Taking the Good with the Bad

Good: I've finally finished the back of the striped mercerized cotton sweater that's been sitting on my coffee table for ages!
Bad: Hours and hours of weaving in ends. Somehow, I always forget that part when I decide to undertake a striped project. Lots and lots of weaving. Weaving and seaming are my least favorite activities in the construction of a knitted garment.

Bad: I have to send my ipod in for service.
Good: The shipping box to send it to the repair center arrived from Apple the day after I requested it. They don't mess around at Apple.
More Bad: One of my coworkers threw the box in the trash and I had to spend twenty minutes on the phone with Apple repair this afternoon in order to have another one sent. I don't really understand how the box appeared to be trash to the coworkers, as it had very nice fitted foam inside and many important looking codes on the exterior.
Also, I discovered today that Apple is rolling out a new generation of ipods with a longer battery life and lower sticker price. If only I had waited!!

Good: I finally joined Hostelling International.
Bad: Because of the exchange rate, I still cannot afford to stay at the Georgian hostel near Covent Garden. It'd be lovely, but I'd like to eat while I'm there.

Bad: My roommate and I went to see Anchorman over the weekend. The screening was horrible! It looked as though they had dragged the print of the film across the floor of the projection booth before the show. The sound had a terrible low repetitive hum, very similar to the sound of the sprockets on the projector. Except more annoying. They had to stop the film twice (or was it three times?).
Good: I complained afterwards and got my money back. I saw it for free!

My ipod is sick. That makes me sad, since I've had it less than a month. The battery isn't holding a charge, which is apparently a well-known problem with ipods. I knew that going into this adventure, but was optimistic that I wouldn't have any problems. There was about a week of denial before I sent in a service request at the Apple website. They claim a one week turnaround once the ipod reaches them. Hope that's true, because I don't want to be deprived of my expensive toy for long. I just bought it a blue jacket.
Other news: I've started knitting a new pair of socks. The pink fairisle socks are done, finally, after a long period of neglect. My current sock project is a basic ribbed design made out of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock yarn in the Green Mountain Madness colorway. I work on it during downtime in the shows, of which I have a lot. My prodigious sock making is funny considering that I rarely wear socks. Nevertheless, socks are a nice portable project. I haven't had much time to work on my striped cotton sweater, to my disappointment. The sweater is stalled on the needles until I have more free time or less interest in sleep.
I've recently become interested in Phildar designs. Phildar is a French yarn company that also has pret a porter at their stores in France. As far as I can tell from their website, they don't have a store near to where I will be traveling in September. And, I won't be able to get the lovely english-language translations that my Canadian sources supply. Ah, well. I purchased a kit to make a wraparound cardigan (kind of DVF influenced) out of a lovely, shaded cotton blend yarn. It's waiting until I finish the striped cotton sweater. I'd also like to make a few other projects from Tendences de Printemps, but I'd like to keep my options open for a while.
I am curious about Rowan's new line, which tries hard to capture the hip, young design kids/knitters market, R2. The book (or magazine, hard to tell) retails for $20 in this country, but only costs five pounds in the UK. I'll wait.
You can check out these projects and more at the following links:
www.knitrowan.com and www.knitntyme.com

Here's to the Ladies Who Brunch
and to anyone who understands that reference....
My roommate and I haven't seen a lot of each other lately, since our work schedules are very different at the moments. This morning, we donned non-work clothes and headed to a posh hotel downtown for brunch. It was unspeakably lovely. Since we'd slept in, we could legally order alcohol from the bar and did. It was the strongest mimosa I've ever had, which is not a complaint. Ashley and I chatted about work easily and our plans for the end of the season. I think that I will miss her when we are done here. We've vowed to make a weekly brunch outing for the rest of the summer. That will guarantee that we see each other at least one a week.

We're still having a lot of problems with equipment failure/breakage at work. It's really ridiculous at this level. Nonetheless, we soldier on as amps switch into protect mode in the middle of a performance, clear com channels decide to stop working, and last minute requests are issued. All par for the course.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
I bought a pair of brown mary janes this week. It's been a while since I've worn shoes with buckles on a regular basis. In fact, I cannot remember such a time. The shoes are cute as a button, but there was one aspect that I had not anticipated. Small, sturdy buckles are very hard to operate when one is drunk or exhausted. There are four total between my new Docs. Still, I am quite happy with my purchase.

A Few Thoughts:
*When did doing laundry become a luxury?
*What was Apple thinking when they designed the exterior of the ipod? They're gorgeous to look at, but the design is pretty impractical.
*I'm looking for Johnny Cash cds. If you've got some in your collection, drop me a line. I'd like recommendations.
*Family reunions: yea or nay?

I bought an ipod this week. I'm having digital music related growing pains. I spent most of the morning uploading cds to my ipod, then accidentally erased most of them later (I thought that I was just taking the files off of my laptop, but the changes tracked into the ipod as well). Well, at least now I know how not to do that. Most discoveries in A/V seem to occur that way. This is not to say that I am unhappy with my purchase--I am happily eating ramen noodles to afford it. So, I'm learning new things about itunes.
Things are a bit stressful at work, mostly due to the imminent opening of the season. I overheard a coworker make a wildly unflattering remark about me, but never confronted him on the matter. For one thing, I'd have to admit that I was eavesdropping (a little unavoidable under the circumstances). Also, I have no idea what I could possibly say. "It really hurt me when you said..." or "I heard you say this and fuck you too"? Neither is a workable solution. I have to work with this person for the rest of the summer. So, things have been awkward. And undoubtedly solely awkward for me, as I do not think that he knows that I overheard him. The women in my family have long memories when it comes to perceived wrongs and slights, so this feeling may last a while.
I don't have many other things going on in my life in the moment. I go to work, I go home, sometimes I listen to a little music or watch fuzzy television, reread one of my books for the third time, etc. It's not as exciting as other people might think, largely because everything closes so early. I have been to two dance concerts here, which is more than I'd been to in ages. I don't think I've ever gone to a dance concert in Chicago....I've also been to one of the swankiest flea markets known to mankind, where I purchased a nifty ring reminiscent of NTSC colorbars. What can I say, I'm a nerd. So it's not as bad as all that, just incredibly wearying at times.
My knitting is going slowly, since I rarely work on it. I'm still working on the sleeves of my camel and crimson raglan sweater. I decided to start with the sleeves, as I have a lousy track record of completing garments with sleeves. In my defense, I will say that they are long sleeves worked in a relatively small gauge. And the project doesn't travel because it's being worked off of a giant cone. So I'm working on a pair of socks at work, when we have downtime. It's a bit frustrating to make so little progress on my projects, but that is usually the case when there are several ongoing.

You may have noticed that I changed my blog template. It was time for a new look, I think we can all agree. Sadly, I lost all of the personalization that I made in my old template, like a link to my email, my top ten lists, links, et al. I made them so long ago that I can't remember the tags. Sigh.
Maybe I'll be in artist mode tonight and not worry about it. I can work on my camel and crimson sweater (so far, only part of one raglan sleeve done. Sleeves seem to be my bete noire) and watch the Tonys on my scrambly television. I've taken to keeping a plastic bag atop the set, so that I can sheath my hand in it before touching the antennae. I am sick of shocking myself!
Suggestions for blog improvement are welcome. Suggestions of increased frequency are not.

Living for the Weekend
I am now perched in a laid-back cafe in Santa Fe, nursing a drink and taking advantage of their free wifi service. Free! And they don't seem likely to give me the bum's rush for staying too long. This cafe is just minutes, walking distance, from my apartment.
I had the weekend off. This is unprecedented. This is unlikely to happen again for the rest of my contract. It was heaven. Many, if not most, places are closed on Sundays here, as it is a heavily catholic town. So my usual day off is not terribly useful to me. I tried to make the most of my precious Saturday. I checked out the local yarn stores (one is phenomenal, casual, and artistic, all in one), window shopped in the cathedral district, and went to see a movie at the mall. That was a bit of a let-down. I often go to art films (that is not a euphemism!), where one is unlikely to see many babes-in-arms. It was babies-a-go-go at Shrek 2 yesterday. Yes, it's a cartoon, but how much enjoyment can an infant really get out of a movie? Later, one of my pals from work came over and we headed out to a very chill little party. Again, I forgot that I am ten times higher here than I am used to at home, and therefore can really only drink Shirley Temples.
I was very pleased to discover the quality of one of the LYSs. The proprietor was incredibly helpful and kind. She even told me that she could order things for me and ship them (all the way across town), as it is unlikely I'll be able to return. Very, very cool. I bought some lovely blue Peruvian cotton that was hand-dyed in giant copper kettles, as well as a pattern book of natty modular patterns. Not the scary ones that you find in the back of the Vogue book, more like a choose-your-own-adventure of knitting.
I haven't blogged in a while. It doesn't seem like something that I can get away with at work. So I was a little surprised and confused to find that my blogging interface looks completely different than the last time I visited. Whoops. Apparently, there are new improved features, which I have yet to explore. Maybe things will look different the next time you visit this page.