Resisting

I keep picking up Jane Sowerby’s Victorian Lace Today. I’m so tempted. I’m resisting; it is only a month and a half until the Χ–thing and there is no way I’m finishing a shawl in six weeks. I’m down to one or two conference calls a week and staff meetings are down to a minimum.

Work, though, is why I have nothing to show. Unless you are interested in SQL scripts and funds transfer pricing analyses. I do have a lovely cap plodding along in a Tunisian rib with cables in a smaller sort of gauge. Lots of knitting with very little progress. And a Manos de Uruguay Cotton Stria scarf at work for those conference calls I’m not having. Nothing significant enough for photos.

I now have a laptop for work. Which I carry home every night in case I should finally come down with a cold or the flu and be compelled to stay home. I haven’t yet, but I check my e-mail and end up wasting time at home that I could be wasting at work.

Question

If you are knitting a hat with cables and ribbing, is it better to decrease into the rib or the cable?

Fat Yarn

I look at chunky or even aran yarn—and sometimes even worsted—and think what could possibly do with that? Besides a hat. That I wouldn’t wear. Large yarns making my head look smaller.

I do have some nice thick yarns, several skeins of Malabrigo Merino, in fact, but I look at them and think ‘scarf’, in fact, brioche scarf—which I’ve done. Twice.

I could do a different brioche.

The Downstairs Neighbor is Still a Pig

The other night he banged on his ceiling to complain about the sound of my chair as I rolled away from my desk before shutting down and going to bed. Really, mice make more noise than we do.

I Googled him. Apparently his wife is more successful than he is.

Feather & Fan

This is Feather & Fan, in the alternate version with the yarn-over cable. I am somewhat happy at how it turned out. I am also happy that I have actually finished it. The last 20% took forever.

One hundred twenty thousand plus stitches, followed by a crocheted bind-off that was less painful than I expected, but still excruciatingly small. I do admire it though. And I keep looking at other things I could bind off with miniscule chains.

Above you see the blocked product. Which could have been better done, I know. There is no place in this apartment large enough to pin out a 72″ diameter shawl. I had to make a frame, staple an old sheet to it and baste the shawl to the sheet with upholstery thread—which accounts for the slight imperfections in the directions of the fans. It’s not really noticeable off the frame.

I took it to the LYS this afternoon; I had promised to bring it in some time ago, and I wanted to reward myself for having finished it (which I did, unfortunately). Yes, I enjoyed being praise for my knitting by other knitters. Best afternoon I’ve had in ages.

A Round of Apologies

I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you, particularly those of you who wrote thinking I might have dropped off the face of the earth. I didn’t; I just got stuck. Stuck at work. Stuck on F&F. Stuck in a rut of procrastination. I am a champion of procrastination.

I’m now on 8 straight months of procrastinating about going to the gym. Soon I should be able to roll there. I have been biking—27 miles last Saturday—but I’ve been eating more.

My Downstairs Neighbor is a Homophobic Jerk

And he’s an architect in New York?

And that’s it for tonight.

Carroll Gardens… Gowanus… Sunset Park… Bay Ridge… Bath Beach… Bensonhurst… Coney Island… Brighton Beach… Sheepshead Bay… the Knapp Street sewage treatment plant… some neighborhoods whose names I don’t yet know… Midwood… Kensington… Windsor Terrace… Park Slope and home. Barely winded. In high gear. Mostly.

Got to scare a pedestrian, too. He was crossing against the light and not looking. I can be loud when I want to.

Feather & Fan is at 80%. Twenty rows and the crocheted binding to go.

Today, 24.4 mi/39.25 km, through Ft Greene, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, Maspeth, the area around LaGuardia, Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint, East Williamsburgh, Fort Greene agains and home.

Last Sunday’s Route

Twenty-four and half miles, following on 20.5 the day before.

Feather & Fan

Less than 25% remaining. I’m sorry, it is tedious. It is nice though.

I cannot remember when I last felt this relaxed. Not that a sane person would call me relaxed.

I’m on vacation for only a week; and at the end of the week I turn 49. My joy is not unmitigated.

Spring. Finally. Maybe.

Five weeks after the false hope of March, it finally warmed up enough to get out on my bike and flap my love-handles in the wind. I work a loose shirt to protect the innocent. This was a marvelously perfect day for biking. Not too cool, not too warm. Steady, but not too insistent breeze. Light traffic.

Today will probably be the best day Brooklyn will have all year. Everybody was out. People on bikes—some cute guys, too— everywhere. McCarran Park, between Greenpoint and Williamsburgh, was packed, as were the sidewalk tables at the restaurant on Smith St.

Feather & Fan Update

I’m ⁷/₈ through round 165. This sounds like a lot, but that’s only 72% of the total stitches. Only twenty-five more rounds, mostly plain knitting until I get to the crocheted cast-off, which will be the end of me.

I finished a scarf, too, since we last met. I’ll take pictures eventually.

Confession

Sometimes blogging seems like Work. Some days at Work are 90% e-mail.

In Other News

• We’re having a home office installed tomorrow. We had to move everything out of the office in preparation. It seems quite large now, but the living room is cramped.
• A table, two good-quality bookcases, a mirror and a black plastic cylindrical trash-can went out to the curb to make way for the new furniture. All found homes, good ones I hope. The trash can went first—odd, since it was the cheapest thing out there. The last to go was the six-foot bookcase. I was surprised, How often do you find a six-foot, maple-veneer, mahogany-finish bookcase in excellent condition with all the shelves on the street FOR FREE?
• My elder sister turned 50 today. This is not a consolation to me. I did remember to call her. Eventually.
• I warned my younger sister that in the two years after I turn 50 I am unlikely to forget that she is relatively right behind me, so she should be nice to both my older sister and me.
• I have realized that my the vacation I had (vaguely) planned out of the country next year to avoid spending my 50^th with anyone but J will probably not happen. We have a major system conversion due at the end of April next year at work.
• Of the tens of people I saw biking today, I was one of the four oldest. I’m almost certain the other three are gay. And they looked pretty good. I’ve got some work ahead of me.

Time to Get My Butt in Gear

Call me an optimist, but the weather doesn’t seem quite as antagonistic this week. I need to get the bike into the local shop for a tune-up and a new back wheel, so I can get these love handles out flapping in the wind once more.

I was in a cab on the way home from my biweekly massage, where if I didn’t make a conscious effort to relax I would probably feel like a blob of kneaded lard, and I saw throng of poeple going into the local gym. At 7pm! Spring is definitely coming.

I’d probably be more motivated if that throng hadn’t been, on average, twelve years younger than me.

However, I absolutely refuse to go up a waist-size. Those hideous gym walls will see me yet again. Soon. Right after I get over the fact that I now have to get up at 4:30, despite what the lying clock says.

And the Point of Starting DST Three Weeks Earlier Is?

And we save energy by having the lights and heat on earlier in the colder and darker early morning hours? I can’t help thinking somehow ExxonMobil, Chevron Texaco, BP, et al. are making money off this.

Lulled into Complacency

I’m having one of those weeks where people cancel meetings I have to attend and postpone deadlines and thereby open huge swatches of my calendar. I forget what I’m supposed to be working on. Doom, clearly, approaches.

There’s a schedule out there somewhere that says I’m required for 730 hours of requirements review over the next four months. 4 months × 21 business days/month × 8 business hours/day = 672 hours. Doom approaches.

And tonight’s fabulous meal was Sesame Chicken, the recipe for which got somewhere on the internet, about.com maybe, and tripled the amount of chili paste. Really, triple the amount of chili paste. A teaspoon? Wimps. A tablespoon! Astounding.

The apartment does smell like fried food though.

J liked it, and that’s the best part.

Saturday’s dinner was Madhur Jaffrey’s Chickpeas Cooked in a Moglai-Style (sic) with her Greek leeks and a tamarind chutney. The leftovers are going to make a great pita sandwich or two for work.

Maybe I’ll go to the gym on Tuesday.

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Friday.

Saturday.

Sunday, etc.

I am, btw, still on Eastern Standard Time and will pay for this in the morning.