I did manage to find a "Crystallites" size L hook at wal-mart yesterday (I had to go anyway; the car place has my car until 5 this afternoon and I do not relish a trip to the wal-mart after 5 on a Friday.)

it was bad enough yesterday evening.

(Okay, dangit, Blogger is acting funky. When I try to type an apostrophe like for a contraction, it shoots me into the "check spelling" mode. I am just tired enough that this is a real annoyance).

I did start the scarf from the "Happy Hooker" (hah! quotation marks work) book; of the various new projects I mentioned it had the lowest activation energy.

I also found the new Interweave Knits Holiday issue at the mart of wal. I had not planned on buying it; I knew that about half of the projects were retreads. But: I spent allllllll of yesterday afternoon on the kind of thankless administrivia task that seems to more and more becoming a part of our lives.

This time, it was digesting all the msds sheets for the various chemicals (in the lab where I teach - and I am an ecologist not a biochemist - there were 75 chemicals alone). And finding msds sheets online for chemicals that we did not have them for.

And for anyone who works with these things regularly: could you please tell me why they feel the need to do them in 4-point font? I think my incipient presbyopia was advanced by five or ten years yesterday staring at those danged things. (I wonder if I can make a case to Workers Comp that they need to pay for bifocals if it turns out I need them at my next eye doctor appointment...)

It took 2 and one-half hours (I cannot do slashes either it seems. Thanks, Blogger, for your "downtime fix" that mucked things up) for me to do that. It was supposed to be a shared job but it turned out it was not easy to do as a two-person job so I wound up taking it on alone (because I knew it would get done in good time then, and I am (damn! let me do apostrophes!) not good at pressuring someone and coming up with good reasons why they should do a job. Which is probably why I wind up with so many extra responsibilities.)

So anyway, I felt as though I needed a treat so I bought the magazine. There are about half new patterns, or at least ones I have not seen before, in it, including a pair of socks that looks interesting.

My car is again at the shop. They have warned me not to expect it done before five, which is a concern because (a) they close at 5:30 and I really really really do not want them saying "it is not done, we are keeping it over the weekend" leaving me to scramble for transportation and (b) everyone else here departs campus around 1 pm on Fridays so I am going to have to rely on someone from the car place being willing and available to pick me up.

This is one of those times where I wish I had been sociable enough to convince myself that some fellow - any fellow - was my "soul mate" and have gotten married. Because, this is one of those times where it is (dammit, Blogger!) just stressful and sort of low-level worrysome to deal with, knowing that I am the only person readily available to take care of it. Yes, yes, I have friends I could probably call and ask for help but I do not like imposing on people.