martinimade

many things make a post

* An off-hand comment I sent to Sport Illustrated's tennis-beat reporter/resident expert Wertheim wound up in his mailbag column. I'm nearly bursting with excitement, especially since my name is that close to Andy Roddick's picture. It's the simple things.

* Wine drinking and knitting: A partnership whose day has come.

* I'm debating about driving down to the city with the Diva to catch Ellen K's Klezmer Nutcracker. I aheb no doubt that the show will be great; I'm just not sure if I want to schlep a 7-year old to it. Still, hotel rooms are cheap right now and a little klezmer can make any schlep worth it.

* Octopus glasses!

* I wonder what percentage of my college students just got "Turkey Dropped."

* Want to drive down your company's health care costs? Encourage your employees to eat better.

* I actually sat in the garage so that I could hear the end of Neil Gaiman's NPR piece on audiobooks. I'm a big fan of the form, btw, and am working through Pratchett's discworld in audio form. I'm up to Guards! Guards!

gnomes!

And so another Thanksgiving has passed. Turkey was et. The house is pretty much trashed. Fun was had. 

The Boy was so wiped out last night - after nearly five days of non-stop movement - he spent the better part of the evening sitting on the couch with me and cuddling his stuffed Paz. This never happens, btw, which is what makes it so bloomin' noteworthy.

Also over the long weekend, I made gnomes. 

 

The kit is from Halcyon and the instructions make these an easy afternoon project. Stabbing things repeatedly with needles is always fun, too. 

I'm not 100 perfect satisfied with their faces but am still playing with them, in the hopes that they can look more puckish and less psychotic. 

Speaking of -

This is how Greg spent the best part of the weekend:

 

We will be staging an intervention later.

the long weekend

We've spent the last few days doing what Americans do during this time of year, which is eating ourselves silly and generally being thankful for the opportunity to do so. 

In addition to that, the Diva spent some times channeling her inner Edie Beale:

 

Which I find somewhat alarming, frankly.

The Boy got all meta and took pictures of my dad taking pictures of him:

 

When he wasn't pretending to be Lightening McQueen.

breaking

The Muppets take on Queen. Hilarity ensues.

many things make a post

* I love good infographic porn. And this video representation of the decline and fall of maritime empires is awesome infographic porn. I'll be in my bunk.

* Want to live longer? Shack up with a smart woman.

* Oh, Paper Source. Why do you torture me so? 

* The Featureless Saint sent this piece about overparenting along. The part that slays me is that there are now consultants who will come to your house and teach you how to not overparent. Of course, it can be *really* hard to let go, especially when you lose one of them in the woods. And Ali and I had the same response.

* There is something steampunkish about these ads.

* RuPaul's Drag Race will be back soon! Can. Not. Wait.

* I still miss Gilda Radner.

* I don't have a link for this but Karen Joy Fowler (whose Wit's End you should read)  has an essay about grief in December's Real Simple magazine. It is very, very good.

* This piece on men and urinals includes a quote from Josh Wolk. As well as, um, bits about men and urinals.

* Katha Pollit on Gail Collins' book When Everything Changed. I try to not get to ticked off with women my age and younger who "aren't feminists," yet still do wacky things like have jobs or own property or divorce abusive spouses or wear pants...

holiday parade, now with more alpaca

This Saturday, I helped shepherd a bunch of Brownies down Main Street for the annual holiday parade. Of course, one of those Brownies was my own.

 

There were dancing Santas.

 

And baby alpacas.

 

What I mostly saw was this: 

All of the Girl Scouts in the parade were wearing chef's hats and aprons because they were collecting food for the local food bank. I was simply stunned by the amount of canned goods, etc., folks gave us along the parade route. Which tells you something about both my low expectations and the generosity of people in the region.

A fine time was had by all, it seems, even though hot cocoa needed to be applied so that we could feel our fingers again. Which is what you expect in late November but I foolishly failed to bring either gloves or a hot cup of joe to carry with me. Next year.

qotd, my continuing love for Jincy Willett

"Amy could not recall ever having laughed this hard. She did not feel, as the cliche would have it, as though her sides would split, but rather as if something high in front, her breastbone maybe, would buckle, or maybe her heart would just seize up. This was 'hysterical' laughter, and finally experiencing it confirmed her most deeply held belief: that all laughter, except possibly the nervous tittering sort - which was counterfeit, really - stemmed from the same source: an accidental glimpse behind the curtain of denial at the Real Deal, an uncontained porridge of nothingness and stars through which meteors, comets, entire galaxies whiz like shaving-cream pies."

- Jincy Willett, The Writing Class, which is a gorgeous, nuanced-yet-simple book about writers and writing and life. And I seem to be smitten with it. 

actual knitting content: shawlette

I've had some time on my hands, which means that I was planted on the couch finishing UFOs while the Boy watched Spongebob. And, so, Multnomah:

 

The art shots:

 

 

My helper during the art shots:

 

The deets: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Froggin purchased from The Fold at Rhinebeck 2009. Size 5 needles. Took maybe two weeks to knit? Something like that. Quickish and satisfying. 

On a completely different note, I'd usually save this for a many things post but I'm not certain how long the link will work. The River Valley guy is placing his ads in the local almost-daily again. I was worried about him. Nice to know he's still f'king that chicken....