And I was just going to dress up like a witch ...

I love Halloween. I always wear my pumpkin sweater on Halloween, unless I wear the one with the witch hitting the wall on her broom -- depends on how formal the occasion is, ya know?

But I usually confine my celebration to putting a pumpkin on the porch and buying a big bowl of candy, preferably candy that I won't want to eat. Kit Kats are good for that ... NO CANDY CORN!

But here's a church in North Carolina that really knows how to throw a Halloween party!

You've just got to love a religious body that thinks that burning the works of Mother Theresa will improve the world, don't you? Even Oral Roberts and Billy Graham are too wicked for these folks!

In case you're looking for something a little less ... frickin' weird ... you can knit your cat a witch hat. (I can tell you right now: No self-respecting pug would wear this hat, and most cats have too much dignity, but maybe ... I dunno ... an American Girl doll?)

Stamp of the Chump

There's no secret to it--where men are concerned, I'm not a good judge of character. At least when it comes to spouses. My past track record speaks to this and needs no embellishment. If my heart and ... er, other parts of my body ... are involved, I can't pick 'em.

But that's only men who appeal to the ... love ... part of life.

I'm actually usually pretty good when it comes to men who don't spark any feelings of lust or love. In matters of hiring and firing and just plain sizing men up ... I'm a champ. I can spot a con man a mile away.

Even Mr. Pug agrees, although he might take issue with my statement about men and love. (Maybe I'm getting better? After all, we're still together after all these years ....)

Anyway, when he and I were in business together, we frequently disagreed about men we'd meet during the course of business. He'd introduce me to someone he wanted to hire, or someone who wanted to sell us something, and sometimes all the hairs on my body would stand up and I'd know ... he's a louse. "Get rid of him!" I'd shout. "Show him the door."

Usually Mr. P would tell me I was crazy ... until a later date when he'd admit, "whoops, hon, you were right ... I should have listened to you."

I'm also a champ when it comes to looking over my friends' and relations' spouses. When their ... love radar, let's call it ... would get in the way, I could check out the guy and know right away that the guy was a jerk. Not that anyone ever listened to me, because I'm known for my own crappy love radar when it comes to my own life. Poor judgement all the way ....

But this week, I've come to realize that my doctor radar is fatally flawed, too. At least, my Ob/Gyn Radar. Who knew? For awhile, I thought maybe it was just coincidence that there had been some ... er, failures of choice ... in my medical background. This week, all the evidence is in, and I'm Officially Unable to Select a Medical Professional.

Let's examine the evidence:

• 1971 - The wonderful Ob/Gyn who delivered oldest daughter is dying of heart disease, can't see me through pregnancy #2. He refers me to Bad Doctor #1. BD #1 comes with great references, is reputed to be Ethel Kennedy's doctor, has delivered some of her many children. I meet him, he has the personality of a speculum but not as warm, but seems competent. No sense of humor, but maybe that's not absolutely necessary. Then he shows up for Jennifer's delivery about an hour late, and drunk as a lord. Let's just say that no one that drunk should be trusted with a needle and thread. And less than a year later, he drives  his Mercedes to Key Bridge, the connector between Arlington, VA and DC. Somewhere in the middle, he gets out and dives off the bridge, a suicide. Maybe he finally realized he was missing a personality!

• 1983 - Okay, I've recovered from the fact that I picked a really crappy Ob/Gyn. But now, I have a guy that I pretty much like. BD #2 is  Iranian, and darkly handsome -- sort of like the hot Persian guys I used to meet at Dupont Circle in my wild youth or like the Shah before we knew he was torturing people -- and has a better personality than BD #1. In fact, he's actually kinda cute, which is probably a major warning sign in a doctor that you only see when you're wearing stirrups. Sometime that year he murders his wife, wraps her body in a quilt from their bed, and puts her body into the trunk of their Mercedes, and parks her and the car at Dulles Airport. Okay, another warning sign.

• 2001 - I move to Atlanta. After a few years of HMO doctors, I'm on my own again. Someone from the office recommends a doctor in Marietta and I start going to him. Again, no spark, but by now I've figured out -- I just want a doctor who can do a Pap Test, not a friend. But I'm vaguely uncomfortable with BD #3's office -- what's the deal with all the weepy women? Why do they all come with someone to drive them home? Whoops! I seem to have stumbled into someplace I don't want to be. Drop him ... and wonder if I might have misjudged him. Maybe he was really okay ... maybe  .....   Until this week, when I learn that he's the jerk who got out of his Mercedes on I-285 and punched a female motorist in the face in a burst of gynecological road rage. 

So, here's the point. This really points to a serious failure in my ability to find a good doctor. Why do I keep picking jerks? Or is the Mercedes the common factor?

From now on, I'm checking out the parking lot. If the doc drives a German car, and it's not a Beetle, he's off the list.

Weekend with Candace

Every year the knitting guild brings in at least one "superstar" teacher for a weekend of classes and hopefully some fun. We've had some incredible people and some who were ... let us say, less than incredible ones. It's not an easy task to find someone who will challenge our most experienced knitters and not intimidate our less experienced ones.

It's also not easy to find a teacher with a variety of skills and techniques to teach. For instance, I'm a Sockie. I love socks ... every variety. But a weekend of just socks would only appeal to a very few of our members.  Likewise, a weekend of all-lace. I'd be happy, but others, not so much. So, a teacher who's a "one-trick wonder" won't do.

Let's see. What else? Well, it helps if s/he has a book or two under her belt, or designs that  folks are familiar with. But not everybody who can write a book or design a pattern can teach.

Which brings me to: Candace Eisner Strick. We had the MOST fun with her this weekend. She's an author, teacher, designer, yarn dyer, fiberista all tied up in one package. With a sense of humor. Here she is demonstrating a rather unique technique she called the "crotch cast-on."

Well, don't hold that against her! We didn't. We laughed and hooted and hollered and generally had a great time, while learning Austrian Twisted Stitches and the other eight of her favorite cast-ons and cast-offs. And she brought her fabulous yarns and patterns (check out her website for the incredible yarns she calls Merging Colors).

And I guess that's the essence of a perfect knitting weekend--knit with friends, laugh a little, learn a lot. And, now that we've met her, Candace is a good friend!

New Sock OTN

No, I haven't finished the other socks I'm knitting, the Zauberball ones -- why would you ask? And no, none of the others either. 


Stop criticizing my ability to complete a project--now you're just being ugly, as we say here in the South.* 


Anyway, here are Early Spring Socks, a Crystal Palace pattern by Janice Kang. The lacy pattern is easy to memorize and to read your knitting and that's a good thing.


You can get the pattern free on Ravelry and you'll see a much better picture of the lacy pattern.


But these socks are ... drumroll, please! ... Malabrigo Sock in the Botticelli colorway. Soft merino with wonderful stitch definition. 


I defy any of you to turn down a chance to knit with Malabrigo. And, besides, they're my "home in the bed" socks to knit rather than my "take them anywhere in my purse" socks. And anyone who doesn't know the difference just isn't a sock knitter.






* I love it when I can adopt a Southern expression and pretend I'm a Southerner. Like when you tell a friend about how another friend wore a dress that was just plumb fugly--like Scarlett O'Hara on crack-- and you end the description with, "bless her heart."  And I have learned over my eight years here in Gawga that you don't press down on the accelerator, you "mash" it, just like you do with the elevator button.

Praise ... and a Quibble

When's the last time someone trusted someone else in the retail world? Never, you say? Well, almost.

The current economic climate (Cloudy days ahead, chance of continuing flooding, run for your life!) has made all of us a little cynical about each other, I suppose. And, let's face it--it's not that easy to make a living. We have to take every opportunity.

So I'm always happy when I can support a designer or a supplier in the yarn business. No, really--it's not that I need or want more yarn or patterns, I'm just trying to do my part to keep the economy going. (Hush, now! Don't be cynical! It's not becoming!)

Anyway, last week I saw that one designer for whom I have the utmost respect is giving up publishing her quarterly newsletter. Part of the explanation seems to be that digital downloads--and particularly Ravelry downloads--are costing her money because of copyright infringement.  Sad, but definitely part of the digital publishing world these days. It's affecting every single medium from newspapers to hard-cover books.

On the same day, I saw a pattern on Ravelry from another designer that piqued my interest. Went to the website and found Janet Scanlon. Yes, Janet who designed the My Constant Companion felted bag we all made ten years or so ago.

I saw two felted bags that got my attention--quick there's a new one there now! Why didn't I see it before?-and clicked order. I got a message that told me to email her and she'd send it. And bill me later. What? Is she crazy?

I emailed her and ordered. She responded immediately, apologizing that she'd have to charge me postage. Uh, yeah ... of course. Again, crazy?

Two days later the patterns arrived. With an invoice. Shipping was ... uh, exact postage. Crazy? Each page of the pattern comes in its own vinyl protector, with the pages stapled, so you can knit from the pattern without taking it out of its protector to turn the pages. Amazing!

So--praise. Janet is a woman who still believes in people. (And, yes, I put the check in the mail already! Did you have to ask?) She advertises a product, sends it on trust, and it's just what she promised and you wanted. Amazing in this world of mistrust and thievery.

But, and here comes the quibble, she prints her patterns on that same blue paper that Fiber Trends used to use. Do they still? I don't think so. People stopped buying them because they were too hard to read and I think FT has now gone to a different color.

Why the blue, somewhere between turquoise and cobalt? I've always heard it's to keep people from making copies or scanning the patterns into their computers. BUT for me, it's a problem. My eyesight has always been sort of dicey and these days it seems to be worsening every day. I am struggling to read these patterns. I can read them but I have to be in a very bright room--definitely not my bedroom where I usually knit. Not enough contrast for these eyes.

Bottom line: Go to the website and buy her patterns. (Check out Mercury, the messenger bag! Oh, my!) Knit one of them. But just among ourselves, Janet, I'd rather have paid you upfront and gotten the pattern on a lighter piece of paper that I could read.

They're Even Mean to Crazy Aunt Purl!

Do you read "Crazy Aunt Purl"? Well, why not? She's certifiably nuts in a good way. Oops! Shouldn't have said "nuts." It could get someone angry.


Anyway, I was going to write something here about what other bloggers and op-ed writers are calling "the decline of civility" or "why can't we just all get along? or "is everyone here crazy?" You know what I mean--people screaming at the president in public and cursing each other out in the parking lot over a space near the mall entrance,  or ... well, you get the idea. 


Now, I'll admit I was one of the first to criticize our former president, The Shrub. But I did it quietly and in private and if I'd been introduced to him in person I'd have shaken his hand firmly and politely and said "nice to meet you, Mr. President," and I wouldn't even have muttered under my breath until he was out of earshot.


Because that's how we were raised. Let's face it--we all want to say things sometimes that we DO NOT SAY because that's not the way we roll. We were raised better than that. (Thanks, Mom!) We might say "that poor fellow is one toenail short of a pedicure" behind our boss's back, but, in front of the guy, we pull up our big girl panties and do what he says. Then we report him to Human Resources if appropriate. (That was a heck of a mixed metaphor but you get the message.)


I guess it's a combination of the immediacy and the anonymity of the internet that  have made us all think we can say absolutely anything to anyone and it'll be okay. (And people--when you're not on the internet, you really don't have an excuse!)  People who would never say something mean to someone's face think nothing of saying it on a blog. Is it because we know the person we're insulting is probably too far away to hit us? Maybe.


Back to Crazy Aunt Purl. Check out her September 24 post. The offending comments have been removed but I think we can all guess what they contained. She wrote a pretty innocuous but interesting posting about pot roast and added a comment about a potluck the next day and needing a peanut recipe. And bam, bam, shazaam, she's suddenly the Anti-Christ, trying to kill off all the peanut-allergic folks in the audience.


This whole peanut thing is odd anyway. One day peanuts are mild, inoffensive little critters growing in the Deep South, best known for Jimmy Carter raising them. Now they're in the same category as Ebola and Angry Aliens From Space, just out there trying to kill people.


Okay, I get it. Some people are allergic to peanuts. Children in kindergarten should not be fed peanuts because they're too little to protect themselves. Grownups should make sure they read labels and ask about potluck recipes if it's possible a peanut was involved. I'm not downplaying the danger.


But ... and this is important ... we all have stuff we shouldn't be eating for one reason or another. You can't eat a peanut because your throat might close up. Coconut makes me gag and I shouldn't eat ice cream because lactose at night gives me acid reflux, not to mention bigger hips. But at the end of day ... it's my problem, and yours.  I'm definitely not going to blame Crazy Aunt Purl if someone brings ice cream to the party.  


And I am going to try her pot roast recipe.

No Excitement Here Folks!

No excitement here. The flood waters have receded, things are high and dry at Casa Pug, and we can move on.

Not that there weren't a few exciting days, in a relative sort of a way. I mean, I was a little concerned when I saw the pugs lining up two by two to go out the door in the mornings. And it's never a good thing to see Mr. Pug hanging from the rooftop in a monsoon, trying to find out what's causing water to pour out of the fireplace. But aside from some minor inconveniences, we were among the very lucky folks of my particular part of Sunny Georgia who got through the floods relatively unscathed.

Last weekend was rather ... er ... damp. Mr. Pug and I went to Tucker, GA to see a koi show. Now, for those of you who may be map-challenged, Tucker is approximately on the other side of the galaxy from Casa Pug, but the koi show is a once-a-year sort of a thing, we wanted to check out what's new in the koi world (not much as it turns out), and who knew we'd be traveling through water up to our eyebrows?

By the way, two things: First, to clarify, Tucker is on the other side of Anything, not just CP. It's one of those places that you don't know is there if you don't need to go there. And second, we didn't even buy a new koi. It turns out that a 500-year flood is not the ideal time to introduce a new, rather pricey, fish to your pond, especially if you're the sort of fish-owners who have lost most of their fish in the last year to inexperience and algae bloom, whatever that might be.

Anyway, rain on Saturday. Rain on Sunday. On Monday when I left for work, Mr. Pug was hanging off the aforementioned gutter checking out the aforementioned leak. The ride to work that day took approximately, oh, about six hours because Atlanta drivers still think they can drive 75 MPH through standing water. That afternoon when I left the office (or tried to, anyway), the little creek on the south side of the property was flooded to the top of the banks. Gazebo halfway under water. Water up to the little bridge. Roiling water. Uh, oh.

Turns out that someone had broken into my car while it was parked in the office parking lot.  (Well, actually, it was Mr. Pug's car -- yikes! Now he REALLY thinks I'm bad luck when I drive his car!)

Now, mind you, it had been monsooning all day--who goes out to commit a crime in a monsoon? Apparently it's not unknown.  When we looked at the video of the parking lot the next day, I could see a blurry image of a black car backing in next to my car, staying there for about two and a half minutes, and then driving out, apparently with my GPS system, Little Nuvi.  

(Little Nuvi has become a part of our family in the two years we've had her. In fact, she's the least dysfunctional member of  the family. She takes us everywhere and apparently has made us very lazy mapreaders while she was at it. She's the only thing that GOT us to Tucker in the first place, for instance--without her, we're never finding our way back. Also, when the police start closing ALL of the streets in your county, and the surrounding counties, it's almost impossible to find your way home without Little Nuvi. Nuvi -- I miss you!)

By the way, from Mr. Pug's point of view, the biggest deal is that they broke the driver side lock. I thought he was overreacting until I learned that I would be paying the deductible to fix the dratted thing.

Anyway, the scariest thing for me, once I'd called the cops and been told to wait--this might take a while, we're kinda busy right now, and no, we can't do this by phone, and no, tomorrow won't do--was that I couldn't find The Sock. Wait! The jerks took my knitting? Put up the umbrella, get out into the pouring rain, rump hanging out under the umbrella, and find that sock!  

Whew! It turned out that they'd emptied three knitting bags onto the floor apparently looking for cocaine or oxycontin or hundred dollar bills or cool CDs, but hadn't taken anything except Little Nuvi. 

What? You don't have three knitting bags in your car? Each full of uncompleted projects? Whatever!

Good news: I had knitting to work on while I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... for the cops. (They never did come; at the two-hour point I went home, figuring the sirens and flashing lights up on the main drag meant there were some bigger issues to deal with.)

Bad news: Apparently my knitting isn't good enough for Atlanta crooks. That's kind of insulting. On the other hand, maybe a partially knit sock isn't that appealing and they'll come back when both socks are finished.

It's something to look forward to. In the mean, here's The Sock--Zauberball from Only Ewe and Cotton Too. Have I mentioned that I'm crazy in love with the way the colors change? If only the sock could help me find my way back to Tucker, I'd be fine.