random thoughts

Last night my sister, the kids and I spent a little quality time on youtube and a couple of other sites.  We watched theSNL Palin skits, as well as clips of the Palin/Currick interview.  Then we watched the entire interview.  It was both sad and frightening.  This is a woman who would be a heartbeat (and let's face it, he in all likelihood wouldn't last the whole four years) from the presidency.  I know interviews can be intimidating, but......... she was reading responses from notes, some of her answers didn't answer the questions, her answers about Israel and Iran were terrifying!  I can't believe anyone would support McCain, but with her as a running mate that should make it easier to decide not to.  
I watched the debates.  I was even less impressed by McCain than before.  Unfortunately I am convinced something hinky will go on with this election too.  
I think I'll buy a lottery ticket today.  
Last week went out with a friend.  I told my sister it was great to have a friend who could appreciate my interests (knitting, torchwood, firefly, good music, tea).  We had a day of all 5!  She purchased yarn, I just looked (totally not my fault, no matter what she says, I just took her there :-)  We went to Eleganza in Frederick.  My favorite part of the store, the sale bins.  Gotta love $4 yarn.  Then we had tea at Serenity.  It was awesome, as always.  Love that place.  My friend bought tea (again, not my fault - the store does have 53 varieties of loose tea so how could she resist).  Great times.  Part of the fun was me trying to remember how to get there.  Did I mapquest directions, like I usually do?  Of course not, so there were lots of wrong turns and a lot of driving around.  She took it well (I mean we did both have big Starbucks cups in hand and great music on the ipod) and we found both eventually.  I think I did well for having been to each place just once, and not on the same day.  Okay, maybe I went to the yarn shop twice, but it was a year ago.  
cph is still on the needles.  There is something intimidating about having to pick up 300 stitches.  Socks are almost done (finally), just need to bind off on one and finish the last inch of the 2nd.
No gift knitting done, or started, or thought about.  Okay, not true.  I am going to make a scarf for baby bro, as well as the socks.  Finally something to do with that dark blue baby alpaca (the scarf, not the socks). 
Off to finish the laundry.  The kids are home because of Rosh Hashanah.  I am ignoring them.

Why?????!!!!!!!

Why are some men such babies?  one of the guys was sooooo upset tonight because I wouldn't change his schedule so he could go home and watch the game tomorrow.  Good lord you would have thought it was the super bowl the way he carried on.  sheesh!  His reasons were perfectly sound.  Except this is the end of the fiscal year and tomorrow is inventory.  And I have scheduled two people to work inventory who haven't done it before.  I have no idea why they made him a supervisor.  He's such an ass.
*sigh*

Eureka!!!

Found new socks for baby Bro!!!

almost done......

Well, just sitting here listening to Blondie and enjoying the 500 gigs of external hard drive bliss just purchased from Best Buy (oh Joy!!!!).  No more evil "you have 200mb of memory, please delete something for heaven's sake!!!!" messages.  I put the whole itunes file on there and now I'm crusin'.  way cool.  

okay, still no pics, but the cph is almost done!!!  Unfortunately it fits her (booooooo......um....yea?) so I have to give it to her (my mom said so, 43 and still listening to mom *sigh*).  Anyway, now her brother wants a sweater.  Kinda nice, huh :-) especially since he doesn't know who the red one is for.  Now I am trying to find something for a 14yo boy.  It won't fit him by the time I finish it, but whatever.  I guess if I make it waaaaaay too big.......  But something that he will wear, I am at a loss *sigh*  Most of the ones on Knitty don't look very interesting - too fussy, or too many cables (hellooo, just finishing cph and the multi-cabled sweater from hell is still on the needles after 3 years!!!!).  Hmmm, need to think about this.  Maybe I'll cast on some socks and think it over.
 

No-Purl Monkeys finally done!

Feast your eyes.  Here they are in all their variegated glory.  No, I don't know what kind of yarn it is, just that it is soft and lovely.  A little darker than I have been buying lately, but love it anyway.  

Who are they for?  Why me, of course.  I have discovered the joy of making things por moi.

They are toe-up ('cause I just love the toe-up thing, makes the socks go easier), short row toe and heel ('cause I love the short row thing, too), and the bind-off was this super elastic thing I found in one of my sock books (m-1 every other stitch).  Now they fit over my heels, and stay up just fine :-)  
Finished them off during the NCIS marathon.  Super easy (I say that after ripping back two rows with fingering wt yarn and size 1 needles, twice per sock!!!!!!).  
Now that I know I need a little looser bind-off, I will definitely make them again.

A very short and pictureless knitting rant :-)

I have started sleeves on the cph.  I really want to keep this for myself, but I told my sister I was making it for my niece.  
I finished a pair of socks (yea!!!)  it's that something or other waves socks on the cover of "favorite socks".  Unfortunately I can't get them on because I have to take out the last two rows and use a more elastic bind-off.  grrrrr, wanna wear 'em now!!!

a very long non-knitting, work related rant

Each day I go to work, and wonder, do I really like this job?  The answer can be complicated.  
One aspect of my job that never really bothered me in the past but now drives me bonkers is the endearing (NOT) behaviour of our customers.  
We have two cake sizes and about 12 flavors of cakes and tarts in our case.  Our case is about 5 feet tall, and I am about 5 foot 4.  I can't see through the glass at the back to the glass at the front.  Now here is a typical situation.  Customer comes up and from 3 feet away says, what kind of cake is that (did I mention the signs with cake name and price next to each cake).  They are pointing and I can't tell what they are pointing at so I ask which cake.  They say the one with the fruit on it.  I tell them it's a fresh fruit cake.  They ask the price (did I mention the sign???).  I tell them.  They say can I have that one (again with the pointing).  I say which size, large or small.  They ask, which is the large.  Now on a good day I say the one on the front row, on a crappy day I say the larger one is the large, and the smaller one is the small (I used to ask if they wanted the 6 inch or the 9 inch, but that just confused the heck out of all of them, did I mention tha the sign gives the size!!!!).   Now sometimes this is the end of the transaction, other times when I get out to hand them their lovely boxed cake, I get:
I don't like that one, I want an different one
can you write "happy 20th birthday john dick and harry" on a 6" cake in flaming violet, or better yet can you fit all that on a 3" diameter cookie
can you get me the smaller one, that is too large (or can you get me the larger one, that is too small)
can you put extra______ on it, why is that an extra charge
What spawned this today?  I had a customer call to complain about a cake.  She had gotten a different flavor than she asked for (I will admit we have screwed up a cake or two, but usually not that badly).  She said the team member that took her order "spoke really bad english" and she didn't think they understood what she said.  Now the woman who called was obviously not a native english speaker, so that bothered me (pot, meet kettle).  She wanted something (I didn't ask her what), and mentioned that her cousin worked for my company and told her the rules.  I asked her to return the cake I would check it out.  She said no one liked it so she threw it away.  Now to some this may seem like a reasonable story.  The me this screamed they ate the cake, she told her" cousin" (or the little voice in her head) she wasn't happy with it, her cousin told her to come back and get whatever she wanted in return.  It was the next day, not the day of the cake pick-up.  I told her that since she waited so long I couldn't really check her story and it would have been helpful if she had called the same day.  Well, I talked to the team.  They told l me she didn't place the order, her husband did.  And he ordered the fruit cake first then changed it to cappuccino.  We gave her a cappuccino.  We also had to fix the spelling of the kids name, because the guy misspelled it, twice!!!
This just bothered me.
The other thing that bothers me is when did "would you like your bread whole or sliced" become a yes or no question, or require so much thought?
*sigh*