Weekend in Review

Here’s the short version of my weekend:

We met our brand-new honourary nephew.

You’ll notice that Robin actually looks fairly comfortable holding the baby. This is because every time a baby is born, we shove the small squirming human into his arms, take a few pictures of both him & the baby looking uncomfortable, and wait for Robin to proclaim that the baby in question looks like Winston Churchill (doesn’t matter if it’s a girl, all babies apparently look like Winston Churchill). It should come as no surprise that after 4 or 5 babies being handed over to him for “the uncomfortable new uncle” shot, he’s gotten comfortable holding a baby.  We suspected as much with our niece, Darby. Keenan here just confirms it. Keenan was less interested in his new uncle, and more interested in the fact that his new uncle wasn’t carrying some sort of food-providing device.

We also managed to finally both be awake at such a time that we could get to Home Despot in time to buy deck staining supplies. Therefore, once the deck dries out (yes, if we haven’t been working or sleeping, it’s been raining this summer), we will commence the staining of the deck.

So cherish these pictures of my current fluffy spinning project on a “wood coloured” railing while you can, because soon enough that railing will be a nice shade of blue. We’ll be the only household on the block whose deck isn’t white, some sort of cedar wood stain, or “putty” to match siding. We deliberately chose a shade of blue a couple of shades lighter than the trim around our doors. We’re thinking it will look spiffy.

That fluff, by the way, is a merino-silk blend that I think Louet puts out. I was gifted the blue by the wife of a co-worker who sent it along when she found out I had obtained a wheel.  The pink is from another co-worker that I car-pooled with last winter, and the black is something Robin picked up for me. The pink and black came in bags of about a pound. The blue is approximately 2 ounces. I weighed off 2 ounces of the pink and black, and am spinning all three as singles that will be 3-plied. So far, so good! I’ve spun all the blue, and am now about a third to a half of the way through the pink. It’s soft and spins quite nicely, though I think I’m getting a little friction sensitivity on my right pointer finger.

Finally, I watched the London Olympic Closing Ceremonies last night. I enjoyed it for the most part…but CTV, for the love of all that’s good in this world, I could have done without the constant commercial breaks around the time that the athletes were taking their places in the “mosh pit”.  I know it takes time to get 10,000-odd people corralled into the right place, but I really got tired of “here’s a shot of the Canadian team again and….here’s a commercial!  Welcome back!  Here’s some really neat piece of trivia, and….another commercial!”  It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if it hadn’t been for the amount of commercials shown. It really did seem that they had the slots for commercials and content actively backwards, the content segments were THAT brief!

Oh, and P&G?  I’m STILL really annoyed by your advertisements gushing over Moms. When it comes to sports, I suspect Dads are just as involved, if not more so. While I’m sure showing a Dad taking his kid to the pool at oh-dark-thirty in the morning would make a better coffee commercial, I wouldn’t feel like the men of this world were being marginalized because they’re not being shown tossing laundry into a washing machine.  Honestly, advertising agencies, STOP with the whole “battle of the sexes” in advertising. That goes for the “Kitchen Consultant” in the dishwasher commercials, too. Hell, do me a favour and show a gay or lesbian couple. Maybe a same-sex couple that’s parenting. Maybe a little jolt of reality will stop stereotyping women as domestics, men as idiotic assholes, and same-sex relationships as sinful. Use your advertising slot for something useful for once.

(For the record, I do use quite a few P&G products in my house, but it’s definitely not due to the advertising. It’s due to the fact that they work, don’t cause an allergy, and don’t give me migraines from overabundant scenting. That round goes to YOU product!  Not so much your advertising agency – who really need a good-old reality enema)

The one comment about the content of the music chosen for the Closing Ceremonies?  No Radiohead? No Rolling Stones? No Happy Mondays or Stone Roses, or Sinead O’Connor or U2 or the Proclaimers? No multi-Grammy Adele? No Peter Gabriel? While I was happy to see Madness and the Pet Shop Boys, I could have used a little more diversity. The fact that there was one woman singing something like 4 or 5 songs?  Well, she was on-key and can sing Queen half-decently, I guess.  No need for her to be half the show, though.

Oh. And still no Dr. Who?  The Olympic ceremonies could have used more of a nod to the BBC.

Rant over. Good thing too, as I’ve been up for 23.5 hours and need to sleep sometime before my next shift starts 😉