Perfect.

The lake at about 9 PM this evening.

In which I reveal the extent of my geekiness.

Clearly the writers of this article have never been to a comic or science fiction convention:


"THIS five-foot martial arts sword capable of beheading a man was recovered by
shocked cops in a house raid. The terrifying Batleth weapon is identical to one
wielded by Klingon aliens in the Star Trek sci-fi films."

Now, I am not advocating violence or knives, but given the way in which the Baleth was presented and the fact that it was turned in voluntarily, doesn't it seem as if the entire point of having a sharpened Klingon weapon in this case was to draw attention to the amnesty drive mentioned in the article?

Now, I *really* love yarn . . .

. . . but this seems excessive.

So, I bought a new digital camera over the weekend . . .

. . . and I thought that I would try uploading some pictures.


The atrium of the building in which I work:




Two views out of my office window:






The view of downtown Minneapolis over the lake 4 blocks from my house:










Two views of the front room of my house:







A hosta in my garden:




These are bleeding hearts from my backyard:





The newly-turned heel of the first of my second pair of hand-knit socks:





The same sock with a gusset:




I think I like this camera.

An Open Letter to the Obnoxious Commuter Talking Loudly on His Cellphone on the Light Rail Train Yesterday Morning

Are you incapable of spending 20 minutes on the train without calling clients or returning other phone messages? Do you think that the potential customer to whom you spoke first would have been pleased to find out that *everyone in the train* knows the details of their account and where you are meeting today? Would you really have had this conversation with said client if you both had been sitting on the train? No?
Let's move on to my next example of your stupidity and rudeness. Would you have shared your first and last name, where you live, your daughter's first and last name, and where she goes to school with the whole train? Would you have even shared these details with the one stranger sitting next to you? No? Then why do you think it is OK to go over all of these details on your cell phone with the school district where *the entire train* can hear you? Dude, I wasn't even sitting next to you, and I was chatting with my husband (at least until we broke off our conversation and started to bitch about what a jackass you are), and I know more information about you, your family and your customers than the average stalker would be able to dig up.
I have no problem with anyone having a quiet cellphone conversation of the train--people chat with one another on the train all the time--but this is *not* a private space just because the other person in your conversation is at the other end of the phone rather than sitting next to you.

Why do I feel guilty when I read this?

Sometimes the things I read on other people's blogs color my whole day.

I live in a different *country* and I don't know the woman in the post and I feel guilty just reading about her.

I am going to go call my grandmother now.

I just found this study today . . . .

Celsius: Chewing gum helps me think.

Albert: Sweetie, you're wasting your gum!

I do love yoga, though.

I suspect that while doing asanas in yoga my internal dialogue is not supposed to be:

[attempts to assume half-moon pose]
"ohfuckfuckfuckfuckohfuck"
[falls over]
[resumes pose]
[holds pose for approx. 3 seconds]
"fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck."
[falls over again]
[repeat]

I suspect that this is not helping me to "connect my breath with each movement."

Snow, snow go away (and take winter with you)

So, I live in Minneapolis. And two days ago almost all of the winter snowpack had melted, my irises were sprouting, and Spring was in the air.

Ten point five inches of snow fell Sunday night into Monday.

I usually quite like living in Minnesota. It is beautiful. I do not llike living in Minnesota in March. I miss D.C. Cherry blossoms would be right around the corner there . . . .

Non-finisher.

Well, I didn't even come close to finishing my project for the knitting olympics. In a normal 16 days it would have been a stretch, but my basement got all shitty (no, really--literally) and we had to clean it up and reassemble it in record time so that Matter Eater Lad could get his prospectus finished. Silly grad school--don't they know that I have Very Important Knitting going on here? I am sad that I didn't finish, but glad that I participated.

This is important, people.

Sign this petition. Write a letter--to your political representatives or to your newspaper. Read this blog if you think of gay marriage and parenting as an abstract concept. One wife is providing the eggs while the other wife is carrying the child and only one of them can legally be the parent. How screwed up is that? How does that promote actual family values?

Exactly.

What she said.

This is one of the cooler things I have seen in a while, and it seemed like a good impetus for a first post. I have signed up to design and knit a baby afghan for my friend.