Give a small inch, Take a MILE.

So, I was punished for my indiscretion. Everyone knows that I need no more yarn. Especially at the rate I'm knitting? (about 5 stitches per week), I have no business even going into the hallowed ground of WEBS, much less walk out with a huge bag stuffed full of yarn.

what? what was that? you want to see what I bought?




What we see is the big ass pile of yarn. I just couldn't make myself branch


out from my favorite color -blue/green-. I tried!! I really did! The cash iroha, I almost bought the purple color instead, b/c I also like purple and I can easily see how much blue/green I have in my stash by turning my neck about 5 degrees to the left. But the Boston bloggers convinced me that this color was better (they had to twist my arm, i swear!). The silky tweed was almost brown or midnight blue instead, b/c there were only 6 skeins of this lovely color... until someone (can't remember who in the broo ha ha) pointed out that there was more of this stuff in the front room.

I think hour glass with the cash iroha, and I found an elsepeth lavold pattern for the silky tweed. (the one in orange, bottom right, and on the cover).

I also bought a few skeins of silk garden, but that was shipped off to Celia posthaste. She wants to make her baby a lizard ridge blanky, and who am I to deny her access to clearanced Silk Garden?

I also enjoyed some SheepMail! I had coerced a few friends (Michelle, Jeni, Stacey...) to join the Grey's Anatomy KAL. Stacey, being such a good friend and all, sent me



I also got my Socks That Rock club yarn a week or so ago. and I LOVE IT. The first two shipments were a little bit disappointing, to tell the truth. I see that it's lovely yarn, but the colorways were... so PINK. Wanda took one skein off my hands, and I'm trying to convince myself that I like the other skein. But this skein? It was luuuuv at first sight.


After all that goodness, I was due a downfall. I was not disappointed.
Just as I was sitting here at home, gloating over my yarn purchases on Sunday, feeling oh so satisfied with my life... ring ring ring!!! The special ring tone that I have assigned to my parents (um. ok. I'll admit that my parents are the ONLY ones with a special ring tone. The one that says "if you're tired, you don't have to bother trying to find the phone because it's just your parents." I know. You don't have to say it. Bad bad daughter. It was 11am, and I decided I was too comfy on my couch (never you mind that the phone was also on the couch).

* the following "amusing to you all, but not amusing to me" parent story is dedicated to Maryse. Everyone go give that girl some encouragement (the french version of my parents, aka HER parents, are visiting her for 2 weeks).

1pm. RING RING RING RING. (sigh!)

230pm. RING RING RING RING. (sigh! eye roll. SIGH! eye roll. SIGH.)

4pm. RING RING RING RING. (Cyn's blood pressure goes up about 20 pts).

5pm. RING RING RING...
At this point, I wanted to just throw the phone out the window. But, I don't live on the 11th floor of the building anymore. I live in the basement. Throwing the phone out the window won't solve my problem, unless I happen to throw it hard enough that it ends up under the tracks of the subway. I snatched the freaking fricking fracking phone up and pushed the green button so hard, i'm not sure why my phone didn't bust right then and there. I"m sure that the grip I had on my phone wasn't anything to sneeze at either.

me: "HELLO" (with a very pissed off tone)

dad: "CynCyn-ah... where have you been all day?"

me: "I'm studying Dad."

dad: "oh, you're at the library?"

me: "no, i'm at home, but i've been studying. Which, by the way? when you call and call and call? don't do that. If I don't answer, leave a message, and I'll call you back when I have TIME. Don't keep calling and calling and calling. It's kind of... annoying."

dad: "....."

me: "I'll call you back if you leave a message. But if you call and I don't answer it means that I AM BUSY."

dad: "oh, you're busy?"

me: "um. yeah dad. the PhD program kind of keeps me busy."

dad: "oh, is it a lot of work?"

me: (grrrrrrr, what does he think? that the PhD program is a piece of cake? shits and giggles all the time?) "um, yeah dad. there's a lot of work involved."

The rest of the convo was me telling him what I needed (my immunization records). Which they denied that they had (but I knew they had).

530pm. RING RING RING RING!!! (grrrr)

Dad: So, we found your immunization records. Why do you need them?

Me: (notice that there's no mention that I was right?) My school needs them as proof that I'm not carrying some disease around like vermin dad.

Dad: well, that's ridiculous. You were born and raised in the USA. How do they expect that you got schooled in the US if you didn't get your immunizations?

Me: Sigh. Dad, I don't know. They just need them ok? I don't make the rules. Can you just send them to me please?

Dad: Well, I see that you got the blah blah blah in 1976, and then again in..

Me: Dad? I dont' need to know the dates of every vaccine I got. I just NEED THE RECORDS.

Dad: Oh. Well, it looks like your last immunization was in 1993.

Me: Yes Dad, I know. But I don't need to know all that, I JUST NEED YOU TO SEND ME THE FORM.

Dad: Oh. Ok.


6pm. RING RING RING RING (are you fucking KIDDING ME?????)

Me: YES???

Dad: We made a copy. We'll send you the copy. We'll keep the original form here so you don't lose it.

Me: (thinking, jesus and mary. I'm 30 yrs old. If I can't be trusted to keep track of my own shit, maybe someone should call my school and tell them I'm WAY too stupid to get a PhD. what the EFF were THEY thinking accepting me?) Dad. I have my own birth certificate, my passport, quite a few important papers that I've managed not to lose. You can send me the original forms. But if it makes YOU feel better to have the original, then fine. send me the copy.

Dad: Ok. We'll send you the copy.

Is it just me? or did the point of what I said just completely fly over his head? My Dad and I got in a rip roaring fight a couple weeks before I moved to Boston (because every girl who's picking up all her shit and leaving all her friends needs MORE stress. Didn't you know?) During THAT fun conversation, I told my dad that he doesn't listen to me. He doesn't hear what I'm saying. To which he got offended and said, what? when don't i listen to you? you're being silly.

sigh.

630pm. RING RING RING RING (holy mary. someone just kill me. I might go throw MYSELF in front of the subway)

Me: "YES?"
Dad: "we sent you some stuff from CA."
Me: "ok"
Dad: "we'll send the immunization records"
Me: "yes. ok"
Dad: "ok... so, have you talked to your brother?"

now. didn't you all notice that I said I was busy and that the PhD program had a lot of work to go with it? Does he really think I have time for him to call and call and call and call and call? Ok. My bad that I didn't answer the phone the first four times he called. But really.

Thank God, or whoever the powers that be, that he is back to work today. I think that my father, is the MOST annoying man alive when he's on vacation.

I know. You don't have to say it. bad bad ungrateful daughter.

Blepherospasms... and yarngasms.

Doesn't that sound... exciting? Like I've been having FUN? Obviously, the yarngasm is a positive thing. Our favorite Wendy invited me to tag along as a whack of the Boston knitters trekked over to Western Mass to attend Deb's first stop on her book tour.

We needed to bolster Deb's spirits first. We sacrificed ourselves in the name of knitterly love, and all of us shopped with her at Webs. In our short stay, most of us left with at least one large bag crammed full of yarn. Though I have forgotten to take pictures of my take, but I do have pictures of fiber heaven.


Webs is separated into two distinct sections. The front room is organized like a typical (well, nicer than typical) yarn store. With shelves, lots of light, pattern books, notions, etc. Then we've got the warehouse in the back.



As you enter the warehouse, you're greeted by this site... CARTS!! Large grocery shopping carts. Only in my dreams would I be running around the store with a shopping cart (though, i must admit, i almost needed one).


Do you SEE the size of these aisles? It's a bit misleading that each aisle is called "aisle 100, 200, 300, etc" but with about 8 aisles that are long long long, still feel quite overwhelmed. There are HUGE boxes STUFFED full of yarn, piled up to the tippy top of the warehouse. This warehouse... knitters could live out there dream of ROLLING around in the yarn. Jumping into one of those huge styrofoam pits filled with YARN. Sigh.

After all of us had our yarngasms, we schlepped over to have a bite to eat, and to get Deb a drink before her very first book presentation. Her talk was hilarious, punctuated by her trunk show of example pieces from the MOKS (Museum of Kitschy Stitches).



After the talk, many of us did some more collecting, but instead of yarn, we got some books. We then hopped over to Salvation Army, in search of odds and ends. our next stop was the fabric store (during which someone who doesn't sew took a nap instead), followed by dinner. Wendy, Kristin (a medical student with free time?), Marcy, Elisa, Kelly (yarn pusher of the highest order... not only does she know about the deals, she knows what you should make with it!), Deb, her husband, and Maryse!. It was really nice to finally meet someone who i've been blogstalking for quite some time. And she's funnier in person as she is on her blog.

When I dragged my sorry ass home at some time past 9pm (we had left bright and early at 8am), I was exhausted, but in the very best of ways. My eye twitch, while not quite a blephorspasm, disappeared (after having been present for about 5 days), only to reappear at the mere mention of school reading.

Next post will include the haul from WEBS.

Meet my new man*

Unfortunately for me, I speak not of a real flesh and blood man, but aMiranda kind of man. Someone who will thoughtfully obey my every whim, read my mind, and entertain me for hours on end. Still stumped?

I'm getting my very own TiVo. A TiVo!

I'll now move onto yarn related items. Such as...


We've got 2 skeins of worsted weight, a skein of lace weight, and a skein of dk weight that I got in an SP swap from Susan. We used jacquard acid dyes and some kool aid. I wish I had more experience, and had more time, b/c obviously I rushed through dying the dk and lace weight yarns. However, I kind of like them anyway. Especially the greens... The only colors I don't LOVE in my experiments... that neon green/yellow in the worsted weights, and the red in the lace weight.
Although Maggie was kind enough to make up some sugar scrub (infused with lilac) and helped me bleach my hands back to their original color (cough cough, someone was too impatient to keep working with latex gloves on, cough cough), my nail cuticles still show evidence of my penchant to dye with dark colors.

So. lessons learned
1) chose a nice coolish day with a nice breeze
2) have at least 3 ppl at your dye party. One who knows what they're doing, one who is organized, and one who cooks well.
3). mix PLENTY of dye. use it judiciously. You do NOT need to let your yarn swim in it, but you DO need enough to saturate the yarn.
4) if you like your outdoor furniture, get one of those cheap plastic picnic table covers and tape it down. trust. the saran wrap that you'll be laying down? doesn't help much.
5) try the kool aid! it's quite fun, and is the easiest and least messy.

To take care of your hands afterwards
1) in a bowl, make a solution of bleach + water. liberally rub around on your hands and use the nail brush.
2) follow up with a sugar scrub (scoop some sugar into palm. add some olive oil) it'll make your hands feel like a baby's bottom.

Today was a good day to dye.

Bookish Wendy invited me along to a dye party over at Maggie's house. As with most knitting/fiber related meet ups, there was fabulous food (including pulled pork sandwiches, vegetable lasagna, homemade gumbo, fruit galore, and more desserts than you can shake a stick at)... and a fabulous time to be had.

Stitchy, Melanie, Martha (maker of fab delish gumbo), Maggie, Lynn (does she have a blog?), Wendy and I spent the entire time either eating or dying yarn.

I had meant to take pictures, depicting the process, but unless you just WATCH everyone else, there's no way you can take pics w/o getting your camera dirty. We soaked our yarn in cold water for 20 minutes, then Lynn and Maggie mixed up some dye bottles. We had a blast squirting, squishing, saran wrapping, and steaming up our yarn. After an hour in the steamer, we unwrapped, cooled, and rinsed our yarns.

Wanna see what I made? Come back tomorrow. It's drip drying in my bathtub.

*Time, time ticking, ticking, ticking away…

It would be too difficult for my tired brain to separate my first and second weeks from each other... so I'll just talk about both weeks. The report won't be much different, seeing as the past two weeks have been one huge long blur.

Saying so, however, here are some impressions...
1) we had an orientation meeting on my first day, in which I became even more unoriented (still didn't know my schedule, still had no idea about the lay of the land, still had no idea about the classes, professors, my classmates, campus facts, etc)

2) after figuring out that I did indeed have 6 classes this semester, but only met with 4 or 5 of them every week, I enthusiastically downloaded the syllabi, ordered books from the best online textbook store ever, I then found out that the professors like to keep us on our toes by changing textbooks the day before class. Nice, huh?

3) I have 5 of my 6 classes in the same room. Is that so my doctoral program resembles, as closely as it can, a prison?

4) I have a 4.5 hour break on my Wednesdays between classes. Or, at least I thought it was a break. no no. That time is time to meet with professors, go print out articles to read for the next class or day or week (depending on how far behind I am already), and go to my research meetings.

5) My brain can actually hurt. Kinda like how I'm sure my muscles that become flabby from disuse, did my brain become flabby? and is now sore b/c I didn't exercise it enough? I kind of hope so, b/c that means that after about 2 weeks, my brain can stop hurting and it'll be a lean, mean fighting machine.

After being assigned an unimaginable amount of reading to do, freaking out b/c some professors seem to think we'll have time to finish reading EARLIER than class and are requiring us to turn stuff in 2 days PRIOR to class (hullo? i'm a procrastinator. having the reading done EARLY does NOT work for ME)... oh. er, I kind of lost my train of thought. sorry.

I did enjoy my weekend. Bookish invited me over on Sunday for a day of entertainment. Namely, watching her DH watch football. Sounds weird, yes? But I can assure you, watching her DH and their menagerie of animals during the football games is indeed, highly entertaining. Who knew that watching competitive sports when you don't really care who wins could be so enjoyable? I mostly worked on the scarf for my ISE 3 pal, after ripping out about 10 rows I had knit after classes my first week. I'm a quick learner, so no more knitting from a chart on school days.

The only other moment that is worth mentioning this week... my mild myocardial infarction. Boston College might be a highly revered/respected institution of higher learning, but they need to learn a thing or two about organization. I knew I was missing paperwork from the school, but wasn't too worried. My cohort and I went out to dinner on Wed night to get to know each other, and when I got home, I had the missing paperwork in my mailbox. These papers were supposed to detail who my faculty advisor is, how many course credits they were going to pay for, how many hours per week I would be enslaved to my faculty advisor, and how much they were gonna pay me for said enslavement. I had been told the amt when they made me the offer, and the actual letter only awarded me HALF the monies. HALF is not enough to pay for my rent, much less any portion of other living costs. The only reason I got any sleep at all, is b/c I was so freaking tired (class for 6 hrs, 2 meetings, and dinner with 6 ppl I don't know very well... I was bone weary).

For those of you that know me...I was in bed by midnight. MIDNIGHT! Unheard of for me. To make my longer than necc. story longer, the director of training told me not to worry, that the faculty were aware of the error, and that I was going to be awarded the original amt offered. Dude. If they KNEW there was an error, why didn't they warn me about the erroneous info that was gonna be coming my way BEFORE it got to me? BEFORE I spent an entire day with my anxiety levels cranked up to level RED?

So. No classes tomorrow, but I stayed up to do homework. What is this world coming to?

*borrowing from my friend Joanne. Anyone care to guess? WITHOUT googling?

Yarntainer*

*aka... why Cynthia hasn't been yarn shopping since moving to Boston.

I have more pics I need to take/show, of the sleeve out of Rowan Calmer, the clapotis redux (winter version), and whatever else I've allowed myself to cast on for while moving.

I do have some pics to share now though. Of the ever so incredible and every knitter should have one, Yarntainer, brought to you by IKEA (I have the one that's four cubbies x four cubbies, in the black brown).

If you look closely, you can see my Ikea chair (aka, where Cyn sits b/c she has no couch). I have the tv tray set up to hold remotes and my diet coke (or, my books and my binders). And underneath the coffee table, you see the huge bin of WIPs.

Close ups?



I also wanted to show you all, and especially Stacey, the yarn I bought in NYC at School Products, which I visited with Jeni.


Ok. I'm watching the US Open right now, and I've been missing all the important points. I'll blog about my first week of school later.

THIS is empty??

My long weekend in NYC was packed with fun fun and more fun. We shopped, we ate, we shopped, we ate, we went to the movies, we ate.

My friend got me an Amtrak ticket using his rewards miles, and I arrived in NYC on Thursday at 3pm. I cabbed it to their apartment and watched some US Open until she came home. We had drinks at Dip, then met her husband for dinner at Dos Caminos. Though the food was excellent (I had the swordfish), I can't say it's the best mexican food I've ever had... when you've lived in Denver, you've been spoiled by authentic Mexican.

On Friday, Anna and I went shoe shopping at Anbar, where they've just gotten in their fall shoes. We found many many pretty, cute, and out of our price range shoes. I was looking for some new ankle boots in black leather. I found some. I walked out without, b/c unfortunately for me, I had fallen in love with a pair of Miu Miu ankle boots. They retail for over $500, so even on sale, they were over $300. Ouch. Then we met Scott for dinner at Don Bogam, which was excellent Korean food. Have I shared with you that for authentic asian food, you should seek out restaurants that a) aren't too pricey and b) where the patrons are mostly asian? We shared the bi bim bop, an order of fried man doo, and one of their combo bbq platters. We were quite full, so we opted to rent a few movies and head home. After being under enthralled with the very under thrilled thriller Silent Hill, we called it a night.

On Saturday, all of us met up with Jeni, who was in town for the US Open Tennis tournament. We started out the day right, by splurging on a decadent breakfast at Clinton St. Baking Company where I enjoyed the most excellent brioche french toast, topped with carmelized bananas, pecans, and maple butter. The girls split from Scott, since he didn't want to partake of the massive search for the perfect handbag. First, we went to School Products, a yarn store my friend Anna found for me. Jeni picked up some beautiful lace, while I got some Koigu. We took Jeni to the same stores that I went to in February, and she got a very cute, very distint handbag (do I get visitation rights Jeni?) I hope she takes care of that beautiful choc. suede!!! We finished off the day with some of the best sushi at Haru. Jeni had to meet back up with her mom and sister, so we shipped her off in a cab, then headed to the movies to see Half Nelson. Has anyone else seen it? I was very impressed with Ryan Gosling, whom i had last seen in Remember the Titans.

Seeing as we had din-din so early, we walked up to Max Brenner for dessert. If you're a chocolaholic, you NEED to go here. Described as a real life Willy Wonka factory, it serves up some of the most decadent desserts I've ever seen. The best part? That your dessert is served with a mini beaker of chocolate syrup, so that you can pour it over your own dessert.

And what's a trip to NYC w/o a tour of Barney's? Though there were some very beautiful shoes, dresses, sweaters, etc etc, there were also many FUGLY items, which usually cost more than the items that I actually wanted. My friend fell in love with a thick and thin polar knit flip brim hat, which had the price tag of $180! There were asymmetrical cardigans, wide collared cardigans and sweaters, and some sweaters in stockinette with fancy shoulders.

All in all, I feel as if I shouldn't need to eat for about 2 months. School starts tomorrow, so I'm glad I've got plenty of nourishment. How was YOUR labor day weekend?

**The city was supposedly empty, though Anna and I ended up waiting for over an hour for some excellent tapas at Tia Pol in Chelsea. I think the entire city was at dinner at this hole in the wall (only about 8 tables in the entire joint!)