bad metaphor

My dad may be an expatriate from Vietnam and all, but in many ways he’s vehemently Midwestern: he loves Budweiser, barbecue, guns, and Christmas music. The morning following Thanksgiving I stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and wanting breakfast, to be greeted with the strains of “music” blaring from the radio: B-98 FM, the station that plays “all Christmas, all the time” (as opposed to the other stations in Wichita, which are only Christmas 95% of the time). Lest one forget what season it is – and it has been easy to forget as of late, what with the fact that it was 70 degrees outside on Turkey-Gorging Day in Kansas – cheery, slightly off-key voices will remind you: “Giddy up, jingle horse, pick up your feet!” AHHH. I guess I should thank my stars that I’ve only heard that dreadful “Siiiimply haaaving a wonderful Christmas time!” song once in a store, discounting the times my roommate has played that specifically to infuriate me. Ugh.

Now I am a known grinchy grump and all, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not really Christmas itself that bugs me. Sure, it’s unabashedly capitalist and it seems as though people spend more and more each year, clobbering and crushing more of their fellow citizens in a rush to get that new Bratz doll or Tickle Me Elmo (seriously, what? I thought that trend was over and done with three years ago! It’s not even old enough to be retro kitsch!). But the exchange of gifts, and even the reunion of family…well, more so the gifts, makes the whole thing totally worth it.

Well, almost. There is still the matter of that horrid forced cheerfulness of all that Christmas music that is ubiquitous these days, should one be hapless enough to have to shop for gifts in store instead of online, or otherwise have to venture outside of the confines of their cold-yet-blissfully-Christmas-music-free abode. With the advances of YouTube and the Internets, I have compiled a list of songs that I would sooner listen to than one more iteration of “Jingle Rock” (GIDDY UP, JINGLE HORSE. Really, I know that line bothers me more than it should, but it’s just…augh.).

This is a hit song by the infamous Jan Terri, a limo driver from Chicago who made it ‘big’ on the music scene a few years back. Though she has a face for radio and a voice for telegraph, you’ve got to admit, this song is pretty catchy. And better yet, it’s a Halloween song, for a holiday that gets almost no musical recognition. Get down goblin! Yeah.

The musical accompaniment to this surreal Beavis-and-Butthead-esque animation is provided by The Shaggs, who demonstrate what can happen when you try to make rock music out of prophecy. They can’t play their instruments and the vocalist covers a wide range of keys throughout the duration of the “song,” but guess what? Still better than “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time!” For shame, Sir Paul.

Middle schoolers’ take on Nirvana. Possibly the worst cover in the whole world. So hardcore.

Finally, a sound that adequately summarizes how I feel midway between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year.

So there’s my buffer against the evils of Mannheim Steamroller and co.; whenever I walk into a retail environment from now on, I will retreat into my happy place of howling cats and angsty suburban middle schoolers. And my heart rate shall benefit. Ho ho ho.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, but one thing I have been doing a lot is knitting. It seems as though I knit all the time, during every bit of free time I get in fact, but I will still never manage to get everything done by the holidays. Despite having a head start of about six months! Do I just knit like a snail or what? (Surely snails, lacking arms and fingers, would be spectacularly slow at yarn crafts).

At any rate, a few birthdays have come and gone, and that provided an opportunity to fulfill a request I’d received from the lovely Faye, who had been quite taken with my Mr. Snootypus. She inquired about a pattern, and I’d responded with a half-garbled, nonsensical retelling of what I thought I had done. “How do you knit an octopus?” “Well, you get some yarn, and you knit until it looks like an octopus.” Since then, a few of my friends have had birthdays, so I’ve had an opportunity to try and retrace my steps.

One could suppose this would provide me the chance to meticulously and painstakingly record pattern notes, but, you know, I got distracted sometimes by shiny things and people. Given my ability to knit without paying attention, it can be difficult to remember what I’ve done just, oh, five seconds ago. Despite this, I have managed to cobble together something that I do think might produce a passable octopus, similar to the ones I’ve made. The stitch math might actually be correct! Please feel free to leave comments, I can sympathize with just how painful a vague pattern can be.

Anyhow, without further ado, here is the Octopus Pattern!

Requirements:
Any worsted weight yarn
Size 8 dpns (at least 4)
Tapestry needle
Polyfill fiber (or the stuffing of your choice)
Embroidery floss / contrasting color yarn for face

Code translation:
Sts = stitches
Kfb = knit into the front and back of each stitch! See Knitting Help under “Bar Increase.” Alternately, if you have trouble doing this, you could substitute this with the ‘M1′ increase.
K2tog = knit two together. Again, you can substitute some of these on the left side of the octopus body with the ‘SSK’ decrease, for a more cleanly knit octopus.
( )* = repeat whatever is inside the parentheses, however many number of times

Body:
CO 6 sts. (I used the double tail method of casting on, but you can probably use whichever. If you use another cast-on method, you’ll need to knit all stitches on the first row.) Place a stitch marker and begin:

1: Kfb all sts. (12 sts)
2: K all sts.
3: Kfb all sts. (24 sts)
4: K all sts.
5: Kfb all sts. (48 sts)
6: K all sts.

Knit until you’d like to begin the crown shaping for the octopus’ head. It’s up to you whether you’d prefer a short, squat, tomatoish octopus, or a tall, stately one!

Head shaping:

1: (K2tog, k6)* 6 times. (42 sts)
2: K all sts
3: (K2tog, K6)* 5 times, k2tog. (36 sts)
4: K all sts
5: (K2tog, K4)* 6 times. (30 sts)
6: K all sts
7: (K2tog, K3)* 6 times. (24 sts)
8: K all sts
9: (K2tog, K2)* 6 times. (18 sts)
10: K all sts
11: (K2tog, K1)* 6 times. (12 sts)
12: K all sts
13: K2tog all sts (6 sts).

Break yarn, leaving a long tail at least 5 inches or so. Draw tail end loosely through the remaining 6 stitches. Start stuffing the octopus. Once the octopus begins to fill out a little, use embroidery floss or alternate yarn to begin stitching the face. Once finished, stuff the octopus until it is full, draw the yarn end taught and weave in the ends.

Tentacles:
I made all eight tentacles using the i-cord technique (almost at the very bottom of that page), which is probably easiest. You can knit flat rectangles, stuff and seam them if you like.

Flip your little guy over and decide where you want the tentacles (it helps to plan ahead at this step, hehe). I made a tentacle by picking up two stitches at the desired tentacular site, and knitting an i-cord to about the length I wanted them, about four inches or so. I liked the look of the skinnier tentacles but you might want them wider. Additionally, I had toyed with the idea of crocheting little suckers on the underside of each tentacle, but 1) these gifts were made very quickly and 2) I was lazy. And, bonus no. 3, I’m lousy at crochet. But if you are not lazy and also not lousy at crochet, this might be a fun way to embellish your cephalopod!

With pals like these, wouldn’t you like to be under the sea?

Gifted to Nina. I totally forget what she named it, but for some reason I think it is named after a guy who killed a bunch of opossums?

Gifted to Krissy. His name is Otis and he makes a splendid tea companion.

Note that the pattern will probably produce an octopus that looks more like Krissy’s, given that I wrote it right after finishing hers; if you’d like one more berry-like in appearance (I think Nina’s sort of looks like a blueberry, though it could be the effect of the yarn color), email or post a comment and I’ll try and resurrect the notes for that one.

* Alright, so maybe it isn’t the best Beatles song out there, but it fits, okay?

…not all that much, really. There’s lots of talk about how many of the elected Democrats are of a curiously conservative variety. Paul Morrison, our new Attorney General, was a Republican that switched party affiliations so that he could run against Phill Kline (blast that superfluous ‘l’, and may I never have to see it again), in a case of ‘tolerably conservative guy’ against a ‘so conservative, he shits Bibles and bullets earmarked for abortion clinics’ guy. Bob Casey, who trounced Santorum (:D), has proclaimed himself as pro-life and pro-gun rights. On the flip side, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a Republican who has apparently challenged Bush’s policies, has progressive stances on things like gay marriage and stem cell research, and was the only Republican who voted against the Iraqi invasion, was defeated. People are still voting on party lines, it’s just that the Republican party happens to be out of favor. Also, Democrats have revamped themselves to be friendly and non-threatening to moderates and disenchanted conservatives. A new party ought to be formed: the Republicrats, or the Demoblicans. Their mascot could be a purple, long-nosed, enormous ass.

Still, perhaps because the political situation has become very dire in the past four years, I cannot help but be happy. It finally hit me just how bad things were when, while reading about the Foley case, I came across an article that discussed the possibility of Hastert stepping down as Speaker of the House for his involvement in the scandal. I can’t find it now, but the author said the likelihood was dim, as the Republican party could not find a single congressman who could replace Hastert, who had not been tainted by the Abramoff, DeLay, Foley, or other serious scandals. As a country, we desperately needed to clean House (ha!).

It looks like the Democrats need to do two things: 1) not be absurdly corrupt assholes, and 2) come up with a cohesive exit strategy for Iraq. Honestly, right now, just plain up and leaving sounds better than what we have been doing, with the insurgency intensifying every day and our military presence seemingly unable to do much about it. Hopefully, these election results will put more pressure on the administration to reevaluate our Iraq policy and come up with a more effective strategy. I’m not holding my breath, sure, but neither am I wringing my hands in despair.

-P.S. – …And Rumsfeld’s out

…to vote!

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