Utterly Uninspired and Rambling
Something exciting and/or interesting needs to happen, because I am just not inspired to write anything. I’m sure a full month of bleakitude has a lot to do with my lack of inspiration. I have not been out walking around much and I need to do that or I wind up in the doldrums.
Portland had an earthquake on Saturday, but it wasn’t really exciting and/interesting (not that I would have wanted that kind of excitement). I’m not going to check my facts on this, but I think it measured 2.9 on the Mercalli scale, which means it was too feeble to even rattle the teacups in granny's cupboard.
Most of Sunday was devoted to knitting the sweater—not that most people want to hear about that. But I will say that all that’s left to do are the sleeves and I’ve knitted about one-third of one of them. If I didn’t have to work, I would just sit down and knit nonstop and finish that sweater, and then start on something new like a pair of felted clogs. Making a pair of felted clogs might be quite amusing, because the deal with felted things is that you knit something humongous and then throw it in the washing machine and it shrinks down to a normal size. So for a felted clog what you have to do is knit this big floppy Bozo shoe that’s like two feet long and a foot wide. My favorite yarn shop has one of these big unfelted Bozo shoes on display next to its shrunken, felted mate, and it cracks me up every time I see it. I would love to be knitting something weird like that. Seriously, it just seems like the thing to do be doing when every time you look out the window it’s misting, drizzling, sprinkling, paddocking,* or bushwhacking**--all of which we’ve experienced in copious amounts continuously for the past 30+ days.
I did go out with some friends to a fancyish restaurant Saturday night. Going to a fancy restaurant is not something I do as much as I would like to because of 1) the expense and 2) B likes restaurants that are a “good value.” It turns out that I have a bunch of friends whose significant others/husbands/partners/what-have-yous feel the same way as B and they were all dying to go somewhere nice, too, and have an excuse to dress up a little teeny bit.
The place, the uber-hip Clarklewis, where one goes to see and been seen (yeah, that's us all right) has one of those deals where you can pay a flat fee and then the chef picks out a bunch of stuff off the menu for you and you just eat it. (Is that what Prix Fixe is? See? This is what a clodhopper I am. I don’t even know. Actually, I’m pretty sure Prix Fixe is something else, but Prix Fixe sounds like it would be the right term.) Anyway, all but one of us went that route, which meant that we probably got to try about 2/3 of the entire menu. It was all pretty darn good, too, even if I can't rightly remember what all I ate and there was more food than I could finish. The mussels were divine--I remember that.
The highlight of the evening, however, occurred at a bar we went to after dinner--a sort of near-dive bar that keeps changing ownership and never quite seems to know what vibe it’s going for. They’ve got all these infused vodkas and their claim to fame used to be that they used fresh juices in their cocktails (not that that’s so unique), but, ewww, my drink was weak and sugary and they may have jettisoned the fresh juice thing. And there was an incompetent DJ--experimenting.
It just wasn’t very nice. Except for one thing: When were all up at the bar ordering drinks the bartender started asking to see ID. My friends (all of whom are younger than me) started laughing, because they don’t normally get carded. I haven’t been carded in I don’t know how long, so I fully expected that I would be the one person in the group who didn’t get carded, and then I would feel like crap. Ancient crap. But no! He demanded to see my ID. So old-ass me got carded and, I have to admit, I was delighted!
Of course, the bartender knew full well that we were all well past our 21st birthdays, but if he’s been on the job more than one evening, he’s figured out that he will skyrocket in the esteem of most women between the ages of 30 and 100 if he cards them. It totally worked on me. I almost always tip bartenders (unless I’ve been wantonly ignored), and I most certainly did tip this guy, but if he had carded everyone else and not me, it would have definitely bummed me out and made me feel like a crone among nymphs (or something like that)—a pissed-off crone, the kind that stiffs bartenders. Or not. Service has to be really, really bad for me not to tip, because I know that jobs like that suck.
*A term I made up as a little girl to describe a moderate, steady rain.
**A term I made up as a little girl to describe rain that is coming down so hard that the drops hit the pavement and splash back up.
Portland had an earthquake on Saturday, but it wasn’t really exciting and/interesting (not that I would have wanted that kind of excitement). I’m not going to check my facts on this, but I think it measured 2.9 on the Mercalli scale, which means it was too feeble to even rattle the teacups in granny's cupboard.
Most of Sunday was devoted to knitting the sweater—not that most people want to hear about that. But I will say that all that’s left to do are the sleeves and I’ve knitted about one-third of one of them. If I didn’t have to work, I would just sit down and knit nonstop and finish that sweater, and then start on something new like a pair of felted clogs. Making a pair of felted clogs might be quite amusing, because the deal with felted things is that you knit something humongous and then throw it in the washing machine and it shrinks down to a normal size. So for a felted clog what you have to do is knit this big floppy Bozo shoe that’s like two feet long and a foot wide. My favorite yarn shop has one of these big unfelted Bozo shoes on display next to its shrunken, felted mate, and it cracks me up every time I see it. I would love to be knitting something weird like that. Seriously, it just seems like the thing to do be doing when every time you look out the window it’s misting, drizzling, sprinkling, paddocking,* or bushwhacking**--all of which we’ve experienced in copious amounts continuously for the past 30+ days.
I did go out with some friends to a fancyish restaurant Saturday night. Going to a fancy restaurant is not something I do as much as I would like to because of 1) the expense and 2) B likes restaurants that are a “good value.” It turns out that I have a bunch of friends whose significant others/husbands/partners/what-have-yous feel the same way as B and they were all dying to go somewhere nice, too, and have an excuse to dress up a little teeny bit.
The place, the uber-hip Clarklewis, where one goes to see and been seen (yeah, that's us all right) has one of those deals where you can pay a flat fee and then the chef picks out a bunch of stuff off the menu for you and you just eat it. (Is that what Prix Fixe is? See? This is what a clodhopper I am. I don’t even know. Actually, I’m pretty sure Prix Fixe is something else, but Prix Fixe sounds like it would be the right term.) Anyway, all but one of us went that route, which meant that we probably got to try about 2/3 of the entire menu. It was all pretty darn good, too, even if I can't rightly remember what all I ate and there was more food than I could finish. The mussels were divine--I remember that.
The highlight of the evening, however, occurred at a bar we went to after dinner--a sort of near-dive bar that keeps changing ownership and never quite seems to know what vibe it’s going for. They’ve got all these infused vodkas and their claim to fame used to be that they used fresh juices in their cocktails (not that that’s so unique), but, ewww, my drink was weak and sugary and they may have jettisoned the fresh juice thing. And there was an incompetent DJ--experimenting.
It just wasn’t very nice. Except for one thing: When were all up at the bar ordering drinks the bartender started asking to see ID. My friends (all of whom are younger than me) started laughing, because they don’t normally get carded. I haven’t been carded in I don’t know how long, so I fully expected that I would be the one person in the group who didn’t get carded, and then I would feel like crap. Ancient crap. But no! He demanded to see my ID. So old-ass me got carded and, I have to admit, I was delighted!
Of course, the bartender knew full well that we were all well past our 21st birthdays, but if he’s been on the job more than one evening, he’s figured out that he will skyrocket in the esteem of most women between the ages of 30 and 100 if he cards them. It totally worked on me. I almost always tip bartenders (unless I’ve been wantonly ignored), and I most certainly did tip this guy, but if he had carded everyone else and not me, it would have definitely bummed me out and made me feel like a crone among nymphs (or something like that)—a pissed-off crone, the kind that stiffs bartenders. Or not. Service has to be really, really bad for me not to tip, because I know that jobs like that suck.
*A term I made up as a little girl to describe a moderate, steady rain.
**A term I made up as a little girl to describe rain that is coming down so hard that the drops hit the pavement and splash back up.
posted by Rozanne at 8:33 PM
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