Yarn and stuff

So I've spent part of the morning chipping away at the 1400 (yes, you read that right) emails in my Yahoo inbox. It's like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon, and I don't know why. I've been unsubbing from various newsletters as I get them, but it still seems like an uphill fight.

Found out that there's a big music festival of some sort in Nashville the weekend we'll be there, so we need to start looking for a hotel room ASAP. I meant to get that done this weekend, but it was a bust. Sunday was 90% wasted, thanks to a birthday party for one of DH's many nieces. We left at noon and got home just before 7 p.m. Between that, a night of TV (Dresden Files, Battlestar, and the insanity that is 7th Heaven), and showers/baths all around, I got squat done yesterday. My computer time was about 20 minutes all told, and half of that I spent taking care of an auction I won on Ebay. I had the winning bid on a diaper bag, which I don't really need, but it was a great price (retail is $140, I paid $31 with shipping) and if I don't like the color, it should be easy to resell.

But, at this rate we'll never find a house. Or anything else on the never-ending list of Things To Do.

I did get to play with some yarn this weekend. I wound one skein of the Canadiana into a ball and crocheted with it for a while to get the feel of it. It's the variegated "Misty Mountain" which is shades of blue and green; it's darker in person than on the website, but it's got a sort of silvery undertone to it - the "misty" part, I guess. It's prettier worked up than in a ball, and I think it will make El Burrito a lovely hat or something. And the Canadiana is definitely softer than the other acrylics I've got. I also figured out the "seed pattern" used in a couple of the afghan patterns, and it's both simple and interesting-looking.

I also went to the library and cleaned out their crochet afghan books. There are some likely looking patterns, so I just need to find colors that will go with the purple Canadiana, and it'll be good to go. There's at least one afghan that looks lovely (and within my skill set), but purple isn't the right color for it. But if I can figure out the carried-yarn thing, it would be beautiful. It's a seablue body, with a Greek keyhole design along the edges. Fits well with my fondness for Classical Studies.

It's going to be a busy week. I don't foresee getting a lot accomplished, with an appointment of some sort almost every day.

• Tonight - credit union meeting (always fun - free dessert, great door prizes)
• Tuesday - taking DH to his eye appointment, since he has to get his eyes dilated. Plus, if time permits, a trip to the library for the Tuesday sale
• Wednesday - the monthly lunch with the ladies from the condo (postponed due to weather)
• Thursday - nothing at the moment
• Friday - Pediatrician visit for El Burrito, but no booster shots this time (Yay!) Plus a trip to the local toy store that's going out of business, to see what Breyer horses and Schleich animals they may have on sale for me, and possibly books & toys for El Burrito. And it truly sucks that a city of almost 100,000 people can't support a toy store other than Toys R Us. I've been in TRU, thanks to a gift card we got for the baby, and I'm not impressed. Their toy selection seems pretty skimpy for little kids, and for the bigger kids, they seem to be overly emphasizing action figures and video games.
  

And that's my ramble for now.

Hats and More Hats

For your viewing pleasure, we present tonight:

The Many Hats of El Burrito

Hat Number 1: The Awesome Hospital Hat. A nice blue/green/yellow variegated hat, done in either single or half-double crochet. He probably got this one because it was the only one big enough for his large head. I'm not kidding here; he's consistently in the 95+ percentile for head circumference at his pediatrician visits. It's a family thing, not a medical problem. His father's family just has large noggins. It's probably part of the reason he was a C-section.

He got a second hat at the hospital, a blue knitted one, but it was too small from the beginning. It kept squirting up off his head.


Hat Number 2: The blue variegated hat I did when he started to outgrow the Hospital Hat. Done in Red Heart Super Saver's Aqua color, I think. There was test hat before this one, done with random increases and guesswork, because I could not find a pattern for a plain crochet hat anywhere, just hats with bobbles, ear flaps, poofy bits, and other frills. I thought it would be better to start with something simple. I finally got smart and counted the stitches on the Hospital Hat. I wish I'd thought of that bright idea sooner. That guesswork hat is pretty ratty looking, but it served its purpose. I also used it to practice puff stitches for the Acorn hat later on.

The Aqua is not as soft as the yarn in the Hospital Hat, but I couldn't find anything close to that color mix. I looked at the soft baby yarns, but there wasn't a lot of selection. Yellows and pinks seem to be common, at least around here, and I was wanting something with blues and purples. Apparently purple and green are now "girl" colors, and I didn't get that memo. Almost all of the cute purple baby clothes are for girls, and they put in enough ruffles and bows that I couldn't get away with letting El Burrito wear most of them. :-(

Hat Number 3: The candy corn hat. I found the pattern online somewhere and thought it would be good practice. You can't see too well in this picture, but it's striped like a piece of candy corn, and his sleeper also has candy corn print. Also done in acrylic, some Caron and some Red Heart, I think. Caron's yarn seems to be softer, at least in the colors I used for this hat.

Finding the right shade of orange was surprisingly hard, since it was October at the time. I also ended up with a big skein of florescent hunter orange, so maybe my brother and dad will get bright orange hats one of these days.


Hat Number 4: The Acorn hat, from a book called Too Cute Crochet for Babies & Toddlers. There are a lot of cute hats in the book, including a couple that I plan to make in the future (a white sailor hat, yellow fisherman's rain hat, and possibly a red cowboy hat). I used Lily Sugar & Cream cotton yarn, in Jute and Warm Brown, which is what most of the examples in the book were done with. It's supposed to have two crocheted leaves on the top, but I didn't get the yarn for that, and I don't fully trust the book's pattern to be easy to follow, or correct, for that matter. They had a big error in the pattern for this one, the hat was two inches larger than it should have been and there was a lovely night spent trying to figure out why.

This one came out pretty well. I did have to adjust to the cotton yarn instead of acrylic. The cotton seems to grab the hook more, even though I use metal hooks. It took a while to get used to that and the way it changed the tension and gauge.

Wasting time

How is it that I can feel like I'm perpetually behind, I have a list god-knows-how-long of things to do, and I'm sitting here feeling as if I'm waiting to be able to start something. It's bizarre.

• I've got two online photo shows to judge (it's a model horse thing; hard to explain). But, I can't start judging until 5:00, so I've got two hours to wait on that. And of course someone's napping now, so later when I can work on this, he'll be awake.
  
• I've got skeins and skeins of yarn, but I can't think of what to make.
• I need to mail my sister's Xmas box. But before I can do that, I have to box it up, which means finding a box, and finishing the catnip mouse, and finding enough peanuts and bubble wrap to box it all up.
  
• I could stand to vacuum, but with El Burrito napping, that's out of the question.
• I'm trying to research speed tests on xD media cards, but from what I can tell, the H-cards are faster and not that much more expensive. CF is supposedly faster, but the camera I'm going to buy doesn't use CF, so it's a moot point.
• I need to finish my spreadsheet of earned income last year for the tax prep. But honestly, I don't feel like it.
  
• I need to order said camera, and I think I've decided who to buy from, but I'm having that problem where I am reluctant to commit to spending the money.
  

I feel like I've gotten nothing done today. I have, really. I took El Burrito to the mall, where we bought Valentine cards a day late (but not marked down), and very little Valentine candy at Target. The post-holiday clearance was pretty skimpy - lots of overpriced chocolate, ceramic jugs, and that was about it. I got the last bag of Kisses; most of the other candy was strange-brand chocolate or pre-made cookies. Not even any neat cards left, just Hello Kitty and Desperate Housewives cards. Bizarre. It felt like a wasted trip, actually. But it got us out of the house on our own, for the first time this week.

Then I got home, changed a diaper, rebooted the PC, checked my email, and had lunch. And discovered that I have two jars of Peter Pan peanut butter that have been recalled. What fun. And now El Burrito is awake, most assuredly hungry, and I have to go take care of things.

Acorn hats and yarn

Oooo, two posts in one day. Credit El Burrrrito for that, he took a two-hour-plus nap at lunchtime.

The acorn hat is finished. This might be the first version of the puff stitch, I'm not sure. I did two rounds of puff, thought they were too big, ripped them out, and did them again. They turned out longer than I thought anyway, so I probably could have left out a round or two of the light brown. El Burrito's head is large as far as circumference, but apparently not length-wise. This picture is before I turned the hat inside-out to hide the yarn-tail at the top.





Here it is, modeled by El Burrito himself. He got compliments on it the past two weekends, when we've visited various family members. He does look cute in it. Unfortunately, it's not much for keeping his head really warm, and the puffs make good handles when he tries to pull it off his head. For cold days, he'll be wearing the candy corn hat or the blue variegated hat (Red Heart yarn - love the colors, but the yarn's not as soft as I'd like).














More yarn arrived in the mail yesterday, too. I won 7 skeins (3.5 oz, approximately 200 yards) of Patons Canadiana in purple on Ebay. It's older yarn, and doesn't have the color name on the band, just "Color #25" which apparently isn't in production, or has changed numbers along the way. The Really Green and Bright Royal are from the Joann.com order last month. The green is brighter than it looked on my monitor, which is why I wish I could find a store around here that carries the Canadiana. I still like the colors, but finding colors that work well together could be hard if I can't see them in person.

And now I have to figure out what to do with all this yarn. The purple is too much for a scarf and hat, but not enough for an afghan unless I add other colors. Patons only makes two other shades of purple, but I could probably use the purple with a darker green and a blue and come up with a striped afghan. Or maybe a vest of some sort. I've got some books on hold at the library, so I can look for some ideas.

I'm not a shawl person, or a sweater person, so my options are limited. It stinks to like to crochet, but be limited in what I can make, since I prefer making things that are useful. Some things I will make to give away (catnip mice), but some things I want to keep, especially after putting in that hard work, and picking colors that I love.

Suggestions welcome! Afghan? Vest? Huge scarf? Matching scarves for the whole family (ignoring the fact that DH won't wear a hat, much less a purple scarf)? Leg warmers?

The Cartwright Curse, or, Miss Kitty Dodges a Bullet

(No pun intended, of course)

We had a weekend visit to my parents this past weekend, which is what brought this theory of mine to mind again. I call it the "Cartwright Curse" because I first noticed it while watching old Bonanza re-runs, but it's made an appearance on Gunsmoke as well, and I'm sure on The Big Valley and other westerns that I haven't watched recently enough to have examples of.

Someone seems to have put a curse on the Cartwright boys. Pay attention and you'll start to see it. Any time one of the boys (Papa Ben included) starts to spark a girl, she's doomed. It might be a runaway wagon, an Indian raid, an outbreak of typhus, or something else, but she's not long for this earth. Even if Little Joe, Hoss, or Adam don't propose marriage specifically, she'll likely be dead before the hour's up. I'm not sure how often it happened, but I'm surprised that the Cartwrights didn't give up on the idea of dating.

The Curse also spread to Dodge City at least twice. Newly O'Brien (my favorite side character when I was younger) finally meets a lovely young woman and falls in love. As expected, Patricia's dead by the end of the episode, the victim of a blood disorder. Unexpectedly, she actually lives long enough to get through the wedding, but then dies in Newly's arms later on. Poor Doc Adams didn't even have that much luck. He hires Dr Sam McTavish to cover his practice while he's gone. "Sam" turns out to be a female, she and Doc spend half the episode arguing with each other, she accepts his non-proposal, and then expires. I believe it was bubonic plague that time. I can only theorize that Kitty survived because she and Matt never actually got to the "dating" part of the relationship, as far as I can tell.

I'm almost certain that the Curse appears in The Big Valley as well. How could it not, with three sons (one being Lee Majors) and a daughter (Linda Evans) running around? They probably left a path of sorrow at least equal to the Cartwrights, although Little Joe might have been enough of a heart throb to count double. I've got the first season of Big Valley on DVD, so I'll have to pay attention as I watch the episodes.

I'm not sure which other Westerns fell victim to the Curse. I'd thought Rawhide, just because of Clint Eastwood, but then the herd probably didn't stay in one place long enough for any sparking to occur. And sadly, I can't think of any other oldies right now, at least none that I've watched recently.

Strange Words

"Cattle" is a strange word.

Think about it. You see a single bovine critter in a field. For the sake of argument, assume that it's near enough to tell that it's a bovine, not a mule, giraffe, or deer, but distant enough that you can't see the plumbing. You want to say "Hey, look at that " but what do you call it? Bull and steer are both masculine, cow and heifer are feminine, and calf, while gender-neutral, is used for young animals, not the full-grown beastie you're looking at. "Cattle" covers all genders, but it's plural.

There's no common genderless word for an individual bovine, at least that I can think of, unless you go with the Latin-based "bovine" that makes you sound odd. For other animals, we have both singular and plural words that are genderfree. "Horse" covers all cases, and you have mare, stallion, gelding, colt, and filly if you want to get gender- and age-specific. Ditto for "chicken" and the counterparts hen, rooster, pullet, cockerel, and chick.

I could go on with other examples, but I've got other things to get done.

Loreena, Canada, and the weather

The weather here is rotten, again. Sleet last night, snow on top of it today, and below-freezing temps until Friday or so. Windchill tonight in the -10 (F) region. So, while I catch up on Zoom surveys, I will regale the Internet with the Tale of How I Discovered Loreena.

How I Discovered the Music of Loreena McKennitt: An Essay (of sorts)

Back in my younger days, in college, I was a big fan of a show called Highlander: The Series (something of a sequel to the Highlander movies starring Christopher Lambert). For the 4th season, the series opened with an awesome episode called "Homeland" which featured enough Scottish scenery to make me drool, on top of one of my favorite storylines. The episode featured a song called "Bonny Portmore" as part of the background music. It was a beautiful song, so I started trying to track it down. I never found the version used in the episode, but a friend in my dorm loaned me a CD called The Visit, by Loreena McKennitt, that had her version of the song. And that's how I became a Loreena fan. Later on, her songs were also used in various episodes of Due South and EZ Streets, which was an added bonus.

As far as Highlander, I was a fan until the last season, when things went soooo wrong. I'm still in denial over certain events that happened at the end. But Highlander may have been the beginning of my addiction to Canadian TV shows. I get a kick out of watching Canuck shows and spotting actors that I've seen in other series. While watching DaVinci's Inquest at lunch today, I saw Ian Tracey (who had a steady role in Fly By Night), as well as Ben Bass (Vachon in Forever Knight), I believe the actor who plays Cottle on Battlestar Galactica, and an actress who was a Tok'ra on Stargate for at least one episode. Plus, the actress who plays DaVinci's daughter (I believe) was one of the main characters on Firefly. It turns into a bizarre "Six Degrees of Canada" game, with bonus points if I recognize a location from our trip to Vancouver.

Thanks to a fussy-gus El Burrito, it's taken me 5 hours to finish writing this. So I'd better post it before I get sidetracked yet again.