Loose wenches, no! Clown barf and MS3, yes!

I work in a law office. I enter almost all of the non-suit tasks and minor settlements into the system, and when we are slammed or the data clerk is out I also enter lawsuits. This, in addition to answering the phones, pulling the faxes, opening the mail and pulling staples so the person who scans it can do her job efficiently and effectively, and [best of all] flirting with the UPS man.

Sometimes, in order to glean enough information that I can do the conflict-of-interest checks, I have to skim the claim file. By and large the claim reps are careful, meticulous spellers and typists. But every so often there is a typo that makes me giggle. Like the reference to a previous claim where the claimant sprained his wrist tightening a loose wench.

I love language. My native tongue, and others’. Isn't it amazing that you can take a word that signifies a simple, useful tool, drop one apparently insignificant letter, and get a word that signifies something else entirely? Or Spanish, which I know just enough of to not utterly mangle the pronunciation of the names of some of our clients, and to take the word for rabbits and Scrabble-ize it and get an extremely masculine noun.

Tan, you asked about the yarn I’m using for Monkey. This is Colinette’s Jitterbug, and it is [thus far] my favorite sock yarn because of its liveliness and forgiving nature. I foresee much Jitterbug-ing in the future.

I wore the new scarf with the new and fortuitously matching T-shirt to work yesterday and felt mahvelous, dahling. My shoulders and traps stayed comfortably warm, and I did not come home all clenched from the draft that eddies around my desk. It’s cold enough that -- how to phrase this delicately? -- I’m a bit of a Momsicle all day, and the scarf was just long enough to effectively camouflage that.

I was amused to read the phrase “clown barf” to describe some of the vividly hand-painted yarns that are on the market. Now, I’m not crazy about clowns, and after raising 4.9 kids I’m definitely not crazy about barf, but I do admire a well-turned phrase. And that one just tickles me. If you were to peek into my stash, which you'll be able to do once Ravelry sends me my invitation, you would see not a lot of the tastefully subdued yarns you would expect from a non-wench such as I. You would see a whole lot of certain sections of the color wheel, particularly in the yarns that date back to when I was a weaver, because I love richly monochromatic color schemes. And in sock weights you would see an amazingly [some might say apallingly] large selection of the clown-barfiest of yarns.

I make no apologies. I have made do most of my adult life with basic cotton socks from Wally World. I’m a little older now, a lot more sure of myself, and I’m almost finished with the 24/7 aspect of parenting. There is a modicum of discretionary income, most months, and I make sure that some of it gets spent on *me*, not just the home or the kid still in the home. Loud socks are one way of saying that I may no longer be young and perky, but neither am I dead.

Barf on, ye dyers of the wool!

I laughed so hard at the Harlot’s post yesterday that I went and gone and done it. I signed up for MS3, even though I have *no* laceweight yarn, nor beads with which to bead it. [Yes, I have beads, but not enough leftover from the recently-completed scarf to do the job, and way too many from leftover sewing projects.] But there are some items in the new KnitPicks catalogue that I want, particularly their new sock needle sizes, so I'm sure that I can figure out how to spend $45 in a Noo Yawk minute. And by the time I place the order next Wednesday, and it arrives the week after that, I should be done with my Monkeys.