Friday, April 30, 2010

V is for Violence

Looking back, I got stuck around U last year as well! I'm not even stuck really, I have the last of the Alphabet Soup planned out I just haven't had time to sit and finish it. Also, I've got other things I want to write about but I'm sort of stuck until I finish. Silly, right? OK, here's your V...

Sometime last year, Dave pointed out to me that all of my knitting T-shirts are violent. I have one that says, "I KNIT so that I don't kill people",

I have this one...


and this one, which is my favorite....


I bought the angry yarn ball one off cafepress.com and it was a bit of a disappointment. I bought the large size because, in the picture, it was a fitted women's shirt. What showed up in the mail was a large, unfitted man-size shirt. It's also the most I ever paid for a T-shirt but I didn't feel like going through the hassle of trying to return it by mail and all.

The Knit-so-I-don't-kill-people one was a gift from a friend and my favorite one (knit and destroy), I bought off Etsy. It was clearanced to $7, there were two left and I bought both. One is lovingly nesting in my sock yarn bin awaiting the day that I wear the other one to death. I plan ahead.

Since D made this brilliant observation, I bought a souvenir T-shirt at the Sock Summit so now not all my knitting T's are violent.

I guess I have always had a violent streak in me. Comes from growing up with my brother who would constantly beat the crap out of me. I don't mean your typical brother-sister scrappin', he used to Beat. Me. I mean, like he'd have me on the ground, kicking me in the side. But let anyone else try to hurt me or talk shit about me and he'd clobber them! He also taught me to never say Uncle. If we were wrestling and he had me pinned, practically breaking my arm, if I said Uncle, he'd beat me for giving up. I don't give up.

I'm one of those people who doesn't know how to touch other people so I usually end up punching them in the arm if I like them. It's all very 6-year-old-on-the-playground, I know.

One of my best friends from jr. high and high school is the same way. She was (still is) a complete badass and even the guys were scared of her. She punched me one time for smartin' off at her and I punched her right back. It seemed to've shocked her pretty well at the time - I think I was the first person who ever dared hit her back - and we were best of friends from then on.

John (my best friend from Massage School) once told me that I hit harder then any girl he's ever known.... which earned him a punch for calling me a girl.

I still do it. It's really stupid. Just the other day, another mom in my 1st grader's class was telling me she finally figured out who I reminded her of. She said I looked like Jillian Michaels. I asked who that was and she said she's the female trainer on The Biggest Loser. I gave the woman a nice light shove and said, "Shut up!" She said with my hair and my eyes, I looked like I could be her sister or something. I should've just said Thank You, but I've never been good at taking compliments and clearly she's insane.

They haven't all been friendly punches either, I used to get into fights in high school. Lots of fights. Mostly with cheerleaders. My friends and I were sort of somewhere between Mod and Punk and the cheerleaders would make fun of us, then the next week be wearing the same damn thing. I hated them. Back in the '80's, whoever threw the first punch would get suspended (I hear nowadays anyone fighting goes home - seems unfair!), so I would just provoke them into throwing the first punch then I'd beat the snot out of them. Cheerleaders at my school didn't know how to fight. My brother taught me how to fight.

I remember someone told one girl that if she ripped the other girl's shirt off, she'd be too busy trying to cover up to defend herself. She ripped my shirt off and I remember rather matter-of-factly telling her, "Awww hell. That was my favorite shirt." and I beat her up pretty good. I had a bra on and wasn't interested in covering up.

I outgrew picking fights but it still served me well later on when it was necessary. Did I ever tell y'all the time I hit a girl who was, like 7 or 8 months pregnant? Don't be mad, she shouldna been runnin' up on people from behind and acting stupid. I was in college, at a party, talking to a guy I'd only just started dating when all of a sudden I hear this girl screaming something about "Leave my man alone, whore" and she yanked me by my hair! She almost yanked me to the ground but the guy in question caught my arm before I fell and in about 2 seconds, I'd yanked my arm away from him and turned around swingin'. I clocked her right in the face and she fell down, hard. Then I saw she was pregnant and I felt really bad! Her friends were all pissed at me for hitting a pregnant girl but I told them she shoudn't attack people from behind if she wasn't prepared to be hit!

Turns out she was a crazy person. She tried to say the guy in question was the father but she was already 3 months pregnant when he came to Fresno to go to school!

There's a couple of times my fighting skills have come in handy.

I remember taking a cab ride in Germany that went awry. Very few of us in Germany had cars. As soldiers, it cost a lot to bring your car overseas and it cost almost as much to buy a crappy car and get insurance while there, so we usually just cabbed everywhere. When I was stationed in Schweinfurt, there were two bases about a 5 minute cab ride apart. The other base had a club on it that we'd go dancing and drinking at and after it closed, I'd cab home. I never felt comfortable riding in the back of the cab, like the cabbie was a chauffeur or something, so I usually hopped in the front. (Those of you who live in NYC or some other cab-heavy place will probably find that odd.)

One night, I hopped in front as usual and about halfway to my base the old, smelly, German cab-driver put his hand on my leg. I pushed his hand away and said, "What the fuck?" He put his hand on my leg again, more forcefully and started sliding it up. I grabbed his thumb and twisted his hand quite painfully. I held it the rest of the ride home and when he pulled up to the gate, I called the MP gate guard over and said, "Hey, you see this cab-driver?" He said, yea. I looked at the cab-driver and said, "He knows who you are and this ride's free, right?", twisting his hand harder. He nodded mutely and I got out. Never rode up front again.

Two months later, that cabbie was arrested for a string of rapes against female soldiers. Scary shit!

I also had an incident with a Lieutenant. My buddy Tony was leaving the country for good. He was a friend of mine on the rugby team I hung out with and I always had a crush on him. I never went for it because he was on the rugby team and I didn't date any of them. I hung out with them way too much and I was like one of the guys and I didn't want that dynamic to change. Also, Tony was engaged.

So he was leaving and we threw a big party for him. After it was over, the only people left in Tony's room were me and his Lt. buddy, Rick (I'd never seen Rick before, he was some former classmate of Tony's even though Tony was a Captain and Rick only a Lt.). I don't know how and I'm quite sure it was the fact that we were super drunk but Tony and I started wrestling. He was getting the upper hand and I said, "Tony, knock it off, I'm wearing a dress for christ's sake!" I had on a short dress and these crazy dark green tights with sunflowers on them so it wasn't like I was being exposed but still. And Tony wasn't trying to get aggressive, it was kind of like the wrestling my brother and I used to play at. I don't know how to explain this without it sounding weird but it wasn't. It wasn't sexual or anything, it was just two drunk friends acting stupid. Anyway, we stopped and I stood up and said I should be getting back to my room.

Tony walked me to the door and I reached up and took his face and said, "You're fiance is a very lucky girl. I hope she knows that." He smiled and kissed the top of my head. His Lt. friend, who was surprisingly silent during the whole wrestling thing and I thought he'd passed out, jumped up and said he'd walk me home. I told him that he really didn't need to but he insisted. So he walks me past the 4 buildings between Tony's barracks and mine. When we get to my building, I was like, "Yep, this is my building, so, uh... thanks, bye." He said, "Wait a minute!" and proceeded to tell me that Tony wasn't available for sex but he was. I looked at him rather incredulously and said, "I'm not looking to get laid, but... thanks?" Then he grabbed my arm really hard with one hand and my breast with the other and said, "Are you sure?" So I felt between his legs and when I found his sack I squeezed and twisted it as hard as I could and said, "Yea. I'm sure."

He let go of my breast and hit me in the side of my face and I just squoze harder until he was on his knees and couldn't breathe. Then I said, "Hey, thanks for walking me home!" and walked into the building. (Although, once inside, I sprinted up to my room so he wouldn't know which one was mine!)

So yeah, it pays to know how to defend yourself. Just sayin.

And if we ever meet and I give you a good solid punch in the shoulder? It just means I dig you!

Virtually punching, Ruth!

Speaking of violent, I'm sure y'all have already seen this. I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified by it! I must be more impressed then horrifed because it makes me laugh!

Friday, April 9, 2010

U is for Unlikely

I've recently finished a sock pattern that I've had floating around in my head for quite some time. I even dyed the yarn specifically for it.


I'm entering it in a sock design contest and it's unlikely it will win but I'm ever hopeful! There were 2 design contests going on that I was going to enter it into but I missed the deadline for the first one by a couple days. It was unlikely I was going to finish it in time for the first contest since I started the actual knitting about a week before it was due. I don't knit that fast!


I still need to figure out how to make the pattern into a pdf and how to publish it so y'all can buy it online and such. Once that's done, I'll let y'all know. It will definitely be done by April 19th which is the deadline for the contest I'm putting it into.


I'm pretty proud of this design! I think it's kinda cool. Not as obvious a picture as I'd envisioned but that's the way it goes with skinny sock yarn, I guess.

Here's a memory that will seem random but actually has a point...
When I was in Germany, I was in that BMG CD of the month club thing. It was cool because if you bought the CD of the month, you'd get to pick another two or three for free, which meant they all cost about $5 or less each. I always took the monthly selection and if I didn't like it I'd sell it or give it away.


I bought a Prince CD once and when it arrived in the mail, it looked like the Prince CD. It had the Prince jewel case and Prince papers and the CD itself was printed with the Prince artwork. When you played the CD, it was Alison Krauss! Weird. I called the company and they replaced it no problem.

So it happened again just today! Before I left Tucson, one of my favorite massage clients and I were having a conversation about music we loved but never told anyone about because it was unlikely people would believe us. She was in her late 50's and she loved hardcore heavy metal. No shit! She was all into Pantera and Anthrax and the like! On the surface, she was this very strait-laced business woman but she loved the thrash metal. What's stranger is that she only discovered this type of music within the past couple of years.

I told her my guilty secret was John Denver. And Disco. I love Disco. I know, it's lame and I generally keep it to myself but now you all know it, too.

Right before I moved to CO, she gave me a gift of a double CD of John Denver's Best Hits! So sweet! I always played the first CD and never really got around to the second. Today I was downloading it to my iPod and whaddya know, the second CD, although printed as CD 2 of JD's Best Hits... it's actually Elvis Presley's greatest hits! So weird!

All right, Friends, you're turn for True Confessions. What music is your unlikely guilty pleasure?


Rocky Mountain High, Ruth!

P.S. If anyone's notice lately, I've been deleting some comments. It's only because they have links to Asian pron. If anyone knows how I can block these things, please email me! My email's in the sidebar under my pic. Thanks!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

T is for Twisted

A couple weeks ago, we took Dave's parents out to dinner for his mom's birthday. The restaurant we went to had this really great crusty bread and it reminded me of a recent conversation....


My friend, Phil and I were talking about food and I mentioned that I had recently had my first ever BLT and it was a revelation! See, before I met Dave and his family, I hated bacon. Seriously, didn't like the stuff At. ALL. I used to say, "Bacon and coffee - how can stuff smell so good and taste so bad!" But Dave's mom puts bacon in everything and I've grown to rather like it. (Still hate coffee.) So the BLT was amazing and I was telling Phil how I was completely obsessed with them now and he described the perfect BLT... Bread that's big, thick and a little bit rough, thick pepper crusted bacon, beefsteak tomato. Oh. Hell. YEAH!


So, dinner with Dave's parents. They are 80 and 81 and don't hear very well so I leaned over to Dave and, pointing toward that lovely bread at our table, joked, "I like my men like I like my bread - Big, Thick, and a little bit Rough." He immediately quipped back, "I like my women like I like my coffee - Ground up and stored in the freezer." I cracked up!


Later, after we'd dropped off his parents and were driving home, we made up more stupid shit like that. The coffee one is an old one but we came up with new ones. The kids were sitting way in the back of the minivan and were talking amongst themselves, so they couldn't hear us. It was just as well since we degenerated into grosser and stupider ones as we went along.


I'll spare you the baser ones but here's two that I came up with...


I like my men like I like my trucks - jacked up and ready to ride.


I like my men like I like my luau pigs - trussed up and roasting on a spit.


The pig one was the stupidest one of all but these dumb-ass word games that Dave and I get into get a bit competitive and that was the only thing I could think of! I'd love to hear what y'all can come up with so next time I will be better prepared.


We. Are. LAME, Ruth!

Thursday, April 1, 2010

S is for Suck

Last year was so much fun that we went to see Christopher Moore again this year! Last year, I dragged Donna with me. This year it was two other knitting buds, Tina and Loise. Tina's husband met us about an hour before they started handing out the numbers (for the booksigning). I was #1 this year!

Tina's husband also brought us some amazingly delicious Cuban sandwiches from a place called Samba. Sooooo tasty!

Christopher came to Denver's LoDo Tattered Cover again to pimp his latest book Bite Me. Last year he was pimping Fool. Apparently, his new publicist has him on this really brutal book tour. He didn't have much time after the talk to hang out. He flew into Denver Sunday morning, did his talk at 2p, and had to catch a flight a few hours later to go to Chicago. Crazy!

He starts his talks with this...

It's like having sex: someone introduces me, I spend the next half hour apologizing, everyone lines up and I thank you for coming [pauses and smiles mischievously], and you all leave thinking I smell vaguely of Sharpie Marker.

He makes me laugh so hard, it's difficult to breathe at times! He's a stand-up comic disguised as an author. After speaking for 15 minutes (he doesn't actually read from his books at his readings), he looked at Loise and I in the front row and said, "Could you please put that away!" He was talking about our knitting! I was wondering if it was bothering him because he kept looking out at the 200+ people in the audience then looking at us, looking out, looking at us. I think our knitting was distracting him.

He made some jokes about the knitting and went on with his talk. We didn't mind and laughed along with everyone else. After we accidentally became part of the floor show, a cell phone started ringing. Everyone, including Christopher Moore, was looking around to see who it might be. Some people were making that ooh, you're busted sound. Then Christopher pulls a ringing phone out of his own pocket! He's looking at it dumbfounded and you could tell he was debating whether or not to answer. Then people in the audience started saying, "Answer it!" and he did. He simply said, "On stage! I'll call you later!"


He said, "I live with the Bitch, I gotta answer! The only person in the whole world who knows my schedule today.... well, besides you people, and she calls me! There will be revenge!" Even when he's irritated, he's funny!


Oooh and I scored a free T-shirt! It's black and on the front it just has the title of his latest book - Bite Me. On the back it has the title of his second book and a reminder to buy it - it says...

(Don't forget - You Suck). The back also has his website - ChrisMoore.com. Can't wait to wear it to the gym on Monday - hah!

Looking forward to next time, Ruth!

P.S. Forgot to post this earlier this week, but it worked out because what better subject for April Fool's Day then the man who wrote Fool! Also, the boys and I already have the kitchen sink sprayer set up for when Dave comes home. Mwahahahaha!