Not fit.

I'm feeling rather prickly today and I don't know why.  Maybe it's this blasted never ending heat and humidity which means I'll have another day I have to spend in the confines of a centrally air conditioned home that makes me ill humored.  Or maybe it's because--and only my inability to say no is to blame here--I haven't had a day off work in a week.  Or perhaps it's because I cleaned the hell out of the kitchen and someone reheated something with red sauce in the microwave, failed to cover the dish and left the mess for the imaginary maid to clean.  Who knows?

I'm feeling bitchy.

I'm going to go down to that basement, catch up on past seasons of Breaking Bad (how have I missed this stellar series?) and knit the hell out of this Porcupine Blanket.  I think it's the perfect project that reflects how I feel.  Though the "quills" are actually yarny fringe, the 3D effect is really quite fetching.

This blankie will be a gift for a colleague who had a baby girl.  That's why I used the cliched color pink, but I rather like the way it's coming together.  I'm hoping the act of knitting such a humorous piece will set me to right again.  Of course, if that's what I really wanted, I'd not have chosen intarsia with its mess of bobbins and tangled yarn to deal with, but that's a knitting story for another day.

There goes the neighborhood

We've been doing a little sprucing up around here, starting with the front porch.  We replaced the rails and steps and then had them stained in a beautiful shade of green (Woodland by Sherwin Williams).  Is it gray?  Is it green?  I think I see some blue.  Add a pop of red for the trim (Wine Country--also SW paint) and the green really stands out.  

And now it's beginning to feel like my own little oasis in a city.  Today I was on the hunt for more things to brighten this spot, but came back from Pier 1 Imports with only coffee mugs.   Six of them!  How did that happen?  I'll tell you how that happened--I broke a mug this week and was missing it terribly.  I thought, hmm, that lime green one is pretty, but it should have some friends.  That's how you go shopping for a welcome mat and come home with coffee mugs. 

After allowing the stain to cure for a full 48 hours, I finally got my porch back.  While lugging the furnishings back where they belong, I noticed the post and mailbox were looking rather drab, so they got a fresh coat of paint, too.

I couldn't resist a photo of Stoney as a bird perch. 

While I was painting the post, my neighbor came outside and mentioned that maybe they would paint their porch, too.  This is the neighbor who points out every little thing she sees wrong with my house, but can't see past her own peeling paint.  I won't hold my breath waiting to see their porch done as I don't think they've done a lick of work on that house in the 30 years they've been the owners.  You can see the side of their house just over Stoney's shoulder and now I'm wondering, what should I put up there to close it all in and make it more private while simultaneously improving the view.  Metal art?  A decorative flag?  Plants? A trellis?

What would you put there?

Gearing up!

Note the countdown clock on the side.  Our trip doesn't seem that far away now, does it?  With that in mind, we did a little shopping today and I bought a new pair of hiking shoes using my usual shoe shopping criteria:

1.  Are they ugly?  Yes, hideously so.

2.  Are they a trusted brand you know will fit your Fred Flintstone-like feet?  Indeed they are!

3.  Can you picture yourself wearing them at your destination?  I can, I can!

Sold!

I also bought one pair of breathable hiking pants, 3 pair of hiking socks and a permethrin impregnated shirt.  If the mosquitos are as bad as I hear they are, well I'm not giving them an opportunity to feed on me.  It was my world traveling sister who taught me about the mosquito repellant clothing a few years ago when she had to use it while working in Papua New Guinea or some such malaria infested place.  It also repels ticks and black flies.  I'm going to see how well it works sitting on my front porch as I have accumulated about 6 mosquito bites out there this week despite my Off brand candles, Clip Ons and spray.  By the way, the shirt is kind of cute, which totally goes against my shoe shopping criteria.

Holy Heatwave, Batman!

It's freaking disgusting in Detroit.  Though we've enjoyed some heavy rains over the past few days, neighborhoods around us took the brunt of those storms.  As soon as the rains would pass, the sun would come back out and relief was short lived.  After 5 minutes, it felt like a sauna.  The newscasters said yesterday they were sure all of us were awakened by the early morning thunder.  Not me.  I slept soundly.  Someone I work with couldn't leave her home yesterday due to a tree having relocated itself to her driveway.  She lives a mile from me and still I heard nothing.  We did get some hail on the 4th.  I was on the porch when it was coming down and flying sideways.  It stung when the marble sized pellets of ice hit my legs.  That was one long two day chain of storms that was so hit and miss, I'm sure some got no precious rain at all.

Today's high temp of 100 degrees--coupled with the dew point of 74-- means we'll have a temperature that feels like 114 degrees. While there appears to be a break in the forecast, we've got a ways to go before we can breathe a sigh of relief...let alone breathe at all.

Stay cool my friends.

Homage

What tremendous losses we've had this week.  First Nora Ephron and then Andy Griffith.  I always watched everything Andy Griffith starred in and usually liked him no matter what he did.  To me, he seemed genuine, wise and kind.

The loss of Nora Ephron was particularly saddening.  I recall reading I Feel Bad About My Neck, and when I got to the part about her best friend dying of oral cancer, well, I could barely read the words through the tears streaming down my face.  Her grief was palpable and my heart was broken for her.  That book was passed from friend to friend and I've no idea where it finally landed.  Each time that I know it was passed on to someone, I always gave a warning to take care near the end.  All of my friends cried when they read that chapter, too.  Call me sappy, but I adored her movies and books.  I will never turn the channel on When Harry Met Sally, or Sleepless in Seattle, and I particularly loved, You've Got Mail.  Her hope for relationships, romance and love shine through each and every movie.

One of Nora's books was missing from my collection though, and that was Heartburn.  It's her thinly veiled autobiography of her breakup and divorce from Carl Bernstein and was both funny and sad.  The book is peppered with recipes that she recalls making during certain parts of their marriage and divorce.  In honor of the many happy hours Nora Ephron's writing has given me, I decided to make a few of the recipes from Heartburn this week.

Her Linguine alla Cecca was delicious.  Though local tomatoes are still hard to find, the heirlooms from Canada, while expensive, are really tasty.  I got the basil from my own garden.  My family devoured this dish and the recipe was passed along to a friend who was visiting.  If you want to try it (it's so simple), you can find the recipe here, though I really do recommend getting it from the book just for the stories that go with the dishes.

For the 4th of July, I was torn.  Do I bake the peach pie with the sour cream cookie style crust, or do I bake her cheesecake and top it with fresh strawberries and blueberries?  I settled on the cheesecake since the berries make it look festive for the holiday. Though it was easy to make, delicious, smooth and creamy, next time I'll use 3/4 cup of the sugar.  The cake was too sweet for me.  I'm fairly certain you can google her name together with cheesecake and the recipe will pop up.

Last night I rented You've Got Mail.  I cried a bit at the end--not when the heroine lost her store--but because we lost such a wonderful talent this past week.  I will truly miss her.  I'm so glad she left pieces of herself behind for us to enjoy.

What are the odds...

1.  I would have a second relatively new appliance quit in the same week?
2.  That I could not literally throw in the towel because, hey, they are all in the appliance that quit working?
3.  That I would nonchalantly shrug it off, make an appointment for repair (Thursday is the soonest), and hang my clean laundry out to dry in the scorching heat?
4.  That as soon as I got the laundry hung over the rails, it would begin to rain?  A deluge.
5.  That the moment the skies opened up, I was outside checking the lint thingymajig to be sure a bird hadn't nested in there?
6.  That I am now soaked and so are the towels?

I give up.

It wasn't half bad.

 I didn't get a single call for the midnight shift last night, though I pretty much got my fanny handed to me on the front half of that 16 hour marathon.  Miraculously, I was able to get some sleep, even if it was the usual type of sleep I get with one eye open.  Instead of a deep slumber, I felt like I was hovering around full consciousness for the entire time I slept.

Sock knitting and the Peleton.  

I've been knitting socks again.  I know that shouldn't seem like big news, but it sort of is.  I can't really recall the last time I knit a pair for myself.  I've knit a few singletons that have suffered from single sock syndrome: languishing as only socks can because I was bored with the pattern, or the yarn, or both.  I have a few of those going on around here, now lost in one of several project bags. It's sort of too hot to knit anything but the tiniest of woolen items, so socks are perfect.  Besides, I'm down to only a couple of pair to wear that aren't full of holes.

This sock won't suffer the same lonely fate as the others.  I like the yarn that my friend hand dyed and I love Stephanie's Lismore Cable Socks pattern, and though typically one would not pair this busy variegated yarn and pattern together, I'm not minding.  If I'd chosen a more solid yarn, those cables would really pop.  I made a couple of mistakes in the pattern by failing to follow the designer's instructions, but that's really OK.  The errors are nothing critical.  I wrote notes all over my Goodreader copy so I can remember to make the same "mistakes" on sock two.  And there will be a sock two.

Back in March, I purchased the Nancy Bush book, Folk Socks.  This morning I was perusing that book and planning my next pair of socks.  Something simple, I think.  Something to knit with Bearfoot yarn from Mountain Colors--which is in Montana-- in the Crazy Woman colorway.  Something I'll wear to pad around that house in Ennis, Montana 37 days from today.

But who's counting?  Me.  I'm counting days, but first I have to get through the next 16 hours.  Please, please, if there was ever a time for a duplicate day, this is it.