Kicking ass and taking names

I've spent 90% of my day Saturday being a complete and total bitch -- successfully completely pissing off nearly every person I managed to come in contact with (family, friends, and strangers alike).

Before I share my tale of carnage with you, let's go over more pleasant matters first.

Returned item!
The Gremlins complied with my heart-felt note and returned one of the items I had been missing -- the library book that I had paid for. So, as soon as I'm done reading this month's book club book, I'm reading the returned book straight away so that I can return it to where it belongs and get my money back.

The knitting

I've been knitting pretty steadily this past month, though don't have a whole lot to show for it. Earlier this month, I attended the Knitter's Guild retreat and managed to leave with my projects less completed than I arrived with, having torn down to nothing the Estes vest I had been working on. As you may recall, the size was just wrong for me; during the retreat, I drug it out of its bag and held it up for scrutiny and advice. Basically, not only had I knit the wrong size, but my gauge was off by enough to really matter. Once it was torn down to balls of yarn, I had lost my zeal in starting anew and focused on stitching together my squares for the Great American Aran Afghan and working on my pair of Cookie A's Rick socks. By the end of the weekend, I had 4 strips of 5 squares each.

I also spent a weekend this past month leading Sylvain's Boy Scout Troop on a camp-out in northern Kentucky where we searched for fossils both there and in southern Ohio. During the long drives over the course of that weekend, I swatched for a new sweater and was able to complete my Rick socks. I then got my sweater yarn into the most horrendous knot -- one so bad that I think I scarred the two other moms on the trip enough by the sight of it that they're likely to never attempt any sort of fiber art ever....

Anyways, once I returned home and the dust settled, I washed the Rick socks and placed them on the blocking wires only to notice that I am a complete and totally inept knitter. Tell me, please, just how quickly you were able to catch on that the two socks don't match. Sure, the socks are supposed to have the pattern spiraling in different directions; but, really, the two spiraled patterns are not the same. Even looking back at the pattern, I am completely clueless as to how I read the pattern wrong, but there you have it right in front of your eyes...So much for my chart-reading skills!

My neurosis

Okay, so if' you've read this far, you can tell that things haven't really been going my way. Hell, even the post prior to this one would clue you in that I've been wound pretty darned tight lately. So, I was really looking forward to returning to the movie theater on Saturday to see the Met performance of Hamlet. I was pressed for time since I had friends coming over Saturday night to play cards; the past week was horrendously busy, and Chuck and I went to the MSU Museum Wine Tasting benefit on Friday night, so hadn't had any time to really dig in and clean my house. In my infinite wisdom, I set aside Saturday morning to do my chores, thinking that it would all come together in no time. Really, what was I thinking?

In reality, my Saturday morning went like this: woke up at 5 am, cold and laying on the floor of the den with one foot propped up on the couch where Chuck had been sitting with it in his lap, giving me a foot massage because the heels I wore to the wine tasting had been killing me. I totally slept thru the MSU Sweet 16 game; the guys had also fallen asleep on the couch, so the TV was blaring and all of the house lights were on....Wincing, I got up and headed upstairs for "just a couple more hours of rest". Not only was I wide awake at 7 am, but I started to panic that I wouldn't be able to accomplish all of the cleaning I had in mind before needing to leave for the show. So, unfortunately for Chuck and Sylvain (and after much angst), I had them up and doing chores also by 8 am....

Needless to say, we made it to a point where I was moderately satisfied with the condition of the house; at least, satisfied enough to have folks over for cards. Chuck and Sylvain weren't at all interested in the opera and Mark had quite a few things going-on on his Saturday schedule, so I attended the show alone -- which was fine; at least, if I wasn't enjoying the performance, I had the opportunity to leave and not feel like I was depriving anyone. Well, let's just say that if you happened to be out on Saturday and were in places that were busy, yet had a pleasant time, then you really owe me a "thanks" because every possible asshole in the Greater Lansing area attended the same opera show as me and weren't wherever you were bugging you. [Which, by the way, really makes me wonder about where I rank on the asshole spectra considering the company I was in...I'm sure I'm up there.] Sure, there were probably some very nice, normal folks in attendance at the show too. We all just had to suffer thru the same crap from some prime class-act folks.

First off, the show was the busiest Met streaming that I've attended yet, so was very happy to see that. But yet.....To the left of me, sat an older woman who brought her own snacks. Normally, I could truly care less if folks do that; but she proceeded to dig thru her plastic shopping bag of goodies the entire time. I was starting to believe that she must've brought a full course meal or something because that bag rustled constantly, except (ironically) during the intermission. To the right of me, sat another older woman who was enjoying popcorn (which is also fine; I was even doing that), but who kept dropping popcorn on the ground, then crunching it underfoot. I'm not talking about an "oops, that's where that went" kind of crunching; it was more of squeaking popcorn kernels underfoot as they were being rolled back and forth. During the intermission, she left her seat, so I walked over to where she was sitting and kicked the mound of kernels out from under her seat onto the floor at the base of the seat in front of her. (Take that!)

Then, two jackass children giggled and ran into the theater during the opera, yelling "What up, dog!" (Yes, they are children and, yes, I called them jackasses. Hey! Didn't I warn you at the beginning of this whole mess that I spent Saturday being a complete and total bitch?) They proceeded to run up the stairs on one side of the stadium seating; turned to look at the screen and saw that it was an opera, then ran back out of the theater. They were gone for about two minutes, then ran back in and back up the stairs, and sat right in my row. Once seated, they proceeded to talk. Flabbergasted, I stopped paying attention to the show and gave them my full-on "I'm about to leap out of this seat and throttle you" glare. If Ms. Popcorn Cruncher wasn't sitting between us, I would've gone over to their seats and chased them out. One of the kids looked over at me, shuddered, grabbed her friend's arm and motioned to leave. They did not return.

In addition, and I'm somewhat sad to say it, there was the person who arrived 25 minutes late and was riding an amigo. Yes, folks, you can tell that I've hit rock bottom when I've turned to complaining about a person in a motorized cart. So, not only did this person arrive in the theater after the show had started, but had arrived in the dark and was completely clueless as to how to park their cart so that they were comfortable and could see the show. After several tries in the dark, they couldn't get their cart parked correctly (or something). [Mind you that each time they backed the cart up, there was beeping involved.] Once they reached the peak of their frustration, they decided that turning on their headlights would really help improve their situation. Unfortunately for me, they turned the headlight on when it was angled right into the section I was sitting in. There really isn't anything more pleasant than having your night vision completely glared out by an unexpected light. Trust me on that one. Once they had their light to help them, they had their cart parked after three more back and forth maneuvers (accompanied by, yes, more beeping).

Sitting in my seat, silently seething with my eyes in pain, I truly contemplated leaving the show during intermission; not because I wasn't enjoying the opera itself, but because I could not believe the stroke of luck I was having with the crowd I was sitting with. The only people missing were the jerks who bring laser pointers to the theater and idiots who use their cell phones during the show. They must've been in the theater next door...the one that had lots of loud explosions....

At any rate, my last gripe comes courtesy of the theater itself. They didn't raise the lights during the intermission, which was I guess okay; but they didn't turn them on again when the opera was over. There's nothing like being in a dark theater full of elderly people who are having a hard time locating their belongings. I managed to make my way out and head straight to the main desk to complain. It was too bad that the manager that knows me wasn't there....I'm still contemplating on calling to talk to him at some point this week about that. I mean, having folks exit out of a dark theater is a safety issue after all....

So, I guess I'll stop here. I have plenty more to complain about related to the errands I ran after the opera and before the card playing. But I'll spare you and leave you with this: cards were played, wine was drunk, snacks were enjoyed, and I got to sleep in on Sunday (meaning that the rest of the house was able to sleep in too); so Sunday ended up being all-in-all pretty good day.....