beyond the wide world's end

( traumatizing stuff about England and Leicester (well, traumatizing for me) )

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In happier news, I won all blue ribbons and several rosettes at the County Fair! Including Superintendent's Choice for my Alpha Socks and the Washington Association of Wheat Growers first place for my dinner rolls, which I am still not convinced is not a fluke of some sort. Pics at some point in the future, I guess.

Book recs: Abigail Adams solving crime! These are just delightful, I really recommend them. I tore through all three in about four days. I hope that there will be more. (Yes, I know that Barbara Hamilton is Barbara Hambly, so I have delightful 1830s New Orleans mysteries and some fantasy to read as well. BUT ABIGAIL ADAMS.)

Currently I am reading Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. Apparently this is the super-depressing one, so at least I am prepared for the death, disease, destitution, and despair to show in spades.

I took a week off from spindling because I injured myself, and now I am trying again and suck at it, ugh. Practice, practice, practice! I am knitting painfully slowly, or maybe that's just how Juno Regina tends to go. I'd like to get it done before I go to England (OH GOD OH GOD).

Also I baked a really good cake the other day, from The Joy the Baker Cookbook. YUM.

My life is currently exceptionally boring, except for the intermittent bouts of uncontrollable panic. So there hasn't really been much to post about, since I'm currently not really writing much. (Well, aella_irene and I are working on an original (which has pseudo-Vikings in it!), but fic-wise, I mean.)

I actually have housing at Leicester (which I need to accept, whoops); it's not precisely what I wanted, but I applied fairly late, so it's good that I got something I'm okay with. (Although we'll see what it's actually like when I get there, I guess.) I'm still working on the visa application, which I meant to have done a month ago? But it takes me like two weeks to get anything done: one week to let it sink in that I have to do it, and another week to do it piece by piece every day. Which I did with the housing application, and since sadly I got that information and the visa information at the same time, I didn't do them at once. Uh. Don't come to me if you want something done fast. I keep freaking out that I shall do something wrong on the application and I shall be BANNED FROM BRITAIN FOREVER. Never mind that if I don't actually do the application I won't be able to enter the country.

I spun yarn! It's only about 52 yards of bulky-weight (and pretty thick-and-thin, even plied), so I'm not sure what I can make with it, but I SPUN YARN ON A SPINDLE OMG. But now I need to buy more roving, so I'm pondering my options and wondering if I should just get something relatively plain and cheap from KnitPicks or somewhere on Etsy (weirdly, I've never bought anything from KnitPicks before) to keep practicing on while I try and get an even single, or if I should get something hand-dyed and nice. (Is there a spindling and/or spinning comm on DW, by the way?) For the record, I have the Schact Hi-Lo Drop Spindle with a 2-inch whorl (1.1 ounces), which I've been using as a top-whorl since I can't find a good bottom-whorl tutorial that isn't for a Turkish spindle. The only problem with it is that the notch is directly facing the hook, which doesn't quite seem right, looking at other spindles. But it's worked pretty well for me and I like it.

I made frozen yoghurt! Which I mentioned in my last post, I think. So far I've done two batches of strawberry (AMAZING AMAZEBALLS OMG) and one batch of blueberry (which is yummy, I'm just not as keen on blueberry as I am on strawberry), but should probably branch out of the fruit zone. My mother wants vanilla made with vanilla extract, not vanilla beans (since those are expensive), so I should get on that.

I made pizza! I made pizza about a month ago for the first time, but I've done it a couple more times since. I use the olive oil dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, then oil a baking sheet, break off about a fistful of the dough and spread it out on the baking sheet as thin as I can. (I do actually have a pizza stone, but I haven't, uh, used it for pizza yet. Usually I use it for bread.) I use canned tomato sauce (yeah, I don't make my own, we have a giant package from Costco anyway), homegrown basil, and storebought mozzarella (theoretically I know how to make my own, but we're trying for simple here), then toss on whatever toppings I feel like. I like it with thin strips of ham or Canadian bacon; a couple nights ago I did my side just with Canadian bacon, then added olives and onion along with the Canadian bacon to my parents' side. Then bake it for fifteen minutes at 500 degrees and NOM. Yum.

I knit lace! Or lace-weight yarn, anyway, usually I do lace shawlettes in sock-weight yarn. I'm slowly working on Juno Regina in Malabrigo Lace; I was hoping I'd have it done in time to enter it in the county fair, but at this point it seems unlikely. I do have to go through the stuff I've knit in the last year or so and figure out what would make a good fair entry, though, since for a change I'll actually be here for the fair this year. Shocking!

I miss Tulane and New Orleans. *sadface* I think I've just about come to grips with the fact that I won't be going there in a few weeks, but I really miss it. I'm hoping to back for my PhD next year, so I was shocked the other day to realize that oh shit, I actually have to start thinking about PhD programs AGAIN. Besides Tulane, obviously. Ugh, thinking about graduate school. Trying to figure out what I'm actually interested in.

My former roommates from Tulane (New York, Alaska, Texas, and Chicago, who was never technically a roommate but is an honorary one) and I have sort of started an online cookalong? Where we copycat recipes from our favorite restaurants in New Orleans on a biweekly basis and then tweet about them. Two weeks ago was La Madeleine (which, yes, I know is a chain, but we liked it and went there a lot), and this week is the Rum House (if you ever go to New Orleans, go to the Rum House. You can thank me later). So I've been hunting up taco recipes that look vaguely similar in preparation for this Sunday's food extravaganza. For La Mad we did a tomato basil soup and another dish of our choice (I made a lemon tart, because I overachieve), and this week is at least one taco and either a side or a cocktail. I shall probably try polenta -- they do this amazing roasted poblano and manchego polenta, but I'll probably try for something easier -- and one of three kinds of tacos. I'd really like to do a fried oyster one, but I'm not sure how easy that would be to do. So probably a steak or fish taco. Yum.

Watching the Olympics? Not much to say about that, I guess? Mostly the channel we get just shows the highlights/what they think is interesting: swimming, diving, gymnastics, track, and volleyball.

Currently I am reading Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting, and the Discovery of the New World, which is giving me on and off thinky thoughts about water rights and fishing in Dust-era Narnia. I'm trying to marshal them into something resembling either plot or coherent worldbuilding or both. Mostly I'm trying to finish the book before it has to go back to the library. I also started reading Connie Willis, and am working my way through the library's collection -- I read Bellwether, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, and Fire Watch over the past two weeks, which just leaves Passage. Then I'll start buying books. (BTW, you ever notice that all an author's weirdness comes out in short stories? Yeah.)

I went back to washing my hair twice a week, instead of just once a week, which I think was a good move, since it's thicker and feels softer now. I'm still having more trouble pinning it (my hair has less "grip") than I did in New Orleans, which I think must be either the humidity or the water or some combo of the two, since NOLA is much more humid and is on city water, and Ellensburg's very dry and we're on well water. It's mildly frustrating to me, since I like doing things to my hair, but, well, what can you do? I'm still trying to figure out how to get my hair to stay up using hair sticks. (Or in my case, bamboo knitting needles.)

As you can see, life here in Casa de Bedlam is...happening. I was going to write that there's nothing much to say, but apparently that's a lie, since I can get wordy about absolutely nothing. LIFE SKILLS.

I am intrigued by magic loop and am interested in trying it, because I have sock patterns that are deliberately designed to be near impossible to knit on DPNs, but (1) it looks like such a hassle and (2) I'd have to buy new needles, since I don't have any needles with a 32" to 40" cord, let alone US1s (my preferred sock needle). (Actually, I think I might have a US8 with a 40" cord, but the only yarn I have is sock yarn.)

/random knitting thought

Not that I have knitted anything in a few days, mind. I am bored by my current project and am probably going to rip and find something more interesting for my mother's Christmas present. (In case you were wondering how far behind I was on the Christmas knitting: just a little.)

So I finally frogged the stupid sock for the sixth time and am now assuaging my feelings by knitting a nice garter stitch dishcloth. Maybe after that I'll approach my feelings for socks again. (The yarn, though, looks great.)

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Meanwhile I am rewriting Make and Break Harbor into the Fic That Shall Not Be Named (which is probably going to end up being called Make and Break Harbor + 17K or 18K, let's be honest), which is frustrating me, because M&BH was sort of just me doing ~Presence all over the place and also in present tense, while the FTSNBN is in past tense and has more ass-kicking. Not that there needs to be ass-kicking in this particular scene, just, you know, my point.

The WIP last night passed 16K; the M&BH scene should add another 2K, and then we'll see where we're going from there. Usually at this point my head would be screaming, "Aaaaaaaand we're endgaaaaaaame!" and the story goes downhill from there, but it's not, which kind of worries me, as I'm not entirely certain where the story's going to end. So I'm staring at it and wondering where it's going. The last thing I want to do is bore myself, especially since it's one of those super-self-indulgent stories. Maybe only one or two more scenes after M&BH (so maybe 1K or 2K, which should put it at 20K, which, seriously, nothing this self-indulgent should go over 20K).

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Tomorrow I am getting my hair cut. Right now my hair's almost down to my waist, which is ridiculous; I'll probably get at least six inches off and maybe more, but I'm mostly caught going, "But my HAIR!" So we'll see how much actually comes off.

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Possibly I ordered the four-disc extended edition of LWW from Amazon. *sneaky eyes* (No, I still don't own VotDT; right now I still hate it so much that even a two-second clip of it makes me unaccountably angry.)

I'm having a fit of hatred for everything. There's mold in the furnace, my front yard and driveway are flooded (although let's be honest, we got off easier than some other parts of the county -- seven households are cut off from town because the bridge washed out. No, I'm not in Louisiana right now), I had a spectacular cooking fail yesterday, and I'm trying not to sulk over the response to Our Impudent Crimes, which has translated into me hating all my WIPs. Also I have one ear that's going in and out of being vaguely stopped up, and I'm ripping up my lips again. And I'm trying to get myself to look at the stuff I should do this summer: GRE prep, Latin, honors thesis stuff. And I haven't paid the rest of my tuition to ACE yet or booked my plane tickets because I'm not sure when I should come back. I can't find the $25 iTunes gift card that I'm ninety percent certain I threw into one of my boxes, either.

*breathes into paper bag* This happens every summer. Hate. Everything.

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Good things: I had a savory baking success yesterday -- chicken pocket pies from Mad Hungry (recipe here, though I used thyme instead of dill), which took a while because I did everything at once but turned out really well. I think I can roll the dough out thinner next time; the all-butter galette dough I've been using for my mixed berry mini-galettes is a bit more prone to leaking, but the only leaks I got on the cream cheese dough was on the seal.

Yesterday I went around and tossed pine cones over the bank! This may not sound like a very exciting thing, but it got me outside and it got me doing something, and now my arms are sore (you lever them up with a shovel and then flip them), but definitely in a good way.

I really like the sock I am knitting right now, which is Nemesis from Knitty, in Malabrigo Sock colorway "Turner." It's supposed to be on US1.5s, but I only have US1s, and I think it shouldn't be a problem.

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A couple of extras for Our Impudent Crimes: This is the White Witch I was thinking of in the mural (concept art from Ben Wootten; there are a couple other sketches in The Crafting of Narnia that also fit, but I can't find them online) and this is the recipe for goose with orange and ouzo that the Lady of the Green Kirtle serves Rilian. Although I haven't tried it. Oooh, maybe when I go back to New Orleans I can get goose from that specialty meats shop on Magazine.

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And now I'm going to go bake cookies.

I am still madly in love with my Winnow sock -- it's so clever! I really love the side panels and this little twisting vine bit that's worked with alternating yarnovers, SSKs, and K2togs; it makes me so happy everytime I see it. It's harder to see the wheat heads as they're worked over more stitches and tend to bunch up, but I'll think they'll look pretty cool when I've got a bit more of the leg worked and can stretch it out and see.

I'm making friends in Latin, which is nice -- I don't make friends easily; my current roommates I made friends with freshman year and basically haven't gone outside that group since then. Last semester I had two semester with another girl I'd lived with freshman year, which was great; she's a classics major too and so she got the sheer awesome that is classics, which mostly tends to net me blank looks from other people. No classes with her this semester, though, and I've never quite worked out the etiquette for hanging out with people you don't already live with or see every day. (I didn't hang out with people in high school. I was a weird kid. I had friends and all, but I saw them every day, you know? In school. Not outside of school, unless it was for a school-related purpose, except for one friend, who is also the only one I keep up with on a semi-regular basis when I'm home.) Like, can you really just call or text people and say, "Let's hang out!" Don't you need an occasion? And what if they wonder why you want to go, I don't know, rock-climbing with them or something? I am really bad at the socialization thing. I never had that kind of training.

Anyway, friends in Latin. I like having friends in language classes, as it's helpful for making groups. (My lecturer brought in stuffed animals yesterday and distributed them to groups, in order to give them personalities so we could work in out adjectives. We named the tiger Scipio, because I'm a nerd and the other three girls thought it was cute.) Interesting to see who takes Latin: since it's a 1020 class, it's mostly underclassmen, and I'm the only one I know for sure is a classics major. (Which meant when she was writing the animals' Latin names up on the board, I was the one who went, "Man, I wouldn't make the wolf a girl, as then she'd be a prostitute (lupa)," and my teacher started snickering.)

Love Roman history, love, love, love. I'm heavier on MEMS this semester than I am on Classics, and it looks like my honors thesis is going to be on -- well, what I want to write it on is the use of classical literature by Renaissance authors in their own work, specifically Edmund Spenser or William Shakespeare; I'm leaning towards Spenser and the Faerie Queene right now over Shakespeare, just because Shakespeare wrote so much stuff, how would I ever pick and choose? (Not that the Faerie Queene is exactly light reading.) Partially because I swear to god, every historian I've ever taken a class with at Tulane is either currently on sabbatical or is going to be on sabbatical next semester. (Not technically true, but damn, it feels that way.) Mostly because I really am sincerely interested in it; I can pick up the references on a brief read through, but there clearly has to be something going on there. Er, I was getting into this to talk about how my medieval and Renaissance religion classes are working out for me. Interestingly. I made the mistake on Monday of doing the reading for my Medieval Religious Culture class, then for my Age of Reformation class, then got totally confused on what happened when. I really did want to take Ancient Christianity this semester, but the scheduling didn't work out. The other two girls in my tutorial are both pretty Catholic, so I feel like I stick out a little -- but I also have a completely different viewpoint on the subject. (Also, it's probably about time I studied Christianity, as it bewilders me in ways that Greco-Roman and Scandinavian paganism really doesn't.)

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In conclusion, a recipe, since I made Dutch babies today:

( Dutch Babies for one or two )

Y'all, I have finished my sock. My first FO of 2011! (Totally begun in 2010 for Socktober, but whatever.) My goal was to have it finished before the end of the weekend, and I finished all the toe shaping at the stroke of midnight last night, then kitchenered it and wove in all the ends just now, and now I have TWO FINISHED SOCKS.

The pattern is the Through the Loops Mystery Sock 2010 (Rav link) from Kirsten Kapur, in Malabrigo Sock "Persia" on US2 (2.75 mm) needles, and holy crap, this yarn bled like a mother. I'll take pictures later, but the five needles I used for knitting are now GREEN -- Brittany needles (don't recommend them, they're too dull) come in sets of six, and the sixth one is a completely different color than the other five. Which is weird, because the last Malabrigo I knit with didn't bleed at all: weirdness.

Anyway, this makes a kind of depressing morning pretty happy.

Aaaaaand I have succeeded in waking up depressed, confused, and crying on the morning of my 21st birthday. Gee, I hope this isn't a harbinger for the rest of the year.

( unhappy things )

And if you made it through that, here is something happy: Knitters knit a GIANT CARDIGAN for the 900th anniversary of the town of Cardigan in the UK.

Oh my God, my life is a freakshow. I am slowly freezing to death. In New Orleans. In August. I AM FREEZING IN NEW ORLEANS IN AUGUST THIS IS WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS. Also outside it is 84 F and feels like 95 F AND OMG THERE IS A HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT WTF.

To put this slightly more coherently and in context: my apartment is freezing, oh my gods, and I don't know where the thermostat is and nor am I comfortable fooling around with it even if I did know where it is. My comforter, blanket, and pillows are still in storage, but I figured, you know, NEW ORLEANS IN AUGUST, and thought I'd be okay with just sheets for one night. APPARENTLY NOT. I am in shorts, sweatpants, socks, cami, long-sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt, and I am still freezing, and I am rapidly running out of clothes to put on, especially on the lower half, since most of my clothes are jeans or skirts or shorts: not helpful. I cannot even make tea in an attempt to warm up, as my electric kettle is still in storage and there appears to be no actual stovetop kettle. (Buying one. I <3 regular kettles. Also if it stays this OMG FREEZING I may have to buy a different comforter as well, as my comforter is kind of crap and not much with the comfort.)

*sighs* It is seven to six in the morning, and nothing is open around campus yet, so there's nowhere to go. Bruff doesn't open till eight and the library doesn't open till ten twelve (they're still on intersession hours), and the bookstore not till ten (SO I CANNOT BUY BLANKETS AND GO BACK TO BED), and the LBC might be open, but nothing in the LBC will be open yet. Have I mentioned that I did not actually go to sleep until, like, two in the morning despite getting only about two hours of sleep last night? This I blame on the time change. Also that my new roommates were in the living room talking -- I still haven't actually met them yet, they came in after I'd already retired to my (not yet fucking cold) room -- which isn't really helpful to me, as my room is right next to the living room and I could hear them. TALKING ABOUT COCKROACHES. IN OUR APARTMENT.

Also my bed creaks every time I look at it cross-eyed and my cell phone battery died while it was plugged in. It is now recharging, but still -- I am suspicious of it. I do not trust it. It used to drop a charge if I looked at it funny, but only in Washington and not Louisiana, which is why I kept it off almost all summer.

*stares at leaping cat and drinks tepid tap water*

Oh yeah. Did I mention I also have to frog my entire Haruni shawl? (1) ran out of yarn and (2) somehow stitches got dropped and something got terribly messed up while I was in transit, and I have no idea how to fix it. My entire shawl. That I've been working on for the better part of a month. I could rip back to my lifeline, but then I'm still left with the too little yarn problem. (I didn't have needles in the right size, so I cast on with needles two sizes larger. Which clearly also wasn't a particularly bright moment.)

These are clearly not my warm sweatpants. Damn, when I was thinking, "Hmm, should I bring another pair of pajama pants? Nah, never needed them before," I clearly should have trusted my better instincts.

Knitting baby booties (Ravelry link) for my pregnant cousin. Well, her baby, obviously; it is (second?) cousin to a knitter; it shall be a warm baby! OMG, are babies' feet really that tiny?

Oh, heeeeeey, the Dizzy Sheep's Dizzy Deal for today (tomorrow) is on Plymouth Baby Bunny. Maybe I'll order some! OMG, look at this rabbit, so cute, omg. If the baby cousin does not want a knitted bunny rabbit, I want a knitted bunny rabbit.

And speaking of rabbits, tonight was Alice in Wonderland night! And now I want Alice/Hatter fic, yes? Or possibly Alice/White Queen, but mostly Alice/Hatter.

...the power just blinked off! Then on again! ...and then I had no internet, which is why this is being posted an hour after I originally wrote this.