From Sheep to…

So, this is a little story about Mr & Mrs P. C’ock*. Now, get your minds out of the gutter, cos this is a child friendly story… really… I promise… An aside: all the pictures taken of the different protagonists were taken after the facts… so they are not in the same spot as where it all happened.

One Friday evening, The Parental Unit (TPU) & I decide to go to one of our favorite restaurants. This is not your every day kind of restaurant. It is a little castle located in the middle of the woods. It used to be the hunting lodge for our local royals in the 1800’s. As it became fashionable to go to Russia for hunting, the lodge was left to its own devices and kind of got all dilapidated. The grandfather of the actual owner bought it from the family of the Grand-Duke in the early 1900’s and turned it into a restaurant. The food that is served is traditional Luxembourgish foods. People go for a walk in the woods and then for a bite to eat in the restaurant. Or like us, you skip the walking bit and just go for the good food hehehe. Anyways, the owner has a lot of animals hanging around on the grounds (donkeys, peacocks, rabbits, dogs, buffalo, and many more).

The table we were sitting at is located in the front. Outside the window’s a grassy field and a small man made pond with a little fountain in it (I will make pics of it next time). The grassy field is at the height of the window ledge, so when you sit at the table you’re ‘eye to eye’ with the grass so to speak.

Yesterday, I was happy because Mr & Mrs P. C’ock were back from their winter quarters and strutting around on the grassy field. Suddenly Mrs P. C’ock starts screeching and running. I look up and see something black running after her. At first I thought it was a cat… but then I looked again and it was a cute little bunny… or rather Rabid McRabbit… Mr McRabbit was flying across the field chasing Mrs P. C’ock around and around the pond. After a couple of laps, she fled to the roof of the building we were sitting in. A few minutes later, same thing happens, but this time Mr McRabbit starts chasing Mr P. C’ock. He tries to be brave and starts opening his tail and shaking his booty… Mr McRabbit is having none of it and so Mr P. C’ock flees to the roof as well. All is peaceful and quiet again. The P. C’ocks leave the roof and land on the little path that leads to the front door of the restaurant. They start walking up the path and suddenly, out of no where, Mr McRabbit flies over the edge (yes, I didn’t know rabbits could jump that high either) and starts chasing them again… out to the parking lot… where you hear a lot of screeching going on and 5 minutes later a bunny returns to the grassy field and the P. C’ocks are seen sitting atop another building.

No one in the restaurant, not even the personnel, had seen Mr Rabid McRabbit in such a nasty mood before. Apparently there had been territorial disputes before, but never to this extent… I can tell you, it was the best dinner entertainment I ever had hehehe.

Here are the pics… as I said taken after the facts, cos I didn’t feel like getting involved. I mean, a rabbit that chases a couple of birds easily 10 times his size is scary…

Mrs P. C’ock

Mr P. C’ock

and Rabid McRabbit…

… I know… he’s cuteness in person isn’t he… and small… and in the back you can see the edge he flew over…

*(sorry… can’t put the name differently)

I spend the evening in great company…

Miss B & Me & a couple 1000 other people all in the same place to enjoy some great music. Yes, Miss B is listening to my iPod. The object of our musical love has 2 albums out and she only knows the second one. So she was getting a crash course in the songs on the first album.

Mr Cuteness himself I’ve got lots more pictures, but I’m keeping them private on my flickr account for copy right reasons. If you click on that link and put on the sound you can hear part of his current hit… it is one of his slower songs, but it isn’t bad. If you go to YouTube and search his name, you’ll find more songs.

We both had a bit of apprehension for this concert. At the beginning of the year we went to see him here in Lux, in a small concert hall (actually a basketball court/theater/whatever hall). I think there were about 300 people. This time it was in the Trier Arena in Germany, which was big, with loads of people. But we were not disappointed. They managed to make it appear no different from the small venue. The only difference was that there was a better/bigger light show hehehe.

For the last few songs, Miss B & I left our Row 14-seats and went to stand more to the front (yes, I know, but you see, over here it is very normal to stay in your seats during concerts… I mean, Miss B & I are already considered strange creatures because we’re bopping and dancing along… sitting in our seats… ). And my eyes were caught by this little old lady on the edge of Row 3. She must have been in her 70’s if not 80’s and she was yelling along with the songs and dancing and behaving like your regular 14-yo fan hehehe. It was very cute… I tried to Kinnear her, but didn’t manage to.

The next morning… was another surprise… April 7th… and we had a friggin’ blizzard…

picture taken from moving car… you can’t really see that it is more than 7 inches… it all fell in less than 2 hours…

No, the weather’s not been much better since… it is grey, cold, windy wet with temps barely above freezing during the day, and really freezing during the nights… A year ago we had a heatwave with daily temps over 30 C (86F).

Actually yes… I’m still here. Sorry to have been gone for so long. I still haven’t found a way to post things straight from my brain to this blog, without the little pesky interaction of my fingers and the keyboard. I could write posts at the office, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that… especially as most of the time the owner of the company sits at the desk behind me.

I’ve got loads to tell, I’ve been knitting and spinning… I knit 2 circular shawls in my 1-month absence, 1 is blocked and has been used, the other one not, I’ve started a couple of things like 2 scarfs, the Danish Tie-shawl from the Spring 08 Spin-Off magazine, Baltic Blossoms by Evelyn A. Clark and I’m still working on my ePIc Orkney Pi*. The yarn for the Danish Tie-shawl is my own hand spun… the first time I’m spinning with a project in mind!!! The Baltic Blossoms shawl I cast on for last night and when I added it to my Ravelry projects I wanted to see who else was knitting it… get this… I’m THE ONLY ONE knitting it right now… I think this is a FIRST!!!!!

I will make a lot of different posts for the different items above (and some others) and then have them post automatically over the next days/weeks.

*On the EZasPi yahoo group there is/was a kind of mystery Pi-along going a few weeks back. The motives are traditional Orkney motives. The yarn being used by me, amongst many others, is a new Shetland lace 2-ply by Jamieson & Smith from Shetland. I’m calling this my ePIc Orkney Pi as it is a LOT of work. The designer is using a 4 mm needle and gets a gorgeous fabric. I have to use a 2,5 mm needle. As my needle’s such a lot smaller, I’m making the full sized shawl… right now I’m wading through 80 rows at 640 stitches… after that there’s 160 rows of 1280 stitches (to let that sink in a bit, wrap your brain around this: that’s a mere 204800 stitches) and of course the knitted on border to ‘cast-off’ with. I haven’t picked the casting off border yet, but I may go for the 6 stitch one instead of the 24-stitch on… I think… As usual I made my little excel spread sheet to calculate my percentages done. Although I’m on row 55 of the 640-stitch rows this represents only 20% of the total shawl… yes, so far I’ve knit 54730 stitches, but that’s only 20 % of the total shawl… oh, and that total??? Does not yet include the border math… I am trying to fool myself hehehehe. I can’t make any promises on when this will be finished or if it ever will get finished… I also may need to buy more yarn… cos a cone only has 3937 yards/3600 meters for 450 grams (15.87 ounces)…

Random pic of the last few weeks… just because they cute…

PS: links are to Ravelry… too lazy to try and find ‘real’ links

PPS: edited to fix link…

So, walking home from the bus me gots to thinking…

Now that my working hours have shifted from starting at 7.45 to starting at 8.30 and finishing at 17.30 instead of 16.20, I feel as if I have a lot less time a day. Okay, on the first view I sure did loose some time as I am now obliged to take a 1-hour break at lunch instead of 30 minutes before, but when I do some math, I’m actually having more time at home…

Before I would get up (well the alarm would ring) at 5.30, I’d leave the house at 7, and be home at 17.00, I had 2 40-minute commutes a day. I’d be on the road 10 hours, to work 8 hours (this includes my lunch break as well). In the evenings I’d go to bed at 22.00 or I wouldn’t be able to get up in the mornings. So my evenings would be from 17.00 to 22.00 which is 5 hours right? Dinner was at 18.15.

Now I get up at 7, and am out of the house at 8.10, and home again at 18.10. So again 10 hours, although now I have a 10 or 15 minute commute each way, a 1-hour lunch break. The rest of the missing time, is the time I take to go to the mall to pick up something for dinner for my dad & I most evenings (or to mail the letters for the company). I go to bed at midnight. Dinner’s still at 18.15. Now my evenings are 6 hours long and still I feel totally rushed as if I do not have any evening left, just because I get home 1 hour later than I used to, even though I now stay up 2 hours longer… Weird huh? I wonder why that is so…

Last update on the shooting: it is now clear that it was an attempted murder and a suicide. The woman’s out of danger and will have only minimal physical scarring, but I’m pretty sure the emotional scarring will be horrible.

Random pic taken last week during one of my walks in the woods during my lunch break

That’s all for now

First of all, it is very weird to hear the name of your street on the radio in connection to a murder…

This morning they’re saying it was not one of the families, but it happened in one of the small studios under the roof (this building has 2 2-bedroom apartments, 2 1-bedroom apartments (in which those 2 families live) and 3 or 4 small studios under the roof). Apparently a woman called the cops that there was someone trying to break into her apartment. When the cops showed up, they found the woman with a head shot and a dead man. The woman’s still alive although her conditions isn’t too good. The guy turns out to be a jealous ex. After hearing all of that I know who the woman was and who the guy was. This summer a young Cape Verdian woman moved into one of those small places and while moving in, she was being helped by 2 female and 2 male friends. Suddenly a 3rd guy turned up and created a scene. He got very violent and the guys had to physically restrain him (and a few fists flew around too).

I was an unwilling witness to all of this as I was waiting for someone to pick me up…

I’m going to say something that sounds horrible… I’m glad he’s dead… now at least that woman can leave her place without looking back over her shoulder all the time (because I’ve seen that that was what she did), she won’t have to have someone pick her up every time she wants to go outside, will not find her car vandalised at least once a week…

Oh and it is snowing heavily right now… just thought I’d throw that into the conversation…

Okay, I’ve got something to tell… but be warned, I’m still shaking and adrenaline’s still coursing through my veins… I’m not made for real life drama… of any kind…

(Just for your information: right now it is a couple of minutes before midnight)

Earlier tonight, I was waiting for a French TV program about murderers to start (this program takes a famous french murder, solved or not, and goes through the whole thing, from when it happened, to the chase/capture of the murderer(s), through the trial, to the life after the trial). This is a very serious program, not sensational or anything. Anyways, as I still had to wait another 5 minutes, I’d muted the sound and sat there minding my own business… suddenly there was a lot of noise in the street, cars screeching to a halt, yelling, screaming and I don’t know what. Here in Lux, most houses have some kind of heavy plastic rolling blinds at the outside of the windows as protection. I pulled one up a bit so I could see what was going on… the street was filled with cop cars and heavily armed cops were running all over the place. Mind you, this street, is one of the most expensive ones to live on, and the last time we had a cop in here was because he came to make a reservation at the restaurant across the street. So I was not really expecting to look down onto some kind of Hollywood scene. One of the cops started yelling at me to put the blind down, shut off all the lights and keep away from the windows. I went ‘okay, now I panic!!!’. The people in the restaurant/hotel were told to go hide in the cellar of the restaurant (the hotel doesn’t have blinds and has windows all around). By now I’d gathered that there was (a) shooter(s) on the loose (or so they thought) and the cops were going through all the gardens to see if he was hiding somewhere. I even had cops on my third floor balcony (they climbed on there without the help of a ladder… so if they can do it, a murderer can too… I’m not pulling up my blinds at the back (bedroom/dining room) ever again…).

After half an hour the mayhem in the street started to quiet down. I crept back to the front window and pulled up the blind again. No more yelling… and I saw that a lot of the cops were going inside the house across from my dad’s house. I’d been trying to get a hold of my dad as he was out and I knew that the street was cordoned off… but he’d forgotten to switch on his phone.

What I gathered so far is that there’s been a multiple murder… what I don’t know yet is

a) if it is a family drama or b) organized crime related, c) if it is the lithuanian family or d) the portuguese family that are concerned. Both families had 2 kids… No, I didn’t know either of the families… just from saying hello in passing in the street.

What I do know is that they found one woman dead on her back with a head shot wound and several dead men…

At 11.30 the people from the restaurant were allowed to leave and so I went downstairs to see if I could see my dad… he came walking down the street as he’d been held up for more than half an hour at the top of the street. He was then allowed to park his car on the parking lot of the restaurant as a cop car was blocking the entrance to his garage. The rest of the parking lot was taken over by something similar to CSI’s… When I left his house again a few minutes later, several coroner’s cars pulled up.
All of this is so weird… it happening so close… I mean, Lux has only a couple of murders a year and although it is a small country, it never ever happened anywhere near where I live.

It has been a weird kind of day all around. My brother was in a traffic accident this morning. He was on his bicycle and the car in front of him suddenly braked and he couldn’t stop fast enough (or slipped on the wet cobblestones… the parental unit was not clear on that). He’s got 2 teeth knocked out. He was lucky that cops saw it happen as this will help with the insurance. As he couldn’t stop, he had to take an alcohol test… but because of his teeth being knocked out, he couldn’t blow in the thing and so they had to take him to hospital to get a blood sample. This turned out to be a good thing as he got treatment for his teeth immediately instead of having to wait his turn. The guy that braked was in shock (which to me is understandable). The other good thing was that the car was a van. This may sound weird, but the thing is that he didn’t get catapulted over the car, as his wounds would be a lot worse than what he has now. He said his teeth actually left a mark on the window of the car… My dad’s going to see him tomorrow.

Do y’all think I’ll have a peaceful night of sleep??? I doubt it, so I guess I’ll knit some more… Yes, I’ve been knitting… I finished a circular lace shawl that I started a week ago yesterday and I’ve cast on for a Pi… the Orkney Pi from the EZ yahoo group. Pics and more details to follow when I’m feeling a bit more calm.

I’m participating in the Favorite Color Swap and this is the questionnaire for my pal

1. What are your top three favorite colors? I like reds and blues mostly. Hot pink is also a favorite for stuff like Ipod cover or the little case for my Moo MiniCards.

2. What crafts do you really enjoy? I’m into knitting and spinning. I’ve only been spinning for about half a year, but already am the proud owner of 3 wheels…

3. What products do you really covet? I like things from indie dyers, be it yarn or fiber, or even accessories like stitch markers. I guess that’s why etsy’s getting a lot of traffic from me hehehe.

4. What other activities do you enjoy besides your favorite crafty things? Listening to audio books (don’t have time to read anymore hehehe), watching TV (all CSI’s, Criminal Intent, Prison Break, Men in Trees…), listening to music (going from Il Divo, to Roger Cicero (German Swing singer), to Rodney Atkins, to Wham… just to give you an idea hehehe)

5. Is there anything you collect? STUFF??? is that enough of an explanation? I do not have collections other than yarn and fiber (and wheels, but I’m trying not to get anymore of those hehehe).

6. What is your zodiac sign and/or Chinese zodiac symbol? I’m a Sagittarius and a Dog (yeah, I know… my name’s very fitting).

7.What are your favorite…

…scents/smells? I’m very peculiar… a lot of smells trigger headaches or clog my sinuses. I do like Melon-Cucumber by Bath & Bodyworks, or a light citrusy smell. I absolutely dislike vanilla and patchouli.

…types of music and/or bands? I guess I answered this one above hehehe.

…authors? Right now I’m very into audio books by Sandra Brown and Ian Rankin, but I also like Janet Evanovich’s Plum series.

…animals? I love kittykats, but don’t have pets.

…places to shop? I’m going to quote a friend of mine to give you an idea: Eva can shop anywhere, even at the petrol station she’ll find something to buy (no, not petrol as I don’t drive).

…season? Each season has it’s pro’s and con’s and so I don’t really have a favorite. I mean winter’s gorgeous when it snows or is icy cold but with brilliant sunshine; in spring everything awakens again, but the birds drive me crazy waking me up at 4.30; summer’s nice because you don’t need to wear a coat, although over here summer is either rain and grey or so hot that you do not know what to do to stay cool; fall’s gorgeous with the colors, but also horrid cos everything ‘dies’ before winter… Did this help much hehehe?

…yarn/fabric/paper/other craft supplies? Anything knitting spinning related hehehe. I don’t really do any other crafts. With my new job I don’t have a lot of time for a lot of crafts anyways

…candies or goodies? I like hard candies with fruity tastes (but am not too keen on stuff with artificial sweetners). One of my favorites is Jolly Ranger Candy (I think that is what they’re called) or Cream Savers.

8. Do you have any wish lists? At Knit Picks… I just haven’t figured out how to share it

9. Are you allergic to anything? yes… soy-anything (soya, soy lecitine… as soon as a word starts with ’soy’ I’m allergic to it hehehe), mustard, white beans and peas

10. Do you have any pets? What are they? Nope… no pets… except dust bunnies, but those don’t count do they?

11. Please include anything else you would like your secret pal to know about you- anything that would be helpful in finding you little gifts that you will really enjoy. Also, if you have a Ravelry ID, please include it here. Ravelry id = sweetpea16, but you know that already

Cheers Eva

as promised earlier here’s my update. Since I wrote that enigmatic paragraph this morning things have evolved again.

So, lemme begin at the beginnin’… In January/February I had 3 interviews with 3 different people from the same company. The last person interviewing me presented herself as being the HR manager of the company. So we discussed things like hours, salary and the duration of the contract (in Lux you have either a contract ’til death do us part’ or rather, until the day of your legal retirement, i.e. in my case Dec. 7th, 2030; or contracts that are either 6 months, 18 months or 24 months, known as ‘temporary’ contracts. A company can give you up to 4 6-month contracts one after the other or 1 6-month one and 1 18-month one, but you can not accumulate more than 24-months of temporary contracts. After 24 months they either have to give you a til death do us part or let you go).

Then on Feb 29th I got the phone call from Miss HR manager that I was starting on Monday and she would be over with my contract on Tuesday. On Monday I started working, on Tuesday Miss HR manager didn’t show up, on Wednesday I didn’t work (cos me no work Wednesdays), Thursday still no contract… I prodded my immediate boss and told her that I really did not like the fact that I was working ‘illegally’ (no contract = illegal work). On Friday I finally got a contract, from one of the people in the main company in the Land of Tulips. I open the contract, and my eyes find the salary… which is almost 1000 EUR (1500 USD) less than what was promised to me during the last interview and the contract was for just 24 months. As you can imagine I was a bit upset. All weekend I couldn’t sleep because of this. I was thinking that if in 24 months they decided not to keep me, and I’d be unemployed my unemployment would be calculated on basis of the X-1000 EUR and that would leave me with about 1200 USD to live on… My fix costs a month were more than the gross amount of said salary. On Monday the lady who made the contract was in the company in Lux and so I told her that I wanted to have a chat with her. I then explained to her that I was shocked, upset etc. about the salary mentioned in the contract. She then gave me a big spiel about all kinds of things and one of them being that they were taking a risk by hiring me. I told her I was taking a risk by being hired by them as they did not keep their word. I told her Miss HR manager had made these promises and that I was there based on those promises. She looks at me and goes ‘oh but Miss X is no HR manager, she is the coach we hire to shape up our sales people. Actually, I’m thinking of sending you clothes shopping with her next week, so she can give you a couple of tips on how to dress yourself…’. (Yes, I nearly said ‘WTF????’ especially as I was wearing a 500 USD suit and she was the one with unwashed hair). She then called Miss not really a HR manager to check if what I was saying had indeed been agreed. Luckily, she said we did… Then some more not so nice things were said by her to/about me and after half an hour she told me to sleep on it and that I had to come up with a solution to the problem. This, of course pissed me off big time. I was soooo angry on Monday evening that I couldn’t eat. Luckily for me my dad had been the HR manager of one of the European institutions (you know, like a federal government agency in the US) and he knows what is allowed and what isn’t. He told me that in Lux, oral agreements made during a final job interview (the one I had with the fake Miss HR manager) are legally binding…

Tuesday morning arrived and Miss Important Person from Company in Tulip Land was all chatty and fun and yada yada yada all morning, but not one word about my ‘problem’ was said. At 12 I stormed out off the office for my lunch break, I got a sandwich and on my way back to the office I ran into my friend that works in the same building (different company though) and I told her what had been going on… she was so shocked, she couldn’t even eat her lunch anymore. When I got back to the office I’d made the decision to leave.  I waited for the return of Miss Important Person from Company in Tulip Land and as soon as she walked in I summoned her into the meeting room (open plan office with just one little meeting room). I told her that I was leaving, but I had a couple of things to say first. I told her that what fake Miss HR manager had agreed with me was legally binding, I also told her that she was way out of line criticizing the color of my nail polish (a subdued red), my clothes, my way of speaking (lady, if you do not speak 5 languages do NOT and I mean NOT criticize me because I supposedly speak one of them wrong…) and a couple of other things too. I then said it was up to them if they wanted to pay me for my 5.5 days that I had worked for them, but I wasn’t going to beg for it. Miss Important Person from Company in Tulip Land was very taken aback and she started saying that oh, maybe we should talk about all of this again and not make any rash decisions. I told her to talk as my mind was made up. She then picked up the phone and called the accountant’s department and told them to put my registration as an employee on hold. Then she started saying how about you work 5 days for salary X. I looked at her and said if you want me to work 5 days the salary will be X+600. Then she offered 4 days at X-400, so again I pointed out to her it was X as that was said during the interview and if not, my stuff was packed and I’d be gone in 5 minutes. I said that even when I accepted X it was 500 EUR a month LESS than what I’d earned until now, so I didn’t see why I had to make more of an effort. She then asked to have until Wednesday as their Lux lawyer would come by for something and she could ask if it really was legally binding what had been said. She’d be in touch with me Wednesday afternoon…

Wednesday afternoon came and went… Miss Important Person from Company in Tulip Land finally called at 2 minutes to 6 (just when I was making the white sauce for the lasagna I was cooking). I’d told my dad that if she called after 6, whatever she offered would be refused. During her call she was very subdued. She said that indeed they were legally bound to pay me X and give me the til death do us part contract.  The lawyer had told her that if they didn’t and I’d go to court they’d have so much damage to pay that they’d have to close the company (gee if I’d known that I would have done that hehehe). She also explained that as the 2 main bosses were at an important gig in the south of France, she had to wait and get their authorization to pay a salary this high. I said, fine no problem, I’ll wait. We then agreed that I would not turn up for work until all of this had been settled. I knew the bosses would be in the South of France for the rest of the week, so I wasn’t expecting her call today… but it came. The bosses agreed (as they realised that the legal implication was very grave), so I’ll be back at work tomorrow. Miss Important Person from Company in Tulip Land also said that from now on they’ll have to change their interview tactics and policies… I nearly said ‘Ya think???’

The good thing is that on Tuesday my computer finally arrived (this was of course after I’d had the serious chat)… I’d been schlepping my personal laptop to the office for the past week as Mr Computer Dude was off sick.

Oh and Lulu (the spinning wheel) was waiting for me on Tuesday evening. I’ve put her together, but her drive band was way too small (it wouldn’t even fit over the wheel, let alone the wheel and the bobin) so I had to order a new one. The bobbins are twice the size of the bobbins for Joy… I can’t wait to try and fill them hehehe. As soon as there’s some sun I’ll make pics of Lulu and Joy… but right now there’s another storm/rain front coming through and it will stay here until after the weekend.

This is soooo funny… and I’m not even a mom… but I do remember my mom saying all those things to me

An update about ‘the job’ will follow later today… no it is not what you expected, nor what I expected… I’m not employed, but I’m not unemployed either… yeah, I’m still trying to figure that one out too.

Look what made the ‘odd news’ on Yahoo: Tree cozy.