V is for...

Vicious beasties!

We have 2 protective defenders of the house living here. Both our little fur-babies are very diligent about defending the house from such invaders as bootlaces, cardboard tubes ("drrtrrs" in our house, as that is the sound they make) and remote controls. Yes, remote controls. Apparently the buttons on the remote are something akin to bunny crack. On the remote on my last DVD player, I was down to just the 8 on the number pad. I think they are made of the same type of rubber as ballpoint pen grips. Which I am missing on many of the pens in my desk. Joey is very efficient.

But Scruffy doesn't let Joey have all the fun. There are shoelaces to be conquered! It's interesting that he ignores totally the laces actually IN the shoes. I think it's because those are already contained and conquered, being in the shoe and all. But those wild and roaming shoe laces must be dealt with. And the funniest thing is how he attacks them. Either leaping like a salmon (a uncoordinated 16 lb furry salmon) or rolling on his back to attack the dancing string. It's a riot!

Side note:

I know this title is a little misleading for this particular picture, as you might think that they are vicious towards each other, that's not the case. It's just the only picture I have of both fuzzies in the same shot. Typically, Scruffy runs from Joey. Yes, that is the 16 lb cat running away from the 5 lb bunny, but that's how it is. And Joey's never been aggressive towards him either! Scruffy's just a big chicken, and as long as that keeps our pets from rough housing and hurting each other, that's fine with me.

Veterans' Day

To all those who have served and fallen,
To all those who have served and come home,
Past and present,
Thank you.

Nerdy Excitement Abounds!

We're going to Stitches West!!

By "we," I mean my knitting buddy and I. We were talking at Knit Night one night, and both of us had had the thought that since we're relatively close to Santa Clara, why not go to Stitches West? Being military spouses, there's no telling when/where we're headed next, and there's no guarantee that we'll be close enough to attend ANY of the Stitches in the near future, let alone the big one in Santa Clara.

And so we are going! And even better, we've got a buddy to go with!

I'm very excited about my class list. I'm going to a class on steeking, one on crocheting for dummies (well, for knitters at any rate - not a dummy, just don't know what to do with only one needle!), two on different aspects of designing sweaters, and so on. Have two classes with one of my favorite designers too (Melissa Leapman, author of 2 GORGEOUS books of cable patterns, among other things). I think Sarah (my knitting buddy) and I only have one class together, actually, but that might be a good thing. We can share notes at the end of the day, and it'll be like going to twice as many classes! Divide and conquer!

And then there's the vendor's area! Sarah is looking for a spinning wheel, and as we live beyond the edges of civilization, it's hard to get to a store that has wheels to sample, so she wants to take advantage of seeing all the different types. I haven't gotten into spinning yet (I think Zach would explode if I started bringing more fiber into the house!) but I do have my own shopping list. I will try to abide by the Zach-Imposed Yarn Moratorium (as Anne dubbed it) but I am looking for buttons for several sweaters I have planned for next year, Mara and the February Lady Sweater among them. I have found that I wear cardigans a lot here, more than pullovers, because of the way temperatures bounce around so much inside and out, so am making more cardigans as a result. And cardigans need buttons! They can't all be closed with a pin like my purple one :) Thinking of pins, though, I'd also love to find a nice shawl pin or two, and I'm sure there will be plenty of options there at Stitches! And, as much as I say I'll try to abide by the Moratorium, if I find some absolutely gorgeous, too-good-to-pass-up yarn, well... we'll see ;)

And yes, as I'm sure you can tell from the abundance of exclamation points in this post, I'm very excited!! :) Yet another reason I can't wait til February!

Review: Rope

Another Netflix picture (since we rarely get anything worthwhile at the theater here, and when we do it's never convenient for me... sigh). Was on a Hitchcock kick on my Netflix queue and came up to this one, which I actually hadn't seen before. So here you go: Rope.

Summary: Two preppy spoiled brats (college age) kill a classmate, really just to show that they can commit the Perfect Murder. They stow his body away in a trunk in their apartment and proceed to have a dinner party in the same room, with the victim's nearest and dearest in attendance. One of the dinner guests was a former teacher to all the boys, and starts realizing something is amiss, triggering a cat-and-mouse game among the men.

This seems to me one of Hitch's lesser known movies, and I could kinda see why, but at the same time, there was a lot that I really liked about it. It wasn't exotic locales or anything like "To Catch a Thief" or "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and it wasn't edge-of-your-seat suspense like "Psycho" but it was good nonetheless. It was a little slower than some of his other movies, too, but still interesting to watch the dinner party play out, knowing that there was something disastrous to be found and wondering when it would happen.

This one was really interesting visually, too. The story originated as a stage play, and so Hitchcock set about the project as Filming a Play. Which meant it was all one shot, no breaks or anything. In reality, it was filmed as 1 take per reel and then spliced together, so that meant about 10 minutes a take. Still impressive! It does have a few shots where you can tell that they were splicing reels - shots zooming in and then out on a door or on someone's back. Nothing irritating, just noticeable if you think about it. And like any good Hitchcock, there are just some great shots. My favorite was watching one of the killers in the kitchen through the swinging door. Just a great bit of camera work.

Jimmy Stewart was kinda miscast here, I do have to say. I dunno, he just didn't seem the type to have crazy ideas about justifying murder. And there was definitely a sexual spin that the script could have taken concerning the boys and their former instructor, which just doesn't really fit Jimmy Stewart. Not that he did a bad job in the part or anything, just that he didn't really seem to fit the role.

One comment in the extras from the screenwriter was that they originally didn't intend to shoot the murder. The whole movie was supposed to progress with the viewer not knowing at all if the murder had even taken place! The audience would have seen the whole cat-and-mouse without knowing how much the boys' bravado was actually covering up. I honestly REALLY wish they'd taken that route. That would have been such a good twist on the movie. But, I'm not a filmmaker...

Oh, and one last bit of trivia - Hitch's appearance. There's actually supposedly 2 in this movie. If you look at the signs outside the window of the apartment where the whole play takes place, one of them is the stylized caricature of Hitchcock. You know, the one that's all round lines, that was the picture in the opening to the Hitchcock Hour? Well, it's that but in neon lights :) They said in the extras, though, that Hitch wasn't comfortable with the cameo being just the sign, so he's one of the pedestrians walking the street outside of the apartment during the opening credits.

Overall: 4.5 of 5. Not one of his best, but still a very good Hitchcock. Certainly shelf-worthy.

To all you ghoulies & ghosties!

WIP Wednesday

Knit Night was supposed to be tonight, but I decided to catch the cold going through work instead. (sigh...)

Still, that doesn't mean no knitting was done! Actually, that's about all that got done today - sleep, watching movies, and knitting. But, am feeling much better now, and should be back to abnormal tomorrow!

And so I present the results of my hard work :)

The Bananarama Wrap is almost done! I hope to have the pattern up soon. It's nice and long and drapey. It's turning into a good casual party wrap. Not something for balls and the like (the yarn's a little too quirky for that) but good for the casual parties we are asked to attend from time to time. Fun!

I've got sleeve bands on the Abrazo, and just have to do the neck band, and I'll have a cute little vest, just in time for the crazy Windy season out here. The fall winds have already started arriving (high wind warnings the past few days, including gusts in the 50-60 mph range - fun stuff). So, layers are good in weather like this!

And the Shaken Not Stirred scarf is moving along slowly but steadily. Almost have the first martini glass done!

So, yes, that's been my day today. Lots of rest and knitting and tea, and I have to admit, am feeling much better than I was this morning! Knitting - part of the cure for the common cold :)

U is for...

UV Rays!!

Now, you might say that this isn't a picture of UV rays, but a sand dune. Well, it's a sand dune in the desert (Kelso Dune in Mojave National Park) and with it being early in the morning, you get a great view of the sun rising :)

I live in the desert. And I work outside. My natural coloring falls in the pale-and-freckly end of the spectrum. All this combines to mean I go through a LOT of sunscreen in a season. And the three seasons after that, come to think about it. The whole year, pretty much. And, because of my constant vigilance in regards to my color, I am proud to say, I have only had one mild sunburn while living out here! That's quite an accomplishment!!

That's not to say I haven't gained some color, though. I have a permanent sunglasses tan, and my family was flabbergasted when I went home in September at how dark I was. No sunburns, though, just the darkest tan I've had in years. And I've come to the personal conclusion that the California aesthetic of very-tan-and-blond (you know, the Pamela Anderson look) isn't for any particular beauty reason; it's because everyone ends up that way anyways! I'm a pale, freckly redhead in any normal environment, but I definitely have blond streaks in my hair after 2 years out here!!

For comparison - the two picture below. The one on the left is from July 2007, the summer before we moved out here. The other is from September 2009, after about a year and a half in the desert (including 2 summers). In both, my hair is natural, no coloring or anything. Granted in the older one, my hair's a lot shorter and therefore a lot curlier, but you can definitely see it's JUST auburn, no strawberry blond. In the other, I have those crazy strawberry blond streaks framing my face. They are really noticeable some mornings in the bathroom mirror, with the light over the mirror catching them. Freaks me out every time, because it hasn't been since I was very small that my hair has been this light. Seriously, this post nearly was "W is for When Did I Become A Blond??"