I love my dogs. I think more highly of my dogs than I do most people. This is Josie, the smaller of my two dogs. To the casual observer, she appears to be sleeping, but I'm certain she was guarding the ridiculously expensive throw I was knitting. Either way, she's just so sweet all snuggled up against my handiwork. This was the same day she came to my rescue after a movie with a horrible, horrible ending made me cry. She's a good dog and hopped up on the recliner with me to love me and make me feel better. Josie is the best little dog in the world and I love her. Yes, I know I labeled a post about a dog with "People Who Rock." I happen to think of my dogs as people and they certainly do rock, so I figure it's appropriate.
Yesterday was fantastic. I went to Greek Peak with my favorite person and we learned how to ski. I was very nervous and very terrified, but I said "Fuck you, fear!" and did it anyway. We had wonderful instructors and ended up having a massively good time. I did, at one point, almost totally lose it because I was very afraid of how fast I was going, but I was saved by one of the awesome instructors. We stopped skiing after about two hours because my toes were cold to the point of pain. After we left, we stopped at a very cool organic foods store in Ithaca and proceeded home to watch South Park and a little bit of SNL. Then we attempted to sleep and ended up talking all night, which to me was the perfect ending to a perfect day. I'm very content right now and bordering on happy (made evident by the fact that I can't stop smiling). I can't wait to do it all again.
I'm a member of a site called Ravelry, which is a community of knitters and crocheters who talk about yarn and needles and techniques and such. I call it MySpace for knitters to the muggles, but it's way cooler than MySpace. I wanted to join a group but couldn't find one to my liking. Then I found an entire group of atheists and agnostics and I read a few posts and joined right up. I'm enjoying it so much...I think I'm becoming an addict. I just love reading from so many people who think much in the same way I do. It's fantastic and wonderful and (some of my agnostic friends may laugh at this) it makes me feel normal and no longer a minority, even though we godless people are a minority. I guess I didn't realize how much I felt like an outsider until I started meeting (both online and in real life) people who have (non)beliefs similar to my own. I don't feel quite so outsider-like now. It's pretty freakin' sweet.
I've been so lazy about writing the past few days. I make no apologies, as I've had little to write about anyway. Last night, however, was quite fun. My friend, Erik, thought it would be nice to have a small shindig with a few friends. We went to the Olive Garden (the little lasagna rolls with the sausage are very tasty, by the way), where I surprised myself with how much I actually spoke. I'm not really a big talker when I'm with people I don't know, especially people who I find mildly intimidating. Everyone was wonderful, and no one did anything to make me feel that way...I know it was totally in my head because I'm sometimes insecure and easily intimidated by the unknown. Also, it was a little weird being the person with the least amount of education in the group and also being the only person in the group who doesn't have an academic job. I'm used to being the person talking about things for which no one really has a point of reference or understands, not the person without. Despite my lack of knowledge and reference points, though, I had a really nice time, stuffed myself with delicious food and met some really nice people. After dinner, we moved the party back to Erik's and played an interesting word game called Apples to Apples, which was very fun. The party diminished from seven to three people after the game and we stayed up until 4:00 AM watching South Park and talking about religion, or our general lack thereof. I then drove my ass home and finally went to bed around 5:00 this morning. It was so awesome to have an extended period of fun time like I did last night.
After a lovely night of knitting, Seinfeld, The Silence of the Lambs, tasty Chinese food, and TONS of conversation, I'm an exceptionally tired minx. I had much fun tonight, though. Knitting is always a blast, but knitting with a friend is so much better. I'm exceptionally proud of my student!!! He's making so much progress on his scarf, I'm sure he'll be done rather soon. If there's enough of his yarn left, I'm going to help him make mittens to match. It's so exciting!!! My own project of yet another pair of socks is going along quite well. While watching movies and shows, I finished the leg, made the heel and started the foot. I'm in love with short-row heels. They use less yarn and are so effin' fast to knit. Had I chosen to knit a flap heel (which I also love very much), I'd probably not have gotten quite as far, perhaps only to the beginning of the gusset. And now I'm even more tired than I was previously. It's time for sleep--sweet, wonderful sleep.
Yesterday was a fantastic day. I went with my friend, Erik, to Ithaca and we had so much fun. Walking outside in natural light with cold, fresh air was both men
tally and physically refreshing. We ate delicious subs and looked at books and music and yarn. That's my new sock yarn. It's Ja Woll Aktion sock yarn from Lang Yarns. It's a self-striping yarn and I just love the colors. Brown, two blue-gray shades and a lighter tan...it's very unlike the colorways I usually lean toward. The colors are rather understated, very beautiful and more masculine than I typically look for in a yarn. I'm a girly-girl with my yarn and tend toward pinks, purples, reds, and combinations that evoke more of a feminine feel. Something about this one, though, just caught my eye and said to me "Pick me! Pick me!" and who am I to ignore the call of the yarn? It was speaking to me and I had to listen. 
I wasn't the only one who made a yarn purchase. Erik's yarn is Malabrigo Kettle-Dyed Merino. The camera didn't want to capture the colors quite the way they actually look. The yarn has olive green, brown and rust tones. The camera decided it wanted to make the colors a little more pink-ish looking instead. Either way, though, it's a lovely one-ply yarn that's working very well for my new knitting student. I'm pleased to say that every single one of those stitches are Erik's and he made very few mistakes (all of which were common for a novice knitter, very minor and easily fixed). His stitches are so lovely and even, I daresay he's a natural. As I watched my friend carefully making stitch after stitch, I couldn't help but be moved by how beautiful it is to watch someone's hands performing an act of transformation. I've watched my own hands while knitting, and I've watched my other students' hands, but this was really the first time I've watched someone and found the movements so striking and amazing. I think it's due to the fact that he developed a basic competency level so quickly, so I was able to watch him make stitches, rather than watch in wait for mistake-fixing. Surely another factor was the quiet in which we were working. It was a learning experience for Erik and we had very few noise distractions and minimal conversation. My other knitterly friends have all been knitting for a long time and are at a skill level that allows them to chat and laugh while knitting, thereby distracting each other from watching hands make stitches. The quiet and the yarn and the stitching just put me in a bit of a Zen moment of beauty and I fell in love with knitting all over again.
Last night was a fun night for me. I managed to not stay in my room all night, as is my usual Saturday night activity. Instead I went to my friend Erik's apartment and we did nice wholesome things like throwing desk parts out of windows, watching South Park, eating marshmallows and coconut cake, and making candles. Does it sound much more interesting than sitting home alone knitting socks all night? I think so. 
Candle making is a rather lengthy process. This was the lesson we learned last night at Erik's. He wanted to try his hand at making candles and I wanted to not be bored, so sometime around 10:00 PM, we began. (On a bit of a side note, do not begin your candle making adventure late at night. Trust me, it's better to start early) First, we melted the wax in a makeshift double boiler, using a large thermometer to make sure we had the proper temperature. The instructions were quite clear that we shouldn't let the wax exceed a temperature of more than 225 degrees Fahrenheit, lest we risk flames or explosions. And who would want to cause one's own apartment to explode? No one, that's who.
Next, we performed the first pouring of the wax. The wax is poured into the whatever mold is being used and the wicks are then set in. The random game of pick-up sticks at the right is really just to keep the wicks from falling entirely into the wax. Balancing the wicks and the sticks in a manner that would stay in place was by far the biggest pain in the ass of the whole process. After the candles set, it was smooth sailing for the subsequent pourings as far as the wicks were concerned. 
After the wax set for about half an hour, we reheated the wax for the second pouring. This was similar to the first pouring, except less wax was used and those pesky wicks were already in place, making it so much easier than the first time around. As the wax cooled (this time for two hours), a deep well formed in the middle of the candles. This is the best shot of the wells I could get. Somehow, I failed to take a picture of the finished product...just imagine the well filled in and the wick sticking out like it's supposed to and you'll have a good idea of how the finished candle looks.
And here is Sir Erik displaying an object that was once granulated wax and was transformed into a thing of usefulness. He looks kind of mystical there, holding a ball of fire. I got several shots of him looking as if he's conjuring the element, but this one was the first and my favorite of the bunch. His casual demeanor belies the excitement he'd previously expressed about transforming raw materials into something that can be used. He was thrilled at the concept. I told him I felt the same way the first time I made a pair of mittens.
This morning was interesting. I got up at the normal time, did my normal morning activities, went out to my car and there it was--a nearly flat tire. Eep! Luckily, my uncle was over at the garage he and my dad share (and in which an air compressor resides). So, I very slowly drove over the snow- and ice-covered driveway to the garage and asked my dear uncle to save me. He laughingly obliged, slightly over-filling my tire so that I could make it to work. I thanked him profusely and was on my merry way.Things were going great until after I had turned onto Clemens Center Parkway. For those not familiar with the parkway, it is a four-lane roadway that cuts through Elmira. One can get almost anywhere in the greater Elmira area via the parkway. My destination from the parkway was, as it is every day, the highway. I had turned onto the parkway and was going along in the right hand lane and was nearing the traffic light on Cedar Street. Suddenly, this woman in a silver-ish Nissan starts veering from the left hand lane into my lane. The bitch didn't even bother to look and see if anyone was in the lane before she changed lanes and nearly side-swiped my car. Had my reflexes not been so quick, I'd probably be in the hospital right now because the back end of her car would've hit directly on my driver side door. So I beeped my horn, flipped her off and mouthed the words "learn how to fucking drive, bitch," which she saw because she kept looking in her rear view to see my reaction. Then, after witnessing my reaction to her piss-poor driving, she had the nerve to give me dirty looks. She acted like I was the person driving like an ass and she seemed more annoyed with me than I was with her. I mean really, do you think it's appropriate for a person to get more annoyed with someone else's reaction when you've just nearly totalled their car because you were too busy not paying attention to notice a whole entire vehicle in the other lane than the person who was nearly hurt in the first place? I don't think so. Well, I got past her after the light and again went on my merry way until I realized that the bitch was following me. Oh great, now I had to deal with an idiot road-rager on the way to work. Happily, when I arrived at my destination (the highway), she managed to (safely) get into the left hand lane and went ahead of me. Well, she was keeping pace with one of the more irritatingly slow vehicles in my lane as if to stick it to me by being a lane-clogger. Whatever, she was ahead of me and I didn't have to worry about her rear-ending me or trying to run me off the road. I got to work a few minutes late (due to flat tires and lane-cloggers), but I was happy to be in one piece.Work was work. It was about the same as yesterday, only time seemed to move more slowly today. I called my very awesome dad shortly after I got there to inform him of the issue with my tire. He told me to drop it off at his workplace and swap vehicles, or call him if my tire was flat again. Finally, 5:00 rolled around and I was able to clock out and go home. Yeah, I wasn't quite as able as I thought because the tire was FLAT AGAIN!!!!! Goddamn! I called Dad again and about 40 minutes later, I was rescued for the second time today. Dad brought a portable air compressor thing and filled my tire enough so he could take the car back with him and fix my tire. I took his big truck and finally got home an hour and a half after I clocked out of work. I'm not complaining about being home so late from work, though. My dad's going to be later than normal because of my stupid tire. And because he's the best, coolest dad in the entire universe. I'm really lucky to have such a handy father who loves me so much. That was my day.
I've officially decided that I'm insane. I've agreed to knit hunting socks for a 6'2" man with size 12 feet. That's daunting enough as it is, considering I usually knit regular socks for my much smaller feet, though the hunting socks will be knit with worsted weight, so it shouldn't be too bad. No, the bad part is that he wants them black. Black! It's so hard to check your stitches and rows with black yarn...it's just too dark. Black socks may never get dirty (old high school band joke), but they'll be a pain to knit (based on the fact that the navy socks I knit once were very much a pain because of the dark color). But I'll make them because I like him a whole lot and he asked me very nicely to make them. Also, he shows an interest in my knitting, asking me about construction and how different parts of things are made. I don't think he'll be a knitter anytime soon (or ever), but the fact that he wants to know about something that's as important to me as knitting is very telling. It tells me that he cares enough about me to learn some things about my favorite hobby. Maybe someday, he'll tell me in other ways, too...like verbally. Someday, I hope.
Yeah, I'm a wee sad. The Crocodile Hunter died. Not that I was his biggest fan, but it's still kinda sad to me. He was a pretty neat guy, what with the love of nature and the animals and such. I'm gonna stop talking about it now.
I had a lovely, lovely dream last night that I went to France. Yep, France. It was pretty normal at first. In my dream, I was on a tour of the countryside towns and ended up at a train station. I stepped into the restroom at said station and this is where it got weird. All the stalls were really narrow, as in maybe two and a half feet wide...just wide enough for the toilet and about an inch or two on either side. My hips are rather bodacious, so I was having issues maneuvering around in that teeny stall. Not to mention I had several bags with me, as I was a world traveler. So I'm going all around trying to get situated when I realized that I needed something and I couldn't get it. I yelled for my friend to come and it ended up being my long-time best friend (who, after being my friend for 22 years, has really elevated from friend to family), Penelope. That was strange in itself because I've never had a dream with Penelope appearing before. Weird. What was weirder was her yelling back at me to look in my damn bag because she knew what I needed was in there. She was kind of mean and while she's often very sarcastic, she's never been mean to me (not since we were 9 anyway). It made me sad and then, after I had managed to get squared away in the stall, I got all discombobulated again and couldn't figure it out. Later in the dream, I was at a snack machine and all I had were American dimes so I couldn't get yummy nibblies. It was a very strange dream.
Apparently, Britnee was having a bad day with school work and it was all piling up on her. She looked to Bre to vent her frustrations. I walked in toward the end.Bre: I'm so quoting that on my MySpace.Britnee: What? Why?Bre: 'Cause it was so cute.Manda: What was cute?Bre: What she just said.Manda: What did she say?Britnee: That it was the whipped cream on top of the icing that's on my cake.I love those girls. They crack me up.
I love my dogs. I think more highly of my dogs than I do most people. This is Josie, the smaller of my two dogs. To the casual observer, she appears to be sleeping, but I'm certain she was guarding the ridiculously expensive throw I was knitting. Either way, she's just so sweet all snuggled up against my handiwork. This was the same day she came to my rescue after a movie with a horrible, horrible ending made me cry. She's a good dog and hopped up on the recliner with me to love me and make me feel better. Josie is the best little dog in the world and I love her. 
