Random Monday

Hi folks,

Everybody else does it, so I can too!

- While I was out riding Mario last Friday, I was picking blackberries (blackberry picking is the very best from on a horse!) in a very populated park, what I call the Disneyland of public parks, when I looked behind me and saw what I first thought was a large dog staring at me 30 feet away. Then I did a double take; it was a GIGANTIC coyote. Mario unfortunately caught sight of the damn thing with its smiley mocking face and laughing eyes and promptly got very nervous. However, he was good enough to indulge me in my Master Coyote Scaring Plan of turning into a very large six-legged noise machine. My good old Mar didn't want to turn around and stare the coyote down, but he did and then enduring me making quite a ruckus on his back without flinching a bit. I am a lucky girl to have such a mount! On Sunday I talked to the folks at the barn about my middle of the afternoon sighting and they said the animal is a "coydog", a coyote/dog hybrid, and that it has been hanging around for months and isn't scared of people at all. They've lost a lot of the barn cats to this genetic mutant, unfortunately.

- It has come time for me to shed the extra 25lbs I have gained in the last 6 months. I am doing a diet that has worked for me before, the WebMD diet, and I am one calorie-giving up cranky lady right now, I tell you what!

- On my way back from Canada I received a phone call from a recruiting company that lands people contract jobs wanting to screen me for a full-time contract position in marketing/project management for a very well-known local company founded by a MSFT gazillionaire (who also may have had a large hand in building the EMP here in Seattle). I am excited about this prospect for three reasons. Reason #1: I lost out on the fellowship I had applied for and that bummed me out. Reason #2: I barely had to do anything (other than post my resume on Monster) to get this call. Reason #3: Yarn money!!

- I take off for Italy this coming Sunday. I have about 20 pages of papers to write and more interviews to schedule and conduct, some in Italy where I don't even speak the language or know how to get to these peoples' offices!, and even more lame-ass homework to do. I signed up for two classes on this study tour in Italy thinking they would be easy and uncomplicated. Boy howdy, was I wrong! They are cramming as much information into two weeks as we usually get in 10 and it's pissing me off, but it's too late to withdraw from the classes now and get a refund. Fucking school! Pair that with the lack of fellowship and I am ready to go back to work.

- Last Thursday, I hung out with my bestest friends E. and M. and their darling sons and it was a wonderful time. It feels really good to be able to have two women in your life who are moms and who support you and you them and who I can play "little sister" to. We're all three the oldest girls in our family and I may be just speaking for myself, but that gets a little tiring sometimes. It feels nice to be able to have someone else navigate or cook for you or organize things and I thank Whoever everyday that I am surrounded by such a loving group of friends. I will end the mushiness now.

- I made a hat from the Louisa Harding Accessories collection, in the actual yarn it calls for, and I am disappointed. It knit up too small (I knit a full inch and a half shorter than the pattern called for because I could see that I would never make it to the full 19 inches and still have enough yarn left over for the crown) and the brim is all screwed up not to mention the TERRIBLE finishing instructions. It's a good thing I made that call, too, because as is, I had about a foot of yarn left over. The finishing instructions called for mattress stitch, which looks like hell on the underside and doesn't actually hide the seam at all. I am completely underwhelmed with this hat and it illustrates why I usually never buy designer books; they don't check their gauge or proof-knit their patterns and they are just as expensive as patternbooks that do. So here's a blasted picture of me in the $%*&# hat:




Peace out, yo's.