I finished my Regia mini-ringel socks last night while watching Dogville (a film about which all I can say at this time is "Whoa.") To recap: Cari sent me two balls of Regia 5216 for my birthday back in October. I knit them from the top down with 2.25mm double-pointed needles. And I'm finally done! Can you believe how wide and flat my feet look in this photo? Just call me Pancake Toes:



I didn't want the striping to match exactly, but I also didn't think it would turn out so different from one sock to the other. Though both yarn balls were from the same dye lot and I centre-pulled both, the stripes came out in the opposite direction! So not only did I start with a different colour, but the sequencing is also reversed:



I'm happy to be done with these, though I probably won't wear them for a while, since I'm a bit sick of looking at them. I don't think that can be avoided with socks. I love them, though -- look: my feet are dancing!

Yikes! Really?



What Classic Movie Are You?

Here's yet another story on the Oscar nominations, just in case you (like me) are oddly obsessed with it all: "The gods must be crazy."

The winner of the Whitbread literary award has been announced: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. The narrator of the murder-mystery story is a boy with Asperger's syndrome (a form of autism). I cringed a bit to read in the Guardian story that Haddon is "discussing a film of Curious Incident with a production company involving the star Brad Pitt." Anyway, another book for the list of must-reads.

There's lots of good reading in last weekend's Guardian Review, actually. (I've made that sound surprising, and of course it's not.) Two highlights:

1. The Guardian and Penguin Books held a contest to select new cover art (photographs) for four modern classics; one of the judges was Esther Freud (author of Hideous Kinky, great-granddaughter of Sigmund, daughter of Lucien), and she's written about the selection process: "Picture perfect". From there, you can look at the winners and runners-up.

2. Reading about editors thrills me as much as reading about good grammar. (A lot, in other words.) There's a nice long profile of Robert Silvers, tracing the evolution of the New York Review of Books, which he edits: "The writer's editor". How could I not love it? This is my kind of editor:

"There is only one story you need to know about Bob," says the writer Timothy Garton Ash. "Four o'clock on Christmas day: the family is gathered around the turkey, and the phone rings. It's Bob. 'Tim,' he says, 'How are you doing? On column six of the third galley, there's a dangling modifier.'"

(Plus I learned a new word from this article: bloviation.)

No time for knitting this week, but I'm hoping to have some time on the weekend. Happy Friday!

I've still got movies on my mind. It comes from reading other blogs, since several people are sounding off on the Oscar nominations. I'm sad that I'll miss the awards ceremony again, but I'm counting on Em and Shannon, among others, to keep me posted. In the meantime, I've been reading Oscar-related articles like these:

"The rise of the independents," about how the academy has (at least this year) veered away from the big Hollywood studios and the safe and traditional films/roles -- consider, for example, that, "in the Battle of the Sea Captains," Johnny Depp was nominated, but Russell Crowe wasn't. Or that only two of the five original screenplay nominees are American, and one of those is an indie film and the other is a cartoon.

"Oscar's year of firsts," which also focuses on the surprises in this year's nominations. Plus, shocking trivia: "it's the first time two movies with colons in their titles were nominated for best picture." Yes, you heard it here first.

"Oscar produces some boffo shocks": Yeah, yeah, more on how surprising it all is, but a Canadian story, and we're really pleased about Denys Arcand's nominations.

"Tower of bagel," which is a BBC correspondent's perspective on the nominations, and let's face it, British people are funny:

For me at least, the awards season is interminable. I find it quite difficult to remain enthusiastic about whether the fourth Orc from the left in the battle for Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King deserved best supporting ogre from the New York Guild of Pizza Deliverers.

Can I take a month-long leave of absence from work to watch movies and knit sweaters? Please?

Click on the lovely Miss Bea to see the results of a little photo shoot from the weekend.

Of all the films nominated for Academy Awards, I have only seen two (Mystic River and The Last Samurai)! It's a new low, I think. (I just looked at a list of last year's nominees, and there are definitely more films on this year's list that I want to see.) Good news, though: Whale Rider is playing now (better go see it in case it only lasts a week), and Cold Mountain and Lost in Translation are both coming soon. I'll catch up with the rest of the world eventually.

I was thinking about movies last night and trying to come up with my favourites. Here's a partial list of movies that I'll happily watch at any given time: Adaptation (2002), American History X (1998), Annie Hall (1977), Basquiat (1996), Boys Don't Cry (1999), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Cop Land (1997), Do the Right Thing (1989), Double Happiness (1995), Fargo (1996), Flatliners (1990), Good Will Hunting (1997), Grease (1978), Heavenly Creatures (1994), High Fidelity (2000), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Life is Sweet (1990), Little Voice (1998), Manhattan (1979), Moonstruck (1987), Muriel's Wedding (1995), My American Cousin (1986), The Paper Chase (1973), The Red Violin (1998), Rock Star (2001), Say Anything... (1989), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Singles (1992), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Sound of Music (1965), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), To Sir, with Love (1967), Touch of Evil (1958), and When Harry Met Sally (1989).

And look what I just found! Karmavore: Enlightening films for women. (Men, you can watch them, too, but you'll have to keep it to yourself, OK? Shh.) I'm wondering if the women who run this site are Canadian, or just watch a lot of movies, because they include such Canuckistani gems as Kissed (1998), New Waterford Girl (2000), and even one of my all-time favourite documentaries, Talk 16 (1992).

Don't you just love movies? I think I'll set up a page with all these titles and add more as I think of them. I don't know about you, but I can never think of the films I want to see when I'm at the video store (or books at the bookstore, or records at the record store...). I forget how much I enjoy watching good movies more than once.

In the Hours of Fun at the Office department, check out the Oracle of Bacon. I couldn't stump this thing, but I'm quite amused by the Orson Welles / Kevin Bacon connection: "Orson Welles was in The Muppet Movie with Steve Martin. Steve Martin was in Novocaine with Kevin Bacon." Where's the dignity in that for dear old Mr. Welles?

Since I'm back at work today, I've managed to catch up with a few blogs that I've been neglecting due to inhospitable indoor temperatures at home. So I'm clicking around, reading this and that, leaving a comment here and there, when BLAM! I'm at Glampyre, where it's certainly no surprise to find that Stefanie has made a wicked sweater -- that's just what she does -- but I'm in love with her blue-trimmed split-turtleneck top-down raglan number! I love that!

I'm into my second year of knitting now. Last year I made lots of small things for feet, heads, and babies, mostly. Technically I learned a lot, and I certainly picked up speed. I'm proud of all my finished objects. But this year, my friends, is to be the Year of the Sweater. I want to make some sweaters. (In fact, I was all set to order the pattern and wool for the Must Have cardigan, and then I lost my credit card, damn it.) You may remember that I did knit much of a chunky red-and-milky-coffee raglan a few months back, but I'm going to rip that baby and rip it good. I don't want a bulky sweater! I don't buy bulky sweaters, so why did I want to make one? I'll rip it and use that nice bulky yarn for hats and mitts. No, I want to make sweaters I'll wear, like the Must Have and a Rosedale United pullover. (Dear Noro: Please send Kureyon to Threadbear pronto. Arigato.) Oh, and socks. Still obsessed with socks. (Especially because I have a new pair of Birks, and every morning, my shoes say, "Please fill me with homemade socks. Please?" And I hate to disappoint.)

Now this is a news story: "Break-dancers perform for the Pope". The pontiff is reported to have said to the group of kids, "For this creative hard work I bless you from my heart." Then he leapt from his big fancy chair and did the worm across the Vatican floor, ending in a full head spin. (OK, I made up that last part, but can you imagine?)

And congratulations, Calgary, on becoming the murder capital of Canada thus far in 2004!

Dear Neighbours,

Enough. Already. With the freakin' firecrackers.

Yours,
The Foreigner

Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?

OK, the bad news: either I lost my wallet last night or it was stolen. Of course, it contained my credit card, three bank cards, my Taiwan ID card, my health insurance card, and quite a lot of cash. I know! This has never happened to me before (so I'm telling myself that it was bound to). I filed a report at the police station, the best part of which was the last line: "Please assist me in finding the above lost items which were lost (stolen) due to carelessness." Ouch! Rub it in, why don't you? I'm hoping I left it in a taxi, but I don't think I did. I was in a crowded clothing store and got jostled a bit, so I have a feeling that my purse was picked. Damn! Damn, damn, damn. At least there was nothing sentimental in the wallet, and the wallet itself was cheap. (But damn!)

Good news, please! It's still cold as [insert favourite expletive]. And my poor Billy didn't have a hat! (What's that saying about the cobbler's children?) So I knit a hat for him yesterday -- a whole hat! One strand of bulky black wool and one strand of light worsted oatmeal wool on a 9mm circular needle:



Easy peasy. And look: we have a huge tin of hot-chocky mix. We will survive!

Shocker!


what decade does your personality live in?
quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd

Thanks, Marcia! :)

Thanks for all the sock advice! I just went ahead without any gusset increases, and the sock fits. I'm working my way up the leg; I'm just going to knit until I run out, since I don't want to waste a scrap of precious Koigu. The bad news is that I have to stop working on the sock for a while, as I've sustained a bit of a knitting injury! I use the index finger on my left hand to push the right-hand needle through each stitch, and since I've done that about 80 million times over the past three or four days, I've developed a very painful little spot on that finger. Boo hoo! And all I've got on the go at the moment is two pairs of socks with these tiny, pointy needles, so... I'll just have to start something a little chunkier, I guess. Or read some Proust, if I have any hope of catching up with the other Prousters... (Here's a progress report, ladies: I started Swann's Way last night, read six pages, and fell asleep.)



I really enjoyed watching Far from Heaven. It's a perfect film for anyone who has ever seen a Douglas Sirk film and thought, "Why don't they make movies like that anymore?" Visually stunning, with a perfect score, and while it certainly critiques the perfect appearances of the 1950s middle class (as Sirk did), it does so without making fun of the characters. At first, I was giggling at some of the lines ("Say, Pop, whaddya know about that?"), but the characters had depth beyond their beautifully styled surfaces. If you're not familiar with the films of Sirk, click here to read a bit about two of his best melodramas, "All that Heaven Allows" and the glorious "Written on the Wind." (Make sure you scroll down and look at the film stills. In Sirk's films, the mise-en-scene was almost another character.)

It's another cold day (9 degrees). On Thursday, Bill and I went to the gym just to sit in the hot tub. Last night we finally dragged our butts out of the house at about nine o'clock and went to a bar to play cards. It's so strange that the city is so dead. Today, well, Beatrix is running wild. If she ever has a nap, I might whip up a bulky hat for Billy. For some reason, he doesn't care to borrow my Kittyville hat when he's cold. Harrumph!

You know what I was looking forward to on this holiday? I was looking forward to spending some time on the computer, reading blogs, blogging, and catching up with long-overdue e-mails. But you know what? It's too cold to sit at the computer. Yes, we do have one small electric space heater. But it can't pump out enough heat for the whole apartment, obviously, so at night we have it in the bedroom, and during the day we heat the living room. The computer isn't in the living room. So even though I'm wearing long johns, flannel jammie pants, two T-shirts, and a wool cardigan (and there's a kitten curled up in my lap, with a paw wrapped around her cold nose), it's just really not fun to sit here. So I'm going to go into the living room now. We rented Far from Heaven, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'll leave you with a bit of Bea that I forgot to post yesterday: click here. And keep warm!

Brrr, it's cold in here...

...there must be some Clovers in the atmosphere. Yes, I'm doing cheers to keep warm. It's 10 degrees here (that's 50 Yankee degrees), and let me first say that I know that's not very cold in the grand scheme of things, BUT those of you who are in colder places right now probably have heating. It's probably not 10 degrees in your apartment. It was the same yesterday. Bill and I ventured out -- with long johns under our pants -- to Grandma Nitti's (a restaurant where lots of foreigners go for Western food) and had enchiladas. We cleaned the house in the afternoon, which is what everyone in the city was doing, in order to begin the new year free of last year's clutter. In the evening we went to see The Last Samurai, which I totally enjoyed. The streets were nearly empty, which is very strange. Same thing today. Most people are with family out of town or are staying in, eating and playing mah jongg. Every now and then, someone sets off firecrackers. (It sounded like a warzone out there last night!)

I knitted a bit yesterday on my Koigu sock, and I think I'm at the point of working the heel. Here's a photo, where the colours have been highly manipulated but still aren't quite right:



I'm using the basic short-row toe-up pattern, but I'm totally wary about the heel/instep. Even though various people have assured me that socks made from this pattern do fit around the bend of one's foot, I have trouble accepting this. OK, here's a visual tutorial of my fears:



I can accept that the sock (at 72 stitches) does and will fit well around the orange circumfrences. It's the red circumfrences that worry me. Look at how much farther it is around the red lines than the orange lines! It just seems wrong to me! I'm a bit paranoid because I knit a toe-up Confetti sock in the fall (while I was at the Crotch, actually) and even though the foot fit, it was like a sausage casing around the bend of my foot. I'm considering increasing a few stitches on the instep; does anyone do that with toe-up short-row-heel socks?

I loved everyone's comments over the past couple of days about Chinese stuff. Thanks so much! And best wishes for the Year of the Monkey! Xin Nian Kwai-le! Gongxi Fatsai!

Wednesday is Chinese New Year's Eve. We'll be moving from the Year of the Sheep to the Year of the Monkey. What could be better for this transition than a monkey made of wool? There are two free knitting patterns online that I can find:

Sirdar's ITV monkey

Marion's monkey

I also found a very sweet looking commercial monkey puppet here -- if you listen closely, you can hear it saying, "Put my face on one of Kerrie's finger puppers!"

I think the Sheep-Monkey transition is also the perfect moment to make a sock monkey -- from wool socks, of course. Here are some instructions:

Sock monkey tutorial

How to make a sock monkey

Stella Marrs's sock monkey postcard (my friend Rose made the lovely monkey you see there!)

For something completely different, make some monkey origami:

Monkey origami instructions

Pictures of monkey origami (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil)

If you were born in 1932, 1944, 1956, 1968, or 1980, you're a Monkey. Apparently you're particularly compatible with Rats, like me and Maggi! Here are a few links to pages where you can learn a bit about the Chinese zodiac, Chinese New Year, and specifically the Year of the Monkey:

Chinese New Year

Year of the Monkey

Chinese enter auspicious Year of the Monkey

We're not going away for the holiday (last year at this time, we were off to India!). I'll have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off, and I can't bloody wait. I think it's supposed to be chilly and miserable out, too. I plan to hang out with Billy and Bea and knit, watch movies, drink hot chocolate, read knitting blogs, and catch up on some sleep. Ahh. And I have a request: I'd love it if you leave a comment about your favourite Chinese film, author, artist, food, saying, city -- any anecdote having to do with Chinese culture. (Or ask me a question about Chinese/Taiwanese culture and I'll do my best.) Anything! Here, I'll start:

I think the qipao (chee-pow) is the most elegant and flattering piece of clothing ever; I've been to Chinatowns in Vancouver, Montreal (it's just little), and San Francisco; stinky tofu is seriously one of the worst things I've ever smelled; I love the films of Zhang Yimou (e.g., Raise the Red Lantern); I recommend Jan Wong's books about China; and my favourite Chinese restaurant ever is On Lok on Hastings Street in Vancouver. But if I were to start eating meat again, the first thing I'd want to have is those shopping-mall food-fair sweet-and-sour pork balls! The first complete sentence I learned to say in Mandarin was "Mien li mien yo ro ma?" ("Is there any meat in these noodles?") And did you know that the Chinese equivalent of "wall-to-wall people" is "people mountain, people sea"? OK, now you go.

So sweet!

I'm lucky. I picked up a package on my lunch break on Friday, and it was from Rachael. What do you think was inside? No, not yarn. Something very special and almost as sweet as Rachael herself:



Can you read the label? It's olallieberry jam! I think I can safely say I'm the only person in all of Taiwan with olallieberry jam. Thanks, Rachael! (Click on the jam to see another photo attempt that was intercepted by Beatrix.)

I'm about halfway through the foot of my mini-ringel sock, but last night I started a new project. Shockingly, it's a pair of socks. I have two skeins of Koigu that were burning a hole in my yarn box, and I could no longer resist. To shake things up, I'm going toe up (using Wendy's pattern) AND making them on a circular needle. One sock at a time, though. I'm using a 2.25mm needle that's 80cm long. I like this method a lot. I'm even this close to saying dee-pee-ens, schmee-pee-ens! The Koigu is, of course, a dream. Click here to see the colours (photo via Threadbear): the main colour is a rich bottle green, and there is a lovely dark blue and dark brown, plus variations in colour saturation. I'll take a photo soon; it's dark now, and the flash makes the colours look too bright.

Bill and I are very proud of our little Bea. My friend Danny came over last night, and Beatrix was very sweet and friendly. By popular demand, here she is!



Bea and I hope you're having a great weekend! If perchance you're bored, go on over to the Rock-Along Gallery if you haven't been for a while, because it's still going strong. 'Cause you can't, you won't, and you don't stop; knitters come and rock the sure shot...

Ted Nugent has a reality TV show? Spalding Gray is missing? Our new prime minister is getting good vibes from President Bush? Oh my god, look at Celine Dion! I'm going to stop reading the news.

I took the day off yesterday, which was lovely. Slept in a bit, played with Beatrix, went for a coffee and worked on my mini-ringel sock (about three inches of foot to go before beginning decreases for the toe), went to the yarn shop to buy a long 3mm circular needle for future sock experimentation, walked down to Kongkuan, bought bread at a rare good bakery, and ended up at a second-run theatre watching 28 Days Later. It wasn't really the right film for a sunny day matinee, and it's not the kind of film about which one can say "I liked it," but I would recommend it. On a dark and rainy night, maybe. When you're with someone else. It's intense. After that, I went to the café I like and had a smoothie and fried tofu while reading Middlesex. What a nice day! I need to do that more often.

And at work today, something is happening that never happens. OK, I'm wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt with a pale blue (cashmere!) cardigan. My mate Danny is wearing a white button-down shirt and a pale blue wool pullover. The receptionist is wearing a white button-down shirt and a pale blue cardigan. We're like a cult. I wish I had my camera.

Here's another good link from Carolyn:

Pholph's Scrabble Generator My Scrabble© Score is: 19. What is your score? Get it here.

(p.s. Will someone please leave another comment below? This Evander guy is bugging me.)

There's hardly any graffiti in Taipei, but I've seen this in three or four different spots around the city. It's got to be the cutest graffiti ever. I have no idea what she's about; can anyone in Taiwan fill me in?

I wore my Kittyville hat out today, and I wish I had a Kittyville Kam! Oh, the looks!

I turned the heel of my second Regia mini-ringel sock last night. I love making socks. I could spend hours looking at sock patterns (if I didn't have a job). I even have a fabulous little stash of sock yarn! After this pair of Regia is done, I have another colourway of mini-ringel (5220, I think -- greens), which I picked up in Montreal in the summer. I also have two balls of Patons Kroy (Flax) that I brought from Canada. (Plus I have to make the second Patons Lace Panel sock.) I have two lovely skeins of Koigu (P519, I think), which were a gift from the lovely Rachael. I have two luxurious skeins of Wildfoote (SY12: Bark Cloth), which the fabulous Cari sent over. Lucky, lucky, lucky me! And I've requested two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock (403: Tuscany) from Threadbear. Why would I order sock yarn to be sent halfway around the world? Well, I just thought they may as well throw it in with the Kureyon for my Rosedale United, of course! That's right: shove over and make room on the Rosedale bandwagon. I'll be getting on board in a couple of weeks.

(Has anyone made anything with colour 57? I'd love to see a picture.)

There's a nice long article in the Age today about choosing titles for novels: "Title fight." I know I often judge a book by its title. I would have read The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing (by Melissa Bank) eventually if it'd had a banal title, but the title was the reason I picked it up in the first place. (It's one of my favourite book titles.) (Others, off the top of my head, include The Heart is a Lonely Hunter [Carson McCullers] and Woman Hollering Creek [Sandra Cisneros].) (For books of poetry, of which I've read few, my favourite title is There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do [Michael Ondaatje].) (Man, I hardly ever read anymore....) In the Age article, Julian Barnes says he didn't read Catcher in the Rye until he was over forty, "because I thought it was going to be about baseball in a field." Funny; I never read A History of the World in 10½ Chapters because the title turned me off. What are your favourite titles, or which ones have you avoided?

I'm Bad Hair Viggo


Poet Viggo
What kind of Viggo Mortensen are you?
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Thanks for the link, Carolyn!

Ack!

I have so much to catch up on! I guess that's what Sundays are for. I'll do my best. First, I must confess that I've been neglecting my own brother, Tom, who was good enough to send a photo of himself modeling his new Marsan watchcap:



A successful knitted Xmas gift, especially since he lives in Vancouver and it's been unusually cold there. I also heard from Allison (2L), and she has received her colourful wool socks. No photo, but here's what she said:

These socks are so soft! They are just slightly too big, which means I can bunch them up at the ankle and pretend I'm in a J-Crew catalogue.

Ah, isn't it nice when your work is appreciated? I got a lot of compliments on my Kittyville hat the other day, but that wasn't a very good picture of it, so I took a few more. Here I am wearing my hat on my rooftop:



For a bit more, click here to see the left side of the hat and my view towards Hsintien in the south, and here to see the right side of the hat and the view up Ting Zhou Road in the other direction. I took these photos yesterday afternoon (Saturday). See how I'm only wearing a tank top? It was that warm yesterday.

I've been working a bit on my second mini-ringel sock. I really like the k4p1tbl ribbing -- it's taken from the free pattern for Michelle's Basic Socks. Look at how nice it is:



Hmm, what else did I want to tell you? Oh, right -- I made a wonton for Beatrix. I used bulky yarn, but next time I'd use lighter yarn so the catnip smell is stronger. Still, I'd say it's a success:



I don't want to overload you with cat pictures, but I'm taking them all the time. If you want a little more Beatrix, just click here and here. Oh, and she says she'd make a good mascot for the Grammar Avengers. What do you think?

Did I actually agree to read Proust along with Cari, Rachael, and Em? Aiyo! When am I going to have time for that?

Well, I didn't win a bike, but I am the proud owner of a new rice cooker! I'm thrilled, actually, since I didn't have one of these. You may not even realize that you need one, but trust me, you do. No more pots boiling over on the stove, no more burnt or overcooked rice, no more scraping gluey rice off the bottom of a pot. I just have no idea where I'm going to put it.

(I don't think I've described our kitchen. It's small. Sure, sure, your kitchen is small, too. But no. Mine is SMALL. There are no cupboards or drawers. There is no oven. The fridge is out in the hallway. We have a sink, two gas burners, and about 2.5 square feet of counter. We bought a small toaster oven, and it's on the floor. Our food that doesn't need to be in the fridge is either on top of the fridge (which, remember, is out in the hall) or in a box on the floor beside the fridge. I dare you to have a smaller kitchen than I do.)

Anyway, back to the office party: It was even more tame than last year's party! Last year there was whiskey and lots of toasts. This year there was white wine, but just two bottles per table of twelve. I didn't eat anything too gross, and some of the food was really good. My coworkers are totally unaware that shark fin soup is politically unacceptable; blank stares all around when I tried to explain why I wouldn't eat it. There was some serious karaoke action. And it was all over by ten o'clock. Of course, it was also a Thursday night, so I'm not complaining. (Last year the party was on a Monday night; my Australian coworker and I drank way too much whiskey and then decided it was a good idea to go to a bar after the party and drink beer. Clearly this wasn't a good idea.)

Via a link at knitting notes, I've just discovered Madame Glitchbane's contraptions! I love the Project Time Estimator for Hand Knitted Garments. I guessed at my numbers for a Rosedale sweater, and apparently it'll take me just over five weeks to finish it. So, let's see... if I order yarn tonight, maybe it'll arrive around January 20, and if I start knitting right away, I could be finished by the end of February! This is encouraging!

After work tonight, I'll be going to a fancy hotel with my coworkers, where we'll be served delights such as shark fin soup (no, thanks) and they'll probably sing karaoke. Yes, it's time again for the company's year-end party. (A little behind the Western world, as we're celebrating the end of the year of the goat, not the end of 2003.) (We're actually a little early; the year of the monkey doesn't begin until January 22.) The party will be quite tame, if it's anything like last year's. These parties are definitely not like the drunken and disorderly office parties I've been to in Canada. (Do you know the Phyllis Diller quote? "What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.") And there are draw prizes. A couple of mountain bikes are up for grabs this year, which is pretty sweet -- though I'd be scared to death to ride a bike around here.

No knitting news; whenever I get a minute I work on my second Regia mini-ringel sock. I haven't gotten around to ordering Kureyon for a Rosedale sweater, but I'm going to. I swear!

I'm still horrified by the thought of cosmetic foot surgery. Now some study shows that wearing stilettos -- specifically, dancing in stilettos -- reduces a woman's risk of knee problems! Could this research have been more specific, do you think? "Yes, hello, I'd like a big fat research grant to study the relationship between three-inch heels and knees, please." "Will you be looking at feet, spines, and so on?" "No, just the knees." "All righty, and any consideration of the role played by high heels in the positioning of women as helpless sexual objects within patriarchal culture?" "No, no, just knees." "Okey-dokey! Here you are, then." I appreciate the column in today's Guardian, which points out that

the idea that shoes that force a woman to stand painfully on tiptoe all day are actually good for her does sound as revelatory as Dr Atkins' theory that a bucket of lard for breakfast will do marvels for one's figure.

(It's so good to know, though, that "heavy housework such as scrubbing" is potentially more harmful than wearing stiletto heels. I don't scrub and I wear Birkenstocks: knees of steel, baby!)

It's a triple whammy: (1) our new green-chair-red-carpet decor; (2) a freshly finished Kittyville hat; and (3) the ever-popular Beatrix!



See the wall behind us? It's fake wood paneling made of plastic for that extra classy touch! My designer's name is Rico: Rico Swah-vay. (I'll put a decent photo of the hat in my knitting gallery soon, so you can see its cute earflaps and see the ears without shadows. I love this hat! I have a feeling that I'm going to make this hat again and again.)

Several people have sympathized with the fact that Beatrix was running up pant legs last week. But she has since moved on! Her new favourite game is Get In The Bag! This provides hours of entertainment and has the added bonus of not drawing blood. Here she is in action:



Kids, don't try this at home! I explained to her that a bag is not a toy, but she would not be dissuaded. The funniest part about the photo above actually happened a split-second later: as soon as the flash went off, she lunged toward the camera.

Think about that for a second.

(OK, it was something like watching a Discovery program about kittens struggling to be birthed headfirst from shopping bags.)

***UPDATE***

OK, I'm looking at that shot of me and Bea in front of the green chair, and I'm thinking it doesn't give enough of a sense of the room's red and green violence. So I went and figured out how to make popup images just so I could show you this. Better? But wait, there's more! While I was typing that post, Beatrix was actually playing in a bag. Because we have no enclosed storage space in our apartment, and we bought a package of 800 rolls of toilet paper at Costco, the package of TP is -- and I'm not proud of this -- on the floor under the desk. As I was typing, the cat was in the bag of toilet paper. Then she managed to pull a roll out of the bag and show it who's boss. That's my girl!

The naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games...
--T.S. Eliot, "The Naming of Cats"

May I present to you... Beatrix.

As if having a kitten doesn't provide enough cuteness in itself, I just found this page, which has instructions for making various cat toys shaped like sushi out of felt! I'm in love with these. (And I definitely need to make some toys; the kitten's favourite game at the moment is Run Up the Passing Pant Leg.)

I'm having an allergy day again, as if Mondays aren't bad enough. Plus I'm really tired, having been kept awake by a persistent mosquito and itchy legs last night. (Mosquitoes in January! It's just so wrong.)

Good news on the homefront: we bought some real furniture this weekend! We now have a couch, loveseat, and chair in the living room. Living temporarily in another country is funny -- you do (buy, eat, say, etc.) things that you think aren't really you. I'm not an aesthetic snob, but I know what I like; I've evolved from the years of futons on the floor and cement-block-and-board bookcases, and I've collected things that I like to have in my home. Bill and I have bought art, books, and furniture. I've gradually replaced everyday dishes with 1950s dinerware. We were at the point where I really enjoyed having people visit us at home. I was houseproud. At our last place pre-Asia, we even had a real guest room for the first time. I do miss all that stuff, but I don't think about it too often. I thought about it yesterday, though, as I stood in our living room and thought, "Well, I never imagined this."

Let me fill you in on a bit of living room background. When we moved into our current apartment in the summer, we didn't have any furniture. The apartment included a bed and a table, and that was it. We bought a TV and two chairs, and eventually two folding chairs (you know, for company). Basically, we cultivated a college dorm aesthetic: two chairs in a barren room, facing the TV/DVD setup. We hung a few vintage Chinese advertising posters that Bill had picked up in Hong Kong. It was pretty bleak.

One day a couple of months ago, I came home from work to find there had been a living room makeover! In an attempt to cheer me up about the house, Bill had bought two red Chinese carpets and two sets of red blinds. (We have huge windows in the living room, but they just look into another room, not outside.) The colour did make the room a little cosier. The setup with the two chairs was getting a little tired, though; we felt like Archie and Edith Bunker sitting side by side in our chairs evening after evening. So the other night when Bill saw an ad online for a leather sofa set, he called, and we bought.

OK, so, keeping in mind the red blinds and red carpets, now imagine three pieces of forest green leather furniture. Forest. Green. Leather. Oh yeah, baby. Now, this is a look that isn't really up my alley. It's a look I don't plan to duplicate in the future. However, it's so damn awesome to lie on a sofa and watch TV! So I chalk up the living room -- in its state of advanced bachelor-pad bad taste -- to what I call the New Acceptable. The We-live-in-Taiwan-and-all-previous-rules-are-out-the-window Standard.

Uh-oh. I just realized I'm going to have to take a picture of the room tonight, aren't I?

I started a Kittyville hat. :)

Stealth knitting

'Twas the day before Christmas when I decided that No! Unlike his birthday socks, Bill's Xmas socks would not be late! I wasn't too busy at work, and I think people were a little surprised that this foreigner was only taking the 25th off. At lunchtime, I was outta there.

By 1:15, I was at my favourite little café in Kongkuan, the neighbourhood around National Taiwan University. I've done quite a bit of knitting at this particular establishment, and the woman who runs it always has a look at what I'm doing and we smile at each other about it. December 24 was a beautiful day, and I was feeling good. As far as Bill knew, I was at the office until six; that gave me four and a half hours to knit a sock. Could I do it?

1:30 p.m.: T minus 4.5 hours and counting...



I have a cup of coffee, a fruit smoothie, and a couple of inches of cuff that I'd done on my lunch break the day before. I have one completed sock: a basic k2p2 ribbed number with a stockinette foot. (This is the same wool that I used for 2L's Xmas socks, but grays -- like a black-and-white version.) The sun is shining and jazz is playing. It rocks not to be at the office!

2:30 p.m.: T minus 3.5 hours and counting...



I knitted for an hour, and... I'm still ten rows from starting the heel flap? Aiyo! Damned ribbing. What was I thinking? It's OK; I'm still feeling good and feeling like I've got lots of time. Slow and steady, right? The sun is still shining, and man, that coffee was good. (I love a place that steams milk for its plain old House Coffee.)

3:30 p.m.: T minus 2.5 hours and counting...



Heel flap? Check! Heel turned? Check! I'm ready to pick up stitches. Oh, if I had a nickel for every time in my life I've said, "Blast! I didn't bring a crochet hook!" -- well, I'd have five cents right now. No problem; the tapestry needle will do the trick. My pace is good, I think. The music, however, is no longer good. What I think at first is a woman singing a cover of "Unchained Melody" proves to be a boy who is soon pleading with us to be gentle, 'cause he's sentimental... [shudder]

4:30 p.m.: T minus 90 minutes and counting...



The sun is starting to go down, and the combination of coffee, knitting intensity, and a looming deadline has me feeling a little skittery. How can I seem to be knitting with such speed, yet producing so little? How many times do I have to hear this CD? I'm beginning to have the sensation that I'm watching someone else's hands knit my sock! Should I eat something? No! No time for food! Eating is weak! Weak!

5:30 p.m.: T minus 30 minutes and counting...



I've just done the first round of the toe! I'm going to make it! It's dark outside now, and I've just ordered another coffee to bring me home. The Pixies' song "Debaser" has lodged itself in my head, except the voice is screaming, "Decreaser!" "Decreaser!"

6:00 p.m.: Kaboom!



It's all over but the grafting. I did it. I am awesome. Billy will have a pair of socks on Christmas morning. (Turned out that they fit, he likes them, and he didn't suspect a thing.)

***

Thank you for all your New Year wishes! May this year be jam-packed with peace, happiness, good health, fabulous yarn, and good grammar for us all.

H A P P Y * N E W * Y E A R !