Melyssa-with-a-Y

The "rules" for the Olympic knitting competition say that we're allowed to do a test swatch of our project before the thing actually starts. I decided that it wasn't difficult enough to do a multidirectional scarf, I wanted to do it in two colors. :) The girls at KH warned me about weaving in lots of ends, but I'm brave! (By way of explanation, the yarn end of the first blue triangle is really far away from the end of the red triangle, so I will have to cut and re-start for each new triangle.) So here's the test swatch. (I didn't feel like cutting the blue to start another triangle.) It looks really cool, I think. Of course, the final product will be wider than this, 5" or 6" across instead of 3". In other knitting news, I finally finished the hood part of Sam's sweater, so all that's left is to put it together, create the drawstring parts, and block it. I'll post some pics of it when it's all one piece. (Soon - I'm gi...

... whether it's an Olympic Dream or a knitting-related dream. ;) A bunch of us have decided to participate in Yarnharlot's Knitting Olympics . The idea is to start knitting something when the Olympic flame is lit in Torino, and be done with it by the time the flame is extinguished at the end of the games. That's February 10 to February 26, in case you were wondering. Of course, depending on your skill level, that could be a real challenge, or a straight scarf. I'm going to make a multidirectional scarf . (much harder than a straight scarf, really.) Dani is still trying to figure out what she's making. There are three or four other girls (in Atlanta and DC) participating in our little group, and hundreds have signed up on Yarnharlot's page. I think she's even going to give out medals. :) Unrelated - we had Yenta birthday dinner at TenPenh tonight, since Judy happened to be in town, and all three of our birthdays are in Jan/Feb. YUMMY. I am going to have...

... or maybe it's just the paint fumes? For some reason, any time they paint or do any kind of re-furbishing work in the apartments in my building, MY apartment fills with fumes so bad it gives me an instant headache. Now that I think about it, I did see them delivering new kitchen cabinetry over the weekend. (As Val found out the hard way, they won't re-do anything in these apartments until the person moves out. Otherwise, I'd have a new stove/oven by now!) So, if you talk to me tomorrow and I'm a little loopy, this might be why. But I shouldn't complain - my parents lost power AGAIN tonight. bummer.

I am not the only one whose measuring sheepie died a terrible death! However, Phyl-phyl's take on the situation was far funnier than mine. :) (Viewer Discretion is Advised) * and many thanks to D. for coming up with the appropriate song lyric!

Golden Globe Commentary so far - Happy Moments: Sandra Oh won for Grey's Anatomy S. Epatha Merkerson won for Lackawanna Blues (and she got to bring Jesse L. Martin as her DATE! SO not fair!) Hugh Laurie won for House Mary-Louise Parker beat 4 Desperate Housewives for Best Actress in a TV Series-Comedy ("Weeds" on Showtime) John Williams wins again! I can't wait to see Memoirs of a Geisha. I wonder if the other movie score-writers just write off the award whenever he is nominated? Most touching moment so far - Mary-Louise Parker, in her acceptance speech, also mentioned what a wonderful man John Spencer was. This is probably the only time he'll be mentioned (except for the In Memoriam montage, which is basically a "who gets the most applause" competition...) since West Wing wasn't nominated for ANYTHING. Worst dressed - Virginia Madsen is about to pop out of her dress (Mariah Carey is too, but that's not unusual)! Harrison Ford needs to shave, as ...

As Dani pointed out, I am going to try to use Billy Joel lyrics as blog titles for the foreseeable future. (Or at least until after the concert.... but we'll see how it goes.) Fortunately, there are plenty of songs to choose from! :) I went to the gym this morning (third time this month! yeah!) and then D and I went for lunch/brunch. The thing about trying to eat healthy, at least at the Metro29 diner, is that it's much more expensive than eating junk food. It was very difficult to avoid ordering the fries... but D was nice and gave me 2 small pieces of her giant french toast. Yum. Saturday, we wandered by Knit Happens. I had to replace the sheep measuring tape that Marc surgically disemboweled in LA (see photo), and D needed help with her sock knitting, from resident guru Holly. I bought a book about " Modular" knitting . I've always liked geometric shapes and angles -- that's what I usually draw when I'm doodling during a conference call -- so this rea...

The ticketmaster site was very busy, but I managed to get two tickets to Billy Joel! Whooopeeee! Now, of course he'll have to announce a second show in DC -- he's playing 7 times at Madison Square Garden in Jan/Feb, three times in Philly... and he always plays at least two nights in DC. He's also playing at the MGM Grand in Vegas in April - anybody up for a road trip? :)

I am so excited! I heard on the radio this morning that Billy Joel will be playing at the MCI Center on March 16th! YAY! I have seen him every time he's been to DC since I was in high school, from the now-defunct Caps Center/USAir Arena, to nosebleed-level seats at the MCI Center -- and every time, I've gone with my MOM! We love Billy. :) He hasn't produced any new music recently, but the tour is to promote his "My Lives" 4-CD (plus DVD) set. Don't know if I'll buy it, since I pretty much already own everything he's ever done! heh (So as long as he doesn't drive into any trees between now and March 16th, it ought to be a great show!) He's so much fun in concert.

Today I am experiencing some form of mild depression - or maybe just mad-at-the-world? or maybe the winter blahs? I feel like nothing went right this weekend. I'm finally over the jetlag from London (they say it takes as many days to recover as time zones you pass through), but maybe it's some residual disappointment because USC lost the Rose Bowl. :( hmm... and Verizon cut off my DSL over the weekend because I owe them a whopping $1.94... I just feel like everything is going wrong and there's nothing I can do about it. And I got stuck at mom & dad's until 11pm last night because somehow the network printer doesn't seem to want to print anything and I can't figure out why. The blah's are probably also tied to the fact that I seem to have gained 10 lbs or more last year, and am not making it to the gym after work, so nothing fits right. UGH. On the one hand, it's a bummer that I gave away my larger clothes when I lost weight. On the other hand, ...

Here's a link to my Kodak Gallery album of pictures from last week.

So I went to Radio Shack today and picked up the $9.99 earbud for Skype so I could call my brother in Australia. It's not that I didn't think that it would work... but I just didn't know what would happen. Clearly, so many people are using it that they must be doing something right. I signed up (my ID is MelyssaF, for those of you who are interested) and found Bryan online, and decided to call him. What the heck, it's 1:45pm on Friday there! Well, it works -- We are chatting as I write this. It's very cool! I'm definitely going to have to set up mom and dad to do this. I remember thinking it was funny when people first got telephones and they used to say that it sounded like the person they were talking to was "in the next room" - but this little headset works that well, too! And when he called me back (just to test it), my computer rang like a telephone! Funny. He's off to the gym now, as it's Friday afternoon and he doesn't have a j...

Monday night, we went back to the Gaucho restaurant for dinner. Mom was smart enough not to order the fish this time. ;) I had a burger. Yes, it seems silly, but it was a tremendous sirloin burger, with a big slice of shaved parmesan on top, and marinated mushrooms underneath. Yum. Mom also tried their beef empanadas, which were very tasty. This time, we didn't have dessert. (we stopped at Tesco and bought ice cream instead -- we had to replace the stuff in the house that we had eaten during the week!) That night there was a Fawlty Towers marathon on TV, with commentary from the actors and other news people and comedians. I haven't laughed that hard in a loooong time. :) Tuesday was a long, busy day. Mom & Dad got up at 6am to get ready to leave. The car service was coming at 7. After they left, I tried to go back to bedp, but that big creaky house got the better of me. I went downstairs and turned on the tv (we never did figure out how to get the bedroom tv to work...

The only problem with sleeping late in the house is that, to save money, the heat automatically turns off after 10:30am. So by noon, it was a little chilly -- then again, it's only just above 60 degrees when the heat is ON! We decided to venture out into the world and see what was open. Some of the shops in the high street in Hampstead were open and having sales. We looked at boots again, but nothing really caught our attention. We walked down to Belsize Park and had hamburgers at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen . It's sort of like an upscale Fuddrucker's... excellent huge burgers and fries with all kinds of toppings. But really, that was the extent of our time out. We went back to the house and I decoded the fancy-shmancy washing machine and did some laundry. (at least it wasn't one of those washer-dryer combo machines, those scare me!) I watched Muppet Treasure Island and Annie, and then had to relinquish the remote to Mom & Dad for the Poirot Mystery. I have done...

Well, we made it to 2006. I can't believe 2005 went by so quickly! Amazing. Friday afternoon we did go to the British Museum, but we were so exhausted and it was so rainy and gross outside, that we did a quick run-through of the money exhibit and the early greeks & romans, and then had to go sit down for a while. Dad came and found us and we all went to dinner at the Punjab (I knew we'd have Indian food at least once, and we just happened upon this place, between the Museum and Picadilly, where the theater was.) It was YUMMY. Top notch. And we're lucky we got there when we did - by the time we left, it was very crowded! Phantom was wonderful. I am glad I finally saw it, and now I understand why Sarah Brightman became such a big deal when she appeared on the scene ... the vocal range of the soprano part is in the upper stratosphere! I might have to get the original soundtrack. And the theater was absolutely beautiful (Her Majesty's). There were a few points when...