TwinsFest '08

Saturday marked TBL's annual pilgrimage to TwinsFest. Since attendance is usually right in line with the prior season's team performance, it was possible to wander about more or less freely for the first time in several years. (There are benefits to stinking up the joint, however small and fleeting.)

The main goals of the day were:
1) Introduce a certain dedicated Twins fan to TwinsFest
2) Meet up with the blogger behind Lipgloss and Baseball
3) Go through the free minor-league autograph line every session
4) See the exhibits
5) Sign up to win free stuff

TBL is happy to report that all goals were satisfactorily accomplished. And now, bits and bobs of the day, in photos.


Boof Bonser, newly trim and ready to pitch.


Mike Redmond helps the Twins Wives' Club sell sparkly shirts.


Mystery player and Nick Punto


What with the new ballpark finally going up, one exhibit showed some of the old ones. TBL suspects that taking photos of photos qualifies as geeky.





And, what we're all eagerly waiting for...the new ballpark! Only teensy!

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Back in the Yarn Stash Again

Greetings, dear readers! TBL is back!

The novel is done, the severance package has not run out, and there will be an interesting announcement regarding cubicle-type stuff just as soon as the paperwork is done and it's all official.

TBL is working on her annual Twinsfest report, which will appear here soon, but for tonight, a knitting pattern.

Over the weekend, TBL learned that one of her friends (who has gone over and above the call of duty in the emotional-and-practical-support-for-the-unemployed-friend game these last two months) recently lost his only winter hat. Well, what's a knitter to do? TBL cracked open the stash, unearthed her very best skein of alpaca, and cast on.

But this couldn't be just any hat, oh, no. This occasion deserved a brand new pattern, made up on the spot. TBL based it on the super-stretchy, extra-insulating "waffle stitch", and here, without further ado, presents:



Aaron's Hat

This is a "gaugeless" pattern. Take your own gauge with whatever needles and yarn you like and figure out how many stitches you'll need for the circumference you desire. Waffle stitch is VERY stretchy; no need to do a gauge swatch in pattern. Taking your gauge from stockinette stitch will work perfectly.

Go down a size or two from the needle recommended for your yarn to make this hat nice and toasty warm.

Mine was worked over 80 stitches with Misti Alpaca Chunky on size 8 (US) needles.

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Cast on a multiple of 8 stitches, join into a round.

Work in waffle stitch until piece measures about 3 pattern repeats short of the total desired length.

Waffle Stitch in the round:
1 & 2: (K2, P2) around
3: K around
4: P around


(closeup of waffle stitch pattern)

Decrease:
1: (K2, P2tog, K2, P2) around
2: (K2, P1, K2, P2) around
3: (K5, K2tog) around
4: P around
5: (K2tog, P1, K2, P1) around
6: (K1, P1, K2, P1) around
7: (K2, K2tog, K1) around
8: P around
9: (K2tog, K1, P1) around
10: (K2, P1) around
11: (K1, K2tog) around
12: P around
13: K2tog around

If more than 10 stitches remain, repeat round 13.

Cut yarn and thread tail through live stitches. Pull tight. Weave in ends. Stay warm!

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Four Days in November

Even most of TBL's closest friends did not know this until now: aside from all the story writing and blogging, TBL also keeps a journal. A traditional, handwritten journal. A diary, if you will. And while most of the contents are extremely private, TBL would like to share with all of you a few recent entries.

Do pardon the diarists' shorthand--they were not originally written for public consumption, and TBL does not bother with trivialities like grammar and prepositions when writing solely for herself. Proper names of people and companies have been redacted because they are nobody else's business.

25.Nov.07

First entry in weeks. Will shortly lose lack-of-time excuse as have been laid off. Do not expect to work between Wednesday (first day unemployed) and new year.

Announcement of layoff (19.Oct) followed by three weeks solid depression. Cleanliness of apartment has yet to completely recover. Will shortly have time to rectify that, as well.

Looking for new job downtown. Being there would go long way toward making up for recent events.

Hope to finish revisions of Catch Me in December, since will have all that time. Ask A____ for advice how to find right agent?

Severance package quite good. Jobless December not worrisome. Trying to view time off to write as gift. When else might have chance at whole month off? But still hoping to win Hot Lotto.

Have been reading up on Buddhism. Idea of "right thought" and seeing things as they really are very appealing. Also concept of mindfulness, opposite societal worship of multitasking. Meditation very difficult, though--brain not wired for stillness.

Knitting lots lately. Also reading and watching movies. Distractions sans interactions.


26.Nov.07

Tomorrow last day at job. Have résumé in for 3 positions--1 @ K____, 2 @ C____. REALLY want job at C____. Excellent benefits, everyone who works there seems to love the place.

Not sure how to make it through tomorrow with dignity intact. Have been known to cry at commercials.

J____ coming to pick me up, bless her--will not have to face teary bus ride clutching box of lost-job detritus. Have better friends than deserve.

One foot in front of other. No day lasts forever. Got through divorce, will get through this.


27.Nov.07

Last day @ G____. Plan to hand off key card and bolt before could cry foiled by sudden appearance of half of team. Somehow managed to joke around with them several minutes before making exit. Cried in car. Professional dignity intact, passenger seat slightly damp.

Spent evening watching DVDs with J____ & printing out résumé for job fair tomorrow. Résumé paper should go out, find job for me, given exorbitant cost.


28.Nov.07

Am now officially unemployed. Yet, still got up before crack of dawn, because job fair* at 8:30. Insult, meet injury.

Got all tarted up in best professional-style outfit, went to ass-end of Bloomington to beg for employment. ("Tarted up" prob. not best phrase; actually looked like Republican convention delegate. Very disturbing.)

Turns out, rumor that are more jobs like mine than people like me in need of jobs is true. IT recruiter from S____ tried to get me to give him all my résumés so I could not hand out elsewhere. IT recruiter from P____ wanted to know if could interview this week. Both companies, unfortunately, in locations that suck, also known as outer ring suburbs. IT recruiter from T____ downtown asked ton of questions, scribbled notes all over résumé and mentioned specific job trying to fill. HR types with W____ and U____ downtown made interested noises but unsure what openings were in IT. Left résumé, will be forwarded to IT types.

Really want to work downtown. If find job there, will be magically transformed into super-cool single girl about town. (Realistically, will prob. continue as awkward, knitting spinster with cats, but firmly believe that rich fantasy life is good thing, esp. in troubled times.)

Cat suddenly behaving very strangely, perhaps in odd feline attempt to cheer up the biped.

Is working.

* Not sure why called "job fair". "Fair" implies bright lights, food on stick, atmosphere of gaiety, possibly beer. Job fair had none of above. Also, facial muscles sore from excess of fake smiling. Should be "job gauntlet" or perhaps "employment roulette".

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Half an Hour

This morning, I was half a block from my bus stop when the bus went whizzing merrily through the intersection.

I was not late. It was early.

With a few choice words on the probable ancestry of bus drivers who can't stick to the schedule, I struck out for the nearest coffeeshop to wait out the half hour until the next bus came along. On the way I passed beneath the overhanging branches a tree festooned with leaves faded to a glorious shade of chartreuse. The sidewalk beneath was carpeted in those leaves, rustling as I walked over them.

A breeze kicked up just then and knocked a bushel of them free from the branches. I stopped and stood there laughing like a crazy person while the leaves whirled around me. I wasn't slumped in a bus seat on my way to my rapidly-disappearing job. I wasn't trying to coax resume-worthy phrases out of my sleepy brain or calculating for the hundredth time just how long my severance package could be expected to support me.

No, I was standing on the sidewalk on a quiet street being pelted by windblown leaves on a crisp autumn morning when all the colors of the world were just beginning to turn winter-bright. Half an hour that normally belongs to my obligations suddenly belonged to me, the unexpected gift of an early bus.

The breeze died and the leaves settled around my feet and I continued on to the coffeeshop. When I asked for a jacket for my cup the guy behind the counter and I spent a minute laughing over all the funny things he'd had customers call those little rings of cardboard. My favorite was "mittens".

Then I sat and drank my coffee and read my book and watched the dry red and brown maple leaves skitter across the road outside. When the next bus came, I got on it and I went to work, where most of the cubicles are empty now and everything I do comes with a countdown clock attached.

But when I close my eyes, I can see brilliant green leaves swirling in the wind.

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Don't Let the Door Hit You, Etcetera

Well, dear readers, TBL's amazing run of luck has continued with the announcement on Wednesday that her job is being "eliminated" at the end of November.

You may have seen The Company on the news that evening; the story started "Massive layoffs today at a Bloomington mortgage company..." Yes, indeedy, the job TBL has had for the last eleven years was part of that sad tale.

Therefore, TBL will be taking some time away from the blog to sob quietly in a corner, with occasional breaks to gnaw on the couch cushions and/or construct tinfoil hats. After that, the job hunting. Needless to say, blogging will probably be rather more spotty than usual for the foreseeable future. Either that, or you will be hearing from TBL much more than you'd prefer. Hard to say, really.

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Ask And Ye Shall...

Mere days after wishing for, in essence, a coffeehouse with beer, TBL unwittingly wandered into just such a place!

Common Roots Cafe, on the northwest corner of 26th & Lyndale, has soups, salads, sandwiches, bagels, pastries, other breakfasty things, coffee drinks and...beer and wine! Oh, but it gets better, dear readers.

They use local ingredients, compost their food waste (there's a special bin for customers to tip their own uneaten portions into), and serve Peace Coffee, which is a line of fair trade organic coffees from a company based right here in Minneapolis. The tap beers were all local brews when I was there--two from the new Surly Brewery in Brooklyn Center, an organic ale from Flat Earth in St. Paul, and do-gooder beer Finnegan's from St. Paul mega-brewer Summit. All the wines listed on their online menu are regional and/or fair trade. The lighting is good and the furnishings simple. Alas, no couches. And last but not least, the menu is vegetarian-friendly.

Helpful reader Douglas suggests, in the comments to the original post, Arcadia Cafe on Franklin and Nicollet as another place where one can get a drink or two without having to navigate the bar scene. TBL has not been there yet.

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Must...Sleep...

We have the flu. I don't know if this particular strain has an official name, but if it does, it must be something like "Martian Death Flu". You may have had it yourself. The main symptom is that you wish you had another setting on your electric blanket, up past "HIGH", that said "ELECTROCUTION". Another symptom is that you cease brushing your teeth, because (a) your teeth hurt, and (b) you lack the strength. Midway through the brushing process, you'd have to lie down in front of the sink to rest for a couple of hours, and rivulets of toothpaste foam would dribble sideways out of your mouth, eventually hardening into crusty little toothpaste stalagmites that would bond your head permanently to the bathroom floor, which is how the police would find you.
You know the kind of flu I'm talking about.
-- Dave Barry, "Molecular Homicide"

It's going around. That first early-October bout of flu, which hits before the shot can take hold, if not before the shot has even been administered. And this year, it's a bad one. TBL knows. TBL has got it. TBL would very much like to curl up and die, but having taken Tuesday off work to nip this thing in the bud (and that worked ever so well...) she must stagger onward until the weekend.

If you've got/had it, you already know that this is a keep-you-up-all-night flu. If you haven't had it yet, be warned. Of course, when battling the Martian Death Flu, sleep is your best weapon. And because TBL cares about you, dear readers, she is going to share with you her secret homemade sleepin' potions, which she has found to be nearly as effective as codeine without the need for any pesky prescriptions, and also tastier than over-the-counter medicines.

(do not, TBL repeats, do not mix these with anything you're not supposed to take with alcohol)

Get into your pyjamas first. You are ill and exhausted, and therefore will not be awake long enough after you take these to change clothes.

O'Nyquil (hot)

In a standard sized coffee mug, put 2-3 tablespoons honey (more if your throat is sore and/or you have a sweet tooth), a smidgen of cardamom, a generous squirt of lemon juice (optional), and a dash of cinnamon. Or, have a cinnamon stick on hand to stir the final product with.

Fill 3/4 full with boiling water, stir until honey is dissolved. Add one jigger (1.5 oz) Irish whiskey (Scotch fans could use that, TBL supposes. That would be MacNyquil.). Stir again. Drink while hot. Collapse into bed.


Drowsy Monk (cold)

Add 2 oz Benedictine to 6 oz orange juice. Stir. Ignore funny color. Drink. Sleep.


It should go without saying that you need to stay well-hydrated whilst ill, and more so if using alcohol to induce sleep! TBL does not recommend any alcohol consumption whilst sick if you can sleep without it, but if you can't it's definitely the lesser of two evils.

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