I am so frustrated at the moment. I should be prepping for class, but instead I'm stuck in an endless loop with my health insurance company's pharmacy line because apparently there is no option to talk to a human being. Well, at least until I pounded the zero key and yelled into the phone. Then I got a very rude young man who informed me that my prescription was denied coverage because there is an over the counter version of the drug. Apparently, it doesn't matter what the doctor prescribes, if there is an over the counter version, you can't get the prescription... well that is unless you want to spend your month's food money for it. What I'd like to know is why then does the prescription version exist if there's an over the counter version, that's apparently exactly the same.


My theory is that all the frustration and aggravation (not to mention the hoops that you have to jump through) that the insurance companies force you to go through for a simple problem with a simple solution is just to make you never use your insurance. To just pay into every month with every paycheck, but when you are sick or need a prescription, decide that the illness is more tolerable than finding a doctor that actually takes your shitty plan and than pray that he or she gives you a prescription that isn't a $40 copay or denied. ARGH!!!!


So if you don't see a lot of knitting here, its because I scratched my fingers off from eczema itching because the insurance company denied me the medicine that would help me heal.**






**Ok, so I can get the over the counter lotion to help things, but that lotion (at least from my preliminary internet search) might involve driving to at least 4 different drug stores to locate. Or I could just order it online. But whatever! I'm pissed at my insurance company. And I'm even more pissed that I watched that entire VP debate and they didn't talk at all about the topics I'd like to hear about. Foreign policy is important, but what about policies aimed at the people in this country?!

Anyone else found PaperBackSwap.com? My friend Mandy showed it to me last night. I've already posted 15 books to swap and sent out 5! I've requested two, and now instead of doing work, I'm going to look for more to request.

Ok, a group of four college girls dressed in athletic gear just passed underneath my office window. One of them was singing (very loudly) Billy Joel's For the Longest Time.


Weird, right?

So I started working on Silken Scabbard from Stitch Diva Studios. I just got to the 3 needle knitting to make the hem for the neckline. I completed it and admired my work. Then I looked at some other people's on Ravelry. And I thought to myself, "hmmmm... mine looks different than theirs."


"Everyone else's horseshoe cables seem to be elongated, but mine are very short. Oh no, maybe my row gauge is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off."


Then I knit another two rounds. And then I reread part of the instructions.


The horseshoe cable is cabled on every 8th row, not every 4th row. I'm apparently knitting pattern illiterate.


My options appear to be:
1. Rip four days worth of work and start over.
2. Accept that my horseshoes will be tight and pray that it doesn't eat too much more yarn than elongated horseshoes.
3. Consider it a design element of the collar and start elongating my cables for the body and sleeves.
4. Drink a shot of tequila to numb the pain and sleep on it.


I'm leaning toward number 4. If I decide on 2 or 3, you'll probably see a picture tomorrow. If I decide on 1, you'll probably never hear of this sweater again.

Kevin and I went on an adventure this afternoon to a pumpkin patch in New Jersey. It seems that there isn't a lot of pumpkin picking in the city-proper, so we enjoyed a journey involving sitting in a bunch of traffic to do something nature-like.





We went to the Demarest Farm in Hillsdale, NJ. I'll admit that we went there in part because when I was watching the news Friday morning, the weather lady was out there doing weather "on location."





The place was packed with people, but they were fully staffed to manage the large crowds. We had to wait a bit for the hayride out to the pumpkin field. (Not really the pumpkin patch because all of the pumpkins were already harvested and just spread out in the field.)





It was fun picking out unique pumpkins. We also explored the large farm store and bought some apple cider donuts and a fresh apple pie (need to do lots of Wii Fit this weekend!). We had a bit of an adventure getting home with getting caught up in the roads and traffic around the Garden State Plaza Mall, which seems absolutely insane. It was a mall with valet parking! We made a few wrong turns because we missed our exit and ended up circling the mall parking lot to get back to the highway.


This evening I picked Scabbard back up and continued knitting. I ended up going with plan 3. I'm elongating the horseshoe cables like they should be. I think the combination doesn't look too bad.





The yarn is Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in Boheme. Here's a look at the sleeve cable which is a squished horseshoe (my bad) into a braided cable:





And one last picture modeled by Mr. Pumpkin...





So I'm moving forward on this one. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It is a bit slow, but that's because it is getting bigger with the raglan increases. I'm excited though to merge the cables eventually under the arm. I think that that is a really cool design feature.


Hammie!

For whatever reason, I keep thinking of pirates whenever I think of the word scabbard. Apparently I'm not too far off, I just looked it up in the dictionary (ok, online dictionary) and it means sheath, like for a dagger or sword. So I guess my scabbard is a sheath for my body...





I added an inch to the raglans by knitting an extra repeat of the 8 raglan rounds. I think it fits much better with that (hopefully that will remain true when the sleeves are knit into place and not just on waste yarn). I've also finished the 15 rounds to join the horseshoe cables under the arm and another 7 rounds beyond that.





I'm happy with the modification to the neckline (not the mistake of twisting every 4 instead of 8 rounds; it was no mistake... it was a design element). I think it looks nice and makes my scabbard more unique.



I've been able to knit a lot today while finally catching up on the last season of Sex in the City and watching the movie. It's about time, huh? Columbus day gave me a nice reprieve from teaching because while today is Tuesday, at school it is Monday, so no class for me. And yes, I ought to be getting ahead on things, but I've got my lectures ready to go for this week and I have to be at my office all day tomorrow (also without teaching), so I needed to leave myself work to do for tomorrow. (Ha! There's never NO work!).


So, Rhinebeck is Sunday. Do you think (if I go with the short sleeve version) I'll be wearing a new sweater there?

"They've stretched the health of the woman to mean anything."**


I'm sorry, but what the fuck does that mean?!


I don't want to get all political, but when the debate gets me so angry that I have to put my knitting down because I've destroyed any semblance of gauge by strangling the stitches and yelling at the TV like a woman possessed, I've got to share my outrage with more than my husband, hamster, and TV.


Time to do a shot of something stiff, maybe a few relaxing yoga poses, tink back the strangled stitches, and go to bed.


**I'm pretty sure this was what he said. It might not be exactly word for word.

Just as a follow up to the previous entry (and again not to extend the political debate because that's not what I'm about here), but there's a pretty good article at Slate that made me feel better and sums up a distinction between the two camps that I hadn't thought of, but that I think is dead on.

Safe, Legal, and Boring:CAN OBAMA TAKE THE POLITICS OUT OF ABORTION?

A few things that I'm proud of...


1. I went to Rhinebeck and only came home with 3 skeins of yarn. Two skeins of black sock yarn for gloves for Kevin, and one skein of sock yarn for me. (I also brought home a summer sausage, but that's not yarn.)


2. I did the 45 minute cardio workout DVD this morning instead of the 20 minute one I've been doing for the last several months. I was worried about doing the longer one because I remembered it as being very difficult to complete and being exhausted at the end. I did it today and felt it was pretty easy, and I was energized after finishing. Yay for improved endurance!


3. I wrote two 35 question multiple choice exams in 4 hours. That may not seem impressive to you, and my students may or may not wish I spent more time on the questions, but they are done and photocopied. Woohoo, I can knit tonight instead of work!


4. I pumped my own gas yesterday. As a former Jersey girl who lives in a part of New York with many full service gas stations, I can count on one hand the number of times I have pumped my own gas (one more time and it goes to two hands!).


Off to a meeting... if I don't fall asleep, there will be another thing to be proud of!!!

Where did the time go since my last post? I guess I had a pretty good streak of getting up, going to work, coming home, going to sleep. And thus blogging gets left out.


We can start with some Rhinebeck photos. Kathy, Cordelia, and I went up on Sunday and had a lot of fun. It was Kathy's first time at Rhinebeck, so Cordelia and I enjoyed showing her the ropes. As always there was an overwhelming number of people and animals and yarn and fiber related things. At least for me (from looking at other people's posts about their adventures at Rhinebeck, this may not be a universal law), the first one or two big festivals that I attended were very expensive because I wanted (and bought) everything I saw. Now that I have some experience, I actually just enjoy looking and touching and am not has possessed by the need to own. I did pick up some black sock yarn to make new gloves for Kevin. And some very pretty hand-painted sock yarn for some socks for me. Of course, I don't have any pictures of those, but I do have pictures of lots of animals.





I was wearing my Kauni Clappy (because it was very chilly!). I can't tell you how many people stopped me to tell me how beautiful it was. Most everyone immediately recognized both the pattern and the yarn. The best compliment, however, had to come from the designer herself!





How cool is that?!


We also managed to catch a bit of the Punkin Chuckin contest.





The kids involved created some pretty impressive machines. And everyone loved watching the pumpkins smash after soaring through the air.




A few more tidbits...





Here the hamster shows his appreciation for hand knit socks.





The scabbard is long enough for the final hem. Then I get to work on the sleeves!!!