I just want to knit and play with the sunbaked cats

Exams are over for now.
It didn't go quite as planned, though.
And for the first time ever I've felt stressed.
Not mentally, but physically. My heart racing like mad, the feeling of tightness in the chest, chest pain, trouble breathing fully. And it has scared the hell out of me.
More so since I have been feeling quite calm and collected although a bit more busy than I would prefer.
I've never felt stressed before, or even thought I could, especially since I've always believed that stress could only truly "happen" when you felt overwhelmed and without control of a situation. And since this is of my own choice I thought I was immune.
But then I may have had too much on my plate this semester.
Work has been busy - both have gone through a months-long period of rebranding and restructuring and that has taken a lot of time and energy.
Now I have set up a meeting with a student adviser at the University - and one with my doctor. And I hope and expect that both will be able to help me find tools and ways to avoid this in the future.
So, when I realized what was going on and why I canceled the exams. It seemed to be the best and safest and easiest way to get around it, and I will work on finishing the papers during the next half year.
And work on not having this reaction at another time.
And so I've been knitting.
I fell in love with Teriokhin's V-neck Dress in the Spring/Summer issue of VK. And I found a lovely cheapish cotton/bamboo blend which seemed perfect and affordable.

I did get gauge using 4 mm. For once. But I liked the fabric better using 3.5 mm needles, so we're already off to a great start. (And I'm working it in the round.)
I didn't like the eyelets in the bottom border. So I skipped those.
And now I'm wondering if those pleats would do anything for me. I doubt it.
I think they're fine for a tall, slender thing like the model wearing it, but with my curvy 164 cm, they are probably .... not quite right.
So for now it's starting out as a V-neck dress and only time will show how it turns out and in which form.

The cats are enjoying the extraordinarily sunny summer weather we're having.

They are far better with sun and heat than I am.

All's Well That Ends Well

Or, to quote the great Lloyd Cole, nothing very good or very bad will ever last for very long.
Things didn't go quite as smoothly as expected.
The endoscopy itself went fine. It seemed.
I even went home by bus. Somehow they had the idea that my non-existent husband would come to get me, so they had not arranged transportation and in my still semi-sedated state I found it easier to climb on the bus than find a taxi.
And I had planned to be at work as usual Tuesday afternoon.
Instead I spent the early hours of that day in the emergency room.
All I have left to say to the odd woman waiting with me is that if you're wearing a pale blue coat it is a very bad idea to upset the girl vomiting blood any further by telling her that 1 in 200 endoscopies is fatal.
It's not only unkind but also rather unwise.
If only I had better aim.
And so I got to spend a bit more time in hospital than planned.
But all is well now.
I am home. I have happy cats and plenty of pills, and I have new pajama pants. Very pretty in white and blue with a thin silver stripe. Very pretty!
And I have no plans other than read P.D. James, knit socks, and admire the cats for a few days.

Bah

Well, today I saw a man walking with a gorgeous green parrot perched calmly and happily on his shoulder.
I like parrots.
A lot. But so, I'm afraid, do the cats.
Otherwise a mysterious case of acute pancreatitis has been keeping me occupied.
While it in return seems to continue to ignore the very expensive pills I've been prescribed for it.
It has just about a week to go away before the new semester starts.
Very little knitting is being done.
But the cats are happy, healthy, and very, very cuddly.

Oh, I should perhaps have noticed this a bit earlier.

I realized late last night that the wobbly oddness of the ribbing in the not-so-cashmere Lace Blouse may not be caused by me suffering from a rare lack of rib-knitting ability as much as my using one 3½ mm and one 3 mm needle, when I really, really meant to use two 3 mm needles.
And in yarn this fine it really does make a difference.
But my big fat fingers don't quite feel that same difference.
And I wonder if this ranks next to the pea on the list of signs you're not a princess.
I'll just start over.

OMG!!!!!!!80081ES!!!!!

I'm afraid that this Waist-cincher top is not really a good look for me.
To put it mildly.
It may be because I feel bloated and sweaty, and tired and a bit grumpy but .... no!
I would have posted a photo of the before-finishing-the-second- sleeve-trying-on-session.
But it is practically obscene.
If the lacy part is to stop right under the boobs, as I think it's meant to, .... there really is not enough fabric in the part above that to cover my boobage adequately.
They just suddenly look ..... huge, trying their best to stay inside.
(Sorry)
But I do think keeping it around for a while will help keep me away from the chocolate. And the ice cream.
While I wonder just how much short rows can do.
Or if I should just let it be transformed into the lovely bed jacket.
And pretend nothing ever happened.

And so, instead of a photo of me in the role of the rare red-faced humpback whale, we have Vincent insisting that stripes will have a slimming effect.
And that he will gladly take care of the ice cream for me.
(I could of course let the cats keep the waist-cincher/boob-enhancer top and knit sleeves for the kitty pi, and see how that fits. G knows the bad cats have slept more on the top than in the pi.)

Mmmm, wool

Sleeping cat. In wool destined to become the City Coat from Domiknitrix.
The rest of the City Coat that is. I already have a finished sleeve. Somewhere.
And the ring of trouble.

The waiting room

Today I will not leave the house.
Not until I have received my care package from Apple.
I called Apple on Tuesday.
I told them about my problem and what I had so far done to fix it.
And I told them about my suspicion that the trouble is caused by a recent security update not working with a recent iTunes update on OS X 10.3.9.
My intuition. Not valid proof, just .... intuition.
(The iTunes update makes it impossible to verify Permissions in Disk Utility on 10.3.9 - and that's a known problem.)
And now there's an OS X 10.4. upgrade on its way by courier, and it should be here today.
They regretted they could not deliver it sooner.
During my 8 years as a Mac-lover I've only had reason to contact them twice.
The first time because I had spilled wine into the keyboard of my then 4 years old iBook and needed a replacement, as the spacebar and the n had stopped working.
It was with me within two days.
I was prepared for some sniggering because of the age of the iBook and the wine, but it never came.
I was also prepared for it to cost a small fortune, but it didn't.

I would never dare fiddling with the roots if I had a PC.
(Actually I would never even dare go on the internet with a PC, I see too much trouble with worms and Trojan horses and .... germs amongst my PC-using friends).
Not to mention all the fun you can have with Windows Vista.
I have never had a Mac freeze on me until now.
At work I have a visit from Dr. Watson at least once a day.
I have never had a Mac refusing to restart either. Not until now .....
Or ask me to restart it. In the middle of something important.
I have never had to search for a driver.
This may be why the PowerBook is breaking my heart.
But it is also why I still love and trust it.
Oh, and I have never bought the AppleCare. I have thought about it, but never actually gotten around to doing it.
Still they give outstanding and very caring service.
Just a few reasons for my hearting Apple.
And now I'm all dressed and ready to run down and hug the courier once he gets here.
I may get some knitting done, while I wait.
And ponder my back-up procedure in the future.

And because there's more to life than reading and writing, knitting and waiting, I also have a very secret project to play with.
Involving this:


And sorting through the old photos I found one of kitten Laurenz.
When he was a wee one still living with his sister and the rest of his big cat family.
And was called Lorentin.
"Who's a cheeky little monkey?"

When all else fails, there is always knitting - and tuna

Well, now I have finished knitting the back of the Waist-cincher top.

And I knitted most of it while running Disk Utility, attempting clever things in Single User mode, and doing Hardware tests, as my beautiful Powerbook has refused to restart since Monday.

No errors, no nothing, there is absolutely nothing wrong, and as such nothing to fix.
But my beautiful machine nonetheless refuses to restart.
In spite of everything saying that a healthier and happier computer would be hard to find.

Tech Support suggests tuna. Tuna is always good.
And this is no fun as the deadline for two large exam-papers is Thursday, and I have not set up a proper back-up process, even if I knew I should.
Well, the deadline was Thursday, as I have just returned from the university where I handed in the signed slip of paper cancelling the exams.
End of that story.
I'm awaiting a package from Apple which may/may not bring my PowerBook to move beyond the lovely startup sound, the pretty grey apple, and the promising progression wheel to actually letting me access my computer.
So now I'm back on the faithful little old iBook.
And I can concentrate on the Cézanne paper.
And it really makes no big difference anyway.
A small difference, but not in the great scheme of things.
So I may/may not have to rewrite the other two + one exam papers, but if that's the case at least I have until January to do so.
And they'll probably be better for it.
At least that's what I've decided.
And with help like this, I will be just fine.

That leaves only three

No wizardry at the exams office.
Not that I expected it but I was indeed very hopeful.
And since the paper & project due yesterday was closely tied with one of the papers due end of May I now only have to rewrite three papers, if the tech wizard is magicking away in vain.
And no news from him yet.
As consolation I've started working on Elizabeth I again.
Which does in a way make "her" Elizabeth II.
First yarn choice was rather bad.
And Vincent has decided that the best sunny spot is in the top drawer.
Which would, if not for him, be sadly empty by now, as we have not been able to do laundry for four weeks.
Making for rather interesting combinations in the wardrobe department.

There is hope

I have hand delivered my beautiful machine to a friend, who claims that one of his colleagues is a well known wizard when it comes to help the Apple-kind into remembering where they put their hard drive.
I am keeping my fingers crossed.
All the way to the exam office, where, hopefully, there will be another wellknown wizard when it comes to help rather overworked students into sitting their exam this term in spite of lost hard disks.
I'll worry about the other papers on the disk another day.
When I have a verdict from the tech wizard.

This doesn't happen in the real world

It's just something you hear happening to someone else.

My hard disk has died.
Actually it may not have died, it may just have left.
Even if I've checked and it's still there.
So while it's still here physically, it is not here in spirit, or whatever it would take for disk utility and diskwarrior and fsck to find it and repair it and make all well again.
And I still have a paper to hand in tomorrow. A full 12 pages of thorough wellwritten cleverness to hand in, plus the practical website project, of course.
Not to mention the other four papers due this semester.
All on the non responsive hard disk.

And I very nearly want to say to he** with good healthy sleeping and eating patterns, I'll just write a quick and nifty little replacement, and let them get the gist of the site from the test-page I uploaded just to check if the menu really did work across platforms.
The rest of the site is in the little sites folder on the hard disk.
But.... I've spent far too much time and energy on this, and it cannot just be replaced in a night of frenzied writing. Even if most is still somewhere inside my head, right now I'm too stressed and tired and stunned to find it.
And hoping that someone can bring my hard disk back.
That if I wait ten minutes, maybe it will suddenly be there when I turn on the machine. Again. While holding my breath. And wishing.
The beautiful machine, that cannot find its own bloody hard disk.

So I've sent my very nice teacher an email letting him know the situation and asking if there is any way I can sit the exam before next winter.
A dead hard disk is not illness.

Back up. Back up. Back up.

Now I'll go for a walk, kick some trees.
Refrain from returning to smoking, even if I suddenly wish I had not quit those many months ago.

Hrmpf

Well, the very nice man I finally found and had a very nice interview with in the wasteland called the free port, has decided that while I am lovely and interesting and obviously competent and qualified (which it is always nice to be told), they would like someone with a more mercantile background.
And better sense of direction and map reading abilities (my addition).

Waterfront

I had a job interview today.
In a very strange area, the old free port, which is still a huge wastelandish port area.
With many big, big trucks and containers and rusty metal barriers everywhere you look.
And I am slightly afraid of big trucks.
Every adress there is something-kaj. And did I mention it was huge?
And so I got lost. Completely. Lost.
To me the rule is that if I'm not early for appointments I'm at least punctual. Always.
But no rules without exceptions, as they say.
I had, of course, given myself a 10-15 minutes margin to find the place.
But 7 minutes before the meeting I realized I was lost and called the recruitment firm for a confirmation of the adress and hopefully a bit of guidance.
And I was guided back down the long and winding road towards the outer end of the port area, and was told to just keep walking.
And it was raining. And windy. And cold.
And an old port is in all its photogenic decay really not the most charming place. Especially not in high heels in the wind and rain, feeling very small as the only pedestrian with huge big trucks rushing by, squirting even more water everywhere.
I ended up looking at nothing but a single shivering seagull and the big grey ocean in front of me .... and then turned back and in slight panic spotted a taxi down the road and ran to catch it before it went away.
And the very nice driver drove me back past starting point, not far from where I was standing when I called the recruiter, and then down a few more quays and around a bit, and then, there it was.
After bloody 45 minutes of determined walking hither and dither with no clue whatsoever.
At arrival I was reassured that noone could ever find it.
And the interview went well. For a full hour.
Fluid conversation, clever questions and answers, much knowledge displayed.
I'm just afraid that no matter how eloquent or insightful or very qualified you are, it will rarely outweigh a whopping 35 minutes of sheer lateness.
And the carefully applied discreet make up had of course been ruined by rain and wind, which left only freckles and fresh air cheeks and wet curly hair and a general mess.
Which was me.
However, going home I listened to Simple Minds' Waterfront.

Get in, get out of the rain
I'm goin' to move on up to the Waterfront
Step in, step out of the rain
I'm goin' to walk on up to the Waterfront
Said, one million years from today
I'm goin' to step on up to the Waterfront
Get in, get out of the rain
Come in, come out of the rain

So far, so good, so close, yet still so far
So far, so good, so close, yet still so
So far, so far, so far

It had already been rumbling at the back of my mind while I was searching for the right place, but I could not waste precious time fiddling with the iPod.
Oh, the worst thing is: I really would like that job.
But the lesson learned:
Next time I'll take a taxi to start with rather than do the full port area sightseeing first.