Shrink and Bloat

First, the shrink. While I'm climbing Mount Laundry tonight, I decided to split the pair of Cherry Tree Hill socks and wash them in two separate loads. On purpose.

One look at the picture above should tell you why. The sock on the right has been washed. The sock on the left has not.

I've heard from others that CTH tends to shrink, and this certainly did. Even so, I havc to say that the yarn held up beautifully in the wash. It looks fresh off the needles. Just smaller than before.

I made these socks a little roomy because I'd heard about the shrinkage. Lucky I did! The extra half-inch added to length and girth has disappeared, and then some.

Now, the bloat. And boy oh boy, is there a lot of that today.

Yesterday was another insanely busy day. Between 5:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., I managed to eat a best-ever cereal bar ("This Blueberry Walked Into a Bar..." from Trader Joe's -- yum!) and drink a coke all day. So by the time I got to Kris's house for the SnB anniversary party, I was hungry with a capital HUUUUUUU!

Walk up the stairs into her house, and the first thing you see is a dining room table positively groaning with homemade goodies. Homemade salsa and guacamole hot enough to set your hair on fire. Just the way I like it! Homemade brownies and peanut butter bars. A lovely cheese tray and veggie tray -- I nailed the veggies like Cookie Monster with a pile of tollhouses. That made me think it was okay to eat one of every dessert. What? I ate healthy! Carrots and cauliflower are healthy! OK, so there was like a 1:1 ratio of grape tomatoes to cookies, but still. Veggies were well represented.

I still haven't quite recovered from the sugar high. But when I do, I will name a blog post after Kris and tell you all how she, with one casual comment, managed to pull the rug out from under my shiny new sock mojo.

And a book report--

With my belly all bloated and the sugar zinging through my veins, I ended up wide awake half the night last night. Finished the Gigi Grazer book, "The Starter Wife," that ended up in my suitcase at RT. The book is about a 41-year-old woman named Gracie whose husband, a truly unlikeable Hollywood producer, decides to divorce her before their prenup expires on their tenth anniversary. I had a lot of problems with this book, some editorial (lots of small point-of-view glitches that pressed my pet peeve button), and some just bizarre (Gracie's best friend is named Will, and Debra Messing is playing Gracie in the made-for-tv movie, and I couldn't stop obsessing over that). I was also put off by the general value system of these characters, though the idea is that Gracie snaps out of it and grows some dignity by the end. But you had to read a lot of pages about youth-obsessed, spoiled, super-competitive Hollywood bitchiness before you get to the payoff, so that was a challenge for me. Other readers might not mind so much. Me, I just don't consider age spots a physical threat akin to leprosy.

Anway, that was what I thought during the first 2/3 of this book. The last third redeemed the whole thing for me. I won't tell you what happens in case you choose to read it someday, but it got good. Really good. I even forgot to tsk tsk whenever I ran into another little snag that should have been edited out. And for an editor, that's saying something.

But really, I have to read something a little less commercial next just to cleanse my palate. Maybe I'll finish the Dostoevsky even though I lost interest in it when he revealed who the murderer was. And still a hundred pages or more left to read! I'm hoping for some surprise twist ending, a hope which will surely wither on the vine. But I might as well finish it, if only to get it off my night table. That sucker takes up a lot of space!