Happy 15th birthday Dan! My baby boy is growing up. *wipes away tear*

Clearly I need to finish some things. My stash overflows and the internet brings new temptations daily to my computer screen. It did help somewhat to pet the stash yarn and inhale the lingering sheep scent in the wool. On my TO KNIT list:

1) Liz's shiny gold scarf is over 2/3 done -- from Patons Brilliant, looks like chain mail. Shiny.

2) Cheryl's St. Patrick's Day Socks -- from Regia Crazy Color greens 6 ply, one sock complete, Liz reminds me she's asked for above scarf for over a year. Fair enough. Then Cheryl, bless her, slips on the ice and and breaks her ankle. Curse of the one sock. No hurry here.

3) David's HP Gryffindor scarf POA style in Lion Wool-Ease Chunky finished except for weaving in all those loose ends from color changes and fringe on the ends. Please put me out of my misery or remind me to NEVER pull that stunt again. Hidden, hidden deep.

4) My HP House Unity knitting bag needs assembling and i-cord straps/handle, then felting -- from Cascade 220. My UFO from the first challenge of the hogwarts_triwiz tournament.

5) Christina's WOW Horde felted messenger bag in Patons Merino Classic. Not started. Requested by my oldest daughter after she saw me knitting my HP messenger bag.

6) My HP house Unity scarf in Lion Brand Wool-Ease. No motivation since the movie and book both come out in the middle of summer.

We won't discuss the stash yarn for Christmas pressies, socks, sweaters, hats, afghans. I'd settle for finding my 12" Addi Turbo 10.5s so I could make myself a pair of Fuzzyfeet out of the Malabrigo Cactus Flower I splurged on last December.

EP Lab job requirement: the ability to tolerate long periods of boredom punctuated by sudden bursts of activity and a tendency toward perversity. Former co-worker Spanky always kept us laughing with his well-timed remarks. Heard several times "What's wrong with sheep? They're just little girls wearing sweaters." So why was he was struck speechless when I referred to him as a Registered Sheep Offender.

Now I prefer hawt dudes to little lambs, but Le Grand Noir(BLACK SHEEP)'s provocative pose caught my eye. I'm certainly no expert, but full-bodied red wines are my favorite and WINE SPECTATOR rated this 2003 French Cabernet-Shiraz an 87. I must have been wearing my wine glasses at the time. Never take home a good-looking black sheep with a seductive wink who promises to taste good with a thick veal chop. Le Grand Noir is really a wolf in sheep's clothing waiting to bust your chops the moment it kisses your lips. Different day, same taste bud reaction. Why did they combine two mediocre wines to create some awful muddy mixture that might be palatable after 10 years in the cellar? Tomorrow I'll protect my heart with a glass of Bulletin Place Shiraz and try to forget about the sheep who promised so much and delivered so little.

Other sheep sang their siren song this past weekend. After work on Saturday, I barely made it to my not-so-LYS before closing time. The sheep were beautiful without beer goggles. Several went home with me, all the while whispering promises of warm caresses and socky goodness. Later I wandered wantonly through the yarn pron on the internet and found my fix at littleknits. Fickle woman that I am, how can I keep all these sheep happy and still have time for myself? I haven't forgotten the half-finished gloves or Tri-Wizard Tournament project still in the planning stages.

Speaking again of black sheep, Cascade 220 knitted on size 10 needles felts into a more substantial swatch than the size 11 sample did. The felted swatch from the size 10s did shrink more vertically than the size 11s. I need to take this into account in my design.

Happy Birthday to Minerva McGonagall and to.....me! All in all a good day with any morose tendencies on my part more than offset by my sweet children and friends.

Grumblings about the Homeland Security Act. This old Libertarian sees the HSA as just another erosion of our personal liberty as we morph into a totalitarian state. Although I've been a licensed driver for over 30(cough!) years, I had to unearth my ancient birth certificate and Social Security card to renew my driver's license today.

Me: Here's my license, birth certificate, SS card, and don't get me started on the Homeland Security Act.

Clerk: (weak smile) goes over paperwork, types info in computer "Would you like to be an Organ Donor?"

Me: It doesn't matter what you put down. If it comes to that, my family will decide anyway.

Clerk: The nurses all say that. I need proof of residency too.

Me: What?? (thinking she already has my old license with the damn address on it)

Clerk: (switches tactics) "Has your address changed?"

Me: "No, I've lived there since 1983. Will the address on my check do?"

At that point I'm sure she wanted me out of there so she took my word for it. And my check.

Clerk2: No we can't use your initial. Your middle name must be spelled out per the Homeland Security Act.

Me: My grandfather was from Canada and I think it's time for me to move back there.

As Greg Brown observed: "The murderer who lived next door seemed such a normal guy." Based on the past week's shootings, we have good reason to fear our neighbor more than the random suicide bomber. I promise the only voice inside my head is my own.

Nothing like spending part of my day off having the oil changed in my CRV. Feral SUVs and toxic fumes be damned. Rather than sit in the air-conditioned showroom and read, I hiked up the highway to Borders while the old girl got her engine greased.

Today the store seemed smaller than I remembered. Where were the long shelves of YA fiction? Or was I having flashbacks to B&N? Didn't matter. The smell of printer's ink and lure of all those book spines to softly caress drew me onward with a promise.

I pre-ordered the new HP book. "I wonder if I'm enough of a nerd to pick up this book at midnight when it's released" I remarked to the clerk. His puzzled look confirmed my nerd-worthiness.

So far I have held out on buying VALIANT by Holly Black in hopes her book-signing tour brings her to my area. While checking her LJ for updates, I got tagged by da book meme:( Read more... )

Rec on.

When things seem to go generally wrong in RL, I often repeat this mantra "No one's dead, no one's hurt, no one's pregnant, and it's only money." Not profound, but effective in sorting priorities. I'm certain some character flaw made me agree today to babysit both my granddaughter Clare and my daughter's boyfriend's little girl, Gillian. Caring for any two-year-old requires a laid back to comatose attitude overlaid by paranoid hyperviligence. I'm going to watch you like a hawk, but nothing you do in the split second that I turn my back is going to bother me. Calm awareness, the zen of motherhood, so unlikely to achieve in this or any other lifetime.

The girls' favorite movie (My Neighbor Totoro) does not hold their attention today. They bound around the room like kitties in the 'nip. When I step out for two minutes, my granddaughter rips her pants and diaper off, then pees on the floor. She tucks her chin on her chest to hide her face when I find the evidence. Kid, that bare bottom is a dead giveaway. I rant as we clean up the puddle. "You're not supposed to pee on the floor. Do you see Mama pee on the floor? Nooooooo. She uses the potty. Daniel uses the potty. Diana uses the potty. Nobody pees on the floor. Pee in your diaper if you don't want to pee in the potty. But don't pee on the floor!" (I don't want to hear about Grandma peeing on the floor from anyone!) ~/~

Time for a change in tactics. They haven't seen "Follow That Bird" before. Now the electronic babysitter holds their attention. The pouring rain changes to snow in the course of a few minutes. Liz and Diana, my teenage daughters, straggle in from finals with snow in their hair. Almost immediately they become enthralled with Big Bird. Once again they're the two little girls in my picture sitting together in the big chair with their thumbs in their mouths watching a video, the same glazed expression on both their faces. When they tire of playing Sesame Street songs, Liz puts on "The Sound of Music". Happy memories.

If you see her, say hello... Liz leaves early tomorrow for a New York City marketing field trip. So if you New Yorkers spot a stunningly beautiful dark-haired girl with a Midwest accent wide as the Mississippi who reminds you of a certain Mary Sue character, please tell her mom said to be careful. She might be talking a mile a minute or suddenly burst into song. The boys turn their heads then their bodies to watch when she confidently strolls by. I want to cast a protective spell over her as she leaves home, much too soon it seems.

Welcome to those of you who've stumbled onto the other side. Between the hospital strike and a tenacious respiratory infestation, I've spent way too much time in front of this screen. Don't even mention the addictive Neopets game that sucked me in this morning. Hangs head in shame.

Yes, we are now heading into day 6 of the nurses' strike. Temps have been in the teens to 30's F. Like some homeless person, I huddled last night in a sleeping bag near the burn barrel, coughing up bits of lung every few minutes. We strikers bundle in several layers of clothing, hold our signs, wave as the cars pass by, share stories filtering from the inside, and wonder when the two sides will talk again. There's the yet unanswered question - how long can we hold out? It would seem the advertising dollars the hospital has recently spent mostly silenced the press and media. No one's saying "Come out to the picket line. Meet those smiling employees you saw in our ad."

A brief background. Several years ago, our hospital instituted "patient-focused care." Sounds good, right? Train anyone, housekeepers, food service folks to do as much of the nurse's job as legally allowed. Save money by increasing the number of patients per nurse. Come one, come all. It doesn't matter that you don't have any medical training. Many nurses were fired; the rest had to reapply for their jobs. Out of concern for the patients, the remaining nurses organized. Our first contract recently expired. We overwhelmingly rejected the hospital's final offer and gave a ten day notice for job action.

Drum roll please. Their final offer: no union security clause(open shop); abolish the Professional Nurse Practice Committee; no guaranteed benefits; no raise for per diem employees or those at the top of the pay scale. But this strike isn't about money, it's about power, control. We don't live in a right-to-work state. The open shop issue shouldn't have even been on the table. The administration wants to break the union at all costs. They're spending $40-$50/hr, $60-$75 overtime, 48 hr/week guaranteed on scab nurses. If we don't stand together on our freezing feet, we lose our voice to speak about patient care issues without fear of reprisal.

I'm weary and not just because it's way past my bedtime. Although I enjoy my job and love the people I work with, I'm tired of the uncertainty. There are two job openings in my little niche. In case things drag on too long, I already have one interview lined up. That's not just to satisfy the unemployment office. I intend to take full advantage of the hospital's kind offer of time off to check out the competition. The agency supplying the scabs is currently having a hard time finding specialty nurses. They're even sending emails to the strikers. Hello, there's really a nursing shortage. But that's ok. The hospital can train my replacement in 6 months. Business as usual.