Autumn fun

Braxie,

The last time we talked was Friday afternoon, and I was telling you about how I saw spots and fell over (fortunate chair placement) at work and had to leave early. Balls! I spent Friday night all feverish, laying on the couch in my polar bear pajamas hollering to Matt that my skin hurt and could he please peel me a grape?

Saturday was similar, except my skin stopped hurting when my fever broke late Friday night. Today I feel slightly weak, and other than that, fine. What the hell was that? A 36 hour skin-hurtin-tummy-achin-fallin-over-fever? Real nice.

Anyway, I was real worried that I'd be sick and have to cancel my Sunday plans. I was so excited about Sunday! And fortunately, I was feeling much better today, and was able to go to....The CORN MAZE!

An organic corn maze, no less. We had a great time. Day in the country!

Meghan and Matt, lost in the maze, foraging for food.

Partay in the corn!

Wait...what's that I'm wearing? Could it be.....? A BY-GOD CENTRAL PARK HOODIE?


That is right. That's what it is. She is D-U-N dun.

Hooray!! This sweater=awesometown, USA. I'm wearing it right now. Warm! Soft! Karabella Soft Tweed, you are wonderful. I am totally satisfied with this project, and yes, there is ONE little cable that twists the wrong way. But hey, who said I was a perfectionist? I'm warmer than all y'all!

What else did Matt, Meghan, Central Park Hoodie and I do in the country today?


Graves. It was a pretty old cemetery. We had a nice walk and looked at all the names. Apparently Gambrills, MD is just by-God owned by the Baldwins. Those people take up half the cemetery! According to a sign I saw, great great granddaddy Baldwin was the pastor of the Methodist church there for 70 years. 70 years! And I guess he had a bunch of babies, because you couldn't take 2 steps without tripping over a Baldwin. It reminded me of Ross. I love walking around old small town graveyards and seeing the family names...where a Baldwin married a Cook or where someone died young or old, or was a veteran. We saw the grave of a 2 year old who died in 1922, and there were fresh flowers on it. And isn't that nice that someone is keeping up that baby's grave 85 years later?

This lady, Dallas Higgins, lived a LONG time. 110 years! Imagine all the stuff she saw.

Big day in the country! Hot cider! Sweaters! Get ready, because in a few weeks here the holidays are going to punch you in the head.

LYLAS,
Bruce

Someday we'll talk about our trip.

Brucie,

I'm right there with you on the coughing and sneezing. You totally gave me your crazy illness! It's okay though. I've been getting a lot of movie watching and knitting in. Here's what I've been working on:
Reverse cable scarf!! See? It's reversible:

Nice. I'm making progress on it slowly but surely. On Sunday I watched Hocus Pocus, Beetlejuice, and the Corpse Bride on TV and knit the whole time. It was a sneezy, coughy, tea-drinking knitting marathon! Seriously, thank god for ABC family.

-Brax

hack, cough, sneeze

Everybody,

Y'all probably expect to hear all about our trip to Seattle. NOPE!

We have about a million photos to sort, all equally charming (you know how photogenic we are). All you really need to know at this stage is that I had a fabulous time in Seattle, but then it turns out it gave me the flu. It's sort of like that time on Sex and the City when Charlotte slept with that hot young guy and got crabs.

We'll tell you all about it soon, I promise. In the meantime:

A) Irish Hiking Scarf: so much fun to knit, snuggly, gorgeous. I love this pattern! The Hello Yarn folks have graciously allowed me to use it in my cable knitting classes, and I've found it to be a fantastic project for first-time cablers.

I can't wait for it to be a whole scarf! It's bulky yarn on a US 10.5, so it's really wide. In a good way.

B) Kitten: Cute.


C)Christmas Catalog!


I LOVE catalogs full of things like Elvis throw rugs and Jumbo Rotating Mirror Balls, little chairs for your signed baseballs, slimming body suits, child's handprint ornament kits, seatbelt fashion belt ("Living in the Fast Lane of Fashion!"), and maybe my favorite, the Candle Warmer ("Love scented candles, but nervous about keeping them lit?"). Almost as good as the Sky Mall.

Cordially,
Bruce

Good Times.

Hey Bruce!

I went to Columbus again this weekend. It was a short, moustache and muscle-filled trip. Saturday night, I went over to Emily and Dave's place. Emily had prepared for the usual Saturday night shenanagans by stocking her home with booze, hiding the valuables, and stopping by the party store for....
Novelty moustaches! Let me tell you, they tickled. And got in your drink. I don't know how my dad puts up with it. L-R: Me, Emily, Jessica. I've got a Hercule Poirot thing going on with my moustache. I think I got drunk and kept telling everyone, too.

Another good reason for me to be in town was that it was COlumbus day. That means (for some), it was a 3 day weekend, allowing other out of towners like our buddy Nick to be there!

Everyone who isn't Bruce, Nick was our roommate in college. He has since moved on to bigger and better things in Chicago, but he still likes to "slum it" sometimes. He can't resist us.

Libby's cousin was there too!! Topher just moved to Columbus a little bit ago. He's 21, so when the party started winding down at about 11:30, he got real irritated. But he still loves his elders.

Here's Nick and Katie. Katie just got in a street fight last week. For real, you should see the other guy.

Katie would probably murder me if I show everyone her messed up face without showing everyone her pretty face. This is what she normally looks like, everybody:

So that's pretty much it! I also went to a Chippendale's show with our old buddy Tyler! She is moving to Phoenix with her boyfriend, and this was her 2nd to last hurrah. Chippendales' was surprisingly tame. My favorite part was the choreographed dance numbers. Like when they all came out in firemen's uniforms and danced to "Hero" by Mariah Carey. It was pretty magical.

So...I'm not doing anything this weekend. Want to go to Seattle?

Brax

When knitters run the world, everything will have its own cozy

Picture by Natalie Dee!

young man, do me a favor and snap my support hose to my girdle

Brax,

Ain't that pretty? It's Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky, 100% wonderful Fuzzy McFuzzball baby alpaca hair. I am going to make myself a warm soft lovely scarf out of it...maybe the Irish Hiking Scarf. It's about the softest thing ever. Man, I love alpaca. And alpacas!

I had a lot of trouble getting the color to come out. Here is the closest I got:



Thanks for visiting! We sure had a great time, and we went all over the place--to the market, to karaoke, to Crafty Bastards. It was so much fun!

But maybe my favorite part is how we forgot to take the camera with us anywhere we went, so all the pictures from this weekend are in this vein:



That's right, a full weekend with perfect weather and a crafts festival, and all the photos are of you and I dancing drunk in my apartment.


Aside: I have enough picture files titled some variation of "drunk" ("drunkies," "Alena and me drunk," "drunkface," ...you get the idea) that it is starting to get confusing, and I'm going to have to start being more specific when I upload my pictures.

So this weekend was awesome, and I hope we get to hang out again soon! Like maybe in Seattle? Are you free next Friday?

Love,
Bruce

Gmail chat

Libby: if you're bored with your work but you still have to do the work, it's a good idea to pretend you're a robot

me: oh. man.
you've just revolutionized my life.
I am an advocacy robot.
let's. go.

Libby: hahahaha
i am laughing out loud remembering lets. go.

me: why was that the big joke of the year?
joke's on you brax! you talk like a robot!

Libby: because it was spontaneous. you said a thing and it totally randomly sounded like a robot voice
it was funny

me: rooooobot
If I was a robot, my finger wouldn't hurt from knitting.
If I was a robot, I would not be very good at music.

Libby: sure you would...you'd be like a casio keyboard

me: I would wear a tshirt that says, "I was not programmed. For love."
well, true. I would stand real still and my face would light up and I would make casio keyboard music.

Libby: LOL

me: you guys would make me do it for hours at parties.

Libby: yes
we would
and we'd make you dance the robot

me: But it would just be dancing to me.