Knit Picky: August 2007

"properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit...
and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either."
~elizabeth zimmerman

Friday, August 03, 2007
7 comments

Freaky Fridays, Reverse Sock Progress & Shout-Outs

++Edited to add: Longest blog post ever--sorry, but I'm making up for lost time.++

Happy Friday Friends! And it is happy. It's been a long slog of a week and I am plumb tired.

This week I endeavor to entertain you with the latest of my toof woes. If y'all read this blog with any regularity, you know that I have been having many a toof woe*.

Just a little backstory: I currently have a permanent crown that has twice been affixed with temporary cement because the dentist does not want to permanently cement it while my gums continue to misbehave. She is afraid I could end up with a cavity between the gums and the crown if the swelling ever manages to go down, probably leading to a root canal and taking the damn crown off for the THIRD FREAKING TIME. Ahem.

The problem with the temporary cement is that it is, uh, temporary. As in, it seems to stop working anywhere between two days and a week (if I'm lucky) and then I almost swallow the stupid thing. So they sent me some do-it-yourself temporary cement so that when the crown fell out again I could put it back in again myself since I don't see the dentist again for 6 weeks.

For the record: Me + Cement = Recipe for All Kinds of Mayhem.

I read the packet and thought to myself, "Self, this can't be that hard. It looks pretty easy in the dental office." Oh, Self, you are so funny. You think that anything you do will ever go smoothly? Have you learned nothing in your 30+ years??

Step #1 -- Squeeze a small amount of the two fixatives out of this little foil package thingy and mix together with a disposable spatulate tool. Um, don't have any of those around the house, how 'bout the back end of my toothbrush? Okay, so, squeeze it out onto...what? My hand doesn't seem like a wise idea, so I squeeze it onto the toothbrush end and put that back onto the foil thingy and start making the little paste. Easy peasy. Hmmm, this cement is kinda messy. It's sort of spreading up the handle of my toothbrush as I mix. Well, I should probably proceed to step #2.

Step #2 -- Apply to the underside of the crown that will adhere to the little nubbin in my mouth. Wow, this crown is actually quite small and my toothbrush end is a lot bigger than I thought. Hey, it's probably not good to get this cement all over my hands. Wait, I can't move my fingers! Okay, I can do this. With the three fingers not covered in cement, I can get this crown placed in my mouth.

Step #3 -- Place in mouth. Pshaw! That's so eas- oh. "Wai. Ow eres emen all o'er y owf. 'RAP!" Okay, in the dentist office they always have me bite down on those little cotton pillowy things. Cotton, cotton...cotton balls! Bite down and in four minutes I'm going to have a nicely cemented tooth that I bet will look so good the dental assistant will think she did herself. What should I do while I wait for it to dry? Oh--

Step #4 -- Scrub hands. Hard. Everything is sticking to me. Hey, I didn't even see that cat hair on the sink and now it's stuck to my hand! Why can't I separate my pointer and middle fingers? Ooh, my face itches. Man, that was a bad idea. What the hell is this stuff made out of? Oh, yeah. It's not coming off! More scrubbing. Has it been four minutes yet?

Step #5 -- "Your tooth should successfully be seated in your mouth." Okay, let's see how this worked. Ick. Gack. Spit. I don't think a cotton ball was the best choice. There's cement and sticky cotton everywhere in my mouth. The cotton ball is coming out in thousands of the finest of fine little filaments, stretching and breaking. It's stuck to my teeth. I have a mouthful of cotton fibers! Man, this really sucks.

Step #6 -- Opine loudly on the stupidity of depending on ME to take care of this. My dental office knows what a freaky spaz I am! Why would they send me the do-it-yourself cement kit? They must have known how this would go. Maybe they were laughing as they sealed up the envelope to send me?

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Sock progress inaction photos

I know that some are not fans of flashing and pooling, but I believe in letting the yarn be what it wants to be. :)

Oh my sole

Teeny little bit of yarn left. I knit as close as I could because I'm always so careful that I end up with plenty left over. Not this time!

It is all kitchenered now, by the way. I'll be working on the second sock (which was actually the first sock and is about 1/4 way through--loooong story) until the yarn arrives to start my Hogwarts II sock for my pal.

I refer to this as reverse progress, though, because once I finished the toe I put the completed sock on and darned if the cuff wasn't too tight! Since I've never used up the entire skein before, most of my socks are a bit short and I've never had the problem of running into the dreaded giant calf/small cuff problem. If I don't mind the lack of circulation to my foot, I can wear as-is, but I just don't roll like that.

Instead I began to rip out the ribbing at the top. Turns out that ripping ribbing is a million times harder than ripping stockinette. Who knew? It's almost fixed now, but last night I was pretty close to putting the sock into permanent time out. It's gorgeosity saved it, though. Damn you, Koigu (shakes puny fist northward at those dastardly Canadian dyers)!

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Shout outs

1) Dear lady I saw at lunch wearing the side-ponytail: No. Just no. I rocked that in the third grade and you are considerably older than me. It is simply unacceptable that you adopt this style in 2007.

2) To my new pseudo-dog, Susie: I can't wait to see you again!

I say pseudo-dog in the sense that she's not really mine (not that she's not really a dog, obviously). My dad's employee found this gorgeous Jack Russell terrier wandering around in Lake Arrowhead. She's obviously healthy and sweet as can be but had no tags or identification. The woman took her around to all the neighborhood houses and even contacted a couple of shelters: everyone had seen her, nobody knew if she had an owner, they figured she was just a stray. The woman took her home but couldn't keep her because her apartment landlord won't allow it. My parents took her in for a week. My dad was adamant that they were not keeping her, so my mom and the kids were not to get attached. She was only there for a week while they tried to find a home for her.

I came up to visit that weekend. Me, the cat person. I've never had a dog, never really wanted a dog. And yet: love at first sight. I *knew* instantly that her name was Susie and my campaign began to get my parents to keep her for me. I live in a no-dogs allowed building or she would've gone home with me the very next day--the dog-hating Boy would've come around, I just know it; she's so sweet! I have been waging an email campaign against my dad, sending him pictures of me and Susie from that weekend (two weeks ago, by the way). Many a soulful expression was made to him while I was there, from both of us. He even commented on how taken we were with each other. I'm going to go back up tomorrow and continue the assault.

Send your good doggie-keeping vibes to me and Miss Susie Blackjack! (the full name I've given her; black because, well, duh, and jack because she's a jack russell, dontchaknow).

3) And last, but definitely not least, big props to my dear, sweet friend LAURA. I sincerely hope she doesn't hate me for outing her here, but since only one person she knows reads this blog (that I know of), I think I'm safe. Laura's latest WIP is a BABY!!!!!

I feel safe in sharing, though it's not up on her blog yet, because Laura has told all her family, her boss, and our knitting group. I'm so excited! And y'all know this means a rash of baby knitting at the knitting group. Baby socks, booties, blankies--oh my! :)

*For those not as familiar, here is a quick recap: first was the diagnosis of gum disease that required scaling and depositing medication at the root level of many of my teeth. Then was the wisdom tooth removal that led to many, many "incidents" of bone chip removal. Which led to gum surgery for shaving the jawbone down so it would stop coming through the gums. Then cavities were found between two of my teeth. Somehow my rigorous dental maintenance (and boy howdy, is it rigorous, just ask The Boy who falls asleep waiting for me to finish THE ROUTINE each night) was not enough. Then the dentist had to remove a crown that she's already removed once before because a creeping cavity was moving underneath it at the gum line, and now, months and months later, my gums continue to be too swollen to allow her to replace the crown permanently. Seriously, just take 'em all at this point. I've about had it.

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