Coming off Anaesthesia

So the 5 teeth turned into 6 at some point, I have a mouth so full of temporary crowns the dentist just made whole side panels instead of individual teeth and it took an extra half day to do it all.

My toe doesn't hurt at all any more, isn't that strange?

I just keep taking naps punctuated by leaving smartass comments on some of my friends blogs. and eating ibuprofen like I hate my liver or something. So I decided this time I woke up I was coherent enough (at least my internal monologue is, if I talk I still sound like "the Spleen") to post a little. First, here is a picture that rather beautifully sums up my Sunday knitting at Knitch.


Picture courtesy of the Happy Goth who has a camera that actually works. She and I went to Target sunday morning and loaded up on halloween candy for all the knitters. If I had known it was Nells' birthday I would have gotten her a card at least or maybe her own bag of chocolate monster bodyparts. Anyway, we has a great turnout even considering how many folks were off at SAFF having yarn buying crises. Many of the Sunday crew who showed up had day-tripped SAFF and Doug let us drool over his acquisitions as he put the last few finishing touches to his fantastic sweater. I drank beer, ate chocolate and finished the first Bird Foot sock.

So now it is Tuesday, I have lost 2 precious days of my life to my crazed dentist and I am taking internet quizzes, which is the next step in coming off the anaesthetic, right after the tingly discomfort and inappropriate blog commenting phase.

Which'>http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=11856N">Which sci-fi crew would you best fit in with? (pics) created with

Did you know that ALL the tests I take that place me in a sci-fi world put me in the Firefly category? Or crew me to Serenity? Or generally categorize me as a browncoat? I suppose its not really any stranger than being a poultry god.

Broken.

Well, as you can see here, I really did manage to break the blog. In true gonzo blogging style I started to screw with the template only to find that there had been some upgrade or another to the platform and would I kindly download or convert or whatever and copies would be saved and life would become simpler, and I thought, "Shiny!" and proceeded. I was never prompted to do the promised saving, and before I knew it, the old template was gone into the ether. Next time I go all Bruce Campbell with the keyboard, somebody stop me. So now I'm all "Yo, she-bitch! Let's go!" at Blogger, and I'm cutting and pasting from old saved (HA!) files and every freakin time I try to preview, it is giving me errors.

So now we're all plain. And chainsaws aren't helping. Poo.

In other broken news, my camera is spontaneously unbreaking and rebreaking in a completely random and puzzling way, but I am not getting the camera replaced anytime soon due to the impending date with my dentist who going to give me more gold than most rappers display. The reason? As gentle readers of this blog know, my job is a teensy bit stressful from time to time, and apparently I am grinding my teeth a bit. And maybe shattering them. A little. Ah, well, it goes with the whole broken theme, eh? Good thing I handle stress well.

Which leads me to offer kudos to Fleegle, who opened up a can of whoop-ass on her broken shawl and totally owned it. I admire that blend of talent, creativity and courage and I really look up to her and the other experienced knitters out there who lead by such magnificent example when times get tough and patterns get stubborn. Go look at her amazing shawl.

So I got the camera working for another minute and snapped a picture of my last broken thing. Then when I went to upload it, Blogger tells me its.........BROKEN! Ha! This calls for a contest. Guess what the picture was going to be of, and win a skein of the new Raven Series STR! Yes, that's right, you'll have to wait until November for your prize if you win, but I couldn't think of anything more appropriate considering how similar the colors are between the yarn and the broken thing. So, who's up for it? Email your guesses to me at chickengoddessatmindspringdotcom (you know how that works) before midnight EDT on Friday, October 19, 2007 and the cats can pick the winner from the correct guesses. And then we all wait till November. Oh, well, my contest is a little broken, too.

10-16-07 Edited to add:
Template fixed!

Dude, Where's My Blog?

For all of you who still have me on your bloglines, thanks for being patient (or just too lazy to remove me). I have been in the unenviable position of having so little free time I had to choose between knitting and blogging. And I chose the knitting.

But tonight I cannot knit, so I blog. Why, you ask, can I not knit? Well, I got bit above the wrist by one of my cats, and it seems I got bit bad enough to get infected in a mere 12 hours from bite to doctor's office. Ah, well, left handed typing is my amusement now. Fun.

When last we met, I had eight cats and two chickens and a small handful of baby fish keeping my big pair company in the pond. I now have nine cats, one chicken (these events are not related) and a gazillion growing fish in a too small pond. However, the remaining chicken, Ophelia, is a real trooper, giving us our daily egg and plenty amusement. Will I get a second chicken? We will see next spring, for now, I'll be happy to overwinter Ophelia. One chicken takes lots less precious time to deal with.

So, for the knitting. Right now, all uni-handed, I am too spazzy to get pictures together, but I will post some very soon. Not 3 months soon, like this weekend soon, maybe sooner if the meds get on top of this stupid infection. But I have finished the Fair Isle Sampler Hat, which was really rewarding, and am 3/4 of the way through the Paistu Mittens from 2 Pieceworks ago, I am almost done with some Trekking socks, I am acquiring quite a backlog of Petals Collection Yarn from Sundara's club (which is almost too pretty to knit!) and I have scored some of the new KSH purple color. Which brings me to this question.

Why do I keep buying KSH when I have yet to successfully knit with the stuff? Does anyone else have this sort of yarn problem? I can't stop buying it, I want all the colors, I love it, I adore it, I have big dreams and plans for it, and I can't make five freaking rows of lace with it without having to unknit it. Because you know it absolutely can't be frogged in the conventional manner. What is my problem here? And, to make matters worse, I buy it 3 balls at a time like I am going to knit a Birch in every flippin color. I have no idea. It is just a romantic dream I guess, but even I think it's weird.

Well, this is short but this is all I have energy for now. While everyone under the sun is at Rhinebeck this weekend I will be blogging (for real, with pics, finally), knitting (hopefully), and nullifying my antibiotics with a beer or two (definitely). What the heck.

Koyaanisqatsi

Many thanks to all of you who have been sending notes of condolence and good wishes. It is so nice to know that you all are out there thinking of me from time to time, checking the blog and being patient with me.

Things have been better.

They are, however, looking up. Remember my partner with the stress-induced vertigo? Her being out left us 3 pharmacists down, and almost gave me a case of stress-induced quitting. But I really do love my job, and that became my mantra until she got better and we hired two new pharmacists who I think will really work out well. So there. Now I can breathe again.

But enough about me working, lets get to me knitting. And dyeing. First, lets have a lovely shot of the finished yard from our last dyeing installment. It came out darker than I had planned, darker than the picture. But I really really like it. I even named it.


I am calling it Blood and Souls. Yes, yes, from the books about the ridiculously depressed albino superhero. What can I say? I had an Elric phase. And the color really is more blood-like than the picture. I was going to call it the Bloody Baron, then I remembered that he's a ghost and his bloodstains were silver, which totally wouldn't work. Blood and Souls it is.

In further non-knitting news, there has been much backyard improvement thanks to mother nature and DHL. First, from the water garden we have the exciting news that my asiatic lotus has five buds. I didn't get one flower last year because it was a baby, but this year it is very happy.

Two of the three buds. Down near the water there are two more buds just starting! Bonus!

Second, from the back forty, DHL delivered my eglu about a week ago. I'm just waiting on my chickens to arrive. This picture's kind of blue, but it was just about to rain when I took it.

Last but not least, I have been knitting. In dribs and drabs, surely, but knitting did happen. I went on a bit of a starting binge. First, because two colors just weren't enough for me (it seems)...

The insanely long and cool Fair Isle Sampler Hat from IK Fall 2004. Yes I am tired of weaving in ends already.

And last because when charts were too much for my brain there's nothing like the instant gratification of Trekking XXL...

With a picot edge. God, I am such a follower. But I made my own decorative stitch markers, so neener neener neener.

And where, you may well ask, are my previous WIP's? They're still there, I've just been fickle as hell. And in the true spirit of someone who's largely too busy to knit, I have still managed to buy. But that will be another post for another day. I have to dye more yarn and update my template now.

BTW, koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi indian word which means "life out of balance". I thought that pretty well summed things up. It is also a movie I really like.

Workaholic much?

For all of you nice folks out there who have left comments and not gotten responses, I really appreciate your patience. Work has taken over my life for the moment, but the end is in sight. We are already 1 pharmacist short, and with 2 deaths in families, 3 hospitalizations, a case of food poisoning and a boss/partner with stress induced vertigo, I am doing the job of 97 normal pharmacists and no one has even had time to try to hire anyone else. Knitting is something I am looking forward to rediscovering. Sleep as well. For now, I leave you with a reprise photo of Jackson which pretty much sums up the way I feel.


Tired.