Megpie Knits (and writes, too)

World traveler... NOT!

2012-01-13T22:39:00.000-08:00

Dumbest thing I've done in a very, very, VERY long time...

Get up early and hit the road about 9:00 AM last Sunday. Made good time down I-5, the 405 and the 710 to Long Beach and checked into the Queen Mary around 3:30 PM.

Took an audio tour of the ship/hotel, imagining what it might have been like to cruise on something like that. Had a few drinks in one of the bars, then moved into the dining room for a quiet dinner. Back in the room, admiring the tons of wood in the stateroom, sat down and began knitting, while KW read his book.

Around 8:45 PM, as I was mentally walking through the next day's cruise check-in activities, I suddenly went cold and ashen, and frantically started tearing through my purse and luggage. Nope, no such luck - I had left my passport home.

Home. 345 miles and 6 hours away. Or, because we'd have to drive up and then back down again, 690 miles and 12 hours away. Boarding for the cruise starts at 12:30 PM; we can't check in any later than 3:30 PM. It's now almost 9:00 PM, we're tired from the drive down earlier in the day, and had already started that part of the evening when you allow yourself to wind down and relax after the day. Crap. What a stupidhead. Idiot. Stooopid. Asshole. Jerk.

I called Carnival Cruise lines to see if I could still get on the ship with either my driver's license or my military ID. Again, no such luck. Even as I was talking with her, I was remembering that they changed the rules around 2 years ago - you need a passport to travel into and out of both Mexico and Canada. Fucking stupidhead idiot who calls herself a "traveler."

Into the car we go, on the road by 9:02 PM. It's dark. We're on I-5 with large trucks and fast cars. KW and I swapped off, with him taking the L.A. portion and my taking the bulk of the I-5 and 152 portions. We'd nap (or try to) when we weren't driving. Made it home by 2:30 or so AM, got the passport, and after a stretch and potty stop and a gasoline fill-up, were back in the car and on the road by 3:00 AM. Another swap or two along the way, with truckers to keep us company, and we hit the 405 around 8:00 AM, whereupon it took us around and hour-and-a-half to make it the last 35 miles or so to the Queen Mary.

We staggered into the room 9:30 AM, set our alarms for 11:00 AM, and put heads to pillow a bit before 10:00, ready to get about an hour's worth of 'sleep.' We made it to the cruise check-in by 1:00 and managed to stay awake and alert until 8:00 PM or so, until we both hit a wall head-on. Crashed, we were asleep by 8:30 PM.

I'll post my "Things I Learned While Driving I-5 Three Times in 24 Hours" in the future. In the meantime, I'm still looking for other names to call myself for being such an idiot, but I seem to come back to 'stupidhead.'

How'd it get to be the end of December already?

2011-12-28T11:46:00.001-08:00

Another year gone whoooooooshing by. How does that happen?

We have been complaining about how crappy this year has been (my dad in and out of the hospital since April, KW's mom passing in September, MM's dad, CG's stepmom), but in reality, we have no problems.

Despite KW's contracts coming through very sporadically this year, we have a lovely house that we can still afford to pay for every month.
Within the parameters of normal aches and pains for our respective ages, we're in good health.
We have happy and healthy friends and family members who love us.

I see the 'spirit bell' in my closet and I think of JB, who once lived down the block from me. She now lives across the country, but I hold her close in my heart.

I find myself judging someone and think of MM, who has always found a way to appreciate and embrace everyone, finding acceptance of them somewhere in her great heart.

I find myself whining about KW's contracts being very thin this year and I think about CS, another one with a huge heart, as she works at her multiple jobs to stay afloat.

If I somehow manage to be in a weird head space and start to believe I'm lonely, I think of my knitting friends 'up north' and here in town. These are the friends who both challenge my brain and keep me calm. I can't always pinpoint what it is about them, separately and collectively, that has this effect, but I know that I am definitely out of sorts if I miss seeing them each week.

I am thankful for *all* the friends, blood friends and chosen friends, in our lives, in particular those who smack me upside the head when I'm complaining about something trivial. Mostly I'm thankful for finding KW. I can't even fathom what my life would be like had we not met.

After a 'beat the crap out of 2011' New Year's Eve party, we've decided that 2012 will be better. It simply has to be, so let's see what it brings.

Pictures and Videos of KW's Big Adventure

2011-12-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

I like this shot because it looks like KW is doing construction work at the Wynn or the Trump!

Pushing dirt.

Pushing dirt with Reuben's help.

The big hole KW made!

Vegas Aftermath

2011-12-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

I'll get around to posting the pictures and videos of Kelly at DigThis! in Las Vegas, but for now, let's just say that I have three more favorite slot machines - Lord of the Rings, The Hangover, and Godzilla. (Emphasis on "for now," since the next time I go, these will probably seem hopelessly dated or won't even be there any more. It is Vegas, after all.)

The Hangover machine is just like the Sex and the City machine, but with clips from "The Hangover" instead of "SATC." (Duh.) That one provided my first big win this trip, Monday night, around $50 or so.

KW and I found Lord of the Rings at the Mirage, which we almost didn't go into this trip, except the weather had turned fairly cool and we decided to duck inside to get warm. (You don't often hear us say that in Vegas, now do you?) Sat down at some other similar machine which did squat, so moved one seat to the left, which happened to hit a bonus game after only 2 or 3 spins. The game I got to play was "Arwen's Rescue." All this meant was that after I hit the button to start the bonus game, I sat back and watched the wheels spin and the credits pile up. Walked away with about $85 from that one (KW hit 2 different bonus games and came away with about $40 more).

Godzilla was Wednesday morning's bit of fun. I had played it Monday night and after 5 or 6 spins it had done nothing, so I walked away. Yesterday morning, though, I had turned a $36 coupon (a leftover one I had found when cleaning out my purse the night before) into around $55 on Sex and the City, and was on my way to the ticket redemption kiosk when I saw the Godzilla machine right next door. What the heck; I was already up a few bucks, why not see if it would do anything this morning.

Why, yes, it DID do anything! After 2 spins, I hit a bonus game. (The link to the previous Godzilla reference has a video clip that shows what I'm about to explain.) The first part was to direct Godzilla through a city. You aimed him in a direction, when he went that way, he stomped over a couple of buildings and you got a certain number of credits. So I had him stomp forward, forward, left, forward, and on the next stomp forward, instead of a bunch of credits, it said "extra bonus game initiated." Wheee! This is where the fun started. I got to pick a blob on the screen, which said my extra bonus game would be "Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla" - a mechanical romping, stomping, city-flattening machine. I sat and watched as two screens spun (the left one for Godzilla, the right one for Mechagodzilla), each one racking up credits. The game would be over when one had beaten the other. Every few spins, one side or the other would have a symbol that said "attack" and that side would breathe fire towards the other side, gradually wearing down the life meter of the other. It was cool, especially since it took at least 7 or 8 attacks to finally have Godzilla beat Mechagodzilla - at which point, it gave me a chance to pick a bonus orb...and the one I picked was for $70! Walked away with $199 in bonus winnings. Yay, me!

Oh, and we had a chance to meet up with my brother. Had dinner with him both Monday and Tuesday nights, which was a surprise since we originally thought he'd only be free Monday. Looking good, looking and sounding just like my dad, in a very scary - eeeeeerie - way.

Waffle Aftermath

2011-11-26T17:09:00.000-08:00

So after my mother-in-law passed away, one of the things I got from the house was her Belgian waffle maker. This is the real, original deal, folks! It's from 1965 or so, makes ONE small waffle at a time, has no heat control, no timer, and no on/off switch! Plug it in, it's turned on. Unplug it, it's turned off!

Those controls (or lack of them) sort of make it difficult to make a successful waffle. The first time I attempted it, I was using a malted waffle batter (Golden Something brand, the same brand that Marriott uses for their Residence Inn and Courtyard Hotel breakfasts). That attempt came out really really dense - tasty, but very chewy - and the waffles were cooked properly and didn't stick to the waffler.

Today I used Bisquick, following the waffle recipe, and, boy, they were very tasty. However, even though I sprayed the waffler (like I had done the first attempt) and there was more oil in the batter, today's batch cooked up too brown and stuck to the waffler.

Luckily, we're not too picky about our waffles and ate them with gusto, slightly crunchy edges and all.

(When I poured the batter for the first one today, I used too much batter and it sort of exploded all over the kitchen... I'm so happy that we have a "I cook, you clean" policy in our kitchen!)

2011-11-25T14:14:00.001-08:00

Made it back home & will be here for 3 days - then off to Vegas to spend a little time with my brother. Oh, & there will be gambling. Yes, indeed!

"Apparently not..."

2011-11-21T17:45:00.001-08:00

So, the answer to the question "Are you ever going to stay put?" is, once again, "Apparently not."

Off to Camarillo this past Saturday so we could visit with KW's dad and get some papers signed for the house that was just sold. Plans were to spend time with him, then toodle around Camarillo/Ventura/Oxnard and look at apartment complexes in preparation for (possibly) moving down there in the not-too-distant future.

That's not what happened.

What happened was a growling/creaking/groaning noise that started to come from The Beast (KW's BMW) when he was turning the car, especially at low speed. We noticed this late Saturday when we first pulled into the real estate agent's parking lot and noticed that about an hour later, it had gotten noisier when we pulled into the parking lot of the ALF where his dad lives.

By the time we had gotten back to the hotel (a real pit, but that's another story), it was obvious that driving it around on Sunday would not be advised and driving it home on Monday was out of the question. So Sunday morning was spent trying to find where we could score some fluid for that model BMW. It seems that his year and model BMW (2001 740iL) is very, um, special. You can't just pop in to Pep Boys and pick up a can of Valvoline generic stuff. Oh no, this is going to require special stuff that's very expensive.

We learned all the above after a few phone calls Sunday morning to said Pep Boys, AutoZone, and O'Reilly, so the next phone call was to a car rental agency at the Oxnard airport (which is an airport in name only, as there are no flights in or out, but that's another story). Oh, and by now, it's raining the first and biggest rain storm in Southern California since the last first-and-biggest. The plan was to drive the rental to the local BMW dealer, which, we assumed would be open even if the service department wasn't. We would leave the car on the dealership's property, put the key in the 'night owl / early bird' box, and have them work on it.

I think we found one of the only car dealerships in California that's closed on Sundays. Not only closed, but all the driveways in were gated off. We couldn't even get the car to where the service department was. And even if we could, KW roamed around and noticed that they didn't have a drop box!

Instead, we managed to find a car repair shop that specialized in German cars (that had an after-hours drop box!), and left his baby in their parking lot with a note letting them know what was going on. The really really bad news about all this? Any other weekend, we could have waited around for them to fix the car and come home Monday evening or even Tuesday. This time, though, no such luck. We had to be back on Monday - HAD to be back - in time for KW to attend a client meeting in Sunnyvale at 2:00 PM.

So after all the phone calls today, the car will be ready by Wednesday, when we will drive the POS rental car (Nissan Versa - don't get one) back down to Camarillo, get the BMW, go back to the rental company and give them their car back, then decide if we want to drive back Wednesday night or stay over Wednesday night and drive home on Thursday - Thanksgiving Day.

Despite all this, we really are thankful, and we don't have any problems in our lives, just minor inconveniences, as evidenced by our next trip - we'll be off to Vegas on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Travel interrupted (for 12 days, anyway)

2011-11-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

We got back from our annual Pismo Beach trip (which was lovely, by the way) on Sunday, November 6, and we're heading down to southern California to visit KW's dad on Saturday, November 19. Those 12 days between the 6th and the 19th represent the longest stretch we've been home since... well, it's been a while. This past weekend was the first weekend we've been home where we didn't have to travel or where we didn't have work to catch up on or work-ahead for.

It was glorious.

We slept in. I walked. We listened to the radio. I knit. I cooked. We watched one of the Oceans movie (can't remember which one; it doesn't really matter, does it?). We were supposed to go out to dinner with friends on Saturday, but one of them got sick and had to cancel. I hate to say it, but we didn't mind - it meant we could slug around all day and not worry about being 'on' for anyone. We know C. will recover and we'll have dinner with him and M. another weekend. For this weekend, it was okay they had to cancel.

This coming weekend will be a quick turnaround for us. Early drive on Saturday to meet the real estate agent (KW's parents' house sold!), visit with dad, poke around some neighborhoods down there, then a very early start home on Monday morning so KW can go to a client meeting at 2:00 in the afternoon. That means we'll have to be on the road by around 6:00, maybe 7:00 at the latest. After I nap, I'll be able to knit for the rest of the ride. But after I nap. Definitely after.

Is everyone sure they don't want a nice teak wine rack? Roll-top desk? Long dining room table? Well, I got rid of my knitting machine; I'm sure I'll get rid of these things before we move, too.

Not This Year

2011-10-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

No, not going to do NaNoWriMo this year. Did it for 6 years (2005-2010) but am just not into it this year. In previous years, when my mouth was saying "no" in October, my brain would be saying "yes" by having Betha (my main character) pop into my head and tell me what she would like to be doing. Not this year; she's been oh-so-silent. It's just another sign that I am totally done with this year - when Betha doesn't speak to me, it's time to move along. Maybe next year.

Done, done, done

2011-10-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Dad's girlfriend, Ann, went to Biloxi on a gambling junket this past week, a bus trip she took with her friend, June. Her souvenir of Biloxi? A pacemaker. Passed out in a casino, needed a pacemaker, had one put in. She's okay; coming home tomorrow (flying) instead of yesterday (15-hour bus ride).

I've said it before, I'll say it again - stick a fork in this year, it's done.

She's here! ...aaaaand she's gone...

2011-10-18T17:46:00.001-07:00

At the beginning of the year, we had decided that we would not do as much travel as we did last year. HA!

January - Meg went to Vegas with Kei; we both took a day trip to Chico to pick up some files from Kelly's divorce.
February - Kelly off to Ottawa (work); Meg to Santa Clara for a "sleep-over" Stitches West; an Oxnard weekend trip.
March - Spring training in Arizona; DRJ conference in Orlando (work).
April - Kelly to Memphis (work); Kelly back to Ottawa (work).
May - Kelly back to Ottawa again (work).
June - Oxnard weekend trip.
July - Sacramento for the Model Railroader's Convention; planned trip to Vegas postponed so I could fly to Florida after dad's 3rd or 4th hospitalization; train trip to Portland for Sock Summit.
August - We actually stayed home the whole month!
September - Oxnard weekend trip; DRJ conference in San Diego; back to Oxnard following Kelly's mom's death; overnight in Novato (wine train weekend); Healdsburg weekend trip.
October - Back to Oxnard to help Kelly's dad get situated in an assisted living facility and get their house ready for sale; I'll be going back to Florida to spend a week there after my dad's other 2 or 3 hospitalizations.

And we're not even done yet; we still have our Pismo weekend and the postponed trip to Vegas, both coming up in November.

I wonder how much travel we would have done if we *hadn't* decided not to do it too much? I'm not even going to try to say anything about 2012, especially since we already have a cruise on the books for February and a weekend in Healdsburg for a Wine Road event...

Enough is Enough

2011-10-08T00:33:00.000-07:00

We have decided that we're done with 2011 and are very close to declaring it over. We'll have a "goodbye and good riddance" party to kick its sorry ass out the door.

Dad's back in the hospital again. More ventricular stuff going on, and oh by the way, he probably has pneumonia as well. He's being pumped full of antibiotics since early this morning, and as of late this afternoon, they're giving him a new IV medication to control the ventricle. (I don't know the exact term for what's happening.)

Too many bad things this year, so we're done with it. I'm going to start writing '2012' on my checks.

2011-09-13T16:44:00.001-07:00

RIP Betty Williams, you were a remarkable woman. No mother-in-law jokes here; I was proud to be your daughter-in-law.

Petty, Trivial, Inconsequential

2011-09-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

My birthday is September 11. For 44 years, that was a wondrous day, a magical day, a day I looked forward to each year (yes, even after I had passed 30 and 40). Now, and I know this is incredibly petty, I am angry that joy at my birthday celebration was taken away from me. I know it was awful for the New Yorkers and Washingtonians and Pennsylvanians who saw it unfold in person, and it's truly awful that so many thousands of people died, and it was scary for those of us who were even once- or twice-removed from the events (waiting for hours to finally hear that my brother and Mary were okay)... But my lasting memory of watching the news that morning was "my birthday will forever be ruined." Since 2001, every 9/11 I wake up, not thinking "oh boy, it's my birthday" like I used to, but "I hope they haven't done anything again."

This year, despite Bin Laden's death (or maybe because of it) , I am dreading even more turning on the news, for multiple reasons. One, 'they' may choose to do something again on the anniversary, something bigger, worse. And two, the news outlets are already going whole hog with memorials and remembrances. I know the people should be remembered and we should be thankful for the rescue workers who got the survivors out and we should never forget... but it's too soon for me to watch or listen to any of that. I don't know if I'll ever be ready - I still can't watch the Kennedy assassination film without crying, and I was 6 or 7 when that happened.

So, I'm left with feeling this feeling that I know is petty, trivial, inconsequential - that my birthday has been taken away from me. I know I should be bigger than that, better than that, light candles, say prayers, do something positive... but all I really want to do on September 11 is to stay in bed, and that makes me both sad and mad.

Enough? Not Hardly

2011-08-27T19:04:00.001-07:00

This hangy-thing (which was designed to store shoes) holds enough sock yarn to make 36 pairs of socks. And that's only my non-Socks That Rock stash - the STR stash is in another 2 buckets and there's - hmmm - about 10 pairs-worth in them. Sock yarn is lovely and luscious and pretty and squishy and holds so much potential. I lurves me some sock yarn.

I think I should get another hangy-thingy for the other door in the room. Maybe that one could hold... mmm... lace-weight yarn? My alpaca yarn collection? Notions and knick-knacks? I got it - it could hold more sock yarn!

Irene, Hurricanes and Others

2011-08-27T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene, my aunt Irene - both, forces of nature. Strong, gusty, a little wet at times; definitely something to be reckoned with. Key message: Don't ignore me.

I still miss her a lot, still catch myself thinking I need to call her or send her an email to tell her about something, even though the other side of my brain knows there's no one at that number or email address any more. As with mom, I know that time will eventually help that sensation fade away. Until then, those thoughts still surprise me when they crop up.

I now find myself thinking/wondering when the phone call from Ann will be the one where she says, "He didn't make it this time." It seems like every time we start breathing normally after the most recent hospitalization, thinking/hoping that will be it for a while, he goes back in, sometimes for the same thing, sometimes for something new. In the end, he's doing well, considering he got the raw end of bad heart genes. (And by "bad heart," I only mean the machine part of it; his true heart is the biggest and sweetest one I know.)

As for Hurricane Irene, don't ignore her. Take precautions, my friends and family; take precautions.

This is What Happens....

2011-08-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

...when you're not really a farmer.

The difference between big, plump, juicy blackberries and small, dried-out, vinegary blackberries is apparently about 4 days.

The apple is one that jumped to its death sometime between yesterday and today, possibly assisted by a bird (or two) pecking at it. Of the four remaining apples, one has also been pecked and eaten already, leaving three to possibly attain adulthood.

Bummer.

On the plus side, it was a lovely day to enjoy the sunshine. I'm still not sure I like the totally bald look, but I like the rest of it!

Why I Don't Write Much

2011-08-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

If you're gonna write, it's best to write about something compelling. If you can't write about something compelling, try to write something compelling about something else, even if the something else is nothing much. The best, though, is to write compellingly about something compelling. Writing compellingly about mundane things can work; writing mundanely about compelling things can even work. I, on the other hand, manage to write mundanely about mundane things. Not the best combo of the bunch.

D'oh

2011-08-08T11:37:00.001-07:00

This:

(Becoming Art, Eos Fingering)

Was supposed to be this:

(Becoming art, Cielo Sport).

I was so excited to find the right colorway (Sunlit Amber) at Lisa's Becoming Art booth at Sock Summit, I grabbed the skein and didn't pay a lot of attention to the yarn base. Duh. The Oak Grove fingerless gloves call for the Cielo Sport base, I had picked up a fingering base. Right color, wrong yarn. D'oh!

Because she is lovely, when I emailed Lisa about my mix-up, she said all I'd need to do is send her back the Eos Fingering and she'll send me the Cielo Sport once she's dyed it.

Gotta love those kinds of indie dyers!

(Oh yes; yarn fumes indeed!!)

Pretty Pictures

2011-08-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

And now, for my non-Ravelry friends (hi, Judie!) - and even for those on Ravelry - here are some pretty pictures! This is my Sock Summit 2011 haul... Everything's so purty!

Dream in Color "Stardust," one of their experimentals. Color - Redwood. (My purchase.)

Dream in Color "Stardust," one of their experimentals. Color - Open Flame. (Purchased as gift for someone.)

Pico Accuardi Dyeworks "Francino." Color - Nude. (Gift from Lynn; thank you!) The color was dyed just for SS11.

Out of Step Dyeworks "MCN Self-Striping Sock." Color - Screaming Ultraviolet Brain. (My purchase.) Yeah, I couldn't resist and cast on. Pretty awesome striping, huh?

Ms. Gusset "Sock Yarn." No colorway. (My purchase.) I got this one because Clara Parkes said it was the only yarn that was completely from Australia; it's not sent out to China for any processing.

Miss Babs "Yummy." Color - My Kelley. (My purchase.) Come on, people; I had to! The last Miss Babs color I succumbed to was called Pookie and was in shades of greeny-brown camouflage. It screamed Kelly, so this one actually being called Kelly (even with the different spelling), well, I simply couldn't -not- get it.

Indigodragonfly "Merino Sock." Color - I've Been Slimed! (Another gift from Lynn; thank you again!) These guys have the greatest names for their yarns. "You Got Peanut Butter on my Trout!" "2 Minutes for Sarcasm." "Don't Wear This on Star Trek." Truly great names.

Hazel Knits "Piquant Lite." Color - Carnelian. (Gift from Roberta; thank you!)

Hazel Knits "Artisan Sock." Color - Sanguine Peach. (Another gift from Roberta; thank you again!)

Fiber Optic Yarns "Foot Notes." Color - Gypsy. (Gift from Dorien; thank you!) The colors these guys get in their yarns is amazing. Everything was super-saturated and drenched in color. Gorgeous.

Crown Mountain Farms "Sock Hop." Color - Happy Together. (My purchase.)

Sanguine Gryphon "Bugga!" Color - Red-White Leaf Beetle. (My purchase - my first Bugga!)

Becoming Art "Eos Fingering." Color - Sunlit Amber. (My purchase.) Yarn from the Oak Grove fingerless glove pattern that I got at Stitches this year. My mistake when getting the pattern was thinking that I had a yarn that would be right for the pattern. After months of looking for something appropriate, I figured out that it really needed the yarn that the pattern was knit from. Yeah, sometimes I'm slow, but I'm cute!

And last but not least, another pair of glass needles from Sheila and Michael Ernst. Size US#6 with a 29" cord. (My purchase.)

Random Sock Summit 2011 Thoughts

2011-08-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

Traveling by train is a different sort of temporal shift than traveling by plane. If you've taken a long-distance flight, you're usually dealing with time zones and gain or lose days/hours, which is odd, true. But traveling 19 hours by train and arriving the next day without having to adjust your watch is almost freaky. Freaky, but fun. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

When all was said and done, I came home with 13 new yarns. To be fair to me, though, because everyone knows I don't need more yarn, I only purchased 8 of them - five were lovely gifts from my posse to thank me for getting our hotel room from loyalty points. So that would be only 2 yarns a day. I think that's reasonable. :-)

I can't say enough about how awesome it is to be in the midst of so many knitting rock stars. To be able to take a class from Chrissy Gardiner, or to have Lucy Neatby or Janel Laidman comment on how cool our hats were, or to seek out Cat Bordhi and ask a specific question about her Sweet Tomato short-row heel technique... well, that's just priceless.

All my classes were great, even those where I didn't think I learned a whole lot. For the Bosnian toes class, I learned that it's just a garter-stitch toe; nothing more, nothing less. But the instructor showed us different ways it could be customized and enhanced that I hadn't thought about before. Swing By Your Heels was a cool technique I had read about, but never was able to put to practical use, nor was I able to imagine the variations it would allow. Even Clara Parkes class (Tips and Tricks for Stretch and Strength) was basically the same class I took at SS09, but I picked up a few more tips this time.

I'm sure there are more SS11 musings, but those were the ones that came to mind right now.

Weird Things I Did on Vacation

2011-08-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

Watched a sock form from what was once a sheep: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2011/07/portland_sock_summit_race_from.html
Wore a silly hat:

Bought (and was given) some luscious yarn:

Learned a bunch of new things (1 new toe-up cast on, 2 new heels, and a bunch of little tips to make my knitting easier/faster/funner). (Sorry; hard to photograph ejumacation.)

Sat on a train for 38 hours (19 hours each way, SJC to PDX and back): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI8Jp5kPxWs

Hung with my buds, who were also wearing silly hats:

Danced in public with about 600 other people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOUL_S6tVr8

Late-July Update

2011-07-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Just got back (Sunday) from a week visiting dad. He went into the hospital on July 9; tests showed that he had had another heart attack. They did a catheterization on Wednesday or Thursday, and found two blockages, which they fixed with two stents. After monitoring his blood pressure (he had dipped down to 70-something while he was in the hospital), he was sent home on Friday afternoon, July 15. (Well, actually when he was released, he went home with Ann, his girlfriend.)

I flew in on the 16th, my dear friend Chris picked me up at the airport and took us right to Ann's house. Dad was still tired and a little wobbly on his feet, but had a good pink color to his face. We chatted for a while, then Chris and I went out to dinner; afterwards, I checked into a nearby motel. (I was staying at a motel instead of at his place because I had work to do on Monday and he has no internet connection at his home!)

I picked him up at Ann's on Tuesday morning and then spent the week with him at his place. He was gradually making progress, and we'd take slightly longer and longer walks (and by "slightly longer" I mean going up and down three aisles at Publix instead of just one or two). His tummy is unsettled, probably from changing around all his meds again, but the good news is that the doctor cut his blood pressure medication in half, as well as his cholesterol medication. Maybe lowering the BP med will help with some of his tiredness.

It was hard to leave him on Sunday. Especially with his most recent heart incidents (four of them since the end of April), it's easy for me to wonder if each time I see him will be the last. But, his spirits are good, he's talking about where he and Ann will go on their next cruise, so I take my cue from him - keep moving on.

(As for the other things that happened while I was in Florida: His tires needed replacing, his car needed a coil replaced, his dishwasher doesn't clean the dishes very well anymore [it's from 1987!], his living room rug has gotten to the embarrassing point and needs to be replaced, and as we were walking out the door to go to the airport the washing machine was flooding the laundry room. "Don't worry about it, there's nothing we can do now anyway. Let's go," he said, so we did.)

(By the way, if you live anywhere near New Port Richey in Florida, take your car to the Goodyear shop on highway 19 across from Publix. Talk to Mary Ostrowski and tell her I sent you. These people are the BEST. They took care of Kelly and me when we brought in Aunt Irene's Corolla and they took care of me this past week when I had the car in and out (for the tires) and in and out again (for the coil). They even threw in an oil change, gratis.)

Today (Tuesday), I'm leaving to take a train to Portland (Oregon) to attend Sock Summit 2011. I attended Sock Summit 2009 and it was like Woodstock for sock knitters; we had a blast. This year's event promises to be just as much fun, maybe more, and now I need to go pack. The clothes are already laid out, the real question is what knitting to bring. That always stymies me on a trip. I better get to it!

Model Railroaders, Bad Golf, and Bad Hearts

2011-07-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a lovely time at the model railroaders' convention last week. Kelly and I both sat in on some interesting classes, plus he took a few extra hands-on workshops, while I knitted my way around the convention center. We checked out of the Sacramento hotel Thursday morning and headed to the Jelly Belly factory, but it was crazy crowded, so we skipped that and checked in to the hotel at Travis Air Force Base.

We golfed at their course, Cypress Lakes, and had our butts totally whipped. Neither of us could hit a tee shot that cleared the girls' tees and we spent more time looking for our wayward balls than making decent shots (we each lost about 5 balls, too). My new clubs were like foreign objects in my hands; Kelly's tried-and-true clubs were acting like his enemies.

We checked out of Travis Friday morning and went back to the Jelly Belly factory. A little less crowded, so we did the tour and then came home. I came back with a sore throat but thought it was just from bouncing from 100-degree heat into the A/C. Turns out it's a lovely summer cold and now I feel like crap. Been chewing down Musinex since yesterday. It's the only thing that's keeping me from hacking up a lung.

Around midnight Friday, Ray calls to let me know dad's back in the hospital. (Luckily, Ray was there visiting.) So between the time he called and Saturday afternoon, they moved dad from the ER to the intensive care unit to the cardiac care unit. Turns out he had had another congestive heart failure episode. I had been planning to go see him in August, but will now be leaving next Saturday and stay for a week. We've cancelled the Las Vegas trip. We'll go another time; I'm sure it will be there for a little while longer. Then when I come back, I'm only home for a couple of days before heading up to Portland for Sock Summit.

Don't know what's going on with dad; this has been the 4th time since the end of April that he's wound up in the hospital. I'm pretty stressed out right now.

They're Heeeeere!

2011-06-23T17:52:00.001-07:00

Pretty!

I'm Such A Very Bad Girl

2011-06-21T14:42:00.001-07:00

*sigh* Not one week after finding a great deal ($50!!) at Big5 on a club set (Tour Craft Aeros, driver, 3-wood, 6-hybrid, and couple of irons and a new bag), I found a *real* nice set at Golfsmith. Full set of 14 clubs (Adams A70S), including a putter, and a cart bag. No, this set wasn't $50, but I did find a $100-off coupon and they were on sale besides. I had admired them last week and though I walked away from them then, they stayed on my mind. I went online and found the coupon, then put them in - took them out - put them in - took them out - of my shopping cart.

As we were playing the Seabee golf course over the weekend (at Port Hueneme in southern California), I was finally getting the hang of the oversized driver and the hybrid and was hitting them fairly well. When we got back home yesterday afternoon, though, the other set was again on my mind, so we trekked back up to San Jose so I could try out the Adams.

My first shot with the driver was a real klonk, but six or seven in a row after that I hit it really well and it felt good. The hybrid I grabbed, I hit dead center from the first shot. I also took a 7-iron, since the style was different than my current clubs, and again, I hit all the shots well.

They're due to ship Thursday... Who wants the old-new clubs? :-)

Random Bits

2011-06-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

R.B. #1 - My dad's defibrillator went off last Monday. Literally knocked him on his ass; out cold for about 30 seconds or so. Got the doctor, they got a read-out from the gizmo, now he's fine. The unit is designed to defib when he has 10 'episodes' (of ventricular mis-firings) in a short period of time, and that's what the read-out said. ...8, 9, boom. He's slowly getting back to usual, but word on the street is that this can really drain you. He's on some new meds that aren't helping; they're making him even more tired, so he'll go see the doc about that. When I spoke to him yesterday, he was tired, but he's back home again (after staying at his girlfriend's for about a week). Ray is planning to go visit the week after the 4th of July; I'm not planning to go back until March (DRJ conference), but I'm keeping my options open.

R.B. #2 - Sweetie and I are trying to get back into the swing of golf again. (That was a pun. Get it?) We played in October of 2009 when we went to Pismo Beach and then didn't play again until a few weeks ago. Surprisingly, I didn't hurt myself and actually hit a few good shots. We've been heading to the driving range when we have some time and he's taking a few lessons from a local pro. Me, I'm just going to keep on keeping on and hope I don't hit someone with a mis-struck ball.

R.B. #3 - In association with R.U. #2, we went to a local course Tuesday that just kicked our damn asses up one fairway and down another. We thought it was a small, 9-hole course. How big could it be for $10? Holy guacamole. Long yardages, hills, 92 degrees, little or no shade (and we forgot water and sunscreen). What the hell were we thinking?? It may be a while before we return...

R.B. #4 - Heading down to Oxnard this weekend to visit the hubby's parentals. It happens to be Father's Day, but that's just coincidence. What do you get a 92-year-old man for Father's Day?

R.B. #5 - I gave my dad money for a house-cleaning service. That, and a card that said "put your finger here and pull it yourself." He's a great dad. Wonder what I'll be getting him when *he's* 92...

R.B. #6 - Bargain found! A set of clubs and a golf bag for $50! An odd set, to be sure: pitching wedge, 8 iron, 6 iron, 5 iron, hybrid (looks like a 2-ish wood), 3 wood and driver. Clubs have gotten huge; my old driver from nineteen-ninety-mumblemumble is smaller than the new 3 wood. The driver is enormous, around 5" at its widest. I will definitely need to practice hitting with it.

5 Years? Holy Cow...

2011-06-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeed; yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary. It's definitely one of those time-warping things, where we vacilate between "it feels like we've been together forever," and "the years have gone by in a flash." Although, we have known each other 'forever' (since 1994, but we didn't become a couple for many years), so that "we've been together" sentiment makes sense.

Regardless of what kind of time span it feels like, I do know one thing - I love this man, truly, madly, deeply.

In 2006, we had what we call an "ambush wedding." No, neither Kelly nor I was the one being ambushed; we ambushed our guests. We had gotten formally engaged on May 13, so we told friends we were having an engagement celebration dinner at Parcel 104, the restaurant at the Santa Clara Marriott. (It's a phenomenal restaurant; if you have the chance, go.) . After some appetizers and a few drinks, the minister showed up and, to the everlasting surprise of all the guests (all 10 of them), married us!

For our 5th anniversary, we decided to have a dinner party at "the scene of the crime." While Kelly's brother and sister-in-law couldn't join us this time, we were lucky enough to round up 5 of the original 10 guests, plus 2 who were supposed to have been there in 2006, plus 2 more wonderful people (who themselves had recently gotten engaged!). What Kelly didn't know is that I had gotten in touch with the minister who had married us, and had signed her up to perform a vow renewal ceremony.

Oh yes, he was very surprised, and we took about 5 minutes to laugh our way through the ceremony, which included references to "The Princess Bride" ("Mawwage... is wot bwings us togethew today...") and "Star Trek" (the Vulcan "live long and prosper" greeting). It was a hoot.

Unfortunately, the camera I gave MM to take photos with insisted that it didn't need a flash, so almost all the shots during the actual renewal part came out blurry and/or dark. The pictures here are some of the better shots before and after the funny bit.

We had a grand time. We are so blessed and lucky to have found each other.

I was tickled to find that the florist was able to make an arrangement that looks almost exactly like the flowers from 2006!

Smile, everyone!

Now you folks smile! (No, I don't know what Kelly was doing with Kerry's hand!)

Table set-up before the rowdy crowd arrived and made a mess of things.

The happy couple at the end of the night.

Gearing up for Sock Summit 2011

2011-05-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'll be wearing it at Sock Summit, as well as on the train ride up and back. No, I don't care that it is the saddest looking Viking anyone has ever seen. Yes, those are socks for horns and socks at the ends of the 'braids.' No, I don't think it looks silly, I think it looks awesome. (Well, okay, it IS a little silly, but that's part of what makes it awesome, too.)

This One's for Judie

2011-05-22T00:29:00.000-07:00

Hi!
:-)

Little Things that can Make Me Happy

2011-05-08T15:13:00.001-07:00

1. Airplane contrails.

2. Remembering something that's eluded me for hours or days.

3. Seeing my sweetie.

4. Watching baseball (an in-person game makes me a teeny bit happier, but I'm okay with watching on TV).

5. Knitting when it's going well.

6. Knitting even when it's not going to well.

7. Making a dinner that doesn't suck.

8. Seeing clean countertops.

9. Knowing I'm caught up on work with nothing hanging over my head.

10. Seeing our little apples getting slowly bigger every day!

Sock Summit 2011!

2011-05-04T13:28:00.001-07:00

Easy registration this year, got all the classes I was interested in, the system didn't crash. And just like 2009, I'm sure that even if I didn't get into any classes at all, I'd still have a blast.

07/28/2011 11:00 AM
Swing by Your Heels

07/28/2011 1:30 PM
A bag of tricks for stretch and strength

07/29/2011 9:00 AM
It's Hip to be Square - Bosnian Toes

07/30/2011 1:30 PM
Textured Colorwork Socks - Chrissy Gardiner

07/30/2011 7:00 PM
This Is Your Brain on Knitting - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

07/31/2011 1:30 PM
Knit a Mini Turkish Sock - Lynn Hershberger

Bin Laden is Dead

2011-05-01T23:43:00.001-07:00

On the one hand, time to celebrate.

On the other hand, I'm afraid of the retaliation. I was already leery of traveling on 9/11/11 (we have to be in San Diego that weekend and the following week), now I'm really going to be concerned.

But good news, nonetheless.

Uh Oh... The Downside of Gardening

2011-04-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Peach leaf curl! Aaaauuuggghhhh!!!

ChickenKnittle told us that's what the problem is with our peach tree, so today I dutifully removed all of the affected leaves and put them in zip-locks, then threw them in the garbage can, far away from where the trees are.

Unfortunately, our neighbor, the one behind us, the one with nectarines, the one with nectarines that we deliberately planted our peach tree next to... her tree is full of this stuff. I didn't see one leaf that wasn't affected, and it looked to be pretty far along in its progress - all the leaves were curled in on themselves, and they were all pale. It looked pretty gruesome.

Don't know if our tree can be saved if it's in such close proximity to such a diseased one. We may need to do a mid-spring transplant to another location farther away from the nectarine.

Bummer.

The Greening of the Back 40

2011-04-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's been a while, so here are pictures of the Back 40, taken today. Lots of things are bursting out, and DH finished putting up the supports for 2 of the 3 rows of grapes.

Looking down one row of grapes

The view of the Back 40 from the back of the Back 40

The view of the Back 40 from the lemon tree corner

The blood orange bush has a ton of blossoms this year

Three of the 7 grape vines have baby grapes!

The apples are still going strong

Unfortunately, some of the leaves on the peach tree are doing this weird bubbling thing, so I'll have to take a sample to Johnson Garden Center to see if they can diagnose it (or see if ChickenKnittle knows what's wrong - if anything).

We also bought one more grape vine today. We currently have two rows of three vines each, plus one guy off to the side near the cherries, all by himself. We used to have one more row with three more, but two of the three went kaput in the first year or two, so now the one that survived is all by himself. We found another vine today, though, so we'll plant him in one of the previous holes and then put up supports for both of them. I think it looks really neat now, almost like we're serious about growing grapes!

Oh, and the trees!

2011-03-24T00:23:00.001-07:00

Cherry tree bursting from the top!

Apple tree, bursting from the side!

While we were gone, everything exploded!

And the travels begin...

2011-03-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

...although hopefully not quite like last year. First real trip this year? To Scottsdale, Arizona, to watch the 2010 World Series Champions San Francisco Giants at their spring training camp.

Took a morning flight on Friday to Phoenix along with a planeful of other spring training fans (the Phoenix area is home to, oh, I don't know, something like six or seven baseball teams' spring training camps). Got to the car rental building (along with multiple planes-ful of spring training fans) and waited about 45 minutes to get our car. Because they were so busy and, apparently, over-rented, we got an upgrade from an economy car to a compact car, so we drove to the hotel in our Ford Focus. (Let me be nice and just say it's no BMW.)

Checked in, threw the bags in the room, then walked the 2 blocks to Scottsdale Stadium, arriving in the middle of the 4th inning, where the Giants were losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers (who suck, by the way) 2-0. The stadium has really been upgraded since we were there last in 2007. New seats, new paint, new training facilities, new Dugout store - the whole place has been refurbished and looks great. First stop before we even made it to our seats - the kettle-corn man. Best kettle-corn in all the places I've had it. He has the perfect blend of sweet and salty.

Because we booked our trip through the SFGiants Vacations, our seats were fabulous, almost directly behind home plate and - almost better - in the shade for all three games. Lovely. They even installed misters, so when it gets too hot (like it did Friday afternoon), they cool you down.

Best find of the trip? Le Cordon Bleu's student-run Technique restaurant. Normally, they are booked 2 or 3 weeks in advance, but we stumbled in around 8:00 on a Friday evening, and the manager (who's one of the school's teachers) said they could accommodate us at the bar. So we had fabulous food and a floor show - watching the students cook the food while being coached by the chef-teacher. And the food was fabulous. I had a saffron seafood soup with crab, lobster, and mussels, followed by a duck confit with crab, then a spinach salad (with a perfectly poached egg), and for the main course, a lovely salmon that was cooked to medium-rare perfection. Dessert was a poached pear with dollop of caramel ice cream.

Saturday we had the worst breakfast in a long time. Now, I know Denny's isn't gourmet food, but they usually don't screw up breakfast too bad. This one did. Ugh. Just ugh. We left there after only eating half our food and walked again to the stadium, where we watched the Giants beat the Kansas City Royals. We got to see Buster Posey, Cody Ross, and um... someone else hit a home run, and got to see the hotshot Brandon Belt play at first and give the bat a couple of good swings.

After the game, those of us traveling on the Giants Vacation package were treated to a buffet dinner, and were allowed to walk on the field and through the batting cages to one of the practice fields, where we ate at big tables. The cool thing about being on one of these packages, though, is that they get players to come and talk to the crowd. Last time we were on a package, we got to see Bruce Bochy, Dave Roberts, and Brian Wilson. This time, we were right up front to see and hear Cody Ross, Pat Burrell, Pablo Sandoval (Panda!), and Andres Torres. What a trip. They're all gorgeous, and oh boy are they built! Afterwards, they signed autographs; Kelly's cap is full of signatures now! We walked to Trader Vic's where we had some nice Mai Tais, then walked all around downtown Scottsdale (which is a great little town for art and walking).

Cody Ross and Pat Burrell, looking mighty fine.

Pablo Sandoval at the autograph table, blushing because since he's lost almost 40 pounds, everyone keeps calling him "hottie."

(And I did take a picture of Andres Torres, but it didn't come out good at all. It had to be operator error because he's really good looking.)

Sunday we opted for U.S.Egg, a local chain right across the street. Much better choice than Denny's; they had a really good protein waffle, very tasty. We walked to the stadium again, this time to watch the Giants play the Oakland A's. We knew we'd be leaving early because we wanted to take a drive around the area; it was just as well because the Giants were getting a heavy beating (although we learned they had a little come-back towards the end of the game).

We drove to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural school/enclave/gorgeous location overlooking the Arizona desert. His structures (I've heard) can be hard to live in (poor choice of materials, leaks, drafts) and yet beautiful (using the land to its best advantage, lots of windows, lots of fireplaces). It's a lovely setting, but an odd thing... it's not really a 'house' as we mostly know it, it's more like a compound. Some bedrooms over here, the living room over there, the kitchen and dining area back there.

After the Taliesin tour, we took the loooooooong way around the city just to use up some of the pre-paid gasoline we purchased, and ended up at one of the casinos that ring the 101Loop. I forgot how bad the odds are at these casinos and quickly donated my $40 gambling money to the local economy. We ended the night with dinner at Don and Charlie's, a Scottsdale sports-legend landmark. Incredible collection of sports memorabilia all over the place. A sight to behold.

Monday morning we did the protein waffle again then headed to the airport for a leisurely trip home via San Diego.

I really like going to spring training. :-)

Yarn Fumes

2011-02-21T17:16:00.000-08:00

Had to leave the apple buds to do their thing while I was at Stitches West in the Santa Clara Convention Center. Oh dear. I did more damage to my budget this year than I did last year and the year before - combined. Two-and-a-half of the purchases were intended (I'll explain the 'half' later), the rest just jumped into my arms.

Off the top of my head, here's what followed me home:
- 3 skeins Blue Moon Fiber Arts Woobu, in "In the Navy." (Intended.)
- 6 skeins madelinetosh DK, in "Tart." (Intended.)
- 2 skeins Brooks Farm Riata, in a red. (Oops.) (But this one is almost excusable, since I've been coveting this yarn since my first Stitches in 2005.)
- 10 skeins Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, in a copper/beige color. (Oops.)
- 10 skeins Elsebeth Lavold Silk Flamme, in a deep chocolate color. (Oops.)
- 1 skein Dream in Color Experimental Stardust, in "Western Sunset." (Oops.)
- 2 square needle circulars from Kollage. (Intended.)
- 2 glass needles from Michael and Sheila Ernst. (Oops - sort of.)

The glass needles were the 'half.' I had wanted to try the newest Signature Needle Arts circulars and get a pair of those, but SNA wasn't at Stitches this year. So I happened upon Sheila's booth and promptly started to drool over a set of U.S. #7 designer needles. Well, I don't do 7s very often, so I asked about some U.S. #8s with a 16" cord. It turns out, they don't bring very many needles with 16" cords to shows, and she didn't think she had any. Lo and behold, when she looked through her stock, she found a pair, so I got them. It must have been fate.

Later, as I was remembering the yarns I had purchased, I realized that I sure as hell DID knit with size 7 needles, and went back on Sunday to get those. They have a gold-tone spiral down the center of the needle; incredibly beautiful. Yes, I'll post pictures, but it may take a while, and I'm not sure how well that spiral will come out.

There were a few odds and ends - some mini-Stitch Dots, a shawl pin, other small things - but I think that's it for the big yarn purchases. I'll take and post pictures through the week.

The classes were great, too. If my classwork photograph well, I'll post those, too.

Proof!

2011-02-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a teeny bit of documentation to prove that we haven't killed the apple tree (yet).

It's a bit fuzzy, but this is a picture of - gasp! - a bud on one of the branches!

I'm Supposed to be Working...

2011-02-05T18:21:00.001-08:00

...but I'm obviously not.

This year's trees have been planted, and the vineyard has been caned. After digging 6 new holes, DH's poor back can rest a bit.

KW digging the last of the 6 holes (the deepest and widest of the 6, too).

While we don't have acres and acres, we do have a bit more space than a lot of our neighbors do. At first, we thought that was a good thing, and had all sorts of plans for hot tubs and lush landscaping and patios and lounge chairs...

And then we lived here for a year. Fuggedaboutit...

If the blistering summers don't get you, the afternoon sirocco will. 'way too windy to do any relaxing outside. Forget about reading or knitting. In order to truly wind-proof the backyard enough to make it even vaguely comfortable, we'd probably have to sink $10,000 to $15,000 into it. Wind-breaks, arbors, sturdy-enough trellises, mostly-grown trees... you name it.

So, we did what we tend to do - we ignored it for the first 3 or 4 years.

Then last year, we got a wild hare up our butts (and a few extra dollars in our bank account) and decided to put some landscaping in along the right-hand side of our fence. That looks really nice, and so far, we haven't killed any of the plants or trees. We were going to have the same lady do some other landscaping, but DH and I couldn't quite decide on what we wanted, and the next thing you knew, we were into all the busy travel of late last year, and landscaping ideas were (mostly) forgotten.

But now, a new year came (along with some trees that I totally forgot I had ordered back in May or June of last year), and the growing thing started up again. DM was able to get us some heirloom variety trees (2 Coral Champagne cherries, 1 Black Tartarian cherry, 1 Baby Crawford peach), so when we were plotting out those, we thought "Hm... maybe an orange tree, too?" Suddenly, we found ourselves at Westside Nursery in Gilroy with a Valencia orange tree in our cart! As we were heading to check out, we passed a bunch of apple trees that had been espaliered. When I looked closer, I saw that each limb was a different apple - I had to have that! Then we started talking about getting some wisteria or bougainvillea to bring in the bees for pollination.

At the end of today, DH dug 6 holes (3 cherries, 1 orange, 1 peach, 1 apple), and got all of the trees planted, the grapes have been caned (hopefully we didn't kill them), and his wheelbarrow tire has been replaced. (We opted to wait on the bee-bringing bushes.) It all looks pretty scrawny right now (I mean, come on, the 'cherry trees' are just sticks!), but I'm going to try to remember to take progress photos as the weather starts to warm up. Hopefully it will be documentation of trees taking root, not of the slow destruction of some lovely heirloom trees.

Looking over the orange grove towards the vineyard and the cherry orchard. (The grapes are Cabernet, Merlot, zinfandel, and 2 seedless table grapes.)

The peach sticks.

The cherry sticks (2 Coral, 1 Black Tartarian).

The espaliered semi-dwarf apple (Braeburn, Gravenstein, Fuji, Red and Yellow Delicious, and Gala).

The mobile Christmas tree farm (we don't know where they'll go yet).

A Favorite Thing from My Childhood

2011-02-01T01:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's a little baby girl, sleeping, with her butt hanging out of her onesie. Somewhere out in the universe, there's a matching one in blue, a baby boy and my brother's birth info. (I don't know if he still has his.)

I don't know if she was some sort of hospital parting gift or a gift from a friend of relative, but I have always treasured her and have carried her with me for all these years. Once I moved out of my parents' house (when I got married at 18), she's been with me. The only time I didn't have her was about 4 months in late 1981 / early 1982, after I moved to California and had to get myself settled. My mom held her for me until I had a place for her, and she had strict instructions to pack her properly so she would survive the journey.

When we packed up the condo in Sunnyvale to move here, she got put away for safe keeping until we had settled in here... and then I couldn't find her. And I was worried that the movers had lost her and other important stuff in one box.

Lo and behold, DH was doing his new year cleaning and pulled out a plastic bin. "It's got albums and pictures and stuff," he said rather casually, so I didn't rush to go through it. I finally did while I was in the thick of the last cold, and - oh joy! oh rapture! - there she was!

She's a little ragged around the edges (yes, I'm referring to me, too) with some chips and obvious places where either the original glue or replacement glue has discolored. But she's mine - actually, I tend to think of her as 'me.'

Weird, isn't it? You know when people ask questions like "if there was a fire, what would you grab as you ran out"? Besides grabbing DH and some yarn (okay, a lot of yarn), I'd take her. I mean, me.

Glad we're not there anymore

2011-01-31T12:56:00.000-08:00

Have been seeing pictures and hearing news reports about the protests in Egypt, and we are both very happy we visited Alexandria and Cairo when we did (as in, before the protests started).

I checked the Royal Caribbean website to see how they may have altered the itinerary to avoid docking (and visiting) Alexandria, but then remembered that after our cruise, they had a repositioning cruise, and the ship (Brilliance of the Seas) was going to start sailing from Dubai. Which would be cool, but I think we'll wait a bit before we do another overseas trip.

In the meantime, DH has been digging holes - four so far, with at least two more to go. (Three if we get the wisteria to bring in the bees.) He's doing it by hand for two reasons... One, the soil (such as it is) really sucks. It's clay and rocks; probably more rocks than anything else. Power tools quake at the sight of our yard. Two, he likes the exercise, swinging that axe. Sure he's sore for a bit, but in his mind, "no pain, no gain." However he makes the holes is fine by me, as long as he doesn't hurt himself.

So here's what's going in this week: 2 Coral cherries, 1 Black Tartarian cherry, 1 Baby Crawford peach, 1 Valencia orange. We also got grape vine pruning instructions from Jessie at Castillo Winery, so DH will be out there working on those this week, too. We may actually get some fruit this year.

This last (not so good) picture is one Maude Estelle Gorman Potts, my paternal grandfather's sister. Even in this shot (which my cousin Ginger got from Ancestry.com), I can easily see my father and my brother's features. I about fell over; it looks like one of them in drag!

The Vegas Travelogue

2011-01-22T23:46:00.001-08:00

...which I guess I should have posted before I posted about the Megabucks winner, huh?

Went to Vegas last weekend (MLK Day weekend) with KB. Caught a late night flight (8:45) Friday and arrived around 10:00-ish. I love the flights to Vegas; they're loud and boisterous, everyone looking for a Good Time and everything - winning big, getting laid, barfing in the Sigfriend and Roy Garden - is possible. When we retrieved our luggage (yes, we checked our bags - I have no upper body strength and I hate hate hate feeling burdened. Besides, on Southwest, your bags fly free) and got to the taxi stand, the line was 4 switchbacks long! Yes, folks; I believe the economy is well and truly un-tanked.

We cabbed our way to Aria, part of the new City Center complex at the MGM end of the Strip (which makes sense, as it's owned by MGM) and drove in past the Cosmopolitan Hotel, which is the newest one to open on the Strip. We got checked in to Aria quickly and made our way to our room on the 7th floor.

Aria, from their main entrance

The view from our room. I aimed towards the pool area and the mountains, not the HVAC.

The rooms themselves are lovely. Beautiful features, comfortable arrangements, fine toiletries, and one of the most comfortable beds in a hotel. Ever. Unfortunately, as I hadn't upgraded to a better view, we overlooked the ventilation system. Luckily, the windows were double-paned and soundproof, so we didn't hear the noise. If you looked over the HVAC, we saw one of the Monte Carlo wings and THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Once there was light in the morning, we could see the mountains, and KB saw some hot-air balloons floating around.

Anyway, we ventured out of the room, wandered to Bellagio's 24-hour cafe for a light dinner, then took a short walk across one of the pedestrian overpasses so we could get a nice view up and down the Strip. Blinky lights! Shiny! Pretty! I think we made it to sleep around 3:00 AM.

The next morning, we got down to the Aria's restaurant a half-hour after they closed their normal breakfast menu. Luckily, they had their "late riser" section of the menu still available, so we made do with omelets and ... I don't remember, something yummy. Afterwards, we did the south Strip walk and hit: Monte Carlo, New York New York, MGM Grand (where we picked up our tickets for Cirque du Soliel's KA show that night), Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, and Tropicana. We wandered around each one a little bit, soaking up the ambiance and donating a little to the local economy.

The MGM lion, guarding the gate.

The Sphinx in front of Luxor. Did you know she's bigger than the one in Egypt? Who knew?

Excalibur. Lovely to look at.

We made it back to MGM in time for dinner at their Nob Hill Tavern restaurant (wonderful food, if a little lacking in their initial customer service skills), and then took our seats for KA. Holy cow. Each Cirque show is unique, but they all knock my hand-knit socks off. KA has this incredibly huge moving platform that can maneuver to any direction - and the actors work on it, no matter what direction or angle it's at. Dumbfounding.

After the show, we stopped in to the M&M store (always a joy) where KB got some custom-printed M&M's for her god-daughter. Right there! In the store! You tell the machine what you want to print, you pick out your M&M colors, and then you fill up the machine, press the button, and out plops freshly printed M&Ms! Pretty cool. Made our way back to Aria, hit the slots a bit, then back to the room and asleep by 2:30 or so.

Next day, we made it to breakfast before the cut-off time and had more lovely food. Today's walk was to the north. We hit: Planet Hollywood (formerly the Aladdin), Paris, Bally's, Harrah's, Venetian/Palazzo, Wynn/Encore, Mirage, and Caesars Palace. Once at Caesars, we stuck around until our reservation time for Mesa, and then we had a wonderful meal there (damn, I do love those pork tenderloins, and the chile relleno KB ordered was fabulous). We finished the night by walking to Bellagio and Cosmopolitan (where KB was having a grand time at the Star Wars machine). Once at Aria, I hit big on the Sex in the City machine (a $109 jackpot on a penny machine!!). I blew most of those winnings on a bunch of dollar machines, including the one that hit the Megabucks jackpot yesterday.

Next morning (Monday) was check-out day, so we opted for room service breakfast while we got our acts together. A short cab ride to McCarren, virtually no line at security, some more slots at the gate, a much more subdued crowd on the flight, then home by 4:00.

Of all the casinos, the one that surprised both KB and I was the Tropicana. They completely and totally re-did themselves. They used to have this Caribbean look outside - white with blue and orange roofs and shutters. From what the photos showed, the rooms looked like cheesy standard Motel6 issue - in other words, ugly. In all my trips to Vegas, it never once crossed my radar as a Place To Stay. After looking at their new all-white facade, their massive waterfall out front, clean and bright and open gaming area, and seeing the pictures of their newly designed rooms, I gotta say, it's definitely on the list as a contender. Impressive redesign.

The casino that seems to have changed the least? Excalibur. It has a lovely facade, overlooking the corner of the Strip at Tropicana Blvd, but that's about it. I don't think the interior has been spruced up since they built it in 1995? 96? They look like they still believe that Vegas is a place where you can bring your kids.

Tuesday, KW and I drove to Chico to pick up some files that his divorce lawyer had collected, so we decided to stay there overnight. It's really a great little city. Too bad it's in the middle of absolutely nothing. Wednesday I got sick and have been coughing and sneezing ever since. Ugh.

Enjoy the pictures. (Of Vegas, not of me and my cold. That would be gross.)

Megabucks winner!

2011-01-22T21:50:00.001-08:00

No, it wasn't me. :-( But I swear I played that very machine while Kei and I were there (Aria Hotel in Las Vegas) last weekend!

Losing It

2011-01-13T15:51:00.000-08:00

I am normally sooooo careful about my knitting needles. I have the ones that aren't being used filed in a little box, sorted by size. (That's not being obsessive, that's being organized!) The ones that are in use, I keep the needle package with the project so I remember what size (and because 99 times out of a hundred they're circular) and length I'm working with.

Why, oh why, then, do I have about 6 empty needle packages and 4 or 5 needles without a package... and the empty packages don't match the extra needles??

I felt my organizational skills were getting away from me towards the end of last year, so I am trying to start this new year being a bit more aware and trying to Put Things Where They Belong. Finding these mis-matched needles and packages does not make me feel I have gotten off to a good start.

Oy.

On the other hand, I have two FOs and a WIP picture to post on Ravelry. The Citron, she is done! (And in order to make her fit around anyone's shoulders, I'm going to have to block the snot out of her...) And there's something else that I finished last night, but the recipient sometimes reads this blog. Best not to say anything just yet. The WIP is a shawl I've been working on since 2005 (yes, you read that right, 2005).

The Citron, pre-blocking. About 14" (give or take) from center to end of ruffle.

Not a FO, a WIP; the Knitpicks Faeroese Shawl in Gossamer yarn, Rose Garden colorway. I'm at row 129 of a 258-row project. It's easy, just ... well ... look at all that garter stitch! Can you say "BORING"?? The border knitting starts at row 226 or so; I can't wait! (The reason it's been on the needles since 2005 goes like this: I bought it when I was a brand new knitter. Lace intimidated me, small yarn intimidated me, so when I bought the yarn and the pattern, I was actually pretty apprehensive about it. I knit and ripped the first 25 rows about 3 times before I got into the swing of it, but it still took a lot of effort, so it fell into the 'hibernating' category. Fast forward to last year, when I pull it out of it's little baggie and - lo and behold - I realize that (a) it's pretty much all garter stitch except for (b) 37 lace stitches down the middle. So now I pick it up at least two or three times a week and get another 4 or 5 rows finished while I watch TV. (It doesn't go much faster than that because there are so many stitches on the needle, not because it's terribly difficult.)

Last travelogue (I think)

2011-01-04T14:44:00.000-08:00

I think these have covered all of the places we visited; this one wraps up our last day in Barcelona.

------------

Well, hi there. We’re back on dry land (and not just for a shore excursion) at last. Can’t figure out why the buildings all seem to be rocking back and forth, but it’s good to be within easy walking distance of a Starbucks again.

The departure process was remarkable easy. We packed and put our bags out for pick up last night, as part of the normal “getting ready to leave” routine. Up this morning at 6:30, but only because we wanted to have a light breakfast before we left the ship. A short wait in a small dining room with coffee and pastries, then we were given the “leave when you’re ready” signal. It was very well organized, and we just walked off the boat and into the luggage claim area. Our bags came around on the carousel in less than 5 minutes, then it was just a short walk to the taxi line: no customs or immigration procedures at all. The biggest delay in the process was waiting for a taxi that took credit cards (we’d been told that “almost all” the cabs did so, and had no problems with that when we first got here). For whatever reason, the policeman that was coordinating traffic couldn’t find us one until after 10 cabs or so shook him off. Oh, bother. In any event, we finally found a 21st century cab and took off for the hotel.

Keeping in mind that the place we stayed at when we first got here was OK, if somewhat Spartan, and that the staterooms on the ship were fine, if somewhat on the small-ish side, it’s easy to imagine how it felt when we pulled up to a nice, big, modern Hilton hotel. Yeah, it’s totally American and yeah, it’s outside what anyone would call part of a “real” European experience – but we don’t care. It’s NICE to have big room, with a king-sized bed, and all like that. And, yes, there is a Starbucks right across the street in a big American-style shopping mall!

We’re just sitting back a bit now, enjoying the room and watching the sun try to break through the morning fog. The hotel is a bit out of the downtown area, but there’s a subway station close at hand so I imagine we’ll head out after a bit and do one last afternoon of sightseeing. We’re also going to find a Chinese (or Asian of some variety) restaurant for dinner, keeping with a small tradition regarding last meals in Europe before heading home.

We head for the airport bright and early tomorrow for a 9-something flight to Frankfurt, and then the airplane ordeal begins. The weather reports look pretty good now all the way through Calgary and into San Francisco, but we’re ready for whatever happens: an extra set of clean undies in our carry on bags, along with other essentials, and no pressing business needs to get back since all of our clients are occupied with the holidays.

(Meg's addendum: We saw quite a bit of Barcelona on this last day, doing a lot of walking and a liberal use of the easy, efficient, and clean Metro system. Oh, and we didn't find a Chinese restaurant for our last European dinner. A number of people told us where one or two were, but they couldn't/wouldn't recommend any. Guess it's not an ethnic food the Spaniards like to eat. The photo of the McDonald's breakfast was acknowledgement of our transition back home - that, and Mickey D's was the only place we could find that served protein with/for breakfast... all the 'normal' Spanish-style breakfasts that were being sold in the airport were just pastries!)

Kelly's travelogue #4

2011-01-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

These may be out of order, but here's the next one.

-----

Well, here we are, sitting in the commercial harbor of Rhodes just about sunset, waiting to embark for Egypt. A lot to report over the past two days but here are the high points.

Athens was very interesting, but not the kind of place that calls either of us to come back for another visit. It’s a strange mix of modern and ancient, all right next to each other. We docked in Piraeus, the old port, and took a bus tour past the docks and then on into Athens. Something like 5 to 7 miles from one to the other, but it’s really all one big city now, just like LA or Chicago: the tour guide was telling us that we left one town and entered another, but you couldn’t tell from the surroundings.

Athens itself is just another big city, but with a Mediterranean feel… meaning that the buildings are low and mostly white. Then, right in the middle of the urban mix, you come across the Acropolis and an instant time travel back about 2,000 years. The modern city has grown up around and right next to the ancient ruins, with very little demarcation between the two. Not at all what we expected.

The Acropolis itself was fascinating: three major structures including the Parthenon, all in various states of decay and restoration: quite a mix, but fascinating to walk around. We have many pictures and will share those when we get back to the land of free (or at least reasonably priced) internet access.

We left Piraeus just before sunset and had a pleasant transit to Rhodes. And that’s when the fun began!

Rhodes is beautiful, historically interesting, and very, very easy to fall in love with. It’s so nice as to be hard to describe: 14th century fortifications, all largely intact, churches from the knights of Saint John, mosques from the time of Suleiman… it’s about 10 centuries of European history all wrapped into a package that you can see in a half-day of walking around. We did the walk and our jaws are still hanging around our knees. One of the things that really struck us was that the folks in Rhodes managed to grow up and around the artifacts of their past, but in a very graceful way that struck a great balance between the old and the present, but the folks in Athens didn’t manage to find the same balance.

The real bottom line of Rhodes: we’re already trying to figure out how we get back here for a week or so, because we know that we only scratched the surface. Seriously, we’ve had the opportunity to see a fair number of places around the world, and this is near the top of the “we gotta come see it again” list.

And did I mention that the temperatures were in the upper 60s with clear blue skies? So nice…

We were back in the ship in time to see a gorgeous sunset, and now we’re off to Egypt after a day at sea. We’re looking forward to seeing the pyramids and the battlefield at El Alamein, but I think that maybe more that those (which will be pretty cool to see) we’re looking ahead to Malta. We’ve heard that Valetta, the main city, is just a beautiful and interesting as Rhodes. That we’ve gotta see!

Kelly's travelogue #3 (and you thought I forgot...)

2011-01-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

Here's his next installment:

Well, here we are, on the final day of the cruise. We’re currently in the western Mediterranean, en route to Barcelona and having just passed south of Sardinia. A busy past few days:

When last reported, we were on our way to Alexandria. We made the port on schedule and were in the excursion staging area bright and early, ready to take on the pyramids. And we waited…and waited…

It turns out that this part of North Africa is subject to very heavy fog in the winter time, and the road from Alexandria to Cairo was closed as a result. Fortunately, it cleared to the point that busses were allowed to leave the port area around 9:00 or 9:30, but that put us a couple of hours behind schedule for the excursion – which was scheduled to last around 12 hours as it was.
However, we pressed on and the first part of the ride was through Alexandria itself, and that was our first view of life for Egyptians who are not rich. Alexandria is, as are apparently all Egyptian cities, pretty much slums that have a few areas blocked off for those who have all the money. Trash everywhere, run-down apartment high rises, and many buildings that were in various states of demolition. I heard one person comment that Alexandria was a slum that happened to be located next to a port, and it was easy to believe.

On the road to Cairo it was initially very foggy and the tour guide was reduced to saying things like “if you could see it, there would be an oil refinery off to your right…” One of the most interesting things that we could see was that there were very few lane markings on the highway… all the drivers seemed to just make it up as they went along, using their horns liberally along the way. Shades of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in Dizzyland...

Another interesting note: all the tour busses were accompanied by at least one “Tourist Police” escort, usually a fairly big guy with a large bulge under his left armpit. Others weren’t so subtle: they were in uniform and carried automatic rifles. No one was sure if we should have been comforted or scared, so we opted for a state kind of in between.

As we approached Cairo, the weather cleared and we could see the countryside: just about what you might imagine, with the desert running right up to the bits and pieces that were irrigated. Think brown…lots and lots of brown. Another interesting feature: many large structures that looked at first glance like oversized beehives. They were pigeon coops, which the guide explained were used to raise the birds as a food crop. One of the favorites is supposed to be pigeon stuffed with rice and spices, then grilled. I didn’t get a recipe for Chris, so he’ll just have to experiment. [Note - "Chris" is KW's son, who is going to culinary school.]

We made it into metropolitan Cairo – Giza in particular, on the western side of the Nile – rolling through an area crowded with small shops and restaurants, and all of a sudden we were at the pyramids. Just as with the Acropolis in Athens, the city had grown up to and around the monuments, with virtually no transition at all from one to the other. The bus made its way to the parking area, and out we went – only to be assaulted (and I do mean assaulted in a literal sense) by vendors of all sorts. We’d been warned by the tour guide about what to expect and had been given “rules of engagement” to avoid the worst of it, but it was still very disconcerting to not be able to take 3 steps without being accosted by someone selling something. And not just selling as in passively offering up something: one of the basic tricks they use is to thrust something into your hands and then refuse to take it back; the idea is that if they yell loud enough that you “bought” the item in question, you’ll back down and pay for it.

The other thing that really struck us was how many camels there were in the area. Dozens, all of which were available for a camel ride. The idea is that, for a price, the camel will kneel down, you get on, the camel stands up, and you get your picture taken. Tricks of the trade: they’ll quote a price for getting you up (usually around $3 to $5), then – once you’re already up - quote you another price for getting down (we were told that could be upwards of $100, depending on the camel jockey in question). And they’ll add another fee for taking your picture on the camel, even though they’re using your camera.

Free enterprise run amok.

And then there were the pyramids. They’re very large, very impressive, and very hard to appreciate with any sense of historical perspective because of the uncontrolled carnival atmosphere churning around them. After some time at the pyramids, we moved down the road to the Sphinx… and were amazed at how small it is. Still impressive, but also still surrounded by the vendor carnival.

From Giza, we moved on to the site of the old capital of Memphis. As a city or town, Memphis doesn’t exist anymore, and there’s just one small museum with a couple of artifacts in it, so the effort was appreciated, but it wasn’t really much to see. More impressive, in a negative way, was the ride from Giza to Memphis, which was an up close look at life in semi-rural Egypt. Holy cow, Batman! The road ran along an irrigation canal that came from the Nile and was the primary (maybe the only) water source for the area in general and certainly for the agriculture. The first thing we noticed was that the waterway was filled – completely – with trash and refuse of all sorts. As we went along, we could see the parts along the banks where dumping occurred on a regular basis, which included dumping things that really ought not be dumped anywhere, much less into a water supply (we saw this happened as we drove past). Most incredibly: we saw several groups of people fishing, just down stream from the dumping.

Do NOT eat anything in Egypt unless you know FOR SURE where it came from.

From Memphis, we went to Sakara, and this was the highlight of the day. Sakara is a site with some of the smaller “stepped” pyramids, and is very well preserved and protected compared to Giza. We had a chance to wander around the excavations a bit and to go into one of the recovered tombs (but no pictures allowed inside the tombs, unfortunately).

After that it was a stop at a hotel for a late lunch/early dinner, then a long bus ride back to the ship. We got back around 10:30 in the evening, more than a little tired but happy we had made the trip. A nice touch: the ship had cups of hot chocolate waiting for us as we came in through the gates.

Day Two in Egypt. We were scheduled to take a ride out to El Alamein, one of the great WWII battle sites, where the Brits finally got the upper hand over Rommel and the Afrika Corps, but the fog did us in. The scheduled start time was 7:30, but we were still in a hold pattern at 9:45. At that point the coordinator said that 10:00 was the hard stop because after that there wouldn’t be enough time to get back. At that point we looked at each other, nodded, and turned in our tickets for a refund – then headed for the heated pool. Touring is great, but it’s a wise tourist who knows when to fold the hand and move on!

After Egypt we sailed for a day, then pulled into Malta (the city of Valetta, to be precise) around noon on the 27th. This was a great stop, easily the equal of Rhodes and in some respects even better. We walked around Valetta (literally: it’s built on a small peninsula and the outer road takes you all the way around the waterfront), and then up through the historic area. Very scenic, and a wonderful mish-mash of English and Italian culture. We decided that we could easily spend a week or two visiting here, looking around and really getting to know the countryside – and it was especially refreshing after the previous stop.

And so now we’re sailing along over a very calm ocean, heading for Barcelona, and hoping that we won’t freeze too much tomorrow. We’ll be off the ship around 9:00 in the morning and will spend the evening there, heading for the airport around 7:00 in the morning on the 30th. Our flights back – weather permitting! - will take us to Frankfurt, then Calgary, then San Francisco. Yeah, I know…why Calgary? All I can say is that Air Canada offered to connect us that way at a good price, so we took it.

I’ll send one more update from the hotel (or, as we like to call it, the stateroom that doesn’t move) tomorrow night.

Travelogue number 2

2011-01-02T16:53:00.000-08:00

Here's Kelly's second travelogue:

Greetings from Palermo!

After a quiet day cruising the western Med yesterday (and a fairly close passing of Sardinia along the way), we landed in Palermo this morning. Not too much to see at the docks: as with most of the ports of call, this is a working port with some space set aside for passenger ships. Lots of industrial things to see, but this is probably not the most scenic part of Sicily. At least we hope not.

We’re going on a bus tour later today, billed as “Panoramic Sicily.” And the weather is sort of cooperating: it’s cloudy, but with reasonable temperatures and some sunshine starting to break through.

The ship is a little battered from the storm it ran through on its last cruise. It’s interesting to see some of the spots where the damage occurred: a broken pane of glass here and some cracks there. Nothing major, and all cosmetic… but scattered around the ship at seemingly random places.

However, there’s nothing wrong with our room and all the ship’s services are up and running – with the exception of their closed circuit TV system. And that just means that we can’t watch reruns of some of the worst shows made in the mid-70s.

Next up: another day at sea tomorrow, then Athens on Tuesday.

A whirlwind tour of the Mediterranean

2011-01-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

We're back from our big Mediterranean trip. For those who weren't following along, we flew to Barcelona, Spain, on 12/14 (arriving on the 15th, thanks to the miracle of time zones and long distances). We spent a day-and-a-half in Barcelona, then on 12/17 got on the Brilliance of the Seas for our cruise.

Our itinerary had a nice blend of port days and at-sea days: At sea - Sicily - at sea - Athens - Rhodes - at sea - overnight in Alexandria (Port Said) - at sea - Valetta (Malta) - at sea - back to Barcelona. We had a chance to 'rest up' with an at-sea day after visiting every new country.

Overall impressions: Loved Barcelona, Rhodes, and Valetta; we'd go back to any of them. Glad we saw Sicily (Palermo), Athens, and the pyramids in Egypt, but don't feel the need to return to any of them.

DH wrote a travelogue, which he sent out to his family when we were able to get a decent Internet connection. I'm going to put up some posts using his writing, and add some photos.

So, here's his first update:

And we're off and running! The flight over was a non-event in terms of airplane rides - some bumps and jolts over the Atlantic, but nothing unexpected or particularly unnerving. Neither of us slept very much, since it was still a reasonable hour on our Pacific time zone body clocks during the flight, so when we landed and made our way over to the hotel we realized that we were tired. Nap time! Got a couple of hours sleep, then started walking around a bit.

Note to self: even though in a 'temperate' climate zone, Barcelona in December = cold. Just saying...

Our first impression that it's a very nice - clean and comfortable - city was reinforced by a city bus tour this afternoon. Many neighborhoods that looked like they'd be right at home. And the old city center - 'Barri Gothic' to the locals - is very fun. Narrow, winding "streets" (more like slightly out-sized alleys - with a mix of shops and residential buildings - all apparently built on top of the foundations laid by the Romans when they founded the place a couple of thousand years ago. This plus the added glamor of Christmas lights up on all the major streets and special markets in some of the town squares.

Did I mention that it's cold here? Clear blue skies, and OK if you stay in the sun and out of the wind, but otherwise...wow!

Great time being had by all so far.

Too Busy!

2010-12-06T20:27:00.001-08:00

I've been updating on FB and updating via emails and totally forgetting to come here and post something. So, hi. I've been busy. How are you?

November is over and once again, I participated in NaNo (National Novel Writing Month). Once again, I'm pleased to say, I won! I hit my 50,000 words on November 29. That turned out to be a Good Thing, because I was so busy working on November 30, I didn't have time to go back and write some more of the story, which I had planned to do.

(For those who don't know about NaNo, it takes place over the month of November, and it's to jump-start people into writing their novels. You know, the Book You've Always Wanted To Write. November is the no-excuses month - just sit down and write. 1,667 words a day will get you to 50,000 words by the end of the month. [Technically, that will get you 50,010 words. Consider those extra 10 your emergency buffer.] In reality, 50,000 words would be more of a novella, but writing 50,000 words by November 30 will probably be closer to a novel than what you might write on your own in a non-NaNo month.)

So this year, I actually sort of liked my story, but it wasn't finished by the time the end of the month rolled around. I know I keep thinking about putting the stories on CreateSpace or Lulu.com so they could be shared, but ... They're really raw first awful drafts. There may be kernels of non-mediocre writing or glimpses of a point/plot, but they're no where near semi-fully formed. I'll keep thinking about sharing them.

In November everything takes a back-burner to just about everything, including knitting, so I have relatively few completed projects to share. A couple of cowls, some socks-in-progress, little work done on the three (four?) shawls I have on needles. My brain doesn't seem able to process anything vaguely complicated, so I'm sticking with a 3x1 ribbed sock and some pedicure socks most of the time. And I'll have to decide what knitting to take on the Mediterranean trip - that's always a dicey proposition. I'm good with U.S. travel, but the rules are different for other countries, so I need a project that will work with my vacation brain AND be expendable should a security agent feel the need to rip out my needles.

I did manage to make what turned out to be a teeny tiny baby blanket yesterday. Sock yarn, even on the smallest plate, makes a very loose fabric, and yet it still curls like a sonofagun, so I'm adding a border in hopes it will un-curl a bit. I may try to block it, but it's superwash sock yarn. Blocking, not work so much. I still managed to drop a fair number of stitches and had to re-hook them (one dropped around 15 rows down), but on the other hand, I'm getting a better feel for how to get the machine to cooperate and not get stuck too often. I doubt I'll ever get to use it for its original intention (to knit the boring parts of a large clothing item), but I may get to use it for other things. Washcloth, anyone?

Picking up the love of my life tomorrow after being gone 9 days. This house gets HUGE when he's not in it. I rattle a lot. Plus, I had to take out my own garbage and clean my own kitchen. Sweetie, if I ever start to take you for granted for any reason (but especially for the clean-up work you do around here), just remind me, okay?

Okay, time to watch "Two and a Half Men." Hopefully I'll update here once or twice before we leave.

Pismo time

2010-11-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

Pismo time is special to us. It's the place where we always seem to talk about 'meaty' issues in the relationship - what "we" means, getting married, buying the house. Even when times were stretched a bit financially, we could not do away with our Pismo weekend.

This trip (last weekend) was as wonderful as always (except, maybe for the cold that I have that isn't moving). Thursday's weather was gorgeous, Friday was nice, Saturday and Sunday were normal Pismo - fog, drizzle, splotchy clouds. Doesn't matter. Our biggest decision is always "Do we eat at McLintocks on Thursday night and the Cracked Crab on Friday? Or vice versa?"

We stay at a motel that, from the street, looks like it's stuck in the 50s or 60s - The Kon Tiki Inn. It's on the corner of Price and Dolliver, within walking distance to both the pier and the restaurants along Price, and all the rooms have balconies and face the ocean. It's funky looking from the outside, but the rooms are simple, clean, and have La-Z-Boy love seats. Free wi-fi, too.

There is always a festival the weekend we go (the last weekend in October or the first weekend in November). Some years it's the Pismo Clam Festival, some years it's the Pismo Jazz Festival. This year, it was a high school marching band competition, so there were all sorts of snappy uniforms and feathery hats around town.

There's also a sports apparel store on Pomeroy (the road that leads to the pier) where we scored our SF Giants World Series paraphernalia and my brother's Christmas present (it's a Yankee-themed appliance).

Some shots to whet your appetites...

The view from the top of the stairs heading down to the beach.

Awww... isn't that cute?

The view from our balcony Sunday morning. The little dots are surfers.

The view from the top of the stairs leading down to the beach. 125 or so steps.

From the beach at low tide, looking to the northeast.

That long?

2010-10-31T22:33:00.000-07:00

A month-and-a-half? Holy cow. Guess we've been busy. We both did Vegas in September, then KW went off to Ottawa, then we both went to DRJ in San Diego. Stayed home for 2 weeks (saw a baseball game, got the cars serviced, and had a lovely spa day with MM), then geared up for Stitches West 2011 registration, theatre, and a lovely day with my knitting buds. Back to travel, KW set off for Washington, D.C.; I followed a day later and stayed the week. Home for a day, then KW was off to Memphis (I decided to stay home for that one). When he got back, he was here for a day and then we left for our Caribbean cruise, returning yesterday.

Deeeeeeeep breath.... No, wait; no time to breathe, we're off to Pismo Beach later this week! After THAT, though, we're here until the December Mediterranean cruise. No, wait! KW has to go to Ottawa again the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend!

See? It's been like that since June...

For now, I think I'm done with all the laundry from the cruise (which was my big goal for the day) and will spend tomorrow catching up on all of RP's work that I couldn't do while floating on a big boat in the middle of the Virgin Islands. (Pictures to follow once I've uploaded them.)

Suffice to say for now that all is well, and life is good.

Such Fibery Goodies!

2010-09-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I bought into Chrissy Gardiner's "CSK" - "Community Supported Knitting." Like a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), she set it up to be a way to support indie dyers while at the same time funding her new sock book to be published next year. For $55, you get a pattern a month (one of the patterns that will eventually be in the book - there will be more than 12), an opportunity to buy yarn from each monthly featured dyer (often with some sort of discount), and once it's published, an autographed copy of the book.

One of the incentives to buy in was the carrot of a goodie bag if you signed up before July 1. Which I did, and the goodie bag came today. Oh my word! Here's what came in the mail today (and what's in the picture):
- A beautiful hand-made stitch marker from Plover Designs.
- An "Indie Socks/CSK Member" post-it pad.
- A button from Pico Accuardi Dyeworks.
- A mini-skein of the Verve sock base in "Spunky," from the Unique Sheep (October's featured dyer).
- A Mountain Colors notepad.
- Writing implements: A pencil from knittedwit.com; a pen from the Unique Sheep; a pen from Twisted (yarn shop in Portland. OR).
- A gorgeous knitting needle holder from Lantern Moon.
- A ruler/needle sizer from Twisted.
- A pattern for a "Toe-up Mini Dessert Sock" from Crafts Meow, with a "taster spoon" sample of the Ice Cream Sundae yarn base in "Popsicle Toes" colorway.
- A Knitcellaneous keychain sock blocker with some beautiful yarn from Lavendersheep.
- A box of note cards from Schaefer Yarns with images of hand-painted fibers on each.
- A Chrissy Gardiner pattern, Midnight Lace Scarf.
Aaaaaand....
- A big ole' canvas CSK satchel!

Wow! Score! And all the yarns are lovely, simply lovely!

What Do You Get When You...

2010-09-13T00:13:00.000-07:00

...put together the following numbers?

My birth month
My birth day
My birth year
Our anniversary month
Our anniversary day
DH's birth month
DH's birth day
DH's birth year
My mom's birth year
My dad's birth year (or was it my brother's?)

You get $4800, that's what you get! At least that's what you get at Treasure Island in Vegas when you play a $5 "Pick 10" card at Keno and manage to pick 8 of the 10 numbers you selected.

On Thursday, we flew in to Vegas (10:00 AM flight on Southwest, smooth flight, on time, no screaming people or children, arrived on time), got a cab to Treasure Island, and were in our room by 1:00 PM (lovely room, Strip view, looking south towards MGM and Mandalay Bay). Having only grabbed coffee and a muffin at the airport, we needed food, so headed to TI's 24-hour restaurant as the path of least resistance. While sitting and talking about what we wanted to do while in town, I took out a Keno sheet and crayon, and KW and I started picking numbers. We put in two sheets, one a "Pick 10," and one a "Sweet 16."

When the game was over, I read the numbers to KW, who could see the board behind me. "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "Yes." "No." "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." I reached for the little Keno brochure that shows the payouts and almost choked. I could have sworn it said that when you pick 8 on a "Pick 10" card, you got $4800, and told KW. He looked at me funny, in a "Are you sure you know how to read?" kind of way, when the Keno runner came to the table with a little print-out sheet. "You won!" she said, and showed me the sheet. Sure enough, it said "$4800" on it.

Well, anyone who knows anything about Keno knows that it has the worst odds of all the casino games. There's a 25% house advantage - compared to Blackjack with something like a 1.2% house advantage. No one wins at Keno! Apparently the number of winners from the Coffee Shop are so few and far between, the runner didn't know the proper procedure for us to get our money! First she said her supervisor would have to come to the restaurant with a TI manager, then she said we would have to go to the Keno area. So we went over to the Keno desk, met the supervisor and the TI manager, who dutifully filled out the IRS paperwork (yep, anything over $1199 gets you a Form W-2G, "Certain Gambling Winnings" form) and then started counting out 48 one hundred dollar bills.

Let me tell you, that's a lot of bills! And pretty damn exciting to use them to pay for everything on the trip... wheeee!

The rest of the trip was wonderful, too, especially dinner at Mesa Grill (Bobby Flay's restaurant at Caesar's Palace), where I was greeted by the Birthday Bear! The Bear does get around!

Late flight home today, and KW is off again tomorrow on a business trip. He gets back on Friday, then we're both off to San Diego next weekend to attend a business conference. Busy, busy, busy!

Alright, Who's the Wise Guy...

2010-09-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

...who "borrowed" all my store club cards? DSW... BevMo... Office Depot... They were (at one time) all together. Now they are... well, perhaps they're all together, but they're nowhere to be found (by me, anyway). And the car title from the lender, the one that says they release the lien on the car? Who's got that?

I swear, little gremlins have been coming in to the house and taking things away. Probably having a better time there than with us, but that's besides the point. I need them and they're not here! C'mon, guys; give 'em back! Please?

At least I'm not walking around asking where my glasses are (they're perched right on my nose, where they belong, thankyouverymuch). But some days I feel like that question is right around the corner.

::sigh:: Being discombobulated is not a good way to start this week!

Beadazzler

2010-09-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

No nefarious goings-on with the Beadazzler - no plans to rhinestone up my car or the lampshades. My purse sprung a leak - the joins where the leather meets the zipper have come undone. I thought a Beadazzler would work as a way to hold them together. Unfortunately, I returned it today because the prongs on the studs that they sell for it were too short to go through both the zipper and the leather.

So there goes my stud crafting future!

Expedition

2010-09-04T00:06:00.001-07:00

I don't really do a lot of shopping anymore. I tend to make a list of stuff I need, then go on a focused trip, get it, and come home. For some reason, though, every so often I need a real shopping day, where I wander, see what's out there, and get stuff. Yup; it's that time.

It started rather innocently - with a list of what I needed: bras. Girls, you know what I mean - find one you like and fits well, and stick with it (at least until the manufacturer discontinues it, but that's a rant for another day). I took my list ("bras"), got my cheat-sheet of style numbers ("Bali 6520"), and headed out to the Bali/Playtex outlet at the outlet stores in Gilroy.

I asked the saleslady if they carried that style and she went to her big, thick book of codes. (Seriously? There isn't an online inventory system you could check? Whatever...) It was taking a while to look it up (seriously? it's not online?), so I finally asked her if it would help if I showed her what it looked like. She nodded, so I flashed the bra I was wearing at her - at which point she immediately said "yes" and took me right to them, where I grabbed 6 (quick, before they're discontinued!).

And here's where the desire to shop started. It was my birthday month, so they give you 20% off your purchase. Plus they were having a buy 2, get one for $1 sale. By the time she was done ringing me up, I had gotten 6 bras for $61. Not bad for bras that retail at $24 each.

So if I could get $144 worth of bras for $61, what other bargains could be had?

Well, next door is a Wilson Leather store. I had recently bought a wallet at Target, and though I liked the basic design, it was a little awkward to use. At Wilson's, I found a similar design, but one that worked better. As I was checking out (special sale day, everything in the store was an additional 20% off) I noticed the sign that said "10% military discount." Um, I got one of them... $38 wallet for $12. Nice. Keep going, Meg!

Next stop, the Van Heusen store. I was on a roll... Everything in the store is normally heavily discounted and, lucky for me, I really like the quality of their clothes and the way they fit. Turns out they were having a double sale yesterday, so they were practically paying me to take home 5 new tops. Plus, because it was my birthday month, I got an additional 20% on top of that. On the way out, I decided to look at the men's side of the store and found 2 shirts for KW. Deal!

All this in about 30 minutes.

I had intended to go to Bed Bath & Beyond yesterday (really!), but after my fun at those three stores, I was late for knit night, so I decided to go shopping again today - that fun kind of shopping. The kind where I don't have a list. Oh boy, did I have fun! Here was my take (this is both yesterday and today):

Bali: 6 bras.

Wilson's: Wallet.

Van Heusen: 5 tops for me, 2 shirts for KW.

Izod: 1 top (thanks to a $5 certificate from Van Heusen, I paid $.99 for the top!).

Coach: 1 purse (a $328 purse on sale for $99 PLUS a 20%-off coupon they gave me at the door... come on, people - it's a Coach purse for $80!!! Oh, and a 1 key chain.)

Bed Bath & Beyond (yes, I finally made it!): 2 sets of bathroom towels, new curtains for the downstairs bathroom, sink mats, mini-funnels.
Ross: 3 pair of jeans, 1 vest. (I really needed some jeans that went all the way to the floor.)
Michael's: File basket and Beadazzler (don't ask).

I came home today with bags and bags of stuff. Shopping at the outlets and getting birthday discounts, I saved about $400 over what I could have paid at a 'normal' store. Shoot, I saved almost $250 on that Coach purse alone!

Damn, that was fun, but I'm really glad I don't do it that often. Now it's time to go through towels and curtains and donate 2 sets, then go through my closet and donate 6 tops, 3 pair of pants, a vest, a purse, and a wallet (yep - new in, old out, except the bras... that's kind of creepy).

Happy Labor Day to you, too!

Second Test

2010-08-18T21:04:00.000-07:00

We were hopeful until today. Let's see...

Awww... isn't s/he cute? (And the picture upload still works, too!)

Photo test

2010-08-18T00:09:00.001-07:00

New machine, testing whether or not I can upload pictures... What do you see below?

(If you said "Bruce!" you get a gold star!)

Evil Cupertino vs Evil Redmond

2010-08-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who suggested that we should be getting a Mac instead of an(other) Windows-based PC (ChickenKnittle, Kadootje, Roberta, Mark, RP - the list goes on...). Believe me, we've thought about it, especially these past few weeks.

Unfortunately, there is no built-in Mac "Geek Squad" in this household. We've both been PC users since 'way back (KW goes back to before I knew what computers were, I've been working with them since at least 1981). Switching to a Mac now is only going to frustrate us more in the long run, especially since the 4 other computers in the house are Windows-based and we have no plans to convert over the household. At least with a PC, KW knows where to go for help and we can make our way through the maze of solutions.

Having said that, though... if the third Win7 PC doesn't do what I need it to do with a minimum of fuss and "accommodations" to Redmond's bizarre thought process, I admit I have been thinking about Macs and their double-barreled promises of simplicity and stability. Unfortunately, my built-in Geek Squad (aka KW) says if I take that route, I'm on my own. Should it come to that decision, it will be a hard one to make. I'm beginning to like Kadootje's suggestion of stone and papyrus...

In other news, the stupendously wonderful plays in TheatreWorks' New Work Festival are all rolling around in my head. They all made me cry - not surprising since all of them touched on death in some way. Most of them with physical death, but one ("Variations on a Theme") with the loss of love. They've all brought back the summer of 2009, which I spent in Florida, tending to my aunt. She'd been in my thoughts a lot even before we saw the plays; the constant themes have pulled those thoughts up further to the surface. I miss her greatly and still wonder if I couldn't have done more; if I had stayed longer, would she still be with us? I know the rational answer is "no," but the question still lurks in one of the folds of my brain.

The plays also brought up my continual fear of losing my One True Love. When he doesn't check in after driving to a client, when he can't hear me call his name in the house, when he leaves his phone in the restroom and so doesn't know I'm trying to text him and get no response... My over-active imagination thinks he's gone - crashed, fallen, stricken - and I have a little mini-panic over losing him. He usually checks in a few moments after I've tried to talk myself down off the ceiling, and it's often with a "of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I be fine?" tone in his voice or in his text (for as much as you can tell tone from a text, that is). It's hard to be very Buddha-like about the impermanence of all things when you have this kind of love. I try, but I don't succeed, at least when it comes to him.

Enough soul-searching. The plays are great. Go see as many as you can.

Trials and Tribulations

2010-08-16T18:02:00.000-07:00

Good golly, miss Molly, it really shouldn't be this hard. Every time I try to do something new with the new beastie, there's yet another problem. The latest PITA is that for some reason, some file klonking went on and the PC thought that the boot drive was on my external (data only) drive. Not gonna find it there.

So KW manages to resucutate the thing back to a recovery point last week (the data's okay, though.... I think... I suppose I should go check). He did that fine, then I tried to access my email on AOL. It's just a browser, www.aol.com. I can see my email in the in-box but when I click on a note, I get the spinning hamster wheel. Forever. Great. He managed to fix that by opening the email in the existing window, but why won't it work the other way now? I like having a separate window open with the email in it; what the hell heppened that it won't do it now?

On the plus side, I installed Adobe Acrobat 9.0 and it hasn't exploded itself or the machine yet.

On to better things... The Tomato socks are almost done; I started the cuff ribbing yesterday and will go until I've had enough. The Tulip socks are coming along slowly (primarily because I haven't been knitting them... don't suppose that has anything to do with their slow progress, do you?). Haven't really touched any lace in a couple of months. Good god, has it really been that long? I hope I remember.

Went to see some shows in the TheatreWorks New Works Festival this weekend. They were all terrific. "Variations on a Theme," "How to Write a New Book for the Bible," "Great Wall," and "Fly by Night." I cried. (Yes, I'm a mushball.) Next weekend we go see the last one, "Red Clay." If you have any spare time whatsoever, go see one. Or two, or three. Fantastic.

Now, let's see if I can attache pictures this time...

Sock Summit Memories

2010-08-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

Ah yes... it was a year ago that the first Sock Summit was held, Sock Summit 2009. A sock knitter's Woodstock, without the brown acid. (Well, there may have been some brown acid, but it was probably acid dyes for someone's homespun.)

Next one in slightly less than a year, July 28-31. Unfortunately, most airlines won't let you book flights that far in advance. I have 5 trips between now and the end of the year, and still find myself like women in the old Mervyn's ads... "Open, open, open..."

SS09 was so awesome, so huge, so ... indescribable. To be among your sock-knitting peeps, to understand why everyone was looking at your feet, to learn from people you revered, to hear a panel discussion with people you thought were dead, to be part of breaking a Guiness world record... No words, just a big pack of happy when I think back upon it.

(Great, another thing to add to the stupid computer problem list - I can't add photos to blogspot, either on the 64-bit version or the non-64-bit version. This is going to turn into a very blah looking blog soon if I can't get pictures uploaded!)

The Price of Modernity

2010-08-01T23:03:00.000-07:00

Ugh. So after the new Dell PC fiasco of early July (Windows 7 incompatibility issues), we decided to see how long the old PC would last before replacing it. As luck would have it, that was exactly 4 days. Not that it completely crapped out, mind you, but the noises started again (whirrrrrrring very loudly when you turn it on or restart it) and everything on the machine was S-L-O-W and my C: drive had run out of space.

So, we got a new machine. It, too, has Windows 7, and after our experience with the Dell (3 days of trying to get it to work with ... well, just about everything ... including about an hour with the Geek Squad - to no avail), we thought we were prepared for the big changeover. This one's an HP Pavilion, and we've had good luck with HPs before.

Yeah, that was *before.* As in "before Windows 7." Good golly, I'm very glad DH is heading off to Ottawa tomorrow; I swear, one more 'issue' with this freakin' thing and I'm going to kill someone. I'd rather it not be him, so I"m glad he'll be out of town.

Here's what we've had to replace (or will have to):

Laser printer (no driver upgrade available for the old one)
Inkjet printer (ditto)
Adobe Acrobat Professional (no driver upgrade available for 7.0)
My beloved PDA (double ditto)
Speakers (no power source on new machine)
My old AOL email account (because I thought I couldn't send emails from new machine)

I'm planning to replace my old (2005!) PDA with an iPod Touch, but now I'm reading all sorts of forum posts on how it's not compatible with Win7, only Vista and XP. Great.

I'm sure there's more; when I tried to launch Pandora a few hours ago, nothing happened. As it turns out, there is now a 'regular' MSIE 8.0 and a 64-bit MSIE 8.0. Some things work on one but not the other (like sending AOL webmail), or vice versa, and some things work on both. Luckily, I haven't found anything that doesn't work on either.

Except gmail. Now I can't load gmail up on either browser. Oh, and here on blogger? I can't cut and paste. In 'regular' browser mode. Maybe I can on the other one. What a PITA. And I can hear my wireless mouse through my new speakers. *sigh*

Yeah, we're keeping the old PC alive on the other desk. I have a feeling I'll be using it a lot in the next few days. Weeks?

If you see me in the near future, steer clear and try not to piss me off. It's a very short leap from where I am now to manslaughter.

95 Days!

2010-07-19T16:05:00.000-07:00

Yep; 95 days to our next cruise (Carnival Dream, to Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten).

But we're also incredibly incorrigible... I got an email from CruCon.com for their "Christmas in July" sale. We had just been talking about wanting to get away for the December holidays, when - poof! - this email popped into my inbox, like it was meant to be.

The email had a list of all the cruises that would be sailing over Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Christmas AND New Year's. Perfect way to sort it, but there were so many to choose from! So we took a look, and started highlighting those that seemed interesting.

To cut the list of potential options down (ah, the tyranny of choice!), we only looked at those ships sailing over Christmas (but also got us back home before New Year's). There were still too many choices, so we started crossing things off:

No cruises to the Pacific coast of Mexico. It's really too chilly (we learned this on last year's 3-day cruise the week before Christmas).
No Carnival cruises - not because of any problems we've had with them, but because we've been on them fairly often and wanted to give some other line a chance.
Nothing longer than 14 days.
Nothing shorter than 7 days.
No sailing that actually embarked or debarked on 12/25.
Finally, we tried to avoid those that went to places we'd already been (although when push comes to shove, we'd have gone back to Cozumel or Key West or just about any other Western or Eastern Caribbean port!).

Of the cruises that were left, two caught our eye, but one really caught our fancy. One was leaving from Miami on Norwegian Caribbean's Dawn. It was a 9-night Caribbean trip, leaving from Miami and stopping in at Samana, Tortola, Antigua, Barbados, and St. Kitts. This one was on the list because it was on NCL (a new cruise line for both of us) and all the Caribbean ports were those we haven't yet visited... definitely a possibility. The other cruise was leaving from Barcelona (Spain) on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas. This one was 12 nights, stopping in Palermo (Italy), Piraeus and Rhodes (Greece), Alexandria (Egypt), and Valetta (on Malta).

Can you guess which one we booked? Oh yeah, we need to brush up on our Espanol, people - we're spending Christmas in Barcelona! Well, to be precise, we'll be boarding the ship in Barcelona on DH's birthday... for Christmas, we'll actually be docked at Alexandria - maybe that will be the day we'll be able to take a tour to the pyramids!

Yes, we're bad. But in such a fabulous way! So - 95 days to cruise #1 and 151 days to cruise #2! (Anyone want to come along, I definitely recommend checking out CruCon... I normally book through cruise.com, but CruCon had the bigger sale going on. Hurry!)

Cruise Fever

2010-07-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

101 days until the October cruise (Carnival's Dream) but I have cruisin' fever and keep looking out for another one to put on the calendar. I'm incorrigible...

Gave Up

2010-07-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Yep. Very tempting to take a baseball bat to the machine, but it was only partially Dell's fault (for getting into bed so cozily with Microsoft). (And thanks, but no; not going to switch to a Mac. Too expensive and too many other issues for me.)

So, after KW and I spent easily 2 full days trying to make it work, and then the Geek Squad spent over 2 hours with it, we decided to return the new PC. The good news was that after all the angst and PITA-ness, Best Buy took it back with nary a blink. "Why are you returning it?" "Windows7 is not compatible with anything else in our office." "Okay, here's your return receipt." Done.

After returning it on a Thursday, on Friday, we found ourselves at Fry's. (Yes, we are "those people" - those who actually enjoy browsing through Fry's.) KW has been wanting a lighter smaller laptop to replace his 10+ pound brick that he's had for umpteen years. The more he travels, the heavier the damn thing gets, so we stumbled upon a great deal on a Lenovo ThinkPad x100e. It's actually a cross between a netbook and a notebook - it's pretty small, and weighs barely 3 pounds.

Yes, it came loaded with Windows7, but he doesn't have to hook it up to any of our home equipment, and his phone can sync to Outlook through Windows Mobile Device Center (my antique PDA - from 2005, fer Pete's sake! - can only sync using ActiveSync, which Windows, in it infinite wisdom, has discontinued using. Not just 'not supported,' but after Vista, it completely doesn't work). He's been playing with it, and his biggest issue is that it doesn't have a disc drive. On the other hand, he doesn't use one for much of anything these days. If he needs one, he can pick an external drive up for about $50.

On the knitting front, I found a post on making a 'rag hem' for the knitting machine. The machine comes with this plastic contraption with two slots running the length (to hold the weight bars), and lots of holes (to slide over the needles) and a fold in the middle (to bend over the ravel cord when it's loaded). It's a scary looking thing, and I wondered what it's life expectancy was, seeing as how it's made to be folded all the time. Well, on Ravelry, someone talked about a 'rag hem,' and when I investigated, I found a tutorial on how to make something that works the same way, but is much easier to handle.

Basically, you start to knit a flat piece, then pull up your cast-on stitches and knit them with your current stitches. In hand-knitting terms, you'd be making a folded or pocket hem. You then knit a bunch more rows and bind off. You use it by sliding your new knitted hem over the needles (you use the bind-off end), adding the weight bars into the pocket hem, knitting one row with the ravel cord, then start knitting with your main yarn. You can knit your rag hem as short or as wide as you need, but even if you knit it fairly wide, you can still use it on narrower pieces - just hang it over a smaller number of needles. Genius.

I am going to try using the new hem to make a log cabin style afghan or baby blanket. I have a feeling I'll run into trouble when I try to turn the knitting to add a new block, but I need to try it to see if/how I can make it work. Process knitting, that's my bag...

In the hand-knitting world, I finished the socks made from some Mini Mochi left over from making fingerless mitts. They're short socks, even for me, and I had to use some other yarn for the last half-inch plus picot bind-off. They're nice and soft and squishy on my feets, though. I also couldn't resist, and cast on for a new pair of socks; these made from Brooklyn Handspun in the "Blam" colorway.

Oh boy...

2010-07-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Got a new PC on Thursday. Please keep all baseball bats and sledgehammers away from me while I get it up and running and TRY to get the file structure set up the way I want it to be, not the way Microsoft THINKS I want it to be...

Oh, and 110 days until the next cruise!!

Compare/Contrast

2010-06-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd post a couple of side-by-side before-and-after shots of the landscaping...

Adventures in Landscaping, DONE!

2010-06-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

Beautiful! Just like the other adults have! I especially like the way it smells now, with the bark all fresh and redwoody smelling. So here's what we got:

5 Japanese yew. These are along the far right fence and will eventually grow up to be great big strong windbreaks.

3 white birch. These are in the far right corner. Their role is to sway and bow gently in the breeze (wind) and look pretty.

5 non-tropical hibiscus. Four of them are in front of the white birch, one is behind those four, among the white birch.

13 oleander, the tall ones, a mix of pink and white. Four of these went towards the left, in front of the air conditioning units. We wanted something to protect them from the wind and give them some shade, and we also wanted to hide them onnacounta they're big and ugly. The remaining 9 are all in front of the Japanese yew, and will fill in below the leaf line.

7 cubic yards of bark (of which we had enough left over to fill in some holes we had in the front yard).

Purty!

Adventures in Landscaping, During

2010-06-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

Some in-process shots of the work that was done. We had a total of 24 plants put into the ground . That means that these poor guys had to dig 24 holes into our awful, rocky, hard, rocky, clay, rocky, awful dirt... Eight 15 gallon-sized holes, and 5 gallon-sized holes for the rest. Plus trenching for the drip system and all the prep for the concrete. I felt sorry for the guy doing the bulk of the digging; I gave him a couple of bottles of water throughout the time he was here.

Adventures in Landscaping, Before

2010-06-01T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yes, DH and I have decided to grow up. Well, at least as far as our home's landscaping is concerned. See, the month before we moved, in, DH lost his job (a high-risk mortgage company went under; great timing, huh?). We had enough to go for a while, but didn't want to deal with things we considered discretionary. Backyard landscaping fell into that category.

A few months after being in the house, and having been exposed to a very extreme Morgan Hill summer (incredible winds, temperatures over 100 degrees for two weeks in a row), when he got his next job, the first thing we did was put in some sod for most of the back yard. With such incredible winds, the house had continually full of dust and dirt. Yuck. We had hoped that the sod, in addition to looking nice, would cut down on the dirt factor.

Well, that worked; the amount of dust and dirt swirling around the house was cut 'way down. But we never felt comfortable enough financially to start to do anything 'fancy' with the rest of the landscaping. Oh, we put in those grapevines (8 went in, 6 are still alive; probably won't fruit this year), a blood orange tree (still doing okay), a Meyer lemon tree (ditto), and some jasmine bushes, but those were random acts of greenery, not a 'vision' of what we wanted the yard to look like.

Until now. We decided we had a few drachmas we could spend on the back yard and had gotten a good recommendation from a neighbor (hi, Suzy!). For comparison, we also invited another company to come and give us a quote, but not only was their quote higher, it was apparent that the owner didn't have quite the artistic vision that Le has. She listened to our woes ("oh, the wind!" "oh, the dirt!" "oh, how ugly!") and came up with a design that was simple, but elegant - and incredibly inexpensive, given the amount of work involved.

We opted to have her only do one side of the yard first, sort of a trial run (and to keep the costs down even more), so here are some of the sad before shots of the northeast side of our yard.

Day 10, Monday: Oxnard to home

2010-05-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

We had our traditional IHOP breakfast then went and spent a few more minutes with Kelly's parents before setting out for home around 11:30 or so.

For the entire trip, from the three days we spent in New Port Richey visiting with dad and wrapping up loose ends from my aunt's stuff, to the drive over a week later from Las Vegas to Oxnard, the weather was superb. We got maybe 5 drops dripped on us in Mississippi or Louisiana, it was a little overcast when we left Vicksburg, and the Grand Canyon was a little hazy.

Driving north on 101 from Oxnard - it rained pretty much the entire drive.

Luckily, we know the road, we know where to stop, and it wasn't a driving rain, so it didn't present any real problems.

One thing we did learn on this leg, though - the Camp Roberts rest stop has reopened! For any of you who regularly take this north-south route, you may probably be rejoicing as much as I am. They did a total upgrade, knocking down the old structures and putting up a pretty glitzy new one. I was impressed. (Impressed enough, apparently, to take a picture!)

Wrapping up, it was a fantastic trip. The car handled beautifully, our GPS unit was 95% reliable (okay, so that time in Fort Worth when she had us in an endless loop wasn't the most fun, but we eventually figured it out...), the weather was great, the stops were perfect... We're already talking about our next road trip. (Next year, honey; let my butt stop buzzing for a while!)

Day 9, Sunday: Las Vegas, NV, to Oxnard, CA, or "An Inch to Barstow"

2010-05-21T00:06:00.000-07:00

When we met Greg and Kerry for breakfast at the Cafe Vettro at Aria, we found out that Kerry had been having such good luck at the slot machines the night before, she didn't get into their room until 3:00 AM! I, on the other hand, was so wiped out that I slept right up to the time we were to meet them and dragged myself to the restaurant without even showering! She's obviously much younger than I am!

Anyway, we had a lovely breakfast, and after our good-byes, we left the hotel and pulled out onto Las Vegas Blvd at 12:00 noon. There are no gas stations on the Strip between City Center and the Flamingo Ave entrance to I-15, so we just got on and headed southwest, figuring we'd get gas at one of the next exits. Yeah, well us and about 15 gazillion of our closest friends who were also heading out of Vegas and towards Los Angeles! Holy cow, the traffic was rough! And when we pulled off at a lonely looking exit, it turned out to be not-so-lonely - the line for gas was about 3-deep at each pump. Oh well. We needed the fuel and knew it was a long time between stops on that desert run.

Oh yeah. The desert. Texas, big. California desert, big and empty. Once you clear Primm, which is pretty much the last exit in Nevada (and home to Buffalo Bill's, with its great big roller coaster!), there's a whole lotta nuthin' for a long time. The mantra for this part of the drive was "How long before we get to Barstow." The standard answer, that didn't seem to change for a long time, was that we were "about an inch to Barstow." Ugh. The big whoop-de-do for this part of the trip was the stop just over the border for the California agricultural inspection. "Do you have any fruits or vegetables in your vehicle?" "No." "Any live plants?" "No." "Thanks; move along." Wheee...

We finally hit Barstow, and since I knew Kelly was going to do the driving through L.A., I decided to keep going until we got closer to the crappy L.A. traffic. Unfortunately, we hit a dead stop in Victorville, and used the diversion to stop for a late lunch at IHOP. After consulting the map, we opted to get off the interstate and cut over to I-5 on CA 18, bypassing a lot of the traffic, although enough other people had the same idea, and the road was still pretty busy. We eventually made our way to the 101 (yeah, Los Angelenians refer to their freeways as "the," as in "the 405," "the 101," and "the 110." weird) and up to Onxard, where Kelly's parents live.

Since it was getting pretty late, we went right to their house, spent about 45 minutes chitting and chatting, then on to the Grandstay Suites, which was a new hotel we decided to try (we liked it; we'll go back on future trips). Our IHOP lunch was still with us, so dinner was a small snack on pretzels and protein bars.

Tomorrow, the end... Day 10, Oxnard to home.

Day 8, Saturday - In Vegas

2010-05-20T23:27:00.000-07:00

I know it's not everyone's cuppa tea, but damn, I like Las Vegas. We were staying at Aria at City Center, and the hotel is brand spankin' new; just opened in December 2009. It's pretty luxe, and the bed is like sleeping on a well-supported marshmallow. Dreamy comfortable.

We weren't overly hungry, so our plan was to walk to the Venetian to have breakfast at the Grand Luxe Cafe there (which is owned by the Cheesecake Factory, and which is one of our favorites for breakfast). Best laid plans and all that; when we started north on the Strip, we decided we were hungrier than we thought and didn't want to wait until we got to the Venetian before we ate. So we remembered that the Bellagio Cafe, their 24-hour restaurant, was also pretty damn good, and went there instead.

The Bellagio Cafe is right next to the Conservatory, the garden area with a display that changes at least once every season. This display was all about hot-air balloons and bugs. The balloons hung above in lots of different colors, and the bugs were at ground level and a zillion times their real size. I really enjoy the artistry the gardeners use for these displays. Lots of colors and all the plants make the whole place seem fresh.

After breakfast, we took a slow walk back to our hotel where Kelly needed to get some real work done.

When we walked in to the room, I noticed that the message light was on the phone. Expecting one of those pro forma messages from the manager a la "we hope your room is to your liking" kinds of messages, I was surprised to hear the agent say that there was a message from the "amenity department." When I was connected, I learned that they had wanted to deliver "an amenity," but since we weren't in the room when they came by earlier, they would deliver it within the hour. Kelly hunkered down at the computer and I knit for a while while we waited. No, we really weren't waiting for "the amenity," we were waiting to hear from our friends Greg and Kerry, who were going to be joining us for the evening.

So here's the story with G & K... they're nuts, like us. A few years ago, the male spouses surprised the female spouses by showing up at Crimson restaurant in Los Gatos for Valentine's Day. The guys out-did themselves, with flowers and chocolates waiting for us - but we were the only table of four at the place... it was Valentine's Day! We, on the other hand, thought it was grand fun, and thus began our mini-tradition of celebrating romantic occasions together.

Kelly and I had gone to Vegas for our anniversary last year and we wanted to keep that tradition going. But with the big cross-country adventure, we wouldn't have time (or probably $$) to take another trip so soon after this one. So the solution was to stay 2 nights in Vegas and call it an early anniversary celebration. Well, who do we call to share romantic occasions with? Why, Greg and Kerry, of course! And who agreed to join us? Greg and Kerry! (I said they were nuts!)

Kerry had been down in L.A., seeing her daughter off on a plane Friday night. She stayed over in L.A. that night, then drove to Las Vegas Saturday morning in time to pick up Greg at the airport. We finally connected (after many hilarious and ill-timed text messages - sorry, Kerry!) around 4:00 and started celebrating. Let the drinking begin!

We eventually made our way to Caesar's Palace, stopping along the way at the View Bar at Aria and the Seahorse Bar in Caesar's, before getting to Mesa Grill for our 7:45 reservations. Mesa is one of Bobby Flay's restaurants, and it's one of Kelly's and my favorites. I've been a fan since they opened, and on Saturday, we brought Greg and Kerry into the fan fold, too. Simply fabulous.

We gambled a bit there, then took our time walking back to our hotel, stopping in to Paris, Planet Hollywood, and MGM, finally getting back to Aria around midnight. We arranged to meet for breakfast the next morning, and as Greg, Kelly, and I headed to our rooms, Kerry decided she wanted to do a "little more" gambling. When we got back into our room, we snacked on "the amenity," which turned out to be chocolate covered strawberries and macaroons. When I made the reservation, I told the agent that we would be celebrating our anniversary, and I think she set this up. They were yummy!

Next up: day 9, leaving Vegas and heading for Oxnard.

Day 7, Fri, May 14 - Flagstaff, AZ, to Vegas, baby!

2010-05-20T11:38:00.000-07:00

Having overloaded on the majesty of a natural wonder, the Grand Canyon, it was time to head to a man-made wonder, Las Vegas. But first, the man-made wonder that made the man-made wonder of Vegas possible - Hoover Dam.

The travel from Arizona to Vegas took us along I-40 to Kingman, where we cut up and over on highway 93. The landscape got a little craggier looking, and as we got closer and closer to Hoover Dam, there was more and more construction on the roadway, with many parts funneling down to one lane in both directions. (The first shot is for Debbie.)

Hoover Dam is really neat. The first time I went (1994), I hadn't realized that you could actually drive over the actual dam. It's a pretty spectacular sight. On I-40, before you get on to highway 93, there are signs every few feet (it seems) that say "no commercial trucks," "no trailers," basically only cars are allowed across the dam, and all vehicles are subject to inspection. After 9/11, Homeland Security determined that the dam could be a significant target for terrorists, and so there is now a vehicle checkpoint before you're allowed to cross it.

The last funneling point wasn't for construction purposes, it was the inspection station, so we made our way through the checkpoint and over the crest of the hill, switch-backing our way down to one of the upper parking lots that overlook Lake Mead and the four intake towers. Pretty damn impressive even from this distance. We walked down through the lower parking areas and onto the dam itself. Looking out to the north at the intake towers and Lake Mead, we could see the huge canyon and mountains, with lots of boats and ski-doos. Very pretty, but really... the big show is on the other side of the road.

We walked along that way, crossing over into Nevada, and to the monuments to the workers who gave their lives to make this piece of magnificence. We took the escalator down to the lower level of the Visitor Center where we signed up for a power plant tour. (After 9/11, they stopped giving interior tours of the dam for a while; they recently started doing them again, after installing metal detectors and scanning machines like they have at airports.)

We watched the movie about the making of the dam, then followed our guide into the bowels of the beast. He first took us to one of the diversion tubes they had to build to divert the river while they were making the dam - a 2-year process, necessary before they could even start work on the dam itself. He then took us to one of the observation stations where we could see 7 of the turbines, spinning away, making a bajillion kilo-gigo-megawatts of power for California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Mexico. We made our way back up to the observation platform on the top of the Visitor Center, and here's where you really get a feel for the magnitude of the structure. Holy cow (I said that a lot here, too.)

The bridge in the photos is the new by-pass road, being built so that they can stop traffic from driving over the dam. This will eliminate the need for the inspection stations (unless you're actually going to visit the dam itself) that clog up traffic so much. The bridge and bypass is scheduled to open in November of this year; a pretty amazing feat in itself.

After gawking at the dam for about 2 hours, we hiked back up to the car and joined the conga line to continue on to Las Vegas, the man-made wonder made possible by the Hoover Dam.

We made our way around McCarren Airport and entered Las Vegas Blvd ("The Strip") at its far south end. Normally, we'd just bypass the Strip to avoid traffic, but we wanted to get a picture of the famous Vegas sign. We toodled up the Strip, on the lookout for our hotel's entrance, which we had heard was poorly marked, and was pleasantly surprised to see it clearly identified. We pulled in, had the valet deal with the car, and made our way in to Aria at City Center.

City Center is MGM's newest endeavor on the Strip. It takes up the entire space between Bellagio and Monte Carlo, on what used to be the Holiday Inn Boardwalk property and a skanky strip mall with a dirt patch out back that used to be used for helicopter tours. Now, it is home to 4 hotels (3 of which are open), some residential units, and grossly upscale shopping (think Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, etc.). It's shiny and glitzy and glassy, with design elements that are Frank Gehry-esque - random angles and curves, elements that look like they won't work together but do. It's so big that, like the Grand Canyon, it was difficult to get a good shot of the whole thing.

Our room was electronically programmed so that when you walked in, the curtains opened, the lights came on, and the TV turned on to a user controller panel. Because we got a special rate, we overlooked the back of the hotel, which aimed us towards the western mountains and Vdara, one of the other City Center hotels. We could also see the City Center tram, which goes from Monte Carlo at the south end, to Bellagio on the north.

We played with the room controls for a bit (not very intuitive, even for us comfortable-with-technology types), then made our way down to scope out the casino. Very pretty, very modern feeling... and packed! The place was mobbed! Did someone say there was a recession? Not here, not this weekend! As we took the tram to Bellagio then walked to Caesar's Palace, we kept saying, "look at all the people!" When we were there around this time last year, there were enough tourists, but it was definitely not to capacity. This time, crowds, crowds, everywhere.

We walked to Caesar's, then over to the Venetian, then back to our own hotel, where we had dinner at the 24-hour restaurant, Cafe Vettro. Quite yum. We rested a bit, then wandered back outside again, this time taking in the nighttime neon and gathering all my player's club cards (which I had left in the car which was now safely valeted). I shot my gambling wad for the day and we headed back to the hotel - with the glorious thought in our heads that we would be staying here for TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW! This felt like an unbelievable luxury after "hotel hopping" for the previous week!

Tomorrow, more Vegas!

Day 6, Thurs, May 13 - Gallup, NM, to Flagstaff, AZ

2010-05-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

We got on the road fairly early (for us) after a breakfast at Crackerbarrel. Our plan was to get to Flagstaff between 12:30 and 1:00, so we could check in to the hotel (if they had our room ready) and then scoot over to the Grand Canyon.

A continuation of what we were seeing in western New Mexico, eastern Arizona's viewscape was different, with lots of big rocks and beautiful colors. It was a very pretty ride, slowly changing from rocks to scrubby trees to big trees.

During our ride we looked at our phones and saw that it was an hour earlier than we expected. We had forgotten that because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, when we crossed the border, we gained another hour! We pulled into the Fort Tuthill Air Force Recreation Area at 11:30. Oh joy, oh rapture! We had another hour to enjoy the Grand Canyon! Luckily the hotel had a room for us (no problem, actually; this is their shoulder season and there were only 6 other people checking in!), so we dropped our bags and headed out.

It took an hour to drive from Fort Tuthill (just outside Flagstaff) to the South Rim via Williams on I-40. The drive would have been boring, were it not for the frantic texts and phone calls with the title company back in Florida, trying desperately to get a payoff amount for our aunt's mortgage on her condo from Wachovia Bank. Good heavens, you'd think that when you're trying to give a bank over $30,000, they wouldn't fight you so much... well, that's another story.

Anyway, except for the banking issues, the ride was uneventful along the road north from Williams. The landscape was unremarkable, with no hint that there would soon be a big hole in our way. I could easily see how the first people to travel this way could have been lulled into thinking their passage north or west would have been easy.

I found myself actually getting more and more excited as we got to the town outside the park and then finally into the park itself. We parked the car at the South Rim visitor center - still having no idea that there's a gaping hole in store - and followed the crowd along the detour to the Rim Trail (it's being upgraded).

Once I stepped onto the main part of the trail, all I said for the next two hours was some variation on "wow!" or "holy cow!" For those of you who haven't been there yet, you must go; there are simply no words to describe its beauty and no photographs that can capture the feeling. For those of you who have gone, I think you probably know what I'm talking about. I was catching flies with my jaw dropping and mouth gaping so much.

We walked the Rim Trail to the Havasupi station and a little bit beyond to the west, then backtracked and went as far as we could go to the east (this was where the trail was being upgraded). We walked out to the promontories with little ledges (and fences) and pretty much just stared at all the beauty. We used the binoculars in the Havasupi station to find 2 hikers on a trail 'waaaaaaay down below, little specks even with the binoculars; virtually unfindable without them.

We sat, we looked, we walked, we sat, we took pictures, we looked. We were there for about an hour-and-a-half, then got back in the car and left the park. We didn't back-track the same way we came, but instead headed east, to visit the Desert View station and exit the east gate to connect with highway 89.

The Desert View station has a tall building, the Watchtower, which was built, not by the native Americans (although that's what it was designed to look like), but by a souvenir company specifically to entice tourists! You can climb up to the top of this structure and get an even further view of the surrounding area, which had a totally different look and feel from the South Rim. To the east, it was relatively flat; the Painted Desert. To the north, you could more easily see the Colorado River, which looked far wider than it was at the South Rim. The vegetation was different and there was more of it. I really enjoyed this different look, too.

The ride east was more scenic than the ride north to the Rim was. Vast fields, broken up by deep canyons, and scattered houses on the edges of cliffs overlooking magnificent vistas. And since we were on Indian reservation land (Navajo and Hopi, I think), every scenic vista parking area had booths with native art and jewelry.

Once back on the main road (highway 89) heading back to Flagstaff, we finally realized that we were hungry - we had been so excited to get to the Grand Canyon, we hadn't eaten since breakfast in Gallup - so we scouted out a local Mexican restaurant, Kachina, in downtown Flagstaff. Pretty good, with tasty margaritas. Back at the hotel, we did our final load of laundry on the trip, and crashed pretty hard into bed.

Tomorrow, day 7, heading to Vegas, baby!

Day 5, Weds, May 12 - Amarillo, TX, to Gallup, NM

2010-05-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

Holy cow. What I remember about this part of the drive is the wind. If we thought it was windy when we got close to Amarillo, it was nothing compared to how windy is was from Amarillo to Gallup. I actually had a little cramp in my hand from hanging on to the steering wheel so tight. I did the first shift driving; when we switched after about 3 hours, I think Kelly thought I was exaggerating a bit... he learned quickly that I wasn't! It was so windy, that while I was a passenger, when I would normally knit, I couldn't. The car was swaying and rocking so badly that I wasn't able to knit comfortably. I was simply bracing myself against the side of the car.

The first part of the drive out of Amarillo was pretty much like the bulk of the drive from Fort Worth to Amarillo. Ranches, fields, silos, cows, trains, wind. Besides the wind, though, one of the high points of the Amarillo-Gallup leg was Route 66. There are still parts of the old Route 66 that are labeled Business-40 and perfectly driveable. One stretch takes you through Aiden, NM, and the Midpoint Cafe - the half-way point on Route 66 between Chicago and San Bernadino.

The other high point was the part of the Continental Divide that crosses I-40 and Route 66 in New Mexico. It was here, too, that we realized the landscape had changed again, and started looking like the "painted desert" pictures I had seen. Very dramatic, very pretty. Still too windy to be fun, though.

Gallup is pretty much a way-station for travelers. Not much going on except chain hotels and chain restaurants. Our chain hotel (Quality Inn) was sandwiched between one chain (Applebee's, where we had dinner) and another (Crackerbarrel, breakfast the next morning). (Yeah, but I like Crackerbarrel's blueberry pancakes...)

Before we started on our journey, Chris and Kelly Ann and June had told us about the deal that the Crackerbarrel has with audio books. Apparently you can buy audio books in one Crackerbarrel for a tiny price (about $3.50), listen to them, then return them to any other Crackerbarrel and get most of your money back. We deliberately didn't get any before we left California, figuring instead that we'd get a few books in Florida before we left. Turns out that there aren't a lot of books on TAPE any more. Welcome to the digital age; all the audio books we found were CDs, and Belinda doesn't have a CD player. Even the Crackerbarrel in New Port Richey only had one cassette book left. We picked it up and had been listening to it intermittently, but it was almost over.

Our Gallup hotel was right next to a Crackerbarrel, so when we ducked in for breakfast, we found their audio book collection - alas, all CDs again. Until the check-out lady pointed us to the sale bin at our feet - filled with tape books! We picked up 3 more so we'd have a supply.

Tomorrow - Gallup, NM, to Flagstaff, AZ!

Day 4, Tuesday, May 11 - Ft. Worth to Amarillo, TX

2010-05-18T19:37:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm here to tell you, eastern Texas looks nothing like northwestern Texas and the panhandle. This was another case of the landscape changing so subtly that you don't realize it. Well that, and the fact that the Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex (that's what they call it) was plopped in the middle of our trip. But anyway, it was apparent as we made our way catty-corner up to I-40, that this part of the state was the part most folks talk about. Ranches and wheat fields, wheat fields and silos, silos and cows, and very very flat. (Pictures of western Texas tomorrow.)

We passed a lot of meat processing plants, complete with the meat about to be processed milling about in pens outside. We passed a lot of grain silos. We also passed an awful lot of trains hauling coal. Probably "clean coal." It looked clean from road, anyway.

The closer we got to Amarillo, the windier it got. We're both used to heavy cars, Kelly especially, since he's got one of the bigger cars BMW makes. Belinda is a 1998 Toyota Corolla, and despite all our luggage and the stuff we were bringing back with us, we were still hanging on to the steering wheel with a death grip.

We joined I-40 in Amarillo, where we promptly slowed to a crawl, slow enough to read the signs advertising The Big Texan, a well-known steakhouse. Besides the billboards, we had seen this place on various Food and Travel Channel shows. Their enticement is that they have a 72-oz steak dinner that's free. Free, that is, if you can finish the entire dinner in one hour. They also advertised a free limo ride to the restaurant, so after we checked in to our room, we called for a pick-up. "Don," our former-cowboy-turned-limo-driver ("I told mah wife, if I'da knowed how easy it was to make money in the city, I'da quit ranching a long time ago!") picked us up in a classic Caddy-lac limousine, complete with horns on the hood! Talk about driving around in style!

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was one guy who was making the free-dinner attempt. They sit the attemptees on a raised dais with a clock ticking down the time. Let me tell you, a 72-oz steak is big. Huge. Humongous. And the deal isn't that you simply finish the steak; oh, no no no, that would be too easy. No, you have to finish the steak, the salad, the baked potato, the fried shrimp appetizer and the dinner rolls, maybe even some beans and cole slaw for good measure. All in an hour. The guy who was there when we visited was a skinny dude, part of a group traveling cross-country by motorcycle, who were there cheering him on. He didn't have a chance at finishing the steak, much less the entire meal. He probably drew the short straw in the group and was 'volunteered' to be the one to do it! After his hour was up, he sat at their table, which was next to ours, and proceeded to simply stretch out and rub his tummy. He looked uncomfortable. (In the picture, he's almost at the 30-minute mark.)

The place was one big room with the wait staff in cowboy boots and gingham shirts, and traveling cowboys come to your table to sing you a song (we got "The Yellow Rose of Texas"). It was loud, it was fun, and the food was pretty good. When we made our way back to the limo pick-up area, Don was the next driver in line, so he took us back to the hotel, telling us about the people who have attempted the freebie. He told us of big linebacker-types who barely make a dent in the meat, and petite "little ladies" who finish the whole deal in 45 minutes. Joey Chestnutt, the competition eater from San Jose (he's the one who unseated the Japanese guy who used to win the Nathan's hot dog eating contests) ate the meal in just over 8 minutes. My stomach aches just thinking about eating it over the course of 8 hours; I can't imagine doing it in an hour, and 8 minutes is just painful.

Back to the hotel, then tomorrow it's on to Day 5, Wednesday, May 12, Amarillo, TX, to Gallup, NM.

Day 3, Mon., May 10 - Vicksburg, MS, to Ft. Worth, TX

2010-05-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

Well, just over the bridge from Vicksburg is Louisiana, and we stayed on I-20 alllllll the way across the state. Skirted around Shreveport (a larger city than I thought it was) and on into Texas, the yee-ha state.

The big event for this leg of the trip was meeting Kelly's son (Christopher) and his wife (Nancy) for dinner in Dallas. I last met Chris in 1996 at our USF graduation ceremony; I think the last time Kelly saw him was 5 or 6 years ago when he came out to California for something like a dentist or eye doctor visit. The exciting part about meeting Chris is that he's just started going to culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu, in Dallas, and his love for what he's doing and learning is showing. He was practically beaming about it the whole time. We had a lovely dinner at the local BJ's Brewhouse with him and Nancy, until he had to get Nancy home so he could go on to school that night.

We continued on to the Navy Lodge at Fort Worth, but not before getting lost and finding a federal penitentiary instead. We finally found the east gate entrance to the Fort Worth facility, and despite seeing 3 signs that said the gate was open, it was closed. We maneuvered our way back to the main road and on to the main gate, where we were directed to the Lodge.

What a surprise! This building was relatively new, maybe 3 or so years old, on a lake and next to a landing strip - where we watched (but mostly heard) some cool jets take off and land. The room was a mini-suite with sitting area, kitchen, and balcony, where we saw a beautiful sunset. We also watched the TV closely because there were tornado warnings for the area, but the storms stayed north of us.

Luckily, the jets weren't running at night, so the evening was quiet and peaceful.

On to Day 4, Ft. Worth to Amarillo, TX!

Day 2, Sun., May 9 - Pensacola, FL, to Vicksburg, MS

2010-05-18T18:36:00.000-07:00

We knew that the drive from Pensacola to Vicksburg wouldn't be as long a drive as from New Port Richey to Pensacola, but we still didn't want to dawdle too much. That is, you see, until we found out that the National Museum of Naval Aviation was literally right across the street from the Navy Lodge on board Pensacola NAS.

I like planes, but Kelly's a real airplane buff, especially fighter planes from a war, any war, pick a war. This museum - did I mention it was right there in front of us? - had 150 planes in its collection. There was no way we didn't visit, but had to put a limit on the amount of time we could spend. Anything less than 4 hours was going to hurt, but we agreed to an hour-and-a-half. We had to leave by 10:30 AM.

We walked in - did I mention, also, that it's free? - set our phone alarms for 10:30, and started wandering. Holy cow, they had some great planes with lots of descriptions and informational placards all around. I took a bunch of pictures down on the main floor then wandered up to the mezzanine, which had a series of dioramas. One was of a Vietnam base, one was a mock-up of an aircraft carrier, another was of a Main Street 'back home.' It was captivating and fun, and I loved seeing KW having a lot of fun, too. Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels, and had we been there on a Tuesday or a Wednesday (instead of a Saturday/Sunday), we could have watched them practice. Next time, we'll plan better!

On the way to I-20, we found our breakfast restaurant - Waffle House! Eggs and cheese, grits, bacon, raisin toast, and hash browns covered and smothered... yummmmmmy!

Got to I-20 West, crossed the state line into Alabama, made it through Mobile, then headed north on ... some road ... to cut over into Mississippi and connect with I-40 in Jackson, then on to Vicksburg.

Unfortunately, because we had stayed the extra hour-and-a-half at the aviation museum, when we got to Vicksburg, we didn't have time to go visit any of the Civil War battlefield museums. That turned out to be okay, because the hotel we chose, Cedar Grove Mansion, was practically a Civil War museum all by itself. The husband built the house for his wife, who happened to be a cousin of General Sherman. It was a huge white mansion on a hillside with property all the way down to the Mississippi River - and yet it only had about 40 cannonballs shot at it, with fewer actually landing. The prevailing thought is that the wife's ties to Sherman saved the home. The family built more houses on the property for their children, and many of them are also used as hotel rooms.

Because the house was virtually spared during the War, a lot of the furniture and structure is original; in addition, any decoration that isn't actually original to the house is an antique from that same era. We stayed in "Rhett Butler's Penthouse Suite," a quirky room on the 3rd floor, complete with a hole in the closet door where a cannonball came through! There was another cannonball hole in the floor of the main parlor, and just past that hole, there's an actual cannonball jammed into the door frame and wall! Very interesting and very cool.

We were too tired to go off property to find food, so we ate at the hotel's restaurant, which was a real find. The chef did wonderful things with my dish, shrimp and grits in an andouille sausage gravy, and Kelly's, a flatiron steak that had a lovely spicy rub on it and which was cooked to perfection. After the drive and the great meal, we were even to tired to make our way to the river to do some riverboat gambling - yes, just like in Biloxi and Gulfport, casinos are allowed on the water, and we passed two of them on our way to the hotel. Lights out in Rhett's suite was early this night.

On to Day 3, Vicksburg, MS, to Ft. Worth, TX!

Day 1, Sat., May 8 - New Port Richey to Pensacola, FL

2010-05-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Like so many of our "early" morning plans, our attempt to be out of the hotel and on the road by 9:00 AM was thwarted by a s-l-o-o-o-w waitress at the restaurant and a forgotten purchase at CVS before we left. We hit the road around 9:40 AM, heading north on Florida 19.

I was a little apprehensive about taking 19 for such a long way (over 150 miles, I think) because in New Port Richey and for at least a half-hour north, it's non-stop traffic and traffic lights. Sort of like Sunrise Highway on Long Island, or Lawrence Expressway in the Bay Area. Happily, about 45 minutes north, it turned into an open highway with a smattering of towns along the way, tall trees lining the road for most of the ride.

We did find a cool thing at one of the rest stops - they had a windshield washer. You would drive down a lane that triggered a huge splooosh of water onto your windshield! Twice through and most of the bugs were gone!

We followed 19 until it merged into I-20 West, and let Maggie, our Magellan GPS, guide us (somewhat circuitously) to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, where we were to stay our first night after about 8 hours on the road. As a retired Army Master Sergeant, Kelly is able to stay at any military installation that has lodging facilities available. At Pensacola NAS, we stayed at the Navy Lodge, a 1950's era hotel facility right on Pensacola Bay. Our room looked out onto a kid's jungle gym with the bay beyond.

For dinner, we took a drive to Perdido Key, an island that is the latest up-and-coming place for vacationers in the Pensacola/Mobile area. The key is now home to lots and lots and LOTS of tall skyscraper condo and hotel units. I shudder to think of what it will look like when the first real hurricane comes through. Anyway, there were a lot of seafood restaurants (go figure), and we picked the Shrimp Basket. Very tasty; try the deep-fried dill pickles if you're there (don't knock 'em 'til you've tried 'em!).

Back to the Lodge, and an hour or so to do a load of laundry. This was probably the most practical thing we did on the whole trip. Rather than trying to pack for 13 days, we packed for 4 or 5, and planned to do laundry along the way, which worked out fine.

On to Day 2 - Pensacola, FL, to Vicksburg, MS!

The Travelogue Begins, Appropriately Titled "An Inch to Barstow"

2010-05-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm going to start the cross-country trip travelogue, now that I've got the pictures from both of our cameras downloaded and (somewhat) sorted. I'll devote one post to each day's travel, and hopefully won't run afoul of Blogspot's picture limit.

A few general words... There are parts of the trip that were beautiful, there were parts that were gorgeous, there were parts that were boring. Yet the boring parts were lovely in their own way, even driving (and driving and driving...) through the vastness of Texas.

It was interesting to both of us how the landscape changed so slowly, yet each state obviously looked different leaving it than it had looked when we entered.

It surprised me that many parts of main state highways were two lanes - one each direction.

There weren't as many trucks as I was expecting along the way.

Belinda - the car - ran like a champ. She consistently averaged between 37 and 39 mpg, getting over 40 mpg at one stretch! She's a little lower to the ground than we're used to, though, making getting in and out something we tried to do as little as possible!

The driver's job was to get car and occupants to the next stop safely. The navigator's job was to keep an eye on the map and GPS and road signs to make sure we didn't veer off course. The driver had to remember to put his/her cell phone in the little drawer to the left of the steering wheel, and to put on his/her sunglasses. The navigator had to balance paper maps, GPS unit, two cameras, water bottles, soda cans, and cassette books-on-tape, while making sure that the paper maps, GPS unit, and AAA trip-tix didn't send us on a wild goose chase, or try to confuse us by calling a needed road by a different name. At the same time, s/he had to be on the lookout for points of interest, gas stations, potty stops, and hidden speed traps.

On to day one...

Safe and Sound

2010-05-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

Home again, after a wonderful trip. I'll be taking the next day or so downloading photos and trying to remember where we were when so I can write up some sort of travelogue. It was a great trip.

Perfect Timing

2010-05-06T22:56:00.000-07:00

So around the end of February, my brother and I put my aunt's condo up for sale. Nice 55+ community, 2 BR/1 BA, overlooking a little lake, very comfortable place. Two or three years ago the comps were selling around $95 - $100K. Now, they're down around $55K, so we price it at $45K to move it quickly, because there's a definite season down here. Put something up after April and all the 'snow birds' have gone home. A house could sit and have no one even sniff it out again until they return in October. We were happy, then, that the first offer came in after a week or so. How much does he offer? $30K. Um. No. So much for happy.

No bites since then, so about 2 weeks ago, we drop it to $39.9K. Still no offers. Brother and sister-in-law go visit dad last week, clean out the rest of the stuff in the place, arrange for the carpets to get cleaned this week, basically making sure there's nothing at all in the place. Still no offers. Brother and SIL go home last week, DH and I fly in this week. We spend a day going through all the stuff that they moved from condo to dad's house, then arrange to meet the realtor today in person (we've been doing all the sale stuff by phone and email; I thought it would be nice to meet her in person and say hello). I also wanted to let her know that we had stopped making mortgage payments and HOA payments, and at some point, the house would get transferred from my brother and me to the bank.

We're eating breakfast this morning around 10:00 when my phone rings, and it's the realtor. I see her name flash on my cell, and figure she's just confirming our meeting. Yes, she was.... but only to make sure that we don't cancel on her because she had a buyer! Full price, cash sale. They had seen it yesterday, thought about it over night, then made the offer this morning. So between 10:00 and 3:00 when we met her, she had done all the paperwork, gotten their deposit and had them sign the forms, arranged for a title company, ordered the home inspection, and got escrow started. When we met with her, I signed what I needed to be signed, she scanned and faxed the docs to my brother in NY, and he got them back to her by 5:00. Done deal! (Well, mostly done... the home inspection will get done some time next week, but the place is in good shape, so we're not really worried.)

As we were signing the papers, I got to the date field and asked what the date was... May 6. May 6 is Aunt Irene's birthday. She would have been 76 today. I was feeling bad that we were going to have her house - her home, the place she lived over 12 happy years, the place where "her" egrets would come up to her patio to greet her during morning coffee - foreclosed upon. Now it won't have to meet an inglorious end. Happy birthday, Aunt Irene. I miss you.

Put a Fork in 'er...

2010-05-04T17:42:00.001-07:00

...she's done! (Well, almost done... I couldn't find enough scraps to crochet the button-loops. Which is fine, because I don't think I have the right buttons anyway. I'll deal with The Button Issue when we're back.)

Where'd She Go?

2010-05-02T17:37:00.000-07:00

Nowhere, actually; just be hyper busy, prepping for May when RP will be in Bhutan for pretty much the whole month. That means we need to get two months' worth of work done in one month. Been crazy 'round here.

I'm in the final stages of the Sensational Shirttail sweater. All the parts were blocked this week, the shoulders were seamed Wednesday night, the first sleeve was attached Friday, the second sleeve was attached tonight, when I also seamed up (and then down) the left side. Tomorrow I'll seam up (and then down) the right side. After that, it gets a little dicey. I don't think I have enough dusty pink Aslan Trends Guanaco yarn left. I have a ball of dusty blue, but I'm not sure how it will look with only a bit of blue trim. The crochet trim goes around the whole bottom of the sweater, and then up the front to create loops for buttons. On the other hand, I don't really like how they did the neck piece around the back. I think it needs something firmer to hold the back of the neck in place, so I've been thinking of putting an I-cord border around the neck. Maybe I'll do all the trim in blue; that might actually look sort of nice. Add some to sleeves and it might look like part of the design.

I've also been mulling over how to write about my "head, hands, heart" theory of relationships. It makes sense in my head, but I'm not sure how it's going to sound when I put words to it.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a tattoo someone on Ravelry recently got. It's awesome and fairly close to what I want my next tat to be... except I want the yarn to spell out "mom," "nana," "Aunt I," (and "dad," too - to be added later, since he's doing very well right now, thankyouverymuch). Cool tattoo.

Travelin' Woman

2010-04-16T18:55:00.000-07:00

I suck at this code-y stuff. States I have visited:

This picture will have a few more states added to it once we're back from our cross-country drive!

Countries I've visited:

Hm. I think this one will stay static for a while... until our next cruise to an exotic port??

The Fix to the Bummerliness

2010-04-01T17:08:00.001-07:00

Okay, Kadootje... you know I'm not talking about going up in show size, silly! The biggest size in the pattern calls for 72 stitches around, which I thought would be plenty enough for a stranded pattern (the gray yarn is Miss Babs, which I used to make his Pookie's, and only used 56 stitches for those).

While I would be hesitant to go up a needle socks for the foot portion of this sock, I think it will be fine for the leg (as far as I've seen, DH doesn't walk on his calves...), so I'll try #2 needles this weekend. If that doesn't work, I'll add some checkerboard flame-y stitches on the sides, as it will be hard to create another column of flames with extra stitches to the existing pattern.

In the meantime, I'm back to working on my Sensational Shirttail!

(Oh, and did everyone see Casey's April Fool's Day gifts to us today? Hilarious! I giggled quite a bit this morning!)

Knitting Bummerness

2010-03-31T11:36:00.001-07:00

As some of you may remember, I'm making the Flamethrower socks for DH. I've got both socks done to above the heel (from the toe-up) and I'm on row 8-ish of one of the socks, 8 (I think) rows of the stranded flame colorwork.

After 2 rows of color work, I could still get them over my ankle.

After 4 rows of color work, I could still get them over my ankle.

Cautiously optimistic, I was very careful to strand loooooosely.

Alas, not loose enough. After 8 rows.... Nuh-uh. Won't go over my ankle. And DH's ankles aren't any smaller than mine, so into the frog pond they shall go. I'll have to figure out if I add stitches or go up a needle size (or two) to keep them loose enough to fit.

Bummer.

Hawaiian Travelogue

2010-03-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it took a while to get the pictures transferred from DH's camera to a thumb drive to my computer, but here we are!

To recap, DH's childhood friend Steve and Steve's wife, Evelyn, belong to a home exchange program. They swapped their Tahoe home with someone from Hawaii (because the Hawaii family wanted to go skiing and Steve and Evelyn had had quite enough of winter!), and then invited us to come over and join them. We have the greatest friends.

Thursday, travel day, 8:30 AM flight. It's nice going to Hawaii because you gain back time... so we landed at 11:30 AM! Picked up a rental car, then plugged in our destination's address to Maggie (my portable GPS - it's a Magellan...), and off we went. The house was on the southwest corner of Oahu, overlooking Diamondhead, and on a road that would match Lombard Street for the "Crookedest Street." Luckily, we had advance warning and found the road that simply cuts straight up the hill so we could avoid all the switchbacks. When we arrived, we found Evelyn home... with her foot about two times its normal size. She had been hiking a day or two earlier and had fallen and sprained her ankle. Steve and Evelyn's daughter Erica came back from their hiking day, so we visited all together for a while then head off for Honolulu's Chinatown. We finished up with drinks at the Hawaii Prince lounge and dinner at Benihana's.

One of the grocery areas of Chinatown. There are lots of bananas in all the markets!

Friday, first full day, was our big sight-seeing day. We went to the USS Arizona/USS Missouri center, only to find that all of the ferry boat tickets (to get to the Arizona) had already been sold out. So we opted for a package that got us in to the Missouri, the Bowfin submarine, and their new Pacific Aviation Museum. Going through the Bowfin is awesome. It's a restored WWII sub, and I don't know how that many men could live together for that long under those conditions. The Missouri is even more awesome. It's so big and the tour takes you all over the place; it's easy to get lost. They have a marker showing where the Japanese signed the surrender pact, and replicas of the surrender documents. After those tours, Evelyn, Erica, and I opted to skip the aviation museum (Evelyn's foot was getting sore), so the boys did that. While we were waiting for them, Erica's cousins came by to take her out to party the night away. The four "adults" (heh) then went to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for dinner. Mahvelous.

"The gang" (minus Kelly, the photographer) at the entrance to the USS Missouri

The USS Bowfin, a restored WWII submarine. Too cool.

The USS Missouri (left) and the Arizona memorial (right) as seen from the Bowfin.

Saturday, the women-folk headed out to find two of the five yarn shops on Oahu. The first one (Yarn and Friends) was weird - it was in a medical center building - complete with half-glass door with metal wires through it! - and couldn't have been much bigger than 20' x 20'. They had a lot of fun fur, some Noro, some Crystal Palace, and not a whole lot of anything else. The lady who worked there was really nice, but the cupboards were bare. We were looking for sock yarn (Erica wanted to learn how to knit socks!) so we thanked her and went to our second shop... which was even weirder. This one (Isle Knits) was on the 14th floor of a 25+ story office building in downtown Honolulu, and was even smaller than the first one. But boy, oh boy, was it crammed FULL of beautiful yarns! She carried lots of beautiful stuff - Debbie Bliss, Noro, Arucania, Cascade, Trekking, Claudia's, Lorna's Laces, and more, I can't even remember - and it went floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Plus a leeetle tiny table if anyone wanted to sit and knit (if they could fit!). It was wonderful. It's where I probably would spend most of my yarn money if I lived there. We found two yarns for Erica, and I managed to find a yarn for me and a yarn for CelticKnittingGal's birthday. We went home, and found DH and Steve engrossed in a board game from their childhood. Something about World War II, lots of little pieces of cardboard. It took them about 3 hours to make 2 moves. I don't get it. Evelyn cooked yummy chicken stir-fry for dinner and I got Erica started on her first sock.

"The boys" hard at work, strategizing World War II.

The view from the 2nd floor balcony of the house. Diamondhead crater is center. From the 3rd floor balcony, you can see Waikiki Beach, too.

Sunday was a slow morning, then DH dropped Steve and Erica at Diamondhead to do some hiking, then came back to get some work done. When he picked them up about an hour and a half later, he and I went off on a 'round-the-island adventure, stopping at Hanauma Bay Marine Preserve (to get a great hamburger, not to see the animals or anything... c'mon!), Turtle Bay resort (to have a wonderful mai-tai), and Ko'Olina (for another mai-tai and a light dinner). (BE CAREFUL! The Turtle Bay link plays music!) A lovely time, just noodling along the roads, including ignoring Maggie and winding up going the wrong way as we (thought we) were heading back.

Kelly at the Hanauma Bay overlook (after eating our wonderful hamburgers).

Me watching the surfers at Turtle Bay. In this picture, I am struck by how EXACTLY I look like my mom.

Almost sunset at Turtle Bay. The view from the bar. (Not shown: mai-tai in my other hand.)

Monday we decided to go to the Polynesian Cultural Center, and found out we could get discount tickets, thanks to Kelly being retired Army (nice to know his 20 years was worth it... discounts, free tickets to Disney... well worth it, I think!). So after breakfast at Boots and Kimo's in Kailua (which took a long time - it's crazy busy, even on a Monday), we went to Ft. Shafter to get the tickets and met up with Steve, Evelyn, and Erica at the PCC. It was a fascinating place, with shows scheduled highlighting some unique aspect of a particular Polynesian island. All of the presentations we saw were good and funny, especially the Fiji presenter, who was also the star of the evening show, where he played with fire.

At 2:30, there's a floating parade of dancers, one float for each island represented at the PCC.

Lifting the pig from the imu. Yummmmmmy.

The funny guy, the one who plays with fire in the evening show. ("Plays," as in he rests the flaming swords on his feet while he fixes his palm headdress.)

Tuesday was going-home day. We left early enough to run into traffic in downtown, but didn't encounter any, so we stopped at a building that may look familiar to viewers of "Dirty Jobs." It's the building where Mike was window-washing umpty-ump stories up, hanging in a basket. Lemme tell ya, it's even scarier when you see the building in person! Flight home was uneventful, we even had a good tail wind so got in almost 45 minutes early. We parked the car at the Doubletree, and decided to have dinner there at Spencer's before heading home.

Look familar, "Dirty Jobs" watchers? (Link loads the window-washing episode - with commercials, unfortunately!)

It was a lovely trip, we got to visit with great people, and I got a lot of knitting done. Even better, Erica is well on her way to being obsessed with socks - even got her on Ravelry!

Let's see, where's our next trip? Oh yeah, cross-country drive in May!

Packing

2010-03-17T23:48:00.001-07:00

WIPs: Flamethrower socks (plane) and short-row socks (in the suitcase).
About-to-be-WIPs: Traveling Woman (plane) and Swallowtail (in the suitcase).
Two swimsuits.

That about covers it. Aloha!

The Gathering of the Clan

2010-03-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was knitting day at Meg's, an every-once-in-2-or-3-months-or-whenever-I-get-the-house-clean event. I love these days, because I am surrounded by my friends and yarn and food and drinking and friends and knitting and hugs and food and friends and yarn and drinking and knitting and yesterday, spinning, too. I think yesterday was the biggest turnout since I started these (2008? 2007?); we had 13 (14?) people here, knitting, Wii'ing, drinking, eating, spinning... and lots of laughing.

So many, we had to set up a second table between the dining room and living room!

Spin control: Champer teaching NicBeast, Knitterliness teaching LMKnits.

I'm still laughing at the attempt by four of the posse to walk out carrying a good half of my stash on their person. I think of them as Lumpy 1, Lumpy 2, Lumpy 3, and Violet Beauregard. What a hoot.

Lumpy 1, Lumpy 2, and Violet Beauregard examining their new-found lumps. Notice their attempts at looking sort of innocent.

Lumpy 1 (whom I suspect to be the ringleader) looking lovely and lumpy. Not shown: The two skeins of Mountain Colors Bearfoot stuck in her jean pockets.

Good shot of Violet Beauregard. No, I have no idea what Lumpy 2 is doing to her.

Lumpy 3, with all the orange yarn I own about to plop out of the bottom of her (gorgeous) (hand-knit) sweater.

Champer and Knitterliness brought their spinning wheels, and ChickenKnittle (aka Lumpy 1) brought her charka. They all let those of us who wanted to give it a spin (groan) try them out. I tried learning on Knitterliness' wheel... that didn't go so well. I kept letting the fiber twist back too far. Good thing, too; I really don't need another craft. Although Champer's antique wheel, dubbed "Big Bird" was rather cool.

"Big Bird," over 200 years old. Still works. Sort of.

Knitterliness guiding LMKnits (aka Violet Beauregard, before the lumps grew) in the fine art of spinning.

And now, the countdown is on for Hawaii. Aloha!

Parade of FOs

2010-03-09T14:58:00.001-08:00

Okay, so maybe you've seen these before, but these are some of the more recent things I've finished.

Landscape scarf. Yarn is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight, colorway "Lucky."

My own lacy short-row pattern. Yarn is also Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock, in Lightweight. No stated colorway. This was actually a Mill End purchased at Sock Summit last year, although I can't figure out why. The base yarn itself was fine (no knots or bad twisties); the color appears to be "Flower Power" and looks just like the other "Flower Powers" I saw online. (PS - Thanks to Tammy for confirming it's "Flower Power"! I must have just hit it lucky with a Mill End that wasn't too mill-endy!)

Noro and Koigu striped socks for DH. Black yarn is Koigu PPPM, brown/gray/black yarn is Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn. DH actually wore these before they had been washed - he NEVER does that. Just shows how much he likes them.

That is all. :-)

The Take

2010-03-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, here was the Stitches take:
1 skein Miss Babs "Yummy" sock yarn, in gray, for DH.
1 skein Louet Gems sock yarn, in red, for the heels and toes of DH's Miss Babs socks.
1 skein Femme Fatale "Buffy" sock yarn, in "Let Them Eat Cake" color way. The color just gob-smacked me; I kept picking it up and putting it down and picking it up and putting it down. I finally just picked it up and paid for the damn thing. Thing I'll cast on this weekend...
2 skeins Blue Moon's Woobu in Mustang Sally. Mmmm.... Woooooobuuuuu...
Pattern Keepers.
Sassafras Designs necklace and bangle bracelet (to match the others that I have).
Um... some teeny stitch markers... some square circular needles (size US#8, 16")... oh yeah... and some qiviut and silk blend. Mmm.... qiviut....

And yeah, I also won a door prize! I was so excited! Until I heard who it was from. Ultimate irony? Yeah; the store closest to home! (And the store that I usually avoid at all costs. Would rather drive up to San Jose, Santa Clara, Campbell, Sunnyvale, Santa Rosa, than to shop there.) And the prize was a kit of 2 balls of some pastelly rainbowy ribbon yarn with a pattern to make... a clutch. A clutch? From ribbon yarn? Yeah, right. Donate!

Gotta go - heading to wine country this weekend for barrel tasting. Yep, I'll be the designated driver!

Stitches West Tease

2010-03-02T00:13:00.003-08:00

My Stitches West 2010 haul. Explanations of the goodies later. (Oh, and I recalculated how much I spent last year and how much I spent this year... This year's take was far less than 2009!)

Randomly Tuesday

2010-02-23T19:00:00.001-08:00

Raining. Hubby taking the California Bar Exam this week. Good knitting progress. Cool Olympics. Making arrangements to sell Florida condo. Making plans to drive cross-country. Looking forward to Stitches West. Wishing I lived closer to dad. Glad I live in California. Realizing how big this house is when I'm the only one in it. Miss KW; even the excitement of Stitches doesn't change that.

Wow, that sounds sadder than I actually am. I'm fine, really. Just don't like rain and don't like KW being so far away; makes me melancholish. Think I'll go watch some Olympics.

Travelin' Fools

2010-02-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

After all the travel we did last year, I thought for sure we'd cut back quite a bit this year. Apparently, that's not going to be the case.

Last month, we went on the lovely cruise to the Western Caribbean on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas. We're home this month (KW will be taking the California Bar exam Feb. 23, 24, and 25 so we didn't want to go too far afield), and will be up in Healdsburg the first weekend in March, then off to Honolulu around mid-month (friends booked a home-exchange deal and invited us to join - yes! yes!).

We'll be home again for April, then in May, we'll fly to Florida and drive my aunt's car back home. We'll be doing a 'fairly' direct shot... I say 'fairly' because we'll stop in Texas to visit KW's son, at the Grand Canyon (onnacounta I've never been), in Las Vegas for a night or two (an early anniversary trip), then in Oxnard to visit KW's parentals. We need to be back by May 22, though, because that weekend is another knitting retreat, this time in Discovery Bay.

Nothing on the books yet for June, July, August, or September (it's early yet - I'm sure we can find SOMEplace to go), then in October it's off to the Eastern Caribbean (Nassau, St. Thomas, St. Maarten) on Carnival's new Dream. We've also been talking about taking another holiday cruise for Christmas/New Year's; still a possibility.

A gazillion thanks to RP for making all this even remotely possible.

Proud to be Canadien

2010-02-13T01:06:00.000-08:00

Oh wait, I'm not. Sure wish I were; that Opening Ceremony was so cool. And I totally nailed who the torch-lighter would be - who else but The Great One??

I opted to not participate in neither the Knitting Olympics nor the Ravelympics. Don't really know why... although I seem to be in a finishing mood and - gasp - didn't feel like casting on anything right now. Weird, I know. I'll go lie down and maybe the feeling will pass. (Yes, I know I could have picked a WIP to finish, but I didn't have anything that would fit well in the 17 days.) Next time.

In other news, probate on my aunt's estate closed last week. We had the final phone conversation with the lawyer this morning. My brother and I now own half of a Florida condo, and dad hasn't decided yet if he wants to move into it. Tick-tock, tick-tock; if he doesn't want to, we're going to have to get it on the real estate market tout de suite before all the Snowbirds take off for their northern climes.

DH and I are now plotting our cross-country drive, likely some time in May. Yay! I'll finally get to see the Grand Canyon!

Wow; it's later than I thought. Thanks, NBC, for making those of us on the Left Coast watch the Opening Ceremonies on tape delay. WTH? Was that really necessary??

Western Caribbean Cruise

2010-02-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

Yes, we did go, and we are back. As a souvenir, I returned with a nasty cold and cough, which I'm still fighting (although it is getting better, thanks). Here are some snaps.

Dad and Ann's reaction when they saw us on the ship.

Our cabin. (We splurged a bit because we wanted a balcony. It's what Royal Caribbean calls a "Junior Suite." Sweet, indeed...)

KW demonstrates what you can do a lot of on a cruise. Doesn't he look just like an angel??

The marker in Key West designating the southernmost point in the continental U.S. (No, we have no idea who those people are. There was a line to take your picture next to the marker. We didn't want to wait, so we both took a shot of the same unknown people!)

The Key West yarn shop that got away. They were closed the day we were in port (Sunday), although there were people sitting inside (talking, not knitting) who ignored my charade of "please open?"

What a day at sea looks like when you're in the Caribbean (not when you're cruising between L.A. and Ensenada!).

That's about it for Cozumel. (Oh, okay, not really. We walked the 3 miles from the dock to the main part of town. It was a lovely walk along Front Street, which is right along the ocean.)

Me and the butt end of our ship, Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas. She really is a lovely ship.

So that's where we were and what we were doing. Sort of. We weren't as good taking pictures this time as we were on previous trips. But we did have a wonderful time, and we got to spend time with Dad and Ann.

Next cruise in October!