Loose, Dangly Ends All Over The Place

I think I may be a little sleep deprived.  That is a sad thing to say on a Saturday, but it is what it is.  I had to snooze around 45 cats last night and I am no longer spry enough to spend my sleeping hours contorted into a ball that will fit into the two square feet allotted to me.  I could pull it off back when I sacked out in a cradle.  Now?  Not so much.

45 is an exaggeration.  I don't have 45 cats.  I have 2 cats.  But it felt like 45...

Hence, today's post is more along the lines of "sub-categories."  It's not quite as random as the Wednesday Night Bullet Post, but closer than I care to admit.  It's really all I can do to keep my eyes open, let alone follow a train of thought for more than a minute at a time.  If I can keep to a series of headings, I'll call it good for today.

#1 You Get What You Pay For

Except when you don't.  Is anyone else out there ready to fling their laptops into their version of The Dumpster Where The Zombies Live over the Writer's Market website?  Good Lord!  I'm actually probably more understanding over this than others must be.  Firstly, it isn't really their fault and they are doing a fairly good job of keeping their subscribers updated on their server woes.  Secondly, I am really just a person who likes to write stuff down and enjoys having a place to keep it all organized.  If I were a person who wrote stuff down for a living and liked having a place to help keep me in printer cartridges and black turtlenecks, I'd probably be far more irked.  

Still, I can't promise I won't go right over the edge the next time I log in and see the words, "We are sorry for the inconvenience..."

#2 Apparently, Interfering With Sleep Is Quite Exhausting:

I managed to burrow under my awesome Berber fleece blankie and catch a nap this afternoon.  It was short, but much needed since my bed has been taken over by the furry residents here at the manse.  The couch is small, but at least one of the little boogers still managed to find her way into that nook behind my knees.  The other one, also completely wiped out by The Great Bed Coup Of Aught Nine, took to the nappin' basket.

Doesn't he look peaceful?  And small?  He is not small.  He is the size of a double bed and don't let him fool you.

The other one had the gall to look irritated when I got up from my nap.  A thousand pardons, your majesty...

I really shouldn't complain.  It was cold last night.  Very, very cold.  I probably wouldn't have survived without that extra layer of cat to keep me warm.  Plus I hear it is a bad idea to sleep when you think you might be in danger of freezing to death.  Maybe I'm being too hard on the roommates...

#3 Vegetarians, Look Away Now And Try Not To Hate Me

The bulk of my diet is actually pretty much veg.  But I'll never really be able to turn that corner.  You can always tell when I try because I end up getting sick.  I know that there are all sorts of ways I can get a complete protein without consuming flesh, but I don't follow through on that very well.  I figure it is best for me to be a Conscientious Consumer Of Meat.  I eat what I think I need and keep the kill ratio to a minimum.  It seems to work.

That said, I've been feeling a bit punk lately and that is usually a sign that red meat is needed.  I recently have been grinding my own hamburg since my mature years have been characterized by a deep and abiding fear of all things bacterial.  I have a handy attachment for my KitchenAid mixer which grinds a piece of chuck in less time than it takes to tell it.

It is also capable of producing cow mush if you get overly enthusiastic with the grinding.  And cow mush, when placed in  one of those grilling machines, does very weird things.  When all is said and done, you have very small bits of brown cardboard stuck to your grill plates and no sign of the patty you put in. 

 Note to self: Sometimes once through the grinder is enough.  Even if it is kind of fun to watch stuff squish out those little holes...

#4 I Have Issues With Commitment

I didn't have much time for knitting while I was teaching that workshop yesterday.  It also didn't help that people kept trying to chat with me at lunch while I was attempting to cast on the right number of stitches.  But cast on I did and a wee bit of cuff was produced before one of my more responsible co-instructors called an end to the lunch break and forced us all back to the grindstone.

It's not much, but it is a victory nonetheless.  I had to count those stupid stitches three times...

Now I am on the horns of a dilemma.  This is looking to be a pretty fine sock.  And I can knit socks rather well.  Socks are my friends.  They behave for me.  I can pretty much predict the path a sock will take.

It all makes me want to turn away from that other project.  You know the one I mean.  The Dishcloth?  The one with sleeves?  That one has all sorts of potential problems going for it.  The yarn supply is limited, a weird hole has already manifested itself and this is all well in advance of the Dark Forces That Hate It When I Knit Things With Sleeves doing what they like to do when they see me making progress on these kinds of projects.  It is hard to keep your vows when you know the relationship is going to be a bumpy ride or, at worst, not work out at all.

I've stayed the course, though.  Five rows were added to The Dishcloth (with sleeves) today before I finally gave in to the urge to nap.  Maybe, with some counseling, we'll find our way through this rough patch.

#5  When In Doubt, Avoid.

Cats taking over the bed, weird meat-related happenings, the desire to cheat on my "dishcloth..." It's all pretty overwhelming.  Sometimes a girl needs to just forget.  I'm only human.  Diversions can keep you sane when the world gets wacky.  

Merino is always good for a distraction, I've found.

This is never going to be the yarn that makes the blogging world rush to the comments to tell me how amazing I am with the spinning.  No one is going to wax poetic over how consistently I treadle out a piece of string over this one.  It's gonna be a lumpy, bumpy sort of yarn and I'm very much OK with that.  The alternative would be more carding and I don't feel like carding this any further.  The fleece from whence it came was rough.  It took some taming.  It would almost be disrespectful to try and make it perfect.  It needs to reflect a little bit of its original personality.

And even if I didn't feel that way, I'd still find a way to feel that way because I am not going to card this again.  So there...

Yup.  We are a little wander-y today.  But I covered some fiber-related stuff so I'm good.  Now I have to start thinking about dinner and that could get complicated.  I still have one of those cow-goo things in the fridge and I hate to waste it.  But there is also half a pizza leftover from last night and, much like socks, I know that I can make that into something useful.  

I don't think anyone out there is going to really have to think too hard in order to predict how this dilemma is going to play itself out.

SA