OK.  I need to take things to the US.  So far, JSB seems to be the most demanding (he trades crude oil.  This is not unexpected).

• Crunchies
• PG Tips
• Mini Creme Eggs.

MajorKnitter wants Dark Chocolate; and I bet Primogeniture and Secundogeniture would like some English Creme Eggs.

And, for Sara, there is the possibility of Creme Eggs and Surprises.

Somehow, though I feel like I've forgotten stuff.  I have to keep reminding myself that I am going to the US, not India.  It is Dead Easy to get substitutes for stuff I've forgotten.

Must pack moisturiser (face and body), hair doodads, makeup, the power cable for the laptop, the power cable for the iPod, the phone chargers....

Had post-work bowling tonight.  Never again.  What Jo would call my autistic tendencies come to the fore, I demonstrate complete social ineptitude, refuse to have my photo taken, and find the fact that people are making genuine, positive, encouraging noises very annoying.  I'd really prefer it if they didn't.  I do not respond well to encouragement, which makes me really rather peculiar.  Have since come home and decided that I am lacking in protein.  Hmmmm.

xxx

I might have remembered.  Spare sock yarn.  Or, rather, leftover sock yarn.  For MajorKnitter.  For Knit Knotes.  I like to try and make sure that she never, ever, runs out...

xxx

The first time I encountered an earthquake, we were on holiday (the same holiday that we nearly got run over while waiting for a bus).  Mum and I clung to each other in the kitchen.  Dad, on the balcony, thought he'd kicked the table.

Last night, the bed started pitching about, in a manner usually reserved for hammocks, and one of the cards on my bookshelf fell over.  I was half asleep, and woke up in a faintly panicked manner, but was too tired to actually carry the panic to its full conclusion, and dropped off again quite quickly.  The rest of the office is not debating the earthquake, so I can only conclude, like the majority of my friends with whom I've been in touch, they slept through it.  How anyone could sleep through that is beyond me.  More perturbingly, one claims that he was still awake and oblivious...

I also made cookies last night.  The Cath Kidson Floral Apron now has chocolate stains, which is a grand improvement on my work skirt having chocolate stains.  One could argue that chocolate stains might provide sustenance during a very long meeting, but Management tends to frown upon such shenanigans.

xxx

I have written that before.  However,  finishing has been happening: both the mittens and Fee Lock's Socks are now done.  Hurrah.  I've even uravelled the neckline of that sweater, ready to re-knit it.  The Dave channel decided to function last night, so I was happily engrossed in a back episode of QI, then Mock the Week, then Never Mind the Buzzcocks.   Much happiness while unravelling. 

There was a quantity of unravelling last night, if I'm honest: the socks had suffered from a moment of ineptitude when it came to buying the second ball of yarn, and were mostly aran weight with some dk weight thrown in for bad measure.  The dk stuff is now no longer part of the socks, but I had to unravel about 1/3 of the leg (or so it felt) and it took ages owing to the fact that I'd taken it into my tiny mind to add in some sequin yarn stuff for the top of the leg, and that did not unravel easily.  I don't know what I was thinking, but I should have been restrained.

Other achievements last night involved grey long johns, gin with the Welshman, and the acquisition of four different items from Liberty's haberdashery, all red.  The Boy called me a yarn addict.  Well.  There might have been some Kaffe Fassett Sock yarn in with the new Aran weight cashmere mix.  But that was bought at John Lewis, so it Doesn't Count.

Oh.  And I put the phone down on Mr Still Attached.  It is in no way, shape, or form, part of my job function to let him know whether Mornington Crescent Tube is functioning.  He has an iPhone.  He can look at the tfl website.  He has (thankfully) been silent ever since

Meanwhile, the Welshman has a crush on one of the admin girls (bless), and I have a new work phone.  This phone plays the theme of Withnail & I when it rings.  I am in heaven.

To the right, a slightly deranged knitter in Westminster Abbey.  Approach cautiously, preferably bearing chocolate.  She is generally armed with knitting needles and is known to shiver spectacularly when cornered.

xxx

It helps, I must say, if, when one casts on for a pair of fingerless gloves, one actually follows the pattern for fingerless gloves, rather than that for mittens.

I thought that 18 rows in DK weight on 3.75mm needles was a tad too many for a thumb, even if it is a Daddy sized thumb.  And, when I got to the 'shape thumb' part of the equation, well, then I knew something was most definitely wrong.

WIPs list

• Dream in Color Tulip cardigan
• Dad's fingerless gloves
• Summer of Love Lace Socks
• Le Pull Français
• Pink Lace Shawl (name escapes me)
• Debbie Bliss Bolero (black)
• Fee Lock's Socks (need some red Aran weight yarn - may sort that out tonight!)
• Tom's Hat (not yet cast on)

And then there's a sweater I knitted about 10 years ago which really needs me to unravel the neck and reknit it, and not cast it off so tightly that I struggle to get my head through...  There is something else, which escapes me at present.

xxx

I am sleeping: heavens, I was in bed by 10.30 last night, I was so tired (I sat up and read for a wee while).  However, I'm not firing on all cylinders in the morning, by any stretch of the imagination.  Two days ago, I think it was, the milk landed in the not-yet-made coffee, rather than on the cereal: and, in a further stretch of assineness, I failed to stir the coffee once the water was added, so it was weak as gnat's pee most of the way down and then extremely bitter - you know, the sort of bitterness that makes your mouth look like a puckered balloon - at the bottom.  Regrettable though this was, it did wake me up somewhat.  However, it was evil and I do not recommend it. Today I merely tried to put the milk back into the dishwasher rather than the fridge.  Apparently I am a responsible adult and will be in charge of under-sixteens today.  It is a good thing that Emily's coming with me.

• Iron shirt, polish shoes, polish badges Just as I am pouring water into the iron to do battle with the 100% cotton shirt that is, essentially, unironable, the phone goes.  Can I get to Westminster Abbey NOW because one of the LaSER colour party is ill.  Was out of the house in under 10 minutes, from pjs to fully dressed, teeth clean, badges polished: shoes were clean enough.  Makeup on the tube, met Peter Duncan in the queue for the loo, no rehearsal, don't think anyone noticed that I had no idea what I was doing.  Thankfully, Kirsty hissed 'Stop' at the crucial moment.  On the bus home a small child projectile vomited.  You could tell the Guiders.  We were the ones with the tissues and gloves for the cleanup job, fretting that we had no plastic bag for the detritus.
• Service Westminster Abbey n.b. camera. Forgot the camera in the general rush.
• Meet Heather 4pm  Or 5pm.
• Laundry?
• Put Laundry away In progress
• Document knitting WIPs as I think they're getting a bit out of control
• Get the Summer of Love socks back onto the needles - See the Yarnharlot on 7th Sept 2007 for a better explanation of why they're off the needles (can't actually face linking and doing the ironing and polishing at this point.  Something's gotta give!)
• Work out knitting for Chicago
• Make list stuff for Chicago (clothes and things of that ilk).
• Get Cif liquid
• Instructions for Kristian re. feeding the fish.
• Finish mittens
• le pull français' sleeve
• Sponsorship letters Brownies - try to address envelopes
• Brownies Accounts
• Gift Aid letters Found link, need to edit the form at work, where I have Adobe Writer.
• Take clothes to secondhand shop
• Renew Library Books
• Clean fish tank
• Sort out laptop Windoze updates. It has been updated, defragged, had some antivirus installed, clean up, and still runs rather slowly.
• Sort out laptop battery and try to install some better antivirus. On second battery, which appears to be charging.  Progress.
• Wrap Mother's day present ready for the mail.

Somehow, this doesn't actually feel like enough...I have forgotten something.  I have to have forgotten something.  However, I need to be at the tube station in 45 minutes, I'm still in my pjs, with my hair wet and my shirt unironed.

xxx

I was happily reading the Ryan MacMillan feed, and realised that, once upon a time, when I was a history student and had very cheap access to JANET, I had something sitting, running on my desktop, trying to find a cure for cancer.  I took it off when I went back to my parents, and was on dial up - and, after that, I was on dial up for my Masters, and, eventually, I just forgot about it.

Fortunately, the rest of the world has not forgotten about it.  Moreover, since my desktop is now on all the time as it's quite simply a nightmare trying to remote in to work if it isn't, I may as well use those spare cycles when I'm not in and get back to trying to find a cure for cancer.  Don't worry.  I do switch the monitor off, as a paen to the envrionmentalists.  Not a terribly good paen, I know, but I'm trying.

So.  I googled 'social computing cancer cure', found someone's blog, wandered over to the World Community Grid and I'm now contributing to some sort of cure for cancer, and also something to help stop the spread of dengue.  Yes, dengue.  The Anthropologist's had dengue twice, and if he gets it a third time could well end up completely gaga.  Fortunately, the slow completion of his PhD will prevent this danger for quite a while... as I'm sure he wouldn't be half so amusing.

I've yet to work out if this is going to be a memory suck... but I think it's a terrifically good idea.

xxx

Presenting Dom's birthday present.  This is a Nyarlathotep Plush (am too lazy to take a photo of the one I bought, which is a bit less fluffy than the picture).  But why, why, why, why in the name of all things holy, would you want one of these?

It's not exactly cuddly.

~x~

~x~

Shifting Sands socks, Vogue Knitting Autumn 2006.  They took just over one ball of yarn (literally just over a ball) which Sara gave me.  No idea what it actually is, lost the labels.  But, don't they just look edible?  Please appreciate that I shaved my legs specially...

Then I started something else: Summer of Love Socks, Socks that Rock in 'Flower Power', from last year's Rockin' Sock Club.  Loving these.  Absolutely loving them.  So far...

xxx

Happy Ruby Wedding Anniversary