A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

started Friday evening, a little later than expected, due to hurricane complications for our hostess, Yarn Monkey, who is based in Belfast. She posted a general sock pattern with a lovely rib pattern - the Rib of Doom - on her blog, and I believe over 700 sock knitters worldwide cast on in the hopes of assassinating their targets by sending them socks before receiving a pair themselves, and thereby being assassinated.

Assass-inine, isn't it? Makes me laugh out loud every time I think about what I'm doing.

So, I was all set with sock yarn and needles at the ready, but found when the pattern was posted that I needed DK weight yarn and bigger needles (= faster knitting, of course). Quick poke in the stash revealed some lovely wool / alpaca which was perfect, and I cast on Friday around 5. By Saturday morning I was here:
one down and one to go.

Unfortunately, I had a very busy weekend ahead of me and foresaw very little knitting time. First, a family get-together was scheduled here on Sunday, which meant I had to clean. I haven't really cleaned - I mean REALLY cleaned - in, um, a while - most of the summer, actually - so the kids and I worked like demons Saturday until about 4, when we decided to veg a little before going to a hockey game.

Oh, did I mention it was a pre-season game with the Pittsburgh Penguins vs. the Buffalo Sabres? Oh, hang on, did I say anything about Sydney Crosby playing?

Because he was. And we were sitting 5 rows behind him. We could see beads of sweat rolling down his face. Those of us who could lip-read could see that when Sydney gets angry, he also gets quite vocal. But it doesn't take away one iota from how damn cute he is.

And he is.

I did bring my knitting, but who can knit during a hockey game? Too fast, too exciting, and too cute. So we got home around 11pm, I tucked my young men into their beds for the night and stayed up till 12:30am knitting. I discovered that Saturday Night Live is no longer very funny, and that there isn't a whole lot else on, so I listened to David Sedaris and knit.

Got this far on #2:

This morning, after much discussion, it was decided to postpone our family celebration until Thanksgiving weekend, because a few of us are ill. Whee!!! Free Day, and my house is clean!!! My youngest son suggested that maybe, just for fun, we could go to the Word on the Street Festival in Toronto - a one day literary fair, with book vendors, publishers, organizations, presentations - all to do with books and reading.

How could I refuse?

There were kids' books, grown-up books, small publishers, big publishers, and my favourite: a religious publisher, nuns and all, right beside Harlequin Books - do you think they did that on purpose? I had my copy of Knitting Rules in my bag, just in case the Yarn Harlot herself was there to autograph it, but I didn't see her. Of course, by the time we got there through ridiculous traffic - people, it's a SUNDAY - where the hell are you all going? And why is it always in the same direction as me?? - the crowds were so thick we could hardly get near anything, so she might have been there, for all I know.

Anyhow, home by 5, and there was dinner to be made, homework to be done (honestly, Mom, I thought I did it already!) and Star Wars Monopoly to be played (more on that later) - so I am hoping to make significant progress tonight. Don't think I'll make the mail tomorrow, unlike Tanya, who actually finished her pair THE FIRST NIGHT, but am hoping for Tuesday at the latest.

So now, I shall breathe heavily, a la Darth Vader, and come to the sock side...