More deer, but innocuous this time

Saturday, I went to visit my parents. After the usual rundown of what's new (granite countertop replaced for the third time, new oven b/c last one was chipped inside, etc.), my dad was just about to point out the goodies he'd left in the backyard to attract deer, when lo and behold, a deer appeared!


We spent the next hour staring out the breakfast nook windows, first at the single deer, then after the corn was replenished, at two of them.


They were quite tiny, and their fur is an unbelievable camoflage. If they are standing still in the trees, they really do disappear. I tried to keep at bay thoughts of my previous encounter with a deer, especially because these were so cute. The smaller one was either very hungry or very gluttonous, because he (she?) ate and ate and ate,


while the larger one did not so much as take a nibble of any of the treats. (In addition to the corn, there were apples cut in half, and peanut butter smeared on a tree--supposedly they like it but there were no takers Saturday.)

On the way out to visit my parents, I drove through quite the downpour, which is no big deal except that my windshield wipers were not functioning properly. I thought the blades had shifted or something, but upon closer inspection, it was revealed that the wipers were on backwards. The long one was on the driver's side and the short one was on the passenger side and it should have been the opposite. This resulted in the windshield not being fully wiped in the the appropriate places, and one wiper kept hitting the edge of the windshield and trying to go further. The only possible explanation was that the body shop had taken them off during the repairs, and then put them back on incorrectly--although I'm not sure why they had to take them off in the first place since the repairs were to the fender and door, not the hood or windshield. Anyway, today I took the car back to the body shop and they fixed it for me on the spot.

Afterwards I went to Target to do some grocery shopping. I miss Trader Joe's like you wouldn't believe. They had certain items that you couldn't get elsewhere, and their prices were always unbeatable. Well, I was delighted to see that Target carries some similar items under their premium brand, Archer Farms. For instance, mint chocolate cookie clusters (imagine Junior Mints and Oreos in a chocolatey clump) and parmesan sourdough twists (imagine the subtlety of parmesan cheese in the crispiest cracker you could ever taste!). Another thing that caused me to squeal with glee (albeit under my breath so as not to appear like a freak) was the discovery that Viva now comes in select-a-size! Viva paper towels are the best, but I was a devoted Bounty girl because I prefer using the smallest amount of paper towel possible. Waste not, want not, right? Now I can have the best of both worlds. Yee haw!

Movies
Watched Closer, with Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law, and Clive Owen. Should have known from the lousy rating on Netflix (two stars) as well as friends' reviews that I would hate it. Very crude and just all around sleazy and dysfunctional.

Also saw Ladder 49 again. I love the score. No surprise, since I'm a sucker for an Irish penny flute. It's such a riveting film, and although I am not married to a firefighter and thus am no expert, it seems very realistic. I couldn't imagine being married to someone who risks his life on a daily basis like that. There's enough risk in the mundane things, like commuting, let alone running into burning buildings and what not.

Knitting
Started a new scarf, another two-yarn effort. It's coming along nicely. It's only ten stitches across but it seems so wide.


Must be an illusion created by the Bernat Disco yarn. The fibers are longer and straighter than eyelash. They also have the appearance of being sparkly although there is no metallic in the weave. It comes across as rather dressy, which probably means I will hardly ever wear it. But you never know.

Also, I'm continuing to work on my purple scarf.


I started it weeks ago. I was going to do it all stockinette (one row of knitting, one row of purling). But I took it to knitting group, and wouldn't you know, I got distracted talking to everyone and I forgot to alternate. So I decided to invent my own pattern: alternating blocks of stockinette and straight knitting. It looks kinda cool, but it's taking forever. The yarn is the thinnest I've worked with, and the needles are the smallest (even though they're only 10's). I can't imagine doing something with 8's! I haven't the patience. But I am making progress and hopefully will finish in the next week or two.

Latest Geeky Game
I'm relatively new to iTunes. I used Real Player for a long time, but when I got an iPod around the middle of last year, it made sense to convert. I will never look back. iTunes rocks! It is so clean and simple and user-friendly. (Duh, Melissa, it's like everything from Apple!) So my latest thing is to play with the search box. I type in random strings of letters and see what songs come up. For instance, just now I typed in "rst" and it showed, among other things, the tracks from Erasure's greatest hits album, "Pop! The First 20 Hits." "Ghts" gets you REM's "Nightswimming," Matchbox Twenty's "Bright Lights," Faith Hill's "When the Lights Go Down," and Jewel's, "Leave the Lights On." Silly, but when you have over 2100 songs, so many of them go unplayed unless you pluck them from obscurity like this. The party shuffle feature is also good for bringing up random tunes, but I like finding wildly different songs that have something in common, even if it is as meaningless as a series of letters in their title or album name.