Back to the Grind…sort of January 2, 2007

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. Mine was very uneventful. My parents left that morning for a 3 week trip, so the usual dinner and movie routine wasn’t going to happen. One of my downstairs neighbors (for the record, the sane, nice one) invited me to come downstairs and hang out with her friends. As I had nothing else planned, I took her up on her offer. It was a lot of fun. I have hung out with her friends before and it is always enjoyable. They come from a different world than me and have such different experiences but they never judge or treat me differently because I grew up in the richest part of town and my parents still live there. It is a shame to say it, but so many people judge you differently or inadvertently treat you differently just because you come from money.

So that was my New Years Eve. My New Years Day started too early. My other downstairs neighbor (the freaky weird one) woke me up at 5:30 am. Now I don’t really ever drink, so the only hangover I had was a Diet Pepsi one, but when you go to bed at 2 am, 5:30 is too early. How did she wake me you ask? Her freaking TV. There is a long story here, but I will give you the abbreviated version. About 6 months ago she got an LCD flatscreen, digital cable and surround sound system. When she got it she put it in her bedroom, which is right below mine. After about 1 week of my bed shaking in the morning from the bombs going off on CNN, I asked her if she could turn down the bass and also maybe the volume a little. She did and said she never really watches tv. That was true. She would watch CNN at like 8 am and otherwise I never heard it. Well something changed about 2 weeks ago. Now it or a CD played through the same system is on every moment she is awake, and the volume is cranked up. Now it is not just the bass, I can hear every word of whatever she is watching or listening to, plus my whole bedroom is shaking.

So New Years Day, I moved to my couch in the living room. I have never been disturbed by her tv in there. Well not that morning. No matter how loud I turned up my tv, I could still just here hers, or enough of it to make my show impossible to watch. I ended up going back and laying in bed fuming. Finally at 11 it quieted down, so I thought I would take a nap. My head hit the pillow and the phone rang. It was my mom calling. They had an awful trip and she was cranky and pissed because the doctor said if she was going to take a plane she had to wear a mask. The mask plus being bald right now got her more attention than she wanted. So I talked to her for about a half hour and then went back to take my nap, and what happened? Loud booming DISCO music for 2 hours. I wanted to shoot somebody.

I did find solace later in the day by discovering that my Directv now carried the Style Network. So much fun. There are two shows I have been watching whenever they are on. One is called “How do I look” and in it 3 people shop for their friend who need style help, they also pick hair and makeup. Then the friend picks there favorite collection. The other is called “Style Me Famous” where Jay (Mr. Jay from America’s Top Model) helps do a makeover for somebody based on a style of a celebrity. Both were just fun and frivolous, but hit the spot.

Tomorrow practice starts back up, but as the title says…sort of. I am only meeting with a few of the students. My policy kids are writing a new case and I have alumni coming back to help some of the other students. It is always weird going back after a big break. It is hard to get the kids motivated. Hopefully this time it will be ok, since they have a tournament the 12th and 13th. It is also strange for me, since I will work for a few hours tomorrow afternoon and then nothing until Monday when the real stuff starts.

I also need to get ready for the class I am teaching. It is Criminal Law which I am not that familiar with anymore. Yes, I took Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in law school, but I never practiced in the criminal arena. I have ordered a text book and looked at it and most of what I know is coming back to me. I do need to start getting lecture notes together. Because once the semester starts, debate season is going to crank up with our tournament and National and State qualifiers.

The last 4 days December 26, 2006

So I did in fact end up getting sick, which means I did not go with the family out of town. In a way it sucked, since I started feeling better on Sunday and then I was bored out of my mind. In a way it was good because my aunt and uncle celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, which is one of my biggest pet peeves. How do you acknowledge and not acknowledge Jesus at the same time? I know they really don’t celebrate Jewish holidays, they don’t belong to a synagogue, they don’t do Passover, and I’m sure they have no idea the religious significance of Hanukkah or how unimportant it is in the scope of Jewish religions. My mother says this makes it better. I somehow feel like it is worse. Also, they do both holidays to excess with gifts, all of which are obnoxiously expensive and often unneeded. They do this all in front of you, when they know we aren’t going to celebrate (but they wake us up to watch their teenage kids open all the presents, so we can ooh and ahh), and they don’t even bother to get any of us a cheap gift card or anything. So for those reasons I am glad I was not there.

So how did I spend my time (when I wasn’t sleeping, which admittedly was most of the time)?

First, I finished my second Jaywalker sock. They turned out really well and I am really happy. Then I started the arm warmer from Stitch and Bitch Nation. I am almost through the first one. I am not sure about it. I decided to use some cheap yarn I picked up at my LYS. I was going to use the yarn to make a hat for a student, but decided to use something else. Anyway, the yarn does not do the pattern on the top justice. I am glad I used it because it is my first real try with reading off a chart and doing cables, so it is a good yarn to experiment with. Also, I am not sure because I don’t know how I like the pattern. Not the tree on the top, but the actual structure. I will admit I just looked at pictures and picked the one I liked best, so I did not read the pattern before starting. Now I wonder. Most the other patterns I looked at, like the fetchings from Knitty, increase for the hand. These are like tubes with a thumb hole. I am not sure how they are going to fit. I am going to finish it tomorrow and then decide if I want to make the second one. I have some really cool Noro for the “real” ones. I may either edit the pattern or try the knitty fetchings and just extend the wrist part and also the hand part.

I also watched a lot of tv. All I can say is thank god for HGTV and Law and Order: CI marathons. I also finally saw In Her Shoes. It was surprisingly good. I really had not liked the book, the movie stayed on my list, but never really moved up that list. Anyway, I found it on HBO and sat down to watch it. I don’t need to see it again, but if you are sick and bored, I recommend it as a good way to pass 2 plus hours.

I’m sure I did a few other things, but honestly most of the weekend was a fog of sickness.

Tomorrow I am going to see Dreamgirls with my mother. I never saw the Broadway musical, but I am looking forward to the movie. I am especially looking forward to the performance by Jennifer Hudson. I have heard she steals the movie. I am also looking forward to making fun of Beyonce’s performance. Maybe she will surprise me but I am not holding my breath.

Finally, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of two great men. First, James Brown. I never really got into his music, but I did get to see him live once, and it was one of the most amazing live performances I have ever seen. Second, Gerald Ford. He came to power in an awkward situation replacing Nixon. Was not elected by the people, but managed to get the nation back on track, which says a lot.

Criminals and Heroes December 22, 2006

I am now up to the Homecoming episode of Heroes. I am finally willing to admit that the show is worth all the hype. The characters I did not like I now do. It just took their powers getting fleshed out. I have 3 more episodes until I am caught up. I really want to just sit down and watch them tomorrow, but I might try to space them out so I don’t have too huge a gap until the show comes back.

This evening, realizing that I had absolutely nothing I wanted to watch on Tivo and that there was nothing worthwhile on TV, I decided to surf the movie channels on Directv. Let me admit here that I get them all. Every single movie channel. I watch the television shows on both HBO and Showtime but rarely watch anything else on them, unless my Tivo tapes it for me. Yes, I trust my Tivo to tell me what I want to watch. For the most part, the Tivo suggestions are right on and I never feel like I missed anything because I set season passes for the stuff I really want to see.

So I headed up to the 500s and started surfing. I found the movie Criminal starting right when I got to it. It has Diego Luna (of Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Maggie Gyllenhaal and the description looked interesting so I stopped to watch. I honestly don’t remember this movie ever being in theaters, but it was really entertaining. It had a nice little twist at the end which I did not see coming (and I am usually pretty good at predicting them–I ruined Fight Club for everyone when I guessed the twist about 15 minutes into the movie). So, if you are surfing your movie channels and see Criminal, I recommend stopping and checking it out.

While watching the movie and then two episodes of Law and Order Criminal Intent (it is just me or is one of the three law and orders on some cable channel every hour of the day?) I finished my first Jaywalker sock. It looks really good. No holes on the gussets where I picked up stitches. I am going to start the second one tomorrow. Now I have to decide if I am going to keep them for myself or give them to somebody. I never decide if my knitting is a gift until I see what it looks like. I am a total perfectionist and most of my friends and family think my knitting is just something to keep my OCD in check (you know, keep my hands busy) so I only give stuff if it is perfect. Otherwise I get all the comments that they could buy something in the store and I shouldn’t bother. It is only the stuff that looks as good or better than store stuff that doesn’t get the comments. While it sucks that they don’t appreciate my hobby (and yes it did start to keep my hands busy) I have no problem keeping the stuff for myself. I always knit stuff that I would be happy keeping for myself. Also, my kids love it when I knit stuff for them, so I try to make them stuff at tournaments. Right now, most on my team have hats and I have requests for fingerless gloves (gauntlets) and scarfs, so I am not lacking for projects or people who will appreciate them.

TV and More TV December 17, 2006

I have been watching the CSI NY Season 2 DVD set. Let me just say, I actually like the New York series in Season 2. I was not a big fan of Season 1, but I like the new girl Lindsay and I like how they broke from the usual CSI framework. In fact, right now it might be my favorite CSI. I loved the original CSI Las Vegas, but I have not been a big fan of it this year. Something changed for me at the end of last year, beginning of this year. I think it may be that there personal life’s became to much a part of the show. Now, call me hypocritical but that is what I like about NY, you get to know the characters and their life’s. I personally am rooting for Danny and Lindsay, once we figure out what her big “secret” is. I guess it is ok because they started it in season 2, not season 8. I guess I cannot explain it. Despite my love of both of these series’ don’t even get me started on CSI Miami, possibly one of the worst TV shows on right now.

So that has been my weekend. Watching CSI NY on DVD and knitting. I am about 2 inches from turning the heel on my first jaywalker sock. I am using a Lorna’s Laces self-striping yarn in blue, green and black. They look really cool. I love how the jaywalker pattern is coming out in stripe pattern. I don’t have much planned this week, so I hope I can get them done before I go out of town for Hanukkah. Yeah I know it already started, but our Hanukkah party is Christmas eve since that is when people could get away from work since we live in a Christian religion centric society.

I’m going to leave y’all with another video in honor of Christmas and Hanukkah or whatever holiday you celebrate. This is Andy Sandberg and Justin Timberlake in a sketch from last nights SNL.

Note: This is the uncensored version.

Memo to Bears fans… December 11, 2006

I went to the Monday Night Football game tonight. Well I went for the first half, then my mom was ready to go. She is sick and wanted to go to feel “normal” but did not have the energy to make it the whole game.

Since I came home I have been listening to Fox Sports Radio on my XM. There has been call after call about how Rex Grossman has turned the corner and how wonderful the Bears offense is now. What is the evidence these callers and the host used to back up their point? Tonight’s game.

MEMO TO ALL BEARS FANS:

The Bears’ offense did not improve over night. Rex Grossman did not fix all his problems in the past week. You played the Rams. Yes, that is it. I hate to be the one to break it to you but the Rams truly are that bad. Don’t let the record deceive you, they are a bad team and made your offense look good.

I do not have to go to school tomorrow because we have such a small entry to the last league tournament and the one volunteer judge covers our entire judging responsibility. The one Public Forum team and 1 LDer going really need good results if they was to advance to the league championships. If things hold true to the past years results, the Public Forum team must win both rounds tomorrow to have a chance to advance and the LDer must go 1-1. While normally I would be very confident about their chances, I have to face the fact that both teams went 1-3 last weekend and those records may not have all been about us being school code thirteen. On the other hand, they worked really hard today and usually hard work is rewarded in debate.

As I have nothing real planned for tomorrow, I am going to try to figure out how to knit socks on two circulars. I have knit several pairs on double pointed needles, but I have always been interested in learning to knit on 2 circulars. I I bought the book Socks Soar on Two Circular Needles by Cat Bordhi and hopefully will be knitting socks using this method in no time.