bad metaphor

Once upon a time, I saw a compost bin for an incredible steal at a garage sale. Something like $25 or $30 for a large green bin. I noted the price at the time but decided we didn’t have enough room to haul it back, since my roommate and I had a free Christmas tree from another garage sale stuffed in the trunk. While the tree had many awesome qualities, including lighted strands already on the tree, freeness, and ability to rotate (!), I still look back and figuratively kick myself for not trying to cram in that composter also. The cheapest new bin I can find anywhere is at least $50. Since I was getting mightily tired of having to dig a new trench each and every time I take out the compost, I decided to pony up for a new bin from Home Depot.

Until I looked at the bin and thought to myself, hey! that’s just a garbage can with an open bottom! And busted garbage cans can be had for far cheaper than fifty dollars. Turning to the trusty dusty Internets, I found a number of websites outlining DIY compost bins – and quickly became confused by the sheer variety. Worm composters? I must confess I’m a bit bigoted towards legless creatures, and the thought of having to handle hundreds of slimy wrigglies writhing in rotting kitchen slop….eww. There are instructions available for setting up several different wood contraptions, all of which entail things like “sawing” and “precise measurements”…a little too complicated for a compost noob. Then I came across a description for how to build a closed air compost system. “Easy to build.” Aha!

So I gathered my ingredients. I made some minor substitutions; since Krissy happened to have a lot of chicken wire laying around, I borrowed some of this along with all the tools, and decided to make her a composter too.

So far so good!

Ingredients: trash can, utility knife, tin snips, chicken wire, screws, hammer and nail. The hammer and nail was used to make holes in the can for screws; a drill would be ideal but this method works just fine.

Despite my ill-advised attempts to photograph myself stabbing into a rubber bin with a box cutter, I failed to slash my own wrists. Eat it, Darwin!

Step 1: make ye a large hole in the bottom of the trash can. Leave enough room to screw in your chicken wire. (Owing to the awkward shape of this particular trash can, I ended up needing to screw the chicken wire into the sides of the can anyways).

Halfway done, in no time at all!

Now take those tin snips and trim the chicken wire to a size slightly bigger than the hole you have just made. Here’s where the chicken wire makes it a bit tricky – you’ll need to trim the chicken wire so that you can slightly unwind the “ends” to wrap around the screws. Like so:

Set the wire circle aside. Now use your hammer and nail (or drill, if you were smart) to partially install the screws. I only ended up using about 8 – 10 per bin, just enough to keep the chicken wire taut. Use your wire circle as a guide to where to install the screws, if need be!

Note the lack of polish to the rough edges and the blatant crooked placement of the screws. Who cares? This part is going in the dirt and is having kitchen refused tossed into it, so no need to be a perfectionist!

Unwind the wiry ends you have created when you snipped your circle, and wrap these ends around the screws you just installed. Continue working until you’ve got the circle more or less wedded to the can, for better or for worse! If the shabbiness of the product bothers you, or if you don’t particularly feel like being poked in the chest while you carry this thing to its final destination, trim and bend in any chicken wire ends that are sticking out.

Compost view.

Now the fun part – paint your bin! You’re going to the trouble of making your own compost bin, might as well jazz it up a bit.

Appropriate spelling and grammar optional, natch.

Banana peel and leaves equals….

…a flower whose petals kind of resemble the banana peel, turned upside down? I think this would have come across better had I stuck with the yellow paint for the petals.

There you go, a new thing to throw carrot ends and avocado peels into! If I had to do this again I would use slightly larger trash cans, as I went the cheap route and did mere 20 gallons – blatantly defying the website instructions which told me to use 32 gallons or larger. Also, I lined the insides of the trash cans with duct tape markings every six inches, to indicate a point at which it would be a good idea to toss some leaves or lawn trimmings onto the kitchen scraps. I’m not sure if I really need to do that, but it seems like most composters do a mix so I’ll try it out.

As my joyride month of free music closes, I find myself rudely thrust back into the civilian life of having to pay full price for concerts again. Pfft. (Though I’m trying to keep the train going by applying to win Caribou tickets. Brief summaries of the concerts I won:

Tegan and Sara: So I’d heard their names before, but until the day before the show, I couldn’t tell you if I’d heard their songs or not. (Turns out I had, without recognizing that it was T&S). I think some people get the impression that I know a lot about music, particularly indie rock and whatnot, but my knowledge is actually pretty patchwork, and this happened to be one of my blind spots. I can’t say I dug what little I heard during my pre-show research, but the show was pretty entertaining. Mostly I was amused by the aggressively dancing girl who danced her bony hipster ass in a circle around us, and who severely annoyed the diehard T&S at the show with me – “ugh. She’s not even a real fan.” Apparently little miss Tiny Dancer kept texting when she wasn’t jabbing us with her hips, and made the criminal noob mistake of cheering for their popular radio hits as opposed to their older songs. Anyhow, T&S put on a good show, and regaled the audience with lots of little quirky Canadienne anecdotes between songs.

I didn’t so much care for their opening act, Steel Train, comprised of a bunch of hipster gay boys playing 80′s prog-rock sendups. Just wasn’t my thing, really – and it didn’t help that they broke out into this barbershop quartet routine for one of their songs! They did have cool T-shirts, though.

Beach House: The only one of the four concerts that I would have actually purchased tickets for if I hadn’t won them, owing to the $14 price tag. I didn’t know much about them beforehand, either; I’d just listened to the live stream of their latest album “Teen Dream” off NPR. The album was amazing, of course, and they didn’t really deviate the way they played their songs, which usually bugs me. In this case it didn’t matter; hearing Victoria LeGrand’s ethereal, spookily androgynous voice fill physical space was positively enchanting. Eli mentioned that he had a much greater appreciation seeing the guitarist, Alex Scally, live – it’s tough to pull off dreamy, gauzy guitar plucking, and he does it well.

Their opening act was Bachelorette, a nice seeming girl from New Zealand. She played a short set owing to voice difficulties, though her singing sounded all right. I’m not the biggest fan of laptop-oriented music, though, and wished there was a little more to it besides that.

Jonsi: PHENOMENAL. I can’t stress this enough – if you have the opportunity, go see either him or his band of fellow Icelandic witchgoblins, Sigur Ros, live in concert. Even if you’re not particularly a big fan of the music as heard in mortal album form, just go. Something about the alchemy of a live concert experience transforms this music into a transcendental experience.

Didn’t catch the opener for Jonsi, a band with the highly misleading name of “Death Vessel” – a soft-voiced guy plucking an acoustic guitar.

The Flaming Lips: also a great band to see live, even if you’re not particularly into their music. It’s tough to top a performance that involves the band members emerging from a giant pulsating neon vagina, Wayne Coyne in his patented hamsterball roaming over the audience, a giant catfish attempting to clap with his little stubby fishy fins, and loads and loads of giant balloons and confetti jets.

Jack White’s newest band, The Dead Weather, opened for the Flaming Lips. That particular concert in Kansas City marked the only point on the bands’ respective tours where they would join forces; I guess the Flaming Lips have a long and happy history with Jack White dating back to the time they feuded with Beck while on tour. Jack White apparently cheered up the Lips by bestowing upon them a fiberoptic plastic Jesus, which inspired them to write a thank you song. Inexplicably, the Lips chose not to play this song at the concert? Maybe it was too expected.

Anyhow, the Dead Weather. They also put on a good show, though it was a straight up rock concert featuring straight up classic rock and roll. Krissy said she thought the lead singer, Alison Mosshart, looked completely strung out on heroin. I thought this was probably not the case, as she was bouncing and dancing around all over the stage…as to what she and the rest of the band would do recreationally after the show, of course, I couldn’t comment. Anyhow they looked like typical rock stars, dressed in black and too cool for school. Ho hum. Meanwhile I’m sitting in the audience, knitting. (That’s right bitches. I live life on the EDGE….of a needle.)

We also caught opening bands White Rabbits – who had an impressive percussion section – and Minus the Bear – who Krissy didn’t care for, but E and I enjoyed, though I wonder what they would sound like with the Bear (HA! I slay myself. I really should).

In summation, it was a great month for music in the world of karenology! The fact that so many great bands came (and continue to come) to this area reminds me how lucky we are in Lawrence, and how lucky I am to have been able to see all these shows. It’ll be tough to go back to gazing wistfully at shaky Youtube videos of live recordings. But it was great while it lasted!

I’ve been a bit lazy with both knitting (and obviously blog posting) over the past few months. First my laptop started showing its age, emitting this awful sounding “click click click” noise whenever I started it up, and it took me awhile to ascertain that I just needed to buy a $30 fan on the internets, vs. fork over $200 to the local tech shop. (Ahh, local tech shops. I’m a big advocate of shopping local, but tech shops really test this principle of mine). And THEN I picked up a freak case of tendonitis, when in the midst of getting a line of octopuses out to put on my etsy.

Laptop and wrist fully recovered, I decided to search for a new pattern to make a knitted bear for my adorable niece. Signed on to Ravelry and discovered I had a months-old message from a blog reader (people actually read this thing? Not any more, I wager), tipping me off to this fact: someone is selling one of my free patterns on eBay. Using my photos and everything, unless she just happens to have made the exact same cake, down to my mismatched-weight yarns and felt cutouts and everything. Her description reads: “This is printed instuctions of my moms pattern for carrot cake.”

Her mom’s pattern, eh? Turns out I have a long-lost daughter in England, of all places! How about that?

It annoys me greatly that someone is out there, copying my work (rather lazily, I might add) and profiting off it…but the more annoying thing is that poor knitters are actually buying the pattern, paying over two bucks for my MS paint chicken scratch. Yarn is expensive enough, without poor knitters being fleeced by paying for a pattern that is, you know, free. I don’t feel I am skilled enough to develop patterns for sale just yet, because I do expect a degree of professionalism in the pattern (sizing, gauge and, you know, testing it out as opposed to making it up as I go along). Of course, “professionalism” is a word that one would not use to describe my long-lost eBay daughter.

Still more annoying is the effect this is having on me – I will definitely think twice before I post things to share with other crafters, and I feel bad but I’m not sure how else to protect myself from intellectual theft. I love that the online crafting community provides a great wealth of resources for crafters to share knowledge, in good faith! I hate it when leeches try to take advantage of this good will.

My policy on my patterns: personally I don’t care if people knit octopuses or chocolate cakes from my pattern, and sell the objects themselves. You’ve put the work into it, and congratulations, if you could actually figure out how to successfully make a toy from my incoherent notes, good job! I do care if people STEAL MY PATTERN and sell it as their own, or their “moms.”

Hell, this particular thief might not even know how to knit – looping yarn through needles is not a skill-set required for stealing patterns. All one needs is a lack of shame.

The instant I heard Beach House’s latest album, “Teen Dream”, I fell in love – particularly with the opening song “Zebra,” featuring diaphanous, ethereal vocals with a sweet tinge of melancholy. Naturally I was super excited to find that Beach House is coming to Lawrence to play, and set about getting my tickets months in advance (yes, I’m one of those people).

First attempt: went down to the Jackpot with Krissy to get tickets to this show, and also for the upcoming Midlake concert.

“Oh, Midlake canceled, and we’re completely sold out of Beach House tickets,” said the bartender, delivering a double whammy of bad news. Krissy and I had been really excited about the Midlake show…and how in the world did an April show sell out by early February? “Oh, we’ll definitely have more Beach House printed and ready by next week, so just come back then.” Phew.

We decided to have a beer anyway and process this poor news before moving on, when a middle aged lesbian / bar lizard started talking our ears off – ranting about the latest city controversy regarding some designer drug in the process of becoming criminalized. She was, of course, most emphatically opposed to this and did not hesitate to let us know about it. She also had very interesting theories on how law enforcement is conducted in our fair city. There was a pretty controversial raid on a store that carried the drug (K2), and I mentioned the common speculation that this particular store had been raided because the owner had testified before the legislature on behalf of K2. I thought that this explanation would sound reasonable enough to paranoid people, but no…the old bar lizard decided the store had been raided, “because the government keeps track of receipts and what’s sellin’ out.” Apparently the electronic cash registers send some signal beam to some shadowy control center, where bureaucrats can monitor individual store sales and notice sharp upticks in the sale of quasi-legal items. Somehow her explanation also involved Little House on the Prairie?

Bar Lizard was highly entertaining to listen to, but – as with my father – my ears can only tolerate so much lecturing, no matter what the subject, so Krissy and I excused ourselves and shuffled off once the old bar lizard paused to take another swig of Hamm’s.

Attempt two: a friend of mine mentioned that Beach House had changed venues to the Granada to accommodate more people. A few days after the venue change had been officially announced, I rode up to the ticket window and asked the guy there about the tickets. “We don’t have those printed yet,” said he. “Come back next Monday.”

Attempt three: I rode back next Monday, to find the window deserted and the lights off inside. Grr…

Attempt four: Same as attempt three, though the lights were on inside. Nobody at the ticket window, though, and I had to meet some friends at the other end of Mass St so I just rode onwards.

Ever elusive Beach House tickets! I’d just resigned myself to haunting the ticket window every subsequent Monday, and maybe just trying to get tickets at the door – hoping that the tickets didn’t all sell out to other people.

Then yesterday, before heading down to meet my alcoholic friends at Harbor Lights (they basically showed up there right after the employees, but I thought drinking before noon was a bit much), I glanced at lawrence.com to check on the time of the Downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Immediately underneath the time, I saw a posting about a Twitter contest to win tickets to four upcoming shows: Tegan & Sara, The Flaming Lips, Jonsi (lead singer for Sigur Ros) and – of course – Beach House. Apart from Beach House, all pretty expensive shows, and it would be a ridiculous boon to win tickets to all four of these shows. The contest was basically “look for a guy with a funny mustache in a green shirt.” Which, on St. Patty’s Day in Lawrence, is like half the population of the downtown area!

I met up with Krissy on her lunch break, when she came over to greet us (and maybe sneak a quick beer), when over her shoulder I noticed a guy standing at the bar, with a respectably full mustache and a green shirt. Suddenly, though the potential prize was admittedly sweet, I had a moment of doubt. How do I walk up to him and say, “hey, are you the guy from the Internet contest?” Even if he was, there was just no non-dorky way of saying this.

Luckily Krissy was there, because I just informed her of the dilemma and without hesitation, she walked right up to the mustachioed man and said, “Do you have tickets?” Mustachioed man reluctantly said, “you’ve got me” – poor guy had been hoping that the contest would last a bit longer.

Disappointing for him but exciting for us: WE WON! I never win contests! Twitter actually made itself useful! Maybe it was Fate that prevented me from successfully purchasing those Beach House tickets. What a lucky day yesterday was, for a girl without a drop of Irish blood in her veins.