keeping austin weird

I am in Texas for the Fourth of July weekend, mainly because I love 100+ degree temperatures, large bugs, and copious and unabashed pro-U.S.A. "these colors don't run" style sentiment. Also, I am a devout Christian and favor big hair.

The real reason I am in Austin is that this is the home of my fun and kooky pseudo-in-laws, as well as the lovely and delightful Vickie Howell, who is one of my MEOW kitties and who has a wee 5-week-old bebeh at the moment.

James's sister and her husband live in a development called Agave, which is all cubist/modernist and eco-friendly, and it is so effing cool that I almost want to move to Austin so I can live in one of these homes. There's also the fact that even the largest, fancy-schmanciest model still does not set you back as much as an 875-ish sq ft Edwardian apartment in San Francisco (ask me how I know). Plus this neighborhood attracts the upscale lefty hipster tree-hugger types, what with being all sustainable and shit, so it would practically be like living in San Francisco anyway. Except for the heat and the giant bugs and all.











Here is my sorta-brother-in-law-in-law in his kung fu outfit. Also, a photo of his horrifying gorilla-foot kung fu shoes.





There are cute cats here. This one tries to act all dignified:



Except when she doesn't:



But she is still awfully cute:

kitties in vegas

The MEOW kitties (a.k.a. my internet knitting posse) decided we'd have our semi-annual retreat in Las Vegas this time, so a bunch of us rented a vacation home for the long weekend and we're enjoying the lovely weather as well as the drinking and the gossiping. And the knitting, of course.

Technically we are in Henderson, NV, which I'm told is a popular location for finding dumped bodies on C.S.I.

Speaking of knitting, I would like to present to you young Diego modeling the 'aviator helmet' I made for him a while ago. Wow that is a cute kid.

there is no 'karen' in 'team'

Today my company is having a work outing involving a scavenger hunt that winds up at whatever mystery restaurant it is where they will then provide lunch. Now, I enjoy a scavenger hunt as much as the next person...wait a minute, NO I DON'T. At least not unless the next person hates them with the heat of a thousand flaming effigies of whoever came up with the idea of sending a hundred or so full-grown professional e-discovery specialists on a scavenger hunt. There were going to be teams, people...TEAMS. Sweet peanut butter jesus, I would rather spend the day participating in role-playing skits and trust exercises with a herd of evangelical Christians. Luckily that wasn't the company-sanctioned alternative option; the alternative option was to take a mandatory PTO day, which is what I did. So I've been spending a relaxing morning knitting Latvian-style mittens,


baking vegan banana-cranberry-pecan bread,


watching old episodes of The L-Word on Netflix, and talking on the phone with my mother.

OK, that last part was not so relaxing, particularly once I discovered that she (and presumably my father also) is planning to vote yes on California Proposition 8, because she is "old-fashioned." I mean, OK...I guess homophobia is old-fashioned. Mom also thinks Sarah Palin is "spunky," expressed with an enthusiasm that indicates she believes spunkiness is a necessary and sufficient condition for running the third-largest country in the world. I can't believe I am related to these people. And they wonder why I rarely call or visit.

Moving right along so I don't start screaming again, last week I finally checked out the first two seasons of 30 Rock, and oh. my. freaking. god. it is so excellent. I was laughing out loud alone in my apartment at numerous points. Then on one episode there was a scene where I thought to myself, wow, that looks exactly like the street where my friend/fellow MEOWkitty Lori lives. I dismissed it as a hillbilly perception that all residential streets in Manhattan look the same, but then I remembered that about 18 months ago I was visiting Lori and there were signs on her street restricting parking the next day...because of filming for some show I'd never heard of called 30 Rock. Then in a later scene I figured out that the Tina Fey character "lives" around the corner from Lori.

Since I'm talking about the MEOWkitty knitters...the other day I realized that among the 14 people in the group, we have five people with published designs in books, magazines, or both; the host of an HGTV knitting show; two people (besides the host) who've appeared on the show; and the assistant pattern editor of a major knitting magazine. Seriously, the MEOWkitty knitting mojo is off the charts. Even the people who prefer not to design or to work in the industry have insane skills, and plus they're all crazy smart and funny. I [HEART] YOU, MEOWERS!

wool-gathering

Yesterday Casey said he wasn't going to run my corpus test for me until I posted to the blog, so you may hold him responsible for the following installment.

I mentioned that last weekend I was in upstate New York for a big sheep and wool festival, but mainly it was just an excuse to gather together as many of my MEOW kitties as possible (we managed to get seven, including me, which is exactly half) and sit around and drink wine, gossip, knit, and also drink wine.

Two of those MEOWers currently have infants, so they came along too. (Disclaimer: No children were harmed by drunken knitters during this event.) Henry and Alex are quite the little charmers.




I am a bit afraid of the terror they will start to wreak once they become mobile, however. Alex is already the size of a mini-fridge and clearly on his way to a successful career with the New England Patriots (much to his father's delight). Not that I know anything about baseball.

The thing about fun, hard-drinkin', hard-knittin' chicks after they have babies is...well, see for yourself:


(Update for certain mentally challenged readers anonymous trolls who need to be slapped: the kids were asleep. This thingamajig happened to serve well as a temporary side table. No one was leaving any kids with glasses of wine in front of them. No one was drunk. There's this thing, called hyperbole for comic effect? Look into it.)

The wool festival was beautiful in that it was crisp, cold, clear, and surrounded by fall-colored foliage, as you can see in the previous post's photos. What wasn't so beautiful was the sheer volume of knitters (and spinners and crocheters and felters and weavers and their spouses and their children) who descended on the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in search of lanolin-infused fiber crack. We were clever enough to arrive a little before it officially opened, and to head directly to the booth where they were selling Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarns, in particular their immensely popular hand painted "Socks That Rock" line.

By the time we arrived at their booth you already had to wait your turn a little to access the Wall of Yarn, and by the time we'd chosen our skeins there was not only a long line to shell out a week's hard-earned salary purchase, but also an even longer line just to get to the merchandise.

My friend Tiffany regarded this spectacle with an expression of mild disbelief and said, "It's like the Beatles, but with yarn."

The truth is, you can easily buy Socks That Rock online, but what you can't get online is their special edition "rare gems" colors and their discounted mill ends, of which the MEOW kitties picked up quite a few examples (mixed in with some standard colors):


By noon we were well ready to escape and head back to our lodgings, roll around in our new yarn, and declare that it was 5:00 p.m. somewhere. And so we did.

rhinebeck!

I'm in Rhinebeck/Rhinecliff NY for the weekend to hang out with half a dozen of my knitting posse and to go to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival. We're having a blast.

mad knitting skillz

The MEOW fest was a big success, which is to say that many snacks were eaten, much booze was drunk, and much knitting took place. We also went to a rad yarn store in Portland called knit/purl, where I got some very pretty sock yarn with which I decided to make these mittens:


The pattern, such as it is, is "Lingonberry" from The Mitten Book by Gottfridsson & Gottfridsson, which is my kind of knitting book because it assumes you know what the hell you're doing and just gives you vague guidelines and some charts.

I have nothing else to report.

oh, meOW

I am in Troutdale, Oregon at my MEOW knitting retreat. Not everyone has arrived yet, but eventually we'll have 9 (out of 14) members here. As you can see, several of the attendees brought along their mascot kitties, so that we have an evil MEOW army to watch over us.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to check my work email at 7:00 a.m. while on vacation. Because I am a retard. And now I have a big fat headache and am extremely irritated. Is it cocktail hour yet? (At a MEOW retreat, this is the same as asking "Is it 10:00 a.m. yet?")

Every year we seem to end up with a MEOWfest catchword or phrase. This year it is "tent." Last year it was "Tom Wopat" (don't ask, because I can't tell). The first year it was "giant woofie." One year it was "I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream." And of course we can't forget the year of "Randy Beaver."

teak freak

Tonight James helped me put together the Danish teak 60's coffee table and chair I got from my parents. And when I say he helped me, I mean that I watched while he put them together, and I occasionally handed him a screwdriver (the tool kind, not the beverage kind, although I am sure he would have appreciated either).


I also have a couch that is just like the chair, except three seats wide and needing cushions to be made for it, which is why it seemed less urgent to get it set up for now.

Tomorrow I head out of town for the Fifth Annual MEOW Kitty Knitting Retreat. There will be much wine consumed and much catty gossip slung about. Oh, and there will also be knitting. Stay tuned for exciting yarn-filled updates.

teh socks...i maded them

I know y'all were waiting with bated breath to see the completed pair of short row socks. And who I am to disappoint you?



Normally I take pride in not making my self-patterning socks match perfectly, unlike certain anal retentive people who shall remain nameless deb s, but these accidentally matched up perfectly and I figured it would be against my own principles to manipulate the starting point to force them not to match, so I didn't. I will just have to live with matching socks.

EDITED TO ADD: Hey! I just realized my socks match the blog colors. Fancy.