more from the x-treme knitting files

As I have discussed in approximately 9,007 previous posts, I am so over India, which means I tend to leave the air-conditioned, relatively comfortable apartment here only to (a) go to work, (b) procure nourishment, or (c) finally, finally, finally go back to the airport in order to return to California. This means that on weekends I have a lot of alone time on my hands, which means a lot of knitting and/or crocheting. Possibly too much knitting and/or crocheting, in fact. Can you see the red, inflamed areas above both wrists?

This has happened before, and it goes away with a few days of rest. It's weird--it doesn't hurt really, even though the spots are noticeably warm and red and a bit swollen. X-treme knitting, my friends. What can I say?

Speaking of knitting, having too much time on one's hands, and getting inflamed, I recently joined a site called Ravelry, which is sort of like Facebook for knitters. There are well over 125,000 members, and naturally a lot of discussion groups exist there, including many that have nothing to do with knitting. One is called "Language Lovers." I'm sure this is already setting off alarm bells for the linguists in the audience, because y'all know what sorts of things get discussed on those boards:

"ZOMG yesterday I heard someone pronounce something wrong and it made me so crazy and Western civilization is crumbling because no one knows when to say it's and when to say its and OMG OMG OMG what is happening to young people don't they teach grammar in schools anymore and why don't people know the rules like I do??? AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"

You know, or something like that. Yeah, these people love language alright. And if you can't see me rolling my eyes from India, you're not looking very hard. I find it difficult not to comb through the posts and carefully point out each and every grammatical error they themselves perpetrate within their pedantic little screeds. But I don't, because, well, I have better things to do, such as post to the Bob Dylan fan forum. ("Visions of Johanna: best song in the history of the universe. Discuss.")

bombay bound

I'm off to Bombay again tomorrow, for just three weeks this time. That little jackass Fernando is still over there, and the lovely Cathy will be overlapping with my trip for the final few days, so the whole thing seems like it might in fact be bearable. And I hear there is a new fridge at the apartment that actually gets below 62 degrees Fahrenheit. And I am taking along my 12-year-old ironing board cover to donate to the apartment because it is in better shape than the twice-used one we bought at Hypercity.

Last night a few jerks people came over and we drank beer and insanely high-alcohol zinfandel and ordered in pizza from Little Star around the corner. If you have never had Little Star pizza, please drop whatever you are doing and go get some. Really, it's OK--I'll wait.

I spent last weekend with my friend (and fellow MEOW member) Claudia. Claudia's dog Reilly is hilarious and also very cute. To wit, the Stuffed Monkey Massacre series:





Claudia collects whisks and she'd recently decided they needed cleaning, so her kitchen resembled...um, I guess it resembled a place where there are a whole lot of clean whisks:



Claudia is evil and she forced me to buy out some beautiful clearance yarn (merino and cashmere) at Stonemountain & Daughter, which is primarily a fabric store but which also carries a small selection of some damn fine yarn. I also got more Noro Silk Garden to make another one of those stripes-within-stripes scarves. We spent a lot of the weekend either at knitters' gatherings or planted in front of the TV watching the final season of The Wire from start to finish, so I finished the scarf by Sunday evening.



Speaking of knitting, if you are in the market for an ass-kicking knitting guide, order yourself a copy of my friend (and yet another MEOW member) Vickie's new book, Knit Aid. And by the way, Vickie is 800,000 times hotter even than she looks in the drawing on the book cover, as evidenced by this (or any other) photo of her:



Hot, smart, and crafty...just the way I like 'em.

just like old times

Now that I am all alone in Bombay (well, except for those 19 million other people), I've reverted to the habits I cultivated when we used to live at the hotel--knitting, eating cereal for dinner, and watching a lot of National Geographic Channel. Next up, Megastructures: Garbage Mountain. (Apparently NatGeo has been filming down the street from here.) To add to the nostalgia, I am still seeing all the same commercials they were running last summer: Hrithik Roshan is still selling chocolate chip cookies, bizarre space aliens are still selling car batteries, and everyone and his mother are still selling skin lightening cream. Alex and Casey know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I am still working through the Yarn Mountain sent to me here last year by my ass kicking MEOW kitties, and I decided it was time to make something other than socks. So, I present to you the April May Wristwarmers. Or at least they'll be wristwarmers when I finish the second one.

It just occurred to me that it would be difficult to knit wristwarmers for Hrithik Roshan. I won't actually post a photo of his extra thumb, but you can click on that if you want to. You sicko.

things to do in bombay when you're dead inside

Question: what is black and white (and green) and cute all over?

Is it this puppy that hangs out near our office? Yes, if you don't look too closely at his mangy fur.



Is it this baby sweater set I made out of sock yarn? I hope so.



And here's a lace baby hat being blocked on a cereal bowl:



That's all I gots. What can I say--I have been here enough that on weekends I prefer to just hang out at home and avoid the noise and crowds and smells and sights and general bombardment of the senses that comes with Bombay. Today Casey and I spent the afternoon watching DVDs and, um, drinking hard liquor.

Alex and Robin went to a museum today, so maybe they will have more interesting things to post.