Three Cheers for the Comcast Guy

Today my favorite person is Eric, the Comcast service technician, who no only replaced my cable box but arranged it so that there is no fee (he decided that it was not a power surge that killed my box, but rather the problem was that the equipment was old and just died -- it had a TCI sticker on it, for pity's sake!)

But let me back up and explain how Eric came to make my day. At about 3 a.m. Tuesday night (er, Wednesday morning), I woke up inexplicably -- although I think that the fact that it was the first night J wasn't here in over a month had something to do with it! As I rolled over to see what time it was, I discovered that my clock was off. Groggy as I was, I had to get up and walk around the rest of the apartment to see what was what, and indeed, the power was out. No power is what my management company calls a "true emergency" (I know because I've called their maintenance line way too much), so I turned on my cell phone and called up the emergency line. They must have been getting a lot of calls, because I didn't even get out where I was calling from before the person on the other end interrupted to tell me Duquesne Light was on their way. Okay, that's great. Never been a huge fan of Duquesne Light, but at least they know there's a problem. I knew it could be a while before the power came back on, so I set the alarm on my cell phone and tried to get back to sleep. I was still tossing and turning when the power came back on at 3:30, at which point I had to get up and reset my clock and alarm. Then I was all paranoid that it would go off again, so I kept opening my eyes to check that it was still on -- long story [not so] short, it was about 4:30 when I finally got back to sleep, and then I had to get up at 6. To add insult to injury, when I dragged my exhausted self into my living room to watch the news with my coffee, I discovered that my cable would not go on and, worse still, was displaying the ominous message "E 11." The customer service guy at Comcast told me that it had probably been killed by a power surge when the power came back on; when I protested that every other electronic item in my apartment was perfectly fine, he told me that he was an "expert" because he used to work at a radio station and they once had lightening hit a tower, and the resulting surge only killed some items but not others. Yeah, whatever. It's 7 a.m. and I haven't had my coffee yet, just send me a technician and a new box so I don't have to eat breakfast in my bedroom and spill coffee all over the books next to my bed (yes, that did happen this morning).

Which brings me to Eric, my cable savior, who apologized for the idiot who I talked to yesterday morning and told me there was no way in hell I could possibly control or be responsible for electricity (I believe his words were, "There's a reason they call them acts of G-d!").

Okay, now that I have that out of my system, back to the knitting content of my knitting blog!

Had a lovely evening knitting with the ladies at the Waterworks B&N last night. I took my lace shawl, although I quickly learning that talking and lace knitting do not mix: I wound up with about 5 extra stitches on the last row I completed. (Shh, don't tell anyone, but I just knit them all together and pretended I didn't see them.) I promptly put it down and picked up my Jaywalkers, but here you can see my progress so far, bearing in mind that of course lace looks really crappy (sorry, J -- make that "creppie") until it's blocked.

As you're looking at it, it's upside-down and the top border is at the bottom (near my thumb). I was rather surprised by how this shawl comes together -- it starts at the top center, and works out and down. I've already made several mistakes (namely finding myself with too many stitches and solving that problem by just knitting them all together), but I'm not too bothered by them, especially considering this is my first foray into lace and my first time reading a chart. For my next attempt, my goal is to do this with a slightly thicker yarn (I'm afraid to handle this yarn because it's so ridiculously thin!)

I've been making slow progress on my Jaywalkers, as you will see to the right. This may look like a lot to some, but let me add that I started the zigzag pattern on Saturday (and got over an inch of it knit in that session), and I'm a fairly fast knitter. I've really only been pulling this out for part of my lunch hour this week. At last measure during lunch today, I had about 4.5 inches of the leg done, so a little less than 2 to go before I start the heel -- scary, because I don't think I've ever done a heel flap before (at least not successfully).

I decided to forgo my last few minutes of knitting time today to finally place an order on Knit Picks for my supplies for Blanche-Neige. Those of you who read my blog know that I've been talking about this pattern pretty much since the winter Knitty came out; I've decided that since I finished all those projects on my knitting resolutions list, I just don't have enough UFOs. I'm contemplating signing up for the Knitting Olympics, but I'm wary of giving myself such a tight deadline with work being as crazy as it's been. Besides, I'm not sure I can resist the lure of a new project, and I'm not sure that swatching alone will sustain me.

Thanks for all your lovely comments on the baby sweater! It was a very easy pattern to follow, and I highly recommend it. I had some yarn left over, so I started a little hat to go with it this morning. It's got the same garter stitch border as the sweater, and I'm working in the stripes as well. If I still have leftover yarn, I'll have to find a good pattern for booties.

Okay, I think that's enough posting for one night. If you made it all the way to the end, thanks for sticking around! Perhaps you could leave me a comment, even if it's to tell me to stop the diarrhea of the mouth (hands? I am typing, after all ...)