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Grand Final Fever

People are going nuts with the AFL Grand Final that's on at 2.30pm today. I got in the spirit this week and knitted two Sydney Swans items.

One is this doggy coat for Meg's dog Guinness:

And the other item is my first attempt at knit tagging. I heard about knit tagging from people like Knitta. The Knitta posse go round knitting cosies for things like street lamps and basically anything in the urban environment they can cover with fluffy bright yarn left over from projects. My tribute to their important work, and to the Swannies, is here:

You'll find it in Martin Place, out the front of the Channel 7 newsroom.

Welcome to the world

Congratulations to the Please Insert Caffeine household on the arrival of their little boy Rohan. Only, couldn't you have waited till I finished knitting for him? He wasn't supposed to be cooked for another 6 weeks - I am wayyyyy behind!

Isn't he a tiny little sweetie.

Yeesh

Can I just say (well yes I can coz it's my damn blog) that I am just FED UP TO THE BACK TEETH with rude people.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE IDIOTS?

Since when does politely saying "Excuse me" to someone warrant a nasty retort? Particularly when that someone was blocking the right side of an escalator right under a sign that says "Please stand to the left".

And since when is it OK to shove someone off the steps of a bus and watch them fall to the ground because you want to get on first?

Or could someone please tell me why you have to stop to crouch down to tie your shoe in front of the stairs that go up to the second storey of a train carriage when there are no seats available downstairs, and then when someone politely asks to be allowed up the stairs, why do you find it appropriate to give them an earful of R-rated abuse?

And while we are on the subject, if you are so fat that you feel you need to demand someone to get out of a train seat because you want to sit on the seat next to it and need somewhere for your layers of fat to overlap onto, IT'S TIME TO GO TO JENNY CRAIG.

For crying out loud people YOU'RE IN A SOCIETY! Other people are not your problem. The problem is YOU!

Vegetable de jour

I just bought this brilliant recipe book, Grower's Market by Leanne Kitchen (with a name like that she had to put out a recipe book!). Instead of being organised by dish type, it's organised by ingredient, that is what fruit and vegetables are available. When strawberries come into season you can look up the strawberry section for a bunch of things to do with them. Come across a nice looking fennel but don't know what to do with it - look up the fennel section for ideas. Lemon tree just dumped 10 kilos of lemons on your lawn - no problem, just consult the oracle.

Reincarnation

Of furniture etc, that is. In a comment to my Karma post, Carla suggested Freecycle to anyone who wants to recycle second hand goodies for free online. Here are the Aussie groups.

Karma

Like most areas, we have council "chuck-out days" where people will put stuff on the roadside to be taken away to charity or the tip. And we've chucked out our share. But it seems a lot of these things don't end up anywhere near the tip as they get vulturised by other inhabitants to be recycled in their home. We stuck a near new Weber BBQ out on the lawn once and watched it getting wheeled away a couple of hours later by a happy young woman who looked like all her christmases had come at once. We also sent a table and chairs off the same way and a bunch of bits and bobs over the years. And every now and then we will find something handy to take home for ourselves. Last night we got lucky as karma came our way again. Someone put out one of those "temporary" closets like you get from IKEA. For now it will clear all the junk away from the floor in the spare room and I'm hoping when we move into a house I will be able to steal it away to store my yarn in. I can see my needles going in those little shoe pockets really nicely. Now some people might say a feeble bit of a closet isn't much repayment for a new Weber or a dining set, but in my opinion it's all about what's useful to the owner. There have been complaints from residents about the practice - that it's unsightly or whatever. Honestly. I hope they keep it going - it's a great tradition that encourages people to re-use old things instead of buying new stuff, kind of like a free flea market on your own street.

Nice place, shame about the view

We used to have a pretty nice view - one small telegraph pole in the middle of it but that didn't really get in the way of you enjoying the gums across the road. This morning I opened the curtains to see what the workmen have been up to all week. There's now a second ENORMOUS pole next to it, and lovely black and yellow tape around the original wires. Even if you manage to focus on the gums past that now you don't enjoy them coz you're so pissed off.

Just in case you didn't get a good enough look at those nice black and yellow tapes:

Nice...