Thanks everyone for all your words of support.  And for being totally rude about Evil Kevin, or as my mother now refers to him as, “Asshole”. 

So, before I finally move on and never mention him again, I thought I’d tell one story about him.

Asshole had food issues.   As in, he was the pickiest eater I ever, ever knew.  He would only eat beef, bacon and selected vegetables.   No fish.  No poultry in any form.  No shellfish.  No pork beyond bacon.  He pushed 300  pounds on a fairly regular basis, as you’d expect for someone who only ate red meat and carbohydrates.  Now, his weight never bugged me - I like my men beefy.   The new guy is nice and beefy.  Especially since it means I get to feel all small and delicate while wearing their t-shirts.   Speaking of which, new guy is always having me wear his t-shirts, including totally cool ones with cats and corporate logos.   Asshole only let me wear TWO of his oldest, rattiest, ugliest t-shirts.  I did steal his old style US Customs t-shirt (which I still wear), but I only managed it because it was way, way, way too small for him.  I still walk around the apartment going “Respect mah Authoritah!”

But, that’s not the point.   Now, I love to cook, and I love trying new foods and recipes.   This was pretty challenging, given his dietary limitations, especially since he was also often doing Atkins.  So, I’d resort to using recipes that had one of the “banned substances” in them, but hiding it.

My favorite ingredient that flew under the radar for 4.5 years?   Chicken Broth.  That’s right.   Chicken Broth was in TONS of stuff.  Stuff he actually really liked.   He’d ask what I put in the couscous or rice, and I’d be like “Oh, water and some spices”.   He’d recoil in horror at the thought of the evil chicken broth, but hah, he ate it.  Muahahaha.

Yes, I was very evil and at the time I felt vaguely bad about it, but you try cooking for someone like that.  Plus, now I can evilly cackle about it.  And I’d never do it to a vegetarian or to someone with a real dietary issue, of course.

Now, on to better subjects!   Monica visited two weekends ago, and she brought me these socks!

If the picture looks familiar, its because Monica sneakily posted them on her blog, and I never did figure out that they were all for me!  The pattern is Whitby from Knitting on the Road, and she used Mountain Colors Weavers Wool in Wilderness.   They fit perfectly.   She said they were thanks for test knitting her sock patterns.  So, not only do I currently have a pair and a half of awesome sockness I knit on my own, now I have a full pair of Special Monica Socks!

Say you find out that your ex-fiance, who dumped you less than a year ago, got married in April.   Better yet, find out that said ex-fiance apparently knocked up his now wife last November, less than 6 months after he dumped you.

Say you were trying really hard to be all like “HAHAHAHA I’m all the better for it, he’s an assmuch,  how about I knit the baby a HAT!”, but really were like “OMG i am now in a FETAL POSITION moaning in pain I must buy something.  I AM SO BITTER even if I am better off in everyway and have a kickass boyfriend who is the best ever and loves me lots. ”

So, which knitting book would you buy?

Monica has suggested these fine titles:

Knitting Lingerie Style

Naughty Needles: Sexy, Saucy Knits for the Bedroom and Beyond (Potter Craft)

Domiknitrix: Whip Your Knitting into Shape (Turtleback)

Monica points out that unfortunately, no one has written “knitting fugly things for fugly babies”.

Okay, I’m way behind on blogging content.   As in, this post will be all about World Wide Knit in Public Day, which was held on…

June 9th, 2007

Julie, Kimberly and I packed our suburban selves up, and Kimberly drove us down to Millenium Park.   Over 60 knitters turned out, and the weather was great.   I did get a little sunburned despite sunscreen and trying to stay in the shade.   Here we are, thanks to a picture taken by Natalia, who also did an awesome job organizing it.   She even had cool pins for all of us!

Julie is wearing a sweater from No Sheep For You, and its really cool.

I have other knitting things to post, but as always, I didn’t upload the pictures.  I’ll try to post again this weekend.  HAHAHAHA

Monica, otherwise known as my Evil Yarn Pusher, had sent me a link to Rohrspatz & Wollmeise, a German site.   The Wollmeise side is full of absolutely gorgeous handpainted yarns, by Claudia.  We immediately needed all of them.  

She dyes a variety of yarn weights, but of course, we wanted sock yarn.  Especially after going through the flickr group and seeing all the yarn that other people had bought.   In particular, this picture shows the basic color range.  What’s great about Claudia is that you can request all of her colors in light, medium and strong.

So, since the exchange rate sucks ass right now, and shipping for just a few skeins would have killed us, Monica and I decided to do an order together.   Lynette jumped in, and Monica convinced some of her California knitting friends that they also need ze german yarnz.  We ordered 10 skeins all together.  Claudia ships 5 per package, for a total of 12 euro shipping per package.  I believe once we split up the shipping cost, each skein cost us 21 dollars US, which is quite reasonable.

She also packages them gorgeously.

I really did try to get a picture that didn’t include Hunter’s head, but he was very very very interested in the packages.  He stole all the feathers off of them immediately, and then went for the mini skeins.   It was like wild animal kingdom, but with cats and yarn.

Honestly, I knew the yarn was going to be gorgeous, but I didn’t realize how gorgeous until I opened the packages.  These pictures in no way do the yarn justice.  If you click on each picture, you’ll get a larger picture.

The colors aren’t quite as dark as this picture.   The Lowenzahn (in strong) is for me.  I fell in love with the Rhabarber and Brombeere (in strong), despite not particularly liking red.  Sadly, they have other homes.

The Iris sibirica and Dornroschen (in strong) are mine.   The Dornroschen is to make Aimee the Sis a pair of socks.   I’m totally in love with the Iris skein - it reminds me of the Irises we had at our old house in Colorado.

Claudia has a blog which shows a few limited edition colors she is dyeing this summer as well.

Dee tagged me for the “7 Random Things About Me” Meme.  But, I’ve decided instead to have it be 7 Random Things instead!

1.  Hunter has a tiny head.   Yes, it is true.   His head is tiny.   Very small.   Here is proof.

2.  Katie’s head is normal sized.   Mainly, this point is so Katie’s picture is in the blog. :)  But her head is quite normal sized.

3.  I just spilled Cherry Pomograntesomething orther Crystal Light all over myself.  It even defeated the power of the Tide Pen.   Yes, I look very professional right now.

4.  Here’s my desk at my new job.   Except the whiteboard is no longer up on the wall, because the sticky part of industrial strength velcro, not that sticky, it turns out.

5.  Check out the awesome necklace Dee, Lynette and Monica bought for me!

They bought the necklace as a thank you for me taking care of their blogs and paying for their domain names.   Personally, I ought to pay them, because I’m constantly breaking things and being completely unhelpful.  But, thank you so much guys!   It came from this etsy seller.

6.  My purse weighs 7 pounds, including my book and bottle of water.   I had to sneak over by the postal scale to weight it.

7.  Finally, look, I’ve been knitting!

Okay, its a little small.  Apparently in my uploading rush this morning, I didn’t quite upload this one right, because the big version is no where to be found.  The good news is that Hunter has not yet eaten it, despite his best efforts.   Also, I’m on the decrease portion.