An Isaac'ed weekend

Here's a head kerchief thing I knit with three different yarns from the Phat Fiber box I bought a long time ago. I tried buying one this time but kept getting errors from Etsy so I think I am done with that little experiment. :(

My brother came over this weekend. We had a good time. He arrived before I got home from work, so Abe met him downtown, where they had coffee. Then they came home and played Team Fortress together. When I got home, we went to the Phinneywood Farmer's Market. Isaac bought Strawberry wine, Tayberry wine, and Blackberry wine and let us have the remainders of the strawberry and tayberry. Unfortunately, I didn't like either, but Abe did. So he can have those and I will drink beer. That night Isaac and I played some Lego Batman and it was awesome. I can't wait for him to come down and play with me again. Abe played through it once with me and that was apparently enough for him.

On Saturday, we didn't wake up until 10. Whoops. We went to Patty's Eggnest across the street for breakfast. I had swedish pancakes with strawberries instead of lingonberries. They were pretty good. Then we rushed over to the Sidewalk sale at Acorn Street where I think we (Isaac and I) spent 2 hours or so looking at the yarn. I found this great french one that looked like fur, but I wanted to make a whole purse with it and it was $8 for 17 yards. That was way too expensive. So I bought some other stuff.

The Waikiki from Crystal Palace will some day be woven into an AWESOME scarf. I think it will be awesome. It is the Kiwis/Mangos colorway and I just love it.

The Baby Alpaca Grande from Plymouth Yarns will be fingerless gloves. They were supposed to come with a free pattern, but I didn't get it because I forgot to ask. Though perhaps it is inside the band? Anyways, I can undoubtedly find a pattern on Ravelry, my love. It is so soft, you can barely tell you are touching it. I will make the fingerless gloves and see how it wears. I might get two more skeins to make a pair of the best slipper socks ever.

Finally, there is the Noro Sukko. I think I will be making the Swallowtail shawl out of that. It is a simple shawl pattern and it appears others have done that with success and it looks nice. The colors of the yarn are black, green and brown, as far as I can tell, but I bet there are surprise colors inside too. There always are.

Then we went to the Cartoonists North West meeting where Milt Prigee gave a talk/answered questions. It was fun. He does editorial cartoons, which Abe is more into than I am. Then we dropped Isaac off at the train station to get back home to his GIRLFRIEND. :) Good for him.

Anyways, the other thing I bought at Acorn Street was a skein of Noro to make a tea cozy. And make a tea cosy I did. (I think I just heard one of the dogs fart...) So here it is in all its glory. This is a nice pattern. I am not kidding. I think the whole thing can be knit up in 4 hours (small version). If I hadn't been distracted by how much I love the first X-Men movie, I think I could have knit the whole thing Saturday night, but as it is, I sat there just holding the knitting for a fair chunk of time. So I finished it Sunday morning while I drank tea.

This week on the Ten Ton Studios Sketch Challenge, the theme was Nocturno, an Argentinian graphic novel, by Salvador Sanz. Lovely, but I can't find it in English. Anyways, here is what I drew. It is also up on the Forum.

Last week, I also started the Lilac Leaf Shawl so I will have a Nancy Bush Estonian Lace Shawl to where when I go to the Nordic Knitting Conference in October! (I am taking Icelandic Lace on Saturday and Estonian Cuffs on Sunday.) I started with the other end so that I can knit the middle until I run out of yarn or finish the pattern, whichever comes first. My skein of yarn is about 50 yards smaller than the one called for so I wasn't sure I would have enough.

One of my friends, Celina, put a link to I Write Like on her blog. So I though I would give it a shot. Here are my results. I tried a bunch of things because that is how I am.

When I put in writing from the blog, which is a bit stream of consciousness: Vladimir Nabokov. Abe was impressed.

A story I wrote in high school (which I may end up turning into a graphic novel - 'Cigar Smoke' if I ever talk about it again): Jack London.

Office Cowboy is apparently written like Stephen King. (Haha. There is a joke in that sentence if you know of Stephen King's writing style well enough.)

The water lady story is like Harry Harrison, who I have no idea who that is.

At this point I stared to think it is just completely random.

Vergamon is apparently written like Dan Brown.

A paper for a TC class my last year of college: Agatha Christie.

Hmph.

I will have pictures of my plants in my next post, maybe.

Here is some yarn for you...

First, check it out - I made Abe a toy. I started this, no kidding, in July of 2005 and finished it in July 2010. Go Ravelry for keeping that information for me. I am crazy, yes.

Two weekends ago, we had a good ol' time. Saturday we went to my mom's and met my brother's new girlfriend, who seems nice. My mom and I spent most of the day washing 10 lbs of wool in her yard. That was a lot of work. Then I brought it home and I have been washing it even more. Boil it on the stove and dry it in the oven. I am done, and it only took 4 days to wash all 10 lbs! Now I have to card it and then I have to spin it. And probably dye some of it. I spun up a test of the 10 lbs of shetland(?) that I had already washed and it is a creamy lemony color. The one I am currently washing is quite white. And filthy. Lots of poop and bugs and grains (their food) and even pieces of hoof.

I also found this car on one of the blogs I read. Holy Cow. I would consider driving that, but not in the rain...

Maybe this is what we need to have a less jerky comic.

Uh...

More recently, since it seems I haven't posted in a while, we have The Jerks up at the Blowing Sands Gallery in Ballard. Our stuff should be up until about Aug 11. There are free stickers and some small comic books for sale. We hung out on Saturday night and hula hooped a bit. I don't know if we will sell anything, but a couple of the people there liked our stuff. The president (Mary Beth) of Cartoonists Northwest thought they were cute and liked the humor. So there are other people out there that like poop humor.

At one point, we also had a pinata, which was pretty funny. It was a mermaid that Mary Beth'd had for a while and put fresh candy in. We didn't have a place to hang it so they tried just tossing it in the air, but that didn't work. Then a lady with a cane let people use her cane to whack at it like a baseball. Eventually, no kidding, little Tootsie Rolls started coming out her butt. I was nearly doubled over with laughter. Good times.

I also started working on a Positions Swap for the Harry Potter Crafts group. I am pretty excited. I think the items are going to be great, when they are done. I hope they ship ok!

I've been doing the Tour de Fleece (spinning every day that the Tour de France is running). I was supposed to start on Saturday when I went to Mom's, but I got distracted by washing all the wool. But Sunday and Monday I spun up a couple skeins. One is teeny tiny. 2-ply lace yarn. The other is the fourth of five skeins of Monkey Farts Corridale from Spunky Eclectic which I really like. I somehow messed it up, but whatever. Hopefully the next one will go better.

Day 3:

Day 4 (from knittyandcolor in the Dragonskin colorway which I got in a Phat Fiber Box):

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7 (the same knittyandcolor but all spun up and plied; I also washed some of the Monkey Farts to make sure the color wouldn't leech too much, and it didn't!):

Day 8 (wool mill ends and carbonized fiber - I spun this while watching the very weird movie Krull):

Day 9 (from Xtreme Spinning in the Princess Bride colorway from the Phat Fiber box):

I forgot to take a picture of my spinning on day to. But I was just plying the singles from Day 9 and didn't even finish. I drew Arthur and Georgie stuff until about 9, so I didn't have much time. The backgrounds are getting more and more detailed, so I am needing more time.

After the long weekend

We had a lot of fun over the long 4th of July weekend. It started when Angela got off work 2 hours early on Friday! We went to the farmers market and got some sausage which I later turned in to our favorite sausage stuff. Then on Saturday we went to Bellingham to celebrate with Anita and Jim and Isaac and his new girl friend who's name I can't quite remember at the moment. She was nice though.

On Friday we stopped at Fred Meyer to get something or other and the up escalator was broken. I totally mis-stepped the first few steps and sort of lurched like a broken robot. This cause Angela to start laughing and flailing about so much that she tripped and fell UP the stairs. Her knee landed right on the front edge of one of the escalator steps and it gave her a wicked bruise.

Then on Saturday my left leg got devoured by mosquitoes and now it looks like I have leprosy or something.

Then Angela spent the rest of the weekend washing raw wool and drying it in our oven while I played EQ2. It was a fantastic weekend.

Jeez, I almost forgot to mention that I created a store at cafepress for the-jerks.com yesterday and I made a few items; two shirts, a magnet, a button, a bag, and a few others. There's a link in the top nav bar of http://the-jerks.com or you can go there directly at http://www.cafepress.com/the_jerks

--Abe

I wove

What a fun weekend. On Saturday, our house was all clean, which was a nice change of pace, Abe... Anyways, we had a nice relaxed morning with tea and stuff. Then we went to the Cartoonist NW meeting. The information was OK, about SEO, but I don't know if we will use it. We'll see. Perhaps we will start a couple of twitter accounts since people seem to like those so much. But at the meeting, we talked to the president of the group and decided we would really join and include some of our work in the art show they are having in July in Ballard. More details to follow. We even talked to some of the people in the group instead of just running out of the room. I we showed someone who is working on a new syndicated comic (or getting ready to submit it?) our Bus Stop story. He seemed to like it. I couldn't really tell. His comic was funny. Shrub - keep an eye out for it.

The mom and Jim came over for dinner. They spent the afternoon with one of Jim's professors. Turns out that professor is the dad of one of the ladies I sort of work with. So that was funny. We had a really good time. We were supposed to get a picture of mom's scarf I wove for her for mother's day, but we didn't get a chance. She sent me this "bad" picture. (haha - better than the ones I take.) She didn't want me to post it, but I have to post something. It is just too exciting.

We had some steak and corn and pink mashed potatoes. Cute. And some beer. We tried a white seasonal ale from Pike Brewery, but I don't think anyone particularly cared for it. Then we all moved on to Smithwick's, which has taken its place as my favorite. The dogs behaved OK. Mom was sitting in a chair and Nisa leapt into her lap, but mom seemed to think it was funny. She also got to try on her nearly finished Girl Friday sweater and we bought some buttons for it that should be delivered soon. I hope by the end of the week. I only have 1.5 inches of 1x1 rib left to knit and a couple ends to weave in. Then I can finish blocking it and sew on the buttons. I finally did the thing where you wrap the wet knitting all up in a towel and step on it, then block it. Wow does that make a difference. I will never look back. That is a forever thing for me now. This way it can block over night instead of waiting 3 days to a week for the dratted thing to dry. Thanks, Yarn Harlot!

Before they left, we showed them Super Rub-A-Dub, which they simply did not appreciate, and the demo of Fairy Tale Fights where you play Little Red Riding Hood in a white room and massacre other fairy tale characters. Very funny. That demo cracks me up. It is nothing like the game, so I am wary of buying the game, but we'll see.

In The Jerks news, I am now able to do the two pencils for each week's comics in one evening. If I don't wait to long to get started. I think the upcoming ones are just getting better. At least in regards to my drawing if not in hilarity. And next time I post, I will have an actual non The Jerks drawing to post. I just have to Photoshop it together since the stupid scanner is an inch too small to scan the whole thing.

Update: I posted an image at the Ten Ton Studio sketch challenge. Go check it out. :) It's not super amazing, but it has a lot of background and I really need to work on backgrounds.

Phinney market and sewing

We had a pretty good weekend. On Friday we went to the Phinney Farmer's Market, which was the first one this year. It is very small, but has some good stuff. Not much in the way of vegetables yet, unless you like thumb-sized asparagus or salad (which I hate). But we did find a place that sold local, grass-fed, organic, free-range meat (of the 4-legged variety). We got a huge piece of top sirloin that will make three meals for each of us. Holy cow. (haha)

We also got some potatoes from them -- Purple Majesty. Made into mashed potatoes, they looked like Play-doh. But they tasted like normal potatoes. The meat tasted amazing, though. A little pricey, and you had to buy whatever size they had, but Abe just cut it into three pieces and then he cooks that and cuts it in half. I am drooling just in writing this. We also had some organic corn on the cob with it. Man that is a good meal. Anyways, they also sell bratwurst, so next Friday, we will go again and get maybe some pork chops and some bratwurst. Hopefully there will be more vegetables soon.Isn't that just the best looking dinner. The meat really does taste different than the other meat we have gotten. I cannot wait to try those bratwursts.

Then we went to good will. Or was that Saturday. Anyways, Abe got some shorts and a shirt, and I got some comfy corduroy pants and a cool black and white hounds tooth purse with red trim. Then I went to the mall and got a new wallet because mine was pissing me off. Every time I opened it the stupid cards would all fall out. So I went to Fuego and got an Angry Little Girls wallet. It is really cute. I almost wish I had gotten the vampire one, but this one is great and now I am not one of THOSE people. Turns out I LOVE that store. It is similar to hot topic, but funnier.

I also drew some more for the upcoming web comic, including a header image. So we are getting there. Arthur and Georgie are fun to draw. Actually, there are two new characters who are also way fun to draw. I will draw away and then stop to look at it as a whole and laugh every single time.

Yesterday, I wanted to go get some zippers for the cloth I bought to make skirts from. So when I got home, I made a skirt. I also got another zipper to fix a skirt that had a broken zipper. So now I have two skirts to wear. The skirt I made myself looks great. I had to make some darts and mess those up, but I think my shirts will cover it, and if not, I can always go back and fix it. I should have read the instructions in my Skirt book on how to make darts. Anyways, the book is Sew What: Skirts and it is awesome. The one I made yesterday was A-Line. I also plan to make a straight skirt with some green and cream hounds tooth, and a pleated skirt with some green and brown plaid. While I got the zippers, I also bought some clearance fabric because it as 30% off, so I got some cute red fabric that I will use as a layer over some black fabric for a skirt. I think that will be really cute. And I got some yellow fabric with pink dots that I will make into bloomers for which I will tat some lace to attach at the bottom of each leg. Nice, yeah? (FYI, I was totally spacing out every time Abe took a picture of me in this skirt.)

I have plans. I have too many plans. This is on top of all the knitting I have to do, including the new Rockin' Sock Club kit that should be coming in the next couple weeks (so far I am two for two - received two kits and both are already knit up) and the sweater I am knitting for my mom. Another Girl Friday, but in evergreen. It is coming right along. I have the left front, back, and one sleeve done. I started the second sleeve yesterday, but I only got about an inch in. I also have the Raven Swirl (rav) Rockin' Sock Club socks on the needles. I am almost half way done with the first sock. I love this pattern and can't wait for them to be done. Speaking of plans, I also got a free coat rack and I plan to sand and paint it this summer...There is a chance I might have more to do than can possibly be done...

One day when I was working on something at work, I looked out the window at the rain and had a bit of an epiphany on how to tell my water lady story. It was very satisfying. So that is my next big comics project.

Vacation is fun. Now I remember.

So I guess I never posted about my vacation. Here goes.

We started out packing my mom's VW bug (new version) with tons of art supplies and promptly driving south to go to Lake Quinalt. And promtply taking the wrong highway and going on a huge detour to Hoodsport, if that means anything to you. But once we got back on track all was well and we got to the Lochaerie Resort without any further problems. We did stop at a gas station so my mom could make sure she was going the right way, but we were.

View Larger Map

The Cabin was very nice, though we had to make about 5 trips down two or three flights of very steep, uneven stairs to get all our stuff down to the cabin. I like the stairs when we weren't carrying all our stuff. And I thought to myself, "Well, I would rather be carrying all this down than up and Abe and Jim will be here to carry it all back up..." The Cabin itself was nice. Small, but nice. And I thought to myself, "Abe might have a hard time here since it all seems to be size for mom and myself." My mom and me are within a quarter inch of each other in height. Abe is almost a foot taller than me. The bedrooms all look out on the lake. The porch faced the trees, but we did sit out there and drink cocoa one evening. That was fun. Mom got some great pictures of some birds. Yellow Thrush? She got pictures of a loon swimming in the lake and some common merganzers taking off from the lake. In the morning, the hills around the lake were covered in fog. Absolutely gorgeous.

We spent our evenings in front of the fire place (they give you firewood for each night) doing crossword puzzles mom had brought with her from the newspaper. We wanted to get more because we were running out, but not a single store in teh lake quinalt area carried them. Doh.

During the day, we intended to do a lot of art. I apparently don't know how to do that yet. It is hard to switch from a cubicle for work to a couch. :) Anyways, we didn't do much because on the first day, mom had heard mice in the walls; and on the second day, we found mouse poop; and on the third day, a mouse came tearing ass out from behind the fireplace. So we spent a lot of time trying to work out that problem.

In addition to the "pets" we had not requested, mom forgot her watercolor paper block, so we called Abe and him look up the nearest art store, which was in Forks. So we spent a few hours and drove to Forks. Oh, and for the first few days, mom had a very sore back. She thinks it was from the stress of actually taking a working vacation, which I tend to agree. So in Forks, we found the art store pretty easily. Small town, so it was not the most varied art store. Mom ended up getting some cheap watercolor paper in sheets because they didn't even sell watercolor blocks. When we went up to the counter, I noticed a bunch of Twilight fan art and twilight merch, like notepads and pins. I giggled to myself. When my mom asked the art store lady where we could go for lunch, she mentioned the Twilight restaurant. And then a Mexican restaurant, which is where we went. We did drive past the Twilight restaurant, and I giggled again. The window displays were a bunch of stuff from the book covers. Anyways, the mexican restaurant was a converted gas station. The food tasted ok, but made me a bit sick.

Then we went grocery shopping. The grocery store had a section devoted to twilight with rain boots and hoodies and bumper stickers. Things like "The rain and the vampires both suck in Forks, WA." Yikes. I ended up getting some corn that was cookable in the microwave because that is all they had. And it was really gross. Tasted like chemicals.

On the way back from Forks, we stopped by a beach. We would have walked more, but mom's back hurt too much. We grabbed a cool looking bottle that had little things that had grown on it, like clams or something. Cleaning up the beach.

Anyways, the cabin was fun, but what with mice pooping in our dishes (so unsanitary), we decided to leave and ended up spending the rest of vacation at my moms. We ended up having to lug everything back up, including about 7 days worth of food, without the aid of our men. While we were at the cabin, I had started a painting for Abe, "Home Sweet Homo Erectus," and a pencil of Arthur and Georgie.

On the way back home, we stopped by our apartment so I could say hi to Abe and the dogs. And grab some things, like more crossword puzzles. We spent the entire drive up to bellingham doing the crossword puzzles.

In Bellingham, we also didn't get much done because we had all this money and I wanted to spend it! (Refund) I got an Ashford 16" rigid heddle loom from NW Handspun Yarns. And then I made mom a scarf (with her help). It was super fun. I can't wait to make another, but it has been SO HOT. It is cooler today, so I guess that is what I will do. Yay for rain. The loom came needing to be put together. It is a good thing I didn't wait to do that until I got back home because it was so hard to get the screws in we ended up having to use mom's drill as an electric screw driver. A few comments on the directions. The two pieces that are both marked H are not identical, they are the exact opposite, so they should have different letters. The pieces are not labeled, so you have to figure it out. The tools that are optional, like wood glue, should be marked optional in the tool list, not just in the instruction steps. There was something else, but I have forgotten now. And with about an hours time, we had the whole thing put together and were starting the scarf.

Anyways, we also went to Goodwill, where I got some shoes for $7 that I had been eyeing at Fred Meyer's for $35. I also got an awesome green cardigan (smaller guage than I can do with awesome buttons and a great color), a herringbone sweatshirt (no hood! Yay!), a white button-up shirt (which turned out to be too big, but I will see what I can do to fix it), and a box with drawers (black and painted with moon and stars). I went back with Abe later and got a 99 cent green v-neck t-shirt and an awesome green goblet. Abe hates it (the 70s goblet).

In all, I had a great time. Abe came up Friday to pick me up. That is when we went to Goodwill. That was the day we did my birthday celebration with my family.

For my birthday, Isaac gave me a bone large-eye blunt needle that he had made with the information he learned in the Bone Carving class that was his birthday present from mom, jim, abe, and me. The bone came from a porkchop he'd had for dinner. Haha. And mom bought me some books at Hendersons: Weaving things you can use, The joy of hand weaving (though mine was printed in 1950), How to draw and sell comic strips, How to draw and sell comics (which I just realized is the by the same guy who did the previous book...), and Aubrey Beardsley: Sixty selected drawings. The Aubrey Beardsley one might be my favorite. Turns out one of his drawings was used as the cover on one of my favorite books, The Einstein Intersection.

For my birthday and Mother's day, we had a GREAT dinner on Friday. Jim made polenta, which I could never complain about and nearly have to force him to make everytime. Man that stuff is good. We also had the Brussel Sprouts Braised in Butter from the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And from the same book, we had chicken breasts in mushrooms and onions. That might just be the best chicken I have ever had or will have in my life. Holy cow. The whole chicken thing took about half an hour. The sauce (butter, mushrooms, green onions, vermouth, chicken stock, and cream) was amazing. It was good on the polenta and brussel sprouts, too. I am drooling just thinking of this meal. For dessert we had some delicious pistachio/almond ice cream with chocolate syrup. Yummy.

I had such a great time for a week and a half hanging out with my mom. She apparently spends a lot of her time saying mixed metaphors. About every other time she said something was a mixed metaphor. And it was contagious. I couldn't get a metaphor right by the end of the trip. Her studio was awesome, so we had a great time working our butts off there, even if we could only really agree on Frank Sinatra for music. No complaints here. I love Sinatra. I hope to do it again sometime. I could see mom and Jim running an art-themed bed and breakfast. :)

On Sunday, it turns out I had left all my birthday books at my mom's so we met her at my grandma's for tea and scones with my aunts. Before that, we went to Fluevog and I finished buying the shoes I had on layaway. They are comfortable and awesome. These are great shoes. We also went to Third Place Books in Lake City. I got the first two volumes of Walking Dead for Abe. I haven't read them yet, so no comment there. I also got myself Amphigorey and Amphigorey Also, and a book on Gothic Art. The Gothic Art book is just for reference. I might read a bit, but probably not much. I got it for the pictures. Gorey is amazing. I think these books will be a much-used reference.

After all this, I still had Monday to recup and Abe and I played Borderlands, which I really enjoy. I am playing Mordecai, the hunter, and I have to say, I am loving the snipers. I can kill a Rakk (flying thing) from halfway across the map or so. If I can see it, I can kill it. Totally awesome.

On Wednesday, we went to Outback for dinner and Abe gave me the two CDs previously mentioned. They are really good. I knew I would like Regina, but I really like The Reverend Horton Heat. That is some upbeat music. Great for a sunny car ride home with the stereo and A/C blasting. The first song has a start that reminds me or reggae, which gets my hackles up, but it only lasts a few seconds and then she starts to sing and I am comforted.

Anyways, back to the near present. This last Saturday, we went to the NW Cartoonists group and Abe told everyone I was shy and I put a comic of Arthur up for voting for Best of teh NW. It was pretty funny. If I can, I will get a copy or something and post it here. It was just Arthur being scared in a way slightly inspired by anime/manga. The guy who was supposed to come talk never showed up, but we did watch a video of Scott McCloud on TEDtalk. That was still fun. At least one person voted for Arthur for Best of the NW. And it wasn't me or Abe. (I think part of the rules involves not voting for yourself.)

So next time I post, I will put up the Home Sweet Homo Erectus. And this image makes me laugh every time I see it. The whole thing is great, but that one is the best. Haha. Adam West.

Stumptown to vacation in no time flat

Here was my description of our trip to Stumptown to my co-worker:
"well, we drove to Portland Saturday morning and went to Stumptown Comic Fest. we only walked around for about an hour over the course of the whole day as we spent most of the time in panels. But somehow I still ended up with 6 blisters!! They we drove back and got home in plenty of time to miss the I-5 Northbound closure."

Because of one of the panels, Self Publishing like a Rockstar, I started reading Octopus Pie, which I am really enjoying.

Here is a blister montage. Haha.I didn't take a picture of the one on my big toe because you can't really see it. The ones on the arch of my left foot are by far the most painful.

The digital painting class was great. I started working on something last night. I don't know how it will turn out, but I have high hopes. I have a tiny portion of it done even though I worked on it for about 2 hours. I did keep messing up and having to fix that, but that just takes practice. The guy who does Dresden Codak led the session. It was really impressive to watch him take 30 minutes and make a really cute little pic. I learned the brush settings I need and stuff. Very cool. You know, I was going to write a huge long post about all the stuff I learned, but I am too lazy.

Since I will be gone for so long, here are some pics I have done. First, a color of the Creeper from before I took the digital painting class. This is just a completely different style of coloring from the digital painting. Probably much faster. I like both.

Next, here is a picture called 'Bunny Loves Robot.' I have not decided what to do with this pic yet. I drew it much smaller a long time ago. So I scanned it, printed it larger, traced it again while make it much better, and then I inked it.

When I get back from vacation, I should have a lot of shtuff to put up here and on deviant art. Or not. Depends on what I work on. I have grand plans. I have no idea how much I will get done because it is not often then I have this much time to work on art. I should have the thumbnails done for another graphic story and some drafts of the main characters. I might even have a funny digital painting of batman. I did an ink of it, but I hate it. I like the pencil still, but I might need to fix that too. I already packed a bunch of stuff for vacation. In addition to my art box, with my ink and brushes and some water colors and other random stuff, I packed a bag of paper: 9x12 water color, 11x17 Bristol board (two kinds: with and without the blue lines for comics), 9x12 Bristol board, lots of computer paper, water color sketch books (including the one with the original Umbrella Girl drawings, which I am thinking of redoing), and more. I would bring my 11x17 water color paper, but I can't find it anywhere and I am so bummed about it because there are two nice paintings in there. :'(

Completely non sequitor, if you like comics, you might want to watch the videos made by Crazy Sexy Geeks.

I also forgot to post this earlier. I drew this for Isaac in the car on the way up for his birthday. Haha.

Margarita time

This past Sunday was my mom's birthday and we met in Burlington for a movie and lunch with my Aunt Carol, too. We went to the Cascade mall theater and Alice in Wonderland started 20 minutes late. Annoying. The movie was good, but not as good as I expected. I think part of it was the theater. The film seemed darker than it maybe should have been and the sound was pretty quite. It also should have been way longer. I think they cut a lot out. I think the white Queen needed more explanation because there were hints that she had more story but they never got around to telling it. Bummer.

Then we went to El Cazador for lunch. Abe and I had delicious Taquitos. And for dessert, mom bought us all a plate of Xangos to share, which is cheese cake wrapped in a flour tortilla and then deep fried. Sounded gross, but it tasted really good. It was an appropriate place for lunch because for her birthday, I made mom the Frozen Margarita socks. Those were terrible to make, but she seems to like them, so they were worth it. I got done with the first one and couldn't bring myself to make the second one. Mostly because of the annoying cactus on the ankle. And then to top it all off, when I finally did it. I put the cactus on the same side of both ankles so now she has two left socks. Agh. I put it off so long that Friday night we stayed up until almost 1 so I could try to finish the socks, but I ended up finishing them in the car on the way up to the movie instead.

The top of the sock is supposed to look like the salt rim of the glass. Haha. That was probably the most fun part. So before I gave them to mom, I asked her if she planned on having a Margarita, and she didn't so I was a little disappointed. But she thought the socks were so funny when she opened them that she showed them to the waitress and asked for a matching margarita. And I was too dumb to get a picture of that. :( But she is wearing them today, so I guess she must like them. And that makes three items off my list, though I also added one (Slip Jig socks from Rockin' Sock Club).

This weekend, I also finished the pencils for the bus stop story and started inking. The cover and first page are basically done. I need to add some white gauche to the first page, but that will be quick (I hope I don't completely mess it up).

Also this weekend, I got through all the Criminal Intent available for streaming, which was season 6. I started watching Rescue Me. That show is kind of depressing though (yeah, I know I just finished 6 years of Criminal Intent, a show about the worst or most complicated crimes).

Abe just informed me about a doggly adventure in jerkiness. He came out from wherever he was and found the dogs sitting all happy together on the couch with a pillow between them. On closer inspection there was a hole in that pillow which led to a hole in the actual pillow from which they dogs had been gleefully removing the stuffing. Other than the two holes, the outer one of which had already been there, the thing is fine. It is an old pillow from my grandma when I was in grade school or so. One side is Xmas and the other is little bo peep. Jerks.

In other news, it is so cold in our apartment, that in addition to my traditional PJ work outfit for Work-At-Home-Tuesday, I also have on my 'house sweater,' hat, fingerless mittens, scarf, blanket around my legs, socks, and slippers and I am still cold.

Dorks and our lists

So I think you can guess that I like lists. So here are more lists. We added a page of the web comics that Abe and I read and a page of the blogs that Abe and I read. I also went through my Ravelry projects and updated all the projects I am not actively working on to 'Hibernating' status.

The Cartoonists Northwest meeting really was fun. I came home ready to work and got the first three pages and the cover of the bus stop story ready for inking. 6 pages to go. Street art actually sounds like a lot of fun, when legal. Wheat pasting paper art to poles and buildings. Slapping stickers everywhere. It is really part of the solution to the problem of how disgusting a place can get when that many people use the same area. That and people not being disgusting. Reminds me of how bummed I was when they painted over the cute graffiti and the highway support next to the I-5 express lane tunnels. I can't believe they would rather have gray cement to look at than a cute little weird bunny thing.

So sometime we must have hit a huge pot hole (I know where is most likely and have a guess at the exact pothole and moment) and now we have get the car fixed. It is covered by insurance, though, which is a relief. Save us over 50% since we just have to pay the deductible. But the particular part of road where I bet we got the damage is absolutely terrible and if I could go around it without adding a stupid amount of time to my drive I would. They need to rip up the road and start over, but it is a very high traffic road. They should just figure out how much of the road they can rip up and replace in a single day and do that every Saturday until they get that whole patch of road fixed. "Just" I say. Psh.

You know... one of my favorite things about Tuesday is having Tofu Yakisoba from Ichi Bento in North City for lunch. Yum. So delicious.

Goblins and ECCC

Here are some colors of some drawings. Neither of these were in photoshop. The first one is a water color version, which I think I prefer. I did it on printer paper though, so it bled a lot. I fixed that in photoshop.

Second, we have the color pencil version. I think I would use the color pencil to choose the colors I want and then do the water color for the final piece. I am not sure if I should do the water color on the same piece as the original ink or print it and then water color it. If I do that, I would certainly need to use different paper in the printer, I just don't know what.

I have also inked a lot more. But all stuff that isn't mine. I did one of the pages from the Art of Comic Book Inking. Such a good book. And I did Wonder Woman by JMan-3H. That was a blast to ink. Took forever with all that detail though. And I inked Batman - Dynamic Trio by cinar. Very fun. Also took a very long time. I started that Batman one when we got back from ComiCon. I was too tired to do anything else. I am still tired. The combination of daylight's savings and a day surrounded by that many people really has me worn out. I wish I had taken Monday off instead of a half day Friday. I took a half day on Friday because I was so freakin' tired from learning to sleep with a night guard. It didn't help right away (still had the nerve pain in my neck or whatever it was), but it seems to be gone now. I just need to wait and see if it comes back.

Anyways, I am working on a new story by Abe. I have the guys head down well, but his body. Arg. I need to practice that. It is really fun to work on though. I hope to have the whole thing done and printed in a tiny chap book by Stumptown Comic Fest. I think we are going to that in April. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Speaking of, ECCC was a lot of fun. We started by looking at the exhibit hall. Meh. We looked for Skottie Young and Ben Templesmith. Found Ben Templesmith, and Skottie Young (deviantart) was supposed to be next to him. Turns out Skottie Young's flight was canceled and there were no others from that airport. Maybe next year. :'( Then we went the Wil Wheaton Awesome Hour, which was pretty awesome. He read from some of his books and took about 7 minutes of questions at the end. Idiot Abe didn't get a picture of him because we were too far away. Then we stayed (same room) for Leonard Nimoy, which was awesome. I liked that one more than Abe did. He seems like a really cool guy. Passionate and thoughtful. And just the best voice ever. He liked the new Star Trek movie, which is good, since he was in it... And you know what? There were more people for Wil Wheaton the for Leonard Nimoy. Crazy, right?

Then we ran downstairs for the Image panel. I thought they would go over taking submissions, but instead it was a review of their upcoming projects and then a Q&A. Which was still a good time. Ben Templesmith was on the panel. When the first Choker collected book comes out, I think we will get it. The ECCC special cover of the single comic book was $10. Abe absolutely refused to get that.

Then we spent some time being annoyed and wandering around the booths. I was thinking of buying some Wormwood Gentleman Corpse and getting Ben Templesmith to sign them, but there was too much noise and too many people to allow for adequate thinking so we gave up after wandering around with scowls on our faces and went to the room the next panel we wanted to see was. Turned out to be the Oni Press one where they review what they have coming out and they also sound like a good company. So Abe ran out and bought the first Ghost Projekt.

The final panel was Art Techniques with Todd McFarlane, who was running the meeting using GoToMeeting and he was on the phone which they put up to the mic. That was interesting. He sounds very passionate, so that was fun. Couldn't hear him when he got a little too excited. At one point, his screen froze on our end and his editor was trying to get him to stop talking. He said "Todd" no less than 20 times before Todd actually stopped talking and found out our screen wasn't following his anymore. I was hoping the panel would be more on the tools and less on drawing, but I did finally get the face ratios I was wanting so now I don't have to go to the Face class for $99. Then we went home. And zonked out. Man I was tired. I watched some netflix and inked that batman. I think I might have knit for a bit too. I was pretty tired, so I don't really remember.

And speaking of the face class, which is by Nils Osmar, I found some other classes I really want to take from him this summer: Drawing in pen, brush & ink, and How to make money as an artist. I would like to take How to draw clothing too. Sucks though because The ink one is on a Wednesday, the clothes ones is the next day on Thursday. I would be so freakin' tired. Oh yeah, they are both 7-10. I usually go to bed at 9 or 10. The how to make money one is on a Saturday, which is certainly the best time for me.

You know what else we found out about at ECCC, which relates to the above classes, is Cartoonists NW. They meet on the third Saturday of every month. Looks like fun. That is this weekend, so we are going to go check it out. Last month's meeting was about self publising, so bummer we couldn't go to that. This month is about a graffiti artist. But they will go over more than just that. Looks like fun.

Pseudo-Monday Blues

Well, I have Windows 7 and I find it a bit annoying. I haven't used it much though, so maybe I will get used to it. I think the most annoying part is having lost all my setup/organization in iTunes. I have to uncheck all the songs I don't actually want to listen to (mostly Abe's cds). All my playlists are gone. :( I am big on playlists. Based on mood. And all my ratings are gone. I had lists by rating, too. Bah.

This weekend was pretty fun. Abe didn't have the best Valentine's, but stil a pretty good time. We went down to Fluevog and both got shoes. Pretty nice. I got the Mini Gorgeous to wear with all my hand knit socks, and I am sure I will wear them all the freakin' time. I also put the Mini Dollface on layaway, which is awesome because they only had one pair close to my size and it fit fine. And they weren't sure if they would get any more shipments. I would have been super bummed to have missed this pair, so I am glad I put them on layaway. I should be able to get them by my birthday. :) Abe also got the Angels Supervog. These, I swear, are the most colorful shoes Abe has ever had. At least since I met him. I am so glad I finally got him to try on a pair of their shoes. I am pretty sure he is converted and will save up money to buy their shoes when he needs more in the future. Yay. I had wanted to try on Earl of Warwick Coventry, but they did not have my size. :( Oh well. I would have wanted to put those on layaway too and there are other things I want to buy someday. I tried on the Fellowships Jenna, but I wasn't as big a fan of them on as just to look at. Which was too bad. The leather was crazy soft. Sounds like a good thing I didn't get them though, because the last two reviews of them are about how they wear poorly. Which at over $300 is not acceptable.

We also went to Luisa's which was delish as usual and later we watched WALL-E, which is,no kidding, one of the cutest movies of all time. I love it.

On Friday, the Olympics started and so I started the Knitting Olympics. I am doing pretty good. 4 days in and I have a sleeve done, the left front done, and I am over half done with the right front. That leaves the rest of the right front, the back, and the other sleeve. Then I sew it all together and knit the button bands and the collar. I think that is doable with 2 weekends to go. I think I can finish the right front and the back by the end of next weekend. There is one glitch. I might need to rip back the sleeve caps and knit them a bit longer to match the front and back. The pattern from the handy book of sweater patterns doesn't seem to really do that. Oh well. At least I have only done one sleeve. I was going to take a picture every day, but I totally forgot. Oh well.

On Saturday, my mom and Jim came down. We had a great time. First we went to see Avatar. Wow. I couldn't tell what was CGI and what was real. It was amazing. The plot line was pretty typical, but I barely even noticed because I enjoyed the characters and the visuals so much. We did end up watching it in 3-D. The new 3-D is pretty amazing, but man it gave me such a headache. I had to keep readjusting my eyes throughout the movie. I think I would watch a cartoon in 3-D (like shrek and the new viking movie), but no more realistic. I will definately be buying Avatar on Blue-Ray. I can see why it was the number one movie for so long. By the time I got home that night, I was already ready to watch it again.

We went to Suni's for lunch afterwards. Delish. I had my usual Avacado Bacon Burger with an egg. Everyone loved their food. I asked for no fries and got them anyways. And I just realized I got charged for them and shouldn't have. Oh well. Less than $2.

Saturday we also went to Daniel Smith just south of downtown Seattle. They have a lot of stuff, go figure. So I got some Vellum, a #0 round brush for inking, a kneaded eraser, another pen handle for a different type of nib that I accidently bought the last time I went to Dakota Art, and some gaouche, which I cannot pronounce, for covering my mistakes and maybe even for drawing with. On Monday I went to Dakota because after practicing, I found the #0 was a little too small, so I got a #1 round and a #4 flat. The vellum is totally AWESOME as opposed to regular tracing paper which is so thin. you can see back on Zorro (wikipedia), if you look close, that there are wrinkles in the large black sections. Which is going to be a problem with Gone. I have decided I will just post that here, since there will be the wrinkle problem and that is not professional enough to send out. I really like the brush on the Vellum. I made some sketches. There is the leg of the Rocketeer (wikipedia), Mariella from another story, some sketches from my art class.

As notes on that Rocketeer pic, I was trying for a certain style and failing. I fall back into my own style pretty quickly. I am pretty satisfied with it other than that, though. His left thigh is a little too long and his feet are a little too small, but other than that. I am pleased with his shirt and various wrinkles. Originally, it was supposed to be tilted 90 degrees counter-clockwise so his feet were pointing down but there was something wrong with it and I changed the orientation. So his rocket packs don't quite seem to work with what is going on, but I still like it.

Well, I am getting ready to go to the dentist soon to get a mouth guard. Sexy. Abe gets to go get his teeth cleaned, lucky dog. :) I am actually pretty excited because it should help with the pain I am getting. I clench my jaw when I feel weird. Weird as in stressed or anxious or whatnot. I also grind my teeth a bit. And now that I have had my wisdom teeth removed, they are moving all over the place. The mouth guard should help that. I am also getting a lower retainer type thing to keep the bottom one from moving too. I have switched to Sensodyne because the new gaps where my teeth are moving has gotten really sensative, but it is not helping. And it tastes terrible. So I am switching to Crest ProHealth or something.

Finally, a little shout out to LeVar Burton, who was born in Germany in 1957 today. You know, Geordi La Forge. He created and hosted Reading Rainbow. If you check out his wikipedia page, he is looking a bit aged, but he kind of is. 50 and over is kind of aged. He has won a surprising number of awards for Reading Rainbow, at least surprising to me. Looks like around 15 to me.

I would have spell checked this, but the button refuses to work for my mouse, so screw it.

Not a lot going on

We went up to Bellingham last friday for a birthday party for Angelas friend Rijil. We had a great time. We both really want to move to Bellingham and the smell of the ocean as we got out of the car just brought it home to us both.

I'm getting my tax return in a few weeks and I'm going to go to the dentist with the money. It's been like 10 years since I've had a cleaning. It's going to be expensive but it will be nice to have clean teeth :-)

I started trying to teach Angela how to play the guitar tonight. We're always talking about playing music together but the bass and piano aren't the best instruments for jamming. I can't really play the guitar though so it's going to be interesting helping Angela learn.

--Abe

Movies, my friends

Nisa seems to be feeling better, though she has gone a bit crazy and keeps starting crazy fights with Ernie, who does not seem to want to participate, really.

All that's left of Abe's closet cleaning is to take the remaining stuff to goodwill, but first he has to go to Central Market and get me a chicken, which he will cook for dinner for me tomorrow while he eats spaghetti for dinner. Woo for me. He also has to get me a bunch of brussel sprouts. So I am having chicken and brussel sprouts for the rest of the week, though spaghetti tonight.

I went to the dentist today, which always rattles my brain a bit. Possible explanation if I sound a little weird today. I was going to fix up another image today but maybe I will fix it up for Friday instead.

Did I mention I finished Abe's first sock? That was fun...not. Took forever. And I still have another to do. It's OK, I guess. I really do like knitting with that dang self-patterning yarn. It is a bit short, but not horribly so.

This weekend, with poor little Nisa asleep at my side, I watched a lot of TV.

On Friday, I watched Sherlock Holmes: The Last Vampyre. That was OK. I was pretty tired and almost fell asleep at the end, but it was fun enough. The guy who plays Sherlock is a little less skinny than I always picture the drug-addled Holmes. And Watson looked a little more dim-witted than I usually think. But it was OK.

On Saturday, I went crazy. I started with Dinosaurus! The exclamation point is part of the name. It was a terrible 60s scifi. I could not stop laughing at the dinosaurs. Pretty funny. Maybe a bit sexist, but no more than anything else at the time. The Neanderthal was funny. The actor played that pretty funny. Then I watched Alien Trespass, which I highly do not recommend. I am a little surprised I finished watching it, but I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was some sort of fake news at the beginning and then the movie played and then... that was it. It was supposed to be a spoof of classic 50s sci-fi, so maybe I didn't get the joke. Eric McCormack was in it. Weird. It also had the dad from that horrible 80s show with the kid whose adult voice narrated the whole ting? That was boring, so I watched Mike Birbiglia, a stand up comic. He is pretty funny. I have heard him on the 7:20 Funny that now plays on 96.5 on Jack as the 7:19 funny. It plays right before I get to work. Then I watched an animated Hellboy: Blood and Iron. It was surprisingly good. It even had the actors from the movies doing the voice overs. I would definitely watch more of those. I like that in the animation, they can give Hellboy his appropriate hoofed feet instead of the boots in the movie. Then I started to watch Urchin, but was way not into that. It was just weird and poorly acted. One character just looked like some guy reciting lines and trying to respond to them. :( So I switched to Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have no idea why it did so poorly. The first one was a pleasure to watch and so was the second one. Pure eye candy. Absolutely beautiful. The cure for a sweet tooth without the candy. I wish I had seen it on the big screen. It was a bit too long, but it was so pretty, I didn't really mind. I would have minded less in the theater because I could have seen it better. This was the end of the night so I was tired and having a hard time focusing my eyes.

Then on Sunday, I watched the first and started watching the second seasons of Grey's Anatomy so I can watch the new season 5 DVDs (as instant play on netflix). I freakin' love this show. I have no idea why I love it so much or why it affects me so much, but it might just be one of my favorite shows ever. I have seen the first season 6 times now and I love it as much now as the first time.

Friday, we are going up to Bellingham for a friend's birthday. Then next weekend we will go to Bellingham again so I can possibly plan a trip with my mom. But I might want to postpone that a year, depending on my tax return because the dentist (and my doctor, actually) says I really need a mouth guard for when I sleep. The reasons are two fold. One, I need to stop my teeth from moving. Since I got my wisdom teeth out, they have moved so that there are 5 places between my molars where I can easily floss with my hair. From my head. Gross, I know, but handy because it hurts when a big chunk of steak gets stuck in there. Why not carry around floss you ask? I am lazy and a scumbag. Come one now. Two, I clench my jaw a lot when I sleep and that is very bad. I keep having a crazy nerve thing in my neck and the doctor said the way to fix it is to get a mouth guard. It is the scary kind of electric hurt, so I do want to stop that from happening. So I got my W2 the other day and will file my taxes and make the plans I need to make. Woo. Taxes. At least I should get my first Rockin' Sock Club kit in the next few weeks. When that comes, all other projects, yes even Abe's first pair of socks, go straight in the hibernating pile until that pair is done. I am a little sad because I think they showed us the yarn on the blog and it looks all pinky. But if it is a dark pink, I guess it will be okay.

Happy Holidays

This is the image I (and Abe, I guess) sent out as a Xmas card. (Abe still will need to send it to his own friends since I only sent it to people I have email addresses for.) I drew it with a technical pen or two and colored it with watercolor pencils. I don't want to waste those, so I recently went and bought a set of Crayola colored pencils and they are really fun to work with. Plus there are about twice as many colors, including silver and gold, which can be useful.

So Happy Holidays one and all! It is the second day of winter and it is getting colder. It got warmer first, though.

Today is my last day of work for the year. I was going to work tomorrow, but my coworker Lucas and Abe convinced me to take my last day of PTO instead of the payout. So here I am working my last day of the year from home. It was a successful day too because I finally figured out the example of Oregon state tax withholding. Buh. Doesn't my job sound exciting?

Well, I hope it gets colder over the next two days because I want snow on Xmas day again.

Last Saturday, Abe's last day off before Xmas day, we went to my cousin's for a Xmas movie party. We were the first to show up and I think we were early. Good times though. They bought a house this year and it is nice and big. We got to see Tony's dad, who I haven't seen in a while. (Tony, or Anton as he likes to be called now, is my cousin). He brought Frango's over, which is a real treat since I used to get to eat them every year for Xmas, but now we rarely see him, so we don't get them. Yummy. He even brought lasagna, but I didn't get any of that. We watch A Muppet's Christmas Carol, which was awesome. On Monday, I still had the Ghost of Christmas Present's song stuck in my head. Which isn't so bad.

Also, I am knitting (poorly) the hat penny wore on the last Big Bang Theory of the year. I needed to use size 9s. I might make another one tomorrow... I used 7s, so I would use 9s tomorrow. I am pretty excited. Maybe I will post my final pattern here. I am just using some leftover Red Heart acrylic yarn from the first blanket I ever knit (which was for Xmas and looks terrible - dropped stitches, poor finishing, I never even weaved in the ends). Hopefully I can finish it to wear to Abe's mom, who he still hasn't called to make plans for Xmas Eve. Jerkface.

You know who is not a jerkface? My coworker Lucas, who kindly recycled my can of Diet Coke and washed my cups since I thought I was coming in on Wednesday, but since I am not, they would have sat there dirty for almost 2 weeks. I think the dirtiness grosses him out enough that he would have washed it even if he didn't like me. Haha.

Anyways, in other art news, I also recently went through my box of "art" stuff. I found an embroidery project I want to finish but may not be able to. I will give it a shot, I guess. I also found my ink and nibs. So last night I started practicing drawing with that. Well, I did one a few days ago too. So have more pictures to scan and post. It is just so annoying to try scanning. It only works half the time. We have a new set up that we have not tried yet, though, so it might work better now. The other problem is that I draw on paper that is larger than the scanner, so I have to scan each picture in two parts and then put them together in Photoshop. Anyways, I will stop complaining and just try to do it. I have at least 5 pictures to scan and post. I am not behind in any way. What are you talking about?

Wormwood Good

This weekend, Abe and I went to the library and got some comic books. I read the first Wormwood book by Ben Templesmith and I really like it. Funny, dark, weird, and pretty in a gross way. I like the art style. The main character is a magic maggot or something in a reanimated corpse. They don't come right out and say that until probably half way through that book, but you get the gist. Abe got that quicker than I did. I found it in another section of the library that has graphic novels. We thought it was just the one section in the Teens books, but those are mostly superheroes and other lighter stuff, so I was very pleased to find this other section. We also got a Conan one for Abe, and Harley Quinn and Pigeons from Hell for both of us. I am not interested in Conan at all.

Now I am reading Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which I keep spelling Bathman...). I am liking it more and more. My favorite Batman, I think, will always be Michael Keaton. He was just everything I thought Batman should be. I think that I would never have picked Michael Keaton to play Batman and that is what makes him so perfect. He is an unassuming height, but not too short. He is polite and quite and refined in his tux but not boring looking. He has a twinkle in his eye that shows his intelligence and wit. But in his suit, he is powerful and serious. Strong and purposeful. This is what I think of Batman, not Michael Keaton, who I would guess is a bit of a weirdo but cool. Anyways, I am still enjoying this comic. Not quite my favorite art style, but OK. I did a tracing of a one page comic and I think it turned out well.

I also listened to Animal Farm on my commute last week. That book is a bit of a downer. Not what I was expecting. I think I was thinking of another book of his when I got the audio book. And now I am listening to Dubliners. I can get a complete short story or two in each way. I am not enjoying it as a car ride listen as much as I enjoyed Eragon. I actually really liked that one and need to put the next one on hold. The weird thing is that the last four or five books on CD I have gotten have been read by someone with a British accent.

Anyways, after the library we went to a cafe. (I almost wrote cage. Wouldn't it have been weird if we had gone to a cage?) They had a little bucket for donating to the businesses that were burned down in Greenwood a few weeks ago. Since then (Oct 23) and including then there have been a total of 10 fires in the area, most if not all apparently arson. Crazy! I don't know what is going on in Greenwood. The businesses that were destroyed in the first fire (which was so huge that the sirens woke Abe and me and it smelled of smoke at our place a 20-30 minute walk away (5 or less in the car) - well, none of them had insurance. They were all small, so not shocking. But the Greenwood area seems to be really pulling together to get the Green Bean Coffeehouse back going again. I think they help women in need get jobs there as jumping off points.

Uh, anyways, the cafe we went to was nice, though very small. I have no idea what the name is. I had a glass of milk. :) Abe and I sat there and read the comics we had just got at the library. Fun stuff.

When you need a bib

Man I had a weird day yesterday. We had a meeting, the doc team, to talk about another meeting we were going to have. No kidding. I was pretty tired, so I grabbed a diet coke (I am too picky to drink coffee at work). Lucas went to plug the laptop into the projector, but I had set my drink in a coil of the wire so we almost spilled it. Almost. Then he gets everything ready and I grab my coke to get a drink and drop it upside down in my lap and spilled half a can of coke in my lap. I totally looked like I wet my pants. I couldn't stop laughing about that for a good 5 minutes. I dabbed at myself with tissue, but it didn't really do anything, so I had to sit through the 3 hour meeting with coke in my lap. On the bright side, it was long enough that I didn't have to walk out of the meeting room looking like I peed my pants.

Then later, Lucas IMed me that he had something to give me. I had been working hard on editing an IT doc. I read the thing and nearly jumped out of my skin as Lucas started waving the thing over the wall of the cubicle. I turned to get it and say something and laugh, but when I concentrate like that, I typically forget to swallow my own saliva (as opposed to others'?) and totally drooled all over myself when he went to hand it to me. He laughed and said it wasn't that good. Debra had given him a hat and he took the cardboard piece inside it and decorated it to look like Geordi's visor. Which was pretty funny. But then I was so embarrassed from drooling on myself. Now it is up on my shelf next to the Borg bear I got at my first Secret Snowman at work.

The shawl is coming along nicely. I am on the 5th stripe of color. The stripe I am on now is some hand spun, hand dyed that I finished last night. I used black and green, but it just looks gray. I think I can do better next time using much less black and more green. I love dyeing wool. I want to go get some undyed yarn and try dyeing that. They sell lots of different kinds at the Weaving Works in the U District. Not my favorite store, but unfortunately, they have a good supply for spinners and dyers. That is where I have to go to get my dye and stuff. The more I dye, the more I want to dye from plants. There is a book I would like to get that is called "The Dyers Garden" but I would have to figure out a way to do all that "gardening" in our apartment. And I am a notorious brown thumb, so I would probably want to chat up my cousin Jenny who's fingers are all green.

I was watching Jeopardy while I was writing this and I had guesses for most and was wrong for almost all of those. I am so not getting on that show ever... I got "What is Iron Giant?" right...

Fillings suck, Fluevogs rock

I got a filling today and my jaw hurts. Abe says it looks a little swollen. It took 1 hr and 45 min. I took a half day off afterwards, and I am really glad I did. I was pretty out of it for a while. And now it just hurts. And I am so tired. This was a bigger one than the others I have had. And they had to redo one that I had a few years ago. Blegh. I have such a headache.

I have read more of the Comics and Sequential Art book by Will Eisner. I am really enjoying it. I also started drawing out a rough rough sketch of a comic from the Office Cowboy story. The problem is, I think I need to leave in almost all of the narration to complete the analogy.

On the knitting front, I have just about finished the first of the 4th Rockin' Sock Club kit. This is definitely my least favorite sock so far, both on color and pattern. Ah well. A lot of the other people in the club love it. I am also working on what I hope will be a great little black and dark green cropped cardigan. And I have turned the heel and started the foot (still in the gusset) of the Viper Pilots socks (which I LOVE).

Next weekend I am going up to Bellingham to do a garage sale with my friend Rijl. So Abe and I have been running through our stuff trying to find what to get rid of. We already have two boxes. Some movies and video games and clothes. Even a stick of RAM. LOL. We are finding some neat stuff. Like some of my old books on drawing comics that Abe can refer to. And the 1965 Lord of the Rings paperback trilogy that belonged to my dad that my mom read when she was pregnant with me. (I was not born in 65...) And a giant sudoku book , whichi s great for when I am watching TV. I also found an old black angora sweater, that I just need to watch. I just need to hand wash it.

Last saturday was our anniversary, so we went downtown and had piroshkies. Yummy. Abe's was essentially a Russian corn dog! Man I would have been sick if that had been my lunch. Then we went to the comic shop in Pike Place, which has a ton of graphic novels, but we didn't actually get anything. I almost got the second volume of Fables, but I will wait. I even got to peak in the Fluevog place on the way to Pike Place. Boy oh boy, those shoes make me drool. They are/were having a huge sale.

Heres the conversation Abe and I had about the sale. I showed him the shoes I want.

(12:44:09 PM) Abe: hey lady
(12:44:12 PM) Angela (gmail): hey
(12:44:16 PM) Angela (gmail): i want these!
(12:44:17 PM) Angela (gmail): http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=fresh&p=3&pp=1&view=detail&colourID=2585 (Friends|Sharon|Green)
(12:44:35 PM) Abe: those're pretty awesome
(12:44:49 PM) Angela (gmail): and these:
(12:44:50 PM) Angela (gmail): http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=fresh&p=6&pp=1&view=detail&colourID=2579 (Minis|Dollface|Blue)
(12:45:01 PM) Abe: wow
(12:45:12 PM) Angela (gmail): OMG. And these:
(12:45:13 PM) Angela (gmail): http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=fresh&p=14&pp=1&view=detail&colourID=2557 (Bellevues|Libby Smith|Olive & Gray)
(12:45:25 PM) Angela (gmail): (any of the colors on that one)
(12:45:28 PM) Abe: those are my least favorite so far
(12:45:40 PM) Abe: the black and red is cool though
(12:46:19 PM) Abe: http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=fresh&p=6&pp=1&view=detail&colourID=2578 (Minis|Dollface|Red)
(12:46:23 PM) Abe: those are awesome as hell
(12:46:36 PM) Angela (gmail): http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=sale&pp=1&view=detail&p=8&colourID=2497 (Blind Faiths Hi|Sigourney|Black)
(12:46:48 PM) Angela (gmail): I love the blues ones you linked
(12:46:58 PM) Angela (gmail): 'http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w=sale&pp=1&view=detail&p=10&colourID=2498 (Pin ups|Miss April|Black and White, or Turquoise, Gray & Black)
(12:47:01 PM) Angela (gmail): in blue or black
(12:47:19 PM) Abe: wow I can;t decide
(12:47:25 PM) Abe: I *think* the black
(12:48:00 PM) Angela (gmail): I freakin' love fluevogs!!
(12:48:14 PM) Angela (gmail): just not the orange on those last ones
(12:48:17 PM) Angela (gmail): I am not a hooker
(12:48:21 PM) Abe: HAHAHAHA
(12:48:24 PM) Angela (gmail): but if I were, I would probably get those
(12:48:49 PM) Abe: they're the same color as the cones construction guys use
(12:48:56 PM) Angela (gmail): yeah
(12:49:26 PM) Angela (gmail): some of their sale shoes are more than 60% off right now
(12:50:58 PM) Angela (gmail): sigh. some of them are so lovely
(12:51:08 PM) Abe: ok
(12:51:16 PM) Abe: yes they really are awesoem shoes
(12:52:56 PM) Angela (gmail): I just hope that they aren't trying to get rid of their stock on all those shoes
(12:53:00 PM) Angela (gmail): that they will keep making them
(12:53:26 PM) Abe: yeah
(12:53:29 PM) Abe: that would blow
(12:53:39 PM) Abe: those were some of the coolest of their shoes that you've ever showed me