Finally winding down this damned week
So the trip to Petco last night was fun. I said hi to the ferrets (a couple of which came to the grating to snuffle at my fingertips), found the hay, and then spent an absorbing while in the aisle of small animal treats and toys trying to pick something out to bring home to the bunnies. One more swing by the ferret cage, to discover that it had struck playtime o'clock and there was an ongoing WEASEL FRENZY, and then home.
Where I was greeted by Aidyn, and informed by Mom that Lauren had come by (as round one of clearing the unsafe-for-toddlers junk out of her old bedroom so that it could be repurposed as a playroom), discovered I had gotten Inglourious Basterds from Netflix, and invited herself to our movie night. And it SUCKED. Not the movie, the movie was enjoyable enough (though I'm not buying the DVD, but then again I don't think I've bought any Tarantino movies), but the part where we had to put up with a toddler squealing, standing in front of the TV blocking the subtitles, banging on things, or shrieking from the bedroom where he'd been stuck on "time out." Also the continual pauses for Lauren to get up and go deal with him.
After they'd finally been taken home by Daniel, I told Mom that in future she needs to not tell Lauren about the DVDs I just bought (or got from Netflix), to try to keep her from inviting herself to watch with us again. (Mom agreed with me, though it remains to be seen whether she'll actually do it or was just making agreeable noises because I was so aggravated.) As it is, Lauren's already declared she wants to see the latest Harry Potter DVD again (what with having been hauled home by Daniel before it had really gotten started when she tried to watch it with Mom and me last month), and my position is already on record about refusing to loan Lauren any DVDs to take home because her track record with actually returning borrowed property is pretty much zero. The question is whether I'll just sigh, let Mom and Lauren watch the movie in the living room while I hide in my bedroom, or use the opportunity to put my foot down and say no, I'm under no obligation to make my entertainment media available for my sister's use. Which I'm sure I'll have to do at some point, but I should maybe save that for another movie that I haven't actually seen before and won't have in the house in future to watch at my uninterrupted leisure (which Inglourious Basterds was, dammit), to spare myself from dealing with those "arguments" that it's unreasonable of me to complain about a single viewing.
Oh, and then Mom passed me the HP: GoF DVD that she'd rescued from the box Lauren was filling with her junk, which she'd recognized as being mine. So, yeah, now I'm wondering how that wound up in Lauren's room -- and more specifically, whether she lifted it from the living room (though I can't recall having left it there for Mom's viewing at any time recently, but I could have easily forgotten) or has actually been going into my room to rummage through my DVD shelf when I'm not home to throw her out. I need to ask Mom if that box went home with Lauren or is still sitting in her bedroom or out in the garage -- I'd like to have a look through it for any other DVDs that Mom might not have realized were mine if she saw them. (Which BTW is traditionally the only way any of us has ever gotten any of our property back from Lauren -- rummaging through her bedroom looking for it, or throwing a fit at her until she finds it for us just to get us out of her room. She was bad enough about running off with things sans permission when I was in high school that SOP for finding any missing item was to toss her bedroom for it, with a fair success rate. There are reasons my mother quit trying to make me share anything with my sister at about that point. Some of them have to do with that being the point at which Lauren had grown big enough to start raiding Mom's closet as she saw fit.)
So, yeah, I'm incredibly annoyed this morning whenever I remember last night. And sort of liking the idea of taking advantage of my mood to kick up a stink the very next opportunity Lauren gives me -- which may well be Friday night, since I believe the plan was for her to come over in the afternoon for another round of clearing her room before leaving Aidyn with Mom for the night. If she so much as mentions wanting to see another movie...
On the plus side, I finished the first of the striped kneesocks. Hopefully tonight I can get the second one cast on. Also, I'm wanting to experiment a bit with sizing on those -- a lot of them are kind of hard to pull on (and then a little bit of shrinkage happens after a few years and I have to give them to someone with skinnier legs), and I've been thinking about things like not doing the ribbing on a smaller-sized needle, casting on a few more stitches on the ribbing (instead of casting on 64 and then increasing to 72 with the first stockinette row), and possibly even doing the colorwork band on a larger needle than the rest of the sock. (As with the Dale of Norway sweater I made for Mom a few years back, which had me jump up a needle size for the colorwork pattern to compensate for the way the stranding tends to tighten things up.) I don't want to monkey with the ribbing on this sock (since I already did it the old way on the first sock), but I'm thinking I'd like to go ahead and try doing the colorwork section on a larger needle, because I was noticing that one area was too tight when I tried on the first sock. (I was wishing I'd tried it on before I reached the ankle, frankly -- no way I was frogging that much, but if I'd tried it on before I reached mid-calf I probably would have ripped back and redone the colorwork. I'm so used to doing this pattern that I generally just assume they'll fit without checking, but in this case I was feeling doubtful about the length.)
And I'm in a much better mood, since I switched from being mad at my sister to thinking about knitting. Not only have I reached a notable landmark on the kneesocks (and am that much more likely to be ready to take them to see Sherlock Holmes with Mom on Sunday), but I'm ready to cast on for a couple different pairs of socks -- maybe even tonight or tomorrow night.
Next topic shift, to links from Yahoo!:
Belgian doctors give injured woman a new windpipe -- "For more than a quarter of a century, Linda De Croock lived with constant pain from a car accident that smashed her windpipe. Today, she has a new one after surgeons implanted the windpipe from a dead man into her arm, where it grew new tissue before being transplanted into her throat. The way doctors trained her body to accept donor tissue could yield new methods of growing or nurturing organs within patients, experts say. The technique sounds like science fiction, but De Croock says it has transformed her life. She no longer takes anti-rejection drugs."
Study: Fast morphine treatment may prevent PTSD -- "Quickly giving morphine to wounded troops cuts in half the chance they will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a provocative study that suggests a new strategy for preventing the psychological fallout of war."
AP Exclusive: Lawyers advise wait to lift gay ban -- "Lawyers for the nation's top military officer are recommending holding off on an internal Pentagon effort that could lead to the repeal of the ban on openly gay military service. The delay could push a decision by Congress to the middle of the next presidential election."
Why Haiti keeps getting hammered by disasters -- "When it comes to natural disasters, Haiti seems to have a bull's-eye on it. That's because of a killer combination of geography, poverty, social problems, slipshod building standards and bad luck, experts say. The list of catastrophes is mind-numbing: This week's devastating earthquake. Four tropical storms or hurricanes that killed about 800 people in 2008. Killer storms in 2005 and 2004. Floods in 2007, 2006, 2003 (twice) and 2002. And that's just the 21st Century run-down."
Okay. I'm about a week behind on the friends list, and I've already given most of that much a first pass (which is why I've been able to knock out several days in an hour's browsing and get as close to caught up as I have).
Oh, hey, the time. And I'd actually like to get out of here soonish tonight.