The past couple of days have gone really well. I've gotten a lot accomplished: made a trip to an LYS, knit most of a sweater, made baked goods, went to a dinner party, and finally got to the post office while it was open. Woot!

My mother and I spent the weekend together. I let the cat out of the bag about her xmas present (matching sweaters-- she was appropriately speechless), leading to an hour long teleconference about yarn. Finally, we decided to meet at Chix With Stix to investigate their wall of Malabrigo. They're also my favorite Jitterbug pushers. They're not pushy, but that yarn is crazy addictive. Maybe the wool is plied with heroin. An appropriate shade of pink Malabrigo was chosen, and we set off to wind and strategize.

I promised to bring a dessert to a dinner party without any idea of what I would bring. Unfortunately, everyone already knew that I could cook, having eaten my red velvet cake, so replating something from Whole Foods was out of the question. My mom pulled a recipe for lemon bars out the Joy of Cooking for me. I am embarrassed to admit that I still need some adult supervision in the kitchen. I'm not going to burn the house down (knock on wood), but I planned to peel the lemon in one long continuous strip, as though I was garnishing a $20 martini. No, it was time for the old knuckle grater instead. My mother managed not to laugh while explaining the zest-making process. Basically, you just go to town on a lemon with a grater. As lemons are much larger than nutmegs (which I grate at least once a year. Must have freshly grated nutmeg), there was no additional protein in the lemon bars.

While planning and cooking, my mother popped in her current selection from Netflix: the first season of Slings and Arrows. I'd heard many good things about the show, but had also noticed that an alarming number of its fans are assholes. Fearing that it was an asshole magnet, and that liking it might make me an asshole, I had avoided it. Well, we watched it. It was good. Neither of us are assholes as a result. I have a love/hate relationship with backstage dramas. Either they're in the Judy Garland/Andy Rooney vein, putting on a show in a borrowed barn through the magic of a snappy montage, or so realistic as to feel like work, making them too painful to watch. Slings and Arrows manages to be neither, perhaps because it is Canadian. Realistic without being horrid, clever, well written and acted. I've bumped the second season up to the top of my Netflix list.

On the knitting front: I was a little too cocky about my progress on the first Liesl sweater. I knit half of it in one day, which is always impressive. You may recall from physics class that small deviations in initial conditions can cause wild divergences in eventual outcome. There was probably a diagram involving a a crazy looking, almost Fibonacci spiral in the book to illustrate this theory. Well, that is definitely true of feather and fan lace. I made an extra increase under the arm that quickly became seven extra stitches. If only I had caught it sooner, I might not have had to rip out five inches of work. Perhaps I will have to institute a lace knitting curfew. My mother used to tell me about the time of day that quilters put down their needles, which has more to do with the availability of natural light. Maybe there's a time when my mind just stops following lace.