A long post to make up for a silent week.

Um. yeah. Life is somewhat draining lately - work situation is again something of which I may not speak, etc. Hard to blog when so much is not blogworthy. So I saved it all up for one big weekend edition! Sorry.

It has finally hit me last weekend that I really am middle-aged, and I'm starting to act it. I had to laugh at myself - I was wearing one of those "Miraclesuit" black tank suits (I call it my manatee costume) and floating in the pool with my glasses on, and a glass of wine sitting on the deck - occasionally swimming a few lazy laps on my back, without bothering to take off the glasses - and realized that I was acting just like one of the "older ladies" - chatting in the water instead of getting exercise, not even bothering to take off my eye makeup or glasses. Oh shit, I AM old! :-)

Cousin C is enjoying her new laptop, and next time I visit we will buy a wireless printer and add MS Office, so she will really be up and running in the 21st century. I am not going to wait six months between visits - I may go back for a quick visit soon. I even bought two new tankinis on sale for the express purpose of using her pool.

I must share my bathing suit story, because we are all friends here, and nobody else will ever stumble upon this blog - oops. (waves to the entire Internet, future dates and potential employers!) Oh well, whatever. My archives are unedited, why worry now?

As I said, I have one of those "Miraclesuits" - and I figured out why they call it that. Not because it miraculously gives you a miraculously improved body - it just has a double layer of fabric in front, and bulletproof bra cups. It's your basic Old Lady Suit re-branded for the Baby Boomers. I hate the damn thing but it's the only suit I've bought in the last decade, so it goes to Cousin C's when I visit. But I now know why they call it a Miraclesuit - if you get it wet and have to use the bathroom, it will take a friggin' miracle to get the damn thing back on again! It rolled down into a wad of sticky layers, and I swear to God I was standing in the bathroom and I couldn't figure out how to untwist it - it's all black, and heavy and wet, and the inner layer and the bulletproof bra cups had somehow wound around the outer layer of the suit, and it all stuck to itself, and was just plain nasty. Fortunately, my yoga pants and t-shirt were in the bathroom with me, so I just decided I'd had enough swimming and changed. When I got home from Cousin C's I was motivated to buy a couple of conservatively cut tankinis - must be able to go potty and then get back in the pool if I want. I am at peace with my 51 year old body - it's not what it could be, because I am tired and unmotivated, but it's not that damn far gone yet.

I'm loving the iPod Touch I got for my birthday! I'm listening to a really great audio book - "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. It's set in Jackson, MS at the start of the civil rights movement, and is about the interactions of the rich young white women and the black maids who take care of their homes - the writing is sharp and wonderful, and the audio production of it is particularly fantastic, with different voices for each of the main characters, who tell their parts of the story in their own chapters. I'm only a few chapters in and I LOVE the characters. It'd be a great read of course, but if you are an Audible addict, I highly recommend it.

I ripped the feather and fan in black Euroflax - I got about six inches into it and started questioning my judgment. So I hit Ravelry for inspiration, and lo, the wonderful Clara Parkes has a no-brainer shawl recipe that I had to try! the Ravelry link.

The Knitter's Review link for the non-Ravelers.

No photo of the shawl itself yet, because it's a small wedge of black linen and doesn't look like anything. So instead, you get a photo of my houseguest, whose eye only rolls out like that when he's freaked out:



That is his "Oh SHIT! I forgot Grandma had this weird obsession with taking pictures!" face. He's visiting because Murphy and I are in the doldrums and Girlchild's back is hurting, and it just seemed like a good time for a sleepover. Dudley brings laughter and good cheer, and also explosive gas, wherever he goes.

I'll try to do better on this blogging thing in the coming week, but I'm not making any promises.

Comatose Cat

I forgot to share my cat story! We got home this morning, and Higgins was sleeping on the coffee table (several small items were on the floor) and stood and gave me a pleasantly confused look: "Oh hai. Wuz u gon?" Boris did not greet me. I took my stuff into the bedroom to start unpacking, and saw him on the floor, in the corner. He was flattened out, did not react to his name, and did not appear to be breathing. I called his name again. Nothing. Again, louder. Nothing.

I felt a strange mix of emotions at that moment - fear, sadness, irritation (what does one do with a dead cat on Sunday morning?) By this time I was slightly frantic - "BORIS! BORIS! BORIS!" I'm standing over the cat yelling down at him, bordering on hysteria.

An eye opened. "Oh hai. U call me?"

I contemplated a brunch margarita.

Then later, someone (I'm not naming names here because this isn't CSI and I didn't send a sample for analysis) peed in my suitcase while it was open on the floor.

I've settled for a really early glass of wine.

End of the Weekend Blues.

It was a very nice weekend indeed. Murphy and I sneaked off for a couple of days at Cousin C's. Food, wine, and relaxation in mass quantities - aahhh, I honestly feel relaxed!

We started the weekend with lunch at my favorite restaurant in Flagler Beach:



What can I say? I'm just all about the fancy eating spots. The food and the view at this place cannot be beat, and it's always so busy they have mandatory valet parking. Those guys earn their money - it was packed when we got there, and I wondered where they were going to find a place for Baby.

They aren't kidding when they say it's right on the ocean:



We did have a mission for this weekend - bring Cousin C's computer and internet connection into the 21st century. She wanted a laptop, which meant adding a wireless router to the DSL connection she finally obtained about a week or two ago. Oh, and she has been buying disposable cameras, so she added a point and shoot digital camera.

And we bought these things at the Best Buy in Daytona Beach. On the 4th of July. Which is, yes, a major, major race day - one of the biggest. And where is the Best Buy located? DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE SPEEDWAY. Like, they use the shopping center parking lot for race day parking on major, major race days like the 4th; there were mobs of hot, sweaty race fans everywhere, and blocked roads and bedlam. And I'm like, oh, shit, is there a race today? Can you tell we are not NASCAR fans, and also somewhat oblivious? So yeah, we were idiots our timing was perhaps not the best here, but we got to the store early and got out fairly early, and stopped on the way back for another big lunch (obnoxious talking website warning needed here).

And then I installed the router and got the wireless network set up, loaded the software for the digital camera and performed some other acts of geek magic, before falling into the pool again. I miss my own pool. Murphy does not swim, but he enjoyed endlessly patrolling the pool deck, hunting lizards. He will sleep until Wednesday to recover.



Unfortunately, I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. Crap.

Today's Horoscope

Change is coming whether you like it or not, so hold on. Ultimately, you won't mind much because it will arrive with some extremely benevolent planetary ambassadors in tow to ensure that all goes well. You can officially allow yourself to have fun and let loose. There's a wonderful safety net under you.

I certainly hope so. Once again, change is all around me, and I have no idea what it means. Right now, I'm trying to determine whether I'm coming down with something. Feeling slightly better, so maybe it was just weather related. You know how if you break a bone, it feels weather? My skull does. Today was a feel crappy day, but accompanied by sinus-things and scratchy throat things that don't normally go with the skull-barometer.

I've become a Bad Blogger. Not much new to say, except that 3-day weekend plans hinge on whether I wake up sick or healthy.

I did rip a potential sweater - I have this wonderful (sadly discontinued) Euroflax Geneva, in a perfect color for me - Celtic Blue - and thought I found a good pattern for it. But sadly, after knitting all the way down the back, I just didn't like the gauge. It was dead-on right for the pattern, but it didn't do the yarn justice. So I will be forced to do math and figure out my own top-down cardi pattern for this yarn.

I have yarn for a baby blanket, but it is in isolation until I am sure I am not sick with anything contagious. (Yes, I will wash it before delivery, but I don't want the Baby Mama to see it and think, "Oh, God, she was coughing and sneezing!") So that can wait a wee bit. The giftee isn't going to show up for a few more months.

It may be a good time to cast on a linen wrap in feather and fan. I need something I can do while socializing. I think f&f has now become muscle memory, and I scored some cheap Euroflax in black, and who couldn't use a black utility wrap for air conditioned venues? Okay, maybe some people have never thought of needing this, but I would stuff it in my giant tote bag and take it with me on many occasions. Yeah, maybe I should start that next, and let the top-down cardigan thoughts stew for a week or two.

Ahh, it was a nice birthday.

There were flowers and calls and emails and funny cards and gifts and a nice dinner, and all around, a good day. Tomorrow is Monday. Bleh.

Screaming Frog Things. Plz shut up.

I have been awake since, um, 2:30 a.m., and this lovely time included a LOONG day of translating highly tortured legalspeak into business people can understand English. I am pretty fluent in legalspeak, but this was particularly, intensely, richly of the "Why use 50 words when 275 would be more impressive?" level of legalspeak. So, so not fun. I spent the day sending mental hugs to the lawyers who demonstrated that it is possible to write highly complex real estate legal stuff in Short Bursts of Simple English. In short paragraphs that deal with each point in a logical format. These expensive outside guys didn't learn that. Unfortunately, my employer is now paying me to turn the incomprehensible to basic, comprehensible to a layman business points. Sucks for me.

No rain on my house tonight, so frogs? Plz STFU. Need sleep. Too old and tired and the periperal brain issues of the font changes between documents and such, oh, it hurts like hell.