Whew! It's Over!

Well, it’s been another hellish week here in Lake Woebegon, but it’s just about over. The second of the two hearings we were prepping for was this afternoon (and even got a mention last night on Marketplace, I understand). Huzzah.

Yesterday’s hearing went very, very well. The witness was great. It was her first time testifying but she came across as calm and competent. Authoritive and intelligent but also warm and charming. She answered her questions well and didn’t jump to volunteer any information. Just what you want.

And today's hearing was also successful. This wasn't the witness' first but I am sure that it's never easy to sit there in front of Congressmen and ask their (sometimes inane) questions.

So...two hearings in two days and no action items. Now, as long as we get few (or no!) questions for the record, we can call that a win!

Sure hope we don't have another hearing for quite some time.

Knitting Has Resumed

I paid a little visit to The Black Sheep yesterday afternoon, just for therapeutic purposes. It's just so nice being there. I even knit a repeat on my lacy kimono...something I haven't been able to do for the last couple weeks...exhaustion and lace do not mix well, as I mentioned below.

Last night though, I worked on something else.
This is the early start on a Baby Surprise Jacket for the baby my co-worker is expecting in June. The yarn is yummy...Miss Bab's Yowza What A Skein in the Black Watch colorway. It's a simple but fascinating knit. You end up knitting up an oddly-shaped piece of fabric which you then fold and sew into a tidy little jacket. I'll try to get more pictures as it progresses. And I'm already looking forward to the button search.

Then this morning I may have started this.

This is the Mitred Square Blanket that Mason-Dixon designed. They are selling the pattern and sending the proceeds to relief efforts in Japan. I ordered the pattern (which I love but really...it's pretty easy to figure out) so that I could do a little more for Japan. And then, I'll be honest, I started it so that I could be eligible for the contest that Mason-Dixon is holding. I'm as self-interested as the next person, as long as the next person isn't either Donald Trump or Mother Teresa.

This will get put aside soon so that I can go back to the Baby Surprise. But I am liking the yarn...it's Web's own Valley Yarns brand. Longmeadow, which is 60 percent cotton and 40 percent microfiber. It's nice and soft and drapy and I'm thinking four or six squares would make a nice baby blanket. Ideally, though, I'd love to make it in Noro, as the original is made. So pretty.

So there is definite knitting going on.

I got two little presents (well, in a manner of speaking) in the mail today. The larger of the two was a free lunch bag offered by Lean Cuisine, if only you manage to eat oodles of Lean Cuisines. Fortunately, that's what I generally have for lunch, so the secret codes added up fast.

The other, cuter, bag is by Jessalu. She makes lovely little project bags and I have been trying to get a bag made of hedgehog fabric for some time. But they sell out fast, alas. This last time I was checking for one I found this adorable sheep covered bag. I like the lining, too.

Other than knitting, there hasn't been a lot done here. We went up to Wegman's yesterday and got a little bit of grocery shopping done. And you know? Even with the nicest store in the world? It's still just grocery shopping.

Uncertainty And Books

So, here we sit, wondering if we'll be going into work on Monday or not. Things sound a little more hopeful than when I left work this afternoon...at least that there'll be some sort of continuing resolution.

But you know what? I'm happy to be furloughed if, ultimately, Planned Parenthood is funded.

I've added the last twenty books I've read to my book list there on the right. What were the stand-outs in this latest bunch, you ask?

I loved Kate Atkinson's latest Jackson Brodie mystery, Started Early, Took My Dog. You need to have read the earlier Jackson Brodie books, starting with Case Histories, to get the most out of this but that's no problem. They're all good books. In this latest one, Brodie is trying to track down the birth mother of an Australian woman...the book also follows an elderly actress who's having trouble remembering exacly when and where she is, and an ex-police-woman/current mall security chief whose decision to liberate a seemingly neglected child from her mother has quite the series of repercussions. All these threads come together quite satisfyingly by the end of the book.

I also really liked The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier. This is a book made up of a series of interconnected stories of a people dealing with pain and loss at a time when, for an unexplained and unknown reason, wounds -- bruises, illness, sores, cancers -- begin glowing, casting a heavenly light on the wounded. I liked some sections more than others but none of them were dull.

A Red Herring Without Mustard is another fun romp with Flavia de Luce detecting her way through England. Or at least the small town where she lives. Fun!

The Informationist is a gripping thriller...I think I gobbled it up in a day. The main character, a young woman whose specialty is gathering information on developing countries for corporations, accepts a different kind of job...tracking down the missing daughter of a company head. A daughter who has apparently been murdered in Western Africa. The book certainly doesn't make me want to visit Africa, but it's pretty exciting.

Finally, I like Graham Joyce's The Silent Land but I can't say I loved it. One of my friends on Book Balloon said she thought the best thing about it was the cover, which is cool. (Part of the image is printed on the hard cover of the book, the rest of the image is printed on the thin, vellum-like, see-through dust jacket.) I figured out exactly what was going on fairly early on...certainly earlier than the characters, but I thought there was some wonderful imagery...scenes that will stick with me for a while.

And I had a good time reading the two Cynthia Harrod-Eagles mysteries -- Fell Purpose and Body Line -- as I always like a Bill Slider mystery. But I will admit they weren't wonderful. Just satisfying English police procedurals with a bunch of likeable and amusing coppers.

Drowsiness May Occur. Do Not Operate Lace.

I am bushed. Knitting has ceased for the nonce, particularly knitting on the kimono. Things will not be improving until after the 14th.

The office where I work has the responsibility for prepping our agency's witnesses for Congressional hearings. There are several staffs here in the office and each staff has certain areas of responsibility...when the hearing is in that staff's area of responsibility, that staff does the prep. There are two hearings coming up on March 13th and 14th. Both of them are in my staff's area....they are on two different, but closely related, subject areas, there are going to be two different witnesses. This means that the three-person staff that I am on has had to prepare two background books, hold twice the number of briefings to prep the witness, had been gathering information from the same people throughout the agency. We are all exhausted. There have been late nights and two to three hour briefings. There has been scrambling around gathering material asked for in one briefing in time for the next briefing. I am so tired I can hardly think straight. My neck hurts. My feet hurt. I'm getting too old for this. I can't wait for the weekend, but I know come Monday morning it'll all start up again. (We will be having an all-morning briefing for one witness and an all-afternoon briefing the for second witness.) Thank heavens, I love the women I work with...this would be hell if we didn't get along.

And all of this on top of the uncertainty of not knowing if we'll even be working next weekend or if we'll be furloughed. Don't get me started on how I feel about Congress at the moment.

I miss my knitting.

Thank you for letting me whine.

Sometimes Boring Is Just The Thing

This has been a quiet weekend and that's just as well as last week was...well, a week from Hell...at work and this coming week will probably be more of the same.

More about that later, perhaps. Or tomorrow.

There were some bright spots in the week...none of them involving work. (And hurrah, my friend and coworker will be back from vacation on Monday! We missed her...and not just because of what was going on at work.)

On Tuesday evening my dad and step-mom had us over for dinner. I was good and didn't eat any of the cheese and crackers and had no dessert. But my, dinner was tasty! Ham loaf and green beans and yummy potatoes. My brother was there too and we had a good time.

And we had a nice time Friday, too. I had to leave work early for a visit with my friendly dermatologist about a spot on my back that I wanted her to look at. She said it was nothing to worry about. So that was good.

Then Mr. Pointy Sticks and I went to Barnes and Noble because we had coupons. I bought him the last of his birthday presents (the latest Donna Leon) and two books for me, one being the new Graham Joyce, The Silent Land. It's an eerie book and a quick read. I picked it up when I got home...just to take a quick look...got sucked into it and finished it up on Saturday. I did figure out what was going on before the characters did but still, it was well done and is the sort of book that I think will linger with me for some time.

Friday evening a friend of Mr. Pointy Sticks took us both out to dinner for Mr. Pointy Stick's birthday. We went to a Persian restaurant over on Joppa Road called the Orchard Market and Cafe. It's in a very unprepossessing strip mall, near a roller skating rink we used to have to take Rachel to for various birthday parties. Inside, though, it's very nice...and man, was the food good! I had a salad for starters...mixed greens with slices of ripe pear and mango, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, and feta cheese in a pomegranate vinaigrette. So good! The saltiness of the cheese and the acidity of the dressing against the sweetness of the fruit...yum! I continued the fruit theme with the Plum Lamb, a stew of lamb and plums and butternut squash, served with basmati rice. I could only eat about half of it and had the rest reheated for lunch on Saturday and you know what? I think it was even better the second day! The flavors had mellowed. The other two main dishes we ordered were beef tongue in stew (bleah) and the special of the evening...a Persian take on paella. And man, that looked wonderful! Huge servings and really good. The desserts were disappointing, though I actually was glad of that because I am trying not to eat too much.

Saturday morning Mr. Pointy Sticks and I left the house relatively early and went to the Smith College booksale. I came home with about four books, I think. There wasn't a lot of stuff of interest. There were lots of knitting patterns, for once, but they were mostly from the '80s...pretty awful. I did bring home two knitting magazines in German for a buck each and an old Oat Couture pattern for a still good-looking cardigan for 50 cents. Did some grocery shopping and headed home again.

Oh, we also did some preliminary stove shopping. That's something else that happened this week. I was broiling swordfish steaks one evening and I opened the oven door to turn them over and heard this odd popping/crackling sort of sound. Looked down and the inside pane of glass in the oven door had shattered. And you know what? Ovens are expensive! I'd like to get another smooth surface one...it needs to be a slide in...white...I guess I'd like the option to do convection. And all that brings the price up (at least for the ones recommended by Consumer Reports) to $1,000 or more! Yikes!

And today we haven't done much. Some cleaning, some reading. (I read Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree, which I thought was pretty good. Not great literature, but a well-done thriller/suspense sort of book.)

I am hoping that if today is boring enough, I'll actually look forward to going into work tomorrow. Fat chance.