Study hard …

Dave flew back to school today.

Thanks, Nink for picking him up. 

Now we know where he lives.

In which our guest-blogging heroine discovers that sometimes less is more, and that a little surgery is just the thing. The knee socks for Bubs are too big in the feet.  Aargh!  Mouse says, “just take them apart, and reknit the feet.”   The middle segment shows the sockectomy in progress*.    The end pictures show Bubs wearing Franken-Sox and the Maquis wearing Sox-zilla.  How convenient for Mark that the too-big sock feet were the perfect size for him.  How convenient for Pooh that he likes short cuffs.  Onward and upward to the Olympics scarf which is in the colors of the Swedish flag.

*Technical notes:  (Jane, you can skip this part.)

I put the top stitches on a size 0 circular knitting needle and the bottom stitches on embroidery thread using a darning needle.  There were three rows between them. Cut one stitch, just one, between the safety lines.  Unravel the knit stitches between the safety lines all the way around.  Take the leg part and start knitting off the circular needle and back onto the size 2 dpns.  Reknit the foot.  Repeat for second Franken-Sock.  Put foot part on circulars and start knitting the new cuff.  Repeat for second Sock-zilla.

Acknowledgements: Yay to Mouse for the time saving suggestion!  Yay to Fran for letting me copy instructions for a sock pattern.  (I didn’t have mine, b/c I was already done w/ the tricky parts, don’t you know!)  Yay to Gloria’s Happy Hooker for advice, needles, and yarn for patterning the new cuffs!

I went to Jilly’s Cupcake Bar tonight.  We have from upper left to lower right the following:

Jilly On The Beach– Madagascar vanilla cake infused with vanilla syrup, stuffed with key lime custard, and topped off with a mango cream cheese frosting and a kiwi buttercream.

S’murtle– Chocolate devil’s food cake infused with chocolate syrup, stuffed with marshmallow buttercream and topped with a chocolate ganache, drizzled with dulce de leche, praline pecans, a toasted marshmallow pretzel stick and a chocolate dipped graham cracker.

Twisted Red Velvet– Red velvet cake infused with chocolate syrup and stuffed with caramel praline filling, topped with cream cheese icing, cinnamon caramel buttercream, toasted pecans and a pecan praline

Carrot Cake – Carrot cake with pineapple and walnuts infused with cinnamon syrup, stuffed with vanilla whipped cream, topped with vanilla cream cheese, toasted coconut, white chocolate shavings, candied carrot sticks.

Carmelita– Chocolate devil’s food cake infused with chocolate syrup, stuffed with carmel, topped off with dark chocolate ganache, carmel, white chocolate buttercream and a carmel kiss.

Chocolate Thunder– Chocolate devil’s food cake infused with chocolate syrup, stuffed with dark chocolate ganache and topped with chocolate and white chocolate buttercream, white and dark chocolate shavings and a marbled chocolate bark.

The cupcakes are in honor of Bob, Nink and Andrew who are arriving in town tonight.  This is Bob of all those political rants, Nink (Noreen) his wife and Andrew their son.  Andrew is starting college this week at Fontbonne University.

This morning on NPR I heard a story about Ammon Shea’s new book, One Man, One Year, One Mission: Read The OED.  The following is a  selection of the words Ammon Shea named as his favorites in reading the Oxford English Dictionary:

• antapology – a response or reply to an apology
• bedinner – to treat to dinner
• conjugalism – the art of making a good marriage
• debag – to strip the pants from a person
• dilapidator – a person who neglects a building and allows it to deteriorate
• gymnologize – to dispute naked, like an Indian philosopher
• miskissing – kissing that is wrong
• paracme – the point at which one is past one’s prime
• quisquilious – of the nature of garbage or trash
• rapin – an unruly art student
• ruffing – the stomping of feet as a form of applause
• sanculottic – clothed inadequately, or in some improper fashion
• secretary – meant, during 4th c. “one privy to a secret”
• twi-thought – a vague or indistinct thought
• unlove – to cease loving a person
• vocabularian – one who pays too much attention to words
• xanthodontous – having teeth that are yellow, as do some rodents
• yuky – itchy; also, itchy with curiosity
• zyxt – to see

Anne and I drove down from the Door, back home, to Sweat Louis.  The photo is from a bar in Sturgeon Bay.  We didn’t go in, but you got to love the name.  The house is still standing, thank you Dan.  Anne is picking Dave up from the train station and I’m cooking dinner.   Oh hello, is this Papa John’s Pizza?