Anyone have a black light? Hendrix poster optional

I returned to the rarefied air at the symphony today, but it was anything but relaxing. I had somehow forgotten that the concert was the same day as the marathon. It was impossible to drive downtown (which I did because the sunday train schedule sucks) and my car nearly overheated from all of that bumper to bumper traffic. I was cranky, and really hot because I had to turn the heat on to cool off my engine. Argh.

The performance itself was quite nice. I heard the piece that I really wanted to hear, the William Tell Overture, and left at intermission. My ulterior motive in attending the concert was to see Riccardo Chailly conduct, as he is rumored to be on the CSO shortlist. Naturally, my seat was behind someone with a giant Charlie Brown head and I had to crane my neck all over the place to see the podium. The performance was as I expected. They played William Tell in an Italian fashion: a bit faster tempo, and a lot more vivace than one might hear from an American company. It was really amazing to hear it in concert.

The party we've been working so hard on at work has come and gone. A good time was had by all. I even fell under the spell of a yarn that I walk past dozens of times a day: Artyarns Silk Rhapsody Glitter. It's silk and can send a knitter into a rhapsodic state. Until now, I've avoided the call of the Clapotis. Maybe now that I want to make one, it's officially over. If you aren't familiar with Kate Gilbert's Clapotis pattern from Knitty, you probably aren't a knitter. It had a success fou a few years back. In that contrary way that I'm sure all of my friends love, I refused to give in to something so popular. Then I tried on the store sample. It looked so French, chic, sophisticated. I felt like I should be drinking a solitary cup of cafe au lait on a rainy night at Cafe de Flore. So, now I'm going to make one. If I like it, I'll make a less dressy one (kind of like Elton John's storied special occasion and everyday tiaras). I'm pretty sure I will like it.

I also succumbed to the lure of sale yarn at Peace Fleece. Even though it's hot as hell right now, soon it will be cold, very cold for months on end. I want to be prepared. I was idly surfing their website when I saw that they're offering $3 skeins of Worsted Georgia Rose. That is a veritable bargain! However, it is marked down because a family of chipmunks tried to nest in it. At least, I assume it was a family and that they didn't meet through craigslist. I guess that the yarn was gnawed on a bit, so I ordered a couple of extra skeins, planning to have to cut out some weak spots. When I told my mom about this, she fanned the flames of my doubt. She suggested that the yarn might contain (ahem) organic materials and told me that I can check the skeins for chipmunk pee with a black light. Since it's not 1975, I don't have one. Maybe this is a bit naive, but I don't think that the wonderful hippies who run Peace Fleece would sell me yarn full of *organic chipmunk materials*. They've been really awesome in the past, so I choose to remain optimistic. We'll see if my cat attacks the box when it arrives in a few days. He's already established a strong dislike for wet alpaca, so I can't imagine that he'd allow eau de chipmunk to go unsniffed.