I guess summer’s over

Nice of me to notice.

Hell, it’s freezing out there. Even the cat politely declined the opportunity to go outside for a quick scamper.

My bed was warm, the Mozart on my iPod alarm clock thingy was lovely, and until the “Cooties” song from Hairspray came on (rather unexpectedly — I think iPod thingy was sending me a message — “move the hell out of bed!”), I stretched and yawned and contemplated another life totally different from this one.

One that did not include work, of course.

Yes, indeed. I want to stay home and knit today.

But, there’s a meeting this morning, and a heavy duty discharge plan for tomorrow to be finalized, and all the other bits of foolishness I deal with, so off I go.

Of note. Lord and Taylor has coats that are different from the average bears. Also of note. Today they are 40% off and I have a 20% coupon in my bag. It’s a roadtrip to Eastview after work! Hope I can find something in wool that doesn’t look like everyone else’s coat, but also doesn’t look like something from Battlestar Gallactica. No, I’m not fussy.

Oh, if anyone cares, I want these for Christmas. Oh Brother, where art thou?

Do You Think

I could wear my Embossed Leaves socks

with these?

I’d wear the socks over black tights with a long black skirt.

C’mon. It’s doable, no?

Saturday rambles

Can you guess what this is? Or this?

Yeah. I know. It’s a pile of Kuryon. More orange and purple and pink. Geesh. I can hear you thinking. Doesn’t this woman do anything else?

It’s destined to be fulled and shaped and, hopefully, morphed into something like this.

Then I’ll have to buy a teapot to fit.

In my end-of-the-vacation-funk that I am in, I decided a wise course of action would be to get the hell out of the house yesterday. I took a drive, and for the benefit of my friends in S. Florida, here is a picture of what I see every day. Note the absence of I-95 bumper to bumper gridlock. Unfortunately, also note the absence of palm trees and blue skies. But here…can you see the foliage? Now that’s a good reason to live in New York…

Something weird happens every now and then. I often see license plates with initials of people I love that are far away. It’s like they’re popping their absent selves smack in the middle of my ordinary day and startling me out of the dullness that is my ordinary mind. For some reason, my mother’s initials pop up on a lot of New York license plates. Like this.

The Brooklyn Tweed Silk Garden scarf is coming along. I pick it up and knit a row here, knit a row there. I’m in no hurry. I think I like this color combination better than the last one. What you think?

So, it’s Saturday. What the hell am I going to do come Monday. I’ve fallen into this horrid habit of staying up until 1 or 2 AM, then rolling out of bed around 10. 6AM Monday is going to be quite a shock to my system. Returning to the work world, after such a long and lovely break, is going to be rough. Oh, to be independently wealthy…

If I was independently wealthy (or a medical director), I would own these. However, since I am an RN with a limited amount of discretionary income, and a fond recall of my college years (think late ’70’s) when I owned the original version of these boots, I got these.

Even the box is exciting. (To me.)

Plans for today.

1) Clean the sty.

2) Finish fringing Charlotte.

3) Make chocolate chip cookies to send to my babies. Note the babies are 24 and 21 years old. Whatever. If you’re reading this, wee ones, you will always be my babies. Sorry, but that’s how parent/child relationships work. Good grief. My parents still think I’m a kid, and I’m nearly half a century old.

My point, dear ones. Get over it. (And I hope you like the cookies!)

H.P. Cat says “for godssakes, woman, stop flashing that camera thing in my face.”

You have a problem with bags, don’t you.

Uh huh. I know I said I’d wax poetic about weblog socialization and all that crap. Whatever.

Sometimes I’m quite a pseudo-intellectual jackass.

I woke up this morning with an overwhelming urge to photograph my bags. I love bags. Handbags. Knitting bags. Makeup bags. Accessory bags. Shopping bags. Bags, bags, BAGS.

There’s a social worker where I work who eyed me critically one morning just a few months ago and said, “you have a problem with bags, don’t you?” Huh. How astute of you, m’dear. Why, yes. Yes, I do.

I can’t go into Macy’s or Old Navy or frigging Tar-jay without inspecting every bag in the place. Oh, and please. Don’t get me started on Parkleigh and the rather extensive Vera Bradley collection over there.

I lived in Fort Lauderdale for 11 months last year. In S. FL, the 10 year olds carry Coach bags. Vera Bradleys are cheap whores, and LV is the MAN. I wandered into the handbag department of Nordstrom’s in Boca Raton and made a beeline for the sale table. Freakin’ $1100 bags were on it, marked down, but not tied down with a security cable. The only thing that kept them from being shoplifted like K-Mart lipglosses was their massive weight and luggage-like size. You know. The richer the woman, the bigger the bag (house, fur coat, car, etc.) WTF. Only in Boca.

I am always in search of a good knitting bag. Big is good, but you get too big, and start carrying books and water and food and maybe some tools and work crap and another book or two, and then you have a chiropractor’s bill to contend with. Small is nice for socks, but I feel (as a thick madame) a little silly swinging around a tiny little drawstring silk number with my dainty socks inside.

I found this. I love the huge pockets on the outside, and the cavernous inside. However, at the LL Bean store in Albany, this bag only came with embroidered dogs on the front. I am a cat person, people. Embroider me a tomcat and we’ll talk. Put a yellow lab on my bag, and I’m so out of here. (Hmmm. I see there is a non-embroidered version of this bag available online. This has possibilities.)

So over the years, I’ve established quite a collection of not-quite-right knitting bags. Give me a moment, an hour, hell, a day, and I’ll gather them together and post a picture for you.

It’s embarassing to note that these are only the bags that are upstairs. More languish in boxes in the basement, relics of the Fort Lauderdale period.

I really like this bag from Spiritworks. I bought it when I was up visiting Rochester last year, and homesick. A bag from my favorite yarn store helped the melancholy, at least until we could get our senses together and move back up north.

And just so you know, that Nordstrom’s encounter with the BAGS did not leave me unscathed. I could not leave Fort Lauderdale without my own ostentatious bag. (Just don’t tell anyone I scored it at Burlington Coat Factory, k?) It’s a Kenneth Cole that was great in FLL where bag lust is in full swing, but way too heavy and, well, ostentatious, for Rochester.