Dr. Frankenspin

Dr. Frankenspin has created a monster!

Actually, Dr. Frankenspin is the love child of  BadCat and Amputeehee.

A few months back, I won some beautiful fleece from Amputeehee and I promised I would learn how to spin.  Then BadCat, and all the other enablers in my knitting group, decided it was a good idea for us all to have a little spin-a-thon.

Last Sunday we all overtook Margaret's back deck with pot luck and fleece and wheels and spindles and needles and yarn and dogs and cats and--need I say more.


Laurie let me try her wheel. 

A little bit of that yarn was spun by me!  Yipee!

Then BadKitten sat me down with a spindle and got me started.  It's a new process but I've been practicing and it does get easier.  I think I may prefer the wheel to the spindle but, damn it, I'm going to get good at both!

Cara and Dawn both mastered their spindles pretty quickly. 

Don't they remind you of Sleeping Beauty's Fairy Godmothers?  

Shannon brought a friend who is the sister of the woman who cuts my hair so I automatically loved her.  If you ever need a good haircut in Westchester, let me know! 

The dog ran off with BadKitten's black laceweight yarn but, after the initial shock, both she and the yarn recovered.  Although she was a bit camera shy.

Please note the gorgeous cobwebby fabric she's making.  It's totally cool and gorgeous.  I think I may have to start calling her CoolKitten.

In other news, I'm going to redesign the blog soon.  I've never been much of a brown person so I think we need a new look.  Suggestions are welcome!

Following Up

One--My bank is amazing.  By the time I got to my local branch on Saturday morning, the bank had already resolved all the fraudulent checks on my account.  Apparently their fraud department caught it, corrected it and then went home at 5 o'clock.  The data just hadn't hit the big computer system when I flipped my wig on Friday night.  And they hadn't called me to alert me because my profile was incomplete.  When I opened the account 17 years ago, I guess they weren't quite as tech savvy as they are now. 

When I was on my way, I decided I needed a little fortification so I stopped at my new favorite bakery.  The owner is so nice and welcoming that I had to completely dump my tale of woe at her feet.  After a cup of coffee (on the house--thank you very much) and a scrumptious lemon blueberry muffin, I was ready to go fight a battle that it turned out I had already won. 

I love my banker and I love my baker.

Two--The event that I went to Thursday night was really, really nice.  And it didn't feel weird at all.  I think a big part of it was that it was a very different type of event than the ones that I used to throw for them.  One of my colleagues presented the award to one of the honorees.  This guy is just fabulous--an amazing worker, a real leader and a hell of a guy.  He's an ex-felon who has completely turned his life around and he was an inspiration to everyone in the room. 

The honoree that he was presenting to founded B Corporations--a new corporate structure that takes into account more outcomes than just traditional profit--and Dion talked about the fact that he made some bad choices in his life but now he's making good ones.  Then, his speech linked it all together saying that B Corps allow business the option to make good choices too.  When he got to the part about knowing how hard this is but also how important it is, he choked up, I started crying, everyone else started crying and then the cheering began. 

I was so proud of him for having the courage to talk about his life so openly and for being so willing to share his emotions.  He's a rock star and a reminder of how lucky I am to do the work that I do.

The event was at X20 which is outstandingly beautiful.  Peter Kelly's food is top notch so we were all very spoiled and pampered by the end of the night.  And we had a truly amazing storm come down the Hudson (the restaurant is on the Yonkers City Pier) which was dramatic and exciting.

Three--I mentioned a new blog the other day, didn't I?  A little background is in order here.  I was a teenager in NY in the '80s which means that I listened to WNEW.  And if you listened to WNEW you knew for certain that Scott Munie was a god.  I know I've complained about the lack of good radio and maybe I am overly sensitive to it because I remember really, really good radio. 

I also have been known to having shockingly bad taste in music on occasion.   And, dammit, I refuse to apologize for it.  I love my cheesy songs and I have no problem letting my musical freak flag fly.

I was also raised Catholic and spent twelve years in Catholic school.  When I was in second grade, we had to take the sacrament of Penance.  Really?  I was seven years old.  What on earth could I have done that was so bad.  Confession was a scary, dark sacrament and I was terrified.  Things went from bad to worse when they decided to renovate the church.  This was long before they had "face to face" confession.  You were supposed to--very anonymously--go sit in a dark box and whisper your sins.  My class, on the other hand, had to sit in folding chairs in the school gym.   They promised that the priest wouldn't look at us but I didn't really believe them. 

Naturally, I ended up on the line for Monsignor Nolan who was probably a very nice man but when I was little he scared me to death.  And he had a big black Lab that went everywhere with him--including to my first confession.  So there I was, scared out of my ever loving mind, wearing my Brownie uniform (beanie and all) and trying to come up with something really good that I had done wrong so that Monsignor Nolan wouldn't get mad at me for not confessing anything good.

Yeah, right, that was a really positive experience for me.  And considering the fact that I remember what I was wearing, you can guess just how much it scarred me.

So in the spirit of confessing my occasionally horrible taste in music I give you my new blog.

Bless Me Scott Munie For I Have Sinned.

Be very careful.  You may find yourself singing along and then you'll have to go to confession too!

I'm Going To Do My Best To Be Ladylike Here

First of all, for those of you who were worried about last night, it was wonderful.  I was planning to tell you all about it but then chaos ensued and I can't get my brain around anything else right now.

In the spirit of "too much information", I had a "lady's" special need to drop by my local Walgreens tonight.  I got my "lady stuff", got on line, waited my turn and then swiped my card.

And it didn't work.

So the guy (of course it's always some poor teenaged boy holding the big pack of maxi pads (with wings!)  in these situations) swiped it again. 

And it still didn't work.

Again and again and again and again and again.

So now I have to leave said Walgreens and run to my bank to take out cash only to get a big flashing "INSUFFICIENT FUNDS" on the screen.

What the fuck!?  I have plenty of money (ahem, today). 

So I run home, log on and find my bank account woefully overdrawn.  And there are all these random HUGE checks that have been cashed yesterday.  (By the way, the first one overdrew my account.  I don't know why the hell they cashed the rest of them.)

So I call.  And I get some nice person in India who looks at my account and says "Why yes--these checks have been noted as potential fraud."  Really--then why the hell hasn't anyone called me.  Remember, these hit yesterday.  They've had plenty of time to find me. 

And then he says, and this is the part that killed me, "Let me check with our fraud department, sir."  SIR?  Are you fucking kidding me. 

So he puts me on hold with some horrible music and I wait.  And then he comes back and says, "I'm very sorry, sir, our fraud department is closed."

And that's when I lost it. 

Big time.

Really big time.

Does fraud only happen between 9 and 5?  And you already "noted that these were fraudulent" and yet you all went home for the weekend and left me with no cash.  

And he said, "I'm sorry sir.  You can call back tomorrow after 8 am."

And that's when I lost it even worse. 

I believe that I may have used the phrase "Projectile Menstruating" and I am certain that I suggested that his goddamed fraud department might want to show up at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning at my house with a bucket and a mop because that was going to be a bigger problem than my checking account.  And then I said (pretty much at the top of my lungs) "Do I really have to give you all the goddamed details of my motherless whore of a menstrual cycle to get you to stop calling me sir!?"

And there was silence.

Ladylike?  Hmm, not so much.  Satisfying?  You bet your sweet ass it was satisfying.

In the end, my mother was home.  She had some cash and I am in a much better place right now. 

I'll tell you about last night (and about my new blog) tomorrow.

I Think It's Going To Be a Good Night

Tonight could be a little weird for me.  I'm going to the annual gala for the company that I work for.

What might make me feel a little weird is that, the first time I worked here, I was in charge of the galas.  It may be just fine but it may feel a little odd to be a guest at a party I used to throw.

So I've been singing this all morning for luck.



I hope it's stuck in your head now too!

And she's back!

Sorry I've been gone so long and I'm sorry this is such a random post.  But life gets ahead of you sometimes and you just have to roll with it.

Let's just go to the bullet points.

1.  I don't give a shit if Congressman Weiner tweeted his penis. 
2.  I do give a shit that it's all over the news.  Come on kids.  Knock it off.  It's just a penis.
3.  I've been knitting a lot.  There's a Citron shawlette for Sissy which is going shockingly well considering it's for my sister.  Usually, when I knit for her, it fights with me.  I'm almost done with this and I'm almost certain it's going to burst into flames while I'm casting off.
4.  If you ever hear me bitch about my job, please remind me that I get to test brownies on a regular basis.
5.  I hate the heat.
6.  It's hot (see #5).
7.  I finally got a hair cut.  I know that sounds mundane but it's been a really, really long time.  I was looking like Moses (which is funny because it's true.)
8.  BrattyGirl went to the prom and I managed to keep my mouth shut and not point out just how similar her dress was to her mother's dress from 1982.  Different colors but very, very similar.  BrattyGirl's shoes, on the other hand, were hot, hot, hot!
9.  Blueberry won athlete of the year for the Hudson Valley Special Olympics.  I would ramble on more about it but I get weepy.  I'm ridiculously proud.
10.  I got to work this morning a little bit late and was greeted by four big geese marching their nine goslings down the strip of grass next to the employee entrance.  It tickled me pink.