taste of cleveland

i got two free tickets from the radio earlier this week to a taste of cleveland. about thirty different restaurants set up booths and you could try samples of their food.  sharon and i went up tonight, we had a delicious raspberry swirl white cake, i tried a pirogi still don’t know what the big deal is, chicken quesadillas,  chicken teriyaki,  ribs, homemade potato chips and a not so spectacular crepe. overall the food was pretty good (with the exception of the crepes) we left full and only spent fifteen per person, not bad at all.  the security guard at tower city center had a serious attitude going on, taking his job way to seriously. when we finally left and headed for the car the barney fife wanna be’s entire face was beat red, sunburned except where is sunglasses had been. he was a red and white raccoon.  the only thing missing was the floods, white tube socks, and comb over.

we didn’t stay for the band (never heard of them) but headed home and stopped for a movie theater just in time to catch mama mia. it was terrible. i remember when i first read about this movie thinking christine baranski was perfect for the part she was cast in. turns out no one was perfect for the parts they were cast in, especially meryl streep. i suppose i would enjoy this movie more had i not seen the play. the singing was horrid, listening to julie walters sing made my ears bleed.  the major players could not carry a tune and i don’t know if anyone else noticed but when they did sing, the background singers were louder than the lead. anything they could do to drown out the raucous sound that passed for singing. i bet the professional cast on broadway and on tour are laughing their arses off, if not , they should be.

and on a tuesday

recently i read in a magazine that you should buy spiffy outfits to work out in. i wish i could remember which magazine. i laughed a bit at this statement. going to the gym is not a fashion statement for me. i am there to work hard. they recommend lycra pants or capris with matching tops. i am the equivalent of the gym’s fashion don’t, or at least this magazines fashion don’t. i show up in shorts and an old t~shirt, often with holes or stains, and little to no makeup. i’m there to sweat, by the time i am done my clothes are sweat soaked. i talk about hitting pay off. that moment when the sweat trickles down my back and lands at the base of my spine, that’s when i know i’ve done my job right. i’ve actually hit a new level of pay off now that i have increased my cardio to sixty minutes three to four times a week. it’s the moment i feel the sweat trickle from behind the knees and run down my calf. i hit the zone. i am actually thinking of going to two a days on my days off. it all depends on the knees. these stupid knees of mine. i have been getting pains in the front of the knees which i fear may be the onset of arthritis. i am going to start glucosamine daily soon. i am hoping it will help. once again i have been inconsistent with exercising, i don’t know why i have such a hard time getting to the gym. once i am there i enjoy it and i feel like i am doing something good for myself, taking care of myself, making an effort. it’s just getting there that’s the problem. bks i used to notice a difference in the way i felt physically on the days i skipped exercising. my body new something wasn’t right and i craved the activity. i would love to get back to that point again.

today was a wonderful day, i am bit overdue for one. the weather was perfect, i could’ve done the final hike today, but i put it off until the weekend. instead i did laundry. right now you are thinking, that’s hardly an equal trade, but it is almost septemeber, in fact monday is september first. i am rapidly running out of summer weather, and since they are calling for scattered showers all the rest of the week, today was the perfect day to hang the clothes out on the line. it is one of my favorite things about summer, the smell of line dried clothes.

i picked up another edition of the movie mansfield park from the library today. although the acting was much better than the last movie, and mrs bertram was not featured nearly so prominently as in the last movie. they made changes to the story. big changes. william was cut out completely, susan took his place and fannie had a much stronger relationship with susan than was ever indicated in the book, edmund must have had spinal surgery, they completely removed his backbone, or prehaps it was his testicles. fannie accepts henry’s proposal then rejects him the next day driving him into maria’s arms and bed. yes it’s all fannie’s fault that they are adulterers. sir thomas was a slave owner who tortured his slaves and raped the women. once again the actress who plays mary crawford bears an uncanny resemblance to serena from bewitched and appears to be about a good 20 years older than the part calls for. jane must be spinning in her grave. when will they learn you don’t f@ck with jane austen?

i have finished the back of the green sweater, i will have to post pictures soon, and have a fair start on the front. there’s another class tonight. i am going to sign up for two more knitting classes for fall. i also signed up for a cooking class next week.

monday monday

i started out cleaning the house a bit at a time, no worries, no hurries. seemed less overwhelming that way. the problem with this idea is that about the time i start getting around to the next part of the house the first part needs attention again. so before going to bed last night, i scrubbed the kitchen floor. the one job i dreaded the most. what’s the big deal? i needed to get down on my hands and knees and give it a good once over. after having both knees operated on this is easier said than done, not just putting that much pressure/weight on my knees, but trying to get back up off the floor is no easy task. i did accomplish quite a bit on my sweater yesterday, in fact i am now further along than i was when i frogged it. i also worked on the june sock of the month and finished the first one before bed last night.

i was looking at the fall class schedule for my lys online yesterday and i see they are offering a class on magic loop. it’s a saturday class which would make things really easy for me. when i was in michigna this past weekend we went to a knitting store, artisan knitworks, and one of the ladies there was trying to teach me magic loop. i really didn’t quite follow. i told her i was not a fan of doing socks on circs but preferred dpns. she said she was the same way until she started magic loop and now knits her socks in half the time. all you need is a 32 inch circ needle so i figure why not give it a try? the worst that will happen is i may end up with an additional circ needle on my hands.

this morning did not start out well, in fact things haven’t been going quite right at all again today, this is now my second time typing this same paragraph all because i attempted to correct a typo and inadvertently deleted it instead, bad words were spoken. i had a doctors appointment at 8am this morning, i thought it was for 9 am, i arrived at 8:30, all of 30 mins late and had to reschedule. the next available appointment was four weeks out, i was fully expected to wait seven weeks for medical care. these people should be embarrassed to treat patients like this. no doubt dr locastro’s immediately family would never be expected to wait almost two months for an appointment and yet they have no qualms about making their patients wait that long. if this thing in my eye comes back i’ll consider going to a doctor then, and i’ll definitely consider going somewhere else. that’s dr anthony locastro on locust street in akron ohio, where they care more about your co-pay than patient care. if you are referred to this office i highly recommend you find someone else. they don’t give a shit and they make no bones about it.

i picked up mansfield park from the library this morning, it’s not so much a movie as community theater, it’s that level of acting and it’s very much amateur hour. the actress that plays lady bertram appears to be stoned throughout the entire movie. the actress playing mary crawford looks like serena from bewitched. i seriously hope that is not her actual hair. she’s supposed to be playing a 21 year old but looks as if she could easily pass for forty. i have two other versions of this movie on hold at the library, hopefully one of them will have a less abysmal performance than this one, it’s the bbc version from 1986. apparently every decent actor in england was busy in 1986, none of them appeared in this film.

michigan, it’s like a whole ‘nother state

ever have one of those days? i have been having a string of them recently. nothing seems to go quite right. i went out thursday morning to do a bit of clothes shopping. i don’t have much i can actually fit into right now, so i just wanted to pick up a few things. nothing fit, i had a hard  time finding clothes, only found one pair of pants i could fit into. nothing sucker punches your self body image harder than clothes shopping. i used to enjoy it, in fact i enjoyed it a bit too much. i wanted to get my hair colored, for a change, the hairdresser is on vacation this week, and booked up all of next. i wanted some new eyeshadow, fall colors. found nothing i liked. i drove in circles, and got precious little accomplished.

friday i packed up and headed out the door to michigan for the weekend to see my friend mary. i haven’t seen her in a very long time and it’s been three or for years since i have been up to her part of michigan for a visit. i called the local radio station to request a song, they said they would play it for me. i listened as long as i could until i got out of range, if they did play it, i missed it. for pete’s sake already.

i called mary once i got into town and we headed out for a day of shopping and lunch. we stopped at a restaurant on the lake by the marina, and then onto artisan knitworks, everything is hand dyed, hand spun, hand painted, and just drop dead gorgeous. i picked up two skeins of sock yarn, the colors are a bit shocking i know. you can find their shop at artisan knit works

this is layla

and this is midnight. each bundle is a pair of socks.

we drove through downtown detroit to get to our destination, detroit is a very depressed and filthy city. i did not feel safe at all, it was like being in washington d.c. after dark, only it was the middle of the day. we went to a casino for a few hours. i have to admit this is so not my thing. i see no enjoyment in it and when we finally left i reeked of cigarette smoke. it was in my hair and my clothes, i couldn’t wait to get back to my room and shower. i had to air out my clothes before packing them, i was afraid everything in my suitcase would end up smelling like smoke. give me nyc any day, you can keep detroit.

saturday i had a leisurely morning, i get a bit too fond of those. the bed at the double tree hotel was so plush and inviting. you just sank into the pillows and the sheets were so soft. the bed just firm enough. if i could’ve fit the entire thing into my purse and carried it out the door i would’ve. it makes it hard to get out of bed, but finally i was on my way to pick up mary. we headed out to a few more yarn stores, and then met up with rita for lunch. we had high tea at the sweet afton tea room, you can find them here. sweet afton tea room

it was one of the better high teas i have had. rita had baby emmet with her, the owners of the shop couldn’t get enough of him. afterward we hung around town and did some shopping. plymouth  is a great little town for a girls day out, full of quaint little shops and restaurants. we went into a store called sideways and i found some cherry chai tea latte mix i can’t wait to try. there was another tea shop we wanted to go to, but missed them by an hour, maybe next time. we stopped at the bead store and i found some green beads to knit with. they were a bit of an extravagance, but i fell in love with the colors so i splurged. i had actually managed to keep the yarn purchases down to three skeins of yarn, so i felt a little better about splurging on the beads. after a day of shopping we met back at the hotel and hung out. rita gave us manicures and we watched movies while i tried to stay awake.

sunday morning rolls around and it’s time to head home. i actually made rather good time since it was sunday morning there wasn’t much traffic out. i was over the michigan/ohio state line in under an hour and home just shortly after noon. one thing they have in detroit you can’t find in toronto (at least i didn’t, although i got overly excited at the concept) giant cupcakes.

a few differences between ohio and michigan, people park between their front yards and the street. it just looks weird. (front yard, sidewalk, your car, street) you get a discount on gas if you pay cash. they have these crazy left turns, almost shaped like a cabling hook. a red flashing light means you can turn left once traffic is clear. you can legally go seventy miles an hour (you’ll passed like you are parked, but you can legally go seventy) there are a lot of really loud cars out on the road. just as i crossed the state line coming home, this car with an unreasonably loud muffler went roaring by (michigna plates) and i sighed and thought we’re in ohio now. here you’ll get a ticket for that. it’s nice to be home.

aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! wednesday!

wednesdays get a bad rap. i am actually fond of wednesdays, well every other wednesday. my work rotation ends and begins on wednesday, it’s either my first day back after a long stretch off, or my last day to work before starting a long stretch off. any guesses as to which this wednesday may be?

it’s been a relatively uneventful couple of days, the pseudosonographer up to her customary reindeer games, so what do i have planned for my days off? it used to be that i treated these days as a vacation. i made little to no plans, took it day by day and just did whatever comes to mind. lately i have been just as busy on my days off as i have been on my days to work. i need to stop by my lys on the way home and order more beads for my shawl. i’m not exactly certain how many more boxes to get 6? 8? i brought it along to show the ladies at the store and see if i can get a guesstimate from them. (at $1.30/box it’s really not a big deal)  thursday i have to take my car in, again. the engine light came back on, hopefully it won’t be a big deal, but i get nervous. i really, really don’t want a car payment right now, it would make things really difficult. on the other hand how much money do you poor into a car that’s seven years old with 178,000 miles on it? so far in the last month i have spent about seven hundred dollars and if i keep it i will need new tires and a new battery before winter.  depending on what happens with the car i may be leaving for ann arbor on friday. (possibly not until satudary) but i am heading to michigan this weekend to spend time with my friend mary.  at some point i am still hoping to work in the last hike on the hiking challenge, 12.9 miles.  there are a few other odds and ends mixed in there along with some errands, but by the time i get back around to next wednesday, i may be glad to return to work. it might even prove restful!

talk about stepping in it

my employer messed up. big time.

every year we have an employee picnic. it’s an outdoor event, they rent a tent, cook up some burgs and dogs, add a few sides and desserts and give away t-shirts. nothing fancy, but it’s nice, and appreciated. this year they cancelled the event, but only for the employees at the main hospital. the excuse du jour is that although the inpatient census has been well over budget since before christmas, the outpatient volume is significantly down, therefore we cannot afford to have the picnic and will cancel this event at the main campus. only. in other words, all of the outpatient centers had their picnics, even though their volume is down. the retirees had their picnic, even though they don’t even friggin’ work here anymore, however the employees at the hospital, the ones whose case loads have been over budget since before christmas, well screw you.

the administrator who had the sad luck of drawing the short straw and therefore had to make the announcement was inundated with phone calls and emails protesting the rather remarkable show of poor decision making to cancel the picnic at the only facility to actually be turning a profit. one month later administration recanted the decision, issued an “apology” (kinda) and is now having the picnic for the employees at the hospital.  in the cafeteria. you still get your tshirt. gosh i feel special.

in the meantime after the announcement that the original employee picnic had been cancelled, two of the supervisors in my department organized a picnic for our department specifically. asking either you bring a covered dish or donate money for the cause.  they did a fantastic job with the arrangements and i made a point of thanking them for their efforts.  it was a really nice gesture on their parts to organize everything. just goes to show who really knows what’s going on around here.

rambling random sunday

trying to get back into my routine of daily exercise. i did 55 mins on the elliptical yesterday, and 65 mins today. i had intended to increase my workout by 5 mins only but due to my inability to perform basic math (math teachers daughter) i ended up increasing by 10. the sad part is i still did not feel that i got as good of a workout as i did on the old ellipticals. (the one those rat bastards at the gym took out earlier this summer) i had a much more difficult and rewarding cardio in 45 mins time on those machines than i did in 65 mins on the sad little machines left to my disposal.

i hiked 25 miles last weekend and could not understand why i am still overweight. then baked a couple dozen cc cookies and ate them all over a period of one week. do you think there’s a connection?

i have to give up my diet liptons iced tea. not only because it is expensive but i think it may be part of the reason i am not losing weight. going back to plain water or water with the liption iced tea flavor packets added. this really doesn’t seem to make much sense to me either other than i bought several boxes of the flavor crystals last grocery day and will use them up before i toss them out.

it annoys me when i use my computer at home and the mouse is jumping all over the freakin’ screen. so helpful.

i am starting to not like my job, not the job itself, just being forced to endure the mere presence of the pseudosonographer. dear universe, one of us to go. i can’t stand the biatch.

i ripped out the sweater today, i wonder if the reason i have not been motivated to work on it is because of all the yo’s. it’s like the knitting dementor of last year, i am forcing myself to do this.

i am slowly being suffocated by ufo’s, having run out of beads for the latest project, and knowing the store didn’t have anymore and they will need to order more, i have yet another ufo on my hands.

i have just finished mansfield park. it was ok, but i didn’t care for the ending it was too convenient. i also didn’t care for the way all the characters disregarded fanny’s feelings towards henry crawford, or the fact that the males all felt their judgment to be so much more superior to her own. in the end she knew what he was, kudos to fanny for not giving into the pressure and being true to herself. although if edmund knew her half as well as he claims to, you would think he of all people would’ve supported her feelings unconditionally rather than urging her to accept henry. so my favorite jane books are so far, p&p, emma, mansfield park, and s&s. (which will remain dead last since it was more than i could reasonably endure to finish the book just fourteen chapters short of the ending) i have reserved three different versions of the movie mansfield park at the library. emma still my favorite movie, followed by s&s (ironic ain’t it?) and p&p.

i have two more jane books coming from amazon and plan to forward them along to lhia. persuasion and northanger abbey. now it’s just a matter of who gets here first.

still one more hike left to go in the hiking challenge. 12.9 miles!

of many firsts

this project contains many firsts for me. it’s a first for beading in this particular way. i have a ufo beaded scarf that is my actual first beaded project (although my current beaded project just may well be the first finished) you place the beads in a much different manner. there are many ways to add beads to your knitting, just as there are many ways to cast on and bind off. for the scarf you use a crochet hook, slip your bead on the hook, then slip your stitch off your left hand needle with the hook, place your bead and then pass your stitch to your right hand needle. for this project, you load your beads onto your yarn and then pass them as you go.

this is also my first venture into lace, using lace weight yarn with size five needles, imagine my excitement when i learned that the pattern i would be using did not require yarn overs! not a single one! using such large needles with such fine yarn gives it a “cob webbed” effect. usually for lace weight you are looking at a size zero (or smaller) needle. i asked the teacher about the need for blocking wires and she said i would not need them for this particular pattern. that made me very happy since i was not sure how much lace knitting i would be doing or how many shawls i would be making.

yup, that’s right. this is a shawl, my first. when i chose this class at my lys i could choose between scarf and shawl and i chose shawl simply because it would be new to me. the patten is very simple, it starts at the bottom of the shawl and increases as you go along, having never actually knitted a shawl i am not sure if this is customary, but i would rather have started at the top and worked my way down. for one reason i would have a better idea of just how many beads i am actually going to need. i have knitted up two boxes in this picture and have strung two more. as you increase on every right side row, you will of course use more beads as you go along, so it’s hard to know how many more boxes i will need (i am guessing at least 4, possibly 5). having never made a shawl before i have no idea how “wide at the top” i will want it to be other than to try it out as i go along. most likely i will knit until i run out of yarn, i really don’t know what i will do with the left over lace weight short of saving it for next year’s barbie doll knitting adventure. oh yes, my niece knows who barbie is, and she will be 4 by next christmas, i already have a pattern book for barbie doll clothes and i am saving all my bits of left over sock yarn in order to outfit barbie with a new custom hand knit wardrobe next holiday season. (barbie dresses better than i do, this royally sucks)

the pattern i am doing is very basic. you start out with three stitches increasing on the ends every rs row, purling back on every ws row. after your end increases you bring your yf, slip a stitch, slip a bead, bring your yb being careful to keep your bead in the front and then knit the next stitch, repeating until you reach the end stitch and increase. i know i will need to order more beads long before this project is finish and plan to stop at my lys next week to do so. in the meantime i am determined not to add to my ever increasing list of ufo’s and will endeavor to complete this project as soon as possible.

i am going to frog this sweater this weekend,

there are several mistakes in it that the instructor insist are only visible to me, but as they are visible to me i am not satisfied. i am less than half way through the back so now’s the time to send it to the pond and start again. we will meet again in two weeks and i hope to be able to devote a good portion of time to this project and get it done as well.

and then there’s the christmas knitting!

in summary

i am almost happy to be back at work, almost. i have had the past seven days off and i think i was busier than had i worked. on thursday i took my car to the dealer, my engine light had been on. they replaced the gas cap and with an oil change i got out for $124. i was very happy until they handed me a list of things to do. mostly routine maintenance, but the total was almost $1100. previoulsy i had gone to this dealer because the bracket that held my tail pipe up had broken, they insisted i needed an entire new exhaust system (for $400) and that the car would never pass e~check. this was on a friday, i told them the car had just passed e~check the monday before. try again. the price went down to $200. i left and went to midas who welded the bracket back together for free. three guesses where i’ll take the car when i really truly do need a new exhaust system. keeping all this in mind i stopped at a local independent garage, showed them the list and asked for a quote. they pared the list down to six things i actually needed to have done, and i only charged me $358. big difference. it’s nice to know there are honest businesses out there.

on friday i waited for someone to come out and re-seal the windshield on my car. i had finally after many years (five cracks and two chips later) replaced the windshield on my car. (it’s all rusted inside so this is the last windshield i’ll be putting in my car) the first time it rained it began to leak. so far so good, but let’s hope the new and improved seal holds up. i had an appointment for sometime between eight a.m. and noon. i received a phone call from their dispatcher at five minutes to eight, she said it would be closer to noon before he got there. i left (big mistake) and went to the post office and grocery store, was home by nine thirty and found a sorry we missed you tag on my door. i called and complained and they had him come back out that same day. after this misadventure i went to a doctors appointment, followed by lunch at one of my favorite restaurants and then on to my first hike of the weekend. five miles up the towpath trail and back. i headed home picked up chinese food and an assortment of movies. i did really well, not a stinker in the bunch.

saturday roles around and i head out for another five mile hike, the old carriage trail. i had a hair appointment that afternoon. afterwards i headed down to my parents house. mom made spaghetti and meatballs (i may have put in a slight request) then sharon and i headed out to the movies. we saw the latest brenon frasier mummy movie. it was good for a stupid movie, (you can’t go into a movie like that with high expectations) and brendon frasier shirtless worth the eight bucks. (although mario bello should not try to do a british accent. or character. in fact she should stay away from all things english altogether.)

sunday was spent at the water park for an entire eight hour day. picnic with the family, everybody had a good time and i got two naps in. i also got four laps around the pond which is about two miles.

monday morning was the big hike, eight miles along the buckeye and valley trails, it was quite disappointing as part of the trail was hiked along the turnpike (for petes sake) the rest of the evening was spent watching the rest of the movies.

tuesday morning i took the car in for all the additional repairs. i walked about town for an hour, ran a few errands and then walked home. later when they called and said the car was ready i walked back to the garage about five miles in total. ( a total of twenty five miles altogether for the past five days) i spent the rest of the evening knitting the shawl for tonights class, then realizing a big error and tinking it all back. the movies are due back so i watched a few of them again, sometimes you miss things the first time around. two of them i have fallen positively in love with and will probably buy.

the eye with jessica alba was very good, as well as the spiderwick chronicles. the other boleyn girl was a good movie and well done, but basically george and anne boleyn were executed for their father’s and uncle’s power hungry greedy ways. they whored out both anne and mary boleyn to the king in order to gain influence and standing. i think the uncle and father got off easy and they should’ve been the ones to be beheaded. (or castrated)

the movies i fell in love with were janes. i prefer her view of early english life. (yes i realize there are more than 200 years separating the two) p&p is still by far my favorite book (so far) i just finished emma (ranked as second favorite) and i couldn’t finish s&s i stopped with fourteen chapters left to go i just couldn’t bare it any longer. as far as movies it’s a tie between emma (gwenyth paltrow) and s&s (emma thompson) with p&p coming in closely behind (colin firth)

my next jane book will either be mansfield park (on hold with the library) or persuasion on order with amazon. who ever gets here first.

wednesday i woke up and just couldn’t face a day with the pseudosonographer i took a mental health day. slept in until after noon, discovered a wonderful website moretolifethanshoes.com and just took a lazy day to knit. my 2009 page a day calendar arrived, stephanie mcphee’s never not knitting. i got for free from amazon after selling enough of my old books to earn the money. i got an email from amazon awhile back stating that starting in september they will no longer allow you to take amazon credit instead of cash. i am a bit disappointed with that seeing as how i have gotten many of the books and dvds i have been wanting free or cheap.

the death of main street usa

i had to take my car in for service today. i had planned to stay in town, even took my camera with me to take pictures. i started out enthusiastic for an idea of a post about the small town i live in, i had done something similar several years ago on a now defunct message board my friends and i go to. back then i took pictures all about the town, pictures of the store fronts, the post office , the library. the thing is, that was more than 5 years ago. everything has changed, and not for the better. the state of our economy no doubt has helped to accelerate the situation, but the evil empire moving in to our town was the catalyst. shops started to close up long before the economy got as bad as it is now. have you ever heard that commercial about the hidden cost of shopping at walmart? every thing’s so cheap, because every thing’s made in china or some other foreign country. remember when walmart used to advertise that they sold products made in america? they even had special labels to look for? the hidden cost of shopping at walmart is not so hidden in my town. just walk around town like i did today, past all the empty store fronts. as depressing as downtown was, it didn’t get any better as you moved further out. sad, depressed, dilapidated houses line the streets. i live here because my rent is cheap, but when i am ready to buy, i certainly won’t even consider staying around here.

my little town is typical of small towns today. the few stores that are opened are mainly filled with junk, or are second hand shops. we have about a dozen pizza places, two mcdonalds, two subways and an assortment of other fast food places. want a decent restaurant for a date? head out of town, there’s nothing here for you. i went to the library this morning, i had three authors in mind, but not a single one of their books were available, i had to put the books i wanted on hold and wait for them to brought in from other libraries.

that’s not to say there aren’t a few gems in the area miss suzy’s tea room is a great place to relax for good food and even better prices. the shop i took my car into for service today, it’s nice to see honest business. i had my car at the dealers last week and they wanted almost $1100 for mostly routine maintenance things that were overdue. i took the list to garro’s tires and service and he whittled it down to six things that actually needed to be done for about $350. now that’s reasonable, especially for a car as old as mine with such high millage.