Sending out an “SOS”

I’m doing the Summer of Socks 2008 knitalong this year. I’m trying to be realistic about what my goals for the knitalong are. I know that I don’t have a chance in the competition to knit the most socks (it started at midnight on Saturday, and people had finished socks by Monday), and I’ll have to see how I do with my “socks on vacation” photo. So I’ll be treating it as an opportunity to work through some of my sock yarn stash and to try out some new patterns.

One sock pattern that I somehow managed not to knit yet are Monkey socks from Knitty. I’ve had them in the queue pretty much since the pattern came out, but just never got around to doing them. But once I received my latest skein from the All Raveled Up Sock Club, I knew it was fate. The name of this colorway is “Codemonkey,” so what could be more appropriate than, well, Code-Monkeys? The first one knitted up incredibly quickly for me. The lace pattern is very easy to memorize and read, and I found it to be simple enough to be social knitting.

I finished up the first one at a Sit ‘n’ Knit event on Wednesday night, at the Raul Midon concert in Madison Square Park.

My Mactop is in the shop with a busted hard drive, so I currently lack the ability to crop photos.

When she gets back, I have a lot of baseball game recapping to do, between seeing Joba and Andy start for the Yankees this past weekend (and yes, Andy Pettitte does have the sweetest pickoff move in baseball), and my plans to catch the Brooklyn Cyclones with M on Saturday, and the Red Sox with J over the holiday weekend. The season is three months old, but it’s finally baseball weather and I am loving every minute of it.

It’s too darn hot

All I can say is thank goodness for air conditioning. It’s the first truly hot week of the summer season, and although I haven’t had to spend much time outside, the heat and humidity are just oppressive.

Before the warm front moved in, I did get a chance to see Joba Chamberlain’s Major League starting debut. Joba was clearly a bit jittery, and wasn’t always hitting his spots, but was a textbook example of why, if somebody took leave of their senses for long enough to put me in charge of a baseball team, I would never reveal a total pitch count ceiling to the press. Because when you have to get through as many innings as you can on 65 pitches, any opposing team worth their salt will take as many pitches as they possibly can. And the Blue Jays did just that, knocking him out after 2.1 innings.

Chamberlain was followed by Dan Giese, making his debut as a Yankee, and doing quite a respectable job, despite being tagged with the loss. It was one of those games that could have gone either way, until the bullpen completely imploded, allowing 6 runs and putting the game totally out of reach. Well, at least someone in the Yankees organization had a lot of fun photoshopping moustaches on the players who had grown them.

Perhaps the nicest thing that I can say about the game is that it gave me an opportunity to get a lot of knitting done. I turned the heel and got a couple inches into the cuff of my pinstriped socks.

There was one other good thing about the game. Because I stayed until the bitter, bitter end, I did get to see Derek Jeter get his 2,415th hit, putting him into a tie with Mickey Mantle for third on the all-time Yankees list.

Derek got his 2,416th hit the following game. Only Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth are ahead of him now, and he’s in some mighty rarefied company.

I don’t usually do memes, and I’ve never done one here, but since I’ve been tagged by both Penelope and Nicole, here goes nothing:

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
This would be right about when I was recovering from my AP exams and getting ready to take finals during my senior year of high school.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
Run the dishwasher (if it cools down at night)
Finish up a gift
Pay the bills
Some experiments down in the research mines (I could have 5 things right there, but I’ll spare everyone the alphabet soup)
Staying hydrated

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Raspberry Milano Cookies
Fruit
ice cream
cheetos, or almost any cheesy chip or cracker

4)Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Among other things:
Fully fund a scholarship or three at my high school.
Season tickets to the Yankees (good seats, even) Or, I suppose I could just buy a baseball team, take leave of my senses, and put myself in charge of it.
Lots and lots of travel: the 30 ML ballparks, the Grand Tour of Europe, and then the rest of the world

5) Places I have lived:
Sayreville, NJ
Cambridge, MA
Manhattan, NY
Until I was 22, I had always lived in Middlesex County. Only the state changed.

I’m also not big on tagging people, but if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m the last person to do this one anyway.