I stopped in the one in downtown Decatur last week and it was more or less as usual.  There didn’t seem to be as many comfy chairs but really, those chairs are always full of mommies with sticky children or some guy spread out over several chairs with a laptop, 3 weeks worth of newspapers and what looks like a set of encyclopedias.  They could use more chairs that take up less room and don’t encourage napping.

But this morning I stopped  at Little 5 to discover that, not only have all the comfy chairs been removed,  there is a new counter that parallels the display case that is designed to funnel customers toward the register.  The outside of this counter  has shelves for merchandise- the old kiosk like display stands are gone along with the shelves on the wall of mugs and water bottles and coffee makers.   The bins of popcorn and kiddie fruit snacks are gone too.  This might actually be a good thing since now once in line there’s no room to turn back because junior wants some dried apples with his triple expresso.  There is only one way out- past the register.  Since there are still eager barristas  clamoring to get a drink started for you before you get even close to check out, the melee at the register is just as crazy as ever.

No, I’m having the vente and the breakfast ham sandwich.  That bagel isn’t mine and would you mind taking the caramel macchiato off the bill,  I didn’t order it.

Man 3 customers behind:  Oh, I think that’s mine.

So, having run the gauntlet and been squeezed out the other end with my croissant,  I notice that the barristas are now behind a glass wall.  I find myself wondering what the reason for this.  Is it bulletproof?  Just because I’ve never had the urge to blow away a barrista doesn’t mean someone hasn’t.  Is it to keep the guy focused?  So people won’t talk to him?  Is it maybe to keep people from sneezing on the back side of the expresso maker?    Does the Starbucks experience now include putting the barrista’s talents on display like a pizza chef?

Then my eye is drawn to where the community message board used to be.  It’s not there.  The one in Little  5 was very much in keeping with the neighborhood and always good for a little light entertainment.  I look around.  It hasn’t been moved anywhere.  The walls are bare.  No statements about fair trade, and community involvement, and profiles of people who roast coffee beans in South America.  No chalkboard with comments from the worker bees.  The local art work that used to line the walls leading to the bathroom is also gone.  No more trying to be the friendly little neighborhood business.

My coffee is ready.  I reach for a cardboard sleeve because I’m going to drink this while driving and I don’t want to cause an accident because I burnt my fingers.  The sleeves are in a brand new container.  I can’t get one out.  That’s because it works just like the napkin dispenser in cheap coffee shops- the sleeves are jammed up in the front of the  dispenser and held there with a spring.  When I try to grab the sleeve at the front of the row, the entire dispenser comes with it.  If it were a napkin, I could just tear it out, but the cardboard sleeve is too tough and so jammed in I can’t pry an edge loose.  The thing shakes, people behind me can’t get to the counter to get their drinks and are having panic attacks due to lack of caffeine.  Finally, I am able to work one sleeve out as the ones behind it snap forward to close the gap.  My fingers were, thankfully, out of the way just in time.

I felt like I’ve  just been to McDonald’s.

Snap!  Get’em in, get’em out.  Snap! Grab some dough as they pass by.

Thank you for choosing Starbucks.  Have a nice day.

I have a day off.  I am not knitting.  I am cleaning and doing laundry and clearing out my inbox.

and you did an Etsy treasury this morning…

I have not done a number of other things I intended to either, like walk everyday  and go to the bead store and take pictures of interesting things.

I only got this one because it was right in front of my door when I went out to the laundry room.

I am pretty sure that the reason why can be attributed to the fact  that this summer the schedule for the theatre has changed a bit which means I have less free time during the weeks my show is in production.  It’s a bit exhausting and  harder to maintain the rest of my life.

Then there’s little matter of your Etsy addiction.

After my Wild Bunch treasury went viral, this one, which I made that same evening was featured on the front page.  Score!  My obsession paid off.  The long nights staying up until my eyes can’t focus anymore was worthwhile.  I got positive feedback to continue.

Alas, I have not had the same success since. It was a one day, one time fluke.

The appeal is finally I think beginning to fade.  Maybe.

It’s about time.

Especially since my next show will be in full swing by the end of this week.

I am still not knitting but I have been to the beach.  Pictures soon.

It’s about time for that too.

The beach or pictures?

Most?  How about every?

I can stop anytime I want.

Really?  When was the last time you went a night without making one or two.

Was it last week?  I think I only made one on the 4th.

Because you were socializing that day.  Remember?  With other people?  Coversation, food, conviviality?   You need an intervention.

Hi, my name is Tangletale and I am an Etsy addict.

But they’re sooo much fun…

I have had a realization as to why I am so mesmerized by this.  It’s virtual hoarding.  I can select from all the beautiful, wacky, brilliant, clever things on Etsy, group them together in a way that pleases me and it feels a lot like the high I used to get from binge shopping but it doesn’t burden me with any more stuff.  These things don’t need me to find them a place on the mantel.  I don’t have to worry that however much I love an item it won’t  look right with anything else in my house.  I won’t have a panic attack when I get my credit card bill. It doesn’t produce any clutter and I don’t have to figure out where to store it or how to get rid of it when I’m tired of it.

I make these treasuries to please myself.  I usually have 20-50 viewers and some positive comments, mostly from people whose items I have picked.  I would normally expect to lose my obsession with this sometime soon- after all I don’t spend hours every day on Facebook or Ravelry any more.

Eventually, I am sure, the positive reinforcement I get from being noticed on Etsy will fade and the honeymoon will end.

Or so I thought last night as I was, yet again, putting items together, ignoring the clock and pretending it wasn’t going to take anytime at all.

I did a fun assortment of bright colored unusual things, entitled it “The Wild Bunch” and then saw that I had several items in my favorites that could anchor a storm theme and went to work on that.  When I posted that one I just happened to notice that the colorful unusual treasury had had 500+ visitors in under 2 hours. When that happens Esty puts it in the beginning of the treasuries- under hottest- so even more people will see it.

I have a hot treasury!

By this morning there were 1033 hits.  That’s rare even for a hot treasury.

Then someone posted it on her blog. Here.

This has upped the stakes.  Like winning at Blackjack or having my house included in a decorating magazine spread.  I can’t quit now.

Really?  Your House?  You’re kidding.

Leave me alone, I’m busy.

It’s midnight and you have to work tomorrow.

So what?  This will only take a minute.  I just need to find 3 more things.

Not that one, though.  It doesn’t really match the cool item in the left hand corner.  Maybe if I do a search for…

Stop That!  You’re obsessed and your eyes are strained from staring at too many images.

But I’m almost done. Then I can save it and go to bed.

Oh look, wouldn’t that lime green bauble make a great start for a line up of lime green things?  When I’m done with the space age layout I could do a lime green one…

No, you can’t.  You have to go to bed.

I have a new obsession.

What’s new about that?  You’re always obsessed about something.  One  week it was having to reschedule Jury Duty because they wanted you to come while you were going to be in California.  Then it was craziness at work, then it was having to go to Jury Duty now in the midst of craziness at work….  The list is endless. 

Ok, so I dodged the bullet on that one- they released everyone early that day and the work craziness will be over soon because the show has to open and I’m going to California for a different sort of crazy… and meanwhile I really like doing this even if it is a big time suck at least I’m not watching bad TV reruns, OK.

I’ve become fascinated with making Treasuries on Etsy.  This is where one finds things for sale on Etsy that can be grouped  together around a common theme- color, for example, or Romance, or Father’s Day.  Sometimes several things will leap out and demand to be put together.  Sometimes it’s harder.  Two things may look great together but not go with anything else, or there are too many possibilities,  or the last 3 items are impossible to find.

So instead of  a new blog or Facebook page devoted to my Etsy store I’m going to start posting my treasuries- as a footnote- the way I used to post what music fit best with my posts on my old Live Journal blog.

So here is this week’s treasury.  I’m particularly fond of it. You can see why I find it soothing to stay up too late obsessing over pictures of Zen Gardens instead of Jury Duty.

I’m pondering, but not obsessing, what knitting to take with me to California.  My sock has reached the point where I need to decide what sort of heel I want to attempt.  I can try to figure that out and start it while I’m still near my knitting friends so that if I get into a muddle I can get help… and probably obsess a bit about the whole thing or I could just put it on a holder and start the other sock.  Hmmm…

I am also supposed to  start a Facebook Fan page so I can keep everyone updated on what’s new in the store and really, I should be Tweeting everyday to promote myself as the best thing since sliced bread.

I am also supposed to be doing all this to promote my writing career too.  Publishing excerpts from my stories or writing a few just for the blog/fan page, promoting myself as an AUTHOR, generating a buzz so that when I do find an agent, get published, or publish myself on the internet, I will already have a following- of people who have never read more than a smattering of my work.  What’s more,  if I do all that, when will I write, query agents, edit manuscripts and the other business of writing?  Social media might smooth the path but it isn’t going to do the work.

I can barely keep up with this blog and I am supposed to start 2 more?  Plus 2 Facebook pages, etc, etc. I know there are people out there who manage to do this but I don’t believe I could be one of them.  Especially since I can’t  figure out how to get pictures from my store to show up in the sidebar of this blog.

I am also, unfortunately, clueless as to how one blog, page, idea, person gets noticed over the sea of blogs, pages, ideas, and people out there.  Doesn’t make me a good candidate to become the next big thing sweeping the internet, now does it?

Recently the big idea sweeping the internet was the end of the world  supposedly scheduled for May 21.  It came and went and we are all still here.

I am not to sure about that myself.  I may have been swept into a an afterlife or maybe a alternate reality because  I am doing something I never thought I would do.  I am knitting socks.

Lorna’s Laces, Shepherd Sock Multi, color:  Gold Hill.  The pattern is Dead Simple Lace socks from Socks from the Toe Up.  I used a Turkish cast on because I wanted to eliminate a seam at the toe which is the worst thing about manufactured socks.  It took me something like 15 tries before I felt like I could live with the result.  But then I discovered a few rows in that I had done something weird though and it twists oddly.  None of my knitter friends can figure out exactly what I did.   Since my toes are a little pointy it fits my foot fine so I am not restarting to fix it.  If I can reproduce it (fat chance) for the other sock I may have invented a new pointy toe cast on.

Summer is here even if the calendar says not yet.  It is sweltering outside.  I have turned the air conditioning on- the brain numbing heat was too much for my frugal instincts.  The peaches are here too.

Can the fireflies be far behind?

So I don’t have a disaster that could even begin to compare to the earthquake in Japan or the recent storms across the south.  What I have is an ordinary garden variety failure of the sort that was heartbreaking at age 10 but today gets chalked up to kharma.

The lovely blogless Diana won tickets to a Braves game for herself and 3 friends- 1 of whom was me.   Not just any tickets, either, but seats behind home plate, vouchers for free food, and complementary valet parking.  The weather forecast was rain until 6pm, then clear until after 11 pm.  Well, not really because it was raining when we got there and raining when we left.  Raining  hard.   We ate bad for you but yummy ball park food and waited.  Diana, Jane, and Maegan knitted.  I didn’t bring my knitting because none of the projects I have just now are suitable for knitting with distractions.   So I just waited.  The rain kept pouring down.  It got cold.  We sometimes ventured out into the stands to see what was happening.  Mostly rain.  A local sportscaster found one of the players, who was on the roster to play that evening, sitting in the stands with his wife, waiting like everyone else for the rain to stop.  It was getting late.  The game was finally called a bit before 9.

It wasn’t a total failure.  The valet parking was close to the entrance of the park and they had a covered tent to wait in while they brought the car around.  So even though we all got soaked crossing the street- it sure beat walking to the Marta station in a downpour.

My victory is that I have finally opened my Etsy shop.  I meant to do this some time ago but it just seemed complicated and overwhelming.  Once I sat down with the firm intention of getting it done,  it wasn’t so bad.  Turns out that was all that was missing.  I even figured out how to make my banner with Power Point.  They don’t tell you that it’s possible to do it this way in any of the  ”how to make a banner” advice.   Take that computer graphics geeks!

A few items from my store:

You can visit it at:  Fabweb on Etsy.

So where’s the romance?  Think small scale.  No handsome stranger who flirted with me in the Starbucks, no roses from a secret admirer, and thankfully, no gorgeous glittery vampires.  Nor did I get invited to the Royal Wedding.  No much smaller.  I won the lottery.  Oh, not the big bucks.  I won $5 last week and $5 this week.  Maybe I’ll buy myself some roses.

Ok, ok, so I haven’t said much about my knitting lately.  I have been knitting.  It’s just that about the time I resolved the scorpion episode, all sorts of other stuff jumped up and demanded to be put on the agenda.

Like Stitches South, where I bought yarn:

5 skeins of cashmere merino, provenance undetermined, from Newton’s Yarn Country.  Color:  Cream.  Dyelot:  you are kidding, aren’t you?  This booth was the yarn equivalent of the remaindered books sale tables at Borders. I could not walk by without buying something  and 5 skeins for $25,  who could pass that up?  Which is also why I own a random selection of coffee table books for my non-existent coffee table.

Herb gardening, really?  You don’t have a garden.

The pictures were  pretty and I could have a garden someday.  I could.

…and don’t get me started on that history of paper making book… 

Knitting Notions Classic Merino Bamboo.  The color is ruby.  I really like her yarns and they always knit up very nicely.

Miss Babs Yet.  Ravelry calls this heavy lace weight.  The color is Black Watch.  It appears much brighter here than in reality- it’s a very dark stormy night sort of color.

Lisa Souza Polworth Silk.  The color is Wild Things.

I was determined to shop outside my usual color palette this year.  I have way too much rust, brown, burgundy, and orange in my stash and while I wear those colors, I also wear  blue, green, rose, and dusty plum.  So now it’s time to knit up some items for that part of my wardrobe.  Seems like it might be the wild stormy side.

Do you even have one of those?

Well… I could… maybe…

Lisa Sousa Baby Alpaca Silk.  Color:  Blueberry Ice.

This is wonderfully soft and my favorite of all the things I bought.

I also bought a pattern for Aria Delicato by Anne Hanson.  Which I really wanted to begin right away- the thrill of the new pushing everything else out of the way.  So I frogged the  Adia which was giving me fits and started this with the Isager.  Which is coming along nicely.

I had solved the intial problem with the Adia by charting out the first few rows.  The problem wasn’t, as I had thought at first, the pattern but an error on my part.  However, I kept having the same issues over and over and finally realized that the only way I could ever knit this would be to completely chart it out.  It has a 20 row repeat and not all the wrong side rows are purls.  I am just too lazy or possibly too frustrated to chart out all 20 rows.  I may try it again some other time with a different yarn but not just now.

There was also the Scalini’s dinner Saturday night, organized by the Knit Witch.  As usual I ate too much, narrowly avoided drinking too much, and laughed so hard it’s a wonder I could keep it all down.

My granddaughter’s birthday was that week too.  First there was dinner on Tuesday night with her Mom’s family and then pottery painting and dinner at my house on Sunday.

Then this past weekend there was the opening of a new exhibit at the pottery gallery nearby which I attended with Jane, Diana, and Hali.  I had pretty much spent anything I had to spend at Stitches so I was able to resist all the lovely things but I am still fantasizing about what to do with my future lottery winnings.

Then Sunday was Famous Steve’s birthday and the Knaughty Knitters all gathered at Jane’s to celebrate.

This week I am in between jobs and trying to catch up.

Really?  Catching up is it?  Looks like napping to me. 

“Due to the nature of your inquiry, we are unable to provide an ideal response via email. Therefore, we would like the opportunity to provide/gather more information in order to best assist you.

Please call our customer relations department at 1-800-###-####. Upon calling, please reference email case #….”

So, I called and twiddled my thumbs while the soothing recorded voice asked me:

What would you like to do?

                                 Would you like to find a Starbucks location?  Press 1

                                 Would you like to purchase a Starbucks  card?  Press 2

                                 Would you like to reload a Starbucks card?  Press 3

                                 Would you like to learn about Starbucks rewards? Press 4

and a bunch of other choices which I can’t remember but which had nothing to do with finding scorpions in one’s coffee.

Finally, when the voice was sure I wasn’t calling to find out how to buy something Starbucks related it offered me customer service.

The first tier customer service person, after looking up my case number,  said:  ”OMG, I can’t handle this.  I’ll have to put you through to someone in a different department.”

Good, I thought, this is too big for small fry.  Get me the big fish.

The next one looked up my case number and said,  ”Wait, I need to get my supervisor’s attention for this.”  Pause. “They all seem to busy just now.  Do you have time to wait?”

Yes, thank you for asking.

Then we had a little conversation about scorpions.  He informed me he was in New Mexico, where they have lots of the critters.    He told me that it couldn’t survive long in a climate it hadn’t been born into, that it probably was from some exotic location with a climate completely different than Georgia’s, and that it would only live a day or two at the most.

I was reassured by this until I remembered that the bag of coffee had sat on my counter for several days before I opened it.  If it was going to die in a couple days, I should have found a dead scorpion in my coffee.  Which, frankly would have been just as creepy but less likely to keep me awake at night.

He then told me that a scorpion’s life expectancy is about 3 months.

I could have this thing hiding in my house for 3 months!!!

Then he continued to reassure me by stating that he wasn’t a expert on scorpions or  an entomologist or anything like that.  He got his information from watching Animal Planet.

He finally got his supervisor’s attention.  He told me they were going to trace the coffee back to it’s processing plant and probably recall the entire batch.

Yes!

As he was filling out all the forms to get the coffee traced and probably to get me put on a “do not take calls from her, she’s crazy” list,  he informed me that under the heading of  ”foreign object found in coffee”, he was the first person ever to type in “scorpion”.

They are sending me a gift card for $25.

I’m Ok with that.

I haven’t seen the creature since the night I tried to swat it.  Even better.

]]> http://tangletale.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/the-coffee-scoop/feed/ 1 tangletale http://tangletale.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/in-which-i-am-surprised-by-a-foreign-guest/ http://tangletale.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/in-which-i-am-surprised-by-a-foreign-guest/#comments Sun, 10 Apr 2011 02:20:40 +0000 tangletale http://tangletale.wordpress.com/?p=1227 ]]>

I keep my coffee in a ceramic jar.  I usually make one cup at time, because some mornings need an extra jolt and some don’t and why waste most of a pot if I’m not going to drink it.

So on Wednesday morning, I made my first cup and took it back to bed to sip it with my eyes shut while I  pretended  that I didn’t have to get up.

After bathing and dressing and the usual morning stuff, I felt I needed a second cup.  Since the canister was nearly empty, I opened a brand new, sealed up tight, bag of Starbucks Italian Roast and dumped it into the jar.  A scorpion crawled out over the lip of the jar and landed on the kitchen counter.  Yes, you read that correctly, a scorpion.  About an inch and a quarter long, translucent rust colored, with a spiky little tale waving at me.  It seemed a little disoriented  and who wouldn’t be after being sealed up in a bag of coffee and transported to a strange place.  I was a little disconcerted myself.  Actually, it took me a minute to realize what exactly I was staring at.

I looked around the room.  What was at hand to whack it with?  Plate?  breakable.  Glass, ditto.  Potholder?  too soft.  Knife?  Not really the right tool for the job.  I grabbed the roll of paper towels, turned around and it had gone.

Gone where????  They like dark crevasses.  Under the lip of the counter?  The drawer below it?  The toe space between the counter and the floor?  Under the burners on the stove?  Is it hiding, lurking, on the backside of the oven door? Am  I going to put my hand in the drawer and find it running up my arm?  Am I going to walk into the kitchen in my bare feet in the middle of the night when I can’t see because my contacts are out and…

I had fallen into my very own horror story.  When will it strike?  And how will I know?  There will be no warning.  My head was a litany of B movie trailers.

I emptied the drawer and the cupboard below it very carefully, lifting things out with tongs.  I moved all the cat stuff to another room.  I banged on doors and surfaces and poked knives into crevasses.  I took out the emergency spider spray, blocked off the kitchen, and sprayed the vicinity of the creature’s last known where abouts.

I told myself  it would probably creep into a crack and stay there.  I told myself I could get a second cup of coffee on the way to work.  I told myself I would email a complaint to Starbucks from work.  I reminded myself that I was in dress rehearsals this week and I had to get into the shop early.  I went to work.  I told myself it would not be there when I got home.

I arrived home, late, after a 3+ hour rehearsal, and all seemed normal.  The cats were a bit shaken to find their food bowls in the living room but food is food.  After eating Lilith disappeared back to her hiding place and Imp went to sit on the work table where she usually likes to look out the window.  Only tonight she was facing the wall, almost as if she had put herself into time out.

I was just beginning to feel like I really needed to go to bed when there was a crash from the vicinity of the work table.

I went to see what had happened.  Imp was leaping from the table to the TV cabinet to the sofa, oblivious to everything in her way, eyes glued to the ceiling, tail twitching.   I looked up.  There it was, the scorpion, scurrying  along the top of the wall.  I was faced again with the question as to what will be the most effective and handy object to use.  It needed reach.  The broom?  Too flexible and full of places to hide.  I grabbed the swifter from the closet.  I whacked it.  Clearly not hard enough.  I believe I heard it swear at me and then it dropped down behind the wall art over the sofa.  I pulled the sofa away from the wall.  I piled the cushions (after a good shake) on a chair.  I needed to get at the wall.  I bent to pull the sofa a bit further out.  There was a bit of fluff on one corner.  I pulled on the sofa and the bit of fluff had legs and was over the side before I realized it was my prey.  I banged the sofa up and down,  I hit the wall art with the handle of the swifter.  I swept under the sofa.  It did not reappear.

It is now 12:30 am.  My neighbor whose bed is on the other side of the wall probably wants to kill me.  I’m going to kill myself in the morning if I don’t go to bed as there is another dress rehearsal tomorrow night.   I left everything pulled out into the middle of the room and went to bed.  And I left the light on.

Imp is still waiting for it to come back out.  She has staked out a spot on the sofa and is staring intently over the edge.

Dear Starbucks Customer Service:

I don’t want to sue you.  I am not seeking monetary compensation for more than the cost of my bag of coffee.  What I really need, what will resolve the matter to my satisfaction, is for someone from Starbucks to get over here RIGHT NOW and get rid of this thing.

Sincerely,

Scared Sleepless

Then again, it’s not just a little spring rain.  No, this is the full fledged, gully washer, take no prisoners rain.  The monsoons are here, head for higher ground.   Last night the water rushing along the curb outside was up to the axle of my car.  I worked 2 hours longer than I intended to yesterday because I didn’t want to drive home until there was a chance I could make it all the way without having to pull over until:

A.  I could see the road

B. The other drivers could see me.

C.  I wasn’t likely to encounter water too deep to drive through-  like the bridge near the golf course where no matter how many times they “improve” things it is still underwater when it rains.

Later, as I lay sleeping, I was jolted awake by a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning that was so loud and so bright I thought it had hit the building.  The cat next to me jumped straight up in to the air and made a noise as if she had been struck.  The other cat came running into the bedroom, full speed, jumped on the bed and huddled next to me shaking.  I spent the rest of the night with a cat pushing against me on either side.

It’s touching to know they have such faith in me- even if it is a bit misplaced.  Really, girls, what do think I can do about the lightning?  It’s not likely I could save myself.

I finished my beret and it is a lovely thing.  I found the pattern to be very well written and easy to follow as well as being interesting enough to hold my interest.

Not so much my next project:  Adia.   There isn’t a chart, just written instructions.  I cast on and started it 3 times last night.  I kept having the same problem.  Not enough stitches at the end of row 1, too many at the end of row 2.  I, of course, assumed the problem was knitter error so I decided to make my own chart in an effort to see what I was doing wrong.  I got 4 rows along and behold,  there seems to be a error in the 1st 2 rows of the pattern.  I’m going to chart out the entire repeat and see if I can fix it before I start again.