yarn tootin'

Elixir

     I got my hair did yesterday at my friendly neighborhood Aveda Salon and as my stylist was washing my hair, she remarked that my hair is very soft and asked me what I use in it.  I wasn't sure if she meant shampoo or what and I wasn't about to tell her that my shampoo comes in a bright green bottle and I get it at Target.  Haircare professionals always try to make me think that all of my hair will fall out if I don't use $18 shampoo, so I told her that I use a little Elixir and Confixor mixed together.  I was promptly informed by my stylist that Aveda has discontinued Elixir.  That's right, there is NO MORE ELIXIR and at the moment, there isn't a suitable replacement product in the works.  I have been using the combination of Elixir and Confixor for almost 20 years and now they tell me I have to find an alternative.  I can't help but be reminded of a certain Seinfeld episode.

     When I got home from the salon, I promptly started searching for Elixir on the intewebs and it would seem that I am the last to know of its discontinuation.  Elixir is nowhere to be found except for on eBay for a ridiculously inflated price.  My stylist's theory on the disappearance of Elixir has to do with the fact that Estee Lauder now owns Aveda and Horst Rechelbacher, the creator of Aveda (anyone from the Twin Cities has most likely heard of the Horst Salons) has started a new line of products called Intelligent Nutrients.  Intelligent Nutrients will have a Leave-In Conditioner (which will cost twice as much as good old Elixir), but it has yet to be released.  In the meantime, my stylist convinced me that the new product, Smooth Infusion, would yield the same results as Elixir when mixed with Confixor, but I have yet to try it and I have my doubts. 

Cookie Monster

    For those of you who love Sesame Street, check out this NPR interview with Cookie Monster.  It starts out a little  slow, but he eventually answers the James Lipton/Proust questionnaire and it's quite funny.  Don't worry about letting kids watch, Cookie Monster doesn't really have a favorite curse word.  Enjoy!

Interwebs, Oh Interwebs

     We had a mini crisis at our house yesterday.  The phone, the T.V., and the interwebs were all completely broken when I got home.  There was no dial tone, nothing but snow on our screens, and despite repeated attempts, a connection could not be found.  I could have lived without the T.V. and the land line, but I was more than a little lost without the interwebs.  I wasn't able to  check my email or Bloglines or Ravelry for almost 30 hours and by the time the Time Warner guy arrived this afternoon, I was beginning to get the shakes.  Fortunately, the problem was easy to fix.  Apparently the morons at Time Warner came over while we were at work yesterday and disconnected our service on purpose.  They allegedly had the wrong house.  I guess this is easy to do when every street in a given development is begins with the word Pebble (Pebble Forest, Pebble Breeze, Pebble Peak etc.), so I forgave the nice Time Warner man who fixed my interwebs and promptly sat down to see what I'd missed.  I'm still catching up, so please forgive my brevity.

     In lieu of knitting content, I give you a picture of Bob pretending to be Ricky from Project Runway...

He's sad, he's crying.

Pandora

     Do y'all know about Pandora?  I heard about it on the She-Knits Podcast about a month ago and I've been meaning to check it out, but I didn't until today.  It's very cool.  If you like to listen to music, just go check it out.  Basically, what you do is type in the name of an artist you like, say James Taylor or Sarah McLachlan or the Indigo Girls (or if you like something with a harder edge, type that in), and Pandora creates a radio station just for you with music of that artist and music that is similar to that artist.  It's like your own personalized playlist with some old favorites and some songs you've never heard and didn't even know you loved.  I'm listening to "Indigo Girls Radio" at the moment and now I know that the next time I go to iTunes I need to check out Kris Delmhorst and Voices on the Verge. 
      I just switched over to "Sarah McLachlan Radio" and a Cranberries song came up.  I love the Cranberries because they remind me of college.  I think need to go upstairs and find No Need To Argue.  Pandora is fabulous and I don't think I'm going to get tired of it any time soon.  Check it out.  I promise, you won't be sorry.

New Music Tuesday

     Do you ever get those new music Tuesday emails from iTunes?  I do, and I usually just delete them right away, but today I opened the email.  I saw James Taylor on The Today Show this morning and I wanted to check out his "new" album.  It's basically just a live recording of his greatest hits, but I bought it anyway and I love it.  I had to drive to Seguin and back today so I was able to give the whole thing a good listen and I'm not sorry I bought it.  I like every song except for Slap Leather.  I've never liked that one.because it's way too edgy.  I like my folk singers to be extra, extra folky.

   

Totally Lame Saturday

     Today has been one of those days where nothing goes the way it's supposed to.  I had an empty day (except for this evening's concert) and I had plans to go to yoga at the gym this morning and then do some shopping.  After that, I thought I might enjoy a Peppermint Mocha at Starbucks and finish the last 20 rows of last year's NaKniSweMo/Norovember sweater (as far as I'm concerned, if I finish the damn thing in November of any year, it will be a smashing success).  The day started off okay and I made it to the gym in time for yoga, but it was typical yoga at the gym.  Most of the time yoga at the gym is like sushi from the grocery store; it's okay, but it's not the real thing.  Today's yoga class was one of the ones that wasn't so great.  The teacher wore a headset  in order to amplify her instructions, the music was new age techno, and worst of all, it's Saturday so it was crowded.  I've been to yoga at the gym enough times to know that there is really only one good instructor and I think I'm going to stick to her Tuesday afternoon class from now on.  I'm usually one of two or three people who shows up for Tuesday afternoon yoga and that's really the way to do it.

     I was able to shake off the lame yoga class pretty quickly and I set off for the Quarry to use my numerous GAP and Borders coupons and to check out the Dansko trunk show at Whole Earth Provision Company.  It usually takes me about 15-18 minutes to get to the Quarry, but today it took 50 minutes because 281 was closed for no apparent reason.  This didn't really bother me that much because I was listening to knitting podcasts and when traffic was at a standstill, I knit a few rows of one of the simple socks I'm working on.  Eventually, I made it to the GAP where I bought some new jeans with my coupons and when I came out of the GAP, my car battery was dead so I had to call AAA to get them to come fix it.  It turned out that I needed a new battery, but the great thing about AAA is that they'll just sell you one from their truck and hook it up for you right there in the GAP parking lot.  I thought that was pretty good.   Once again, I wasn't too vexed by the situation because I had the sock with me to work on while I waited.  I've learned that it's never a bad idea to throw a bit of knitting in your purse because you just never know.

     I missed the Dansko trunk show, but that's probably for the best as I have many pairs of Danskos.  I do really want the Diana style though, and I was hoping I'd get to try them on so I could order the correct size from the interwebs.  I'm home now and I have to get ready to go to my concert pretty soon.  While I was gone, Bob set up his new surround sound system for the really big T.V. he bought back in September.  I've discovered a little too late that hate the surround sound.  Our living room isn't particularly large, so one doesn't really need surround sound and now the  really big T.V. which Bob already has on way too loud is even louder.  I think there are many men who listen to the T.V. this way, so many in fact, that I think we can call the phenomenon Male Television Deafness.  The surround sound system came with a sub woofer (whatever that is) so when I'm in the bedroom, it sounds like I'm in a movie theater and a movie with lots of crashing is playing next door.   Hopefully this totally lame Saturday will end without any more trouble.  I look forward to having a totally awesome Sunday tomorrow. 

NaBloSwePoKniMo Contest

     Today is a busy day.  I've already played a dress rehearsal and taught a lesson and I'd like to sit and knit and clear a program or two off the DVR before tonight's concert, so today is all about free stuff.  I'm having a little contest for everyone who is participating in either NaBloPoMo or NaKniSweMo (National Knitted Sweater Month).  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post before the end of November.  If you're participating in NaBloPoMo AND NaKniSweMo, you get to be entered twice.  I know that there are several NaBloPoMo folks who don't knit, so I'm including a non-knitting prize.   Here's the loot...

For Knitters:

    A skein of sock yarn from Yarn Chef.  The colorway is Monkey Flower and I believe the yarn is superwash.  This will double as a fabulous Etsy find.  If you haven't checked out Yarn Chef's shop, go do it.  You won't be sorry.

For non-Knitters:

     A San Antonio Symphony T-shirt!  Just imagine that there is a picture of a T-shirt with a super cool SA Symphony logo on the front and our "I'm With the Band" slogan on the back.  The shirts are actually pretty cool and I wear mine often.  Most of the time the little store in the box office just has black shirts with white writing, but sometimes they have white with black and orange with black.  I'll see what's available at the end of November and the winner can have his or her choice.

Good Luck!

Dog People

     I know I've written about dogs before and most of you know that I'm not a "dog person."  I really don't like it when people say "I'm not a dog person" when they mean that they don't like dogs.  Why can't we just say that we don't like dogs?  No one cares if we say we say we don't like snakes or rats, but for some reason when a person says they don't like dogs, it is assumed that they're a bad person.  I'm a perfectly good person, I just don't like dogs.  Dogs don't smell good and you have to pick up their poop.  Every time I start to think a particular type of dog is cute and that I might want one (this doesn't happen often, but Bob likes to get me going on the dog topic every once in awhile for his own amusement), I remember that I will have to pick up their poop forever.  Children eventually grow up and learn to use the toilet, but dogs never do.   This is really the deal breaker when it comes to me and dogs. 

     Have you ever noticed that some dogs just love people who don't like dogs?  I have several friends who have dogs and these dogs always want to lick me or put their heads in my lap, or they jump on me and follow me around.  My friend Amanda who has known me since we were twelve and knows how I feel about dogs likes to encourage her two big dogs to sit by me, or better yet on me, so they do.  They don't seem to notice or care about my discomfort.   They're perfectly happy to get right up next to me and breathe their doggy smells all over me.  Amanda finds this funny. 

     We're having some very welcome fall weather today, so I decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood instead of going to the gym.  About two thirds of the way through my walk, a little Jack Russel Terrier type dog trotted up to me and walked right along with me for several blocks.  The dog had no collar, but he seemed fairly clean so I wasn't sure if he was a stray or if he belonged to someone.  Despite the fact that I kept telling him to go away and that I didn't like him, he continued to follow me until I was almost home.  The last thing I wanted was to get to my house and have some strange dog on my heels, so I took a detour and walked a few extra blocks.  About two blocks from my house, the dog became interested in something across the street and I lost him.  Just to be safe, I took off and sprinted the last block or so to my house because I didn't want the dog to know where I lived.   I knew that if Bob came home and the dog was hanging around, he'd try to convince me to keep it.  A few of our friends have taken in random dogs recently with mixed results and I'm just not up for it even if the dog isn't that big.  It's been a few hours and I haven't seen the dog again, so hopefully he either went home or found a dog person.

    Just so that no one gets the wrong idea, I will say that there are a couple of dogs that I kind of enjoy visiting, but this mostly has to do with their owners and my love for them and their love for said dogs.  Even though I don't like most dogs, there are a couple that I've gotten to know and as dogs go, they're alright.  I think they know who they are.   

NaBloBleePoMoFo

 
   My friend Kitty has challenged me (and several other folks) to participate in NaBloPoMo '07.  The idea is that one writes a blog post for every day of the month of November.  Despite the fact that last year's NaKniSweMo (in which one was supposed knit an entire sweater during the month of November) was a dismal failure, I'm pretty sure that I can do this.  I just can't promise that every post will be all that interesting.  There are bound to be many photographs of half knit socks, dozens of Fabulous Etsy Finds, lists of my numerous WIPs, and other nonsense that only really interests me. 
     When Kitty first issued her challenge, I planned to just ignore it and hope that it would go away.  Sadly, that didn't happen and now there's all kinds of pressure.  Shalini has decided that she'll only participate if I do it too, and now Pretty is leaving comments on other posts urging me to make a decision.  All right, fiiiine, I'll do it, but I have to warn you it might be all about yarn all the time.  If nothing else, it will be fun to read daily posts on my friends' blogs.  Y'all better not disappoint!

I stole the image above from Pretty's blog.  I'm not sure if she created it or not, but I thought I'd give her credit just in case.
         

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose

     In case you haven't heard, Friday Night Lights returns for a second season on NBC tonight.  I love this show.  I am not a sports fan.  In particular, I'm in no way a football fan.  In fact, I kind of hate football.  I never would have even watched the show in the first place if it weren't for Bob, but believe it or not, Friday Night Lights isn't really about football.  It has football, but it's more about the characters and they are awesome.  I'm especially fond of Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and I'm looking forward to season 2 very much.  Sadly, I have a rehearsal in Austin tonight, so I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow morning to watch the season premiere.

     I'm still having technical difficulties with the computer.  I haven't even had a chance to take her to the computer fixer.  I have to say that if I need a new computer, I think I might get a Mac.  I know that in the past, I've carried on about how Macs are no better than PCs and they're more expensive for no reason and I'm a old dog and I can't learn a new system etc., but the idea of an apple store where I can go for help in this type of situation appeals to me in a huge way.  I still knit.  I'm very close to finishing a knitted object and I hope to post on that later this weekend.   Y'all have a good one.