Words of Lizzardie

Words of Lizzardie

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

This is my 500th post, and yesterday was the 5 year anniversary of this blog. And I wanted to do something special. It seems the number 5 is a common theme (500th post, 5 years, 5th month of they year), so I’m sticking with that theme. Below is a list. It’s not a comprehensive list of everything that’s happened to me since I started this blog on May 29th, 2001, but contains a lot of things. Some of serious; some are stupid. Many will not surprise most of you, I’m sure (and I may have repeated myself, I honestly can’t tell – I’ve been working on this for nearly 5! months). I have a pretty good idea of who regularly reads this (yes, it probably means you, if you are reading this), so I also know that most of you didn’t even know me when I started this. If my list doesn’t interest you, feel free to move on. But if you do take the time to read it, I hope you learn something or gain some insight into who I was five years ago, where I was coming from, what I’ve gone through, who I’ve become and why.

If you do read, thank you for celebrating my 500th post and my 5 year blogiversary. And thank you for reading.

50 Things I’ve Done Since I Started This Blog on May 29th, 2001

Graduated from Cornell. Twice.
Visited Boston for the first time, and subsequently moved there (with no job!).
Lived in the 3 new states (Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut)
Spent 5 months in an internship (errr…. co-op) I hated, and then didn’t go back for the last 3 months.
Had 25 different roommates in 10 different residences (wow).
Started my first full-time job, where I’ve been for almost 23 months now.
Purchased my first car, which now has 63,000 miles on it and was paid off in April!
Went on fraternity trips in St. Louis, Syracuse, Rochester, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Montreal (sorta) and Charlotte, most of which I’d never been to before.
Visited New York City for the first time, with several subsequent visits, and decided I hated it.
Experienced the death of my dog of 13 years (Chloe) as well as the process of finding a new puppy for the family (Maggie).
Attended the weddings of 1 high school friend (Jaime & Jeremy, where I was in the wedding party) and 2 college friends (Adam & Catherine, Jaclyn & Steve).
Bought my first pieces of furniture, and learned how to finish some of them myself.
Learned how to knit. And if you talk to me (or read this), you know I’m obsessed!
Purchased my first airline ticket (until I graduated from college, they’d always been purchased for me).
Experienced illness (my aunt) and tragedy (my grandmother) in my family.
Attended a funeral for the first time since I was 3.
Was taught how to play poker, and realized I had a bit of a knack for it.
Turned 21, took wines and subsequently became a wine snob.
Attended the following concerts: Stone Temple Pilots, Incubus, Ani DiFranco (11/20/02), Bela Fleck, Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz (11/12/05), Bon Jovi (12/9/05), and Billy Joel (1/19/06).
Went to my first professional hockey (New Jersey Devils), baseball (New York Yankees), football (New England Patriots – preseason) and basketball (Boston Celtics) games.
Did my time in the line for Cornell season hockey tickets, qualifying me to be a part of the Lynah Faithful (twice).
Bought or received the following devices for the first time: cell phone (LG), DVD player, laptop (HP Pavilion), mp3 player (4G 40GB Ipod), Mac computer (Mac Mini).
Tried skiing, paintball and snowboarding for the first time (skiing and paintball I have since done additional times).
Dressed up as the following characters for Halloween: Jessica Rabbit, a black cat, a vampire and Pippi Longstocking.
Held 8 different jobs (Clinton House, Pitney Bowes, CTA, NYPIRG, Premier Title, Brookstone, OR&IE TA, Cymfony), including the one I’m at now.
Returned to Chicago/Romeoville for 8 visits.
Started saving for retirement (by putting a meager 4% into my 401(K), but hey, it’s something) and opened my first savings account since high school (which I sometimes keep money in).
Followed the news on several U.S. and national tragedies, including September 11th, the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, praying for all of those affected. I still remember exactly where I was and how I heard the news about 9/11.
Donated my hair (12 inches, once).
Received my first business cards (and not for Cymfony, though I have those, too).
Stayed overnight in another country for the first time (and it was just Canada – Montreal and then Toronto – how pathetic).
Bought my first DVD, and right now I can’t even remember which one it is.
Played chess for the first time with another human being – the computer programs where I randomly click on pieces don’t count (how sad is that?).
“Starred” in my first “movie” – The Goldfish Project. Hehehehe. (Anyone who hasn’t seen this yet and would like to should let me know – I’ll show it to you.)
Smoked my first cigarette (which still depresses me). Actually smoked pipe tobacco first, followed either by a clove cigarette or a cigar (which may or may not have been Cuban – I really don’t remember the first time I tried a cigar) and then finally a real cigarette.
Discovered Raspberry Lambic with my then-roommates. It’s now become somewhat of a nostalgia thing, but may become a more frequent thing now that Susan knows how readily available it is.
Went to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where I heard Theresa Heinz Kerry speak, as well as Senator John Kerry accept the nomination for President.
Became a night owl. And then went back to sleeping when it’s dark and being awake when it’s light (sorta). I miss those late nights.
Visited the following states for the first time: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut (already stated, sorta, since I’ve lived in these ones), Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Tennessee, Rhode Island (if the airport counts).
Lost my keys too many times to count. Most of the time I found them again, at least (I wonder if that car key is still floating around Cambridge somewhere).
Changed the look of this page I HAVE NO IDEA how many times, but never changed the name.
Got into 4 car accidents (2 in one day), received 1 speeding ticket and 1 additional moving violation (definitely looking for these things clearing my insurance at the end of the year).
Allowed no less than 23 people to drive my car. Scary.
Subscribed to podcasts. Yes, they are both knitting podcasts right now.
Ate a whole lobster for the first time in my life (at the clam bake for the Cymfony summer outing a month after I started).
Bought my first mp3 (I’m pretty sure it was an .m4a file from iTunes, but same thing).
Experienced, and recovered from, two distinct periods of depression (not clinical depression, mind you, just times of being depressed).
Had my life changed, for better or worse, by the company that I keep. Some people I already knew; some I hadn’t even met. Some are still in my life; some are not. All have left their mark. I’ve had a lot of help realizing what, and who, is important in my life. And there’s a lot of learning left.
Realized that the times I love where I live the most are when I’m traveling on the Red Line, over Longfellow Bridge, staring out towards Back Bay. Every time I think, I need to come back, WALK over this bridge, and take a picture, so that I may remember how this makes me feel for the rest of my life. Haven’t done that yet (the picture taking, at least, I did the walking 9 days ago).
Laughed a lot. Cried a lot. Hopefully laughed more than cried.

- Lizzardie, at 10:40 PM Post Link

Ahh, Memorial Day weekend. First off, I am exhausted. Despite spending all day yesterday ready to fall asleep, I did not sleep well last night. So… yeah, still very tired today. But I did have a pretty good time over the course of the weekend, and I will attempt to recount the highlights.

I took Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off of work. This was mainly for cleaning purposes, but also because I needed a break from work. It was nice, for once, to not have to work the next day after poker. This meant I didn’t feel guilty about staying up until 3am (after getting home at 1am) to watch the LOST finale. :-D Good times.

I had Liz (other Liz) stay at my apartment, as well as Dana, Dan and Kathy (for at least some of the time). Liz got into Boston first, on Thursday night, so she and I just hung out on Friday. I took her to Dave’s Fresh Pasta, and her delight with the place made me realize how lucky I am to live so close to a shop like this, so I will need to start taking more advantage of that.

After Dana and Kathy got to my apartment, we headed to Fenway for the Red Sox game. My Boston sports curse has been broken, because the Red Sox won! That was also the first time I got to see Will since his arrival. It was really great to see him – it really had been awhile. We went to Sally O’Brien’s after the game (making Herb pick us up in Central Square), where Dan, Susan, Ryan and Cat were waiting for us (and Elenka and her friend Kelly were also), and then my guests went back to my apartment and eventually went to bed.

Saturday was the Sam Adams Brewery Tour, which I highly recommend to anyone either living in/around Boston, or visiting the area. The tour was informative, the tour guide entertaining, and the beer tasty. We got to taste Boston Lager, Summer Ale and this Finnish Saiti, which was infused with juniper berries (gin, anyone?). I highly enjoyed the Saiti, and it’s unfortunate that they don’t make it outside of the research brewery. After the brewery was Herb’s barbeque. I don’t remember the last time I saw that much meat. There were also a good number of people, that I knew from many different places, including frat people I hadn’t seen in awhile, people from poker/Sally’s, Herb’s coworkers and my roommate. It was nice knowing so many people at the party (for the first several hours there wasn’t anyone there that I hadn’t met at least once, and I think there were only a handful of people all night that I didn’t know at all), but since I’m not much of a people person, I grew tired (and dehydrated) fairly early. I did get enough of a second wind to enjoy the rest of the party, though.

Sunday, while some of the visitors went on the Duck Tour, I took in the Museum of Science with Will, Corinne and Demetri. Afterwards, we saw X-Men III (pretty good, though since I liked Jean’s character so much in the first two movies, it was disappointing to see evil Jean in this one – total character assassination), said goodbye to Will, walked through Boston Common and the Public Garden, strolled down Newbury Street (though it seemed not everyone understood what the point was), and then headed to the North End for dinner. We ate at Limoncella, which was all right – not the best of the North End, but certainly not the worst. There was some Apples to Apples and Would You Rather (bastardized version that just involved reading off the cards, asking people the questions) at Susan’s, and then back to the apartment.

Monday morning both Dan and Liz had to leave, but Dana stayed until this morning, since she’s on a project in Westborough and her hotel reservation didn’t start until today. Despite the exhaustion, hanging out with Dana was definitely one of the highlights, because it had been so long since I’d seen her and I’d forgotten how much fun it is to hang out with her. We watched a lot of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (USA marathon), got pasta from Dave’s Fresh Pasta, and later ordered Chinese food from Changsho. We also talked about knitting and cross-stitching, as well as some amount of regular catching up and chatting. (Chris, sorry about the birthday thing, but it was a funny story!).

There was a little bit of unpleasantness during the weekend, but it’s really not worth going into. That, and the nightmares (tornadoes, fights with friends that gave me those almost anxiety attacks I used to get, etc…), which are also not worth going into. But all in all, a really good weekend.

- Lizzardie, at 10:38 PM Post Link

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Sunday I went to see Movin' Out at the Opera House with Kathy. First of all, the Opera House is GORGEOUS. I love going to theatres like that, and just being able to sit in this place was worth the price of the ticket. The show, on the other hand.... was a train wreck. I had a thoroughly good time, but it was really only from laughing so much at just how terrible this musical is. I've been to many musicals, even performed in the pit orchestras of some, and this was... not a musical. It was a bunch of Billy Joel songs (good ones, sure) with dance. The dancers were good, and the choreography was well-timed, but it was... bad. And cheesy. Act II was better than Act I, but only the first three-quarters of it, because the plot resolved itself far too quickly and then went on to be completely cheesy again. The band was amazing, and they had them suspended on sort of a catwalk above the stage, which was really cool. And they were really good - remember that this is from the perspective that I saw Billy Joel in January, so I think it says a lot that I'm saying a cover band was good. All in all, a very fun time, but definitely not what I was expecting.

After the show, Kathy and I did a little bit of shopping in Downtown Crossing. I bought a pair of shoes at DSW (cute Steve Madden flip-flops), and now the floodgates have opened - I want to buy a lot of shoes. This is sort of a problem with me where shopping is involved - when I buy things, I really go all out. I'm trying to put off the shoe-buying for as long as possible, for the sake of financial stability, but I don't think I have enough willpower to hold out forever. And I also need clothes - I can't make them all (though I did finish another tank top last night - though I'm not sure how much I like it). Ahh well. We also went to Barnes & Noble, but I just wasn't feeling the bookstore vibe.

We decided to get food, so we walked over to Quincy Market/Faneuil Hall, and wound up at... Zuma's! Yes, we're entiring unoriginal, but the food there is really good and reasonably priced. We wanted to go shopping, so that we could buy yuppy clothing for Memorial Day weekend (we've spent much of dinner trying to come up with ways to make Memorial Day weekend more fun for us, since we are not tourists), but all the shops were closed. Instead we ended up.... walking back to Somerville. I'm really not sure how this happened. We sort of set out and crossed through Government Center - I figured we were heading towards Park Street, since both kathy and I needed to get on the red line, though in opposite directions. But we ended up meandering towards MGH. I wanted to walk across the Longfellow Bridge, because I love the view from there (and it's better outside than on the train). I thought from there we would get on at Kendall. But why do that, when you can continue down Broadway! Somewhere between Kendall Square and Harvard Square, I figured I should just walk home from there - I was no longer feeling cold and it wasn't that much farther. Kathy did get on the T at Porter Square, and I continued home to my apartment. I think it was about 6 miles. My feet were very angry at me yesterday, and my legs are protesting somewhat today, but it was a nice walk. Not the most direct route, but not so totally out of the way. I should really start exercizing more regularly, so that these sorts of things aren't so painful the next day (and the day after, and the day after....)

All right, back to work.

- Lizzardie, at 12:00 PM Post Link

Monday, May 22, 2006

This top is mine, all mine. And I made it!

So, technically, I made this top before I made the one for Spark. However, after making the one for Spark, I reworked the straps on this one, and they look much better than before. The pattern was unclear, which is why they looked stupid to begin with. Here are the details:

Pattern: Honeymoon Cami from Knitty.com
Yarn: Classic Elite Yarns Newport Light (100% Mercerized Cotton), #3379, 5 skeins (this yarn was discontinued I have no idea how long ago)
Needles: US 5

The greatest part about this top is that it was free! I used some of the yarn my grandmother sent me from when I raided her yarn stash on my February visit. The next greatest part about the top is how nice and simple it is. I learned shaping and just general structure of making a top like this, so I am predicting that there will be many more in my future. I'm already thinking about different colors I want and different stitch patterns for the bottom... I truly am obsessed (but am now expanding my wardrobe because of it).

I wore the top on Saturday to Elenka's BBQ, and I like the way it fits and wears(the straps might still be a tad too long but I'll deal). Also, no one asked me if my top was handmade, which I will ALWAYS take as a good sign (and I didn't mention it either).

The BBQ was fun - the food was good - burgers and sausages, as well as homemade coleslaw and some tasty dessert things. I brought the chicken couscous salad, which will now be my standard BBQ/potluck dish, I think. Some of us played poker later in the evening and... I did rather horribly. I don't remember the last time I did that bad at poker. We had a five dollar buy-in, and started off playing with fake paper money, which was sort of fun. When I lost the first five dollars, I bought in again, this time with pebbles Elenka happened to have, which was also fun (because pebbles are more like chips, though I had to keep reminding everyone how much they were worth). I had chosen 3 colors, from light to dark, to represent 5, 10 and 20, which was the denominations of the bills we had. When I lost the second five dollars, I had to add a pebble color. And I lost all of that, too. Awful - I won one hand all night, and even that one I shouldn't have won (I only did because someone failed to correctly call the cards in her hand). Oh well - I guess it has to happen every once in awhile.

Sunday was an adventure. More on that in another post.

- Lizzardie, at 12:55 PM Post Link

Friday, May 19, 2006

First, the details of this top (for those that might care, and for my own record).

Pattern: Lacy Tank, from Tahki Cotton Classic Spring 2006 Collection
Yarn: Tahki Cotton Classic in (#3931), 4 skeins
Size: I (accidentally) made the XS, but blocked it into a Small/Medium. It could have been blocked just as an XS, too.
Needles: US 5

Now, why did I make it, since I am certainly not an XS, S or M. This was one of my ventures away from my job. I had mentioned (awhile ago, now, I guess) that I might knit something for Spark Crafts, and that's what this was. I went in a few weeks ago, on a Wednesday, to meet with Amy, one of the owners/founders. It was interesting, because I brought a few samples of things I'd made in, thinking she might want to look at my work, before she blindly jumped into this, but she never said a word about it. Instead, we sat down with the pattern books she had, and let me choose a summery pattern, and then we chose the yarn color (we used the recommended yarn, it's seldom I do that anymore). The color choosing was interesting, because I narrowed it down to 3 colors, hoping for one of them, and that's the color Amy picked! Anyhow, this project was really fun, and really easy for me to make. When I started, I thought it was something I'd never make for myself, without some modifications (more coverage on top, for instance). And when I finished I tried it on, and thought it was something that would never look good on me. But then I blocked it, and tried it on again, and realized that if it was knit in the right size, it actually WOULD look good on me. I got paid in store credit, so not only did I get to work on a fun project, but I can now go in and use the store credit to get the yarn to make the top for myself (probably in the same color, I like it that much). Amy seemed really excited when I brought the top back to her, so I'm definitely hoping she'll ask me to make more things in the future. More store credit = more support of this expensive hobby.

On the same Wednesday that I met with Amy, I also did another random job thing. Herb was unable to make the Wednesday night poker thing that week, and none of the other guys who work for the company could fill in for him - so his boss inquired as to whether I would be interested. I don't think Herb was too keen on the idea, but it was either me or cancel, and I guess me filling in was the lesser of two evils. :-P Anyhow, while it was not as much fun as playing (and I get fidgety, and didn't know what to do with myself, plus they were out of Bombay Sapphire - apparently when Herb and I were there the night before and finished off the bottle they had, we - err, mostly me - finished off ALL of what they had), but it was a pretty easy night of work. And we did a fun tournament drinks afterwards. So all in all, a pretty easy gig, which I wouldn't mind doing occasionally, but certainly not on a regular basis.

And that ends the tale of my other job ventures during April/May (as if I wasn't busy enough with the regular job then!).

- Lizzardie, at 10:35 AM Post Link

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

As promised, I am updating more frequently! I still have some things I want to say about the time when I wasn't writing, but for now we're going to jump to the present day. I think my next entry will go back and talk about some things that I've done. But for now, I will talk about.... Opera.

I've never seen a whole Opera. I wasn't sure how I felt about them... I'm still not sure. A lot of them are in Italian, and I've taken some Italian. In case you didn't know, one of my pipe dreams is that I will one day be able to move to Italy and live there, drinking wine and eating food. But for now, I don't really understand it. I like visual things, though, so I wonder if I would be able to follow the story of an opera (in Italian) just by movements, facial expressions and intonation (and maybe a brief summary of what is going on). Thus far, though, it's something that I just haven't had a chance to experience.

Last night I got a brief taste, though. Elenka invited me to her concert, which was put on by the New England Conservatory School of Continuing Education. The concert was called "An Evening of Opera Scenes," and had six scenes from six different operas. There were scenes from The Secret Marriage, Don Giovanni, L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Carmen, Regina and A Hand of Bridge. I really enjoyed this little taste of opera. The costumes and staging were simple, and it was a small little theatre. They started off with scenes in English, then did a few in Italian (but giving us an explanation of what was going on) and ended with English again. It was a new experience to see something acted out (almost) entirely in song, and I really enjoyed the contrast between the female soprano and the male bass. The last three I found to be particularly enjoyable. The scene from Carmen was an aria, which I thought was excellent. The Regina scene (which was the one Elenka was in last night) started off with a quartet, singing happily and contently about the rain, and then switched rather quickly to one of the characters, Birdie, lamenting about her horrible life. And the last one, A Hand of Bridge, was really rather fun, with two couples playing bridge, then launching into their own individual arias, and they were truly unredeeming characters - but that made it all the more enjoyable. Overall, I thought that the singing was rather good, and as it turns out, I can barely understand the English, so it probably doesn't matter if I see something in English or Italian!

Maybe the next thing will be an entire opera. But I might want to start with something in English - at least I'll be able to pull out a few words.

- Lizzardie, at 10:30 AM Post Link

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I just sent out some revised reports, and for the first time in quite a long time (more than a month, which is a long time around here), I do not feel like I have things hanging over me at work. It's a nice feeling. I'm going to take some time off of work next week, I think, which will make me feel even better. I hope it's nice out.

So I've promised you a nice long post about what I've been doing, other than working (the main job - there have been some side things, which I'll talk about), so here at least is part of it. I've been knitting, of course - it's the only thing that keeps me sane. I've also been drinking. A lot, actually - it almost feels like I'm in college again! There have been many weekends of late where I go out Friday night(usually with Herb and Elenka), drink a lot, stumble into bed and then spend all day Saturday hungover, knitting and watching TV. Of course this means that when Sunday comes, I start freaking out because I haven't done ANYTHING all weekend, and there are things that need to get done. But that's how it goes.

To give you an idea of how much stress I was under at work, let me outline a particular night during the April craziness. It was Wednesday, and I had a ton of reports due on Friday. There were other reports that needed to be done, too - not by Friday, but soon after. I'd spent the previous weekend working. I knew I'd be spending the coming weekend working. And I stayed at work until about 7:30pm, didn't go home and went straight to the bar to play poker (the Wednesdays when I go straight to poker are never good days, let me tell you). I walked into the bar, ordered my usual gin & tonic (Bombay Sapphire, of course), and downed it within 10 minutes. I am not exaggerating when I say that Herb came up to me to say HELLO, clinked glasses with me, and that was the end of my first drink. I never do this - I usually nurse my first drink for the first hour and a half - I like to be coherent during the poker game. Anyhow, I immediately ordered another drink, and by the end of the night, when the bar closed, I'd had 6 gin & tonics, I THINK. Many details of the night are fuzzy - I remember coming in second in the tournament, and I remember playing 2 of our "fun" tournaments - we play for drinks. But I don't remember the details of those. I remember writing my email address down for someone, but I don't remember if I wrote it down CORRECTLY. I remember paying my tab, but again, I don't remember if I gave her the right amount of money. And at 1am on a Wednesday night, I was not sober enough to drive myself home. Herb was nice enough to bring me back to his house for a little while, and we ate pizza, and I pet his borrowed cats, and then he drove me back to my car later on when I was sober enough to take myself home. And then I stumble into bed, dreading Thursday morning.

Normally when I wake up after nights like that, I regret the whole thing and vow to never drink again (and it's normally not a weekday, but that's beside the point). But that didn't happen this particular Thursday. Don't get me wrong - I was definitely hungover. But all of the tension that I'd felt the previous day was gone, and I was much more pleasant to my coworkers (some of them even commented on it). It was one of those times that reinforces the fact that it's just not worth it to work all the time and not have any fun. Sometimes 6 gin & tonics is just the right medicine to cure a bad week.

I guess we're going to do this in installments. I think the next installment will be other "work" ventures that I've had IN ADDITION to my regular job (the only one I normally have), which has been so crazy. Another installment will be a description of one of the most perfect weekends ever. Also, there are some artsy things coming up, which I'll be sure to write about, and next weekend is Memorial Day weekend, when people will be in town and it will be fun. And maybe I'll dust off my camera to take pictures of things other than my knitting (but don't worry, those pictures will be back soon, too!). But all of that will come later.

- Lizzardie, at 4:41 PM Post Link