Fridays

If you ever wonder how your waitress feels when she gets off work at the end of the night, take a look at my groceries from Friday night circa 1 AM.

Yeah, that's a by-God mozzarella log. And an US Weekly. What? I grabbed that salad for balance. It's fine.

Book Release!

Promo photo! I specifically made sure they gave me a PBR. They were like, here, you girls each get a drink, and we were like, noooo, give us like 40 drinks. Put them here, on the table. And they did.

Pints and Purls is finally, officially, DONEZO--written, knitted, edited, photographed, and released. Now it's even distributed!

I'm really excited and proud, and I hope you guys like it.

Those of you in Ohio will be able to come celebrate with me and Karida this Thursday, at the P&P midwest release party! Details here! I really hope you can make it.

And thanks for reading.

Luv,
Bruce


P.S.

Me and Brax's Owlies are coming right along...but I started my sleeves, so I'm winning!

beer, california, cougars, hope, change,

Here is your RDA for cute! Now you're set for the day.

Last night I got off work at midnight and headed to the bar to drink some beer and watch a band play. KT and I headed to my place at last call (passing through WHITE CASTLE on the way for a sack o' sides), where, champions we, we made it happen til 5:30 AM.

This did not seem so brilliant when my alarm went off. I got up at 10:15 AM and took a half assed shower without getting my hair wet because that would mean having to do this whole style/blowdry routine. I instead opted for a sloppy flat iron to give the illusion of grooming. I got dressed in an outfit comprised by maybe 80% of things I'd worn to the bar the night before, had half a cup of coffee, and left the house. Grubby, hungover, no sleep Bruce. I had to stop by the Science Pirate's place on the way to the shop because he had my shop key (because he is now not only my friend but my employee and I could fire him or dock his pay (haha, pay) if I wanted). So I walk into his house and he comes downstairs and he looks at me and says, "Hi. You look nice."

Now that will make a girl feel good. It's awfully pleasant to be told you look nice by someone you see every day, on a day when you didn't really sleep and you didn't really groom and you are pretty much feeling like a mangy old hooker. Feeling like Pabst is coming out of your pores.

Anyway. So that was a nice start to my day. I look nice! Excellent, so that's done.

I went to TNNA a couple weeks ago, were I met some nice people and talked to them about my book, and was also called a Cougar by a passing young man. Here's me and Karida and Stefanie moments before the incident:

Yes, seconds later a man walked by us and yelled, at us, "RAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! Cougars!" Lookit them cougars. Look, don't ask me, I don't know.


San Diego was straight up awesome. When Matt dropped me off at the airport, it was -10 in Columbus. San Diego? 76 degrees. Karida and I checked into the hotel and headed straight for sushi and the bay. Here we are, at this restaurant with wonderful sushi and terrible service. We were absolutely giddy at the warmth. We just kept saying things like "We are outside. We are outside. I can't believe we're outside. I wish I wasn't wearing socks."





These are pretty much the only pictures I have from San Diego that don't involve Karida sitting behind a 28 oz. margarita. I took, like, no pictures at TNNA because my camera was dying and is now dead. Where is my charger? Where? Where? Why?

I arrived back in the deep-freeze of Ohio at 10:30 PM on Sunday January 18. The next morning Matty and Topher and I hopped in the car and headed to DC, where , I don't know If you've heard about this, but they were having this swearing in ceremony thing for the new president. It's actually kind of a big deal. He's the first black president, they say.

We were lucky. We hit no traffic to speak of, and we were able to stay with our friend. (If you are a friend of ours in DC and we didn't call you while we were there, please don't be mad. We were in town for less than 48 hours and we just didn't have time to visit with people. We're doing a real visit in May, we'll hang then.) We pretty much showed up, went to the inaug, and left. My camera, as I say, was dead, but Topher took lots of pictures, which you can look at here. We were about as far from Obama as you could get and still be on the Mall, but man. Just being there, in that city, in that crowd, at that moment...I'm just really glad I was there.

It was a pretty exhausting 5 days, from San Diego to Ohio to DC and back to Ohio again. Totally, totally worth it, though.

So things are going pretty good here, except for the whole deep freeze thing. I'm pretty ready for spring now. February starts tomorrow. Be strong, folks.

Bruce

Remember how hot it was in July?

This was the scene on my street last night. Look at my sad little face!

Holy crap!

It's, like, -400 degrees outside. Yesterday was a little mini blizzard. When I woke up I was pleasantly surprised by the buckets of snow falling from the sky. Pretty! Fun! But then it kept it up for 12 hours. Cancellations! Accidents! No karaoke tonight, kids. Let's all hole up and play games.

Scattergories!

Other cozy winter activities:

Kitten Naps!


Bakin' savory pies!

Irish hiking scarf!

Baby Alpaca Chunky! It's for dad.

Raglan!

I thought I'd throw together a little raglan cardigan using Cascade Jewel. Jewel is a Manos knock off, and it is really nice. The colors are chewy and full, it is easy to work with, and it knits up beautifully. It also felts real nice, if that's your thing. For my cardi, I didn't really swatch or make a plan or anything. I just sort of assumed I'd get about 4 sts to the inch. I'm only about 5 rows in, so we'll see where we end up. That's what I call "Designing."

Wine!

KT bought this wine because she is allergic to sulfites. She says that most people are allergic to sulfites and that's why they get bad hangovers from red wine. She says that I am probably not allergic to sulfites because red wine is like mother's milk to me, and I have never gotten those monster red-wine-hangovers I've always heard about. See how KT going to culinary school improved all our lives? Now we know about certain kinds of hangovers.

Clean out the pantry!

Snowstorms are the best time to clean out your pantry. Look how happy he is, happy about his clean, clean pantry fulla food! He's a little OCD, though, so don't be disappointed if you clean your pantry out and do not experience this kind of radiant joy. He also gets that look on his face when you show him an Extreme Weiner.

Emerald Isla Yarns!

We're pretty excited cause Esmeralda is dyeing up a batch of this kind of beautiful thing for the shop. It's gorgeous, and I love that she is a super cool lady who lives right here in Clintonville.

That's all for now. Stay warm, my pretties, and stay tuned for stories from San Diego! I'll be at TNNA with Karida, hanging out in North Light's booth, doing promotion stuff for Pints and Purls.
You know, that book we wrote.

Luv,
Bruce

10 10 10 10 for everything everything everything everything

1) WINTER. My love of winter is over. It only took a few weeks for the charm to wear off. If winter were a person I'd punch it. O, tropical District of Columbia, with your handsome 40 degree winter days! Oh, my Lord in Heaven, it is cold. Those of you reading from DC will remember me saying that, in Ohio, the sun doesn't come out from November to March. We're in the middle of that now. It's awful.

2) KNITTING. It's good weather for knitting, though. I've started (yet another) Irish Hiking Scarf. Again, in Baby Alpaca Chunky. This one is for my dad. He requested exactly this for his Christmas present, which made my life a lot easier because I never know what to get him. Plus, I can pretty much do Irish Hiking Scarves in my sleep at this point.

3) FROGGING. My My So Called Scarf is getting frogged because I did it on a stupid 10.5 needle. Fact: You need to use an 11. That little millimeter is the difference between awesome and stupid. Goddammit. I was all, MSCS, it's cool! And then Cabbage and Brax started doing them too, on the correct needles, and theirs were SO MUCH PRETTIER than mine that I almost set them on fire. So I'm seriously bitter about the MSCS.

4) WORKING. Brax and I are working really hard lately. I was thinking the other day about last year, that golden, golden period last year, when I absolutely hated my job, but I only had one. Just the one job. Sure, it was a huge struggle to get out of bed in the morning, yeah, but it was just the one job. The whole thing isn't a problem except on Fridays and Saturdays, when we have to juggle both our serving jobs and the shop, and at least one of us will end up working til 2AM. Them's the breaks!

5) DRINKING. We're responding to the stress in the usual way: going out. Alcohol has been involved. For one thing, my ol' man has been out of town on business (Hah!). I think it's pretty funny that whenever he goes out of town I act like I'm 19, considering the fact that he does not constrain my actions in any way when he is around. He's kind of rad that way and, given my priorities, I wouldn't be with him if he wasn't. Still, whenever he goes out of town I kick it, hard. The other thing is, people are starting to drift into town for the holidays. Party time! The third thing is, there is karaoke every night of the week in this crazy town. I'm running out of songs to sing, and am open to suggestions. In case you're wondering what my nights look like, here's me and Brax and Cabbage rocking "Goodbye Earl."


6) COLD AND FLU SEASON. The past week has been pretty fun, but the result of all that fun is that I'm freaking sick. Some kind of cold or flu or somethin'. If this post is incredibly disjointed and stupid sounding, it is because my brain is NOT WORKING. I feel all cracked out. There is no such thing as enough sleep. The Science Pirate was just here and gave me some cough drop things that made me feel a lot better, but I am, regardless, dying to get back in bed.

7) KITTEN. It doesn't help that this is waiting for me in bed:



Mr. Rochester is a little devil. He'll suck you right into his web of snuggling. He'll also attack your face while you're asleep. He's getting along with the other cats. Cat harmony has been pretty much restored. Lucy even gives him a bath sometimes.

8) I BLOGGED ABOUT A BLOG. Hey, good news for you nine-to-fivers who are tryin' to kill time 'til happy hour: we have a new blog friend. Our nice cowboy band friends, the Rodeo, have a blog now. Only two posts, and the author (Mason. Remember Mason?) already fell and hurt himself. Here at Wine Lips, we call that good blogging.


9) EXHAUSTION. I think I have exhausted my supply of nonsense to blog about. Happy holidays, guys! Stay warm, eat pie!

Luv,
Bruce

"TAILS" from serving, ha ha ha!

Duuuudes!

Sorry about the blogging hiatus. I have no excuse.

So, I've been up to all sorts of stuff. As you know, Bruce and I are opening a store! We are SO excited about it, and are looking forward to having our own grown up business to run ourselves! (by "run" I mean "sit around in and knit all day," of course)

In the meantime, I've been waiting tables for money. I sort of hate my job, because no one comes into my restaurant. I usually end up wasting about 25% of my tips on the parking meter, if you know what I mean. But that doesn't mean it hasn't provided plenty of entertainment and good stories!

The other night, I was closing the restaurant, which meant I showed up and immediately cut the other server because it was so slow. Gradually, I accumulated 3 tables over the next hour and a half, one of which was starting to get a little drunk off of those alcoholic coffee drinks we serve. Anyway, I was bringing out an irish coffee to one of them, and the words "can I get you anything else right now?" had barely left my lips when I saw something fall from the drop ceiling, barely miss hitting a girl on the face, and land on the floor.
The girl looked down and gasped, "oh my god! oh my god!" Still standing at the table, I couldn't even begin to imagine what had happened, until I saw a MOUSE scurry away from the table, round a corner, and disappear into the dining room.
For real. A BABY MOUSE almost landed on my table. I immediately apologized, and rushed off to inform the manager, a bartender who had been promoted to "bartender/manager" about 3 weeks ago. He likes to listen to Radiohead on his IPOD while he's working, thus making an already-depressing job that much more unbearable. When I told him about the mouse I had witnessed taking a dive into the dining room, he stammered and kept asking me if I was "sure." I gave up trying to get him to actually "manage" the situation, and went over to my table again to apologize profusely on behalf of the restaurant, promising that I would do anything within my power to resolve the situation.
Thankfully, my table was super cool about it all. Even though everyone else in the restaurant asked for their check about 30 seconds after the word "mouse" was first uttered, they stayed, eventually CATCHING the mouse and humanely setting it free outside. This valient effort earned them a free bucket of beer on top of their already-comped check, and they left me a really nice tip.

In conclusion, I would like to add that while the GM of the restaurant showed up, she did very little to help the situation, save from comping my table's bill. When I told her about the mouse, she ran around the dining room looking for it, crowing about how it must be "sad" and "miss its family," and loudly providing our guests with the insight that "we share the earth with all its animals, after all." When she caught me rolling my eyes at her gauche behavior, she said, "ha ha, Karen is so scared of the little mouse!" No, she and I just have wildly differing views on sanitation . I told her she was lucky the health inspector wasn't there, hoping that she would grasp the severity of the situation (or at least the need to bring in an exterminator), but she ignored me.

I hate having more managerial experience and skill than my boss.
Anyway, I'm sorry for the long lapse, and I hope to share many more Serving Horror Stories with you all soon!
Love,
Brax

List of Excellence

Hey dudes! Here's some stuff!

1) Our friend Katie graduated! I'm SO proud of her. She's amazing. She just figured out what she wanted and went for it and did it. That is so great, and I know she's going to be a big giant success. A Chef Success. Chefcess.

Here is the picture I took of her actually accepting her diploma.


She's the short one...see, I was so busy jumping up and down that I put my camera on manual focus. I'm pretty much awesome.

Here she is at her graduation party, with an apple and her cute mom. If you think I'm proud, you should see this lady. These parents were about to burst. Chef KT! You win!

2) The morning after KT's graduation party I woke up with a bunch of bruises on my legs and I have no clue how I got them. I probably got them in some really awesome way. Also I remember walking, in a tizzy, up to a friend of mine, holding my handbag up by a broken strap and exclaiming "My handbag broke!! What! What a crappy handbag!!! Can you believe that!" And he took it from me and handed it back fixed saying, "It wasn't broken, Libby. It snaps on and off." Well la di dah. Obviously I am ready to be a big mature business owner.

3) Lucy watches television when there is an animal on the teevee. Only animals. Even when the sound is off! How does she know? What do they look like to her? How? What?


4) The shop is coming along all fastlike. Brax and I are working really hard on it and we should have it open real soon. We'll tell you a date as soon as we know for sure. Sorry about the lack of precision on this--we just want to be able to open the doors the very minute we're ready.

5) Amazing potato cheddar soup!

a buncha potatoes
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
water
SALT
1 stick of butter
a couple cups grated cheddar

This recipe goes like most of my soup recipes. Katie is probably going to read this and be like, "Bruce, you're doing it wrong," since she is a big chef now and all. But this is how I do it, and I think it's delicious!

Put all the chopped up veg in the soup pot and put in just enough water to cover it. Add salt to taste. For me this is a bunch of salt. Let it boil for maybe 30 minutes. Then take out a few cups of the soup and put it in the blender and puree it. Put it back in the pot. OK. Then make a roux. (A roux is when you take some of the hot broth and put it in a bowl with a couple tablespoons of flour and make a smooth paste out of it.) Put the roux in the broth. Stir it on in! Stir in the butter. Then add in the cheese, a little at a time. Sprinkle, stir, sprinkle, stir, until it's all incorporated. Delicious! Really, really healthy low fat food. Perfect for vegans.

That's all for now!
Bruce

Exoskeleton

I'm sitting here at 2 AM with a glass of wine listening to the Dixie Chicks on repeat. It doesn't sound like a recipe for awesome, does it? Well, shit, I don't wanna talk about it, let's talk about something else.

1) Tinker, tinker. I've been tinkering around with this Manos I mentioned in my previous post. My So Called Scarf? I know I said I was anti. I lied, it's a really nice pattern.

2) On Thursday afternoon Brax and I arrived at my house, still smacking our wine lips from an evening at my parents' house. (We practiced some new songs with my mom, for our Andrews Sisters band. Those of you who find yourselves on the Thanksgiving drunk dial list get ready, we've got some excellent selections for you this year. Remember, let voice mail get it.) Also, woods-walking, naturally:


Anyway, we arrived at my house, and in the door was a big fat envelope, and in the envelope was:


The proof! The proof, the proof! The book proof, which Karida and I must look over very closely, and make any changes we want, because this is the last call for changes on the drunk knitting book. It has pictures in it and everything. There is even a picture of me and Karida in it, and we don't look stupid either. They put make up on us and stuff, so we look pretty stylish. Karida called me up and we dorked out over it for a while.

3) No Good Nick recently posted about the Book It! program from the 80's. Do you all remember this? You got pizza for reading books. PFFFFFFFFFFFT. I WOULD BE SO FREAKING FAT IF THIS WERE STILL TRUE.

My house, like Nick's, was always full of books, and my mom let me read whatever I wanted. The only book I remember my mom telling me not to read was Little Birds by Anias Nin, which I, of course, read the very second she left the room. I definitely read things that were over my head (I read the Catcher in the Rye when I was 11, and Possessing the Secret of Joy when I was 13. These were over my head.). It didn't do me any harm, and I'm a firm believer of letting kids read whatever they want.

I still read like a madwoman. When I went to Monticello last year I was all twitchy because I wanted to read Thomas Jefferson's books, which were, of course, behind glass. The tour guide was like, "Well, here's his books! That guy sure liked to read. Now if you'll all follow me into the bedroom..." So I didn't really even get to look at them very much. Dang, I like books.

This is why I can't get behind Kindle.

Things Kindle can't do
-have a book smell
-have old notations written in it
-sit on a shelf and tell you about the person who owns it
-be a time capsule (I stick things in books and joyfully rediscover them years later)
-have "Fannie Roberts on her Birthday, from Aunt Bev, March 12, 1946." written on the inside cover.
-get dog-eared and well loved.

Nick made a list of books he's read in the last 3 months, and I don't have that kind of time, but I figure I'll follow his lead. Here's a smattering of stuff I've read recently.

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte Yeah, yeah. I'll never get sick of it. Over and over and over and over, I will read Wuthering Heights. I'll read it a million times and never totally get it, and I'll notice something new every time. I love this book.

The City of Dreaming Books Walter Moess This book was pretty freaking weird. The imagery was pretty brilliant, though, and I appreciate the creativity of a fellow bibliophile. The illustrations are completely charming.

The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley is vast and beautiful and cobwebby. Reminds one of one's feminist roots. Reminds one to deconstruct the framework of mythology, love, power, religion.

The Twilight Saga (Stephanie Meyer) Questionable in so many (many. many.) ways, and yet I read the entire series in 2 weeks. Reminds one that sometimes a story is a story and maybe you should stop thinking about it so much and just focus on wanting to bone the vampire.

Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka) Maybe Kafka is over my head? Exoskeleton.

The Portable Dorothy Parker I cannot stop with this book. I carry it around with me like I'm 16 and it's my goth girl journal. I love Dorothy Parker so much. If I could go back in time, I'd go straight to the Algonquin Round Table for a highball wearing a low-waisted dress and a fox fur scarf. Dottie and I would get drunk and be snarky to everyone and then we'd go out and act bad in high society. I'd explain that she should stop trying to kill herself because I'm from the future and know that she'll never actually manage it. It would be rad!

That was fun! Maybe I'll blog about books more.

Later,
Bruce

more soup

Brax,

The best use for a Crock Pot is this:

Before you go out and tear up the town and embarrass yourself with Demon Rum, put soup in the crock pot..

Either you'll come home at 3 AM wasted and be like, SOUP!!!!! Or you'll wake up the next day at noon all hungover and wanting to die, and if you are like me, your first thought will be "Hungry. Don't want to cook. No money, also don't want to get dressed and go anywhere. How food?" Then you'll stumble downstairs and be like, SOUUUUP!!!! Either way, it is genius.

The soup I am eating today is is squash and sweet potatoe. (Yes, potatoe. Bringin' back Dan Quayle!)

Bruce and Dan's Squash and Sweet Potatoe Soup

1 Winter Squash...Butternut, or Acorn, or whatever.
2 Sweet potatoes
1 white onion
1 Carrot
2 stalks celery (smellery)
half a stick of butter
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
water

Chop it all up and put it all in the slow cooker. Cook on low for 7 hours. I like to take half of it out after it's cooked and put it in the magic bullet, so it's partially pureed but still has some chunks. Related: I really want an immersion blender.

OK so I ate soup and I've been writing this post for something like 4 hours because I'm easily distracted and stupidly hungover.

Stopping!
Bruce

Oh man

Fresh autumn apples and bittersweet, speeding through the White Castle drive through.

Brax,

Oh. Man. So after you left my house last night (BTW, my favorite part of last night was when Tome came in from the kitchen with his wine in a little teacup and said "I'd like everyone to note that I'm drinking my wine from a mug." And you said, "TOME! Did you take that off a HOOK? Those are decorative, Tome.")...anyway, after you left my house at the ass crack of no time, I went to sleep. Four hours later, I was awakened by sounds...like, the sound of someone messing with the gate outside. After about 15 minutes I was like, man, they're really messin' around with the gate. Are they removing it? What the hell? And then I realized that it wasn't the gate, it was 4 ladders being run up the side of my neighbor's house. There are men fixing the gutters which were damaged when the tree fell on the house. At 9 AM. On Saturday. Oh my God. So then I was like, well, maybe I can still sleep. WRONG! So loud. Plus I kept thinking that they could somehow see in my window and see me laying in bed with the cats all hungover in my underwear.

What really made me get up, though, was that I realized that I had, in my Jameson Amazingness last night, left my car in the short north in a metered spot, and they had started checking meters over an hour ago. So I was like fuuuuuuuck. I thought I'd just ride my bike up there and throw it in the back of the car and drive home. Then I remembered that Matt's bike was already in the car. Two bikes don't fit, buddy. OK. So I thought, I'll just ride my bike up there, take Matt's bike out of the car and lock it up, put my bike in the car, and drive home and get Matt's bike later, since he's out of town and won't need it for a couple days, but I will need to ride mine, also my bike is too pretty to be abandoned in the short north all alone. Oh my god, was that a sentence? Maybe I'm still drunk.

So that's what I did. I rode on up there. And OH MY GOD IT IS GAME DAY. Why were there so many OSU football people on the bike trail? Why? Walking. Walking in their red sweatshirts. Ambling across the path carrying plastic cups. I would pass them and, in an effort to not hit their drunk-at-10AM asses, I'd ding my little bell. (I love my little bell. Ding! Ding! Bruce comin' through! Ding!) They just acted confused though. Where is that bell coming from? Hey, ring it some more! Haha, why is that girl ringing a bell? I think they didn't know that it was a bike trail they were on. Anyway, then it got worse because I actually had to ride past the freaking 'Shoe. But whatever, I made it. I made it to my car, and it was still there but it had a little ticket on it. Oh well. Then I went to the Super Food Mart and got a Cherry Coke, an orange soda, and some orange juice.

Lucy hates the workmen. She wants them to stop.

I am really confused right now. I'm going back to bed!

Bruce

every seeeeeeecond of the night! I live another life!

Brax,
I am so into Heart right now. I started listening to them because I wanted to do "What About Love" at karaoke, which I did last night, and it was an excellent choice, and now I am in the Unstoppable Heart Zone. I think I'll do "These Dreams" next week.

Here we are at karaoke last night. So much fun! For one thing, I discovered whiskey and shared my new knowledge with Brax, and so obviously we were AMAZING all night.


See, I was at work, and there was Jameson. And I said, "I don't like whiskey! I never drink liquor. I'm nervous about this Jameson." And one of the chefs, a wise young man, said, "just drink it, it'll be fine. You might barf."

So heeding that excellent advice, I drank the whiskey and then I was AMAZING for the rest of that night. So last night Brax and I both got a shot of Jameson early in the night, and we sipped these shots and were happy. Also, it was a slow night so we both got to sing 4 times. Sweet!

So I'm on a knitting hiatus. NO KNITTING FOR 2 WEEKS. Except tonight when I will do some minimal book knitting at KPH. But other than that, no knitting for 2 weeks. Also: no holding my coffee cup in my right hand, no carrying heavy glass water pitchers at work, no writing for more than 30 minutes, reduced typing, and no chopping veggies (BTW, this product will change your life if your wrist hurts and you want to chop things. It will change your life even if your wrist doesn't hurt.).

Gotta let the ol' girl heal. It SUCKS, man. But winter is coming and I need to be all healed up so I can make scarves and sweaters and hats and mittens. And maybe socks, now that Cabbage taught me that it's ok to just make stockinette stitch socks, despite what the lace sock mafia tells you. Don't let them get to you, guys, there's nothin' wrong with a st st sock.

So instead of knitting or writing (i.e. my two favorite things) I've been...cooking! I made this really excellent lentil soup yesterday.

Here is the recipie!

Bruce's Delicious Easy-Ass Crock Pot Lentil Soup
makes a zillion servings

1 lb dry lentils
2 medium carrots
2 medium potatoes
3 stalks celery
1 large onion
1 clove garlic, smashed
6 cups vegetable stock or water (I used a little of both)
bay leaves
savory
salt and pepper

Chop up all the veggies using your Vidalia Chop Wizard. Wow, that was fast! Now throw everything in the Crock Pot. Cook on high for 3 hours. Eat.

You guys, this soup was seriously delicious. I love making soup. I love using my crock pot, too. My mom was asking me the other day if it wasn't pointless for me to have a gigantic awesome crock pot since I was a vegetarian, and I had to explain to her about soup. Also delicious beans and dips and stuff. But mostly soup. I'm going to do mushroom soup next. I've never made mushroom soup before and I bet it will be fun and also the jam.

Today is the first really autumnal day, and so it is good soup weather. I'm enjoying the chill in the air.

This blog post made my hungry. I'm going to go eat some soup now.

Luv,
Bruce

Crud

Brax,

Well, here I am, home sick while you and Josh work your butts off on the secret project. It sucks! Who gets sick in summer? Seems all wrong. I don't know how, but sometime last year I became a person who is extremely susceptible to stomach bugs. Little achey ones, big revolting ones, they all find a comfy home in my gut. I used to never get sick. Huh.

Anyway, I wish I was helping you with stuff today, but I am really in no condition. I'm going to try and get myself together to at least go meet up with Miss Tyler tonight, since she is visiting from Arizona and I'd hate to miss her. I'll probably have to miss out on all the usual Tyler insanity, though. I shouldn't drink or stay up late. Or have any fun. Or eat dairy. Joseph P. Bummer IV.

The other awesome thing is that I can't knit because we went kayaking on Sunday and it hadn't occurred to me that four hours of paddling would pretty much destroy my weak, sad little right wrist. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It's been 4 days, so it's getting better, but seriously. BOOOOOOO. So yeah, you heard right, I'm stuck in the house sick and I can't even knit. Total waste.

We had a nice KPH this week. It was my last activity before I was stricken. Here's a cute picture of you knitting on your squishy green awesomeness.


Other knitters included Mr and Ms Cabbage, lookin' like the cutest couple in towne. The couple that knits and drinks together stays together. (I am personally totally destroying her headless veneer. Haaaaaaah!)


Tome was practicing his K's and P's. He's getting a refresher course, since he hasn't knitted in a long time. He'll be off his practice swatch and onto a big project in no time.

His t shirt says "Save a horse, ride a cowboy." Brax and I agree that this is hysterical.

Of course, Matt and I were there too but we both look stupid in the pictures. I think I knitted a total of 15 stitches that night because of the wrist.

Labor day! I'm leaving Saturday morning to see what nature has been up to lately. We're heading to Red River Gorge for the long weekend. Hiking! No kayaking, though. I would really love to kayak, but, you know, the wrist.

You don't think about how much you count on your wrist until it tells you to take this job and shove it. Right at this moment I'm thinking about how I need to wrap up this blog post before I make it worse. Other things that are suddenly difficult include: carrying around my coffee cup, holding my book, text messaging, blow drying my hair, and chopping veggies. I'm not sure when it starts being a doctor thing. I am pretty sure the doctor would tell me to try not to use it very much, take ibuprofen, wear a brace at night, and ice it when it swells up, all of which I'm doing anyway, so why even bother?

longing for the days when I was young, healthy, and robust,
Bruce

Visual stimulation

Brax,

The Columbus Knit Purl Hurl will now come to order.



Cabbage got her sweater mojo back.



The Science Pirate is making a beautiful fuzzy sweater!

You couldn't make it that day. You'd better clear your calendar for next time!


Pabst was there. Pabst always makes time for KPH.

Back home: I caught Lucky Lucy getting crazy with some wool.


Look at those back feet! You can tell she's about to do that back leg kick thing they do when they're really going to town.

Happy Saturday! I'm working a 12 hour day, but I'm happy for those of you who have the day off. Enjoy yourselves.

-Bruce

Connecting!

Everybody,

I heart connecting with knitters. They're excellent people. Nice, quality people.

For starters, Cat Bordhi. Here is a (very dark) picture of her introducing Jess, Casey, and Mary Heather at the Ravelry talk.


Man! She's kind of a genius. Brax and I were in Karida's booth, and Cat Bordhi came in and she walked up to us just when we were looking down at our feet, talking about how we got so many mosquito bites on our feet from being barefoot in my yard. Then I looked up and...Cat Bordhi! So we said to her, "We got a lot of mosquito bites on our feet last night!" And she said something like "ooh, they might not be mosquitoes if they were in the grass, girls. They might be little creepy things." And we said "Ewwwwwwwww!"

And that's the story of how Brax and I met a knitting superstar genius and told her about our mosquito bites. She didn't seem to think we were too weird. She is very nice that way.

Karida, Cabbage, and I also hung with the Ravelry folks. These are seriously, seriously cool people. They gave a talk, and it was their first time giving a presentation about Ravelry, and they did a great job!

L to R: Karida, Jess, Me, Cabbage, Casey

After the talk we headed to the Surly Girl. Casey and I have Pabst in common.

Yarmando, Casey, my Pabst tall boy, Casey's Pabst tall boy

Gerry and Mary Heather

Jess and Me

So much fun! We were all pretty exhausted from the show, but managed to eat some great food and have a few drinks anyway. I am generally never too tired for food and drinks.

See? Knitters Connecting.

Our booth was right behind the Ozark Handspun booth. Good Golly Miss Molly! Terri and David are their names. They're a married couple, and they are so nice that I sort of wanted to ask if I could come home with them. I didn't get any photos of them, but Brax and Karida and I all got some of their pretty, pretty, pretty yarn.

This is my little guy. I love him.

Our yarn combined filled up the plant stand.


(I'm getting a pretty weird reputation in my new neighborhood. "Have you met the new people? ...the guy seems OK, but the woman? I keep seeing her in the front yard photographing balls of yarn.")

So in short we got to spend time with a bunch of lovely yarn and lovely people this week, and it was rad. It's been said many times, many ways, but knitters are some of the by-god best people anywhere. Hooray!

Later,
Bruce

P.S. Thanks to Priscilla, for being great at the shows this week! It was great to get to know you!

Duuuuuude, Brax.

How are things? Things are pretty solid over here, lots of important news to report. For one thing, I am nearing the end of A Week With No TV. Last Wednesday, I was home alone all evening with a bunch of stuff I could be doing. Suddenly, I realized that it was 11:30 and the whole night was gone and I didn't even know what had happened, except that Criminal Minds wasn't as good a usual. Criminal Minds is an AWESOME SHOW. I really, really want the hot badass agent portrayed by Shemar Moore to get with the funky and stylish tech girl portrayed by Kristen Vangsness, who, in addition to acting, also has a cute blog. So anyhoo, as much as I love Criminal Minds, I sort of looked up and realized that I had wasted many hours in which I could have been writing or reading or singing with a rock band or learning how to blow glass or cleaning the kitchen or any number of constructive, fulfilling, live enriching things. So I put a blanket over the teevee and that was that.

The real goal of this experiment is to break the habit of automatically, every single night, staring at that box for hours. It hasn't been too hard--I think putting the blanket over the TV helped. I did watch TV on Sunday, because I was really sick and sniffly, and I couldn't go anywhere, and I think that such noble resolutions don't really apply when it is Sunday afternoon and you have a bad cold and you've already read about 200 pages that day.

So that's the story on the TV ban. It's over on Friday, and I will resume TV watching, hopefully to a lesser degree than before the ban.

So what else? Oh, Knitting and Purling and Hurling at the bar last night. Fun!

This guy was trying to force himself to knit from a pattern. He has some trouble with trusting the instructions to work. He was all "What the hell does it want me to do that for?" To which I said something like, "Just do it and then you'll see." To which he groaned and rolled his eyes and got another beer. Dude, trust the pattern!


Ellie was making a cute little hat in Rowan Wool Cotton for her little tiny baby niece.



Me? I was working on this completely half-assed My So Called Scarf, which I have just kind of been doing to keep my hands busy. It is a cute, easily memorized pattern, and is especially nice in a variegated yarn. I'd like to be doing it in a larger gauge, but meh. Like I said, just keeping busy.

The yarn is this Reynolds Smile stuff, which I picked up when I was in Ohio, and I bought it without reading the label, just cause I liked it. When I got home I saw that it was mostly acrylic. Say wha?? But it is nice to knit with, and it is pretty, so I am officially softening my position on acrylic-wool blends.

I am also working on the ol' blanket. Remember the blanket? She comes out every now and then. (Yes, I do need a new big project. Just waiting for inspiration.) Anywhere, here is my new square:
I had a rough time getting it to photograph well, but it is a really nice sort of iridescent white. Pretty! This pattern is the Single Eyelet Rib from the Barbara Walker Treasury (Volume 1).

Oh, also! Today I found out that you can download the Metro map onto your ipod. That is pretty amazing, I am totally going to do it. I know that people with fancy cell phones that can photograph the moon and talk to the dead and stuff probably don't think it is that cool, but I am an old fashioned girl and these sorts of things blow my mind.

Alright, it is Pizza O'Clock!

-Bruce

2008 better be totally great

Brax,

I would like to start off by saying that I am watching the Republican debate and Giuliani just talked for around 6 hours about how America has the best health care in the world. Somebody had better tell our infant mortality rate--obviously it hasn't heard or it wouldn't be the second worst in the industrialized world. Oh Christ, now he's talking about how nuclear power is going to save the world. I don't even know why the hell I'm watching this. Excellent, I've changed the channel. Britcoms! I love Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth reminds me of my grandma.

I knitted some Christmas presents! I didn't document the process here too much, obviously, but here are the finished products.

Here's my mom wearing the scarf I made her. Most moms deserve cashmere scarves, my mom especially. (I blogged about this scarf when it was just a baby scarf.)

As moms deserve cashmere scarves, so dads deserve warm feet:

The pattern is Felt Clogs by Fiber Trends, and the yarn is Lamb's Pride Bulky. You're supposed to use a worsted wool and double it, but pffffffffft. A single strand of bulky worked fine, and I didn't have that whole keeping-track-of-two-tangled-skeins-while-two-cats-try-to-destroy-
everything problem. It felted FAST though, so if you're thinking of making these, watch 'em like a hawk. Also they needed a haircut after I finished them...the Lamb's Pride folks throw in a dash of mohair that makes this yarn felt up pretty fuzzy.

Here's my dad playing with his new amplifier while wearing his new slippers. See the amplifier? It is the size, apparently, of a briefcase, but has a remarkable sound. Modern technology!

It was a lovely Christmas.

So I know you had a good New Years because I was there. Here we are! (Readers, the two gentlemen in this photo are our former roommates. We all four live in different cities now, so it is always nice to see one another again. You may have seen them before, I think they're pretty popular on certain subscription-only websites.)

So yeah, that's us at the beginning of the night.

Cute, right? We are clear-eyed and pretty and ready to greet the new year. We're all upright. We're all dressed. Let's fast forward a bit...


Happy new year, my beauties! Readers, it only got better from here. I am refraining from posting any photos from later in the evening. This is all you need to know.

All lushery aside, it was fantastic and nourishing and energizing to see everyone this week. I love the people with whom I spent New Years Eve. They're the reason I'll be able to power through the last leg of this particular adventure. Yes, even (or especially) this guy:

I hope all of you had as good a holiday as I did. I've got high hopes for this year.

Luv,
Bruce

p.s. Special thanks to KT for being awesome and hosting the madness.