Annie Knits

Ho Hum

That is what you say on your blog when you're too busy to have any interesting thoughts about which to blog.

Ah me.  The house is cleanish.  The Halloween decorations are on the steps ready to go up and replace the Christmas stuff in the closet.  Laundry's mostly put away.  Dinner's in the crock pot.  Hum drum, I tell you. 

I can't find my camera charging cord, so no pictures.  The Hemlock Ring blanket is nearly 600 stitches around and 6 rows from what I am going to call  finished.  Turns out it's recipient has been checking the blog to see how I'm doing, so I shouldn't post pics of it anyway.  Maybe on Ravelry.  I'll link you to it when I get around to it. 

What's in the crockpot, you ask?  The standard pulled pork.  3 pork tenderloins, 1 bottle of Newman's Own Balsamic Dressing.  10 hours on low.   Yum.

I think I'll throw out some controversial statements, in no particular order, and see if I can get you to bite.  Howzat?

• Moon Sand, while a wonderful time filler for sick kids, ought to be put on some recall list.  It's just too messy.  Or it should come with a warning. 
• I hate mice.   In general and specifically the one that has found a place to live under my corner kitchen counter.  I think I will hate even more though a dead mouse on a trap.  Which by the way is a very effective dog catcher -- the sticky thing has caught Monte twice.  He is not the sharpest crayon in the box.  Cutest, but not sharpest. 
• Dressing up like the Jamaican Bobsledders or Tiger Woods or even Al Sharpton for Halloween is not "donning blackface" as my local paper called it no fewer than 9 times in a recent article.  Painting your face black with a white O for lips and singing like a black minstrel is "donning blackface".  The first bit is inflammatory and misleading and simply historically incorrect -- using the term under those circumstances smudges it's sharply and deeply offensive nature.  Which I think might be just the exact opposite effect from the one the esteemed editorial department was expecting.
• Helping people learn to knit is super rewarding.  It's my absolute favorite thing to do.  Except that I do it so much that I've been missing the Wednesday Night Knittsters at Knitorious pretty consistently.  Which is a bummer.  I miss my peeps. 
• Meeting random people who then tell me that they read my blog is disconcerting.  Which is counterintuitive.  I publish this thing so that people will read it right?  Then why do I get a pit in my stomach when unexpected people do?  It actually has had a dampening effect on my writing.  No, silly, not soggy writing, less writing.  And no, I'm not talking about you.
• Spinning is a fascinating, compulsive, time sucking black hole of a hobby.  I've got about 800 yards of fall colored 2-ply yarn and about a 3rd of the roving yet to spin.  What do you think, Deborah, can I get a ribwarmer out of that?  (You should see Deborah's Ribwarmer... simply smashing.)  And some singles of Dyeabolical superwash. Rachel will know the colorway.  To ply or not to ply.
• I'm raw feeding my dogs -- at least partially.  And Big Dog's allergies are disappearing.  Even with no hard freezes yet.  But raw feeding is yucky.  You need one of these and lots of soapy water to mop the floor around the food bowls after each meal.  At least I no longer have a toddler around the house. 
• A funny thing to do is to take the Thanksgiving turkey carcasses and make a stock out of them (I feel so virtuous -- I always say I'm going to do this and never quite get around to it) and store some of it in what is usually the lemonade pitcher.  I didn't quite have the heart to let Dear Son actually pour a glass and take a swig of it, but nearly.   'Cause that would have been hilarious.  I have a dark side.
• I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when the Irish Composer said, during a recent practice, "Next year, when you do this, blah blah blah..."  Next year?  God, don't talk to me again about Irish Gaelic anything until July, 'k?  I didn't even hear what she said after "next year".   Love, love, love this challenging thing I'm doing, but I'm bonkers tired of it right now.  I wake up with "Taw esagawn ina lee, es kuhloo sa wanshayre twee" running around in my head.  Oh, pipe down, that's the phonetic pronunciation.  I don't even have the keys on my keyboard to write what it really looks like...
• 5th grade math is way over my head.  Or at least it's way too fiddly for me -- and I really don't have the patience for it between 4 and 6 in the evening.  All those factors and long division.  Yeeeuuuccckkk!

Well.  That's enough of that.  The paper should be here by now and I'm off to get jerked around by their editorial staff once again.  It'll be fun.  Promise.

I Have a Secret

I don't like Ravelry very much right now.  Yes, the pattern search option is great -- I just used it to to decide how to go  about kitting up a sweater.  And the meet-ups at Rhinebeck were fun.  Conceptually, it is a great idea:  gather knitters to help each other and to network.  But in practice the forum it gives to single voices is a little bothersome.  People with a lot of time on their hands and an agenda are bringing me down.  The fact that I can't make a thread in a forum disappear and die a quick and painless death is bothersome.  I'm quite sick of it and have sworn off of checking it for a week or so.

Notes to Self:

•    Edited to add:  I must remember that for many people, every yarn purchase is special.  It represents something to which the buyer will devote a great deal of time and talent.  It's easy to get jaded when faced with all of the yarn possibilities every day.  And when you have a discount.

• Some knitters do not realize that we do not work in or own a lys to make a gob of money or to piss them off.  We do not get up in the morning with the express purpose of ripping them off or ignoring them.  We are not automatons.  In fact, we are people with faces, and lives, and mostly good intentions.  We read the postings on the internet, and we have families, and activities, and feelings.
• When you post in a public, local forum that the service sucks in a lys, you are talking about a person.  In a small community, everyone in that community knows of whom you are speaking.  It is personal.
• While I am not saying that service in lys's doesn't periodically suck, (hey everyone can have a bad day) if you come in during a big-once-a-year-sale please don't expect to be fawned over.  Ditto crowded Knit Night shopping.  If someone comes in ahead of you, she or he will be waited on first.  Oh you can expect to be greeted, that's fair, but first come first served.  He or she is receiving the service and attention you will receive in a minute -- be patient.  And that even goes for older ladies buying baby yarn.  Really.
• And that employee sitting at the front table, chatting and laughing with other knitters?  She is not ignoring you.  She is teaching a class.  She is being paid to work with them exclusively for a little while.  Really.  And if she got up and waited on you or chatted with you?  That would be a bad thing.  Everything is not as it appears.  And everything is not about you.
• When you ask people in an internet forum to remain civil and to remember above, they will chafe at that bit.  They will cry that the Internet is all about free speech.  Even when that speech is irresponsible and flatly untrue.  They will fight to the death to post whatever and whenever they please, the rest of us be damned.  (Get a blog, for goodness sake!) They will whine that seeing a civility reminder is "depressing".  They will make forums uninteresting and unpalatable for the rest of the community.
• Some people crave attention, good or bad.  They will say anything to receive that attention, even tell lies (easily verifiable ones?!) to make themselves look better to a group that they value.
• People who crave Internet attention do not want to be recognized in person.  In fact, when you invite them to a local coffee shop to discuss face to face and off of the forum what you could do to help them feel better about and improve the service you offer, they will not even dignify your invitation with an answer, yes or no.

Yes.  That's my secret.  I've been on Ravelry nearly since it's inception, and I don't like it very much right now.  A better name might be Rablery...