Why polls are meaningless....

..... in the past month, my home answering machine has participated in two political polls.

The first was just before the general election in November. I arrived within earshot to hear the "disembodied voice" ask, "what party will you vote for, primarily, in the election on Tuesday. Press 1 for ....". I fully expected to hear the "voice" say "we did not understand your selection, but instead, I heard the voice say. "Thank you for participating." Huh? I said to my husband, apparently our answering machine will be voting on Tuesday, however, I'm not sure for who."

Then there was yesterday. I heard the phone as I walked in the door. I didn't rush to answer, but instead stood at the bottom of the stairs to hear if it was a call I needed to attend to . Rather I hear the disembodied voice again, announcing a survey. Thinking that it would sense that there was a answering machine on our end and would terminate the call, I went about my business. A few minutes later I arrive at the desk where the machine is STILL recording the voice as it asks: "Who will you be voting for in 2012. Press 1 for Barak Obama, Press 2 for.." As I listened, the survey was apparently getting some kind of feedback it was interpreting as responses. When it got to "what party will you most tend to vote for". Press 1 for.... I intercepted the call and hung up. Who the heck knows what or how the signals the survey was getting were being interpreted. Bizarre.

So there you have it. Surveys are crap. Especially if it is administered by a computer, instead of a human.

And I'm still wondering who the answering machine voted for for school board.......

Bad news....

.... I've already broken one of my resolutions.

I was walking back to work through a nearby surface parking lot, after taking some time off for lunch (read: actual knitting time). A woman pulled up next to me and asked if I had any change for the meters. She had none. I had 3 quarters which I handed to her, and as she was looking for a bill to give me , I just told her not to worry..."have a good day", and walked along. OH NO!! Another RAK...albeit small. Well, this one has absolutely no strings.....Whew!

Good news...

Apparently, Virginia (Georgia, Tennessee, etc.) and Central PA have exchanged climates. Well maybe not completely, but while everywhere around us is getting FEET of snow. We have almost none. It very cold though. I went out without my hat today (what knitter does this?) and I'm not sure I still have ears. This seems like good news now, but wait for the drought come July because we have no snow melt.

I Couldn't Make This Up....

Went for a diagnostic test and found a cracked ankle......which was completely unrelated to the testing. The test outcome was fine, I'm in great shape, the 15 year old disguised as a doctor told me so.

I'm just resolving the ankle issue, more to come.

I must also warn you. I am writing, in my head, an indictment of the women's movement as it relates to personal responsibility. I may have to share it or explode. Not a popular thing. Especially around these here parts.

While I am waiting ...

.... for the pieces I am working on to knit themselves...

I did this. And it was so astonishingly accurate I had to post it

You Are Indigo

Of all the shades of blue, you are the most funky, unique, and independent. Expressing yourself and taking a leap of faith has always been easy for you.

What Color Blue Are You?

Especially the funky part. There was one question about a "best friend" that I had a hard time with. I really don't have a "best friend". I'm married to my best friend. I often wonder what a shrink would make of that.

Knitting? What knitting?

As the month from hell rolls on, I have no knitting to show for it. Not only do I have nothing to show for it, I have hardly been knitting. When I've had a few moments I can hardly keep my eyes open. Case in point......

This past weekend DH and I drove to the 'Burgh to see "Alice in Wonderland" performed by the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. It was the North American Premier of this particular rendition. The scenery, costumes, choreography, etc. were courtesy of the London Ballet. The production was amazing, but the curtain call was the funniest thing. With all the animals and characters (March Hare, door mouse, white rabbit, duchess and piglet, Mad Hatter etc.) the curtain call looked like a Star Trek convention. I just had to laugh. What does this have to do with knitting? Well, on Saturday afternoon when we drove, I should have had something like 2 hours of uninterrupted knitting time, but I was so exhausted, I didn't even bother to take out my sticks and string. So my Ribby Cardi languished. After dinner, it was all I could do to find a comfortable place to sit, and read before I fell over. I even had to reread the two or so pages that I had been reading the next day.

Same thing happened Monday night. I can't keep my wits about me enough to knit at all, and it sucks. So there is absolutely NO KNITTING going on, and I have three projects on my needles. The good news is that I am not compelled to add any more. And I don't even have any socks started.

Today is the last day, at least in the near term for the political robo calls the name calling, bitching, moaning, pimping and all things associated with the primary. After today we can go back to being a sleepy ol' state. What I find less than charming though is the realization that college students are all of a sudden deciding that they invented primary elections. This morning at a busy intersection there were Obama supporters on all four corners jumping around with signs, like Teletubbies on speed. How I wish they could put that much energy into not getting drunk on weekends.

And for me, the primaries are nothing more than a nuisance. In PA, unless you have an "R" or "D" on your registration, you cannot vote. We are being entertained though by a race for our congressional seat. There are dueling felons (OK accused felons). One got nabbed for DUI about a year ago, and the other just had charges filed for taking nekked photos of a former girlfriend, without her consent.

Who says this isn't Happy Valley?

Some things I think, I think.

If I hold this in any longer I'm gonna 'spload....

1) Hey Buddy!! What the hell were YOU thinking?




Bill O'Reilly is calling it self-destructive behavior (a'la Beluchi)- that he wanted to get caught. I think that is too forgiving. I'm with the psychologists and Geraldine Ferraro (a friend of Spitzer's) hubris, laced with narcissism and arrogance (a'la Clinton).

And for the idiots who are saying things like, in Europe this wouldn't even be news....I have a message. Perhaps we're a little bit better than Europe. Even though, frankly, I don't care who you "do it with" I think we hold (or try to) our elected officials to a higher standard [than Europe] and actually expect them to uphold the LAW they've sworn to serve. Fancy that!!

If you don't like the law - change it. But until then...zip it (pun intended).

2) A vote for this guy

is like voting for David Duke (The Grand Wizard, or whatever he styles himself these days) or perhaps Hitler. They all traffic(ed) in hate under the guise of helping the "little guy". I used to think he was funny too. He had real talent until his bitterness took over. Now he's just dishonest and disgusting. And what is very scary is that he has a constituency, albeit small, mostly made up of the "hate Bush" kool aid drinkers. Yeah, lots of depth of thought there. Must be the kinds of drugs in the Minnesota water.....


3) Because in PA one has to actually register for one of the two political parties in order to vote in the primary, I, as a no party registrant (independent is a separate category even though I don't know what that means here), can't vote. A year ago, I decided that I would change my registration for a month in order to vote against Hill. Who could have guessed that it wouldn't be necessary? Who also would have thought that PA would matter at all? (Though DH is still encouraging me to do so. I would hate to get on those mailing and phone calling lists. Brrrrr....)

4) Because I have such fond [not!] memories of the last general election, all the robo-calls, all the crap in the mail, etc. I have decided I am going to take action. Call it my own personal protest. I am going to collect all the political garbage we get after the conventions, put it in grocery bags (I'm sure we'll get enough for several) and when I go to vote, instead of refusing the paper the volunteers try to hand me as I go in, I'm going to just hand them the bags. They can sort it out themselves or just recycle it.

5) And ultimately, and sadly, as of today, I have no one that I'd actually like to vote for in the election in November. And this is the very first time I can say that. Even if I wasn't totally sold on either candidate, I could usually make a "lesser of two evils" distinction. This year, it hasn't happened. I'm hoping it will. Otherwise, I might just have to stay home. And no, I cannot vote for Ralph Nader. That poor fellow's tin foil hat is on a wee bit too tight. Makes me very sad. To be honest, I wouldn't stay home, because we have other rather important races going on, but I may not vote for President, which would be a damn rotten shame. But it won't be an apathetic non-vote.

6) The good news is that I finished my Mountain Colors Monkey Socks and as soon as the weather cooperates I'll take a picture!

7) I can't believe I forgot this!! I would be shocked if even 10 percent of the Brattleboro Vermonter elderly hippy dippies, have even read the constitution. (You may recall these are the idiots who voted to have Bush and Chaney arrested if they ever cross the border. The charge is "crimes against the constitution".) If they had bothered to read it, then perhaps they'd be able to figure out that they themselves are simply idiots. (No constitutional lawyers in Brattleboro?) Alas, unfortunately there is no crime in idiocy. (Frankly there is lots of stuff to be pissed off at this administration about, but crimes against the constitution? Really...) The other thing they haven't figured out yet is that the rest of Vermount, just keeps them around for the entertainment value.

Wow!

Has it really be OVER two months....why yes it has. Why have I not posted you may be wondering....well because I haven't finished a damned thing. Really. I've been knitting, but it's all going into some great cosmic black hole of knitting. Anyone actually understand string theory? (Pun intended.)

I've been knitting and re-knitting a lovely silk mobius. It has a 196 stitch cast on which if you're mobius cast-on savvy, you know it means that it has nearly 400 effective stitches each round. I'm finally close....so close I can taste it. If I had remembered to bring the I-cord cast off instructions with me today, I would have been knitting it off the needle, this past lunch hour. It will wait until I get home for the holiday.

I'm working on a B. Marie CeCe too. Great pattern that I'm making way harder than it ought to be. I'm mystified how I knitted tremendously hard things, very much in isolation, back in the 80's (translated most from flat to in-the-round knitting no less), and now, because there is such a rich on-line community where I can ask advice, I'm acting like a scared kid. Sheesh.

Yesterday, our office financial person came to me and told me that my employer (you can guess who that is) lost my I-9 form. They couldn't write a new contract without it. Huh? I had no idea I even had an I-9 let along what it meant. Well, it is proof of US residency. Somehow between last year, and this year, the record of my residency disappeared. Did I have my SS card and license on me? Uh...no. Because identity fraud is so rampant, why would I even THINK to carry my SS card. Well...could I go home and get it? Well, yeah, but it might take some time. I don't know if many of you are like me, but I know I have it, but the last time I needed to produce it was probably nearly 20 years ago, when I first started here. I was a tad miffed to say the least. There are probably illegal aliens (yes, illegal, not "undocumented", I am/was an "undocumented American" Mr. Reid, not the guy/gal who waded across the Rio Grande, but I digress) working over at the Day's Inn and no one is going to bother him...sheesh.


Anyway, I went home and, thankfully, without too much ado, found the needed documents. It felt too late to go to the gym (any excuse in a storm) so I went for a walk in our neighborhood. The walk begins in a small "parklet" nearby and follows a trail to the high school track. Back and forth it's about two + miles. A few laps around the track (nice surface) and the walk grows to three miles. Anyway, as I was heading toward the park I see this on the horizon.... (forgive the bad image, it was my cell phone)



The weather was lovely, low 70's, sunny, perfect for hot air ballooning. While this sight isn't that unusual in our area, this fellow seemed reeeallly low.

As I reached the park, he flew about 150 feet in the air, over the occupied ball field and tennis courts. There was a crowd of people trailing after him on the ground. (I can tell you a miniature collie wasn't happy that this huge creature was just dropping in.) Then he landed, perfectly, on a small strip of park, between the walking paths and a busy town street.




Never a dull moment I can tell you.





And the happy ending is that as of today, I'm officially a US resident in the eyes of my employer. Again......

Happy Fourth of July!

This was going to be about knitting....

I have pictures, I really do! But early this morning, my husband sent me a breaking news story about a shooting at VA Tech. At that point in time, there was one confirmed death.

I've just gotten back from lunch and now there are 32 dead! As you all can guess from my location, we work on a college campus. A very large college campus. We have our share of people who are mentally ill and some just general crazies. And like most college campuses, it would not be hard for someone with a "hitch in their giddiup" to wreck havoc. We had such a person in the late nineties. She was psychotic and off her meds and brought a high powered rifle to campus. One person shot and injured and one killed. It was a horrible event. It occurred right across the street from my husband's office, and he often walked that way. I later learned that I had probably passed this individual on my way to my building. She was carrying a backpack (with a rifle inside). She blended in so well, I hadn't even noticed her.

Now VA Tech...it makes my blood run cold. College campuses by design are open. I cannot imagine how, either technically or philosophically, it could be otherwise. But we walk around every day without fear.

How do we do that?

My heart goes out to the family and friends of the people who are hurt and killed. I cannot imagine.