Crafting Projects

I have far too much yarn stored up in my room.  It's starting to overflow the bucket I have for it.  I stress crochet and I've been more than a little stressed lately, what with figuring out living situations and one of my friends moving home and just general frustrations at work.  Oh, and I broke my little toe not too long ago.

All that stress got channeled into more projects.  Since I'm a nerd through and through, my crafting became distinctively Pokemon themed.  And this time, I didn't have patterns to work off of.  They are completely my own design.

Bellossom

The broken toe turned into a fairly elaborate project.  The pain and limited mobility got channeled into this grass Pokemon, with little individual leaves needing to be made, arranged, secured, and somewhat glued.  Flowers were important.  And I needed five different colored yarns and another three different colored felts to complete it.

It helped that I was procrastinating something else.  I had another project I was working on and I misplaced my crochet hook for it (I'm always losing the small one).  Limited mobility means I couldn't search for it very well, which meant that project I was working on was effectively stalled.  Thus, let's start a new project!

I think it turned out well, no?

Poliwag

Current project is a water Pokemon.  This one doesn't need quite so much yarn, but I needed to use up my navy one.  To be honest, this didn't even make a dent in my navy yarn, so I'm gonna have to come up with another project for it.  Also I totally put the belly swirl on backwards but HEY who's gonna care?  Not like there was a pattern for this little guy anyway......

This has gotta be the fastest project I've ever done.  Gluing, sewing, and crocheting the little things, Poliwag took roughly three days to finish.  If I started him on a Saturday instead of a Sunday (in which I should really go to bed at a decent time so I can get up for work on Monday), then he probably would've been done same-day.

Let's see you make something that fast

Since there's still plenty of stress to go around, it's on to the next project!  I'm thinking a cat, but I've got blacks, reds, yellows, greens, and blues leftover from other projects, so who knows what it'll be.

Cultivating Green Thumbs

Ever since I was little, there have been plants everywhere.

Quite literally everywhere.  My mom LOVES gardening.  The backyard is peppered with flower beds, vegetable gardens, fancy grassy plants that the neighbor's cat likes to eat, and lilac bushes.  The back porch frequently has hanging planters overflowing with flowers.  The front porch has standing planters neatly filled with flowers or little shrubs.  Around the front porch and wrapping around the side of the house are actual shrubs and shrubs that really look like cartoon Christmas trees.

Close enough, right?

As if that's not enough plants, all you have to do is walk inside the house to fins even more plants.  My dad oversees all the plants in my house.  He's got little trees that twine around themselves, leafy things that bask in the sun all day, and I'm pretty sure he's even taken over the cactus that someone gave my mom once.  His plants shuffle around between his office and our front room (which is really a little sunroom) to take advantage of light and heat and space.


And as if THAT's not enough plants, please walk in our front room sometime.  There is a bookcase there that, with the exception of the top shelf (where my brother and I keep our PlayStation games), is entirely full of plant books.  Books on sunny plants.  Books on shady plants.  Books on shrubby plants.  Books on how to identify plants and where they grow and if they will grow back year after year.

Like I said.  Plants everywhere.


I was never a plant person.  My mom tried to make a gardener outta me, showing me her roses and veggies and teaching me how to grow them.  I'm pretty sure it went in one ear and out the other.  I had no interest in plants when I was little.  To me, flowers were pretty and food-producing plants were good for snacks after throwing a softball around with my dad to practice my aim.


Fast forward many years, and we come to present day where on Friday my office building gave every employee a little succulent for Earth Day.  In fact I got two little plants, since they still had leftovers littering the table in the lobby after the event ended.  And I sent a needlessly frantic set of emails and texts to my dad going HOW DO I KEEP THESE THINGS ALIVE HELP!!!!!

You see, my family has very defined plant areas.  My mom has a fantastic green thumb outside.  However, we joke that the moment she brings a plant in the house it dies.  She's not so green indoors.  Likewise, my dad has a pretty green thumb indoors but he never tries to care for a garden outside.


Now I have two.  Meet Ekki and Harley.

Two little succulents now sitting on a window that faces north by northwest that gets only a teeny tiny amount of direct sunlight each day.  And I have no idea whether I take after my dad with indoor plants, or whether I inherited my mother's touch of death inside.

.......help?

**UPDATE**

Ekki and Harley now live on my windowsill at home.  North-facing windows are the best I got, living in an apartment, and Ekki is much displeased with me over that.  His green leaves are tinged with pink and turning paler by the day.  Super pretty, but he is NOT happy about that lack of sunlight.  And it doesn't help that it's been rainy and overcast for 3 weeks in a row.

Harley could care less.  Literally.  Forget to water her?  Cool, that's fine - let's add a new shoot.  Water her?  Great, let's add a new shoot.  No sun?  Let's add another two shoots.  Sun comes out?  She basks in the sun and adds four new shoots.  She literally couldn't care less, she's gonna grow anyway.

Science, Baking, Wizardry, GO!

I like to bake.  No surprise there, everyone who knows me knows that.  Cookies, brownies, cakes, and pies - I'll bake them all.  And I've got a wicked sweet tooth to match.

Recently, I've fallen for the make-it-in-a-mug trend.  Because lets face it, while I love all things sweet, they absolutely do not love me back (not that I care!).  So it makes total sense to bake single serving desserts - I get a bit of sweetness in my day, and I can't chow through several bars and bites because I didn't make enough for that.

What a clever girl

Nowadays, that means that anything I can fit into a mug or a ramekin gets made.  And even better, it gets made fast.  Brownies, cakes, and muffins in a mug take 5 minutes to prepare, cook, and eat.  Which makes for a happier Caitie.

Recently, I had to stay late at work.  I still had my crutches with me, and I wouldn't get home til nearly midnight.  And I knew this going in.  Clearly this means I should bring in a mug cake to make!

So I did.

I modified a mug muffin recipe to make chocolate cake and dumped all the dry ingredients into a screw top tupperware.  Just shake it up and voila! dry ingredients are mixed and ready to go.

Next went the liquids.  I wanted hot cake, not cold cake reheated (blehh!) so I had to put them in something.  Brainwave: use those cheap travel shampoo containers.  I bought a pair of brand new screw top ones at CVS (seriously, did you really think I'd use an old one?), scrubbed the life outta them with soapy water, and filled them with milk and veggie oil.

Mug cake's all set to go.

Dust off the flour and off we go!

So now I'm at work and it's getting late.  Last broadcast starts at 11pm, but it's just barely 9pm.  I could feel myself going into nap mode.  Time for cake!  Being the dork I am, I unscrewed my shampoo containers and dropped my milk and oil in like I was holding test tubes and conducting mad science instead of making cake.  And for good measure, I smashed up some Oreos I brought with me and added them to the batter.

The control room was sitting in the break room and just looked at me like I lost my mind.  There's no way that'll be anything other than chocolate-y sludge.  There's no way that makes cake.  If that comes out as cake, then that is some serious witchcraft.

Oh how wrong you are.  And no, even though I grew up near Salem MA, that does not make me a witch.  My baking wizardry is all me.

Minute and a half later BEEP goes the microwave.  The smell of chocolate wafts through the air.  And my little tupperware is filled with cakey goodness, much to the shock of literally everyone else.

Holy smokes she did the thing

Pity.  It doesn't look like there's enough to share.  Sorry guys!

DC is Overrun

IT'S TOURIST SEASON ONCE MORE

I know.  It terrifies me too

Tourist season in really anywhere of interest is a thing to be dreaded.  Here in DC, it is a nightmare, and one I wish I didn't get to experience while I am still hobbling about on crutches.  Also hence why I am still dragging multiple crutches around the city, even though I technically only need one of them.  Crutches say "I'm injured and you'll be an asshole and society will judge you if you try anything stupid."  It just makes moving around a little easier for me.

All this started with a bunch of trees.

Tourist season always kicks off with the cherry blossoms.  And granted, they are gorgeous.  Walking through a grove of cherry blossoms is like walking into a fairytale.  

Unfortunately, we who live here don't get to see this:

We see this:

They are EVERYWHERE!

There are strollers and families in matching clothes.  There are school kids running amok while frazzled teachers struggle to contain them long enough to figure out if they read their maps correctly.  The lines for food are absolutely ridiculous because everyone assumes that everyone else is also on vacation and so won't mind waiting while they dither about this or that.

And not a soul realizes that here in DC, you never ever stand on the left side of the escalators.

Don't worry. We'll get used to that struggle in another month or so

To make things more fun, I'm still a bit mobile-impaired.  It's been about three weeks or so since I broke my toe in decidedly un-spectacular fashion, but it's not long enough that I can leave my crutches at home.  Try navigating the streets and the metro on crutches in DC.

Try navigating them during tourist season.

Quite literally, people feel personally victimized by my inability to walk.  I have to go through the handicap metro turnstile because my crutches will not fit in a regular one.  People feel like they need to run faster to beat me there, because clearly the only open turnstile is the handicap one - there clearly isn't another five right next to it, nope, those are unusable apparently.

And I have heard annoyed sighs because they were polite and let the girl on crutches go through first.  Some lady even had the gall to tap her foot at me.

Sorry lady, one can only move so fast on crutches

The same thing happens on the streets, though that is a bit easier.  At least streetside, there is room for people to go around me if they really feel the need to do so.  But then you get the lost tourists pooling on the street corners and blocking the way forward, milling about as they check maps and phones and count heads to make sure they didn't lose anyone.  It's like walking through molasses - you kinda have to get outta the way of the girl on crutches because the poor thing is on crutches and you aren't a terrible human being, but you don't want to move so you do so slowly.

Because everyone is on vacation.  It's not like that girl on crutches has to get to work or something.  

Thus, I am hiding away in my office with my crutches propped out of the way.  It is tourist season, after all.  They mean no harm, but less I have to deal with them, the happier I'll be.

The Apocalypse is Nigh

In other words, the metro is down.

An entire city crumbles beneath the weight of delays

Never have I ever been so happy to be injured.  My broken toe pretty much requires me to take cabs and cars everywhere, since I can't navigate the stations.  Or really, just because I'm not strong enough to get up the stairs to reach the platform and to walk the block from the metro to work when I arrive.


On Monday, there was a fire in the metro.  Yet.  Another.  Fire.

To be fair, no one is surprised that the metro catches fire.  We've just accepted that it's a crappy form of transit and that things are going to go wrong.  However, things going wrong is usually limited to escalators grinding to a halt and Dupont's entrance catching fire.


This time was different though.  There was definitely smoke, and it seemed to be kinda similar to an incident last year where some lady unfortunately died due to smoke inhalation in the metro.  So the metro on Monday was probably a madhouse over at administration HQ.

So what's the plan?  SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN!


Granted, this makes perfect sense.  There was an incident that mirrored another fatal incident on the metro rail system.  The metro is conducting and audit of all their equipment to make sure everything is ok and to reevaluate how the metro is running.  It makes sense to conduct this when riders are off the lines so that, if something else does go wrong, no one gets hurt.


Thus, the entire metro rail system ground to a halt starting at midnight.  Buses are still running, and Uber is kindly capping their rate spike, but the metro rail itself is closed.


 Now we get to me, happy Caitie, who has completely missed the pandemonium this morning and just sailed into work literally 45 min early because traffic was not nearly as bad as I expected.  But then again, I essentially work an afternoon shift.  Nothing is ever jam packed when I go to work, even when the metro is running.  But for everyone else, this meant massive problems.


Think on the scale of plane-is-overbooked-could-you-switch sized problems.


People were livid.  The roads were clogged with cars as far as the eye could see.  Bus stops were crammed with commuters, only to find out that the bus they've been waiting 45 min for is so full no one can get on.  And, though it is capped, Uber is still spiking its rate due to their surge pricing.  The looks on the streets are all the same.

And to make everything better, when they closed shop to do their audit of the metro system there was the idea that if something was found, the metro could be closed even longer.


Great.  Just great.

Have a super day!  Just not with us

Them's the Breaks

If you have ever met me, you would know that I am a very spatially confused person.  I danced for years upon years when I was little.  I can pirouette and do arabesques and balance on one foot.  I can ice skate and my mom used to yell at me for running across icy driveways in sneakers with worn out treads.  I used to play softball and could run on slippery mud no problem.


I am also the child that trips over flat surfaces and stumbles for no reason.

Life motto

Therefore, I am a little impressed that it's taken me this long to break a bone.  I feel like this is something that should've happened a long time ago.And, being the klutz I am, I did it in the most annoyingly un-glorious way possible.


I broke my first bone getting ready for work.

Granted, watching me get ready for work is like watching a sprinter practice their 100 meter dash.  I go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth across my apartment.  Into the kitchen, grab some breakfast, back to the bedroom, find some clothes, back out to the living room, forget what I was doing, back to the bedroom, back to the kitchen, make lunch, back to the bedroom to shove it in my overcrowded purse, to the bathroom to brush teeth, to the hallway to pull out a coat, back to the bedroom to grab my shoes, back to the living room with my purse, back to my room for whatever I forgot that day, and back out to grab my coat and bustle out the door.

People watching me must find it exhausting.

To complicate things, my apartment has a few random hazards thrown in the way.  There are cable wires under the rug that can snag your feet sometimes.  We frequently forget to move laptop power cords from across the doorways from plugging in laptops that are in turn plugged into our TV so we can watch Netflix.  There are three of us in the apartment, so we each forget things and leave them lying around.


All these things could cause me to trip and break something.  Seems legit, right?

WRONG!


So late last week, I was in the middle of running around getting ready for work.  Aaaaaaand I hit a door.  More specifically, I RAN INTO a door.


That wasn't even on my hazards list.

Goddamn did that hurt.  I swore, I stumbled, and I collapsed on the couch thinking that this was the mother of all stubbed toes.  Still cursing, I was holding my foot while simultaneously trying to prop it up.  I decided to timecheck.


Ten minutes before I needed to leave for work.


Yeah.  Those 10 min were gone in a heartbeat and my foot still killed.  Even worse, it was starting to turn an angry red color.  Another 10 min went by before I sent off my first text to my boss, which was along the lines of "Hi there. I need to come in an hour late today. I think I broke my toe.  Thanks, Caitie"


Now instead of running around my apartment, I'm doing the lurching hobble.  I don't quite believe I've broken my toe, but DAMN does it hurt.  I limp into the bathroom for better light and one of my roommates and I start shining all the lights we've got on my foot to see exactly what colors my toe has turned.  It is swelling?  Is it bruised?  Is it at an odd angle?  If we are asking these questions, it might be time to call the doctor.

Ring ring.......

No answer.  Apparently they're closed on Fridays.  Lucky them.  Time to call the insurance for a backup.

Ring ring.......hello?

Well, at least my insurance isn't on vacation.  They send me the info for another place that will see me, and that won't make me pay through the nose.


Timecheck.  Wow, my hour's almost up.  Time to text my boss again.  "Hi again.  I think I need to take the day.  I'm heading to an urgent care center for my potentially broken toe and not sure how long that'll take."


Buzz buzz.  "Feel better and we'll see you on Monday."  Thanks boss.


Did I mention that my foot is still killing me?

Called a cab and had to fill out information with the receptionist.  She was really distracted until she asked why I was coming in.  Apparently broken bones are a bit higher on the list of important things to be seen for.  I literally sat for 5 minutes before someone came to get me.  I have never been seen that fast in my life, even when I was the only one sitting in the doctor's office.


Several minutes worth of x-rays later, I was back sitting in an exam room.  And I get the news: congratulations, you have broken your first bone.  And even more special, your pinky toe is fractured in two places.


Huzzah.

I am given a snazzy new pair of silver crutches that will be my constant companions over the next two weeks.  The nurse tries to teach me how to properly walk on my crutches and lets me give it a try.


One...


Two...

Not only did I fall on step 3, I fell smack onto my broken toe.

As soon as I could do so, I walked out the door.  I called another cab, went home, and spent the rest of the weekend with my foot propped up on various pillows and couch cushions.


And, a few days later, I STILL can't believe I broke my first bone stubbing my toe really really hard on my way out for work.  How stupid.  How classically Caitie.

Super Tuesday

ITS SUPER TUESDAY

For someone who is so apathetic when it comes to politics, it sometimes surprises me why I chose to live in work in Washington DC.  As the nation's capital, it runs on politics the way my mother runs on Dunkins.  And with DC being the battleground for much of the warring factions of politics, sometimes it feels like I'm being squashed in the neverending fight of Red vs. Blue.

Too.....much.....politics!

On top of that, I work in news.  That means Super Tuesday went from "go do your civic duty" to "complete pandemonium".

Every network was out in force trying to be the first to announce who won which state and to answer a zillion questions the viewers are dying to know.


Is it Trump?  Is it Cruz?  How many voters actually turned out?  Did Bernie beat Hillary?  Did Carson make it on the board?  Did he even open his eyes to check?

Doesn't matter.  Everyone wants to be the first to say it anyway.

So off we go.  People are wandering about their daily lives.  They stop by a polling place.  They amble over to a booth and cast their vote.  Maybe they struggle over the decision.  And then they go home to continue their regularly scheduled Tuesdays.

The candidates made appearances across the nation.  There were rallies upon rallies.  People campaigned and there was a lot of sign waving.  Speeches were made, and votes were cast.

And then there's us:

Most of the night was a blur of people doing the controlled freak out.  We had a revolving door of guests for hours upon hours of coverage.  Reporters were dialing in from across the country.


From the outside, we probably looked super professional.


Hell, from inside our coverage looked super professional.


Us the workers, on the other hand, probably fulfilled the stereotype of a newsroom during breaking news coverage.  Because how else do you get things done when stuff is needed fast?  Same way your grandmother asks you to speak up - you shout.

Several incoherent shouts later.....

We go from frantic shouting to happy-smiley professional in seconds

And unbeknownst to the viewers at home, we're still shouting in the background.  We're just doing the awkward stage whisper-shout so you can't hear us, which just looks ridiculous.

I NEed that footage as fast as you can.  HEY! SHE'LL GEt it to you in a moment. No, HOLD ON crap gotta stay quiet.....

We did this for something like 6 hours.  Yep.  And we pulled off a hell of a series of shows.


Meanwhile in the rest of the country, ballots were flooding in.  Numbers were being thrown around and tallied up.  People were waiting with baited breath.

Time zones passed and polls closed.  Bit by bit, the results finally trickled in.  Leading the Republicans was Mr Businessman himself, Donald Trump.  And leading by a few states on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton finished victorious.  It's been said that whoever wins on Super Tuesday is pretty much guaranteed their party's nomination.  We'll see if this holds true and if, come November, we'll find these two on our ballots.

And of course, the best thing to happen last night was Chris Christie.

You know, that guy that tried to run earlier?  Yeah, he's now endorsing Trump.  But last night at Trump's rally, his vaguely deer-in-the-headlights look spawned a new hashtag trending on Twitter.


#freechrischristie


YES!  Ladies and gentlemen, that shell shocked look of his started a firestorm on Twitter.

People were asking if he was ok.  People were saying it looked like his life might be passing before his eyes.  And yet more were joking that they should set up a Go Fund Me campaign to get him the hell outta there.


We'll see how long Christie will be held hostage praising and announcing a man who, several months ago, he denounced quite emphatically on several occasions.  More on this story as it unfolds.