The Count ... down*

1. Number of ankles I've sprained in the last 3 weeks. Having never broken or sprained anything before, I was really intrigued by the injury that whole week as evidenced by the numerous pictures I took to document the ever-changing bruising and swelling patterns. I will spare you those photos. Luckily I wasn't really ever in any pain. It's still a little swollen now but I've been told that's normal. And the trooper that I am, I hobbled to work after sustaining the injury (falling down the stairs in our building) simply because I had a job interview that afternoon...which I limped to in low heels.
   
   
2. People from my high school days came to visit in November. They took the Chinatown bus from Philly. It was an awesome weekend! Thankfully they'd already seen most of the monuments and good museums so we were free to find other interesting things to do like having falafel in Adams Morgan (yay Amsterdam), meeting up with 2 other friends from Philly who happened to be in DC as well, hanging out at our favorite bar: Adams Mill followed by a nostalgic visit to Milly & Al's (where we ran into ANOTHER person from our high school), and of course, brunch at Asylum.
   
   
3. is one of my favorite numbers (the other being 7).
   
   
4. days i spent in Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. For once it wasn't too hectic. This is my niece Rosaline. She stole the show from the turkey (who acted very bitter about the whole thing).
5. socks I've knit in a row. 2 pairs plus 1 that ended up being too big and had to be ripped out.
   
   
6. days since my most recent (and bestest) job interview. I don't kiss & tell about work stuff here, but I will say that it was for a research position with a nonprofit. It felt really good to finally walk out of an interview and not have any regrets about what I said (or forgot to say...).
   
   
7. types of beer that were featured in our informal beer tasting held the weekend that the Philly-friends were in town. Erich worked hard behind the scenes buying the right size glasses, researching the various types and the best examples of each beer-type, and even calling the American Homebrewer's Association to get some pointers. The Beer Tasting was supposed to go along w/ brewing a batch of Chocolate Cherry Porter, but once we realized how many people were coming and how much work it is to keep everyone's glass filled w/ the correct beer while explaining the intricacies of that style, the brewing had to be postponed to the following weekend.
   
   
8. (+5) people we crammed into our living room for the beer tasting. It was hot and crowded - perfect for beer drinking! That's a total of 13. I couldn't think of anything to go with 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12.

* MadameBovary reminded me that this is a count up not a count down. But seriously,who says "Count up"? And I refuse the change the order of the items to make it a count down. So there.

Autumn Overdue

I started this post almost 2 weeks ago. I'm so lazy I'm not even going to edit it before posting.
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Last weekend got off to a great start when PassionKnitly jumped on a Chinatown bus in NYC to visit us. While the bus company did its best to try to keep her from us (leaving over an hour late, backing up on an off ramp on 95, leaving the engine running while filling up at the gas station), she was victorious and we made up for lost time by staying up WAY past our bedtime talking.
On Saturday we caravanned (caravaned?) in 2 cars out to Homestead Farm where we had planned a day of apple picking and picknicking. We had gorgeous weather, some of learned to juggle, and E* and I picked 14 lbs. of apples. Yes, you read that right, 14 lbs. Since then, I've devoted a few minutes each day to looking up various apple-intensive recipes including apple pie, apple brown betty, pork & apple, apple crisp...etc. I have yet to start making a dent in our gi-normous pile of apples. Maybe I'll pawn some off on the group tonight because I'm hosting stitch-n-bitch. Apple slices and nutella anyone?

Is that a gourd in your pocket....


But the day didn't end with our lazy picknick on the farm (after which we all passed out in the grass from apple-picking exhaustion). Saturday night was a bowling birthday party at Strike - the swankiest bowling alley I've ever seen. Thankfully, they don't have a dress code unlike some pretenious establishments.

This is the hottest rooster I've ever seen:

Fall, Food, and Friends

That was quite possibly the best 3 day weekend I've had in a long time. It consisted of (here we go with another list):

• 2 roast chicken dinners (made by Erich and me)
• Sunday brunch at Asylum w/ our neighbor friends (who were victims of Chicken Dinner #1 the night before)
  
• a loaf of zucchini bread w/ some muffins thrown in for good measure - a surprise for Erich since he had class on Monday.
  
• a free rental at Blockbuster: Wag the Dog (inspired by this 'blunder' Fox made last week)
  
• my weekly bike-ride-to-Trade-Joes exercise routine
• and a started and finished finished Food & Friends scarf (my first one cuz I'm lame and apparently pretty stingy with my yarn)

EDIT: Just found this gem on You Tube: MSNBC coverage of Fox's completely accidental mistake

Part I in the "Things that Annoy Me" Series

This is the first installment in a new series that will serve as my soapbox for various neurotic tendencies I might have.
I'm going to begin by railing on a piece of our society that I particularly loathe:
The Mobile Billboard.



Have you seen this phenomenon? It's disgusting! I can handle an advertisement on the side of a truck that is actually transporting goods. But these mobile billboards are such a senseless waste of fuel!
There are people out there spending more than they want to on cars because they feel a hybrid is better for the environment. Others ride bikes to work, or take public transportation. Some people become recycling and composting gurus or participate in annual buy nothing day.
So how could the advertising executives who came up with the mobile billboard be proud of the contribution they're making to society? I'm not against the advertising industry per se (and I'll admit that there might be a few flaws in my argument) but when fuel costs are spiking and we have so much damning evidence about the negative impact of carbon emissions on the environment - how can a team of people pitch this kind of idea and then go home at night satisfied with their place in the world?

Am I being too harsh? Maybe I should mull this over a bit more.

*Off to turn on the AC because of this freak heat wave, but I'll have to leave the windows open for the breeze.

;)

A post to replace the last one

I should begin by saying that this I'm posting this now ONLY because E* complained that he's sick of looking at the other post every time he checks the blog. So if this post is less than stellar, I blame him because I wasn't really in the blogging mood just yet.

On to crafty business.

This past Sunday was the Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair in Adams Morgan (my 'hood). I almost forgot about it until some thoughtful friends checked to see if I'd be meeting up with them. The theme of this year's festival seemed to be T-shirts - mainly silk screened with quirky sayings and an abundance of animal characters. While most of the wares were really stunning, a lot was out of my price range and/or items I'm not allowed to buy for awhile (bags and t-shirts). These kinds of fairs also tend to spark this kind of monologue in me: "Ooohh, pretty. I could totally make that! So I shouldn't buy it, cuz it'd be SO much cheaper if I made it. But....am I really going to find the time or patience to actually make it? Probably not. Argh." My cheapskate inner-self usually ends up beating my practical/pessimistic inner-self and I walk away from the booth hoping I'll remember the interesting technique that artist used so I can reproduce it later. Apparently, other people were much more excited about everything going on that day - so much so that they simply fell asleep, exhausted by the effort of haggling over handmade bibs and then bragging about it to their friends:


(this kid was out like a light. I didn't want to point the camera in his face and disturb the peace his mom was probably enjoying. hope no one called that phone and woke him up!)

2nd crafty note: I finished the Falling Leaves socks tonight! Most of my progress on the final sock happened at SnB yesterday after the Crafty Bastar-noon. The stretchy bind-off I experimented with for sock 1 worked again (switched to size 7 needles for the bind-off row) and aside from the HORRIBLY mis-matched toes, I'm pretty happy w/ these suckers.
BUT, I just saw that the pictures of the socks came out like crap, so instead you get to see this crazy bug that hung out on our window last week for a few hours. Hey, bug friends - is this a cicada?

Code in my Nose

I stayed home sick yesterday. I caught a nasty cold that started Monday afternoon. The symptoms are winding down today so I'm at work, trying to take the recommended dosage of Cold-eeze.

Finally, I'll leave you with some better (and more sanitary) news. You'll notice that there's a new book in my sidebar. The author is my friend's husband! His book is actually one of three that come out this fall whose authors are friends of mine. I suddenly feel like a little book groupie - I can't wait to have him sign my copy! And some of you know that I NEVER buy books. The Last Town on Earth is about a small town in Washington state that quarantined itself during the 1918 flu epidemic. The genre is right up my alley! I keep seeing parallels between it and the last book I read - The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. There are a lot of references to the union movement around the turn of the century and the wandering lifestyle of many marginalized working men who moved from town to town trying to earn money in various dangerous industries. It only arrived yesterday but since I was already home sick, I jumped right into it. I highly recommend it despite the fact that I'm only 1/4 into it.
These are the other 2 books I'm pimping*:
and

*Thanks to MikaJ for starting this.

Melodious Geography

I've been struck this week by two songs about geographic locations.

This one is about my quirky little state: "Rhode Island is Famous For you" (the mp3 is linked on that page). You might notice that the song actually says very little about RI. It somehow manages to say a bit about every other state, while leaving RI extremely vague. But I find it endearing because of the cute melody and the sheer number of times she sings the words "Rhode Island."

The second song says loads about a place that I'm not at all familiar with. It's by Neko Case and sadly, I found no references to its lyrics or an .mp3 link after googling the crap out of it.
So, I decided to jot the lyrics down myself so that the next person who hears this song and wants to know more about it can find this blog entry. Note that this is my break tonight while working on cover letters. Is it Friday yet please?

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Fast-forward to 30 minutes after I started transcribing the lyrics. I noticed that MS Word was trying to correct the spelling of the song's pivotal word: Takoma. It preferred that I spell it "Tacoma". I guess I should take this as an indication of the amount of time I've lived in Washington. "Tacoma" looks silly to me, whereas "Takoma" - of Takoma Park, MD, for instance - looks much better.
And now you see why my google search for Neko Case and Takoma was fruitless.
Now that you've patiently read this far, I'll reward you with MY transcribed lyrics sans Word spelling corrections:*

Thrice All American
by Neko Case and her Boyfriends (from Furnace Room Lullaby)

I want to tell you about my hometown
It's a dusty old jewel in the South Puget Sound
Well the factories churn and the timbers all cut down
And life goes by slow in Takoma

People they laugh when they hear you're from my town
They say it's a sour and used up all place
I defended its honor, shrugged off the put downs
You know that you're poor, from Takoma

Buildings are empty like ghettos or ghost-towns
It gives me a chill to think what was inside
I can't seem to fathom the dark of my history
I invented my own in Takoma

There was nothing to put me in love with the good life
I'm in league with the the gangs guns, and the crime
There was no hollow promise that life would reward you
There was nowhere to hide in Takoma

People who built it they loved it like I do
Their was hope in the trainyard of something inspired
Once was I on it, but it's been painted shut
I found passion for life in Takoma

Well I don't make it home much, I sadly neglect you
But that's how you like it away from the world
God bless California, make way for the Wal-Mart
I hope they don't find you Takoma



* in the hopes that the next time some schmuck like me goes to search for these lyrics, she/he actually learns of the truth before wasting a bunch of time with headphones and fast typing.