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December 29, 2004

baby detonate for me

Phew. Christmas is over, now there is only the New Year's Eve Party Indecision to get through and then the Suicide Months. Sorry if I am bringing anyone down, but winter in Chicago stretches on into the foreseeable future and there is not much to look forward to except for slush, bare trees, darkness and then those little teasing glimpses of spring in between until about early July when suddenly its summer again. Blah blah, there's not so much going on except for the weather today. I am still in this perma-limbo of semi-homelessness, surrounded by cardboard boxes until lord knows when. Up to my eyeballs in boxes and unable to unpack, which makes concentrating on anything difficult. Of course it could be a lot worse and I am thankful to be surrounded by cardboard rather than water. Egads. What can be said about it? I don't know. Its so mysterious when these things happen, what can we find in it? And what can we do, from the other side of the world?

Anyway, let's think happy thoughts, shall we?
Tomorrow is my birthday, and I am looking forward to a soju martini at Jin Ju with my brother and sister-in-law. Jerry, my guardian angel, says I have to make it the best birthday ever. What with all the chaos lately I haven't had much time to plan, as a result I'm not sure I can pull off the best ever but it should be a nice day. I am working also, and no one there knows its my birthday because I didn't want them to feel obliged to do anything about it, and also if they did I would be embarrassed. So I am hoping for a nice normal day of work and then to get ever so mildly drunk. Woo-hoo.
I've glimpsed Jerry twice since the night that he walked me and Marcel home in the rain. He has the strangest moustache you've ever seen. This, and the uncanny way he has of popping up everywhere I go and then disappearing as quickly as he arrived is why I am convinced he is not of this earth. Last night I watched this tv show about String Theory. Truly there are parallel universes and things going on under our very noses that we can't even begin to understand or reach out and grasp. Sometimes I am convinced that we are puny indeed.

In other news, an Egghead was in town for one of his whirlwind visits, all of which happened so fast I am still not entirely convinced it wasn't some pretty, imaginary little figment I dreamt of, a merry post-christmas bit of wish fulfillment. In it we went out for pancakes/burritos at Angel's, then coffee, book shopping, and to the cinema. We saw The Life Aquatic, (highly recommended but if you don't get it, you won't get it. Here is a bit of detail, which shouldn't spoil it for you, although it is a highlight of the film. Bill Murray in a Speedo, chasing bad guys and shooting them with a glock, to Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy is well worth the price of admission and needs to be seen on the big screen. It was meant to be funny -and is- but in all seriousness I would do Bill Murray. I mean it!! Daddy!) Then we had dinner at La Creperie for my birthday, and drank a little bit of red red wine. I think the nicest parts were when we were walking, holding hands, my hand inside his inside his coat pocket. It was cold outside. Why oh why oh why do Eggheads have to make everything so complicated? Sigh.

Anyway, another highlight of this season came in the form of other whirlwind visitors, the Hinshaw/Loftis-es and my little fairy godchild, who is not quite as little these days! We spent the day eating, shopping, riding the train, playing with Caroline with the elevator in their hotel, and eating some more.
Its so nice to be around old friends who are, as that (infernal Christmas) song goes, dear to us. And plus, the big news is soon there will be more of them to love! Which means baby blankets to knit!!
Hourah! Maybe Cari will tell me where to find that tomato hat pattern?

Finally, the knitting part~ I am working on a Whimsical Hat from a Blue Sky Alpacas pattern, to match my brown and blue striped hand warmers, also made from Blue Sky Alpacas. Oooh how I am loving the alpaca these days. Soon I will get down to the serious sock knitting, but I found that I haven't got quite the right size needles for the Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn. I improvised the beginning ribbing from a pattern I found online, then tried it on my leg and discovered it was going to flop, so I am starting over and learning valuable lessons about the meaning of checking one's gauge carefully. Its hard being an anarchist knitter.

Posted by pippypippy at 12:07 PM | Comments (3)

December 20, 2004

not so much room at the inn

Haaarrrooooooo!
Its been so long!
Catastrophes major and minor, real and imagined have been keeping me from the Knit-A-Log!
What a time to be a Pippy!
What a time for Christmas to fall!
In spite of it all I have carried my needles with me, and continued with my projects, even when I thought I was going to sleep under a bridge of a cold, rainy December night!
Fights, fires (Here are words to live by, Knit-A-Log readers. For the love of god, NEVER NEVER NEVER light a candle and then forget to blow it out and leave your house {we didn't do it but our neighbors did}. Your neighbors will be mad and all your stuff will be gone. Oh, and for gods sakes get renter's insurance. It will totally save your bacon if you have neighbors who don't exercise proper candle safety.It happens more often than you might think!) and freak-out sessions have not kept me from finishing one improvised hat that looks like a raspberry, though its not a beret, 3 pairs of hand-warmers, and almost, the piece of resistance, The Floof. Its grown into its own entity, quite the Seussian something.
Look for pictures to come!

And in the middle of everything I've been seized by an overwhelming urge to make socks and bought 2 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn and double pointed size 2s. What with the holidays and semi-homelessness, and the temporary comatose state of The Little iMac That Could (not to mention the lack of an Internet Connexion of One's Own-let alone A Room of One's Own) who knows.

This morning I heard this song in the place where I was having coffee and it put me in a happy little trance. I was doing the finishing rounds of The Floof and having a cranberry scone with orange icing. Somebody other than Kermit the Frog sang it. It made me so happy. Here are the words, for your reading pleasure (or pain!).

Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side
Rainbow’s are visions
They’re only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we’ve been told and some chose to
Believe it
But I know they’re wrong wait and see

Someday we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it’s done so far
What’s so amazing
That keeps us star gazing
What do we think we might see

Someday we’ll find it
That rainbow connection
The lovers the dreamers and me

All of us under it’s spell
We know that it’s probably magic

Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices
I’ve heard them calling my name
Are these the sweet sounds that called
The young sailors
I think they’re one and the same
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it
There’s something that I’m supposed to be

Someday we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

If I don't get a chance to write again before the holidays, everyone have a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. And remember, war is over, if you want it.
Oh yeah.
Feliz Navidad, Julian Garcia, wherever you are.
p.s. my birthday is the 30th. Hint.

Posted by pippypippy at 04:13 PM | Comments (4)

December 06, 2004

humbug

Whoa. Here is an excellent Holiday Greeting Card, verbal antidote to the musical holiday swill I have been forced to listen to at work. Really, I hate to appear embittered. But on Saturday I heard Burl Ives' Have A Holly Jolly Christmas three times. And don't even let me get started on Celine Dion doing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Interspersed with commercials telling me I should unwrap a brand new Jaguar (JAG-u-r!) this Xmas.
Particularly irksome also is a version of John Lennon's Happy Christmas/War Is Over which leaves out the War Is Over part. Oh yes. Its out there!

Posted by pippypippy at 09:21 AM | Comments (3)

December 05, 2004

la vraie pippy

At this time last year I was in Paris France, France, France.
Having seen plenty of movie versions, it was high time to see it!

The Real Paris!

A certain Egghead (click and scroll past the fundraising crap) came too and we went to this zoo

where these sweaters with feet were having a breakfast meeting. Verily, it was a smallish but wonderful menagerie of curious creatures, big and small, tucked into the Jardin de Plantes, where, among other things, they have controle totale du monde vegetal. La ménagerie, l'un des plus anciens parcs zoologiques du monde! (its pretty old as zoos go!) The zoo was created to house des animaux exotiques who were running rampant in the gardens of Versailles. Cheeky little monkeys made a sport of sneaking up and snatching powdered wigs right off of gentlemen's heads and flinging them into the fountains! Llamas, elephants, camels, giraffes, goats, gazelles, and buffalos were making nuisances for the ladies as they strolled the paths amidst the flowerbeds! Thus, Louis XIII, after an orangutan wandered into his very bedchambers, said, "ca suffit!" and la Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes was created! Ok, I made some of that up. The Jardin des Plantes was opened in 1640 by Louis XIII's doctor, and the gardens originally grew medicinal plants to promote His Majesty's health. During the siege of Paris in 1871, officials raided the zoo for meat, and elephants were served to starving Parisians.

This is the top of the monkey house. I thought it was cute.

And there were lots of these adorable cars around in the street

It must be so nice to be

a dog in Paris.

Anyway, back to planet Pippy, where Christmas knitting is in furious full swing and I have completed one and a half and a quarter (which is not to say three-quarters but really one half and one quarter) of how many presents? A jillion!! The needles will be smoking. And smoking is very French. And last year I was in Paris. And I knitted a hat while I was there. So there it is.

Posted by pippypippy at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)