We were supposed to tech the show today, which sort of happened. The company and artistic director were held up in the snow storm (it is the end of November, after all), and we had to wait. Luckily, it was a union shop, which meant that we had to be out of there by a specific time, rather than letting it drag on and on. And, thanks to all of the hold-ups, I managed to get a lot of knitting done on the *secret* xmas present that I'm making for a family member. I have a fair amount of down time during the show--the whole first act--so I'm knitting and getting paid. The hat looks really good. I'm making it out of hand dyed wool that I purchased at Colorful Stitches. The color blocks made interesting stripey blotches with a kind of lightening bolt motif.
We finally got our paychecks signed today. This is a bad sign. Late checks without apology. Checks on time without a signature. Postdated checks to the principle dancers. I will never work for this company again. And I'm cashing the check tomorrow.

It's Thanksgiving Day and I'm sitting in a hotel room about a thousand miles from home. It's week two of the bus and truck tour from hell. Actually, that implies that we have a bus; we don't. The company travels with two Penske trucks, two minivans, and various personal vehicles. We had to pester the production manager to get the minivan (into which the crew and our belongings barely fit), as we originally had a retired police cruiser, with broken spedometer. Five people in a sedan is a tight fit. Six people with their bags is impossible.
Most of our problems on the tour stem from lack of organization and piss-poor management. The company really needs a company manager in addition to the production manager. We just finished a rough week at a high school in Sheffield, mainly hindered by the owners of the venue. They refused to move giant piles of scenery and general crap, meaning many of our man-hours were wasted carting around their things. The we had to reset it at load out. I think that the school doesn't have vast experience in presenting.
Luckily, there are a couple of people on the crew with whom I would like to remain friends after this tour has ended: Matt, our master carpenter, and Karen, the master electrician. Matt and I became fast friends when we were stranded at the Albany airport for three hours by the company. That was a big bad omen, if ever there was one. Matt is another Chicagoan, with a wonderful sense of irony and sarcasm. We daily tell each other how glad we are that the other is on the tour. Karen is my road roommate (but not at the convent where we are normally lodged--luckily, the company recognizes that we need some personal space). She reminds me a great deal of Ingrid, my wonderful sophomore year roommate. They have very similar voices, and an easy going attitude that is essential when dealing with all of the mess this tour generates.
Karen and I went to Lenox on our day off this week. Lenox is quite different in the winter than in its tourist summer days. Our main objective was to visit Colorful Stitches, a LYS with a beautiful ad in all the knitting magazines, and to get a decent cup of coffee. The wonderful side effect is that I also got to know Karen.
I am teaching Karen how to knit. It's a pleasure. A little over a year ago, my mother taught me to knit. It was very hard for her to resist the temptation to take my first project away and do it herself, as her grandmother had done so many years before. So, when Karen complimented me on my patience, I also silently thanked my mom. My desire to take up knitting brought my mother and I closer together this past year, and I think that Karen's desire to learn is helping to forge a friendship between us.

Ok, I'm not very faithful to my blog. I don't update very often any more, probably because I don't have a lot going on at the moment. I'm passing time until I have to leave for tour. Yesterday, I decided to burn many of my cds to minidisc, to save space, etc. It has proven to be more time consuming than I had anticipated. My minidisc player is supposed to insert track marks in the appropriate places. This only happens sporadically, possibly because of the frequent bleed through of tracks on cds. So, then I must listen to the minidisc, sometimes in its entirety, to insert the track marks where they belong. Makes me a little envious of the people with NetMD players, but I'm generally satisfied with my little MZ-R700.
I'm still knitting up a storm, mostly in preparation of xmas. There is a limit to the number of knit garments that people need, so I'm trying not to overdo it. Also, I want to maintain the distinction between homemade and handmade. I'm currently working on a scarf made out Sirdar Snowflake for a friend who has pestered me for over a year to make a scarf---except she's allergic to wool. I am skeptical of all of the self-diagnosed wool allergies out there. Of course, some people may legitimately be allergic to the fiber, but I think that most people are just intolerant of the coarser fibers. There are some wonderful new blends (and old blends) of wool that are nothing like the dreaded wool sweaters from childhood.

I've had a tumultuous couple of weeks since my last post. I used to be so faithful about updating my blog.
While I haven't been updating this page, I've been up to the following: packing up all of my personal belongings and driving halfway across the continent; knitting four hats (thank god for worsted weight yarn!); starting on a rowan script bag in a bulky lavender wool, then discovering that I was 40 meters short; making a fabulous modern tweed scarf with an intentional hole in it to be given as an xmas present. I was pretty irked at the authors of the pattern for the scarf. The photo had a big hole to pull the end of the scarf through, yet the pattern called for a single yarnover hole! Luckily, my mother was on hand to advise alternate methods. I proceeded to make the hole "too big". Pretty strong talk from a woman who just made a hat large enough to fit Mush Mouth on Fat Albert! She plans to felt it down to human size soon.

Eleanor and I went to the Knit Out in Union Square today. Eleanor is currently knitting a striped hat on retro colored metal dps. I took my spiral ribbed sock (in progress), which was fussed over by several people. It is cute, but I haven't internalized the pattern yet. I think that the variegation makes it look trickier than it is, which is fine as far as I am concerned. I've also used yarn that is printed to make a fair isle pattern. I'm shameless. My objective in going to this free event (other than sussing out the NY knitting community) was to learn to knit backwards. Luckily, there was a slightly intimidating European woman working the sweater doctor table who taught me the technique. It's still difficult for me, since I just learned it. Also, I hold the yarn in my right hand, which I gather is kind of goofy for american knitters, which makes it tricky. Not as tricky as relearning to knit, though. So, I came home and tried it out on my sweater in progress and almost did a dance of joy. This is much better than turning the sweater around and around again!
Oh, that. I've decided to stop marinating my New Age shell while I still have some hope of wearing sleeveless garments this year. I finished the back piece and have begun working on the front. It still looks like a muppet, but if you squint, you can sort of see a sweater. After this, and all of my other current projects (spiral socks, bias scarf, my other fair isle sock, the long linger lined socks), I may tackle a sweater with sleeves. But that won't happen for a while

Well, I've joined the ranks of the unemployed. Half of the people that I know are currently out of work. It's not a good situation. So I'm combing the trades trying to find another job, one that might even pay enough to live on. What a novelty! In the meantime, I will also make an attempt to get unemployment. The worst they can say is no, I suppose.