Saturday, August 9, 2008

Lesson Learned (Day 38)

I guess it's the sign of advancing age, but I actually managed to food poison myself. With raw cookie dough.

Now, I've been eating raw cookie dough for ages, since I was a wee sprog sitting at Mom's feet while she did the cut and bake tube cookies. Well, and the homemade stuff as well, which is far superior in terms of taste and freshness. I love raw cookie dough--more than I love the baked cookies themselves, and since my nickname in high school was "Cookie Monster", I guess you can tell what depths my love of pervy, uncooked doughy goodness must plumb. I even love raw bread/biscuit/pizza dough. I've eaten so much of it down the years, I can tell when the dough is on its last proof and ready for the final kneading and baking by the taste of the dough. My absolute favorite of favorite raw doughs, though? Lemon tea cakes. Mmmmm. There's just something about the fresh tartness of the citrus (I've used lime before, with excellent results) and the sugar.....

Anyway. I was heartily ill (well, actually, not so much ill as inconvenienced--in fact, I had to force myself to, ahem, purge the offensive goods from my system because I was suffering the hateful nausea, swirling internal agony and--no doubt the worst symptom--the feverish obsessive thoughts that kept me from sleeping) overnight Wednesday to Thursday, so I called in on Thursday and schlumped around home all day, dozing and doodling and knitting at random. I did get out in the bright, warm-but-not-too-warm sunshine to send off some of my stash to a fellow Ravelry member who saw my stash pics and asked for the Knitpicks Gossamer in Red Hat. I was glad to send it off, since I wasn't completely happy with the red shades (too orange for me; I've got a Winter complexion). In trade, I'm getting some nice sock/fingering yarn in blue colors, which is moste excellent.

Anyway, it freed up some more of my lace needles, which is good. I want to cast on some other lace items, and I think I really need it. I loves me some lace knitting, particularly while working down that Who scarf (made another four inches, by the way--I've committed myself to knitting on it when I don't particularly want to pick up my lace, and further committed to knitting at least 20 minutes daily--which is four rows, or slighly less than half an inch). I completely forget how to purl when I do that scarf.

Although (and I feel rather stupid for only now realizing it) I finally realized that, no matter which stitch you're making, knit or purl, you're carrying the yarn over and to the back. *palmface* If my knitting instructor had only told me that up front, in the very first lesson, I would have been able to knit better from the very beginning! It wouldn't have taken me three months of avoidance to get over my angst and terror of feeling like a fool (and an uncoordinated one, at that) to pick up my needles again and start over. Yeesh. Oh, well. Maybe it's best I took the initiative to teach it to myself. That way, I finally learned the meaning of "back" and "front" as distinct from "wrong side" and "right side." She didn't explain that, either. Well, she did explain "right/wrong" sides, but since it doesn't become apparent for several rows of knitting, it wasn't really a good concept for the bare beginner. I'm beginning to think I could have taught that beginner class better than she did! If nothing else, I'd have started the class on slightly smaller needles and yarn. Those 15s are a total bitch to knit with, and chunky acrylic is a bear to knit.

I'm going to take a nap, now. Just on general principles. I was supposed to go to a booksigning this afternoon (a co-worker of mine is a friend of the author of Knock-Down Knits, and I certainly will be much nicer to him from now on, because she doesn't look like someone to be angered) today, but then I balanced my checkbook and remembered, Oh, yeah, I'm broke. Oh, well. The book will still be in print two months hence, and as I know him, I can always get it signed later, at my leisure, by her. Bonzer.

and later, after the nap....

This afternoon, my mother called me into the main part of the house, saying I had to see the pretty picture. And, lo;








Ain't he adorable?














I just couldn't resist--I mean, look at that cute little back toe! It's just so...fluffy. And his two paws, dangling over the edge, all nonchalant. I had to point out the back toe, which turned out to be a mistake. Immediately, he turned his attention to it:












Ewwww! Soggy toes!

After squishing him up in a warm, fuzzy, ill-tempered ball and hugging him until he grumbled at me, I went back out to my sunny room and found this:







No, your eyes do not decieve, that is two, count 'em, two boxes of cookies. One opened, the other not. And a box of crackers. And three projects, sprawled in voluputuous Kidsilk Haze and Merino wool abandon. Sigh. So, I took five seconds or so and did this:











Much nicer, overall. Now I don't have to listen to anyone grumble about what a pit my work area is. At least for a while.

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