Needle-less Suffering

I'm almost done my week on call, and was able to leave work by 4PM today. As I drove home, I was relishing the time that I'll have off in the next 3 weeks. I'm going to be heading back to BC next Sunday, but this week I will have much knitting time. I had intended to start working on my Sockapalooza socks when I finished the May Flowers Socks. But I decided today that I'd try to be like Turtlegirl or Trillian42 and try to knit a tank top in time for Saturday's TTC Knitalong. I thought that I should have time to swatch and cast on for a Soleil Tank out of the Earth Day bamboo yarn using my Denise needles. When I got back to the rental house, I went to dig through the suitcases to look for the Denise needles. No Denise needles. When I was packing to come back here at the beginning of May, I initially started to gather together a bunch of knitting stuff including various sizes of needles, but then decided against bringing ALL of it because I'd be coming back to BC for 12 days in June. So I brought some of it. And apparently the Denise needles got left behind. I hate having my stuff in 2 separate houses!!! So I thought that I would get started on the Sockapalooza socks after all. I plan to knit a pair of toe up socks with a beaded cuff. This is sock yarn that I won as a door prize on the Sea Socks cruise, and I picked up the beads some time last year from a small bead store that is just a few km away from the rental house. Initially I thought that I would string some of the beads on the yarn so that I could test out the pattern, but these are size 8/0 beads, and although they would probably fit on the single strand of yarn, I couldn't thread them with the beading needle over the doubled up yarn. So I thought that I might as well get started on swatching them. I have a 3mm Addi natura needle that I would have SWORN I brought along with me. If I did, I have no clue where I packed it, because I couldn't find it. So instead, I am swatching with 2.75 mm DPNs. The yarn is Panda Cotton, which has elastic in it, so I thought that I should get a rough idea of what the size will be like. Now, some of you may remember that I developed a full fledged hate-on for DPNS while knitting the May Flowers Socks. But that was partially because the tips weren't sharp enough to deal with a the wildflower stitch. This time, the DPNs aren't the problem. It's the yarn: These plies are so loose that their phone number is written on the wall in the men's bathroom. Argh! Luckily my Sockapalooza pal has small feet. And it's summer, so a short cuff might be entirely acceptable. And the only other thing I have to work on ( other than the Poppy sweater, and no way am I picking that up in this weather) is the dishtowel. I wonder if Knitpicks does overnight shipping... Today's cute cat photo: The cats sleep in the basement, because otherwise Somerset will sit at the bedroom door and meow starting at 4:30 AM. Their food dish and a water dish are in the basement downstairs, but this morning when I opened the door to the basement, they both made a beeline for the kitchen water bowl. They looked like 2 piggies at a food trough.