A WIP, a FO, and something extra

Early this month, ZMrK and I went to a meetup for the New England LSGers at WEBS. WEBS itself was a bit of a whirlwind, which is a good thing, considering that I did put myself on a yarn diet this year. I went in, got what I wanted (I was allowed to break said yarn diet considering this trek was right before my birthday, or at least that is how I justified it), paid, and went off to lunch at the Northampton Brewery. It took a while to get there because I stupidly didn't do any sort of mapping to the Brewery, and the folks we followed (who had used MapQuest) weren't familiar with the area, so we were a bit late getting there. It turns out that we knew exactly where it was - duh - if only we had been told that it's near the parking garage! Once there, it was the typical LSG fun:





(You should have seen this by the time we were ALL done with it!)



I'm wearing my Sinful Dickinson Pullover (more on THAT later!)

I'm telling you about this trip to set up that fact that I got the yarn and pattern for the Aurora Shawl Collar Cardigan there (designed by WEBS' own Kristen Hipsky). Something about this pattern called out to me -- it may have to do with it being the middle of winter, and the pattern being for a warm, soft, sweater done with a warm, soft yarn.

Anyway, the damnedest thing has happened. Every time I take a progress shot of it, I'm too lazy to do a blog post. So I'll give both progress shots here:



I took this photo on February 17, in the morning. I had called in sick that day, with an awful head cold (my nose was so stuffed up that taking a drink was a struggle. I've since recovered from it, but passed it along to ZMrK, who has been sick all week and is now recovering, although still coughing).

I was completely finished with the body by the end of that day (knitting while watching zombie movies = WIN), and had a good start on the sleeve by the weekend:



Now, I am completely done with the left sleeve, and have about 25 rounds on the right sleeve done, but I'm too lazy right now to take a photo and upload it.

You may have noticed that it is in the same color as the pattern image, and the sample knit in WEBS. Some may call me unoriginal for that (I have, believe it or not, seen threads on Ravelry where people have deemed those that use the suggested yarn in the color the designer knit in "unoriginal". Seriously. But, any of us who have spent time on Ravelry know that there are some dipshits on there who feel the need to judge what others are doing. Oh, more on that later.). I originally went there to get the yarn in the "gold heather" colorway of Northampton Bulky, but I found the color to be more of a golden tan than the mustardy gold that I prefer. Since the light green heather is a perfect color on me, I decided to go with that (although I have to say, the ocean heather is also gorgeous in person!).

So that's where I stand with that. The pattern is easy -- super, super easy -- but at this point it's not transportable so I only work on it at home. I also need to keep it hidden in the back room, because a small black cat who shall remain nameless really likes that yarn and likes the DPNs even more -- so much that one day he chewed on one and pulled it off the stitches (which I was luckily able to get back onto the needles without trauma).

I did a bit of sewing last weekend. I have some low-nap zebra upholstery type fabric that I got at a yard sale a few years back, as well as some purse handles that I had purchased for an ill-fated project. Put them together and I've got this:



TA DA!! It hasn't left the house yet, of course, because I usually carry one of those big ol' purses that I seem to keep my life in. I plan to use it some night I'm out for fun. I didn't line it -- I fully intended to, but then the fabric I was using for lining was being a $$^&*@$# (seriously, a word that I won't even say!), so I decided not to line it. The zebra fabric doesn't shred at all, so I'm safe with it.

Okay, now I'm at the "something extra" part. I was the center of a bit of controversy on Ravelry this week. Yes, me. Now, I know that I blogged well over a year ago when I finished my Dickinson Pullover. There was no controversy there. Well, at the beginning of this year, ZMrK and I had a fun photoshoot involving me wearing said pullover with nothing else. I was too chicken to post the photos to Flickr at the time, but uploaded them straight to Ravelry just so I can have a cheeky little thread on Rubberneckers not Rubbernecking about them. They're cute photos, and were within the Ravelry Terms of Service, and the only one that may have been a little questionable was put down at the bottom (ahem!) of my project page. I forgot about them, and didn't see a thing wrong about it.

Earlier this week, there was a thread in LSG asking which if your projects were favorited the most. I posted that project, as well as my Weird hat, both of which had been favorited 13 times. I went on with my day, la la la. That night, I go to see what's what on Ravelry, and I have a comment on that project. It reads "You are gross!". I thank the person for commenting, and point it out to a couple of people I'm friends with, thinking it's funny. I get a few positive comments from my friends to negate the person who thinks I'm gross. I later get another comment (which has since been deleted by the author) that reads "Congratulation. [sic] You got the attention you wanted." I'm like, Um, okay. . . maybe the earlier commenter clutched her pearls and sent it to her friend, much like I sent the earlier comment to my friends.

Then, a couple of people give me the "heads up" that my pullover has become a topic of discussion in another group, where the photos are called "obscene" "very inappropriate" and of "private parts". For reals? By the time I saw the thread, other people had found it and had come to my defense. I was willing to just let it roll off my back until I saw a post that read, "Actually the cellulose on those thighs is what I didn’t want to look at". OH NO SHE DI'NT! Putting aside the hilarity of the thought of me growing plant fibers on my thighs (does that make then spinnable?), I had to go and defend myself. Here's my response to the thread (Rav Users names have been redacted so as to not cause further drama):

Hello! Since I’m the person being talked about here, I figured I would chime in.

As far as I can tell, my photos do not violate the Ravelry Terms of Use any more than the projects of thongs and pasties that [redacted] linked to do. Just to cover my own butt (heh, heh), I did use the drop-down menu when uploading said photos that tags them as “Mature Content”. I’m not sure how the Mature Content filter works, but I would suggest that people do utilize that feature.

That being said, I think that calling the photos “obscene” is a little over the line. I personally do not find the human body in its natural state obscene at all, and further, I’m not naked in the photos. A Victoria’s Secret ad shown on television during prime time shows more.

As far as the “cellulose” (sic) on my thighs goes that [redacted] so kindly pointed out, well, I do what I can with diet and exercise, but the reality is that all women get it at some point. I’d rather that than have to live with a mean-spirited soul festering inside me that has nothing better to do than snark at someone else’s physical shape.

The moderator of that thread chose to lock and archive the thread, since there were some pretty inappropriate things said there. I'm really glad that I was able to defend myself before she did, though. I was fucking shaking like a leaf as I wrote it! I'm not terribly good at confrontation, even when it's not in person, but I was so glad to have friends to back me up on this. Very glad.

What I find VERY curious is that the thread, as well as the comments, started within an hour of me posting a link to the project in an LSG thread (all by people who are not members of LSG). There is talk that people read LSG just looking for things to be offended by (LSG means "Lazy, Stupid, and Godless", and the group was started after a thread called "Is swearing allowed on Ravelry?" went kablooey, so that those of us with potty-mouths can hang out together and not offend others). I do believe that the whole controversy started because someone was looking for things to get offended by in LSG. It's too much of a coincidence otherwise.

I did have a conversation with TPTB of Ravelry (which I initiated) about whether my photos violated the Terms of Service or not. One of the photos did show a bit of my buttcheek, and was considered "borderline", but TPTB never deemed it inappropriate but recommended that I might want to take it down. I thought about it, because if it causes drama once it may cause drama again, but decided to reach a compromise that should please everybody except for those who are offended by a bit of cellulite (and those people can bite me):



For those who aren't on Ravelry, who may want to see the rest of the photos, here they are in all their obscene inappropriateness:











So. . . what's the verdict? Am I a filthy slattern? Should I be ashamed and hide my cottage cheese? I "get" that the one that showed my buttcheek was a little more risque than the others, but I don't think that's the only one that people objected to! From what people were saying, you'd think I was flashing some beaver or nipple in the pics.

Good things came out of it: I got a good story to tell, I discovered that I have many people on Ravelry willing to come to my defense, and I made a few new friends, as some of those people who defended me were folks I hadn't had contact with before. It also gave me some good ideas for Flash Your Stash day (Muahahaahahaha!) that may offend a few pearl-clutchers yet not violate any rules.

So, let me know -- AM I a filthy slattern or just a girl who is not ashamed of her body? Don't make me write this big ol' post for nothing (I know I haven't been the best blogger lately, so I want to get the lurkers to come out and comment).

Full of Fail turned into Full of Win!

I feel so full of fail right now. Not only have a barely blogged this summer (summer? don't you mean YEAR???), but I finished my socks two weeks ago and haven't posted them yet.

I hope to now turn that fail into a WIN!





Gratuitous Ellie shot:



Hopefully I can gain some readers back by posting cute kittie pictures.



It's never not funny when Luciano does this. He looks like a cat skin rug. Or a leaf gecko. I can never decide which one.

He does Pilates too:



And delivers the smackdown to his poor big sister:



The funniest part of that picture? Ellie's face!!! She looks like she's thinking, "Holy shit -- here it comes!" I've seen her give him an unprecedented wallop a couple of times, though.

Last Saturday's brunch was also full of win:



I'd weigh a million pounds if I did that every week. We only go to this diner on the way to one of our hiking spots. For the record, it's the "50s Diner Special", which is 2 eggs any style, choice of 2 meats, home fries, choice of a short stack of pancakes or French toast, and a bottomless cup of coffee for under $9. I've never finished it.

Another win is putting grapes in your cheeks and lips and taking funny photos:



It's really hard to do without cracking up, and thus looking like the Cowardly Lion:



A cute baby, laughing and trying to grab at your camera -- that, too, is full of win:



Okay, so I was going to post about some crazy internet drama (relating to the Yarn Harlot, Ravelry banned members, Sock Summit, stalking, moebius panties, etc.) that is full of fail, but decided to turn my post into one that is full of happy things. So there, drama llamas! :-p

This is weird

I found a new blog this week; one following the recent Ravelry drama. It seems to focus entirely on one group of individuals, however, and not Rav-wide drama. As far as I know, it was NOT started by someone from the Rubberneckers group.

Knittin' Mittens

I had one skein of Noro Kureyon -- what to do with it?

I also have several skeins (or balls, really, they were frogged from a WIP) of a mystery yarn -- some sort of Lamb's Pride type single spun yarn that is somewhere between a worsted and bulky weight, and does not felt that I decided to use in conjunction with it, since the color of this yarn matches the purple in the Kureyon.

I'm making mittens!



Big fat cuff, super warm mittens for a winter that is only half over. I think every winter I end up making so many winter accessories. Some day I'll need to designate an entire dresser to these accessories.

But for now, I dance!



It's mah butt, lookit mah butt, here's mah butt!

I also gave ZMrK a nice skeptical look, which translated well to the "cartoon" special effect on my Kodak software:



Someone I went to high school with told me I looked like a cartoon character, on multiple occasions. I guess this is what she means?

I want to thank everyone for their kind comments on my last post. I'm staying away from all the political groups now; the ugliness that was around post-election day has only dissipated a little bit. Why does everyone have to have such an "us against them" mentality? I don't hate people who voted for the guy who ran against the guy I voted for. I don't even hate the guy who ran against the guy I voted for. Screw politics. Let's dance!

Spinning!

I forgot to show off the yarn I spun:









It's the corriedale/merino/silk that I purchased at the Connecticut Sheep and Wool last spring, spun rather fine and plied with some gold embroidery thread from A.C. Moore. It was an experiment, and so far, it's been a successful one. It remains to be seen how it knits up.

I'm thinking of trying to do some sort of nice cowl with this. There's about 280-300 yards (I think), and like it said, it's rather fine. Not quite lace weight, of course, but maybe around fingering weight. It's hard to tell with the fluffiness of it; I usually associate fingering weight with tightly plied sock yarn. I may have to just play around with it and some needles, just to see what it wants to be.

I need to go to a more serious topic now: racism. I've been pretty active on a certain site lately, and I have seen stuff that I disagree(1) with. I have, however, never seen anything that prompted me to report a post. I know I could be bringing the wrath of the racists on me by posting about this, but I am going to go ahead and do it anyways without naming any names.

This is what the post said: >>On a funny note: I saw a new thread du jour in the "patterns" forum, called "Inaugural Scarves". Yeah. Right. Over here we have another
name for those: Nooses.<<

Seriously. I was HORRIFIED. The post was reported (and not just by me), and the post was later edited. I didn't bother to send the poster a PM, nor did I attempt to post in the same thread questioning her choice of words. I just reported it to TPTB.

So, tell me, did I overreact?

Be Really Really Careful What You Wish For

I was lamenting the fact that I had no good blog fodder lately. I haven't the ability to make the mundane sound funny or even remotely interesting, like some other bloggers. I even took pictures of myself trying on dresses in the dressing room at Lord & Taylor so I could blog a rant about dresses with pockets on them that seemingly helps one be able to scrach her cootch, but then even I lost interest.

Then I had a fun little health scare concerning the cat bite I showed you in my last post.

I figured everything was going along okay until late one Thursday afternoon (May 1), when ZMrK called me at work to let me know that I had a message from Animal Control.

Whoa, shit. Animal control? What would they want from me?

So, I called and asked for the woman who had called me, and was told they were closed already.

Then I started to get worried.

The 10-day quarantine was probably up for the cat that bit me. What if it turned out he had rabies? Maybe I should have just gone for the treatment straight away. These days, it's a series of shots in the arm and one near the bite wound, it's not that "25 shots near your bellybutton" that we always hear about as kids.

I hoped they were just calling to say, "he's out of quarantine and fine."

I shit a couple of bricks that night, figuratively speaking, of course.

I called the next morning (Friday, May 2)and the woman who had called me was out until Sunday!!!! I had a conversation with the man who answered the phone, who took my address, phone #, etc. and I got this info from him:

-- In the past 3 weeks, there had been as many cases of cats turning out *positive* for rabies.

-- If my case was one of them, I would have heard from the Board of Health by now.

I didn't think things would be so laid-back if the cat was, in fact, rabid. It had been reported to the shelter, my doctor, the board of health, the shelter's insurance company, and animal control, so hopefully that was enough to get the proper info and medical attention to me if need be. I mean, wouldn't the Board of Health be pounding at my door if I had been exposed to rabies?

I began to think that I could turn into a cat at the next full moon.

The same day I spoke with someone at the MSPCA, and even though she couldn't tell me definitively that Max (the cat that bit me) came out of his quarantine okay, it sounded pretty positive that he did.

I breathed a little easier.

I didn't get to speak to the woman from animal control until Tuesday, May 6.
She was calling me because the first she heard of the incident was from the Board of Health, who were notified by my doctor.

The shelter is supposed to notify Animal Control of the incident, and A.C. is supposed to do the quarantining (I think).

The woman from A.C. had been talking with the shelter, who had been "unable" to find the incident report I filled out and therefore don't know which cat bit me.

Isn't this all nice???

Yet, the shelter was able to get my info to their insurance company, PLUS they were able to tell my doctor that the cat was not up to date on his shots, yet they didn't have the info for animal control and weren't returning my calls either.

Breathe breathe breathe.

She told me of seven recent rabies cases in Mass.: 2 on Cape Cod (owned cats), 1 stray cat and 1 skunk in W. Roxbury (the community next door to us), 1 owned cat in the Fenway area (possible vaccination failure), 1 cat in Mattapan (not far from us), and this one, the most horrifying of all.

The dog was adopted from a suburban branch of the same shelter where the cat who bit me was.

I called my doctor. I gave the story to her secretary, who kept saying, "oh God, oh God" and typing it all down. Nice when you can make a medical secretary freak out, isn't it? Gives me the warm fuzzies.

I began to think that maybe Rabies is the new Zombies.

My doctor called me later that day, and said that when she last spoke with the shelter on April 28th, the cat was in quarantine and was fine. That would have been day 8 of the quarantine. She told me she ws going to do some "detective work" to find out what happened the last two days of quarantine. She didn't want me to go through all the rabies shots (especially seeing how much I hate getting them) if it turns out the cat is fine.

Almost at the end of the same day, I spoke with the supervisor at the shelter, who told me that Max got through his quarantine and got an a-ok bill of health from their veterinarian. She said she had left a message for my doctor, and will call the woman at Animal Control as well.

Yay!!! It's over!!! Right?

The next day my doctor called me with some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I most definitely do NOT have rabies.

The bad news is that the shelter had to have the cat put to sleep and tested for rabies. He bit TWO MORE PEOPLE since he bit me. The shelter didn't tell me this, but they did tell my doctor.

I decided to contact the woman from Animal Control, to see if she had been told as well. She hadn't, and was still waiting to talk to someone, because she needed the paperwork for her records and for the Board of Health. Dude, she was pissed.

She finally got a hold of them and will send me a copy of the letter that they sent her.

This is the story she got: He bit or scratched someone on the 24th, while still in quarantine, and on the 25th or 26th they euthanized him and send him to the state lab for rabies testing (you unfortunately can't do the tests without putting them down), and got those results back on the 29th.

Dude, the 29th. Of April. Meanwhile, as far as my doctor was told, he was still in quarantine and "fine" on the 28th, which would have been 2 or 3 days after they put him down. I can't believe it took this long for us to get answers, and took so many different people. But yeah, dude, I'm going to get a LETTER that officially says that I got bitten by this cat, they did this, this and this, and tested him for rabies, and it's negative, so I don't have rabies. There's one to frame, huh?

Oh, and the next time I get any bloodwork done my doc is gonna test my titres. I was vaccinated against rabies in 1992-ish when I was working at an animal shelter and had to drive an ambulance around the city and pick up wildlife and shit. I may have immunity. Hopefully I'll never have to test it again, but it would be cool to know. It's pretty cool to be able to say that I'm vaccinated against rabies.

I can't wait for the next full moon. I wanna see if I turn into a cat.

Cats and Creepy Cards

I just posted a couple of videos to YouTube of the kitties!!

This is Solvie drinking from the bathroom sink. It's her new favorite obsession:



This is Zelia making bread on my lap while I'm wearing my big fleecy bathrobe:



I got my first birthday card today, even though my birthday isn't for 10 days. A few years ago I had to have a few crowns put in, so I got approved for a special credit card just for that so I wouldn't have to pay the few grand all at once. That's who sent me the card. The first creepy part is the envelope and the "writing" on the card are printed in a font that is made to look like handwriting, but came off a computer. I really hate that. But the creepiest part of all is what is "written" inside. It's a regular Hallmark card, with the added on "writing" personalized to me. This is what it says:

"Happy Birthday! It's great that you're part of the [creditor's name withheld] family, and we look forward to being there for you down the road.

If you have any questions about being part of the [creditor's name withheld] family, call us toll-free at [phone number withheld]."

Does anyone else find it creepy that some institution I paid money to a few years ago is sending me personalized birthday cards? That they have my birthday in their database? That they are telling me I am part of their family? I think I'm gonna have nightmares tonight that they are messing with my teeth while I sleep, just so I have to get more crowns so I have to "come back" to them.