Other things...

I went to Prague on Tuesday, on Wednesday morning the floor repair guy was to came.. and Wednesday afternoon Mom planned to arrive to do some cleaning and nagging. Luckily, there was more of the cleaning part, although useful advices as dry the cup after you wash it and before you put it into the cupboard found its way to the world. Anyway, on Tuesday evening I wanted to do a dyeing experiment, an opal inspired yarn. I didn't have much idea how to do it, all I knew was that I simply cannot dip it in the dye. I had several dyes, some acid-fixed, some salt-fixed. After previous experiences with the acid stuff I decided to add salt anyway. However, how to make speckled yarn: get a big pot. You'll boil it in vapour (cannot dip it into something) so arrange it somehow. There's things for it or you can just hang it onto a knitting needle set across the pot. Put some water in the pot. Add vinegar and salt. Generously. Dip the yarn in this terrible solution. Meantime mix the powdered dyes with some water and salt and vinegar. The main colour can be pretty liquid, the speckles are better made from a paste (meaning, add a real lot of salt). Then apply randomly. Boil it. Long. Then wash it. Wait until dries and then make conclusion. My skein came out from the pot as a tangled blackish mass smelling like hell. (Vinegar hell, for that matter.) and I was pissed off that I screwed it up. By the way, the dark blue skein was easy. Just uniform and plain dark blue. I left it hanging in the space overnight and the following day I dried it in the microwave oven.. and when dry, it was really opal blue with speckles and I decided that I love it.
Mom arrived just when I was eating my lunch (leftover pasta with leftover sauce. Potatoes are pretty weird in the pasta sauce. I needed to clean the fridge.). Oddly enough she didn't make any comment. She started cleaning from the other corner of the place, re-cleaning what I cleaned, sometimes making biting comments how come that I don't see this fingerprint, why I don't have the toilet chemicals displayed around the toilet bowl and other sorts of cleaning chemicals in the bathroom, what if some visitor makes some mess and wants to clean it and the like (A query: Have you ever made mess of such a sort in someone's bathroom that you needed, for example, natrium hydroxide to clean it?). But, moms have weird logic.
On Friday we went for a shopping spree or something. Mom basically wanted a wedding gift for a friend of hers (I never understood why people get married. They can have children without it and even a mortgage doesn't get cheaper when one gets a husband, as far as I know. Mom says that it's because when people have children and are not married, teh children go to school and other children laugh at them that their parents are not married and have different surnames. But.. then one should make sure that his child doesn't have red hair or anything noticeable... I was laughed at because I worre glasses - even though my parents were married. Well, for me it has no sense. Just enormous money spent to show up and feed relatives who care a damn) and she also wanted to buy me some clothes. To her surprise, I didn't want any because I didn't need any. I have my Copenhagen tank top and I'm happy for this month and around:-) and I'll knit something as soon as I'm moved. And anyway. I'd prefer books. Or the money to get whatever I might need someday. Travelling and stuff. Things she considers wasting money and time. Thinking of it, she considers all my hobbies a waste of time. Despite my efforts she wouldn't understand that art history cannot be done from an office, like, say, law or civil engineering.
Kristina has moved to Paris. (Kristina is a friend for over half of our lives - which is long like hell in these unstable days. Paris is in Europe. Easy to meet her, then, I'm in Europe as well.)
I'm out of ideas.