The Fantabulous D has another job, one we hooked her up with, and while I'm happy for her and the people lucky enough to get her, I'm disgusted that my clueless employer let her get away.

My tea order arrived today. Glenbrook Farms is awesome, with amazing customer service along the lines of The Yarn Boys. You send an order via Glenbrook's system, you get a receipt and then a UPS shipping confirmation, like bam-bam. Not as touchy-feely as The Boys were, but I don't expect them to be able to keep up that insane "here are photos, pick from these" level of service in their Yarn Home Depot new digs. I'm just sick that nothing I can figure out can justify a trip to Michigan to roll around in the yarns live and in person. I still love them. I emailed The Boys this morning to nab a copy of Interweave's new Crochet mag and the Amanda backpack from Black Sheep Bags, and by the time I came home an acknowledgement and Paypal thingie was in my in box, which I launched right back at them.

I'm very glad to see Interweave branching out into crochet, I know this is like heresy on a knitting ring but I'm bi-craftsual. I love to crochet and I find it much easier on my carpal tunnelly afflicted wrist, but it's hard to find patterns that suit my taste, and I"m too busy and tired and ultimately lazy to design something myself. I want patterns that have style. I'll tinker with them, sure, but I treat patterns the way I treat recipes - I read through it, and if it sounds good I'll make it Their Way the first time. After that I'll make up my own variations. If it sounds just okay the first time I'll tinker with it as I see fit as I go along.

The difference between cooking and fiber things, to me, is the dollar amount of experimental materials and the time invested. I can screw with a recipe and be done with it in an hour or two, and if it sucks it goes out in the trash. A bad investment of time in a knitting or crochet project gone bad is, like, days or weeks of my life, and ends up in orphaned stash to be used elsewhere, I hope. So I like to have a good infrastructure in a design before I either make it or screw around with it. I'm not a designer at heart and I'm not going to spend weeks trying to find the right stitch and gauge to adapt a design. I spend my days battling the forces of corporate clueless evil, there is just so much energy left after 5 and I don't have the heart to put forth my energy into things that are purely experimental.

I've ordered a couple of new crochet books from Amazon that we may see before I retire, but I'm not holding my breath right now. What the hell is up with Amazon? I got used to getting an order within the week, placed another and it's been nearly a month and the "estimated ship dates" have come and gone. I canceled an earlier order for the same reason, this is two in a row. If there is an issue with a particular item in the shipment I wish they would damn well say so, I'd cancel that item. No hints have been offered. If I don't get it by next Tuesday it's history.