Don't call me chrys

We are the mums, we are the mums, we are the we are the we are the mums

This is this year's chrysanthemum lineup. I maybe went a little overboard?

I haven't ever much grown mums before, except those full-of-flowers ones you see at the grocery store in Autumn. The good members of the National Chrysanthemum Society, Oregon Chapter, assured me that they were easy to grow and care for. And I now have a 6-page closely-spaced handout on just how easy.

A few years ago I saw this pretty thing on display at the Japanese garden, and it hasn't ever quite left my head. I'm not growing for exhibition or anything, I just want pretty flowers.

Frances would like you to know that she's prettier than any of those plants, so Pay Attention to HER.

Be my begonia

I'm beginning to sense a theme here. I didn't realize I was so predictable.

This is the pretty little begonia I got last weekend, because I couldn't find but one, not-so-good picture of begonias of years past. If you turn it over, it's got a surprise:

Strawberry-colored underleaves!

We've just ended a run of 2(!) weeks of sunny weather, which is a bit of an anomaly for May. It's been lovely. I missed the sun. The tayberries approve.

Last year they didn't fruit until the 4th of July. Hopefully the weather won't turn suddenly soggy and rain them out. They are a cross between raspberries & blackberries, and they really do taste like both at the same time.

I really have come to accept that I'm not much of a gardener; I seem to like having a garden more than I do tending it. But every year these guys have come up, and do pretty well, even with my semi-neglect. (This year I did manage to fertilize them and put some compost/mulch around them. Maybe they'll taste better?)

Work has finally calmed down some. Huzzah.

The house is painted. It is So. Very. Green. I am still getting used to it, and wondering if I ever will. I chose a darker, slightly brighter green for the foundation, and that was definitely a mistake. It pushes it into the crazy-green category over from merely a-lot-of-green. Give me a few weeks and I'll probably repaint it grey. I'll post pictures later, when I don't start at the sight of it.

Hello commuter socks!

Some old Opal that I got from Michelle. Despite the simplicity they were a fun knit because of the patterning, although I messed around with the sizing a lot. I think I ripped out the first toe about 4 times.

Double-0-DPN (1.75 mm), started with 88, ribbed at the top, then stockinette the rest of the way, gradually decreasing down to 72 at the ankle.

Regular old heel-stitch heel flap, although I always make it a little deeper than 2x the width stitch count, and pick up a few more stitches on the side. I also messed with feathering the gusset decreases near the end - started with every other row, then moved to every 3rd and later every 4th row. I'm not sure it made any difference.

Tiger (socks) in the (backyard) veldt.

With Anemones like these

Wow, do I have a lot of plant pictures. I like the frilly foliage on the new bud almost as much as I like the flowers.

There's also apple blossoms, 3 weeks past now.

First of the Strawberries

At this rate, I might make 12 whole posts this year.

I hit the farmer's market today. Although they actually ran it over the winter this year (semimonthly), which was nice because I could get my apple fix from local orchards.

But unless you are really into potatoes, onions, and hardy greens (mmm kale), there's not a lot of choice. May is usually slim pickings too, but it's been a warm late spring. And the strawberries are early! Not to mention the asparagus and the onions. I know, I love you California, but the first local strawberries are like a big red flag of summer waving in the not-raining-constantly breeze.

The coffee is not exactly local, but the Oregon coffee grower's association isn't having a lot of success yet.

Work just exploded in the last couple weeks. I'm very grateful that I have this weekend off. Everyone's exhausted. Let's just say that last Wednesday I was telling the Love Monkey that last week was taking too long.

It is also crazy land at home as: 1) we just got a new fence, about 3 weeks ago. The old one was falling down. Who's the mayor of ProcrastiNation?
and
2) we're getting the house painted. My back, knees, and lungs all voted for hiring someone professional to do this and I regret nothing. It's lovely weather, and amazingly it's been clement all week long. But right now all the windows are wrapped up in plastic, and the outside looks like it has lesions everywhere patched with primer. Then there was the whole what-colors-to-pick dance.

What was carefully edited out of that picture above is just how full of crap the backyard is. Anyway, it all adds up to me spending the day knitting on the couch. Hey, I did some laundry. I'm not entirely useless.

I'm so looking forward to the backyard not being a huge mess, and not worrying whether the color we picked will be good or not (once it's on, it's not like I can do anything about it). On a bad day about a month ago I ordered some chrysanthemums. $3.50 for a little bit of happiness doesn't seem so high? They will be arriving in the next couple weeks. We'll see how it goes. The anemone at least is still alive.

Divide & anemonize

Are we there yet?

And how're we doing?

So. I like lists (mostly). Not so much to-do lists. But ordering is nice.

1. It's April. Taxes are due soon. Did I mention I'm selling yarn now? And that means I get to spend several hours preparing self-employment taxes. MY FAVORITE THING EVER. Portland doesn't care, if it's <10K they just shrug and say whatever and make you send them a copy of the federal. Oregon doesn't care either. But who knows, maybe I'm some kind of yarn drug laundering business. I'll be overjoyed to show the IRS my $4 receipts for disposable gloves. Big spender, me.

2. It's April. It's finally getting lighter later. Thank all the holy cows, because I have had enough of dark, lowering skies. Hey, at least it hasn't snowed this week (yet).

3. We're getting the house painted. And a new fence, and the bathroom needs help, and I am really tired of calling people and talking about how I can give them lots of money.

4. All my reading, watching, and listening appears to be escapism. Hoorah!
a. I recommend books on tape by Lincoln Child for purely-plot-driven "thriller" (but light on the violence) popcorn listens. I just randomly checked out "Deep Storm" and "Death Match". Gets me through the train rides.

b. I read, among other things, The Passage by Justin Cronin, which was a total airplane read*, but with pretty good characterization. I didn't get much done the week I had that out from the library. Great plot, but also interesting ideas and three-dimensional characters.

* by airplane read, I mean: I usually save up books that are mesmerizing page turners for my (infrequent, thank you bob) plane flights. Because I get very very bored on planes, and it helps to have something engrossing.

c. Just watched The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, which is a sort-of-comedic Korean western. Yes, Korean. Western. It reminded me of Raiders of the Lost Ark, except with more horses, more explosions, more train robberies, more gunfights, and a plot that is really just an excuse for all of the above. Super entertaining, and I'm not usually into that kind of thing. I read a comment by someone who called it almost Firefly-esque humor, and that's not a far off description. Also, holy crap, they all did their own stunts.

The trailer's not all that great, but at least the UK trailer isn't totally awful.



5. And why am I bothering to write now? I don't know. Space filler?

I haven't been feeling much like talking for quite a while. Combined with privacy concerns, it doesn't make for much interesting to say. Also lots of anger at current events, which isn't real fascinating either. I am on my media blackout year (Nov to Nov of presidential elections) so I miss most of the useless, rage-inducing news, for which I'm grateful, but some things intrude despite everything. Maybe I should just post pretty pictures. That appears to be as useful as ranting about things I don't seem to be able to change at all.

Mostly I feel frenetic, bored, irritable, lethargic, dull, angry, and tired of being in pain. It doesn't make a good combination. So I'm sort of avoiding people right now, for both their sake and mine. It's a Good Thing to have the distance of written words between me and most people.

Wish me luck with the fence guys. I'm going to have to rip down legions of ivy and do battle with a big laurel branch from the neighbor's tree to prep for them. Don't worry, it'll ALL grow back.

Meowing to the Oldies

The cat is really grumpy this morning. She keeps coming in and complaining loudly, then walking out again. What do you want, cat? And then I start substituting meows for words in songs. Honk honk, meow meow! Talking 'bout the bad cats, sad cats!

And now I've got Gor-gon-zola stuck in my head, to the tune of Lola.

Been a rough February. Work's fine, although not very challenging, and I work with someone who hasn't yet discovered that ctrl-S means save, the same way that File > Save does. When I'm getting very nasty & vindictive inside my own head, I start counting the seconds it takes him to move up to the file menu and choose "save". I save about every 7 seconds, and that's not hyperbole. I guess I had it ingrained into me from a young age among more crash-prone computers. I finish a line of text, I hit ctrl-s.

Darkness, rain. The winter usual. I could really really use a week somewhere warm and sunny and away from ctrl-s's.

I have a whole pile of finished knits from months and months ago that I want to put into my Ravelry projects list, and they all need pictures. I don't know where to photograph them. I need to ask the Love Monkey to take pictures of me but me and my zits are feeling particularly un-photogenic right now. Couple weekends ago there was some sunlight & I tried the porch swing.

Ugh. Well, at least it shows the entire shawlette.

The pattern is Textural Healing (Ravelry link) and it was entertaining once I got a gauge I liked - loose, but not too loose. The picot binding caused me a lot of trouble, though: I kept miscounting. I had to safety pin up the entire thing to get it straight.

The close-ups turned out better.

The yarn is, well, the yarn is my own. Big Alice Dyes Foxtrot (50/50 fingering weight silk/superwash merino) in colorway Well Red. It's nearly a solid, but not quite, and that definitely worked the best with this pattern. I started off with something more variegated and wasn't happy with it at all. The silk is really nice at showing off the texture.

I took the shawlette on a field trip to the Chinese Garden. (I know, those Portlanders and all their gardens. This is a nice one, although tiny (1 city block). It's kind of amazing just what they crammed into 1 block.)
'I think red brings out the blush in my cheeks. Both sets of them.'

Hey, at least he doesn't have zits.

Another shiny new January

Happy New Year! I have this problem, see, the beginning of the calendar never much felt like a new year. It's really the start of September that feels like the beginning of the year. It'll likely take another 20 years to wear off. And maybe bad dreams about school will stop by then too.

We had a very quiet Christmas; my mother was visiting and the Love Monkey & I didn't travel anywhere, which was WONDERFUL. I like visiting people but airports at Christmas are not my favorite. It's bad enough with just car traffic; I saw probably about 3 near misses in December. After the first one of those, I drove slowly and cautiously and got there eventually and without drama. yay.

I also had a cold for Christmas, and a new one for New Year's. HO HO HO! Jolly! We did get a tree this year. Usually we don't, since we're always away. I feel a special kind of environmental guilt getting a real Christmas tree; it feels like getting expensive cut flowers except it takes years longer to grow and moves out other, more useful crops. But I very much enjoy the fragrance and presence of a real tree, and at least it was a local one. The grower's probably getting 10x the amount for this tree than if he were to raise, oh, cabbage. Frances the cat fortunately has never been a climber, although she seems to prefer the tree water to her own. Yes, I just went and cleaned out her dish. Maybe she savors the piquant flavor of pine.

Did I mention I got a new job? I got a new job, in November. I am no longer an official slacker, although it severely cuts into my dyeing and sleeping-in time. I got lucky -- there was a space opening up where a lot of my friends are working, and it looked interesting and they were interested in me. Lucky, especially with things how they are right now. Lucky, so I gave a birthday present (what, don't I get to give presents on my birthday?) to Sisters of the Road, who does a good program of feeding people who need it in a way that keeps their dignity.

It is past the solstice now, and maybe in another month the sun will be up past 4:30 in the afternoon. Just have to make it through black February (the one-two punch of darkness & Valentine's day is not my favorite). I am already daydreaming about long summer afternoons and bright mornings. And peas. Hopefully this year will be a good one for peas. And raspberries. Damn, I better stop right now.

The cat surveys her twinkley-lit domain