Perry Mason, Perry Como, Perry Menopause

If you recognize the first two, you may be dallying with the third or have already kicked him to the curb. [Vent Alert! If you are a guy, scroll down to the first link.] Every time I think I am officially done with the whole Be Fruitful and Multiply gig, I get a small reminder that one of my ovaries has not *quite* stopped yodeling “Hey Sailor!” I haven't had a real chat with the Red Fairy in a year and a half, but every four to eight months there is some whispering and muttering. And never at a convenient time or place, nor sufficiently obvious to go require going home to change clothes or a good sulk on the couch with a heating pad and a thick book.

Though several people heard me expressing my displeasure when I dashed into the loo on Thursday for a quick argument with Mr. Lasix. Which I nearly lost. Oh, the indignities of middle age in a multiparous body!

At least I now I have a Favorite Curse Word for Ravelry. “Oh FIDDLE! FIDDLE! FIDDLE! FIDDLE! FIDDLE!”

[Guys, welcome back.] Everybody go check out the progress on the Miners Blanket Project. I’ll wait.

I am pleased to report that my own contribution is nearly finished. Just lacks the blocking, which I’ll take care of today. I am ever so much happier with this incarnation of the second half of it. Even though it means there are still a few ends to weave in, where before I was able to knit them in as I went.



I used up all but a few yards of the much-loathed black Cascade 220 from my Wilted Leaf Cardigan, the Rasta-Meets-Besotted, and the Rebuilding Greenburg block that grew prodigiously when I washed it. And since I couldn’t lay hands on my vintage black walnut Brittany crochet hook, size E, it was an excuse to pick up a red cheapie aluminum hook at the big box store while I was also getting myself a new pair of jeans and four bundles of cotton socks to split with LittleBit.

Pictures of actual WIPs have been thin on the ground lately. So I offer this for your amusement. I finished the actual knitting at Relief Society on Thursday night. Wove in most of the ends, cut the yarn, and fought sleep during the last mini-class because I needed the aforementioned size E hook in order to get started on the black single crochet border.



Do you see what I forgot to do before cutting the yarn?



And I’ve been knitting how many years? This is what sleep deprivation will do to you.

I began this post while sitting at my desk on Thursday. The phones were quiet. The fax was mum. There was nothing to scan in my inbox. I sent out an email to the secretaries Wednesday night that said “I have three blank drafts left. I can pay three invoices for one of you, or one apiece for three of you.” No takers.

I was waiting to see if one of the attorneys would bring in the pool car that I like to drive before I needed to make the morning run to the post office. If I were a betting woman, I would have put money down that I’d have had to drive either the silver whale or the white one. He’s a good guy; he just has hearings at dark-thirty almost every morning and isn’t necessarily back when we need to leave for the P.O.

It is not so much the driving that I object to, it’s the beaching-of-the-whale-again. I can parallel park with the best of them. My personal parking space is an angled head-in spot. Again, no problem. But the pool cars are kept along the side wall of the parking garage, where the parking slots are perpendicular to the wall. And trying to shoehorn a mid-size sedan between another car and a concrete pillar is not my idea of a Real Good Time. I’d rather be boxed in by semi-trailers on the freeway in the pouring rain at 70mph at a quarter to midnight.

Or wake up and find myself married to either of the last two boyfriends.

On the other hand, this is what I noticed when I went to the post office Wednesday morning. So I took my camera on Thursday. [And setting aside the whole issue of the morality of gambling, not that I would but just for the sake of argument, I should have bet the rent, because the odds were so long that I’d have found myself in possession of a tidy down payment for the house that I haven’t found yet. Or maybe even the house itself.]



And this is me, Kinnearing my bare feet under my desk. This is in the spirit of the “fresh air and sunshine” that Dr. Gorgeous prescribed for them at the post-op checkup.



Here is a shot of them in my white socks [the only ones that I could find that were clean on Thursday morning] when I put them back on to go to lunch. Just call me Lynn the Switchboard Geek. I’m sure there’s a pocket protector around here somewhere...



I had to drive around the block five times on Friday before I could snag a parking space at the post office. Kept telling myself, at least I’m not back at my desk, answering phones. Or opening mail.

And this is one Lilliputian staple next to a pile of regular-sized ones. [I have to pull the staples on each and every piece of incoming mail to make life easier for She Who Scans. I didn’t fully appreciate how helpful this is until she was out and I was the Scanner du Jour.]



May I state for the record how unimpressed I am with miniature staples? They are incompatible with my ergonomic staple puller. I end up slashing the corner of the paper when the ends of the staple pull through. Tiny staples may look ladylike and charming, the petits fours of the office world, but they are piranhas lurking in #10 envelopes.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur
If it doesn’t take you to 8/30/2007, well that’s where you’ll want to be.

OK, I am officially excited. Not in the Pointer Sisters sense, but still... I have my follow-up sleep study using the C-PAP next Friday night. That means I’ll miss the singles dance, oh well! When I spoke to the staff member at the sleep center yesterday, she asked how I was. I said, “Vertical.” I was just hanging in there until lunchtime, and I had no idea what I wanted to eat. Something proteinaceous. [What did I eat? One of my friends gave me a spare potato and told me where to find real butter and sour cream. So, true to my Idaho roots, I had spuds for lunch.]

More pictures tomorrow, all things being equal, and a fun new quiz.