clown-barf-socks

OK. So can you tell that I’m happy that the clown barf stripy socks are finished? Oh, I cannot begin to express my joy at this event!

I don’t hate them. Really. But I want you to follow this link and then scroll down until you find High Desert. Then pop the bigger picture up.

That’s the yarn that I saw in the skein. Glorious, isn’t it? Whodda thunk it that it would knit up like this? The colors in the sock picture are brighter than they actually appear in real life. It’s early in the morning and raining again so the light was a little weird.

These socks had it in for me right up until the last. I finished up the ribbing, and leaned forward in my chair to fetch my needles from my knitting bag. As I sat back I heard crrruunnnchhh. Yep. Broke two harmony needles. One from each circular. Aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh I’m not safe around wooden things, apparently. I’d best stick to metal.

The Particulars:

• Yarn: Great Adirondack Yarn Co. Soxie, 100% wool, 360 yds/skein, in color High Desert
• Needles: US#1, Knit Picks Harmony circulars
• Pattern: my own – toe-up, short-row heel, plain stockinette. Started with Judy’s Magic Cast-on, of course

In completely non-knitting, techie news, I’ve been fighting with the new WP 2.5 admin panels. All I can say is ICK. The write panels were especially horrible, as all of the little check boxes and drop-down lists were moved under the post write area, making it necessary to scroll for a bazillion miles every time I posted. Which I realize has not been often lately, but let’s not digress.

A long, long, long thread started over in the WordPress.org support forum amongst those of us not happy with the new arrangement. The end result was that this intrepid reporter, along with a few others, made changes to the panels to make them more usable. You can see a picture of the new panel here

If you are a self-hosted WP 2.5 user and would like to incorporate these changes, you can download them here, although I think this is the version that has an extraneous comma in the draft list. Or, to get the very latest version, download directly from the WordPress bug report. The files all go in wp-admin/, except for global.css, which goes in wp-admin/css/. Sorry, I can’t help you if you are on WordPress.com.

Didn’t know I had such mad codr skilz, didja? 😆

strange flower

My camellia starts blooming around Christmas, and is done by the end of February. It’s bright and cheery pink flowers always lift my spirit when I see them through my kitchen and dining room windows during the dark, gloomy winter days. Each flower stays pink through its life. Then in the end they drop off whole and the ground around the bush is littered with pink and brown globes.

This year it’s continued to bloom, and it’s just finishing up now. This year, most of the flowers did their usual thing. Except for this one. I don’t know if it was because of the warm days followed by cold and wet again. But, this one turned orange. I was so surprised when I saw it that I ran out in the rain and snapped a picture.

It’s gone now. It didn’t leave in the normal way, either. The petals dropped off one by one, and the base of the flower is still on the tree.

Very strange.

I’m about 1/2 way up the legs on the clown barf stripy socks. Stay tuned for knitting news.

In techie news, I have upgraded to WordPress 2.5. Can’t say I’m entirely pleased with the admin panels. I had to hack the life out of the new media uploader and the write panels to make them usable. But there are other things I do like about it. So the jury is out. I’m used to hacking WP. But the previous release (2.3) finally incorporated most of my changes. Now I’m back at square one. Ah well.

I’ve looked at it under IE 7, Firefox and Safari and it looks OK. Let me know if you find anything broken.

almost blossoms

It’s been that kind of day.

It started when I realized that the blog feed was not working, so my April fools post – which was actually created on April 1st – was delivered on April 2nd, if at all. Well… that sort of killed the joke, eh?

Having chewed on that problem for a bit, I headed out to the kitchen. There I popped a cup of coffee in my old, trusty microwave to reheat, while I gazed out the back door on my yard – sunny and, dare I say, springlike? The picture shows what my yard really looks like today. See the blue, blue sky and the cherry blossoms about to pop? Ah… finally. The snow picture was from January, 2007, and I do not want to see that return.

As I stood contemplating the return of spring, I heard what can only be described as a groan behind me. A groan, and then a thud, and then silence. I turned in horror. The microwave had died. It completed its mission to heat my cup of coffee. And it was dead. As dead as Marley’s ghost. Deader, actually, as Marley’s ghost could speak and rattle his chains. But Micro (as it was known to friends and family), could do neither. It was as dead as a doornail.

And why, gentle reader, do we use that phrase? Are doornails any more dead than, say, door knobs or window sashes or venetian blind slats? It seems they must, somehow, be. But I digress.

Since the demise of the old refrigerator, Micro has been the oldest of my major appliances. It has been my good and trusty servant for 20 years (it was actually older than #1 Son). In its youth, it was quite something – a combination microwave/convection oven that was rather expensive when purchased. I felt very proud when it came home to my kitchen. It had been repaired once, under warranty, but since then it had never missed a beat. Many a healthy and tasty meal were cooked in it, and certainly I got my money’s worth out of it. But in latter days, in deference to its extreme old age, it was more likely to warm a cup of coffee or pop the occasional bag of popcorn.

The last year or two it has made some sort of strange noises now and again. But it kept right heating up whatever I tossed its way with few complaints. Although I knew that in microwave years it was an ancient beast, it seemed to be one of those eternal things that are always there. I assumed that someday #1 Son would come to take care of my worldly possessions when I no longer needed them, and would find a good home for Micro. I just never expected to have to replace it. Poor Micro. The groan it gave as its last gasp was truly pitiable.

Thus I contemplated its life and mourned its death as I sipped my piping hot cup of coffee. Thank you, Micro, for warming my morning.

fruit bouquet

Tomorrow is one of my colleague’s birthday, and this fruit bouquet was sent to mark the occasion. Isn’t this just yummy? What a good idea instead of flowers!

The card said that it should be eaten within 4 hours, and so my colleague asked us all to help out. Who am I to turn down such a heartfelt plea?

Those roundish white things that you see – bananas dipped in white and dark chocolate. Yeah. To die for. And chocolate-covered strawberries. And I can report that the melons, oranges and grapes were quite tasty as well. I had to help out, right? 😉

The fruit fueled my after-work excursion to the local big-box store in search of a new microwave. Not a replacement, mind you, because nothing could replace Micro. But a new one that could do the job.

I found that the state of the art has progressed somewhat over the last 20 years. Microwaves are smaller, lighter and have tons of features for a rather small price. I was pleasantly surprised. I opted not to get one that has a convection over in it. I really haven’t used that feature much and I didn’t want to pay extra for it. But I found a nice, medium-sized microwave and brought it home.

The new microwave and I will need to get used to each other. In Micro’s honor, I decided to start with a bag of popcorn. The first bag was… burned to a crisp darned near burned the kitchen down set off the fire alarm a bit over-popped. The second bag was much better. I believe that, over time, we will grow used to each other’s ways. If I am lucky, this microwave will last even 1/2 as long as Micro did.

I do feel badly about missing Wednesday night knitting. Next week, for sure.

snow?

What a day today!

It snowed 6″ at my house and I was completely trapped in. See the picture?

Mt. St. Helens is erupting and Mt. Hood is rumbling. A scientist has predicted that all of the Cascade volcanoes are likely to explode any day now.

President Bush announced new surcharges on wool. We know those knitters won’t mind paying a little extra. They probably won’t even notice, he said as he sign the new Take Their Wool and Run bill into law.

All three of my cats existed peacefully together today with no squabbles or spats.

The major oil companies decided that they didn’t really need such large profits and the price of gas dropped instantly to $0.50 per gallon.

#1 Son has decided to give up his rock ‘n roll lifestyle and study accounting.

And I finished the clown barf stripy socks.

Yeah…

April fools. 😀