I'm so pissed! (Aka: My intermittent baseball rant)

And not in the good way as in when the British say it and mean they are drunk. I had a fairly irritating day with my knitting. Last night I must have messed up and dropped a stitch (unfortunately it didn't unravel!) while I was knitting on my shawl and watching the Orioles game. This was most likely due to the fact that I can't understand why they would send David Newhan down to triple A and yet keep Sammy Sosa around so that he can strike out night after night whilst collceting a big check. I know the O's say they needed to keep a pitcher (and they did) and Luis Matos and Larry Bigbie both came off the DL (both outfielders whom Newhan was covering for) so I understand the motivation to cut somebody but - why not cut Sosa. His last name is an acronym for Strikes Out Swinging Always. Seriously what has he contributed to the O's? Defensively average, offensively the worst starter on the whole team. And he is being paid the big money to stink night after night. Opposing pitchers will pitch around Tejada because they would rather pitch to Sosa - so any fear or intimidation his name used to inspire is long gone. Is it a coincidence that he started this downhill slide about the time he gave up the corked bats and the steroids? Hmmmm I wonder....NOT! Just look at how much smaller he is nowadays and answer the steroids question for yourself. Arrghh! So anyhow - it is all Sammy Sosa's fault that I had to tink out & reknit three rows. And now I have to pick out a new pet player on the O's. Sigh. I guess I will go with Jay Gibbons

- bit of an underdog, goofy looking, but a really nice guy and a really solid player.

(Of course no one can replace little powerhouse David Eckstein
in my affections, but I have to have someone to root for on the hometeam! Stupid Angels traded Eckstein to the Cardinals and now who is having the better season? A hint - it's not the Angels.).

More seriously - tonight I noticed a swelling on the side of my dogs face. I'm hoping it turns out to be a bug bite or an allergic reaction to something but I am really concerned that it may be a tumor. So we are going to the vet tomorrow. Cross your fingers for her - she is the sweetest dog imaginable.

For some good news - Knit the Classics is going really well. Other than everyone disliking the first book I mean. ;) We've had a small flood of first projects finished and it is great to see the varied and wonderful things everyone comes up with! Especially since I am knitting such a large project myself and have no hope of finishing any time soon. The great thing about this is (and I am knocking on wood as I type) I haven't gotten bored with it yet! I think lace might be my "thing".

Our book for next month will be Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. She was a friend of Charlotte Bronte and wrote a really great (if somewhat fanciful) biography of her. Wives and Daughters is a great book - it's kind of the middle ground between Pride and Prejudice and Middlemarch. I think the group will like it. It's a much faster read than Eliot. I've been collecting links for background information and found some great ones - so I am looking forward to starting the next read. (Notice I'm not mentioning that I haven't yet finished Middlemarch. Does it count that I have actually read it twice before?) In August we will be reading The Remains of the Day.

I will still be knitting my Box Lace Shawl but in July I will also start the Leaf Lace Shawl from Fibertrends. That's the lace project that I finally ended up choosing for my class. I was really restricted in my choices because I had to buy the yarn for the project from the LYS and the wouldn't/couldn't order me the yarn I wanted for the other shawls I was considering. Since I already had the yarn that I wanted to use picked out for those I had to search though my patterns for something else. I'm okay with doing the Leaf Lace Shawl though especially since I am looking forward to working with the yummy yarn I chose. It is Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool color 08. It's a really pretty mossy army green kind of color and the silk content is going to make it much nicer to knit with than the Jamieson's. I wish I had been able to get a laceweight yarn but that apparently is impossible to do unless I order something myself over the internet. What is the deal with the non-availablity of laceweight yarn at actual yarn stores? If your yarn store carries decent laceweight yarn then you are pretty lucky.

**NOTE** Okay - if there are any misspelled words in this post you will just have to live with it. I just tried the blogger spellcheck for possibly the last time. When it loads it says "loading English Dictionary". Apparently there is a major difference between American English and British English because the first word blogger didn't recognize was British. Blogger suggests I meant "britches".