The connection is tenuous

I never know if the internet connection will be working these days. It’s so abysmal that I called up the ISP and rudely asked, “Do I really have to pay for this?”

Apparently, I’m not the only one who has called. The gentleman on the phone, in spite of my horrid tone of voice, politely said, “Give me a second to pull up your account.” There was dead silence for a moment or two. Then he said, “Well, I can see you have had some difficulty,” and offered to credit me for the last three weeks of nonservice.

If I would have had my wits about me, I would have pointed out that the service has been tenuous for much longer than three weeks. But, being in a state of shock that they were really willing to do something, I simply thanked him and hung up. Perhaps this was the more noble action anyway.

Meanwhile, posts are few are far between and work drives me crazy. I start on an article, go to research a topic, get a few bits of information under my belt, then the connection stalls. And stalls. And maybe it unstalls or maybe it doesn’t. E-mails get messed up. Attachments are a horror.

Not to mention that you don’t get to see the lovely Peruvian baby silk Bird’s Nest Smoke Ring I finished or the sweater I started for the resident non-knitter — against my better judgment I might add. I have never seen him wear a sweater, not once in 6 years. He does own one. It’s a gorgeous manly-grey V-neck cashmere sweater I bought him four years ago and he finally JUST tried on last week to appease me and to assure me that he REALLY does want a sweater and yes, he does know how to put them on. But I digress.

Nor do you get to see the lovely Koigu that found it’s way into my stash. Or the Cascade 220, or the gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Kim or the magnificent number of wonderful knitting books and DVD’s that have come my way. I’ve been on a spree.

Suffice it to say, that you, my dear reader, are missing out on much of the glory of my knitting life.

It works!

After a few rough patches this morning, it appears that the internet connection has stabilized for now. You would think — well I would think — that a company that provides internet service in Colorado would understand the importance of installing systems that work even when it snows or when the wind blows. Not so. Not so here in the San Luis Valley anyway.

First, they decided my wireless radio antenna had gone bad. I told the technician who came out to repair it that I was concerned that the exceptional high winds we had could have blown the antenna out of position. This was my diagnosis.

“Nope,” he said. “Bad antenna.” He replaced it and weirdly enough, failed to tighten it down properly. The moderately high winds we had over the next few days easily blew the antenna out of position. Of course, I didn’t realize this at the time. I had to wait until they could fit me back into the repair schedule.

Finally, the same technician who installed the new antenna came back to make the repair. He admitted the newest problem was due to his failure to secure the antenna properly. He wasn’t even gone an hour when I realized the connection no longer worked, AGAIN!! This time, they just turned him around and he returned within the hour. He repointed the antenna to a tower on top of San Antone Mountain.

Snow causes this tower to fail. It’s on top of a mountain for pete’s sake! Of course it snows up there in winter. They had me pointed this direction last winter until I threw a fit and asked them to come out and change it because I was down at least one day a week every week all winter.

We’ll see how it goes. Typically spring brings our most severe storms.

Meanwhile, knitting and life progress. Unlike many knitters, I didn’t make stash busting resolutions, completing UFO resolutions, etc. For one, I am building stash like crazy in preparation for a yarn drought in my future. For another, I don’t have UFO’s. If I start it, I try to finish it. If I don’t finish it, I frog it. I like my knitting to be under control, in contrast to my work which seems to be perpetually out of control.

I don’t make many resolutions in life either. Usually only one per year. Let me give you some examples. About 10 years ago, my standing resolution for several years running: work less, earn more. This suggestion came out of my company’s employee suggestion box. I promptly adopted it as the best employee suggestion ever, without question, praised the wonders of an employee who could come up with such a brilliant idea and immediately adopted it for all future resolution purposes. [To clarify for those who don't know my work situation, I work for myself, by myself.]

About five years ago, my resolution for a two years running was “drink more beer.” The first year I went from one or two six packs a year to about ten or 15. The next year, this resolution blossomed. I no longer need to keep this on my list. [interject coughing noise]

Three years ago, I made a resolution to “have more fun.” I did pretty good on this one. It’s still kind of on the list, although it has transmogrified into “enjoy life more.” This includes eating lots of chocolate, drinking better wine, taking more vacations and other similar challenging tasks. I’m working on it. I think I may keep this one for another year.

Last year, I had a resolution to write in a journal every day. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Quit that one — quite consciously, I might add — after about four months. I tried the “morning pages” approach recommended by Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg and other writers. The idea is to write in a journal first thing in the morning, every morning.

For me, this is a doomed proposition. I don’t properly wake up for about an hour. Crawling out of a perfectly comfortable, warm bed is so deplorable to me that I am normally in a horrible mood until I’ve gotten at least one giant cup of tea in my system. So, my journal consisted of grumbling, bitching, complaining, and being irritated with life in general. I do not recommend starting a day with this focus. And, I certainly do not recommend starting every day with this focus.

I’ve kicked around the idea of adding “knit more” to this year’s list. I may just have to ponder that one to see how it feels before I add it. Might be next year’s resolution.

Meanwhile, I did finish the Shibui Knits sweater. Blocking transformed it from an object fit only for the burn pile to a sweater worth wearing.

I’m still not wild about the color pooling. I do like the color however:

Shibui Knits Textured Raglan

I actually like the way the neck turned out:

It has a nice drape to it:

We had a lovely moonrise this month. I ran as fast as I could to snap a shot. I couldn’t get the red-tipped peaks without the pivot:

It’s just a little further and in the few extra seconds, I missed it. Amazing how fast the color changes.