So, Saturday I had a few friends over for dinner. It was Halloween, after all, and I'm not allowed to go to Halloween parties, so I have to make my own.

Well, I did the grocery shopping, and the laundry, cooked, mopped the floor for the first time since June... I was fine, until I got up to serve the second course. I barely made it out of my chair-- near-complete collapse.

Sunday, I mostly rested up. Some friends called in the afternoon about dinner-- I told them I had a couple of extra steaks I didn't know what to do with. They volunteered to help eat them. Easiest dinner party I've ever thrown-- I really did have two extra steaks handy. Since the house was already clean from the previous night, putting dinner together was easy-peasy.

I haven't worked any further on the second grey sock. I started knitting an octopus, which has been monopolizing my mind and fingers for the last few days. I'm doing it as an oversized slouch hat. The crown is in diaper stitch, which, to my eyes, suitably approximates the corrugated texture of the octopuses I see one display in the various aquaria I frequent. Yes, octopuses can change their texture at will, but I find that the ones on display, when I'm looking, are usually corrugated. The Giant Pacific Octopus, which is the species usually on display in aquaria on the West Coast, is red or grey when I'm watching-- I don't know whether it displays other colors when I'm not. I'm using Aran-weight 100% wool in bright, primary red. I would have preferred a more subtle, variegated red, but I don't want to waste my discontinued batch of variegated red hand-dyed alpaca on a novelty item.

And the plain stocking hats I promised to write further about are the farthest things from my mind.