Sunday was spent in a productive manner

First of all, I dyed some yarn. Parents went to the hospital to see grandpa (his legs probably won't fall off. He's healthy. It's up to him whether he stands up andstarts to walk.. or rather limp. He doesn't want to) so I had an hour of time. I had already prepared something before - the Angel yarn had to get a touch of pink and green so I made the balls into very long skeins, one end I dipped into the bordeaux shade, very diluted, one into green, wrapped it in foil and left to process for two days on the sunny balcony (needs 60-80 degrees... it could have been there on the dark tiles). Just to make sure, I baked it in the oven for a while and it didn'tbleed colors, then). And made one purple and one chromoxide flame green ball (it said verde claro on the bag with the dye.. the Spaniards have a different view on colours, apparently). The colours were lovely but as I boiled the balls whole as they were, it's not dyed solid. (A hint: mix the colour powder with water. Dip the ball into it. Let it soak. Long. Then only add the vinegar and boil it. Not as I did it, ball into water and then add the colorant... either I"ll leave it like that or redye it someday...). And managed somehow to get a range of kingfisher colours on that alpaca-something mixture of which the internet shop said needles 5-6 and it's damn thin. I'm not making any lace... anyway, the colours came out nice but the yarn is still drying so I'll see (and let you see) later. All of this I managed in 40 minutes, including cleanin gup the kitchen and to cover up the rancid smell of vinegar all over the house, I started to clean the kettle - in which moment Mom arrived with Dad and grandma, she was pissed off, wanted a coffee, I said not now, I'm cleaning the kettle, she said something not very nice about doing stupidities (one can never do enough, apparently)...
Later on I went into hiding upstairs, did some cleaning, washed the balls (I just shoved them into a bucket and blue was still dripping off them) and let the things dry. The torrid heat even made the tiger of the household lie flat instead of poking her nose into everything. It was pretty windy too, so in the evening I got five skeins of Alpine meadow color scheme - it's not visible on the pic but the yarn has little shiny pieces in it and they absorbed more colour so they flash in it, I rewound them into a useful shape and started a sample. I want, for quite a time, to make something in Elsbeth Lavold style, lots of cables.... I wasn't sure about the fluffy yarn and cables but on the swatch it came out nice. Definitely better than the plain knit. So I started and after two rows found myself in the Moebius stripe again:-). Oddly enough, I"m always careful and in 70% cases I manage to do that...
But, meantime, when the stuff was drying, I started to cleaning up my closet. After a while I realized that I could open my own second-hand clothes store. I decided to be cruel, all things I don't wear, don't like wearing and don't plan wearing will go. The cashmere sweater Mom gave to me (saying that I need something decent to wear) I gave back to her. It gives me itches and i hate cashmere sweaters. And thin sweaters regardless of material. All the rest went to the rubbish or to two huge palstic bags for later use by someone else, somewhere else. I discovered that I have amounts of odd socks, a huge collection of torn fishnet stockings, considerable amount of underwear of weird colors, although it's due to my Mom's idea that pastel colors are variations of black so why not to wash it together... I think she stopped when I screamed that she destroyed my brand new and hell of an expensive bra, she said someting offensive but later on... later on I basically moved away:-). Anyway, all this stuff was simply thrown away. And I discovered things. Mom still sometimes buys me clothes. One of the oddest objects was a salmon pink lace bra, size 85D. Accompanied by some story like 'I've passed that lite cute shop there and they just had a sale and you said you could use some piece of lace...' Mom is decided that I"m obese but my size just incidentally happens to be 75C. Maybe if I stuffed some straw in.... And many 'so nice summery and cute, you can wear it at the seaside' tops (I get to seaside once a year, say Yeah, wait five minutes and go to try and findsomething entertaining), several things of the 'if you needed to go to opera' type, usualy something black and ugly of which mom decided that it's the sporty style I usually wear. I found a heap of things acquired under pressure... 'You said you need this or that so buy something, we've been to five shops and you're not content'... and things of origin uncertain, things I got bored with, things of which mother kept saying 'you don't look that fat in this' for that long that I started to hate them... In a cetain moment there was everything spread on the floor and other things and it looked ghastly. THen I simply divided it to Things I wear now, Winter things, Things I'lll wear when I'm back to my size 40 and To be given away and suddenly there was nothing on the floor but for two big bags of things and some mixed rubbish. I just regretted that old socks cannot be composted. Htere would be a nice compost heap.

I went to get a life

On Saturday the weather gods were merciful and when I went to Brno to see the Biennale of graphic design, the weather was just very warm, not the torrid heat of the last days. I was happy as a child, I haven't gone for a trip for my pleasure for sooo long, lasttime, as far as I reckon, somewhere sometime in Italy. Since, it was eihter some sort of excursion which sucked more or less, teh school trips more, those with my art historian friend (I have to rethink whether I'll go on calling him friend) Sojka who has an unsettling tendency to tell me what to do, how to do it and what to think about it which results in my unsettling tendency to screw his head off. And, a trip with someone who thinks to be the smartest in the worlds... anyway. I went for a trip.
I had to meet Katarina, too. I haven't seen her since she was in Prague in November although we agreed on a workshop on landscape painting and other things but it somehow didn't happen. So we were hanging around together, she's an art historian, an artist and a particularly nice person so we had wild debates about posters, graphic design in general, visual culture in even more general, I promised her all my old clothes because she is one of the recyclers who love second-hand stores, her sister studies fashion design and she's happy to adjust anything and they have their recycler friends.... so I promised her all the stuff I don't want anymore. We agreed on the workshop date (approximate), she promised to make me some name stickers for the books, we had a picnic in the courtyard of the Design centrum where the exhibition of Catherine Zask was.... and the exhibition was the peak of the day. I love this sort fo things. Letters, simple solid colours... like candies for the eyes. Sso we made a tourist pic.

Head full of crap

I cancelled my trip to Finland.
I'm still working my ass off. Had argument with the boss, I didn't understand why.
I'm sick.
I'm behind in everything. I should be writing my thesis, translating Ripa, learning Swedish.. and I'm working my ass off instead.

gentians

We have something like a cottage in the mountains. I haven't been there for ages so I took two days off (meant to go to work on Sunday anyway but for reasons described below I did not). So, I arrived up there and went for a hike and got totally wasted. And... couldn't resist this. A travelling glove.... to remind the wearer that even things can have their experiences. or something. And in the evening I realized that no-one has sucha big paw si I ripped it whole but for some 38 stitches of the first row... but the yarn has been to that peak. It was not a long hike but it was quite tough and I haven't been anywhere for quite a time.
I'm a city girl, first and mainly of all. I put on a black top because I look thinner in it. Not that I met anyone who would notice it and when one is sweaty and panting for brath, anything may come to mind but certainly not 'good looks'. But at least I don't look like mature cheese on the pic.
Next day I wanted to do some pics of plants. There is a locality.. sort of nature's botanic garden. I'm not giving any names because it's not allowed to go there outside the marked trails.. which I did like every year. It's an avalanche area (in winter) and it's hell of a steep. I climbed the mountain first... well, walked somewhere to the top. From the other side it's just a big hill with flat top. And an alpine meadow well above the timber line, where only some grasses (Festuca sp., mainly) grow and it's lovely to walk there barefoot. [I'll add pics later.. I need to sort them out]. Another reason why i happily walked barefoot was that I produced a nice blister on the soft part of my foot and it felt better without the shoes.
Anyway, descending to the valley was fantastic, at the peak, there're just grasses, some fifty metres lower, blueberries and cranberries start to grow and nearly with every metre the environment changes. In fact, I went there to see whether i can find one of the gentians that grow there (but, basically anything grows in that place), Gentiana verna. It was too late for that one but I discovered another species up on the hill, Gentiana punctuata, which I hadn't hitherto seen. In fact I saw more of them but from distance they look quite ugly, something bleak in the grass.. I don't understand why I like gentians so much...

As I hinted, the terrain is quite steep and under the grass which looks quite even on the surface, many nasty things hide. Holes, sources of water with deep slicky mud.. or there are things that don't bother to hide, stones too hot to step on or anything too steep to step on. I'll upload the pic of my bloody leg later on - it doesn't work. Oddly enough, I didn't notice the wound for quite long. I was interested about the health of my camera because holes in the skin heal by themselves whereas a camera.. I'd have to earn for a year for another one. (And, a second chance in such a short time to see my knees:-)))
I found my way back home, I was tired like hell and I just neded up lying flat in bed. Well, I had a shower first, I was covered by mud and stuff and I'm quite civilized. Although some of the mud had nicely found its way to my skin so I just left it to fall of by itself later, especially around the wound, which showed to be a neat long deep scratch, no real hole. Notice the view into the valley behind the (fat, unshaven and dirty) leg... cool, isn't it?

Retrospective post.

Back to that wedding: Yes, there was a happy end, they got married.
I cannot deny you the pic [tomorrow] of me in fancy dress with fancy hairdo and fancy shoes and all that social stuff, that's the purpose of this entry, otherwise it was.. well, lots of people, lots of food, the groom had his hair dyed so that he would look younger (btw. a Vanuatu-born Frenchman livin in Australia or something), becuase he's some 15 years older that the cousin of mine. I just wonder whether it's sane to marry a guy who is ok now but in a few years will be nervous because the kids are loud and because his back hurts when he wants to lift them. But life has many forms.

Anything.

I decided to take the weekend a day earlier (this year I'm lucky, I have work on which no-one depends so no-one cares whether it's finished today or on Tuesday) so this afternoon I'm going to the mountains. We have something like a cottage there. [I've just run over my toes with the wheel of the office chair with me sitting on it.....]
I plan to hang around. That's the whole point of it, doing nothing of sense like taking pictures of some strange rare plants, bask in the sun (get sunburnt, maybe)... and should I be bored in the evenings, I took some knitting with me and a book on something medieval. Well, medieval sculpture in Gotland, what could you expect from me. I thought about starting to read some fiction but when I browsed the bookstores, I didn't find anything that would appeal to me. So I have my impossible books - and this one was on the table and in a handy format and it reminded me how Yrja was explaining to Kirsi her astonishment when I (1) mailed her in perfect English whether I can attend her lessons (2) didn't know nearly any Italian (which was a bit of drawback because the whole thing was happening in Italy on Italian university (3) as it showed later, I knew Swedish better than the rest of the course, all of them added together, but didn't speak it. Yrja couldn't make anything of it, poor girl, and in some odd 20 years of teaching experience she had only read about people with various language skills on so divergent levels but wouldn't believe that someone like that might ever exist. (No, I don't plan to be original always and everywhere. It just happens to me. ) Then I came and after two months I spoke fluent Italian, hesitant Swedish and got an interesting link in my brain - when I run out of Swedish, I switch to Italian. Automatically. To Italian with heavy Florentine accent of which I'll probably never get rid because I had never learnt much of 'proper' Italian. To a certain desperation of my teachers who know proper Italian and try to squeeze it into the heads of the Prague kids. I just wonder what it is, that it makes me always stand out. Maybe if I dyed my hair mousey brown, I'd get rid a part of my self-confidence?
And I always digress. Anyway, I have to go to check my bank account, I got a mail from Air France that they're sending me back my money but when I attempted to pay with the card, it wouldn't work and it's gonna be 36 outside (which means that the real temperature in the streets is some 50... ). Seems that spring and autum are cancelled or reduced to something like a week of nasty weather and there will be damn cold winters and damn hot summers. I should choose a nice place where to export myself.

Apologies

I'm sorry that I haven't written something cool or funny or just something these days, I'm basically sitting in my office, working my ass off.
The wedding went ok, or at least I survived. The hairdresser spent two hours nagging that I have bad hair while tearing it off continuously and resulted in producing something heavily covered by hair spray. I could have done it better. Well, next time.
The wedding itself was the usual mixture of sentimet, botedom and later on, drunk relatives.
Since Monday, I've been here, if I'm not dead by now.
I started knitting gloves. Or rather a glove. We'll see.
As I might have mentioned, a friend promised me to give me a lift to Helsinki.... basically, he promised that their production manager give me a lift to Helsinki. I sort of thought that someone will organize it and then tell me Ok, we'll pick you there at that time and you give us that much money for whatever. No way, Matej called me whether I've done something and I said Who, me? and he promised me the production woman's phone number which she sent two days later. After havin registered at the Hospitality club, found someone to lodge me for two days and in general, sorting things out, I called the lady and she told me that, ehm, tehy cannot get the ferry tickets and anyway. So, I've just bought an airline ticket (which I cannot afford, but the question is now: what the hell I can afford with basically zero at the bank account and 15 euros in a can and some 500 czk (some more 15 euros) in the ashtray?), I'll go by air (I can get drunk on board for free, another plus of the project. I hate flying, basically), it'll cost moreless the same and I'll save three days of travel. Or four or how many.
Tomorrow I'm going to the mountains. Expect something on plants on Monday.

Ugh.

Hate the family gatherings. My cousin is getting married today. Okay, free food and booze, but for what a sort of nuisance. I basically hate weddings. Two reasons: basically Igs where old nosy aunties gather, pry into young people's sexual lives, where one has to pretend being a good girl (old girl maybe, nasty creature regardless of sex, definitely) and the second reason is that spending such a money of which I could live for a year just for some stupid fancy dress and free food and booze for 50+ people is... idiotic. (And, seems to me that now and here, people need not to be married to live happy family lives. Apart from some sort of complicated bureaucracy reasons like Either you marry this guy/woman, awful foreigner, or we'll deport you, to Devil Islands, preferably, I cannot invent any reason for getting married. But opinions may differ and it's your business, people, after all.
Anyway. I picked my matching shoes and handbag to be a proper lady (cough... ehm). I like that Vuitton bag. Normal people, wanting to show that they have some Vuitton stuff, take the shitty brown Monongram something (I have one, too, sort of weekend bag. I need to fix the zipper one day, it was a long weekend or something and I overstuffed that bag.....), but I have this vintage (understand: secondhand... don't know how to cross the words in this editor, it would make more effect).... and the other pic is my normal shoes. Old, worn out, orthopedic. My feet, explaining why I prefer comfy orthopedic shoes. They're not deformed or something and I prefer to keep them that way.
And the contents of my bag. Just to ensure you that I'm not any sort of a lady, no, thank you.
The big black thing is the shift lens. It's gonna be a boring affair so I plan to walk along, go into the art museum (the restaurant is basically enxt door), take some pics of something.... keys, magnetic key to the office where I'm right now to pick my camera, some money (why I have no wallet, it's another and long story, plaster (new shoes), Swiss army knife (should I need to kill someone, cut the plaster or whatever...) and other practical crap.
By the way, I sleep under a roof. There's one of those roof windows and I used to keep ti wide open until today. Today morning I thought I heard the cat miaowing outside (i. e. on the roof). I looked out and down and didn't see her. Went on sleeping. After some time the cat stood on the opened window. I mean, on the glass. She was looking thru it down at me. I grabbed her... well, she apparently had a good time, the birds were screaming more than usual.... Gotta go. I have an appointment with the hairdresser in 10 minutes and I need to buy some knitting needles, want to start some gloves (not during the wedding stuff, mom would kill me, although I thought of getting some small project with me).

Unlimited creativity on the verge of maddness

My parents have a dog. An ancient limping huski girl. Today we were running around the neighbourhood because she wasn't anywhere and we thought she ran away (not that she would run far, she has arthritis and it's some 50 degrees outside so her paws would hurt and anyway...) and then father found her sleeping in the bush where we looked at least five times. The old girl is shedding now, though. Handfuls of lovely thick hair are falling off her. Several years ago I used to pick it and make yarn of it... just twisting it in my hands while warming my back against the fireplace (she used to shed in autumn), producing those two little balls of superb yarn. Then I was prohibited from it because it was 'foolish and useless' (practical parents suck). However, Delany is shedding now. And I've grown more self-confident. To myself - my general attitude is to do what I like adn keep the parents uninformed. Or lie directly, should it be needed (I'm practical too. Honour is nice but difficult to achieve sometimes and I don't like being ridiculed). So I gathered the hair - it's the clump onthe first picture, washed half a kilo of mud from it, realizing that the dog is in fact white somewhere underneath and now i'ts drying out, wrapped in an old t-shirt (it would happily float around the neighbourhood if not prevented from it), the washed clump on the left is from something like 1999 - the grocery bag bore a sticker with a barcode, saying peaches, use by 25-08-1999.
However, to get material enough for a dog sweater, I think I'd need a whole sled team. But the dog wool is lovely, soft and warm, as the huskies are. I just have to invent a way how to get rid of the dog smell;-)

Crap. New and improved!

Apart from working, I went shopping. I wanted to get, among others, some nice notebook for putting down my inventions in graphics. I aimed for a nice stationery (choice of small handy notebooks: bad, maybe the place used to be nicer and better supplied) and next door, there is a shop with sewing stuff, yarn, cheap clothes and whatever. Out of sheer curiosity, I went to peek in and discovered this:















See the tag. merino, alpaca, mohair, mostly. No manufacturer on the tag, but the price, 51 czk as seen on the orange side of the tag... well, you can get pure acrylic for it. Maybe it's a factory run by some drug trader as an activity to cover up the real business. That would explain the incredible price. I dug ten balls out of the shelf. Half a kilo. It could make a nice cloudy sweater if I use thick needles. After all, when getting fed up with my 3.5 size needles sweater, I proclaimed that I'm not using anything thinner than my fingers:-). On 6 mm it goes ok, I knit the sample when drunk (in the evening, we were out of wine and drank port). I asked the shop assistant whether they have some more somewhere in storage. She said Of course but I wasn't sure whether she got my question and if she did, shether she wouldn't say Of course just of pure habit. So I'd rather limit myself to those ten balls. But - I'll dye them first. Something opalizing in pastel colours to match the name.

My tree sweater is doing well. Yesterday we were chatting with mom and I was knitting - produced well 10cm of the sleeve and it's near end. Started to make the stitches tighter - my purl is quite loose and when attaching the sleeve, I forgot to turn the thing upside down... so I had to pull the yarn. And - I should have done it long before because it looks sooo nice....
I'm expecting a load of this yarn, I think I ordered a kilo (or two? I ordered a damn lot of something and don't remember what it was...) and now I just need to send Mom away for a weekend to do my dyeing in peace.

Someone must have hit my head without me noticing.

I just feel bad. Physically. Not that I had any reason to feel too well mentally, after a few hours in company of CorelDraw, dragging rectangles there and back across the screen, most brains tend to change into jelly. But I'm used to it. After 15 years of practice, I can do most of the things without using my brain so it's another pieces turning to jelly. Tendons on the hand holding the mouse or something. Okay, I simply have a headache and it sucks. I tried every available office application, like coffee, more coffee, walk along the corridor (particularly idiotic idea: wet and humid place whereas I have the a/c thing just behind my back), protein bar.... but the only result is that I'll need to set off for outside to get some more protein bars.
Yesterday I made great part of the sleeve of my silk sweater. A few more trashy movies and it'll be ready. The tree pattern looks disgustingly cool. I expect it to be finished soon, there's a few more trashy movies on the tv these days....
And I expect some more yarn, this silk stuff and some cashmere/merino/something mix... I'll be dyeing it first of all so I expect to have damn lot of fun.

Garage sale

On Sunday, apart from other stuff, I was cleaning. I wanted to find some old sweters to rip and recycle. Found only one but when I sunk into the mysterious depths of my wardrobe, I discovered heaps of not bad clothes I'm not wearing. And of which I don't know who might wear them - people around me have either totally different tastes or totally different sizes.
But there was a more interesting section. I used to swe quite a lot before my mom's sewing machine stopped working properly. Mom claimed that it worked perfectly well but when someone or something spits mineral oil onto silk taffetta or tears little bits of it.... I wouldn't call it perfect. And as usual, I had to hear constant comments on uselessness of my doings. So one day I packed the unfinished stuff into several cartons and stored away. Yesterday I was looking for one of those old sweaters and couldn't find it so for some reason, I started browsing the crates. Most of the things are unfinished for various reasons (my laziness as to name at least one). But, for example, this dress. So, who wants it and (1) is somewhere around to pick it or (2) is a friend good enough that I'd bother to mail it, can have it. Size around 42, worn once or twice, would deserve some pressing, pure poly-something, white and green and reddish over it, the fabric arranged so the few stitches can be ripped to make the dress longer and straight. Made by me.
(If you haven't noticed it yet, I'm a bit too creative. Beware of me or I'll flood you by homemade anything. Luckily for the world, I sometimes need to work or study so the world is saved from my marmalades, pastries, sweaters or anything.)

Picture tutorial: currant cake, part one.

As promised, when it happened that I was left to my own terrible fate in the kitchen, I took the camera and documented this quite a simple thing. You don't have to live on defrosted fries anymore; they're pretty unhealthy, for that matter. Whereas blackcurrant contains vitamins and other healthy substances of names too complicated to remember. And, as I got some five kilos of those goddamn berries from my grandma, I'll invent some new blackcurant recipe as soon as I feel like it...
(Technical note, for reasons known only to blogspot, I had to divide the entry into two, I started from the end of the story and realized that I couldn't get more than ten pics to one entry...)

Picture tutorial: currant cake, part two

Demented moron growing up

I promised a CD to Sandy. After two days of public holidays, I set off to buy the envelopes with bubble plastic inside and then wanted to write a note on some nice postcard. I knew I had a big heap of postcards so I wanted to find it and get one or two from there. I wouldn't expect the box to be on the shelf where I see it so I turned all the house upside down and found my old passports instead. I was an ugly teenager and I hated to be photographed but as I hardly throw anything away... well, in theory we should give the old passports back to the office but I keep them. I can say that I lost my handbag or something, I'll pay a fine and that's it. In fact, I should get a new passport before they'll want my fingerprints, hair sample and DNA description to it (and a corresponding chip injected in my ass as an extra....)
And, Kaylee asked whether I have some Scandinavian ancestors or something. That I look Scandinavian. Not that she'd be the first one to say that. Maybe the people should revise this opinion.
My first passport, issued May 15, 1994. The pic had to be taken a few weeks before, Had an identical one on my then ID.

This pic is +- 1995, I had my hair cut in autumn 1995 and here it's still pretty long. Awful glasses, I look a hundred years older.

My driving license, issued April 1, 1998. The picture was around a year old, thus depicting me at the age of 18. And in the worst stages of my depression. Who says Sweet 18, whhat a beautiful age, in my presence, will get his ears bitten off.

This I got for my second passport, issued April 30, 1999. I got my hair dyed blonde just before my 20th birthday and the hairdresser did a damn bad job, it was orange. It means that when we went to Seychelles, I still had my old passport - I had the hair freshly dyed there. (And it all sucked - not the hair, the islands.)
Mom wanted me to be a little lady. I was quite a good girl then, so I conformed to it. Well, not that I wa forced to wear business suits or someone will cut my legs off, it was more sophisticated. She told me things in very persuasive manner and for whatever the reason, I believed her. I considered her unhealthy emotional attachment towards me normal. O ra sign of love. I think that I sort of freed myself from her shadow when I got kicked out of the university and started to work.
This is for my ISIC card, I got it in my second year at the university, i. e. September 2000. I'll find the student card to illustrate how much I changed in one year. Depressions gone, mainly of all. And a bad hair day. I think that I had a bad hair day every time I went to get a ID pic.

Pic for my international driving license, issued January 9, 2001. Not that anyone would let me drive in Australia for which we were aiming - got the photographs basically for the visa application. I look like a 12 years old boy. Or anything of any sex. Bad hair, bad eyebrows.
My recent passport with a digital print of mt face, cannot scan it better but I think the pic is better on my ID (which is in Prague), issued August 8, 2002. Bad eyebrows.

Fridge news and on food in general

As mentioned, I'm staying at my parents'. They harass me and my cat and we happily ignore them. My mom cooks. Every now and then, huge amounts and lots of meat. Meanwhile she whines that dad is overweight and has a high blood pressure and shouldn't eat so much bacon&Co. and that I am obese. In fact, she's been telling me that I'm obese since I was something like 12. There were times in my life when I was pretty fat. Obesity, though, is a medical term, not a short way to say Oh, you have a beer gut. I tried to explain the subtle difference and she argued that I surely am obese because she's not that smaller and has 63 kilos and anyway [mommy is always right] and that I should weigh about 60 to look good. The not that smaller makes 8 centimeters and she's one of those subtle types However, there's the BMI thing and according to that, I'm something like 6 kilos overweight (175 tall, 82 heavy. centimeters and kilos), to be obese I'd have to reach something like 95. Well, those 60 kilos mom would consider good looking for me is still within the range of the medical normal but I would look totally starved, I'm quite massively built. And with her approach to food..... this is a a fridge filled by her. I've added labels, so that you wouldn't guess that there are veggies in the bags. I wanted to get something for the breakfast but there was nothing edible as such. The conservants, as labelled... I have allergy to them so I simply cannot eat sausages or ham, it's made of crap colored pink which grants me two days of stomach pains. The asterisked things were thrown away, the fresh pasta was fresh maybe five months ago and the cheddar was a winter edition with a nice fur on the other side.
In other words, what the hell I'm supposed to eat? The youghurt is not my favorite but it could do. Bacon and eggs... had it a few weeks ago and I don't ned it that often. But could do. Beer with sausages? No way. Butter and mayo? Upgrade necessary anyway. I enriched teh supplies thusly:
Of course, the main comment was What are you going to do with that much carrots. THe iceberg lettuce and the whitey piece (cheese) are a bit gnawed on, I was quite hungry after a whole day of working.
I promised to make some pasta. I had the tortellini on my mind... the only problem was that they started to smell a bit when cooked. I planned to make a nice picture tutorial for Juha, on making sauce, I even started but then mom came to the kitchen, started whinig that I'm making mess, taking things from under my hands to put them to place and to her annoyance I took them again to continue cutting something or whatever. I didn't want to cause conflicts - she would want to have an explanation why the hell I need to take pics of food. She considers blogging and chatting an activity of antisocial weirdos and perverts. Mommy is weird.
However, one sweet little extra for Juha (picture tutorial some other time wheen I'll be cooking and alone): I do lousy things too. I burned my belly. I was pouring the last drops of hot soup to a bowl. Hot soup from a big and hot pot. I needed to hold it with one hand only so that I could scrape the solid pieces out so I had a genius inspiration to lean one handle of the pot against my belly. Of course it slipped and I pressed the side of the pot to my skin (usually I wear an apron when messing around my kitchen.... I did not this time).

Exciting day

Yesterday I was basically scanning my ass off. Nearly literally, for wahtever the reason (maybe the sound of the light tube moving in the box?) scanning makes you go totally dumb. And then you sit in your not-so-comfy office chair (the state of the chairs here would make a long story), muscles relaxed, brain slowly melting, the wright of the upper part of your body descends onto you poor innocent lower spine and when you stand up to go and make umpteenth coffee, you just scream. On the other hand, there are many time lags. The light tube is moving around in the scanner fulfillinf the Import command (no idea how is it called in Czech, I'm trying not to read the localized version of Photoshop) so I cannot d oanything else in Photoshop. Nor around, it's not worth starting another graphic work in another application because it needs concentration of a sort.
In another words, I spend lots of time hanging around the internet. Yesterday I clicked my way to a knitting pattern for a Viking helmet and the idea really charmed me. Not for some kid but for me. I just haven't discovered where I could wear it without being locked up in some sort of mental institution. And I don't like the colours, I hate brown in al its incarnations with the possible exception of naturally brown things like mud. Maybe i could make it in national colors (but before, I'll have to choose a nation with better taste for them...) and wear it for sports events (...and should start going to sports events).
An extraordinary thing happened. I'm to be met on mIRC every now and then, as everybody knows. And I met a nice and social Swede there - what a rare occurence. There aren't that many Swedes around and if they are, most of them are silent people somewhere in the corner.
Another extraordinary thing happened later on. I needed to get envelopes with the bubble foil inside so I set ot to the torrid heat of July evening. And wanted to look around for some ribbon yarn to make something cool and summery. The LYS (local yarn store for those who don't knit:-)) is in fact in the department store in the same department as curtains and sewing things. I was sort of browsing thru the shelves, there was no-one around and I discovered the silk yarn I ordered via internet.... for almost triple the price. I got pissed off and went home.

Adapting

So, I've moved to my parents' for the summer. Partly it's ok, partly it sucks, exactly as expected. Tähti is adapting quite well, she has much more space to run or hide and the second day she found, with the unfailing cats' instinct for comfort, the best place in the house. She is still pretty timid, though. Mother said yesterday that Tähti is nice and well behaved and doesn't destroy furniture and things btu that she should be more cuddly. Mom is following her around all the time, calling her, but Tähti mostly sits on the attic stairs and looks disdainful.
I'm making my way thru the silk sweater. I cast on 220 stitches, counting from a sample, but somehow it's more voluminous so it's gonna be a sweater. Now it it is in a miserable state with one stumpy sleeve and i'm knitting it on a circular needle and it sucks, i'm pulling the wire all the time. But I hate knitting on 4+1.
(more rants coming later)

Idiots attack - another story

First, I'd like to make a nice little query: do you use localised versions of programmes?
I work in this company for years. At the beginning, there simply were no localised versions. By beginnings I mean somthing like 1994. So I have a strong habit of using English language stuff. (Same with my Florentine Italian - I learnt it such way and I'll probably never get rid of the accent and when I try, it sounds silly to me). So, today I started working here again (school finished for this season - constructive holiday). And what a surprise, some goddamn fucking idiot reinstalled the Photoshop, my main working tool, into Czech. Now I;m doing some rough scanning so I can manage with the key shortcuts but I'm abslutely not going to work like this. Either someone did it without thinking, there's a new graphics guy I haven't met yet, or I'll be killing. I asked the boss whether she knows something about it and she didn't. In fact, she told me off in a very rude way, that I shouldn't bother her and I speak Czech so what's the problem. (I'll localize the stuff in her computer as soon as I discover whether is possible, retrograde and whether I'm able to do it. Just for the fun of asking whether she has some problems with her mother tongue). Sure I speak czech. But the programmes and computer stuff is being translated by idiots, sometimes, often it sounds creepy and even more often, incomprehensible. And different programmes have different words for the same thing. There should be some institute for enforcing the purity of Czech language, creating Czech versions of international and fotreign words to do this for those who want to have everything translated. Fuck it, this is 21th century and people shoudl be able to get that 'rotate' means turn around - usually people doing graphics have brains enough to get it and if not, then woe upon us anyway.
I'm angry. And frustrated because the boss is not getting it although she has the brains.

Done.

Today I passed my last exam of the season. Greek Art.
Bought a 6 mm circular needle and now I eagerly wait for the yarn to arrive.
As for the would-be Thai dish in my fridge story, I wasn't absolutely sure what was the anonymous reader asking about. So, in the empty fridge, there was a jar of olives, onion in a plastic bag, a can of beer in the door and the yellow thing is mustard. With whole grains. Made by me, so nothing Thai about it.
I probably suffered a mild sunstroke so I'm not in the best thinking state. And I have no ideas, no pics, nothing. And have to pack, I'm leaving tomorrow for my parents' place, Tähti leaves as well so I have to pack all I'll need the following days into one suitcase and it's gonna be a huge topologic challenge.
I'll be back tomorrow. Or on Wednesday.