We had another successful meetup last night. I brought along my shawl and knitted about 1 round on it. I was so tired from the day I had.
My husband just became a citizen yesterday, and the Naturalization Oath Ceremony was at the Pomona fairgrounds. It was hot. And stuffy, and I got blisters on my tootsies from the walk back and forth to the car. So by the time I got to the meetup, I was tired (and late) and so didn’t knit very much. But I will have some carpool time today to work on it a bit more. Over 6000 people were sworn in yesterday, in two ceremonies. I am really proud of you all, I am sure it’s a scary and exciting thing to renounce the country of your birth for another.
I have put the swank on hold. On the shawl, I have been making real progress (other than yesterday) and so I don’t want to lose my momentum and work on somehting else. I will return to it soon, I am sure. I also made some mousies that I need to send in to Wendy, but I haven’t yet. I might make some more, so I have been holding on to the package.
This weekend looks to be another of the pulling up the strips of wood that surround the edges of the room to hold the carpet down. I am sure there is a name for those, I just don’t know it. The genius that installed the carpet apparently didn’t trust the nails that were already in the wood strips and are nice and short and come out easily when pulled. No, they used some really long nails, in addition to the pre-nailed nails, so it’s been slow going in some parts. Others are just speedy, it’s those darn long nails that are too close to the short ones so the tool can’t get around either one unless I pulverize the wood. Then, it’s time to take down the ceiling.
Here’s a pic of the carpet up, but the wood stippies still down. We are going to have to sand the crap out of this floor to make it all nice, but I think it will be worth it. I took this photo with my Palm.

Driving home from spending an exhausting day in our very HOT new house, ripping up carpet, staples and the thingies around the edge of the room. Slow moving traffic, as one doesn’t get a break on the 405, even on a Saturday. Rear-ended. Driver of the other car was excited about my Dean bumper sticker and was trying to get close to read (the url, I guess?) it and hit me.
I think the little adrenaline surge and the shakes I got from the accident helped me to not be as sore as I thought I would be after spending the day on my hands and knees pulling out nails. This floor better look amazing when it’s done, for all the work we are going to have to put into it.

Ugh. I am having a really hard time with the Wrap & Turn portion of our program. I am glad I am doing though, because this is a technique I would like to master before making the lovely Shapely Tee that I keep thinking will come next if I can ever finish the shawl and the swank. And I have only done swatch one of the TKGA Level I. The swank is sort of an alternate masters program though, so I don’t feel like I am wasting my time. When it’s done though, I may have a different opinion, since I haven’t a clue what it will be.
But back to the short rows. Reverse stockinette is ugly anyways without my crazy extra loops poking out. I am hoping by the time I get around the piece, I will have it down, just in time to graft the slices closed.

Tonight, I volunteered to help out at the Dean in 2004 Meetup in my county. Another guy came and sat next to me and we chatted a bit, and it turns out that he is new to the area, and said he had just arrived from Boston. I told him I had lived there, and he knew the name of my (small!) school, and where it was, etc. I thought, “that’s nice, so many people have never heard of Wentworth“. So we chat all night between getting new folks signed up on the mailing list, (50 new people tonight, way cool!) and just as he is leaving, I ask him where he lived back east. Turns out, he not only lived in the town I grew up in, but is best friends with the sister of my high school best friend. How wierd is that?
But wait, there’s more…. After he leaves, a man approaches the table to hand in his letters (we wrote letters to undecided NH voters) and he is wearing two name tags. One is a Hello my name is tag with a goofy name on it, and the other is a Merril Lynch name tag with a first and last name on it. The name is so familiar, so I start asking him questions, like, “is that your real name?”, “Why do I know your name?” He replies, “do you have money?” I don’t have that kind of money, so I keep going… turns out, he was a customer of mine at a small software company in San Diego where I used to do phone support, at a most miserable, underpaid, horrible time in my career. When I asked him if he used the software, his eyes got huge, “Your adhohr! Wow, you look so nice, you were such a bitch on the phone!” Well, I was, you know. That’s why I don’t do that anymore.