Larocque and Roll

Last post of the year

Yesterday I was out running some errands, and I stopped in at Zellers to look for a plastic bin for my scarves, mittens and hats, but I didn’t see anything that tickled my fancy.

(…What? Where was I last week? I went home for Christmas for a few days. I took the train down, partied hard with the ‘rents and the sibs, and then took the train back. I had to work this weekend, so I couldn’t stay for long.)

So, finding no bins, I went to look at blinds, because I needed something for the window in the kitchen. My window looks into my neighbour’s kitchen window, and it’s kind of disconcerting at times.

(…Sorry? Where have I been for the last few months? I apologize for that. I’ve been busier than I expected, what with the new job, moving, NaNoWriMo, and the new job. Sometimes I compose blog posts in my head, but then I get home and all I can think is “……………..”)

Back to my story – I found bamboo blinds for the living room window, because the curtain there was falling apart. When I got to the checkout, I was told that blinds were on sale – buy one, get one free. Woo-hoo! There hadn’t been one that would exactly fit the kitchen window, but bamboo can be trimmed – good enough! And in a fit of ambition, I got both of the up last night!

(…I beg your pardon? What did I get for Christmas? A pasta maker and a ravioli press, maple syrup from my parent’s neighbour’s sugar bush, a set of frying pans, a ball winder (yay!), a knitting calender, a cookbook, fluffy sheets, a sweater, and some baskets. No, I couldn’t get it all back because the train company frowns on bringing wheelbarrows onto the train, so the ‘rents are bringing what I couldn’t carry when they come up in March. Can I finish my story?)

In a further fit of ambition, today I finally got my books onto the bookcases (it only took three months), hung a bulletin board in the office, hung a dry erase board in my kitchen, did the dishes, went for groceries, and made cream of carrot soup and zesty cornmeal bread. I was going to make foccacia bread, but I didn’t have enough flour.

(…You again? What am I doing to ring in the new year tonight? I was just getting to that!)

Plans for tonight changed several times over the past few days, but the one constant was wanting to be anti-social. There were plans for someone to have a trivia games party, but it turns out everyone else wanted to be anti-social too, so I got to do what I had wanted to do all along – stay home in my pj’s, knit and watch movies. It’s not that I wouldn’t have like to play trivia games, but I just wanted to stay home tonight.

(…What am I knitting? A sock. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but I only had one done at the time. I’m at the heel on the second sock, so it shouldn’t take much longer. Podcasts, especially the three hour round-table Battlestar Galactica discussion, make wonderful knitting accompaniment. And to answer the question I know you’re going to ask next: yes, I did buy yarn when I was home. It’s pretty and soft and I loves it.)

Any more questions? No? Okay then! Happy New Year!

Don’t drink and blog

…okay, so I won’t. But let’s just say I’m considerably more mellow and approachable than I was half an hour ago when I got home from work.

It’s been and insane week or two, starting last Friday. (Yes, it’s been two weeks since this past Friday, or at least it’s felt like two weeks). Thursday was nice – I had the day off and went down to Huntsville for a day trip. There’s a yarn store there – the kind of yarn store that sells real wool, and many different varieties of it, too – along with two (count ‘em – two!) bead stores and several other neat little shops. Then Friday and Saturday were spent wrestling with the staff schedule, Saturday night, Sunday and Monday night there were parties, and this coming Friday I head home for almost a week. My dishes are stacking up, my laundry isn’t done, and there is a considerable amount of dust on my stairs. The bathroom? Let’s not speak of it for now.

Other things not worth speaking about – the Christmas presents I still need to buy, and the Christmas baking I need to do before Friday morning.

Monday night’s party was actually the Christmas gathering of the North Bay Knitter’s Guild, which I attended at the invitation of two women I met last month at a craft tour. We had started talking about knitting, and I expressed a desire to join a knitter’s group (nothing like a group of knitters to motivate you to get off your duff and finish a few projects), and they told me about the guild. I emailed back and forth with one of them, which is how I got out on Monday night – they’re a lovely bunch and I can’t wait for the January meeting. Also, I may have volunteered to make a pair of handwarmers like the ones I made for the Knitting Olympics for someone, as long as she supplied the wool. The best part was getting a pattern for a pair of mittens one of the other managers at work had been telling me about – someone at the gathering was making a pair of shadow box (or Newfie) mittens, and I asked if she could send me the pattern. Lo and behold, they actually had multiple copies with them!

I haven’t forgotten about my NaNo story. The bad news is that I’m not going to post the whole thing – only excerpts. The good news is that I’ll post excerpts from 2006 AND 2005! It’s just a matter of having a free evening to do so, which might not be until after the holidays. But I will post them! I promise!

Other not-so-interesting news.

* I am officially sick to death of Roger Whitaker. Not just Roger Whitaker, but the two Christmas songs of his that keep being played over and over and over and over and over and… you get the picture.
* Christmas songs I am not sick of – the John Denver and the Muppets CD my mom sent me!
* After watching the library copy of season 1 of Veronica Mars, I went out and bought myself season 1 AND season 2 for Christmas, and watched all of them last week. That show is awesome.
* There is no day so wretched that it can’t be made better by the liberal application of white wine. This is not a recent discovery – a friend of my mother’s told me this when she found me in her kitchen one day after school, when my car had broken down for the 51st time that day (luckily, in front of her house) for no obvious reason, and I was on the phone with a parent (I can’t remember which one) who was asking, “Did you leave the car lights on and kill the battery AGAIN?” She handed me a glass of white wine and said, “Here – this is medicinal.” Truer words were never spoken.

A very special open letter to Galaxie TraditionalHoliday*

* FYI – TraditionalHoliday is the station on my satellite dish which plays Christmas music non-stop.

Dear Programers of Galaxie TraditionalHoliday,

Thank you for helping me get in the holiday spirit this year. You’ve played a lovely selection of holiday music so far, and I’ve had it on in the background every day for the past few days. I’m now full of the holiday spirit, yo. However, I have a few comments I’d like to throw your way:

Roger Whitaker – you play him three to four times every hour. I haven’t heard him at all in over 20 years, and yet now I’ve heard him at least 20 times in the past 7 days. That’s way too many times.

Why do you insist on playing the same song three times in a row? Granted, it’s by three different artists, but really? I had no idea there were that many ways to interpret “Little Drummer Boy.” (I should mention one of these interpretations is by Kenny G. And that’s one interpretation that didn’t need to be made in the first place. At all.)

Could you please tell Neil Diamond to take it down a notch? I’m afraid he’s going to be overcome with emotion every time you play his version of “Silent Night.” Not to mention that he’s going to hurt himself one of these days with his enthusiastic belting of “O Holy Night.”

I’m not a big Sarah McLachan fan, but her version of “What Child is This?” that you played this afternoon was perfectly lovely. Kudos!

Why no “Fairytale in New York”? That’s my signal – the first time I hear it played in December is when I know the holidays have started. Yet you persist in not playing it – does Shane McGowan’s slurred delivery and Kirsty McColl’s sharp responses bother you?

And, why no John Denver and the Muppets? Why no “The Restroom Door Said ‘Gentlemen’”? No “Walkin’ ‘Round in Women’s Underwear”? “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”? Do you fear the novelty Christmas song?

Anyways, thanks and have a pleasant holiday!
r.

(I swear to god – as I was writing this, they played Roger Whitaker and followed it up with Neil Diamond.)

Protected: My NaNoWriMo

What I did this weekend:
Worked.
Cleaned my bathroom.
FINALLY packed up and put away my summer clothes.
Tidied off my desk.
Washed the dishes five or six times. (And yet, there’s still more. Why?)
Put up Christmas lights.
Bought a snow shovel.
Did groceries.
Got an extension cord for the Chinese laterns which have been hanging in my kitchen for over a week.
Watched:

• the first six episodes of season 1 of Doctor Who
• the first four episodes of season 1 of Veronica Mars
• the unaired pilot for the Aquaman show which didn’t get picked up by the CW network (my review: cheesy, but lead actor was definite eye-candy)
• Battlestar Galactica. The. Best. Episode. Ever!

Knit like the wind. Or at least what passes for the wind in my case.

What I didn’t do this weekend.
Sweep.
Dust the stairs.
Laundry (d’oh! I was going to do that tonight and forgot!)
Excerpts. I’m working on that tonight.

There were other things, but I’ve forgotten them. Quel surprise.