On my own again....

Phil is off to Ohio this week. Last week it was DC. We're meeting up in Seattle for the weekend, then the 1st week of August he's off to I think Ft. Worth, or maybe it's Kansas--- he might as well be on a book tour. For some reason most of the travel for his job happens during the part of the year when a person just might want to take a vacation. We're hoping for October, as of now.

When he's gone it's just me & the puppies (all right, the puppies and I) and we get a tad tired of each other's company. They'd like longer walks; sorry Jack, it's 93 in the shade. I'd like a night un-interrupted by barking or a slurpfest [trust me you don't wanna know.] On the other hand I can knit for hours, as long as the podcasts and L&O reruns hold out.

Had a knitting defeat last week. I had 99% finished the shoulder wrap, which I so wanted to have to take to Seattle, and had to admit that it was way too small, or short, or fit only for a very narrow shouldered woman, not one built like a horse as in moi. I could not come up with a way of adding length that did not smack of desperation. I frogged. The whole thing. Owwww. I am about 1/2 way through the re-knit-- added five more lace repeats and a seed stitch border and went up a needle size. If it still doesn't fit I will wear it as a hat, I swear.

Also started another scarf, this one to be a very simple lace and quite wide and long, made of pale grey handpainted sock yarn. I walked around the yarn store for about an hour and kept coming back to the Cherry Tree Hill merino sock yarn. It's the right weight, it's a glorious color, it has no fuzz ( I didn't want fuzz-- this is for cool nights in warmer seasons) and you get 400+ yards in a skein. So it's probably some sort of knitting crime to use sock yarn for something other than socks, but pooey. My only worry is that it may not block out nice and flat, if it's washable wool. Even if it doesn't I think it will be cool.

Hummingbirds are all over the feeder lately; I was treated to a serious dogfight yesterday. There was a female determined to keep a male away from the feeder. Divebombing, ramming, swooping, and twittering went on for nearly 20 minutes. He finally got to feed but was so freaked out he kept looking around every sip to see if the demon lady was coming back. So much passion in such a tiny bird!

Lazy Summer

Haven't entered anything in here in a while, I see, but then nobody reads it anyway so who am I trying to please? I've been knitting great guns since we got back from the Blue Ridge trip. There's a wrap I really want to get done to wear to Seattle, if I can, in Sublime soya cotton--- they call the color "cinnamon" but I think it's exactly the color of brown paper bags. This is what I picked up after returning the evil Noro Silk Garden. I've also shifted my current socks onto two circs each, which seems to be working well, and I worked out a design based on a ripple pattern in the Knitter's Bible. There are three other sock yarns whining at me to be started, and a cardigan languishing on the shelf, so if I start anything else I need to have my head examined!
The heat has been eating into my exercise time, which means more time in the gym is called for. The dogs just don't warrant much of a walk when it's over eighty and humid as a rain forest, nor do they really want to go out. It's too buggy and wet to go to the driving range, due to the lovely thunderstorms we've been having every night (no sarcasm intended; I really enjoy thunderstorms and we need every inch of rain.)
Sunday's golf game was an exercise in living with embarassment. I hit a few decent drives and of course I can chip and putt pretty well, thanks to all the minigolf Phil & have played, but by the back nine I just could not get to the green. I got so blitzed by the heat that Phil urged me to sit out a while and I skipped the last three holes in favor of sitting in the cart. Dave, Phil, and Holli seemed unaffected by the sweatbath conditions. Guess I'm meant to be a spring and fall golfer. I need a few lessons, too, to get me to the green in less than five or six shots! I was using SPF70 sunslop, and missed a space on the front of each shin for some reason--- it's still sort of pink. I was pretty ticked at myself because I try to be very careful about sun exposure, having skin that turns red if I even think about the sun.
Got to go catch up on the Tour de France. I'm following the Chipotle-Garmin American team (since we're consumers of both products---ummm, veggie burritos.)

less than infinite wisdom

OK, so I'm having about 12 people over for brats and whatnot tonight-- something I foolishly volunteered myself for-- why do social interactions always seem more attractive in the abstract? Phil has a work thing going on with folks from out of town, and we've done this before, so I figured we should do it again. It's really very simple, except for the shopping, making of brownies and cookies and coleslaw, and oh yes, cleaning all three bathrooms. And the rest of the house. And relocating all the bits that have taken up residence in odd places all over the house. They will creep back out in the dead of night, probably within 48 hours, but one has to make an effort. Of course it will be fun in the end.
I had been working on making a wrap out of Noro Silk Garden, and I gave up yesterday. The yarn has seductive colors, but it's abysmally constructed. It had knots, bits of straw, places so thin they broke and places so thick I could hardly knit them. And it sheds. I took two skeins back to the LYS and actually threw out the one I'd been working on, and it wasn't cheap. Lesson learned. With the return credit ( and a few wee bucks more) I got some nice consistent soft soy- cotton and a little merino for later in the year. Both beautiful and well behaved, and cheaper than the Noro disaster.
It's a little cooler this week, a real relief since I seem to have been revisited by the Furnace Fairy, a creature that comes around to bother women of a certain age by heating their entire bodies to boiling at awkward moments. I thought I had gotten rid of the FF several years ago, but here she is again. Huh.
Only 3 weeks until I get to go see Andrea & Jeff and baby Cate again, whoo-hoo!! I'm looking forward to reading cate "The Piggy in the Puddle". Must practice.