Michelle’s House of Horror

So, I went to see a matinée with my best fella on Sunday–the lovely Storm Large in Cabaret at Portland Center Stage. Storm is about my age–why am I not tall, gorgeous and talented like she is?

And totally hot. Did I mention totally hot? Almost as hot as Salma Hayek. Of course, I don’t know if Salma can sing. Storm can definitely sing. She was very good, especially in the musical numbers. Her acting was totally fine, but she was outshone by Wade McCollum (the Emcee) as well as Michele Mariana (Fraulein Schneider) and Richard Mathews (Herr Schultz) in the stagecraft department. Herr Schultz and Fraulein Schneider pretty much stole the show from an acting standpoint. They were charming. Wade McCollum was suitably sexy/sleazy/menacing/dissipated as the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club.
Storm acquitted herself very well, and even managed to maintain Sally’s English accent pretty well, but her musical numbers were especially good.

I was googling around when we got home, and learned that Judi Dench played Sally Bowles in the original West End cast of Cabaret. I tried valiantly to find video, but was largely unsuccessful except for the tiniest video snippet of her rehearsing “Don’t Tell Mama” and some audio of her singing “Cabaret.” If anyone knows where to find more video, I’d love to see it!

As for the knitting–I’m still slogging along with Icarus. Actually, I’m getting excited as I’ve reached the third of four lace charts in the pattern so the end is almost/just about/kind of/nearly in sight. I need to hurry up because the Blue Moon Sock Club yarn is going to be here very soon, and I know I’ll want to cast that on immediately.

Try to resist instant gratification…just try….

Edited to add: forgot to mention the Kit Kat Club girls and boys–they were sexy and squealy and all kinds of fun!

Oof. If I’m not at work or at the gym lately, it seems that I’m Icarus-ing. It does not, however, appear that the amount of knitting I am doing is decreasing the amount of rows I need to knit in order to finish that mothereffing chart 1. I seem to have spent a ton of time knitting while I was at the beach this weekend. (OMG the weather was GLORIOUS, and if you haven’t been to the Oregon coast on a glorious fall day then I just feel sorry for you!)

Don’t believe me about the gorgeousness of the weather? Look now upon Jan, who was wearing SHORTS AT THE BEACH IN OREGON IN OCTOBER and was not cold. Verily, I sayeth unto thee:
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Yikes, mocketh thou not the crappy color correction for I art not a professional photographer. Doesn’t Jan have great legs?

Also, look thee upon the blue sky which we did view from upon the front porch:
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What in the HELL is wrong with me, and what’s with the really bad Bible-speak? Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.

My point was this: I have done a lot of knitting lately, with not much to show for it, but DANG isn’t the Oregon Coast beautiful? If you’ve got to do the infinite row thing, then you might as well do it in one of the best places in the world.

There was beer there.
And Jan and the Jan clan were there. One of the Jan children learned what a brown noser is. “But why is their nose brown? Ohhhhhh!”
Jan learned that a garter stitch bump equals TWO rows, not ONE. Those’re going to be some oddly shaped baby bootees!
And Kathleen was there, too, with her impaired finger. Kathleen has great legs too, but I don’t have a picture.
Jan, Kathleen, Mark and I walked to Sandlake at high tide. That’s far. And in soft sand. We deserved beer.

Robin came down on Saturday night, and there was much rejoicing.
We watched old movies that I videotaped from TV in the late 80′s when I lived in Oklahoma. Lots of commercials with big, big hair.

And I knitted on and on an on Icarus.

Still not done with chart 1.

About one more repeat left of chart one and I can move on to the lace. Finally. I feel like I have been knitting on this thing forever, but it only came out in the Summer 2006 issue of Interweave Knits. That’s much less than forever, right?

Someone tell me it’ll be worth it when I’m done. Please.

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In other thrilling news, Mark and I have managed to get through one entire week of working out and it did not kill us. My elbow kinda hurts, but I’m enjoying it.

Someone favorited one of my projects in Ravelry and I am totally, unreasonably, irrationally excited about it in a nauseatingly Sally Fields-ish “you like me, you really like me” way.

Was that even a sentence???

Also, someone friended me. I was unreasonably thrilled about that as well.

By the way, Ravelry is still an evil time-sucking horror. All those knitters in one place? Too cool.

Perhaps I should get out of the house more.

In other exciting non-knitting news, Mark and I have joined a gym. We will have several sessions with a trainer to get us started/motivated. Our first session was yesterday. I had to get measured by a total stranger. I don’t even like it when I measure myself, much less when a buff guy measures me. Plus he had to measure my body fat. You can all imagine how enjoyable *that* was. Everyone likes having their fat squeezed, right?

The gym is nearby, and it is huge. Really huge. There were eleventy million stationary bikes, stair steppers, elliptical bikes, rowing machines, treadmills all in rows with flat screen televisions in front of them hanging from the sky. The place was packed, but there were still plenty of machines open. The cute girl who used to be Willow on Buffy has a very bad hairdo now, I saw it on one of the sky televisions. I didn’t have headphones, so I don’t know if that was part of the show or if she just isn’t an adorable redhead anymore. I wonder if I’ll learn important stuff like that every time I work out?

There is also a pool, a hot tub, and a steam room. I love steam rooms. There are also yoga classes and pilates classes so I can retain my general bendiness. I believe the proper term for that is flexibility.

I also learned that I have very developed calves and that my calf muscles need to be stretched out.

I can’t wait until Thursday.