Hotter Than The Hinges of Hell's Barbecue

Atlanta is HOT. Like a rotisserie. Hitting the century mark and even with the AC running full time, the house was still close to 80 degrees when I got home - now the AC *may* need a Freon boost and I'm working on that, but upstairs you could just feel the heat pressing down from the ceiling and the roof above it, so I think it's just a case of more heat than the AC can reasonably handle. It's occurred to me - on evenings when a dusk rain shower has cooled the house dramatically in minutes - that if I ever built a house, I might have some sort of sprinkler arrangement on the roof allowing me to imitate a shower and cool the roof down on a hot night with no rain in sight. Either that or live in a house where I could hose down the roof!

My final Fripp pictures are cool and green. Almost every time I leave Beaufort, unless the weather is unspeakable, I stop at the Old Sheldon Church between Gardens Corners and Yemassee. It's on a little shortcut between the two hamlets and a much prettier drive than the 4 lane alternative and Ms. Packratty would much rather drive a little slower on a 2-lane road that is canopied with live oaks than a 4-lane with billboards.

Like the Chapel of Ease on St. Helena, the Old Sheldon Church is a burned out shell, however the Old Sheldon Church is still an active church. One service (Episcopalian, of course), is held there a year and numerous weddings. The church was first built in 1745, burned by the British during the American Revolution and rebuilt in the early 19th century, only to be burned again during the Civil War. The second structure represented the first temple-form neoclassical structure in America, and began the Greek Revival style in the South. I find it a place of unearthly peace and beauty. The grounds are kept mowed and there is a well with hand a pump which used to water horses and now washes the hands of tourists. Fortunately it has suffered little from the sort of yahoo who must leave his spoor everywhere, although there are numerous places where creatures of this sort have carved their initials into the soft brick. Not a recent phenomenon at all, though - one such graffito is dated 1840 or 1849 ... A personal aside - the name Sheldon Church comes from the English family seat of the Bull family of the parish, of which my old friend Jennie Clarkson Olbrych is a descendant - and she herself was the first woman ordained to the priesthood in that same diocese. She is now vicar of St. James Santee (another pre-Revolutionary church) in McClellanville and the mother of 5 children. http://www.stjamesec.org/

Between the climate and the lack of huge amounts of traffic, some of the flora is astonishing. Live oak trees have branches dripping to the ground and one such branch is supporting a colony of fungi, Spanish moss and ferns in an epiphytic explosion.

Tagged

By the Peach Pod.

The Starbucker Meme!

Here's an opportunity to let your creativity flow. Tell us:

1. How full is your glass?
2. What kind of glass is it?
3. What's in the glass?
4. Reasons for #1, #2, and #3

My answers:

1. Usually topped up.
2. Champagne flute!
3. Champagne or Prosecco
4. Question1 - Like all women, I need an 8 day week of 30 hour days to get everything done. question 2 and 3 - Because life should be a celebration.

Not Enough Vacation — on the other hand,

I was getting quite lazy enough down at Fripp by day 4 or so. I did get to compute a little, but it was all teaching aunt and uncle how to do some things with pictures.

So what was a typical day? Walk Charlie at 7, then have a cup of tea and go back to bed for another hour or two; then breakfast and some knitting and reading. I made several outings, including one to Penn Center on St. Helena. I also took Charlie on daily golf cart rides. Then, either before the worst heat of the day or late in the afternoon, Charlie and I would go down to the beach. First we would swim in the big tidal pool that has developed behind the now enormous sand bar - a sand bar which is acquiring vegetation. Then we would walk to the north end of the sand bar, which touches the island now, and walk out onto the sand bar.

There, Charlie could go off lead and run like a maniac dog for a while; we would walk the length of the sand bar, which I suspect is between a quarter and a half a mile, then wade/swim back to the beach from the southernmost end (which does not connect to the beach at low tide) and then walk back up the beach to where we left towels and such.









Charlie met plenty of other dogs and made up to every human being he met.

This is a picture of Charlie diligently sniffing at the waterline. He is NOT a fan of waves, but definitely found the beach a place of many delightful smells. He was not terribly enthusiastic about the post beach bathing, either.

We spent a lot of time hanging around - as I said, I did a lot of reading and some knitting and Charlie was quite content to hang out with me. he behaved well and stayed off mom's furniture - in fact I had to coax him up onto the bench to take this picture:

Mr. Charlie Rufus definitely needs a comb out and some trimming, which he'll probably get this weekend. I figured he might as well enjoy being a shaggy dog at the beach and I didn't want him getting sunburned. Love that BIG black nose.




He did find one article in the house to be endlessly fascinating, hopping in and out of it with regularity. I suspect Mom won't be too cranky about his affection for her basket - he didn't chew on it or scratch it - just climb in and look adorable.

That and the box of Cheese Nips that my nephew apparently secreted between the wall and the end of the couch - I wondered why Charlie didn't seem to be eating much but didn't seem hungry ....

Ms. Packratty did not get anything more done on the Mystery Shawl project, which remains pitifully small. I simply didn't feel like I needed to add challenges or frustration to my vacation. Considering how rested I felt on my return, I believe this was the correct approach.

More pictures from our trip home in the next post.

We have Fripped and we are back

Pictures now, more later:

The house is over on the right nestled in among those trees. Great marsh view, but hard for anyone to see *us*.

Marsh on the other side of the causeway where a number of egrets and wood storks roost, along with some migratories. The birds *are there* in the trees.

More pictures of Charlie and the Beaufort environs later. There was reading and knitting and eating of shrimp and riding Charlie about in the golf cart, which he regards as his chariot. My sib managed to leave crumbs and crud and a flat tire on the golf cart for me to deal with. Gee thanks. This is the one who picked an argument some time back because I dropped a couple of strawberry hulls on the floor while making a quart-sized strawberry shortcake. Uh huh.

Working the late shift

I worked the 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. shift today and got no knitting done because I am desperately trying to get the newsletter out before I go on vacation. And there was a serious epidemic of stupid going on, coupled with Internet access and VPN issues. I found myself explaining to a *programmer* that the fact that other people besides him were having VPN issues meant that it was likely the VPN problem and not his individual setup and in any event, I could not do eff-all to troubleshoot his personal issues until the VPN was actually functioning. I also hate the users who call up and tell me everything except their name and branch number - excuse me? How am I supposed to look up your data if you tell me your name is Mike in Chicago? We have probably 6 Mikes in various Chicago branches ... a last name would help too!

Yes, Ms. Packratty and Charlie are headed for Fripp Island SC in about 9 days to veg out and swill in salt water for a week. I will be taking several knitting projects and a stack of books along and very little else besides pajamas and swimsuits. Theme: Decompression. Badly, badly needed. Ms. Packratty is ready to start wringing necks over the phone.

I did, however, nip out at lunch (4 p.m.) and buy straight bamboo needles for the MS3. I'd have spent $5 more and bought bamboo circs, but Michael's is too stupid to carry circs in a full range of sizes. And if I'd had more time, I'd have driven to the nearby Needlenook, but I didn't have time, either. I was getting too frustrated with the join on the circs I was using AND trying to see the Vanilla Zephyr on white needles. Let's see if the bamboo is better. It's got a bit of grab, which I think is a good thing with Zephyr.

If I can get 5 more rows of clue A done tonight, I'll be delighted. And then I'm going to bed and getting up early to go to the tailgate market at the park for real tomatoes.

Tee Hee

Put in a lifeline at the end of the "page" of lace instructions and completed the 10 rows on the next page. Only had to tink back part of one row when I came up with too few knit stitches before the YO, K K that ends each knit row - counting the purl row carefully means I know that I'm starting the next row with the right number of stitches. Do wish my needles weren't white with ivory yarn, though.
And, I figured out that when a bead goes on after a YO, it's MUCH easier to put the bead on the stitch and pop it back on the left needle and then YO and knit the beaded stitch than to try to juggle the YO while putting a bead on.
And before I get too tired and start messing up, I'm going to thread in another lifeline and turn my attention to the second Monkeys sock. Picture of Monkey 1 tomorrow ....

Rape, sexual assault, culture and common sense

So after getting the tiniest 25 rows done on MS3, I went home and went to bed. No knitting last night, although I did, before leaving work, cast on for the second Monkeys sock in the Fleece Artist Nova Scotia sock yarn (which is yummy).

Then I read The Yarn Harlot's blog about the sexual assault trial in which the words rape and sexual assault, etc. have been banned by the judge. Just how far political correctness is going to go, I don't know, but this sort of cock-eyed thinking is clearly the product of a mentality where we have newscasters calling a rapist "the gentleman" or when prostitutes are called "ladies".
I have news for them - rapists are not gentlemen and hookers aren't ladies. But carry this sort of "we mustn't label anyone anything negative" mentality and you get a sexual assault trial in which the words sexual assault can't be mentioned.

Now that said - what in heck are these young women thinking? There have been a string of cases in which apparently intelligent (OK, attending college or grad school which should mean some degree of brightness) women go out and get plastered and bad things happen to them. No,
I'm not blaming the victim for the fact that there are bad people out there who do bad things, but I am saying, you know, just saying, that anyone with any sense has to know that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk in bars (and having friends that leave you while you are drunk) is a not very sensible thing to do. Is it fair, when men can go get plastered and the worst that might happen is losing their wallet? No. It's not. And the one thing that Jimmy Carter ever said that I agreed with is "Life isn't fair."

Now, that said, it behooves women of all ages to remember that there are bad people out there and that getting drunk or even tipsy with someone you don't know is probably not a good idea. And if you go out with female friends and one of them gets tipsy, don't let her wander off with someone she doesn't know. Exercise some caution - because there are bad people out there and while it would be really nice if we could live our lives as if there weren't ...

Even back in the long ago past when Ms. Packratty was attending college and there were no such things as "date rape drugs", we were cautioned not to leave a drink where anyone could get at it (there was a quaint, not so funny practice of putting hallucinogens in people's drinks back then and Ms. Packratty has always preferred her trips to come with airline tickets).

Ms. Packratty also noted the name of the accused reflects the strong possibility that he is the product of a culture with little or no respect for women, especially Western women. She also noted news reports that two other women came forward after the fact with claims that he had done the same thing to them. Perhaps this third young woman would not have been a victim of Pamir Safi if one of the prior victims had reported it. On the other hand, if the judge's ridiculous ruling on language reflects the local community's attitude toward rape, one might understand why the earlier victims did not.

So, to recap - the judge's ruling is insane (but a logical extension of the illogical political correctness doctrines) and young women need to exercise caution out on the town and men who rape should be punished.

I'm so much not a joiner ... yeah right

I fell right down that Mystery Shawl knitalong rabbit hole. Hard. And fell right off the "knitting from stash" diet too - although I made that for an entire six months (excepting dishcloth and sock yarn).













But yeah, I got suckered right in, even though I have never tackled anything but some very simple lace. Me and 6500 + others. Oy.

OK, the statistics.

Jaggerspun Zephyr Vanilla, 2 balls
size 5 needles and creamy ivory colored pearl beads from Beadwrangler (whose service is amazingly fast).

I've managed a whole 25 of the first Clue's 100 rows and thank heavens for the nice lady who is translating the charts. This should be quite a challenge.

Hope I'm up to it.

The latest of Summer's bounty.

Anonymous? Don't bother.

Put your name on it or don't bother. If you want to respond to anything I have to say, don't expect me to publish it if you are posting anonymously and I have no opportunity to respond directly.

Big News

I don't know when exactly or where, but I have been informed at a certain Canadian author is coming to Atlanta with her sock.

Happy 231st America!

The first member of my family to reach these shores arrived in 1632. Simon had been a yeoman farmer and served in the king's army, but when he had a chance to flee England for a place where he could worship as he chose and make more of his life than was possible in England, he did. Simon ended his days at 71, having married 3 times and fathered 17 children. He was also a major in the colonial militia, founded a town and was an overall success. On the other side of my family, Richard, born in the north of England, came to the colonies 3 years after Simon and also served in the colonial militia. He died at 81, having also married three times and fathering 14 children.

In the years since then, in every war and conflict through Vietnam, someone in my direct line has served this country. Willards and Hildreths have marched and sailed, fought and bled as officers and enlisted. I am descended from several officers in the Revolutionary War and dozens of enlistees. I am proud of this country, proud that we have managed to steer a course that still gives more freedom to more people than anywhere else - as well as more opportunity - and I pray we shall long be the example of freedom to the world.

With that, I will do my own version of a recent Canadian post:

A is for All of the citizens serving to protect this country and the peace of the world.

M is for Mercy. America has proved time and time again to be a terrible enemy but a merciful victor. This is another tradition I hope and pray we continue to follow even though it undoubtedly makes us appear weak to barbarians.

E is for English, our common tongue. Yes, we butcher the King's version, but American English is vibrant and lively and borrows freely from almost every culture we encounter. Barbecue from the Arawaks, amok from the Moros - if we find a useful word, we'll appropriate it. Look up boondocks, for example!

R is for our Revolution. We won our freedom and we have tried to spread the gospel of freedom.

I is for Invention. America was the first country to recognize intellectual property with a patent system and trademarks. The US Patent Office has patents that you can view online going back to 1790, when our country was barely a going concern. One of our Presidents has even held a patent.

C is for Charity. We excel at it both at home and abroad. If tragedy strikes a community or a country, Americans will be sending soup, bandages and cash within hours - and not primarily through government agencies, but through groups such as the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and dozens and dozens of smaller groups.

A is for ambition. In America, ambition and hard work can make you. Who your parents were or where they came from is much less important than what you want to achieve and how hard you are willing to work to do so.


The truth about this country is illustrated most vividly in the fact that all over the world in countries of every type, there are people standing in line and staking all they have on a chance to come here, whereas, I am informed, the line to leave here is small.

Don't get me wrong

I love our Canadian neighbors and our Canadian knitbloggers and I would certainly join them in a chorus of "O Canada" on July 1. However, the crowing about their "National Health Care" and labeling it "working" is just untenable.

First, the financing of their health care system is possible only because Canada has eviscerated its military and depends on the shield and buckler of the US military for much of its security. Although there are some plans in place to beef up the miniscule 60K active duty force, this is a tiny number of the people it should take to defend the large territory that Canada occupies. Proof of this is that the Canadian forces had trouble supplying replacement troops for the 850 people they sent to Afghanistan after their rotation was over. Imagine a country the size of Canada and they have so few troops that they had trouble rotating less than 1,000 personnel.

As for the working part of the health care system up there, I had an older relative here in the US just get knee replacement surgery in less than 3 weeks from the time it was determined that it was needed. There were other medical factors that slowed the process down by a week or the surgery would have been done even earlier. Contrast this with the fate of a grandmother of an acquaintance, who spent 6 months wheelchair bound waiting to get on the list to have knee repair (repair, NOT replacement) and finally gave up and crossed the border and paid cash to aUS doctor and hospital to do the job. Of course, the US doctors said a repair would only fend off a knee replacement by a couple of years, but in the Canadian system, she'd have waited another 6 months for the "repair" then when that failed in 2 years, she'd be on the waiting list for a replacement and God only knows how long you have to wait for a knee replacement. Maybe the notion is that she would die of old age in the wheelchair before the taxpayers had to fund the knee replacement.

Not to say there isn't plenty that could be better about the US health care model - for example, the fact that too many people use emergency facilities for minor injuries and illnesses is frustrating. We need to have urgent care clinics that can handle things like a severe ear infection at 2 a.m. or a hand cut open on a broken glass at 4 p.m. on Sunday without bothering the ER. Our military medical system used to do this very well, separating real emergencies from things that need care with some urgency, but don't require ER facilities. Apparently the civilian model mostly doesn't.

And I say all this as a private citizen with a chronic illness who has been occasionally uninsured and had to muddle through.

100 knitting things

Afghan; I-cord; Garter stitch; Knitting with metal wire; Shawl; Stockinette stitch; Socks: top-down; Socks: toe-up; Knitting with camel yarn; Mittens: Cuff-up; Mittens: Tip-down; Hat; Knitting with silk; Moebius band knitting; Participating in a KAL; Sweater; Drop stitch patterns; Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn; Slip stitch patterns; Knitting with bananafiber yarn; Domino knitting (=modular knitting); Twisted stitch patterns; Knitting with bamboo yarn; Two end knitting; Charity knitting; Knitting with soy yarn; Cardigan; Toy/doll clothing; Knitting with circular needles; Baby items; Knitting with your own handspun yarn; Slippers; Graffitti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street); Continental knitting; Designing knitted garments; Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran); Lace patterns; Publishing a knitting book; Scarf; Teaching a child to knit; American/English knitting (as opposed to continental); Knitting to make money; Button holes; Knitting with alpaca; Fair Isle knitting; Norwegian knitting; Dying with plant colours; Knitting items for a wedding; Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies...); Knitting socks (or other small tubular items)on two circulars; Olympic knitting; Knitting with someone elses handspun yarn; Knitting with dpns; Holiday related knitting; Teaching a male how to knit; Bobbles; Knitting for a living; Knitting with cotton; Knitting smocking; Dying yarn; Steeks; Knitting art; Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars simultaneously; Fulling/felting; Knitting with wool; Textured knitting; Kitchener BO; Purses/bags; Knitting with beads; Swatching; Long Tail CO; Entrelac; Knitting and purling backwards; Machine knitting; Knitting with selfpatterning/selfstriping/variegating yarn; Stuffed toys; Baby items; Knitting with cashmere; Darning; Jewelry; Knitting with synthetic yarn; Writing a pattern; Gloves; Intarsia; Knitting with linen; Knitting for preemies; Tubular CO; Freeform knitting; Short rows; Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers; Pillows; Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine; Rug; Knitting on a loom; Thrummed knitting; Knitting a gift; Knitting for pets; Shrug/bolero/poncho; Knitting with dog/cat hair; Hair accessories; Knitting in public.

Hmm, that's pretty substantial - but still has a lot of room for learning, even if there are a dozen things in there that I have utterly no interest in.

Beauteous things

Went to the High Museum here in Atlanta last week when I had a half day at work. Tickled to see a good portion of the Louvre exhibit - saw some paintings that I had hitherto seen only in books. Then we ventured over to the Cecilia Beaux and Annie Liebowitz exhibits and I was floored me. The Annie Liebowitz photography - well, her work has been part of my visual landscape since I was in HS, I guess, and started reading Rolling Stone. I always admired her work and Mary Ellen Mark. Getting to see her current work was astonishing. The large - oh, heck - immense format pictures were especially amazing.

The Cecilia Beaux exhibit was stunning for other reasons. I've long admired John Singer Sargent for the extraordinary way he handled light and shadows and after seeing this assemblage of paintings, I think that Ms. Beaux may actually be the superior painter. This is an exhibit I plan to revisit before it departs.

We were too tired and footsore to go on to The Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti on loan from Florence and since the exhibit departs July 15, Ms. Packratty has marked her calendar for July 7, when Fulton County residents get free admission to the High.

After the High, we did go on and go to Il Bacio for what ended up being dinner - I had the first non rubbery calamari I've ever had in this country and we shared a serving of rigatoni alla vodka, along with superb salads. This little restaurant will, I hope, make it. Everything I have had there, from pizza slices and salad, through pasta and gelato, has been terrific and authentic and I hope to continue munching my way through the menu as diet and pocketbook permit.

Jitterbugging

Yes, the Jitterbug socks in the lovely Colinette yarn are done and have been worn and were delightful. Thought it was odd how I got more striping and pooling on one sock than the other, especially since they were done from a single skein. I would definitely knit this yarn again — in fact I was very disappointed that one colorway that looked lovely on the monitor looked much muddier "in person". So much so that I passed it up.







At the moment, Ms. Packratty is through knitting socks for a little while and is back to the slog on the CBMM — http://www.masondixonknitting.com/slogalong/ is helping to provide some commiseration with others who have tackled long and boring projects. That said, Ms. Packratty believes that she is within striking distance of the end (maybe 1 1/2 more skeins - yes, she knows she said that once before, but that was before she realized that she had misplaced 2 skeins). The next project is the hat for Dad and once that is underway, I will allow myself to cast on the Fleece Artist merino for either Jaywalkers or Monkeys. I am still looking for something I think is achievable for the slightly fuzzy white yarn that I have set aside of Marleen, which is the next project after The Hat.


Undertook a visit to SC to render a bit of aid and comfort and Charlie got to have fun in the woods again. And was unbearably cute perched on a pillow next to a very gorgeous needlepoint pillow done by Ms. Packratty's sibling.

He also discovered that the magazine basket in the kitchen was exactly right for a small dog.




Charlie is really calming down and becoming a well behaved boy and to my delight, while he is not as much "at my heel" as Miranda, he will come running from wherever he might be when he hears his name. He does love my father's company, especially when it involves the woods out back.

Holy Smoke!

Yes, the smoke from the South Georgia fires once more cloaked Atlanta in haze.





With the resulting traffic idiocy, even though it really didn't significantly lower road visibility for Mr. Average Commuter.





However, the entire city smelled like an ashtray and made Ms. Packratty cough. Ick. Charlie was sneezing on his morning walk, too.





Pray for rain in south Georgia and north Florida - not because it's polluting my air, but because it's really, really bad and has already claimed the life of one firefighter.



In the Good News category, Ms. Packratty's relative is recovering well from surgery. We are thankful.

Monday and Tuesday and things to be glad for

There was a little knitting, a lot of reading and just a little de-packratting on Memorial Day. Mostly really taking it easy and snuggling Charlie, who has been suffering from my long hours and fatigue. Ms. Packratty was more than a little tense, because a relative is facing surgery.
But shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday, said relative was able to answer the phone and convey the news that surgery was successful.
So with that news, Ms. Packratty set off with Marleen (leaving Charlie with his buddy DeeDee) and went ... shopping. Marleen did *most* of the shopping, but Ms. Packratty was able to replace her almost worn-through-the-soles Crocs with a pair on sale and a spare pair to boot. Now, Ms. Packratty needs to remember to take the worn out pair AND the boxes and bags from the new ones and GET THEM OUT OF THE HOUSE!

Still waiting for the latest fix of sock yarn from the sale at www.littleknits.com ... and I'm starting the heel of sock 2 in the Colinette Jitterbug Blue Parrot socks.

Rest and fun

The holiday weekend started inauspiciously, but that turned out to be a good thing, because it just kept getting better. Unfortunately, the inauspicious part included my oh-so-considerate neighbor having a party that lasted into the wee hours of Saturday morning. Since Ms. Packratty had to be at work at 8 a.m. Saturday, this was not especially considerate. However, Ms. Packratty was not the only person who summoned the cops to the party and she looks forward to the new tenant in the apartment under MissTrouble arriving. At that point, the parties and fights will be called in by up to three neighbors. Maybe that sort of unanimity will get the point across?

Sadly, after little sleep Friday night and working Saturday, there was a faceplant on the bed Saturday afternoon that continued into Sunday morning when to my horror I awoke to discover that Atlanta was once again socked in under smoke from the south Georgia fires. It was horrible and I was really afraid that Stephanie - my third cousin on the Skinner side of the family - was going to have to cancel her Memorial Day Weekend soiree. Happily, as the pictures of Charlie above indicate, that did not happen. Charlie comported himself nicely and was invited back. And was he ever one tired little dog when we got home. Very, very tired.

Dear God in Heaven I want to CRY

This was the best part of my day - an absolutely perfect gardenia, with the swooning sweet scent that never ever seems to be cloying

OK, so I've covered the fact that we've had 5 people depart the Tech Support department in the last 6 weeks for various reasons and we were slightly understaffed (1 position) when that happened anyway, so you can surely imagine that the last 6 weeks have been Hell on a cracker?

So what does our manager do? Sails out of the office Thursday at something shortly after 5 p.m. and then sends an e-mail this morning saying "See you all Tuesday." FOUR DAY WEEKEND with no warning. Leaving a grand total of 4 people working.

One poor co-worker was here alone from 7:30 a.m. until 8 a.m. to deal with all the software error calls. There was ONE hardware queue co-worker and then me, the multitasker. I got in here shortly after 11 (because I realized that poor Charlie desperately needed a play date and dropped the poor beast off at Marleen's on my way to work). So the first thing that happened to me was getting totally hammered because the co-worker answering software calls bolted for lunch as soon as she saw me coming and I do not blame her one tiny little bit. Heck, in her position, I might have been bolting for Tower Liquors across the street (classy neighborhood to go with the great pay) about that time.

Anyway, there was a major bit of software stupidity and a whole great mountain of user stupidity going on and then the hardware guy bailed at 4:30; the other software person split at 4:15 and the second line desk supervisor bombed out of here at 5 p.m. and I'm stuck here alone answering calls from mentally deficient and arrogant users in California all by myself and I swear to God there is one girl with a voice so whiny that it makes my teeth itch. I was sitting there telling her I couldn't fix her broken spreadsheet if she couldn't tell me what columns the spreadsheet was intended to add and subtract from what columns and she actually said "Is there anyone there who knows anything about Excel?"

Head:Desk

OK, so I have to be back here Saturday at 8 o'clock of the morning and some of my co-workers have to work Monday (but most if not all of the Suits will be enjoying THEIR weekend). You know, growing up as a military brat really ruined me for civilian employment. Because officers in the military work the same kind of long hours as their subordinates. Sometimes longer. When I was a kid, especially when we were overseas, Dad was gone at way-too-dark-to-be-awake-let-alone-shaved-and-kitted-out-in-a-perfectly-starched-uniform and he rarely if ever got home before dark most of the year and dusk in high summer. Plus he worked every single Saturday that he wasn't on leave from way-too-early until mid-afternoon at least. So the managers who take every long weekend and so forth really don't impress me much at all.

So anyway, when 3 p.m. came around, I bolted the place and headed up to The Needle Nook since I had an email saying that she had the newest colors of the Colinette Jitterbug in stock and I needed to buy more teentsy-tiny #1 bamboo needles since I bent and broke ANOTHER one yesterday. Well, I wanted the Colinette Jitterbug Seabreeze color pattern and it turned out to be much ... browner than the pictures on the Colinette site indicated. I mean really muddy BROWN. The web site picture looks like a light beige and this stuff was dark. The Monet was muddier than the web site too. So no more sock yarn. I was saved. Which considering my little falling down the other day is a good thing. The Packratty budget can't afford much retail therapy. Although I did buy needles and a row marker. An appropriate row marker for my recent progress . . .

Life is Just a Bowl of . . . CHERRIES!

Yes, indeedy, it's cherry season again and Ms. Packratty has been on the "fruit and tea" regimen that always seems to set in when cherry season peaks and the cherry prices drop under $3 a pound. Thank heavens this phase only lasts for about 3 weeks, 4 tops, because by the time cherries once again become insanely budget-bustingly expensive, Ms. Packratty is TIRED of them, if one can indeed be tired of the Nectar of the Gods.

Fruit and tea means that Ms. Packratty stumbles home from work (more on that later) and washes off a good mess of cherries in the colander and dumps them in a paper-towel-lined bowl and then goes forth to read her email. Somewhat later, she thinks about dinner but is already stuffed on cherries, so she makes a cup of tea and tries to stay awake long enough for the news at 10 to come on.

.

The reason that Ms. Packratty is stumbling about in a daze is that the staff at her workplace is currently about half of what it should be, yet our users continue to mess up the programs, the hardware and the data at the usual pace. This sudden decline in workforce is due to the canning of two co-workers (one of whom richly deserved it); the lateral move of a third; and the defection of a fourth to a position with almost no commute, better pay, better benefits and no requirement that he wear a tie every bloody day of the year. The fifth co-worker developed kidney failure and congestive heart failure and nearly died, so it is difficult to hate him for his absence.

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Management has scurried about recruiting replacements, who might be competent to answer the phone by Labor Day, while motivating us with the occasional lunch and some movie tickets. Forget that noise - motivate me by taking the pay for the 5 empty positions and divvying it up among those of us who are carrying a double workload! Cash bonuses? Ha. They think a cold quesadilla from Chilis is going to do the trick. Can we say "updated resume" boys and girls?

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Meanwhile we have the Memorial Day weekend approaching and while the parking slots for the Executive Gods are already mostly empty, the Help Desk will be staffed both the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and on Memorial Day itself. Those who matter (the expensive cars in the reserved spots) will mostly be gone for a week centering on Memorial Day itself. Really motivating. Really. Truly. Ms. Packratty will be working on the Saturday and have the Tuesday off.

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Needless to say, not much knitting or de-packratting has been getting done, but there have been a number of interesting things going on.

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First of all, it has been late spring and that has meant all sorts of raging animal attraction going on everywhere. While it was cool enough to have the windows open there for a while it was too darned noisy - too much muskrat love sort of stuff going on. It's been dry, so the frogs have been very quiet, though, those can be deafening even with closed windows in a rainy spring.

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Dry brings me to other things, like the fires burning a hole in south Georgia and northern Florida. The winds shifted early this week and on Tuesday, Atlanta was blanketed in stinky smoke - heavy enough to look like fog, but smelling like the bottom of an ashtray. It blew away, but it was sheerly awful while it lasted. Thousands of acres have burned and hundreds of people are losing homes and livelihoods.

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In other developments, the woman who lives downstairs is either fighting with her old girlfriend who moved out but who seems to be hanging around a bit or is fighting (usually at 2:30 a.m.) with someone new. The style of fighting - slamming doors, screaming, thumping on walls, does not seem to change, regardless of who the second combatant is. I'm really, really, really really tired of this woman and her dysfunctional lesbian love life. I'm tired of the fact that she cannot seem to shut a door without slamming it so hard that things rattle upstairs. I'm tired of her untrained, unaltered and badly-bred Boston terrier yapping at me and getting Charlie all worked up.

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Yes, Danielle, I want you gone. I don't care how anymore and that's why I no longer call the cops when you are fighting - because horribly enough, I find myself hoping that either you or your partner in combat will seriously damage the other, leading to jail or hospital or something for you and peace and quiet for me. And yes, I am horrified that I possess this sort of evil desire for bad things to happen to you, but dammit - you've woken me out of a sound and peaceful sleep or prevented me from attaining same too DAMN MANY TIMES. We will not even discuss the fact that you don't want your creepy assortment of scuzzball friends smoking cigarettes or joints in your house, so you send them onto the deck, where the clouds of stinking smoke drift in my open windows, meaning that even in marginally clement weather, I am forced to shut the windows and sliding doors.

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Exhaustion does have some good points - at least budgetwise. Ms. Packratty has managed to resist the siren song of various yummy yarns and continue knitting when possible on the chocolate brown merino monster or the Jitterbug socks ... but she had a little sort of yarn falling down thing when she found a sale at http://www.littleknits.com/ and might have ordered a wee bit over the minimum purchase in sock yarn. Not much, just 3 pair of socks worth including some Fleece Artist Merino in Nova Scotia ... I was hideously tempted by the Hand Maiden Sea Silk, but resisted. The CBMM and the hat for Dad and the shawl for Marleen are all in queue ahead of anything else. I will be strong. I will be strong. I will be strong.

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The other thing that irritates the pee out of me lately is when someone is conducting a knitting blog or a dog blog or whatever and they drag political comments in with this smug assumption that all right-thinking people must think the way they do. Well, I have news for them - when I log in to read a knitting blog, I am not there to read about your politics, etc. For whatever record there might be, Ms. Packratty considers herself to be a moderate who does not think it is ever appropriate to call the President demeaning names. Ms. Packratty even refrained from calling former president Clinton names when he was in office and given that Ms. Packratty is a feminist and she believes that the former president is a rapist or the very next thing to one, that was *difficult*. Hereby ends Ms. Packratty's political commentary.

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Nor does Ms. Packratty ever want to see or hear anyone ever demeaning or disparaging the men and women of the US Armed Forces. Please note that while there have been bad apples, in almost every case of said bad appledom or bad actions in the US military, it has been people within the military who blew the whistle on the bad actors. Unlike the civilian world where warrants, investigations and grand juries are often required to sniff out malefactors. Not to mention that military justice is both swifter and nastier than civilian justice. Nor does she much like the bashing of graduates of the various service academies - especially when such bashing is coming from the mouths or pens or keyboards of persons whom Ms. Packratty is mortally certain could not have hacked it out at West Point or Annapolis or Colorado Springs for so much as a month, let alone 4 years. Yes, Ms. Packratty is biased. She has relatives and ancestors who attended the service academies and believes them to be superb insitututions that focus on physical, mental and moral discipline.

EOT