my mind is a terrible wasted thing...

no, wait. that's not how it goes.

so, i have a disability check that i receive every month from the VA from my time in the army. no, it's not from that time i fell off the barstool.

anyhoo. i needed to change the bank this check comes to so i call up the handy dandy little number to take care of things. we go through the usual question and answer period to prove that i am who i say i am.

her: your name?
me: (gave it to her)
her: date of birth?
me: august 1955
her: day you went into service?
me: oh man. i haven't thought of that in a while. wait a minute, yes! it was 1994.
her: uh, ma'am? 1994?
me: yes, i think so.
her: ... we show the date to be quite a bit earlier.
me: no... i graduated high school in 1993, spent a year in college... no, it was definitely 1994.
her: ... and you were born in 1955?
me:
her:
me: (suddenly realizing) !! OH! no! it was 1974! 1974!

we started laughing so hard that we couldn't even continue for a while.

her: i was trying to not be rude but i was thinking wow; born in 55 and graduated HS in 95?
me: yeah; i was slow. man, i haven't even had anything to drink today! (well, that set her off again and it was some time before we could proceed)

i told her i just knew what she was going to do when she hung up with me; tell everyone around her about the nutjob she had on the phone. she said there wasn't anyone around to tell and i told her that was a shame. what a wasted opportunity! well, we finally finished our business and she very nicely told me to be sure to take my medication.

see? public service isn't dead after all.

no... i'm not becoming a video blog

but you just HAVE to see this!

harvey korman leads to...

tim conway.



which, of course, leads you right back to...

harvey korman. enjoy.

ok. i know it's a cop-out but...

kind of a neat follow-up to my last post.

it's not tourettes, i swear

but i have realized i am unable to say "dear leader's" name without swearing either before or after i say his name.

and...

i've actually tried.

*snerk*

i have a very smart daughter; very aware in some ways as i mentioned here. keep this in mind. there are times, however, when i cannot believe what she has just said.

case in point numero uno:

we were discussing sylvia plath and the fact that she committed suicide by sticking her head in the oven. my darling intelligent daughter observed that someone would really have to want to die to go that way. after discussing it some more i realized that she thought people who stuck their head in the oven cooked themselves! *snerk* i laughed so hard and long on that one i thought i was going to have an attack. i mean, she didn't even have the excuse of never having a gas oven in the house! heh. at least she's not alone.

case in point numero two-o:

last nite when she came home from work, she asked us if we noticed anything different in the front yard. nope. we took a look. there was what looked like a little sapling in the front yard! she said she had planted it.

us: you planted it?
her: yes.
us: where did you get a tree to plant?
her: i found it on fenton street! there were some planted that looked just like this one and it was just laying there so i picked it up and planted it.
us: how did you plant it? did you dig a hole for it?
her: ...no. i just stuck it in the ground.
us: wow. did it have a root ball?
her: a what?
us: a root ball; some roots or something.
her: um. no.
us: honey. that's not a tree, that's a stick. it's not going to grow unless it has some roots.
her: oh *stricken face*

oh, *snerk* indeed :)

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

i've never been that impressed with crochet as a craft. i think this is mostly because, when i was growing up, the crochet you saw was that gawd-awful eye-gouging color-combos of acrylic in granny square vests.

i mean... that's enough to scar a girl for life.

so, several years ago now, i learned to knit. loved the knitting and wanted to learn for two basic reasons: 1) sweaters and 2) socks. i could never find the kind i wanted so i wanted to learn to make my own. i could already sew; i had that aspect of clothing covered (heh). but the crochet? still not interested.

then.

well.

this started me thinking "maybe crochet isn't so bad after all". look at all that wavy stripey goodness. i thought "hmmm. i could probably find a knit stitch that would give me basically the same effect". *whew* crochet successfully fended off.

then. oh the evil that is moonstitches. i saw this and began to think "i need to learn to crochet. there is no way i can do that by knitting." i lusted after this blanket. i realize that the phrase "pure lust" is kind of an oxymoron but there it was.

pure. lust. blanket. gah. urgle.

then, as if this wasn't bad enough, moonstitches has to go and crochet this. not only does she have no shame in crocheting something this droolingly marvelous but then she posts pictures of it!

MUST LEARN CROCHET NOW!

thank goodness i'm surrounded by brilliant women. enter one (sadly blogless) becky. this woman is a fiber genius. she does spinning, knitting, needlework, quilting, and crocheting (and probably a host of other things as well). she looked at closeup pictures of the hexagons in the hexagon blanket and figured out what i need to do. she then showed me basic crochet and explained it all. then she got me started on all the little centers (i decided to take an assembly line approach). once i got a ton of little centers done i was able, with her previous instructions, to go to the next step. then a friend at work got me working on the next steps then the lovely tutorial put up by moonstitches got me to the joining step! becky was also able to track down the crochet stitch used in that lovely scarf. see? i told you she was genius!

crochet is fun! i love it!


oh, remember what i said about granny squares? yep. guess what's next?