serialdeviant.org(y)

Bright!

This photo’s colours were enhanced somewhat, so the sky’s a lot bluer than the original. I like it, anyway.

Spooky!

I added a B/W version as a layer and dropped the opacity of said layer by about 21%.

My mum and sister say my bump is big. Everyone else here says I have a tiny bump. I reckon I look like I’m smuggling a rugby ball.

So James Murdoch is going with the ‘incompetent‘ defense. I suppose the prospect of being laughed at and shamed / punished publicly (this has got to be an option) by his dad is better than going to jail for being criminal.

AAUUUGGHHH! I’m going to miss Chris Isaak when he plays in London this year, too. The one and only time I saw him perform was in 1993 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore. He signed a paper bag for me and a cigarette packet (with the added admonition, ‘Don’t smoke!’) for a then-boyfriend. Deity, his (by that I mean Isaak’s) voice is dreamy.

The light’s especially lovely / tricky when the sun starts to set.

Italian designer Emilio Cavallini has launched a line of unisex hosiery — for the love of Deity, why?!

This is new to me (unsurprising, since I’m not Japanese). Sarubobo dolls are a good luck charm, and they are apparently ‘baby monkeys’ or ‘bonking / vagina monkeys’ (if you’re in Kyushu). Someone made a tutorial.

I was talking to my sister about the grumpasaurus (she knits, I don’t) and I mentioned the sarubobo. She wanted one for Mila, so it’s as good a time as any to try it out.

This one was made according to the original pattern measurements, using some scrap calico. As I was just testing, I didn’t quite stuff it enough, and I think it looks like something that’s been spat out onto a pavement.

It’s also absolutely preciously tiny, which is fine for adults, but not so much for a baby who likes putting everything into her mouth to see if she can eat it.

(Tangent: I have visions of making a sarubobo baby mobile, but I’m much more likely to make one out of paper balls.)

So I virtually doubled the original pattern measurements, and took quite a bit more care the second time:

There you have it, a sarubobo baby toy. I wonder if the hat makes it look like a Crip or a Blood, but Neil assures me this doll has no gang affiliations.

Okay, no one told me I would be more accident-prone while incubating the parasite. I’m a real danger to myself at the best of times. Do you know the number of times I’ve banged my head or fallen after twisting my ankle? I don’t either, it’s been that many times! My first memory is of an injury sustained in kindergarten, for Deity’s sake.

In one morning shower alone, I’ve managed to squirt soap into my eye while dropping the bar, then banging the top of my head on the shower caddy after I picked the bar up. The night before, I squished my finger on the underside of the table while getting up. WITH MY OWN LEG.

I drop things like my hands are coated in butter. So far it hasn’t been anything breakable, but it’s only a matter of time.

I haven’t even reached the third trimester yet — although my mother and sister both say the bump is looking pretty big. So I have months more of abject terror to look forward to before I go back to my usual state, which is being a klutz. Wonderful.

I really need to sort out my posture. I hunch far too much when seated, and this is now really beginning to hurt. I’d spend the entire day reclined if I could, but I also have incredibly sore sacroiliac joints (i.e. butt pain), which is exacerbated by that position.

Mad woman: Jessica Paré on being Don Draper’s latest squeeze — I’m confused. It says here that Megan could be the second Mrs Don Draper and the third Mrs Dick Whitman. But wasn’t the real Don (who died in Korea) married to Anna, and Dick (in his borrowed identity) had to divorce her in order to marry Betty? So the Independent’s got it mixed up. Right?

Working Moms: The Kids Are All Right — assuming, of course, that most of your wage doesn’t end up going towards paying for childcare.

11.22.63 wasn’t really what I expected. Given my familiarity with Stephen King novels tends towards the horror genre (ah, my teen years were as stereotypical as you could get), I kept expecting to read something darker and more unexplainable than a rip in the space-time continuum that allows Jake Epping to leave 2011 and go back to 1958, long before his own birth.

(All that’s in the blurb on the flap, so no spoilers.)

I found some elements quite predictable, but I don’t think anyone could write a ‘What if JFK didn’t die?’ novel without going over ground millions of others have already considered. So that didn’t spoil anything. One thing I’m grateful for is this wasn’t an ‘action’ novel; while there was enough violence and weirdness and running and hiding and so on, it really was Jake’s story, and how his taking on a mission to save JFK completely changed his life.

I would just fall short of pressing the book into your hands and saying, You must read 11.22.63, but that’s because Full Dark, No Stars was such a top read. So Stephen King’ll get his royalties from me, in any case.

• Details: 11.22.63 by Stephen King, Hodder & Stoughton, £19.99
• Verdict: 3/5

Finally making a start on learning HTML5 — it’s not looking too bad, considering I learn by copying looking at working examples. HTML5 Doctor is shaping up to be an invaluable reference when I don’t understand the reason for a new tag.

Israel certainly has the right to make its own decisions — war-like or otherwise — when it comes to Iran, but then it shouldn’t expect anyone (by that I mean the US) to back them up if they decide to press the button.

Downton Abbey footman says class divide hurts poor actors: well, no shit, Sherlock. If you’ve got money, you can set your sights on any career, knowing that if times get tough, you have something to fall back on. Not exactly an insight.

Pattern by Oodles4Noodles. It’s a very forgiving pattern — I used a huge ball of recycled wool I received in a craft swap yonks ago, and it didn’t give the gauge required, so I had to add 25 more rows onto the brim so it would fit.

(I’d actually added 35 more rows, then really got going, then realised I’d made it far too big.)

25 extra rows and the unconventional method of crocheting into the ends of rows meant I had no idea if I would have the right number of stitches for when I started the hat proper, so I fudged it. And it worked! The hat looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself.

And as timing would have it, it’s been pretty warm during the day, although the all-knowing BBC Weather forecast says it’s to get colder again next week. So I might be able to use my new hat very soon. Although it would be too matchy-matchy to wear it with the cowl my friend Rebecca made me a few years ago (using the same wool) — also a craft swap.

I made her a turtle (Humbert).

Neil says the hat’s very hipster. Ahem.