Art Imitating Art.....

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I'm the one who can take the heat,

The one they say just can't be beat,

I'll shoot it to you straight,

And look you in the eye,

So gimme just a minute

and I'll tell you why,

I'm a rough boy.....

("Rough Boy", ZZ Top)

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Well I finally finished the Little Red Riding Hoodie and so I chose a new project to work on. I ended up choosing the the unifinished set of "Animal Crackers Socks".

What I aim to do with these socks is finish designing them and then put the patterns up for sale in the same document. Kind of like a 4-in-1 deal.

There will be 4 socks. The knitter will have her/his choice of cuffs, leopard color combo, heels, and sizes. One size will be a ladies med/large. The other size will be a ladies small.

Also, I made the leopard fair isle chart to where there's only one place that a float is longer than 5 stitches so that there is that only place which requires the knitter to twist the yarn to carry it in back of the working color. (I hate doing that.) There will be a complete pattern repeat on each needle, which makes it easier to see where you are and check that you haven't made any mistakes. (And it makes it much easier to fix mistakes before you go on and knit umpteen more rounds before realizing it.)

But it's always a big entertaining thing for Blaine to sit back and be sarcastic about what he calls "my crazy, psychedelic projects".

Blaine is a macho man and thinks the whole world should dress in somber blue, gray, or dark brown. He's what you might call (as ZZ Top said so well) a "rough boy". And believe me, I suffer my rough boy's analytics about all my psychedelic projects because, as most of you know, all my knitting projects... er.... march to a different drummer.

You should have heard him while I was knitting the Little Red Riding Hoodie.

"Hey Bo! Ronald McDonald called---he wants his coat back!"

Very funny.

Or, while I'm trying on one of my wildly colored cardigans, he'll remark: "Now all you need is a big red nose and big floppy shoes...."

Lord Jesus, keep me from throttling him......

But actually, his remarks don't stop just with my crazy knitted projects. He does it in other situations, too.

For example, if he sees a huge, multiple car crash scene on the Nascar races, he'll say: "If you weren't sitting right here I would have sworn that was you driving.... because that's how you drive our buggy in Walmart."

Ho ho ho....

Or if I'm not understanding some computer thing that he's trying to explain, he'll exclaim: "Geez, Bo--do you need a flashlight and a map up in your brain?"

God help me!!

Eventually I got so irked at him because of that remark above that I began providing my own snappy comebacks. Like: "What do I look like? A Bill Gates employee?"

(Okay, it's weak, but it got my point across.)

And I've written before about his habit of harping at me over how much toilet tissue I use (see "The Quicker Crapper Picker Upper" post here).

Verily, verily, no matter how much I tell him I'm only performing the typical female's hygiene, he still makes crass remarks about my "usage" numbers. And then I'll get irritated back at him and reply back at him:

Him: "Bo! We're out of toilet tissue again! What are you doing with it in there---eating it?"

Me: "What would like? To come into the bathroom with a magnifying glass so you could witness just exactly how much I'm using and why? Or should I just stop using it altogether and see how that goes?"

Or I get irritated because I suspect he's not listening to me when I'm talking. So I'll test him and ask: "What did I just say?"

Him: "Ummmm, you said that Little Baby did something that made you mad..."

Me, suspiciously: "Well okay....I guess you were listening."

But I couldn't quell my suspicions. So I began to ask more specifically.

Me (again, suspecting he wasn't listening): "What did I just say?"

Him: "Umm....You broke a wooden knitting needle....."

Me: "What did I say after that?"

Him: "Ummm......uh... well... "

Me: "Ahah! See? You don't listen to me! You've just confirmed what I've been suspecting all along. And that's a neat trick there---you've actually trained yourself to remember only the last 5 words I said simply to prove that you really were 'listening'! But I figured you out, Buster! Yessiree, you didn't remember a damn thing after those words--- and I talked a whole paragraph!"

Sigh..... I know. I know what you're thinking.... and you'd be right.

I really shouldn't be complaining about that idgit because he is so very good to me. Blaine's good qualities are endless---he actually thinks it is his job to ensure my happiness because I'm a female and he's the Alpha Male. In fact, he just called me from some super computer building to wish me a happy birthday. (It's my birthday today.)

Here are some of his good qualities: He does ALL the laundry, he makes enough coffee so that when I get up there's a lot left for me, he can literally fix anything which is broken (ask me about the crystal candlestick some time), he notices if I'm depressed or anxious and asks what he can buy me to fix it, he tries to massage my tensed up shoulders but his big strong hands do it too hard and it hurts (but I never tell him that), and......

....the biggest and bestest thing....

Is that he knows I'm crazy and doesn't mind...

(Oops, I shouldn't have said that. My therapists tell me not to refer to myself as crazy. They say that I should say instead: "I have a chronic mental illness"--- which sounds totally lame to me.)

Where was I?

Oh yes....at the end of this blog post.

Talk at ya later, 'taters....

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