Neil Gaiman is So Good

My Day Off

I'm taking my use-it-or-lose-it vacation on Friday for the rest of the year. Apparently, the purpose of this is going to be so I can exhaust myself.

We got up this morning (slowly, to be honest) and I finished reading the book for our book group. The meeting is tomorrow afternoon. We finished the book, finally. Our first meeting on this book was in April of 2008. And it looks like we skipped the first chapter! Oops! I'll have to point that out tomorrow. I bet we were originally planning to read the first and last chapters together.

We then went to work, on my day off, in order to get our flu shots. This was by far the best injection I've ever had. Usually, they tell you, "You're going to feel a little pinch," and it's a big pinch. This time, she said, "You're going to feel a little pinch," and I felt NOTHING. The needle had some kind of spring-loaded return that scared me when I heard it go off before my turn, but I think it really made it easier.

Then we went to Kizl's for pierogies. Yummy!

Returning home, I changed into gardening clothing and headed outside. First I harvested my few small mis-shapen kohlrabi and filled in a section of garden I had dug up about a month ago. Then I planted my garlic. I had purchased the smallest bag, and I had 60+ cloves to plant plus a dozen to eat early. (I don't bother planting the very smallest of the cloves. There's so much garlic there, it's really not necessary to plant every last clove.) Then I planted my bulbs. I had to have had over 200 bulbs of various types to put in the ground. I've been planning this for some time, so I had tried to re-claim a fallow section of my garden over the last month or so. So even though the ground wasn't too hard to work because I'd dug it up recently, I was so exhausted when I came inside that I napped for forty-five minutes before dinner.

My sweetheart made chicken stew in honor of the kohlrabi. The ingredients were chicken, barley, carrots, onion, garlic, celery, kohlrabi, pepper, bay leaves, marjoram and thyme. It was really yummy, and I'm chasing it with a Guinness.

I will sleep well tonight.

Finally, here's a funny story for you from a blog I always enjoy. Have a great night!

Aerial Acrobatics

You know how you go on YouTube and one video leads to another?

This is amazing.

Yes, We Have NO Flu Vaccine

Apparently, there is no flu vaccine available anywhere in my immediate area. Everyone seems to be sold out. Well, that may not be true. Today is Sunday, so I won't know the situation on the ground at my doctor's office until they're open when I call.

Of course, I didn't get the flu shot earlier this month because I wasn't feeling too well. Since deciding to try to get a jump on my employer-sponsored clinic, I've had bouts of the sniffles and headaches, the standard allergy-induced misery of the season. Ah, I just don't want to have to drive to work in the middle of the day on a vacation day. As my co-worker says, I'll just have to "suck it up, Buttercup." Because I'm not skipping it.

Ok, Interesting Stuff?

1/ Via the Mind Hacks blog - "[...] the authors suggest that, because love activates a long-term perspective that elicits global processing, it should also promote creativity and impede analytic thinking. In contrast, inasmuch as sex activates a short-term perspective that elicits local processing, it should also promote analytic thinking and impede creative thinking."

2/ Lots of Free Music.

3/ If you were wondering, I can hardly tell that I burned myself now. It's a little numb, but the skin feels like real skin and everything.

4/ This guy is really funny.

5/ Did I mention I saw Jonathan Coulton live at Toad's Place last week? Thanks to Chris for knowing about it *before* it happened.

Hmmm. ArchivemessagesR has run. That means I'm up past my bedtime. Oops.

Can You Tell I'm Not in a Swap?

When I participate in a swap, it usually includes the requirement that I post at least 3 fiber-related blog posts per month.

That requirement helps, becuase usually I think of the perfect blog post while I'm driving. You never get those. You've never gotten one and you probably never will. They come, they occupy my mind long enough for me to decide they're absolutely brilliant, and then I lose them in traffic forever. Trust me, you're not missing much.

You also don't see the thoughts that go through my head when I'm trying to puzzle something out. This is because those would look something like this:

Let's see. It turns out I was wrong, we don't have:

a -> b
b -> c
c -> d
d -> e
e -> f

Really we have:

a -> b
b -> c
c -> c
c -> d
d -> b
b -> e
e -> f

Now, how am I going to figure out this chain? I'm going to have to use the timestamp. But that means I can't make this into a generic case, and I'm dealing with about 40,000 rows. Hmm...

I haven't shown my knitting in a while. That requires me to take photographs. I actually don't like taking photographs very much. I probably should take a class in photography. The homework would make me take the time to learn some theory and actually improve a bit. And if I took better photos, maybe I'd enjoy it more.

Yesterday, I thought about blogging about having burned my finger. I accidentally poured some boiling water over the back of my right index finger while making jelly. I have three apple trees in my front yard, and my grandmother always used to make jelly from them, so I find myself compulsively making jelly once every decade or so. This, however, is the first time I burned myself in the process.

Last night I thought I probably wouldn't be using my right index finger for a couple of days at least. I followed most of the instruction from the Mayo clinic and immersed it in cold water and took an ibuprofen. Then I ordered a glass of ice water at dinner to hold my finger against between bites and ended up soaking my finger by the end of the meal. So when I went to bed I found I finally had a use for the rather long tubular gauge swatch I had knit in preparation for my first successful sock. I used it as an ice-pack cover. I set the covered ice-pack on top of my hand and was surprised that I slept really well. This morning, I was thrilled to discover the finger didn't bother me much at all. I can even knit with it! (Ok, I'll admit that I knit continental. If I were using that finger for tension I wouldn't be quite so enthusiastic.)

It's a funny-looking ice-pack cover. I wanted to decide what size needles to use to knit a sock and the pattern called for 66 stitches in the round. So I've got about 2.5 inches of ribbing done on a size 0 needle, four inches of stockinette done on the same needle, another 2.5 inches of ribbing done on a size 1 needle, another four inches or so of stockinette done on the size 1 needle and then somewhat less than 2 inches of ribbing on the size 1 needle. By then I'd had enough so I cast off and threw the thing in the wash to see how it would turn out. I think it fit my leg snugger than it fit the ice-pack, but who cares? Now I've got a use for the funny-looking gauge swatch I couldn't figure out what to do with!

And the jelly is good, too.