Thursday, January 11, 2007

Progress, life and so on

Request to any friends here in Austin who know good vets. The boys need dental work desperately. Bartleby in particular has a serious dental infection and needs dental surgery. I just cannot afford the $637 quoted me by the vet in one lump sum. Not to mention the near $300 they say Loki will cost. The boys need the work, but I need a vet willing to work with me on payments. If y'all know of any, please let me know.

Now. Before you read any further...Get comfortable. Have your drink? Don't drink it. Have a paper bag handy? You might want to go get one, then. Hyperventalation is quite possible to those of you who are as enamoured of STR as I am. What am I blathering on about? Read this link: http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2007/01/11/freakin_muggles.html

Yeah...Exactly.

Got your breath back? Feeling a bit more stable? Alrighty...take a moment more. I totally understand.

...

Now, on to the rest of my blathering.

Icarus is moving along slowly. However, since discovering one of the girls at my Saturday knitting group is at relatively the same location in the pattern I am, I feel it only my duty to continue along. Particularly as this is her very first lace piece and she's counting on me to be able to answer any questions she has about the pattern! I'm making it out of Alpaca With a Twist Fino in....ready for it?....black. What's with me and black, lately?

I managed to get one of An tUasal's socks completed. Believe it or not. I mean it, his feet are huge! Ok, not as big as my brother in law's size 13...but still. A man's size 12 wide is pretty large. Particularly compared to my woman's size 7 narrow.

I showed him one of my socks up against one of his...it was amusing.

I'll pull out the camera tonight and do my best to get a picture to show the difference. There's nothing, really, to show concerning his sock in particular.

It's black...100%, unrelieved black. It knit up at ~9½ stitches to the inch on size 0 bamboo DPNs in Lanett Superwash Black.

The toe to beginning of the heel is 9¼ inches of pure stockinette stitch. Worked an afterthought heel. The leg is 5 inches of 3x2 ribbing and then 1½ inches of 2x1 ribbing. The circumfrence is 10 inches, spot on.

He says it fits great...I think it's a tad too long. But he's determined they are perfect "around the house" socks. I give it a day or two of wearing them and he'll be treating them just like any other sock. **grins**

The first round of layoffs happened last Friday...they will continue until they stop. Yup...that definitive. I don't want to relocate...My son is much closer with me here, and it's a lot cheaper to pay for gas back and forth to Sugarland than it is airfare back and forth to wherever they would relocate me. Also, An tUasal is just a bit too big to fit into my bags. Not to mention, comtemplating attempting to haul his dead weight around is rather daunting. Plus, I have a couple of people here in Austin, Houston and Sugarland that I'd prefer to stay in relatively close proximity to...and relocating to some place hours and hours and hours away just really isn't "relatively close proximity". Hard to please, aren't I?

On the school front, I'm finishing up my Organizational Behavior class with a paper titled "Ethical Transitions in Takeover Times: A Look at Ethical Management During a Hostile Takeover"...colour me odd, but it seemed quite apropos. It was, of course, after I got the topic approved that it dawned on me that this is only a 5 page paper. A double spaced, five page paper. That's a lot to get into what is basically two pages of text. It should be interesting.

I also have started Statistics and my Ethics class will begin the first Monday in February.

Oh yeah...life's getting a tad full. The only reason I'm getting away with all the schoolwork is that starting Monday the 15th, I go to third shift at work (11pm to 7am). Well, for as long as I have my job.

I really want one of these ones I've been talking with to snap me up, PDQ.