she's just saying...

The year without spring

What's that white stuff drifting down through the sunshine out there? Volcanic ash? Really big juniper pollen? Why no, it's snow!

Yes, snowing on May 20th. Welcome to Central Oregon, on the High Desert. We're actually so used to it that it didn't cause much interest. And it is sunny, so it's not that bad.

Next it will turn in the space of a week to a hot dry summer. Our seasons change rather abruptly here. When I first arrived (15 years ago this month), I was so dismayed at the short planting season that I stopped gardening for a year or so. 

This is a post about the weather because the two other fascinating topics I thought up in the car have already fled my mind. Have I talked about how I have no memory? I can't recall. Anyway, I don't. Have any memory. I've tried to hide it for years, but now I just tell people straight out and I'm off the hook. Sort of a charming eccentricity, is how I like to see it.

And don't tell me to do crosswords. I've lost many precious hours of my life that I'll never get back puzzling over Sudoku squares. What worries me is that I still have 40 more years to go, if my parents are any indication. So please wear a nametag when you come to visit me in the old folks home. And when you run into me in the supermarket, it would help if you gently remind me who you are.

I'll post again when I remember those other two topics. I do recall they were really good.

Top Ten Tues: Things I can't live without

I just got a hair iron which I'm in love with and which has changed my life, if a new hair style can change your life, and I do believe it can. I already can't imagine life without it. So that made me think of the other things I use every day that I can't live without. (Actually things I think I can't live without, but have and could, of course.)

The criterion I used is whether I'd replace these things if they break. And I already have with many of them. Plus, this doesn't count computers - they're like the stove or something.

So here's my list.

1. Hair iron, of course
2. KitchenAid stand mixer
3. Insta-Hot instant hot water dispenser
4. Clothes steamer - no ironing!
5. Tivo, at least one
6. Garage door opener
7. Canon PowerShot SD 1100 IS Digital Elph (is that a confusing enough product name?)
8. MLB.TV (baseball games on my computer)
9. Palm Pre, though I'm weakening on this
10. Hot tub

       

Only her hairdresser...

Stash

It's an old joke with knitters that we collect much more yarn than we have projects for. We refer to those bins, bags and piles of fiber as our stash. The Yarn Harlot (a knitting-humor celebrity) has written hilarious bits about stash management, including how to hide it around the house and what happens if your stash outlives you.(Gratuitous celebrity photo here).  

Like any obsessed collector, I like to spend some quality time with my stash. It's a pleasant way to spend an early weekend morning, sorting it, reviewing amounts, thinking about potential projects, and just kind of playing with it.

I've talked about Ravelry a bunch - it's an online community of knitters (and crocheters, though I don't fraternize with them much) with a hyperlinked inventory system of yarn, patterns, people and ongoing projects. We photograph our stash and projects and post them in our notebooks for others to search and explore. (This is where hours of my life have been whiled away, and no, it's not a waste of time.) One of the best uses of stash listings is to find that last critical skein needed to finish a project, then swap or purchase.

It's a thrill to track down the needed yarn and make a trade. It's also satisfying to fulfill another knitter's desperate search with some odd skein in my stash.

For example, here is a pic of a happy transaction. I had one skein of this sock yarn, not enough to make a pair of socks. 

I found the one person in the world who still had this yarn and was willing to part with it. Now my skein has a twin and everyone is happy.

Keep your balls cozy

Look! I knitted a softball cozy!

It's supposed to be an apple cozy but it came out a little big.  Kathi D, do you have any baseballs needing sweaters?

Sure sign of spring: farm stand!

For those of you reading from below the 44th parallel, you must be wondering why we're still looking for signs of spring. Maybe it's the snow we had on Monday or the frost this morning, but we don't seem to quite be there yet. I'll take any sign that spring is returning to Central Oregon, and have spotted the best so far: the farm stand on my street has opened again.

You may remember my embarrassingly gushing post about my farm stand (I like to call it "my" farm stand, though I'll happily share it). But over the winter I watched concernedly while changes were happening to the closed stand. It was painted in bright yellows and orange, a new name was posted, the shack got a little construction work. It looked like new owners had bought it, and my heart sunk. 

Well, it's been open for a few weeks now and I've avoided it, afraid to see what out-of-town ag conglomerate had taken it over. (Okay, so I'm a little paranoid. It's my farm stand!) Yesterday on the way home from work I was hankering for a head of lettuce so pulled in and prepared to face reality. And there was my pal Adam!! I honestly can't tell you how relieved I was. It made my day.

It's now called Paradise Produce. Adam and a friend have leased some organic farm land and are getting serious about bringing in fresh-picked organic produce. As Adam said today, "We cut 20 head of lettuce this morning and it's all gone already!" 

There's a list of about 60 different products they're carrying.  The stand is mostly organic, and they've started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture for those of you who avoid vegetables, and I'm looking at you, YrBigSis.)

I'm planning to volunteer my mad marketing skillz in exchange for peaches and tomatoes, so expect to hear a lot more about it.

Twelve kinds of tomatoes: I'm obsessed.

Pink is Love

Pink is Love, by Henry Hochschild

Happy Mother's Day, all!

A Bread Revolution

These days Henry and I are enjoying freshly baked homemade bread right from the oven several times a week.

Unbelievable, you say? Has Melissa traded in her knitting obsession for a baking one, spending hours mixing, kneading, raising, punching, raising again, baking? Why, no! I have found a book that promises and delivers "the discovery that revolutionizes home baking."

The book is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. (Her name has both an umlaut and cedilla neither of which I care to figure out how to type here.) As described by the New York Times, "Soon the bread will be making itself...The crusty, full-flavored loaf that results may be the world's easiest yeast bread."

The idea is that you mix a fairly wet dough and store it in the fridge without kneading for up to 10 days. Every time you want bread, you pull off a hunk, form it and let it rise (takes about 40 minutes) and bake it. Done. Craziness!

The book takes a one page explanation and recipe and spins it into 242 pages which is a publishing miracle in itself. (They've also built a robust website as well - I sense a marketing mind behind this.) All variations of the same recipe, plus adding eggs, honey and butter to make brioche dough for pastries as well, which I haven't tried yet. I really don't need brioche dough around the house.

All the purists may scoff (because what else do purists do?) but it really works. I may never knead again! 

Okay, I'm not a food photographer. But doesn't it look a little like the book cover?

Hair Play

Another account I worked on in LA was the Mattel advertising account. I only worked on one small part of it, as it was a vast empire made up of divisions such as Matchbox, Large Dolls, Boys Toys, Polly Pocket and of course, Barbie. (I worked on Boys Toys including some weird air hockey puck, WWF wrestling dolls and the Ren & Stimpy Talking & Farting Dolls. Ah, those were the good times.)

One of my favorite things about the account was the unique language used (love weird niche vocabulary). For example, to brief the creative team, we had to identify the wow factor of each toy. And the Barbie and Small Doll folk frequently discussed the intricacies of Hair Play. 

I am reminded of this lately because I'm engaged in some Hair Play myself. I've been growing my hair longer and have hit the level of Below The Collar Bone, the longest I've ever had my hair. I've always been a short hair person, and am having a bit of adjustment to being a long hair person. Do you put it inside your shirt collar or outside? In front of your shoulders or back? How often do you wash it? How do you style it? All questions I never had to deal with before.

It was looking more and more like cotton candy and not in a good way so I got it trimmed this week. My hairdresser is so good that I hesitate to give out her name.* We've been together 14 years. I'm not the best advertisement for her because I've got weird hair, fine but wavy and regrettably frizzy. But she always makes my hair look fantastic for the first couple of weeks.

She did it again Monday. She got out a hair iron and "product" (another word I love) and totally changed the texture of my hair. It's silky. I've been tossing my head like a hair model, running my fingers through it and flipping it around. Barbie's got nothing on me this week. At least in hair play.

Before

After

*But I'll tell you anyway. Traci Klune at Salon Indulgence. Tell her Melissa sent you.

Remembering Kent State

Thanks to Ten Bears and MyBigBro for reminding us of this 40th anniversary yesterday, both quoting the same song.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's some history for you:

The Kent State massacre occurred on May 4, 1970 at Kent State University when students were protesting against the invasion of Cambodia and the Vietnam War. The Ohio National Guard fired 67 rounds into the crowd, killing four students and wounding nine others. Several of those shot weren't involved in the protest, but just changing classes.

Neil Young wrote a song about it, singing:

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Since it's still Tuesday somewhere...

I can sneak in a Top Ten. This one is not really a "top" per se, it's just a Ten.

Ten Things I Had in My Purse Today

1. A cork
2. Hair silicone
3. A decal of the flag of Tibet
4. Three pairs of various glasses
5. A puzzle made of quilt blocks
6. A small paintbrush
7. A skein of yarn
8. Three different to-do lists
9. Chap-Stick, lip gloss and Carmex
10. Pad Thai

I know comedy

Back in my glamorous Hollywood ad agency days, I worked on the Gallo account for a few years. At one point, we were introducing a new product into test market, a clear malt beverage to compete with Zima (remember Zima?). It was named Kypler's for some reason and was a resounding failure.

However, the concepting and production of the commercials for the brand were a lot of fun. No expense was spared, typical of Gallo (though you couldn't really say that about their products, IMO). We hired a high-end production company and director who specialized in comedy and proceeded to produce a bunch of spots. At one point this led to me being kissed by Rodney Dangerfield which was actually not a high point, but memorable.

Anyway, after we shot all over LA, the team began to edit the spots, which is always tricky but especially so for comedy. During editing you end up seeing the gags 100 times at least. Nothing is funny after you've seen it 100 times except for the sneezing panda video below which brings me to tears but I digress. 

We were showing the edited spots to the creative director, who's a comic character in his own right. His family was involved in show business, including his brothers Super Dave and the director Albert Brooks. This led to him saying "I know comedy! I come from comedy!" a lot. At key moments while screening the spots, he would say "I'm laughing...I'm laughing..." in a totally flat voice, indicating that the gag was working. It was kind of funny in itself.

So that's how I'm feeling these days. I'm laughing...  I'm laughing... . You may not know it to look at me, but really, it's all working.

This video has been seen over 60 million times. I'm not kidding. A couple hundred views are by me.

Another blessed (if prickly) event

No, that's not a hand puppet, that's a baby porky! Spring is here and the porcupines are popping. Thistle and Honeysuckle had their second baby recently, and it's a cutey. There's more info here and the porcupette will be making appearances in June. (Yes, I'm marketing the Museum. It's what I do.)

 

40,000 hits. Of which 19,999 are looking for poultrywear.

MyBigSis just pointed out that my blog has racked up 40,000 hits.

Of course, as ad folk know, this is a completely specious number (love that word). Any time some misguided soul clicks on a search result for flamenco dancers, chicken knitting, neosporin, biathlete knitters or yeti costumes and ends up on my page it counts as a visit. Even when they instantly leave, having realized that this blog is completely irrelevant for their needs. I do hate disappointing them all. Except for the sock fetish searchers who I'd frankly rather not have hanging around here.

It could be 40,000 different people visiting me once, or 20,000 people and a crazed stalker - I'm not interested enough to actually pay for traffic analysis. I do have a little (free) tracker that can sometimes identify where a particular viewer lives, and it says that Number 40,000 lives in Madison, Wisconsin and came here directly, i.e. typed in my blog address. Who are you, Madison, Wisconsin? I'd love to know. There may even be an apple sweater (not chicken, sorry) in it for you.

I think this means "Congratulations, you've reached 40,000 hits." Or she could be complaining about having to wear those big red bowling balls on her head.

It's not a Wheaties box, yet...

The line for autographs starts at the right.

PS: That's Jen's girl, Chloe, with the Mona Lisa smile in the back.

And the lucky winners are...

Before I announce the winners, I have to explain the selection process.

 First I had to disqualify family due to obscure but specific state rules governing sweepstakes. You want me to go to jail? Plus, if I give you stuff now, I'll have nothing left for Christmas. 

Next, I decided to eliminate all previous contest winners, with the aim of spreading the wealth. Sorry guys, but if I told you that first, you wouldn't have commented. Call it bait and switch. So sue me.

Then, I had to take out Kathi D (not literally) as she was already a weiner, er, winner.

That left three people, of whom two were new commenters who both get two entries. So, five little slips of paper were carefully made and tossed into my coffee cup from which to pull the winning names. Unfortunately, I neglected to empty the cup of its old coffee first, so all the entries got soggy and illegible. Rather than start over, I decided to award a little knitty bit to each. So, without further excuses:

The Winners!!

• Lonnie, you lucky dog (KG, tell him what he wins)
• Jen, a faithful supporter who can be blamed for this whole blog thing to begin with
• Carrie, a brand new commenter whose location is still a mystery

Further, you get your choice of knitty bit:

1. Apple cozy
2. Cup cozy
3. Catnip mouse

And family will just have to stand in line. Christmas is only eight months away...

Totally skewed (sock post)

This is not my foot, sock or photo.

Wow, a knitting post. I'm averaging about one a month these days so I can still call this a knitting blog in certain circles and get away with it.

I'm fascinated with the intricacies and hierarchies of obscure niche interests. Perusing hobby magazines and online forums allows a peek* into the levels of controversy among weird interest groups. (MyBigBro is maybe a little too into this stuff, but I admire his enthusiasms.)

The knitting world contains these quirky stratifications as well. As I've noted before, right now socks are the hip thing. There's a bit of controversy, archness and even snobbery around sock knitting. There are endless discussions about heels, toes, gussets, sizing, yarn and even basic sock design on Ravelry, the facebook for knitters. (The site is so much more than that, but I've covered that before.)

There is a whole subset of sockists, led by a designer named Cat Bordhi, who play with sockitecture,  the basic structure of the sock. (Stay with me here.) We're talking unusual directions, higher geometry and re-imagining the sock as we know it. Grabbing conventional sock knitting by the heel, really.

Being the trend-slave that I am, I've dipped my toe into the sock swirl as well. (I'm trying hard not to use a lot of foot puns in this post, but a few tip-toe in.) The latest craze is a sock pattern called Skew. As the designer writes, "Skew takes the concept of the bias design element to a new extreme by turning the entire architecture of the sock, including the heel, on the diagonal."

If you're interested in learning more, and I know you are, check out the description and pattern. It will blow your tiny sock mind.

*peek, as opposed to pique and peak. That's a grammar-rant post for another day.

Boy stuck in tree

The Comment for a Cozy Contest continues. Enter in the post below.

Meanwhile, a classic from the sparkling day Sunday. Of course, today: snow.

No, he wasn't stuck. Though it would make for a good Bulletin article.

Two years down. Only 37 more to go!

I decided when I hit 90, I'm going to stop blogging. I'm sure by then we won't be typing anymore, just dictating or mind-melding or whatever new technology the future brings.

I blew past my blogiversary 11 days ago (April 8, a day that will live in infamy). I guess as Monkey said, it's not quite as exciting anymore. Or, to put a more upbeat spin on it, it's now such a part of my daily life that I don't think about it as a milestone to celebrate.

I want to thank y'all for reading, commenting, linking, reposting, lurking and all the other things you do to show your interest in my effort. I always write with you guys in mind, challenging me to keep it funny, light, thoughtful, goofy, ridiculous and always ENTERTAINING. You're insatiable, really. The pressure! Anyway, thanks.

So, in the long tradition of blogiversaries, I'm offering another contest to the faithful. All you have to do is comment on this post, be that lucky slip of paper in the hat and wait for your prize. Every comment gets a chance and FIRST TIME commenters get two chances each. And Kathi D wins a prize for most prolific commenter, just because.

And the prize? 

An absolutely adorable apple jacket! Keep those Cortlands cozy in their very own snuggly sweater.

I'm giving away two of these babies so ping me back with a cogent comment and cross your fingers.

Drawing will take place Friday night after a round of gimlets. As the lama says, you must be present to win.

PS: Facebook comments don't count toward a prize...

Just a little something to nosh

Whew. Busy weekend doing nothing. A new friend came to visit - more on that to come if the stars align. Meanwhile, Henry keeps growing. And eating. Here's this morning's order:

Courses from the foreground back:

Buttermilk biscuit with country sausage gravy (notice the apple was not touched),

Two eggs sunny-side up with two pieces of bacon

Topped off by a huge pancake, with a scoop of butter and half cup of syrup.

The waiter placed it all in front of him and declared: "Mission: Eat!"

And he did. He started slowing down by the second egg and the last half of the pancake, but since that one pancake equaled three normal ones, we decided it was Mission Accomplished.

Ten Hints for Dating Melissa

As a public service to a would-be suitor, here are ten tips to get our relationship off to a successful start:

1. Love my son but don't try to be dad yet
2. Think my cats and dog are cute (or fake it convincingly)
3. Read my blog faithfully
4. Be patient with my total lack of biking skillz
5. Tolerate my knitting obsession
6. Cheerfully offer a bite of whatever you're eating
7. Never cheer for the Yankees
8. Praise my cooking publicly
9. Offer to mow the lawn (and mean it)
10. Don't ever say the following:

"I always pictured myself with a taller, thinner girl" or

"I hope I meet someone just like you, only younger."

There! That's not so hard, is it? We're going to get along just fine!