Whine about work

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I’m in a weird place with work. (I’m not in a weird place at work – in fact, I’ve moved cubes to a larger space, which is great for my growing silkworm farm.)

I’ve been trying to scheme my way out of living in Waukegan for the rest of my duration at Abbott. There are three things that are good about living here.

1. There’s a pool
2. Angela Duff
3. 6 Flags is 6 miles away
4. Not going to get as hot

Yeah, I know it’s hard to weigh all of it, but by comparison, I’m missing

1. Wings at Cleo’s on Mondays
2. Movies in Grant Park on Tuesdays
3. Kickball on Wednesdays
4. Dancing on a Thursday night
5. Impromptu weekday Trivial Pursuit games
6. Not having to drive into the city on Fridays after work.
7. Ahem. Jason. Ahem.
8. A good yarn store.
9. Other friends

So I’ve been trying to get Abbott to let me work from home – there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t – considering how everything I proof is electronic already. In fact, it probably takes more time to print out a hard copy and walk it over to me.

The thing is, the longer I wait, the longer my “you must give us 30 days notice” clause is going to force me to pay rent in June. Grrrrr.

I also see that what I’m asking for is really not something remotely (no pun intended) needed. It’s just that I’m starting to go crazy again sitting in a cube, unable to knit, wishing I was near a window of some sort. Or a hole. Or a chunk of antimatter.

Then again, my asking will only irritate my boss – I doubt I’d be fired over it, and although not working for two months is a hugely stupid idea before one goes off to grad school, but I’m considering it …

He Looked Like Chris Cooper

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I have Koufax’s Saturdays Alone stuck in my head, and it’s been that way since I woke up.

Last night I dreamt that I was living with Jason and Jake in a really really big room in a small town somewhere I’ve never been. I drove into the parking lot of our, uh, room and a guy jumped out of nowhere and tried to attack me. I tried running him over, using sweet Grand Turismo-style moves, but he disappeared. I went inside, and he followed me. Dude looked like Chris Cooper and I tried to run away, but I noticed he was trying to rob the place, so I turned around and tried to talk him out of it. I was trying to surreptitiously take a picture of him with my cameraphone, and realized I should call 911.

I’ve never called 911 before, and in my dream, I accidentally hit 944, and I have to redial. When I get an operator, she asks where I am, and that’s when I realize that I don’t know. I mean, I live there, but we must have just moved. I explain that I’m west of the Circuit City, east of the grocery store, and on the south side of the street.

Chris Cooper leaves before I can do anything, and I go find Jason and Jake, asleep on a bed. I’m mad at them for not helping/saving me, but the police come in a brown car and tell me they’ve apprehended a suspect.

That, my friends, is when I woke up.

Niddy Noddy

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This weekend I finished the poncho I decided to make last week. I knew my gauge was off, but the thing ended up being much much longer than necessary. I’m not too worried about it, because I have a six-foot mom who likes ponchos.
I'm wearing the largest poncho, ever

This poncho, and the slightly too-large needles I used for it are the reasons I went crazy and purchased the Denise Interchangeable Needle kit. It came in the mail this weekend while I was in Iowa. It’s so pretty. I pet it last night before I went to bed. I’ll soon have the first level’s worth of work to do for the master knitter program, and I will be SET. Denise Interchangeable Needle Kit

Also this weekend my dad helped me make a niddy noddy. They can look much more fancy schmancy than this, but all I really needed was a rudimentary tool for my pursuits. Dad seemed to be impressed that I could chopsaw my way through a 2×4 and leave the marking line.
A kniddy knoddy

I think I’m going to take a break from knitting for a couple of weeks, until my masterer kit arrives. (For some reason, I feel this sounds kind of like the real estate tapes referred to in Garden State.)

My plan for THIS week is to ravage the local thrift stores for sweaters that have nicey yarn I can reclaim, especially since I’ll be needing nice yarn to make all these swatches for the mastery.

The largest poncho, ever

PostSecret

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PostSecret

Wow wow wow. This is awesome. It’s a blog of postcards with secrets written on them. You write a secret on the postcard, and mail it to the blogmaster, and they post it on the site. I wonder if this is just enough catharsis – between creating the postcard, sending it (showing to all the world/postal workers) and it being posted to the world on a blog – to make you feel better about the secret.

A Whole Ton of Random Sonya Facts

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I had my adenoids out, and tubes put in my ears, when I was little, which was my only hospital stay.
I’ve never broken a bone.
My hair falls out a more rapidly than average.
I love divulging information about myself – it’s more attention.
I hit my newborn sister in the nose with a baton when I was 5. It was my birthday.
My first school-age crush was on Jason Boyd.
My first crush ever was on Michael Magnus.
I cut of the tip of my left third finger with a papercutter in a dark room. It grew back.
I play (more or less proficiently) the trombone, euphonium, and tuba.
I’ve kissed two boys my sister has kissed.
As a baby, I never crawled. I was too fat.
My last name was changed from Grün when my family came to America.
My parents named me after Sonia Heine, the famous ice dancer. Only they spelled it with a ‘y’ because they thought an ‘i’ was too hard for a little girl to write.
I have texture issues with eating – I dislike most beans and hate chili.
I once saved a turtle’s life when I was firefighting in Maryland.
Yeah, I said Maryland. I was a wildland firefighter during AmeriCorps*NCCC.
I’ve never seen a Die Hard movie.
I once stuck a raisin so far up my nose my dad had to take me to the emergency room.
When I was in fourth grade, I wanted to change my name to … Trissy.
My first kiss was in the back of a school bus in sixth grade.
My grandma taught me how to knit when I was in high school.
I started knitting my first sweater senior year and didn’t finish it till I was a senior in college. It’s hideous.
I was the editor of my college paper – The Buzz.
I hated fourth grade.
One of my nostrils is larger than the other one.
My favorite book is The Little Prince, and I have a tattoo of the little guy on my back.
I’m a sucker for technical gadgetry.
I like spinning yarn. I have this big bag of alpaca fiber sitting at home. It’s kind of creepy looking.
I like cats better than dogs. But not by a lot.
I like being outside. I’d rather be outside than inside. That’s where the website name came from. My sister is an ‘inside cat’, thereby making me an ‘outside cat’.
I want to invent something to replace smoking that will give you something to do with your hands when you’re at a bar.
My middle name is Lea. It means ‘green pasture’.
Growing up, I spelled things with an extra ‘e’ or ‘u’ like I was actually a Canadian adoptee.
I always wear a silver ring and a watch.
I was the captain of my high school cheerleading squad.
I was the bass player for the Calamus-Wheatland high school pep band.
My class had 33 people in it.
My first sentence was “Mommy picks up Sonny’s toys”.
I like Cream of Wheat.
This just got really boring, even for me.

Whelp.

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Huh. I lost a Netflix I had prepared for mailing, somewhere between home and work, but I just got the email confirmation that they’ve received it. I’m glad I waited a few days before telling Netflix it was gone.

That reminds me of another lost Netflix. Once upon a time, about a year and a half ago, I went on my second date with Jason. He had gone home to Chicago for the weekend, and had come back to the QC. On that Monday night, I drove over to his hotel room (I ended up doing that a lot) and he had “Harold and Maude” to view – thanks to friends who thought they lost it but found it. It was such a good movie, and the fact that we both enjoyed it so much seemed to cement the feelings we both had on our first date (the Thursday prior). The rest is history.

Knit or Get Off the Pot, Indeed.

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I did it! (What?)

One of my life goals is to become a master knitter. There are two ways to do this. One is to hike to the top of a mountain to meet with a knitting guru who will inevitably poke one of my eyes out for insolence, the other is to join TKGA (The Knitting Guild Association), and sign up for the first of three steps to their master knitting program. You have to be a guild member to do this, so I signed up for the whole kit and Caboodle.

I learned about TKGA a long time ago, when I searched for “master knitting program” on some rediculous search engine that was popular during high school – Lycos, I believe.

“Master Knitter” has been on my list since ’97, but only after reading a Knitty article called “Suitable for Framing” did I finally put for the $77 for membership and Level I of the master knitting program. There are other perks to being a TKGA member – Cast On magazine and a secret handshake.

Here’s what I’ll have to do to pass Level I:
Sixteen samples are required to complete this level: three swatches each of ribbing and basic stitches and gauge, increases, decreases, yarn overs and cables. Fourteen questions and one report on blocking also required.

I’m pretty jazzed. Only recently did I learn good blocking (thanks to the iPod cozy design) and my first cable fell from my needles less than two months ago, but that’s just because I’m a lazy knitter. Soon I’ll be a fit and toned superhero.

I’m pretty sure this inducts me into the Masters of the Universe. Wow. Once I get my Masters of Library Science, I’ll be a double master, and a super geek!

I’m cranky.

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Yes, I’m feeling cranky. Constantine was voted off American Idol, a show I never watch, except last night. I do have a crush on the guy, and now I’m cranky.

I can’t seem to get a response from the four people I’ve emailed at the U of Illinois about the question I have concerning graduate assistantships. I don’t feel like doing anything else until I hear back from them, which only hurts myself, so I’m cranky.

I have a sink full of dishes.

My Denise Interchangeable Needle kit hasn’t arrived yet.

I don’t like the outfit I’m wearing, and my sleeves are too short.

I haven’t heard from Jason about tonight or this weekend, so I can’t finalize plans, and mentioning it on my blog is passive-agressive.

Rar rar rar. Cranky.