It was also the year I was called on-stage while my punk-ass friends neglected to use my camera to get a shot of me while on stage. Yeah. Thanks, friends.

Here is the result of the 843 shots I took. The lighting last year was rather low for most of the scenes, quite unlike the year before. That’s why there’s only (“only”!!) 280 shots I deemed worthy of publishing online. You can pick your own favorites. (Note: Some I marked as Adult Content, so you’ll have to verify your age through Flickr to see them. I think.)

This year’s Drag Show will be THE TENTH ANNUAL DRAG SHOW! I hope to see you there!

Today (Saturday) was Octoberfest for Greater Lafayette, Indiana, and it turned out to be a great turn-out. Most surprising for me was the number of Obama supporters. The Democrats (and Republicans) had a booth and sold campaign yard signs and the number of folks walking around with Obama signs FAR out-weighed the McCain signs. WHICH IS A REALLY GREAT THING.

I would rather have two individuals who know what the fuck they’re doing than an old guy who’ll, let’s face it, probably die while in office, leaving, let’s face it, again, an incompetent, inexperienced eye-winker/flirter.

Don’t fucking FLIRT with me—help me change our country!

4 more years of the last 8 year’s shit?!

I THINK NOT!

And tonight The Partner and I helped to celebrate a friend’s and my 28th birthday!

28!!

You can do a similar Google search yourself, and perhaps you can then tell me who the hell the original artist is. I’ve found roughly eight sites, mostly tumblelogs, who have posted it but no one is giving credit/mentioning an artist.

I think it’s a wonderful update to the 1911 original:

To many knitters Elizabeth Zimmermann is our greatest Knitting Godmother—akin to, I submit, a knitting goddess, who gave to us discernible knitting lessons, decipherable patterns, and the license to knit as we please. EZ lived such a wonderful life, as she tells us in her Knitting Around, and made it her task to teach other knitters that knit and purl weren’t such hard things and look! It’s so much easier if you knit around because then you don’t have to purl AT ALL!

My first introduction to EZ was through her book Knitting Without Tears. Although I wasn’t in tears at the time, I was still a beginning knitter who didn’t know much except how to knit scarves. (And really, a person only needs so many damn scarves that at some point, you HAVE to at least start on mittens.) EZ employed a conversational manner of teaching which I fell in love with, showing us it is best to laugh and knit at the same time, for if you drop a stitch you don’t much fret.

My EZ collection was made complete this morning, when my mail carrier put into my hot little hands a package containing not just another set of Options needles, but Knitting Around, The Opinionated Knitter, and Knitting Workshop. If there is ever a fire these five books will be the first things I save, in addition to Maggie Rigghetti’s Knitting In Plain English. Okay, second things I save, the first being the cats and dog.

Three designs I have been enamored with are her Bog Jacket, Seamless Hybrid Sweater, and the Adult Surprise Jacket. I shall knit these before I die.

1. Seamless Hybrid

   Appears to be a rarity amongst women-wearers, although that may just be my impression due to the lack of online documentation by women knitters. It does look great on guys, though, and I’m thinking with a few well-placed short rows and a bit of waist shaping (and maybe a couple bust darts) I can churn out an awesome sweater.

2. Adult Surprise Jacket (ASJ)

   I have my hesitations with this design. Firstly, I’ve only ever come across pictures of the Baby version, which often means folks have knit it with super-crazy color combos. I’m more of a 4-color-limit-per-garment gal and seeing picture after picture of jackets with 80 different colors scares me. But the image to the right is not quite so crazy and lets me know a toned-down color scheme is possible and may even look great. Secondly, I’m not sure how to work in shaping as the construction of the jacket is a bit strange (it ends up a wobbly rectangle and is seamed together at key spots). It could just turn out boxy, and that’s never good.

3. Bog Jacket

   Holy shit is this cute. The gal on the right added a double-ended zipper and I think I’ll do the same. I’ve started this one, last week, and decided upon a dark gray (slate gray? coal gray?) body with pink edging. I’ve incorporated short rows on both the back and the sides and waist shaping so that all my curves are taken into account. I’m using Cascade 220, which is 100% wool so it will be perfect through our Indiana winters. It’s mindless knitting, all garter stitch, which means I can watch a movie or read websites and knit at the same time. BUT, it’s garter stitch, rows and rows and rows of garter stitch. Over a thousand yards of garter stitch. The shaping provides some relief and a bit of excitement, if only because I’m not quite sure I’m doing it right.

Yum.

When the weather warmed up a few months ago cyclists, drivers, walkers, and shoppers near the Wabash Landing started to smell something that could only be described as “shitty”. Turns out the city’s wastewater treatment plant is right next to the shopping district, next to the community park, next to the pedestrian walking bridge.

In an effort to decrease the amount of overflow entering the Mighty Wabash River they drained raw sewage into an above-ground holding pool. The hot air consequently heated up the sewage and GROSS we would all smell wafts of human shit whenever we drove over the (main) bridge to the other side of town, or when we got out of our cars to go eat at a nearby restaurant. YUM, let me tell ya.

Out of curiosity we’d ask students what they thought was causing the smell. Most blamed it on the Wabash, and true, the poor river doesn’t have the best of reputations, but a rare few actually knew about the wastewater plant.

Apparently enough residents complained to the city:

The city of West Lafayette is hoping to freshen the air around its wastewater treatment plant.

Utility Manger Dave Henderson said he is looking purchasing [sic] a product called “Planet Breeze” which will neutralize the odor inside the lagoon at the treatment plant. Many West Lafayette residents complained about the smell after the city drained raw sewage into an open lagoon to renovate its sewage digesters.

In June a vanilla scented “air freshener” was installed at the plant to help mask the smell coming from the plant. Henderson said this option should neutralize the odor instead of just masking it. [Source]

Well thank god they’re not going to just “mask it” again.

“Hi! Welcome to West Lafayette, Indiana—home of Purdue University! Don’t mind our shit!”

Thursday we got a call from our friend John who, along with his wife Katie, was checking in on Cleo through the week for us. He asked me if I knew someone named Esther; I said yes, and he said she had left a note on our door saying she found Wilson and was keeping him at her place. Holy shit was I ever so happy.

We got home in the early evening Saturday but Esther wasn’t home yet. When she did get home, we went over to retrieve Wilson. She said he had been pawing at her back door, evidently confused as to which door was his. She scooped him up and took him inside, bought him some food and made a make-shift litter box. When we went in her house Wilson wouldn’t come when called, which wasn’t too surprising as cats usually freak out when in a new environment. Esther said his favorite place was under the sofa, so she moved the couch and pulled him out.

Poor Wilson was so freaked out. I took him from Esther and noticed he must have lost at least a pound or two. He smelled me, smelled my arm, then nestled against me and started purring and licking me. His paws were slightly dirty, but there weren’t any cuts or other noticeable injuries.

We thanked Esther a thousand times, then took Wilson back to our place. We put him down at the base of the stairs so that he could acclimate himself and wonder the house on his own. Cleo came down to see who was home and Wilson freaked the fuck out. He started hissing and growling at Cleo and ran into the kitchen.

For the past couple days he and Cleo have not been getting along. He’s the instigator, immediately growling at her when he sees her. Cleo couldn’t give a shit less, though. I’m not sure if he’s just needing some time to readjust, or if he thinks he’s going to gain a step up in the hierarchy. Unfortunately for Wilson, Cleo is not budging as top cat.

Here are some shots The Partner got of Wilson his first evening back home:

Cleo was so not cool with Wilson’s new attitude:

Poor Wilson. We’ve been joking the whole time that he’s suffering from PTSD. Perhaps we shouldn’t be joking about it.

I’m just so relieved he’s back at home, and in good health.