k-brow: potato pause

It is raining great white sheets of Nuuanu wind-driven rain, as I write this. I am heating this most excellent veggie soup for dinner's first course. It's a multi-course dinner because I'm awaiting the completion of a 3-hour baked potato.It's gonna be about 2 hours more for the potato, so I need the soup first to keep me from bonking. I first learned about this slow-cooked method for potatoes from Rachel's blog, and gave it a try. Dude! Those potatoes are substantially different for the extra 2 hours of baketime. Just try it. Yum. So. The soup, also, is a soup with a difference, that difference being the bit of parmesan cheese rind (carved off a Costco Parmesano Reggiano wedge) tossed in as it bubbled away. The cheese rind disentegrates, and adds a richness to the soup that makes it more than the sum of its parts. Especially if you add a cup of wine and lots of garlic. Otherwise, it's an unremarkable scratch veggie soup, but it's a mainstay around here.

Today was my first day with students. Fun, but I'd forgotten how frantic the first days of school are, before I've learned the new schedule, and I felt like the kids could smell my insecurity. Aaaaak! So many directions, so much talking, so many decisions to make. My resource teacher job of yesteryear, in the spider hole of the cubical, was so low-key by comparison. It's entirely pleasurable, though, and I'm feelin' the love, big time, for the students and the job. But ask me again in 2 weeks how it's going.

I'm going to go make a martini. Put on the new "X-Files" compilation dvd and crank out some moss stitch. I leave you with a shot of Ella, who does not enjoy this windy weather, and is extra clingy. The moving trees and slamming doors and rattling window blinds make her nervous.

k-brow: laying low with my koigu

A little of this and a little of that, and mostly working my butt off, trying to get that classroom ready for Tuesday, which is the day that those 26 5th graders show up. I'm mostly ready, enjoying the planning of curriculum and the anticipation, though everything would be so much more ready if I had 2 or 3 more weeks. It has been many a year, 4 to be exact, since I've been in charge of an entire classroom. I've spent the past few years working as a resource teacher, an assistant teacher, or as a specialist, and thus, have not had to worry about the planning of every minute of the day. I forgot how much one has to consider the management of time and materials. Yick. Rude awakening.

Knitting has helped me navigate our endless staff meetings, without remarking to my boss that "hey, we don't need you to make a Power Point presentation AND read it to us." The Minimalist Cardigan, with its endless miles of moss stitch in the soothing green Cashmerino Aran is just the ticket for keeping me suitably passive in such trying times. I'm through the back and 1.5 sides, and will knit both sleeves at the same time. I'm hoping to finish this puppy by the time the Olympics begin, so I can concentrate on Olympic knitting; project to be determined...

A peek at the endless miles o' moss:

This is not a very good rendition of this color. It's way less yellow, and more of a nice clovery green in reality.

Last Wednesday, Acornbud, P. and I went to see The Dark Knight at Ward Center. What a thrilling movie! Dark and awesome in every way. Not feel-good, not even one little bit, but so riveting and relentlessly fast-paced that I didn't even mind. After the movie, we felt the need for Thai food, so I drove us to Restaurant Row, for some Payao. Or that was my intent. In the RR parking garage, getting out of my car, I stepped in someone's spilled slimy frappucino or some such coffee-oil slick and fell, partway under my car, taking a faceplant right into the concrete. Where I lay, crying and soaking up the coffeeslime til P. and Acornbud helped me up and sponged me off. Lots of blood; my glasses cut my eyebrow and head wounds bleed like crazy. Needless to say, there was no Thai food. Now my boy P is the survivor of many freak accidents, and Acornbud herself is a doctor, so I was in good hands, though they both seem to have graduated from the same hard-nosed bedside manner school of manners. P: "Looks like you're gonna have a real shiner here!" Acornbud: "You're lucky you didn't lose that eye!" After the parking garage triage, we dropped Acornbud off to eat pea soup, and I went home and sent P back out for Chinese food, after he denied me the martini which would have made it all better. No concussion. But I did have a terribly sore face the next couple o' days, and a mild black eye, pictured here in a mending state.


I'm trying to take back some of my time, these days. During my weeks at my parents' house, I was bedazzled by how relaxed I was, away from the drama of work. I read a lot and got so much knitting done. I'm struck by how much time I spend messing around on the web, blogreading, emailing, timewasting and procrastinating. With the return to work, and longer workdays, at that, I'm trying to open up some more free time for myself, and more quiet time, as well. To knit, to read, to do tarot, to just "be," as well as hang with P and the pups. I'm done with agility, Ella's retired, Cricket's not ready, and so I'm done, for the moment, with formal dog training. Laying low is the order of the day, as we move into the harvest season.

In VA, I didn't do much fibery shopping, but my sis and I did get to the wonderful Mosaic Yarns where I indulged in some Koigu acquistion. Now I'm still not over my fervent belief in the Koigu curse, but since my Chevron Scarf is going well, if a bit endlessly, I'm thinking my curse may just be limited to socks. I'm thinking Eunny's Endpaper Mitts for these skeins of Koigu goodness:

I taught myself to do 2 color knitting at my sister's house one evening, and magic loop, too! A fiddly experience, and my work was not too pretty, but I've got the basics down, more or less.

Look! It's the opening of Opalescence, the Akamai Knitter's new Etsy shop! Go! Buy! Give her love!

DisKnit: A boring color and a secret?

you are darkkhaki #BDB76B

Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definately not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling". Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I am not Khaki. But maybe after a long boring week at work and then a busy weekend volunteering at the Capital Fringe Festival, my colors are mixing.

But some people might want to think about Friday and what it might have meant to KBrow. Of course, one person missed the chance for a timely celebration. But at least I didn't make you one of these cakes. But then you are not a podiatrist.

Oh, did anyone want to see non-Khaki knitting, let's go looking:

They were given to my Mom who was visiting via Alaska and returning there, so needed wool socks in July.

Back to lethargy before one more volunteer shift and then the end of the fringe party.

the infrequent one.

k-brow: medium sea green

you are mediumseagreen #3CB371

Your dominant hues are cyan and green. Although you definately strive to be logical you care about people and know there's a time and place for thinking emotionally. Your head rules most things but your heart rules others, and getting them to meet in the middle takes a lot of your energy some days. Your saturation level is medium - You're not the most decisive go-getter, but you can get a job done when it's required of you. You probably don't think the world can change for you and don't want to spend too much effort trying to force it. Your outlook on life is brighter than most people's. You like the idea of influencing things for the better and find hope in situations where others might give up. You're not exactly a bouncy sunshine but things in your world generally look up.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Lots of stuff happening. More to come.

dear lucy

Dear DisKnit,

One of us has to post eventually. I guess it's me. This is sort of the "what I did on my summer vacation since I didn't visit you" entry. Mostly I hung out with the 'rents. I spent 2 weeks virtually internet-free, and got an impressive amount of reading, knitting, writing and movie watching done. Kept my ailing dad company, helped my mom out, coddled the tomato plants, and ate more watermelon and summer-ripe tomatoes than I thought was possible. It was the summer of red fruit, I guess.

My sis and I attended Roanoke's "Star City Motor Madness" car show; a sort of loosely organized craziness, in which everyone with an unusual car convenes on Williamson Road to show them off. We milled around, admiring, speculating and mostly people watching. Drinking beer and eating Mexican food. Later walking it off, over several miles of quiet, firefly-lit neighborhood.

I think, growing up in the country with parents who kept us on a short leash, left us capable of making our own fun.

A few pix here from the automotive extravaganza. Knitting progress and other such stuff to come.

love,

K-brow


The setting; the strip mall strip of Roanoke's main sububan drag. Dusk, after a big storm. Humid and genial ambiance.


My sis, enjoying the automotives.


A pink skull isn't all that scary.


What is it about car shows that bring out the boa constrictor carrying guys?