Heard in the master bedroom last night…
So, now that you know how wonderful I am, are we going to put the futon in front of the fireplace?
NO.
How come YOU get to control where the couch goes?
Because I’m a girl. I have the “couch-controlling” chromosome, and you don’t.
“I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf,” he said on his Web site. “Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK … But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead.”
Referring to the increasingly popular practice of downloading music from the Internet, Townshend said: “The downside may be that on our computers — for privacy, for respect to family and co-workers, and for convenience — we use earphones at almost every stage of interaction with sound.”
The Who rock group was famous for its earsplitting live performances, but Townshend said his problem was caused by using earphones in the recording studio.
Sorry, Petey, but I have a hard time believing that the concerts didn’t wreck your hearing. Sure, the in-studio headphones contributed, but you guys were the loudest rock band around for a long time. How could that NOT have hurt your ears, eh?
And if I don’t use my iPod headphones, how can I listen to YOUR music that I’ve downloaded?
Remember the super-secret Christmas present project suggested by one spouse for another? Well, dis be it. It’s a cell phone cozy for Adri. Rick cornered me as we were leaving their house on Thanksgiving and asked me if I could make her something she could wear to work on her belt to hold her cell phone and ID.
I looked all around and consulted various people and just couldn’t find an existing pattern I really liked, so I came up with this. Since her two favorite colors are black and turquoise, this was perfect yarn. It’s three strands together to make it sturdy since it’s just knit, not felted (I couldn’t find a felted cozy pattern I liked). The yarn is the cotton/viscose blend from Sherri.
I got as far as I could w/o knowing what size her cell phone was, then bagged up the WIP and the yarn and gave it to her for Christmas. She was rather puzzled when she opened it, but then she seemed really happy about it when I explained. Tonight at our knit night at Starbucks, I finally got it sewn together. Now all it needs is a black (Or silver? Let me know, Adri…) button and a strap on the back for her belt to go through.
So, has anyone noticed that I haven’t knit a stitch since the Gioia debacle a few days ago? I’m afraid. Yes, I’m afraid. OK, I did knit a few stitches at Starbucks tonight as I was teaching Jennifer’s roommate Siobhann “In through the front door, up around back, out through the front door, and off jumps Jack”, but that doesn’t count. I’ve rolled up a few balls of yarn, but no knitting. Sigh. I must get back on the horse/jump back in the water. Would someone please give me a little push? I’m not as afraid as I was after Nana peeled me off the bottom of the Las Colinas swimming pool, but I am afraid.
This whole Gioia mess has made me feel very inept. I don’t know whether to frog it or not. I’m afraid of ruining the yarn by frogging it yet AGAIN. Somebody help me! Granted, my trouble with it has Zib reworking the pattern, but I feel like a rank beginner, you know? Sigh. I guess I’ll frog it tomorrow, then set the lovely Silk Garden aside until the pattern’s back up. It’s not like I don’t have a million things to work on in the meantime, things I’ve actually promised people other than myself — repair work to do for Bobcat and Auntie, Brandi’s wristwarmers to make, Noodles’ sweater to make, etc., etc. (Jeannette, I repeat: I will NOT make socks for a Chihuahua. No. Even if I’d ever made socks before, I wouldn’t. NO. Chihuahuas don’t wear socks. NO.)
OK. End of pity party. Thank your for your kind attention to this matter.
When I was growing up, my parents tested their marriage every time they hung a painting or other piece of artwork on the wall. Eventually, I learned to run quickly, silently in the other direction so as not to get caught up in it all, but sometimes I was too slow.
Poppa got out the level, a ruler, a pencil, a hammer, and appropriate nails and hooks, then did some mumbo-jumbo with Nana about where on the wall the painting should go. I didn’t listen closely to that part. By the time they moved to their current house in 1981, the rest of the painting-hanging conversation went something like this:
It’s crooked.
No, it’s not. See the level? The level says it’s straight. It’s straight.
But it LOOKS crooked.
Well, it’s not. It’s straight. See the level?
Well, then the wall’s crooked. The house is almost a hundred years old. It must be crooked.
But the level says it’s straight, so the picture’s straight.
Who care if it IS straight if it LOOKS crooked? Let’s move it so it’s crooked so that it LOOKS straight.
You get the idea. What does that have to do with furniture, you ask?
Well, you see, once the Christmas decorations were down and the Christmas tree was out on the street waiting for the people who come along at 5:30 in the morning and abscond with your dead firetrap of a tree, we decided to move the furniture around. Granted, a certain amount of moving of furniture was necessary to put things back to “normal”, but we decided to put things back differently in order to make the room more functional.
It was ugly. Oh, yes, it was ugly. It rivaled Poppa and Nana’s art-hanging episodes. (BTW, lest you think I’m talking out of turn, I’ve heard Poppa discuss it and say they test their marriage every time they hang a picture. So there.)
See, we’d been thinking about it anyway, and then we got to brainstorming with Bobcat about it on New Year’s Eve, and so we were eager to try to figure it out. One of us had a crazy idea. One of us — someone who shall remain nameless, but I will just say it was the same someone who wanted to name Thing Two “March” b/c she was due in March — wanted to put the bigger futon in front of the fireplace. Not facing the fireplace, but smack-dab in front of it, blocking it. Oh yes, someone did.
It was ugly. We “went there”. I raised my voice. He dug in his heels. I dug in my heels even harder. Then, we really “went there”. I pulled the oh-so-mature, “Well, you’re a boy, so you don’t know about these things. That would look totally stupid!”. He pulled the equally wonderful, “Well, I’m the husband, so my vote counts more than yours.” Oh, yeah. We “went there”.
So, here we sit. We still love each other. We’re still married. We even still like each other. But the living room. Well, the living room is sitting exactly as it was when we first began the argument. It’s half-way between “Christmas set-up” and “normal set-up”. Meanwhile, we’re trying to find a good futon on craigslist b/c our bigger futon is falling apart. Mind you, this futon was falling apart when hubby found it next to the dumpster at our old apartment eight years ago, but now it’s really falling apart. It’s reached a critical state where one good leap from Thing Two or an unusually energetic “Look at me!” headstand by Andrei could send it tumbling and turn it into so many matchsticks.
Anybody got an inexpensive queen-sized futon and mattress (we already have a cover) we can buy? And if anyone out there knows of a famous, highly-regarded interior designer who favors the “sofa completely blocking the fireplace so it can never be used” look, please, please, PLEASE — DON’T TELL HUBBY ABOUT IT!
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