes thusly - "Not Martha is a fantastic diy blog by someone in Seattle who, like many of us, has freudain love/hate, envy/ridicule, imitate/abbreviate daughter-troubles with Mama-Martha."

Scroll down a bit and you will see this photo -



Click on the field of sheep link, and check out the GIANT ASS NEEDLES that were used to make this rug. I can't even imagine how long it must have taken, but it looks fantastic.

Of Sweaters and Seders

As promised, here's the Allen sweater update -



Surprise! There is a cat in the way! This time it is Aku, who checks every available surface for it's possible bedding potential.

Here's a slightly better picture:



It still looks like I'm making him a dress, but I swear I'm not.

I didn't have very much time to work on the sweater last night, as a matter of fact, I think I only accomplished 2 rows on my way over to Allen's mum's house for the Passover Seder. Passover is the 8 day observance commemorating the freedom and exodus of the Israelites (Jewish slaves) from Egypt during the reign of the Pharaoh Ramses II, and a Seder is an impossibly long meal consisting of a combination of very bland and very sharp tasting foods, 4 glasses of wine, and a guest of honor that never shows up.

All of this, of course, I had to commemorate on film. This is my third Passover dinner with the Cowetts, and it's so far always been the same.

First, we all sit down around the table, upon which is the Seder plate...



and upon which you will find the traditional bitter herbs (horseradish), hard-boiled egg (for birth and renewal) cardboard shankbone (hey, actual shankbones are huge!) greens, and haroset.

Here's the Seder plate Allen, age 8, made -



hee hee.

Smile, folks! It's almost time to eat! Here's Allen and Katherine.



And here's Beth and her fee-ahn-sea Milo.



They're going to elope! They are smarter than Allen and I!

Allen and Beth take turns leading us in readings and songs -



I could do without the songs, myself, as I a.) don't know them and b.) am not convinced that Allen and Beth have a firm handle on them either.

We realized that Oops! We forgot to light the candles -





The guest who never shows up is Elijah, but just in case, we pour him a glass of wine in a special cup -



and we open the door for him in case he's coming by.

We pass around the matzos, which are mostly tasteless but good with horseradish...



and also tasty with haroset, a traditional element of the Seder plate that is a combination of apples, walnuts, honey, wine, and spices.



One tradition I like to steer clear from is the Fear Factor-ish Gefilte fish, pictured whole and in a cross-section below.



For some reason, blogger won't let me download the photo of the jar, but this is exactly what it looked like.



In case you can't see it, it does say "In Jelled Broth" on the label.

And, yes, that is exactly as gross as you think it is.

Tonight I am making matzo ball soup, which will hopefully be good. I made chicken stock overnight on Monday - Allen and I had to get up early on Tuesday to put it away. I made chicken salad for Allen to eat during the week at work - and other than that, I am pretty much out of bright ideas.

I Have Become Road Enraged

Ok, so I have another post that I was going to be working on, but instead, I just need to take a moment to flip out.

Every day, I leave my office at about 4:15 to drive to the Harborside Campus (motto: you can't SEE the Harbor, but you can sure SMELL the Harbor!) and every day I deal with some bullshit traffic issue. I understand that there are always going to be idiots, but today people just strove to outshine themselves.

There is a four-way stop I go through every day. Today, for some reason, instead of taking turns getting through, people going west to east were blocking the intersection as much as possible, which is ASSININE. This sort of behavior makes no sense, but occurs from time to time. Fine. But what happened today was just crazy. I was five cars away from the stop sign, and the driver of the car behind me (a flower delivery car, no less) just decided that he didn't need to wait - and just drove past all five of us, only to get stuck in the middle of the intersection.

None of us even beeped at the guy, I think we were all too stunned. I just decided to ignore it as I could feel my blood pressure rocketing skyward. I simply called the Culinary front desk and said that I would be late because EVERYONE WAS SO FUCKING STUPID that I could CHOKE.

Of course, I still had to get through the NEXT stop sign, which involves cutting across two lanes of traffic. I thought this little guy in a hyundai was going to let me in, he left a lot of space between himself and the next car and I was trapped halfway across one lane - but when I mouthed "thank you" and waved at him, he moved up until he was touching the bumper of the guy in front of him.

I hope you got where ever you were going .3 seconds before I did, ASSHOLE!

I had TWO people randomly pull out in front of me after that, so the rest of the ride was relatively uneventful. I DO NOT understand why some people think they are so goddamn important that they can just make up traffic laws!!!! AAARRGHGHHHGH.

I got into work and promptly ate a candy bar, so now I hate everyone INCLUDING myself, yee-fuckin'-haw.

I Am Gainfully Employed!

That's as good an excuse as any for being a SLACKAH about my blogging! I know I suck but I have been busy being tired.

Guess what? I got a job! I mean, I already had a job, now I've got 2! I started this past Saturday working at Lacewings, a lovely little yarn shop (there's 2, actually, one in Warwick and one in Pawtucket) and I'm very happy. I will get to KNIT at WORK. It's a like a dream come true! Now, if I could only do it full time!

And guess what else? I can take classes for FREE! I'm going to start with the crochet classes. Even though I am not in love with corchet, I feel like it's something I should learn, if only because so many finishing techniques incorporate crochet.

If I am a little all over the place, I'm sorry, I think I am working up a doozy of a migraine. I feel like the top of my head is trying to come off, and it's literally making me clumsy and disoriented. Argh.

Sorry about the lack of knitting pictures as of late. I've been working on the Berkshire Pullover for Allen, and am only starting to post pictures 2 and half weeks into the project. He's some pictures after week 1, and then tomorrow I will post week 3 pictures, so it will look like I made tons of progress overnight and am totally teh awesome.

Boo was making it difficult to take pictures.



And she seemed to think I was taking pictures of her, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.



And finally, the actual sweater:



It's 50 inches around on a 40-inch needle, which gives it a rather more of an "Allen's Mini-skirt" feel than an "Allen's Sweater" feel, but hey, what can I say. I do the best I can with what I have.

I am a little concerned that the rather aggressive roll of this rolled bottom sweater will be a wee bit too - umm, feminine - for Allen. I hope that through some equally aggressive blocking I will be able to minimize it's rolling.

I hope. Otherwise, it will end up being MY sweater, which is not what I intended. Damn it.

On the plus side - I have several new books winging my way, I'm very excited! More about those later, must go help some students!