Kiss My Knits!

Lots going on. Hubby installed a new ceiling fan, I went out to dinner Friday night with the Bedlam Bards and ran into a guy I knew in high school, am working on new business cards, took Emily to her first bar on Sunday, had to fill out CARS and GARS autism testing forms for Emily this morning, and more and more and more.

What I don’t have is time to update properly. I’ll try to do so later.

In the meantime, here’s Boo at the bar. Salud!

“I’m not as think as you think I am. Wait, what?”

Every now and then I something in the newspaper that strikes me just the right way. A few years back, it was the entertainingly written story of a local man who had saved someone else from a fire. He was a one-legged man living in a trailer park, watching Maury and drinking a beer at 10 in the morning, when he heard shouts. He strapped on his leg and ran to the rescue. Something about the way the story was written about this jobless, legless, buzzed trailer-park guy caught me in the funny bone, and I laughed as I read it, even while I felt a great affection for this guy.

So this week comes the story of Miss America 1944, who lives in a farm in Kentucky. She saw her dog go into a building where thieves had previously stolen some of her farm equipment. She went to investigate. And here, I must quote from the AP article.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.

“I didn’t even think twice. I just went and di it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.”

Then she flagged down a motorist to call 911. I can just picture the look on the thief’s face as this little old lady went all Dirty Harry on him. I imagine it was unexpected, to say the least. To quote Ms. Ramey in the Kentucky Enquirer, “He was probably wetting his pants.”

Favorite line of the story is the last one.

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.

Like this kind of thing happens to her all the time, and it’s starting to get annoying. Go, feisty lady!

Yesterday I pulled some poison ivy up, trying to make the back yard a little more kid-friendly. In spite of my precautions, I wound up with a patch on my arm.

MY GOD, THE ITCHING. MAKE IT STOP.

Emily has been coughing all week, but we decided she was well enough to go to schoool anyway. However, after blowing out her pipes last night in concert, her cough had a different tenor today. So she’s staying home. This means I get more exchanges like this:

Emily: Today I have a new favorite body part!
Me: Oh? What is it?
Emily: It’s my nose.
Me: Why is your nose your new favorite body part?
Emily: Because I smell!

Hee! I just gave her a bath last night, honest. Anyway, I’m staying in with her. I didn’t have too many errands to run anyway, having gone all over town yesterday. I even ran into a guy I used to work with, Pat from WJZY-TV. He seems to be doing quite well. It was nice to see a face from a life gone by and catch up on old co-workers.

Today: writing for DR, working on packaging, more knitting, and finding a little pink plastic toy that my daughter seems to have lost. Yeesh.

Tonight was Emily’s spring program. Usually she sings the entire program to us for weeks beforehand, so we know exactly what’s coming, but this time she didn’t do that so we were surprised. Really surprised. Our daughter walked out on stage with a giant cardboard slice of pepperoni pizza around her neck! A starring role for our daughter? Wow! She and three or four other second graders went to the front of the group for one song and did this jumping twisting dance while wearing their pizza slices. What a hoot!

The other pizza slices were down front for the main program, and she was off to the side. I couldn’t figure out why, unless they were keeping her aside because they were worried about how she’d act. This isn’t a valid concern. She’s never ever had a problem in a performance of any kind. Later, we did find out why. She was a fill-in pizza slice. The person who was originally supposed to be the pizza slice didn’t come, so ten minutes before time, she got the part. The role of a lifetime! So she still had her original spot on the bleachers, she just got to take center stage for the semi-solo.

All I’m saying is that every year on the night of her Spring program it rains, and this year was no exception. One has to wonder if the rain kept the original pizza slice home. I don’t know how she’s doing it, but I’m pretty sure she’s been engineering her big break all along. It’s just like All About Eve, I tell you.

Two minutes after we were seated, I realized we’d forgotten the camera, so sadly I have no pictures of my daughter the deep dish pepperoni to show you. Just trust me. It was the cutest. thing. ever.

We finally got our takeout last night. We splurged and got stuff from Carrabbas and then stuffed our faces while watching TV. LOST continues to be good. And we’re enjoying DRIVE on Fox, although apparently its ratings aren’t that hot. Hey, I like a show that’s low-rated on Fox. There’s a shocker. Maybe this one won’t get the axe after six episodes, but I’m not holding my breath. I heard producer Tim Minear, he of Firefly (cancelled!), Wonderfalls (cancelled!), and The Inside (cancelled!) say that he’s learned his lesson and has structured the first season so the whole thing can be wrapped by episode 13, just in case. Shrewd guy. Let’s hope it’s not warranted this time.

This Sunday, the Bedlam Bards are playing in Charlotte. They’re a Celtic folk duo who cater to the Firefly crowd. They won Rennaissance Festival Awards Best Musical Group of 2006, so they’re not exclusively a Browncoat band. The performance is at Ri-Ra Irish pub uptown from 4-7. Apparently folks are starting to gear up for this, because I hear now there’ll be a costume contest. There’ll also be door prizes and a raffle, including, of course, a Jayne hat. This is an event organized by The Charlotte Browncoats and all proceeds will go to Equality Now.

It’s unusual to see the Bedlam Bards on the East Coast, but they’re touring nationally – I know they’re playing Raleigh just before Charlotte – so if you’re interested, check around.

Afterward there’ll be more Celtic music downstairs from a different, unrelated group. Not sure if I’ll stay for that or not. I can’t knit there, since I hear the place is hella smoky and I can’t exactly ship out Jayne hats that smell like ashtrays. Turtlegirl76 and illiane may be coming too. Apparently the Browncoats may also be taking the Bards out to Sir Edmund Halley’s restaurant and pub on Friday night, if the guys are in a “go out” mood. That sounds like a lot of fun, but the hubby has a regular Friday night commitment and I don’t know if I’ll make it. I need to catch up on my sleep anyway.

Speaking of music, tonight is our daughter’s Spring program. Grades K-2 will be performing, so this’ll be the last year with the little bitty kids. My baby, my baby!

I’ve finished up one project to go into the jar o’ joy and will work on the second today. After that, it’s just a matter of filling it up and shipping it out. I have several care packages to go, since I also picked up a few things for my knitting niece at Stitch’s going out of business sale. Her only local yarn store is WalMart, so I like to send a few things her way every now and then, just as a little treat.

And now, I’m off to get some more printer paper – printing out a hard copy of our tax return for my records killed both my paper supply and my inkjet cartridge – so I can post up a couple of flyers for the Bards concert. It’s for a good cause, it won’t kill me to post a few bills. Then back home for crafty goodness!

Tonight’s big anniversary plans? Order takeout and eat it at home, probably while watching TV, since we’re both beat.

However, even those not quite earth-shattering plans fell by the wayside when the hubby got called back in to work at 7pm. Instead, I’m putting our daughter to bed by myself, knitting a Jayne hat, and watching Office reruns.

Woo.

So let me cheer myself up by sharing another old pic from the Woodland house, this one of moronic cat Blintz.

Heh. Stupid, stupid cat.

13 years ago today I married a wonderful man, and I haven’t regretted it once.

‘Geek Love,’ Hill crowed.

In the winter I joined a swap organized by called “Jar o’ Joy.” The idea is that there’s a jar o’ stuff that you send to someone, and they take what’s in it and put more stuff in it. You know a little bit about the person to whom you’re sending the jar, so you can tailor it some. The flickr group for it is here.

Coincidentally, the person who was sending me the jar happened to be someone I knew! and I have worked together, and we read each other’s livejournals, so she tailored it really well. Saturday morning, the doorbell rang. My daughter looked out the screen door and saw the box in the porch, so she grabbed it and ran it to me, telling me to open it. This girl loves mail. And she was not disappointed! Jadelynx included lots of goodies for her! In fact, I opened it, went to get my camera, and by the time I got back it was fairly demolished, as you can see. Jadelynx made a post with a detailed pic of what’s inside, which you can see here. She also included Pocky, which didn’t fit in the jar. Delicious! She knows I love this stuff! The interesting thing is that it tastes a little different than the Pocky I’ve been able to get locally. Hers has more foreign writing on it, so I think it’s more authentic. Jadelynx has the best Pocky!

There are a couple of things I want to make for the jar (time permitting) before I send it along to its next recipient. I already know some about her, but I’m going to try to find out a little more. I love random mail! Thanks, Jadelynx, for the jar, and thanks, Crazycatladymel, for organizing the swap!