'Twas the week after Christmas ..

and all through the house,
every creature was sneezing, including BarbP's mouse!

And me. You can tell how deep the virus has imbeded in my brain if I'm making feeble attempts to rhyme. I feel just like a kid who has waited all year for vacation from school and gets sick. I mean, the Courts are closed, for St. Nick's sake! No one is in their offices! I should be frolicking, visiting yarn stores, making merry! Instead,

the felines are nestled, all snug in their beds,
recovering from catnip, too much it is said.

See? Stop me, now.

The other viral-inspired thought I've had is this: Who, as a character in literature, have you fallen in love with? A safe question, as a fictional character can't reasonable compete with the real men in our lives, and an interesting one. So, anyone who reads this, publish a list of at least 5 on your blog and challenge others to do the same!

Here goes:

1. Aragorn. Even before Vigo.
2. Rhett Butler. Never the wimpy ole' Ashley. What was she thinking?
3. Dr. Zhivago. Made even better by Omar Sharif's portrayal. Who wouldn't love a brooding Russian poet?
4. Mr. Rochester. Okay, so I have a thing for older men. Jane Eyre was a smart girl.
5. Garp.

Any takers?

ps The tissues were crumpled, .... no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Santa brought me ...

a cold! A really nasty, snotty piece of work. So all day today, instead of reveling in my wonderful presents and going out and doing fun things with my offspring, I laid on the couch in my pjs. I'm drinking lots of fluids (not the fun ones, either) and hope to nip this in the bud before we leave for the Adirondacks on Thursday morning.

In the meantime, the illustrious Twig has tagged me for the following:

"THE RULES:Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.”

Only six weird things, not six thousand? (hee hee)

Okay, here goes:

1. I get obsessive about having my socks match the color shirt I'm wearing. Why? I have no reasonable clue.

2. I can't sleep at night with the closet door open. Monsters -- I know they're in there.

3. I can recite almost all of the joke lines from any Peter Sellers' Pink Panther movie: "Minkey? You said minkey?" or "Does your dog bite?"

4. As a ten-year old, I had a poster of Spock on my bedroom wall. Weird? Only that I used to kiss it good night.

5. I was vice-president of the chess club in high school.

6. My husband says my hands move at night as if I'm knitting. Now, if I could only have him put the needles and yarn in the right position ...

So, who to tag?

I'm with Twig, most everyone I read has done this. I"ll think on it, in my feverish haze ...

Three Days ...

... and not a knitting needle was clicking.

I'm done with Xmas knitting. Well, done only because I'm going to wrap the yarn for my siblings' sox, along with a note that they can choose the pattern of their choice, and if the yarn isn't to their softness/color/whatever preference, we'll visit the LYS and exchange.

Whew! Why didn't I think of this before? It's a great alternative to knitting my fingers into gnarled knobs and foregoing sleep.

But ... I did finish this:

It's greener than it looks, and the other end of the Tree Scarf I posted about last week or so. So if I was truly smart, I'd start knitting these throughout the year, and be ready to relax next Xmas. Moi? Well, it could happen, but only in an alternate universe.

So it's off to do some last minute shopping and then my goal is to relax relax relax. The Charlie Brown tree is up, there's cookie dough in the refrigerator waiting for the girls to come home and bake, Chex Party Mix in the offing, with hot cider punch. Stop by for some holiday cheer -- I'd welcome you all!

Toronto has no Yarn Left

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it certainly has less yarn than it did on Wednesday past.

The sister and I took a short trip to the Great White North, in honor of her birthday, and in search of the Holy Grail of Hockey. See my post at www.hockeyknitalong.blogspot.com

After filling our hockey needs, we checked out Romni Wools, on Queen Street West -- towers of yarn, floor to ceiling, narrow aisles, basement chock full -- it's a great source for all those yarns I've seen advertised in magazines, but never in person. Man, if you were looking for just the right yarn called for in a pattern, this would be the place to go. And, talk about wall 0'needles! More brands than I ever knew existed. It made my head spin. That said, it was difficult to browse -- the aisles too narrow for wandering, and if anyone wanted to pass you, you had to squeeze back, or actually back down the aisle and into a cross-aisle.

So we wandered on to Lettuce Knit. Heaven! Beautiful yarn, a friendly cat, even friendlier store personnel ... here's a photo of the sister making a purchase.



We both bought kits for vests from Fiber Artist -- silk and wool yarn, knit sideways -- and I indulged in a skein of laceweight silk and cashmere to knit a "smoke ring" with, to match my brown winter coat. All, of course, to start after Christmas (right -- who wants to take bets on my impulsivity and complete lack of ability to resist new yarn? Especially when it's soft and wonderful).

And isn't this cool?



It's a wire bird-thingie, filled with bits of yarn for the birdies to line their nests!







The BataShoe Museum was an interesting side jaunt -- believe me, designer shoes look like they hurt like hell. My low-cut hiking boots suit me just fine.

So, we're back, eh? No worse for wear from our trip north, except maybe for the $30 in Cadbury bars and Coffee Crisp shoved in my suitcase for future consumption. Those Canadians know how to live!

Field Trip!!!!!!

My big sister and I are going to Toronto, tomorrow. On the agenda are both the Hockey Hall of Fame and as many yarn stores as we can find. She wants to go to the "Shoe Museum" too, but I'm resisting. A museum about shoes???? Hmmm. Perhaps she is more like Imelda Marcos than I ever knew.

I can't wait, and am putting obsessive-compulsive sticky-notes on all my files so my assistant will know what to tell clients when they call incessantly in my absence. I swear, there is something like needy-client radar that makes them realize you're out of town and they absolutely must talk to you right that second about something as vitally important as .... "He/she took the Mexican sombrero lamp we got on our honeymoon out of the house!" or, the ever popular, "He/she was five minutes late picking up the children."

Oh well. I've brushed off my Canadian vocabulary, eh? And packed at least 2 toques. I'll also be bringing back as much Coffee Crisp and Cadbury chocolate as I can stuff in my bags. Not to mention souveniers from the Temple, the Taj, the Holiest of Holys, the Hockey Hall of Fame.

So, as said in the last three words of the Canadian National Anthem, "Drop the puck!"

Ho Ho Ho!

I got my replacement Brittany needle today! What a great company -- I snapped a size 5 while knitting socks, and remembered they replaced broken needles, sent an email, and ... voila! What a great company.




And ... a holiday scarf. There's a story -- I started this just for some mindless knitting, on a whim. Decided to embroider the tree, will probably do a reindeer on the other end, and red and green fringe. One of my attorney friends (Sharkette) has been admiring it in progress, and bug bug bugging me about it. "Is it for me?" "Come on, it's for me," and I'd always say ... NO!

So, the cookie and gift exchange on Saturday. My gift was a lovely hand-blown ornament, and a certificate good for a pair of mittens or scarf. Guess who got my gift??? (Mind you, they weren't marked as to who gave what). She leaped with joy, pointed at this scarf, and said, "It's mine!"

sigh

On the bright side, it's great to feel that someone really likes your knitting. On the not-so-much side, I'll be making another one just like it for yours truly!

Hats, Scarves and Mimosas

Here's a collection of hats for the outpatients at the VA -- knit by the lovely ladies of my Sunday knitting group.






And here's a scarf from Paton's SWS -- the 80% wool, 20 % soy. I love the subtle shades -- it's for my pal Andrea, the upstairs lawyer, who's always giving me rides when my car needs fixing, and Diet Cokes, and an ear to vent into when the practice of law gets, you know, frustrating.

Most of my knitting is Xmas related -- secret sweater for my sister, socks for TwinB (TwinA shouldn't tell if she reads this!), fingerless mitts for SIL ... but I'm trying not to get too stressed out.

The Xmas Cookie Exchange is Saturday -- a group of 8 women lawyers (law gals? law chicks? law 'hos?), getting together for frivolity, cookies and gossip. Did I fail to mention Mimosas? I'm making Rice Krispie treats -- with Xmas Krispies and melted chocolate chips on top, complete with holiday sprinkles.

Well, back to the pre-vacation custody and visitation grind!

She's down for the count ...

brought to her knees by a virus. Or something disgusting that is making me dizzy,my head ache and my stomach roil. I don't even feel up to knitting. It's baaaaaaaaaaaad.

So this post is just a whine for sympathy. I hate microbes.