I Felt the Earth Move Under My Feet

Fortunately, the sky did not come tumbling down. But such a bizarre experience.

On Friday at 5:04 a.m. EDT, as I was getting ready to give the cats their breakfast, there was a terrible racket and the house shook violently. The cats got panicked looks on their faces, laid back their ears, and bolted from the kitchen. My first thought was that the furnace exploded (or something else in the neighborhood had). My second thought was that Tom was moving heavy furniture around upstairs. My third thought was that a huge, heavily loaded dump truck was driving past the house. And all I wanted it to do was stop making that sound.

It turned out that we had a bona fide earthquake, a 3.6. It was a bit disconcerting. The cats returned a few minutes after it was over and they were very wary, and quite puffed up. Fortunately, there was no damage (except maybe our plaster walls have some more key failure).

Running News
Tonight is the 4th Annual Mule Run. Last year I went the distance. This year, I'm crewing. I have not been running well at all this summer. Even slow runs feel extraordinarily hard. More so than they should be for my fitness level. There's some speculation that I might have Lyme disease and I'll get that diagnosis confirmed (for the second time) on Monday. So we shall see.

Knitting Progess
I'm at the gusset on the first Monkey sock and I continue to love this pattern. I plan to get a lot of knitting in tonight while I wait at the various crew stops for the runners to come in. I might even take the second ball of yarn, just in case I finish the first sock. Yeah, dream on...

Renovation Progress
The room, she is done. It's much more workable now. I acquired a second Effektiv cabinet and I think that will serve me well. Now all that I have to do is find the time to knit at home. I'll try to post pictures in the next post.

Now it's time to gather together all the stuff I'll need to crew tonight. It's going to be a long day; I don't anticipate much, if any sleep, until tomorrow afternoon.

Happy knitting!

Melting Bullets

I'm rather enamored of bullet-point blogging. I can be as random as I'd like, which is good, because it's too hot to come up with a coherent narrative. Yes, the house has air conditioning. But even the briefest trip outside reduces me to a puddle.

• It's almost 9:00 p.m. It's 90 degrees outside
• That's just wrong
• It's supposed to be worse tomorrow
• The air conditioning in my car doesn't work
• I'm getting a new car; it's being delivered tomorrow
• I love my Volvo and it still has a lot of miles left
• It's not a good car for crewing or volunteering for ultra marathons
• It's a great car otherwise
• I've had it for 11 years and 153,000 miles
• It gets great gas mileage
• Have I said how much I love my Volvo?
• I hope I love my Outback just as much
• I feel like I'm abandoning my Volvo without just cause
• My fiber room is mostly done
• All I need to do now is to finish organizing
• The Effektiv line from Ikea is quite...effective
• I put two bins of yarn in one cabinet (one high unit, one add-on low unit)
• I needed another cabinet for the unspun wool
• Plus I seem to have stashed yarn in baskets, bags, and boxes
• I still think two cabinets will be enough
• Time will tell
• Just checked the weather: there's a heat advisory, excessive heat watch, and an air quality alert
• The temperature tomorrow is supposed to be 101 degrees.
• I'm not wearing business clothes when the car has no a/c
• I'll go a little more casual and wear linen; I don't care if it wrinkles
• I've turned the heel on the Monkey socks; it took two tries.
• Now I've got to rip out one of the gussets
• Apparently I can't count
• The cats think it's time for a bedtime snack and are hunting flies

And speaking of time, it's time to start preparing for the work week. The long weekend was much too short.

Stay cool and happy knitting!