Spring hibernations: a ruminational.

so, i've been out of the loop for a while. i woke up and, remarkably, it's sunny. don't know what to make of that. i haven't seen the sun since like march. people tell me it's been around for a few weeks now, but i don't believe em. i'd like to say i accomplished a lot on my sabbaticalism, but really i just hung out with the woman next to me and ate a lot. maybe drank a few beers in there, too. mostly just ate a lot of food. i'm afraid to step on a scale.
a few things i've noticed since i woke up, conveniently bullet-pointed for the "feint of hart":
.ballard is still ballard. there's still crazy rummies running the town, regardless of the fact that the utterly worthless mike mcginn claims he's "mayor". i remember last fall when he was "biking" for office, and i thought, well, if that's all the guy does, maybe he'll be better than his predecessor, the toad-like greg nickels, who couldn't find a bike in a sea of, well, bikes. eight months after the election, and i'm being proven absolutely wrong. mike mcginn is, "too" put it a bit unkindly, a semi-skinny version of greg nickels. with beard and bike, natch, but otherwise a near copy.
.it's not that hot out. last year it was in the mid nineties this week, on the way to like a hundred thirty five in the shade. outside the window today, it's like walking in a park with your special lady and having free handbuilt wheels handed to you while eating snoqualmie farms' "french lavender" ice cream. and drinking a nice hazelnut brown direct from the cask. or barrel. or whatever them is made in.
.i haven't skied in like seven months. this is both weird and unnatural and also distressing. that said, the mountain bike has been fun. the problem with that is that i can't really ride one. while i did better my last time out than one of my "vermont buddies", who gave himself a second degree separation of his left shoulder and a solid concussion, breaking in the crash my helmet he was borrowing, i still have two weeks later a sore wrist and rib combo that makes sleeping both mandatory and nearly impossible to do.
.i like bikes. (could i be mayor, mike?)
.tunnels is expensive, especially when everyone wants one and nobody wants to pay for it. (wait, din't we vote, albeit "advisitorily", against the tunnel? just like the mariners' stadium? hm. food, i'd say, for thought.)
.i'm hungry all the damn time.
.gears on road bikes make going up long hills easier.
.i don't hate new belgium anymore. they give us lots of beer. 1554!!!!
anyway. ima try and remember how to do this thing.

one question for the ninja: what's the difference between a duck?

the bottom halves are really shiny anyhow

My sister left a message on my phone letting me know she is going camping with other people here, telling me when she will be back and that she is leaving right now. Then she started laughing and said well, right now she is going back into her house to shave her shins for her new friends. After that she is going camping.

This message probably means if she doesn't come back from camping, I have a few Clues I'm supposed to give to the detectives. We refuse to believe that camping alone or with strangers is a bad idea, ahead of time, HOWEVER....we are just organized and foresightful enough to want to be able to find remains later.

When I go camping, I like the feeling of hardly anybody knowing exactly where I am. Usually I avoid telling people ahead of time or am vague or at least slightly misleading about the details. If I didn't come back, my sister might be sending the detectives to a wrong campground. Later she would try to let them into my house with the spare key I gave her, but it wouldn't work. While she was explaining that I had changed the locks, WITH HER, after I gave her the key, but both of us forgot about getting her a new one or telling her where I hid the spare, the detectives would be writing down "Smooth legs. Inaccurate information. Doesn't have a key."

what superpower do I need?

A reader writes:
"Dear knitwit : What is the best kniknd of superpowers? I have a Uknique Opportuknity and I dokn't waknt to screw it up. Also, does your kname have aknythikng to do with headlice?"

I think you have soda pop under some of your keyboard there. You didn't tell me very much about your U.O. Does it have to do with camping? I have a useful superpower of being invisible while sleeping on a cot while camping. If an axe murderer comes into my campsite, he will get my sister first (or only!) I hope your U.O. doesn't involve email from a new friend with bad spelling. If it does, just do whatever they say.

Without any collateral information, Knitting Kninja is pretty sure that the best superpower of all is : the power to make voice boxes cease to work at mental command. Especially useful on the bus, I'm pretty sure it can be used to train loud cussers to be either quieter cussers or non cussers. Or else their heads might explode, which would be OK too (move seats first, secretive but inquisitive reader). Some people get very uneasy about the possession and use of this superpower, specifically because it involves controlling others/playing god, a little too much for them. I suggest the trial version for them; they mute every other word. Surprisingly, it is even more interesting and nearly as effective after the half muted entity figures out the pattern, although the trial half power version has no effect on small children saying "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom." Ignore them, and then suddenly scream "whuuUUUUUT?"

blog takes new intellectual direction

In response to clamorous reader demand, each post will include at least one haiku or at least one slightly disturbing image of sleep.

A reader writes :

Dear knitting kninja,
I saw you steal those 2 photos straight off some website about emus. Isn't that either theft or plagiarism or both? I think you could get in a lot of trouble doing that, mister. But what I really would like to know for myself and other readers like myself is whether kitty litter is compostable, and how you got your cat inside after it didn't want to come inside, after you let it out into your back yard, after the previous very nice (but lying) owner said it probably didn't want to go outside because "the sky scared it". I saw you chasing it around in sort of slow motion for a while. Did that work?
xxOO
a reader like myself

Dear reader:
Your mother steals things from emu websites.
Yes (about the composting).