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I have cast on for J’s sweater. I hope to have the welt complete before the knitting retreat so that I don’t have to pay attention to it. After the welt is eight or nine inches of stockinette.
J is baking another cake, a small one this time, I hope. Can’t lose weight eating cake.

Sunny, in the mid-sixties, with a cool breeze

This is the route of today’s bike ride—probably the last one of my 52^nd year, given the forecast for the next two days. The weather was near perfect, though I do like it when the wind is calm. While averaging 10.7 mph, it seems to me that I spent an inordinate amount of time waiting on stoplights.

My employee gave his two-weeks notice on Wednesday, leaving for a better opportunity. While I wish him luck, I’m a bit pissed about the timing. I’ve had to cut two or three days out of my week-long birthday vacation in order to catch up on all the tasks I’ve assigned to him over the past few years. It will be the first time in over twenty years I have worked any one day this week.

I used to take this week off to goof off and party in a very understated way, that is, with no one else. It was a good week to get a tattoo or piercing before summer. In some years I also took the week off to avoid biting anyone’s head off at work, particularly for the 39^th, 40^th, 45^th, 49^th and 50^th birthdays. Getting older makes me crabby. This year I just wanted to goof off alone and with J for a week. And with the loud and annoying Little Monster.

For some reason, the weather almost always seems to suck this week.

I’ve got an eye appointment on Monday and J is going with me to get new frames on Tuesday. I’m assuming that looking at frames on Monday with my eyes dilated will be less than optimal. I’m seriously considering changing frames for the first time in fifteen years or so. I’ve had three pair sequentially with the same frames. I’m not buying anything that makes me look older, though.

I’m probably picking up an iPad this weekend too. Or I might wait until next weekend and get the 3G model. But everyone says that 3G in NYC is a waste of money; you can never connect, so I might be getting WiFi sooner.

I’m working on a baby blanket for said soon-to-be-ex-employee. I thought I had a month or so to work on it, but now I have only a week. Wunderbar. I have also been swatching for J’s sweater. I’ve settled on a design, but I still need measurements.

Cooler than yesterday, which was deliciously warm, but too humid for a suit.

J wants a brown worsted-to-chunky sweater.

That should be a challenge. I offered the sweater. Brown? Bulky? Maybe Malabrigo has some nice brownISH colors in a DK. Brown?

I told him that he would have to go shopping for yarn with me. He agreed.

Really. Brown? What’s wrong with the mauve Rowan 4-ply that I already have? I have dull green for contrast, don’t I?

I took the gansey to work for compliments and I got them.

Freakishly warm

Still not fully dry, but it still fits. Photos in better light.

What to knit next?

Who the hell is voting for Kate G.?

And I want a new bike.

So wonderfully warm (mild) and sunny that I wish I were rich and didn't have to work on Tuesdays.

The cat hair roller.

All of the visible cat hair came out. It took four sheets, but it came out.

And when I stuck the gansey in water, so did a lot of dye. It came out. Blue-black water. Reiterating why one must always wash your hand-knits before wearing them over a white shirt. Or bare skin.

More like May than March. Warm.

All that is left is the weaving in of the ends—let’s all thank the unknown inventor of the spit-splice—the removal of the cat hair, the washing, the blocking and the photographing. And the showing it off.

It actually looks like what is supposed to look like—and it fits.

I am definitely knitting another.

Dark now, but it was a perfect day.

Second sleeve completed. I haven’t done the math yet for the collar; that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Because a blog needs pictures, here are my Malabrigo socks. And my knees. Everyone should see my knees.

Those were tired calves too. I got in 18.6 miles on the bike in an hour-forty.

The city put in a new bi-directional bike path on Kent Avenue and made the street one-way northbound. Every moron in Williamsburgh seems to think it is a great place to stroll or unload the car into. It’s a lane of traffic, people. Just because it’s painted green doesn’t mean it’s grass and you can have your picnic there. Kent Avenue is ruined for biking on the weekend.