Things have been pretty swell around here. I’m super-excited that we’ve been having a real spring in Baltimore this year! It didn’t go from 50 to 80 degrees in one week. (Well, we did have that two-day heat wave, but that doesn’t count.) Everything has been blooming and waking up slowly, so the roads and highways all have that bright green dusting look, with little bursts of other colors like pink and yellow all throughout. I painted my nails pastel yellow the other day just to join in the party!

I’ve been a little mopey lately. Most of the issues have been resolved, so I think it’s clearing up now. However, I’m sad to say the new people at work – who really aren’t that new anymore; they celebrated their 7-month anniversary a few days ago – are all getting to the point where they’re fed up with the general ridiculousness of our job. Everybody’s annoyed (or frustrated or downright furious) a lot of the time now. It’s spreading like a disease; it’s hard to keep my Zen state of mind and let things roll off my back when everyone is losing their minds. And they all tend to come to me to talk about it, because I am supposedly the older-and-wiser-sibling figure on the team. I get it, I do. It’s hard though when my only response can be, “You’re absolutely right. Things are injust and idiotic. Unfortunately it is never going to change, so do try to smile and don’t let it ruin your life.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the science center just does not do discipline well. In trying to keep one employee placated, they’ve successfully driven off a score of great employees (at least) who have become so frustrated they honestly can’t take it anymore and would rather flip burgers or clean toilets than work for that one employee. It truly blows.

But, life goes on. And good things do happen at work. My friend Erin’s baby shower was yesterday! We decorated the board room (where Aaron and I are getting married this summer) and there was the most beautiful dragon cake ever and there were presents and games! It was so fun. (O:  I won a prize for winning a three-way tie in a memory game. My prize package has a pinwheel and play dough and an assortment of candies. That was a great day!

As the outside world is waking up, and work is moving right along, I’m getting the beginnings of the urge to make things again. I’ve been really tired this week, so although I’ve got a million ideas, I haven’t executed any yet. That’s okay. I’ll get around to it. I knit for a few hours last night, but the count was off so I had to frog it. It was an experimental knit though, so I figured that might happen. At least I worked on something for a while. I might fix the lining of a bag before work today if I have the time, so maybe that will inspire me to finish off a few projects in my sewing stash! I love the things I sew, but it’s so much more of a commitment to get that stuff accomplished. Much less portable than knitting…

Anyway, if I want to get that taken care of, I’d better escape the clutches of the internet! Happy Spring, y’all!!

I started knitting one year and two months ago. It has been amazing. Mandy and Katie, good friends of mine, had been trying to convince me to knit for years, and I resisted them, insisting, “I sew.” Then I was on bedrest for a while, and Mandy moved to TN and Katie needed a new knitting friend, so I decided what with all my extra time I would give it a whirl. My first yarn (Lamb’s Pride worsted weight in “Prarie Fire”) became a ribbed scarf for my Oma, and the yarn came from Clover Hill.

This is not why I love you.

My next projects included a matching hat and gloves (Mission Falls 1824 in aster and…periwinkle? Some blue) and green-and-white headband and wrist-warmers (also Mission Falls) and my Cloverhill experiences were always cheerful. The one time I veered away into Jo-Ann’s Wool-Ease section made me appreciate you all the more.

Still, not why I love you.

Even the mind-blowingly awesome savings at the Super Bowl sales are not why I love you.

See, recently Katie loaned me The Yarn Harlot’s Secret Life of a Knitter. (By recently I mean at least four months ago. I just got around to reading it. I know you won’t judge. Right?) I have since become addicted to YH’s blog, and have been becoming more and more infatuated with Fleece Artist yarns. I went to their website, hoping for online retail. No dice. Rien, as the French-Canadians would say! But lo, I could select a state. I selected Maryland, waiting to see how much of a friggin’ hike I was going to have to make to *just maybe* get my hands on some of this yarn.

I honest-to-goodness gasped, out loud (think about it: when is the last time you can remember gasping about something?) and got all fluttery when I saw: Clover HIll Yarn Shop, 75 Mellor Ave., Catonsville.

And this, THIS is why I love you. You have just made my day in a very big way.

Payday is Friday. I expect I’ll be seeing you (or at least the metaphorical “you” that is the shop) sometime this weekend.

Fondly,

Amy
p.s.  Please don’t tell my Super Bowl yarn about this email. What it doesn’t know won’t hurt it.

I think you can see where this is going.

Yup, working Saturday. Maybe if nobody’s house burns down, car breaks down, the stars align perfectly, and I can manage to say “NO” to anyone who might want or need anything, this Sunday I might just have a day of total rest.

Maybe.

Did I mention it also looks like I’m helping my friends move soon?

It’s at Times Like These, my friends, that there is only one thing to do:

To the piano!

“Another year, come and gone. And now is the time for people to get all anxious about self imposed resolutions. Over the years, I’ve found most of my resolutions are year round goals. Things like “lose weight”, “manage my time better” and “stop with all the stabby”.

Be excellent to each other. “

Now, off to Adam and Katie’s to ring in the New Year – with all three Lord of the Rings movies!!

Happy New Year.

I’ve lived in Baltimore for six years now, and I’ve pretty consistently observed that when everyone and their Hon-mom is talking about impending wintry doom, you will see a cough of flurries and still have to go to work and/or school the next day. Needless to say, this past week I’ve been “psssh”-ing and rolling my eyes a good bit. “Suure, it’s going to be a blizzard! Yeah, we’re going to get a REAL dumping of snow!”

Color me shocked.

Now I suppose I should backtrack a little: just because I don’t really ever believe the snow-hype, that doesn’t mean I don’t long for crazy snow party. The nine-year-old in me has fingers and toes crossed and is silently praying and pleading with all manner of deities for some AWESOME SNOW. This is why, on Friday night, pretty much every hour (on the hour) I asked Aaron, “Do you think it’s snowing yet??” Around ten o’clock he said, “Nope not yet. Wait…yeah a car just went by and I saw some flurries in the headlights!”

Hmmm. Flurries. But the excitement was mounting, nonetheless.

A little while later we looked out of our bedroom window: there was a goodly dusting on the roof and the cars. We went to sleep, and the madness started.

The roof below our window is probably about a foot down, maybe a little less. By the time we woke up, the snow was creeping its way up, almost level to the window ledge. No signs of stopping. We ate some danish we had procured the night before and Internetted, as is fitting for any Saturday morn. I napped a little while longer. The snow was level with the window ledge. I knitted, and snow surpassed the window ledge.

At this point, our neighbor Mr. Bill gets out his snow blower. I should point out that the snow had not relented at this point AT ALL. It’s nearing noon. This made me giggle: in childhood our backyard met up with that of an older couple, and my bedroom window had a pretty good view of their backyard and driveway. The man always wore a hat and smoked cigars. He also always attempted to shovel his driveway long before the snow stopped falling. I used to joke to my parents that he should just stand there, letting the flakes fall on the shovel. Although Mr. Bill’s strange habits were reminiscent of this childhood memory, he had something my previous neighbor did not: firepower. This snowblower is a diesel beast, coming to take no prisoners. About twenty minutes after clearing a respectable path in his driveway, you could not tell where Mr. Bill’s snowblowing had occurred.  This snow was serious.

By the time the snow finally stopped (around 9 pm), the drift outside our window reached about two feet above the ledge at its apex. Our cars are barely visible. The plows driving down the street are trembling and making little dog-whiny sounds, while tucking the exhaust pipe between the back tires.

It’s time to get down to business, people: time to eat some danish, eggs, and bacon and then build a hippo in the snow. Happy Snow Day!

Last weekend, KG had a show at Metro Gallery. Unfortunately, it was on Friday after I had worked 12.5 hours. I wasn’t really feeling it as a consequence. Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun time as always and I was excited to see all of my friends, but I was tired and not feeling very enthusiastic about anything. But I did get some Chipotle, and the opening band Secret Mountains was pretty good! We got a copy of their CD, I think if they play locally again anytime soon I might go check ‘em out.

So yeah, weekends have been reeeeally packed, which has kind of made the weeks feel long. I’ve also been crafting up a storm almost every waking moment that I’m not at work. It’s been really fun, but I’m about ready for the holidays to be over. (Oh yeah, I’m making Christmas gifts, too!) Tonight I have a 6 pm show (hence the not being at work at 12:45 on a Thursday afternoon). I like evening shows, they bring some variety from the usual routine. And man, let me tell you: the routine lately has been BO-RING at work. Our bookings are way down due to the recession, blah blah blah, so I’m not performing nearly as much as normal. That basically comes down to lots of down-time in the office, wanting to poke my eyeballs out. There’s been increasing talk of “restructuring,” and I’m kind of wishing they would just get around to laying people off already. I don’t want anyone at the MSC to have to lose their jobs, but it’s tiring always waiting for that other shoe to drop. Everyone’s stressed out all the time, it’s horrible.

Overall though, despite all of these trivialities, things have been pretty great lately. Aaron and I have just started watching LOST, which is super-addicting and awesome! And I think after all the Christmas crafting is finished, we’re really actually going to start moving ahead on the band project. We’ve put together some rough collaborations, and I think once we polish those demos up we’re going to send them to Joe to put some drumbeats on ‘em!! Yay! I can’t wait to get back to playing music.

Also, my puppets came! I’ve finished one script, and have enough puppets for two shows: I’m going to start doing children’s birthday parties, giving puppet shows about animals. I am thrilled! Now I just need to whip up some fliers and business cards and start getting my name out there. I’ve got a really good feeling about this; I hope it comes through!

Now I guess I should actually get ready and go to work. (Booo!)

My favorite thing about this film? The disclaimer in the beginning: This film takes place in the fictional city of Glasgow. Any resemblance to the actual city of Glasgow is completely coincidental. Yeah, except that this was OBVIOUSLY filmed in the actual city of Glasgow. I don’t think that actually qualifies the similarities as “coincidence.”

And no, I don’t know what a stop-motion potion is. I do know that the principals in this movie do a lot of shady dealings with elementary school students. I also know that this movie would be a lot (and I mean a LOT) more entertaining if the soundtrack was comprised of the 70′s punk these kids might have actually listened to rather than the awful, smooth-jazz quality electric piano/bass combo that is swarthily accompanying these scene changes. It’s like they just ripped stock music from Moonlighting, perhaps a whole three measures, and eeked it in wherever there was an awkward silence. Also, although these kids are speaking English, their lips are plainly not lining up with the words they’re saying. It’s like the worst Godzilla movie ever. Godzilla vs. The Ganglemeisters!!

Time to listen to the classical station. WBJZ, save our souls!!

About two weeks ago, Aaron came home carting the most recent Carma’s Crud. It was bad. For Aaron to call out of work, it’s bad. So we were all sickly together for a couple of days, and then it got better…kinda. There was still some bastardly congestion that wouldn’t break up, and a hacking cough that just wouldn’t quit, and just when I was feeling this sexy and chipper, my car wouldn’t start. There was some craziness with trying to start it unsuccessfully (obviously), and then calling AAA and waiting for them for an hour-and-a-half, and then the tow truck laughing at me and saying that there was no way he’d make it down our driveway because it’s in such bad shape. It was awesome. So he jimmy-jacked my car to get it to at least start, and it belched out a bunch of smoke but we got it to the shop in Glen Burnie. Basically it needed a major tune-up, so it could have been a lot worse (like last time when a rodent had eaten through the entire wire casing).

So the car is ::knockonwood:: better, but I have been feeling progressively worse. After being sealed up in a van with my increasingly-sick boss all of Thursday, the second landfall kicked me in the teeth Friday night. Ohhhh the thrill of a fever and chills and the all-over aching twice in 8 days was just indescribable! Saturday morning I tried to go to the UrgentCare, but was about a half-hour too late in my plans/ability to raise my head off the pillow. So waited until this morning, we did.

Let’s preface this by saying this turned into a three-hour trip to the doctor’s office.

There was a sign on the door on the way in.
The sign sayeth: “If you are experiencing flu-like symptoms, please inform our staff at the front desk immediately, so that we may provide you with the appropriate care as soon as possible.” Being the good little citizen my daddy raised me to be, I dutifully (and somewhat sheepishly) told the ladies at the front desk that I was a walk-in patient, and experiencing flu-like symptoms. The receptionist cheerfully told me to wait one second; she returned with a paper surgeon-style mask and some Purelle, which I was obligated to use. *I usually don’t use Purelle because it makes my eczema go crazy.

Needless to say, the other patients in the waiting room shot me many a furtive glance over the next half-hour’s wait.
Those bastards also hacked, sneezed, broke out in cold sweats, and CLEARLY exhibited flu-like symptoms, but since none of them used the magical phrase upon walking in, I was the only idiot in the room wearing a mask.

Dishonest, fraudulent jerks.

Finally, a masked, gloved attendant whisked me off to the Fabulous Flu Room!

“I’m sorry,” she explained, “this room is kept a few degrees colder than the rest of the building.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I replied amiably, “I’m dressed in five layers for just such an occasion. That, and the chance that the chills might come creeping back.”
We proceeded to the usual check ‘o’ the vitals, and then! A DOUBLE throat-culture, in which two swabs, held side-by-side, were introduced to my esophagus.

I suppose that here I should interject that when I was six, it took five RN’s, my mother, and a doctor to restrain me and obtain a throat sample. That’s how much I love this process.

Luckily, today my medical technician, Samantha, was awesome and let me take my own sample. Unfortunately the little  buggers still had to go two-by-two. Then it was the flu test! This one she had to do herself, and we had the mutual joy of a swab  jabbed repeatedly in one nostril, and the same swab jabbed thusly in the other nostril. It pretty much ruled. Then I waited alone (but for my throbbing sinus headache) for a good long while for some kind of result. I don’t think I have to tell you that every time someone knocked and talked to me through the door, and reminded me to be sure I was keeping my mask on, my anxiety went up about 3 more points. Finally, after about 20 minutes, my inner-self was saying, “Shit! I have the swine and I have obviously infected children at all three of the last schools I worked at. Shit!”

The doctor came in, sans test results, and did some of the usual flu check-up stuff, including banging on my face to see if my sinuses hurt. Yup. They hurt. Can I go home now?

No! We need to X-Ray your chest to make sure you don’t have pneumonia.
I appreciate that. Because you know who doesn’t want to die of walking pneumonia this year? Little old me.

Honestly, up until this point I was in pretty good spirits. I appreciated the effort being put into my diagnosis, and I respected the fact that these overworked and pretty obviously somewhat-terrified people were doing their jobs as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It was then, my friends, that I met the X-Ray technician.
The X-Ray room is about a quarter-mile from the Flu Room. Since this woman and I had about a five-minute walk together, I decided to make pleasant small-talk.

“It’s really great that you’re able to do X-Rays on site. I pretty much figured I was doomed to go to the ER after this.”
“Yeah, well, we only became an urgent care a few months ago. Before that we’ve always been job-related accidents and injuries, so we had to have the X-Rays.”
“Oh, I see.”  ::shuffle shuffle. awkward silence:: Upon coming to the X-Ray room, she looks at me, as though for the first time and says,
“Dammit, didn’t they tell you to change out of your clothes?”
Bear in mind I just spent 5 MINUTES shuffling down the hallway with this lady. NOW YOU NOTICE THAT I AM WEARING CLOTHES.
“No ma’am, I just trusted that you’d have a gown here when you told me to follow you.”
“Well. I can’t let you change in another room, since you’re a flu patient. We have to take you back to the flu room so you can remove your bra.”
“Oh, it’s okay, I’m not wearing a bra. I have a camisole with no underwire.” (I had sort of anticipated they might want to check for pneumonia.)

Now, she gets really pissed, pretty much out of nowhere. She wheels around, and into my mask she says,
“You need to just do exactly what I say! I am taking you back to the flu room!”

She was old and mean for the rest of our time together. What a pleasant encounter.

Final diagnosis:
No swine.
No influenza.
No pneumonia.
Sinus infection, with some other sort of virus attached to it. No work for the next 5 days.

In other news, some tree-trimmers accidentally dropped a tree on my mom and dad’s brand-new front porch. Luckily, the guy’s brother is a carpenter, so by the time my parents got home (the tree trimmers came unexpectedly – don’t ask), the porch was already halfway repaired. And as my dad went to move his car out of said carpenter’s way, his car chug-a-lugged and died!

Apparently we collectively can’t catch a break.
But whatevs, I got to spend the majority of the afternoon playing Donkey Kong Country and Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind! So I can’t complain.

Sorry I have been distant. The summer/September was hectic and unorthodox. I won’t bore you with excuses regarding my absence. I will, however, tantalize you with the fact that I have an exciting new idea involving puppets that I am preparing to unleash on the greater MD area. Get ready.

In the meantime, a high school acquaintance wrote this letter to her cat and, by the power invested in Facebook, I became privy to it. It’s amusing and I thought you might enjoy it! (Also, holy moly the synth breakdown in Ben Folds’ Ascent of Stan just blew my mind out!!) Anyway, here it is:

Dear Raven,

Love always,
Mom

Love it.
Talk atcha soon…
xoxo

Don’t get me wrong: I really love my job. And for the most part it is much less stressful that many jobs (see any of my past posts about my crazy teaching experience). But I guess I’m just missing the illusion of the typical college student: that you’re “free” and “on your own” and that as long as you get good grades and stay out of trouble, your life is going to work out just great.

You’re not really free or on your own. Your parents pay the majority of your big bills, and there’s generally some kind of safety net in place for you if you mess something up. Picked the wrong major? Freaking out? No worries: there’s still time to change your mind! Here, have a month-long winter break! Here’s another week in the spring! And don’t worry, we won’t make you come in the summer unless you really want to.

Damn, dude. Life was good.

But I still found stuff to freak out over. And maybe in a year or two when I have a different job, I’ll look back at this time and wonder what the hell I was complaining about. Ultimately, I think I’m just feeling the effects of having the safety net removed, of realizing that my safety nets are wishing they had safety nets and that no one is really 100% certain of how it’s all going to work out in the end.

Or maybe it’s just this damn summer cold sending me into fever-induced ramblings. ‘Cause man, I know I get nostalgic from time to time, but I NEVER missed walking to class before.