Tidbits

Just a few little things...

1. Praise this day. I have found some delicious ice cream for diabetics. I went shopping today at the giant Walmart-like store today where they have much bigger selections than what is available at my local (and smaller) markets and they have ice cream for diabetics. Right there on the label. "Recommended for diabetics" with the seal of the Deutsche Diabetiker Bund (German Diabetic Union). So I bought two 3/4 liter cartons of chocolate and on the label it says the package is four 2BE servings. When I opened it I was happy to find that the ice cream was scored in four servings to make sure you don't have trouble getting a 2BE serving. And it's tasty to boot. No funky aftertaste or anything. Now I have an alternative for when I'm jonesing for a chocolate treat.

2. I finished the scarf I was knitting for my MIL. No pattern and I had no idea what the finished product would look like so it was interesting to see how it would turn out. It's a triangular scarf made of eyelash yarn and while it's not a style I would wear it looked nice and it's just what my MIL wanted. I started with ten stitches and added three stitches at the beginning of each row. I knit through one 50 gram skein of yarn and had just barely gotten into the second skein when my MIL declared it finished. She's the one who knew what it was supposed to look like so I took her word for it. It's worn with the triangle in front with the long ends wrapped around your neck so it just fills the V opening of a coat. A little too matronly for me but it's perfect for my MIL's style.

3. Last night I started on a cowl for myself. If you're not sure what a cowl is, take a look here: http://www.knitty.com/images/win04cover.jpg . Again, no pattern, just knitting what seems will work. I have black eyelash yarn (a little obsessed over eyelash yarn, ja?) , 7mm, 80 cm long circular needles and about 160 stitches (don't ask me why I didn't count how many I cast on...I guess I'll count them when I bind off) and I'm just knitting what essentially will be a furry tube. Furry tube will either look great slung around my neck or slipped up over the gigantic Celtic melon I loving call my head or it will be extremely silly-ass looking. Should the latter be the case I'll just frog it and make something else. That's the beauty of knitting - if it sucks, just rip it out!

4. I have just realized that, dispite the cold and dreary weather, Easter will be here in a week. Must get hot on getting the apartment tidied up a bit better. Right now things are in big need of being polished up and scrubbed down to the shine.

5. Speaking of shine, my new favorite product, aside from the diabetic ice cream, is the...well shit, what would I call it in English? I don't know what it's called in English - I'll assume the same sort of thing is sold in America with a proper name - but what it is is a power booster for the dishwaher. A powder you just sprinkle inside the door of your dishwasher before turning it on and it deep cleans burnt on shit from your pots. Remember that stuck on pudding scrim from earlier in the week? I soaked the daylights out of those pots and it would not all come out. Sprinkled in some of this power booster stuff, ran some hot water in the pot and about 10 minutes later that burned on gunk just rinsed out. Added some to my load of dishes and the dullness on my stainless steel pots and pans was removed. It's not for everyday dish dirt but it sure saved me from being pissed off about pudding crud that wouldn't come out.

6. Bayern-Münich was drawn to play Chelsea in the quarter finals of the Champion's League. Shit. I was hoping for Eindhoven or Lyon but maybe it's just better to go ahead and bump off Chelsea now. With the two Milan teams taking care of each other and only one making it out alive that will help a lot. I don't envy Liverpool having to take on Juventus and I'd sure be happy if they could bump them off as well but I wouldn't bet on it. Right now I'd just like to see Bayern kick Chelsea's collective asses. I can't stand Chelsea. The only English team I hate worse than Chelsea is Manchester United.

7. Don't laugh but I'm going to teach myself to play the recorder. You know, that little flute-y thing you probably learned to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on when you were in grade school? I did actually master that Mozart classic when in grade school but I have since forgotten how to play a recorder and I thought that maybe I could teach myself again but I didn't know where to start and didn't want to plunk down a bunch of money on a real recorder. So yesterday I saw in a store I was in a little teach-yourself-to-play-the-recorder kit. A little plastic soprano recorder with a plastic stick you can run a cloth around to swab it out, a little plastic case and a little book that tells you how to play, read the notes and so on. Helpful since I've always sucked at reading music. And best of all it's for ages six and up! Now if a six year old can master this, I can too, right?

God help my neighbors as I take on this new little journey into the world of music...