Another Dental Day

It was back to the dentist for me today. They removed the temporary caps and did impressions. This involved more Novocaine, and some amazingly vigorous mayhem to my teeth, coupled with lots of digging under my gums with sharp instruments.

I had originally planned to go to Manassas and get the shoes I've been thinking about and some jeans, but gave up on that after the way I felt, and the length of time it took to do all of the work.

So, this is going to be a short post. All I feel like doing is watching TV and knitting, with maybe a snack of something soft and soothing. I stopped on the way home and got some rice pudding.

I'll probably only have to go back once more.

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In TV news, Marc Blucas was on Castle last night. Some of you may remember him as Buffy's boyfriend, Riley Finn, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Tonight, Better Off Ted is back!! It had been canceled, so I was surprised and delighted to see it come up on my digital TV guide for tonight. I know it's not really science fiction, but it does have a lot of science run amok in addition to the insane corporate tactics. And it's a very funny show.

I, Robot will also be on FX.

My gums are throbbing, and I don't feel like writing anymore, so I'll wish you a fun evening and leave it at that.

Happy Pearl Harbor Day

I don't think Pearl Harbor is anything to celebrate, but I hope you have a good day.

Not much is happening around here.

I liberated an extension cord by eliminating the stuff that was plugged into another cord that I never turn on. So, now my tree and window are lit and beautiful. Very pretty! Photos of it will appear if I get a chance.

Not much going on here, I just wanted to say hi!

Let It Snow!

Yesterday, we got our first snowfall of the season. It looked like this out my window at about noon:


It looks kind of misty because there was snow coming down. It continued to snow until about 5pm or so, and we probably got just a smidge over two inches. The air at ground level and the ground itself was above freezing when it snowed (although it went down later), so we wound up with two inches on the grass, ground and trees, and just a hint of slush on the sidewalks, and some dampness on the roads.

It looks very wintery and Christmassy! Very picturesque and pretty, and not a hassle, except when I walked out without the hood on my coat up and got some down the back of my neck.

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A couple of days ago, I finished a hat that's going to be a Christmas present. I won't say who it's for, but I will show you what it looks like.

The cuff is supposed to look like it's a mobius strip, although that's not how it's knitted. Give me an opinion. Does it look like that's what it is?

And right above the area where the cuff dips to look like it's twisting, there's a heart.

I finished knitting a wimple to go with this last night. It still needs blocking, and it will look kind of messy until I do that, so I haven't taken a photo of it yet. The blocking is waiting until I finish Christmas decorations.

I'm definitely going to make mitts to go with this set, but there will still be yarn left after that, so I haven't decided if I should make a scarf or mittens to go over the mitts to go with all of this. Opinions would be welcome! The scarf has the advantage that I can knit the mitts first, and then get the scarf started and just keep going until I run out of yarn and use it all.

This was knit with the Encore Tweed yarn in Grape Jam, for anyone who is interested in the yarn.

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I've been putting up Christmas decorations a little at a time. I do a little bit and then my back hurts, so I rest for a bit and do some more.

The little lavender tree is up on the divider between the kitchen and living room, although I still intend to put more lights in that area. It's very pretty and I like it.

The lights in the window are up, but not lit yet. I need two extension cords to light both the window lights and tree lights at the same time, and I only have one cord.

The extension cord that I got for the window lights is currently still next to the tree, which is up, but I need an extension cord for that, too. I bought a cord for it last year, but it's in use elsewhere now, so I need another one to light the tree. Until there's another cord, they can't both be lit at once. The cord is currently by the tree because I put up the two new strings of lights and wanted to test them and see how it looked. I could easily have used another string of star lights for the tree, but CVS only had two in white. All the rest were multicolored. They look really good, though, although the rose lights are prettier overall. I still want the star lights more than the rose ones, though.

I still need to put the ornaments up and clear away the boxes that all this stuff was in, so it's kind of messy at the moment, but I'll get back to it when I finish writing this and get it done.

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We've been drowning in Christmas movies, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings this weekend. I'm not complaining about any of that.

BBC in America came through for us and took down the listing for Torchwood yesterday and substituted the next episode of Doctor Who from the one they had in that time slot last week (last week was Turn Left, and yesterday was The Stolen Earth). There are three one hour Doctor Who episodes listed for next Saturday, but my digital TV Guide won't tell me what they are. Their online schedule says that they will finish the series of three with Journey's End next Saturday and continue with The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead for any of you who missed them. They did say that there would be more new Doctor Who in December. They'll go crazy with the Doctor on Sunday and show several different episodes including repeats from Saturday and Voyage of the Dammed.

The Saturday after that (19th), they're going to go insane and show several Doctor Who episodes and specials including The Waters of Mars!

Tomorrow, Disney will be showing The Chronicles of Narnia at noon (here), and there will be a new Big Bang Theory and Castle as well as a new Closer. Wow!

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I was hoping to get out with Holly on Saturday or Sunday and spend some of the money the Social Security people should have been sending me, but didn't.

Unfortunately, Holly didn't feel good, and looked at the weather report and decided that she really didn't want to fight with snow while she was feeling that way, and declined to go.

I'm kind of worried about her, and I hope she feels better soon.

One of the things I wanted to get was a pair of shoes. JC Penny has some shoes that normally cost more on sale for $30. They're really good looking, and if they are as comfortable as I hope, I'd like to buy them. I have a sneaky suspicion that they're on clearance, and that's the reason for the lower price, so I want to do it ASAP.

But I can get there on the bus, so I guess that's what I'll do. I can also get them online and have them mailed to me, but they said I can buy them locally and it would be nice to be able to try them on first.

Well, I'd better get back to decorating!

I hope you had a great weekend and an even better week coming up!

The Big Bang Theory

I happened to come across this today, and thought you'd enjoy it.

I only discovered The Big Bang Theory recently, and I don't know if this is a new episode that's coming up, or one that's been shown before, but I thought it was very funny, and I thought others would enjoy it.

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Yesterday, I went running over to the library lugging enough books to return to cause spinal damage, and there was a Christmas tree up in the airlock between the outside door, and the inside one. It was so pretty, it stopped me in my tracks. The lights on it were white (clear) and in the shape of roses! The tree was covered in lit-up white roses! So pretty!

I asked where they got them, and Susan said CVS, so after I returned my books and dragged home another stack of bone-endangering proportions, I went over to CVS.

Well, I think that each CVS store got a different batch of lights, and that they weren't all the same because they didn't have roses, but they did have stars! Stars! Which was even better! Susan warned me that there are a lot of lights on the string (30), but that they're so close together that a string of lights doesn't go very far, and that the tiny tree had two strings of lights on it. So, since my tree is a similar size, I got two strings, also.

Now, I just have to get the tree up!

I have so much to do at the moment, and not enough time to do it! I haven't gotten any of the Christmas decorations up yet. I did pull out one string of lights and plug them in so that I could see how pretty they are, though.

And I have the tiny lavender tree that I just got to put up, too. I know, a lavender tree sounds SO tacky, but it really is pretty. The pink one just like it is tacky, though. I'm really determined to get that up tonight!

So, I have all the Christmas decorating to do, I really should go back to CVS and get at least one more Zyrtec so that I can take one today. Actually, I should have done that much earlier than this (it's about 5:30, and I should have taken one by now), I have a blog post to put up, and I still have more work on the back cover of the Steve Canyon DVD than I expected to have at this point! And I'm not even going to think about how much knitting I still have to do for Christmas presents!

I have re-prioritized my Christmas knitting. The further away the recipient lives, the sooner I'm knitting their present. People who live nearby may not get presents until I finish them, which may not be until after Christmas.

There will be far fewer blog posts happening in December than there usually are, so don't panic!

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Dollhouse will be on TV for two hours tonight! Don't miss it!

Monk has been on USA all day today. They will be repeating the first part of the last (two part) episode, and then premiering the second part at the end of the marathon this evening. We're finally going to find out why Trudy died!

And there will be a new White Collar on right after that. Natalie Morales was requesting that everyone tune in to see it tonight. I hope it's not on the "We're sharpening the ax for this one" list! And speaking of Natalie Morales, she just tweeted this photo.

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One of the books that I lugged back to the Library yesterday was And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer. It did actually have at least a hint of plot, and the writing in any one sentence seemed to be as good as Douglas Adams' but it just didn't seem quite as good as the previous books in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. It truly did seem like an afterthought, though, so I guess that's good.

Years ago, in the early '70s, I read a very good book called The Witches of Karres. I loved that book then, and about a year ago, I got another copy of it, but hadn't gotten around to reading it. Well, I'm rereading it now, and it's every bit as good as I remember! I am having such a good time reading it!

I have sitting here, waiting for me, The Wizard of Karres, which I have read more recently, and expect to enjoy even more since I'll have just finished the first book.

But the big news is that there's a sequel to those two coming out early next year (January 5) called

The Sorceress of Karres, and I can't wait to read it!

It's almost 7pm here, and I'm still writing and checking stuff on the internet, and I really have to go!

Have a great Friday night (don't forget Dollhouse), and a wonderful weekend!

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Addition:

Before I managed to escape from the internet and actually do something useful, I happened to notice this and thought that you might enjoy it if you're going crazy finding Christmas presents this year. Yes, that's right, it's a USB powered pet rock!

Save Eastwick!

What is it about television networks that makes them remove every TV program that I really like as soon as possible?

The Middleman was there and gone so quickly that I missed most of it because Comcast refused to broadcast it with the closed captioning that was in the signal when ABC Family sent it to them. The little bit I did see was wonderful! ABC Family could have had it for several more seasons and I would have watched and treasured every episode, but no, they wanted me to watch some other network instead of them.

The latest casualty of this kind of thinking is ABCs Eastwick. This is easily the best show on TV right now. Yes, there are other shows that I watch and enjoy, but Eastwick is the one I most don't want to see go off the air. So, naturally, ABC is demonstrating that they want me to watch some other station.

OK, so they're replacing it in the time slot by moving Ugly Betty to Wednesday. While I was searching for more information to link to for Eastwick, I found the link above, which says that not only have they canceled it, but they aren't going to show the final few episodes! The thing that baffles me, is that Ugly Betty is getting ratings that are lower than Eastwick. And Ugly Betty is getting replaced by something even worse in it's old time slot!

ABC, why don't you put Eastwick into a timeslot on Tuesday night? Everything there is so forgettable that I don't even remember anything that's on your network on Tuesday, and I certainly don't watch your network (or any other regularly scheduled show) on Tuesday.

If you want to save Eastwick, or at least try, go here or the Facebook Save Eastwick page (or both). You can get more info about it on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Eastwick?v=wall, or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SaveEastwick. You can write to ABC here.

Well, anyway, tonight there will be an all-new episode of Eastwick, so let's enjoy it while we can! From what I'm reading on the internet, it may be the very last one ever!

While I'm on the subject of canceled/reinstated shows, Chuck will be back in January!

There will be two (count 'em, TWO) episodes of Dollhouse on Friday!

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I'm on the internet! You can see an article about Volume 3 of the Steve Canyon DVD here!

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I've been doing a lot of knitting for Christmas presents, and I'll take a photo of some of it tomorrow (if I get a chance--there's a lot to do tomorrow), when we're due to have some sun, which is something that didn't happen at all today.

I've also been working on the covers for the new Steve Canyon DVD (Volume 3), and I have to do a bit more of that today, so I have to quit writing this and get busy!

Have a great night, and don't miss Eastwick!

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Addition:

Vogue Knitting is having a sale on their patterns. Get more information about it here!

Recovering from Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as usual. I got to see Holly and Robin's new, 52 inch TV, and it's wonderful, but we actually had Thanksgiving dinner in the new bar behind their house.

A while ago, Robin bought a Chinese dragon kite, and he wanted it for decoration. Here's a photo of it on the ceiling in the bar.

And here it is close up:

Here are Holly and Robin behind the bar:

A photo of Robin getting ready to answer a question, it looks like:

And a couple of photos of Holly:

I finally gave up and went home after 1:30 am.

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Before I forget to tell you, Vickie Howell is having her annual book giveaway! Today is the last day to enter, so get right over there!

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For all you knitters out there who need/want a yarn winder, here are instructions for making one of your own for a low cost.

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The ABC Family channel was running the "coundown" to 25 Days of Christmas, but gave up on that for Thanksgiving and Saturday. They're back with some Christmas movies, if anyone cares. I have to admit it, I'm a sucker for those gooey Christmas movies.

BBC in America told the people who put up the digital TV guide that they were going to show the Doctor Who episode, Utopia yesterday, but they really showed Turn Left. I hope they show the two episodes that come after Turn Left (The Stolen Earth and Journey's End). The other two are considered to be a whole story, but I think that Turn Left should be included as part of that story, and it should be a three-parter.

I just looked it up, and they're not showing Doctor Who next Saturday. In that time slot they're showing Torchwood, and they haven't put up any info on which episode yet.

By the way, SyFy is now rerunning Doctor Who on Friday mornings, very early, again, at least for a few more weeks. Next week will be Fires of Pompei. On Christmas Eve (Christmas day) and New Year's Day, they will not be showing Doctor Who. Hopefully, he'll be back in January.

Heroes will be the only new SF programming on Monday. Of course, SyFy will have it's usual reruns of Ghost Whisperer, and there will be reruns of The Big Bang Theory, and Castle. I know Castle isn't SF, but I like Nathan Fillion so much from Firefly.

I have to get going now. I promised John I'd get some more done on the back cover of Volume 3 of the Steve Canyon DVDs over the weekend, and yesterday went in a completely different direction from what I intended, and I didn't get anything done then, so I have to make it up now.

I hope you've all been having a great extended holiday weekend!